My name is Jason Bowers,
and I am gay.
I came out at a time where you weren't
seeing a whole lot of images of gay
people on TV, you see much more of that now.
And my coming-out process was very easy
compared to a lot of people that I know,
a lot of people and stories that I've seen.
And I told my parents and the first
thing they said was, "well you're still
our son we still love you just the same
it doesn't change anything."
That was a huge weight off
my shoulders and I felt
like once I told them and once they
accepted it and didn't even blink,
I knew that I could tell anyone.
So before same-sex marriage was legal nationwide,
we had the Prop 8 case in California.
And that came about because
California voted to make same-sex
marriage illegal after it had been legal.
So it was a weird time here
living in West Hollywood, California because
we felt this sense of hopelessness.
There were a lot of rallies
where all of my peers
all of the LGBT community was gathering and
speakers would come out
some of them famous
some of them prominent in the gay community.
I was actually inspired
because everyone was sort of coming
together and what was really cool about
it is it felt like okay this is a roadblock,
this isn't the end, this isn't
we're not going to ever get this same legal right
that everybody else has,
it just meant we're not getting it right now
but it's coming soon.
If you've ever seen the movie "Milk"
about movie about Harvey Milk the gay activist,
there's a scene where he gets a random
phone call from a teenager
in the Midwest and Harvey's kind of in a
hurry and just stops and tell this kid,
"when you can, move to a big city."
And it seems kind of like an odd piece of
advice, but when you're in a larger
metropolitan area when you're in an
area where there's a lot more diversity
of opinion of the types of people that
you're going to meet,
it feels like there's a much
more of an open-mindedness
to that and what Harvey was telling that
kid is get to other like-minded people
get to people that are going to judge
you solely because you're gay
get to somewhere where people will love you
just for who you are.
That can exist wherever you are,
just find like-minded people
find people that's not an issue
and for a lot of people it's not the
world has changed drastically in the
time that I've been alive.
I'm finding that there are more open
minded people that I
actually thought there were.
As there's any kind of change
be it something you see is positive or
something you see is negative there's
always going to be another side that has
a completely different view.
And I would say that if
you're encountering opposing
views whatever they are,
try and understand why that person
thinks that way.
Listen to the other side, don't just
automatically out of hand assume that
that person is a terrible person because
they have different views than you.
Just like I am a person that is gay
I'm part asian
in my forties.
I've lived a certain
life and it's it's a combination of a
million different parts so is
everybody else you encounter
be they gay
be they straight
be they trans
be they asexual
whatever you identify as a human being,
there are a million things coming together
to make you who you are
same with everybody else.
Just because they have certain views
on something doesn't mean they hate you.
And it doesn't mean you have to hate them
it just means if you take a minute and try
and understand each other,
that might be something
that helps us move forward.
When we're growing up we
get called names I think it happen to everybody
no matter how confident you are in yourself
no matter how great your life is,
growing up we you know
kids are bullies
we do it to each other.
Like when you're young and you're called a fag,
that's this derogatory term and is still
used in that sense in it doesn't
necessarily even mean gay,
it means oh you're something that I feel
like is less than and I think we all
experienced that but because it was sort
of a catch-all term that was used a lot
when I was growing up,
as I got older it
I never felt like I was repressed
because I was gay necessarily.
All that was in my own head of what I thought
people are going to think of me
what I thought the obstacles
are in my way and
that stuff wasn't really there
that was all stuff that I was putting there
because I thought the world was against me.
It was a big realization to figure out that okay,
yes some people do have those kind of
obstacles in their way
they luckily weren't in mine,
but how can I get out of
my own head and the first step was okay,
well I to tell people in my life that I
care about that I am gay and when I
realized that that wasn't an issue for
them then I looked around and realized
okay well how can I embrace the other
people in my world that aren't having it
as easy as I am.
I try and be as open-minded
as I can and try and be as
understanding as I can.
The LGBT community really tries to do
that for one another I don't know that
we're always successful
I try to embrace everyone.
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