When I was eight years old, I figured that if I used the word “fag” a lot and on every possible occasion expressed my repugnance for gay people, others would obviously think I was straight. In fact, my earliest conscious tactic to hide my homosexuality involved being outlandishly homophobic. Since the third grade, I’d spent too many valuable cognitive resources concocting deceptive schemes to cover up the fact that I was gay.
But the truth is that passing for a straight person had become more of a hassle than I figured it was worth. I wish I could say that I decided to come out of the closet in my early twenties for more admirable reasons-such as for love or the principle of the thing.
