Most of us start college thinking that we have a good understanding of who we are and this complex culture that surrounds us. After several blackouts, college courses, and life experiences, we realize how little we knew. In my case, those list of experiences also entailed me accepting I was gay. Last month marks a year since I came out to my fraternity. I hope my story will encourage those of you who have been avoiding telling your friends the truth, the will to do so.
Graduating from a small, private, and religious high school in Charleston, SC, I always knew I was different, but I was never exactly sure how. It wasn’t until college that I began to accept just how different I was, I was gay. Keeping these feeling locked away, I had convinced myself that if I ignored how I really felt, I could be just like all my other friends, straight.
Khaki shorts, a button down, and a pair of Sperry’s, I’m your fraternal statistic. A Trump loving political science major who thinks Milo Yiannopoulos’s Dangerous Faggot Tour will be the savior of our college campuses, I rarely agreed with the community that I was a part of.
Eventually the pain and shame of keeping my darkest secret was too much. I told three of my fraternity brothers by February of 2015, all of which were completely supportive. Still, I struggled with accepting who I was. The months that followed involved several drunken nights where I depended on these three to get me through it.
Jumping back to that previous fall, I was elected Recruitment Chairman for the following year. Having a little over a 100 freshman guys sign up for rush each fall compared to the 250 plus women, recruitment is incredibly competitive for all five fraternities on my campus. Being gay in my mind would interfere with my chapter’s chances of having a successful rush. That was something I wasn’t willing to risk for an organization that I spent the last three years building up. To many of you this reasoning may sound foolish, but coming from a religious home and academic background, most of the people I knew did not agree with the homosexual lifestyle. In college I was an incredibly social individual and always had been. I was worried that any new friendships I formed the month before bid day could be taken out of context by the PNM's (Potential New Members) I was recruiting.
By October of 2015 recruitment was over and my chapter had one of the largest pledge classes. I decided then that I was going to stop hiding and accept myself for who I was. Telling our president what I planned on doing two weeks before, I told my fraternity during chapter that Monday night in mid-October. Directly after, I hit the post button on Facebook to tell my story.
The amount of love and support I received was unimaginable. All of my preconceived fears were something that I had made up in my head. Since last October I have not once felt that I have been treated differently. In an age where conservative organizations are inviting Milo Yiannopolous to speak on their campus, this shouldn’t be surprising. I challenge all of you who are feeling the weight that I felt to be honest with yourself, your fraternity, and your friends. Don’t hold it inside like I did for so long. It’s only a conversation.
