Connect
“Barre3 has brought me so much peace”
June is Pride Month, and we’re so excited to be celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community all month long. Today, we’re sharing a conversation with Camren Hilyer, who works Front Desk and is an integral part of the team at barre3 Huntsville, in Alabama. Camren sent us a letter last month sharing his story and thanking barre3 for, as he put it, “giving this gay man from a small town in the middle of nowhere not only a voice, but also a reason to join this company and community.”
Read on for Camren’s story, including what it was like to grow up gay in the south, the conversation with his father that changed their relationship (note: you might want to grab tissues for that one), and how his barre3 studio team has supported him.
Interested in joining the barre3 community? Find a studio or subscribe to our online workouts.
Do you have a Pride story to share? We would love to hear from you! Email us anytime at dei@barre3.com.
B3 MAGAZINE: First of all, thank you for writing to us and agreeing to share your story with the barre3 community! Let’s start with a little background. You live in Alabama now, but is that where you grew up?
CAMREN: I was an Air Force brat, so I grew up all across the country—including Wyoming and all over the midwest. When I was 8 years old, we moved to Arab, Alabama, a small town that’s about 30 miles away from Huntsville.
B3 MAGAZINE: There’s a stereotype that the south isn’t the easiest place to be gay. Can you talk a bit about your experience growing up in a small town in Alabama as a young gay person?
CAMREN: Well, now I know that I’ve known I was gay for as long as I can remember. But growing up in the south, where it’s so negative to be gay, I wasn’t even admitting it to myself. I just always knew I was different—not necessarily in a bad way, I just knew I wasn’t like everyone else. And from a really young age, it was clear to me that everyone around me knew I was different, too. In elementary school, when we’d have to sit in lines for activities, no one wanted to sit next to me. When I got to middle school, that translated to changing in the locker room for gym class. No one would change their clothes near me.
Being gay, or just gay people in general, wasn’t something we talked about in my family. I remember my mom mentioned that she had gay friends growing up, but it was always just a story—never a reality that I saw.
And there was another factor, too: I grew up in faith, so it just didn’t add up to me how I could be gay and believe the things I was taught to believe. Honestly, that was the hardest part for me.
B3 MAGAZINE: With all those forces working against you, I imagine it must have been hard to finally come out—both to yourself and to others.
CAMREN: I was lucky to have a great friend who was also gay, and we sort of felt like it was us versus the world. But even with that, it was really hard. I remember being in middle school, feeling really ostracized, and wondering, when will they get over this? And it clicked: They won’t get over it until I get over it.
B3 MAGAZINE: That’s a profound and very mature perspective from someone so young!
CAMREN: I feel like because of who I was, I had to grow up faster than I wanted to. But even with that realization, it’s not like I was suddenly ok. For a while, I pretty much just isolated myself and cut everyone out.
But then, when I was 13, I was doing summer theater camp, and there was a guy a couple of years older than me who was already out—very out—and everyone at the theater loved him. I remember thinking two things: he’s so happy, and also, this is who I am. He and I kissed, and—I know this sounds crazy—for the first time in my life I felt like I was someone I saw in movies. For so long, I had been taught that I didn’t belong, and all of a sudden I felt like someone who had the right to live out their own story.
B3 MAGAZINE: That’s a huge revelation. Did it change how you lived your life?
CAMREN: In high school, things started clicking for me. I got into theater and dance, which really helped because I found my people, my place. By my sophomore year, I had come to terms with who I was and was ready to share with people—but not my parents yet. First, I needed to see how my community reacted.
I had an amazing friend named Lindsay, who was older than me. She was the first person I officially told that I was gay. She started crying and said, “I’m so happy for you!” And I said, “I’m happy too, for once!”
B3 MAGAZINE: How did it feel to finally come out to someone else?
CAMREN: It felt almost like a daydream. I had thought about it for so long, and finally it was real. I felt like I was reclaiming the power that had been taken from me for so long. Once I got Lindsay’s reaction, coming out was like a party trick; I’d just whip it out in all kinds of situations.
B3 MAGAZINE: How long after that did you come out to your parents—and how did it go?
CAMREN: When I was 16, I was working my first job ever at Arby’s. My mom picked me up after work one day, and I don’t know why, but I had just decided that this was the day I had to tell her. I started crying in the car before I even said anything. She asked me what was wrong, and I told her I wanted her to guess. I was just so nervous—she and I had always been a close pair, and I just felt like the stakes were so high.
She tried to guess, and she was throwing all these things out there: Did you kill someone? Are you on drugs? Did you get someone pregnant? Do you want to be a girl? I was saying no to all of them, and then she said, “Well you like girls, so that’s not it.” I just stared at her. She said, “You’re gay. What’s the big deal?” And then she said “I love you wholeheartedly. Nothing will ever change that.” She didn’t cry at all, and when I asked her why later, she said, “It’s because I always knew.”
B3 MAGAZINE: What an amazing moment! Did you come out to the rest of your family after that?
CAMREN: No, I wasn’t ready yet. I left for college at the University of Alabama. I was a dance major, and just being in the arts was everything for me—it was filled with love. My freshman year, my mom called me and said, “I’m in the car with your father and siblings, and I just told them you were gay.”
B3 MAGAZINE: Whoa! That must have come as quite a shock.
CAMREN: It felt like a fever dream. I knew I wouldn’t be able to tell my father until I was much older. He was in the military and wasn’t around a lot during my formative years, so we weren’t very close when I was growing up.
B3 MAGAZINE: Did your relationship with him change after he knew you were gay?
CAMREN: We got a little closer, but then I moved home during covid, and we had a really important moment. I sat him down and said, “I’ve never told you myself, but I’m gay.” He said, “thank you.” I know he always knew, but it just felt really important to me to have him hear it from me. Then he said, “Watching you come out and live your life has taught me that it’s the most courageous thing you could do.” He said he was so proud of me.
B3 MAGAZINE: (Grabs a tissue.)
CAMREN: I sobbed for days. In that moment, he let me see him. We were both keeping walls up, only to learn that he sees me as the hero, and he’s my hero. Honestly, before that, I had given up on my relationship with him because I’m gay. This conversation changed everything.
B3 MAGAZINE: In your letter to us, you mentioned that you felt endlessly supported by barre3. How did you first discover barre3?
CAMREN: I teach at a dance studio, and a friend there told me about barre3. The Huntsville studio hadn’t opened yet, but I took the first class for potential instructors. I’m a dancer and I work out quite frequently, but nothing gets you like a barre3 workout! But this workout went beyond the physical. Honestly, I was almost in tears afterward. I just kept thinking, this is so beautiful!
After class I talked to the owner, Mandy. I told her I wanted to audition to be an instructor when her studio opened, but that I was planning to move to New York City in the fall. She said to be an instructor, you needed to commit for a year. I got it, but I was sad. Then a month later, she emailed me and said, “I really want you to work for me.” She asked if I’d be open to working at the front desk, and I told her I was up for anything, so we set up an interview.
When I sat down for the interview, it was Mandy and Kristian, and they immediately said, “we want to hire you.” They said they hadn’t stopped thinking about me since the moment they met me, and that I embody who they are as a studio.
B3 MAGAZINE: Wow – that must have felt amazing!
CAMREN: That moment changed my life. First of all, as a performer who’s always getting critiqued, it’s crazy to be told you’re perfect. And then as a gay man in the south, to be embraced by these women—it’s just everything. It taught me that I can’t assume people won’t like me.
B3 MAGAZINE: So you took the job right away?
CAMREN: Yes! I’ve been part of the opening team, and already we feel like such a community. At the beginning of June Kristian sent me a “happy first day of Pride” message. To have this come from my boss means so much. I have so many friends who work in boutique fitness, and no one else has this kind of support. Barre3 is doing the work everyone else in the world should be doing. It has brought me such peace.
B3 MAGAZINE: I love that you felt this on such an authentic level. And I’m so grateful to you for sharing your story with us!
CAMREN: I’d love to add one thing. I want people to remember what Pride month is about. It can get so watered down, distilled as a white gay male experience. But there’s so much more. Pride is about the fight that started at Stonewall.
Every queer person counts. It’s not about me. I have my privilege. I was able to come out and be safe. I’ve been able to love myself, be loved by my friends and family, and even fall in love and live a fairytale I didn’t think belonged to someone like me. I know gay people who have not been so lucky.
We are progressing as a country, but we have to remember we have a long way to go, a lot more work to do. We are all one species and one family on this earth. We must act like it, or we will never see the unified world that I hope to raise my kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids in.
Thank you so much, Camren, for sharing your beautiful story with us!
June is Pride Month, and we’re so excited to be celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community all month long. Today, we’re sharing a conversation with Camren Hilyer, who works Front Desk and is an integral part of the team at barre3 Huntsville, in Alabama. Camren sent us a letter last month sharing his story and thanking barre3 for, as he put it, “giving this gay man from a small town in the middle of nowhere not only a voice, but also a reason to join this company and community.”
Read on for Camren’s story, including what it was like to grow up gay in the south, the conversation with his father that changed their relationship (note: you might want to grab tissues for that one), and how his barre3 studio team has supported him.
Interested in joining the barre3 community? Find a studio or subscribe to our online workouts.
Do you have a Pride story to share? We would love to hear from you! Email us anytime at dei@barre3.com.
B3 MAGAZINE: First of all, thank you for writing to us and agreeing to share your story with the barre3 community! Let’s start with a little background. You live in Alabama now, but is that where you grew up?
CAMREN: I was an Air Force brat, so I grew up all across the country—including Wyoming and all over the midwest. When I was 8 years old, we moved to Arab, Alabama, a small town that’s about 30 miles away from Huntsville.
B3 MAGAZINE: There’s a stereotype that the south isn’t the easiest place to be gay. Can you talk a bit about your experience growing up in a small town in Alabama as a young gay person?
CAMREN: Well, now I know that I’ve known I was gay for as long as I can remember. But growing up in the south, where it’s so negative to be gay, I wasn’t even admitting it to myself. I just always knew I was different—not necessarily in a bad way, I just knew I wasn’t like everyone else. And from a really young age, it was clear to me that everyone around me knew I was different, too. In elementary school, when we’d have to sit in lines for activities, no one wanted to sit next to me. When I got to middle school, that translated to changing in the locker room for gym class. No one would change their clothes near me.
Being gay, or just gay people in general, wasn’t something we talked about in my family. I remember my mom mentioned that she had gay friends growing up, but it was always just a story—never a reality that I saw.
And there was another factor, too: I grew up in faith, so it just didn’t add up to me how I could be gay and believe the things I was taught to believe. Honestly, that was the hardest part for me.
B3 MAGAZINE: With all those forces working against you, I imagine it must have been hard to finally come out—both to yourself and to others.
CAMREN: I was lucky to have a great friend who was also gay, and we sort of felt like it was us versus the world. But even with that, it was really hard. I remember being in middle school, feeling really ostracized, and wondering, when will they get over this? And it clicked: They won’t get over it until I get over it.
B3 MAGAZINE: That’s a profound and very mature perspective from someone so young!
CAMREN: I feel like because of who I was, I had to grow up faster than I wanted to. But even with that realization, it’s not like I was suddenly ok. For a while, I pretty much just isolated myself and cut everyone out.
But then, when I was 13, I was doing summer theater camp, and there was a guy a couple of years older than me who was already out—very out—and everyone at the theater loved him. I remember thinking two things: he’s so happy, and also, this is who I am. He and I kissed, and—I know this sounds crazy—for the first time in my life I felt like I was someone I saw in movies. For so long, I had been taught that I didn’t belong, and all of a sudden I felt like someone who had the right to live out their own story.
B3 MAGAZINE: That’s a huge revelation. Did it change how you lived your life?
CAMREN: In high school, things started clicking for me. I got into theater and dance, which really helped because I found my people, my place. By my sophomore year, I had come to terms with who I was and was ready to share with people—but not my parents yet. First, I needed to see how my community reacted.
I had an amazing friend named Lindsay, who was older than me. She was the first person I officially told that I was gay. She started crying and said, “I’m so happy for you!” And I said, “I’m happy too, for once!”
B3 MAGAZINE: How did it feel to finally come out to someone else?
CAMREN: It felt almost like a daydream. I had thought about it for so long, and finally it was real. I felt like I was reclaiming the power that had been taken from me for so long. Once I got Lindsay’s reaction, coming out was like a party trick; I’d just whip it out in all kinds of situations.
B3 MAGAZINE: How long after that did you come out to your parents—and how did it go?
CAMREN: When I was 16, I was working my first job ever at Arby’s. My mom picked me up after work one day, and I don’t know why, but I had just decided that this was the day I had to tell her. I started crying in the car before I even said anything. She asked me what was wrong, and I told her I wanted her to guess. I was just so nervous—she and I had always been a close pair, and I just felt like the stakes were so high.
She tried to guess, and she was throwing all these things out there: Did you kill someone? Are you on drugs? Did you get someone pregnant? Do you want to be a girl? I was saying no to all of them, and then she said, “Well you like girls, so that’s not it.” I just stared at her. She said, “You’re gay. What’s the big deal?” And then she said “I love you wholeheartedly. Nothing will ever change that.” She didn’t cry at all, and when I asked her why later, she said, “It’s because I always knew.”
B3 MAGAZINE: What an amazing moment! Did you come out to the rest of your family after that?
CAMREN: No, I wasn’t ready yet. I left for college at the University of Alabama. I was a dance major, and just being in the arts was everything for me—it was filled with love. My freshman year, my mom called me and said, “I’m in the car with your father and siblings, and I just told them you were gay.”
B3 MAGAZINE: Whoa! That must have come as quite a shock.
CAMREN: It felt like a fever dream. I knew I wouldn’t be able to tell my father until I was much older. He was in the military and wasn’t around a lot during my formative years, so we weren’t very close when I was growing up.
B3 MAGAZINE: Did your relationship with him change after he knew you were gay?
CAMREN: We got a little closer, but then I moved home during covid, and we had a really important moment. I sat him down and said, “I’ve never told you myself, but I’m gay.” He said, “thank you.” I know he always knew, but it just felt really important to me to have him hear it from me. Then he said, “Watching you come out and live your life has taught me that it’s the most courageous thing you could do.” He said he was so proud of me.
B3 MAGAZINE: (Grabs a tissue.)
CAMREN: I sobbed for days. In that moment, he let me see him. We were both keeping walls up, only to learn that he sees me as the hero, and he’s my hero. Honestly, before that, I had given up on my relationship with him because I’m gay. This conversation changed everything.
B3 MAGAZINE: In your letter to us, you mentioned that you felt endlessly supported by barre3. How did you first discover barre3?
CAMREN: I teach at a dance studio, and a friend there told me about barre3. The Huntsville studio hadn’t opened yet, but I took the first class for potential instructors. I’m a dancer and I work out quite frequently, but nothing gets you like a barre3 workout! But this workout went beyond the physical. Honestly, I was almost in tears afterward. I just kept thinking, this is so beautiful!
After class I talked to the owner, Mandy. I told her I wanted to audition to be an instructor when her studio opened, but that I was planning to move to New York City in the fall. She said to be an instructor, you needed to commit for a year. I got it, but I was sad. Then a month later, she emailed me and said, “I really want you to work for me.” She asked if I’d be open to working at the front desk, and I told her I was up for anything, so we set up an interview.
When I sat down for the interview, it was Mandy and Kristian, and they immediately said, “we want to hire you.” They said they hadn’t stopped thinking about me since the moment they met me, and that I embody who they are as a studio.
B3 MAGAZINE: Wow – that must have felt amazing!
CAMREN: That moment changed my life. First of all, as a performer who’s always getting critiqued, it’s crazy to be told you’re perfect. And then as a gay man in the south, to be embraced by these women—it’s just everything. It taught me that I can’t assume people won’t like me.
B3 MAGAZINE: So you took the job right away?
CAMREN: Yes! I’ve been part of the opening team, and already we feel like such a community. At the beginning of June Kristian sent me a “happy first day of Pride” message. To have this come from my boss means so much. I have so many friends who work in boutique fitness, and no one else has this kind of support. Barre3 is doing the work everyone else in the world should be doing. It has brought me such peace.
B3 MAGAZINE: I love that you felt this on such an authentic level. And I’m so grateful to you for sharing your story with us!
CAMREN: I’d love to add one thing. I want people to remember what Pride month is about. It can get so watered down, distilled as a white gay male experience. But there’s so much more. Pride is about the fight that started at Stonewall.
Every queer person counts. It’s not about me. I have my privilege. I was able to come out and be safe. I’ve been able to love myself, be loved by my friends and family, and even fall in love and live a fairytale I didn’t think belonged to someone like me. I know gay people who have not been so lucky.
We are progressing as a country, but we have to remember we have a long way to go, a lot more work to do. We are all one species and one family on this earth. We must act like it, or we will never see the unified world that I hope to raise my kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids in.
Thank you so much, Camren, for sharing your beautiful story with us!
