photo by Kevin Truong
photo by Kevin Truong
photo by Kevin Truong
photo by Kevin Truong
photo by Kevin Truong
photo by Kevin Truong
photo by Kevin Truong
Broderick, in his own words: “Whenever I’m asked when I “came out”, I always wonder, “When am I not coming out?” I wonder this because my own narrative of publicly disclosing my sexual orientation is a process, not an event. I remember being nine years old and asking myself when and how I would tell my parents that I am gay. My fourth grade self could not imagine that it would take twelve years of introspection, conversations, self-discovery, forgiveness, and courage before the day finally came.
As a child and adolescent, I had only one prayer: God, make me straight. I wanted nothing more than to meet a girl, fall in love, have 3.5 children, live in the suburbs, drive a minivan, and own a Sam’s Club card. Over time though, I was confronted with reality of my sexual orientation. The more I resisted it, the more lonely I felt. I wanted to tell other people my “secret”, but I chickened out at the last minute every time. I poured myself into memorizing numerous Bible verses, going to every religious conference I possibly could, and singing louder than everyone else at church. While some people end at “pray away the gay”, I tried to “wash away the gay”. I was baptized four times, with each time proving that no force on heaven or earth could rid me of my unwanted sexual orientation.
In college, I heard a speaker cite a statistic that gay men have an average of forty anonymous sexual partners per year. The speaker’s assertion peaked my curiosity and after just a few minutes of research on Google, I realized the speaker had been misleading. This led me to ask myself whether other things I had heard about gay people were consistent to reality. Somehow, I happened upon the website of gay Christian Bible study group in New York City. I e-mailed the facilitator and asked him if I could Skype in to one of their sessions and he said yes. Sadly, I didn’t go through with my intention. However, I kept that facilitator’s information and contacted him the next summer about the steps I needed to take to begin the process of slowly disclosing to others what I thought I had been hiding for a lifetime.
The next part of the story is a bit fuzzy. Basically, over the next four years – up to this very day – I continued to process of coming out by telling my closest friends and family members. I have been met with nothing but generosity and graciousness. Being an openly gay man is a unique gift. I feel so grateful to live the life that I live, to be loved by friends and family alike, and to be able to follow my passion for church ministry as a student at Virginia Theological Seminary. There is no way my nine year old self could have imagined how tumultuous and at times anguish-filled my life would be. But there’s also no way I could have anticipated the joy of this beautiful journey.”
Wow, Broderick! I’m amazed that you are able to continue your studies at a Christian college and be out as a gay man. That’s a miracle in itself, isn’t it?
Thanks for sharing. I wasn’t sure whether you wrote this with a touch of humour or whether it was filled with angst and pathos. It was difficult to tell, but I’m led to believe by your concluding comments that perhaps it was a mixture and open to interpretation either way, which makes you a very skilled writer.