- And then I told my mom,
she didn't take it well.
She's very traditional, let's say.
She doesn't understand it.
That's usually her go-to phrase.
"I don't get it, I don't get it,
It's not natural."
Also her go-to phrases,
"I welcome everybody."
But you know apparently not her children.
(welcoming intro music)
Hello everyone, my name is Kennedy.
I'm 22 years old.
I'm from Bowie, Maryland.
And my pronouns are she/her.
- My name is Donovan, I'm 21 years old.
I'm from Boston and my pronouns are he/him/his.
- Hi, my name is Samuel.
I'm 20 years old and my pronouns are he/him.
- What's up y'all. My name is Sylvester.
I'm 22 years old.
I'm from Chicago, Illinois. And I use he/him pronouns.
- My favorite thing about being queer is loving women.
- The position that queer folks occupy allows us to
understand people and think about people in ways
that people who are cishet don't necessarily
have to unpack all the time.
- I was always very feminine as a kid growing up
and like, people made fun of me for it.
My family was very much like, "why do you act like this?"
Like, "why do you talk like a girl?"
and I still get that.
Slowly as I got older and I learned more about the world,
I was able to put those pieces together and realize,
oh this is what's wrong with me.
Or not what's wrong oh my gosh, nothing's wrong with me.
Everything is right, yeah.
- There was this girl that went to my high school
and we weren't friends.
She actually didn't like me.
But, we made out in this bathroom at a party
at one of my friend's parties.
At the time I didn't really think
that or know that I was gay.
She was kissing me.
And actually like, I was just kind of going with it.
And I realized that I was actually turned on.
And I don't think I've ever felt that way,
about any guy that talked to me or brushed by me.
Both her and I were kind of guiding each other to
the conclusion that we'll get.
- There was never really a big moment in my life where
I realized I was queer.
It was something that was always in the back of my mind
that attraction was always there.
And that's the thing that always, really annoys me
about people who look at the queer community
from the outside and they love to really over-sexualize us.
And it's like, they need to realize that queer adults
were once queer teens who were once queer kids.
Who had crushes on classmates
and other kids in the neighborhood,
just like their straight counterparts did.
- The first person I came out to
was my best friend in ninth grade.
I, he told me that he was gay
and I was like, that's good, but I'm not.
And then a week later I was like,
remember last week when I said that I wasn't gay?
Well, that wasn't all the way true.
He was the first person I actually ever
like said it out loud to.
and we were in it together from there at our high school.
- The first person that I came out to was
a close friend of the family that I had at the time.
I think I was about 10 years old and he would have been 14
with the age gap.
I don't know how the conversation led to it,
but I just had it in me to come out and tell him that
I was and I am queer.
He ended up taking it really, really well.
He told me about all these openly queer kids
in this school who were very proud
of the sexuality and gender identities.
And they dress in different ways
and dye their hair all kinds of colors.
And like the idea was so foreign to me at the time
that there were not only people like me in my local area
but they were also so proud of it.
And it definitely gave me the confidence
to come out and do the same.
Once I got to secondary school.
- I came out to my parents, my sophomore year of college.
I came out to my father first, the most understanding
the most like-minded person I've ever met with me.
I was talking to him about my first breakup with a woman.
I just kind of throw it out there.
Yeah, she's a girl.
He's like, "you gay?" yeah
"okay."
And then I just finished my story.
Apparently his girlfriend tells me
that he always suspected that I liked women, but.
- The first time I had to come out was around
15 or 16 and it wasn't by choice.
It was with my parents.
Kids explore stuff.
I won't get explicit
but like there was some stuff on the computer.
'Cause I didn't know that
like some ads that you like that pop up
like leave malware on the computer.
So one day I got called into my parents' room
and they turned the computer around and just show me a bunch
of like stuff that was just onscreen.
And I actually fainted.
And then when I came to, they were like, what's wrong?
Like why did you pass out?
And it was purely the shock of that being shown
to me like right then when it was just not at
all something I was ready to communicate
or even understood about myself.
It was just this thing that I felt compelled to explore
that no one else was supposed to know about.
I both had to sit with how I felt in that moment,
which was pure shock.
That's why I've never passed out again, but also make space
for people to be angry with me over something
that I didn't even really understand about myself.
- I was the first person in my life in my life
to my knowledge.
It wasn't until I came out and told my cousin that I
that she told me that she was also queer
and my cousins about 35, 34,
she's in her mid 30s.
She didn't, we didn't have these queer conversations
until, I started dating my first girlfriend
- Family-wise though like, but no one was like out
and like openly talking about their identity in that way.
So like in that way, yes.
I think that I was probably the first
in my family to do that, again.
I think part of that plays into like your identity as being
like the gay cousin or like the Beyonce of the band.
And that's true to an extent
but I know now that I'm not the only one
but like that sort of knowledge comes with time
and access and authority that,
I didn't necessarily have when I really needed it
but it's good to have now.
- So I went to an all boys school
from like seventh to 12th grade.
And, at that school
there was never any like person to actually come out
while like still enrolled as a student.
Like a lot of people did it, like
senior year, senior spring, you're on your way out.
Like, let me just drop this bomb
and like leave and go to college.
So we did have someone do that my sophomore year,
his senior spring, he came out and that was my example.
I saw him do that and I felt like this was the moment.
I felt like it was ready to.
And like literally like a month after that
I decided to come out like through Instagram
I wish I didn't do Instagram.
Like it was such like unnecessary drama.
Like I had like a whole like fancy like picture or whatever.
- I definitely was the first person in my life to come out.
I didn't really have that many examples.
And although there were a few openly queer people
in my life growing up in Cork, Ireland.
It wasn't, they were, they were all white.
Not even mainly white, they were all white.
So I didn't really have anybody who understood
what it was like to be queer, but then also,
you know grow up in African, specifically Nigerian spaces.
So it's like, you're not only dealing
with like racism and like microaggressions.
You're also dealing with homophobia.
So you don't, you're kind of caught
between a rock and a hard place.
- My auntie G has two queer best friends.
And whenever I wanna cry about my mother
or cry about it, any of our family dealings
I'll come to her whenever I have
any small thing where I just feel like
I need motherly support, I go to my auntie.
I'm just me like, I'm queer girl, I'm me.
- My best advice for other black, where people
are struggling to come out is to be patient
and to take your time.
And that you will know within yourself,
when you are ready to share your truth,
it will just come out, so to speak.
There will be no need to over-calculate it or overthink it.
It'll just happen when it's time for it.
- Listen to yourself.
No one knows when it's right for you
to make that decision to come out, except for you.
- As I've grown up, I've learned to not
shield or shun myself.
Any part of myself, I am not fearful.
I'm not, I'm not embarrassed of any part
of myself or any part of my queerness.
So I make sure when I step into a room
and like you get all of me.
If my father asked me, why am I wearing perfume?
And if I'm wearing a perfume for a man?
I'll turn around and say, no, I'm not.
I'm actually not.
I'm going on a date with a woman.
- I just hope that you also know that
there is nothing worth more than
owning and standing in your truth.
No matter how many friends you lose
or how many family members fall to the waysides.
Knowing who you are and being able to love that person
is worth more than anything in the world.
- So that's how I would tackle it.
I don't know anything, I'm just me.
I'm figuring it out just like you.
But, we all have our processes.
(Light Jazz music)