As a gay man who grew up in Connecticut in the 1990’s, practicing secrecy like my life depended on it, I learned to escape into the world of stories, on TV, in movies and anywhere I could find them. From the tiny slit in the door of the closet in which I lived my first twenty-three years of life, I watched as everyone grew up around me. I longed to feel “normal” and to have the same milestones everyone else went through: a date to the prom that I was actually attracted to (I went with a girl), a high school sweet heart that wasn’t a classified secret, or just the freedom to be myself. But it was 1995 and LGBTQ+ issues weren’t cool, or trending, or even remotely mainstream. In fact, there wasn’t even a “Q” on there yet, that was over a year away still.