People live with all sorts of secrets. Scott McKee knew this even when he was a little boy, but it never made his growing up any easier.

He wanted to marry and have a family like his sisters and their friends, but how could he? He felt isolated, repulsive to everyone around him and even to himself. He became the brunt of jokes, mocked by his middle-school classmates.

KIMBERLY SMITH/Staff (ENLARGE)

Scott McKee, who leads advocacy groups for gay students at Georgia Tech, assembles a symbolic doorway for the Coming Out Week campus events.

It wasn't so much McKee was trying to live in two worlds. He just didn't know to which he belonged.

All his life, he'd struggled with that question, sought relief for his heavy heart.

Then five years ago, the answer came to him.

Scott McKee liked other boys.

In the winter of his sophomore year of high school in Houston, he sat with his mother and father half watching television, half talking to friends on the Internet.

He wanted to talk to his parents, to somehow sort it all out, but that filled him with questions, too.

How would they react? Would they still accept and love him?

Then in a moment of desperation, he blurted it out: "I think I'm attracted to guys."

McKee's parents were startled, but they told him that night that it was OK. They told him they loved him. They told him that he was still their son.

But in the days that followed, McKee began to feel abandoned.

Ana McKee tried to prepare her son for what might lay ahead. She told him that people would ridicule and judge him in the worst kind of way. He interpreted that as her saying "how unnatural I was to God and how homosexuals go to hell."

It wasn't what she meant, but McKee felt as though he already was in hell.

His sisters had grown up and moved away, and he felt alone. His parents sent him to counseling to help him sort it all out, but it didn't help. He felt like he was failing them.

En route home from school one day, during more soul-searching, McKee said he accepted who he was.

"I was gay," he said.

He remembered that day recently as he was preparing for the fifth annual Georgia Tech Coming Out Week, which ends today, National Coming Out Day.

Both observances are about encouraging people to be open and honest about who they are, about telling the truth and celebrating one another's bravery.

Ana McKee said she supports the work her son is doing on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students.

"I couldn't have a better son or a son I could be more proud of," she said. "I'm proud of the fact he's doing so much work to better the lives of other LGBTs because it's hard out there."

Now 21, McKee, a third-year student at Tech, is finally at peace with his parents and himself. He harbors no secrets about who he is.

He busies himself advocating on behalf of others. He is president of Tech's Pride Alliance, a social and advocacy student organization; student coordinator for Safe Space, a training program to encourage a supportive environment for gays on campus; and founder and president of Out Rights, a political rights student organization.

For his advocacy and other work on behalf of gays, he was named a 2006 Point Scholar recently. The award was presented by the Point Foundation, which provides financial support, mentoring and hope to students marginalized because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

"Everybody has seen by now the effect a closeted life can have on a person," said Mark Shields, director of the Human Rights Campaign's National Coming Out project. "It's so much healthier to be open and honest on so many levels."

McKee knows that. Now he intends to do everything he can so that others know.

To suggest a story, write Real Living, The Atlanta Journal- Constitution, 72 Marietta St. N.W., Atlanta, GA 30303; e-mail gstaples@ajc.com; or call 404-526-5370.