is the title of this remarkable piece from the New York Times. Each of the people featured, a group that also includes playwright Larry Kramer, actress (“Glee” and “Criminal Minds”) Jane Lynch, broadcasters Keith Boykins and Don Lemon, and Ford Foundation President Darren Walker, among others, discusses the importance of gay bars for them in the process of their exploring and accepting themselves, including for some the first time they went to a gay bar.
It is an important sharing in the aftermath of the shootings at Pulse.
One amusing tale is from John Amaechi, born in England, who played basketball first at Penn State and then for several NBA teams over a 5-year period. He is now a psychologist, and is what he shared:
I’m from Manchester, England, so we have a very vibrant gay community that is very well integrated. There was an area called the Village. I used to go there with my sister with my friends routinely. In the U.S. I felt differently about it. I lived in Arizona, in Scottsdale, while I played in the league. I went to a little bar there called BS West. I remember walking in that first time quite tentatively with a group of my friends. Immediately, I get a drink, I turn around and I see someone at the bar and say, “Damn it, I know that guy.” It was Bill Kennedy, the N.B.A. ref, who came out recently. What are the chances that you walk into a bar and there’s a ref?
I didn’t talk to him the first time. Later, I did talk to him, and it was amazingly reassuring. In Scottsdale, in that bar, we met other players and other officials from other sports. Not just pro athletes but college athletes as well. It was fascinating to feel my world expanded. The feeling that you have that there are no other gay people in sports evaporated quickly.
I lived in Greenwich Village during the summer of 1968, at the corner of Christopher and Gay Streets, and as I recall Stonewall was less than two blocks away. I also lived in Brooklyn Heights for a number of years, also a neighborhood with a large openly gay population. And I was living in Brooklyn Heights when the Stonewall riot happened. I suppose I have always been aware of the importance of the gay bar scene as a result. I remember when I returned to Haverford at age 25 in 1971, I became friends with another music major who had grown up in Lancaster County who talked about how far he had had to travel to find a gay bar to feel safe. Even so, even with this background, I found that reading the tales of well-known people in this piece opened my eyes even further.
I urge you to take the time to read it.
Peace.