Calvin Cato - Learning To Love Yourself

On this episode of Redefining Family, Jonathan first opens up about the boundaries he has had to create with his family to protect himself, which included a recent interaction with a close friend of his father's.  Jonathan then gets the chance to speak with standup comedian and LGBTQ+ activist Calvin Cato.  

Calvin first talks about his upbringing, not being exposed to the gay community as a kid and the homophobia that existed in his family of immigrant parents.   He talks about how he finally started to understand what being gay meant, his first sexual experience and then trying to reinvent himself as a straight man in college.

Calvin also shares the story of losing his father and the ways in which he did and did not come out to him before his passing.

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About Calvin Cato

Calvin S. Cato is a comedian, storyteller, and rare-times actor based in New York City. He has been heard on Sirius XM and has appeared on Oxygen, National Geographic, Netflix and a pilot for Vice Media called Emergency Black Meeting. He has performed in numerous festivals including San Francisco Sketchfest, FlameCon, Brooklyn Pride, Women In Comedy Festival, and the Gotham Storytelling Festival. In 2017, Calvin was named one of Time Out New York’s Queer Comics Of Color To Watch. Most recently he has been published in Kweendom, an anthology of queer comedic essays. He recently wrapped up hosting and producing a daily online comedy talk show on RushTix.com called The Calvin Cato Show.