118 10 3176 https://digitalexhibitions.arquives.ca/files/original/1874550c6005be68e1b3a920fbe249e4.wav 6c93dd888f44b6c584789eef7d7e1813 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project Subject The topic of the resource The Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project was spearheaded by Sadie Epstein-Fine, creative and operational lead with community support from Makeda Zook in 2021. The goal of the project was to provide participants of all ages with one or more LGBTQ2+ parent(s) a way to explore aspects of the queerspawn experience through digital content creation. Over the course of 5 months, the Queerspawn project participants met virtually to share space and build community. They explored different ways to get into their stories and experiences. The project included 13 participants, who created video, art projects and installations, audio stories, podcasts and essays, exploring how their identities and life experiences have intersected with their queerspawn identity. The Queerspawn Project was made possible through the International Centre for Arts for Social Change’s FUTURES/Forward Program and The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives. Description An account of the resource The fonds contains records from the Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project dating from 1942 to 2021. It includes photographs, art installations, artwork, podcasts, audio stories, essays and video created by the thirteen project participants. Project participants were based out of Canada, the United States and Australia. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project fonds (F0196) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1942 - 2021 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada, United States, and Australia Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound If You’re Gay, What am I? In first grade, I remember confiding in my two best friends, Cassie and Heather. We were sitting under a desk in the back of our classroom, a place where we told each other our deepest secrets. I took a deep breath and shared “ My dad is more like the mom and my mom is more like the dad.” Their faces went blank, uncertain of what this information could even mean. It was 1985, and my family lived in a small town in West Virginia. A place where mommies were supposed to be “mommies”: cooking, cleaning, looking pretty and kissing daddies. “Daddies” worked to support the family, fixed things around the house, and never, ever cried. I explained further, “My dad is the one who cooks, and he's always watching Young and the Restless.” I put it out there to see if maybe it wasn't so weird and their daddies did this too. Nope. Heather's daddy chewed tobacco and loved to shoot deer. Cassie’s daddy was some sort of travelling business man. Neither of their daddies even knew what Young and the Restless was. Their dads sounded more like my mom. Although she didn't chew tobacco or hunt, she was tough and emotionally distant. I told them, “When my mom comes home her uniform is always dirty. I think she is a mechanic or something.” Heather's mom didn't work, but she knew how to fix up some deer. Cassie’s mom was a secretary. Both their moms looked like moms. They had long hair they attempted to style and wore makeup to the best of their ability. When their husbands came home, they squeezed and kissed them. My mom had short hair, hated makeup and reluctantly kissed my father. The messages I received about gender from my parents were in conflict with society and with each other. My dad put me in beauty pageants and coerced me into ballet classes. He loved fixing my hair and doing my makeup. My mom stood by watching and rolling her eyes when my dad painted my tiny lids blue and puffy cheeks pink. My mom once asked, “Why do you talk like that?” She was referring to my “baby” voice. I was still only six, so I wasn't conscious of it or capable of answering such a deep question. When I did my chores, she said, “Elizabeth, you need to use some elbow grease.” Basically saying I did everything like a girl. I got the sense she didn't like anything that fell under the category “Girl”. My mom was trying to toughen me up, and my dad was trying to turn me into a floating flower. Neither felt natural. When my parents divorced, it was not a surprise. To me, they didn't belong together. My dad moved in with his friend Dale, and he never seemed happier. It was 1990. I was 11 years old, and although no one explained it to me then, I now know my dad was happier because he was gay and finally able to live the life he always wanted. Although I immediately accepted my dad's sexuality and was relieved to see him living as his true self, I did have questions. What did it mean for me? Did it make me gay? Was I only going to be attracted to gay men? Or would I even know how to be a woman because my dad was gay and my mom behaved in a way society defined as manly? In high school, I dated an effeminate guy named Chris. He wrote me poems and painted paintings and bought me bouquets of flowers he put together himself. I hated him. I ripped up his poems and threw away his flowers. I enjoyed the attention he gave me. He made me feel beautiful and like a woman, but I couldn't love him back. Even though I didn't understand it then (although it is obvious to me now), I was afraid he could be gay. After Chris, I dated a more masculine guy named Loc, pronounced, “lock”. He was tall and played college football. He was too old for me. But he certainly wasn't gay. In fact, he cheated on me with some girl his age, just as Chris had cheated on me (if surprisingly) with a woman. In my teenage mind, most men were gay or cheated. After graduating high school, I went to an acting school. Being away from home, I finally felt I was able to define myself. I didn't want to identify as gay or straight because I thought “How does anyone really know what they are?” I thought because my dad came out later that somehow sexuality was a bomb that could drop on you at any time, maybe some quiet morning while you were simply brushing your teeth. Around this time, people often asked me, “If your dad is gay, what does that make you?” I was open to the idea I could be gay or bisexual because I found women beautiful, and most of my meaningful relationships were with women and gay men. At times, I even thought “maybe I'll just marry a gay man on purpose!” One drunken night after a party, I did what supposedly all women do in college, and I kissed a fellow classmate, a girl. Unlike the song that made Katy Perry famous, I did not like it. It felt completely wrong. I felt ashamed. Not because I did something I secretly wanted to do but because I did something I never wanted to do in the first place. I finally understood that although I loved and admired women, I did not want to kiss them. I wanted to be them. To me, other women had it so easy. They just were. I wanted to just be, but I was too neurotic about my femininity. Even in acting school, I was encouraged to drop my baby voice. After thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of doing vocal exercises, the voice remained. After acting school, I went to a university to study filmmaking. The school offered a few free therapy sessions. I was so broke, I latched on to anything free. During my first session, I didn't know what to say. I felt like a phony, as I had my whole life when it came to the expression of gender and myself. Technically, life was okay, and I had nothing to complain about. But then I heard these words coming out of my mouth, “Do I seem androgynous to you?” The nice psychologist-in-training laughed, “No, you totally look like a girl.” I wasn't convinced. I always felt as if something was fundamentally wrong with me, that because of my family, I was broken. So I decided to join a strict Christian church. I wasn't raised religious, but I did live in Texas. Living there most of my life, I got the sense there was a right life, and I was not living it. I told myself I wanted to join the church because I loved Jesus and the message of living in a world where everyone loved each other. But there was another part of me that couldn't wait to be corrected and fixed by the experience, and turned into a proper heterosexual woman. And the church obliged. I was assigned to a person who was supposed to be a mentor. She told me, “If you want to be a leader, you should imitate the leaders, look at how they cut their hair.” I wore my hair long, and a little makeup. But they wanted me to take it up a notch and have an actual hairstyle -- something that required maintenance. I thought our purpose as Christians was to band together to save the world, but all anyone ever talked about was getting married. Again, I felt like something was wrong with me. I wasn't obsessed with guys and the notion of getting married, like all the other girls. I wanted to fall in love and marry someday, but I thought it would happen on its own. I was even admonished over my failure to fixate on men—“Elizabeth, you should at least try to have an interest.” I guess I didn't want to obsess over things I couldn't have. Our church did not believe in sex before marriage. Our church didn't hate gay people per se; they just weren't allowed to join the church. Or if they did, they had to stop being gay. Although I didn't want to believe there was anything wrong with being gay, I looked at all the pain my family went through growing up, and it made me wonder. What if there is something wrong with it? What if there is something wrong with me? This doubt created a wedge between my father and me. Even though we never discussed it openly, I could tell he was apprehensive around me. He felt judged no matter what I did because I went to the church. And I always wondered in his heart of hearts if he could have chosen a different path and kept our family from so much hurt. My church believed we could only date and marry people from our church. We thought we were the only ones going to heaven. So it didn't make sense to date from the outside, someone you couldn't spend eternity with. But in the five years I attended this church, I never had genuine feelings for anyone. There were a few guys who were okay, but not anyone I wanted to marry. From ages 21 to 26, I didn't date anyone. Throughout acting school and film school, my dream was to become a screenwriter, but there weren't a lot of colleges where you could study that. So after graduating, I took a screenwriting workshop. The teacher (we’ll call him Hank) was a professional writer who had some commercial success. He had large bags, and dark circles under his eyes, from allergies and writing long hours into the night. He was balding and never had anything good to say about himself—I fell in love with him immediately. I confided in my sisters at the church about my feelings for Hank, and they said, “That is Satan. Satan is trying to pull you away from God.” I didn't take this too seriously, because I doubted Hank would ever go on a date with me. After the classes were over, Hank and I went on a date. Going on a date with someone who didn't go to my church was a sin, but I told myself, “He’s just mentoring me.” On our second mentoring session, I went to his house, and we watched a movie while sitting fairly close together. I had strong feelings for this person and didn't know why. He wasn't a Christian, he wasn't even good boyfriend material, and he didn't seem to like me that much. But I couldn't stop thinking about him. I never turned down a chance to talk with him, whether it was in person, or on the phone, or over email. I knew if I decided to pursue a romantic relationship with him, I would be kicked out of the church forever. Everything I built my life around those five years—my salvation, my faith, and all my friends—would be over. I realized, in some way, my experience of falling in love with Hank was similar to when my father fell in love with Dale. He probably didn't want to love him; he probably felt he shouldn't love him, but he couldn't help but love him. I no longer just accepted my dad. I understood him. We love whom we love, and it is not a choice. One Sunday morning, before church, I took a long walk. I walked so far I missed the morning service. I decided to never go back. I no longer needed to figure out my sexuality or gender. And I no longer had to get my hair cut like Jennifer Aniston to prove it. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 12 minutes, 48 seconds Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource If You're Gay, What Am I? Subject The topic of the resource Queerspawn Description An account of the resource Elizabeth Collins reads her essay, "If You're Gay, What Am I?" Essay was published in <i>Spawning Generations: Rants and Reflections on Growing Up With LGBTQ+ Parents</i>, edited by Sadie Epstein-Fine and Makeda Zook (Bradford: Demeter Press, 2018), p. 165-169. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Elizabeth Collins Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Queerspawn fonds, F0196-01-002-001, The ArQuives Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 1 WAV audio file [00:12:48], 138MB, Hard Drive Relation A related resource <a href="https://digitalexhibitions.arquives.ca/exhibits/show/queerspawn-digital-storytellin/elizabeth-collins">Queerspawn Storytelling Project, Elizabeth Collins</a> Language A language of the resource English https://digitalexhibitions.arquives.ca/files/original/18bfeb1e905940763bd9b43ca4a20121.wav a55b121ee314a1eef2bf74530cd1cffc Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project Subject The topic of the resource The Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project was spearheaded by Sadie Epstein-Fine, creative and operational lead with community support from Makeda Zook in 2021. The goal of the project was to provide participants of all ages with one or more LGBTQ2+ parent(s) a way to explore aspects of the queerspawn experience through digital content creation. Over the course of 5 months, the Queerspawn project participants met virtually to share space and build community. They explored different ways to get into their stories and experiences. The project included 13 participants, who created video, art projects and installations, audio stories, podcasts and essays, exploring how their identities and life experiences have intersected with their queerspawn identity. The Queerspawn Project was made possible through the International Centre for Arts for Social Change’s FUTURES/Forward Program and The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives. Description An account of the resource The fonds contains records from the Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project dating from 1942 to 2021. It includes photographs, art installations, artwork, podcasts, audio stories, essays and video created by the thirteen project participants. Project participants were based out of Canada, the United States and Australia. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project fonds (F0196) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1942 - 2021 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada, United States, and Australia Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 58 minutes, 54 seconds Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Audio Transcript: [Micah]: All the thoughts and opinions of the performers and creators are theirs and theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of the queer or the queerspawn community. [song: "Harry goes to War" by Decoration Day] [Micah]: Hello and welcome to the show. I’m your humble host Micah Champagne. I’m so glad you could join me today. This is going to be a follow up show to the short story I wrote a couple years ago for the queerspawn anthology called Spawning Generations. The piece was called “My Life is a Play” and it’s on page 42. This show is going to be a little different in both style and format, from the first piece. But don’t let that deter you. Today we are going to have an interview with my brother, a deep examination on the queerspawn experience with some wonderful music. But before we get to all of that. Let’s do a recap. I was born in 1993 to two women, named Jan and Lois. I was conceived through artificial insemination by an anonymous sperm donor. I add this detail mostly for the queer parents in the audience. Shortly after I was born, my family was in a very bad car accident in which my mother Lois was killed. I was a baby at the time of the accident, so I have no memories of it or of Lois. My first memories are that of my mother and me living in a small women’s co-op in Toronto. When I was 6 1/2 years old a young boy moved into our co-op. I crashed his 7th birthday party with one of the other boy’s from our neighbourhood. The new boy’s name was Josh. And after forming a very quick and strong friendship, our mom’s met, and within a year we were living together in one apartment. A couple years later, in 2001, our mothers Marium and Jan got married in a small garden of a friend. But by that time, me and Josh were already calling each other brothers for a while. Around that time, I also met Josh’s father Jeff, who was Marium’s ex-husband. After several meetings with Jeff, he welcomed me into his family and into his home. And me and Josh would often spend every second weekend of our childhood at our father’s house. I love my family and I would have it no other way. And this is my family and this is the story I told. I wanted to tell my family story and my story in Part One, because I wanted to showcase what families could look like. And that they are valid and completely like any other family. But it is also the story that I am most familiar with telling. It is the easiest one for me to convey. And I think with this piece, I wanted to tell a little bit of a deeper side to having queer parents into the story itself. I think everyone has a version of themselves that they present to the world. The ones that we practice through retellings, till it’s perfect. And when you come from a nontypical family like my own, I think that there is this pressure to prove that your family works. That it is the perfect version of what a family could be and that you turned out alright because your parents were good parents. I’ve found that I’ve become… And I’m pushed into the role of the spokesperson for a ll queer families in any conversation. And if I take one wrong step, I feel like I delegitimize queer families in the eyes of the world. And that pressure follows me in most social situations. And it’s always like in small moments. Like when a friend of a friend at a party says, “Oh, you have, like, two moms? Like, they’re your real parents? That’s weird.” And you have to take a step back and not act in frustration, because in that moment you are now representing all queer families. So you always have to answer with grace, to justify your own existance in your family’s existance, and that queer families work. But I didn’t get to choose my family any more than anybody else did. I didn’t wake up one morning, like, “Oooo… A family sampler. How delightful! Oh, this one seems fun. Oh, it comes with a side of homophobia? Fantastic! If I get one for the table, will everyone share?” I wouldn’t want it any other way. I love my family. I just didn’t choose it. Nobody did. Nobody got to choose their parents, or the circumstances in which they were born. And especially as a child, those things are so far outside of your control. You’re inherent with circumstances. And when you are from a queer family, you inherit homophobia, and the misunderstanding, and the fear. For example, we don’t really talk to my mom Jan’s family. I haven’t seen them since my grandmother died when I was about eight. They made their choice a really long time ago, before I was born. And that carries to this day. We inherit a lot from our family: small habits, humour, preferences for 30 year old sci-fi… And we as queerspawn inherit homophobia. We inherit ignorance. We just don’t necessarily inherit the community. However we inherit the pressure to represent the community. When we are kids, I think, we are showcased as a product of queer families. That queer families can do anything, as much as a heterosexual family. But when we grow up, there’s not room in the queer spaces for us as adults. And so often, there is a disconnect, or a lack of representation for queerspawn. It’s hard to feel seen in any community, whether it’s the heterosexual community or the queer community. This is just my experience. Each of my three parents and army of grandparents that raised me are some of the most incredible people that I’ve ever met. They’re loving and supportive. But just as my family is a little bit more complicated than most, so are some of the things that we have to navigate. Thank you for sticking through that rant. We are going to head into our first song break. Stick around, because afterwards we are going to have my esteemed guest, Joshua Zachariah my very own brother, to continue the conversation. All this and more. Here’s Sea Beau with “Human” off the album Ventures, courtesy of Cassius Sounds. [song: “Human” by Sea Blue] [Micah]: Well… Hello and welcome! Welcome to the studio, my brother Joshua Zachariah. [Joshua]: Great to be here. It’s incredible. Thank you for having me. [Micah]: Yeah, my tiny living room studio. Um… Yeah, I just wanted to start I guess like… At the beginning of this, I did a little bit of a recap of the first project. And, I wanted to start kind of generally at the beginning because I don’t think we’ve talked about it too much but… Like, I don’t think we grew up with the term queerspawn being like a big thing. [Joshua]: I feel like they got invented by, kind of, our cohort. [Micah]: Yeah. Yeah, by our generation of… Yeah. So what’s your opinion on that? Like, do you think that you fit in that umbrella? [Joshua]: Well… I think growing up I always felt like I didn’t have the same claim on it as other queerspawn did. [Micah]: Right. [Joshua]: Because… You know like… I think two things. One, having been born to a heterosexual, or couple who at least thought that they were heterosexual at the time. [Micah]: Sure [Joshua]: And, you know, having both of those parents stay in my life. And then other, which I think… We might talk about this later as well, but, my mother being bi and that whole relationship that I think the whole LGBTQ community has… Different parts of it have had, with being bi, not being as kind of legitimate of a thing. [Micah]: Right. [Joshua]: So, I think um… Yeah, I felt like, in comparison to a lot of the queerspawn… I didn’t grow up as much in that community I feel like, as much as you did. [Micah]: Right. [Joshua]: I didn’t have the same connections to that wold, because my mom wasn’t as much of a part of that as say Jan was. But I think… And we’ve talked about this. But that, I think a lot of my feeling that I belonged in that world more legitimately. Because more around like… You know, you get bullied for something. I feel like. [Micah]: Yeah. [Joshua]: You know, it gets to a point of awkward… [Micah]: Yeah. Certainly, yeah… I think that like… I remember the shift because, yeah… Like, I grew up always knowing that my mom was gay. But I remember that there was a shift because my mom was a single mom till like, oh, she finally has a partner. And like, I think people latched onto that and there definitely was a shift to like how much bullying was levied. [Joshua]: Kind of also… Like, the word spawn I think was a piece of it for me too. [Micah]: Right. [Joshua]: I wasn’t spawned by queer. [Micah]: Right. Yeah. Yeah. If you want… I mean… It’s weird because like you were saying, that bi identity is so already contested… But I think that you have a claim to it as much as the rest of us. Right, like…? [Joshua]: I think so too, but I think that I have an interesting relationship with… [Micah]: Right. [Joshua]: Yeah. You know… I think you and I both have a number of identities. [Micah]: Yeah. [Joshua]: Like, do we get to claim being Jewish for example? Right? [Micah]: Yeah. [Joshua]: Another one that’s contentious at best, for both of us. [Micah]: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And I always like… I think I wrestle too with how queer do I have to be to identify as queer? [Joshua]: What legitimizes that queerness? [Micah]: Yeah [Joshua]: What acts? Right? [Micah]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. [Joshua]: Like, to me like… Go have sex with someone of the same gender once every… [Micah]: Yeah, what’s my queer quota? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah… Is the Queer Council going to come down and be like, “I don’t know…. We’ve reviewed your file.” [Joshua]: You know what’s another interesting thing about the word queer. I feel like there’s lots of scholarly work on the word queer that I’m not familiar with, but like… You know, the word in its original meaning means ‘different’ right? [Micah]: Right. Sure. [Joshua]: I think. And, even beyond, like, our mothers… Our family is certainly queer. [Micah]: Yeah. Sure. [Joshua]: In the sense of it’s different. [crosstalk] [Micah]: Yeah, I mean like… Certainly, I think queer meaning also ‘otherly’ and ‘strange,’ right? [Joshua]: And yeah. We’re certainly not nuclear. [Micah]: Yeah. [Joshua]: Even dad, certainly doesn’t bring nuclear-ness into the world, into our world. [Micah]: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I think, like… Just the whole structure of our family… I remember being in grade 10 and trying to explain it to somebody. Like, and having to physically draw it for them because they couldn’t get their head around it. [Joshua]: Yeah. Yeah. Still, still find most people, like, just kind of get lost. [Micah]: Yeah. I find that they can kind of get the two moms thing. But when they… When you start trying to explain, yeah and then my brother’s dad, who was divorced… We still hang… He’s still a parent and all of his family is my family. [Joshua]: Yeah. [Micah]: And we go there all the time and I see him all the time. [Joshua]: Yeah. [Micah]: And when you start opening that door, people lose… Their eyes glaze over. [Joshua]: Yeah. Well, it also doesn’t help that it's a family by itself. It’s just complicated. [Micah]: Yeah, totally. And then you start explaining that… Yeah. Well, and like… I think… And this is certainly a thing… I kind of talked about this at the beginning. For all families that are non-nuclear… Families of divorce, or whatever. You were raised by your grandparents. I think that we all have that, like, moment where you have to kind of explain and justify what your family structure is. [Joshua]: And it’s funny because you think like, how common actually is the nuclear family? [Micah]: Yeah. [Joshua]: Right? Like… I feel like, certainly in the world it’s the minority. [Micah]: Yeah. [Joshua]: Because, you know most… There’s just so many different ways to have a family that different cultures have. [Micah]: Yeah. Yeah. [Joshua]: But I bet, even just because of divorces, or whacky things happen… [Micah]: Yeah, sure. [Joshua]: That even in North America, or, you know. in Canada, U.S. have… That would also be in the minority. Ah, maybe not. I don’t know. There are a lot of nuclear families. [Micah]: Yeah. It wouldn’t surprise me… It wouldn’t surprise me how little it is actually present. [Joshua]: Yeah, everyone's got their wackiness. [Micah]: Yeah. Yeah. And certainly… [Joshua]: Some have a little more. [Micah]: Yeah. Yeah. I think our family structure… And I think like, certainly, definitly a lot of queer families that I know have that right? Like inherently you have that… A little bit more of a wacky family structure. Especially because a lot of like… You have a lot of family that you have chosen over the period of your life, or whatever. That you’re like, these people are the people that I want to be in my family’s life. [Joshua]: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. That’s the chosen family as well is a whole other structure to that. Like, you have the friends and stuff that you have around. I’ve always loved how good Jan was at that. [Micah]: Yeah. [Joshua]: At picking who her family was. [Micah]: Yeah. Jan’s my mom. And yeah…. She was always really good at setting that boundary, whatever that boundary was right? Being like, this is exactly what I want it to feel like. [Joshua]: Yeah [Micah]: Especially because like, yeah… My mom lost the person she thought she was going to raise me with, right? [Joshua]: Yeah. [Micah]: And so like… And I think like… She needed that support system to do it. I was like, not an easy kid. [Joshua]: No. Neither of us were. [Micah]: No. [Joshua]: And like, yeah, again to the chosen family… To the degree that we chose each other and constructed that family. [Micah]: Yeah, totally. Certainly, like me and you definitely chose each other. Like… We, like from day one, we’re like, yeah this is the person. Like… [Joshua]: To the queerness of our household. [Micah]: Yeah. [Joshua]: It’s like, because of that… That relationship was… Adds to the differentness of our family… That we fucking Parent Trapped. [Micah]: Yeah, we did. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. We’re like, we’re going to hang out all the time and then our moms are going to get together. Yeah. Yeah. I like… I like that “we Parent Trapped” as like… Um… Do you… How often do you think, like, having queer parents effects you now? Like, you’re an adult. Not effects, but you know what I’m saying? How often do you think it comes up in your life? [Joshua]: In what sense? [Micah]: Yeah, I mean like… [Joshua]: Like… It comes up in the sense that I was like, became the person that I am today. [Micah]: Right [Joshua]: And that’s every day. But how often do I think about it? How often… Like… Let’s say in like… I would say the most common way it comes up is like… I think both of us…. We’re essentially doing this now to tell our story. [Micah]: Yeah. [Joshua]: Right? You know? In a social gathering or something, being like, how interesting we’re are? [Micah]: Right. [Joshua]: Um… Or at least, I certainly do because you know… Ego problems. And uh, so like, it comes up in that sense. [Micah]: Right. [Joshua]: Where I talk about it. Um… [Micah]: And like… You find that that’s a point of pride? Like, that you bring… [Joshua]: It’s a point of pride. [Micah]: Right. That you’re like, my family is interesting. And like… [Joshua]: Yeah. Yeah. [Micah]: I… I… It’s weird. I often find that I have to defend it. Like, that I’m bringing it up often to be like, “No, it’s fine. Everything is fine. Look how well my queer parents did. I’m okay.” [Joshua]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I guess I haven’t had… Who do you find that you are defending it to? [Micah]: Like certainly… It’s always little moments where it’s like, “oh you had two queer parents. That’s, like, weird.” You know? Or it’s like… I find that I am often, like… I make fun of them a lot. That’s just the way we like… [Joshua]: Mhmm [crosstalk] [Micah]: I find that like… Sometimes I’ll make a lot of jokes. And basically be like, “My parents are so hippy.” And like… The open, like, circles to just have a family dinner. You know? Like, making jokes. And then someone will be like… Like, take that too far. And I’m like, “No! No! No! No! They’re great!” And like, and I’ve got to back pedal from that. [Joshua]: Yeah. Yeah. I find that I have to do back pedaling around, yeah, ways in which they are strange. [Micah]: Yeah. [Joshua]: And things that people kind of don’t get that. Their gayness isn’t often a part of that. [Micah]: Right. [Joshua]: I don’t think… [Micah]: Like, if I… Not that I haven’t seen it as a point of pride because I quite like our parents. But I’ve never brought it up being like, this is my family structure… Like, why do you think that that’s the thing that you bring up? [Joshua]: That’s a good question. It often comes up around conversations around queerness I guess in general. [Micah]: Right. [Joshua]: And I guess, I use it as a way to legitimize my place in the conversation. [Micah]: Right. Yeah. [Joshua]: Like, my own… I’ve always felt that my own bi-ness was inadequate to legitimize my place in the conversation. [Micah]: Right. [Joshua]: Which is a whole other kettle of fish. [Micah]: Yeah. [Joshua]: And then in some ways, isn’t as part of… I’ve often felt there’s a performative piece of my, of my life and my story that I am willing to give people. [Micah]: Right, yeah. [Joshua]: They are almost… They being gay is almost part of that, it’s part of that narrative that I am willing to give people. [Micah]: Right. [Joshua]: Whereas my own queeness isn't as much. [Micah]: Me too. Absolutely. Like, I definitly, like, I think I definitly lead with I have two gay moms. [Joshua]: Yeah. [Micah]: And I’m so far, like… “and I’m also queer. And I also identify….” I definitly lead with two gay moms way faster than I lead with my own queerness. I think it’s separation to be like, I’m in the community, and I need you to not talk shit, or whatever. I want to be part of the conversation, but I’m not going to directly out myself. [Joshua]: Yeah. [Micah]: I think for me sometimes, especially at work, it comes a little bit more from having that queer danger sense… To be like, okay, I’ve got to like, feel out who is going to be cool and who is not going to be cool. But certainly in more social situations I think it’s just like… I don’t know wit you, but certainly sometimes with me, I’m like, it’s none of your fucking business what my deal is. [Joshua]: Yeah. [Micah]: But like, yeah. Exactly. It’s exactly what you were saying. “But I want to be part of that conversation.” [Joshua]: Yeah, because we have something to say about it. [Micah]: Yeah. [Joshua]: Like… Yeah. Like… I mean, we went through a difficult time because of our parent’s queerness. [Micah]: Yeah. Yeah. [Joshua]: Right? Like, kids suck. [Micah]: Yeah. Yeah, and I think, like, yeah, you inherit that ignorance. Right? Like, when we were eight, we didn’t have a concept of like, and we are bi… But we still inherited that homophobia. And I think like… A lot like… It’s inherited. Like, a lot of communities inherit that. And certainly like… It’s like… I think… I think it’s… The queer community is one of those that you take on that ignorance for your parents sometimes. Not for them, but because that’s the way the world is. Like, it’s not their fault. To just like… It’s nobody’s fault. We just didn’t choose it, right? I didn’t go one day, like, “Oh yeah, please I’d love the ignorance sampler. I’ll get some for the table; it will be great.” [Joshua]: Yeah. Right. Right. Got a little bit of everything. [Micah]: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Do you… I definitely think that, in a weird way, that having to deal with homophobia in school, and like, having to deal with a lot of that bullying… Like, has made me better at dealing with it. Like, has made me a little bit stronger… Thicker skinned as a person. And like, I think that’s easy to say for someone who doesn’t deal with… ~ Hello Micah from the future here just jumping in to say that there was a little bit of an audio issue while recording the interview. And so there’s going to be a little bit of a gap and then we’ll jump back into the episode. ~ Yeah. [Joshua]: You know, I’ve been thinking about that a lot. It’s actually something I was talking about in therapy only this last week. Um… I think there is a general idea around this like… You know, people who ended… Are more interesting as adults, who were bullied as kids. And you know, like… It’s toughened you up. And there’s this like… I don’t know. I wonder how much we excuse shittiness from people on that kind of basis. [Micah]: Right. [Joshua]: It’s still not… It’s still not okay that we like… That there are bullies and that’s now how you make interesting people. [Micah]: Yeah. Totally. [Joshua]: And like… Like, I… Because if that’s the… If we need bullying to get interesting adults… I don’t want to have a kid that gets bullied. [Micah]: Yeah. Suffering does not equal… [Joshua]: Yeah, we shouldn’t require suffering of people. [Micah]: Yeah, totally. [Joshua]: I don’t think that suffering should be required to become a full healthy individual. [Micah]: Yeah, for sure. [Joshua]: Because it legitimizes shitty people and I don’t think we should legitimize shitty people. [Micah]: Yeah. Yeah. I think, like, certainly for me, it’s like, how do I own, I think, my own, like, bullying, and own like, feeling upset about it. And be okay? And still not legitimize, like, “oh that was cool.” Like… I didn’t enjoy that. That wasn’t nice. [Joshua]: Yeah. [Micah]: But certainly… Like… I definitely like… To this day, like… You know? I still get homophobic micoagressions and certainly like… I think they’re a little bit more connected to my own sexuality, which is why I think I’m a little guarded about it. But like, definitely, like, it’s connected to our parents as well. And it’s like, yeah… That’s still something that I’m always going to have to put up with that. Which is like… You know? What it is. [Joshua]: Yeah [crosstalk] [Micah]: Go for it. [Joshua]: I… So… I wanted to kind of loop back to like, like, our meeting, and our kind of construction of that you know that family. I realized the other day when I was thinking about it… Do you have clean memories of, say, that first week? [Micah]: No [Joshua]: I don’t either. [Micah]: Not good ones. [Joshua]: I kind of have a memory of the birthday party. [Micah]: I definitely have… And I’m not sure how much that is a memory of the picture, that is all of us on the stoop. Or is it actual memories of that happening? I definitely remember the pinata. [Joshua]: I have a pretty clear picture in my head of you showing up at the back door with Carl. [Micah]: Yeah. [Joshua]: One of the reasons I think it is a legitimate memory, is because it’s… So, I have a lot of memories where I’m not entirely sure if it’s because someone told me a story. [Micah]: Yeah. [Joshua]: And then I insert it. One of the reasons why I also thought this was a legitimate one is because it’s from the right height. [Micah]: Yeah, sure. [Joshua]: Like, it’s a first person height. So I feel like it might be, actually me remembering it. But then, I go straight from that to essentially you just moving in. There’s… I have this gap in my head sometimes, of that, like… initial friendship. [Micah]: Me too. I think it’s just… I’ve spent so much time in my brain being like, oh… Josh is my brother, that it’s like… [Joshua]: I feel like we kind of became brothers even before… Like, there was [?: dotting] to me that I was constantly teased that kind of had to happen. [Micah]: Yeah. Totally. And I think like… I don’t know. I just… I always, that space is just inputted by… Yeah, we were already there. [Joshua]: Yeah. [Micah]: And I know there was like… I know there was a period of time where we were becoming friends. [Joshua]: Yeah… But you know [?: Dylan] [Micah]: But kids are so… Sure. But kids are so good at that, I think. [Joshua]: Yeah. [Micah]: About like, that immediacy of being like… And you’re my best friend now. [Joshua]: Yeah. [Micah]: You know? Like… [Joshua]: Yeah, like… I think there’s a lot of that that I miss. But like, that incredible amount of trust that like… That we could bring to bear. I don’t know if I could get even remotely that close ever again in my life. [Micah]: Yeah. Yeah. It’s so crazy . The more I talk about like… Because I… The first, beginning of this project was like, four years ago, when I first wrote the piece. And it just gets more and more complicated as I get… Life just gets slightly more complicated as you get older. Which… Yeah. Yeah. [Joshua]: Yeah. Which [?] notes. [Micah]: Well kind of. [Joshua]: [?] did the opposite. Never mind. [MIcah]: I get what you are saying. It just keeps getting, like, expands. And yeah, I think for kids. It’s like… “Oh, this is the thing? Okay, great.” I just want the thing I want. It’s that immediacy. And like… Yeah and that trust. I think that there was something about our relationship that we both hitched onto because it was so immediate, right? It was very… [Joshua]: I think that we saw dreamers in each other. [Micah]: Yeah [Joshua]: I mean, not in the ambition sense. But in the… Not being entirely satisfied with this reality sense. [Micah]: Yeah, totally. And storytellers. [Joshua]: Yeah. [Micah]: And I think that ability to craft… Going back to that ability to hone and craft the stories that you want to be true about yourself. And like… It’s funny, because every time I do one of these projects, it’s you know… It’s awlays like, how is it to be my relationship to being queerspawn? And it’s like, that’s only one part of who I am as a person. Like, there’s so many other parts. And I think, you know, just the nature of being of… The project being about being queerspawn, makes it about that and not about the million other… You know? [Joshua]: Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s… I think you’re… You’ve nailed it on the head. What I find interesting about our lives, isn’t the fact… Like… It is interesting that our mother’s are gay. But, that’s only interesting because society sucks. Right? Right? [Micah]: Yeah. [Joshua]: That shouldn’t actually be… You know, beyond just… Two people loving each other is wonderful, but it shouldn’t be interesting. [Micah]: Yeah. [Joshua]: Right? That should just be loving… And then everything else… The tapestry that makes up our lives and our story is a good one. [Micah]: Yeah. [Joshua]: But you know, that’s just a piece of it. [MIcah]: Yeah. I mean, certainly like… The thing… Talking about bringing up parts of our family to be interesting at parties… The one I always choose… Because our dad’s house was… [Joshua]: Yeah. Yeah, that was just chalk full of… [Micah]: Chalk full of good stories. You know? Because there were a lot of people coming in and out all the time. [Joshua]: Sauna guy. [Micah]: Yeah. Like… And so, like, that’s the one I always bring up for credit… Like, social credit to be like, “My family is whacky.” [Joshua]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [Micah]: To be like, yeah my dad had a sauna in the house and every Monday people would come over. [Joshua]: It was a much stranger part of our upbringing. [Micah]: Yeah. Yeah. And I think sometimes people focus on the gayness. I’m like, no, no no, no, no. My dad is so wacky. [Joshua]: And like, in your relationship with him too is really a quite interesting piece. Like… [Micah]: Yeah. Yeah. [Joshua]: Speaking of chosen family. [Micah]: Yeah, absolutely. [Joshua]: Like, that’s a… [Micah]: And like, yeah… He could in no way… ‘Cuz I remember… I have very vivid memories of meeting him for the first time. [Joshua]: That one I remember. The subway?! I remember very clearly. [Micah]: Yeah. Yeah. And like… I remember very clearly moments of being like, oh that’s Josh’s dad? And moments of being like, oh that’s my dad. And like, I’m always so thank… He was so… It took a little bit, like every relationship takes a minute. But he was so quick to be like, oh I have another son now. [Joshua]: Yeah, I’ve always been so awed and proud of how much he was willing to, yeah… [Micah]: Yeah. Yeah, me too. [Joshua]: There’s not a lot of men who would do that for their ex wife’s new partner’s son… [MIcah]: No. Yeah. Ex wife’s new partner’s… Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Like… And not only that… It’s not like… Oh this is like my step son or whatever… [Joshua]: Yeah. [Micah]: It’s also like… Okay, my ex wife is now dating a woman. [Joshua]: Yeah. [Micah]: And her partner’s boy is going to be hanging out with me. And it’s like, yeah… No. [Joshua]: Normally he’s not going to be hanging out that… It’s not like he comes over on weekends… No… We are bringing him into the whole fucking thing. [Micah]: Yeah. But also, there’s never a moment where dad was like, “This is my step-son.” [Joshua]: Yeah. Yeah. [Micah]: He never made that delineation. [Joshua]: Yeah. Yeah. [Micah]: He’s like, “This is my son.” And he always… He still to this day introduces me like that. And it’s like… No. I’m forever grateful to that like, yeah… Not a lot of men would have done that. [Joshua]: No. [Micah]: No. You… You… In that like… [Joshua]: Yeah. Yeah. [Micah]: Yeah, and it was… In my brain it was immediate. And I know it took months. But like in my brain… [Joshua]: It took a remarkably low amount of time. [Micah]: Oh, I agree. But like, it definitely took a month or two, and in my brain it was like, it just jumps. There’s this skip in time. [Joshua]: Yeah. Yeah. And it’s like… Again it’s funny with how we construct stories and memories. When we tell the story, we’re not in like… Something I think we’ve talked about before as well is like, when I tell our story, like, it’s almost a recording. [Micah]: Yeah. [Joshua]: Like, there are beats that I hit. [Micah]:Yeah, totally. [Joshua]: There are places that I pause. Like, it’s a whole fucking thing. [MIcah]: Yeah, it’s definitely sculpted. [Joshua]: And it’s almost like that has become the memory, that we took that like, probably legitimately two year period… [Micah]: Yeah. [Joshua]: Maybe, year and a half. [Micah]: Year and a half. [Joshua]: And then like… [Micah]: Condensed it. [Joshua]: Made it a single memory. [Micah]: Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Made it one continuous, instead of a bunch of blocks. [Joshua]: Yeah, yeah. [Micah]: Yeah. [Joshua]: Yeah. Because the first time… My memory of feeling the first time that you were fully in… That dad had fully adopted you, was at the cottage. [Micah]: Yeah, I agree. Yeah. No, that’s definitely the moment that is… That’s the adoption there. [Joshua]: Yeah. [Micah]: Is… Because I remember being like, “Can I call you dad?” And he was like, “Yeah.” [Joshua]: Yeah. That happened at the cottage. [Micah]: Yeah. That was at the cottage. Yeah. No, that moment is cemented in my brain. [Joshua]: To our viewers, there is a very fun recording of that cottage. [Micah]: Oh yeah. Is that from the same weekend? [Joshua]: That is the same weekend. [Micah]: Oh Jesus. There is a recording of me making… Our dad had bought a stop motion camera. [Joshua]: Yeah. [Micah]: And we were making stop motion videos. And our dad still has them. [Joshua]: They’re pretty fun. [Micah]: They’re pretty fun. [Joshua]: Yeah. [Micah]: And he used to bring them out all the… He would show them to everyone who wanted… Even who didn’t want to see it… “You want to see this crazy video my kids made?” Like… [Joshua]: They were pretty good movies. [Micah]: They were pretty good. Like… [Joshua]: Three of them were about like… [Micah]: Yeah. I remember making them and dad being like, “Does the dragon have to eat the man?” [Joshua]: Yeah. [MIcah]: And we were like, “Dad! The dragon has to eat the man.” [Joshua]: One was also like a sword fight where someone got stabbed. [Micah]: Someone did get stabbed, yeah. [Joshua]: We were violent fucking kids. [Micah]: I think that's like, yeah… I think all kids… Like, I think… It’s all about some amount of control. [Joshua]: For sure. And like… [MIcah]: Not to get too analytical on it. [Joshua]: And we had our own relationships with like… Vio… Like, you know? [crosstalk] …and stuff. [Micah]: But also I think that… Yeah. But, every… All media is kind of viol… A lot of media… [Joshua]: Yeah. Yeah. We would smack down stairs at six o’clock in the morning every Saturday to essentially watch violence. [Micah]: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Watch just streams of violent cartoons. [Joshua]: Yeah. [Micah]: Yeah [Joshua]: Which were fun. I wouldn’t take that back for the world. [Micah]: No, me neither. Um… Yeah, so I think that we are going to wrap up pretty soon. But, I just wanted to like… I think the… If you had to give a piece of advice to… Because I think that we used to do like… [Joshua]: Yeah, panels. [Micah]: Panels. And we’d always… [Joshua]: You know what’s funny? That’s the piece of being queerspawn that felt the most legitimate in some ways. That… [Micah]: Is that speaking to other… [Joshua]: The feeling that felt the most legitimizing. Like, I’m going to like… You’re legitimate enough in this community that I’m going to put you on a panel to talk to new members of it. [Micah]: Yeah. To talk to other queer people who are trying to be parents. [Joshua]: That’s the most legitimate I’ve ever felt, was being on that panel. [MIcah]: I’d… See, I felt the opposite. I felt like under a microscope. Like I had to constantly be good. [Joshua]: Right. Interesting. Yeah. For sure, I get that too. Different one. But, yeah. [MIcah]: I understand how that would be really legitimizing though. To have… But they were always a room fully of incredibly nervous first time parents, who were like, “Are we going to fuck these kids up?” And then to have them like, literally just sit and do nothing but listen to your story? Would be… Like… Yeah. I get why that is really… [Joshua]: Yeah. But one of the things that I used to say was like… You’re going to have all the trials and tribulations of any parent and you know, your queerness is going to be a part of, you know, potentially a part of those difficulties. But most of it is just the parenting part. [Micah]: Yeah… Yeah. Right. Be the parenting part… [Joshua]: Which, you know, we were fucking like fifteen giving those. I have no real advice to give you. [Micah]: I always… I remember what I always said was, “You’ve done the biggest step, which is you are choosing to become a parent. Like, that’s great. You’ve nailed it. Who gets to say… A lot of parents don’t get to choose to be parents… And that you’re actively choosing to be a parent is wonderful.” [Joshua]: Yeah. [Micah]: Yeah, but I just wanted to know… Not to focus on the parents… What do you think? What would you say to like, the next generation of queerspawn? [Joshua]: Queerspawn? So the kids? [Micah]: Yeah. Like, all those kids from all those parents at the panel, like their kids now being like seven? [Joshua]: You know, I wonder what… I don’t know… Like, I have no sense…. A lot of our society has changed a certain amount in the last decade or two and I don’t know enough about their lives. Like, I don’t know what being a queerspawn today means. Like? Maybe it’s the same as what being a queerspawn for us meant. But I don’t know. Like… I guess, like… But yeah… The bit that probably doesn't change and maybe I could speak to is like… You know, whether you question whether your family is a legitimate structure… Like, when people tell you it might not be… And that’s yeah. It’s fucking hard. I guess, the advice isn’t that complicated, but it’s easier said than done. You’ve just got to hold onto the knowledge that the love you and your family have is legitimate and it is yours. You know, I find advice like that funny because it’s just like, yeah, it’s easier said than done… What it’s like. [Micah]: Yeah, but that sentiment doesn’t get said enough to just be like, you are legitimate, and your family is legitimately. And no amount of bullshit is going to take that away from you even though it feels like it’s trying. [Joshua]: Yeah, for sure. And I guess I hope we’ve come far enough as a society that many of these kids don’t feel illegitimate and less than you. [Micah]: Yeah. Yeah. It’s always in tiny moments right? [Joshua]: Yeah. [Micah]: No, and I think the more and more I grow up and like, it’s become… I don’t live with my parents anymore. So it becomes less and less of a thing that I think about. But always a thing I think I hold close to me. It still travels with me. It’s always going to be a part of the person, who I am. But it’s not… I think as a kid sometimes it was the biggest part of who I was and now it doesn’t have to be. I can let go of constantly being like, “This is the thing and I will defend it!” You know? [Joshua]: Yeah. For sure. For sure. [Micah]: I don’t need to cling to that as hard as I think I used to. [Joshua]: Yeah. [Micah]: Well, I think we are going to wrap it up. But thank you so much for coming and doing this. [Joshua]: Thanks for having me. [Micah]: Yeah of course. I mean like… I know when we did… When the book was made, you really wanted to come and wanted to write a piece and you didn't have the words for what you wanted to write. And I’m hoping that this was at least a little bit of a platform for your to say yours… [Joshua]: Yeah. I still don’t think that I have the words for what I want to say, but this was… I’m very grateful for the chance to make an attempt. [Micah]: Yeah. Well, thanks for coming and I love you. [Joshua]: I love you too. [Micah]: Thank you again to Josh for coming onto this show. It was such a pleasure to have you. Oh, there’s the bell. I guess that means it’s feeding time for our dark capitalist overlords. Their empty bleeding [?] ever closer, so please enjoy this ad. [Kit Simmons]: Do you ever feel like there is a piece missing in your life? Do you suffer from bouts of listening to the Indigo Girls on tape? Are you frequently drawn to stores called Witch’s Coven, The Great Crystal Hut, or Shiva’s Palace? These are the common signs of the plague sweeping through our nation. Toolittlequeernitus is caused by not having enough queer content in your bloodstream. It has been known to cause hypertension, gout, and spontaneous transformations. Luckily, our top scientists at Queer & Co. have discovered a cure. Introducing, Spawning Generations: Rants and Reflections On Growing Up With LGBTQ+ Parents, a book of collected essays and stories from the queerspawn community. It’s the world’s first medicine to be developed as a book. Our drug, Spawning Generations has helped people with Toolittlequeernitus across the world. So don’t hesitate to go to your local bookshop today and find out what Spawning Generations can do for you. Symptoms may include but are not limited to: thoughtful discussions, learning and growing as a human being, uncontrollable laughter, empathy, spreading the queer agenda, impressing your friends and family by seaming cultured, appreciation for the compilation CD Women and Song, a deeper understanding of the queerspawn experience. So pick up a copy today and cure your Toolittlequeernitis. Ask your doctor if Spawning Generations is right for you. [Micah]: It was always my goal with this show to say the things that I didn’t get to say in Part I. So I want to leave with this. It is my deepest wish to raise a queer family of my own. I want to be able to tell my children that I identify as pan and non-binary. I want to be open and honest to who I am so that they know that it is okay for them to be open and honest about themselves. I want to be able to take them to Pride, so that they can enjoy the energy, the festivities, like I did as a kid. And I want to be able to walk them through feeling like they don’t have a space at Pride anymore, like I did in my teens. However, there is still a part of me that is afraid. I am afraid of what my parents in law will say when my kids ask for their pronouns, like I want to teach them to. I am afraid that they will have to put up with ignorant questions from well meaning people. I am afraid that they will have to put up with ignorant questions from not so well meaning people. I’m afraid that they will have to deal with the same bullying and homophobia that I did as a kid. I’m afraid that they are not going to want to explain their family’s whole story because it is too complicated or too weird, or it might ruin the day. I know that these are incredibly small worries in the grand scheme of things, especially because I am not going to be having kids anytime soon. But when I think about my own childhood, and what I learned, I want to be able to teach my kids and learn from them, but most of all, I want them to love and be loved by the people who mean the most to me in this world. And that’s what my big, complicated, and wonderful queer family does best. So I know that they will knock it out of the park. I have so many hopes and ideas and dreams, but I think I’ll leave that for another program. I just want to say thank you for spending your precious time with me. There’s no getting it back, so thank you. I would also like to thank Sadie Epstein-Fine and Makeda Zook for producing this piece. Thank you to The ArQuives for hosting, and thank you again to my brother Joshua Zachariah for interviewing with me. Thank you so much to Kit Simmons and Mykola Paskaruk for providing voice over, and thank you to my lovely wife Elizabeth Traicus for editing. And a big thank you to Sea Blue for the use of their song “Human.” Please check their music out at bandcamp at S-E-A-B-L-E-U. And finally, thank you to Decoration Day for the use of the intro song “Harry Goes to War,” and the song you are about to hear. So please also check out their music on bandcamp, but without further ado, here is Decoration Day with “Wild Birds Unlimited,” off the album Makeshift Future. [song: “Wild Birds Unlimited” by Decoration Day] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource This Time a Podcast Subject The topic of the resource Queerspawn Description An account of the resource "This Time a Podcast" is a project created, produced and edited by Micah Champagne as a follow up to a printed piece called “My Life As a Play”, published in <i>Spawning Generations: Rants and Reflections on Growing Up with LGBTQ+ Parents</i>, edited by Sadie Epstein-Fine and Makeda Zook. "This Time a Podcast" discusses and examines Champagne and their brother Joshua Zachariah’s queerspawn experiences. This project is meant to serve as a broader discussion and examination of the queerspawn experience while staying brutally honest. It is the side of the story you might not be used to hearing. Micah Champagne is queer artist living in Toronto, Canada. They mostly work as a technician and Designer for Theatre. They have most recently transferred their skills and begun working for Iatse 873 as a Film technician in both Electrics and Grip department. They love using their technical expertise to help create stories of all kinds as well as shaping stories through writing and editing. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Micah Champagne; Joshua Zachariah (interviewing); Mykola Paskaruk (intro voice over); "Harry goes to War" by <a href="https://decorationday.bandcamp.com/">Decoration Day</a> (intro music); "Human" by <a href="https://seabeau.bandcamp.com/album/ventures"> Sea Beau</a> courtesy of Cassius Sounds (intermission piece); "On the Inside" by Sun Chime courtesy of Epidemic Sounds (commercial music); Kit Simmons (commercial announcer); "Wild Birds Unlimited" by <a href="https://decorationday.bandcamp.com/">Decoration Day</a> (outro music) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Queerspawn fonds, F0196-01-003, The ArQuives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2021 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 1 WAV audio file [00:58:54], Hard Drive Relation A related resource <a href="https://digitalexhibitions.arquives.ca/exhibits/show/queerspawn-digital-storytellin/micah-champagne">Queerspawn Storytelling Project, Micah Champagne</a> Language A language of the resource English https://digitalexhibitions.arquives.ca/files/original/e56b2351a03457d5d65ff6417ea280b7.mp3 457f6badd74a4243bd14a6661de5c18d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project Subject The topic of the resource The Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project was spearheaded by Sadie Epstein-Fine, creative and operational lead with community support from Makeda Zook in 2021. The goal of the project was to provide participants of all ages with one or more LGBTQ2+ parent(s) a way to explore aspects of the queerspawn experience through digital content creation. Over the course of 5 months, the Queerspawn project participants met virtually to share space and build community. They explored different ways to get into their stories and experiences. The project included 13 participants, who created video, art projects and installations, audio stories, podcasts and essays, exploring how their identities and life experiences have intersected with their queerspawn identity. The Queerspawn Project was made possible through the International Centre for Arts for Social Change’s FUTURES/Forward Program and The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives. Description An account of the resource The fonds contains records from the Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project dating from 1942 to 2021. It includes photographs, art installations, artwork, podcasts, audio stories, essays and video created by the thirteen project participants. Project participants were based out of Canada, the United States and Australia. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project fonds (F0196) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1942 - 2021 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada, United States, and Australia Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 17 minutes, 22 seconds Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Did I make my mother gay? By Meredith Fenton Flashback—20 years. I'm slowly dipping my toe into the lesbian waters of my women's college. I have left the expectations and mediocrity of my hometown, and have leapt madly away from the “country's most normal city” and into a sparkly non-binary pile of new normals. It felt like everyone was gay at women's college. At least a little bit. There was Nicole, the Southern Femme Grateful Dead-lover who wore a hat that says “I can't even think straight.” Or the Jewish asexual who all of a sudden started dressing like and then dating the autosexual across the hall. Or the Korean self-identified nerd with a penchant for other nerds. I wasn't all that worried about what the future would bring, or even coming out quite frankly. I was just enjoying being free. My mother figured it out pretty quickly. Maybe because I stopped going off campus to fraternity parties at MIT and started playing rugby. She'd ask all kinds of leading questions, and when I brought up the name of my first girlfriend, she'd say things like, “Oh Mari…I sure seem to be hearing her name a lot..” Or she'd asked hypotheticals about what someone would do if they wanted to bring a girl to a dance on campus. I let her ask her questions knowing exactly what she wanted to know, but not feeling ready to give it to her. My queerness was mine in a way that nothing in my childhood had been. I had always been defined by other people's expectations, and my struggle to be the perfect daughter, the perfect student and the perfect person. I wanted to be able to define this part of my identity for myself. And I thought that telling my parents felt like a crossroads where other people would start making meaning of my identity without my input or control. I was going to tell them. I just wasn't in a hurry. At the end of the year, I had only been home from college for a day or two when my parents sat me down for a talk. I assumed they wanted to talk about “it.” I barely listened as my parents started talking—readying myself for them to ask if I had indeed started playing for the other team. But then I realized their speech wasn't about me at all. They were actually informing me that they'd be getting a divorce. It was only the second time in my life I ever saw my father cry. I was surprised, but not shocked. My parents being together had always seemed like a matter of fact, rather than a matter of passionate love. They didn't fight all that much, but no one in my family did. We didn't really do conflict. And I had never really considered that they might someday not be together. I had been so focused on my own news and my own process that I had to shift gears to really digest the information. A few days later, I finally came out to my mother as we drove across central Illinois toward a big outlet mall an hour or so away. We were on our way there because my mom had decided I might need a suit for all the job interviews she was sure I’d have in my senior year of college. Mom, in her therapist way, said, “You've been quiet about the divorce. Do you have any questions?” “I don't know. Are you a lesbian?” I stuttered. Why I asked this, I still don't really understand. But she avoided the question and asked, “Are you?” Well, it all came spilling out. “Well, you know, not a lesbian, really? I mean, yes and no. I mean, I don't really like labels, because gender doesn't matter. And I'm not going to love a person for their gender. But yes, I've had a few girlfriends even though now I'm single and…” Her loving response matched the patience and kindness she had shown while testing her suspicions all year. Yet a few hours after my coming-out ramblings, when she told me that indeed she was in a relationship with a woman, I was shocked. I don't think my weird question came from a psychic sense about my mom; it was more about my own anxiety around coming out than it was having any inkling that my mom was on a similar journey. I can't remember having ever wondered about my mom's sexuality before that day, but it was pretty easy to accept her new relationship and identity. Perhaps it was all the Audre Lord and Leslie Feinberg and Cherrie Moraga I had read that year, but I kind of felt like everyone was kind of gay. So anyone could come out at any second. This conversation brought my mom and me closer in many ways, although the next several months showed me how different our experiences would continue to be. My coming out was filled with events called the Dyke Ball and rugby after-parties all-women casts of Shakespeare and watching The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love. No one batted an eye when you started dating a girl at women's college, and you could take entire classes on feminism and queer literature, and write papers about the Jewish lesbian experience. My mom's coming out was filled with silences—awkward conversations with longtime friends, forced job changes and secrets. I knew for certain about my mother months and months before the rest of my family. I always felt bad for keeping the information from my siblings. But I also couldn't imagine what being a lesbian was actually like for my mother. So I stayed quiet. I rejoiced that I had come out so early. Coming out for me was filled with flirtations and innocent firsts and access to a whole new culture, and a community that was filled with political rigour and subversive realities. I knew it wasn't that way for my mom. So I shouldn't have been so judgy about the onslaught of the rainbow. My mom had always been a really excellent care-package sender. For years and years when I went to Jew camp, my mail deliveries were the envy of all—they’d be filled with candy and Jewish tchotchkes and little things to survive the heat and the mosquitoes. Now, all of a sudden, my college mail got a little queerer. First, it was the world's smallest little pride ring necklace. Then a matted watercolor art of a rainbow with calligraphy of the blessing you say in Hebrew upon seeing a rainbow. Then there was the signed copy of Chaz Bono's book—on and on the onslaught continued accompanied by loving and supportive cards and updates. At the time, it felt kind of like she was living vicariously through me. She might have still been fairly closeted, but she could encourage me to be a rainbow-attired, loud and proud homosexual. But now I realize it was also just an extension of her enthusiastic stage-mother ways—she was ready to cheer her children on—no matter their endeavor. One weekend, mom and her now-wife went to Provincetown, and a few friends and I met them there. They were staying at a little bed and breakfast, raving about the gay couple who made the food. Mom rented us a little studio apartment nearby. We went out to dinner at a fancy-ish place with an ocean view. It was in the offseason and the nights got dark early. Mom and her wife were thrilled beyond belief to be somewhere where they could actually hold hands on the street. I realized just how rare that was for them. That spring, I started my job search. I don't even think I wore the interview suit we had bought a year earlier even once. In fact, I'm pretty sure I did the phone interview for the internship I ended up getting while pacing around my dorm room trying to sound smart, but I wasn't even wearing pants. The organization was COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere), who I'd written to along with about 30 other nonprofit organizations that worked on women's and/or youth issues in San Francisco. I wasn't exactly sure how to get a job from 3000 miles away (this was long before the internet as we know it existed). So I sent off these form letters about my experience with youth and activism and hoped for the best. COLAGE was the only organization I wrote to who requested an interview with me. They invited me to talk on the phone about a summer internship program. So during that pantless phone interview, I'm pacing back and forth talking about my camp counselor experience, how I'd been a youth group advisor, a student leader, the social chair of the LGBTQ group on campus. And then Felicia, the executive director at the time, told me a little bit about the organization, the kids they worked with and what the internship would look like. At the very end of the interview, she gave me the standard, “So is there anything else you'd like to ask or add?” “Well”, I began, “about a year ago, my mom actually came out as a lesbian. So I'm thinking maybe this work could be interesting because of that, too.” “Why didn't you say anything?!” Felicia exclaimed, sounding flabbergasted. I tried to explain that I just couldn't imagine that there would ever be a group out there that was meant for me. I mean, I had grown up in this quote unquote, ‘normal town’ and was already an adult (in my eyes) when my mom told me she was in love with a woman. Plus, I was queer myself, so it just felt like I should automatically be fine with the whole lesbian mother situation. I figured that COLAGE was for kids who had really grown up with a gay parent, or had been born through a turkey baster or some other experience that I couldn't claim or relate to. But I got the job and include me they did. And by doing so I found a world of community I didn't know existed, and up to that point I couldn't have imagined I would ever possibly need. I spent the summer interning then joined the board of directors before returning as a fulltime staff member four years later. I found my place among hundreds of other people with LGBTQ parents. When I first started becoming a leader among the queerspawn, as we affectionately called ourselves, I was worried I was kind of a fraud. I mean, my mom had only been out for a matter of years, and most COLAGErs had been dealing with divorces or donor insemination or custody battles or a lack of protections for decades. But what I learned is that every single person who has or had an LGBTQ parent, even though the details of our individual stories may be different, there is something essential we share. I learned so much from my queerspawn peers—about resiliency and hope that was honed from surviving bullying and surviving HIV and homophobia in custody battles. I learned that there are as many different kinds of families as there are snowflakes, and that each of them is worthy of respect for the ways they take care of each other, overcome intolerance, create new traditions and define what it means to be a family. One year, I led a group of about 15 Bay Area teenagers through the creation of a poster series and art project. For our local art opening, I wanted to contribute my own piece of art. I ended up writing a children's story with illustrations called Sometimes Families Change. A friend attended the opening and the event photographer snapped a poignant shot of her reading my book while teary-eyed. It was a moment where I felt more deeply the power of my own journey, and my own story, and started to see that I was seen as a member of this group. For nearly eight years, it was my job to be a queerspawn. My job was wrapped up in my identity which is wrapped up in my sense of family. The purpose I felt standing in solidarity among a diverse community of people with LGBTQ parents has been unparalleled in my professional life. When it's your job to be the professional daughter of a lesbian, you can't help but think about your mom's sexuality quite frequently. When it came to my mother, I felt like I was leading our way into the queer experience in so many ways. But I also learned about queerness and women's herstories and life outside of the bubble from my mom and her wife and their friends. She lived in a town where her neighbor—a city council person who lives three doors down, responded “Why should I? There aren't any gay people in my district” when asked if he would support a nondiscrimination ordinance. This was the same town where my stepmom was often told how nice it was that she had quote ‘that roommate’ to travel with. The same town where classrooms and school hallways are the sites of daily homophobia. Hearing about my mom and her wife's experiences kept me humble, and helped me stay grounded in the realities facing LGBTQ communities outside of my bubble. Those lessons deepened my politicization, increased my respect for those who live at the margins, and gave me a way to develop a true adult relationship with my mother and her community. And I did the same for her. Around the same time I became a professional queerspawn, I started performing drag and femme cabaret. My mom, once again, was my consummate number-one fan. And by coming to the shows I'd put on her world was expanded. They don't have drag king shows in Peoria, Illinois, especially not ones that are infused with body-positive, racially and gender diverse groups of folks using performance to talk about the war or safe sex or white privilege. I think about the ways that LGBTQ parents often politicize their kids. I mean, so many of my peers in COLAGE talked about going out with their radical feminist mothers to Take Back the Night rallies, or being taken along to an underground drag show by their fairy godfather. In my own journey, those roles were sometimes reversed. For example, about a decade ago, my mom came to visit to see the full-length drag musical I co-directed, which was a queer retelling of the Harry Potter stories. She brought her best friend from high school who coincidentally has also come out as a lesbian. After the show, she commented on how powerful it was to see such a diverse group of people demonstrate love for one another on stage. She was blown away by our willingness to talk about things like racism and cultural appropriation and fatness. Seeing the art I was creating through her eyes gave me a broader understanding of its meaning. Dating trans masculine and genderqueer folks meant having all sorts of conversations with my mom and her wife about identity and binaries and the fluidity of it all. Even when this knowledge was new, she immediately landed on the side of acceptance and wanting to learn more. My mom even co-led a workshop about trans inclusion with an ex of mine at the Michigan Women's Music Festival. I've pushed her on the painful and complicated truths of the occupation of Palestine. We've talked about the realities of racism and the queer community and the complicated victory that was marriage equality. She is someone I can always count on to listen to my more radical beliefs. And in my years working with LGBTQ families, I saw this mirrored through my peers. It was often the kids of queers who led their parents in conversations about what it would take to respond to the AIDS crisis, or cultural competency around gender identity. Perhaps younger generations are always a little more radical than their parents. When people learn I have a lesbian mom, their response is often something like, “Wow, that must have been so cool!” And while it has been cool, it isn't because of those immediate reasons that come to mind. It's not the case that I got to inherit queer cultural traditions from my mom. She had none to pass down. But it has been cool. Not only because my coming out was probably easier than most. I always knew my mom would accept me even before she was gay. But because of our shared identity, she has been able to become a part of my life and my community in a deeper and more meaningful way. She has become a mom to many—often to friends of mine, whose own parents haven't been as accepting. She's the most active “liker” of all my friends’ content on Facebook, she's always donating to my friends’ crowd-funders and she cheers loudly at our shows. And through all of this, we've come into our own identities and queer long-term relationships, while forging a true and real relationship as adults. For years, the biggest pushback to queers having kids was the assumption that they'd somehow make their kids gay. So I often joke about whether what they might say, in my case. Did I make my mother gay? Although my siblings have accused me of turning our mom a time or two, I think that's just sibling humor. Because the truth is, it really doesn't matter. The world I want to live in is a world where everyone can be who they are, and love whom they love. And that both of those things can change, whether at the age of 20, or the age of 50, or many times over the course of a lifetime. Causality aside, I'm grateful. My journey and her journey, our journey has made us both who we are today, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Did I Make My Mother Gay? Subject The topic of the resource Queerspawn Description An account of the resource Meredith Fenton reads her essay, "Did I Make My Mother Gay?" Essay was published in <i>Spawning Generations: Rants and Reflections on Growing Up With LGBTQ+ Parents</i>, edited by Sadie Epstein-Fine and Makeda Zook (Bradford: Demeter Press, 2018), p. 125-132. This essay discusses topics including Fenton's experience attending Women's College, their parent's divoce, coming out ot their mother and their mother coming out to them, their work at COLAGE (Children of Gays and Lesbians Everywhere), being a professional queerspawn and more. Meredith Fenton is an Oakland based strategist and storyteller who loves sparkly things, reading, Muppets, and movements for social justice. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Meredith Fenton Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Queerspawn, F0196-01-004-001, The ArQuives Relation A related resource <a href="https://digitalexhibitions.arquives.ca/exhibits/show/queerspawn-digital-storytellin/meredith-fenton">Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project, Meredith Fenton</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 1 MPEG-4 audio file [00:17:27], Hard Drive Language A language of the resource English https://digitalexhibitions.arquives.ca/files/original/a981072fc7ea9b6106941d3061d68a08.mp3 2e598a5cebf2cc1a7c6641cd9a6f9732 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project Subject The topic of the resource The Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project was spearheaded by Sadie Epstein-Fine, creative and operational lead with community support from Makeda Zook in 2021. The goal of the project was to provide participants of all ages with one or more LGBTQ2+ parent(s) a way to explore aspects of the queerspawn experience through digital content creation. Over the course of 5 months, the Queerspawn project participants met virtually to share space and build community. They explored different ways to get into their stories and experiences. The project included 13 participants, who created video, art projects and installations, audio stories, podcasts and essays, exploring how their identities and life experiences have intersected with their queerspawn identity. The Queerspawn Project was made possible through the International Centre for Arts for Social Change’s FUTURES/Forward Program and The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives. Description An account of the resource The fonds contains records from the Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project dating from 1942 to 2021. It includes photographs, art installations, artwork, podcasts, audio stories, essays and video created by the thirteen project participants. Project participants were based out of Canada, the United States and Australia. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project fonds (F0196) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1942 - 2021 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada, United States, and Australia Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 10 minutes, 4 seconds Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound This is episode 3 of Doing Things With Two Lesbian Feminist Separated Moms and Their Queer Daughter. This is Choosing a Sperm Donor. So, there are few moments in my life where I think I truly appreciated, you know, what my parents, I don’t know, had to go through. Or, I don’t know. I definitely appreciate them. But, it has been in this time, where my partner and I are choosing a sperm donor, that I feel like I’ve really seen their experience and connected with it. So, I’ve always known that I’ve wanted to have kids. And, you know, from the time I was a teenager, I’ve been really certain about that. I also convinced myself that I was straight. And, a very weird thing is that a big part of my fantasy of being straight involved children, and involved my fantasy of having children, and like, just being able to, you know, have sex, and get pregnant. And, sometimes I think… I convinced myself that I was straight solely for the purpose of easy childbearing. ‘Cuz you know, suddenly you take away sperm, and you have all these questions, right? Like, do you go with an anonymous donor? Do you do known? What sperm donor are you looking for? Do you ask them all of their health history? Or, what cultural aspects of their identity matter to you? Or, yeah, or matter to who your child is? You know, do you choose your best friend? Do you choose an acquaintance? You know? These are all the questions that I have now been reckoning with. Or that my partner and I have been having to ask as we family plan. And, of course, you know, like most decisions in my life, this involves my moms. You know, from the fact that, one of my moms, Rachel, is you know, her life’s work has been helping queer people have babies. And, it’s kind of this weird thing that you know, when I think about it, it feels like I’m so lucky. You know? Because, you know, people professionally seek my mom’s help when they’re trying to have… You know, queer people seek my mom’s help when they’re trying to have children. And I just kind of get her as this everyday free resource. And, so we have a meeting—my partner and my mom. Where we talk about, you know, donor agreements, and all the things to consider about donation. And really thinking about all the rights we now have actually in Ontario that really prevent the donor from being a threat to our parenting team, of me and my partner. And, you know…. When I was 13, we were a part of the Charter challenge that first allowed two women to put their names on a birth certificate. And now of course, the legislation is far beyond that. Multiple parents can put their names on a birth certificate, and the donor is not considered a father. It’s pretty, I don’t know, huge or something, to see yourself in history. And now to recognize that that history is now helping me become a parent, and become a legal parent because I won’t be carrying our child. And of course, you know, then there’s my other mom, Lois, who is my non-biological mom. And of course, you know, she’s been a huge help to me because I am going to be a non-biological parent. And the really cool thing is that when I become a non-biological parent, I have someone to talk to about it because, while I don’t believe that blood is family, you know? Of course. And that it’s the people who raise you and love you who are your family, inevitably there are going to be challenges that come up. Just because of, you know, big dominant hetero-patriarchal narratives that we’re taught. And I get to turn to mom when those things come up. And I feel… I don’t know. That’s really, really special. And so, you know, also in this process… Like, so I was conceived through anonymous, an anonymous donor. And this was in the days before ID Release, so I’ll never be able to know who my donor was. But, I just kind of always thought that that’s the direction my mom’s wanted to go in. And you know, because obviously at the time, their rights were so much more limited than they are now. And they had… Yeah, very, very few legal… Like, the law was just not on their side. So, I just always thought they wanted to go the anonymous route. And, I knew that they had asked, maybe one known person to be my donor and it didn’t work out. But actually what I discovered, just, you know, now that we talk a whole lot about sperm donation, is that is the route that they wanted to go. They wanted to go the known donor route, and they asked many people, and they were turned down by everyone. And so finally, eventually, you know, and my mom wasn’t getting any younger, they made the decision to go through a sperm bank. I don’t know why for me this has been big news. But it’s actually really changed the way that I’ve seen my conception process. I just didn’t realize how long it was for my parents. And how long as queer people we have to plan and make these awkward asks for people’s sperms. And you know, that’s the sole reason my partner and I don’t already have kids, is because, you know, this suddenly forces you to ask all these questions, and make all these decisions that like, you know, when you have sperm and a uterus in a relationship, all you have to do is… You know, and this is something that my parent’s always say. I don’t know, I’ve just kind of held this with me my entire life, you know? All you have to do is, go out, have a nice meal, have a glass of wine, come home, have sex, and get pregnant. And obviously I know that for all people, people in that situation, that it’s not always that easy and people still experience fertility issues. But there’s something about prioritizing love and pleasure in baby conception that is just so beyond my wildest imaginations. And again, it’s like, why I thought it was a good idea to be straight when I was younger—because I would get to do that. And you know, there’s a part of me that just would really love to just be able to knock my partner up. You know? One night, one random night. And that is not something obviously that I’m going to be able to do. But, I have my mom’s… I have my mom’s in good company. So, yeah. That was episode 3 of Doing Things With Two Moms. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Doing Things, Episode 3 - Choosing A Sperm Donor Subject The topic of the resource Queerspawn Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sadie Epstein-Fine Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Queerspawn fonds, F0196-01-005-001, The ArQuives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [2019-2021] Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 1 MPEG-4 audio file [00:10:03], Hard Drive Relation A related resource <a href="https://digitalexhibitions.arquives.ca/exhibits/show/queerspawn-digital-storytellin/sadie-epstein-fine">Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project, Sadie Epstein-Fine</a> Language A language of the resource English Description An account of the resource Doing Things is a podcast series by Sadie Epstein-Fine. The series tells stories through recalling everyday moments of being a queer/genderqueer person with two moms. Sadie Epstein-Fine (they/them) is a second-generation queer, Jewish, artist, and activist. They work mostly as a theatre director, playwright, and creator, passionate about musical theatre and making work for young audiences. They co-edited, with Makeda Zook, <i>Spawning Generations: Rants and Reflections on Growing Up with LGBTQ+ Parents</i>, published in 2018 by Demeter Press. Sadie has been a queer family and queerspawn advocate/activist for almost 20 years. https://digitalexhibitions.arquives.ca/files/original/9a68d0166537f6961c6fdbd3c753177d.mp3 5b5fad24476adeef1341cac04575bcf4 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project Subject The topic of the resource The Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project was spearheaded by Sadie Epstein-Fine, creative and operational lead with community support from Makeda Zook in 2021. The goal of the project was to provide participants of all ages with one or more LGBTQ2+ parent(s) a way to explore aspects of the queerspawn experience through digital content creation. Over the course of 5 months, the Queerspawn project participants met virtually to share space and build community. They explored different ways to get into their stories and experiences. The project included 13 participants, who created video, art projects and installations, audio stories, podcasts and essays, exploring how their identities and life experiences have intersected with their queerspawn identity. The Queerspawn Project was made possible through the International Centre for Arts for Social Change’s FUTURES/Forward Program and The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives. Description An account of the resource The fonds contains records from the Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project dating from 1942 to 2021. It includes photographs, art installations, artwork, podcasts, audio stories, essays and video created by the thirteen project participants. Project participants were based out of Canada, the United States and Australia. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project fonds (F0196) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1942 - 2021 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada, United States, and Australia Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 7 minutes, 39 seconds Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Episode 1 of Doing Things With Two Lesbian Feminist Separated Moms and Their Grown Up Queer Daughter. This is Getting Sick. So, in October 2019, I came down with a mysterious illness. My stomach just hurt all the time. I couldn’t get up off the couch. I had to kind of quit everything in my life and just yeah… Lie on the couch all day and be in pain. Eventually I got a fever and you know, I started bleeding. And my moms took me to the Emerg'. And, you know, there is nothing more bad ass than walking down the hallway flanked by your two moms. And of course the doctor who we got was this very attractive, very obviously Jewish doctor. His name was Dr. Aaron. Dr. Aaron, if you are listening to this, know that we loved you. Um…. And the moment that he left us the first time, my mom turns to me and tries to whisper, but you know, kind of yells “Oh my God, Sadie! He could be your donor!” And she wasn’t joking. I don’t think. I think… There have been a couple times in my life where people have realized… One of my exes in particular, who is the only Jew I’ve ever dated kind of had this realization one time when we were hanging out: "Oh my God, you were raised by two Jewish mothers." And, what is the true about Jewish mothers, is that they all want their children to bear the children of good Jewish doctors. So, Dr. Aaron, know that you are a viable sperm donor. I don’t think that we are going to go with you, but you know. I don’t know. Better luck next time. So, after we left, you know, Emerg'… And I was preparing for my colonoscopy, you know…. Diagnosis to come soon, you know? Don’t hold your breathe. You know, it hurt too much laugh. So we had to watch a lot of really serious documentaries. But we also binged Downton Abbey. And we all just started…. No, no, that’s not how we started talking. That’s too low class, that we started talking like this. We had to be proper, proper lords and ladies. And so I spent my entire in between my first Emerg’ visit to my colonoscopy to my next Emerg visit, you know three days later, talking with my Jewish lesbian mothers as if we were part of Downton Abbey. Throughout this whole process of course, we had many doctor’s appointments. I saw we. I should say I had many doctors appointments, but um… I started saying “we” have a doctor’s appointment because both my moms have accompanied me to every single appointment. And had their own opinions about my health and what I should do, and what the right choices were, and we aired all of that out in every doctor’s appointment. Along with their worry and their belief that none of the doctor’s were treating me as well as they should be. And so finally, when I kind of had this big meeting with my GI, I put my foot down and said, “only one of you can accompany me, so duke it out. I don’t care which one of you does. Just one of you, only one of you will show up with me.” And, on the day of the appointment of course, my other mom drove us both there, because she didn’t want to miss out on the fun. And she just waited in the waiting room the whole time. But yeah, during the sickness, they just really put their lives on hold. And were there for me in a way that I think for a lot of my life I have taken for granted. You know, but after that, and being so cared for… Yeah, I don’t know that I can again after that. Eventually, I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease. After my second colonoscopy. And then, you know, we went on the hunt for solutions. You know, to take meds, to not take meds. One of my moms has a contact who’s son has Crohn’s disease and he went to a homeopath. So, we went to a homeopath. The homeopath just loved us. Every single time I’ve gone back he’s asks, “So, how are the moms?” After eventually getting that they were both my moms. This has actually been a bit of a trend in health care settings. It takes them a while to get it. You know? I just did a reiki session the other day and in the middle of my reiki appointment, she asks when my mom and dad separated. And I had to say, “Well… Yes, they did separate. But, I don’t have a dad. I have two moms.” And she was kind of like, “Oh, which one, which mom was the one that I met?” Because of course, one of my moms drove me to my reiki session. I’m 29. And you know, I still need my moms to drive me everywhere—mostly because I am taking drugs that make me a little loopy. So, driving a car would not be in my best interest. Or really, in anyone on the road’s best interest. And I go, “What do you mean, which mom was that? It’s just one of my moms.” Anyways, finally after she was like, “Where did you, uh… Like, who did you grow up with when you grew up?” I said, “I lived with both my moms together until I was ten, when they separated and then I lived with them equally in their separate homes.” And she goes, “Oh! Your moms are lesbians!” in the middle of my reiki session. And I was like, “Yes, yes, yes, my moms, my moms are lesbians.” And so, so yeah… That was Being Sick With Two Lesbian Moms. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Doing Things, Episode 1 - Getting Sick Subject The topic of the resource Queerspawn Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sadie Epstein-Fine Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Queerspawn, F0196-01-005-002, The ArQuives Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 1 MPEG-4 audio file [00:07:39], Hard Drive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [2019-2021] Relation A related resource <a href="https://digitalexhibitions.arquives.ca/exhibits/show/queerspawn-digital-storytellin/sadie-epstein-fine">Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project, Sadie Epstein-Fine</a> Language A language of the resource English Description An account of the resource Doing Things is a podcast series by Sadie Epstein-Fine. The series tells stories through recalling everyday moments of being a queer/genderqueer person with two moms. Sadie Epstein-Fine (they/them) is a second-generation queer, Jewish, artist, and activist. They work mostly as a theatre director, playwright, and creator, passionate about musical theatre and making work for young audiences. They co-edited, with Makeda Zook, <i>Spawning Generations: Rants and Reflections on Growing Up with LGBTQ+ Parents</i>, published in 2018 by Demeter Press. Sadie has been a queer family and queerspawn advocate/activist for almost 20 years. https://digitalexhibitions.arquives.ca/files/original/3efe7a7fb57db6bc3ee8e6eacd777210.mp3 fff0d37d94ff43b8782da0effc281292 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project Subject The topic of the resource The Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project was spearheaded by Sadie Epstein-Fine, creative and operational lead with community support from Makeda Zook in 2021. The goal of the project was to provide participants of all ages with one or more LGBTQ2+ parent(s) a way to explore aspects of the queerspawn experience through digital content creation. Over the course of 5 months, the Queerspawn project participants met virtually to share space and build community. They explored different ways to get into their stories and experiences. The project included 13 participants, who created video, art projects and installations, audio stories, podcasts and essays, exploring how their identities and life experiences have intersected with their queerspawn identity. The Queerspawn Project was made possible through the International Centre for Arts for Social Change’s FUTURES/Forward Program and The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives. Description An account of the resource The fonds contains records from the Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project dating from 1942 to 2021. It includes photographs, art installations, artwork, podcasts, audio stories, essays and video created by the thirteen project participants. Project participants were based out of Canada, the United States and Australia. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project fonds (F0196) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1942 - 2021 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada, United States, and Australia Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 5 minutes, 51 seconds Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Episode 2 of Doing Things With Two Lesbian Feminist Separated Moms and Their Grown Up Queer Daughter. This is Doing Laundry in Stratford, Ontario. So, in February 2020, just before the pandemic hit us, I went to work at the Stratford Festival. And the apartment I was staying at didn’t have laundry. So, when my moms came up on the weekend before I was going to start work... They came… Well, they didn’t just come to help me do my laundry. They came to visit. But they also helped me do my laundry. So, when we arrived at the laundry mat, they went to get the quarters for the laundry. Of course, you know, even though I’m a grown up, they… Laundry is on them. And as I separated all the clothes that I needed to separate, they then showed me how to use laundry machine where the soap dispenser wasn’t separate from... Or there wasn’t a separate soap dispenser, which, you know... It’s been a long time since I’ve done laundry at a laundromat. I’m very lucky that my apartment has laundry. Anyways… You know... And then as we are waiting, we drive to Bulk Barn, which, you know, in a small town… As someone who comes from Toronto, I would never imagine… I would just have to walk outside and go to the nearest store. But of course, the nearest store when you’re not in downtown Stratford is like… It would take a while to walk there. And so we drive to Stratford. And like, we don’t even pull out of the parking lot of the laundromat before my moms start critiquing my driving. And they, you know, both have different opinions. And I start to yell at them. And then, you know, as I’m yelling at them, I almost get hit by a car coming that I don’t see. When we arrive at Bulk Barn, we go our separate ways and angerly shop for black licorice and seeds and nuts, and don’t speak to each other until we leave the Bulk Barn. But then, we kind of, you know, get over it more or less. We just needed a moment of separation. So we get back to the laundromat and they show me how to use the coin operated dryer. And I’m... You know, this whole time I’m thinking, “Oh my God. I’m an adult. You know? I should be able to do my own laundry. Am I really here to work at the Stratford Festival and my moms still have to help me do basic life tasks?” So yeah, I feel a great deal of shame and embarrassment. And then this woman in the laundromat looks over at us and smiles. And you know, the rolodex of what she’s thinking starts coming into my brain. You know? Has she ever seen a person with two moms? Of course she’s seen a person with two moms. There are gay people in Stratford. There are definitely gay people with children in Stratford, Ontario. And then I’m like, you know, maybe she’s never seen an adult with two moms. You know? I was kind of part of the first big wave of queer spawn, queerlings, whatever term you know, you want to use of queer people having babies. So, you know, I’m like, maybe she thinks one of my moms is... You know? One of them is my mom and the other one is my aunt, or a friend, or something. Or, you know, then I’m like, maybe she’s smiling at us and just thinking, "oh wow how pathetic, that this, you know, that this child does not know how to do laundry." And her mom should have taught her earlier in her life." It’s also funny, yeah, that when I see myself from other people’s perspective, I um… My pronouns are they and them, but I always refer to myself as "she and her" because I guess I assume that is how everybody reads me. You know? And then I’m thinking, “Oh God, she’s probably thinking like, ‘Yo, you know, holy smokes, just let her be! She’s an adult for Christ’s sake! You know?” Obviously I have no idea what she was thinking. But then, as we are packing up, you know, folding the laundry, putting it in the bin, and leaving... As we are walking out the door, one of my moms, who obviously... Classic, my mom had made friends with this woman at some point in our laundry doing, she turns back and she says "bye" to this woman. And the woman very sweetly says, “bye ladies!” And then my mom turns to me and goes “sigh, I’m not a lady.” That was episode 2 of Doing Things With Two Lesbian Moms. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Doing Things, Episode 2 - Laundry Subject The topic of the resource Queerspawn Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sadie Epstein-Fine Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Queerspawn fonds, F0196-01-005-003, The ArQuives Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 1 MPEG-4 audio file [00:05:51], Hard Drive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [2020-2021] Relation A related resource <a href="https://digitalexhibitions.arquives.ca/exhibits/show/queerspawn-digital-storytellin/sadie-epstein-fine">Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project, Sadie Epstein-Fine</a> Language A language of the resource English Description An account of the resource Doing Things is a podcast series by Sadie Epstein-Fine. The series tells stories through recalling everyday moments of being a queer/genderqueer person with two moms. Sadie Epstein-Fine (they/them) is a second-generation queer, Jewish, artist, and activist. They work mostly as a theatre director, playwright, and creator, passionate about musical theatre and making work for young audiences. They co-edited, with Makeda Zook, <i>Spawning Generations: Rants and Reflections on Growing Up with LGBTQ+ Parents</i>, published in 2018 by Demeter Press. Sadie has been a queer family and queerspawn advocate/activist for almost 20 years. https://digitalexhibitions.arquives.ca/files/original/639197b8a94f9e994f98ba407c8986da.mp3 327efbda4c3f83c6a232f70170f73160 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project Subject The topic of the resource The Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project was spearheaded by Sadie Epstein-Fine, creative and operational lead with community support from Makeda Zook in 2021. The goal of the project was to provide participants of all ages with one or more LGBTQ2+ parent(s) a way to explore aspects of the queerspawn experience through digital content creation. Over the course of 5 months, the Queerspawn project participants met virtually to share space and build community. They explored different ways to get into their stories and experiences. The project included 13 participants, who created video, art projects and installations, audio stories, podcasts and essays, exploring how their identities and life experiences have intersected with their queerspawn identity. The Queerspawn Project was made possible through the International Centre for Arts for Social Change’s FUTURES/Forward Program and The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives. Description An account of the resource The fonds contains records from the Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project dating from 1942 to 2021. It includes photographs, art installations, artwork, podcasts, audio stories, essays and video created by the thirteen project participants. Project participants were based out of Canada, the United States and Australia. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project fonds (F0196) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1942 - 2021 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada, United States, and Australia Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 24 minutes, 59 seconds Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound A friend of mine has a toaster oven on her shelf, decorated with rainbow tissue paper and sparkles. She received it after she started dating her girlfriend. She was her girlfriend’s first girlfriend. I grew up knowing this was a tradition. They’re not always covered in rainbows and glitter, but if you are a lesbian who “converts” a straight girl, you must receive a toaster oven. The newest generation of lesbians doesn’t know this. Lesbians between the ages of twenty and thirty think a toaster oven is just a toaster oven. I have always known differently. Until recently I thought that the toaster oven joke came from the Ellen show. Not the talk show where everybody gets presents and Ellen hangs out with Justin Beiber, but Ellen’s 1997 ABC sit-com where she made history by coming out on television. She came out in the “Puppy Episode” on 30 April 1997, screaming into an airport sound system, “I’m gay.” The first version of this essay credited the Ellen show as originating the toaster oven joke. One of the reviewers commented that she came out before that episode aired and had already been making that joke with her friends. In my current understanding, the joke began in the 1970s when banks would give new customers common household appliances, often toaster ovens, as gifts for joining. In 1977, anti-gay activist Anita Bryant warned that gays were out to convert young people to their sinful ways. In response, gays and lesbians joked about receiving a toaster oven if you brought in a convert. Ellen was referencing this joke, making an inside joke as part of popular culture. “The Puppy Episode” aired in the show’s fourth season. The network cancelled the fifth season, and Ellen did not work for three years after the episode aired. Laura Dern, the woman who facilitated Ellen’s coming out on the show, did not work for a year. It is Laura’s character who made the toaster oven joke. In the episode, Laura comes out to Ellen as a lesbian. This makes Ellen wildly uncomfortable, and she warns Laura not to “recruit her.” Laura responds: “I’ll have to call National Headquarters and tell them I lost you. Damn, just one more, and I would have gotten that toaster oven.” At the same time that this episode aired and the media scandal that followed was breaking, I was having my first coming out. It was the winter of 1998. I was in grade one, and my best friend Jane and I were rolling around in the snow. Out of nowhere, a voice sneered, “What are you, lesbians?” We looked up and saw a group of big grade eights towering over us. They were massive, and we were antlike. I felt fear, but also anger. It was the “fuck you: feeling I get now, but I wasn’t using that word then and I didn’t know how to name it. Jane looked confused, and I jumped up as they were walking away, laughing. “Hey!” I yelled, “That’s mean! My moms are lesbians!” I don’t think they looked back. Maybe they weren’t used to a six-year-old girl defying them. Jane asked me what lesbians were, and I told her that lesbians are when two women love each other. And I told her that my parents were lesbians and that I was conceived through a sperm donor that my mommies got from a sperm bank. I’m not sure how much Jane took in on that sunny winter day, but I know that she loved my parents and continued to love them through childhood, into adolescence, and now as an adult. They were the ones who gave her in-depth sex talks, which included personal stories, which I was mortified to hear. In the decade that followed, I became a spokes-child for queer parenting in Ontario. I can’t count how many newspaper articles, radio shows, and television clips I’ve been part of, depicting how normal my life is despite having been raised by two lesbian moms who split up when I was ten, yet remained friends. There is one television clip I particularly remember filming. I was twelve or thirteen, in the midst of middle school, and my hair was growing out at funny angles, which made me think I was the ugliest person alive. I wore my favorite green sweater, but watching the clip later, I wished I had worn something more form fitting that didn’t make me look like a dirty, sweaty preteen. But that is the outfit I chose, and the film crew arrived at seven o’clock in the morning. They filmed the same clips over and over. They wanted two shots: one of me crossing the street from one of my houses to the other (at that time my moms lived across the street from each other) and one of my moms helping me get ready for school. I stood in the middle of the street and walked to my front door at least ten times. I was already late for school and walking up to my door had lost its pizzazz. By the last take, I felt as if I were in acting class, and I had to redo the scene because I hadn’t placed the hair on the right mark. My mom and I never had developed a morning routine, probably because I am a bit of a scatter brain, and she is often absorbed in her own work, but the film people were determined to find one. As I performed putting the apple into my lunch bag for the fifth time, I hoped that we were somehow normalizing queer families. When the clip came out a week or so later, my mom and I watched it; we hated what we looked like and laughed about how chipper we sounded. My mom couldn’t get over how straight our life looked. Following our clip was a man with a binder who claimed that the research in that binder concluded that children raised in homosexual families would not fare as well as children raised in heterosexual families because they were missing either a mother or father figure. Although he kept referring to the binder, he never opened it, and at one point, my mom pointed to the screen and laughed. “There’s nothing in it!” Even though the angle of the camera almost masked the black hole where there should have been important papers, for the rest of the interview, all I could see was the empty binder. I stared at this outrageous flaw in his argument and wondered how anyone could give credibility to his opinion. To remember the specifics of these media clips, I did a Google search of myself. I expected that information about me would be interspersed with television clips from the family channel show, Naturally Sadie, or news about the death of a beloved Jewish Bubby (Sadie is a popular name for Jewish women). Instead, when I entered my name, the first three pages were solely about me, and three quarters of the hits documented my experience being raised by queer parents. Even the few articles documenting my budding theatre career focused on my upbringing. In 2014, I acted in Freda and Jem’s Best of the Week: a lesbian love story gone wrong, but now they have two kids, and the breakup affects everyone. The play was written by my mom, and I played the angry nineteen year-old daughter. One reviewer, pointed out my history as an LGBTQ parenting posterchild, writes, “Epstein-Fine’s experience has helped shape public understanding of the realities of children with queer parents for over a decade” (Hoile). I try to think about the ways in which I have shaped public understanding. I know I have been shaped by the interviews and the variations on the same question being asked of me over and over again—“What has it been like being raised by queer parents?” Every time, my answer is always some variation of: “Awesome. It has been awesome.” When I was younger, when I was first asked about my family, I answered these questions thinking this was normal, that every child went through this. I didn’t really think, as I was playing the fairy or bird game with my friends at recess in grade three, that I would later have to recall those same recesses to assess whether or not I had been bullied. I didn’t register then how my family was subject to public investigation and criticism. As I got older, I began to notice the scrutiny and I became acutely aware of the microscopic lens we were held under. In 2005, my family was involved in a Charter challenge against the Government of Ontario to make it legal for two women to put their names on a birth registration. When I was born, thirteen years prior, my parents scratched out “father,” replaced it with mother, filled in my non-biological mom’s name, and attempted to give me a hyphenated version of their surnames. They checked off the box for “cultural reasons.” The birth registration was rejected, and I grew up with only one of my moms legally recognized, with the surname of only my biological parent. At the time of the Charter challenge, I was thirteen and able to advocate for myself. Since the other children whose parents were involved in the challenge were too young to speak, my affidavit held a lot of weight. I remember sitting in our lawyer’s office trying desperately to think of the negative implications of homophobia has had in my life and how having both my moms as legal parents would change that. I kept saying, “I think I’m the wrong person to interview. I’ve never really been bullied.” I had grown up at progressive alternative schools where the questions on our math tests read something like, “In the 1950s, eighty percent of the population believed that homosexuality was wrong. In the year 2000, forty percent of the population believed that homosexuality was wrong. If homophobia continues to decrease at this rate, what year will homophobia cease to exist?” But I knew that for many raised in queer families, harassment and bullying, sometimes severe, were a reality. I felt a responsibility to advocate for the people who did not have a voice. My final affidavit was not untrue. But when the judge read it in court, my mom had to nudge me to tell me it was being read. I didn’t recognize my own words. My moms like to say that my story helped win the case. I looked at my non-biological mom, who had tears in her eyes when the judge called her a mother. This meant she could take me on a plane without my other mom having to sign a document. I wouldn’t have to lie while crossing the U.S. border if the border guard asked which one was my mom. I don’t know how our victory has helped other queer families, and I know for certain that bullying still exists on playgrounds. But I do know that I would write that affidavit one hundred times over and tell whatever story needed to be told in order to see my mom and other non-biological parents, who never thought their child could bear their name, called a mother by a court of law. After the court case, I was asked to do more interviews, and I was frequently asked to sit on queer-parenting panels. Bullying was often a focal point, and I was a constant reassurance to new or prospective queer parents. My sexuality was also a frequent point of discussion. Everyone, including queer parents, wanted to know if queer parents raise queer children. I turned this question into a joke: “I grew up surrounded by too many women; I do not need any more in my life.” Everyone laughed. It didn’t matter who my audience was. The laughter was tinged with relief. It’s not that the queer parents would have rejected me if I were queer, but I was the projection of their hope; I was the practically-perfect-in-every-way-daughter who proved that queer people can raise children and they can turn out all right. I got good grades; I had too many extracurricular activities (drama, dance, improve, social justice club). And in my down time, I got crushes on boys. On those panels, I never talked about the messy and hard parts of my life because that wasn’t the point. I had to give those prospective parents, many of whom thought they would never have children, hope that they would not fuck up their future children and that their queerness was a gift, something of which their children would be fiercely proud. I started dating boys in high school. Obsessing over boys might actually be more accurate. I seemed to developed crushes on the unavailable boys who I thought could never like me back. After middle school, I grew my hair long and wore more makeup than I did when I was onstage. I went to a uniformed public school, so I rolled my kilt and tied up my polo shirts so my midriff was just visible. I liked one boy on my high school improv tea, and at sleepovers, I would show my friends his profile picture on Facebook and recount little tidbits about him, such as the fact that he shares a birthday with Shakespeare. When it came to actually talking to him, I was hopeless. I could perform an improv scene with him, but when we weren’t onstage, I was stammering and blushing. Once I took him to my mom’s birthday party, which had a queer singles theme. I’m not sure why I thought that would be a good idea. I think I wanted to show him my world. On the streetcar on the way to the party, he was excited to witness a full-on lesbian party. I don’t think he was prepared for the real thing. As we approached the house, we saw many women on the porch smoking and/or kissing. We went inside but couldn’t move because of the bodies taking up every inch of floor space. The music was blasting, and people, ranging in age from mid-twenties to mid-sixties were grinding. Surrounded by all these grinding queer women it looked as if he were about to implode, so I rushed him upstairs to my room. I had to remind myself that a room full of lesbians was not comforting to most people and that most teenagers would not blend easily into that crowd. Although I could always blend into gatherings at my house, I noticed an increasing distance between myself and the larger queer community. Every year since I was little, I put together a special outfit for Pride. The most memorable ensemble involved a rainbow tutu and a sparkly fairy wand. As I walked down the street holding my moms’ hands, people bent down to tell me how cute I was. We had many pictures taken of us, and once Mayor Barbara Hall invited me to have tea with Queen Elizabeth, whom she was meeting the next day. Pride was for me what Christmas was for many of my peers. As a teenager, I would still put together a Pride outfit, but I was too old for people to tell my moms how adorable I was, and I wasn’t getting nods or winks from queer youth walking down Church Street. I didn’t know whether to stay in the Family Pride area or wander the streets. I didn’t feel like I belonged in either space. At the end of grade ten, my mom took me to a show created by Gender Play, a theatre program for queer and trans youth. The play was circus-themed, and through the metaphors of tightrope walking, juggling, disappearing acts, and flaming hoop jumping, the participants told stories of not belonging, feeling lost, hating themselves, and finding places where they could be themselves. I cried through most of it. After the show, as we walked to our car, I couldn’t stop jabbering to my mom about how much I related to the performers and how inspired I was. My mom suggested that I join Gender Play. My heart leapt at the idea of being part of a group that I could relate to and might feel comfortable around, but I was worried they wouldn’t understand why I was there. On the first day of Gender Play the following September, I was sweating profusely in my blue skinny jeans and my favorite pastel-green cardigan. Each person who walked in was queerer than the last. Suddenly, I was embarrassed by my long blonde hair that I had worked so hard to grow. They wore baggy pants, combat boots, ripped jeans, and leather jackets. Everyone’s hair was either asymmetrical or dyed a funky colour. I looked around and saw every colour of the rainbow on top of heads that pierced everything. They were many tattoos poking out of shirtsleeves, collars, and sock lines. The final member of our group walked in late. “Jaq!” everyone squealed, and this person was drowned in hugs. I was reluctant to get up because I was afraid people would see the puddle of sweat on my chair. Jaq broke out of the hug and looked at me, the only new kid in the room. Their eyes were the warmest brown. They were tall, maybe five foot nine, and they was by far the queerest one in attendance. Heavy boots, graphic t-shirt, army green button up, undone. Their hair was swooshy and dyed blue or purple; they would be perfect for the Tumblr page “Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Beiber.” Except Jaq didn’t identify as lesbian because they identified as genderqueer. Which I thought was fabulous. Jaq said “hi,” and I blushed. I don’t think I could get a “hi” out. My throat seemed to have closed. I think I smiled meekly. All year I struggled to create my personal piece. I knew that I wanted it to involve dance, and I knew that it had to do with being my parents’ child. I didn’t even know where to begin. Everyone else’s piece seemed to lead somewhere. They were in a bad place, something changed, and then they were in a different place, sometimes good sometimes bad. I watched them as they expressed their pain, anger, and sadness through a multitude of disciplines, and I was in awe. I had spent so many years talking to queer communities about how proud and happy I was to have queer parents that I didn’t’ even know how to name the complexity of emotions I felt about how my admission to queer community was linked to my parents’ identity, and I didn’t know if I was welcome without them. In all of this turmoil, the year slipped by. Suddenly it was March and the Gender Play intensive weekend. The weekend looked like this: We arrived on Friday afternoon and didn’t leave until Sunday afternoon. We ate all our meals together and weren’t allowed to leave the building. We all slept in the rehearsal room. I was both shaking with excitement and petrified for the weekend. The other members of the group excited me, and I loved hearing about their lives. The thing was that they barely knew anything about mine. On Friday night, the entire group was a mass of limbs piled on one couch in the rehearsal room playing Truth or Dare. Of course, it was only Truth. Nobody wanted to Dare when truth meant we could learn everyone’s secrets. All the questions were about sex and sexuality and what people had done or hadn’t done. It was my turn. “Truth,” I said. I knew what they were going to ask. This girl Shana piped up, although they were all thinking the same thing. “How do you identify? We’re all confused.” Clearly, they had been talking. Just like on the panels I knew what the right answer was. But this answer was different than the one I had always given. Here my friends didn’t want to hear how well I functioned in society or how normal my life was; they wanted to hear about the messy parts. Jaq was sitting across from me and looking at me with warmth and kindness and those soft brown eyes. My breathing became deeper, and blood rushed hot through my body. I told them I was bi. I still don’t know if at the time I thought my answer was a lie. I was looking down when I said it. I looked back up at Jaq, and too many emotions flooded my system. It was something I hadn’t felt for all those boys, but wanted so desperately to feel. It was tinged with fear but also comfort in the way that a room full of grinding lesbians was comforting. I joined Gender Play in 2008. In the following decade, North America saw a massive change in relation to LGBTQ public policy and social attitudes. Everyone loves seeing Ellen dance on her show in her fitted vests and matching dress pants. Her wedding to Portia De Rossi was featured on the front page of People magazine. When Kathleen Wynne ran for premier of Ontario in 2013, I voted Liberal for the first time in my life. I am a die-hard NDP-er. When I told my mom’s friend how weird I felt voting Liberal, she said, “You didn’t vote Liberal; you voted lesbian.” Apparently a lot of people voted lesbian because we made history by electing the first out lesbian premier in Canada. At the 2013 Golden Globe Awards, Jodie Foster described coming out many years ago to close family and friends, but feeling as if she could not come out in the public eye. She must have closely monitored the fallout after Ellen’s pioneering episode. But in 2013, the audience laughed when Jodie joked about how every gay celebrity was supposed to have a reality show, where their private life was made public. Elliot Page came out publicly on Valentine’s Day in 2014, as the keynote speaker at the Time to Thrive LGBTQ conference. They talked about the pressures starts like them still face in the industry. Moments later, the clip was up on YouTube, and my Facebook page was littered with praise for Page. Later, they made an appearance on the other Ellen’s talk show, where they both exchanged their feelings of relief after coming out. Page commended DeGeneres for coming out at a time when the zeitgeist was not so accepting. Beginning in high school, I followed these stories with a reverent obsessiveness and watched as the world showered these celebrities with praise. Of course, I also agreed with the critics who were not so impressed because for them, wealthy white women coming out was not revolutionary. What of the racialized, marginalized, trans individuals whose stories were not warming the public’s hearts and who faced violence, incarceration, and death? What of the gay men being targeted by a serial killer in Toronto? Although we haven’t achieved queer or trans liberation, there has been a change---just fifteen years ago, making a joke about a toaster oven was enough to get you booted out of the public consciousness and pop culture. In my own life I saw queer positivity become trendy. The Queer-Straight Alliance at my school was cool. It was called Students against Stereotyping Sexualities (SASS), and I became an organizer for most of the club’s events. In my Grade 12 year I helped to organize a conference called Upstream: Moving against the Current. It was run by our anti-oppression coalition, and I was in charge of the LGBTQ section, under the guise of my parentage. After that fateful Truth or Dare session, I did not hang my identity on any word from the queer alphabet. My image as the child who proved men with binders wrong and made queer people feel like they could have children and not damage them had to be upheld at all costs! I had put too many hours in and had made too many impassioned speeches. I still though of those warm brown eyes, but I replaced them with Adam’s apples and patchy facial hair. However, the day my school’s prom posters went up, all I saw were brown eyes. I wanted to imagine nestling my cheek against facial hair, but all I could think of was the face rash I would likely get. That night I called Jaq and told them my prom theme was “I’m On a Boat,” because our prom was on a cruise ship. We tried to guess how many times “I’m On a Boat” by The Lonely Island was going to play. I whispered that I didn’t know who I was going with. They said, “Wouldn’t it be funny if we went together.” I had told them how straight my school was despite its pro-gay attitude. My heart sped up, and I was sweating profusely with the phone pressed into my ear. There was no other answer but “yes.” As Jaq and I boarded the boat, everyone stared. I was wearing a black mini dress with chains down the front. Jaq wore a chain-wallet hook, and their button up pocket was bedazzled with mini chains. The day before, in a fit of “I don’t know what to do with my hair!,” I had shaved off one side and dyed it bleach blonde. Jaq and I gathered with my friends to take pictures on deck while the sun was setting. In one of the photos, I have the biggest smile on my face, and I am staring adoringly at Jaq. There are no other pictures of me in high school where I look that happy. We left the ship after a long night of dancing (they played “I’m On a Boat” six times, we counted) and I walked Jaq to the street car stop before my friends and I departed to the after party. As we waited for the streetcar, we didn’t talk much. We just smiled huge, dorky smiles and looked into each other’s eyes. The blood rushed through my body was the hottest it had ever been. Finally what seemed like an eternity, Jaq leaned in to kiss me. It was warm and kind and soft. At that moment, I didn’t think of all the unknown, nameless people I was disappointing, or all of the stereotypes I was fulfilling. I was kissing the person I had wanted to kiss since the first time I saw their blue or purple hair. From behind me, I heard cheering and realized that my entire grade was watching from their various limos and party buses. My entire history had hurtled me toward this moment, and in this moment, I didn’t care about the big grade eight bullies, I didn’t need to win a court case, and I didn’t care about turning out all right. The moment was fleeting, and as Jaq pulled away to get on their streetcar, they had no idea that I owed them a toaster oven. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sweating the Gay Stuff Subject The topic of the resource Queerspawn Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sadie Epstein-Fine Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Queerspawn fonds, F0196-01-005-004, The ArQuives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [2018-2021] Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 1 MPEG-4 audio file [00:24:58], Hard Drive Relation A related resource <a href="https://digitalexhibitions.arquives.ca/exhibits/show/queerspawn-digital-storytellin/sadie-epstein-fine">Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project, Sadie Epstein-Fine</a> Description An account of the resource Earlier version of the essay published in <i>Spawning Generations: Rants and Reflections on Growing Up With LGBTQ+ Parents</i>, edited by Sadie Epstein-Fine and Makeda Zook (Bradford: Demeter Press, 2018), p. 176-86. Sadie Epstein-Fine (they/them) is a second-generation queer, Jewish, artist, and activist. They work mostly as a theatre director, playwright, and creator, passionate about musical theatre and making work for young audiences. Sadie has been a queer family and queerspawn advocate/activist for almost 20 years. https://digitalexhibitions.arquives.ca/files/original/0fdb8583bdbe32cf3920a1667e295b9f.mp3 0c1b032096b81bb2989b441384944eac Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project Subject The topic of the resource The Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project was spearheaded by Sadie Epstein-Fine, creative and operational lead with community support from Makeda Zook in 2021. The goal of the project was to provide participants of all ages with one or more LGBTQ2+ parent(s) a way to explore aspects of the queerspawn experience through digital content creation. Over the course of 5 months, the Queerspawn project participants met virtually to share space and build community. They explored different ways to get into their stories and experiences. The project included 13 participants, who created video, art projects and installations, audio stories, podcasts and essays, exploring how their identities and life experiences have intersected with their queerspawn identity. The Queerspawn Project was made possible through the International Centre for Arts for Social Change’s FUTURES/Forward Program and The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives. Description An account of the resource The fonds contains records from the Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project dating from 1942 to 2021. It includes photographs, art installations, artwork, podcasts, audio stories, essays and video created by the thirteen project participants. Project participants were based out of Canada, the United States and Australia. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project fonds (F0196) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1942 - 2021 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada, United States, and Australia Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 27 minutes, 51 seconds Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound My father died on September 3, 2012. He was seventy-four years old and a gay man. The following June, my daughter, sister, and I spent a weekend going through his belongings, a bittersweet task. As we decided what to do with his leather pants and cap, I thought about the queer community and how it has changed since my father came out in the late 1970s. Back then, it wasn't easy to be a gay man or a gay father, but it was possible--barely. It had only been legal to participate in consensual homosexual acts in Canada since 1969, although George Klippert was arrested in Northwest Territories just before the law changed as "incurably homosexual" and a dangerous sexual offender for admitting to having consensual homosexual sex with four separate adult men. He was not released from Canadian jail until June 1971. I was six years old at the time and had no idea how much my father was struggling with his sexuality. Coming from a large Catholic family, near the village of Harvey Station, New Brunswick, being openly gay wasn't an option. In fact, even pondering the idea of whether or not he might be gay was something that his conscious mind could not afford. Thinking back to discussions with my father, it was evident that from a young age he was searching for something elusive--he didn't know what he needed, just that he didn't have it.  I don't have any memories from when my parents were together, as they separated when I was three. What I've learned has come through discussions with each of them over the years. My mother is also from New Brunswick. She grew up in the village of Fredericton Junction, a forty minute drive from my father's home. Being a talented basketball player, my mom played on her high school team. When she was fifteen, she played an away game at my dad's high school, where he was the scorekeeper. They noticed each other and hit it off. My dad looked like Sal Mineo, 1950s singing icon and actor in Rebel without a Cause, and my mom was "pretty as a china doll" as my dad liked to say. They dated on and off throughout their teenage years. On the day of my mother's high school graduation, while sitting in his car, my dad offered her an engagement ring. She told him she didn't want it, but he convinced her to "just try it on." And, just like that, they were engaged. Time passed, but no wedding date was set. My father moved to Toronto, and my mom remained in New Brunswick. Recently, my mom told me that she proposed to him through a letter which said "either we marry this Christmas or not at all." She thought he would say he couldn't as he had just moved to Toronto. But he didn't. Newly married, they began their life together under the bright city lights of Toronto. After a few years, they bought their dream home in the suburb of Brampton and began a family. My dad, always friendly and charming, worked in sales at Copp Clark publishing, and my mother, smart as a whip, held various office jobs, including the bank of Nova Scotia, Bell Canada, and finally with Air Canada (which she remained at for over thirty-two years). When I was a baby, my father accepted a yearlong work transfer to Vancouver. He loved that city. He must have sensed something satisfying for himself there. After returning to Brampton, he thought about Vancouver often. My mom and dad began to argue, and found fault with each other in the trivial details of life. A year passed in our suburban home on Roberts Crescent, but ultimately my father quit his job and took a new one in Vancouver. My twenty-six year-old mother was left on her own to raise two daughters under the age of six. It was very difficult for all of us. In my father's later years, he sometimes mentioned the guilt he felt about moving across the country. But it was difficult to weigh the guilt against the exciting life he had discovered in the west end of Vancouver. I didn't know when my father officially came out. I assume it was a process as I remember meeting a girlfriend of his in Vancouver when I was around six, but as the years passed, the women in his life were just friends. We met many more close male friends, a couple boyfriends, and a few that became family.  Meanwhile my mother, older sister, and I moved back to Toronto leaving the suburban home we could no longer afford. We were confused and heartbroken. Being three years old, I wasn't rational. I felt as if it was my fault. I felt as if I wasn't good enough for him to stay. We settled into a low-income apartment complex behind a strip mall in north Etobicoke, alongside many immigrant families and others making a fresh start. It was a vibrant, diverse community. Three twelve-story buildings framed a large open area with a park, playground, and swimming pool, where a pack of forty or so rambunctious kids ran wild. My mother worked long hours. She was tired all the time. Through watching her, I learned the value of work and the necessity of a powernap. She met all of our needs, helped with homework, and encouraged our talents. I would like to say that everything was terrific--that having a father who lived on the other side of the country, who we saw an average of twenty-one days a year, didn't bother me at all, but it did. I longed for him. As a child I was often anxious when I went to visit my dad. I wanted him to come back to live with us and thought he would if I was good enough, funny enough, and pretty enough. The first time my sister and I flew to Vancouver to visit him, I was four, and my sister was seven. I remember feeling I would burst with excitement. My sister and I left home gussied up in matching velvet dresses. Upon arrival, due to my nervousness, I ran to my dad wearing only my crinoline as I had thrown up all over myself on the plane. At one family gathering, a few years later, I remember clinging to him for hours. I wrapped myself around his leg, like a baby orangutan, and wouldn't let go. The time we were able to spend with him was precious. We were ecstatic to be together and savoured every moment, smell, and touch of one another. I can still hear the warm baritone of his laugh. I can still smell his freshness and feel his soft, faded jeans. We tried our best to please him, and he us, because we wanted our time together to be perfec.t NO child should be that far away from either parent. Unfortunately, my father was only comfortable exploring his sexuality as a gay man and eventually coming out at a distance from everyone he knew, including my sister and me. When we were growing up, homophobia was common. I often wonder if it hadn't been so widespread in the sixties, seventies, and eighties, would my father have chosen to live closer? Could he have been himself and helped to raise us? A great deal of pain may have been avoided. At age six or seven, I developed anger issues. Day to day, I was a pretty happy kid, but sometimes I exploded. Once, while alone at home, I broke a few pieces of my mother's fancy china. I took them out of their cabinet and smashed them, one by one, on the floor. When my mother came home, surprisingly, she was very calm and concerned. She asked me why I did it. I thought deeply about her question and felt scared because I had no answer other than to admit that a huge uncontainable rage welled up inside me. Looking back, I've realized that I was furious with my dad for leaving us, but at the same time, I couldn't express my anger to him as that would have ruined our precious time together. Over the years, I grew to understand the intense pressures my father lived under as a gay man. I eventually expressed my anger toward him, and it finally dissipated. My father loved my sister and me, but the societal norms of the times caused scars for us all.  I began to clue in that my father had boyfriends, not girlfriends, when I was about fifteen. At the same time, my body was rapidly changing. Sex was constantly on my mind. With the Toronto bathhouse raids in the news, I learned that people of the same sex got together in many different manners. I fooled around with both women and men, as I began to discover what made me feel good. As I was engaged in discovering my own sexuality, it dawned on me that my father was gay. This discovery made me happy, as I had always sensed a hidden side to my dad, and now I knew what it was.  At the time, my anger found an outlet through hating the life I felt was prescribed for me. I hated high school, corporations, racism, governments, disco, Dorothy Hamill, work, authority, Ronald Reagan, war, nations, Farrah Fawcett and John Wayne--basically anything that represented mainstream society. I quit school and left home. Searching the streets of downtown Toronto, I quickly found punk rock and explored different ways of being in the world. I packed in a lot of living. I worked two North American tours as a roadie for MDC, a hard-core political punk band from Texas--one being the infamous Rock Against Reagan tour in 1983 with the Dead Kennedys headlining. I lived in squats from San Francisco to Berlin, producing fanzines and LP covers; I was often hungry, and sometimes I supported myself by begging on the streets. I tried out my French in Montreal, but was much more successful at eating bagels and partying. I felt that having a gay dad was cool, as it also didn't fit into what was considered normal at the time. It created a special bond between us.  My father and I both liked to paint the town red, and we made a great team. In Vancouver, we would start a night out at the Luv-A-Fair on Seymour Street. I danced to punk music while my dad warmed up with a few drinks. One night a young man tried, unsuccessfully, to hit on me. After my lacklustre response, he turned to my father and asked, "Why is she with you old man?" My father replies slowly with his warm smile, "Because I've got the money, honey!" We both chuckled and left for John Barley's in Gastown. The club would be packed to the rafters with sweaty, musclebound men and a few women. My father knew almost everyone there. It was a trip: his friends treated me like a queen, well since I really couldn't compete with many of them for that status ... maybe more like a princess! All night, my drinks were free. I was feted, and I danced until early morning to loud disco, which I learned to love, but, at the time, only in the atmosphere of sweaty, muscular, leather-bound gay men. I relished in the safe and distinguished status I felt as my father's daughter. It wasn't common that one of the leather boys and his daughter had so much fun together. Often I lost myself on the dance floor, once in a while finding my dad with my eyes and a smile.  I don't remember my dad formally "coming out" to me. It happened gradually through our interactions. One day while on my own in my dad's Vancouver apartment, I rifled through his bedside table. I found a soft black leather wristband with flat silver studs and adjustable snaps and promptly put it on me. When he returned with his boyfriend, he noticed it and asked, "Why do you have that on your wrist?" I watched as the two men exchanged horrified, awkward looks and I realized what it was. "Ewww," I thought as I gingerly unsnapped the leather and handed it back to my dad.  My father eventually returned to Toronto and moved into a white high-rise apartment in the heart of the gay village. Toronto Pride became a family event for us. We adored the beer gardens and together pranced up a storm. One year, my dad and his friends created a float for the Pride parade. Dressed as Cleopatra, my father was displayed like royalty. It was hot, and he managed to survive the heat by being fanned by a harem of frond-waving men. My heart swelled with love for him. I didn't know anyone with a gay parent at the time, and it empowered me to have a place to openly celebrate our family. The late eighties rolled in with intensity, which brought the AIDS crisis and the deaths of many of our friends. It was scary and heart wrenching; the air was full of fear and lies. My lifestyle led to regular testing for AIDS. The wait after a test was frightening. At the time, AIDS was a death sentence, and frequently, the media alluded to the disease as payback for depraved activity. My results were always negative, making life that much sweeter, for a while. Anonymous testing was illegal at the time, but I went to the Hassle Free Clinic on Church st., as they provided it anonymously, despite the law. My father lived close by, and I'd visit him, fill him in, and pester him to get tested. He always refused. He hated illness of any kind and instead spent hours at the gym. He was buff, but still, he was scared--we both were. It was a very dark time. Activism erupted in response to the way the epidemic was being handled. It galvanized the community, and the fight for access to healthcare, dignity, and respect changed the lives of the next generation. My father remained steadfast in his decision not to get tested until the late nineties when antiretroviral treatments became available in Canada. One day, he called me out of the blue to share his results. He got lucky: they were negative. Many weren't so fortunate: in 1994, there were 32,995 Canadians living with HIV.  One night, in the same neighbourhood where the two of us had shared many Pride parades, my father walked home after enjoying a dinner party with friends who lived in the sister apartment building. It was a short jaunt through the park between the two buildings. As it was his neighbourhood, the gay-bourhood, he didn't think twice when three young men called him over with a seemingly friendly question. They jumped him in a premeditated gay bashing. My father was hospitalized. The hate he experienced shook him to his core. He was left full of anger, shame, and a sense of powerlessness. A recurring dream developed in which he turned into a superhero, fought back, and exacted revenge on the men who stole his sense of safety. In a strange way, this experience brought my father and me closer. I was an Ontario College of Art student at the time and had invited my dad to come to my first gallery exhibition. Had I not demanded he come, I might have never known that he was hurt, as he kept the experience hidden from most people. But he said "no" and insisted I come visit him instead. I still feel sad remembering his lumpy black and blue face. He was wounded by the cruel prejudice of his attackers as much as he was by their fists. His pain came pouring out when I visited. He hated that he couldn't come to my show. We both hated the hate. It was, and still is, incomprehensible. No one was ever charged for the crime.  Soon after his physical recovery, my dad bought a house in Crystal Beach, Ontario, with two of his oldest friends. They left Toronto's gay village for small-town life--a town that has an active queer community in which they could retire gracefully and in style. My daughter, sister, and I always loved visiting their impeccable homes. My mother came sometimes too--as we grew older, my parents rekindled their friendship, and we spent most holidays and special functions together. Although queerness wasn't, most often, directly discussed with the immediate or extended family, we all knew and accepted that my father was gay. None of us accepted homophobic comments, and at one point, my mother had a boyfriend who wasn't able to adjust to having her gay ex-husband around, and it contributed to why that boyfriend didn't last.  My father and his two roommates became family to us. I often joked that they should have made a sitcom of their household. Of course, it would have been called The Golden Boys. Outwardly, all three of The Golden Boys seemed to become more conservative as they aged, although their witty banter at dinner parties was still drier than a martini from the Park Hyatt Hotel. My father and his Golden Boy roommates started going to the Catholic Church across the street. Pies and muffins were often baked for fundraisers. Red wine still flowed freely with dinner, but his leather pants and leather cap stiffened up with neglect. The Golden Boys loved when we came to visit. They lavished us with attention, humour, and impeccable good taste. My daughter and I would make an adventure out of it and pitch our tent in their backyard. Although they never said a word against my girl's grubby hands, I could see them all relax when it was time to move our adventures to the tent or even further afield to the beach. It was as if my daughter had three doting grandfathers. And although I felt many judgements from mainstream parenting communities concerned with my decision to breastfeed my daughter until she was almost four, not once were my dad and his roommates disturbed. Their acceptance of me and how I chose to live my life in politically subversive ways throughout the decades was absolute. These men, who had felt the pain of intolerance, were among the most inclusive and compassionate people I have ever known.  I remember the little girl I once was, the one that clung to my father's leg afraid that if I let go, I'd never see him again. That day came when my father died at the age of seventy-four from lung cancer. I lay with him in his hospital bed, holding his hand, as he took his last breath. My daughter was in the next room sleeping, and my sister had just arrived after a panicked, nonstop journey from Quebec. Earlier that day, my dad and I had listened to Marvin Gaye sing "What's Going On," one of our favorite songs from the 1970s. The lyrics capture the deep concern, frustration and love we share about society and its effects on our lives: "Oh, you know we've got to find a way to bring some understanding here today." Since my father died, I've spent a great deal of time reflecting on how our communities have shifted over the last thirty-five years. We no longer can find one label that comfortably fits the LGBTQ, QPOC, transgender, two-spirit, agender-gender fluid, gender non-binary, queer, lesbian, pansexual, bisexual, and gay communities. My fourteen-year-old daughter expresses her impatience as I struggle to find that elusive, all-encompassing label while writing this. She doesn't yet understand the past work and activism that have created an atmosphere in which it is normal for her to have non-cis-gender-identified friends. At the brink of maturing sexuality, she and her friends are just beginning to identify sexual preference. Recently she told me, "Mom, you are so uncool trying to label everything." I responded with how vital I believe it is for people to have an individual voice while still supporting the need to have terms that bring communities together in solidarity, movement building, and political activism. It is liberating for her generation to have so many possible options--things of course are not perfect, or even easy, with so many pressing issues of hate and intolerance to transform--but it is a very different world from the one my father and I grew up in. Resistance, like leather, is a beautiful thing.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Resistance, Like Leather, Is a Beautiful Thing Subject The topic of the resource Queerspawn Description An account of the resource Lisa Deanne Smith reads her essay, "Resistance, Like Leather, Is a Beautiful Thing." Essay was published in <i>Spawning Generations: Rants and Reflections on Growing Up With LGBTQ+ Parents</i>, edited by Sadie Epstein-Fine and Makeda Zook (Bradford: Demeter Press, 2018), p. 190-198. Lisa Deanne Smith is a curator who explores issues of voice, embodied experience and power. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lisa Deanne Smith Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Queerspawn fonds, FF0196-01-006-001, The ArQuives Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 1 MPEG-3 audio file [00:27:51], 66.9MB, Hard Drive Relation A related resource <a href="https://digitalexhibitions.arquives.ca/exhibits/show/queerspawn-digital-storytellin/lisa-deanne-smith">Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project, Lisa Deanne Smith</a> Language A language of the resource English https://digitalexhibitions.arquives.ca/files/original/853209a4236fe9ae2a927d7e9d143858.jpg 76c4d1caf896091a7b375de0da2c64b0 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project Subject The topic of the resource The Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project was spearheaded by Sadie Epstein-Fine, creative and operational lead with community support from Makeda Zook in 2021. The goal of the project was to provide participants of all ages with one or more LGBTQ2+ parent(s) a way to explore aspects of the queerspawn experience through digital content creation. Over the course of 5 months, the Queerspawn project participants met virtually to share space and build community. They explored different ways to get into their stories and experiences. The project included 13 participants, who created video, art projects and installations, audio stories, podcasts and essays, exploring how their identities and life experiences have intersected with their queerspawn identity. The Queerspawn Project was made possible through the International Centre for Arts for Social Change’s FUTURES/Forward Program and The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives. Description An account of the resource The fonds contains records from the Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project dating from 1942 to 2021. It includes photographs, art installations, artwork, podcasts, audio stories, essays and video created by the thirteen project participants. Project participants were based out of Canada, the United States and Australia. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project fonds (F0196) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1942 - 2021 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada, United States, and Australia Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Dad and Lisa Deanne Smith Subject The topic of the resource Queerspawn Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1982 Type The nature or genre of the resource 1 JPEG image, Hard Drive Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Queerspawn fonds, FF0196-01-006-002, The ArQuives Relation A related resource <a href="https://digitalexhibitions.arquives.ca/exhibits/show/queerspawn-digital-storytellin/lisa-deanne-smith">Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project, Lisa Deanne Smith</a> https://digitalexhibitions.arquives.ca/files/original/aad2694a63a375735fb8f45320e26202.mp4 fdec5291e0a76d8bf86fea11dd46b4d2 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project Subject The topic of the resource The Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project was spearheaded by Sadie Epstein-Fine, creative and operational lead with community support from Makeda Zook in 2021. The goal of the project was to provide participants of all ages with one or more LGBTQ2+ parent(s) a way to explore aspects of the queerspawn experience through digital content creation. Over the course of 5 months, the Queerspawn project participants met virtually to share space and build community. They explored different ways to get into their stories and experiences. The project included 13 participants, who created video, art projects and installations, audio stories, podcasts and essays, exploring how their identities and life experiences have intersected with their queerspawn identity. The Queerspawn Project was made possible through the International Centre for Arts for Social Change’s FUTURES/Forward Program and The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives. Description An account of the resource The fonds contains records from the Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project dating from 1942 to 2021. It includes photographs, art installations, artwork, podcasts, audio stories, essays and video created by the thirteen project participants. Project participants were based out of Canada, the United States and Australia. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project fonds (F0196) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1942 - 2021 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada, United States, and Australia Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource My Father, Maria Callas, and Me Subject The topic of the resource Queerspawn Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mary Annette Clough Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Queerspawn fonds, F0196-01-008-001, The ArQuives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 1 MPEG-4 movie [00:07:10], Hard Drive Relation A related resource <a href="https://digitalexhibitions.arquives.ca/exhibits/show/queerspawn-digital-storytellin/mary-annette-clough">Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project, Mary Annette Clough</a>