“Kasher’s Journey to Living Openly and Freely as a Presenter, Designer, Stylist and Digital Content Creator”

How long has it been since your life got the real taste of living openly, without hiding and saying out loud that you are different?

I have always been who I am. I just didn’t talk about it in public, I even tried to avoid such topics. I had a breakthrough inside myself…

The moment came when you decided to say it out loud. Why?

I wanted no further talk from other people and for this information about my sexuality to come from me. At that time I was 28 years old, now I am 36. So eight years have already passed.

Do you feel a big difference between these last eight and, for example, eight years ago? What is it like to live in the unspoken truth and now – in some sense in freedom and openness?

I feel free, I feel like I’m where I’m supposed to be. It’s very good for me to live now because I don’t have to pretend. It feels as if I have lost a lot of kilograms, that I have become light as fluff. I live, enjoy life and try to be the best version of myself.

The only difficult thing about all this was the anxiety of how to tell my cousins, who are very dear and dear people to me.

Considering that they are people of a different generation, I expected that I might be misunderstood and not accepted, and I was extremely scared of what their reaction might be. But now I can talk about it, I have no inhibitions or feelings of shame.

I put the omissions in front of the fact before I openly admitted the truth about myself in the public environment. I went to visit my friends in Kuldiga and felt that this is the moment when I should tell my friends. I called one, found out that I have a friend, that his name is so-and-so… and everything was fine! Same with the other one!

Couldn’t believe that this is really a reality?

Well yes! I had built a giant house in my mind that I would not be accepted, that I would be rejected. But at the moment when I called, I was ready for both versions – that they would accept and also that they might not accept. I had nothing left to lose. We talked, laughed, and everything is fine.

I had already informed my parents about four years before that. I wrote to my mother and told her about this fact on the day when the singer Amy Winehouse died (July 23, 2011 – KJ). I thought that nothing could be more painful than her death. Then, with all the pain and crying, I wrote a message to my mother about it… There, too, everything was fine. But at some point around the same time, dad just happened to notice my correspondence with a guy on Facebook because I hadn’t “logged out”. Dad didn’t say anything. He already knew, I think everyone knew. They were just waiting for me to be brave and strong enough and feel ready to tell the truth myself.

There were probably insecurities and doubts about society, about strangers. You have been the darling of the audience. Were you afraid that if you came out as gay, you would be unloved or even ignored?

The only fear and concern was that I might lose my jobs, business partners. But the moment came when I realized: no matter what – I will lose some, I will get new ones instead. One morning I woke up, felt – yes, this is the day. And then I posted a picture with a friend on social networks. That was my “coming out”.

Have you had conversations with other prominent men who you know are the same as you, but choose not to reveal their difference to everyone?

Yes. We’re all pretty open about it for the most part. Nobody really hides their homosexuality behind closed doors, and I’m straight too, I have no problem asking. It doesn’t matter whether it is a TV personality or a musician or an actor or an entrepreneur. I have heard that many of these people have unwelcoming families who will not understand. Others are ashamed… The exact same fear I had in front of my omis, because I was afraid of losing them. Most say they don’t feel ready to go public with that fact yet. Others doubt they ever will. For many, this “coming out” could really ruin their career. For example, it’s easier for me as a freelancer, because people in this sphere are more accepting of such things. But representatives of other professions who are also public faces, such as TV faces, for example, may have to immediately leave that job. “Coming out of the closet” would be a real hi.

I hope that these people will come to a moment in their lives when they will understand and be saddened to stop living in hiding, hypocrisy, pretending and lying, first of all, to themselves.

It is really difficult, even depressing – to be staged like that in the public space, but to live a different life behind closed doors.

The project is financed by the Media Support Fund from the funds of the Latvian state budget. SIA “Izdevniecība Rīgas Vilņi” is responsible for “Our content”