Honigman: How important is it for an LGBTQ entrepreneur to not just be out, but be vocal?
Keith: I think it’s absolutely necessary. It’s paramount. Throughout my career and my adulthood, I’ve lived in a relatively successful place. Pre and post, not just being out, but being vocal. I think coming out in the workplace, forced me to actualize faster. And then really study who I was, how I was presenting myself. And if I was comfortable with what I was presenting, if it was too much of an act, or if it wasn’t an act at all.
I think it is absolutely important for individuals to be able to be out and also vocal about who they are in the workplace because it will allow them to self-actualize more. And it will also allow them to influence the people around them to self-actualize more. And that’s only scales over time.
Honigman: So in your own career, you’re acting as a role model in a lot of ways and I see that with SLAY TV giving LGBTQ people of color representation and role models in media that they often don’t see elsewhere. How would you recommend LGBTQ entrepreneurs be better role models so that they encourage others to succeed and encourage them to start their own businesses?
Keith: One of the first things is acknowledging that they have something to offer, right? It’s a bit of self-care. Somebody told me– they were like, “You’re the first black representative of the LGBTQ community to run for federal office ever.”
And I was like, “Let’s look it up and make sure that’s a thing.” And then they were right. It’s a thing. And I’m totally available, comfortable in myself to say, “Yes. I’m going to be that guy, and we’re going to wear it a certain way. But we’re going to do it in our way.”
Because a lot of people come to us and say that, my husband and I, we should dress a certain way, look a certain way, etc. when we’re out. And we’re like, “We’re not going to do that. We’re not going to put him in a suit that looks identical to mine. We’re not these two straight buddies hanging out.”
If he’s wearing a shiny blouse, then that’s what he’s wearing and that’s who he was before this. That’s what we’re selling to people and that’s what they need to gobble up. And just kind of owning yourself, owning your identity and saying, “I am enough to be a role model and be myself at the same time. And that’s a good thing.”
The way folks can encourage themselves to be a role model is to understand they have some intrinsic value and the way that they can distribute that is to tell other people that they are valuable in all the work that they do. They should say it. It always comes back to that. No matter what we’re creating out here, I’m distributing a piece of me and that piece of me is like you. You have so much to distribute, to influence us with, to infect the world with, so do it.
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