Growing up as a mixed-race kid in Chicago and in his father's native Nigeria, where he really stood out, Brendon Ayanbadejo became attuned to issues of identity from a very young age. By his midteens, while living with his family in a dorm for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students at the University of California, Santa Cruz — his step-father was the dorm's headmaster — he thought no differently about LGBT people than he did straight people.