I was born and raised in Manhattan
Kansas which is two hours west of Kansas
City coming out for me was very
difficult for many years I kept this
hidden
even though I thought I was open-minded
I realized I had a lot of internalized
homophobia myself and so I was
essentially living a hidden lie in my
own life I had actually become socially
reclusive in many ways and so afraid to
even get to know people because I
thought that I was fine but in reality I
was not so I was reading in June of 2014
advocate magazine and there was a
statistic about lesbian gay and bisexual
people living in highly anti-gay
communities compared to accepting
communities had a 12-year reduced life
expectancy and it was that moment I
really realized I'm not only was i
killing myself essentially I was not
doing anything within my community to
help further the cause of gay rights
they've been hiding for so long I knew
there would need to be something like
ripping off the band-aid sort of
situation to force me to come out hiding
is a progressive habit and once you
start hiding it becomes harder and
harder to step forward and speak out
what have I been hiding for 16 years I
am a lesbian got back home to Kansas I
remember a landing at the airport and
driving back into my home state of
Kansas and feeling physically lighter
and free to know that I was finally
going to be able to live my life freely
and openly it was remarkable and I can't
even believe how much my life has
changed
I've had some articles written about me
and I've gotten some wonderful
opportunities to talk at conferences and
since then hundreds of people have
contacted me I've gotten one person who
actually mailed me a letter from France
and now we're pen pals we've written
back and forth a couple of times and
many of them are lesbian gay bisexual
gender but a lot of them have said -
they're still hiding and its global all
sorts of things they're hiding and
covering and thinking if people knew
this about me they would somehow reject
me but really it's showing that part of
your true self that really makes a
deeper connection with people I'm out
with someone publicly and being able to
let my neighbors know that there's two
lesbians that live next to them and
that's okay and they look really happy
right so she's helping me push myself to
live my truth even more and that's been
a beautiful thing I've lived my life the
best I could all along but now I realize
I'm going to be able to live it even
more brilliantly and in brighter colors
and all that strife and toil has
actually turned into a beautiful thing
where I can even live even for