They grew up poor in single-parent households, 31 miles apart, both spending years grappling with their identities. It was roughly 2005 when Ritchie Torres came out to a gay high school teacher, not an easy feat, he recalled, for a Bronx teenager raised in New York City public housing.
It took longer for Mondaire Jones to do the same, after seeing his identity projected back to him by a character on Logo’s “Noah’s Arc,” a show he watched well after it had gone off the air.
Raised in the Baptist church, Mr. Jones believed that if he acted upon his feelings, he might go to hell. Society, let alone the country’s governing elite, didn’t seem to have much room for men like them.