Soren!
Hi!
Welcome back!
And I also understand how your parents have that mama-papa-bear perspective too.
I mean, that's the, that's the thing about it.
That's another lens that I think it's important for us to talk about in this conversation
about travel and seeing the world.
Because one of the other lenses that you view the world through when you travel is through
the lens of young, student, queer, individual.
And so being outside of the bubble here in Maine and here in our smaller towns of Maine
and being out there and living such an unapologetically authentic life as you do and as you should,
with that comes a little bit of fear or maybe a lot of fear.
Well, yeah, I honestly, I'm not afraid of being attacked for my identity or the way
I express myself in other countries.
But my parents feel a lot of fear for that.
I feel a lot of fear.
We've talked about this, right?
I feel that fear for you and for others.
Well, you've traveled internationally on many occasions.
What's your experience with that?
Yeah.
Well, my husband and I both, I think, would see ourselves as informed consumers of the
travel industry.
There are places that I don't even need to mention that are completely not on my list
of...
I might have interest in seeing them and experiencing those cultures, but because of that country's
laws, culture, or perspective on things like gender, identity, and sexual orientation,
we're not even remotely on the list of places to go.
We won't even consider that because I, like you, want to be able to show up in the world,
whether it's here in Maine or in Portugal or China or the UK, as myself with my husband
who happens to also be a man, obviously.
I think one of the things that we're a little bit different about is your risk tolerance
is probably higher than mine.
I'm a much more...
In terms of risk, I see myself a little bit more conservative.
I do fear for my safety at times.
Even just south of our country, though, having going on cruises and being in Mexico, or I
was in the... my husband and I got our symbolic wedding, which our seven-year anniversary
of that wedding is tomorrow in Punta Cana, the Dominican.
We were told right out of the gate, do not wear your wedding rings, do not hold hands,
do not show affection by our travel agent outside of that resort.
When you're in the resort, you're protected.
Those walls, both physical and metaphorical, will keep you safe.
The hotel staff who are absolutely relying on your tips and your tourism dollars, you'll
be safe the minute your transportation van leaves, you're not married.
Yeah, that's really unfortunate.
Just like I sit with that, and that's...
We talk about privilege, right?
Which is a part of what we want to explore over our time together.
And I think that's a privilege that a lot of heterosexual and cisgender folks, dear
friends of mine who we travel with, have not or cannot really truly appreciate.
Today's episode has been brought to you by the Inspired Allies Certificate Course, a
module designed to support providers on LGBTQ, their confidence and confidence in better
partnering with the LGBTQ plus community.
But the overlay of these dynamics of self-worth, of oppression, of living in a life of not
maybe necessarily being able to be authentic or true.
And when I think back about what we were sharing with the travel pieces, the privilege that
my husband and I have of being able to go to places like the Dominican and be a little
on the DL while we're traveling for safety purposes, there's privilege there too.
Many layers of privilege because we always get to come back to good old Maine and live
our lives like we have.
And have a supportive environment.
And be surrounded by people who love us and care about us.
That's true.
And I think even in Maine, there's so many children that can't go back to a supportive
environment, like the keeping your identity on the download and keeping who you are on
the download is just a constant state of existence.
And I think like not even with being queer, although that is a major factor in identity,
just like people are afraid to show who they are because they're afraid of rejection.
So then we homogenize ourselves.
Which is a hallmark of adolescence, right?
Yeah.
Hallmark of adolescence.
Yeah.
Here's what I know, Sorin, and you shared earlier on in this conversation about how
you've never really had that fear when you travel of being you and living your life.
And just unapologetically, Sorin, I know your parents have had those considerations though.
And some of the travel decisions that your family has made or you've made as a family,
you might not necessarily in this moment have been aware, but a lot has gone into, okay,
Sorin Sorin, we love Sorin, we want Sorin to be Sorin.
And we've got to think about where we're going to stay, how we're going to get there, what
Sorin's documentation or papers, how that reads, what that says.
And as you're exploring going away to college, trust me when I say your parents have had
considerable conversation with themselves, with me, with others about would we feel any
different if Sorin had decided to go to college in Mexico?
Yeah.
Well, I was just about to touch on that exactly, right?
I have been allowed to maintain this mindset and be unafraid to be who I am and be unabashed
in that, even in the school system, exclusively because my parents paid so much attention
to while I was being raised and continue to, creating an accepting environment for me where
I can cultivate myself, right, so that I have a harvest to show those around me.
And I don't think that that's the case with a lot of families.
I was wondering if you could share a little bit about your childhood experience, like
growing up as queer and what that looked like for you.
Were your parents accepting what was the situation?
Yeah.
Yeah, buckle up.
It was a different time than growing up in the 80s, a very different time.
I cannot think of one out kid identifying male or female regardless during my high school
career.
There were kids like myself where there was a lot of talk, a lot of teasing, a lot of
bullying in a very, you know, this is long before cell phones, long before the internet,
of course, so a lot of very traditional kind of teasing and bullying where, you know, thinking
back and having had conversations with some of those kids that I went to school with who
are now living a very out, authentic life, there was this sense of community that we
never cultivated probably because of being scared of guilty by association, like we've
been talking about, right?
Here's that theme again.
And so I was not out.
I did not even, it was not even an option to be out in the mid late 80s and early 90s.
And that sense of shame and that sense of needing to hide, of not calling attention
to yourself, not raising your hand in class to talk because your voice was a little bit
more effeminate or a lot more effeminate than the rest of the class.
And that was your kryptonite, you know, the way that I showed up in school a little bit,
a little bit, I wasn't the masculine, the picture of masculine athleticism, you know?
And so the way I talked, the way I moved, who my friends were, who my interests were
not stereotypical masculine.
That's part of the strength that I see in myself now 40 years later, but back then I
did everything I could do to hide that, to keep that under wraps, to not draw attention
to yourself because to be authentic was risk.
It was making yourself the target.
And I remember some of the more painful memories of my childhood I have is calling other kids
gay, calling other kids the F word, calling other kids queer, which back then, as you
know, you and I talked about was not a word of empowerment.
Queer was an insult.
It was, and all of those other insulting, those insulting words.
I remember targeting other kids to go around, to be the bully because I did not want that
target on me.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think that's very unfortunate.
It is unfortunate.
I'm sorry that you had to do that, but that is like something that kids do a lot, a lot.
Like if I have an insecurity, then I don't want that to be drawn attention for me.
So it's so much easier to attempt to reveal other people's insecurities.
It's like a charade, a distraction, and it creates negative experiences for others.
And I see that like today, even though the students that I engage with are super far
more mature in like a classroom setting.
Yeah.
Oftentimes that still is the case, especially in like the academic competitive, whatever
nonsense.
Like sometimes kids will draw, intentionally draw attention to the faults of others so
that people don't realize that they're not performing on par or performing at the level
that they think that they should.
Yeah, it's human nature.
Like we were talking about, that's part of the human condition.
Here's the other thing that I know, and I don't pretend to have the data points from
now 30, 40 years ago.
When I was a kid, kind of going through that internalized coming out process and thinking
about identity tolerance and identity acceptance and who were the role models in the mid 80s,
AIDS epidemic all over the news.
In the early 90s, don't ask, don't tell, Defense of Marriage Act.
So the political environment wasn't much different than it is today.
But what I remember is hearing things like, oh, one in 10, one in 10 was like the common
data point that would often be referenced that one in 10 identify as LGBT.
Here's what we know now, 30 years later, as controversial as some might feel this is,
here in our state of Maine, the data is now looking at closer to 30% of high school students
identify somewhere on that LGBTQ plus continuum.
That is night and day from the way that I grew up.
Because what that also means is not just this idea of community that you were also talking
about, but when I was in school, nobody even talked about having parents or family members,
extended family members, siblings that were gay or lesbian or bi or trans.
Now with this 30 ish percent of kids identifying on that continuum, every kid knows another
kid who identifies as LGBT.
And so it's this, there are friendships, there are relationships that have been cultivated
and it's still a big deal.
And I don't, you know, we're in Maine, so we've got to just honor that we might have
some privileges of our state, that there are places in our country where it is absolutely
not safe to be out in high school or middle school.
There are places in Maine that that might be true, but generally speaking, I am blown
away, you and I've talked about this, I am blown away at the courage and bravery that
youth of your age group are living their lives.
I'm jealous of it.
I'm envious of that ability.
I often think about what my life might look like today if back in 1987, 1988, I could
have been who I knew myself to be.
What might be different?
Yeah.
And I'm just so fat because you touched on this coming out to yourself almost, and I
never had that process.
I remember fifth grade, I talked to my mom and I was like, yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm
quite into boys.
And she got like a little afraid for me.
And I remember not talking about it for like another year.
But obviously I was given an environment in which that was totally okay.
I could have that conversation.
It didn't even seem like I was feeling any way unnatural, right?
Like it didn't feel like I was feeling out of the norm because it was so like allowed
for in my household.
But that's not the case for most kids in this situation.
Also, sorry, I don't mean to trample over you, but you touched on how throughout human
history the amount of queer people has probably been a constant.
The acceptance of queer people has not been though.
And you felt isolated and powerless in your situation because queer people were divided
and were not allowed to exist out in the open.
But now probably the same amount of queer individuals, we just are unified to some extent
and we're allowed to live out in the open.
So it feels so much more empowering to do this, right?
Yeah, Laverne Cox, who folks might know from Orange is the New Black, very openly trans
actors in her documentary Disclosure, which is one of my favorite documentaries, tracing
Hollywood's depiction of gender diverse individuals since the black and white films.
But she says something along the lines of, we've always been here.
And she goes on by in talking about how she's not interested in living a life of being erased.
So it's not only about us always being here.
It's making sure you know that we're here and that we've always been here.
Yeah, I, you know, I guess I want to say for folks listening, like you've referenced the
environment that you've you're growing up in and your parents and I have to say, my
parents never uttered anything about you better not be how dare you like, yeah, I grew up
very similar to the way you're growing up now very privileged childhood wanted for nothing.
Totally committed, unconditionally loved.
And so you know, I often think about why, you know, living in such an effort, which
I know now would have been a very affirming household.
My mom's a worrier.
Sorry, Judy, for listening.
My mom's a worrier.
And so that may also have been kind of under the surface, like not wanting to do anything
or be anything that would make somebody else worry about me.
But my inability to acknowledge this in myself or acknowledge it to myself, but never say
the words outwards.
And I don't even think when I'm about to say, you know, I did not come out to my parents
formally until 1999.
Yeah, like almost quick math, see math, seven, seven years after high school, I was in graduate
school when I opened when I said those words to my parents, I had I was out as we know
when when people of all ages are coming out, they might be out to some groups and not others.
And that's part of the what makes this time period so scary is, OK, who knows who doesn't
know?
This group knows I can't have these groups together because I don't want this group like
all being able to try to control and own the narrative, all of logistics, but not be not
saying those words until I was 25 years old.
And part of what drove those words happened to be the murder of Matthew Shepard in in
1998, the day after my birthday.
And I remember this is like one of my defining when people, you know, queer people, we always
have our coming out stories and our coming out journeys in these moments.
Like you remember saying that to your mom.
One of my defining moments was the news of Matthew Shepard's death and.
Kicking up two things, lots of stuff, but two very prominent things.
One, the tragedy, the sadness and the anger that that brought up in the fear.
This is the world we live in where this shit can happen.
Yeah.
I think that like my mom, especially like of the people that I know, it scares her like
the shooting in Lewiston.
Parents are afraid.
Yeah, like it's it's it's a scary environment for kids to be living in.
Yeah.
And I want to go back to something.
Sorry to interrupt you.
I want to go back to something, though, that you talked about in our first episode about
balance.
Yeah.
Like not the fear mongering.
Like we can talk about the realities and not use it as a morality tale or as a as a as
folklore to keep kids in their beds at night.
Yeah.
It's not the boogie man.
We're talking about real life things that we're processing at different generational,
you know, different generations and ages.
We're processing in our own ways.
But this shit is real.
Like we know that trans women of color are at greater risk, greatest risk of being murdered
in our country and in our world.
And some of the places that we've referenced already in this podcast because of their trans
identity.
Yeah.
And so for me, and this is a conversation I've now had in my adult life with my mom
and others who care about me, is it's it's trying to make space, holding two things at
the same time.
One of our themes for today, I guess, is I can love you and celebrate you and want you
to be you in every sense of that word.
And I can be scared to shit for you.
Yeah.
Like I can have both of those things exist at the same time and struggle navigating those
two things.
Yeah, I totally agree.
And you brought up like higher rates of murder for like queer trans women or black trans
women.
And like we see that throughout the entire LGBTQ community and like you and me, I think
of people in the community, we're almost at like the highest level of privilege.
Yeah.
We are white people with penises.
Yeah.
And so awesome podcast, not podcast, I'm sorry, TED Talk.
And as we're talking, I'm like, oh, how do we get these resources to people?
So mark this.
But there's a there's an incredible TED Talk called the Aesthetics of Survival.
And it's um, um, now I'm blanking on Neff's first name, but the Aesthetics of Survival.
And in this TED Talk, she talks about one's ability to pass either a straight or if trans
or gender diverse as be able to pass as a woman or a man in this world that we live
in.
And you and I probably have the ability if we chose to, to travel anywhere and pass.
Oh, yeah.
You know, we as white men on the outside, you know what people how we express our gender
most of the time and how people see us.
We're my we're white men.
Yeah.
And that comes that privilege, but that some of that privilege is the difference between
life and death for so many.
That's so true.
And like every human being code switches to adapt to different environments in which they're
in.
But like when somebody is expressing themselves, it sort of removes room for code switching,
which I think a lot of teenagers rely super heavily on code switching to their identity,
which is why so many teenagers just like become a as far as their expression goes, just like
a gray blob.
Yeah.
But here's what I know about code switching that I just think is is both tragic and fascinating.
There's there's the motivation, the motivation behind code switching, like there's code switching
that's a social skill that I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to become somebody a little
bit or a lot different in order to fit in in order to get you to like me, laugh together,
maybe maybe create a friendship.
And then there's code switching for survival.
And those for me exist on this spectrum of far left and far right that code switching
as a social skill is thought of as kind of higher level thinking code switching as a
survival technique.
I don't know what that feels like.
Well, like for me, at least in my middle school situation, those two things were blended quite
closely.
And I still have, I guess, sort of like residual fear and like negative emotions attached to
code switching as a result of that.
Like I was on the football team in middle school.
And I remember like, I was really afraid.
Yeah.
Like all the time.
Yeah.
When engaging with that and like at dances and stuff to when like talking to these like
boys at the time, but like to me, they were like men.
They were scary.
Yeah.
So I was like code switching socially to be accepted in this group.
But also if I wasn't accepted, it wasn't going to be pretty.
And it didn't end up being very pretty.
Yeah.
So for folks listening, let's talk a little bit about what code switching means, because
I think there might, this might be a term that some people don't necessarily know yet.
So when we're talking about code switching, you know, here's kind of how I interpret this
is code switching is that need that one has, regardless of motivation, it's that need that
one has to either suppress a part of their identities or take on some new identities
in order to better fit in however one defines that.
And this is a very, in the DEI and B world, diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging world.
This is a real important topic as you think about employees experience in the workplace
and their ability to feel like they're in an inclusive environment where they belong.
Yeah.
And so if I am, I'll use sexuality, you know, as a gay man, my ability to hang with the
straight men of the office might, my success in my career or at that particular organization
might hinge on my ability to grow out and go out for beers and hang out at the clubs
and the evenings and whatever other stereotypes about the men in the office exist.
But I may feel that and that, and just, that doesn't necessarily mean that the organization
has made that a reality, but in the absence of a truly equitable or inclusive environment,
I might need to resort to code switching in order to survive.
And again, we're talking about survival very, from a career advancement all the way to life
or death.
Yeah.
And would you agree, is that definition kind of fitting?
No, I totally agree.
Like for me, I think of code switch, like I think of social situations as almost a puzzle
and to code switch is to augment one's shape in order to fit into that framework.
Oh, that's brilliant.
I love that.
Yeah, yeah.
I love that.
It's to like adjust mannerisms, to adjust the things that you normally talk about in order
to more effectively fit in and engage with a certain group of people.
Yeah.
Like what you were just saying made me think because it's a balance between maintaining
culture and creating an inclusive environment.
Yep.
Right?
That's right.
Like every friend group has its culture, but also reducing the sort of idiosyncrasies of
that in order to make it more easy to engage with and more inclusive is really important.
And I think like a lot of like people on the right interpret attempting to create more
equitable environments as their culture being erased.
So like we're making other people code switch to make it easier for us to exist.
Yeah.
And like it's in my eyes, like adhering to somebody's pronouns or whatever, it's common
courtesy.
It makes them feel better.
So I'm totally willing to do that.
Right.
But for some people, they think that their worldview is being erased because somebody's
asking them to make them feel better about themselves.
Right.
Which is the height of privilege.
I just have to say.
Yeah.
It's important to be mindful of that.
It is.
And I hope that maybe some of what we've been talking about already today is helping to
inspire some of those conversations in some of our listeners' worlds.
You referenced dance and that I had an immediate reaction to that.
Like I remember in my childhood, they were, you know, the local YMCA.
Certain times of the month, it was the Y dance and everyone went to the Y dance.
And my experience in middle school and high school with Y dances is like a, it is, I could
write a novel on this idea of code switching of who you dance with, who you stand with,
what you say, what you wear, who you even draw, who you come and go from to those dances,
what you do before and after was all about keeping up appearances.
For me, a very closeted gay kid.
And I remember gravitating to one particular girl who we became like, I guess, boyfriend-girlfriend
as survival to get by.
And that individual, now I know, lives a very authentic queer life as well.
And so it's, yeah, yeah.
And so sadly necessary.
So sadly necessary.
Yeah.
Like I said, beard.
That's, yeah, we're like defining terms there.
I think it's important.
Beard is when a queer person is in a relationship with somebody of the opposite sex in order
to like cover up their sexual orientation.
Masking.
It's about, it's about.
Yeah, yeah.
And sometimes these are, beards are mutual and sometimes it's not mutual.
And that's a totally different and interesting circumstance.
And like, I think in beards where not both partners don't know or one partner doesn't
know.
Which I certainly have had in my life.
Yeah.
Like who's morally culpable for that?
Oh, these are, yeah.
I mean, these are, these are conversations.
These are some of the sleepless nights I had in my late teens, early twenties.
And some of the, you know, I'm going to use the word regret.
And I don't mean that to imply that I live my life with a lot of regrets.
I think I'm privileged to not have this laundry list of regrets in my life.
But in the absence of another word, things I wish I had done differently is some of the
harm I brought to people I cared about then and I care about now due to my inability,
whether internal or external projected on me to of living authentically.
People I hurt in my life.
Yeah.
I think we've.
It's quite a.
Yeah.
We've met.
We've met some of the goals of this podcast.
Yeah.
And I think we're sharing some truth in our, you know, from our perspectives, our experiences,
hopefully inspiring some conversations, hopefully giving folks some permission to have some
of these conversations as much with themselves as with other people.
And let's call it a day.
Totally.
Thank you guys so much for listening.
I hope that this cultivates an audience and feel free to like reach out to me or Chris.
100%.
And thank you, Sorin, for your willingness to have this conversation, for being who you
are and for just sitting in this space with me.
Well, I wouldn't have a platform without you.
So I'm happy.
Yeah.
I'm happy to give you that platform.
So thanks all.
This has been Inspired Insights podcast with Chris McLaughlin and Sorin Peterson.
And we'll see you next time.
Indeed.
Bye.
The Inspired Insights podcast has been brought to you by Inspired Consulting Group, LLC, edited
and produced by Amanda Seidel, music by Dheera Kurta, copyright 2024, all rights reserved.