S1 E48 Shit2TalkAbout Androphilia with G. Scott Graham
Jenn Junod
Hello, beautiful human.
Jenn Junod
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Jenn Junod
Hey G Scott Graham. Thank you for coming back and doing another episode for us. For those who didn't listen. Thank you. And for those who didn't listen to the first episode. Please introduce yourself and let us know what the shit we're talking about today.
G. Scott Graham
Well, my name is Scott Graham. I'm an author. I'm a career coach. I'm a business coach. I've written 15 books so far. And the book we're gonna talk about today is androphy pride or gay rights, gay stuff because it's gay Pride Month. And, what are you gonna talk about during gay pride Month with gay stuff? So I'm here, I'm a gay man. I'm an out gay man and, and I'm a widower and I was in a relationship for 31 years, a monogamous relationship with another man for 31 years.
G. Scott Graham, Jenn Junod
And we're here to talk about how things have changed and grown and shifted and, and how you can march to the beat of your own drum and I appreciate that you're coming back on again.
Jenn Junod
And for those of you that are curious, we did speak about another book of his where he talks about mourning and telling people to fuck off while going through at come as you are and going through the grief process and how it can be different for all of us. But also when so many of us say, oh, we're so sorry for your loss and how that that's basically like a cop out. So definitely check out that episode.
We will link it as well. Yet today we talked before the episode about setting up this episode as getting to know a bit of history because I feel like so many individuals nowadays and this is such an important topic. Even outside of Pride Month of you came out in the eighties and the eighties was during the A I DS pandemic. Yeah.
G. Scott Graham
Even you told me the reign of Ronald Reagan, the reign of Ronald Reagan and who, you know, would not fund any A I DS research. in his, in his you know, during his reign of terror on our country, all the Republicans are gonna email me now hate messages.
Jenn Junod
Well, I think it's a big thing because with, especially with COVID in the last few years, we came out with one of the fastest vaccines and with the A I DS pandemic and HIV, it was, it wouldn't be funded. Therefore, it took so much longer and it's only been what, in the last five or so years that we finally came out with something for HIV, to be able to help prevent A I DS.
And where I'd like to dig in is you came out in the early eighties. How like I would be scared to sleep with anybody if this virus or this condition is going around. How did you navigate like the dating life? What did you, how did you feel about this going on? Because I feel like that's an extra layer, it's coming out.
G. Scott Graham
Yeah. You know, it's interesting with, with my friends after I came out every time you got, imagine every time you got a cough these days you'd be like, oh my God. I have COVID. Oh, my God. I have to go get a COVID test and you can do your home COVID test. Right. There wasn't a test when I came out, in fact, a IA A, it wasn't even A I DS or HIV. It was grid, it was like gay something immune deficiency.
that was totally labeled as a gay disease. And and people were just absolute shits and bigots about it. I remember going to a Easter celebration with friends of my family and I remember a one of the people at this large table said, hey, what do you call a gay man on roller skates? And everybody was like, ah, and he's like, role a ha I mean, it was that level of, of hate and fear that was associated from the general community on this.
And then as, as a gay man, you were just, you know, so nervous about how you were interacting with folk. But it's really interesting because I've had this conversation about people with COVID like the mask haters and the six, I'm like, this is easy. Just put on a goddamn mask and stay 6 ft away. You know, when I was coming out of the closet and I was actively, you know, having sex with men and dating it was, the mask was the condom.
And the 6 ft rule was, you know, be a top, not a bottom. And it was a whole long list that, you know, somebody came in your mouth. You were less likely to get HIV than if someone came up your ass. And it was just, there was like this piece, it was like a 6 ft rule like you, if you were doing these sexual behaviors, you were this far away from potentially getting the virus.
And if you were doing these behaviors, you were that much closer. and, and there was no test. And so every time you got like a cold or something, we're like, oh my God, do I have HIV? Oh my gosh. There was so much fear about this. And then at the same time, there was a profound lack of education like we with COVID we've been swamped with.
I mean, if you don't, I mean, and there was no naysayers like, you know, we have these like anti-vaxxers, antimaskers that are out here now with COVID, there was no naysayers with the gay community. You just had no idea what you were doing. And it was a struggle to get information out to save people.
Jenn Junod
And that I like your analogy of like the 6 ft roll and mass to wearing condoms and you know, navigating that it's this will be linked in the episode as well. Yet, I was listening to Science versus it's another podcast and they talk about how the episode talked about how transgender Children, like testing it out scientifically, if it's something that is gonna be bad for them long term, like blocking hormones, it's a very interesting episode and it goes into the rights and the
difficulties that Reagan wouldn't even really acknowledge A I DS or gay men. And it was really mostly associated with gay men and how that caused us to not even have vaccines until almost 30 years later. And it's something that has really put a stigma around the gay community. And how have you seen that change since the eighties?
G. Scott Graham
You mean the stigma or you mean how, how the gay community is responding? Which, what do you mean both? I, you know, I still think there's a stigma, I think that people see there's a big stigma when people report that they're HIV positive particularly now with, you know, people that have become HIV positive in, you know, 2000 onwards or even earlier when you knew what was, was, what, what was going on, right?
It's like your, your HIV positive. What you're not? Were you, were you not wearing a condom? Were you not doing, you know, practicing safe sex? You know, you must know about that because it's like someone who gets, who gets COVID now in the United States, right? Because if someone gets COVID now in the United States. It's like, well, what were you, were you not wearing a mask? What were you not? What were you doing that puts you at risk for COVID?
You know? Did you think that? And I've had numerous people tell me that, that have gotten COVID, that they've said, you know, II, I was vaccinated. I thought that, I thought I'd be fine and they just, they just didn't have that extra piece of, you know, you still have to wear a mask. I was, I was at a tough mutter this last weekend, race and we're at the starting line. I was the only person at the starting line wearing a mask.
Jenn Junod
And that's crazy because like I recently got COVID and that was my initial thing is ok. Where did I get it? What did I do wrong? And the FDA is no longer requiring us to wear, I'm on the place. And so that's the only place that I've been in a closed in environment, the air, the airports don't require them, which is great yet. At the same time, I'm pretty sure that's where I got COVID. And ex you did talk about that. It was difficult to get tests in, in the eighties.
G. Scott Graham, Jenn Junod
They didn't even exist and there was no test, there was no, I mean, we have take home tests here that for COVID now.
G. Scott Graham
Right? And, and I mean, there was, there was no, I remember when I got my first HIV test. I was petrified and that was in the late eighties.
Jenn Junod
I was gripping. I know I volunteered for a few years at the LGBT Q Plus Center in Phoenix and it was one of the few places that individuals could go to get tested discreetly and for free because like insurance would charge a lot. doctors would have this stigma behind it.
G. Scott Graham, Jenn Junod
And how, yeah, people wouldn't touch you.
G. Scott Graham
It was, if you got HIV in the eighties, you know, imagine getting COVID and every time every person who got COVID was an automatic death sentence, like, just imagine that like we were freaking out because, you know, a certain percentage of the elderly population or people at risk were going to hospitals and dying. you know, every single person who was HIV positive in the early eighties is dead, they're all dead, they all died.
It was a death sentence. There was no ifs ands or buts there were no, there was no treatment, there was no medication, there was no nothing. which is, and, and it was just really, and people were, it was gripping, it was gripping and people didn't want to talk about it. You know, I was, I was active, at the university level when I went to college in the eighties and I tried to get a, you're gonna, you people are gonna be blown away when I tell you this.
I tried to spend, get $30.30 dollars to get safe sex practices printed out on 1500 business cards. We're just gonna go to a business card shop and get safe sex practices put out, you know, and it wasn't like, I mean, it will be, there were no pictures of cocks, there wasn't pictures of and it was nothing. It was just like, you know, oral sex was like, as the, the most profane word that was on there, anal sex was on there, you know, wear a condom, learn how to put a condom on properly.
And I could not get $30 worth of funding from the University of South Florida to do this. And when I spoke to get the money, to be able to do this and hand it out, people actually were snickering and like doing cat calls in the audience. Right. That's the type of environment it was in the eighties. Not that not that way today.
Jenn Junod
Yeah. And you mentioned that you were also having a hard time finding businesses that would be willing to print them.
G. Scott Graham
Well, luckily there's a glass, a number of gay printers out there. Right. God, there was so, we actually had a gay printer that was willing to print them up at a discount for the 30 bucks just at cost. It wasn't like you were gonna get, you know, they were making mon any money off of this. I mean, it's 30 bucks, right? and, and we couldn't even get the money to, to do that cat calls from folks and snickering.
Yeah, I still have the art. I still have the article from the newspaper when I was bringing that up where, where that went on and they wrote an editorial about that in the school newspaper about, you know, that level of bullshit that was happening.
Jenn Junod
and nowadays it is something that, and this has been a lot of hard work systemically and we do see an improvement of that companies hire LGBT Q plus community out of, but it does feel like it's out of the need for that diversity checkmark, not necessarily that they're wanting it, which I get is not awesome yet. It is an improvement. Did you have a hard time finding work if your employer or possible employer knew that you were gay?
G. Scott Graham
Well, you just didn't talk about that with your employers. And I mean, I was in college and so I was working as a bartender or as a waiter. And so that was easy. I mean, it was like today, right at all, restaurants then were looking for people to be waiters and waitresses and bartenders and bus boys and cooks just like they are today. They're hard to find today.
They were hard to find them. So I didn't have a hard time finding work while I was in college. And then I came up to New England to work after that and, and got a job working with Outward Bound, which was, I was in a bubble of progressive support. in fact, I remember, somebody, at some point I was, it was, this was probably 1989. Somebody wrote like Faggot on the, well, I don't, I had a dirty pickup truck and on the back window, they licked their finger and wrote, you know, faggot, got all
the dirt instead of wash me. It's a faggot. And the, the people that I worked with the administrators above me, like hit the roof and it wa I wasn't upset. I wasn't upset because I'd gotten enough of that bullshit through my entire life. So it was just like another piece. But they were, they did not tolerate it. And I really felt I was like, wow, it was really nice to feel that support with folks and they figured out who did it and took appropriate action around that and it was, it was,
that was really nice. And they did, they did it because it was the right thing to do. Not because they had to, not because somebody was watching. Now this was the time where there were, you know, people weren't doing tiktok videos of, you know, the person's reaction. I mean, now someone does something that someone's got a camera right up your face, you know, take everything and then, you know, some news organization picks up on it and then it's on Twitter and it's everywhere and
it's all over the place. There's a lot more informational pressure and publicity that can come, from, you know, someone's misstep. Now, then, I mean, look at that, this guy that just was going to work for, I think Georgetown made some comment about, about one of the Supreme Court when they were looking for the Supreme Court justice and Biden was, you know, was appointed to this woman and he was, this person wrote something like, you know, well, you know, you appointed her because
she was black. I'm oversimplifying it, but he basically said something like yes, she got it because she was black even though she's less qualified than this other person. And, you know, he that little snippet got so much publicity from the woke police that, you know, he ended up resigning before he even took the job at the university. that type of stuff was, is so small compared to the bullshit. That was. So, I mean, compare that to cat calls and snickering when you're asking for
$30 for a safe sex business card, right? I mean, that safe sex business card made the student newspaper or the university newspaper and went no further. This guy makes a tweet a miss small misstep in what he was typing at the time and then boom, it's all over the place. Such a different response because of information and technology that is in every single person's hands.
Jenn Junod
And I do have two questions at the moment. I don't want to forget the 2nd 12 parts of, when did you start openly talking about that you were gay? Because you mentioned that there, you couldn't mention it at work normally. And then also, I could only guess that you deal with haters still and how do you distance yourself from it and deal with the haters such as what happened to your truck?
G. Scott Graham
You know, when I, when I, when the, the, the biggest, I think the biggest piece I'm gonna get ahead, you're gonna say, what's the piece of wisdom that you would have had at the end of the biggest piece that I wish I had had when I was coming out was just a grip of my own identity and who I was and sense of who I was. And I remember talking to folks and they would say things like, when are you getting married?
Right? And everybody would ask me when I go to family gatherings, how come you're not married yet? And, and I would say I just haven't found the right girl. That was my, that was my aunt even though, you know, I knew that I was never going to find the right girl and they knew they knew that, I mean, they were, they were not asking me, you know, to see when I was gonna get married in my, in retrospect they were asking me because they were trying to, like, poke the bear and, you know, and be like,
oh, what, you know, are you gay or you remember what, you know, that type of stuff? and so it was, it was actually, you know, my, my big steps were, were actually in the nineties. and I remember, you know, I was in a, I was in a, obviously I talked about this, I wrote a book about this in a 31 year monogamous relationship. And I was out as part of that.
Everybody knew. And, I remember when we reached our te this is, and when we reached our 10 year anniversary, which was 1989 1988. And people were, you know, talking about gay marriage and civil unions and stuff like that, which still hadn't come to pass. You know, I wrote an impassioned article for a newspaper in Vermont that got published.
And so I was out to everybody. and there was a certain amount of cat calling that still went on and name calling and stuff like that. But I just really ignored that because, you know, you, you, you just can't, this is me speaking for me. I'm not gonna march to the beat of somebody else's drum, you know, and I was really lucky, to, to have a husband who believed that same thing, you know.
In fact, I remember it was I think it was, I think it was 2010. This is before gay marriage was and Brian said, came up to me because we took turns. We, we're doing our finances and, we had been married for, I think it was our 10th anniversary of being legally we together 20 years. And he had said to me, you know, this is, this is bullshit, this, this, taxes.
I'm not filing as a single person anymore. And I was like, what he's like, yeah, we're, we're married, we're civil union. I'm filing the taxes and as, as a, as a married couple and I'm like, but that's against the law. He's like, I don't give a fuck, I'm gonna file the and I was like, it was one of those times, you know, when you're in a, when you're in a relationship where you, you know, you have to make this.
Am I gonna stick with my partner? I have you, you know, he, I it was through his strength that helped me take that next step because I would not have done that. But he had just, he had been doing the taxes for ages and because we were, when we got civil union in Vermont, I know we're going down some rabbit hole and you're like, I don't wanna go to rabbit hole when we got civil union in Vermont, we had to do our taxes like three or four times because we were a gay couple because we were married in
Vermont and Vermont. Taxes were based on us as a married couple. Yet the federal government we had to file singly. So we had to do a single tax return for me. Then we had to do a single tax return for him. Then we had to do a joint tax return as a married couple for a Vermont tax return because the Vermont tax return was based on the federal income tax return and we threw the federal income tax return away and turned it in with the Vermont tax return.
And after doing that rigmarole, you know, eight years or so, he was like, that's it. I've had it. We're married, we're, we're gonna file one tax return and, they can take us to court, they can take us to jail. I don't care. I'm not doing it anymore. I was like, ok. Ok. and so after it, it was really funny after the, after we became a legal from the Supreme Court, they went retroactive and said, oh, you can go to your past, you know, cut, you know, two or three years of income taxes and change
that to get the taxes. There was, there was huge tax benefits to being married versus filing singly. And I remember turning to an accountant who said you want me to do your, I'm like, we've been doing it for six years already. You know, we've been coloring outside the lines. but they, you know, it was that things are so much different in accepting today than they were then. But at the same time because of our social media and are those keyboard warriors out there?
You know what I mean by keyboard warriors, right? Those, those people that just, you know, they would never say it to your face, but they will certainly type it and hit the enter key, in some ways that's worse. because people are bigger dicks when they're behind their computer screen than they would ever be when they were. I mean, you would have to have a certain amount of balls to come after somebody in person.
Jenn Junod
And there's that sense of anonymous that they're like, cool, I can get away with it yet. Something that I see it that we talked about before the call that is also a part of a transition that you mentioned that you've seen as well as we talk about social media and marketing is what consumerism has done to the LGBT Q plus community. Can you go into your views a bit about that?
G. Scott Graham
Oh, yeah. It's, it's, it's, and I think I told you earlier and there was a gay pride. Really was just a weekend. I, I had, we had trouble, I was one of the organizers of, one of the first gay pride events in Tampa, Florida. And we had trouble getting a site getting it organized, you know, we, you know, try to put on some events and stuff like that. It was really difficult.
And nobody wanted to be affiliated with gay pride at all. And now it's gone completely the other way. I hate, I hate the month of June now to be quite frankly, to be quite frank about it, or to speak frankly about it because it has just become this consumerist piece where I see the, you know, GL BT plus community just getting manipulated. I'll say that manipulated and taken advantage of because it's, it's, it's like Christmas, it's the June has become like Christmas, the whole
marketing machine creates this image of the perfect Christmas that we have to have every year and you have to have a little green and the smells and little nice sets for your Christmas table and the perfect dinner and the magical holiday, which is all baloney. Nobody is that way. That's 11 of the reasons that the suicide rate goes so high in the around the holidays because people can't keep up with that fake image.
But it's all designed to sell you the place mats, the table tops, the Christmas trees, the music, the, this the that the clothes, the ins I mean it just goes on and on and on and the same thing now happens in June with everybody's flying all the monthly, everybody's flying, their gay pride flag month of June. You know, you, you know, it's, it's, it has reduced gay pride to Saint Patrick's Day and Cinco de Mayo, you see the bars put out all the Saint Saint Patrick's Day stuff and drink
green beer which no Irish people ever drink, right? It's just been this like bastardized thing of, of, of, of this holiday. And then there's all this, you know, Spanish fiesta Mexican sombrero stuff that goes out with margaritas for Cinco de Mayo in May. And then that all goes away and the gay pride flags come out. And, and it's in my mind doubly worse because the addiction in the gay community is 2 to 3 times and we say gay come, I mean the whole lesbian and the, the whole, you know,
sexual minority community, if you will is 2 to 3 times what it is on the national level. So now to see cannabis come and I'm cannabis, I wrote a book about it. I, I don't know. Where is that? Where is the book? I wrote a book about cannabis. So here we go. Turning marijuana use in the age of legalization. I've grown pot. I smoke pot. But it is really awful to see the, the, the cannabis industry now, you know, targeting they're targeting through gay pride stuff, rainbow colored THC
gummies and stuff like that to a community that is two or three times susceptible than the rest of the world. To addiction. I mean, I guess it's good customers if you got good customers because they're gonna get addicted and continue to smoke or drink or do whatever. But it really is unethical.
Jenn Junod
Yeah. And I, I agree and I, I see what you mean by, it also puts people in boxes just like you talked about with Christmas. And I think that's the, a great segue into your book, Androphy Pride because like, we all need to beat to our own drum and something we've talked about in past episodes and especially in the, in the month of June is, we've had so many people come on about the stigmas of all gay men are flamboyant.
All lesbians are butch and that's definitely not true at all. And those are stigmas that are slowly changing. Yet, first off for the listeners that don't know what does androphy mean.
G. Scott Graham
So the, the, the idea of Androphy CC or androphy that you might, if you Google, if you Google Androphy a Manifesto, you will find the original book written by a gay named Jack Donovan. That's not even his real name. But he's a big burly guy, you know, lift lots of weights. He wasn't, but he became like this big burly guy. and he basically called out because just like you were marketed by different companies during the month of pride.
Now that you have to wear this underwear, you have to have this shirt, you have to have this drink, you have to have this thing and on and on and on pride. There's not a pride automobile. I bet there is someplace but that, you know, all these things as to, as to, you know, how you're supposed to be and dress and look. Right. And none of those people that you see in these pictures of, that they're selling stuff, they're all picture perfect bodies.
Right. Certainly not like my body right here. You know, and, and so it, it creates this, the the the marketers are creating this box that people just can't fit into of a certain waist size, certain looks, certain this certain that, you know, shave your hair, trim your nose, hairs, clip, clip your pubic hair and on and on and on and on and on. It's crazy.
And in the same way though, the gay community has all these expectations when you come out because they're very welcoming, very welcoming yet they're like, oh, well, you know, you have to accept this view and that view and you can't speak out like somebody saying, you know what, you know, you know, straighten up and fly, right? You know, you don't, you know, flip down the halls, somebody saying something like that is gonna be frowned upon by the gay community.
because, you know, you're just, you've got some internalized homophobia that you need to work through, which is something that doesn't happen in any other community out there, right? They don't, the, the, the black, if somebody criticizes the black community and says this is not, you know what you do, they don't turn and say, well, you've, you've got issues with your blackness, you need to go see a therapist because, you know, you're not a really, you're not a real black man or a
black woman, you haven't accepted that and then they, they may say other things, but they certainly do not, you know, slam these people like the gay community is, in fact, it's the other extreme. I mean, you would, you, you cannot see a caricature of a, of a black man or woman. If they're, you can't even get song of the South from Disney anymore.
They like wiping all this stuff out. You see warnings when you see things from the eighties when they're talking, you know, portraying, you know, a black man or a woman in a certain way that this is not the way it is, this is a conversation, all these other things yet, you know, we have these rampant stereotypes that are still pushed on like Rupaul's drag race, drag race.
I my prediction you'll heard it here first that in, in 20 years, Rupaul is gonna be looked at like an uncle Tom looked at like a a person who is, you know, like, like Song of the South, right? That, that was, that is, that's a caricature and that's not how gay men are. We're not all wearing underwear, women's underwear and putting on wigs.
G. Scott Graham, Jenn Junod
So this guy back to my story, I could see, I could see you saying, reel it back in Scott, reel it back in and, and time out really quick just because I do want to say this for the listeners, anything of opinions or anything like that are of the guest.
Jenn Junod
And I love the fact that you always share your opinions because you have one of the most beautiful polarizing personalities and I adore that about you because you are you and not giving a fuck. So I do want to say that caveat. But please continue.
G. Scott Graham
Yeah, you can email me at G Scott graham.com. Just go there, send me all your hate mail and I'm willing to, to take it on because I, and I, I think these views are important. We, I think it's important for us to talk about and if I'm being an electric rod on some of these pieces and then people end up having some conversations about this, that's a good thing.
That's a good thing. So this guy Jack Donovan wrote this book Androphy, a Manifesto as a reaction to this stuff that I'm talking about a reaction saying, you know, you know, this gay men don't have to be flamboyant. Gay men don't have to subscribe to this. You shouldn't have to vote this certain way. You shouldn't have to be pro pro choice you shouldn't have to be a feminist, you should.
You're, and he wrote this book Androphy, I mean, Esto. And then after writing this book, he just went off the deep end, he turns out it turns out that he's a bigot misogynist. you know, was having was part of this, you know, wolf clan thing in Virginia that were like pseudo Nazis anti Jewish. I mean, it was, I mean, he just went off the deep end. And so my purpose in writing this book was to put out an alternative that said, yeah, he's right.
He is right. But he did the same thing that he was preaching against, which is he said, you're, you know, the gay community is wrong in telling you how to be, this is what you need to be your own man. And now I'm gonna tell you what a man is anti woman, anti this this thing, that thing that the workout steroid, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He did the exact same thing that the gay community does.
And so, you know, I think at some point in the, in the book, after I kind of go through this history and talk about this pressure I say to folks, this is the really important thing. You need to be who you are not, who the gay community says you are not who the the companies that are marketing you gay and lesbian pride. Choky says you need to be not who Jack Donovan said you need to be and not who Scott Graham says you need to be.
You need to figure out how you are. And if you like painting your nails and working out and hiking, that's great. And if you like musicals and not painting your nails and, and being a lumberjack, that's great too. All those things are fine. But it's the, it's the dogmatic prescriptive piece that really puts a hair across my ass with this stuff, especially since you know, you, you, you, you, you, it's like you come out to the gay community and then you have to come out again and be like,
well, I'm not that kind of gay and I'm not that kind of gay. What kind of gay am I? And you have to go through it all. Like you have to go through like two coming out as a gay man or a lesbian. I'm, I'm talking about gay men specifically here.
Jenn Junod
So curiosity because I, I could only imagine that, you know, you have these feelings that are building up and you know, like you're doing nowadays, you can do research online, like, like with questions, am I gay? That kind of thing? And you come out to a community yet? to your point, it's almost like you do have to have two coming out because at least the way I'm thinking this through is that you would kind of have to find out who you are and if you fit in with this crowd, like there are
people that come out that are like super wanna work out all the time and then there's, you know, the gays that are more feminine and I, I find that at least in my thought process here is you do kind of have to like figure out who you are once you are out because that first big mountain top was coming out and then your next big mountain top is part of finding out who you are.
G. Scott Graham
Yeah. And then the real, the reality of that is for most people, I mean, it depends on your upbringing and what you're, and, and, and, and what somebody has told you, but you're still the same person you were before you came out, you discover a piece along the, along the way that, you know, it's, it's just, it's just who I have sex with. It's just who I have sex with.
That's it. That's it. And where, where I put my cock has no, no relevance as to who I am as a human being. Right? Straight. People don't do that. They don't identify that way. They, you know, you talk to a straight, what do you, who are you? They say, you know, I'm a, this person and most people talk about their careers. You know, I'm this, I'm that I'm a father, I'm this or whatever and, and, you know, on my resume.
Gay is nowhere on my resume of things of who I am. You know, I'm a tough mother. I'm an animal rescuer. I'm a widower. You know, people can put it together and say, all right. All right. So he's a widower. I, you know, I was in a relationship with a man for 31 years. I changed my name to be part of people piece that together, but I don't lead off with, hey, I'm gay. Right. That's not the top thing on my resume.
More important of who I am is that, you know, I meditate. I, I'm a firefighter, I'm an EMT, you know, I rescue farm animals. That's who I am. and, and gay is just who I happen to have sex with. And it wouldn't even be an issue if people who are gay didn't make it an issue. Right. It's, it wouldn't be an issue if we, if, if, if you just, you know, are like, oh, I can get married or I can do this or I can do this.
G. Scott Graham, Jenn Junod
It would just feel like, like an, another choice about what you're doing with your life and that you talk about the titles too.
Jenn Junod
And that's something that we talked about in Tiffany's episode of. A lot of straight people will introduce them as their gay friends. And I did talk to one of my good friends, Lee, I used to live with him and his husband and I, I was dating at the time and I honestly would go. Yeah, I live with my best friend, Lee and his husband or my gay, best friend and his husband to gauge how they would react to it.
And if they got, you know, disgusted or, like, you know, the heebie jeebies about it, I knew that they weren't, have worth having around. And it's interesting to me hearing that on both perspectives and knowing that I've done that in the past, knowing that I've talked about them as a descriptive to show a piece of that individual. But, and it's not just the whole individual that is just a small part of it, just like you're saying, like you're not gonna put it on a resume.
And even now I don't introduce Lee like that because I don't live with him. You know, there's a lot more that goes into it and it's interesting how each of us as allies need to look into how we're talking about the community and also how we're supporting our friends because saying, oh yeah, I'm gonna have Scott on again because he's a gay guy in pride is kind of fucked up.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I love the fact that you and I talked about our first episode together was about grief and that's when I learned about you being a gay man and your stories are so impactful that I, I did ask you to come back during pride that it's, it's something that I think is a journey for both sides of individuals that are allies, learning how to be an ally. And that is influenced by those that are closest to us that are part of the community and also those individuals that
are part of the community, knowing that we're not trying to be assholes. We're learning to such as individuals that may change their pronouns. I will say that I've messed up on pronouns so many times that and it's fucked up. But it's, I also have to relearn so much of what society has taught me. Do you have any suggestions or ways that you see that allies could be better allies or anything along those lines?
G. Scott Graham
I have, I have an example for at least allies to think about as you do this and, and I don't have an example for guys. It's only for, for, for the females here. But so if you're, if you're a female watching, just imagine if you got introduced, be based on your, based on the size of your breasts by people like, hey, here's my friend Samantha. She's a 38 D.
She's one of my few 38 D friends. I have some 38 C friends or I have some whatever. It's just imagine if you got introduced that way or if you got introduced and said, hey, this is, this is Samantha. This is Samantha's sister, Billy. She's a breast cancer survivor. She doesn't have any breasts. You, you know, I'll be like, you know what, I'm not my tits.
I am not my tits. I am a entrepreneur. I'm a businesswoman. I'm a mother, I'm a partner. I'm a firefighter. I'm a police person. I mean, the list what goes on but you'd be like, I am not my tits. Don't introduce me as your 38 D friend that you've got here. It, it's insulting to just take my whole being and just bring it down to the size of my tits. It's insulting.
And if you think about that and think about that same dynamic happens when you introduce your gay friends on these pieces, right? Because, and it's, and it's easy to fall into that trap because, and if, if you know, if we would have some, if there was something in the water tomorrow and every single gay person turned purple, then these issues would be like, not an issue because the people that weren't out of the closet, the people that are married on and on and on.
All these, there'd be all these purple people everywhere and problem solved, right? You don't have to introduce, although some people do here is my black friend, obviously, clearly a person of color standing right next to them. They, some people still do that. and that it's, it's, it's a, it's a journey that takes time and a and, and just like I as a man need to get a grip on who I am and that I'm more than just where I'm having sex or who I'm having sex with.
I need to remind the people around me that I'm more than who I'm having sex with. And what I'm doing in my off time when I'm not around, that, you know, I still struggle with the same exact things that are out there that everybody does and has struggled with forever. And I still have the same dreams and aspirations that everybody else thinks about. I'm not just focused on sex and getting laid.
Jenn Junod
That is a great example and something that just two things that came to mind while you were talking about that was having when people say, oh, I have a gay friend, I'm not homophobic. Oh I have a black friend. I'm not racist. That is not being a true ally and that is not truly understanding what may be going on in other communities than our own. And again, going and asking that specific friend from a community wanting to learn about the community is putting an intellectual burden on
them. And yes, we have people in the world like Scott that want to openly talk about this, help us all edu become educated, help individuals beat to their own drum, which is absolutely wonderful. And thank you yet, please treat your friends and family as the humans. They are not the tokens out of each community because we need to hold ourselves responsible that if we want to find these different resources, listen to shit you don't want to talk about because I bus truck myself all
the time. And with it like Google, things like one about racism, white fragility is a wonderful book. And these are all different resources that we can do instead of creating putting our friend or family member on a pedestal that they don't want to be on and giving them the intellectual burden.
G. Scott Graham
And that's the same thing that happens with this rainbow washing that goes on during Gay Pride Month. Now they're tokenizing people, right? It's like a company would be much better asking folks to read a book, go to a training, grow their own diversity efforts as a company instead of, you know, it's June. All right, we're, we're, we're putting out the rainbow cracks or you go to Disney, right?
Look at Disney, right. Disney struggled to only coming forth after there was pressure to say, ok, this gay stuff that they're talking about in schools were against that, right? Disney. Disney Disney for years did not have there's gay days at Disney, it's not a Disney event. However, all these gays go to Disney for on a certain day and it's grown and grown and grown.
I've been there, everybody wore red shirts on that day. And Disney would offer people passes to go to other parks because not because, in part, maybe because there were some people that were upset about all the gay people that were there kissing and hugging and all that other stuff. But just that the park was jammed. I mean, it was jammed with red shirts and, you know, mom and, you know, you know, mom and dad from Indiana have come down with their kids saved up all their money and pick
that day to go to Disney Magic Kingdom and they can't even get on any rides or walk around because there's gay men everywhere in red shirts and lesbians everywhere in red shirts. But you, you see Disney, you know, offer when, when gay Pride Month comes around, there's, you know, rainbow mickey mouse ears, rainbow mickey mouse pins, rainbow this rainbow, that all this stuff yet. Where were they when desantis was doing all this stuff, you know, around gay education in schools
until there was pressure, right? That's ridiculous. That is ridiculous that if they're truly, I don't, I mean, I'd rather have them get rid of all the gay T chay and really support diversity and equality than to, you know, boy, look at, I got to spend $15 on a pair of rainbow mickey ears in Disney. They, they're, they love us gay people. It's ridiculous.
Jenn Junod
And to that point I and the diversity is hiring people of the LGBT Q plus community creating characters in their movies that support the LGBT Q plus community. We are barely seeing Disney come out with stories that do not. Yes, many of them have a happy ending. And I love that personally, I love happy MD. But they are now coming up that it's not associated with love.
They are slowly starting to come out with marginalized communities and there is a lot of progress to. So I just want to say that we are starting to see some progress yet. It is because of the pressure. It is also because kind of like what you said about your husband, he pushed for something that he believed in, which made you change your own mind. And that's a lot of why we do have Pride Month is to show support and to show that there are people out there that are gonna push the boundaries
to really show everyone that we are equals that we like every human is a beautiful human, no matter what that they identify with what their color is, what their education, where they work. And yes, that is a bit altruistic and you know, too optimistic yet we can take these slow steps to become kinder to each other.
G. Scott Graham
Yeah, we're doing this es especially recently with the in, in the last, you know, 5 to 678 years with social media, people have become so much more unkind to each other. People have gone into their own little bubbles and their own little communities. And have built walls around themselves. You would think that information would, would bring down these walls and communication tools would put, bring down these walls.
But in many instances, they have just put up these walls because people can isolate and give this impression to themselves that they are part of this other community that is just fictitiously created online. And they have these like minded people that say this, that or the other thing, whether it's about gay rights choice pro-life guns doesn't matter what it is. They are all these bubble community that say this is the way it is and this is the reality, you know, otherwise people
would still not be thinking that that that Trump won. I mean, talk about a bubble community, right? I mean, still the people are like, oh yeah, that was, that was, yeah, he really didn't want lose. It was a fake election. It was rigged, right? Those if that pers if that type of thought or belief persists, which is
like really unproven and crazy just I mean, these other things about gay men, lesbians, blacks on and on and on. Those are all persisting out there too. We just don't see them.
Jenn Junod
Yes, yes. And Mr G Scott Graham, is there anything that you wanted to cover today that we didn't?
G. Scott Graham
Wow, we, I we've covered more than I thought we would cover. We have just been around the world and back. I hope it's been helpful for your listeners or provocative.
Jenn Junod
At least that is one thing I feel like we can guarantee about your episodes and I appreciate you being our first return guest. Now, you mentioned words of wisdom earlier and I'm curious if you want to repeat them or if you have any other words of wisdom, I, I think they are worth repeating.
G. Scott Graham
And that is, you know, each of the words of wisdom for me, which I hope shine through to you is that, you know who I am has not really changed that compass of who I follow. And what I believe and what I do hasn't really changed over the years. But there's been pressures when I was first coming out from the Catholic church that it was wrong and bad and damnation and evil and then pressures from the gay community to conform to a certain way and expectations from other communities to be a
certain way. And ultimately, I've come back to the core of who I am. And so, and, and that hasn't changed. And so a lot of times if you're out there saying I have to discover who I am or I have to, I have to go out and figure out who I am. You already figured it out.
You just, it's, it's already part of who you are. You just have to acknowledge it and move forward with whatever that is and resist these people that want you to march to their drums, march to the beat of your own drum. Not theirs, not mine. Yours.
Jenn Junod
I love that. And one thing I'd like to add to that is at least in my own journey. It, when I see something new being open to it and just seeing if it fits into my puzzle, try it on like a piece of clothing, test it out and if it fits great, incorporate it. If it doesn't fit awesome, put it back, return it. And that's something that's at least helped me grow and still be open yet. Go and also stay true to myself.
Nice and also beautiful audience listening. Please make sure to check out the podcast, share the podcast and also check out our Thursday premier at 7 p.m. Pacific 10 p.m. Eastern. And you can check out the all of our social medias are shit. The number two talk about again, that is shit to talk about with the number two. And how does our beautiful humans reach out to you?
G. Scott Graham
They can just go to G Scott graham.com. And so that's the thing that's on the bottom of all my books. There we go. Look at that right there in the camera. G Scott Graham. No, period. After that squish all the letters together. You can find me, you can message me from there, you can see my social media, you can see I've written some articles recently on medium. you that's all linked from there.
Jenn Junod
Easy, peasy. Perfect. And last, but not least, what is something that you're grateful for?
G. Scott Graham
II, I was thinking about this, throughout, throughout, well, not throughout the whole conversation because I was engaged with you as we covered some stuff. I wasn't anticipating on, you know what I'm grateful for. I am really lucky to have the first guy that I ever, ever dated who's also named Scott. His name is Scott Schwartz. Isn't that kind of funny about it back then? I was going by Gregory.
I hadn't gotten rid of the g so he still calls me Greg. He and I have stayed in touch. and, over the years and we recently did together a course on emotional intelligence through Coursera and it was really nice to be with someone that knew, has known me over the years, knew me and kind of come back and, and reen engaged with me after Brian died. and it has been a really nice support.
G. Scott Graham, Jenn Junod
And so I love that.
G. Scott Graham
I'm really grateful that he's in my life.
Jenn Junod
Definitely go check out the chorus audience and something that I'm grateful for is your polarization. I i it sounds so difference or it could sound bad yet when I think of polarization, it is being your true self, whether or not it's gonna piss other people off and when you believe in something or you're an activist and you truly believe in a change that's gonna
piss some people off. Some people are really gonna jive with it and other people are gonna get mad and that's given me a lot of encouragement to continue doing this podcast.
G. Scott Graham, Jenn Junod
So thank you for just being you, you know, your podcast is the same way because this is, this is shit you don't want to talk about.
G. Scott Graham
Not, let's talk about all the fun stuff. That's easy. Right? That's, it really takes courage to continue to do this day after day, week, after week. So I'm glad to see you out there.
Jenn Junod
Thank you and talk so soon, Scott.
G. Scott Graham
Yeah, thank you. Bye.
Jenn Junod
Hello again. Beautiful human. What did you get out of today's episode? We'd love to hear what was most impactful to you. We all know someone that could have really used this episode. So please send it their way. Remind them that they're not alone. Stay tuned for new episodes every Wednesday. Here's a few ways that we could really use your support to keep shit.
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