“To be proud, black and gay means that I’m everything that my younger self was never able to be. My younger self was insecure. He did not know himself as a black man. He did not know himself as a gay man. He didn’t know himself as Qualyn barely. So now that I have learned to love all of those things, and accept all of those things, and realize that I can’t change any of those things, being proud isn’t something that I show externally or it’s not an action that I perform, it’s just how I now carry myself waking up in the morning and then going to sleep. That is who I am. So I hope that when I am walking down the street… you see a person who is comfortable with who they are.”
— Qualyn, African American, 22
