...in the storehouse of my memory, fuzzy and imprecise, I only began to think about gay identities because of a dog that mooed like a cow. A metaphor standing in for the gay person who only ever knew how to be that way, gayness entered my life with the “Born Different” advertising campaign, introduced only in my hometown of Colorado Springs, Colorado.
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I can vividly recall seeing the mooing dog signs in yards and front windows throughout my neighborhood, a liberal-ish bubble relatively close to downtown. No matter what else I gleaned in that moment, one message remained clear to me: those that are different are sure of themselves in that difference, however strange it might be to others. A mooing cow makes little sense to our typical sensibilities, but if that’s all the poor, helpless dog knew to do, then who are we to judge?