The image of gay people presented to me were not powerful, focused on frivolous things, and consumed by attitude and lifestyle. There hasn't been a gay President, and at least when I was a child there weren't many gay people visible to me at all. More important for me was my sense that being gay meant being marginal. People were already calling me names so I wasn't worried about that. I wasn't really afraid of being mistreated, although I probably should have been. Some nagging part of me suspected I was gay from very early on, but I resisted it intensely. I was reasonably smart, well-spoken, curious, and so on, and I wanted to do something important with my life. When I was a child, I felt generally good about myself. I am incredibly grateful to Cook for this, not least because of how it will affect young gay people.
