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The only thing I can give to young gay people is that when I was growing up, there were no role models that were blokey that were men. Everybody was flamboyant and camp, and I remember going, 'That's not me, so even though I think I am gay, I don't think I fit into this world.'

Personally speaking, growing up as a gay man before it was as socially acceptable as it is now, I knew what it was to feel different, to feel alienated and to feel not like everyone else. But the very same thing that made me monstrous to some people also empowered me and made me who I was.

The fact is, I'm gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn't be any more happy, comfortable with myself, and proud.

I kind of live my life as an example, and I just never felt like I had to be on the cover of a magazine announcing that I was gay; it's just who I am. I just live my life, and I never really thought about it.

I wasn't always this confident. Growing up as the awkward gay kid in a small town in Pennsylvania, you're constantly told, 'Don't be yourself, don't be proud of who you are.'

When I first moved to New York, I had some colleagues who said I should be my straightest self - whatever that means - when I went into casting offices, but I didn't want to put on an act of what I thought was heterosexual. I just wanted to be myself, and I'm very grateful because I feel like I've been embraced for that.

No one knew I was gay growing up but I was bullied. I was a cheerleader, fairly popular and considered straight.

I came out to my parents as gay, and then I realized, you know, four or five years later, that I wasn't really happy, no relationships were working, and there was something missing in my life, and you know, I was doing drag, performing and stuff, and I realized through that arc that I was much happier doing that.

I was inadvertently raised in the 'gay community.' I had straight parents, but I spent massive amounts of time at a very early age with gay, theater-hopeful thirty-somethings.