ComingOut | Bammer 2021

Mar 12
4 min

Dad and Me

STORY: I grew up in a close-knit and loving family of four in Minnesota. As a child, I was always close to my mom but didn’t really know...

Jan 2
8 min

How Did I End Up Here?

STORY: “How did I get to this point?” I kept asking myself nervously and guiltily, during the two-hour train ride. I’m a father,...

Sep 3, 2020
5 min

Speedy and Bam

STORY: When I was in graduate school in Boston in the mid-1970s, my attraction to other guys was proving intractable and I feared it...

Jul 12, 2020
4 min

Catharsis

STORY: In the mid-nineties, I was a naive 21 y.o. young man, full of fear about my budding homosexual orientation. Coming out was not an...

May 4, 2020
3 min

Self-Acceptance and a Queer Life in India

STORY: My name is Rahul. I was born in a small town in Tripura state in North-Eastern India where I spent my first 18 years. My earliest...

Aug 5, 2019
1 min

BAMMER and Me: Caleb Holland, Coming Out (Part 2)

PODCAST—EPISODE 4: Our first episode is about cross-generational perspectives on LGBTQ issues and themes between Mike Balaban and 25 y.o....

Jun 26, 2019
3 min

In Living Color

I was 14 years old in the long-ago summer of 1969. My freshman year of high school approached but my concerns were still very boyish:...

Feb 10, 2019
4 min

Soothsayer

STORY: “Ya know, I can see it all. You and that girly little voice…You’re gonna’ grow up to be a faggot.” I was 12, on the verge of 13,...

Jan 5, 2019
4 min

The Ins and Outs of Dating

STORY: August 2012 - September 8, 2013—For a lot of closeted gay men, the Internet, social media, and smartphone apps offer an excellent...

Jun 10, 2018
5 min

Making My Grandmother Cry

STORY: I make my grandmother cry. I come out to her and her fists close and her eyes fill up. She is silent for the longest moment and...

Jun 10, 2018
4 min

Coming of Age

STORY: Life was good for a 19-year old kid. I was a Division 1 athlete, attending the same top-tier university as my grandfather and...

Jun 8, 2018
2 min

Luis

NOTE: Viktor Carrasquero, a young Venezuelan emigre in Hong Kong, authorized us to share the following story from his early life. Back in...

May 20, 2018
4 min

Brotherly Love

STORY: 1976-1979—I moved to NYC for a position in a bank training program in October 1976 and almost immediately befriended another...

Apr 5, 2018
6 min

My David Kopay Story

STORY: I was raised in the arch-conservative Florida panhandle near the Alabama border in the late 1950s and 1960s. In those days, and...

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