Latest / Made Me Gay / Needing to Belong Made Me Gay with Ky Miller

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Needing to Belong Made Me Gay with Ky Miller · Made Me Gay

• Meg and Mandy: y'all, Mandy here. Hello there, this is Meg. We are really excited to introduce our guest, Kai Miller, who we had an amazing chat with last week, and we're gonna be splitting this into two episodes because we had such a rich conversation. What can we tell Made Me Gay podcast listeners about Ky Miller? Kai Miller is a licensed clinical social worker. They are a therapist in private practice, but they are also an educator. They do a lot of continuing education work for other therapists, but then also they do a lot of different trainings for various groups. They'll be invited in to do these different trainings, and their area of expertise is attachment. an attachment with this LGBTQ lens and really understanding attachment through that lens and had just like the different unique perspectives of that. So that's what I would say about Kai. Anything else you would add? Right. Yeah, I think it was it was fascinating to watch my two dear friends who are both therapists kind of speak therapist to therapist and and be a witness to the conversations that we all are having as we're going through this this phase and stage of life of coming out later in life. And it's just always so validating to hear people of all different backgrounds and and everyone has their own unique story and Putting it in the context of attachment, I think, was really important for me too personally. I just I think a lot of my traumatic experiences in life have come in that, you know, I think most people's probably a lot of people's trauma is based in attachment, right? So just putting it in the context of the grief that we go through in coming out and how Mm. Yeah. it's so scary because we are risking those primary attachments. so yeah, the the conversation was really near and dear to my heart and I hope everybody enjoys it. I hope everybody enjoys it too. I I learned some things and connected some dots myself. And that was really cool. I really enjoyed the episode. We talked about I think a lot of just different things that are gonna really resonate with a wide range of people. Kai is non-binary and so we we talk a lot about gender and and Kai's Mm. gender journey and how attachment played a role in that, which is really cool. Yeah, and I think that it's the human experience to need to belong. And it Mm. just makes it a whole different ball game when a person's queer and f trying to figure out how to belong, and how to perform gender and how to, you know, do the right thing, right? We we live this heteronormative life, because it's what we think we should be wanting to do and then We find ourselves having made decisions in our lives like getting married, having children. And we are I'll speak for myself. I was worried about the effect that coming out and becoming more myself and accepting myself and being myself was gonna have on other people. So we get into that in this episode. We do. It's it's a really I think it's a really important conversation that we had and I'm really excited to share it with everybody. Enjoy. Ky: Hi. Hey there. Here we are again. How's it going? Good. How are you? Good. Good. It's been actually it I wonder if it's okay if we just for a second, it's been a week. A very big week for our podcast. Yeah, indeed. And I guess actually in this moment I just want to share a little bit of gratitude for you. Mandy has been anything that you've if you've seen anything on social media, if you've been pinged, if you've been tagged, if you've been reached out to, if somebody has connected you to our podcast, that is Mandy. Yeah, it's been you've been breathing life into it. That's good. Yeah, I took the I took the ball, I ran with it. I did a whack up job. We've editing those first two episodes and here we are. Yeah, here we are. Hoping people are liking it. I think Meg and I are a good team and we're gonna continue to play off each other like that. So you never know who's posting on our stories if it's me or Meg, but maybe people will start to take some guesses. Like really this one came from Mandy. Yeah, that would be kind of fun. A little bit nerdy. It'll be from me. really? I because I also identify as such a nerd. I know, but I think you I think you're Your posting energy has had flow and vibe and cool. It's been it's felt good. Or like just what you've been putting out there. I think you have a flow to it. I always feel a little awkward. It's kind of cool. Like our algorithms are gonna collide. Yeah. On Made Me Gay podcasts. Well, you know what's actually been really fun is it's just been easiest. My the Instagram that I'm logged into is our Made Me Gay and every single thing that's coming through. Is gay queer? Yes. LGBTQ related. It's like a clear refresh, OMG on our life. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. We're not taking any of the leftovers over to the new threads. No. Yeah. I'm like wondering, I'm like, am I just gonna always now are we just sharing this made me gay podcast? It's part of our life future as life partners, non sexual life partners. I love this for us. I do. It's a big step. And it's a big step. I do too. Yeah. We're out there in the ethers. People are finding us that we're not even sharing it with reaching out. Thanks to people who have listened. Yeah. I feel a lot of gratitude already for the feedback that we've gotten. Yeah, it means a lot to hear from people and and have just even the support of like honoring what we're doing here. And we are definitely hoping to not this is an inclusive space. And it's a queer space. So we're gonna be taking up space as a queer space. And if there's any a t for a time when there's something that comes up for you, while listening to this podcast, your listener, I invite you to be curious because that's how we are too, is like I get really curious. Meg came over this morning and was kind of saying some things to and I was like, I'm really curious about that. Tell me more. Just so you know, that's our conversation on the backside of this. really intentionally creating an inclusive community here of listeners. Right. But of course, we gay. We gay. Keeping it gay. Yeah. And I think the only thing I wanna add to that is like part of our conversation this morning was and I think we we are probably gonna talk a little bit more about this and I'm really excited about what's coming in this episode today. But I think we will t we will talk more about this, but there's this space where as queer people we have experienced being we have experienced being othered. Is that my saying that right? We've experienced that. And our goal is not to other Right. Exactly. You know, re do I don't know, do it the other do it to other people and other them, right? And so that was a little bit of our conversation this morning where but the but also the reality of we have been othered. We have been queer people living in a culture that is really framed and driven by heteronormativity. So right, right. So when I say heterohel, that doesn't mean that I think that people who are heteronormative are always in hell. No. Right? Right. What it means is that I was in hell yes. Because I was trying to conform myself to all the standards of heteronormativity. And even though I could excel and I could mask and I could perform and I could do it, it was slowly killing me inside. And like quite literally. Yeah. You know it was painful. It was really painful. Same for me. And led me to quite a mental health journey. Yeah. So that's kind of what our curi I I made a comment and that was our what our curiosity. I think we actually had really good helpful conversation about it. Yeah. So Okay, let's I got a little bit sidetracked. We'll come back. We have a guest today. We have a guest today. wait, let's do a quick disclaimer. Yeah. the disclaimer is take care of yourselves. Mm-hmm. Meg's a therapist, but she's not your therapist. Yep. And I'm an educator and dynamic human being who is always studying and learning from my teachers and I hope that this is an environment where you can listen and curious about yourself and about what these conversations stir up inside of you while also taking care of your We suggesting that you should do it the way that we've done it or that the way we've done it is right. we also are not, you know, arguing with your therapist and your own insights and knowledge of you because you know best. We are just Here sharing our experience with you. Yeah. Building some community and and you're invited. Made me gay podcast at gmail dot com. Send us a message. Come along. You know, we will read all those messages and we will respond to you. Yeah. And we hope to hear from you. Yes. Follow us on Instagram too. Yeah. Made me gay podcast. That's right. Shall we introduce our dear friend? Yes. Are you starting or am I? I don't know. Well, I want you to tell the story about how Kai came into our community. We have Kai Miller here today. We have Kai Miller who's a licensed clinical social worker, which is also what I am. I'm a licensed clinical social worker as well. So power to the social workers. Yeah. Kai is a therapist in private practice, also does a lot of education nationwide. They are revered as an attachment specialist and have a very particular expertise around attachment in LGBT communities and families and how that really plays out. so I think you want me to talk about how Kai came to us? Welcome Kai. Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here. We are so happy you are here. well okay so Kai and I met in March Of 2026, so earlier this year. Just as a reminder, this is right af what right as Mandy and I are, breaking up with our respective partners and wanting to build community. So I met Kai on the her app. Shout out her. Woo hoop. And we decided to meet up for a hike, and it was really just an easy conversation. We kind of hit it off. and What really happened was Kai was gonna be going to see Brandy at the Gorge at the end of May and while we were on the hike was like, Hey if you wanna come, I have you can camp in my van with me. Right. And you said this. And I said yes. Later that day I texted Kai and I was like, So I booked a flight. How serious were you? No, literally, you're like, I went on a hike with Kai. I think I'm gonna go to the gorge with them. I was like, What? Nobody warns Meg about strangers and vanished. You have trustworthy eyes. There we go. There we go. and I was really drawn to just how you were in such a yes frame of mind. And the gorge ended up being an absolutely magical weekend. And it's no surprise to me all that Brandy Carlyle is being discussed in this context because we know she's often referred to as Lesbian Jesus. Yes. And is known for dragging people out, not just out of the closet, but out of their homes and into a community that is really fostered and helped together. By the art that is music. Yeah. And we had a lovely time at the gorge. I'll never forget Meg. I think you got an Uber from the parking lot to the gorge, like the road. Yes. And Meg is like walking down the road with like a football and a bike helmet. We got these plans for like small active in this like bag. And so I walk up to meet Meg on the dirt road, and we walk back to my van and we never touch that football or bike for the entire weekend. No, but you know what else? She I guarantee you she She had is bags of Unreal candy. Right? I wish I would have known about that if that was the case. Because if I've come to learn one thing about Meg, it's that you have the corner of candy just I really well done. I have a thing. I have a thing for Unreal in particular. Shout out Unreal. I love it for us. I do too. I noticed that you brought some today. I did bring some today. We're gonna do a little free advertising for Unreal for Unreal. But anyways, yeah, so Kai and I really hit it off that weekend. We had so much fun. And you know, guys, please you ha one thing you have to know is Kai lives in their van 100% of the time. So this is Kai's home that I was being invited into and I was very nervous about I was very aware right, like think about just having someone at your house for three nights, and now I'm gonna be in Kai's van, which is twenty square feet. Twenty square feet, right? And We had so much fun. It would there was a lot of ease. Yeah. was a chill vibe. Really chill vibe. And we were, I think, on the same page as far as let's just hang out and have coffee in a long morning because, you know, I'm almost fifty and we were partying pretty hard that weekend and dancing and singing our our you know guts out. And it was just a really magical weekend. we had some friends who would stop by and say hi in the van and I think it kind of bonded us for a while, yeah. It did. And then we found out that you also knew another a mutual. And so I think about the way that this friend group just kind of came together. I'm probably one of the newer parties to the friend group as far as like I don't have a long-established relationship with anybody else. and just really felt like I was welcomed with open arms, and it really was an immediate sense of belonging from the get-go. and you know, I was at the time that a lot of people were hanging out over the summer, I was in the Pacific Northwest and not really around, and people were all. So great about still texting me and hey, when you get back, let's hang out. And boy, did we hang out when when we got back? When we got back, we have been just like concerting and musicking pretty consistently, and yeah, really our visits have all seemed really consistent and sometimes spontaneous. And it's just been a really wonderful, very unexpected turn in like my life as a queer person who has struggled with a sense of belonging my entire life. And so I think you know, we talk about so often how good this friend group. group feels but there are so many hundreds of little aspects of minutiae in this friend group from the experiences we have that are similar and shared and also those differences and it's just been a wonderful place to exist yeah in authenticity and celebrate one another. Kai, I'm wondering about you you kind of just mentioned this like sense belonging. And we've we've mentioned that you have this like really particular expec expertise and attachment. And I'm wondering if you could kind of give us an overview or f just like some some language and framework so we can kind of hold this conversation because I'd like to hear a little bit more about the belonging. How does that feel as like the next Stepping point from here. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I I think where I'm inclined to go is to just kind of give like a little bit of an overview about what attachment is. and the way that we've been taught about attachment, like in the therapy field. and also, you know, parents who are reading books on how to raise their kids and things like that. So attachment is a neurobiological process where we learn ourselves in social context. and there's a lot that is developed in the way. Of attachment. But one thing I always think about is that relationships are mirrors back to ourselves. We learn a lot about ourselves through interactions with other people. And so if we look at like how attachment theory originated in the 1950s, it was really studying infants and their mothers. It was a very gendered study. And they would watch the reactions of infants as their mothers left the room. And they had this hypothesis that whatever attachment style these infants had. that when they grew up their attachment style might be somewhat similar. They conducted some longitudinal studies and published those and were able to prove if you can through science. The hypothesis that the attachment that is formed in early childhood is something that is carried with us throughout our adult lives. But the one thing that is not talked about in the field of attachment nearly as much as I I want it to be and I'm like really putting out as as much information as I can around how culture can shape attachment. So often when attachment is discussed in terms of like how we relate with other people, number one, we're not talking about attachment as being the foundational cornerstone for how we relate with ourselves. and and really how we develop a sense of self. For so for make we know that like a lot of people who come into therapy have they'll say they have low self-esteem. Right. And so if we, you know, were to review early childhood dynamics, we can sometimes see that there's maybe inconsistent caregiving, sure, abuse, trauma, you know, just any kind of developmental issues that people might experience. But we also have that from our culture as well, right? So I remember in kindergarten, it was like first or second day of school, and the teacher asked us to line up boys over here and girls over here. And I remember standing in the back of the classroom, kind of frozen, because I didn't want to go into either of those groups. I had like an internal resistance that I didn't connect with until 40 years later, you know, of what that experience was. And so in the in the That moment as a five-year-old, I couldn't have named I don't have a sense of belonging, I don't have a place, I don't fit into these binary categories. And that kind of became the theme of my life and the way that I related with myself for a very long time. Kai, I think that it's really interesting to me to hear you name this piece of attachment in the context of how we relate to ourselves because I have not put that language to it but it really it is it's not just relationally and how we are with partners and how we experience our parents but really how we experience ourselves moving through the world. I don't know why, but that just I mean, it's like the miss it's the missing piece, I feel like. I I from my own personal experience of being in a lot of therapy, especially trying to save my marriage and the all that kind of experience the s you know, as we go through this podcast, I'll share more about that. But I think that was for me where we could have both been focusing more on our relationships with ourselves instead of pointing the finger. And so I think it is kind of that like it's that next level. advanced right right to even have the concept I'm coming from a yoga teacher training and also just public educator perspective with like the SEL and like you know positive affirmations and like you know trying to improve your self esteem and like all these different ways but sometimes there's like a real barrier there. So how do you how do you access that? I think the access starts with the unpacking of all of the things we've been taught and the way that we've been taught to relate with ourselves. So if we were to kind of rewind to give that that question and the answer to it some context. when when we're infants, we don't have any degree of separation from our parents. We view ourselves as one with our parents. And part of the developmental process is something that we call individuation. And through that individuation process, what we're learning to do is relate with ourselves based on the working model that we have from a caregiver. So if a child is crying and a caregiver gets curious about that feeling and hey, what might you be needing? That child will internalize, my feelings are valid. And by the way, I'm a human being who is worthy of having my needs met. Where, on the contrary, a lot of us were told, hey, if you're gonna cry, I'm gonna give you something to cry about. Or if you're gonna cry, go to your room and cry. So we learn to sacrifice our needs, right? And especially as people who are raised and socialized as girls and women, we're kind of trained to put other people's needs before our own. And it leads to this pattern of self-abandonment. And in doing that, at the same time, as we're developing in the context of these. Caregiving relationships, we're also developing in these social contexts. So, you know, if we're in a family where like we're not allowed to emote, where we're realized that if if we have harder, more challenging emotions, that there's a threat to that attachment connection, right? Then we will do whatever we have to do to maintain that connection. And so a lot for me, because I was raised by a single dad with two brothers, there was a lot of emphasis on me performing femininity. And that was It wasn't so much as my dad saying, you have to wear this dress. He really did tell me a lot of, if boys can do this, you can too. you can do anything the boys can do. And then I was like, okay, great. So let's go play hockey. And he's like, well, not not, we're not gonna do that. that's not allowed. And so it felt contradictory to me. and there are micro moments of self development, right? So like I remember coming downstairs one night, my my stepmom was getting ready to take me to the Nutcracker. ballet which started a lifelong obsession with ballet and I remember putting on this dress and I mean even if I were to go back a little bit further I'm thinking about shopping for that dress I didn't know what I was doing I was paying attention to what the other girls at school were doing and like I need to do that to fit in and I remember coming down the stairs and feeling beautiful because my stepmom helped me with my hair but the look on my dad's face was just like my gosh he was just so blown away with like how pretty I was and I received a lot of like it was the positive reinforcement for being pretty, for being the girl in the family. and so sometimes just those even micro moments can really shape our identity and the things that we are Told by inference a lot of times that this is the standard that you need to live up to. And you know, because you have a Vulva, here's the set of social expectations. Yes. And I just grew up feeling like I'm failing at this. I'm not good at makeup. I don't enjoy wearing dresses, but I feel like I should. And if I'm going to fit in with the popular girls at school, I need to look like look. So it was just always looking at other people and pulling parts of them into myself. So when we get down to like how do we unpack the layers. To discover authenticity, it's a really intense, multifaceted process. Can I can I ask you? I wrote something down when you were talking. I have this sort of so if I'm thinking about it from this place of coming out, because we've all come out, all you know, all three of us have come out later in life. And maybe it's almost like you have to develop enough of a sense of self where you have a willingness and capacity to threaten the relationships and the attachments that you have in your life. Right. So for you, I actually just I feel like I I just kind of got chills in this as I'm thinking about this. I just I feel a little bit teary. But I feel like for you, Kai, it's like you're Coming down the stairs, and your dad is seeing you, and he's reflecting this, you're beautiful. And I think the thing that I talk about with my clients is attachment is rooted in survival. The it it is absolutely inherent and necessary for survival for There to be an attachment relationship between the infant and the parent because an infant comes into this world 100% dependent upon their parents. And so very, very quickly, the infant learns how to get care. Right? So this is like day one moments of being an a breathing human on the earth. How do I get fed? How do I get care? How do I get it? Right. So for you to go from that child walking down the stairs. having this thing reflected back to you, beauty. Mm-hmm. And seeing somebody glee in Yes. Having having him having him delight in you in that way. To then feels good. It does feel it's really powerful. And and for someone who's questioning belonging, standing at the back of the classroom, boy, girl, which way do I go? To have that reflected back to you. It's like, okay, girl. I did the job. I did it. Yeah, I did it. And so now fast forward, you're an adult. In order to be able to come out, to be yourself, to tap into that authenticity, you have to develop enough of your own sense of self that you are willing to threaten to put that that attachment relationship on the line. Right. Right. And everybody coming out later in life has to do that. Everybody coming out anytime has to do that. Yeah. I think anytime, anytime anybody anytime anybody's Any anytime I I think any time we are making a decision that is against the grain of what our primary attachment figures want us to do, we are doing that. It's at different levels, right? Right? Whether it's conscious or subconscious, it's in the ether, it's yeah, it's the heteronormative environment of the world. I mean of of this is the bread and butter of human existence, right? Yes. Yeah. Attachment is a is an evolutionary adaptation. And it's something that is is programmed so deeply and begins even before birth. Right. so if you were to read There's a really great book on developmental trauma that talks about these adaptive survival schemes or things that we do and talks about the different types of attachment traumas. And they have discovered that even if if somebody has been pregnant with a baby and they have seriously considered putting that baby up for adoption, that that is an early attachment wound. And so often we get, you know, people who come into therapy and have this sense of detachment or a sense of not belonging, and they can't Put into words what that is, because so much of it happens in these early childhood years when that is a prolific period of time for a lot of synoptic connections and neural pathways. So as we have these one-off interactions, they're building these synoptic connections and these neural kind of highways that, like, this is built, and I'm going down that highway every time. And a lot of times, for many of us, that highway is saying yes to serving other people and not even giving ourselves the chance to consider. Or what that might be for me. So as you know, I dabbled with coming out throughout my entire life. I dabbled with coming out in junior high school with the girl who lived in my neighborhood, who everybody bullied her for being a lesbian. And so for me, I was like, well, I'm not like her, I'm not a lesbian. But Mandy, like you said in the in the I think it was you who said in the last episode, talking about hearing like that, I am a lesbian and that's not a positive connotation. Yes. Right. So it's like we pushed that away. And then I I dabbled with coming out, you know, in my teenage years, and then I became a young single mom at the age of nineteen. And I was living in Bakersfield, California, which is a very conservative town. And the the thing that I knew about my life is I had to show up for my daughters. Yeah. I had twins. they were the most important you know thing to me in in in life at that time. and I had to look around and figure out what does being a good parent mean. And to do that, it was, the people around me were like going to church every week and they were dressing a certain way. And so I during that time period in my 20s, I only borrowed self-concept from other people. I had nothing that belonged to me at all. but I always had this urge of like To have queer connection somehow, some way, but I don't think I knew that the things I was doing were queer. So for example, I've had an undercut since I was 14 years old. I didn't know that that's a data point for queerness. you know, I got tattoos the minute that I turned 18. I didn't know that that's, you know, something that's really profound in the queer community for self-expression. I got multiple piercings in my ears. I thought everybody had a crush on their best friend and kissed them sometimes. I didn't you know, so I just didn't understand myself. and a queer concept. Yeah. But I also knew innately that I didn't fit in with the straightness that was around me. But I just felt like I really had to try. And then it got to a point where my mental health was just garbage because I was putting everybody else before myself, not just in the day-to-day, but like in the overarching scheme of of life of, you know, when I talked to people about like in two tw 2009, I tried to come out and I went to a friend and said, like, hey, I think I'm gonna come out. I've met a woman, I'm dating her, and she said, You will absolutely destroy your kids if you come out. So I didn't have one person in Bakersfield that I could look to who would have had supported me. Yeah. And I knew that my biggest fear was doing something that would be difficult for my children or lose contact with them. and it does become a matter of survival and so much of that is occurring, not even on the subconscious level, but on the unconscious level, just so much brewing. Can I ask you a question about your kids if you feel comfortable asking, what what was do you have a sense of what it was like for them to have you come out? I mean, they were adults, right? They were adults. I think it was it was really challenging and not just for my kids but for everybody around me because I had long blonde hair, I was sewing all of the time, I was baking pies, I was like Literally got Martha Stewart magazines and learned how to be a woman from these magazines. this is what women do in this wholesome way. And when I tell you Martha Stewart had a calendar in the front of that magazine for cleaning the house, I followed that. So it's like, my god! I had nothing of my own. I had to borrow it from other women. Otherwise I just felt like I was failing at the whole thing. And so I think the hardest part, you know, I came out as non-binary in twenty sixteen and was using she they pronouns. And it over time, you know, it's really hard to explain to people how it feels to be misgendered because it's not an emotion or somatic experience that I even h really have language for. But it feels like something's being tossed at me, at like at my face, and it just smacks me in the face and it doesn't fit with my soul. It really Is like an energetic fitting or not fitting. And so over time, I really was like, I use they them pronouns. and as I started, you know, dressing a little bit more masculinely, which is something I always did when I was involved in my sports. So I had escapes, these escape hatches, right? Where I had escape hatches where I could kind of date girls in this secrecy and nobody would know. And I had escape hatches where I could go out and do athletics and dress masculinely. And nobody would really think twice about that. But over time I wanted those places where I was going to escape to be a more mainstay part of my life. I wanted to grow that because it felt so good to be in those spaces. But I don't have language for any of it. I think the hardest part for people is when I really w started to be more firm with my they them pronouns. When you say people, who who do you mind naming? Like do you mind just sort of giving us context? Like who struggled? So many people. In my world. And I'm not saying that friends, family, friends, family, community members, my neighbors. and at that time where I was really coming into they them pronouns only, I was living in the Midwest and experiencing a lot of homophobia when I was like out and about, so that became really challenging, and I think it really illustrates that that time in my life I was in a very heteronormative environment with my family and my friends, and you know, there's a lot of guilt that comes. with asking your kids to view you from an entirely different lens because they had their own attachment developed with who I with Kim. Was that okay that we just totally said the name? Okay. so Kim was my my given name. I hated my name my entire life. I had a very severe reaction to my name. and and started playing with changing my name in junior high. and would try to like, even if it was like K Y or K I and like trying all of these different names at one point. I even thought about changing my name to Gwendolyn of all things, because my mom one time said that she loved that name. And so I thought, well, if I could change it to something my parents would like, maybe. they wouldn't be upset that I'm changing my name at all. So I think that the they them pronouns were hard. I think the name change didn't seem like quite as hard. That seemed a little bit easier than than pronouns for some. But the one thing that I think people were really challenged with is when I cut my hair. And this is something that's And I did not think you know, it took me years and years to muster the courage to go into this like butch dike cut that I have now. I think the most insane part of that is I was like going shorter and going shorter. Still hadn't undercut this whole time, by the way. but my hair was like midway down my back. My hair was so long. My hair was very blonde. And I finally go into my barber and I said, today's the day. Austin, we're gonna we're gonna cut my hair off. We're gonna do it. And he said, you know, you Your gender has not matched your hair for a very long time. Were you going to him for these shorter and shorter haircuts? Yes. Okay. So you had been on this journey with this particular barber for a while. Okay. Yeah. And then we did shave the side at one time and then I let that grow out. So I was like, I would go shorter and then long again. And yeah, I he he cut my hair and he said, What are we gonna do with the color? And I was like, I have not even thought about the color. And he said, Well, what I could do is 'cause I had still some blonde at the top, he said, I could just pull through your color and color it so it's all one the same color. And I was like, Well, what color's that? And it dawned on me in that moment, I don't even know what my hair color is. So when we talk about the ability to know ourselves, I had never given my per self permission to look at who I was outside of the blonde hair dye and the makeup that I felt like I always hated doing. And so it was just this really profound moment of like, I have been coloring my hair blonde for so long that I don't even know what my hair color is. And like I'm a brunette actually. Black hair. Yeah, that is quite and almost no gray for a person of 49, little Libra over there. Can't wait till it goes salt and pepper though. It's gonna be so cute. It's gonna be so cute. Hey, I'm wondering if we if I can back us up in the conversation for just a moment because I really want to give a little more attention and and an opportunity for us to define this. We keep saying heteronormativity, the heteronormative life. Like, what do we mean by that? What does that look like? And The context was us asking you to describe how your closest and dearest, you know, handled you coming out as non-binary, you specifically were referencing, you know, people to use your pronouns correctly, living in the Midwest, right? So would you be willing to kind of just define heteronormativity within that context or within the greater context and how just existing in that environment? affected your mental health? Yeah, so I think of heteronormativity or even like compulsory anything is is defined and informed by the social standards that we have. So in the United States, if we were to look at like what are the dominant cultural norms, we would look at things like religion and the way we build houses and the way we build our communities. And so, you know, I think in the last episode the two of you were talking about this how did you define it? Like what we said something was miserable. Is that what you're Yeah, you s you said something about being miserable in heteronormativity or whatever. Which, for a lot of people they don't experience that misery because, the dominant cultural faith of Christianity aligns with who they are and they believe that and other dominant norms such as monogamy, or being in heterorelationships, being PTA parents, you know, whatever that is, is the things that you know, we're all a product of the same algorithm. So we're all raised In the society that has these normative standards. Right. And when you deviate from that, that's really what the weird queer queer means. Yes. and so I think I had this sense of queerness that always kind of existed in the margins my identity that I could never fully incorporate into my sense of self. I kept that othered for myself in a way. And so when we talk about heteronormativity, it's it's not a slant on people who that all aligns and works right. Well for. But for many of us, it we don't align with that. And you know, I've not been monogamous my entire life. I've been polyamorous and ethically non-monogamous since I was 15, 16 years old. So I had additional layers of this because I don't fit in this heteronormative role. I don't conform to the gender standards that I've been ascribed, and I I am not monogamous. So like what does that say about me? If I'm doing all of these things outside of the norm, it means that I don't have. have this sense of belonging. And you know, I think about this for my kids because their attachment was built with Kim with this mom who had long blonde hair and they both have long blonde hair and if we'd be getting ready to go somewhere we would all you know get ready to get ready together. You love those moments. Yes. And that was there was connecting and bonding and now the ask of my kids has been now you have to have this new lens and look at your parent as Kai and relearn that and rebuild your entire attachment. So you know, I think it's hard because myself as Kai, I've I got to know that part internally before I introduced Kai to the world. and so I think when I came out and you know my kids travel all over the world. I don't see them every week. So for me it felt like incremental changes like, I have a new pair of shorts here and like a new jacket there. But for my kids when they would show up, I was completely different because they hadn't seen the incremental changes. So it was a I would guess a jolt for their attachment system. and we do talk about it and I think it's one of the I don't know about you both, but one of the hardest parts for me in coming out later in life is I was so concerned about hurting my kids. And how do I navigate that? So I really had this thing when I was coming out and like with my parents and the rest of my family, like if you have hard feelings about this, I'm gonna have to ask you to like talk to your therapist or other people. I cannot support you in that because I just wanted to focus on this is going to be hard for my kids and I want to hold space for them. And I only have so much capacity to process to walk everybody through this. Yeah, because mostly you're holding space for yourself, right? Right. Right. Or learning to for the way. Can we say that can be a messy process? What a huge thing to do. What a scare. It's like going into the goop, like what we had talked about. Like, I mean, a lot of people don't go there because it's not a no, it's messy. It's it's scary. Well, I think I I wanna just kind of Highlight something that you said that I think is really important and has felt so it just feels like a really important part of any transformation. But I think you you what you said is this grief, right? You mentioned it in the context of like getting ready with your daughters and having long blonde hair. And I think that that is such an important part of this process, right? Even as you are choosing something that is. in alignment with you and authentic and feels good in your body and is very affirming and all of these things are starting to line up and you're looking in the mirror and you're seeing yourself for the first time there is also all of this grief and it actually can be a little bit confusing right you're like I'm choosing this I want this this feels good and I missed you know curling my hair and putting on makeup with my daughters. That I think I I don't I wonder if you can speak to that a little bit or maybe there's not more to say. I just think it's a really important the grief I think is a really important piece because I think it sometimes we are ready for it. And I think it's unexpected. Yes. That's what I mean. Yes. And it's confusing. It is. And I I remember when I first started as a therapist and I would have clients come in who would need to set a boundary or or whatever it was. I would just just set the boundary, just to do that. because I had never done it in my life. A little a little peek behind the curtain into the therapist, my we haven't done it ourselves. and then I had to set a boundary with my mom who was living with me in the on hospice at that time. Time and when I tell you, I wrote down bullet points about what I was going to say on a three by five card, and my hand was shaking. I made a promise to myself and to my clients that I will never just flippantly just go set the boundary. Right. Because there's fear in this and I think that the fear is part of that evolutionary neurobiological aspect of the the fear of disconnection is ultimately at the at the base of all of our fears. That we don't be able to name on the surface level, but the deeper thing down is a worry about disc disconnection. And so there is, I think for people all people, not even just queer folks, right? But who are learning to say no, consider themselves before they jump in and say yes. Can I fit this thing into my schedule? Am I gonna run myself ragged trying to do all of the things? it's not as easy as we make it sound as therapists sometimes because I think that there is the anticipatory grief that we have a hard time naming. There are the unexpected pockets of grief. and we just can't always predict what is going to happen. There's so much uncertainty in the coming out process with how are we going to co parent? How are our kids gonna look at us? Am I going to experience more homophobia? and I don't know that I I exist in any system of relationships at any domain in my life. That was not impacted by my coming out. Right. And 100%. It's hard to not internalize that. It's like this is the wrong thing. And and by the way, maybe if I just wasn't gay and continued to conform to head informativity, then you know, hard, bad things wouldn't happen. So it's it's is a really multifactorial unpacking process and and it's crazy because you're unpacking and you're regrowing at the same time. At the end of the day, you're choosing yourself and you're choosing to build your sense of self, which is only going to positively impact those around you, especially those closest to you. You being your truest and most authentic self is a gift to everyone, to society. Yeah. And it's a re adolescene. You know, you're going through because adolescence is the process of learning self and individuating from our primary attachment. Figures and so for a lot of us, we do kind of go back to the drawing board and reorient, you know, who we are within ourselves, and people around us can experience that, and they're the outside observers watching the peeling back, and wait, where do I stand? And is it okay if I wear a men's whatever? And it's it's just a lot of pieces, a lot of moving parts. I'm sorry, this I just there's just so many good things coming up. I want to go back to a couple things that you said because I want to not. But I'm taking it where are we cul de sacking? I don't know. Okay, so you said something a little bit ago around boundaries, right? And I really frame boundaries and I think about boundaries as carving out space for ourselves, right? Giving ourselves permission to exist in this space. And from the attachment perspective, and this isn't, this isn't mine, this is Gordon Neufeld, so I gotta give credit to him, but he really talks about. The parent's role, one of the parents' roles in attachment is giving the child permission to exist. And the more capacity the parent has, the more permission the child has to exist in the in a more true version of themselves, right? So it's how how much can the child be themselves and stay in a relationship essentially, right? So when we're setting boundaries, we are pushing against something, right? It's we're not setting a I'm not saying Kai, I'm setting a boundary, you gotta stay over there because you're already old. over there and you're not violating something. My space. My space. Right. And so boundaries is pushing and claiming something, right? So it's giving ourselves permission to exist, which I think kind of ties into that over functioning and thinking about ourselves. We are reorienting to ourselves as a human and giving ourselves permission to exist. So I feel like that do you does that resonate with you and does that It it really does and I actually had this conversation with one of my daughters a couple of weeks ago because she said, sometimes you'll say something is okay and then you come back and you say it's not. And I was like, I really, one of my values is to be consistent. And we can also give ourselves permission to have our feelings change. But what I realized when I unpack that in therapy, because it meant something to my child, so I wanted to spend some time with it, unpacking it with my own therapist, I realized the reason that that happens is because when I'm asked a question, I just want it to be okay for them. I want it to be okay for everybody else. And and then I would get irritated and my behaviors would get a little sideways. Because why aren't they considering me? Well, other people can only meet us as deeply as we've met ourselves. So if I haven't considered myself, that structure in relationship is not going to exist. So the thing I'm working on now is when I'm asked to do something. To give myself just a beat to consider myself. Really, do you want to do it? Yeah, does it feel like capacity for it? Does it feel an alignment? Do I want to participate in that? And so, you know, boundaries, I I think it's such an interesting word, this or this concept of boundaries. I don't know about the two of you, but sometimes I feel like it's actually not the best word for what it is. Right. Because I look at it as what I'm willing to participate in. So if I'm in a conversation with somebody and they're speaking in a way that makes me feel disrespected, I'm not gonna try. control their behavior, but I'm going to say I'm a step back because I don't want to be exposed to something that's harmful. The boundary is how you is how we, like I am going to carry myself in a specific situation. So it it is a weird word. Boundary sounds like something we're doing to somebody else. I'm setting a boundary on you. But really it's I'm carving out the space for how I want to move and live in it. And what I want expose myself to. Yeah. Yes, exactly. I love that I'm not willing to participate in this. That was very clear for me when I was having boundaries coming up. I was like, I'm actually not able to participate in this anymore. And I could put that in a d a couple different contexts. But yeah. That's how it felt energetic energetically for me. It's actually really good language for this conversation that I'm anticipating having later today. It's like I'm not willing to participate it in the way that it's set up as it is. Right. You know? Yeah. Yeah. That's so empowering. And that I hope to in the future. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. to say yes or no and permission to honor what i'm feeling and needing so when that hasn't been modeled to us to the degree that would like optimize an attachment response we can kind of flail a little bit in in trying to figure that out and i think that you know just coming into terms with sitting with how we're feeling and how we're responding to something, I I have realized how infrequently I have given myself the opportunity to do that throughout my life. Right. And it's so it's just been this, you know, four decades of self-abandonment. And the other part that's so huge in this is many of us who are raised and socialized to girls and women grow in our self-worth and value as human beings based on what we can provide for other people. Yes. Mm-hmm. So if I'm not providing for other people, will they even want me around? Right. And so what I realized is I had this whole overfunctioning thing going on and then I like come to this screeching halt of over the last couple of years really just conducting relational inventories and which relationships are reciprocal. And you know, relationships are going to ebb and flow. There's going to be times where I give more and I have less to give. Yeah. but I noticed a pattern of like I'm 150% in. Yeah. shout out, you know, people pleasers anonymous. and so it is still taking a lot of time. And even though I talk about this with clients for eight hours a day, what I realized is I need to start Taking some of the advice I'm giving to other people and do this work for myself. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the the powerful part of it is that a lot of times we say, like, we can't do this anymore. I can't do that. And I've shifted that to like I won't. Because can't kind of speaks to you could have capacity or something. Yes. I could. I'm not willing. Sure, I could do this. And if I'm extending myself beyond. in a way that's going to be detrimental to myself, my personhood. That's where I I draw the line. I will have empathy and understanding for things that are people are going through. I have compassion and empathy. I it's in spades. Right. and what will happen is sometimes that just gets taken off with. And then I'm standing there holding a bag of like d don't necessarily have symmetry and reciprocity in a way that makes me feel whole in this space. And so yeah, I probably could actually because I've done it for 40 years. Right. but I won't. But you're making a choice not to. It the it is the exercising of agency. Yeah. I think is the thing that develops self. And, you know, a lot of times we have clients who come in who want to gain confidence in this arena and like they want to gain the confidence before they set the boundary. And it just does not work that way. And you gain the confidence and the self worth in i after the action of the discomfort that first the growth and that's a really challenging void of uncertainty that we're asking people to move through. Yeah you have to s it has to be uncomfortable. Yeah. Unfortunately. Unfortunately. Yeah. Sometimes I'm like, why are our brains designed this way? Why but it is what it is. It's how we know we're on the growth edge. Right now what we have to help us develop the sense of self and what we're guided by is our emotional and somatic experiences. That's all we got. Meg and Mandy: What's up, y'all? Thank you so much for listening to our conversation with Kai Miller. We're so glad you're here. Please come back next week and listen to part two of that conversation. And don't forget, we're waiting for you at MadeMeGay Podcast at gmail.com. Let us know what you thought about this conversation. be cheeky. Invite yourself on to the podcast. Why not? We want to hear from you. And we look forward to seeing you here real soon. next Thursday. Bye.