Marshall Stowell Interview, History 150 Spring 2016, Conducted by Adam Whitley, Whitley Interviews His Uncle About Being Gay, March 18, 2016.

I recorded this interview on my Macbook Air on Logic Pro X and my Shure SM7B microphone. No editing was required.

My Uncle Marshall grew up in a catholic military family. He has traveled around the world, experiencing different cultures his entire life. He now works for People Services International in Washington D.C. He got married in North Carolina to his husband Chris two years ago and have recently adopted a baby girl.

W:   Hi my name is Adam Whitley and I’m going to be talking today with my Uncle Marshall about gay marriage and his life as a gay man. Here we go I am about to call him.

 

M: Hello

 

W: Hey Uncle Marshall, How are you doing?

 

M: Good, How are you?

 

W: I’m doing great, ugh, I am pulling up my questions right now. Alright, we are here to talk to you today about you life a little bit. Modern Society and the view of gay marriage and homosexuality in general. And I would like to ask you first, how old were you when you realized you were gay and what triggered that realization?

M: Probably in Second grade. I had a couple of friends that I would play with and I just remember having a different connection to them. Two boys. But I certainly couldn’t put a name or a concept to it. And then probably again in Middle school, I remember having a friend that I had different feelings for. But again I couldn’t put a name or a feeling to it. And then again in High School by my sophomore year, I knew that I was gay. I knew that what I was feeling before was my sexual orientation. And then I knew that, what I was feeling was being gay, but it didn’t feel like… it felt like something that would pass or something that I could deal with and that I could handle or that I could put behind me.

W: Do you remember the first time you heard the word gay or figured out that there was a word for how you felt?

M: …hmm…. Yeah it was more… my knowledge of it was more around a derogatory concept of it. People would say fag or your gay. It was always… what I learned about being gay was that it was dirty; that it was unhealthy; that it was… not normal. That it was perverse; that it was less then. So you know, probably around middle school is when you start hearing those things. Maybe a little earlier. So I knew what it meant I guess and when I started understanding myself better and having feelings. I could link the two and it became a very painful and uncomfortable thing.

W: Who was the first person you told you were gay?

M: …Hmm…HMM… That’s a good question. I don’t remember. I don’t remember. What I remember was that there was a period of experimentation in college and I had talked to people about being with a guy. But it wasn’t a choice I was making at the time. Then I moved to Atlanta and kind of left everyone I knew and everyone who knew me behind. And so I was able to kind of start over again. And start in a different way. But know I don’t really remember.

W: hmmm. Interesting. Who was the first person in your family that you came out to and when was this?

M: To Susan…my sister…. And.. I don’t remember when… but she was accepting and really nice. I came out to my mom after I… you know we used to go visit them in Florida and we would be on the beach and my dad would be like, “Whoa look at the tits on her!” And my mom was like, “When are you going to get married?” I think I was in my early 20’s and I was like, “I don’t know if I am.” And she said, “Why not?” And I said, “Do you want me to ask you that question?” And then she said,” Don’t tell me you’re queer.”

W: (shocked) oh god…

M: And I said, “If I were, this would not be the way to start the conversation.” And then she got angry and she said, “How long has it been like this?” And, “I can’t believe you’re doing this to us.” And, “If you ever tell your father, you will cause ou r divorce, you need to take this to your grave. It will give him a heart attack. You’re going to die of AIDS.”

W: OH MY GOD.

M: And then I said, “You have a right to your feelings, but you have no right to talk to me like that. So you might want to talk to somebody else. I will tell dad when I feel like I want to and it will be my decision and my choice.” And then a couple of years later, I think two years later; I told my dad. They had come to visit me in Atlanta and it was just too… you know, I just couldn’t do it anymore. I thought I would just drop them off back at the hotel and I thought I wasn’t coming back. They had another day to their visit and I thought that, you know, I’m not going back to see them anymore. It’s not something I can do. But I went back and I said,” Listen, there is something I need to tell you. I need to talk to you.” You know my mom was giving me eyes like, “Don’t tell your father.” And I said that, “I have two things to tell you. That you are an alcoholic and I worry about you and that the second is that I am gay. He said, “You probably have a good reason to be worried about me and you are the same person you were a half hour ago.” So it was really shocking because I felt like… I expected a good reaction from my mother and not a good reaction from my father and the reverse is actually what happened.

W: So your father actually took it a lot better than you thought he would?

M: Yes. Initially and ugh… you know what came to pass after that was more… And I think this was more of our family’s dynamic; probably the thing that happens in most families where alcoholism is present. It became something that you didn’t talk about. And so after I told him, He came to visit at various times and he knew that I had boyfriends and what have you. But when I called they would never say, “How is so and so? How are you guys doing? ” Or anything like that. So it was still a relatively lonely experience.

W: Ok… How was your point of view on American culture and religion affected by being an openly gay man?

M: You know it is interesting. I graduated high school in 1984; which is right around the time that AIDS got to the..

W: The US perspective?

M: The American consciousness. You know the link everyone made between gay and AIDS. And I remember having a particular distaste for the Reagans for their lack of support on AIDS and HIV. And it is interesting, if you Google a link to a press conference and I think it was Reagan’s press secretary trying to answer questions about AIDS and he would make jokes about fairies and umm… the belittling nature in which people were treated and talked about. It was a very scary time to kind of wake up into yourself and be like, “Oh my god. I’m part of this part of society that many of the people are dying. People don’t know what to do and why and at the same time, it’s this part of society where people are despised. I definitely did not feel… I mean… we grew up semi religious and after I realized I was gay, I realized like, “Fuck the church. I’m not less than.”

W: No I totally understand. What was your opinion on gay marriage at first and has it changed at all in your lifetime?

M: Yeah it is actually very interesting for me. I was against gay marriage at first more… probably for two reasons. One I didn’t think it was a winnable argument; that we would be able to make it legal. Second was that I had such disdained and distaste for organized religion at that moment. I figured that even if I wanted to get married, I wouldn’t do it in a church anyways. So why do we (as a community) even care? Why don’t we just fight for a civil marriage like they do in Europe and then if you want to get married in a church, go down to a church and get married but that’s not what defines marriage in other part’s of the world so why is it so important to us here? You know I definitely came to appreciate and then I think there was something after I became comfortable and felt like after a certain period of my life, I embraced the outsider status. I also felt like marriage was a construct of straight society and I didn’t feel like I needed to mold myself anymore, which was a painful experience growing up to something that was a straight construct. So what could I do that meant commitment in my life that did not that again did not have me mimicking, fitting in, trying to be part of…

W: OK the next question I am going to ask you is how has the American public’s point of view on gay marriage changed in the past ten years?

M: It’s been really amazing. It’s interesting; through my work, I am friends with Debra Messing and we were having dinner together in New York when gay marriage was being brought to the forefront and I remembered growing up watching Will and Grace before I had ever met her before and we were working together. She told me that it was Vice President Biden that tweeted out to her that it was Will and Grace that really helped him change his mind and we were talking about that that night that gay marriage was having such a movement and just talking about the importance of turning the light on coming out. Having characters that were more real and less…

W: Stereotypical?

M: yeah, less stereotypical, Less the joker, less the sexual deviant, what have you. So it has been amazing. I never thought after graduating high school hearing all the things on the news and the radio about gay people and about aids… you know I spent a good portion of my time in college wishing every night before I went to bed that I would just die in my sleep. So that person then fast-forwarded to now… it is such a different world. I am really grateful that I have been able to see the movement. It was such a drastic movement in relatively a short period of time if you think about such movements.

[Rest of Transcription omitted for length purposes]