Am I a fagot? I'm just a boy

Testimony of Braxton, 20 years old (Alabama, USA) published on the “We are the Youth” website (USA), freely translated by Adriano C.

I have strongly embraced my Christian roots even though they treated me like a bit of a rude person. But I grew up believing in certain values, and that doesn't mean that they no longer make any sense to me just because I'm gay, but there are some things that I need to rethink and put back in order. And people might say, "Well, you can't think homosexuality is okay until you come out." Well, I wasn't ready to discover new things, and that puts things in a different light.

Before starting at Auburn University (Alabama, United States), I attended a private Evangelical Christian school in Memphis. I realized I was homosexual probably in the seventh grade. But if I had come out, I probably would have been expelled. The general orientation in my school at the time came from the verse in Romans 1, that being attracted to men was not a sin, but it would be if I embraced this attraction. So I had convinced myself that I would be clean as long as I didn't do anything or tell anyone.
Even after coming out, when it comes to sex and sexual acts, I consider myself much more traditional than many other students. I had an experimental phase, but I never considered it to be the attitude of a person of easy virtue. At that time I asked myself, legal marriage is not possible for me and so what is marriage for people like me? I decided it was that feeling that unites two people completely devoted to each other.

A completely exclusive feeling. I decided not to have serious sexual relationships until I got to that point. I think this reduces the drama and makes it easier to detach emotionally, I also think it makes it more special. My grandmother always raised me to be a Southern gentleman.
She kept a little pile of pennies in her purse, and every time I said “Yes, Ma'am” or “No, Ma'am,” or held the door open for her, she'd hand me a dime. I'm a gentleman and I think this intimidates some guys. I came out by accident last year during my first semester at Auburn University. I was studying a text with a friend and he said to me: “I have to ask you a question, but you have to answer honestly. Are you homosexual by any chance?” I thought, I could respond with a lie like I've done thousands of times before, or I could finally out this to someone and see what happens.
So I said, “Yes, I feel attracted to other guys.” And he says, “Oh, it was just a question,” so I said, “So what? No pitchfork and hellish flame?”.

My first kiss with a boy, who we'll call X-Boy, since he wouldn't want his real name used, was when I joined the Auburn Gay Straight Alliance (AGSA, a university gay-straight anti-discrimination association type). I immediately thought this guy was very cute, so I asked him if he wanted to spend some time with me in my school dorm once in a while. We watched (the movie) Milk.
I had a few beers crammed into my closet and X-Boy is a beer fanatic. So we met and talked about this and that. I wondered what it was like to be gay. I asked him if he had ever kissed anyone. And he replied that… I actually forgot what his answer was. I was too focused on forcing myself to ask “Would you mind if I kissed you now?” and he agreed. This was my first kiss with a boy. My appointments never lasted more than two weeks. I longed for a relationship, but I had a very full life on campus.
I'm a zoology buff. I came to Auburn specifically because their zoology courses are very good. I have been working with reptiles since I was five years old and I would like to work in this field from that time. Both my parents are vets, and my mom kept a snake at their college. His name was Alex, when I saw his photos I was mesmerized. When I turned nine my mother gave me a snake. I felt like “having a snake was the greatest thing in the world”. The following year I bought one and saved my pennies. This was like a snowball effect. I have cared for over 100 reptiles between then and now. Tiki is eight years old and he's the only one I keep here. It will soon go into hibernation.

I am also the Director of Political Affairs for the Auburn Gay Straight Alliance (AGSA). One of my plans this year is to get a local Episcopal church more involved with the group, there have been a lot of people lately who have been burned by their churches and are giving up on religion. I'm very involved with AGSA, there are so few people who represent the gay side of the community and I'm one of them. In the past they kicked me out of some student fraternities.
I always carry a knife with me, I'm a very visible figure on campus. And yet, every university you're at is kind of a liberal bubble. We are supported here. Elsewhere off campus it's different. On campus we deal with opposition from strictly religious groups and Southern boys who have this idea of ​​what a man should do and feel threatened by anything else. But when you walk through the buildings of the Auburn Gay Straight Alliance (AGSA) and say “faggot” or something like that, they say “Really? Do you mean I'm gay?" Here we are quite bold in this sense.
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Original text: We Are the Youth. Braxton, 20, Auburn, Alabama