BY MICHAEL MUSTO | It’s Pride month, when LGBTQs celebrate and commemorate in a big way—and this year, we might even leave this house to do so. As one of the gayest of the gays, I will honor this year’s Pride by digging back into my lavender-tinted memories and relating the 10 gayest moments of my life. So far. Let’s do this:

THE GREEK ROBE |One day in my Bensonhurst, Brooklyn elementary school, our teacher decided that we were going to learn a Greek line dance. Fab! Somehow she had procured a sparkly, floor-length Greek gown that some lucky student was going to be handpicked to wear as the leader of this production number. And she picked me! I was nervous about becoming the subject of so much attention—this kind of thing never happened to me—and terrified that I’d be made merciless fun of for wearing such a girly outfit. But as it turned out, everyone made a big fuss about how I great I looked and danced and how wonderful the whole experience was! That incident helped me feel a little more comfortable for years to come and became a precursor to many future outfits.

OUTED IN COLLEGE | Slinking awkwardly into a gay mixer at Columbia, I was extremely on edge, because I wasn’t really out yet and didn’t want to be noticed. But the second I walked in, Bruce Cooper—the most flaming gay on campus—grabbed me by the hand, dragged me over to a group of VIPs and shrieked, “Everyone, please welcome the latest member of the Columbia gay community—Michael Musto!!!” Yikes. I wanted to die or at the very least crawl under a desk until the room emptied out. Fortunately, that feeling didn’t last long. I soon enough realized that the moment had passed, there were no bad side effects, and I was now officially out. Thank you, Bruce Cooper.

PERFORMING AT PRIDE RALLIES | Once I was out, it was with a vengeance, and I loved getting to appear at well attended Pride events, either with my band (the Must) or with singer Brian Belovitch. The first time, I flounced around the stage singing Motown songs and engaging in patter like, “I was born a lesbian in Detroit…” This was before the rise of political correctness, and people actually laughed appreciatively. And as we all communed for speeches, entertainment, and togetherness, the unity of the day was empowering.

MOM’S VOTE OF CONSENT | Ma and I never had a sitdown talk about my sexuality. That’s just not how we rolled. But I was pleasantly startled one day in my 30s, when the subject was broached out of the blue. While she was in the other room of my apartment, she called out, “I love all gay people and I hope they’re all very happy.” There was no buildup to that and no follow-up—that was that, and it landed like a fireworks explosion. It was her coded way of saying she approves of me—and for a devout Christian woman, that was saying a lot.

TOO GAY FOR MIDDLE AMERICA | In the ‘80s, Spin magazine hired me to do a column, but then they dumped me, publisher Bob Guccione Jr. griping to staffers that I had a gay agenda. Duh. I was already used to this routine. Amaretto di Saronno had signed me to an ad campaign of edgy people in the ‘80s, then dropped me because the Italians in charge were worried by my wearing a hoop dress and saying fruity things in GQ magazine. I guess that was a little too edgy. As horrifying as these setbacks were, I was a tiny bit tickled to be upsetting the mainstream cart so much.

FLOUNCING ON THE E! CHANNEL | In the ‘90s, the producers of The Gossip Show liked my gayness and even encouraged me to wear a dress for one segment. (An actress’s gown had been missing and my item involved me speculating on what had happened to it, culminating with the camera swooping down to reveal that I was wearing it! Or a facsimile, anyway.) Also being openly gay on Theater Talk and many other shows was similarly rewarding, and I was thrilled to finally get a semi-regular gig on the gay channel Logo in 2015, since I was one of the original gays on TV.

HOLDING HANDS IN DAYLIGHT | One of my boyfriends in the aughts was a late bloomer who had been closeted and married to a woman for a long, long time. Well, one day, we were holding hands out in the street and it felt nice, especially when he beamed, “This is the first time I ever held hands with a guy in public!” Score one for me. I deserved a toaster oven prize.

WONDERFUL SUPREME COURT MOMENT | In 2015, the Supreme Court approved same-sex marriage for the entire country. It was a momentous decision, and even if I didn’t necessarily want marriage for myself, I certainly appreciated the importance of it as an equal right for the community. On hearing of this advance, I was catapulted to the celebratory rally outside the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street, and it was one of the best LGBTQ parties ever.

WORLD PRIDE | Another interesting moment was appearing in drag in a Cyndi Lauper-directed and -starring video of a reggae-flavored remake of her Girls Just Want To Have Fun in 1994. So in 2019, when it was World Pride—the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall rebellions—it was great to be one of the personalities backing Cyndi onstage at the Barclays Center for a production of “True Colors,” the kickoff of the NYC Pride festivities. You could feel the electricity—and glitter—in the air. Backstage, I got to thank Cyndi for being such a great, longtime ally of the community, starting way before it was considered cool.

MEETING MY IDOLS | I may not have always agreed with them, but meeting and getting to know queer icons like Quentin Crisp, Larry Kramer, Mart Crowley, Sylvia Rivera, and Laverne Cox has always been beyond stimulating. Having Crisp show up at my parties tickled me to no end (even though our politics were generations apart) and having back-and-forths with Kramer sent my head spinning.

Thank you, icons. Thank you, LGBTQ community. Happy Pride.

Michael Musto is a columnist, pop cultural and political pundit, NYC nightlife chronicler, author, and the go-to gossip responsible for the long-running (1984-2013) Village Voice column, “La Dolce Musto.” His work regularly appears on this website as well as Queerty.com and thedailybeast.com, and he is writing for the new Village Voice, a quarterly which made its debut in April. Follow Musto on Twitter, via @mikeymusto.

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