First Queer Person I Met: Ep 1 Zach

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that’s was a very fun this thing right
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here hi I’m Zach Stafford I am the
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editor-in-chief of it – I realized I was
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clear oof I knew it five it was nap time
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and I was sleeping next to my girlfriend
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Melissa and I kissed her like good night
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like I saw what parents do before they
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went to bed and I turned over and my
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best friend Brad was there and I like
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intuitively just gave him a peck and he
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smiled in a moment I was like I like
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kissing Brad mother and Melissa when I
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struggled most with was nothing I like
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boys like I knew I really really liked
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boys it was what I liked women are not
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the first gay person I met I think was
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my aunt ducky
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at least she was the first person I met
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that my parents were like she’s gay I
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met her partner who was a really lovely
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woman that worked with her and the Armed
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Forces and I had a life together and we
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would visit them and so not only did I
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meet my first like another queer person
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that self-identified as clear but they
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also had a house and a family and they
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were treated really normally so it was
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the first kind of positive
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representation of my community I saw my
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uncle was also gay and his name was
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Timmy and he is someone that my whole
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life
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I’ve seen myself in and I think I’ve
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struggled a lot with that kind of
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representation in my life because he
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died really tragically in the 90s from
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complications from hiv/aids so there’s
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at the end of the epidemic and he was
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sick my whole life so the only
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representation I saw of another black
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man who was gay but something that was
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dying like all the time last time I saw
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him was right before he died and I was
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when I was about like 11 or 12 we were
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at my grandmother’s house and he was so
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sick that he could only sit looks like
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white chair he couldn’t move anyone to
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eat and I remember that’s when the first
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time I realized what aids was I think me
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being like right at puberty seeing him
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dying in a chair and then seeing myself
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at him and then thinking like I’m gonna
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die I was really frightening so I was
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really afraid for a long time it wasn’t
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because I was uncomfortable being gay it
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was more of the fact of like when I came
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out as gay what would the world do to me
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I saw as punishment for being gay and
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living a life out loud because my uncle
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Timmy was like pretty gay he was
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only personal cooking me for many many
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many years so I grew up there was a lot
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of black people and there was evident of
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black gay people several years that’s
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all I thought it was like black in bed
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they die they go away you know I start
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reading James Baldwin my late teens like
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you Giovanni’s Room and other works of
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his that I began to imagine a gay body
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that was alive and thriving that’s when
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I finally was like okay we can be alive
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we can be happy we can be out here I
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think the message I’d want people that
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are like me that are men of color that
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maybe fearful of coming out or haven’t
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seen someone that look like them them
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and the media is to not let that hinder
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themselves from being out and not being
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loud no matter what you’re going through
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that you should speak up you should live
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out loud that you should enjoy every
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moment you’re here because you are here
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and you’re alive and you deserve to be
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here
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get your right to be free and when you
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stop speaking out that’s when you let go
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about right and I don’t think we should
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have a live it or you don’t have it
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anymore

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