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Jake Shears

Jake Shears

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‘Lady, it’s official, your boy is a big fag’: Scissor Sisters’s Jake Shears writes about coming out to his parents

‘Lady, it’s official, your boy is a big fag’: Scissor Sisters’s Jake Shears writes about coming out to his parents

‘Boys Keep Swinging’ is a remarkable new autobiography written by Jake Shears of Scissor Sisters. It differs from most musical memoirs in two ways. One, Jake can really write. By the end, you‘ll wish you'd spent at least some time in life working as a thong-wearing go-go dancer in tiny gay bars called things like IC Guys or The Cock. The second is that the majority of the action happens years before fame strikes. Back when Jake Shears was Jason Sellards: a young boy in Arizona and Seattle struggling with his sexuality, before finding a path in the queer scenes of late-’90s NYC. In this moving and exclusive extract, Jake describes having ‘that chat’ with his parents, on holiday in Vegas in 1995... For spring break, my mom and dad wanted some family time, so we flew to Las Vegas. I had never been, and as I wandered through the vast casino of the MGM Grand hotel, I couldn’t even have a look because I was underage. I thought, what are we supposed to do here as a family? I had no one to hang out with, and while my mom and dad played slots on the floor, I roamed around the hotel, desperate for something to do. It was a huge fixed-perspective ‘Wizard of Oz’ diorama in the front lobby that changed everything. It depicted Dorothy and her crew, skipping down the Yellow Brick Road, their lifelike faces filled with frozen wonder. I marveled at the detail, circling it slowly as if it were some sort of holy shrine. The Emerald City tower’s glistening phalluses seemed like they had been