My City June 2022

CUSTER REPORTS AT A BOTTLED WATER DRIVE TO HELP THOSE AFFECTED BY THE FLINT WATER CRISIS.

tell my parents that I’d had a good day.” With no one to turn to for help with the bullying, he wrote a letter to the Com mission on Civil Rights. He did not receive a reply. “I didn’t want to be gay and wished I could change,” he states. Instead of changing himself, however, Custer soon changed his situation and his life. It was in college where he found the support and condence he needed.

Custer attended UM-Flint as a biology major, but that didn’t last. “I started writing for the school paper e Michigan Times and found out that I loved it,” he says. at, and a day spent on the job with his cousin at a local news station cemented his professional future. His personal future was in€uenced and shaped by the diverse college community. “It was a new beginning for me,” he says.

“I developed friendships and found people who made me comfortable with who I was. ey gave me the courage to be more authentic.” It was then that he chose to come out of hiding and pres ent his truth.With that known, Custer was free. He would continue advocating for the LGBTQ+ community through today, and in 2015 was named “Cham pion of Pride’’ by Great Lakes Pride. 

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