Latest / Queer Voices / March 25 - Queer Family Therapy, Zack Varela of LEOPOLDSTADT, and News Wrap

Transcript

March 25 - Queer Family Therapy, Zack Varela of LEOPOLDSTADT, and News Wrap · Queer Voices

• 0:00
  Brett: You're listening to Queer Voices, and I am Brett Cullum.
• 0:03
  Brett: This show airs on KPFT, and it's also available as a podcast on any streaming platform.
• 0:10
  Brett: We've been around for over five decades as the voice of the LGBTQIA Plus community in Houston.
• 0:16
  Brett: We have two segments for you this time.
• 0:19
  Brett: The first is an interview with Jacob Newsome and August Tuzna Stanton.
• 0:24
  Brett: She's a family therapist working to develop a framework for family therapy with queer kids.
• 0:30
  Brett: Next up, I get to talk with Zach Varela, who is appearing in Main Street Theater's Leopoldstadt.
• 0:37
  Brett: This show opens Saturday, March 28th and runs through Sunday, May 3rd.
• 0:42
  Brett: Queer Voices starts now.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_05: So hello everyone.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_05: This is Jacob Newsome with a special guest, August, and I will let them introduce themselves with their pronouns and then tell us about their fascinating project.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Jacob, thanks so much.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited to be here.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: My name is August Tuzna Stanton.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: I use they, them pronouns.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: I am a white agenderic person, venetranic, meaning attracted to all genders except for cis men.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: I am a therapist in private practice in Denver, Colorado.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a licensed clinical social worker and a licensed Maria family therapist.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm basically just a giant overrid sheeper.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm the program director at Denver Family Institute, which is a training program that teaches therapists to work with family and intimate partner relationships.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: So couples, poly, ethical non, non-monogamy, etc.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm also a parent.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, that's that's me in a nutshell.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_05: So it seems like you're a highly accomplished person.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_05: And so it makes sense why you did all this stuff and then you kind of want to do more.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_05: It sounds like you're very community-centered.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_05: You're very focused on giving people space and making helping them understand their experiences.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_05: Tell me more about how that led you and deeper into your work.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_05: Why did you feel like your role between a social worker and a therapist may have not been enough?
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_05: And I don't want to put words in your mouth, but may have not been sufficient in the world we're living in right now.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: Social work of course has a social justice focus, but it doesn't necessarily have like a relational focus.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: It does in some ways.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like in social work, we think about the systems in our lives.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: So what is my relationship, for example, as a white person?
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what is my relationship to the tragedies that are happening in Minnesota to brown people with ICE?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: What's that like for me?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: And what does that mean for how I interact and what my accountability is there?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: But what we don't do a ton in social work is especially a focus, like a very specific focus on in into into into intimate relationship and family work, especially like very clinical work.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: There's some of that focus, but there's not that specific training.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I am a relationship person.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I feel like, well, I know that when when when when helping someone, you know, if we're just looking at them and not their systems, we're not really helping effectively.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I've got a really great example.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: I was working with a client who said, I want co copping skills for work.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, okay, that's great.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: What sort of coping skills do you like?
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then we talked about all these like sensory skills.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then the client, and then I said, you know, I'm feeling like a great therapist.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: We're at the end session, like, all right, August, you know, hey, great job.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: We did the thing.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then I asked the client how they thought this would work.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: It worked, how how the client thought this would work at their job.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: And the client's like, that's not gonna work.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, why not?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: But it's because I didn't ask them about their environment.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't ask them about their system, like their relationship to their coworkers and their space.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what relational thinking is all about.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just here's this one person in front of me, but you know, what's the impact of someone's family on their lives or their intimate partner relationship on their lives, or what's the impact of their lack of a family or their lack of a partner?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: So relational work is is like it's spreading out through the system.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, focusing on queerness, we know that supportive parents of queer youth who are using just the right name and pronouns decreases suicidality by like 20 to 30 percent.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's massive.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: And queer folks are at much high, higher rates of not just suicidal thinking, but suicidal attempts than non-queer people.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: And especially now that's even scarier because we know that gosh, you know, nerd alert here, a study just came out literally a couple months ago that shows that gender-affirming medical care d decreases suicidality by 68%.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: And like these are huge numbers, these are huge important relationships to parents, to medical systems, which are all being threatened right now.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, here in Colorado, two of our major hospitals stopped stopped providing gender-affirming medical care to youth because because their Medicaid and Medicare dollars are being threatened.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: The thing that I really wanted to talk talk about here today was my new model of family therapy called the queer adjusted systemic lens, also known as the QASL.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: And really what the QASL is about is centering queerness within family therapy without isolating other folks involved, family, partners, etc.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because what can happen is in family therapy, therapists are supposed to be unbiased.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: We're supposed to be able to connect with every person in the room, which is great and useful.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: And by doing that at times, queerness becomes content, it becomes secondary.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: It can be like, okay, well, okay, teen, you're queer, but your dad's not using your pronouns.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: And if I'm as if if I'm an unbiased therapist, I'm stuck.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like, do I side with dad?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: Do I side with teen?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: And because family therapy is very, very, very hierarchical, which means that we believe change starts with parents, then I might be siding with dad and using the pronoun that dad uses, not not the pronoun that the teen uses.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: And we just talked about using the right name, name and pronouns as a protection factor against suicidalities.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: We're causing some problems.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: We're not just being unhelpful, we're causing harm as family therapists.
• 6:02
  unknown: Yeah.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_05: That model centered in the idea that neutrality is what heals versus taking an active role in the healing process.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, a hundred percent.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: And like neutrality works for a lot of different types of issues, but for identity, it doesn't work.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: We can't be neutral on on uh on identity on identity within the therapy room.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Now, what's really important though, and I think what therapists can tend to do is is unintentionally start to side with the youth against the parents.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: But that's not what we're doing either.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: We are not just parents, you are terrible people.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's isolating, that's pushing away.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: And not that I don't think anybody would say that in a session, but when we start to think that way, that colors that changes, the types of interventions that we use, if we're kind of pissed at the parents, that shows up in other ways.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: What's important about the QASL and why I think it's it's especially important today is that our society is becoming entrenched.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: You have folks who are digging their heels in on one side, digging our heels on on the other side, conversations aren't happening, rifts are forming.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I think what folks often think of is, oh, well, in order to meet someone halfway, I have to give up my views or my values.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not how this works.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not how this works in my model.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: I use a combination of attachment theory, which is basically the theory about how we as humans connect to people and how how we connected to our parents.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Our parents taught us about the world and connections and people.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Is the world safe?
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: Is it is our parents safe?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's how we grow, grow up as kids.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's what we it's how we form romantic relationships, is how we perceive the world.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: If the world is unsafe, my partner might not be there for me all the time.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm becoming very anxious.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Or if the world's unsafe, I have a partner, but I can't trust trust try trust them.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: That attachment piece.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I use that to help parents connect to kids even when there's a rift.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll say things like, You love your kid so much that when they ask you about starting horror hormone hormone replacement therapy, you're having this big reaction.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: And you're having this reaction because you care about them so much.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: You're scared for them.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: I had one parent tell me that they were afraid that that their child would regret their transition and hate them, hate the parent.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: Now, what's important though when we're doing this attachment work is we don't just leave it there.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: We don't just center the parents' feelings above the queer persons, because then the queer person feels like, man, I'm causing a mess.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm tearing my family apart.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like, gosh, my parents so sad.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: In my motto, we follow up with gender-affirming medical care decreases suicidality X amount.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: And when you as a parent are supportive, it decreases suicidality X amount.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: And fun next fact here is that people regret gender-affirming medical care at a lower rate than they regret life-saving surgeries.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: Massive.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like that research is mind-blowing, and parents really respond.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I help bridge this gap to kind of wrap up that part there by tapping into the care that a parent has for their child while bringing in the research and why these are the right steps for a child to take.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: And for folks who who who are listening who don't know a ton about gender-affirming medical interventions, teens can access hormone replacement therapy once they've hit puberty.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: And doctors aren't just handing the chat like candy.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: There's a process that they go through.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: And teens don't have access to any surgeries until they're 18 or 19.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: I've been thinking a lot about this recently, just about like how we bridge these conversations now.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like we can understand someone's fear because I think so much of what people are digging in about is fear, is misinformation.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: Our world is being flooded with that.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like Trump had an ad, a political ad that ran on primetime television that said, Democrats are letting illegal aliens into the country and giving them sex change surgeries.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: And for folks who aren't informed, they're going to internalize these things.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then here we go, the rift starts.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so us being able to say, hey, I get you, I get that you're scared, I get that you're worried.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because those are very real feelings.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like underneath the anger is always fear.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then we can have those conversations of I get that you're scared and it makes sense that you're scared.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: What's actually happening?
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: Then I should be, I'm curious what questions you have or any comments you have.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_05: Man, because I feel like there's a there's a difference, right?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_05: Because I was gonna ask you about in your experience as a therapist, how do you see gender framing care portrayed versus how it's portrayed in politics?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_05: Because there's two different realities here.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's scary because there's so much misinformation.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: And there's misinformation being specifically peddled by our government.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: For example, they are investigating our child children's hospital on the suspicions of genital mutilation surgery.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's false.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know that, I know that.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Surgeries aren't performed on children.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Full stop.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_03: No, no.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: And what the government's doing is willful, like willful mis misinformation.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: And what I found working with clients, most people, most parents aren't willfully ignorant.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: Are there a few that I've dealt with?
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: On whole though, parents are coming because they're scared, because they don't know, because they're worried, because their child is telling them these things that the parent didn't expect.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: And and now they're saying, like, oh, all of a sudden my kid's trans.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like, all of a sudden you know your kid's trans, but your but your child has known this for a very long time.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: This is a parent being scared and do and and not knowing what to do or say.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, gosh, there are many, there are so many times when my kid has surprised me.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that my reaction is when it should have been, okay, help me understand this.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: I have a lot of empathy for parents.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: Now, does empathy mean they can just say I believe they should continue doing what they're doing?
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: No, it doesn't.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: But I can use that empathy and their care for their kid to help get into their feelings and give some of this information.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like you love them, you won't want them to be successful.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: Good news.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: This intervention is going to help them be successful.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: And can I predict that they won't regret it?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: No, but I can tell you what the research says.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: And parents respond really well to that.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Most, most.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, is this a foolproof method to talk to your uncle who is so firmly entrenched in his beliefs?
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe, maybe not.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I think like this sort of approach, though, helps us start to get at these conversations in a different way.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like we are all scared.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Either side of the aisle, we are all scared.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: When we don't understand something, we get scared.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: When we have misinformation, we get scared.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: And having these conversations does not mean that we forfeit our beliefs or we allow willful hate.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: Those are different things.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: The model has this microca, is how we can expand this.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like the the more we, I mean, there was research came out that someone becomes less homophobic when they know a queer person.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that, yeah, like that idea covers other topics.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think it covers other other identities, other topics.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_05: And I think isolation from the group you dislike creates false narratives and beliefs about that group until you meet somebody and challenge those beliefs.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_05: And I like your I like your model a lot because I think of it as like a tool in the sense where, you know, a lot of my work I do with uh juveniles or like prisoners, narrative work, which is like, you know, holding a mirror, holding space, and it really helps someone be seen.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_05: And so I've always said about that work that that is that work isn't for everybody.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_05: And the reason why I say that is because with beer models may not be to debate your uncle that is transphobic, or it may not work on every parent.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_05: And the the point is that it's not supposed to, it's designed to act as a life-saving tool for queer teens.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_05: And that is the point.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_05: We're not trying to convert over transphobes, we're trying to educate the parents that want to understand their kid, which by proxy saves that kid.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_05: And so that's kind of what I'm where my mind is going.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, queerness is very individualistic to us recognizing this is who I am.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: I am different, I'm different from my family, I'm different from other people that that I know.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: And not all families and all cultures are in individualistic.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's very American.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: And there are some cultures or a family culture where the good of the family comes first, um, or the or the good of the culture comes first.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: And this model is harder for those kinds of families because queerness doesn't serve a function to uphold usually a collectivist family family culture.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: So there are limits um to the model, to how queerness is experienced.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like there were, there will be families and cultures that will struggle.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: And the model might not work for.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the model says that's okay.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if that's the way it happens, that's the way it happens.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then we shift our focus to a queer person, given this system and how it works, how can we support you as an individual?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes that is through talking through this is so hard because you love your family and you want to support your family, and it's so painful that your family system and culture and beliefs can't see who you are.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: That expands out to communities.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: And um, my my wife has a coworker who left tech tech, Texas actually a couple a couple years ago and says, I love Texas, but Texas doesn't love me.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know anything about their stories.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: So what I've heard is they didn't want to sacrifice themselves for that part of the community that they've lived in or their relationship with their family.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: And they did what was right for them, and that's painful.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's a loss, even when it's the right thing.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's really tricky, difficult stuff right now.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, are there like happy ending stories?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: There are, and I'm honored that I get to witness them.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: And there are stories that aren't gonna end happily in family therapy and outside of, and that's something then we focus on how do we support the individual.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and and that's the reality that you're at the beginning of a person's journey in family therapy.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_05: Like me as a teenager versus me as a 28-year-old man is completely different.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_05: I my channel did not react well to me coming out, but that doesn't mean that my life trajectory was altered.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I had chosen family, I found support after that.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_05: And so what what I think is about too on the broader scheme is that we we need people, especially queer people, to keep creating systems that are for us because the reality of it is that trans people are being attacked on a national scale, and you're really starting to see your allies, you know, trans and non-binary are say because you know they're now in attacking the pronouns and conversations.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_05: You're really starting to see your allies now.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_05: It it gets to a point where every time trans and non-binary people need support, it's just like MIA.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_05: Everybody goes MIA.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_05: And so what what we need for the future of our community is for people to keep building communities and tools that we can use for everybody else's.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm just looking something up.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: I saw something from Elliot Page and I love Elliot Page.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm it was Elliot Page and I think Peppermint, uh drag queen.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: She she's a trans woman, and and Elliot and Peppermint recorded this video.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think they were like on the steps of the Capitol, there's a Supreme Court decision coming down about trans kids in sports.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think I'm getting this right.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm like, okay.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_05: I'm not gonna light your fire if you don't know.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: They had said, you know, no matter what happens politically, you are still trans.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: You are still valid, you are so worthy of love and compassion.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: This fight's not even decades old, it's centuries old.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, even I was watching a documentary on Stonewall, and there was a tape of a trans woman, Sylvia, talking of pride, and she was getting booed and heckled by the gay men and the lesbians there.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: And like, that's what that's what our community looked like in just the 70s.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that was 50 years ago.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: This fight has been going on forever in various different ways, and yeah, it feels a lot scarier now because like it feels like we're going backwards, and a lot of this is starting to feel very fascist um in terms of how I mean it is, yeah, yeah.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: And and like we know what that means for black and brown folk.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that we know the full extent of what that means for like trans and non-binary folks yet.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: Which is why you need to communicate.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I gotta keep fighting.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, I thought about this last night.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_05: At the end of the day, I don't need anyone's permission to exist because I I do I don't need to explain myself to you.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_05: It took me so long to get to this point, but I'm here is that I don't have to explain anything about being gay or being black.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_05: I already exist.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_05: I hope other queer people or other marginalized groups take that energy of you don't need to explain anything to anyone.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_05: These dialogues are nice to have, but why I need to exist, I don't need to do any of that.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_05: Like I am an integral part of American society, and so are you, and so is everyone.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_05: And I know that at the end of the day, I can speak for myself and say that I center everything I do in human dignity.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_05: And I do think the tool you created is centered in that as well.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_05: It's human dignity and getting that parent to understand that at the end of the day, no matter what you see your child, no matter how you see your child growing into themselves, they are still a human being.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_05: That is still the human being that you gave birth to or adopted, and that you are raising, you you have a lifelong commitment to no matter what, and nothing should fracture that connection.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's what Elliot and Peppermint were beautifully getting at.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing can take who you are away.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that doesn't mean you shouldn't be who you are, you shouldn't celebrate who you are.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like if this Supreme Court decision goes bad, that this doesn't change anything.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_05: It's okay to be angry, but it is okay to feel how you feel.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: It is okay to feel how we feel.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: It is okay to be angry.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: I I actually love that you saying that, Jacob, because I think there's also that.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like, do we get to be angry?
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: We think about what that anger means for us.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think of anger as what's called a secondary emotion.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: Have you heard like the primary and secondary?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this is my perspective on it.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's not everybody's.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that anger covers up sadness and fear.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: And anger is an emotion.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: And there's there's like two things that I say about that.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: One, like having an emotion is different than what you do with it.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then what is making you scared?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: What is making you sad?
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I notice a lot with parents because they can get very directive.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: You shouldn't do this, you can't do that.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: That has that anger tone.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so we dig underneath it more often than not, this parent is so worried about their kid and they're so scared for them that, and and like as a parent, grief too, right?
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd love that I'd love that you bring that up because grief is interesting, it's grief of expectations, it's not grief of the person.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, caveat this was saying, My parents have done such amazing work and they they were not accepting when I first came out at all, and they have really turned that around.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: They love my wife.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: Oh gosh, they love our kids.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: But I remember I was sorting through my closet as like a college student.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you see my dresses, you know what my like fun, fancy dresses look like.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: It serves, it does.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I was I was going through them and I I had just come out, and my mom was like, Well, what are you going through this for?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, Well, you know, maybe my kids will want them their vintage now.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my mom was like, Well, you're gay, you're not having kids.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: She was upset, she was grieving.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: She thought that queerness meant I wasn't having kids.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: Flash forward, our three kids are the only grandkids my parents get.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, that's fun.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: She said that she was grieving who I was.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: I hadn't changed.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like who I am as a person, my values, my sense of self, my my my perspective on the world.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Her expectations had changed.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's something we can work through with parents.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: And part of my model is saying we don't work through that with them in front of the kid because we don't want the kid to take on exactly.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: And previous family therapy might have done that.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think that, you know, it's we work through parents' grief.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: We make sure parents understand that you like your child isn't gone.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: Your child who loves K pop demon hunters and anime, like that's all still there, like who they are as a person.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: But what has changed is your expectations for them.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: The thing is, they've Different expectations for themselves all along.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: You just didn't know that.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a little bit of a shock to the system, but then we help parents work through that so it's not projected onto the kid.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's huge.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_05: So I want to end this by asking you some questions because I want you to plug yourself in.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_05: So do you take insurance?
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_05: Are you eligible in other states besides Colorado?
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_05: And what is something you want viewers to take away from today?
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: So in my private practice, I take Kaiser insurance only.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I can only work in the state of Cal Colorado, unfortunately.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: And when I say in the state of Colorado, meaning that someone has to be in Colorado at the time of the session.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: So hey, I mean, if someone's visiting from Texas and they're here for a month, like talk to me.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: Hit me up, you know.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: So um Den Denver Family Institute, the or or or organization that that I mentioned, also sees clients and they see clients who have Medicaid or sliding scale, which is extremely cool.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: They they they do see folks um both both in person and for virtually just like I do.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, some of the students in the program have taken my class and done done my training.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: I I do a full six-hour class on my model, um, which is actually part of a bigger training that we have for therapists who are working with queer youth.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I want people to learn about my model.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm um I'm I'm excited about it.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: And like even if even if you don't take my classes, even if you don't do anything beyond just listening to this today, but there are options.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: There are so many people who've been harmed in therapy because of the things that we've discussed.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: That if you are unhappy with your therapist or your family therapist, even if it's just a little unhappy, you do not have to continue working with them.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: You want to find someone who fully understands and embraces you.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: You can shop around, do, do, do a consult.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: Therapists most offer like a free 15 to 20 minute consult.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: See what therapist works for you.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: Just because you found one that takes your insurance, I mean, that's great.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: And if you want more options, you are in charge.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: Your relationship to your therapist is one of the things that makes a therapist accessible.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, don't feel like you have to be with one therapist if they aren't helping.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: That I want folks to take away that queerness is insert expletive here.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: Super valid.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: That that that queerness deserves to be seen in therapy, in families, in society.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: We should never want to make ourselves small for whatever reason.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: Another thing that I want to take away is that parents who who are listening, you are not bad.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: You are not the enemy.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: If you are struggling, get help.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because at the end of the day, I mean, as a parent, I know I don't fully understand everything about my child's world.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm surprised and sometimes I'm upset when I'm like, but wait, that's not who I thought you were.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: And having our ability to be constantly learning and flexible and to get help when we need it and help when we don't understand something.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's just essential.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I think as a parent, sometimes we want to feel like we know everything about our kid.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: We want to feel like we don't need the help.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: We should, I'm doing air quotes here.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: We should be able to know everything about them or know how to help them.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I think us asking for help is one of the most important things we could do.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's my little soapbox, my recommendations.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you for coming on, August.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_05: It was a pleasure having you, okay?
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.
• 25:26
  Brett: Hi, this is Brett Cullum, and today I'm going to be talking about Leopoldstadt.
• 25:30
  Brett: It is the final stage play written by British playwright and screenwriter Sir Tom Stoppard, who passed away back in 2025.
• 25:37
  Brett: The original production of this premiered uh in January 2020 at Wyndham's Theater in London's West End.
• 25:43
  Brett: Now, the unique thing about this play is it's set in the wealthy Jewish community of Vienna in the first half of the 20th century.
• 25:50
  Brett: Literally, five acts takes place in the years 1899, 1900, 1924, 1938, and 1955.
• 25:59
  Brett: So it's going to have its regional premiere here in Houston at Main Street Theater from March 28th through April 26th.
• 26:05
  Brett: And today I have cast member Zach Virella.
• 26:09
  Brett: Zurella, yep, that's good.
• 26:11
  Brett: Okay, who plays Ludwig in the show?
• 26:14
  Brett: So welcome, uh Zach.
• 26:15
  Brett: Thank you so much.
• 26:16
  Brett: I'm happy to be here.
• 26:17
  Brett: Happy to be here.
• 26:18
  Brett: Thank you.
• 26:18
  Brett: Now, I was looking at your biography and some of the stuff you've done in the past.
• 26:21
  Brett: You're sort of an artist with a capital A, actor, writer, digital content producer, kind of all over the place.
• 26:28
  Brett: How did you end up in this particular production of Leopoldstock?
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_06: I'm a Houston native, so I've known of Main Street theater growing up through high school, college, things like that.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_06: I was in the my last production for I my last production in my my resume was in uh 2019, 2018.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_06: I was in The Book of Will here at Main Street.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_06: Yes.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I saw it.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_06: I was in that with Becky as well.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_06: She directed that as well.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_06: Uh then I kind of put theater down for a while and then uh I came back, uh changed careers, got stable again after the pandemic, and then came back to theater.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_06: Becky had gone to see this show in New York.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_06: I was helping out in the box office as it as it were.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_06: We started talking over lunch, and then, you know, we got excited about the show.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, and then she got rights, and then we kept talking, and then she's like, hey, I'm we're gonna be reading for this part.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_06: I would love for you to read for it.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_06: And um, yeah, I've just a conversation over lunch, and here I am.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_06: I we talked about it and it we manifested it, I guess.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_06: And uh here it is.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_06: How long ago did you guys talk about it though?
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, it had to have been at least two years.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_06: I think it was two years ago.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_06: The the play uh was on Broadway, I believe, in 2023.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_06: Yes, and I yeah, we'd had to think she went to see it that maybe that year.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_06: Uh so it was about two years ago.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_06: We we've been discussing it and um yeah, helping out the box office and had a conversation with the artistic director.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_06: That was it.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, that was it.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_06: Kind of did some research about it, you know, got interested.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_06: Obviously, Tom Stoppard is a is a big well-known playwright, and and uh just a little bit.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_06: Just a little bit.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_06: So I knew it was gonna be like a major project, and I, you know, and doing the research and and the history of it and and uh how much you know it means to to Tom Stoppard and his kind of uh semi-autobiographical scenes, you know.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_06: Um, I was really interested in in the topic of family, in the topic of home, things like that that we're kind of experiencing right now.
• 28:17
  Brett: Well now, Leopold Stadt is considered his most personal work, and it's really wild because it was the last work that he wrote for the stage.
• 28:24
  Brett: And so it's it's really about family, right?
• 28:27
  Brett: And how many people are in this thing?
• 28:28
  Brett: Because I s I I looked at the cast poster and I'm like, is everyone in Houston in this show?
• 28:34
  Brett: All both.
• 28:35
  Brett: All it's the who's who of Houston, right?
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, is it like 20?
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_06: I think there's a cast of 20.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_06: Yes.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, at least I think I counted at least 18.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_06: Well, somehow, some little ones, some little actors coming in.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_06: Um, they're helping out.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_06: There's about, I believe, um, child actors coming in uh for this show as well.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_06: So I think there's 20, I believe.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_06: Some I don't think more than 20, but yeah, it's a very large cast.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_06: I'm still learning everybody's name.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_06: We're still in week one, so I'm still trying to learn uh all the names and then the character names is that's the uh other fun part.
• 29:04
  Brett: Yeah, and how are you all gonna fit in the backstage of Main Street Theater?
• 29:09
  Brett: And how are you all gonna park?
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_06: Uh fitting on stage is a Becky uh a masterpiece.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_06: That's her masterpiece.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_06: She'll she'll work that magic.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_06: She's doing great.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_06: Parking is fun.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_06: We had a conversation about parking, a lot of carpooling, a lot of Ubering happening, a lot of finding spots, text messages going around.
• 29:24
  Brett: Yeah.
• 29:25
  Brett: Now, anybody that doesn't know, Main Street Theater is in Rice Village.
• 29:28
  Brett: Famously, not a lot of parking, and anything that is there, you kind of have to pay for a lot of times.
• 29:33
  Brett: Right.
• 29:34
  Brett: So it's it's premium.
• 29:36
  Brett: Usually, yeah, it's a premium.
• 29:38
  Brett: Parking is a premium.
• 29:39
  Brett: Um, usually they do these shows that have small casts.
• 29:42
  Brett: Main Street Theater is really known for that.
• 29:43
  Brett: This is a very aggressive show for them.
• 29:46
  Brett: I was really surprised that they're doing the regional premiere.
• 29:48
  Brett: But what do you think that this show says to today's world?
• 29:51
  Brett: I mean, that's what I always kind of wonder is like, why Leo Polstadt by Tom Stoppard now?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_06: For me, the message for this play for now is family is the most important thing.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_06: Having and keeping and surviving those family ties and those memories and remembering how people came through the generations, you know, struggling, how everyone has their own kind of generational struggle, some more than others.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_06: And for me, like in living in this day, in this time, and seeing researching my own ancestry, you know, going back.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_06: So I'm Mexican.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_06: I'm I'm Mexican American.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_06: So I think I'm a little different from some of the castmates I have here.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_06: Because I have a different experience, you know, growing up through the Mexican American culture, and we are very, you know, familiar.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_06: We have a huge family.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_06: I have a huge family.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_06: I have a huge, I'm I'm like one of like also 20 cousins.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_06: So this this this play is very much like my my family life.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_06: You know, we're we're very blended, all the in-laws come in, we celebrate Christmas and Easter and all that together.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_06: And so for me, it just it was uh just a reaffirming that you know no matter what happens, where we go, where we live, we're gonna we are a family.
• 30:59
  Brett: Well the and the play really goes into identity too.
• 31:01
  Brett: I think there is a lot about how the Jewish community became the Jewish community in here and the events of this these landmark years, obviously, uh and the impact on that.
• 31:12
  Brett: And I think it's a really interesting time to revive, not revive, I mean it's not that old of a play, but to bring this play right around because of everything that's happening in the world, period.
• 31:21
  Brett: I mean, it's almost like an epic time to do it.
• 31:24
  Brett: I mean, it's it's very interesting that that Becky's chosen this show to direct and bring to the main street stage and with this huge cast and everything else.
• 31:33
  Brett: Right.
• 31:33
  Brett: I think it's funny because my family is very small, and my husband he comes from a very large family.
• 31:38
  Brett: He comes from a Midwestern family, the the Ingalls family of Little House on the Fairy Fame.
• 31:43
  Brett: So, like I remember when I first went to his Thanksgiving and he had like 50 people there, and I was like, What is this?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_06: What does this happen?
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, yeah, we have some we have, yeah.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_06: People, I you know, when you bring newbies into the big family, you know, it's very, you know, I always go back to my my big fat Greek wedding is very good at capturing that story of just like the new person and and having to get to know all these names.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, so it's very much like that.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, for sure.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_06: But yeah.
• 32:07
  Brett: Well, tell me about you a little bit.
• 32:08
  Brett: How did you first get into acting?
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_06: Well, oh wow.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_06: Uh I was seven years old.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_06: I was a little thing.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_06: My cousin had, I think had gotten into it before, and they invited me just to come along tag along, you know, as as a little cousin.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_06: And I just, you know, I was always I was the oldest in my family, so I had little ones to play with.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_06: So I was a little older.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_06: So I was always into playing pretend.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_06: And so I found a place where I I wait, there's adults that do this like for a living, and you could like do this all day.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_06: So I kind of got into it that way.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, then I found music and got really into music.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_06: Then I got into musical theater and high school and and college.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_06: Um, so I and I just I just kind of oddly just kind of ran into it when I was really young and just exposed.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_06: I had great parents that really supported me.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, honestly, they support me to this day.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_06: So really fortunate in that, you know, very artistic parents, and uh was fortunate to have a career here in in town in Houston to support me.
• 33:00
  Brett: Yeah.
• 33:00
  Brett: One thing I think is uh really interesting, this play was it premiered in January of 2020, which will resonate with a lot of people what was going on that time.
• 33:08
  Brett: Something happened to you in the pandemic, right?
• 33:10
  Brett: I mean, you were living here.
• 33:11
  Brett: I was here in town.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_06: So yeah, some things happened in 2020.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_06: So uh I was here in town.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_06: I was, you know, planning it uh planning a move, a cross country move to Chicago, you know, and then the pandemic hit.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_06: And so uh, like many other artists uh in the nation, in the world, I had a full contract, a full year of contracts, slowly but surely they all sort of you know cancel and postpone and close, unfortunately.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_06: And so I was forced to uh to make my move now uh to move to Chicago in 2021.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_06: Completely changed careers to finance, completely went a different different way.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_06: How does that happen?
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_06: The pandemic happened.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_06: I was, you know, I was looking for something.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_06: Uh I'm 40 years old.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_06: I'm I'm over 40 now.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_06: Like I'm looking at retirement.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_06: I one day want to be in a home somewhere quiet watching Jeopardy.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_06: I don't I don't plan on working the rest of my days.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_06: So I was like, I uh unf as it is right now, theater is not a good retirement career for me, career choice for me.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_06: So I was looking for a career choice that would would would be stable no matter the political climate, no matter the the the health crisis that's happening today, it would survive.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_06: So finance was the one that called, and I just stuck, you know.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_06: That's kind of how it happened.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_06: That's wild.
• 34:24
  Brett: That's two different parts of your brain.
• 34:26
  Brett: I mean, that's you've completely done a 180.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_06: Well, you you have to be creative, have to uh be uh I'm I'm probably one of the I'm really good at you know being uh forward-facing, customer facing.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_06: I'm very good at talking, uh, clearly, I can talk.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_06: And so all those things that maybe uh I I could bring those tools with me to other places too.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_06: I think theater, theater people are trained to do whatever.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_06: If you're a theater person and you've done nine to five doing theater, teaching kids, all you can do anything, I believe.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_06: That's my opinion.
• 34:56
  Brett: Well, you know, it's funny because my parents were really worried that I was gonna major in theater when I went to college, and I didn't, but I did theater on the side and kind of did it that way.
• 35:05
  Brett: But honestly, the skills that I use in my day-to-day corporate world is theater.
• 35:10
  Brett: I mean presentation skills, yes, yeah, all of that, and talking in front of a group.
• 35:15
  Brett: No, okay, so let me ask you this.
• 35:17
  Brett: How do you identify?
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_06: I identify as queer non-binary.
• 35:20
  Brett: Okay, how did you get to that?
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_06: It is a journey.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_06: It is a journey, it is a journey.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_06: How do I uh queer?
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_06: I guess uh how do I get to queer?
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_06: Uh I guess I got to gay first.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_06: Maybe that was gay was like the the kind of this the stopping, the plateau, maybe.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, but then I can't get I guess I get I guess I um kept you know contemplating my my orientation and I just didn't feel like gayness was just enough.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_06: That's the laugh.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_06: But now I know I'm talking about it like, well, I guess the label just didn't encompass everything I felt inside.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_06: So um, yeah, and I might talk, but queer is you know, is queer is nice.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_06: I like it here.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_06: It's a nice open area, pasture where I can, you know, uh, you know, explore and have fun.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_06: And so I more than gay, you know, gay plus, you know, gay, gay extra, gay ultra, queer.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_06: I don't know.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_06: I don't that's um so that's how I got to that.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_06: Non-binary, you know, I I I definitely present masculine, I definitely present masculine.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_06: I have a full beard for the listeners.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_06: I have a full beard, uh, but I also have a full head of hair.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_06: The biggest story I take it to cast is like I have a full head of hair, you know, I have long hair, I have long flowy hair, it's gonna get lopped off so I can get passing straight man.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_06: So, yeah, for that, I don't feel complete like a 100% man, you know, uh, because I do feel like I there's elements, there's feminine elements I have that I love to express just in my day-to-day life.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_06: Like I don't I don't do drag, I don't do anything performance-wise feminine.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_06: But in my day-to-days, you know, I again I do dress masculine, but I do have I just don't, you know, I I don't know.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_06: I guess the label for me, again, is just open, playful, um, and the full experience also, just as a human.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_06: I just want to have the full experience, if I'm being very honest.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_06: You know, that's really where where it is for me.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_06: I don't want to be put into one side of just, you know, you're a man and you do this, you're a woman.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_06: So really that that non-binary queer just kind of is enough for me, is a big enough space for me, I guess.
• 37:18
  Brett: The vagueness of it just no, just oh, I'm teasing, of course.
• 37:22
  Brett: But um, no, I just I have envy that you have this full beard and this long hair.
• 37:26
  Brett: I mean, come on.
• 37:28
  Brett: This is insane.
• 37:29
  Brett: But you're actually cutting it for for Leopoldstadt?
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, it's going for Leopoldstadt.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_06: It is, it is getting, it's getting all it's well, I'm not cutting it all off.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_06: It's not getting buzzed down, but it's getting cut pretty short.
• 37:40
  Brett: Wow.
• 37:40
  Brett: You know, the things we do for art, I I just can't believe it.
• 37:43
  Brett: Now, you also uh worked in digital marketing and content creation and I did.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_06: Do you still do that or for myself, for my own personal Instagram?
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I do.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_06: I put it down.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_06: It, you know, uh I was in I was um producing for or YouTube, but not for YouTube, but I was producing uh a YouTube channel uh with some friends.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_06: We did reaction videos for Game of Thrones.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_06: Game of Thrones kind of ended again, the pandemic happened, so that kind of shook everything down.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_06: And we just I just kind of put it down, but I still produce for myself, I still make content just for me.
• 38:14
  Brett: Yeah, well, you know, Zach, you just said that um you put down digital creation during the pandemic.
• 38:19
  Brett: That's when most people picked it up, isn't it?
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_06: I had a podcast, I had a live show.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_06: I I was a trailblazer, okay?
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_06: I I created all that so you all could now use the brushes and the techniques that I taught everybody now.
• 38:33
  Brett: There you go.
• 38:33
  Brett: You can run because Zach walked.
• 38:36
  Brett: Right, right.
• 38:37
  Brett: Right into finance.
• 38:38
  Brett: Oh gosh.
• 38:39
  Brett: So how does this work with you living in Chicago?
• 38:42
  Brett: You got a job in finance, and you're doing a play here.
• 38:44
  Brett: I mean, what how do you manage that?
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_06: Uh uh, you know, what did Gaga say?
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_06: No sleep, next club, next show.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, just uh it's a tight schedule.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_06: I do a full eight, nine to five, uh, then I come to rehearsal, go to bed around 11, wake up, do it again.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_06: It's passion, I guess you could say.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_06: It's insanity sometimes.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_06: Coffee.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_06: It's um, you know, it's it's being away from stage for seven years is my return.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_06: I've done a play since I haven't done a play.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_06: I haven't done a show since the Book of Will here at Main Street, uh back in 2019 before the pandemic.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_06: So this is my like return.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_06: So yeah, I'm energized to like be on stage and I'm just excited.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_06: That's a lot I'm on.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_06: I'm gonna collapse in May.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_06: I got you.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_06: Well, do you have are you partnered?
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_06: I am not, no.
• 39:29
  Brett: Okay.
• 39:30
  Brett: No, I'm gonna collapse in May.
• 39:33
  Brett: Throwing that in the in the mix would be even more.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_06: I mean I can't I can't imagine.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_06: I honestly can't.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_06: I had I don't have the bandwidth, clearly.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_06: I can't imagine.
• 39:41
  Brett: Yeah.
• 39:42
  Brett: So do you think non-binary?
• 39:43
  Brett: Do you think that that helps with performance aspects?
• 39:47
  Brett: Have you played other genders or have you kind of used that in your arsenal?
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_06: Other genders, not seriously.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_06: Like, I haven't had a role that required me.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, no.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_06: I had I once I played there was a Sammy role in the wedding singer.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_06: That was a little fluid.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_06: Uh that was that was fun.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_06: He was fun.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_06: He was fun.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_06: But nothing like, um, but other than that, not really.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, do I play with it on like do I use it on stage?
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_06: I did it definitely informs me, you know, it definitely informs uh my perspective uh to to be able to see, you know, the full sometimes the full picture, right?
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_06: See like in this play, I identify this, these people are this isn't a matriarchal family for me.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_06: Like that's how I see this family.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_06: And I and I identify that with in my life as well.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_06: You know, my family is very matriarchal as well.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_06: So I feel like my non-binariness helps me kind of click into some of those things, allow those things to actually breathe in the space that it literally needs to materialize on stage.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_06: I don't, I don't, I don't feel the need to be machismal or feel powerful.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_06: I I could be a character that the wife makes all the money, you know.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_06: That's that's amazing.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_06: She's in a care for everything, and I can just do my math.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_06: That's amazing.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_06: That's so so fun, you know.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_06: So allowing myself just to have those kinds of roles, I think, or have that space really to play around.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 41:12
  Brett: Well, you are playing the character of Ludwig in the show, and famously kind of one of the more Tom Stoppard-ish characters.
• 41:18
  Brett: He he works really works with logic.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_06: Yes, yeah.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_06: Oh yeah, oh yeah.
• 41:22
  Brett: So I I guess if I'm gonna get somebody to play this part, I do want an actor that like drifted into finance eventually.
• 41:28
  Brett: So there you are.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_06: It's live imitating art, art imitating life.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_06: It's very parallel.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_06: Like he has some lines.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_06: I'm like, oh wow, I think.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_06: Do I say that in real life?
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_06: You know, do I do I I do talk like that?
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_06: And Becky was you know directing me, and I'm like, is she reading me or is she giving me direction?
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_06: And nothing, I mean, she didn't know, but it was very it's very uh parallel.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_06: It's he's very parallel to me for sure.
• 41:49
  Brett: Yeah.
• 41:50
  Brett: Well, I think that that happens a lot with actors.
• 41:52
  Brett: I think that we gravitate towards parts that are closer to us, and I don't know what that says when I look back on all the credits, but you know.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_06: Again, life imitating art or imitating life.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_06: I that's just it's just how it is, you know.
• 42:05
  Brett: There's something in you that the director saw the play that it absolutely is in the room.
• 42:10
  Brett: Lots of radiation.
• 42:10
  Brett: Uh-huh.
• 42:12
  Brett: Main Street theater, March 28th through April 26th, with a Fellini-esque cast of like hundreds of people or something crazy.
• 42:20
  Brett: I don't know how they're gonna fit in a Main Street theater, but that's I'm there to just witness that, basically.
• 42:25
  Brett: Only only one set in this, right?
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, it kind of one set.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_06: It's our it's our house, our home, our our our family home.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_06: You get to watch it over 50 years.
• 42:33
  Brett: Yeah, thank you, Tom Stoppard, for making that part easy.
• 42:36
  Brett: Right?
• 42:37
  Brett: Thank you, Tom Stoppard.
• 42:39
  Brett: Yes.
• 42:39
  Brett: But I'm very excited to see it because obviously, very important work.
• 42:43
  Brett: His last piece for the stage, and probably his most autobiographical.
• 42:47
  Brett: I know that his family was deeply affected by the Holocaust, and he had a lot of personal connections to this.
• 42:53
  Brett: So it's it'll be amazing to see you and the rest of the cast bring it to life and and talk to us and and thank you for sharing so much of yourself and refusing to be labeled.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_06: Give me space.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_06: All right, thank you, Breaklet.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you so much.
• 43:12
  Brett: Hi there, I'm Brett Cullum.
• 43:14
  Brett: And I am Lee Ingalls.
• 43:15
  Brett: And uh, we thought that we would talk about news stories that we were found that were interesting to our community.
• 43:20
  Brett: So kind of a new thing for queer voices, but we thought we'll catch up with the news a little bit.
• 43:25
  Lee: These stores are hopefully will reflect where we are right now and where things may be headed next.
• 43:31
  Lee: Uh, first up, we wanted to talk about shopping.
• 43:33
  Lee: That's one thing that that I like to do.
• 43:35
  Lee: But being queer and shopping is more than just buying the product, it's also supporting the people, uh, the building, something, our LGBTQ plus community.
• 43:44
  Lee: Often uh, you know, that's where I look first.
• 43:47
  Lee: And that support can be critical.
• 43:48
  Lee: Many of us, the LGBTQ plus entrepreneurs, don't have access to traditional funding streams uh like the large scale distribution does.
• 43:57
  Lee: Uh, visibility matters and support.
• 44:00
  Lee: Matters from us.
• 44:01
  Brett: And so the idea behind this LGBTQ Outpost, which is a new curated marketplace powered by the team that does sites like Queerity, LGBTQ Nation, Gay Cities, Outsports, and Into, instead of kind of bringing it up during Pride or coming up with an event, like around rainbow merch season, LGBTQ Outpost focuses on year-round visibility for these queer-owned brands and allies and kind of lets you know who's inclusive and who you want to do business with.
• 44:29
  Brett: Right.
• 44:30
  Lee: So again, the the business is LGBTQ Outpost, is what you should look for.
• 44:36
  Lee: They partnered with more than 35 brands across different options: apparel, coffee, skincare, home goods, and much more.
• 44:44
  Lee: It ranges from small home-based makers to globally recognized labels.
• 44:48
  Lee: And this, what ties them together, isn't just a product or identity, lived experience.
• 44:54
  Lee: It's the community and storytelling embedded in what they're creating.
• 44:57
  Lee: Now there's a noticeable focus on coffee, surprisingly, skincare and candles as well.
• 45:02
  Lee: And of course, you can't leave out underwear.
• 45:04
  Lee: So it's worth looking, taking a look at and supporting them.
• 45:07
  Lee: It's a community-driven business.
• 45:09
  Brett: Of course it's underwear and candles.
• 45:11
  Brett: What the heck?
• 45:12
  Brett: But we also want to remind you that you want to support our local businesses as well.
• 45:16
  Brett: And this outpost site is mainly around national businesses.
• 45:20
  Brett: But if you want to be local, and please do, the Houston LGBTQ Plus Chamber website will list uh people in the Houston area.
• 45:28
  Brett: And you can find them at www.houston LGBTchamber.com.
• 45:35
  Brett: Yes.
• 45:35
  Brett: Now one of the things that we always talk about is like travel and maybe what countries are friendly right now to the LGBTQ plus community.
• 45:43
  Brett: Of course, I'm not sure if you want to go on a travel given the um TSA lines and all of the stuff that's going on, but we thought, hey, we would give you some ideas of countries that are are pretty friendly.
• 45:55
  Lee: Right, right, right.
• 45:55
  Lee: So we talk about this all the time because we travel quite a bit, and we do want to travel to places where we uh feel safe uh and secure.
• 46:02
  Lee: We can be together as a couple and don't have to be afraid of uh what we might experience.
• 46:06
  Lee: So some of the the countries that we found at the top of the list consistently uh were Canada, Sweden, and the Nevermore Netherlands.
• 46:14
  Lee: Um and they ranked high because of their legal protections and the widespread public acceptance.
• 46:21
  Lee: Malta, surprisingly, is also a standout.
• 46:24
  Lee: It's often cited as having some strongest LGBTQ rights in the world.
• 46:29
  Lee: Uh so that was good to know.
• 46:30
  Lee: That was good to find out.
• 46:31
  Brett: Yeah.
• 46:32
  Brett: And it's all about legal protections for our community.
• 46:35
  Brett: And other top countries include Norway, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, is really good.
• 46:40
  Brett: These are all known for equality laws.
• 46:43
  Brett: They have same-sex marriage rights and anti-discriminatory protections.
• 46:47
  Brett: But you know, it's not just about laws, it's about how people are treated from day to day in workplaces, schools, public life.
• 46:52
  Brett: Are they accepting?
• 46:53
  Lee: Are they open to our community?
• 46:55
  Lee: Right.
• 46:56
  Lee: We're we're always conscious of that uh when we travel, especially outside the country.
• 46:59
  Lee: Uh, and right now, as you said, the traveling is difficult.
• 47:02
  Lee: We're not going to go anywhere outside the country right away.
• 47:05
  Lee: But while the progress is happening globally, the experience of us can vary widely, just as you said, uh uh depending on the region, culture, politics, that can all play a part in what our experience looks like.
• 47:15
  Brett: Yeah, and even at home, though, there's a lot of uh discrimination as well.
• 47:19
  Brett: And it seems like we just get a new blow every week.
• 47:22
  Brett: A federal judge in Oregon announced on uh March 19th that he would block a move by the U.S.
• 47:29
  Brett: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F.
• 47:31
  Brett: Kennedy, a junior.
• 47:32
  Brett: He had planned to restrict gender-affirming care for minors.
• 47:35
  Brett: So that was a great win on our side for once.
• 47:38
  Brett: U.S.
• 47:38
  Brett: District Judge Mustafa Kasubahae, he ruled that the declaration issued by RFK Jr.
• 47:44
  Brett: in December 2025, and that basically sought to ban Medicaid and Medicare funding for gender-affirming care for children was unlawful.
• 47:52
  Brett: It violated proper administrative procedures and exceeded his authority.
• 47:56
  Brett: So, I mean, and really, I don't know how he thought that he had authority in this.
• 48:01
  Lee: Uh because most of the time.
• 48:03
  Lee: Yeah.
• 48:04
  Lee: Um, well, we could go on about that uh issue, but yeah, so the medical standards typically are determined by professional organizations and clinical research, not by political appointees.
• 48:15
  Lee: Uh, for now, access care remains protected in some states where it hasn't already been banned, but uh, this is likely not the final chapter on this issue.
• 48:24
  Brett: And certainly it's it's hard because you're telling parents what to do with their children and you're telling medical professionals what they can do with their patients.
• 48:32
  Brett: I just I don't get it.
• 48:33
  Brett: You know, we we look at surgeries for the trans community, especially with the younger trans community, and they're not usually irreversible surgeries performed on kids or children.
• 48:43
  Brett: I mean, this seems like a real overreach and overstep.
• 48:46
  Brett: And it is gender-affirming care is linked to less suicide and and greater mental health and happiness and things like that.
• 48:54
  Brett: So it does seem like a reach for that.
• 48:57
  Brett: Yeah, it does.
• 48:57
  Brett: It does.
• 48:58
  Brett: I don't get it.
• 48:59
  Brett: I don't know why we're allowing the government to say what we can do with our kids and with our patients.
• 49:03
  Brett: Yeah.
• 49:04
  Lee: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 49:05
  Lee: So more to come on that issue, uh, it kind of changes the subject a little bit, something a little bit more positive in sports.
• 49:12
  Lee: Um, our LGBT plus athletes made history at the Winter Game, uh, Winter Olympics.
• 49:17
  Lee: At the Milano uh Cortina games, 49 uh athletes were identified as out.
• 49:22
  Lee: And of those 49, 19 of them took uh home medals.
• 49:26
  Lee: Uh that's more than any previous winter game, showing a growing visibility and success in the queer athletes around the world.
• 49:32
  Brett: And you know, representation matters here because we're talking about sports.
• 49:35
  Brett: And if you see our athletes succeed at uh a higher level, that helps kind of normalize LGBTQ plus identities and spaces that, frankly, have not always been very inclusive for us.
• 49:47
  Brett: It also kind of sends a message that to younger athletes that they don't have to hide who they are to compete.
• 49:53
  Brett: I mean, I think that that's always been kind of a stigma way back when that we really didn't have as many out athletes.
• 49:59
  Brett: Right, right.
• 49:59
  Brett: We weren't there.
• 50:00
  Brett: We weren't seen.
• 50:01
  Brett: Right.
• 50:02
  Brett: So we had some gold medalists.
• 50:03
  Brett: We had Breezy Johnson from the USA, who won women's downhill skiing.
• 50:07
  Brett: We've got Amber Glenn also from uh the USA figure skating team event.
• 50:12
  Brett: We had a guy from France that did ice dancing.
• 50:15
  Brett: We had Mathilda Grimaud, who is a women's free ski slope style, and also uh we had women's ice hockey, of course.
• 50:24
  Brett: Hillary Knight was a member of our community, Alex Carpenter, uh, and Kayla Barnes were all on the team.
• 50:30
  Lee: Yeah, Carolyn Harvey as well.
• 50:32
  Lee: Yeah.
• 50:32
  Lee: So congratulations to all of them.
• 50:34
  Lee: We're not gonna read the entire list, but those were the gold medalists that uh that took home.
• 50:38
  Lee: So congratulations to them and all the medal winners.
• 50:40
  Lee: And and to all of them, whether they're gay or not, congratulations of our visibility is is something that we don't see often, and we're glad to see it here.
• 50:48
  Lee: Are you gonna miss the the Olympics?
• 50:50
  Lee: Are you a bit junkie on that?
• 50:52
  Lee: No.
• 50:52
  Lee: I know a lot of people that are.
• 50:54
  Lee: I mean, I like to watch it some, but I don't I can't say that.
• 50:57
  Brett: I am a big ice skating fan.
• 50:58
  Brett: I mean, that's uh that's the biggest thing for me for winter Olympics.
• 51:01
  Brett: Yeah, yeah, no, I like that too.
• 51:02
  Lee: Yeah.
• 51:03
  Lee: Um okay, then on to something again, not quite so positive.
• 51:06
  Lee: The Supreme Court and conversion therapy.
• 51:09
  Lee: Um, they are going to revisit that again and put it back in the spotlight.
• 51:13
  Lee: They're supposed to make a ruling in this summer, summer of 2020, in a case out of Colorado.
• 51:18
  Brett: The case involves a therapist.
• 51:20
  Brett: Uh, her name is Kaylee Childs, and uh she's challenging the state's ban on conversion therapy because in Colorado it is not legal to do this to minors, claiming that it violates basically free speech.
• 51:33
  Brett: And Colorado law doesn't stop therapists from discussing identity, but it specifically bans efforts to press their youth into changing their sexual orientation or their gender identity, whichever one that they align with.
• 51:46
  Brett: So it's interesting.
• 51:48
  Lee: Yeah, yeah, it is.
• 51:49
  Lee: You know, major medical organizations, including the American Usychiatric Association, uh, the American Medical Association, have condemned conversion therapy uh and labeled it as harmful, harmful.
• 52:00
  Lee: The research has linked it to increased rates of depression, anxiety, suicide attempts.
• 52:06
  Lee: It can also lead to long-term trauma, including shame, family conflict, and a disconnect from support systems, which, you know, even though we I didn't go through conversion therapy, I think there was something in place at the time when I was that young.
• 52:20
  Lee: But you do know the isolation, or I know the isolation.
• 52:22
  Lee: You certainly do.
• 52:23
  Lee: They try to put you in it.
• 52:24
  Brett: Yes, I was actually kind of looked at Love and Action as a program that was highly suggested to me.
• 52:31
  Brett: But uh, you know, the United Nations weighed in on this and they compared the practice to basically torture.
• 52:36
  Brett: Yeah.
• 52:36
  Brett: So advocates say uh that this case it really could have some wide implications in how states regulate this kind of uh mental health care, which it's it's not care.
• 52:46
  Brett: I mean, obviously.
• 52:47
  Brett: So that's uh it's disturbing that it's coming back around.
• 52:50
  Brett: I mean, I feel like we've gone through so much with conversion care.
• 52:52
  Brett: Yep, yep, I agree.
• 52:54
  Brett: Okay, so finally a historic moment in Europe, another good news moment.
• 52:58
  Lee: Yes, yes.
• 52:58
  Lee: So Poland, surprisingly, has recognized same gender marriage for the first time.
• 53:04
  Lee: The case involved a Polish couple who actually got married in Berlin, Berlin, Germany, uh, because it's illegal.
• 53:10
  Lee: They won't issue the marriage certificate in Poland uh in 2018.
• 53:14
  Lee: They faced refusal of the registration when they moved back to Warsaw or went back to Warsaw.
• 53:18
  Lee: Uh, while Poland still doesn't issue the same gender marriage license, it will now recognize marriages performed in other EU countries.
• 53:27
  Lee: Um, this follows a broader European ruling uh requiring member states to recognize such uh marriages.
• 53:33
  Lee: So, yeah, it could signal uh growing momentum for the LGBTQ plus rights in the more conservative parts of Europe.
• 53:41
  Brett: Yeah.
• 53:41
  Brett: Yeah.
• 53:42
  Brett: Well, it's a great win for them because it kind of chips away at this whole thing.
• 53:46
  Brett: Yeah.
• 53:46
  Brett: And Poland not allowing gay marriage to happen.
• 53:49
  Brett: Now it has to recognize other countries' unions.
• 53:52
  Brett: So it's a good thing.
• 53:53
  Brett: It's almost like our state-to-state, I think, at the federal level, why it's so important to have it uh federally.
• 53:57
  Brett: I recognize here in the United States.
• 53:59
  Brett: Another thing I wanted to bring up today marks one week of the Texas drag ban, which was also known as Senate built wealth.
• 54:06
  Brett: It went into effect as of March 18th, and it prohibits sexually oriented performances on public property or in the presence of minors.
• 54:16
  Brett: Now it targets performances featuring obviously nudity is one of those, any kind of simulated sexual acts, and the use of prosthetic enhancements.
• 54:26
  Brett: So uh a lot of our drag community uses those.
• 54:29
  Brett: Violations can lead to$10,000 in fines, class A misdemeanors, charges for the performers, the businesses, but uh it had been declared unconstitutional.
• 54:39
  Brett: So we thought we had won, but this whole thing resurfaced.
• 54:42
  Brett: And I I talked last week with drag queen and Texas basically law expert, Violets are blue, and uh she broke down that the thing is super hard to enforce.
• 54:53
  Brett: The language around this is just not, it doesn't really define any of this very well.
• 54:57
  Lee: And I don't think the bars are gonna be uh Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 55:01
  Lee: It seems to be aimed at public spaces and and to your point, it's hard to define.
• 55:07
  Lee: They have to define it as sexual and aimed at kids who are present or can could see it visually.
• 55:13
  Brett: And I don't know the last time that I saw a baby in a bar watching a drag show.
• 55:16
  Brett: I mean, that's just it's not gonna happen.
• 55:18
  Brett: I think the biggest thing is is it questions kind of like a pride uh event.
• 55:22
  Brett: Right.
• 55:23
  Brett: But I think that we're okay there because if you bring your child to an event that you know there is going to be drag at, you know, it's your thing.
• 55:30
  Brett: I mean, it's your your parents' decision and your parental right to bring them into that kind of a environment.
• 55:35
  Brett: So that's gonna be a big question.
• 55:36
  Brett: And going forward in pride, that's gonna be a huge one.
• 55:38
  Brett: Yep, yeah, there'll be more to come on that for sure.
• 55:41
  Brett: Yeah.
• 55:41
  Brett: It's uh very questionable, but I'm just surprised that it's there.
• 55:44
  Brett: And that's what bothers me is it's it's there, it's on the books, and it's ready to go, even though it was considered unconstitutional earlier.
• 55:52
  Brett: Yeah.
• 55:52
  Brett: I mean, how do you feel about Texas resurrecting something that was already said?
• 55:55
  Lee: It violates free speech.
• 55:57
  Lee: I know, I know.
• 55:57
  Lee: I mean, I just don't get it.
• 55:59
  Lee: But you know, it's a journey.
• 56:00
  Lee: Like I said, this is gonna continue to be an issue.
• 56:03
  Lee: I expect at some point in time this is gonna be reversed because it does.
• 56:06
  Lee: It limits people's ability to earn a living.
• 56:09
  Lee: And the drag shows that we go to certainly are not sexual by any means.
• 56:14
  Lee: And I know that the performers don't make a ton of money.
• 56:16
  Brett: I mean, trying to screw them or to give them a$10,000 pie.
• 56:19
  Brett: Right.
• 56:20
  Brett: You're never gonna get it.
• 56:21
  Brett: That just seems wild.
• 56:22
  Brett: Yeah.
• 56:23
  Brett: Well, okay, so we did this as an experiment.
• 56:25
  Brett: We are trying something new here.
• 56:27
  Brett: We're certainly not journalists, but we wanted to take a look at the news and not just the bad stuff, but the good stuff too.
• 56:32
  Brett: I mean, don't you think?
• 56:33
  Lee: Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.
• 56:34
  Lee: You've heard me say it before.
• 56:35
  Lee: We don't often take the time to pat ourselves on the back when we do something good, or there's actually good news out there.
• 56:41
  Lee: So, yes, we want to have stories that that we actually can feel good about and take pride in.
• 56:45
  Lee: Yeah.
• 56:46
  Lee: As well as those that are more difficult to take.
• 56:48
  Lee: Exactly.
• 56:49
  Brett: So we will keep you updated as things develop with things like SB12, the whole fight for transgender treatment of younger community members, and of course, any time that we excel in sports, we'll be there.
• 56:59
  Brett: And if we have any resources or anything like that, like the outpost site in the greater Houston LGBTQ chamber.
• 57:06
  Brett: Yes.
• 57:06
  Brett: Yeah.
• 57:07
  Brett: You've been listening to Queer Voices, and I am Brett Cullum.
• 57:10
  Brett: This show is made by a collective of volunteers, and it airs on KPFT, which is a listener-funded station.
• 57:16
  Brett: Please consider making a donation to it on its website, kpft.org.
• 57:22
  Brett: Tonight we heard from Jacob Newsom.
• 57:24
  Brett: Jacob can also be found on his podcast, The Power of the Narrative.
• 57:29
  Brett: Lee Ingalls can be found on his and my podcast, Prairie Rainbow Review.
• 57:34
  Brett: Our executive producer is Brian Flavinka, and Deborah Monk Creepel is a producer along with me.
• 57:40
  Brett: If you would like to volunteer for Queer Voices, please reach out to any of us on social media.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is KPFT 90.1 FM Houston, 89.5 FM Galveston, 91.9 FM Huntsville, and worldwide on the internet at KPFT.org.