Even after coming out, they struggle to enjoy LGBTQ+ pride parades. You go to somebody’s parents’ house … you’d have a lesbian friend with you, or they would have a gay man on their arm or something, and it was a way of hiding.”Ĭunningham and Prescott met in the mid-’90s while working for a bus company, but they still didn’t come out because, according to Cunningham, “If you were gay, you were not promoted.” So they waited until they had both retired in 2001. “I can remember going on many dates with lesbian friends, because they felt they had to stay in the closet at that time, and we’re still friends with a few of them today,” Prescott said.
#OLD GAY MEN STORIES MANUAL#
The American Psychiatric Association also classified homosexuality as a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders until 1973, when that classification was replaced with “sexual orientation disturbance.” Homosexuality was completely removed from the manual in 1987, but many states still had sodomy laws on their books until 2003, when the Supreme Court ruled such laws unconstitutional. Beginning in the late 1960s, many states criminalized homosexuality through sodomy laws. “It just infuriated me that he would violate my space like that.”Įven after they both got out of the Navy, they stayed in the closet.
![old gay men stories old gay men stories](http://static-27.sinclairstoryline.com/resources/media/6bf8b325-3ed5-4000-b125-fb19c435e235-ed20high20school20120.jpg)
“He was constantly making innuendos, evenly physically towards me,” he said. On his first trip to Japan, he refused to visit the brothels with the men he worked with, and as a result, one of them began physically and verbally harassing him, he said.
![old gay men stories old gay men stories](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Dln1EcG202E/hqdefault.jpg)
“I had two older brothers and a very strict father, and they used the word ‘sissy’ and ‘queer’ quite a bit,” he recalled. Feeling like he had no other options, he lived a “double life.”Īs for Prescott, he said he knew he was different by the time he was 5 or so. “I had a label at that time,” he said of the realization, “and I didn’t like it.” He said he “felt trapped” and feared he, too, would be discharged. After joining the Navy, he said he realized he was “more than different.” “It’s my hope that this campaign gives people a little hope and a little bit more freedom, maybe, to feel like they can share their authentic selves and stories, and if not, just give them a little bit of a sense of community that they’re not alone.”Ĭunningham said he realized he was gay as a teenager, but he didn’t know the word “gay” at the time - he just knew he was different. “That’s really what the campaign has tried to highlight - these hours, these minutes, these years lost to being in the closet,” DaCosta said. The fact that some people still weren’t ready to share their stories during Newby’s initial search speaks to “that compulsion to stay in the closet” that older LGBTQ+ people still feel, according to Christina DaCosta, director of communications for SAGE. “And in some cases, they were out, but they just didn’t feel comfortable sharing their story.”Įventually, she found seven Watermark residents who were willing to participate and then partnered with SAGE to find five more.
![old gay men stories old gay men stories](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b2/c1/05/b2c1057e795cd6321619ab4b8fdcee3a.jpg)
“I got a lot of responses from executive directors who said, ‘We do have someone living here, but they’re actually not out in the community,’” she said. Ines Newby, senior marketing and creative director at Watermark, found the elders first by reaching out to dozens of the company’s properties to ask if they had LGBTQ+ residents who would like to share their story, but she said it wasn’t easy. After that, it will tour the country and make stops in Los Angeles Napa, California and Tucson, Arizona among other cities. The exhibit debuted Tuesday at The Watermark in Brooklyn Heights, where it will remain until March. “Not Another Second” is a joint project between SAGE, a national advocacy group for LGBTQ+ elders, and Watermark Retirement Communities. Alongside each portrait is the number of years the elder was closeted. Goddess Magora Kennedy, who participated in the Stonewall uprising, and Paul Barby, who ran for Congress as an openly gay man in 1996 and 1998. The other elders featured in the exhibit include the Rev. Through video interviews and interactive augmented-reality technology, visitors can experience their stories. The two men, who are now married, shared their stories as part of “ Not Another Second,” a new multimedia art exhibit in Brooklyn, New York, that features 12 LGBTQ+ elders, many of whom spent most of their lives in the proverbial closet.
![old gay men stories old gay men stories](https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/5d01ce7c250000a013e13a01.jpeg)
“What bothered me the most was having to talk to the guys that were being discharged, and they were not in a good state of wellness anyway, because at that time, it was illegal or considered mental problems to be gay,” he said.Ĭunningham spent the next four decades in the closet until he and his partner of 30 years, Richard Prescott, 78, came out after retiring in their 50s.