Dwayne Ratleff grew up Black during the turbulent Civil Rights era while trying to discover his gender identity and still survive an abusive stepfather.
鈥淚 realized on a fundamental level my country hated my guts,鈥� he said. 鈥淔undamentally, that's the truth. I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. I decided I was not going to hate me, too, and that empowered me so much.鈥�
He explores that childhood in his combination memoir and novel, 鈥�,鈥� much of which takes place in his birthplace of Bellefontaine, Ohio.
鈥淚 have family in Delaware, Urbana, Cleveland, Columbus,鈥� he said. Although today he lives in California, he said, 鈥淚f it wasn't for COVID, I would be coming back for my family reunion鈥� which we've had for the last 70 years.鈥�
Although his immediate family moved to Baltimore when he was five, he still came back every summer to visit throughout the 1980s.
鈥淚t's so funny because -- despite being in all those other places -- [I still have] Midwestern values,鈥� he said. 鈥淪o much so that I actually married a fellow Midwesterner. It really never leaves you.鈥�
Switching up gender roles
In the book, he recounts knowing from an early age that he was gay.
鈥淚 was actually pretty good at sports,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut when the boys wanted to play baseball, I said, 鈥業'm gonna play with the girls.鈥� It was really kind of hard for people to pin me down. If I didn't like [something], I just switched up the gender roles and went where I wanted to. The sexual part of being gay didn't come into being until [my] teens.鈥�
By that time, he had moved to Connecticut.
鈥淚 was one of a handful of Black kids, and nobody else I knew was gay,鈥� he said. 鈥淪o, I had no peers [and] no peer pressure. I didn't have a family that was telling me, 鈥榊ou had to be this or do this,鈥� I was free to be who I wanted.鈥�
He says that was a contrast to Bellefontaine which 鈥渉as a decent Black population, but I'm related to everyone,鈥� he said. And it was also quite different from Baltimore, which was still unofficially segregated in the late 1960s.
鈥淢artin Luther King Jr. was killed on my mother's birthday,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 remember because we're watching TV, we had just turned off the lights so my mother can blow out the candles, and she blew out the candles and Walter Cronkite came on and announced that he had been shot. It was just so surreal.鈥�
In the aftermath, Maryland Gov. Spiro Agnew ordered schools closed. That鈥檚 all in the book, since Ratleff feels history has minimized how traumatic that experience was for kids at the time.
鈥淚 remember thousands and thousands of white soldiers coming to the city with bayonets,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou see things like that in Ukraine or other places, but the average suburban white American doesn't see that [here]. They came to our school and ordered us out.鈥�