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 UniversityMedical 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