Because his feelings toward men weren’t just a crush, he added: “I could tell eventually it’s going to spiral and probably just crash and burn.”

Instead, he let the realization light a fire within him.

“I loved these girls. They were wonderful and they were beautiful,” he shared. However, he added, “I had to be honest to myself and honest to them and eventually honest to everybody else.”

Finding freedom in that candor, Archuleta is encouraging others to sing along and take ownership over their sexual health.

After all, he wishes he’d been exposed to more conversations about the topic and the sorts of HIV prevention resources that Gilead offers.

“I wish I had someone that I could see talking about this so that I wasn’t so scared of it,” Archuleta noted of resources like preventative HIV medication PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis). “I’m hoping that if there’s somebody who was raised that way, who was afraid of these topics, afraid to go get STI testing, to show how not scary it is.”