Letters to the Editor: I grew up hearing anti-gay slurs. Now, my students are eager to learn LGBTQ+ history

To the editor: June 23 was my 51st birthday. I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for “Our Queerest Century,” the special section you published in print that day.

I was born 10 years before reporter Kevin Rector, who had three pieces in the section. I vividly remember hearing nearly every day as an adolescent in the 1980s that gay men deserved to die. I remember the AIDS jokes on TV, on the radio, and in my high school hallways. I remember equating gay intimacy with death.

I am still unraveling and confronting the trauma of these years.

Today I am an educator teaching college in Orange County, and I work LGBTQ+ history into every course and have published books on the topic. My students, straight and queer, tell me every semester this material is amazing for them to learn, their favorite part of the course. They say they had never heard any of it before.

This eagerness to learn things I was never taught fills me with hope and healing. Thank you for such a wonderful birthday gift.

Craig Loftin, Long Beach