On youth and
teenage years
When I was five years old, I knew, although I had no words for it, that I was lesbian.
I often wondered. At four years old, I always wanted to play hide and seek and kick-the-can with the boys. My sister used to ask my mama to make me play dolls with her. I never wanted to play dolls.
I was always a tomboy. But all of this was an act. Thinking backward, I should have known about myself and I didn't. I should have known.
When I was 13, she comes right up and stands in front of me and she says, "Are you gay?" And I said, "Huh?" And she said, "Oh, never mind." And she left.
I always had crushes on teachers and other girls.
When I was five years old, I lived in the back of this boarding house and I could scoot out of the house and nobody would know I was gone. I would get out and go up the block and across the street to the third house. If I got there early enough, the woman would put me in the bathtub with her daughter. And I would go for it. I don't know whether I was dirty or not. I probably was but that's beside the point! Oh man, I liked girls.
We didn't know what to say. We just knew we were different.
I was dismissed by the gym teachers and all as "You're just having typical girlhood crushes." The same thing with my college roommate. You know, I would have followed her anywhere at that time. I just didn't have a clue.
I had a crush on a girl that was in the junior class. Excuse me. She was 16, I was 17. I was in the senior class. She was in the junior class. We rode the same bus and I really thought she was wonderful. I retrospectively look at it and say, "You know, you really fell in love with her."
The reason I asked to go to a Catholic high school was that I thought I'd be in a safer environment and wouldn't be attracted to other girls.
I was as tall as I am know, taller in fact… And I… and I could act, and I had this neat voice. So I was in a lot of plays. I had little girls writing me poetry and all that sort of thing. I could dance and I could lead in dances.
When I was maybe eleven or twelve, I began to notice that I wasn't starting to think of boys as my friends were. I was focusing on women and girls as objects of my affection. I knew that this had to be terribly wrong. I was very worried. And my one desire, if I just had enough money, was to talk to the doctor. He could fix what was broken.
When you're eleven or twelve, you don't know that this isn't perfectly normal. You don't know there is anything different or unusual about liking girls.
I knew I was different from the age of four or five. That was obvious. But then my size, my androgynous nature, I could have been a man or a woman at any time. You didn't know if I was a young boy or a young girl.
Nobody ever said that I was a homosexual or a lesbian or said anything to my face. It was just real hurtful. Nobody talked about anything at home; they knew what was going on and everyody kept everything a damn secret.
I always had a couple of girlfriends at school. I'd have the best looking girlfriends there would be. Even better looking than the football players had.
I had a very good girlfriend named Eleanor and two little boy friends named Keith and Billy. We were playing post office and I knew I wanted to kiss Eleanor more than either of the boys, but I also knew that if I didn't kiss one of the boys, they would know there was something wrong with me. So I kissed both Billy and Eleanor.
I knew at the age of 12 that I was a lesbian. I didn't know the word but everybody was getting interested in boys and I thought they were silly.
The only time I felt like a girl was when I became a teenager. And then the boys reacted differently to me. I couldn't play football with them anymore.