Gay Community Interview Paper

For this specific paper, I took it upon myself to interview my co-worker and friend Daniel. Daniel is a UNLV college student who is currently studying to be a nurse. We first met many years ago in high school and eventually reconnected when I joined CVS Health in January of 2015. As a consequence, I selected my subject on the gay community and the social impact that this group has had in our contemporary society. Although I’ve previously read the struggles that the LGBT community has consistently endured, I wanted to hear personal experiences from Daniel in order to fully comprehend the magnitude of the situation. The interview with Daniel demonstrates the social inequality that exists within our society in terms of how minority’s including …show more content…
As his freshman year of high school came to an end, he decided to take a bold action by testing the waters with his sexual orientation. Few weeks before final exams, he revealed his close friend that he was gay. Although Daniel didn’t think it was a big deal, his friend had a different perspective about this matter. Rather than keeping that information private, he shared it with the rest of his friends as the rumor escalated all the way to the football locker room. Bullying by other students begin to happen and it got worse for each day. Things got increasingly difficult for him to the point where he made the decision to transfer to Palo Verde High School. That year, I met him in Chemistry class where we were lab partners for several projects. Throughout the year, our bond grew stronger as we both had similar interest in video games, television shows, etc. During his senior year, he revealed me that he was gay. To his surprise, my reaction reflected my personality. I didn’t make it a big deal. While he was expecting a similar reaction to his former friend from his previous high school, I simply told him that it didn’t …show more content…
Before I proceed, I’d like to mention that Daniel has given me permission to detail these encounters with other students in what he calls his “deepest regrets”. Although I consider Daniel a good person and a model citizen, he wasn’t always the nicest person to be around with. During his early years in elementary school, Daniel was consistently in the principal’s office for making derogatory comments to other students in the form of “fag”, “gay”, and “retard”. I was astonished to see that this person who was once bullied in high school was delinquent as a young child. As Daniel spoke to me about his troubled past, I began to analyze his body and facial expressions. He was clearly devastated by the actions that he had done in his youth. He told me “I was a coward hiding behind a shield. Making these false assertions to my classmates as a way to compensate for the feelings that I had for other guys. I was confused and angry because I didn’t know why I was attracted to other guys… I knew that it was wrong because my family had always spoken negative about gay people.” Although his actions were deplorable, I understood Daniel’s thinking process as to why he had committed these acts of oppression. Daniel has since contributed to the LGBT movement through canvasing and encouraging other young LGBT community members that it’s okay to be yourself despite the