Happy Pride, everybody.
>> Happy Pride.
>> Happy Pride, everybody.
>> Happy Pride.
>> Happy Pride, hope it's your best one yet.
>> Happy Pride.
[MUSIC]
>> When I look back at my middle school years, it's like a highlight reel.
I was being bullied.
There was this person who really seemed to like just picking me up and
dropping me on the ground because I was a featherweight.
I was a tight knot of anxiety 24/7.
I was dealing with panic attacks.
It seemed like everyone around me had it together and
I absolutely did not have it together.
Spoiler alert, that's not true.
Nobody really has it together in middle school.
I was obsessed with animals and I got made fun of a lot for that.
I spent a lot of time in my school's library reading pretty much every book
they had, just searching for anything about what it meant to be gay or trans.
I didn't have the word for trans because nobody was talking about that in the 80s
in Ohio, at least not in the circles that I was in.
>> When I was in middle school, everything was a challenge.
I was quite scrawny and underweight.
I had difficulty making friends.
I was struggling with the fact that I pretty much was in the closet and
knew it at that time.
And so it just felt like I had no safe havens.
And the only one I really had was books.
>> So for my how it started versus how it's going.
How it started, I grew up in an environment where,
honestly, I really didn't feel safe at all to
express my queerness or even explore my queerness.
I was told that to be queer was sinful.
It meant that I couldn't have a relationship with the God that I was
taught about growing up and that it meant that I would go to hell.
And so I was really afraid as a kid to even imagine that I could be queer.
>> When I was Jake's age, I was very much in the closet.
And I was having a really hard time figuring out what Pride meant to me,
who I was as a person.
And it actually took me many years after that to still
be learning about it in the end, and I think that's really what Pride is.
>> I was in junior high during the late 1980s.
And most of my female friends had crushes on boys, crushes on boy actors,
crushes on boys in boy bands, or crushes on boys who were our classmates.
When friends would talk about crushes, I would invent feelings I didn't have or
[LAUGH] sometimes even invent a boy that didn't exist, and
I wasn't very good with inventing details.
So I think my friends caught on to what I was doing.
>> I struggled to come out when I was a young person.
I didn't embrace my gay identity until much later in life.
If that's where you're at right now, that's okay.
Figure out who you are.
Take your time.
It's not a race, there's no rush.
The important thing to remember is that you are wonderful and
beautiful and amazing just the way you are.
Coming out is hard, but it's also so exciting.
Learning to love who you are is one of the best things about being a person.
>> So it wasn't until I was 18 and
I was able to leave that environment that I really found a group of friends and
of supportive family members who loved me for exactly who I was, who supported me.
And I really found like I could finally be completely myself.
And then five years ago, I met my amazing wife, Allie, and
we've been together since then and married for two years.
And I would say that it's going a lot better than how it started.
>> So things are better now in terms of the availability of books that can help
young readers and middle grade readers and high school readers learn about LGBTQIA,
anybody on that spectrum.
And it's amazing to me that I get to be a part of that, to hopefully shine a light
where there was only darkness when I was a middle schooler.
I'm still obsessed with animals.
>> Right now I am so accepting of myself and
have a true understanding of what pride means to me.
And I think it's such a wonderful journey that each queer
person goes on individually.
>> Well, the cool thing about those struggles was it did force me to go
into my imagination and kind of develop my inner life a lot more.
And as a result of that, my creativity kind of blossomed.
And that's where I sort of discovered the love of reading and writing and
ultimately became an author.
So turning struggles and pain into power,
I think is one of the greatest things you can learn in middle school.
>> Now in 2022, I still love reading superhero comics,
I still love reading Sherlock Holmes and mysteries, and I also like books and
movies with a little LGBTQ romance in it, because I get it now.
I'm married to Carol, my partner of 13 years, who I love and adore.
And we have a group of friends, some gay and some straight.
We informally call ourselves mystery club.
And we go do escape rooms together, we watch mystery movies together,
we solve mystery puzzles together, and play mystery games.
>> My Pride advice to you is to learn our history, celebrate our triumphs, and
work towards a better future.
>> So my Pride advice in ten words or
less is you don't owe an explanation for who you are.
>> My Pride advice to you is to do all you can to find your people.
You'll learn how to support them and they will support you in turn,
which is awesome.
>> My Pride advice to you in ten words or less is to love yourself and
celebrate with everything you've got.
>> My Pride advice to you in ten words or
less is to make Pride a celebration of yourself and your community.
>> My Pride advice to you is don't let other people define you.
You have to find out who you are by just being comfortable in your own skin.
>> My Pride advice to you in ten words or
less is to find your safety net, then go be brave and repeat.
>> Pride is about you being you.
>> Pride is being able to be you out loud.
>> Pride is one of the best things that's ever happened.
>> To me, Pride is joy and acceptance.
>> Pride is joyous.
>> Pride is being at peace with yourself.
>> Pride is joy, resilience, and love.