'When I Knew' to have Florida premiere at Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival

On Sunday, April 27, the new film, When I Knew, will have its Florida premiere at the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. The film will be screened 7:15pm at the Regal Cinemas 17 in South Beach.

Directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato (Eyes Of Tammy Faye, Party Monster, and Inside Deep Throat) will be a the festival.

When I Knew is based on a 2005 book by Robert Trachtenberg. At the time of the book's release, I interviewed him -- and several well-known gay people in South Florida -- about when they first knew they were gay.

Here's my original article, which ran July 18, 2005, in The Miami Herald:

"1969: My father was watching the evening news. The announcer said that Judy Garland had died. I fainted. I was 9." - film marketer Andrew Freedman.

That's when Freedman knew. He's gay.

Freedman and 86 other gay men and women (some famous, others not) told their stories to Los Angeles fashion photographer Robert Trachtenberg, who compiled them for a new book, When I Knew ($22.95, ReganBooks).

"I wanted each page to really matter, " said Trachtenberg, who has directed documentaries about George Cukor, Gene Kelly and Cary Grant. "I wanted the stories to be either funny or poignant. I didn't want them to be these chest-beating polemics. And I didn't want them to be filthy, either."

Trachtenberg, 40, got the idea for the book while "waiting around on photo shoots."

"Actors and models waiting around for hair and makeup have a lot of time to kill, " he said. "This was too good to pass up."

For two years he prepared for the book, asking about 400 people the question: When did you know you are gay?

Among those who made the cut:

• Broadway and Hollywood director-writer Arthur Laurents (at 86 the book's oldest participant).
• Actor Chad Allen, co-star of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (the youngest at 31).
• Village Voice columnist Michael Musto.
• Comic Suzanne Westenhoefer.

Comments range from humorous to poignant.

"The comics really surprised me with longer, really touching stories, " Trachtenberg said. "[Actor] B.D. Wong (M. Butterfly) kept e-mailing me and saying, 'It's coming, it's coming.' I said, 'My God, I only asked for one paragraph.'

"He sent 600 to 800 words in verse. Who writes in verse anymore? It blew me away."

Trachtenberg said the book's participants believe they were born gay.

Jess Cagle, an editor at People magazine, told Trachtenberg: "Anything that will make people realize this is not a choice. Yes, I'll be there."

Still, the book isn't driven by political correctness. Most of the participants stereotype themselves as having been nonathletic gay boys and butch little lesbians.

"There is truth in stereotypes, " Trachtenberg said. "The little girls are trimming their dolls' hair really short. The boys are listening to movie soundtracks."

Dr. Peter Popejoy, 53, a counseling psychologist in Miami, said he often hears gay men and lesbians tell these stories about their childhoods.

"When they were very young they realized they were different, " said Popejoy, who each week counsels about 30 patients, 75 percent of whom are gay. "They got a significant message from a father or a mother, 'Don't be that way.' It's very confusing because they don't know what's wrong with being that way."

Popejoy said that men and women who know from early childhood that they were gay have much easier times later in life than those who grow up "stereotypically straight."

Closeted and repressed gay people often wed opposite-sex partners. "They have such internalized homophobia that they can't see themselves leading an openly gay life and they get married, " Popejoy said.

Author Terry McMillan recently revealed that her younger Jamaican husband, Jonathan Plummer - the inspiration for her autobiographical bestseller, How Stella Got Her Groove Back - is gay. McMillan, 53, now believes he deceived her to gain U.S. citizenship, that he knew he was gay when they married. Plummer, 30, says he didn't make his self-discovery until years later.

"I wouldn't dismiss the possibility, but my clinical experience supports that it's a very low probability, " Popejoy said. "Women might discover their bisexuality later. But men? They knew." * Herb Sosa, 40, executive director of Unity Coalition, a Hispanic gay-rights group in Miami-Dade: "I knew when - I always knew. Really."

• Joshua Santiago, 23, board chairman for Pridelines Youth Services in Miami: "I knew for sure with my first kiss. I grew up a very good little Christian boy. People made fun of me. I guess I was obvious to everyone but myself. I had been toying with the idea. I met someone. He was someone I had met online. He was maybe two or three years older than I was. I was 16. The first time I got a kiss, yeah that was it - that works for me."
• Yesi Leon, 33, producer for lesbian-oriented Pandora Events: "I was 20. When I started holding my best friend's hand instead of my boyfriend's. . . . I was out on a double date with my best friend. We would double date, but it was all about us. That's when I knew. My boyfriend wasn't happy about it. Both boys didn't know what was going on. We'd hold hands under the table, under a sweater. The next step was to kiss. . . . Her mother found out about it and said she'd disown her if she continued to go out with me. A month later, I had my first lesbian experience, playing truth or dare."
• Micheal Aller, 64, Miami Beach's tourism director and protocol chief: "I was 14. I was driving around with my father in the car. I told my dad, 'I like the girls and i like boys, but with the boys i get excited.'My father turned and said, 'I was wondering when you were going to get around to this.' "
• Amy Carol Webb, 48, Miami Springs-based folk singer: "I grew up in rural Oklahoma. . . . I was 12 or 13. I didn't tell anybody. Because I liked boys, too, I thought I was a very open-minded, sexual human being. I didn't really explore until I was an adult. I was 39 years old. You always look back and say, 'Oh, that's what it was.' But in Oklahoma, all the cowgirls wear boots and big belt buckles. It's hard to tell who's a lesbian and who's not. We all look alike.
• Andrew Tobias, 58, Miami-based finance writer and treasurer of the Democratic National Committee: "I had boyfriends at 7. .... I didn't know there was a word for it. I just knew what I was attracted to .... When I was 10 in 1957, I was sitting watching television and my father and a friend of his came through the room and they were talking about something. And my father said something about homosexuals, with a terrible . . . tone, just in passing. . . . I remember going, 'Oh my God, that's the word for it and no one could ever, ever know!' Ironically, [this year] I'm grand marshal of the New York City Gay Pride Parade - surely, the most boring, prudent, conservative person in the whole parade."
• Steve Rothaus, 46, Herald staff writer and board member of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association: "From kindergarten on, I knew. After school the other boys went out and played ball. I stayed home and played records. Mostly musicals. (There is truth in stereotypes.) My earliest same-sex fascination: at age 8 in 1966 seeing handsome movie actor Michael Parks rise naked from the dust as Adam in The Bible. A religious experience.
• Bishop S.F. Ma-Hee, 33, performer and minister of The Great Congregation in Fort Lauderdale: "I was 14 years old working on my show. . . . I was absolutely captivated by one of the actresses in the show. . . . It was the strangest thing. I was sitting there onstage watching every single move she made. To cap it off, she played a lesbian. . . . It was the first time I heard the word lesbian and I could connect the dots. That started a whole psychological, religious, emotional process I had to work through.'
• Steven Kozlowski, 35, Miami Beach attorney: "I always knew I was different. I couldn't seem to relate to the images of gay people I saw. I didn't think that was me. I dated women for a long time. A lot of relationships with women, but they didn't work. The bell was always going off, but I ignored it. I began thinking, maybe it's not them. It's me."
• Martha Fugate, 58, director of YES Institute, a Miami-Dade project to build self-esteem and prevent gay-youth suicides: "When I knew? It was when I fell in love with a woman. .... I was 18 or 19. .... I had dated men and slept with men, but there was never anything like that. I said, 'This is it. I have to learn how to live with this, because I'm never going to settle for anything less."'
• Andy "A-Jay" Eddy, "senior citizen, " grant administrator at the Poverello Center in Wilton Manors for people with HIV: "I surmised late in life. Not young. About 24. . . . I had gone on a date with a nurse. I dropped her off where she was a nursing student and someone picked me up. I was just leaving. We started talking and he just said 'Are you a cop?' I said no. He asked if I wanted to have a drink. One drink led to another drink and that's what happened.'
• Edda Cimino, 75, a retired schoolteacher: "I was 13 and I had crushes on girls. I thought it was odd that other girls didn't. .... I never wanted to play with dolls. When someone gave me dolls, I broke them up. .... I responded to male things. . . . My father gave me boxing gloves. As a result, I beat up all the boys in the neighborhood. It was the way we boys played."
• Chip Arndt, 38, spokesman for Miami-based Care Resource, Florida's largest AIDS service agency: "I knew when I was 16 and I walked into a pharmacy. .... I went over to the magazine counter. .... There was a guy on the cover of Playgirl and my eyes were transfixed. I looked to the right of the magazine and there was Life. You know how big Life magazine was. I put the Playgirl into the Life magazine. I was trembling and sweating and I purchased it. I ran to my car and drove to a parking lot and was transfixed by the pictures for about 30 minutes. I just had to see this guy in all his proverbial glory.'

Comments

[allan]

lol.
love it.
hmm how old are you when u r in 6th grade???

[Steve Rothaus]

About 12, if I can remember back that far.

[StellaFan]

When did Terry McMillan discover she is gay? That's what I want to know.

[Steve Rothaus]

A few years ago, she learned her HUSBAND is gay. She's not.