¶ … old, my best friend was a kid named Matthew. We went to the same schools, played on the same soccer team, attended the same church, and lived in the same neighborhood. We were at each other's house constantly. Matthew's father was a hairdresser and owned a salon. My mom was one of his clients. I cannot remember not knowing that Matthew's father was gay. No one ever told me. I never saw Matthew's father with another man. Other than his profession, nothing about Matthew's father was stereotypically homosexual. Somehow, I knew it. However, Matthew's father's sexual orientation was never an issue between Matthew and me any more than my parents' heterosexuality was an issue. Nor was it a problem between Matthew's father and my parents, who liked both Matthew and his father very much.

Since I grew up with a gay adult in my environment, homosexuality was neither shocking nor upsetting to me. I thought of homosexuality being a part of Matthew's father's life, just as having children was a part of my mother's life. I did not have the prejudices that many children are taught regarding gay and lesbian adults.

Matthew's father often had men's meetings at his house. As far as I knew, no women were...

In retrospect, I believe these were support groups or activist meetings. But, at the time, we just knew them as men's meetings, and we had to stay in Matthew's room or outside. Kids were not invited. We could hear them talk and laugh, but we did not pay any more attention to those meetings than we did when my parents and their friends played Bridge.
One evening, Matthew and I were shooting hoops in his front yard. His father alerted us that he was having a meeting that night, and we should get inside and eat dinner before everyone arrived. I can even remember what we ate that night -- chicken and yellow rice, green beans with mushrooms, tossed salad, and chocolate pudding cake. We ate at the breakfast bar in the kitchen by the window.

Matthew's kitchen window was at the front of the house. We had full view of the driveway and the front yard. We could not help but notice someone arriving early. A very tall figure got out of the car and walked up the front walk. We were both flabbergasted when we saw that the guest was a woman!

She was a very large woman, at least six feet tall with broad shoulders and not much of a waist. She had brown shoulder-length hair and…