Edgar

Edgar, age 6

Bellwood, IL (1993)

I've always wondered if my parents ever thought I could've been gay when I was a kid. I mean, look at this pose! I guess they had little to no Gaydar, thanks to all those books on the shelf behind me. My parents were (and still are) devout Jehovah's Witnesses.

"The son of a preacher man"

I first felt different around the time this pic was taken, but I didn't have a word for it till I was 13. Strangely enough, seeing this again kind of makes me want to have kids of my own.

Probably because I want to make-up for my parents raising me in a pretty homophobic religion.

I was a bit of a nerd growing up and I got caught up in the Power Rangers and Pokémon. I loved Disney movies, but only during the late 80's/early 90's Disney Renaissance! As I hit puberty, I was a die-hard N*Sync and Britney Spears fan.

My message to young LGBTQ kids, is that they're the vanguard in a long movement where we've all fought for a long time, to just be ourselves.

All that fighting has won them the right to feel perfectly comfortable in their skin. However, if anyone gets in the way of that, they can be sure there are plenty of people who will  back them up and support them.

Edgar's first, famous-person same sex crush:

Val Kilmer & Chris O'Donnell (in "Batman Forever")

Ooh - all that rubber, and especially those abs and pecs...