When I was 5 they asked me if I was a girl. When I was 8 they started calling me gay. When I was ten I heard the f-slur for the first time. When I was 12 the gym teacher told me to stop running "like that".
When I was in high school the administration told me if I wanted the bashing from the other kids to stop I should stop acting "that way". When I was 19 the first manager I met with suggested I take voice lessons so I wouldn't sound "...you know".
When I did my first play a New York Times review referred to me as "mannered, but perhaps that's what the director intended." My first LA agent told me there was a concern I was "too gay for Los Angeles" and should consider going back to New York.
My next agent for years routinely told me my inability to pass was costing me jobs and I should simply stop acting so gay. I auditioned for actual gay characters and was told I was too gay to play them.
I was fired from an on-air series for being gay. A director screamed at me across the set to "butch it up", another pulled me behind a flat to tell me there was a real concern that I was coming across gay, but she knew I could fix it if I tried.
I'm still asked routinely why I have to make my gayness such a big deal, such a huge part of my identity, and I can only respond with "I didn't. You did."
And I'm so fucking glad I'm gay, identifiably, irrefutably gay with a capital G. Every best part of me is intrinsically linked to my gayness.
Happy #NationalComingOutDay. I see you. I love you.
And I forgive you.
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