Creating a Conversation

Hello fellow Redditors. This post is definitely long so if you don't want to go through it all, the main point for this post is in the next paragraph. I am working on a university senior design project to create an artifact—intended to be a relatively small publication depending on the number of participants—that is about sharing the stories of people's first-hand experience with coming out as gay as well as the family members of those who have come out. The finished product will be a publication written, edited, and designed by me and me alone. The idea is to get real, first-hand stories of people about personal reflection, the journey, and the self-discovery along the way. In doing so, I will also be glad to share my story to those that want to know or who have questions for me. Even more, I want to uncover the stories of the supporting family members of those who have struggled to come out—brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, or other relatives—and learn about the very real struggles people have faced and not just repurpose already talked about stories but bring to light a different, more comprehensive perspective of family. This conversation I want to facilitate is about shedding light on the inner workings of family life with both the normalcy that day-to-day life might be or have been like as well as the critical moments that shape our lives and make us who we are today. To give some background about myself, I come from a quirky family situation. I was born to a father that was 57 and a mom who was 40 at my birth and two brothers thirteen years apart from each other yet 13 and 14 years apart from me. Yes, this was all from one marriage. All three of us brothers had a fairly liberal Protestant Christian up bringing. It wasn't until I was in my early teenage years that I started to pick up on something that no one really talked about in my family—or at least they never talked about it around me…yet. Eventually I learned that both of my brothers are gay. I don't quite remember exactly how I found out about my oldest brother David, it was either from him or from my parents, but my other brother Gregg actually sat me down one night when I was 16 to tell me himself and find out how I felt about it. He had wanted to talk to me about it for a while and he had just come back from drinking with some friends to loosen his nerves. We have been a very close, loving family for all of my life and there has never been any sort of animosity, anger, nor resentment ever in our family about my brothers being gay so I always felt a sense of normalcy about my family situation. Growing up and looking back at age 25 though, I have reflected some about the questions people had for me either about myself, my brothers, my parents, or our Christian faith. In doing this project, I feel I will face my own ignorances and learn from perspectives different from mine, but through this project, I hope to grow and learn and provide others with the same ability to grow, learn, and converse about these issues. I would really like to hear back from people who are interested in sharing their stories. For those who wish to remain anonymous, I will respect your wishes so please, don't let that hold you back. If you've kept reading to this point, thank you for your time and I hope to hear your story.