The Bilerico Project | Daily experiments in LGBTQ

At the age of 63, Bobby is new to the GLBT community thanks to the movie, Brokeback Mountain. He is an example of what the movie did to thousands of men and women who were living closeted lives or lives of quiet desperation from love lost and the homophobia that surrounds us in our cities and religions. He became a key member of an online community known as The Ultimate Brokeback Forum, even finding himself the subject of a whole chapter in the book, Beyond Brokeback…the Impact of a Film.

Married until recently divorced after 43 years, he has 3 children and going on 12 grandchildren. His biggest blessing and burden has been membership for 33 years in the Mormon Church. The devastation of the movie and ending of his marriage and close relationship with the Church and his family combined into a tortuous coming out process over the past couple of years. He worked for decades for the Church and as a community activist in Mesa, Arizona and used the goodwill he engendered to produce two Op-Eds that were among the most commented upon during the past year in his hometown paper.

Bobby was lucky to find a good therapist, and surround himself with his old high school buddies via phone and Internet, and with the help of ‘nursing mothers’ and other gay men on his Brokeback Forum made the transition to his new gay world. He recently bought a home in the ‘gayborhood’ in Phoenix, connected with local GLBT leaders and organizations, and has put together what he calls his Brokeback Bobby’s Bois as a new familial-like support group.

His contributions to this blog will not come from years of experience as a gay man or in GLBT organizations, but will instead be refreshing optimism in the face of huge trials in life.