April 18, 2017
In an emotional anecdote, Philadelphia LGBTQ activist and journalist Mark Segal recently recounted the story of his cousin Norman, who was thrown out of his house as a teen for being gay and eventually reunited with Segal years later.
Speaking to "I'm From Driftwood," a YouTube series that shares stories of prominent LGBTQ individuals, Segal said he first found out about his cousin being gay — and about gay people in general — was when he was 6 years old and pretending to be asleep in the back seat of his parents' car.
Segal, who publishes the Philadelphia Gay News, said it was sometime in 1956 when he heard his parents discussing why his Uncle Bill kicked Norman, then 17, out of the house.
Segal said his father told his mother it was for being a derogatory Yiddish term for gay people.
As his parents continued talking about Norman, Segal recounted that one line his father said stuck with him: "Some people call them queer."
"That conversation stayed with me forever, and I always wondered whatever happened to Norman," Segal said.
Segal went on to begin his career fighting for LGBTQ rights, and before his induction as the president of the National Gay and Lesbian Press Association in Los Angeles, Segal said that "through a fluke" he discovered Norman was living in Long Beach, California.
The day of the ceremony, Segal said he had lunch with Norman at a nearby hotel. There, Norman gave his version of the story Segal had overheard all those years ago.
Norman told Segal his father beat him up and kicked him out, leading to him becoming homeless and self-medicating with drugs and alcohol.
With both of them in tears, Segal invited Norman to the induction.
"I still get emotional when I think about it," Segal said.
Segal told Norman's story to the audience and called him a "survivor" before asking him to stand up.
"For the first time in his life, he was applauded for being gay."
Segal notes in the video that he lost touch with Norman after that and, considering he was about 10 years older than him and had a "hard life," Norman has likely passed away since.
You can watch the video of Segal telling Norman's story below.
