You hear a lot of stories about people growing up in homophobic families or towns and having to hide who they are; fortunately, I was never that child. I grew up in California and had seen many gay couples throughout my years in school. It was never a subject I brought up with my parents or friends in a negative way. Although growing up I thought that I was straight, I came to realize that was not the case a few years ago. Since then I have had to have that dreaded conversation many times. "Well yeah, I know I used to be into guys, but now I'm into girls too" wasn't something my family or people I grew up with quite understood. I am lucky enough that most people accepted it and loved me just the same. It's taken some of my family a while to come around and accept that I may actually marry a woman instead of a man, but I'm thankful I never really had to experience too much hate for it. I think this is because California as a whole is mostly a democratic state and people there tend to be more accepting.

Now, this is not to say that I didn't feel the need to hide who I was from strangers or go along with the "you'll find a good boy in college soon" conversation. I did, and I hated it. I experienced that far more in my college town of Wilmington, North Carolina, then I ever did back home in California. When I first came out, the only person who knew at my school was my best friend, Ashley. I cried in her car for half an hour because I was scared she would stop talking to me when I had told her I thought I had a crush on a girl. Thankfully, she just laughed and hugged me and told me she didn't care who I liked, as long as they treated me right. She was the only one in Wilmington who knew about my sexuality for about 8 months. I was afraid of telling anyone (no matter where they lived or how long I knew them) for a while. But I came out to almost everyone back home before 3 people here in Wilmington knew. I blame that fear on the fact that I was living in the south and I wasn't aware of everyone's standing on the issue. I was honestly afraid that most people would shun me or worse. I was part of an organization on campus that was like my family. We all adored each other and spent hours on hours together each week. I told five out of about 60 of those members before I graduated.

Once I graduated and moved to Los Angeles, I was a lot more comfortable being who I was. I posted more publicly about it and I told more people. I never had one conversation with any of those 60 members about it though. Some of them unfollowed me when they found out and some have treated me exactly the same. I've learned living in two completely different places that some people are not born and raised to accept others who are not like them. That doesn't make it okay, but it's something I tell myself to make it easier for me to understand.

I've travelled to a lot of different places and I've learned that some places it's a lot easier and a lot safer to be yourself than it is in others. I've been in a serious relationship for almost a year now and being out and proud isn't always easy to do in every place we travel. I find that I don't fear holding my girlfriend's hand when we're in private, or walking through the streets of Los Angeles or New York but we both glance around to check our surroundings before we touch when we're in places like Wilmington or Annapolis. We're mistaken for best friends constantly. It is expected for us to be 'looking for boyfriends' when we go out together instead of enjoying a night out with our significant other. We have learned to be careful, it is our instinct to make sure that we aren't surrounded by people who could find us holding hands as repulsive or a 'sin.'

This past summer my girlfriend and I took a three-week road trip across the country. We travelled through California, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Michigan, Chicago, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, and ended our trip in Wilmington. Each city and place we stayed in was a different experience overall obviously, but we also had to act differently based on where we were. I don't think we held hands or even touched too long in public when we were in Oklahoma. I think we as members of the LGBTQ community have a sixth sense, where we can tell if it's safe or not to be ourselves. I wish this wasn't true and that people felt comfortable showing love no matter who it was with and where they were, but unfortunately that is not the case. I can walk through Los Angeles and feel comfortable enough having a stranger take a cute picture of me and my girlfriend. Hell, sometimes we even kiss in them. Although in Michigan a friend was taking our photo in front of a breath-taking sunset and it took all of us looking around at the strangers on the beach to make sure they weren't paying too much attention, before we could kiss for the picture. I remember my heart was beating so fast and not just because I was about to kiss a beautiful woman, but because I was terrified of the reaction we might cause.

While gay rights have come a long way in the last fifty years, there is still so much to accomplish. While yes, I can legally marry my girlfriend in all 50 states, I can't kiss her in public without fear in certain places. We can legally marry, but there are still people everywhere trying to take that away from us. Just because we have laws in place to protect our love and protect us as people, doesn't mean there aren't people who will break those laws out of hate. One day I hope that I only feel butterflies in my stomach when I'm with my girlfriend in public, instead of that all too familiar fear.