Outside the Binary [Podcast]

[Music]

hey this is phil aka corrine and i’m alex berg and you’re listening to the i’m from driftwood podcast a quick favor

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and will make a big difference alright now on to today’s episode [Music]

on today’s show we’re talking about non-binary voices if i sound different than i normally do it’s because i’m

having some technical issues with my mic but we are going to forge ahead with this conversation and the first story

we’re going to talk about is ada when i was in seventh grade i had this

latin teacher she had been my latin teacher a year before and she was also my advisor this year

and i was going to her office for help with

latin because i was really struggling with it and i eventually

pulled my grade up quite a bit by like going to her office almost every other day and kind of getting seeking the help

that i needed and she really worked with me and she was really patient one of those times in like the middle of

seventh grade when i was in her office i started feeling kind of flushed while

i was talking to her and kind of like intense and awkward and i didn’t really know what to say anymore

and i realized i i have a crush on her first i realized i was gay

a little after realizing i had that extensive of a crush on my latin teacher then i started realizing maybe i’m

bisexual or pansexual because i feel like i’m attracted to men too and

i don’t really know what’s going on with that or how to really identify that and then like as i got older and became

a more sexual person i started just noticing people of all all types of genders fast forward to

sophomore year in high school we were performing at a christmas chapel

in this little place like four blocks away from my school this little church and

i started feeling really uncomfortable in the dress that i was wearing i started feeling like it was really tight

and it was really like clinging to me and the dress actually fit me fine up to up to this point it’d

fit me fine and there was no problem so i realized that i was basically having a panic attack and so i went to

the uh ladies bathroom downstairs in the basement um and i just like

unzipped my dress a little bit and i calmed down i tried i tried to calm myself and i tried to talk myself down

and breathe in and out but i was feeling really confused about my feelings

because it felt like not only did i not want to be in the dress i also didn’t really want to be

in my body really that much i kind of just wanted things to change about me that i’d never

really fully wanted to change before when i got home that night i started googling these terms i started

like googling like i literally put in google not a not a boy not a girl like

what why why do i feel like this or i i kind of knew um

what transgender meant and i had heard non-binary before so i started googling like non-binary people and like if you

feel you’re non-binary or what to do and i saw these stories um just i saw

these stories and these this terminology that was pretty new to me it was really great for me that that other people uh

were sharing their experiences and and and that i had a notion of what nonbernara

meant and and what gender fluid meant um and so i started feeling like okay yeah

i’m i’m fluid um to this day i don’t really have a label

for who i am i just feel masculine some days i feel more

femme other days i use they them pronouns now and i have for a little bit

now in my junior year of college um

i just i am non-binary and i and i

call myself gender fluid and i am gender fluid um but i don’t always call myself gender

fluid i don’t always stick to one thing with myself and i think it’s really important

if you’re constantly questioning you can be constantly questioning you

can be on a spectrum you can be at three different points on the spectrum or just

like traveling around and you’re like i don’t know i’m on the spectrum yay like it’s

it’s fine and i think it’s important for people to know that to know that

they don’t have to own up to one label or be one thing no matter the pressure they get to do

that i loved the story because i loved that ada doesn’t feel the need to adopt a

label and i think we’re in a time right now where we have a lot of terms we have a

lot of identities and i think people should obviously have the right to decide to

identify or not identify and i know that’s weird for some people that’s confusing for some people but i

prefer to take people at their word tell me what you’d like me to call you tell me what your pronouns are tell me if you

decide you don’t want to identify as anything that’s fine i want to know what it is you want and i want to follow that

and respect your wishes in that way what do you think about that alex i’m completely with you i feel like the

question of labeling like on the one hand sometimes labels have utility in terms of being able to convey yourself

to the rest of the world but i think really i aspire to a world where everyone does just get to be themself at

the end of the day so i’m with you when you say that you know you want to ask people what how they want to be seen in

this world and and accept them as they are in that way so absolutely i mean i enjoyed this story

just kind of the different narrative beats of it going from this interaction with the teacher to then wearing a dress

and feeling uncomfortable to then being able to like google different labels and also living in this place where as an

individual you’re fluid and you don’t have to ascribe to a specific gender it just makes me feel like

you know to still feel as though being fluid is i think like a

revolutionary act it just speaks to how our society is so invested in the gender

binary yeah and just how intensely married to the gender

binary the rest of our society and culture is and that even i think that sometimes that feeds into this intense

hunger for outsiders to need to label queer trans fluid non-binary folks as

well i feel like a lot of times it kind of makes me think about how it’s almost about the other person and not about

ourselves as lgbtqi plus people right like it’s about somebody else’s comfort

and not just for living with the ambiguities i i agree and i think it’s it’s about trying

to make sense of the world as you know it and opposing that on someone else right it is about someone else it’s like

if i can put you in this box and i can understand you better and i’m like you can understand me in in or out of the box like in both ways you can understand

me as a human so we should really stop we really should just cut that out

well one of the other things that makes me think about is just how we are presented with such limited options in

terms of gender identity and sexual orientation from the jump that it can often take us time to figure out where

we fit and how we even want to recognize our own identities and this makes me think about our other story from dubswineblat

when i was 20 years old back when i was at ohio state i had been having a lot of trouble with drinking i was drinking all

the time and when i would drink i would get really depressed and really sad and a lot of times really angry and my friends always

had to deal with me and all those different emotions and there was one evening when i was drinking alone natty light in my room

my my roommate and best friend came in and she basically gave me an ultimatum and she was like

you’re my best friend and i love you but i can’t keep dealing with you and your drinking because it’s i have to

take care of you every time you’re drinking which is all the time and i really i love you and i care about you

but i need you to tell me what’s going on because something obviously is going on and you

know this was my moment of truth i always known that i was gay since my first thought of knowing anything and

i kept it a secret for 20 years and this was my moment and so i couldn’t verbally say what i

wanted to say so i took a post-it and i wrote i’m bi on it um and i handed it to her and she

literally just looked at it and she’s like that’s it and i burst out crying and like 20 years

of pent up fear and sadness and any any emotion you can think of just

came pouring out and i cried for i don’t even know how long and she held me and in my head i thought that everything

after that was going to be solved you know i’m gay i knew i was gay

i just couldn’t tell anyone but that’s not really what happened i i continued drinking and

kind of stayed in a depressed state and i kind of just thought maybe that was the baseline of who i was 10 years

later when i was in new york city one of my friends from columbus ohio was playing at a party and it turns out that

the party was during pride week and it was a lipstick lesbian awareness

party in the lower east side and my first thought is like awesome i’m gonna see all these hot femme girls and i’m

gonna be in heaven i went to this party with the same best friend who i came out with on a post-it so i’m looking around

and i see all these feminine women and its beautiful sight and then i realized that

i am not not only am i not a lesbian but i’m

realizing that i’m attracted to women but that i don’t necessarily identify as a woman and it was as if like this glass

box that had all the gender identity notions had shattered right then and there at the bar while my friend was

playing the music and it you know it got silent and i was like wow my life

is not what i thought it was and i started realizing that i didn’t identify with my name and i didn’t

identify with parts of my body and i didn’t identify with pronouns and i didn’t identify with

everything that i had been raised with needing to be who i was

um because that just wasn’t who i was and so it was very mind-boggling for me

to realize that there was something so big and so deep that i was dealing with that i had no idea was even going on in

my head so once i had the epiphany at the party i decided to

talk to my family and friends about it and read articles and books my drinking still didn’t get any better even though

i had still been exploring and discovering things about myself and then about two years later

i started seeing an lgbtq specialist who kind of got me right on track of where i needed to be

and it wasn’t until i found a surgeon and made my first consultation i finally

realized that i was able to have my drinking under control because even after coming out as genderqueer and

talking about it there still was something off about how i was able to control myself and

it wasn’t until i really took control over how i was feeling and what i needed to be healthy i think a lot of

people have the idea that you have to be male or female and that there’s no

middle but you know you don’t have to stick to one or the other and i think

that it’s important for me especially because i have had top surgery now and don’t identify as trans

that i just am me and so i want other people to know that it’s okay to be them no matter what combination of label or

surgery or identification that they have the story just made me think about how

we are having to go through these processes on our own and almost just like figure it out for ourselves because

that the only thing that we know is there is one possibility which is maybe if you’re having these feelings where you’re like

i don’t align with the options that are presented to me then maybe it must be because i’m bi or gay or queer and it’s

like you’re almost having to go on this like journey of self-discovery and just to find the

resources that might help guide you yeah very true very true there was a quote that i i kind of wrote down from the

story that i really love and dub says it was as if a glass box had

that had all the gender identity notions shattered and and that was i think that was something they said after they

realized being at the party that they were attracted to all these hot women and all these women but they they were

like but i am not one of these women right you know so and it was just like i

i love that because it was like that was a moment of clarity of like wait a minute

the all of this that was constructed in my mind none of this is a real thing for me right this is not a real thing for me

and i want to break out of it i want to understand broader definitions of what it means to be me and

how i identify i just love that yeah i love the idea of having a last box of gender to break if this is a literal box

i would like to break it myself can we just like throw it over a cliff what can we do to destroy it i i’m totally here

for that yeah i think that gosh it makes me think like they’re i’ve had so many that resonates with me

because there are so many moments i feel like where understanding the people around me and like how they were identifying ended up

impacting my own conception of self or like helps you connect the dots about yourself like sometimes you have to like

meet somebody who you’re like i’m i’m you whatever you are like i’m i’m you you know i get that

yeah i mean which speaks to why we talk about visibility all the time this is why people need to see that

representation and sometimes they will look at it and say wait a minute i think that’s me i think that’s me that’s why

that is so very important and you know with that we have dubs back with us and i i can’t wait to jump in to talking to

dubs about their story and sort of expanding on what happened that day and what’s going on now so welcome back dubs

thank you thank you so much for having me again this is such a treat so dubs before we jump into your story we want

to know how you’re doing right now right now in this moment i’m feeling really good i’m today i’m 500 days sober which

is for me as as you alluded to earlier i had a drinking problem and that was you

know when i talk about it in the story i was 20 and that kind of didn’t go away until

last year when i took matters into my own hands so celebrating feeling really good about

500 days because i never thought that that was possible so just holding on to

that feeling today it’s really great that we can catch up with you again because so much time has

passed so you know you open up about being 20 years old and having the problems you know having problems with drinking and you were confronted by your

friend and you opened up about your sexuality and i know that you talk about it like that being something that was on

your mind for about 20 years and i want to know what that moment was like when you when you were finally able

to release that and talk to your friend and tell them about yourself what did that feel like what did that release

feel like to you it was incredible i mean it was incredible it was something that you know you alluded to right like i had

i had known like just from the first moments of consciousness knew that i was

queer in all in all of the way like all of all of the ways but didn’t have the language the understanding

the safety or security the the visibility the representation you know all that you

know in the midwest in the 80s you know and so i kept it locked tight inside you

know that’s what started my drinking in high school was like escape and

self-harm and just like not caring about whether i lived or died essentially you

know and i would be so careful about the things that i would say because i was so terrified that i was going to out myself

which actually feels counterintuitive of like you’re getting so drunk won’t don’t want you accidentally i was like i was

so drunk and also so aware that like i don’t know how i was able to do that but i never accidentally did anything

that would out myself so at the time my close group of friends attended church

in the i was gonna say 2020 that is not right in the 2006

7 8 four one of the presidential elections whatever it was they voted for bush

instead of kerry and so in my mind like that meant like you are going to be

close-minded and there was no room for me to have for anyone to have nuance or

you know to be like voting just because that’s what their parents did or going to church because that’s what their parents did that’s what they grew up it

just was like this is the definitive thing how you’re going to react and so i was really scared to tell her but it was

like basically like there was like an ultimatum of like i’m not going to be your friend anymore until you tell me what’s going

on and so i wrote on a post-it and at that point i used the word bisexual because you know

up to that point i was dating and physical with cisgender men you know at

that point i had no idea about gender nuance at all i say all of that because i think a lot of times bisexuals get

erased and they get like glossed over like their identity is not real and like that was not my intention when i wrote

it on the post-it i just want to be very clear of that i think that that’s what felt right in the moment and i think that that also

speaks to how our language evolves over time and how our language for ourselves evolves over time as we learn about

ourselves and also as we learn about new words so it was the best release ever because i think one of the things that’s

so scary about coming out to somebody is what their reaction is going to be and i told her and she literally just was like

that’s it and i was like like i had all this for 20 years pent up

terror and the you know one of my best people in the world was like okay with it and so we both just cried

for a long time and she held me and it was just it was a very very nice big

incredible release and relief and then it wasn’t because then i had to start then i was

like okay well now i actually have to like do this now that i’ve said it now i have to live it and those are two

different things of like admitting to something and then living in that truth

and so the the comings out after that were challenging because i also you know each

person i was like how are you gonna react and like now i actually like have to date women and that feels really terrifying but also like what i want to

be doing but also terrifying so it was quite a roller coaster what about what about

your family i mean did you end up having any conversations with them i do want to say that all of those friends that i was

scared about and voted for bush and went to church are all gay so

uh we all i was the first to come out i will say that my friend who i came out to was actually secretly dating one of

my friends from high school wasn’t her her time to come out but i was like well that would have been nice

to know so but seriously right right yeah so i grew up in a jewish house cold and

we also didn’t talk about politics and so there was never really there was never any intentional

homophobic things homophobic transphobic things happening in my household but what was happening

were like jokes or things that they didn’t think were harmful

that i was like making mental notes about or like they would like say like offhand comments but it wasn’t like gay people are bad

like i never heard that but it was like the the nuanced of like did you see blah blah blah or like

whatever like the gossip and so that’s what i had clung on to and so when i told i mean when i told my mom

she was like i just want you to be happy i want you to be safe and then she asked me like invasive

questions about sex and i was like i’m literally never talking to you about this and my i made my mom tell my dad

and my dad was also very supportive it’s like very similar to when i came

out to them as trans it’s like they’re like i’m gesturing widely everyone who’s listening like

overall very like love and support which is so lucky and i’m so grateful for that but then it’s like when you get into the

like minutia of it and the like day to day and like how do you actually talk about it and

live it that’s when there’s like hard conversations that i have to keep having like my my dad it took him a

handful of years to accept that like i wasn’t going to marry a nice jewish boy

and like the narrative that he had for me was not my own narrative and he had to rewrite that for himself and so a lot of

that kind of stuff you know that just speaks to the coming out and how coming out it’s a journey it there is like

there’s there are parts of it you know people think that it’s about having that conversation and letting someone know

about their identity or their sexuality and then that’s the end of the story and

there’s there’s just so much more to it that that than that there’s you know there’s a there’s the day-to-day like you said there’s the minutia so it makes

sense that your parents were like great at first and then you had to like as you got into the weeds you had to like help them sort of drive the car so they

didn’t go off the road because yeah it happens you know exactly yeah you know

fast forwarding 10 years from the beginning of your story you are at this fantastic party which i wish i had been

at this party sounds like a fantastic party [Laughter]

why was i not invited right right why wasn’t i at the party i want to be there

oh so good i mean it sounds great and you know you’re talking like about

how excited about the part how excited you were about the party and you’re going to see all these hot femme girls and it’s going to be like heaven for you

it wound up being a major epiphany for you about your own gender identity

and i want you to take us back to the party and what made you have that aha moment

so i get there and i’m just looking around and hey i’m yes in heaven because like i love

lots of people and i’m looking around and i’m like i like not only do i not

belong here because i’m not a lipstick lesbian it just was like it was like in succession of like i’m not there’s like there’s

such a like disconnect of me being in the space and i was like trying to reconcile in real time of like you know

i’m imagining i don’t know for sure but i’m like sure i was wearing my like army cargo shorts like i was like the op like

not that femmes can’t wear cargo shorts they can but in my in my like binary narrative in my head however long years ago seven

years ago oh i’m uncomfortable because i’m not a lipstick lesbian okay oh i’m i’m

uncomfortable because i’m not a lesbian i’m not a lesbian because i’m not a woman and it just was like then this is

when the glass was shattering it was like that that the boundary the the binary boundary that i was stuck in

just it literally cracked open and also at that time i had a messenger bag

my messenger bag across my chest and for me part of my journey was

feeling disconnect and dysphoria around my chest and so it was like in that moment

i was like i hate the way that my bag feels on my body

and like it just it just all clicked i don’t i don’t have i really don’t know it was like magic i just don’t know how

it happened and i so the same friend who i came out to 10 years earlier is the same friend at this party with me

i turn to dolce and i say oh my god like i’m not a woman i’m not a

lesbian i’m not a woman and she’s like hey great like what is that i was like i don’t

know but like here we are like this is true and then i was like i hate my breasts

and she’s like okay and i was like i hate my name and she was like

okay which we actually had the same first name so i was like no offense to you and then i just was like it felt like

euphoria because i had finally and you know i’m still trying to figure

out kind of like the order of operations of like did i know about genderqueer non-binary before this moment or did i

come to it on my own like that those identities exist or did i come to it on my own and then find the words for it

later i don’t actually know regardless i knew for sure as hell i wasn’t a woman

and that that part is like the most important piece but then i would start to ask myself

well am i a man because i knew trans transgender i knew binary transgender

people existed and i was like is that me and i just was like i don’t think so

but then where did that leave me and actually i wrote something down and you were talking about ada’s story about like not feeling the need to adopt

labels and you both were talking about just let people you know self-identify and

how incredible it is to be fluid and all of that is true and i want to add a layer of nuance to it of like the power

of labels when you get to put it on for yourself so it’s like once i learned

the word genderqueer i was like holy that’s me

and it was so empowering it’s almost like when we can own that process ourselves then eventually

for some people that label might not matter as much because we’ve we’ve figured it out for ourselves right and

then for some people those labels are incredibly empowering i know a lot of binary trans people

who like cling very strongly to the word man or woman because they have thought their asses off to

own their identity and so it’s just it’s interesting of like allowing folks to

just do what’s empowering for them whether that’s hold on to a label or not hold on to a label and i know you’ve said that a

little bit but just adding like there is power in it when we can do it for ourselves amen i wish that our uh

listeners could see phil and i just like nodding so much phil is now clapping yes

exactly i’m completely with you and i just have such an appreciation for the the layer that you added there of labels

i feel like i just you know want to live in a world where we have room for everyone to do whatever feels the most

affirming to them at all times no matter if they feel strongly about labels or if they’re figuring out the labels all the

things one of the things you were talking about as well was after you had this epiphany at the party

you spent time actually doing research and reading articles and books was there anything in particular that was a great

resource for you or that you saw yourself in when you were in that period

of time something i feel like a downfall of mine is i love asking for help but like when

it comes to like let me this is gonna get heady but like

i think because i grew up struggling like that’s how my brain is wired like

i’m comfortable in the struggle because that’s what i that’s how i was like raised and so

like i probably could have done more to help myself both with alcohol or with

identity but instead i like did it the hard way of like

not not really researching as like thoroughly as i could have or not really you know talking to people as thoroughly

as i could have and instead just like struggled on my own with it because that’s where i felt comfortable and i’m

working on realizing that there’s like i’m not alone in any of these things and like just

google it and like you’ll find a million things of whatever it is but that’s i think that’s kind of where i was at that

time fair enough that sounds good another part of your journey was seeing the lgbtqia specialist

and i want to know that are you are you a proponent of therapy now are you is that

something that’s ongoing for you absolutely i still see the same therapist

all these years later so this the moment that i like in that lipstick lesbian awareness party moment

i was in therapy and i upped it to twice a week and i was like let’s just figure this

out so i guess and now i’m like contradicting what i just said but like that was

but i did it but he was like a cis man in his like

60s and not to say that cis men in their 60s aren’t educated on the lgbtq community that’s

not true this particular person was not and so it actually was a struggle

which is actually maybe not contradictory then because i was like struggling with him and like getting him to understand what

i was going through and i was like so new to it that i couldn’t educate him on it because i was

like i don’t even know either like what i’m talking about and so it like he did help me a lot but one of my tipping

points was when i told him that my name is dubs now and like he should call me dubs i like when i walked into a session

once i looked over and saw his like his notepad and he had my dead name written

and i confronted him and i said listen i told you my name is dubs and i see that you have my dead name written and he’s

like well this is just for me it doesn’t matter and i was like it does matter it absolutely matters because you’re not

it’s very clear you don’t understand what we’re talking about if you have my dead name written and then are

going to engage in this conversation with me and so i then i think at that point i had

also been seeing my fair my my like specialist therapist and so because he was also helping me

navigate to get top surgery and so i ended up terminating with a problematic

therapist and staying with my specialist and yeah therapy is so helpful and it is so

important when you have access to it not everyone has access which is unfortunate but it’s so important to have someone

who understands the nuance of identity and understands you and can affirm and

base things in reality i think a lot of times for trans people non-binary people queer people

i know this term gets thrown around so much but like we are gaslit into thinking that we are overreacting or we’re too

sensitive and it’s helpful to have a neutral person be like no the way you’re reacting

makes sense because your reality is being denied or your inherent dignity is being questioned and challenged

and so it’s helpful and it’s also helpful just to work things through with somebody i hear all of that well in the

story at the time you call yourself genderqueer which is a term that sometimes overlaps with being non-binary

and sometimes has its own unique definition what would you say is the main difference between the two how do you

see them overlapping if you do and then how has your identity evolved since the video when you use that term

yeah i still use genderqueer i don’t really ever use non-binary for myself

there was a period of time when i would correct people when they said that i was non-binary because i was in

that particular part of my journey and now it doesn’t bother me as much and i think that just

illustrates what i was saying earlier it’s like now that i’m settled in who i am in this moment having that particular term doesn’t

trigger anything in me because really they mean the same thing just one feels more affirming than the

other to me i know lots of people who use both interchangeably people who only use non-binary and not genderqueer

for me it’s simply genderqueer just feels better and like feels more authentic and then to answer your question about

where i am now i do now use the word transgender so when i when people ask i say i’m a

genderqueer trans person what else has changed i started testosterone last july so july of 2020

and that also has been really an incredible journey that was one of those things where

i think there’s there is so much stigma attached to trans identities and

i was deathly afraid of being a trans person

because of all of the stigma and all of the like negative ways that trans people are

treated and i just was so afraid of being a trans

person that i was like oh i can be genderqueer and not a trans person which there are people who are that

if that word is not empowering to them but i realized that the word transgender is empowering for me

and that i had to like work through with their in therapy that like moving past the stigma of it and like owning it and

the idea i had been talking about testosterone in therapy for years and then i stopped talking

about it and then i would talk about it and i’d stop talking about it and my therapist sent me this like packet of

from like the world health organization about like the effects of testosterone and i like i remember i

like read through it and i was like i wasn’t even like being thoughtful about it i was like i don’t need this

and just like threw it away i think i just deleted the email and it actually was like during the

pandemic when like everything stopped and as for so many people like things

just got quiet and lots of people like went inward and like found things out about themselves and

testosterone kept coming up for me and i was like i can’t

keep shoving it down because it’s obviously affecting me negatively and so i need to

talk figure this out so i started talking about it again and it coincided with me stopping drinking

and so i think having that clarity and that space then gave me the the courage to start

testosterone and so you know because if you listen to any interviews with me before july of last year i was like very

adamantly like someone who was like i’m not taking i’m not gonna do testosterone that’s not for me i can be a trans

person without testosterone and like very very like firm on it and then it’s like

to all of our points this whole conversation about fluidity it’s like i had to get there on my own in my own

time and now and some of the things that were scary for me was like facial hair i was

like that or like my voice dropping i was like because that would be a like very obvious change from

what i was pre-testosterone and to like into testosterone if that makes sense and like i was scared to have to

talk about it with people or i was scared to have to field people’s reactions to hearing a deeper voice or

facial hair you know what i mean and like not wanting to witness transphobic like i just was trying

to protect myself and then it’s wild because as my voice has been dropping and as my

facial hair is coming in it’s like those are the two most empowering things that are happening for me it’s like oh my god

i love this and so it’s just so interesting to me how that how it shifts and how

i made a complete 180 and it just it it’s wild how that

happens with all of that said in what ways would you like to see the lgbtq plus community show up as a whole for

genderqueer folks i think people who hold more power so cis people in the community

you know if they aren’t already modeling sharing their pronouns i think that’s really really important step for

for all folks to share their pronouns because it helps us normalize the practice and it also takes out the

assumption of you have to look certain way to use a certain set of pronouns advocating for

more neutral language like company-wide memos or you know wherever wherever we’re seeing

binary gender pop up having people with cis privilege

use that privilege and say hey like actually this isn’t inclusive this isn’t encompassing of all people

also talking about like bathroom situations and are there only a men’s room in a women’s

room and how can we advocate for all gender restrooms or thinking about

i mean really just everything like at anywhere where it’s binary like how do

we create it so it’s not exclusive of genderqueer non-binary

people those are kind of the few things that are just coming to the top of my head cool so let’s switch tracks a bit

and talk about your improv group and podcast called thank you for coming out you’re the founder and can you tell us a

little bit about thank you for coming out and its mission yeah i love you ask me what the mission

is because that is i don’t have a mission statement it’s event we i found it in 2015 and i’m still trying to

figure that out but essentially the whole point of thank you for coming out is to

give a platform to lgbtq people to share their stories and for people to connect over those stories and so it started as

an improv show where someone would share a coming out story and then queer improvisers would bring that story to life using improv

and you know for the storyteller it’s incredible i i’ve been a storyteller a

few times over the years and what i’ve feedback i’ve gotten from folks is like we you talked about this

earlier of like you know you don’t just come out once and you’re done you know it’s an ongoing process for a lot of

people and some of those are not the easiest moments in our lives and so sharing one of those stories on stage

and then seeing it brought to life with improv which is comedy is healing and it helps people think about their story

through a different framework or laugh at something that maybe was painful in the past and helps create different

synapses around that pain it’s also just fun to watch people like make fun of your make fun of

at least for me it’s not we’re not making fun of we are lovingly poking at and

recreating and like and through that you know people are connecting and we’re seeing like oh i’m not alone in this

and i also felt that way or this is the first time i’m seeing a trans person

on in public talk about top surgery or you know whatever it might be and so it’s just it’s a really great

connector of an and way to create visibility into identity so when i was

approached to start the podcast by schneps media i was like well i’ve never hosted a podcast but sure i love to talk

as we cannot attest to in this interview um it’s you know it’s exciting because when

i’m the when i’m the interviewer i very much try to not talk at all there’s a

lot and so when the tables are turned i’m like i am taking up all the airtime so thank you for letting me do that so

similarly it’s the podcast is to give platform give an opportunity for folks

to share their stories i always open it with like we all have multiple coming out and coming into ourselves stories

and like can i hear one because it’s like when i started i was like tell me your coming out story and it’s like we

we all have many so like so it’s just interesting how that even that evolved over time of how i talk

about that so as we wind down is there are there

any projects that you’re doing that you want our listeners to know about anything that we should keep an eye on well

definitely my podcast thank you for coming out and we don’t have any shows in the books now

but i would imagine we’ll have some coming up other than that not much right now i’ve

uh i’m i’ve turned a lot of my focus to like consulting and like teaching and

less like entertainment tea like come watch this thing kind of thing

well if folks are interested in hitting you up for some consulting or they want to listen to the podcast where can they

find you on the internet and social media yeah so you can go to

dubswineblatt.com you can go to thank you for coming out dot com uh you can follow me on instagram and

it’s at e l d u b b s 12

ldubs 12 and then or thank you for coming out awesome dubs this was a fantastic

conversation it was so nice speaking to you great meeting you i think people should definitely subscribe to your

podcast go check it out and i’m sure that they’re they can’t wait for you to bring those live shows back so we want

to be in queer spaces with each other again hopefully soon

vaccinated and together okay thank you so much we want to go to your live show so yes

we’ll have to stay posted yes amazing thank you both so much and nice to meet both of you and thanks for letting me

talk so much it’s our pleasure

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the i’m from driftwood podcast is hosted by phil aka corrine and alex berg and is

produced by andy eagan thorpe it’s recorded as a program of i’m from driftwood the lgbtqai

plus story archive its mission is to send a life-saving message to queer and trans people everywhere you are not

alone i’m from driftwood’s founder and executive director is nathan manske its

program director is damian middelfeldt our score is provided by elevate audio the stories you heard today are

available in their entirety plus thousands more at i’m from driftwood.org you can also follow us on instagram

facebook and youtube or subscribe to our podcast wherever you get your podcasts this program is supported in part by

public funds from the new york city department of cultural affairs in partnership with the city council

additional funding is provided by the humanities new york sharp grant with support from the national endowment for

the humanities and the federal american rescue plan act thanks for listening y’all

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