40 Plus: Gay Men. Gay Talk.
Brad Ryan: 63 National Parks, One Grandmother, and the Healing Gay Men Stop Believing In
31 July 202653 min
His father rejected him. His grandmother changed everything. Brad Ryan spent seven and a half years driving across America with his 85-year-old grandmother, visiting all 63 national parks, and quietly healing the wounds his coming out left behind. What started as an adventure became something neither of them expected: a reckoning with family, identity, and the stories gay men tell themselves about who will ever truly accept them. Brad joins Rick to talk about what happens when you stop waiting for the people who hurt you and start showing up for the ones who show up for you.
Key Takeaways:
- Why Brad didn't come out until college and what his father's reaction cost him
- How a camping trip in the Smoky Mountains became the turning point with his grandmother
- Why gay men build elaborate stories about rejection that don't match reality
- What intergenerational connection offers gay men that their own community often can't
- How curiosity instead of judgment transforms even the most broken family relationships
- Why healing doesn't always look like confrontation — sometimes it looks like a road trip