November 6, 2024 • 40 mins
This episode contains frank discussion on suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.
In 1998, Celeste Lecesne co-founded the Trevor Project, the nation’s leading suicide prevention organization for queer youth. It was born out of an oscar-winning suicide awareness film he wrote called "Trevor." Celeste recounts how the film was actually based on his own life.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
But We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
the Outspoken podcast Network. This episode contains frank discussion on suicide.
If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health,
you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at nine
eight eight. That's nine eight eight, thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
In my bedroom, you know where I grew up, I
just became hysterical. I just started crying and I couldn't
stop crying, and I couldn't say why. But I knew
that there was no place for me in the world.
And you know, my parents came in and talked to me.
They tried to convince me that everything was fine, and
(00:49):
I knew it wasn't fine, and it wasn't going to
be fine. It was going to be really, really hard.
I mean, it's important to remember that when I was
a teen, homosexuality was a crime, it was a mental disease,
and it was a sin. And that is the world
that I was growing into. Those were the messages that
(01:11):
I was being given about who I.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Was as a gay kid. Growing up religious and in
the South, I thought being gay was the worst thing
I could ever be. Now, as a journalist, I'm trying
to unlearn that by seeking out our history, and what
(01:34):
I've found are people and stories full of courage, perseverance,
and love. In this episode, we'll meet Celeste Lessine, one
of the founders of the Trevor Project, the nation's leading
suicide prevention organization for queer youth. We'll learn about how
suicide affects the LGBTQ community and how it affected celeste
(01:57):
life as well. For my Heart Podcasts, I'm Jordan and
Solves and This Is What We Loved. I think I
(02:28):
was in the first grade when I first heard the
term gay. This girl, Carol leaned over to me and
accused another boy in our class, Sean, of it. I
really like Sean. We rode the bus home together every
day and would gush to each other about our love
of Britney Spears. But when Carol told me that he
(02:49):
was gay, I stopped talking to him. Even at seven
years old, I realized that being labeled as gay was dangerous.
The disdain and gust in her voice as she accused
him of this word I barely knew made me immediately
understand that it was something I never wanted to be.
(03:10):
But a few years later i'd be in Sean's position.
Luckily for me, though, by the time I reached high school,
I found a best friend that was even gayer than Sean.
We weren't out to each other, but he affirmed me
and it changed my life. I lost touch with Sean,
but I hope he found someone like this too. I
(03:33):
know that for many queer kids that don't have that affirmation,
the pain of being rejected by your parents and your
friends can leave you feeling unlovable and unwanted, and even suicidal.
In fact, suicide is a major issue in the LGBTQ community.
(03:53):
The Trevor Project, the leading suicide prevention organization for queer youth,
estimates that only forty percent of LGBTQ youth seriously contemplated
suicide last year. The stats are harrowing. At least one
queer youth attempts suicide every forty five seconds. The Trevor
(04:13):
Project was founded twenty six years ago as a hotline
that young people could call into when they felt they
were in crisis. In twenty twenty two alone, they served
over a quarter of a million people. My next guest,
Celeste Lessine, is one of the founders of the Trevor Project.
The name is based on a short film that they
(04:33):
wrote called Trevor. It's about a young gay boy who
attempts suicide. The film was largely based on Celeste's own life.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
My name is Celeste Lesine. I'm the founder of the
Trevor Project, and I am going to be seventy in November,
which I can't believe. I'd say. What covers it all
is that I'm a storyteller. I work also using story
to try to change the story of things that are
(05:09):
happening in the world that I don't like.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Tell me about the movie and how the Trevor Project
sort of got started.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
So back in the twentieth century, I was living in
New York and I was working as an actor and
also creating solo shows, as one does in little theaters
all over in Manhattan, and I wrote a show called
Word of Mouth. I played a lot of different characters,
(05:41):
and one of the characters was a thirteen year old
boy named Trevor who realizes that he's different than his
friends and family and eventually understands he's gay, and then
has some trouble with that, as one does, and decides
that the solution is to kill himself. He fortunately survives
(06:05):
to live another day. It was just a ten minute
piece in a larger theater piece, but it was so
funny and poignant and it really moved people. And you know,
I was living in New York at a time when
the AIDS crisis was at its all time high, and
(06:25):
people were dying, and people, especially in show business, were
dying at an alarming rate, and really nothing was being
done about it in the early nineties, and I just
couldn't believe it. But then I heard on national public
radio report about teen suicide, and at the end of it,
(06:48):
they just sort of casually mentioned that LGBT are at
that time, lesbian and gay young people were three to
four times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers,
and it was just to kind of tag on at
the end. But I was so shocked that I had
never known that before. So I started asking my friends
(07:13):
and people I knew, and started interviewing people about their experience,
and it seemed like everybody had at one point either
contemplated or attempted suicide, And I thought, how is it
possible that there is this one generation that is dying,
(07:33):
one generation of gay people who are dying All around me,
and also this other hidden story of this other young
generation taking their own lives at a rate that was alarming,
and nobody was doing anything about either of them. So
that's what really inspired me to write the piece.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
What was the sort of process of then turning this
incredible play that you wrote into a film?
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Well, the director of the show, she reached out to
someone she knew in the business and named Peggy Risky,
who was a producer, and Peggy came to see the show,
and the next day she called her friend who was
also a producer, named Randy Stone, and they both came
to see the show, and they called me up and said,
(08:26):
would I adapt it into a screenplay to make a
short film? Never having done that before, I thought, yeah,
sure I could do that. Yeah, no problem, And so
I wrote the screenplay. Peggy directed the film and produced it,
and Randy produced it, and they did an amazing drop
(08:47):
of taking something from the stage to screen, and it
was an amazing experience for me and Trevor.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
The film is based off of life.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Yeah, but I never really wanted to let that be
known when in the beginning, because I didn't want people
to look at Trevor and think of me. But I
mean in order to get some of the details right,
I really just had to look at my own journals
from you know, when I was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years
(09:24):
old and understand from reading those journals how hard it
was for me at that time as well, and think
it was an isolated situation. I wanted them to think
of themselves and make a realization or ask a question.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
What was your favorite memory of the film, filming it
or writing it at that time?
Speaker 2 (09:50):
You know, so many of the set pieces from the
film and from the piece at Trevor really came from
my life, so to watch them be recreated by actors
was really a kind of an eerie experience. But I
(10:13):
think my favorite experience that I had was when we
showed the film for the first time in a theater.
And see if I can without giving too much away,
Trevor gets taken out to get ice cream with a
local priest who's going to tell him the facts of life,
and it's what happened to me, Like it was really
(10:37):
the most humiliating experience of my life. My parents set
me up with this priest, this local priest to come
to our house and take me to ice cream, and
I kept thinking this is way too suspicious, like we're
not even that religious, And so I went to the
(10:59):
Dare Queen and it was really humiliating, like he basically
he was telling me the facts of life in very
graphic detail, and I thought I would die because it's Hey,
it's not the person you want to tell you the
facts of life, and b you don't really want to
(11:21):
know those facts. You want the other facts which were
not being given to me. And to see it writ
large up on a screen, played out by amazing actors,
recreating my most humiliating experience of my life, and listening
to all these people in the theater laughing hysterically because
(11:45):
it's so painful and funny at the same time, it
was like it was a healing moment for me. It
was just a healing moment. You know, that is what
as a storyteller, it's what you can hope for in
your lifetime, that you take the worst moment of your
life and actually celebrate it and share it with people.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
And you know, then you go on to win an
Oscar for this, And I wonder what that was like
for you, because this is nineteen ninety five and it
seems like Hollywood was pretty divided. You're seeing some straight
actors being rewarded for playing gay characters. But then yeah,
(12:27):
but then on the other side, you're seeing Ellen sort
of get her career totally ended because of the fact
that she came out. And this is all in the
same decade. So I'm wondering how you kind of felt
about winning the biggest award of all for a film
that was really gay.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
The first time I stepped out onto the stage to
perform Trevor, I literally had the thought in my head
that someone was going to stand up in the theater
and shoot me. It was that scary as a gay
man to be on a stage in a theater playing
a thirteen year old boy who realizes he's gay. Like,
(13:10):
it just was taboo. You just did not, as a
gay man talk about children and sexuality at that time.
It was really taboo because you were afraid of being
branded a predator. Yeah right, you know. I think one
of the things that we can never tell about the
things that we make and the stories that we tell
(13:32):
is this mystical aspect of it that they come into
the world at a time when the world is ready
to hear that piece of news. You know, Trevor came
into the world at just the moment when people were
willing to accept that this might be possible. It wasn't
just about sexuality. It was about who you are. It's
(13:54):
about you being your authentic self, and the price of
not being your authentic sie self could lead to suicide.
That was unacceptable, and I think everybody could agree that
a human life is worth saving, regardless of who that
person is, so everybody could get behind this idea, right.
(14:16):
I've never been in the closet, and I think that
I struggled a lot with show business as a result
of it. I think that a lot of doors weren't
open to me, and some were actually literally shut in
my face as a result of just being myself. And
one of the reasons that I actually did that solo
(14:38):
show was to show people that I could play many
different people. I could play a thirteen year old, I
could play a woman, I could play a a tough
guy from New Jersey. And what was interesting to me
was that the piece that came out of word of
mouth was Trevor, which was probably the closest to my
(15:01):
authentic self, and that is I believe why the piece
traveled so far out into the world because it contained
a truth, a terrifying truth.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Tell me a little bit about the founding of the
Trevor Project and how all of it came together.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
You know, Randy Stone was an amazing person. He's no
longer with us, but he was an amazing person, and
he figured out a way to get HBO interested in
showing the film, and it was that was so major
to have this beyond television, and we realized it was
going to go into the homes of many people all
(15:45):
over the country, and young people were going to be
in those living rooms watching. And you know, it was
really to Peggy's credit that she had the idea to
put a telephone number at the end of the film
in case there were somebody out there who identified with
the character of Trevor. And there was no twenty four
(16:08):
hour suicide prevention lifeline for gay and lesbian at the time,
young people. It just did it didn't exist. So Randy
and Peg and I decided, well, I guess we have
to do this. We have to make this happen. And
you know, we knew it was going to get a
lot of play, and that first night that it was
(16:29):
on television. We received about over fifteen hundred telephone calls
from young people around the country in some way relating
to the character of Trevor right, and they saw themselves
in that character. I really credit the Trevor Project with
(16:50):
changing the story around queer youth, because now when you
think of queer youth, you don't think of oh, that's
so tragic, or hopefully you don't you think, oh, there's
a place for them to go.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
When we come back, we'll learn about the childhood that
inspired Trevor the film. Celeste Lescine had written an Oscar
winning film called Trevor. It's screening on HBO led to
the creation of a hotline called the Trevor Project, which
(17:29):
would go on to serve countless LGBTQ youth in crisis.
But the story of Trevor was really the story of Celeste.
So take me back to the beginning. Tell me a
little bit about how you grew up and who you
were as a young person when you were growing up,
(17:50):
and where you grew up.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
I grew up in New Jersey, in a little suburb
not too far from Manhattan. If you stood on my roof,
the roof of our house, you could see the glow
of Manhattan from a distance. It was very oz like, Wow.
I just had a really sunny personality. But I was
also very dramatic and extremely gay. And if you've seen
(18:18):
the Trevor film, you know that Trevor has an undying
devotion to Diana Ross, which I did. I was actually
semi famous in my neighborhood for imitating Diana Ross. Wow.
And I would perform as Diana Ross as a little kid,
which nobody questioned. They just thought I was good at it.
(18:39):
But there came a moment in my young life when
I think my parents understood what was happening and things changed.
And I'd say that I I lost their love. I
didn't lose their love, They just pulled away from me.
(19:00):
And I could see that there is a certain amount
of disdain and discussed.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
And is that because they sort of figured or understood
without saying that you were gay.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah, they really couldn't accept it. They had a really
hard time.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
How old were you when this happened.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
I'd say I was, you know, probably ten, eleven, twelve.
It began to be a problem, you know, because they
it wasn't something that was just a facet of my youth.
It was really who I was, and I think they
were beginning to see that it couldn't be curbed. You know,
I just was. I was too a bulliant, I was
(19:43):
too full of life, and that wasn't what boys did.
And you know, they weren't mean to me or anything
like that. It's just I could feel, I could feel
the distance between us. There were moments when it was okay,
and then there were moments when it was not okay.
(20:05):
But I mostly had to watch myself. I think one
of the big sadnesses that come with being a queer
kid back then was you had to develop this spidey sense,
you know, where you were always watching yourself and careful
(20:27):
and had to monitor your body, you know, make sure
your arms are not going all over the place, and
make sure your ass isn't moving around.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Yeah. No, I know that. In the film, the character
Trevor sort of falls in love with this best friend
of his Pinky.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Being friends with him means so much. It's the next
best thing to being popular myself. I think that if
someone came to town with a machine gun or something
and threatened to kill Pinky, I'd offer self instead.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
And Pinky kind of ends up betraying him in a way.
Is that based off of your life as well?
Speaker 2 (21:08):
I did have a best friend named Pinky as I
can't believe I didn't change the name, but maybe that
was somehow unconscious revenge. I did have a I was
madly in love with him in a way, in a
very sort of chaste way when I was, you know,
thirteen years old. He was sporty, he was friendly, he
(21:32):
liked everybody. Everybody loved him. He was you know, he
was like the classic bro. But he had a real
sweet side to him. And we became friends, and I
couldn't believe it, Like we were part of a whole
group of you know, sort of friends who were beginning
to experiment with, you know, dating on that level. And
(21:53):
I just I could I really just I was in
love with him, you know. I think he realized at
a certain point that I was a social liability. You know,
he gave me presents and poems and things like that,
and then I just was like, I can't believe this
is this amazing just it wasn't even anything sexual. It
(22:14):
was really just my heart was open and his heart
was open to me. But then I think he realized
what was happening. And he wrote me a letter and
which is almost verbatim into the letter that that Pinky
sends to Trevor.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
What did it say?
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Do you remember You're a weak person? And yeah, And
there was one way an experience where I called his
house and his mother basically said he wasn't home and
I shouldn't call there anymore.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
And I was so shocked. But it it really crushed
me because it's it's those not so subtle hints that
tell you that you're out of bounds. And you know,
I think they're still happening today for many young people,
but on a much more well just louder level. But
(23:13):
the moment that I understood what it meant for me
in the world happened very given. It's me very dramatically
in that Sunday morning, I was getting ready for church
and you were a church kid. Oh yeah, I love
the church. It was so great. It was showing, really,
(23:34):
it was so showed that things you got to wear, the.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Songs, the drama, the moves, the drama.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
It was it was really where it was happening for
me as a kid, like I couldn't believe how lucky
I was to be backstage. So I liked going to church,
but it was beginning to be a problem. I realized. Again,
putting words to this sounds so, you know, organized, because
I don't think it was. It was just an emotional
(24:03):
response to understanding that the world would not welcome me
as I was, that I would have to change what
happened in my bedroom, you know, where I grew up.
I just became hysterical. I just started crying and I
couldn't stop crying, and I couldn't say why. I don't
(24:28):
even think I could have put words to it. But
I couldn't have said it even if I'd known it.
But I knew that there was no place for me
in the world and that I was going to have
to kind of jettison a part of myself in order
to be able to live into the next phase of
(24:49):
my life. And you know, my parents came in talked
to me, and my siblings came in and talked to me.
Everyone they tried to convince me that everything was fine,
and I knew it wasn't fine, and it wasn't going
to be fine. It was going to be really, really hard.
I really feel like I made a decision that day
(25:13):
to see if I could be less myself, to see
if I could tone it down, put Diana Ross away,
just try to act normal. And the thought really broke
my heart.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
So, from this very early age, without even having the
vocabulary to understand what was going on emotionally, you had
a very clear understanding that if you were to continue
being yourself, it would be a very difficult life for you.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
At the time, it would. I mean, it's important to
remember that when I was a teenager, homosexuality was a crime,
it was a mental disease, and it was a sin.
And that is the world that I was growing into.
Those were the messages that I was being given about
who I was. And I didn't even know I was
(26:13):
gay yet. I just knew I was different, and I
knew that from the time I was five years old.
I just knew I was not like my family, and
I knew I wasn't like anybody in my neighborhood. I
knew that there was something different about me. But you know,
it's a scary thing.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
So, you know, it seems like throughout your childhood there's
so many different forces coming at you at once. You
have these experiences with friends where they realize that because
you are yay, you are a social liability to them.
(26:57):
Your own parents sort of begin distancing themselves from you.
What did that sort of lead you to believe about
yourself at that age adolescence?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
What else could I believe except that I was unlovable?
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Celeste had realized that living one's truth as a gay
person would make for a deeply painful life. Around this time,
they attempted suicide but survived.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
I tell this story with the full knowledge that there
are young people all over this country and all over
this world who have to carry that burden every single day.
It's the wound that comes with daring to be different.
(28:07):
And then what happens is that you understand that that
wound is really the source of your superpower. Because without
that wound, without those parents, those particular two parents, I
never would have created Trevor, and there would never have
been a Trevor project. And that is the really gratifying thing.
(28:32):
That is what was so gratifying, is that somehow I
created a character that touched the lives of young people,
and they saw themselves in that character and had unlocked
something inside them to make them determined to be themselves
or to pick up a phone and ask for help.
(28:52):
That is really the greatest honor that I could ever
hope for. And the result here we are twenty six
years later, and when I tell a group of young
people that I'm the founder of the Trevor Project, and
I can see across the room somebody go like, I
can see them really get it, and they look at
(29:18):
me and then later come up to me and tell me, well,
they just thank me and tell me they wouldn't be
here if it wasn't for the Trevor Project.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
In the film, Trevor wakes up after his attempted suicide
in a hospital and is being taken care of by
someone pretty close to his age, a young volunteer named Jack,
and instead of sort of taking pity on him, he
invites him to a Diana Ross concert.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Spoiler alert.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
I feel bad for laughing, but it's just so hilarious
and adorable.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
It's one of my favorite things ever in my life
performing that on stage after performing the suicide, just to
deliver that to the audience and have them burst out
laughing to know that he lived, and it was one
of my favorite things was making people cry and laugh
at the same time.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Really, well, you know, this character Jack is so interesting
to me because it feels like he's the first person
in Trevor's life that really sees him and acknowledges him
on a level beyond just being a kid. But like,
(30:34):
I'm gay too. Even though he doesn't say it, it's
sort of implied. And I had a Jack in my life,
and I know so many people that had their Jacks.
And it's a powerful moment in a person's life when
someone actually sees you for who you are and it's
(30:56):
sort of unspoken, And I wonder why it was important
for you to create that character.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
You know. I think years later, when the Trevor Project
decided to do research in addition to the life saving
work that the organization does, they found that the presence
of even one adult in the life of a queer person,
(31:26):
one caring adult who saw that kid for who they are,
lowers the suicide potentiality by like, I don't know ninety percent,
just one person. And I think intuitively I knew that
for me, I had a lot of Jacks because it
(31:50):
really came to me through the theater. I was fifteen
years old. I had run away to a summerstock theater
to work as an apprentice for no money, and it was,
oh my god, I found my people.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
I mean I say, I ran away. My parents eventually
knew I was there, but I did leave without their
consent because they told me I couldn't go, but I
had to get out. You know. Andrew Solomon, who's an
amazing writer, wrote a book called Far from the Tree,
and he has this beautiful theory that many of us
are born into what's known as our vertical family, but
(32:29):
for some of us we need to go find our
horizontal family. But like say, deaf people, or people who
are gay, or people who are you know, there are
all sorts of people who need a community. And the
need for that community was so great for me that
I literally ran away from home at fifteen. And when
(32:50):
I found the theater, I was like, of course. And
you know, someone asked me, do you know what a
home what sexual is and I said, I think it's
boys who like boys, and they were like hm hm.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
In addition to founding the Trevor Project, in twenty seventeen,
Celeste founded the Future Perfect Project, an organization dedicated to
amplifying queer young voices through media projects. The group puts
on storytelling and songwriting workshops for teenagers to help them
express themselves, and they've produced with the young people. They
(33:32):
serve full scale professional albums, animations, short films, comic books,
and more. In many ways, the Future Perfect Project would
have served as a home to a young Trevor or
Celeste Celestia. This show is about intergenerational dialogue. And one
(33:54):
of my favorite things about the episodes that we've done
and the guess that we've had on is that so
often a guest will say, well, you know, for as
much as your generation is grateful to us, we're grateful
to your generation too, And so I've kind of learned
(34:16):
like it's sort of like a give and take. And
you've done so much for young people. You've given so
much to young people. I wonder if there's something that
you've received in any way that's special to you.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Yeah, I think my mission in life. They gave me
my mission in life, which is them making sure that
they're safety and celebrated. Changing the story. You know, I
(34:53):
have spent the better part of my adult life really
doing what I can to make their lives easier. And
so I started, along with my friend Ryan Amador, we
started the Future Perfect Project, and the purpose of the
Future Perfect Project at the time.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Was to.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Really provide the space and encouragement for these young people
to tell their story and to sing their songs. So
we traveled around the country and went to places like
Alabama and Arkansas and Indiana and iow and all the
other vowel states. And during that time I got to
(35:41):
watch them from week to week, changed their names, change
their pronouns, experiment with who they are, their hair color changing,
and learning, learning how great it is to explore your
authentic self. And at some point I realized that if
(36:07):
I was sixteen or seventeen years old and it had
been on offer for me, I would I would identify
as non binary. Like I tried to pass as a
gay man like and I did an okay job, but
I just was never really I never aced it if
(36:28):
like it just there was always something a little off,
you know, like I was good with the gay part,
that the man part was like really like the sort
of a stumbling block. And I went, that's the problem.
I'm not a gay man, I'm non binary. And and
you know in Zoom you have to put your name.
(36:50):
You don't have to, but we always put our name
and then our pronouns. And one week I suddenly I
just had this conversation with them while I said, like
I'm thinking. I told them this thing about being non binary,
and they were like, well, you have to change your name,
and I was like, I can't change my name. I like,
(37:10):
I'm in my sixties, you know this is crazy, Like
I've lived my whole life. And they were like, oh,
you know, it's great, try it. Why don't you try
it here. Then one day I realized that my middle name,
well I always knew my middle name, but I suddenly
realized my middle name would be perfect because my middle
(37:32):
name was Celeste and is Celeste, and you know, it's
a family name. It's traveled down through generations of my
father's family. And when I asked my mother as a kid,
I said, what's with the Celeste? Why do I have
(37:52):
a girl's name. It's a problem, I mean, And she said, well,
it's a man's name in France and I was like, yeah,
but we live in New Jersey. This is a liability.
I didn't say that, but like it really was a liability.
And I lived in terror my entire childhood. So the
idea that I could use this name and take it
(38:13):
out into the sunlight. And you know, the thing I
say is that every time someone calls me Celeste, a
queer angel gets its wings because I really feel like
it's like a It's a part of me was liberated.
And they did that for me. They showed me that
you don't have to stop asking questions about who you
(38:36):
are ever and if you think you know who you are.
I actually think it's why people find it difficult to
be around young people because they make you question who
you are. They make you ask questions that are maybe
not comfortable to ask because you've got everything going. But
they really inspired me to dare myself to be more
(39:02):
myself and that I would get that at my age
from them. That is a greater gift than I thought,
I think in what I was giving them.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
But We Loved is hosted by me Jordan Gonsalves. New
episodes drop every Wednesday. If you want to write in
to tell your story, email us at but We Looved
at gmail dot com, or send us a message on
Instagram or TikTok at but We Loved. We are a
production of the Outspoken podcast Network and iHeart Podcasts. But
(39:43):
We Loved was originally developed with Pushkin Industries. Our producers
Areshena Ozaki, Michael June, Emily Meronoff, and Joey patt Our.
Executive producers are Me and Maya Howard. Original music by
Steve Boone. Special thanks to Jay Bronson and rockqul Willis.
If you loved this episode, leave us a rating and
(40:05):
follow us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and thank you
for listening. I'll see you next week.
But We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
the Outspoken podcast Network. This episode contains frank discussion on suicide.
If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health,
you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at nine
eight eight. That's nine eight eight, thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
In my bedroom, you know where I grew up, I
just became hysterical. I just started crying and I couldn't
stop crying, and I couldn't say why. But I knew
that there was no place for me in the world.
And you know, my parents came in and talked to me.
They tried to convince me that everything was fine, and
(00:49):
I knew it wasn't fine, and it wasn't going to
be fine. It was going to be really, really hard.
I mean, it's important to remember that when I was
a teen, homosexuality was a crime, it was a mental disease,
and it was a sin. And that is the world
that I was growing into. Those were the messages that
(01:11):
I was being given about who I.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Was as a gay kid. Growing up religious and in
the South, I thought being gay was the worst thing
I could ever be. Now, as a journalist, I'm trying
to unlearn that by seeking out our history, and what
(01:34):
I've found are people and stories full of courage, perseverance,
and love. In this episode, we'll meet Celeste Lessine, one
of the founders of the Trevor Project, the nation's leading
suicide prevention organization for queer youth. We'll learn about how
suicide affects the LGBTQ community and how it affected celeste
(01:57):
life as well. For my Heart Podcasts, I'm Jordan and
Solves and This Is What We Loved. I think I
(02:28):
was in the first grade when I first heard the
term gay. This girl, Carol leaned over to me and
accused another boy in our class, Sean, of it. I
really like Sean. We rode the bus home together every
day and would gush to each other about our love
of Britney Spears. But when Carol told me that he
(02:49):
was gay, I stopped talking to him. Even at seven
years old, I realized that being labeled as gay was dangerous.
The disdain and gust in her voice as she accused
him of this word I barely knew made me immediately
understand that it was something I never wanted to be.
(03:10):
But a few years later i'd be in Sean's position.
Luckily for me, though, by the time I reached high school,
I found a best friend that was even gayer than Sean.
We weren't out to each other, but he affirmed me
and it changed my life. I lost touch with Sean,
but I hope he found someone like this too. I
(03:33):
know that for many queer kids that don't have that affirmation,
the pain of being rejected by your parents and your
friends can leave you feeling unlovable and unwanted, and even suicidal.
In fact, suicide is a major issue in the LGBTQ community.
(03:53):
The Trevor Project, the leading suicide prevention organization for queer youth,
estimates that only forty percent of LGBTQ youth seriously contemplated
suicide last year. The stats are harrowing. At least one
queer youth attempts suicide every forty five seconds. The Trevor
(04:13):
Project was founded twenty six years ago as a hotline
that young people could call into when they felt they
were in crisis. In twenty twenty two alone, they served
over a quarter of a million people. My next guest,
Celeste Lessine, is one of the founders of the Trevor Project.
The name is based on a short film that they
(04:33):
wrote called Trevor. It's about a young gay boy who
attempts suicide. The film was largely based on Celeste's own life.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
My name is Celeste Lesine. I'm the founder of the
Trevor Project, and I am going to be seventy in November,
which I can't believe. I'd say. What covers it all
is that I'm a storyteller. I work also using story
to try to change the story of things that are
(05:09):
happening in the world that I don't like.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Tell me about the movie and how the Trevor Project
sort of got started.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
So back in the twentieth century, I was living in
New York and I was working as an actor and
also creating solo shows, as one does in little theaters
all over in Manhattan, and I wrote a show called
Word of Mouth. I played a lot of different characters,
(05:41):
and one of the characters was a thirteen year old
boy named Trevor who realizes that he's different than his
friends and family and eventually understands he's gay, and then
has some trouble with that, as one does, and decides
that the solution is to kill himself. He fortunately survives
(06:05):
to live another day. It was just a ten minute
piece in a larger theater piece, but it was so
funny and poignant and it really moved people. And you know,
I was living in New York at a time when
the AIDS crisis was at its all time high, and
(06:25):
people were dying, and people, especially in show business, were
dying at an alarming rate, and really nothing was being
done about it in the early nineties, and I just
couldn't believe it. But then I heard on national public
radio report about teen suicide, and at the end of it,
(06:48):
they just sort of casually mentioned that LGBT are at
that time, lesbian and gay young people were three to
four times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers,
and it was just to kind of tag on at
the end. But I was so shocked that I had
never known that before. So I started asking my friends
(07:13):
and people I knew, and started interviewing people about their experience,
and it seemed like everybody had at one point either
contemplated or attempted suicide, And I thought, how is it
possible that there is this one generation that is dying,
(07:33):
one generation of gay people who are dying All around me,
and also this other hidden story of this other young
generation taking their own lives at a rate that was alarming,
and nobody was doing anything about either of them. So
that's what really inspired me to write the piece.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
What was the sort of process of then turning this
incredible play that you wrote into a film?
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Well, the director of the show, she reached out to
someone she knew in the business and named Peggy Risky,
who was a producer, and Peggy came to see the show,
and the next day she called her friend who was
also a producer, named Randy Stone, and they both came
to see the show, and they called me up and said,
(08:26):
would I adapt it into a screenplay to make a
short film? Never having done that before, I thought, yeah,
sure I could do that. Yeah, no problem, And so
I wrote the screenplay. Peggy directed the film and produced it,
and Randy produced it, and they did an amazing drop
(08:47):
of taking something from the stage to screen, and it
was an amazing experience for me and Trevor.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
The film is based off of life.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Yeah, but I never really wanted to let that be
known when in the beginning, because I didn't want people
to look at Trevor and think of me. But I
mean in order to get some of the details right,
I really just had to look at my own journals
from you know, when I was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years
(09:24):
old and understand from reading those journals how hard it
was for me at that time as well, and think
it was an isolated situation. I wanted them to think
of themselves and make a realization or ask a question.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
What was your favorite memory of the film, filming it
or writing it at that time?
Speaker 2 (09:50):
You know, so many of the set pieces from the
film and from the piece at Trevor really came from
my life, so to watch them be recreated by actors
was really a kind of an eerie experience. But I
(10:13):
think my favorite experience that I had was when we
showed the film for the first time in a theater.
And see if I can without giving too much away,
Trevor gets taken out to get ice cream with a
local priest who's going to tell him the facts of life,
and it's what happened to me, Like it was really
(10:37):
the most humiliating experience of my life. My parents set
me up with this priest, this local priest to come
to our house and take me to ice cream, and
I kept thinking this is way too suspicious, like we're
not even that religious, And so I went to the
(10:59):
Dare Queen and it was really humiliating, like he basically
he was telling me the facts of life in very
graphic detail, and I thought I would die because it's Hey,
it's not the person you want to tell you the
facts of life, and b you don't really want to
(11:21):
know those facts. You want the other facts which were
not being given to me. And to see it writ
large up on a screen, played out by amazing actors,
recreating my most humiliating experience of my life, and listening
to all these people in the theater laughing hysterically because
(11:45):
it's so painful and funny at the same time, it
was like it was a healing moment for me. It
was just a healing moment. You know, that is what
as a storyteller, it's what you can hope for in
your lifetime, that you take the worst moment of your
life and actually celebrate it and share it with people.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
And you know, then you go on to win an
Oscar for this, And I wonder what that was like
for you, because this is nineteen ninety five and it
seems like Hollywood was pretty divided. You're seeing some straight
actors being rewarded for playing gay characters. But then yeah,
(12:27):
but then on the other side, you're seeing Ellen sort
of get her career totally ended because of the fact
that she came out. And this is all in the
same decade. So I'm wondering how you kind of felt
about winning the biggest award of all for a film
that was really gay.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
The first time I stepped out onto the stage to
perform Trevor, I literally had the thought in my head
that someone was going to stand up in the theater
and shoot me. It was that scary as a gay
man to be on a stage in a theater playing
a thirteen year old boy who realizes he's gay. Like,
(13:10):
it just was taboo. You just did not, as a
gay man talk about children and sexuality at that time.
It was really taboo because you were afraid of being
branded a predator. Yeah right, you know. I think one
of the things that we can never tell about the
things that we make and the stories that we tell
(13:32):
is this mystical aspect of it that they come into
the world at a time when the world is ready
to hear that piece of news. You know, Trevor came
into the world at just the moment when people were
willing to accept that this might be possible. It wasn't
just about sexuality. It was about who you are. It's
(13:54):
about you being your authentic self, and the price of
not being your authentic sie self could lead to suicide.
That was unacceptable, and I think everybody could agree that
a human life is worth saving, regardless of who that
person is, so everybody could get behind this idea, right.
(14:16):
I've never been in the closet, and I think that
I struggled a lot with show business as a result
of it. I think that a lot of doors weren't
open to me, and some were actually literally shut in
my face as a result of just being myself. And
one of the reasons that I actually did that solo
(14:38):
show was to show people that I could play many
different people. I could play a thirteen year old, I
could play a woman, I could play a a tough
guy from New Jersey. And what was interesting to me
was that the piece that came out of word of
mouth was Trevor, which was probably the closest to my
(15:01):
authentic self, and that is I believe why the piece
traveled so far out into the world because it contained
a truth, a terrifying truth.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Tell me a little bit about the founding of the
Trevor Project and how all of it came together.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
You know, Randy Stone was an amazing person. He's no
longer with us, but he was an amazing person, and
he figured out a way to get HBO interested in
showing the film, and it was that was so major
to have this beyond television, and we realized it was
going to go into the homes of many people all
(15:45):
over the country, and young people were going to be
in those living rooms watching. And you know, it was
really to Peggy's credit that she had the idea to
put a telephone number at the end of the film
in case there were somebody out there who identified with
the character of Trevor. And there was no twenty four
(16:08):
hour suicide prevention lifeline for gay and lesbian at the time,
young people. It just did it didn't exist. So Randy
and Peg and I decided, well, I guess we have
to do this. We have to make this happen. And
you know, we knew it was going to get a
lot of play, and that first night that it was
(16:29):
on television. We received about over fifteen hundred telephone calls
from young people around the country in some way relating
to the character of Trevor right, and they saw themselves
in that character. I really credit the Trevor Project with
(16:50):
changing the story around queer youth, because now when you
think of queer youth, you don't think of oh, that's
so tragic, or hopefully you don't you think, oh, there's
a place for them to go.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
When we come back, we'll learn about the childhood that
inspired Trevor the film. Celeste Lescine had written an Oscar
winning film called Trevor. It's screening on HBO led to
the creation of a hotline called the Trevor Project, which
(17:29):
would go on to serve countless LGBTQ youth in crisis.
But the story of Trevor was really the story of Celeste.
So take me back to the beginning. Tell me a
little bit about how you grew up and who you
were as a young person when you were growing up,
(17:50):
and where you grew up.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
I grew up in New Jersey, in a little suburb
not too far from Manhattan. If you stood on my roof,
the roof of our house, you could see the glow
of Manhattan from a distance. It was very oz like, Wow.
I just had a really sunny personality. But I was
also very dramatic and extremely gay. And if you've seen
(18:18):
the Trevor film, you know that Trevor has an undying
devotion to Diana Ross, which I did. I was actually
semi famous in my neighborhood for imitating Diana Ross. Wow.
And I would perform as Diana Ross as a little kid,
which nobody questioned. They just thought I was good at it.
(18:39):
But there came a moment in my young life when
I think my parents understood what was happening and things changed.
And I'd say that I I lost their love. I
didn't lose their love, They just pulled away from me.
(19:00):
And I could see that there is a certain amount
of disdain and discussed.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
And is that because they sort of figured or understood
without saying that you were gay.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah, they really couldn't accept it. They had a really
hard time.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
How old were you when this happened.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
I'd say I was, you know, probably ten, eleven, twelve.
It began to be a problem, you know, because they
it wasn't something that was just a facet of my youth.
It was really who I was, and I think they
were beginning to see that it couldn't be curbed. You know,
I just was. I was too a bulliant, I was
(19:43):
too full of life, and that wasn't what boys did.
And you know, they weren't mean to me or anything
like that. It's just I could feel, I could feel
the distance between us. There were moments when it was okay,
and then there were moments when it was not okay.
(20:05):
But I mostly had to watch myself. I think one
of the big sadnesses that come with being a queer
kid back then was you had to develop this spidey sense,
you know, where you were always watching yourself and careful
(20:27):
and had to monitor your body, you know, make sure
your arms are not going all over the place, and
make sure your ass isn't moving around.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Yeah. No, I know that. In the film, the character
Trevor sort of falls in love with this best friend
of his Pinky.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Being friends with him means so much. It's the next
best thing to being popular myself. I think that if
someone came to town with a machine gun or something
and threatened to kill Pinky, I'd offer self instead.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
And Pinky kind of ends up betraying him in a way.
Is that based off of your life as well?
Speaker 2 (21:08):
I did have a best friend named Pinky as I
can't believe I didn't change the name, but maybe that
was somehow unconscious revenge. I did have a I was
madly in love with him in a way, in a
very sort of chaste way when I was, you know,
thirteen years old. He was sporty, he was friendly, he
(21:32):
liked everybody. Everybody loved him. He was you know, he
was like the classic bro. But he had a real
sweet side to him. And we became friends, and I
couldn't believe it, Like we were part of a whole
group of you know, sort of friends who were beginning
to experiment with, you know, dating on that level. And
(21:53):
I just I could I really just I was in
love with him, you know. I think he realized at
a certain point that I was a social liability. You know,
he gave me presents and poems and things like that,
and then I just was like, I can't believe this
is this amazing just it wasn't even anything sexual. It
(22:14):
was really just my heart was open and his heart
was open to me. But then I think he realized
what was happening. And he wrote me a letter and
which is almost verbatim into the letter that that Pinky
sends to Trevor.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
What did it say?
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Do you remember You're a weak person? And yeah, And
there was one way an experience where I called his
house and his mother basically said he wasn't home and
I shouldn't call there anymore.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
And I was so shocked. But it it really crushed
me because it's it's those not so subtle hints that
tell you that you're out of bounds. And you know,
I think they're still happening today for many young people,
but on a much more well just louder level. But
(23:13):
the moment that I understood what it meant for me
in the world happened very given. It's me very dramatically
in that Sunday morning, I was getting ready for church
and you were a church kid. Oh yeah, I love
the church. It was so great. It was showing, really,
(23:34):
it was so showed that things you got to wear, the.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Songs, the drama, the moves, the drama.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
It was it was really where it was happening for
me as a kid, like I couldn't believe how lucky
I was to be backstage. So I liked going to church,
but it was beginning to be a problem. I realized. Again,
putting words to this sounds so, you know, organized, because
I don't think it was. It was just an emotional
(24:03):
response to understanding that the world would not welcome me
as I was, that I would have to change what
happened in my bedroom, you know, where I grew up.
I just became hysterical. I just started crying and I
couldn't stop crying, and I couldn't say why. I don't
(24:28):
even think I could have put words to it. But
I couldn't have said it even if I'd known it.
But I knew that there was no place for me
in the world and that I was going to have
to kind of jettison a part of myself in order
to be able to live into the next phase of
(24:49):
my life. And you know, my parents came in talked
to me, and my siblings came in and talked to me.
Everyone they tried to convince me that everything was fine,
and I knew it wasn't fine, and it wasn't going
to be fine. It was going to be really, really hard.
I really feel like I made a decision that day
(25:13):
to see if I could be less myself, to see
if I could tone it down, put Diana Ross away,
just try to act normal. And the thought really broke
my heart.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
So, from this very early age, without even having the
vocabulary to understand what was going on emotionally, you had
a very clear understanding that if you were to continue
being yourself, it would be a very difficult life for you.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
At the time, it would. I mean, it's important to
remember that when I was a teenager, homosexuality was a crime,
it was a mental disease, and it was a sin.
And that is the world that I was growing into.
Those were the messages that I was being given about
who I was. And I didn't even know I was
(26:13):
gay yet. I just knew I was different, and I
knew that from the time I was five years old.
I just knew I was not like my family, and
I knew I wasn't like anybody in my neighborhood. I
knew that there was something different about me. But you know,
it's a scary thing.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
So, you know, it seems like throughout your childhood there's
so many different forces coming at you at once. You
have these experiences with friends where they realize that because
you are yay, you are a social liability to them.
(26:57):
Your own parents sort of begin distancing themselves from you.
What did that sort of lead you to believe about
yourself at that age adolescence?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
What else could I believe except that I was unlovable?
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Celeste had realized that living one's truth as a gay
person would make for a deeply painful life. Around this time,
they attempted suicide but survived.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
I tell this story with the full knowledge that there
are young people all over this country and all over
this world who have to carry that burden every single day.
It's the wound that comes with daring to be different.
(28:07):
And then what happens is that you understand that that
wound is really the source of your superpower. Because without
that wound, without those parents, those particular two parents, I
never would have created Trevor, and there would never have
been a Trevor project. And that is the really gratifying thing.
(28:32):
That is what was so gratifying, is that somehow I
created a character that touched the lives of young people,
and they saw themselves in that character and had unlocked
something inside them to make them determined to be themselves
or to pick up a phone and ask for help.
(28:52):
That is really the greatest honor that I could ever
hope for. And the result here we are twenty six
years later, and when I tell a group of young
people that I'm the founder of the Trevor Project, and
I can see across the room somebody go like, I
can see them really get it, and they look at
(29:18):
me and then later come up to me and tell me, well,
they just thank me and tell me they wouldn't be
here if it wasn't for the Trevor Project.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
In the film, Trevor wakes up after his attempted suicide
in a hospital and is being taken care of by
someone pretty close to his age, a young volunteer named Jack,
and instead of sort of taking pity on him, he
invites him to a Diana Ross concert.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Spoiler alert.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
I feel bad for laughing, but it's just so hilarious
and adorable.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
It's one of my favorite things ever in my life
performing that on stage after performing the suicide, just to
deliver that to the audience and have them burst out
laughing to know that he lived, and it was one
of my favorite things was making people cry and laugh
at the same time.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Really, well, you know, this character Jack is so interesting
to me because it feels like he's the first person
in Trevor's life that really sees him and acknowledges him
on a level beyond just being a kid. But like,
(30:34):
I'm gay too. Even though he doesn't say it, it's
sort of implied. And I had a Jack in my life,
and I know so many people that had their Jacks.
And it's a powerful moment in a person's life when
someone actually sees you for who you are and it's
(30:56):
sort of unspoken, And I wonder why it was important
for you to create that character.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
You know. I think years later, when the Trevor Project
decided to do research in addition to the life saving
work that the organization does, they found that the presence
of even one adult in the life of a queer person,
(31:26):
one caring adult who saw that kid for who they are,
lowers the suicide potentiality by like, I don't know ninety percent,
just one person. And I think intuitively I knew that
for me, I had a lot of Jacks because it
(31:50):
really came to me through the theater. I was fifteen
years old. I had run away to a summerstock theater
to work as an apprentice for no money, and it was,
oh my god, I found my people.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
I mean I say, I ran away. My parents eventually
knew I was there, but I did leave without their
consent because they told me I couldn't go, but I
had to get out. You know. Andrew Solomon, who's an
amazing writer, wrote a book called Far from the Tree,
and he has this beautiful theory that many of us
are born into what's known as our vertical family, but
(32:29):
for some of us we need to go find our
horizontal family. But like say, deaf people, or people who
are gay, or people who are you know, there are
all sorts of people who need a community. And the
need for that community was so great for me that
I literally ran away from home at fifteen. And when
(32:50):
I found the theater, I was like, of course. And
you know, someone asked me, do you know what a
home what sexual is and I said, I think it's
boys who like boys, and they were like hm hm.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
In addition to founding the Trevor Project, in twenty seventeen,
Celeste founded the Future Perfect Project, an organization dedicated to
amplifying queer young voices through media projects. The group puts
on storytelling and songwriting workshops for teenagers to help them
express themselves, and they've produced with the young people. They
(33:32):
serve full scale professional albums, animations, short films, comic books,
and more. In many ways, the Future Perfect Project would
have served as a home to a young Trevor or
Celeste Celestia. This show is about intergenerational dialogue. And one
(33:54):
of my favorite things about the episodes that we've done
and the guess that we've had on is that so
often a guest will say, well, you know, for as
much as your generation is grateful to us, we're grateful
to your generation too, And so I've kind of learned
(34:16):
like it's sort of like a give and take. And
you've done so much for young people. You've given so
much to young people. I wonder if there's something that
you've received in any way that's special to you.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Yeah, I think my mission in life. They gave me
my mission in life, which is them making sure that
they're safety and celebrated. Changing the story. You know, I
(34:53):
have spent the better part of my adult life really
doing what I can to make their lives easier. And
so I started, along with my friend Ryan Amador, we
started the Future Perfect Project, and the purpose of the
Future Perfect Project at the time.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Was to.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Really provide the space and encouragement for these young people
to tell their story and to sing their songs. So
we traveled around the country and went to places like
Alabama and Arkansas and Indiana and iow and all the
other vowel states. And during that time I got to
(35:41):
watch them from week to week, changed their names, change
their pronouns, experiment with who they are, their hair color changing,
and learning, learning how great it is to explore your
authentic self. And at some point I realized that if
(36:07):
I was sixteen or seventeen years old and it had
been on offer for me, I would I would identify
as non binary. Like I tried to pass as a
gay man like and I did an okay job, but
I just was never really I never aced it if
(36:28):
like it just there was always something a little off,
you know, like I was good with the gay part,
that the man part was like really like the sort
of a stumbling block. And I went, that's the problem.
I'm not a gay man, I'm non binary. And and
you know in Zoom you have to put your name.
(36:50):
You don't have to, but we always put our name
and then our pronouns. And one week I suddenly I
just had this conversation with them while I said, like
I'm thinking. I told them this thing about being non binary,
and they were like, well, you have to change your name,
and I was like, I can't change my name. I like,
(37:10):
I'm in my sixties, you know this is crazy, Like
I've lived my whole life. And they were like, oh,
you know, it's great, try it. Why don't you try
it here. Then one day I realized that my middle name,
well I always knew my middle name, but I suddenly
realized my middle name would be perfect because my middle
(37:32):
name was Celeste and is Celeste, and you know, it's
a family name. It's traveled down through generations of my
father's family. And when I asked my mother as a kid,
I said, what's with the Celeste? Why do I have
(37:52):
a girl's name. It's a problem, I mean, And she said, well,
it's a man's name in France and I was like, yeah,
but we live in New Jersey. This is a liability.
I didn't say that, but like it really was a liability.
And I lived in terror my entire childhood. So the
idea that I could use this name and take it
(38:13):
out into the sunlight. And you know, the thing I
say is that every time someone calls me Celeste, a
queer angel gets its wings because I really feel like
it's like a It's a part of me was liberated.
And they did that for me. They showed me that
you don't have to stop asking questions about who you
(38:36):
are ever and if you think you know who you are.
I actually think it's why people find it difficult to
be around young people because they make you question who
you are. They make you ask questions that are maybe
not comfortable to ask because you've got everything going. But
they really inspired me to dare myself to be more
(39:02):
myself and that I would get that at my age
from them. That is a greater gift than I thought,
I think in what I was giving them.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
But We Loved is hosted by me Jordan Gonsalves. New
episodes drop every Wednesday. If you want to write in
to tell your story, email us at but We Looved
at gmail dot com, or send us a message on
Instagram or TikTok at but We Loved. We are a
production of the Outspoken podcast Network and iHeart Podcasts. But
(39:43):
We Loved was originally developed with Pushkin Industries. Our producers
Areshena Ozaki, Michael June, Emily Meronoff, and Joey patt Our.
Executive producers are Me and Maya Howard. Original music by
Steve Boone. Special thanks to Jay Bronson and rockqul Willis.
If you loved this episode, leave us a rating and
(40:05):
follow us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and thank you
for listening. I'll see you next week.
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