Born This Way (6 page)

I knew I was gay pretty early on, from about the age of five. As a kid, I was captivated by Patrick Duffy on TV's
Man from Atlantis
. He was always in his little swim trunks and was quite buff back then. He also had webbed hands and toes, which were some kind of odd turn-on for me.

Growing up in a blue-collar, intolerant environment in the suburbs of Montreal, I wasn't exposed to a lot of progressive thinking. Especially in my early teens, I sure could have used a helping hand along the way.
I stayed in the closet until the ripe old age of seventeen,
when I just couldn't contain myself anymore. At which point, I came out screaming and flailing my arms.

At the age of twenty, I moved to the United States with just three hundred dollars in my pocket and a desire to be involved in the entertainment world. I'm now based in Manhattan, and doing just that.

My sister remembers this as her baton-twirling costume. I don't remember wearing it, but I'm sure my mom thought it was harmless and funny. As early as this age, I loved feminine things, art, and playing doctor with my cute neighbors. Later I was in chorus and band, like many of us back then. And
I was the only boy in junior high to choose disco class over football.

When
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
played at the local theater, I went done up as Frank-N-Furter and dethroned the person playing him. I realized that if I was performing, I was more powerful. In the '80s I discovered Hollywood and other out-of-the-closet gay teens. I had my first gay kiss at an under-eighteen disco called the Odyssey Club in West Hollywood.
We all loved Boy George and the freedom to cross gender barriers.

In 1985 I moved to New York City and became part of the nightlife. Drag culture had taken over Manhattan nightclubs, and I morphed into a new romantic drag queen. Within a year, I was hired by Patricia Field as a stylist. I won a drag contest at the Boy Bar club as Miss Perfidia in 1986. I lived with established drag performers who trained me well, and I took my show all over the world. My talent with wigs eventually led to Broadway and television work.

As a kid, I dressed like Charles Nelson Reilly, I had posters of David Cassidy on my bedroom wall, and I owned my own food processor by the time I was fifteen! My father, God love him, tried his best to interest me in pursuits more traditionally masculine than shopping and reading
Redbook
.

My classmates certainly knew I was gay. I was called a fag every day from the sixth grade on. I was a quadruple-whammy teasing target, too. I wasn't just effeminate—
I was a fat, four-eyed, straight-A student whom teachers adored.
The worst experience was in art class. I made a giant psychedelic letter F out of cardboard and tempera paint. It was just like the M on the wall on
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
. My teacher held it up in class and one kid shouted, “What's the
F
for? Faggot?!” The class howled. I was devastated and, worst of all, I did nothing. I wasn't yet ready to admit I was gay. I finally came out right before my seventeenth birthday, beginning a relationship with a boy in my geometry class. From our first mall date, I was ready to sign the bridal registry. Oh, what a sexy summer we shared before going off to college. I'm proud to say that we still send each other birthday cards.

Today, my husband and I are nearing the sixteen-year mark of being together. No matter the awful things my mother said when I first came out to her—and there were some doozies!—she left me with some good advice.
“Nobody is better than you, and you're no better than anyone else.”
Those are some pretty fabulous words to live by, whether you're gay or not.

I was an effeminate boy who liked to play house and lip-sync to Cher songs. I would put my sister's black tights over my head, throw back the legs like long hair, and sing “Half-Breed” into a hairbrush! My parents were not okay with this.

I felt terrible, knowing that I wasn't like other boys. Although
I kept my sexuality quiet,
other boys (and the girls) could see that I was different, and I was bullied. I was constantly called hateful names. I was spit on, pushed around, and punched. Unlike many gay boys,
I told my parents about the bullying.
They came to the school and told the teachers and principals, but nothing changed. I became isolated and depressed at age fourteen, and my mother took me to therapy, which saved my life. The therapist was open to hearing about my real thoughts, fantasies, and identity. He taught me how to
fight back against those bullies with my words,
and it worked. He also inspired me to become a therapist as an adult. There is help out there.