A Letter to My Younger Self & Gay Boys Like Him

By Brian Moniz

I couldn’t help but look. A muscular chest, beautiful legs. I tried to keep my eyes locked ahead on my own locker, away from my teammate. I don’t know if he noticed me looking. I shouldn’t be looking. I shouldn’t want to look. Because I’m straight.

… aren’t I?

I’ll never forget the first time I checked out another guy. I don’t just mean looking over and acknowledging their physique, but I mean really checking them out.

Boys don’t look at other boys, we’re supposed to look at girls. That’s what everyone tells you growing up. You don’t see two men kissing for an Abercrombie & Fitch billboard promoting a new men’s cologne, or two women holding hands for a Levi’s jeans magazine ad. Turn on the television and you’ll see heterosexual couples raising families and taking each other to the movies and fancy dinners. And don’t get me started on Hollywood — every action movie on earth ends with a chiseled, ripped macho-masculine badass rescuing a big-breasted, beautiful damsel from an evil villain with enough screen time left to show them hitting the bedroom as the credits roll.

It’s a heteronormative world.

As a gay adult today, teenage and young-adult years are impossible to erase. All that time wasted in the closet, hiding, crying and wanting to kill myself. Refusing to live as something looked down upon and hated.

If only I could go back and let my younger self know everything is going to be okay. The 15-year-old me was at a loss, unsure of how to come out knowing it would lead to three years of further torment. He could only imagine a high school experience plagued by bullies and slurs hurled from every direction.

It was a lonely existence never quite knowing if I’d find the time and strength to be who I truly was. If only I could say, “You’re going to get through this, and when you do, you’re going to be stronger and happier than you’ve ever been.”

That teenager is still a part of me, and it is finally time that he receives some reassurance. Some hope for a better tomorrow.

Dear Brian,

It’s unfair — the pain you’re in. The sadness, doubt and fear is consuming, brought on by an injustice the world is still working to solve. But this suffering, however unbearable, has an end.

It is simultaneously breaking you down and building you up; the character and integrity you develop as a result of this experience will make you stronger. And there are others like you, right now. Others you wouldn’t expect. Years from now in a gay bar in the Castro district in San Francisco, you’ll encounter the familiar face of the boy who bullied you. He called you ‘faggot’ and ‘queer,’ and there he is holding hands with another man.

Who knows what high school would have been like had we known our main bully was in the closet himself. But I like to think he and I are better people now, people who understand how to rise above hatred, even when it’s directed at ourselves. Empathy and compassion only come if you have been a victim of their absence when you needed it most.

I want to tell you one more thing, just for reassurance. You’re going to come out in May 2014. You’re going to meet a guy who makes you feel so happy about being gay that you’ll be ready and prepared to let go of everyone in your family just for this one guy. You will finally know what it means to love someone and be loved back. You will prepare yourself in the event that your family outcasts you. But you will not need to. Everyone in your family — from your compassionate and loving mother, to your strong, supportive father, to even your brother who terrorized you as kids — will fully accept, understand, and love you.

In the years to come, this country is going to be flooded with pop stars, singers, actors and other celebrities who are completely out and loving it. They will make America love and accept people like us. Lady Gaga, an out-and-proud bisexual, will be the biggest pop star in the world for years. One of the top talk-shows in America will hosted by a lesbian comedian. Glee, a show with many gay characters in high school, will be a wildly popular TV show in its heyday.

Modern Family will be a very successful mainstream comedy that includes a family with two dads. HBO’s Looking will be a show about gay friends in the San Francisco area dealing with love, loss, work, relationships, and family. We might as well be watching ourselves in ten years!

I know you’re thinking, “But I still can’t come out now or even in the next couple years.” But you don’t have to! Go at your own pace, come out when you’re ready. You’ve got nothing to worry about. You don’t have to pressure yourself now. Just trust me that everything is going to be okay.

Remember to be good to yourself and love yourself. This is all just a temporary hurdle that you will cross one day very soon, and when looking back on it when you’re my age, it will look like a distant memory that you will file in your mind and almost never brush up on again.

Love,

Your older self and all those who were like you

About the Author

Brian Moniz is a 28-year-old man from San Jose, Calif. He studied filmmaking and writing at San Jose State University from 2010–2013 and got his bachelor’s degree in Radio-TV-Film. Throughout his high school and college years, he worked as a music and movie journalist and critic. Having only recently come out of the closet himself in 2014, Brian enjoys writing about LGBTQ issues. His only regret when it comes to his sexuality is that he didn’t come out sooner. Read more by Brian here.