Bob Barret was a 74-year-old man at the time of interview, which took place in the Dilworth neighborhood of Charlotte, North Carolina. He was born in Dyersburg, Tennessee in 1940. He was educated at Rhodes College, Vanderbilt University, UNC Charlotte, and Georgia State University. Dr. Barret was employed in several professions; as a high school teacher and administrator at Charlotte Country Day School and at the Lovett School in Atlanta, Georgia, as a professor of counseling at UNC Charlotte, as a staff psychologist at the Behavioural Medicine Unit of the University of California San Francisco Medical School, and as a counseling psychologist in private practice in Charlotte.
In this second of three interviews, Dr. Robert L. Barret, professor emeritus in counseling at UNC Charlotte, practicing psychotherapist, and LGBTQ activist, discusses his experiences and perceptions as a gay man in Charlotte, North Carolina during the 1980s and 1990s. Dr. Barret reflects on Charlotte's history as largely conservative regarding LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS issues, culminating in great fear and closeting among LGBTQ communities. When Dr. Barret returned to Charlotte from Atlanta in 1985, he recognized the need for organizational support of LGBTQ communities, including HIV/AIDS patients. He recalls feeling a desire to serve this community even before he was out as a gay man. In particular he details his work with the Metrolina Aids Project (MAP), which involved educating the public and gay men about safe sex, as well as fundraising for MAP in a hostile political environment. Dr. Barret describes his discomfort seeing so many openly gay men die from AIDS and his concerns that he himself was not living with integrity. He relates how he came out to friends and family in Charlotte, and subsequently moved to San Francisco for a year, where he lived openly as a gay man and explored gay communities and culture. He recounts moving back to Charlotte in 1991 in response to a feeling that more needed to be done there for LGBTQ rights, and he reflects on his attempts to rectify Charlotte's media representations of LGBTQ communities. In addition Dr. Barret also talks about his work at UNC Charlotte, pay discrimination, and his efforts to unite LGBTQ students and faculty.
