A shift in perspective

Life experience can help you unlearn ignorance

The inaugural Upper Sandusky Pride event was held Sunday at Harrison Smith Park in support of the LGBTQ+ community.

I attended for about an hour speaking with organizers, vendors, local organizations and attendees while also getting some photos for the newspaper. It was an event filled to the brim with positivity, love and acceptance. I know the organizers were pretty ecstatic with how everything turned out.

To me, the event reminded myself of a massive change in my own perspective over the years.

To be honest, if you’d have known me growing up in rural Oak Harbor, Ohio, in the late 90s and early 2000s, I wouldn’t have been caught dead going anywhere near a pride event. Hell, when I graduated high school in 2004, Ohio voters overwhelmingly passed a state constitutional amendment that banned same-sex marriage 61.7% to 38.3%.

I wasn’t homophobic exactly, but being gay certainly wasn’t something that was celebrated. The punchline of pretty much every dirty joke I knew involved someone being gay or performing homosexual acts. And on the playground? Being called gay, or other worse homophobic slurs was pretty much the worst thing anyone could say to you. It’s tough to be supportive when someone’s entire identity is being used as an insult.

I didn’t know any better. I didn’t realize anyone in my atmosphere could even be gay. Sure, there were gay people on some of the TV shows or movies I watched, but that was Hollywood. I always assumed it was a big city thing.

No one at my school felt comfortable enough to come out of the closet while they were still attending classes there. It wasn’t until they left our small town that many of my classmates either in my grade, the grades directly above me or below me got the courage to share their true selves with the world.

There’s a reason for that. They likely would have been treated like outcasts if they’d come out when we were teenagers and it would not have been a very fun or welcoming experience.

I didn’t get to know my first “out” gay person until my first long-term relationship when I was in my first year at Ohio State. My then-girlfriend’s best friend was gay and he was just a normal guy. Sure, he was flamboyant, but he was just like me. He had ambitions for his career goals, he dealt with his own personal struggles with life, relationships — you name it.

It was pretty eye-opening.

I started to become much more accepting as my world expanded and I got to know more people of all different types of races and sexualities over the next few years.

When some classmates started “coming out” on social media, I was there to congratulate them and wish them well. I wish I’d been more supportive earlier, but I don’t get any do-overs for that part of my life and the best thing I can do moving forward is be as accepting as I can be.

In the TV series “Ted Lasso,” one of the professional soccer players is gay and is hiding the secret from the rest of his team because he’s terrified about how they’ll react if they found out. He shares that he basically lives two lives, but has a yearning for both of his lives to be his only life.

“I don’t want to be a spokesperson,” he says. “I don’t want a bunch of apologies. All I want is for when we win a match, to be able to kiss my fella the same way the guys get to kiss their girls.”

At the end of the series, the show pays the moment off and he kisses his boyfriend on the field after the team wins the final game of the season to nearly win the league championship. I’d have cringed seeing that scene 20 years ago, possibly even looked away, but with my personal growth since then, I cried. It was beautiful.

Love is love, after all.

That’s what made the Upper Sandusky Pride event so important on Sunday. It was amazing seeing so many people who are comfortable enough to be themselves today — especially teenagers. That’s just not something that would have happened 20 years ago.

It must be incredibly stressful and mentally taxing having to hide who you are. I don’t have to worry about that as a straight man, but there are people today who have to hide their identity out of fear of being left homeless or in some countries, even killed. The burgeoning acceptance movement is something that will be beneficial for generations to come.

I may be late to the party, but I consider myself a proud ally today.