The City of Saginaw's first openly gay elected city official grew up in a Catholic family who believed he should grow up, graduate high school, find a good job and raise a family. Life then was a different scene for the LGBT community than it is now. Twenty years ago, Bill Ostash was 38 years old and just coming out of the closet. “I’ve wasted so much of my life denying who I really am.' “It’s a horrible way to live being called sir, mister or hey buddy. “I’m now the female I was never allowed to be,” said Bell noting she is on hormone therapy. She said her ex-wife and three children have disowned her. She said that is when she really faced how she was living and found there was another way. She said she tried three other groups before finding Perceptions. I was male on the outside, but inside I was a woman.' “I would have been living my identity,” Bell said. “I can’t say I had much of a life.

When asked what life might have been like if 2002 offered the same climate for the LGBT community as 2022 does she said she would have been a happy woman. Living in the closet with no outlet led Bell down a path of self-destruction she said, including a suicide attempt. About 300 people gathered Thursday at the Midland County Club to celebrate 20 years of the Great Lakes Bay Pride (GLBP), formerly Perceptions, and to raise money for another 20 years.