What’s it like to grow up gay?

From the Los Angeles Times, February 15: Ventura County prosecutors charged a 14-year-old boy with the shooting death of a classmate Thursday and said the killing in an Oxnard classroom was a premeditated hate.

The District’s Melissa Conser talks with two gay men, Matt (20) and Steve (21), about their experience growing up gay.

District: When did you first realize you were gay?

Matt: I knew I always had feelings for guys when I was a kid but… I didn’t really know what gay was. I realized I was gay when I was about 12. I came out to my friend Kendra when I was 15.

District: Being gay was secretive for you back then?

Matt: Yeah. I wasn’t dreading it. Except for my family. They are very manly, beer-drinking, Texan, Catholic Mexicans. So they were the people I most feared. My own family.

District: What was it like for you in high school?

Matt: No one really messed with me because I act pretty straight. People either didn’t care or if they did they didn’t say anything because they were afraid of me … I ended up starting the first gay-straight alliance at my high school.

District: How did that go?

Matt: I started it with an openly gay teacher. He was harassed by a lot of his students. One of the counselors, who was a lesbian, helped us with it, too. Anyway, I felt like a lot of the kids were wary and kind of scared to join. And some parents of kids from the Christian club were complaining about there being a GSA at the high school.

District: I’ve never heard of teachers being openly gay around their students.

Matt: Yeah. One of my greatest moments in high school was when this kid kept harassing our gay teacher. He would just make fun of him and mention how the teacher was gay. One day I flipped out at him and told him to “shut the fuck up” and then, like three other people in the class joined me, telling this kid to “shut up.” I thought that was pretty cool.

District: Was the kid punished?

Matt: No. The teacher didn’t like to get anyone in trouble. But I heard the teacher left. He couldn’t do it anymore. And then one of the kids, his dad is a minister, actually gave the teacher . . . .

District: Syphilis?

Matt: No. Pamphlets on following Jesus and how to become straight.

District: Religion is like that, sometimes.

Steve: Especially the Mormon religion. They’re so against being gay.

District: Did you used to go to a Mormon church?

Steve: Yeah.

District: Do you still go?

Steve: Oh, no.

Matt: Were you excommunicated?

Steve: No, no. I just got really fed up with it. I couldn’t go to church anymore because I didn’t want to hear the bullshit

Matt: I don’t really go to church for just that reason. They hate gays. But, I don’t think god hates gays.

District: How do you feel when you hear stories of violence toward gay people?

Matt: It sucks that people are still fretting over other people’s private, sexual lives. I mean you don’t see people killing other people because they’re straight. Why kill other people because they’re gay?

District: Has anyone tried to mess with you because you were gay?

Matt: Me personally, no. But I have a bunch of friends that had been beat up or harassed. Just because they were gay.

District: How was high school for you, Steve? Were you out in high school?

Steve: Somewhat. I went to Saint Mary’s for the first two years of high school, which was tough because people really… looked down on me. And I would try to make friends and what not, and people would just say, “Don’t talk to me.” I eventually met somebody who didn’t care; at least I had one friend throughout those two years. I came out to my parents at the end of high school.

District: Are your parents very religious?

Steve: Oh, yeah. They are Mormon.

District: Do you have a good relationship with your parents?

Steve: Yeah, they’re actually really cool with it now. I mean it’s hard for my dad to understand because he wasn’t raised that way. He thinks gay people are bad. It was hard.

District: Did your parents ever try to send you away to be de-gay-ified?

Matt: I knew a kid who was sent to his “aunt’s house in Alaska.” He was actually sent to some gay to straight religious camp for teenagers.

District: What do you guys think of stuff like that?

Matt: It’s brutal. It’s bullshit, I guess. They’re pretty much brainwashing them to be straight. So, they have this deep feeling inside of them and they’re just beating themselves up.

District: Do you think people are born gay?

Matt: One reason people think other people are gay is they think they raped or something. Like, the first thing my dad asked me, when I came out, was “were you molested?” And he kept asking me if I was molested but . . . no, I wasn’t. I don’t know. I just like guys.

District: Do you think high school is more difficult for gay people?

Matt: It depends on where the high school is. You do a lot of growing up and experimenting in your high school years. I had no problem being gay in southern California. But my gay cousin, who grew up in Texas, didn’t come out until he was 32. It was such a harsh thing; no one could accept it.

District: So, where you live affects coming out. What about age?

Matt: When I was a kid it was difficult, because you’re scared, it’s a new thing and you know that a lot of people don’t like it. You don’t want people to hate you or beat you up. You don’t know what to expect, and you hear horror stories from other people, you’re scared. Just scared. But once you grow up, you learn not to care anymore. You have your own bunch of friends that are there for you.

Tags: Brandon McInerney, coming out, gay, high school, Lawrence King, oxnard, sexual orientation, shooting, shot, teen, Ventura County, violence