ABSTRACT
During the early part of José's adult life, the closet was still the norm for gay people. Even people who genuinely cared about gay friends counseled them to hide their true selves behind a constant life of lies, half truths, and euphemisms that allowed others to assume a gay person was heterosexual. Lovers became “roommates” or “friends.” Older gay men were “confirmed bachelors.” Actions too reflected the ruse. Close female friends acted as “rent-a-front” girlfriends for company parties or family dinners. Vacation pictures remained hidden in drawers. Many gay men went so far as to marry women and father children, some in the hopes of being “cured,” as the conventional wisdom taught was possible. But mostly there was silence, silence about any part of a man's experience, feelings, ideas, dreams, or beliefs that could peg him as different. Gay people themselves advocated living a double life, some out of fear of the consequences of honesty, some because they truly believed that there was something wrong with them, and others because they simply accepted the heterosexist status quo as the way the world was, is, and will be. Sadly, as the twenty-first century approaches, for many gay men in many parts of this country and the world, such deceit is still the norm, a state of affairs that José has never really understood and rarely tolerated.
