“I found a family who loves and accepts me, no matter what.”

You do NOT want to be gay in my home community. If a guy does something that’s considered “faggoty” there’s a pretty good chance he’ll be beaten up, badly too.

So I kept my mouth shut even though I was pretty sure I was gay. I would go and sleep with women to be like everyone else, but I needed to be wasted to do it usually, so you can imagine how sexy that was.

When I was younger I’d walk along the wrong side of the highway in the dark, just kind of tempting fate I guess. But I got lucky and never got hit or anything.

When I got out of high school I moved to another province for work, and when I was online one night I found this Web site that talked about gay native people as “two spirits.” This was complete news to me; I had never heard of the idea.

Basically it talked about how there used to be the belief in a third gender that was both male and female, and they used to be respected as healers or warriors even. It was an honour. It really made me wonder what happened since then!

So now that I was in a city, I decided to go to a meeting of two-spirited people—Aboriginals who are gay, lesbian or transgendered. It was a small meeting but more people came later on. Now I feel like they are almost my other family.

When I go home to visit my actual family I’m not out--not really. I’ve told my mom and my sister and they are okay, mostly, but they worry that I will say the wrong thing and get hurt. So I stay quiet. But at least I know I’m not alone and I hope that people will open their minds.