- If you're ashamed of who you are
and you're feeling like no one else is gonna get me,
it's not true.
(gentle music)
- I am a fully out lesbian woman
and I was raised in a Jehovah's Witness household.
- I grew up Roman Catholic in Houston, Texas.
Yes, the south and land of Beyonce.
- I grew up in a religious household.
It was very strict and unloving.
- I grew up in an Orthodox Jewish community.
- I grew up in a Catholic household.
- I got baptized when I was a senior in high school
and then I ended up going to
a really conservative Christian college.
- I grew up in a very Catholic religious household.
We're also part of the Charismatic Renewal Group.
So, we were even deeper into the church.
- I realized really quickly how the church viewed queerness
and it was not positive.
- Just because this is my Catholic experience
does not mean that every Catholic person
or every Catholic experience was like this,
but for me in my small town,
the way that Catholicism was expressed
was very aggressively.
- I would hear a lot of sermons talking about
"the lifestyle" that I am living
is deeming me to hell.
So I kept it a secret for so long.
- But one chaplain in particular, the pastor is up there
saying that he took a trip with his family to Puerto Rico,
and that he saw men holding hands together
and was wondering, "Why did I pay all this money
to have to see something like that?
The atrocity. The sin."
And I remember sitting there feeling so crappy
because essentially he was talking about me.
- There were lots of strict rules
and laws that we had to stick to.
It made it very, very hard to be able to express myself.
- Most of the time,
I just felt like I was a walking contradiction.
I didn't identify with the person that I was portraying
to the outside world.
- I actually really enjoyed singing in mass,
but then when it came down to being gay,
it wasn't something I felt accepted with.
- So one of my most embarrassing and hurtful times
was when, I as the choir director,
one of the tenors are saying
in a nice beautiful tenor voice,
"Reggie is a (beep)"
Nobody. Nobody stood up and said a word for me.
That was absolutely devastating.
- I was taught that being gay was plain old, wrong.
You know, you were going to hell.
- I remember before I came out,
it felt like I had already lost everybody in my life.
- Growing up queer and black,
I really was just trying to survive.
- So much of me was so scared
that my parents, that my community, that my friends,
would no longer support me.
- For the longest time, I thought I was the only one.
- There wasn't examples of someone like me
when I was growing up
that told me it was okay to be who I was.
- Realizing that I was a part of the LGBT community
was very empowering on one hand,
but on the other hand, it was also very scary.
- Every single week after I came out that I went to church,
I would just pray that the news hadn't spread.
- I felt dirty.
I didn't feel like I could be myself.
- I felt ashamed of who I was at first.
I felt very ashamed. I tried to pray it away.
- I left the church when I was 16 years old
because I told my mother I don't wanna come here anymore.
I heard a lot of things about,
"Don't do this, don't do that",
but I did not hear very much about love.
And when I read the Bible,
I was seeing a lot of things about love.
- And then I had a lot of conversations with myself
and with God.
I just came to the conclusion
that it was okay to be who I was.
- When I came out, I lost most of my friends
and then I moved across the country
and made so many amazing friends
that loved me not despite who I was,
but because of who I was.
- Once I went away out of state for college,
I kind of allowed myself to truly explore who I was.
- In New York city, I could be 100% Reginald anywhere I am.
And if I can't be 100% Reginald anywhere I am,
I don't go there.
- It was a very long journey
to come to where I am with my parents now,
but I think it's a great place.
Is there still room to grow? Yes.
But I think that where we're at
is a place that I never thought we would be
even three years ago.
- My relationship with my mother has grown stronger.
- I didn't come out to my mother
until actually I was 19 years old.
She smiled and said, "Reginald, I kind of thought so.
But, I never taught you who to love.
I just taught you to love.
And no matter who you are or what you do,
you'll always be my son and I will always love you."
- I've learned to love myself because I deserve to.
I deserve love.
- I feel safer,
even in a world that is still not safe for me.
I still feel safer 'cause I know
that I'm living the life that I want to live.
- I think that I'm finally at a place
where I am 100% confident in my sexuality
and no part of me feels ashamed or hidden
or like a problem anymore.
And if you are a person of faith
who does love and accept all queer identities
and all people in general,
let that be known.
- If you are an LGBTQ youth
that are living in an intolerant environment,
I know that you probably can't get away but know this,
you are completely loved and you're completely lovable
just because you are enough.
- If you are being made to feel
that your sexuality is inherently wrong,
that is a reflection of them and not you.
- People are gonna make you feel otherised,
sectioned off, like a sinner,
and you know what?
That's not your problem. That is now your problem.
Your one job in this life is to be authentic, period.
- And if they don't love you,
there's a whole community of queer people
who will embrace you and love you as their own.
- You are not alone.
- I mean, I'm sitting right here.
Do you see my queer body? I'm literally right here.
- You are not a sinner.
- You are worthy of love.
- There is a world out there that wants to celebrate you.
- You just got to find it.
- I think God made me the exactly the way I'm supposed to be
and that's the end of it.
- And I'm a proud and out lesbian woman.
God, it is like really great to say that.
- Today, I can say I'm a proud, queer man,
who loves to gender bend and explore his sexuality
in a way that I truly never thought that I would.
- My name is Reginald Thomas Brown.
My pronouns are, they and them.
I am a queer, gender non-conforming, black revolutionary,
who is loving my life like it's gold.
(bright music)