Gay – From Us To Them

Not Their Cup of Tea

Millie Leonhard, Mason’s Home in Kansas, Olathe. Google June 2012. Copyright Free.

Present Day in Kansas City

When the doorbell rang, Mason was busy cleaning the house as he had always done on his day off. He opened the door to a slight, young woman bundled up against the Kansas winter. He didn’t usually have unanticipated visitors, especially in his quiet cul-de-sac nestled in suburban Olathe.

“Hi, my name is Lindsay. I’m with 41 Action News. I’ve heard that there is an unlicensed, homeless shelter that is operating out of the church behind your home. Have you seen anything suspicious lately?” she inquired.

Mason had actually seen some unusual activity in their family-oriented neighborhood: a drunk man passed out on a neighbor’s porch, one of the homeless had gotten aggressive when the neighborhood refused to let him shovel driveways for cash–but Mason didn’t mention that. He wasn’t one to be in the spotlight.

“No, I haven’t particularly seen anything out of the ordinary,” Mason stated.

“Well, if you happen to think of anything feel free to give me a call,” Lindsay stated handing Mason her business card.

“We are looking for people in the area to do interviews if they know information about the homeless shelter and its effects on the neighborhood.”

Mason thought for a moment, Oh, well interviews? Liam would love that.

While Mason was a bit introverted and content to keep to himself, his partner, Liam, was the opposite–an extrovert who relished the spotlight and loved to embellish. The perfect candidate for a conservative Kansas news station story about the homeless infiltrating the suburbs.

“Actually if you’re looking for people to interview my husband should be home around seven tonight. He’s more up to speed on the community on-goings and I’m sure he would love to talk to you.”

Mason watched the reporter’s eyes light up as if he’d just told her she’d won a lump sum of cash. He thought, Oh, yeah. I bet this seems great for her. Gays in the suburbs of conservative Kansas. Guess you don’t see that on every block.

Lindsay said emphatically, “I’d love to speak with your husband! Here’s my card. Make sure he calls me the moment he gets home.”

“I’ll be sure to do that. Have a great afternoon, Lindsay,” Mason said as he closed the front door. Turning around to go upstairs, he couldn’t help but feel as though he was something to be gawked at after his interaction with the reporter.

He began to wash the dishes as he peered out the frosted kitchen window and pondered his life in the past few months. This was different than Chicago, but it was a silent different. It was verbal attacks as he grew up, maybe a beer thrown at him, but here he dealt with the silent, passive abhorrence.

MIllie Leonhard. Mason’s Southside Home, Chicago. Google 2018. Copyright Free.

Growing up Gay

“Andrew, turn up the music! We need to get pumped for the club!” Mason said.

It was that time of year in Chicago when the weather was finally turning from a frozen tundra to where life could begin to creep back into the streets. Mason and his friend, Andrew, were cruising down a bumpy road on the Southside with all the windows down, letting the spring breeze guide their mood as they made the trek to Boystown. Upon Mason’s request, Andrew turned up the Britney Spears song, “Hit Me Baby One More Time”, and the two of them began to sing along. Apparently, this was the wrong choice.

As they glided up to a red stop light, a large SUV pulled up beside them and four men jumped out.

“The fuck you fags think you’re doing playing that music around here?”

Before the seventeen-year-old boys had time to think, the men jumped on the car from the passenger and driver’s side. The car began to rock and they were reaching for the boys.

“Drive! Drive! DRIVE,” Mason said emphatically. Andrew pressed the gas pedal all the way to the floor running through the red light. The men fell away and became smaller and smaller as the boys looked back. With their hearts racing, they looked at each other with wild eyes. No more playing Britney Spears that loudly on the rough Southside.

Growing up Latino

How could he forget? How? It was the midterm for crying out loud!

Mason had just gotten back to his apartment after a long day. He plopped down on the couch and propped his feet up on the coffee table gearing up to watch a guilty pleasure: Friends. All of the sudden it came racing back to him. FUCK. The midterm.

His feet were on the ground before he knew it and he was racing to his desktop to figure out what the essay was supposed to be about. Culinary school usually focused on execution but this time he needed to write. It was already almost midnight but the paper was due at ten in the morning. He had no time to waste. Mason stayed up all night and when the sun was coming up over the lake, he was typing the last page. Groggy as hell, he trudged to class with the paper in hand.

As he walked in and set the paper down on the front desk his instructor said, “What’s this?”

“That’s my midterm,” stated Mason.

“Oh, well it’s not due for another week. Are you ready to turn it in?”

Damn it. I mixed up dates, Mason thought. But he was confident in his work. “Yeah, it’s ready.”

The instructor accepted the paper and told Mason he would have it graded in a few days.

A few days later, the instructor came into class and told everyone that Mason had received an A on his midterm. If they would like to see what an A paper looked like, he would leave the paper out on the desk so they could take a look. After many of the students had taken time to go over the paper, one girl decided to speak up.

She raised her hand and stated, “Well, I don’t understand how he could get an A if he doesn’t even know how to fucking speak English.”

Mason, shocked, immediately felt the red hot pulse of embarrassment envelop his being. I earned that grade. I worked my ass off. I stayed up ALL night. So what if I don’t sound like you, Mason thought.

However, Mason had to put up with this reaction multiple times; he just wanted to fit in. This wore him down until he decided he would work to get rid of his Latino accent.

He regretfully succeeded.

Remembering What We Built

Liam came home to find Mason scrubbing the floors vigorously, which Mason usually will resort to doing when he’s stressed out. He could tell that something triggered him.

“Honey, how was your day?” Liam asked.

“Fine. Some reporter came by. She wants to know about the homeless shelter. Thought maybe you’d like to talk to her,” Mason stated without looking up.

“Hey, are you okay?”

“It’s just different here, Liam. I know this is your hometown. Sometimes it’s hard to deal with. It’s so different than Chicago. They judge silently…they find ways to make me feel as though I’m wrong for who I am,” Mason said as he slumped back against a cabinet.

“Hey, do you remember when those assholes followed us, called us fags, and threw beer bottles at us when we were walking home in Chicago one night?” Liam inquired softly while climbing down to meet Mason on the hardwood.

“Yeah.”

“Remember what happened? I wanted to run. You told me no. You said we needed to keep walking and don’t look back at them,” Liam said.

“And we haven’t looked back. We have pushed forward. No matter who told us that we were wrong,” he continued. At that moment, Liam started up their home sound system with Mason’s favorite song, “In My Feelings” while he grabbed Mason’s hands and pulled him to his feet. Then, he began to sing along loudly. Mason looked at Liam, cracked a side smile and laughed, letting go of his worries.

Mason and Liam built a home. Unapologetic, they built a loving relationship. More often than not, people have been judgmental of their differences, and the world may not change for them. Mason thought, I am not everyone’s cup of tea, and I’ve learned to be okay with that.

Pride in Kansas City

By Anonymous Student (not Prof. Bergerson)

It is so fascinating to think about the fact that within our country, each state has such a different culture and way of living life. I think it is mind blowing to learn that things from the political climate to the phrases people say can be wildly different from state to state yet we all fall under a common label: citizens of the United State of America. This was a reality I first became confronted with when I moved from Southern California to Sedalia, Missouri about a year ago. Shifting from a raging liberal state to a raging conservative state was quite the challenge. Something that I really took for granted is the fact that members of the LGBTQIA+ community in the midwest are often ostracized, harassed, and hated. This was shocking to me, due to the fact that where I am from everyone from every walk of life is accepted. The LGBTQIA+ community is even celebrated where I’m from. When I came to UMKC I immediately noticed a positive shift in the attitude towards different people in a way that I had not seen in more rural Missouri. In my Discourse 100 class, I met an individual named Raine Briscoe, who I ended up becoming close friends with. Raine identifies as a transgender male. Something that made him really stick out to me in class was the fact that he was so open about his sexuality and was unashamedly himself. I immediately knew I wanted to get to know him better so that I could get a sense of what things are like for people of the LGBTQIA+ community in the Midwest. I was able to interview him on February 28, 2019 in the Miller Nichols Learning Center. From this interview I hoped to gain a personal and insightful perspective into what life is like as a transgender person in conservative America. In the interview, Raine shared stories about his experiences with things ranging from harassment at school to being misidentified on a daily basis, to the acceptance he feels on the UMKC campus in particular.

Raine grew up in a fairly typical household. His parents divorced when he was around six, and his parents shared 50/50 custody for the remainder of his adolescence. Raine has one older sister, and they both grew up in the suburbs of Liberty, Missouri. When I inquired as to how old he was when he started to notice that he might be transgender, he was able to trace it back to the age of seven. Rained recalled watching Dancing with the Stars with his mother and seeing Chaz Bono, who is a transgender male, and also legendary pop star, Cher’s son. When his mother explained to him that Chaz was transgender, and what that meant, he distinctly remembered the acceptance and welcoming tone that his mother used. She made it very clear that what Chaz did was absolutely something that Raine could do to. Raine explained, “And at the time, because when your seven you don’t think about that too much, but uh, I really did kind of resonate with that and it kind of stuck with me all throughout my life and I didn’t really do anything about it or feel anything until middle school. I would have people literally go up and ask me ‘Raine are you a guy or a girl because we honestly can’t tell’ I was like ‘uh I don’t know, I’m whatever, I’m a medical mystery”. Raine always knew that he was different from the kids around him in ways that were not limited to gender identity. He reflected on this and said, “Umm, I really wasn’t like anyone else, and so, people, especially young kids, don’t like what’s different. And I was very much different. I used to put socks on barbies and pretend they were slug people. Because I really liked bugs”. The fact that his personality was already different from many of his peers made it even more difficult for him to develop a self-acceptance for his sexuality and gender identity. Raine did not truly explore the thought that he might be transgender until around the time that he entered high school. He explains, “I started listening to this band called Steam Powered Giraffe, umm, when I was about fourteen. And one of the main members of that band is trans and so I learned all about her experience as a trans woman and I can really relate that back and forth to, you know. I was like [high pitched tone] ‘maybe I am trans’”. This was a pivotal moment in Raine’s journey to accepting his sexuality.

The first person that Raine came out to as transgender was his mother. According to his answers in the interview, she was immediately very accepting and embraced Raine’s identity without questioning or any reservation. He stated, “I really didn’t do anything fully until high school, when I started watching RuPaul’s Drag Race, and there were all these drag queens who were trans women. And they talked about their experience being queer, LGBT. And I was like ‘Okay yeah somethings, somethin’ ain’t right chief’ so then I came out to my mom. And my mom was like ‘yeah you are’. Yeah my mom was like, without a doubt, ‘I thought you were a lesbian but you’re not so go out be weird’,”. There is something that I personally found very interesting about this. The first one being that both of the figures that Raine described in this interview as being the most influential on his path to acceptance of himself were both public figures that he saw on television shows. For me this was great insight into the essential role that consistent exposure to people who are like-minded plays in the lives of developing children. This is something that those of us who are straight and belong to majority culture do not have to necessarily think about. However, those struggling to determine their gender identity or sexual orientation have very few well-known public figures to look up to. While this was the case as well for people who reside in the area of California that I am from, I realized that it did not stick out as much to me because they had many figures in our local community and in their personal lives to look up to. Southern California has a high concentration of members from the LGBTQIA+ community, so many of the individuals who live there grew up with several relatives and friends that were active in that community. For Raine and others growing up in the Kansas City area this was not the case, which affected them in a big way. Raine describes his relationship with the area in which he grew up by saying, “Like where I come from it was awful. I mean, like, I enjoyed it and I met a lot of great people but there was a lot of things that were just not good. Things weren’t good. A lot of bullying as a kid. A lot, like from second grade maybe fourth grade up was a lot”. It is tragic to hear stories of someone being attacked verbally or physically for simply embracing themselves in a way that causes no harm to others. In a modern society that claims to be accepting and open, there is still so much hatred for varying groups across the country. In the Kansas City area, there has been an interesting shift in the common attitude towards the LGBTQIA+ group over the past forty to fifty years.

The gay rights movement in our nation was not truly born until after the Stonewall riots in 1969. These riots were a result of violent acts between gay rights activists and police officers outside of a gay bar called Stonewall Inn in New York. It was in response to these events that gay rights activists across the nation rose up to form a collective movement. A news article from The Phoenix Newsletter states that “In June 1975, the first Gay pride Festival was held in Kansas City. The three-day event was spearheaded by the Gay People’s Union, Kansas City Women’s Liberation Union, the Joint Committee for Gay Rights, and the Metropolitan Community Church,” (Hinds 16). This was the first time that the LGBTQIA+ community was really given a dedicated platform to celebrate who they were and what they had accomplished. After this, the community still maintained a very underground existence. The same article states that “Records of Pride activities for most of the 1980’s are scant to nonexistent in GLAMA (Gay and Lesbian Archives of Mid-America) collections,” (Hinds 16). Throughout the remainder of the 20th century, and into the 21st century, the political power behind the Pride movement in Kansas City began to die out and turned into a party scene. Currently, whenever someone attempts to organize a Pride festival or event in Kansas City, they are often met with insanely high costs that prevented people from going through with it. This has inhibited the ability of Pride groups to establish a strong public presence in Kansas City.

However, Raine explained in our interview that despite all of the hardships he experienced throughout his life, because of who he is, it was all for the most part put to a stop when he came to UMKC. He said, “during orientation I went here and I got to see everything. There were other people like me, trans, lesbians, gays, bi, asexual, queer, whatever, just LGBT in general. And I was like ‘damn, I’ve really fucking found my place, shit’ and um I was at pride alliance […] there was a night at the beginning of the year where we were all just hanging out watching Matilda, and it felt like I was watching a movie with some close friends. Because we were all just watching Matilda, having a good time. […] Just being here is great and I love it. I’m really happy I’m here,”. I thought this really spoke to the fact that while the Pride movement in Kansas City lacks support in comparison to many other parts of the country, the fact that a LGBTQIA+ movement does exist here makes a significant difference. Throughout most of Missouri, nearly no support exists for people in this community, while in contrast the UMKC campus specifically makes a tremendous effort towards fostering diversity and inclusion. Those like Raine, being able to come here and be apart of a group that makes them feel safe and loved is a remarkable experience, and is something that is difficult to find amidst a part of the country that tends to hold prejudice towards anyone who is different.

Hearing Raine’s story was such an honor, and provided me with a new perspective on the progress that needs to be made in this area. To not only hear his story, but to be able to pair it with a now expanded context of the city itself, has opened my eyes to so many issues that I never knew existed. I think myself, and anyone else who has ever sat down with someone and just listened to their story, quickly realizes how beautiful connecting with other human beings is. We so often gravitate towards people who are like us, but we often learn the most from those who have a completely different experience from our own. The stories of Raine, and anyone else who has experienced discrimination because of who they are, need people that want to listen and who will use those stories in their daily lives to not only accept but celebrate the beautiful ways in which all of our life experiences are so different.

Works Cited

“Stonewall Riots.” Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 21 June 2018, www.britannica.com/event/Stonewall-riots.

Hinds, Stuart L. “History of Pride.” The Phoenix Newsletter, June 2014, pp. 16–17. z

Finding Identity in Kansas City

For 18 years, Anthony had grown up in Austin, Texas. He recently moved to Kansas City, Missouri to go to the University of Missouri- Kansas City, to get his Bachelor of Arts in Journalism. I am also a student at the University of Missouri- Kansas City. Unlike Anthony, I have lived in Kansas City, Missouri most of my life. I was also born in Texas, and shortly after I was born, we moved to North Carolina for my dad’s job. My dad was unhappy with the job in North Carolina, so we moved to Kansas City, and we couldn’t be happier. Kansas City is such a unique city where you can find a place you belong very easily. Anthony and I have one thing in common, and that is that we were both raised Catholic. The one big difference is that we both had very different experiences with the church.

When I was 4 years old, I was baptized Catholic. I did not get a choice, nor did Anthony. The big difference between our stories is that I went to catholic school for 16 years. I was surrounded by people with the same beliefs as me, and at the beginning of every class we start the class off with a prayer. Anthony did not get this. His parents made him go to Religious education class once a weekend because he went to public school. Anthony then came out to his family as gay when he was around 16 years old. Our faith journeys are very different.

Anthony was born into the Catholic Church; his parents chose his religion for him. He was baptized as a baby and went through the sacraments (baptism, first communion, reconciliation, confirmation). Anthony has always thought of church as being a burden. When he was younger, he never wanted to go to church and, since he went to a public school, his parents made him go to religious education classes and youth group. When Anthony turned 16, he realized he still was not interested in church and decided that his ideas did not align with the Catholic church. Since Anthony was so young, he did not get any say in if he wanted to be a part of the Catholic church or not. When asking Anthony if he wished he got the choice to decide if he wanted to be Catholic or not, he responded by saying, “I would say probably no. Being raised in the Catholic church has opened my eyes to this and is something I don’t really want to be apart of. Even though I might have had a few struggled and I felt a little awkward at times to be part of the church. I think growing up that way really made me realize that I had my own viewpoints separate than my parents and family had,”(3:44). This, for me, was very hard to hear because I was also raised Catholic and went to 16 years of Catholic school. It was heart breaking to hear that Anthony didn’t appreciate Catholicism as much as I do.

Anthony came out as gay in 2015 when he was 16 years old. For Anthony this was hard because he knew that being Catholic and gay was something that was difficult to achieve . A lot of old fashion Catholic’s do not support gays, and Anthony knew this. Anthony knew he had some struggles coming his way. The first people Anthony came out to were his parents. In the interview Anthony said, “My mom was really upset. She started crying and talked about how disadvantaged I was going to be. But my dad could tell. He had an idea and he was more okay with it, I guess you could say. As far as my extended family, I really did not feel like it was necessary because they all lived outside of Texas so I felt like it wouldn’t have made a difference if I came out to them. I really didn’t see a point,” (4:03). Imagine not having your mom not totally on board with your sexuality. That in itself must have been extremely hard. Anthony’s mom since then learned to accept him for who he really is. No one in Anthony’s family knows that he is gay besides his parents and his sister. He isn’t hiding it from his other family he just doesn’t see them and doesn’t find it super important to tell them. In the interview, Anthony said that he waited a while to tell his sister just because they are 15 years apart and he is not that close with her.

I asked Anthony if he would consider himself Catholic and his answer was, “At the moment I do not know. This is something I have struggled with for the pasted few years whenever people ask me what religion I am or if I am Catholic. I just don’t think I should entirely separate myself from the church. I am afraid to do it honestly,”(6:53). Anthony admitted that it is hard being gay and Catholic because he said when he came out, he started to judge the people in his church because he assumed, they were judging him. Anthony now has learned that no one is really judging him and that he is invited and welcomed into his church. Anthony, throughout his life, has struggled being gay. In the interview I asked him how being gay effected his self-image and he said, “I think for a while even after I came out I guess I really didn’t want to be perceived as gay even though I had come out. I just didn’t want to be looked down upon me. I didn’t want people to see me and be like that person is gay. I didn’t have a problem with being gay, I was just afraid of the perception people would have of me. I was afraid people would look less of me or they wouldn’t want to be friends with me because I was gay,”(2:30). This interview was so interesting to me because I have never had to experience wondering if I was accepted in my church or not. I have always just thought I was loved and accepted by my church community. Anthony is a very strong person to have to question whether or not he is accepted at such a young age. Since getting to college, Anthony has realized that he does not get treated differently because of his sexuality. He feels like he is accepted and welcomed at the University of Missouri- Kansas City.

Not My Definitive Label

In our junior year of high school, I became friends with my interviewee, CB. Through our friendship, I’ve gotten to know him foremost as someone who is enthusiastic, involved, and hardworking. Together, we navigated our difficult classes with late-night study sessions at Starbucks and memorable but amusing lab incidents. He had already become an important friend to me before I ever knew about his sexual orientation. As his friend, I knew he might have gone through some difficult times because of who he is, and I wanted to learn more about him. In this way, I could empathize with his experiences.

Kim Phan, Photo of CB, Kansas City, March 2019. All rights reserved.

During our interview when I asked, “what words do you use to name your difference?” (00:12) he responds in a blunt but joking voice, “Gay” (00:19).

CB elaborates: “I didn’t have like […] this bright rainbow that showed me like, gay. But, I don’t know, it just felt like it was always part of me” (00:46). When he found a name for how he was feeling, he says, “it was nice to realize that there were other people like that out there like me, that even though I wouldn’t be deemed normal by society […] I would still be accepted by some people somewhere” (30:24). It was also terrifying for him to realize that he belonged to “a demographic that’s persecuted against, and that people can use my quality of being a homosexual against me for no reason whatsoever” (30:24).

Although in recent years society has grown more accepting, regarding the LGBT community, less than a century ago homosexuals were victims of a systematic genocide known as the Holocaust. Nazis forced Jews to wear the yellow Star of David just as they labeled homosexuals with a pink triangle and eliminated them in death camps.

In the twenty-first century, CB faces different challenges. Growing up in a “white, middle-class, Republican family” (1:13) has made it difficult for him to express himself. Even now his parents won’t let him tell his extended family and because of this “I feel like I’ve been blocked from them kind of” (2:10).

Subtle interactions frame how CB sexuality affects his daily life, and overall, his anxiety stems from the risk that his sexual orientation will negatively impact him. He is anxious that the people he meets, especially superiors like teachers, might have a bad perception of homosexuality and will project that onto him (2:49). When he does tell people about being gay, “the first like five seconds of not only their verbal communication but their nonverbal communication tell you it all” (1:33). When he wants people to see him for who he is, as a good student and a good person, he worries that they aren’t going to accept him and will only see him as “just, gay” (2:10). And although he has never been physically persecuted, he does fear the possibility.

It was only towards the end of our senior year did I learn that he was gay. Honestly, up to that point, I never gave it much thought, and the possibility didn’t cross my mind. But once I learned about it, there was no reason for that fact to change our friendship. I felt like that was just a part of the CB I already knew, and I was glad that he trusted me enough to tell me.

Other friends have reacted differently. CB admits to wanting to change during high school in response to this, “I was in a group of friends, who I’m still friends with yes, who are, like my family, white, middle class […] they’re very strong Republicans. And, that’s not saying anything bad against them, it’s just everyone has their different views but, I’ve been friends with them all my life, and I’m still friends with them today” (5:06). Finding a more diverse friend group has helped CB destress, and during the interview, we laughed about how differently he acts around his separate peer groups.

“Look, our nerd friend group is probably like, one of my saving graces for my senior year, because it got me away from everything else, and you guys showed me like […] my friends don’t have to be assholes and I don’t have to hide myself” (6:07).

CB was involved in several extracurricular activities in high school, including cross-country. I remember driving to school for an early class at 6:30 when I would see him running with his teammates on the sidewalk. Now CB tells me that even though he loves running and being with a team, “one of the most, like stressful parts of my day is going to practice” (8:00). Although they never talked about it, he says that some people on his team either knew or suspected that he was gay. He could tell that some of those people were uncomfortable about it “Because I mean we’re all running around shirtless” (7:09). He never faced any serious verbal persecution, instead “Everything that I have like viewed as harmful or persecutive towards myself, has always been non-verbal or just in absent, where they just block me, basically. Or like ghost me and try not to […] come in contact with me” (8:36). In the case of his cross-country teammates, they would look at him differently and it “would just get really annoying and stressful” (8:00).

This ghosting is a kind of symbolic annihilation as opposed to a physical one. Those who don’t understand or think negatively about his difference chose to make him invisible to them, rather than confronting their views. Because of this, they don’t get to know him, and they never see past the label put on him.

According to CB, environmental factors and their upbringing are the reasons people act this way. Parents and peers had certain expectations for the social norm, so when it came to homosexuality, those with more traditional views “didn’t know how to react to it” (9:38). The topic was never discussed at home so when someone raised in that environment does meet a homosexual, “since they don’t know how to react to it, they just, automatically just think negatively” (10:25).

When faced with discrimination, CB chose not to associate himself with those people “because, there’s no point if they’re just going to harm you” (10:52). However, reflecting back, CB feels like he should have “been more upfront about it […] verbal with them, talk to them, not like accuse them of anything obviously, but like, just discuss with them rather than just what I did of just neglecting them” (11:36). He feels like he let those people get away with it and that they are going to act the same to another homosexual. Although he feels like he should have stopped it, he also thinks positively “that because I didn’t get furious and mad at them, and I didn’t accuse of anything […] I took the high road” (11:36).

In his group of friends, CB enjoys being able to think positively and cope by joking about tough things. In an environment where people don’t judge you, “it’s nice because you can focus on what you need to focus on, what you’re trying to get done, or trying to learn […] or just having a good time.” (13:15)

He is mad when he thinks about those of the LGBT community who face persecution, and it scares him knowing that it happens in other places across the world. If he were to travel somewhere like that, he wouldn’t know what to do since he’s lived in a fairly liberal city. For example, in southern America, a person would “have a completely different story […] because of the values down there” (15:48).

Today, CB still struggles with hiding from his siblings and extended family who are rural Republicans. He parents thought that telling them would destroy their family. CB doesn’t blame his extended family because “that’s what they’ve been taught, that’s what they’ve been exposed to.” (16:36) Although he wants to tell them, it scares him as to how to do that. He wonders if it would change the dynamic of their relationships. “That’s probably my biggest obstacle is just figuring out how to tell people who are really close to me.” (17:10)

CB wants people to know that “being gay is not my definitive label.” (21:02) Rather than respond positively or negatively to his sexuality, he “wouldn’t [want people to] to respond at all.” (19:35) He wants society to reach a point where it won’t matter if he tells people that he’s gay and he wouldn’t have to differentiate himself in that way. “I have a lot of different purposes in my life, and I’m a good person, and I do good things […] being in a homosexual community, isn’t, shouldn’t be a label for me and it isn’t a good thing and it isn’t a bad thing. It’s just me.” (21:51)