Oral History Program HallieKate Briggs Interviewed by Lorrie Rands November 3 and 10, 2022 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah HallieKate Briggs Interviewed by Lorrie Rands November 3 and 10, 2022 Copyright © 2023 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii 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: Briggs, HallieKate, an oral history by Lorrie Rands, 3 and 10 November 2021, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with HallieKate Briggs on November 3 and 10, 2021 by Lorrie Rands. Hallie Kate talks about growing up in a rural Utah community, finding space in the queer community and coming to terms with their sexual identity. They discuss their time at Weber State University and hopes for the future. LR: Today is November 3, 2021, and we are over Zoom with, it HallieKate or just Hallie? HK: HallieKate is my full name. LR: OK? Which do you prefer? HK: I honestly, I'm still open, Hallie is usually easier for other people, but I'll answer to anything. LR: OK, so here with HallieKate, but I'm going to call you, Hallie if that's OK? HK: Yes. LR: I will forget the Kate part. HK: Fair. LR: Doing an oral history interview for the LGBTQ + stories here at the Stewart Library, Weber State University. My name is Lorrie Rands Conducting and Sophia Jensen is also on the call with us. Thank you so much, Hallie, for your willingness to share. We'll just go until I can't go anymore, then we'll set up another time to finish up if we don't get it done, so we'll just play it by ear. So let's just begin with one where you were born. HK: I was born in Logan, initially Logan, Utah in a hospital that I can't remember the name of. LR: And when? HK: I was born on February 28, 2000. 2 LR: So did you grow up in Logan or not? HK: I spent about the first seven years of my life in Logan, in a small house on the south side and then at about seven years old, we moved to a much smaller town called Richmond, up in Northern Utah. It's like right there near the Idaho border. LR: So what are some of your memories of living in Logan? HK: My memories of Logan tend to be pretty vague. I grew up in a very small house, one bathroom with my parents, and at the time, my older brother and my younger brother. There was a kid in the house two doors down. We were really good friends with, we went biking around the neighborhood all the time and I went to a charter school called Thomas Edison. I remember eating, wearing the uniforms. My best friend there, her name was Olivia, I think. And we would often go round in fields bug hunting with like nets that she owned. I'm pretty sure we like never caught anything, but I think of that fondly sometimes. LR: Did you start elementary school in Logan? HK: Yes. LR: Okay. Where did you go? HK: It would have been Thomas Edison. LR: Oh, that's right. You already told me that, I'm struggling because I literally wrote it down. HK: It's right, we're all struggling this morning. LR: Yes. So you were only at Thomas Edison for maybe two years? HK: Yeah, that sounds about right. LR: Okay, when you moved to Richmond, was it a struggle to move away from your friends? Do you remember? HK: Yes and no. That friend Olivia originally moved out before I did, and she was my best friend, so I at that point I didn't have a ton of friends growing up, I had Olivia 3 and I had that kid two doors down. It was rough to say goodbye to him. But otherwise, there wasn't really a lot to hold on to. I was glad to have like a room as opposed to sharing with all my siblings and knowing that I had at this point. Bailey would have just been born, so there would have been another baby and there is another one on the way. So we were all grateful to not operate out of one bathroom anymore. LR: Yeah, I bet. So you moved to Richmond for a bigger house or was it a job related for your parents? Do you know? HK: I think it was mostly just for the bigger house. I think they got a good price on it because they ended up moving farther away from my dad's job. LR: Oh, OK. So you've kind of touched on this, but how many siblings do you have? HK: I have an older brother named Mason. We are 361 days apart. His birthday is two days after mine. I have a younger brother named Carson. He is two years younger than me, and both of them are very, very tall. I was kind of robbed of that. My older brother is like six seven and my younger brother is like six four. LR: Wow. All right. HK: Very tall. I have two younger sisters. The older of the two is named Bailey, and she was born in 2008. No, sorry, she was born in 2006. My younger sister named Lucy, and she was born in 2008. LR: OK. So there's five of you altogether. HK: Five of us altogether. LR: OK, now that you're in Richmond, where did you go to school in Richmond? HK: I went to Park Elementary, which was a fairly small school. Richmond, again is not a big town. I went to Park Elementary, and it was a good school. LR: What are some of your favorite memories of going to elementary school? 4 HK: At Park they have like, I don't know why they have it, there's this little nature area in the back behind the school, closer to the building than like the recess area. So like the monkey bars and the slides and everything. There was this nature area, it's got fencing, but it's decorative. More than anything, decorative and falling apart, it's not keeping anyone out. There is a little river surrounded by rocks that was off the majority of the time. It was run out of the water system. There were just trees and like little berries in there and I don't know. I have no understanding why this little area was built in the elementary school. But it was pretty, and I would often run around in there with my friends and you'd play pretend games the way people always do as children. A frequent favorite was pretending we were all dragons and in a complicated hierarchy based on birthdays. LR: OK, that's really cool. HK: That was my favorite place, and like going back now, it's really small. There's like it's a really small area, but as a child, it just feels huge and sparse. LR: So during, and you might not be able to answer this, but during elementary school, when did you start to feel like things were different for you? HK: That would have been late elementary school, early middle school. First of all, the only piece of gossip that any child knows to ask about is who you have a crush on. It's the only gossip any child cares about. No one would ever believe me when I was like, and of course, the only people you have a crush on is guys when you're a girl. So I get asked that all the time by friends like, “I don't have a crush on anyone,” and no one would ever believe me. That's probably fair as I had, I didn't know it at the time. I know it looking back, that I absolutely had a crush on a girl in my class. I didn't know what that was. I just know that you're supposed to like guys, and I didn't like any of the guys. I thought they were immature. LR: That makes sense. 5 HK: Then going into middle school, that's when things started to click. There would have been, when was gay marriage legalized in the U.S. 2008 and 2012? LR: It was 2012. HK: OK. So, I remember when gay marriage was originally legalized, the first time I'd ever heard the term, and the only thing that I knew about it is that my parents were very upset. When this came out, I remember that day because it was like the only time I ever heard my dad speak so negatively about a group of people. He was very upset and he said things like…sorry, this is hard for me to say. LR: OK. HK: He would say things like, “When they legalize gay marriage, we might as well legalize pedophilia,” and that. “They're not really people,” and my mom agreed with everything he said. She was a little less vocal about it, but she often nodded along and offered her support. I asked my dad what he was so upset about what gay people are. He’s like “It's just like it's men who like men.” At 12, I was like, “I don't understand what's wrong with that, but you were clearly very upset.” It was shortly after this that I have like an iPad. I didn't like have a phone or anything. I had a little iPad that had internet access and I did research. I was just confused why people were so upset. I was confused why my dad was so upset. I found videos of people who identified with the LGBT community during their stances on everything, and I'm like, they're just people. So I didn't at this point, I didn't know that I was a member of the LGBT community. I knew that I was very confused and I didn't agree with how upset my family was. But that was the beginning of me, like following this arc, finding out where I stood on the scale. LR: OK, that makes sense. So this is, you're literally just starting junior high at this point. HK: I'm just starting middle school. LR: Where did you go to middle school, by the way? 6 HK: I went to a school called White Pine. It is the same distance from the elementary school just down the street, a couple of blocks from just about equidistant from my house. LR: So I'm just curious how you're hearing all this from your dad, from your parents. You don't see it the same way they do, and you're also not quite sure how you know where you fit into all this. So how is it then going into junior high and doing the things that are normal in your community? If there is a, I don't know if you're a member of a religious organization or not, but how is it just doing those normal things and realizing somehow you're different? HK: I am not a member of a religious organization anymore. My family is LDS, I grew up LDS. I stopped attending church the day I turned 18 and had moved out and then in the last year, I have had my name removed from church records. So I am not LDS anymore. The going into the middle school was figuring out that my dad, and my parents weren't the only ones that shared this opinion. The first time I sort of was figuring out more about my own opinions, because I was reading short stories online and occasionally they were same sex romance. Nothing bad, just light hearted things. But I was like, this doesn't bother me at all. At one point I asked a friend, “Do you know about this?” We found out that we both secretly didn't understand why everyone was so upset, and we're in support. And then I started being a little more open with it about with my friends. The first time I figured out that maybe I'm not just an ally would've been in middle school when I got a crush on this girl in my archery club. This time I did recognize that it was a crush and I panicked more than a little bit. Because even though I knew I supported, like, it was wrong for me to be a member of that in my head. So there was always more of a disconnect. In school, surprisingly, was the safe space for me. My parents didn't frequently talk about the LGBT community, but 7 sometimes it would come up and they were always upset, and then church, which my parents had us go to every Sunday. I already didn't fit in at church. All the girls in my young women's class were like jocks, and they were really popular. None of them liked me and I didn't like them. So I was always on the outside of the group. I didn't have any friends at church, I would just sit in the corner and I would draw or something to distract myself from all of this. Some of the stuff about women, I was to be having to have children, and start families and being a stay at home mom as opposed to someone who works. I think another student asked about same sex couples one day and everyone was very upset. I never fit in at church even to the very end at 18. It was never a space that I ever wanted to be in or go to. I would do everything I could not go to young woman activities. Or attend the meetings. It was not unusual for me to fake being sick. I would sometimes during sacrament meeting I'd tell my parents, “I'm going to the bathroom,” and then I go into like the women's nursing lounge, just kick back in a chair and I would lock the doors. I would just sit in there. It would have been good plan, but there are speakers in that room, so you can hear the conference. I never I never fit in. I never felt like I fit in. Especially when it started clicking. LR: Where did you feel like you fit in the most when you were growing up? HK: Definitely with my friends. In a space other than my own home. With my friends in one of their houses. It's a space where I felt the safest and the best. In about like 13, 14, this is so nerdy, my friends invited me to join their D&D group. It was a group of all guys, and they'd start at like six o'clock at night, and then we'd go until, like 2:00, 3:00 a.m.. That's where I always felt best. I didn't get to go that often, but I always had a fun time when I did just bring all kinds of junk food snacks. I thought their parents were just the coolest. I stand by that to this day. It was a little upsetting 8 because like they would all stay to sleep over after, and I wasn't allowed to because I was girl. So, I would go home after they'd all stay around, but most of the time that's where I felt at my best. LR: My question was as you're navigating this junior high, getting ready to go to high school, what is your favorite thing to study in school? Because you mentioned you did archery. I've never known someone who did archery before, so that's kind of interesting to me. HK: I'm a state champion, well I was, in middle school and high school. LR: Talk about that for a little bit. Your archery? HK: OK. When my youngest sister started like elementary school, my mom went back to work. She stayed at home from the time my eldest brother was born until my younger sister got into elementary school and then she went back to teaching. Both my parents are teachers. Because both my parents were teachers and working, my house was just far enough away that it would have been annoying to walk back home, so the only solution was to stay at school until one of them would be able to come pick me up. So I got in different clubs and after school programs for every day of the week. That included things like creative writing club and archery and I was in the ping pong club. I had a lot of fun with those. Sometimes I know that I just wanted to be home, but this time is really good time, and my favorite was archery. I was one of the best ones, I don't want to toot my own horn, I was one of the best ones in the club. For Christmas, I asked my parents to buy me a compound bow, and they did. I still have to this day, it's in my room in like a weird little cupboard I just keep it there. I don't have many arrows. The arrows I do have are just in the trunk of my car. I never know where to put them. I think in my second year of middle school, we went to state as like a group team for archery. And we did very, very 9 well. We had our picture in the newspaper, and it was a delightful time. So, yeah, I was in all kinds of clubs. LR: So I'm trying to envision what archery club is. You just stand around shooting arrows? HK: Basically, it was delightful. We would just set up our targets, and all of us would have bows and we take our five shots. We'd tally up our points after and then we'd switch out. The next person would go and they shoot and tally up their points. Sometimes we have like little bracket competitions and sometimes, we would just have like not even play archery. We do like tug of war or something. Most of the time it was archery. LR: So is this something you continued to do in to high school? HK: Yes, but only for like a year was there an archery club in my high school and then the club was disbanded. LR: Oh, okay that's sad. HK: So I wasn't able to continue beyond that. LR: Where did you go to high school? HK: I should mention that the schooling system in a little town was a little weird because I went to middle school and junior high school and high school. LR: Oh, so your middle school was like 6th and 7th. HK: Yes, and then my junior high was 8th and 9th. LR: 8th and 9th then the high school was… HK: 10 through12. LR: OK. You're not the only one I've heard that from, but it's so weird to hear. HK: It's weird, right? LR: Yeah. 10 HK: Oh, I think part of it is because our high school is very overpopulated. They drew from like a wide range because it was like one of the only high schools were people would come all the way down from like miles and miles out to go to school in the morning. So our high school was very overpopulated. SJ: What was it called? HK: My high school was called Skyview High. LR: OK. So middle school was white pine? HK: Yes. LR: What was junior high? HK: North Cache, and then I went to Skyview High School. LR: Pretty cool names for schools honestly. HK: I would agree. LR: OK. So was it only in junior high that you did the archery or was it in middle school to HK: Middle school and then also junior high. LR: Okay. But they only get it for your sophomore year in high school? HK: Yes. LR: Okay, I'm now on the same page. HK: Sorry, I know it's confusing. I probably should have said earlier. LR: It is a little bit, but it's OK. So, did you find that you wanted to do the same thing in high school as you were doing in junior high and be a part of all the clubs to have something to do after class? HK: No. I had a lot of my same friends in high school, but I started like retreating in myself more. This is something that I should mention, beginning 11 or 12 my mom was diagnosed with cancer for the first time. Part of the reason through middle school I was part of those all those clubs is because not only was my mom working, 11 but there were many frequent doctor visits. My mom didn't know when she was originally diagnosed that I was already suffering with lots of symptoms of depression and I had very frequent night terrors before that point. So I like never slept. Then in middle school, when my mom was diagnosed, my grades all plummeted because I also became the de facto head of the household when my parents weren't home. I have an older brother but he is very autistic. He has like eight different mental disabilities. So I spent a lot of my days making calls and figuring out how to get my siblings to school and how to get them home. I made dinner most nights for them. I made sure they did their chores. I helped with laundry. In many ways, I became almost a mother. That was for about a year or two years. That just meant that the entire time I was doing that, I was chopping down all of my own problems. I never shared with my parents, I didn't know what depression was. I just knew that I was unable to feel anything all the time. I would watch like really sad movies or really emotionally intense movies try to get myself to feel some emotion. And it wouldn't happen. At some point I was convinced I was a robot that I wasn't human. I continue to have very frequent night terrors. So I would avoid going to sleep. I would just stay up late reading and then I'd get up. As soon as I woke up from a night terror, I would just stay up until school started. Sorry, that's backstory. LR: No, that's all good, it's a good backstory. HK: Back to the original question. I didn't need to stay behind for school anymore because I had a driver's license now and a beat up car that our parents let us use to get myself and my brother to and from school. At this point, starting high school, my mom was diagnosed with cancer a second time after she made a recovery. It wasn't as intense as the first time because she had done it before, which is really tragic to say, but it's so true. I, because I wasn't in that space of always needing to take care 12 of my siblings. I couldn't distract myself from my symptoms anymore. I didn't want to do anything, at any time. I spent a lot of my time in high school, I just wanted to be home as soon as possible, and I was just in my room constantly. Before this, after symptoms of depression, before all this, I started getting really bad anxiety as well. I spent major first part of high school just trying to function. With that, because again, I didn't tell my parents anything was wrong, and my parents weren't around often enough to notice anything, and I got really good at hiding it. But I wasn't a whole person anymore. I didn't have many interests at this point. I couldn't work up any excitement, passion or joy for anything. There were just things that I did. LR: Right. Was there a point where you were finally able to just say, I need help or are that where you were actually able to start getting the help you needed? HK: Yes and no. I think it would have been my junior year of high school. I took a psychology course, and she talked about depression. I was like, “Oh my gosh.” There was the name, it's a thing. This explains so much. Then she gave us a test on anxiety. I was like, “Oh my gosh,’ that was mind blowing to me. So I started doing kind of side research on my own about like what this thing was and how people could like treat it. I was still completely unprepared to tackle that, I had no plans to tell my parents. At this point my mom beat cancer for the second time. What we don't know is that she'll get diagnosed again like a year and a half later. But my mom is already so wrapped up in radiation recovery and my siblings are all more demanding of attention than I ever was. Aside from my older brother being severely autistic and disabled and needing a lot of care and attention. My younger siblings are also very demanding of attention. And I was always just the quiet good kid who did their chores and did what was necessary without being asked to. I was not the problem child. I dedicated myself to that, “My parents need all the help they can get. I'm going to ensure that I am never an issue.” So I had no plans to tell my 13 parents any of this because I figured they'd had enough going on. I never told my parents about like concerts. I was in orchestra and then also in band for a time. One day I was in a car ride with my mom and she wanted to stop at McDonald's and get food. For some reason, she wanted me to order instead of her, although she was in the driver's seat of the car. She got really upset at me for being super nervous about it and not wanting to do it and fighting her on it because she'd be like, “We're going to have to do this all the time. You need to get over this.” She didn't know, she just knew that I didn't like talking to strangers. She was arguing with me on that on the way home. I have a friend at this time that was psuedo suicidal. So my parents just wanted to be good parents, implemented this rule about not keeping cell phones in the bedroom. They didn't know about my friend, but I immediately was like, I can't do that, I'm not doing that. They probably assumed I was like addicted to something on the internet or something like that. I just wanted to make sure that I was 24/7 in contact, which isn't healthy viewing it now with all of my adult wisdom. But that's what I was dedicated to, and my parents fought me on it, and we had a huge argument and my parents witnessed me have a panic attack. That's how they found out. So not the best circumstances. I was mid panic attack and they were like rushing over like what is this, what are you doing? And it's just like, “I need this and this and this, give me the space,” and I was just in that room having a panic attack. They asked me how I knew what I was doing and I just had to tell them everything because they kept pushing me. I was still coming down from my panic attack when you hear your parents say lines like you're damaged and broken. They started talking like I was a liability. While I was in front of them. My parents are good parents but they don't understand a lot of things. They are much better now, but that was how my parents found out. I'm sorry, you really didn't know how complicated this question would be when you asked it. 14 LR: This is why I asked the questions. You know, it's just for understanding, so keep going. HK: My parents didn't understand but they wanted to help, but one thing they were very clear on was that they don't want their children to be dependent on medication. They did not like the idea of any of their children taking daily medication for an indeterminate amount of time, which is unfortunate because that is the number one way to treat depression and anxiety. But I wasn't doing all this side research. At one point, my night terrors, which had originally disappeared late middle school had come back. I was watching a show and an episode where one of the main characters has depression, and it was all about dealing with it. Let me tell you, representation is everything cause I saw that, and I was crying probably the entire episode, and it was like I need help. I prepared a whole PowerPoint and I talked to my parents I was like, “Listen, I know you don't like medication. But I need help, and I need you to understand that. Depression medication does not work the same way that other medications do. This is not like new chemicals and stuff that are being introduced, this is replacing supplements. It's supplementing stuff I should have and don't.” They're like, “All right, when will you be off it?” I'm like, “I probably never will. I probably never will, but it's something I need to look into regardless.” So my parents sent me to therapy. I had two therapists that were, let's say not the right fit. That's what I think people need to know that like therapists are like varied. One therapist does not fit all people. At this point, another one of my concerns is the LGBT community. As I am now secretly attending Pride parades with my friends. At this point, I know first off, that I'm asexual. I knew I liked girls, I didn't know where I stood on guys, but I liked girls. So I went to therapy with my parents understanding I was going for depression, anxiety, and I was. But a secret agenda of mine was also to address 15 where I stood on the LGBT community, how I felt. Get off my chest, some of my frustrations with my parents opinions. But I was sent to therapists who were both very religious, LDS wise, and also did not think that I should be on medication. They had no problem diagnosing me and they agreed with the diagnosis. But they were convinced that it was all environmental factors and didn't want to put me on medication. So that didn't help a lot. Finally, my senior year of high school I went to not a therapist, but a nurse practitioner by the name of Meghan Kunz. She was exactly what I needed. She is just delight. We have a lot of the same opinions and humor and personality. She was also supportive of the LGBT community and it took us five different tries of medications that didn't work. One made my symptoms worse or showed no difference at all before we went through, like all the common medications and nothing was effective. So I took a GeneSight test. Which is very cool and very interesting and we found out some very important things. One that I only respond to low dosages of medication. Continuing to up my dosages was just making it worse. And two, a lot of the common quote unquote psychotic medicines are not effective against me. They rated different medications and predictability about how they would work on me. There was like only one or two medications that would be decently effective by their prediction. So we tried one. Didn't notice any difference, tried the other one and it was perfect. It's still the same medication I take today. Three, four years later. It's not a cure all, but I am happier on it than I've ever been without it. Those were very complicated medical issues. LR: No, that's really cool. I'm really glad you shared them. So I am going to say we're going to stop now. I'm having a hard time paying attention now and I don't want that. I know I can do better, so we're going to… HK: Table this 16 LR: Table this, so I'm going to go ahead and stop this. Part Two LR: Okay, so today is the 10th of November 2021, and we are continuing our conversation with HallieKate Briggs. And again, Sophia is with me on the call. So when we finished the last time you had just finished talking about starting medication, finding the right medication for your depression and really just explaining it all to your parents, finding out about your depression. That's literally where we left off. HK: Fun subject to leave on. LR: Well, you know it worked. So I'm curious, now that your parents know you're on medication, did that help to make things a little easier for you? HK: I am not sure. The medication certainly helped, not at first, though. As I mentioned before, it was a very long process to find something that actually improve my life as opposed to having weird consequences. The same could be said for my parents. It did not help at first. I don't know if I mentioned this last time, after my mom triggered the panic attack they like had a discussion in front of me as I came down and my parents referred to me as broken. So that's not the best thing that you want to hear from your parents. They didn't understand at first they were both like a helicopter and like completely unaffected. Which was a weird combination, I didn't know what to make of it, they didn't know what to make of it. But eventually they sort of came around to what was happening. Now our relationship is better for it. But again, that was another one of those things that was a long process. LR: Yeah, do you think that it was kind of a “We're all learning this, navigating this together,” or did you still feel like you were very separate on your own, if you will? HK: I did still feel very separate. I felt like my parents weren't making any effort to understand. They spent a lot of time just buried in their own pre-existing ideologies. 17 And the whole "we don't want anyone to be on medication for more than like a week or two." They didn't know what depression was. My parents were in the camp that most mental illnesses aren't real. Not that they don't believe they exist, but that most of them are more fabricated. Because they both grew up in a time where there weren't words for like ADHD or autism or they just existed. So for a long time, my parents just felt like another obstacle. LR: I'm sorry, I'm writing down what you said, because I kind of find it very profound. There were not words when they grew up for mental disorders, so I'm not ignoring I just really thought that was profound. So and I apologize that I'm interjecting here. HK: No, problem. LR: So about the time you said this happened, at least the getting the help started in your senior year of high school. HK: Correct. LR: When did you finally get leveled out on medication, had you started college by then? HK: I wouldn't say that I found the right medication until a year ago and I'm currently in my senior year of college. LR: So it took some time. HK: Yeah, I am 21 now so it took about two years. LR: Okay, so how do you think the end of your senior year went, graduation and how was that for you? HK: A mess of emotions, really. I know that I needed space for my parents to find out, I had a pretty good grasp of who I was at that point. But I needed the chance to actually exist on my own, to get away from my parents' pre-existing ideologies. Some of the prejudice, the LGBT community, I needed the space religiously, mentally, physically. So I knew that I was not going to be in an area that I was going 18 to leave. Graduation was more emotional than I expected it to be. It took me by surprise. I never had a ton of friends, I have like a good little group. But that senior graduation, I ended up next to people and interacting with people who I had been like pseudo friends with for a long time. We all got along really well and it reminded me of what I was moving on from. I got really emotional. During the ceremony and then after the ceremony, everyone is out mingling, and no one I knew was out there. So I just was with that overwhelming feeling of isolation as I stood out on this quad with all these people I'd known for years and years talking to each other, but like no one came up to me. I was maybe there for like 10 minutes and then told my parents I was ready to go home. So I was really emotional. It was overwhelming at the time to know I was entering a new phase, but I still wasn't entirely sure what that would hold for me. LR: Okay, had you already decided on a college or were going to go to college? HK: I knew I was going to go to college. And I had already decided on Weber State. That was somewhat difficult. I was actually hoping for U of U, but I can't afford college. My parents can't afford college for me, though, they certainly would've attempted it had I asked. I already knew because of all my parents' medical bills, they did not have the funds for that. So it was a full ride or nothing and U of U only offered me 75%. Weber State offered me a full ride. So here I am. LR: All right. Out of curiosity, what was the scholarship? The full ride that you received? HK: A full ride Presidential Scholarship, I can't remember. I was a part of Aletheia, so I got a full ride Aletheia scholarship. LR: Okay, I know a little bit about the Aletheia. One of my other students had that as well. So I kind of understand a little bit, but do you understand it enough to talk about it a little bit, what it's about and what it's for? 19 HK: I can attempt to. So, the Alethia scholarship is they have a very heavy focus on like service. It's actually a very lax scholarship, it has some very loose requirements. But like by all standards, Weber State is very accepting and it's very easy to find the people that you need to help you. So like the Alethia requirements are practically nothing, like you need to maintain a 2.5 GPA. You have to complete a certain number of service hours. Unfortunately, that has been thrown off for me since Covid. So all of the service hour requirements are a little weird right now. You need to take at least two honors courses through their program and you need to complete a book club. I can see your face Sofia, it's a weird one to have thrown in there, but it was actually really interesting. LR: OK. I just was looking at it online to see if I could make sense of it too. Alethia is a Greek word meaning truth or reality. Originally, the meaning implies discovery or disclosure, so that kind of makes sense being asked to do book club stuff and honors classes and stuff like that. It's fascinating. I've heard of the presidential scholarship, so I was just curious. So it does it provide room and board or just scholarship? HK: It does not provide room and board, it is just tuition. LR: That's what I meant. Tuition, OK, that's better than better than nothing. HK: It's better than anything that I had hoped for. I was a good student, but you never know what to set your expectations for when applying for colleges. I know I'm a good student. I have good grades. I have good achievements. I'm a good writer for entrance exams but the actual decisions are beyond me. LR: Right, that makes sense. So when did you start then at Weber State? HK: I started in the fall of 2018. LR: Okay, and did you choose to live at home or did you find a place in Ogden? 20 HK: No, my parents live on the edge of the Utah-Idaho border in a very small town called Richmond. First of all, that would be a nasty commute, which I used as a reason to move out. My best friend at the time was also looking for a reason to get out of their house, and they weren't particularly attached to Logan, where they lived at the time. I should say he, he's transgender. I use they/ them out of habit when I talk to my parents, and I don't think it's weird that I refer to him as they/ them, but I cannot bring myself to use she/ her pronouns. But anyway, so he agreed to move with me up to Ogden and we found an apartment up on Monroe Boulevard. I've lived there for more... LR: Where at on Monroe Boulevard? HK: Hold on a second, I can't remember the address, it's Mountain Ridge Manor or something. LR: I'm just curious now that's all. 820 Monroe Boulevard. HK: Yes. LR: OK. Well. That's ironic, I don't live very far from you. HK: Oh, hey. I don't live there anymore. But that's where we first moved in. LR: OK. All right. HK: Now I live in North Ogden. This is 420 east 1700 north. LR: OK, so you're definitely further north. So what was that like moving out and being on your own for the first time? HK: In a way, freeing. In another way, terrifying. I have an older brother, but as I've mentioned before, he is mentally challenged, very autistic. So I was the first child to leave. My mother was not emotionally prepared to have a child leave, there were a lot of arguments. When I first moved out, my parents had initially offered to help me with paying for rent. My parents were asking the questions. They were urging me to go to the nearby church. They said they called the bishop and had him come to my 21 apartment and introduce himself. When they found out that I did not intend on going to church because at this point, I knew I was moving out. So it's a lot more open about the fact that I'm not going to church anymore. My parents were very not happy with that when I initially moved out. My mom insisted that I A, have a picture of Jesus in every room, and B. Yup, that's the correct face to make. B, if I'm not going to try to I have to at least attend seminary or they're not helping me with rent. I told them I wouldn't need their help then. Which sounds a bit harsh, I suppose, but I was like, “If your help comes with conditions, then I don't want it. I'll figure it out.” They were possibly more upset about that. My father was a lot more happy about it, and from what I understand, he had been like trying to get my mom to let these conditions go. My mom called one of her sisters my aunt to complain about it. My aunt was thankfully like. “You're being ridiculous.” This aunt, she has like eight children, but she does not have close relationships with any of them. From what she told my mom, she was like, “If you want to still have a relationship with your daughter you need to let it go. You need to let her make her own decisions. You cannot enforce this upon her.” So thank you aunt Stephanie. My mom then dropped conditions. It was very difficult for her for a time. Every time we had a phone call, she asked whether I had attended church. She mentioned God about every other sentence. I told my mom I was like. “I'm not going to church and if every phone call comes back to religion then I'm not going to call.” That woke her up, and she finally dropped it. We have a much healthier relationship now, but it was a series of tug of wars to move out and set my own boundaries. LR: I know you talked a little bit last time that by this time you had a pretty good understanding that you were a part of the LGBTQ community, but you weren't able to really talk, obviously with your parents about it because of the things that they 22 had said to you. So once you had moved out, did you feel like you could, maybe start to explore that part of yourself a little bit or at least come to terms with that part of yourself? HK: Yes, absolutely. That's a big reason of why I moved out. When I initially moved to Ogden I have a cousin in the area that I'm good friends with. She's older than me, she's like 28, 29. Then she would have been like 26 and she lived in a bigger house with her newly wed husband, and she was like, “We have a spare bedroom if you want to come live with us.” While I was really good friends with her and would have loved that. I did not know her stance on religion or the LGBT community. I guess a part of me still assumes, though maybe I shouldn't, that everyone who is part of the LDS Church has a tendency towards being anti LGBT. Which is again, not approved by the church. I didn't know her stance, so I turned down the offer. Now, I wish I hadn't because we're even closer. She is very cool about it. She is LDS, but she is very cool about both religion and the LGBT community and she's been nothing but supportive. But at the time, I didn't know that. LR: So were you able to come out to yourself at least once you moved out? Or were you still struggling with that, too? HK: That was, again, another complex- I found it much easier to be accepting of other LGBT individuals than myself. I probably still have internalized a lot of the comments that my parents had made. A lot of the comments that they still make. Not nearly as often but they still make them. They still don't know. Maybe that makes me a coward but part of me feels like I owe it to them to tell them. But a part of me pushes back on that idea like, I don't really owe that information to anyone. And part of me is still concerned. I don't receive like rent help or anything for my parents, but they do cover like my current medical, what medical expenses with my broken ankle and they do little things for me here and there. Sometimes they'll buy 23 gas they pay for my phone bill and a part of me is like “I am not in a stable enough place financially to risk being cut off completely.” With a much closer relationship now, I'm not sure what would happen. I don't want to risk it because as frustrating as my parents are sometimes in general, my parents are very good to me. They're very kind to me. They don't understand some things but in places like medication and religion and stuff, when told by me, they either give me the space or they do actively try to understand. So I would be very upset to not have that relationship any more. A part of me is like, I don't know if A, they'd cut that off or B, if I would be allowed to see, talk to and interface with my siblings anymore. I still have two young sisters at home, very early high school. I feel a responsibility to act as something opposed to my parents homophobic ideologies, just in subtle ways, in small things. Because kids are just mimicking their parents most of the time. So just for little comments and stuff, I'm like, “Hey, we don't make those judgments about people. We don't say these things,” or, I heard my younger sister refer to gays and insult one. I was just like, “Why is that an insult?” She’s like, “It just is, it’s wrong” I'm just. “Think about it.” So just little things here and there. I don't like expect them to [illegible] anything, but if they ever reach a point where they are surrounded by people who are LGBT or if they find out that they are LGBT themselves, then they at least know that I could be talked to. I don't want to lose that, either. So. Gosh, I forgot what the question was. LR: Well, I'm going to ask you, because you completely answered it, but I'm going to ask you a quick follow up question in that do you think there will ever come a time when you'll be able to come out to your parents? HK: Yes. A part of me feels ready to now, but again, what's holding me back is this more precarious just coming out of college, just entering like a career world, hopefully might be going for more college, I'm not sure yet. The instability of college life 24 means that I am still hesitant to share. Because maybe it won't be as big a deal as I think it could be. I do tend to be more my parents have grown a lot since I moved out, and I recognize that, and I appreciate that. So I'm not sure, I don't think that they would like disown me, but I cannot discount the possibility when I am as precarious as I am. So I'm hoping that once I have gotten a stable job and I can afford my life expenses then I will tell them. LR: Makes sense. So I just have a few more questions, actually an important one. What is your major? HK: Oh, I am a Bachelor of Integrated Studies major in art history, history and English. LR: Wow. So you have an interest in all three of those. HK: Yes. Part of that decision is that my current hope for a career, and again, you learn more about yourself as you complete a degree. You never really know where you’re going to end up. But my plans with that major were to become a museum curator. But there isn't really a museum studies program in Weber State or most Utah universities, I think possibly that Uof U has one but I'm not certain about that. Because there is not a museum studies path, I've kind of cobbled some of my own proficiencies that would be related to that. LR: OK. Such as? HK: So like my heavy interest in art and art history and in history just regarding my own knowledge. I just love learning about history both close to home and distant just about any range, but I specifically really like ancient Mediterranean history. Then I've always enjoyed writing. There's always the possibility with a curatorial position like that, you'll be dealing with literature materials. So, those are some paths that I just kind of threw together, and I was like, this is kind of close. LR: OK, before I ask my final two questions, is there anything else you'd like to share in relation to your journey that we haven't covered? 25 HK: Yes. I didn't mention it in the course of this interview, but I currently identify as like bi-romantic asexual. Although I am not a heavy believer in labels. For all intents and purposes, I usually just refer to myself as queer. Which is a very, there's a lot of controversy over that term. But I am in the camp of even though it was a term that has only ever meant negative things to the outside community, it is a very inclusive term. LR: It is. HK: And it is the term that is used for academic purposes regarding the LGBTQ+ community, and I am currently of the camp that it is still a term that is not beyond reclamation. So most of the time, I just refer to myself as queer because I do believe that labels aren't hard and fast the way that many people believe that they are, especially in a community that is being so heavily suppressed and controlled. It takes a long time to figure ourselves out. You find things out as you go, you're like, I actually prefer this or I don't like this or this doesn't align with what I previously thought. I do not use labels heavily unless another member identifies himself with a certain label. So like, I always refer to my transgender friend as being trans. I always take what people say they are at face value. I don't want to downgrade that or anything. I'm just saying that it's a constant process of learning where most people spend a lot of their early teens figuring out their stances on a lot of things. As queer individuals are part of the LGBTQ+ community, you don't have that ability most of the time we grow up in households that tend to be very negative. You don't get that space to explore yourself and learn about yourself as much. So these are all things that we tend to piece together later on in life. So I tend to use labels more as like shoe sizes. Like, this is something that I identified as at one point but now I know a little more about myself, and I've grown since then, so I'm no longer a size eight I'm now a size nine or 10 or whatever. 26 LR: Right, thank you. One of the things that I have done in the beginning of these interviews, which I didn't do in this one and I apologize profusely, is I always begin with the question of how do you identify? But I also share my own. So I'm going to take a minute and do that now. Even though I haven't, I should have done it at the beginning. HK: You're good. LR: So identify as she/her and as straight. And you said you identify as. Help me out bi-romantic asexual. HK: Yes. LR: I don't understand bi-romantic. HK: Bi-romantic means that you are attracted romantically to people of multiple genders. LR: Okay, so it's it's almost like demi sexual. HK: Yes, demi sexual is more of the ideology that you are not sexually attracted to anyone until you've grown like a close relationship with them. LR: Oh, OK. OK. HK: So Pan and Bi are used pretty interchangeably. Pan romantic pan sexual. I say I am bi-romantic just because that's a term that's been used longer and is more inclusive than a lot of people give it credit for. But bi-romantic just means that I am romantically inclined to be attracted to anyone. LR: OK. And then can you explain asexual? HK: Asexual is for me, it means that I do not experience sexual attraction of other individuals. LR: OK. HK: It's not common. I think people say that it's about one percent of the population is asexual. So I am romantically attracted to people. But I don't share that sexual inclination. 27 LR: OK. I get that now. All right. Sophia, are you comfortable sharing? SJ: Yeah. I use she/her pronouns, and I identify similarly as queer. LR: OK, thank you. HK: I should mention that I generally use they/them pronouns. LR: OK, thank you. That that's important because I keep referring to you as she, and HK: Honestly, it is not a big deal for me at all. LR: Okay, well it's something that I am actively trying to do better at, which is why I ask. HK: In that case, I prefer they/them pronouns. But again, it's not a huge deal for me. Most people use her and it doesn't bother me at all. LR: Well, I will do a better job than with your pronouns because it matters to me. So. HK: Thank you. LR: So even though we should have done that at the beginning,. HK: It's okay we got there. LR: I really do appreciate your patience with me about it. Two last questions. How does your experience in Northern Utah compare with, even though you grew up in the Northern Utah, how does it compare with other areas that you have lived in? So like comparing where you grew up to where you're living now. HK: Believe it or not. Ogden is a far more, Ogden has a long way to go. This is a very religiously inclined state, and with that, there are a lot of prejudice regarding the LGBTQ+ community. But unlike a lot of locations Ogden does, and my experience with Weber State University specifically, is that there are active efforts to try and be more inclusive and more understanding, and I appreciate that beyond belief. Where I grew up in northern Utah they're not that same effort. My high school never had a GSA, or anything in that same vein. The language that was used there tends to be a lot more derisive regarding the LGBT community, just things were just labels and terms are used very negatively, very insulting, very jokingly. 28 There was one experience in high school where again, I never felt at home at church because of all the ideologies are being pushed both against the LGBTQ+ community and about the idea of women staying home and being homemakers and mothers, especially since I already was starting to figure out at this point that I was asexual. I wasn't sure I even ever wanted children, so I didn't appreciate these constant ideas being pushed at me, and one time I brought a friend because again, I never felt comfortable with the young women's group. I brought a friend and just to help me, whether its because they were having a lot of the same realizations that I was having and we were just leaning against each other while we were reading the assigned lesson. One of the other girls took a picture of the two of us, just like reading together and tagged it with like “proof that HallieKate's a lesbian” or something and spread that. She's unfortunately, very popular, lot of the young women in my group were. That spread, and a part of me didn't care because I was like, “They're actually closer than they think they are.” I already knew that none of them were my friends. But that hurts, it stings deep, just to know that people don't have that issue with what they believe to be untruth. They have no problem with spreading rumors about you and making things difficult for you. A part of me is like, “It's one thing to do that to me, but do not involve my friend in any of that.” There would just be things like that. You would hear stories about kids in high school who got beat for being gay or whatever. This was a very, very religious high school. Everyone went to seminary, and it's just those things that if you're LGBTQ+. Almost no one is your friend. I think we had a small group of other people who also were very LGBTQ. I had a friend who was gender fluid. I had a friend who was also asexual and just seemed very welcoming. I had a couple of friends who are cis and just open with the LGBTQ community, weren't bothered by it at all, which it's very sad that it was 29 uncommon where I was. I had trans friend, I had a lesbian friend, we were all supportive of each other, but you never felt like you were anything more than a minority and a problem. You don't share those things. If you figure things out about yourself, you keep it to yourself, because the last thing that any one needs in high school is more problems. You've all got enough on your plate to deal with. So, Ogden, while certainly not a perfect place, a lot of that has to do with the fact that it is a more urban area. The more diversity there is in urban locations, the more accepting you find people's mindsets to be because they receive those active interactions with people from a variety of backgrounds and identifications. They learn not only about other people, but also about themselves and what prejudices that they had to internalize, and they begin to confront those. Ogden is not perfect, but it does try. Most people try, and honestly, that's the biggest thing that anyone could hope for. Sometimes you slip up and you say things wrong and you make judgment calls that are not accurate. But there's always room to improvement, what matters most to me is that you are making an effort. I don't expect anyone's knowledge to be perfect. As I said, I'm very forgiving about pronouns and labels and anything. So it doesn't bother me, the fact that there is even an attempt is a huge deal for me because I didn't I didn't grow up with attempts. So Ogden is a more generally accepting atmosphere where here there is a space that is made for LGBTQ individuals. Again, a lot of that has to do with the urbanization of the area and the fact that this is a university where people are beginning to explore that part of themselves they weren't allowed to previously, among other adults who have all grown as people. It's not something to be discounted. LR: OK. Before I ask my last question, Sophia, do you have any questions? SJ: I don't think so. 30 LR: OK, so my last question, Hallie, is what advice would you give to young people growing up today who identify within the LGBTQ+ community? I realize that you're still in that kind of that same age group, but… HK: I am . LR: I asked that of Nute who is 22, so I'm going to ask that of you because his response was quite interesting, and I would love to hear yours. What advice would you give? HK: It's OK to not know. It's all right. It's a growing experience. You don't have to know right now where you are, what your stances are. As uncomfortable as it can be sometimes, always put your own safety and the safety of others first. That could be hard, it can be difficult, and sometimes you have to swallow a lot of things that you would like to say. You have to pretend that things don't bother you, but there will be a time and a place where things are better. Surround yourself with people that not only understand but actively attempt to better understand. It's a growing experience and life is hard. There are going to be a lot of back steps and sometimes it feels like just being who you are paints a target on your back. That's not OK, it's not your fault. I cannot express enough, it's not your fault. But it certainly will feel like it. It's hard and it's difficult, but you will find understanding and acceptance in places you never expected it or you never would have hoped for it. There's always another side and there's always a light at the end of the tunnel, even though it feels dark and scary and isolating. You can feel like there's no one else in the world who understands what you're going through but there are, whether you can reach them or not. There is a whole community of individuals who experienced exactly what you have. They want to be inclusive. And there is a lot of debate and there's a lot of politics and there's a lot of problems but everyone is trying to be better. So you just have to hold on. Grip tight into what you know and what you stand for, even if you can't 31 announce it and you can't share it, you hold that knowledge close. Until there is a time when you can be yourself and you can share those experiences. You will be better for it. I can't express this enough. There is always something waiting for you. There is always better things to go to. Sometimes that means, and I hate that this is the truth of things. It shouldn't be like that, and it shouldn't be this way. But sometimes that means burying a piece of yourself in the present. It's not gone. It will be there when you are in a place where you are safe. You can reacknowledge it. But just keep pushing forward. Always move forward. No matter how hard it is. Just hold on. It will get better. LR: Thank you. I appreciate. You have me in tears. I really appreciate your willingness to share, and your insights.