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Hey. I'm and I wanted to share my experience of coming out as gay in the Bible Belt.

I first realised I liked guys back in October 2015. I started falling in love with this guy who was a friend of mine in my Boy Scout troop. He didn't exactly share those feelings for me. I had originally written him a letter telling him how I felt about him. He said he was rather surprised, since it came from another dude.

I began dating a good friend of mine, a girl, in December. Most people in our grade said that we would make a great couple. I tried desperately to hang onto the fact I was just bisexual. We dated for two months, then I broke it off because I didn't feel any romantic attraction to her. I toyed with the idea of being fully gay.

So in March of this year, I was outed to my entire troop on a backpacking trip. Only a few kids knew up until then that I identified as bisexual. One kid went and told all the kids of our mostly conservative troop (I live in Knoxville, TN) about my sexual orientation. Luckily, none of the leaders ended up knowing, and my scoutmaster is Southern Baptist and very homophobic. I didn't lose any friends, and everyone seemed to be cool with it. A lot of them made gay cracks, but then again, so did I, and I didn't really care or listen to them. So the kid I like quit, so I was just like, "Oh well. Have a nice day." I got over him pretty quickly, though. I've come to terms with the fact that I'm gay, but I haven't come out to any of my friends yet. I want to wait on that.

So I've learned the hard way that it's impossible to turn a straight guy gay.

That's my journey of being gay in the Bible Belt.