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In 2008, Kris Banks was about to be a very public figure in Houston’s LGBTQIA+ political scene. There was just one problem: he wasn’t out to his family. After an injury forced Kris to recuperate at his parents’ house, he knew time was running out to come out before they would find out in the media. So come out, he did, but it did not go well. While not outright rejected, an icy relationship with his parents ensued. Fortunately, with time, their relationship thawed and they grew close once more, allowing Kris to finally break down the barrier between his political activism and his home life.
Transcript provided by YouTube:
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[Music]
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my name is chris banks and i’m from
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alvin texas so i was in law school
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um but i was also getting pretty heavily
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involved in local politics
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i was getting i was starting to to work
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with some of the the young democratic
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groups
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uh getting pretty involved in some of
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the lgbt
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organizations and that included what was
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at the time called the houston glbt
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political caucus it was getting more and
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more involved with it i was on the board
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in 2008 the board of directors
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and
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a few people had spoken about to me
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about taking over leadership of the
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organization and becoming its president
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for 2009 i was in my own kind of little
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world up here in houston being involved
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in politics and kind of in the
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quasi-public sphere but i was not out to
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my family around thanksgiving of that
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year
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everything was set and in motion
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for me to become president
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and
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then i got in a car accident i was hit
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by a drunk driver on a scooter the night
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before thanksgiving
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and i broke nine ribs in a clavicle and
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what happens when you break nine ribs in
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the clavicle is that you’re basically
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immobilized for a couple weeks at a time
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and so i
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moved in my parents for a couple weeks
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there was still you know the the caucus
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presidency that i was working towards
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and so i was making my phone calls and
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making sure i had all my ducks in a row
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and uh all the time while
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sometimes when my parents were like
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moving around you know living in the
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house that they lived in and that i was
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staying in temporarily they had no idea
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what was going on
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but i still had this
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issue of
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if they don’t find out for me soon
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they’re going to find out in a newspaper
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or in a local tv story it was a couple
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nights before i was scheduled to go home
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and it was me and my mom were sitting up
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kind of late at night and my dad was
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already in bed i broached the topic well
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how would you feel
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if you’re if i were to tell you that i
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were gay she said it would be very hard
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for her
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it’s not something that she’s
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was adjusted to and not something she
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had ever thought of and so
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that’s when i told her well
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i am
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and it was it was very difficult for us
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i think she broke down a little bit it
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was actually
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within that
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few minutes period where i got a text
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message from someone
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the caucus was meeting that night
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effectively that come at that point it
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was pretty certain that i was going to
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be the next president of the caucus
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and so i had to like look up to my mom
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and tell her
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well
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i know i’m just telling you all this now
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but just so you know i just got elected
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president basically of the largest lgbt
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or glp or gay political organization
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whatever i called it at the time
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uh
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in houston and so
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i’m probably going to be in some
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newspapers and some tv i don’t know if
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she really was able to process that at
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the time so we went to bed and the next
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day i told my dad and he was also i
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think that he said
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that he still loved me but
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it was not what he saw as the best path
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for me so after just a couple days after
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that is when i went home
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and uh
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was kind of living my life and just
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january the january caucus meeting came
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and i think i was still in a sling but i
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was
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uh elected president we took a pretty
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aggressive
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approach publicly and within
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a month or two i was on the evening news
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about something my mom called me and she
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said i well i saw you on the news and i
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was like yeah i told you this is going
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to be the way it is and she was clearly
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pretty unhappy about it and things were
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pretty cold
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for a long time
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several months
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but we got more in the swing of things
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and then i think it was
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at some point early in 2010 where i had
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dinner with my mom just one-on-one and
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she said
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look you know
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if you’re in a relationship i’d like to
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maybe like know about it and maybe even
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meet this person
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and so i said well i am
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so
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let’s get together
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and so we had a big dinner at uh at a
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restaurant with it was my brother and
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his wife and i think my sister was there
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they barely spoke to at the time my
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boyfriend the entire time
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um my brother and sister were great of
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course but
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um
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they weren’t
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slowly i think over time
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um
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they got more used to it and it got to
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the point where
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we would be at dinners and whatnot and
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my mom and my or my dad and my husband
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or boyfriend at the time
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uh were having side conversations
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i wasn’t like
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goating it on
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my mom and my
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then boyfriend now husband started
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texting each other occasionally
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we have a group text too but i’m
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occasionally not always on all their
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communications they came to our wedding
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in uh
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december of 2014.
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it was a very small wedding it was
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literally only family
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and they there was no questions asked
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they
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came to yeah they flew to new mexico
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because it wasn’t legal in texas yet and
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we’re just at a place things are really
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good right now
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i mean he’s very much a part of the
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family and they’re very welcoming
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i talk to my mom maybe once a week
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sometimes once every two weeks that
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things get busy um
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we’re usually on speaker phone
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with mike in the room in fact
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we very early speak
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when he’s not present
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i think she likes him more than me at
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this point
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it was difficult for me to stick out
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with my parents through that period
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i wanted them to come around a lot
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faster and
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they did come around
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eventually
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but the reality is is that
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i was living
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it was a matter of kind of merging
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my existing life my old life to some
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extent but i think kind of confronting
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that
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it made me more capable person to be
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able to go out there
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and do what i thought needed to be done
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and i i wouldn’t have been able to have
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pursued this life in politics
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had i not come out to them had i
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continued to kind of try and
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live in this kind of
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dual world
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[Music]
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you
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This post was previously published on YouTube.
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