This piece comes with a trigger warning for suicide/death of LGBT youth, hate crimes/violence (that result in death), homophobia, and general mental health talk. This piece was not edited or proofread in order to keep it as raw as it came out of me.

This one is for all the kids who, like me, at the ripe old age of ten, had to figure out how to download Queer as Folk onto their family computer without their parents noticing, even if it was in a quality that looked like it had been shot through a potato moreso than a camera lens and had Mandarin subtitles that took up half the screen.

This one is for the ones who have that weird crush that they think is ‘just jealousy’ on the girl they carpool with, because she is objectively pretty, right, but you also have a crush on the guy who plays guitar in your homeroom and that has to mean you’re straight, right?

And it’s for those who hide that revelation that comes sometime in your teen years that maybe, just maybe, your dad won’t walk you down the aisle, because you maybe, just maybe, will fall in love with someone who is the same gender as you are, and you give up on that dream, you watch that future with the family you were supposed to have die.

This is for those who start the fight young, and those who start the fight old, and those who are just starting the fight, and those ready to tap out of the ring.