2/8
"My parents are very religious and had a huge issue with homosexuality. It had been so ingrained in me from birth and for 25 years of my life that it was wrong, and that you're going to hell, and there were reasons you felt that way, and you just needed to live a good life and you wouldn't feel that way.
Figuring out I was gay was as big a surprise to me as anybody else. I wasn't, I am gay, and I need to come out. It was never that. For me it was, Am I gay? I don't know. I should figure this out. Am I gay or not? I don't -- What? No.
In college, I was an overachiever for sure. I was getting straight As. I was on all the committees. I was dating a different guy every year. I probably had three significant guy relationships in my history and every breakup, every time, my attitude was the same as having a flat tire on my car. I wouldn’t have any emotion around it. My first breakup with a woman, I was devastated for a year. The first time I kissed a woman I was like, Oh, so this is what it’s supposed to be. I’ve often thought that if Glee had been on TV back then -- or there had been any representation of LGBT characters in entertainment -- I think I would’ve put two and two together much sooner.
I came out to my mom and dad first with the eight-page letter, and it did not go well. I ricocheted like a ball in a handball court for years because they're your mom and dad. It's not just Mom and Dad – it's home, and its history, and it's a lot of love. I’m literally everything I am because of my parents. I didn't have a bad childhood. I've never had anything but love and support and being told that I could do anything I wanted to do.
It was very difficult to feel like I was going against the people that had been so incredibly supportive of me.
I was struggling with the gay thing. Like, I don’t know how to do this. And my pattern my whole life when I’m struggling with something I’m not good at – I often gravitate or hide in the thing I AM good at. And that was work."
2/8