Every weekend, my XY friends and I would gather at the mall to shop, watch movies, and learn from each other about what it meant to be queer. We talked about rejection from friends and family, boys we thought were cute, and helped each other come out. Memorably, we even staged our own prom once at a sleepover.
Without technology, this group would never have been possible. And as I grew older, I learned LGBTQ+ folks have always been at, Christopher Harrity, recalled once how he used to phone into group calls to meet men. Or how during late nights in the West Village, a pay phone might ring as one walked by. Today, the mainstreaming of digital dating was made possible by apps like Grindr, which grasped early on the potential of smartphones to facilitate sex. And fun fact, I was the last editor of , another chat and dating website I once frequented as a user, before the URL became a redirect to the Los Angeles LGBT Center.
