May 25, 2011

Christian

Christian, age 7
Toronto, Canada (1994)

This is me on vacation in Cuba. I picked it for the homoerotic undertones -
I am literally straddling a cannon - and because I was probably encouraged by my parents to climb up and do what I wanted to do. Something not all kids have.


I can truly say that I was born gay. The first time I remember having this idea was when I was in 1st grade. There was a cute girl in my class, and I remember saying to myself, "I like boys the way other boys like girls."

As a kid I was creative and loved art, pretty much only had female friends, hated sports, had effeminate mannerisms, and stuttered, a lot.

I remember my friends were the one Asian guy in my class, the bigger girl, and the tall, lanky girl who got teased a lot. Looking back, all of this didn't lend itself to an easy childhood, but it did help me sympathize with fellow outcasts.

My parents were pretty cool with me doing my own thing. But they were also too busy working to really monitor me, and I ended up watching a lot of TV.

I never wondered whether or not I was gay, though I was briefly enamored with Sporty Spice. I have wondered whether or not it would be easier to conform and hide - or to be "loud and proud" with the things that made me stand out.

The route I choose was clearly the latter, because no matter how hard I tried,
I couldn't hide who I was.

That would be my one suggestion to kids out there: Do what you want to do,
and do it better than anyone else. Gay or straight, you should be happy in life.

Christian's first, famous-person same sex crushes:
John Travolta (in "Grease")
Zachary Ty Bryan (on "Home Improvement")
Ryder Strong (on "Boy Meets World")
Mario Lopez (on "Saved By The Bell")
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Click here - "Born This Way: Real Stories of Growing Up Gay" book
Click here - "My First Gay Crush Blog"
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4 comments:

Kelly L said...

Hi! This is Kelly from I've Become My Mother. I am visiting you today to ask for your help in saving the life of a child... We as writers/bloggers are excellent at getting the word out on so many different issues and topics... We love to write and we have a passion to share the world with others... What I am asking is this - Please visit my site and link up to today's post - the link is below. Please post the post on your Facebook. We need to get word out about bone marrow donations... You and others can get tested simply by ordering your free kit and swabbing your mouth - it's that easy to save a life... Please join me to save Haley and others who need our help.. Thank you and God Bless!
Be A Donor Save A Life Urgent Request

mamapapillon said...

I agree! Fantastic! Thank you for sharing. :)

Unknown said...

Excellent blog. The concept is great and I sincerely hope that this blog will help to shut up all those idiot religious fanatics who tell you that you "chose" a "sinful" lifestyle. Good show, all!

Monsieur David said...

Being 27 and able to give out that info and show a pic when u were 10 is beyond what most others not on here would do. Thank you for sharing and even in Canada I am sure you are comfortable today. Cuba as you know is another story. There is a Netflix GLBTQ vid on there dealing with Cuba.
Watch it and see. Funny as I was 9 and did a cannon too in fort sumpter USA. Funny. Kelly why r u on here?