This vintage clip of a 70s bathhouse might just bring you to tears

In the mid-1970s in New York, bathhouse culture was at its peak. Before the Everard Baths fire, before States of Desire, before the AIDS crisis, bathhouses were a place for queer men to relax, hook up, and enjoy incredible early career performances by Bette Midler.

And for at least one twink, they were an important refuge from home life. In a recently-unearthed clip, a newly-out young man talks to interviewers about living at home with parents who haven’t kicked him out, but might not completely accept his gay identity.

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“Do you live with your parents?” The interviewer asks. He says he does. After he’s asked whether or not he feels truly accepted at home, however, he takes a moment to gather his thoughts.

“I’m really not sure if they accept it completely,” he says, “but they’ve accepted me as a person, and they need time to adjust.”

That’s something that plenty of us can relate to. While our parents might love us as people, there might still be parts of them that are still holding on to the wish that our lives could be more “normal” and less adverse.

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When asked whether he and his family discuss his queerness, the young man explains that there’s “very little discussion about it, but the relationship is very warm now that it’s out in the open.” He continues, saying that he felt he had to come out to them. “I was very depressed, there was too much inside of me.”

When he came out to his parents, they said “nothing.” His mother, however, said that she “knew [he] was going to be different” when he was a child. “She knew before I did!” He says.

While on the surface the young man seems comfortable with himself and self-assured enough to be living as an openly gay teen in a time when there was so much stigma, it’s clear that he’s come to the Continental Baths as a way to be in community. As someone who was probably too young to go to the gay bars, the bathhouses were a place for him to be truly accepted by others, not just tolerated.

The clip is a window into a very different time, but it’s also a reminder. It’s never been easy to live your life openly, but there have always been courageous people of all ages who have refused to stay in the closet just to make their families comfortable. “I miss the gay bath houses of the 1970’s,” one commenter wrote. “All the angst of being young and dealing with your parents.” Someone else commented. “What a snapshot in time. Makes you realize how fast time goes by.”