“I never considered myself someone who was in the closet,” Sen. Atkinson told theGrio. ”My family and friends knew.”
Atkinson said while his close friends in the Nevada House and Senate knew his sexual orientation, his statement Monday “was the first time publicly acknowledging it for everyone else.”
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“I had no intentions of speaking that night. [I] heard some of my colleagues speak, and I just felt like now is a really good time to do it. My heart was pounding through my suit. I just felt like it was time.”