LGBT Oral History 097: Alex Reber

Barry Loveland interviews Alex Reber, now 32, who relates fascinating stories of what it was like growing up as an only child of an Evangelical Christian family raised on a farm in Bethel, a rural town between Harrisburg and Allentown and becoming an important political LGBT activist in Central PA. His accounts at camp and high school reveal the difficulty of being gay and the interesting paths towards his independence. In Lebanon Valley College he was outed and blackballed at church, being called evil and having parents refuse to help him pay tuition. A gay couple started a foundation to help gay students complete college and Alex, a gifted child who received a scholarship, graduated a semester early. His tales about finding and working with a thriving gay community in Harrisburg are enthralling. He got an internship and became friends with Dan Miller, a leader in the gay community, in Dan’s accounting firm, Miller, Dixon, Drake. He tells in detail his work over ten years with Planned Parenthood, beginning with his own experience of being treated and shamed by a physician. He discusses his romance and marriage to his husband during the exciting time when marriage became legal in Pennsylvania. It was a momentous time. He explains what it was like attending the Equality March, primaries for Obama and Clinton, and his experience at the 2016 Democratic Convention. He recounts the inside stories of the contradictions and fun of local state politics— and stories about running candidates for state office and working on committees for the Democratic Party of Pennsylvania. He is very involved at the Center, FAB, and getting LGBT people to run for office.