Transcripts For CSPAN2 Trystan Reese How We Do Family 20220819

Support cspan2 as a public service. Tonight were absolutely thrilled to welcome tristian reese and andrew, triston launched into the public eye as a pregnant man in 2017 with the story of his familys unique journey gained International Attention he was invited to give closing performances mainstage in portland, albuquerque and brooklyn and a video of the brooklyn event was over 2. 5 million views. As interest in his familys story grew triston partnered with many major outlets including cnn and buzz feed. Triston is us educator and speaker focusing on diversity, equity and inclusion in the founder of his Consulting Firm collaborate consulting or triston provides customized training and solutions for individuals, organizations and communities interested in social justice. When triston was a year into his relationship the couple learn that the niece and nephew were about to be removed from the home from Child Protective Services interested in took in 1yearold haley and 3yearold lucas becoming caregivers overnight to two tiny survivors of abuse and neglect. From this surprising start they bill of loving marriage and happy Home Learning to pair on the job they adopted haley and lucas and decided to grow their family biologically with the child that triston was transgender would carry. Tristons groundbreaking pregnancy attracted media fans there in the family welcome leo in 2017 in his book how do we family from adoption to trans pregnancy, what we learned about love and lbgtq parenthood triston shares a unique story and what hes learned about the best parent and partner in person you can be. Joining triston in conversation is Andrew Solomon hes a professor of Clinical Psychology at Columbia University Medical Center and past president of panamerican center and a writer and lecturer on psychology, politics and arts and activist and lgbtq rights and Mental Health in the arts, his 2012 book parents, children in the book the search for identity run the award for nonfiction and it was chosen as the New York Times ten best books of 2012, how travel can change the world was published in 2016 and named a New York Times notable book he previously wrote atlas of depression which won the 2001 National Book award and a poet sometimes finalist. Most recently he made an awardwinning film. This evenings event will include an audience q a, please use a q a button at the bottom of the screen if you would like to ask a question as well as if someone has a question youd like to have a question to and that question by clicking the forms a button the most important, please consider supporting triston and powells by purchasing a book from us along with andrews book will be shared in the chat a couple times this evening. They released a was moved to june 29 so the order you placed tonight will be shipped at the end of the month. Triston and andrew were thrilled to have you here tonight, thank you for being here. What a pleasure and an honor to be here. Triston and i have known each other for many years and have been friends and i followed each man interest. I would like to say even if you think you know when tristons attorney entails and you think you understand what the story is you have to buy and read this book because its so moving, its so funny, it is so warm and it is so profound about what family is and about what love is and how against all odds you can manage to find the glories of intimacy in places where they werent necessarily to be assumed. It is a wonderful lead you will cancel Everything Else is by the afternoon with it in a million things you didnt know before. Of my goodness is so scary and to be exciting to release my fourth baby into the world. [laughter] im not sure even done it as many times as you have, is more terrifying than i wouldve expected. It is terrifying and youll notice i wrote a book about depression, thats perhaps the answer to your question. I think you said youre going to read a little passion why dont we do that so they can know your voice before we get going with the rest of it. I did not know i was going to do that first but im ready. My copy came from the publisher today so here it is in my hand, ive been in denial. Im going to tell i believe its an unknown story in terms of me doing podcast or whatever. And it takes as to the summer of 2012. About a quarter of the way in. It was the summer of 2012 and there was a concert at the Mexican Restaurant in performance from the east end of l. A. Id emailed, called and text to let them know about the proposal. At my request kimberly came down when it happened and watch lucas for the evening. In my pocket i feel the heavyweight and titanium ring and custommade for the occasion the jeweler agreed to let me purchase and ive been sending checks every month. We parked the car and held hands as we walked in as he sat down he noticed how many of our friends were at the audience and he said dang Everybody Knows her lady today. Soi agreed. My boss that watched our relationship blossomed from the very beginning as were half a dozen of his friends from a social group. The lights went out in the show started. Our lady j emerged into the spotlight on the stage and began her usual stories about her life and childhood along with dolly parton covers in original songs. Her feet pounded the petals and i began to sweat. Then she said the phrase i had been waiting for. Love, love, love is there any lovers in the audience that they love a hand went up she stated her highs pretending to notice me, is that triston, come and appear you guys. Exactly as planned, i grabbed biffs hand and we made our way down the aisle and up onto the stage. Jay handed me that a phone and i took a deep breath and a hush over the audience as they waited a question as strangers try to figure what was happening. Biff as you know i love you very much and i never want to be without two children overnight completely unprepared and thats the biggest difference that is more straightforward it was counterintuitive to be a man who had a baby and not be a straightforward, it really was, as was i think with the passion and the love that i have for them in the journeys, it is different to really form love over a longer period of time and because things are hard to be closer to lucas and haley that would have otherwise it wouldve been part of a longer situation and it caught me by surprise, i remember the first time in lucas when a car came on really allowed in without even thinking about it i snatched him up in arms, it was a little moments for me that i was like i threw myself in front of a bus for this kid. I would do anything for him, there are parts that my brain are at work when we lived in new york city and the doors opened up and he stepped off the subway and without even realizing hes done it before i can say anything, my hand goes out and grabs his hoodie and pulls him back in. These are the tribal parts, though not any part of our conscious thinking, it was in those moments that i am a parent and i love him as a passion and fury that is scary. As opposed to leo who showed up in the world, all innocence and purity and it was easy. It was much easier than this other situation. The doubts did not different. But the pathway i guess is there. Tell me about your decisions to be open and public about your pregnancy and about the structure of your family, it earned you a lot of love and also earned you a lot of hate but you had to deal with, i think you mustve known ahead of time whether you wouldve known how much or how it would feel. Tell me about that decision which is great at florescent which you finally speak entirely in your own voice without being mediated by the forces on your story. Its funny the conversations sometimes a moment in your life i was even thinking, youre talking about giving the device, i literally remember the airplane and the ci was sitting in when i was far from the tree and you were there for that, you were in my life and that we had even met, its like those places in this room that i literally came upstairs having watched on facebook or youtube somewhere and interviewed with janet into really incredible, brilliant, bold, brave black mans woman being unknowingly, unconsciously eviscerated by some wellmeaning journalist. And being so patient and kind and loving and gracious, im just going to put up to you why that isnt the best question to ask giving them far more grace than everyone deserves grace of course but more than i would think that they deserved outside of the room, although transgender and i had a lightbulb go off in my head and i walked up the stairs and i said i think we have to talk. And biff was like why would we ever do that. Look what happens of people do that. And i just explained i watch this interview and i dont think its fair, i dont think its fair for myself as a white binary trans person living in portland, oregon who has every privilege that anyone could ever hope for as a trans person i think theres one thing of a hollywood couple that has a trans, maybe that trans person is more provisioned me but other than that i was grounded by layers of safety and i just said i dont think its right to put all of that work on them and it was done intentionally for many years and you know this injury because you come from the movement its intentional, transgender men agrees verbally outlaw the conferences that we agreed if we get handed the microphone, and a black trans woman you handed to her, we did not and then it just felt like at this point we may have overcorrected into much responsibility on them and now that this part of a conversation maybe theres a chance to take the weight off of them and my question is when people say how could you ever possibly no, was it worth it . Thats a question i may never have the answer to. I dont think i will ever get back as a result and that was not something i wanted to answer. My situation was somewhat rests under less radical than yours, the story of my family in the world for many of the same reasons with a sense that an obligation and if i would tell the story then who went and i ended up with so many people that said your work help me decide to have a family. When you think of these relationships in a very grateful being parents. Your book is so courageous and so straightforward and so generous and i think it will give people inability, a wish, and understanding of capacity to be parents whod otherwise had all that and i change peoples lives and im sure you did around what happened even though im sure some was traumatic and ultimately it will survive thats what i think but maybe im wrong. I think its a backandforth even if it was a gift that is serve the world, what cost it, for and for what i have left and when he says i love you no way more than ever did before you as a more realistic or new wants mature view of people who truly are is preferable, i missed it when other people were inherently good and if you told your story with enough love and compassion and intentionality people would say this is awesome, i miss that version of me and i like that version of me. [laughter] 20 years ago who was an activist who became an activist and he said to me i prefer and i thought that was a mistake but but there is an element that is definitely something to come. Tell the story since were talking about this since its a bad pr, tell me the story or tell her viewers a story of the experience when he asked you whether anyone had mean things to say to you. I think that was part of the book that came back at that point it was like nope it was in the moment as it was happening unlike there it is. Precovid i was traveling so much for work and i felt bad traveling with three kids with biff when i was gone and i was missing chunks of their childhood so i started to arrange it that i can bring one child with me on each trip that i went on so i got to have the oneonone time and they got to spend whatever city i was in and i would put a few days on the work trip or im in l. A. With haley or chicago or any of those places so i took haley to l. A. And we got stuck in traffic and we were in the rental car and under leaving a, he turned to me and asked did people say mean things when you told her story when were in the newsroom, i feel really hard to be honest and be the kids and mindful of whats appropriate for them to carry and they will correctly wouldve gone too far in the honesty realm i think thats a bit much and im usually defensive in the moment after words, at the time i decided i would be honest and i knew she was going to ask what they said, and i said yes they said things about me and i said no im knocking to tell you, youre too little, its not appropriate to you to hear the worst things even though i did not tell her what those things were she just started crying because like me her emotions are this close to the surface all the time it doesnt take much for them to double over so she starts crying and asked if i ever cried and that cracked open a space between us were a kid new entre nous i could ask whatever i wanted and i asked her you ever wish you were different and you wish you were like other families and she said no never in a million billion years what i want any other kind of family business. In the book is my little magical moment start in this topic. You never know when the magic is going to come. You dont. I heard male feminist maybe 20 years ago give a speech at a university or something and he said you know a lot of people talk about quality time but theres something to be said for quantity time and thats why i like to travel with the kids, you dont have to be doing something that somebody else sees is important you could just sit in traffic and commit to being in the moment. For me with my kids i felt like quantity time was a great gift of the pandemic, the pandemic is very hard on kids for a lot of reasons and my kids are 12 and 13 and they each have challenges in this regard but the time that we spent together was better for me and in ways for them that maybe are entirely at the time but will be in time. Something that struck me a lot when i was reading the book my experience of you i saw you when you werent smiling and you always are happygolucky and the first time we met i think it was on a task force party in l. A. And i remember talking to you and i think it was either shortly before or shortly after lucas and haley came into your household, anyway but youve had that approach and yet from the book you describe all of these moments with anxiety and your uncertainty about whether biff would possibly be interested to you or return your calls in your uncertainty about whether you should do away of proposal and he suggested using a hot air balloon to propose and all of those other things in the feeling that you had doubled this whole thing up and youre worried about whether you were doing at the right way, then especially the scene which i think is most point in the book when youre at a camp, i cant quite remember that you are getting ready to say what would you think of having a baby and you begin by suggesting what if we repurpose our guest room and tell me about those moments and tell me about the ways in which you think they represent anything that is pinned a make to clear life or whether you think the same for everybody in all kinds of ways. As usual is a complicated question. I remember that terrorist in l. A. And thats something i miss about being in the nonprofit movement is getting to see some of the truly beautiful ways that clear people in particular are able to fashion the homes in their lives mark is on this colonnade been on a similar terrorist with mark Downtown Portland and i miss those moments. I think a lot of people often have a misconception about me that im always happy. And the thing that comes to mind is one of the best things about having kids is to introduce them to the world. Especially leo who is almost four he just asked why about everything, why do flowers bloom, why does that one wed stick to you when you walk by it so i talked to him often about how things have evolved to survive and some things are pretty and thats how they survive, people like them and want to have them around and to keep people waiting to protect them its all different ways of surviving and im not sure how or when or why or if its natural radio that its just how i made it to the world is to be someone that is alike. Its got me out of a lot of tough situations and into a lot of good situations so i think that is how i found people to navigate it which i think is not unlike the best of the gay troops, were like your best friend from theater, thats how we stay alive, we meet people like us, they felt bad force when something bad happen, they wanted to come to our aid and we told them they should do something differently, they wanted to follow and thats where i sit in the gay multiverse and i dont know if other people have the same levels of doubt or discomfort or anxiety or fear and is probably two sides of the same coin if i have stakes so much on people liking me then the fear is what if they dont and what if this is all just been a grand performance or something. There is still moments and weve been together 11 years, there is still moments that there is a person of biffs life that he spending a lot of time with for work things and i had to say i need a little bit of reassurance that theres not something there, hes a very attractive person and i think their tractor root then meet in the younger the man never had a baby. At all this time i think im better at saying and feeling insecure i need a little reassurance instead of a passiveaggressive thing. In effect it is something that is mostly associated with at least primarily. How did that all balance out . How did you get it to balance out . And how much of all you went through, and your mind difficulties you experience in transitioning. Maybe there werent any but i doubt it. My editor is here with us. That is how it got all balanced out. I wrote of this chapters i really did. [laughter] i wrote the coming out story, realizing for myself, plant finding place in contingency but not. And im really, really lucky, they helped me figure out what is the story. This does not have to be all of the stories. What is the story. Theres other places for those other stories like i have a dream of an actual memoir, that can be booked to you, fine. But to have that narrow focus that is less teaching, last pass and more this was really the focus she brought i feel is such a gift. Of course its hard in the beginning to have someone cutting that, cutting that, cutting that, cutting that but looking at it now, this is fine, this is good. It was nice to focus on a couple of hard things in the thing you can get anywhere. Anyone can say we hard coming out story whether it is a 13yearold award trends or those exists. This does not exist as much. That is how that happened. I like this on here and thats what you can expect. Host talk about leo because of the publicity youve done. In your own life encounter people either trends or other queer people who felt betrayed by your division to feel pregnant or people on the streets who gave you strange looks . How did that go down . I expected women to be mad at me because i am the one who stormed out of the lady party 20 years ago, slammed the door in their faces and swore i would never be back. I get it. Now im inching my way back in, that i totally get. And for me truly the biggest fear i had i was worried about the backlash within the trans community. I expect other people to do, but for me me telling my story was my own way of getting a gift to my community. Both past, present, and future. That was the goal of it. They are not the audience for the book might book is not exciting to most trans people. And happened for 20 years who cares for the goal of the book is for other people. But the present, the reason i did it was to service the community. And so to worry, which i did, that people werent going to say look its you making it harder for people to expect us. New just got them to see us as men neither going and theyre messing things up. That was my worst fear. And i think maybe i saw that once in a comment thread before i stopped reading comments. But every other time, we were trans pride and i was eight and a half months pregnant. I miss the labor and delivery class because i chose to go to trans pride instead of going to labor. And like they were all friends due to came to me and said this is awesome. I could never do that. That is so cool, nearly universally that was the response, thank you for showing people there isnt one way to do this and continuing to broaden what is possible, we talk about possibility models, for being another possibility model, not a competition to see who can do trans right but competition to see how many ways we can do it and that was the thing for me. Made it easier to whether the harder pieces but in person virtually nothing. Going to the coffee shop and the staff is like we saw your story like your breakfast is on us. Im connected to hundreds of trans people all over the world going through these processes. They dont have the same experience in other places or even like our kids going to school when our story went public one of the neighbors in the neighborhood sent a baby gift home with their kid to give to our son to give to us with a heart that says thank you for telling your story publicly, it gave me a great reason to talk to my kids about the different ways families are constructed so that is what we got in person which im very grateful for because it could have gone a different way. Host i was talking to my own kid today about the experience and i have a the openness you are describing is so attractive and it was shocking and dismaying when Renee Richards a few years ago said god intended people to be men or women, didnt intend people to be in this in between place and i thought okay, the idea that god thinks it is okay to be trans the way you are trans but not to be trends in these other ways, that im willing to subscribe to. There is a lot of that, this is the way to be trans, this is the way to be gay, this is the way to be clear, this is the way to look, this is the way to do things, did you always see yourself as someone who would be able to buck that idea of what was possible or not what was possible, but how other people wanted to define you . Not at all. It was a process the same for me as it is for most people. Its like theres an actual psychological process and there were many years when i wanted nothing more than to not be trends and when i was working out every single day and drinking protein shakes and getting a personal trainer, trying as much as possible to appear like any other man who didnt happen to be transcend it wasnt until it wasnt until i found both that i found a nuisance of yes, i am different and thats not just okay, it is actually great, thats another joke i may, rupaul says how can you love somebody else if you love yourself . For me it was the opposite but i couldnt love myself until someone else loves me, it wasnt until i saw the way biff saw me reflected in him that i was like he is great and if he thinks im worthy of love maybe he is onto something. I dont think i got that level of confidence until then. Tell for a moment. Weve been conceptual rather than anecdotal, the party where you met biff and the way it all began. This is our 10yearolds favorite story. So that fateful brunch we have these two lovely queer plus trans friends who live in la. I met them for the proposition 8 campaign. One is an attorney and hardcore volunteer so we were spending time with each other and became friends and they have Community Brunch at their house and i went and was two blocks from my house, walking there still wearing my clothes from the night before because i had not gone to bed until 3 00 or 4 00 am and i woke up, ate a snack and then headed to the brunch and sobbed biff crossing the street, same thing that i was and was smitten right away. He was just, you know, for me it is like you put on the shirt that is comfy, that feeling of home and comfort and that is what i felt when i saw him and i said are you going to teach the medgies thing . We walked in, did a whole brunch where i was trying to flirt just like in everything i had, with the hoopers of the 26yearold, completely shameless. He was not in any way, shape, or form interested. There was nothing to indicate there was interest at all and then i went to the restroom and washed my hands and when i looked in the mirror i realized the salad i had a snack had lodged itself in one of my front teeth and my entire front tooth was covered with spinach. I later found out biff thought that i had to tooth, whole black tooth in the front. I left in shame, called my best friend and said i met the man of my dreams and had something in my teeth when i did and she was like there is no coming back from this, you have to let this go. You cannot dwell on this, the bridge is burned, find someone new and i did not listen to her, thank goodness but that is what they never show you in romantic comedies, totally humiliated, horrible. Here we are however many years later it is and it all turned out just fine. A lot of work. Host i wanted to say to the folks at home that we are really happy to take your questions, put them in the queue and air tab on the bottom of your screen. At least on mine, one tab from the right and we would love to hear from you if there are things you would like to ask Trystan Reese about his life, love, book experiences or anything else. Guest or questions you would like to ask andrew and i will ask them. That is my question for you, how have you survived flippant comments about your depression aside, how have you built up your resilience against the inevitable onslaught that happens any time one of your kids hits a Million Viewers or whatever it happens to be, what is your castle, your moat . Host thank you for asking that. Guest i need to know. Host not to sound like a copycat but not until i met john was i ready to be an activist. I met john in my mid 30s, and i remember that is three or four years before that they were organizing celebration of gayness at my high school and my high school was very loaded and i was trying to be very qualitative there. I just thought i dont have a feeling of being joyful and wonderful, this is something im coping with, im not going to get up in front of High School Students and say if you are gay then in 15 years you will find you can cope with that. They didnt seem like the message of hope and i didnt belong on that stage and a few years after meeting john and without my drawing the connection initially i found myself getting involved in active business. I had written a novel that was partly about being gay so i had covered some of the questions that came up. The confidence that i have which is inconsistent, in the resilience that i have came with the stability of that relationship and i dont guess that is the way to get there. I think plenty of people had confidence before they get into relationships and plenty of people who dont want to be in relationships and have great confidence in other kinds of life but for me, the revelation of the family. I spent years, couldnt have a family and i wanted to be true to myself and i wanted to have kids and felt it was an impossible choice faced with. So i would say that was the next step of resilience and resilience has always been my subject. My first was how to be an artist living in a regime in which they were being sent to prison camps and my next book dealt with my mothers illness and death and how she achieved great dignity in that whole experience so i circle back to people say to me about the subject, circle back to that over and over but tell me for you, when you were pregnant with leah did you worry at any point that your relationship would upstage your relationship to luke and haley . Guest weber worried about that but i wasnt. I couldnt imagine anything happen that could get in the way of this powerful connection that i feel to both of them. I couldnt imagine. I hope another spot in my heart would open up and it did. Whenever you think youve got to the depths of the love you are capable of, there is another floor below that and i what they were worried about is they all had to switch to limited space but thats not how love is. It just grows. I wasnt worried about that. What i was worried about was biff would not feel the same connection to leah that i had because i had the experience of growing him so there were lots of things that didnt help with that but i did. So i wasnt worried. First question from the audience, someone wants to know how to the medical Community Treat you when pregnant . The medical community is very broad. What i can say specifically, the providers i worked with, it was a real mix. They were already pretty ready but that doesnt happen by magic. Someone must have done a lot of work at kaiser, oregon, southwest washington to get that ready to receive someone like me so they were pretty ready already and from my own years of advocacy, it was Second Nature for me to advocate for myself, to call ahead and say i am transgender and want to work with a certified Nurse Midwife who is accomplished and worked with a lot of transgender people before and excited to work with me and take the time to figure out who that person is and then come back and you know who it is and that kind of approach i took over and over and over. Of something happens i didnt like, heres what happened and heres why i didnt like it and what i expect moving forward, can you do that. If you cant do that can you find someone who can . Using the canadian politeness passiveaggressive that is how i did both. Really strongly saying heres what i expect from you and i know you can do it and someone getting them ready. Someone who did work at kaiser, if this was you, thank you, doesnt happen. I would say more broadly broadly speaking now having spoken at the society of reproductive medicine and being on the podcast, the american something something, im doing quite a bit of work with the medical community because they care about the data and the science and the data and the science is clear, perfectly healthy for trans people to give birth, they want to know how to shelve it and support it. So things are okay for us. Host youve done a lot of community building, the work you did in the nonprofit sector. It was something you powerfully did in putting together the world of friends you described, the ones who were there that day when you got up on stage and proposed that i felt reading it when you describe your described your medical provider you didnt go into huge detail, it took a lot of focus, energy and determination and skill to find all those people who were pretty unconditionally on your side, not only on your side but on your side and not intimidated by it, who didnt feel i dont know what to say or what to do, you were able to give a sense of here are the issues, where do we go from here, do you feel that was something you did comfortably and continue to do comfortably . Absolutely. Some of it was unconscious so sitting down with an ob gyn to say the stenographer, is that with a call the person who does the ultrasound think, she used the wrong pronoun for me, heres why that was a problem, i have been having those corrective conversations whether im working with someone who is a racist and have a similar conversation, those were done unconsciously but what did i do that worked and can i teach that to other trans people but for calling ahead self advocating, asking allies to advocate on my behalf, all of that was conscious. It is so much harder on the other end once the provider has done or said something inappropriate, so much harder to correct them and invoke culture of medicine it is very much quite a bit about right and wrong, who is right and telling someone i dont like that language, so much use year to say heres what i need from you, can you do it, if not who can and it was all intentional, it was conscious. If i found anyone who didnt feel could shop the way i needed i found someone else. Host you mentioned canada which you clearly have a ties to but we traveled all over the world to all kinds of strange places and we were going skiing in canada and we arrived and the person at passport control said where is this childs mother and i said he doesnt have a mother, he has two fathers, we are two parents, we are both here and she said every child has a mother. I said actually he really doesnt have a mother and it turned into a big discussion and i was horrified and upset for myself because i felt it was an affront to our parenthood but also horrified and upset that it was going on in front of my child and i travel with his birth certificate and she finally stepped down and said okay and into canada we go but i thought in sri lanka, jordan and brazil we didnt have this problem. I feel we could easily having us customs, not being anticanadian but even in the countries that seem the most evolved and canada is more evolved on this stuff than the usa, even there you encounter these moments where your sense of dignity and selfhood are being challenged and you need resilience to get through them and it is more painful once you have kids, once you have kids there is that wish to protect them from the anger and hatred of the world. One of the attendees said prior to now, did you struggle with feeling ownership over your story as Media Outlets tried to sensationalize you and your family, if so, what helped anchor you . Guest struggle with feeling ownership . Fairly early on the process, i decided i only wanted to work with outlets who are not willing to sensationalize, who were willing to tell the truth and i had a lot of experience in storytelling and persuasion, how do we tell complicated stories about family, sexuality, gender and really accessible ways, proactively address the most common questions necessary and how can we use the media to do it. Very leon i realized those Media Outlets really wanted an interview with me and it was easy for me to say sure, if you disable comments when you share it on social media, if you include that im working with a medical team, if you dont call me the first anything ever. I was able to say clearly and i worked with my friend nick adams to say what are my talking points, what are people coming in with, that i can make cnn, vice news and if you dont cover these, if you dont include these things i will not give you an interview and every single one of them said no problem, i dont know if we can do that, let me know when you know what i will decide if i can give you an interviewed. I dont know if we can disable comments, let me know when you find out. That is how i anchored myself as asserted control and whenever people try to come to me like you wont believe what the daily mail is saying, i will believe what they are saying i dont want to believe what they are saying so dont show me that and i tell people on social media do not send me the worst most awful thing, dont send that to me and be like dont worry, i said something dont send it to me at all, i dont need to see that. Thats the other way, being really clear, why what i want to see that. I dont care about that, keep it away so that is how i did that. Do you feel your work for activist organizations, we are going to have to wrap up in a minute, work for activist organizations was deeply informed by the need to figure out your own identity or was the clarity with you to figure out your own identity. It was about very specifically i chose to become an activist because i started to hate gay people. I was acting professionally and bartending in gay bars and being exposed to many people who were drunk and insecure and mean and petty. Nothing against gay people, straight people are that way, bars bring out the worst in people. I felt my love and connection to and for the community curdle and i went to a friend of mine and said you do something gay, it was field staff at the National Task force, he said come and volunteers so it is not about who i was but i wanted to fall back in love with things that made me proud to be clear to begin with. That is beautifully said. I sadly am supposed to wrap things up and bring us legal to what has been a fantastic, stimulating, inspiring, and wonderful conversation. I want to emphasize to all of you out there who have not had a chance to read this book that you have a great joy ahead of you and i as i was reading this book thought if i had been able to read that book when i was trying to get ready to come out just as gaia, not in a complicated way perhaps but when i was getting ready to come out, it would have given me so much hope and you are going to do that for a lot of people. Thank you, a delight to be your friend and colleague and i appreciate you. It was wonderful to host you both this evening and thanks to everyone who joined in tonight and please consider purchasing a copy of the book by visiting us and check out our lineup of other upcoming Virtual Events and look forward to seeing one another at another event soon so thank you for joining us tonight, good night, everyone. American history tv saturdays, explained the people and events the tell the american story. A 50 eastern, the professor of musicology, American Culture at the university of michigan recounts the history of the starspangled banner and how its meaning has evolved. Author and professor le treece donaldson reports on how black soldiers in world war i and the civil war used military service to further civil rights. Extorting the american story, watch American History tv saturdays on cspan2 and find a full schedule on your Program Guide or watch online anytime, cspan. Org history. Live sunday, september 4th on in depth, uc berkeley governmental studies scholar Stephen Hayward will talk about leadership, Ronald Reagans political career and the american conservative movement, he is the author of several books including two volumes of the age of reagan serious, series, greatness and patriotism is not enough