Chameleon

CHAMELEON: A Memoir - is a collection of my intimate stories and encounters growing up in a homophobic society. I wasn't your stereotypical Brooklyn boy who loved watching sports on television or enjoyed playing touch football in the streets. I was raised Catholic and attended three different parochial schools in the sixties and seventies. All that made it difficult to come into my own identity and purpose. It was almost impossible to even think gay. I went from being an innocent altar boy to an older gay man caught up in the middle of the John Travolta sex scandal that put me on the front page of the Daily News and written up in People magazine and the National Enquirer.

Although I lived a straight life in my teens and had a girlfriend with whom I was in love, I was still bullied and bombarded with gay slurs. The constant struggle of trying to fit in left me feeling anxious and depressed for most of my adolescent years. Instinctively, I lived my life like a chameleon to survive and protect myself.

I learned how to play the game once I entered my twenties, but I still had one foot in the closet unless I was out dancing in the gay clubs in Manhattan. I struggled to find my identity, but I was also afraid that I wouldn't be accepted or loved by my mother, family, or peers anymore if I revealed who I really was.

I held on to my secret for years and, at times, felt imprisoned. I learned about the down-low lifestyle from all those so-called straight guys I hooked up with in Brooklyn. I thought that could be another option for me, and maybe I could have the best of both worlds, too. But deep inside, I knew I couldn't pull that off. I never lost my desire to have sex with men on the DL but refused to live a double life and use a woman as a beard.

Once I let go of all that guilt that I grew up with and embraced my true self instead of hiding it, I started to live and enjoy my life. This is my journey from being an ashamed and insecure teenager to becoming a proud gay man with a voice that will not be silenced and feelings that will no longer be ignored.