In the opening line of the movie, Love, Simon, the main character says, “I’m just like you." He goes on to talk about how perfectly normal he is—with the exception of a huge secret: he’s gay. I know I’m not alone when I say that I just don’t understand why there are still so many people in the world who think that being gay is not normal or think that people choose to be gay. I suppose that it’s true when they say ignorance is bliss.

Like so many other members of the LGBTQ community, I’ve been in Simon’s shoes. I’ve always considered myself perfectly normal, yet for much of my life, I was hiding the same huge secret—I’m gay. In retrospect, I do realize that I wasted time hiding this part of my life. Thankfully, my family and friends have all been supportive and loving and I’m sure they would have been just as supportive and loving had I come out to them ten or fifteen years earlier.

I always felt like I had to withhold the truth because society made me feel like it wasn’t normal to be gay. Well, society was wrong then and those that are still living with that mindset are still wrong today. In fact, what isn’t normal is to be so critical, judgmental, and prejudiced against other people. We certainly weren’t born that way and I’m sure most people would not want to be known as such. Acting on those qualities is a choice, but being gay is not. Like it or not, we were born that way.

Before his character came out in the movie, Simon heard some of the other kids at school, and even his own father, make comments and jokes about gay people. Who could blame Simon for not wanting to come out to them and share his secret when he knew how they felt and what they thought? I’m sure he didn’t want to be on the receiving end of anybody’s jokes. I can say from experience that when you hear people you know, especially those you really care about, make fun of people who are just like you, it makes it that much harder to come out to anybody. If the people you love feel that way and say those things about people they don't even know, you'd probably be terrified of what they or anyone else would say about you if they knew your secret. I can remember as far back as elementary school when I would hear people, including my own friends, make fun of gay people. This went on for years in school and continued well into my professional career. Unfortunately, the fear did play a major role in me keeping my secret much longer than I needed to or wanted to.

Deciding to finally come out to the world is a tremendous decision and is often preceded by feelings of fear, nervousness, and anxiety. When someone finally finds the courage to face their truth and share it with the world, they should be in charge of their own destiny. In the movie,  Martin shared Simon’s secret in the hopes of embarrassing him and making him the laughing stock of the school. Simon was upset and he told Martin that he was supposed to be the one who decided when, where, how, and who knows that he’s gay. It was Simon’s secret, so naturally he wanted to be the one who was in control of sharing it. Martin took that all away from him and, needless to say, Simon was angered by that. In my own life, I was so cautious and so concerned that if anybody found out I was gay, a similar situation would happen to me. I was terrified that someone would make a joke out of me and try to embarrass me and make me a laughing stock which, in turn, added to my nervousness and fear. I’m grateful that when I did finally decide to tell people—and that was a baby-steps process for years—I was able to do it in the perfect way and time so that the when, where, and how associated with it would be decided only by me.