Friend: This is a longer, but especially important, email about why I’m running for Congress to defeat Madison Cawthorn.

It’s also National Coming Out Day so I thought I’d share my coming out story with you and some thoughts on how that connects to this moment and my campaign.

I hope after you’re done reading, you’ll chip in $25 or more to ensure we have the resources to fund our organizing work and run a winning campaign.

As a LGBTQ person, you never really stop coming out. Instead, it’s a part of daily life, with countless moments and choices about how you talk about your life, how you dress, how you move through the world.

That’s true for me right now, as we campaign across Western NC, knocking doors, organizing in parking lots and back yards. The moment I introduce myself and talk about my family -- Meg and our three kids, the four loves of my life -- I come out again. Each time, I feel proud and I am also reminded why coming out matters.

Sometimes I also feel that familiar feeling of my pulse racing. When you come out to a stranger, you do not know how they will react. But what I have learned again and again is that, inevitably, there is someone in the room who also needs to hear those words, and that makes it worth it to say them.

For me, this process started when I was 18 and came out for the first time. It ushered in a new chapter of my life -- one that was both more honest and riskier. Telling the truth about who I am was an enormous relief on one hand; on the other, it tested some of the most important relationships in my life.

And it meant letting go of a lot. I stopped feeling at home in the church, even though my faith never wavered. It wasn’t easy to imagine a future for myself in North Carolina, as much as this was home to me.

I knew that ultimately this was where I belonged, even though I still harbored questions, and sometimes fear, about what it would mean to be out here. I started organizing political campaigns and LGBTQ rights campaigns. And I met my wife Meghann.

When we got married in 2008, our marriage was not legally recognized in North Carolina, or most places in the country. It was a daily reminder to us of the work that needed to happen.

When I followed a call to ministry, I knew that part of my work would focus on the public square and what it means to be a LGBTQ person of faith in the South. So with Meghann’s support, we launched the Campaign for Southern Equality together.

We were told that what we were doing was unrealistic and that we were reaching way beyond the stars. But with patience and grit, we kept pushing forward. And finally, marriage equality became legal across all 50 states.

That’s why on this National Coming Out Day, I’m celebrating all of the progress that’s been made and reflecting on how far we still have to go. On a daily basis, I’m reminded of what’s at stake, especially for LGBTQ youth who are bravely coming out.

If we’re going to ensure our laws finally work to fully protect LGBTQ people, then we must defend and expand our House and Senate majorities and pass the Equality Act.

We never gave up on the fight for marriage equality until we won. That’s how I feel about this race to be the next NC-11 representative.

We win when we work together. Will you please chip in $25 or more today to our grassroots campaign to help us spread our message and organize across Western NC.

National Coming Out Day is about celebrating the LGBTQ community. It’s about supporting people who are coming out for the first time. And it’s about recommitting to being brave and strong about working to create a world where things considered “impossible” actually happen.

We’re in this together -- always.

-- Jasmine