I’m Deshawn Timothy and I live in Philadelphia but I’m from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, and I’ve been here for about nine years.

I’m moving shortly, in about two months, and I ran across a picture of my great-great-grandmother. She passed away when I was like 16 but I have so many memories of her. I just remember this one time, I was learning my sexuality I guess you could say that, but I remember this one kid in my Kindergarten class, this kid named Adam, I remember having a crush on him so hard, I don’t even–when you’re 5, you’re like whatever, I just remember being like, “Oh my God, Adam, I want to play with Adam.” Adam was a cutie, I remember him being on the chubby side. I don’t know, he was this cute little white kid and we’d just color and played together and recess, it was just Adam, Adam, Adam. I just remember one day going to church with my grandmother and we passed Adam’s house, and I was like, “Mum-Mum, Mum-Mum, Mum-Mum! My boyfriend lives there!” And she’s like, “What? No. Don’t ever–don’t ever say that.” And I was like, “Why? But he’s my boyfriend. I love him.” And she’s just like, “No. Do not say that.” I didn’t really question it or anything because I always just did what she said. She’s a very hard-going, Christian, Pentecostal lady, and that’s just so funny for a 5-year-old who doesn’t know anything that, he just knows he likes Adam, he loves Adam to death, and he tells his Grandmum who he tells anything in the world, and the only time she ever got mad at him was when he told her that he liked a boy.

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