-We respectfully acknowledge that we are
in the homelands of the Coast Salish people
who have been here since time immemorial
and still live here today.
We pay respect to the first peoples who gathered here,
to elders past and present, and to all Indigenous people.
We thank the Coast Salish people
for their generations of stewardship
over our natural resources.
My name is Shawnigan.
I'm Nuuchahnulth, and my people
are from Vancouver Island in Canada.
But I reside here in Seattle with my two boys.
-[ Speaking Native language ] Miriam.
Hello, my name is Miriam.
Choctaw (inaudible), Cherokee (inaudible),
Sac/Fox (inaudible), Ashkenazi (inaudible),
African American (inaudible).
So my family descended from Choctaw, Cherokee,
Sac and Fox, African American, Ashkenazi people,
and I reside here in Seattle with my two kiddos,
Nita and Nashoba.
[ Singing in native language ]
♪ Fathers, daughters, and our grandmas ♪
[ Singing continues ]
-We must pause a second.
-We missed a line. Apologies.
We don't sing nearly as much as we used to because of COVID.
-Yeah, and we're getting a little nervous.
[ Singing resumes ]
-All right, well good evening, good afternoon, good morning.
Greetings to you wherever you may be.
My name is Rosette Royale,
and I'm a writer and a storyteller here in Seattle.
I'm also the Managing Editor of the South Seattle Emerald.
To increase the accessibility of this program,
we encourage speakers to provide a brief verbal/visual
description of themselves and their surroundings.
I'll demonstrate.
My pronouns are he/she/they.
I'm Black.
I have gold glasses.
My dreads are braided into two ponytails.
I'm wearing a blue overshirt with some gold designs
on it and a pink undershirt,
and I've got on pink boots
[ Laughing ]
All right, and I'm delighted to welcome you all here
to our program this evening, "Parenting While Queer."
Two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bi, trans,
queer, plus parents and allies take action.
So thank you for joining us in person and also virtually.
I also want to mention that Jeannie Yandel,
KUOW Special Projects Editor and Creator,
and Co-Host of the podcast
"Battle Tactics for Your Sexist Workplace"
originally planned to moderate this panel.
But she had an emergency and was pulled away.
So I'm going to do my best to fill in.
Now, I am so thrilled to introduce this panel
and to have a great conversation with them all.
But before we do that, I just want to acknowledge people
for sharing their thoughts earlier,
which you have seen up on the screen.
So maybe we'll have more opportunities
to share your thoughts.
When you do, we'll make sure we display them,
and you'll see them again at the end of the night.
So the Discovery Center is excited to host public programs
to complement its current exhibition,
"Designing Motherhood:
Things That Make and Break Our Births."
This exhibition invites us to consider why
and how designs that facilitate reproductive health
have been developed.
It also asks us to think about the social, economic,
and political implications of these designs.
Birth and the culture
that surrounds it affects every living person.
These are not just women's issues.
These are human issues, and they matter to us all.
The curator of exhibitions at the Discovery Center,
Sarah Bloom, says, "In this exhibition,
we really try to talk about motherhood being myriad.
It's really all acts of labor and care.
Whether you have children, you have siblings,
whether you are child-free,
we are all part of this larger system of love
and care of children and families."
For this program,
captioning services are provided by Mirabai Knight.
We will also have American Sign Language,
or ASL, interpretation.
Now for our panelists.
Great, sitting right here on my left is Kristin Leong.
Kristin is the founder of The Family Court Report
and an award-winning multimedia producer.
She is a 2023 Creative Capital awardee,
AIR New Voices Scholar,
international TED-Ed Innovative Educator,
and Seattle Mayor's Arts Award nominee.
She was previously with KUOW Public Radio
and is currently working on a hybrid memoir
exploring America's broken family court system.
Learn more and subscribe to her newsletter for misfits
and unlikely optimists at RockPaperRadio.com.
Love that name.
Kristin is originally from Honolulu,
and she now lives here in Seattle
with her wife, son, and rescue pup Radley.
Welcome, Kristin.
-Thank you.
-All right, next up we have Jess T. Dugan.
Jess is an artist whose work explores identity
through photography, video, and writing.
Jess's work is regularly exhibited internationally,
is in the permanent collections of over 50 museums.
Their monographs include "Look at me like you love me,"
"To Survive on This Shore: Photographs and Interviews
with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults,"
and "Every Breath We Drew."
They are the recipients of a Pollock --
of a Pollock, excuse me --
Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and ICP Infinity Award
and were selected by the Obama White House
as an LGBT Artist Champion of Change.
Hello, Jess.
-Hello, thank you. -Yes.
And here we go with Ari Robbins Greene.
Ari is an attorney, activist, healthcare advocate,
and an advisor to our exhibit, "Designing Motherhood:
Things That Make and Break Our Birth."
Ari was the gestational dad to their oldest child in 2020
and has since become a dad of three.
Ari has firsthand experience
navigating queer/trans reproductive healthcare,
and Ari works to bring visibility for birthing dads.
Howdy, Ari.
-Hello, thanks for the lovely introduction.
-Last, but this is certainly by no means least,
we have Jessi Allen-Garibaldi.
Jessi is a Two-spirit -- twin spirit --
Afro-Indigenous Blackfoot first-time parent
of a one-and-a-half year-old.
They have been married to their wife for seven years
and have been a huge family
and community educator for ten years.
They obtained a Master's degree in Health Education
with a concentration in Community Health
from the University of New Mexico,
and they've worked with youth
and families experiencing homelessness,
immigrant and refugee communities,
and in early childhood development
with babies and young children.
They currently work at the Native Family Learning Lodge,
serving Indigenous families providing free,
Indigenous-centered childcare for children
from newborn to five-year-olds.
Hi, Jessi.
-Oki, hello. -Hello, hello, hello.
All right, so just a reminder to audience
members in-person and online.
This is a space where hate speech and harmful communication
is not tolerated -- will not be tolerated.
So please refer to our standards of respect
posted around Discovery Center,
and we will put a link in the Chat.
Noncompliance can result in the removal of any person
from the Discovery Center who disregards this commitment.
Well-said, thank you.
It's so great to have children here,
to have the reality of kids here,
while we're having this conversation
about parenting while queer.
All right, so let's get started by having each of our panelists
say a little bit about their work.
And if you can,
maybe have a short visual description as well.
All right, how about we start with you?
-Okay, great, I'm Kristin Leong.
I am a half-white/half-Chinese woman.
I'm wearing a very bright orange blazer
and not pink shoes but animal-print black today.
And I am -- my current work is focused
on writing about our family court system.
-Fantastic. Jess?
-Hello, everyone.
My name is Jess T. Dugan.
My pronouns are they/them.
I also love having children here.
It's very sweet.
A visual description -- I am white.
I have short dark hair.
I'm wearing dark glasses.
I am also wearing bright orange pants
and a blue shirt with stars and a gray jacket
and black shoes that are not as flashy as Rosette's.
My work -- I work as an artist,
and I work primarily with photography.
But I also work in video and writing,
and my work looks at identity and,
in particular, I look at a lot around gender and sexuality.
I have a current body of work photographing my family,
which includes my five-year-old daughter, Eleanor.
-Great. Ari?
-My name is Ari Robbins Greene.
It's really great to be here with these wonderful panelists.
So first I describe myself?
Okay, so I'm a white Ashkenazi Jewish
trans queer guy who most people think
is just like a gay dude, which is fine.
I have a hat on because I have little hair on the top,
which is fine too, and a big, fluffy beard
and jeans and my floral dress shirt
which, as a man, I love wearing floral.
I never felt like I could wear floral
when I identified as a woman.
So I feel very empowered and very affirmed in my floral,
and that's how I'm feeling and that's what I'm wearing.
My kiddo, my oldest kid,
was like totally freaked about your pink boots
and wears pink/purple head to toe every day only.
My work -- so currently my current work is I'm an attorney,
and I do class actions for workers
who experience wage theft --
work that may not immediately seem connected
for some people to parenting,
but I promise you it most certainly is.
Parents work, and parents need support at work
to take care of their children.
So I find it's very, very connected.
In the past, I've done policy work.
Most significantly, I worked on a bill
called the Gender-Affirming Treatment Act
that is now the law in Washington state
which prohibits discrimination in health care
against trans folks
who are seeking gendering-affirming care.
Insurance companies cannot claim
that those treatments are cosmetic in Washington State.
So that's a little bit about me, thank you.
-Thank you.
All right, Jessi.
-[ Speaking native language ] Jessi.
So hello, friends and relatives.
My name is Jessi.
I am wearing -- my hair is in locks.
I would say it looks like a rope-like texture,
but it feels like sheep's wool, a long ponytail down my back.
I'm wearing a bandana.
It's red and blue.
I have a matching ribbon shirt to go with it.
There's a print on the side for my shoulders
and my hips with a ribbon, tan pants,
and some boots that I put on today.
I have been in service of children --
that's my whole life's work.
Currently, I'm working for Native Family Learning Lodge,
which is very special and close to my heart
because it was created by Native families for Native families.
So we provide free childcare service
for our kids that is culturally-centered
around Indigenous cultures and traditions.
I am a Native African American, Afro-Indigenous Black Indian.
And I identify as that.
I am a Two-spirit.
It's commonly called "twin-spirit"
in the Indigenous culture,
but my elder taught me it was twin-spirit.
More specifically, it's called a "winkte."
That's just another gender,
not male or female or anything in-between
but just kind of on the spectrum.
So I'm happy to be here, thank you.
-Yes, I'm happy you're all here.
So we have some questions,
but really this might kind of turn into some sort of dialogue
where we're all just like talking to each other
about what happens, all right?
So we're going to see where we go, all right?
So people become parents in all kinds of ways, right?
Regardless of your orientation, everyone has a journey.
So I would love to hear about your journeys to parenthood.
I'm going to mix up the order of things,
so I'm going to start with Ari.
-Well, thank you.
So awesome question --
I became a parent three different times,
and I became a parent in I consider three different ways,
a different way each time.
For my first kid, I gave birth to my first kid in 2020.
I got pregnant by laying on my friend's bathroom floor
and doing self-insemination with a syringe.
That was my first pregnancy.
That's my first kiddo.
Definitely being a new parent in the pandemic here
was really challenging
but also I feel like something that connects me and bonds me
to other parents who are newer parents in the COVID world.
Then my second kiddo, my partner gave birth to my second kid.
They have the same genetic other component from the same person,
and so I'm not genetically related to that child.
And then my most recent child is now six weeks old,
just born, and my wife gave birth to that child.
That child was a -- I did IVF, and I had my eggs harvested,
and we created an embryo also
with the same other genetic component
as my prior two children.
And my wife gave birth to that child
that was an embryo that was created from my egg,
which was especially powerful and significant.
Each one of my children really have been --
the way that they came to this world
was powerful and significant.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share that
because so often people just look at you,
and they make an assumption about
how your family came to be.
So many people, the assumption is just not true.
I love and am proud of sort of my family story
and how all my children came to be in this world,
so thank you.
-That's beautiful.
All right, Jessi, how about you --
your pathway to parenthood, maybe it was pathways?
-Oh okay, thank you.
It was a long journey for us.
When I first got together with my partner, now wife,
we knew that we wanted to have kids.
So we started saving right away.
We ended up getting pregnant after --
yeah, it took a little bit of time.
It took a little bit of time to find the right donor
and to navigate the situation because being
in a same-sex relationship and trying to have a kid,
it's not like an intimate process.
There's a lot of moving pieces involved.
So once we figured that out,
we ended up getting pregnant with our first child
May of 2021, and she came February 2022.
We are a two-womb relationship,
and so for our next child,
I'm also planning on carrying.
So I'm the non-gestational parent to our first child
but plan on carrying our second child.
-Okay, Kristin?
-I had my son as a single mom.
He's now 15-and-a-half years old.
We, my son and I, were very, very lucky to meet the woman
who is now my wife when he was 6, barely 7 years old.
So we like to think -- we were married about four years ago.
So we like to think that my son and I --
we got to have Carrie join our little family.
So it's been a wonderful ride,
being a single parent for much of my son's babyhood
and toddlerhood and younger years
and then being able to experience coparenting
with my wife for the sort of second half of his life.
-And, Jess? -I love hearing these stories.
Thank you, everyone.
I was reflecting on sort of the origins
of wanting to be a parent.
I was a very masculine-presenting child,
so I did not grow up thinking I wanted to have kids.
And no one in my orbit assumed I would have kids.
I feel like I didn't receive the typical messages
around becoming a mother, becoming a parent.
Then at some point in my early 20s,
I realized I was open to the idea and somewhat interested.
Then I met my partner Vanessa when I was 26 and she was 34.
So it kind of fast-tracked -- and she really wanted to carry,
so it fast-tracked that process.
As soon as we had reliable health insurance,
we started the process.
We had a kind of long process.
We originally had a non-donor
and got fairly far down that path.
Then, that changed and we found an anonymous donor
and began that process.
I feel like it's important to share --
oh --
because it's not often talked about,
but we also had experience of miscarriage along our journey.
And then originally Eleanor was born in 2018.
So she and I are not biologically-related.
-[ Chuckling ]
All right, so there could be
so many assumptions about parenthood.
And, you know,
here we are talking about being queer parents.
I wonder what kind of assumptions
you may have had to deal with in your journey to parenthood
and even now as a parent.
So how about we start with Jess.
-That's a great question.
Ari and I were kind of getting into some of this
before the panel, and I was like,
"Let me not ask you all my questions before the panel."
But I think I had some anxiety interfacing
with the medical system as a queer person
and seeking fertility treatment and going through that process,
which I think everyone has a journey around that.
And me being visibly queer and masculine-presenting,
I had some worries about that.
Luckily, we found a supportive team.
I think what I'm thinking about more now
is my role as a parent who identifies as nonbinary --
I mean, one of the things I had to figure out
was what my daughter was going to call me.
None of the existing names felt appropriate.
So we came up with "Pari,"
which is P-a-r-i, which is short for "parent."
My kiddo just started kindergarten,
so I'm in this phase of intensely
explaining this to people.
I think for me one thing that I love about being a queer parent
is I get to define everything.
But it is this kind of constant --
I'm finding I'm constantly explaining in an effort
to be one step ahead of my daughter
so that she doesn't have to explain that for me.
-Do you mean explaining to your daughter
or explaining to others?
-No, explaining to others on her behalf, yeah.
-All right, Ari.
Jess said you two were having a little conversation
about it earlier.
You talked about three different pathways to parenthood,
three different experiences of it.
So what were some of the assumptions
that you experienced along the way?
We've had some conversations,
so you've mentioned some of this to me before.
-Yeah, I think we're using the word "assumption,"
and that definitely fits.
But the way I think about it is dominant culture
has this sort of default for a lot of types of identities
and a lot of experiences.
There's sort of one that's thought about
and maybe some nuance to the one.
But to not be thought of as a default parent --
that really well describes my experience.
As a queer person, as a trans person,
I am not considered in the default category.
I am sort of like a "special situation."
If I'm a parent, it's like kind of an extra special situation.
But it's not actually -- it's like just my body did it.
That's how I wanted to be a parent,
and I did it with the body.
There it is.
That's my baby, I'm a parent.
A lot of people become parents,
like we're saying, through all different means,
all different times in their lives in all different ways.
There's no default.
The default is that everybody is doing it
a little bit differently.
A lot of the assumptions that I grapple with and face,
and have faced along the way,
are just about me being invisible
and my parent experience being invisible
and people not seeing me as a potential gestational parent.
So I go into spaces for parents,
spaces for gestating parents commonly in our culture
are referred to as "mothers," and "moms," and "women."
I'm not considered among them, and their brain won't allow me
to immediately be in their cohort.
And that's alienating because I feel so --
how did you say it about being like an unlikely-
-Unlikely optimist. -I'm an unlikely optimist.
It's really hard because I forgive everyone for not knowing
that I did this that they did -- that we did this.
And it's like that part of my experience
just isn't on the surface.
And I want to bring it to the surface
and at the same time it's this negotiation about safety,
and that's too bad too.
But that's part of what I think we were talking
about a little bit and sort of just the assumptions that have
impacted me along my journey being a newer parent.
-Ari, can I add a question onto that?
So your children are all really young.
You have three under three -- three under four?
-Three under three-and-a-half. -Yes, beautiful house!
So you're thinking about how the public is sort of reflecting
on what kind of parent they think you could be.
Do your kids -- do you think they have a sense
that they came into the world differently?
-They don't know it's different.
I'm redefining their default.
I'm filling in their blanks in our own narrative,
and that's the way that we have any power
to reclaim I think really --
is we get to redo, we get to remap.
And probably we're doing some things wrong,
but hopefully we're filling in the right messages.
My kids will tell you straight up, like,
"I was in Dada, this kiddo was in in Mama,
and then that kiddo is..."
And my kids know what an embryo is.
There's great resources out there, yeah.
-All right, great question, Kristin.
So here's one.
She's talking about sort of this default narrative.
So what assumptions and default narratives
did you experience raising a young one
and then being a single mom for a while?
-Yeah, well, I was thinking more actually
of our present-day life.
So my wife is much more masculine-presenting,
and I have long hair.
I like pointy shoes.
I think people -- we were just talking recently
about like what do you think other people don't know
about you that only I know about you?
And I was thinking about how people probably look at us
at our son's Little League games
or like going to curriculum night and those kinds of things.
I think people make assumptions
about what kind of roles my wife and I play
based on our gender presentation.
And I think what people would be very surprised to know
is she is very much like a traditional mom.
She's the one that can do the small talk with other parents
and plan out the hangs for the kids, you know?
And it's just --
I think it's interesting in a school environment
where our son is older of course.
He's in high school now.
But I think in these like suburban areas
where he has grown up,
we might be the only queer couple/queer parents
in the room.
So I think you can see people making sense of us in a way
that makes sense to them that isn't necessarily our truth.
-Thank you.
All right, Jessi, assumptions and default narrative --
I kind of like this theme.
I mean, how have you -- what's been your experience
of either or both of these concepts?
-Yeah, I am aware that as I walk through the world
people perceive me as a more masculine body and person.
And I feel like they assume that that is the role
that I kind of take on.
But I feel like in reality with the relationship with my wife
is that there are things that need to get done,
and so how do we create a balance
to get those things done.
It's not like, "You fit into this gender role,
so you're in the kitchen
and you're taking care of the kids,"
or "You take out the trash," or anything like that.
It's like these are things that we need to get done,
and that plays a role in every aspect of our life.
So whether it's at home or whether it's in ceremony
or in the communities,
what are the things that we need to get done
and what can we do together to achieve it?
So it's more like teamwork, kind of being on the same page.
-Okay, so now I have some individual questions for folks.
Jess, start with you.
So you're a photographer,
and you have such a great photo in this exhibit, right?
And it's several -- two days after, I think,
your child Eleanor was born.
I wonder if you could talk about what it means
to have this picture of like queer parents in this exhibit,
Designing Motherhood -- like what's the meaning of that
to you and the feeling of that for you.
-Yeah, absolutely, thank you.
Before I answer that, I have to say
that what you said really resonates with me
because as the more masculine parent,
I do a lot of the mothering.
And it's so fascinating to see all of those dynamics play out
and assumptions that other people make.
But anyway, yes, I have a photograph of Vanessa
and I holding Eleanor
when she was two days old in the hospital.
My work as a whole really centers
around issues of representation.
I'm really passionate about creating representations
of queer lives and queer experiences,
but also doing that from a very subjective point of view.
The other thing I'm really passionate about
is the power of personal storytelling.
So a lot of my photographs and my work
come from my own life and experience,
and they always have -- and I had a long-term project
photographing my family before Eleanor was born.
Then when she was born, I started making pictures of her
because it just felt so natural --
like this is what I'm going through, this is my life.
And I very quickly realized just how few representations of queer
families there are and especially queer parenting,
especially butch parenting or transmasculine parenting.
I realized very quickly that a lot of people
had literally never seen a picture of someone
who looks like me holding a baby or pushing a stroller --
whatever it may be.
So I've really doubled down on being passionate
about telling those stories.
Interestingly, I made that picture in the hospital.
I actually didn't take my camera at all
because I chose to be present as a parent
and not as a photographer, which is an ongoing dilemma.
But then of course I realized --
I don't know how it was everyone else,
but I suddenly had this massive amount of time
in the hospital where Eleanor was sleeping.
So I asked someone to bring me my camera,
and I made that portrait.
I originally intended to just photograph Vanessa.
And after I made that picture, she said,
"You should make one too."
So we made this diptych of us holding Eleanor.
And at least in my own practice and in exhibitions like that,
I feel like it's becoming a kind of significant photograph
in that there just aren't many like it.
Another thing I talked about with the exhibition curator
was just simply depicting a representation of a C-section
and immediately post birth and what that moment looks like.
Our first night in the hospital was very traumatic.
We had a homophobic nurse who denied bringing medication,
and neither of us slept.
So that photograph was made after 48 hours of having slept.
So I wanted to capture the beautiful parts
but also just the reality of that experience.
-All right, so you talk about capturing
the reality of experience.
Ari had some experience with reality television.
Ari was on My Pregnant Husband when you were pregnant.
So what was that experience like to do that show?
And then when you tell this story,
I have something to add.
But you go ahead.
-Well, it was totally wild.
But I will say that I'm a huge reality TV fan,
so that helps going into it.
When I started out my pregnancy journey,
wanting to get pregnant as a dude, I was struck.
And I don't know why I was struck,
but there was not any trans guys out there getting pregnant
and talking about it on the Internet.
And I had a lot of pretty simple questions
that a lot of health care providers, really good ones,
didn't feel comfortable answering
because there wasn't studies and information and data
about how I should go about this process,
which to me was something I personally always wanted to do
and just kind of never thought anything otherwise.
And I knew that I still had my uterus.
I had been on hormones for a while
but nothing had happened to my uterus.
It was still there.
So I didn't know what to do next.
Kind of like, "Here I am, got that one.
It's here.
I don't know if it works.
I want to try it out."
And just nowhere to go --
it just felt like then there was just silence
and so much information about how to get pregnant
from a perspective of a non-trans person.
I just felt like I needed to document my experience
of learning about how to do this as a trans person --
just me, just my experience,
because there was just such little representation
and little information out there.
So for me, it was really about like,
"I need to get this information just out while I'm learning it."
I made a couple of YouTube videos with my friend
and put them online,
and they got quite a bit of traction.
I didn't go viral, but people were watching them.
And that felt really, really good to just be there
with my queer community
my expansive queer community.
Then I got initially approached by Courtney Cox.
I'll say Friends, in my personal opinion, it doesn't stand up.
Like I'll give you that, today it doesn't stand up.
I'm not one of those.
But Courtney Cox was my first childhood crush.
So Courtney Cox approached me and asked me to be involved
with some sort of special that would only go on Facebook.
It was like very bizarre.
It was ten minutes long, but you had to film it yourself.
And I was like, "Absolutely, I'll do whatever you want.
Can Courtney Cox come to my house?"
And tried to film it myself,
and that turned out to be way harder than I thought.
So I stopped.
Then, I was approached by somebody
who was like in production for that show
but also on a different show who worked with TLC.
It was like, "Oh, we have this other family.
They were on Say Yes to the Dress.
The guy is trans -- oh, and there's a woman
in the relationship too who's also trans.
They are having a baby, and they're like activists.
Like this is their jam, and they want this show
but they need another couple for this show.
I was like,
"Well, I'll definitely be your other couple.
That sounds fantastic, sign me up."
And it was just really wild.
I mean, they came to my house and watched what I did.
They were fascinated with the milk.
Like that was really weird to me, actually --
was how much time they spent filming how --
because we got donated breast milk.
And I think as little as people know about trans bodies
and queer bodies and queer people
and making babies and all that stuff,
they know even less about breast milk, like really.
Or like formula or like how anybody feeds babies.
The crew was fascinated.
They were like, "You're getting breastmilk,
but it's not in your boob.
This is amazing!"
I was like, "Actually, people have been doing this
since we've existed.
This is a thing that exists in a lot of cultures
and really should be much more present in our dominant culture.
Again, the default is to sanitize
and keep that kind of stuff away from everybody.
So that was actually really striking -- was how much --
while I was going through this, I was like
I want to make sure everybody knows
about my unique special experience
so for other trans people
they can maybe feel a little less scared
or have someone to reach out to or something like that.
But then really it was like people just don't know anything
about birth or reproductive health at all.
It doesn't matter if you're trans or not.
They just really -- all this stuff is a real mystery
and probably because of all sorts of reasons --
sexism and erasing these cultural experiences
that people have passed on for generations and generations
and getting too far away from them.
But, yeah, so the whole experience was totally wild.
I am really glad I did it, even though it was really hard
to have people up in my personal space
while I was going through that challenging but beautiful time.
-Thank you.
I just want to say that when I first learned about Ari,
I was like, oh, I should do a little research.
Then I found this video about Ari on My Pregnant Husband.
And then I discovered that Ari's OB-GYN
is my landlord.
[ Laughter ]
-She's incredible.
-Yeah, she's pretty great,
so that was really a great discovery.
I love that kind of discovery.
-I love that too. -Okay so now, Jessi,
we're talking about representation
and sort of what people think and these assumptions.
I wonder if you could talk a little bit
about what your experience is of being a parent
who identifies as Two-spirit/twin-spirit/winkte.
What does that mean for you and to you?
-I feel like representation is key.
I've worked in Seattle public schools, and kids --
they look up to people who look like them.
So my existence in the world is something that is valuable.
Also, having a young child
and kind of being out in the community
needs to be protected as well.
I had this experience -- okay,
it's kind of these two experiences.
I was at the park.
So it was like me and my wife and the baby were at the park,
and my wife had noticed this.
I usually, if it's not like my hoop
or my tioshba, if I'm not with my people,
I kind of don't notice what's going on around me.
So anyway, I'm at the park with the baby,
and my wife notices
that there's this family in the male-presenting --
and they had a little kid with them.
And the male-presenting parent was kind of like,
"Oh, don't play with them," or something to that effect.
And as I was walking to the car, it just made me think of --
like I realize being a Black person,
a Black Indigenous person,
I'm going to have to have certain conversations
with my daughter being a Brown/Black child.
But I didn't realize that until that moment, it's like,
oh, I'm eventually going to have to have these conversations
about us being a same-sex family and kind of what that means.
It just didn't really click with me.
So that happened a couple months ago.
Then recently, like two weeks ago, I was at the park.
It was just me and the baby, and I was just talking it up
with another parent who had a daughter.
So my daughter really likes older kids.
She just looks up to them, they're just amazing.
So her and this little kid --
they're just having just a great time.
My daughter's in the bucket seat,
the little girl is pushing her,
they're climbing things together and having fun.
I'm talking it up with the parent,
but I realize that subconsciously I intentionally
did not mention my wife or mommy or something like that
because I had this moment of just I don't want --
I would hate to say something to kind of like out my child
and then she gets ripped away from the situation.
My wife has read that at 18 months old,
they start feeling guilt and shame and stuff,
like going in the corner
and like going to the bathroom or something like.
So for me, it's just kind of reflecting on these situations.
I'm kind of -- I'm definitely the newest parent.
You all have way more experience than me.
But just realizing that there's other conversations
other than kind of like race that
I'm going to have to eventually talk to my daughter about.
So, yeah, but that's kind of been my experience.
-All right, thank you.
We just have a few more moments.
I don't know if there's anyone out here
who might have a question.
We're going to get a microphone to you, hold on one second.
Exactly, there we go.
Good evening, everybody.
First of all, first expression --
I've never heard the expression "gestational parents."
I speak a bunch of languages, my fault.
Love it.
For you in particular, I love that.
I love that for me because I wasn't.
But I just love that expression.
I wanted to share as part of a queer couple with a kid,
the one that's running around,
there are other stories out there that are shiny and happy.
I seem to keep coming across them.
So the parent thing of telling kids --
I've had the park thing where a kid comes up to you
and is like, "Oh, so who are you?"
And I'm like, "Well, that's here mommy and I'm her mama."
And she's like, "Oh my gosh, she has two moms,
that's amazing!"
So that will happen too is what I wanted to share.
And I'm just really glad
that I got to listen to all of you today.
It's really interesting stuff.
-Thank you, that was great.
I think we may have a question from the virtual world?
Yes, fantastic.
-Someone wanted to hear a little bit from Kristin
about the family reports and the work that you're doing.
-Oh sure, The Family Court Report --
so I was actually thinking, Jessi,
I was hearing that moment, I was feeling that moment
of like we all might be comfortable on our journeys
and have come to where we are as adults to have children
and to bring them into our queer families.
But then we have kids,
and there's like this other layer
of not going back into the closet
but like how do I protect my child?
And if that means I have to step back,
we'll do anything for our kids.
Anyone would do anything for their child, right?
I think we've all had those moments of being like,
do I need to hide for a moment to give my child this playdate,
to give my child this interaction?
I was thinking about that in terms of family court.
When my son was little --
it's a long story but I came out twice.
I came out at 19, and then I went back in the closet.
And then had a baby and thought, "What this child doesn't need --
this child has a single mom who's a bartender by night
and a grad student by day.
What this child doesn't also need is a gay parent."
Her or his wife is going to bring us
the intersection of race
and gender identity and sexual orientation.
My family isn't straight.
But he has a lot that he's going to have to understand
about our family.
I don't want to put that on him too.
I was like, what difference does it make?
I'm single anyway.
People don't need to know.
In family court -- and much of the book
hopes to sort of shed light on how powerful it is
to just love our children openly as our full selves.
I remember feeling in court that I had to hide who I was
just to get a fair shot in front of these judges.
Back then when my son was little,
I was much more in a different place on that Kinsey scale.
I was much more sort of gender-neutral presenting.
I remember at one point I couldn't take it anymore --
having to perform this role of whatever the ideal mother
was supposed to be for family court professionals.
I was like, I just can't take it anymore --
like doing this costume.
And I cut off all my hair again.
It was like very college style
although I was well past college.
And it was like coming out of the closet again.
It was like this breath of fresh air to be like, you know what,
these judges/this system has to see how I love my son.
They have to see the work that I do for this community.
And if half my head being shaved and wearing pants
and a button-up shirt to court is going to affect that,
it's like I can't care for this child in any other way anymore
except to just be myself out loud.
So part of the work
that I'm doing with The Family Court Report
is looking at all the different ways
that the system is really
putting mothers and children in danger
because of a basic misunderstanding
and dismissal of domestic violence,
but also looking at how queer families are fighting in court
and the obstacles that they're facing
because of their gender expression,
because of the gender of their spouse,
all those kinds of things.
-Thank you, that was beautiful.
Now this parent over here
mentioned something about the "happy things" that will happen.
You said the word "love."
So I wonder if each of you can tell me one thing you love
about your child and/or children.
-I don't know if any of us can just say one.
-Well, I know, but I realize we don't have a lot of time.
I mean I could have said 100,
but I figured you could have them.
But you know, so whatever you would like to say
that you love about your child.
How about that?
-Okay. -And you spoke first,
so take it away.
-Oh my goodness, that's a big one.
Well, first to the park points.
I get this all the time because I get little kids
coming up, like, "Are you her dad?"
And I will say that other kids totally get it.
Kids are like, "Oh, cool," and run away.
It's the parents that are sometimes challenging.
Let's see, what do I love about my kid?
I mean, I think she's the most magical being on the planet.
I know we all think that, and so I have no --
I'm not naive.
I don't really think she's more magical than anyone else.
But to me, she's the most magical being on the planet,
and I just love learning who she is and spending time with her.
She's five, so I feel like the personality is just exploding.
I also love the way parenthood has completely changed me
and my relation to the world.
So I feel like she's a gift every day
and also a gift of presence.
I've been thinking recently how a child keeps you
in the moment in this really beautiful way.
-All right, Kristin? -I was like,
my child is the only teenager on this panel.
I want to check in with all of you in about ten years.
[ Laughter ]
You know what?
My kid is genuinely really funny, really funny.
My wife and I like to say we have the best roommate.
He's like this giant creature that lives with us.
He's like a million feet tall,
and he has no idea how big and muscley he is.
He still thinks he's a little kid.
But he is genuinely really funny
and makes us laugh all the time --
when he's not making us mad, because he is a teenager.
[ Laughter ]
-Okay, Jessi.
-I love the light that my child exudes.
I love that she is just friendly and literally talks
to everyone walking down -- like, "Hi, hi!"
And people aren't expecting this little person to say --
even if she sees someone across the street,
she will project her voice, "Hi, hi!"
And if they're walking away, "Bye!"
So I just love that about her.
I feel like because we had such a long journey having a child,
I spent a lot of time thinking about kind of like
what kind of parent that I wanted to be.
And just the intentionality behind you
are born exactly how you are supposed to be.
So I want to be intentional about nurturing that
and not stifling it with my perceptions of things.
So she was born this light.
My hope or my prayer for her
is that when she does become a teenager,
that she still does exude this light to the world
because it's beautiful.
-Sounds beautiful. Ari?
-Having seen your child, I can concur that's all correct, yes.
[ Laughter ]
I personally struggle a lot --
I don't know if this is as a queer person
or maybe just as a person in this world --
with feeling disconnected and wanting more connection
and wanting to be in a closer, tighter community all the time
and feeling like so pulled away from community all the time
by our circumstances
and just the grind with trying to survive.
My kids -- because there's so many of them --
they have what my wife calls "a kid culture."
And it is just so natural how they connect with each other
and how they naturally want to be in community together
and with other children.
Like this friendliness -- but even when they're shy,
they're sort of curious and they want to be close.
And they are just like --
they're comfortable being in community
in this way that I feel like
I've been unfortunately disconnected from and
so desperately want to get back to.
So I think that's my -- because I have three,
I have to say one thing about all three of them.
It's kind of not fair.
So if I have to say one about all three of them,
that's what they all
three together really exemplify that I love.
-I want to thank Jessi, Ari, Jess,
Kristin for just being so open about your experiences
and being willing to share them.
You're talking about community,
but I feel like there's just a great little sense of community
that's formed up here on this stage in this time.
So thank you for bringing
that gift to us and sharing it
and helping us take it out into
the world with us when we go.