Podcast Episode 380: Upstanders vs. Bystanders: Embracing Allyship for LGBTQ Families Everywhere Transcripts

Please note: Transcripts for the No Guilt Mom Podcast were created using AI. As a result, there may be some minor errors.

Jaimie Kelton (00:01)

You need to be an upstander, not a bystander. And that’s one of like our tenants in our household. If something wrong is being done to someone or something, we stand up for it. That’s what we’re supposed to do.

JoAnn Crohn (00:13)

Welcome to the No Guilt Mom podcast. I am your host JoAnn Crohn joined here by my brilliant co-host, the wonderful, Brie Tucker.

I had to like say the brilliant Brie twice because I’m like, you can’t take advantage of the alliteration if you don’t say the word next to the other word. So I had to do it. It had to be that way in my brain.

Brie Tucker (00:40)

it’s just my morning pet. It’s my thing that makes my day be like, my god, someone other than my dog thinks I’m brilliant.

JoAnn Crohn (00:48)

They are best for her. Oh my god. They are. My dog loves me all the time. 

Brie Tucker (00:53)

They’re like, love you so much, I can’t even let you fall in the toilet. I’m gonna sit here and watch you, protect you the whole time.

JoAnn Crohn (00:59)

All the time.

Well, today we have a fantastic guest. She is a host of a podcast herself. And so this is going to be a great conversation.

Brie Tucker (01:10)

We are giddy about this episode. It’s going to be amazing.

JoAnn Crohn (01:13)

I love talking with other podcast hosts because we’re all kind of used to being on the mic.

And we are used to forgetting about the mic kind of and we’ve overshared was we talked about before we overshare we say all the things, it doesn’t matter. We’re just like here talking and I love that I love it. So our guest today is Jaimie Kelton. She’s the founder and host of the queer family podcast, the show of all about family, but with gay and co author of the book, if these ovaries could talk the things we’ve learned about building an LGBTQ family. And she is the proud mom to an 11 year old daughter and a seven year old son. And with that,

We’re going to talk with Jaimie. We’re going to have a lot of fun. So let’s get on with it.

You want mom life to be easier. That’s our goal too. Our mission is to raise more self-sufficient and independent kids, and we’re going to have fun doing it. We’re going to help you delegate and step back. Each episode, we’ll tackle strategies for positive discipline, making our kids more responsible and making our lives better in the process. Welcome to the No Guilt Mom podcast. ⁓

Okay, Jaimie, welcome to the podcast. And as I said, when I met you this morning, I’m like, I’ve been stalking you for the entire morning. So I feel like I know you already. And one of the things I was talking to you about is like, you’re a voiceover actor as well

Jaimie Kelton (02:41)

uh-huh. Yeah. Wow. You went deep. You went deep. It’s a pleasure to be here. I just want to say that. Thank you for having me. And y’all are really buttoned up doing that intro on the fly. I do my intros after, like later.

JoAnn Crohn (02:57)

It’s because we’re lazy. We don’t want to edit them. ⁓

Brie Tucker (03:01)

We’re like, that’s so much work. Can we just put it together?

Jaimie Kelton (03:05)

No, good for you. You got it ready to go. You got it all written down. It’s amazing. I don’t even write it down. And then my poor editor hates me because I’m like, ⁓ sorry, Jersey. Wait, wait, wait. Take that out. Take it real time. It’s terrible.

JoAnn Crohn (03:18)

You’ll hear us talk to our editor during this show as well.

Brie Tucker (03:22)

Shout out to Michael, we love you dude

Jaimie Kelton (03:24)

Michael you rock.

JoAnn Crohn (03:24)

Shout out to Michael. We’ll take things out all the time. Yeah, but I found like you’re a voiceover actor. You voice Little Bo Peep in a show called Happy. How did you get into voiceover?

Jaimie Kelton (03:34)

Yeah.

Well, I started out way back when, before children, in musical theater. So I was a professional musical theater actress, did a lot of tours and things. And then when I had kids, I didn’t want to travel anymore. So I stopped auditioning and then I just fell into voiceovers. A friend of a friend was like, hey, my boyfriend’s a voiceover agent. You want to go to that? And I was like, okay. And then I booked.

the first job he sent me and then I just kind of fell into that. don’t book every job. Listen, it’s far and few between. So I don’t want it to seem like I’m like, I happened to book the first job and then it was like Slim Pickens for like two years and then I got another one.

JoAnn Crohn (04:13)

So you piqued my interest on musical theater actress because as Brie can attest, We- 

Brie Tucker (04:19)

I was going to say, “we were just talking about this morning, weren’t we?”

JoAnn Crohn (04:22)

I do a daily Jo with Jo, which I have my coffee, I’m Jo, in our balance community. And I was just talking about musical theater today. I’m a big fan.What shows have you been to?

Jaimie Kelton (04:32)

The last one I did two months before my daughter was born, my wife had my daughter, so I was able to do it, was a chorus line. And before that I did, You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, like three times. I did Cinderella. There’s been so many. Urine town.

JoAnn Crohn (04:52)

I want to see that. I have never seen that. haven’t heard. Yeah.

Jaimie Kelton (04:57)

that was one of my favorites. it’s so fun. it’s about a town where they have to pay to pee. it’s just hilarious.

Brie Tucker (05:02)

Did I hear that right? it urine or is it you’re in? urine. So, alright, I heard it right.

Jaimie Kelton (05:10)

In the town they have to pay to pee. It’s so funny and fun and I would do it again even though I don’t do it anymore. But I would do it in a heartbeat. I would do any musical in a heartbeat. Are you kidding me?

JoAnn Crohn (05:21)

Okay, I’ve gone down the Broadway musicals.

Jaimie Kelton (05:24)

If we had any lesbians listening, we just lost them. am a lesbian, but I think we just lost ⁓ them.

JoAnn Crohn (05:37)

So you are the host of the family podcast. In my stalking, I saw that you started the podcast before your son was even born. So it’s been going on like seven years now. And why did you start the podcast? What was your reason behind?

Jaimie Kelton (05:39)

So it’s kind of a long story, so buckle up. I’m gonna try to make it real short. I’m gonna do my best. So my wife had our first because she was a little bit older and we needed to get started. This isn’t a nutshell. We need to get started right away. So she had our first and we just figured because I was young, I’m seven years younger, we just figured when it was my turn to have a kid, he would be bada bing bada bing so quick because I was young and active, whatever.

thought it was gonna be easy. It wasn’t easy. It took me almost three years to get pregnant. So I had unexplained infertility. And this is, know, when we go to make babies, we start at the fertility clinic, many of us, not all of us. So this was all medically assisted in my case. And even that took almost three years with IVF after IVF and IUIs and so much donor sperm, I don’t even want to talk about it.

JoAnn Crohn (06:48)

That is kind of a scary thought. I would have never thought of that before until you just brought it up.

Jaimie Kelton (06:55)

We had to bring our sperm donor out of retirement. That’s how much sperm we went through. I’m sorry, all the non-queers listening. That’s so funny.

JoAnn Crohn (07:03)

I love hearing all of this. This is so interesting to me. It’s not something that gets talked about. It’s a comical view.

Brie Tucker (07:09)

It’s a comical view of his struggle being like, had to bring him out of retirement.

Jaimie Kelton (07:14)

We did, we brought him out of retirement. Thankfully he came out for us, that was really nice of him. This is the kind of things that I talk about on my show because like you just said, it’s not talked about enough and we need to hear these stories, especially in the legit T’Kwah community, which I like to call us. You know, because it’s cathartic and it’s helpful and there’s no guidebook, although there are some coming out now. Anyway, I digress. So I suffered from infertility and…

As you do when you’re going through infertility, I started to get sad and I started to get lonely not to turn this into a sob story, because I was never that deep into it. was just needing, I was needing to hear my story mirrored back to me. I was needing to hear from other people who had similar stories. And so, and I had just discovered podcasts, you know, this was seven years ago. So was like, ⁓ there’s a podcast about everything. I’m sure there’s a podcast about this. And I found a lot of

fertility podcast, infertility podcast, baby making podcast, but they were all heteronormative lenses, all straight stories. And you know, the husband would come in and be like, I didn’t want to go to the fertility clinic. And like, it didn’t resonate with me, you know, and then they would always turn it to Jesus. And that doesn’t resonate with me. No offense if it resonates with anybody else, but it doesn’t resonate with me. So I wasn’t finding.

I needed to heal from hearing my story and I couldn’t find it. So I kept saying to myself, somebody needs to create this. Like somebody needs to create a family podcast through a clear lens. And then I realized, ⁓ that’s me. I have to create it.

Brie Tucker (08:43)

I love that. Oh, wait a minute. No one else is gonna do it? I love that you have the gumption to be like, if no one else is gonna do it, I’m gonna do it. Yeah.

Jaimie Kelton (08:49)

Well, the idea just wouldn’t go away. was like, you know, they talk about the seed, you know. So I created it when I was six months pregnant. So I didn’t actually need it anymore. But now it’s not just about like getting pregnant. It’s about all the things that go with queer family. It’s the community.

Brie Tucker (09:07)

It’s making the community accessible to people that don’t have it accessible for whatever reason. It might just be that logistically it’s not accessible or like you just said, I understand what you mean. Like I’ve gone through a couple of transitions in my life where I like looked around and I love my people. I love my tribe. JoAnn is one of my best, dearest, closest friends, but you still need people that have gone through the struggles that you’re going through.

most importantly, while you’re going through them. Because like you said, when it’s something big like that, it can make you feel so isolated.

Jaimie Kelton (09:45)

Yeah, and my mission with this show is to highlight, celebrate, uplift, and normalize LGBTQ families in all of our fabulous identities. And we have a lot of identities, I know. I know it gets tiresome, but you know, we’ve got a big acronym that keeps growing.

JoAnn Crohn (10:05)

I need some voice. I need some pronunciation help. Legit, but, okay, say that for me again.

Jaimie Kelton (10:10)

Cause it’s LGBTQIA, right? So, le-ge-be-te-quah. Le-ge-be-te-quah.

JoAnn Crohn (10:16)

I like that. I want to start using that. That’s why I want to pronounce it. Because something that you said is normalize it because something you said that I found was that the mainstream media is not the truth of the world around us and it needs to change. Yeah. And I see that a lot. And of course, the news in our current political environment, which I do want to get into with you because I know you’re very, very active against that. And also, I haven’t seen very many

queer family start either. The only one that I could really reference is Jess King of Peloton. She really shared openly about starting her family with her wife. So seeing more representations of this, having more people become accustomed to seeing this, I think just makes the world a whole better, more understanding place. So we’re going to get into exactly how we counter that kind of pushback against normalizing it right after this.

So you mentioned, Jaimie, about starting the Queer Family Podcast to kind of normalize this representation of families and what families look like and what love looks like. And on your Instagram, which I will totally admit to stalking you all day long on this, because I found it fascinating, especially the school board discussion that you posted. Yeah. So for those of people who haven’t seen it and for Breke, tell us what happened at that school board meeting that you posted.

Jaimie Kelton (11:43)

Okay, so first I just want to say, because you said something before the break about how there isn’t enough representation, and there isn’t, there isn’t across the board, but you can find it on social media. It’s all over social media. So all you have to do is search out the accounts, and that’s one way to be an ally is to follow and support queer accounts like mine. And like my Instagram feed, it’s just all queer stuff. And then I have my private one, which is like inspirational quotes and shit, just to get me through the day. like, know.

JoAnn Crohn (12:12)

You dance, and I really appreciate your dancing. You’re an amazing dancer.

Jaimie Kelton (12:15)

Thank you, thank you. Appreciate that. I gotta throw some dancing in. You know, you’re supposed to use all your talents. That’s what they say. So I gotta throw it in somehow. Okay, so the school board thing. All I live in New York City. My kids go to school in Chelsea, a school in Chelsea, which is the heart of the modern day, L’Equipe de Quoi civil rights movement, right? And our district houses not only Chelsea, but Greenwich Village, which is also a huge part of the L’Equipe de Quoi civil rights movement, and Hell’s Kitchen.

which is same thing. And actually over a year ago, our CEC board of district two, which is a huge district.

JoAnn Crohn (12:52)

And what does the E.C. stand for?

Jaimie Kelton (12:54)

CEC is Community Education Council. So it is elected parents from district two. Okay, okay. Everybody has a CEC, everybody. Every school has a CEC board or whatever they call it. Nobody pays attention because you just assume that the parents are representing the community and they don’t actually have any real power. They can’t make decisions. All they can do is recommend that the DOE…

change this or do that, right? So they don’t have real power, but what they say has power and the words they use has power and the propositions they put forward have extreme power and say a lot. And so recently or over a year ago, they brought a new resolution up and voted on it that would ask the NYC DOE to rethink their inclusive sports policies. So basically, they don’t want trans girls playing sports. my. They a worded it with, we just want to start a conversation about trans children in sports. No, the conversation’s done. They made the decision. We’re inclusive. Everybody deserves a right to all the things that everybody has a right to, right? So anyway, so the DOE, more than half, voted yes to open up the conversation and ask the DOE to do this.

And then the DOE promptly shot that down and we’re like, hell no, that’s not happening. So then the next month, those on the board who are more equity minded brought up a resolution saying, please rescind resolution, whatever it was, 278. We would like you to rescind it. Take it off the record. It is harmful to the trans community. It is harmful to trans children. You are saying they are less than, and it is harmful to the Ligiputu Kwa community, blah, blah, blah. They refuse to rescind it.

Every month since then, that part of the CEC board has brought a new resolution to rescind it up. And every single month, they shoot it down. The trans community has gotten word of this. They show up every month now. It’s a huge protest. It’s a whole thing. They bring cupcakes. it’s a whole, there’s people knitting in the audience. Like it’s a little crazy.

queer and knitting just go hand in hand. I don’t know what it is. Really? Okay. And my wife and I have been attending the CEC meetings since before this because there are things that we caught wind that there are things that this CEC board was voting on that we don’t agree with that is low key segregation, unveiled language and all kinds of stuff, which was alarming to us. So we had started to attend the meetings even before this happened. And then when this happened, more and more people caught wind of it. And now celebrities show up, Che from

And just like that. ⁓ really? Has been there. Alana Glazer.

JoAnn Crohn (15:42)

Sarah Martinez. Yeah. I remember them from Grey’s Anatomy. Okay. I was like, my gosh.

Jaimie Kelton (15:46)

yeah, I never watched that.

I stood next to Alana Glazer at one of the meetings and she was like, hey, I’m so pissed off. I was like, yeah, me too, Alana. Nice to meet you. I was like, yeah, Alana, you’re a lot. I know who you are. yeah, and a lot of names have shown up in protest of this and they just keep voting the wrong way. ⁓

Brie Tucker (16:10)

Do they say why, they won’t remove it?

Jaimie Kelton (16:13)

Their whole argument was, we just want to start a conversation. It’s just, what’s harmful about a conversation? That’s what they’re standing on. Yeah.

JoAnn Crohn (16:21)

So that’s an interesting question though, because I know that that is the rhetoric that a lot of people stand against. We just want a conversation. And like, have you seen anything that’s a good counter to that argument? We just want a conversation.

Jaimie Kelton (16:35)

The conversation’s been had. Like, do you want to open up a conversation to if concentration camps are a good idea? Absolutely not. The conversation’s been had. This is done. Do you want to start up a conversation about segregating schools? No, you don’t. It’s done. Something that is harmful to other human beings is not OK, at least not in my world. Sorry, I just got loud there.

JoAnn Crohn (16:55)

No, you’re totally right.

Jaimie Kelton (17:02)

I get very heated and now I’ve lost parent friends at my kid’s school because I’ve been so vocal. One of the guys who keeps voting the wrong way on the board is actually in our school on our PTA and he has a lot of the parents in our school just in the palm of his hand and they believe everything he says even though he lies. Like it’s, it’s crazy 

Brie Tucker (17:26)

It’s hard! Like, it’s rough when you have that personal connection. So like, my nephew is trans. huh. Okay, yeah! I grew up in the Midwest. We were talking before, like our audience knows. I grew up in Missouri, went to college in rural Missouri. I was in a sorority, way to go Alpha Gamma Deltas. I love all my sisters, however!

Jaimie Kelton (17:31)

Mine too. ⁓

Brie Tucker (17:48)

However, on social media has come out really strongly in the last few years about there being a lot of my people that I’ve considered like close friends, sorority sisters are very against the whole trans, transgenders in general. And spouting a lot of things where they have a lot of fears that are not based in reality. There are fears that they have been told that could happen. And because of that, they refuse to be able to acknowledge

that just the conversation is dangerous. Because it gets people just enough information to give them a fear, but not enough information for them to actually understand the whole concept. So then it goes from whatever it started as in your case, starting about transgenders not being allowed in sports.

goes into the whole bathroom thing, and now it’s like every transgendered person is going to attack my child, and it’s like that’s why the conversation can be dangerous.

Jaimie Kelton (18:49)

It’s fear-mongering and the government’s doing a really good job of putting a lot of fear in our hearts and not in my heart, in people’s hearts. And, you know, they tried, they tried to do with the bathroom bans. That was their first attempt before years ago. They tried with the bathroom bans. It didn’t work. This is their new scapegoat. This is their new way to get at first the trans community and then broaden that to the LGBTQIA because they still want to, there are so many of them who still want to take away gay marriage, right? So this is just their way in.

to then start fear mongering about the rest. It doesn’t stop there. It doesn’t.

JoAnn Crohn (19:25)

It’s so interesting, like I traveled to New York. I go there a lot. And I want to point out something that I saw last time I was there and we’ll do it right after this.

So I was talking about the bathroom bands and being here in Arizona, we are going to purple state, proudly. We’re hopeful. It has some red roots in here that are still a little hard to get past. A lot of our listeners come from the Midwest and they don’t have as much exposure to the various variety of things that, for instance, New York City citizens have. When I go to New York, it is not uncommon to see a bathroom that says all genders accepted in this bathroom.

JoAnn Crohn (20:04)

And that’s a rarity for me to see coming from Arizona because we don’t have that here at all. mean, Brie, I don’t think we can even say like we see like all genders accepted here, any place here in Arizona, in the Phoenix area.

Brie Tucker (20:17)

It’s a couples places, but you have to go to like a… Friendly.

Jaimie Kelton (20:19)

I think it’s also like in New York, just

to defend where you live, like I think in New York’s case, in a lot of cases, it’s just because of a space issue. Like they can’t put multiple bathrooms.

Brie Tucker (20:30)

I’m like honestly, why are we even having a fight about this conversation? An all gender bathroom is actually a great space saver.

JoAnn Crohn (20:38)

also very realistic for the whole women taking on the mental load of childhood because you have an all gender bathroom, right and have access now to a baby changing station. Bam. Problem solved

Jaimie Kelton (20:48)

Yeah, I don’t have that problem ladies. I’m sorry. They don’t have that. We share everything 50-50.

JoAnn Crohn (20:52)

I would get so mad, Jaimie. I would be like, you could take this baby out to the car, Joshua, and could go change them there.

Jaimie Kelton (21:05)

my god. ⁓ sorry. I’m sorry for your loss ladies. It’s so much better over here

JoAnn Crohn (21:11)

I see a lot and I’m like, ⁓ it would be a lot. My husband is very progressive. So I do not run into the same issues that I hear a lot of our No Go Mom community run into. He’s the one who we’re talking about mental load. He’s talking about his mental load, my mental load, figuring out, you know, all of those things. But I could see how actually coming to a relationship with the perspective already of being a woman can make a lot of things a lot easier. You know, having a…

Jaimie Kelton (21:37)

Right.

JoAnn Crohn (21:40)

growing up of being raised a woman in society. So as a parent, 11 year old, seven year old, you are teaching them how to be visible, be accepting, but there’s all of this hate and backlash around it. Like, how do you deal with that as a parent?

Jaimie Kelton (21:58)

You know, I guess we have a lot of books. I’m loud. They know what our political views are. We talk about it openly all the time. So they hear these conversations all the time so that they hear. My seven year old, I don’t know, we’re not giving him too much information, but he hears it constantly. And my daughter is a little more aware of what’s happening and she actually knows the people at the school. And so it’s a little more personal for her and she understands it. But I tell them all the time, you need to be an upstander, not a bystander.

Right? And that’s one of like our tenants in our household. Like, no, we’re upstanders in this house. We’re not bystanders. If something wrong is being done to someone or something, we stand up for it. That’s what we’re supposed to do. And that’s how I’m raising my kids. I can’t say I do much more except be really visible with my upstanding, my standing up for things and vocal about it and hope that it’s getting oozed into them in some way. But my daughter has done some pretty cool things as a kid, just standing up for what she believes in. So that makes me proud. So I feel like it’s working a little. We have books, know, pride books, books about same-sex families. We have a bunch of them. And I think those help my kids understand empathy. And just being queer makes you an upstander. You have to. You see what it feels like to be the one who’s being pushed down.

it doesn’t feel good. So then you go out into the world and when you see it happening to other people, no matter who they are, you’re more inclined to stand up for them.

Brie Tucker (23:31)

Yeah, it’s about being accepting and feeling like everybody deserves to have the same basic rights. It’s not that hard of a concept.

JoAnn Crohn (23:43)

Not being quiet there because you have to think about all of these issues right now. How many people disagree with them and how much of a ruckus that we could create if we were all noisy about them and we stood up for them and we said what’s on our minds.

Jaimie Kelton (23:56)

Right.

Yeah. I think to be a true ally in every respect, I’m not just saying like an ally to the LGBTQ community, but allies to immigrants whose rights are getting taken away, allies to whoever, right? Across the board, I think to be a true ally, you have to speak up, especially right now. If you’re silent, your silence isn’t helping. Your silence isn’t helping anything. Silence is not the answer right now. Right now we need to stand up and speak up for

all of the marginalized because they’re coming after all of the marginalized.

Brie Tucker (24:30)

Well, and I would even say, reflecting back to the earlier conversation we were having with your school board and there being the point of what’s wrong with having a conversation. And I think that I also bring this back to a really great interview we had recently with Elena Joy on the podcast. I feel like a one-on-one conversation is fine because it’s all about

Elena talked about like the lived experience, right? And it helps you understand where people are coming from with their mindset, where their opinions are, and then you can help share yours. But that’s a conversation. When something is this emotional, it is hard to have a productive conversation in a large group setting.

Jaimie Kelton (25:14)

Also, you need to have a conversation with people who have the lived experience. You know, can’t put this on a school board that has no single trans individual in it. How are you gonna have a conversation? What are you talking about, right? So have conversations with the people who have lived experience and then also realize that it’s really taxing on them, right? So sometimes you gotta go do your own freaking research and go look at things written by trans individuals or whoever the group we’re talking about is, right? You can do research. The internet is full of wonder for resources. So if you want to find facts about transgender girls in sports, it’s really easy to find it. And you can even filter it and be like, only give me statistics that were created by folks in the trans community. And you can find that, right? But you need to go and hear from.

actual trans individuals if you want to start a conversation. Like, start with them, right? Yeah. Absolutely. You know? Yeah. It’s just like so backwards and like all the people are pushing back against these trans girls playing sports in the name of protecting girls. First of all, it’s ridiculous. But have they ever met a trans little girl? I don’t think so. No.

JoAnn Crohn (26:32)

No, they haven’t. Like I’ve had conversations with people who have are against like trans people in bathrooms. And I’m like, have you ever met?

Jaimie Kelton (26:38)

Have you ever met them ? And maybe you have and you just didn’t know it. Exactly. And this whole thing is based on the assumption that trans girls are boys. They are not. They are girls. So get that right. There’s so much that people can learn.

Brie Tucker (26:43)

That’s a big one right there.

JoAnn Crohn (26:57)

There is much people can learn and I think that’s part of the very frustrating thing about this entire situation because it’s like people in power have closed their minds off to any new information and now they’re gonna go make laws to reject everyone who is not like them and they don’t understand.

Brie Tucker (27:11)

I do feel like in our current political climate here in the United States that there is a lot of people that are in the power to make decisions and to make these laws and to make new resolutions that their lived experience is secondhand stories that are secondhand stories on top of that. And they’re not, right? Like they never have sat down and

Jaimie Kelton (27:34)

Yeah.

Brie Tucker (27:39)

had a conversation like you just said. It might be like, ⁓ well, I knew somebody who knew somebody who had this experience and this is.

Jaimie Kelton (27:48)

it’s a volleyball spiked her in the head and she got a concussion because a trans girl hit the ball, right? That’s the one story everybody says. That can happen in any game. this all of this whole argument that they pose is all based on a the fact that in their minds, girls are actually boys, right? So that’s their first wrong. Yeah. And that boys and testosterone naturally are going to make your body

better at sports, which is also not true. And when you’re little and your body is growing at different stages, any person can be better at a sport at any time, at any age, because they are growing, changing bodies. And it always comes down to little kids in sports, which is mind boggling. Why are we going after the youth? They should just all play together. Why do we even separate them by gender? Anyway, I don’t even understand that.

You know, they’re little, their bodies are changing. And when we go on the assumption that testosterone is better, then you get all this crazy fear mongering and crazy rhetoric that, you know, we got to protect our girls because they can’t handle playing sports with someone with testosterone running through their bodies. Like, are you kidding me?

JoAnn Crohn (29:04)

which is just feeding into the whole victim mentality anyways.

Jaimie Kelton (29:07)

It’s just all based on these crazy ideas. I feel like we’re losing your whole audience because I’ll keep going.

JoAnn Crohn (29:15)

We will, no we’re not, we’re not. They like it spicy. Not at all. They do. But as we’re nearing the end, what can we do about it? What is one thing that Jaimie you’ve seen that you want people to do to change this narrative, to change this environment? Like one thing.

Jaimie Kelton (29:32)

speak up. You know, like, I’ve been to DEIA meetings and talking about just like white supremacy and being an ally to my Black and Brown community. And the one thing that really stuck with me in one of the meetings was even in the tiny little normal conversations, even when it’s a thing that your friend said who

thought they were in safe company and they could say that one little word to you or that thing that is slightly racist and you let slide because you’re both white, right? No, it’s our job actually as allies to call it out as uncomfortable as it is because if they had said that to somebody who was black or brown, that person would be would feel horrible.

JoAnn Crohn (30:20)

That’s true. That’s absolutely true.

Jaimie Kelton (30:22)

So it’s our job as allies to call those people out who may not even realize what they’re saying is not okay. Exactly, right? Yeah, so I think speaking up speaking up and

Brie Tucker (30:29)

tha’s a microaggression.

JoAnn Crohn (30:35)

And what you mentioned, it’s just a really tiny bit of courage that could feel really scary. But that is something that you can do. You don’t have to go and create a big speech. You don’t have to go and like rally the legislature, although all those things are good. The only thing you need to do is when you hear it, speak up about it, start there. And then you might find you can grow and speak more. Right. Because I think that’s the scariest thing, confronting our friends and acquaintances that we see on a day-to-day basis about those little microaggressions

Jaimie Kelton (30:39)

Right.

program and support the accounts, not just in their month, not just in February, not just in June, not just in, you know, AAPI month, whatever the month may be, right? Like all year round, maybe find the organizations that support them or just follow accounts on social media. That’s such a simple thing. Share accounts on social media that are uplifting the community, that are celebrating the community, that are speaking up. Share those things. You know, it doesn’t hurt to share stuff. I had a friend during Black Lives Matter when all the stuff was really hitting the fan. And my friend Allison, shout out to Allison, she’s black, and she put a post up and said, all my friends who tell me you’re my allies and I haven’t seen a single post from you about this, shame on you. And I was so, I remember being like, ⁓ please, whatever, you know I’m an ally, da da da. And then I realized, no, no, no, no, no, yes, shame on me. Because otherwise it’s an a void, it’s silent.

And there’s a whole population of people who are staying silent, who actually are on the right side, but we’re not speaking up. And so the other side gets to take over because they’re the ones in power.

JoAnn Crohn (32:12)

That’s true. That gives me like a different perspective on it because Brie and I were talking before this episode started about how moms for Liberty, they’re so well organized and it’s like.

Jaimie Kelton (32:22)

and we have Moms for Liberty affiliated people on our board. That’s the people who brought this resolution. Anyway, go ahead..

JoAnn Crohn (32:30)

They’re so well organized. are so vocal and all the rest of us are staying silent because we don’t want to quote on quote offend anyone. But just ridiculous. I mean, it’s just ridiculous saying it out loud. I mean, I’m guilty of it for sure. I’ve hesitated posting stuff. Yeah.

Jaimie Kelton (32:46)

Yeah, no, I am too. I work to be a better ally to those that need allies, right? Yeah. And so I think that’s the only advice I could give is just try. And even if you get like one a month, good job. You’re exercising that muscle and the more you do it, the easier it gets.

JoAnn Crohn (33:05)

Yeah, I’m going to take a challenge and I’m going to post something today.

Jaimie Kelton (33:10)

Okay, yeah. And then also like as a parent, talk to your kids about different families. Talk to your kids. Have books in your library that have families that look different than theirs. And they can hear stuff. Kids are really resilient and they can hear how two moms make a family. Like it’s not that deep. Just go into the science of it. Like it’s not that deep. It’s not that crazy for a child to hear about sperm and eggs. My kid can tell you.

JoAnn Crohn (33:12)

Hahaha!

Jaimie Kelton (33:38)

all about how babies are made because we have to talk about it. So if we have to talk about it, I feel like other parents should talk about it too. And I think my kids are smarter for it, you know? So it hasn’t harmed them knowing their moms love each other and put a lot of intention behind creating them and creating this family and that they know that we had to use a donor and his sperm.

Brie Tucker (33:47)

They should.

Jaimie Kelton (34:05)

to be put into mommy’s and mama’s eggs and then they were formed from that. Like it doesn’t hurt them to know that.

JoAnn Crohn (34:14)

What Jaimie, do you have exciting coming up in your life right now?

Jaimie Kelton (34:18)

well, it’s pride month. you know, everybody comes out of the woodwork like, we want to do this with you. We want to do that with you. So one thing I’m really excited about is I was asked to be a part of this study that the Pew Research Center was doing about, God, I’m going to get it wrong. should have written it down about living as an LGBTQIA plus person in today’s world. And so they had interviewed me about it.

and then they just released the study. It’s a really long study about what the state of the world is for us, LGBTQIA folks. And I’m one of the people that’s listed as one of the resources. And now they’ve asked me to speak on their panel that they have coming up on June 26th, I think, in Washington, DC. I’m gonna Awesome. Yeah, it’s exciting. So I’m gonna be speaking on a panel. Listen, I tell everybody on the show, I am not an expert on anything. Most of the time, I don’t know the facts. Like, I can’t even tell you the name of the study, right?

Brie Tucker (35:16)

You’re like “I don’t know what study I’m in but I know I’m gonna study.”

JoAnn Crohn (35:18)

I think you’re more of an expert that you admit it than most people do not admit it.

Jaimie Kelton (35:22)

I can’t tell you, you know, which way is up in any given moment, but I’ll be speaking on a panel with a bunch of other experts. I’m doing quote on quote. And then they’ve asked me to do a couple of like live tapings of the podcast. So that’ll be fun. Like in a studio with some of the panelists. So yeah. So that’s going to be really fun. So if you’re in DC, check it out. I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s the Q-Research Center.

JoAnn Crohn (35:47)

Yeah, I’m sure you can find it on Google. Pew Research, Washington DC June. Got it. ⁓

Brie Tucker (35:52)

I will have a link in the show notes to some way, shape or form of it. And attention to your amazing podcast.

Jaimie Kelton (35:59)

⁓ thank you. Yeah. And everybody go listen to my podcast. It’s there. And in Pride, we do what I call the Pride extravaganza. You have to sing it. released double the episodes. Yeah, yeah, exactly. We released double the episodes the entire month of June. So instead of just episode on Monday, you get an episode on Monday and on Thursday throughout the entire. I don’t know why I do this to myself. I don’t have the time for this.

JoAnn Crohn (36:22)

I don’t know why we do two episodes a week to ourselves either.

Jaimie Kelton (36:26)

How do you do it? I’m already, like it’s only one week in and I’m dying here.

Brie Tucker (36:30)

Well, mean, like, and sometimes sometimes because of the joys of life, right, our episodes will be recorded on Friday and then go live on Tuesday. That is people. That’s a lot of stress

JoAnn Crohn (36:42)

Or like, this interview, Jaimie, we’re batching three episodes and I’m like, kill me now. ⁓

Brie Tucker (36:48)

Yeah, we’re not the best at batching consistently. That’s a Brie thing.

Jaimie Kelton (36:52)

That’s a lot. That’s hard though. That’s hard. It’s hard making this stuff y’all.  give your podcaster that you love some love. It’s a lot of work.

JoAnn Crohn (37:00)

Check in on our podcaster.

Brie Tucker (37:02)

doing well all the time.

JoAnn Crohn (37:06)

Well Jaimie thank you so much for joining us. I’ve learned so much from this conversation and a few action items that I have. And of course the wonderful LGBTQIA , I’m going to mess it up. I’m going to have to it.

Jaimie Kelton (37:18)

You just have to see the letters.

JoAnn Crohn (37:20)

There it is. Okay, that helps the visualization.

Jaimie Kelton (37:24)

This is what I do. I don’t know if other LGBTQ folks would take offense. They haven’t yet, but I don’t know. It’s just what I do. I saw a TikToker who did it and I was like, I like that. Sounds French. Yeah.

JoAnn Crohn (37:36)

It’s great. We will talk to you later.

Jaimie Kelton (37:38)

Yes, thank you.

JoAnn Crohn (37:41)

Okay, so no joke, we stayed on for a good 15 to 20 minutes later with Jaimie after we ended this episode. ⁓

Brie Tucker (37:49)

I wish that she lived closer than New York. I just feel like she would be our people. She is one of our good friends.

JoAnn Crohn (37:55)

We had so much more to talk about there. Yeah. But like this episode, I loved it. LGBT. I’m gonna have to really, really practice that. LGB- No, I don’t think that’s not how she said it. She said it so fancy. It sounded almost French. LGBT- LGBT- I’ll practice it, guys. I’ll practice it. Something that we want to encourage you to do is to like broaden your perspective on this if you don’t see a lot of queer families.

Brie Tucker (38:05)

You gotta say it real fast? No?

It’s the end that gets it.

JoAnn Crohn (38:25)

Something that we want to encourage you to do, is to broaden your perspective around this. If you don’t see a lot of Queer families around you or know the experience, go and listen to Jaimie’s podcast, the Queer Family Podcast. Each week she has a different queer family on and they talk about their experience and you get that firsthand lived experience knowledge that she was talking about in our episode. So, go and listen to that. And we have so many links for you in our show notes. So check those out and until next time, remember the best mom’s a happy mom. Take care of you. We’ll talk to you later.

Brie Tucker (38:53)

Thanks for stopping by.