Speaker 1: I'm Ali. I came out after twenty years of marriage
Speaker 1: and I have three kids.
Speaker 2: I'm Melissa and I have two kids, and I came
Speaker 2: out at thirty seven after an eleven year marriage.
Speaker 1: This podcast is about coming out later and the struggles
Speaker 1: and victories that come with it.
Speaker 2: When coming out feels like the end of the world,
Speaker 2: but it's really just the beginning.
Speaker 1: This is the Lesbian Chronicles. Welcome to the Lesbian Chronicles.
Speaker 1: Did you see how I waited perfectly till the countdow
Speaker 1: it was finished?
Speaker 2: And it's funny because You'm like, I don't want to
Speaker 2: look like an asshole or an idiot, Like those are
Speaker 2: very different specters there.
Speaker 1: I think I'm used to looking like an asshole, not
Speaker 1: an idiot, and in this case, I look like an idiot.
Speaker 1: But the truth is, if if someone said to me,
Speaker 1: who is the person that you care the least about
Speaker 1: looking like an idiot? I would say, well, SERENI, it's
Speaker 1: very true because I'm the safest.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I went to uh Florida the past week with my
Speaker 2: kids and we went to Dave and Buster's for two
Speaker 2: days in a row.
Speaker 3: I got too many credits, hilarious.
Speaker 2: I don't know what I was thinking. But basically I
Speaker 2: was like, I'm not leaving here without using all of these.
Speaker 3: So we did my two dollars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we did every game in that place, and I
Speaker 2: mean I'm talking, I'm shooting baskets, I'm doing like the
Speaker 2: throw the thing at the milk bottles, the ring toss,
Speaker 2: like we even did this like interactive game where you
Speaker 2: have to like run around and like hit these boxes
Speaker 2: that light up.
Speaker 3: Like I definitely you were there like an idiot.
Speaker 4: It's another reason why.
Speaker 1: Oh yep, it's another reason why I know though that
Speaker 1: you and I are different, because I said to you
Speaker 1: when you told me you were going back there, I'm like,
Speaker 1: you're so good as a mom, because like you will
Speaker 1: get out there. I would literally be like, you, guys,
Speaker 1: let's make it quick. I'm gonna be over here at
Speaker 1: the table on my phone, like no pho.
Speaker 3: I was like, way into the idea.
Speaker 2: It was either that or go to the Ripley's Believe
Speaker 2: It or Not Museum, which I was also very excited about,
Speaker 2: but they chose.
Speaker 3: So of course, I'm just a big kid.
Speaker 1: So well, I'm excited that you're coming into town.
Speaker 2: I know we're gonna have some dinner with some friends
Speaker 2: from Austin and yes, yeah it should be a good night.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm excited. You know though, that I'm dinner's at
Speaker 1: five o'clock.
Speaker 2: I yeah, I actually just had that in mind as
Speaker 2: I made my late breakfast, I was like, this is
Speaker 2: it until dinner Early birteen Early bird Special.
Speaker 1: It's because I'm leaving to go out of town and
Speaker 1: i feel like there's somebody dog sitting at my house
Speaker 1: which requires me to clean a bunch and like make that,
Speaker 1: change all the sheets, and so I'm like, I've got
Speaker 1: I feel like I need to be home earlier. I
Speaker 1: hear you anyway, but I am superstoked about our guests today.
Speaker 4: Who if you guys have.
Speaker 1: Listened for a long time, we had Mallory Handful on
Speaker 1: our show. Who is now doctor Mallorie Handfling? Ye, congratulations
Speaker 1: and welcome to the show. Mallorie. We're so excited.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much. I'm delighted to be here again.
Speaker 1: Good. Well tell it, Like, first of all, the topic
Speaker 1: that you were studying is something I had never even
Speaker 1: heard of until Melissa told me about it, and then
Speaker 1: it clicked in me like well, duh, yeah, that's got
Speaker 1: to be a thing, and then around that time that
Speaker 1: Melissa was talking about it, you showed up and you
Speaker 1: were doing a whole research study on it, and a
Speaker 1: lot of our listeners like knew about your study. So anyway,
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So my study is called the Firefly Study. So
Speaker 4: I coined a term called firefly as an alternative to
Speaker 4: late in life lesbian. I wanted something that was more
Speaker 4: gender and sexuality inclusive and expansive for folks at who like,
Speaker 4: have gone into a marriage and then realize that they're
Speaker 4: either not as straight as they thought that they were,
Speaker 4: or that their gender shifts over time, or that they
Speaker 4: realized something knew about their gender. And so late in
Speaker 4: life lesbian is a little bit alienating for some folks
Speaker 4: because not everybody's a lesbian, not everybody's a woman. But
Speaker 4: they shared that experience. And so, like the insect of
Speaker 4: firefly spends most of their lives underground, they go through
Speaker 4: a metamorphosis, and when they emerge their most authentic self,
Speaker 4: they glow and they bring joy to others. So that's
Speaker 4: the backstory above firefly. And so this is the Firefly Study.
Speaker 4: And basically I wanted to know how and why that happens.
Speaker 4: We're seeing a lot more of it. We're seeing celebrities
Speaker 4: coming out later in life. We've got Sophia Bush, We've
Speaker 4: got that woman from Pitch Perfect. We've got all kinds
Speaker 4: of like great representation which we didn't have before. And
Speaker 4: I was really curious about like why this is suddenly
Speaker 4: more visible and also like why it happens at all.
Speaker 4: And so I wanted to explore what's called compulsory heterosexuality
Speaker 4: basically straight until proven otherwise, and that's essentially how our
Speaker 4: culture works. It comes from some religious dogma in terms
Speaker 4: of like marriages between a man and a woman, and
Speaker 4: then all of the privileges that are associated with marriage,
Speaker 4: like things like insurance and mortgages, and you know, just
Speaker 4: general safety and security in the world and all of that.
Speaker 4: And so compulsory heterosexuality is the idea that, like there
Speaker 4: are these cultural influences that kind of steer people in
Speaker 4: a certain direction towards heterosexual partnerships. There's kind of three
Speaker 4: components of it. It's a lack of representation, a privileging
Speaker 4: of heterosexual identity, and then a dismissal of same sex
Speaker 4: experiences as being valid. And so if those things didn't exist.
Speaker 4: Adrian Rich, who coined the term in nineteen eighty, wants
Speaker 4: to know would that even be a thing? Would would
Speaker 4: women choose men at all? My theory is probably not agree,
Speaker 4: But also you know, just how influential is is how
Speaker 4: much is it pushing people towards certain lifestyles? And then
Speaker 4: I also wanted to know what helps with that, because
Speaker 4: if that's a real thing that we're dealing with, then
Speaker 4: like what's the antidote to it? And my inkling was
Speaker 4: that it was community. It's the representation, it's the hearing
Speaker 4: the stories that are just like ours, the normalization and
Speaker 4: validation of that. And so that's what the Firefly Study
Speaker 4: is and continues to be. And I have a lot
Speaker 4: of cool findings to share with you all from my
Speaker 4: twenty one semi structured qualitative interviews.
Speaker 1: I love I love this, I know and it is
Speaker 1: so true. Like Melissa and I have talked about, like
Speaker 1: I think somebody even said to your daughter, Melissa, like
Speaker 1: they're going to be boyfriend and girlfriend when she was
Speaker 1: really little. I remember telling a story and you were
Speaker 1: kind of like, it is just pushed on you from
Speaker 1: four years old.
Speaker 3: Yeah, where's your friend? Where's your girlfriend?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Friend.
Speaker 2: I was friends with a lot of boys growing up,
Speaker 2: and every time it was reference that that was my boyfriend. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I'm like, I'm three, you know, I'm four years old. Like,
Speaker 2: how is that already sexualized and placed on you too?
Speaker 2: I remember even thinking that in my coming up process
Speaker 2: of thinking like, oh, well, I've I had boyfriends all
Speaker 2: this time. I can't be gay, like I decided in
Speaker 2: the third grade.
Speaker 4: Yeah, now look at me now, I do wonder too,
Speaker 4: like the reverse, Like the way that I raised I
Speaker 4: did some of that, for sure.
Speaker 1: You can't help it. You're in a culture of doing it.
Speaker 1: And I was married to a man. But my son
Speaker 1: is gay, and from when he was little he had
Speaker 1: an older sister, so he ended up being sort of
Speaker 1: in our home. At least he did dress up with her.
Speaker 1: He did. There was no rules around what he was
Speaker 1: allowed to do, and he had a lot of representation
Speaker 1: because he just lived in a very liberal area. We
Speaker 1: saw a lot of gay people. And he did come
Speaker 1: out at like seven or eight. He was just like
Speaker 1: I like boys and I'm going to marry Jonathan. And
Speaker 1: it just I wonder how many more people would to
Speaker 1: your point end up, like, oh, in if there was
Speaker 1: no stigma at all to who you pick, you just
Speaker 1: pick who you want to kiss.
Speaker 4: That was one of my research questions.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, tell us, like, let's get into that research here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, how cool, Like it sounds like own's a
Speaker 4: great kid and I wish him and Jonathan all the best.
Speaker 4: And that was one of my questions that I asked
Speaker 4: my participants was, like, tell me about your understanding about
Speaker 4: your gender and your sexuality in childhood. Did you have
Speaker 4: really intense friendships that, in hindsight were actually like crushes.
Speaker 4: Were you actually in love with these people? Did you
Speaker 4: feel like you could explore these did you like things?
Speaker 4: Did you have questions that you felt like you had
Speaker 4: to keep to yourself or were you able to ask
Speaker 4: it to adults in your life that felt safe. And
Speaker 4: so the feedback that I got from that was no,
Speaker 4: like they were just really intense friendships, and they didn't
Speaker 4: understand why they had these like massive blow up breakups,
Speaker 4: and it was because they were heartbroken. They were hurt,
Speaker 4: and they like kind of were reconciling the fact that
Speaker 4: like they didn't live in a world that they created,
Speaker 4: you know, because of the adults in their lives that
Speaker 4: that made sense that there was room for it. A
Speaker 4: lot of like prescribed gender roles, so like sexual scripts
Speaker 4: played a big role in the stories of my fireflies.
Speaker 4: They knew they were told how to be a good girl,
Speaker 4: a good woman, They were told how to be a
Speaker 4: good whatever gender they were assigned at birth, and they
Speaker 4: didn't want to deviate from that because they were worried
Speaker 4: about social ostracization. They were worried about, you know, the
Speaker 4: alienation of it. And so you know, like that prescription
Speaker 4: of like, well you're a girl, so you're gonna have
Speaker 4: curls in your hair and barettes and you're going to
Speaker 4: be like dolled up. And so one of the chapters
Speaker 4: of my dissertation is called Kukla, which is from my participant,
Speaker 4: Chris Still. And all of my names are are pseudonyms.
Speaker 4: So Crystal said that her grandmother, who is like very
Speaker 4: like old school traditional Greek, would live with them and
Speaker 4: make her dresses and like put her hair in curls
Speaker 4: and like call her Kupla, and she was like the
Speaker 4: little doll. And so that actually that idea of like
Speaker 4: little girls being dolls is pervasive because they become playthings
Speaker 4: they become something that you can play with and enjoy
Speaker 4: and is there to delight as opposed to being autonomous
Speaker 4: within themselves, and they internalize we internalize that script into
Speaker 4: when we get into adolescents and puberty and sexual scripts
Speaker 4: and how we perform in those and when the compulsory
Speaker 4: head our sexuality enters the picture and is telling us
Speaker 4: that we're supposed to be with a man or a
Speaker 4: boy or whatever it is, and we have this internalized
Speaker 4: idea that like, okay, well, this is how girls behave
Speaker 4: in sexual situations.
Speaker 1: We're dolly.
Speaker 4: And so I saw a lot of that, a lot
Speaker 4: of sexual experiences that they felt like they should be
Speaker 4: having because it was normalized, you know, locker room talk
Speaker 4: talk that you'd have with your girlfriends at sleepovers and
Speaker 4: things like that. And then also like a lot of
Speaker 4: my participants had sexual experiences with their friends because of
Speaker 4: course they did, like that's how girls learn, and like
Speaker 4: not all girls, some girls aren't curious in that way,
Speaker 4: but it gets normalized, right, it's part of the scripts
Speaker 4: that we're told about, like how that's okay, And that's
Speaker 4: that part of compulsory head sexuality. That's the dismissal of
Speaker 4: the same sex relationships or experiences is being valid.
Speaker 1: I think, like to that thing about the grandma, it's
Speaker 1: like it's also it's so pervasive that the grandma actually
Speaker 1: thinks she's being so loving. Mm hmm, like to her,
Speaker 1: that's a showing love. She is such a tertal doll.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna yeah, I'm gonna dress you up. She's complicit
Speaker 1: but innocent. Yeah, because it's like that pervasive yep.
Speaker 4: And my participant Nancy was like I was the youngest
Speaker 4: of a whole bunch of kids and neighborhood kids, and
Speaker 4: I was always the one that was like dressed up
Speaker 4: like a doll. And I was there their little toy.
Speaker 4: I was there things that they could play with and
Speaker 4: make how they thought I was supposed to be.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Also in the meantime, they're like getting positive reinforcement from
Speaker 2: that too.
Speaker 3: The attention is prodded them, like.
Speaker 4: You're so cute the community. So I had this participant, Camille,
Speaker 4: who is a listener, so I'm excited that she will
Speaker 4: hopefully hear this and I want to thank you for
Speaker 4: your story. But shared that she engaged in this play
Speaker 4: with the neighborhood children because she just wanted to fit in.
Speaker 4: She just wanted to be able to play, and that
Speaker 4: came at the expense of her bodily autonomy. And like
Speaker 4: she engaged in things that probably in hindsight felt wrong
Speaker 4: and off for her. Yeah, but she wanted to be
Speaker 4: included more than she wanted to protect your bodily autonomy.
Speaker 4: And that's also a script that is reinforced by our
Speaker 4: society by the way that we are told girls women
Speaker 4: should behave So continia is everything.
Speaker 1: It's such a precarious time too in their development that
Speaker 1: it's like it's so formative in that time period. So
Speaker 1: being the doll or in Camille's case, just this, they
Speaker 1: dressed her up, they did all these things. It's like
Speaker 1: that time period of your life, there's so much happening.
Speaker 1: So it's just beyond I mean, I think I grew
Speaker 1: probably more in that timeframe than now. Well, So it's
Speaker 1: just all that stuff is so internalized.
Speaker 2: And on top of that, Malory you can probably speak
Speaker 2: to this is like all those things are happening to
Speaker 2: you as a child, but you're not processing them, like
Speaker 2: you're not thinking about like the bigger picture of what's happening.
Speaker 2: Like there's such a little processing happening, and you're in
Speaker 2: your brain at that time, so it's just kind of
Speaker 2: like these things happen and then you move along. But
Speaker 2: then you know later as we know, that gets like
Speaker 2: way way heavier and you can't ignore it anymore.
Speaker 4: Absolutely so, I participant Eleanor the way, so she didn't
Speaker 4: actively process it in terms of like connecting it to
Speaker 4: the fact that it was like Eleanor's non binary and
Speaker 4: said that their dearest wish was to never wear a
Speaker 4: dress again in adulthood, and they would have tantrums every
Speaker 4: single time that their mother tried to put them in
Speaker 4: a dress. And so there was there was an active
Speaker 4: kind of like reaction in the moment, but it wasn't
Speaker 4: processed as like a this feels wrong, this isn't me.
Speaker 4: It just seemed like, you know, Eleanor was a different
Speaker 4: difficult child, and she wasn't a difficult child. And Eleanor
Speaker 4: uses she they pronounce, and she she was just she
Speaker 4: just knew that it didn't feel right for her. And similarly,
Speaker 4: you know, another thing that I saw with my participants
Speaker 4: was a lack of representation of non white performance of
Speaker 4: gender and sexuality. I had participant Allison, who was mixed
Speaker 4: Asian is the way that she described herself. And she
Speaker 4: was like, I didn't see myself represented in magazines, and
Speaker 4: so I wanted to dye my hair blonde, which is
Speaker 4: crazy to think about. And I wore like these really
Speaker 4: long fike eyelashes and long nails and like hyperfemininity, and
Speaker 4: I was trying to figure out who I was. And
Speaker 4: then like, also, because I was mixed Asian in a
Speaker 4: white community, I didn't want to stand out any more
Speaker 4: than I needed to. I wanted to blend into the community.
Speaker 4: I wanted to not give anyone a reason to like
Speaker 4: not include me. And I think that at that pivotal time, Melissa,
Speaker 4: that you're talking about that that inclusion, that buy in
Speaker 4: is so important, and especially for non white folks and
Speaker 4: non white queer folks, there's a lot of discussion about
Speaker 4: how important it is to have representation of different bodies,
Speaker 4: different races, different ethnesties, and like all of the ways
Speaker 4: that that gets eliminated from the discussion at all, And
Speaker 4: so I wanted to make sure that I did know
Speaker 4: that too, And it happens in adulthood too, Like even
Speaker 4: in talking about community with the Firefly study, my black
Speaker 4: participants were like, it's really hard to find black lesbian spaces,
Speaker 4: and I was like, yes, yes, you're right, it is,
Speaker 4: and you're having a different experience than white participants are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, can you actually speak to that a little bit,
Speaker 2: because I do feel like there's not as many people
Speaker 2: of color that come out later on life.
Speaker 3: Did you notice that at all?
Speaker 2: Just based on kind of like our listenership and the
Speaker 2: people that reach out to us. I feel like it's
Speaker 2: maybe it's just because we're white, but like majority of
Speaker 2: people who reach out to us are you know, white women.
Speaker 2: What did you find with the study?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I originally planned on having like sixteen participants
Speaker 4: and then they were I think all except for one
Speaker 4: or two of them were white, and I was like,
Speaker 4: this is not okay, Like I need to have a
Speaker 4: representative sample of like all of the different versions of
Speaker 4: the firefly story that I could get. So I ended
Speaker 4: up extending my study to twenty one participant because at
Speaker 4: that point I felt like, all right, this is going
Speaker 4: on for a long time. I need to move forward
Speaker 4: with this dissertation and I have some adequate representation. One
Speaker 4: piece of feedback that I got from my black participants
Speaker 4: was that there's like a veil of Christianity over the
Speaker 4: Black community. So there's a lot of like deeply rooted, patriarchal,
Speaker 4: kind of heteronormative values that come from a religious place
Speaker 4: that are kind of self imposed and also like familiarly imposed.
Speaker 4: For the black community, there's this extra layer of what
Speaker 4: it means to come out and the fear of losing
Speaker 4: access to your family, to your community, to your religious community,
Speaker 4: and like the acceptability or non acceptability of that, and
Speaker 4: so oftentimes for black fireflies, it's better to do like
Speaker 4: a don't ask, don't tell kind of a situation and
Speaker 4: like live your life, but like your family's not going
Speaker 4: to know about it or ask about it, and you're
Speaker 4: always going to have that roommate that comes to the
Speaker 4: family functions. But it's absolutely happening. They're just not as
Speaker 4: vocal about it because it's not as accepted, it's not
Speaker 4: as safe. And the way that it was explained to
Speaker 4: me is because of that veil of Christianity in the
Speaker 4: Black community, that is more influential perhaps for them than
Speaker 4: it is for some white fireflies. And that's not to
Speaker 4: say that there aren't deeply religious white firefly communities as well.
Speaker 4: And you know the process that people who grew up
Speaker 4: in religious environments need to go through. In fact, eighty
Speaker 4: percent of my participants had a deeply religious upbringing. But
Speaker 4: specifically as we're talking about how it relates to black participants, Yeah,
Speaker 4: like that's definitely a big thing. And then like those
Speaker 4: really deeply ingrained sexual scripts about what it means to
Speaker 4: be a man, what it means to be a woman,
Speaker 4: and the lack of kind of like flexibility or acceptability
Speaker 4: around that as well. And they're going through the world
Speaker 4: differently than white participants are. So I think, you know,
Speaker 4: part of part of the PhD is like, well, what's next,
Speaker 4: Like why are you doing this? And what happens after this?
Speaker 4: And I'm not the person to do this, but I
Speaker 4: want to help create community with black facilitators or person
Speaker 4: of color facilitators to create that space for those individuals
Speaker 4: who feel like they're missing out on being able to
Speaker 4: talk about those experiences.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be great, because I do I have
Speaker 2: heard that within like the gay male community, that like
Speaker 2: in the black community, that they really feel like they
Speaker 2: cannot come out or that they are very closeted. I know,
Speaker 2: I love only know black men like that that, yeah,
Speaker 2: very much have to be on the download and it's
Speaker 2: because of the homophobia within the community. And then on
Speaker 2: top of that, these men, you know, they're raised to
Speaker 2: be tough, and like when that's not happening, they've got
Speaker 2: to kind of just hide that.
Speaker 3: Part of themselves. It's really I mean, it's tuck sad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it would just start to be a huge problem.
Speaker 1: But I was thinking about how there are plenty of
Speaker 1: white super religious people, but I think to your point,
Speaker 1: it's like we don't. I think in the black community,
Speaker 1: likely they feel the sense of, like I need my
Speaker 1: community even more because.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm already on the margins, right, I think you're right,
Speaker 2: Like there's such a there's a more of a close
Speaker 2: knit sense of community within them than there is with
Speaker 2: with white people, you know, and like marginalized, Like yeah,
Speaker 2: so they've got to wady together. So yeah, if you're
Speaker 2: going to marginalize yourself even more more, where do you go?
Speaker 4: Yeah, the work of Shamika Thorpe talks about that a lot.
Speaker 4: Doctor Shimika Thorpe. She explains that for black folks, they
Speaker 4: are forever and always a representation of the community, like
Speaker 4: they can't themselves individually, because anything that they do individually
Speaker 4: reflects on the community, especially if it's perceived as othered.
Speaker 4: And so to come out in the black community is
Speaker 4: like almost like damage points to the black community, and
Speaker 4: you're not going to risk that because there's already so
Speaker 4: much suffering. There's already so much marginalization and racism and
Speaker 4: systemic damage and harm caused to black communities, and so
Speaker 4: they will choose to not live authentically outwardly, at least
Speaker 4: for the sake of protecting for their communal sense of responsibility.
Speaker 4: And I think the white community doesn't necessarily feel that
Speaker 4: sense of communal responsibility in the way that black folks
Speaker 4: do because they haven't had to, right, They've been free
Speaker 4: to do whatever the fuck they want. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 4: part of the systemic racism, and we need to explore.
Speaker 4: And that's like the purpose of the study is, like,
Speaker 4: we don't exist in silos. We are constantly being bombarded
Speaker 4: by all of these other influences on a systemic level,
Speaker 4: and we need to consider the intersectional makeup of who
Speaker 4: we are and what's influencing us and what choices we
Speaker 4: can and can't make. And so race is absolutely a
Speaker 4: part of that systemic racism is partly an influence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's and it's not just the kind
Speaker 1: of it's like there's so much marginalization, even financially with
Speaker 1: you know, you're scared now if I'm like ostracized, how
Speaker 1: am I going to freaking pay my rent? How am
Speaker 1: I gonna? Yeah? Gosh, that's really that's hard, is there?
Speaker 1: It's so multifactorial? Is there an age that you feel
Speaker 1: like people do tend like? I remember when I was
Speaker 1: in therapy, when I first came out, she was saying
Speaker 1: to me that every woman has a reckoning and it
Speaker 1: can happen at twenty, it can happen at fifty, it
Speaker 1: can happen at eighty. And she's like, congratulations that yours
Speaker 1: is happening at forty. This is your reckoning. And I
Speaker 1: remember thinking like, wow, that's such an interesting way to
Speaker 1: look at it, that everybody has to face themselves and
Speaker 1: just kind of at some point, when do you do it?
Speaker 1: Did you notice like a trigger or a catalyst to
Speaker 1: what causes people to then say enough is enough? Like
Speaker 1: I need to do this thing.
Speaker 4: Oh that's such a good question, And the answer is multifaceted.
Speaker 4: One is that the older you get, and the more
Speaker 4: autonomy that you have, the more fiscal autonomy that you have,
Speaker 4: the ability to secure a job, make sure you can
Speaker 4: pay your bills, take care of your kids. You know
Speaker 4: you're not going to be financially on an island that
Speaker 4: feels unsafe, then you feel more able to make those
Speaker 4: choices for yourself. Importantly, a lot of my participants had
Speaker 4: their reckoning when the political climate shifted, so twenty sixteen
Speaker 4: and then also twenty what was it, twenty twenty twenty one,
Speaker 4: whatever it was, and they said that the hate was
Speaker 4: so loud that they couldn't tolerat it, their nervous systems
Speaker 4: couldn't tolerate it on a daily basis. So my participant
Speaker 4: Lynn was like, she was married to a man in
Speaker 4: the military, and so in the military there's not a
Speaker 4: lot of queer representation and a lot not a lot
Speaker 4: of ability to form community in that way. And her
Speaker 4: husband was, you know, very conservative and very outspoken about
Speaker 4: his conservative values, and so she realized that like anytime
Speaker 4: she would hear him say something hateful and internalized her
Speaker 4: own process. She was like, you're talking about me and
Speaker 4: you don't even know it, and that that discomfort felt
Speaker 4: like it was too much. And then my participant Bridger,
Speaker 4: had a similar situation and hers was combined also with
Speaker 4: the loss of a parent. A lot of folks had
Speaker 4: a loss of a parent that felt like they were
Speaker 4: able to come out after that. I don't know if
Speaker 4: it was like the grief of like the reckoning of
Speaker 4: their own mortality, or the distancing from a worry of
Speaker 4: judgment or worry of losing that connection, but a lot
Speaker 4: of participants noted that the death of a parent was.
Speaker 3: Uh so si.
Speaker 4: For example, the person who connected me with the two
Speaker 4: of you and one of your listeners said that her
Speaker 4: mother's death was a thing that for her allowed her
Speaker 4: to get so uncomfortable that she couldn't do it anymore.
Speaker 4: And so some a trigger like that is absolutely a
Speaker 4: thing that happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean I lost a close relative.
Speaker 2: A couple of years prior to coming out or realizing,
Speaker 2: and I do think that that was the shock of that,
Speaker 2: the age, all those things I think that did really
Speaker 2: like open my eyes a lot to you know, just
Speaker 2: this is or live yeah, yeah, if not, no one.
Speaker 1: And even once you come out like I there's a
Speaker 1: listener to our show who lost her mother and I
Speaker 1: think it's making her even look at everything like am
Speaker 1: I happy? Am I did? I?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 1: What else do I need? Like I do think it
Speaker 1: like you said it facing your own mortality. I feel
Speaker 1: that now like watching my mom and dad, who are
Speaker 1: still very active and feel young. I still when I'm
Speaker 1: with them and thinking like life is bleeding, it is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: so it wasn't like any so that how does the
Speaker 1: political climate like I would think like what you're describing
Speaker 1: would be even more I'm scared to come out, Like
Speaker 1: not that the hate pushed me to be like they're
Speaker 1: talking about me. It's almost like now I'm scared because
Speaker 1: everybody thinks gay people are terrible.
Speaker 4: It's both, yeah, So it's simultaneously a if I don't
Speaker 4: speak up, who will? And like I need to be
Speaker 4: the person who's going to show the younger generation, who's
Speaker 4: going to show other people who are like me that
Speaker 4: it's okay and it can be safe and you just
Speaker 4: have to find your people and that we're like we're
Speaker 4: not bad and we're not evil and we're not wrong
Speaker 4: or anything like that. And so there's people who are
Speaker 4: feeling like I hate that it's even a thing like
Speaker 4: rebelliously visible and they're like, fuck you, I'm here, you
Speaker 4: have to see me. And then conversely, and this was
Speaker 4: true for a non binary and a trans participant that
Speaker 4: I had, that they felt they couldn't be out and proud,
Speaker 4: that they needed to protect their safety and their peace
Speaker 4: because of the hate that they were experiencing. And so
Speaker 4: one of my chapters is called, well I'm not you know,
Speaker 4: flying a rainbow flag at the end of my driveway,
Speaker 4: and so that was from Bridger, and Bridger was like,
Speaker 4: I'm scared that, Like, you know, if I if I
Speaker 4: felt like it was a choice, I might not choose
Speaker 4: to come out right now. But also like it's not
Speaker 4: a choice and I have to do this thing, but
Speaker 4: I'm not going to fly a rainbow flag at the
Speaker 4: end of my driveway. So there was that, and then
Speaker 4: Tom was like talking about their challenges with their partner
Speaker 4: who's a CIS woman, and their wife was like, well,
Speaker 4: we have to show everybody that we're a safe space
Speaker 4: and our neighbors can come to us. And Tom was like,
Speaker 4: I maybe we're a little bit quieter now, like just
Speaker 4: because like it's not safe and like I don't want
Speaker 4: to see like humfort down our house, right and it's crazy,
Speaker 4: like that's it's just so divided and so violent right
Speaker 4: now for anyone who's queer or trans, or non binary
Speaker 4: or gender non conforming, that you sit with that dissonance,
Speaker 4: you sit with that ambivalence of like, I have arrived
Speaker 4: at this understanding of myself and I want to be
Speaker 4: in the world as myself. And also there are people
Speaker 4: in the world that seem to hate that I exist,
Speaker 4: and how how do you reconcile that? How do you
Speaker 4: live with that and in honor of that on a
Speaker 4: daily basis? And so those variety of influences systemically are
Speaker 4: going to be the deciding factors of like what feels
Speaker 4: accessible to you and what doesn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and to live over time with a secret. Like
Speaker 1: one of the things I noticed, and Melissa and I
Speaker 1: talk about a lot is after we came out, our
Speaker 1: friendships deepened and are even I would say, I don't
Speaker 1: know that you would say this, but my relationship with
Speaker 1: my mom and dad got stronger, and my sister, Like,
Speaker 1: I just feel like I was able to totally. I'd
Speaker 1: spent so many years hiding this thing that then once
Speaker 1: it was out, it was sort of like I can
Speaker 1: have better conversations because you really know me. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I wonder too, like if you go so long, it's
Speaker 1: like you see these people, like the men you were
Speaker 1: talking about on the down low. To hide this part
Speaker 1: of yourself, I mean, your sexuality is a huge part
Speaker 1: of yourself, it just would create such an almost like
Speaker 1: cancer inside you that you're living with. How do you
Speaker 1: know anyone? It would be It would seem now like
Speaker 1: to go back so lonely for me.
Speaker 4: It is lonely. It's a performance, right, It's it's a performance. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And it's the amount of energy that it frees up
Speaker 4: for you when you are able to step into that
Speaker 4: authenticity and you're able to have those open and honest
Speaker 4: conversations promote like creativity and deep authentic connections and like
Speaker 4: cause you're not trying to stay on top of like okay,
Speaker 4: well I said this, and like I need to stay
Speaker 4: consistent with that. It's just kind of like like it's
Speaker 4: like the idea like when you lie, you have to
Speaker 4: remember like who you like to you lied about, and if
Speaker 4: you don't lie, you don't have to worry about messing
Speaker 4: it up.
Speaker 1: It's just like a freedom.
Speaker 2: It's like it was only a couple of months before
Speaker 2: I even came out to people that I like my
Speaker 2: family and everything, and that was like so hard to
Speaker 2: keep inside, you know.
Speaker 3: Ye, it's so stressful, and I'm like, I.
Speaker 2: Don't know how people do that for years some people.
Speaker 4: I have a seventy something year old participant who's still
Speaker 4: not entirely out, and like it's caused her to feel
Speaker 4: like she so she's a transwoman, and she feels like
Speaker 4: she can't leave the house often and like she hasn't
Speaker 4: been able to build community around her queerness or date
Speaker 4: and she's lived an entire life of just hiding and
Speaker 4: us your life. Yeah, she says she has deep regrets,
Speaker 4: but it's not coming out or just over like, no,
Speaker 4: she hasn't really been able to come out, So she
Speaker 4: has deep regrets over like not being able to be
Speaker 4: visible and not feeling able to already to be a public.
Speaker 2: Is there also a feeling too of like I wish
Speaker 2: I'd grown up in a different time, like absolutely, especially
Speaker 2: someone at that age, I would think, like God, if
Speaker 2: you want like a time like could I just be
Speaker 2: born like now?
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe not now, but right I know, what was
Speaker 3: this spot? I don't know twenty fifteen.
Speaker 4: Then yeah, it seems to have been somewhere between like
Speaker 4: two thousand and like twenty fifteen. It was like a
Speaker 4: sweet spot of like, okay, you can breathe. But as
Speaker 4: with any you know, Judeo Christian society, like it waxes
Speaker 4: and wanes over time, and so again like what to
Speaker 4: do with this study? Like so I have this information, great,
Speaker 4: big deal, what do I do with it? There's three
Speaker 4: main components that I was like, okay, so like now
Speaker 4: I know what to do. One of them is better
Speaker 4: sex education, more comprehensive sex education for young people and
Speaker 4: for adults, so like reclaiming your pleasure, like knowing that
Speaker 4: you don't have to endure sex ever, sex is something
Speaker 4: that ought to be enjoyed and not like gotten a brovo.
Speaker 2: Yeah, please tell people that because Jesus.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, I know the things that we have
Speaker 4: put our.
Speaker 3: Shall talk yourself, I know, right, drink a lot of alcohol.
Speaker 4: So many of my barticipants were like, yeah, I don't
Speaker 4: drink anymore. I don't need to.
Speaker 1: Yes, there are so many friends that don't drink anymore.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm eight years sober, Like yeah, amazing, I can
Speaker 4: like sex like not have to be fucked up, and
Speaker 4: so you know, like the sex education that like it's
Speaker 4: okay to say no, you don't have to have an orgasm.
Speaker 4: You can ask for what you want, like all of
Speaker 4: those things, and like it's okay to be an effeminate man,
Speaker 4: it's okay to be a masculine woman or anything in between,
Speaker 4: and like all of it's valid. So the sex education
Speaker 4: is critical. We need to catch them when they're young
Speaker 4: and they don't have those societal influences like the childhood
Speaker 4: friendships and like the sleepovers and the experimentation and all
Speaker 4: that stuff that's happening anyway. If they didn't have that influence,
Speaker 4: like let's see what would happen and like in courage
Speaker 4: them and support it. So number two is the training
Speaker 4: of medical and mental health professionals. They are trained in
Speaker 4: a heteronormative way.
Speaker 1: Yes, they don't have.
Speaker 4: If they have proper training at all, Like usually it's
Speaker 4: like a one or two hour like hey, let's talk
Speaker 4: about like doing a pelvic exam, or like let's talk
Speaker 4: about a rectile dysfunction, and like that's it. It's like
Speaker 4: the mechanics of it, and it's not about the intersection
Speaker 4: of the mind and the body, and it's not about
Speaker 4: various sex presentations. There's no discussion about intersex. There's no
Speaker 4: discussion about trans health care, there's no discussion about asexuality.
Speaker 4: There's no like none of it, right, and so like
Speaker 4: really beefing that up for doctors, future doctors, mental health professionals,
Speaker 4: talking to clinicians. And that's something that I intend to do,
Speaker 4: is to talk to clinicians and help kind of like
Speaker 4: create more practitioners that are competent in talking to their
Speaker 4: clients about this stuff. Is like you need to be
Speaker 4: really comfortable talking about grief, and you need to be
Speaker 4: really comfortable talking about like painful sexual experiences, and like
Speaker 4: all of these things that like some clinicians aren't going
Speaker 4: to touch because it's not covered in their school and
Speaker 4: their education. It's not covered in their CEUs unless they
Speaker 4: actively seek it out. So that stuff and then like
Speaker 4: a separation of church and state, we don't have that
Speaker 4: in the United States of America. We do not have
Speaker 4: a separation of church and state, especially right now. And
Speaker 4: on top of that, the we need to promote the
Speaker 4: equal rights legislation so that the societal influences about whether
Speaker 4: or not you're going to be able to get a
Speaker 4: mortgage as a single mother, whether or not you're going
Speaker 4: to be able to afford health insurance on your own
Speaker 4: and not on your partner's plan, your husband's plan. You know,
Speaker 4: whether or not you know all of the different things,
Speaker 4: whatever they are. The separation of church and state and
Speaker 4: the equal rights protections are critical in order for fireflies
Speaker 4: to feel like they can come out and live a happy, authentic, peaceful,
Speaker 4: secure life. And so for any listeners out there who
Speaker 4: are like, yes, and I live in the United States
Speaker 4: of America right now, Like what does that even mean?
Speaker 4: You are not powerless? So, like there's an app called
Speaker 4: five Calls where it'll give you like a whole script
Speaker 4: of like what you can say when you call your
Speaker 4: senator or your representative and it's like, hey, this is
Speaker 4: a topic that's important to me. I want you to
Speaker 4: count me as one of your constituents to know that,
Speaker 4: like I care about this and I want you to
Speaker 4: vote this way, and it's going to influence how I
Speaker 4: vote in the next election. And five Calls will like
Speaker 4: document it, script it out for you, and it's like
Speaker 4: it takes five minutes max. You can do that every
Speaker 4: day and that's your federal power. You don't have to
Speaker 4: wait for an election. So it's a way to feel
Speaker 4: less powerless. And it's in a environment where we often
Speaker 4: feel powerless and like all these terrible, atrocious things are
Speaker 4: happening and harms are being caused, and you're like, well,
Speaker 4: I'm just one person. What can I do? That's an
Speaker 4: example of something that you could do. And also like
Speaker 4: picking one cause that you feel passionate about and like
Speaker 4: staying in that lane so you don't get overwhelmed as important.
Speaker 4: But that's like what we can do with this information.
Speaker 4: These stories were gifted to me. I'm so privileged to
Speaker 4: have them, and I'm so grateful to my participants to
Speaker 4: offer such vulnerability. And I promised them all that I
Speaker 4: was going to use it for good and so you
Speaker 4: here I am, and I'm talking to you to you
Speaker 4: all about it and sharing what I can and figuring
Speaker 4: out how to make the world an easier, safer place
Speaker 4: for as many people as possible.
Speaker 1: The component you said about representation to me is huge
Speaker 1: because I think if I had been I always knew
Speaker 1: I was gay, but had I been a little eight
Speaker 1: year old tomboy, and I saw this beautiful and I
Speaker 1: don't mean physically beautiful, I mean healthy, emotionally couple, lesbian
Speaker 1: couple living in my neighborhood. I think it would have
Speaker 1: been baby with children, with all the babies I wanted.
Speaker 1: I would have thought, oh my god, I'm doing that,
Speaker 1: Like I know I would have. Other has said that
Speaker 1: you just never saw it. How in the world will
Speaker 1: you get to do that? And it's like, I just
Speaker 1: think about that sometimes, that that component you said there
Speaker 1: were three, that was one of them.
Speaker 2: That is yet And it's not just that, it's like
Speaker 2: not even seeing like I knew gay people growing up,
Speaker 2: but I never heard them talk about a partner.
Speaker 3: I never saw them with anyone hit it, So yeah,
Speaker 3: it was a secret. And it's like I equated that
Speaker 3: to them being lonely and alone, and.
Speaker 2: Why would you want to be gay? Like you're you're
Speaker 2: going to risk your life. There's stuff like Matthew Shepherd happening.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm like, you're going to be a hates crisis.
Speaker 2: I'm like, there's all these things that I saw that
Speaker 2: just said like, no way, man, Like that's not the
Speaker 2: path to go down. Like and then on top of
Speaker 2: that being dictated to me that I'm straight, you know,
Speaker 2: there was no way. Yeah, you mentioned about the religious aspect,
Speaker 2: and did you say, what'd you say? Eighty percent of
Speaker 2: the participants had some was that like extreme religious upbringing
Speaker 2: or we're talking just like a little bit.
Speaker 4: It was a mix of like extreme you know, Jehovah's Witness, evangelical,
Speaker 4: you know, like really severe religion, and then there was
Speaker 4: also kind of run of the mill went to Catholic
Speaker 4: school just because it was, you know, the better education,
Speaker 4: and went to church on Sundays and that was it
Speaker 4: and everything in between. So it doesn't have to be
Speaker 4: like severe. It can just be these are the rules
Speaker 4: that we have learned to live our life by, These
Speaker 4: are virtuous ways to exist. And it all influenced.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's I mean, I did not grow up religious.
Speaker 2: Like it was like a on a scale of one
Speaker 2: to ten, maybe like a three four.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, but I do.
Speaker 2: Remember feeling like a lot, like I felt so uncomfortable
Speaker 2: around sex with men, and I always thought it was
Speaker 2: like it must be because I'm sinning, like yeah, And
Speaker 2: it's like another layer to it of just like convincing
Speaker 2: yourself that you're you're not gay, and it's it's just
Speaker 2: like your brain just reasons in a million ways, is
Speaker 2: to like why I guess the circles back to the whole,
Speaker 2: Like you don't want to be othered, you know, so
Speaker 2: you're going to reason your way out of it in
Speaker 2: any way possible.
Speaker 4: And you were talking about it earlier about like young
Speaker 4: minds that don't know how to make sense of this stuff.
Speaker 4: It's the religion component of it is kind of like
Speaker 4: low hanging fruit, Like it's right there, and it's like
Speaker 4: if you're gay, you're sinning, and it's like, oh, okay,
Speaker 4: that's why I'm so uncomfortable as opposed to you don't
Speaker 4: have any representation in magazines or movies or TV shows,
Speaker 4: and if you do, it's like this turbulent, like violent,
Speaker 4: chaotic relationship with lesbians and like you know this this dramatic,
Speaker 4: terrible thing that's happened, or God forbid, you see a
Speaker 4: happy ever after with like two women and kids.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I've had a participant who was a medical doctor and
Speaker 4: she hadn't considered that like she could have kids through IVF,
Speaker 4: even though her sister was doing IVF like for other reasons,
Speaker 4: and so she she got married because she knew that
Speaker 4: she wanted kids. And then I had Loralai, who was
Speaker 4: in a queer relationship for a number of years and
Speaker 4: like helping her girlfriend her friend raise this kid and
Speaker 4: they so they were like having this little queer family.
Speaker 4: And she's like, oh, I never saw a future in
Speaker 4: it because like I didn't have any representation of that.
Speaker 4: I just knew that this was a moment, So she
Speaker 4: didn't like allow herself to fantasize about what that was
Speaker 4: going to look like. I saw a lot of that.
Speaker 4: I saw a lot of the lack of representation and
Speaker 4: the religion influencing the narratives that my participants were making
Speaker 4: about their experiences.
Speaker 2: It's interesting too, because I would like to sit here
Speaker 2: and say that like, oh, well, now there's so much
Speaker 2: more representation, Like this sort of thing isn't happening, but
Speaker 2: it's happening. Like my daughter's in middle school and she's
Speaker 2: like there's so many kids that are homophobic here and
Speaker 2: they're also deeply religious, like she's not. But she's constantly
Speaker 2: invited to things, you know, surrounding church and youth group,
Speaker 2: and it kind of sucks because I think, you know,
Speaker 2: sometimes she feels left out around it, you know, but
Speaker 2: she's also just like they're going to ask me awkward
Speaker 2: questions and I just don't the same way.
Speaker 1: Like our kids. I live in a very liberal bubble.
Speaker 1: My kids go to probably the most liberal school in
Speaker 1: the whole Southeast. It's been called the I think they
Speaker 1: called it the Granola something like. It's a very gay,
Speaker 1: liberal school. But it's it's so interesting that your kids
Speaker 1: are coming up with my kids. I mean, we see
Speaker 1: each other. Our kids commune to see each other, we
Speaker 1: have play dates. They are they are being socialized completely differently.
Speaker 3: And it's like just just the difference between the city
Speaker 3: and the suburbs.
Speaker 1: It's thirty miles away.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not even like that far. And I honestly too, it's.
Speaker 2: Like fairly liberal where I live, like not majority, but leaning.
Speaker 2: And you know, those conversations are still happening among a
Speaker 2: group of seventh graders, you know, and it's I don't
Speaker 2: know that I feel like, you know, I don't think
Speaker 2: my daughter's queer, but if she is, she has the
Speaker 2: space to, you know, speak about that. But I think
Speaker 2: about those kids that are not being raised in that way,
Speaker 2: that are hearing these things in their classrooms. Still to
Speaker 2: this day, the same thing that I heard, you know,
Speaker 2: thirty years ago.
Speaker 4: It's painful. It is painful, and ninety percent of the time,
Speaker 4: I'll say it's the parents, right, And so like we're
Speaker 4: seeing this visibility, this acceptability of like hateful rhetoric, hateful discourse,
Speaker 4: and it's becoming normalized and emboldened right now. And they're
Speaker 4: hearing what their parents are saying, things that their parents
Speaker 4: are saying just the same way that we did, and
Speaker 4: they don't understand yet what that does to here, to
Speaker 4: to internalize, to disseminate. And so you've got the seventh
Speaker 4: graders who are saying, you know, oh, that's gay, and
Speaker 4: like not realizing that that's going to keep someone in
Speaker 4: the closet for years and years and years. Like I
Speaker 4: remember growing up and everything was gay, and like it's
Speaker 4: come back if they're doing it again, yeah, like that
Speaker 4: like an ironic, satirical way, like it's it's a derogatory
Speaker 4: thing again, and it's like, wow, I've been through this.
Speaker 1: I thought we've been through that.
Speaker 2: It is wild that they that people still say that,
Speaker 2: but I guess it's probably stuff that they they hear
Speaker 2: at it is you know, like I I the only
Speaker 2: reason why I even considered that it was wrong when
Speaker 2: I was a kid or a teenager, is because a
Speaker 2: classmate called me out about it, Like the one out
Speaker 2: gay guy in.
Speaker 3: My school was like, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 2: And I was like, yeah, it made me say I'd
Speaker 2: never thought about it before. Yeah know, And I'm sure
Speaker 2: that's the way that these kids are thinking. You know,
Speaker 2: if you actually did sit them down and say, like,
Speaker 2: what do you what's what's bad about being gay? They
Speaker 2: would get very confused about how to answer that.
Speaker 4: They're like, yeah, it's just stupid. I don't mean I
Speaker 4: don't mean being gay is bad. I just mean, like
Speaker 4: it's stupid. And I was like, what, how are we
Speaker 4: right now? Stupid?
Speaker 3: Exactly exactly?
Speaker 4: I mean, I remember and a lot of my participants
Speaker 4: said as well, like being called a lesbian when you're
Speaker 4: growing up was one of the biggest insults, Like you
Speaker 4: were terrified of being called a lesbian. I have a
Speaker 4: client in my practice who actually is writing a book
Speaker 4: about like the trauma that that caused and how it
Speaker 4: resulted in her not feeling able to come out until
Speaker 4: she was thirty, like being like one of my chapters
Speaker 4: is like, like, what's uh what's in a name or
Speaker 4: like when being lesbian is a stigma or something like that.
Speaker 4: I don't remember the exact name of it, but like
Speaker 4: that label has stigma. It was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like what our first episode we talked about that.
Speaker 2: It's like it was hard for us to start saying
Speaker 2: all this podcast Lesbian Chronicles because.
Speaker 1: We were like, but we knew we had to. You know,
Speaker 1: you add to your parents. My mom trips over that word.
Speaker 3: My mom so openly that it's scared less lesbian?
Speaker 4: Am I saying that right?
Speaker 1: Lesbian?
Speaker 4: So one, I'm looking at my spreadsheet right now. And
Speaker 4: thirty three, so one third of my participants said that
Speaker 4: they struggle with the word lesbian. And these are self
Speaker 4: identified people who have come out are in life, and
Speaker 4: they liked the term firefly because it offered a less
Speaker 4: stigmatized label.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 4: And there's also like it if you know, you know,
Speaker 4: if you don't, you don't thing with the firefly. So
Speaker 4: you know, going back to like the political climate and
Speaker 4: like what feels safe and what doesn't. Firefly hasn't yet
Speaker 4: become so ubiquitous that like if you say that you're
Speaker 4: a firefly, someone's like, oh, you're queer. It can be
Speaker 4: just like, oh, like you're an insect.
Speaker 1: I like it.
Speaker 4: That's cool, I guess. And so I have a couple
Speaker 4: of participants who you know, have a firefly tattoo, who like, oh,
Speaker 4: you're a firefly.
Speaker 3: Got you.
Speaker 4: But then there's like, I guess you just like fireflights
Speaker 4: are cool, and so that was like a safety thing.
Speaker 4: That was a big influence in pointing the term. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that is it very appealing, especially today where you never
Speaker 4: know if it's safe or not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very true.
Speaker 1: Well I love the name firefly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh thank you, yeah so much. I love it too.
Speaker 4: I'm proud of it.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming back on. Yeah, how
Speaker 1: can people find your research?
Speaker 2: Yes, people want to read your full work or anything
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 3: Is that available or.
Speaker 4: So it will be probably within like a month or two.
Speaker 4: It's going to be uploaded my whole dissertation, all three
Speaker 4: hundred and twenty pages of it, wow, onto ProQuest, which
Speaker 4: is kind of like an online repository of dissertations. I
Speaker 4: also would like to maybe try to turn it into
Speaker 4: a book, so we'll see what happens with that. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And then at the Firefly Journey on Instagram is my Instagram,
Speaker 4: which has developed a little bit since last year when
Speaker 4: we met. It's not in its infancy, it's and it's
Speaker 4: toddlerhood because I'm still a millennial. And then Courage to Grow.
Speaker 4: Counseling dot Org is my private practice. All my contact information.
Speaker 4: Is there any links to so I'll put the link
Speaker 4: for this episode and the last episode on there and
Speaker 4: all that good stuff and just like come find me,
Speaker 4: like I want all of the questions, I want the stories.
Speaker 4: There is a survey version of the Firefly Journey. I'm
Speaker 4: calling it like the Firefly Journey Study instead of the
Speaker 4: Firefly Study. And that's a survey version of all of
Speaker 4: the interview questions I ask my participants. So I'm still
Speaker 4: collecting data. I would love to create like the biggest
Speaker 4: Firefly study there's ever.
Speaker 3: Been, So like awesome.
Speaker 4: Tell me your stories. I can't wait to hear them.
Speaker 4: And like, the more stories that are out there, the
Speaker 4: more people feel safe to be visible. Also, so you're
Speaker 4: you're doing as as us Jews call it, amidst the U.
Speaker 4: I share your story with others, and.
Speaker 1: We should say too. Mallory Handfling is in Philadelphia. Doctor
Speaker 1: Mallory handfling is in Philadelphia. And what's the name of
Speaker 1: your practice again or were you? What is it called again,
Speaker 1: Courage to Grow Counseling, Courage to Grow Counseling. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: well your clients you are okay good?
Speaker 2: Are you able to treat people around the US or
Speaker 2: just within your state?
Speaker 4: So I am fully licensed in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey,
Speaker 4: and oddly enough Indiana. So I have a client that moved.
Speaker 4: But I am also excited that the Pennsylvania Social Work
Speaker 4: Compact is almost passed, so that'll give me some more
Speaker 4: flexibility as well. And then I also have a peer
Speaker 4: support group, pure Firefly Support Group, which is not therapeutic
Speaker 4: in nature. It's like peer run but I am part
Speaker 4: of it, so I facilitate, and so that gives me
Speaker 4: the ability to practice more expansively to other states as well.
Speaker 4: So if you're interested in building community that way, you're
Speaker 4: welcome to ask me about the Firefly Circle Support Group.
Speaker 1: Oh, I bet we have a lot of listeners that
Speaker 1: would love that.
Speaker 4: I would love to have them.
Speaker 1: Excellent. Well, thank you, thank you, thank you for coming,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 4: Thank you for all of your other episodes. Y'all are
Speaker 4: a big part of a lot of my participant stories.
Speaker 4: Your visibility has done a number for other fireflies, other
Speaker 4: people coming out later in life. So you're having a
Speaker 4: huge impact, and I want you to know that the
Speaker 4: I also want you to know that I did cite
Speaker 4: you in my dissertation and I did also give you
Speaker 4: a major shout out in my acknowledgments.
Speaker 1: Thank you made a lot happen.
Speaker 4: I appreciate you very much for that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I appreciate that absolutely.
Speaker 3: I want to support the Lesbian Chronicles podcast.
Speaker 2: Rate us and write a review on Apple podcast or Spotify.
Speaker 1: We'd love listener feedback. If you'd like to share your story,
Speaker 1: email us at Melissa and Ali at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: That's Melissa M. E.
Speaker 4: L I.
Speaker 1: S A and Ali A L. L I at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. Or follow us on Instagram at Lesbian Chronicles