Hi History Makers, Eric here. A few months ago we launched Making Gay History's Patreon

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And thank you so much.

We're jumping around in the timeline again, heading back to a moment before Bob and my

own special summer of love. Before Reverend Mullen, before all that. I'm Eric Marcus.

This is coming of age during the 1970s. Chapter 4. Respectable.

I'm at the dentist with a suspected cavity. Going to Dr. Tidalbaum, who's a German Jewish

refugee, is always fraught, because getting a tooth drilled is excruciating. He doesn't

use anesthetic. It's late 1974 and I'm about to turn 16. I didn't even know that Nova

became an option. This would be my 14th filling. While sitting by myself in the sunny waiting

room, I tried to distract myself by picking up a magazine from the stack on the side table.

As I flip through its pages, my eye is drawn to a story called consenting adult. It's

an excerpt of assumed to be published novel. It's about a mother and her journey to accepting

her gay son. I'd never read anything about gay anything before, and I'm riveted. But

not so riveted that I don't look up between paragraphs to make sure that the receptionist

Mrs. Bloom, who is my classmate Jane's mother, isn't watching. I read fast, knowing that

I could be called at any time. The story's narrator switches to the son, a very conflicted

...