Interview with Chase Glenn, September 19, 2019
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- Title:
- Interview with Chase Glenn, September 19, 2019
- Date:
- 2019
- Interviewer:
- Thayer, Rebecca
- Description:
- Chase Glenn (pronouns: He/Him/His), white executive director of the Alliance for Full Acceptance (AFFA), speaks about himself and his family, his life impacted by a growing awareness of the LGBTQ community and its issues, his transition, and his professional development that took him from church work to his current position. Growing up in Mt. Vernon, IL, an insular, small and rural community into a loving and giving Southern Baptist family, Glenn was "pretty naive to the world growing up." While he "felt like the other," he "didn't have the words or the real understanding" of his identity. In a world where "heterosexual sex was bad, then gay sex was not just not on the table at all," he did not have a frame of reference or knowledge about gay or trans people. Not until attending Belmont University in Nashville, TN did Glenn know gay people and there it was a shock to be told that women could never be ministers in the Southern Baptist denomination, despite Glenn's life-long "call" to the ministry. Never "feeling fully a girl," Glenn began a relationship with another woman, that being the "path of least resistance" and worked in churches. When outed as a lesbian at work in a church in Florida, Glenn was given the option to stop living that way or be fired. That prompted a 2006 move to Charleston, SC, where Glenn maintained a relationship with a lesbian, was married, came out successfully to his family, and worked for the Mt. Pleasant Presbyterian Church. After seven years he began to work for Blackbaud, and his awareness grew as to his true identity. His relationship ended; he discusses some of the lesbian and other bars in Charleston he attended, as he openly pursued his transition, sharing it online and on his dating profiles. He met a woman whom he married and now the couple has a son through invitro fertilization. Glenn discusses his fears of being an appropriate father and recalls his growing involvement in the LGBTQ community, doing the design and layout for the first Pride programs, serving on its board, that of AFFA, and working for SC Equality and the Trans Action Committee. Having gotten a master's degree in counseling and experiencing again the call to advocate for, and work with, people, Glenn, after discussions with his wife, left the safety of his corporate job to become the director of the non-profit AFFA. He describes the directions in which he took the organization, details the complexities of the community needs assessment survey AFFA and its partners undertook, discusses some of the results, talks about how race and racism affect the community and how society affords him "white male straight privilege" because of his appearance.
- Collection Title:
- South Carolina LGBTQ Oral Histories, Archives, and Outreach
- Contributing Institution:
- College of Charleston Libraries
- Media Type:
- Oral Histories
- Topical Subject:
- Transgender people--Identity, Homophobia--Religious aspects--Baptists, Transgender parents--South Carolina--Charleston
- Geographic Subject:
- Charleston (S.C.), Nashville (Tenn.)
- S.C. County:
- Charleston County (S.C.)
- Language:
- English
- Shelving Locator:
- Mss LGBTQ-OH-058
- Date Digital:
- 2019-09-19
- Digitization Specifications:
- Mp3 derivative audio created with Audacity software. Archival masters are wav files.
- Format:
- audio/mpeg
- Copyright Status Statement:
- Copyright © College of Charleston Libraries.
- Access Statement:
- All rights reserved.
- Access Information:
- For more information contact Special Collections at Addlestone Library, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, 29424.
- Admin ID:
- 250566
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