"Without words, without warning, without knowing it," writes Cantwell, "we teach many of our children that there's something wrong with them. We teach them so well that they hide themselves to protect us from discovering that they are something unacceptable to us." This book was written to help educate people about the obvious, yet resisted, fact that homosexuals do not spring up on city streets as fully-grown, mature sexual beings. By talking with gay and lesbian adults and their parents, the author discovered many interesting facts about growing up gay. And she wondered: how could she, a teacher of emotionally disturbed children, have misunderstood or failed to recognize the feelings of her own child? These surveys and personal stories describe the suffering inflicted upon gay children who knew from an early age--sometimes as young as five or six--that they were different, and that their feelings had to be hidden.--From publisher description.