Speaker 1: Hi, my name is Leslie Lee cam.
Speaker 1: Hello, my name is Ty Sloan and this is season two of the youth elders podcast, creating space for identities, histories, and perspectives across generations.
Speaker 2: This season takes a look at personal stories of coming out, navigating identity and finding
Speaker 1: Homes while also discussing the impact of institutional spaces and activist movements on the very places we find community.
Speaker 2: This season's episodes are curated and recorded by myself, Thai Sloan, Leslie Lee cam, Naomi bane, bear Bergman and Roma Spencer.
Speaker 2: Most of our recordings were made in Toronto on the traditional territories of the Anishinaabi, the[inaudible] and the wind deck and treaty territory of the Mississaugas of the credit.
Speaker 1: Our first episode is hosted by myself, Leslie Naomi bean and Roma Spencer.
Speaker 1: We are joined by[inaudible] for a conversation about losing is navigating closets, choosing our families and tapping into our shared streets.
Speaker 2: A quick content warning.
Speaker 2: The conversation includes a brief mention of suicide.
Speaker 2: Please check the show notes for the time codes, if you want to skip over it.
Speaker 3: No, Leslie, I would ask you to lead off this round table discussion because I recognize you as the most senior must ladies and in my culture and certainly yours as a trend, we always recognize the elders first.
Speaker 3: So Leslie, you know, I want you to talk about your own loss years and how you, you know, stay safe.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Roma, and a welcome to Naomi and tomorrow.
Speaker 1: So, uh, just to speak about my loss is I was in a relationship with, um, I guess I would say young woman at the time we were boasting university.
Speaker 1: Uh, we were in our late teens and, um, our relationship was very much hidden and we didn't even use the word lesbian because I was considered to be a bad word.
Speaker 1: There was stigma attached back then this was in the seventies.
Speaker 1: So a long time ago and um, when her family, her sister to be precise because she was living with her sister here in Toronto, when her sister found us together kissing, she was immediately sent back to Trinidad.
Speaker 1: And, uh, I was in a state.
Speaker 1: I was just so devastated and I realized that's when my, um, relationship with alcohol began and many of us back then who would dealing with coming out and being gay and lesbian used alcohol and drugs to cope with the stress of having to hide.
Speaker 1: So those were my first, last is those three years of my life.
Speaker 1: But to the upside of that was that I came out, I found a loot, the lesbian organization of Toronto, and I came out, but it's had a huge impact on my life, which I didn't realize until we actually started having this conversation about loss stairs.
Speaker 3: You, for me, you know, the, my last year has had to do with the fact that I had to keep my sexuality, my sexual orientation hidden, but yet I was still kind of almost, you know, open to my theater colleagues, being back home in Trinidad and Tobago, being an artist.
Speaker 3: Um, those in those days as an activist, there isn't much stigma against you because, oh, she's just one of those.
Speaker 3: He's one of those artists, one of those actors.
Speaker 3: So it is allowed.
Speaker 3: However, I didn't carry a, a sign on my back, but see, so there was still no kind of a comfort level to identify as being, as being a lesbian and the word lesbian certainly was a word that you just didn't say, all right.
Speaker 3: And it was very derogatory to be, um, to be called the word that they used then was, um, Zomy, you know, she's a Zomy and that was even more hurtful.
Speaker 3: Um, I only could recognize and understand what this notion of last years is when I came to Canada, when I had the comfort level, when someone asked me if I was gay to say, yes, I am.
Speaker 3: So that's when I realized, huh.
Speaker 3: You know, the notion of this last year's things, um, is really something that existed for me in Trinidad.
Speaker 3: But once I moved here to Canada, um, I found my years, you know, it was no longer a what I will call, you know, that last year.
Speaker 3: So, um, let me pass that on now to Naomi what's your last year.
Speaker 1: So I would say that my last year was a little bit different just because I find that my generation came out a lot younger than I did.
Speaker 1: Um, I came out in my twenties, um, around the same time I discovered ballroom.
Speaker 1: And what ballroom was about, um, ballroom gave me a platform to sort of be discovered and hold my own for those that don't know what ballroom is ballroom is the subculture, um, that was created by black and legend next folks, uh, in the 1960s, our show, uh, where it, where folks came together, created families, um, that were sort of the safety net for those wanting to come out.
Speaker 1: Because a lot of times when youth were coming out, they were getting disowned by their family.
Speaker 1: Um, so when I came out, I was able to find support in ballroom and meeting people like Tamer.
Speaker 1: Uh, I know for Tamer, Tamer has much of much different story that I do.
Speaker 1: So, Taylor, do you want to share a little bit about your story of what it was like for you coming out?
Speaker 1: It was like for you going through your elementary school perspective?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Um, for me my last years, I think I, I consider them a little bit different, um, because I feel like my last years were like my entire childhood where my last year is, I feel like, you know, I wasn't able to actually be a child out of fear of the entire world.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't until I came out at like 19 or I was outed at 19.
Speaker 1: Um, but I actually started living and discovering and felt like the world I was, I had access to the world of the world was actually for me versus against me.
Speaker 1: Um, so I think that, that's what I consider my last years is basically from zero till 19.
Speaker 3: So she, a zero to 19 years is within the GTA.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: In Durham region.
Speaker 1: I grew up in like Oshawa Curtis
Speaker 3: Consider that, um, certainly, um, out of town kind of thing.
Speaker 3: What was it like for you when you came to Toronto?
Speaker 1: Honestly, it was so turbulent and so terrifying because when I knew my mom was going to find out when she came home from work that day and I had an hour to get it together, I just packed my stuff and just laughed.
Speaker 1: Like I had no idea where I was going.
Speaker 1: I just knew that it was going down that day and there was nothing I could do about it.
Speaker 1: Um, so it was such a culture shock because not only did I move from the suburbs to the city, I moved straight into the heart of Jane and Finch, like driftwood.
Speaker 1: And I've never lived that life.
Speaker 1: You know, I've never lived that life.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to explain it, but like, I've always, you know, come from the opposite of feeling like the opposite lifestyle, the opposite circumstances, the opposite trials and tribulations of what is, um, indigenous to that kind of community.
Speaker 1: I've never experienced that growing up.
Speaker 1: So it was just a, a huge culture shock on so many levels, especially because I moved out with my then boyfriend, white mom, like my boyfriend was half white, half black, but raised by his white mom.
Speaker 1: And I'm there living like my out life with this lady, son.
Speaker 1: Like, it was just, it was such a mind, mind F in Jane and Finch.
Speaker 1: Yes, they, oh, it was that it was terrifying.
Speaker 1: It was terrifying, but I was safe if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Like, I didn't really feel physically in danger, but so
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was safer there than you were back out in the Durham region.
Speaker 1: I don't think physically I was more safe, but mentally I could just be myself.
Speaker 1: Like the people around, like in the home knew my truth and they, they accepted it.
Speaker 1: They loved me for it.
Speaker 1: I was, I didn't feel like I was an inconvenience being there, but, um, it was just so different that like my boyfriend's mom knows that I'm her son's boyfriend.
Speaker 1: And like, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It was just, it didn't seem like it was a subject.
Speaker 1: Like it didn't come up really new.
Speaker 1: It was just normal life.
Speaker 1: Which, which made me uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: Cause I wasn't used to being able to be myself.
Speaker 3: Did I hear you say, which made you uncomfortable?
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 1: It made me uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: Why I've never experienced that level of honesty before.
Speaker 1: So I had to reckon with my own reality out loud, which I've never had to do everything up until then was in my head and sorting things out in my head and living in my life to make sure everyone else was happy, comfortable.
Speaker 1: Um, we went to church, I was always singing at church front and center.
Speaker 1: Like that was my gig.
Speaker 1: And then now I'm front and center with Imam and his family.
Speaker 1: And like, I don't know his sister, his nieces and nephews in the heart of like the hood.
Speaker 1: And
Speaker 3: Then you moved, what was it like when, when you discovered it?
Speaker 1: When I discovered church street, it was around the same time that I, that I met this boyfriend of mine.
Speaker 1: This was before he was outed.
Speaker 1: I had turned 19.
Speaker 1: I looked very, very, very young.
Speaker 1: So I wasn't one of the kids that like snuck into the club because I know I already looked so young.
Speaker 1: It was, there'd be no point.
Speaker 1: So when I went to the club, I'd bring two pieces of ID, like my passport and my driver's license on my driver's license and something else.
Speaker 1: This was show them like truly I really am nightclubs.
Speaker 1: And most of the time they would really require both because they really, I looked stupid being at the club, but anyways, it was a Wednesday night I got in my car and I hightailed it downtown.
Speaker 1: It was snowing and I'm like, well, I'm going to go.
Speaker 1: I know like this is where I'm supposed to be.
Speaker 1: My people are inside.
Speaker 1: I just got to find it.
Speaker 1: They went to what was then called the barn on 10th street.
Speaker 1: It was the most terrifying experience.
Speaker 1: Um, there was just men on men everywhere, like lesbians and like every different color or size and everything was like, wow, it really you'd be like in the movies, girl, get outta here.
Speaker 1: So I hightailed it, I left, but I was back the very next week.
Speaker 1: And uh, yeah, it's been beautiful sense, especially like I'm still learning how to love myself and how to like be comfortable in the skin that I'm in and love, love the community that loves me, you know, but it's still a work in progress, but haven't looked back since, um,
Speaker 3: I know for me my own coming out process, um, it started when I felt comfortable enough to go to a gay party in port of Spain, Trinidad.
Speaker 3: And there was this, this, um, this fear about being seen at any event that has gay people.
Speaker 3: I don't know if, you know, if, if this is the experience for all of us, but even, even as we self identify as woman loving woman or man loving, man, there's almost a kind of a, a self.
Speaker 3: He teaches a, is a strong word.
Speaker 3: But to me it's a kind of selfie because you don't want to be seen with other people like you.
Speaker 3: So you, you continue to do this, this, this hide and seek game because we in the, you know, Trinidad is, it's a small place.
Speaker 3: Everybody know everybody, right?
Speaker 3: So I know the moment I go to that party, I am saying to the whole of Trinidad that I am a gay woman, a lesbian, a zombie, all of that.
Speaker 3: And so set.
Speaker 3: So then the moment I went to the party on Saturday night, by Monday morning, it's news, it's, it's the talk of the town.
Speaker 3: So that was my form of coming out with regards to coming out to family.
Speaker 3: Again, there was a kind of comfort level because both my brother and sister in Canada, they were gay and everybody knew that, but nobody here, um, challenge MOC, anything because, you know, there was seen as the, as the, the, the role models.
Speaker 3: So I felt a level of comfort.
Speaker 3: I had that level of, of security.
Speaker 3: So I started to have key parties.
Speaker 3: I was at a party promoter gay party promoter.
Speaker 3: So my coming out process, it was, it was easy in that, in that, as I said, I went to a party I was seen and everybody know now.
Speaker 3: And the tell the whole of the, the, the, the, the city, the town, what have you.
Speaker 3: So that was my, that was my comment out.
Speaker 3: You know, it brings me back to the notion and the concept of coming out.
Speaker 3: Do we, as black bodies and persons of color do or did we have the luxury of coming out?
Speaker 3: You know, I feel it is, uh, a white body concept.
Speaker 3: I mean, it could be almost a death sentence in some societies tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Um, my coming out experience was, um, as I said earlier, it was traveling.
Speaker 1: Um, it's funny.
Speaker 1: I was talking with my sister about my coming out recently.
Speaker 1: Um, and she has different recollection of the occurrences, but long story short, I had a little boyfriend.
Speaker 1: I was not out.
Speaker 1: Um, I would just say that he's my friend, you know, he's just my friend.
Speaker 1: Um, and I really only, like I had mostly girls girlfriends as in like girls that are friends growing up.
Speaker 1: So, um, every time the rumors of being gay came around, I would just obviously deny them as feminine as I was.
Speaker 1: And then my friends that were girls would also defend me from the guys.
Speaker 1: Cause I always had like the prettiest girls in my life.
Speaker 1: So they would just defend me and the guys would kind of like off, um, because I'm best friends with their girls.
Speaker 1: So, um, eventually anyways, long story short, my sister, um, outed me.
Speaker 1: Um, she gave me the option saying, you know, I'm telling mom today, so figure out what you're going to do.
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell her today.
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay.
Speaker 1: So I just packed my bags and left.
Speaker 1: That was really it.
Speaker 3: So you didn't give your mom the benefit of the doubt of like accepting you as you are.
Speaker 3: No,
Speaker 1: Because I already know what type of time we're on.
Speaker 1: Like I grew up in this household.
Speaker 1: I know exactly what the expectations are.
Speaker 1: I know exactly what our culture says.
Speaker 1: We're African.
Speaker 1: Like my mom is from the SU tube.
Speaker 1: My dad's from South Africa.
Speaker 1: So I already knew, I already know where we stand.
Speaker 1: I already know how we've seen homosexuality wreak havoc on families.
Speaker 1: You know, it was the sexuality that made them a deep in the sexuality that made them a bad person.
Speaker 1: Um, so knowing, growing up that I was a part of that community, it just used to make me so sad.
Speaker 1: Cause like, all that I know from what I've learned is how awful these people are.
Speaker 1: Not just sexually, but just entirely their sexuality has made them bad people.
Speaker 1: And so I was just like, okay, well, like I'm done for, I have to go.
Speaker 1: And I want to protect my mom, um, from being sad around me, cause I'm looking at him, he's probably going to break her heart.
Speaker 1: I just packed a suitcase and left.
Speaker 1: It was in the middle of a hurricane.
Speaker 1: Mind you, I made it to like the go train station on like, I should really just jump in front of this moving train, but I didn't.
Speaker 1: And then I was like based just on the street that night.
Speaker 1: And then I called my boyfriend and told him what happened.
Speaker 1: And he's like, just come here.
Speaker 3: What is that for you?
Speaker 3: Leslie?
Speaker 1: I was a little bit like Tamar while I was still living at home.
Speaker 1: I discovered the bus scene and I started going out to the bus and, and meeting people.
Speaker 1: But, um, I was still living under my mother's roof and I was the only girl child.
Speaker 1: And coming from the, this culture, the west Indian culture, I had a lot placed on my shoulders being new legal child.
Speaker 1: So moved out of home into my own apartment before I told my mother that I was a lesbian.
Speaker 1: I was already identifying as a, but she couldn't handle.
Speaker 1: So I told her I was a lesbian and then the whole world fell apart because of the dishonor and the shame that I was bringing to the family that I had moved out.
Speaker 1: And the only time a girl child moves out of the family home is when she's getting married and I wasn't getting married and she was suspecting something was up because I had only female friends.
Speaker 1: So the actually hit the fan.
Speaker 1: When I told her and that I was working in a job where I was the PR person for the organization.
Speaker 1: And as my mother says, why do you have to wear all that lesbian paraphernalia when you're on public TV?
Speaker 1: So her friends started calling, which is sort of similar to what happened to you.
Speaker 1: Roma.
Speaker 1: When people would see me on TV, identifying as a dye, her friends would call and say, how could you let that happen?
Speaker 1: And she's bringing shame and dishonor.
Speaker 1: And I finally said to my mother, I'm not an ax murderer.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not hurting anybody.
Speaker 1: So why are you letting people bring you down like this?
Speaker 1: So I said, if you will, if you want to live your life like that, that's fine.
Speaker 1: But this is not how I'm living my life.
Speaker 1: But in terms of safety, for me, it was safer for me to be out because then I knew what people thought about me than hiding.
Speaker 1: So ever since I came out back in 76, I have been out and it's not always been safe.
Speaker 1: I've had a, I've been brutalized by the police for sitting in front of the rules, lesbian bar back in 1989.
Speaker 1: So I've had, you know, my engagements with the police simply because I'm an out of color.
Speaker 1: So I also want it to us.
Speaker 1: Uh, Naomi, what has it been like for you in terms of your coming out?
Speaker 1: You know, what?
Speaker 1: My company out was a very interesting experience for me.
Speaker 1: Um, at the time, like I said, I had just discovered this world of ballroom, but even before that, I came out during the time I was attending church and it was heavy, the church and in Rica, uh, Christian ministry on campus.
Speaker 1: So I was, I was your typical evangelical Christian.
Speaker 1: I would go across by campus right in the word of Jesus, trying to convert souls, all of that.
Speaker 1: But for me, I had to, I knew that for years I had always felt different.
Speaker 1: I knew for years that I had been attracted to women, but I just did not feel safe in coming out.
Speaker 1: Um, because I have a sister who is, the sister might be for me, she's an outlet Ambien.
Speaker 1: And growing up in that environment, I did sh she was not allowed to tell me she was lesbian until I turned 18 because my dad was extremely, extremely Christian, extremely homophobic.
Speaker 1: And he would always tell me that being gay was a white, that black people were not allowed to be gay whatsoever.
Speaker 1: I went through my life just thinking something was wrong with me until my sister came out and was like, Hey, I'm gay.
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Oh, okay.
Speaker 1: And then my dad was the one to sit me down and say to me, Naomi, are you gay?
Speaker 1: And I was like, uh, no, no.
Speaker 1: I think that's a correct answer.
Speaker 1: I think that's a correct answer is no.
Speaker 1: Um, and he said to me, I will never forget this.
Speaker 1: He looked at me, he said to me good, cause I couldn't handle.
Speaker 1: So that put me back in the closet for a little bit of time, because I was like, I can't come out to him because he's going to lose his everlasting mind.
Speaker 1: Um, so I didn't come out to him right away.
Speaker 1: I first came out to my church in, uh, posts that it was doing.
Speaker 1: Um, I did a Christian blog at that time and I came out on my Christian blog.
Speaker 1: And then I told my mother who was a lot more accepting and willing to hear me out.
Speaker 1: Um, and she was just like, I just want you to make sure about this before you go and tell the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: Um, and then she helped me tell my dad.
Speaker 1: Um, and then they went to counseling for it.
Speaker 1: My mom didn't want to mess me up further.
Speaker 1: So she took time to really figure out how to deal with her own emotions of loss around the expectations of me being gay.
Speaker 1: And now what did that mean as her daughter?
Speaker 1: So she needed to process that in her own therapy before she really wanted to get it right.
Speaker 1: And she did get it right eventually.
Speaker 1: Um, and she was able to help my dad get it right as well, but they needed to call the counseling and they need to talk about it.
Speaker 1: They needed to set rules for what that would look like.
Speaker 1: Um, so yeah, that was sort of like my coming out of the experience.
Speaker 1: It's so funny.
Speaker 1: Sorry.
Speaker 1: I met nail me one of my first time, probably like my second or third time at the club.
Speaker 1: Maybe the third time I met Naomi and I am today years old when I found out Naomi's sister is gay because she's one of my best friends.
Speaker 1: I just didn't know.
Speaker 1: But, um, that's also some of the beauty that I find beauty and curses I find in this community is that because we're black people and we know how our families are culturally.
Speaker 1: We don't really, you have a best friend for 20 years and still never meet their mom.
Speaker 1: You know, stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Especially in ballroom, you don't even use each other's government names.
Speaker 1: We use whatever names you tell us to use.
Speaker 1: If you think the name is pixie dust, your name is pixie dust for us to realize.
Speaker 1: So sometimes you'd have situations where we're with somebody every day of the week, because of how ballroom is the community.
Speaker 1: It's chosen family we're with somebody and then a medical emergency happens or they're incapacitated.
Speaker 1: And that the ambulance comes like, what's her name?
Speaker 1: Or like, honestly, her name is queen.
Speaker 1: I don't know what her name is by her name is queen.
Speaker 1: I thought probably said she was your friend.
Speaker 1: Honestly, she is my friend, but her name is queen.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't until she woke up, but we found out her name was Christina.
Speaker 1: But, um, I think that makes it a bit challenging in this community.
Speaker 1: I remember also one of our friends in the community committed suicide and none of us even knew where to go for a funeral or anything because we don't know his family, his family doesn't know us.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Thanks for sharing.
Speaker 3: I just
Speaker 1: Wanted to talk just very briefly when, uh, Naomi mentioned about two mothers saying only white people, uh, gay it's interesting.
Speaker 1: Cause my mother said the same thing and also wanted me to go for counseling.
Speaker 1: And it ended up with a psychiatrist saying to my mother, you are the one who needs help to understand and accept Leslie's, uh, gender identity, which back in 1977 was huge.
Speaker 1: I had no concept of what gender identity was back then.
Speaker 1: I was already identifying as a, but that's what the psychiatrist said.
Speaker 1: So it's really interesting when you're a black or a person of color your family with the first thing they think of is that's a white people thing.
Speaker 1: So yes, dumb question, but I can't be the only listener that's has this question.
Speaker 1: What is the difference between a and a lesbian?
Speaker 1: For me, a is a political lesbian.
Speaker 1: That's how I have embraced that identity.
Speaker 3: Explain though, what is political lesbian?
Speaker 1: So back then women would identify as gay or lesbian or.
Speaker 1: So if you were gay, you were not politically active.
Speaker 1: If you're a lesbian, you're more on the political spectrum.
Speaker 1: If you're a you're in, you're in the people's faces about protesting, especially against the police.
Speaker 1: So that's why I then defy as a.
Speaker 1: I'm a radical political activist.
Speaker 1: Lovely.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 1: You're welcome
Speaker 3: Tomorrow.
Speaker 3: Trust me.
Speaker 3: I asked that question before,
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 1: Um, so I believe with all these terms, like even when people ask me what I identify as I'm like, I don't know a cat, like I don't care.
Speaker 3: As a matter of fact, um, the word is a word that I've now come to embrace.
Speaker 3: But when I just came to this country, um, in 1999, I could not identify with the word because I always said there's nothing about my sexual orientation, my gender identity.
Speaker 3: There's nothing odd about that.
Speaker 3: And back home quit.
Speaker 3: When, when you told that you quit, it was, it was again the wrong Atari.
Speaker 3: And, um, and, and I never liked the word.
Speaker 3: And I came here and realized that we have, you know, in north America there was a reclaiming of the word and it was, you know, you know, almost fashionable and politically correct to use the word and I refused to use it.
Speaker 3: And I hated when anyone asked me if I was, you know, but of late, uh, probably in the last five years or so I have come, I've come to terms with the word and embrace it for what it is.
Speaker 3: But you know, again, one of those labels, I couldn't deal with the Wolf and lesbian, even lesbian is a word that only recently I started to, you know, embrace, you know, I was quite comfortable saying that I will, I'm a gay woman, the
Speaker 1: Word, the word homosexual, or homosexuality scares me.
Speaker 1: Cause that's how they would, that's what they would call it in church.
Speaker 1: And the way we would talk about it would terrify me.
Speaker 3: So homosexuality is my trigger word, your trigger.
Speaker 3: It's not my trigger.
Speaker 3: What is the word that I would most likely embrace?
Speaker 3: Um, because I'm a woman loving woman.
Speaker 3: So, um, whereas homosexual was always towards the men.
Speaker 3: I, I embraced it as a woman as well, you know, because I said, I'm a homosexual.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But oh God, the word lesbian.
Speaker 3: And of course Zami, those were my trigger words.
Speaker 3: And I w I found, I found it very, um, um, almost soothing to see that I am a gay woman.
Speaker 3: So that brings me back to, to, to, to Leslie again, I would like for you to share, because you you've been in Toronto longer than I, that I am, but don't want you to share a time or a story of persecution that you would have experienced in the workplace on a count again of your gender identity
Speaker 1: In the last place where I worked, which was rec women's counseling referral and education center, which is a joke that I used to make.
Speaker 1: The director made me a wreck and it was run by a white lesbian collective.
Speaker 1: And I was the only outlast Ambien of color.
Speaker 1: And a situation happened where I was accused of sexual harassment.
Speaker 1: And it was, the churches were false, but they needed to blame somebody for what was happening because there was a black lesbian involved.
Speaker 1: So they blamed me.
Speaker 1: And as a result, I lost seven years from 2000 to 2006, I lost my job.
Speaker 1: I almost lost my life.
Speaker 1: I went into a tailspin because of how I was treated in this workplace.
Speaker 1: And I almost died because of alcohol poisoning.
Speaker 1: And I was persecuted because I dared to speak up.
Speaker 1: And these white lesbians who ran this organization use me as the scapegoat.
Speaker 1: And this happens in a lot of places when lesbians of color dare to speak up about what's happening in the workplace.
Speaker 1: And last night I was almost in tears because I thought I had only lost three is when I first came out when I was involved with that woman when I was in university.
Speaker 1: And then I realized I lost all those years, they lost seven years and all I did was drink and I was in a severe depression.
Speaker 1: And then I ended up in a coma and then I lost another three years recovering from the coma and getting my life back.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't take much, you know, and, and this is women doing it to each other.
Speaker 1: These were white lesbians doing this to a lesbian of color.
Speaker 1: So, you know, we really need to be more kind and more caring and more compassionate with each other.
Speaker 3: I do recognize and understand that notion of, you know, that heat, you know, that, that glow between one another, not being kind to each other.
Speaker 3: And I remember I, myself, you know, when I just came to this country in 1999, I wanted to attend about house because everybody was talking about this bottles thing.
Speaker 3: And the one night that I decided that, yes, I am going to the bath house.
Speaker 3: A friend of mine kind of[inaudible] me away from doing so, because I think she, she basically instilled fear in me by saying that it's not a safe space, because you could get meningitis.
Speaker 3: It's not safe, it's not healthy.
Speaker 3: And I think is that what, what, um, what frightened me and kept me awake at night from going to the bath house and lo and behold, the next day it was headline news that the bat house was raided by the police and, you know, X amount of women were arrested and that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: So I was happy that I didn't go that night because I would have been quite, um, a shameful thing to be in the country for less than a year, you know, to be arrested in a bad house would not have been a nice thing.
Speaker 3: So I was happy that I didn't go, that's a good way to segue into the fact that, you know, we are all standing on the shoulders of those bodies who suffered the shame of the woman bath houses back in the day, the woman, bad house reeds, they abuse the insults back in the day on a count of being a or lesbian.
Speaker 3: So Leslie, I have that seniors, uh, are now finding themselves having to go back in the closet.
Speaker 1: We're going back into the closet because we're afraid, especially now during COVID.
Speaker 1: And many of us are in long-term care homes and you know, how many seniors have died and how many of those seniors are seniors.
Speaker 1: So we have to choose between being our true, authentic selves or hiding in order to receive good health care, because there's no training for staff in long-term care homes or nursing homes.
Speaker 1: And that's where many of us are ending up, especially lesbians because many older lesbians are living on the brink of poverty.
Speaker 1: So when you end up in any kind of a care facility where people are already a homophobic transphobic, and you end up in this place and you are depending on people to take care of you, and they're just as whole bacon homophobic and transphobic as people out in the real world, you're literally trapped.
Speaker 1: So that's why we are going back into the closet in, in huge, huge numbers,
Speaker 3: Tamar and Naomi, who I will consider my youth here today.
Speaker 3: How do you boat engage with all without persons as myself and the lesbian who came before you?
Speaker 3: Is there any kind of communications between the two groups?
Speaker 1: It's interesting.
Speaker 1: I've been wanting to say this since we started is a complete honor and privilege to be here with two of our elders talking about issues, because a lot of us lived black community.
Speaker 1: When we lose our families, we also lose grandparents.
Speaker 1: We also lose our uncles, but also those, our aunts, we lose like, um, the, the traditions of like passing down legacies and, and stories that are very few elders that we really do have in the ballroom community here in Canada, or that I see coming around, um, black, young, people.
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: And because I also came late to the community in comparison to some of my friends, but like, it's something that is so necessary, I think for all of us to come together, because like, you guys are still a part of that legacy, hearing these stories of what happened in the seventies or the eighties, Suffolk that is so necessary.
Speaker 1: Because as we talk, even when you're talking about the raid at the bath house, I'm the I'm here assuming that this isn't Trinidad.
Speaker 1: Like I, the whole time you're talking like, wow, try it out and sound so ghetto.
Speaker 1: Like, how could they do this?
Speaker 1: Like in 2000 and then said, Toronto, I'm like, no way.
Speaker 1: So it's these things that I think that we need to speak about because we need it.
Speaker 1: You know, we need, we need these kind of connections with that age demographic, even, even when, um, Leslie was talking about seniors, aging out, basically, and having to go back into the closet for their own safety.
Speaker 1: I don't even know where to find the older people, the ones that have survived aids, at least because I would like to do something.
Speaker 1: And like a lot of the people don't have grandkids or kids.
Speaker 1: Like I might not have kids or grandkids, but you don't have any family that's going to come and visit you.
Speaker 1: I can come.
Speaker 1: You want someone to teach me how to cook, teach me this, teach me that, like, those are things that are stripped away from older women and older men, because a lot of them don't have kids of their own to pass these things down to, or they've been excommunicated from their families and they're basically othered in their family.
Speaker 1: So they don't have the opportunities to actually impart the knowledge and the life experience that is so valuable to the culture that we live in, you know?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Simple thing, especially now in the pandemic as simple a thing as going shopping for them go together.
Speaker 3: When I just came up from Trinidad in March, you know, and I was, you know, had to quarantine for 14 days and Leslie was all there up in my case, you know, you want anything in the grocery, you need anything to get, you know?
Speaker 3: Um, and she's a senior more senior than me, you know, so simple, simple thing as, you know, calling to find out, do what do you need?
Speaker 3: Do you need anything in the grocery today?
Speaker 3: I'm going to the grocery.
Speaker 3: I could pick up some groceries.
Speaker 1: Maybe one day we could figure out some kind of programming to bridge the gaps, because I know that I would personally love a grandma.
Speaker 1: I would love a great, I would love an auntie.
Speaker 1: I would love an uncle.
Speaker 1: I want to see that like, there's a 60 year old gay man that can come to my Christmas dinner and joke with us and drink with us.
Speaker 1: And I can sit on my boyfriend's lap.
Speaker 1: I can have my wig on or off.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 1: Tim or less talk about that to make the connections.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Did indeed not NAMI.
Speaker 3: What about you?
Speaker 3: What are you doing?
Speaker 1: Um, I think for me, it's really important when I'm like understanding and having these conversations is to also like, realize that there has been disconnect.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: There's so much that has happened before even I came into the scene or even before someone like Tamer came into the scene that we don't hear these histories, we don't have these connections.
Speaker 1: We don't have these people to really guide us in the way that we should go, what I consider the seniors and the elders that we have in our community right now, they are like in their late forties, I would love to see people older than that.
Speaker 1: Still sharing the story.
Speaker 1: So wanting to come around, like, I feel like a lot of seniors, you know, come around these or may not feel invited.
Speaker 1: So I want to know how to bridge that gap.
Speaker 1: So when we're relating to one another, we can have that sixth and we can all work together.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I would definitely, definitely love to see like a mentorship or something happened along those lines where we can learn, we can hold each other accountable.
Speaker 1: We can show up for each other the way that we need to in this community.
Speaker 1: That's what a goal is in mind.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And you know, that brings me to the notion of, you know, the peace of mind, actually, you know, the peace of mind of living out your, your life significantly and living out your sexual orientation.
Speaker 3: Um, I know for me, I must say that there was a kind of peace of mind that I was able to achieve.
Speaker 3: Once I landed in this country, you know, I spent so much time lying and hiding prior to coming to this country, that once I got here, there was, uh, as I said, this, this peace of mind of living out loud and proud.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 3: How about you Tamar living your life loud and proud.
Speaker 1: That's something that I'm still learning to do without getting emotional, um, because there's been different, I guess, metamorphosis in my life, there's the gay thing.
Speaker 1: And then there's the gender thing, um, that I still battle with, but, um, the whole team army off nuclear Tamar, the dog, Tamar Lou Baton thing.
Speaker 1: It's just, my mom only found out just over a year ago that I cross dress.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm a drag queen or whatever.
Speaker 1: And, uh, honey, I've been doing this for years out of her own house.
Speaker 1: I didn't meet, I was okay with my truth, but I knew that she wouldn't be.
Speaker 1: So for me, coming out at, in my feminine has definitely, um, been difficult and challenging because not only was it just that it was also the sex work that I was doing.
Speaker 1: And that came out at the same time to my mom, which is so overwhelming.
Speaker 1: And it basically was, it robbed me of the opportunity to ease her into things.
Speaker 1: Um, because I'm scared she's made the connection.
Speaker 1: I'm, cross-dressing just for money or just to be fast or whatever, you know, versus Tamar has already been a thing before I was escorting.
Speaker 1: I think Tamar is, from what I understand so far, she's a part of me, you know, she is the one that gets me, these gigs.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, nobody wants to introduce Kevin.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants to hire Kevin for a Disney movie.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants to get Kevin on the cover of the magazine.
Speaker 1: Like she is, she is the front runner of my life and protects the integrity of who Kevin is.
Speaker 1: You know, she is not just my job.
Speaker 1: It's not just the modeling and the acting and the magazines and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: It's also like what brings me joy.
Speaker 1: And I think in an alternate world, if I wasn't raised the way I was raised and I had discovered myself a lot sooner and was more comfortable with myself and my situation, I probably would have transitioned because I feel like my life is a lot easier when I'm in female farm, the world is more accepting when I can pass and heteronormative society as a gay man, it's much more difficult.
Speaker 1: It's like running in wa in a pool it's, it's so difficult to do because the world can see exactly what you, I feel more naked as a boy than I do as a girl, I feel more exposed and safe.
Speaker 3: So you identify as a game, man.
Speaker 3: So
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm both, like, I respond to female to feminine pronouns, but it's because in ballroom, everyone is a family and pronoun like, Hey girl, everyone's a girl or miss thing.
Speaker 1: Like even when I'm a boy, everyone just calls me Tamar, even though it's my girl name, everyone just knows me as Tamar.
Speaker 1: So I think this is why some of the beginning, I identify as like a marble, a cat, a wall, a dresser.
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think because I grew up in a time where the whole community was just known as the gay community, like the gays, the people on church street.
Speaker 1: But I didn't hear anything about two-spirited transgender.
Speaker 1: Non-binary this, that, that, like, I didn't know any of that until maybe the past, like four or five years.
Speaker 1: Um, so when I think about my gender identity, I don't know.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if I will ever know, um, because we're conditioned to make a decision.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 1: And what if I don't have an answer?
Speaker 1: You know, what then am I, then non-binary, I don't feel non-binary.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm great.
Speaker 1: And I'm a ruler of my own life.
Speaker 1: Thank God.
Speaker 1: And whatever somebody wants to me, as long as I can feel an air of respect, I'm okay with it.
Speaker 1: And
Speaker 3: That's all that matters, Naomi.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm here, honey.
Speaker 1: I want to hear this answer.
Speaker 1: I think it for me, because I constantly feel like I am as base of evolution and trying to understand my own sexuality, my own gender and things like that.
Speaker 1: It feels good to have the space to be expensive and the waste I want to identify because I don't identify as a lesbian.
Speaker 1: I used to come out and identify as pansexual, but even now I find using that language.
Speaker 1: I think that's the most accurate right now of a term, but I really just see myself as and just loving everyone for me.
Speaker 1: It's really about connections I get to make.
Speaker 1: Um, that's not based on gender at first.
Speaker 1: People used to make fun of me about that all the time, people in the straight community, people in the community, but as things evolve and as things change and as things expand, what I said before is now starting to make sense to other people.
Speaker 1: So it allows me to stream them to just show up as who I want to be, not worrying about what others have to think about me.
Speaker 1: And I think that's freedom in itself when you can show up as your authentic self and just be like, yeah, this is who I am.
Speaker 1: This is who I'm dating.
Speaker 1: This is who I'm choosing to love right now.
Speaker 1: Um, and I think also an even in my gender expression, I also understand the power of duality and somewhat.
Speaker 1: So even that, for me, the way they present is also slowly becoming freeing because I don't have to fit into these expectations of what it means to be a fan or not a fan.
Speaker 1: So I'm really just open expanding every single day, really comfortable in who I am and the world is just responding to that.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of how I look at it.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Naomi.
Speaker 1: I just want to say my little piece about living proud.
Speaker 1: I am who I am and who I am needs no excuses at the ripe young age of 67.
Speaker 1: I am so proud of who I am and I don't give a who thinks otherwise.
Speaker 1: So that's how I am living my life out.
Speaker 1: Quip proud at 67 and with what they see out there.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the youth elders podcast.
Speaker 1: A big thing scores to our sound editing team.
Speaker 1: Denato Hepburn and M Lovells with support from Maddie Bautista.
Speaker 2: The youth elders podcast is produced by buddies and bad times theater and is funded in part by the theaters community and education partner, TD bank.