¡Hola Papi!: How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons

by John Paul Brammer

It’s hard, if not altogether impossible, for me to imagine a youth in which I was allowed to be gay. Or rather, a youth in which I was just allowed to be, to wallow in that fruitful messiness of early teendom without all the restrictions I’d placed on myself, to share my first kiss, to experience puppy love, to do everything I did with Rebecca, only, with a boy.

Rebecca. My first girlfriend in Jr High! It's difficult to imagine being accepted as gay then

I’ve entertained the notion that I might be bisexual,

Omg . Me too!

The middle school kids had called me “beaner” before. When I had told them (very matter-of-factly) that, actually, I was half German, they’d simply changed “beaner” into “beanerschnitzel,” a pretty devastating portmanteau that spread like wildfire.

Lmao. Awe!