I remember the first time I realized someone was making fun of me and laughing at me as opposed to with me. It was in middle school, and it was during basketball tryouts for the travel team I had played on since approximately 4^th grade. It got to the point in the try out that we were playing 5 v. 5, which in men’s basketball, typically means shirts v. skins. This was my nightmare as a kid, and even today, I still sometimes lack confidence in the type of body I have. I lacked confidence in myself, whether it be my body, my intelligence, my looks...I lived in an all-encompassing fear that I was nothing compared to anyone else. When I was assigned to skins, I immediately felt my stomach drop and I ran into the locker room (which, ends up being ironic for reasons to be explained). A few days later, someone directly asked me if I hid in the locker room because I was gay or fat.

I was in 6^th grade. In 6^th grade, I for the first time heard someone make fun of me for one thing I didn’t understand, and the one thing I hated about myself the most at that time. I remember the feeling that words cannot describe. It’s a combination of humiliation, shame, and despair. In 6^th grade, I for the first time heard someone label me as fat and gay, without understanding why. It would be years before I really understood the significance of this. In the culture at that time, being gay was considered a bad thing, and top that with being tall yet overweight, I was sticking out like a sore thumb.

The reason this stands out to me now, is because it’s the basis for who I have become. At the age of 24, I am far more confident in who I am as a person. I am no longer ashamed of the body type I have, or my height, my mannerisms, my intelligence, or anything I may have been mocked about in my past. As much as it struggled to do so, I had to let those feelings of hatred to those against me in my past because I couldn’t move forward until I did. As a man, it is a stereotype that you cannot have feelings of sadness. Men are stereotyped as strong, masculine individuals whom if are caught expressing anything outside that stereotype, are less than. Often, they are labeled emo or gay. Sometimes that’s far from the case. While I personally am the average stereotype of a gay man, I fought against that for years. I fought it against because it made me feel better about who I was, and who I was trying to become. I for so long craved to be the dumb jock who got the girls and received bad grades but soon realized that wasn’t what fate had in mind for me. No matter how hard I tried, I would never be one of them.

In 24 years of living, which admittedly is a long time but not a LONG time, I learned that fighting against who you are makes your life inexplicably harder. You struggle to find peace with yourself, confidence in your abilities, and to master self-confidence in who you are. To this day, I’m still not your average jock-I’m missing the blonde hair, blue eyes, and six pack. Instead, I’m an average-built 6’3 male who's told he shoots like a girl from anywhere outside the paint in basketball. Instead of letting them discourage me, those who hate me motivate me. They are the fuel in my still trying to become the best I can be - an athlete, a brother, a son, a colleague, and maybe one day a husband and father. Recently, I spent a day with my cousin who I don’t see as often as I would like. Upon my arrival, and doting over her newborn baby girl, she took a look at me and complimented me by saying that I look good. It was a genuine compliment, and it meant a lot to me. I take it as a sign that she has seen me evolve from a young boy to a man, though not fully evolved yet. We’re far apart enough that she has seen me grow into who I am today. We discussed many things, ranging from my career to my dating life, to my sexuality. For the first time, I remember feeling like someone sees me for who I want to be seen as. That feeling is intoxicating but makes every negative experience I’ve had in my life worth it. She loves me for who I am authentically being, which is simply the validation I need.

Getting to this point was constant work, and I am still a work in progress. I am far from a perfect person, and I know there are people out there who don’t like me and there will always be people who don’t like me. The difference now, is quite simply, that I don’t care. I don’t have the time or the energy in my life to make someone like me anymore, or to be something I am not. It contributed to the dark places I was in in my past, and would only derail the progress I have made into who I am today. I am an embodiment of stereotypes and peculiars. I am an athlete who makes sure his hair looks good before going out in the morning and night. I am outspoken about politic issues, but will throw in a YAS QUEEN to keep you on your toes. I am loyal to those in my life yet will still tell them when they need to get it together. I treat people the way I want to be treated, and I strive to make a difference in the world (though I don’t think I’ve done that yet).

I write these words because I see and read about so many people out there struggling. When Pulse was attacked, it felt all the progress the LGBT community was taken away with a single bullet, never mind 49 that caused death. Seeing all these terrorist attacks occur in the world I live in, that we live in, is constantly reminding me that life is short and unpredictable. While I demand change as hard as I can, I also live as hard as I can each day. I refuse to give up, to surrender, to not be myself for anyone. By doing so, they win. The 6^th grade Mike overcome his fears, his enemies, the people who tried to make me into something I am not. But the 24-year-old version of Michael stands for nothing like that. I am here to live one life, and you can be damn sure it will be my best life. No longer am I afraid of locker rooms, and I say this as an openly gay man. I have no fear of confined spaces where my sexuality is ever an issue for anyone else because that is exactly who has the issue - anyone else.

It isn’t easy trying to be yourself in a world that is genuinely built on tearing people apart. We have people out there, like Donald Trump, making a mockery out of cultures, races, sexualities, genders, and religions while also apparently a serious candidate for President of the United States. I refuse, however, to let that deter me from my goal in life. To be unapologetically and authentically myself. If someone does not like it, the adult version of me thinks that it sounds like a personal problem for you. I am who I am, I am what I am, and I will be who I will be. Deal with it.