Latest / To All the Men I've Tolerated Before / Queerness in a Religiously Devout Household

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Queerness in a Religiously Devout Household · To All the Men I've Tolerated Before

• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Hey, tolerators, this is to all the men I've tolerated
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: before with Namily Katona, your weekly look at everyday misogyny.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Okay, everybody, get ready for it.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: I am so happy today we have someone on the
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: podcast today who is family, a dear friend, an artist,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: and the reason why Christ Rosa is so lucky and
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: probably so nice and kind. We are talking to Hassan Khan,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: and we're going to be talking about living in a
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: family that was very devout and growing up queer within
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: that family, and gender norms and all of it.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Because I don't know, sometimes.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: We're just a very queer podcast, and misogyny hits queerness
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: so hard. Hassan, this is gonna be so fun. Thank
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: you for being here.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's such an honor to be here. I
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: appreciate that introduction. I just want to say I think
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: Chris de Rosa is definitely nicer because I'm in the picture. Yes, However,
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: I feel like I'm more honest because he's in the
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: picture for me, So I hope to bring that honesty
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: to this podcast.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: It's a balance. It's a balance.
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, it is.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: Chris de Rosa.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Well Number one, I crashed Chris de Rosa and Hassan's
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: last trip, well, probably not the last trip that you
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: guys were in LA, but when we went to LA
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: in December and Chris was like, I'll be in LA
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: in December, and I just went me too, and I
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: made it happen. So I got to meet Hassan and
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: I had a beautiful day in the Academy Museum. I
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: think other people were there, who's to.
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: Say it really is truly us? And and that was
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: that's a lot, because that's a lot. That's saying a
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: lot because I think later in the evening, Bradley Cooper
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: and Lady Gaga were to arrive, and yet we felt
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: like we were the only ones who were supposed to
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: be there. Yes, and every single turn of the John
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: Waters exhibition, We're like, oh my god, oh my god.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: I'm like, this explains why I'm so queer. Yeah, I
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: don't know, like all the John Waters references and the
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: inspiration that he gave to a lot of other people's works.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Yes, well, I was just watching.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: So I've been rewatching a lot of drag Race because
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: I'm currently in an area where I haven't enmeshed myself
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: in the queer community and so I was like, I
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: missed drag. I used to go to Drag Brunch once
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: a month, and so I was like, I gotta just
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: be watching Rue, I guess, And they just did the
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: John Waters episode. And it is so because I was
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: a kid watching John Waters, like not actually understanding the
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: type of culture that I was coming into.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: So then to put that.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: All full circle on a trip to California that I
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: myself invited myself too and then told everyone, this is
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: for my birthday. I don't know why you all showed
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: up to California, but I did for my birthday.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: We love to celebrate, we love to celebrate.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I love that exhibit.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: I love Hairspray, I love cry Baby despite Johnny Depp.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Now, yeah, divine all of it.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: I too, liked the The interesting thing about that experience
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: for me and reliving John Waters at a museum for
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: the Academy, it was like realizing that a lot of
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: these things I watched either in secret I had my
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: finger on the button to go back to another screen
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: in case, another channel in case someone walked into it,
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: and observing other culture. Like at the time, I didn't
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: even feel like I could beat these people. But it
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: was so curious to me that I was like, it
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: was like I felt other. How I go and think
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: about that boy, that person watching it when I was younger,
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: and it's like, oh no, like I was taking a
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: peek into the window, like it wasn't it was a
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: peek into the window before I walked into the house,
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: and I didn't even know that was where I was
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: going at all. Like it was just even you know,
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: growing up in a Muslim family, it is not something
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: that people take lightly. However, there are gay people, There
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: are so many queer people, there are people who are trans.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: I don't know if they all identify Muslim, but there
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: are people that I've known that have identified that way.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: And it was just it's such a weird thing to
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: watch things like that and to be an immigrant because
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: my family came to the country in the early nineties
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: and I was born in Pakistan and I came when
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: I was like a nine month old, and you know,
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: I guess John Waters is the shoehorn for what we're
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: talking about, which is like just queerness and seeing that
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: kind of stuff, all of it that was not Pakistani
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: or a Muslim was seeing deemed other and deemed as
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: you observe, you never absorb. Yeah, Like that was the
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: way it was taught to me, Like, hey, like you
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: would you know, watch MTV and like I do only
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: get to watch it if a friend came over and
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: like they asked my mom and hey can we watch
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: this channel? And I'm like, go, ask her to watch
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: the Spice Girls please, because if I said it, she'd
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: be like, what are you doing. That's like, you know,
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: blasphemy or something or yeah.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well okay, So give us a little more background
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: about your family and the area that you emmigrated to
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: and where you kind of grew up in the United States,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: because geography plays a huge role in that experience too.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely. So it's so I grew up with like myself,
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: my mom, my father, who like left when I was
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: at early high school, early teenage years. And then I
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: had a brother, and I have a brother and a sister,
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: and we grew up in the armput of the world,
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: like New York City, New Jersey. It's literally like my
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: family is a classic immigrant family, Like I have currently
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: family that I have lived that live in Brooklyn, Queens,
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: Long Island, Staten Island, and New Jersey. And so we've
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: just kind of done that entire scope. However, growing up,
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: my father kept us the furthest away from our family.
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: And I don't know really why the intentions are behind
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: that were, but it let me be around a lot
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: of other people growing up. I'd say two about like
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: twelve that were not really Muslim like or they were
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: just I lived in a neighborhood that was full of
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: immigrant families. Like some of my closest friends growing up
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: until I moved from there were from like Laos, they
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: were Russian. One of the families was like an Egyptian
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: family that was like So, I grew up with all
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: these different families that were different from us, and they
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: never we never really talked about it. I grew up
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: in a family that wasn't really religious, and I think
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: it's because my parents. I love them, I loved having them,
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: but they were like, we're not raising you, like this
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: is what you're supposed to do. Go figure out how
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: to become the doctor, Go figure out how to finance
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: the rest of our lives. Like they didn't give me
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: a runway, they didn't give me the structure. I think
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: that I see a lot of other parents give their
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: children As an adult, like, my mom never sat with
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: us to be like, here's get your homework done. Can
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: I help you? It was kind of like you're getting
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: a's right.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Oh my gosh. I had a very similar experience.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: By sister and I were talking about this at dinner
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: on Saturday, and she was like, you know, the wildest
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: part about mom and dad was that they didn't want
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: to hover over us until it mattered, Like all of
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: a sudden, they're statying our report card and like, where
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: did this bus come from? I feel like you could
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: have bet been better? She goes, But the day to day,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: like the asking if your homework's done.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: What do your classes look like? What are your interests?
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: By sister came home with like a portrait drawing from
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: an art class. My sister took a bunch of drawing
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: classes in high school and my mom found one one
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: day and she's like, who did this?
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: And it always like I did for a class, and she.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Went when could you? When did you learn how to draw?
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: She's like wow, and it's so I feel like that's
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: a very big ur generational thing where like all of
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: a sudden, our parents were like we can't handle jobs
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: and emotional intelligence and you kids, and like my mom
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: personally was like emotionally and mentally.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: Exhausted due to some other.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Life things and marriage things that we didn't find out
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: until we were older.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: Ooh you were Thank you for sharing that, because I
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: feel like it normalizes like even just it coming from
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: the lens of being an immigrant, it also comes from
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: a lens of like financial stability. Like I'm not sure
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: whether your family grew up wealthy or not, but my
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: family we struggle, like oftentimes, like my mom was the
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: only breadwinner after my dad left, and so she couldn't
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: carry all that weight. And with that being said, I
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: never said I needed those things to her, you know,
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: like those were not needs that I even knew how
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: to express. It just makes me wonder. I don't even
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: know if I want to go down that road, but
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: like who would I be if I had that stuff?
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: You know, Like it doesn't really matter, because I love
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: who I am now and I love the life I've
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: got to build, and it all came from the way
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: that my mom did raise me, or the way the
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: structure my mom gave me. Like I'm an independent thinker.
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: I often get told at work that they people love
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: the way that I think, because sometimes it's not the
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: same way that everyone else around me does.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, on my worst days, I do walk down that
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: road where I'm like, what if I had grown up
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: thinking that I would be good at any job, and
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: instead I believe that I was good at nothing because
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: no one was telling me that I was good at anything.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: So I was like, what do people who have like
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: no fancy skills do? And then I settled, I'll be
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: a teacher to children because I can talk a lot
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: and I know how to read, and.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, those are the things that centered around you.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: But I would also say that, like you would offer
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: such a safety to the children, and I think that
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: is such an important thing to give to children as
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: they get older or as they're living through life and
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: exploring and being curious. And those are some of the
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: things that I feel like can be rephrased. And what
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: we're saying is that we, you know, we had a
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: safety to explore. But sometimes it wasn't met with like
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: encouragement or curiosity as to why are you and why
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: are you into that? For me oftentimes, like when I
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: was really into music, my family was like, that's the
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: devil's work, Like you can't be doing that. Don't be
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: listening to that. Like, you know, my mom and my
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: dad never really cared about artwork for me either, And
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: as an adult now I realized that's one of the
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: reasons why I never really pursued it. And you know,
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: a couple of years ago or almost two, i'd say
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: I was just dawned on my I was like, I
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: have an adult money and I can do anything I
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: want with it. Like during the pandemic, I taught myself
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: how to do oil paint. And that's because one of
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: my art teachers in high school was like, hey, we
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: can't really use this in class. I love the work
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: that you do. Take all this paint, and she gave
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: me like twenty tubes of paint and I carried it
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: around to every place I ever live, not using it.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: Chris DeRosa himself has moved it from apartment to apartment
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: for me, and then during the pandemic, I just stared
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: at them, being like, I guess I'm gonna do this.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: But it was so nice to return to something that
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: you really enjoyed, but to circle back or just to
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: kind of put a cap on it. I think it
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: was one of the things I never really explored because
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: I don't think anyone around me really cared about it
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: like I love doing it. And I think as a child,
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: I wanted people to want me to like do it
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: more because I was so used to everyone else validating
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: everything else that I was doing, being a good brother
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: or being like, I don't know, a devout Muslim, a
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: good Muslim, or a good kid, or feeling like you
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: were a good friends. Those things didn't feel the same
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: way when I was making art. And I think that's
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: such a simple way of kind of describing it. I'm
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: sure there's so many layers to it, but as an
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: adult returning back to it, I mean a painted on
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: the island for those I don't know if we said this,
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: but I'm in Kawaii, so it just feels lovely to
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: be out here. And I told myself, I'm going to
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: teach myself out of watercolor. I've made a couple of
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: water colors this when I was growing up, and I
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: never really explored it. It's kind of a really finnicky medium,
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: and I was like, fuck it, I'm just going to
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: come out here, and I use some of the Kawhi
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: in water, which feels poetic yes, and put some color
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: on paper. I'm just gonna put marks on paper. That's
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: how I see it. That's the only way I can
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: get it through that. Otherwise I get too much in
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: my head and I never really want to do anything.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: Are you the oldest child? Is that why we have
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: such oldest child energy? Yeah, look at us.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: I am one hundred percent of the oldest child.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: I so taking these screenwriting classes that I've been taking,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: I watch so many people get bogged down on like
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: how do I make sure my idea is worthy? How
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: do I make sure that my logline is perfect? How
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: many things go into an outline? And I put in
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: like the like because all of these are online, So
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: I put on in the little group chat. I was like, hey, everybody,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: I'm on like year four of trying things that I
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: never thought i'd try. So I tell myself every time
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: I sit down to write something down that fet like,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: this is all play until someone wants to pay.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: Me for work.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Like, and that's kind of been my motto, Like your
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: outline honestly gets to look like what your outline looks.
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: Like you honestly hit it on the nail. I think
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: it is all play. And I think when people think
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: this is like their next big screenplay, or this is
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: their next big piece that they're gonna sell, or you
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: were already ruined it. Like Rick Rubin came out with
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: that book to create it act and it's next to
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: my bets and I read it very slowly because a
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: he's so hippie. He's like the epitome of like he
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: like did like I don't know, I think he was
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: like the CEO or the head producer or something at
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: like some music label. And I'm having a difficult time
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: remembering it. But essentially he's really accomplished, is like was
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: responsible for like I think, like, hell of what's the
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: what's the band redhowk Sleet Peppers, Like he's worked with
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: Kanye West and like all these like big names and
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: help them create. And then I was reading it and
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: he said I'm not a musician, and and like I
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: was like, okay, Like this is an interesting perspective and
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: all this to say. One of the things he says
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: is like you're never making anything. You are just making
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: a journal entry. He's like, if you ever think it's
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: more than a journal entry, and that word journal entry
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: is vague enough to be anything He's like, if it's
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: ever more than a general entry, you already killed the idea. Yeah,
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: you're not making your number one hit, You're not making
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: anything like that. You're literally just making adrenalin try because
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: guess what, when you don't like it, you can turn
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: the page and start over again. It's something that's precious. Yeah. Yeah.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: I had an art teacher once that like made us
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: paint something and then made us all rip it up afterwards,
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: just to be like, hey, like you can make this again.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: This thing that you just made isn't the thing that
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: can It's you're the creator, right, which is so interesting.
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: I mean like leading into the conversation in the way
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: I kind of wanted to go, whereas like talking about creator,
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: the higher power of God and Allah. Like it's something
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: that I feel like as an adult, I'm constantly like
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: working my way through it and my relationships. A lot
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: of had been defined by religion. I think that's the
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: common practice as people who grew up in America or
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: people who grew up in loligious families, Like your identity
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: often includes that layer of it, and you know, for
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: all kinds of purposes. If my family's listening to this,
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: I am a Muslim, because they have made it pretty
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: clear that if I ever denounced that that their love
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: for me is conditional and it may change, and that's
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: really fucked up. So I'm just going to say that
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: on record so they don't ever think that whatever I
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: say after this doesn't feel like I'm questioning my faith
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: in Allah, because it's uncomfortable to even think about it
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: that way. It's also fear based religion in which I
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: don't like. And I've said this to them multiple times.
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: Whatever problems you have with me and the way I'm behaving,
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: the way that I am, I'm going to meet my
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: I'm going to meet my own maker and I'll have
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: that conversation with him. You don't have to carry that burden.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what did.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: So in my house growing up, like I was a
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: kid growing up with my mom has a huge family,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Like her side of the family is huge. My grandfather
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: was one of eight and like everyone stayed in that area,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: and so like, of course I have gay cousins, and
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: of course now I am a gay cousin. But it
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: was always you did it as like one of those
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: themes that we know but we like. But you can't
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: make a big deal about it because it's going to
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: make like dad uncomfortable, Like we don't talk about what
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Johnny's doing with his partner at home and whether or
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: not their life is lovely.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you know, it's really funny because it's like
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: I guess for my family, tolerance was something I had
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: to teach them. My mom comes from a big family too.
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: I just want to say that she's one of nine
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: and my my dad's had of the family. I think
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: he was like one of six or one of seven.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: I did never really got close to a lot of them.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: And mind you, like my family immigrated here, so half
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: of her siblings were on another continent, another time zone.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: There's so many people in my family that I've yet
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: to meet Slash. They've only ever held me as a child,
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: as a baby. Yeah, the back of my head is
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: so beautiful because my mind, my mom said that was
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: ever put down. So I've never had a chance to
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: get flat. So I was very loved. But all of
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: us to say is that, like I told my mom that,
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: I told my mom one day that I was the
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: gay person that we know of. No one else had
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: a chance to ever come out. Like I feel like
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: it's one of those things where it's so nice to
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: have get other gay people in our family or in
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: your family, I'm sure, because you have a chance to
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: kind of connect and there's a way to you know,
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: have deeper bonds using empathy and understanding perspective. However, like
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: on my side of the family, I was the only one.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: I often feel like I am the black sheep. I'm
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: the one who I don't know does everything the way
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: that I want to help. With that being said, I
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: think my siblings also are becoming their own identities and
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: doing things on their own that they like. And I'm
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: not here to question that because I've done that stuff already.
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: Where I was like, you know, you have your own will,
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: You're able to do your own things.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when we were talking about well number one, we
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: were supposed to be talking about Southern Christianity, specifically with
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: my friend who lives in the South, and instead I
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: had like a religious trauma spiral and we ended up
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: talking about my recovering Catholicism And I told my friend
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: I was like, I think God and my dad convinced
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: me accidentally that I shouldn't date women, but they like
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: never said it out loud. I think they just convinced
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: me it would be bad.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you're absolutely right. That's exactly how I felt too,
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: as a gay person or as a queer person. I
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: identify as queer. I think I even also feel like
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: I grew up in a way like that. I explored
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: being with women and almost prayed myself straight in a
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: way like wanting that experience and also not letting that
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: let down happen. It was such a that is very
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: similar regardless of faith. I think, I don't know, like
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: I've tried. And then like the reason I came out
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: of the closet was like the person I was dating,
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: I couldn't love her the same way that she loved me,
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: and it was hard. Yeah, and that caused me to
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: have to be introspective. I also was taking like a
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: gender race sexuality class with this really really like let's
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: just say he was just serving cut the whole time
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: in class, Like he had this beautiful pow. He would
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: like hold his hand to the side and ask us
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: like like what do you guys think I want to hear?
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: We have to think, like tell me and we're like
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: reading books and it was like I think it was
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: like English and gender or something or that's what the
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: class covered, and it could have just been an English
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: one on one class, god knows what it was. But
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: this professor was really a part of my journey with
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: it because I think he made us read Running with
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: Scissors and like that is a queer book in itself.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: Although he doesn't really talk about being gay. He grows
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: up in a in a family that's so unstructured and
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: it's something that he explores later because he never really
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: had the place explort when he was younger. He was
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: just being himself.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: Because that's very much how I feel. I feel like I.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Was like, you know, you have a childhood and technically
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: every day is a playground in your parents. Like my
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: parents were saying like, no, you can't hang out with
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: the gay kids in class, because, like I mean, appearances,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: no one in nice people middle West white people communities
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: are gonna actually say like, oh no, we don't like
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: the other people. There's just instead going to like inherently
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: like let you know that, like but those people are
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: like different and that's not how we behave just so
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: you know, but you can still like go to problem
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: with them if that's what you want. Like very much
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: felt like That's how I grew up.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: Natalie know that, like you can say hi to them
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: and you don't have to be mean to them, but
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: we are not.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Like them exactly, no, honestly, And because in I think,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: like in white suburbia, that's a huge part of like
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: the underlying culture. I believe that we have a movie
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: called get Out that explores is way better that I'm
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: going to where it's like the whole thing is like
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: no one's saying anything out loud because they know that
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: they're not allowed to say anything out loud. But like
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: everyone is concerned that you're watching RuPaul's drag Race. Like
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: people are like, why do you want to watch that?
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, because it's so much fun and they're like, oh, okay, funny,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: And it's funny.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: RuPaul is so funny.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: You know why you want to watch Roopul's drag Race.
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: It's because, or I know the way putting it, you
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: are on the precipice of culture, Like a lot of
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: the stuff that we say it all comes from dragon
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: peer culture. You know, like it and it's so funny
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: because it's like, yeah, you want to watch it because
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: you want to know the roots and you also want
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: to feel like you understand and you relate and guess what,
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: you have a place in there too. It's not like
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: it's just meant for certain people and it's like people
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: who are like, why are you watching that? It's like, yeah,
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: because I'm I relate. Like the way that I came
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: out to my mom was she was like, why do
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: you want to go to the Why do you want
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: to go to Pride? Why do you want to go
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: to the like a Pride like march or a Pride parade.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: And then I literally said to her, well, it's because
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: I feel like I'm part of that. And she had
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: a hysterical meltdown. But that's literally the way I had
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: to tell her, because she wasn't even interested in knowing
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: why I have these kinds of friends and like going
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: back to what you were saying about friends, like earlier,
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: I there's like so many interesting signs of me growing
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: up being around queer people, but I never felt like
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: I could be on in the water with them or
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: in the pool. I was always around the pool. In
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: the middle of high school, I left. I moved from
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: Queens to across the river in New Jersey, and I
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: went from being a popular kid in high school to
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: being going to US school or my graduating class with
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: eight hundred it's I call it corporate suburbia. It's not trademarked.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: I would like to get some please, Yes I need
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: a trademark on it. But it's corporate to urvia. Like
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: my graduating class with eight hundred people, and that was
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: one of the grades. And I was so ay depressed
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: from leaving a place where I had built all these friendships.
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: I felt like I was very confident where I was,
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: and I'm going to a place where everyone knows each
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: other a ready because they all grew up around each other.
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: And so immediately I ended up sitting with people who
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: were all the weird. I was outcast. Like my one
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: friend that I became close to, he came back as
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: Jack that year, and like over the summer at this
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: transitionary phase of life and understanding and like I remember
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: people coming up to me being like why do you
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: want to sit with and like they're going to miss
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: gender and be like her, and I'm like, that's Jack.
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: And also because Jack is cool, he's an artist, he
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: makes six stuff. And I was just one of those
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: things where I never really thought about like even having
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: a trans friend in high school. I was like, I
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: think turning sixteen that year and like, in hindsight, like
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: that's a pretty young age to have someone you are
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: really close to and being a transperson, And it's like
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: we didn't even think about it that way, although we
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: didn't have the language too. I think at the same
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: time RuPaul's wasn't on TV yet. Everything was so homophobic
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: that you didn't even think about things being transphobic yet,
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: right right.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: I also remember just being an adult, like in my
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: second school of teaching, so I'm I've been like an
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: adult on my own for four issuyears and one of
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: my queer friends going, you know, the reason why you
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: fit in so seamlessly with queer culture is because you're queer, right,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Like we're going to figure that out within the next
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: five years. And I looked at her and I was like,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: I'm not cool enough to be gay. What are you
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: talking about? Like, I'm just a person. It was like
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: when my friends would all be in the music at
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: school or in show choir competitions and I would go
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: to support them, but I was not on stage. I
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: wasn't cool enough to be in the musical. I am
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: just a supporting actress to my queer friends. And she's like, okay,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: all right, that's okay. I was like, I'm just the
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: perfect person. Yeah, I'm just a perfect hype. Ally, I
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: don't know.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: I feel like that's similar to how I felt like
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: I had so in high school. I had two friends
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: that were on off again, on and off again lesbian
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: lovers and one of her one of them had just
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: moved to the town too, so we bonded over being
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: new people. We bonded over being artists, and then she
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: started dating this woman And I'm just going to use
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: their real names because chances are I'm don't know if
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: they follow me anyway, and how they were like always
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: on off in it on and off again. Heather came
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: from a Catholic family and her dad was very homophobic,
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: and it was so much trauma, but I was there
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: as a support system. I was part of the g
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: of the Gay Straight Alliance. It's like all these things,
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: but I was part of the straight part. And I
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: think it's because I was always afraid of coming out
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: to my own family and dealing with the own trauma
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: of realizing that this is something that I'm am gonna
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: have to deal with and like, you know, just to
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: fast forward to life now, like I'm on this island
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: living my own life with my gay parents, who are
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: two inter racial gay men in their eighties who have moved,
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: who have lived in New York since the seventies. They've
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: invinted me out here. And at the same time, Chris,
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: my lover, took my mom out to open her fasts
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: past Sunday. I wasn't even there. So it's like my
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: full life. There's so much layers to it. It's like,
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: you know, he is my lover observing Ramadan, him with
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: my mom, Like that's so cool and I can't believe
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: young me made that happen.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's monumental. It's beautif fall.
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you, thank you. It's I feel like
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: the feeling or the sentiment that's coming to the surface
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: right now is like I think, growing up, we're all
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: forced to keep these identities separate. And even when I
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: came out of the closet, I wasn't a gay Pakistani man.
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: I was Pakistani and I was gay, And as an adult,
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: I'm like, you know, it's everyone else sees me that way,
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: but as an adult, I'm getting old and I'm combining
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: them more and more and more, and it's just so
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: interesting because it's like, I don't know, like it's it's freeing,
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: like let's just put it that way. It's like it's
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: like it's almost like you're relaxing your shoulders. You're like this,
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: these these are all the things that can happen together.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: And I don't know, a lot of it comes from
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: teaching people like before BC, before Chris. When I first
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: came out of the closet a couple of years, a
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: year or two into it, I had to tell my
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: mom how to talk to me. I was like, stop
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: asking me if I'm going to hang out with those people, Mom,
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: We're not those people. We're just people. And and mind
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: you were speaking an or do so it's not even English.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: She's like, and I'm like, no, like you need to
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: stop saying those people because we're just people. I'm hanging
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: out with just my friends. They're not my gay friends,
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: they're not those friends. They're just friends. And it's like
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: those those little moments we're really challenging for my mom
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: to even observe and hear. But it definitely changed the
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: way my life went, and it also set her up
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: for how to experience having a lover that I that
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: she loves, you know well.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: And I just think of how much like resilience your
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: mom had to have when you were growing up, like
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: immigrating a new country, new languages, new people, your dad leaving,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: And I always think about like my parents' resilience too,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: And it's like, this is the one thing that's going
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: to get you down pronouns. You've lived through so much
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: and now you're like, what if pronouns change and we
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: have to change the chart that we all read in
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: the grammar book. Okay, that's it's going to be the
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: one thing that puts you over the edge.
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: You know, on the sidebar for pronouns. And this is
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: for anyone listening. Anyone who tells you you don't they
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: don't want to observe pronouns, start misgendering them right to
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: their face, because then you can be like, well, listen,
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: if you don't like to follow pronouns, then I don't
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: like to follow pronouns. You know, it's fucked up to
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: misgender people. But you know what's powerful to misgender the
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: people who don't want to acknowledge that they're doing it
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: in a way that hurts people, and it's going to
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: make sense to them because you're gonna be like, hey,
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna start calling you she knowing that you look
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: prefer to be called heat just because you don't really
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: care if other people feel that way, and it will
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: change the conversation so much.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna start calling you baby girl. That is your
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: new pronouns. Because Kendrick declared twenty twenty five the Year
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: of the Hater, I signed my name right under his.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, we're saying enough to be haters done.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: I've been waiting for my mean girl tendencies to get
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: a resurgence and a renaissance, like and I am. I'm
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: just gonna start being mean to conservatives and people who
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: say ignorant things to me on purpose because they're just
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: like I don't.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: Want to change. Okay.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: That's so you're going to make me fight you in
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: this very crowded convention center because you want to know
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: why I put she her hers on my badge. I'll
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: fight you, but I feel like we could be doing
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: other things.
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: Literally, No, you're that's you're one hundred percent correct. It's
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: like everyone has issues with everything that like is so minor,
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: and I'm like the person who wears a tin hat
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: is like, hey, like this is a divergent way of
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: of this is a way to commander our attention. Yeah,
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: from the actual matters, Like people who are upset about
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: the trans legislations, the anti stuff. I'm very upset about them.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: I'm very upset.
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: But for the for the folks who are like, oh,
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: this neeeds to be discussed. We need to understand trans
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: people in sports. We need to understand this. I want
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: to be like, do you know there are children who
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: are hungry that are not trans right now or queer?
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: They're just children, yeah, blanket. They all fit under the
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: same umbrella term. They're all hungry. They don't have finances,
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: they don't have supplies for students for school, Like, why
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: aren't we talking about that rather than talking about the
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: one point one percent of students who happen to be
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: trans who want to play sports, Like that is such
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: a huge thing that we have discussing. And I'm like,
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm just so sick of our society being
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: obsessed with people's genitalia. It's like disgusting and it's not new,
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: Like I get it. We've always been obsessed with it.
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: But it's just like, so, it's so, it's so overwhelming.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: And so the pronoun thing is a very clear cut
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: way that people will show you that they're ignorant and
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: prejudice when they are just like, I don't want to
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: do it. Why do I have to learn someone's new name?
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, and I think this is why I'm
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: so stubborn about give being my nephew's nicknames, Like I've
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: got Tater Todd he just turned two, and then I
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: got Little Squish and he just turned he's gonna be
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: six weeks on Friday. And my mom was like, your
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: grandma Peggy hated that your grandpa's family gave everyone stupid nicknames,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: because they did. My grandpa's nickname was Bushie. My great
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: uncle's name nickname was Chokey, my great aunt's name was Sunni,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: And like, I was thirteen when I learned all of
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: their real names.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: But you know what I did it.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: I was like, ah, yes, Grandpa Bushy's real name was Matthew.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: And technically my mom did it too. But this whole
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: thing of like I refuse to learn your new identity.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: I was like, that's it. The children will have nicknames.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: I'll change those nicknames every week based on my mood.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: My sister because of how the baby's will lay every
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: once in a while, calls him little Theo Danny DeVito
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: or Theodavito or something because he has Danny DeVito here.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: That's so funny.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: That's so funny, and it's so adorable. And they all
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: get theme songs because it's so ridiculous to just be like,
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: I can't call someone else another name, and it's like,
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: why you called me four to five names growing up?
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: Like what are you talking about?
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: Oh? So, if we're gonna talk about names, let's get
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: into mine. So I had a really interesting experience in
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty two when I came out to Hawaii in
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: this literal space, this entire room. This is my seventh
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: time here, which is insane to say. I never thought
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: that would have ever happened.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: So I'm crashing your eighth time. You're gonna be like,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: I'm going to Hawaii. I'm gonna be like, sweet me too.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Let me know what I'll end.
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think idealized on this trip. On my
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: fortieth birthday, I want to have like an open invite,
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: just get massive house invite people and just stay here.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: I've come here topencod like I live here. But I
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: wanted to get back to what I was saying, which
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: is like I during the pandemic twenty twenty twenty one,
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: I think a lot of people had to stop performing
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: in general. Like I think a lot of people came
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: out as trans because they realized, Oh, I'm performing gender
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: every day and I don't have two in the comfort
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: of my home that I never get to leave for
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: two weeks straight or be around other people to actually
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: have to experience that. I realized that a lot of
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: the core people, my mom, my brother, my sister, my
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: brother does my sister called me bijen. But I've had
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: different names and a lot of like like in I
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: guess Eastern culture, a lot of your name depends on
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: who you are and how you relate to that person.
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: So my mom's side of the family, all my aunts
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: are called Kala, but if my aunts and my dad's
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: side of the family are called football. So it's like,
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: on what I'm saying, you will you would know who
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: I'm talking about if I said that, And that's kind
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: of like how people call grandma and grandpa and grandmother
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: and grandfather. I don't know if that help. That's a
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: good way of making it, but like, you know, you
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: don't call both of your grandparents someone's the same names, right.
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: So I came out here and I used Huston, which
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: is like the way that you would pronounce my name
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: if you're speaking or do or if you're a South
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: Asian person. And I used it, and guess what, all
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: the white people learned it all. I didn't say my
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: name was Hassan, and whenever someone said my name was Hassan,
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: I'm like, I was, like, no, it's pronounced haustin. It's Hassan.
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: If you're you know, if you were Muslim and living
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: in maybe I don't know, Grants or England, like if
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: you're you know, if you were speaking English, that's how
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: you would probably say it. But like, no, this is
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: how this is my name. And so I came back
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: and I used it for a while, and like it
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: made everyone in my real life kind of really confused
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: about it, And I think for me it was a
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: little bit of a confusing thing too, because like it
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: was a way me recognized and understanding that like oh,
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: I went like I always use Hassan and growing up everywhere,
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: but my family always called me Husson. Anyone who was
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: South Asian called me Hassan. And the way it started
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: was I got my teeth cleaned and it was it
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: was going on this trip and my doctor called me Hussan.
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: She was like, how the fuck do you know my name? Like,
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: who are you? It's You're clearly not doctor brag. Who
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: was the other person. She was like, Oh no, it's doctor
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: Ruper Pattel. Shout out doctor Rupa Pattel. She was like,
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: it's me a group of hotel I haven't seen you
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: a couple of years. And I was like, oh, that's
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: why you know I'm Hussan, because you're a brown person,
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: Like you know my name and you've probably have known
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: other Husson before and I don't know. It's just one
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: of those things where now I just go by Hassan
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: because like it's the way I feel like. It's like
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: saying chocolate and chuc alatte, I guess if you're speaking
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: another lang. If you're speaking I guess Spanish. So that's
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: the way I feel like my name is pronounced. My
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: old roommate Samantha Sam. She asked me one day because
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: she was working on the Husson Mina show. She came
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: home and day and she goes, do you go by
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: Huston or Hassan? And this was before all this happened,
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: before the pandemic, and I was like, Sam, like, that's
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: so funny because that this is how it works in
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: my family, Like I am Huston, but my family called
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: me Hassan my family. So Samantha asked me one day
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: after working on the Hustle Mina show, whether I go
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: by Hassan and Husson, And I was like, very much, like,
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: you can call me Hassan. I really don't care. Like
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: two years later, I'm doing the exact oppice of where
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: I was like, I kind of like, I like the
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: way people are saying my real name until I got
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: until people I work with and the people I work
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: with that I love overlapped. They started calling me Huston
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: and people at work were like, am I saying his
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: name wrong? And now it became this whole thing. And
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: every single offset that I went to, I could see
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: the dread in people's eyes before I walked up to
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: them to figure out what name I'm supposed to use,
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: and so it became this huge thing where I kind
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: of felt like it didn't feel good enough, It didn't
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: feel good anymore to use it, and so I kind
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: of just go by Hassan. Now. I also feel like
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: it's one of those names where maybe it's the ones
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: that are close to me that get to use it.
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: It's not the identity that I want to present out
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: to the world. I'm really grateful to kind of have
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: that weird journey of understanding the way that I want
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: to be called because I didn't grow up with pet names.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: I grew up with Bigen, which is what my sister
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: calls me, which means like older brother that I love.
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: My brother calls me hussen By, which is brother Hassan.
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: My mom calls me Hassan, and all my other cousins
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: called me hussen By, which is brother Hassan. And then
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: I don't have any nieces or nephews, but they would
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: all call me different names depending on what'side of the
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: family I fall on. However, all my cousins on my
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: dad's side, all their first names are Mohammed, which my
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: mom thought against for me, and so they all have
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: pet names. They my cousin honey Moon, they all have.
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: That's their names that we use. And like, growing up,
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: I realized that they all had the first they all
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: had the same first name and that's why that and
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: I didn't know that. I. I didn't know that at
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: till I as an adult. I was like, oh, Honey's
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: real name is a honey. His name is Mohammed Tufau.
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: Like what, but it makes sense. They all have the
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: first dame name, so they all had pet names, but
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: I never had that.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And well, and my nephews have like I don't know,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: eighty grandparents. I think the actual total is eight. If
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: I have to, it's seven.
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, that's so cute.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: Because you know, divorce and blended families. So like I
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: remember when my sister was pregnant with my first nephew
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: and then like we had to have the talk like
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: what's everyone going to be called? And then my mom
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: picked Gigi and we're like, that's because my mother loves
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: to be youthful and loves to believe that she is
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: still sucking down the fountain of youth and whatnot. And
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: we're like that's perfect, no, And then like we've got grandma, bunny, grandma,
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: I'm aunt nanny, but yeah, it's like you have to
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: call these people. My aunt's grandkids call her mama, which
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: I believe is the last thing she wanted to be called,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: but it's what the older one ended up calling her
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: because kids just say things weird. So she's like, well,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: and that's what stuck.
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: You know, that's so cute.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: Though I know everyone's cute, and my aunts and uncles like,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: I just feel like there's such a difference when someone's
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: asking you questions out of love and care and when
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: someone is trying to like bait you into their ignorance.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: I remember the night before my sister's baby shower that
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: one of our family friends their eldest child was going
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: through a gender transition, and even I was like, I
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: kind of knew because my mom was giving me updates
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: about it, but I didn't know. Even when I showed
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: up at the baby shower, it had changed again, and
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, okay, cool, and so by it.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: I say with my aunts and uncle a lot for
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: family functions, and my aunts and uncles were just eating
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: pizza and all of a sudden, they're all staring at
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: me and I'm like yeah, and they're like, we were wondering.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: If you could teach us how like what.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Their correct pronouns are like and what we should expect
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: tomorrow when it comes to like names, identities, and kind
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: of like where they're at in their process, which is
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: because they're like because we've loved them since they were
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: a baby, and we and it's the first time we've
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: seen them as an adult in a while. So I
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: would hate to be the reason why they don't come
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: to family functions anymore.
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: And I was like, oh my gosh, this is everything
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: I've ever won in.
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: Like that's such a dream. It makes my heart so
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: warm to hear you share that.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: Like my family just don't want to be ignorant for once.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: That's so nice.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: And I would say that they just want to show
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: that they love the person, like ultimately they know that
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: like saying the right thing to them, you know, like
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: the statement like everyone loves to hear their name, Like
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: that's one of the everyone's favorite sounds, like as a
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: child or as a like anyone's pet, they love to
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: hear their name. And so I feel like that's what
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: I'm hearing you share is like them being like you know,
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: we want to make sure that they use the right
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: ways to refer to them. And that is so touching
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: because you know what, not every adult acts that way.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: Now we know well because I also have adults in
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: my life who when this person is brought up, it's
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: like it's like battling through the things that we've already
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: talked about twenty times over because it's like is this real?
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, you know, at the end of the day,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: I don't care if it's real or a pace or
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: a pad or whatever. It's what they're choosing to do
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: right now, and I can, like I'll just adapt.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: Literally thing also left.
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: Them Like I think that it's so nice to explore
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: and I wish that like more people had space to
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: do that. And I don't mean explore, I mean explore
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: in general ideas and thoughts and careers or I feel
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: like it's so strange that we live in a society
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: where I'm supposed to know by the age of eighteen
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: what i want to do for the rest of my life,
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: when the conversation really should be fixed to what do
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: you want to do for the next four years? Yeah,
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: you know, I feel like it's just one of those
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: things where like we let people be themselves and guess what,
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: they're not going to hurt themselves because like that's ultimately
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: I think the saddest part about all this is that
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: people who feel shut out and not able to explore
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: often hurt themselves in ways that is like no, I'm
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: just gonna say, like trigger warning, Like it is often
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: like hurting their own bodies and ways that we can
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: never be with them again. And it's sad because there's
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: so many I feel like people who are we're we
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: are the ones who think differently. We are the ones who,
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: you know, innovation of innovation breeds ideas, innobition of ideas
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: breeds new thoughts, Like I think thinking about things and
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: being different pauses things to be questioned. Tradition is so boring,
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: you know, and queer people are the first ones to
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: a start new traditions and be like, well that doesn't
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: really work.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: Well and talk about traditions that are so boring. In
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: my family, we're barely Catholics. They're like, neahly, why didn't
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: you ever get confirmed? And I was like, who was
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: that important to because it wasn't me, Like why would
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: I go to extra church?
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: Classes, I don't like being there to begin with.
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: I yeah, religion for me was never really pushed upon.
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: I was devout growing up. My brother was not. And
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: the ironic part as an adult, my brother is fasting.
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: Like last sight at dinner, Jeane and Steve were like,
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: you know, did you do you observe fasting with pharomenon?
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: And I was like, no, I don't, but as a
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: child I did. I did it, and like some of
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: the months, like the way the Muslim calendar lands, it's
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: always shifting, and so sometimes it would land on these
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: warm months and it'd be such long fast and so
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: you'd be so grateful when it was a short month.
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: My cat ran away when I was in high school,
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: like for a month, and he came back, and I
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: had promised Allah, I promised Scott. I was like, if
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: you bring him back, I will fast for thirty days.
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: And I did it and he came back, and I
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: fasted like the month of December that upcoming month, just
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: because it would be shorter days. But I did it
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: because I believed it, and I was so devout. I
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: was never much of a pray five times a day
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: kind of Muslim. I did do it. When we lived
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: with certain family members or certain we were with family
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: like extended family, I would do it. I would pray
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: with them because they're praying already, so I might as
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: well do it. My family never was really that strict.
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: My dad was never much of a strict religious person.
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: So I feel like I got kind of like the
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: lucky end of this, the lucky end of the spectrum,
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: where like I had cousins who, like their families made
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: them pray, fight home the day they made them shame,
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: feel shame about everything. It's a very fear based religion
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: in the sense that everything well, maybe it's not. I
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: don't want to let me just clarify by saying there is.
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: There needs to be some sort of intersectionality that's talked
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: about here because Muslim being Muslim and maybe like Egypt
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: or Marrakesh is different than being a Muslim person in Pakistan.
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: So I just want to overlap that w saying that, like,
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: that's an important thing to kind of observe, just because
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: it could be like a lot of different factors and
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: I don't want to put all of it onto Islam
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: because that's a little unfair. However, there is a lot
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: of homophobia in Islam period. Blank. That's just the way
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: the structure of the thing is. I'm kind of just
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: going on a spiral, but I'm just gonna keep talking.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: Islam is also a Islam is a culture that and
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: on religion that hasn't changed. I think it was founded.
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: I think, I don't know, five hundred a d. So
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: they believe like they believe in the same God as
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: Jesus did, or he talked to and so did Moses,
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: and and for those who don't really know about the religion,
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: it's like the only difference I feel like amongst a
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: lot of the practices is that Papa Muhammad was the
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: last prophet, right, he spent the month of Ramadan talking
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: to God and transcribing all the things he's learning into
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: the Quran, so the Korans in thirty thirty sections, and
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: each day was he would go and spend the whole
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: day with him. That's why we fast, because he fasted
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: as a pay It's a way of paying homage to him.
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: And it's one of those things where that we replicate
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: what his what he was doing. And people often read
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: the Koran during this time, the whole all the whole
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: Kuran itself and that's why we emulate it. And the
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: other thing that I want to mention is that, like
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: the Catholic religion and Christianity, there's been all these different variations,
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: and I would say iterations because compared to Islam, Islam
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: hasn't changed. The book hasn't changed since it was transcribed
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: and put onto paper. While I think there's the Old Testament,
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: there's the New Testament, there's a there's it went from
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: Latin to English, and it's like great, that makes it accessible. However,
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: to a Muslim person that that has been done to
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: you can read the Quran in English, but you're not
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: reading the Koran. You are not reading you were reading
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: a vary and iteration of it. And the religion has
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: been rooted in that kind of like tradition. And so,
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: you know, we were talking about my mom coming here
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: and having a deal with all those challenges of being
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: a single mom, being an immigrant, being in another country.
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: She came from a place that didn't want to change
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: the way that they did things. For like more than
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: a millennia, it's been the same. And so it is
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: very radical to have a gay child who's out, because
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: that's not something that she was ever taught about. My
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: understanding about queer culture in Pakistan is that men who
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: are gay still get married to women and then they
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: just freak on the side. I've watched documentaries, I've read
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: you know, articles, and it's that's the way society works.
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: And granted it's not open. It's very much like going
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: to a back room in nineteen seventies and Times Square
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: and you're meeting someone probably, but they all return to
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: their own normal lives because that's the way that it is.
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: It's not really like there's no culture of being out
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: and open. The only culture about and being open is
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: oftentimes just things that are related to the American government
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: from what I understand, or you're being super radical and
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: you're being ostracized by society I think in Pakistan, and
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: a lot of people do get blackmailed for being gay.
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: It's just it's one of those things where, you know,
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: sometimes people give me the like the shit of like
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: not being super out and radical, but it's like you
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: have to understand like that I'm I'm going against something
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: that's been the same for so long that it's so
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: different to rewrite something versus like I think the United
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: States itself, just comparing countries has had different waves of
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: of tolerance around different groups of people, and I think
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: that set people up to understand that this is another
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: way that we're going to respect people. The civil rights movement,
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: I think just the way that people have dealt with
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: immigrants growing up, Like I yeah, I'm just going on
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: to tire, I'm going on a spiral. Is there anything
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: you want me to dive? Keep that on because I
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: just you're you're inspiring me to think about all these
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: things in a different way, and it's just coming to
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: the surface. So thanks.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: One of the things that I always grapple with is
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: like the immens of time. So it is like a
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: lot of pressure to think about, like, well, I'm living
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: as radically as I feel comfortable. Because okay, because when
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: it comes to Christianity, it's like Christianity's the base of
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: the ice cream Sunday and then everyone has their own
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: toppings on it. Like you're just picking and choosing what
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: you believe in what you don't believe. And this Catholic
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: church is open to marrying gay people, but the one
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: down the road isn't. And oh, in Lutheran churches, you
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: could wind up with the woman preacher, but that would
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: never happen in Catholicism, and it gets and what it
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: ends up doing is watering down everything because it is
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: a completely different experience to be out and queer when
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: you have a religion that's never even edited the book ever.
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: Again, Yeah, you know, it's interesting because like g and
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: Steve asked me last night, why they don't feel like
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: I'm that close to Islam, and I had said, it's
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: because I came out of the closet. That was the
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: first thing I said. And then, you know, a few
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: years later, I met I went on a retreat with Apacho,
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: which is this nonprofit downtown that's for Asian Pacific Islander queers,
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: so anyone who's like falling into that umbrella. And I
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: had never spent that much time around people who were
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: like myself and queer, and I went on this to
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: retreat and I met other Muslims who were like practicing
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: like I. You know, I still practice. I do the
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: bare minimum, which is the funny thing. Anyone who is
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: a secular Muslim will tell you the least thing you
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: can do is not eat pork, like and I'd never
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: eat pork. That's the bare minimum. So if you're a
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: bad Muslim, it's like you're having bacon and like that
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: people would consider you like being the worst Muslim. If anything.
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: It's like, no, even if I'm gay, I can't eat pork.
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: Like that's the funniest part about the whole thing is
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: like I can have gay sex and as long as
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: I'm like an pork, everyone is happy. Like my brother
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: would be pup more upset if I ate pork than
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: he would about or was about me being gay. I
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: don't know how to weigh that, but I really think
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: that my family would fucking lose their minds if they
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: see me eat a size of pepperoni pizza. It's just funny.
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: But the idea of religion, and I mean, there was
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: someone who was assassinated recently and he was a queer
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: positive a mom in South Africa and he was gunned
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: down very much like the Luigimian Gion style of the CEO,
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: where there's footage of him being stopped in front of
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: a car, cars coming behind him and then shooting him
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: and then that's how they found him. And so there's
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: just like there's this aspect of Islam that's so radical
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: and it's because I think people don't tolerate it well
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: when people go against the grain or changing it up.
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: And you know, another way of talking about it is
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: the fact that like in Islam, there are no figures
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: like That's why a lot of like people love like
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: Islamic art because it's all geometric. It's always all influences
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: of like you know, you go to Barcelona, a lot
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: of the artwork matches the Catholicism, it merges with Catholicism
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: and it's like this beautiful new style. But if you
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: go to traditional places like Turkey or even Podcustan or
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: other places that you like, anyone that has been rooted
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: in Islam, all this stuff is just geometric and so
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: there are there is no figure for what what Muhammad
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: looks like. We don't have a cross that has Jesus
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: on it. If we were to have the shape of
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: a cross, I think we use the crescent and the
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: and the star. However, we won't want ever put an
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: image on it. Like if I ever went to a
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: mosque growing up and I wore a shirt that even
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: had like an animal on it, I would have to
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: turn it inside out to be in the in the
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: space because it's no figures allowed. There's no worship of figures,
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: and I think that's part of the reason why I
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: think maybe going back to meeting an artist, it's hard
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: to sometimes feel like that you're creating a figure. It's
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: like it's a sense of like it's to some people,
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: I would say that they would consider blasphemy because you're
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: not supposed to create things that people worship in that
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: kind a way.
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: No, I was a young twenty like a twenty to
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: twenty four age when I found out that it's actually
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: disrespectful to wear figures of the Buddha because I because
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: like most white girls lost like me, my mom and
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: my great aunt were like, you know who, we're really
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: down with the Buddha. And now my mom will call
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: me and she'll be like, I found a T shirt
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: and I think that this is a event. She'll name
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: a culture, but I think it's one of their gods.
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: And what do you think they think about me wearing
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: this T shirt? I was like, Mom, you're gonna have
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: to do a Google like, let me tell you about Reddit,
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: Like I like, I don't know, I can't.
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: Know all of that. Look at a picture of the
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: person who.
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: Created the T shirt and then ask the person who's
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: selling it.
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: Right, And also, mom, are you at like a Spencer's
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: because she had really answers now, like you know, like
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: it's like I don't know where she would be at,
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: but if it's like you always have those East Meats,
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: West stores and our malls and Jersey and they always
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: were ran by like those hippie white women with those
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: like like slowey skirts that were always so cool you
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: to be friends with them, but I'm like, I don't
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: know if you really. Also, is this the plot of
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: White Lotus, Like say, season three.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: I think that's why the three white women who are
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: just running wild in Thailand and hating one another. I'm like, ah,
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: my sister is yes, I know them, like I love them.
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: They're a mess. Well, and I think that White Lotus
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: is also fascinating because and I just said this about
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: love is blind too, Like when those two women went, wait,
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: you're not a Republican are you? And she's like, no,
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: I'm an Independent, but my husband's registered Republican. And they're
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: like did you vote her Trump? And she's like, we're
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: not talking about Trump on vacation, are we? And then
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: they were like ooh, not an answer.
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: And I we all know what that meant.
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: We all know what that meant.
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: When at the Love is Blind reunion when they were
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: talking about like how that guy was not a voter
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: and did not ever even see a post about black
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: lives matter, and I texted Julia and Katie and I
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: was like, Okay, so I'm just going to say it,
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: like men don't have to care about voting and black
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: lives like white men don't have to care about like
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: voting and black lives matter. And they always say like,
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: I feel like our religious differences don't matter. I feel
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: like our political differences don't matter. And it's like, well,
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: of course it doesn't matter to you, because no matter
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: where the penny falls, you're on top, Like it has to.
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: Matter to me.
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: And guess what, you can like not see color because
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: you can decide when it doesn't matter to you exactly.
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: Like it's one of those crazy things like I this
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: is mean. Off.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: I had a friend who was in he's partnered to
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: a black man, and one day we were like walking
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: to park or whatever, and he was like and it
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: was in like the height of black lives matter and stuff,
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: and he's like everyonce in a while, like I just
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: I want to give it a rest. Like I can't.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: I can't always be in that headspace. But he's always
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: in that headspace.
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: Da da da.
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: And I go, because he has to live in the
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: body that is always affected by it. I go, We
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: as the white people in his life who care about
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: the legislation and Black lives matter and whatever, we do
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: just get to have a fuck off day where we
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: watch every episode of Grey's Anatomy. I go, he does
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: I have the luxury he has to worry about the
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: effects of whether or not violence about against black people.
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: Who's going to end all the time? You and I
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: just get to take naps. Yeah.
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: Another way I can say something or add to it
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: is like people remind me that I am not white
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: all the time by being like asking me to explain myself.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: Like everyone loves to be like where are you from?
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: And I'm like New York City? Next question, like like
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: what are you really asking me? You know, like because
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: it's like I've been on this island again seven times
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: and like I've seen maybe three South Asian people and
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: that doesn't include me to be bringing my own mom here.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: A couple of years ago. But it's like there are
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: a lot of people who look like me. However, the
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: local natives like me because I'm another brown person, like
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: I've always felt seen They've always given me, like they've
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: always I've always felt the love, and I think that
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: they like that. However, you know, there's a lot of
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: old white people here and I'm on one of the
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: oldest islands, and it's there's like no nightlife here. It's
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: like so it's a place where you spend most of
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: the days out and then you come home and then
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: you go to bed and you do it again. That's
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: if you're not, like, you know, a person living in
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: the service industry here. But going back to the race thing,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: I think it's like, what's interesting, It's like, you know,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: even the people it's okay for it. It makes sense
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: for white people to take the day off because they
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: do not they're not faced with the challenges every single day.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: But oftentimes it's the challenges that are reminding you that
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: they exist. So what I mean by that is like
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: I gave the example of being asked what to do,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: but it's another way talking about it as like if
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: someone one time was like you got to make sure
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: you check this person's phone. And it was post nine
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: to eleven, and I remember being like, Pitch, I'm on Facebook.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: Why Like I am on Facebook? Why are you asking
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: me to check? Why are they asking for you to
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: check my phone? Because she was implying that things can
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: get detonated, and like this was like on nine eleven.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: It was an anniversary day and I was taking the
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: bus home and I remember just being like wow, like
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: oh yeah, like that's right. She doesn't know that I
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: knew people in the building too, right, Like she doesn't
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: realize that like my my only the only I dida
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: that she can see me as is the only way
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: that she can apply her biases to but that they're
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: other things, other layers to it that that she's never understands.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: And it's just it's a concept reminder. I mean, like
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: we also remember our own our own childhood upbringings often
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: defined that too. But it's like I feel like culture
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: remind you of our society reminds you that you're othered by.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: It, you know well.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: And I think it's like whenever we're asking like where
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: do white men get the audacity, It's like, well, there
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: it is.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: They've never actually had to be othered.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: In a space, and they've always been welcomed in spaces
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: unless I'm in charge of that space. And like in
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: creative spaces where it's like, you know, women and people
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: of color who are at the front, forefront of creating
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: safe spaces or creatives a lot of times that is
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: also still open to cis gender, heterosexual, white guys.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, I guess, And but what.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: I end up telling friends a couple weeks in, I'm like,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: so here it is we've created a safe space, But
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: who gets the most talking points in Who feels like
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: they get to command the room? Who gets to feel
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: like they're the natural expert. It's whitey white Steve over here.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: And we're also whispering to girls not get to get
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: into a car with him, like, hey, don't take his
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: offer for a ride home. I'll I'll give you a
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: ride home if you don't want to take the bus,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: Like never catch yourself alone with him, because we've read it.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: We're like, I know exactly what your messaging is and
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: it's not great. But it's like that's where they get
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: the audacity to just take over our spaces because they
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: never have to think beyond well, of course I belong here, yeah.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, or I have to prove that I belong here,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: as in like using my talent or proving to people
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: like they can just be in a space because they
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: feel like that's the way they've always felt. Right, going
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: back to White Lotus, like the oldest brother is sort
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: of been trying to instill this to the younger brother
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: of being like, hey, like what are and like learning
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: about the family's lineage from Lucius Malfoy, like learning about
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: the where his background's from. Like I understand why the
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: eldest son is such like a fragile white man. It's
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: because if he's not strong, he's seen fragile, you know,
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: like if he's not and it's it's it's going back
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: to like I think Euphoria was the show that did
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: this the best, like of all the shows, Like he
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: watched Jacob Elordi's character kind of melt and fall apart
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: because a we find out his dad is you know,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: fucking a transperson that he goes to school with who's underage.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: On top of that, he is this like man who's
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: seen as the alpha, and he used to live with
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: this privilege of being the alpha. And I think that
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: human as is the role. But I mean I think
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: it makes us have empathy, but also some sort of
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: like maybe a layer of sympathy because you're like, oh,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: like the system that these men are grown into who
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: don't want to live this way have sometimes had it
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: thrust upon them because like again, like he's a tall man,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: he's white, he's supposed to be the athlete of the school.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: And I remember that scene where he's walking through the
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: locker room being like dick, dick, dick, dick. I hope
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: mine is fine enough, you know. I remember being like
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: oh wow, like okay, like he also deals with these issues. However,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: every single thing in the world is meant for him
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: to feel good about it.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, and it's just well, and we as queer people,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: you're a person of color, I'm a woman, Like, we're
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: so used to making them the authority. So I like,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: except for me, because I love to just scream about it.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: So I'll watch people in these creative spaces just like go, well,
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: of course you're good, and I should near my work
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: to yours. And I'm like, no, actually that's bad. Reread
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: his thing like that was bad. Like it's like, do
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: I have to DM you to be like, no, that's
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: not you just decided that it was the way to
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: do it because he was vocal, because he just said like,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: well this is how you do it.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: What No.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I also think that you know, society for us
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: talks teaches us that we are not the people to
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: be like we are in charge and there are spaces
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 3: that we are in charge of. But I think thinking
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: back to like nineties television where it's always like the
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: foreign person is the one that's making the butt of
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 3: the joke. Like you know, there's that like documentary What's
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: wrong with the with the Pooh? Or I think it's
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: the guy from the Simpsons. Like like a lot of
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: like South Asian people are often like desexualized as people,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: and I think women are sexualized as people in general,
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: And so I feel like it's like those are the
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: little things that you really can't avoid that remind you
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 3: that like we have to kind of find the authority
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: to feel it, although and if we don't find it,
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: we're never going to get it. While these people can
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: just like kind of sort of bend in the sunshine
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: and feel it no matter what, you know, like they
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: because it's designed for them, and I mean these people.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: I mean white men who are young, I would say,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: or white men who are old and rich.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it's the whole idea of like part. The
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: biggest tool of the patriarchy and misogyny that I realize
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: is how they use our fear against us, so like,
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: don't be gay, you won't fit in and it's morally bad.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: Don't buy the nice thing, you could be broke tomorrow.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: And that's how they keep us working, and that's how
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: they keep us in a perpetual state of is what
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: I'm doing good enough?
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: And then I.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: Feel like we do just not care about our passions
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: and instead click claque on the computer for tokens. That's
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: why I told my dad my job was. I go,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: He's like, your job doesn't matter to you. I go,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: my day did creating standardized tests. And I went no,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: And he's like, why do you do it then? And
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: I go, so I can get my chuck e cheese
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: tokens for pizza. Like that, we're all click clacking for tokens. Yeah,
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: I'm going to move us to our closing out ceremony
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: because we're at fifteen after the hour.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: So if you had.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: To have a lesson out of your lifetime growing up
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: in the household that you grew up with, and then
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: also being queer, what would you want to let people know,
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: like your big RuPaul lesson.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: I would say my lesson would be to stay curious,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 3: and that is an umbrella question to understanding why you
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 3: feel a certain way and exploring that whether it's positive
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: or negative, scary, exciting. And I also think, as I'm
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 3: getting older, it's so silly to say this because it's
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 3: something that you like, are taught from the womb, but
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: you're never really I think in society's shown that you
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: can do it is to ask for what you want.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 3: Why is a fucking crazy place. I was going to
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 3: the nude beach that I go to every year that
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: i'm here, and then on the way the hike down
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 3: to the beach, I was like, Oh, I guess I'm
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: gonna be naked on the beach. I forgot my anklet
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: because the movie's never naked, He's at least wearing an anklet.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: And I'm walking along the shore and that there was
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: a piece of like litter or something, and I always
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 3: just pick up a piece of litter if I see it,
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: and I walk up to it and it's literally an
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: anklet or a bracelet made of wood. It's beautiful. Oh,
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 3: sitting there, sitting there like, I was so shook. I
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 3: obviously picked it up. I wore it immediately. It's something
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 3: that I'm wearing. It's in the bathroom right now, otherwise
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: it would show you. But it was just so strange.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 3: And I think that's another perfect example of that. It's
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 3: happened to me so many times in this place and
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: people because of the way that this is the vortex
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: energy here, the way that the winds move around the island,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 3: that everything gets heard sooner, and everything gets a dressed sooner.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: There have been times where I was at a store
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 3: and I was gonna buy the sun hat and it
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 3: was like, you know, this was a piece of garbage.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 3: I'm not buying it. And then I've gone to meet
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 3: friends at the beach and there was one literally tuffed
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: underneath like a root that must have blown away in
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 3: the wind. That was crazy, Like those tons of things
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 3: have happened to me here in the most insane ways.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 3: Like I one time I'd wished for a massage. I
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 3: want to get a massage on an island, and then
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: gene C took me to a dinner with their with
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 3: their friend and they had guests and one of the
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 3: guests was a masseuse on the island that's been there
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 3: for like forty years. Like that kind of crazy things.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 3: And so my lesson is to reinforce it is to
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 3: say the things you want out loud. It's great to
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 3: wish them, but to just say them out loud is
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 3: a way for you to be like, I'm gonna make
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 3: those things happen, and the way the way the world
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 3: around you works will make it happen. I'm a firm
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: believer in it. I'm gonna keep talking just because I can.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 3: I feel like just religion and ideas. To talk about
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: religion and ideas too is that like I don't know,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 3: I think that I would tell people and my younger
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 3: self that, like, we grew up in a really faithful environment,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 3: and I'm the product of being a Muslim person just
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 3: because of where I was born and who I was
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 3: born to. And I feel that people feel that way
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: about themselves when they're Catholic. You were born Catholic, devout,
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: And so the way I feel like I recognize and
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 3: be with religion is that I feel like I'm a
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 3: funnel and I'm funneling it all through me. I am
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 3: not a higher power. I don't feel like I am God.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 3: I feel like a lot of whites men maybe feel
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 3: like they're God. I feel like a lot of people
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 3: may be what your ethnicity is, can feel like you're
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: the ultimate power and decider. I am a kind of
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 3: opposite of that. I feel like I'm a channel for
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: all the energy. So you know, I'm on this island
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 3: where people believe in Hale, who is the goddess of
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: of I think fire, and Kanye kN Kanye is the
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 3: goddess of like Creator, he's the god of Creator. I mean,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 3: Kanye is a man, and Paley's a woman, and there's
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 3: a lot of other ethnicities other it's a it's a
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 3: polytheistic religion here, and for me or any other Muslim
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 3: or Catholic person, they may feel like that's not the
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 3: right way to believe in God. And I'm like, who
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 3: the fuck are you? Because this island has been around
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 3: forever and these people have beliefs that are rooted in
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 3: their own truth, and so why would I ever minimize that.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 3: I feel like, for me as a person, I'm supposed
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 3: to channel that, whether it's good or bad. I want
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 3: to channel the good stuff through me so I can
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 3: put it back out in the world. And so I
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 3: think that's the way I feel. That's something else I
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 3: would say is like, you know, people have these different faiths.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 3: That doesn't necessarily mean that they're wrong. I think it
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 3: actually feels very xenophobic and maybe mon of the list
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 3: monotheistic centered. If I said there's only one God and
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 3: it's Allah or Jesus Christ or Mohammed and being a poppet,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 3: I think that's kind of fucked up because it makes
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: you feel like everyone else is wrong and who knows
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 3: and who and who can believe in that? And so
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 3: I think kind of reinforcing this idea that I'm this
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 3: funnel is like, if people are talking to me about
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 3: their practices and their faith, I want to make sure
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 3: that I'm channeling the good parts of it so it
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 3: goes through me and I'm putting it back out in
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: the world the right way.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: When I came up with my own witchcraft, because I
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: was so psych of misogyny and Christianity and all of it,
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: and I was like, but I want to meditate and
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: I want it to matter and whatnot.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 2: That's what it was.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: I was like, I just want to be tapped into
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: the actual energy that surrounds us.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's all I want.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, chopping in. I use the word funnel because like
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 3: Julia Cameron, she did the artist artist way.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: I've done the artist way.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah. She's the one who gave me the idea of it,
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 3: because she was like, you are a creator, you are
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 3: not a capital C creator. And I was like, oh,
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 3: we watch are we reading Wicked right now? What is
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 3: that capital capital capital letters? Like what, Yes, that's what
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 3: I'm reading. Wicked is the book I'm reading. And but
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 3: that's why I remember feeling like, oh, you're you're not
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 3: channeling creativity. You're not creating anything. You are channeling creative
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 3: energy around you, and you're funneling it through you and
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 3: you're putting it out. And I feel like that is
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 3: how I'm feeling about religion too, which I'm not sure
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 3: if anyone else has Wroten written or talked about it
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 3: that way, but it's really just come an understanding of
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 3: just like I don't want to feel like anyone else's
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 3: bligion is wrong. I don't want people to feel like
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 3: their religion is wrong because that's what you grew up
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 3: by being where you were in your own life, that's
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 3: where your family decided what your religion was, you know.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, speaking of energy, what manifestation do you want to
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: put out into the energy to our collective energy.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 3: I want to manifest a creative life that feels fulfilling.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 3: I also want to manifest a life that I'm not
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 3: I'm getting to be unapologetical to myself. I think that's
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 3: something I'm always constantly dealing with, you know, coming from
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 3: an Eastern family where your identity isn't just me. Yeah,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 3: there's not. I'm not a gay person. My family has
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 3: a gay person. To everyone else, that's the way it feels.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 3: And so it's always a harder way for me to
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 3: feel seen because I'm nervous that it hurts the people
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 3: that everyone else sees me with and that's a down thing.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 3: And so I think I would like to manifest that
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 3: I'm unapologetically being myself and being able to put things
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 3: out in the world that people can see me and
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 3: get to know me from instead of letting having to
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 3: show them who instead of telling them who I am.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I used to think that I wouldn't do anything
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: like write a book or tell my story like I
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: do on the podcast or anything until my dad was dead,
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: because I'm like, well, I know what it's how he's
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: going to react and it's going to be emotional and exhausting.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: And then one day I was just like during the
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: pandemic when we all put down our mask, I was like,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Fuck that things keep happening, Like I
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: should get to doctor.
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 3: To do something. Yeah, yeah, well I'm glad to do that,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 3: I think. You know, sometimes I feel the same way
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 3: about my family, like it's not even about it's about
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 3: like my mom being the one who has to carry
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 3: the brunt of it. Like I feel like a part
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 3: of me thinks I'm worried that my mom is going
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 3: to get shit for me being the gay person from
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 3: the rest of the family. But she humbled me really
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 3: quickly because I have I have new cousins coming to
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 3: the United States that I have never met, and I
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 3: was like, Mom, like, what are like, what are they
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 3: going to think about me? Because they're going to be
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 3: spending time with family that's very homophobic, and I ostracized
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 3: myself from them, like I pushed them away they pushed
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 3: me away, and my mom was like, your cousin is
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 3: not worried about you, and I was like, okay, but
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: my whole entire life, you made it seem like they were,
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 3: you know, like but like it was freeing for her
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 3: to say that. She's like, they're not worried about you,
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 3: and I was like, you're right, because I am the
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 3: most amazing one of all of them, so they shouldn't
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 3: be worried about me because they can't even be better
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 3: than me.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Haesan, I'm so glad that we got to do this,
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: and I'm going to tell you what I told Chris.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: I think when we.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: Recorded that this is us or no. Chris just texted
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: me He's like, is it weird that I miss you?
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: And I was like, no, I feel like we should
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: be having family phone calls.
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 2: Like yeah, yeah, you are family.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 3: To quote you, you are family. I think that's how
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 3: you said it to me the first time I did.
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 3: You said it to your family. I think Chris was
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 3: telling me that you had a conversation with your own
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 3: family to remind them that I'm family to them.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: To them because you were so nice. I had made
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: friendship bracelets for this California trip that I crashed, and
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: you were like, are you sure I should have one?
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: Like I'm not in this group, nor am I a
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: sugar cookies?
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah yeah, And I.
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 2: Was like, you're my family.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: We just had a beautiful day. I've never yeah, like
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: you know when people's souls just connect like you and
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: you were so humble the entire day, like thank you
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: for letting me. And I've started like thank you my
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: sister for letting me come along with Like she took
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: the kids to the park yesterday. They didn't have to
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: call me, but I got to be at the park
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: with my nephews because the sun was shining. Like I've
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: been saying things like thank you for letting me be
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: a part of this. And it's because of you.
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 3: Oh that's so sweet.
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you are family. We should be having family
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: phone calls. Do you have anything to plug? Before I
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: let you got.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 3: Anything to plug? If you haven't read Wicked the book,
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 3: I'm rereading it as an adult this time. It's fascinating.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 3: If you to quote, uh, Natalie, if you like horny,
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 3: what was it? And yeah, horny munchkin orgies. I mean
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 3: it will pull you in However, the book is very
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 3: similar to what we're living through. I think it's been
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 3: interesting to reading. Yet. I also would plug. I make
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 3: music playlists all the time that are very journalistic. You
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 3: can find them Spotify or you find me on social
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 3: media through Natalie you can. It's a variety of music
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 3: that you may not find in yourself. I would also
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 3: plug going a touch grass, get out, put your phone down,
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 3: go look at a bird and realize that birds are
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 3: all fashion. Every bird is fashion, like that is fashion.
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: Yes, and tolerators you can kind us that. Then I
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: have tolerated pod on Instagram and neatly K one two four.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: Just plug it into a social media and see if
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: I'm there, And remember, tolerator hasan thank you. I don't
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: know if I actually said thank you or if I
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: just screamed at you. We're family and we should call
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: one another more like I'm your great aunt, like hey, family,
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: call yeah family.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 3: You're my family, and I'm honored to be here. And
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 3: thanks for the tolerators for you know, giving me a
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 3: place to come and talk about things that I don't
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 3: ever really talk about.
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: So whenever, wherever, as the Great Shakira said, remember tolerators
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: you don't have to smile through any thing you're tolerating,
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: including wanting to belong so hard and getting so many
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: subliminal messages that you just don't smiles, over joy