I guess...growing up, I was actually pretty blithely unaware of myself. I was a pretty independent child with quite the mouth on him starting at the age of three years old. I had kids that I would play with, but most of the time I was by myself. I created my own worlds, my own characters, my own creations. I had a world that was solely mine, people that existed only to me, and rules that I applied to everyday life. A dream state. My Mother would probably tell you that she knew I was gay at the Age of Three. I had an imaginary friend named Iola around that time. I played with Iola all the time. I know it sounds crazy, but I definitely remember her. She would just sit and listen to me go on and on about everything I was thinking about, she would play with me, and honestly I didn't think she was imaginary at all. I thought she was our next door neighbor at the time. It wasn't until I looked back MANY years later that I realized I was the only person who ever had ANY interaction with her. She also looked exactly like the character Iola Boylen from "Mama's Family". For those of you who are too young to remember the show, or have forgotten, this is exactly what my imaginary friend looked like.
Here's Your Sign. At the age of 5 I got in trouble at my school which was a Christian Private School for singing "Like A Prayer" by Madonna on the playground, which please take a moment to understand and realize how ridiculous this is. I was five years old, I had no idea the subtext of the music video, I just remember singing it along with my Uncle who sometimes babysat me. "Like A Prayer" was the first complete song I ever learned. Here's Your Sign.
I never liked playing with "Boy" things. When I was also 5, my mother got married and I inherited a Step Brother as well as eventually a Sister. My Step Father was a guys' guy. He was a hick from a small town in Northern California, and though I remember having a LOT of fun with him growing up, he is where I experienced my first bouts of Homophobia. I don't think he was TRYING to be homophobic, I think he really just thought I needed a strong male figure in my life. He would try to get me to play guy things like baseball, soccer, shooting guns, things of that nature. And some of them, yeah I did like, but really? If i'm being honest? After my sister was born and about 3 or 4 years old, all I really wanted to do is play with her and her Barbies. Here's Your Sign.
I remember my Stepfather getting angry and I remember him telling my Mother on more than one occassion "You know he's gonna grow up and be gay right?" Gay. That was the first time I had ever heard that word, I didn't even know what it meant, but it was really the first time I had heard a characteristic applied to me that I didn't understand...but I never really put much stock in it, it did however create tension between my mother and my Stepfather. I think part of the problem I had growing up was that every man that entered my Mom's life tried to be "My Father", and if i'm being honest, i've never met my birth father and I really just don't feel like I missed out on anything important. To me it didn't matter if I could throw a football well, it mattered that I knew things about the world. I think I was definitely a product of being somewhat "raised" by television, which is not to say my Mother wasn't a good mother, but she was a single Mom for most of my life and worked her ass off, I spent a lot of time alone or babysitting my sister, or being babysat and the easiest solution for children, unfortunately is USUALLY Television.
I always tried to watch things that were way beyond my field of reference and understand them, whatever this "adult" world was, I wanted to be a part of it, which would explain the very mouthy, matter of factness I had in my youth. I was drawn to TV shows and movies where the women were in control or had power or somewhat of a scandal about them. I thought they were beautiful, and they weren't supposed to have this power, at least I didn't think so when I was young, but they did. I was raised around mostly women. My childhood friends were my Mom's Best Friend's children, who were all girls. In order to hang out and play with them, I had to fit in. So when I got the Hot Wheels toy instead of the Barbie toy in my McDonald's Happy Meal? I threw a fit. I was very fortunate however, to have a mother who never asked questions, who didn't care if I played with a girl toy, a boy toy, or a cardboard box as long as I was happy.
So, even with my "feminine" dispositions, I lived a relatively normal childhood, for the most part free of really anyone making fun of me for being who I was. This all changed when I entered Junior High.
The town I live in is actually a pretty Liberal and open town, but 12 - 14 year old children are not a part of that. I have said time and time again that Junior High is NOTORIOUSLY the worst years for most kids who are different. For whatever reason, when we reach preadolescence we become horrible DEMON spawns who mask our differences by blatantly and RUDELY pointing out the differences of others, I will start by saying that yeah, I definitely engaged in the name calling, and taunting myself, as I feel if I DIDN'T say that I would be portraying myself as some kind of righteous sweet person who never had a hand in the tormenting of others. We ALL did. EVERYBODY had somebody they made fun or did something nasty to. We were ALL at that age once. I am not saying what I experienced was WORSE than others, but I can only speak from my own story and truth.
The first person I ever really remember being a BULLY to me was in the 7th Grade. His name was Tony Mullins. I use his full name because I have never been a fan of discretion in any form. He didn't make fun of me because he knew me to be gay, HE made fun of me because I was fat. In gym class, he would run next to me while I ran and TAUNT me, saying things "Come on, fatty. You better pick up the pace! Run fat ass, run!" It was TERRIBLE...everything that I did, he would make some comment to make me feel pretty much like shit. I dreaded that class and pretty much every PE Class after that because of people like him. It was the first time I really ever remember feeling self conscious, not good enough. And after 7th grade, it only got worse.
In the 8th and 9th grade, I was pretty much tormented by a guy named Marcos Rivas. Again, I use his full name because I don't believe in discretion, and for him to have had the balls as a 14 year old boy to say and do the things he did to me, he should also have the balls to stand in his truth. As luck would always seem to have it, whatever bully I had ended up being in at least three or four of my classes, and Marcos was no exception. I VIVIDLY remember sitting in my Earth Sciences class in 9th grade and getting assigned to be in his lab group. The entire class he would literally say such things as "You know you're gay right? You know you like to suck dick right? Does your boyfriend like when you suck his dick?" It was degrading and embarrassing as he would do this in front of other people, ANYBODY who would listen, and I never felt worse about myself than in 9th Grade Earth Science class. I had another bully in Spanish in the 9th grade named David Garcia who would pretty much take any chance to tell me that I was gay and ask me how much I liked penis.
9th grade was... a terrible year. I even had a teacher be blatantly homophobic to me my freshman year. I was in Math A AKA Slow People Math and had a teacher named Mr. Keating who is still a teacher at the high school I went to. He was a man who had very much lived out his best days in high school and it showed in almost everything he did and said. He didn't want to be an authority figure, he wanted to be buddies. In class he pointed out several times my feminine tendencies, once even knit-picking the way that I covered my mouth to cover my laugh. I merely covered it with both my hands while he pointed out in front of the class that "Only girls cover there mouths like that and that boys should make a fist to do so." Yeah, seriously. Also once on a field trip across the street to the Safeway I remember him telling me that I should maybe not say all the things I say and then people would not make fun of me. Yeah, this was a teacher in my school.
So you can see how in all of this, I never told anybody. I never told a damn soul, because from my opinion, it was coming from every direction, and that this being "gay" thing was a giant problem. I wasn't trying to "be" anything but myself, but it seemed to draw a lot of attention, a lot of "scandal." The funny thing was, I was somewhat known for being one of the biggest smart asses to ever walk the halls of the school, but it was bravado, it was all an act. I had to appear confident, I had to appear like it didn't phase me, otherwise I would have probably been VERY far off. But in a WAY, this actually started me on a path to figure out who I was...when people tell you that you act gay, or that you ARE gay, you begin to think...maybe I AM gay?
I felt a little asexual in high school. I wasn't really attracted to anybody in particular..but I DID know that when I masturbated, it was to images of men...and for some strange reason usually the men who were mean to me, almost as a coping mechanism to deal with the verbal assault. I never dated, and although girls were interested in me, the only interest I had in THEM was the confusion on as to why they were interested in me in the first place. I really didn't feel like a sexual human being, which just makes one feel more isolated. I felt pretty alone, and if not for escapes like the Internet or TV, I probably would have attempted something far more dangerous. I never used alcohol or drugs while I was growing up and in school, it was just never an option for me. I dealt by living in fantasy, I dealt by maintaining HOPE that once I was done with school, I could be FREE, I could go and do what I wanted and nobody would care. And you know what? It turned out, that for the most part...I was right.
After high school, I moved to Carson City, Nevada. I wanted to get out of Chico but still have family nearby, and my grandparents and cousin happened to live in Carson City, so I felt a little safe. I lived with my cousin in a one bedroom depressing apartment, had no car, walked to my glamorous job at KFC everyday, and again had very little social interaction. For those of you who know me today, it might be hard to believe that from the ages of 13 to about 19 most of friends were "online". I didn't go to parties, hang out, I didn't really... have any friends. If it wasn't for my cousin Airen all but forcing me to participate in my life, I don't know where I might be today, and for that I thank her.
Through my cousin, I met many different people from all walks of life and had my encounter with my first actual openly gay person, and his name was Pedro. He was a VERY effeminate, loud and crazy personality and to be quite honest he scared the hell out of me. I thought that if I admitted that I was gay to myself that all of a sudden I would become very much like Pedro. The only other gay people I had seen until that point in my life had been from watching scrambled "Queer as Folk" on SHO in my bedroom in high school. Again I was very afraid that once I said it out loud, that once I admitted this truth, I would become a dancing queen gym bunny who slept with anything that moved and couldn't live without techno. I thought it would transform me in a way I didn't want or like.
After a lot of deep personal thought, I couldn't help but think that the reason I really wasn't enjoying my life was because I wasn't living authentically. I didn't have relationships with people because they didn't know who I really was. I spent every single day waking up repeating "I'm Gay. I'm Gay, I'm Gay, I'm Gay" all day long, almost as if I had to convince myself. Six months later it changed to "Today I'm going to tell somebody that I'm gay." and before long...I finally worked up the courage. I had gotten a job at Starbucks and was starting to make a lot of new friends, and I decided that it was time to really just put myself out there. The first person I ever told was my co-worker and friend Monica Ward. We were closing at Starbucks together and I told her that after work I really needed to talk to her, and so... in the parking lot of a Starbucks in Carson City, NV in the year 2005 I told my friend Monica that I was gay. I chose her first because I was pretty sure that she would have the most positive of reactions of my friends, and I was right. She told me pretty much what everyone else after her would tell me. "I know, babe. I was just waiting for you to know."
VERY THANKFULLY for me, I was blessed with family and friends that were MORE than supportive of me and my confession. I thank God everyday that I have the people in my life that I do. I was one of the very lucky ones to never experience that horrible pain of somebody NOT accepting my truth, of somebody DISOWNING me. I was LUCKY. VERY LUCKY and am not ignorant of the fact.
The next months of my life were a whirlwind as my social calender opened up, I met my first long term boyfriend, Kalib who would be in my life for the next 3 years, I moved out from my cousin and I's small apartment and in with a roommate. I drank alcohol, and I didn't die. I LIVED life. All because I was finally able to be WHO I was to EVERYBODY, and my happiness wasn't based on their reactions, it was based on me being AUTHENTICALLY me. I didn't have to be overcompensating with humor or sarcasm or opinion or anything. I got to be ME. I had shed the sins and hurt of the past and fully accepted BRANDON.
Five years later, I am sitting here, working for a small locally owned business BACK in my hometown. A company that has 6 employees that fall in the LGTBQ umbrella, and NOBODY talks about it, nobody cares. It's a diverse company because it simply is. I have a boyfriend who I love and adore. A man who was married and has TWO children and an amazing support system around him. I have so many great gay friends, with so many different stories from so many different walks of life, all with a different frame of reference and perspective and THAT is what this story is all about. I think it's important to share the stories of the people that I love in an effort to pay it forward. To show people that it doesn't MATTER where you came from, that who you WERE isn't as important as the person that you are TRYING to be. You CAN find happiness, and that if you just wait out those painful days, months, hours, seconds that seem to drive DEEP into your very soul, that you inevitably come out stronger and happy. Your life is yours, nobody has to live it but you. You have nothing to lose but what no longer serves you. TRUST ME. It DOES get better.
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