Welcome to Pride. You have reached a stop on our a cast audio pride parade where we travel around the world to hear from our LGBTQ plus creators on what Pride means to them.

So grab your whistle, get your face paint on and settle into a special celebration of Pride. And at the end of this podcast, we'll hear where our audio pride parade is heading next. So stay tuned.

Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome to trust and believe. Oh my goodness, it's pride month that I'm so excited to continue our conversations that we've been having this month. And I hope that again, it can help you to or maybe you can help someone that you know, so sit back, get ready to trust and believe.

He's better than Oprah. Come on, you're home.

This is Sean T and it's time to trust and believe.

Growing up LGBTQ in my town was non-existent. It wasn't accepted pretty much. I was in the closet until I was 21 years old.

And I think one of the most frustrating things is knowing what I know now and how much freedom I have to be myself, how amazing it is to be gay, how amazing it is to have my own life experiences is so incredible that it almost angers me because people are so

unaccepting of other people and differences. It really creates a void and people really getting to be able to enjoy their lives.

And I think that's one of the most frustrating things for the LGBTQIA plus community is that we have to wait to live.

We have to wait until we find a safe space and a safe place. And most of us have to move to a neighborhood where there are others like us in order for us to live and thrive and meet people and have meaningful relationships.

And not to say that the relationships we had when we were younger weren't meaningful, but they weren't full of meaning because we had to hide so much of who we were.

So growing up in New Jersey where I grew up wasn't the best place to be gay, but I eventually came out when I was in college and I was in New Jersey and I was very happy about it.

And I believe that getting older stronger physically as well as mentally made my bravery shine through.

And now I like to use my platform to express my gayness and furthermore just to constantly let people know who may be in the closet that everything is going to be okay.

Where do I celebrate pride? So I celebrate pride every single day. I don't just wait until the month of June, first and foremost, but I've celebrated pride in different places around the country in different places around the world.

I believe that regardless of where you live and who you are and your surroundings, once you get to a point where you're free to be who you are, you can be proud of who you are at all times this year, those specifically I will be in New York City with my family, which is also incredibly surprising to my eight year old self because my eight year old self never thought that I would have a family or I thought that I would have to be what other people wanted me to be.

New York City has always been a open and accepting place for the LGBTQ community. So we're going to do pride there and I'm just really excited to be a part of that experience.

Always trust and believe in who you are and specifically this month literally accept your true and most authentic self and you don't have to put yourself into a box.

Next up, you'll hear a wow from Paris in the audio pride parade.