Ep. 15: Brandon Rumaker & the Drawing of Our Own Blueprint

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Jun 2, 2022

This week features Brandon Rumaker, a multidisciplinary queer artist known for creating inclusive spaces through various art forms. They share their poignant journey from a challenging upbringing to discovering their true identity as a non-binary individual. Brandon discusses healing from intergenerational trauma and the importance of community in self-acceptance. They explore the complexities of intimacy, the joy of first romantic experiences, and reflect on how the pandemic sparked deep self-inquiry. Their insights inspire ongoing healing and growth within the queer community.

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ANECDOTE

Childhood Challenges and Early Queer Awareness

Brandon Rumaker experienced profound struggles during childhood, including family instability and sharing a bedroom with their mother.
They navigated early queer feelings amidst trauma and bullying, initially trying to deny their gay identity.

ANECDOTE

Complexity of GSA Leadership

Brandon shared their experience as a peer educator in their high school Gay Straight Alliance.
They found it simultaneously empowering and problematic, feeling both visible and constrained.

INSIGHT

Masking and Queer Identity Friction

Queer individuals often navigate identity by adapting and masking, but this can cause friction when expectations conflict.
Authenticity and acceptance require embracing difference rather than forcing conformity.

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This week’s guest is artist Brandon Rumaker (they/them). In sharing their individual story, Brandon highlights so many gems about the greater collective queer experience. They share about their challenging childhood and adolescence, illustrating the different contortions and acts of assimilation our younger queer selves do to hide marginalized identities we hold. They then share about beginning to come out as gay in high school and about the complicated experience they had as a peer educator with their high school’s Gay Straight Alliance. They go on to share about how so much of their Second Adolescence has been about healing, as it is for all of us. They talk about healing from intergenerational trauma and how this impacted their own relationship to sex and sexuality and queerness, healing from internalized oppressive belief structures, and the healing that comes with gaining those first romantic and sexual experiences missed out on in adolescence. They then share about the pandemic igniting a chapter of meaningful internal work that led to inquiry about their true gender identity, and how they are settling into experiencing life as a continuous healing, unlearning, and growing. They also share about the synchronistic moment they found very podcast at a particularly poignant part of their own journey. This was such a powerful conversation, I’m so excited to invite you into it!

About the guest:
Brandon Rumaker (they/them) is a queer, non-binary, gay multidisciplinary creative who creates communal experiences via theater, film, performance art, event facilitation, creativity coaching and tarot for people to examine identity, expand their self-definition, and find clarity. Most of Brandon's work is informed by queer experiences and questions rigid standards of identity while searching for answers (and receiving more questions in the process) surrounding safety, power dynamics, family structures, technology, mental health, relationships, secret-keeping, creativity, and finding acceptance as an outsider.

They recently developed new work as part of the Spring 2022 Writer's Lab at Exquisite Corpse Co. Their next adventure is participating in the Stillwright Silent Writing Retreat in July 2022. They are also a peer counselor at Identity House, an LGBTQIA+ volunteer service based in NYC.

You can follow Brandon and their work on Instagram: @brandotheoriginal.

For more about Second Adolescence, visit www.secondadolescencepod.com or @secondadolescencepod.

Download episode transcript here.