BUILDING CONNECTIONS & POSITIVE MENTAL HEALTH
BUILDING CONNECTIONS & POSITIVE MENTAL HEALTH Jim Olive-Liebhart remembers the revelatory experience of his first year of playing in the Columbus Lesbian and Gay Softball Association’s (CLGSA) summer league. “In the league, we interacted with each other in daylight. We could function like normal people, out in the sun, and it was healthy,” notes Jim. “The league was the first gay organization I joined when I was young and still kind of going through the coming out process, so it was crucial.” Jim is a 47-year-old gay man, husband to Jason and a father of two beautiful kids who light up his Facebook feed. He is also a softball player and a suicide attempt survivor. Elements of his story aren’t uncommon. Jim understood he was gay – though he didn’t have a word for it – at a young age. He remembers crushing on the gym teacher in his elementary school. But he grew up “very Christian”- that elementary school was a Christian school. He attended Christian summer camps. He and his mom went to church almost every Sunday. His extended family was Christian. The brand of Christianity that surrounded him was not LGBTQ-friendly. Jim’s earliest conscious recognition that his attractions were not acceptable came courtesy of that same gym teacher. “I remember I did something in class one day, and he pulled me aside and said, ‘What the hell are you, a little faggot?’”
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Jim recalls. “Because of the feelings I was feeling in the moment, the association was pretty quickly attached with, ‘Ok, if you like boys, this is clearly not a good thing.’” Noelle Kiwas also knew at a young age that she wasn’t like other kids. A 59-yearold transgender woman, Noelle spent her childhood in Orange County, California. Noelle is also a softball player and a suicide attempt survivor. “Growing up, I knew I was different. I didn’t know how different until I got older,” says Noelle. “I just thought I was the freakish kid who didn’t fit in anywhere. Ever since I was six years old, I thought I should have been a girl. I felt like a girl all my life.” To survive the pervasive and consistent homophobic and transphobic trauma from their family members, schools, and communities, Noelle and Jim responded as most young LGBTQ people in an unsafe world do: they stifled their feelings well into their teens. “I had to kind of pretend like I was somebody else and just keep quiet,” Noelle recalls. Noelle dove into music and, later, dance. Jim committed himself to Christianity. “I recognized that hey, I am gay, and it’s really, really bad,” says Jim. “I started throwing myself big time into religion, praying over and over and over again, doing everything you possibly can in order
48 COMPETE 2021 GSWS Special Edition
