Merle Miller (1919 – 1986) American writer, novelist, and best-selling author.

He  came out of the closet in an article in the New York Times Magazine on January 17, 1971, titled "What It Means to Be a Homosexual". Due to the response of over 2,000 letters to the article (more than ever received by that newspaper) the article, with additional material was published later that year as a book. Miller became a spokesman for the gay rights movement. The article was again published as a book by Penguin Classics in 2012, with a new foreword by Dan Savage and a new afterword by Charles Kaiser.

Source: Wikipedia