Oral History Program Hannah Birabent Interviewed by Jim Miles 10 January 2023 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Hannah Birabent Interviewed by Jim Miles 10 January 2023 Copyright © 2023 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: Birabent, Hannah, an oral history by Jim Miles, 10 January 2023, 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 Hannah Birabent, conducted on January 10, 2023 by Jim Miles. Hannah discusses growing up queer in a religious family, her struggles with her father’s passing at a young age, and finding acceptance in herself and others. Also present is Grant Ulrigg. JM: Today is January 10, 2023. It is approximately 10 AM. We are in the Stewart Library in the conference room 333. I am the interviewer today. My name is Jim Miles, my pronouns are he/him. I will be conducting this interview. I identify as queer. With me, behind the camera is… GU: My name is Grant Ulrigg. My pronouns are he/him, and I also identify as queer. HB: My name is Hannah Birabent, I use she/they pronouns, and I'm a lesbian. JM: Hannah is our interviewee today. We've already covered the boundaries and topics of sensitivity, so she's able to opt out of any question that she feels uncomfortable with. With all that down, if you're ready to begin, let's go. Let's start off at the very beginning. When and where were you born? HB: I was born in Redlands, California. JM: Redlands, California. What day? HB: May 20, 2004. JM: May 20, 2004. Congratulations. You are officially 18 and we can continue with this interview. So you were born in Redlands. How do you spell that? HB: Red-lands. JM: Redlands. Just wanted to make sure. What was your family dynamic like, growing up? HB: So my parents got divorced when I was a toddler, and then I had 50/50 custody with both of them. But they both worked a lot to be able to support a child, so I spent a lot of time at my grandmother's house: sleeping there, being watched there. JM: Okay. Do you have any siblings? 1 HB: I do have a half-brother, but he's seven, so it's kind of a recent thing. JM: Okay, it's more recent. Do you remember much before your parents divorced? HB: No. JM: Okay, so you've essentially grown up in a split household. Like you said, you spent time with your grandmother. Which side of the family was that? HB: Paternal, my dad's. JM: How long did you live in Redlands? HB: Until I was 10. JM: Okay, so most of your early childhood is in Redlands. Do you remember anything early-life, before we start school? Kindergarten, stuff like that? HB: Yes, what specifically? JM: Any prominent memories of growing up in that household or anything that might inform your background? HB: Well, something that definitely had a large impact on me, just in general, is that my dad always was chronically ill. He had multiple autoimmune diseases, and then he did end up dying when I was 12. I guess another useful context might be that when I was younger, I definitely butted heads with my mom a lot, and as I've gotten older, we've kind of worked through that. JM: Okay. Growing up, especially in that early childhood era, what were you taught about gender roles? HB: I was definitely given all those stereotypical girly things like dresses and Barbies, and I was watching princess movies all the time. I wasn't really given other options as far as toys or wearing clothes that weren't super pink and sparkly and things like that. JM: Were you taught any expectations for the future that you were supposed to fulfill— kind of that housewife role, or was it more lax? 2 HB: It was a big thing with my mom. She would always say, "You're going to grow up, and you're going to find a good Christian boy, and you're going to get married, and you're going to have a good job and have kids.” As long as I can remember, she's always said that. Then with my dad, he was always more like, "Just do whatever you want, just go with the flow." So I had both of those dynamics and different aspects. JM: Okay. You mentioned that your mom wanted you to marry a good Christian boy. Were you raised religious? HB: My mom was religious, but my dad was not. JM: What faith did your mom prescribe to? HB: Christianity, just general. JM: So your mom's religious, your dad is not. Are you religious? HB: No. JM: You were not and are not? HB: I grew up going to church, but I never really was into it, I guess. I was for a bit when I was like 12 or 13, and during that age, I knew that I was queer, and I started to realize like, "Oh my God, this is bad. I don't want to go to Hell," and all of that sort of thing. JM: I'm just making a note of a very specific question I want to make sure we get to later on in the interview. Your parents are working a lot, you’re living with your grandma. Do you have any friends in this preschool era that you recall? HB: The one I can remember is first grade, I had this friend, L. JM: We'll get to the school years in just a minute. I do want to cover the stages. What were you taught about sexuality that early? 3 HB: Not much. It was kind of a topic that we didn't talk about. The only thing I can think of is, I remember having Barbies and having my two Barbies kiss and get married, and my mom being so mad at me like, "Oh my God, you can't do that." I was a little kid. I was like, "Why not?" She didn't really explain anything to me. She was just like, "This is bad. Don't do it," and that was kind of all I got. JM: You mentioned you spent a lot of time with your grandma, but how much were they around? HB: Both of my parents usually would work from like 6-to-6, 12 hours a day, so I just mean that I was at my grandma's house before and after school, and then some nights, I would spend the night at her house. JM: Okay. So what was your relationship with your grandma? HB: A very good one. I don't really have much to say about that one. JM: Fair enough. [To Grant] Well, do you have any other questions about preschool? [To Hannah] Let's start getting into elementary school. Where do you go to elementary school? What grade did you start? Preschool, kindergarten? HB: I did do preschool. I actually went to a Catholic preschool. JM: Okay, Catholic preschool. Any fun stories from there? HB: Can't remember much. JM: Fair enough. Okay, so you go to a Catholic preschool, and then you start kindergarten, presumably. Where did you go to kindergarten? HB: Mariposa Elementary. JM: Those early school years—not to restrict yourself to kindergarten, as much as you want—what are your friend groups? Popular, quiet? 4 HB: Oh, I definitely was a very loud kid and was friendly with everyone. I had my little friend group, of a couple of girls, and I was like the... I don't want to say leader, but we were kind of cliquey. JM: Okay. Do you remember any of these girls and your dynamics? HB: My friend L that I mentioned earlier, we are still friends today. We've just been really close. JM: Did you get along with people, generally? HB: Generally, yes. JM: Okay. Were you introduced to any ideas of things like gender roles and sexuality? HB: That early on and in school, I would say no. Again, the main thing of gender roles popping up would just present itself in ways like the toys I was given and things I was shown by my parents, if that makes sense. JM: When you're at recess or something, are you doing stereotypically 'girl things'? HB: I would say no. I remember what we would do is just play on the playground. Sometimes we would pretend to have a hamburger shop. JM: Fair enough. In school, how do you perform? Are you getting good grades? Do you enjoy it? HB: As a kid, I was really, really good at school. I was a big reader, and I did enjoy it, again, in those early grades. JM: Okay. Was your group of friends big on school as well? HB: Varying. Depended on the person, yeah. JM: Do you go to Mariposa Elementary until you move at 10? [Hannah nods.] Okay, so you continue up to... what's that grade? HB: Fourth. JM: Fourth grade? Okay. So as school progresses and everything like that, what does it look like for you? Do you keep that group of friends? 5 HB: For the most part, I keep that group of friends. We had a couple of people come and go. A really prominent thing that's coming up for me is that as we're getting older and entering second and third grade, all of my friends are having crushes and talking about that. They are having crushes on boys, because all my friends were girls, and so I always kind of made a mental note of that. I was like, "Okay, when is this going to start happening for me?" JM: Okay. When did that start happening? HB: It did not. Well, the crushes on boys did not. JM: When did you start having crushes? HB: I had previously, at that point, known that I was having crushes on girls, I just didn't mention it to anyone. That probably happened, I don't know, like six or seven. JM: Okay, so you're just waiting for the boys. HB: For the boy part? Yeah. JM: "They're experiencing that, so when am I going to?" HB: Yes. JM: Okay. When do you think you recognized first that you were having crushes on girls? HB: See, that's a tricky question, because when I think back on it, it's always just been like that was my regular. Since I can remember, watching movies and stuff, I was just like, "Oh yeah, I'll grow up and I'll marry the princess," that type of thing. Then it was a weird process of being told that was bad, so then having to re-recognize it when I got older. I probably really started to be like, "Oh my God, I like girls," when I was eight. JM: During this time period, you come to realize you like girls. You said that you've been told it's wrong. Who's telling you that it's not okay? 6 HB: Mainly my mom, a little bit with her parents as well. My mom is not super religious, but her parents are extremely religious, and so definitely they were a big source. They would explicitly say, "Don't be gay, you will go to Hell." JM: Okay. Your mom is also still saying, "It's not good to be gay," but just not to that level. HB: Yeah, she would just say it without saying it, I guess. JM: Did you tell your friends at this point in time? HB: No. JM: So how did your parents find out? Did you tell them? HB: I never came out to my dad before he died, and then I ended up coming out to my mom when I was 16 on accident. I was driving back from the hospital, and I had just gotten diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder, so I was very emotional. We were talking in the appointment about this medication I was going to have to start and how it can affect fertility. My mom was talking about, "Oh my God, what if your future husband wants kids?" because I had said that I wouldn't be interested in having kids. I just blurted out, "I don't want to have a husband. I want to have a wife." JM: Okay. Do you want to continue talking about your coming-out story? HB: Yeah. That did not go well, I'll just say that. For many reasons, but one of them, I was driving on the freeway and I'm now crying, so that's not good. Then my mom did not react well to that. She was like, "No, you're not." That was the first thing she said. She started with the whole question of, "Oh, my God, how are you going to have sex?" I was like, "Really?" She was like, "Why do you think this? Do you want to go back to church? Is that what you're trying to tell me here?" 7 "No, no, I'm just trying to tell you that I like girls," and we kind of bickered back-and-forth about it for the rest of the ride home, and then I got home and we didn't talk about it for a year, until I started therapy. JM: Okay. It just kind of stayed in the water. HB: Yes, it didn't get mentioned, and there were even a couple of times where we would be at my school for some event or something and she would be like, "Oh, that guy's cute. What about him?" It was really disheartening to know that I told her that, and she still was kind of pushing that I would date a boy. JM: Okay. We'll come back to it a little later as we progress back through life. I'm going to kind of reel us back in. HB: Sorry. JM: It's all good. That's part of your story. We want those things to come naturally so that you're willing to talk about it. Let's roll back a little bit more. Real quick, before you move, you start to recognize you have these feelings. Are you seeing that anywhere in the world, on television? Are you seeing it affirmed? HB: I distinctly remember I was watching Ellen at my dad's house and she was talking to, I think, Lena Dunham? I don't know. She was talking to someone, and they were talking about how she wasn't going to get married to her boyfriend until gay marriage was legalized, because it hadn't been legalized yet. I distinctly remember in that moment being like, "What? It's not legal? That means it's a crime. That means it's dangerous. It's hurting people and it's something bad." That's always something that really sticks out to me when I think of what I was seeing in society. JM: Did that recognition of, "It's bad in some places," cause you to closet yourself in ways? 8 HB: Yeah, definitely. I was like, "Okay, if you have a crush on a girl, if you like a girl, don't say anything about it, because it's a bad thing. Because if it's a crime, then it must be bad," is what was going through my head. JM: It's a reasonable thought process, especially at a young age. So it causes you to closet up, and you don't tell anyone until you come out to your mom? HB: I did come out to my friends first, when I was 15. It took me a while. JM: That's all good. We'll get there. Anything notable in your family life that's happening while you're still living in Redlands? HB: Right before I moved, that's when my dad started to get really sick. He was actually diagnosed with lupus as well as the diseases he already had, so he was on a feeding tube and he was very skinny and didn't really have much hair. That was definitely a notable thing going on. Also, in that last year, that's when my mom got remarried to my stepdad. JM: Okay. How did you take that? HB: I don't remember being upset; I don't really remember having many feelings about it. I was just like, "Okay.” JM: So your mom got remarried in 2013? HB: '14. GU: Just really quick, I might have missed it, but the whole watching Ellen, what year was that? HB: That's a good question. Maybe 2012? JM: Okay, 2012. GU: So you're still in California? HB: Yeah. JM: Okay. You did live in California, but you were probably really young. Do you remember anything about Prop VIII? 9 HB: No. JM: That's okay. Figured, but good to ask. Your mom gets remarried in 2014 to your stepdad. Did you take that fairly well? HB: Yeah. I remember being excited, because I always had a really small family, and he has a ginormous family, and they were all really nice, so I was excited to gain that. JM: Very well. Did your dad ever remarry? HB: Oh, I totally forgot about that, sorry. He remarried in 2008. JM: Okay. Did you like your stepmom? HB: Yeah, she lived with us since I was three. JM: Okay, so it was a long time. Dating for a while. HB: Yeah. They were dating for a year and a half, and then they got engaged, married. JM: Do you still keep in touch with your stepmom? HB: No. JM: So you live in Redlands 'til you're 10, your dad's going to pass when you're 12. Where do you move to after Redlands? HB: Layton. JM: Layton. So it's 2014? HB: I believe so. JM: What was the draw to Layton? HB: My stepdad was in the Air Force, so we moved over here for that. JM: Makes sense. I forgot to ask, what are your parents doing for work? You mentioned they work a lot. HB: My dad was... I don't even know the job title, I guess like a manager at this place called Family Services, and they essentially provide services for homeless people and families and things like that. My mom did something at an airport, something administrative, I guess a really technical title. 10 JM: You're young. I couldn't tell you what my parents were doing at that age. So you moved to Layton. Does your dad stay in California? HB: Yes. JM: Okay. How does custody work with that? HB: It was definitely really weird. I think the goal was I would go back twice a year and spend two weeks with him each time, which wasn't really a lot, but again, at this time, I would say he was in the process of dying, so he didn't really want me to be around that a lot. JM: So he's in the process of dying. Are you recognizing that as a child? HB: No, it really came as a shock to me when it did happen. JM: Okay. Prior to your dad, let's talk about starting school. Where do you go to school, ‘cause there's still two years? HB: Lincoln. JM: Lincoln Elementary? HB: Yes. JM: Alright, so you're at Lincoln Elementary. This is fifth and sixth, prior to your dad's passing. You made friends, do you adjust well? Are you mad at the move? HB: I adjusted well. I definitely, at that age, just became a lot more shy than I had ever been, but I did make friends. JM: Were you okay with the move, or did you resent your parents at all at this point in time? HB: Now, I recognize that I do carry a bit of resentment towards my mom for it, but at the time, I wasn't feeling very angry or anything. JM: Okay. Do you make a group of friends? Do you just have one or two? HB: Group. 11 JM: So, similar to that dynamic you had. How are you doing in school after the move? You said school was easy early-on. HB: Yeah, I think fifth grade was good, and then sixth grade is when it all kind of started to slip. JM: Sixth grade starts to slip. What happened? HB: That's when my dad died. JM: Okay, let's talk about that. HB: Yeah, I had no interest in doing anything, which included schoolwork. Once you get a little bit behind, everything kind of starts to get behind, because you need the knowledge from sixth grade to help you in seventh grade. JM: So it was a shock that your dad passed? HB: Yeah. I definitely really, really personalized that in a weird way that doesn't make any sense. In sixth grade, right before he died, I was sitting next to this girl, and again, I had a crush on her, and I was realizing that. I said, "You know what? I think I'm going to tell my dad," because before he passed away, he kept having these conversations with me being like, "It's okay to be gay. It's okay if you like girls." So I was like, "Okay, I'm going to tell him," and then he died, and in my 12year-old brain, I interpreted that as, "This is God telling me, 'Don't be gay. You killed your dad.'" So I really, really heavily interpreted that situation as a personal thing when it really wasn't. JM: So your dad knew you were gay? HB: I think so. JM: Because you mentioned you didn't come out officially to him, but he was already still having those conversations, "It's okay to..." But you really personalized that, and you think God's mad at you. HB: Yeah, God's mad at me. 12 JM: I'm assuming this is why you get religious from 12 to 13. HB: Yeah. I had already started to kind of be getting religious with the move because we started going to church more consistently, and then that happened, and I just thought, "Okay, the one person in my family who's not homophobic dies; this is a sign from God that being gay is bad and I need to stop." JM: Okay, so your family is non-denominational Christian. What's that like, being religious but not the dominant religion in the area? How did that come into play? HB: Oh, I definitely still felt influences of the dominant religion in the area. That kind of goes more into middle school, though, but I definitely had kids who were trying to talk me into like, "You should come to my ward," or "I think you should read the Bible more, or read the Book of Mormon more." That was kind of weird; it was weird to have that influence, but also the influence of my religious family. JM: You are internalizing these feelings and kind of closeting yourself off. Your dad was the only one who was aware that you were gay at that point. Have you told friends in Utah? HB: At this point, no. JM: Okay. This is going to be 2016, so this is right around the gay marriage. Do you remember any of that? HB: Honestly, no. I think at this time I would have been too in-my-own-head to notice anything like that. For the year-and-a-half after my dad died, I was really quiet, depressed. I wasn't paying attention too much. JM: Reasonably so. HB: Yeah. JM: That would have been right when gay marriage was being passed and everything, and so dealing with your father's passing, you didn't notice that. You're becoming 13 very religious. You are closeting yourself. Are you seeing any positive portrayals of sexuality? HB: Again, not that I can think of. The only thing I can recall is my mom always really loved Ellen, and just because Ellen is gay doesn't mean that it’s a portrayal of sexuality. That's really the only thing I can remember. I also remember thinking it was really weird how my mom could love Ellen so much, but be so opposed to people being queer. I was like, "What the hell? That doesn't add up." JM: That's a very reasonable dissonance, I feel. So your dad passes as you finish up sixth grade. Do you go to a junior high after this? HB: Yes. North Layton Junior High. JM: Just a road mapping question. Do you stay in Layton for the rest of your life, generally? HB: Yeah. JM: So you go to North Layton Junior High, so that's seventh and eighth grade and then... HB: Seventh, eighth, ninth. JM: Seventh, eighth, ninth. I was just about to ask that. And you do all three years, is that right? HB: Yes. JM: Okay, North Layton Junior High. A little bit of an adjustment, you get shuffled around with a bunch of new kids. Do you adjust well to that? Does your friend group decline? HB: My friend group was sort of the same that I had in fifth grade, sixth grade. I definitely struggled a lot in seventh grade with various things. My dad had recently passed away, still dealing with that; stress of being in a new school. I also wasn't doing very well in school at this point. Also, at this time, my parents, meaning my 14 mom and my stepdad, started to get a lot more strict because I was getting older. It all combined to make a miserable year for me. JM: Well, speaking of your mom and stepdad, how does your relationship change with them after your dad's passing? HB: I became really, really distant from my mom, just because I never really liked to talk emotional things with her. That was kind of always my dad's job, so that was weird not having him. Also, I didn't want to talk to her about him, because as far as I could remember, they were divorced, so they were always separate. I was like, "Why would I talk to my mom about my dad?" None of my dad's family reached out to me after he died. I wasn't even invited to the funeral for some reason, so I was very isolated. JM: Does that include your grandmother? HB: Yeah. JM: Just to clarify, you're not seeing a therapist over your dad's passing? HB: Not seeing a therapist. No, nope, nothing. JM: You're just dealing with that all on your own. HB: Yeah, I got really good at putting on a fake smile, I guess. I was the funny friend, so that was my way to make sure that everyone thought that I was doing well because I didn't want to talk about it. I would stay up late and cry or I would just cry in the shower. JM: So seventh grade is a rough year. Do you have any stand-out memories that you would like to share of that year? HB: No. Pretty boring. JM: How does the rest of junior high go? Does it get better? Does it get worse? HB: It slowly got better. My ninth-grade year was actually really, really good. I was able to get myself back on track with school, and I was taking my first A.P. class and I 15 was doing all the Honors. I was really just using that to take up all my free time. I also was in my school's advanced choir, which was like the biggest deal in the world to me, so I was really happy to have that. Again, I was just putting all of my energy into school and just ignoring everything else. JM: Does anyone in your friend group do choir with you? HB: I made a couple friends in choir, but not from the same group. JM: I know I keep asking this, are you seeing any portrayals of sexuality? Are people around you starting to come out at all? Are you aware of it? HB: The only thing that's coming up for me is I had this friend and her older brother was gay. I don't remember why this came up, but we were talking about it, and we were talking about how he had a really, really hard time because their parents are extremely Mormon and they didn't talk to him for three years. But then somehow, something happened, and now they all have a great relationship. We just kind of talked briefly about that, and I guess that was somewhat of a positive story. JM: Are you seeing any negative stories of queerness and sexuality? HB: Something I'm thinking of is not necessarily a portrayal or anything, but I definitely started to hear that phrase, "Oh my God, that's so gay," whenever something went badly. That phrase was very prominent as I went through high school as well. That just kind of reinforced that idea that I already had; I was like, "Gay equals bad." JM: Are you still religious towards the end of junior high? HB: I kind of stopped. We stopped going to church, but I still was in the transition stage, I guess I would call it. JM: You say 'we'; did your mom stop going to church? HB: Yes. JM: Okay. Any particular reasons? HB: No, she was still religious, she just didn't want to go. 16 JM: But you're still transitioning out, so you stopped going? HB: Well, I stopped going, but I still kind of had leftover remnants of the ideas that were talked about. JM: Okay, so you do advanced choir. How does that go? Did you do a lot of performances? HB: Yeah. At the end of every year, we had a festival, which was like a competition, and we got the highest score that anyone from North Layton Junior High had gotten with that teacher, so we were ecstatic about it. JM: It sounds like in ninth grade, things really did start to just kind of pick up for you. HB: Definitely. I just put my focus into everything school-related, and at this time, my mom and my grandma—her mom—everyone is like, "Oh my God, do you have a boyfriend? Any boys you like?" I was like, "No, I'm too busy with school." I feel like that kind of wraps up my year, sums it up. JM: Let's move on, then. Where do you go to high school? HB: Northridge. JM: Northridge High. Does North Layton kind of feed into Northridge; are you staying with the same group of people? HB: For the most part, yes. JM: Do you keep doing choir? HB: Yes, but I didn't like it, so I dropped out pretty quickly. JM: Okay, so freshman year, you stopped. JM: Yes. JM: Do you do any other extracurriculars? HB: No. JM: So you're just doing school? 17 HB: Yeah. I definitely started to struggle again at the beginning of my sophomore year, just in general, because I'm finding that classes are harder. I actually am having to try and spend more time studying and things like that. JM: We are starting to hit that age 16, coming up. HB: Yeah, this was definitely a big year. I met a new friend at the beginning of sophomore year and we became really, really close, really, really quickly. It was kind of starting to blur that line between friend and crush, but I wasn't acknowledging it at that point. It started to become a thing where we spent every moment together, to the point where my parents were like, "Why are you always with this girl?" Even my group of friends were like, "Why are you always with this girl and never with us? We never hear about her.” That was happening in March, when schools shut down because of COVID. We're already in 2020. JM: Okay, so schools are shutting down. HB: Schools are shutting down, and then for those first couple of months, it was definitely a lot of me being forced to be alone with myself after channeling all of my energy into schoolwork. I actually had to be by myself and think, which led to me resurfacing those thoughts, going, "Oh my God, I like girls." At that point, I started to panic because I was realizing why I still liked girls, and I liked a girl, more specifically, who was my best friend at this point. That is when I panicked and I actually got with a guy, because I was trying to make myself be straight. I was like, "If I do this, then I'll be straight. I’ve never tried. How do I know that I'm not straight?” I'm not straight. That's the consensus on that. JM: How long did you date this guy for? HB: Like a month. JM: A month. Do you still maintain this friendship with this girl? 18 HB: We ended up stopping talking because it was... How do I explain this? It was one of those things that was very different when it was just us two verses with everyone else. I ended up coming out to her and being like, "By the way, I think I like girls.” She was like, "Yeah, me too." I was like, "Oh, okay." Then we had this weird thing going on; we didn't talk about it, but things were definitely happening. But then whenever any of our other friends were around, she was like, "Oh my God, I love men so much.” I was kind of left in this weird place of, "Okay, well, what am I, then?" She also had extremely religious parents, which I think affected how we interacted with each other a lot. JM: So she’s closeting herself in public, and you're struggling to balance. HB: Yeah. I ended up stopping communication with her, because out of nowhere, she was just like, "Okay, I'm going to date this guy now." I was like "What?" Then I was like, "Okay, I just cannot." JM: Is that all happening post-school shutting down? This is post-March? HB: Yes. JM: When did you come out to your mom officially? HB: I know that it was in the summer. I think it might have been August. JM: Was that before or after you stopped communication with that girl? HB: It was a couple of weeks after. Very short window. JM: Okay. You come out and your mom's not receptive, and it just kind of lies dead in the water. HB: Yes. JM: What are your feelings, post-that, with sexuality? You're still alone a lot of the time. HB: It was really a weird time, because I was both getting more comfortable with it and being able to talk to my friends about it, but at the same time, feeling even more 19 closeted, because I tried to come out, and I feel like I got pushed back in. It was weird. Both things were happening at the same time. JM: Are your friends receptive to it? HB: Yes. At this time, right when I came out in August, I made a new friend, and that's the first friend I made who just always knew me as queer. She's queer as well, so I think that was a really important friendship for me to have. JM: She knows you're queer; she's queer as well. That is affirming. Do you lose any friends because of coming out? HB: No. I didn't really have many to begin with, I'll say. JM: But they're all receptive, at the very least? HB: Yes. JM: Are they religious at all? Is there any of that coming into play? HB: My best friend in Utah, her parents are very, very Catholic. Sorry, I'm going to backtrack again a little bit. JM: That's okay. HB: She was the first friend I made in Utah, and I was at her house a lot. Her mom and I actually had a very good relationship, because her mom was always the mom that you could tell anything to, whereas I didn't really have that at the time with my own mom. I kind of had an aunt-like relationship with her mom, as I call it, which completely stopped after I came out because they're very religious. It even became a thing that they would pray for me at dinner to ‘get well,’ and so I didn't really hang out with her much anymore because of her parents. Her dad didn't really want me around because he thought I was going to ‘turn her gay,’ so that was really hard. JM: It's okay. If we need to take a break at any point, we can, just as a heads-up. Do you remain friends with her? HB: I remain friends with her, but I don't see her as much because of that. 20 JM: Does anything else happen your sophomore year? HB: No. I had to think about it. JM: That's okay. If you remember anything, we can always backtrack, but you just have to clarify for me if I get confused. When did you start therapy? HB: Junior year, I did the entire year online, which ended up being really terrible, because again, for the first time, I’m having to spend time alone with my thoughts, and that did not go well. I started therapy in February of 2021 because I had started having panic attacks pretty frequently, and I just got to a point where I was like, "Okay, I can't do anything. I can't go about my daily life. I need to figure something out." That's when the therapy started. JM: If you don't mind me asking, does something trigger your panic attacks? Is it related to your sexuality? HB: No, I think it was definitely just an anxiety thing. Since I have been in therapy and have met with psychiatrists a few times, I did get a Generalized Anxiety Disorder diagnosis. We just kind of chalked it up to that, and me not dealing with emotions well. JM: Okay. Do you talk about your sexuality during therapy at all? HB: Yes. I specifically looked for a queer therapist, so that was a main focus point in that. JM: How does that go? HB: It was definitely kind of a rough start, just because I am someone who would bottle emotions. I didn't like to talk about anything, so being in a space where I was supposed to talk about things was difficult, but at the same time, it was really nice to be able to just tell someone about things. JM: You mentioned that after therapy, you do start to talk to your mom about sexuality again a little bit. Do you wanna walk us through that? 21 HB: Yeah. So during therapy, still in 2021, I was just having a normal conversation with my mom, and kind of out-of-the-blue, she was like, "Why do you hate me?" I was like, "I don't hate you, but there are definitely some things that you said or did in the past that made me feel bad. This is an example.” The example I used was when I came out to her. Then she said, "Look, I don't care if you have a boyfriend or girlfriend. If you're happy, okay. I still love you." Since that point, it has been improving. I'm trying not to skip ahead too much. JM: No, you're okay. Feel free to talk about anything you want. HB: We had that moment in 2021, and then it gradually became a thing where we weren't really talking about it. She started doing this thing where any time she was at any store, if she saw anything rainbow, she would buy it and bring it back to me and leave it on my bed. I was like, "This is like a peace offering. What is this?" I think she was just trying to be like, "Look, I'm fine with this." It just, again, has gradually improved over time. It's not really something that we talk about, but I do feel like she's okay now, for the most part. JM: Slowly, in those little ways. HB: Kind of like unspoken ways, yeah. JM: Okay. That's towards the end of your junior year, you do therapy. Was there anything special about junior year? Got your driver's license? HB: Yeah, junior year was also really bad because I was just at home and I was struggling with my mental health more than ever. While nothing too notable happened, it was definitely just a year of struggling to still accept myself. I was working towards that. JM: Okay, senior year, then. You're getting ready to graduate and move on and all that stuff. Keeping friends. How does senior year go? 22 HB: I went back to in-person school, and I definitely still was having a lot of alone time, but it switched from being a bad thing to a good thing. I had friends, but my main friend is a year older than me, so she had moved away for college. My other friend was living in California this whole time. JM: And that's L? HB: That's L, yeah. I had that other friend who had the really religious parents, and we went to school together, but we didn't really talk much. I was kind of just doing my own thing, getting my credits ready to graduate and whatnot. JM: Okay. It doesn't sound like there's much wrong. HB: This senior year of mine was a year that I was actually starting to feel like I was accepting myself and I was good with my sexuality. Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry to jump back again. A big thing I had when I first came out is that I had this weird idea of, "I'm not queer enough" because I didn't look very queer. People wouldn't see me and recognize like, "Oh, you're queer," and when I was coming out to people, they'd be like, "Really? You don't look like it." I was like, "What do you mean, I don't look like it?" I was kind of starting to let go of that mentality senior year. JM: As you start to accept yourself more, are you seeing positive portrayals? HB: At this point, I had started actively seeking it out. I discovered that queer romance books exist and I was so excited, so I read so many queer romance books senior year, and all the TV shows. I think towards the end of my senior year, that's when Heartstopper came out as well. JM: I'm not aware. What's Heartstopper? HB: [Gasps]. GU: It's one of the books that we had for our collection and it was turned into a series. I haven't watched it yet. 23 HB: It's really good. GU: Is it? HB: Well, I'm not going to spoil anything, so... GU: I'm sure it's super sappy. HB: Yeah, it's super cheesy, but I had never gotten to see just a cheesy queer love story. They're teenagers is the premise, so like 14/15, but it ends happily, and I was like, "That was so touching." It made me excited because there tend to be a lot of portrayals of queerness where, even if it's a love story, it ends terribly. Someone dies or the show gets canceled or something like that. GU: Like First Kill? HB: Yeah! Don't even get me started on that one. I was so excited for that show! GU: It's such a good premise. HB: Yeah, and I love fantasy things so much. GU: [To Jim] Sorry, tangent. JM: No, it's fine. HB: Well, I was starting to discover queer media for the first time, and there are so many stories that end in tragedy or they get canceled. So Heartstopper coming out was a really big thing for me because it was cheesy, but it was so cute. I watched a lot of those shows in my senior year. JM: So you're actively consuming queer media. Are you friends doing this as well, or is this just a you thing? HB: Mainly just a me thing. I would tell them about it, and they would listen and get excited with me, but it's really just a me thing. JM: So that's your senior year in a nutshell. Graduation goes well? 24 HB: Yeah. My dad's side of the family was able to come down for my graduation, which was a big deal, and I took that time to tell them, "Oh, by the way, I'm gay." They were so great about it, almost had no reaction at all. I was like, "Oh, wow." JM: Does your grandmother come down? HB: Yeah. She really had no reaction; she was like, "Okay, cool." Pretty nice. Also, more people at my graduation were my mom's parents, who still do not know, and the reason why I am very hesitant to tell them is—this sounds kind of snobby—not because I care about their opinion whatsoever, but because I know my grandfather to be very, very homophobic. I actually just got back from a trip to California recently, and I sat down and had lunch with him. We were talking about a documentary he watched, and he just dropped the F-slur to refer to a queer person, and I was like, "Okay, I won't be telling you." JM: In high school, do people react well to you coming out, especially now you're being more open with it? HB: I was definitely very quiet in high school, so it wasn't like this big thing, like, "Oh my God, everyone, Hannah's gay and we care." But there was definitely this one kid I distinctly remember. I was talking to my friend in class about how I was going to get a second earring. He was like, "Don't do that,” and he got really mad about it, and he somehow tied that into religion. He was like, "You're going to go to Hell." I was like, "For an earring? Wait until you find out I've kissed girls." He was like, [gasp], and then he would not leave me alone. He kept DMing me and being like, "Listen, I really want to help you. You're really smart, and I just think that you would really benefit if you read this book," being the Book of Mormon. I was like, "I told you many times, I'm not interested." 25 He was in a lot of my classes as well, so it just became a thing that every time I saw him, he was like, "How you doing? Wanna come to this Young Women's event we're having?" I was like, "No, leave me alone. I don't want to." JM: But other than that? HB: Other than that, we're good. JM: Okay. No serious hate-criming? HB: No, no, no. JM: That's good. What do you do post-graduation? Obviously, you're around here. Do you go to Weber? HB: In the summer, I wasn't really doing anything. I went down to Minnesota for a while where my aunt lives. JM: Which side of the family? HB: My dad's sister. That was a really, really good trip, and something that stuck out to me was… Are you familiar with the game MASH? JM: Yes. HB: Okay. I was playing that game with my cousins who are, at this time, seven and nine, I think? We’re playing it as the whole family, and my cousins were just listing off, for their spouse, people of all genders. My aunt and uncle are joining in on that as well. That really stuck with me, 'cause I was like, "They're raising their kids without any of these labels.” JM: So you had a good time. HB: Yeah, and then I started here for the fall semester. JM: Okay, so you do go to Weber. What are you studying? HB: Zoology. JM: You’re halfway through your first year now, right? 26 HB: Yes. JM: Are you getting involved on campus with queer groups? HB: No, I haven't really done much of anything. JM: That's okay. Are you making friends? Are you socializing? HB: Little bit. I'm very reserved now, so I just kind of just go about my day. JM: How is family life now? HB: I would say it's improving a bit each day. I recently bought my first-ever Pride flag, and we put it outside the house for a little bit, and that was really big, because I still live at home. JM: And your mom let you put it up? HB: Yeah, it was nice. JM: Have you come out to your stepdad? HB: Yes. After my mom took it well the second time, I decided to come out to my stepdad. It was a really quick conversation. He was just like, "Yeah, I know." "What the… Okay." GU: Did he specify, was it because your mom told? HB: No, she didn't tell him. He was just like, "Of course you like girls." I was like, "What do you mean?" He was just like, “Well, duh." JM: Has he been receptive? HB: See, he's a bit weird because yes, but at the same time, sometimes I hear him saying things where I'm like, "That doesn't add up." For example, he's very much like, "Be gay, but young kids being gay, that doesn't exist. Only once you reach a certain age can you know that you're gay.” If you try to do anything outside of the gender binary, he's like, "Nope, man and woman, that's it." So he's kind of weird because he's supportive for the most part, but... 27 JM: It's almost like he's supportive of you, but not the community. HB: Yeah. It is what it is, I guess, but I don't like that at all. JM: I think we've basically covered how queerness has changed the way your family interaction feels, especially since coming out recently. Has your queerness changed the way you interact with people in the world around you, generally? HB: Yes, and I would say just in general, in all aspects of my life and personality, since coming out, I'm just more myself. That was the big thing that I was trying to hide, and now that it's out, I feel like I'm more free to just do anything. JM: The one I really want to highlight for you, especially since you've lived in California for a good chunk of your life: When it comes to Northern Utah and other places you've lived, how have you seen differences in how the queer community is treated and how they're accepted? HB: I've definitely heard and seen a lot more discrimination here based on religion, just because a lot more of the population here is religious than in Southern California, I've found. I've heard a lot more stories of overall discrimination against queer people here. That being said, I have also heard and seen lots of stories of discrimination in Southern California, but usually they're different. JM: What ways would you say they're different? HB: Usually the things that are occurring in Southern California, it's like a really, really old person who is saying or doing something hateful, whereas I've noticed here, it's people of all ages. I don't hear more discrimination from old people than young people, and it's very heavily tied to religion here, I feel. JM: Let's do a fun one before we wrap it up. [To Grant] Or do you have any other ones you want? GU: Oh, no. Just the fun one. 28 JM: Do you have any queer icons, or have you throughout your life that you've really looked up to? HB: Oh, I have to think about this one. When I was younger, a big one for me was Lady Gaga, just in general, because she was very much nonchalant about her bisexuality in interviews and stuff. That was cool. She was also very different, as people called her, and they didn't like her for that, but I loved her for that. Oh, God, queer icons. I'm struggling to think of 'em on the spot. That's all I can think of at the moment, oh no. JM: It's okay. If you think of any more later, we're going to send you the interview transcript and you can always add them. So if you want to think about that now and add when we get to the transcription, we can do that. That's fine. HB: Yeah. JM: Well, if that one is hard, this one might be even harder, but we'll see. If there is anything you could say to your younger self or others going through similar situations you did coming out, what would you say to them? HB: To other people going through similar situations, I would say that community is so important, and finding and looking for people who are going through a similar thing that you are, people in the LGBTQ+ community, is so important. JM: Okay, and what about yourself? HB: I think for myself... Don't try to change who you are, because it's not going to work. JM: I like that. Is there anything else you'd like to share from your story before we conclude this? HB: No. JM: Okay. Well, Hannah, thank you so much for being willing to participate. 29