I’m Patrick Opdyke and I’m from New York, New York.
00:07
I went to college at Georgetown in Washington, DC.
00:10
So at the time that I joined the rugby team, I was out but I wasn’t necessarily the most
00:13
comfortable with sharing it publicly, especially with strangers or people I had just met.
00:18
So it was something that was not necessarily a secret, but it was still sort of closely
00:23
guarded.
00:24
I didn’t lead with it when I joined the rugby team, but it soon came out because I had no
00:30
reason to necessarily hide it from these guys as I got to know them more.
00:33
They were celebratory, in fact, of the fact that I was the gay guy on the team.
00:38
And to the fact that – to the point where they are still some of my good friends these
00:42
days.
00:43
So from that point on, I felt a lot more comfortable being myself in public settings.
00:48
So shortly after college, I started working for Merrill Lynch in Washington, DC and I
00:53
had a mentor there who was in charge of a lot of Bank of America’s LGBTQ outreach.
00:59
I got invited to attend a Lambda Legal event.
01:03
And Lambda Legal is an organization that does LGBTQ and HIV legal advocacy.
01:09
I hadn’t really had many opportunities to interact with LGBTQ professionals.
01:15
I had come out in college about the year before, but I still hadn’t really gotten headfirst
01:25
into the community yet.
01:26
This also happened to be around the time that I knew that I was probably gonna go back to
01:31
go to law school and I decided to go to this event and meet a lot of the gay lawyers who
01:39
were attending this event.
01:40
Met one gentleman in particular by the name of Tom Lane, who works for a firm called Winston
01:45
& Strawn in New York.
01:46
When I went to law school, I moved to Las Vegas, which is where my parents were living
01:49
at the time.
01:50
I stayed in touch with Tom, constantly reaching out to him just to touch base and, you know,
01:55
say happy holidays or whatever else it was.
01:57
I essentially was asking him to hire me and he kept postponing it, saying usually the
02:06
firm doesn’t hire first year law students, which is typically the practice for large
02:10
law firms.
02:11
As it happened, another firm – basically some attorneys from this other firm ended up joining
02:17
Winston & Strawn.
02:19
In December of my first year, I got an email from Tom saying, “We’ve decided to expand
02:23
our summer class because we have these new attorneys, so send me your resume.”
02:28
I sent him my resume on my birthday of all days.
02:31
They sent me an email saying, “We’re gonna fly you out for an interview.”
02:34
So I actually flew out to Winston – to interview with Winston in New York on Valentine’s Day
02:39
weekend of that year.
02:41
I did the interview.
02:42
I met with a couple of the gay attorneys at Winston.
02:46
I was so impressed by the firm and its commitment to LGBT causes.
02:50
So I was immediately impressed by this firm and wanted to work there.
02:57
And then the waiting came.
02:59
So I went back to Las Vegas and was in class waiting and starting to make myself crazy
03:06
waiting for a decision.
03:08
And it probably was about a month before I got an answer.
03:11
And Tom Lane had sent me a text message basically the effect of, like, “I’ve got it in committee
03:16
right now.
03:17
Sit tight.”
03:18
I think I got it the next day and as a result, I was allowed to joined the firm in New York.
03:26
I had some family members that were a bit concerned about me self-identifying or doing
03:32
LGBTQ networking just because they were afraid that it might either pigeon-hole me or put
03:39
a target on my back and give somebody a reason to discriminate against me.
03:43
Ultimately, I decided to still embrace it, both have it on my resume and to continue
03:49
with LGBTQ networking.
03:50
And thankfully, all worked out for me – I was able to join Winston & Strawn both as
03:55
a summer and then full-time and this is where I work now.
03:59
Living in New York is pretty damn fantastic.
04:01
I mean, it’s so welcoming, accepting to the LGBT community.
04:04
You know, I have friends that live in Hell’s Kitchen, which is one of the major LGBT neighborhoods
04:09
within the city.
04:11
So I go there a lot and it’s fun to always see gay bars and pride flags and just everything
04:19
is being not only accepted but celebrated.
04:22
Last year, I had the opportunity for the first time to not just observe the pride parade
04:27
but actually to march and participate in it and it was a pretty cathartic experience.
04:32
It was just utterly fantastic.
04:35
Thinking back on who I was before I came out and those early months after coming out, compared
04:41
to who I am now and and how comfortable I am to the point where I was marching in the
04:47
gay pride parade last year – I’m involved in a lot of the gay, the pride events within
04:53
our firm – I almost probably wouldn’t recognize myself back then.
04:59
It is staggering to think about just how much I have changed over those years.
05:06
And I’d say in large part it was thanks to supportive friends, you know, just the the
05:11
snowball effect, essentially, of confidence, finding friends that not only accepted me
05:16
but celebrated me, finding work opportunities that, again, not only accepted me but celebrated
05:22
me, and finding just support wherever I could, whether it was with my family my friends,
05:30
my LGBT community, within the firm, – anywhere I possibly could.
—
What’s your take? Comment below or write a response and submit to us your own point of view or reaction here at the red box, below, which links to our submissions portal.
◊♦◊
Sign up for our Writing Prompts email to receive writing inspiration in your inbox twice per week.
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project, please join us as a Premium Member, today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
A $50 annual membership gives you an all-access pass. You can be a part of every call, group, class, and community.
A $25 annual membership gives you access to one class, one Social Interest group, and our online communities.
A $12 annual membership gives you access to our Friday calls with the publisher, our online community.
Register New Account
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
◊♦◊
Get the best stories from The Good Men Project delivered straight to your inbox, here.