Easy. I waited until 1994 when I moved away to go to college. I hid it from everyone in my small town, even though I knew what I liked by the time I was about 11 years old. I decided to wait until I could far away from that place. I told my mom over the phone and she said, “Yeah, I knew that already.” Super easy. So was I in college. When I moved away to go to college, I stayed away most of the time. I found work to support myself to avoid coming home for the summer every year until I graduated. After graduation, I worked to stay away. I came back home for holidays only. My older brothers were a real problem for me, plus the people in the town I was afraid of. One of my brothers confronted me, yelling at me at Christmas in 1995. He attacked me and I kicked his sorry ass. After that, no issues. I found back then that it was very helpful to your own cause coming out if you could fend for yourself, depend on yourself, and keep the homophobes at a distance.
My first pride was in Toronto, mid 1990s. It was fun. For some reason I attracted the attention of the leather crowd even though I wasn’t into leather. I hung out with the leather people for like four days. It was fun and educational. Made lots of new friends, hooked up with guys who were like me, not into leather, and had a blast. The leather community back then was super tight and friendly to everybody. Still have friends from that time when I met them.