“In New York, Being Gay Becomes a Total Non-Issue.” – Vogue
Growing Up, Coming Out is a series of personal reflections from queer American designers, released every day this month.
Jack McCollough: The only time I heard the word gay growing up was in a negative connotation. We were going through puberty at the height of the AIDS epidemic, and there was a lot of fear.
Lazaro Hernandez: Gay meant AIDS. They co-branded those two things together, and it really worked to scare the shit out of you.
McCollough: I grew up in a pretty conservative, pretty strict household saying “Yes sir” and “No sir” to my dad. But then I went to boarding school outside of Boston for junior and senior year, which was a totally different world, and it just felt really easy and comfortable to come out. By senior year I had a boyfriend, and we went to prom together.
Photo by Carmen Valdes/Getty Images.
Hernandez: I come from a Latin household. I’ve never told my dad the words “I am gay”—still to this day. It wasn’t talked about. He knew—but he never asked me, and I never told him.
McCollough: I don’t really remember having the conversation either—or maybe I just shut it out. It was a gradual evolution. They heard I had a boyfriend, and then maybe one weekend I brought him home. But they didn’t necessarily know everything. And, like Lazaro, there was never a moment where I said to my dad, “I’m gay.” But they’re insanely supportive and have no issues with me being gay now. And they love Lazaro—they’ve known him for 25 years.
Hernandez: The beauty of our story is that we came to New York at that pivotal time when we were transitioning from one world to the next. Here, being gay becomes a total non-issue.
McCollough: The minute we got to New York my life wasn’t looking back at all of the things that I was uncomfortable with as a child; it was looking forward to being ourselves for the first time.