I grew up in the Evangelical world, breathing in these messages about a certain toxic construction of masculinity. It’s interesting looking back and remembering how I had a hard time even as a small child reconciling the messages I was getting with the Bible stories and scripture passages I read.

It didn’t make sense to me, and I struggled to understand how it was all supposed to work.

It didn’t occur to me for a long time that maybe the spiritual leaders I was listening to were straying from core Christian teachings. It took realizing I was gay to make me take a deeper, harder look at things.