Kenji Yoshino, author of this year’s First Year Reading Program book, “Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights,” touched on his own experiences with trying to fit in to society as well as the development of the bisexual and transgender rights movements in the opening Assembly Series lecture Monday night.

The packed venue included freshmen—who were required to read the book prior to a discussion during orientation—as well as older students, faculty and members of the St. Louis community.

Kenji Yoshino, the First Year Reading Program speaker, talks at Graham Chapel on Monday. His discussion focused on his experiences as a gay man throughout various stages of his life.

After describing his personal struggles with his sexuality, Yoshino addressed further topics that he was unable to discuss in his 2006 book, such as how he may have caused others to feel the need to censor attributes that are not accepted by society at large.

Like his book, Yoshino’s speech was divided into three parts that corresponded to three different stages in his life as a gay man. The first part dealt with gay conversion and discussed a time in his life when he tried fervently to alter his sexuality.

He noted that being in Graham Chapel brought up memories of his youth during which he sought religious intervention to change his homosexual desires.

“I still remember those days with some shock and horror because the only constant foray I made from my college rooms was to go to the chapel…and knelt down and prayed to gods I wasn’t sure I believed in for conversion. I thought the only way I could lead a happy life was to convert to being straight,” Yoshino said.

The second part of Yoshino’s talk dealt with passing when, even after coming to terms with his sexuality, he still did not want to out himself. The last part discussed the phenomenon of “covering,” when one tries to hide certain personality traits in order to be more accepted by society.

“Covering is detrimental to your sense of self,” Yoshino said. “The most harmful [covering demands] are the ones that come from family, strangers on the street or even from something in your own brain.”

After his speech, Yoshino took questions from the audience. Many of the questions asked what he would have changed in the book if he had written it in 2014 rather than 2006.

Yoshino said that he would add sections on the emergence of the bisexual and transgender movements. He included that he would like to investigate the ways in which he himself is privileged or has led other people to cover.

Many audience members responded positively to Yoshino’s presentation, including senior Madhana Pandian, who found the event to be thought-provoking.

“I really enjoyed his speech,” Pandian said. “It made me think about how the way we perceive other people’s everyday lives is oftentimes really different than the way they cover.”

Junior Rebecca Shih also found the event exciting and appreciated Yoshino’s openness.

“I think it’s awesome how he shared his life. I liked seeing how far he’s come in the past eight years, and I really enjoyed hearing his take on privilege and how he how he has developed,” she said.

From the perspective of a lawyer, Yoshino discussed how it is difficult to be optimistic about a future without any type of discrimination. But on a more personal level, Yoshino was confident in an improvement in the lives of the marginalized community.

“I think that so often students, like yourselves, often think you have to go along to get along, that assimilation is the path to advancement. And I’d like to say to you that so often in my own life, it was exactly the opposite that was true. [There have] been times when I stood apart, stood alone, not taken other people’s judgments, that I was able to [go ahead] of others who were equally deserving,” Yoshino said.