John Hulsey, Author

  About the Author John Hulsey is an author, essayist, and lifelong storyteller whose work blends emotional honesty with a deep curiosity about the hidden corners of the human experience. By day, he serves as a Union Leader and a staunch advocate for the importance of mental health, fighting for dignity, support, and visibility for the people he represents. By night, he writes in response to whatever inspiration finds him, shaping stories that explore identity, advocacy, and the fragile threads that connect us across time. His blog, SanDiegoJohn , is home to his candid reflections on life, resilience, and the world around him. His previous book, Mindful Living: Nurturing Positive Mental Health , established him as a compassionate and accessible voice in the conversation around emotional well‑being. A Century to Forget is his debut work of fiction, a novel he spent three years crafting with equal parts obsession and love. He lives in San Diego with Ric, his husband of nearly thr...

Three years. That is how long I have been wrestling with this book. Three years of late nights, early mornings, breakthroughs, setbacks, and moments when I almost walked away from it entirely. But I did not. I kept going. And now I finally get to say the words I have been dreaming of. My book, A Century to Forget , will be published through Amazon and available on Kindle and in paperback on June 1, 2026. This story has been a labor of love from the very beginning. I am proud of it. I am proud of the work. And I am finally ready to share it with the world. Thank you to every author who shared their own work. You all inspired me to take this chance.

I’ve spent most of my life being harder on myself than anyone else ever could be. And let’s be real: that’s saying something, because the world isn’t exactly gentle with people like us. But somewhere along the way - between the chaos of my twenties, the grief of the 80s, the slow burn of adulthood, and the ongoing wrestling match with depression and anxiety - I realized something I wish I’d learned decades earlier. Being kind to yourself isn’t indulgent. It isn’t selfish. It isn’t weakness. It’s survival. And yet, it’s one of the hardest damn things to do. We’re taught from a young age to push, to strive, to hustle, to “be strong,” to “shake it off,” to “get over it.” We’re told that rest is laziness, that vulnerability is embarrassing, that asking for help is some kind of moral failure. And if you grow up queer in the era I did, you learn to armor up even more. You learn to anticipate judgment before it arrives. You learn to apologize for taking up space. You learn to turn the kn...

Trans Rights Are Human Rights. Full Stop. I have been thinking a lot about what it means to live in a country that claims to value freedom and equality while actively stripping both away from some of its most vulnerable people. And let me be clear right from the start. Transgender rights are human rights. There is no debate to be had. There is no moral gray area. There is no version of justice that excludes transgender people from dignity, safety, or equality. Yet here we are, again, watching a second Trump administration continue the same pattern of hostility toward transgender people that we saw the first time around. Policies, proposals, and public statements that target transgender Americans have not slowed down. They have intensified. The message is loud and clear. Some people in power believe transgender people should not exist in public life. And I am tired of it. I am tired of pretending this is anything other than what it is. A targeted attack on human beings who deserve b...

The Shame of American Christianity I am not a Christian. I do not belong to any church, and I do not speak from inside the faith. What I am is an observer. A witness. Someone who has spent a lifetime watching American Christianity from the outside and trying to make sense of the enormous gap between the teachings of Jesus and the behavior of many who claim to follow Him. And from where I stand, that gap is not a crack. It is a canyon. Even as an outsider, I can see the beauty in the teachings of Jesus. Compassion. Humility. Justice. Mercy. Feeding the hungry. Caring for the poor. Loving your neighbor. Loving your enemy. These are powerful, transformative ideas. They are the kind of values that could change the world if people actually lived them. But that is not what I see in much of American Christianity today. What I see instead is a faith tangled up in politics, power, and money. A faith that often behaves in ways that look nothing like the man it claims to follow. And the shame of...

He said, “ Maybe you should tone it down a little ,” and he really believed he was being kind. He probably even thought he was doing me a favor by offering that little nugget of wisdom. He had no idea what would actually happen if I took his advice. If I toned it down, even a little, the whole world would see the mess underneath. The sparkle is not decoration. It is survival. It is the thing that keeps people from noticing how chaotic it gets inside my head. No one needs front row seats to that. The truth is simple. The louder, brighter, funnier version of me is not fake. It is the version that keeps me moving. It is the version that keeps me from sinking. It is the version that lets me walk through the world without handing everyone a map to the parts of me that are still healing. Because yes, there are dark corners. There are old wounds. There are nights when my brain feels like it is trying to fold in on itself. But that is not the whole story, and it is not the part I owe to anyone...