Missouri news

David Hall on his bisexuality: "I didn't understand those feelings, know how to process it, until I got to college."

KBIA | By Bailey Stover,

Nick Sheaffer

Published November 24, 2025 at 5:05 AM CST

David Hall sits on his couch on Monday, April 7, 2025, at his home in Columbia. "Even in Missouri there's certain areas that you still don't see that many queens of color. And especially in the bigger cities, how many of them do you see on cast in bigger bars that have, like, either a rotating cast or a main cast throughout weekends? I will give kudos to Kansas City because they've worked really hard on having that diversity within all of their cast, but still. Like, Columbia, one joke was like, 'Kaycee can't work all the time.' … 'Kaycee can't perform in every show, so you can't really ding us on diversity.' But I'm like, I still want to bring that representation," Hall said. "Since [Nclusion Plus], one of the places I perform with, we go to smaller areas and perform. And I'm like, just to have one person look at me and say, 'Oh yeah, I look like them. I can do that,' makes me really happy. And it's like, 'OK, what I'm doing, I'm on the right track for that.'"

David Hall is a bisexual man of color. He spoke about coming out and the challenges of having others affirm his bisexuality when he's in a relationship with another man.

Alphabet Soup shares LGBTQ+ Missourians’ stories through portraiture and personal narratives.

David Hall: I didn't come out until I was 18. I was kind of pushed to come out by my brother, but I didn't really live to, like, my fullest extent until I came here.

I went to Stevens College, and it took me a little bit, even then, to kind of just warm up to my friends and be like, "Hey, I'm bisexual."

From there, it's just been nothing but embracing myself, bringing up more of like, "Hey, people can be bisexual."

A lot of people, they look at me and they see that I'm in, like, what is technically a gay relationship, because it's two men, and they just assume that I'm gay.

And I'm like, "No, no, it's different."

It really is a wild thing for me but then getting to talk with other people that are also bisexual, they're like, "Yeah, some people are predominantly into women or predominantly into men," and just being able to see the difference of everybody is a really cool thing.

I knew a lot about gay because I grew up in Topeka, Kansas, and I lived two minutes away from Westboro Baptist Church — the tie dye was really good, I'll give them that. The signs — I was like, "It's very colorful signs," but they all had just extremely hateful messages on them.

A potted plant, crown, plaque and Deborah Willis' "Black: A Celebration of a Culture" sit atop David Hall's bookshelf on Monday, April 7, 2025, at his home in Columbia. "I've been able to delve into more of the queer community by doing drag. I started doing drag in 2020," Hall said. "It took me a bit, but now I've been able to do a lot under that artistry and queer visibility."

Initially, growing up religious, I was like, "Okay, well, it's bad to be gay. It's not good to do all this thing," and then I got — what was I watching? I was watching some kind of show that I probably shouldn't have been watching at my age — I was like, "Oh, I'm more attracted to the man right now than I am the woman."

So, I didn't understand those feelings, know how to process it, until I got to college, where Stephens — bless their hearts for helping me out, because I was so closed minded initially, but they really helped broaden that spectrum for me and how to just be more accepting of myself and other people.

I think, kind of, the big tipping point for me that I actually kind of, like, embraced being attracted to, like, men and women — it was my first semester. There was a girl. She's like, "Oh yeah, I'm having my 21st birthday at your house, and you're invited." I'm like, "Great that I'm getting the invitation. "

I got the invitation is that's how I found out that the party was happening at my house.
This seems like such like a teenage thing, but we played — I think we ended up playing spin the bottle, which I was, like, "We're all college students. What are we doing?"

And for me, I did it, and it landed on a guy, and I was like, "You know what — f**k it. Let me just go for it instead of being, like, No, I don't know about this," even though, in my head, I was like, "What are we doing? What are we doing? Are we sure? Are we sure?"

And I'm like, "No, we're going for it," and it almost was that little spark of like, "Oh, okay. Oh, this is fine. Why am I freaking out about this?"

And I think the big tipping point, at least for me, with accepting my queerness, accepting where my life is going right now — I just had to, it's mainly with my parents that I had these conversations.

I'm like, "This is happening. I'm not gonna let what you say affect me, and I know it's gonna hurt, but in order for me to continue to survive and me continue to thrive, this is what I this is what has to happen."