“Why is it that Cambridge is this amazing bubble, this amazing utopia? But I didn’t feel safe enough or valid enough or affirmed enough to come out.”ĭuring his first two weeks at Williams, he had his first hookup with a guy, which affirmed his sexuality. “There’s a reason why I didn’t come out until I left,” Messan said. When he moved out of Cambridge and away from home, he finally grasped his identity.

He knew that he was attracted to men and never hid from queerer- or feminine-performing spaces, but he wasn’t going to tell anyone.

But he still wasn’t out.įor him, it felt like he didn’t have a sexuality - people asked him if he was gay in middle school, but in high school, nobody brought it up. Growing up, he became heavily involved in Boston’s theater and dance community, spaces that he says are often coded as queer. Kester Messan, 23, didn’t come out as gay until he arrived at Williams College in 2017.īorn in Togo, he and his family moved to Boston when he was six years old, first settling in Roxbury, then Cambridge. Photo of the LGBTQIA flag outside of the Boston Public Library.