Stories of Self-Awareness and Gay Culture

Your browser doesn’t support HTML5 audio

Cover image from When I Knew

For one man, it was watching the Dating Game as a boy and imagining himself in the bachelorette role. For two others, it was keen youthful interest in TV's Tarzan series. In one way or another, the accounts of the contributors to When I Knew are tip-offs -- whether to others or to themselves -- that they are gay.

Robert Trachtenberg collected the colorful vignettes found in When I Knew, which find men and women recognizing and sharing their homosexuality. The well-known (columnist Michael Musto, actress Tammy Lynn Michaels) and the not-so-well-known are represented. The stories run the gamut from hilarious to poignant.

Meanwhile, writer Andrew Sullivan weighed in a New Republic article entitled "The End of Gay Culture." He talks with Linda Wertheimer about his piece.

Stories from When I Knew

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email