Out of the Closet, Into the Mayor’s Office. Todd Gloria’s Coming Out Journey Gives Hope to Others [Video]

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Like many gay children, Todd Gloria tried to be “the best little boy in the world” to avoid any unwanted attention. Despite his good manners and excellent grades, he was bullied in high school for being gay and was even threatened with violence. Once he found stability as a young adult, he mustered up the courage to come out to his parents, who eventually became his strongest allies. Todd’s courage and devotion to public service eventually led him to become the first openly gay mayor of San Diego, acting as both a leader in the community and a beacon of hope for LGBTQIA+ youth everywhere.

Transcript provided by YouTube:

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[Music]
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foreign
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my name is Todd Gloria and I was born
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and raised in San Diego I’m a third
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generation San Diego and I now serve as
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the mayor of my hometown I was probably
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about four or five years old we were
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living on a small duplex on Apache
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Street in the Claremont neighborhood of
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San Diego
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a very very small uh apartment really
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for my parents my older brother and I my
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mom was a hotel in Maine my dad was a
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gardener and one of the ways we made
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Child Care work in our family was that
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my great aunt upon my birth came to San
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Diego from Tulsa Oklahoma and then
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stayed with me for years my earliest
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memories of her was that she was
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hardworking she had a hard scrabbled
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life from Oklahoma she actually was
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missing fingers because of the hard work
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manual labor that she did throughout her
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life at this point she’s in her 70s or
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thereabouts and we would spend the day
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cleaning the house we were on the floor
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in the bedroom that I shared with my
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brother and my aunt was instructing me
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to clean uh the railings that the the
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closet doors ran on you know the door
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this thing is back and forth well those
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railings could get dirty too and she’s
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like well you know we need to clean this
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we have to clean every inch and when
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your parents be so happy when they come
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home from work to see a nice clean house
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I thought that sounded like a brilliant
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idea I wanted to do anything to make my
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great aunt happy my parents happy
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everybody happy and I think about
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growing up and getting older and doing
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everything I could to make my parents
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happy and that became a really important
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factor when
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I came to the understanding that I was
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different I knew this somehow was
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something I should be embarrassed of
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something I should be ashamed of is
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something I should surely never tell
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anybody but my insurance policy against
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everybody someone ever finding out was
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just being the absolute best kid I could
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possibly be the best grades be involved
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in absolutely everything under the sun
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uh never ever cause any trouble
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certainly not bring any attention to me
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um and so I would clean my room because
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I was never going to have my parents say
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go in my room and say go clean your room
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I wasn’t going to have them have to
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interact with my teachers any more than
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they needed to all they needed to know
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is I was getting an a
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um and that uh Perfection was how I
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chose to try and navigate uh who I was
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in a world that even without saying it
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directly to me I understood very clearly
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was a world that was not going to be
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kind to me and the older that I got the
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other kids got older and they started to
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notice things and they started to
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realize exactly what I was maybe even
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before I had the vocabulary to explain
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who I was as so as the best little boy
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in the world of course I became student
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body president and my senior year of
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high school remember running our student
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council meetings you know dozens of
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students crowded into a classroom all
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sitting around this large Podium that I
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commanded as the student body president
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standing there at that wooden Podium I
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will never forget it and calling upon
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one of the other students who asked me
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the question where are you going to be
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this weekend I said I don’t know why do
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you ask and he said well because I’m
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going to go out gay bashing this weekend
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and I’d like to know where you’re going
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to be naturally kids started laughing uh
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snickering you know commenting amongst
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themselves and it was really
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embarrassing and I simply carried on
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with the meeting you didn’t acknowledge
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the comment
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um and went about doing my job because
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that was what I’m supposed to do so as
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difficult as that day was I just kept my
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head down and kept doing the work uh
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that allowed me to go to the University
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of San Diego on a full ride scholarship
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and what was
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helpful about that was that allowed me
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to be able to support myself I got a job
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I started working for the county of San
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Diego started getting a paycheck had a
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car and I started to feel like I could
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take care of myself if the worst were to
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happen and the worst of course being
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coming out in my family rejecting me and
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after a while you know you just
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you get so tired and so I chose to tell
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my mom first because I believe that she
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would be the most accepting
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um and I remember her being really
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afraid for me I think what it was was
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she was afraid about what would happen
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to me particularly in that time this is
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in the 1990s uh I think she was worried
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about HIV and AIDS I think she had all
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kinds of Notions because she didn’t know
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any gay people what was she to know you
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know it wasn’t necessarily the warm
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embrace that I was hoping for but it
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wasn’t the rejection that I certainly
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feared
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funny thing was I left my dad to the end
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and my dad was like any straight guy you
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know he had some of that locker room
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talk that certainly sent signals to me
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as a kid that maybe he wasn’t going to
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be the best Ally and so I remember he
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was working in the yard he was sort of
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had his back to me and I sort of stood
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there for a long period of time it was
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very awkward I think eventually I just
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kind of blurted out the words not the
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words but the words that I gotta tell
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you something I remember getting up
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turning around hugged me and said I know
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and I love you and I uh I’ll cherish
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that memory for the rest of my life
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today
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they’re my fiercest Advocates they are
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they don’t miss a pride parade they they
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come to me about him like months in
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advance like you know it’s on July 22nd
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don’t even no I don’t know that I’m too
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busy working what are you talking about
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I think in a lot of ways since that day
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of coming out to my family
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you know life has just gotten better and
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it’s not to say that I’m Different I am
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still the guy that’s going to clean the
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tracks of my closet door it’s just it’s
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always going to be Immaculate you can
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come to my house right now it’s gonna be
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clean but I continue to be a
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perfectionist and to want to fix things
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and clean things up and please other
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people as a as a motive about service
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not about deflection what I found is
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that life is just better and that I
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don’t have to mask my identity I don’t
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have to use my perfectionism as a shield
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but it’s actually integrated into who I
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am and I’m better for it I was at a high
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school recently and
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um
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uh this young lady came up to me after I
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spoke about voters and voting and
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whatnot and she just uh very quietly
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just said to me you know uh uh I’m a
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member of the family as well and she
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just smiled and I can’t imagine having
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done that when I was her age but I hope
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that she saw the mayor of her hometown
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uh being who he is accepted for who he
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is and maybe that gave her a sense that
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she too could be accepted for who she is
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and be celebrated and be successful I I
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hope folks uh trust in themselves enough
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to be able uh to live out their dream uh
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and be who they want to be understanding
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that
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um some of those things that you might
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have been using previously uh to keep
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yourself safe can actually be redeployed
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to actually make you successful and more
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importantly to make you happy
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thank you
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foreign

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This post was previously published on YouTube.

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