Hey, everybody, welcome too, coming out pod, y'all. I'm very
aware when I do these queer root shout outs that I tend to more heavily
favor the ladies because as a versioning, you know, baby lesbian. A
lot of my queer roots were women, but I'm trying to expand because we
have a wide audience. So today's queer Root shout out, in addition to
being personal to me, I think anyone of any gender could potentially appreciate.
Shout out to you. If your queer root is Will Wheaton as Wesley Crusher
and Star Trek the next Generation, I again a lesbian. I had a
poster of Will Wheaton on my bedroom wall when I was a kid. I
had a huge crush on Will Wheaton. He as a young man. Now
he has a beard, he's like a full ass man, but at the
time he covers range of I think twink, I think he looks like a
baby dyke. I just think it's such a versatile looking man. And I
had a huge crush on him as a child. So if you also did
shout out to you, thank you Will Waiting for helping me discover myself.
Y'all. I am here today with Sarah Mossman. Hi, Sarah, welcome,
Hi, thank you for having me here today. Thank you so much
for coming on. As I said off Mike, I'm always really appreciative when
folks come on the podcast when they barely know me. It's a big ask
and it's just it's really wonderful that people are open enough to do that.
And so Sarah and I met in a COVID Conscious creatives mixer, which is
basically, as you know if you've been listening to the podcast for a while,
I am still very COVID conscious, do a ton of stuff over Zoom
with other folks who are also still coviding, as we say, And so
Sarah and I met in a special Zoom that was arranged for creatives within the
COVID Conscious community, so it covered the wide range. It was poets,
writers, filmmakers, actors, voiceover folks, just anyone who sort of defines
themselves as an artist and is still being COVID conscious. Some folks in the
community created a space for us all to get together talk about our projects,
and that is where we met. And I obviously sort of just put out
the call to any queer folks in the group who wanted to come on the
podcast, and Sarah was kind enough to take the bait. So yes,
that's how we know each other. Sarah is a writer and a filmmaker and
releases on her novels and other works under the name s. A. Mossman.
Sarah, do you want to talk at all about any of you have
a novel out? You just like casually mentioned when we were talking, which
is incredible, But yeah, anything that you want to say about your work,
have at it. So this past year I released a novel. It's
my first novel. It's called A Tree of Life. It's part one in
a series called a Dadalist Detectives. It features a Asian American woman who is
a detective in a city and she's queer and she solves mostly missing person cases.
The first installments the Tree of Life. Each of the titles centers around
like the case the person involved in the case, and the person involved in
the case has a Tree of Life tattoo. But in this story, her
first love, her childhood best friend, comes back to town when like with
a missing father case and she helps her and they kind of rekindle their moments
their romance while they find her missing father who is involved in a lot of
crime and stuff. I'm not going to give away too many spoilers, but
it's an exciting read as far as I'm concerned. I wrote up my alley.
These are like the intersection of my two interests, which are true crime
and anything queer. So this is like a really wow. Okay, So
when you're writing a mystery, you have to like figure out the mystery and
then go backwards. Is that correct? That's what's always been intimidating to me
about writing anything that has a mystery element is I'm like, oh God,
damn it, I have to figure out a mystery and then reverse engineer it,
which sounds very challenging. But so aside from identifying as a writer and
filmmaker creatively, how do you identify as a human existing in this world?
Well, my pronouns are she her. I used to identify as lesbian,
but my partner is non binary, so I go by I use queer now
just as a catch all term says a little bit of explanation without having to
like out my partner if I'm not always aware of like how comfortable they are
with like certain groups, So I just say I'm queer and I don't explain
anything. Oh, that's I love that. That's very cool. I love
Yeah, I love having an identify or sort of shift based on Yeah,
the comfort of the person you're involved with. That's really cool. Well,
it's kind of a strange to be like, I'm lesbian but also my partner's
non binary, and a lot of people don't understan understand a lot of stuff
about non binary and how like you could date someone who's non binary but you
identify as lesbian, so queer, just working, Yeah, here, I
fully agree. We have had discussions on this podcast with folks who you know,
do We have had some folks who identify as non binary lesbians, and
we've sort of parsed out it's like for me and I am someone who is,
like I'm very fond of like labels and order and categories, and that's
something that like I sort of struggle with throughout my life because sometimes that's helpful
and sometimes that is just like not something you need to be concerned about,
but my brain wants to be concerned about it. But in terms of any
of those identifiers, I've sort of just learned that, like, it's so
much more important to be comfortable in an identity than to follow rigid semantic rules
about like I've just had to let all of that go as I moved through
the world and as I talk to people on this podcasts. Just so just
letting go of all of that has been a very big part of But I
do love that you're respecting the fact that a lot of people aren't there yet
and that it's just like path of least resistance to say queer, so that
you don't potentially have to have like a long philosophical slash grammatical discussion with a
stranger. I think that's a great call. So, Sarah, we know
next to nothing about one another, which is honestly, those are some of
my favorite episodes because I get to just learn everything in real time, and
then I after an hour, I feel like, I like I know someone
so much better than what I went in. So I'm going in fully just
not knowing anything. Sarah, tell me your coming out story. Okay,
so this is quite the journey. We have to track all the way through
my whole childhood and into my adulthood to get this, because this is a
story about coming out to my mother. This is the most difficult one for
me, the other ones, everyone else, and coming out is like a
continual process. Sometimes you choose to come never ending, and sometimes you choose
like to come out, and sometimes it doesn't matter, like if you're like,
if you're at work, you don't necessarily have to tell someone you're out
yourself. And sometimes it just creates additional problems where now people have to have
additional opinions about you. So sometimes I don't always come out. But the
most difficult one was my mother, and that ties in a lot with my
difficult relationship with my mother. So this has to go all the way back
to my childhood and then a little bit I have to provide a little bit
of background about who my mother is and then the family life. Oh please,
I love it. As someone who also has a difficult relationship with my
mother, I'm like, ooh, this is right on my wheelhouse. Okay,
yeah, So where did you Where did you grow up? Where did
this? Where does it begin? So? I grew up in Baltimore,
Maryland. I'm an interracial person. My mother is black and Filipino, my
father is white and Jewish. I grew up in Baltimore, kind of straddling
those lines between the black community and the Jewish white community there, and my
mother coming from such a diverse background. She initially came from she was born
in Hawaii, but her mother's from the Philippines, and then her father's from
America, North Carolina originally. Okay, okay, So there's a lot going
into the mix, a lot coming into the mixt year. Yes, I
grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, big household. I am one of six
children, so four brothers, one sister. Yes, so kind of chaos.
My sister likes to say we're like the Gallaghers from Shameless. So it's
a lot of dysfunction, a lot of chaos, a lot of people in
the middle. Okay, wait, where are you in the order? Because
I'm an only child. But my understanding is that order is like very important
to like personality and all that. I don't know if that's like pop science
or if that's true, but I find a little bit true. I'm the
second youngest, so my mother had out Okay, Okay. My mother had
children from the time she was nineteen to the time she was forty one.
Wow, that's a career. Okay, wow, oh my god. Okay,
okay, Yeah, So by the time you were born. Was it
just like, here's a knife, go play in the yard. Was it
just like some she's over a little bit a little bit. There was not
a lot of oversight happening when I was growing up. A lot of that
oversight suft to my older siblings, who were also like teenagers and children.
So you know how that goes. Okay, okay, all right, So
when did you start to like or I don't want to just I want to
keep going, keep going. I'm not even gonna ask questions yet. Okay.
So I understand this is not particularly usual, but I pretty much've known
I'm queer my whole life. I'm pretty sure I had my first crush on
a girl when I was in pre k at like the Hebrews. The Hebrews
pre k school I went to. Immediately was like, oh, I have
a crush. We're gonna be best friends. We're gonna take our naps together
and hold hands all day throughout class. So I've always known, even before
I had like the terminology to understand it, the means to understand it.
That was just where my interests lied. I didn't really was never really interested
in the boys, and if I was, it was more of like with
my brothers, you know you're gonna wrestle, I'm gonna beat up when you
we're gonna you know, so like tomboy kind of vibes. Does that ring
true at all? Yeah? Oh exactly. I was the big tomboy in
the family. Okay, and with the with the crushes super early. Do
you feel like you had an awareness that it was like because it's so hard
when you're little, It's like, I feel like little kids we sort of
understand the concept of romance, but obviously like sexuality is like way way in
the future. But do you feel like you understood that there was like romantic
interest there or was it just like bff, Like do you remember that kind
of energy? I know this is going back to when you're like a very
small child. I can't say I had a romantic interest. It was more
of just like this fixation of like, oh, this girl was really cool.
I want to be her best friend. I want to spend all my
time with her. And I never had that through boys growing up. God,
that was just my first instance. I think that's relatable for a lot
of folks, I suspect. Okay, all right, So so that's pre
k what happens as you're you're like in middle school, high school? How
does this sort of Oh and also you know what what kind of if any,
what kind of messaging were you getting or not even messaging? Just how
were queer people talked about in the home? Like was this like it never
comes up? Or was it like snide remarks? Like did you do you
feel like you had any impression of like queer people are good, queer people
are bad, queer people are neutral? Like what was the feeling generally speaking?
Like we didn't It wasn't brought up, It wasn't talking about it.
Yeah, it was not talked about. It wasn't until I was around middle
school where I met my first like openly queer person. But that was until
that and I realized, oh, so you can be gay, you can
date other women. You don't have to present as strictly feminine. This person
was but presenting. Okay. So that was my first awakening of like,
okay, so this is the thing, and then I strongly identified it with
it of like, oh, okay, so this is the thing that is
what I think I am. Was this like your ring of keys moment,
This is starting to sound like so very specifically, so my uh, because
we spoke about my mother already. So I have this big household already.
I've got four brothers, one sister. We're all there. My mother also
liked to what we call in my family pick up strays, so that she
would always be moving in at people in need to the home. Yes,
so I was about middle school and she had brought in someone who needed a
place to stay, a woman. Her name was LaToya. I thought she
was fantastic. She was my hero. She was I want to say,
around eighteen, when I was in like middle school, so like eleven twelve.
I thought she was incredible. I had never met a person. She
was a butcher, like I never met a person like this. And then
she openly was queer. I never met a person like that. She had
a girlfriend. I never knew like that was a possibility open my world up
to that. But my mother's a nutterishly difficult person. She has a lot
of her own trauma and baggage, a little bit of narcissis, and that
comes out a lot. So inevitably, my mother started acting in a homophobic
way to LaToya, which and then eventually she kicked her out it was very
stressful, and I remember the one instance where I was like, very upset
that she my mother was kicking her out and I tried to give her my
saved allowance and she was like, no, I don't want your money.
Yeah. Do your mother not know when she took her in that she was
queer, because it sounds like if she was sort of butcher presenting your did
your mother not or or was she like I can handle this? And then
she was like nope, too queer. I gotta go like what because that's
such an interesting with my mother. It's hard to know what's in her head.
But the best I can understand is she wanted to help this person.
She didn't care at first, but when she started being bothered and annoyed by
this person, she decided to weaponize homophobia. Okay, but as a middle
schoo that put me on very uneven footing with her, because it was are
you okay with gay people? Or are you not? Like is that something
I'm safe to share with you? Or is it not? And she's not
a person you can speak to openly and authentically. With that, she gets
very uh intense, let's say, so, it wasn't a yeah, so
it wasn't a conversation we could have, and it wasn't a conversation where I
could ask, as the child in that really parent child relationship, well what
happened? Why did you not want her to be around anymore? So it
was a kind of devastating. I lost someone who I really idolized, and
I didn't have clear understanding and the only thing I could jump to wash And
then LaToya also thought it was because she was gay. So the only thing
I can understand was it must because she's just gay that my mother decided she
can't be here anymore and she has to find another place to live. Okay,
yeah, Okay, so that's a big formative. Well that's that's a
that's a trauma blip on the radar, I think we would call that.
And and did you when you were in terms of what LaToya kind of made
you realize about yourself, do you feel like did you fully put the pieces
together at that point where you're like, oh, I'm like this person.
I guess that means I'm gay or was that still a little because middle school
is like I don't know, it depends like do you feel like you that
was the turning point and you realized from that point on, or was that
just sort of the beginning of you understanding what that meant for you. I
think it was a turning point because every moment after that, I just identified
as gay or like lesbian, whatever you want to say. Yeah, I
just identified as gay. So yeah, it was a huge moment, but
also a very scary moment because it's like, Okay, I don't know how
my family will react. I didn't even know this was a thing a year
ago, and now I'm like it's a thing. That's great. Oh it's
a thing. Oh no, it's scary. Yeah, it's a lot of
input to receive at one time. Okay, okay, were you telling it?
Sounds like you weren't talking about it to your family, which was probably
a wise call. But were you using words like gay, career, lesbian,
like at school, like with your friends, like like who were you
sharing this with? Or was it just sort of like journaling and like admitting
it to yourself? So I didn't. I didn't start sharing this un till
I started high school, so would be another year or two. Uh.
This was the phase where I'm on the home computer trying to hide history,
where I'm researching what is this? What is that? Uh? And this
was in the night late nineties, early two thousands, so that era of
the Internet, and I'm very much not being watched by anyone, so I
had pretty much unmitigated access, and I'm looking at all these different keywords and
trying to hide them in the search history. Also Okay, all right,
okay, I gotcha. Okay, So so then so you go into high
school or let me know if I'm skipping over anything, but yeah, what
happens as as you as you get older, probably puberty is happening. Has
just happened somewhere around this time. So a very tumultuous phase of my life
began not that long after LaToya moved out of our house, because at that
point, my eldest brother moved in, and he has a lot of problems.
He's a very abusive person. Unfortunately, he's someone I'm no contact with
now, but at that time he moved in, he was very abusive and
he was very abusive towards me, and this kind of triggered a domestic violence
situation which led to me right before, like not right before I started high
school, being emancipated from my family. Actually, Oh wow, Okay,
yes, okay, it was a very explained I don't know if we've ever
had and we've certainly had folks who cut ties and or moved out, but
I don't know if I've ever had anyone on the podcast who actually like became
emancipated. Can you talk about what that means, like like legally, like
what that what rights that gave you are? Like? What? How that?
How that works? Did you have to like go to court, like
like get a lawyer as a teenager? Like how did you? How did
you do this? It is a very complicated situation. I personally didn't have
to go to court. This is my sister is like one of my best
friends, and this was a thing that she led the charge on and really
handled for me. So she worked out with the judge because my parents did
not want to press charges against my older brother, my oldest brother. So
it was kind of a situation like that where my sister worked with the judge
and they decided the best way for me to be safe and protected was to
emancipate me in order to get things like a restraining order and things like that.
I gotcha. Okay, how old were it? Was right before my
fourteenth It was between my thirteenth and fourteenth birthday, so it was like right
before that fourteenth birthday. It was kind of a so I've just figured out
I'm queer. There's just like new domestic violence element attitude my home. This
is like a perfect storm of yeah, okay, wow, all right,
So did you once you were emancipated, did you move out? How did
that? No? I didn't have another place to go. So even though
at this point, legally my mother my father didn't live with us this time,
and legally now neither of my parents have to be responsible for me,
but I don't have another place to go. So I lived with my mother
for throughout the duration of high school more or less. But that is also
why my coming outstore was got so much more complicated, because it's like,
I don't know how she actually feels about queer people. I can't ask that
question. But also now I'm acutely aware that, like, she doesn't have
to keep me here, so she decides to have a problem, I could
be out on the street tomorrow. So it added a lot of more intense
intensity to that because like, at the same time, around the same time,
I had come out to my father and my sister, and they didn't
care, and they were like, we'll keep it a secret. We won't
tell your mother, and they did. They never talked to her about it
until I was right I had come out to her my mother, but they
also didn't know anything about queer people, so it's like they really couldn't help
me with any of that. They were just like, we'll do our best
to protect you, but there really wasn't another place for me to live,
so I had you stay with my mother, And like, obviously at fourteen,
I can't get a job, I have no resources, so I'm here.
I just have to kind of wade out the clock to like I can
really afford you, like get a job and leave home and do all of
those things. Oh my, okay, I cannot imagine dealing with all of
this on top just like being that age and being in high school is already
such like a living nightmare of like drama and like emo feelings, but just
you're having all of this on top of it. It's it's yeah, that
definitely started my EMO phase. I did have the full blown emo phase with
all the hot topic gear. Yours was pretty valid, though, like I
feel like yours was earned in a way that a lot of our EMO phase
is more sort of self generated drama, So props to Yeah. So all
of this was the background in which I was starting high school, and my
high school was another unique experience. So I grew up in a not great
neighborhood and the high school that I was initially supposed to go to was a
very bad high school. Let's say it was the one where like kind of
the high school where they have like the metal detectors at the door to make
sure nobody brings a weapon or a gun to school. There's a lot of
gang activity happening at this school. So I at that home also made the
active choice to apply to a high school that it was an arts high school.
You had to apply, you had to do an interview process or to
get in and do their arts programs there. And it was all the way
across town. It's looking about an hour commute every day to get back and
forth to school, so catching buses that kind of stuff. They should have
to get up at like five am to get riad to school to take the
bus across town to go to the school. But the great thing was this
school is kind of my salvation, Like my home life was terrible, but
like it's an art school. It was a majority I want to say it
was seventy percent women or girls. Wow, yeah, and a lot of
openly queer people. We were kind of globally named. Yeah. In town,
we were kind of the called the gay school because we had a lot
of women and a lot of openly queer people LGBTQ people there. And I
didn't know that when I applied and got in, but I quickly was like,
oh wow, this is the best possible scenario for me. Good.
That's so great. You were like a little grown up. I can't believe
you were doing all this stuff like on your own, like like getting emancipated
and applying to schools an hour is I'm thinking of like what I was doing
at fourteen, and it was not as impressive. So this is really amazing.
So you're in that school. Was this the first time you felt comfortable
to be out like just on a day to day basis or were you still
sort of like playing at close to the chest, Like what was what was
your your feeling once you started there? Freshman year was a lot of me
getting my bearings but very quickly I was out and open specifically at school,
nowhere else. So that was my So like when people tell me, they're
like, oh, high school was hell for me. I would never repeat
high school. It was the worst time in my life. I was like,
actually, high school was. I won't know if I would repeat it.
But high school was like the best time of my life as far comparatively
to other people's high school experience. It was very artistic, like I'm surrounded
by painters and writers and actors and singers and a lot of queer people and
a lot of queer teachers, and just that was not a concern there of
like oh you're queer, Like no one was going to bully you about it.
It was illuminating. It changed my life. And I also want to
speak about like the first day of high school is when I met one of
my lifelong best friends named Justin. I love him to pieces were still friends.
I was the bridesmaid at his wedding to his husband. They ran a
fantastic charity in my hometown called Unmatched Athlete where they help but LGBTQ plus kids
get into sports. It's a wonderful a wonderful charity. And I bring this
up because Justin is also interracial, also Jewish, and also gay, so
he was like the male version of me, and we kind of had these
coming the terms coming out journeys together. So I felt like so much solidarity
that I had never felt before in my life. God, that's oh,
that's so I love that. Yeah. The first I in the very first
episode of this podcast many years ago, my former co hosts and I tell
each other are coming out stories, and the first person I came out to
was my gay high school best friend where we came out to each other.
So yeah, that's uh that I feel very I feel connected to that story
and that experience. So even though my homelife was still really bad, really
bad and really on unstable footing, at least I had this home away from
home where I can go hang out for most of the day before I would
have to come home and have to do a lot of housework and baby baby
care for the family members that my mother had dictated to me. I had
to deal with a lot of like yelling, like abusive language, things like
that, but at least, like I got to go somewhere else and I
felt at home there. So like gay Cinderella. It's like this, That's
how I'm going to conceive it. Yeah, high school was a transformative experience.
And I know that's not the story for a lot of people, but
that was my safe place. It was a pain to get there, pain
to get home. I was exhausted all the time, but I had one
safe space where I could be gay and I could be my strange, bizarre
self and no one was gonna question it and I could be very Emoh.
I love that. And in terms so when a lot of folks who I've
spoke it to this podcast, who are dealing with similar, like real life
dificult stuff, report that in terms of their queerness, like that sometimes just
has to take a back burner because they're dealing with like a media day to
day like crisis control, and so it sounds like at least you're like you've
got justin and you're like and you've got teachers and you can be out.
But in terms of like any kind of crushes or interest or anything, was
that just like the furthest thing from your mind because you're in survival mode,
or were you able to sort of come into your own in terms of like
what this means not just for like the concept of it, but in practice,
like who, like who you could date or who you could be interested
in. So once I come to terms with it during freshman year, I'm
gonna go ahead and just be honest. I was pretty girl crazy. But
because I went to a predominantly female school and a lot of lgbtq P people,
it was not hard to date. I had a female data homecoming and
to prompt and it wasn't a problem. I had like one of my first
kisses on the dance floor at a homecoming dance. And this is like two
thousand and three. You know, my god, I fucking love it.
That's very cool. Okay, great, Oh, I'm so glad that you
got to, like you got to have like the fun high school crush experience,
and that's awesome. Okay, okay, But like high school wasn't all
perfect. So when I was about fifteen, there was a lot more drama
again at home, and I actually was at that point kicked out of my
mother's home for about a month and I was CouchSurfing around different people's home places.
Eventually I had to move back in, but that really highlighted to me
of like, okay, yeah, I really, like I thought, I'm
really not on stable footing, Like my mother decided she didn't want me here.
Eventually she did want me back, and I didn't have a place to
go, so I was like, it's better to have a more quote unquote
stable home than couch surfing around whoever will let me stay. And this is
all still before or I'm assuming you have let on at all to her that
you're queer. Is this Yes, she has no idea that I'm gay,
not as far as I'm aware, not an inkling of that. But that
was like a very difficult and month of my life. And then it wasn't
necessarily a good feeling to have to go back to an abusive household. But
also it's like, you don't have choices. I have no money, I
have no resources. My family members don't could take me, don't have the
means to take me. So it's like, what do you do? You
go back? Yeah? Okay, were you looking towards the idea of college
as like, was that like your ticket kind of out of the situation you
were in or was college not I mean financially, was that even a possibility,
Like what was your sort of escape route plan. Mostly I was just
waiting for adulthood where I could go get a job and start working. I
didn't decide to go to college until maybe six or it's between six and eight
months before college my high school graduation. Wow, I was just like,
I need to get old enough and get enough resources to get out of here.
But I didn't necessarily want to go to college because I already felt so
adult. Yeah, and I got one hundred percent. Yeah, that feels
like maybe like four year delay of game. You're like, I'm yeah,
okay, Okay, So you were sort of set on like getting a job,
getting your financial situation together so that you can get away from having to
live at home. That was your driving force. Okay, but then it
sounds like, but then that did change, Like right before graduation you were
like, maybe I won't go to college. What what? I'm sure it
wasn't said that lightly, but like, what what ended up happening after high
school for you? Okay, let's fast forward. So let's see fast forward
high school. We're coming up around graduation. At that time, I was
so into the music scene. I wanted to create my own independent recording label.
I had recruited friends who were into it. I had been very involved
in that scene in my community, so I'd be going to like the basement
shows and the underground shows and meeting all the different musicians and helping them set
up their days. Cool. That's so fucking cool. Okay. But obviously,
like we're like seventeen, so it didn't work out, and I was
like, okay, so this is not going to work out. What am
I going to do? I'd already been very in love with writing and filmmaking,
so I was like, Okay, I guess I'll go to college to
try and become a filmmaker and a writer. So that was like kind of
a last minute decision, but also a transformative one. It changed my whole
course of my life because I've been doing writing and filmmaking the whole time since
my whole adult life. Now, wow, okay, so where did did
you end up leaving Baltimore? Like, where did you end up for college?
I ended up going to Florida to go to college. Okay, so
you have some distance now from I was on the first thing with wheels heading
out of town. I totally Amtrak. That's the amtrack, oh for me?
And it sounds like you were like a lot more out or at least
certainly a lot more out, but also more comfortable with your queerness. But
like for me, uh, because I grew up in Connecticut and my folks
were having me look at like there were so many like great East Coast colleges,
but I ended up going to school just outside of Chicago. And I
think a big part of that decision was I needed did like physical distance from
my parents in order to be like. There was something about like being in
a different time zone that was like, Okay, now I can like be
gay, Like I don't know that, just for some reason it felt important
was that physical space. So I'm hoping that like when you're that you get
that much distance, I hope you felt like like a free like I'm sure
you felt freedom in many ways, but did that also translate into like boring
like sexuality and gender and all that stuff for you now that you were out
of the home. Fully, it led to me being able to more openly
live my life. I didn't have to put on airs for anyone and pretend
anymore. But I was always very firm in my understanding of who I was
as far as my gender and sexuality and I've done the whole thought exercise because
I've thought about like, okay, could I be a guy, But I
feel like most comfortable as a woman's cisgender woman like, so that matched up
nicely for like nicely for me. Yeah. I just really threw myself into
the writing and filmmaking and just living my most authentic life. I was very
wild at that time too, so partying all the time, no supervision,
no adult supervision. That's a party state for colleges, as my understanding,
Like okay, as a party state. Oh yeah, I'll tell you about
one party I had one. I threw a lot of parties at my police
and we almost broke the balcony of the because there are so many people shoved
on there drinking and trying like smoke their cigarettes. The balcony almost collapsed.
Yeah, the housing was not happy with me. It was fine. No
one was hurt. That's fine. I was the college apartment in my senior
year where the cops like knew our apartment because they had to break up so
many parties. So I feel you on that. It's okay. And so
it did you the relationships that you had had in high school? Did any
of those were any of those like long distance made it into college or were
you or were those not super serious? And you were like new page when
I go to college, Like what was that? Because you're kissing people on
the dance floor, Like what happened with those situations? Okay? So I
will say I have dated one guy in my life and this was a right
before high school, like right before high schools ending. So a girl had
broken my heart and I was very devastated about it at the time, and
I was like, you know what, this guy is really nice to me,
seems to like me. Maybe I'll try that. I've never tried that
before. It only lasted a month tops, and I broke with hip up
with him right before graduation, so I really can try. Yeah, but
that's a man. Good for you for being like I'm going to get asked
this question as a lasaid. I feel like the number one question that we
get asked is like, yo, but have you ever like really like try?
And now you are like, yes, I really tried. And so
there's my response to every guy at a bar who asked me that for the
rest of my life. Yes, I dated a man. Okay, So
you so you have no strings you go to college, you're partying, you're
almost breaking balconies. Any sort of serious relationships happening in college or was that
not? Were you just having fun? So what I quickly found out about
the film program I had chosen at my university was that it was majority mail,
so I was spending most of my time around men, and it was
worse than the inverse of my high school. So it was like probably ninety
men and the ten percent women there that was around almost predominantly straight or already
partnered. Okay, ah, that's such a flip. I feel like with
so many people the other way around, where like they have this experience in
high school and they get to college and they're like, well and you had
that in high school, and then all of a sudden you're in like head
out, yeah, okay, all right, well you learned film film skills,
I assume, So that's at least at least that happened. It helped
me be very focused on my star. Seriously, I was so distract you.
I guess it was very girl crazy in high school. If that head
translated into college, I might not have been ash college. Who knows.
Sure, sure half is to the best of us. Okay, okay,
So so yeah, so what what happens next? I would actually like to
jump back away. Yeah yeah, because I want to talk more because this
is a who my story about coming out to my mother. Because I never
went no contact with my mother. As difficult and as upsetting as she is,
I still have so much empathy and sympathy for her because I know how
she grew up with her own abusive childhood and something I had forgotten to mention.
So her situation was also unique growing up because her mother was a Filipino
woman and a child bride. So she was about fourteen fifteen when she married
an adult man and was moved from the Philippines to America. God. Yeah,
so she's coming from her own place in trauma. And she also has
done a lot, like she put herself through loss college and law school while
also having children that she was raising. Things like that, So I have
I understand there's a lot that I received from my mother, even as far
as her positive trades go, and maybe someone of her negative trades, and
I have so much empathy and sympathy. So I've never gone no contact with
her. But I want to speak a little bit more because when I left
home, I was seventeen, and that same time period, my grandmother,
who was the child ride, she passed away, and a lot of my
mother's abusive behavior kind of faded away after that, like she was a very
different person all of a sudden, after the funeral and the passing. So
and when I left, I actually got an apartment in Florida, and she
actually before she was so against it, and then she actually signed off on
it. She co signed all the papers and everything to help me get all
my loans and get the place, the apartment to stay in, and helped
me pay for to move down. All of a sudden, it was such
a one eighty from like what she had been the previous months. So,
yeah, I go down to Florida. I'm still like kind of processing this
kind of new relationship that I might be able to build with my mother.
I'm partying a lot, I'm learning about film. I'm not really dating.
And I wentn't like that for a long time. So I went through undergrad
and I went to grad school and I kind of did the speed run.
I was a workaholic at that time, because like I had said before,
I really didn't want to be in college, but I understood the value of
education. So I was doing like six crazy, like sixteen hour days at
school, taking every class, every credit I can get to try and graduate
as fast as possible. So I actually finished undergrad two months no, I'm
sorry, one month before my twentieth birthday. Oh my god, that's really
early to graduate. Wow. I didn't really want to be. I wanted
to start my life. I didn't really want to be stuck in it.
That's amazing. But then but then the recession hit and I was like,
and my mom was like, well, maybe you should go to grad school.
I was like, well, there's no jobs, everything's bad. It's
like two thousand and eight circle two thousand and eight around that time, so
the recession. So I listened to her and I went to grad school.
And then fast forward, I'm about like twenty three when I'm finishing grad school,
and this is where I came out to my mother because I was like,
it's my twenty third birth day, and I'm like, you know what,
I really haven't needed my mom's help since from the time I left home
at seventeen to now, I haven't needed any help. I don't need her
for anything. This is the one I always wanted to be my authentic self
with her. My birthday present to myself is I'm going to come out to
my mother. Well, okay, and how what had the relationship been like
up until that point? It seems like it was decent or did it sort
of go up and down depending on you know, any number of things.
It feels like it was. It's stable enough so that you're like, I'm
gonna come out to her. That's what I'm getting from that is that it
didn't prove. And I think that leaving home really also between her my grandmother
dying, my mother's mother dying, and me leaving home at that same time,
I think it really hammered home that these relationships are not permanent. I
can choose to never speak to her again. So she really did try to
improve her relationship and the way she handled me and around the negativity and the
emotional abuse. So she tried her best. She failed a lot, but
she was very much trying. So it was kind of a one step foward,
two steps back. Sometimes sometimes it feels like, oh, we're great,
great, we can have a real relationship, and other times it's like
I don't want to talk to you for a month. Yeah, but I
kept coming back because I know all about her own pains and her own struggles.
So I've kept feeling like she needs people in her corner, so I
can be that for her, hopefully. So like that was where we were
when I'm twenty three, and I'm like, I never needed her help as
an adult. I think it's time. This is my birthday present to myself,
and this is where you're gonna discover that I am a really ridiculous person,
because you seem pretty like clear headed and practical from everything I've heard so
far. But go ahead, okay. So I decided this might be the
last interaction I'm having with my mother. I'm gonna be ridiculous about it.
So I got a speaking mister Rogers uh card, like a holiday card.
Oh I love mister Rogers, like I love you, You're great, things
like that. I can't remember the exact phrases. And I wrote this really
long, like every inch of the cards filled with my letter inside of it
of like everything I wanted everyone to tell her about, Like I'm gay.
I never wanted to tell you about this. I didn't know how you would
feel about this. I wish I could get that letter back. I haven't
seen it since I sent it to her. So I I'm drunk at my
party. I had finished writing this letter and me and my friends go to
the mailbox and we're like and they're all like, don't think, just put
it in the mail, and I'm like, okay, it's off. It's
in the post. It's gone. Okay, So what what happens when she
gets to the mister Rogers? I love having mister Rogers come out for you.
That seems like a very beautiful, gentle, gentle layo. Yeah,
so what what happens? Then we don't talk about it for he really and
I go years going, did she even get the letter? Oh god,
that's so maddening. Yeah, so you literally don't even know if she received
it, and her behavior towards you didn't change in any sort of measurable way
that you were like, Oh, she clearly got it, Like she's not
talking about it, but I can tell she got it. Wasn't even like
that, It's just like nothing, Oh, nothing changed. That's really frustrating.
So several years after that, and I'm in my mid twenties ish now,
and then one of my brothers tells me, Oh, yeah, I
found that card again that you sent to mom there, mister Rogers one where
you're like you're gay and stuff. And I was like what and you read
that? He's like, yeah, Like Mom just left it on the Reddit
and just put it down, left on the table and it was there for
a long time. Is now just in her boxes of stuff. I was
like, okay, so she definitely got it and she just never said anything
about it. And then like eventually I start bringing girlfriends home and she's meeting
them and she's nice and she's fine with it. Like she's still a difficult
person, an argumentative person, but she just treated it like it wasn't anything,
And I'm just like, wow, this is so discordant. Yeah,
that is so wild. So there's never any discussion and you're bringing home girlfriends
who she knows are Ah, this would make me. This would make me
so like the fact that it's never talked about is okay, Okay, keep
going. This is really interesting. And eventually she like does warm up to
it, even like a whole lot, because like as I start getting into
more serious relationship, she's like, oh, that's amazing. We can start
planning a wedding I'm gonna wear one suit to your wedding. I've never worn
a suit before. But then you like that. I was like, okay,
so she's really embracing it. It took her a while, but she's
like really embracing it. And then at some point I'm talking to my sister,
who's like one of my best friends, and I was like, you
know, I'm really surprised. I thought mom would be homophobic and like have
these huge problems about it, and she's like, oh, girl, she
was so homophobic. We have like eighty million conversations about what is gay?
What does this mean? Does this mean this about Sarah? Is Sarah going
to hell? No? Okay, So she just took me out of the
equation and she dealt with the homophobia on her own and came around to embracing
it. I still don't know all the missing pieces, but I never thought
that that would happen. I think I kind of love that is that.
I don't know that that feels kind of I don't know if mature is the
right word, but like the fact that she was sort of having a lot
of negative reactions and was keeping them away from you is like, I don't
know that feels like kind of a good call to me. I'm so glad
your sister was there to sort of like run interference and wow, holy shit,
she just I mean, we're always telling people like do the work,
like she did the work one of the few times she's never unpacked any of
the other things. I guess she decided like it was worth it to keep
me in her life, because if she had been homophobic, I probably would
have gone no contact. I didn't tell her that, but I think she
realized here too. I mean, you you literally said just a couple of
minutes ago, like you thought this might be the last time you ever spoke
to her, so you were fully prepared to do that. I wonder if
some part of her like unconsciously knew that and was like, Okay, I
have to keep all of this away from Sarah, Like I'm still gonna still
gonna have a lot of feelings and say a lot of not great things,
but I'm not gonna I'm gonna make sure that doesn't bleed over into our relationship
or I'm gonna lose her. I wonder if there was like, this is
so interesting, I've never heard this specific scenario. Did you even after she
like works through it and then is talking about planning a wedding and wearing a
suit. Did you ever talk about it ever? Or did it just like
wow, that's amazing. We never have ever spoken about it. She never
the card I sent, She's never had a question about it. She's just
treated me like all the other siblings of like, Okay, that's your partner.
Okay, great, that's great. Okay. I kind of like,
I kind of love this. I don't know this is I have very mixed
feelings on it, but it's I feel like it's a better case scenario than
a lot of other ways it could have gone. What are your feelings on
that? Does it feel does it feel like you never sort of does it
feel incomplete in any way because you never talked about it, or or does
it feel like like you're where you want to be? And with regards to
this, certainly not where you want to be in terms of all the other
ways that we have to interact with our mother. Honestly, honestly, having
this like complicated, like fraught history with my mother and my family, and
there's so many times where she's let me down. I feel like this was
the one time where she stepped up to the plate and hit the home run.
So like, this is the one thing where I'm like, I'm so
grateful. We never had to do the awkward conversation. We never had to
have like fights or like this back and forth where it's like I love you,
I don't love you, You're going to hell, or any of these
other things. Yeah, it was just acceptance. I mean, she's still
a difficult person. She still has some of her emotional abuse traits that I
don't think she's ever gonna let go of. But in this one arena,
I had one hundred percent acceptance and she never made her intolerance my problem.
Yeah, oh my god, Okay, I really like that. Yeah,
and do you want to talk at all about how you met your partner like
that situation? When did that? Is that post? Is that post coming
out post twenty three? Yes, I met my partner about two and a
half years ago, Okay, during the pandemic. Yeah, so it was
right after is right after the first booster, like the first vaccines came out,
and everyone was like, oh yeah, yes exactly. It was a
hot back summer and I'm like, I'm hitting the dating scene in a big
way. I'm getting all the apps, I'm hitting up, calling up everyone.
So I dated around a lot and then eventually I met my partner and
it just clicked. And it also timed out where we were starting to get
worried about COVID again, where we realized like, oh, you can still
get very sick even though you're vaccinated. So we kind of like both agreed
we would stop seeing each other and we kind of just focused on building our
own relationship. And now it's been two and a half years. We live
together. Now, we're very happy, we're planning our futures together. God,
we have the power of attorneys, like my mother helped us draft that
you know, I love. I love Also that you're on it sounds like
you're on the same page regarding COVID, which I and I'm sure you've heard
this as well, but I know birth people who met partners during that same
time period and then they were like, uh, oh, these vaccines aren't
doing what we were promised. Well, time to lock down again, and
their partners were like, no, I'm good, and like just so many
fraught relationships because of that. So it's so fortunate that you two met during
that period. But then both have the same feeling in terms of returning to
being more cautious. Oh that's really little. I'm so glad to hear that.
Yeah, I kind of had both scenarios when the pandemic started. I
was dating someone else and we were not on the same page around COVID,
and we broke up. And then so I spent a big chunk just like
single and like at home avoiding getting sick while everyone's doing lockdowns and stuff.
And then yeah, it worked out really nicely that just in that summer,
that hot vac summerfe Oh god, that's the dream, the dream. I'm
so happy for you too. That's awesome. Wow. Before we wrap up,
is there anything else that you want to speak to that we didn't cover
in terms of like any anything at all. I just want to wrap up
with saying that I really want I've never shared this story with anyone. I
usually jumped to the straight to I came out to my mom with a holiday
card mister Rogers Day, and just get the elevator coming out story. I
got it. Yeah, I've never gone through the whole journey of like,
this is what my life was like, and these are all the scenarios surrounding
it, but I want to just share it also on your podcast because I
hoping maybe you could help someone, because it's like, obviously this isn't everyone's
story, but like you can kind of have this closure in this Catharsis with
people who you think might not be accepting. I'm not saying it necessarily will
work out for everyone, but sometimes trying works. Sometimes the most difficult people
end up surprising you. I really first of all, as I've said,
I really appreciate you sharing all of this stuff with a virtual stranger that I'm
so grateful to you, and like, I'm so glad you spoke to all
of this. It is so important you did get such a great outcome with
this specific instance, and I love also acknowledging like I feel like some folks,
some of us think that like if the if the parents are okay with
the queer thing, that's like such a huge win, it's automatically going to
fix the whole relationship. And it's like, no, that's a that's a
big important piece, but that doesn't mean it's like just because that falls into
place doesn't mean you're not still going to have a lot of because that would
assume that. So what we're saying, like hetero people don't have huge parental
issues. It's like, no, we all have parental issues. Most of
therapy as a profession is based on parental issues. So you got this amazing
outcome with the queernest, but that doesn't mean that there are instill a lot
of other problems because the problems didn't stem from your mom didn't even know you
were queer when you were having all these problems in your youth. So like
just the reality of that, I think is really important. Like we don't
want to glosso for the fact that, like you, if you win the
latter and your parents are very cool with your sexuality, gender, et cetera,
that doesn't mean you're not gonna have other issues with them. Like parents
are parents, and I yeah, I just think that's an important distinction.
But I love that you got I love that you got that home run.
Yeah, there's so much generational trauma between family, within families. It's like
I don't think any family is perfect. That Yeah, I got very lucky
just with this one instance where my mother did decide she really wanted me to
be in her life and she did the work. It didn't burden me with
that fraught nature of like did so many other people experience with the whole coming
out story and homophobia within the family and stuff. So she did one thing
right, Yeah, at the very least. Listen, that's a win.
I don't take that win. Yeah, all right, So Sarah, where
can folks find you and and your work? Your novel that's out, I
know you have another one coming out. Any any stuff that people can watch
that you've made, especially obviously anything queer. This audience is ravenous for.
So yeah, please plug anything and everything. Well, my novel is called
The Tree of Life by s. A. Mossman. It's available on Amazon
for kindle and print right now. My upcoming novel, and that's more of
a romantic drama, still queer, a little lot more romance, a lot
less action, so maybe people will be more interested in that. You can
find me on Sarah Mossman dot com. I don't currently have anything streaming,
but my YouTube channel is under a Neon sky. Oh my god, great?
Oh oh that also, it's so great. I can't believe you're a
published novelist. Good god, that is deeply impressive. Okay, so you
can find me not a published novelist, but I do a lot of writing
on Twitter. I'm at Lauren Flans on Twitter, Lauren Underscore Flans on Instagram.
I'm trying to use blue Sky more. I'm Lauren Flans on that as
well. The podcast is at coming Out Pod on Twitter and Instagram. The
hashtag is hashtag coming out Pod. Shout out to my amazing patrons Carmel,
Kaz Simone, Cayenne, Michelle l Adritanya Poo, Tiya, Kieran Smiley,
Aaron Mitchell, Diego Fernandez, and beyond Clexa dot com. Also, hey,
y'all, do you like clicking stars? I know I do. Well.
If you go to iTunes or Spotify, you can click five of them
to rate the podcast. What fun. That is a freeway to support the
pod. It helps boost us in the algorithm, et cetera. Sarah,
thank you so much for spending this time with me. Thank you for sharing
your whole story. I'm so honored. This is inexclusive since it's never heard
before, so that's very exciting. Yeah, and I'm so glad to know
you a little better after this. Thank you so much for having me.
I love the show. I can't wait to hear all the episodes because I'm
very behind on all the episodes. Ah it sucks. Thank you, I'm
very appreciative. There are a lot, so please take your time. Thank
you all for listening, and I will see you next Wednesday. Bye.