Equality Arizona

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Channel • 3 Shows

Education

Education

Updated Semimonthly
Society & Culture

Society & Culture

Updated Weekly
Society & Culture

Society & Culture

Updated Weekly

03/04/2023

Religion and LGBTQ+ Life

We’re back with another episode of Ask Smart People Smart Questions, our show about big ideas and the big issues that affect the LGBTQ+ community. This conversation, featuring guest panelists Taylor Kerby and Reverend Hannah Adair Bonner was recorded live at the Tempe Public Library on February 22, 2023. Sign up to attend our next event on March 22, featuring a panel discussion on LGBTQ+ experiences in Arizona’s prisons and jails. Reading & Resource List * Scrupulous: My Obsessive Compulsion for God (Taylor Kerby) * Reverend Neichelle Guidry on the story of Jephthah * Queer Mormon Theology (Blair Ostler) * Our Bible App * Queer Virtue (Rev Elizabeth M. Edman) * By Common Consent Press * Mystic Soul Project * Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (Kristin Kobes Du Mez) * God and the Gay Christian (Matthew Vines) * Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate (Justin Lee) Full Transcript To Come This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit equalityarizona.substack.com

03/04/2023

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1h 14m
06/01/2023

Arizona Equals Shae

On today’s episode of the Arizona Equals Conversation, we’re joined by Shae from Arizona Trans Together for a wide-ranging discussion about mutual aid and community building, hormone therapy and its gatekeepers, and the overlaps between neurodivergent and trans communities. Links * Arizona Equals Celia * Arizona Equals Jesse & Gabe * Brick Road Coffee * AZTYPO * one-n-ten * Erin’s Informed Consent HRT Map Full Transcript Jeanne From Equality Arizona, you're listening to the Arizona Equals Conversation. I'm Jeanne Woodbury. I'm the interim executive director at Equality Arizona, and each week on the show I talk with a queer person living in Arizona about their story and their communities. Today's guest, Shae, is a friend of mine and a friend of Equality Arizona. She's also one of the founders, along with Celia, who we spoke to on a previous episode of the podcast, of a group called Arizona Trans Together, which meets at Brick Road Coffee every Friday night. As someone who grew up in Tempe and didn't have the first idea of how to find trans community, I'm constantly amazed at what that community has grown to be in honestly a really short amount of time. Shae dedicates a lot of her time to community building and to mutual aid, and it was really nice to get to know her a little bit better through this conversation. I feel like something I should preface going into this is that at a lot of points it really is a trans conversation for trans people, and we even recognized that at the time, but it was special for me and it's really cool to have that recorded here for people to listen to because it's unique and it's important and poorly understood. Something else really special was getting to reflect on both of our first days on hormones, and something that makes that extra special is, even though we recorded this conversation almost a month ago, we're releasing it on June 1st, which is actually the fifth anniversary of the first day I started taking hormones. And so that's pretty exciting for me, and it's neat how the timing lined up for this. It's also the first day of Pride Month, and that means it's a great time to support organizations like Equality Arizona and organizations like AZTYPO and one-n-ten that Shae mentions later in the interview. And beyond supporting nonprofit organizations like us, it's a time to invest in community, to invest in mutual aid and direct support. We gotta be there for each other. All right, let's roll the tape. Shae Hey everyone, my name is Shae. My pronouns are she or they. I don't have an official job, but I do a lot of organizing stuff with EQAZ on occasion and with something that I helped start and I help organize called Arizona Trans Together. It's a nice little community building project we've been doing for going on eight months now. Started with like 10 people and it's blown up to nearly 200. Meet up at Brick Road Coffee every Friday, 6 to 10 p.m. It's been a lot of fun. Jeanne Yeah, I noticed that there's been some nights at Brick Road where it's just full to the door and then people are out into the street basically. It's definitely something that has grown a lot in a short amount of time. Shae Yeah, it's nuts. I think on Trans Day of Visibility we had 45 people there all at once. And that's like basically at capacity for Brick Road Coffee. It's a really small space. Jeanne Yeah, it's a nice sized coffee shop, but it doesn't handle, you know, 100 people. Shae It really doesn't. I love the space though, don't get me wrong. Jeanne Yeah, I know, I love Brick Road, and that's where the group kind of got started, right? Shae Mm-hmm. It started with Celia, who was actually on this podcast a while back, and myself, we started going to the Queerizona meetups on Wednesdays. And then we started meeting other trans people there, and we decided to make a group chat on Discord. And then as soon as we hit the max limit, 10 people, we were like, "Hey, what if we start doing our own thing? And why don't we just meet up on Fridays?" 'Cause trans people desperately need their own community space. It's not that queer people in general are transphobic or anything. However, sometimes as a trans person, you have to deal with cis nonsense. And that's a lot of emotional labor. Jeanne Yeah, it is. I think I wanna dive into that a little bit. Not necessarily just like how cis people can be tiring, but just that idea of like where the need comes from and whether it's being served by other groups or if there was just kind of not enough before you put this group together. Shae Oh, I mean, I was the person who like approached Celia to like start this whole thing. And the reason I came at it was kind of personal, actually. Like, when I came out, things got extremely difficult for me. And until I met Celia, I didn't really know any other trans people. Like, Celia was the first person I started hanging out with that was trans, and shared a lot of the same experiences as me. So like, I've noticed in the eight months that we've been doing AZTT, that story is very common. A lot of other trans people didn't know any other trans people. They're basically like alone. And like I have people coming up to me even now saying that like, I'm so glad that y'all started doing this. And I try to tell them, it's like all of us doing this, because it's a community, you know? Jeanne Yeah, and I think that's actually kind of key that it's not just about being the one person. It's about finally not having to be just one person. Shae Yeah. Jeanne I definitely had that same experience where coming out was like, okay, well I know things from the internet and now here I am and how do I find anyone? How do I find people? And clearly — I mean there's a lot of trans people, but there also aren't that many of us. Shae No I think we're like what, basically 1% of the population? That’s a high estimate and like low estimate is like 0.5% of the population. Jeanne Yeah so it's something where there's no real natural community formation, and we have to go out and do that in a proactive way. Shae Like I love the community out in Melrose and stuff, but like a lot of things are very cis gay centered and there's nothing out there that's like trans centered out, at least outside of ASU. There's a lovely group called Trans Fam at ASU. I've been talking with some of the people there They have a nice thriving community as well. And actually we're planning on potentially collaborating and stuff in the future because once you graduate from ASU, where do you go? Jeanne Yeah, well that's the thing too, is that if you find a support group or you find a group at a school or a university, you typically age out. I remember when I was up at NAU several years ago, like really early in my transition, I joined a trans support group and realized that one of the big problems with support groups is it's people who are one to two years into their transition max, and then by the time they're a little farther into their transition, they don't really feel like they want to be in the support group anymore. So it's a lot of people who are really early on, talking to people who are also really early on, and you don't get that intergenerational aspect of trans community. Shae Nah. I won't say that like AZTT doesn't offer support and like one of our like most important values is like building community. And a lot of that of course implies a lot of mutual aid, a lot of building support networks between each other. We've had people that have faced homelessness that have been able to find like places to stay temporarily, sometimes permanently with each other. It's an unfortunate reality for a lot of trans folks like how bad things could be. Like after I started hormones, actually, like, I was living with my best friend while I was going to college in Bakersfield, California and I was immediately kicked out. I was lucky enough that I had a friend who runs a YouTube channel, made a video about my situation and got me out of like the shelter circuit. Jeanne This was all in California? Shae Yeah. I'm jumping around subject to subject here. Jeanne It's okay. I think it's important to bring all that context into one thing, because what I was kind of talking about with support groups is support groups that are like, let's all talk to each other, instead of support networks that are like, let's find ways to actually actively help each other. Shae Yeah. Jeanne And that's never as simple. It's always responsive and reactive it's hard to centralize it in a real way and still provide the kind of support that we need because for whatever reason people don't really want to help trans people out in those situations. Shae Yeah a lot of — there are good resources out there for trans folks but a lot of it cuts off at 25. It's kind of just how fundings work with a lot of like nonprofit organizations. Which makes sense, like trans youth experience like a pretty heavy disproportionate like — Jeanne Family rejection is a big problem Shae Yes Jeanne And youth homelessness is a big problem yeah and so I get why there's going to be big agencies that can support that community. But then if you're a trans adult I think a lot of the time people kind of will look at us and say, “eh, I don't really want to get involved." Shae Society kind of like sees these things as individual problems rather than systemic issues, of course, but like the lack of support for trans adults is a systemic issue, a hundred percent. Jeanne It is. And in my experience, I think it's these mutual aid networks that really meet the need most of the time. And you had that personally in California to a certain extent and then you're also working on building it here in Arizona. Shae I didn't have that in Bakersfield at all. Like in Bakersfield I was on my on my own. I was living with the best friend who I met working at Subway. We'd known each other for years but uh apparently she wasn't as accepting of these th

06/01/2023

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42 min
06/12/2023

Governor Hobbs Vetoes Bathroom Ban

Civic Advocacy On Thursday, June 8, Governor Hobbs announced her veto of SB 1040, a bill that would have restricted bathroom access for transgender students. This action marks a full decade of failure for anti-trans bathroom bills in Arizona, a particular obsession of state Senator John Kavanagh. Governor Hobbs kept her veto letter brief, writing: SB1040 is yet another discriminatory act against LGBTQ+ youth passed by the majority at the state legislature. As I stated in my veto letter for SB1001, I will veto every bill that aims to attack and harm children. Today, June 12, the legislature will return from nearly a month’s recess to complete some unfinished business, and with a high probability that the legislature will adjourn sine die as soon as the end of the week, we should expect the few remaining anti-LGBTQ+ bills to be sent to the Governor soon, most notably four anti-drag bills — SB 1026, SB 1028, SB 1030, and SB 1698. Action Alert: Housing Supply Two major bills on today’s calendar are SB 1161 and SB 1163, which bring much needed reform to Arizona’s historically racist zoning policies. By expanding options for affordable housing, these bills are an important first step towards fixing our housing supply crisis. It’s been a long fight to keep these bills alive and moving forward, and we can’t let up now. Today’s action will be to finalize any amendments or debate before advancing the bills to their final vote on the House floor. Call your representatives today to ask them to take our housing crisis seriously and to vote yes on both bills. Political Power Bodily Autonomy Night with NARAL AZ 6:00pm - 9:00pm June 14, 2023 | register Join Equality Arizona and NARAL Arizona for a detailed training on lobbying and advocacy, followed by a film screening and pizza party. Learn how to fight for bodily autonomy and LGBT rights, and make some new friends in the movement! Location: Kobalt Bar (note: this is a 21+ location) Equality Arizona is working to make local government more accessible to the LGBTQ+ community. To support our efforts, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Media & Events Banned Book Club 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm June 19, 2023 | register As book bans sweep the nation, one great way to push back is to read! Our banned book for the month of June is Bigger Monsters: An LGBTQ+ Post-Apocalyptic Zombie Tale, by Eliza Andrews. Join us at Brick Road coffee on June 19 to discuss the book with our book club host Vanessa Marie! Location: Brick Road Coffee Queer People Fit: Walking / Running 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm June 22, 2023 | register Join Equality Arizona and FrontRunners & FrontWalkers Phoenix at Tempe Town Lake for Queer People Fit, our ongoing outdoor event series designed to give LGBTQ+ people a space to come together to build community and to find a sense of belonging. Location: Tempe Town Lake Queer People Fit: Breathing Exercises 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm July 1, 2023 | register Looking for a safe space to share with queer friends? With the summer heat making it difficult to spend time in nature, we’re heading indoors to focus on some other aspects of fitness that are often overlooked. This month we’ll be learning and practicing some helpful breathing exercises with Noémie Luce. Location: Escalante Community Center, Tempe This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit equalityarizona.substack.com

06/12/2023

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5 min
12/07/2022

Arizona Equals Aeron

Thanks for listening to the Arizona Equals Conversation this year! As a reminder, we’d love to celebrate the holidays with you at our holiday bash next Wednesday, December 14th. RSVP on our website for more details! Links for Context * Disclosure on Netflix * Lancaster LGBTQ+ Coalition Full Transcript 00;00;00;12 - 00;00;22;00 Jeanne From Equality Arizona, you're listening to the Arizona Equals Conversation. I'm Jeanne Woodbury. I'm the interim executive director at Equality Arizona and I'm the host of this podcast. It's one of my favorite things I get to do each week. Right now, we're looking for new guests to join the podcast, so if you're queer and you live in Arizona, I want to talk to you. 00;00;22;06 - 00;00;47;21 Jeanne Let's set up a time to record an interview! If you want to send me an email, it's just my first name at EqualityArizona.org, or you can use the form on our website at EqualityArizona.org/Stories. While you're there, you can find the whole archive of past episodes of the show. Today's episode of the podcast is an interview with Aeron, a film student at ASU and a recent transplant to Arizona. 00;00;48;23 - 00;01;15;06 Jeanne We ended up talking a lot about representation in a lot of different areas — education, social media, film, TV — and we also got into this idea of the utility of different labels: how we find them, how they help us, how we can add to the discourse around labels, by choosing them and by identifying with people and sharing our thoughts and our feelings. 00;01;15;17 - 00;01;48;12 Jeanne It's a really cool conversation and I really appreciated their perspective about that, particularly as it comes to the word genderqueer. I think there's always more to be said about all of that, and I think that this is a great interview to hopefully jumpstart some more conversations about all of those topics. So let's just get started. 00;01;52;23 - 00;02;11;25 Aeron So hi, I'm Aeron and I use any pronouns and I think I'm here just to really talk about the community and just expand people's minds and be able to start the conversation of LGBTQ. 00;02;12;07 - 00;02;12;18 Jeanne Thank you. 00;02;12;24 - 00;02;13;02 Aeron Yeah. 00;02;14;11 - 00;02;22;05 Jeanne So I think when we were emailing, you mentioned you had just kind of recently moved to Arizona, right? Aeron Yeah. Jeanne And did you move here to go to ASU? 00;02;22;18 - 00;02;28;29 Aeron I did. Everything shifted after college. So after high school, I was like, I'm going to come out here. 00;02;29;15 - 00;02;31;28 Jeanne And how did you make that decision? 00;02;33;15 - 00;02;48;01 Aeron Well, I was, like going into film and stuff, I was like: I need more of an environment that allows more film creators, something that had more like, what's the word… like connections. 00;02;48;12 - 00;02;50;18 Jeanne Oh yeah. So like networking kind of? 00;02;51;15 - 00;03;03;00 Aeron Yeah yeah yeah. And living in Pennsylvania, that was not a thing. I come from a small town in Lebanon. It's near Lancaster, so it's very hick-y. Do you know what hicks are? 00;03;03;11 - 00;03;05;25 Jeanne Yeah. I mean, I know what that area of Pennsylvania is like. 00;03;05;27 - 00;03;12;21 Aeron Yeah. So we have, like, some of the Amish, very conservative. And it was definitely not a place for film. 00;03;13;21 - 00;03;15;06 Jeanne Right. That makes sense. Yeah. 00;03;15;07 - 00;03;22;08 Aeron So I had to come somewhere different. And Arizona, I was expecting a little different because I was like, it's Phoenix, Arizona. 00;03;23;02 - 00;03;24;01 Jeanne What were you expecting? 00;03;24;07 - 00;03;46;05 Aeron I was like… I don't… It was this big city. It was like, it has to be like more liberal and just, way different environment. Which it was like I definitely experience less negative things here that I have at home. But it's still there's moments that I'm like still in kind of a red area, which can be negative, depending on who you are. 00;03;46;15 - 00;03;52;04 Jeanne Yeah. What are some examples of like maybe what you were expecting and then what's actually been the case? 00;03;53;00 - 00;04;09;01 Aeron So I think I was just kind of like, Oh, there's going to be more outlets and different like environment, it's going to be more of a positive, more of a liberal environment. 00;04;09;01 - 00;04;13;15 Jeanne Yeah, like being able to find like here's the center for this and here's this, or all of that. 00;04;14;00 - 00;04;36;02 Aeron Yeah, so I was kind of like, Oh, I'm going to go in this environment and it's going to be totally different than where I was because Lebanon was very conservative, which I mean, there's nothing wrong with being conservative. But some of the viewpoints that they had, some of the negative impacts that like the side of conservative they were, was negative. 00;04;36;06 - 00;04;40;22 Jeanne It can be really difficult to be queer in a conservative environment. 00;04;40;22 - 00;04;41;06 Aeron Yeah. Yeah. 00;04;41;09 - 00;04;45;01 Jeanne Even if people aren't hateful to you, it can still be really difficult, I think. 00;04;45;04 - 00;05;10;28 Aeron Yeah, our school, I mean, our school provided a lot of different outlets to support those people, but overall they didn't really like get down and kind of explore the negative parts of it, even talking to them. A friend and I were making a movement to change our caps and gowns because our caps and gowns are gendered, so the girls wear white and the boys wear blue. 00;05;11;09 - 00;05;38;00 Aeron And it was just us trying to change that because there's no reason for it. It was just a tradition that they had years ago that serves no more purpose anymore. So we were trying to change that and trying to get rid of that. And still with the two years like we started our freshman year, just talking about it and then brought it to the attention of administration my junior year and still nothing has changed. 00;05;38;10 - 00;06;06;00 Aeron I'm waiting to go back, so I'm going back in December and I'm hoping to go to like a board meeting and talk about it more and try to change that and get rid of it. Other than that, like, there's still other things. We have a gender neutral bathroom at my school, but it's kind of like you need to be careful going there because now kids use it to give an outlet for them to smoke cigarettes in our school… 00;06;06;06 - 00;06;34;09 Aeron …and they're like, Oh, the gender neutral bathroom, just go in there and smoke. Like, It's okay. And that's making them like, Oh, we're going to shut down the gender neutral bathroom. And it's like these people who are cis are going in there to take advantage of it when there's a bunch of other students who need that and find support in that and it's being taken away from them because of these other students. 00;06;35;11 - 00;06;50;03 Jeanne That's a really good insight. I never really would have expected that as the consequence of… like it's very… I don't think anyone would have thought, how is this going to get abused by just people who don't even need it? 00;06;50;18 - 00;06;50;29 Aeron Mm hmm. 00;06;52;26 - 00;06;58;13 Jeanne Do you know what people are trying to do to keep that open? 00;06;59;03 - 00;07;28;11 Aeron Definitely a bunch of the students, queer students, just going to administration, like speaking out about it and saying how we can't shut it down like that there was so much built up to allow that to even be there, and having that taken away is insane. And I was a part of the broadcast program within my school, so we did the morning announcements every morning and we made it a point to like include anyone or speak on anything. 00;07;29;15 - 00;07;56;01 Aeron So it was definitely like, make sure you're… we obviously couldn't pinpoint certain things or say certain things about it on the announcements, but we kind of like… be respectful and just be aware of what you're doing and how what you're doing, Could it be affecting other students in a negative way? And overall at the school, there's a lot of students who do negatively impact queer students. 00;07;56;01 - 00;08;33;26 Aeron There's, I would say I would — most of students would be just yelled at slurs within our school, daily. I would say at least once or twice a day, I would hear it negatively used towards not only me, but other friends and other students in school. I just remember there was one morning especially that 7:00 in the morning, I'm getting out of my car to walk into school and there's just these kids in their car screaming at me and my friends like, Oh, you F-slurs, like No one likes your kind… and we're just walking into school. 00;08;33;26 - 00;08;54;25 Aeron And I'm like, That's unbelievable. Like how people are able to do that. And we brought it to the attention of the administration. Nothing was done. We knew the exact place that they were and their car was, like their parking spot. Made it aware to the administration; nothing was done. 00;08;54;25 - 00;09;01;01 Jeanne What do you think motivates people to behave that way. I mean, do you think it's just hate or do you think it's insecurity? 00;09;01;23 - 00;09;49;10 Aeron I like a lot of the issues I see is done by education. There is barely any education within, especially Lebanon that has to do with queer or minorities in general. A lot of what we learn is completely whitewashed. People aren't learning. There's a teacher who recently went into our middle school who actually talked about these things. He brought up awareness and he got backlash from it, from administration, like he started this diversity club in middle school and it was on the verge of being shut down because it was "too radical," it was "putting things in the mind of students." 00;09;49;14 - 00;10;14;19 Aeron So that was a big thing that he had to stop from happening. He was like, It's a diverse club. Anyone can join, anyone can be there. It has nothing to do with radical, like, ideations. Like it's just to kee

12/07/2022

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47 min
07/26/2022

Arizona Equals Gaelle

In today’s episode, we talk with Gaelle Esposito about growing up in the East Valley and working in Arizona politics. Gaelle is a lobbyist at the state capitol working on education policy, LGBTQ+ rights, and other progressive issues. Arizona Equals is a conversational interview podcast chronicling the lives and experiences of LGBTQ+ Arizonans. If you're part of Arizona's LGBTQ+ community, sign up to be a guest on the podcast on our website. Subscribe to the show in the podcast player of your choice to get new episodes every week! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit equalityarizona.substack.com

07/26/2022

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38 min
12/14/2022

Arizona Equals Tate

On this week’s episode of the Arizona Equals Conversation, Jeanne interviews her best friend Tate, a graphic designer and photographer working in Phoenix, Arizona. They talk about some of Tate’s fine art photography work, including their project The Labor of Being Transgender, and spend some time discussing the nuances and challenges of medical transition for non-binary people. Tate also shares their experience being arrested during a political protest and the way the system treated them for being a trans person. Links for Context * 1992 Ashes Action * Tate Peak’s website * WPAWS (White People Against White Supremacy) * Mutual Aid Phoenix * Doctor Who // Buffy the Vampire Slayer // Psych * Lumen Prints * Cyanotype * Alt Process Photography * Joshua Gutierrez * The Labor of Being Transgender Rough Transcript Fully edited version to come. 00;00;00;16 - 00;00;32;26 Jeanne From Equality Arizona. You're listening to The Arizona Equals Conversation. I'm Jeanne Woodbury. I'm the interim executive director of Equality Arizona and the host of this podcast. And today, I want to wish you all a very happy holiday season. Tonight, December 14th we’ll be hosting our holiday bash and celebrating 30 years advocating for LGBTQ+ rights in Arizona. This is my last chance to invite anyone to the party, and I'd really love to see as many of you there as possible. 00;00;33;12 - 00;01;06;21 Jeanne For all of the specifics, you can find more information on our events calendar online equalityarizona.org/events. When this episode airs, I'll be on a plane flying home from Washington, D.C., where I was invited to attend the signing of the Respect for Marriage Act in a ceremony at the White House. It's a tremendous moment for civil rights, and it's taken a fight longer than I have been alive to get us here, going to the White House as a queer person, a place I'd only ever seen before through a fence. 00;01;07;14 - 00;01;34;09 Jeanne I chose to keep in my mind the image of the Ashes action of 1992, the year our organization was founded. It's important to me to remember that debt that we owe to the past and the debt we owe to the community around us. I have like, so much love for the queer community, and it's difficult to imagine who or where I would be without that context. 00;01;35;07 - 00;02;11;21 Jeanne And I think that's the perfect introduction for today's guest on the podcast, my dear friend Tate Peak. I know I've mentioned this before, but Tate and I met on the day I started hormones, and it's this magical moment of serendipity that almost fades away to meaninglessness, when you look at the whole history of our friendship. But I just can't really imagine what anything about my life would be if Tate hadn't been there for it. 00;02;11;29 - 00;02;44;26 Jeanne Right. So you can imagine how complicated it was trying to figure out how to record a normal interview with them. And so we did, two. I talked to them and forgot to ask them questions. And then we did a second interview and I asked them more normal questions. And then I edited all that together into this. And I let us break the fourth wall a few times to show those edits. 00;02;44;26 - 00;03;18;12 Jeanne But overall, I think it comes together pretty nicely and I don't think Tate will ever listen to it. But if they do, I hope they agree. All that being said, it's still a pretty long one. So let's roll the tape, I think. 00;03;18;18 - 00;03;41;19 Tate What am I going to say? My name is Tate Peak. I use they/them pronouns, if that's important. I'm a graphic designer and photographer and I'm trans and I'm pretty cool. So should I redo that? [Jeanne 00:03:33:14] Yeah. [Tate 00:03:34:02] Okay. Should I say I'm pretty cool, though? [Jeanne 00:03:36:12] Yeah. [Tate 00:03:36:26] Okay, So my name is Tate Peak. I'm a trans graphic designer and photographer. 00;03;41;22 - 00;03;46;09 Tate I use they them pronouns and I'm pretty cool. 00;03;47;02 - 00;03;48;02 Jeanne Okay. Yeah. 00;03;48;23 - 00;03;49;06 Jeanne Thank you. 00;03;49;12 - 00;03;51;26 Tate Yeah. 00;03;51;26 - 00;04;09;10 Jeanne So just actually, pretty recently, you've been able to set up a career as a freelance graphic designer and photographer. Mm hmm. Tell me a little bit about the kind of work you do. And tell me a little bit about how you got into the work that you're doing. 00;04;10;04 - 00;04;16;26 Tate All right. So the kind of work I do right now, mostly work for Equality Arizona. 00;04;18;01 - 00;04;19;02 Jeanne That's right. Yeah. Yeah. 00;04;19;05 - 00;04;19;21 Tate I mean, you do. 00;04;19;21 - 00;04;22;00 Jeanne All the photos for the show are on this. 00;04;22;01 - 00;04;35;14 Tate For the show art on this, I take event photos. I help with lots of other things. It's a big list, and there's no point in me like listing every single thing. Right. But if anyone wants to see that work, it's in my portfolio. 00;04;35;23 - 00;04;39;12 Jeanne Yeah. Oh, so your portfolio is you have a website. 00;04;39;13 - 00;04;53;26 Tate I do, thisistatepeak.com. It exists. And it's also my handle on everything without the dot com. Obviously that wouldn’t -- actually it would be quite funny but Twitter doesn't allow periods. 00;04;53;26 - 00;04;57;26 Jeanne You'd have to spell out the word dot. Yeah. And that would get confusing. 00;04;57;26 - 00;05;06;21 Tate Yeah. And there's no point in doing that. So “thisistatepeak” or thisistatepeak.com or tate@thisistatepeak.com for email. 00;05;07;10 - 00;05;17;25 Jeanne We also did some comms related creative work together before Equality Arizona. Yes, with White PAWS. White People Against White Supremacy. 00;05;18;05 - 00;05;43;13 Tate I made them a style guide that I have learned isn't as good. I've learned a lot of things since then, since doing the work I did there on and off. And then at Mutual Aid Phoenix and just generally throughout college and in high school, I started doing graphic design in high school as a small child. Around the same time I got into Doctor Who and started being a vegetarian. 00;05;43;18 - 00;06;01;01 Tate There were a lot of things that happened all at once, and graphic design was one of them. I took a graphic design class. My teacher was, you know, at every high school there's like a weird teacher. There's like the weird guy, you know, they like - well you don't know but - 00;06;01;02 - 00;06;02;15 Jeanne I mean, I don't know. 00;06;02;15 - 00;06;03;11 Tate You can speculate. 00;06;03;14 - 00;06;11;04 Jeanne But I've watched, like, movies and TV shows that include high schools. Yes. So like Giles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 00;06;11;24 - 00;06;21;06 Tate Yes. So kind of like that. Except more like if if Shawn or Gus from Psych. 00;06;21;06 - 00;06;21;18 Jeanne Like. 00;06;22;02 - 00;06;41;17 Tate Was a teacher at a high school and pretty much everything else about them was the same, either of them. So, like Mr. Narducci was my my high school graphic design teacher and he wore - he would do something fun for his, like yearbook photo every year. So he wore like four polo shirts at the same time, all with 00;06;41;26 - 00;07;03;28 Tate with the collars popped. Yeah. And these, like, ridiculous glasses. I think he takes his own photo and then sends it to the company that did the yearbooks and like, had them put it in. It was um - anyway, he was really fun and made graphic design class fun, though really different parts of graphic design than anything I do now, which is interesting. 00;07;03;28 - 00;07;09;28 Tate So we made like I mean, he talked to us about movie posters and stuff, which is. 00;07;10;08 - 00;07;10;28 Jeanne Oh yeah. 00;07;10;28 - 00;07;30;22 Tate I don't do that level of like photo editing and retouching and stuff. It's not - it's a lot and it's not really where I am interested in design. Yeah, but then graduated high school. Didn't do any more art after that really, for a long time. And I went to ASU and. 00;07;30;22 - 00;07;30;29 Tate I had like 00;07;31;10 - 00;07;32;22 Tate 12 majors. 00;07;32;23 - 00;07;36;21 Jeanne Yeah. When you started at ASU, it wasn't graphic design, it wasn't photography. No, it. 00;07;36;21 - 00;07;57;18 Tate No it was medicinal biochemistry. Yeah. And then I switched my major after that. Well, actually, that's not even true. I graduated a year early from high school, and so I was going to start college early. But then I broke my neck, and so I couldn't go to college right away. But when I first registered for ASU, I actually registered to major in industrial organizational psychology. 00;07;58;02 - 00;08;21;11 Tate And then I switched to medicinal biochemistry before my actual orientation. And then I switched to psychology and then I switched to human systems engineering. And then I switched to graphic information technology. And then I was either going to do graphic design or photography, but graphic design would have taken longer and I was going to run out of my scholarship. 00;08;21;11 - 00;08;31;09 Tate And so I decided to do photography instead, which I do love, but I do graphic design now, mostly because there isn't a lot of money in photography unless you're going to do like weddings, which. 00;08;31;22 - 00;08;39;29 Jeanne That's not what you did when you were a photography major. You were doing something. Actually, when I think about like that, the biochemistry degree. 00;08;40;09 - 00;08;41;08 Tate Yeah, the stuff that's. 00;08;41;09 - 00;08;43;24 Jeanne Very chemistry focused photography. 00;08;43;29 - 00;08;51;20 Tate I love film, I love alternative processes, I love putting chemicals on paper and seeing what they do. 00;08;51;24 - 00;08;58;16 Jeanne Right. You did a lot of work that I think people wouldn't automatically think of when they think of You are an artist who takes photos. 00;08;58;16 - 00;09;28;09 Tate Yeah, that almost no one actually thinks of when you say that to someone. Every time I tell someone I'm a photographer, they're like, Well, what kind of photography do you do? And I

12/14/2022

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1h 18m
01/27/2025

Equality for Some - the First week of Trump Executive Orders

Welcome to the Equality Policy Podcast. This podcast will explore all things public policy and how they impact the state of equality for the American people. Frances Wright, an early Scottish American feminist, abolitionist, and activist wrote, “Equality is the soul of liberty; there is, in fact, no liberty without it.” In many ways, equality is the heart of the American promise. It is the cornerstone upon which liberty and justice for all are built – because without equality, the core belief that all human beings are created equal and as such have inalienable rights that should never be infringed upon by the state, was and continues to be a truly revolutionary idea, that we as both a human race and as the American people sometimes advance and frequently fall short of in the laws and policy that we use to shape our society. This podcast will examine policy today, at all levels of government, with the hope of helping us all understand how we are advancing or falling short of that aspiration of equality, justice, and liberty for all. Today we begin with a discussion with Dr. H.L.T. Quan, Reyna Montoya, and me, your host, Michael S.C. Soto about the executive orders signed during the first hours of the second Trump administration. Our discussion strives to answer not only what the executive orders are and how they have changed the relationship of the federal government to the American people in one week, but also how these executive orders change our relationship to equality. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit equalityarizona.substack.com

01/27/2025

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1h 3m
05/04/2023

School Boards & Anti-Trans Extremism

Ask Smart People Smart Questions is a podcast and event series where we create the context to have bigger conversations about some of the big issues that affect the LGBTQ+ community. This month we’re talking about public education, specifically through the lens of governance. Over the past few years, there’s been an increasing trend of targeted disruptions in school board meetings, so we wanted to bring together a panel of experts to figure out where this is coming from and to learn about the structural problems and solutions at play. We were joined by Richie Taylor, Jeanne Casteen, and Katie Gipson-McLean at the Tempe Public Library on April 26 to record this episode of Ask Smart People Smart Questions Links from the discussion * A Nation at Risk * ESA — Empowerment Scholarship Account * STO — School Tuition Organization * “No Promo Homo” law repealed in 2019 * Lindsay Love explaining her decision not to run for reelection to the Chandler Unified School District Governing Board * Secular AZ * Save Our Schools * CEBV — Civic Engagement Beyond Voting * Support Equality Arizona Schools * Arizona Equals Dawn and Hayden Full Episode Transcript [MUSIC PLAYING] Jeanne Woodbury From Equality, Arizona, you're listening to Ask Smart People Smart Questions, our podcast and event series where we create the context for bigger conversations about the big issues that affect the LGBTQ+ community. This month, we're talking about schools, specifically governance in public education. Over the past few years, there's been a big trend of disruptions to school board meetings. And so we wanted to take a look at where this comes from, who's organizing it and how, what's the history behind some of the big debates about public education in Arizona, and what are some of the structural problems and solutions at play? This conversation was recorded live at the Tempe Public Library on Wednesday, April 26th. but two of our panelists joined remotely through Zoom, so the audio is a little bit different from normal. I'm really grateful to Jeanne Casteen from Secular AZ and Katie Gipson-McClean, a board member in the Creighton Elementary School District, for joining at basically the last minute for this discussion, and to Richie Taylor, who served in the Department of Education for four years and is a current member of our board at Equality Arizona. We cover a lot of ground in this conversation, so I want to jump right into it. But first, I'll give a quick preview of our upcoming events in the series. On May 24th, we'll be hosting our next conversation at the Tempe Public Library talking about substance use policy. And in June, we'll be talking about homelessness and the housing crisis. I'm really looking forward to both. And if you want to sign up, you can visit equalityarizona.org/events. Make sure to subscribe to the podcast feed in the podcast player of your choice so that if you can't make it in person, you can still keep up to date with the series. (gentle music) Jeanne Woodbury Yeah, so welcome everyone to Ask Smart People Smart Questions. The topic of the night tonight is school board governance, public education, and this current trend of far-right extremism that we're seeing in school boards across the state. We've got some really great guests with us. We've got Richie Taylor. We've got Katie Gipson-McLean. And we've got Jeanne Casteen. And I'm going to ask them each to say a little quick introduction so that for people listening to the podcast later, you know whose voice is whose. Richie Taylor I'm Richie Taylor. I served for four years as communications director for Superintendent Kathy Hoffman at the Department of Education for her entire term. And I'm happy to be here. Jeanne Woodbury Thank you. Katie, could you introduce yourself? Katie Gipson-McLean My name's Katie Gipson-McLean. My day job is that I'm a public defender for Maricopa County. So I represent folks who are charged with criminal felony charges who can't afford an attorney. And then I do a number of other things outside of work, but one of them being that I'm a member of the Creighton Elementary School District Governing Board, and that's located in East Phoenix. And it's the same elementary school that I attended when I was a kid. Jeanne Woodbury Wonderful. And then our third guest is Jeanne Casteen. Jeanne Casteen Yeah, so my name is Jeanne Casteen. I am the executive director with Secular AZ. I actually used to sit on the governing board of the Creighton School District for eight years, four of which I was the president. So I'm super happy that Katie's here because she is a champion of all things right in Central East Phoenix. Yeah, so I'm, and I'm very passionate about school board issues. Jeanne Woodbury Thanks everyone for joining me. I think that I always like to set up the motivation for this event before we go into the conversation. But basically what I see happening is that there's sort of a copy and paste template of action that's being taken around to a lot of school districts in the Phoenix area and I think increasingly in some other parts of the state where there's a few different things, either people using public comment sections to create controversy around trans-inclusive policies or on the other hand, people trying to antagonize and force out school board members or school superintendents. And I feel like a big reason this is happening or a big motivation for this is that it's a level of government that a lot of people don't understand and that people don't have a lot of insight into, partly just because of how it's structured. There's so many school board districts, and policy decisions for public education are made at so many different levels. So I wanted to have this conversation to talk about not just what's happening, what is it, what does it look like, but also what's the bigger context of school board governance. So the first thing I wanted to talk about, having someone who's worked for Department of Education, having two former/current school board members, I wanted to talk about that chain of governance in public education — what decisions are made where, what all the different constituent parts are. So we've mentioned Department of Education, we've mentioned school boards, but there's more to it than that, right? And I'd love to get kind of an overview of, when you were working in the Department of Education, Richie, for example, what other parts of the system was that department connected to? Richie Taylor So certainly connected, the Department of Education under the direction of the State Board of Education, which is a body appointed by the governor, oversees education policy in the state. Those are decisions like setting the state's education standards, managing federal grants and state funding for schools. So all of the money that the legislature appropriates or the federal government appropriates to our public schools flows to the Department of Education, which oversees and administers those monies, and like I said, sets things like standards. And we can probably get into this a little bit later, but standards are different than curriculum. Curriculum is where a lot of the — standards are very high level. These are the areas that schools should be teaching to. Curriculum is taught to those standards. And so, but the curriculum decisions are made at the local level, at the school district level, by governing boards. And so I think that is one area that is particularly not great understanding in the public is that a lot of those decisions are made at the local level and not necessarily at the state level or the federal level. Jeanne Woodbury Yeah. So for you two who have been on school boards, who are currently on school boards, what does that look like when those standards and then also state funding decisions, and in some cases, legislation that's basically setting curriculum, potentially, what does that look like in terms of your business of setting policy and creating policy at the school board level? Jeanne Casteen So I want to just talk real quick too. I want to give a brief history lesson about No Child Left Behind, the legacy of George Bush and the ideology that schools are failing in America, right? I can't remember the name of the study that was put out, but that was the precursor for the privatization of public schools. And that's really kind of what we're talking about right now. Because in 2000, George W. Bush decided No Child Left Behind was going to be the law of the land. And sadly, for those of us who vote blue, no matter who, right, it was Obama who kind of kept those policies going forward. So in 1995, it was Governor Fife Symington, who decided to kind of open up the pathways for charter schools to be recognized as regular public schools. Funding was different, the accountability was different, the transparency was different. And now we are seeing what his decisions are leading to. And that is just a broad overreach of school vouchers, STOs and all the things that take public money away from private schools. That's all I really wanted to say about that is that this is also, it's not just as simple as all of that, it is a systematic overreach and a systematic degradation of the public schools. Jeanne Woodbury Well, and I think that's really important. I want to talk about that history of, you know, there's what's happening now. There's these anti-trans attacks. There's some other far right extremism, but I think that, you know, there's a longer history and maybe that's the point where it starts. And I do want to get into that. But I think it's important to look at like the structural landscape first, and then see how things are happening in that landscape. Richie Taylor I do think, to Jeanne’s point, that those moves 25, 30 years ago really did change the landscape dramatically for public education, and particularly public education in Arizona. It really did basically create two systems, one

05/04/2023

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1h 5m
12/21/2022

Arizona Equals Lisa

Today on the Arizona Equals Conversation, Jeanne interviews Lisa Malachowsky, a local entrepreneur and political organizer with a 20 year history in the computing industry. This episode covers a lot of ground, from technology history and workplace organizing to the struggle for marriage equality and the threat of rising antisemitism. We’ll be off next week enjoying the holidays, and will return with new stories in 2023. If you have a story to share about being queer in Arizona, get in touch! Links for Context * Dive N Ride Adventures * The History of IBM * Dykes on Bikes * Amdahl Corporation * Gene Amdahl * NCJW Arizona * Arizona Prop 102 * Wolf Girls at Vassar: Lesbian and Gay Experiences * Rising Rates of Antisemitism Full Episode Transcript [00:00:00] Jeanne From Equality, Arizona. You're listening to the Arizona Equals conversation. I'm Jeanne Woodbury. I'm the interim executive director of Equality Arizona and the host of this podcast. Today's episode is going to be our last for the year of 2022, but we'll be back next year with more stories about what it means to be queer in Arizona. Hosting this podcast has been one of the highlights of my year, and I'm excited to keep it going in 2023. But I need your help. If you have a story that you want to share or if you know someone and you think that their story needs to be heard, please get in touch. You can sign up through a form on our website, at equalityarizona.org/stories, or you can just email me. My address is jeanne@equalityarizona.org. We've got a lot of great plans for 2023, and with a new legislative session just around the corner, there's a lot of work to be done. If you're looking for a way to get involved, we have a few different volunteer teams that I'd love to invite you to join. You can find out more about those at equalityarizona.org/volunteer or in the most recent edition of our newsletter. And of course, the holidays are the traditional season forgiving so. If you want to support the work of Equality Arizona, please consider making a donation on our website, at equalityarizona.org/donate. Anything helps, and we're so grateful for all of your attention and support over the years. The conversation I got to have with Lisa Malachowsky for this episode was absolutely delightful, and I'm really glad she made the time to sit down with me. We take a lot of twist and turns, and I think it's worth just diving right into it. So let's roll the tape. [00:02:10] Lisa Hi. My name is Lisa Malachowsky. My pronouns are she/her. I live in the Ahwatukee area of Phoenix, and I've lived in Arizona since 2010. [00:02:20] Jeanne Cool, thanks for joining the podcast. Oh, I cut you off. [00:02:22] Lisa No, it's all right. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. I appreciate the opportunity. [00:02:26] Jeanne Yeah, it's really fun. We've been doing this podcast for a little over half the year, and it's been a really cool project to see how things have developed. And the first person I spoke to is also kind of like a Chandler, Ahwatukee area person. And we talked about how if you're in Ahwatukee and then you cross over the road into Chandler and it's like, oh, this is a different world. [00:02:47] Lisa It seems to be, yeah. [00:02:48] Jeanne Do you have that experience? [00:02:50] Lisa Sometimes, but since I've lived here from 2010, I'd say that was more the case back then. Now the vibes are totally different. Ahwatukee has changed. It's not as Republican as it used to be, and Chandler's really changed. It's not as raw, I think I would say, as it used to be in 2010. There's a lot more build up downtown. The downtown has a different vibe. I call it Little Scottsdale sometimes and I just hope it doesn't turn into Scottsdale. But, yeah, I really enjoy the restaurants and just the hanging out. I mean, my wife and I are hoping we have more time to spend there. We've just been crazy for the last year coming out of COVID, everything's been just wildly busy. [00:03:30] Jeanne Yeah. Were you here in Arizona for the whole COVID situation? [00:03:34] Lisa Actually, I wasn't. We were living in North Carolina outside of Raleigh at the time, and Bev my wife's job came to an end. I'm trying to think, it was probably like a year into COVID, and then we decided we were going to move back here because we kept our house here. We have a beautiful Santa Fe style house that I never wanted to give up. I always wanted it to be home base because it felt like home to me, which I haven't really felt since I was a kid. [00:04:02] Jeanne So you kept those roots in Arizona, even when you were in North Carolina. [00:04:04] Lisa Right. I was hedging bets. I always felt we were going to move back to Arizona because I knew I wasn't gonna like North Carolina, and I didn't. I had a lot of personal problems and I had a lot of physical problems while we were living there. So I got connected to the community that I wanted to be connected to, but without that, I probably would have really struggled. [00:04:23] Jeanne What's that community like in North Carolina? [00:04:27] Lisa The community that I was involved with was really the Democrats of Wake County, so much so that I became the president of the Democrats of Wake County, mostly by attrition. Everybody kept leaving to get involved in other campaigns, so I was the only one who wasn't involved in a campaign, so I said I would stay. But where I was living was this town named Apex, and Apex used to be, in 2012 it was considered by US. News and World Report the best place to live in the country. I would say it's not. It was overgrown with housing, and it didn't keep up with the services associated with what people need to live there. So there weren't enough restaurants, there weren't enough grocery stores, there weren't enough places to get your car fixed. It just felt like it was in the middle of really bad growing pains, and I felt pretty isolated. I mean, I was in an environment where most of my neighbors were heterosexual and white and — actually, no, there was one African American family. Those were the only folks we really got to be very friendly with — and everybody kind of lived in their house and kind of if you weren't in the norm, people stayed kind of away from you, and it didn't feel overt, but you could tell there was a difference. And then I found community through the Democratic Party there, and I have some really good friends there. In fact, I met this wonderful, wonderful, wonderful African American transgender woman who I wish I could talk to every day, but she doesn't stay in touch with me. She's quite busy. But, yeah, I felt some very strong ties to the people that I met there. [00:06:04] Jeanne You mentioned in 2010, Chandler had like this raw feeling. Is that similar to what you're talking about with the kind of housing boom, but lack of services in North Carolina, or kind of different? [00:06:16] Lisa It feels different to me. It feels like Chandler, housing-wise and services-wise, planned things better and really thought through, and I don't know if this is the case or not, but it seems like they thought through what people were going to need to live there. So we moved to Arizona in 2010. My wife was working for Intel, and in those days, Intel used to say that for every Intel job that was created, there were five or six jobs created in the community. And I think Chandler really understood that and created all the services. I mean, granted, back then, in the beginning of our time here, they were very… much more conservative I think. It felt much more conservative than it does now. [00:06:58] Jeanne In Chandler? Lisa Yeah. Jeanne And Ahwatukee, definitely. [00:07:00] Lisa Yeah. In fact, this is kind of the running joke I used to have. I used to say that it was easier in Arizona, at least what my experience was back in 2010, to be gay than to be a Democrat. And I basically set out to be a part of changing that. I wanted it to be equally as free and able to be whatever you wanted to be. [00:07:20] Jeanne Do you think, you know, in Chandler back then… I mean, it was only recently that we got, like, nondiscrimination protections in Chandler… Lisa Right, right. Jeanne But you say it's easier to be gay than to be a Democrat maybe. Do you feel like even back in 2010, there was, like, a good gay community that you could find in that area? [00:07:37] Lisa No, not in the Chandler area. And for us, living in Ahwatukee even, most of my friends lived in Phoenix. Most of my friends lived farther away from us. Really only had one other couple, two women that lived in the vicinity where we lived in Ahwatukee. And then it took a while. We found a lot of other couples. But now there's, like, in our general vicinity in Ahwatukee, we know of at least six other gay couples. It's really nice, within 200 houses, to know, 200 houses or so, to know six other couples. [00:08:10] Jeanne What you were describing about… Apex, right? [00:08:13] Lisa Yeah, Apex. [00:08:13] Jeanne What you were describing about Apex in terms of, like, people just live in their houses and they don't come out and talk to you. [00:08:17] Lisa Bedroom community. [00:08:18] Jeanne I mean, I felt the same way in Chandler when I was growing up. But it sounds like you've got a situation in your neighborhood in Ahwatukee where you actually have broken out of that, and you do have neighbors you talk to. [00:08:31] Lisa Yeah, for various reasons. Both my wife and I ride motorcycles, and we have two close friends that ride motorcycles near us. And then through the Democratic Party in LD 12 I've made a lot of friends, and so we've gotten a lot of friends within the Democratic community through that. So yeah, we've broken out of it. Not saying it's the best, but it's better than it was back when we first moved here. [00:08:56] Jeanne Yeah, that's cool. I mean, if you're doing like, local legislative district political work, then I

12/21/2022

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44 min
05/10/2023

Arizona Equals Matthew

On today’s episode, we’re joined by our friend Matthew Coelho to talk about the joys of family, music, and the Southern Arizona desert. This is the third in a series of three interviews recorded in Matthew’s home in Tucson, following our episodes with Juan McElroy and Matthew’s husband Blake Coelho. The Arizona Equals Conversation is an interview podcast collecting the stories of LGBTQ+ people living in Arizona. To listen to past episodes of the podcast, or to sign up to be a guest on a future episode of the show, visit equalityarizona.org/stories. Full Episode Transcript Jeanne Woodbury From Equality Arizona, you're listening to the Arizona Equals Conversation, a narrative interview podcast documenting the stories of queer people living in Arizona through the lens of community. I'm Jeanne Woodbury. I'm the interim executive director of Equality Arizona and the host of this podcast. Today I'm speaking with Matthew Coelho for the third of three Tucson-based interviews that Matthew hosted at his home. So when I mention towards the end of the episode that we're running up against a time deadline, it's because actually it was the third of three interviews we had recorded back to back at his kitchen table, and they all had to leave to get to a play, so I'm really grateful to Matthew and Blake for hosting me, and their friend Juan for agreeing to do an interview. I really enjoyed this series, and I'm excited to do more interviews in the future with people living all across the state. Matthew's story is really incredible. We got to talk through a lot of facets of the adoption process and building a family, about personal healing through music and community, and about how electric the desert can feel and how electrifying the local community in Tucson can be. I often get out of an interview and wish I could just record another entire episode with them, and this was one of those cases. so I hope you all enjoy listening to it. And if you haven't already listened to my interviews with Juan and Blake, they're the most recent two episodes in the feed. All right, let's roll the tape. (beep) (tape crackling) (tape crackling) (upbeat music) (tape deck clicks) Matthew Coelho My name is Matthew Coelho. My pronouns are he/him/his. Jeanne Woodbury Thanks for talking with me today and for setting up your home for me to talk with you and Juan and Blake. Matthew Coelho Absolutely. Jeanne Woodbury It's been a lot of fun. And I really enjoyed the tour of the new room for the twins. Matthew Coelho Thank you. Jeanne Woodbury That's exciting. And you said this is something that's pretty new. Matthew Coelho Yes. Jeanne Woodbury And so just, I don't know, tell me about that. Are you pretty excited? Matthew Coelho I'm very excited. We're both very excited. my husband and I, Blake, but yeah, still very new to, the situation is still very new to us and we're still kind of like wrapping our heads around it and really, it feels a little surreal just because we've been on this journey of building our family for, really pursuing it for about a full year now, but we made the decision together to start making a plan to do that about two years ago. Jeanne Woodbury I see. Yeah, that's a long time. Matthew Coelho Yes, yeah, especially when you're kind of, you know, just doing all the education and building community and finding resources. And it feels like a long time, even more, I mean, two years is a long time, but when you're like kind of going through it, it feels, I don't know. Jeanne Woodbury Yeah, when you're in it, I'm sure it feels even longer. Matthew Coelho Yeah, no, definitely. But it was such a really great experience in terms of just absorbing so much information and getting to connect with people and hear people's stories and learn about how all the different ways that families are built. And yeah, it just like really showed us that like we're making the right choice for us and for our family. Jeanne Woodbury I love that. Matthew Coelho Yeah. Jeanne Woodbury Are there good like local resource groups that you were able to find? Matthew Coelho Yeah, so there's actually an attorney here locally to Tucson, Arizona, Heather Strickland. She has a really great, she's an adoption attorney. Jeanne Woodbury Okay. Matthew Coelho So she specializes in family law practice, but then also more of a specialization with LGBTQ families, and has been such an incredible resource with not only providing us with guidance, she's never once charged us for two years of any time we had a question or email back and forth on guidance and pointing us to different organizations and colleagues of hers. She's been a really great resource. Jeanne Woodbury Yeah, that's incredible. Matthew Coelho Yeah, and then there's a lot of online communities as well that have been really, really impactful during our journey. Jeanne Woodbury That makes sense. Matthew Coelho Yeah, providing webinars, so like Gays With Kids has been really wonderful. They're an online community that bridges and connects families to share stories. So that's been pretty awesome to, just to find community there. Jeanne Woodbury Yeah, I feel like looking online, sometimes that's a great way. And sometimes it's like, I'm reading the same article over and over again, but I'm not talking to a person. I'm glad that there is like an actual group. Matthew Coelho Yeah, there's a handful of them, but to your point, yes. Yeah, it's really nice to be able to speak to humans and share real life stories of how families are built or we've been connected with people who, like my friend Juan, obviously who went down the path of surrogacy to build their family and just hearing people's stories of adoption and their journeys and yeah, there's just so many different ways to build a family that has been just rewarding to hear how the struggle that we've experienced kind of like getting up to the point of our current match was just, I don't know, it was a comfortable, there was a layer of comfortability there that, or a comfort, I should say, that was lent to us by hearing people's struggles and knowing that there is like light at the end of the tunnel. Jeanne Woodbury Knowing some of the things that are difficult going in, is that what you mean? Matthew Coelho Yes. Yeah, both like situational struggles and then also a lot of like the mental wellbeing struggles and just like the emotional aspects of it all, yeah. Jeanne Woodbury Yeah, I know that with adoption, it can be kind of a devastating cycle of thinking there's a match that's going to work out and it doesn't work out. And having the expectations set by that community, I think has to help, hopefully. Matthew Coelho Yeah, yeah, definitely was helpful. And it still is helpful to have, you know, just a supportive community out there having, again, you know, hearing people's stories and how they got through it and the things to kind of like mentally prepare for. Jeanne Woodbury Yeah. Matthew Coelho Super helpful. I don't know if you have seen, but my husband and I are pretty vocal about our whole journey on the internet. And so through our social medias, we've been able to kind of like share our ups and downs of our journey. And, you know, something that we shared, just because I feel like it's important that these types of conversations are had, you know, there are people out there that do a lot of like emotional scamming and that did happen to us about a month or two ago where we thought we were being matched. And, you know, we had like a FaceTime conversation with the person and it was like really exciting for an hour and a half, but then like immediately, you know, it's like a wave of confusion and anger and sadness. Jeanne Woodbury Yeah. Matthew Coelho But then also you feel, it's like a mixed feeling because you're also feeling for the person as well because you're kind of like trying to put yourself in their shoes and like, what are they going through to like, that like put them on this path of, you know, kind of like catfishing, I guess. Jeanne Woodbury Yeah, is that what it is, a scam? Matthew Coelho Essentially, yeah. Yeah, it was interesting, but. So that's just like one little element of like the struggle of navigating that path for sure. Jeanne Woodbury When you share those kinds of stories, you know, publicly on social media, do you find that that's like an extra emotional burden or that it helps you to process it? Matthew Coelho I think it could be both depending on the responses. Jeanne Woodbury Oh yeah. Matthew Coelho I think it's important to share the journey, A, because I, you know, not many people know what it's like to go through a journey like that. Jeanne Woodbury Yeah, most people don't. Matthew Coelho Yeah, so it is nice to kind of like vocalize and share. It does kind of release some of that like anxiety and the fears and the uncertainty of it all. But also, yeah, sometimes there's like some negative response and usually it's people who like don't really, they're like not following me. They'd probably like search certain hashtags and they're maybe like anti-advocates, anti-adoption advocates, but there's never really a dialogue. It's always just kind of like something negative. And then it's kind of just like a, you kind of have to ignore it. Jeane Woodbury Just, here’s some hate in the comments. Matthew Coelho Yeah Jeanne Woodbury That's unfortunate. Matthew Coelho But for the most part, I mean, the support has been super helpful. Jeanne Woodbury Yeah. Oh I'm glad. Do you feel like, you know, well, I mean, I feel like making the decision to adopt or in general making the decision to start a family is a pretty big thing. And it's not something that a lot of people in the LGBT community are automatically comfortable with. And for some people, it's because we haven't had good family experiences. And that can go either way. Therefore, we want to have a good family and create that for ourselves, or we're just afraid of it. Did you have

05/10/2023

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35 min

Equality Arizona is a non-profit organization dedicated to making sure LGBTQ+ people in Arizona have the opportunity, capacity, and confidence to make change as advocates, voters, and civic leaders. We’re asking smart people smart questions about the big issues that affect our community, adding new stories each week to the Arizona Equals Conversation about what it means to be queer in Arizona, and updating the public on what's happening in Arizona's school boards, city councils, and state legislature.

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