When things got hard or when he got down, he referred to a list he wrote when he was 14 years old. “This actually worked to my advantage, helping to solidify my crazy, tough-guy persona.”īut McCoy knew he was destined for greater things. “I was the only one who never once received mail,” he said. His lack of family helped build his cover. “I wanted people to think I was crazy - that surely a gay boy wouldn’t be tough like that.” “I hoped someone would break up the fight before the other guy really hurt me,” he said. He instigated a fight with the largest, toughest man in the squadron. McCoy set about building a cover designed to ensure his secret was safe.
Every single day I lived in fear that someone would learn the truth,” he said. After being discharged, this is the only picture McCoy kept of his time in the Air Force. McCoy participating in a NATO competition in Germany where he won a gold medal for shooting. McCoy knew he could never reveal he was gay. One night, they beat him so severely he had to go home. He soon learned he was right to be cautious.ĭuring basic training, McCoy’s squadron began harassing another airman they suspected was gay. On his own after high school, he joined the Air Force, but hid his homosexuality out of fear of how his military comrades would react if they discovered the truth. McCoy graduated fourth in his class of more than 400 students. They showed me that I wasn’t broken, that there wasn’t anything wrong with me,” he said. It’s thanks to my supportive group of girlfriends that I was able to find myself. “I was so afraid they would think I was broken. His own family gone, McCoy confided in his new family, his girlfriends. “It wasn’t until I got older that I realized I surrounded myself with women because they made me feel loved and supported. “I dated girls in high school and all of my closest friends were females,” he said. McCoy was a senior in high school when he told his friends he was gay. You never really know what’s going on in someone’s life.” I try to stay true to myself and not be afraid of who I am - to stand up for what I believe in and be good to others. “The strength to keep going, that comes from within myself. I don’t think that fear will ever go away,” he said. I’m often afraid to reveal who I am to strangers. “The fear and hesitation are still very real for me. McCoy worries about how people will react if they learn he’s gay. June 1, 2018, exactly 17 years after they met, newlyweds Patrick McCoy, right, and husband Dave on their wedding day. He’s an active advocate for Denver’s LGBT community and for military veterans. Today, McCoy is happily married to a man he met in 2001. "This is the first time I've ever felt safe enough to share my story," said McCoy, who joined Denver Water in 2012 and works as an IT change manager.
And today he’s proud of who he is and the happiness he’s found. He was released onto the streets with the clothes on his back, homeless again and facing more years of verbal and physical abuse, discrimination and fear.īut McCoy’s life also is marked by a faith that things would get better. Air Force for being an admitted homosexual. Then a stolen letter about a kiss triggered an arrest by military police, a night in jail, the yanking of McCoy’s top-secret clearance, and an honorable discharge from the U.S. military in the 1980s and 90s, he hid the fact he was gay. As a teenager, he hid the fact he was homeless. It was the first of many times McCoy’s life was marked by fear of being found out and the loss that would follow if the truth became known. His brother left to live with his father, and McCoy - homeless as a high school freshman - spent the next four years crashing with friends or sleeping in cars.ĭetermined to graduate from high school, he kept quiet about his homelife, afraid he’d be kicked out of school and put in foster care if anyone found out the truth. Patrick McCoy was 14 when his mother left, abandoning him and his twin brother. Read it, and go here, here and here for more stories about some of the other members of our diverse team who ensure the delivery of clean, safe water to 1.4 million people. In honor of Pride Month, we're sharing the story of Patrick McCoy, a member of Denver Water's IT division. June is known as Pride Month for the LGBTQ community, in honor of the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan, considered a crucial event in the gay rights movement. Denver Water is proud of its diverse workforce.