N.A., Mixed; San Diego, CA, 20

My coming out was a horrible experience. When I was 18 I had dropped out of school and moved home. When I told my parents my dad walked out of the room. One day I got into a car accident with one of my friends. When my mom found out, she was still only concerned about my coming out instead of the fact that I was just in a car accident. I feel like my parents just “swept it under the rug.” Today, I’m really proud of them, they’re working as much as they can to understand who I am.

One time a friend asked me “Are you Downe?” I had no idea what that meant. Now that I know what it means today, I think it’s bullshit. Since when did we start identifying by a website? Whatever happened to social cliques? I feel like today we have to hide behind a computer screen, and because of that, people can be anything they want to be. I think people should be real with themselves.

At Rage you can find all of the Filipinos in the hip-hop room upstairs. I know that the downe community is trying to separate themselves from the gay mainstream, but as someone who is not Filipino looking into this community, I feel like they try too hard to classify themselves that they end up creating their own stereotype. It’s like they’re sticking their flag in their own community. Now days, it seems as if they all know each other. If I date one guy, I’ll find out that he dated this guy, who is the ex of that guy, who dated this guy…etc. These spaces never change, what changes are the faces we see.