Alejandro Fonseca, Indiana

I’m pretty sure most gay men will attest to the fact that they always knew that they were gay, or at least that they were a little bit “different” from everyone else. And there is no exception for me. I was the boy who tried to belly dance around the house to Shakira with a headdress on. I went to my across-the-street neighbor’s house to play Barbies every day after preschool. It shouldn’t have been such a mystery to connect the dots. I was born and raised into a Roman Catholic home. The whole idea of being gay was never really talked about and was never an option for the good Catholic boy that I was supposed to be. I guess that’s why I covered up with false infatuations with Hermione Granger and random girls in my grade school class. I even had a mock wedding during recess with the most popular girl in our grade. It seems that all I ever did was cover up who I was. 

All throughout my childhood I grew up as a dancer taking professional ballet lessons for roughly eleven years, starting in the summer between first and second grade. Now you can imagine how odd it was for sassy little Alejandro to find older boys like me who were obviously gay and still very happy with themselves. My parents called these boys and young men “bad influences” and told me to not pay too much attention to them. 

It was easy to hide who I really was in Catholic elementary and Catholic Middle school when all I experienced was torment and ridicule. And because I really didn’t understand yet who I was. But that all started to change when my “friend” got mad at me in the fifth grade and called me a ‘queer’ on his AIM profile. I didn’t even do anything wrong, and it was this name-calling that made a connection with me possibly being gay. I’ve been called every name in the book: queer, homo, pansy, sissy, tom-girl, twinkle-toes, and fag. It definitely affected me when I was eleven, but it’s made me even stronger today at eighteen. 

As I graduated from my private Catholic middle school into the public high school, I grew petrified of the imminent changes that were sure to take place. I didn’t have any male friends growing up and I was uneasy with the idea that high school would change nothing. So, in hopes of gaining new friends, I auditioned for and made it into the school’s show choir. That’s where I met my first real male friend. It’s sort of ironic that this also was my first real crush, but I didn’t have a clue about what these feelings meant. I guess I assumed that it was just me appreciating some positive feedback from guys, and the fact that he was a very kind person probably didn’t hurt. We soon became best friends and hung out a lot during sophomore year in high school. But later that year is when I suppose things started to stray “out of the norm” of things for two straight male friends to do. We experimented a lot with each other; it was the first time that either of us had ever done anything with any girl, let alone another guy. The experimentations were quickly followed by intense guilt on both of our parts and we abruptly stopped. 

Even though the experimenting was through, the feelings I was experiencing weren’t. They threw me into a confusion that was full of depression and a lot of tears. My best friend would not talk to me after an intense argument about what we had done with each other and what had happened between us, and it made my emotions even more jumbled up because I had to unravel my thoughts on my own. 

Eventually, during senior year of high school, I figured out that this feeling towards my former friend was love. I had never loved anyone before, excluding family, in my life. It took me seventeen years to finally accept the fact that I loved someone of the same sex. I was initially uncomfortable with the idea, but I figured that I better get comfortable with it if it was who I was as a person. I loved him. He hurt me. I still love him.

I probably would not be out to my parents if it weren’t for their initiative and snooping around. One night, my parents called me down to the living room and asked me if I had anything to tell them. I immediately shot out that no, I had nothing unusual to tell them (Right. Other the fact that I was very, very gay and hiding it from them). Well, it turned out that they had read some of my journal entries and figured it out for themselves. A normal son would be pissed that his parents went through his private entries in his journal, but the only thing that filled my mind was fear. My anxiety lessened when they asked me if I was sure that I was “this way.” I told them that I had been confused for a long time, but that I was positive. They told me that they’d love me no matter what I did or who I was. The only concern that they had was that I would experience negativity from society. But that was the least of my worries, because I finally could stop hiding myself from them and realized that I am truly happy with who I was, who I am, and who I will continue to be.

Nalley Smith, Arkansas

I knew at the age of five that something wasn't "right". I remember always feeling different from the other little girls. I was infatuated with my kindergarten teacher, who was a woman, and the girls I went to school with. I wasn't interested in little boys for anything except playing at recess, and I remember feeling oddly about other little girls wanting to have boyfriends. I've always been a worrier. So of course I worried myself sick over this matter until I worked up the courage to ask my mom what was wrong with me. She assured me by telling me "Lots of little girls have crushes on other girls. It just means that you look up to them and think they're neat. It doesn't mean anything bad. Don't worry." 

I continued on like I had been all through elementary school and middle school, the crushes growing stronger and deeper, but never bringing it up again to my mother - always in denial about it, even to myself. 

I had my first girlfriend when I was fourteen and in eighth grade. We were both young and unsure of ourselves and our sexualities. I was struggling with my Southern Baptist upbringing too. I kept trying to change what I ultimately knew to be true about myself; no matter what I did I knew I was gay. I was afraid that if my mom found out she would hate me, send me away, or never let me see my girlfriend again. 

I had thought about telling my mom for a long time, but it took me years to work up the courage. Something came over me and I had to get it out. It was like a fire inside that needed to be quenched. I called my mother and asked her to pick me up from a friend's house because I needed to talk to her and wanted to come home. She came and picked me up and we began the long drive home on the back roads. I asked her to pull over, but she refused. After a lot of hesitation, I finally spit it out:

"I think I'm gay." 

Silence.

"...I think I'm gay." 

"I heard you the first time. What do you mean?"

"Well, I like girls. I always have."

"Do you think this could be a phase?"

"No, I really don't, but I wish it was." 

"You know this means that you'll go to hell..."

That was the one thing that frightened me more than admitting those words – more than losing my mother or my girlfriend – going to hell. Immediately my mother was determined to squash my gayness like an insect. She tried to scare it out of me. She sent me to Christian counseling. Then she tried to send me to a Christian boarding school. She grounded me from life. My mother tried everything under the sun to "help" me. Unfortunately, I was just as ignorant and afraid of this thing that plagued me as she was, so I hated myself for a long time. 

Luckily, I had two best friends with very liberal parents through the rest of junior high and high school that influenced me, and paved the way for my mind and heart to blossom and learn to love myself again. 

By the time I was seventeen, mom and I had definitely had our problems with my sexuality, but I was very confident in myself and in my lifestyle. There was no going back. 

I am now twenty one years old, and am so in love with the person that I am that it's hard for even me to believe who I used to be. My mother has had a lot of time to adjust to the fact, and will always struggle, but she has opened her heart and her mind enough to become and LGBT supporter and tries her hardest everyday to support me in every way possible.