The Bo Show

TOMORROW’S HEADLINE: I’M GAY

(Audio Below)

Coming out of the closet is usually a very private and personal process. Many gay people choose to tell a family member or close friend about their sexuality in a safe and comfortable environment. Now, imagine working for a newspaper, and writing about your private story in a very public way. Imagine going to bed being viewed as straight, and then waking up the next morning with thousands of people knowing you’re gay?

Randy is 31 years old and lives his life as an openly gay man. For many of his earlier years, he tried to deny his homosexuality, and be viewed as a straight man. It wasn’t until he was 19 years old, that his life changed direction. He decided it was time to stop living a lie, and start writing about the truth.

He worked for Michigan State University’s newspaper, The State News. For the first portion of his college years, Randy was viewed as a right-winged conservative. He did not believe in gay rights, in terms of marriage or civil unions. In 1996 when it appeared Hawaii was going to allow gay marriage, Randy wrote an article describing why he thought the GLBT community did not deserve these equal rights. He says, “I was voicing my beliefs on what I wanted to be true. There was still an element of me that thought I could fix myself before committing to a gay lifestyle.”

He continued to live a visibly straight lifestyle. Like most gay men, he would dance around questions about girlfriends, and why he wasn’t dating. He would throw himself into his work and become an overachiever. It soon reached a point where all his successes, were not making up for the failure of not being true to himself. “I was missing out on closeness with people in my life, because they weren’t knowing who I really was.”

Almost a year to the day he wrote the article condemning the gay lifestyle, Randy was approaching one of the biggest decisions in his life. He was going to admit his own sexuality, and change the way his campus has ever viewed him. He decided his coming out process would not be a one-on-one conversation with a friend or family member. He decided his printed words would best tell his story. “I am a writer, and this to me was the most natural way to do it… it was a medium I was comfortable in.”

Randy decided to write a newspaper article telling his campus, and the rest of the world he was gay. He recalls his coming out process. He describes the torturous, sleepless nights of wanting to be someone else. He shares his coming out story and how he decided it was time to be honest with himself, his peers and his family. “I decided I can’t do this anymore, I walked myself into the bathroom, looked at myself in the mirror, and said it outloud… I’m gay.”

From the moment he uttered the words, I’m gay, he knew his life would be different. He had the obvious questions… would my friends still accept me? Would my family still love me? Would my campus forgive me for lying to them for the past two years about my sexuality? Randy got one of his answers from an old friend who was visiting the college campus the day the article hit the streets, “He told me that he didn’t understand it, and he didn’t agree with the lifestyle, but I was his friend.” Would Randy’s roommate feel the same way? How about his family? How would they react to the article? Were his loved ones surprised by Randy’s headline news… and upset about not being told in person? “There were a few people who should have been told face-to-face before they read it in the paper… My Dad, when he was having difficulty accepting this, asked me… why I had to do it, the way I did.”

In this episode of “The Bo Show,” Randy chats openly about making one of the biggest decisions in his life. He describes what it was like going to bed straight, and waking up to a world knowing he was gay. He finds out who his real friends are, and which ones would make him yesterday’s news.