As the president of the Gender and Sexuality Diversity Association, I am fortunate enough to have a remarkable variety of friends. Even though members in this group have individual differences, it is our collective similarities that bind us tightly to each another in ways that are invisible to the naked eye.

The strongest of these shared traits is our pride. We have pride in our community. We have pride in our work. Most importantly, we have pride in ourselves.

Since many members of this group identify as gay or transgendered, such pride is valuable commodity, especially in conservative place like North Texas. Coming out as LGBT is not an act, but a process — and a difficult one at that.

However, I can guarantee that taking a moment to look at the journey one takes to come out, the pride it inspires may in turn inspire some pride in you.

I knew I was gay when I was seven or eight, when my world consisted of superhero comics and professional wrestling. When you see people wearing tight spandex on a daily basis, you figure what you like pretty quickly. Boy did I like the Wolverine.

At the time, I didn’t know there was a word for boys who liked other boys. It simply was that way to me, even though I had ‘girlfriends’ in elementary school with whom I traded meaningless Valentine’s cards and slow dances.

In my early teens, I was forced to come out to the small Texas town I lived in, after an incident at school caused me to drop the act in front of an unsympathetic audience.

My classmates told me that I was disgusting. My counselors told me I was misguided. My own mother initially told me I was stupid, but eventually she said all the things a good mother should say to her distraught teen in crisis.

Even so, in a period crucial to the building of my personal identity, I had the nerve to not lie to myself or to others, and I was faced with unfriendly peers, unhelpful guidance, and a failed support system.

With this in mind, I find it unsurprising, if very sad, that LGBT youth are faced with higher rates of suicide and homelessness than any other group of young people.

This is the part where the famous “It Gets Better” campaign should kick in. You get out of high school, and all the bullying and unfair treatment is left behind you. As I have grown older, though, I have found the opposite to be true: the unfair treatment gets closer to home.

The sneers of the tractor monkeys I grew up with turned into static denials from agencies that need me far more than I need them. I have been rejected as a blood donor on the assumption of my sexual history, rather than the quality or content of my blood.

In Texas, I could be legally fired for being gay, even if I never explicitly mention my sexual orientation at work – assuming, of course, I am not (legally) rejected from such employment in the first place.

In states that do not legally recognize same-sex marriages, my future partner and I must file our taxes separately, often resulting in higher tax bracket placements that could cost my future family thousands of dollars in undue payments. This, of course, will result in uncertain financial aid for my future children, since such things are dependent on financial status of one or both parents.

If either my future partner or I were to die before the other, there is no guarantee that the property we have invested in will be transferred to their rightful owner. This uncertainty could result in the state seizing what should rightfully belong to my family, and if my family is anything like me, they’d spend a pretty penny pursuing legal action.

Suddenly, the religious condemnation from likes of the Westboro Baptist Church became the least of my concerns.

I am often asked if I think being gay is choice. I can’t speak for everyone, but for me, I chose to be myself, and it is that simple. Even if I could choose my sexual orientation, which I don’t think I could do, I would change nothing.

In the face of such disproportionate hardship, I treasure the unique fearlessness and honesty that comes with living out of the closet. Being gay has been a blessing in disguise, because it has made me strong.

I am bolder than I would be if I were still hiding. I am more truthful than I would be if I were lying. I am more helpful than I would be if I were hindering myself.

I could not be any of these things without pride.