“I came out when I was 18. I had internal homophobia, but it’s something I wasn’t really comfortable talking about a few years ago. I’d often cry since it was so hard to talk about. It’s all these factors: society, culture, and people who have said homophobic things that have played into me having it. But I’ve become so much more comfortable, not with the idea of internalized homophobia, but the fact that it’s part of my identity and it’s who I was and that’s okay. I think one of the reasons I had internalized homophobia was because I grew up in Guyana and it’s a very heterosexual society. Heterosexuality, like in any other place, is idealized and romanticized in different ways and I felt like I had to be that. Society taught me to hate gay people and homosexuality in general. Society shaped my perception of homosexuality and I don’t want to blame everything on society, but it does play a factor in me suppressing all of that and I can’t ignore it. At first when I came to the United States, I thought I was comfortable to come out but I still waited 4 years. I wouldn’t say I’ve gone through a lot because I’ve had friends that have gone through way more. The hardest part of coming out was realizing that if I came out, I might lose certain people who meant a lot to me and I value relationships, so it was really hard and made me wonder if this was something I wanted to do. It taught me what unconditional love really was. To be able to come out as something society doesn’t really idealize and still know that people will have your back. It took a long time to get here, but I’m here. I’ve learned don’t let the label define you, you define the label.”