Swoveralls Comfort Club · June 2026 · Volume 4, Issue 6

The Science of Being Yourself (And What Happens When You Can't)

By Kyle Bergman, Founder of Swoveralls · June 2026

Hey Comfy Fam,

June is Pride Month, and this newsletter is going to be a little different.

Earlier this year we lost someone. A member of our community, a Broadway performer, a father, a husband, and one of the most joyful humans I've ever had the privilege of working with. His name was Bret Shuford, and I want to tell you about him.

We're also celebrating the incredible progress of our Drag Story Hour partnership, sharing some science on why being yourself is literally good for your health (and why pretending isn't), and highlighting a children's book that will make us cry in the best way.

Here's what we're covering:

• 🧠 The science of being yourself (and what happens when you can't)
• 🌈 Drag Story Hour update: $5,306 raised and counting
• 🕯️ Bret Shuford: Broadway husband, father, and forever comfy fam
• 📖 Things We Love: Good Night, Break a Leg by Bret Shuford

Here we go.

🧠 The Science of Being Yourself (And What Happens When You Can't)

I hope everyone reading this has experienced that feeling. The one where you've arrived somewhere, whether it's a physical location or the right group of people, and you don't have to pretend. Where you can just be yourself. No performance. No mask. No editing who you are to make someone else comfortable.

It's one of the best feelings in the world. And it turns out it's also measurably good for your health.

A landmark 2008 study by Wood, Linley, Maltby, Baliousis, and Joseph published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology developed the Authenticity Scale and found that people who live authentically (behaviors consistent with their true self) experience greater subjective well-being, more positive emotion, and higher life satisfaction.

Conversely, inauthenticity, meaning the gap between who you are and who you're performing as, predicts increased anxiety, depression, and psychological distress.

In other words: being yourself makes you healthier. Pretending makes you sick.

Now flip that around. Think about what it costs someone when they can't be themselves. Not because they choose not to, but because the world around them makes it unsafe to.

Ilan Meyer's minority stress model, published in Psychological Bulletin in 2003, showed that concealing one's identity (whether sexual orientation, gender identity, or other core aspects of self) creates a chronic stress burden that leads to higher rates of depression, anxiety, and adverse physical health outcomes.

This isn't abstract. This is what happens when people can't wear what they want, love who they love, or express themselves without fear.

Comfort isn't just about soft fabric. It's about environments where people can exist as they are. It's about communities that don't require performance as the price of admission.

This month, notice who around you might be performing. And see if there's anything you can do to make the room safer. I've pleasantly discovered that sometimes...all it takes is one person being unapologetically themselves (like me walking into a room wearing Swoveralls) to give everyone else permission to do the same.

🌈 Drag Story Hour Update: $5,306 Raised

Quick update on our partnership with Drag Story Hour, the nonprofit behind our Color Riot Rainbow collection.

We've raised $5,306 of our $7,500 goal!!!

Thank you to everyone who has donated and to everyone who grabbed a pair of Color Riots (which have been selling out, by the way. We're already working on a reorder for next year).

A reminder on how the donation works: when you donate $150 or more to Drag Story Hour through our fundraiser, you get $150 in Swoveralls store credit. Not just Color Riot. Anything on our site.

Donate (and get $150 store credit) here: giveoutday.org/story/wunkcf

Learn more about Drag Story Hour at dragstoryhour.org

And a quick shoutout to Mary Elise, our incredible Comfort Club moderator and the person who introduced me to Drag Story Hour's CEO Jonathan in the first place. If you love this partnership, you love Elise. It was all her.

We've got $2,194 to go. Let's close this out. 🌈

🕯️ Bret Shuford: Broadway Husband, Father, and Forever Comfy Fam

I need to tell you about Bret.

Bret Hanna-Shuford passed away on January 3rd from a rare form of hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis and peripheral T-cell lymphoma. He was 46 years old.

We first connected with Bret in 2023. We came across his Instagram, loved his energy immediately, and did some awesome partnerships together. He was one of those people who radiated joy so naturally that you forgot you were working with him. It just felt like hanging out with a friend.

Bret was a Broadway performer with credits including Wicked, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Amazing Grace, and Cirque Du Soleil's Paramour. He toured with South Pacific and Dreamgirls. He performed on the Disney Cruise Line, which made sense because he was a lifelong Disney fan.

In 2007, Bret met Stephen Hanna, a principal dancer at the New York City Ballet. They married in 2011 and welcomed their son Maverick in 2022. Together, they launched Broadway Husbands, a social media channel documenting their journey as a sober gay couple, as parents, and as advocates for LGBTQ+ families. They amassed millions of views across YouTube, Instagram, and their podcast.

In time, Bret shifted his focus from performing to life coaching, creative direction, and social media marketing. In 2025, the family moved to Orlando so Bret could begin graduate studies at the University of Florida, concentrating in Themed Environments Integration. He dreamed of becoming a Disney Imagineer.

Before he passed, Bret wrote a children's book.

It's called Good Night, Break a Leg, and it will be published posthumously this summer. More on that below.

I want you to know who Bret was. He was warm. He was joyful. He was brave in ways that most people never have to be. He lived authentically, loudly, and with so much love that it spilled over into everything he touched.

He is survived by his husband Stephen, his three-year-old son Maverick, his parents Preston and Deanna, and his brothers Todd, Eric, and Bart.

We featured Bret previously when he was first diagnosed, and our community showed up for him then. He's gone now, but his family still needs support. If you'd like to help Stephen and Maverick, gifts in Bret's memory can be made through their GoFundMe: gofundme.com/f/support-bret-shuford

Bret, you were a light. The comfy fam misses you. 🕯️

❤️ Books We Love: Good Night, Break a Leg by Bret Shuford

Bret's children's book, Good Night, Break a Leg, illustrated by Elena Hager, is available for preorder now.

I can't think of a more fitting way to honor his legacy than to support this book. Bret was a performer, a father, and someone who believed deeply in the power of stories to shape how kids see the world. This book is all of that, and it will be published posthumously this summer through Penguin Random House.

Preorder here: penguinrandomhouse.com/books/788187/good-night-break-a-leg-by-bret-shuford-illustrated-by-elena-hager/

If you have kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, or just believe in supporting artists who left too soon, consider preordering a copy. Every preorder matters. It signals to the publisher that this book has a community behind it. And it does.

Bret wrote this for Maverick. But it's for all of our kids, too. 📖

Until Next Time...

This month's newsletter was heavier than most. But I think that's okay. Some months are.

The science says being yourself is good for you. The research says pretending is bad for you. And Bret Shuford lived that truth every single day until the very end.

If you take one thing from this newsletter, let it be this: the rooms and communities where you can be yourself aren't luxuries. They're necessities. And if those rooms don't exist yet, build them. That's what Drag Story Hour did. That's what Broadway Husbands did. That's what the Swoveralls Comfort Club does every day.

Be yourself. Support the people brave enough to go first. And if you see someone being loud, colorful, and unapologetically who they are, don't look away. Look closer. That's courage.

Stay cozy, stay proud, and take care of each other.

Yours in all the free waistband energy,

Kyle Bergman
Founder | Chief Swoveralls Officer

P.S. - If you or someone you know could benefit from waistband-free clothing, reply to this email. I take these conversations seriously.

P.P.S - If you made it this far, you might as well join our facebook group here (the Comfort Club), and special shoutout to comfort coach Mary Elise for helping run the group.