Ex-Gay, Ex-Drug User: Leaving Behind A Double Life

​“My parents really wanted to hold onto our Chinese heritage. So even though we were here in America, we were still distinct.”

Christopher Yuan is the son of Chinese immigrants.  Although he was born in the United States, he never felt like he fit in with his American classmates.

“Kids are always cruel, and they pick on kids for being different.”

He was small for his age.  He played piano and worked hard in school. He wasn’t good at sports like the other boys.

“I was shorter. I wore glasses, so I was ‘four eyes,’” Christopher recalls. “I was picked on, because I was maybe a little more effeminate [and] I was more artistic.”

When he was nine years old, Christopher saw pornography at a friend’s house. That’s when he started thinking maybe he was different.

“Those images just awoke something in me that I didn’t know was there,” he says. “But, I also noticed that I was attracted to the images of both the men and the women.”

He decided to keep his feelings secret with hopes they would go away, but they didn’t.

“All these feelings were kind of bubbling up in me, and I was keeping them held down. I felt like I just needed to get it out somehow.”

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