This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.

When Eric came out of the closet as a gay man and again as a drag queen, he simply opened a door. What he thought were identities he soon realized were, in reality, masks he wore in order to leave his closet and face a cruel world that had put him there in the first place. When those masks came off, he was left with the same fear, shame, and isolation he had always felt. Which left him with a choice—either accept himself without the masks and labels, or live with the reality that these masks were, in fact, wearing him. Once he decided to leave the closet without any masks and labels, he came to a powerful realization. He was no longer stepping into his perception of a cruel world that demanded he remain in a closet; he was stepping into his life—one that had been waiting for him all along and in which he fully belonged.