Brianna Hildebrand Quotes

I was conveniently bisexual for a long time, and then I went, 'Come on, who am I kidding?' And I have to say, it was the single biggest step I took toward emotional well-being, to stop feeling like I had to hide who I am.

I remember just calling myself gay was a big step for me, and I remember being in the bathroom brushing my teeth, testing out to myself in the mirror, saying, 'I am gay,' and seeing if the world was going to stop or if the ceiling would fall in on me.

I think for a long time I wasn't really out to myself growing up in Omaha, Neb., to a Catholic conservative family. It took me a while to come out to myself, and not long after that, I came out to them. I think that it really couldn't have been a better experience. They were all immediately supportive.

I realize it's a cliche, almost, that coming out of the closet is a very healthy and empowering thing to do, but for me, it really has been a truly wonderful thing.

Over the years I've realised that there's nothing wrong with me. But there was a long way for me to go to get back to this loud and outgoing kid, and to get to the point where I could say, 'Yeah, I'm gay, so what?'

I watched pretty much every coming out video on YouTube that has ever been posted; I watched it in between 14 and a half and 15. Those coming out videos, and those people on YouTube, those brave, brave, brave people on YouTube, without them, I don't know where I'd be.

Realizing I was gay was a long sort of waking up.

Coming out was painful, but life got so much better for me.

I watched a million coming-out videos, and that was kind of how I accepted it myself.

What's it like to figure out you're gay and then begin the process of coming out? Well, for most of my life, I felt doomed. I could imagine no path that would allow me to realize my authentic self. I felt the need to lie, even to myself, insisting: I am straight.

I think also there was a lot of coming to terms with where I am in life, where I fit in as a gay man in America, and getting more comfortable with who I am.

I think one's sexuality can be the center of life, and coming out and discovering your sexuality is something that really can define your existence.

I didn't happen to be one of those gay kids who knew definitively by the time I was 13.

When I was growing up, I kept hoping that I wasn't really gay because I wanted to have children. I went through a long, tortured period, so the fact that I have been able to be true to myself and have a family has been the nicest surprise of my adulthood.

The difference between being in the closet and out of the closet as a gay man is such a huge shift. I feel so connected still to that 22-year-old, but the idea that I was not open with that part of my life - which I am now so open about - is sort of surreal.

I came out at 17.

Someone said to me a long time ago, 'You're a drag queen,' and at the time I was a little like... hello? But then I realized over the years that I actually am.

'If Our Love Is Wrong' is, quite simply, my coming out song, as I was trying to wrap my head around my sexuality and was starting to learn about songwriting, and that my honesty and my authenticity came from my personal experiences and writing about stuff that genuinely bugged me or upset me.

I came out to one or two people in high school and then it wasn't until I was a freshman in college that I was fully out of the closet. It was like the late '90s.

Transparent' was my coming-out party.

I didn't realize how much me hiding my sexuality also meant that I hid a lot of just my identity as a person.

I came to realize, along with being attracted to girls, I had similar feelings for boys. All the people close to me have known for years who I am. Yet it took time to embrace that other part of who I always was.

I don't remember deciding to become a writer. You decide to become a dentist or a postman. For me, writing is like being gay. You finally admit that this is who you are, you come out and hope that no one runs away.

The gay community just recognizes what their closets are and we straight have to spend years trying to figure out which closet we are trapped in.

Personally, coming out was one of the most important things I've ever done, lifting from my shoulders the millstone of lies that I hadn't even realized I was carrying.