ODEI Celebrates LGBTQIA+ Pride Month with Stories from Empire State University Community

(SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY – June 4, 2025) Welcome to the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’s Reason & Respect: Unplugged for the month of June! June is LGBTQIA+ Pride Month, and we invite you to celebrate with us by reading the lived experiences and stories of three Empire State University community members. We also encourage you to share your thoughts, questions, and stories via our community discussion board.  

In the following Q&A, we will hear from Nathaniel Gray, Bryant O’Donnell, and Ade Byron. 

About the Interviewees:  

Nathaniel Gray, MSW, is executive director of the Pride Center of the Capital Region, an external partner focused on queer equity that supports many schools in the area. They are a nonbinary leader with a master’s in social work from Fordham University and a focus on macro-level changes to improve life for queer New Yorkers. 

Bryant O’Donnell is a 2025 SUNY Empire graduate, former vice president of the Student Government Association (SGA), and a current SGA senator. Bryant is founding executive director of Raising the Vibration and a spokesmodel for HIV Stops With Me. His story can be found here. 

Ade Byron is program manager in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at SUNY Empire. Their background is in using restorative practices to build resilient communities of care and belonging, and they are currently pursuing their master’s in social work at the University at Albany. 

Can you share a bit about your identity and what being a part of the LGBTQIA+ community means to you? 

Nathaniel: As a person who grew up with all the bullying that comes with being an effeminate boy in rural America, it took a long time for me to understand that I was normal, but that culture and conditioning around me was not. As I grew older and identified as a gay man, I realized that I didn’t feel like I fit in much with the cis-gay man community and explored my gender identity through drag performance and more femme gender expression.  Because of how I was raised, I still have a lot of unlearning to do to just be myself. 
 
What it means to me to be in the queer community is that I have family who gets it. We often look at DEI from a lens of “vertical” marginalized communities, such as race, religion, and ethnicity, where the person has been marginalized from childhood, but typically raised by at least one parent who shares that marginal identity. Queer people are more akin to “horizontal” marginal communities, such as people living with disabilities: children who do not have a parent or a family member who can commiserate with the experience or teach them their history and support their growth. That is why the concept of chosen family isn’t just powerful for us; it is necessary to begin the process of understanding yourself and your history. 

Bryant: I’ve been gay since my youngest years of memory. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t come out and embrace it till I was 23! The ages of 23 to 33 were years of discovering love, myself, trauma, recovery, divorce, and eventually rehab. [It was a time of being] wild and out and [I] became HIV positive. 

Ade: I identify as nonbinary, which means I don’t identify as either male or female. I also identify as queer, which for me acts as an umbrella term that identifies me as part of the LGBTQIA+ community. Being a part of this community and finding others that identify with the LGBTQIA+ community has taught me so much about myself and the world around me. It opened my eyes to a worldview I was never exposed to growing up and has given me a community of people who not only accept me but understand me. I feel like a part of something larger, a part of a group of people who have shown strength, resilience, and pride throughout history and today. 

Where have you found or created communities of care and belonging that support and uplift your identity/identities within Empire State University and beyond? 

Nathaniel: In meeting with the team working on DEI initiatives in the community, I have found family that understands our experiences and who I trust to share and defend the protections that queer students have. In my personal life, I’m someone who no longer has—and never really had—a mother. Although she is alive, her faith is one that excludes my existence and pathologizes me and the rest of our community. I’ve built a  network of chosen family that is stronger than I imagined possible to fill the gaps my own family has left behind. 

Bryant: My entire SUNY Empire support system. My student body and the SGA. 

Ade: I first found my LGBTQIA+ community when I went to college. There was a lot I didn’t know about the queer community and how I fit in, but there were people who took me in and held space for me as I found myself. These people became my chosen family and helped me build the confidence to show up authentically in the spaces I occupied. At SUNY Empire, I have found community in my co-workers, both those who are a part of the LGBTQIA+ community themselves and those who are allies. I’ve also found community in those who aren’t familiar with the LGBTQIA+ community but take the time to ask questions and learn or make the effort to use my correct pronouns when they aren’t used to using they/them pronouns for individuals. 

What role has community played in your journey of self-discovery and living authentically? 

Nathaniel: What I love about being queer is that we choose authentic living over fear every day. For all of my feminine attributes, I know that I had to be braver and stronger at a very young age than any of the hyper-masculine cousins and uncles I have who talk a big game but could never choose authenticity over discomfort or fear. My inspiration to choose self and choose truth has come at a cost, and the peers and leaders of the queer community have modeled that bravery over and over again for me to learn from. It’s even allowed me the time and processing to see that there are more options for people assigned male at birth to exist in the queer space as something other than just a cis-gay man. Community visibility gives me strength, inspiration, and joy. 

Ade: I was only brave enough to come out as queer after I watched people I looked up to do it first. They showed me that it was possible to exist as my full self in a space where I didn’t know it was possible to do so. Having those two role models led me to let people know who I was and then be a part of a larger community that taught me about different identities and labels until I found the ones that felt right for me. My community has helped me find home in every place I’ve been by recommending LGBTQIA+ community spaces, resources, events, and even things like cafes and healthcare.  

Thank you for engaging with this conversation and don’t forget to share your thoughts and questions on the community discussion board!