My name is Rick Sindt and I am a sophomore at North Park University, where I am currently pursuing an Art and Psychology double major. I grew up in a small town south east of the Twin Cities, in Minnesota, along the Mississippi River. I grew up with two loving parents and one brother. We lived in the country and always had an assortment of animals around ranging from barn cats to sled dog teams. I have a large extended family and I grew up much like any other boy. This past fall I started the process of coming out.

What has surprised me the most about coming out is that when I come out to people I am not given space to be me. People who I come out to still hold me to the image they had of me as a heterosexual, or they expect me to become their preconceived notion of who a gay man is. I first started telling people in September of 2010. The first person I told was one of my closest friends. I decided to tell her because she continued to ask me about girl interests in my life. I grew tired of putting on a charade, I felt like I was living a lie, and I knew the only way to liberate myself from that feeling was to name my sexuality to someone. She handled it well and graciously. At the time she was alone with me in this journey and it was difficult for her to be the only one who knew. I was finally willing to talk about my sexuality with someone and I talked about it persistently.