Gilsinan: Have you have you spoken to any of these kids or their parents individually? What are you hearing from them?

Razer: What I really hear from the kids, because some of them play sports. You know, they’re 11. It’s just that fear of, why are these adults are doing this to us? Why is this happening? And it’s hard to explain that to them.

Gilsinan: Well, how do you explain that to them?

Razer: First of all, I’ll make sure that they know I’m gay. I’m the only gay one in the Senate. And then I’m not an advocate or an ally, I’m family. And, you know, people are afraid of things that are different. If we’re honest, we’re all different. I like boys. They thought I was going to like girls. You are a girl. They thought you were a boy, you know? Then we’ll laugh. This is a reaction to people being afraid of what’s different.

And then I try to not bore them with a little bit of LGBT history and just say very quickly, they’ve been coming after us since the ’50s, banning us from federal jobs. The ’60s, the ’70s, we were passing nondiscrimination laws in municipalities, with [singer and anti-gay rights activist] Anita Bryant coming in behind to put it on the ballot and take them away. You know, we died in the ’80s and they laughed at us in the ’90s. It’s military, it’s marriage, all those things. They’ve run out of ways to attack me as a gay, white man. I’ve won. But they still have to have a boogeyman. They still have to be able to divide the population. They can’t attack me anymore. So now they’re coming after kids. I’m tired of having to hug crying 11-year-olds after committee hearings. I’m glad I’m there to do it. But I’m tired of it.

Gilsinan: When you when you say “they,” you’re talking about colleagues of yours, Republican colleagues, and you have good relationships across the aisle. What are they saying about their reasoning? And what’s it like to come to work now, given this debate?

Razer: To the degree that some of them would just not like to have to deal with the issue at all, they just try to avoid the issue with me. You know, just, let’s talk about anything but the elephant in the room. I’ve been dealing with that, though, it’s my seventh year in the General Assembly. Did four in the House and now my third year in the Senate. And I quickly made friends on the other side of the aisle, especially the rural guys, being from rural Missouri myself.

And then I would introduce MONA, the Missouri Nondiscrimination Act, as an amendment — this is the bill that would make it illegal to discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity in housing, employment and public accommodations. So I’m friends with these people, and then I would watch them all very loudly vote an amendment down, that just says, “Greg gets to have a roof over his head.” And last year on the Senate floor, somebody had asked me, like, “Greg, if this comes up, don’t take our votes personally.” And I said on the Senate floor, “Somebody said that to me. And yes, I do take it personally.” I very much take it personally, because it’s personal.

I was told by many people, “Greg, politics is a game. You just got to play the game.” Politics shouldn’t be a game. There’s going to be gamesmanship to it, when you gotta maneuver around somebody to get something passed. But what we do there in and of itself isn’t a game.

Gilsinan: You’ve talked about having been suicidal when you were growing up. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Razer: I grew up in a town of 450 people — outside of that town, actually, in the middle of thousands of acres of cotton. Literally grew up in the middle of the cotton field, down in extreme south Missouri.

Gilsinan: The famous Cooter, Missouri.

Razer: Cooter, yes. Cooter Wildcats. But I grew up in an evangelical church, with very country friends and neighbors. And it’s not exactly a great place for a young, closeted kid to grow up in the ’80s and ’90s. And so, by my senior year of high school, just various things put me into a depression. And on those worst nights it would be, “I’ll never be able to come out. I’ll never know what it’s like to fall in love or to have my heart broken or to be excited about a first date. So what’s the point of moving on?” The couple of times that I came very close, that was kind of what put me over the edge. And who would’ve thought, 25 years later, here I am.

Gilsinan: What stopped you when you were thinking about that?

Razer: I don’t know. I guess just enough of a cool head in the moment. I honestly have never thought of that. I don’t remember giving up on the idea that night. I don’t remember getting up and walking out of that room. Huh.

Gilsinan: So when did you come out and what was it like for you?

Razer: I came out on Feb. 26, 1999. I’d just been dealing with whether or not to come out. I slowly can feel myself inching that way. And my friends laughed that I didn’t come out of the closet, I exploded out. Once I’ve had enough, it was like, enough. Everybody, I’m gay, let’s get the party going again. You know, I was just tired of hiding. I was in Columbia [at the University of Missouri]. I’m a junior in college at this point, 20 years old. I had the greatest group of friends. They were incredibly supportive. Overboard supportive, actually. Quite a few months later, I show up at a little house party that one of my friends is throwing, and they said, “Greg, you’re here with us every weekend. You haven’t brought a boy over yet. Have you been to a gay bar?” And I was like, “No, I haven’t.” They’re like, “All right, we’re taking you to the gay bar tonight.” So all my straight friends made me go to my first gay bar.