Oral History Program Mikenna Williams Interviewed by Jim Miles 2 November 2022 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Mikenna Williams Interviewed by Jim Miles 2 November 2022 Copyright © 2024 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description Queering the Archives oral history project is a series of oral histories from the LGBTQ+ communities of Weber, Davis and Morgan Counties of Northern Utah. Each interview is a life interview, documenting the interviewee’s unique experiences growing up queer. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Williams, Mikenna, an oral history by Jim Miles, 2 November 2022, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections & University Archives (SCUA), Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Mikenna Williams, conducted on November 2, 2022 by Jim Miles and Lorrie Rands. Mikenna talks about her experience growing up in a turbulent household and the importance of fandom in her queer journey. JM: The date is November 2, approximately 1 PM. We are currently in the Stewart Library conference room 333. I am the interviewer for today. My name is Jim Miles. My pronouns are he/him, and I identify as the umbrella term of ‘queer’. LR: [To Jim and Mikenna] So, something that will be helpful as we start this, that I've noticed. What we like to do–and don't mind me, I'm going to give a little coaching–the reason we do pronouns is not everyone's comfortable giving their pronouns. MW: Right. LR: What I found, when we started this, is I didn't always know how to talk with the interviewee. Over the course of a few interviews, we realized how helpful it would be if we provided our pronouns and how we identify sexually, and then asked the interviewee the same. So that's the purpose of what Jim is doing right now. MW: Okay. LR: I don't think I ever mentioned to him to actually say that. JM: No, you have not. LR: I realize that. That is the purpose behind why we do that. It's not for any other reason, but so that we as interviewers know how to use your pronouns, because I don't always use names. MW: Right. 1 LR: I find that I use a lot of pronouns and I'd like to get them right. MW: Yeah, when you say somebody's name it's, like, accusatory. “Who are you?” LR: So anyway, that's how Jim identifies. My name is Lorrie Rands. I use she/her pronouns and I identify as lesbian. MW: Oh, it's my turn? JM: Yes. MW: My name is Mikenna Williams. I also identify as lesbian. JM: Perfect, and your pronouns, if you're willing? MW: She/her. Oh, wait, she/they. JM: She/they; perfect. MW: I don't even know my own pronouns, I'm so sorry. JM: Preference? MW: Nope. JM: Okay. I believe that is all our people in the room and the boundaries have already been addressed. If you are ready to continue the story, we'll begin with the actual questions. MW: Yes. JM: Okay. We do like to start out with the very basics of when and where you were born. MW: I was born in Ogden, Utah, November 15, 2002. JM: We get to do her math for a minute here. Although I did already confirm with her that she is over 18. MW: I'm turning 20 next month. 2 LR: I was going to say, she's 19, so you're good. MW: One more year. JM: So November 9? MW: 15. JM: 15, November 15. Oh, so that's coming up very shortly. You're born in Ogden, Utah, and you kind of grew up in the area and you stayed here for most of your life? MW: My parents divorced when I was pretty young. I lived mostly in South Jordan growing up. I live up here now, obviously to go to school, but I live with my dad in Ogden. He always mentioned as we drive by the hospital, right as you're coming up, he was like, “That's where you were born.” We're like, “Yeah, you told me.” JM: McKay-Dee. MW: But yeah, I did grow up around here. JM: So you grew up around here. When did you approximately move to South Jordan? MW: I was born here, but then we went to Clearfield for a little bit and then we went to Daybreak. It's kind of weird because there was a point where we didn't have a house, kind of, and so we lived with my grandpa in American Fork in his house for a while. Then we moved to Daybreak, and then we left Daybreak to South Jordan with my grandma. JM: Fantastic. Sounds like quite the journey. MW: Yes. 3 JM: What ages did this happen between? MW: Roughly? Probably like 1 to 6, maybe? It went: Ogden, I was born here, raised a little bit. We moved to Clearfield, we stayed there for a few years, probably one or two years. Then we went to American Fork for a bit, and then we went to Daybreak. JM: Okay, so whenabouts do you start remembering where you live? MW: I don't remember anything about Clearfield or Ogden, but I remember things about living in American Fork for a bit. Then Daybreak was a big part of my childhood. JM: Okay. You lived in Daybreak for about how long of your life? MW: Probably just about two years. It's really expensive to live over there, so we couldn't really afford it after my parents got divorced. Then we moved in with my grandma and grandpa on my mother's side. JM: So you move in with your grandparents on your mother's side. MW: Yes, and they lived in South Jordan. JM: Perfect. LR: So you were there from about six until...? MW: I was with them for probably about six years. So we moved out of South Jordan in ninth grade to the Alta area. She got a job and then she got to move out, I think, roughly after my grandpa died a few years after. LR: Okay. JM: That's a lot... MW: Of moving. 4 JM: Yes. MW: It's hard to keep in my mind. Where was I? I don't remember. JM: If it becomes relevant, we'll ask you to kind of specify where this is happening. MW: Okay. JM: Yes, definitely. I think we're just going to play with those areas as we go along. MW: We know we're in Utah. JM: That's about as narrow as we can get, Wasatch—not even. Okay. So you move around a lot during your younger years. It sounds like South Jordan is the longest period, you say. MW: Yes. JM: And you're living with your mother's...? No, that was Daybreak, is mother's grandparents? MW: No, Daybreak was just with my mom for most of it. I don't know where my dad went after they divorced, but he was in Ogden. He got a house up here and that's the house that he’s in now. I think he lived with his mom. LR: Out of curiosity, what is your family dynamic like? MW: So I have two older brothers. How old are they? One is 27, one's 23. Named RE and GA. Then I have a twin sister named BR. My parents weren't really resentful towards each other after their divorce, compared to most people's parents. They kind of have more of a mutual thing. Retrospectively, I would have preferred them to be separated than fighting in the house all the time. But I didn't really ever know a point where they weren't divorced. I don't remember a time where they ever were together. 5 JM: Okay. So you don't remember them being together? That definitely can affect your upbringing. What would you say your gender roles were living in that separated household? What were you taught about gender roles in that environment? MW: I wasn't really taught much. My parents both left the Mormon Church pretty early on. I was never baptized. We probably stopped going to church about when I was three or four, and so they were more liberal and less conformed into Mormon society. I wasn't really told much about queer people or gender roles in general, but I didn't… It's like having a bad relationship with my father—not a bad relationship, but a non-relationship with him—kind of affected how I viewed my relationship to men and the attention I wanted from them. It prevented me from fully understanding what my sexuality was until last year. JM: Okay, so very recently coming out. You mentioned you weren't taught much growing up about sexuality. LR: Gender roles. JM: Well, it's both sexuality and gender roles, I believe you said. LR: No. JM: No? Did I miss it? MW: I didn't really mention either. I originally came out in seventh grade as pansexual because that's when I first got my phone and I was on the Internet interacting with people. A lot of my friend group was queer, so we were probably the only really out queer kids in school. Very blatantly just flirting with each other and being menaces to society. I had a transgender friend, his name's DA. Growing 6 up, he was obviously bullied, and so we all kind of found our group together then. It went kind of from pansexual to pan-asexual and then bi. It was a whole thing, just figuring yourself out because middle school is like that. LR: Let's go back a little bit to your elementary school. You started elementary school at Daybreak, or in South Jordan? MW: I went to kindergarten in Draper. LR: Okay. MW: First grade, I believe I went to Draper too, and then second grade, that's when we moved to South Jordan. LR: I have a question, quick, fast. I'm not hijacking, I promise. I'm going to stop asking questions in just a minute. But the question is, having moved around so much—counting here, one, two, three, four, five… MW: Oh, it gets worse. LR: Just until eighth grade, there's at least five, six times you moved. Having moved around so much, how do you think that shaped your interaction with others and how you came to know yourself? Because that's a lot. MW: Yeah. I didn't really have many friends growing up, at least close friends that I considered. I was mostly friends with my cousin who lived in Daybreak at the time, so we were the ones that hung out together. I didn't really talk to any other kids besides my sister. My sister is my best friend. We had each other and then we would talk to her. But then in elementary school, I don't remember. We started talking to more people in elementary school because that was kind of the period where we were staying at my grandparents’ house for six years. It just 7 makes you want to pull away, because we would go to my dad's house every weekend and so it's juggling two households, but also just not letting yourself get too close. My mom also had a lot of boyfriends. Sometimes we would get really close with them, and the next day, they wouldn't be in your life. It creates a very turbulent relationship with father figures and people in your life, and so you try not to get close to them because in the end, they just might leave. That was kind of my perception of having relationships with people for a very long time. LR: So it sounds like the hardest part wasn't the moving, it was the constant shuffling of people in and out of your life and not having that stability. MW: Yeah. LR: Okay. MW: Then in ninth grade, we moved again to Alta, and then after that we moved consecutively for three years. We moved to different houses. LR: Junior high schools too, or just houses? MW: I did move high schools for… My school in South Jordan Middle School was weird. They had seventh through ninth grade for middle school instead of ninth through 12th for high school. I was kind of plopped in the middle of high school, already doing my ninth grade in a different school, not knowing anybody. JM: Kind of along the lines of what Lorrie said, it sounds like shuffling people. You mentioned you're really close with your sister through all this. Was your brother also living with you during this time? MW: My brothers, they always were with us. 8 JM: Always were with you… sorry, brothers. MW: Yeah, my two older brothers. JM: That's right. MW: I don't like talking to them, though. They were never quite kind growing up, mostly teasing, which obviously is the result of sibling relationships growing up. But I can't remember a time where they were particularly kind or interested or wanted to play with me. It was more out of obligation. I used to watch them play video games a lot because that's the only thing they did. They just were relentless sometimes with their teasing. I tattled on them; I got back at them, but that's just how it is. I don't have a great relationship with either of them anymore. JM: Okay. So you and your sister are close, and that's kind of the primary relationship/friend group throughout, would you say, the majority of elementary school? MW: I would say, yeah. It's definitely for elementary school. Middle school, not as much because I found my little friend group and she was not really a part of it, but she kind of got integrated into it later on. High school, mostly I was with her. She's been the most consistent person from birth to now. JM: Makes a lot of sense. You mentioned not having a lot of friends. Did you feel like there was any community that you had throughout those formative years? Your parents left the church. Was there a prominent community that people in Utah would find, or is it really just you and your sister? Are you associating with other people in the town? 9 MW: We didn't really talk to our neighbors much, but in South Jordan, my grandma always encouraged us to go to young women’s still, which was fun sometimes, before they do their little hand signs and stuff, and you're like, “Well, that's kind of weird.” I had two friends in fourth grade, GR and CA, and then my sister. We were all kind of together in a friend group for a while. I still know GR. She's really great. But I didn't really have a community, I guess. I didn't really do sports. I didn't really do any extracurricular stuff. I just kind of hung out in my backyard and played fairies and stuff. JM: Okay, so you are spending a lot of time with your sister. You say you didn't get taught a whole lot of traditional gender roles growing up. When do you feel like you learned about other sexualities for the first time growing up? MW: My uncle, he came out as gay in elementary school and my mom was like, “Hey, your uncle's gay.” I was like, “Oh, cool, what's that?” She just told me straight-up what it was, and I was like, “Okay, whatever.” But I didn't really know what being gay meant, truly, until middle school, when I was exploring my own sexuality and learning about it. I just didn't really think about it; I was concerned about playing outside at recess. I didn't ever feel pressured to think a certain way about gay people or people who are queer or anything like that. Of course, there was the general societal stuff, we're not seeing that, so you're like, “Oh, I don't know what that is. I don't see it day to day, so how can I know what this is? How can I find out more about it?” 10 The group of friends in middle school were the ones who I really connected with. I liked a girl in the same friend group that we were all in together, who also, at the time, I think, had a crush on me too. It’s a whole thing, can't even. We were all connecting over this thing and being nerdy and a lot of nerdy stuff. It has always gone with queer people and connecting to the outcasts type stuff. That's kind of where I started learning more about it, going on Google and going into the incognito tab just to make sure that no one is watching through my phone. “What is being gay?” JM: So you have an informational relationship with queerness, not necessarily—it doesn't appear to be biased too much either way. Did you have a lot of contact with this uncle? MW: No, I didn't. He's more of the quiet one. He came out to my grandma, and later I found out that she was crying for hours and all these things. Same with my grandpa. I came out to her last year, and she's completely great. I love her. It was more informational learning about queer culture because there was no media that I was really experiencing besides the fandom. I've just been into a lot of the nerdy things, so that was mostly where I was experiencing queer culture, through this online type of experience, which I feel like is pretty common for my generation at least. JM: That happened more around that middle school period, you said? MW: Yeah. JM: When you got your phone. 11 LR: Okay, so I have two questions, really fast. First, I know you mentioned you came out to yourself, finding your own sexuality in junior high. Was there a time in elementary school, as you look back, that you questioned? “I'm a little different.” MW: I really don't know. I've always kind of been not very explicitly interested in romance or sexuality for a long time. I identified as asexual for a while because I just wasn't sure where I was at. I didn't really think about it much besides finding fictional characters hot. Jasmine, really pretty. Jessica Rabbit—wow, that was weird. That kind of experience. I was still in the mindset of getting attention from men. Getting attention from them means I must like them. You know what I mean? Like, “Oh, they're giving me attention. I must want this.” My mom was… in a sense, a gender role, but she always emphasized the importance of male figures and male romance through her boyfriends, and seeing this weird, different perspective of emphasizing how men in her life were so important. I was like, “I must want that. That must be the end goal, to be with a man.” I couldn't process that until later. It was easy to say I liked girls, but really hard to say I didn't like men for sure. LR: That makes sense. Is there any story or memory of elementary school that just pops out that you want to share before we dive into middle school? MW: Elementary school? I'm trying to remember. LR: And if there's not, that's fine. It's just a general question. MW: I mostly was friends with my teachers, in a sense, so I had a lot of teachers I really liked. GR, we used to hang out a lot. We would go down to her house. She was right on this dirt road that you would turn and go down, and she lived with 12 her family, so we would spend all the time hanging out with her and watching anime and playing games. That's probably the stuff that sticks out the most. LR: Okay. JM: If my timeline is correct, this is about the Prop VIII era. Do you recall anything on Prop VIII? MW: Prop VIII, what's that? JM: No. Okay, I just wanted to check that timeline mark. MW: What's that? JM: Prop VIII was kind of California's big push... LR: It was in 2008. JM: Towards gay marriage. It was sponsored partially by the Mormon Church. LR: I get why you're asking it, but... JM: I just want to double check, but I didn't think you would know. MW: When did Obama... LR: That was 2015. MW: 2015. It was that recently? LR: Yeah. MW: Holy shit! LR: It really was! JM: I think Lorrie's given us the go-ahead on moving on into middle school, which is where it sounds like your development into understanding your sexuality starts. Let's just start off. So you're still in South Jordan, or… MW: Living? Yes. 13 JM: The very beginning of middle school, right? MW: Yes. JM: Okay. So you're in South Jordan, and you say you start making friends. Is this GR and CA still there with you? Are you still friends? MW: GR, I'm still friends with. She left seventh grade after her dad passed and then she kind of went off the grid. CA, we all had a falling out with her in fifth grade, because… whatever. I don't want to talk about elementary drama. So I was going to a new school with a bunch of other kids from a bunch of different schools. You see a few of the same people, but everybody else is new and everything is new. I met a girl named KA in my orchestra class, and for the longest time, she thought I hated her guts because I would just kind of glare over at her. But I really wanted to be her friend; I didn't know I was glaring, in retrospect. Then we became friends. Then I met a girl named TA through her, who I ended up liking later. Then DA: he came into our group a little bit later. It was us three, and then in ninth grade, a girl named JE came. But it was mostly just me, KA, TA. I'm trying to remember if there was anybody else. No one that stands out to me and no one that I was close with. LR: And what junior high were you attending? MW: South Jordan Middle School. JM: Okay. Do you make this friend group early on in middle school? MW: Yeah, it was a little bit into seventh grade. I don't know how I became friends with KA. I think we sat next to each other in the violin section because we both were second violins, and second violins are second class citizens, so we were sat in 14 the back, and we just became friends through that. She kind of introduced me to TA and then her other friends. JM: You mentioned that your friend group throughout middle school was queer in some aspect of this. Were any of them out at this point to you? MW: It's kind of hard to say because I think we just all assumed it. We all looked at each other and were like, “Yeah, you're one of us.” But I think I initially came to TA in the girls’ locker room for P.E. and I was just like, “Man, I think I'm pansexual or something.” She was like, “Yeah.” She was talking about it to me because I think she was more involved in online stuff and learning about it more than me. She was like a little bit of… not a teacher, per se, but was explaining more things to me about what stuff meant. She was kind of the biggest, because KA, she didn't come out until… not even like two years ago. It was more of a situational thing that she couldn't really be out, but she was just like, “I've never liked a girl before until this point. I know this is what I'm good with.” We were all the queer kids of the school. JM: Okay. So you get this group of friends and you mentioned that you get your phone in seventh grade as well, and that's what introduced you to the online community of queerness. What did that look like as you started? MW: Yeah. Mostly through fan space is the biggest part of my childhood. I was really into Undertale and Homestuck and video games and things that I was introduced to by that group. We all liked anime too; that's kind of another aspect of it. That's the initial catalyst for it because fans have been creating queer media for such a 15 long time, whether it be fanart or videos and all these things. I first got my exposure to, “Okay, this is what people creating things for people like me looks like, and what these relationships are and stuff like that.” JM: Okay. So is it like a social media-type channel that you're getting your experience through? There's not like a website or...? MW: Not in particular. I would say Tumblr would be the biggest thing, but mostly we had an Instagram group chat where TA would send stuff or KA would send stuff. We all just talked about it together because our main thing that we liked was Homestuck, which is a huge webcomic that is retrospectively really cringy, but that's middle school. Many fans were talking about the different cast of characters. Some of the characters were openly queer and trans and stuff like that. We were all talking about that and that's kind of where it sparked, but I can't really remember a specific moment. JM: Okay, yeah. That's definitely a unique perspective that some of our older participants don't provide us with, learning about sexuality. How do you feel about learning about sexuality through those channels? Was it a benefit, a detriment? MW: That's a great point. I think in some aspects, it's certainly a detriment. I think the Internet in general is a detriment to your development because you're just getting a bunch of information super quickly, so you're looking and you're not really processing what's going on. You're like, “Wow, that's a lot of bright colors.” I just don't feel like I would have learned about it as quickly if I did not have my phone. I feel like if I wasn't in those spaces and talking among those online groups, 16 there's no one else in my life who would ever be mentioning it, because my mom's side, super Mormon. A little bit more relaxed nowadays. My dad only has one other sister who lives in Arizona, so it's not like I had any family. I wasn't close with my Uncle AA, even though he was gay. But it's not like it's something he wanted to talk about to my family at the time, because a lot of the time, it took a long time for them to fully accept everything. The atmosphere about queerness in Utah is a different thing. LR: In that vein, as you're exploring on your phone, on the Internet, was there ever a time when you could then go and have that human interaction and talk about what you were saying? Were you able to talk to your friend group? Did you have adults you could talk to or was it mostly just your friend group? MW: Mostly just my friend group. I did come out to my mom. I can't remember if it was seventh or eighth grade. I just remember mentioning it to her one time, but she's… I don't know if she's queer or not, honestly, because she hasn't really talked to me about it much. Okay, Mom, get on it. She was just like, “Yeah, okay, I accept you.” I didn't come out and tell my dad until probably ninth grade, but my mom already told him at that point. So it was like, “Okay, thanks, Mom, this won't hurt me.” It was mostly through my friends and that type of thing where I talked to them about it, and then sometimes I would talk to my sister about it too. She identifies as aromantic asexual, and so that's the only person I could talk to. But at that point, she wasn't really involved in the queer community at all. JM: Okay. Would you say you had a close relationship with your mom during this time because you came out to her during seventh grade? 17 MW: I think I had a really close relationship with my mom early on because she was the primary parent in my life compared to my dad, who I would see every weekend or every other weekend. I was close with my mom but she was really busy. She worked, she went to school and then she had a job. In retrospect, I don't even remember where she was working, but she wasn't really in the house a lot. I would spend time mostly with my grandma and she had us do chores and stuff. My mom wouldn't get home until late at night because she was out with her friends and all that stuff. So I would say I was close to her during that time, but at the same time, she wasn't really in the house all that much. JM: You mentioned your mom told your dad. Did you either come out to your grandmother that you're living with or do you feel like your mom told her? Was your grandmother aware of your sexuality at this point? MW: I have no idea. I have a girlfriend now, and it was Christmas last year and we were dating for a month or so at that point. I was just like, “You know what? I don't even know if she knows. We’re all here together, I might as well come out to her.” She took it really well, but I don't know if my mom ever told her. I don't know how many people she's told. She hasn't really mentioned it at all. JM: Okay. [To Lorrie] Any questions you can think of right now? LR: Just the basics. It sounds to me like junior high was more about the social interaction and learning about yourself than the school aspect—at least that's what I'm getting. Did that ever change as you've moved? Oh, you didn't move until the ninth grade. JM: Junior high is still... Partially, I guess. 18 LR: Yeah, okay. You didn't actually move until the ninth grade, so I'm going to skip that question. But is there a memory that sticks out for you in junior high that you just want to share? MW: Yeah, there's a really funny one. Me and TA, we had a really odd relationship, blatant flirting with each other constantly. So everybody was like, “These two are really gay.” I remember we were in the line to get out of lunch because they would quarantine us in the cafeteria until time, and then they would let us through the halls. So what were we saying to each other? She said, like, “Fuck you.” I was like, “You wish.” This little pasty white boy with a shocked expression on his face, he's just like, “What did you say?” It's like, “You heard me.” It was really funny, but that was kind of like our off-again romantic thing that we had going on. LR: So you weren't actually dating. You were just, as you put it, blatantly flirting with her. MW: This pisses me off so much. It's fine. I liked her. I couldn't really conceptualize it because I was like, “This is a lot of mixed signals going on.” But I found out later that she liked me too at the time. But I only found out after she started dating DA, and they were together for a while. Really shitty feeling to watch the person you like date somebody else in your friend group. Then I was with KA and another person, I don't remember her name. We were in her basement and were like, “Truth or dare?” I hate Truth or Dare because of this reason. She's like, “Who have you had a crush on?” 19 I was like, “I used to have a crush on TA.” KA was like, “Oh my God, we have to tell her.” I was like, “You know what? I don't care. Go ahead.” Before that, we went to Comic-Con together, and this is… it's just so stupid. There's this weird place in the convention center in the Salt Palace where mostly furries hang out, a few other nerdy groups, especially the younger people. We were just hanging out and then somebody was just like, “You two should kiss,” so we kissed. Then we were doing another—it was like a spin the bottle thing, but it was also like, you hug each other instead because half of us were minors. Comic-Con's weird. I don't even want to think about it. But then TA asked to kiss me again when we landed on each other. I was like, “No, I don't want to,” because I was super nervous and I was just losing it. Then I saw, in the corner of my eye, KA yelling at TA. I heard specifically, “You should tell her,” from KA to TA. I was just like, “Okay, what does this mean?” and then I never mentioned it again. Flash forward back to the Truth or Dare game, we call TA. I was like, “Yeah, I liked you during this moment in time.” She was like, “I liked you too.” I was like, “What the heck?” Nothing came from it ever, and we just went back to what it was, flirting with each other, all this stuff. Then I would confess to her again in high school, which she rejected. LR: Typical junior high girl. 20 MW: Yeah, it's just crazy junior high drama. LR: That's really fascinating. JM: I do have one more question. A little earlier you mentioned that it was obvious you guys appeared to be queer whether you're out or not. MW: Yeah. JM: Do you feel like you faced any homophobia from your peers? MW: I really have no idea because I just was not talking to them. I didn’t really talk to any people. I'm sure they said things because I was bullied a little bit throughout elementary school. No one said anything blatant to me. I feel like we were pretty blatant. In gym class, we were all over each other. Walking, like, “We're so gay,” and saying all these stupid things. “Everybody here must think we're so gay, haha,” that type of stuff. I feel like the most homophobic experience is probably from my brothers, but it was never blatant stuff like that. Just this weird thing where even if it happened, I can't remember. LR: That actually makes me think about… So you were in South Jordan going to junior high, and then you moved to Alta, which at first I thought was a smaller area, but it's really not. The high school's huge. MW: Yeah. I moved at the end of eighth grade, and then I still went to South Jordan Middle School to finish up ninth grade. Then I went to Hillcrest High School for 10th. LR: You went to Hillcrest High School? MW: Yes. Because we moved. JM: When she said they moved to Alta, she said there's another jump right after this. 21 LR: Oh yeah. I'm trying to envision because Hillcrest is—where is Hillcrest High School? MW: Hillcrest is in Midvale, Utah. LR: That's what I thought. MW: There's a lot of jumps. There's a lot of moving houses. LR: Okay. So you spent all of your time at South Jordan Middle School—that's where you did all of your middle school. And then your first year of high school, you're at Hillcrest. JM: Which is your sophomore year. MW: Yes. LR: Right. Which is typical except for in the Salt Lake School District, right? MW: I think, technically. LR: That's irrelevant. It's just funny. JM: It was in Tooele. Ninth through 12th is high school. LR: Yeah. Anyway, so my question was based around if you went to Alta. But I made an assumption there, so I apologize. Hillcrest is in more of the Salt Lake Valley where there's just a lot happening; it sounds to me like there really wasn't a lot of discrimination, that everyone was just kind of chill. MW: Yeah. I don't know how chill they were because I didn't really talk to many people. I don't really follow the news. I was really just kind of caught up in my online circle, the circle of people I knew. I didn't really experience—besides probably looks. I'm assuming there was definitely looks in middle school just by 22 how fucking outlandish we were. But otherwise I didn't really, I didn't really experience any of that. LR: I realize we jumped way past 2015, when gay… JM: I thought we were right around there. LR: No. When you were 16, it was 2018. MW: Yeah. LR: So in 2015, when gay marriage became legal, that's like the beginning of junior high for you, literally. MW: Yeah. JM: Do you remember much of that debate? MW: I don't really remember. I'm sure it was a conversation topic at one point with my group, but at that point in elementary school, I wasn't thinking about this at all. It was right at the beginning of seventh grade, I wasn't really introduced to it until I was talking to my friends and being in the online space. So it kind of blew over my head, I guess, in a sense. LR: Okay, okay. When did it become relevant to you? Relevant's the wrong word. When did it become like, “Oh, wow, this is real. I can marry who I want.” MW: I don't know. I've felt like, at least, what I've described with my mom—the attention from men, I felt like I was always going to end up with a man, no matter if I was attracted to women or not. LR: Gotcha, that actually makes sense. Okay. 23 JM: Actually, I do have a question though, because you had mentioned earlier. Do you feel like your mom was explicit? You mentioned you felt that way. Did your mom explicitly say like, you need to marry a man or was it more of a... MW: It was more of an implicit thing. JM: An implicit, okay. MW: I think she always kind of pushed it. I think at least everybody was like, “Oh, when are you getting a boyfriend? Who do you like?” That type of “Who's your celebrity crush?” You're always expected to say a guy, so it was more of an implicit thing. I guess that's the gender role thing, again. A woman is complete by a man. I was like, “I don't like that. I can't physically experience that.” I searched for a lot of attention from men when I was younger, making up crushes. Anytime they would give me attention, I'd be like, “Oh, this must mean I like this attention that I'm getting, so I must like him.” But it was never real. JM: Okay. Your mom just subscribed to heteronormativity in general. Did that ever clash with your friend group at all? MW: We hung out sometimes after school. I don't feel like it ever clashed. She just wasn't around all that much. You know what I mean? She was doing school. She was working. She would come home late sometimes after hanging out with her friends. It was just, I guess, the ideal image of a man and a woman getting married, the Mormon idea of the sanctity of marriage. I just think that societal norms influenced me, but it wasn't really an implicit thing that she was doing. My mom, I talked to her about TA sometimes, about how I felt and that type of stuff, but it wasn't really in middle school as much. Mostly in high school. 24 JM: Technically for middle school, the one last thing we should have at least. You said you came out to your dad in ninth grade, which was your middle school years. How did that go? MW: I think I just mentioned it to him in like the car, as I did my mom. My family, they're just like, “Whatever,” which can be kind of a dick thing to do sometimes. I remember one time we were in Costco, we were all eating pizza. Somehow it came on the conversation topic. This is before I came out to him. He was like, “If any of you are gay, I'm completely okay with that.” He looks me directly in the eye and I'm like, “Okay, what's going on here?” In retrospect, my mom told him before, so it was like, “Oh, that's why you looked me directly in the eye while we were eating pizza. Okay.” He was just like, “Yeah, I kind of figured.” Basically, that's it. Not more than that. My brothers, I'm just assuming—I don't know if I ever explicitly told them, but I had conversations with them about it before, but they never were homophobic besides just being little dicks. LR: Being brothers. MW: Being brothers. LR: How was high school different than junior high for you? MW: I didn't know anybody. The only person I knew was my sister and we didn't have the same lunches. There were two lunches, and so we didn't have them planned at all. It was this crunch to find somebody to be with me, so I didn't cry during lunch the entire time. I made a friend named MI in high school. I don't talk to her much anymore, but we've hung out, because she lives in Washington. She's 25 going up to school there, and she's bi. I've always just gravitated towards people. It's really easy for me to be like, “Oh, you.” It's always been easy for me to pick them out. At least amongst my generation, it's like an easier thing. A lot of people are more queer—not everybody in Utah, but people seem more open to it. Maybe it's just because I'm literally surrounded by it all the time. Yeah, high school was just different because I didn't have anybody besides my sister, but I actually really liked high school. I liked not having the previous baggage of middle school, and not knowing anybody was a gift in disguise. I really loved most of my teachers and it was much more of a relaxed school. There's a lot more diversity in Hillcrest, a lot more Hispanic people, Samoan, Tongan people. In South Jordan, it's really white, so there was a lot more diversity. TA, she's half Thai, and then JE, who I became friends with in eighth grade, she's Chinese and Vietnamese. I've always kind of been in the social outcasts, and we were kind of a group together, but it was very different in Hillcrest. Everybody was just different and it was a more accepted thing. LR: You were only there for a year, right, at Hillcrest, or did you stay there longer? MW: I stayed there to finish up high school. LR: Okay. This is where my mistake was. I made the assumption that because you moved so much that you moved high schools as well. MW: No. That would have been ten times worse. LR: Right, I agree it would have been. Okay. It's nice that you were able to stay at Hillcrest through all that. 26 MW: We still moved houses. Ninth grade, we moved to the house in Alta and then we moved to another house, which was still in Alta, but a little bit further. It was on the ravine. Then I moved to another house, which was much closer to Hillcrest High School. JM: Okay, so you have changed schools. You said it's a blessing in disguise to get that fresh start, and you've made MI as a friend. Do you have a larger friend group, or is it just MI at that point? MW: It's just MI and my sister, really. I've made a few friends. I find it easy to talk to people most of the time, but it's the deep friendships that I've always liked, the hanging outside of school type of thing. Everybody just seems so much more approachable in Hillcrest. I feel like I could talk to everybody inside the classroom, feel comfortable doing stuff. It wasn't cliquey, at least from my experience. Wasn't as cliquey as South Jordan seemed to be. JM: Okay. That's interesting because I was going to ask about that proximity aspect that you mentioned before. I was curious if that kind of made you a little more of an outcast? MW: I wouldn't say I was like… there were the more popular people, but it just didn't feel like it. Seeing everybody in South Jordan, I'd be like, “Oh yeah, those are the popular kids and this is this group.” But with Hillcrest, everybody was allowed to be whatever. Some people were obviously more friendly with others, but they all seemed cool. Then COVID, and that was kind of different, but yeah. JM: And that's sophomore year? LR: Quick question, COVID. More towards your senior year, right? 27 MW: It was junior. JM: Junior. Split the diff. LR: Okay. So my question is, as you're in high school, were you able to live your sexuality a little bit more, to try to be more you, or were you still...? MW: I was still in love with TA. LR: So you were living your sexuality, but... MW: But yes, I didn't really talk to her. LR: Unrequited, right. Typical. This is mind blowing to me. It's a typical high school experience where you have this unrequited love. However, it's within your own sexuality, which is mind blowing to me. It's just the coolest thing. Remember, I'm old. I'm an old soul here. JM: Same, I'm a rural one, so that's also... LR: It's just interesting. I think that's the most beautiful thing. Forgive me, I feel like I know. It's just a beautiful thing to just recognize you're having these normal, typical high school experiences being yourself. MW: Yeah. I didn't really talk to TA all that much during high school, the first year. We would play a lot of online games together and that type of stuff. Then I just stopped caring because they wouldn't reach out to me. I'm like, “Okay, there's only so many times I can reach out to you before it doesn't come back.” But then we kind of reconnected senior year. We hung out a lot more and we kind of were both pretty different at that point, coming off middle school. But I still really, really liked her—loved her or whatever. Too bad. 28 I remember we went to a movie for one of the jobs I was working at. I worked at a laser tag place when I was 16, which was awesome because all of them were accepting too. We were all having fun there, but this was a different job. I invited her to go to our Christmas party, and it was back to the way it was. Blatant flirting, touching. We were dancing together after Mamma Mia at the top of the movie theater. I’m like, “God, I need to fucking get this out of my life. It's not going to happen.” I think it was a bit later. Was it the Christmas party? It might not have been the Christmas party. It might have been Halloween, I don't remember. LR: So is this senior year? MW: Yeah. It might have been. But then I'm trying to remember the timeline, because I confessed to her. I took her out. We went to a bowling alley and an arcade. Then we're in this photo booth or whatever. She gives me a kiss on the cheek. I give her a kiss on the cheek. I'm thinking, “Okay, you've got this in the bag. She must feel the same way.” During this time, I was describing my relationship to my coworker, who's genderqueer. We were all talking about it. He's like, “You guys aren't dating? What's going on?” I was like, “You fucking tell me, okay!” So I confessed to her. I took her to the Gardner Village. It's really sweet. It was all dark. The lights were pretty. I told her. She just was like, “I'm sorry,” and just gave me a hug. She didn't even say no. 29 I was like, “Ahhh,” but then my feelings left peacefully into the wind. I've accepted it. I moved past it. But it was like, six fucking years. LR: Wow, that's crazy. I apologize. We kind of skipped over COVID there. MW: No, you're fine. JM: I also want to jump back pre-COVID. MW: I jump around a lot. LR: No, I had to do the math in my head because you're born the same month as my oldest. So you're old. I don't say that in the mean way, but you're an old sophomore, you're an old junior. You're an old senior. You turn 18 in the beginning of your senior year. So I had to… anyway, go ahead and ask. JM: Yeah. Very fun. Unrequited love story and that. MW: Get a movie on Netflix for this shit. JM: That's going to help inform where you're going from here. But I do want to know: in that beginning of sophomore year, you're feeling like you're fairly well-accepted at school. You may not have the largest friend groups. Are you getting involved in queer communities at this point? MW: No. JM: Still in fandoms that are giving you that queer space? MW: I guess I just didn't really think about it all that much. I was really focused on my schoolwork and that type of thing. I didn't want a big friend group; kind of like, “Oh, I don't want to go back to middle school. God, that would be terrible.” So I really was just doing something. I played a lot of games and stuff like that. Throughout my life, I found a lot of space on online multiplayer games like 30 Overwatch and stuff like that, talking to people on there. The fucking men on those games, they're crazy. They're crazy! I think the most sexism and homophobia I've ever experienced was on those games for sure. Absolutely. LR: Well, that's interesting. MW: But yeah, I didn't really think about it. I think senior year, everything was dialed up. Gender crisis, sexuality crisis, world crisis, all that stuff just blowing up. LR: Okay. I know you're looking at me, do you have another question? JM: I've got a question. LR: I was just going to start going into COVID, so. JM: Then no, I've got one. You mentioned briefly how some of the most sexist men you've ever met was on those gaming spheres. How do you recall Gamergate at all? Is that mean to you? MW: It sounds familiar, but could you elaborate? JM: Obviously, if you don't remember much of it, that's okay. Gamergate was a controversial area around 2016, so this would have been back just a little bit further, where there were some female gamer viewers who were trying to look at games from a feminist perspective, and the predominantly male audience backlashed on them. I was curious, because that can affect and also inform social and gender norms if that's how you're experiencing things, especially if you're very online during that period. MW: I was playing online games since seventh grade, so I was really into that. I kind of went, embarrassingly enough, on a little conservative streak. Don't look at me. Again, it kind of went back to that male validation. My brothers were those kids 31 and would really criticize any social justice thought and the whole anti-feminist movement, anti-SJW, the random gotcha videos you would see for like 30 minutes of ‘crazy woke feminist blah-blah-blah’ on YouTube and stuff like that. I do remember that type of thing, but I didn't really think much of it. I guess I just wasn't really involved. I tried not to talk about politics on video games because that gets really out of hand really quickly. It's like Thanksgiving dinner. No politics. JM: Okay, so kind of the same thing as gay marriage, where you saw it, but didn't really interact with it. So you're aware of it. LR: Towards the latter part of your junior year, COVID starts. MW: Yeah. LR: What was that like for you? MW: Those two weeks were really great. Those two first two weeks where they're like, “Hey, don't come to class, there's something going on.” We're like, “Hell yeah.” Then it progressed into the entire school and the entire world having to adjust to this new thing where suddenly all our classes were online. One of the classes I took, they were just like, “You passed.” I didn't do any work for that class for the rest of the year, which was really, really weird. It was crazy coming off of that, just being stuck in my room. I became extremely lazy and I just spent so much more time online than I ever did before, and I was already online a lot. The motivation to do schoolwork suddenly collapsed, watching this entire thing where you couldn't really talk to your friends and you couldn't go out very much. We didn't get on the jump as fast. Once we had our 32 two weeks off, me and my friends were like, “Hey, let's go out, let's go have fun or whatever.” Then it became more serious with the mask mandates and stuff like that, and in a sense, it was kind of bliss. I wouldn't say I'm introverted, I feel like I can talk to people well, but it was kind of nice for a moment to just be like, “Oh yeah, I just got to be in my room.” I feel like I don't remember much. LR: Which is very fair. MW: It's like everything started to blur together. LR: So really, your last year of high school, the majority of it was online. I'm trying not to put words in your mouth, but did you feel like you missed something? Not quite on an educational side. Do you feel like you missed something because it was all online and you were tasked with being your own motivator? MW: So senior year I pretty much dropped. I only needed like… how many credits? Not even that much. I had three classes my senior year, and two of them were AP classes, which was bad because at that point I could have been going to class in person, but with masks and social distancing. I was like, “No, I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to go fully online.” I was working most mornings at Waffle Love, cooking waffles with my friend. That's the guy who's genderqueer. He talked a lot about TA and stuff like that. I don't know if I would have done much. My mom always complained that me and my sister were not truly teenagers because we wouldn't really go out, we weren't getting into trouble. We weren't partying, drinking, all that stuff. My mom's like, “Why aren't you guys going to like football games and stuff like that?” 33 “Why would I want to watch our team lose?” Our team did not win a single match our entire senior year. “I'm not going to go watch my team lose. I'm sorry.” I've always just been antisocial. We did go to a Halloween thing, but that was before COVID and then there was prom. I think we went once, but that was before. LR: Right, did they do prom during COVID? MW: They did senior prom. That's the one of the ones I went to, but it wasn't that great. JM: It was insane because I think COVID happened right around prom of your junior year. MW: Yeah. LR: Did they actually have an in-person graduation for you guys? MW: Yes, but it was really weird. At the time, Hillcrest was building another school, so they were renovating and building another school on the land. They were like, “Let's turn off all the AC in this old school that you're in.” They basically just did it so we walked through the auditorium, we got our diploma, we walked out, and then all the teachers in the hall were clapping. But it was excruciatingly hot and everybody was sweating and it went faster than most graduations, God bless. It was probably max 45 minutes, not even that. Yes, that was great, but we were all just sweating. It was gross. I don't know why they turned it off. They hate us. Of course, the school is built right after we leave. I've never really been involved in extracurriculars, anything like that. I think college is the most that I've done stuff, expanding out. Just a lonely kid. 34 JM: Okay. LR: Would you mind if we took a break? MW: Yeah, for sure. [Recording pauses for a break.] [Recording begins again.] JM: Let's just roll out of high school because we covered graduation. MW: Thank God! JM: You feel isolated through COVID and being alone. Things start to ease up postthat year, when people decide we're going back to normal whether we are or not. MW: Yes. LR: Good caveat there. JW: Talk us through post-high school. What are you starting to do? What are your plans? What do you want to do? MW: Yes. 2021, this is how I met my girlfriend. We are both artists. I like to draw. She's a lot better than me, but it's like this thing on TikTok. TikTok is addicting. It was scrolling through this thing, and it's this discord server that caters to artists and creating your own character. They're put in this fantasy world. We were all creating characters. I go in, I'm not expecting anything, and I make my character and I start talking to a group of people: KT, LE, ZO, AE. These are people I still talk to, and then a few others. We all kind of are like, “This server sucks, we're leaving. Our characters are going to start a band together.” So we created this server for all of us to talk, and we started talking. We share art with each other. We played D&D together a little bit, which we haven't done in like a year, but we all started talking to each other and it just kind of came from that. I've had many 35 online friend groups before. This was a new one that I haven't had previous to coming off of COVID. Connecting with new people who also like art and also had a lot of similar interests as me. We had discord calls and things like that. Me and AE, we just started talking and stuff like that outside of… I always thought her voice was very pretty, so I was like, “Oh, this is working in my favor.” But it just started as a small crush towards her, like, “Her voice is nice. I really like her art.” We just started talking more and more, but at the same time we didn't talk all that much. It's kind of weird how it happened. We just started talking. It was the same thing with TA, like this underlying flirtation. I was like, “God, I don't want to do this again,” but I did. I remember just having a really, really big crush on her. Before, it was like, “Oh, I have a crush on her. This is fine. This is fun. I like having crushes on people, this is great.” Then it becomes like, “Holy shit, I'm going to die. Please kick me off a bridge. I need to just tell her. This needs to happen already.” So I got up the courage. We were on call because she lives in Iowa, so it's going to be a longdistance thing. We were just talking, and she recollects a memory of her rejecting one of her friends. I was like, “Holy shit, what if this is me in about 30 minutes?” because I planned this whole thing. I was like, “Okay, this day, I'm going to do it, no matter what. You're doing it. Don't be a coward. Don't be a little bitch. Okay?” So I was pep-talking myself the entire day, and then I got on call and did it. I actually went for my birthday because we got together on the 23rd of November. Our first year anniversary is coming up. For my birthday, my mom got us a psychic reading at this crystal shop in Salt Lake. I was like, “Okay, we're 36 getting a tarot reading. What do I want to ask about? I gotta ask if AE likes me back,” because I was just in that mindset. She reads and she's like, “Yeah, she definitely likes you back,” and all these things. So for her birthday—which is October 8th—I made her a playlist of all the songs, and I chose this specific picture from Pinterest. When I went to the tarot reading, the same exact picture was there in front of my face. I was like, “Oh my God, this must be a sign.” So I get my reading done, I'm like, “Okay.” She tells me to do it now rather than later. I do it and we're together. She's great. She's awesome. That's all I have to say. LR: I have three questions and I have to pick which one I want to ask first. First, let's stick with the girlfriend. You said you met online and she was in Iowa. Have you met? Does she live here with you now? What's that look like now? MW: Four months after we started dating, we met up for a concert that we both wanted to go to. We probably were only together for a day and a half because it was in the middle of spring semester and she's going to college, too. We didn't have very much time, which at the concert was really fun, but it was also like, “Oh, we don't get to spend a lot of time together.” I was really depressed after that. We didn't see each other until July of this year. So the first time we met was in March, and then we didn't meet again until July. I flew to Iowa and I spent a week with her and her family, and her family's cool. They like me. LR: Oh, that's good. MW: Yeah, it was really cool. I'm actually planning to move to Iowa next year to live with her. 37 LR: Okay, let's be really quick here because we're close to being done. What prompted you to come to Weber State? MW: Why I came here? LR: Yes. MW: My dad, he lives up here still. He was like, “Hey, you can go to school here and I'll pay for it,” because neither of my brothers went to school. I live with him right now and so I just commute up here every day. LR: Yeah, that's really cool. When you move to Iowa, will you have finished your associate's degree here? MW: I'm planning on taking 19 credits next semester to finish up my associate’s. LR: Good for you. JM: I've done worse. You can handle it, it's hard. MW: It's mostly going to be generals, so I'm not too worried about it. LR: Do you have any other questions? JM: No, I was going to ask about college experience, but honestly, it seems like your relationship is the more prominent thing during this period anyways. LR: Yeah. Do you have any things about your college experience that you want to share? MW: I've really enjoyed it. I think one of the more shocking moments was, I was in an English class and we were reading a book about Gen Z. Such a stupid book. I remember it was like, “How many people in here support gay marriage?” I think this was my punch-in-the-face moment, besides overturning Roe v Wade. Only three people in the class, including myself and my sister, were the ones who 38 supported gay marriage. I was like, “Holy shit, I've been in a bubble my entire life because I've just been surrounding myself with people like me. Oh, this is kind of awkward, Hi guys.” That experience. Then obviously I'm in three D&D groups now, so I'm getting along with a lot of people, playing with them. I've made a few friends. It's a little harder in college because in high school, you’re in forced proximity, but college, everybody gots [sic] their own shit going on. LR: Especially if you're commuting. MW: Right, and you're not in the dorms, so you're pulled out of the entire dynamic of college life, I feel like. But I think it's been good. I like Weber State. I just don't want to write an essay prompt. LR: I get it. You mentioned Roe v Wade. When you heard that it had been overturned, what was your thought process? MW: I was at work. I worked at Savers, so I was going through the daily books like How to Become a Millionaire, but they obviously donated it for a reason. It didn't work. They clearly failed. Another like, “Oh, History of Joseph Smith. Toss it.” But I was at work, and me and my friends went to a protest maybe two weeks prior, and it was just awful. I remember trying not to cry in the middle of work. That was really hard. LR: Why was it awful for you? MW: I think because after I figured out my sexuality, I'm not going to get pregnant. I don't want kids; obviously, I like women. It’s just this whole broader idea of like, people have this much power to take away your rights from an entire group of people that makes half of the population. This group of nine people made a 39 decision on behalf of a country with how many people in America? A lot. They made a serious decision on the behalf of so many people who need this type of health care. Not only that, but they're also setting a precedent against privacy and the idea of gay marriage, gay sex, contraception, all that stuff. I just was like, “This is such a dangerous idea to even be flirting with,” because they were already like, “Oh, we're coming for contraception next.” We're going to see the effects of it. This is not just about abortion. JM: I think we'll do one more potentially wrought question before we jump into the nicer aisles and stuff. You mentioned coming to Weber, and specifically that English class being where your bubble was kind of burst, recognizing you're in a bubble. How would you say your time in northern Utah, in the Weber area, has differed from South Jordan, Hillcrest areas? MW: I feel like up here's a lot more… I feel like it was just that class. There’s Queering the Archives. I don't feel like that's really something that many other schools would push for, especially growing up in South Jordan. I feel like in South Jordan, they have a fucking stick up their ass. I've found a lot of people with similar thoughts here in Weber, especially when I was searching for D&D groups. I was like, “People in D&D are either super gay and super cool or they're like The Dude Bros. Which way am I gonna push?” I've found a lot of good friends here and good community. If somebody asks me, I'm going to just tell them I have a girlfriend. I really just don't care. I've just always been like, “Oh, if it happens, it happens. If it comes up in conversation, it comes up in conversation.” I remember I was working—I used to 40 work at the mall, and I had like this bracelet my girlfriend made for me. A little girl was like, “Oh, who made that bracelet for you?” Her dad is like this big trucker dude. I'm like, “Okay, let's look at my options. ‘Oh, my friend made it for me.’” It's kind of biased on my part, just for safety purposes, but I'm usually pretty open. I don't really mind. JM: I think now is a good time for the idols question. LR: The what question? JM: Idols. Gay idols. LR: Oh, I was totally not understanding. [To Mikenna] From where you're at now, who are some of your gay icons? MW: Can I say Batman? LR: Absolutely! JM: You can say whoever you'd like! MW: I don't really have very much. I think I'm just going to say the Joker and Batman just because they are gay. I'm sorry, they are! I think superheroes are very gay, especially Batman. I don't really follow celebrities, much more fictional characters. LR: That's okay. It's whoever your gay icon or idol is, or even hero, mentor. JM: Even if you go back to Homestuck and Undertale, they were pivotal as well. You can pin, like, “This character was pivotal in my coming out.” MW: I need to think about it. I don’t know. JM: That's fine. 41 LR: If it pops into your head in a couple of minutes, just shout it out. “This is who it is.” MW: Okay, wait. [Shows photo.] This is my girlfriend right here. She's so cute. JM: AE, right? MW: Yeah. LR: Yeah, that's awesome. MW: Look how cute she is! Sorry. LR: No, you don't have to apologize. I find myself doing the same thing, so it's all good. While you're looking, are you ready for the final question or do you have other questions? JM: If there was time, I thought about asking if you've gotten the opportunity to attend Pride yet? MW: Yeah. I went to Pride this year. LR: Okay, which Pride? There are a few now. MW: It was just the one in Salt Lake. LR: Okay, so the traditional Utah Pride. MW: Yeah, that was fun. We made a mistake because groups would sign up. It wasn't all of us walking, which was our mistake. We just kind of pushed ourselves into one of the groups. They were all like Teachers for Pride, and they were holding up foam pencils. We were just like, “We're not supposed to be here.” We were just walking in the middle of the street. Everybody else is sectioned off with the metal fences. Then we're like, “Shit, we need to get out of here. How do we do this?” 42 Then I saw some of my friends from high school, and they were like, “Oh, hi.” We were just like, “Okay, we're out,” so we just went under one of the ropes. It was fun. It was really hot, though. LR: Yes, it was very warm. I'm assuming that was this year? MW: Yes. I can't think of any gay icons right now. JM: That's okay. LR: Okay, so let's ask the final question. JM: Go for it. LR: It's interesting when we ask this question to the younger interviewees, because it always fascinates me what they say. So if you had an opportunity to talk to your younger self, younger teens. I'm talking 12, 13. Not much younger than you, I realize, but younger. What advice would you give them? MW: I don't know. I would probably tell them, “Okay, you don't have to go through all this. You're lesbian, okay? Don't go through the whole thinking that you went through. You are a lesbian, I promise you that.” I think encouraging me to get out of my comfort zone more often and to maybe do extracurriculars to try to make more friends. “Don't spend so much time on your phone. It's going to come back to bite you, I promise you that.” I think in the end, in middle school, I was extremely depressed. So I think saying just like, “It gets better,” for sure. LR: Okay, I like that. JM: Would you extend that advice to young queers who might be in the process of coming out and realizing their sexuality? 43 MW: I think so. Another thing I'd probably say is, I think a lot of people, at least in my younger generation, put a lot of emphasis on labels. That's something I found myself caught up in, too. So trying to say, “Don't try to label yourself if you don't feel comfortable. If something doesn't resonate with you, you can just be who you are without having to put a name on it. Take your time with it. It's fine to change labels. It's fine to change how you feel, and it doesn't mean you're any less valid in that moment than you were now or before.” JM: Fantastic. LR: Before we turn off the camera, is there any other story you'd like to add or share? MW: All those people in middle school, you suck. You guys are losers! LR: Well, thank you so much for your time and your willingness. MW: Yeah, of course! Thank you. 44