When we begin to love and respect Great Mother Nature's gift to us of gayness, we'll discover that the bondage of our childhood and adolescence in the trials and tribulations of neitherness was actually an apprenticeship for teaching her children new cutting edges of consciousness and social change. In stunning paradox, our neitherness is our talisman, our fairie wand, our gift we bring to the hetero world to....transform their pain into healings; ...transform their tears to laughter: ...transform their hand-me-downs to visions of loveliness.

I knew that I was gay in every bone of my body. So I did the only thing I could do. I started the movement.

I was an older brother. So I had to do a lot of things first. My father was a self-made man, and he would beat me senseless. But he was a Scotsman, and stubborn. I'm his son, and I'm stubborn, too. I go on being stubborn.

Up until I was eleven years old, I thought I was the only one of my kind in the world. I couldn't find anybody else who felt as I did.

I always say to people, "If you share my dream, why don't we walk together?" And that's my only organizing tool.

If you look into the history of fashion, you'll discover that Gernreich was the leading name for years and the leading fashion designer both here in the United States and internationally.

Out of the mists of our long oppression, / We bring love for ourselves and each other, / And love for the gifts we bear, /So heavy and so painful the fashioning of them, /So long the road given us to travel them. A separate people, /We bring a gift to celebrate each other, /’Tis a gift to be gay! / Feel the pride of it!