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By Martha Miller. I started living openly gay in I lived in a house in Laketown and I moved my lover in with me and my sons. Many in the gay community seemed unimpressed by my story. I don't understand that. Maybe it's because they were accustomed to such things, and I was in my late 30s and used to a straight life.

Maybe they thought, "Well, what did she expect? The following things happened: My children suffered taunting and teasing. It seemed the neighbors waged a war against us by constant harassment. Someone reported us to the city for trumped-up violations like sticks in our yard, overturned trash not picked up quickly enough and so on.

I got letters from the city. Nighttime phone calls started. I know there were other, quieter, gays in Laketown who appeared unbothered. I eventually sold the house at a big loss and left.

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Whatever the neighbors did to us, there was no law against wanting a queer out of your neighborhood. People who didn't even know me hated me. I realized with a new clarity that we were alone. Then my ex-husband got a lawyer and tried to take my sons away from me. We finally split the boys up, one lived with him and the other with me.

That was a horrible mistake. Even if he had taken both, it would have been better. First, they no longer had two parents and then, they no longer had each other. They suffered for it. Eventually the relationship that cost me so much ended. It was a lonely, painful time, much worse than ending my marriage.

First, all my friends were the same as her friends and they backed away because they didn't want to take sides. Second, I couldn't talk about my troubles at work because, at that time, they didn't know I was gay. Third, when I tried to make new friends with other lesbians, there was confusion about the type of friend I was looking for.

For example, I asked a woman to go to the movies or to lunch with me and she often thought it was a date.