There is a lot happening in October, but for this article I want to talk about birthdays, and the journey from my childhood to the life I live today.

After all, October is my birthday month. It is also LGBTQ+ History Month.

The two seem especially appropriate to bring together this year because, when I look back over my life, I realize that my personal history unfolded alongside an extraordinary period of LGBTQ+ history. This is not the story of every gay man of my generation. It is simply mine. But I suspect parts of it will feel familiar to many of my generation.

The Child Who Didn’t Want to Be Seen

My childhood was not easy.

I think many gay men of my generation would agree that growing up different could be extraordinarily difficult. I became aware at a very young age that there was something different about me. I didn’t have the words to explain what it was, but somehow I understood that this difference was something the world did not want me to be.

So I learned to be quiet.

Whenever I had to be around other people, I tried to stay to myself. If someone, especially an adult, attempted to have a conversation with me, I would answer questions with two or three words and then find some way to escape.

Even birthdays could be stressful because birthdays meant attention, and attention was the last thing I wanted. I was fine when it was just our immediate family. But add more people, more eyes and more attention, and I struggled.

School was especially difficult.

Children can be incredibly cruel when they discover someone they believe is an easy target, and I was often that target. Once again, my strategy was to stay quiet and try to disappear.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find much refuge among the adults either. Teachers, counselors and other school staff offered very little encouragement or support. Very little was expected of me, and eventually my school performance reflected what happens when a child feels disposable, not what that child is actually capable of accomplishing.

When I left school, the measuring stick others had created for my potential was remarkably short.

In fact, sometimes I think many of those adults would have considered me successful if I had simply found a nice bridge to live under.

But there was one problem with their expectations:

I knew they were wrong.

Somewhere inside that quiet child was a voice telling me I was capable of more.

At the time, I didn’t blame those adults. Today, I look at it differently. Adults entrusted with children have a responsibility to see possibilities in them, particularly in the children who have difficulty seeing those possibilities in themselves.

I left that world with a commitment: I was going to prove them wrong.

I was going to build a life they never imagined I was capable of living.

Then I Found My People

Eventually, I left home.

And in doing so, I found something remarkable.

I found my people.

I discovered the gay community, and suddenly there were people like me everywhere. They gathered together, laughed together, danced together and celebrated together. They seemed so happy that it was no wonder someone had decided to call us “gay.”

For the first time, I wasn’t the strange kid standing on the outside.

I belonged.

I had reached a threshold in my life. The people who had defined my childhood were no longer defining my everyday existence. Even my family became less a part of my daily life, appearing mostly around holidays, special occasions and, yes, birthdays.

My career changed as well.

I became a dancer, and a successful one.

The transformation was so profound that I even changed what I called myself. The child everyone had known as “Randy” began using his middle name.

Lee.

There were several reasons for that decision, but looking back, I think it represented something much larger.

It gave me permission to leave some of the baggage of my childhood behind and reinvent myself.

Randy had spent much of his life trying not to be noticed.

Lee was ready to be seen.

I was becoming someone new, shedding the weight of a difficult childhood and discovering the possibilities of what my life could become.

Birthdays Changed, Too

My birthdays changed along with me.

Gone were the uncomfortable gatherings where I wished everyone would stop looking at me. In their place came evenings out with friends.

And let me tell you, we partied.

I could say we occasionally overindulged, but that would be an understatement. We partied hard, and I loved every moment of it.

But something much more important was happening during those nights, parties, dinners and gatherings.

We were creating family.

Over the years, those friendships became some of the most important relationships of my life. These were the people who hugged me when I needed to be hugged and allowed me to do the same for them. They were the people I could call when I was in trouble, knowing they would come, and they knew I would come for them.

For many LGBTQ+ people of my generation, “chosen family” wasn’t simply a phrase.

It was how we survived.

It was how we loved one another.

And sometimes, it was how we made it through another day.

Growing Older Became Its Own Milestone

Now birthdays have changed once again.

The all-night parties have become an early dinner, followed by coming home and spending a quiet evening with my husband.

And you know what?

That sounds pretty perfect to me.

Birthdays now give me an opportunity to look backward as well as forward, to reflect on a life that turned out very differently from what anyone might have predicted for that frightened little boy who tried so desperately not to be noticed.

Those people I once wanted so badly to prove wrong are gone now.

I will never get to stand in front of them and say, “See? You were wrong about me.”

I have come to understand that I don’t need to.

That realization seems particularly meaningful during LGBTQ+ History Month because history isn’t made only by famous activists, landmark court decisions, legislation or the people whose names eventually appear in history books.

History also lives in ordinary lives.

It lives in the gay kid who learned to hide.

It lives in the young man who walked into a gay bar for the first time and discovered he wasn’t alone.

It lives in the friends who became family.

It lives in those we lost along the way and those fortunate enough to grow older with me.

And it lives in something as wonderfully ordinary as two husbands coming home after an early birthday dinner and spending the evening together.

That ordinary life would have seemed extraordinary to the frightened child I once was.

My Birthday Wish

I don’t know whether, during my lifetime, our society will reach the point where people simply see my husband and me as another loving couple living an average American life.

I hope so.

And for whatever time I have left, I am going to do what I can to help move us a little closer to that day.

Perhaps that is the real connection between my birthday and LGBTQ+ History Month.

History isn’t only about where we have been.

It is also about the lives we are able to live today because people before us refused to disappear, and the world we leave behind for those who come after us.

As a child, I dreaded birthdays because I didn’t want the attention.

Today, I see them very differently.

Today, a birthday means I am still here.

I get another year to love my husband. Another year to tell stories. Another year to remember the people who helped me become who I am. Another year to speak for that quiet little boy who once thought the safest thing he could do was disappear.

And another year to make sure the next generation understands just how far we have come, and why their history matters.

So this October, I will celebrate LGBTQ+ History Month.

I will celebrate my history.

And I will celebrate my birthday.

Because after spending so many years trying not to be seen, there is something wonderfully powerful about finally being able to say:

I am here. This is my life. And it has been a life worth celebrating.