Coming Out & Beyond: LGBTQIA+ Stories | Season 5 Episode 33 | Wes Schmitz

This week's guest, Wes Schmitz, was raised in a small farming community in central Illinois. While growing up, he retreated deeper and deeper into the closet, forced there by the rhetoric around him. In college, homophobic jokes on campus and in the frat house kept him in the closet. Wes came out at age 29, emerging from the darkness and into a brighter future. Wes says "I never chose to be gay, but I finally chose to be happy." Since then, Wes has flourished in his career, co-hosted the "Two Bottles Deep" podcast, and has built a joyful life for himself in Nashville, TN. In this episode, host Anne-Marie Zanzal and Wes are reunited in the podcast sphere once again to talk about triumphing over negative messaging , the importance of having queer community, ditching shame for good, ditching alcohol for good and the positive consequences that followed, and what it's like to go from having FOMO (fear of missing out) to JOMO (joy of missing out). Wes' coming out song is Simply the Best by Tina Turner: https://youtu.be/GC5E8ie2pdM?si=7_zuOuz6Qr1wrj59Wes also resonates with Miranda Lambert's song, Automatic: https://youtu.be/2ksWKOy665o?si=Q64rgduYd34ZRHcQA book that has special meaning to Wes is The Help by Kathryn Stockett: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4667024-the-help