Scot, Teacher, Columbus, Ohio

photo by Kevin Truong

Scot, in his own words: “I came out to myself long before I came out to anyone else. I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t feel a sense of “otherness” because of who I was attracted to, but it took me a very long time to be honest with myself and those around me. The first gay person I remember meeting was my high school girlfriend’s mom, and I was afraid to meet her because she might instantly know I was gay. Conversely, I was also excited because I had never before, to my knowledge, met another gay person. I remember that she seemed so normal and comfortable in her own skin, and I also remember wanting that feeling more than anything in the whole world.

The growth of a visible gay culture made it easier to accept my “gayness.” A year before I came out to my friends and family, Ellen Degeneres came out, and there suddenly seemed to be gay people everywhere! It was like a queer Renaissance! By the time I went away to college, TV shows like Will & Grace were popular and the media was finally giving sympathetic attention to hate crimes committed against gay people such as Matthew Shepherd. When I eventually stepped out of the closet in 1998, I became obsessed with gay culture, wanting to learn and consume as much as I could. I joined as many LGBT groups as I could (including one called The Swarm of Dykes) took every single LGBT-focused course that Ohio University offered, and wrote several letters to the school newspaper advocating for gay rights.

The biggest challenge I faced when coming out was gaining the love and acceptance of my mom and my brother. They both had a very typical reaction – shocked, angry, and confused. It took a long time for them to come around, but there’s no awkwardness about it anymore in my family. My sisters, who are 14 years younger than me, grew up knowing I was gay, and both have been involved in Gay-Straight Alliances in high school and college.

Along the way, I’ve also struggled with learning how to build that most significant relationship: the one I have with myself. I’d love the opportunity to travel back in time and warn myself that, unless I focus first on fostering a healthy level of love and respect inwardly, I’m going to go through a lot of heartbreak (and that I’m also going to cause some). I’d tell myself to love me no matter what.

Over time, being gay has become less political to me, and more about how I live my everyday life. I don’t necessarily need to shout that I’m gay from the top of any roofs (although I wouldn’t mind doing that), but I believe that I can influence change on a more personal level. I became a teacher for a very grandiose reason: to change the world. I believe that I do that by teaching my students about our interconnectedness as humans and the importance of valuing the differences of others, instead of fearing them.

My personal belief system can be boiled down to my fascination with the character of Superman and his higher sense of purpose. He may be god-like and nearly invincible, but he inspires me because of his commitment to protect and fight for those who can’t defend themselves. To some people, he represents that which is unattainable, always floating high above the earth and looking down at us, but they’re missing the point. To me, he represents something more grounded and simple: our capacity to love and care for one another unconditionally. This will always be my hope for humanity, and it will always be the reason that I continue to teach my students to oppose those who seek to oppress others or who take advantage of those who cannot defend themselves.”

Johnny, Artist, New York City

photo by Kevin Truong

Johnny, in his own words: “Looking back I find that I had more difficulty coming to terms with my humanity then my sexuality. My sexuality was relatively meaningless in the larger picture. For me, figuring out my place in the world, in the universe and existence as a whole took precedence over my attraction to another person. Naturally there was attraction, but it was not something I understood completely or tried to understand at an early age. my feelings were my feelings and they hadnt been influenced by anything other then my innermost self and though I was perhaps too young to comprehend that, I did on some spiritual level, as I suspect all living things do. It was intuitive and I didnt give it much thought. I knew I was different then my peers though, different than other boys, mainly from what I was perceiving from the world, from others. In fact it was more external pressure to address my orientation then an internal need or desire.

I’ve always been somewhat of a private person by nature, blame it on my Cancerian roots. I never felt the need to broadcast my sexual feelings, after all are my sexual encounters/fantasies anyone elses concern other then my own? I wasnt hiding, but I never heard ‘straight’ folk letting everyone know their sexual preferences or ever having the need to, but it seemed that being gay was something that others had to know about, was something period, like some kind of warning. I never thought I was a danger to anything. I approached my budding sexuality with caution because there was something powerful and even divine about it. It was like some powerful magic that had to be handled with care and so it was only once I was ready to.

There are times when life has seemed scary and too much to bear, but unto myself, I realized that my experience in the world was rarified . And I’ve always been attracted to the rare and exotic things in life. If nothing else, ‘liking guys’ has made for a richer experience of my life, I can appreciate, openly, a greater number of beautiful things for instance, and that’s just one, of an infinite number of attributes that make me unique. But thats the case with every other living thing in the universe. And in that I realized that we, as in all of us, as in everything… are one in the same.”

Claudio, Market Analyst, São Paulo, Brazil

photo by Kevin Truong

Claudio, in his own words: “I’m writing a new chapter in my life. The pages to come are about learning to leave broken dream behind. These pages may seem painful, bitter and harsh, however it’s just the author’s process to find, among the broken sharp pieces, only the fresh, kind, and beautiful tenderness that bonded us.

If each year of our life were a chapter, I am at the chapter 32. The one I moved to Sao Paulo. The one I had to say goodbye to a beautiful lifetime project. The one I had to say hello to a new life.

New apartment, new job, new meetings, but trying to keep the old same sweetness for new dreams that lie ahead.”