The church bells ring on a Sunday morning as their sounds travel down the street in the downtown center of my childhood, New Jersey town. As a young boy, I went to church every Sunday with my family. We would pray at dinner and practice normal Christian behaviors in our home. However, this lasted fairly shortly. When I was 9, my family and I stopped going to church. We felt as though some of the values in our church did not fit our ideologies. We were much more liberal than the majority of people that were involved in our church's community. As my extended family still attended church every Sunday, my immediate family and I stayed at home on Sundays and spent them doing other activities. My mother was raised Christian and my father was raised Jewish so our home was always one that did not have biases or prejudice towards any group of people. This came as a benefit to me when I came out when I was 16 years old. My mother and father did not have an issue with it at all but even though they did not, that does not mean other people did not have the same accepting mindset.
Growing up in a town comprised of mostly white, Christian, straight people, I did not see any representation of homosexuality until I frequently started blogging when I was about 13. It was really difficult walking into my middle school and basically being called a "fag" on a daily basis. I was called a "fag" because I was not the typical sporty, active young male. I was skinny and short. I liked pop music and broadway shows. I enjoyed playing video games and most of my friends were girls. I could never have a sleepover with my best friends before I came out because they were all girls and I never really had many male friends to have sleepovers with. All of these experiences in my childhood had me suppress my true personality until I came out. Being in this community of a white patriarchy made me introverted and sad. Very, very sad.
Not only could I not have normal situations at school, but my extended family was not always the greatest support system. I would have family members tell me to put down my Pokémon games and pick up a football. Little did they know that Pokémon made me happier than a football ever could. They associated my slender aesthetic with being gay. "Drama queen," "sissy" and "fag" is what I would be called by some members of my extended family. My parents would defend me, but they all made me feel like being gay and being different was a bad thing. I was told to eat more because I was "too skinny." They would always call me gay like it was a bad thing to be. I was never praised for my accomplishments by most of my extended family. That paired with their dislike of me not being a sporty, "normal" boy made me dislike myself even more. I never understood why being myself and liking what I liked was not good enough for them and I do not think I ever will.
However, now that I am a grown-up, openly gay 20-year-old man living in 2016, I can say that these memories of my childhood no longer affect me. I have a wonderful group of people in my life that I am glad to call my friends and my parents and brothers have been supportive of me with everything I do in my life. I have learned that even though somebody may be blood related that they may not truly be your family. Family is a group of people who love you and if that happens to be your blood-related relatives, than that's who your family is. To me, my family is those who constantly care about me and support me throughout every endeavor in my life. Growing up as a closeted gay child was a hard, gruesome experience that eventually lead to the blossoming of my personality and with that, I have found true happiness.
