Transcript
Speaker: I'd love to say I have love in my heart all the way through, but I don't because people like Barry Weiss, they've been able to accumulate enormous amounts of resources, enact enormous amounts of power that did direct and meaningful harm.
Speaker: If they show up in a gay establishment or they show up in a space that queer people have some level of control or power, to me, they shouldn't be welcome. They should not enjoy the benefits of a liberation that they fundamentally harmed.
Speaker: Well, hello, family. Welcome to Power Beyond Pride, a weekly queer change-making podcast bringing you voices and ideas from across our fears and stabbing the spectrum to transform our world.
Speaker: This is our Reply All, the show where we read your questions, spill a little tea, and try to offer our best solutions to solve our world's problems.
Speaker: I'm Kenyon. I am communication strategist for social justice causes, a writer and editor, and I'm also and Miss Rachel's fan.
Speaker: There we go. Perfect. Every week we gather around this virtual kitchen table to talk about what's happening in our community, what's happening in our country, and what's happening in our hearts.
Speaker: I'm Shane, harm reductionist, small business owner, public speaker, and the missing member of the Muppet All-Star Band. Oh, OK, before I even give my opening real quick, what Muppet would you be?
Speaker: Oh, my gosh. Well, I mean, first of all, I'd be my own Muppet because I'm a missing member of the Muppet All-Star Band. So but I would say I'm probably the offshoot of, I think, the Cookie Monster.
Speaker: And that a Muppet? Is that a Muppet? Yeah, they're all Muppets. Sesame Street's Muppet. but mean Technically, yes, but they are a puppet.
Speaker: But the Muppets were a whole franchise by themselves. You got Hermann. Oh, then i'm probably the missing love child and maybe Gonzo and the chicken. can see that. Okay.
Speaker: I'm probably, I'm probably, that's, that's the, mean, if we're going to, if we're going to have to pick Muppet. How dare you not mention Miss Piggy? You have you have a Miss Piggy undertone. No, I mean, I love Miss Piggy, but I am probably not the love child of, I am definitely the love child of Yonzo and one of the chickens, but raised by animals.
Speaker: Yes, Lord. Okay, I'll give you that. Well, we believe the best conversations don't happen when everyone agrees, clearly, over here with Animal. They happen when people are willing to listen, learn, and grow together.
Speaker: i am Maddie, and I am the loudest one in the room every time I step in it, whether I am talking or just simply standing. And yeah, that's me in a nutshell. but Today's episode is about making sense of the movement that we're living in.
Speaker: We're talking politics, community, culture, and the questions you've been sending us from all over the country. I am Daniel W.K. Lee, poet, author, and I still need ocular proof of Mitch McConnell's vitality.
Speaker: I mean, in the day of AI and animatronics, I really feel like, yeah, that is a reasonable ask. That is a reasonable ask. But by the time this airs, that might have changed. Who knows? The deepfake, the AI-generated video of him doing the Michael Jackson thriller dance was pretty great. But that he is not.
Speaker: He is not. Yeah. So speaking of of relics from the past, let's turn to our first subject. So the National Museum. Love the segue.
Speaker: Love it. I love that segue. That segue deserves, that deserves, that deserves that's a round of applause. That's daytime handy right there. Yes, it is. one yeah All right. So first up, the National Museum of African-American History and Culture was created because for generations, the stories, contributions, struggles, achievements of Black Americans were often missing from the larger American narrative.
Speaker: But now we're seeing a larger political fight over how this history should be told, what stories should be highlighted, and whether conversations about racism, inequality, and identity are considered education or whether they're considered, quote unquote, divisive.
Speaker: So to my colleagues here, when government leaders challenge museums and institutions for telling difficult parts of American history, where do we draw the line between making history sort of more positive and erasing the realities that shape this country? Who benefits from when these kinds of stories are removed, softened, or just flat out rewritten?
Speaker: Okay, well, first off, we know who benefits. that I mean, that's something we can all definitely agree on. We know who benefits. I mean, i think you have to really look at the kind of narrative that they're trying to construct by whatever levers that they're using in order to either erase or our spin the the knowledge out there.
Speaker: I mean, obviously the desire to shape the narrative is a example of power, right? And then We have to investigate their intentions behind it. And i don't think it really serves anyone to sanitize, even though that's kind of what we all we we often do, especially when it comes to African-American history, Black history, black the history of the heroes of Black history, cherry-picking leaders and their their ideas while disavowing or just completely obfuscating other elements.
Speaker: For example, MLK and his anti-war bona fides. So, I mean, i think really the is to a degree, the larger question becomes like, when is when it when does it become so critical that people where it it it affects most even materially or most materially decide this is it has to stop?
Speaker: Because I'm kind of convinced that that and in general at this point, that we're so docile-ized our politics that it's like, i can't I can't wrap my head around, like, mass murder and not not not hitting the streets.
Speaker: and But here we are. first of all First of all, I want to take the term docileized going to throw that on my Scrabble board because that is going to be my favorite word. But I think what you hit on is is is really important because I think it is this case where a lot of us, and I say us broadly, those of us who clearly are watching this happen, and and I think as Maddie pointed out, know where it's coming from.
Speaker: What I think is alarming in some ways is the idea, like what they're going to be doing part of this part of this effort includes attacking the Smithsonian right reputation more broadly and putting signage up around a lot of historical historical museums or pieces around that that talk about this being inaccurate history, right?
Speaker: So even even more than just the specifics, because I think one thing that's great about history and the study of history is we're always learning and we're always going back and re-reflecting on both the absences, the stories that are missing from those conversations, as well as parts of that history that have played out in ways that were unexpected. And so we go back and understand lineages that have a different outcome than I think we would have known before. And so history is a living, breathing thing.
Speaker: What I think the idea of the word inaccurate, which is really the the critical word that they're putting into some of the signage, is so important is that it casts doubt over who gets to tell these stories on any kind of neutral space in which there is maybe not all parties in agreement about what the implications of history are, but that the facts and the basis of that history are itself essentially and the so the subject of doubt.
Speaker: And so there are things that are just simply provable facts. But if you can create and cast that doubt, then you can also start to build more convenient narratives. You can start to undermine histories in ways that has been done before. Again, we can go back to more obvious and and most grotesque models like Nazi Germany and other places where that's been done, but even more subtle paratives that have been used in in varying nations that have had different motivations to change people's behavior or make them accept decisions that generally disenfranchise or or harm communities.
Speaker: and And that should give us a lot of pause. Like this idea of inaccurate, right, should really should really give people a moment to to to think about, well, okay, wait a minute.
Speaker: The Smithsonian is is historically an institution that all of us may not always like the outcome, again, whether it makes us feel bad or not, but it is statistically, not statistically, it is historically provable. It is factually solid.
Speaker: And I think they want to undermine that. They want to cast that. No, I was going to say, my issue with it is the fact of the matter is, tell the truth. Why are we whitewashing it in the first place? Why are we sugarcoating it in the first place? The thing about it is, everything happened. Everything from slavery happened, civil rights happened, Stonewall happened,
Speaker: Everything happened. Concentration camps happened. We know this. The fact that we're trying to make it more positive or phrase it in a narrative that it didn't possibly or there was a different outcome or a different reason as to why it started, we're doing our children a disservice because the sad part about it is this is why you're looking at the shit that's unfolding in real time now for politics and people think it's okay.
Speaker: No, this is not okay. It's not okay that you have a person in the White House that has 34 convictions, has been like everything has been done. We know that he is a felon. We know he's a criminal. And yet he is still stealing from us.
Speaker: And we think that's okay. That's not okay. It's not. So if we don't talk about people like Hitler, if we don't talk about things like slavery, if we don't remind ourselves of the things that we have been through, we're going to continue keep repeating.
Speaker: the same pattern over and over again. So that's why I'm like, there is no positive way to spin it. It's history. It's there. It's our lesson. We need to learn it.
Speaker: Yeah, i this kind of in the spring, I went back and listened to the audio book of W.B. Du Bois' Black Reconstruction. and I hadn't read, I read the book a long time, like probably 20 years ago. And it was so interesting to listen to it again. So for listeners, so Du Bois wrote a very big book on the early 20th century detailing what happened during Reconstruction in this country. And it was fascinating.
Speaker: It was so appalling just how little we have actually learned. I mean, so much of what happened kind of after 1865, but certainly by the time you get to the 1870s, when the real unwinding of the structures of Reconstruction happened,
Speaker: we're I mean, we're having basically the same kind of debates, debates about what history matters, who gets to tell it, dismantling of of of various kinds of institutions, which we're also seeing at the and at the national level. that All of that was kind of at play at that time. And so that I find interesting. I think just more bringing it to the current moment. A lot of this is is.
Speaker: I mean, as long histories as as far as that, but also more recently, is to me, get back against 2020, right? It is a backlash against taking down Confederate statues and kind of this hero worship of people who were pretty awful. And only thing I would just say is like what, you know,
Speaker: What would change the dynamic here is not just for Americans to think that hearing about slavery or the indigenous genocide or Japanese internment camps or whatever parts of history that people feel is unsavory or whatever, that if if instead of focusing on people like Jefferson Davis and some of these other awful kind of Confederates or segregationists or what have you,
Speaker: There were white people at this during all these periods who were fighting against that. And I would be perfectly fine if we had schools, parks, monuments named after some of those people. And if America actually adopted that history to be proud of the people who resisted racial violence, slavery, apartheid in the United states whatever it is, as a part of the story, then then the then the Smithsonian African American History Museum and then the other parts of American history would actually go together because they would actually be telling a story of struggling to this thing we keep saying is about for moving to a kind of better union and whatever the case may be. And I'm not even that romantic about it. But I just think that that's the that that's one of the things that if we actually just the Baldwin used to always say is that Americans are children, right? And juvenile, because we will not actually tell the truth about who we are.
Speaker: And that will be the undoing of it. And so I think if we Instead, if there was a focus on what the struggle towards some sort of of justice would look like and actually uplift not just the Black folks who fought for that, but other groups of folks who fought for those things, that would actually be the story that we could all agree on telling. But obviously, we can't for all the reasons y'all made. Well, and and Kenyon, I think you got right into my, at least I was very much on the same wavelength as you. So I appreciate that. Because I i think one of the conversations that's come up over the last little while in the
Speaker: ah frustrating repeal of a lot of conversations around diversity and equity has been in some ways, whether or not the weight that's put on these movements lives on the people who experienced the greatest amount of oppression in those scenarios, right? In in those in those histories.
Speaker: And what do we do is we only elevate. Now, again, this is a really sort of, we don't have an answer for this. We've never done this as a culture well. And so I wonder what that map would look like. Where to your point, Kenyon, we're not only making sure that we elevate leaders of color, for example, in the civil rights movement, but there is a place, right, that we don't de-center the conversation from the community members who are most directly impacted by segregation and by those movements.
Speaker: But we also recognize that there is a path for those who for those communities who essentially whose identities overlap with those who were engaged in in creating that oppression. Right. on what that dissent looks like. And there are many, I could not name any, of again, I don't know if any of us who could, right? Any of the nuns or ministers or activists who were part of the civil rights movements as white people.
Speaker: whose work has essentially been sidelined. And again, that's where it becomes really difficult to figure out, well, what does that look like for us? Because we don't necessarily want to take and displace the MLKs, the, you know, the banks. We don't want to do that. But if we don't make a space, and I guess that's the bigger question is, if we don't make a space for community members who represent that or have shared those identities with individuals and communities where that oppression is sort of founded,
Speaker: then do we ever give a pathway for those legacies to ever actually have a model for what dissent and moving toward that justice looks like? And for queer people, it's not dissimilar, right?
Speaker: How many of us know any of the straight allies or non-queer allies who were any part of those movements early on, who became sort of critical folks in those movements? And I'm always hesitant. We've talked on this show about, we elevate queer changemakers. We've talked about the room of allies.
Speaker: But really we're coming, yeah part of what I'm hearing in the conversation from you, Kenyon, and what I thought about in these responses too is, well, what does that look like? How do we do that? And then also not displace or not recenter typically communities who already live in the majority or have and hold that space by which they they essentially foment that question, right? So yeah what does that it's the question about how to do that without creating kind of white savior, right? to Just to prop up more white saviors, right? I told people to agree with that.
Speaker: But there has to be some space for, and this is, again, I don't think that, I don't know any any Black people that would say no statues of John Brown or whomever, like the press.
Speaker: so it' So that's not it even on us, per se. I think i think it turned into something that became, a kind of lopsided celebrating these different people who were were allies to various forms of struggle, sure. But I think we have to figure out a way, I think, to kind of not just turn it into ah debate about a statue about of of whoever, right? Jefferson Davis or whoever.
Speaker: And more about, well, who are these other people who actually, you know ah had an opposing view during those times. that That's part of the other narrative. Well, it was the Times. But there were lot of people in the Times who were like, this is bullshit, right? So let's focus us on the people who were saying this is some bullshit more than the people who were up to uphold status quo as as one way to kind of unpack some this.
Speaker: But I want to bring up the fact that it's like it's not, it's not, it shouldn't be the labor, the intellectual or other labor of queer people or black people to be like, to prop up or to remind oh ah folks, ah white folks like that you have ancestors, priors ah who did great work that were was actually meaningful. It's not it's not your job, Kenyon, to do that for someone else.
Speaker: You can if you want, but it's not it's not your job. It's not your- You say that, but but but isn't that the challenge though? Is that we haven't done it in the past for exactly that reason, right?
Speaker: We've said that racism is is basically the the wheelhouse of of Black community members, even though white people created it. That homophobia and transphobia is somehow LGBTQ plus communities' responsibility to manage, and yet straight people create right?
Speaker: But playing that game hasn't gotten us very far. I guess that's, I guess I hear what you're saying, Daniel, but I know i know we got to go to break. It hasn't worked. And so I guess the question that I hear Kenyon asking, and I'm kind of asking too, is if we're going to try something different, because this just hasn't worked in the past, we continue to be back in this cycle over and over again.
Speaker: We got to try something different, right? I don't think what I'm saying is just is antithetical to what you're saying. I'm saying if you're going to, you're going to have the labor, you have to socialize the labor essentially, but it's not the onus of responsibility to mine the history so fight to prop up non-black peoples who had done the work as well.
Speaker: If they were like Grace Lee Boggs and other other Asian American Black Panthers and stuff like that, that's on my community to mine that history and elevate them and put them in context and conversation to that greater history.
Speaker: But it's not for... it's not for It's not for ah Black American, it's not the onus of responsibility for them to be like, hey, you to to to find the other examples of the of the other the grease Grace Lee Boggs and such. I think if we're going to have a labor of it, have you have to socialize the labor of that, so to speak.
Speaker: But i I just want to make a final point before we kind of tie things up. I think what is so... What it all brings up is that there's an imperative to learn outside of institutions that are subject or most subject to the coercive power of of of the state, that there are ways to find knowledge and and to reproduce knowledge and that we don't have to rely on the Smithsonian's and stuff like that to to buy to to to get that information and that knowledge and and that can be passed down to other authors individuals and not just within a group, but more more broadly. This is where that ancestral knowledge or or cross cross community discourse is so important.
Speaker: well And I definitely agree with Daniel. I don't think it's our, it should not be our responsibility to go find someone else to replace what is they're trying to take down.
Speaker: But what is our responsibility, fellas, is to pay the bills. So we have to take quick break. We will be right back. So please stay tuned to Power Beyond Pride.
Speaker: Welcome back. This is Power Beyond Pride, a queer change-making podcast. I am your co-host, Shane Lucas. I'm here with my phenomenal co-hosts, Daniel W.K. Lee, Maddie Bynum, and the glorious Kenyon Pharaoh. And we are all, yeah, there we go, with full face, giving us full face.
Speaker: giving us full face. And he was giving alms earlier. Did you see that? I noticed that when he was talking. Oh, is he doing gun shows? Were we getting gun shows? What we doing? You know, California is a good thing, but what why what was... the
Speaker: look You know what? I'm sitting here in a hoodie and you all are like, it's for summer. That's all I'm going to say. a thing is, we've got two Leos and two Scorpios, which is two ostensible vanities and two low-down vanities. Yes.
Speaker: okay yeah Absolutely. And we know which one you are, Daniel, because you used the word ostensible. So there we go. We know how this is. We know how this is. And you know what? Us Leos are celebrating. And so we are going to be celebrating July and August.
Speaker: and September, October, November, December, January, February, March, April, May, June, July. When it comes to us, Leo's, and this is not vanity, but when it comes to Leo's, anytime we walk in the room, you celebrate. So we're just always celebrated because we are naturally great, golden aura, selfless, beautiful people who can be just a little bit dramatic from time to time.
Speaker: For real? for real That's it. Yes. Sounds great. So our next question. A recent New York Times guest essay titled, I'm not gay. I'm gay. I'm sorry.
Speaker: A recent new York Times guest essay titled, I'm gay, not queer. It matters. Has sparked passionate debates across the LGBTQ plus community. ah The author argues that Gay describes the fixed sexual orientation while queer has become a broader political and cultural identity that not everyone embraces.
Speaker: This essay generated strong responses from people who agree and people who strongly disagree. And many who believe both identities serve equal ah deserve that is equal respect. ah Is the term queer unifying or has it become so broad that some people no longer feel feel represented by it?
Speaker: And how do we make room for different identities without turning them into divisions? I think it's such a weird question in some ways because queer is ah such an inclusive term.
Speaker: And so it it is hard for me, for people to want to tear away sort of, I'm gay, but not not queer. What they're really saying, I think, is a lot more disturbing.
Speaker: And especially when you think about the power held, particularly with those individuals who intersect with the most amounts of privilege. Again, we're talking about white, middle class men and women primarily, cisgendered men and women primarily.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that there's real reasons to be frustrated by it. And there's been a number of responses that have echoed that, certainly. And it doesn't it's not lost on any of us about Lindsey Graham's passing in that he basically got to enjoy his time as a gay man.
Speaker: he enjoyed it. Engaging it. At Disney, he's got the wand to prove it, that he... and would doing enormous amounts of harm, right, to other other other community members who live across the gender and and and sexual identity and gender presentation spectrum, all while living a lifestyle that essentially was overlooked by by many of people in his and his own party. So i I mean, it's hard for me to to feel like the the essay had a lot of valid points.
Speaker: It felt out the gate or from the jump as a very... tainted conversation of someone who just was clearly oblivious, I think, to to the very real the very real experiences of most people.
Speaker: Yeah, I would say i think the the point is taken, in right, that queer has kind of expanded and and isn't kind of has has been for more than 30 years.
Speaker: Kind of a term that is expressing a certain kind of political orientation. Right. So I don't that premise. a Fine. He's correct about it. and indeed But at the end of the day, for me, who generally is fine with identifying as queer, particularly in in kind of political context,
Speaker: If you ask me my just sexual orientation or gender, like, i yes, I would say gay. I also usually would just say I'm a butch queen. that Very kind of black kind of description of of a certain kind of gay man. Right. So and and and i and I've had sometimes in challenges with the way queer gets used, sometimes in a way that delineates a kind of at least ah a connection to or adjacency to a kind of certain kind of white anarchist subculture, right, of queer.
Speaker: and and And to me, one of the the distinguishing moments where I kind of had that realization, I was at a quote unquote queer party in Brooklyn, maybe it's probably more than 10 years ago. And so I was like, was actually there, I was waiting on a friend of mine to show up or whatever.
Speaker: And three or four different times, I was waiting on my friend to to show up so we could just hang and party, whatever. People thought I was a bouncer there. And that was very telling. And it was it was all white people who came up to me and asked me. They thought I was security or a bouncer, like somebody working there. And that was very telling to me about how that particular, like I said, kind of a subculture saw me in that space, right?
Speaker: Which said something. Now, i say I say that and I also say, however, i am not going to waste a lot of ink and energy like to try to dismiss like people who identify as queer or queer identities as a way to kind of distinguish myself from that for a whole bunch of reasons. I don't actually find that actually to be pretty fucked up.
Speaker: While I can also acknowledge that the term for me has also had some some challenges. Right. And in in some in some ways, even while I also embrace it in other ways. Maddie.
Speaker: Honestly, I'm trying to figure out how the best way to say it, the right way, because y'all know I'm not very sometimes eloquent with my words. But I would say, I don't... When I read that article, it was just one of those things where...
Speaker: what it What is the difference, if that makes sense? In a sense, because when I see the word queer, or when I and i know some people, like some of my my friends that identify as queer, and then I have friends identify as as gay men or gay, but I don't see a difference, if that makes sense.
Speaker: So to read the article, to me, the argument was kind of lost on, because it's like I've never really... from my perspective, I don't see the argument, if that makes sense.
Speaker: you well I mean, because I agree with Kenya was saying. I'm not going to be offended if someone calls me queer versus calling me intersex. It doesn't make a difference to me, if that makes sense. yeah Because to me, when I look at the whole community of us, we're all queer, in a sense. We're queer.
Speaker: So I think the beauty that we have... different aspects of our community, that's what makes us unique, but i don't i don't see where there is a dominance or a struggle or a battle to be gay or queer, if that makes sense. So that's why said the argument was kind of lost on me in that sense, because I don't see that.
Speaker: I mean, i First of all, this idea that queer has, quote unquote, become political is ahistoric. Right.
Speaker: Queer as a project, as a political project, actively going against the kind of gay rights discourse in in and the movement, where it was saying the structure, of the... iy the What we're aspiring to is basically homonormativity and queerness was actively taught wanting to talk about the the institutions and systems that keep us inequitable and and unequal.
Speaker: It wasn't about trying to expand our circles of circles of privilege and in order to get gay men, in particular were gay men and lesbians, access to those privileges.
Speaker: This kind of ever-expanding incrementalism. it was It began as a political as a political project. And that's why, and that what happened in the late 90s and in the early aughts when I was in university and becoming more more aware and in terms of political consciousness.
Speaker: So and that's why I embrace it. And that's why i kind of don't mind a way that parsing of gay and queer, because to me, they are different projects. And I don't mind. i don't mind the kind of expanded use of queer as an umbrella term.
Speaker: i I don't use try to use it. I generally don't use it that way. I try to use it in that kind of specific political anti-heteronormative sense.
Speaker: But I think what's interesting and useful, I guess, even for this person's kind of articulation is that identity is really about like how do you how you're positioning yourself and how you're rendering yourself into society, right?
Speaker: And if this guy wants to be like a gay man specifically, and a way, and in terms of in all the baggage that comes with being a gay white man, right? in that In that way, that's kind of like showing us where he is, right? This is his stake and maybe his stake also includes a hood.
Speaker: You know? And I'm okay with him trying to say, this is this is how I identify it and this is why it matters to me to be this. This is my box and I don't want to be queer.
Speaker: Like, all right, have it have at it. Because I think there are plenty of people that are interested in being or embracing a more expansive or even ah a more narrow sense of the idea being queer.
Speaker: ah being queer As long as there's kind of like a communication and understanding of what those what those renderings are and or what that positionality means in society.
Speaker: i yeah Daniel, danielle first of all, i I love what you shared there because I feel i think that in hearing you share that and obviously hearing Maddie and you and Kenyan sharing, too. Like, I guess what I'm interested then in is because I think you all make salient points around maybe maybe there is a reason for this distinction. I come at it very much, I think, starry-eyed about what a queer movement was and that I really hope that everybody, it was a big umbrella and if we just understood that the beauty and the and the and the vitality of the big umbrella, then of course you'd understand there are a thousand different pathways to thrive and all of them are valid and that's great.
Speaker: And that's what makes queerness for me as somebody joined the movement early on and even in the early queer movement. So even Daniel Pryde of the 1990s, you had queers sort of being reclaimed in the 1960s and 70s as well. Yeah.
Speaker: Part of other movements that kind of preceded it that way. And I loved that it was this sort of liberatory idea. However, What I think maybe the article does, and there is maybe reason to do it and this is your point, Kenyon, and and and and both you and Daniel in this way, when you look at Scott Bessent, or you look at Peter Thiel, or you're looking at Barry Weiss, and you're looking at people in the current administration who both are able to own an identity that technically, historically has been folded under the queer umbrella, and yet directly act against the well-being of other people who are living along those multiple spectrums,
Speaker: Do they deserve or should they benefit or should they be included in a conversation about liberation in the movement? Should they get the rights to be able to do that? Now, again, i don't know what that looks like. i don't how you penalize them. Like, you can't come to Fire Island, Scott Besson. And they'll just buy Fire Island or Peter Thiel, whoever, right?
Speaker: But I think there is a good conversation maybe there about what what that means to have your own movement essentially splinter. Right. And I don't know if it's good or bad. And I'd love to, I know we've got to go to break here in a few minutes.
Speaker: i don't know if it's good or bad to have that splintering. But, you know, again, if you look at racial justice conversations there, it's not, it's not wholly different from essentially black middle class calling out, especially black men from lower income and lower resource communities in the nineteen eighty s and increasing incarcerative practices and doing kind of the same thing. Hey, you know what? You should be you should be a well up so ah up well, whatever, upstanding person. And otherwise, rather than looking at the systemic biases and everything else that's there, people like Bill Cosby and other, again, we can talk about Bill Cosby all day, but like other, there were people who stood behind the carceral responses to black men in the 1980s and ninety s who shared at least some overlap of identity and lived experience.
Speaker: and i and i And I just, I think there's got to be some way to separate that out before people who have power, like Barry Weiss and Peter Thiel and Scott Bessent, and that list is pretty extensive, have the ability to enact that power on other people for whom those identities will become essentially places of ah them to be punished.
Speaker: And that's what worries me is that there is a reason to essentially have this separation. i don't know what it looks like. But I worry about those people brandishing the same identities or as an identity and then then punishing everybody else in that process, even though they benefited from that same thing.
Speaker: I would wonder if the Barry Weisses of the world and the Peter Thiels actually called themselves queer because i don't think of them as queer. i don't think of them in that sense. that You know that t-shirt that says, not gay isn't happy, but queer isn't fuck you.
Speaker: Like, Barry Weiss and Peter Thiel aren't that. They aren't that mode of kind of like, anti-normative, liberatory.
Speaker: They're actually working in behest of power and peer and like in the imperial core, right? So it's like, I don't i can't imagine Barry White being like, I'm queer. Like, I'm thinking, she goes, I'm a lesbian and it matters.
Speaker: you know Every gay restaurant should kick her out. Like, i don't know. Like, I don't understand how like then they should they should not be included in being able to go to these spaces where they get to be affirmed. Yeah, im sure. There's no consequences. Yeah, I was going to say, paul I'm all for public shaming of people like out of out of certain cases.
Speaker: But also but but I also just want to caution because I also want to like there could be a world where somebody identifies as queer. And again, like we can deb debate like the politics of it, but like, it has a certain kind of aesthetic presentation that leads people to that can go tattoos, piercings, or like ranges of things like within our community, people would like probably like visibly associate with a queer identity. There's nothing to say that like that person's like that, that like,
Speaker: a certain kind of aesthetic and a person who identifies as such could also just also be involved in a lot of like right wing bullshit that that the world to me, there's a world where that could happen. And so I also want to caution us that like, just cause somebody called themselves a thing doesn't mean that they can't, could could not also be in the service of a like right wing agenda just cause they, so and be prepared for that to happen.
Speaker: there's the fuck Oh yeah, for sure. This is how the shit goes. Right. There's a lot of wool and sheep clothing. There's a lot of people pretending right now. There's a lot of people masking.
Speaker: And I definitely, I agree with you because I think it's hilarious when we look at certain things. because And I'm so glad Daniel said this so I didn't feel too negative. But i was like, I don't consider Barry Weiss queer. I'm sorry. Like to me, when I think of queer, I think of family. Bitch, you're not family. I'm sorry. Because it's not.
Speaker: When you are using... your platform to deliberately erase your own community. Yeah, I can't call you community nor family. no No, I mean, I agree with you. I don't think any of these people consider themselves queer, but I don't like if they're going to spaces where queer people are essentially, like, they are are either thriving or they own or they they support. Like, again, if if Scott Besson goes to Fire Island, I hope somebody, like, shits on his face and unconsensually.
Speaker: Like, I hope... That's such a graphic state. Bad things happen. Because, of all again, i don't know. like there is i don't That's what I came up with. That's what we're going with. I i i mean, I would love to say I have love in my heart all the way through, but I don't because people like Barry Weiss, people like Lindsey Graham, these people got to enjoy a lot of liberation from resourcing. Maybe not necessarily in their hearts, but we'll never know if they even have a heart.
Speaker: All we know is that they've been able to accumulate enormous amounts of resources, enact enormous amounts of power that did direct and meaningful harm. That's what's happening. When Barry Weiss is making decisions, those decisions are doing harm.
Speaker: When Scott Bessence or Peter Thiel, when these people are making decisions, they're doing enormous amounts of harm. And for them to then go into, again, whether they queer identify or not, if they show up in a gay establishment or they show up in a space that queer people are, are, are,
Speaker: or or and or have some level of control or power, to me, they shouldn't be welcomed. There is not a space for that. And I and i guess i yeah I can be a hardliner on this one. I just don't think i don't think that's great. i don't I don't think that's great. Again, they can identify how they want, but they should not enjoy the benefits of a liberation that they fundamentally harmed in the process. Yeah, right. Well, here's the thing.
Speaker: They don't have space to be in our organizations with us because of what they do. And they don't have space to continue to be in our mouths and our heads because we're moving on. Praise the Lord.
Speaker: It is time to take a short, quick break, y'all. We will be right back with our mailbag questions, our questions from our viewers, and also to end this reply all with a lovely message to our viewers.
Speaker: We'll be right back with Power Beyond Pride.
Speaker: All right, welcome back to Power Beyond Pride. And I'm here, I'm Kenyon, first of all, I'm here with my co-host. Why you waving over there? He said, I'm Kenyon, and you're like, hey. I'm saying, hi, Kenyon.
Speaker: i yeah my other co-host, Jane, Daniel, and Maddie. And just to talk, Ray, for a minute about an incident that just happened very recently. So,
Speaker: Just a few days ago, it was an attack on Berlin Pride that is shaken queer LGBTQ plus communities around the world. And Berlin has long been viewed as one of Europe's sort of safe and most vibrant cities for queer people. The attack prompted a lot of conversation about hate crimes, security of Pride events, and how communities balance visibility with safety.
Speaker: And it also, I would say, raises just some questions about the way in which these sorts of incidences also get deployed, right? by Or get sort of manipulated by the state, right? So the person who was alleged to have done this attack, news reports suggest was has some sort of affiliation or at least interest in a kind of right-wing fundamentalist ah Islamic orders like ISIL, I think specifically.
Speaker: and And so, yes, I have just kind of way want to just raise it, obviously. So we just as a crew just give our our love and support and solidarity to folks in Berlin who live with this tragedy.
Speaker: But also just to say we need to be mindful in the way in which these things get used. and I'll just I'll give an example that I just saw before we started the podcast. i'll Act Up New York. posted on their Instagram story that they were contacted by a newspaper in Germany to comment on the the issue or a newspaper, at least I can't remember a German newspaper or an American one, but somebody asked them to sort of talk about it.
Speaker: And they when they got the list of questions of the journalists or the way it was framed, they really wanted them to. i was very leading in a very kind of Islamophobic ah rhetoric around the sort of violent homophobia of of of Islam and ah of Muslims.
Speaker: And they they posted it and they posted the the email that they got from the journalist with a statement saying, we are not going to participate in that, right, as queer people because of what we see you're trying to do.
Speaker: Right. and And I just want to also give Act of New York a shout out for making that kind of a choice and that sort of a statement about not allowing a tragedy against queer people, which clearly was queer, trans, homophobic.
Speaker: biphobic, what have you, but not allowed to be in the service of a a greater kind of anti-Islamic project. So I know folks have other thoughts on that. Thank you for sharing that.
Speaker: Definitely keep them at our prayers. Yeah, most definitely our hearts go out to Berlin. i I think the only thought that I have is there should be no space for violence at this place. It's not.
Speaker: stop, even if you may not agree with someone. And and i was I was having a conversation with a friend of mine the other day. you i may not like you, but violence is not my first resource to come with you. I just, I don't understand that part.
Speaker: And even in reading the question, should there be more protection around pride events? Should there be more things for that? But then yet again, I feel like if there's more protection, and that takes away the freedom that we're there for in the first purpose of pride, to enjoy yourself and have a good time and be liberated and stand in your truth and do these things. And so I just, yeah, there is is no, in my book, there's no place for this stuff.
Speaker: Like it's not. Yeah, I don't add't have a lot to add other than, as Maddie said, our thoughts with the the people of Berlin, obviously the queer communities in Berlin and those who are impacted. I think your your Point Canyon is well-heated. think it's historically, it is not the first time that ah tragedy then becomes a tool to have pandemic ancillary negative impact across communities by trying to distort the the the realities of what of what happened.
Speaker: And I appreciate and and and and appreciate you lifting up ACT UP New York for seeing it, for recognizing that this is not in our value systems. It's not what queer liberation is supposed to mean.
Speaker: and And being able to share that and say, hey, we need to be thoughtful about this as queer people. That includes queer people across identities, across faiths, across all of this. this world and and being able to recognize and honor that. So thank you for heralding.
Speaker: Yeah, and I'll just add that this kind of connects to what we were talking about before and that you you can ask ourselves, who does this serve to weaponize the incident into a kind of Islamophobic moment you know, to to to demonize.
Speaker: So, yeah, prayers to the folks in in Berlin. Well, I'm going to turn to our mailbox, mail slot, mail... The slot. yeah The mail hole.
Speaker: I'm going turn to the mail hole. Where... c Capital T, capital S, the slot. We... We can have a question. We've got a great question here.
Speaker: And it comes from our listener, Stephen B. Stephen D, you rather. Thank you, Stephen D, for listening. I've never really considered myself an activist. I vote. I post on social media every now and then. But lately, I've been asking myself if that's enough.
Speaker: I want to make a difference, especially for my community and for all people. But I don't know where to start. What are some real practical ways someone like me can get involved without feeling like they have to dedicate their entire life to politics?
Speaker: How can one ordinary person make an extraordinary impact? It's great question. and like that I like that. like that. What do you think, Maddie? Well, number one, vote. Please vote. It doesn't take a lot. Steven votes. Steven votes. We appreciate that you vote. Honestly, though, Steven, everybody may not be built to hold a sign or may be meant to stand out front, but you can always spread the message of hope and cheer.
Speaker: If you know of something going on in the community, just try to always, if you don't want to be out front, donate. Because that's definitely activism. A lot of people don't realize it takes a lot of money and funding to to do the things that we do. So you can always step in that way. Yeah, I will say that.
Speaker: Yeah, i also feel like in just finding organizations that are where you are, right? I think it's just like so important that people actually join actual organizations.
Speaker: And whether that is, whether it's a queer organization, whether it's DSA chapter where you are, whether it's another organization that's doing work that's important to you, get involved that way. And being a rank and file member of an organization is is really critical, I think, right now, because that's that's where we have the most power, we're able to have the most leverage and the most impact.
Speaker: And there are things we obviously can do as individuals, as as activists, but when we're joining with other people, really to join and support and actual organizations is where we can really build cloud.
Speaker: I'll just get a somewhat of a heady answer in that and challenge you to kind of have a materialist analysis of of it. Think about what you are comfortable with doing and then maybe challenge yourself a little bit to go push past your comfort.
Speaker: But then also think about what are you What are you materially trying to change? And maybe it is about having a just a conversation or improving the the situation of one family or one person a day. And maybe that can come out of your pocket by donating and for mutual aid or something.
Speaker: But I think it's important to keep your, if you're talking about impact in the especially practical ways, that you kind of have to embrace a materialistic kind of, a materialist analysis of what you want to do. But start with what you're comfortable with and try to push yourself a little bit more and and and then and then survey and or find people who you trust that are doing work and try to tap in and maybe you can amplify and, and, and, and find your way. There isn't really one thing to do, but maybe in and walking that path, you'll you'll find your way. I think those are all really great. I know the idea of extraordinary impact is is ah is ah is a tough one because again, it it is but you can make a ah Nelson Mandela impact on the world or you can have impact in your own communities. And as everyone here has shared, right? There's organizational impact you can have. There's a lot of different ways you can participate.
Speaker: I also just think it comes down to being in community. One of the things that I think can have an extraordinary impact is really reflecting on the community that you are in And then even really thinking about ways that you can impact your own sense of multiplicity.
Speaker: So being able to, as Daniel suggested, living into that experience where you are are maybe making friends in spaces you wouldn't normally make friends. Having having opportunities to interact with lived experiences and histories and and and and places that are just different for you can be really powerful. And I say that because to me, I always believe that those things get shared.
Speaker: And I think when you're in conversations with people at your workspace, your faith community or non-faith community, your whatever it is, you're bringing those experiences with you. And most people live very insular experiences. So they're only talking kind of amongst themselves.
Speaker: And by enriching kind of your own space, if you don't want to take sort of very public information, public public way of ah of dealing in transformation, I think engaging in own personal transformation models for other people what that looks like. And I think it can be really powerful for people to see that and then start to ask themselves like, oh, wow, I hadn't really thought of stepping out of my comfort zone. I hadn't thought about getting into these other spaces.
Speaker: And that actually really has, I believe, a really strong impact on other people around you. And that is a way to have an impact that is quiet, that is very personal to you, and that can have a lot of meaning.
Speaker: So I would say that's ah that's a really great way for people who don't want activist activists. And our next to the last question, speaking of the sort of personal realm of activism, comes from a listener from Tennessee.
Speaker: So this listener says, I love my family, but every time I go home, someone has something negative to say about my sexuality or tells me I'm living the wrong lifestyle. I've tried explaining my perspective, but it always turns into an argument.
Speaker: At what point do I stop trying to convince people to accept me and just protect my peace? I don't want to lose my family, but I also don't want to lose myself. What do y'all think?
Speaker: I would say now. Yeah, I would say now. Now is the time to start protecting your peace. And would say, first off, your peace is the most important thing.
Speaker: Secondly, how you protect it protect your peace is up to you. You don't necessarily have to cut people off and you don't necessarily have to be around people, those people. yeah and And I know sometimes that's hard to think about when it comes to your family, but chosen family is just as beautiful, if not sometimes actually more beautiful than Bloodborne family, because Bloodborne family will mistreat you very hard. So, but I would definitely say figure out what that looks like for you, Peace, because I know Peace looks different for everybody, but today is the day.
Speaker: Start now. Yeah, I mean, I actually thought you were going to say it from the jumpy, like, who thinks... these these people aren't your family. Someone who's coming, someone who's coming for your sexuality and telling you you have a wrong lifestyle, they're not your family.
Speaker: And if anyone, like, certainly people on this pod know what it it is to cut people off who aren't noche who aren't who aren't family in that way. And ah i don't see i don't see the loss per se. i and and true Scorpio colors, like I don't have a problem like hacking off the limb of like someone who was't who wasn't and who wasn't providing. you know
Speaker: i say, like I'll let the tomato like rot on the vine and let it go. if they if someone isn't like contributing I'll let it rot and let it go away because it's it's you don't need that. i don't have we don't have to talk about this. We don't have to have the discussion about like the toxic person or whatever, because you know who they are and why are you keeping them around?
Speaker: i'll quick I would say I'm going to be the the maybe the softy on the S-A-S-A-S-A-S-A-S-A-F-E-O as well. But I because I don't think it's always that cut and dry for people. Right. I don't think it's always that easy.
Speaker: And for lots of reasons, because it may be easy to cut off the one person, but that person might be the mother of your nieces and nephews or of your cousins that you want to have access to. Right. But they say I'm being weak.
Speaker: is Yeah, well, right. So we'll but're we're right. So I don't know. I don't know. We don't know to what extent, how many people we're talking about or whatever. Right. I was going to say, suggest yeah if there are any people who are in your family who who are allies to you, you have to get them to step up. Right. If you're going to stay engaged in family spaces or whatever, then they it has to be coming from more than just you. Other people have to set the tone.
Speaker: They're like, this is not going to be allowed, period. And so I would also, so if you, so just to say there are, if you have any of those folks in your family that do support you on some level, but like you, I would make a request to them that they and have to step up when those kinds of conversations happen as a way to, to, to engage.
Speaker: And then also if there's, there's, a range of ways you can go about it. There's obviously way folks in the name you can totally just cut people off and and not go home anymore or what whatever that it looks like. And then there's other ways of like just managing like how much time you spend with people, like how how long you go home, what you're willing to engage and whatnot. Or if you just simply get up and leave the room when people start on that bullshit, right? Or get in your car and drive ah someplace else.
Speaker: Whatever it is, if it takes that for people to get the message, if you don't feel like you're ready to just like completely cut people off, there's some other strategies I think that you can employ in the in the in the meantime. and then And you may get to a point where you decide that like and enough is enough and fuck these people. But if you can, there are other things you could do to get there, right? Or or to that may help you in terms of navigating those relationships.
Speaker: And Kenyon, I love that you shared that because that is that is an experience I've had, right? So so for this person who, again, for or for this listener from Tennessee, i i probably side more with Kenyon. I think there is, and and probably everybody here, I think, we to some degree, it is hard, right? It is hard to be in an environment and not feel supported and not feel seen and not feel valued, right? And many of us, I think, share that experience. Many queer people, many not queer people, frankly, share that experience.
Speaker: I think the most liberating thing for me was finding where I could get my agency. And in that, realize that i am it is not my responsibility to endure that suffering, right? Now, what I think we've all pointed to here is that there are emotional tethers. There are nostalgic tethers. There are all these pieces that hold us in the room about things that we share, traditions, histories, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker: So I i hesitate with ah with an absolute, hey, this happens, this is out. Now, this obviously been happening for a while or or or you're sharing this happened for a while. What I like to do and and what I did, Kenyon suggested, is really start to draw boundaries around the time that I would spend around my access to that space. Meaning that rather than, for example, staying with family members, then this comes down to resources. I recognize that like not staying with family members, but actually staying someplace else.
Speaker: having a rental car, making sure that I have a spit like my access to leave when I want to, and make it clear why I'm doing that. To say, hey, because my preferences, and this is something that that that I would add to this conversation, is to say, I feel like I want to give people the opportunity to be their better selves. And I want people to make a choice.
Speaker: The reason i prefer that is that if they were to choose something that continues to do me harm do me harm, and they are aware of the harm that they are doing, and that is part of the conversation, then it is a lot easier for me to draw that boundary and close that door.
Speaker: If I don't do that, then there'll always be this, well, maybe they were just doing what they thought they were doing, or this is just the way the family is, or all of these sort of excuses. But if I make it very clear, what this does, does me harm.
Speaker: If you want me in this space, what you're doing is doing me harm. I'm going to limit my time in this space. I'm going to limit the the dependency I have on on staying in this space. And if even after that, you want to continue to do me harm in this space,
Speaker: To everybody's point, I think that door is closed because it is very clear to me that you are not interested. Even as you hear me express the suffering, you are not responding to that suffering, which means you will never respond to my suffering.
Speaker: But I do believe you have to give people an opportunity to do that because again, some families have bad traditions. Some families have a lot of different things that go in the mix. And I'd like to give people the opportunity to deliver.
Speaker: And if they don't, that answer is very clear. And I think you just kind of give them that but opportunity. So that's that's my feeling about it. And again, thank you very much for for bringing that question in. Well, now, I will say now, my family, i love my family to death, but they know they get a two-hour window.
Speaker: Since you're talking about giving people the time um and space to show you, because I know, and it's funny, in a way, because I just had this conversation with a person the other day, and I was like, you have to give grace to people.
Speaker: Because one thing I have learned as I've gotten older is, I remember talking to a young person one time who had just came out the closet. And I remember talking to him, and he was so upset because his family didn't accept him after coming out of the closet. And I said, let me ask you question. I said, this is not giving space for nobody else but you, but let me ask you a quick question. He said, what's that?
Speaker: I said, how long did it take you to come to the terms that you were gay? And he was like, what do you mean? I said, how long in your internal self did it take for you to wrestle whether or not this was the life that you wanted? This was the lifestyle that you chose. This is who is inside you. This is who you're born. Everything about your being. And he was like, it took me a minute.
Speaker: I said, okay, so in that saying, sometimes you have to give people a minute of grace because if it took you a minute and and they haven't heard it come out your mouth, it may take them a minute.
Speaker: But I, I, I, Limited to 120 minutes. That's all you get to to figure out your grades. You get 100 and 20 minutes. I'm like, Shane, I'm not going to explain this to you.
Speaker: I will glad if you have a dinner. And this is how I used to do my family. Christmas dinner started at six. I showed up at seven. And I did that on purpose. I would get there at seven. would stay to nine. And at that time, as as soon as nine o'clock we're here, oh I got to go.
Speaker: I have another event to get to. I love coming to see y'all. It was so good. And I'm out the door. I'm done. Because I know after 120 minutes, you're going to get on my nerves.
Speaker: You're going to disrespect me. You're going to make me feel... I guess i guess i guess my feeling with that, Maddie, though, is that i don't need to have had cancer to empathize with somebody who has cancer.
Speaker: I don't need to empathize with somebody who may have achieved something that I am not related to that I think, you know, maybe got a scuba license or something like that, right? What I'm interested in is whether or not people are empathizing with my experience. They don't need to share it.
Speaker: In some cases, they aren't going to, like your point says, people really wrestle with different parts of their identities, their histories, their own stuff. My question is whether you treat me as a human being and you understand my suffering and you are interested in not contributing to that suffering.
Speaker: So that's why I'm like, there are people who are going to be, and there are people in my past that I've experienced too, are still homophobic, probably transphobic, still wrestling with some of these issues. And they're there, right? There are things that i trust with them, things I don't trust with them.
Speaker: But if they if they hear that someone is suffering, It's not just that they will hold it in and hold that feeling. They'll be like, you know what? I don't need to understand it. I don't need to share that experience, but I understand you're having that experience and I'm i'm here to i'm here to make sure that I respond to that and in a healthy way, right? And so, because I think, especially for our older generations, it's harder for them. They're not they're going to have a harder time doing it.
Speaker: But if they're not going to be empathetic, if they're not going to find that space to recognize suffering and respond to suffering, they're never going to be good for you. That is just the reality.
Speaker: In my opinion. But I don't know about. I i guess it's a simple thing. I'm just like, it but like you said, you don't have to understand it. Just love me. You don't have to understand my daily walk to love me. You don't have to understand my plight in life so to like just love me.
Speaker: That's see it. Yeah. I would love it if you did. Yeah. I mean, you can, you can say that. I would love if you would just embrace this. and And I'm not here to take the abuse. There's some people I know who are out, but never talk about it with their family. And they have that relationship. I couldn't do that.
Speaker: But, and because I think sometimes it's, yeah is that because they don't want to accept that part of you? I mean, how do you negotiate that? I think everybody's got to work that out out on their own. I couldn't do that, but I do understand there are people that I know for whom that is their lived experience, that they go to spaces and they're like, my mom loves me. I can see that she loves me, but...
Speaker: This is something she's not in, but if I tell her like her throwing scripture at me is really making me uncomfortable and making me suffer, then I don't want that, right? I don't want i don't want to have that experience. So yeah, so I don't know. There's no there's no clean answer. y'all have anything else before we we we finish up?
Speaker: and I'll just mention that you guys are have offered really wise, compassionate and practical ways to kind of to address what the question was. So that was very good. And I will say also, no, it's I'm not trying to be funny, but also to say that to sever someone is also an act of bravery. And sometimes people as well. Yeah. though don't when you if you get there, that's if you get there.
Speaker: No guilt. Absolutely no guilt. ah so So wonderful to have these questions from our activists and icons and listeners from across the country. If you have questions, make sure to send it to us to mailbag at Power Beyond Pride or visit the site at powerbeyondpride.com to submit your questions to the slot.
Speaker: And unlike Scorpios, Leos, we are very visual people. So if you would love to send us a video or come to any of our social channels and hit us up there, we would definitely love to hear from you and be in community with you.
Speaker: And that's all we have time for in this Reply All episode of Power Beyond Pride, unfortunately. and I do want to say that I know sometimes the world can feel heavy and the headlines can be exhausting and the politics can be discouraging.
Speaker: But don't let that noise convince you that your light doesn't matter. Every act of kindness, every difficult conversation, every difficult conversation, every time you choose to show up as your authentic self, you are changing in the world, even if you can't see it.
Speaker: And with that, I'm your co-host, Kenyon, and you can follow me at all the things on social media, just at Kenyon Farrell. And I'm very thankful to be here with my other fabulous co-hosts.
Speaker: Well, I am thankful to be here with my co-host as well. But always know that. So keep shining, keep loving, keep laughing, keep speaking up, keep taking care of yourself and each other.
Speaker: The world doesn't need another copy of just someone else. They already have your beautiful, gorgeous self already. You are already enough.
Speaker: I am Maddie. Let's see here. You can find me on Maddie Simone, 737 on Instagram and also Maddie Vitam at Facebook. and yes, I've had a great time with my co-host tonight. So thank y'all for a wonderful episode.
Speaker: And remember to subscribe and get your friends to subscribe to Power Beyond Pride on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts and check out our site at Power Beyond Pride. And remember, progress isn't always loud, though I am. And sometimes it's one conversation, one vote, one hug, one deep breath, one person deciding not to give up. And so we're glad you're with us on this journey. I'm your co-host, Shane Lucas. And you can find me at shanelucas.com. You can find me at shanelucas.com on all the social channels, as well as at agreatidea.com.
Speaker: And if no one has told you to today, let us be the first. You matter. You belong. You're loved. and I am your co-host. And you can follow me at strongplum on Instagram and upscrolled.
Speaker: but And Power Beyond Pride is a project from A Great Idea, queer-owned design and content agency. Learn more about them at agreatidea.com. This episode is produced by Shane Lucas, who you just heard from. Maddie Bynum is the project developer. Our editor is Jared Redding with support from Ian Wilson.
Speaker: And we are all a part of this amazing podcast host team. So remember to send us your questions and comments at powerbeyondpride.com. Check out our new episodes each week and we look forward to career change making with you next time. Thank you from all of us. And thank you to my amazing co-hosts from here at Power Beyond Pride.
