Stephen Donaldson (activist) - Childhood and Adolescence (1946–1965)

Childhood and Adolescence (1946–1965)

The son of a career naval officer, Donaldson spent his early childhood in different seaport cities in the eastern United States and in Germany. Donaldson later described his father Robert, the son of Italian and German immigrants, as a man who "frowned on display of emotion" and his mother Lois as "an English, Scottish Texan, artistic, free-spirited, emotional, impulsive." After his parents' divorce in 1953 when he was seven years old, Donaldson's mother was diagnosed with a mental disorder and abandoned her two sons. She did not contact them again until 1964.

At age 12, Donaldson was expelled from the Boy Scouts for consensual sexual behavior with other boys (who, as recipients, were not punished). "The disgrace triggered a family crisis, resolved by sending the boy to live in Germany, where he could be watched over by his stepmother's relatives." He continued homosexual activity, hiding it from adults.

"In April 1962, at the age of fifteen, Donny returned to the United States to live with his grandparents in West Long Branch, New Jersey. In high school he was news editor of the school paper, an actor, and a student government officer. He also became active in politics as a libertarian conservative, supporting Barry Goldwater for president" and "considered joining the Young Americans for Freedom but was so uptight that he first checked with J. Edgar Hoover by letter to inquire whether the YAF was 'a communist organization, communist subverted, or in danger of becoming either'". Hoover sent back a reply "praising his concern about communism and then opened an FBI file on the boy". (Years later, Donaldson received a copy of his FBI file through the Freedom of Information Act.)

Donaldson later wrote about his developing sexual identity:

At 18, however, I fell in love with a baseball teammate, and my casual sexual play with boys was transformed into a very serious matter which could dominate my whole life. I talked with a few trusted adults about it, and learned that if I loved another boy I had to be a "homosexual".... I could only find two books on the subject, which confirmed this label, and mentioned the Mattachine Society in New York as an organization of "homosexuals." So on a school expedition to the "wicked city," I slipped away, visited their office, and became a member (swearing I was 21, since Mattachine was deathly afraid of dealing with minors), thus giving my new identity official status.

In the summer of 1965, Donaldson moved to Florida to live with his mother. "When Lois discovered young Robert was having an affair with a Cuban man, she decided to punish her son by outing him in letters to her ex-husband and to Columbia University, which Donaldson had planned to attend in the fall." Donaldson ran away to New York, where, he later wrote, "The gays of New York welcomed me enthusiastically, offered hospitality, and 'brought me out' as a 'butch' homosexual (in contrast to the "queens"). Among the Mattachine Society members he met were Julian Hodges, Frank Kameny, and Dick Leitsch.