Last October, I attended a high school Halloween party. A group of guys from my school surrounded me and shouted homophobic slurs. One even threatened me with physical violence. When I broke down crying in class the next day, my teacher comforted me. She told me that she had gone through something similar when she was my age.
On Tuesday, the Florida Senate approved the Parental Rights in Education bill, also known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The bill seeks to ban public schools in the state from teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity from kindergarten through the third grade, or through the twelfth grade in a manner deemed “age-inappropriate” by parents. Had the proposed law been in effect last year, my teacher could have put herself in jeopardy by being there for me.
From an early age I knew I was different. I wasn’t interested in the things other boys my age did, and I didn’t really feel comfortable in the clothes my parents bought me. The struggle for acceptance was not just internal, it also felt like my classmates didn’t know what to make of me. By fourth grade I was convinced that I was broken. I didn’t know how to defend myself when other kids made hateful comments or bullied me — I didn’t know why I was the way that I was. Without the vocabulary to articulate why I felt and acted like this, I assumed what they said about me was true. For most of the kids in my grade, I was the only kid like me they knew.
My life changed the summer before seventh grade. A girl at an arts summer camp turned to me on the first day and asked, “Are you L.G.B.T.Q.?” She explained what each letter meant and showed me pictures of RuPaul on her phone. It felt like a weight had been taken off my shoulders. The realization that I wasn’t the only one saved my life. I remember stepping away and calling my best friend at the time: “Max, I think I am gay.”
When I came home from camp, I became fascinated with learning more about queer culture….