I never felt ‘normal’ when I was a little boy. Instead of playing with toy cars, I would give makeovers to my sister’s Barbies. I was obsessed with fashion and begged my mother to let me buy a sewing machine, but instead, she bought me ‘Top Gun’ on VHS (which ended up pretty much being my first porn). I only hung out with girls because I had funny feelings about boys.

“These funny feelings about boys were essentially a direct ticket to Hell”

I always felt ‘different’, but never felt ‘wrong’ – until a sermon at church proclaiming that these funny feelings about boys were essentially a direct ticket to Hell. I could feel the gaze of the preacher shooting right through my chest, and remember my mother nudging me and whispering “are you listening?” The feeling was like choking.

It was in that instant that I began forcing a change in my head and in my heart. I started hanging out with guys, wearing Stetson cologne, found myself a girlfriend, started paying attention to sports… all of the things that would make me ‘a man’ and would keep me out of Hell.

“I knew that being gay would likely mean losing them”

But once I hit high school and sexuality came into play, it became clearer and clearer to myself that I was gay and that I couldn’t block those feelings no matter how hard I tried. I became depressed and pulled away from most of my family. I knew that being gay would likely mean losing them.

I eventually decided that I needed to tell someone – ANYONE – and so I wrote a letter to my aunt. She was the ‘cool’ aunt who’d moved away to live her own life and the only member of my family that I ever felt a complete connection to. The letter went:

“BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH (I’M GAY) BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH”

As soon as I dropped it into the mailbox I was filled with dread. Would she tell my mother? Would she go to the church? What had I done?! When I heard back from her, the response was essentially “Duh!” She told me that she loved and accepted me, and it was the first time I think I’d ever truly felt that.

I eventually worked up the courage to tell my mother, but it didn’t go as well. She and I were never very close, and this would be the nail in that coffin. We tried to maintain some semblance of a relationship for a few years after I left home, but we gradually became strangers to each other and now haven’t spoken in years.

“I discovered that I didn’t need the approval of someone in order to feel complete”

A sort of sadness from that followed me around for a while, but eventually, I discovered that I didn’t need the approval of someone – a person that I didn’t even really know – in order to feel complete. Completion was something I had to give to (and get from) myself.

And now, so much of my drag feels like coming out over and over again. It’s a reflection of accepting myself as something different, finding beauty in sadness and light in the dark, and giving a big finger to gender norms.

“The most important person that I ever had to come out to was myself”

When I reflect on all of the many coming out experiences I’ve had, I realise that the most important person that I ever had to come out to was myself.