The San Antonio LGBT Chamber of Commerce is seeking performers, sponsors and vendors for their fifth annual National Coming Out Day celebration on October 13 at the Mission Marquee Plaza. National Coming Out Day started in 1988 when LGBTQ people were encouraged to come out on the theory that once people know that they have…
The Pursuit of Love: Navigating Sexuality Through a Transgender Lens
The first time I ever “came out” as anything was in seventh grade. I had let a very, very small handful of friends know that I thought I was bisexual, as I had found myself developing crushes on people regardless of their gender. However, since these so-called friends coded me as a gay boy, most…
Filmmaker Alden Peters Shares His Coming Out Story in Intimate Documentary
In the documentary Coming Out, filmmaker Alden Peters turns the camera on himself as he reveals to his family and friends that he is gay. During a phone interview with Out In SA, Peters, 26, who runs a small production company in New York City, talked about the reason he made his coming out story…
Supermodel Patricia Velásquez on her Warm Welcome to the Family
Don’t try putting a label on Patricia Velásquez. An actress, producer, author, parent, entrepreneur, activist and supermodel, Velásquez, 45, isn’t interested in being just one thing — unless that one thing is a happy person. She found happiness early last year when she released her memoir Straight Walk. In the book, Velásquez, who has modeled…
Gay Memoirists Jamie Brickhouse and David Crabb Trip Down Memory Lane
“You know how some serial killers are “returners” — they’ll go back to the scene of the crime to see their handiwork?” David Crabb asks me. “I’m not a serial killer, but I’m a returner.” I’m not a serial killer either, but like Crabb, I’m a memoirist, so by definition, a returner. We are having…
From closeted to ‘Fearless’
Jeff Sheng honors student athletes like Matt Dooley, who found the courage to come out. Life is good these days for Matt Dooley, who is starting his second year at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston. This summer he was busy researching multiple sclerosis. His step is a little lighter, his outlook on…
Most Influential 2015: David Crabb
Bad Kid, David Crabb’s memoir of growing up gay in San Antonio during the 1990s is a hoot and a holler as we say in Texas. But it is so much more. Early on, he and his best friend Greg came out to each other. They hit the teen club circuit—Changez, Phazez, and Club FX.…
My kid came out to me…and now to you
I talk about my children quite often in my writing and my speaking engagements. But I only talk about what they are comfortable with me saying, and at the level they are comfortable with. They tend to be pretty open, but this particular bit of information isn’t something I have shared in the past. Why…
Former Christian music star on coming out and speaking up
“It was overwhelmingly positive, the amount of support people give when you’re your authentic self.” A self-described late-bloomer, former Christian music star Jennifer Knapp has been out since 2010. One might expect that with her faith background, coming to terms with her identity was difficult for the Grammy-nominated artist, but it wasn’t so. Raised in a…
A conversation with poet Richard Blanco
“We forget that to be an intelligent, thriving human being means to pull from all sources of information, knowledge, and understanding.” Richard Blanco received our democratic society’s version of literary knighthood in 2013 when President Barack Obama chose him as the nation’s fifth inaugural poet. He is the first Latino, the first openly gay man,…