Building community and celebrating queer joy: author Kimm Topping and poet Leah Juliett

Author Kimm Topping, Ed.M., is an educator, writer, and historian dedicated to preserving LGBTQIA+ history. Their first book, Generation Queer, is a nonfiction YA highlighting the stories of LGBTQIA+ youth activists (and was published and edited by Stacy Whitman, who is also the owner of The Curious Cat Bookshop!). 

As founder of Lavender Education, a national program promoting LGBTQIA+ history and youth leadership, Kimm leads impactful workshops, professional development, and historic walking tours. 

In this episode of The Curious Cat Bookshop Podcast, Kimm was in conversation with Leah Juliett (they/them), an award-winning writer, speaker, LGBTQ+ advocate, and organizer from Connecticut. Technical note: there are some audio issues in this episode; watching with the captions on is recommended.

Buy Generation Queer from us at https://curiouscatbookshop.com/book/9781643795201.

Kimm lectures at Harvard Graduate School of Education, specializing in gender, sexuality, and equity. Their historic tours of Cambridge and New York City spotlight queer and feminist activism from the 1970s to the 1990s, and their widely recognized publication series, Mapping Feminist Cambridge, is available through the  Cambridge Women’s Commission. Their work has been recognized by the 2025 Curve Power List and the 2023 Inaugural In-Service Award from the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition.

Leah is a survivor of image-based sexual abuse and child sexual exploitation, and a lived experience expert on technology-facilitated gender-based violence.  In 2016, Leah founded and led The March Against Revenge Porn across the Brooklyn Bridge, which garnered global support and moved the needle on cultural conversations around internet abuse. 

In 2023, Leah testified before the White House Gender Policy Council on recommendations to support survivors of image-based sexual abuse, which helped lead to the federal funding of a national hotline for victims. In early 2024, Leah spoke at the United States Senate following the landmark Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Big Tech accountability. For Leah's work, they have been named a L'Oreal Paris Woman of Worth, Glamour College Woman of the Year, Advocate Champion of Pride, George H.W. Bush Point of Light, and GLAAD Rising Star. Leah’s writing and work leading social justice movements has been featured globally on CNN, BBC, NBC, TED, Teen Vogue, Bloomberg, MSNBC, and Pink News. 

Leah champions LGBTQ-inclusive Internet protections and survivor-centered justice. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Why LGBTQ+ spaces are so important
• 0:35 Stacy Whitman introduces the episode
• 2:03 Welcome and introductions
• 3:10 Kimm Topping reads from Generation Queer (including Stacy reading the missing bits that got cut off)
• 6:21 Leah discusses Generation Queer's importance in documentation of young LGBTQ+ people's history
• 6:39 Kimm discusses "possibility models" and their own experiences that led to creating this book, starting the first GSA in their school
• 8:22 Leah's similar experiences
• 8:51 Centering queer & trans youth as complex people; how Kimm approach ed building trust in the storytelling process
• 11:48 Balancing challenges and hope
• 12:25 What does the phrase "generation queer" mean, especially in the context of who has come before this generation?
• 15:03 Building collective liberation together
• 15:47 Humanizing an "advocate"/love and joy
• 19:07 Responsibility of the author
• 21:59 Deciding which historical stories to share
• 27:05 Conversations that Kimm hopes will be sparked by this book
• 31:07 Rapid-fire questions
• 36:15 More about Leah Juliett's book of poetry
• 36:50 What is sustaining to these activists/writers in their work
• 38:18 Design and illustration choices in the book by Sheila Smallwood (designer) and Anshika Khullar (illustrator)
• 39:39 A snapshot in time

Transcript

0:00

and so when I became an adult that's really where I shifted all of my time and work to was working with LGBTQ youth and being part of those spaces where they can be their full selves and also explore their leadership and their voices and their ability to impact change the world through their small communities you're creating the future that you needed when you were younger yes welcome to the Curious Cat Bookshop Podcast the podcast of the independent bookstore of Winsted, Connecticut creating a literary community in Northwest Connecticut bringing our local authors to the world and the world to our community in northwest Connecticut hi and welcome to the Curious Cat Bookshop Podcast Today we're releasing our recording of our event earlier this month June 2025 with Leah Juliett in conversation with author Kimm Topping Leah is a local activist and poet and Kimm Topping is from up in Massachusetts and they wrote a wonderful book if I do say so myself because I published it Generation Queer one thing I want to let you know though is that this recording we had some sound issues I was having those same sound issues tonight as I was getting this started I think what happened is that somehow we hit mute on the really nice microphones that we had connected to the camera and so I had to filter out the air conditioner and they sound a little bit like they're in a very large room echoing and I think that's because I had to do the filtering and there's a moment right at the beginning where Kimm is reading from their book and cuts off in mid sentence and picks up in an entirely different sentence and I will read the bit that's missing in there so that those of you on the audio only podcast won't wonder why the sentence took such a drastic turn we had a little bit of technical difficulties but the rest of the podcast is a wonderful conversation and I hope that you enjoy it let us know in the comments what you think thanks and enjoy well first of all welcome Leah Juliet and Kimm Topping are our authors tonight they're in conversation and Generation Queer is our featured book because I edited it so it's our featured book and Kimm wrote it and Kimm interviewed a whole bunch of people for this book and it's going to fascinate all their stories are gonna fascinate you all and so we're gonna have them be in conversation with each other oh the thing that I was going to tell you is that we had some local GSA kids who are gonna come and bring some discussion questions but they were both ill today so they were not able to make it so we're recording it for our YouTube and we'll be posting it later on our podcast as well so with all that said if you've not been here before we love having you and this is just one of the many events that we do we do book clubs and stuff like that so feel free to grab a bookmark with our website on it and check out the events that we've got coming up and we'll let you get going thanks thank you Stacy thanks for having us thank you everyone thank you for coming we're super excited um I was thinking of just starting with a a brief reading from the first two pages and then we'll jump into conversation okay so I wanna invite you all too into thinking about the the questions here about your vision for the future and what you see for young people especially what do you envision when you imagine a future in which all young people are thriving, safe, and able to achieve meaningful lives for themselves? allow yourself to dream for a moment beyond the limitations and barriers of oppression we face now think about what joy and authenticity mean for you and what they look like in practice imagine how it would feel to experience classrooms community centers and homes in this future picture it and arrive there it doesn't take much imagination or far-fetched thinking to envision this world considering that young people have the answers have been shouting them for generations the future the young people are creating the roadmap to is inclusive it's a future where all of us can bring our full selves languages families and histories into every space and relationship there's no need to code switch or suppress ourselves this future is anti-racist it acknowledges that so much of humanity's collective knowledge is rooted in Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities and all people of the global majority and that reparations are owed to BIPOC communities it is freed from genocide ethnic cleansing and all forms of violence while the truths of these harmful histories are not censored or erased stories representing all of humanity are available this future is accessible for all neurodivergent and disabled youth and systems are built by and for youth not just with them in mind education is celebrated and everyone has access to the information they need like comprehensive sexual health education there are sustainable solutions to climate change and the harms of capitalism it is a future with safe, affirming homes and access to housing for everyone access to basic human needs like food clean water and healthcare is abundant this time we're envisioning is free from gun violence police brutality and sexual assault this future is safe, loving, and made possible through collective forms of care it's transformative and creative this is the future the youth featured in this book and so many others are working toward this book is a love letter to the many generations of queer and trans youth who have committed their time and energy to demanding a better future for themselves and for humanity they have thoughtfully and intentionally built upon the legacies of so many trans and queer ancestors before them in order to bring that vision much closer to the present tense it's also a commitment from older generations we will partner with Gen Z and Gen Alpha we will not stand on the sidelines and say the youth will save us I think that that really beautifully sets the tone of the entire book but also of this conversation but before I ask you a question in relation to what you just read I think it's important that we start by saying that this is the first the first illustrated book of biographies of queer and trans young people who are leaders in social change it's in my opinion a handbook um for understanding who you are in the context of who came before you and as you say in the book it's a love letter to queer and trans youth and a commitment from older generations so going back to what you were saying the question that you posed all of us as readers to envision a future in which young people are safe, thriving and able to achieve meaningful lives for themselves I think clearly as an author you're a possibility model for something like that so can you start by telling us about some of your lived experience and what it means to you to thrive be safe and have a meaningful life sure thanks for that so I grew up in Massachusetts in a town that feels kind of similar to this town, actually and I came out when I was very young when I was 11-12 years old and I didn't have any possibility models role models people to look to in the media even people around me I started the first GSA at the high school and I couldn't get anyone to join at the time that was really just the culture of silence and stigma everyone that I did try to get to join that GSA eventually came out after high school which says a lot about how we kind of like know and see each other even before we we say it we know we have shared values and identities even if we don't say it out loud and those are still some of my friends today but it--it meant a lot to have just a space that existed in the school for me to like hang out with my English teacher and talk about queer stuff yeah but I couldn't talk about that at home and I I didn't know of any youth programs or spaces where I could just be myself and so when I became an adult that's really where I shifted all of my time and work to was working with LGBTQ youth and be part of those spaces where they can be their full selves and also explore their leadership and their voices and their ability to impact change in the world from their small communities you're creating the future that you needed when you were younger yes which is so powerful and I I had such a similar experience also came out like around 12 lived in a very small town started the first gay-straight alliance Oh, wow! there was nobody in it very similar experiences we watched It's like a millennial experience yeah for sure but like also at the same time thinking that you were just one state away and you had such a similar lived experience but I'm sure both of us felt very isolated and alone and I'm sure that with the internet and social media so much has changed for young people but still having resources like a full a full book of not only biographies of folks but also definitions and understanding of just so so much like it's the book that you need to read if you want to be an ally or if you're learning who you are I want to talk about one of the important things that you did in this book which is centering queer and trans youth not as symbols of tragedy but as full and complex people so my questions for you on that are what inspired you to center the experiences of queer and trans young people and how do you approach building trust in the storytelling process with folks who are so young yeah so working with queer and trans youth like I see every day how they are spoken about it's in a it's in a deficit model right it's not a strengths-based model so I always talk with teachers about when you're working with LGBTQ youth don't start with what's going wrong start with their strengths and what's going well in their lives who their their friends are, who they trust like what is going well so you can build on those strengths together and I think you know also for LGBTQ youth, taking in so much negative information and news and anti-LGBTQ legislation it's extremely overwhelming and so to see examples of people like themselves leading with joy and celebrating their friendships the things that they care about like all these things that just make us human and so many of the activists that I spoke with actually didn't call themselves activists at all yeah they were fighting for their rights to maybe use the bathroom or to have access to their education at school to be able to just gather in public with their friends and not experience homophobia all of these things yeah that they were speaking about and then now they're labeled an activist because they're using their voice but actually they're just saying what is right yeah like what we all know it's true and there was a second part of your question which was uh well you answered building trust I think you answered both parts of the question actually but oh yes centering trans youth not as symbols of tragedy but as full people absolutely and that was part of building the trust in interviews, too right because many of them I hadn't met before and so I'm asking to spend this time together to ask you really personal questions about your life and there's a lot of trust that goes into being in a public format like this being in a book yeah that also takes some risk so we talked a lot about those risks and what that might look like and some young people said they didn't want to be a part of this project and I completely respected that yeah some young people there's someone in here who's mentioned in the historical timelines but she and her family actually decided to step away from doing anything public and she was on the cover of National Geographic did all this incredible work she's like, I just wanna be a kid yep I just wanna exist as as a kid and that's important too yeah no, I mean I think the the depth of and the amount of biographies in this book really speaks volumes to how trustworthy you must be as a storyteller which is just so important and I guess you kind of answered this question as well but I think so many authors especially authors who aren't members of the community within themselves themselves or just folks in the media in general really flatten queer and trans narratives but you did such a beautiful job of balancing challenges and hope and like the messy middle of all of it which I think is very valuable I wanna talk about the title because obviously when I first heard about this book it was very eye catching to me I wanna talk about what the phrase generation queer means to you because obviously as you discuss in the book there's been generations before us who have led this movement but how do you see today's generation redefining queerness and activism maybe both together yeah so I wanted "queer" to be very central in the title that was first most important yeah and as you mentioned you know, it's not like it's the first generation that's queer which is sometimes a big myth in the world that I deal with all the time when I'm doing workshops with um teachers that every generation has had queer people and queer activists in some way but the book is about this particular generation how they're approaching activism and the really unique ways that they're doing it through arts, through education through organizing through finding what their specific talents and interests are and how they can channel that into creating change especially in their local community so that's really what the title is about it's also about queer as a verb which I love it's just like how we challenge the dominant narratives about how to exist and be in the world and I think that's so much of what this generation is doing is challenging gender stereotypes, sexuality stereotypes, all of that and bringing queerness into our thinking every day yeah being creative is being queer you know, just being subversive to what we've been told is is normal or okay I love that and I love that you've introduced queer as a verb in the book and I think that a lot of the young people that you profile are doing what you're saying, queering these intersections of multiple identities and systems climate justice, housing justice, anti-racism work, so in all of these different very complex stories, were there themes that emerged in how these young people navigate both power and visibility and maybe resistance as well yeah I mean I would say there were themes but each of them had a very unique way of approaching their activism and who they brought into that activism, too, like some have really close relationships with their families and family organizing is really integral to what they do, some organize with their friends with their school community so it looks a lot of different ways but I think overall they all have this analysis of power and how power influences all of our lives yeah and oppresses so many people based on identity and that all of that is interlinked and interconnected yeah um so they're all very tapped into understanding intersectionality and that importance in organizing and making sure we're bringing together as you mentioned all of these movements for justice yeah that they're not isolated, right so whether that's, you know your GSA teaming up with the BSU at their school and creating programs together or the protest that's featured in the last chapter with Queer Youth Assemble they organized with a lot of other organizations that were doing justice work around the country because they understand that we build power together yeah we build collective liberation together yeah isolating these movements does us far more harm than good and so I think it's so important that so much of I mean just intersectionality of identity in general is woven throughout this book because it will again be like a possibility model for other kids who read it and say you know oh this person's biography really speaks to me and I also think what you were saying earlier about these so many of these kids being thrust into activism by their circumstances and the advocacy piece coming really just out of trying to save their own lives and using whatever resources or talents or skills they had but one thing I really loved about what you did in each biography at the end you asked folks like questions about what they do for fun or what they're looking forward to and it really humanized them in a way that I think so often advocacy in the media and in the public sphere doesn't do yeah because as soon as you, you know become an advocate and not a kid anymore you're held to different unhealthy standards yes and you can't be a kid exactly--it's so dehumanizing yeah it really is and so that was central to all of our conversations and also gratitude was a major theme I was just thinking back on so many of the the young people that I interviewed I went through a process of writing the draft and then sending it to them and then sending it to them again and again probably I don't even know how many times yeah because it felt very important to me that if their story was gonna be out there that they were active participant in that but I wasn't just interviewing them writing the story and then it's out there yeah and so many of them responded with hey can you add something about my partner can you add something about my mom I really want to show that this relationship was so meaningful I want to show thanks to them so I thought that was really beautiful and powerful but yeah and it's like yeah it's beautiful and it's like a time capsule that they get to look back on definitely so I'm sure there's many layers of like this is such a beautiful project for all of the people involved but also everyone who gets to witness it and I think you said that I think I wrote it down that you consider yourself or I consider you through this through reading this a witness to these experiences so I think that that's very clear back to what you were saying about about what we were talking about flattening these narratives and really humanizing these kids what in your opinion are the dangers of not doing that of telling these stories only through the frameworks of trauma or political urgency a lot is lost when we do that and in your experience from getting to know these kids what do you think is lost when it's only seen through that specific lens so much and that's true for all of us yeah when our our existence our stories are just narrowed down to this little piece of who we are and this comes up a lot when I work with parents and families of LGBTQ youth especially trans youth where the parents or families maybe have never met a trans person before yeah and so if you're only seeing what's currently in the media you might understandably have a lot of fears about how to support your kid and all of that dehumanization it--it ripples into our family dynamics and into the mental health and safety of queer and trans youth so I hope especially you know parents and families will be able to read these stories and also in our everyday lives meet more queer and trans people and talk to more queer and trans people because when I've worked with those families and parents and introduce them to other families and parents who have trans kids it changes everything, right yeah now okay I know someone and I can ask you questions and learn and there's usually always love and care there there's just a lot of misinformation in the world that people are are taking in yeah yeah and I would imagine as a queer nonbinary person yourself probably feeling a great sense of responsibility being the one to tell these stories and break out of the narratives that traditional media tells about young people like this how like what did that feel like? was it-- how did it feel for you? yeah, I had some challenging moments with that because I felt a sense of responsibility and nervousness for any kind of spotlight put on them that they didn't already have yeah but I also didn't want to only feature people who had like a big platform or already were very visible in some way because I wanted any queer or trans kid in America to pick up this book and feel like oh look that's me that's a very similar story to who I am yeah but again I think the many like phone calls emails that I have with every person in this book to talk through any concerns they had which weren't a ton it was a couple people that had more concerns understandably that helped to ease it and to just continue to build that relationship and I'm excited about that continued relationship yeah too yeah for us to continue organizing together too so many of them I've been organizing protests with and organizing actions with so I'm really grateful for those relationships that's beautiful I mean now you're lifelong queer siblings yeah exactly I'm sure like family yeah exactly is your own identity and your own lived experiences with not having a book like this not having folks in your GSA not seeing yourself represented did that shape certain elements of how you wrote this or how you communicated with the kids you interviewed? yeah in a lot of ways you know, the first time I learned about anything queer history I was in high school and I was trying to find queer history and I found one book in the library that mentioned Stonewall but it was just one sentence just a tiny little clue that there were other people like me and then I don't think it was until college that I learned the word "trans" in a positive way and that was who I was too when I read that Janet Mock's Redefining Realness and that was really moving and then I worked with the network for red which is a organization that supports survivors of partner abuse for LGBTQ+ and everyone was trans there I was like oh wow this is me and I finally started using they/them pronouns, and so to your question I I wrote this as a curiosity guide yeah which basically just means I wanted people to see something that resonated with them put down the book and go research it and then come back and put it down to keep doing that because I feel like that was that's similar to what my experience was and also for so many neurodivergent queer and trans youth like myself or like young people that I work with yeah that's a really helpful way of learning so I wanted it to be very interactive yeah like fun to it really is it's such a fun book it's all purple my favorite color yeah but there's so many like timelines and yeah tables and like interactive elements of this book that make it really hard to just keep reading and not go research all of the folks that you introduce us to what I was saying earlier about this being kind of like a time capsule it really does feel like preserving queer history in such an important way but I would imagine that as a historian it's hard to figure out well where am I going to stop and what becomes the future outside of this book that isn't written about in here how does that work for you and what does the intentionality behind capturing the history that you do capture look like for you yeah that was very hard I had sticky notes all over my wall for like a year of different queer history things trying to narrow it down and Stacy helped a lot with with figuring out which stories to share and part of it too was making sure that there was a it's not a retelling but a clarifying of history that's been mistold yeah so for example in the educators chapter forever I kept hearing this oh Concord Carlisle was the first GSA in the country which is a-- it's a very white private institution in Massachusetts and that was named as the first GSA and if you Google it now it still says that but a researcher, her name is Dominique Jackson, she found there was actually a group in New York City that founded the first GSA and they had a list of demands and she found those and she published them and that's really significant because it was mostly youth of color who created the first GSA in our country but the story is not often told that way yeah so I think that's where I spent most of my energy was making sure that the stories weren't whitewashed and that there was an accurate telling of history and a recognition particularly of Black and brown youth yeah yeah and I think that that's very intentionally done and done very well throughout the entire book it really does ensure that there's nothing erased or revised in a way that is harmful but speaking of harmful erasure earlier this year here in Connecticut there was a bill introduced that seeks to prevent censorship in the state's public and school libraries and protect librarians from civil and criminal liability stemming from challenges to banning library materials it's called the don't Ban Library Books Act so if a book like yours was available at the school library that I grew up in as a teenager it would have changed my life though now it most likely would have been banned many stories about trans youth stop at survival but yours certainly seems to push towards living, dreaming, existing as real people how with knowing how important that is how-- I--I wrote down so many questions I'm trying to pick my one that makes the most sense have you experienced pushback like this to your and how are the bans that we're seeing across the country of books like yours impacting authors like you uh not yet yeah just came out in late May right but sorry no it's no but it's people keep asking that yeah because and it's really sad because that's what we anticipate yeah at this point and librarians are lifesavers like there are people I remember I just went to my hometown library a couple days ago and they had a huge pride display Generation Queer was on it, and I was crying no because because when I went to that library as a kid there was nothing I talked to the librarian there and they were like yeah I grew up in New Hampshire and there was nothing we could never find this and now look you walk into a library and there's a display and as a queer and trans kid you can see that when you walk into the library and know like this is a place that I can be yeah but even when that wasn't there I still felt like the library was a place that I could be myself yeah I just kind of knew that I think because of the welcoming culture in the libraries so we have to protect librarians and queer and trans books, books that center BIPOC characters immigrant stories all of us because queer and trans youth need to be able to see that and access that of course as we both right we both know yeah um but when I worked for the Safe Schools program we were-- I was directly responding to challenges to books in districts around Massachusetts and often it was only one person in the entire district that was challenging the book right but it was a really important conversation with administrators, school committee members, because it's like, okay, are we gonna let this impact our entire community right here and so helping them to be prepared to explain the educational value of books like this and others was really important because sometimes we can get really stuck and caught up in this hateful language right and if we repeat it or we get into it we might forget the value of it which we all know as educators as people as adults we know the value of it for young people so being able to reiterate that, yeah like you're saying it's terrible that we have to come to expect that yeah but clearly stories like these, books like these are life saving and you know folks should and will continue to fight for them to be rightfully in libraries and in bookstores like this definitely because they are sparking so many important conversations and I wanna ask you are there any conversations or reactions that you hope Generation Queer sparks among readers especially those who might only be familiar with LGBTQ+ narratives through things like crisis reporting? yeah it's been really amazing to see the response so far just of of some of the things that you've observed that they're going to see a whole lot of young people with different experiences and that it does center joy first yeah that feels different, like you said, from the crisis narrative yeah or stigmatizing narratives and especially for queer and trans young people again I hope that they'll they'll pick it up and then go learn a lot more and talk to their friends about it talk about you know it at school I was just at a a public school in Massachusetts and we gave out books and I came back into the room and one of the young people was sitting in a chair reading it this is so sweet haha made my day so much but they actually knew someone who was in the book yeah just happened to know them and so for them to see that was such a big deal Oh, I know this person! yeah, that's exciting and then I talked to them about well, what are you doing what are you interested in? and so I really hope that it empowers young people so that I can use my voice too here's my friend that I know and we're all doing this together yeah yeah seeing themselves reflected and I also would imagine I mean this is a phenomenal resource for allies for parents for adults it's so accessible which I think is very important it's an-- it's an easy read but like you walk away having retained so much valuable information which is hard because so many of the books that you know like we've both read I'm sure are dense reads and yeah you know a lot of them you walk away feeling sad but this I walked away hopeful, invigorated, empowered, inspired and excited to research all of the kids in it that I didn't know and I guess my one of my let's just check all the time okay I wanted-- having interviewed so many movement builders yourself what role do you believe that storytelling plays in building movements and how can we ensure that these stories don't just inspire but actually shift policy and culture? yeah it's essential and if you you know if we study the marriage equality movement the way that they centered storytelling around family and love and care and all of these positive values that was very intentional so I think this is very similar for narratives around trans youth to be uplifting and joyful and to celebrate all of that is so crucial and so originally there wasn't a almost final chapter about Queer Youth Assemble, the--the protest in DC but I was in DC while writing this while that protest was happening and it felt really important to share that story of how queer and trans youth are coming together to create these joyful demonstrations that were a traditional protest but they also had something called Let Trans Athletes play where they just got together and played kickball in the park and that was their protest yeah and that was the point they're like they're trying to criminalize us hanging out and playing kickball we're gonna hang out with the kids yeah exactly so we're gonna hang out and play kickball! and just be together and be young people and be happy and so I think those acts of joyful resistance are very powerful yeah and effective and I think are--are really gonna shift the the narrative in a lot of ways yeah it's-- I feel like what resonates and comes through this so strongly is that regardless of if you accomplished X Y Z as an advocate your existence in itself and the joy is an act of resistance and so everyone can see themselves reflected in that in some way whether they've done policy work or not okay I have some rapid fire questions okay if that's okay okay favorite person or most interesting person most memorable person you interviewed for the book Trinity Neal who was 12 years old at the time and she was so much fun yeah I was like what's your favorite thing to do she's like cleaning my room haha awesome okay great and her and her mom wrote a book together which is so beautiful it's called My Rainbow so definitely suggest that too favorite anecdote you learned from your research probably that story about GSA's that was a little mind blowing yeah I also just recently talked to the founder of LGBT History Month, Rodney Wilson, he was so sweet and also did this really amazing thing by being an out teacher in Missouri and then founding a history month and he did so much other work too but getting to learn his story which is yeah inspiring yeah I can imagine you walked away feeling just like everything you thought you knew was way more and way more expansive it keeps going yeah yeah who is one parent or ally that you met or have met in the process of this book that you wish everyone would have the opportunity to again, I'd say Trinity's parent yes amazing DeShanna, who's also an elected official now and together their advocacy they made it possible for people to access gender affirming care in Delaware Wow through the family's advocacy together, so that's amazing they're an incredible family yeah wow what is a song that captures the spirit of the book oh that's a great question I'm a big my Chemical Romance same same like I had to put it in here all my friends were like okay of course you did that they have a song called Give'em Hell Kid that's that would be a great song for this yes if there's ever any type of video content you need that song okay, good note there you go a book that helps shape you as a queer writer yeah I think definitely Janet Mock's book Redefining Realness is a huge one and I actually I just read Tourmaline's biography of Marsha P Johnson and... yeah, and-- and her research impacted a lot of this really because her style of research is very intertwined with arts and also with uncovering histories that have been repressed or been erased and so I'm very inspired by her as a researcher and artist it's on my list now yeah for sure definitely worth it yeah one myth about queer and trans lives you're tired of smashing all of them all of them I know how do you pick one I know there's too many that's so fair that's so fair all of them is a perfect answer all of them I think my last question my last rapid fire question if you could pull one quote from Generation Queer to get tattooed on you what would it be and why that's a good question I might actually do that you should we're both tattooed yeah I can see um I wrote down that I love the quote my advocacy is my means to strengthen the courage of those that I love which was Kaylyn Ahn said that that's beautiful is there any quote that you remember that's incredible yeah yeah you know there's so many great quotes from the young people in here you could have a whole yeah body of work from from there yeah, but especially about so many of them said let us be young people. just let us be young people I thought that was so important yeah, let us live, let us exist let us live, let us exist let us have fun, all of that, yeah I think that's relevant for us as adults too for sure because it's so much of our childhood was taken by feeling isolated exactly um for sure yeah which is why this is such a valuable book for even folks who are elders in their queer journey or maybe think they know everything about who they are or the queer experience it's valuable buy the book thank you two more quick questions okay before we get to some signing what do you hope that a young queer or trans reader takes away from this book? and what do you hope someone who has never met a queer or trans person learns from this book? for queer and trans young people I hope they see all of the possibilities for themselves not only in the future but right now in this moment like as they're sitting with yeah with the book all of the possibilities that they have what was the second part? what do you hope someone who has never met a queer or trans person learns from reading this book? I hope they want to hang out with more queer and trans people yeah and be friends and be welcoming yeah I think that's so important and to dispel all those myths that we were yup we were talking about and be you know open to exploring that yeah this really is just an anthology of how cool our community is so it's basically like be our friend look how cool we are well thank you so much for this incredible conversation this was an amazing read you're an incredible person and thank you for creating this resource for all of us where can folks continue to find you and follow your work I have a website it's kimmtopping.com and I have Instagram it's @kimmwrites and I'm excited to just talk with you all too and and connect and thank you for those thoughtful questions of course thank you I appreciate it do you want to say anything about your book and I was gonna say at the beginning all this time I'm like oh no I forgot to ask Leah to introduce themself oh it's okay it's okay please tell us about your book too if you like trauma I don't know um it's just I love the illustrations too thank you very emo coded very My Chemical Romance coded it's a book of poems I published in 2021 about queerness trauma, gender everything that I've lived through and experienced they're spoken word poems so they're meant to be read out loud or listened to and yeah just thank you for including me and including this I really appreciate it does anybody have any questions I have a question yeah what is sustaining you in your work right now what is sustaining yes and yeah continuing to stay connected to queer and trans people every single day is very energizing so whether that's like having a meeting or having coffee or you know showing up and chatting with queer and trans youth just having those connections is is everything for sure I think personally continuing to write and read read stories take care of my body all of that good stuff all that human stuff it's really helpful what about you yeah literally allowing yourself to be human yeah I would say the same I work full time for an organization doing social media and so I'm constantly talking to LGBTQ young people and interacting with them online and so just the nature of social media and working in that space it's a constant barrage of horrible horrible information and I want to throw my phone into a river 90% of the time but getting to interact with those kids every day is something I wouldn't trade for anything it's valuable to me it's life saving getting to respond to their comments and make them feel heard so yeah just like my everyday work I I really related to something that one of the kids said in the book when you ask them what they do for fun and they said can I say activism yeah I'm like that's me because that's the only time I get to rest oh yeah but yeah humanness embodying yourself drinking water, resting, all of the above I have a question which is really just a leading question because you were talking about accessibility let's talk about the actual physical accessibility of the book hmm yeah the design and because you insisted on that I did yes and I think it was very important for this book yeah so I I did ask and it's because of my work with young people who taught me so much too about this uh that the text be accessible and Stacy helped a lot with the breakout boxes too to make sure that was actually our designer Sheila who by the way also painted oh really the kitten the cat's on the wall that's so cool I need the cats on the wall yeah the design is so gorgeous and and we also talked about symbols so there's kind some kind of like subtle education going on throughout the pages too about queer symbols like the lambda symbol there's lavender all throughout there's flags and and other things too and then I think it's something that's my favorite that oh yeah I love this too I always show this to people so these are different archives and oral history projects for queer and trans people across the country and I've actually been learning about a lot more since that are have popped up recently so I love this map too it's just gorgeous yeah all of it is gorgeous yeah she did an amazing job with that great work yeah and we should mention the illustrator is Anshika Khullar yeah so talented and I've been hearing from so many of the young people who are in the book that their portrait feels gender affirming for them or it it captures their personality in some way yeah they're like how did the illustrator know that I like this thing and it's really sweet yeah they're beautiful portraits I would imagine that they're very like treasure to the kids who are in this book and that's actually an interesting thing that what you were talking about earlier about it being a time capsule because these are kids talk about that a little bit too about like people change exactly and people have changed since this has been published and so it's kind of a snapshot, a moment in time like you said of of their lives and so names may change, relationships may change lots of things are gonna change over time and that's just reflective too of this idea of queerness and fluidity exactly yeah it's the ability to say like I know that I don't I may not be this version of myself forever but the version I am in the present deserves to be documented in time which is so powerful I'm proud of that version that too I feel like that's something that's been part of me yeah