Emma Goswell: 0:05
Welcome and thank you for choosing this podcast. I'm Emma Goswell and I'm your host for Coming Out Stories. So we're a podcast from what Goes On Media and we bring you real life stories from fabulous individuals who just happen to be part of the LGBTQ plus community. It's a little while since we last spoke, isn't it? And it's fair to say a lot has happened. If you're listening in the US, as I know a lot of you do you'll be gearing up for your own election, but here in the UK we've had ours and after 14 years we now have a brand new government and at the time of recording, we have 61 out and proud LGBTQ plus members of parliament Not bad, eh and the majority in the ruling Labour Party. Not everything is perfect, of course. We have still a long way to go to fight for trans rights and combat transphobia in the UK, for example. And look, we're still waiting for this ban on conversion therapy. So there's lots for our new government to do to make life better for our community. But I have to say there is a feeling of optimism in the UK at the moment and that's to be celebrated. Sadly, I also have to bring you some awful news.
Emma Goswell: 1:17
This episode I heard recently of the sad passing of one of the fantastic people that I interviewed early on for this podcast. You may remember me chatting to the queer poet, playwright and performer Jackie Hagen. She really was one in a million. She became famous for losing her leg, but not her sense of humour. I'll never forget seeing her take off her prosthetic leg on the stage at Manchester Pride and then drink a pint from it Something she did regularly apparently. I really recommend you go back and have a listen to her episode. She died after a long illness at the age of just 43. Rip, jackie. A unique trailblazer, gone but never forgotten. Right time now to meet someone else brave enough to share their story. In this episode we're in the USA to meet Kevin O'Connor. He's an author and a gay man who didn't come out until he was 55. So he'd been married twice and had two kids, and it was only when his youngest son, get this, came out as gay to him that he eventually plucked up the courage to do the same.
Kevin O'Connor: 2:22
I like many others, saw, heard and felt inklings. In my teen years, my early teen years, I started to know this feel, this attraction for men, and I didn't know what to do with it. And so I buried it and but did my own little research as I could in the early 1960s, seeking out, going to bookstores, finding books or, way before, internet. That's how I learned a little more about it. But I just kept it there for a long time and went through high school, college years dated. Then I married, once in 1975 and then once in 1981. So married twice, had two kids, and it wasn't until my youngest son, who's now 40, when he was about 16, so let's put that about 1990, when he and his mom and I, we were all living together in a house.
Kevin O'Connor: 3:24
I'd been married by that point almost 20 years. But he started to exhibit signs of inquiry and coming out. And when I first opened up the discussion with him I realized in my own head that I said well, this is pretty inauthentic, because here I was attempting to talk to a 16-year-old, which in and of itself is challenging. But knowing that I want to do a little probing and talk to him about where his thinking was in my own mind I'm thinking, kevin, you haven't come to grips with this yourself. So as I play back that story from 20 some years ago, it started a journey that sometimes I tell people.
Kevin O'Connor: 4:09
My son and I came out together Not always together, not always like, not like this, but sort of at the same time and he doing his own investigations and learning me doing the same. That led to a separation from his mom and an eventual change of household and then meeting Leon, my husband and partner of 19 years, who I've been with ever since. So that was just a short synopsis. And so when somebody says what age were you when you, really, when you officially if there's ever credence in the word, officially came out, I'd say I was 55. So about 19 years ago when I officially came out.
Emma Goswell: 4:51
But so that's quite a long journey that we've had in a very short period of time there, and a quick telling. Yes, a quick telling. So you were a teenager in the 1960s living somewhere near Chicago, and what was that like? What sort of messages were you getting about gay people? Did you know of any gay people? Were they talked about?
Kevin O'Connor: 5:14
Not on my radar, I mean other than in my parents' circles. I might hear talk of somebody that they would talk about maybe being the term that was light in the loafers.
Emma Goswell: 5:28
Oh yeah.
Kevin O'Connor: 5:29
One of the terms they used, light in the loafers. And then, as later teens and things, and even into my early 20s, my mom was a golfer and an athlete and in her circle of friends there were women who lived together and were, for all purposes were, partners, but it wasn't really talked about. But mom and dad would socialize with some of these women who were golfing friends and so my awareness was increasing and also I began to have an inkling of just an idea that my parents were somewhat supportive of this whatever they called it at the time alternative lifestyle or whatever. So in growing up I had that impression, but in the 1950s, 50s, 60s, middle 60s, late 60s, it really wasn't an atmosphere for me anyway to come out. I could read about other people doing it and when Stonewall happened in 69, I was 19 at the time it was sort of on my radar but I didn't really connect with the meaning because my own persona was buried pretty deeply.
Emma Goswell: 6:42
So you were sort of carrying on your life as a straight person, knowing that you were attracted to men, though.
Kevin O'Connor: 6:48
Yeah, that's a good way to put it in a good way to put it. And I had it in my head, in my mind, that I wanted at some point in my life I wanted to be a parent for me. At the time I wasn't aware of many ways that you could be a parent, a dad, without being in a non-gay relationship. I don't think I even used the word gay in 1969. Anyway. So that became my modus operandi. I was more continuing with wide circles of friendships, dating and having relationships with friends and women, and doing that through the 60s. Got married in 75 to a college friend who she and I are still strong friends. And then now, when we split up, I got married again a few years later and then two kids came along. But then I became a father and I now those kids are now 42 and 40 years old, so I just thrust myself into the role of parenting. I loved it.
Emma Goswell: 7:54
I love being a parent still do so all that time you were in the closet, you didn't have any relationships with men. You didn't ever explore your gay side at all.
Kevin O'Connor: 8:03
No, no no, I explored a little bit more after this situation with my son and starting to examine myself. I just was a little more open to finding outlets by this time. The internet was more prevalent in the early 2000s and I found resources on there and I would find people there that I could communicate with in the Chicago area. So I learned that there was a world out there of people that were in similar situations to me. So I didn't feel alone. I felt alone in my own immediate setting, but when I was searching I found other people that were exploring options and situations in their own lives and that was really helpful to me.
Emma Goswell: 8:50
But this was by the time you were in your 50s, so can you take us back to that conversation you had with your son when he was 16?
Kevin O'Connor: 8:58
Sure, yeah, I was just around 50 years old when that happened and his mom and I had become aware of things on his own internet pages and things and things, people that he was communicating with and pictures I saw and I thought, well, this is something. He's got something on his mind here. So I decided to take it upon myself just to find a venue of avenue to talk to him. I don't recall that as being a long conversation and I think at the beginning he was probably defensive, defensive in a 16-year-old to his father way, which I think my experience with raising teenagers is. They were defensive about most topics I talked to them about.
Emma Goswell: 9:36
Your sexuality or your sex life is the last thing you want to talk to your parents about.
Kevin O'Connor: 9:40
Yeah, yeah, but just having a discussion opened it up and helped me understand a little bit more and helped me put myself back to my own 16, 17, 18 year old self and just said now it's that many years later and knowing I still have really haven't been off that authentic with myself as I navigated through a world of straightness and professionally, personally. So I really I'm grateful to my son. Actually, I think sometimes things happen for a reason. In the Yiddish there's a Yiddish term called beshert and called meant to be so for whatever reason.
Kevin O'Connor: 10:21
Me being aware of his situation was meant to be for me to start examining myself and I'd already been going to counselors, both family counselors, with my wife and my kids and with her and things. So I wasn't a stranger to counseling. So as I worked through this with him mostly my private counseling and a little bit with my wife at the time I upped the ante at the time and then I put the gay card on the table then of counseling, whether I was talking individually with a counselor or with my wife at the time and just put that out in the open. And so each one of those steps I took helped me to take the next step and to find more community and to realize that what I was going through wasn't as unusual as perhaps I had thought it was.
Emma Goswell: 11:10
And who was the first person you told? Then you admitted Was it a therapist or was it your son?
Kevin O'Connor: 11:15
Oh no, the son was later A couple of therapists One therapist that I've been working with in a family setting. As I look back now, I was feeling a bit suicidal and found myself in a position one night where I was sitting in a car in a parking lot thinking what am I going to do next? And so what I did next was drove back to my town I'm 45 minutes away and called my counselor and said you got some time. And so I went over there and I said to him hey, every once in a while I get these thoughts of ways that I would do suicide. And he said I said isn't that something everybody does? And he said oh no, that's not what people do. So he referred me to another counselor who then really helped me unpack the whole thing through a series of weekly sessions, and I'm really indebted to her for what she was able to help me come to grips with.
Emma Goswell: 12:11
And do you think it was being in the closet for so long that was so detrimental to your mental health?
Kevin O'Connor: 12:17
As I play it all back now. I mean I have a good friend. He asked who I talked to. Around that same time I had contact with a college friend through Christmas holiday cards and things and he revealed to me that he had been going through something similarly and he became a venue for me to talk to so I talked to him. I had another elementary school friend that I knew had come out. I talked to him. I had another college friend who we would engage in conversation about it. So I had this support system. So, along with the counseling, I did find peers that I could talk to and people that would help me just by listening and just help me navigate the process. It did make it less challenging, I said.
Kevin O'Connor: 13:03
But at the time I was an elementary school principal in a Midwestern town that was not on my way to retirement. I had pretty much put the paperwork together to retire. It really wasn't the kind of environment where I could I call it a soapbox cave. The friends I had were really helpful to me. With long periods of phone calls I did confide in one staff member that worked with me and she was very supportive, knew my family situation, knew my kids, knew my wife. She was very trustworthy and was another person close to my inner circle that I could talk to. I've been in a position the last four or five years of my career where I talk to kids who are struggling with coming out issues. Why'd you wait so long, they ask. And secondly, what do you say to us? And I said you need to find somebody to talk to and if it's not at home which not might not be the most supportive environment find people and that's I.
Emma Goswell: 14:00
Just go with what worked for me and just finding other people to talk to and I'm guessing it was interesting that you found some other people you went to school with to talk to. I'm guessing they had the same reasons. They just went along with being straight because it was just easier, especially in the 50s and 60s.
Kevin O'Connor: 14:16
Oh yeah, and the one college friend, the reason we well, we had been reconnecting for a long time. But then when I realized he was a professional, he had kids, wife, and he and his wife had decided to split up for part of I don't know the whole thing, but yeah, he was gay too. So when he talked to me about his situation, it helped me to think, hey, you're okay, you made it and you're starting a new life and you're restructuring the relationships you have with your children. And I'm usually a very much half-full, probably three-quarters full, type person. So with that sense of optimism, you know, I was able to say I think I can do this. It's not going to be easy, but I can do this and that's what has propelled me to keep going.
Emma Goswell: 15:04
Probably harder to be in the closet for 50 years. Oh yeah, as I look back.
Kevin O'Connor: 15:09
I don't know, but sometimes I wonder I'm going to go back to that word meant to be Whoever was guiding me in a celestial sense or a spiritual sense or a karma sense. They were showing me the way out. Is it the wrong way? The right way, who's to say? But it was a way that I chose. The gay aspect of me was like a. It was like a pit in my stomach and I could keep it there. I could just let it sit there and it would go away. It there, I could just let it sit there and it would go away. Unless I saw a character on TV or in a movie, or maybe I happened to meet somebody. Then that would percolate a little more and go to another level in my gut. But then I'd come back home and I'd think hey, I got to go to soccer practice.
Kevin O'Connor: 15:51
or I got school conferences to go to not only my own kids but as a principal, so it wasn't a place for me to really start exploring. And then I go back to my kid. He helped me say introduce me to the possibility of there are ways to work through this.
Emma Goswell: 16:10
Well, he was lucky to have you as a dad. Then, in terms of someone being understanding to come out to Were your parents still around. Did you have to have the conversation with your parents?
Kevin O'Connor: 16:21
there's a discussion I had with my father when I was 29 and I was just, uh, struggling, having some struggles in my first marriage, a young marriage and, um, just starting to explain to him 10 years prior to that, when I was a freshman in college, that I'd had a relationship with a friend at college, a guy, and I talked to him about what it was like coming home that summer of 69, stonewall that summer of 69. And not having anybody to talk to about this relationship that I had. And he was just very reassuring to me at the time, saying, gee, as much as I'd wished you'd talked to me about this 10 years earlier, I'm glad you're talking to me about it now. He, being born in 1913 and going through his own life, married to my mom for a long time, he started to talk to me that day about just his view of I don't think we called it sexual orientation. He said well, you know, there's a range.
Kevin O'Connor: 17:23
People can have all kinds of attractions in their life and he, he, he must've been doing some reading at the time or talking to people, because he talked about the, the one I call the one to 10 scale, for either, whatever size you pick, you know either the one or the 10, one to ten scale for either. Whatever side you pick, you know either the one of the ten that's completely heterosexual, the other end is completely homosexual and so in his terminology in there in 1979 explained it as a and we're all in a spectrum along. We're all part of that spectrum and we have different kinds of friendships and different kinds of relationships. So we had that discussion. It was never talked about again. He died five years later.
Emma Goswell: 18:02
I treasure that conversation I had with him I thought you said you didn't have any relationships with men, though, before uh well, by that time I was conveying to him about the.
Kevin O'Connor: 18:12
Uh, this is before marriage. So I was a 19 year old-old when I had that encounter, that brief relationship with a college roommate, college friend, college friend yeah.
Emma Goswell: 18:21
You did explore slightly then, oh yeah yeah, I did.
Kevin O'Connor: 18:25
I did. That was before I decided to get married. That was before that. So 10 years later 79, when I had the discussion with my dad had I was married, now having some struggles with that particular marriage.
Emma Goswell: 18:39
That's a long journey, so absolutely, and I guess the hard one is um telling your wife, then telling your partner, that you know this is a big part of yourself and that's a major reason that the relationship might have to end right, and my first wife, even before this conversation I had with my father in 79, I was able to talk to her about I needed to explore some things and I had some things on my mind.
Kevin O'Connor: 19:00
This is we're already married and I said I think I might be attracted to men. She just said, well, why don't we find somebody for you to talk to? So we did, and that particular counselor in 77, 78, you know, helped to initiate the discussion. I've always been open to the idea of being able to, of wanting to talk to people when I get in a rut or a situation or a question I can't answer, and I've often always found that there are either friends or professionals out there that will help me through whatever process I'm going through. So that was my first introduction to a counselor that gave me the comfort to say, to talk about this, and that led other counselors down the road.
Emma Goswell: 19:48
And did that give you the confidence to then go and have relationships with men?
Kevin O'Connor: 19:52
Not yet. No, no, no, no. My wife and I at the time we divorced in 19,. I guess it was in late 79, 80, 81. No, men didn't enter the picture at all. And then after that separation and divorce had big social circles in the area where I lived outside Chicago at the time now and met my second wife.
Kevin O'Connor: 20:15
Met the woman who was to become my second wife and the mother of my children. I pursued that because it seemed in that environment, in that situation in a small county outside of Chicago conservative there wasn't much talk of LGBT or gay or anything. I look back and I thought what would have happened if I had come out at that time? I don't know, I didn't do it. I didn't pursue relationships with men at the time.
Emma Goswell: 20:41
No regrets, though, kevin. No regrets.
Kevin O'Connor: 20:44
No, because one of the things I think about sometimes, emma.
Kevin O'Connor: 20:49
So you look at the 80s and the 90s and me just diving willingly and wantingly into being a dad and all the stuff that goes along with it and being the dad of infants, the dad of preschoolers, all the groups and committees and I was in that and I was committed to it and, like I referred to earlier, the idea of being gay was just in a. It took a space in my gut, in my abdomen, and just harbored there and sometimes I think that if I had come out, let's say I hadn't gotten married, let's say I hadn't become a father, let's say I pursued my gay part, my gay side, who I was as a gay man. I look at the age quilt or the memorials we have for gay people, some of whom I know, some of whom I've met through my associations, whose names are on that quilt, and I think and I mentioned earlier that there's a greater force guiding me through this life. I don't know what their purpose was, but sometimes I think, when I look at the birth and the birth dates of a lot of those people on the AIDS quilt, we're in the same generation that I'm born.
Kevin O'Connor: 22:02
And I'm thinking, all right, who in my ancestral people or somebody guiding me to take this approach? Because I could have been and my name could have been on that quilt? And as I look back at the last 10 years of my career. I worked in a position in the schools here in Fort Lauderdale where I was an advocate for LGBT youth and staff Right and met with people, met with kids, met with teachers. We started an employee advocacy group for LGBT teachers and as I look back and I'm talking about these people, somehow guiding me, it took me to the part in the last 10 years of my career where I could use my teaching skills, my counseling skills and my communication skills to help other people navigate through their own LGBTQ world. Perhaps if I had made a different decision in the 1980s, I wouldn't have been alive to do that.
Emma Goswell: 23:06
We lost a lot of people, for sure.
Kevin O'Connor: 23:08
I don't recognize the purpose of everything I went through and I didn't question it a lot. I just lived and I loved my dad thing, my teacher life, my principal life. I loved all that, still do. But if I made a different decision somewhere in the late 70s, early 80s, would I even be here to have this discussion with you? I don't know with you?
Emma Goswell: 23:38
I don't know. So it's interesting that you worked with lgbt youth groups then, because I always ask people you know what advice they would give to young people or people that hadn't come out yet. So what? What would be your advice? You've got 74 years experience on the planet. What would you say to young people listening?
Kevin O'Connor: 23:50
well, during those years that I worked actively in the school system, I had many opportunities and to meet with kids and to go to their school sites and to communicate with them in their support groups that are LGBT support groups that are there here in South Florida. And what I said to them then and what I would continue to say to them is to find people you can talk to. And then kids might say to me I can't come out at home, they would throw me out of the house and I say, well, that's not a safe environment to come out. Fortunately, in our community here we have places for kids to go to, where they don't necessarily have to come out to their families, and there are counselors and people there that provide a resource to them. I want kids to be authentic. I want kids to come to grips who they are at a time in their life when I didn't and couldn't Although things have worked out for me I have to believe that the earlier that a person comes to an understanding of themselves, the better it's going to be for them from a mental health standpoint.
Kevin O'Connor: 24:58
For them from a mental health standpoint, and the resources that are available to youth now are so much richer than they were when I was 19 and 20. I found my own way. I would find a book in a bookstore or a library, sit down on the floor and read it. Didn't dare bring the book home because then my parents or people would say what are you reading this book for? So I just kept that learning private. But I think, with the resources kids have now what I back to your question what I talk to kids about is just let's take a look at the resources that you have in your community. Let's take a look at the resources you have online.
Emma Goswell: 25:30
So that's where I base my conversation on with youth at this point and talking of books, you've got your own book out now, which I know is not specifically about your LGBT journey, but it's kind of your life story, isn't it? Yeah, it is.
Kevin O'Connor: 25:43
It is and it's called Two Floors Above Grief, and the concept of Two Floors Above Grief is this is a picture of the house I was raised in. It's an 1880s Victorian house that was in a suburb called Elgin, outside of Chicago, and this was a Victorian house that my dad and my uncle, who were both funeral directors, they had purchased in 1939. But they bought this house because their business was growing. Not only was the business growing, but their families were growing. They had been able to buy it and start reconverting the first floor into a funeral home. The second floor was bedrooms that they converted into an apartment and the top floor had been a ballroom with beautiful hardwood floors, two performance stages. And my mom and dad, shortly after they were married in 39, took over that space, this ballroom, and created an apartment apartment my bedroom had a stage in it and there was a second stage in that third floor.
Kevin O'Connor: 26:41
So for the first eight years of my life my bed was next to that stage. So it was a novel environment to grow up in wasn't it?
Kevin O'Connor: 26:49
yeah, you were born to be a performer I actually have going to be in a play this summer. So the story it was a very unique I call part of the subtle is unique place we called home. So it was a story of two families living together, as the dads, with the support of their wives, had a funeral home business and then how did we live? As kids, as youngsters, as teens and buried in there is my 13, 14, 15 year old self who is discovering hey, there's a part of me that's attracted to men.
Emma Goswell: 27:22
Fabulous, so important to keep these things on record.
Kevin O'Connor: 27:25
Oh yeah.
Jordan: 27:26
I bet you're so proud of doing that.
Emma Goswell: 27:27
Oh, yeah, so how did it go then when you finally came out to your own son, good?
Kevin O'Connor: 27:32
question. When I was going through the first stages of separation and divorce, I had a conversation with my mother about what the ending of the marriage and that I was gay. I had two years remaining in my principal contract. My mom was a good counselor to me. She took it all in relative stride and so she said let's let the family get used to the idea you're getting divorced first and that whole part, which is a process in itself, and we'll we'll talk about the coming out part later, the public part. So what? When the divorce became final in 2006, that's when I decided to start to talk to my two sons, who were then 22 and 24. I made it a point to have the conversation with them personally, not over Internet or an email, and the conversation with both of them went rather well. I wanted them to learn who I was, apart from being married. I wanted them to learn who I was as their dad, who identifies now with them as gay. It went well at the time. It went well.
Emma Goswell: 28:41
They responded positively then.
Kevin O'Connor: 28:44
At the time, yeah. At the time, yeah, no, and that was 2006, 18 years ago. So we've had our own conversations. Unfortunately, my older son has decided to estrange himself from me. It has little to nothing to do with me being gay, it's a whole other issue, but that's been hard and the younger son, who just just turned 40, he and I have a relationship that is very strong and able to help him celebrate his birthday and do things with him, and so I just keep doing what I can to keep those relationships going.
Emma Goswell: 29:19
And is it your gay son that you still have a relationship? Yes, yes, yes, it's Mark.
Kevin O'Connor: 29:23
That relationship's been very rich and certainly there are periods of time in the relationship with my older son that have been rich and fruitful. We're not in a period of time right now where that's happening.
Emma Goswell: 29:35
I'm guessing your gay son's very proud of you, though, for coming out and living your truth right? Yeah, I don't know.
Kevin O'Connor: 29:39
Yeah, he said it so much in words. And four or five years ago he happened to be in Fort Lauderdale with me at a time when he was using my car. He knew I was going to counseling. I said I need you to drop me off at this counseling session and he just said, oh, it's okay if I come in with you. I said, well, sure.
Kevin O'Connor: 30:00
So he came in and I'd already had a pretty established relationship with this particular counselor.
Kevin O'Connor: 30:03
I'd already had a pretty established relationship with this particular counselor and she was no stranger to my stories about him and the things that we had been encountering as a dad and son.
Kevin O'Connor: 30:19
And so he came and sat with us for that session hour, hour and a half and really opened up during that time, and to the point that I was crying in my chair.
Kevin O'Connor: 30:22
You know saying things to me that he was happy for me in my chair. You know saying things to me that he was happy for me, that he was sorry for the way he had treated me during different aspects of his growing up and saying, you know, I was pretty mean to you, as, in a way that most teens can be mean to their parents, I think as I look and talk to other people about their adult and teen relationships, but he apologized and some people might call him naked amends, but for him to say that out loud to me and to say that he was comfortable sitting in this space talking to me about it. That conversation still continues sometimes when the opportunity presents itself. But I enjoy the relationship I have with him and the openness that we have and the things that he's willing to share as he experiences his own relationships with men. I get a chance to meet some of them as they come into his life and I'm grateful for that. He has a nice, wonderful relationship with my husband, leon, and we banter back and forth often.
Emma Goswell: 31:25
It's been a nice aspect of my life with him so good to hear that finally, you got your happy ending then. So you're in a long-term committed relationship with a man yes, 19 years together.
Kevin O'Connor: 31:36
We've been married for nine years, so together for 19 years. And um and actually I met him through one of the college friends I mentioned earlier that had been counseling me through he had also navigated himself through a part of his life where he had three children and wanted to come to grips with who he was and went through that process. So now between the two of us we have five sons, seven granddaughters sons, seven granddaughters, and we have a wonderful relationship with four of them that are very communicative, very whole, very authentic with children and grandchildren, and the granddaughters range in age from five up to 23. It's quite a nice, wonderful aspect of life when I think about different, various coming out stories, whether on your program or others, there's no two coming out stories that are alike. I think that's a beauty of our LGBT community. I think it's an aspect of who we are as a community that there's not a prescription for anything that happens to us or anything that we do, but there's plenty of voices out there that share in the experience, and I like to think that we're all here anything that we do, but there's plenty of voices out there that share in the experience and I like to think that we're all here to support each other.
Kevin O'Connor: 32:50
I'm going back to my hometown of Elgin, illinois. It's their second annual LGBT parade and festival. So to go back to the town where I was raised and lived in and to be one of the sponsors now and be part of the parade and have a table set up where I can engage in conversation with people in the childhood town that I grew up in. We talk about full circles, but I think it's more of a spiral. I think circles close. Spirals keep going.
Emma Goswell: 33:21
A big thank you to Kevin for chatting to me. If you want more information, it's all on his website, kevin o'connor authorcom. You can get more information and his newsletters there. His book two floors above grief is available now. Next episode we are still stateside and we'll be meeting a gay man called jordan. He's the son of indian immigrants who grew up in a very Catholic household in the noughties in Houston, texas. He spent a while in the closet, so when he finally moved to San Francisco and kissed a man for the first time, it was well electric.
Jordan: 33:56
It was really corny. I think we were walking by the San Francisco Bay and there's this beautiful bay bridge that connects San Francisco to Oakland Bay Bridge that connects San Francisco to Oakland, and they had just installed an art installation there where the bridge would light up in all these different colors and we kissed and it felt like all of the electricity from those lights on the bridge had sort of transferred into my body and I felt alive.