The official website of LGBTQ Writer
How I got Here
I am a post-World War II baby, born to a woman suffering from mental illness and a man who was a sex addict. My mom was hardworking, holding down two jobs to support my brother and me. She never left us, staying to the very end. Although I didn’t see my Dad a lot, he always loved me and encouraged me, supporting me no matter what.
My childhood in the 1950s was dominated by Catholic nuns, most of whom were uneducated and regretted having lost their lives to celibacy. Nonetheless, they were very central to my upbringing, affecting my personality deeply. My Mom raised my older brother and me alone, depending greatly on the nuns at St Thomas Grammar School near South Central LA.
I was raised Catholic with sixteen years of Catholic education, eight of which were with the Jesuits at Loyola High and then Loyola University in Los Angeles.
I have never been “normal”. As a child, I preferred playing hopscotch with the girls rather than dodge-ball with the boys. Nonetheless, I had an elaborate fantasy life dominated by three boys, Peter Pan, Dracula, and Elvis Presley. Later I became attached to Sigmund Freud and Jesus Christ, even though I knew that the Catholic Church condemned me for being gay, while Freud proposed an innate bisexuality in all people.
My preconscious awareness that I was queer developed into realizing that I liked boys, more than girls. As I transferred my life into the tutelage of the Jesuits at an all-boys Loyola High School, I hid myself under 150 pounds of obesity. Alas, the obesity only brought more attention to me, provoking daily bullying from Loyola High students and faculty.
But, I was a smart kid and I scored scholarships to Loyola University, where I met Tom, fell in love, and shed my weight. Alas, I lost him to the Vietnam War. Without Tom, I felt very exposed. I solved that by falling in love with and marrying Susan, a wide-eyed flower child. We went off to the University of Oregon to earn me a doctorate in clinical psychology.
Our marriage collapsed as we returned to LA, where I started my private practice and taught graduate students at UCLA. Divorced from Susan, I was washed ashore in the LGBTQ culture, searching for the love of my life - a Latino named Daniel. Fifty years later, we still do everything together - work, play, sleep, and dream. My life began with Dan.
He and I soon determined that the Christian Church was a major source of homophobia in the US. So, we dedicated ourselves to reconciling Christian Churches with a full acceptance of LGBTQ people. We started LGBTQ ministries in many different churches, offering seminars, workshops, and home fellowships, that featured: “What the Bible really says about homosexuality”, and “LGBTQ Self-esteem: The Heart of the Christian Faith”. When it became legal, Dan and I were married at St. Mathew’s Lutheran Church.
My older brother was my best man, even though he is a conservative Catholic Republican.
My Writing and My Ideas
I have been writing LGBTQ fiction for the last thirty years. I am now retired from psychology and have transferred my theories about LGBTQ persons into my fictional characters. From this BIO, you might glimpse aspects of myself in all of my writing.
When I write, I mostly want to entertain the reader with a fun and emotionally gripping story. But, I also try to impart my ideas about LGBTQ people. And, I have a lot of ideas.
For example, coming out is a process, perhaps lifelong. One must come out first to oneself, and then to important people like family and friends. Eventually, one must come out more broadly, much like I am doing by writing this BIO to the reading public. But, I am convinced that to really come out, one must come out to GOD - whoever that might be for you, whether it be Yahweh of the Old Testament, Allah of the Koran, or your own internal ego ideal. One must integrate one’s sexuality with one’s spirituality.
I have discovered that LGBTQ people maintain a wide and rigid separation between their sexuality and their spirituality. This is not true for straight people, who believe that their sexuality is sacred, often procreating children. Hence, as they develop, they always experience a unity between their sexuality and spirituality. Their sexuality is built into straight society, as it is for a pubescent boy gloriously scoring a touchdown in football. As he conquers the other team’s territory, he feels physically, emotionally, and spiritually transcendent! This transcendence is very similar to the ecstasy of an orgasm.
Perhaps, you will experience this theme when you read my stories that combine vibrant spirituality with vivid sexuality. Perhaps, you will be able to sense the separation between your sexuality and your spirituality when you hear my characters actually pray to God while they are fucking.
Perhaps . . .
Things have changed for LGBTQ youth growing up in 2025. They know Ellen Degeneres, Will and Grace, and George Michael. In the 1960s, the best we had was Liberace, a drag queen that no one thought was gay. If they had, he would never have succeeded.
Yes, things have changed, but have we? LGBTQ folk still face the same problems internally as we did in the 1960s. One of my books is called, Mom, You Know? In it, I take a gay dude who would be typical in 2025 and place him in the 1960s. And yes, the best part about writing fiction is that I can actually do that.
Another one of my books is House Divided, predicated on the idea that a person who is divided internally cannot thrive. I lived in two worlds growing up. There was my Mom’s crazy work-oriented world that was pretty much poor. But, there was my Dad, who lived with his wife in a middle-class home. My Dad loved to have fun. Sometimes, he’d pick me and my brother up on a weekend and take us to dinner at a place like the Moulin Rouge - dinner, dancing, and a show.
My Mom was working so hard that she hardly noticed me and expected me to succeed in life on my own. She taught me how to do that by her example. She never really understood what I was studying at Loyola High and later at Loyola University. She didn’t really understand what my profession in clinical psychology was. My Dad, on the other hand, always supported and encouraged me - always inquired about my schooling and my life - but I saw him so rarely.
And so you see, my life was a House Divided.
One thing you can’t hide is when you’re divided inside. And many LGBTQ folk are divided inside between their true LGBTQ self and their Straight/passing self that is codependent with straight society. They dissemble, pretending to be straight so that they can fit into and be accepted by straight society.
I became a psychologist to help others mend the divisions inside of themselves. As they’d mend and unify themselves inside, they’d become a better version of themselves. Perhaps my writing can help you unify yourself, too.