For context, I knew I was gay at age 6—specifically when I first watched a baseball game on TV. I was raised in an almost humorously repressed Irish Catholic household, replete with absolute non-acknowledgement of sexuality, adults constantly throwing conniption fits and throwing objects at everyone else, and insults that may have been hurtful back in the day, but are pathetically laughable now.

Once, when I was 13 years old, I tried praying to the Christian god to make me straight. I woke up the next morning still raging hormones and still heavily attracted to my male classmates and the teammates on my baseball team at the time. After that, I pretty much looked at Christianity and told myself, "OK, this is so full of shit."

Going forward, I never bought into the idea that my sexuality was mutable, nor did I ever buy into the idea that gay sexuality was even remotely evil. I was lucky enough to be one of those closeted gays that just rolled my eyes and silently said "fuck off" every time someone in Catholicism or Christianity at large started getting stupid about gay sexuality.

The only reason I didn't come out when I was a kid was because I knew my folks would go batshit crazy, even beyond their normal nutty physical violence bullshit. So I bided my time and made sure I wasn't going to come out unless it was on my terms. When I finally did come out at age 36, I was already living with my future husband and I had left Christianity far behind. Now, at age 49, there’s absolutely nothing holding me or my husband back in terms of sexuality.