Go Triad, Greensboro News & Record October 14, 2004

They need to know they’re normal

BY JERI ROWE, GO TRIAD EDITOR

A conversation with Matt Hill, founder of the Gay Straight Alliance at Reynolds High and member of UNCG’s PRIDE!, a gay-support group that stands for Proudly Representing Individuality, Diversity and Equality.


You came out when you were 14. What was that like?

"It was at the end of my eighth-grade year. I lost a lot of good friends, but then again, there were a lot of friends who stuck by me. Two years before that, I had struggled with my sexual orientation. I was brought up in a very conservative home, went to an independent Baptist church and followed a basic Southern social structure: church, school, family."


So, what did your parents think?

"My mom disapproved of it. My dad was just as disapproving. But after my eighth-grade year, my parents divorced, and I haven’t seen him since, and I’ve been lucky in that respect. I haven’t had to deal with two parents who were disapproving."


What did your mom say?

"She kept saying, ‘Oh, it’s just a phase,’ and ‘You’re not really gay’ and ‘Being gay is wrong; you’ll go to hell for it.’ She found out I was going to (a support group for gay teenagers), and she actually tracked me down, found me and came to the church where we were and brought me home."


Has she changed?

"She still has her religious convictions and thinks people should not be gay. But she doesn’t think gay people go straight to hell. I’m her son, I go to church, I do what a good Christian should do, and she can’t justify me going to hell just because I’m gay. And she’s been supportive after seeing what I’ve been able to do in the community."


What was it like growing up gay in Winston-Salem?

"There are not a lot of resources in Winston-Salem when I came out, so you’re basically alone. I had supportive friends and teachers, but that’s not to say I wasn’t harassed. It was verbal. I was never physically harassed, and I’m thankful for that. But I had horrible derogatory names thrown at me every day, all day at school and even away from school. I’d hear ‘Fag!’ and ‘Queer!’ and some other cuss words that aren’t appropriate to say. Just anything to hurt you. High school students are like that."


How did you deal with that?

"I started the Gay Straight Alliance. I wanted to do something so this wouldn’t happen to other people."


Has it changed?

"Here at UNCG, the UNCG community is really accepting and really tolerant. I don’t have derogatory names thrown at me every day, and I am accepted, and I meet people who find out I’m gay, and it’s not an issue. And when I go back to Winston and go back to Reynolds, I see a change. One of the class officers at Reynolds is an openly gay student. That is a breakthrough, at least in my eyes."


Gay and lesbian teenagers are seven times more likely to commit suicide than their straight counterparts. Did you contemplate suicide?

"I thought about it. I wondered, ‘Wouldn’t it be better if I wasn’t here?’ For me, church was my whole life. I’ve heard my first words were ‘Mom,’ ‘Dad,’ and ‘God’ and ‘Jesus.’ And when somebody tells me the God I’ve worshiped my whole life has turned his back on me, it hurts so bad."


So, that underscores the need for a support system.

"Just from my experience of being a 14-year-old child basically and very naïve and not knowing where to go to get help and where to find people like me. You need to give people a place to go and offer them a chance to talk about their problems. They need to know they are normal."


— Compiled by Go Triad Editor Jeri Rowe

Transcribed to computer file: December 19, 2004