Submitted by: Danny Drone
Every June, I see people ask why Pride Month still matters.
Some people say they don’t understand why LGBTQ+ people need Pride. Others believe equality has already been achieved and that Pride is no longer necessary.
I wish that were true.
For me, Pride isn’t about rainbow flags, parades, or celebrations.
Pride is about survival.
It’s about overcoming the voices that told you that you were broken, unwanted, or destined to fail.
It’s about finding the courage to love yourself after a lifetime of being told you shouldn’t.
My story begins long before I knew I was gay.
I was raised in a deeply religious Mormon family. My childhood was shaped by hardship, instability, and the constant feeling that I never quite measured up.
My father walked out of my life when I was young, leaving my mother to raise six children on her own. He struggled with alcoholism and drugs and was abusive toward my mother. His absence left wounds that affected our entire family.
As a child, I struggled in school. Teachers noticed that I had difficulty focusing and keeping up with expectations. At one point, the school approached my mother and suggested that I be evaluated for ADHD because they believed I showed many of the signs.
My mother refused.
The support that might have helped me understand myself never came.
Instead, I grew up believing that my struggles were personal failures.
School became a place where I was bullied because I was different. Even before I understood my sexuality, other kids seemed to know I didn’t fit in. I was teased, mocked, and made to feel like an outsider.
Unfortunately, home wasn’t always a refuge.
My siblings often bullied and violently beat on me as well. It felt like I could never do anything right. If I made a mistake, I was criticized. If one of my siblings made the exact same mistake, they were often forgiven, excused, or even rewarded.
I spent much of my childhood wondering what was so wrong with me.
The adults around me frequently reinforced those feelings. Instead of encouragement, I often heard criticism. Instead of support, I often felt judged.
By my early teenage years before I had even come out I was already being told something that no child should ever hear:
“You’re never going to amount to anything.”
Imagine hearing those words over and over while you’re still trying to figure out who you are.
Eventually, I started believing them.
Then came the realization that I was gay.
Growing up in a conservative religious environment, that realization wasn’t freeing it was terrifying.
I quickly learned that being myself could cost me everything.
And eventually, it did.
I was excommunicated from the church that had been a major part of my life. I was forced into gay conversion therapy by my Bishop, Stake President and family. Conversion therapy was a practice that claimed it could change me but only left deeper emotional and phycological wounds.
At sixteen years old, I found myself abandoned by my blood family homeless, hopeless and alone.
I couch surfed from place to place. I dropped out of high school. Depression consumed me. I struggled with loneliness, anxiety, and hopelessness.
I turned to alcohol, drugs and high risk sex to numb the pain.
There were many days when I didn’t care whether I lived or died because my life was a living nightmare.
I felt invisible.
Unwanted.
Unlovable.
Broken.
Even today, my Mormon family including my own mother still want little or nothing to do with me because of my sexuality and who I choose to love.
That reality is still painful.
No matter how old you become, there is always a part of you that hopes your family will choose love over judgment.
But my story didn’t end there.
In 2001, I met the love of my life, Jonathan.
We first crossed paths at a bar where I was drowning myself into a bottle of Jack Daniels and getting high on anything that would take me away from reality. Then we crossed paths again at my workplace. Neither of us knew it then, but that chance encounter would completely change the course of my life.
For the first time, someone loved me exactly as I was.
Jonathan saw value in me when I struggled to see it in myself.
Even more surprising was his family.
They welcomed me.
They accepted me.
They loved me.
To many people, that may sound ordinary. To me, it was life changing.
I wasn’t used to unconditional love.
I wasn’t used to people believing in me.
I wasn’t used to feeling safe.
For the first time, I experienced what family could look like when love wasn’t conditional.
Their acceptance helped me begin rebuilding the parts of myself that years of rejection and abuse had broken.
Together, Jonathan and I built a life.
A life that many people once told me I would never have.
We built a loving relationship that has lasted more than two decades.
We became parents to two biological children.
We bought a home.
We built a future.
Most importantly, we built a family based on love rather than judgment.
In 2021, we made another major life decision and moved from California to Texas.
Starting over wasn’t easy.
We arrived hopeful but uncertain about what life would look like as a married gay couple in Southeast Texas.
What we found was a mixture of challenges and blessings.
We experienced prejudice, ignorance, and moments of bigotry that reminded me that equality remains a work in progress.
But we also found something beautiful.
We found acceptance.
We found friendship.
We found allies.
We found members of the LGBTQIA+ community and supportive people from all walks of life who welcomed us exactly as we are.
We met people who chose compassion over hatred and understanding over judgment.
Those people reminded us that goodness still exists everywhere.
Today, I continue to work on healing. I attend therapy regularly and continue unpacking the trauma caused by childhood bullying, family rejection, physical abuse, violence, religious shame, addiction, risky and dangerous behaviors and abandonment.
Healing is not something that happens overnight.
It is a lifelong journey.
But healing is possible.
When I look at my life today, I see something that younger version of me never thought was possible.
I see love.
I see happiness.
I see family.
I see stability.
I see hope.
And I see proof that every person who said I would never amount to anything was wrong.
This Pride Month, I don’t celebrate because my life has been easy.
I celebrate because I survived.
I celebrate because I refused to let rejection define me.
I celebrate because I found love when I thought I was unlovable.
I celebrate because I built a family when I was told I didn’t deserve one.
I celebrate because despite everything I’ve endured, I never stopped moving forward.
And if there is one message I hope someone takes away from my story, it is this:
Your past does not determine your future.
The people who reject you do not define your worth.
The voices that tell you you’ll never succeed do not get the final say.
You do.
Because I was that bullied and abused kid.
I was that abandoned teenager.
I was that broken young man who thought there was no point on being alive.
And today, after everything I’ve been through, I am still here.
Still standing.
Still healing.
Still loving.
Still growing.
And still proud.🏳️🌈
Happy Pride Month🏳️🌈
Little Blue Texans 
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