 thank you so much for joining us today. My name is Elaine Waterman and I am the Executive Director at the Firehouse Art Center and the Lead Instructor for Slay the Runway, which is a program that we created to design safe spaces for LGBTQIAP plus youth. So I just wanted to say thank you to a couple of people before we get started. I wanted to say that without the help of these organizations we would not be able to have Slay the Runway and those are the Scientific Cultural Facilities District or SCFD as well as Arts in Society. So this was a grant funded program that we were able to bring on to the Firehouse and offer at no cost to the teens and the participants and they were able to have eight weeks of design and construction classes and then cap that off with a culminating runway show and that was really only the first part of the program. The second part of the program was this caregivers conference that we are putting on today to kind of just help caregivers to bring that celebratory space that we created at Slay the Runway home so that you know we could have these safe and celebratory spaces not only you know just in creation spaces spaces for creation and self-expression but also to be creating those spaces at home. And I am joined right now today with Stephen Frost who is my co collaborator I guess co founder of Slay the Runway. Stephen is the instructor for the Boulder cohort and I'm just going to give you a little bit of information about them. So Stephen Frost is an instructor in the Department of Media Studies and an interdisciplinary artist. Their research focuses on textiles, memes, queer history, pop culture and community development in DIY spaces and libraries. In their creative work they often use textiles. Their association with the body and garments evoke tactile memories. Using weaving they combine traditional materials like yarn and cotton with non-traditional materials from a range of sources exploring the ways history and time are embedded in materials. Their artwork evokes specific narratives and stories referencing aspects of their personal and family history and the history of the LGBTQIA plus people among other topics. In workshops and interactive performance events they work to amplify marginalized voices and foster communities to produce their own forms of representation. So thank you so much Stephen for being here today and for being a part of the program. Definitely I feel like Slay the Runway would not have been as wonderful of a program for these kiddos if we didn't have your involvement and also Lili's involvement and I just have to say like your professional experience like really elevated what I was hoping to achieve in the program it was just kind of like a dream a wish and a dream for me but then really like inviting you in really made it into reality so I just wanted to say thank you and welcome. Thank you thank you so much Elaine and thank you for so much for all the work that you do to organize to make this happen and to you know keep all the ducks in a row with Slay the Runway there's no way I could have done it alone I mean I could have but it would have been a mess so thank you so much for all that you know things like you know you have to feed children. Oh my gosh. What? I can't just get their own food? What's wrong with these? No I had so much fun working with you it was such a pleasure so thank you so much for having me here today. Yeah and just to give you a little bit of information so when when we first started creating this program it was in 2019 and yeah so then the pandemic happened and we kind of had to put a big hold on it it was gonna be a summer program and then it turned into kind of like a fall program where these kiddos would come every week and design and as far as like creating this community you know it was definitely not how I imagined it to be but that like coming week after week it was kind of like an interesting way to kind of feel out what the program might be and it's you know in the form of what we're gonna be doing it next as a summer workshop. Yeah. Is there anything that you wanted like any stories that you wanted to share about your kiddos or? Oh my gosh well I was I honestly feel like it's just such a pleasure to work with queer youth I just they're just so cool inspiring oh my god my musical taste is so much better than it was six months ago I still listen like oh yeah I've you know my niece was like we were hanging out over the holidays and she was like where did you hear that song oh yeah that's the slay the runway kids gave me that track but no I think that the process of working with them has been really rewarding for me for the Boulder Public Library community as well I think that when I when you first asked me if I wanted to be part of this project I had just ended a three-year project slay slay the runway the sewing rebellion which is a monthly workshop that I held at the Boulder Public Library and this was such a cool opportunity at that moment I was like you know slay the sewing rebellion is a project that a friend had started that I'd carried on with her and she was ending the project and I had just gotten back from working with out main and their queer youth project that they hold every fall before the pandemic starting again this fall and I returned and you said hey would you be interested in and working with these with these kids helping me on the grant and I was like yes and I had no idea going into it how how much I would love it you know I think that the idea sometimes I work with college students whom I love my students I was just you know texting one with getting them the right the quiz correct that they needed to take for tomorrow and those things but there's something about being in a queer space and knowing that the people that you're working with maybe had similar experiences to you growing up or maybe that they share a common language of the you know queer community and putting my strength and my time into working with them is just so rewarding and so just so incredible I mean they're just all the awesomest kids I just can't get over how cool all of them are I I love the way that they see the world their creativity their fashion everything was just so fun in that aspect obviously I usually work with college students who are afraid of me because I give them grades yeah and this was completely like not a great thing yeah and these kiddos like came into the program and some of them have never sewn on a machine yeah but you know some of them had been making their own outfits for a really long time already there was a wide range of yeah but it actually turned out way better than than some of my experiences have gone I mean like even with teaching adults like you know these these kids really picked it up pretty quickly and yeah we had a lot of support I mean Lily James who worked with me was also a key part of everything she kept students in line she like you know just as far as like hey we've got two weeks you probably want to start your dress yes yeah it went from like oh we can just mess around and learn on the machines to the runway show is in two weeks we have you know these these outfits to make but um that public presentation is so important part of what slay is to you know that like it's not just I made this outfit to wear it's like now it's part of a performance it's part of a movement but it's also like so amazing to celebrate those young people in front of their family and their friends yes and I don't know if that's like not necessarily an opportunity that queer youth get across this country right and so to be able to do that with them to see how that experience changed them was just awesome and I'm like yes let's do it again yeah and I really you know saw all of their confidence really kind of growing throughout the whole week and then the performance which is amazing especially having it in you know the black box theater at the Atlas Institute was professionally developed and just an amazing you know we we could have kind of thrown something together but this was like professional lights music film and these kids really got a great oh and they got makeup done by all night Alliance so it was just an amazing experience all around so we wanted to get started with some of the panels and you know kind of just introduce some other people to talk other than us but um we're gonna run into a couple of videos right now one is the slay the runway video and it's just gonna give you more information about the program we talked about it but you know this is like the nitty-gritty of like you know what they actually do and kind of information about the summer camp that we're gonna be offering in June and July of this summer we're also going to see the trailer that super bloom filmed of the slay the runway runway show and I owe is going to come on and talk about his outfit that he created for the show it is this fantastic hot pink and black design and you know totally brought me back to my days in the 80s and it was just fantastic after that I will be introducing the speaking out program from out Boulder out Boulder County speaking out program is a volunteer speakers Bureau where members of the community from every part of the LGBTQ spectrum share their stories on a panel of three or four people the panels mostly occur in middle and high schools but they occasionally travel to presentations like this to kind of share their experience and speaking out is out Boulder's longest running program and it provides Boulder County with LGBTQ plus visibility still so desperately needed for our youth even in a world with marriage equality and increasing LGBTQ plus visibility they have years of data supporting what we already know in our hearts that's speaking out changes lives and saves LGBTQ plus people from isolation and fear we're able to offer young people a safe place to ask questions and also diverse representations of what life can look like as an adult queer person something youth almost never see in the media or in their adult mentorships so obviously representation is such a big thing and we are really happy to be able to have the speaking out panel come on and talk with us and as it said you know ask questions please feel free to type in your questions in Facebook and we can address it you know in the next panel so we will see you shortly and thank you again so much for being here and sharing this experience with us I think that was like traditionally so I've got like the partially skirt and partially pants and a lot of straps because I think they look cool and twice because I also think they look cool and yeah that's my outfit you enjoyed hearing more about Io's experience and about their outfit that they created and we are here with the speaking out panel from out Boulder and before we get to get started I just wanted to kind of do a round of introductions so as I said before my name is Elaine Waterman she her pronouns just I identify as great ace and as far as my experience you know it's it's kind of it just because you know being asexual there really isn't kind of like a presentation and I feel like I've come into my kind of identity through the experience of my kiddo who was involved in slay the runway so it's been an interesting kind of like experience for me you know I kind of already knew but then kind of going into it it's really helped me learn a lot more about myself so that's me Elaine she her and I will pass it on to you Steven my gosh well Elaine thank you so much for having me here today and thank you everybody else who's here today it's nice to be here with so many great people my name is Stephen Frost I use they them pronouns identify as queer and non-binary I've been out as queer for many years now it's been it's been really fun and working with the students at slay the runway has given me a lot of opportunities to you know explore my own relationships to gender you know it's just something that not necessarily happened when I was in high school I think there was it's really weird to look back at pictures now and think about like what I was trying to do right where I was trying what I was trying to present even just a few years ago and it's really nice to be here today thanks for having me I will pass the baton I'm Bren I use pronouns he and I transgender I started my transition very late in life I was 53 54 when I transition and so I grew up in a small town and transgender wasn't even the vocabulary growing up in the 60s and 70s so it's been quite a journey for me and I'm happy to be here hi I'm Ruby thank you so much for having us here today I've heard some wonderful things about the slay the runway program that y'all have been like putting on and like talking about and so I really am excited to be a part of this I am Ruby my use pronouns she her or a lot in Spanish I am a Chicana Mexican American trans woman originally I hail from Chicago but I'm here because this is the setting that I've chosen to to be the setting for my transition and so that is why I am so far from home right now here and I'm really excited to be here hi everyone good afternoon my name is Michael Chifalo my pronouns are he him his I am a 48 year old gay cisgender male I have been out for probably 30 some years and so really excited to be here today to share a little bit more about myself and my journey awesome so the panel members are just gonna share a little bit about their stories and then we'll kind of just have a conversation you know whatever that brings up whether it's questions or anything like that yeah so let's get into it again I'm Brian and they said I grew up in the 60s and 70s in rural Tennessee and they're the Smoky Mountains and with two brothers played a lot of sports was born female and knew since the time I was about three that I'm a boy and it was very very hard to grow up in an area and an era where that was not possible and was not discussed nobody talked about it I didn't hear the term gay until I was in high school and that basically meant an effeminate man and I remember being in college in high school and just feeling awkward trying to date and it just didn't something just felt off I after college I moved to Texas I met a woman and fell in love and we were married for 18 years so I lived as a lesbian and I thought that was my fit and realized it really wasn't and it was very difficult because we had adopted our son he's about six years old when I just I couldn't do it anymore and so divorced after 18 years and decided to try to go live my life but didn't know what that was exactly didn't know what that meant and so I waited another 10 years before I really felt like I can live my true self started meeting other transgender people and that was the key to going oh there's other people like me this is a real thing so started my physical transition when I was 54 I'm now 60 I moved to Colorado in 2017 and met my wife we got married during COVID and I've just been very very fortunate because I've had a lot of friends a lot of support when I was still in Texas I was able to transition at my work I was working in the legal field and I worked with lawyers that were very supportive and a lot of friends was able to transition at my church and it was it was just quite a journey and I have two brothers who when I was lesbian where one was supportive one was not so so as supportive but when I came out as trans to them they were both like you know that makes more sense and I've been very fortunate they came to my wedding they did a toast they've been very supportive my son is almost 23 now and I came out to him when he was 16 and he had the very normal reaction of a kid going what why are you telling me this why don't we talk off to college I don't I don't understand and I told him I said I understand you need to process this is going to be okay and I can't keep being emotionally dishonest with you and this is who I am and I need to I need to live my life but I waited for a while till he was really ready because I knew he was going to face stuff at his school as a 16 17 year old and now I'm totally dad to him he's totally supportive of me and I just I feel very fortunate because I've had a lot of a lot of family and support so I'll pass the baton to Ruby. Thanks Bryn it's always good hearing your story even though I've heard it a couple of times every time I feel like I get a gem out of it. Yeah thank you. So like I mentioned I was I was born in Chicago early 90s I am I am an elder millennial and I grew up during the 90s I think it was a great I hadn't in all respects a pretty good childhood my parents migrated here from northern Mexico as they called Durango. Spanish was the only language that I knew up until like other like elementary school more less and so then I was kind of like ESL but I quickly fast-tracked and came like like an accelerated student and so I was always felt like a pressure to live up to the sacrifice that my parents made by coming over to this country and so that made me kind of a perfectionist and a very high achiever early on. I was always recognized in school as like being like a like a high capability student high achiever elementary school and middle school were a little awkward for me socially I think I was still finding out who I was I think I knew even then deep down that like something was amiss from what from what the perception of what my family saw in me and what I saw in me what they saw in me is they wanted to see like a little version of my of my father but what I saw in me was something very different you know there's a feminine side of me that I learned very early on being from a very machista family that I had to kind of stifle and put away because it was not okay and I think also I think kind of stuffing that deep down also helped me to want to make up for it in terms of achieving more and more and getting to a place where if I have all these achievements and all these titles and all these accolades then nobody could ever say anything for me once I once my secret comes out right which which at the time I didn't even have words for it because I didn't know what transgender was so high school was cool and graduated top of my class got into the college of my choice I was well liked I flourished socially in high school I was prom king I was dating the captain of the cheerleading team I really had a mission to achieve like the all-American dream and that's very much what I did however I was I still felt kind of scared inside I felt like something was missing something was was not really right I remember somebody one of the popular girls from high school she came up to me and she's like this is once I started dating the cheerleading captain Deanna she's like oh my god I can't believe you're dating Deanna I was that you're gay I'm just like excuse me like me really what what would make you think that and at the same time I realized that a lot of people in my closed circle was starting to come out like it was kind of like I was attracting like queer family to me without even being aware of it and I'm just like weirded out by it though because it was scary because I had a secret that I did not want to look at and all of a sudden my friends are coming out and I'm like what's going on why are you all coming out right now like you know oh and if my parents were very Mexican and that also I kind of forgot implies that it's they're very Catholic too so that was a big part of that and so eventually I did go off to college and college is kind of for things things kind of got messy a little bit I was on my own for the first time away from the influence of my family and I really started to question how I related to women now part of my how I identify that I forgot to share at the beginning other than gender is sexually I'm also pansexual so pan or bi I haven't really settled on a term yet but I'm attracted to just people in general and that means at the time when I thought I was a straight man I was also confused to how it related to women because sometimes I would generally have these attachments to women that were romantic sexual but also I very much wanted to be them at the same time which really like at a confusing layer and so I remember after a couple of failed romances with some some some female figures in my life that were really important to me like close friendship wise I really like went into a spiral just like questioning like why like what's wrong with me like I was ostensibly on the outside I was a charismatic and pretty good looking person when I was male presenting and I'm just like why can't I make any significant relationships why can't I bridge that cap and what is that weird thing with me wanting to be like them I did not get it and so I kind of entered into a dark period in my life where partying was not fun anymore partying was just like me by myself in my room with like a bottle of whatever and so my story does touch on alcoholism depression suicide attempts those are all part of mental illness those are all part of my my story and it happened all around that time as I was really like what I was hiding in me was coming out and I did not want to look at it and so I was in the full flight from reality for a long time and but eventually I did get myself together and I remember I was watching TV I was watching Netflix I was watching oranges in new black and that was the first time I was able to put a name to what I felt because I saw the beautiful presence of liver and cox grace my TV screen right and just speaking to like how powerful trans representation is in media when I saw her into I think that must have been 2013 I believe I had a spiritual experience watching TV I really did and I knew in that moment that I was transgender when I saw a liver and cox on TV prior to that I had trans being transgender was was not on my radar at all so I went ahead and I came out I came out to my parents they weren't happy about it so they kicked me out I had a little bit of homelessness going on in like my mid 20s mid to early 20s lived in DZ briefly where that was like the place where I was safely transitioning the first time and I say the first well I'll get to it and so I I was medically transitioning for two years and I was really happy and stuff but I still had not fully accept myself even though I was already transitioning and mostly it was also because like my parents had just never approved of me and so that was like really hard for me after a certain point I D transitions mostly due to pressure from my family to do so and to come back home and so I did and yeah I mean I it was it was hard it was weird but I got used to it and it wasn't until I was dating this wonderful person who to this day is one of my best friends that I finally just came through terms with with who I was I had a moment which again funny enough related to to TV and trans representation in media she was watching pose on TV and if anyone knows pose it's this wonderful show with you know features a lot of beautiful black and brown trans woman and it was like as if I had been snapped out of hypnosis and they're realized like oh I made a mistake listening to my family like and that was the last and final time that I had such an epiphany because I've been transitioning ever since then and very happily so this time I had the foresight to move to safety first before telling my family they do know now I haven't talked to my father in almost two years but I do I do have some sort of nominal acceptance from my mother so I think that there's progress to be made there for sure and a little bit of hope and whether or not my biological family ever accepts me or not it's kind of besides the points at this point because I found such a great and loving community here in in Boulder Denver area of other queer folks and other non queer folks too I also other than work I do I work in a nonprofit and I'm like a community worker but I also dance I'm a dancer and so my understanding is that slay the runway people are exploring the gender through fashion and and through doing that kind of stuff and I didn't get to do that but I did get to do that for dance so dance was that for me and so I do particularly light and dancing and I have a very strong community of dancers that really support me and you know as far as like like I have a queer community and I have my dancers just had community and you know I couldn't be happier right now with where I'm at here so that's my story thank you so much Ruby so enlightening to hear that my name is Michael again I was born in Pueblo Colorado it's about a couple hours south from here and I had a pretty challenging childhood with painful memories of being harassed called all of the homophobic slurs for sure and you know that was even before I even knew who who I was myself so often any time that we had to go anywhere there was a safety assessment that had to be done it was like where are we going who's gonna be there that's gonna be starting trouble who's gonna be there to be able to protect and so to me it was this thought process that that went through every time I left my home was to figure out how safe I was gonna be and so I knew I had to get away and so when it was time to go to college I chose to go a thousand miles away to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles where I thought it would be a lot easier to be able to come out and and live authentically and I remember the first week being on campus and and at that time the the LGBT group was called glass and it stood for gay and lesbian assembly for student support and so as you can see that was 1992 few years ago but language has changed over time and it's evolved in the way that we presented the movement and I think that's an interesting part of that to think about that everything that I did in college after meeting those few key people who became my chosen family as well I made a vow to myself that everything that I was gonna do I was gonna do out and I was going to make sure that that was the platform that I wrote in on and so being an RA and OA all of the different things that I had done in college a resident advisor orientation advisor we get so caught up in our acronyms and we forget what that is and then finally my senior year I was so happy that I was elected to be the executive director of at that time it was called GLBA so the gay and lesbian by assembly for student support and so you see that again language changing adding in the B there and so you know college was a great time for me and and all of my post the work that I've done my whole career I've made sure that again that I could be out and that that was you know a non-negotiable for me and proud to say that I finally have the dream job working for the Boulder County Area Agency on Aging working with our rainbow elders so I get to be a professional gay a professional queer all day long and be able to fight for that that equality and equity work that needs to be done every day oh I also have a partner of 18 years and I live in our vada with our cat so I'm here to tell you that things can then things can be good thank you yeah and what I was kind of hearing in like all of your stories is that you know you were talking about how language was changing and you were mentioning how you didn't have those words yet and then even and you were talking as well just about kind of having that language of what your identity was I think that you know when we were putting together a sleigh of the runway not to bring everything back to the program but like when when we were putting together sleigh of the runway that was one of the most important things to me is to really have like role models and really involving people that you know could be really strong positive role models as like Steven and Lili and just showing like everything positive that you can accomplish and then having that that joy in your life and that yes there are going to be challenges but you know these are things that can be overcome when you find your family like even if it's not biological you know you create that family around you and and that was just such a big thing for me so and I I also have tissues I am prepared whenever I talk about topics like this I usually do get a little weepy and emotional but it's mostly because I am really happy and proud of what we created so I would add to that because that's why I enjoy doing these speaking out panels I went back to like I think it was the 30th high school reunion I'm trying to recall but and I discovered because nobody was out when I was in high school nobody was out it wasn't like I said it was not the vocabulary nobody was out and I since discovered like within a mile where I've lived a handful like ten people that we are gay and lesbian and I'm the only one that I know of this transgender but discovered all these peers and that feeling of boy what a difference it would have made for us and our families if we could have been out families could not be out I recall my mom early in the 80s contacting me when AIDS was hitting and a friend of hers that that we grew up with her son's partner had AIDS and there she was reaching out to me because they didn't want to be out this mother didn't want to be out but was trying to find resources and knew that my mom had a lesbian daughter at the time and it was just desperate of I'm in this little town what do I do and it's such a shame because she could have had other kinds of support and just the whole feeling of you can't be out and I and I talked to some of my peers they knew in high school they were but they didn't dare say anything and I knew something different but I didn't know what it was exactly and I would have said anything and so being able to do this and and what you all are doing is just fantastic for the kids to have it's okay and I've got safety and I've got support and I've got you know and it's in it is portrayed positively in the media we didn't have anything like that you know yeah definitely I think that representation is so important especially like seeing positive representation in TV shows and you know even just in the media like in the news and seeing like actual real personalities that that kind of break that barrier of that you know going beyond just being on on TV representation and then just to kind of talk about like how that language is changing and you were saying what was it glass I was telling Emily when we made the sign which is above your head and I don't know if people can see it but it's a sleigh the runway at the firehouse creating safe spaces for LGBTQ plus when we made that it was like two years ago I think it was for the for pride and now it's LGBTQIA and then we added P so it's still continuously evolving and I feel like you know having that freedom to keep finding terminology you know to define and give what you're feeling words is so freeing and really just gives people a space to be who they really are so yeah our community I think can be role models for that and showing that inclusivity you know the wonderful plus at the end to show that you know hey we haven't figured it all out and there are going to be additional identities that are going to come into play and that we're going to include in here and we're still going to include them you know and so I think that we can be role models in that way yeah so as far as you know we kind of wanted to talk during this panel about kind of the more supportive things that have happened in your families whether it's biological or whether it's your found families kind of the most supportive things that your families have done that made you feel celebrated and beyond just acceptance but like really celebrated and really seen is there or something that you can share because this really is a caregiver's you know to help parents and caregivers like create that safe space like try not to make the mistakes and so is there anything that you can share well I know that my so my mother like I like it briefly mentioned is does seem to be making an effort to reach out to me and accept me for who I am I think it is costing her just a little bit of work but she does small things like whenever we have conversations she'll she'll call me me now instead of me whole right which is banish is like daughter right which is really touching to me just that one word is just honestly so powerful and she's imperfect and gendering me consistently but I appreciate that she at least is trying and I'm the part of my non-biological community walking my queer community here has helped me feel so confident in my own skin my dance community has helped me feel so confident in my own in my own body and finding that validation and and helping me realize that like yeah like like I've always been like okay like you know like yes I I'm okay like you know I I liked looking good a little bit but now I'm just like I feel so uplifted as as like a like a trans woman like I feel beautiful for the first time in my life right and so like I think just a lot of support from like my queer family that's like it's okay you can say it like you can say you're beautiful like yes I am beautiful I know it like and like you know I always used to feel like bad about saying it and like my family's taught me that it's okay like you could it's okay to say it you know I was just thinking that for me like it was really important for me to hear from people I recognize that folks you know when your parents your family hears you're coming out that they're on their own journey and I think it's important to recognize that they're on their own journey you may have had years to struggle with this but this might be the first time that they're actually thinking about chances are it's not the first time they're thinking about it but maybe it is and so to be you know really gentle and gracious I think about that but I think the most important words that I ever heard really were that I love you and that I care for you and that you know I may not understand all of this but you're still my child and you still matter to me and so I think that those kinds of things are really important for people to say you know sometimes the exact words you know you might fumble with but I think it's just important to give people that message that you you still care you know that they're they're still a loved one of yours and that you see them you see them for who they are yeah I like I said my brothers were very supportive my father was deceased before I came out as transgender and my mom struggled with it and trying to give them grace and patience in the process because I had wrestled with it my entire life and I knew that they needed to process it I felt very fortunate I said I was working at the time and I remember the trepidation of going to tell the attorney I was working with that hey there's something you need to know about me and I still want my job kind of thing and he just looked at me and he's like so you're still gonna work here you're still brin you're still you know gonna do the thing and that's all we care about and we want you know and we support you and I was just it was it blew me away you know I just thought I don't know what's gonna happen here and to have support from my cousins my aunts my my brothers ultimately my son and then to feel so discouraged and repressed for so long and then finally coming into my own and going okay how is it to live like a guy and I'm attracted to women but I feel like a freak in some ways nobody's gonna fall in love with me nobody's gonna want to be with me and to meet a woman who is the love of my life and she had never been with a trans man before and to just welcome me and support me and love me no matter what was has just been an amazing part of the journey of you know and now to be married and I never imagine I can have a wife and and feel the real me so just to have that love and that support you know I love hearing that you know just keep looking for that that person that love everyone deserves that love so it can happen yeah it's crazy to be able to imagine a future and and whatever that means for for every individual they decided I think that in the 90s when I was younger I feel like there was no like marriage like assumed I would just have a series of anonymous you know boyfriends or girlfriends or whatever I was looking for at the time and I don't think I ever expected to have like a steady job I figured I was like I'll just work retail forever like this is the way that it'll be and because I felt like you could never be queer and be accepted in those spaces or you could never be queer and have that kind of stability and then I was very depressed as a kid I don't really think I ever expected to live to be very old and now that I'm 40 I'm like oh my god people are like oh what are your goals and like I'm past what I thought would be possible everything is great in those senses and I and for me my family has always been you know generally supportive of course they were on their own journey with acceptance and I think that one thing that I've discovered is that in my family there are a lot of queer people and I came out when I came out was the only one there was another and there was another and now there's a lot of us and now there's not many Republicans in our family because everybody's queer the numbers have switched around quite a bit and you know talking about the kids in the slayer runway like I think that we we decided to focus on that like middle school high school age where like you are kind of finding out a lot of stuff about yourself and then just that additional like identity you know like it's it's just I feel like it's just so much more to figure out and then when we really wanted to be that space like BA space where you know they could kind of talk to peers and bounce ideas and have maybe have questions you know and then also to have like the mentors that that might have like a greater experience and and you know having your experiences as well kind of just giving them an idea that you know how beautiful it can be you know beyond beyond the unchallenges that they might be facing that you know lived experience how wonderful it can be so they were amazing I mean just they would you know their ways in which everybody was helping each other you know oh yeah you haven't heard this you haven't heard this album oh you don't know how to do this or this is where I buy shoes or oh yeah this is where I go to get clothes this is where and everybody just sharing information with each other all these people from different high schools and you know there was a really wild group of ages there too yours was a little bit more striking I had like one of each age and then you had like the 18 year olds and then 12 year olds yeah 18 year olds and 12 year olds and 18 year olds were gems like they just were so I mean that's what queer community is right they were like never made the younger people feel not cool everybody was there everybody was helped and that's like what I was what I want in a queer family and it was really nice to see that that sort of built from they they felt it felt very natural for them to be like yeah yeah totally no you've never worn heels before sure let's get it going let's figure it out it was great it was a lot of fun yeah it was a lot of fun so yeah as far as so I guess sharing joy would probably be you know one of the things and it was actually really interesting and Steve and I came to it from something that you said because so as I said this was grant funded and when you when you write your grant you you want to really make it like impactful like we're gonna affect these marginalized teens that don't have any support and it's like and all these things are what we wanted to do like you know the the higher rate of depression and homelessness and drug use and like all of that and so there was a conversation that we were having and you said something about I know we I want to focus on that like I want to bring that into it but I want to be a space for queer joy and I was like oh my gosh that is totally true because you know I'm looking at it and like what is the impact but like I want to be able to celebrate that and and just like be an outlet for queer joy as well and I think that you know hearing your stories and it's kind of hearing about your journey and like you guys are finding your your joy in life and I think that that is such an amazing lesson so yes thank you for it kind of like flipped the program for me I was like oh we're doing all this stuff but it was like let's just be a place to celebrate so how did you how did you all find places to celebrate during the pandemic yes because it was like the traditional spaces were I don't know felt I went to a couple places with you know the mask on and it didn't always feel like the same I mean how did how did you all find that sense of family and enjoy and like gather queer gatherings how did how did you make it happen during pandemic or not it's no it's a good answer to yeah like I Netflix is also fine you know I think it was really challenging I think you know transitioning into more of a virtual space when people were really in need of like actually being in community with one another I was so thankful that I had my job really because so it was my job to figure out how we could you know still stay in community with people and so being able to to have some of that that virtual space that not everybody bought into you know working with older adults not all of our folks are resourced enough to have the opportunity to do the virtual world they may not feel comfortable even if they have the resources and so I think it was important for us to really you know be able to do some of that but then also try to find other ways and that was really challenging so especially when we couldn't meet in person I know we're starting to ramp up and get to meet in person again and people are so thankful for that yeah so thankful to be able to have that so we kind of just did a little bit of the virtual stuff and I don't know that we really succeeded in that way but we did we're able to create some connection for folks well I know for me I'm actually somewhat I don't know if grateful as the word to you but like there are some silver linings that came from the pandemic and locked down for me and that was well I decided to to transition for you know to retransition early in pandemic and I think it's a large part of it had to do with me just being having the time now to just sit at home and like sit with my feelings right and really realize like oh yeah I think I'm doing the wrong thing I need to transition and so that so that came out of the pandemic and so I'm really grateful for for that time of like quiet reflection at home and I know that after that well I lived in like a I've lived for the past couple years in like queer communal spaces so there was always that no like they would they would become kind of like my families and during the lockdown well we just became close with each other because we were just the only people we were interacting with and so that was really good to have a lot of fun memories and close friendships from a lot of folks that you know like lived and came and went through these spaces I think also dance came to a big halt unfortunately during the lockdown right especially like Latin dance partner dancing that's like the opposite of what you wanted to do so I defaulted to doing a lot of like online like virtual classes like still wanting to stay in touch and then as soon as the lockdown was lifted I was back to dancing you know with the whole mask on and like some people had gloves on there there was a hand sanitizer like galore everywhere so it was a lot of that and I was just like super happy to do that and that for me is an expression of my queerness as someone that does traditionally like I can lead which is traditionally more of a male role and I can follow which is traditionally more of a female role and I could do both of them at like a pretty high level so that's that's my that to me is my queerness is embodied so I was really happy to I could a chance to do that again even if it was with masks and hand sanitizer I put rhinestones all over my mask you know gotta glam it up yeah that's an interesting question because it the pandemic crowned created a mixed bag for the transgender community because at all boulder they were really they made a quick pivot to okay everything's got to be virtual and just as everything was growing everything was really really expanding the programming was expanding and so for the adult population it was very beneficial for a lot of trans folks because they couldn't be public and so virtual gave them an opportunity of I can see community on screen and I can be safe I'm in my own home but I can start to get to know people and see community and then for youth it became a mixed bag because they're in their homes and it's not safe and the only safe space space they had was actually at school and with their peers and with teachers that was a part of them and other allies and all of a sudden they're in their rooms going I don't know should I turn on my computer should I try to be virtual can I do this so it's it's just interesting how it was sort of a mixture of for some trans community members it was fantastic and it was like oh wow now I can feel connected and it gives me that courage of a two-year period like you kind of said you're processing it and you're a little more getting into coming into your own so now that we are now opening back up how's that going to affect them are they going to feel more comfortable being actually in public or present with other people you know in the community yeah and as far as outbuilder like are I know that there's been a huge expansion like there's a new building right yes there's a new building outbuilder bought bought its own building back in December and it's at almost a 10,000 square foot building and they have the bottom floor it's the basement but it's got windows everywhere is the whole youth room and then a second floor has conference rooms and meeting rooms for multiple groups can meet there at the same time they have a large room that too with a kitchen to have events and social events and then upstairs is the office space so yeah it's a fantastic space and the programs are expanding the staff has expanded and it's just it's a it's a great supportive place for people that that are in the Boulder County area just and and Boulder has a mission and vision to move beyond that it's already been doing national work so yeah definitely grown and I now wanted to you know definitely put in a plug for them as far as services you know if you are in the LGBTQIA P plus community and you feel like you need more support definitely check out outbuilder Oasis who is going to be coming in doing a panel later there are lots of different resources that are available and you know we're gonna continue to share them but outbuilder is definitely one of the big ones here in Boulder County so I think that we are going to be wrapping up I just wanted to say thank you so much for coming and sharing your stories brand Ruby and Michael it was amazing hearing from you and hearing about your journeys and I wish you nothing but the best in the future and yeah thank you so much for coming thank you for having us thank you for having us for being here get you all tickets to the July 8th performance of slay the runway wet she sees each maybe three okay yeah so July 8th July 8th yes so we are gonna be learning a little bit more about some other outfits from some of our other kiddos so Rio is gonna be sharing about her dress she actually made two dresses for the show one of them was from Arc thrift and we had a partnership with Arc thrift where they gave the kiddos gift certificates and they went and they shopped and they actually you know could get things that they could restyle into their own style so it was amazing and we thank Arc thrift so much for that so Rio's gonna talk about her two outfits max is gonna talk about their outfit and Stephen can max was Boulder kiddos so is there anything that you wanted to share about I mean max came into you know when you when you're working with people on a fashion project it's like you know sometimes you have to do so much brainstorming and you know stuff but max came in like ready to go they knew exactly what they wanted and they were like inspired by the kind of cottage cord lesbian strawberry dress which is a very famous dress because it's a floofy and they were like I'm gonna do like the punk version of that I'll let them speak for themselves on there but they like got their fabric and there was a dress form and they just draped that dress form I was like I'm not good at draping and then the dress just like came out of the fabric in the most beautiful way and then their performance was just wild I think I think many of the other participants were like Max you're just killing it and then after max ribbon is gonna talk about their outfit and ribbon was also another Boulder kiddo fantastic red and black like oh yeah and they would come with the boots and so definitely they sewed with those platform boots on well those ones but a different pair and the glitter and the glitter oh my gosh they bought the tool they chose the tool that had the pre-glittered tool and at the library where we're making the work like something happened where just as it ran through the machine it got on everything in the entire library you could just see where Riven had been just by tracking the glitter all over everywhere and in my car and all over the places I think they're still glitter and building 61 which Riven of course would be like happy to see so we'll see it the next time that we're there but um yes so Rio Max and then Riven and then the students are gonna come in and it's gonna be all of the kids that could make it and we are so sorry that some of the kiddos couldn't make it because of work and other responsibilities so we'll definitely give a shout out for the ones that aren't here but yeah we'll see you on the other side of those videos thank you thanks I'm Rio and I sewed two dresses for the first annual Slay the Runway in Colorado and I'm gonna show you a couple cool things about my dresses dress number one performed to crazy in love fabrics from Arc first performance of the show dedicated to Grace Carmichael dress number two inspired by Nightmare Before Christmas performed with Kaz to this is Halloween also dedicated to Grace Carmichael my first dress was the beautiful flower look that I walked to crazy in love with and I really love this dress because it went from a piece of fabric clumped up with a giant dress that could never fit a kid my age to this beautiful dress that I could slay a runway and and then I started this project now this dress even though it started later it's probably my favorite because it really brought together our group where I found that it wasn't just a bunch of people making dresses that happened to be in a group it was people who are really close and formed a bond and that's why me and my good friend Kaz we rocked our Nightmare Before Christmas looks together my favorite part about this dress is probably the slit lace sleeves took a lot of time but with the help of our wonderful amazing and beautiful Elaine it came to it came together pretty quickly and yeah so it's really simple if you really put your mind to it I hadn't really picked up a thread or a needle in about six years before this project and now here I am these dresses are both the same length and I guess I like dresses that size I never knew that before but here we are and of course it was so amazing to participate in this activity bye bye it's my dress I call her bubblegum demon she is made with a beautiful soft underlayer which you can kind of see through this mesh with lots and lots of layers of tools and finally a pearl overlayer I did not sew the pearls onto this fabric it came that way and I fell in love and made her she is accessorized with a necklace which attaches back here onto the straps so as to give an illusion of like you know floating jewelry matching earrings I did put the beads on all of the chain myself with a little metal that you swirl around I've paired her with some beautiful horns that I made myself using polymer clay and liquid latex her mask is sort of meant to look messier and sort of tying around her mouth more sort of like a barrier of speech which is how I feel with my gender in such a heterosexual world is this gender world also is just like so silenced so that was what I was mimicking with the ties there ties on the back of her head so yeah this is my baby I love her I'm gonna wear her to prom hi I'm ribbon and this is the outfit I made for slay the runway so this is all the pieces of my outfit that I made I was also wearing a corset some gloves and boots but I sewed the skirt with all the tools each layer it was very difficult lots of glitter was everywhere I also made the top with ribbon and some fabric it laces up in the back I also made the choker which is one of my favorite pieces with an old belt and an ice pick I screwed on each of the spikes to hold it and then each of the circles in between was part of the original belt yeah the skirt was difficult each layer of tools difficult to sew individually and keep it still layered and looking nice it's kind of choppy a little bit but that was kind of what I was going for so that it had a more more movement to it yeah awesome and we are back and we are here with the slay the runway kids from 2021 2021 oh my gosh it's like so hard to figure out that was last year from 2021 so I am gonna let you guys know who we are so I'm gonna let them introduce themselves and we can start with Rio okay yeah I'm real my pronouns are she her and I did two dresses for the runway what the first one was the first walk as you guys know and then the last one was the second to last and I walked with Kaz who isn't here I guess but yeah and yeah I guess I'll fill in for them so yeah and then Grace yeah go ahead Grace sorry my name is Grace my pronouns are she her hers and I did the winged like dark angel suit I'm ribbon they them I did the frilly poofy tool red sparkly ball I'm Louise he him and I did the I'm wearing it right now yeah this vest and breeches combo yeah I'm ember I I have the they them pronouns and I did this outfit along with two others the second outfit had a colorful skirt and the third outfit was this cool jacket with like these prints on them cool so do you want to talk about your outfit because we made outfits to yeah we made outfits too so my outfit was I had made a weaving of a wolf of 18 foot piece of fabric that was like scraps from all the projects I'd done in the last like three or four years and then I turned all those and then once it was woven into a gigantic piece of fabric then I draped it into sort of what Lily called a poncho but I wouldn't have called it a poncho but it was pretty ponchoey like a poncho dress a cinched poncho and it was so cool because it was like your art coming to life as an outfit it was really fantastic thanks thank you so much I had you know it's so much work to get everybody else ready and then I was like yeah three weeks before I was I think it was the night before I was still I was still sewing the night before so mine was actually a skirt that I got from Arc and I took tinsel like the like the stuff that's behind you guys but it was like silver and black and I just sewed it with tool and it was just very puffy and shiny and sparkly volume it was a lot of fun yeah it's definitely a lot of fun so talking about fun if you guys wanted to share like your most fun experience or like your favorite part about the program that's really the wrong way okay I guess I can go first with that I really like to like meeting everybody there everyone is super cool and yeah it's just a really fun environment and it was nice to like bond over making our stuff and I didn't know that we were making that we could make two outfits at first and when I found out that I could I ended up yeah pairing an outfit with Kaz when I found the Nightmare Before Christmas fabric so that was awesome yeah I think I'm I've already started planning my outfit I haven't like yeah yes I've only planned like the outlines thanks to Ember I didn't know that we should have done that and then really cool I started so yeah I started that earlier today and I'm excited I'm gonna go with like some sort of like blazer like Morticia Adams kind of life so very cool Adams all the way we'll have to get a really big wig for you for that oh my uncle has the giant like it's a lovely wig oh cool like a share long black yeah definitely thanks for the preview my favorite part was honestly all of it but like the environment was so nice there was so many resources and the like mutual respect and the community that we all had was such a fun environment to work in to like learn in it made like the creativity and the project just so natural and like I felt very happy and very creative it was nice so yeah my favorite part was definitely when it comes down to it the creative freedom and how much you were able to do and how much you were able to choose it's not like it was a set path for you you got to choose what you made and how you made it it was just you were in control so my favorite part was honestly when the teeniest little thing went wrong everyone put in as much help as they could like I remember someone had a thread break and it was just fixed almost immediately because everyone just went ooh I can help ooh I can help it was amazing and I also have five different ideas for my so let's say my favorite part was going into the fabric store and like getting all this inspiration seeing all these like fabrics is like ooh I want to make something with that in sort of I mean the whole like design process I mean I fancy myself an artist I like doing character design it's like I get to design for myself like me but what I also enjoyed was getting to see what like type of fashion brought everyone joy in their final looks I think it gave you like I gave each of us insight into like what makes this person happy what do how do they want to present themselves because I think you know for those of us who are trans it's like you know gender euphoria you get to like present yourself the way you want to present yourself and everyone's like you're in the space where everyone will respect you and they won't judge you for that they'll just be happy to see you happy and embrace you but even for like you know our cis peers cis people can also get gender euphoria it's that feeling of like ooh I look good I look fashionable and I feel happy to be in this body so I think it was great just getting to have that experience of I feel good I feel fine and everyone's like everyone's just happy to see it so yeah I don't know definitely but I think that you know having the the runway show at the end is like you know clothing is such an expression of who you are like when you're able to dress the way you want like I feel like there's so many situations where you have to dress professionally or you've to dress you know a certain way are you to wear like shoes that you don't want to wear and there's so many different situations where like you can't be yourself and I really feel like this runway show was like who do you want to be and how do you want to express yourself and we're gonna be here for you and we're gonna you know help you with the broken threads and and all of that and it was just so much fun to see everyone create their looks and see it from start to finish and and know that you guys put a lot of work into what you created especially you know it's hard sewing an outfit and we did do we did that torturous sloper class that we're not doing this next we're not doing the sloper you had to do like the measuring and that was yeah yeah I don't think anybody really finished it no I didn't do my plan and I was like okay I could do this I guess you were the test you were like the the test crew and you guys did fantastic yeah you did great I was I that day printed out I was like oh I'm gonna print out a sloper I'll print it out for like my size or whatever and I and I had a I bought a bunch of sloper patterns from Etsy or something and I'd use them first I'd sent the bunch to a student because they'd asked for them like a year before and I was like oh I have a bunch in this file and the one that I printed out was definitely like not anyone's size including me and we were all looking at it we're like is this supposed to be like a baseline what did we do and then we were really trying to alter it and I had no gosh it was a mess but we figured out everybody was so patient with me yeah so thank you thank you definitely it was feeling like I don't know why I decided that we should do this well let's take the thing that I was the worst at in school try to do that again so but um but you know our partners were so super fantastic like you had building 61 with all the stuff like it was just amazing I was feeling a little bit like a little envy of the 3d printer and some of those other things that see I didn't tell you we had a laser cutter and we could see well we you know we can also do that at Tinker mill yes so we have a partnership with Tinker mill so we can also do that it's just it's offsite as opposed to what just around the corner in the building yeah just we were actually in the same building with the wood in same room with a lot of the printer we'll have to do more field trips yeah we totally can and in this next iteration too if people want to think through you know what could that design look like when I made instead of buying your spikes from Amazon which we did buy some Amazon spikes you had spikes right I had spikes with like two inch spikes they were big they were huge but I think they were from Etsy yours those were custom from Etsy I we got those really good but we can make that kind of stuff on the 3d printer now if we have time we can think about where you know we could make not just a spike but like the perfect spike like you know like it has to be the creepy Disney spike that you want you know has to have that like kind of like whatever that Tim Burton feel or whatever yeah definitely so I also wanted to talk about the runway show when we did our makeup so we had all night Alliance come and do makeup was that your first experience with I know I mean like you guys could all teach me a lot and as I was trying to do my wing diner I was like I'm not doing this right so anyway off a wing cuz I knew you had get judge better get it right no every single morning I like kind of freak out because I try like maybe five times and then I think one more try and then I mess it up wash it off try again and I get to the point where it's like I have to leave and I've got in nowhere just me just freaking out because I I wanted to look good it's definitely a process I think I've been late almost every day with liner cuz it takes me like a thousand tries and my grandma was staying for a while while my mom was in Las Vegas and she walked in and saw me like putting tape to try and get the eyeliner perfect cuz I forgot I had that day but I had something important and she like walked in she's like I teach me how to do that and everything so I was like showing her how to do it and I kept on having to do it over and over and I was very late that day but yeah so it's yeah I think that was like my first time actually like putting on like a full face of makeup besides the mask part for the runway yeah and it was awesome like I don't know like drag queens drag kings all that that was awesome having them do your makeup was amazing and yeah I had to do two different makeup looks so that that was scary cuz I had to like I was walking out towards the stage as they were like it was crazy but it was awesome like I think like those little like flaws were pride like my favorite parts just you know the rush and like it's gonna be perfect it's gonna be fine no matter what happens so I think that was awesome yeah I recently got a thing where it I I got a present and I opened it and it was like an eyeliner stick and then like a weird stamp sort of thing and I was like eyebrows is this and then I read it and it's a thing where you stamp on the way and then you take the liner and you connect it and like I was just like this is so useful I don't have to take two hours doing my wings I could have used to that this morning I was late today too so I didn't think I was like saying like well you're lucky we let you like go to like news interviews and everything after late to school for the fifth time this week like yeah I I keep on doing this but it's it's an expression right it's an expression of yourself so I think that it's fantastic so has anyone like changed their style since slay the runway do you feel like you kind of come more into who you are or fashion wise yeah I mean I'm wearing like a corset belt right now which I would never like have worn before last night I think I was just wearing like t-shirts and jeans I was designing and now I'm like I don't know what's all fancy and I like it I think I've experienced a lot more like experimented a lot more with different like gendered clothing and I know clothing doesn't have gender but like exploring what it feels like to I like cut my hair really short it's kind of grown back and how that can like feel and I did that for a while and it wasn't feeling the way I wanted to wanted it to and so I think I'm comfortable again with with what I'm like with skirts and with dresses and I think one of the things that made that really difficult is a lot of people in my life were not validating my gender so I felt as though that everyone was going to perceive me as a female if I didn't put in more work to dress masculine and obviously that's not true but it's just what goes through your head as someone who is non-binary trying to figure out how you can be more non- binary for other people to make it easier for them and so I think that's been a big thing in my life that I've kind of been working through since then and I think that comes with a lot of like fashion changes and then trying old things and new things and mixing them so that's kind of what I've been doing in terms of like my style since slay the runway yeah I can feel the same way I've gotten like skirts and dresses and even like this jumper which is kind of tying into my next outfit idea it's just this whole thing that I got from like it's just this cute little outfit and I've always loved it and even back from all the way from October from last year I've wanted to do this outfit though with three outfits I never really had the time over cheever so I mean I've been at home a lot so I've just been a little goblin a little gremlin I haven't had much time to really go out and like you know wear different clothes but I like to think at like full like maximum 100% Louise power I could you know wear freely all this like you know freely stuff more like retro like aesthetics incorporate that more into my everyday attire and it's like I've got some clothes I could do that with I just haven't ironed them yet but but that's definitely something I want to do when I start going out more is yeah just dress up be spiffy and look the way I want to y'all are inspirational in Colorado you know we have a problem here it's called is it called gorp core is that what they call it what is it gork or my or techs gork gork or elaborate okay so I have a student right now who's working on a research project so I'm learning through them which is the greatest part about being as professors that you can just learn from all your students research and they're exploring and a new fashion which is I would call it like I would call it like athleisure but apparently this is more of a lean-in to the outdoorsy part of athleisure which is basically like very expensive outdoor wear which is apparently what is Colorado's aesthetic yeah I remember this okay so I was just checking that it was the same thing yeah and my dad came home and he's like so you know how you have all your like aesthetics and labels for what you wear he's like this is what I want to be and that was it awesome I love it that you know we're all coming up with labels mine is mine is like grandma preschooler so it's like rainbow but like comfy grandma I can get that from your outfits yeah yeah and not today today it's like you know golden black and I was going for the I didn't even know we recorded yes we totally coordinate there's a lot of like black shirts here oh nice that's such great movie somehow 15 greatest showman shirts just appeared in my dresser just like out of nowhere 15 yeah wow there's 15 different ones wow different ones there's I believe I have three of this shirt all in different colors but oh nice cool they're mostly the same but like where did they come from wow I'm pretty sure that's more shirts than I actually cycle I don't know if I have 15 individual shirts no um Louise you're like telling me back when you're like planning your outfit I forgot what it's called like you're like kind of style that you're going for with this outfit okay so I talked about it in my video but it's called oji and it's yeah very much if you're familiar with lowlita fashion it's that like Victorian like 18th and 19th centuries like fashion like I guess European fashion mostly worn by the aristocracy but make it more modern and cute and so there's more traditionally masculine equivalent to that called oji and I like it a lot and like I feel like I get to be like a little aristocrat and actually part of that like during the runway when we were like you know crafting our walks I wanted to present like yes I like I'm an aristocrat I'm stylish I'm you know looking down on the audience and you know that helped me get over my social anxiety of like oh no people are looking at me they're judging them like I didn't have to worry about that anymore because I had like you know other side of my personality that is like oh like you know I'm very talented I got to tap into that more and like just look down my loyal subjects mmm I'm so much better richer than them and like you know just stuff like that and it gave me so much confidence throughout the whole thing and I felt like oh people can rely on me I can I could do great I can be confident like I don't have to worry anymore and it was very much like life-saving so that I wouldn't like have a panic attack on stage so good you were so regal you were so good yeah totally embodied that it was great but you I think that you actually had a show about armor about how clothing was your armor yeah yeah I was in a show with it was it was curated it was curated by the curator of the Center for Visual Arts in Denver and it was a bunch of different artists who think of clothing as you know in different different interpretations of armor so there was artist Erica Diamond who is part of it and she's amazing I get to work with her as a curator again this summer and she makes Kevlar clothing for queer people so it's like one Luis would love it's like a beautiful vest it's like a gorgeous vest with like birds embroidered on it super cute and she makes it all she weaves all the fabric from scratch and it looks but it looks like expensive and gorgeous anyway she made different outfits for everybody one she made which was the opposite which was a like a sheer dress with egg shells on it like sewn into it like perfectly sewn egg shells into it so good I was working with the artist Frankie Tone we collaborate on a bunch of projects Frankie which I'll plug for a little just I'll plug Frankie's project who is the co-founder of Rainbow Dome everybody should be checking that out that's a monthly queer all ages roller skating event what and it's March 18th is the next one it's in Denver it's on the outskirts of Denver and it's every month is different horse scope themed based on that month's sign I know Friday I don't know how to roller skates you guys you know you can have like the little roller thing yeah Frankie and I made this project that was we thought about how denim was used a lot in queer faction to like you know in the in different decades in different forms like denim has sort of taken on aesthetics that queer people have embraced whether that's like the jacket with the patches or like the sort of you know the mom jeans sort of actually came out of queer culture and all these these ways you looked at me Stephen I did I look at you said mom Jean oh I didn't need to kidding I'm just kidding I can never find a pair I've been looking for a pair of mom jeans and I just can't find a pair for my body I'm gonna have to make them from scratch I just got a bunch of patterns I was like I'm making these from scratch I'm having mom jeans I need a pair they're called awesome they're called boyfriend jeans now though which is so weird that is weird yeah I thought they were different straight hip I think they are different are they different I think they are okay you can teach you can teach us all to make mom jeans I will I will because I've never made a pair of jeans but I'm going to make one from scratch before the workshop this summer and then we can all make our own jeans I have made a lot of jumpers so we should talk they're fun to make jumpers are the best oh yeah totally oh pencil squirts easy once you make one you right out they're super fun that's what I was telling ember like rub off patterns we can do more rub offs like bring something that you love already that fits you perfectly and we'll do a rub off pattern of that and then you can have like that of every color yes 100% yeah okay so we are kind of getting towards the end of our time with you guys and I just wanted to say it's been so fantastic having you in this program you know I was really I I was so excited because we were gonna have the Boulder one the Longmont one and you know we were kind of separated and which was sad but then we came together I just think that it was just so much fun to meet everyone like in the Boulder group and the Longmont group and thank you so much for like all your hard work and your time and being so nice to each other and kind to everyone and just everything was just fantastic thank you so much for being our first year and we're going maybe some of you will be back for the second year and the ones that have aged out you can be mentors wait well you can come back what's is it 18 18 okay who's aged out me oh I know and then some other like Max and Eli yeah so I know really sad but they can come back as mentors okay and they can make an alumni network I know I know and then we'll go roller skating yes totally go roller skating and I can bring out my rainbow grandma outfits I might knock you off with a great rainbow grandma look for that so we are gonna head out with another video it's actually Grace's video for her dress with the wings and then we are gonna welcome back a different panel from speaking out from out Boulder and they're gonna come back after that so hang tight learn more about what grace created for slay the runway and we'll see you back for the next one thank you okay so my name is Grace and I designed the winged outfit so these are the wings as you can see they are built mostly by 3d printed parts there is a battery two servo motors and a controller and so oh and the screw funny story as I was backstage I turned on my wings and the other screw came out and we could not find a replacement screw so I just got a random screw that was on the ground and so this saved my outfit for the runway that had never happened before and it was really scary anyone who has had costume break at the second they were going to go on stage will know how stressful that is but basically how it works is this controller tells the wings to go up and then down and this goes neatly into the pocket press down so the prongs go stick up like that you take this you make sure the black is facing that way and you plug it in forgot to do the battery but plug in the battery you know it's plugged in by the red light you just press down something is wrong right so you see that thing is working for some reason that I haven't really looked into too much this wing isn't doing well which I can't figure out why that time but you see how it just doesn't go up quite as much I'm working on that I'm working on fixing it and if you're an engineer and know why it's doing that you're probably laughing at me but like yeah and then you place that over you make sure to tuck in all the wires and you put the straps on and voila that is the wing portion the things that I worked on the most mostly because it was a fun thing that I had never done before and I just thought I needed to do something more because I had done a lot of sewing but not quite enough engineering to fashion and so wings aside here is the dress so you just put your put it on and a neat feature is this so it started fraying and I was like oh no oh but then I saw how it was fraying I loved it because it kind of added to that like worn down sort of look and so I decided to fray it a little bit more before I hemmed it and yeah also zipper you know how hard zippers are to sew then yeah I had to redo this one side of the zipper five times and yeah so this was fun and so it was supposed to be like a ground length dress but I cut it off at the knees right here so that it would be a little bit more easy to walk in and I made horns the show the horns have started to fall apart and so I'm working on repairing those horns but thanks for watching and we're back so we are here now with out boulders speaking out program I have Christine Joel and Garrison and just to do a couple of introductions because I know you guys were in the green room and and you don't know us yet but my name is Elaine Waterman she her pronouns I am the executive director at the firehouse and I identify as great ace and that is pretty much me awesome thank you Elaine I'm Steven Frost I'm one of the co-founders of Slade the Runway I'm an assistant professor at CU Boulder and community-based artists as well I use they then pronouns and identify as non-binary awesome nice to meet you guys well hi my name is Joel my pronouns are he him I am the lead panelist for today we are all volunteering from out Boulder County it's a local nonprofit advocacy and education nonprofit in Boulder that serves the greater Boulder County area and hopefully soon further that is always the goal each of us are here to kind of talk a little bit about our journeys in the LGBTQ community and to kind of express what that means to us especially talking about things like microaggressions and kind of what our own journeys are in coming out I really want to thank everyone for giving us the space to be able to talk it's such an honor to be here it's so exciting yeah like I said my name is Joel pronouns he him identify as queer and these are our panels this is my friend Garrison Bennett and this is my friend Christine and then I think we're going to start with Garrison yes and before I begin is there a good time limit is sharing our story five to seven minutes yeah okay perfect well yes like like I said my name is Garrison he him pronouns and I'm a gay male I was I remember early on in my childhood that I was at a park one time and like a bunch of I was with my school friends and I was called gay as like the banter often was and I went to my mom and asked what that was and she and then she explained it's when a man loves another man and I confidently like well that's me and she immediately was taken back and was like no no no like that's silly and a decade later a plot twist still gay it wasn't that much of a plot twist I promise you well it still shocked my mom and that was the thing and I think that and it was it was it was an interesting journey of both internalized homophobia of me telling myself it was just a phase and then me actually still having to reaffirm and come out and be confident in saying that I'm a gay I'm gay and I'm like you know that's who I am and my mom when she told when I told her she was immediately taken back like tears started coming down her face and she was saying how like she was worried that I'd be a victim of a hate crime and that like that she didn't want me to be the next Matthew Shepard and it was a lot of emotion to take in but I think that in that moment it was important to have like I saw the well intended message that that she just wanted me to be safe and so I let her have that space and one of the best pieces of advice that someone gave to me was from a relational advice columnist Dan Savage and he said that when you're coming out to someone it's important to have a little patience because because coming out to yourself you didn't automatically welcome yourself and that was very true with my narrative I definitely had my own journey of internalized homophobia and acceptance before I came to finding who I was and recognizing that I love myself for who I am and so when I throughout my life I've come across times where people have said things to me that they did not necessarily mean it to be a difficult or I don't think they really thought what they were saying came across in a certain way where like I've had my dad say I think that like oh well I'm glad that you're not doing drag or like I'm glad that you're more masculine and I'm like well like and in that case like I had to like I gave it patience I gave it time and like I even tried to challenge that where like I would wear more feminine things and be like you know like what difference does it make in the like if I did like and to just try to challenge that notion and I think that the biggest thing for me was to understand that at the end of the day like I still love myself and like validation first starts from within and that has allowed me to be in a space where I can educate people when they end up saying quips that aren't even intended to be offensive but may come across a little thoughtless in some ways so yeah and so throughout through my life I continued being single and going through that process I ended up recently I've been in a relationship and and it's been a unique process of being more visibly out and I think that's another thing that's been an interesting process in my life is how coming out is a continual process that's never really fully finished and I'm currently a rideshare driver and during pride month I had I had a rainbow flag on my face and so I think that in coming out it's been a great opportunity for me to be able to show more visibility in my community and as well as being able to be open to the fact that people may say something that may need that education like where someone has asked me like what does LGBTQIA even really mean and like I have to say like remind myself that not everyone knows and to be that that beacon of education sometimes so yeah thank you so much Gerson I really appreciate that of course um Christine if you want to go ahead and continue okay um hi my name is Christine my pronouns are she her and hers I am actually an ally I'm cisgender heterosexual I've been married for over 30 years I have three daughters I didn't start out that way the doctors misgendered two of my children um I have been an active volunteer with out boulder since 2016 and I am also on the board of directors for P flag boulder county this also happens to me by very first speaking out panel so I'm a little nervous and I have notes um so growing up I had um minimal exposure to the LGBTQ community um I grew up in a catholic white city family neighborhood everything um and I didn't really I knew nothing about transgender human beings um when I was in college I loved to go out to the gay bars with a friend of mine he he was gay and we would just dance all night long and I never felt threatened I never felt like my safety was uh an issue because the guys there weren't interested in me and um plus the music just rocked it was great it's the best music ever in those bars um so like I said I am a mother of three girls so my middle child and my youngest child are my transgender daughters and in 2012 my middle child came out to us trans and she was in the middle of her junior year of high school um the way she told us for us worked out really well she was actually in denver I think at some sort of pride event and she sent me a text saying I have a letter for you and dad in my room so I went and got the letter and it was three pages long and explaining that she was trans um what she wanted us to call her um and other details about and then things about things that haven't changed like she still loved keelin pie and you know she was still her just different I mean anyway uh it was it was very shocking to both my husband and I because we had no clue she hid it very very well from us um however by her writing us that letter it gave us time to process our first initial emotions and she didn't have to see the shock and the confusion and oh my god what the heck is going on here um it gave us time to digest it and when she came home we were able to sit down and have a lovely conversation um so for us it was a really great way um for her to come out to us because she didn't have to see that initial shock and and fear and and and whatnot um in the beginning it really wasn't easy we would forget to use the correct pronouns um because she decided she wasn't going to come out publicly until after she graduated from high school to save herself from bullies in high school so at home we had to call her by her her name and use her pronouns but out in public we had to use her dead name and the incorrect pronouns and it got confusing and there were times at home that we would mess up and she wasn't very forgiving at the time so there was a lot of tension so we had to do some counseling um um but slowly over time we all fell into a rhythm and um it got a lot better and then once she came out publicly the day after she graduated she announced it to everybody on social media it was amazing um it made life a lot easier um and then the other thing is that what really helped her father and I accept her transgender being transgender was the the change in her personality prior to her coming out to us she was a very sullen angry person and we loved her as our child but we really didn't like being around her very much because she was unpleasant to be with um after she came out and saw that we were going to accept her and um you know that was it her personality took a a change and she's probably out of my three girls now my most loving and uh sweetest um sends me the most beautiful mother days card it always makes me cry oh yeah this is so seeing that personality change really you know told her dad and I that this was the right path and this is who she is and we're gonna accept her um um and then in 2017 our youngest came out as transgender right after she graduated from high school and she'd been in communication with her sister and she also wrote us a letter and once again I was very grateful because my reaction the second time was a little different from my reaction the first time I actually got very angry not at my child but at the universe for putting two of my children down this very difficult frightening path as a parent to see their children possibly being victims of hate crimes or being discriminated against because of who they were and I was just so mad so I was really glad that she didn't have to see that because she might have misinterpreted my anger and thought it was directed at her and it and it really wasn't it was just the universe it was like it was angry um and I also thought well I've been down this road before it's going to be easy oh the second time it was actually a lot harder my youngest suffered a lot from depression uh there was a time when we thought she was going to commit suicide so there's a lot of counseling um now her meds and every and her counseling everything is really well she's she's doing so well she's in school she was on the president's list for a 4.0 uh grade average she's looking at going to england to finish her schooling which is something she wouldn't have done two years ago um so I'm very proud of the progress that she's made but thinking that the two journeys would be the same was really silly of me but I for some reason I thought it would be uh the same but it wasn't um let's see I was also very worried about telling my family about my my girls uh they're you know Catholic um but my mom and dad and my sister and my oldest daughter they're just very accepting um you know never been and dad had some questions but he uses the right names he uses the pronouns everything's great my brother on the other hand is not so accepting in fact in December he we were all together for my dad's birthday and he said something very um insulting and when I called him on it later in private he just kind of shrugged it off so my relationship with my brother is pretty much on the shelf um because my kids are more important than my brother and and they come first I'm here because I'm a mama bear um I'll do anything to protect my kids and anyone else actually in the LGBTQ community I do a lot of work with the youth camp that outboulder has and they call me mama queer that's my nickname um and um I just I love working with the kids and being there for them if they need me thank you thank you so much your work is absolutely amazing and we're also very grateful to have you in the community thank you um I'll go ahead and wrap it up with a bit of my story um like I said my name is stroll I am a queer man I'm very outwardly queer um a little bit about my back story I'm also of Indigenous descent my family is from Mexico and and we kind of migrated a little bit north over time I've always liked to joke that over time we're going to end up in Canada just because slowly it's if it's happening more and more north um growing up actually my story was very very I don't want to say unique but it was kind of different than what I saw other people in my life going through I was I didn't come into my sexuality until much later in my life um growing up sadly my mother dealt with uh an autoimmune disease and she was a single mother so it was just me and her because I was also the only son so I I always told myself I just don't have time to think about this whenever I'd have family members ask me like hey you got a girlfriend yet when I was like 12 I barely knew how to play with Play-Doh um I would tell them no I'm too busy you know helping my mother out and a lot of my my day-to-day life was honestly just you know cooking and cleaning and and helping my mom and figuring out doctor's appointments and learning how to advocate for herself um and you know that's the why a lot of my attention went to and things got a little bit more complicated early in high school because I started showing some of the same symptoms that she did um surprise it's hereditary um so I always told myself I don't have time to think about like my identity on the lgbt spectrum right now like I'll worry about that next week and I'll worry about it next month and the most incredible frustrating thing is that your individuality your identity no matter how much you try to ignore it's going to demand to be heard at some point it will scream at you to be heard and boy did it scream at me my last year in high school I really thought I'd get away without having to deal with it in high school um alas I fell in love with a classmate uh he was this dorky lovable guy and I just found myself falling so hard for him he was in one of my chemistry classes needless to say almost failed that chemistry class um but you know to each their own um fast forward a little while I I discovered at that point that okay I I'm I'm I'm queer I'm gay I'm on that spectrum awesome no one else needs to know about this I kind of have to just figure it out by myself and then kind of worry about other things um you know being the only child to a single mother who's dealing with an autoimmune disease it was a lot of pressure like go to college be as successful as you can focus on your studies and that's what I really tried to do as hard as I could so I went to college and over time you know I just couldn't help it I found myself getting really mad around my family when they would make slide remarks about the queer people in my family oftentimes it felt like the bad things that happened to them happened because they were queer and not just because bad things happened to people randomly you know uh X person would get fired from their job and it was because they were queer that they got fired not just because you know the business went out of company or business right it was always always linked to the fact that you know my aunt is a lesbian or my uncle's gay it you know and that always felt really really bad for me especially because my family was so involved in local christian churches and it felt like you know a place that was meant to be a community for me kind of started feeling like well are the bad things that are happening to me because I'm gay like do I have this autoimmune disease because I'm gay and god that was so awful to think about and consider I in like my my sophomore year of college I have a trip planned to Seattle you know it was my first trip out of the state by myself I was so excited it was gonna be for like a week and I thought to myself I can't hold this back anymore so I told my mom it was a three and a half hour conversation it lasted until four in the morning and then I went to Seattle the next day I was like thanks mom see you in a week um you know I I I felt a little bit petty doing it but it just made sense to me because I knew that this was gonna hit her hard and it did it did very much hit her hard and I came back and it kind of stayed away from the house for a little bit you know not not not necessarily because she asked me to or because our relationships was destroyed but because I just felt like it was necessary and I stayed away from the house I had fantastic friends chosen family we'll get you through everything um and then over time our relationship kind of started getting rebuilt you know I go to my junior year of college fall in love with another man and sadly he ends up breaking my heart you know um it happens to a lot of people obviously we wouldn't have a genre film about it I go to my mom and you know I she didn't even know that I was dating anyone at that point you know it was one of those things that we just didn't talk about and I just came in and she looked me in the eyes and said Mijo are you okay and I just broke down crying and wailing and it's like clockwork she knew exactly what had happened she knew exactly what happened she just hugged me and told me that I love you it's okay and it was the first time ever that we actually talked about me being queer and her being the most loving supportive person that she could be at that moment I was so happily surprised um at least that ex did something good for me um and then I ended up I graduated CU Boulder with a degree in philosophy and mathematics I now work at an immigration law firm and kind of I'm able to work with not just um queer individuals but also um immigrants and POCs and I'm able to kind of give back to my community in that way and it's it's such a blessing but it has been definitely a difficult journey being that person who's constantly out and wants to come out like Garrison said it can be kind of exhausting feel like you always have to come out but it's something that I'm also proud of because there are people who are much younger than me who I would be so grateful for if they had someone like me um makes me sound super egotistical but but yeah just having someone to to tell them hey like it's going to be okay at some point you know just kind of get through it and and one day you'll find that pride so yeah that that's kind of my story thank you guys so much for letting us talk um happy to talk about any specific questions or conversations as well um well I just wanted to say thank you so much for coming all of you I think that you know just the diversity of stories and you coming in as an ally and sharing that you know the other side of it um is just really important and um you know going back and then and sharing uh your time and energy and passion with the work that you do uh to create that kind of a safe and accepting space for the youth that come through um the outbuilder programs um I just wanted to talk about so like speaking out does go to like uh high schools and middle schools and um a lot of the kids that are in our program are in middle school right now and kind of going into high school and um like in in the work that you do it's just such a an interesting kind of Salama like when when do you come out like is it because I just feel like middle school and high school are just torturous anyway um you know toxic yes and then like the work that you do with these middle schoolers and high schoolers um you know if if a child is um you know how do they how do they control their their representation and how do you talk to them about um you know coming out and owning your your gender affirmation or anything like that like what kind of conversations do you have around that uh for me I think the the first thing that I always like to emphasize to to the community is is the importance of safety um the Boulder bubble is very much a real thing you know there are a lot of communities that you know and it's an amazing thing something that we should in a lot of ways be grateful for that like they can grow up and and and identify with who they are and their sexuality and their gender identity and and be accepted for the most part in in their like chosen family and in their community but I always emphasize to others you know homophobia hasn't gone away transphobia has not disappeared bigotry is still very much part of this world sadly and you know we're all fighting to tear that down to to make sure that you know those that want to identify as who they are and need to can do so safely but you know there are situations where one has to be cautious you know it's always important to remember you know don't force someone out of the closet just because you think that they're safe um because you don't know that you never know that um it's always important to ask questions if you're an ally like verify with that person that they're in an okay position and recognize them just because you know you've had kind of a safer okay time coming out that doesn't mean it's going to be the same for other people and be there for like as a shoulder for them if they need it yeah and I think that they're just there is that natural time where um one comes to their own terms and for me actually like my the coming out from to myself journey happened when I was dating a girl that in my high school and I found myself um like wanting to kiss another boy and I'm like I and he wanted to kiss me and I said like I can't I'm in a relationship and I realized like wait a minute like why was I like why were the butterflies happening in my stomach in this situation but then like like in my relationship I'd ever felt that and so there's there's this natural um progression that happens in each person's journey and I think it's happening younger with our generation and the younger generations because the language is there like our our rainbow elders have not uh like many didn't get to know that gay was even a term until a high school like a college or beyond and so um I think that that having this language and having these conversations is the first way to get that that conversation going and each person's journey is different and I think on the other side of the coin the coming out process is um is difficult in the sense that the the fear of what might happen can eat away at someone and actually can be um its own damaging property and not let being able to be open and honest and um and out so um there's there's dangers on both sides that when someone holds something in for too long it also has its own implications and so that's for the individual to wrestle with and that's what makes the coming out process something that is not an easy thing to do yeah but it's definitely something like I want to touch base on something that you said in your story Christine it's definitely something that's so worth it similar to to to your daughter's how you kind of mentioned at some point you know this complete transformation of their expression and their personality and and the way that they get along I noticed that with myself I thought I was this introverted shy mean rude person and then I realized like no I was just in the closet and that actually took a toll on my well-being and when I finally came out similarly like I was like this I realized that I'm actually really talkative and sometimes won't shut up so I really relate it to that part of your story because it's something that I very much feel and I feel like a lot of people in our community feel that transformation truly yeah definitely and then I wanted to talk garrison you mentioned because this is the caregivers conference it's really about you know sharing information with caregivers of how to create that safe space at home when you are I think it was your mother reacted with fear but it came from a place of love and I think that that as a parent of a non-binary child myself that was definitely something that I felt like oh well what if you know the world doesn't treat them the way that you know what if they're mean or what if they become a victim of a hate crime or anything like that like but it was kind of stopping me from just being like find the people that love and celebrate you and really that's that's all everyone is trying to do right so I think that that is definitely something that as caregivers you know that's the first reaction you want to protect your child you want to mama bear them but then it's like you be you and let the world see how wonderful you are and it really is like if they're not ready for you then then that's on them I agree like for me my mother became my rock after I kind of came out and and had that whole experience you know if I ever felt unsafe or insecure I would call her I'd just be like hey can we just talk you know and and I feel like caregivers are going to feel that anxiety and are going to know it and frankly as members of the OTPT community and being queer yeah you know we can't sit here and pretend that like these statistics don't exist that that that the trouble that the the the bullying the the aggression doesn't exist but having someone in your life that you know worries for you but isn't going to stop you from being who you are is such an amazing thing it really is just magic I'm not sure if either of you want to talk about what that kind of feeling especially you Christine from that yeah as my youngest um she's not very outgoing she's quite the introvert but she now and then does go out on dates and they're always someone that she's met online and you know online dates can be nerve-wracking because but I just have to trust her that she's done enough vetting of this person that she's meeting and that they're meeting in a public place because she is in her turning 23 oh gosh in two weeks yeah happy early birthday to your daughter I have another one that's turning 28 on Thursday told me by those presents um but you know I do worry if she's going out but I just have to hope and trust that she's she's vetted this person and that she'll be safe and you know I would worry about all three of my girls but there is an added layer being trans that they could be being pulled into an unsafe situation somebody who's tricked them to hurt them because of who they are instead of just being a girl yeah but being a trans girl there's an added layer of worry and I can imagine that that can always be a little bit like that's always on the back of your mind I imagine yeah yeah yeah yeah but I said I just have to trust that she's done her her diligence and keep my fingers crossed that she comes home safe and so far she has yeah and you know I guess I mentioned something about like our rainbow elders the people who came before us who who like paved this road of of developing this language developing um like letting our voices be heard before us and we do live in a blessed time that this kind of exists and and we you know it always existed but now people see it more and have the vocab for it so hoping for a future where that anxiety isn't there you know but yeah you know work needs to be done yeah there definitely is always work work needs to be done um and you know the the topic of what we wanted to talk about was that those microaggressions and um that definitely is kind of one of the things that we wanted to address you know as caregivers um and parents you know you want to say the right thing you want to say the most supportive thing the most the thing that's going to make your child feel the most seen um but if you're not up on the language or if you don't do the research or if you don't like look online like what's the most PC way to say this you could be kind of falling into those microaggressions that you don't even really mean to say um so is there any way like I know you talked about getting pronouns wrong and and that's definitely um it it is kind of like a journey and difficult um but as far as like getting pronouns correct like is there any kind of direction that you can give on like if you make a mistake what should you do or kind of having that kind of experience well the um well they always say is if you get the pronouns wrong and you realize it you say oh and you say sorry and you correct it and you move on you don't continue to apologize you don't continue guys oh I'm so sorry I really didn't mean to do that I'm just oh my gosh I'm because then that puts the burden on the person that you've just missed pronouned um and that's not where it needs to be right you know so you just you correct yourself and you move on my husband has a bad um he has a hard time with the they them pronouns and he's always using the binary shear him when it's supposed to be they and I'm constantly just going they they and he'll just change it and go and go on but he's very bad about remembering and and so far everybody's just been okay whatever that's just my husband and he's just your head sometimes yeah I think you know for me something that's helped a lot and like my work is I will always start by introducing myself and then my pronouns right after that um you know just in general I feel like that creates an environment where where people are free to share and you know and it also you know if you ask someone directly you know what their pronouns are it kind of puts again the burden on on them when they're just kind of trying to exist and you know being in a you know conversation so for me I found that you know introducing myself in the starting with the pronouns always works fantastic um and also kind of hold not just yourself accountable but other people even when there's not a single queer person in the room it is it it's it will help so much if you just hold other people accountable even if there's no other queer individual around just because you know respecting someone means respecting them even when they're not there um and I think you know it puts more pressure on the community not like allies and the greater community as a whole like hey like this is what being an ally means and you know like like you said with your husband it's it's it's just a matter of he or they or she just like quickly intervening and hold people accountable definitely yeah and I love how yeah I mean I think that both of you have touched on exactly what I was thinking is um you know just making that that subtle quick correction moving on and also respecting the individual space when even when they're not there and it again when other people are saying it too like I like it's it's up to all of us to just quickly be like they and just it doesn't have to be a big deal about it and so because because humans tend to be well intentioned and we want to do the right thing and so if we just give them that grace and like have that moment makes a big difference something I tell a lot of people in these speaking out panels when I'm in person at the schools is um I know it can be kind of you know hard or like different for you but if you can sit and like learn algebra if you can learn calculus like these other complicated things you know learning human relationships and interpersonal connections definitely going to be used every day definitely going to be used every day and it's worth your attention not to say that calculus isn't important but come on you know it's definitely worth paying attention to and then teaching yourself from an early age to be respectful of other people and what that means in its entirety um so I guess Christine I kind of wanted to ask you because I know that um you know the people that are watching there might be a lot of allies that want to get more involved um but don't know how or might feel like they don't really understand enough to get involved like do you have any kind of um advice or you know maybe share your journey of how you got more involved well I got involved without boulder back in 2016 when they opened up their long month office um my middle daughter was attending their gender identity support group and um when I got heard about the office opening up I asked her if I could come to the event because I really didn't want to step on her toes and I didn't want to be a helicopter mom so I asked her permission and she said I could go to the event and then when I was there they um they were looking for volunteers so then I asked her if I could sign up as a volunteer I said I'll just stay in long month because she was in boulder and she's like sure so I started out as just a front desk volunteer like three hours a week answering the phone greeting people who came in that's a great way to um to get started um but within six months I became the volunteer volunteer coordinator yeah so for three three and a half years I was the volunteer coordinator for out boulder um and that was a lot I mean I was putting in over 600 hours a year volunteering um and so I'm a big proponent of just coming in and volunteering there's so many different things COVID obviously put a screeching halt to a lot of volunteerism but it's starting to build back up again um so if you have questions and you want to know more just volunteer um that's a great way because I learned so much as a volunteer I learned about all these different pronouns that they're out there I've learned what words not to use uh I think I want to talk more about that okay um you know um and how things have also progressed uh what used to be okay uh we don't really say anymore um and so it's been a wonderful learning experience as an ally of how to how to what words to use and how to use them and what words not to use yeah so I mean you don't have to volunteer without boulder there's so many other organizations around LGBTQ organizations but Google is your ally yeah um you know like I said I'm also on the board of directors now for PFLAG which is a great organization and if you're not familiar with that that's uh an organization that supports it gives support for parents and friends and family so that's a great place if you're an ally and you have a lot of questions PFLAG is is a great place to go to they even have support groups for for the allies who have with questions yeah and we definitely want to share these resources so I think that um you know after the event we'll put them into the YouTube um and the Facebook comments and and the discussion so that uh if there's anyone that wants to you know reach out to speaking out or find out more about PFLAG or um the new youth room and offerings at out boulder definitely um you know we want to be able to make that as accessible as possible so we will share that information as well um I think one of the larger things that uh putting together this caregivers conference was something about what you I just said the one I said we'll come back to that about using the wrong language is that you know caregivers want to use the right language but um you know as far as I've heard other coming out stories and it's like oh don't worry we love you no matter what or like you know and then those it seems like a great thing to say you know like we love you no matter what happens but it kind of makes it sound like um we love you despite this yes exactly which I think is like you know you're coming from a place of love but it ends up being really terrible language to use so um as far as a uh alternative do you have an alternative for somebody that's like oh maybe would need this language sometime soon um one of the things that my friends said to me when I was coming out is they they looked at me and they said what do you need right now um and at that moment I had come out to a few people and and and they you know took it very seriously and and I appreciated that in complete regard but with this friend I was very much like I just wanted to laugh I just wanted to giggle and laugh and then it turned into a cry but they just started off by asking what do you need right now to feel loved and I just said I just want to laugh and I ended up crying and and it was a beautiful experience and um I think as caregivers sometimes we we are so um we we want to be so like helpful and protective and helpful and sometimes it's nice to just kind of take a step back and ask the person what what do you need right now for me um and it'll do wonders at least from my perspective I've seen that Harrison yeah I also think um when in doubt um having this attitude of gratitude I mean just being thankful that someone who is willing to open up to you and share this very uh what maybe a very personal thing for them like and maybe maybe they're free like they're comfortable with coming out in the process or maybe this is the you're the first person that they're telling and um so I think like it yeah the the intention can always be um well received when it's when there's a moment of thanks for sharing the information I'd also just like to say I would not recommend acting like you're walking on eggshells in in general um I remember I I you know in my journey I've also told a couple older like some professors and some teachers and and you know it very much felt like I don't want to say the wrong thing and kind of stumbling on every word and super because it makes me feel like I I'm I'm very like oh they're gonna hurt me or or I feel very like sensitive or delicate I don't you know sometimes that can be a little bit like oh I'm like am I putting a kind of like a burden on you in in some way and and you know I it's hard because a lot sometimes you may have genuinely no idea what to say and that's okay you know for me that's why I always say you know it comes from a place of gratitude and a place of just asking and then kind of taking a bit of a step back and also recognizing that you know open your worldview a little bit recognize you know if you're going to be a parent maybe your child is going to come out a little bit differently than you think they're going to and that's okay and that can be hard um but it's definitely a process I think these are all really good things for communication just in general like asking what somebody might need from you and you know it doesn't have to be this rocket science but that gratitude and then asking I think that's fantastic and I don't know the thing is oftentimes you know I feel like you people will say the wrong thing sometimes or people will say something that like kind of hurts or stings or lingers with you you know don't don't put yourself on a pedestal of thinking you have to say the right thing all the time always as well um that's okay too yeah we're faulty yeah we're we're faulty you know I as a queer man I also sometimes like just because I'm queer doesn't mean that I I'm not like free of guilt of sometimes saying the wrong thing you know I I I represent a thin sliver of the lgbt community and you know we we in the community must also learn how to respect the others in our community you know they're there there's this priest like this idea this cognition that like because you're gay you can't say anything wrong or do anything wrong and that is so not correct don't don't hold yourself to standard of everything you say has to be perfect and also recognize that you can also be faulty and that's okay and recognize that with your community and you know we're all fallible but you know having the attitude of wanting to be better wanting to communicate and and learn is always kind of where we want to be I would I would say yeah did you have anything that you wanted to share Steve I wanted to share no thank you all so much for being here I mean I think that you know of course everybody's story coming out story everybody's story of like communicating these kind of heart issues is is really serious and I think that last point that you make that you know people in the lgbtq community also need to be open-minded right yeah I've I've recently had a like a colleague from another university um speak to me about a colleague that they had who was dead naming a student and that and that colleague was lgbtq that was a queer person was dead naming another person in this environment and they were like what do I do and I was like you can just say and this person is since straight and they were like what can I say I can't say anything this person they're queer they're like how could I say anything and I was like no you can say something and then she she did and I was like yeah just just say that's not their name you know that's not their preferred pronouns and move on right and just correct it right there in the meeting and I think that they that and then she was like oh I can do that and I was like yeah you ally you can do it like it's yeah yeah you can pull that card and say hey that's that's not exactly how she likes to be called and I think that that's you know important for us to realize that you know everybody in the queer communities to change and grow and learn from each other and listen right and when somebody says something that's you know that hurts me and just because it doesn't hurt you doesn't mean it doesn't hurt somebody else and I think that sometimes we um elder queers I am a I am a senior millennial um I stole that from Ruby who was here before uh that is such a great phrase I know it's better than elder no what are they calling geriatric millennials oh I hate that that feels like a hate cry oh I know that's not okay I'm like senior millennial I prefer or organ trail generation is fine um I'm totally okay that but I think that sometimes you know as as generations move forward you know there's always like there could be misunderstandings and I would hate to be that older queer person who doesn't like grow you know and I think that it's important for us to grow together and speak to each other and have those conversations even in our queer cohorts yes can be you know it can be really hard to just see that change especially when getting your own slice of that pie your own thin slice it's such a struggle sometimes you know and then once you have that slice people can sometimes feel threatened that other somebody wants some of the pie but there's a plenty of high plenty take space and give space take space and give space exactly thank you so much um absolutely thank you Elaine sorry didn't mean to put you on this no it's no that was fantastic no I can do this all day we'll just keep going um so we still have a little time and I kind of wanted to talk about um you know these these younger kids um there is a lot more representation in the media and um um I kind of wanted to get your take on that like is that yes you know obviously there'll be good representation and then there will be not so great representation um and you kind of just have to pull some things from each of them is there anything like as um you know kind of tips to caregivers like what would you say you should watch don't watch this is not a great representation um well one of my favorite shows right now is uh Star Trek Discovery and there is a transgender and a non-binary two characters on the show and they address pronouns somebody uses the wrong pronouns and they they addressed how to do that um it's and and and the characters are played by transgender and a non-binary um actors and I just love it I love the way that they're they're oh and there's also a gay couple on the show who have kind of taken and they're older and they've taken the young younger because the younger are also a couple and they've taken them under their wings and protect them and guide them and it's just amazing to watch so I'm a big Trekkie fan I have been since the original series um so yay um so that's a good one yes is that on paramount plus I think it is yeah just plug in good yeah paramount send us a check yeah spawns and not spawns one it's really cool um oh my goodness so I you know I when I came I was definitely in that age when you know producers and directors were kind of starting to tackle um cartoons or animated side and for me like I it sounds ridiculous for a 25 year old queer man to say but Steven universe made me cry cry like literally bawling in the middle of the night because you know it's the first cartoon meant for kids to have a sam sex couple get married um and it's ridiculous that it took so long to to get to that point but like my god was it beautiful and just like representing you know non-binary people representing um same sex relationships and it's fantastic because it also does a great job you know we a lot of times people can be think that like oh if you're representing lgbt people that can be you know if you express something bad about them it's wrong but lgbt people are just people you know they they have their flaws they have their character arcs they have their villain arc their redemption arc um and shows that can incorporate the like how dynamic the lgbt q community can be is fantastic by me so I oftentimes like to say you know a lot there's been a lot of growth and happening and tv meant for the younger generation that some older queers are like loving and super happy and proud to say that that's finally happening I thought I thought you were gonna say adventure time that's well Rebecca sugar worked on adventure time yes she left kind of because it was bro bro broville yeah and she started making adventure time and then through the process of fans writing her she realized she was queer after she started making Steven Universe which is this whole other level right her art was like oh actually this is inside of me oh I love that show too it's it makes me so happy I've watched it so many times too many honestly I for Valentine's Day my part I got my partner some like portraits of of Steven Universe I just think you know it gives me like a sense of nostalgia like I wish I had that when I was younger just because it's it's so lovely to see on tv and on the screen um but yeah for me I definitely recommend going from there because sometimes they play with ideas that we didn't get to see yeah that's great there's I I don't have a single um recommendation just because there's so much out there and I love that like there's like we've come a long way from Will and Grace and I I think it's like I think like just putting yourself out like I by now I think that they're like we've we're at a point where it would be hard to find me like find someone who said I've never seen any media representation of a queer like person and I think that's great because I think it helps break the stereotypes that were so often portrayed in tv or in media earlier and I'd still also challenge to that of these are representations and they're not necessarily like the actuality of someone's experience and like I mean for me some of my coming out process was having the difficulty of that like I remember Lady Gaga came out with um art pop and I didn't like it and I'm like does that make me a bad game? Oh no that's just the arm on. Yes. Like and it's just so silly but it was actually a thought that I had so um I think like um in being yourself um you know I think that is great that that there is more tv now than ever for people to actually see themselves in cinema and see themselves in music um and so yeah um I I think that's a great thing. Yeah and I think things like um so the the cutie BIPOC community is being represented a little bit more so queer and trans people of color um it's hard to talk about representation in media without talking about pose because my goodness was it just absolutely groundbreaking yeah absolutely groundbreaking and it's it's that intersectionality that's super important to also like look for in your media and look for in your community you know I'm not just a queer man I'm also brown I'm also an indigenous person and pose did such a fantastic job of of not just showing that representation but teaching history um for our younger audience out there maybe don't watch pose until you're a little older but or generation what have you guys seen that generation it's on HBO and I kind of you know we don't have time to talk about it but I don't know whether that is like a positive representation or maybe not the best representation but like there's you know when we when we deal with these teens and these middle schoolers and high schoolers there's so much like community and family building and like your chosen family in these shows but then it's like kind of gets into the racy stuff too so I'm like okay you're 13 we'll watch it maybe later the internet you know I think that that's true you know okay so I'm actually working on a syllabus for a queer media class right now for next spring so we're all see you bolder um and so I'm really excited I'm really excited it's the first like queer themed class I'm gonna teach uh as professor I'm super excited and the uh it's there's so much content right and there's so many ways that queer people used to only be seen on like Geraldo right especially trans people would always be like on Oprah as like the tragedy right and that's like how people would be seen for so many years and then now it's just this content explosion where there's you know euphoria where you know I you know I won't go to it but no no it's controversial controversial subject um but even something as wild as like a a redux of old media like shira like the contemporary version of shira is so super queer so I think I have to watch it you'd like Steven universe yes yeah it's amazing much to my partners is like I'm like watching until three in the morning I know it's addictive I definitely spend a spring break watching shira yeah that was for sure what did you do spring break nothing definitely didn't just watch shira for the whole break your papers will be created as soon as possible oh yeah exactly and I you know I love the question of media is so important I think I grew up in a very rural town there were 700 people and we were close to a town with 1400 people and they had a video store and so we'd go there and you'd like look for the maybe this video has a queer trans person in it that you can see or there was a store that had like British imports and like they had queers folk like the british version and we would like take it out and then like watch it in your room and then like put the vhs into the bed and like return them very late or even watching shows like Oz which is like not for teenagers right but there were queer characters in this prison drama so I would watch it and I had no interest in this prison aspect of it right and then you're like oh okay Christopher Maloney is queer in the show I can handle it but now there's just so many avenues and venues and I would also say that when people are young and trying to figure this out I mean tiktok is amazing as far as like just hearing stories of real people we talk about representation going beyond the idea of it being produced right what if it's actually coming directly from queer voices bipark voices like in the space and living their lives I mean queer tiktok is healing sometimes terrible as well like any other form of me yes yes but a lot of times it's just like glorious and so I highly and I'm sure parents don't want me to hear me say this but I highly recommend tiktok and all the teens are like don't tell my parents about tiktok you're ruining it as you speak well cool well thank you so much for joining us and for sharing your journeys and your stories and for kind of just talking to us about you know everything today so we are gonna head out of here Luis who you met in the panel before is going to talk about his outfit and share a little bit what was the the lolita man I can't remember what it's called we're going to see the video in a minute well yeah so Luis will tell you all about that the lolita version and then we are going to head into a panel with Oasis and we're going to talk about youth advocating for change and Oasis is program for youth leadership as well as kind of just know your rights and just a discussion of what it's like to advocate for LGBTQIA youth in schools so thank you so much for joining us and um my pleasure thank you so much thank you my name is Luis yihem and this is my slay the runway outfit the aesthetic I took inspiration from is the lesser known traditionally masculine counterpart to lolita fashion called oji oji means prince in japanese and both it and lolita take the popular styles of western europe in the 18th and 19th centuries and make them a little more modern and a little bit more cutesy the parts of the outfit I made myself include this vest and these breeches which I am very obviously having fun showing off here is the full vest I found these gray and gold fabrics at the arc thrift store and my thought was corporate rikoko I then wanted to have this gold fabric picking out underneath and I thought that two diamond patterns and the hints of gold on the gray fabric would work really well together here's the vest from the back I actually had to use this black fabric because I ran out of gray fabric but I think it made the vest look really sharp I then added this little button thing to make the back look less plain from behind on that point when I first tried on my vest in the mirror my mom said that from the backer reminded her of seto kaiba from yugio which I took as a huge compliment these are the breeches I actually took a pair of black pants and simply shortened and hemmed them I added a little split on the side which I think looks really nice I then bought this shirt and these tights to complete the corporate rikoko look here are my notes and sketches as you can see by my note at the top I took a bit of inspiration from shinchio from genjin impact namely his long coat tails I think his outfit is actually rather oji like already and I actually have a little bit of gender envy for him so yeah in conclusion I definitely recommend this program to anyone who's interested it was great building a sense of camaraderie with everyone else and working hard to you know express our genders in the way that we want to and be accepted for like whatever like the heck we wanted to do with that and I was in the long mark group so I was with elaine and she was very accommodating to my slow processing speed and she was very kind and great and I wish I could do this program again I can't because I'm 18 and I'll be 19 by the time it happens again I think but it was an amazing experience I definitely recommend if you can do like being a part of it yourself or helping to support it um and the final run away was thrilling I forgot that part but that was amazing um yeah welcome back so we are here with oasis and that's actually oasos so it's an acronym they are with boulder county public health and oasis stands for open and affirming sexual orientation and gender identity support so oasis is for lesbian gay bisexual transgender questioning intersex and asexual lgbt qia plus youth 13 through 18 and then 12 with parent and garden guardian permission um so I am here with the whole crew and I just wanted to introduce myself to you because you guys have been in the green room and we've been in here so my name's elaine waterman she her pronouns I am gray ace and I am the executive director at the firehouse art center and I'll pass it I'll say thanks so much elaine um my name's jack scanzalis I use they them pronouns and the I'm the program coordinator for oasis my name is sienna I use she her pronouns and I've been with the yak for a year and a half ish now my name is tommy winebaum I use they them pronouns and I'm a program specialist focusing on school based services with oasis uh my name's laurel I use any pronouns and this is my third year with the yak okay so you're saying the yak and what is that awesome uh so yak stands for uh youth advocating for change and we are a youth leadership group which is facilitated by oasis um so we work in partnership with sexual and diverse youth sexual and gender diverse youth in uh boulder county to change the cultural systemic and internalized oppressions that affect us by means of open conversation and education with uh communities to create a boulder county that values the voices and experiences of sexual and gender diverse youth so we've worked with several other groups in boulder county including sisaap which is community substance abuse prevention uh out boulder county glow mesa which is moving to end sexual assault and shape uh which is sexual health awareness and peer education along with several other groups um we uh do education and provide resources for many adults in um uh it's working in education uh we work with educator educators teachers and parents in uh boulder valley school district and uh st brain valley school district um and we also work to provide uh resources for gsa's we work to um organize events with other uh organizations and so much more right thank you i that totally sounded stage but was not stage so i hope i didn't take that away from a different okay cool yeah so i wanted to share a little bit about why this is important right so um i'm going to talk share a little bit about risk and protective factors for youth in for lgbc cube plus youth um nationally and this is what we're working on here in boulder county um so as you see on your screen the national um school climate survey by glisten came out a couple years ago and 86 percent of lgbtq plus youth are still experiencing harassment discrimination um based on their characteristics including sexual orientation and gender identity and gender expression um so even as we have more progressive policies and supports in place this is still something that's happening um and we know that um supporting youth supporting lgbtq plus youth um provides them more opportunity and not just to exist and survive through school but to thrive and find joy um so for example the same survey showed that um folks who have their pronouns and names respected um by everyone living in their homes um have half the rate of attempted suicide as as those who don't have that um so the the affirmation and support that we provide and that families and schools provide can really drastically impact mental health in a positive way or in a negative way um so supporting lgbtq plus youth is more about risk it's also about providing joy and belonging um and providing these opportunities for for folks to thrive um the trevor project is a really incredible national organization who also recently did a survey and spoke about how um having affirming spaces in schools uh seen positive examples of lgbtq plus people in their curriculum in history learning about um these folks and having um uh visible signs of support in schools contribute to a sense of belonging and joy in schools and school policies um and the existence of gsa's in schools are another another thing that really support and are you thin thriving so in other words we we need more of that we want to keep growing that so folks are not just getting by but really finding that sense of of joy and belonging thanks so much tommy so why are we here today the first slide said know your rights um and uh the couple yakkers here with us are gonna provide some context for us in talking about the rights for lgbtq youth in the state of colorado so here on the screen i have a bill from last year uh that's hb 21-1108 or 1108 um and it was signed into law and it expanded um prohibitions against discrimination so the law specifically calls out the need to protect all regardless of disability race creed color sex uh sexual orientation gender identity gender expression marital status national origin or ancestry in all places of public accommodation and that was ruled to include schools and so what we know about that in the work that we do in schools and the work that we do with youth in supporting youth to advocate for themselves is that the law is on their side and that's really important um to knowing how to support your kids in schools and so the act are going to present on the most relevant uh legal protections both laurel and sienna are going to present on these legal protections for lgbtq youth in boulder county uh in the next slides and we can share this information afterwards if y'all reach out with us um and i just want to give a caveat um that this isn't all of your rights it's just the most relevant ones um and we're compiling federal state and district policies here um important we're not attorneys uh we are movement workers we are um activists moving towards liberation together um so this shouldn't be interpreted interpreted as legal advice um and we can't ask because of that we can't answer questions about like specific cases um but we're giving you kind of a roadmap for engaging and making sure that your school is giving you the support that you need um so well we can give you um some other resources if if you do need legal support and i will pass it over to sienna okay awesome um according to this law that jack's just um presented and talked about you cannot be discriminated against in educational activities classes athletics counseling employment assistance or extracurricular activities according to due to your identity in any situation yeah exactly which is what i will point out here is that um it also includes gender expression and so you don't have to identify as transgender or non-binary um it can just be about the way that you're presenting yourself that's still protected then i'll pass it back over to laurel so uh rights of all students include the right to use uh any gendered facilities such as locker rooms restrooms dressing rooms dorms or lockers um so all students have the right to use these facilities consistent with their gender identities um students can request to use a single stall bathroom to protect their privacy um students are have the right to be referred to by the name that they and the name and pronouns that they identify with um so the colorado civil rights commission prohibits referring to an individual with a name or pronoun that misgenders them on purpose um and students also have the right to uh dress according to the gender that they identify with um and the dress code should apply equally with all students so as jacks just said uh gender identity or not gender identity gender expression isn't something that you can be discriminated uh that can be uh differently enforced within students regardless of their gender identity next we are going to talk about when bullying becomes like crosses the line of discrimination and or harassment um some pieces of when it would cross the line or what it would look like when it crosses the line would be when it becomes repetitive when it becomes severe when it limits any ability any of someone's abilities to do things or go certain places and it can if it is based on sex sexual orientation gender identity or gender expression it could also be considered sexual harassment so uh students have the right uh not to endure bullying in any man in any manner including written verbal or online and bullying is defined as when someone coerces or intimidates another person to have control over them or to cause them physical mental or emotional harm so bullying as sienna said becomes harassment when it's based on someone's protected class um and bullying include includes physical acts such as gestures or objects um this bullying turns into harassment when um those gestures or objects are related to groups that engage in activities motivated by bias or based on hate um students are protected from bullying or harassment on district property at district or school sanctioned events and in vehicles dispatched by the district such as bus drivers um and as i said before if bullying is based on a protected class that's when it's considered discrimination there are also a few things you could do if your student or child is experiencing this type of discrimination or harassment you can report it or file a complaint which is what you should do and you can do it to teachers counselors or principal if you want to do it at a school level you can do it to the district's compliance officer if you'd like to do it at a district level or you think that is necessary and you can reach out to oasis and they will help you with that um jack's email is posted on the slide so um and then you can also go to the office of civil rights in u.s. department of education or you can use safe to tell which is a local confidential program so the school has a few things that is required to do to respond to reports of bullying or harassment um so first the school has to product to uh conduct a prompt thorough and impartial investigation into the reported events they then have to immediately end the harassment communicating with the targeted student on how best to end the harassment and checking in afterwards to make sure that it has ceased um the school is meant to eliminate the hospital environment making sure that the victim no longer feels it is interfering with their ability to participate in school um the school also has to prevent retaliation um prevent the harassment from continuing and provide another opportunity to obtain a benefit that was interfered with or denied by the bullying in the first place um schools are required to provide services to students that were denied benefits based on bullying or harassment and limit interactions between harassers and targets um they also have to determine consequences for harassers for the events that have already happened and possible future consequences for these continued events um so students who engage in bullying or retaliate against a student who in good faith reported bullying can be suspended expelled or referred to law enforcement authorities uh in severe cases awesome thanks y'all so that was a little whirlwind process through some of the laws and protections for youth um in the state of colorado federally and also locally um which is really where our work has has laid and so if you're a parent or a youth or a teacher or an ally um in our community there's a couple different ways to get involved with serving and supporting and um affirming our lgbtq youth so we have two safe schools coalition in boulder county um boulder valley safe schools coalition was started over 10 years ago um and it's the first uh safe schools coalition in the state of colorado and that serves boulder valley school district and then we also have the saint rain valley schools district uh safe schools coalition and that meets every month on the last tuesday of every month um and in that space that is both youth and uh some teachers and district folks but also parents um and youth serving individuals so like some of the partners that laurel mentioned earlier are all in that space and we come together we talk about some puzzles in the district um and we organize together to think about how to make sure that youth are affirmed in our school districts here in boulder county um of course oasis which we mentioned earlier and that's where tommy and i work uh together and then laurel and sienna work with us through the yak um but oasis has weekly groups oasis has a weekly social support kind of drop-in space on thursdays from 4 30 to 6 30 right now we're meeting online but we'll be meeting in person soon again yeah um online means that uh we have a little bit more access for folks maybe who are in the far reaches of boulder county um and the folks who don't have as much services um in other counties as well um and then last i'll mention that there are guidelines for educators working with transgender and gender uh nonconforming youth um from one colorado and it's a really good resource to utilize which has a lot of the language we've included in this presentation um to help you navigate and support your youth in schools um and i'll just emphasize that if you have a a puzzle that you're dealing with or you're feeling like your student is being harassed or bullied in the school system please reach out to us um my email will be is on the bottom of the slide again um and we'll continue to be there so that you can um gain access and we can sit in a meeting um with your administration at the school or just with you we can advocate for you without naming you um whatever that looks like um we'll work together to make sure that you're getting the support that you need in your school system um because as tomi said these are really it's really important that we get youth support in schools they spend more than half their life in schools by the time they're 18 um and it's just a really important space um for us to have for youth um we're gonna shift into kind of like discussion conversation between us now and elaine will um invite some questions from you but we have to start with so i'm gonna hand it over to tomi yeah i'm excited all right who wants to start don't you start well i'm gonna ask you the question here i'll put you on the spot yeah laurel you get to go all right all right so i'm curious if you could share an example of something either that has happened for you that's been affirming in in a school space um or something that you would really love to see happen that would feel affirming to you in school um well something that i generally love to see when it does happen um is teachers um making sure to include uh sexual and gender diverse narratives in their curriculums um for example in language arts and english classes um when including uh queer and transgender authors um um and making sure to teach about their queerness as a part of the curriculum that's something that can feel really affirming and really help a lot of queer students awesome do you have a an example of when that's happened or when something similar has happened when that's happened oh um well when actually this is in my middle school um but when we read the diary of an frank um some uh there are parts in the diary uh that might possibly allude to her queerness um which are excluded from published versions of the book and our teacher taught us about those parts um and had us read about that online which is something that felt really affirming to me as someone discovering my gender identity and sexual identity at the time awesome so just having that conversation yeah and having that pointed out and something to you yeah awesome thanks for sharing Laurel how about you anything that's happened specifically or that you would like to see happen that would be affirming um i don't have anything specifically but i think overall like my i've gotten pretty lucky when it comes to like the openness and affirmingness of my school experiences because i've gone to such open schools part of that is just living in boulder of course but like um i have whenever i've gone to any of my schools or at least my middle and high school from what i can remember there's always been flags everywhere and like people who are um expressing that it's okay to be whatever you want and like a lot of support from fellow students and teachers and there's always opportunities and um i don't think i've ever come upon a situation where there's never um an adult or even a student around who understands what someone is going through or how hard a situation can be for someone so it sounds like there's always been someone or something that says who you are is okay yeah awesome and are there what are some other examples of like how that shows up in school i heard pride flags and people just outwardly saying affirming things yeah yeah um i mean i've also always had the option to participate in a gsa at my schools um which i think is really important because i can be around other people in the same community as me and feel safe and loved by those people yeah having community amongst your peers as well as some of those symbols across the school yeah awesome anything else either of you want to add on that one can i actually ask a question so as far as like um obviously you are very involved in your community but if there was a kiddo that wanted to kind of go to jsa and and didn't like what is the process of of telling kids what is available for them that the school does and i'm kind of supporting them to make that first step um because it could be kind of hard you know uh when you go to gsa if you go by yourself or uh if you don't have anyone to go with like what do you do great question yeah i wonder do either of you have an experience like that so often i think um the best part about a gsa is going to be the members of the gsa um that's at least been my experiences i'm not a huge member of my school's gsa um but you can see it advertised around the school i know that the people in the gsa make a great effort to um reach out to others and to let people know that it's um there it's a resource it's important so i think that um you know the essence of queer youth is often that they attract other queer youth so i think that they can pretty much handle that part by themselves when a school is providing um you know the time and resources available and allowing them to like advertise around the school like my gsa will put up posters and at the school i go to you have to have a little like admin approved stamp to put the posters up wherever you go so just the fact that the school is allowing them to do that um and advertise themselves this is important i think um because you know students are going to be more excited to go to a club when the cool 12th grader with the blue hair is telling them to go to the club versus when their la teacher is telling them to go to the club and um which i was the cool 12th grader with the blue hair the cool future with pink hair yeah i try to take on that persona as an adult as much as possible and just for everyone what does gsa stand for oh uh gsa stands for sexuality and gender and sexuality alliance um some schools also uh referred to their club by saga saga which is sexual wait sexual and gender wait sexuality and gender alliance yes that's what it is that's what a lot of gsa's have been rebranding themselves as to um just like eliminate the like gay straight thing like sexuality and gender alliance but um i've seen gsa's referred to by a few different things these days but they're still essentially the same thing yes some clubs do choose other names to kind of widen what they're doing or also provide a little more safety for folks who aren't ready to say like i go to a gender and sexuality alliance club but might say i go to an allies club um so there's a lot of different ways to frame the club and and to to meet people in intersecting identities as well um like diversity clubs or rainbow clubs things like that so there's a lot of different ways to frame the club itself that might make people feel a little more comfortable jumping in and we're seeing clubs at the elementary level sometimes call themselves skittles middle school middle school they call themselves skittles yeah oh my gosh skittles yeah skittles club pride club oh because of the rainbow i was like yeah there's some really fun fun ones i think you know just to expand on what laura was saying i think you're right laura like getting it out there getting um support from the admin is really key so that you can post yeah as well as do announcements if there's announcements if there's a school paper get it in the school paper um i'd say also get involved in the school like gsa's have this really awesome opportunity to um do presentations or create some um advocacy campaigns if they want to increase awareness maybe about pronoun usage for example they could put together some kind of educational materials get it um supported by by administration and then either do a presentation or put posters up on the walls um there's a lot of cool things they can do hold events do fun things like i think one of the best ways to get more members might be to just hold an open like bring a friend to gsa club day um or throw a little pizza party um do fun things that might get people feeling more comfortable to to walk in the door and then they might realize like oh this is kind of cool i can i can be myself here so anything that that opens the door and lets folks know and i'll add because it's it's my jive to think about this is is that legally um schools if a student wants to bring a gsa to a school if you don't have a gsa in your school go to your principal um we'll find uh an adult who might co-host it with you because you will need an adult um advisor um but the school has to allow you to have the gsa if you have other non-curricular clubs or events at the school like chess club for example would be a non-curricular club um and so if you have any challenges around that or if you just want to start it up and want to know where to go um you can reach out to us as well um and tomi can support you in navigating that then i have another question um so as far as you were talking about how the law protects gender expression um does that carry over to like extracurriculars like choir or band or anything like that okay absolutely yeah um it carries over into anything that is done officially at the school um but due to the fact that the school receives public monies um and so um where it gets more complicated is at the private school level they do not have to follow the same um laws in the state of colorado or broadly federally um because they are not receiving that public funding that's how these schools are held to those regulations um but yeah if the choir is sponsored by the school if the sport is sponsored by the school if the flag competition is sponsored by the school i'm like what is that called when color guard thank you color all right yeah let's you're talking about capture the football or something i mean i capture the flag capture the football i was thinking flag football and then i like okay we're good it's fine i think that's an official um event at the school okay you cannot be discriminated against they they must um make access for you um which is due to title nine um regulations okay yeah we have another question i do yeah can i ask another one i'll start with you you can start with me this time okay okay what is one thing you wish teachers or parents knew about your experience i wish oh this is such a hard question i wish they understood that not everybody's struggle is the same and also that you don't just go through a really difficult challenge with your identity once in one part of your life and then it just ends and you like got it over with because that's not how it works it doesn't just end it's always around and it'll come back sometimes and it'll go away and sometimes it's better than others but it's not yeah it's not always it's not just a finite it's not this is this is the time when you explore your identity and then it's exactly yeah exactly and maybe it's not always challenging either for some it can be fun even exciting exploring those identities right and what does that mean for how like how people support you um i think just like support and like hey are you doing okay today like you know think small things that are just like check-ins and understanding that i'm not always going to be okay in this part of my identity yeah so just leaving space yeah for that evolution yeah thanks so much well yeah uh one thing that i and i think some teachers and some educators do know this but something that i feel like should be a little more well known is that honestly queer kids are going to know more about queer kids than anyone else um a lot of queer youth get really into it and they know a lot about their history they know a lot about their culture they know a lot about their friends they know a lot about themselves and what they're comfortable with um so i think that one of the most powerful things that a teacher or an educator can do is be a really open and affirming listener um and just give students the opportunities to talk you know to express themselves in their gender and to express like what they're interested in in terms of queer history in terms of that sort of thing um i know loads of people who um are sexuality or gender diverse um who have special interests concerning the lgbtq plus community who could talk about it for ages and i think that um teaching becomes a far more open and a far more powerful experience when uh teachers are willing to listen to kids do that totally what's something that's coming up as you're saying that is how much things have shifted too because even folks in my age or older who are part of the lgbtq plus community like things have just shifted language language it's just important to not use you always have something to learn and um like even like i'm i don't think i'm old i'm like 18 but they're always elderly yeah they're always like new things coming up that like i don't know about like um when i first started learning about neo pronouns that was something that i had no idea what that even was and a lot of younger people in the queer community taught me about that so i think it's important that we're all open to learning from everyone uh regardless of age or experience what were you talking neo neo pronouns but that's a whole that's a whole bag of worms yeah yeah yeah there's a how do you explain neo pronouns i feel like neo pronouns are essentially the concept that anything can be a pronoun okay um so for example i know somebody who uses they them very very self so if i were to refer to them in a statement one time yeah so i could refer to them and interchange my reference with them and berry so i could refer to them i could refer to berry berry okay like they are in college berry goes to i actually forget what college they go to so that's not a good example for that um but that's the the bare bones explanation of neo pronouns i hope i did it justice oh absolutely and i think that like what that does for me i think as an adult who in some ways has become the adult that i needed when i was a teenager these moments of learning from youth are just so powerful like like y'all are just cool y'all have cool ideas y'all are not interested in following a stuffy norms of society and you're like i'm just doing it my own way and i don't have to we don't have to do that right like sometimes i'll say something about like well you know that would be hard because of x y or z and they're like why like let's just do it and i'm like right right we could just we don't we don't have to follow that weird norm i was following huh and like youth just helped me think of like the possibility of a life we want to live together right the possibility of a future where we're all experiencing affirmation in schools and settings and with our peers and with our parents and siblings and guardians and and the grocery store person we interact with every day and the person we get our coffee from and of course they're always queer but um the person who helps us change our tires on our car or do our oil change right like all of these different spaces these spaces can all be places where we feel affirmation around our gender and sexuality and working alongside youth um and in leadership and affirming them has just also affirmed me in a lot of ways i think it's like a really incredible thing to be able to do it's addictive isn't it isn't it because like joy and like anything's possible and like i i love it too i think that working with you know teenagers and youth has been really like amazing and totally get what you're saying yeah a really good example of that actually is that last week during the yak meeting or we meet once a week during the yak meeting i was like so i signed us up to do this thing and like if anybody wants to come that's cool um it's monday and it's on this and laurel's like yeah for sure here let me just and sienna and laurel just sat there and like made up the thing and they were like here you go and i was like what i was like stressed about like how are we gonna manage to do this and this other thing and everybody was just like it's fine jacks like you signed us up let's go like it was um it was just this moment of like right it's like it's okay it's okay and we don't need to be as stressed it's really awesome and just to kind of point out on what you were saying a minute ago laurel like i feel like the generations within queer community and the way that we all learn from each other is such a beautiful thing that's something i really love about working with youth as well as getting to interact with folks older than me is that there's always i can always listen to folks who are my elders as well as as folks who are younger than me and and learn something new all the time so i'm grateful for all the perspectives that that we bring together yeah and actually before we came on somebody was saying oh do we need to say our age and i was like oh we do not need to say our age but then you were saying it was it was good because you know some some of you guys are in high school i'm assuming yeah okay so what grades are you i'm a senior i'm a sophomore sophomore yeah what did you know that i know i forget she's a sophomore too that's hilarious great that means you get to hang out with us for two more years yay um and i wanted to give you a chance are there events or like what what kind of resources are there for the youth we've got some great plugs yeah yes we for sure do um and i had a slide about them but i don't have it here so that's okay um but i'm going to tell you all first you want to talk to about the mental health sessions that are coming up yeah absolutely so i'm collaborating with some folks from mental health partners to do some sessions for gsa advisors actually around supporting lgbtq plus youth mental health as well as supporting advisors so i have two sessions coming up one is actually next monday and these are for folks who are gsa advisors in schools or maybe want to be gsa advisors um in schools and um the folks at mental health partners are putting together a presentation and workshop on supporting lgbtq plus youth mental health and then two weeks later there's one on self care for gsa advisors that we're doing as well yeah yeah which is something that we do at oasis is just developing different programs for things we're seeing in community um what i'm hoping most of our focus tonight wasn't on but is a reality is that we are in a mental health crisis in in the us and in the state of colorado specifically for youth and so we're always looking at developing ways to both foster joy and affirmation um among queer and trans youth and also offer services and supports for thinking about how we do this and how we navigate and support youth mental health in healthy ways and our own mental health as adults working with youth super important um in the work we're doing uh the other thing we want to announce is the gsa summit okay so awkward that's going to be april second here in long mont colorado um the theme that this year is uh this semester is where we've been where we are and where we're going we're going to be engaging a conversation about intersectionality um and intersectional organizing around um lgbtq people and and movements specifically thinking about the context of gsa's how do you make activities in your gsa from an intersectional perspective how do you share experiences um in those ways and then at the end of the day so it's free to attend uh for anyone who wants to attend we just asked the register and you can um find information about that on our instagram at oasis network i remember that i was looking at tommy because tommy runs the instagram um at oasis network we post all of our events and resources but you can find the link to register um in our profile there um but the really that's really exciting resources thinking about schools organizing in schools that's for parents for youth um and for teachers and staff in schools um it'll be here in longmont and then at the end of the day we're doing a voting ball competition awesome uh in collaboration with out boulder county lily james is going to be mc'ing uh we're gonna have um and lily james was involved in yes yes she was our mc and then she assisted uh in the boulder uh cohort so yeah yeah um she is the house mother of the house of the colorado um colorado house of labesia there we go that's where i was going um and um and so if you've never been to a voting ball please come uh you can witness the brilliance of voguing and as well as a handful of other categories you can compete yourself if you want to or just come and witness some of the celebration of bipoc queer and trans femininity in history so those are two events that are coming up and then lastly well one of you talk a little bit about the yak application process so yak applications will start yaklication yak that's what we should start calling it 100% we should start calling it if y'all are why can't i say it yeah we're going to call it yak yaklip i can't say any more yaklication yak there we go yaklication the yaklication yaklication will open in uh april um and if you're interested in being involved in learning with these folks um at least with sienna because laurel will be going away to college yay laurel but sad also um those applications will open in april and you'll be ages ages 13 over have to be in high school right i think that's what it said when i joined yeah you just have to be going into your freshman year going into high school yeah or just anywhere in high school yeah okay yeah and then you sit with us for the year you get a small stipend and you get to make change in your community wow you get a small stipend that's awesome yeah okay i have to write that down um well cool thank you so much we are going to wrap this up i just wanted to say thank you everyone for coming and sharing all that information and then sharing your experiences as well um and definitely uh if you are an lgbt qia uh plus youth and you want to learn more about yak um and you want to go to the support groups um with oasis and all of that we'll have all that information on the youtube and the facebook page um so you can kind of access that uh as well after this is airing um let's see what is coming up next we have our parents are coming up so we have a parent panel coming up after this um i'm obviously going to be participating in that as well as parents of um lgbt qi youth in the community as well as parents from the slay the runway program so we are going to be sharing kind of our experiences um and we are not a panel of experts we are just a panel of parents who want to create a supportive network and maybe share some of the mistakes that we've made and some of the really great stories we have as well um of times we did get it right so uh that's coming up next and thank you so much oasis jacks sierra sienna sienna tomi and uh lauren laurel laurel oh my gosh so many names tonight uh we we tried to my eyesight's not that great and these little labels are very small so but thank you so much for coming um and sharing everything and uh you know maybe we'll we'll have some of the kids in the same programs and it'll be a fun share so um come back and uh we'll be talking to some parents so see you on the other side we are back with our some of the kiddos from our slay the runway program um i'm going to have them introduce themselves but i i just wanted to say uh first off thank you i know that some of our kids were driving and some of our kids were not so thank you so much for driving them around taking them to the longmont location the boulder location taking them to um you know black box theater oh managing the parking i'm sorry about parking at the cu campus it's always you know like where do we park where do we go i don't know and so thank you so much for for doing the driving and getting the kids to the program um they obviously could not do it without you and we could not have had the program without you either so thank you for sharing them with us and um we are just going to do introductions you guys know who we are already um obviously steven and i uh so uh we can start um with josh hello uh my name is josh i am uh non-binary by parent of grace who uh spoken you got to see earlier she was sitting right here down at the bottom pronouns are they them i'm sherry my pronouns are she and aya i like to let my spanish speaking friends know that um they're also part of my my group and um i am the mother of louise who is the little prince i'm reagan um she her i'm rio's mom she them and i'm max's mom right and so max wasn't here um so yeah we we definitely missed having them here um and uh i i know i speak for steven and saying that we miss the kids i have to tell you the um after the runway show ended it was like this yay it was so great but then it was like the next week when we were supposed to have the class it was so sad because you know it was a whirlwind and it was lots of work and you know a big commitment but like oh it was such a hole like not having them there and and working with them so i missed them i also went to cancun so okay i did not go to cancun so i might have i might have missed them more but um i guess just to get kind of us started talking um how did you find slay the runway like how did you find the program anyone i i think it was on facebook either in boulder collective or alongmont group i can't remember which but it was one of the local groups of creative types did you guys advertise throughout boulder county's newsletter you know what we probably did it just as a partner they i i think that's probably where because i get i read their newsletter regularly and volunteer with them a lot and so that's probably where i had that little data and send it to my child hey you want to do this yay i have no memory whether i found it or max found it or how well i remember grace was in a program that you ran earlier yes yes which was while grace was um had not yet uh was was it and using it was non-binary pronouns rather now she's uh she her and her dress in that program was uh butterfly wings it was very yeah there was a lot of fun yes so um the actually the way the story goes is grace was um instrumental in creating the program um because i used to do fashion design workshops and like it was just fashion design like make what you want um but the joy that grace got from like trying on all the fabrics and like she she was like this is going to be my second outfit and this is going to be my third i was like stop touching the fabrics you know like work on one and then i don't know if it's the same experience well we had the maker space grace was like what's this printer what does that do what can i make with this yeah she's great yeah so she was instrumental because i was like there is a need and i i want to you know i want to kind of fill that and um you know obviously ember is my kiddo and um was also very instrumental in creating the program it was kind of like seeing the joy of what grace could create in in the fashion design workshop but then also kind of talking with ember and um you know their journey uh when i first put together the program um you know they hadn't really had that conversation yet um and it was kind of hard because i wanted to talk about how how you know it was partly because of ember's experience but ember wasn't ready to like really say anything about it and um so they were like well i don't want to do the program and i was like but it's for you too and um and then they were like okay well maybe i'll come and just like hang out and then it was like well you have button makers like we were going to have a button maker maybe i'll just make some buttons and then at the end they had three outfits three outfits did any of your kids have um did they come already in the clothing and style or did they sort of arrive as they were like maybe i'm interested and then they did it and i'm curious that was pretty much the experience that rio had she was you know dipping her toe into it and then by the end of it just totally in love with fashion and designing and just you know wanting to do more and more so it's been great great yeah i would say max has long been interested in in doing things with clothing um all different kinds of things you know getting clothing at goodwill and cutting it up and um you know remaking it into other things but you know this this was i think really you know the idea of of fashion in this way you know in a like in a public way was was new louise is an artist and so i think when i was overhearing his uh interview with you originally he came into it really wanting to know how does um fabric uh flow on human body because he really designs a lot of characters and so he was kind of looking at it from that point of view as an artist how do i have authentic looking clothing but he's also always kind of you know he enjoys designing his characters and their attire as well and um you know his frame is so petite that in any gender he struggles to find clothing that fits him well and that um you know his aesthetic so i think as he got to know how to sew and he worked with you guys more um that world kind of opened up of oh look i can take this pair of pants and do a few things and turn into breaches and i can take this fabric from scratch and transform it into a vest you know and i think that really helped inspire him and got him interested into more sewing for himself not just for the the artist in him i remember louise was our first interview and i didn't really know exactly where it was going but i remember talking with him and seban and i were commenting you said something about like how exciting it was because um you know louise wanted to like was was talking about world building and character building and how to use fashion to like build these characters and build this world and it was just um it was really exciting because he was the first kid and um yeah so it's just been and i've noticed he tries to be very inclusive and diverse in his characters and so i think he did reference tonight um enjoying seeing what everyone else was making and i think part of it was because then he could see other people with different body shapes and different gender identities and stuff what did they enjoy and how did they want to express themselves and kind of help inspire him to continue to grow you know in his mind the different possibilities that there are for what people wear that's so cool yeah fast fashion doesn't really have a non-binary section right or like a like a queer section of h&m you know i mean kind of h&m sometimes less so lately and so it's like really exciting to see and i first started doing public sewing workshops um one of the i was in long beach california and one of the people the group of people that started coming the most were people from the queer community because there wasn't like an over the counter answer for their body you know in the store or people would be you know transitioning and needed different clothes and different sizes and different times and different settings and for people to be able to alter clothes or make their own clothes it's really exciting you know and it was so funny with the with these teens and i mean they're of course they're all so brilliant and did the mace meeting things with some of them were like okay wait so how do i measure to make this like the idea that you take a measurement and then the clothing is that measurement of your body was like that's cool they're like it's custom and i was like yeah we're making tailored custom clothes it's really great um max was like all right i know all this i've got it down i actually talked to max so um we were at joann's and i was trying to say like when you drape it i know that you wanted to make like a you know drape it so that it comes from a true line a straight line so that it drapes like you know and and i think that they already knew but i was just trying to but um but yeah a lot of the kiddos came with like their own knowledge of fashion design and some hadn't you know threading the needle and and sewing the machine with the machine was a little bit frightening some of them were like i think i'm gonna do all this by hand and i was like you know you might just give the machine a try just once some of them made all the way through with like no machine they were like i'm it's hand hand done oh really pretty close but they did end up using the um industrial sewing machine which sews through pleather which was different right because they needed to have the pleather yeah that's true that's good upgrade yeah no interest in the regular sewing machine but the but the industrial meant for it yeah it was great well cool i guess i wanted to talk um so this is like the caregivers conference and it's really like i wanted to bring you guys together to kind of share experiences um maybe talk about when when that first conversation when uh you know if you've had that where your kiddo came out or you know wanted to talk more about gender affirmation and wanted to talk more about identity and and how that might have gone for you um i guess i can start um so ember was in gosh i think fifth grade and i think the conversation was um i think i'm bi and um you know kind of just that that that expression and and i um you know i don't really remember exactly how i reacted i think i was just like oh you know thank you for sharing um and kind of how how we were gonna change things up like what was gonna change and um i think the conversation that that happened after that was you know are they too young to be having this conversation like when when is a good age or you know why do we have to sexualize everything um and and i was really feeling like it was more of a like an expression thing like your identity your gender expression is part of your identity and it doesn't really have anything to do with sexuality um obviously as you get older maybe you know that that relationship changes um and regardless of the age i kind of came from this understanding that i don't really care how many times my child misgenders themselves like i would rather them make that mistake than think that what they are is a mistake um so it was really like you you tell me um and then and then that's that's where we are um so i feel like you know that was kind of that was kind of the the discussion and um and then he kind of they kind of backtracked after that and um you know there was a period of time where we didn't really talk about it um and then i believe it was right when slay the runway was happening then they were like i'm non-binary i go by them and i was like okay good you've you found your spot where you want to land and that's where we are now so um has anyone like how have you guys kind of handled it and and what has it been like for you i'll go um when grace was littler um i was i mean my wife and i have different stories of when we realized i think she sort of had the ideas earlier but i was um getting ready for a ballet that i was going to be in and i was trying on a corset and just as one does um and and she sort of came in and like oh wait that's an option and and sort of had this in her mind you could see it in her eyes and so we introduced her to um uh drag race it's sort of a next and then we went to a show and she the first time she went out of the house in drag um was for uh drag race Christmas they had a Denver all ages show barely all ages just to be clear um if anybody's thinking of going um but that was her first time out of the house in drag and then it became a thing where she was doing regular shows um and and playing with gender etc but i remember that and she's little that was like nine years old that when she was first doing that i remember why i was cooking dinner one time and we were listening to an audiobook um uh the uh what's Melissa i think is the name of the book it's hard there's a the book has a dead name it used to be by the it's about a trans kid um and now it the title used to be the the masculine name and now they've changed it so it's the feminine name but we were listening to the book and i could just i mean i was cooking but i could feel something going on and sort of went into the other room and and asked asked her hey what like the book was talking about the character not feeling seen by anybody and sort of asked Grace hey are you do you feel like you're not seen and you sort of said i i think i think i'm a girl and sort of like it was a good moment it was really kind of cool but um yeah it was pretty straightforward uh as these things go but a big moment nonetheless yeah thanks for sharing so um our family actually uh was part of a faith community that was not supportive of lgbtq people and so when my child came out to me i looked at them and i'm like 30 seconds ago they were beautifully and perfectly made an image of god nothing has changed other than my understanding of how they identify themselves they are still absolutely perfectly and beautifully made an image of god and so at that point i realized i'm the one with the problem not them and my husband and i uh rallied together and we did our research and we reached out to outbuild a county and to other close friends who were allies already and we worked with them to help um learn all of the terminology all of the options all the resources and to reprogram ourselves um and uh you know reject the lies we have been told about what it meant to be gay and then on top of that my son's also transgender right so he took us to the to the extreme end of this and um you know but it was the whole process has been so liberating and beautiful for our family and um i feel like i'm even more able to express love for others than i ever was before because now it's is truly unconditional and um i get to just embrace people for as they as they are and in the process of supporting him um my other son um came out and i also discovered that i'm pansexual but in the way i grew up i was never allowed to even consider that as an option but when i asked myself if i hadn't been raised as a homophobic prude who would i be and um i realized i'd be panromantic and um demisexual you know and so um you know it's just been a really great process for our whole family to be liberated and i have also been blessed to understand that my life partner who is a man is absolutely the right life partner for me so i wasn't someone who had to feel any kind of regret um over not finding out my full identity sooner um but uh it also feels great to know my full identity you know so well we um rio has always grown up having aunties of various genders and that's just been always a very normal thing in our family very um she's grown up knowing about the drag community from a very early age and you know having aunties involved in that as well and um you know it seeing something like this come up for her age group was a great opportunity um as i saw it and um she was jumped you know at the opportunity to do it um just being able to uh do something with a group of kids with the same interest as her similar backgrounds and knowing people that you know that are like people that she knows and you know um she just had a ball and being able to hopefully uh give this opportunity to kids all over the country would just be so huge because when she tells her friends i mean we didn't always live in colorado we're really lucky to be here now but we used to live in uh in virginia so you know you know what that's like i'm sure you've heard a little bit about it it's different so she tells these stories to her friends there and it's just huge they they want to come here you know they want to see that they want to experience this kind of stuff and it's just a blessing for kids you know here wow i don't i can't tell if any of that uh not the competition i know i know but i was like that was so powerful what you said i was like okay let's just stop right there um yeah so well i feel like our story maybe is a little similar to what you're talking about that um max in middle school first said they were bi uh bisexual and i think i had the same reaction of like you're too young to have any sexuality and and you know was sort of like oh okay you know whatever um and then later they said no i'm not really pansexual this was maybe early high school then and again i was like okay that's just like you know broadening things that makes sense um and then now i'm forgetting the years so maybe the fall right before the pandemic started it's like pre-pandemic post-pandemic um you know they sat us down and they said you know i i want to go by the name max and my pronouns are they them and that was um i think i just didn't really quite understand what that meant you know at the end like i just hadn't thought about that i don't even know if i'd heard even the words non-binary at that point um so you know we were like okay that's fine we'll try to figure that out um it was definitely a process that went on for a while and continues to go on to understand to understand separation of gender identity and sexuality like that and and and romance like i hadn't really thought about those as many multiple dimensions um and i think the experience for max and slay the runway uh i think was incredibly affirming in in multiple ways but one of them i think was the multiple ages involved i mean i i know they were one of the more senior folks but i i think there's something about almost like re-experience reprocessing your pathway in watching younger kids go through that like i i think it helps to refine and and think through how that was for for oneself what i and i i found a number of parents that i've interacted with experiences of i and maybe this not just in gender world like having kids you learn things about yourself but also learning things about your sexuality and your your gender that like parents experience it too that the kids have that learning experience as they're watching other kids but i think everybody if you having to think about something you haven't thought about before really sort of start some conversations internally yeah that's so funny that you say that because in talking about how the age groups i was always thinking oh they have great mentors you know like they can learn from the older kids how and i never really thought about it like the older kids are still processing and they can kind of reprocess it i think that that is like super fantastic i i love i love kind of hearing that and learning that there was a lot of sharing that would happen in the work room you know and kind of funny like you know project runway or you know like on drag race in the work room and everybody processes right and it's really funny that that actually happened as well and i was like okay um but you know everybody's and uh and it would be really great when people would just talk about you know a lot of times it would be a discussion around some form of media like oh i like blah blah blah and then somebody wouldn't like it and then they would say why they didn't like it and then they'd get in this whole conversation about like well they misrepresented this person this way and and and then it would just lead into just they would all just really support each other in those really hard conversations right and it would be these spaces where people would be like no i really like Taylor Swift and the other some of the other students would be like Taylor Swift is the worst and then they'd have these and then it would turn into these really personal conversations about how they see the world or gender or representation in media and and they would just i've you know and i'm just a fly on the wall like okay cool don't sew your finger again which happened just the ones just the one time that's just that one time well i think that we are um very close to wrapping up um we have a little bit of time and um i just wanted to say again thank you um thank you for being here for the parent panel uh when when this this program was kind of uh brainstormed and um susie was a big part of that and grace was a big part of that uh the caregivers conference was a large part of of why i wanted to do this program and i think it kind of stemmed from um kind of my experience of of you know celebrating my kiddo and wanting my family to celebrate um ember as well and just kind of coming up against these things where i was like i'm saying it wrong i'm not doing it right and wanting to be a safe space for parents to kind of ask those questions like how can we be more supportive how can we you know help celebrate and create safe spaces and um so i i really thank you um for for coming and sharing your stories um i did also want to say obviously slay the runways coming back uh we did have a little video of when it is going to be coming back it's going to be coming back june 28 20 something yeah so it is going to be the week before july 4th and the week after july 4th we are doing it Tuesday through Friday we have the time from 10 to noon and then we'll take like a lunch break and then do one to three and then july 8th is going to be the performance which is again going to be at the black box theater um you know with all the fancy fashion lights and the runway um and everything like that so uh just repeating that experience um and and just hopefully taking everything that we've learned from your kids and and making the program even better so um i wanted to thank you for thank you yeah thank you so much it's been a great experience and um yeah totally there were some nights where i'm like oh my gosh it's a lot of work but it was so worth it like on the phone like what are we doing yes yes yeah it was definitely a learning experience and um we're going to take that learning into our next year yeah we're really excited i think it should be great i think my niece is coming up from the south to come hang out and take the class and grace already has her outfits planned for you today yeah thank you amber has yeah so we'll just gonna be a lot of jumpsuits maybe just we'll have a whole jumpsuit section and then we'll have you know other rompers sorry rompers well um oh yeah so we could do that i've made a few those are fun yeah well thank you so much for joining us um once again i'm gonna say that uh i will post all the resources that we kind of talked about from out boulder oasis uh just other um kind of organizations that could help uh youth and parents and kind of just create this loving and accepting and and wonderful community that um you know we we all want to live in and we know we can get to so uh thank you for sharing your monday night with us yes and um thank you long month public media as well oh yes yes oh my gosh all of my thank yous okay so i have to do my thank yous now so thank you long month public media thank you building 61 and the boulder public library thank you to alice institute and to the blackbox theater thank you to arc thrift who uh donated vouchers for the kids to buy clothing um thank you to super bloom films who filmed thank you to lily twirling tech goddess who was the boulder cohort assistant but then also was our mc and had a fabulous performance thank you to miss jessica who performed at the slay the runway um final show i'm forgetting people all night alliance thank you for the makeup um firehouse art center firehouse art center yes firehouse art center thank you to the firehouse arts and society scfd and um and i think that might be there's always more there's always more if i've forgotten you i'll put it in the comments and uh it does not mean that we do not appreciate everything that you have brought to this community and to this program so uh we will sign off thank you yeah bye guys thank you