“In the second grade, I had a crush on a boy even though in the second grade you don’t know what love is or any of that…I kind of realized that being gay wasn’t normal and it wasn’t until the 8th grade that I was able to look into the mirror and say ‘I’m gay’”(2:16). I met Max our freshman year of high school when we were taking French classes together; it never seemed to bother me knowing that he is gay because that’s simply who he is. He never treated me a different way because of it in the sense that he received the same amount of respect that I received from him. To this day, Max and I are still close friends and have had a class together for two semesters now as freshmen in college. Max is the youngest child in his family and he has an interest in studying neuroscience. From a very young age, Max knew that he was gay, but it wasn’t until he was older that he realized that it is okay to be gay; he should be accepted not simply for being gay, but for who he is as a human being.
Although his friends are fully aware and are accepting of him, one of his biggest issues was having a partner, or relationship per se, as “normal” people do. “It’s just very lonely. I remember at one point I described it to my friends as I felt like I was Hawaii, and the rest of the world is the continental US.” (3:40) Feeling like an outsider, just how the state of Hawaii is compared to the US, Max still had hope. While the gay community is very small in some places, Max knew that with patience and time would come the right guy for him. Luckily, Max has found someone who cares for him the way he does for his partner. They have been together for over a year now.
To this day, Max does come across certain events where he feels unwelcome or attacked. Recently, a few weeks ago, Max was scrolling through Facebook and came across an article that was shared by one of his friends regarding the idea of teaching LGBT history in public schools. Seeing who shared this article came to great a surprise for Max because he had known this person since they were both very young, since elementary school to be exact. Out of curiosity, Max decided to comment on this post to see her reasoning and understand her view point on the topic. “Somebody on Facebook actually told me that because I am gay, I should be stoned to death because that’s what it says in the bible. This was a person-I actually went to elementary school with them, I was actually really close friends with them; we kind of fell out of contact throughout high school and now all of a sudden they are directly telling me that I should be buried up to my neck and have people throw rocks at me.” (10:24) Max truly was not expecting a response like this, especially from someone who he used to consider a really good friend of his; he simply wanted to know why she had shared this post. “On this specific post it was about teaching LGBT history and she said that she wouldn’t want her kids to learn LGBT history and I was like ‘why?’ You know because it’s just history and it escalated to so much more…” (13:28). Max had noticed that her friends were supporting her views and proceeded to act like Max was not a human but as a target. “Why are you using my sexuality to define me as a whole person? Just treat me like a normal person, if you find out that I am gay or see me with my boyfriend, I hope that your attitude towards me doesn’t change at all.” (29:10) Social issues like this are still very present to this day and it happened to Max so unexpectedly. “I’m happy that I made as many people on Facebook aware of the situation that I could, that way people don’t forget that homophobia is still such a prevalent thing in America, you know? A lot of people think that it all ended when we got the right to marry but that’s just not true.” (18:26) For Max and the rest of the LGBTQ community, marriage is only the first step for having their voices heard.
After going through an event like this from a former friend, Max’s current and closest friends showed him their support and apologized for her actions. “It was nice to have their support but at the same time, their support only goes so far because they still don’t understand what it’s like to truly be in the position that I am.” (15:46) Being in the situation that Max was in isn’t a situation that everyone can easily relate to, having the support from his friends was kind and thoughtful but it still wasn’t enough to repair the damage that was done.
Many people in the LGBTQ community still have a hard time finding the right words to describe him or herself in a way that they will not feel ashamed or unwelcome by his or her family and friends. When I asked Max what advice he would give to others who are still trying to figure out when is the right time for him or her to “come out”, he said “Come out when you’re ready but don’t feel like it’s a bad thing…Also, don’t out other people because I have outed people before when I was younger and it’s something that I regret a lot. If you have just come out you might think ‘Oh it’s not a big deal, everyone should come out’ but you know not everybody is ready, so don’t try to push anybody out.” (26:41) Timing is very critical for each individual and each person does things differently. From Max’s advice, I learned that not everyone is in the same situation about their sexuality and that his or her choice and position needs to be respected at all times, especially in a sensitive topic like this.
No one deserves to feel hated or unwelcome simply because of who he or she is. This goes for all subject matter whether it’s because of his or her race, sexuality, or religion. Innocent people like this deserve to be treated as a person and most importantly as a human being who isn’t harming anyone.
Max has learned a lot about himself, the LGBTQ community, and about certain individuals themselves since the day that he confirmed the fact that he is gay. While at times he feels like an outsider like the state of Hawaii, he knows that he isn’t alone and that he has the care and support from the rest of the continental US. At only 18 years old, he is still learning what it is like to be gay and what baggage comes with it in a society that still isn’t 100% accepting of the LGBTQ community. “I want societies to realize that being gay is 100% natural. A lot of people use that unnatural argument that we shouldn’t allow or accept gay people because it’s unnatural…I just want people to be more accepting of the LGBT community. I mean it gets really annoying after a while.” (32:16) Through personal experiences and experiences from others, he hopes to bring more awareness to people he knows and other communities about how these situations truly need to be understood and handled.
In Grecia Castillo’s “Feeling Like Hawaii-versus-the-Continental-U.S.” her interviewee Max openly expresses how being gay made him feel like an outcast for most of his life. In the present day we have seen a huge wave of acceptance for the LGBTQ community, including major milestones such as legalizing same-sex marriage. However, there are still those who are against the idea of a sexuality other than being heterosexual, just like the mindsets of those in the past. We saw an example of this in Ernst Rohm, a member of the Nazi party who was homosexual himself. Rohm was later betrayed by Hitler and sentenced to death for a combination of “treason” and being gay probably did not help Rohm either. Another example would be that gay men were also among the groups of people sent to the death camps, just for being gay. Thankfully in Castillo’s interview, Max never mentioned being physically attacked like many gay men were in the past, he did however, experience a homophobic situation on a modern format; Facebook. He recalled it, “Somebody on Facebook actually told me that because I am gay, I should be stoned to death because that’s what it says in the bible” (10:24). So while it may seem like the struggle for gay people is over, that would be a major falsehood. People like Max are an example of the struggles facing the LGBTQ community in the modern era, and why bringing awareness to them is still relevant.