"[He] walked up to me and said, 'I’m glad I’m not deploying with you, I wouldn’t trust a fag with my life."From: NewNowNext
We’re in a post-Don’t Ask Don’t Tell world, but that doesn’t mean its always easy to be gay in the military. Conner Curnick hadn’t been planning on coming out to his fellow sailors last year, but when they uncovered his candid Instagrams, the cat was out of the bag.
After he posted a photo with a guy he was seeing, his friends at the U.S. Naval Base in Pensacola confronted him.
‘Explain this,’ said one message on the post. “Curnick, are you gay?” asked another. “Don’t lie to us.”
In a first-person essay on Outsports, Curnic, a 22-year-old petty officer third class, admits “my biggest fear had come to fruition.”
Feeling scared and alone, he acknowledged the truth, telling them, “Yes, I’m gay.”
Thankfully, he says, the reactions “were overwhelmingly positive.”
“While I did lose a few friends, the ones closest to me became even closer—because I no longer had to lie about who I was… For the first time they knew what was really going on in my life.”
There have been some ugly moments.
“This past spring, in combat training before my deployment to Afghanistan, someone found out I was gay. [He] walked up to me and said, ’I’m glad I’m not deploying with you, I wouldn’t trust a fag with my life.’ This despite the fact I was one of the better marksmen and performers in my class.”
Curnick says he uses those negative comments “to fuel my fire to succeed in everything that I do.”
While his close friends and family have been supportive, Curnick admits the biggest problem was learning to love accept his authentic self.
I built a wall and never let anyone through. It was really tough at first, leading me to very dark places mentally. Reading coming out stories like the one I am writing — and how people were greeted with love and open arms — was what kept me going.
Originally enrolling in the Naval Special Warfare Program, one of the branch’s toughest, Curnick says homophobic slurs were a part of everyday life. “I distinctly remember one day when an instructor said, ’Oh look at those faggots,’ and then turned to us saying, ’Wait, it’s OK to be gay, YOU just can’t be gay.'”
He left the program and finally came out at age 21. “Since coming out, I have become a much happier, productive and successful person,” he says.
Deployed to the Middle East twice already, he’s received numerous commendations and was named Sailor of the Quarter at his command of 2,300 Sailors. He also continues to play water polo competitively and is working to start an group for LGBT sailors at Pensacola.
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