Dan’s Story
We get to pick our family. We don’t pick our blood. The first person I ever came out to was my father. I was 14. I was on the phone (in secret) with my “first boyfriend” who lived 3000 miles away. (I had been hiding the phone bill for months.) I was playing some song and my father overheard it and came into the room as he was known to do and remarked that the music I was listening to was “gay”. I immediately responded rather empowered, “Well maybe I am gay.” He instantly turned around, went to the living room and sat in front of an off television for two hours. Unfortunately he coped by telling our entire family as a means to understand it. I was immediately put in therapy and talked to on an almost daily basis trying to dissuade me from what they saw as a “confused child”. My mother accepted me. My father made his best attempts. My brother teased. My grandparents thought I needed religion.
I was fortunate and grateful enough to have friends that supported me and loved me through most of my teenage years.
National Coming Out Day 2018
#HMIstory