Meet Eric: From Feeling Different to Becoming a Queer Boss
It’s helpful to have a feel for someone before connecting with them.
Get to know me as I dish on the personal and professional experiences that brought me to being a leader in LGBTQ+ empowerment.
I share about my journey from growing up feeling different from other boys, to realizing my gay identity, to living fully out and proud. I also talk about why I became a therapist, how I came to specialize in Queer-affirmative psychology, and how I pivoted into DEI consulting.
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Show Notes:
Eric Sullivan:
[00:00:01] Welcome to the Be Proud With Eric podcast, the place for all things Queer empowerment. I'm your host, Eric Sullivan, he/him pronouns. I'm a proud gay person, licensed therapist, and DEI consultant. My mission is to empower members of the LGBTQ+ community and teach people to be better allies. I love connecting with people, and I'm so glad you're here. Let’s do this.
[00:00:30] For this first episode, I am going to be sharing about myself and what to expect going forward from the podcast. So to start, I am a licensed mental health therapist.
[00:00:47] I have a queer affirmative therapy practice based in Charleston, South Carolina, and I work with people over video sessions who live all across the state of South Carolina, as well as California.
[00:01:00] I'm also a diversity equity and inclusion, or DEI consultant, and I help companies level up their LGBTQ+ inclusion.
[00:01:09] On the Be Proud With Eric podcast, I will be sharing anecdotes about my life and experiences as a Queer person, ways that people in organizations can be more supportive of and celebrate the LGBTQ+ community, and I'll be interviewing DEI, friends and colleagues to learn how to uplift members of other marginalized groups.
[00:01:32] A little bit of personal info about me. I was born and raised in Easton, Maryland. I lived there until age 18 and then I moved to Charleston, South Carolina, where I now live presently and did my undergrad of college here. I am a huge coffee lover. I got my first job as a barista when I was 16 and I have been hooked ever since and cannot function without it and will not ever give it up, so no one ask me to. I play saxophone in the Charleston concert band and I play tennis as well in the Charleston tennis league. One of my big dreams in life is to be a Dad. Something that will probably not come for a few years, I'd say about three to five years, but definitely a big goal for me and hope that I have for myself.
[00:02:23] So that's a little bit of you know, info about present day. Let me take you back a little bit more to the beginning and how I got my start in working in LGBTQ+ advocacy. A lot of times for queer people and especially for gay people, people love to ask, “When did you first and know?” I would say, I knew from a very young age that I was different than a lot of other boys, my age.
[00:02:50] I have two older brothers and I knew I was different than them. I also have two younger sisters and I tended to kind of gravitate more to them and do the things that they liked to do. So I always had this sense that I was like different than other people. I would say probably around like when puberty started is when attraction generally develops for people, and that's when I started to notice like, “Hm, I like other guys, I don't know about other girls.” And then, you know, gradually I came out to a few friends. I think the first person I ever came out to, I was 14 years old. And then I publicly came out at age 17 also during my teen years.
[00:03:38] This is also when I started to realize that I wanted to become a therapist. I have and had at the time an aunt of mine who lived in my same hometown who is a therapist and she kind of like became my quasi therapist at the time. And it was just so impactful for me to get, to have somebody to talk to about stuff that was going on and get support for the things that I was dealing with.
[00:04:03] And even back then, I was like, I'm going to do this for my job and my career. So I started off, like I mentioned, I came to the college of Charleston. I did my undergraduate here in psychology. Shout out to all psych majors. I took a little bit of time after that. I did some traveling, took a couple of gap years.
[00:04:23] I knew that I was going to have to go to grad school to become a therapist. Just the name of the game. There's no getting around that. So I moved out to Los Angeles for grad school when I was 25 in a really interesting turn of events. I'm going to tell this story a different day. I was actually already accepted into and had informally accepted a position in the graduate program at the Citadel, which is a military college in Charleston, South Carolina, where I live. Side note, the grad program was not military affiliated, but still kind of funny that that's where I was going to go. And just through happenstance, I ended up learning about a program in Queer-affirmative psychology based in Los Angeles, California.
[00:05:10] And I knew I wanted to be a therapist. I already was out and proud and working in LGBTQ+ advocacy. So once I learned, Hey, there's this program where I could combine those two things - done. I applied, got accepted, packed my bags, moved to Los Angeles. So I lived out there and worked out there all throughout grad school, all throughout the licensing process.
[00:05:38] And I knew that I was probably gonna move back to the East coast in time. And I wasn't quite sure what to do there because I was living and working in Los Angeles, and there were so many opportunities to not only work in the greater LGBTQ+ community, but also doing LGBTQ+ specialized therapy is a pretty common thing out there. There's a lot of people doing it. There was a lot of various places where I could be employed doing that work specifically. And I was, you know, I was working at all of these different places, getting great experience, but I knew I wanted to move back. My base is and was on the East coast.
[00:06:25] My family is mostly on the East coast and I absolutely love Charleston where I live now, and I wanted to move back there, but I wasn't sure kind of how to make that happen and still get to do the career that I had already made so much momentum. And I knew it's what I wanted to do. And so. I remember saying to my therapist at the time, like, “I'm not sure what to do.
[00:06:50] This is the type of work that I do. They don't really have it where I want to live, but I do want to live there.” And she said to me, [00:07:00] “Why don't you bring it there?” And it was like this crazy light bulb moment that had never even crossed my mind that that's something that I could do. And as soon as she said that and it clicked, I was like, yeah, totally.
[00:07:13] That's what I'm going to do. So I ended up staying out there. It's still had to be a few more years. , once you start a state license process, it's just easiest to finish it there and then transfer it after that. So that's what I did. And I did, I loved my time out there. Southern California is amazing.
[00:07:29] The rumors are true. The weather is awesome. The people are laid back. There's a lot of fun things to do. But I eventually did get my license as a therapist, transfer that license to the state of South Carolina, and I ended up moving back in 2017. And that is when I opened up my private therapy practice, which specializes in Queer-affirmative therapy, and that's called Proud Counseling.
[00:07:53] I started off my therapy practice in a traditional sense, working out of an office and seeing people in person. Over time, the more that I was getting the word out there about myself and advertising, that I was a Queer-affirmative therapist in the state of South Carolina, which is a huge state and it's a very red state.
[00:08:16] So there are not a lot of queer affirmative therapists here. There are some, don't get me wrong and that's grown a lot, even in the past, four years since I've been back. But there aren't many and there were even less then, and so people started reaching out to me who lived hours away.
[00:08:35] Saying like, “Hey, I'm looking for a queer specialized therapist. There's nobody in my town. And you're actually the closest person that I could find.” So I literally had people who lived like three, three and a half hours away who were driving to the office that I worked in for therapy which, you know, props to them and way to go for it.
[00:08:53] But that's just a lot. And actually it was through that, that somebody asked me, “Could we do this over video instead?" So I said, “Sure.” Well, I said “Sure, but I don't know how to do that. And I've never done that before. Let me learn how to do it and then let's try it together.” So we did. They really liked it. I really liked it started doing that more and more. And I actually went fully virtual with my therapy practice in 2019 before the pandemic started.
[00:09:24] And so as we know, 2020 happened, everything became virtual. And that worked out well and I will stay virtual like that with my practice. I love doing therapy that way. I see my own therapist that way over video, she lives about three, three and a half hours away, which is kind of funny cause that's how I got my start doing it.
[00:09:47] But I absolutely love it. It's a really neat thing to be able to connect with the people that I work with who are mostly in their homes or in their cars or at their job. So I get to see different parts of their life that I wouldn't get to see in a traditional office.
[00:10:42] All throughout my career doing Queer-affirmative therapy. I also just, you know, people would learn that was my specialty. And they were like, “Oh, that's awesome. We would love to train our staff on how to do that or how to be more affirming and accepting to the Queer community. Could you come and train our staff?"
[00:11:04] So that's how I got my start in education around supporting the Queer community. And I absolutely loved it. I love the opportunity to educate people and teach people about who we are and what our lives are like and what it means to be LGBTQ+ and what those lived experiences are like, because I tend to see that the more people learn about a community that they're not familiar with, the greater acceptance they have for that community and with marginalized communities, there's typically a lot of myths and stereotypes out there and people hear those messages and if they don't have their own direct experience with those people, it can be tempting to sort of regard those things as truths when they're not. The neat thing is, a lot of times, like I've wrap up these trainings and I would see the feedback on the forms.
[00:11:59] [00:12:00] So it was like, “Wow, no one's ever talked about this with me. There's so much that I learned today. This totally opened up my eyes.” and that was so validating and it still is. And it's really empowering for me where it's like, Wow. People have tried to put me down for being not only a gay person, but a proud gay person.
[00:12:20] And so what a turn of events to have people saying, you know, this was so great and we want to know more and we want to do better.
[00:12:27] So while I was still living in Los Angeles, I got an opportunity. It was a part-time job as the LGBTQ+ therapist for an organization for youth and families in the child welfare system. So I started off there doing a support group for the youth there. It was a lot of fun. It was something that, you know, I had to kind of get off the ground and figure out how it would work and recruit the youth and, you know, come up with the structure for the group.
[00:13:00] Pretty much they were just like, do whatever you find, figure it out. And here you go, and go. So I absolutely loved that job. I had facilitated a lot of various support groups for youth in the past.
[00:13:13] And so I loved it. It was a lot of fun. My teens were the best, sometimes it didn't even feel like a job. It's just such a treat to get to be a mentor. And, you know, again, someone who was out and proud and showing these youth, like, you can totally do this and you can totally have a happy and successful life because that's not a message that Queer people hear a lot growing up. Oftentimes it's like, “Oh, it's going to be so hard. And people aren't going to accept you. And like, are you sure this is the road you want to go down?” Side note, it's not a choice. So don't suggest to people that it is. But I absolutely loved that job and that group and my teams.
[00:13:54] And the more that I was there, the more ideas I started pitching about how, not only like, yes, it was great that the company recognized, Hey, we have a lot of youth at our facility that identify as LGBTQ+, and so it's great that they recognize that and wanted to do more to support them. But there was also a lot of ways that the company, as a whole was lacking in its inclusion and particularly what I noticed in its Queer inclusion.
[00:14:27] So the more that I was there, I pitched various ideas. I also developed relationships with the management and the higher ups. I established some credit and the more that I did that, the more they actually started paying attention to it and listening to it. Which was great. And again, loved it. It's so validating for someone to say, “Okay, cool.You have an idea of how we could do better. We're open to it. Tell us how, and let's see.” So over time while I was there they finally were like, "Okay, let's do this.”
[00:15:00] And I went from a part-time position, running a support group for these youth to, they created a full-time position. I campaigned for the name LGBTQ+ Program Director.
[00:15:11] And they said, “okay, go, you know, do a full audit of this organization top to bottom, tell us all the things that are wrong. Tell us all the things that could be better and we'll do them.” and sure enough, they did. And that was really amazing. And it was really cool. And I really got to see and do, and experience, here’s how companies can do better to serve the needs of one, their staff that work there and to the clients that they serve, whether or not those people identify within the Queer community, but of course, specifically to members of those community, but also just in increasing inclusion on the whole.
[00:15:53] So here we are today, 2021. This is now the work that I do.
[00:16:00] I still do my therapy practice. I absolutely love it. And in addition to that, I also do consulting work for companies on how to be more inclusive to the LGBTQ+ community. We're in a really cool time right now, 2021. DEI, which stands for diversity, equity and inclusion has gotten so much increased traction through the recent years. And companies are like really realizing the importance of it. And they're really prioritizing it. I'm seeing diversity equity and inclusion director positions popping up left and right with major companies all the time on LinkedIn, I'm seeing people share like, “I'm so honored. You know, I've been working for X company for this many years and I'm so proud of the steps that they're taking. And they've just created a position for me, a director position, and I'm going to revamp this company's diversity equity inclusion,” and it's super cool to see. And so it’s work that I love doing too.
[00:17:01] And so I've started now doing that. About a year ago is when I started listening to podcasts. It started one day on a really long car drive back to my hometown in Maryland, which from Charleston is about 10 hours give or take. And so I started listening to podcasts then, and I really loved them. I always like knew of them.
[00:17:23] I knew what they were, but I had never really given them a chance and actually sat down and listened to them. And I was like, wow, this is cool. I felt really connected to the people. I felt like I was getting sort of like a behind the scenes, insider chill conversations. And it's weird. Like, you feel like you're a part of the conversation, even though you're not actually talking to those people live.
[00:17:50] And so, you know, here we are, had this idea to start the podcast for a little while and I'm going for it. And thank you all so much for being a part of this with me and for letting me share these things that I have today.
[00:18:05] Hopefully some of it perked your interest because I will be expanding on some of the things that I talked about today. Some of these happenings, I'm going to tell the full stories. I gave you some highlights. I gave you some of the overview, but trust me there's stuff that happened there.
[00:18:23] And I wanna tell it all. So that's what I'll be doing in future episodes. Like I mentioned, I'm going to be sharing anecdotes about my life, my lived experience as a Queer person, I will also share kind of various things good, bad. and otherwise that have happened that could have gone down differently and help to give everyone some tips for ways that they can be better allies, and how they can help to uplift and celebrate queer people.
My mission is to elevate the community that I'm a part of. And I know that I can do that by helping others to have [00:19:00] greater awareness and that will lead to greater acceptance. So I am so excited to share more and to keep connecting with all of you, so thank you again for listening until next time.
Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. If you're feeling inspired by today's ep, help your boy out by subscribing to the show and leaving a review. To learn more about how I can guide you through your Queer glow up, head over to beproudwitheric.com and remember:
Always be proud of who you are.
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