On this episode, we speak with Brandi Lira, the president of Out for Education, and all the good work they do in the community. Then we speak with Daron Yanes Perez, the male-identifying Grand Marshal for Pride Houston 365. Finally, Brett Cullum has a conversation with his husband, Lee Ingalls, about staying friends with an ex.
Queer Voices airs in Houston Texas on 90.1FM KPFT and is heard as a podcast here. Queer Voices hopes to entertain as well as illuminate LGBTQ issues in Houston and beyond. Check out our socials at:
https://www.facebook.com/QueerVoicesKPFT/ and
https://www.instagram.com/queervoices90.1kpft/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everybody and happy Pride Month.
This is Queer Voices, a podcastand radio show that's been on
the air for several decades asone of the oldest LGBTQ plus
radio shows in the United States.
This week's episode featurestwo presidents of LGBTQ plus
serving organizations and acandid conversation about
(00:21):
staying friends with an ex andasks are queer exes more
friendly to one another thanstraight exes?
Hmm, our show starts with aninterview by our executive
producer, brian Levinka, withlongtime educator and advocate
Brandy Lira, president of Outfor Education, the city's
largest LGBTQ plus scholarshipgranting nonprofit.
(00:44):
The city's largest.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
LGBTQ plus scholarship granting non-profit.
This past May we gave away$160,000 to 42 students across
the Houston greater area, sowe're very excited about what we
do and the work that we do forour community.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Afterwards.
Queer Voice's newestcontributor, ethan Michelle Gans
, conducts his first on-airinterview with this year's
Houston Pride 365'smale-identifying Grand Marshal
Garon Yanez-Perez, an immigrantrights and trans rights activist
who founded Trans MenEmpowerment.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
The country where I come from, Cuba, we don't get to
experience getting together incommunity like that or having
parades or any of those coolthings that we do over here, so
I would have never thought I wasgoing to be Grand Marshal of
this parade.
For me it was like the greatesthonor to be representing the
trans men community here inHouston.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
And we close our show with a conversation between
Queer Voices contributor BrettCullum and his husband.
Author of the Prairie, has aRainbow R Lee Ingalls, yes, of
Little House on the Prairielineage, discussing not only
queer love and relationships,but queer breakups and exes.
Speaker 5 (01:57):
I think in the gay community we tend to be more
forgiving and eventually becomefriends with our exes.
I see that quite a bit.
I said I don't see that quite abit.
I said I do not so much in thestraight world In the gay world.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
We tend to be more friendly after the fact than
those in the straight world.
Queer Voices starts now.
Speaker 6 (02:17):
This is Brian Levinck , and today I'm speaking with
Brandy Lira, the board presidentof Out for Education, a
wonderful organization here inHouston giving scholarships to
LGBT youth.
Welcome to the show, brandy.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Thank you for having me so much.
I'm really excited to be hereand share what we do.
Speaker 6 (02:34):
So what do you do and how did you get started?
Speaker 3 (02:37):
So Out for Education is a nonprofit organization that
was originated back in 1999through PFLAG and Hatch Youth,
through the Montreux Center, andwe officially gained our 501c3
just a year later.
And the mission is simple wejust raise money and give it
away in the form of scholarshipsto LGBTQ plus youth students in
(03:00):
Houston, or they could live inHouston or be coming to school,
um in Houston.
And so you know, when we firststarted we were it was kind of
like a grassroots project tryingto raise money to give just a
few scholarships.
Here and there.
We were given away about 18,000to 20 students or fewer, um,
and now we've really just kindof expanded upon that Um.
(03:21):
This past May, uh, we gave away$160,000 to 42 students across
the Houston Greater Area.
So very excited about what wedo and the work that we do for
our community.
Speaker 6 (03:34):
How did you get involved?
Speaker 3 (03:36):
I first heard about for education when I was a high
school principal at EastwoodAcademy in HISD, and a good
friend of mine, emmy, workedwith a program called Emerge,
but she also sat on the boardfor Out for Education, and so
she kind of just told me hey,I've noticed that a lot of your
students here are in the LGBTQplus community.
(03:56):
It's great, they feel proud andout.
But did you know that there's ascholarship program
specifically for this type ofstudent?
I was like, no, tell me moreabout it.
And so that's kind of how itstarted and I started promoting
it across campus along with allof our other scholarship
programs and pretty much, I meanwe had a lot of scholars almost
every year.
(04:17):
You know, either apply and getthe scholarship or just simply
you know the awareness ofapplying for it.
So, um, whatever I was decidingto leave HISD, emmy was like,
hey, brandy, um, you know,there's a position opening Cause
I'm, I'm, you know I feel likeI've done my time, I'm ready to
leave the board to do some otherthings.
(04:37):
So, um, I applied, got on theboard at the time Ray Sanchez
was the president and, um, youknow, just got really, really
involved in the work that we do,because I would see kind of the
full circle moment.
Being a principal and you'rewith the kids every single day
trying to guide them intosomething, and then being a part
of the programs that give themoney and help students to go to
(04:59):
school, was just kind of fullcircle for me.
So slowly but surely over theyears it just kind of, you know,
with the encouragement of myfellow board members ran for
president and here we are today.
Speaker 6 (05:12):
So where does the money come from?
How are you funded?
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Yeah.
So we have a diverse group ofboard members that are
constantly working to do justoutreach, right, talk to people
about what we're doing.
So we have donors that are justkind of hey, we met you, we've
heard about you guys, we buyinto what you do.
Here's XYZ number of dollars.
But the bulk of our funds comefrom fundraising events that we
(05:38):
host, either in collaborationwith other organizations like
Houston Bar Association or theMontrose Softball League, and
endowments.
So currently we have a fewendowments that are fully funded
, woodlands Pride being one ofour most recent.
And so endowments, if youchoose to, you start your
(06:01):
endowment by paying $5,000 eachyear for five years until you're
fully funded at $25,000.
And we give away the interestthat is earned within that
account in the form ofscholarships.
But we have a contract in place.
So you know, if you as a donorwant to start a scholarship fund
through an endowment, you canactually set the parameters,
like I want an art student or,you know, an art major that's
(06:24):
going to UT Austin.
Of course, the more detailed andspecific you get, the more
limited it is to find a studentthat fits that criteria.
But we try to honor our donorsand our sponsors requests
because you know we want to makesure that their contributions
are going to something that'sgoing to yield the most and the
most meaningful experience forthem.
(06:45):
The other way we give outscholarships is, you know, maybe
endowments is just a little toolofty for some donors and so we
give away named scholarshipsfor a minimum of $2,500.
So if you know you, brian,would like to give out a
scholarship, then let's say youdonate $2,500.
Then in the next giveawayceremony we would announce the
(07:15):
Brian scholarship for Out forEducation and it would go to a
student in your name.
So it's kind of like we're whatdo we call ourselves?
The subject matter experts?
You know we're what do we callourselves the subject matter
experts?
We are very well rehearsed injust raising the money and being
(07:36):
able to send it off to collegesand universities to fund
education for these students.
Speaker 6 (07:38):
So kind of like a one stop shop.
Yeah, I'm sure you have somesuccess stories success stories.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Could you tell me some of those?
Oh, absolutely so.
The whole premise behind thisis we want to get LGBTQ plus
students an education right.
We want to help fund that, butthe end goal with that is for
these students to give back tothe community in some shape or
form that benefits or enhancesthe experience of LGBTQ plus
community members.
And so one of our biggestsuccess stories is Cameron
(08:06):
Samuels, and I know they will beproud to hear their name.
Cameron Samuels attended KDISDand during their time they were
able to form a student ledorganization called SEAT, which
stands for Students Engaged inAdvancing Texas, and what they
do is they show up and they tryto convince policymakers and
(08:31):
politicians to do the rightthing by students.
They're looking at educationalpractices and curriculum
decisions that are made at thehigh school level and beyond
that are anti-trans oranti-LGBTQ, beyond that are
anti-trans or anti-LGBTQ, andthey're standing up against
those and helping to prevent allof the censoring that's going
around that prevents some of ourcommunity members from seeing
(08:53):
themselves in literature and incurriculum across the districts.
Speaker 6 (08:59):
Yeah, we've had Cameron on Queer Voices before.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Yeah, they are amazing.
Speaker 6 (09:04):
Friend of the show.
Now, how do you go aboutfinding students, or how do
people find out about you?
Speaker 3 (09:08):
I guess, Sure, so we put out emails to all of the.
Well, I guess I should start bysaying a lot of the board
members are educators in thefield.
Currently, I myself work at ahigh school.
We have another high schoolemployee, an elementary school
principal, and so we're all kindof connected within the
(09:28):
districts across the Houston andgreater metropolitan area and
so we just kind of send emailsto the counselors that we know,
the college and career readinessleaders across the districts,
and just say hey, here's alittle bit about us.
(09:49):
Would you mind putting our linkon your scholarship platform?
Because every district kind ofhas this bank of scholarships
that are on a website forstudents to access, and so we
just try to get our name onthere and we go from there.
And of course, social media isa big platform that we use to
try to promote our applicationprocess.
The application always opensOctober 1st and then it closes
usually the last day in February.
(10:10):
So word of mouth, social media.
We've worked with OutsmartMagazine to promote our
scholarship as well.
And of course, the GreaterHouston LGBTQ Plus Chamber of
Commerce has been very helpfulin spreading the word as well.
Speaker 6 (10:26):
I understand that there's an interview process
that the community takes part in, because my friend JD does it.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Absolutely.
If you have not volunteered oryou are a volunteer and you are
looking for a WOW experience, Iwould highly recommend signing
up with us to volunteer, becauseour day of interviews see our
students apply.
They submitted application withan essay.
We need a small community ofvolunteers to read the essays
(10:53):
and score them, and then a monthlater we call back students for
a face-to-face panel styleinterview at Big Brothers, big
Sisters Houston and during thistime we need interviews to fill
up the five rooms that we havestationed to interview students.
Those rooms consist usuallyabout four to five volunteers
and the rubric is there for you.
(11:13):
All the questions are pre-made.
All the volunteers simply haveto do is just ask the question
assigned to them by themoderator in the room, and it's
so impactful the moderator inthe room and it's so impactful
I'm sure JD talked to you a lotabout it it's.
(11:33):
You know, you really get to see.
We hear a lot on the TV, news,radio about you know the state
of distress that our trans kids,our queer kids, are in in
school.
But until you actually hearface to face the stories that
they've gone through, not justin the educational system but
within their own households, youunderstand the work that we're
doing and why it's so importantfor us to advocate for these
marginalized groups of students.
(11:54):
We've had students break downand cry in their interviews
because they just realize oh mygoodness, I didn't know that
there are adult professionalsthat are out and open and safe,
but also willing to advocate andmentor students like me.
(12:15):
My teachers don't see me, I'mscared to be out at my campus, I
can't even be myself with myown family members in my
household, and so it's justimpactful.
Sometimes it's the first timeI've ever met a queer adult who
has made it, and so, to be apart of that, I would highly
recommend anyone interested involunteering.
Speaker 6 (12:36):
How do people volunteer?
How do they sign up?
Speaker 3 (12:39):
So most of our links are on social media.
We also have a website,outforeducationorg, and our
social media handle forInstagram is outforedhouston,
and in the link in our bio wehave all the links.
You would need to register tovolunteer.
If you do that, every time wehave an opportunity available we
(13:01):
will email the entiredistribution list so you would
get advanced notice of all ofthose you could also sign up to.
You know, signing up doesn'tmean that you sign up to do
everything.
You can pick and choose whichevents you want to help us with.
We are going to need a lot ofhelp for Pride coming up as well
.
Speaker 6 (13:19):
Talk about Pride.
What are you doing for Pride?
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Pride what are you doing for Pride Sure?
So we will have a booth atPride 365 this year.
I believe that date is I can'tremember.
Off the top of my head I thinkit's June 26, but I'm not 100%
sure.
Speaker 6 (13:34):
I think it's June 28.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
28th, okay, and we have a booth out there, so we'll
have some of our volunteers,possibly some of our previous
students or current students.
We'll just be talking about ourscholarship promoting, looking
for donors, anybody willing tomake a donation that day, any
sponsors that are willing tohelp us with events we put on.
Like Love Not so Straight Up isour annual fundraising event,
(14:01):
where we you know, we just throwa big Valentine's Day party and
hope that people learn moreabout us and contribute to the
cause.
So we'll be out there.
It'll be hot but it'll be fun,and so we encourage you to stop
by and see us.
We will also be at all theother prides Woodlands Pride and
Fort Bend County.
Speaker 6 (14:19):
So if you're looking for something to do.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Come by and see us.
Speaker 6 (14:23):
That's because the gays are everywhere.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
We are, we are, we cannot be stopped.
Speaker 6 (14:28):
Exactly If you're joining us, we're speaking with
the board president of Out forEducation, Brandy Lira.
Now, Brandy, is there anythingthat we didn't cover that you
would like our listeners to knowabout?
Speaker 3 (14:46):
I just really can't emphasize enough that, having
worked in education for the last18 years and doing the work I
do on the board, it's just soimportant that our students have
presence right, that they feellike they matter and they see
other adults, other grown peoplein positions of power or
professional positions that aremaking a difference.
The state of everything rightnow is just kind of beating them
(15:13):
down, and when you are ateenager in high school trying
to figure out what you want todo, but every textbook, every
piece of paper you pick up isagainst you or seemingly against
you, it's tough to say I wantto do this with my life and this
is how I'm going to do it.
So get involved, eitherfinancially, by contributing to
(15:33):
our scholarship funds orvolunteering with us to help
these young people understandthat they matter and we will
support them in theireducational careers.
Speaker 6 (15:42):
Give me that website one more time, so people can
find out information about yourorganization.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
It's outforeducationorg.
Speaker 6 (15:50):
All right, well, brandy, thank you for coming on
the show.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Next up we have Queer Voices' newest contributor,
Ethan Michelle Ganz, conductingtheir first on-air interview
with this year's Houston Pride365's male-identifying grand
marshal, daron Yanez-Perez, animmigrant rights and trans
rights activist who foundedTrans Men Empowerment.
Ethan, take it away.
Speaker 8 (16:18):
Hey y'all.
This is Ethan Michelle Gans,queer Voices, and we're here
talking to Deron Yemes, who isthe male identifying Grand
Marshal this year for HoustonPride 2025.
Hello, deron.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
Hi, how are you today ?
Speaker 8 (16:34):
I'm doing great.
How are you doing?
Speaker 4 (16:36):
Good, so glad I'm here with you today.
Speaker 8 (16:40):
Me too.
I'm so glad that you came toshare your stories with us.
So the Grand Marshals performceremonial duties and lead the
parade, and they are also thePride Ambassadors for Pride
Month and the whole year,throughout the whole year.
They are selected out of thesubmissions from the Grand
Marshal Advisory Committee,which consists of former Grand
(17:03):
Marshals.
The finalists of the nominationprocess then are voted on by
the community.
The committee chooses thetrendsetter and distinguished
Grand Marshals.
These are individuals or groupswho have made outstanding
contributions to the community,and so now Eran is the male
(17:23):
identifying Grand Marshal.
So what does it mean to bebeing nominated?
What does it mean to you?
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Well, it means so much Like I was so honored just
whenever I found out that I wasnominated.
I wasn't sure that I was goingto win, to be honest, but just
being nominated was such a greatdeal so I was really excited
about that.
It's just so much.
I'm still processing a lot ofit and it's like a long process
(17:52):
that it takes for them to decidewho's even going to be
nominated, and not a lot oftimes you're going to see a
trans man being nominated oreven winning.
So for me, it was like thegreatest honor to be
representing the trans mencommunity here in Houston and I
just want to make sure that Irepresent them right and give
(18:13):
them visibility that they need.
We know that the transmasculine community doesn't get
a lot of visibility how itshould and we're not seen as
much much.
So I want to make sure thatthey see us for who we are and
I'm just extremely honored aboutwinning this year, to be honest
.
Speaker 8 (18:32):
That's awesome.
I'm really glad you won too.
What are your past experienceswith Pride, like your first
Pride or a notable experience ofPride?
Speaker 4 (18:44):
I remember the first time I went to pride with some
friends and a ex-partner I had.
I had only been living in inhouston for maybe like two years
and I had a friend that waslike, oh, we're gonna go to this
uh festival in downtown and Iwas like, what is it?
It was like it's like a gamefestival.
I was like a gay festival.
I was like it's like a gayfestival.
I was like a gay festival.
(19:04):
I was like, okay, I want to go,I'm gay, so let's go.
And I remember whenever I gotthere and I seen everybody there
, so much rainbows and flags andeverybody looked so happy I was
like I never experiencedanything like this.
And I remember I had like thebest time of my life and I think
that was probably like around2015 when I moved here to
Houston.
(19:24):
So I had like the best time ofmy life and I think that was
probably like around 2015 when Imoved here to Houston.
So I went like in 2016 or 17.
It's not really that long agothat I went to Pride here, but
after that time that I went, Iwent every single year and I
will go to the festival, I willgo to the parade and it just
brings me so much joy to see allthe community together and it
(19:46):
was like a really new experiencefor me.
Um the country where I comefrom, cuba, um, they don't have
um stuff like that and theydiscriminate a lot towards our
community and we don't get toexperience, like you know,
getting together in communitylike that or having parades or
any of those cool things that wedo over here.
So for me it was a completelynew experience and I really
(20:09):
think about it every every oncea while.
Whenever I go to pride or whenI'm in community, I'll be like
wow, and I could never imagine,like probably like 10 years ago
I would have never thought I wasgonna be grand marshal this
parade that I came without evenknowing what it was.
So it's like completely I don'tknow.
It's pretty crazy to me.
Speaker 8 (20:32):
That is beautiful.
That's a beautiful story.
What does pride mean to you?
Speaker 4 (20:37):
Well, pride means getting together, celebrating,
remembering everything thathappened in the Stonewall, the
parades, the protests thathappened, just feeling joy as
being who you are.
That's something that I alwaysthink about during Pride is who
I am.
(20:58):
I'm with people that I love,even though I don't know you,
you're part of my community andI love you, and I want to make
sure that everybody always feelwelcome, especially during this
month in June.
That is like our Pride Month,but not only during that month.
You know, all year long.
We know that times are hard andone of the things that makes us
(21:20):
, you know, go through thesetimes is staying together and
making sure that everybody, youknow, seems welcome, feels
welcome.
And for me, pride just meanscommunity and, you know, showing
up, being visible.
Speaker 8 (21:34):
All right.
So how do you think pride isrelevant?
Speaker 4 (21:39):
I think it's relevant because, even though a lot of
the people don't want it tohappen, it's history.
It shows what happened yearsago.
Whenever we went to the streets, we asked for rights, we
protested.
It shows who we are and what wefight for.
So I think it's reallyimportant, even though you know,
(22:02):
like the cisgender people, theRepublicans, everybody that
doesn't want us to exist, keep,like you know, going against us,
it's important that we keep onshowing them that we're here.
And it's important that, evenif we don't have a Pride Month,
even if they take it away fromus, whatever happens, we're
still going to celebrate, we'restill going to show them.
So it's very relevant to showwho we are.
Speaker 8 (22:26):
I agree.
We didn't have a Pride Month along time ago and we still
showed up and celebrated andcommemorated.
So you're right, we're going tocontinue to do that.
The theme this year isCelebration is Our Legacy.
What does that mean to you?
Speaker 4 (22:42):
Legacy is remembering the people that fought for us,
the people that was before us.
It's important that wecelebrate who came before us.
We celebrate the ones thatfought for us, that actually
show us how to continue withthis fight.
I think that's like the mostimportant thing.
Speaker 8 (23:01):
What would you say?
Your number one achievement isfor the queer community.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
I think my number one achievement would be funding
trans men empowerment.
That was a project that I hadin mind for a while and actually
doing it it was like one of thebiggest achievements of my life
.
We're still a pretty smallorganization, but we keep on
growing.
We have a big number of transguys that keep on coming to our
(23:30):
meetings and groups and reachout to us and it brings me so
much joy that I can facilitatethis space for them.
We know that there's not manyspaces for transmasks or
non-binary people that identifyas mass, so it's like a new
space that I wanted to createfor them so they could feel
welcome.
They can see that there's morepeople like them with similar
(23:53):
experience, even though we allhave different experiences.
But it's always good to meetpeople that are going through
the same journey that you are,and for me it's been like really
life-changing.
Trans men empowerment has givenme a lot of joy and it
continues to bring me joy, Likeevery time, that I keep meeting
more trans guys and I see thegood stuff that we're doing for
(24:15):
them and putting the word outthere for our trans community is
very important for me and Ijust wish that we keep on
growing and we keep on helpingthe trans men community.
Also the immigrant communitythat keeps coming to us because
we are a bilingual group so wetry to help everyone.
Speaker 8 (24:36):
I'm transmasc myself, non-binary, and I think it's
great that you've created thesespaces for people like me.
Anything that we did not askabout that you would like folks
to know about you.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
Well, how I mentioned earlier, I'm an immigrant from
Cuba and that's one of thethings that I've been focusing
on lately too.
I want to make sure that peopleknow about you know us trans
folks that a lot of us areimmigrants, about you know us
trans folks that a lot of us areimmigrants, that we do go
through a lot of struggle beingtrans, but also being an
(25:08):
immigrant is now bringing evenmore uh, you know, to bring more
stuff into ourselves, likeanxiety and all of those things
that you know.
Um, yesterday, you know, we wentto that panel and we were
talking about, um, mental healthand there was a few things that
I heard, like you taking careof yourself and making sure that
you take care of your mentalhealth.
That's something that I've beenwanting to, you know, like talk
(25:32):
about with our community, withtrans mask membership and
everybody, because it's veryimportant, you know, to take
care of your mental health andfor me, in these hard moments
with this new government, it'sbeen really hard to keep them,
you know, like going and beinglike really healthy mental wise.
(25:53):
So one of the things that Iwanted to share was that I
wanted to make sure that everytrans person that is immigrant
or non-immigrant, but knowsomebody that is immigrant, they
know that they have a spacethat they can come to with us at
Trans Men Empowerment or theycan reach out to me.
I just really like to representthat because it's important for
me to know that they have aplace that they can go to.
Speaker 8 (26:17):
Yes, we all need spaces that are safe for us and
that's really great that you'reproviding that for trans masc
folks, for immigrants.
You know it's been really greatfor me interviewing you.
This has been my firstinterview on Queer Voices and I
have a lot of respect for you,so I'm really glad that I was
(26:39):
able to do this and that theygave me this interview for my
first one.
I hope I do use justice.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
You did great.
I was one of those very nervous, but I'm so glad to have this
opportunity to talk about theseimportant issues and be able to
share a little bit more aboutmyself and what we do at
Transgender Empowerment.
Speaker 8 (27:01):
Yeah, you do great work.
I've seen your work.
I'm really proud of you.
I'm so glad that you won.
You've done a good job with allthe stuff that you've put out
there for our community.
Speaker 4 (27:17):
Thank you, thank you so much.
You have too Well, thank you.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Thank you, Ethan Michelle Gans, for your powerful
and inspiring interview, whichalso happens to be Ethan's debut
on Queer Voices.
Speaker 5 (27:43):
We close out our show with a conversation between
Queer Voices contributor BrettCullum, and his husband, author
of the Prairie has a Rainbow, rLee Ingalls, to discuss staying
friends with an ex.
Hi everyone, thanks for joiningus R Lee Ingalls here and I'm
here with my husband, brettCullum.
So the podcast today actuallystarted from a conversation we
had this morning which kind oftook a really interesting
direction.
We're trying to figure out somepodcasts for the future and one
of the topics was my book, thePrairie has a Rainbow.
(28:05):
I, at the very end of the book,one of the last few paragraphs,
I stated that I had three longterm relationships one 11 years
and two that were seven yearsand both or all three of them
ended kind of spectacularly.
But I chose not to define thoserelationships by the last few
months that were kind of adisaster, but rather the years
(28:27):
that we lived together that wereactually good.
I said that I think in the gaycommunity we tend to be more
forgiving and eventually becomefriends with our exes.
I see that quite a bit.
I said I don't see that so muchin the straight world.
So I came away with theconclusion that the rule is, or
typically, that in the gay worldwe tend to be more friendly
(28:50):
after the fact than those in thestraight world.
Speaker 9 (28:52):
Yeah, no, and I think that there's a definite theme
there, and one that I've alwaysjoked about, because I've
remained friends with a lot ofmy exes, although a lot of them
have, like, either moved away orthey've passed.
Yeah, I'm not sure what thatsays about me, but okay, but I
(29:15):
was really interested because Iwas saying, well, I think that
some straight people do that, Ithink that there's a you know,
on both sides there's probablythat, and so I started kind of
researching a little bit and Idid find out that actually, it's
true, lgbtq individuals,especially gay men, are more
likely to remain friends withtheir exes when you compare it
to heterosexuals.
And they were saying that therewas a lot of various factors,
(29:37):
including kind of strong networksupports within LGBTQ plus
communities.
Within LGBTQ plus communities,there's shared experiences,
routines, the need for socialconnections that maybe we just
are going to run into each othermore or that it's just easier
to kind of I don't know maintainit.
I'm not sure what the secretsauce there is.
Speaker 5 (29:55):
So one of my exes did pass away, unfortunately, and
one of them, the first one thatwe were together for 11 years.
We're still friendly, mostly onFacebook, because we live so
far apart.
Yeah, the shared experiencesthat we had were good and that's
what I choose to hold on to.
And we both know those couplesin the straight world that get
divorced and the two and the twoof them can't even be in the
(30:17):
same room after decades apart,which just I mean that doesn't
make sense to me, and I'm nottrying to understand their world
or editorialize it at all, butI just say that I see that far
too often.
Speaker 9 (30:29):
Well, and to me I mean.
My personal philosophy is thatif I cared about you enough to
have a relationship with you, Istill want you to be in my life
Now.
Do I want you as a romanticpartner?
No.
Do I want to be involved withyou in any other way than
friendship?
No.
But I still want to know whathappens to you.
(30:49):
I still want to support you.
I'm still in your corner andI'm still cheering for you and I
still want you to make it and Istill want you to be involved.
And I used to joke anytime thatI did a show, like a theater
show previews, I would invite atleast one X to the previews
because I knew that if anybodywas going to be honest with me
(31:11):
about whether the show was anygood or whether I was performing
well, it would be one of my X'sand I absolutely made it like a
policy of at least getting oneto come to a preview and tell me
yeah, it's a good show or no,you really need to run and this
is bad, right, right.
Speaker 8 (31:27):
What were you?
Speaker 9 (31:27):
thinking.
Speaker 5 (31:29):
So that's absolutely correct.
Once you go through thatspectacular ending, you can
guarantee that they are going tobe very frank about their
opinions going forward.
Speaker 9 (31:38):
Well, and that's nice to have, because you have so
many people in your life thateither want to impress you or
they want to ingratiatethemselves to you that sometimes
they're not honest.
And sometimes, when I ask foran opinion of work or something
that I'm producing or somethinglike that, I want an honest
opinion.
I'm not asking for you to justconfirm what I'm doing.
Speaker 5 (31:58):
Right, right, and we'll end in the same way too.
If I ask for your opinion, it'sI genuinely want what you think
about it, and you know what Ido from.
There is my business, but I'mactually looking for an honest
opinion.
Speaker 9 (32:10):
Yeah, but I mean it's hard for some people to do that
, and with the next, I meanthey've already destroyed a
relationship with you, True?
Speaker 5 (32:16):
Okay, are you?
Going to get a better.
Yeah, when you did the research,I did some more thinking about
what actually took place from arelationship and how we manage
areas that we don't.
So I don't think we don'tparallel on this.
We do, but how we think aboutit is different.
So this is kind of what I cameaway with.
So I stated what I thought frommy experience and all my input
(32:38):
was a rule and instinctively youwent to the exceptions to that
rule and started pointing outexceptions, and I agree with
that.
In every rule it's not 100%.
It's like 100% of the time, bethat there are going to be those
exceptions that we can go to.
And I thought, well, is thatjust to take the counterpoint,
or is that being argumentative?
(32:59):
And I thought so.
As I continued to think throughthat, I thought, well, wait a
second, you do the same thing.
And I referenced that there's abook that either you read or
your mother gave you orsomething.
And the only thing that Iremember about it is if you walk
into someone's house and theyhave lots of books, they're this
.
If they don't have lots ofbooks, then they're not that,
and that's the stated rule.
(33:20):
And I came up with to thatbecause I feel like I might be
an exception to that.
So and I thought, ok, so weboth do that.
So are we being counterpointedand being argumentative?
Speaker 9 (33:31):
I always want to look at both sides of an equation
and I always want to look at,well, what if it's this or what
if it's that?
And I think that there areobviously exceptions.
I know tons of people in ourworld, in the LGBTQ community,
that cannot be friends with anex.
They just have some kind ofimmunity to it.
(33:53):
It's not important to them.
They feel like, oh my gosh,this person betrayed me and I
will never speak to them againand they cannot be in the same
room.
And then there are somestraight people, and I brought
up the famous celebrity coupleexample of Demi Moore and Bruce
Willis.
They had a big divorce andeverything, but now that Bruce
Willis is, health is fading.
Demi Moore and her family areactually stepping up and helping
(34:15):
him.
And they're still friends andI've read a bunch of stuff
lately about some straightcouples where they remain
friends after the divorce, andcertainly in my personal
experience I don't see that asoften.
I mean, I definitely have in myown family it's.
It's there's lots of examplesof people getting divorced and
never talking again, and thencertainly with us I mean we have
(34:36):
friends.
So the general rule isobviously that we are more
likely to do that.
Speaker 5 (34:41):
Yeah Well, and embrace the whole thing.
So I'm with you.
So I have a really large familyand there are a lot of exes and
I see kind of a mixture of both.
Mostly they don't talk to eachother.
They never want to see eachother again, but there are a few
that do talk to their exes andfrom mine and your perspective
and experience, I have met someof your exes and, even though I
(35:02):
don't think you've actually metany of mine, you are friends
with at least one of them onFacebook.
So, yeah, not only are wefriends ourselves, but our
spouses are friends with them.
Speaker 9 (35:15):
That's true.
One of the things that I alsolooked at, too, though, is I was
looking at the differences inrelationships between the
straight world and the gay world.
They said that the averagestraight person has four to 10
partners or relationships, andthat they pretty much go about
3.7 relationships on average tofind the right one.
That was what they were saying,and some studies actually said
that men were more likely tohave more than women, that they
(35:38):
would have up to six, includinglike two, long-term basically
and that that would be the thing.
So, and then the, the gay men.
It said that we would have moreof a propensity to have more
relationships than that, andthat that might be a thing,
because sometimes we don't labelthem as serious.
(35:58):
There's a large percentage injust the general population of
gay men that are either in openrelationships or polyamorous or
things like that, so there's alittle bit of a fluidity there
already.
The stage for not having illwill when the everything falls
apart, I don't know it's like.
It's a very interesting thing,and I think that another part of
the equation is that,traditionally, straight
(36:20):
marriages are focused aroundkids, and I think that a lot of
times, you have to remainfriends with the ex because you
are going to co-parent or youare going to have a kid going
forward.
Now, that's true with gayrelationships too.
Speaker 5 (36:33):
I've seen that, where we've seen two gay men break up
but they've adopted kids andthey have to swallow that,
become friends just for the sakeof the kids, yeah, but even
then I see it different becausethere's this, you know, like I
said there's I have it in my ownfamily and there's some
animosity and some anger aroundthe relationship, even when it's
(36:56):
involving just the kids havingto manage the kids, and I don't
really see that so much in thegay community.
I think it's co-parenting.
I see it as a or pop in the gaycouples that I'm aware.
Speaker 9 (37:07):
Hmm, well, how do you navigate this?
I mean, you were talking aboutyour examples and obviously
you've had what three majorrelationships before Before us?
Speaker 5 (37:17):
yeah, yeah that you, those communications were
happening.
But the other two so Rogernumber two, he used to come to
(37:38):
my holiday parties every yearfor a long time until his new
boyfriend passed away and thenhe kind of fell off the face of
the earth.
Even the people that I knewthat knew him then are no longer
hearing from him, so I don'tknow what happened there.
But my first one, Devon, westill chat on Facebook.
(37:58):
We haven't talked to each otherin quite a long time.
I talked to him and his otherfamily members as well.
That communication has alwaysbeen there.
Like I said, I'm not going tomeasure our relationship by how
it dissolved, but by the yearsthat it was good and we did.
I mean, we had a lot of goodtimes.
We were both very young at thetime, we did a lot of things
together and it was fun.
So why not focus on that?
Speaker 9 (38:17):
No, I agree with you, although I've had some serious
relationships where I feel likethe other person could not be
friends afterwards.
I don't know what it was.
Sometimes it was when I wouldenter into another relationship.
It kind of really fizzled and Ithink that that kind of like
almost that jealousy of, oh mygosh, you're moving on.
It's tricky to navigate,especially when one of you if
(38:38):
you're both single after youbreak up.
It seems like it's easier.
If one of you ends up in arelationship eventually or later
, then I think sometimes it getsa little bit weird and I don't
know.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
I just I felt some discomfort from some exes with
that and around you know, I waskind of the opposite, or at
least for me personally, I wasthe opposite.
I was happy when my exes metsomebody else and started dating
someone else, because thatmeant I was fully off the hook.
Yeah, because when you know,when I'm done, I'm done so and I
didn't want there any of thisback and forth stuff and you
(39:10):
know, possibility of of anythingthe only thing that's possible
is being friends and not hateeach other.
That's all that's possible.
Speaker 9 (39:17):
That's the only thing that's possible.
We're not going to hate eachother, true, but I always found
some comfort in having friendsbecause I mean, let's face it,
if you have an ex, they've seenyou at your best.
They've also seen you at yourworst and you can have, like I
said, you can have those honestconversations with them and they
(39:37):
kind of know where things aregoing to go wrong for you.
I hate to say it.
Speaker 5 (39:45):
Yeah Well, if they wanted to hit a hot button, they
know which ones to hit.
So there is that.
However, I've never had thatexperience.
Speaker 9 (39:56):
No, I've never had that experience.
No, I've never had thatexperience either.
But I do appreciate the insightand just having that kind of a
friend that you can bouncethings off of, that they know
kind of how you're going toreact.
You know, I mean, most of ourfriends do anyway.
I mean, most of our friends arevery close friends.
Yes, we've known them for years.
We have a very strange circleof friends, I would say, by most
people's measure, because we'vehad friends.
Some of mine have been, youknow, over 40.
Some of yours have been over 40.
(40:16):
I mean, it's just like it goescrazy when you think about it.
So it's hard and and maybethat's why we're easier to
navigate that maybe we're justlong-term people.
Yeah, I don't know that could be, that could be I mean, although
I certainly have had my, myfriends that have not lasted as
long, that have been likeacquaintances that I've known
(40:38):
for a season, especially whenyou look at like theater stuff,
particularly like when you werein your dance days, did you have
people that you were justfriends with when you were just
in that company, right?
Speaker 5 (40:47):
right.
Because of proximity.
We're very, we're close to eachother, seeing each other every
day in the same space, so webecame friends.
But then sirs I would say areat least from back in those days
very much in the moment whentheir circumstance changes, that
everything changes and we, mostof them I lost touch with.
I have rekindled some of thosefriendships because of Facebook,
(41:09):
facebook now.
But many of them I've neverheard from again, and not
because I didn't want to, or ifI saw them again today I
wouldn't embrace them and pickup where we're left off.
But yeah, it was a verytransient community.
Speaker 9 (41:22):
You know, social media has been wonderful for
doing that.
One of the things is like whenI was doing research for this, I
did find a very supportivearticle in Psychology Today.
Was doing research for this, Idid find a very supportive
article in Psychology Today, ofall places that basically said
that as a community, we justhave a unique degree of
importance on retainingemotional support, advice, trust
and shared memories, and thatabsolutely lines up with what
(41:44):
I've said, that you've got thesethings.
And they said that we are morelikely to go out of our way to
maintain a relationship thanmaybe a heterosexual counterpart
, that we are actually going tomake sure that happens we make
the calls, we set up the right,the planned gatherings, all that
kind of stuff we were very goodabout doing that to party, so
(42:07):
we're gonna invite them toparties here.
Speaker 5 (42:08):
You can come to my party one more question came to
mind, so does that constitute anargument between us?
Speaker 8 (42:14):
No, did we argue no?
Speaker 5 (42:16):
I didn't think so either, because I thought, you
know, from my perspective Idon't feel that passionate about
either one of those issues thatI brought up to take a stand,
any serious stand, on it.
Yeah, so I agree.
No, that was not an argument.
Speaker 9 (42:28):
No, I think it's fun to debate things.
I think so too, and I think youshould, and I think it's
healthy.
In any relationship, whetherit's friend, whether it's
coworker, whether it's yourpartner, your spouse, your,
however you define yourrelationship I think it's
healthy to debate.
I think that's what we're herefor.
I mean that's challengedpeople's beliefs.
Talk about things, maybe lookat the other side too.
(42:48):
I don't know.
I mean I think that that'salways been an instinct of me to
want to kind of look at.
Oh, like Joni Mitchell says,I've looked at both sides.
Now you know.
I mean it's that whole thing oflike.
I want to figure out, likewhere's this coming from and
what are the counterpoints tothis?
Speaker 5 (43:03):
And having the discussion helps you crystallize
your thought on it.
Yeah, so yeah, and possiblychange it, although that might
be more difficult.
Speaker 9 (43:12):
So yeah, and possibly change it, although that might
be more difficult.
No, I think it is difficult tomake you sometimes change those.
It's hard.
It's like we always talk aboutit in social media and like one
of the things about havingfriends from the past at social
media.
Sometimes you find out that, ohmy gosh, their political views
are completely different thanmine, yes, and that makes it
(43:32):
hard, I mean, and then, like youhave a different strain on that
relationship.
Do you ignore that or do you?
How do you handle that?
Speaker 5 (43:41):
Yeah, so obviously it depends on what the
relationship is and how closeyou are and and fond of each
other you are, but from myperspective it, if what you're
doing is harmful to anothergroup of people, I have a really
hard time ignoring that.
I might not completely distancemyself, but I might limit my
(44:03):
exposure somewhat.
Speaker 9 (44:06):
I have to look at the source of our friendship and
where it came from.
If it is a deep-seatedfriendship that has spanned
years and years and decades anddecades, I am more likely to be
forgiving of that.
But if we are more casual, morerecent friends, then I'm
probably going to see that aslike oh well, maybe we should
rethink this, because I'm notsure how to do this, but I
(44:29):
navigate it differently withdifferent people.
I mean, that's what I think isweird, is like I do too.
Speaker 5 (44:35):
And you're right, it depends on the depth and time
and and just how fond of thatperson I am.
Speaker 9 (44:40):
Yeah, and if they're an ex, I'm probably gonna make
fun of them.
I'm just kidding.
Speaker 5 (44:45):
I can guarantee you I will talk about them behind
their back, everything.
No, I'll judge their face whenI say talk about them behind
their back, everything.
No, I'll judge their face.
No, no, no.
When I say talk about thembehind their back, I mean
they're standing next to me withtheir back to me.
They can still hear me.
Speaker 9 (44:58):
Oh no, we're a mess.
Okay, yes, but I thought it wasinteresting that they actually
have these research things thatsays this is a common phenomenon
, even though they said thatit's kind of more of a media
thing.
That they thought at first, butthen when they actually plunged
into it, they kind of figuredout that it's just the fact that
we have to.
I mean, it's easier for us todo that, I guess in a weird way.
Speaker 5 (45:21):
I don't know how that is actually the case, but it
does.
As I said, it does appear to bethe case.
Speaker 9 (45:26):
It seems interesting to me that a man and a woman are
more likely to not be friendslater, as opposed to a man and a
man or a woman and a woman.
It just I don't understand howthat happens, other than maybe
it's just the way that the worldworks.
Maybe, Maybe it's not associally acceptable to be
friends.
It's like that when Harry MetSally movie cliche of how can
(45:48):
you be friends with a woman, youknow when you're a man.
But we have the same kind ofequation.
I mean, how can you be friendswith a guy when you're have a
significant partner or marriedor you know whatever you know,
and yet we do it's aninteresting conundrum, I think,
and when that was, I thought wasa an interesting conversation,
yeah yeah, it was.
Speaker 5 (46:10):
It was very interesting this morning.
The whole process of gettingready for it was.
It was very interesting thismorning, the whole process of
getting ready for this podcast.
Yeah, it was a very interestingjourney.
Speaker 9 (46:17):
So that's great.
So we've established that weare both kind of sort of friends
with most of our exes AlthoughI think I have more exes that
I'm not friends with than youand it was mainly because they
wanted it that way.
I didn't want it that way, butthey did, and I wanted to
respect their wish for the cleanbreak.
Speaker 5 (46:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (46:34):
I didn't want to push that topic or make them feel
uncomfortable, say, hey, youhave to do this or you know I'm
going to hound you.
But I did reach out Like if Iheard of anything that happened
to them I would send like aletter or a card or something to
just say, hey, I'm thinkingabout you, I hope that
everything works out, you knowif.
I heard of something thathappened to them.
Speaker 5 (46:56):
Yeah, and I would do the same thing.
Speaker 9 (46:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (46:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (46:59):
All right.
Well then, I guess we are offthe hook until next time when we
have a heated conversation inthe kitchen and it ends up on
the podcast.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Thank you, brett Cullum and Arlie Ingalls, for
the hilariously realconversation.
Thank you for listening toQueer Voices.
I'm Davis Mendoza-Duruzman.
Before we close out our show,we want to pay respects to
fellow Queer Voices contributor,david Andrew Adminson, who
(47:35):
passed away last month.
I'd like to play an excerptfrom our May 14th episode, with
remembrances from producersDeborah Moncrief Bell and Brian
Levinka.
Speaker 7 (47:43):
It is with great sorrow that we announce the
passing of a beloved member ofthe Queer Voices family, david
Andrew Edmondson.
Andrew for many years lent hisvoice and his interest in arts
and culture, as well as hisactivism as one of contributors
(48:04):
to the program.
He died on May the 6th after ashort struggle with a very
aggressive form of cancer.
He was a beloved and dearfriend.
When I heard the news and Istarted thinking about him and
(48:24):
starting my grieving process, Ithought of him as always, being
my dear and precious friend.
And then, when I started seeingother people post on Facebook
their thoughts about Andrew andtheir experiences with him, and
I realized that all of themthought of him as their dear and
(48:46):
precious friend.
He was an activist in QueerNation.
I think that's probably where Ifirst met him.
He overcame many things in life, including being a
self-loathing gay man.
He was diagnosed fairly youngwith HIV and he made a decision
(49:08):
that he was going to live aslong as he could, because back
in those days you didn't get tolive very long.
So the fact that he was goingto live as long as he could
because back in those days youdidn't get to live very long so
the fact that he did get to makeit to age 59 was a win.
He grew up in Knoxville,tennessee.
His parents were teachers, hisdad became a union organizer and
they were activists.
(49:29):
So I guess he came by all ofthat quite honestly.
But he was a devotee of theaterand actually had thought that
someday that would be what hewould do would be an actor.
But life led him in many otherplaces, including living in
London, in France and in Dublin,ireland, and how he managed to
(49:54):
do that was because he couldtype and he got jobs working as
what was called a Kelly boybecause they had Kelly girls
temporary service.
So he was a Kelly boy andthat's how he came to do that.
But came back to the States andin his early 20s came to
Houston to work at the AlleyTheater.
(50:15):
He had a long tenure there.
He had a long tenure with theHouston Ballet and then
eventually the Museum of FineArts, houston.
I was one of the fortunate womenin Houston who got to date
Andrew.
He would take me to the theater, we would go to events together
and, just like I said, a dearand precious friend and I was
(50:38):
talking with our mutual friend,january Fox, and she was talking
about her dates with Andrew.
And then we were talking aboutall these women that they all
thought of him as theirboyfriend because he was such a
wonderful man to go out with andspend time with.
So that's kind of funny thatthere's all these women who love
(51:01):
this gay man and thought of himthat way.
Brian, do you have anyparticular memories of Andrew?
Speaker 6 (51:10):
I worked with Andrew on Queer Voices for several
years.
59 is way, way too young topass away.
The whole community is mourningfor Andrew.
My favorite memory probably wasat a fundraiser.
We were going to interviewsomebody and he introduced me
and I forget the name of theinterview guest, but it was just
the way he approached peopleand the way he was so open and
(51:32):
friendly and just I love thatabout him.
He was just so.
Everyone loved Andrew.
Speaker 7 (51:38):
He was a very kind man and came from a place of
kindness in so much that he did,and I think that's because in
part of his life the role hadbeen very unkind to him.
One of the skills that hedeveloped was in media, so he
wrote for Outsmart Magazine, hewrote for the Houston Chronicle,
(51:58):
he contributed to Queer VoicesI believe he was given an award
by the Gay and LesbianJournalists Association and he
would use his knowledge ofHouston's media landscape to
help with our issues.
And he was involved politicallyeverything from Queer Nation to
(52:18):
the effort of Hero.
And more recently he wasworking with the O Project,
which produced oral historiesdocumenting the AIDS crisis in
Houston, and he has raisedawareness about that project.
He talked about the worst yearsof the AIDS epidemic, saying
that it was like the LondonBlitz, except that there was no
(52:42):
place to go into the safety ofthe underground to escape the
moms.
I think that that example thathe set of using whatever skills
you have can be a way ofadvancing our causes.
Certainly you're right, brian,the community is grieving.
We each have our individualgrief, but as a community as a
(53:05):
whole, this is a very impactfulloss.
Speaker 6 (53:10):
It is a massive loss for our community.
Deborah, what is your favoritememory of Andrew?
Speaker 7 (53:16):
It's hard to sort them out.
Just saying this is just theone thing I just remember always
him being so kind, letting meknow about things, informing me
of stuff, and just the way thathe was there for me as a friend,
such a lovely man.
There will be a Celebration ofLife on June, the 12th, starting
(53:40):
at 5 o'clock going till 8 pm atBradshaw Carter on West Alabama
.
People are invited to make adonation in his memory to the
charity of their choice,certainly any of the things that
Andrew supported, and certainlyQueer Voices being one of them.
(54:01):
Gladly, donations in his honorwould be accepted in support of
KPFT and to Queer Voices.
So, andrew, fly high.
Speaker 1 (54:17):
We'll miss you, Andrew.
As Debra mentioned, Andrew'sfuneral is tomorrow, June 12th,
from 5pm to 8pm at BradshawCarter Funeral Home, 1734 West
Alabama Street.
Glenn, the Queer Voicesengineer, is out of town this
(54:39):
week, which is why this episodesounds a bit different, but
let's end today's show in theQueer Voices tradition of Glenn
bringing us home this has beenqueer voices, heard on kpft
(55:00):
houston and as a podcastavailable from several
podcasting sources.
Speaker 2 (55:02):
Check our web page queer voicesorg for more
information.
Queer voices executive produceris brian levinka.
Deborah mon-Bell is co-producer, Brett Cullum Davis
Mendoza-Druzman and Eva MichelleGans are contributors.
The News Wrap segment is partof another podcast called this
Way Out, which is produced inLos Angeles.
Speaker 10 (55:25):
Some of the material in this program has been edited
to improve clarity and runtime.
This program does not endorseany political views or animal
species.
Views, opinions andendorsements are those of the
participants and theorganizations they represent.
For Queer Voices, I'm GlennHolt, Thank you.
Hello everybody and happy Pride Month.
This is Queer Voices, a podcastand radio show that's been on
the air for several decades asone of the oldest LGBTQ plus
radio shows in the United States.
This week's episode featurestwo presidents of LGBTQ plus
serving organizations and acandid conversation about
(00:21):
staying friends with an ex andasks are queer exes more
friendly to one another thanstraight exes?
Hmm, our show starts with aninterview by our executive
producer, brian Levinka, withlongtime educator and advocate
Brandy Lira, president of Outfor Education, the city's
largest LGBTQ plus scholarshipgranting nonprofit.
(00:44):
The city's largest.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
LGBTQ plus scholarship granting non-profit.
This past May we gave away$160,000 to 42 students across
the Houston greater area, sowe're very excited about what we
do and the work that we do forour community.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Afterwards.
Queer Voice's newestcontributor, ethan Michelle Gans
, conducts his first on-airinterview with this year's
Houston Pride 365'smale-identifying Grand Marshal
Garon Yanez-Perez, an immigrantrights and trans rights activist
who founded Trans MenEmpowerment.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
The country where I come from, Cuba, we don't get to
experience getting together incommunity like that or having
parades or any of those coolthings that we do over here, so
I would have never thought I wasgoing to be Grand Marshal of
this parade.
For me it was like the greatesthonor to be representing the
trans men community here inHouston.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
And we close our show with a conversation between
Queer Voices contributor BrettCullum and his husband.
Author of the Prairie, has aRainbow R Lee Ingalls, yes, of
Little House on the Prairielineage, discussing not only
queer love and relationships,but queer breakups and exes.
Speaker 5 (01:57):
I think in the gay community we tend to be more
forgiving and eventually becomefriends with our exes.
I see that quite a bit.
I said I don't see that quite abit.
I said I do not so much in thestraight world In the gay world.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
We tend to be more friendly after the fact than
those in the straight world.
Queer Voices starts now.
Speaker 6 (02:17):
This is Brian Levinck , and today I'm speaking with
Brandy Lira, the board presidentof Out for Education, a
wonderful organization here inHouston giving scholarships to
LGBT youth.
Welcome to the show, brandy.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Thank you for having me so much.
I'm really excited to be hereand share what we do.
Speaker 6 (02:34):
So what do you do and how did you get started?
Speaker 3 (02:37):
So Out for Education is a nonprofit organization that
was originated back in 1999through PFLAG and Hatch Youth,
through the Montreux Center, andwe officially gained our 501c3
just a year later.
And the mission is simple wejust raise money and give it
away in the form of scholarshipsto LGBTQ plus youth students in
(03:00):
Houston, or they could live inHouston or be coming to school,
um in Houston.
And so you know, when we firststarted we were it was kind of
like a grassroots project tryingto raise money to give just a
few scholarships.
Here and there.
We were given away about 18,000to 20 students or fewer, um,
and now we've really just kindof expanded upon that Um.
(03:21):
This past May, uh, we gave away$160,000 to 42 students across
the Houston Greater Area.
So very excited about what wedo and the work that we do for
our community.
Speaker 6 (03:34):
How did you get involved?
Speaker 3 (03:36):
I first heard about for education when I was a high
school principal at EastwoodAcademy in HISD, and a good
friend of mine, emmy, workedwith a program called Emerge,
but she also sat on the boardfor Out for Education, and so
she kind of just told me hey,I've noticed that a lot of your
students here are in the LGBTQplus community.
(03:56):
It's great, they feel proud andout.
But did you know that there's ascholarship program
specifically for this type ofstudent?
I was like, no, tell me moreabout it.
And so that's kind of how itstarted and I started promoting
it across campus along with allof our other scholarship
programs and pretty much, I meanwe had a lot of scholars almost
every year.
(04:17):
You know, either apply and getthe scholarship or just simply
you know the awareness ofapplying for it.
So, um, whatever I was decidingto leave HISD, emmy was like,
hey, brandy, um, you know,there's a position opening Cause
I'm, I'm, you know I feel likeI've done my time, I'm ready to
leave the board to do some otherthings.
(04:37):
So, um, I applied, got on theboard at the time Ray Sanchez
was the president and, um, youknow, just got really, really
involved in the work that we do,because I would see kind of the
full circle moment.
Being a principal and you'rewith the kids every single day
trying to guide them intosomething, and then being a part
of the programs that give themoney and help students to go to
(04:59):
school, was just kind of fullcircle for me.
So slowly but surely over theyears it just kind of, you know,
with the encouragement of myfellow board members ran for
president and here we are today.
Speaker 6 (05:12):
So where does the money come from?
How are you funded?
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Yeah.
So we have a diverse group ofboard members that are
constantly working to do justoutreach, right, talk to people
about what we're doing.
So we have donors that are justkind of hey, we met you, we've
heard about you guys, we buyinto what you do.
Here's XYZ number of dollars.
But the bulk of our funds comefrom fundraising events that we
(05:38):
host, either in collaborationwith other organizations like
Houston Bar Association or theMontrose Softball League, and
endowments.
So currently we have a fewendowments that are fully funded
, woodlands Pride being one ofour most recent.
And so endowments, if youchoose to, you start your
(06:01):
endowment by paying $5,000 eachyear for five years until you're
fully funded at $25,000.
And we give away the interestthat is earned within that
account in the form ofscholarships.
But we have a contract in place.
So you know, if you as a donorwant to start a scholarship fund
through an endowment, you canactually set the parameters,
like I want an art student or,you know, an art major that's
(06:24):
going to UT Austin.
Of course, the more detailed andspecific you get, the more
limited it is to find a studentthat fits that criteria.
But we try to honor our donorsand our sponsors requests
because you know we want to makesure that their contributions
are going to something that'sgoing to yield the most and the
most meaningful experience forthem.
(06:45):
The other way we give outscholarships is, you know, maybe
endowments is just a little toolofty for some donors and so we
give away named scholarshipsfor a minimum of $2,500.
So if you know you, brian,would like to give out a
scholarship, then let's say youdonate $2,500.
Then in the next giveawayceremony we would announce the
(07:15):
Brian scholarship for Out forEducation and it would go to a
student in your name.
So it's kind of like we're whatdo we call ourselves?
The subject matter experts?
You know we're what do we callourselves the subject matter
experts?
We are very well rehearsed injust raising the money and being
(07:36):
able to send it off to collegesand universities to fund
education for these students.
Speaker 6 (07:38):
So kind of like a one stop shop.
Yeah, I'm sure you have somesuccess stories success stories.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Could you tell me some of those?
Oh, absolutely so.
The whole premise behind thisis we want to get LGBTQ plus
students an education right.
We want to help fund that, butthe end goal with that is for
these students to give back tothe community in some shape or
form that benefits or enhancesthe experience of LGBTQ plus
community members.
And so one of our biggestsuccess stories is Cameron
(08:06):
Samuels, and I know they will beproud to hear their name.
Cameron Samuels attended KDISDand during their time they were
able to form a student ledorganization called SEAT, which
stands for Students Engaged inAdvancing Texas, and what they
do is they show up and they tryto convince policymakers and
(08:31):
politicians to do the rightthing by students.
They're looking at educationalpractices and curriculum
decisions that are made at thehigh school level and beyond
that are anti-trans oranti-LGBTQ, beyond that are
anti-trans or anti-LGBTQ, andthey're standing up against
those and helping to prevent allof the censoring that's going
around that prevents some of ourcommunity members from seeing
(08:53):
themselves in literature and incurriculum across the districts.
Speaker 6 (08:59):
Yeah, we've had Cameron on Queer Voices before.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Yeah, they are amazing.
Speaker 6 (09:04):
Friend of the show.
Now, how do you go aboutfinding students, or how do
people find out about you?
Speaker 3 (09:08):
I guess, Sure, so we put out emails to all of the.
Well, I guess I should start bysaying a lot of the board
members are educators in thefield.
Currently, I myself work at ahigh school.
We have another high schoolemployee, an elementary school
principal, and so we're all kindof connected within the
(09:28):
districts across the Houston andgreater metropolitan area and
so we just kind of send emailsto the counselors that we know,
the college and career readinessleaders across the districts,
and just say hey, here's alittle bit about us.
(09:49):
Would you mind putting our linkon your scholarship platform?
Because every district kind ofhas this bank of scholarships
that are on a website forstudents to access, and so we
just try to get our name onthere and we go from there.
And of course, social media isa big platform that we use to
try to promote our applicationprocess.
The application always opensOctober 1st and then it closes
usually the last day in February.
(10:10):
So word of mouth, social media.
We've worked with OutsmartMagazine to promote our
scholarship as well.
And of course, the GreaterHouston LGBTQ Plus Chamber of
Commerce has been very helpfulin spreading the word as well.
Speaker 6 (10:26):
I understand that there's an interview process
that the community takes part in, because my friend JD does it.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Absolutely.
If you have not volunteered oryou are a volunteer and you are
looking for a WOW experience, Iwould highly recommend signing
up with us to volunteer, becauseour day of interviews see our
students apply.
They submitted application withan essay.
We need a small community ofvolunteers to read the essays
(10:53):
and score them, and then a monthlater we call back students for
a face-to-face panel styleinterview at Big Brothers, big
Sisters Houston and during thistime we need interviews to fill
up the five rooms that we havestationed to interview students.
Those rooms consist usuallyabout four to five volunteers
and the rubric is there for you.
(11:13):
All the questions are pre-made.
All the volunteers simply haveto do is just ask the question
assigned to them by themoderator in the room, and it's
so impactful the moderator inthe room and it's so impactful
I'm sure JD talked to you a lotabout it it's.
(11:33):
You know, you really get to see.
We hear a lot on the TV, news,radio about you know the state
of distress that our trans kids,our queer kids, are in in
school.
But until you actually hearface to face the stories that
they've gone through, not justin the educational system but
within their own households, youunderstand the work that we're
doing and why it's so importantfor us to advocate for these
marginalized groups of students.
(11:54):
We've had students break downand cry in their interviews
because they just realize oh mygoodness, I didn't know that
there are adult professionalsthat are out and open and safe,
but also willing to advocate andmentor students like me.
(12:15):
My teachers don't see me, I'mscared to be out at my campus, I
can't even be myself with myown family members in my
household, and so it's justimpactful.
Sometimes it's the first timeI've ever met a queer adult who
has made it, and so, to be apart of that, I would highly
recommend anyone interested involunteering.
Speaker 6 (12:36):
How do people volunteer?
How do they sign up?
Speaker 3 (12:39):
So most of our links are on social media.
We also have a website,outforeducationorg, and our
social media handle forInstagram is outforedhouston,
and in the link in our bio wehave all the links.
You would need to register tovolunteer.
If you do that, every time wehave an opportunity available we
(13:01):
will email the entiredistribution list so you would
get advanced notice of all ofthose you could also sign up to.
You know, signing up doesn'tmean that you sign up to do
everything.
You can pick and choose whichevents you want to help us with.
We are going to need a lot ofhelp for Pride coming up as well
.
Speaker 6 (13:19):
Talk about Pride.
What are you doing for Pride?
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Pride what are you doing for Pride Sure?
So we will have a booth atPride 365 this year.
I believe that date is I can'tremember.
Off the top of my head I thinkit's June 26, but I'm not 100%
sure.
Speaker 6 (13:34):
I think it's June 28.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
28th, okay, and we have a booth out there, so we'll
have some of our volunteers,possibly some of our previous
students or current students.
We'll just be talking about ourscholarship promoting, looking
for donors, anybody willing tomake a donation that day, any
sponsors that are willing tohelp us with events we put on.
Like Love Not so Straight Up isour annual fundraising event,
(14:01):
where we you know, we just throwa big Valentine's Day party and
hope that people learn moreabout us and contribute to the
cause.
So we'll be out there.
It'll be hot but it'll be fun,and so we encourage you to stop
by and see us.
We will also be at all theother prides Woodlands Pride and
Fort Bend County.
Speaker 6 (14:19):
So if you're looking for something to do.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Come by and see us.
Speaker 6 (14:23):
That's because the gays are everywhere.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
We are, we are, we cannot be stopped.
Speaker 6 (14:28):
Exactly If you're joining us, we're speaking with
the board president of Out forEducation, Brandy Lira.
Now, Brandy, is there anythingthat we didn't cover that you
would like our listeners to knowabout?
Speaker 3 (14:46):
I just really can't emphasize enough that, having
worked in education for the last18 years and doing the work I
do on the board, it's just soimportant that our students have
presence right, that they feellike they matter and they see
other adults, other grown peoplein positions of power or
professional positions that aremaking a difference.
The state of everything rightnow is just kind of beating them
(15:13):
down, and when you are ateenager in high school trying
to figure out what you want todo, but every textbook, every
piece of paper you pick up isagainst you or seemingly against
you, it's tough to say I wantto do this with my life and this
is how I'm going to do it.
So get involved, eitherfinancially, by contributing to
(15:33):
our scholarship funds orvolunteering with us to help
these young people understandthat they matter and we will
support them in theireducational careers.
Speaker 6 (15:42):
Give me that website one more time, so people can
find out information about yourorganization.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
It's outforeducationorg.
Speaker 6 (15:50):
All right, well, brandy, thank you for coming on
the show.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Next up we have Queer Voices' newest contributor,
Ethan Michelle Ganz, conductingtheir first on-air interview
with this year's Houston Pride365's male-identifying grand
marshal, daron Yanez-Perez, animmigrant rights and trans
rights activist who foundedTrans Men Empowerment.
Ethan, take it away.
Speaker 8 (16:18):
Hey y'all.
This is Ethan Michelle Gans,queer Voices, and we're here
talking to Deron Yemes, who isthe male identifying Grand
Marshal this year for HoustonPride 2025.
Hello, deron.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
Hi, how are you today ?
Speaker 8 (16:34):
I'm doing great.
How are you doing?
Speaker 4 (16:36):
Good, so glad I'm here with you today.
Speaker 8 (16:40):
Me too.
I'm so glad that you came toshare your stories with us.
So the Grand Marshals performceremonial duties and lead the
parade, and they are also thePride Ambassadors for Pride
Month and the whole year,throughout the whole year.
They are selected out of thesubmissions from the Grand
Marshal Advisory Committee,which consists of former Grand
(17:03):
Marshals.
The finalists of the nominationprocess then are voted on by
the community.
The committee chooses thetrendsetter and distinguished
Grand Marshals.
These are individuals or groupswho have made outstanding
contributions to the community,and so now Eran is the male
(17:23):
identifying Grand Marshal.
So what does it mean to bebeing nominated?
What does it mean to you?
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Well, it means so much Like I was so honored just
whenever I found out that I wasnominated.
I wasn't sure that I was goingto win, to be honest, but just
being nominated was such a greatdeal so I was really excited
about that.
It's just so much.
I'm still processing a lot ofit and it's like a long process
(17:52):
that it takes for them to decidewho's even going to be
nominated, and not a lot oftimes you're going to see a
trans man being nominated oreven winning.
So for me, it was like thegreatest honor to be
representing the trans mencommunity here in Houston and I
just want to make sure that Irepresent them right and give
(18:13):
them visibility that they need.
We know that the transmasculine community doesn't get
a lot of visibility how itshould and we're not seen as
much much.
So I want to make sure thatthey see us for who we are and
I'm just extremely honored aboutwinning this year, to be honest
.
Speaker 8 (18:32):
That's awesome.
I'm really glad you won too.
What are your past experienceswith Pride, like your first
Pride or a notable experience ofPride?
Speaker 4 (18:44):
I remember the first time I went to pride with some
friends and a ex-partner I had.
I had only been living in inhouston for maybe like two years
and I had a friend that waslike, oh, we're gonna go to this
uh festival in downtown and Iwas like, what is it?
It was like it's like a gamefestival.
I was like a gay festival.
I was like it's like a gayfestival.
I was like a gay festival.
(19:04):
I was like, okay, I want to go,I'm gay, so let's go.
And I remember whenever I gotthere and I seen everybody there
, so much rainbows and flags andeverybody looked so happy I was
like I never experiencedanything like this.
And I remember I had like thebest time of my life and I think
that was probably like around2015 when I moved here to
Houston.
(19:24):
So I had like the best time ofmy life and I think that was
probably like around 2015 when Imoved here to Houston.
So I went like in 2016 or 17.
It's not really that long agothat I went to Pride here, but
after that time that I went, Iwent every single year and I
will go to the festival, I willgo to the parade and it just
brings me so much joy to see allthe community together and it
(19:46):
was like a really new experiencefor me.
Um the country where I comefrom, cuba, um, they don't have
um stuff like that and theydiscriminate a lot towards our
community and we don't get toexperience, like you know,
getting together in communitylike that or having parades or
any of those cool things that wedo over here.
So for me it was a completelynew experience and I really
(20:09):
think about it every every oncea while.
Whenever I go to pride or whenI'm in community, I'll be like
wow, and I could never imagine,like probably like 10 years ago
I would have never thought I wasgonna be grand marshal this
parade that I came without evenknowing what it was.
So it's like completely I don'tknow.
It's pretty crazy to me.
Speaker 8 (20:32):
That is beautiful.
That's a beautiful story.
What does pride mean to you?
Speaker 4 (20:37):
Well, pride means getting together, celebrating,
remembering everything thathappened in the Stonewall, the
parades, the protests thathappened, just feeling joy as
being who you are.
That's something that I alwaysthink about during Pride is who
I am.
(20:58):
I'm with people that I love,even though I don't know you,
you're part of my community andI love you, and I want to make
sure that everybody always feelwelcome, especially during this
month in June.
That is like our Pride Month,but not only during that month.
You know, all year long.
We know that times are hard andone of the things that makes us
(21:20):
, you know, go through thesetimes is staying together and
making sure that everybody, youknow, seems welcome, feels
welcome.
And for me, pride just meanscommunity and, you know, showing
up, being visible.
Speaker 8 (21:34):
All right.
So how do you think pride isrelevant?
Speaker 4 (21:39):
I think it's relevant because, even though a lot of
the people don't want it tohappen, it's history.
It shows what happened yearsago.
Whenever we went to the streets, we asked for rights, we
protested.
It shows who we are and what wefight for.
So I think it's reallyimportant, even though you know,
(22:02):
like the cisgender people, theRepublicans, everybody that
doesn't want us to exist, keep,like you know, going against us,
it's important that we keep onshowing them that we're here.
And it's important that, evenif we don't have a Pride Month,
even if they take it away fromus, whatever happens, we're
still going to celebrate, we'restill going to show them.
So it's very relevant to showwho we are.
Speaker 8 (22:26):
I agree.
We didn't have a Pride Month along time ago and we still
showed up and celebrated andcommemorated.
So you're right, we're going tocontinue to do that.
The theme this year isCelebration is Our Legacy.
What does that mean to you?
Speaker 4 (22:42):
Legacy is remembering the people that fought for us,
the people that was before us.
It's important that wecelebrate who came before us.
We celebrate the ones thatfought for us, that actually
show us how to continue withthis fight.
I think that's like the mostimportant thing.
Speaker 8 (23:01):
What would you say?
Your number one achievement isfor the queer community.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
I think my number one achievement would be funding
trans men empowerment.
That was a project that I hadin mind for a while and actually
doing it it was like one of thebiggest achievements of my life
.
We're still a pretty smallorganization, but we keep on
growing.
We have a big number of transguys that keep on coming to our
(23:30):
meetings and groups and reachout to us and it brings me so
much joy that I can facilitatethis space for them.
We know that there's not manyspaces for transmasks or
non-binary people that identifyas mass, so it's like a new
space that I wanted to createfor them so they could feel
welcome.
They can see that there's morepeople like them with similar
(23:53):
experience, even though we allhave different experiences.
But it's always good to meetpeople that are going through
the same journey that you are,and for me it's been like really
life-changing.
Trans men empowerment has givenme a lot of joy and it
continues to bring me joy, Likeevery time, that I keep meeting
more trans guys and I see thegood stuff that we're doing for
(24:15):
them and putting the word outthere for our trans community is
very important for me and Ijust wish that we keep on
growing and we keep on helpingthe trans men community.
Also the immigrant communitythat keeps coming to us because
we are a bilingual group so wetry to help everyone.
Speaker 8 (24:36):
I'm transmasc myself, non-binary, and I think it's
great that you've created thesespaces for people like me.
Anything that we did not askabout that you would like folks
to know about you.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
Well, how I mentioned earlier, I'm an immigrant from
Cuba and that's one of thethings that I've been focusing
on lately too.
I want to make sure that peopleknow about you know us trans
folks that a lot of us areimmigrants, about you know us
trans folks that a lot of us areimmigrants, that we do go
through a lot of struggle beingtrans, but also being an
(25:08):
immigrant is now bringing evenmore uh, you know, to bring more
stuff into ourselves, likeanxiety and all of those things
that you know.
Um, yesterday, you know, we wentto that panel and we were
talking about, um, mental healthand there was a few things that
I heard, like you taking careof yourself and making sure that
you take care of your mentalhealth.
That's something that I've beenwanting to, you know, like talk
(25:32):
about with our community, withtrans mask membership and
everybody, because it's veryimportant, you know, to take
care of your mental health andfor me, in these hard moments
with this new government, it'sbeen really hard to keep them,
you know, like going and beinglike really healthy mental wise.
(25:53):
So one of the things that Iwanted to share was that I
wanted to make sure that everytrans person that is immigrant
or non-immigrant, but knowsomebody that is immigrant, they
know that they have a spacethat they can come to with us at
Trans Men Empowerment or theycan reach out to me.
I just really like to representthat because it's important for
me to know that they have aplace that they can go to.
Speaker 8 (26:17):
Yes, we all need spaces that are safe for us and
that's really great that you'reproviding that for trans masc
folks, for immigrants.
You know it's been really greatfor me interviewing you.
This has been my firstinterview on Queer Voices and I
have a lot of respect for you,so I'm really glad that I was
(26:39):
able to do this and that theygave me this interview for my
first one.
I hope I do use justice.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
You did great.
I was one of those very nervous, but I'm so glad to have this
opportunity to talk about theseimportant issues and be able to
share a little bit more aboutmyself and what we do at
Transgender Empowerment.
Speaker 8 (27:01):
Yeah, you do great work.
I've seen your work.
I'm really proud of you.
I'm so glad that you won.
You've done a good job with allthe stuff that you've put out
there for our community.
Speaker 4 (27:17):
Thank you, thank you so much.
You have too Well, thank you.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Thank you, Ethan Michelle Gans, for your powerful
and inspiring interview, whichalso happens to be Ethan's debut
on Queer Voices.
Speaker 5 (27:43):
We close out our show with a conversation between
Queer Voices contributor BrettCullum, and his husband, author
of the Prairie has a Rainbow, rLee Ingalls, to discuss staying
friends with an ex.
Hi everyone, thanks for joiningus R Lee Ingalls here and I'm
here with my husband, brettCullum.
So the podcast today actuallystarted from a conversation we
had this morning which kind oftook a really interesting
direction.
We're trying to figure out somepodcasts for the future and one
of the topics was my book, thePrairie has a Rainbow.
(28:05):
I, at the very end of the book,one of the last few paragraphs,
I stated that I had three longterm relationships one 11 years
and two that were seven yearsand both or all three of them
ended kind of spectacularly.
But I chose not to define thoserelationships by the last few
months that were kind of adisaster, but rather the years
(28:27):
that we lived together that wereactually good.
I said that I think in the gaycommunity we tend to be more
forgiving and eventually becomefriends with our exes.
I see that quite a bit.
I said I don't see that so muchin the straight world.
So I came away with theconclusion that the rule is, or
typically, that in the gay worldwe tend to be more friendly
(28:50):
after the fact than those in thestraight world.
Speaker 9 (28:52):
Yeah, no, and I think that there's a definite theme
there, and one that I've alwaysjoked about, because I've
remained friends with a lot ofmy exes, although a lot of them
have, like, either moved away orthey've passed.
Yeah, I'm not sure what thatsays about me, but okay, but I
(29:15):
was really interested because Iwas saying, well, I think that
some straight people do that, Ithink that there's a you know,
on both sides there's probablythat, and so I started kind of
researching a little bit and Idid find out that actually, it's
true, lgbtq individuals,especially gay men, are more
likely to remain friends withtheir exes when you compare it
to heterosexuals.
And they were saying that therewas a lot of various factors,
(29:37):
including kind of strong networksupports within LGBTQ plus
communities.
Within LGBTQ plus communities,there's shared experiences,
routines, the need for socialconnections that maybe we just
are going to run into each othermore or that it's just easier
to kind of I don't know maintainit.
I'm not sure what the secretsauce there is.
Speaker 5 (29:55):
So one of my exes did pass away, unfortunately, and
one of them, the first one thatwe were together for 11 years.
We're still friendly, mostly onFacebook, because we live so
far apart.
Yeah, the shared experiencesthat we had were good and that's
what I choose to hold on to.
And we both know those couplesin the straight world that get
divorced and the two and the twoof them can't even be in the
(30:17):
same room after decades apart,which just I mean that doesn't
make sense to me, and I'm nottrying to understand their world
or editorialize it at all, butI just say that I see that far
too often.
Speaker 9 (30:29):
Well, and to me I mean.
My personal philosophy is thatif I cared about you enough to
have a relationship with you, Istill want you to be in my life
Now.
Do I want you as a romanticpartner?
No.
Do I want to be involved withyou in any other way than
friendship?
No.
But I still want to know whathappens to you.
(30:49):
I still want to support you.
I'm still in your corner andI'm still cheering for you and I
still want you to make it and Istill want you to be involved.
And I used to joke anytime thatI did a show, like a theater
show previews, I would invite atleast one X to the previews
because I knew that if anybodywas going to be honest with me
(31:11):
about whether the show was anygood or whether I was performing
well, it would be one of my X'sand I absolutely made it like a
policy of at least getting oneto come to a preview and tell me
yeah, it's a good show or no,you really need to run and this
is bad, right, right.
Speaker 8 (31:27):
What were you?
Speaker 9 (31:27):
thinking.
Speaker 5 (31:29):
So that's absolutely correct.
Once you go through thatspectacular ending, you can
guarantee that they are going tobe very frank about their
opinions going forward.
Speaker 9 (31:38):
Well, and that's nice to have, because you have so
many people in your life thateither want to impress you or
they want to ingratiatethemselves to you that sometimes
they're not honest.
And sometimes, when I ask foran opinion of work or something
that I'm producing or somethinglike that, I want an honest
opinion.
I'm not asking for you to justconfirm what I'm doing.
Speaker 5 (31:58):
Right, right, and we'll end in the same way too.
If I ask for your opinion, it'sI genuinely want what you think
about it, and you know what Ido from.
There is my business, but I'mactually looking for an honest
opinion.
Speaker 9 (32:10):
Yeah, but I mean it's hard for some people to do that
, and with the next, I meanthey've already destroyed a
relationship with you, True?
Speaker 5 (32:16):
Okay, are you?
Going to get a better.
Yeah, when you did the research,I did some more thinking about
what actually took place from arelationship and how we manage
areas that we don't.
So I don't think we don'tparallel on this.
We do, but how we think aboutit is different.
So this is kind of what I cameaway with.
So I stated what I thought frommy experience and all my input
(32:38):
was a rule and instinctively youwent to the exceptions to that
rule and started pointing outexceptions, and I agree with
that.
In every rule it's not 100%.
It's like 100% of the time, bethat there are going to be those
exceptions that we can go to.
And I thought, well, is thatjust to take the counterpoint,
or is that being argumentative?
(32:59):
And I thought so.
As I continued to think throughthat, I thought, well, wait a
second, you do the same thing.
And I referenced that there's abook that either you read or
your mother gave you orsomething.
And the only thing that Iremember about it is if you walk
into someone's house and theyhave lots of books, they're this
.
If they don't have lots ofbooks, then they're not that,
and that's the stated rule.
(33:20):
And I came up with to thatbecause I feel like I might be
an exception to that.
So and I thought, ok, so weboth do that.
So are we being counterpointedand being argumentative?
Speaker 9 (33:31):
I always want to look at both sides of an equation
and I always want to look at,well, what if it's this or what
if it's that?
And I think that there areobviously exceptions.
I know tons of people in ourworld, in the LGBTQ community,
that cannot be friends with anex.
They just have some kind ofimmunity to it.
(33:53):
It's not important to them.
They feel like, oh my gosh,this person betrayed me and I
will never speak to them againand they cannot be in the same
room.
And then there are somestraight people, and I brought
up the famous celebrity coupleexample of Demi Moore and Bruce
Willis.
They had a big divorce andeverything, but now that Bruce
Willis is, health is fading.
Demi Moore and her family areactually stepping up and helping
(34:15):
him.
And they're still friends andI've read a bunch of stuff
lately about some straightcouples where they remain
friends after the divorce, andcertainly in my personal
experience I don't see that asoften.
I mean, I definitely have in myown family it's.
It's there's lots of examplesof people getting divorced and
never talking again, and thencertainly with us I mean we have
(34:36):
friends.
So the general rule isobviously that we are more
likely to do that.
Speaker 5 (34:41):
Yeah Well, and embrace the whole thing.
So I'm with you.
So I have a really large familyand there are a lot of exes and
I see kind of a mixture of both.
Mostly they don't talk to eachother.
They never want to see eachother again, but there are a few
that do talk to their exes andfrom mine and your perspective
and experience, I have met someof your exes and, even though I
(35:02):
don't think you've actually metany of mine, you are friends
with at least one of them onFacebook.
So, yeah, not only are wefriends ourselves, but our
spouses are friends with them.
Speaker 9 (35:15):
That's true.
One of the things that I alsolooked at, too, though, is I was
looking at the differences inrelationships between the
straight world and the gay world.
They said that the averagestraight person has four to 10
partners or relationships, andthat they pretty much go about
3.7 relationships on average tofind the right one.
That was what they were saying,and some studies actually said
that men were more likely tohave more than women, that they
(35:38):
would have up to six, includinglike two, long-term basically
and that that would be the thing.
So, and then the, the gay men.
It said that we would have moreof a propensity to have more
relationships than that, andthat that might be a thing,
because sometimes we don't labelthem as serious.
(35:58):
There's a large percentage injust the general population of
gay men that are either in openrelationships or polyamorous or
things like that, so there's alittle bit of a fluidity there
already.
The stage for not having illwill when the everything falls
apart, I don't know it's like.
It's a very interesting thing,and I think that another part of
the equation is that,traditionally, straight
(36:20):
marriages are focused aroundkids, and I think that a lot of
times, you have to remainfriends with the ex because you
are going to co-parent or youare going to have a kid going
forward.
Now, that's true with gayrelationships too.
Speaker 5 (36:33):
I've seen that, where we've seen two gay men break up
but they've adopted kids andthey have to swallow that,
become friends just for the sakeof the kids, yeah, but even
then I see it different becausethere's this, you know, like I
said there's I have it in my ownfamily and there's some
animosity and some anger aroundthe relationship, even when it's
(36:56):
involving just the kids havingto manage the kids, and I don't
really see that so much in thegay community.
I think it's co-parenting.
I see it as a or pop in the gaycouples that I'm aware.
Speaker 9 (37:07):
Hmm, well, how do you navigate this?
I mean, you were talking aboutyour examples and obviously
you've had what three majorrelationships before Before us?
Speaker 5 (37:17):
yeah, yeah that you, those communications were
happening.
But the other two so Rogernumber two, he used to come to
(37:38):
my holiday parties every yearfor a long time until his new
boyfriend passed away and thenhe kind of fell off the face of
the earth.
Even the people that I knewthat knew him then are no longer
hearing from him, so I don'tknow what happened there.
But my first one, Devon, westill chat on Facebook.
(37:58):
We haven't talked to each otherin quite a long time.
I talked to him and his otherfamily members as well.
That communication has alwaysbeen there.
Like I said, I'm not going tomeasure our relationship by how
it dissolved, but by the yearsthat it was good and we did.
I mean, we had a lot of goodtimes.
We were both very young at thetime, we did a lot of things
together and it was fun.
So why not focus on that?
Speaker 9 (38:17):
No, I agree with you, although I've had some serious
relationships where I feel likethe other person could not be
friends afterwards.
I don't know what it was.
Sometimes it was when I wouldenter into another relationship.
It kind of really fizzled and Ithink that that kind of like
almost that jealousy of, oh mygosh, you're moving on.
It's tricky to navigate,especially when one of you if
(38:38):
you're both single after youbreak up.
It seems like it's easier.
If one of you ends up in arelationship eventually or later
, then I think sometimes it getsa little bit weird and I don't
know.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
I just I felt some discomfort from some exes with
that and around you know, I waskind of the opposite, or at
least for me personally, I wasthe opposite.
I was happy when my exes metsomebody else and started dating
someone else, because thatmeant I was fully off the hook.
Yeah, because when you know,when I'm done, I'm done so and I
didn't want there any of thisback and forth stuff and you
(39:10):
know, possibility of of anythingthe only thing that's possible
is being friends and not hateeach other.
That's all that's possible.
Speaker 9 (39:17):
That's the only thing that's possible.
We're not going to hate eachother, true, but I always found
some comfort in having friendsbecause I mean, let's face it,
if you have an ex, they've seenyou at your best.
They've also seen you at yourworst and you can have, like I
said, you can have those honestconversations with them and they
(39:37):
kind of know where things aregoing to go wrong for you.
I hate to say it.
Speaker 5 (39:45):
Yeah Well, if they wanted to hit a hot button, they
know which ones to hit.
So there is that.
However, I've never had thatexperience.
Speaker 9 (39:56):
No, I've never had that experience.
No, I've never had thatexperience either.
But I do appreciate the insightand just having that kind of a
friend that you can bouncethings off of, that they know
kind of how you're going toreact.
You know, I mean, most of ourfriends do anyway.
I mean, most of our friends arevery close friends.
Yes, we've known them for years.
We have a very strange circleof friends, I would say, by most
people's measure, because we'vehad friends.
Some of mine have been, youknow, over 40.
Some of yours have been over 40.
(40:16):
I mean, it's just like it goescrazy when you think about it.
So it's hard and and maybethat's why we're easier to
navigate that maybe we're justlong-term people.
Yeah, I don't know that could be, that could be I mean, although
I certainly have had my, myfriends that have not lasted as
long, that have been likeacquaintances that I've known
(40:38):
for a season, especially whenyou look at like theater stuff,
particularly like when you werein your dance days, did you have
people that you were justfriends with when you were just
in that company, right?
Speaker 5 (40:47):
right.
Because of proximity.
We're very, we're close to eachother, seeing each other every
day in the same space, so webecame friends.
But then sirs I would say areat least from back in those days
very much in the moment whentheir circumstance changes, that
everything changes and we, mostof them I lost touch with.
I have rekindled some of thosefriendships because of Facebook,
(41:09):
facebook now.
But many of them I've neverheard from again, and not
because I didn't want to, or ifI saw them again today I
wouldn't embrace them and pickup where we're left off.
But yeah, it was a verytransient community.
Speaker 9 (41:22):
You know, social media has been wonderful for
doing that.
One of the things is like whenI was doing research for this, I
did find a very supportivearticle in Psychology Today.
Was doing research for this, Idid find a very supportive
article in Psychology Today, ofall places that basically said
that as a community, we justhave a unique degree of
importance on retainingemotional support, advice, trust
and shared memories, and thatabsolutely lines up with what
(41:44):
I've said, that you've got thesethings.
And they said that we are morelikely to go out of our way to
maintain a relationship thanmaybe a heterosexual counterpart
, that we are actually going tomake sure that happens we make
the calls, we set up the right,the planned gatherings, all that
kind of stuff we were very goodabout doing that to party, so
(42:07):
we're gonna invite them toparties here.
Speaker 5 (42:08):
You can come to my party one more question came to
mind, so does that constitute anargument between us?
Speaker 8 (42:14):
No, did we argue no?
Speaker 5 (42:16):
I didn't think so either, because I thought, you
know, from my perspective Idon't feel that passionate about
either one of those issues thatI brought up to take a stand,
any serious stand, on it.
Yeah, so I agree.
No, that was not an argument.
Speaker 9 (42:28):
No, I think it's fun to debate things.
I think so too, and I think youshould, and I think it's
healthy.
In any relationship, whetherit's friend, whether it's
coworker, whether it's yourpartner, your spouse, your,
however you define yourrelationship I think it's
healthy to debate.
I think that's what we're herefor.
I mean that's challengedpeople's beliefs.
Talk about things, maybe lookat the other side too.
(42:48):
I don't know.
I mean I think that that'salways been an instinct of me to
want to kind of look at.
Oh, like Joni Mitchell says,I've looked at both sides.
Now you know.
I mean it's that whole thing oflike.
I want to figure out, likewhere's this coming from and
what are the counterpoints tothis?
Speaker 5 (43:03):
And having the discussion helps you crystallize
your thought on it.
Yeah, so yeah, and possiblychange it, although that might
be more difficult.
Speaker 9 (43:12):
So yeah, and possibly change it, although that might
be more difficult.
No, I think it is difficult tomake you sometimes change those.
It's hard.
It's like we always talk aboutit in social media and like one
of the things about havingfriends from the past at social
media.
Sometimes you find out that, ohmy gosh, their political views
are completely different thanmine, yes, and that makes it
(43:32):
hard, I mean, and then, like youhave a different strain on that
relationship.
Do you ignore that or do you?
How do you handle that?
Speaker 5 (43:41):
Yeah, so obviously it depends on what the
relationship is and how closeyou are and and fond of each
other you are, but from myperspective it, if what you're
doing is harmful to anothergroup of people, I have a really
hard time ignoring that.
I might not completely distancemyself, but I might limit my
(44:03):
exposure somewhat.
Speaker 9 (44:06):
I have to look at the source of our friendship and
where it came from.
If it is a deep-seatedfriendship that has spanned
years and years and decades anddecades, I am more likely to be
forgiving of that.
But if we are more casual, morerecent friends, then I'm
probably going to see that aslike oh well, maybe we should
rethink this, because I'm notsure how to do this, but I
(44:29):
navigate it differently withdifferent people.
I mean, that's what I think isweird, is like I do too.
Speaker 5 (44:35):
And you're right, it depends on the depth and time
and and just how fond of thatperson I am.
Speaker 9 (44:40):
Yeah, and if they're an ex, I'm probably gonna make
fun of them.
I'm just kidding.
Speaker 5 (44:45):
I can guarantee you I will talk about them behind
their back, everything.
No, I'll judge their face whenI say talk about them behind
their back, everything.
No, I'll judge their face.
No, no, no.
When I say talk about thembehind their back, I mean
they're standing next to me withtheir back to me.
They can still hear me.
Speaker 9 (44:58):
Oh no, we're a mess.
Okay, yes, but I thought it wasinteresting that they actually
have these research things thatsays this is a common phenomenon
, even though they said thatit's kind of more of a media
thing.
That they thought at first, butthen when they actually plunged
into it, they kind of figuredout that it's just the fact that
we have to.
I mean, it's easier for us todo that, I guess in a weird way.
Speaker 5 (45:21):
I don't know how that is actually the case, but it
does.
As I said, it does appear to bethe case.
Speaker 9 (45:26):
It seems interesting to me that a man and a woman are
more likely to not be friendslater, as opposed to a man and a
man or a woman and a woman.
It just I don't understand howthat happens, other than maybe
it's just the way that the worldworks.
Maybe, Maybe it's not associally acceptable to be
friends.
It's like that when Harry MetSally movie cliche of how can
(45:48):
you be friends with a woman, youknow when you're a man.
But we have the same kind ofequation.
I mean, how can you be friendswith a guy when you're have a
significant partner or marriedor you know whatever you know,
and yet we do it's aninteresting conundrum, I think,
and when that was, I thought wasa an interesting conversation,
yeah yeah, it was.
Speaker 5 (46:10):
It was very interesting this morning.
The whole process of gettingready for it was.
It was very interesting thismorning, the whole process of
getting ready for this podcast.
Yeah, it was a very interestingjourney.
Speaker 9 (46:17):
So that's great.
So we've established that weare both kind of sort of friends
with most of our exes AlthoughI think I have more exes that
I'm not friends with than youand it was mainly because they
wanted it that way.
I didn't want it that way, butthey did, and I wanted to
respect their wish for the cleanbreak.
Speaker 5 (46:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (46:34):
I didn't want to push that topic or make them feel
uncomfortable, say, hey, youhave to do this or you know I'm
going to hound you.
But I did reach out Like if Iheard of anything that happened
to them I would send like aletter or a card or something to
just say, hey, I'm thinkingabout you, I hope that
everything works out, you knowif.
I heard of something thathappened to them.
Speaker 5 (46:56):
Yeah, and I would do the same thing.
Speaker 9 (46:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (46:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (46:59):
All right.
Well then, I guess we are offthe hook until next time when we
have a heated conversation inthe kitchen and it ends up on
the podcast.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Thank you, brett Cullum and Arlie Ingalls, for
the hilariously realconversation.
Thank you for listening toQueer Voices.
I'm Davis Mendoza-Duruzman.
Before we close out our show,we want to pay respects to
fellow Queer Voices contributor,david Andrew Adminson, who
(47:35):
passed away last month.
I'd like to play an excerptfrom our May 14th episode, with
remembrances from producersDeborah Moncrief Bell and Brian
Levinka.
Speaker 7 (47:43):
It is with great sorrow that we announce the
passing of a beloved member ofthe Queer Voices family, david
Andrew Edmondson.
Andrew for many years lent hisvoice and his interest in arts
and culture, as well as hisactivism as one of contributors
(48:04):
to the program.
He died on May the 6th after ashort struggle with a very
aggressive form of cancer.
He was a beloved and dearfriend.
When I heard the news and Istarted thinking about him and
(48:24):
starting my grieving process, Ithought of him as always, being
my dear and precious friend.
And then, when I started seeingother people post on Facebook
their thoughts about Andrew andtheir experiences with him, and
I realized that all of themthought of him as their dear and
(48:46):
precious friend.
He was an activist in QueerNation.
I think that's probably where Ifirst met him.
He overcame many things in life, including being a
self-loathing gay man.
He was diagnosed fairly youngwith HIV and he made a decision
(49:08):
that he was going to live aslong as he could, because back
in those days you didn't get tolive very long.
So the fact that he was goingto live as long as he could
because back in those days youdidn't get to live very long so
the fact that he did get to makeit to age 59 was a win.
He grew up in Knoxville,tennessee.
His parents were teachers, hisdad became a union organizer and
they were activists.
(49:29):
So I guess he came by all ofthat quite honestly.
But he was a devotee of theaterand actually had thought that
someday that would be what hewould do would be an actor.
But life led him in many otherplaces, including living in
London, in France and in Dublin,ireland, and how he managed to
(49:54):
do that was because he couldtype and he got jobs working as
what was called a Kelly boybecause they had Kelly girls
temporary service.
So he was a Kelly boy andthat's how he came to do that.
But came back to the States andin his early 20s came to
Houston to work at the AlleyTheater.
(50:15):
He had a long tenure there.
He had a long tenure with theHouston Ballet and then
eventually the Museum of FineArts, houston.
I was one of the fortunate womenin Houston who got to date
Andrew.
He would take me to the theater, we would go to events together
and, just like I said, a dearand precious friend and I was
(50:38):
talking with our mutual friend,january Fox, and she was talking
about her dates with Andrew.
And then we were talking aboutall these women that they all
thought of him as theirboyfriend because he was such a
wonderful man to go out with andspend time with.
So that's kind of funny thatthere's all these women who love
(51:01):
this gay man and thought of himthat way.
Brian, do you have anyparticular memories of Andrew?
Speaker 6 (51:10):
I worked with Andrew on Queer Voices for several
years.
59 is way, way too young topass away.
The whole community is mourningfor Andrew.
My favorite memory probably wasat a fundraiser.
We were going to interviewsomebody and he introduced me
and I forget the name of theinterview guest, but it was just
the way he approached peopleand the way he was so open and
(51:32):
friendly and just I love thatabout him.
He was just so.
Everyone loved Andrew.
Speaker 7 (51:38):
He was a very kind man and came from a place of
kindness in so much that he did,and I think that's because in
part of his life the role hadbeen very unkind to him.
One of the skills that hedeveloped was in media, so he
wrote for Outsmart Magazine, hewrote for the Houston Chronicle,
(51:58):
he contributed to Queer VoicesI believe he was given an award
by the Gay and LesbianJournalists Association and he
would use his knowledge ofHouston's media landscape to
help with our issues.
And he was involved politicallyeverything from Queer Nation to
(52:18):
the effort of Hero.
And more recently he wasworking with the O Project,
which produced oral historiesdocumenting the AIDS crisis in
Houston, and he has raisedawareness about that project.
He talked about the worst yearsof the AIDS epidemic, saying
that it was like the LondonBlitz, except that there was no
(52:42):
place to go into the safety ofthe underground to escape the
moms.
I think that that example thathe set of using whatever skills
you have can be a way ofadvancing our causes.
Certainly you're right, brian,the community is grieving.
We each have our individualgrief, but as a community as a
(53:05):
whole, this is a very impactfulloss.
Speaker 6 (53:10):
It is a massive loss for our community.
Deborah, what is your favoritememory of Andrew?
Speaker 7 (53:16):
It's hard to sort them out.
Just saying this is just theone thing I just remember always
him being so kind, letting meknow about things, informing me
of stuff, and just the way thathe was there for me as a friend,
such a lovely man.
There will be a Celebration ofLife on June, the 12th, starting
(53:40):
at 5 o'clock going till 8 pm atBradshaw Carter on West Alabama
.
People are invited to make adonation in his memory to the
charity of their choice,certainly any of the things that
Andrew supported, and certainlyQueer Voices being one of them.
(54:01):
Gladly, donations in his honorwould be accepted in support of
KPFT and to Queer Voices.
So, andrew, fly high.
Speaker 1 (54:17):
We'll miss you, Andrew.
As Debra mentioned, Andrew'sfuneral is tomorrow, June 12th,
from 5pm to 8pm at BradshawCarter Funeral Home, 1734 West
Alabama Street.
Glenn, the Queer Voicesengineer, is out of town this
(54:39):
week, which is why this episodesounds a bit different, but
let's end today's show in theQueer Voices tradition of Glenn
bringing us home this has beenqueer voices, heard on kpft
(55:00):
houston and as a podcastavailable from several
podcasting sources.
Speaker 2 (55:02):
Check our web page queer voicesorg for more
information.
Queer voices executive produceris brian levinka.
Deborah mon-Bell is co-producer, Brett Cullum Davis
Mendoza-Druzman and Eva MichelleGans are contributors.
The News Wrap segment is partof another podcast called this
Way Out, which is produced inLos Angeles.
Speaker 10 (55:25):
Some of the material in this program has been edited
to improve clarity and runtime.
This program does not endorseany political views or animal
species.
Views, opinions andendorsements are those of the
participants and theorganizations they represent.
For Queer Voices, I'm GlennHolt, Thank you.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.