Justin Torres

There's a sudden visibility of underground queer culture.

And then the concern is that there's something pathological happening with these people.

My novel is kind of interested in these kind of pre-Kinsey sexology studies, specifically this one called Sex Variance.

You know, it was really informed by eugenics, and they were looking for the cause of homosexuality in the body in order to treat it or cure it or get rid of it.

It was criminal.

It was career-destroying, life-destroying.

To be outed against your will was incredibly dangerous.

And to live out was dangerous as well, because then, of course, you get backlash and you get persecution.

So the closet was a dangerous place to be.

Outside of the closet was a dangerous place to be.

I grew up with two older brothers.

It was just the three of us.

And it was pretty wild.

There's a lot of kind of masculine energy.

It is the undercurrents that worry me immensely.

I remember when I was a kid, I have this memory of watching daytime television, and I remember the host pulled the audience and said, if there was a test and you could know if your child was gay, would you abort?

And I remember just being so horrified and disturbed watching all those hands go up in the audience, you know, and just feeling so hated.

You know?

And, like, at that young age, I knew this thing about myself, even if I wasn't ready to admit it.

And I think that that's dangerous.