Inside Houston\u2019s World Cup home for\u00a0LGBTQ+ soccer fans<\/a><\/p>\nAt the time, it was little more than a passing introduction. Two years later, it would become something much bigger, and not just for the two of them.<\/p>\n
For Morgan and\u00a0Romo, the story of how they met is only one chapter in a larger story about visibility, authenticity and LGBTQ+\u00a0representation in media.<\/p>\n
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Today, both men say that visibility matters because a young LGBTQ+ person watching from home may be searching for the same reassurance they once needed: proof that it is possible to build a successful career without hiding who they\u00a0are.<\/p>\n
Finding authenticity in Houston<\/p>\n
That journey began in Houston.<\/p>\n
Morgan arrived in the city in 2017 after working in Springfield, Missouri.\u00a0Romo, a Texas native, had spent years working in smaller television markets before landing at ABC13.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went with an intention to Houston to open my life up,\u201d Morgan said.<\/p>\n
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Houston wasn\u2019t just a career move. It was the first place where he allowed himself to imagine a different future.<\/p>\n
Romo described a similar feeling. After years of questioning whether being openly gay fit with a career in television news, Houston\u2019s size, diversity and culture made it feel possible to imagine a future that included both professional success and personal authenticity.<\/p>\n
The two would not reconnect until 2020.<\/p>\n
By then, both were working weekend morning shifts and navigating the unusual schedules that come with television news. The brief introduction they shared two years earlier quickly became something more.<\/p>\n
“I fell in love with him pretty fast,”\u00a0Romo said.<\/p>\n
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For Morgan, one thing stood out almost immediately.<\/p>\n
“He’s just such an honest person and so vulnerable, and I am very skeptical and distrustful,” Morgan said. “We just clicked right from the beginning, and I trusted him so early.”<\/p>\n
That trust surprised him.<\/p>\n
“I was marveling at that and just falling in love,” Morgan said.<\/p>\n
The relationship would soon face its first major test.<\/p>\n
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When Morgan’s career presented an opportunity in New York,\u00a0Romo found himself confronting a decision he never expected to make. He would be leaving behind Houston, ABC13 and a career he had spent years building without another job waiting for him on the other side.<\/p>\n
“I thought I would be there forever,”\u00a0Romo said of ABC13.<\/p>\n
At the time, he had recently been offered a weekday anchor promotion.<\/p>\n
Instead, he packed up and moved to New York.<\/p>\n
As uncertain as the decision felt professionally,\u00a0Romo said it felt simple personally.<\/p>\n
“I took a chance on love,” he said.<\/p>\n
Finding a path forward<\/p>\n
For much of their early careers, neither man saw many examples of openly LGBTQ+\u00a0journalists succeeding in television news.<\/p>\n
Working in smaller markets, many of them deeply conservative, left\u00a0Romo questioning whether there was room for someone like him in television news, he said.<\/p>\n
During\u00a0Romo\u2019s early career in smaller Texas communities, being openly gay \u201cdidn\u2019t even really strike me as an option,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are a lot of small Texas towns, and it didn\u2019t feel like a good, safe place to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
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One of the grooms prepares for the couple’s wedding ceremony in Texas.<\/p>\n
HEATHER GLENN WITH ELYSIAN BLOOM PHOTOGRAPHY![\"Stephen]()
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Stephen Morgan and Steven Romo exchange vows surrounded by family and friends.<\/p>\n
HEATHER GLENN WITH ELYSIAN BLOOM PHOTOGRAPHY![\"Stephen]()
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Stephen Morgan and Steven Romo share their first kiss as a married couple.<\/p>\n
HEATHER GLENN WITH ELYSIAN BLOOM PHOTOGRAPHY![\"The]()
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The newlyweds celebrate after exchanging vows.<\/p>\n
HEATHER GLENN WITH ELYSIAN BLOOM PHOTOGRAPHY![\"Steven]()
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Steven Romo shares a dance with his mother during the couple’s wedding reception.<\/p>\n
HEATHER GLENN WITH ELYSIAN BLOOM PHOTOGRAPHY![\"The]()
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The couple’s wedding cake awaits guests before the reception.<\/p>\n
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\u201cEveryone, of course, should come out when it is the right time for them, and it wasn\u2019t the right time for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
When\u00a0Romo entered the industry, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper had not yet publicly come out. He remembers watching Cooper continue to cover major stories around the world after doing so and realizing that being openly gay and being a respected journalist were not mutually exclusive.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeeing Anderson do it and then go cover stories across the world really was the signpost for me that I can do this,\u201d\u00a0Romo said. \u201cThis is a safe, realistic thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morgan\u2019s journey was different, but it led him to a similar place. Raised in a conservative religious environment, he spent years focused almost exclusively on building a career in meteorology while pushing questions about his identity into the background.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was taught from an early age that being gay is a sin,\u201d Morgan said. \u201cWhen I was thinking about what my professional life would look like, it was not at all connected to my personal feelings and attractions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead, he poured himself into school and work, earning a degree in meteorology and climbing the television market ladder before eventually arriving in Houston.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t have a ton of people that I looked up to growing up,\u201d Morgan said. \u201cI just kept my nose to the grindstone and tried to figure out how to get this meteorology degree and hopefully be successful.\u201d<\/p>\n
A blurry selfie and a public moment<\/p>\n
When Morgan proposed in 2021, neither man expected the announcement to become anything more than a personal milestone shared with family, friends and coworkers.<\/p>\n
In fact,\u00a0Romo still laughs when he talks about the photo they used to announce their engagement.<\/p>\n
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Stephen Morgan, now with Fox Weather, and Steven Romo take a sunset selfie in New York after relocating from Houston. It wasn’t the blurry selfie they used to announce their engagement, but another snapshot of the life they were building together.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Stephen Morgan and Steven Romo<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a blurry selfie,\u201d Romo said. \u201cIt\u2019s not a great selfie.\u201d<\/p>\n
For\u00a0Romo, the post was never intended to be a public declaration. Family members and colleagues already knew he was gay. To him, it was simply a chance to celebrate the person he loved.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want people to know that I\u2019m in love and happy and proud of who I am,\u201d\u00a0Romo said.<\/p>\n
The reaction caught them off guard.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What they viewed as an engagement announcement was interpreted by many viewers as something else entirely: a public coming-out moment for two familiar faces in Houston television news.<\/p>\n
Romo remembers one interaction in particular. After he shared the news of the engagement with coworkers, a longtime colleague quietly reassured him that she would keep it a secret.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t worry, I won\u2019t tell anyone,\u201d she told him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The comment stopped him in his tracks.<\/p>\n
Until then,\u00a0Romo said, he had been thinking about what the engagement meant for him and Morgan. For the first time, he realized other people might see the announcement differently.<\/p>\n
After the post went live, messages began pouring in. Many congratulated the couple. Others thanked them for being visible.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was very surprised by that, that people cared about it,\u201d\u00a0Romo said. \u201cI was just blown away by the kindness of most people.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Morgan, the response reinforced something he had slowly come to understand during his years in television news: people were paying attention not just to the forecast, but to the person delivering it.<\/p>\n
The power of ordinary moments<\/p>\n
Years after posting that blurry engagement selfie, the moments that resonate most with viewers are often the ones that appear least significant.<\/p>\n
While anchoring a streaming broadcast for NBC News,\u00a0Romo casually mentioned that a tie he was wearing belonged to his husband. The comment lasted only a few seconds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got several messages from people who didn\u2019t realize I was gay until I said that and thanked me for saying it,\u201d\u00a0Romo said.<\/p>\n
The reaction surprised him.<\/p>\n
“I realized that maybe it’s just existing authentically and openly actually can make a difference,”\u00a0Romo said.<\/p>\n
Morgan has had similar experiences.<\/p>\n
As a meteorologist, he said viewers often develop a uniquely personal connection with the people delivering forecasts into their homes each day. For years, that meant carefully separating parts of his personal life from his public identity. Today, he no longer feels that pressure.<\/p>\n
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Stephen Morgan and Steven Romo relax with their dogs, Cumulus, left, and Theo.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Stephen Morgan and Steven Romo<\/p>\n
“I need to call my husband,” Morgan said, describing the type of casual remark that once felt difficult to say publicly. “It’s so liberating to not withhold that.”<\/p>\n
Representation, they say, is rarely about grand gestures. More often, it is found in ordinary moments \u2014 a passing comment on air, a family photo on social media or a simple acknowledgment of the person waiting for them at home.<\/p>\n
“It’s not this thing where I want to smear it or throw it in people’s faces,” Morgan said. “I need to know for myself that it’s OK and that this is a safe place.”<\/p>\n
That, they say, is why ordinary moments can matter so much. Not because every LGBTQ+\u00a0journalist is trying to become a role model, but because seeing someone live openly can help another person imagine a future for themselves.<\/p>\n
“Young people especially are watching,”\u00a0Romo said, “and they’re looking for examples that they’re going to be OK one day.”<\/p>\n
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Steven Romo, left, and Stephen Morgan dress as Mario and Luigi for Halloween.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Stephen Morgan and Steven Romo<\/p>\n
So, in the spirit of ordinary moments, both were asked the same question at the end of separate interviews. As gay men during Pride Month, what is their iced coffee order?<\/p>\n
Romo answered first, describing an iced Americano with sugar-free vanilla syrup and cinnamon.<\/p>\n
When asked the same question later, Morgan’s first response wasn’t about coffee at all.<\/p>\n
“Did you ask Steven this?” he said.<\/p>\n
After hearing his husband’s answer, Morgan quickly pointed out that\u00a0Romo usually drinks hot coffee before offering his own order and jokingly accused him of trying to sound cooler than he is.<\/p>\n
Moments like that are what representation ultimately makes possible\u00a0\u2014 the freedom to build an ordinary life together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Houston broadcasters Stephen Morgan, left, and Steven Romo, right, pose for an engagement photo after Morgan proposed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-353433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}