She grew up in Hueytown, Alabama, the youngest of four boys, with a loving, talented, and caring mother who made home and family life rich and memorable.
My dad was an insurance claims adjuster. He drove his old hatchback Toyota Tercel all over the Southeast. The odometer broke at 300,000 miles, but he kept working to support his family. This pretty much sums him up. He never stopped. He went to sleepaway camp with me in elementary school the only dad on the trip. And he would always go on my Boy Scout trips, too.
I was probably closer to my dad than my brothers, but he never let it show. He was good to all of us. A solid, wonderful dad. Another thing you should know about him is that he is jolly. He always smiled and laughed and always loved the best way he knew how. My older brothers were the best. We fought like cats and dogs, but we loved each other. If you tried to keep us apart for too long, we’d find a way to get back together.
I grew up in a deeply religious family, Tring to follow strict beliefs while quietly struggling with my identity from a young age.
As early as the fifth grade, I was bullied relentlessly. Faggot, sissy, gay—people weaponized all kinds of words against me. In middle school, I spoke with the guidance counsellor who told me I was too young to have a sexual preference, and I shouldn’t let it bother me. In high school, I wanted to kill myself, just like one of my classmates did after he was bullied and called faggot over and repeatedly.
Growing up in a deeply conservative community that is almost exclusively evangelical Christian is tough for a queer kid. Even if nobody tells you specifically that you’re broken, you believe you are because of the way everyone around you believes. You hear the jokes, the sermons, the adult conversations, and worst of all, the bullying.
When I was eighteen, I logged onto Craigslist (back in 2003, they had personal ads organized by preference, and there was a male for male, or M4M, section I frequented). I decided to meet up with a guy anonymously. When I arrived at his home, it looked a lot like mine. There were crosses on the wall, hung as decoration and not-so-subtle reminders of the sacrifice Jesus made for us.
His bookshelves were full of the same theology works and his music collection full of the same worship anthologies in my house. Without saying a word, we knew we were on the same page. The experience was horrendous. Neither of us knew anything about sex. We played some gay porn and imitated their actions. As the bottom in our scenario, I was in so much pain, I had to stop the activity immediately. I was crying and bleeding. I left this stranger’s house, never even knowing his name, resolute to kill myself.
On the way to the field, a plot of land my church owned out in rural Hueytown, I had to pull over on the side of the interstate. I was weeping so violently; I could not drive. I thought I was about to go to hell forever because I was broken. I got to the field, still weeping, and started throwing rocks at God.
For hours, I begged him to show himself to change me and take away my queerness. Finally, I collapsed onto the ground. There were no more tears. Dehydrated and emotionally deplete, I started laughing.
I don’t know what washed over me perhaps it was God after all, in all their queerness, giving me the greatest gift a deity can offer: joy. After feeling so much pain and anguish, I felt relief. I smiled as the last bit of daylight poked through the trees. I wasn’t changed, but for the first time in my life, I accepted myself. For the first time, I said out loud, ‘I am gay.’
He found the courage to come out, build a nonprofit to share LGBTQ+ stories, and now lives proudly as his true self knowing queerness is magic.
