This was a weekend game night at my mom’s house. I was always trying to entertain my family with my best supermodel pose, way before the age of supermodels. The terry-cloth hot pants still kill me! They were my everyday shorts; all the other clothing was my mom’s. I also remember that this was the first time my older brother—whom I idolized—called me a fag. The hardest part of being called names like that was knowing they were right. I couldn’t prove them wrong. And it really created a sense of doom inside me. That feeling lasted until I finally got out of Virginia at age eighteen and began to live my life.
