by Erica Nix

I’m Erica Nix. I’m from Arlington, Texas. Arlington, when I was growing up, was a pretty conservative place. It wasn’t really that cool to be different, and I al...

by Alfred Engstrand

Hello, my name is Alfred Engstrand. I’m from San Antonio, Texas.  When I was 25 years old, I was approached by an older gentleman who needed my help to run his restaurant, In 48 hours, the business, she inherited the restaurant, our home that we just got. My father, for the first time came to my rescue, and he was worried about me, and he thought I ...

by Ivy Le

Hi, I’m Ivy Le from Dallas, Texas. I thought everybody was bisexual. My family immigrated from Vietnam, so I actually grew up in two really conservative cultures; VietnameseAnd I was like, “Okay, I think I got what you’re saying now.” And it was then, because I had the awareness, I was ready for these calls to action. I immediately ...

by Mary Ann Horton

My name is Mary Ann Horton, and I’m from San Diego, California.  Think back to 1997. I was a closeted cross-dresser working for Lucent Technologies in Columbus, Ohio. I kneSo I was ready for my first day at work as Mary Ann. I’d waited until I had a good reason to do it. On National Coming Out Day, in 1998, we had a gay couple that owned a res...

by Rick Anderson

Hi, I’m Rick Anderson. I’m from Pearland, Texas. I grew up in the Clear Lake, Friendswood area in my early childhood in the eighties and nineties. And it was a communiAnd as that was happening, I reached out to that wonderful Baylor lawyer and it was just called them out of the blue. I think I was kind of panicking at the time. I called him and...

by Irina Groushevaia

My name is Irina Groushevaia and I’m from Moscow, Russia.  When I was 16 years old, I was living with my estranged father because my mom abandoned me, and it was a difficulSt. Petersburg is on water so in the winter, it’s very very cold because it’s also very humid. And I was like, I can’t keep walking around and I just went to the airport to ...

by Tabytha Gonzalez

I’m Tabytha Gonzalez, pronouns she and her, and I’m from Newark, New Jersey.  I first came to New York City. I was with my dance crew, or a dance crew that I was a pa...

by Kirsten

My name is Kirsten and I’m from Queens, New York.  So when I was growing up, me and my aunt, my mother’s sister, were very close. There was an intensity to that closeAnd I had been suspecting at that point for years that she was, so I finally just asked her, “Are you queer?” I didn’t say, “Are you queer?” I was li...

by SJ

I’m SJ. I’m from Dallas, Texas.  I grew up in a house where it wasn’t really normal for us to talk about our feelings. That was really difficult for me. As a chSo after toiling over this decision for a really long time and really thinking through all of my fears about it, I realized that it was something I had to do. I couldn’t con...