Storytelling event gives insight into LGBTQ+ community

Brian Wenke, the executive director of the "It Gets Better Project," said most gay individuals initially come out over the internet.

Wenke, an Ohio native now living in Los Angeles, was the guest speaker at Gravity Ohio at the Dan Lew Exchange restaurant downtown Tuesday night.

And like many gay individuals, he said he had to navigate the coming out process alone.

"So much of our work is helping young people tap into their potential, despite obstacles," he said of the "It Gets Better Project," a worldwide storytelling effort to empower LGBTQ+ youth ages 13-18. The organization uses social media to help youth find comfort, confidence and pride in who they are.

An hour and a half-long roundtable discussion brought to light some of the obstacles faced by members of the LGBTQ+ community, as local residents shared their stories with guests in the packed banquet room in the former downtown Reed's Department store building.

How to select a 'chosen family'

Crystal Davis Weese, representing Mansfield's Cypress High School, asked panel members how educators can better support LGBTQ+ students in the local schools. The speakers told her to let students know they are in a safe place and that she is someone they can come to.

She asked for guidance for those who need to select a "chosen family" if a member of the LGBTQ+ community doesn't have support or someone they can trust at home as they look for acceptance.

"How do we help give guidance or wrap some better ideas around finding chosen families or friends?" she asked the panel. "My fear when I work with young people is that they are looking for acceptance and I'm watching really horrible things happen to beautiful people."

Panel member Zoey Lockwood, a Lexington native and 2021 graduate of Ashland University now studying for a doctorate in chemistry at Case Western Reserve, talked about coming out while a college student at a conservative school.

She said she just wants to be accepted for who she is, talking about her most supportive environment being her family.

She said when she came into work every day, did her job, and was happy and smiling and doing what she needed to do, "it's hard for people not to like you even if they are not supportive."

"Just be yourself," she said.

She said her biggest role model is her mother, who sat next to her on the panel.

Zoey's mother, Kendra Boggs, a faithful ally of the LGBTQ+ community and employed at the Ohio State University at Mansfield where she is the coordinator of Student Financial Aid and Student Success Administration, told Weese it takes a lot of self worth to find a chosen family.

"You really need to stay true to you," Boggs said. "And when you do notice that maybe you're not with the right friends, you look elsewhere for that chosen family."

Finding a friend you can trust

Panelist Tim Denis, president of the Mansfield Gay Pride Association, shared that he went to Mansfield Christian School and attended a Pentecostal church all his life so he was "pretty tightly in the closet most of my life."

When his coming out process ended up happening, he was looking for just one true friend whom he could wholly trust and not feel judged.

"And who could love me for who I am, which at that point I couldn't get from my parents. And if you're growing up, you need that from somebody," he said. "You need somebody to put their arms around you and tell you that you're OK and everyone of us needs that, whether you're gay or straight or what you are."

He said when he finally had one or two friends who were accepting of him, what ended up happening is they had friends. "Little by little, my circle of friends just started to grow because these friends had friends and those friends had friends and the next thing I knew I have a larger circle of fully accepting friends who I was getting to know and it started to become that chosen family because it started with one or two people I thought I could trust."

Denis said he is blessed to have a wonderful circle of supportive friends and people he supports who made him feel loved and complete.

"We're all in this together," he said.

Deena Hamilton, founder of Love on a Mission, a nonprofit organization creating a safe place for LGBTQ+ youth in the local community, said that group offers education, advocacy and support through weekly meetings. Her two sons became famous on YouTube by posting video to tell their father they are gay.

As a parent, she said she just came out at 50 and with roles reversed, it took her kids a little bit of time, to adjust and time for her to adjust too.

Her advice to parents of LGBTQ+ youth? Love them.

Similarities cited to being Black, being gay

Local attorney Rollie Harper came to the podium from the audience, saying the similarities between what he had to go through (being Black) and what members of the LGBTQ+ community have to go through, are striking.

Growing up on the north end of Mansfield, he and his brother ended up having to move to an all-white school, in a talented and gifted program.

Harper said he had no inkling what he was getting into as he walked in the door. "We were hated just because we were Black," he said. While it made no sense to him, as little kids, he and his brother started making friends.

He got invited to go to North Lake Pool to go swimming and he had never been down there, he said.

He had only seen the big sliding board from the baseball field where he had Little League.

He said he told his mom he was going swimming and she gave him a quarter.

It came his time to go down the slide, everyone started laughing, and he said a man told him, "No (racial slur) allowed."

He didn't know what the word meant but got his quarter, felt humiliated and ran home overwhelmed with emotion trying to hide he had been crying when he got home.

His mom and dad asked him what was wrong after dinner upstairs in his bedroom.

"My dad said, 'Boy, get up in the morning, hold your head up and go to school.' And I did," Harper said.

"My dad ended up suing," he said. "The argument came out to be you can't have a private pool in a public park. So they either had to close the pool or open the pool to everybody. They ended up closing the pool," Harper said.

"How you choose to identify yourself falls into that same category," he said, reminding people to express themselves at the voting box. Harper said to youth to grow a feel good sense about yourself, be proactive and not reactive, walk tall, and be yourself.

"We truly become the sum total of our life experiences, the choices we make based on those experiences and the lessons we learn based on those choices," her said. "That truly becomes who you are and when you do, nothing can hurt you without your permission. And I just choose not to ever give it."

Denis addressed Harper saying his father was the owner of the North Lake Swim Club.

At the Coliseum Roller Skating Rink,which his father owned, every Monday night was Black night, Denis said.

"That was kind of my dad and he grew up kind of old school," Denis said. "What I feel from people because I'm gay is exactly what Black people feel because they're Black, is that same type of prejudice-type feeling they have directed at them. But their skin color shows and mine doesn't, it's internal."

He said he never felt he could come out to his father.

lwhitmir@gannett.com

419-521-7223

Twitter: @LWhitmir

This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Former Ohioan explains the 'It Gets Better Project' in talk at DLX