Confused over role of 「自分が」in this particular passage


I'm reading through Ishikawa Taiga's memoir 『僕の彼氏はどこにいる？』, and I've come
across a passage that has me quite confused as far as grammatical structure
goes, specifically the role of 自分が in following passage:

> **自分が**
> 初めて男のコに気持ちが動いたときのこと、学校でのこと、中には「元彼のことが忘れられない」なんて発言も飛び出して、まだ「生のゲイ」に出会ったことのないボクは、ただ感心するばかりだった。

For context, the narrator (Taiga) is discussing his experience of entering a
chat room way back in the early days of the Internet and, for the first time,
being able to chat with other gay men about their lives. He's brought up all
the different things that these other gay men would discuss with him.

I've translated the passage without any issue. However, my question is this:
what in the world is the function of the bolded 自分が above? I've assumed,
perhaps wrongly, that it's referring to the men in the chat room, not Taiga,
as ボクは appears in the same passage, and _that_ refers to Taiga. With that
being said, I've also taken it to indicate the subject of either a (relative?)
clause or sentence. But looking at the entire passage again, I can't see how
that's possible. Maybe I'm missing something, but taking just this bit on its
own...

> **自分が** 初めて男のコに気持ちが動いたときのこと、学校でのこと、中には「元彼のことが忘れられない」なんて発言も飛び出して

...自分 couldn't be related to either the verb 動く or 飛び出す. As far as I know,
those are both intransitive verbs that already possess "actors" carrying out
their actions (気持ち in the case of 動く; 発言 in the case of 飛び出す).

So is 自分が functioning in a more colloquial way, intending to mean something
more along the lines of "Each one of them, himself, confessed these things"? I
can't help but feel there's some kind of grammatical point here I've
completely missed that's keeping me from understanding how 自分が is functioning
in this passage.




Your initial assumption is correct. This 自分 refers to one of the 生のゲイ's, i.e.,
the other chat members other than Taiga. The basic structure of the first half
of the sentence is:

> A, B, 中にはCも飛び出して...  
>  A, B and (among others) even C popped out, and ...

Where A/B/C refer to three different chat topics (maybe from three different
guys):

> A: 自分が初めて男のコに気持ちが動いたときのこと  
>  the time when someone fell in love with a boy for the first time
>
> B: 学校でのこと  
>  how things were like at school (to someone)
>
> C: 「元彼のことが忘れられない」なんて発言  
>  how someone missed his ex-boyfriend

As for A, it has two words marked with が because it's a relative clause made
from so-called a "double-subject" construction. For example, you can say ゾウ
**は** 鼻 **が** 長い and ゾウ **が** 鼻 **が** 長い理由.

> 俺 **は** あのとき初めて男のコに気持ち **が** 動いた。  
>  ↓  
>  俺 **が** 初めて男のコに気持ち **が** 動いた **とき** (のこと)




Your initial assumption is correct. This 自分 refers to one of the 生のゲイ's, i.e.,
the other chat members other than Taiga. The basic structure of the first half
of the sentence is:

> A, B, 中にはCも飛び出して...  
>  A, B and (among others) even C popped out, and ...

Where A/B/C refer to three different chat topics (maybe from three different
guys):

> A: 自分が初めて男のコに気持ちが動いたときのこと  
>  the time when someone fell in love with a boy for the first time
>
> B: 学校でのこと  
>  how things were like at school (to someone)
>
> C: 「元彼のことが忘れられない」なんて発言  
>  how someone missed his ex-boyfriend

As for A, it has two words marked with が because it's a relative clause made
from so-called a "double-subject" construction. For example, you can say ゾウ
**は** 鼻 **が** 長い and ゾウ **が** 鼻 **が** 長い理由.

> 俺 **は** あのとき初めて男のコに気持ち **が** 動いた。  
>  ↓  
>  俺 **が** 初めて男のコに気持ち **が** 動いた **とき** (のこと)

