Growing Up, Coming Out is a series of personal reflections from queer American designers, released every day this month.
At a very young age, around seven, I decided I wasn’t going to be gay because it was bad, and my surroundings reinforced that for me. It’s hard growing up in the South: You go to church and they tell you it’s bad. You hear people picking on people at school and it’s bad. I liked making paper dolls with my friends, and so I was a target. But I’m a very determined person, so it wasn’t an option for me [to be gay].
Courtesy of Sergio Hudson.
Even though I’m a minister’s child, my parents never preached in the house that I couldn’t be gay—but it was reinforced by actions. My mom was working in retail management, and a gay guy would walk in the store, and she and all the sales associates would start giggling. And I didn’t want to be a joke.
I got married [to a woman] at 23 years old, and we had a great marriage—we still have a great relationship now. I have two beautiful daughters. But I had almost a semi-nervous breakdown after I turned 30, and I realized I couldn’t do this anymore. I told my wife first. Outside of my best friend, I didn’t tell anyone else for a few years after that. A couple years ago, I came out to my mother, my dad, and my family. It was never some big announcement—one day people just saw me with my partner online. So I guess that was my coming out: Instagram.
You know what? It’s the best way that I could have done it for me. At 38 years old, I don’t really care what people think. I can take care of myself.
Even though the world is, on the surface, gay-friendly now, there are still millions of people in the world who are living the same experience that I did. And some of them might go to their grave not living their truth because of something that they were taught by somebody else. That’s the travesty of humanity.
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