[Barbara] Grier came out early–she was 12 when she was sure of her sexuality. She told me she went down to the local library (the family was living in Detroit at the time), marched up to the librarian’s desk and asked for “Books about homosexuals, please.”
After researching, she went home and told her mother she was a homosexual. It was 1945.
(Source: lambdaliterary.org)