for the better part of my life I’ve
professed to be unapologetically me and
I’ve encouraged those around me to do
the same oftentimes those a sociologist
I think about the reciprocal
relationship that exists between agency
and structure in our society that may
inhibit a person’s ability to actually
do that as we think about agency the
autonomy that an individual has over the
development of their own self-identity
to be their true selves in relationship
to the structure of our society that is
affected by socialization in social
interaction as people seem to tell us
what is acceptable and unacceptable
right and wrong good and bad one of the
things I got asked a lot early on and I
still get asked it from time to time in
interviews is what’s it like to be gay
in West Virginia and the reality of it
is I have no idea I am incredibly
insulated by the walls of West Virginia
University I am protected by the city of
Morgantown I have no idea what it’s like
to be gay in Hampshire County where I
spent my childhood and adolescence I
don’t know what it’s like to be gay in
Lincoln County where I spent the first
five years of my life I don’t know what
it’s like to be gay in Cabell County
where I was born
but I’m conscious to the reality that no
doubt even though I experienced
harassment bullying homophobia people
have it far worse than I do across our
great state after the worst day of my
life one of my colleagues left a sign at
my door it said be you be true be bold I
look at that sign almost every day in my
office as I wonder what capacity do we
have to actually do those things bu I
remember the first time someone called
me gay I remember in particular the
reactions of the other kids I didn’t
know what he meant I had never heard
that word it wasn’t something that my
parents said I never even heard it among
my peer group but I was a little kid I
remember going home after school that
day and looking in the dictionary to
find a definition we didn’t have the
internet back then so information wasn’t
at our fingertips as easily but in that
brief little definition from the
dictionary I was actually able to see an
identity that spoke to how I felt I’m
relatively confident that I could have
went to my parents and I could have said
I think I’m gay and hopefully ideally
they would have been comforting caring
and nurturing I wasn’t so sure about my
extended family I definitely wasn’t sure
about school this is where everything
had happened so I stayed in the closet
fast-forward two months after I started
here at WVU Matthew Shepard was savagely
beaten tied to a fence and left to die
in Laramie Wyoming
I remember thanking back as I was
reading these things and wondering how
did Matt have the courage to be out Judy
Shepard Matthew’s mom started crossing
the campus advocating for a LGBT hate
crime legislation she came to a local
university and I knew that I needed to
be in the audience as I sat there that
evening I couldn’t help but think about
Matt how courageous he had been the
reality that he spent an entire night
tied to a fence and managed to survive
three days later after they had found
him he obviously you know and
subsequently died but I also was
standing there thinking about Judy
now here was this woman who was going
across the nation advocating for hate
crime legislation after she had just
lost her only son and I couldn’t help
but think about my own mom would my mom
have the courage to be championing these
issues would she have chosen to use that
response to my death and I think I knew
the answer and so I felt deeper into the
closet fast-forward again 13 years
April 4th 2011 started like everyday did
for me it was a Monday morning and I was
on my way to campus to start a day of
teaching and I called my mom on the
phone and the conversation started just
like normal how’s the weather and what
did you do this weekend and I responded
I feel so lonely here I think I could
leave class on Friday and kill myself
and no one would know until I didn’t
show up to class on Monday and as I was
out of my evening run I decided that I
was actually going to do it that was
going to kill myself I remember climbing
to the top of the bridge that connects
downtown Morgantown to Westover and as I
stood there looking over the edge
considering what’s the best way to be
successful I couldn’t decide what way to
do it I’d left my headphones in my ears
I don’t know how long I was standing up
there several songs had played but
eventually a song started playing from
the Broadway show wicked for whatever
reason that song played and it’s
possibly the only reason why I’m alive
today four days later I was having
dinner with one of my friends here in
town and as we sat there she was probing
me with questions are you okay what’s
going on and I do anything to help you
and I got a little teary eyed and I
looked across the table and for the
first time I said the words out loud
I said I’m gay she started to cry I
started to cry a little bit harder
eventually we were both crying pretty
uncontrollably and maybe it’s a good
thing because the server gave us free
dessert I think she knew something big
had just happened and boy was she right
be true I had finally told my truth and
so over the course of the next several
weeks I came out to my closest friends I
also came out to my parents I mid-summer
I’d came out to everybody that I thought
mattered WVU was hosting College GameDay
here on campus in late September 2011 we
were playing the LSU Tigers about midway
through the game a young man who was in
one of my classes approached me visibly
drunk but uttering gay slurs threats
even invoking Matthew Shepard’s name I
had shown the Laramie project in class
just a few weeks earlier as I had done
every year since I started teaching he
said that he and his friends had joked
about Matthew shepherding me and I knew
what that meant he and his friends had
joked about killing me
oddly enough who wasn’t the first time
that someone had threatened my life and
it definitely wasn’t going to be the
last but I knew I had a responsibility
in my truth and so I went home after the
game i sat down at my keyboard I just
started typing I remember calling my
academic mom as I call her here on
campus she was a professor that really
had helped me over the years I remember
calling her and asking her if I was
committing career suicide
and she encouraged me to write and I
remember that Monday morning as well
around 9:00 a.m. the messages started
rolling in the article had appeared in
the daily Athenaeum our school newspaper
and by 11 o’clock I had heard from every
major administrator on our campus
colleagues former students current
students friends people I didn’t even
know about things were about to be
different for me I recognized abundantly
the reality of my privilege as a
cisgender white male who was college
educated and upper middle class I know
where I exist
in our society I recognized though that
if someone like me could be targeted
with harassment and threats and if you
want to call it bullying then no doubt
so could our students I’ve also prided
myself as a faculty member in being
abundantly aware of what’s going on to
my students lives I understand the
statistics at 18 to 25 year olds the
second leading cause of death for them
is suicide I understand that for LGB
individuals they are three times more
likely than their heterosexual peers to
attempt suicide I understand that
transgender individuals according to a
recent study 43% of them suggest that
they’ve attempted suicide by the age of
25 but the reality was for me it wasn’t
just about protecting people from
bullying and harassment that could
result in suicide it was partnering with
people on this campus who came before me
we started having town halls where we
discussed diversity inclusivity equity
raising awareness all across the state
as a sociologist though again I go back
to the idea of how we define deviance
the powerful and privileged group have
the capacity to define that for us so as
I look into the intersections of our
society today I look at the way in which
the powerful groups are able to label
deviant people who say black lives
matter people were allowed to label
women deviant who say I am no longer
willing to accept this actual sexual
harassment that has invaded the
institutions in which I take my
education in my work I also think about
the deviance as we look at the women who
wear hijabs
or the individuals who are bilingual but
speak English as a second language
bebote and that’s something that I have
abundantly tried to do over the course
of my life
December 1st 2016 was the worst day of
my life my boldness so threatened a
group of students at this university
that they created a fictitious narrative
with hopes that I may be fired dismissed
or otherwise they shared this
information with a visitor to our campus
who engaged in about a six minute
evisceration of my character this video
went viral still to this day if you
google my name the first resulting image
that you will get comes from this speech
the thing about it is though again there
was hope our students immediately went
into reactive mode social media exploded
a hashtag with my name and it went viral
still don’t necessarily know what that
means
administrators spoke out in support of
me my colleagues did as well
current and former students did too the
reality of it though was for me this
support through social media only lasted
a couple days what was going to last for
me on the other end was nearly eight
months for eight months I was constantly
harassed email
voicemails social media attacks for
eight months I received death threats
some of them scary because they were so
close to home it was like some of these
people actually knew who I was some of
them a little bit more distant there was
one in particular that I have to memory
that lasted nearly six and a half
minutes were a man from Arizona detailed
my death in the way he could hang a fat
pig like me from a tree the same way
that the deer he hunted could be hung
from trees for whatever reason I
couldn’t delete the voicemail and I kept
listening to it he wasn’t the only death
threat they lasted into about mid July
of this past year the reality of for me
though was I was remaining bold
I was remaining true to who I was and I
was remaining unapologetically me and
that was bad for some of these people I
felt alone in many ways on a daily basis
I invoked one of my hero’s words I’d met
dr. Maya Angelou earlier in my college
years and I got to hear her the night
that I would come out to my two best
friends are here in the audience today
every day for seven months I had to
quote the lyrics from her in still I
rise poetry you may shoot me with your
words you may kill me with your eyes you
may cut me with your hatefulness but
still like air I’ll rise and that’s the
reality of it I understand that I’m
extraordinarily ordinary I know that
nothing that has ever happened to me
is in excess of what is happening to
other individuals but I encourage you to
be you to be true and to be bold [Applause]
professed to be unapologetically me and
I’ve encouraged those around me to do
the same oftentimes those a sociologist
I think about the reciprocal
relationship that exists between agency
and structure in our society that may
inhibit a person’s ability to actually
do that as we think about agency the
autonomy that an individual has over the
development of their own self-identity
to be their true selves in relationship
to the structure of our society that is
affected by socialization in social
interaction as people seem to tell us
what is acceptable and unacceptable
right and wrong good and bad one of the
things I got asked a lot early on and I
still get asked it from time to time in
interviews is what’s it like to be gay
in West Virginia and the reality of it
is I have no idea I am incredibly
insulated by the walls of West Virginia
University I am protected by the city of
Morgantown I have no idea what it’s like
to be gay in Hampshire County where I
spent my childhood and adolescence I
don’t know what it’s like to be gay in
Lincoln County where I spent the first
five years of my life I don’t know what
it’s like to be gay in Cabell County
where I was born
but I’m conscious to the reality that no
doubt even though I experienced
harassment bullying homophobia people
have it far worse than I do across our
great state after the worst day of my
life one of my colleagues left a sign at
my door it said be you be true be bold I
look at that sign almost every day in my
office as I wonder what capacity do we
have to actually do those things bu I
remember the first time someone called
me gay I remember in particular the
reactions of the other kids I didn’t
know what he meant I had never heard
that word it wasn’t something that my
parents said I never even heard it among
my peer group but I was a little kid I
remember going home after school that
day and looking in the dictionary to
find a definition we didn’t have the
internet back then so information wasn’t
at our fingertips as easily but in that
brief little definition from the
dictionary I was actually able to see an
identity that spoke to how I felt I’m
relatively confident that I could have
went to my parents and I could have said
I think I’m gay and hopefully ideally
they would have been comforting caring
and nurturing I wasn’t so sure about my
extended family I definitely wasn’t sure
about school this is where everything
had happened so I stayed in the closet
fast-forward two months after I started
here at WVU Matthew Shepard was savagely
beaten tied to a fence and left to die
in Laramie Wyoming
I remember thanking back as I was
reading these things and wondering how
did Matt have the courage to be out Judy
Shepard Matthew’s mom started crossing
the campus advocating for a LGBT hate
crime legislation she came to a local
university and I knew that I needed to
be in the audience as I sat there that
evening I couldn’t help but think about
Matt how courageous he had been the
reality that he spent an entire night
tied to a fence and managed to survive
three days later after they had found
him he obviously you know and
subsequently died but I also was
standing there thinking about Judy
now here was this woman who was going
across the nation advocating for hate
crime legislation after she had just
lost her only son and I couldn’t help
but think about my own mom would my mom
have the courage to be championing these
issues would she have chosen to use that
response to my death and I think I knew
the answer and so I felt deeper into the
closet fast-forward again 13 years
April 4th 2011 started like everyday did
for me it was a Monday morning and I was
on my way to campus to start a day of
teaching and I called my mom on the
phone and the conversation started just
like normal how’s the weather and what
did you do this weekend and I responded
I feel so lonely here I think I could
leave class on Friday and kill myself
and no one would know until I didn’t
show up to class on Monday and as I was
out of my evening run I decided that I
was actually going to do it that was
going to kill myself I remember climbing
to the top of the bridge that connects
downtown Morgantown to Westover and as I
stood there looking over the edge
considering what’s the best way to be
successful I couldn’t decide what way to
do it I’d left my headphones in my ears
I don’t know how long I was standing up
there several songs had played but
eventually a song started playing from
the Broadway show wicked for whatever
reason that song played and it’s
possibly the only reason why I’m alive
today four days later I was having
dinner with one of my friends here in
town and as we sat there she was probing
me with questions are you okay what’s
going on and I do anything to help you
and I got a little teary eyed and I
looked across the table and for the
first time I said the words out loud
I said I’m gay she started to cry I
started to cry a little bit harder
eventually we were both crying pretty
uncontrollably and maybe it’s a good
thing because the server gave us free
dessert I think she knew something big
had just happened and boy was she right
be true I had finally told my truth and
so over the course of the next several
weeks I came out to my closest friends I
also came out to my parents I mid-summer
I’d came out to everybody that I thought
mattered WVU was hosting College GameDay
here on campus in late September 2011 we
were playing the LSU Tigers about midway
through the game a young man who was in
one of my classes approached me visibly
drunk but uttering gay slurs threats
even invoking Matthew Shepard’s name I
had shown the Laramie project in class
just a few weeks earlier as I had done
every year since I started teaching he
said that he and his friends had joked
about Matthew shepherding me and I knew
what that meant he and his friends had
joked about killing me
oddly enough who wasn’t the first time
that someone had threatened my life and
it definitely wasn’t going to be the
last but I knew I had a responsibility
in my truth and so I went home after the
game i sat down at my keyboard I just
started typing I remember calling my
academic mom as I call her here on
campus she was a professor that really
had helped me over the years I remember
calling her and asking her if I was
committing career suicide
and she encouraged me to write and I
remember that Monday morning as well
around 9:00 a.m. the messages started
rolling in the article had appeared in
the daily Athenaeum our school newspaper
and by 11 o’clock I had heard from every
major administrator on our campus
colleagues former students current
students friends people I didn’t even
know about things were about to be
different for me I recognized abundantly
the reality of my privilege as a
cisgender white male who was college
educated and upper middle class I know
where I exist
in our society I recognized though that
if someone like me could be targeted
with harassment and threats and if you
want to call it bullying then no doubt
so could our students I’ve also prided
myself as a faculty member in being
abundantly aware of what’s going on to
my students lives I understand the
statistics at 18 to 25 year olds the
second leading cause of death for them
is suicide I understand that for LGB
individuals they are three times more
likely than their heterosexual peers to
attempt suicide I understand that
transgender individuals according to a
recent study 43% of them suggest that
they’ve attempted suicide by the age of
25 but the reality was for me it wasn’t
just about protecting people from
bullying and harassment that could
result in suicide it was partnering with
people on this campus who came before me
we started having town halls where we
discussed diversity inclusivity equity
raising awareness all across the state
as a sociologist though again I go back
to the idea of how we define deviance
the powerful and privileged group have
the capacity to define that for us so as
I look into the intersections of our
society today I look at the way in which
the powerful groups are able to label
deviant people who say black lives
matter people were allowed to label
women deviant who say I am no longer
willing to accept this actual sexual
harassment that has invaded the
institutions in which I take my
education in my work I also think about
the deviance as we look at the women who
wear hijabs
or the individuals who are bilingual but
speak English as a second language
bebote and that’s something that I have
abundantly tried to do over the course
of my life
December 1st 2016 was the worst day of
my life my boldness so threatened a
group of students at this university
that they created a fictitious narrative
with hopes that I may be fired dismissed
or otherwise they shared this
information with a visitor to our campus
who engaged in about a six minute
evisceration of my character this video
went viral still to this day if you
google my name the first resulting image
that you will get comes from this speech
the thing about it is though again there
was hope our students immediately went
into reactive mode social media exploded
a hashtag with my name and it went viral
still don’t necessarily know what that
means
administrators spoke out in support of
me my colleagues did as well
current and former students did too the
reality of it though was for me this
support through social media only lasted
a couple days what was going to last for
me on the other end was nearly eight
months for eight months I was constantly
harassed email
voicemails social media attacks for
eight months I received death threats
some of them scary because they were so
close to home it was like some of these
people actually knew who I was some of
them a little bit more distant there was
one in particular that I have to memory
that lasted nearly six and a half
minutes were a man from Arizona detailed
my death in the way he could hang a fat
pig like me from a tree the same way
that the deer he hunted could be hung
from trees for whatever reason I
couldn’t delete the voicemail and I kept
listening to it he wasn’t the only death
threat they lasted into about mid July
of this past year the reality of for me
though was I was remaining bold
I was remaining true to who I was and I
was remaining unapologetically me and
that was bad for some of these people I
felt alone in many ways on a daily basis
I invoked one of my hero’s words I’d met
dr. Maya Angelou earlier in my college
years and I got to hear her the night
that I would come out to my two best
friends are here in the audience today
every day for seven months I had to
quote the lyrics from her in still I
rise poetry you may shoot me with your
words you may kill me with your eyes you
may cut me with your hatefulness but
still like air I’ll rise and that’s the
reality of it I understand that I’m
extraordinarily ordinary I know that
nothing that has ever happened to me
is in excess of what is happening to
other individuals but I encourage you to
be you to be true and to be bold [Applause]
Please follow and like us: