Pride Firsts With Joey Graceffa

First gay crush, I think it was actually Ash Ketchum

from Pokemon, so, yeah.

(soft music)

First time I knew I was gay, I think when I finally

admitted it to myself, I was 19 years old, I think.

The first person I came out to was my friend Kat

and we were out to dinner and she was asking me

about my love life and I had no other time

but then to tell her.

Growing up there weren't many gay influences

so, I have to say Ellen was the first gay person

I looked up to because she was one of the more mainstream

people that were openly gay.

First saw an openly gay couple was when I was like

12 years old, my mom had a friend who was a lesbian

and she had a girlfriend and I was like

wait, oh, two girls together, okay, cool, I like it.

The first time someone came out to me was actually

my best friend in high school.

I first came out to her and then like six months later

she came out to me, so, we're like,

you were gay this whole time too?

Like, what the heck?

Okay.

The first gay character I remember from TV was

Will and Grace, my mom loved that show, so,

I just remember watching it and I never thought twice

about it, I just knew that they were gay

and I didn't think anything of it.

First time I attended pride I was actually

still in the closet, so, that was an interesting experience.

I think the first time I experimented with my look was when

I had the big moment when I was like

you know what, I'm done with shopping at Aeropostale

and I'm gonna shop at Abercrombie and Fitch now

and I was like, and you know what else I'm gonna do?

I'm gonna do a triple pop collar, not two, three.

So, the first time I kissed a boy was at Vidcon.

First time I felt totally confident,

ooh, that's a tough one.

Being gay and a part of the community,

it can sometimes be difficult to have that pride.

It's definitely taken me a long time to actually

come to terms with who I am, becoming comfortable

and confident with that gave me the pride

that I have now.

It's something that I love about myself

and I think that's where my source of pride comes from.

So, those are my Pride firsts.

Hope you have a happy Pride.