“Hello, my name is Landon Hudspeth. I’m 20 years old and I live in Oceanside, California on my own. When I was 18 years old my parents found out I was dating a man and asked me to leave the house. They’re part of an extremely conservative denomination of Christianity called Apostolic Pentecostalism. Growing up in that church I saw and experienced some of the worst homophobia and bigotry in my life. As a result I had to pretend to be heterosexual for as long as I could, or risk being ostracized and kicked out of the house. You can only do that for so long before something slips, which unfortunately was the case for me. I left with two suitcases full of only the necessities and moved across country to California with my then boyfriend. Since then I’ve been working and living on my own, taking care of myself and trying to use my story to reach people and help those that may be in the same situation I was in a year and a half ago. This is the sad reality for many LGBTQ+ youth in the US and my goal is to work towards changing that and building a better future for them.”

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