When gay Sailor was outed, he found his Navy buddies had his back
In April 2015, I was heading back to my quarters at the naval base in Pensacola, Fla. I was on a high, riding my motorcycle back to base after spending the night with a guy I seeing.
I suddenly felt a lot of vibrations and it wasn’t a bumpy road. It was the phone in my pocket, buzzing with Instagram messages.
“Explain this,” one said. “Curnick, are you gay? Don’t lie to us,” said another.
My heart pounding, I pulled over to the side of the road. One of my friends had been going through my Instagram photos and found one of me with another guy on the back of my motorcycle. Their messages wanted to know the truth. I realized my biggest fear had come to fruition.
I was alone at the time and in tears, and I decided to come clean — yes, I’m gay, I told them. The reactions started coming in and, to my relief and surprise, they 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 and for the first time they knew what …