What it was like growing up gay in conservative Mennonite Kansas

In McPherson, Kansas, a predominantly Mennonite community, being gay makes you a target for discrimination. I spoke to my friend Casey Gregory, a 21-year-old violin performance major at the University of Kansas, about his experience growing up with a target on his back.

“None were overtly aggressive or hateful, but there was definitely an air of discomfort. The Mennonites weren’t outcasts. The people considered weird were the ones who weren’t religious.

“They do believe homosexuality exists, but they don’t support it by any stretch of the imagination. Regardless of the religion, it was a very common idea in the community.”

In your own words, how do the Mennonites view homosexuality?

On the surface, they say, “We love everybody,” but they also heavily denounce the fact that people are gay. Their idea of “loving” them is to disapprove of it and try to promote a “better lifestyle.”

Did anyone ever confront you about being gay?

On Facebook, I got in a little bit of a spout with this girl. She was making statuses about how she “loves gay people,” but she doesn’t want them to have an “eternal life of damnation.” I was commenting on her status essentially saying, “You’re wrong” and she pulled the whole “I’ll pray for you” thing.

She was a pretty popular individual, so tons of people in the comments were vehemently supporting her views. I didn’t really hear much about it at school. A lot of people can hide behind a screen, but whenever a lot of people from your school are all commenting on one thing, it creates a similar environment in person.

Did you know any other gay people in your town? How many people were out?

I knew a few gay people in my town. Actually, recently, at my 21st birthday, my friend was giving anecdotes about my past because we all like to laugh about how I was like the one gay kid. She described me as – I will never forget this – the Token Gay. I was the gay that everybody went to whenever they were struggling with their sexuality and needed somebody to talk to.

I was the only one who was out, as well as extroverted. My other friend was also out, and he had no reason to hide it, but he dressed very “heteronormatively,” if that makes sense. He was very, like, khaki shorts, t-shirts and tennis shoes.

He didn’t wear it on his skin by any means. I’m not saying that guys who do that stuff are gay, but especially in my school, if you wore skinny jeans and you were a guy, people automatically thought, “He’s gay!” And I did wear skinny jeans. I didn’t hesitate to do so.

I was the only one that people really knew about. When someone said, “You know Casey?” they’d go, “Oh, the gay kid!” It was really bizarre.

Did you like that? Was there any time you didn’t like having “the gay kid” be your identity?

Well, at first, when I was a freshman, I thought I was bisexual. I dated girls and stuff. I would very openly hold hands with them at school to be like, “Guys, look at me, I’m straight!”

Once I started accepting myself more, I became more comfortable with my identity, regardless of the backlash I got from my school. Thanks to the internet, I could actually start to see what actual widespread popular opinion was instead of the one in my own little sphere of influence.

I was so excited to graduate. I had a countdown on my phone from the middle of junior year.

Where did you finally find the confidence to come out? You mentioned the internet helping?

The internet kind of helped. When I was a freshman, I joined a social media site to meet people. I met a guy – I’d never dated a guy at this point – and we started talking. He lived like two hours away, and we finally met at this, like, really shitty boy band concert and made out in the parking lot.

We started dating and he actually came to prom with me that year. But, as a freshman, you can’t go to prom. You have to be asked. So, I had a junior take me and then another person take him. It wasn’t like we were obviously together or anything, but it was kind of like stepping stones towards acknowledging, “OK, this is a thing.” Actually being with a person I was dating in public.

Right after that, I started coming out more openly. I remember the first person I came out to as gay in my school was my friend right in the entrance of our school, and she freaked out and was, like, super excited, and that sort of reaction was really exciting for me. I think it’s the fact that I can remember the exact person and the exact place. That was a turning point.

Back to the prom thing. Did your school have a policy on bringing same gender dates?

I don’t know because nobody had ever really tried. Nobody tried to bring a guy. At least now, I’m pretty sure I know a couple people who are openly gay at that school that have taken guys before, so I don’t think it’s an issue. But I don’t know what it would’ve been like if I’d tried to while I was there.

What prevented you from coming out any earlier than you did? Were you nervous about what might happen?

Before I accepted it, I mean, I was getting shit all the time. I got beat up in locker rooms and stuff like that. I’d be changing and I was very, like, “eyes-forward, change-my-clothes-and-leave” because people always made fun of me for being gay, so if my eyes got up at all, that would be bad.

This guy had a locker right next to me and I wouldn’t be doing anything, and he would just, like, touch me sexually just to make fun of me. He’d just be like, “Oh, you fuckin’ faggot…blah blah blah.” After he did it, a couple people started doing it, too, so I talked to the teacher and I got my own little area to change in.

Were you at any point convinced that being gay was “wrong?”

Oh yeah. I still haven’t come out to my dad. He would always listen to Rush Limbaugh in the car on the way to school with me. One morning, he was about to drop me off and they were talking about the gay marriage thing on the radio and my dad went: “I don’t know if I could have a gay person in my family. I don’t know how I’d deal with that.”

Just stuff like that. There was a lot of stigma around coming out. I remember even when I came out to my mom, even though I knew she was fully supportive, I was bawling. I was just like, “I can’t believe this is happening to me.” It was just such an anomaly within a heteronormative culture.

What’s one thing you’d like to say to some of the people back home if you could?

Not everyone is going to lead the life that you want them to lead. People can still be happy and successful in their own right. That’s OK.

Do you have any advice for anyone struggling with their identity?

The biggest tool of confidence in these kinds of situations is self-acceptance. Whether you’re gay, or transgender, or uncomfortable with your racial identity, people don’t fuck with confident people. If you know yourself and you show people that you know yourself, people aren’t going to tell you that they know you.