Gay Man Acknowledges Sexuality at Catholic High School Retreat, Then Comes Out to Mom [Video]

[Music]

i’m trevor mcrae and i’m from baltimore

maryland in my family there’s a rule i

don’t know about yours but

it’s an unspoken rule that family

business stays within the family and if

there’s anything about you

that the family needs to know they

should be finding out about it from you

it was my senior year of high school i

was 17 years old at an all boys

catholic high school

which as you can imagine for queer

people sounds like

torture but for me it wasn’t i was

actually really well known i was really

i guess you could call me popular i

wouldn’t say that about myself

but i was known as the voice of the

mount

one of three students to do the morning

announcements every day and i was well

known because i started with good

morning

every day so we went on a retreat

our senior year it was about march just

a few months before graduation and the

whole class went all at one time to this

house out

45 minutes or so outside of baltimore in

the country it was a time of bonding and

of building and cementing our

brotherhood it was really amazing they

culminated the experience with

everyone going around the room and first

apologizing so there was a lot of

apologies to go around so we had a clean

slate and then afterwards we went back

around the room and everyone started to

give thanks and talk about what we were

grateful for and what we appreciated

about our experience

those last four years together so it got

to my turn and

i did not plan this at all i did not

pre-meditate what i was going to say i

said to the group thanks so much for

being cool with it

i didn’t say the word gay i said the

word it and everybody got it the queer

people in the class afterwards they all

hugged me and said thanks for being

being willing to do that and

even the jocks who i had great

relationships with and never had an

issue with that me up and said that was

cool so on the bus ride home i was

reflecting over the retreat and the time

that we all spent together how excited i

was for us to get back and get ready for

graduation and figure out where we were

going to college and everything and i

realized

i

completely broke the rule

of family business

i told my class and my friends

about me being gay before i even told my

own family later that night

feeling i don’t know i don’t know if i

was feeling guilty

but i was definitely uncomfortable

i called my mom down from downstairs i

told her to come up to my room

it was pitch black

i had no tv on no lights on no cell

phones out

we laid on my bed and i could tell that

she knew something was going on

i started to tell her about the retreat

and the day that i had and me thanking

everybody i told her that i thanked them

for being cool with it

and then i elaborated for her

it

was the fact that i’m gay

she said to me i love you

but i can’t help being disappointed

so she was disappointed yes not because

i had told people ahead of time which

definitely made me feel better but just

the bare fact that i was gay

meaning

i guess to her her only baby

might not be having babies

i can understand and empathize with her

position

but

i also

knew myself at the time and

know myself now and

i really didn’t care what mattered was

that she told me she loved me because i

knew that was the most important part

and

i knew that whatever her disappointments

may be

she would live with them because i

wasn’t going to be changing

from then on for the rest of

my days here i’ve lived open

proud

out my relationship with my mom and both

of my parents really has

very much vastly improved um

we are closer than ever even though

we’re further apart in distance than uh

we ever have been i have

been able to introduce my mom to one of

my partners in the past i am

so openly queer that my dad uh drove me

by a

bar called beefcakes a couple of weeks

ago in south africa he knew i would love

it so since that moment i have never

referred to my queerness as it i don’t

hide in the dark

i will not allow darkness to

creep over my life

and i definitely will not

push

the person that i love

or the people that i love

into the dark the way that i had to do

or felt like i had to do when i was a

teenager

[Music]

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