In Search of a Gay Identity

"Who am I" is a question that we all ask ourselves throughout our lives. The question, however it is phrased, is one that motivates us and drives us to figure out how to live our lives. For our heterosexual friends, their schoolmates, teachers, parents, priests, neighbors -- all give off clues, subtle and blatant, daily as to how to comport themselves, how to view the world, and how their sexuality fits into the mould that society has setup for us and expects us to fit into.

For a queer kid at least in the 60s and 70s, the mould was not apparent. There were too many disconnects. There were few if any examples to follow. They were told both implicitly and explicitly that they didn't fit in. That's how I felt growing up.

So like so many gay kids coming out in the 60s and 70s, I spent my formative years looking for my identity through books and magazines. It was a fun search.

I had three places where I knew I could find books and magazines about gay people. First, was the library, which is where I worked. The main branch of the Multnomah Count library is a great building and has a wonderful selection of books. Even in the 70s, I was able to find good literature that gave me great insights about gay men. I remember two excellent books I found by surreptitiously searching the card catalog (no computers or internet then): Christopher Isherwood's A Single Man and Patricia Nell Warren's The Front Runner.

Second, across the street from the Multnomah County library in downtown Portland, was a small bookstore called Brian-Thomas Paperbacks. This was the same bookstore that I picked up my very first book on homosexuals. I don't know if the bookstore owner was gay or not but he certainly carried a number of gay books and alternative newspapers like the Berkeley Barb and the early editions of the The Advocate. I bought them not just for the stories but for the sex ads carried by both publications. The Advocate's infamous "pink pages" were full of personals from every possible gay sub-culture and I couldn't get enough.

Third, I had Rich's Cigar Store. After the demise of Brian-Thomas Paperbacks, I found that Rich's, too, carried many of the alternative newspapers like The Berkeley Barb and The Advocate. Rich's was a bit more of a challenge for me, though. It was a very popular store and I could easily run into people I knew or worked with and at that point, I just couldn't bring myself to buy a copy of The Advocate if there was anyone in the store that I knew.