If you’re interested in being in a Video Story, just let me know and we’ll set up a time and place to meet.

Watch all the IFD Video Stories here.

For the transcript, Continue Reading.

I’m Deshawn Timothy and I live in Philadelphia but I’m from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, and I’ve been here for about nine years.

I’m moving shortly, in about two months, and I ran across a picture of my great-great-grandmother. She passed away when I was like 16 but I have so many memories of her. I just remember this one time, I was learning my sexuality I guess you could say that, but I remember this one kid in my Kindergarten class, this kid named Adam, I remember having a crush on him so hard, I don’t even–when you’re 5, you’re like whatever, I just remember being like, “Oh my God, Adam, I want to play with Adam.” Adam was a cutie, I remember him being on the chubby side. I don’t know, he was this cute little white kid and we’d just color and played together and recess, it was just Adam, Adam, Adam. I just remember one day going to church with my grandmother and we passed Adam’s house, and I was like, “Mum-Mum, Mum-Mum, Mum-Mum! My boyfriend lives there!” And she’s like, “What? No. Don’t ever–don’t ever say that.” And I was like, “Why? But he’s my boyfriend. I love him.” And she’s just like, “No. Do not say that.” I didn’t really question it or anything because I always just did what she said. She’s a very hard-going, Christian, Pentecostal lady, and that’s just so funny for a 5-year-old who doesn’t know anything that, he just knows he likes Adam, he loves Adam to death, and he tells his Grandmum who he tells anything in the world, and the only time she ever got mad at him was when he told her that he liked a boy.

—

RELATED STORIES

I’m From West Orange, NJ – Video Story. “My mother’s mother took it the worst and she actually openly disowned me to the family for a few months. And my mother was so open and accepting and loving, and that’s kind of what I expected from my grandmother because growing up, that’s all I knew and to finally be at a moment in my life where I’m comfortable with myself and to reveal that to someone and to be outright disowned obviously is somewhat traumatic. But then she finally came around.”

I’m From Chicago, IL – Video Story. “We went back into the house and my mom and I were going at it, kind of going back and forth. My grandmother was living with us at the time because she had a massive heart attack the year prior, so she was very sick. 78 years old, walking with a cane, sleeping in our spare bedroom, and of course at 3 in the morning she hears shouting and she’s trying to figure out what’s going on, but she knows what’s going on. So she comes out of the bedroom and looks at my mother and says, “Charlene, I’m gonna whip you over the head with this cane if you don’t just love your son the way he is.”

I’m From Cut and Shoot, TX. “I attended a small Baptist church and a somewhat small high school. I have lesbian grandparents, which I believe assisted in this stigma against homosexuality in my household. I believe that my mother always resented my grandparents for being lesbians. She used to tell me how embarrassed she was of them. Therefore, the idea of coming out was not an option. And as you can imagine, the people of Cut and Shoot were not big supporters of it either. So I did what any good Baptist boy would do and went to school, met a girl, and got married.”