My, what a queer little boy you are!

Via Towleroad, I caught wind of a new book, You're Going to Be Gay!, that features photographs of adult gays and lesbians alongside childhood pictures that should have announced to the world at large  their upcoming homo-tude. Like any gay man who looks back fondly at the days when friends and family refused to see the flaming truths in front of them, I love these sorts of pictures.

Luckily, when I was last at my mom's house going through two big boxes of old photos I managed to begin a long-term scanning project that, in addition to chronicling the history of my family, will show exactly how nelly a little boy I was. For example, here's a shot of my sister and me with our Grandpa Joe (actually our great-grandfather) circa 1975:

Honestly, the gunpowder horn, rifle and miniature football jersey aren't fooling anyone -- maybe it's the way I'm striking a pose. Although those pants would have made anyone look gay. Just FYI, despite her hair and the big animal trap she's joyfully carrying, my sister turned out straight.

School pictures and other portraits seemed bring out some of my best unintentional swishiness, but I haven't gotten the chance to scan some of the more obvious evidence. I do have a couple instances, though, including this one from a couple years before my rifle-totin' pic:

It may not seem obvious in these more enlightened days, but I took huge amounts of shit in elementary school for having such long hair, and was called "hippie" with some regularity. I, however, loved my hair. It was very luxuriant and lustrous and felt good in the wind -- I was an early connoisseur of such things as Body on Tap. Interestingly, my shirt appears to be a prescient Native American interpretation of Space Invaders. But even before my locks grew long, I think I looked pretty gay. In fact, I couldn't even be bothered to wear pants:

As opposed to my sister, who though sleepy managed to maintain a sense of propriety. Of course, all this nelly-ness may be mostly in hindsight, at least as far as the photographic records go. Then again, I know my parents never ran to grab the Kodak when I donned my sister's clothes or commandeered her Barbies, so my pool of evidence is limited.

Comments

[Sean Bugg]

Well, that's an improvement over F-A-G.

[Kristina]

G-A-Y