was officially The video garnered nearly 135,000 you guys #fyp #gay #foryouoage #cloeeted #uncloseted ♬ original sound - Frat Guy Out and unburdened, Leafer finally showed his face on TikTok last August. I’m giving him the time he needs, and all I can ask for his is his love and support, and he’s given it to me so far.” “I expected it take him some time to understand it, too. “It took me 20 years to understand who I was as a person, and what being gay meant,” Leafer said. It was just like old times, except for the fact they stunk. This past winter break, they sat down and watched the Patriots together. “Coming out, I felt like I was taking away part of his son.”įast-forward several months, and Leafer’s bond with his old man is as strong as ever.
“Telling him really scared me, because I don’t want to lose that bond we had,” Leafer said.
At first, Leafer says it took his dad some time to process the news. He often regaled his father with stories about his college rendezvous, and chasing boys never entered the conversation. Leafer’s bond with his dad made coming out difficult. Even neck surgery wouldn’t stop him from seeing his son play. Leafer says his dad never missed a game growing up, once instructing his mother to take him straight to the fields from his hospital bed. They share everything together, including a love of sports. Thanks to the unyielding support from his TikTok followers, Leafer worked up the courage to tell his dad. #gay #pride #gayboy #bilgtb #lgtbq #fyp #fathersday ♬ TB12 Fathers Day - Backup Account But getting there was really I will come out to the man who gave me everything and more. Once I could get over the fears of telling my dad, I knew I would be on to living my true life. “I could be honest with myself by sharing it with a community that was supporting me. “It was the part that I was struggling with the most,” Leafer said. Last summer, Leafer shared his anxieties about telling his father, writing a letter to him in one clip-accompanied with audio of Tom Brady honoring his own dad. In his first videos, Leafer divulges the most intimate details of his coming-out journey, and is candid about his inner-anguish. “There were definitely a lot of closeted guys who were a lot like me.” “When I made the TikTok, I was like, ‘I want to put these qualities out here and just see if there’s anyone else like me, and surprisingly that video got a lot of attention,” he said. Today, Leafer boasts more than 61,000 followers. Once broke into Gay TikTok, his following soared. Like all social media sites, TikTok’s algorithms allow users to curate their own feeds.
Dressed up with the appropriate hashtags, his videos started to go viral, and reached struggling gay kids across the world. The anonymity of TikTok allowed Leafer to broadcast himself to the world without the fear of being labeled. “I wouldn’t be the Josh that they knew, I would be ‘Gay Josh,’ and I did not want that label growing up.” “I just thought if I came out, people would just automatically think differently of me,” he said. Leafer stayed in the closet, because he didn’t want to be known as the “gay kid.” Despite growing up in liberal Massachusetts, Leafer thought being openly gay would destroy his identity, and thus, his life. Casual homophobia is still prevalent in cafeterias and locker rooms prejudices still exist. Only 66 percent of young people today identify exclusively as heterosexual, according to a 2018 study from Ipsos Mori.īut those numbers don’t mean it’s easy to come out. Generation Z is the most racially and ethnically diverse in American history, and also the most gay. #gay #gayboy #lgbt #bi #tiktokuniversity #got2bStyled ♬ Waves - Dean Lewis That weight lifts off your to be into girls has gotten me to where I am today. “Even if I’m not telling people who I don’t personally know, just saying those words out loud that I’m gay and I’m struggling makes you feel better. “I was just letting people know they’re not alone,” Leafer said. Today, he’s an out and proud junior at the University of Tampa. The support that Leafer received online propelled him to come out IRL. On this week’s edition of “The Sports Kiki,” I spoke with Leafer about his social media quasi-fame, and the very Gen-Z experience of coming out to the Gay TikTok world. And they’ve all been able to connect through TikTok. Over the last year, Leafer has heard from hundreds of other secretly gay guys who were wondering the same thing.
The responses started to pour in, and they haven’t stopped. In it, Leafer posed the question he had been asking himself for years: “Anyone else like totally straight but secretly gay?” With one video, introduced himself to the virtual world. The state champion soccer player was engaged in a never-ending internal battle about his sexuality, and worst of all, didn’t think there was anybody else like him. Josh Leafer was a high school athlete who threw parties and chased girls.
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