Queer Hutterite

I'll refer to Hutterites as as us but then sometimes I'll refer to our rights as them I never really know the answer to the question of whether I'm a hot right my name is Kelly Hofer I'm 23 years old I grew up on Green Acres Hutterite colony in Manitoba there are a lot of misconceptions about how to rights like in general people don't understand why Hutterites stay Hutterites there's this assumption that Hutterites are very very controlled and we live in a very communist society like where there's like ultimate control and we have no freedoms but it's it's very much unlike that so the first time I picked up a camera was around the age of 11 and 12 my dad was the high school principal and through that we had the camera at our house because it was just laying there on the table I would just occasionally take it up and fiddle around with it and eventually I just started I became more and more interested in it and I just started stealing it for kind of like the afternoon and going to the woods and the valley we had a huge river valley so I would take it there just to shoot scenery and then eventually I started shooting more and more people and then eventually I was just shooting just people when I was shooting photos it was never with the intention of it being a project for me I was interested in the visual side of photography rather than the story side of photography when I started like I saw it as being an expression of who I was rather than it being an expression of what was around me and who was around me I think it created a very honest image of what hydrides are Kelley is my younger brother as far back as I remember he always wanted to show the Hutterites in a different light to show who we really are and I think it was his creative side coming out and he knew for years of like the turmoil going on inside and having to hide that I think it's a way of him dealing with what was going on and seeing things through different lens I didn't really realize that I was gay until like 16 17 and it was only through seeing my peers and them entering into relationships and realizing that hmm I don't really see the love or like I don't see the value or the how they can like that I couldn't feel the the romantic side of relationships it just didn't seem right to me and it wasn't it was only through process of elimination that I kind of realized that I was gay I kind of had a complicated relationship with loneliness because on one hand I was really happy I was really happy in kind of the everyday living but when it came to seeing that my peers were in relationships that they were starting to marry now like a bunch of them have married now like seeing them be able to go through that and me not being able to do that because it just never felt right that was really isolating and lonely the only time homosexuality came up is when the Supreme Court made gay marriage legal in Canada and then it was brought up at church and the minister just expressed extreme disgust for it and the world would go under and all those stereotypical things that religious people do but like most people on the call and you're still afraid to say the word gay like it's such a strong aversion to not just homosexuality but sexuality like any words relating to it are just they're so difficult to say in the context of a colony so I kind of like polarized myself into hating the culture a lot more than I did just so that I could bring myself to leave the colony I left on January 7 2006 I was just a couple weeks shy of my 17th birthday there's this tiny culture that I just needed to step out of and experience something new I wanted to travel and experience the world so when I left I felt so free and happy and I didn't even know anything then once you leave the colony and you want to go back for a visit you have to call home to the head of the colony in my case it's the preacher and as for his permission I definitely in his eyes I wasn't a model hotter I'd he he lectures me for the time that he sees me my parents can't do anything even if he'd say no my parents have to respect that I'm over here in Calgary they're at home I don't really communicate with most of my family and I come from a huge family I miss that the most I miss the closeness I really I do miss that even ten years later I still find that difficult at times lonely of sorts so I never really had a relationship when Kelly till about three and a half years ago when Kelly told me he was gay I was quite shocked it when I thought about it afterwards looking back it made more sense but the initial reaction I was but it all made sense then I I felt like for sure I'd have to support him or I mean not that I would have questioned that in any way but I I knew there was no way I couldn't help him out at that point no matter how much trouble it would get me in there's just no way the week or the half week that she was at home I was just like every day I would put another bag of my stuff into her car and hide it under the seats or in the trunk so at the end of her visit I had packed all my stuff into her car and she in the morning said goodbye to dad and mom gave them a hug and they went to breakfast and I was still sleeping so she drove out a kilometer from the colony my parents went to my parents and siblings all went to breakfast and during breakfast I literally just took my bike and bike tout her where she met me and we drove to Calgary leaving the colonies really strange and really awkward because you were expected to live with your parents until you get married and then you move with your groom or bride to whatever house they built for you so any leaving of the house is seen as abandoning your family like in its entirety like it's not seen as moving out and being normal it's seen as being abandoning the family and also abandoning the community and culture on the colony everyone is treated exactly equally no matter how much you work you treat everyone like family and with family you're very blunt to them you're very honest because I I know everyone in the colony and you know them for your entire life so there's no need to put up a facade when I came out of the closet I did it very publicly I came out on Facebook he came out the first month of him being gone and it created a huge uproar huge because nobody in the colonies has come out like he has before I think it was a little overload for my mom I called home a couple of times and very upset verge of tears I'd say at times I didn't really want to have a conversation with my parents at that time and in that the early reactionary feelings just never got discussed and I've never been one to discuss feelings with my parents so in the end I don't really know how my parents felt I can only assume it was it was unreal even my dad called me once I think he was in the verge of tears and he made a comment like not even dogs would treat their their other dogs like that the way the things people were writing on their and the emails he was getting it it was unlike anything I've ever seen before it's not the Hutterites that we know it's not it's not who we are I'm forcing them to educate themselves by making the people on the colony aware that their best friend might be gay and they don't know it because unless they change their stance on homosexuality to be more inviting then that person or their best friend will never come out of it and in what I'm what I've seen actually happen is that there's people that are showing support online or like friends of mine and then people that know them are able to come out to them and I've seen it happen I've heard of it happen and I would have been happy to have had that I started this gay support group on Facebook it's a secret support group for gay Hutterites there's hot rights out there that have left their child rights that are still at home what I've seen here is guys and girls that are still on the colony are part of this group and are able to come out and share their stories and their thoughts and just see other gay Hutterites because it's a lot more difficult to come out if you don't know of anyone else within your society or your culture that is gay so it I've kind of made it my life mission to get at the heart of that issue and change the Hydra culture in the way that I can to make it easier for gay Hutterites my friends now see me like they they know who I am I did photography on the side for the first year as I got settled in Calgary and got enough money saved up and then and went full-time photography and and it's it's been going incredibly well in that respect I think I have around 150,000 photos from home about 70,000 of them are just nature and the other half is people I've kind of been collecting them in one folder all my life the photos and when I first put this book book together in high school the photos I chose then we're completely different because I had a different perspective on what was important like I was going for pure aesthetics whereas now it's more of a story behind it than the meaning behind it and how it all fits together initially I had like a 400 word paragraph for every photo but it was just it was empty like I was saying stuff that the photo itself was saying so I was just repeating the photo you're the ugly duckling though I know how things have changed oh there there's growling grandpa I love those photos it's pieces I miss you know I don't miss the whole thing hell no but there's elements like things like this photo maybe it's more things I missed I don't the social I miss her miss Cathy Dawson it's good to have it because it's something to remember is I would if I think if I didn't have those photos I lose sight of what home was like I would lose the remembering part of it and kind of just forget the good times it's true because those photos hold so much so many memories I love this photo both of them love them there's a lot of things about the culture that I enjoyed and we're getting back to the point where hard drives are becoming kind of the ideal place to live there's there's there's just a few social changes that I think can easily take place and should take place in my opinion but once once that's taken care of and I think we'll be in a really really ideal state again I know it's like they will all see it as being like all the Hutterites will never change but hot rides do change with change in the past and will keep on changing and that's one of the ways that in which we will you

Channel: STORYHIVE

Views: 150,090

Rating: 4.4777517 out of 5

Keywords: telus optik local, optik local, storyhive, Kelly, Hofer, Hutterite, Facebook, LGBTQ, Gay Rights, colony, Manitoba, Calgary, Activist, Photographer, TELUS Originals, Queer Hutterite, Hutterite colony, homosexual hutterite

Id: JZtIAo6juLY

Length: 15min 34sec (934 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 23 2016