After coming out in January of 2016, actor/activist Charlie Carver has been extremely open and honest about his sexuality and upbringing. The Teen Wolf and Desperate Housewives star sat down with Attitude Magazine last April and discussed his late father, who came out as gay to Carver when he was 12.
In a powerful letter to Playboy, Carver has revealed even more candid moments from his life and reminds LGBTQIA+ people that they are remarkable simply for existing.
"At 11 years old I found out my father was a faggot. I hate that word, but it’s precisely how the news resonated with me at the time, so I will write it. This was, what, 1999? Before the first civil unions, and not before Matthew Shepard. I’d already conditioned myself to believe that any expression of gayness could lead to being tied up to a fence, and so you bet I was doing my damndest to pass in a disguise of frosted tips and Team USA soccer jerseys. But with Dad’s news, the hammer finally fell on a loaded chamber and I was forced to reckon with what felt like was a shameful inheritance.
My blood felt tainted. I assumed his was. By the end of that year, I’d changed my name, lost 30 percent of my body weight, asked to die and was filled with such profound despair that, looking back on family photos from the time, I still don’t recognize myself."
Carver's relationship with his father took a toll on his own self-worth.
"For years I didn’t think anything was enough unless it was remarkable. I believed any less wouldn’t redeem my suffering or the little person who’d suffered it.
Ultimately, to find happiness, I had to step off and freefall away from the remarkable persona I’d built and back into a more natural state of expression. Did that in and of itself count for anything?
It was only last weekend that my new friend, LGBTQ and Indigenous activist Thomas Lopez, taught me that our existence is our resistance."
Carver believes that living our lives as queer as possible is a political act, encourages everyone to live authentically, and reminds us we are remarkable for resisting.
"I daydreamed of an alternate timeline for myself: my “remarkable” begins with bringing a cute boy home for dinner and affectionately introducing him to my parents by name. According to that article by Jane Coaston, that is a very real possibility in some parts of the country today—to live that story, it now seems, is remarkably important. So as much as your safety will bear it, exist! Live freely in your expression, your body, love affectionately and exist! Exist!"
Read Carver's full letter on Playboy.
