Podcast Episode 374: Safe Spaces Start at Home: LGBTQ+ Allyship Tips for Parents Transcripts

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

 Elena Joy Thurston (00:02)

Realize  that every time the kids came home from school and I was upset about something and for a kid to say like, mom, are you okay? And for me to say, I’m fine. And the thought process at the time was, I’m not gonna put this on you. You don’t have to deal with what I’m struggling with. But what I was teaching them was, I’m gonna lie and I’m sure that I am struggling and that it’s gonna be okay and it’s not your fault. It took that experience for me to realize that I was teaching my children to be fully emotionally disconnected.

JoAnn Crohn (00:34)

Welcome to the No Guilt Mom podcast. I’m your host JoAnn Crohn, joined here with the brilliant Brie Tucker.

Brie Tucker (00:41)

Why hello hello everybody, how are you?

JoAnn Crohn (00:43)

We are back for our first podcast recording after our Cancun retreat and we’re fighting for our lives people.

Brie Tucker (00:52)

It was a great trip. It was awesome, but a bug followed us back from Cancun.

JoAnn Crohn (00:58)

It was a bad bug as well. and Christina were rooming together and then I was rooming with our friend Shada and Shada got hit so hard. So hard. She, I won’t, I won’t go into specifics. Nobody needs to know that. Just think what Mexico’s typically. I don’t know. I don’t even want to say that about Mexico because it’s not true, but I’ll leave it to your imagination.

Brie Tucker (01:21)

Well, you know what? I’m not surprised that Christina got sick. You know why? Because we were rooming together and I was telling my husband this this morning, I’m like, it’s no wonder she got sick. I’d be like, oh, this drink is tasty. Have a sip. Even when I was sick. Remember how I had to cut out Saturday night after dinner? I’m like, sorry, guys, I just got to like chill in the room and I couldn’t eat much. And I remember eating like a little bit and being like, I can’t eat anymore. Do you want the rest of my meal? And she’s like, yeah, sure.

JoAnn Crohn (01:46)

You just can’t stop for sharing your food. just can’t my good. It’s so funny. Now my comment at breakfast makes sense because I was asking her at breakfast, like how’s Bri feeling? And she’s like, good, like some headaches. And I’m like, I’m surprised Bri hasn’t gotten the stomach stuff.

Brie Tucker (01:50)

No!

JoAnn Crohn (02:04)

because she’s like the canary in the coal mine. ⁓ And I think I know why now because you’re like, I like this food. Do you want this food? Let me taste your food. Let’s do all this food. No wonder your stomach issues. Well, our podcast episode has nothing to do with this and it’s a much better topic than stomach issues.

Brie Tucker (02:19)

Yes,

it is June, And June has a lot of amazing things about it. It’s the start of summer vacation. It’s the end of school for many of us. But also, it is a month where we look at and we talk about LGBTQ rights. And we talk about

JoAnn Crohn (02:46)

otherwise known as Pride Month. It is Pride Month and we want to sure that this is an inclusive podcast where that all points of representation are like, we want to bring them in and we want to expose everybody to them and not just have the hetero normative point of view. So welcome to Pride Month guys in the No Get One podcast. This is going to be fun. And our first guest this month.

Brie Tucker (02:48)

Pride Month. Deep to my heart.

JoAnn Crohn (03:11)

is Elena Joy Thurston. She’s the CEO of Latitude, a boutique HR consulting agency. She’s an inspirational speaker and workforce development strategist. She helps leaders identify and deconstruct shame by teaching actionable inclusion skills that carry over into homes and communities. Elena is a very proud mom of four, two boys, 23 and 21, a trans child who is 16 and a daughter who is 14. And with that, let’s get on with the show.

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.

Welcome to the podcast, Aleta. We’re so happy you could join us here. And we’re sad that we can’t do this in person because you’re actually close to us.

Elena Joy Thurston (04:26)

If it wasn’t for all those tummy germs, y’all are harboring.

JoAnn Crohn (04:29)

Maybe it’s better that you’re not doing this in person actually. Yeah, Elena’s like, I think you’re…

Brie Tucker (04:34)

I’d invite to go to coffee for now.

Elena Joy Thurston (04:39)

I can get back to you.

JoAnn Crohn (04:40)

Anything free offers you

Brie Tucker (04:44)

Yes!

Yes!

JoAnn Crohn (04:48)

Well, Elena, you were recommended by our good friend, Sarah Dean.

Elena Joy Thurston (04:52)

Love, We love.

JoAnn Crohn (04:54)

Sarah. If Sarah lived in the area, she would be a coffee person.

Elena Joy Thurston (05:00)

Weekly. Absolutely. Yes.

JoAnn Crohn (05:03)

 Well, you have a 10x speech that that’s how I familiarize myself with you and listening to your story. I was pulled in immediately to exactly how you lived within this environment that like, you had the house, you had the family, you were very involved in your faith. You were baking as you said in the speech banana bread every week and doing all of those things. Start us out there.

What was your life like at that time?

Elena Joy Thurston (05:33)

Yeah, my husband at the time and I, we were those people that kind of figured out what we wanted and then we figured out how to get there, right? We were very focused. We were very intentional. And a lot of that was because we had the structure around us, the structure of this faith community that was really dominant in our lives. And within that structure, we kind of determined, OK, success is a married family raising our kids in this faith, having them go on missions.

and eventually having grand babies, right? There was like a very specific path. so because that’s what success was, we were on that path. were very focused. Life happens and it turns out that wasn’t very authentic to me, but I couldn’t identify that at the time. It felt like restlessness. It felt like angst. felt like, I guess this is what life is like when my youngest goes off to school. And now I’m like even.

of that stay at home mom in the neighborhood, which means I gotta join a gym, I gotta get the next level of car, right? Like there were all these things and it was just like, okay, maybe this weird feeling inside me is just because of that, because this new part of my life has started. And then to realize through a series of events that no, no, my body isn’t telling me what it needs because it’s not safe to tell me what it needs because I am not

straight. But I am trying to play this very straight role and it was destroying my mental health. But I didn’t have the words for that.

Brie Tucker (07:13)

How did you come into that realization? That’s a big question I know right there.

Elena Joy Thurston (07:17)

That’s okay. Let me like summarize them for you. So I was feeling really angsty, but no one uses the words like anxiety and depression because it just means that you don’t have a close enough relationship to God. so, right? So there I was like struggling in that and my youngest had gone off to kindergarten. I was like, okay, time to join the gym. So I joined one of those gyms. That’s like, I don’t know.

Elena Joy Thurston (07:40)

practically a cold, right? But I loved it because for the first time I had to really be in my body without all these other thoughts going on. Because like when you’re doing a deadlift, if you’re distracted with 300 other thoughts, you’re going to hurt yourself. So you’re kind of forced to be really present, really in your body. And for the first time in my life, I had that experience and really, really liked it. It felt good. It felt calming. It felt peaceful.

Of course, we can talk about all the chemicals that exercise releases into your brain to make you feel good, right? So very quickly, I was like, ⁓ I’m an athlete now. I’m weightlifting and I’m running and I’m doing all these things. And again, because I’m that really like focused structure success person, I had a trainer. So then I also hired a running coach and this running coach was a fly fisher in his spare time. And I owned my own photography studio.

So he and I were trading. He was doing running programs for me and I was teaching him how to take beautiful pictures when he’s out on these very expensive fly fishing trips because fly fishers don’t keep the fish. All you have after you spend all this money and time are pictures, right? So I was teaching him how to use his phone to take really beautiful pictures. And then his friends who are also fly fishers wanted that help as well. And then I realized like,

okay, if I’m gonna charge for this, I should probably try the sport. And I found myself in that exact same place of you have to be so present where you just end up in a massive tangle. And so you’re standing in the water in a beautiful place, the trees and the air and the water, and you’re so hyper present. And that’s when your body can start telling you some truths.

And it was through that process that it became just incredibly clear to me that when I was home, when I was in my master bedroom, I was not feeling safe. But when I could find presence outside, I was able to access that safety. And so it just kind of grew from there.

Brie Tucker (09:45)

Wow.

JoAnn Crohn (09:45)

Wow, you tell in your TEDx talk, you tell the story of you were sitting by your friend and she like put her hand on your knee and you just had this feeling of butterflies.

Elena Joy Thurston (09:55)

Yeah. Yeah. And definitely that was a huge part of it because it was this realization of, people really do feel this. I had heard all those phrases and seen the rom-coms and all those things. And I just had really convinced myself after having been married for 17 years that this isn’t something that actual real people experience. Like that’s just romance books. And then to like feel it for the first time at 37, that will change your world.

Brie Tucker (10:29)

Yeah, yeah, that’s a lot to take in.

JoAnn Crohn (10:33)

The first time you acknowledged this both in yourself and then you told it to somebody else.

Elena Joy Thurston (10:39)

Mm-hmm. Well, it’s always a journey. Coming out to yourself at 37 is not like a release.

JoAnn Crohn (10:46)

That can’t be easy.

Elena Joy Thurston (10:48)

You know, that night happened and I had this reaction and I realized, this really does happen. And I’m not broken because that was the other narrative was maybe it does happen for some people, but not for me. And so the next thought was I can’t be this way. I will lose my children. I cannot be this way. And so it was.

days and days and weeks of, Laina, you’re going to go for a run and you’re not going to stop until you don’t feel this way anymore. And seven miles, eight miles later, my toes are bleeding, but I still felt that way. And so then it was, I need someone to fix me. I can’t fix myself apparently. So I need someone else to fix me. And I reached out to different leadership in my congregation.

and they suggested someone who’s been in town a long time. He’s been doing this practice for 40 years and he still is. He’s just five miles up the road. ⁓ And I started going four days a week, two hours a day.

Brie Tucker (11:55)

have so many questions, especially because again, this hits so close to home for me and my family.

JoAnn Crohn (12:01)

Well, with those questions, we’re gonna get more into it and hear the rest of your story, Elena, right after this break.

Brie Tucker (12:07)

So you were going through a form of conversion therapy, it sounds like. And how did you feel during that time? it, I think about like my nephew had gone through some of that at one time and it was unintentional, but obviously looking back now, I’m like, my God, yeah, that was pretty much conversion therapy. And I know that he had a lot of self-hate. He would share later about what went through that. Is that similar to your story? how?

Elena Joy Thurston (12:35)

Yeah, so let me share some things, but also let me just kind of warn anyone who’s listening who does have a personal connection to this to kind of put your emotional guards up a little bit, because what I’m going to share might be kind of intense. So what I learned later is that 57 % of participants who go through conversion therapy become suicidal.

And that was actually so validating for me because after six months of going four days a week, two hours a day, and your mom’s actually, so let me kind of explain what this was. This was you get up in the morning, you get all four kids ready for school, you get them in the minivan, you drop them off at school, and then you go to the gym for an hour, hour and a half, right? You go home, you change, and then you head to the quote therapist’s office. And you sit there for two hours.

trying to figure out which horrible experience you had as a kid turned you gay. I’m going to say that in quotation marks as well. Okay? So for two hours, you relive a horrible experience, trying to desensitize yourself to it, because in hopes that that’s going to make you straight. And then you pick up the kids from school, you come home, you do the homework, the piano, the karate, the dinner, the baths, the bedtime.

and then you do it all over again, four days a week for six months. And you’re paying over $200 a day to do that.

JoAnn Crohn (14:03)

my gosh.

Elena Joy Thurston (14:05)

So it is not hard to see how you can fairly quickly get to an endpoint of logic of, I am not supposed to be here. I am harming my children. I am too broken. God doesn’t want me. I shouldn’t be here. Like that’s a pretty easy logic sequence to get to.

JoAnn Crohn (14:24)

Yeah. Yeah, 2017, you had gotten to that point and a friend was able to pull you out of it. And I think like what your friend said to you was so powerful and is worth repeating here. Can you tell us what your friend said?

Elena Joy Thurston (14:40)

Mmm.

She said, you think, again, warnings. She said, you think killing yourself is going to stop the pain, but it doesn’t. It just spreads it around. Which was the perfect thing to say to me, because the minute I thought about my children having even a fraction of the pain that I was experiencing, then it became not an option. Logically and consciously, unfortunately, because of neuroplasticity, once you

practice the thought over and over and over and over again, and you add in somatic experiences like what was happening in conversion therapy, well now you’ve rewired your brain. And that’s why 92 % of participants experience lifetime suicidal eye patients.

Brie Tucker (15:28)

Yeah.

JoAnn Crohn (15:28)

That is crazy to hear about conversion therapy. And you mentioned that it can’t even be called therapy because you can’t get licensed to teach it. Nobody has a process for it. It’s basically just torture, horribleness and torture. So you got out of that and you ended up coming out to your kids and you were afraid of that at first, that conversation with your sons. Could you share that with us?

Elena Joy Thurston (15:40)

Absolutely. So I was in the process of raising these two teenage Mormon boys. They had the priesthood, they were in scouts, they already knew it was going to be required of them to get their Eagle Scout and then go on a mission. That was like a non-negotiable, probably go to BYU for college, right? Like they had a path and I was the one that had instilled that path in front of them. And I was the one that had told them about worthiness and how your actions determine your worthiness.

So the idea that I was now needing to share with them, the fact that I was someone that they would deem unworthy and I was the one that had talked to them. Like that’s just a lot. And my ex and I had moved, had decided to move out of the neighborhood we were in, because it was that neighbor. We moved to a neighborhood closer to the school where the kids could walk to each other, both of our houses, as well as to the school.

No more carpools

Brie Tucker (16:57)

Good job.

Elena Joy Thurston (17:00)

So it was six months after I had moved out and we were sharing custody and it was just time. I couldn’t hide this from them anymore. And I’ll tell you what, this is a new memory surfacing. It was the therapist I had at the time because I was like, I’m just going to stay in the closet until the boys get off on their missions because there’s a rule in the church that if your parent is gay, then you either need to renounce them to go on a mission or don’t go on a mission.

and I did not want to put them through that. So I was determined that I would stay in the closet until they had left on their missions, which they were 15 and 13. So we were quite a few years. ⁓ Yeah. So luckily I had this amazing therapist who was like, you’re going to deny your sons the experience of getting to know their real mom before they’re adults. Again, the perfect thing my brain needed to hear.

Brie Tucker (17:40)

Yeah

Elena Joy Thurston (17:57)

So yeah, that night I was just like, jazzing myself up for it. And I come down the stairs and they’re playing video games in the living room. And it was like, I need to share this with you. And they fully already knew.

JoAnn Crohn (18:10)

Fully.

Elena Joy Thurston (18:13)

Bye!

Brie Tucker (18:14)

Yeah, mom, we know can we go back to her?

Elena Joy Thurston (18:18)

⁓ my god! That’s exactly what happened.

Brie Tucker (18:22)

You’re so picture-bald.

JoAnn Crohn (18:27)

just like what I’ve done such a good job over the years. Yeah, trying to

Brie Tucker (18:31)

Yeah

Elena Joy Thurston (18:32)

mask all of this, but no, they’re not dumb. And that was a big lesson in my, I would say my motherhood 2.0 was to realize that every time the kids came home from school and I was upset about something, like let’s say I’m like mopping the floor really hard, upset with something, right? And for a kid to say like, mom, are you okay? And for me to say, I’m fine. And the thought process at the time was, I’m not gonna put this on you. You don’t have to deal with what I’m struggling with.

But what I was teaching them was, I’m going to lie to you and I’m not going to share with you that I am struggling and that it’s going to be okay. And it’s not your fault that I am struggling. Let’s not ignore the elephant in the room. Right. But it took it took that experience for me to realize that I was teaching my children to be fully emotionally disconnected.

JoAnn Crohn (19:22)

⁓ that is a like hard conclusion to come to as a parent because so many moms probably can relate to that comment of just telling your kids that you’re fine when really like you are breaking apart inside because you don’t want to have them.

Elena Joy Thurston (19:38)

And they’re not dumb, they see it.

JoAnn Crohn (19:40)

They see it.

Brie Tucker (19:41)

we think it’s our job to be the strong ones. And to some extent, it is right, but not the extent that many of us carry it to. Right. And yeah, we think that we’re protecting them by them not knowing. But again, like you said, like we’re teaching them, you keep it to yourself, you don’t share your hard feelings. That’s not something that’s meant to be shared with others, you need to stuff that down. Or rage clean, whatever works, you know. Victim of rage cleaning over here plenty of times.

Yeah, yeah.

JoAnn Crohn (20:13)

So based on your experience, Alina, I’m gonna shift our focus a little bit to being an ally and how we can be the best ally for our kids. And we’re gonna get into that right after this.

So Aleta, my kids are my world and my kids’ friends. I want them to always know that they’re coming over to a safe space and a safe house. And a few of my daughter’s friends have come out already, but I want to know how can we as parents, how can we be a good ally to our kids, to our kids’ friends? What specific things do we need to keep in mind?

Elena Joy Thurston (20:57)

Yeah. So I approach this very differently than your typical, I don’t know, someone who would talk about allyship. I approach it from, and it’s probably because of my journey. Where I had to start was identifying the internalized bias and homophobia and transphobia within me, right? Because that’s what was threatening my mental well-being was having been in this community for so long.

If I ignored it, which I tried to do, I tried to say like, I’m a good person, I would never hurt anyone, I’m an ally. Right? I was fully identifying that way and then couldn’t understand why I was filled with this self-hatred. right, once I could finally realize like, no, Alina, there’s every human on earth. He was raised in Western society, regardless of whether you identify as a part of the community or not, we all have internalized bias.

So start there, get rid of that and stop pretending. But it’s a false correlation of I’m a good person, therefore I’m an ally. That’s false, right? So once we can break that reality and say, okay, I’m a good person, which means I know I’m gonna be able to identify where that bias is within me and deconstruct it so that I can be an authentic ally rather than a performative ally. It definitely starts there.

Brie Tucker (22:17)

Hey, think

that’s a big point right there. Authentic as opposed to just saying the words, right?

Elena Joy Thurston (22:25)

Mm-hmm.

JoAnn Crohn (22:26)

probably going to ask the same question Bri was. How do you start to deconstruct it? How do you start to like really look into that?

Elena Joy Thurston (22:32)

Yeah, I actually developed a framework because that’s how my brain works. And it started with in the first year or so after I came out, I had so many people around me who I loved and they loved me. I knew that, right? These are close people and yet they were saying things that felt like a dagger to my heart. It hurt, but I knew they loved me, right? And they kept telling me they were my ally, but the things they were saying was hurting.

And so it was creating this dissonance. And so I realized I was thinking of this, and most of us do think of it this way, is you’re either kind of an ally to the community or you’re an enemy to the community. And since I’m a good person, I must be an ally to the community. And then to realize, OK, very few things in life are binary, are black and white. Most things live on the spectrum. So if we take allyship into a spectrum, and on one hand, you have enemy, right? That’s maybe on the far left side.

And on the far right side, you actually have more. There’s more than an ally. You have an advocate and more than advocate, you have an accomplice. Okay, so you have a whole spectrum in between those. And so then as I was hearing things that they were saying, things like, I mean, I support you and I love you, Elena, but I don’t do politics.

Where that’s going to land you on that spectrum is willfully ignorant. Yeah. Which is before ally, right? You might have, I love you, Elena, but this is going to take some time. That’s ignorantly neutral, right? We’re not at ally yet. To be an ally means you are using some of your position, power, influence, voice, actions to take action that involve a little bit of risk.

Maybe a little bit, maybe a lot of it. So it’s things like, I’m overhearing my brother tell me that he’s not gonna respect his kids’ pronouns. And you take that risk to your relationship to say, that’s gonna hurt and this is why. And so you’re taking that little risk or same thing at work, right? Or going to the polls or doing what taking action that involves a little bit of risk is what we have to do to move up that allyship spike.

JoAnn Crohn (24:52)

That is a great way to put it. Because the political comments get me so much. Like they’re like, ⁓ let’s not be political. I’m like, we are not being political.

Brie Tucker (25:01)

Yeah. Yeah, no, no, this is not about politics. This is about, again, having that respect for others. And, but like you said, the acknowledging that you have a bias in there is an important factor. And I never thought about that piece and that’s a huge piece. And actually I could think of how that would be a great gift to your kids too. Letting them know you can be a good person and still have these biases within you. It doesn’t mean that they’re okay.

And that we should continue having them, but them trying to ignore them or to think that they can still be supportive of others while they still harbor this like internal like, for you, okay, but not for me or anybody else. Right.

Elena Joy Thurston (25:48)

Yeah. And I have a great story of how that happens kind of in action if that’s okay. Okay, so a few months after I came out, there I am like, I’m in my new rental for the first time. I’m trying to live every day as this lesbian. I’m this baby gay who knows almost nothing. Like when I came out, I didn’t know anyone in the community. I didn’t know where my community was. And so of course, being me, I went

JoAnn Crohn (25:53)

We love stories.

Elena Joy Thurston (26:15)

head first into the rabbit hole trying to learn everything about LGBTQ plus culture. And so there’s this TV show that everyone in the community loves. And so I’m like, okay, I’m going to watch every episode of this TV show and then I’m going to learn everything about the community. Just you. Okay, so there I am sitting on my couch, turning on Netflix to watch this show or whatever platform it was. And I couldn’t get through the first episode. So.

JoAnn Crohn (26:30)

the TV show.

Brie Tucker (26:32)

Okay

JoAnn Crohn (26:33)

Okay.

Elena Joy Thurston (26:44)

At this point in my life, I’m actually paying attention to my own feelings and actually paying attention to when my body is uncomfortable. So I couldn’t deny, I couldn’t pretend that I wasn’t uncomfortable. And so this was a moment that I was using to like, okay, there’s something here for me to learn about myself. What is it? And the TV show was RuPaul’s Drag Race.

JoAnn Crohn (27:07)

Did you?

Elena Joy Thurston (27:10)

And the discomfort when I could finally, like first there’s a blanket of shame on top. And the shame was like, why is this show making me uncomfortable? I’m a part of the community, right? It’s not like I’m transphobic. Like, why is this making me uncomfortable? And like, okay, once I could take that shame away and get to the heart of it and to realize, okay, for me, watching Men in Drag.

is an example of men taking power, influence, and money away from women. ⁓ And that made me angry. And I was ashamed of that anger because I was a part of the community. So once I was able to admit that to myself, then, only then in that real space could I ask, OK, but is it true? I’ve never been to a drag show.

I don’t know any drag queens. I have no idea if that assumption is true. Maybe I need to get out there and have some lived experience and make my own choice because I am done living my life according to the values of other people. Yeah.

Brie Tucker (28:20)

Sort of what I was told I should think.

Elena Joy Thurston (28:22)

Exactly.

So then I went to a few drag shows and I found a few drag queens who were willing to befriend ex-mormon baby gay me and very quickly it became very apparent no man goes through the expense and time and pain of performing in drag to take anything from women. That is not reality.

It is a beautiful expression of gender. It is an incredible amount of confidence. It is so much things that I actually really respect and admire. And what it’s not is a power grab. But it took me going through that lived experience to figure out that I had that internalized transphobia that I had been covering up with the shame of, no, I can’t feel this way. I’m a part of the community.

JoAnn Crohn (29:09)

what you’re describing there is a belief that was held so deep within you that you didn’t know was there. And when you talk about going and having a lived experience so that you can make your own ideas and assumptions about it that were true, ⁓ my gosh, it was just like light bulb for me because I’ve had conversations with friends and I’ve gotten into arguments with friends about this that has gotten so heated, I’ve had to stop the conversation because they are operating under an assumption.

that they have no lived experience for. And I want to ask you a question, like in terms of being an ally and being an advocate, when you’re having that discussion with a friend and you come to an exact standstill, and this specific conversation was about allowing men and women to use the same bathroom at Target. And this friend was like, I can’t put my daughters through that. And my first question to her is I’m like, have you ever like met a trans person? Do you know about anyone?

She was like, no. And I had nothing, nowhere to go from there. But what is your suggestion on how to take those conversations when you’re up against something that you feel so strongly about? And I wanted to defend, but I didn’t know what else to say in that situation.

Elena Joy Thurston (30:28)

So I think there’s a few things to take into account there. So one of them is how close is this topic and this person to my heart? So if I was having a conversation like that with someone like my dad, like my brother, and those conversations have been had, my barrier has to be way, way, way up because that’s too much access to my heart. If I’m speaking with a friend, right,

then I can have some objectivity, then I can have some space and there’s power in that space. And in that space, that’s when I’m able to, for me, what I am trying to do is really see it from their perspective. And I’m blessed that I’m able, blessed, that I’m able to do that because I was in that space until I was 38, right? And so when I’m having that conversation, I often start with, it really does feel being a woman and using a public restroom is kind of vulnerable.

Anything could happen. I’ve been attacked in a bathroom before by a woman who was tweaking out on drugs, but like every time I’m in the bathroom, I feel vulnerable. And so first getting on the same page with that, right? And for many of us as women, when we have been vulnerable and hurt, it is a man doing that hurt, committing that pain, right? So it is absolutely understandable.

the idea of being in a vulnerable place and having a male in that space, I absolutely understand how that can make us feel really, really, really unsafe. So we really established that first. And then we can elaborate that too. However, we know that 99.9 % of trans people have never attacked anyone in the bathroom. It is understandable the fear.

Because many men have, many. But very, very, almost none, trans women.

JoAnn Crohn (32:29)

That’s true. I thought you had a light bulb go off in me, Elena, because I was like, I tend to get really riled up when I feel like I’m defending and I neglected in that situation, I think to really take that friend’s experience into consideration about why she might feel that way. And instead I just wanted to assess a label to her right away and get even more riled up and mad.

Elena Joy Thurston (32:56)

Can I share how you might have that conversation with a male friend? OK, because it’s way different, right? And so in that way, how I approach that is from the fact is, science says, that one out of every 100 people is intersex, which means they’re not just XX or XY. They are XXYYY or XYYY. There are actually up to 72 different combinations of chromosomes.

JoAnn Crohn (32:59)

Yes, please.

Elena Joy Thurston (33:23)

And that can create within us someone who has a full beard, an Adam’s apple, and a menstruating uterus. Where does that human, what bathroom does that human use to change their tampon?

JoAnn Crohn (33:36)

Yeah, it’s true. Yeah.

Elena Joy Thurston (33:39)

And then you ask like, imagine that they are in the men’s restroom, that dirty, stinky, horrible men’s restroom. on that, they’re horrible. Sitting on that toilet and everyone standing at the urinals hears the telltale sound of a rapper. Is that safe for them? Okay, take the same thing where that beard and that Adam’s apple walks into the women’s restroom. Same thing. So

Brie Tucker (33:47)

They are so dirty.

Elena Joy Thurston (34:08)

This is less about safety for the people who feel like they have a right to be in the bathroom. And this is actually more about the safety of the people who need a safe place to pee.

Brie Tucker (34:19)

Yeah.

JoAnn Crohn (34:19)

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I never thought of that before. The ⁓ concept of intersex doesn’t come up very much in the national dialogue we’re seeing. ⁓ Deep bunks, everything, everything. Well, Elena, thank you so much for joining us here today. We have learned so, so much from you. And like, it is not often that I can say like I have been taken back and forced to like reassess what I did in a situation and really know how to go.

Elena Joy Thurston (34:29)

Yeah, because it debunks everything.

JoAnn Crohn (34:49)

better going forward. So thank you for that. And we like to end every podcast episode on an exciting note. So what is exciting that is coming up for you in the future?

Elena Joy Thurston (35:00)

So I just in the last like week transitioned my hair from my really dark curly thick hair. I had spent 20 years covering my roots and I just did the math recently and it was like $26,000.

JoAnn Crohn (35:17)

Do not doubt it.

Elena Joy Thurston (35:20)

And iit was like, once I saw that number, I was like, I can’t do this anymore. But I also couldn’t just allow three inches of Grey Roots to come in because no one in corporate America will hire you that way. Let’s just be real and honest. And so I just did a full transformation all in one day. It took like nine hours in the chair. And now it’s time to redo all my branding because all my headshots don’t match. I look like a fully different person. And frankly, I feel way more authentic. And it’s so fun and exciting. So that’s what’s going on.

JoAnn Crohn (35:49)

That is so fun and exciting. That is so cool. like so bright too. You’re just like bright. I love it. Thank you so much, Elena, for joining us and we will talk to you soon. Hopefully a coffee date when Bri and I will not give you the plague.

Elena Joy Thurston (35:58)

Thank you.

I love it.

JoAnn Crohn (36:08)

Okay. it was a powerful episode. I love talking to Elena about all of the allyship and all the things behind it. Because I mentioned like, I tend to make snap judgments when people I feel are being like prejudiced or I don’t know how to say this because like, I don’t talk about this very publicly often. But I grew up in an environment when I was a camp counselor. I mean, there were quite a few counselors who were lesbians. And I

love them and I feel protective of them and I feel protective of everything around the culture. So when somebody else comes out and is like, no, that’s not okay. I’m very, I pushed back pretty hard.

Brie Tucker (36:53)

Yeah. Well, I can understand that because I’ve talked about before, like I have a nephew who is, who is trans and I do feel very fiercely protective of him. And it’s interesting that whole conversation about the bias that people. And I’ve talked about this with close friends. I don’t, I don’t know if I’m ready for like a full on like podcast thing with it, but our family went through a lot.

Brie Tucker (37:20)

trying to get to the point where we are now, my nephew is 25 and has been on this journey for well over 10 years. And I think that when we first started, we were all like, just exactly like Elena. Well, we’re good people. We’re allies. This is our family member. We love him, her immensely. So of course we support it. But what we didn’t realize

then that we that I think that we could take a step back and see now is like she just said that we all had some internal bias about things biases about things and that that had an impact on how we saw stuff in the very beginning. And like I said, like my my nephew went to a therapeutic school and because he was having difficulty with like being in regular schooling. And so I went to like a dormitory, like went to Kansas.

because we had a connection with a therapeutic school out there that he could go to that we could, I’ll be honest, afford the tuition for because these schools are not cheap and not a penny of it is covered by your health insurance. Thank you very much to our broken health insurance in the United States of America. Anyway, it was Christian based and we didn’t think that that would be that big of an issue until he came back. And I think that was the hardest time. Like we saw him, he was beat down. He was sad.

He was so happy to be home when he was back from school. And looking at it now, I know that there was either intentional or unintentional conversion therapy that he had to go through. And that was hard. And at the time, we were like, OK, well, they know what they’re doing. They’re licensed professional counselors, because they were. And I think, again, what happened, it wasn’t full on conversion therapy. I think it was just like,

Elena Joy Thurston (39:05)

Mm-hmm.

Brie Tucker (39:12)

It was tough to see. And so I have always wondered like how I can be a better ally, how I can be more supportive, not only for my nephew, but for all those people that I don’t know, that are struggling, that are scared, that feel like there are massive amounts of people that do not want them to be alive. Do not want them to exist. And how we can actually follow up on those quote unquote Christian values of loving one another.

and offering support to others. So that’s why, yeah, this is like, it’s personal.

JoAnn Crohn (39:46)

Yeah. Yeah. Well, as Elena said, part of allyship is taking a little bit of risk and putting yourself out there and maybe getting some pushback. And we know like we have brought up ⁓ allyship on the podcast here and there, but we really haven’t dove in straight into it. And so we are committing both you and I to diving more into it and being more outspoken about it and where our personal feelings land on the issue too. Yeah. Like you respect humans, all humans as humans. Like it does not matter.

their gender, it doesn’t matter their sexuality, like they are human beings and know, period and stop. Like, like, Yes. Yes. So some of that is about speaking out about things that happen politically. And when I think of politics, I don’t think of like, you’re not just bashing another person. It’s not like a race. It’s not like, Republicans versus Democrats. It’s an idea of values.

Brie Tucker (40:24)

period and stop.

JoAnn Crohn (40:44)

And things like just seeing in the news today, mean, gosh, the amount of crap that comes out on the news is probably going to be something different when this airs in like two weeks. But like the transgender issue in the military is back up again and not letting people serve if they’re transgendered and people who are willing to put their lives on the line. You’re like, I just can’t, I can’t grasp how that.

values people as humans. can’t see how people would be so, see here I go again into the defensiveness, because I know there’s reasons, just like Elena said, but here’s my reason, like people are people and stop. There is no threatening. They are not threatening. And the best I could do is if you feel that way right now, try to find somebody who you can actually like talk to who is transgender or who is gay, like,

have some real life experience behind your strongly held opinions. And then we can talk.

Brie Tucker (41:47)

Yeah, because again, like she said, I do think that personal experience is a big, big piece of it. So again, coming back from that step of that, I need to understand your personal experience and where you’re coming from and why you have this differing opinion of mine. And then moving forward with that, because again, I find that like some of the biggest differences of opinions I’ve had with people do rise from there being a miscommunication of some sorts.

along the way.

JoAnn Crohn (42:18)

We have more in common than we realize. Yes. So when you find that out, you’re much able to communicate with people. I don’t know how I can get the orange Cheeto. I don’t think I’ll understand him. But yes, I know. I’m sorry. I said it. I said it, We’ve all been dancing around the Trump issue this entire episode. And I said it.

Brie Tucker (42:42)

It’s just, yeah, it’s one of those things. again, like we hope that we’re not asking that anybody heard this episode and it changed their lives. It’s great if it did. That’s fantastic. That’s always a great thing. But we’re hoping that if nothing else is at least opened up a conversation and opened up some introspection about not only why we may hold some of these opinions that we have with or without personal life experience.

And that we have a moment to pause and to realize that, you know, we hear it all the time that you don’t always know what somebody else is going through on their side. That a lot of times pausing and hearing the stories that people have gone through, especially when trying to embrace a part of themselves that is against the general norm. Yeah. It’s not an easy piece to have. And, uh, yeah. So we’re hoping that this sparks more conversations.

Elena Joy Thurston (43:19)

Mm-hmm.

Brie Tucker (43:40)

within families and yeah, that was our goal.

JoAnn Crohn (43:44)

So until next time, remember the best mom is a happy mom. Take care of you. We’ll talk to you later.

Brie Tucker (43:50)

Thanks for stopping by.