Pittman and Friends Podcast
Welcome to Pittman and Friends, the curiously probing, sometimes awkward, but always revealing conversations between your host, Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman - that’s me - and whatever brave and willing public servant, community leader, or elected official I can find who has something to say that you should hear.
This podcast is provided as a public service of Anne Arundel County Government, so don’t expect me to get all partisan here. This is about the age-old art of government - of, by, and for the people.
Pittman and Friends Podcast
Pride, Politics, and Personal Growth with Joe Toolan
Listen to County Executive Steuart Pittman and Joe Toolan candidly discuss growth, visibility, and the life-saving power of community.
Joe Toolan, chair of Annapolis Pride, shares his remarkable journey from feeling isolated as a young gay person of color in Pasadena, Maryland, to leading one of the region's most impactful LGBTQ+ organizations. Born in Guatemala and adopted at three months old, Toolan's early experiences of difference shaped his commitment to ensuring no one feels alone in their identity.
The upcoming Annapolis Pride Parade, featuring 250+ organizations and drawing crowds of 10,000+, represents more than just celebration—it's a vital lifeline in a time when LGBTQ+ youth experience disproportionate rates of suicide and mental health challenges. What makes this parade special is its distinctly family-friendly atmosphere, setting it apart from larger city celebrations while creating space for connection across generations.
County Executive Steuart Pittman reflects honestly on his own evolution, from first attending Pride to running joyfully with a rainbow flag. This evolution mirrors the organization's approach to advocacy: building bridges through kindness rather than confrontation. Even when meeting with groups holding opposing viewpoints like Moms for Liberty, Annapolis Pride prioritizes human connection over heated rhetoric.
Beyond the parade, Annapolis Pride works year-round on advocacy initiatives, intersectional partnerships with groups like Juneteenth organizers, and community education. As the organization grows toward hiring its first executive director and establishing a community center, its core mission remains unchanged: creating visibility that saves lives and communities where everyone can authentically belong.
If you like the stories and insights in Pittman and Friends, be sure to follow the County Executive on social media and sign up for his Weekly Letter using the links below.
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Welcome to Pittman and Friends. The curiously probing, sometimes awkward but always revealing conversations between your host, Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman - that's me- and whatever brave and willing public servant, community leader, or elected official I can find who has something to say that you should hear. This podcast is provided as a public service of Anne Arundel County, so don't expect me to get all partisan here. This is about the age-old art of government of, by, and for the people. Welcome everybody. I'm here with my friend, Joe Toolan. Joe is the chair of Annapolis Pride. Welcome, Joe.
Joe Toolan:Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Alright. Good good good. good So so the Pride Parade is up, up? .
Joe Toolan:is. The Pride Parade is this coming weekend. It's on May 31st. It's a little early this year, but we're really excited. We have, I would say, 250 organizations that are going to be there. It's the biggest one we've ever done. How many people usually show up? It's huge. It's huge. I would say there's nobody that does official estimates. We like to say around 10,000 people, but we're hoping this year is a little more. Okay, okay.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I want to talk about the Pride Parade. I want to talk about Annapolis Pride as an organization. I want to talk about LGBTQ issues and the movement in general and the way government does has responded to it. We might even get into a little bit of the the way you know politicians have used LGBTQ issues to divide people and a little bit about you too.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So how about starting with you?
County Executive Steuart Pittman:How did you end up as the chair of Annapolis Pride and what do you do when you're not doing that and where you're from and all that stuff?
Joe Toolan:Sure, yeah. I mean I'll start with my quick background. So, you know I'm originally from Guatemala. Actually, I was born there and I was adopted as a child three months old, and I grew up here in Anne Arundel County in Pasadena, Maryland. So not too far away.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Pasadena, al right.
Joe Toolan:Yeah, and for me. I mean, I always share that. I grew up in a community where I was one of the only people of color, and I knew I was gay from a really young age. There's a picture of me at daycare, probably like four years old in like a pink dress. I was different from a very young age. And for me, my day job is actually doing environmental work in the Latino community, in particular. So I work for an organization called Green Latinos, and part of the reason why I was so inspired by environmental work is because that was sort of the safe space for me as a child. I could go outside, wander into the woods, and just like be alone with all of the things that were going on. And in Pasadena, you know, it was very clear that I was different from a lot of other people, and so one of the reasons.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Did you go to school in public school system throughout?
Joe Toolan:Yeah, so I was at Fort Smallwood Elementary School, and then I went to Chesapeake Middle School. And then I actually was in the STEM program in high school.
Joe Toolan:So I was up at North County High School, which was an interesting experience for me because it was also the first time that I was surrounded by a lot more people of color. And my friends at the time will joke, like I just didn't know who I was because I grew up in a very white community. That was the first time I was surrounded by more culture and like other people. But one of the reasons why I am so involved in the LGBTQ community is because I know what it's like to feel like you're alone, the community that you're in doesn't really support you and that the people around you just you know they don't really know how to give the support either. And so you know, one of the goals of Annapolis Pride and we are here in Annapolis, but we serve the entire county is to make sure that everybody knows that they're not alone. They have support, there's visibility and we're fighting for them.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, yeah. You know. I, well, you know this because you've known me for a while, and I've known you. I wrote a weekly letter, one of my first ones. I think a year and a half or so ago, and I think it was.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:It may have been right before. No, it was right after Pride, but it was. It may have been right before.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:No, it was right after Pride, but it was the second Annapolis Pride that I had been to. You started it in 2019, right?
Joe Toolan:Yep, yep.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:That was the first one, and I said in this weekly letter, and I'll say it again, that I was invited. I think I had something else going on, but I wasn't sure if I should go or not. But I wasn't sure if I should go or not.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I always felt like LGBTQ people should not be discriminated against. I always felt like I wanted to be supportive of their efforts. I remember when my daughter who's now 34, was in first or second grade. I and my first wife, her mother, went to a wedding of two women getting married in Ohio, came back to Anne Arundel County and my daughter told a friend at school that she had been to this wedding of two girls. And we got a call from the school who'd gotten a complaint from the daughter's mother saying your daughter is spreading misinformation. It's not possible that two women got married. And we said well, actually it is. But that was. We've come a way since then. But the question for me, as a politician, as a person who had been elected in a purple county and I knew that I needed to get reelected is: do I want to be seen at a Pride parade? And, I wasn't sure.
Joe Toolan:Yeah. Well, and that's a tough thing, I mean. I think Anne Arundel County is a very interesting county. I think it's been shifting a lot the last couple of years, and I would say it's a lot more purple now than it's been in a long time, and we're very lucky that most politicians have showed up and support us and for us. When you look at the statistics around LGBTQ people, they're four times more likely to attempt suicide than non-LGBTQ youth. You know they're more likely to have substance abuse disorders than non-LGBTQ people. And so when it's about saving people's lives and making sure everybody has services, my opinion is everybody should get behind saving people's lives, no matter what the cause is. And so it's been good to see the support for sure it has definitely grown too, and so it's grown for me.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I think what I said in that letter was something along the lines of so then COVID came, and I think there were maybe two years you didn't do it. Yep, and then came back and I decided to go and the experience for me was one of joy, one of. First of all, I was amazed how many people were there on the sides of the street the whole way.
Joe Toolan:Yep.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And how the attitude was. Just it was sort of like a coming out party in a fun way. It was like everybody just being everybody themselves and just this joyous feeling. But my question had sort of been so yes, we don't want LGBTQ people of any category within that to experience any kind of discrimination, but why march and have all the colors?
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And you know, I'm a kind of a quiet person anyway and I sort of grew up in a conservative household kind of thing. Why all of that?
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And man, did it hit me hard how really wonderful that was. Because, like you described, growing up and feeling not welcome and this, you know, you have a day of welcoming and it felt so healing for everybody who was there, including for me. I was running around with this. Somebody gave me this huge pride flag and I was running in circles around her float with the flag. You know, being a little ridiculous myself maybe I don't know, but feeling really good about it. And so I'll just say that that I had my own experience of, um, you know the sort of the joy of it. And I guess, and and I think part of what was so powerful about it was that, you know, we get divided so often by politicians and by you know, whoever, and it's so hurtful, and when the opposite happens, it feels so good. Yeah, well, and I remember that I think you made there's a picture of you flying around, and I think you made it your Facebook picture, your profile picture.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I did, I think I put it on my, yeah.
Joe Toolan:And that was, but that's how we knew.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:On my campaign page, I think.
Joe Toolan:Yes, that's how we knew that you were going to be a partner with us. You know, and we knew that you were going to do what you could to support us. And so that's that, I think, was a big moment for us, too. Just knowing that we had a partner in you. But I mean, right now too, it's so important that we find ways to celebrate each other and come together, and so everybody that comes to the Pride Parade. I'm not going to name names, but people are like this is my favorite parade in Annapolis and so we're really excited that we get to do that for the community.
Joe Toolan:And I think the one thing that's kind of unique too about our Parade and Festival because DC is right up the road. Baltimore is right up the road. There's some smaller prides too. Crofton Pride is coming up later for next month, but the thing about Annapolis Pride that is so cool is it is in our capital city. So we're here kind of at the center of a lot of Maryland things and it's so family friendly. Like you see, a lot of families come out to Annapolis Pride, which in some of the bigger cities, you don't see. That it's a lot of maybe younger people that are just coming out, but you don't see as many families there. And that's the cool thing about Annapolis Pride, in my opinion.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, no, it very much is. I mean, it's obviously true of everything in this world. It seems to me, between human beings, where we think we don't like another group, or we're afraid of another group. It's lack of familiarity, usually, and you know whether it's. I mean, my dad fought in World War II, and I remember him describing it as a war against intolerance. And then he had friends who were in Washington, DC Defense circles. He was in those circles. He worked in the Pentagon, who thought that after the war that the US should bomb the Soviet Union with the weapons that we had before. They got weapons, nuclear weapons, and his attitude was that would be another war against. That's intolerant of them because we don't like their economic system. And I just, that rang through my mind throughout my life, and it is always lack of familiarity. Lack of knowing.
Joe Toolan:So yeah, and that's been a big part of my journey, too. I mean, I've shared a lot of times like even being part of the LGBTQ community. There's so many identities that fall under it, and my first roommate actually after college was a trans woman and, like, from having her as a roommate, I can't tell you how much I learned about supporting trans people in a way that I had never known. And so even for me, like I lead this community and I'm always learning new things about how to support, and the good part is we get to do that. You know, we get to meet other people.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So the Pride's coming up. We encourage everybody, encourage everybody to come check it out. Tell me more about what Annapolis Pride as an organization does.
Joe Toolan:Yeah, so we are an organization. We're now in our what is it? Sixth year? Seventh year? I should know that off the top of my head. We started officially in 2019 as a nonprofit, but a lot of folks know Jeremy Browning, who founded the organization.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:You bet.
Joe Toolan:He's still around in Maryland doing a lot of great work.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Working for the state now, right?
Joe Toolan:He's working for the state.
Joe Toolan:Now the director of the LGBTQ Affairs Commission and I get to serve on the commission alongside him still to this day, which is great. And Annapolis Pride was really started, frankly, under the first Trump administration, at a time where I think we were watching rights start to get pulled away and it was important to bring people together to celebrate the community, and so Pride sort of started with the parade and festival and we've grown so much over the last couple of years in the services that we're doing. So we do a lot of advocacy work at the statehouse, the county level, at the city level and really working to educate those on the important issues in our community. And one of the first things that even the county did was include gender affirming care and some of the county health insurance plans, and that was something that I know Jeremy took as a really big win when the organization just started.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Well, that, and that was directly came to me yeah, indirectly, I think. There was a meeting, and then staff came to me and said what do you think? And that was a learning moment for me, too. What does it mean, what does it cost? How many people?
County Executive Steuart Pittman:What is gender-affirming care? So one's first reaction might not be you got to listen. Yeah, yeah.
Joe Toolan:And I think that the reality is we're watching things shift a lot in our communities, where more people, once you talk about what it is, in theory. People get along with it, and the reality is there aren't that many people who really are looking for gender affirming care. I mean, the number of trans folks in this country is very small, but it's important that those people have the availability of having those resources, and so we do a lot of work there. We also do a lot of work in the community. We try to have community events.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And there's actually medical doctors that they go to.
Joe Toolan:Yes, yes.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:That are doing things that they know are medically accepted.
Joe Toolan:And if you're undergoing gender-affirming care, it is very likely the reason why a doctor is saying you need to do it is because there are other risks. For example, like somebody who might be contemplating suicide or having suicidal ideations. It's not something that people can just decide that they want to go and do and can do it immediately. Like, you have to have reasons of how it's affecting your mental health to undergo that stuff. And so, yeah, and then we do a lot of community events. I mean we try to show up in the community. We've been really intentional around intersectionality, so trying to show up not just for the LGBTQ community but in the Latino community and the African American and Black community. And I think a challenge quite often in some of those communities is religion and how people are raised. And you know, we're really trying to work with people to break down some of the barriers around supporting the community in some of those spaces.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I think that people think that being conservative or being maybe not open-minded about LGBTQ issues is only coming from conservative white people. You know the Trump, the MAGA movement, and all those, because they're quite vicious and brutal about it in a scary way. But if you grew up in a Black church, grew up in a Latino church, folks maybe aren't as familiar with some of these issues, and people just like we said, yeah.
Joe Toolan:And in the Latino community, and I speak on that because that's the community that I am the closest with now but there's a lot of machismo culture.
Joe Toolan:There's a lot about when you're a man in the world, you have to act a certain way, and there's not always the room for people to even explore like emotions as a man and how to deal with those. And so then when you talk about being gay or being trans, that's a whole other level and we had worked with community leaders to help a group called Orgullo Latino Annapolis have some events a couple years ago and that was sort of a safe space for trans people in the Latino community. And then we're showing up. We have a really close partnership with Juneteenth.
Joe Toolan:If you're in the city of Annapolis, it started. We used to pay to put our Pride flags downtown. Now the city waives our fees, which is amazing. Thank you to the City of Annapolis. But we actually used to pay for Juneteenth, also. We would pay. We would give them a certain number of polls. That way, it didn't seem like it was just pride or just Juneteenth. We've been trying to be really intersectional in how we partner with folks. So Bishop Coates has been an amazing partner for us, and we have difficult conversations in community. I mean, I remember two years ago we had a conversation with some of the police leaders in the county and Pride started as a rebellion against police. And so that history kind of sticks with a lot of people in our community to this day.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Well, in response to some pretty brutal attacks too.
Joe Toolan:Yeah, and so we have an LGBTQ liaison both at the county level and at the city level, and they have really tried to show up in the community at our events. And so we're never going to solve all of the issues around this in the country, in our communities, but we do see it as our duty to try to bring people together to have the conversations about how we can support each other and how we can come together and just be a community.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I really get a kick out of seeing the FOP contingent at Pride Parade. You know, I mean, we do have a police chief who's lesbian and the FOP is, you know, they've got some conservative streaks within them. And it's really neat to see them there smiling and having a good time, too. And a lot of county departments as well. Our health department is always there in force. We see schools out there, we see all kinds of groups. So, as an organization, I know how hard it is to build a non-profit organization, especially an advocacy one, and to maintain it and keep it together. Both on the sort of volunteer and board level. People have to, you know, agree on things and get along. And then there's, you know, raising money and having a budget. So how are you all managing all of that? Are you in good shape, are you?
Joe Toolan:Yeah, I mean, we're good. I think it's always. We're never going to say no to funding, obviously, and we are in a position where, I'll be real, I think it's time that we hire an executive director. I think we have built such a name in the community. At this point, you're a volunteer.
Joe Toolan:We're all volunteer. We do have a part-time contractor. Her name is Joleen. She's amazing. She keeps most things moving for us actually, but you know we don't have a full-time person doing a lot of this work. And so I, for me, it's basically another full-time job. I have a full-time job. I have another full-time job leading this work.
Joe Toolan:Even as we think about future leadership of the organization, there are people with families, there are people with kids that are not going to be able to give as much time and energy as I've been able to do, as Jeremy was able to do also. And so I think for us, we're really looking at probably hiring an executive director, and a big goal that we would love to do at some point is opening a community center.
Joe Toolan:To do at some point is opening a community center. I mean, that's the thing where I think we're seeing the need to have like a home really in maybe not Annapolis directly, but close by Oriental County. So yeah, we've grown a lot. I mean, when I took over the organization, we were just coming out of COVID. We hadn't raised a lot of money, and I think that year we were definitely operating in a little bit of a deficit. And you know now I would say from that year we've probably at least quadrupled the amount of money that we're bringing in every single year, and so we are not going anywhere. We're a fairly steady organization, but we are at the point where we have some things that we need to reach a little bit for.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Do you have? Well, let me just say also that even though you've been a volunteer and hasn't been a paid job and everything, I've noticed that it's been good for you. You, you know, kind of a shy person by nature.
Joe Toolan:So is Jeremy. So is Jeremy, when he's.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:You know, leaders are often like that, you know. But I don't know if you feel more confident. But you seem more confident in what you're doing.
Joe Toolan:eaders would say yes. I mean, I remember the first year that I took over and we had our proclamation party and it was the first time where I had to speak in front of like a room of people on behalf of the organization and I just fully was like I don't know what to say. I don't know what to do.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:How was that?
Joe Toolan:After I got off the stage, and I definitely was shy. And I still am like a shy person, but I also, in a lot of ways, have found the right voice and the right tone. I think a big part about being a leader is also like knowing when to speak up and when to be quiet, knowing the strategic conversations you might need to have with certain people or how to go about it. And I would say that I'm still a shy person. I'm never going to be, I think, the most outgoing person in the world, but it has definitely helped me hone showing up in community, knowing when to speak up for people in our community and really like continuing to fight for the things that are important.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:The fact that you're maybe a little shy by nature but also clearly very kind, I think is really important. Because when I know that, I, to some degree and it's evolved over time. But other people as well. When you meet somebody who's an activist with an organization that represents a group of people, you kind of expect to be judged. And, and am I gonna say something? Am I gonna use the wrong, the wrong pronoun, the wrong terminology on something? Am I gonna say something that's gonna offend that person? And then, if I do are, are they going to jump down my throat, and kindness just takes that away. So I think that and I think that's kind of not just from you, but the organization has that about it. I mean, I've been to a number of your receptions and things and everybody's pretty laid back and having a normal time and having a good time. So I hope that that continues, because I think that's the way that you bring people in and you let people let down their guards.
Joe Toolan:And that's important.
Joe Toolan:I mean, when you're talking about things like the LGBTQ community. And I said this a little bit before there's so much to learn, and so a big part about just where we're at, I think, with some of the divides happening, is actually being in spaces where you can meet people that maybe you have never met before, and being vulnerable and open enough to have some of those conversations.
Joe Toolan:And so for me, there might be a time and place to be a little bit more direct with people, but at the same time, when people trust you, that's when you're able to really open up and say people trust you. That's when you're able to really open up and say I don't understand this, but especially for people that show up that we know support us. We should be having conversations with them. This is how you could be more supportive of this community. Hey, I'm not trying to call you out. I'm just saying that here's something that you could do differently in the future, and I do think that's a strength of pride. And I think that that's something that will hopefully stay. Even if it's not me in the future, but it is an asset for sure.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So I've got one that might be difficult. In fact, we might end up editing this out, but we might leave it in, depending on how it goes. I know that Dr. Bedell asked your organization and Moms for Liberty to sit down in a meeting together with him. Did that ever happen?
Joe Toolan:It did.
Joe Toolan:That did happen and it was myself and Abby Ellicott, who leads the Coalition for LGBTQ Students, and we sat down with some of the Moms for Liberty folks and that was an interesting.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:For folks who don't know Moms for Liberty has been organized nationally largely to have influence in school board races and things, but a focus has been charging school systems with saying that you know, you're grooming our children. All of this LGBTQ stuff in particular. Some of the stuff on history of race relations as well, but largely LGBTQ is a threat to our students, our kids, and we want to change things.
Joe Toolan:So yeah, I mean, that meeting was really interesting. Because, I think, from our perspective again, we want to go into this with an open mind. We want to go into it hoping that people understand why we're doing the work that we're doing. I think, at the end of the day, I do think that we all went into that meeting and nobody's mind changed about their values. But I do think, if nothing else, it was good for us to sit down and look at each other across the table as human beings and have a conversation. Because folks might remember that when the flag ban policy was going through the county school system, some of those meetings got very heated and very intense. People had to be asked to leave. There was just a lot of hatred that came from that. And again, that is not always the way to have those meaningful conversations. And for Dr. Bedell, we know that he has supported this community, also and some of the conversations that we had with him were about that. And I think for us we want to try to foster goodwill.
Joe Toolan:We did. I mean, I think that for us, when you start showing people the statistics around youth in the community, some of which I've already shared. It's really hard to say that we shouldn't be protecting the youth in our community no matter who they are.
Joe Toolan:And for us, I think that he understood that once we sat down and had that conversation, because, whether we like it or not, there are a lot of intersections between some of the marginalized community. So for him, as like the father of Black children in our school system, hearing about the marginalization. I think your view is then well, what if that happened to my kid? So we were able to have that conversation and, I think, build a good ally in Dr. Bedell to support the community.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:He told me he was going to be doing it and we have a monthly meeting, and I kind of looked at him funny and said, "Are you sure? Go for it, man if you're that brave, but that's also.
Joe Toolan:It gets back to like I think Abby and I were the right people to be there on behalf of the LGBTQ community. Because there are some people that are going to be a little bit aggressive in some of those situations and none of us wanted to come into that room and be aggressive. I think we wanted to come in and hear everybody out.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, good.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, interesting. I remember this was right before COVID, so this was the beginning of 2020, and we had a large hate bias forum at the community college. Because the hate bias forum at the community college and because the hate bias incident reports had come out in Randall County had more than any other county in the state and we wanted to do something about it. And there was a busload of kids from Chesapeake High School who had gotten there a little early and had agreed to sit down with me for a few minutes before we went into a side room. Not a whole bus, it wasn't a whole bus, it was a dozen or so kids and we just went around the table and talked about why we were there and experiences.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:It's raw, man. I mean the things that they were saying that they hear in school. They say sometimes, they say to each other, sometimes they hear you know it's, the filter gets taken off, I guess, and maybe some people just never don't have a filter. But so it was both hearing about some really hurtful things that were said but, at the same time, hearing some insightful stuff that was so much beyond. So they're so far beyond where we are in terms of accepting and loving each other. It was kind of both ends of the spectrum all at the same time and made me realize, wow, high school is an intense place.
Joe Toolan:And it hasn't completely changed even to this day. I mean, that's one of the reasons why three years ago now we had a new position on our board that's a student board member. And they are typically a senior in high school in Anne Arundel County, a student board member. We give them the same voting rights that every board member has and the things that they report on quite often are hard.
Joe Toolan:One of our board members, our current student board member, goes to Northeast High School and the day after the election he was told that he deserved to die because of who he was as a person.
Joe Toolan:And so for us having that key voice, on our board is important.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Which is pretty scary right after an election where you think that you know, maybe this is actually going to happen. That they're all coming after me.
Joe Toolan:Yeah.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:The whole government.
Joe Toolan:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and we see it. I mean, the government has continued to target folks in our community. I mean, particularly trans people.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:God, the amount of money that they spend on TV just attacking trans people.
Joe Toolan:Yeah, and it's a lot of misinformation. And so one of the things that I always say is that the amount of trans folks in sports, for example, which is a big thing, is so minimal compared to all the other people in sports. And if you think about the people that they're trying to ban, it's like elementary middle school students, right. It's the younger kids, and where it's just like just out there having fun.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yes.
Joe Toolan:They just want community. They just want to have fun. They want to let out steam, you know.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So, like there's prize money involved, but yeah. Yeah, well, and I think that's the fact that it is so intense for younger people what they're experiencing and identity is just so. It's such a I mean, for all of us. We're trying to figure out who we are anyway, and so I believe that it is in a school setting where inclusivity should be practiced. And that's where I guess the fear comes from some who think, oh, but that means that you are encouraging my kid to be something that they're not. Where, in fact, hopefully, all children are being taught that they should be who they are and comfortable in their own skin and all those good things. But hopefully, you know, we'll just keep working, working through it and do it well and save some lives and make lives better in the process.
Joe Toolan:Yeah, yeah, and that's why we're here. I mean, I think it's gotten a lot better. I noticed, even coming around Annapolis now more often I'll see what presumably are like same-sex couples walking around. And even when Pride started I didn't see that very often. So we are watching the community become more and more inclusive, and sometimes I think it's because of the work of organizations like ours and some of the other groups. So it's inspiring sometimes to see that.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I agree, good.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Well, thank you so much for doing this. You have a hard job, I think, navigating complicated issues that people care deeply about. So thank you for doing it, and I'll see you this weekend.
Joe Toolan:Yeah, I'm excited, care deeply about it. So thank you for doing it, and I'll see you this weekend. Yeah, I'm excited.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, next weekend. Right, right, Alr ight. Well, thanks everybody for joining us and hit that subscribe button so that you get notified about what's coming next. And thanks, Joe, of course.
