Jorge Cruise.

"I'm Jorge Cruise, and I'm a gay man."

I'm a 13-time New York Times bestselling author with more than 8 million books in print and 25 years of work in wellness.

But of course, many of you probably know me from back in 2001, when I was married to a woman who would become the mother of my two sons. As you can imagine, I didn't even know I was in the closet. Being told as a kid that I wasn't a maricón — the Spanish word for a gay guy, a slur wrapped in a warning — I believed it. And being someone born in a time when information was, how shall we say, difficult to get, I accepted it. I had girlfriends. I got married. I was happy. I really loved being a dad.

Then I discovered being gay was not a choice. Andrew Huberman's work lit it up for me. And a book called Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why by Dr. Simon LeVay really opened my eyes to the reality of genetics — that this wasn't a choice, and that everything I'd learned through the Catholic lens of being a good Latino man was maybe not for me. It got me to let go and let God, as they say in 12-step work. And I can tell you: that's the kind of place this community is. Letting go. One day at a time. Easy does it.

I came out publicly in 2010, after the divorce. I started Project 1973 on Facebook — a community of more than 600 gay men who needed somewhere to land. That was the first attempt. The Ratio Tribe is the grown-up version.

After dating quite a few men, I got married again. During that season I wrote The 3 Choices — dedicated to him. Sadly, the relationship didn't land. I just didn't know myself yet. I wasn't the nicest guy — some would say an asshole — because of my lack of honesty, my ego, the fear that wouldn't let me be me, and the perfectionism that wouldn't let me have faith in myself.

Here's the part I couldn't say for years. I'm Latino. If I was going to be gay, I was going to be the top — the dominant one, the one in charge. In every relationship I was controlling. That was the deal I made with myself so being gay would still feel like being a man.

It's been six years since that second divorce. A lot of self-reflection. Thirteen years of therapy. Every book I could get my hands on about attachment, sexuality, and the biology of being a gay man. And in that process, I met Wyatt. Many of you know him. He's a behind-the-scenes guy — calm, confident, and completely his own man. For the first time in my life, I'm with an equal.

Here's what that changed. For most of my adult life I picked men who were happy to let me lead. With Wyatt, neither of us is happy to only lead, and neither of us is asked to only follow. We both run things. We both let go. And what I've learned — later than I'd like to admit — is that receiving, with the right man, takes more confidence than leading, not less. That's might. That's the freedom I want every man in this tribe to have.

I wrote him a song about it. Any two strong men are going to make weather — the trick is deciding, together, to be the couple that outlasts it. It's called Stronger Than the Storm, released under my music pen name Victor Sol. It's for Wyatt. And honestly, it's for every guy in this tribe still waiting for the one who meets him at full height.

This is who I am. So this is who you are.

Welcome to the tribe.

The Ratio Tribe is the shortcut. The 2D:4D science, the fraternal birth-order effect, attachment style, the archetypes and tribes — packaged honestly for gay men, the way Huberman talks about biology: matter-of-fact, peer-reviewed, never taboo.

— Jorge Cruise, Founder