Everyone Can Be An Example: Jorgen Madsen

Once he hit middle school, Jorgen started to realize that he was a bit different. He realized that lots of his friends were starting to talk about girls that they liked and he never felt the same. One day while doing history homework, Jorgen saw a picture of the Warren Cup, a piece of art from ancient Greece. The cup infers two male same-sex acts. He describes seeing the cup as "being hit by lightning." He later, wrongly associated that event with why he was gay.

While on his mission in Madagascar, Jorgen received an email from his sister. She had come out as lesbian to her family that week and things didn’t go well. For about a year, his family didn’t know where she was. A few years down the road, after talking with his therapist, Jorgen decided to come out to his sister. He remembers saying,

“I AM SO SORRY, THAT I MADE YOU HAVE TO GO THROUGH THAT ALONE, WHEN THE WHOLE TIME I WAS JUST TOO SCARED TO LET ANYBODY KNOW.”

She responded with,

“JORGEN, I’VE KNOWN THE WHOLE TIME YOU WERE GAY. I WAS JUST SCARED YOU WOULD BE FORCED INTO A SITUATION WHERE YOU WERE UNHAPPY, THAT WOULD LEAD TO DIVORCE OR WORSE.”

Their family has now grown tighter than they ever were before. Jorgen said,  “We are the most tight knit, inappropriate--family, I love it”

As a 3rd year medical student at the University of Utah Jorgen has partnered up with some colleagues to start Salt Lake's first PrEP Clinic.

Now that Jorgen has fully accepted himself for who he is and surrounds himself with people who he can be his full self around, he says,

“I AM HAPPIER THAN I EVER KNEW I COULD BE, AND MY LIFE HAS SO MUCH MORE MEANING AND DEPTH.”

Jorgen wants the LGBT community to know,

“THEY ARE NO LESS OF A HUMAN BEING JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE DIFFERENT, AND THE THINGS THAT MAKE THEM DIFFERENT ARE THE THINGS THAT MAKE THEM BEAUTIFUL.”

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Learn more about the HIV PReP Clinic - A clinic that offers free PrEP, a drug that significantly reduces the risk of contracting HIV, to people who can’t afford it. Check out their website at: https://healthcare.utah.edu/locations/redwood/hiv-prep-clinic.php