LGBTQ+ Stories: The Creative Process: Gender, Equality, Gay, Lesbian, Queer, Bisexual, Homosexual, Trans Creatives Talk LGBTQ Rights

"So you're afraid to change cause you don't want people to call you strange. So I sort of get that. But I grew up in a very different situation. I'm actually always surprised that I'm even in communication with my parents at all. I didn't think anybody in my family would want to have anything to do with me cause that was the message I got from the world when I was a kid, that people do not want to have anything to do with queer people other than queer people. That was what I understood, that queer people themselves didn't even want to have anything to do with one another. And so I was putting myself in training, you know, from the age when I figured out that I was into guys, which was very young. When I was in elementary school, I was in training for the day I leave my parents' house, they find out I'm gay and never speak to me again.Now, that's not how things went, but if you have that idea, if you already have the idea that everyone in your life is going to reject you, then that makes it easier to write your trauma because you don't think you have anything to lose. And part of our fear about writing that which is intimate or personal or traumatic has to do with the fact that we are afraid that, yeah, I'll have the good piece of writing, but I lose this really wonderful relationship in my real life, and I don't want to lose my relationships.Moving forward in time, I think it's different for me now. And I think it's easier for me to write into a kind of risk because I have trained myself to a point where I don't think about that risk as I am writing. I put myself in a position where I only have to think about that risk once I am at a point in a draft. And by that time the poem is so good, I don't care about that relationship. But in the beginning, my goal is lines. Oh, that sounds good! Oh, that sounds good. Oh, this is interesting. Oh, I might be able to use this piece. If you take things down to the word, to the fragment, to the line, in some cases, to the sentence, to the paragraph, and you start putting things together, then you can begin to put them together because they go together, not cause they're about you in any particular way."How do you find your voice? As a writer, how do you take what you know and what you believe to share your stories with the world? How do we let young writers know just how powerful they are and that what they do matters?In How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill Pulitzer Prize winning, and National Book Award finalist author Jericho Brown brings together more than 30 acclaimed writers, including the likes of Tayari Jones, Jacqueline Woodson, Natasha Trethewey, among many others, to discuss, dissect, and offer advice and encouragement on the written word. Brown is author of The Tradition, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is the winner of the Whiting Award. Brown’s first book, Please, won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament, won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. His third collection, The Tradition won the Paterson Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His poems have appeared in The Bennington Review, Buzzfeed, Fence, jubilat, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review TIME magazine, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry. He is the director of the Creative Writing Program and a professor at Emory University.www.jerichobrown.comwww.harpercollins.com/products/how-we-do-it-jericho-browndarlene-taylor?variant=40901184684066www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

How do you find your voice? As a writer, how do you take what you know and what you believe to share your stories with the world? How do we let young writers know just how powerful they are and that what they do matters?In How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill Pulitzer Prize winning, and National Book Award finalist author Jericho Brown brings together more than 30 acclaimed writers, including the likes of Tayari Jones, Jacqueline Woodson, Natasha Trethewey, among many others, to discuss, dissect, and offer advice and encouragement on the written word. Brown is author of The Tradition, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is the winner of the Whiting Award. Brown’s first book, Please, won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament, won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. His third collection, The Tradition won the Paterson Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His poems have appeared in The Bennington Review, Buzzfeed, Fence, jubilat, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review TIME magazine, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry. He is the director of the Creative Writing Program and a professor at Emory University."So you're afraid to change cause you don't want people to call you strange. So I sort of get that. But I grew up in a very different situation. I'm actually always surprised that I'm even in communication with my parents at all. I didn't think anybody in my family would want to have anything to do with me cause that was the message I got from the world when I was a kid, that people do not want to have anything to do with queer people other than queer people. That was what I understood, that queer people themselves didn't even want to have anything to do with one another. And so I was putting myself in training, you know, from the age when I figured out that I was into guys, which was very young. When I was in elementary school, I was in training for the day I leave my parents' house, they find out I'm gay and never speak to me again.Now, that's not how things went, but if you have that idea, if you already have the idea that everyone in your life is going to reject you, then that makes it easier to write your trauma because you don't think you have anything to lose. And part of our fear about writing that which is intimate or personal or traumatic has to do with the fact that we are afraid that, yeah, I'll have the good piece of writing, but I lose this really wonderful relationship in my real life, and I don't want to lose my relationships.Moving forward in time, I think it's different for me now. And I think it's easier for me to write into a kind of risk because I have trained myself to a point where I don't think about that risk as I am writing. I put myself in a position where I only have to think about that risk once I am at a point in a draft. And by that time the poem is so good, I don't care about that relationship. But in the beginning, as I was saying to Mia earlier, my goal is lines. Oh, that sounds good! Oh, that sounds good. Oh, this is interesting. Oh, I might be able to use this piece. If you take things down to the word, to the fragment, to the line, in some cases, to the sentence, to the paragraph, and you start putting things together, then you can begin to put them together because they go together, not cause they're about you in any particular way."www.jerichobrown.comwww.harpercollins.com/products/how-we-do-it-jericho-browndarlene-taylor?variant=40901184684066www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Have you ever experienced the feeling of being alone and not having a community? How can we build an atmosphere of inclusion and greater understanding? Brooklyn-based artist Elliot Lee fuses dark pop melodies with edgy vocals and innovative electronic-rock soundscapes to create an unpredictable sound, acting as a voice for the voiceless. Elliot Lee holds an awareness of what music that is unhindered by norms can do for the underrepresented. Elliot’s single "Easy To Be You” is dedicated to the LGBTQIA+ community and was released during PRIDE Month. Elliot confides that the release is, "about struggling with self image and identity expression as a queer person."I started to feel like a person who wasn't really me, in that world of being super feminine. It's definitely a night and day difference from that and when, for a while, I was super masculine and people were gendering me. Looking at me, they'd say I was a boy. Those two different worlds are very different. And how people treated me was like night and day. I definitely got more respect when I was masculine. I'd find from people, especially men, were more willing to listen to me and willing to hang out with me and all that without making it weird.I've always been outspoken, partially because of my autism, I think, because I just don't really have a filter and I find that in a lot of my relationships, I overshare sometimes. And I talk about things that maybe weren't the right thing to talk about to that person. And I've learned to get better at that. But music has been more of an outlet for me to be okay with saying whatever I want to say. And there aren't really boundaries, so I don't have to worry about that anymore.So in my image, I'm just kind of me, which is nice. I get to just be me and not worry about fitting into society or fitting into what people want me to be. I can overshare and I can advocate for things that mean a lot to me, and I can be open about who I am. And since I have this community of people supporting me, then I'm safe doing so."www.elliotlee.com https://song.space/2nldde/song/2477503www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

"So there is a small genetic but significant genetic component to sexual orientation. And it's slightly different in males and females. And interestingly, it's not general. So for example, if I were to have a gay brother, then the chance of me being gay would become higher. But if I have a lesbian sister, that does not change the chance of me being gay or vice versa.If a woman has a lesbian sister, then the chance of her being attracted to women is higher. And if she has a gay brother, it doesn't make any difference at all. So it's not like gayness or straightness is what heritability is acting on. It's attraction to males or attraction to females. And that's a subtle distinction, but I think it's very important.The other thing that is really interesting and fascinating is that there is, from a big meta-analysis that was done by the American Psychological Association, there is really no evidence whatsoever that links events in the family to your probability of being gay or straight or bi. So, well, that's a mystery.If it's not how you were raised by your family and it's only a little bit genetic, what is it? Well, you know, I think you had a hint of some of it when you're talking about hormones. There is some evidence that hormonal exposure in utero matters. So, for example, if biologically female fetuses are exposed to what we call androgens, the class of male hormones, that includes testosterone, that increases the probability that the child who is born and then grows up will be attracted to women when they grow up. Even if that child is biologically female. Likewise, there seems to be something similar for gay men and exposure to estrogen and female sex hormones. That said, there's of course mystery. We're far from understanding in totality how the trait of sexual orientation arrives. And we also know that there are enormous cultural influences. There are societies that have sort of a revered place for homosexual behavior in the Pantheon and others where it is really looked down upon, and that seems to have influence on how this trait develops."David J. Linden is a Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is the author of Unique: The New Science of Human Individuality, The Accidental Mind: How Brain Evolution Has Given Us Love, Memory, Dreams, and God, The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good, and Touch: The Science of the Hand, Heart, and Mind. His laboratory has worked for many years on the cellular substrates of memory storage, recovery of function following brain injury and a few other topics.www.davidlinden.orgwww.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

David J. Linden is a Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is the author of Unique: The New Science of Human Individuality, The Accidental Mind: How Brain Evolution Has Given Us Love, Memory, Dreams, and God, The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good, and Touch: The Science of the Hand, Heart, and Mind. His laboratory has worked for many years on the cellular substrates of memory storage, recovery of function following brain injury and a few other topics."So there is a small genetic but significant genetic component to sexual orientation. And it's slightly different in males and females. And interestingly, it's not general. So for example, if I were to have a gay brother, then the chance of me being gay would become higher. But if I have a lesbian sister, that does not change the chance of me being gay or vice versa.If a woman has a lesbian sister, then the chance of her being attracted to women is higher. And if she has a gay brother, it doesn't make any difference at all. So it's not like gayness or straightness is what heritability is acting on. It's attraction to males or attraction to females. And that's a subtle distinction, but I think it's very important.The other thing that is really interesting and fascinating is that there is, from a big meta-analysis that was done by the American Psychological Association, there is really no evidence whatsoever that links events in the family to your probability of being gay or straight or bi. So, well, that's a mystery.If it's not how you were raised by your family and it's only a little bit genetic, what is it? Well, you know, I think you had a hint of some of it when you're talking about hormones. There is some evidence that hormonal exposure in utero matters. So, for example, if biologically female fetuses are exposed to what we call androgens, the class of male hormones, that includes testosterone, that increases the probability that the child who is born and then grows up will be attracted to women when they grow up. Even if that child is biologically female. Likewise, there seems to be something similar for gay men and exposure to estrogen and female sex hormones. That said, there's of course mystery. We're far from understanding in totality how the trait of sexual orientation arrives. And we also know that there are enormous cultural influences. There are societies that have sort of a revered place for homosexual behavior in the Pantheon and others where it is really looked down upon, and that seems to have influence on how this trait develops."www.davidlinden.orgwww.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

“Creators Ron Fitzgerald and Rolin Jones and Team Downey, this was a sort of a thing that they came up with, but I think what we wanted to explore in season two was really to dig more into this idea of what is it to be a woman with ambition in this era, 3% of attorneys were women in the entire nation in 1933. So that alone is an uphill battle. And then when you add the complication of being queer in this time, and that there are laws against it that you have to make sure every step you take is so calculated and so careful that you don't slip up. It's all based on fear and threat and what happens if something you've established all of a sudden, a woman can come in and do it.When we look at the current political climate, and we look at the way they're trying to erase history, to whitewash history, I think is such a dangerous precedent because we can only learn from our past. We can learn from our mistakes. We can learn from what happened. If we don't tell the truth, where does that leave us? If we can cherry-pick what's important to know and not know, and by an elite view, well, how different are those elite views from the elite view of a hundred years ago? We have to learn from our past. It's the only way to have a future. And I think that to me is essential.”Michael Begler is showrunner, writer, and executive producer of Perry Mason, which debuted as HBO’s most-watched series in nearly two years upon its premiere in June 2020. The critically-acclaimed show stars Emmy-winner Matthew Rhys, Juliet Rylance, Katherine Waterston, Hope Davis. In the second season of the Emmy-nominated series, the scion of a powerful oil family is brutally murdered. Power, social justice, immigration, LGBTQ rights, and what it truly means to be guilty, are among the issues raised by the series.Begler’s previous series include the Peabody Award-winning The Knick, starring Clive Owen, directed by Steven Soderbergh, writing/producing credits also include comedy series The Tony Danza Show, The Jeff Foxworthy Show and the film Big Miracle starring Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski.www.imdb.com/title/tt2077823www.instagram.com/perrymasonhbowww.imdb.com/name/nm0066764www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Michael Begler is showrunner, writer, and executive producer of Perry Mason, which debuted as HBO’s most-watched series in nearly two years upon its premiere in June 2020. The critically-acclaimed show stars Emmy-winner Matthew Rhys, Juliet Rylance, Katherine Waterston, Hope Davis. In the second season of the Emmy-nominated series, the scion of a powerful oil family is brutally murdered. Power, social justice, immigration, LGBTQ rights, and what it truly means to be guilty, are among the issues raised by the series. Begler’s previous series include the Peabody Award-winning The Knick, starring Clive Owen, directed by Steven Soderbergh, writing/producing credits also include comedy series The Tony Danza Show, The Jeff Foxworthy Show and the film Big Miracle starring Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski. “Creators Ron Fitzgerald and Rolin Jones and Team Downey, this was a sort of a thing that they came up with, but I think what we wanted to explore in season two was really to dig more into this idea of what is it to be a woman with ambition in this era, 3% of attorneys were women in the entire nation in 1933. So that alone is an uphill battle. And then when you add the complication of being queer in this time, and that there are laws against it that you have to make sure every step you take is so calculated and so careful that you don't slip up. It's all based on fear and threat and what happens if something you've established all of a sudden, a woman can come in and do it.When we look at the current political climate, and we look at the way they're trying to erase history, to whitewash history, I think is such a dangerous precedent because we can only learn from our past. We can learn from our mistakes. We can learn from what happened. If we don't tell the truth, where does that leave us? If we can cherry-pick what's important to know and not know, and by an elite view, well, how different are those elite views from the elite view of a hundred years ago? We have to learn from our past. It's the only way to have a future. And I think that to me is essential.”www.imdb.com/title/tt2077823www.instagram.com/perrymasonhbowww.imdb.com/name/nm0066764www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

“So after coming out, I went to Mexico, which is where my mother's from, and spent most of my time there interacting in queer communities and queer spaces. And it just made such a huge difference. It was, again, such a flip from what I had seen in the US where so much of queer media and queer representation is mostly white, right? And creates this idea that the queer community automatically means the white community and Thankfully, I think that's shifted a lot. I think shows like Vida that came out recently and just a ton of other movies that are coming out lately and books by Latinx queer writers are really shifting that. I think this generation coming up now will have so much more representation to look at. But for me, I think what was most healing and most necessary at that time was to go back to Mexico and to see for myself what queerness looked like under a Mexican context. How it was different than what I had seen in the States, how it might more feel like home.And also really unpacking the history behind queerness and Latinx culture is how it had always been there, right? This idea that it was invented recently or something that just came out of nowhere is completely false. And really understanding the way indigenous communities in Mexico had interpreted queerness, had words for queerness. There was a word that I learned, patlacheh, which is a Nahuatl word that meant women that were in love with other women. And had been used for a really long time. So learning that history of transgender communities in Oaxaca that were called muxes. Just knowing that there was always terminology for this. These ideas always existed.A lot of writers of color have talked about this. James Baldwin had a similar experience when he went to France, you know, that was the most American he had ever felt. And I think this is the case for a lot of people who have a marginalized identity in the United States.”Amanda E. Machado is a writer, public speaker and facilitator whose work explores how race, gender, sexuality, and power affect the way we travel and experience the outdoors. She has written and facilitated on topics of social justice and adventure and lived in Cape Town, Havana, Mexico City, Berlin, Rio de Janeiro, and other cities. She has been published in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Guardian, New York Times, NPR, and other publications. She is also the founder of Reclaiming Nature Writing, a multi-week online workshop that expands how we tell stories about nature in a way that considers ancestry, colonization, migration trauma, and other issues.www.amandaemachado.comIG www.instagram.com/amandaemachado0www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Amanda E. Machado is a writer, public speaker and facilitator whose work explores how race, gender, sexuality, and power affect the way we travel and experience the outdoors. She has written and facilitated on topics of social justice and adventure and lived in Cape Town, Havana, Mexico City, Berlin, Rio de Janeiro, and other cities. She has been published in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Guardian, New York Times, NPR, and other publications. She is also the founder of Reclaiming Nature Writing, a multi-week online workshop that expands how we tell stories about nature in a way that considers ancestry, colonization, migration trauma, and other issues.“So after coming out, I went to Mexico, which is where my mother's from, and spent most of my time there interacting in queer communities and queer spaces. And it just made such a huge difference. It was, again, such a flip from what I had seen in the US where so much of queer media and queer representation is mostly white, right? And creates this idea that the queer community automatically means the white community and Thankfully, I think that's shifted a lot. I think shows like Vida that came out recently and just a ton of other movies that are coming out lately and books by Latinx queer writers are really shifting that. I think this generation coming up now will have so much more representation to look at. But for me, I think what was most healing and most necessary at that time was to go back to Mexico and to see for myself what queerness looked like under a Mexican context. How it was different than what I had seen in the States, how it might more feel like home.And also really unpacking the history behind queerness and Latinx culture is how it had always been there, right? This idea that it was invented recently or something that just came out of nowhere is completely false. And really understanding the way indigenous communities in Mexico had interpreted queerness, had words for queerness. There was a word that I learned, patlacheh, which is a Nahuatl word that meant women that were in love with other women. And had been used for a really long time. So learning that history of transgender communities in Oaxaca that were called muxes. Just knowing that there was always terminology for this. These ideas always existed.A lot of writers of color have talked about this. James Baldwin had a similar experience when he went to France, you know, that was the most American he had ever felt. And I think this is the case for a lot of people who have a marginalized identity in the United States.”www.amandaemachado.comIG www.instagram.com/amandaemachado0www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

"So when you go into parole, like when you're on your way, your friends will tell you, the ones who have been there, "Don't let them like upset you. Don't let them get you out of your character." And I remember the first time I went up to parole, I survived a police-involved shooting. So I was shot multiple times. And it was my time to go down there and talk about this situation. And I was wondering if I wanted to tell the truth, or if I wanted to say what they want you to say because if you go in there with the truth, it's called "not taking responsibility.” You have to say exactly whatever is on that police report. So that was gonna be hard for me because they was basically trying to make it seem like I knew that these guys were cops, and I just shot this guy because he was a cop. That wasn't true. And I went in there and when I got to them asking me those questions, because they start tearing you down, they start saying, you're a horrible mom. Look what you did. Look, you left your kid. Now your kid is all f***ed up. They go in, they call you all kind of...despicable, worthless, bad mom, you know, horrible person, whatever you are and whatever your thing is, what they attack. And I remember them telling me that I was not taking responsibility. I still had came this far, and I still was choosing to lie and X, Y, and Z. And I remember my eyes started to well up, and I was like, I'm not going to let 'em do it because even crying to them is like manipulation. You can't cry while they're attacking you. Can't talk back, you just kind of have to take it. So I remember just kind of self-absorbing it. And when I walked out, and my eyes was like to the brim, the guard was like, "You did great." She was like, “You're going to get parole. You did a wonderful job."Fury Young and BL Shirelle are the powerhouse team behind Die Jim Crow Records, the first non-profit record label in United States history for currently and formerly incarcerated musicians. DJC Records’ mission is to dismantle stereotypes around race and prison in America by amplifying the voices of our artists.  As a pair, Fury Young and BL Shirelle form a perhaps unlikely, but unstoppable duo.  Young is a Jewish New Yorker who has not experienced incarceration. Shirelle is a queer, Black woman from Philadelphia who has been heavily impacted by police violence and incarceration. The two formed an inseparable bond. As friends, musical collaborators and now Co-Executive Directors of Die Jim Crow Records, their leadership and commitment to values of representation, fairness, passion for the cause, and a love for art, are at the core of DJC.www.diejimcrow.comhttp://www.blshirelle.comhttp://www.furyyoung.comwww.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org