Wear It Anyway.

 I inadvertently gave my most encouraging piece of advice about coming out to my gay brother when he was still very, very closeted.  

I'd always had an inkling that my younger brother might be gay, but at this point in his life (his senior year of high school), that’s all it was—an inkling. He wouldn’t come out for another five years. But high school is always a challenging season, particularly for those who dare to be different.  

And dare my brother did.  

He loved the stage. He acted in plays and musicals. He sang in choir. He took dance lessons. (He’s amazing—he does it all professionally now.) He was drum major. He played the flute and the piccolo. He was not afraid to make nonconformist fashion choices. He drew, painted, sculpted. He wanted so desperately to express himself authentically in the best way he knew: performance.  

These things made him a target.  

He had a girlfriend, sure. But that too was performance, and it wasn’t enough to silence the cruelty of those who suspected and weaponized the truth against him.  

He played the lead role in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat during his senior year, and he threw himself into the show. The musical is based on the Bible story: Joseph’s father gives him a beautiful, multicolored coat that makes his brothers so jealous that they plot to kill him, but when a chance to sell him as a slave arises instead, they take it. Long story short, Joseph overcomes many obstacles and ends up winning Pharaoh’s favor. 

My brother loved this role. He is a performer, after all. But in the rehearsals leading up to the show, I could see that he was performing through a haze of pain. Kids were being downright mean to him.

I wanted to do...something. 
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So I made him a present.

It was small, but it was something. It was the only bit of encouragement I felt I could offer him. 

It was a piece of word art—rainbow cutouts in the shape of Joseph’s coat that I had carefully cut by hand, a relic from a time before Cricut machines. It said, Wear it anyway. 

​Twelve years later, he still has it—it's hanging in his office.  

​Wear it anyway.  

It’s good advice, really. There’s some universal truth there.  

But I did not know how true that mantra would actually turn out to be for him.  

When I made him that sign, I was thinking so small. My aim was to encourage him to take pride in his talents in spite of the opinions of others—haters gonna hate, after all. But, as is always the case with universal truth, the sentiment is bigger than I imagined, and it encompasses so much more than just talent. 

Wear it anyway is a battle cry.  

It’s a roaring declaration of pride. 

Now that he’s out, I understand why my brother kept that sign.  

That rainbow coat has taken on an even greater significance for him, and I am proud to stand behind him, holding it up and sliding it over his shoulders and encouraging him to Wear it anyway.  

Pride is all about owning your personal truth. It’s about radical self-acceptance and love. There’s a takeaway for all of us, really, this celebratory, radical acceptance. It’s religious, almost, a reminder of Christ’s grace.  

Be you, brother. In all your flaming glory. 

​Happy Pride Month.  
 
 

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