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My name’s Blair and I’m from Crystal Lake, Illinois.

Something I guess most people probably do know about me is that I went to 13 years of Catholic school. And usually when I tell people that, I get the same reaction of, “Ugh, God, I’m sorry…” but since I went from kindergarten through high school, it’s the only thing I ever knew and it seemed perfectly normal. Most people assume though that if you go to Catholic school that it’s hard growing up gay, and to be perfectly honest, I didn’t notice much of a problem or much of a difference than it seemed like for anyone else. I mean, I guess not every kindergartner brought their own hair product and comb to the kindergarten class photo shoot–which I probably spiked my hair straight up or claimed that hot pink was my favorite color in the yearbook for kindergarten, but no, I didn’t really have any trouble with any of the people. Until middle school. Then I guess things start to change for all of us.

A girl actually wrote on the playground equipment that, “Blair is a sissy” which doesn’t seem like that big of a deal right now but at the time of course it was very depressing for someone to just outright put that in public like that. And I found out later that my mom, who was a teacher at my school, went to the principal and asked that it be removed and she said that if we want it removed that we could do it ourselves. And my mom said it was ridiculous, why would you treat a student like this? And she said to my mom, “Well, some people think there’s a lot of truth to that…”

So after that I ended up in Greenville, South Carolina, for my last years of high school. I was at the top of my class and my headmaster went to my drama teacher who had become my mentor and like another mother to me, and asked if I was going to come out in my graduation speech. And that was like the rumor that was going around, because apparently that could be the most terrible thing that could ever happen. I was just so shocked that someone–you know, for a student who was working so hard and was participating so much, that they would think that little of me.

You know, your peers can be stupid and ignorant but they kind of grow out of it but what I was surprised to learn is that the adults who are in charge of looking after the education and lives of these kids could be as ignorant and narrow-minded as the students.

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