thompson, red robert

NAME red robert thompson
GENDER male
NICKNAMES red
AGE 25
MEMBERGROUP local
YEAR/OCCUPATION record shop owner
SEXUALITY openly gay
PLAYED BYMIKE SHINODA

"Ah, the thing about the closet is that I was never in it. I was never like..hiding it. I never sat my parents down and told them. When I was fourteen I told them about my crush on a guy. They are accepting people and were just like "oh, okay.". My friends found out the same way. Closets are dumb. I never knew anything was wrong with it. That was the issue. Right there. No one ever told me being gay was wrong. I didn't know what it was. So when someone was like "you're gay" all i said was "and?

Children are smarter than you think, you know? When I was younger, about five, I remember my aunt going 'you shouldn't hang out with him, he's black'. I didn't really understand. You teach your kids. No one else. So I didn't know any of that was considered wrong to some people. When I was about thirteen, my mom sat me down and told me that some people are mean to people because of their race, culture, language, who they liked and stuff like that. I was an ignorant teenager. I didn' know what 'bullying' was. I was homeschooled until highschool., "