Road Tripping

We're tryin to get an idea of what's going on across North America. Does anyone have anything to say about being young and queer in Halifax, Canada, in particular? --YoungGayAmerica.com

The year was 2001, and Benjie Nycum and Mike Glatze were taking a road trip. The two were boyfriends in their mid-twenties. Benjie grew up in Nova Scotia, so they had made the transcontinental trip from their home in San Francisco to visit Benjie's family in Halifax, Nova Scotia, maybe a dozen times. But this time they thought they'd do something different.

Halifax is always a friendly scene. I prefer to be open more in Hali than out where I live, a small community where everyone knows everybody. --Jason

Benjie and Mike met out in San Francisco, where they both interned at XY, a glossy magazine geared towards young gay men. They volunteered at the National Gay and Lesbian Hotline, and they even edited a book, "The XY Survival Guide: Everything You Need to Know About Being Young and Gay. As a result of these experiences, "We knew that we were living in an ivory tower in San Francisco," says Benjie. Not everyone was lucky enough to live in a big city where gay people were everywhere.

It's really open here. I moved here from Toronto, and I walk around like this (Keith is wearing supa-cute makeup), and I've never had anyone say anything to me here. Never any problems. --Keith

So the two made phone calls and sent emails to friends all over the country, and asked those friends to spread the word to their friends. They wanted to interview gay youth all over North America, and they wanted to post transcripts of those interviews on the web. Their friend, Teddee McGuire, set up a website, and Young Gay America (YGA) was born. They set out from Halifax with a bag lunch and cookies from Benjie's mom.

I started dating the second out gay man in my school. And since all my friends already knew him, when it became public, it wasn't like "OH MY GOD!" It was more like "OH, ISN'T THAT CUTE!" --Ken

They traveled down the east coast, stopping in Vermont, Massachusetts, D.C., Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and New Mexico before heading home to California. They stopped in big cities, small cities, college campuses and a handful of small towns. "Well, we made it. We've been all over the country," they wrote in the final entry of the online log from the trip. "If we missed you in your part of the country on our travels this time around, we definitely wanna see you, and we'll be back." And they did go back.

In all, YGA has been on 10 road trips, which altogether encompassed 44 U.S. states, three Canadian provinces and, in an unlikely turn, Croatia. And what they found surprised them. "They're doing their thing. They're doing alright," says Benjie of the gay youth they met on their travels. "They're not leaving their small towns to go to a big city. They're sticking it out where they are." Benjie acknowledges that "some of the interviews aren't even posted because they're so brutal," but says nevertheless, "I think we expected to find harsher environments as the main thing, and it was more the exception."

… I had a great group of friends who became even closer. I even brought a boyfriend to the prom. --Graham

After that first trip, YGA never had to publicize again. Word spread about the road trips and the website, and soon Benjie and Mike were inundated with emails from youth all over the country who wanted YGA to stop in their towns.

On YGA's second trip, Benjie and Mike stopped at Dalhousie University in Halifax. They did a group interview with DalOut, the school's queer student organization. A nervous 19-year-old named Scott MacPhee was there. It was one of the first times he had ever been to a DalOut meeting, and he almost didn't show up this time, either. "I remember walking home that night," he says. "I was halfway home, and I was like, 'well, I'm either going to have the guts to just go and be myself, or I'm going to be just half myself for the rest of my life.' So I just decided to turn around and go." Scott was so inspired by Benjie and Mike "just having the guts to be themselves, and also to go such large distances just to hear what the youth had to say" that he decided to join them on their next trip.