Dec. 5, 1994, started as a typical day for Garrett Glaser. He went to work at the Channel 4 news station in Los Angeles, where he was a reporter, not knowing that a few hours later he would make history.
Glaser, now a Bird Rock resident, was doing a story following the death two days earlier of AIDS activist Elizabeth Glaser (no relation) and used the phrase “As a gay man … .” It was the first time anyone had “come out” as gay on television.
In his self-published memoir, “Fairyboy: Growing Up Gay and Out in Pre-Stonewall New York and Beyond,” Garrett Glaser details that day and his 30 years as a TV news correspondent while delving into what life has been like for gay people dating to the 1960s.
Both the paperback and e-book versions of “Fairyboy” are available for purchase through amazon.com. The hardcover version will be released online Tuesday, April 29, followed by the audiobook Monday, May 12.
“I was on the air for 30 years and had some really interesting assignments, so between traveling the world and being out all my life, I had a lot of great stories,” Glaser said. “I started to write down the good ones because I was worried that, being in my 70s, I was starting to forget some of them.”
In reading the stories, Glaser’s partner, David, noted that much of his youth was not in them.
“I learned about lobbying for LGBTQ rights when I was a kid,” Glaser said. “But back then, coming out meant you could get your [butt] kicked or be considered mentally ill or a criminal. It was awful. I knew so many people that were closeted. Many of them were married — not flamboyant. It was so different.”
In 1969, when Glaser was a young man, the Stonewall Riots broke out against a police raid that took place at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York. The riots were considered a turning point in the U.S. gay-rights movement.
“The book shows what things were like back then with newspaper articles. I get a feeling a lot of young people have no idea what it was like,” Glaser said. “I don’t want people to forget how lucky we are today.”
Twenty-five years after Stonewall, Glaser’s friends and colleagues knew he was gay, but television audiences did not. That changed when his boss asked him to state during the broadcast on Dec. 5, 1994, that he was gay.
“She wanted me to come out because a newspaper had done a profile on me and asked if I was gay and had been hinting at it, so management wanted to get ahead of it,” Glaser said. “I had no plans to do it, but my boss’s boss said I needed to.”
Furthermore, Glaser had volunteered with the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, or GLAAD, which also was encouraging him to announce he was gay so “young gay people would have someone to connect with on TV,” he said.
Glaser’s career continued until his retirement from journalism in 2005.
The book was written for two types of audiences, he said: those who are gay or want to learn more about gay history, and those with an interest in media.
“The takeaway is to be open and honest with your life,” he said. “To do so can be so good for your own mental health. … When you don’t, it can send a message that you are ashamed about it.”
Glaser and David moved to Bird Rock in 2023 after a few years in Maine and a few too many East Coast winters.
“We chose Bird Rock and have been very happy here,” Glaser said. “We have a dog like every gay couple, and life is good.” ♦
