Whatever the sun's going to set

Okay hi guys my name's Shannon and...this is too bright

Okay hi guys my name's Shannon

and I was gay and in a Sorority

Whaa

Okay so if you don't know what a sorority is it's basically like

a club in college with a bunch of girls

And you like have a house, where you like have meetings

and stuff and girls live in the house sometimes

I don't really know how to explain it but

if you've ever seen an American movie a lot of times

they will portray like a very stereotypical sororities

like the girls with like the Greek letters and like whatever

so you might have an idea of what it is

and if you don't know and I didn't explain it well just now... google it

So I went to the University of Oklahoma and I was in a Sorority

Tri Delta

Delta, Delta, Delta, Can I, Help Ya, Help Ya, Help Ya

I'm from Dallas Texas originaly

And my coming out process and like figuring out I was gay started in high school for sure

But it had, I had, a really bad experience umm...

Basically with someone's parents finding out

That I liked a girl

and then they kind of like ruined my life and outed me to like my family and stuff

It was just drama

So like my first experience with the idea of me being gay went really poorly

so in my mind I was like, "I do not want to be gay."

Obviously, if that's how that went I do not want to be gay at all

So, I went to like the most conservative school that I got into

And I joined a sorority cause I was like

I'm going to be straight... I'm going to be like those girls and I'm gonna

Pray the gay away and it's gonna

just go, it'll go away

That's not how this works just in case you're wondering

it doesn't it doesn't work at all

So Greek life in Oklahoma was huge at my school

There was like 12 different sororities and they all had like around 200 girls in them

very big sororities

for reference

This, these are all faces of girls in my sorority

a lot of them... there are a lot of them

So okay let's get to the dirt. What was it like being gay and being in a sorority?

It was so much fun... like I had so much fun

and I met some of my like forever best friends through it

but

Obviously, it was not all rainbows and butterflies it was

(helicopter noise)

Helicopter

it could be a bit hard at times

so... I'm gonna... explain it

I think I'm being really weird but I don't know why

Obviously, it's a very like hetero-normative environment

There's sororities for girls and fraternities for boys and like

And the sorority girls always date the fraternity boys and they always hang out

and it's like ahh we're straight... so straight

Very straight

So for a young gay who is also in the closet

it's a lot of straight ya know

It's also very religious like

a lot of the girls and guys

in the fraternities and stuff are super religious

which is awesome but

Sometimes it goes hand in hand with like a little bit of homophobia

especially in the south

so throughout the four years

definitely, definitely, heard a lot of homophobic statements

even said to me because no one knew I was gay so like

I was hearing stuff like that

alot

which is... hard

Especially when you're in the closet and you don't have a lot of self confidence

and you don't want to be gay

to hear like people who you love and like

who are you're best friends say bad things about you

without knowing it's just like

woah

takes a toll of the confidence

for sure, for sure

I remember I had a girl come into my room one time

and she said

"Shannon oh my gosh the craziest thing just happened"

"I was playing would you rather with someone and they said:"

"Would you rather?"

"Never, ever ever, have sex"

"or have sex with a girl"

and she was like

"Can you imagine how disgusting"

she was like, "Obviously I'd just never have sex."

That's just one example of so many like

little, little, comments and things that happened

but like

that was like 5 years ago

and I still remember to this day

who said it, when they said it, where I was sitting like

how it made me feel I'll never forget

how bad

things like that made me feel about myself

so

I also lived in the house for 2 years

So there was like a house just specifically for my sorority right Tri Delta

So we had like over a 100 girls

could fit and lived in the house

and it was really, really, really, really, cool I loved it

but

I spent a lot of time

feeling super duper paranoid

that someone was going to find out that I was gay

and that they might, potentially like, try to kick me outta the house

it was like a re-occurring nightmare that I had

all the time

I just never wanted anyone to like

find out and then think like, "Oh my god Shannon's like

"Shannon's going to what us change... or Shannon's going to like"

We shared bathrooms... like I, I don't know

I just had this fear of what everyone was going to think of me

and like thing about me being...

gay

Whoa an aggressive light change... sorry

the sun is setting on me

I think the hardest part about it is that

I felt very lonely

cause you're surrounded by

All these people who are like your best friends

and you're thinking about something all the time

and not getting to talk to anyone about it

and they were all just getting to like be themselves

And you know... this sad little gay just felt like

scared

that would be a good word for it

And also this is going to sound, so sad, but

it was so hard for me personally because

there was nothing I wanted more... at the time

then to be straight

I thought that would make my life so much easier

I could just avoid all the struggle of like coming out

if I could just be straight

And so... it was really hard to be surrounded by

hundreds of girls

Who are kind of like everything you want to be

and you can't make yourself figure out how to like them

that

concept

made it... very difficult... for me

but

as I became more comfortable

with my sexuality and more confidence with the idea of being gay

and started to come out to some of them

everything got so much better

so, so much better

even after I told just one of my sorority sisters

I finally felt like I had an ally

like I had an outlet someone to talk to about

everything I was thinking about which was

consuming my like

all my thoughts all the time

and this way I finally has someone to talk to

life is so much easier

after to start just being youself

I wish that I had just

been able to be myself

sooner

And I hadn't put so much pressure on myself

to try and be like the girls that were around me

and just be myself... because

life got so much better and also like

I'm so much more

happy

and then when I graduated college

I fully came out

to like every one just like on social media

Obviously

And I got like an overwhelming response

from girls in my sorority like so many of them texted me

and reached out and were like

"We're so proud of you, like I wish you'd told us sooner"

it was so

amazing

Tri Delta

here's to you

In the end I don't regret being in a soroity at all

I have so many amazing memories and like great friends from it

and it taught me so much

So if you're watching this video because you're in a sorority and you're gay

or because you're thinking about being a sorority

and you're gay or...

you're just curious. I don't know

it's hard for me to say

whether or not you should do it

because I think it's different for every single person

but if you are doing it

or you're in it

I just wanted to make this video to let you know that you're not alone

and people have done it too before you

and it will be so much better if you just

tell people

and don't

spend

four years

Trying to hide such a big part of who you are because

that's not fun

for anyone

You have no idea how the people around you are going to react

Some of the people that I thought were super homophoic

because of the things they'd like said like... to my face

Turned out to be like some of like the biggest allys in my life

The things that they said

they didn't even mean them

because they were just ignorant and they didn't know

Also if you're watching this and you have no intention on ever being in a sorority

and you're not in a sorority now

but you're gay

you are not alone... either

And everything is going to be okay

even when things seem really, really, bad

and they're really hard

they get

better

take it from me because

it was

pretty bad

and now

It's amazing

Okay guys, that's my video for this week

I hope you guys liked it

It was a bit

Sad I think, I didn't mean for it to be sad

I was just trying to be honest about

My experience, so I hoped you liked it

annnnnd

yeah if you're new here

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Can you believe the light changed that agressively