Com­ing Out: LGBTQ in Col­lege

In 2009, Bran­don Kat­ten­braker was the av­er­age high-school stu­dent deal­ing with strug­gles of every­day life. That was un­til he re­al­ized that he was at­tracted to the op­po­site sex. As he ven­tured into col­lege, he be­came more of him­self and found it eas­ier for him to be his own per­son and talk to peo­ple.

He then met his boy friend at the time, Collin. When they started dat­ing, Bran­don thought it would be nec­es­sary to tell cer­tain peo­ple in his life about it. This is when he came out to his par­ents and aunt. Un­like most sit­u­a­tions of com­ing out in the US as a mem­ber of the LGBTQ+ com­mu­nity, Bran­don’s fam­ily was ac­cept­ing of this re­al­iza­tion. It might not have been their plan for him, but they still loved him and were okay with it.

“Every­one was to­tally fine with it, and hon­estly, I think peo­ple love me more be­cause of it.”

How­ever, com­ing out to all of his friends and class­mates from high school was slightly dif­fer­ent. His boyfriend at the time, Collin, wanted to put it on Face­book and Bran­don said go for it. “As this was all com­ing out, I thought I needed to put my phone on mute, be­cause i was­n’t sure how the re­ac­tion would be.”

But it sur­prised him. On the re­la­tion­ship sta­tus up­date, he got about 500 likes and had about 50 peo­ple text him about it. The day he ac­tu­ally came out, oth­ers came out of the closet to him. “Its such a re­ward­ing ex­pe­ri­ence that I was able to help oth­ers grow and help oth­ers to be able to come out to him about that.”

Ac­cord­ing to do­some­thing.org, 42 per­cent of LGBTQ peo­ple are “liv­ing in an un­wel­com­ing en­vi­ron­ment.” While many LGBTQ+ peo­ple are afraid to come out or be dif­fer­ent, it’s some­thing that is be­com­ing more and more so­cially ac­cepted. Maryville’s Gay Straight Al­liance of­fers a great way for those strug­gling with self-iden­tity to find sup­port and guid­ance. This or­ga­ni­za­tion is also great for those who may not be a mem­ber of the LGBTQ+ com­mu­nity, but are sup­port­ive of those in the com­mu­nity and want to serve as an ally. Ac­cord­ing to maryville.edu, “MUGSA pro­vides an open door for all stu­dents from every walk of life. We also pro­vide the Maryville stu­dent body with the ed­u­ca­tion and op­por­tu­ni­ties to speak out about dis­crim­i­na­tion, in or­der to cre­ate tol­er­ance on cam­pus for a state of well be­ing that is op­ti­mal for our aca­d­e­mic suc­cess.”