WEBVTT

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Hey, everybody, welcome to coming
out pod. Okay. Today's queer root

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shout out is another one where I
think, whatever, whatever gender you are

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attracted to, whatever gender identity presentation, I feel like many can relate to

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this one. Shout out to you
if your queer root is the Hanson Brothers,

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famous for Umbop, which hit the
airwaves in nineteen ninety seven. If

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you are a little too young or
a little too old to be familiar with

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the Hansons, they were adorable,
long haired blonde boys who confused many many

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queer people because there's sort of they
were sort of ambiguous in their gender.

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Many urgeoning queer women had crushes on
the Hansens and then later realized, ah,

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it's because they look like girls.
But yeah. If you're not familiar

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with the Hansen Brothers, do a
Google image search. They were sixteen,

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fourteen, and eleven when that song
came out. God bless them. They

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are now probably billionaires. And if
they were your queer awakening, shout out

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to you, folks, I am
here today with Chris Tompkins. Hello,

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Chris, thank you for being Thank
you, Lauren, thank you for having

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me. Oh my goodness, it
is my pleasure. So Chris is an

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LGBTQ affirming therapist and he is the
author of a book called Raising LGBTQ Allies,

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A parent's Guide to Changing the messages
from the playground. Chris, Yeah,

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is there anything that you would like
to tell folks just briefly up top

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about you. We'll get into your
identity and all that. Yeah, yeah,

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gosh, I'm an uncle. I
have five nieces and nephews that I'm

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super close with. Yeah, yes, five, yeah, yeah. And

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I'm from Arizona originally, and I've
been living in Los Angeles for my gosh,

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I think it's been fourteen years now. Yeah. Yeah, And Chris

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lives in West Hollywood AKA we Ho. And even if you're not from LA

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you have heard a lot of discussion
about who on the podcast. We have

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name checked various bars there. We've
talked about it is a queer mecca,

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as it were. So that is
where Chris is coming from currently. And

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if I'm not mistaken, one of
those nephews figures prominently into how everything sort

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of kicked into gear with your work
and your book and all that. Yes,

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yeah, yeah, yes, absolutely
cool. So we're gonna, yeah,

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we're gonna get into we're gonna hear
Chris's coming out story and then obviously

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I've had a big impact on the
work you do, so we're going to

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talk about all of that. You've
done a Ted talk, I know,

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so we'll here, well we'll hear
all about Chris. But before we do,

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uh, just to kick things off, Chris, how do you identify

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identify as a gay man? I
love it? Yeah, Yeah, that's

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funny. Yeah all right, Well
let's sort of jump right into it.

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So you said Arizona, that's where
are born and raised? Yep, Teatown.

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I call it Teatown. Tucson,
Twoson, Arizona, Arizona. How

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did how did it all? How
did it all start? It all?

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How did it all start? Yeah? Gosh, I was born in Tooson,

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Arizona, Tucson, Arizona. It's
a lovely community. It's kind of

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considered a well what I was.
It's changed a lot, but it's still

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kind of considered a college town because
the University of Arizona is there and it's

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kind of well known for Yeah,
Arizona. My vibe from Tucson are for

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I've never I've driven through Arizona,
but I've never spent time there, But

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I've always thought of Tucson as the
quote unquote liberal oasis type as certain cities

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are described. I always think of
Tucson as like the Austin Yeah. Yeah,

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yeah, that's a really good yeah. Was it like that though when

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you were growing up or is that
like a more recent development. Gosh,

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that's a good question. I mean, I think it depends on sort of

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the pockets maybe that you where you
grew up. I grew up on the

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east side of town, so I
was very far removed from the sort of

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downtown, more liberal place. So
my mom was born and raised, so

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all of my uncles, all of
my cousins on my mom's side are all

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t Looaks through and through. And
my father, he was born in the

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Midwest, and so he relocated when
he was younger, in his twenties,

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and my mom and him met,
had my brother and I. They had

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a tumultuous marriage, a lot of
drugs addiction related stuff, so they divorced,

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and then my mom remarried and had
my sister. So my sister's technically

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my half sister, but I don't
really consider her that because she's we were

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grew up together. I grew up
Yeah, we grew up together. Yeah,

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so I have a brother and a
sister. Both my parents had children

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from like the step parents had children
from their previous marriages. So I have

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a lot of like your Brady Bunch
family, Brady Bunch family, yep.

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And yeah, and but I also
grew up a lot with my cousins,

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so my mom's So I was very
close with a lot of my cousins growing

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up and still we're still close today. Okay, And so yeah, so

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growing up, at what point did
you start to realize, oh, there

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are there are feelings here that are
perhaps different from yeah, my siblings,

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and yeah, that dawning realization earliest
memory type. Yeah, yeah, I

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sort of described I can I could
pin back pinpoint kind of around six or

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so, was Yeah, I knew, of course, you know, and

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I talked to a lot of people, you know, even with when with

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regards to my book, you know, when I talked to parents. Is

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that you know, at the time, I was six, so I didn't

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have an adult construct of sexuality of
what that understanding was. But for me,

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I knew there was something about me. I internally I knew. You

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kind of mentioned the the Hansen's brothers
a shout out at the beginning, and

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so you know, kids, kids
are young, developing crushes and and having

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sort of feelings or curiosity. And
so six was when I I started started

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to notice there's a difference about me
that you know, the other boys that

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I knew had. So I started
to notice those differences. Okay, yeah,

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and did you haven't? Do you
remember obviously, because like you just

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mentioned, you're six, you don't
have like language for these things, are

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that much of an awareness. But
was there any part of you at that

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point that was like worried about those
feelings or felt I have to hide this

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part? Like had you internalized those
messages by that point? All right?

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Absolutely? Yeah, already for sure, Yeah, yeah, yeah. I

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mean I think kids are so intuitive
and from the moment they're born, they're

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sort of sponges, just taking in
everything and consciously and unconsciously. And so

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I grew up in a religious household. So you mentioned sort of Tucson being

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this liberal place, but also I
grew up with very much religion as the

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backdrop of my childhood, and so
the messages that I got were very gendered.

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You know, boys are supposed to
do this and like this, and

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girls are supposed to do this and
like this, And so I started developed

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and started to internalize messages about what
boys quote should do and should be like

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because I wasn't those things. I
felt like there was something intrinsically wrong with

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me. Okay, So I very
much hid this the the my internal,

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my inside you know, emotion,
inter emotional landscape. I was hiding.

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Okay. And so it sounds like, I mean, I'm making an assumption,

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So correct me if if this isn't
accurate. But it sounds like in

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addition to, or perhaps even more
than in like an attraction way, you

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were conscious of the like masculinity,
like okay, oh yeah, gender was

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a big deal. My mom remarried
my stepfather, and my stepfather was very

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much Chismo culturally, came from a
different culture than you know, what I

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knew growing up with my mom and
my father biological father, and so I

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immediately learned like, these are this
is how boys, These are the activities

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that boys do, and these are
the activities that boys shouldn't be doing.

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And I did not connect with that
at all. So I sort of had

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to you know, I joke.
I used to joke and say that I

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could have won an Oscar for the
role that I played as this sort of

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buddying heterosexual, you know kid,
because I really I really took on this

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sort of persona how people, how
boys dressed, how they're you know,

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their mannerisms, you know, those
kinds of things that is so sad at

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six that that's like already you know, to be afraid different. And I

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do think that boys have it at
that age certainly rougher than then, you

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know, af have folks because it's
like you can get away with the tomboy

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label like that's you know, like, ah, she just wants to play

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with a guy. Like that doesn't
really go into effect with girls until after

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puber day because that tomboy thing is
just so prevalent in culture that like people

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will sort of be more I feel
like, tolerant of it. But with

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boys, it's like right from the
gymp you better not like ballet or painting

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or something. Yeah, already there, they're watching you already. Yeah yeah,

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yeah, yeah yeah. And I
came with my stepfather. I came

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from the family that they like,
he'd like sports and hunting, and so

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I remember we would go on these
yeah, hunting, we'd go on these

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hunting trips, and it was just
a source of really just yeah brutal.

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And and my sister I mentioned,
you know, when she was born,

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she was I was so excited,
you know, because she was like this

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little baby girl, and I used
to love to like play with her and

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do her hair and dress her up. And she became like this life,

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like a living doll. Yeah,
And so I still did that, but

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I knew that it was sort of
like side eye. You know. I

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love that you're like helping out with
childcare, and the adults are like,

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mmmm, this is free help Yeah, more tolerant. God, that is

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just so deeply depressing that at six
years old a kid would have to be

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doing that much like mental math about
what it's okay to show and what it's

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not okay to show. Okay,
So as you get older, what happens

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because I, and again this is
all me guessing I didn't have this experience,

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but like, is if it's like
not easy, but if it's like

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you get used to covering up the
behaviors. But then I imagine when puberty

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starts to hit, then there's these
like attractions and so is it like,

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oh shit, I have to cover
up a whole nother set, like I'm

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mastered covering up doing my sister's hair. But now I'm attracted in a way

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that I wasn't when I was six. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally,

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totally yeah. And yeah. So
you know, I again kind of

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with the religious backdrop, is that
I grew up with the religion. I

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remember that I had this distinct memory
of my mother sitting my brother and I

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down. We must have been it
might I think maybe like fifth grade.

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It was, I was in fifth
grade. And I mentioned earlier my father.

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There was a lot of drugs and
you know, substance abuse in my

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family growing up, and so my
mom my father had a lot of like

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relapses and just it was very pomultuous, chaotic, you know life. And

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so I remember mom sitting my brother
and I down to sort of help my

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brother and I understand what was happening
with our father. And and she,

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you know, said, she sat
my brother and I down and said,

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you know, everyone in life has
a cross that they bear, and you

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know your father has this is his
cross. And in my little I was

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so intuitive and perceptive and hyper vigilant
that I interpreted what she said as like,

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oh, this must be my cross
like how I feel about other boys,

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or you know, how I expressed
myself my gender. And so I

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realized, if I prayed, if
I became this really good boy, the

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best Christian, that was sort of
My mom was raised Catholic, my father

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was raised Southern Baptist, but they
converted to non denomination Christianity, and so

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that was sort of what I was
raised with. And so I felt as

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though I could, based on my
actions, become this person that I thought

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I should be, this boy that
I shot, this man I thought I

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should be. So I say that
because I started to sort of train myself.

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If I found myself being attracted or
even looking at other boys, that

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I would I would sort of do
the opposite, I would look at a

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girl, okay, or to sort
of like train myself. And so I

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started dating. I started dating girls
I had. I had girlfriends, you

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know, in like junior high,
like early your high. Wow. Yeah,

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yeah. I dated girls partly because
I wanted to avoid anyone thinking something

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from me. I also dated girls
because girls were interested in me, and

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so I felt like it was just
it was sort of easy for me to

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just kind of act that way because
I didn't have to force anything, so

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it seems sort of okay, this
is sort of what other people are.

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If girls are interested in me,
then there must be something about me that

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I'm demonstrating that is working. Oh
God, you were so I don't want

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to say smart, because that makes
it seem like it's positive that you were

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having to do these things. And
I don't mean to paint them in a

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positive light, but like you were, like you were really in tune to

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your You should have wanted to ask
her. You're right, I would have.

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I would have voted for you.
And can I ask at this age,

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is there any part of you that
is believing or at least hoping that

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you might suddenly fall for one of
these girls that you're dating and it might

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become real? Or do you feel
like you already knew? No, this

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is not who I am, but
I've got to fake it really well to

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make sure nobody knows. Like do
you remember if you yeah, yeah,

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No, it's a good question.
I know there was absolutely. I grew

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up again kind of with this backdrop
of religion that if if your people were

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sick, then you could pray and
that would work. And prayer prayer,

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it works, and I used to
have this little booklet that I used to

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carry with me. It was called
God's Promises, and it was basically like

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scriptures. You would look in the
beginning of the book. It was like

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there was like an index of if
you were feeling worried, if you were

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feeling fearful, if you're feeling lust, then you could flip to a certain

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pages that would have scriptures specific to
that. Okay, so absolutely there was

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a part of me that felt that
I could become straight dependent on how good

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like good I was. Basically that's
so rough. Yeah, okay, Okay,

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were there so you keep dating?
I'm assuming like into high school and

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all, are you just here keeping
with this pattern? Was there any girlfriend

206
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who like stuck around for a long
time or something really Okay, So you

207
00:16:44.320 --> 00:16:49.799
were having like kind of like serious
or serious for that age relationships with Yeah,

208
00:16:49.320 --> 00:16:53.559
I did. I'll share a story, sure, and I don't want

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00:16:53.559 --> 00:16:56.799
to. I mean, I'm gonna
jump ahead, but then I'm you know,

210
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we can go back. But I
started dating my girlfriend in ninth grade.

211
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I remember there was a girl that
moved from another state. She was

212
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a new girl, and so I
remember going after school and we would walk

213
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and she smoked cigarettes, and so
that kind of was a way for me

214
00:17:15.319 --> 00:17:18.640
to become like, you know,
an edgy. And so she remember she

215
00:17:18.680 --> 00:17:22.160
taught me how to smoke. Oh
remember I wrote her a note. This

216
00:17:22.200 --> 00:17:26.519
is for your listeners. This is
how old school like. I'm kind of

217
00:17:26.559 --> 00:17:30.240
aging myself here, but I wrote
her a letter and I asked her if

218
00:17:30.480 --> 00:17:34.599
she wanted to be my girlfriend,
and then yes or no and yeah,

219
00:17:34.839 --> 00:17:41.160
and so we Yeah, so we
started dating and I was in I think

220
00:17:41.200 --> 00:17:47.440
I was in eighth grade, seventh
or eighth grade. And we dated through

221
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high school. So my senior year
of high school is when we finally broke

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up. I was going to college, and I actually broke up with her,

223
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but I share that because you know, she really, I mean,

224
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we were like best friends. I
hung out with her all the time.

225
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She was a year older than me, I think, maybe even two.

226
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I think I think she was older. But also she was held back when

227
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she like when she moved, she
was she was from upstate New York,

228
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so she got her license before so
I think maybe I was fourteen, she

229
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was sixteen, and so she was
driving and so she's would come and pick

230
00:18:23.200 --> 00:18:30.240
me up and yeah, and smoking, Yeah, and you know, and

231
00:18:30.519 --> 00:18:34.559
also I explored with her. You
know, I was still curious around like

232
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sexuality, like you know, even
my own sort of experience. And she

233
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was a safe person that I could
do all of those things with. But

234
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I, but I, but it
was a lot, a lot of it

235
00:18:45.240 --> 00:18:52.200
was forced because I wasn't physically attracted. And so so what was interesting is

236
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that fast forward, I'm jumping ahead. After I come out of the closet,

237
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I moved back to Tucson, where
I'm from, had moved away and

238
00:19:00.680 --> 00:19:03.279
moved back, and I had just
come out of the closet, and so

239
00:19:04.440 --> 00:19:08.960
my cousin had introduced me to some
friends of hers that were gay in Tucsons.

240
00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:12.279
So they took me out to the
like local gay bar, and so

241
00:19:12.720 --> 00:19:18.680
it was called IBTS. It's still
there on Fourth Avenue. And I'm at

242
00:19:18.680 --> 00:19:21.160
the bar and I go up to
the bar to get a drink and I

243
00:19:21.200 --> 00:19:26.640
look over and it's Lisa, my
childhood my childhood girlfriend. And we both

244
00:19:26.640 --> 00:19:30.759
look at each other and she's like, what are you doing here? I'm

245
00:19:30.799 --> 00:19:33.119
like, what are you doing here? Turns out she's a lesbian. Oh

246
00:19:33.160 --> 00:19:37.799
my god, the best possible outcome. Yeah, I love Yes, so

247
00:19:38.039 --> 00:19:41.880
we were both each other's at the
time. We were both in the closet.

248
00:19:41.920 --> 00:19:45.920
I mean, we were both so
closeted, but we were both we

249
00:19:47.000 --> 00:19:52.039
found each other. I feel like
our souls found each other, and we

250
00:19:52.279 --> 00:19:59.240
were sort of our safe our safe
person for you know, our high school

251
00:19:59.480 --> 00:20:06.519
years. That is that's so lovely, yeah, because it's so often you

252
00:20:06.720 --> 00:20:11.720
hear kind of the opposite where the
girl really does like the guy and he's

253
00:20:11.839 --> 00:20:15.640
really trying to be straight, but
like later he comes out and they reconnect

254
00:20:15.680 --> 00:20:18.119
and she's like I always kind of
knew, like, but I had such

255
00:20:18.119 --> 00:20:23.440
a crush on you. This is
so much better or had some of those

256
00:20:23.480 --> 00:20:29.599
in college I had a girlfriend.
I bet it was that, but we

257
00:20:29.680 --> 00:20:33.920
call that that model. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, I think this.

258
00:20:34.519 --> 00:20:38.920
You know, Lisa was really like
an angel for me because she got me

259
00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.559
through high school really, you know, and I was so and hers through

260
00:20:44.599 --> 00:20:48.920
it too, Like that's mutually beneficial. Yeah, I mean I genuinely did

261
00:20:48.920 --> 00:20:52.039
not want to be gay, and
so I thought that, you know,

262
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if I could become this person.
But she really also helped, I think

263
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with just with bullying. I mean
I was, you know, and and

264
00:21:00.519 --> 00:21:06.759
so I feel like having a girlfriend. Yeah, definitely sort of helped with

265
00:21:06.839 --> 00:21:11.440
that. Did you ever and this
isn't her episode of the podcast, but

266
00:21:11.559 --> 00:21:14.920
just really briefly, did you guys
ever talk about did she know at that

267
00:21:15.200 --> 00:21:18.519
time? Did she was queer?
Like was she sort of playing the same

268
00:21:18.559 --> 00:21:22.160
game you were with like covering up
or was she was sort of aware of

269
00:21:22.200 --> 00:21:27.000
all, Oh I love this.
Yeah, yeah, Oh I'm so glad

270
00:21:27.079 --> 00:21:30.880
you two found each other. And
it's so yeah, it's so funny because

271
00:21:30.960 --> 00:21:33.839
yeah, it's so funny too because
when we were as adults, I was

272
00:21:33.880 --> 00:21:36.160
like, oh my gosh, if
we both knew, we wouldn't have felt

273
00:21:36.200 --> 00:21:38.240
the pressure to have to have sex
with one another, you know, because

274
00:21:38.279 --> 00:21:42.680
both of us were like forcing each
other to Like I was forcing myself because

275
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I didn't want her to think that
I wasn't attracted her, and then she

276
00:21:45.920 --> 00:21:48.599
was forcing herself because she didn't want
me to think that. Yeah, wild,

277
00:21:49.440 --> 00:21:53.680
that's so wid At least you were
each other's like safe person. No,

278
00:21:53.880 --> 00:21:59.279
And I'm sure there was like so
much kind of like delicacy that went

279
00:21:59.319 --> 00:22:03.880
into that because as you were both
experiencing. Ah, this that's a movie.

280
00:22:03.240 --> 00:22:07.720
Someone, someone make this an ending
coming of age movie, like it

281
00:22:07.759 --> 00:22:12.160
writes itself. Okay, shout out
to Lisa. Okay, but yeah,

282
00:22:12.200 --> 00:22:17.039
so you said you wanted to go
back, so you okay, so you're

283
00:22:17.079 --> 00:22:21.680
about to go to college. You
have a natural reason, we'll say,

284
00:22:21.920 --> 00:22:27.680
to end that relationship. At this
point, did you still think like I'm

285
00:22:27.720 --> 00:22:32.720
gonna make myself straight through the power
of prayer or was there a part of

286
00:22:32.720 --> 00:22:34.200
you that's like, I'm getting out
of the house, I'm going to college.

287
00:22:34.279 --> 00:22:38.759
I can finally try to like experiment
with guys or see with this,

288
00:22:40.200 --> 00:22:44.480
Like where were you with with that? Yeah, that's a really good question,

289
00:22:44.519 --> 00:22:49.680
because I feel like my inner,
like my inner soul was wanting,

290
00:22:49.920 --> 00:22:56.400
like my unconscious was wanting to come
out, but my conscious the sort of

291
00:22:57.279 --> 00:23:02.200
or whatever is about. Yeah.
Yeah, So when I got to college,

292
00:23:02.240 --> 00:23:06.759
I did again oscar for the straight
guy that I thought I should be

293
00:23:06.799 --> 00:23:11.799
as I joined a fraternity. Yeah, I did. Yeah, And I

294
00:23:11.119 --> 00:23:18.839
used to. I remember I used
to even like specifically wear clothes and just

295
00:23:18.880 --> 00:23:26.000
the way I dressed was very planned
and very methodical and specific how I acted.

296
00:23:26.160 --> 00:23:30.960
And I remember my freshman year.
The summer after my freshman year in

297
00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:37.119
college, I studied abroad, which
was very young because typically. Yeah,

298
00:23:37.200 --> 00:23:41.680
typically they you know, people study
after their junior year. Maybe is that

299
00:23:41.680 --> 00:23:45.880
that's kind of junior year abroad is
sort of the typical. Yeah. Yeah,

300
00:23:47.920 --> 00:23:51.279
so I was. I was the
youngest on the trip, and I

301
00:23:51.319 --> 00:23:56.559
remember I went to Italy and I
had a girlfriend on that trip. I

302
00:23:56.599 --> 00:23:59.160
was gonna. I was like,
Italy is a great place to re guys

303
00:23:59.279 --> 00:24:02.119
once I were in a well,
and I did. I was sort of

304
00:24:02.160 --> 00:24:07.400
coming out in Italy and I had
these I mean I can share, you

305
00:24:07.440 --> 00:24:11.279
know, answer specific questions, but
I that's sort of where I started to

306
00:24:12.400 --> 00:24:19.279
come out to myself and have like
experiences with guys, even those I mean

307
00:24:19.720 --> 00:24:26.680
it was very traumatic. I mean
how I felt about them. Yeah,

308
00:24:26.759 --> 00:24:30.200
do you feel like was it kind
of the act of being Like so,

309
00:24:30.240 --> 00:24:32.799
I have this theory where it's like
if you're in a different time zone,

310
00:24:33.359 --> 00:24:37.480
it helps you like come out and
yeah, yeah, yeah for sure.

311
00:24:37.720 --> 00:24:41.680
Yeah. No, I actually came
out of the closet when I lived in

312
00:24:41.720 --> 00:24:45.599
Mexico for two years. That's a
whole continuation of the story. But I

313
00:24:45.640 --> 00:24:49.279
started to come out when I was
in Italy because I feel like I was

314
00:24:49.359 --> 00:24:55.200
in another country, so I didn't
know anyone. I was so far away.

315
00:24:56.680 --> 00:25:00.200
But then I had a girlfriend like
in the program. Oh man,

316
00:25:00.240 --> 00:25:07.160
that's so hard. Yeah, okay, yeah, sorry, go ahead.

317
00:25:07.200 --> 00:25:11.640
Well, I had this fear that
if a girl liked me and I turned

318
00:25:11.640 --> 00:25:15.759
her down, then people would question
why and they would think that they would

319
00:25:15.759 --> 00:25:18.240
come up to they would come up
with the conclusion like, oh, he

320
00:25:18.319 --> 00:25:23.920
must not like girls. So I
sort of came I sort of became codependent

321
00:25:25.039 --> 00:25:29.799
with with women who liked me.
I thought that I should like them back.

322
00:25:30.799 --> 00:25:37.519
Okay, that's that's brutal for both
sides, because it's also like those

323
00:25:37.559 --> 00:25:41.799
girls are probably like really excited when
you express it. Oh god, that's

324
00:25:41.839 --> 00:25:47.319
hard. Yeah, fucking patriarchy ruins
everything. Yeah, okay, So how

325
00:25:47.759 --> 00:25:52.119
did you end up meeting God?
Like, did you were you trying to?

326
00:25:52.240 --> 00:25:55.559
Was there like one night you got
brave and you like went to a

327
00:25:55.599 --> 00:25:57.599
gay bar in Italy or was it
just like they were coming into your sphere

328
00:25:57.599 --> 00:26:00.240
and it was like, oh no, that's happening. No. Yeah,

329
00:26:00.920 --> 00:26:07.119
well there are two instances I remember
specifically. So one specific memory I had

330
00:26:07.359 --> 00:26:12.000
is the town I lived in was
near this like really well known beach in

331
00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:17.960
Italy called Remini, where it's kind
of like a party like Venice if people

332
00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:21.960
are familiar with California, like Venice
Beach is kind of very and so we

333
00:26:22.000 --> 00:26:26.359
went to this place, Remedy,
and I went with the group of girls.

334
00:26:26.440 --> 00:26:27.960
Was a weekend and we're going to
get a hotel. We got a

335
00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:30.839
hotel and we were going to all
just party on the weekend and then go

336
00:26:30.920 --> 00:26:38.680
back. So they got some weed, some Italian weed. Yeah, and

337
00:26:40.359 --> 00:26:47.519
it was like very different than you
know weed that we spoke and so I

338
00:26:47.599 --> 00:26:51.960
got really it was like a completely
different high. And so I felt really

339
00:26:51.960 --> 00:26:56.920
confident and really secure. And so
there are these two guys that were Italians

340
00:26:56.920 --> 00:26:59.519
that they're the ones who helped us, you know, get the mom if

341
00:26:59.559 --> 00:27:07.000
you're listening, and and so we
we we smoked pot and we got high,

342
00:27:07.039 --> 00:27:10.519
and I was I was flirting with
these guys like I was, I

343
00:27:10.920 --> 00:27:15.759
was speaking Italian. I felt like
I was just you know, And we

344
00:27:15.799 --> 00:27:19.720
got back to the hotel and I
remember people were sort of joking about how

345
00:27:21.319 --> 00:27:23.319
I was being so flirty with these
guys, like did I have a crush

346
00:27:23.319 --> 00:27:26.160
on them? And I remember I
was. I started, I started a

347
00:27:26.160 --> 00:27:30.640
spiral. That's when I started the
we became suddenly I started getting paranoid,

348
00:27:30.920 --> 00:27:34.799
and I remember I was, I
literally was staying up. I was I

349
00:27:34.839 --> 00:27:40.039
couldn't sleep, and I remember thinking, oh my gosh, they're gonna call

350
00:27:40.079 --> 00:27:41.720
my family back home and they're going
to tell them, and then I'm going

351
00:27:41.759 --> 00:27:45.039
to get home and my family's gonna, you know, reject me, or

352
00:27:45.039 --> 00:27:49.440
they're not, They're gonna you know, like like get not want to ever

353
00:27:49.519 --> 00:27:53.079
talk to me again. And so
I was so paranoid. So I literally

354
00:27:53.240 --> 00:27:57.440
the next morning got up early and
I left the hotel and I took a

355
00:27:57.480 --> 00:28:02.759
train back to the villa. And
so I remember that was the sort of

356
00:28:02.799 --> 00:28:07.400
like gay my sort of wanting to
come out, and it peeked its head

357
00:28:07.240 --> 00:28:11.279
and I had this oh no,
and so I had to go back in.

358
00:28:11.319 --> 00:28:15.400
So that's the first. The second
was on the last weekend of the

359
00:28:15.480 --> 00:28:19.079
trip, we all went to Rome
because that's where our flights flew out of

360
00:28:19.640 --> 00:28:25.160
the country. So my girlfriend we
were together the whole time, so I

361
00:28:25.200 --> 00:28:27.039
never really had an opportunity to like
sneak away or you know. That was

362
00:28:27.079 --> 00:28:33.160
the only time I mentioned that when
we spoke weed. But this last weekend

363
00:28:33.279 --> 00:28:37.559
we all went out to dinner as
a big group and my girlfriend at the

364
00:28:37.599 --> 00:28:40.720
time, her mom came to visit
and they were going to explore Italy.

365
00:28:40.839 --> 00:28:44.519
So she left early that night to
go back to her mom's hotel room to

366
00:28:44.519 --> 00:28:47.920
meet her mom. So I walked
her back to her hotel room. Everyone

367
00:28:47.960 --> 00:28:49.079
was like, oh, Chris is
going to go say goodbye to you know,

368
00:28:49.400 --> 00:28:55.079
Tiffany, And so I was.
I found myself for the first time

369
00:28:55.119 --> 00:28:59.720
on the trip by myself, and
no one was going to question, like,

370
00:29:00.079 --> 00:29:03.640
or did crisco or you know,
because my friends thought I was with

371
00:29:03.640 --> 00:29:06.480
my girlfriend and my girlfriend thought I
was you know, she had to go

372
00:29:06.599 --> 00:29:11.960
with her mom. Yeah. Summer, I was walking downtown by the coliseum

373
00:29:11.359 --> 00:29:15.640
and a man approached me. Was
busy night and a man approached me,

374
00:29:15.680 --> 00:29:21.079
older man and smart started speaking to
me an Italian and was asking me like

375
00:29:21.119 --> 00:29:23.759
what kind of girls I liked,
and you know, because he he sort

376
00:29:23.759 --> 00:29:26.799
of presented it like he was going
to help take me to a strip club

377
00:29:26.920 --> 00:29:32.519
or somewhere to meet girls. And
so he was talking to speaking to me

378
00:29:32.519 --> 00:29:34.720
an Italian, and I remember I
was like really shy, and I was

379
00:29:34.759 --> 00:29:38.319
attracted to him. He was this
like older Italian man, and I think

380
00:29:38.319 --> 00:29:44.119
that maybe he could tell that I
was gay, and so I remember him

381
00:29:44.119 --> 00:29:47.559
asking me questions and we started walking
and we were walking. He's like,

382
00:29:47.559 --> 00:29:48.480
oh, I'll take you to a
place that I think you're going to like.

383
00:29:48.519 --> 00:29:52.559
And so we were walking, and
I remember we walked. It was

384
00:29:52.599 --> 00:29:56.359
across the from the coliseum. There
was like a park, and we were

385
00:29:56.400 --> 00:29:59.160
walking. As we got closer to
this bar that he was taking me to,

386
00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:03.119
I could see guys walking in like
holding hands, and I panicked because

387
00:30:03.119 --> 00:30:06.680
I realized, oh my gosh,
she's taking me to a gay bar.

388
00:30:07.720 --> 00:30:10.039
So I couldn't go in. And
I like panicked and walked away, and

389
00:30:10.039 --> 00:30:11.240
he was like, no, no, it's okay, it's okay, and

390
00:30:11.240 --> 00:30:17.039
he like called me down and walked
me to a bench and we started he

391
00:30:17.279 --> 00:30:19.519
made a move and we started kind
of making out. And that was my

392
00:30:19.640 --> 00:30:26.680
first sort of sexual you know experience
across from the coliseum, you know,

393
00:30:26.720 --> 00:30:32.440
at the park so beautiful. Yeah, it was very romantic and at the

394
00:30:32.519 --> 00:30:34.359
time, or I mean at the
time, it didn't feel that way,

395
00:30:34.359 --> 00:30:38.359
but looking back, and so I
remember afterwards, you know, we hooked

396
00:30:38.440 --> 00:30:41.519
up. We didn't have sex,
but we you know, we hooked up.

397
00:30:41.559 --> 00:30:48.160
And I remember that's when the shame
came washing down and I remember I

398
00:30:48.160 --> 00:30:52.680
was staying at a hostel with a
group and he was walking with me,

399
00:30:52.720 --> 00:30:56.039
and he was so nice and so
kind and so like, you know,

400
00:30:56.079 --> 00:30:57.079
I'll walk you to your home,
you know, I'll walk you to a

401
00:30:57.119 --> 00:31:00.279
place so you don't get lost.
And I'm remember I was so I just

402
00:31:00.319 --> 00:31:03.480
wanted him to leave. I was
so now I became like disgusted with him,

403
00:31:03.519 --> 00:31:06.799
and I just wanted him to leave, and I became really mean and

404
00:31:07.000 --> 00:31:11.000
was just like, get out of
here. And so I remember I rushed

405
00:31:11.039 --> 00:31:15.359
up to the astill the hotel room, and I remember taking a shower and

406
00:31:15.680 --> 00:31:18.880
crying and just saying, God,
I'll never do this again, like if

407
00:31:19.039 --> 00:31:22.480
if, if you just you know, I'll be the best, you know.

408
00:31:22.519 --> 00:31:26.680
So that was my first sort of
to answer your question originally about going

409
00:31:26.720 --> 00:31:29.960
to another country. That was my
sort of I feel like I was trying

410
00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:33.160
to come out yeah, but it
was still I was going back to the

411
00:31:33.279 --> 00:31:37.920
US, so I you know,
I still had I was yeah, oh

412
00:31:38.200 --> 00:31:49.039
yeah, okay, So what happens
when you do go back to the US.

413
00:31:49.079 --> 00:31:53.079
You've got what three years left of
college at the college? Yeah,

414
00:31:53.319 --> 00:31:57.960
yeah, yeah, have the girlfriend
mm hmm, and I. Yeah.

415
00:31:59.079 --> 00:32:05.279
I remember I was dating this girl
and she always wanted to have sex.

416
00:32:05.400 --> 00:32:09.000
And I remember at this point,
like I just it just was not something

417
00:32:09.039 --> 00:32:14.400
that I was able to do that
I was interested in doing. And I

418
00:32:14.480 --> 00:32:20.440
kept on having to make excuses,
and so I would, but again she

419
00:32:21.119 --> 00:32:23.000
I was in a fraternity, she
was in a sorority, so sort of

420
00:32:23.079 --> 00:32:30.279
dating her was kind of social,
you know, cred and so I didn't

421
00:32:30.319 --> 00:32:35.920
want her to think anything, and
I didn't want my friends to think anything.

422
00:32:36.000 --> 00:32:37.279
So I kept on having to make
excuses. I was like, fuck,

423
00:32:37.680 --> 00:32:40.160
I don't like, what other excuse
could I have? So I remember

424
00:32:40.960 --> 00:32:45.880
a friend of mine started going to
Bible studies, and I was a Christian.

425
00:32:45.920 --> 00:32:47.799
I was raised, you know,
with religion, and so I started

426
00:32:47.880 --> 00:32:52.000
joining him to go to these Bible
studies. And this guy who led the

427
00:32:52.000 --> 00:32:57.000
Bible study became kind of like a
friend of the fraternity. He would come

428
00:32:57.039 --> 00:32:59.799
over and you know, have Bible
studies, and I remember his name was

429
00:32:59.799 --> 00:33:02.839
Pat and he would have a sober
for dinner. And I remember he presented

430
00:33:02.960 --> 00:33:07.039
us the opportunity to be baptized.
And I had already been baptized, but

431
00:33:07.039 --> 00:33:10.039
it was almost like he was presenting
it like, you know, you're rededicating

432
00:33:10.039 --> 00:33:15.880
your life God, and so I
started to use that as an excuse.

433
00:33:15.160 --> 00:33:19.960
And so I remember I was like, you know, I would tell my

434
00:33:19.960 --> 00:33:22.000
girlfriend at the time, you know, I couldn't have sex because I'm rededicating

435
00:33:22.039 --> 00:33:24.119
my life to God. And then
we're going to get baptized. And so

436
00:33:24.200 --> 00:33:28.440
I remember I even invited her to
my baptism. My mom came. It

437
00:33:28.559 --> 00:33:30.640
was like, oh god, I'm
safe. It was like buying me time.

438
00:33:31.039 --> 00:33:35.200
Yeah, I do, sir.
And I've heard this, not this

439
00:33:35.359 --> 00:33:39.559
exact story, but I have heard
before where people quote unquote use religion.

440
00:33:40.079 --> 00:33:46.759
Oh get out, yeah, sax, yeah, I let's use religion positively.

441
00:33:46.960 --> 00:33:52.279
Have we got to use it?
Like yeah, that's okay. Yeah,

442
00:33:52.440 --> 00:33:54.839
so it bought me some time.
It bought me some time, yay,

443
00:33:55.880 --> 00:34:00.079
okay. So when you graduate,
are you still with the girlfriend?

444
00:34:00.759 --> 00:34:05.400
No, we broke. I moved, well, I we I moved out

445
00:34:05.400 --> 00:34:07.679
of this. My job took me
to another state. I moved to North

446
00:34:07.679 --> 00:34:12.639
Carolina after right after a graduated college. So you have another sort of excuse

447
00:34:13.119 --> 00:34:17.199
to ye, because yeah, but
this is when I started to get really

448
00:34:20.679 --> 00:34:30.119
depressed and experiencing anxiety and paranoid because
I felt like I could I couldn't.

449
00:34:30.159 --> 00:34:31.280
I couldn't go anywhere, I couldn't
talk to anyone. I didn't know what

450
00:34:31.320 --> 00:34:37.119
to do, and so I started
panicking because everyone was asking me, I

451
00:34:37.119 --> 00:34:39.199
started, after you graduate college,
you know, my friends are starting to

452
00:34:39.199 --> 00:34:42.840
get married, and so I'm starting. I was wondering, Yeah, and

453
00:34:42.880 --> 00:34:45.079
you have a starting term girlfriend.
Yeah, well we broke up, and

454
00:34:45.119 --> 00:34:49.880
so I'm starting. Yeah, I'm
starting to get asked like, well,

455
00:34:49.920 --> 00:34:52.320
why aren't you dating? Like why
don't you have a girlfriend? That was

456
00:34:52.360 --> 00:34:57.559
like the biggest question. It was
like nails on a chalkboard every time someone

457
00:34:57.559 --> 00:35:00.760
would ask me, and I would
always like laugh and like laugh at like

458
00:35:00.840 --> 00:35:02.199
make a joke like well, I'm
not ready to settle down or you know

459
00:35:02.280 --> 00:35:07.440
whatever. And I feel like in
college you don't really I mean there's a

460
00:35:07.519 --> 00:35:13.840
club or activity for everything, and
so you could just sort of blend in,

461
00:35:14.800 --> 00:35:19.599
whereas after I graduated college you have
to I had to pursue whatever it

462
00:35:19.639 --> 00:35:22.800
was that I was interested in.
So people started to question, well,

463
00:35:22.840 --> 00:35:25.760
why wasn't I interested in girls or
why was it because in college, you

464
00:35:25.800 --> 00:35:29.920
know, girls were I was in
a fraternity, so girls were coming over

465
00:35:30.320 --> 00:35:37.320
to whoever expressed yeah interest, yeah, yeah, And so that job long

466
00:35:37.519 --> 00:35:42.039
kind of a sort of roundabout way
is I wound up moving after that job

467
00:35:42.440 --> 00:35:46.400
was my first job. I was
working there for a year and just really

468
00:35:46.480 --> 00:35:51.920
just my sexuality was it was starting
to become something that was I could no

469
00:35:52.039 --> 00:35:53.960
longer hide. And so I wound
up getting a job, you know,

470
00:35:54.519 --> 00:35:58.960
in Mexico. I mentioned, and
Okay, it's not like I plan,

471
00:35:59.079 --> 00:36:02.280
it's not like I and like I
remember, to another country. It's sort

472
00:36:02.320 --> 00:36:09.519
of the opportunity was organic. So
I moved to Mexico and I was there

473
00:36:10.079 --> 00:36:17.559
maybe three months, and I remember
I was at the lowest point really in

474
00:36:17.599 --> 00:36:21.880
my life, like I was I
was. I wasn't I wouldn't say I

475
00:36:21.920 --> 00:36:28.840
was suicidal, but I was like
starting to think those thoughts because I remember

476
00:36:28.920 --> 00:36:30.960
going to this was again aging myself, but I remember going to they had

477
00:36:31.000 --> 00:36:34.880
internet cafes, and I didn't have
a computer. I was living with a

478
00:36:34.920 --> 00:36:37.760
family and I didn't have a computer
at home, and so I didn't want

479
00:36:37.760 --> 00:36:40.639
to do this at work. But
I would go to these internetet cafes and

480
00:36:40.679 --> 00:36:45.679
I would research like what being gay
meant and how to not be gay and

481
00:36:45.719 --> 00:36:51.079
I wasn't finding anything that was helpful. And so I remember when I was

482
00:36:51.079 --> 00:36:53.119
in I mentioned I moved to North
Carolina after I graduated, and I was

483
00:36:53.159 --> 00:36:57.599
part of a church that I was
that was there and it was a wonderful

484
00:36:57.679 --> 00:37:02.239
church. And so I remember I
was really involved with one of my coworkers

485
00:37:02.280 --> 00:37:05.599
and it was a beautiful it was
really it was a really great, you

486
00:37:05.639 --> 00:37:10.840
know uh group of people. And
I remember I anonymously, I created a

487
00:37:10.840 --> 00:37:21.039
fake email account and I anonymously emailed
my old pastor about and I In the

488
00:37:21.119 --> 00:37:25.599
email, I said, I have
a friend who is having these thoughts of

489
00:37:25.840 --> 00:37:29.840
you know, done it, and
I kind of gave him the whole scenario.

490
00:37:30.800 --> 00:37:36.599
And I remember he replied back to
me and sent me a magazine a

491
00:37:36.679 --> 00:37:43.800
story in like this Christian magazine that
was about a man who was happily married

492
00:37:44.079 --> 00:37:49.639
air quotes, happily married with a
wife and had two beautiful children. And

493
00:37:49.719 --> 00:37:52.880
the story and this it was kind
of the center story of this magazine,

494
00:37:52.920 --> 00:37:55.639
the you know, monthly magazine,
and this was kind of the main story

495
00:37:55.639 --> 00:37:59.719
of the cover story. And it
was about a man who was successful at

496
00:37:59.760 --> 00:38:06.119
keith being his homosexual air quotes desires
at Bay, and they described this marriage

497
00:38:06.199 --> 00:38:13.599
where you know, he was able
to not you know, escape homosexuality,

498
00:38:13.840 --> 00:38:15.679
and God, you know, helped
him and him and his wife. It

499
00:38:15.760 --> 00:38:20.599
described the scenario of him and his
wife would get on their knees every night

500
00:38:21.039 --> 00:38:25.880
and they would pray and God was
so good because he blessed their marriage and

501
00:38:27.360 --> 00:38:30.400
they had this beautiful, happy marriage. And I remember reading the story thinking

502
00:38:30.079 --> 00:38:37.039
this sounds miserable, this is horrible. Okay, I'm so glad. Yeah,

503
00:38:37.119 --> 00:38:43.519
because because I thought this was the
moment where I thought women need to

504
00:38:43.599 --> 00:38:47.360
feel loved. She ed that his
partner needs to feel loved and attractive.

505
00:38:47.599 --> 00:38:51.920
I remember the girls, like I
mentioned my girl beautiful thing too. You

506
00:38:51.960 --> 00:38:55.519
were like, so that's so lovely
that that was your first thought was like,

507
00:38:55.840 --> 00:39:00.599
yeah, that's well because I remember
when I was dating, I would

508
00:39:00.679 --> 00:39:04.880
have excuses to not want to have
sex. And I'm like, how are

509
00:39:04.920 --> 00:39:07.440
they in their marriage? Like how
does she feel? Like, does she

510
00:39:07.440 --> 00:39:10.920
feel attracted? Is he able to? Like they have two kids? Like,

511
00:39:10.960 --> 00:39:15.280
and I had this scenario. This
is literally I remember this. I

512
00:39:15.360 --> 00:39:17.960
remember I was at the Internet cafe
and I had this scenario flash in my

513
00:39:19.039 --> 00:39:22.280
mind of like what if they're at
a soccer meeting for their kid's team,

514
00:39:23.559 --> 00:39:28.719
and a new kid moves to town
and he wants to join the soccer team,

515
00:39:28.760 --> 00:39:34.119
and so the father brings the son
to the soccer team and he's walking

516
00:39:34.320 --> 00:39:38.559
to sit down, and for a
second, the man in the story looks

517
00:39:38.599 --> 00:39:43.559
at the man and the wife is
sitting next to him, and she sees

518
00:39:44.000 --> 00:39:47.360
her husband look at that man.
Is she thinking that he's looking at him

519
00:39:47.360 --> 00:39:52.360
because he's attractive or just because someone
knew is in town and so he's looking

520
00:39:52.400 --> 00:39:57.360
And I'm like, I would never
want to be in a relationship with someone

521
00:39:57.440 --> 00:40:01.599
who has to question, who is
constantly feeling that they have the question.

522
00:40:01.679 --> 00:40:07.119
And I realized that you were thinking, I'm really impressed, honestly. Yeah,

523
00:40:07.119 --> 00:40:13.079
well, I mean I realized in
that moment that I could never be

524
00:40:13.239 --> 00:40:19.679
married to a woman. And so
that's when the sort of the walls started

525
00:40:19.719 --> 00:40:22.639
to become, you know, because
I was raised in a religion that sort

526
00:40:22.639 --> 00:40:28.920
of taught that marriage is this sacred
instance. Yes, oh thank you.

527
00:40:29.199 --> 00:40:32.800
Yeah, it's so at odds with
those two concepts are so at all with

528
00:40:32.880 --> 00:40:37.679
each other, Like, yeah,
so I realized like that I could I

529
00:40:37.719 --> 00:40:44.719
couldn't do I remember walking home from
the Internet cafe feeling like I can't live

530
00:40:45.159 --> 00:40:51.079
this lie. I can't, And
I swear I'm a very I've since reconciled

531
00:40:51.079 --> 00:40:53.599
my relationship with God and a higher
power, and I have a really beautiful

532
00:40:53.679 --> 00:40:59.679
relationship and I'm very deeply spiritual,
and I do believe that it was at

533
00:40:59.719 --> 00:41:02.000
that moment, you know, in
twelve steps, they sort of have this

534
00:41:04.480 --> 00:41:09.960
the saying of the I think it's
the act of desperation, you know,

535
00:41:10.159 --> 00:41:15.800
is what brings us to sometimes come
into the twelve step pure is that that

536
00:41:15.800 --> 00:41:19.199
it sounds like the idea of quote
unquote rock bottom, Yeah, rock bottom,

537
00:41:19.280 --> 00:41:22.079
yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
And so I feel like that was

538
00:41:22.119 --> 00:41:23.920
my rock bottom and I and I
remember, and it's usually after the rock

539
00:41:23.960 --> 00:41:30.840
bottom that you sort of have this
opening, and so so literally, I

540
00:41:30.199 --> 00:41:32.960
don't know if it was like this, you know, this was twenty years

541
00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:36.119
ago, but I don't know if
it was like a few days later.

542
00:41:36.159 --> 00:41:38.800
But I was basically a few days
later. My work, the company I

543
00:41:38.840 --> 00:41:43.800
worked for was American Company, and
so they wanted me to pick up these

544
00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:47.960
visitors that were coming to look at
our our plant. And because I spoke

545
00:41:49.000 --> 00:41:52.039
English, they wanted me to give
a tour to these US visitors, and

546
00:41:52.119 --> 00:41:58.719
so I went to pick them up
for the airport and I got they got

547
00:41:58.719 --> 00:42:01.079
in the car and here I'm this
twenty three, twenty four year old,

548
00:42:01.199 --> 00:42:05.960
you know, kid from the United
States, and they're like started asking me,

549
00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:07.280
you know, how many girlfriends do
you have? You know, I'm

550
00:42:07.320 --> 00:42:12.360
sure the women down and again nails
on a truck board. Yeah, but

551
00:42:12.480 --> 00:42:15.719
I was. As I was driving
them to the office there, they asked

552
00:42:15.760 --> 00:42:19.440
me, would you mind taking us
to the hotel. We're kind of tired

553
00:42:19.480 --> 00:42:22.719
from the flight, and you know, we'll do the tour tomorrow. And

554
00:42:22.760 --> 00:42:24.280
I was like sure. So I
dropped them off at the hotel and I

555
00:42:24.320 --> 00:42:28.159
remember, well, I need to
get something because I was playing on eating

556
00:42:28.239 --> 00:42:31.679
lunch, you know, for the
tour, and so I went to there

557
00:42:31.719 --> 00:42:37.280
was a subway that was kind of
near where on the way to work,

558
00:42:37.320 --> 00:42:40.920
and so this is all like the
details are so specific, but I covered

559
00:42:40.960 --> 00:42:44.960
me so vividly. Yeah, yeah, well, and they're kind of they

560
00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:49.159
kind of speak to the how the
story unfolds is that I remember I stopped

561
00:42:49.199 --> 00:42:52.400
at the subway to get a sandwich
and I don't drink soda. And at

562
00:42:52.400 --> 00:42:54.480
this subway they only in Mexico,
they only had soda as an as a

563
00:42:54.559 --> 00:42:59.000
drink option. And so across the
street there was a ben Avidas, which

564
00:42:59.000 --> 00:43:04.880
Benavidas is like a CBS or walgrounds
or circle, and so I got my

565
00:43:04.960 --> 00:43:07.880
sandwich. I had the company car. I put my sandwich in the company

566
00:43:07.920 --> 00:43:12.320
car and I walked into the Benavidas
to get like a water and as I

567
00:43:12.360 --> 00:43:17.960
was walking in, this guy was
walking out, and I remember I had

568
00:43:19.000 --> 00:43:25.119
this physiological response like I was like, oh my gosh. And I remember

569
00:43:25.159 --> 00:43:29.320
he looked at me, and the
way that he looked at me felt like

570
00:43:29.480 --> 00:43:34.320
he It felt familiar, like it
felt like he saw me. And I

571
00:43:34.320 --> 00:43:37.519
remember I told myself, oh,
he's looking at me because I must look

572
00:43:37.559 --> 00:43:42.440
like his cousin's friend. That's what
I literally told myself. And so I

573
00:43:42.480 --> 00:43:45.519
walked to the to get a drink, and I'm walking to the register and

574
00:43:45.559 --> 00:43:47.480
I remember my palms were sweaty,
and I was like my heart was racing.

575
00:43:47.559 --> 00:43:50.519
I was like, what is happening? And I having a heart attack.

576
00:43:50.840 --> 00:43:53.159
And so I look and I see
him in his car. This is

577
00:43:53.199 --> 00:43:55.039
like in the middle of the day
on a Tuesday, and I remember he's

578
00:43:55.039 --> 00:43:59.400
looking and he's pretending to read something, but he's like looking at me.

579
00:44:00.840 --> 00:44:02.599
So I'm walking out, and remember
I was walking to my car and I

580
00:44:02.639 --> 00:44:07.159
was like, I have nothing to
lose. I don't know anyone in Mexico.

581
00:44:07.599 --> 00:44:14.679
I barely speak Spanish, and how
I'm feeling right now feels really pure

582
00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:20.760
and authentic and grounding, like it
felt really grounded, and so I walked

583
00:44:20.800 --> 00:44:22.079
to it, toward his car,
and he rolled down his window, and

584
00:44:22.119 --> 00:44:25.719
I remember I said then, like
my broken Spanish, I was like,

585
00:44:25.760 --> 00:44:30.039
oh, la nada mas kudria de
SiO ola, which means hi. I

586
00:44:30.119 --> 00:44:34.280
just wanted to say hi, and
he immediately started to speaking. He's like,

587
00:44:34.320 --> 00:44:37.719
oh, you're not from here,
and so we started chatting and he

588
00:44:37.800 --> 00:44:39.920
asked for my number, but I
didn't feel comfortable giving him my number,

589
00:44:39.960 --> 00:44:45.400
so I took his number, and
I remember driving back to the office feeling

590
00:44:46.679 --> 00:44:49.960
on top of the world, like
I was like I was on a mountain.

591
00:44:51.039 --> 00:44:53.679
I was on a mountain, and
I wanted to scream how good I

592
00:44:53.800 --> 00:44:58.079
felt. And I remember I got
back to work and I was in my

593
00:44:58.159 --> 00:45:02.920
little cubicle and I didn't do work. I just literally started writing like a

594
00:45:04.039 --> 00:45:08.559
poem or how I felt and It
took me about a week before I called

595
00:45:08.639 --> 00:45:12.159
him, but I did because I
was living with a family, a Mexican

596
00:45:12.199 --> 00:45:15.880
family at the time, and they
were sort of hosting me, and so

597
00:45:15.360 --> 00:45:19.559
I called him and he was like, oh, I'll come pick you up.

598
00:45:19.599 --> 00:45:22.440
And I'm like no, no,
no, I'm like meet me at

599
00:45:22.480 --> 00:45:24.360
the corner in front of the bank. Because I still didn't want anyone to

600
00:45:24.440 --> 00:45:28.480
know, so but it was my
way of sort of you know, and

601
00:45:30.039 --> 00:45:32.400
that's how I came out, is
that I met this person, I fell

602
00:45:32.480 --> 00:45:37.599
in love and we dated. We
you know, he sort of courted,

603
00:45:37.760 --> 00:45:40.920
He sort of courted me like he
was. It was very romantic. I

604
00:45:42.360 --> 00:45:46.480
love this. What a great first
experience. Yeah it was. It was

605
00:45:46.559 --> 00:45:50.280
a beautiful first experience. Yeah,
I mean it was you know, we

606
00:45:50.320 --> 00:45:57.400
wound up breaking up and I was
like heartbroken. But dating of data,

607
00:45:57.480 --> 00:46:00.199
yeah that's the risk. Yeah,
that's the risk of falling in love.

608
00:46:00.280 --> 00:46:06.519
But it wasn't like a fling.
It was like an actual relationship. Yeah.

609
00:46:06.840 --> 00:46:09.760
Yeah he really really, yeah he
really And you know, again kind

610
00:46:09.760 --> 00:46:14.239
of speaking to the soul. I
do believe in art like that we're a

611
00:46:14.320 --> 00:46:20.000
soul and our soul sort of find
each other and on, you know,

612
00:46:20.559 --> 00:46:24.199
living on this earth, and so
he had just lost his father. His

613
00:46:24.320 --> 00:46:29.639
father had died and his mother died
when he was a child, so he

614
00:46:30.599 --> 00:46:35.559
didn't have parents. And so I
feel like we found each other. You

615
00:46:35.639 --> 00:46:39.760
know, Mexican grief, how you
express grief is very different than how you

616
00:46:39.920 --> 00:46:44.199
express grief in the United States,
like what's sort of acceptable. And so

617
00:46:44.320 --> 00:46:49.280
I feel like I sort of was
in his life to help him grieve the

618
00:46:49.400 --> 00:46:52.239
loss of his father, and he
was in my life to help me come

619
00:46:52.280 --> 00:46:57.840
out of the closet. Oh that's
beautiful. Yeah, Oh my god.

620
00:46:58.400 --> 00:47:01.440
Wow. How long did you live
in Mexico? I lived in Mexico for

621
00:47:01.559 --> 00:47:05.559
two years. We dated for about
a year and a half, so almost

622
00:47:05.599 --> 00:47:10.800
the entirety of my living there.
My god. Okay, and during that

623
00:47:12.119 --> 00:47:14.880
time, because correct me if I'm
wrong, but up until this point,

624
00:47:15.800 --> 00:47:20.920
you hadn't confided in anybody. Oh
my god. I can't imagine carrying that

625
00:47:22.239 --> 00:47:24.840
for a year, for a year, for almost think it was almost a

626
00:47:24.920 --> 00:47:29.440
year, I want. I mean, I was very I mentioned earlier,

627
00:47:29.440 --> 00:47:32.079
I was very close with my cousins, and one cousin specifically, which she

628
00:47:32.159 --> 00:47:36.719
was like my best friend. And
so I remember like when you know,

629
00:47:37.199 --> 00:47:39.920
like when something's so good you want
to like share it, tell people about

630
00:47:39.960 --> 00:47:45.280
it even so, yeah, so
I lied, and a girl that I

631
00:47:45.320 --> 00:47:49.360
studied I mentioned when I studied abroad
in Italy. I used a girl's name

632
00:47:49.519 --> 00:47:52.880
that I studied abroad with and I
lied. So for a year I was

633
00:47:52.960 --> 00:48:00.039
dating Karina and Karna was actually my
boyfriend Leone. I wait, at what

634
00:48:00.320 --> 00:48:04.920
point what you said? You two
dated for like a year and a half.

635
00:48:05.039 --> 00:48:08.280
So did you finally during the relationship
did you start coming out? I

636
00:48:08.400 --> 00:48:12.599
did? I did? I did. Yeah, for me, and everyone

637
00:48:12.679 --> 00:48:15.599
has, you know, I've heard
many different stories, you know, in

638
00:48:15.679 --> 00:48:16.840
the work that I do as far
as how people come out. But for

639
00:48:17.000 --> 00:48:22.159
me, I needed to have conversations. I didn't want to send a letter.

640
00:48:22.239 --> 00:48:25.440
I didn't want to know. Everybody
different for everyone, and so for

641
00:48:25.599 --> 00:48:32.880
me, I wanted to be able
to see the face and feel the emotion

642
00:48:34.039 --> 00:48:37.719
of of what they felt and not
from a place of like I wanted to

643
00:48:37.880 --> 00:48:43.440
try and but I wanted to know. I wanted to know. And so

644
00:48:44.000 --> 00:48:46.639
I remember I was going home to
Tucson for the for the holidays, for

645
00:48:46.760 --> 00:48:53.760
Christmas, to visit and literally I
scheduled lunch with mom, dinner with mom,

646
00:48:54.400 --> 00:48:59.320
lunch with sister, lunch with uncle. The specific people were doing a

647
00:48:59.440 --> 00:49:04.800
tour. I was coming out to
her. Yeah, I literally I scheduled

648
00:49:05.280 --> 00:49:08.199
meals or something because I needed to
tell my mom, my aunt and uncle,

649
00:49:08.320 --> 00:49:13.920
one of my aunt and uncles,
my cousin Tony, my cousin Tiffany,

650
00:49:15.840 --> 00:49:19.639
and my brother and my sister.
Okay, did you do it all

651
00:49:19.760 --> 00:49:25.360
on that track? I did?
Wow, that's amazing. How was the

652
00:49:27.360 --> 00:49:31.719
reception from a lot of people there
was? Yeah, it was, it

653
00:49:31.840 --> 00:49:35.119
was. It was like half and
half. It was mixed. You know.

654
00:49:35.239 --> 00:49:37.559
My mom was the first person.
No, my my cousin Tiffany,

655
00:49:38.119 --> 00:49:43.599
she was the first person, and
she was so kind and she cried,

656
00:49:43.719 --> 00:49:46.480
and she she cried not because of
me coming out, but she cried that

657
00:49:46.559 --> 00:49:51.000
I had to bear this on my
own, okay. And so she was

658
00:49:51.079 --> 00:49:54.679
really a safe person for me to
come out because she really encouraged me to

659
00:49:54.719 --> 00:49:59.760
come out to everyone else. She
was very helpful in that. And so

660
00:50:00.039 --> 00:50:01.519
when I came out to my mom, my mom, you know, I

661
00:50:01.559 --> 00:50:05.599
remember we're at a restaurant. It
was winter, it was cold outside.

662
00:50:05.960 --> 00:50:07.719
I didn't want to tell her inside
the restaurant because I feared that maybe she'd

663
00:50:07.760 --> 00:50:13.639
have this like strong emotional reaction and
be really embarrassing. So I was like,

664
00:50:13.920 --> 00:50:15.079
after for the end of dinner,
I was like, Mom, can

665
00:50:15.519 --> 00:50:19.679
we go for a walk outside,
you know, after dinner? And she's

666
00:50:19.679 --> 00:50:23.119
like, Chris, it's fifty degrees
outside. It's freezing, and so I'm

667
00:50:23.159 --> 00:50:24.800
like, Okay, well, can
we just you know, maybe, well

668
00:50:24.920 --> 00:50:28.760
we'll just go to your car.
And so we got in the car and

669
00:50:29.079 --> 00:50:31.360
she's in the driver's seat. I'm
in the passenger seat, and I'm really

670
00:50:31.440 --> 00:50:35.320
nervous. So I'm like, my
I'm like putting my hands on my my,

671
00:50:35.800 --> 00:50:38.320
rubbing my thighs, and I'm looking
down, I'm breathing, you know.

672
00:50:38.440 --> 00:50:40.559
She's like, Chris, you're freaking
me out. What's going on.

673
00:50:42.639 --> 00:50:45.000
She's like, oh, my gosh, did you get a girl pregnant?

674
00:50:45.159 --> 00:50:50.079
I was like, no, clue, no, And I mean, that's

675
00:50:50.599 --> 00:50:54.920
sort of that's become a bigger conversation
or a question mark in her but she

676
00:50:55.519 --> 00:51:00.599
she she sort of her response immediately
was did you get her all pregnant?

677
00:51:00.679 --> 00:51:02.239
And I was like, oh gosh, not that this was difficult already,

678
00:51:02.400 --> 00:51:06.559
Like, no, I didn't get
a girl pregnant, but I'm gay,

679
00:51:07.480 --> 00:51:13.519
and so her response was she just
was very silent, and she said,

680
00:51:14.639 --> 00:51:17.360
well, you know what, my
religion says, I can hate the sin

681
00:51:17.519 --> 00:51:24.920
but love the sinner, and that
sort of set the tone for her and

682
00:51:25.039 --> 00:51:31.159
I and I told my sister,
and I thought my sister was going to

683
00:51:31.199 --> 00:51:35.360
be very warm and open and loving
because I mentioned to you, like,

684
00:51:35.639 --> 00:51:38.800
you know, we were so close, and she actually had the opposite reaction.

685
00:51:39.159 --> 00:51:45.239
She sort of was devastated and cried
and was really upset, which was

686
00:51:45.360 --> 00:51:52.960
very confusing to me. It yeah, yeah. And then my my brother,

687
00:51:52.280 --> 00:51:57.960
actually I was I was I reserved
telling him literally the last day I

688
00:51:58.039 --> 00:52:01.079
was in town like he was because
I was your scariest one. It's not

689
00:52:01.480 --> 00:52:05.760
like, yeah, I literally thought
that I might he might want to fight

690
00:52:05.880 --> 00:52:07.960
me, Like I literally thought he'd
have like a physical, like you fucking

691
00:52:08.039 --> 00:52:14.079
fact, like that kind of reaction. And so I'm right. I told

692
00:52:14.199 --> 00:52:17.840
him, and he we were at
my grandparents house because my mom at the

693
00:52:17.880 --> 00:52:22.119
time was living with our grandparents and
taking care of them. And he stood

694
00:52:22.199 --> 00:52:27.960
up and grabbed my grab my hand
and get me a big hug. Oh

695
00:52:28.360 --> 00:52:30.840
He's like, oh bro, He's
like I wish you would have told me

696
00:52:30.960 --> 00:52:35.159
sooner, that would have that.
He he's my younger brother, but he

697
00:52:35.320 --> 00:52:40.480
was very tough and like scrappy,
and I remember he said that he wished

698
00:52:40.519 --> 00:52:44.960
that he would have known because he
could have protected me. Oh my god,

699
00:52:45.480 --> 00:52:49.519
because I was bullied, you know. Oh that's such a beautiful reaction.

700
00:52:49.880 --> 00:52:52.880
Yeah, and I was very shock. I would not that one.

701
00:52:52.119 --> 00:52:59.000
Yeah, yeah, oh god,
Okay, wow, Okay, you did,

702
00:52:59.159 --> 00:53:01.760
so you did coming out to it. So let me ask though,

703
00:53:01.760 --> 00:53:06.199
because you'd mentioned like working at a
plant or something in Mexico at this point,

704
00:53:06.280 --> 00:53:10.719
were you not doing anything in the
field of like therapy or didn't so

705
00:53:10.880 --> 00:53:16.320
that all happened after you came out, which honestly is good because we would

706
00:53:16.960 --> 00:53:22.800
hope the therapists have worked through their
issues before they But like, did you

707
00:53:22.920 --> 00:53:25.920
ever see that happening in your life, like going in that direction or was

708
00:53:27.000 --> 00:53:32.400
that a direct result of you coming
out and then realizing you could potentially help

709
00:53:32.480 --> 00:53:37.280
people? Like how did that all
shake out? Yeah, that's a good

710
00:53:37.360 --> 00:53:42.960
question. I feel like for me, becoming a therapist has been a sort

711
00:53:43.000 --> 00:53:46.400
of calling, and I feel like
I remember my cousin Tiffany, who I

712
00:53:46.480 --> 00:53:50.599
mentioned to you. I first came
out to my after I moved back from

713
00:53:50.639 --> 00:53:53.159
Mexico. So I ended up leaving
Mexico, broke up with my boyfriend.

714
00:53:53.639 --> 00:53:57.079
My work wanted to transfer me to
Texas, and I was like, I

715
00:53:57.159 --> 00:54:00.440
am not moving to Texas. So
it was basically my options were to stay

716
00:54:00.480 --> 00:54:06.679
in Mexico or moved to Arizona.
And my uncle was starting up. My

717
00:54:06.800 --> 00:54:13.039
uncle was there is a therapist,
and so so I called him because I

718
00:54:13.159 --> 00:54:16.760
was sort of I really was devastating
after my boyfriend and I broke up,

719
00:54:16.880 --> 00:54:22.639
and so he proposed to me to
come work for his He was starting a

720
00:54:23.239 --> 00:54:29.519
residential treatment program for adolescent boys with
drug addiction alcohol problems, and so I

721
00:54:29.760 --> 00:54:35.920
ended up moving back to Arizona to
help him with his residential treatment program.

722
00:54:36.440 --> 00:54:40.000
And my cousin was also a therapist, and I remember I was just really

723
00:54:40.119 --> 00:54:44.599
curious about I didn't work in the
capacity of a therapist there, but I

724
00:54:44.679 --> 00:54:47.519
was just really curious about being a
therapist. And I remember asking my cousin

725
00:54:47.679 --> 00:54:51.199
like I wanted to know what it
was like, I wanted to know.

726
00:54:51.280 --> 00:54:53.320
I just had all these questions,
and I remember what I didn't want to

727
00:54:53.360 --> 00:55:01.199
do was she she's like sitting in
the same office, you know, hearing

728
00:55:02.079 --> 00:55:06.320
people's problems, and that's how she
sort of framed it. I was like,

729
00:55:06.400 --> 00:55:08.280
I don't so at the time,
it sort of I was curious,

730
00:55:08.360 --> 00:55:14.239
but it sort of scared me to
how she described it, and so it

731
00:55:14.280 --> 00:55:16.639
was always in the back of my
mind, and I wound up moving.

732
00:55:17.000 --> 00:55:22.599
Long story short, I immersed myself
in an LGBTQ advocacy work, and so

733
00:55:22.800 --> 00:55:24.480
I moved out. That's what brought
me. Yeah, that's what brought I

734
00:55:24.880 --> 00:55:29.599
do feel from a spiritual perspective,
you know, that's really what we're all

735
00:55:29.679 --> 00:55:31.199
here to do. I feel is
that, you know, we're all here

736
00:55:31.360 --> 00:55:37.599
to give something, make a contribution
to the planet, and to leave it

737
00:55:37.840 --> 00:55:42.719
in a way that hopefully is better
often than when we you know, when

738
00:55:42.760 --> 00:55:46.599
we came in. And and so
my contribution was being able to take all

739
00:55:46.639 --> 00:55:52.159
of my pain and transform it and
transmute it into something good that could be

740
00:55:52.320 --> 00:55:58.199
used to be of service for others. And so, yeah, so that

741
00:55:58.480 --> 00:56:02.000
I moved out to LA to work
for a national LGBTQ organization. But to

742
00:56:02.039 --> 00:56:06.960
your point about therapy, I hadn't
done my own inner work, and so

743
00:56:07.800 --> 00:56:10.159
for me, coming out of the
closet. It wasn't just a light switch,

744
00:56:10.159 --> 00:56:13.800
you know, even though I was
dating, even though I was doing

745
00:56:13.840 --> 00:56:15.760
all this advocacy work. It's not
like it all of a sudden, all

746
00:56:15.800 --> 00:56:22.360
the trauma and baggage start dating.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I call

747
00:56:22.440 --> 00:56:28.320
them like psychic scar tissue. And
so that sort of the subtitle my book

748
00:56:28.440 --> 00:56:30.320
is called A Parent's Guide to Changing
the Messages from the Playground, And so

749
00:56:30.440 --> 00:56:36.599
the messages from the playground are all
the things that I had internalized that still

750
00:56:37.679 --> 00:56:40.719
even though I suppressed them, they
were still there and they were still impacting

751
00:56:40.840 --> 00:56:45.079
my life and my choices and how
I felt about myself. And so I

752
00:56:45.159 --> 00:56:52.360
wound up working in West Hollywood at
a bar. And so my story also

753
00:56:52.440 --> 00:56:57.519
includes, you know, substance use
and using a lot of things to anesthecize

754
00:56:57.599 --> 00:57:02.480
the pain. And so then I
found recovery. I found spiritual My spiritual

755
00:57:02.519 --> 00:57:07.639
practice, you know, sort of
helped me along that journey. And once

756
00:57:07.719 --> 00:57:13.880
I got really clear about my purpose
and how I wanted to use my pain,

757
00:57:15.360 --> 00:57:19.119
that's what led me to the book, which sort of I joked that

758
00:57:19.159 --> 00:57:23.639
I wrote myself into graduate school to
become and then the rest is history.

759
00:57:23.679 --> 00:57:28.559
And now I'm working as a therapist. Oh my god, yeah, kid,

760
00:57:28.599 --> 00:57:30.599
I asked, Okay, I have
two questions. The first is I

761
00:57:30.960 --> 00:57:35.960
want to hear the story about the
question that you got asked by your nephew.

762
00:57:36.079 --> 00:57:42.280
But before that, when you started
doing this advocacy, did that help

763
00:57:42.719 --> 00:57:47.239
with the family members who coming out
hadn't gone well with because if you if

764
00:57:47.320 --> 00:57:52.159
their basis is religion, is it's
hard for them to accept this because of

765
00:57:52.199 --> 00:57:58.599
their religion, how do you not
then accept someone who is so giving that,

766
00:57:58.840 --> 00:58:01.280
like that's what they're really is dictating. So I would hope that that

767
00:58:01.320 --> 00:58:07.920
would at least make them be more
I mean, did that Was that like

768
00:58:07.000 --> 00:58:10.000
a transition for them to being like, oh, this can't be bad if

769
00:58:10.039 --> 00:58:15.440
it's leading Chris to doing all this
good in the world, Like yeah,

770
00:58:15.679 --> 00:58:21.159
yeah, it's nuanced. I say, yeh, I say, I'd answer

771
00:58:21.320 --> 00:58:24.239
yes. And because I feel like
that's where that sort of led into the

772
00:58:24.320 --> 00:58:27.639
question that my nephew asked me,
is that you know, I moved out

773
00:58:27.760 --> 00:58:30.039
to LA to work for glad and, which is a large, you know,

774
00:58:30.480 --> 00:58:37.239
LGBTQ organization, media media advocacy organization. And although my parents were well

775
00:58:37.360 --> 00:58:43.920
parents, my mom was very excited
and supportive. It wasn't exactly like she

776
00:58:44.239 --> 00:58:51.000
was blasting Chris is moving out to
LA to work for glass at the holidays,

777
00:58:51.519 --> 00:58:54.119
right right right. So although it
was this really wonderful job and really

778
00:58:54.119 --> 00:58:59.360
wonderful opportunity, it was sort of
layered with well, what can we share?

779
00:59:00.000 --> 00:59:05.880
Why? Why why aren't they sharing
his conditional and so kind of going

780
00:59:05.960 --> 00:59:07.760
to your second question with my nephew, That's when I realized because I had

781
00:59:07.800 --> 00:59:12.960
been working for GLAD and doing advocacy
for a really long time, and I

782
00:59:13.039 --> 00:59:15.480
was actually in Arizona, even though
I was living in California. I was

783
00:59:15.559 --> 00:59:21.199
in Arizona giving a workshop at the
Arizona Quality and Justice Conference, which is

784
00:59:21.280 --> 00:59:27.960
the LGBTQ state wide organization, ironically, and I was at that conference giving

785
00:59:28.000 --> 00:59:32.000
a workshop, and afterwards I went
home to Tucson to my family's and my

786
00:59:32.119 --> 00:59:36.400
mom had because I didn't make it
home for Christmas that year, so she

787
00:59:36.519 --> 00:59:39.679
had a lot of my relatives and
like family friends and my nephew at the

788
00:59:39.760 --> 00:59:45.320
time was six, and that's when
he asked me, you know, he

789
00:59:45.480 --> 00:59:49.199
was playing in the living room.
I sort of, you know, I

790
00:59:49.280 --> 00:59:52.880
share this story in my in my
ted X talk. But but he basically,

791
00:59:53.079 --> 00:59:55.960
you know, ran over while he
was playing. You know, kids,

792
00:59:57.079 --> 01:00:00.400
they have a thought, they ask
a question, and my even if

793
01:00:00.440 --> 01:00:04.519
it's not at an opportune time,
you know, it could be at the

794
01:00:04.559 --> 01:00:07.320
grocery store, it could be in
front of you know whatever. And so

795
01:00:07.639 --> 01:00:10.840
my nephew, you know, his
version of whispering was talking out loud.

796
01:00:12.000 --> 01:00:16.440
So he like ran out to me
and like whispered slash was speaking out loud.

797
01:00:17.360 --> 01:00:22.880
Uncle Chris, is she or girlfriend
to a high school friend that was

798
01:00:22.880 --> 01:00:28.119
sitting next to me. We're in
the dining room, and I just remember

799
01:00:28.280 --> 01:00:34.360
everyone likes like time slowed down because
I remember everyone's response and then and then

800
01:00:34.519 --> 01:00:37.000
they kind of laughed about it.
And then you know, kids they they

801
01:00:37.199 --> 01:00:38.519
you know, he wasn't like he
wanted to like sit there and like him

802
01:00:38.880 --> 01:00:44.320
tell like he just had the thought
and then asked the question then ran away,

803
01:00:44.400 --> 01:00:47.519
and you know, but it wasn't
until later that night that I started

804
01:00:47.519 --> 01:00:52.679
to think about, well, wait
a second, why doesn't like doesn't he

805
01:00:52.840 --> 01:00:54.719
know that I'm gay? I mean, but I have not dated anyone,

806
01:00:54.800 --> 01:00:59.719
so I've not since he's been alive. Bring I've not brought up a boyfriend

807
01:00:59.760 --> 01:01:04.039
home, and so he hasn't seen
me with anyone? Is that why he

808
01:01:04.119 --> 01:01:07.519
asked it? Well, I would
imagine that my sister would have talked to

809
01:01:07.639 --> 01:01:13.920
him about me because she he has
an older sister. And then I started

810
01:01:13.960 --> 01:01:16.039
thinking, well, maybe she hasn't. Wait, why hasn't she? So

811
01:01:16.559 --> 01:01:20.159
I started having all these questions,
and then I remember was the next morning

812
01:01:20.159 --> 01:01:21.960
I woke up and I asked my
mom. I was like, cause I

813
01:01:22.039 --> 01:01:23.320
mentioned to you I have five nieces
and nephews, and so I started to

814
01:01:23.360 --> 01:01:29.760
think about, well, has my
brother not talked to his kids? What

815
01:01:29.880 --> 01:01:32.000
about all my cousins they have kids, have they talked to their kids?

816
01:01:32.639 --> 01:01:37.880
And I was six when I knew
that I was gay, so my nephew's

817
01:01:37.920 --> 01:01:40.400
six. So I asked my mom. You know, hey, Mom,

818
01:01:40.519 --> 01:01:43.800
you know has Selene at my sister's
name is Selena. I was like,

819
01:01:43.880 --> 01:01:46.440
has Selena talked to her kids about, you know, having a gay brother

820
01:01:46.480 --> 01:01:51.280
and me being gay? And my
mom's response was, oh, oh,

821
01:01:51.400 --> 01:01:55.039
honey, no, they're not old
enough to understand. And that's when I

822
01:01:55.119 --> 01:02:00.039
realized, Oh, this is a
much bigger conversation and this is nuanced,

823
01:02:00.199 --> 01:02:06.280
and that propelled me on the path
of ultimately writing my book. Oh my

824
01:02:06.440 --> 01:02:12.599
god, that's amazing. Yeah.
The I will never get past the they're

825
01:02:12.679 --> 01:02:15.679
not old enough to understand that,
but they can. They're old enough to

826
01:02:15.760 --> 01:02:20.199
wear you know, a onesie that
says like, look out, ladies,

827
01:02:20.239 --> 01:02:23.719
I'm a heartbreaker or it's like your
little girlfriend. When they're like, so,

828
01:02:23.800 --> 01:02:31.519
they're old enough to understand heterosexual shit, apparently like parents will always put

829
01:02:31.599 --> 01:02:36.360
that on. But then when it
comes to anything that's not heateronormative, they're

830
01:02:36.400 --> 01:02:42.960
suddenly not old enough that bananas bananas. I mean you mentioned at the top

831
01:02:43.000 --> 01:02:46.119
of your show, you know,
Hanson eleven years old, teen bop like

832
01:02:46.159 --> 01:02:51.199
breaking heart boombopper, Yeah, breaking
hearts. You know all these young kids.

833
01:02:51.920 --> 01:02:53.440
I mean my nephew he was six
and he asked me if I had

834
01:02:53.440 --> 01:02:55.760
a girlfriend. Yeah, so he
is the concept of that, but he

835
01:02:55.920 --> 01:03:00.400
can't understand. Yeah. It's so
frustrated. Yeah, I you know,

836
01:03:00.440 --> 01:03:02.679
I encourage it. And this is
what I write about my book is that

837
01:03:02.719 --> 01:03:07.800
if children are asking questions, they're
capable of understanding you know the answer.

838
01:03:07.880 --> 01:03:13.519
And again we sort of put our
adult constructs of what that means. But

839
01:03:14.440 --> 01:03:17.360
going back to me, I knew
at six that there was something that I

840
01:03:17.519 --> 01:03:23.880
was experiencing that I could have understood
based on the conversations that I feel like

841
01:03:23.960 --> 01:03:29.519
my parents or family members could have
had with me. Yeah. Wow,

842
01:03:30.199 --> 01:03:36.519
And has how has it progressed over
time with your family? Like? How

843
01:03:36.679 --> 01:03:39.480
is that? Has it? Has
it progressed? Has it evolved at all?

844
01:03:39.679 --> 01:03:45.760
Like? Did your book help them
to understand it? Did it did?

845
01:03:45.880 --> 01:03:49.880
I mean, the book really is
an inspiration. I write in the

846
01:03:49.920 --> 01:03:53.679
acknowledgment section. It really was a
manifestation of the conversations and relationship that I

847
01:03:53.760 --> 01:03:58.920
had with my nieces and nephews because
I realized, you know, healing my

848
01:03:59.079 --> 01:04:06.159
own internalize is homophobia, my own
internalized shame was very important because I feel

849
01:04:06.360 --> 01:04:13.840
like we teach through our demonstration,
and so how was I demonstrating my life?

850
01:04:13.960 --> 01:04:15.800
My life was an extension of what
I felt about myself. And so

851
01:04:16.679 --> 01:04:20.360
you know what, I lived in
California, but my nieces and nephews lived

852
01:04:20.360 --> 01:04:25.360
in Arizona. If I didn't bring
a boyfriend home, how were they knowing

853
01:04:25.480 --> 01:04:30.360
about me? You know, my
gay my sexuality isn't the only thing,

854
01:04:30.480 --> 01:04:32.559
but it's very much a part of
me, and it's a part of the

855
01:04:32.599 --> 01:04:38.320
work that I do and so what
am I doing to help create allies?

856
01:04:39.039 --> 01:04:43.199
And so I started having conversations with
my nieces and nephews about you know,

857
01:04:43.239 --> 01:04:45.639
I remember, you know, when
my my brother's kids, two kids,

858
01:04:45.719 --> 01:04:51.400
they were in junior high and I
remember asking them, do they know anyone

859
01:04:51.440 --> 01:04:55.719
who's LGBTQ at their school? And
they're like, no, there aren't any

860
01:04:55.840 --> 01:04:58.880
LGBTQ kids at our school. And
I'm like, really, there aren't any

861
01:04:58.960 --> 01:05:01.519
LGBTQ kids school. Do you do
you think that they're not at your school

862
01:05:01.639 --> 01:05:08.920
because they maybe don't feel safe to
show who they are? Or do you

863
01:05:09.239 --> 01:05:12.079
think that out of all the hundreds
of kids that are there, that there

864
01:05:12.159 --> 01:05:15.800
literally aren't any And and that sort
of helped chip away at like how they

865
01:05:15.960 --> 01:05:21.760
perceived their communities and I and I
remember asking my my niece and nephew at

866
01:05:21.760 --> 01:05:26.000
the time, and my nephew he's
two years older than my niece, and

867
01:05:26.079 --> 01:05:29.360
I remember asking him and he was
like really popular. I'm like, you

868
01:05:29.440 --> 01:05:32.039
know what, what if there was
an LGBTQ kid that wasn't out or maybe

869
01:05:32.079 --> 01:05:35.760
didn't know fully who they were.
But they're starting to question, I'm like,

870
01:05:35.840 --> 01:05:40.559
what do you think that you could
do to help create a space for

871
01:05:40.679 --> 01:05:45.440
them, you know, and really
helping them in our relationship as an ex

872
01:05:45.639 --> 01:05:49.079
like, use our relationship as an
extension of how they are in the world.

873
01:05:50.000 --> 01:05:55.760
Oh god, that's incredible. Yeah, and so I think that.

874
01:05:55.960 --> 01:05:58.679
And so to answer your question,
I feel like it's nuanced. I think

875
01:05:58.760 --> 01:06:04.960
that, you know, gender sort
of norms the kids. I taught social

876
01:06:04.960 --> 01:06:09.719
emotional learning for six years, and
I even though there has been a lot

877
01:06:09.800 --> 01:06:15.760
of progress, there still are certain
words and and sort of mannerisms and beliefs

878
01:06:15.840 --> 01:06:23.480
that kids feel that we need to
have. And so there's pressure of not

879
01:06:23.679 --> 01:06:26.239
wanting to there. You know,
kids, I read about this in my

880
01:06:26.280 --> 01:06:28.880
book, is that when we're young, when we're in junior high grade school,

881
01:06:29.679 --> 01:06:31.000
we want to we want to belong, we want to be a part

882
01:06:31.079 --> 01:06:35.440
of. We're community oriented species,
we're meant to be a part of.

883
01:06:35.760 --> 01:06:40.199
And and so kids that's all they
want to do is be a part of.

884
01:06:40.480 --> 01:06:46.079
And so if a child is sort
of interpreting themselves as being other,

885
01:06:47.840 --> 01:06:49.880
they're going to want to belong.
So what can I do to belong?

886
01:06:50.599 --> 01:06:57.320
Yeah? Yeah, Oh my god, the work you're doing is so important

887
01:06:57.679 --> 01:07:02.159
because yeah, we don't just need
we very much need to be speaking to

888
01:07:03.280 --> 01:07:08.159
little you know, queer kids,
but we also, like you're saying,

889
01:07:08.360 --> 01:07:13.079
need to be creating allies, Like
we need to be talking to the kids

890
01:07:13.679 --> 01:07:19.039
who aren't queer because there are statistically
more of them, so let's make sure

891
01:07:19.199 --> 01:07:25.639
they also understand and that they can
yeah, be allies to the little queer

892
01:07:25.800 --> 01:07:30.679
kids. Like just yeah, that's
amazing. Yeah, yeah, I mean,

893
01:07:30.760 --> 01:07:33.800
well, look, before we wrap
up, is there anything more that

894
01:07:33.920 --> 01:07:38.440
you want to speak to about.
Is there anything we didn't get to about,

895
01:07:38.880 --> 01:07:42.239
like your work or the book or
anything that you want people to sort

896
01:07:42.239 --> 01:07:47.119
of walk away with or no.
No, I mean I appreciate the opportunity

897
01:07:47.119 --> 01:07:51.440
to share my story because I feel
like in my experience I volunteered with p

898
01:07:51.599 --> 01:07:55.880
FLAG. For your listeners who are
familiar with p FLAG, it's a wonderful

899
01:07:56.039 --> 01:08:01.880
organization. They have chapters in states
and cities across the country all over and

900
01:08:02.760 --> 01:08:06.760
in Los Angeles because it's a larger
chapter, we had a speaker's Bureau and

901
01:08:08.000 --> 01:08:12.960
so we would go into we would
be invited into high schools, workplaces,

902
01:08:13.800 --> 01:08:19.840
colleges to give a panel. And
a panel basically is where you have different

903
01:08:19.920 --> 01:08:26.239
people that represent different aspects of the
community. You know LGBTQ, and and

904
01:08:26.399 --> 01:08:30.399
we each share our story five minutes
approximately about our coming out story, and

905
01:08:30.479 --> 01:08:34.680
then we open it up to questions. And I did that for years,

906
01:08:34.920 --> 01:08:39.159
and what I found is that most
of the time we were invited to go

907
01:08:39.199 --> 01:08:44.840
to high school is because there was
some type of bowllying or the school would

908
01:08:44.920 --> 01:08:46.880
the administration would recognize like, oh, we need to do some you know,

909
01:08:47.279 --> 01:08:51.279
you know, advocacy, yeah,
yeah exactly, instead of pre yeah,

910
01:08:51.680 --> 01:08:57.640
instead of proactive. And but what
I found is that when I shared

911
01:08:57.680 --> 01:09:00.000
my coming out, So I remember
I wasn't playing being on the speakers bureau,

912
01:09:00.039 --> 01:09:03.439
but I was at a meeting one
time and they needed a speaker the

913
01:09:03.520 --> 01:09:06.399
next day again, they needed someone
who identified as a gay man, and

914
01:09:06.560 --> 01:09:12.239
so I remember I signed up and
I had never shared like my coming out

915
01:09:12.319 --> 01:09:15.119
story in that way before, and
so I didn't really plan anything. I

916
01:09:15.199 --> 01:09:17.520
mean, I figured it was five
minutes, I'm going to speak to a

917
01:09:17.760 --> 01:09:21.479
classroom of high school kids, like, it's not going to be that challenging.

918
01:09:21.560 --> 01:09:25.399
And so I remember going there not
really knowing how I was going to

919
01:09:25.399 --> 01:09:28.479
tell my coming out story. And
what I found is I told a love

920
01:09:28.560 --> 01:09:33.920
story. I told my story of
coming out and meeting a boyfriend and all

921
01:09:34.000 --> 01:09:38.119
the feelings that I felt, the
palm, sweaty, my heart racing,

922
01:09:38.319 --> 01:09:42.600
all of those feelings that all of
us had felt if we've ever had feelings

923
01:09:42.680 --> 01:09:46.119
for another human. And so what
I found is that after that first time,

924
01:09:46.800 --> 01:09:51.359
kids raised their hand in the classroom
and they were asking me like do

925
01:09:51.439 --> 01:09:56.000
you still talk to them? Like
do you like? They wanted to know

926
01:09:56.119 --> 01:10:00.600
about Yeah, And what I realized
is that maybe they couldn't relate or identify

927
01:10:00.760 --> 01:10:06.399
specifically to two men, but they
could relate to the feelings that I expressed

928
01:10:06.479 --> 01:10:12.279
and felt so agreat yep and shared. And that is what I and so

929
01:10:13.880 --> 01:10:16.880
to your list to answer your question
about anything I could you know last share

930
01:10:17.000 --> 01:10:20.880
is that sharing our stories, I
feel like is an opportunity for us to

931
01:10:21.000 --> 01:10:27.159
connect on a soul level, on
a human level, despite the differences.

932
01:10:28.479 --> 01:10:31.520
And so for all of those people
out there that are listening in your audiences

933
01:10:31.640 --> 01:10:36.399
to share their stories, well said
and thank you since this is a storytelling

934
01:10:36.439 --> 01:10:44.079
podcast, I appreciate. I so
agree. I think the specificity I feel

935
01:10:44.079 --> 01:10:46.479
like sometimes people think like, oh
I have to be more general so that

936
01:10:46.520 --> 01:10:51.199
people can relate, And I think
the opposite. I think specificity is what

937
01:10:51.399 --> 01:10:57.920
people hook onto and they're able to
like, then they can get that,

938
01:10:58.039 --> 01:11:00.880
Okay, I'm not attracted to men, but is specific features of the story

939
01:11:00.960 --> 01:11:04.920
that they're gonna hook onto and relate
to, and they'll be able to relate

940
01:11:05.000 --> 01:11:11.560
it to their own like whatever,
gender whatever, like Yeah, I said,

941
01:11:12.079 --> 01:11:14.079
yeah, thank you. I remember, and I'll say this, I

942
01:11:14.199 --> 01:11:17.840
remember after and I going back,
I mean, I assured that I dated

943
01:11:17.880 --> 01:11:24.680
women, I dated girls, I
had girlfriends after my first after I met

944
01:11:24.720 --> 01:11:29.000
my first boyfriend and driving back to
my office that day where I was listening

945
01:11:29.079 --> 01:11:33.439
to the radio and I was listening, I was hearing lyrics in a way

946
01:11:33.680 --> 01:11:40.319
that I did not understand ever before. Yes, and that's when I realized,

947
01:11:40.399 --> 01:11:45.359
like that there's something this is allowing
me to experience human my humanness in

948
01:11:45.439 --> 01:11:49.199
a way that I hadn't allowed myself
access to before. Oh my god,

949
01:11:49.640 --> 01:11:55.239
Yeah that is that is You nailed
it, yeap, that is what it

950
01:11:55.399 --> 01:12:00.199
is. Uh, because thank you
so much. It's been so great to

951
01:12:00.279 --> 01:12:04.880
speak to you. Where can people
find you on social media? If you're

952
01:12:05.000 --> 01:12:09.720
on there? Where can they find
your book? All the shout out,

953
01:12:09.760 --> 01:12:12.640
all of the all the things all
the things. Yeah, thank you.

954
01:12:13.000 --> 01:12:15.399
I'm grateful to have been here.
My on social media, my website is

955
01:12:15.479 --> 01:12:18.960
a road trip to Love dot com
all one word. That's a whole nother

956
01:12:19.560 --> 01:12:27.479
podcast story. And then social media
Instagram, I'm pretty active on Facebook or

957
01:12:27.520 --> 01:12:30.800
road Trips to Love as well.
And my book. I'm so excited.

958
01:12:30.800 --> 01:12:34.720
I just found out last week that
my publisher is releasing my book this year

959
01:12:34.760 --> 01:12:41.439
in paperback. Oh nice, Yeah, so raising LGBTQ Allies. It's available

960
01:12:41.520 --> 01:12:46.000
now wherever books are sold, Amazon, independent Bookstores, bookstop dot org,

961
01:12:46.479 --> 01:12:50.159
bookshop dot org. But it will
be it will be released this year in

962
01:12:50.279 --> 01:12:55.560
paperback. So that's a whole like
softer covers. Yes, if you like

963
01:12:55.640 --> 01:13:00.039
softer cover ye, yep, that's
fantastic. Yeah, thank you. I

964
01:13:00.319 --> 01:13:06.439
am as always at Lauren Flans on
Twitter and Blue Sky Lauren Underscore Flans on

965
01:13:06.600 --> 01:13:12.880
Instagram. The podcast is at coming
Out Pod. The hashtag is hashtag coming

966
01:13:12.920 --> 01:13:15.600
out Pod and shout out to my
incredible patrons. Thank you so much to

967
01:13:15.720 --> 01:13:21.560
Carmel kaz Simone, Cayenne Michelle l
Adri, Tanya Pooh, Tia, Kieran

968
01:13:21.640 --> 01:13:27.880
Smiley, Aaron Mitchell, Diego Hernandez
and beyond Clexa dot com. And as

969
01:13:27.960 --> 01:13:32.359
I always say, if you want
to support the podcast for free, a

970
01:13:32.439 --> 01:13:36.439
really great way to do that is
to rate it five stars on either Apple

971
01:13:38.279 --> 01:13:45.279
Podcast aka iTunes or on Spotify.
That's about it, Chris, this was

972
01:13:45.359 --> 01:13:48.119
such a pleasure. I really enjoyed
here. You're a good storyteller, speaking

973
01:13:48.159 --> 01:13:55.159
of like you really I love that
story, oh my goodness, and speaking

974
01:13:55.199 --> 01:14:00.000
of love and romance. I will
see you all next week when it's Valentine

975
01:14:00.039 --> 01:14:05.039
Mindes Day. Uh so yeah,
so you all next Wednesday. Thank you. Bye.