[SPEAKER_01]: The queer family about gas Love is love is love on the queer family about gas Love is love is love on the queer family about gas Love is love is love is love is love
[SPEAKER_01]: Love is love.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where you started with with your little baby gay and being out in society and and realizing it was viewed a certain way that felt dark or wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then now, you know, where we are in the world and knowing our history, knowing where we've come from, and then trying to infuse the pride that we have so hard to find.
[SPEAKER_00]: into our mentoring, so to speak, of not just our children, but just society as a whole and showing up, because we're political just by showing up and making sure we're normalizing a non-heterinormative view of what the world can be.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in so doing, we open hearts and minds like one little mind at a time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome y'all to the queer family podcast to show all about family.
[SPEAKER_00]: But okay, I am your gay host Jamie and this is the show that celebrates highlights, uplifts, and normalizes LGBTQIA plus families in all of our fabulous identities.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this episode I have coming at you is a really good one.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got to sit down with Bronlin and Elianor.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are the hosts of a podcast called Late in 88.
[SPEAKER_00]: which basically like unpacks queer history and helps to heal the baby gays still inside all of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we all still have a baby gay inside of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: This episode is really basically about parenting, but from a different angle.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of talking about raising kids,
[SPEAKER_00]: In this episode, we talk about repairing ourselves in the baby game side of us and healing the queer kids we used to be creating the representation that our children need and creating affirming communities for our children that will make our families stronger.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a good conversation.
[SPEAKER_00]: We dive into queer history.
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk about politics, all things clear.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think you're really going to enjoy it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm excited that we're in season 23.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm excited to roll this tape for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm just going to do it because my dog is on the couch about to come in and bark at me because she wants me to play.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we don't need any more care of loopers.
[SPEAKER_00]: We just don't need it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So all right, Helen, Bula, could you come over here, please?
[SPEAKER_00]: And roll that tape.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: Enjoy this episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here we go.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're family, but good, still love is love.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bronwood and Eleanor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi, welcome.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi, thanks for having us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is gonna be a fun one.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a little bit out of the norm of what we usually talk about, but I think that everyone is really gonna love this conversation and where we're gonna take it, because I think everyone listening, every single person listening.
[SPEAKER_00]: is going to be able to relate to what the two of you are kind of experts on and talk about regularly, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it safe to say that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, well, I mean, we've all we've all been baby gays, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And we have at some point or another, we are all little gays.
[SPEAKER_00]: Little gays.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to talk about the little gay within you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is a different kind of parenting episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's parenting the little gay within you and reclaiming that little gay.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just made that up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure that's where we're going to go.
[SPEAKER_03]: Actually, what our show is all about.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you're right on it, Jamie.
[SPEAKER_03]: Reclaiming your baby gay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to help you all at home or on your runs or in your cars, wherever you happen to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: Reclaim your baby gay today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's go.
[SPEAKER_00]: So without further ado, my friends, I got to...
[SPEAKER_00]: Put you on the spot and make you do your 30 second elevator pitch.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're already told me you're slightly nervous, which makes it even more fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are we ready?
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: On your marks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Get set.
[SPEAKER_00]: Go.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm Roman Parks and I am the co-host with my
[SPEAKER_02]: Bestie Eleanor's for Bota.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's me.
[SPEAKER_02]: We are the co-hosts of late in 88.
[SPEAKER_02]: The podcast where we are two grade school classmates that explore our inner child growing up in the very conservative area of Canada and Calgary, Alberta in the late 80s.
[SPEAKER_02]: and season two explores the grungy late nineties.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we are here to talk with Jamie and discuss all the tumultuous challenges both working with our families and our teachers in the education system and society as a whole.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, do you want to add anything, Ellie, you know, we're way over.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm just saying, you know, we're in the right in the way of our podcast is we take it as a journey and we invite our listeners to come with us to go deep inside and really look at those nooks and crevices that maybe haven't been seen.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we use our own personal story at the forefront.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then use the external context with queer history, child psychology and a whole bunch of other stuff to understand, understand a little bit deeper who we are as little ones, and how that shaped us as queer people, and how we can just love ourselves more.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's all about the love.
[SPEAKER_00]: All about the love.
[SPEAKER_00]: Love is love.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's way over.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was a little bit more over.
[SPEAKER_02]: Felt my casters.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some way right than a elevator bitch.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but listen, you had a lot to pack and basically in a nutshell what you're saying is you have been diving deep to uncover your baby gay inside of you and really figure out who that was and let it let your light your little baby gay light shine, which I think we could all use use right and what's interesting, well, there's a lot of interesting things here, but
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I might be slightly older than you because I was a teenager in the 90s as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Gen X though.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like I'm slightly older.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we grew up around the same time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think so.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're born in the United States.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, 77.
[SPEAKER_00]: So.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just slightly older, slightly older.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're, you know, we grew up in the same time when
[SPEAKER_00]: homosexuality was a little bit different seen differently in society.
[SPEAKER_00]: The landscape hasn't really changed that much, but it has.
[SPEAKER_00]: It really has.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it feels along a lot of the time like we take two steps forward and we take one step back.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's changed a lot and then there's a lot of stuff we still have to work through and push through and unravel and uncycle and break cycles of if you catch my drift.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that's what we, you know, this doing this podcast has made me such a queer history nerd because I found really understanding that context of where things were out on a societal level was so helpful in me understanding how blocked I was as a kid, right, because our season one is about age eight age nine.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're not watching the news, you're not reading the newspapers, and yet you are impacted by the culture.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're impacted by the views of the culture, and the nuances of how people talk about, say, gay people, if they're even talking about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I know for me, there was so much break through in learning about the queer history of the time because it helped me realize why I was so repressed.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I didn't have any role models.
[SPEAKER_03]: There was nobody on TV in the 80s.
[SPEAKER_03]: There was no one in my life who was gay.
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't really know what I was.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't all I had were all of this big mix up of feelings and the feeling like an outsider.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that, you know, learning that context and knowing that, you know, that in our time, it really still like you said was wasn't that acceptable in the 80s in in our.
[SPEAKER_03]: City of Calgary, you know, it was still pretty French.
[SPEAKER_03]: There was a bit of community happening, but you know pride.
[SPEAKER_03]: We didn't we had our first pride in, you know, early late early 90s.
[SPEAKER_03]: So really there was not there was not a lot of community there to anchor into.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: You want to add something brown when I feel like well I was just going to say that like and and the thing is to is that even if you felt comfortable like one of the things we talk about a lot in our podcasts is like we like to explore like we have a lot of really vulnerable conversations so.
[SPEAKER_02]: you know like I was actually my family was really cool we had some gay people in my family and so I was actually allowed to kind of socially transition at home like I was a tomboy but like at home I was like fully I was just Bronwyn so I was like in boys clothes playing with boys toys like I was like
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, for all intents and purposes, a boy at home or like non-binary at home, I guess.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I didn't want to be a boy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was just Bronlin at home.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wasn't a boy or a girl per se.
[SPEAKER_02]: But like, even if like you were young and were able, like your family was cool with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like mine was, there was no place for you to go.
[SPEAKER_02]: as a kid or a young person, because of the social stigma, like we were talking, like the harmful language that was used against the queer community at that time was all around like pedophilia.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like, you know, homosexuals were going to sexually assault your children, you know, a lot of the rhetoric that is being used today against trans people was being used back then.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, you know, it's the same script.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just being recycled with some single words to being replaced.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there was actually an aversion to queer people, even like creating spaces for children in
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyone thinks that I want to harm a kid, because that's not what we're about.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, not at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: As we learned historically, even if you had all the things going for you, like I did, there was still no public place of gathering.
[SPEAKER_02]: for children or people under the age of 18 or 19 or 21 like any of like legal age of majority to go to a bar or any space there was no space to for anybody who was slightly let's say out of the box.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think that, you know, like slightly different or not getting societal norms, but like thinking about this in the 80s, I grew up in San Francisco, which supposed to be, you know, gay, Mecca, and going, I would go to the Castro district, which is the gay district regularly because I had dance classes at the Parking Rex Center in the Castro.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't recall my family like at home talking about gay much.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't remember that being a topic of conversation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know we had somebody who lived below us at a one point Richard who babysat us who was definitely gay and had boyfriends.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was never talked about, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I remember going to the Castro district regularly, we were on the bus, we were on our own elementary school, taking public transportation to the Castro, getting off in the Castro, and like my friends, and I like pushing each other into gay bars, like to mess with us, like ha ha ha, and like giggling when we would see two men walking together with their hands in each other's pockets.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like, I remember it being something you made fun of.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was something that it was very clear to me that those were the others.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those were the weird ones.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know if that, and I grew up in Gaitown.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: So like, I don't know if that kind of pushed kept me from really exploring myself longer than I would have.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what would have helped me to like find myself earlier, but I was a slow burn.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't realize I had seen six attractions as they like to say in the religious.
[SPEAKER_00]: places like I didn't even realize it until I was a teenager like I didn't I didn't have any awakening in elementary school and I'm wondering if it's because the society around me made fun of those people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those were those people were the ones you othered which I'm one of those people.
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, but I didn't even realize it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Those nuances, I think, what I've realized anyways is like how much that goes in and registers, because as a kid you're paying attention to everything you're learning about your world.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I will say our child's psychologist does say that, you know, people do come into their realizations at various points.
[SPEAKER_03]: Some kids can know as young as eight, but, you know, some people, it's when they're teens and then some people, it's when they're adults.
[SPEAKER_03]: So just to say there is some psychology there too.
[SPEAKER_03]: kind of asexual because there was so much noise in there.
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't know what to do with.
[SPEAKER_03]: I had experienced sexual trauma as a kid.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that is another layer that I feel is important to mention when it comes to unpacking the stigma on that and then your own sexuality.
[SPEAKER_03]: If your own sexuality doesn't fit the box that your told is good and you're already harboring shame in your body.
[SPEAKER_03]: it becomes quite complicated to like, where does this all fit?
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe I just won't be sexual at all.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so for me, anyways, by the time I hit my teen years, that's the strategy I employed, but it doesn't mean I didn't have attractions at the same time.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just was like, oh, I really want to be physically close to that friend all the time, but
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't know that meant I was attracted to her.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't see how that doesn't make sense, but it's so obvious.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I feel like that's what's been so fascinating to really look at and come at it with such a lens of compassion.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because both Bronnone and I found that when we started approaching the teenage side of things, it was like, oh man, so embarrassing.
[SPEAKER_03]: I can't do it.
[SPEAKER_03]: So much self judgment.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know?
[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, we had people that we had interviewed in season one with that we invited back who are like, yeah, I don't know if I want to talk about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's been really interesting to bring up that love and be like, okay, let's do it, let's poke the end hill, let's go into this grimy zone and see if we can understand better what was actually going on.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's it's
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I find also kind of interesting and like a parallel here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, Ellie, nor you have children, so do we might relate to this.
[SPEAKER_00]: But like, it's the parenting of your kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, like, I want my kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure we all do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want my kids to feel like they can tell me anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want them to know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want them to know that beyond a shadow of a doubt that I will accept them no matter what.
[SPEAKER_00]: no matter what.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm trying to parent them with this in mind, so I try to be open and honest about my gender expression, my sexuality, age appropriate, like don't come at me, but like, and like, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: And like, yes, my wife and I's relationship and I've tried to be really open and honest.
[SPEAKER_00]: And both of my kids, now my eight-year-old has come to me and said,
[SPEAKER_02]: Mom, I don't know what it is, but I just always want to look at her.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's really sweet, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So like, but so like, he's starting to kind of, I see that he's starting to explore this, and then my 12-year-old he's definitely like exploring the things and has come out of straight and feels that she's 100% straight, and I keep saying, well, I could change you now.
[SPEAKER_00]: But like, um, but joking as well, just to flip the narrative.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's okay, they're all born this way ever, you know, it's okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I love you no matter what, I love you no matter what, but thinking of all of this and thinking of our inner gay child or just our inner child and how terrible just figuring yourself out is and then tying it into...
[SPEAKER_00]: Parenting is a clear person and the real strong desire to make sure that we are parenting them with like this inclusive lens and everything is okay lens and also at the same time realizing I don't want to go too hard on them with this and my identity and I don't want to push too much.
[SPEAKER_00]: So like I find this topic really actually very fascinating as
[SPEAKER_00]: both a human in the world and as a parent trying to help my kids navigate their childhoods has different as they may be from mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if I'm really making much sense here.
[SPEAKER_03]: And from my parenting position, I really value the role of community.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so when it comes to, you know, yeah, me too, I'm really open about my sexuality, my past, my partner as well, especially as they get older, I have similar ages nine and 13.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I really value the role of community when it comes to modeling diversity, diversity of expression of self-gender sexuality, all of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's important to me that
[SPEAKER_03]: Everybody comes around the house, you know, goes over for dinner that we go out to all the cultural events, all the pride events, everything.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the kids can see it's normal for them.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that was interesting for me because I was living in Toronto, which was our biggest city here in Canada.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was in a very diverse neighborhood.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then I just recently moved back to Alberta.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm in a small town.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so taking that value system with me and making sure I can still do that, which I can actually, which is so cool, because you have assumptions about populations and who's in them.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's been really valuable, because I feel like, yeah, kids can kind of like, you can tell them as many stories as you want, but they don't care.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, they don't think you're that interesting.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're like, yeah, I know.
[SPEAKER_03]: You loved my man.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, you did this.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, but I feel like when it's somebody in your home
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's just, Brownman have a, they, Browns have they, them, and so then do they have, is do they call their partner a wife or do they call them a, they them too, or a husband, so then we get to have these conversations, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And each person is different, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And so that, I find a lot of personally, a lot of value in that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, totally.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, like, for me, like, that's what this whole process is done.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I might not be a parent, but it's really kind of opened my heart to young kids today.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, also because they are going through the same thing that I went through back then.
[SPEAKER_02]: like they are facing the same sort of moral attacks like they're being debated in the highest levels of government.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're talking about trans kids or just kids in general.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well trans kids, queer kids, you know, because the thing is is those rules and regulations don't just affect trans kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: right they affect young girls who don't present as typically feminine right like I'm not trained like back when i was a teenager i'm not trans at that time but i also didn't present as traditionally feminine like i'm five eleven i am like husky like
[SPEAKER_02]: build, you know, like, I am not a, like, wayfishly thin feminine girl either.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I could have been just as easily accused as being trans on the high school basketball team.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then what you're going to examine me?
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's what, that's what I was speaking with, um, one of the higher-ups of family equality.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was on a panel with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Luz, Luz was her name, and I
[SPEAKER_00]: She said, you know, one of my favorite things that anybody's ever said is, rights for us actually helps everybody, like giving us special rights.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm putting that in quotation.
[SPEAKER_00]: It helps the whole society.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not asking for anything special.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will help you as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to your point with girl sports and like, I have been in fights with people in my
[SPEAKER_00]: when there was there was a debate going on in our school board about taking inclusive sports policies away and rejiggering them and you know making it harder for trans kids to play on the teams that they felt they should play on.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had so many arguments with people that like who how are you going to police this how are you going to police girls and girl it just hurts people if the policy you are trying to push actually ends up hurting another portion of people then you're not doing the right thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and the whole thing is absurd anyway, like and this is and this also flies in the face of like actual science around like trans people and sports to begin with because you'll also notice that no one is talking about trans men and sports right now it's because it falls from the patriarchal massaging around the fact that like oh men are inherently better than women despite the fact that there is a trans man boxer who is like dominating
[SPEAKER_02]: like the amateur boxing league right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: But no, there's no problem with the transmit and boxing dominating.
[SPEAKER_02]: But like one like trans woman swimmer got silver ahead of some woman who didn't take losing very well.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now all of a sudden it's a national crisis.
[SPEAKER_00]: and she's inherently just better than the rest of the women on the team because because, yeah, because, you know, assigned, yeah, male, it better, just better.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is the thing is like it's these attacks, you know, are things that we heard as teenagers as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, like in Alberta, like yeah, like in Alberta, you know, I got into huge fight with a friend of mine who was conservative in high school like he he voted like he was older he was a couple of years older and he voted for the conservative government and I was really angry and he's like well understand like it's not such a big deal I said it's absolutely a big deal like you voted to say that I can't get married
[SPEAKER_02]: Like you could go to the bar to Maro, pick up a girl whose name you don't even know.
[SPEAKER_02]: May be her.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like...
[SPEAKER_02]: like that's no problem.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I could be in love with somebody for 10 years and you just voted for somebody who said I can't get married.
[SPEAKER_00]: But voting to let me get married to a woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, you still can't just pick up that woman in the bar and marry her.
[SPEAKER_00]: So like it doesn't affect you in any freaking way.
[SPEAKER_00]: You still have all the rights in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, still do.
[SPEAKER_02]: But he did that because he's fiscally conservative.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he's like, well, but this is better for her.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all about money.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, yeah, because you're a millionaire and you manage as a gas bar.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, that people okay, people came up to me and we're like, I voted for Trump, but it's really financial for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all about the finances and the cut shut the fuck up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, don't even why are you telling me this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't talk to me anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, shhh.
[SPEAKER_00]: You cut your looking in my face and saying, I voted against you because of money.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a great argument.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's so much better.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like, what are you thinking?
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you think, and then the people who said, do you really think it's going to affect you someday?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you really think this vote is going to scare?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, Sarah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was picked a name out of my ass.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Charlie.
[SPEAKER_03]: She loves fucking Charlie.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Fuck.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, like, you're now Charlie.
[SPEAKER_03]: You would tell the Carlson.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: You and Tucker.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, like, like, oh, as the queer history nerd over here, I mean, I do feel like this is another drive in us.
[SPEAKER_03]: It white, so important to record our past and the stories of the past and the context of the past because when somebody comes up to you and says, what's not a big deal?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, look, you can get married.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, that's only been for like 20 years.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's what I'm talking to.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's
[SPEAKER_03]: but that it's so important for us to remember our context and our history.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we know that, yeah, like this is brand new.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like it was not even been legal for that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it is thought to a couple that was closeted for 40 years.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's just that is self preservation.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so our historian who is a decade older than us,
[SPEAKER_03]: When we talked to him Kevin Allen, his name, he's a queer historian that specialty is Calgary, so the city that we grew up in, you know, he was saying that for him as a Gen Xer, coming up in high school,
[SPEAKER_03]: Coming out was just not possible.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, it was not a thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: So here we are coming up a decade later and Bronwyn did come out in high school.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that, I think that they were the only one.
[SPEAKER_03]: but that still like the fact that it was starting to happen a decade later, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's 1998.
[SPEAKER_03]: Then you think 2008, 2018, now we're here, 2006, not that long ago.
[SPEAKER_03]: So keeping that history close by and understanding all that,
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel is really important and people need to know.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I have another project I'm working on that has to do with Alberta queer history.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I had a neighbor, I was telling a neighbor of mine about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And she goes, Alberta has queer history.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I want to play.
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to play.
[SPEAKER_03]: It says, well, every place does every street corner, every every spot of land, every country in the world has gay history.
[SPEAKER_03]: Most of this was Kentucky.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: And most of it's buried and quiet and silenced.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I just really encourage all the listeners out there to start digging about where you grew up.
[SPEAKER_03]: And starting about maybe a bit of the history, a little bit of bits and pieces of queer history, it is so nourishing as a queer person to get that little piece and realize, wow, there are these people who are fighting to figure it out and make it work and and these elders who came before us who held the line at under such great risk.
[SPEAKER_03]: It really inspires you to continue that fight and to continue holding that line.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, yeah, we built off what came before us, but the fight isn't over.
[SPEAKER_00]: The fight is still the same, actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just to Brownland's point.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has, it has moved to a slightly different demographic of the umbrella.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the same exact rhetoric, it's the same exact arguments, they are just targeting us even smaller bracket of the whole umbrella, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we have the fight for that bracket.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we fight really hard and those of us who can, who can show up and who have the ability to fight because some, because some people have to hide.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some people have to hide, but those of us who don't have to, we need to show up extra strong, because like, have you ever, like, all these people who are fighting for girl sports and all the things like, they have never even met a trans little girl.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've never even met a little trans girl.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have no idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, you're looking at what Ryan won right now and you had no idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, they don't necessarily
[SPEAKER_00]: had a normative like patriarchal bullshit.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, and and the inner repression, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Which I think for us like even again in our podcast, it's like we're going after the parts of us that are still wounded and broken around our
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, there's still room to repair there.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think everybody has room to repair because we've all been hurt by this society, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'll be hurt by the repression and the, you know, everything we're talking about.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, so that, you know, I was thinking about that after your question about parenting as well, is that I, for me, anyways, as a parent, feel that the biggest aspect of parenting.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was expecting it, but not in the,
[SPEAKER_03]: And where she kind of way can come, where it really calls you on your own stuff, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Really calls you on your own inner blocks sometimes, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Your own conditioning.
[SPEAKER_03]: Your own ways of understanding the world or yourself or what you think love is what you think, you know.
[SPEAKER_03]: So doing this work through the podcast has been unbelievably liberating, because
[SPEAKER_03]: I think I'm not alone because I don't think I do it without Bronwyn and as artists, we have this bizarre impulse to go into the dark complicated places and to make sense of them.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I do think that that is a really important aspect because the people who go after our community are repressed.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're having a percent.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, they need some healing, man.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you got to want it.
[SPEAKER_03]: You got to want to do the work.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's where the block is.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's, again, where community is so important.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because if you met a human being who was trans or queer and you realized, oh, wow, they're a person.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's just too simple when it comes to politics.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's the most important part too is that like what we didn't have when we were younger is like both because of the AIDS crisis, which wiped out a huge swath of our community and also sideline a whole swath of our community like even those that survived were like seriously ill and dealing with massive mental health crises around like.
[SPEAKER_02]: What was going on if they weren't like both dealing with that they were also trying to help those right like between the lesbian and the leather community and everything else like those that weren't actively ill We're trying to help those who were ill our community now has us as elders right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh god.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's so scary.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do any say that like you four things like I know.
[SPEAKER_02]: But like we are.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have also more right today.
[SPEAKER_02]: then our elders did back then 100%.
[SPEAKER_02]: So like despite the fact that in many states in the United States, our rights are eroding and even up here in Canada, our rights are being eroded, we still to this day.
[SPEAKER_02]: Have more rights.
[SPEAKER_02]: as a queer community collectively, and more organizations supporting us and more public support.
[SPEAKER_02]: Even within the Republican Party, we have more public support and social support.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then we did in the 80s and 90s.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that is something that the youth today, like that is definitely something that I think we as a community need to show up more for them.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's sort of like that's the beauty of your podcast and your audience like there are family, there are queer families today, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like lots of that are that are just like living out large.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I remember I only knew of like one like only I had one friend who had like queer dads very fortunately.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's going to be on the podcast
[SPEAKER_00]: We are everywhere now.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's true, but even everywhere is still sparse and few and about far between, but there's so many of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, but you were you brought up a really good point before we started recording Bronwyn about how our identities are just politicized.
[SPEAKER_00]: Us living in the world is political.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: us being is just political.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has been politicized, which is a burden and also a blessing I feel like because we can move a lot of hearts and minds by just showing up those of us who can show up and be.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just leave out and proud.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, just like just showing up is political.
[SPEAKER_00]: And those of us who can, maybe show up even louder and louder, and to help those who can't.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the way we, those of us who are parenting or kids to not just think of the header or normative inside the box way of life, like we were,
[SPEAKER_00]: Like we grew up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm holding a little baby dinosaur here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love it because because my child just puts things on my desk And then I'm a big band of dinosaurs like don't she wear it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got like all these like toys I got like this crime over here We're so clear like this came off my floor.
[SPEAKER_03]: I took it off my floor.
[SPEAKER_03]: I got on camera And it was on my floor.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was like oops.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's okay
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's okay, but like there are a lot of us now, right, to your point.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are a lot of us who are parenting our kids to be inclusive and open of all identities and welcoming to all identities and and we talked to our kids about this kind of stuff regularly and I think that there's hope that the next the generations that we're raising were the ones that are really coming up the
[SPEAKER_00]: And my 12-year-old, that boy friend has a boyfriend.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even like, like, grosses me out to say it, but like, so I don't need to say it grosses me out, but it's like, it's like, no, no, no, we're not trying to be there yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't want to be there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, so,
[SPEAKER_00]: and she got to fight with him, and I'm so proud of the way she responded.
[SPEAKER_00]: She kissed her girlfriend on the cheek at lunch or something, and he got all upset.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said something that shouldn't have, and she was like, I, we're broke up, Mom.
[SPEAKER_00]: We broke up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody talks to me like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was raised by liberal lesbians.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody gets to talk to me like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, he was being low key homophobic, and I told him,
[SPEAKER_00]: That's so, that's, that's, like, that's, she got Riz.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was like, I was like, okay, she was, I have it written in text.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was raised by liberal lesbians.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it talks to me that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was dead, she's fine, she's gonna be fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, let's go, go, she's fine, all right, no, all right, all right.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then they did make up, which I was like, what she texted a couple of days later.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's always texting us.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was like, Mom, still be mad.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know you're going to be mad, but I decided to get back with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, oh, God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he came over for dinner last night and we made sure that the conversation was so freaking gay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were like talking about, oh, this home of phobic thing happened today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me tell you about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were like, it was like, oh, God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm trying to raise the friends of my children too.
[SPEAKER_00]: to be like, to normalize these conversations and to normalize this stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: The day to day though, again, in our podcast that that's what I really recognize.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, yeah, it's the big events, sure, but I think the day to day is more potent and in parenting, it's the day to day to like how the words you're using, how you're acting around others and, you know, same thing like my daughter, my daughter had a, she does these movie parties, she loves to throw parties, she's part of girl.
[SPEAKER_03]: And one of her friends, she had the face paint out, put a rainbow on her cheek, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And that was part of whatever character and one of her friends took her aside and said, you know, that's the gay symbol, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was like,
[SPEAKER_03]: literally just like they're watching and being like, yeah, that is the case symbol.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like pretty, it's like great.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then the friend was like, it's like circuits, circuits.
[SPEAKER_03]: I could tell her brain was just like, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, but I just was like emanating like, isn't it great?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, did you just see my flag over there?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's like, it's great.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, it's great, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: But I knew that that was not the message she was getting at home and I knew she came from a traditional home, so it was just like taking up space to give her maybe a moment of a different experience that's not shaming her.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not like bringing a heavy rhetoric in, but I'm showing her that there's a different reality than maybe what she's been exposed to.
[SPEAKER_02]: And her friend, the girl, the rainbow was like, they didn't remember.
[SPEAKER_03]: She's like, walked away from us.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's these intersecting, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because we talk a lot about that too.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, what do you have at home, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And those, and those developmental moments of when you're coming, because I grew up in a very traditional home, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Old school, European parents, older generation, you know, like, so,
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, how does that go when that interfaces with the external?
[SPEAKER_03]: And when we have our kids friends over, we're part of that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, we're part of that alternate influence.
[SPEAKER_03]: We, yeah, you know, which I can remember as a kid being really important going into other family's homes and seeing how other families live.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, my God, can you imagine going to a queer family's house when you're a kid?
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, Bronwyn had gay uncles, but like, this is just like, like, go on over to your friend's house and it's like, anyways, gay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: where you started with with your little baby gay and being out in society and realizing it was viewed a certain way that felt dark or wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then now, you know, where we are in the world and knowing our history, knowing where we've come from, and then trying to infuse the pride that we have so hard to find.
[SPEAKER_00]: into our mentoring, so to speak, of not just our children, but just society as a whole and showing up because we're political just by showing up and making sure we're normalizing a non-header or normative view of what the world can be.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in so doing, we open hearts and minds like one little mind at a time, like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got that boy, yes, that's my, I got him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So never forget it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'll never forget it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He won't.
[SPEAKER_03]: But that's what I mean, it's important, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what you're talking about showing up.
[SPEAKER_03]: And even the little moments are sometimes the most potent of how we can illuminate.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you said that so beautifully.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if I said anything beautifully and then there was one time I really did shame one of the friends because that just just to just to show that nobody's perfect when when my daughter was like six we had like this plating with a bunch of kids and the one of the girls was like oh how do you have two moms and I heard it it's like she said it like in my ear shot and I flipped around I said well why do you not you have a son
[SPEAKER_00]: I did, and then I checked myself because I was ready to go further, and then I had to check myself, and then I was like, oh shit, she's gonna go home and tell her mom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's a learning process, but we are, you know, like, I think the podcast like yours are important because like you said, we need to know our history, we need to nurture our baby gaze.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's really good and it's super clear to go deep on these dark parts of
[SPEAKER_00]: being human.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, you don't want to carry the trauma forward, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: If you really want to be part of the change that has to happen, I believe it has to happen within as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, is to unpack where you carry any of that internalized homophobia or transphobia or just like repression.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like where did I shut down who I really am?
[SPEAKER_03]: And knowing that that, like, wow, that,
[SPEAKER_03]: That really hurts me every day, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: That hurts my life.
[SPEAKER_03]: That hurts my ambitions, that hurts my family because I'm not loving them as much because I'm not loving me as much.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know?
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's really, I feel essential work to playing our part in the society we want to see.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Agreed agreed and I did have this realization like a month ago and then I'm going to ask you a question about your second season and then we have to wrap up because I feel like we're just I'm talking your ears off, but I love it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's all good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a realization the other day like a like a month or two ago where I sat I was sitting there and I went.
[SPEAKER_00]: Damn, I'm glad I'm gay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Damn, like, yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, and it felt so affirming.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, have you had those where you're just like, fuck yeah, I'm gay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Every fucking day, I'm like, I am so amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: So glad I'm gay and as fuck.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just want to be anything else.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because what would our lives be if we didn't have this?
[SPEAKER_00]: that enforces us to push up against those societal norms, like, what would we be?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: Two-dimensional.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am a multidimensional gay ass being, and I appreciate it and love it.
[SPEAKER_02]: By the way, you can tell your kids that non-binary or not, I still say wife.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just going to ask you a question because when we go out I wanted to be very clear that we're a gay couple like I really want to beat people over the edge with the gayness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because that's our mission.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who's a gay agenda?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is the agenda.
[SPEAKER_02]: I must spread the gay, spread it, spread it at the bank, at the home depot.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, the goal is to have a gay Canadian though.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it's American.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that American?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, no, they don't need it to the Trump campaign and every thing you'll try not to shop there actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: OK, a lot of places we can't shop anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, it's going to be hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's getting real hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really challenging.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm trying to have American brands, OK?
[SPEAKER_02]: I would normally shop at a different place, but I'm actively trying to use American brands.
[SPEAKER_02]: That don't support Trump.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, yeah, well, I mean, in speaking in the podcast, like otherwise, I use a local, I go to a local lumber yard called Slage.
[SPEAKER_02]: Good job.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's great.
[SPEAKER_00]: So next season you're delving into the teenage years and loving your your gay teenage selves and diving into the dark parts and the not so dark parts and
[SPEAKER_00]: So people can go over there and find some healing perhaps because we all could use a little bit of healing, a little bit of healing, and a little bit of history, and a little bit of information.
[SPEAKER_00]: And let's just keep a gay y'all, let's keep it clear.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come on, let's keep it clear.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because we're all needs it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I just want to say to that we, you know, one of the reasons that
[SPEAKER_03]: we were also inspired to do this podcast initially was around both of our journeys of our gender identity as well because the language around gender identity really didn't exist when when we were young and and in gratitude to this generation who's really blossomed with identifying you know of the place of gender fluidity and you know whether it's
[SPEAKER_03]: trans or gender fluid or non-binary, it's been such a gift for those of us who didn't know where to put that, you know, how to language those aspects of ourselves.
[SPEAKER_03]: So actually, the initial inspiration, one of the initial inspirations was a love letter to hey, hey kids, we're going to show you what it was like when we didn't know how to use language around this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: And now, you know, and like through those steps.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, both sexuality and gender are really wrapped.
[SPEAKER_03]: and into our podcast and both of our individual journeys which, you know, are kind of opposite, but also the same.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think that's what's interesting about it, too, is both Brown and I have had pretty different trajectories and how we expressed ourselves, how we came to know who we are and are continuing to evolve in our identity.
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, it's been really fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I love that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We do owe some gratitude to the younger generation.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not all us.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't always have to thank us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We thank you for really like really like seriously you open our eyes to the the entire sphere and it's growing and it keeps evolving and that's thanks to the young people so really just getting better and better.
[SPEAKER_03]: I had endrogynous, that's as much as I had, you know, so to be able to find my way to express myself on the gender spectrum through the current language, which I'm sure will continue to evolve, has been a great gift.
[SPEAKER_03]: We had Grace Jones, that's so.
[SPEAKER_02]: Long live.
[SPEAKER_03]: I gave it to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I gave it to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I gave it to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I gave it to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I gave it to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I gave
[SPEAKER_00]: But we had to like, we had to like, we really had to like weave it in, we had to be like, the bald head, like, you know, you had to like a little bit in the dots.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, like, that, that tracks, that works.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what's for kind of how I feel in the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: But anyway, this was great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell everybody where they can find your show, where they can find you in all the places.
[SPEAKER_00]: So everybody can go.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you can find us on all the social media platforms.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, all of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mainly, you can find us on Instagram and TikTok at late.in.
[SPEAKER_02]: 88.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can find us online at latenadiate.com.
[SPEAKER_02]: And on Spotify, Apple Music, I heart radio all your favorite podcasting platforms at late in 88.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can binge watch or binge listen the entire first season.
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess you can kind of watch it on
[SPEAKER_02]: Season 2 is out now.
[SPEAKER_02]: Listen to your heart's content.
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen to both seasons.
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen to everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I get into it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a journey.
[SPEAKER_03]: We welcome you to join us.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you're so on a podcast.
[SPEAKER_03]: Come in, please.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, thank you both so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: This has been awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure we'll be in touch.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for all that you do with this podcast, Jamie.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's great to be here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, great to meet you too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Queer family but ghost.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whew, well folks, I hope you enjoyed that episode as much as I enjoyed it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you did enjoy it, feel free to listen to another or watch another.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have so many episodes for your listening or viewing pleasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just go pick one and enjoy.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot, there really is.
[SPEAKER_00]: And also, if you really do like this show, please, I know I say it all the time, but please do consider supporting the show on Patreon.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're just gonna go to patreon.com slash the queer family podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're gonna pick a tear, you're gonna join, and you're gonna get that bonus content.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're also gonna get my love and adoration for the rest of my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love you all, thanks for tuning in, keep on tuning in, and I'll see you next time.