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WHAT TRIED TO KILL ME HAD MANY NAMES

by

MARC GAUSS

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What Tried to Kill Me Had Many Names is a fearless memoir of spirit, sex, and survival. Raised in a strict Christian home where every desire was measured against sin, Marc Gauss grew up believing that love—especially the kind he felt for other men—was something that had to be hidden, prayed away, or punished. As he moves from small-town boyhood to college campuses, locker rooms, churches, and the neon freedom of gay nightlife, Gauss confronts the contradictions between the life he was taught to live and the truth of who he is. Along the way he encounters cruelty, rejection, ecstatic freedom, and moments of devastating despair—including the kind of spiritual shame that nearly costs him his life. Told with disarming candor, humor, desire, and vulnerability, What Tried to Kill Me Had Many Names is the story of a man who survived religious judgment, sexual awakening, and the many identities others tried to force upon him. It is a memoir about reclaiming joy, owning one’s body, and learning—finally—to live without apology.

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MARC GAUSS lives in the Palm Springs, California area, where he co-facilitates workshops and retreats centered on sex positivity and authentic self-expression. An outspoken advocate for the LGBTQ+ community and sex workers’ rights, he is committed to dismantling shame and redefining what it means to live freely.​

“What Tried to Kill Me Had Many Names is a wild ride over six decades of gay struggle and freedom. From the religious abuse and oppression of Jerry Falwell, to the out-of-control partying of the eighties, to the depths of barely surviving the AIDS epidemic, to the power of transforming his life with queer liberation and marriage equality, Gauss’s sensitive and compassionate narrative gives hope and humor to anyone who might have gotten stuck along the way.”

—DR. JALLEN RIX, author of Ex-Gay No Way: Survival and Recovery from Religious Abuse