Conversations with Liz Gold

On Covid:"I listen to science. I think science is pretty right on. You can't mess with that. It is what it is. Listen to the experts.""Who's buying clothes right now? Nobody. Like the biggest market out there that's doing really well is lounge. Basically, people wearing sweats. And being cozy. Which, hello, same. It's been tough, the industry is horrible.""It has been weird. I have to say, the way my brain was working six months ago was very like I don't know, faster, problem solving, like quick thinking. And I guess, my brain sort of turned a little bit like on major pause mode for six months. I kind of can't think in that mindset anymore.""The pandemic has made a lot of people just reflect and be different. Taking life a little bit more seriously."On her family:"They were refugees. They escaped. They came over here and my dad had his own business out there and they were all doing really well and my mom went to school and she did really well. Life was positive and hopeful and bright and then this war broke out. And they just fled. And they came here.""Growing up, I'm a lot more like my dad. I have a lot of his traits. When he was in Beirut, he was a shoe designer. He was making shoes. He had a store and everything and then his shop got bombed. And I slowly followed in his footsteps.""They definitely instilled a lot of hard work which I really really appreciate.""Being Middle Eastern - being gay is like you're basically Satan. 'That's awful, you'll get disowned, this is the worst thing, you can't do this...'"On starting her own clothing line:"I was helping somebody launch their collection recently and I'm like doing all of the work. The really technical side of the business and I'm like 'what am I doing? I can do this myself.'""Our mind is what our blockage is. We're the ones that are the road block. I definitely don't promote my skills or my abilities.""I started sketching items that I would love to have. I basically designed my closet - what I would wear.""I used part of my last name, which I think is really important especially as an Armenian person. Having that Armenian exposure out there, supporting the Armenian community and being known that we are strong people and we are definitely overcoming our past and history and we have a voice. That was very important to me to keep that "ian" in there.""I've just gotten so much support. It's been wonderful.""I want to get the clothes perfect. I want to get the price good. A reasonable price - that is one of my big things, is that I want it to be affordable.""My clothes are easy and no-fucks given. Just be who you are. Enjoy the garments, pay a reasonable price and look fucking good in them.""I know there are people like me out there who want to wear these kind of clothes, that's another reason why I'm doing this.""I want to make sure these clothes are comfortable for a wide range of people. I don't want people to feel like, 'ugh, I used to be a six now I'm buying an 8.' I don't want that. I don't want anyone to have that fucking size and number stigma. Just pick a garment and if it fits good on you, go for it.""I hate the industry standards. I'm just like, 'fuck it.' Be comfortable. Fuck the number. Enjoy yourself. If you like the way you feel in it. Buy it.""There is so much fat phobia in fashion. It's taking a turn. I'm so happy about that. There is so much more body positivity out there. But it's still not as forward as everybody who is plus size would like it to be.""I want to be able to do things that are chic and affordable. And again, all the clothes that I would wear."Nora Iknadossian bioNora Iknadossian was born in Pasadena, California but has been in New York City half her life. She's a daughter of immigrants who fled from war-torn Beirut, Lebanon. Nora is an identical twin but the youngest by 8 minutes. Professionally, she's been a clothing designer for some large brands all over the globe. She describes her style as, "Simple, easy and no fucks given" and oh yeah, she's queer. www.dossiannyc.comIG: Dossian_nycIG: Zero + Maria CornejoIG: Celene 

"I've been in senior housing, right downtown San Francisco for two years. It took me seven years to get in senior housing. But the location is fabulous.""Because I live in downtown San Francisco, we've forgotten about our neighbors. Once I got this housing downtown, I realized going out the door, I'd see all these mass of people. Hungry, just hungry. And I said, 'I can make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I can make a lunch.'""Mask in a Bag is a mask with a purpose, OK. First, it protects you and me but more importantly, it feeds the homeless population, which I call my neighbors in the Bay Area. It also creates business because these are all seniors that are owning their own business and creating jobs.""Two years later we have fed over a 1,000 people. I only live in 400 square feet so my masks have taken over my apartment. But I love it.""Because I was so blessed, I honestly knew that I needed to do something. Mask in a Bag is the first product. What people see in the product is that first it's well made, secondly it supports our area but also they like the ethnicity of the cloth.""This has been such a pouring out of people making a difference that it just makes my heart sing. Anybody can do anything.""How do we reach out to our community because I'm about community, that's one thing you'll see in all of this - to empower other people in their communities."On her time at IBM: "You know the ATM machine we see on every corner now? That was just being introduced in the data center so I was showing people how great it was going to be to get money out of the ATM. Do you think I believed it? I had no idea.""The training they gave me before I even met a customer. I couldn't go talk to a customer for a whole year until I knew all the equipment. The training from 72-82 in my career at IBM is why I know that I'm the best at the best and was trained by the best company in the world. I'm so grateful for that.""I always wanted to open my own clothing store, so I opened a clothing store for $50 in downtown Oakland.""I thrive off of giving to the community. I still want to make enough and have what I need to be OK - which I'm at a whole different age. 76 years old. I'm not trying to do all that anymore. Been there done that, got a t-shirt - done. How can I make it peaceful, make a difference, enjoy my life.""Find a need and fill it. That is all, we all do. And the need was for me to reach inside myself and say what can I do at this age to make a difference for myself and others.""The people on the street that I walk by every day, they are the forgotten ones, that have just been thrown away like the trash like they throw on the street. And to reach out to someone and say, 'I care about you, I see you and I acknowledge you and would you like something to eat?' It doesn't get any better than that. So I will always continue to feed the homeless.""This has humbled me. This has changed me. That is why you do it. You don't do it for them. You do it for you.""I want every artist that I know to make a million dollars so that they can do what they want to do.""I'm not worried about what I'm going to do because I'm going to do whatever spirit tells me I'm going to do. It's not about my idea.""My goal for Born Brown based on their vision and what they're doing is to be as big as Amazon in five years. From my lips to God's ears. Let's do it."MJ's bioMarijewel “MJ” Richardson is an accomplished career woman and entrepreneur. As a lifelong learner, she entered Felton Institute’s Senior Community Services Employment (SCEP) Program where she has flourished. She has helped people like herself find their inner strength, confidence and skills. She has helped to put them on a course for employment through her work at SCEP. Her education in merchandising and her past work along with her passion for helping others find self worth and hope led her to organize successful events, mini makeovers at Sephora and a clothes closet and fashion show, which transformed seniors from the inside out. In addition, MJ developed a hygiene kit for homeless people. Now she is creating a “Mask in a Bag” for her homeless neighbors in San Francisco. Email MJ: mjrichardson075@gmail.comBorn Brown: ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

"Thinking back, I realized that I grew up with parents who always voted. My dad's family fled Communist China, so I think from a very young age my parents taught me the importance of civic duty.""I had a realization at a young age that there are people in other countries that don't ever get to vote.""I didn't necessarily want to work in politics because I didn't necessarily agree with either party 100 percent of the time and I think that's most people.""Politics and campaigns and candidates and dramatic narratives really overshadow what is just, if not more important, which is policy.""As a nation built on laws, I think its policy change that will help us create the better world that we all envision.""Congress introduces over 15,000 bills each legislative session. They may vote on about 1,000 of them and we're only hearing about a handful in the news.""We start by asking people what issues they care about and then they receive alerts before Congress is about to vote on a bill related to one of those issues.""I think that it's really important to connect people with their representatives. There's a lot of things out there where you'll see petitions, petition to Nancy Pelosi or petition to Mitch McConnell. Honestly, at the end of the day, it's more impactful for individuals to contact your representatives for your district, for your state.""I think a lot of times we're told to call. Frankly, calling is what's most disruptive. So that's why advocacy organizations often encourage calling. And whether or not you want to be disruptive is your choice.""Often a staffer or member of Congress will tell you, they sometimes know they are not necessarily hearing from the majority of their constituents. They are hearing from the loudest voices, they are hearing from the most organized voices or the most well funded voices. They really do want to hear from constituents and understand their district and the concerns of their district.""We do want to focus people's time where we think it's most impactful.""We're not an advocacy organization. We're not trying to change people's minds but at least by seeing the other side that can even give an individual more context if they ever are talking to someone who disagrees with them or they meet someone who disagrees with them. At least, maybe then they can have a conversation, which I think is helpful.""Every bill is inherently partisan, in a way.""It's cool because there are bills where you'll see both Democrats and Republicans on the same side, on both sides.""We remind people in a way that's it's not always one party versus the other in every situation. That's a lot of what we definitely hear on the news but on actual policy making there is room for more nuance and both agreement and disagreement.""I don't think we always do a good job of bridging the fact that you care about a specific issue to participating in policy making and voting.""There are a lot of mindfulness techniques that can be helpful when having political conversations or dealing with politics or even things like watching the news.""We're stuck in a little bit of a vicious cycle when it comes to campaigns.  Many people do not vote. We know this. There's many people not voting.""We really want to focus people on the fact that 2021 is a brand new Congressional session, brand new Congress. All new legislation will have to be either introduced or reintroduced and it's actually a really great time for people to start following what Congress is doing between elections."Maria Yuan - bioMaria Yuan is passionate about fixing significant, systemic problems by leveraging creativity and determination to achieve world-changing results and impact. As the Founder of IssueVoter, their mission is to give everyone a voice in our representative democracy. Individuals from all 435 Congressional Districts already use IssueVoter and they have sent over two million alerts to individuals and opinions back to Congress. IssueVoter has motivated Americans to vote, stay informed, and make their voices heard between elections, when the real work that affects our lives gets done. IssueVoter also collaborates with organizations to engage and activate their communities in impactful ways. Maria's political experience includes introducing and passing a bill as a constituent, working for a Representative, and managing and winning one of the most targeted races in Iowa - an open seat in a swing district. Maria's professional experience includes investment banking, strategy, corporate development, recruiting, social enterprise, and consulting. She currently serves on the Bridge Alliance Board of Directors and Keep Families Giving Foundation Advisory Board and has served on the boards of Gibney Dance, The University of Texas Co-Op, and Friends of the Children New York.Maria's interviews and writing have appeared in Real Clear Politics, The Hill, PBS, MTV, Fast Company, and more, and she has spoken at conferences, companies, and universities across the U.S. on civic engagement, technology, and democracy. Maria earned degrees from The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania and The University of Texas at Austin. Issue Voter infohttps://issuevoter.org/https://www.facebook.com/issuevoterhttps://twitter.com/issuevoterhttps://www.instagram.com/issuevoter/ 

"I think if you are traveling for pleasure nowadays you are an asshole because it's a pandemic and you are being really selfish.""I'm not flitting around the way I like to where I'm in a different country every week or doing trips and having adventures because to do so I feel would be really selfish and putting my personal pleasure and amusement over other people's safety.""It's become very clear to me, at least that, the world is not past coronavirus and travel is a risky thing to do especially when it involves airports and different countries and possibly you being the vector that brings coronavirus from somewhere that is high risk into somewhere that is doing their best to control it.""I go usually in a certain temperature range because I don't like being cold. I go for the people that I know.""I was in New York for four months when New York was really doing badly and it is the longest I had been somewhere.""It used to be very I didn't know where I was sleeping next week and I realized that was impacting my productivity because I was every week constantly having to figure stuff out and there was a lot of pressure to do it immediately because I really like sleeping indoors. But over the last probably two years of my travels, I started planning more in advance. I quite like that because it enabled me to do things like make plans with my friends.""I've learned I'm not very good at being spontaneous.""I don't know how much anyone who's listening knows about the cannabis industry but it is a mess. Every state comes up with their own rules, there's no level of cohesion and a lot of the rules and a lot of the things haven't been updated very well since legalization.""Parsl is working with data and it's working with all these systems and helping them clarify and streamline and communicate.""I've been working in the cannabis industry for years. My partner has been serving edibles businesses for years. We've both learned so much from speaking with our speakers. I wish I had access to this years ago when I started.""That's really at the end of the day, what we're trying to help build is the edibles community because there isn't a clear one.""You can't look dumb in the quest for information. You are seeking to better yourself. You are seeking to learn more.""There's a lot of information people want and don't have access to and because cannabis used to be illegal everywhere - it still is federally - there's a lot of misinformation and there's a lot of lack of information. That's what we've been trying to help with.""What's really funny ... a lot of the stigma is changing because the states are going 'oh shit we need that tax money.'""Cannabis has been deemed an essential business this year and its continuing to provide tax revenue for the states and this money is desperately needed. I'm hoping that the states that have it on the ballet this fall will be greedy. Legal access that you can trust is more appealing for a lot of people than the black market.""I choose to focus on the progress we're making.""I'm an optimist in a lot of ways. I don't think the world is going to be over the pandemic in a year.""I think the last few years, I've realized that if there's something I want to see in the world, then I need to suck it up and do it because I can't wait for other people to do these things."Amna's bioWriter. Nomad. Napper extraordinaire.Amna is a full time world traveler, living nowhere and everywhere since 2015. The pandemic has slowed her down so she’s mostly adventuring through books and digital media this year. Professionally, she’s the Chief Growth Officer at Parsl and the co-founder of the Everything Edibles Virtual Summit. She also a freelance writer because she’s really bad at doing nothing for too long. You can find her on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, especially if you’d like to talk about travel, cannabis or food. Find Anma onlineWeb site: https://www.amnashamim.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/amnashamimnycLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amna-shamim/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amnashamimnyc/Everything Edibles Summit http://everythingediblesevent.com/Parsl https://parsl.co/  

"I was actually a dancer first. I started dancing when I was three. I loved dancing,  loved movement but my dad thought I was really too emotional. He'd be like 'nobody wants to hear that, write that down.'" So I started to learn at a very early age that writing and paper was just a place that would never betray me. It was always there, it was always a sanctuary for me. ""With writing I always had it. Whether I was journaling or writing poems that I didn't share with anyone, it was always kind of happening in the background and that's how the process started.""I never thought that my writing was shareable. I always thought my writing was decent for me. It was like clothes you wear around the house. That's how I looked at my writing. I did not think that it would resonate or make sense to people outside of me. Or that it was as good as say the Nikki Giovannis.""I discovered how therapeutic it was not only for myself but for people in the audience.""There was a period where my family experienced a lot of loss. Probably an abnormal amount of loss for our family. I'd say like a whole chunk of our family just died, in a very short period of time. And the gift of life and how precious it is and how you don't know how much time you have. You think that this person is going to be around for this milestone or that milestone and they're gone.""If I do nothing else, I'm going to at least make this book so that the people who have loved me and supported me and believed in me my whole life have something of mine, something of that writing legacy.""I look at the book as a love letter to everyone that has cared about me over the years. It's a gifting to them.""Over the years, looking at the ways that - even in my reviews on Amazon - you'll see what poems resonate with people. One  of the great joys that I've had as an author is learning that.""The poem is based on perspective right, so you may read it and get one thing from it. Somebody else might read it and get another thing from it. I don't like to give people and say 'oh Liz this is exactly what the poem is about.' If it heals you because you relate to it however then that's all that matters to me.""Finding out what poems people connect to and that they mean something to them and then also I'm thinking about what it meant to me when I wrote it and how we had these two different experiences and the same poem pulled us together.""My writing process is extremely organic.""Sometimes I feel like it's a safer space for me to go the paper.""When something comes into my brain, I want a nice pen and some paper.""Sex is good but have you ever had a really good pen?""If you can't get a good slide as a writer, it's like useless. You don't know where this poem is going to take you, it could be one page, it could be eight pages. You don't want a pen that's going to cut out on you.""My brain is constantly moving. I get inspired by things that are happening outside of me. I get inspired by things inside of me.""The distrust we are experiencing in our society right now, the high level of distrust from government and entities and the disrespect that people of color are being shown just has a lot of people on paranoia, has a lot of people on 10.""If you're in an energy exchange that is not healthy, that's not inspirational, that's not positive, that's not uplifting, that doesn't pour into your soul - why are you doing it?" BioBorn and raised in Westchester County, NY,  Kiana (Kai) Kelly is a  passionate empath, that loves words and how they can tell a story.  Writing since the age of seven, Kai began sharing her writing humbly through open mics and blogs.  She has authored a book of poetry called, Love Kai and is currently a contributor for Born Brown: All Rights Reserved. Link to all things Kai:https://linktr.ee/author_kai_kellyPurchase Love KaiIG: @author_Kai_KellyFB: Kai Kelly Email: bookingkaikelly@gmail.com Born Brown: ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

On Born Brown: All Rights Reserved - "We are developing social enterprise. We are dedicated to the liberation of People of the Global Majority. So that includes Black, Indigenous, people of color, women, LGBTQIA + around the globe.""We always invite people to unite with us and that means whatever you want it to mean.""We have to protect our universal human rights.""We are living this social change."On Ideas Equal Income -"IEI is my baby. It was built off the premise that if you have an idea, you have an income.""I'm a die-hard entrepreneur.""A lot of business owners frankly are great at what they do, but not so great at what we call, business development.""I just love to see people do what they love.""I've always been very unconventional. I'm a rebel.""I truly believe that your gifts will make a way and I truly believe that we all have a unique purpose and unique talent and we are here to manifest what that purpose is. But first we have to find it. Our purpose is very tied to our passion and our gifts.""Part of Ideas Equal Income is really educating anyone who's interested in becoming an entrepreneur and saying like, 'hey this is not glitz and glamour, it's not down and dirty. It's stress. Some people go homeless.'""If you are looking to start a business, it's better to invest a little bit of money in some type of consulting to help you strategically plan out your next steps and to create a roadmap, then to just go at it in the dark.""When you fail, OK, it's alright. Get back up, readjust, refocus and try it again.""No problem is a bad problem. We try to approach problems as good problems because it forces us to think out of the box and be creative in terms of how to deal with life in business situations.""I am a strong believer that you have to love what you do.""I would recommend being on a path to mental wellness before you begin a journey into entrepreneurship.""Be your own cheerleader. If entrepreneurship is meant for you - or anything in general - it will keep showing up.""I'm a student of the game.""Keep your vision.""I believe if you can hold it in your head, you can hold it in your hand.""We are the sum of our past decisions and actions. We are always manifesting whether it's intentional or not.""How committed are you?"BioTab Wolod is a mental health advocate and die-hard entrepreneur. Early on, Tab identified as a rebel - often bucking social norms and venturing down unconventional paths. Tab's rebellious attitude led her to a "regular" 9-5 job, which was a blessing, although it was the opposite of what she had wished for lol. During her "turbulent twenties," Tab found herself transitioning awkwardly into adulthood, struggling to find herself, God, and mental stability while maintaining employment. Over the years, Tab made many failed attempts at various business endeavors, in hopes that she would "get rich quick" and walk away from her cushy job. After much trial and error, Tab's "failures" paved the way for the creation of Ideas Equal Income LLC (IEI). As IEI CEO and founder, Tab created the company with one goal in mind: helping individuals transform their ideas into income by providing #biz dev support (operational, marketing, and project management). Tab was born and raised in Maryland (USA), she is currently residing in Baltimore City with her life partner and baby girl. Tab on InstagramIEI on InstagramIdeas Equal IncomeEmail for professional inquiries at hey@ideasequalincome.com. Mental Health InformationNational Suicide Prevention Lifeline:1-800-273-8255Search mental health providers near you: https://www.psychologytoday.com/National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) hotline for provider referrals and peer support services:  https://www.nami.org/help .The NAMI HelpLine can be reached Monday through Friday, 10 am–6 pm, ET. 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or info@nami.orgBorn Brown: All Rights ReservedConversations with Liz Gold episodes: Shalonda IngramMathew HeggemMilo Razza 

"It has not been easy. We are still hustling hard every day. It's definitely been a little engine that could kind of situation for five years.""When we were first raising money, we were literally laughed out of boardrooms because our budget exceeded what they expected a documentary budget to be. And that was largely because we paid everyone their day rates and that's part of the standards I am fighting for in the documentary world."On Netflix: "How that deal came to be ... we were paid half as much as it cost to make the film.""The response has far exceeded anything I could have hope for or possibly dreamed. It's so meaningful and makes everything worth it 10x over.""We prioritized hiring trans people. And when we couldn't hire a trans person, the non trans person we hired mentored a trans fellow. Part of hiring that non trans person was to see how they felt about that and I only wanted to hire people that would be thrilled and excited and see it as an honor to be able to be in that position to pay it forward.""Allyship is all in action right, so we're already seeing the action of allies come to fruition.""I was just really moved by the power of how representation creates these mythologies, legacies and historical documentations and I wanted to see what that representation would look like for trans people.""I gathered all this material and some of it was already digitized but a lot of it wasn't and it took me a while to find a VCR that worked.""I didn't think the film was going to be only about Hollywood. I thought it was going to be a much larger look at all trans representation. But as I was doing those interviews over those eight months, everyone kept referencing Hollywood. And so it very quickly became clear that there was where the collective memory was and that would be the most influential place to look at the history."On Laverne Cox being executive producer: "It was not in name only. As you can see now, she's hustling, doing all the media for us, but from the beginning she was deeply collaborative and involved in the research, involved in the production, involved in editing. She was involved every step of the way. She's incredibly passionate about this film and she has been an ideal executive producer to work with.""There are so many people not in the film.""We need to see more documentation of our histories. Whether it's scripted or non-scripted.""Trans people are the experts of their own history. No one can or should talk about or for us. I think that really comes through in the interviews because people are genuinely speaking from topics and issues that they have been struggling with and dealing with and thinking about for so long.""So often marginalized communities are told they are being too sensitive, that their feelings aren't real, that what they are experiencing is not true. And here, I just kept collecting these images that reinforced so much of the shame and the pain and the violence that I had internalized, through our culture. And this was one place that it was being fed in our culture and I was able to finally point to something and say here, here's the proof and it's really horrible that people need proof to their feelings so often but here was somewhere I could point to that proof. So there was a lot of validation in collecting the material.""Being mentioned in the same sentence as an Oscar is ... I don't even have the words for it, that's unbelievable and it's a testament to I think where we're at in the cultural conversation now.""It's been a privilege, has been such an honor. It's been so meaningful to be able to contribute to the culture of conversations that are happening right now. Particularly around Black Trans lives and to be able to be part of that is such a gift.""I feel like our culture is hungry right now. People want to know what they need to learn, they want to know what they need to unlearn. It's great to have this two hour document to give it to you and tell you one place and one area where you need to learn and unlearn. And so people are really receptive to the film so particularly because of where we are in our cultural conversations at the moment.""Anyone who finished a film should get a huge prize. Making a film is so so hard. To know that it's being held in that capacity, kind of just gives us the boost we need right now.""One of my dreams was how could lawyers who are representing trans people - how could they use this film to their benefit? And I imagine, my hope, was that they would see this film and then have these cultural short cuts to talk to their jury and be like you might have these stereotypes about my client because of xyz that you saw in this movie and this is why it's not true. And this is a real person here that we're talking about, real experiences. That was a dream of mine.""This is such a community film and part of my understanding of how people would take in this imagery was to be in community, to laugh together, to feel the emotion together, to hear people sigh at the same time. And then have the conversations afterwards. Like that's so meaningful to hear people talk about it and then go out for dinner and talk about it some more and make connections. So yeah, it's been tricky to readjust to experience the viewer experience virtually."Sam Feder bio:Sam Feder has created several award-winning documentaries that center the intersections of race, class, sexuality, and conflict within the queer and trans community. Sam seeks to connect transgender struggles and liberation to the context of the present and legacy of the past by showing that our communal history makes our present lives possible. Sam’s second feature Kate Bornstein is a Queer & Pleasant Danger was named one of the best LGBT documentaries of 2014 by The Advocate, and cited by IndieWire as one of the must-see films of the 2014. http://www.disclosurethemovie.com/https://www.samfederfilms.com/https://www.instagram.com/disclosuredoc/https://www.facebook.com/DisclosureDoc/https://twitter.com/Disclosure_Dochttps://www.instagram.com/samfeder_1/https://www.instagram.com/lavernecox/https://www.instagram.com/amyjscholder/https://www.iatse.net/https://www.instagram.com/lawyer_stories/ 

"I go into the market that I serve and I'm a part of them. I participate in community building, networking building and that requires being on the ground and truly engaging. And even now with Covid it requires more Zoom. I actually cover a lot more ground now virtually in a day's time than was humanly possible before. But definitely being on the ground and building meaningful connections, getting to understand which streets go one way etc., is very much a part of how I do my work."On Covid 19: "As a space creator, it's been very confronting.""Folks are dusting off their contacts and reaching out in ways that are creating very powerful outcomes so that's very beautiful.""People had an opportunity to witness and experience what and how this country, this business, the corporation of the United States, truly operates. It is indeed very good to be evolving the dialogue and to have so many folks engage in dialogues that may not have seemed relevant or relatable to them on a level and on a scale throughout the world. That I'm very clear is an ancestral healing inside of that.""My perpetual secret underground mission is to bring folks together who may not otherwise have access to one another in ways that are congruent to their true humanity. Because we receive so many messages about each other and we rarely actually meet each other.""My interests and commitment is to support human beings with recognizing the humanity in each other in a sea of nonsense and messaging that has us relate to each other in ways that are outside of that context.""When you have a society that creates its poverty and solves its problems through the nonprofit industrial complex, which for me, looks a little bit like money laundering, it's deeply problematic and so a lot of things must evolve.""Most folks that are governed in this society inside of the corporation of the United States don't really get that a lot of the intricacies are just really, really hidden in plain sight. The conversation around anti-Blackness started when the country started.""I believe in the human spirit and that the systems were created by human beings and they can be transformed by human beings.""The more we can evolve the conversation to being about humanity, the more rapidly we'll transform the things that aren't working for folks.""I do believe we are moving the needle, it's just so pathetic that it would take so long to be so clear. I'm having a conversation that the old folks in my life born in 1929 or earlier were having.""It's not like white supremacy misses any of us. It's not like it helps some and harms others. It harms us all. It harms us all in different ways.""We are all deeply embedded and indoctrinated in this nonsense and that must evolve.""We are not here to work for money. The more we can explore that and relate to ourselves as sovereign beings, that are participating in a culture that requires currency, then so be that.""The conversation of race is all made up.""People act like we're just going to suddenly have a different system if different people are running it. The system itself is of this elk. What we have to deal with is that these guys were writing a document while being slave holders talking about all men are created equal and all people are free. We have  a root issue that has yet to be addressed."Shalonda Ingram websiteBorn Brown: ALL RIGHTS RESERVEDBB:ARR FacebookBB:ARR InstagramNursha Project

"I turned my personal comedy mailing list into a mailing list for Black Lives Matter, I call it Supporting Black Lives just to make sure they know that I'm not doing anything on the behalf of the actual BLM organization. It's just a separate thing I am doing for people who are my friends and now a lot of people have joined as well.""There are a lot of queer Black people, Black people, homeless Black people who just like need support now and I think it's really important that we give them that support before it's too late.""Black Twitter is like the funniest shit ever. If you are not onto Black people on Twitter, Black-run accounts, you're missing out so much. They were the funniest at the height of the most painful moments and I don't know how they were able to balance it but it was so fucking funny.""Black people have been gas lit and tortured and their families have been destroyed by the government systematically for as long as they've been here or were taken here, so it's not on us to get tired. If we get tired, we're not really fighting alongside them.""I think Twitter is where revolutions happen.""I think a lot of the social media stuff, it's really hard because it's how individuals organize. With Twitter and Instagram and Facebook, it's a compromise because it's like I don't want to have to use a company that has these types of people on their boards or that profits so deeply off of our data but simultaneously, it's the best way to get information to people and to also try to save lives. I don't fault people for using these platforms because right now we don't have an alternative that gives us access to as many people and as much information that can contribute to like a revolution."On comedy for the first time: "I don't really remember being nervous. I just remember being like excited and just like I don't know what's going to happen.""Then you just bomb enough times that you're like it doesn't fucking matter.""I never bomb and get off stage and regret having performed. I've never felt that way.""With some people it's like guts, with other people, they are like idiots. They like are not self aware and they get up there and it's arrogance.""You can make people the butt of jokes if you are not an asshole.""People always say like punch up but I have seen people like punching down but it's not punching down when they are clever about the joke.""You can talk about another group of people and make fun of them but in a fun way and not in just a like 'I'm trying to be offensive' or actually think I'm better than them kind of way.""I think anything can be funny but it really depends on the context of everything.""I love crowd work so much though cause it can completely flip a room. You have no idea what's going to happen and it always works better when people don't try to be funny, they are just being honest.""I feel like being on stage is so unique and incredible and I just really miss it and I'm never going to take it for granted again.""People are doing it [stand up comedy] right now and I just don't trust it and I don't think it's responsible for them to be performing.""There are a lot of underground shows happening in NY, where they are not wearing masks, they are just sitting right next to each other and I just think it's so bad. What's been frustrating to me - a lot of these people support Black Lives Matter but Black lives are the one's most effected by Covid right now. They are the ones that are dying at disproportionate rates. They are the ones suffering the most, as always. What blows my mind is people who go to the protests and then don't take Corona seriously or go to the protest and don't take it seriously there and like hug or whatever because they are caught up in the moment. You are really undoing a lot of the things are you are trying to fight for. It doesn't make sense to me. People should really be careful."Pallavi Gunalan bioPallavi Gunalan is biomedical engineer, stand-up comedian, improviser, actor and writer.  Pallavi has performed at festivals and venues all over the world including Laugh Factory Fresh Faces, SF Sketchfest, Pacific Crest Comedy Festival, Portland Queer Comedy Festival.Supporting Black Lives resource list compiled by PallaviTo get on Pallavi's email list, learn more about the book and movie club, email Pallavi at pallavigunalancomedy@gmail.com or DM her.https://www.pallavigunalan.com/InstagramTwitterFacebookTiktokYouTubeBad Date bitDirty Science - Intermittent FastingFacial Recognition Comedy Podcast  

"What you realize in your life sometimes is that the things that look like absolute disasters turn out to be like the best blessings ever."On the pandemic: "It's been really strange, but I have to say for me, there has been a lot of good in it because I think I needed to kind of quiet myself down, quiet my life down so that i could look at it in a different way and really take stock in what I want to do and where I want to go.""It made me understand I do need to show up differently. I need to really think about how I spend my days and be more intentional about how I move through my life.""I'm going to do all the things that allow me to use my voice. My voice has a purpose and I need that purpose to show itself in various forms.""I don't say no to the things that present themselves to me. No is a word you have to use sometimes, right? But when you're in this mode of rebuilding your life and you are presented with opportunities sometimes that's the universe saying I want you to check this out.""I am learning more about what I can do by saying yes. I am learning that yes is a word that has been great for me because it allows me to expand. It allows me to figure out more of what I am.""Sometimes the identify of who you are will affect the way you dress. And sometimes you're navigating one or you're navigating the other.""The crux of the podcast was really started from us wanting to share those experiences and understanding that there were other people having experiences like us."What I was starting to see was a trend that I was not expecting. What I started to see was everyone I spoke to whether or not they were home, working from home working or were still going out and working, almost every last person I spoke to was trying to help out in some way. Everywhere I looked it was people helping.""I can understand why people think there is content overload but there are so many different things to talk about, there are so many different niche groups who want to hear about this, that or the other thing. If you feel passionate about it then just go ahead and do it.""I truly believe in the fact that I have limited knowledge about what my life is going to look like but I think there's something greater than me that has much more information about what my life could look like. So you know what, I'm going with that guy.""It's OK to just stop for a minute.""I am very serious about walking out of this pandemic and going back into society with a different mindset and a different frame of mind."Phil's bio:Phil, is a podcast host, stylist, wedding officiant and storyteller at heart connecting people and ideas together in a way that resonates beyond the superficial, and challenges the way we think. they are continually interested in capturing unique stories and sharing them with the goal of educating and entertaining. They are especially dedicated to supporting the LGBTQ community and created Transition of Style, a podcast that brings focus to the unique “style journey” queer individuals embark on when seeking an authentic identity. They understand that neither style nor identity is static and that either one or both can be in a constant state of flux. Phil has a varied career starting in music management. They then shifted to technology, serving as an Applications and Full Stack Developer at Boston Consulting Group and Applications Developer at JP Morgan Chase in New York City. They were a founding member of QueerCut, a radically inclusive e-commerce platform, engaging queer brands and customers. All of this experience has given them the ability to understand the complex nature of creation, development and distribution. At present Phil is the host of Transition of Style, and the upcoming At This Very Moment podcast and Co-host of the I’m From Driftwood podcast.Transition of Style podcastPhil aka Corinne's instagramTransition of Style instagramPhil on FacebookPhil's websiteFashion ConsortFacebook Group: White People. Doing SomethingPhil's Medium article   

When I created Conversations, I set out to record 12 episodes - and well, we just published episode 13. Join me as I recap all of my guests so far and talk about the show's highlights. It's the perfect episode to listen to if you haven't listened to one yet and want to learn more about the show and it's also perfect if you've been listening all along and want to hear a recap. Join me!

"One of the things I really noticed is that I loved working in communities. Being in the GLBTQ community, how much healing we got by being together. Like how instrumental being able to work in an organization that centered liberation and centered understanding power and centered young people and the multitude of diversity of their experiences. The ways we did that type of work back then have been so informative to my journey in life.""Often we are using different things to manage stress levels.""Depending on your varying degrees of privilege, you're interacting with a cultural schema that is basically, constantly trying to annihilate you, through all of its systems.""That's part of what I learned in trauma work - how important it is to not pathologize any substance abuse or disassociation as some sort of mental health disorder. Rather it's a strategic, incredible sign of resilience and coping with what is dealing with a tremendous amount of stress and threat.""We are in such a phenomenal moment of uncertainty.""The people who have endured marginalization over many years - queers, the POCs, the poor people, the people with larger bodies, the disabled population, there is a pretty epic, almost like, endurance.""It's just a very illuminating moment for what people have a lot of capacity and what people haven't built much capacity at all. People who have built a lot of capacity have only built that because they've had to deal, it has not been a choice. And there's a whole bunch of people have had a lot more choice around that because of their privilege. I think that's really interesting to watch people get disrupted.""We don't usually get the whole story about what's truly happening.""There is a lot of fear in the social nervous system right now.""How do we do micro-moments of just taking a breath, or just getting out for a two minute walk or like connecting for a five minute conversation just to help kind of down regulate our stress a little bit?""Never before in our lifetimes have we had a moment like this, that has been so disruptive, so systemically, globally disruptive.""There's an element of this which we can really make this an opportunity to get a lot clearer on what's important to us - individually.""Reacting is different than listening. And listening asks us to slow down. It asks us to drop in and feel ourselves a little bit. Which I  know is not really, maybe realistic for a whole bunch of people right now.""When trauma happens, it actually usually triggers many of our old traumas.""We're going to be living with this sense of 'is this over?' for a very long time.""There is always a good reason our body won't let us do something.""Feeling ourselves is revolutionary. When we feel ourselves and we allow ourselves to connect with a little bit of the intuition of the body, there is so much there for us."Cat de La Paz episode Portland Outright Brooklyn GojuCenter for Anti-Violence Educationhttp://embodiedliberation.comInstagramFacebookSage Hayes Bio:Sage Hayes (she/he/they) is a somatic practitioner exploring frontiers of embodied liberation. Sage is an anti-racist, trans and queer somatics practitioner with Embodied Liberation and a lead teaching assistant with the Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute. Sage's work integrates biodynamic craniosacral therapy, systemic constellations, evolutionary biology, quantum physics, ecstatic dance, Somatic Experiencing and intuitive wisdom practices. As an educator, a community organizer, a healing arts practitioner, Sage is passionate about creative ways to create conditions for embodied liberation which interrupt and help us heal from the trauma of supremacy, binary thinking and marginalization, in both systems and in bodies. Sage lives on the ancestral lands of the Narragansetts and Wampanoags currently known as Rhode Island with her brilliant partner and travels around the world to support trauma healing. 

"We are doing what we can, each of us, to sort of fulfill the time and make ourselves happy.""They still have not caught the person who hit my stepfather, it was a hit-and-run accident that is still just a mystery.""Everything is altered. Their entire lives have been turned upside down and I've gone along for the ride as being the support.""It's definitely difficult to watch. You obviously want your parents to be OK at a certain age, to sort of like live out their life in some kind of retired state but it's just not that way for everyone.""I am 100 percent for the safety of humans first before small business but I also understand as a business person what it must feel like to the owners of small businesses who may never recover from this."I'm still trying to wrap my head around what happens on the return for something like fashion. I have a very intimate rapport with customers and I hope that people will still want to go in and place hats on their heads and do things for themselves that may not necessarily be a need or considered essential.""It's such a strange time to go from ready to build, build, build, build, build and just have it come all crash down."On parents: "We may never fit in the box that they want us to fit into or what they thought we were going to become. But we are their children and we need to be seen.""Regard a person the way they want to be regarded. It's so important.""I was called selfish because I wanted the right to have myself seen as who I am.""You can't be distracted from all of the things that are right there in front of you. There isn't a way to do it. You can't step away and travel for work and ignore what's going on in your relationships. You can't bury yourself in anything. You have to approach it head on." Nicky Cutler bio:Nicky Cutler has been working in the fashion industry for over 15 years.  As an early queer fashion label pioneer with the creation of DITC clothing line (Dykes in the City) back in 2004, Nicky paved the way for queer identity to be seen through the medium of clothing and hats. Nicky ended the label in 2011 when their newly trans identity no longer matched the initial cause.  Nicky’s career in fashion has continued by working for Goorin Brothers as District Manager in the California and New Orleans areas.  Over the last nine years they have continued to contribute to the lgbtq+ community in any way they can due to their extremely supportive company.  Nicky currently resides in the Los Angeles area, enjoys working out, animals, bourbon,  and ending toxic masculinity. Nicky Cutler FacebookNicky Cutler InstagramEDD CA - How to Get Through to EDD California by PhoneThe Intentional Man ProjectGoorin Bros., Melrose, LA

"It's kind of like 'Broad City' meets 'Generation Q' with a lot of heart and a lot of humor.""I started writing the show the day after Trump was elected. I was very upset and was doing a musical theater production and just decided that I needed to channel my creative energy into something that would make a difference and help my community going forward, especially in these times that I knew were about to get much more dark.""This is actually my first film making project. It's been really, a very, very very intense learning curve.""I am a cisgendered woman and although I'm queer as fuck I can only tell so much of someone else's story.""It's really important to be making uplifting stories for our community, especially during this time. Stories that feature accurate representation across the board for queer people, but especially for trans and nonbinary folk who just really aren't represented pretty much at all. It's so hard to find good representation.""This is absolutely the most difficult journey I've ever experienced in my life. It is also the most rewarding.""I truly feel that every single person who crossed paths with me and this project was there to serve a purpose and was there for a reason. That's the only way to get through something like this because it's been so hard. No part of this has been easy.""It is really a beautiful thing to watch in completion because I am so proud of the work. And I am so proud of what was able to be created but it was only because I had to push myself through literally the darkest times of my life. Truly.  I hit rock bottom, trying to make this happen, probably at least three times.""I view it absolutely as a tool for cis het allies to be able to watch it and enjoy it and really learn from it in a safe way. It's not just a queer series for queers.""It's been an interesting balance of lots of stress, lots of frustration while also experiencing lots of joy, lots of positivity. It's been wild, just wild.Gretchen's websiteThese Thems websiteThese Thems on YouTubeThese Thems instagram These Thems FacebookThese Thems TwitterGretchen Wylder instagramVico Ortiz  instagram Shaan Dasani instagramNick Park instagramDirected by Jett GarrisonProduced by Sophia ClarkLexClexacon Gretchen's bioGretchen Wylder started her acting career in Chicago and has been a working actor in NYC for the past nine years. She has originated roles in musical comedies Off-Broadway, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and also creates original sketch comedy content. In addition to working with legends Kathy Griffin, Julie Andrews, Anthony Rapp, and Judy Gold, Gretchen has performed sketch and improv at Amy Poehler's UCB theater, the PIT, Magnet, and Second City. Fav theatre credits: Avenue Q, Rent, Bedbugs The Musical. She has competed at the Miss Exotic World pageant at the Burlesque Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. Gretchen is an advocate for the Queer community and in 2016, organized a float in NYC's Gay Pride parade to raise funds for the Ellie Conant memorial fund, benefiting Astraea Lesbian Foundation.  

On being in New York during the coronavirus quarantine: "People are wild tense. We don't have the luxury of some other spaces who are quarantined or holed up, who can just like hang out on their front porch or in their backyard and have a lot of space. People are cooped up in super small apartments. Just trying to make do.""It's a wild time to be in New York. It's a wild time to be living right now.""There is no plan for how we all come back.""People basically are stimulating landlords and paying utilities. That's all [the stimulus] is really good for. And trying to buy food.""Think about it, it took people like basically three weeks, maybe a month - grown ass adults - to figure out how to wash their hands and stop touching everything.""I find myself working harder than when I did having to report to a space every day.""When you have a lot of people telecommuting - working from home - there's this new expectation of availability and false sense of productivity.""I also feel pressure as a black person, as a black woman, to create content and to produce and perform in a way that pleases everybody around me.""I'd much rather do something right and well than do it in a mediocre fashion and it be such a low benchmark or starting point. I, more or less, want to lead by example.""All these things about ourselves that we hide for whatever various reasons are really starting to show.""Black people have been saying what about reparations, what about reparations, what about reparations? And it's always never been possible. But all of a sudden we were able to turn around and create stimulus like it's no big deal. That was instant.""I think this is a defining moment where actually people have a lot more power than systems have power because everything is so unknown.""This is a moment for us to access our power especially from a communal space - and also start to understand there are disparities out there and if you are experiencing these just for 30 days, if your world is rocked, you are feeling shook, like this is the experience of the rest of the world and this is what we've been trying to tell you for a very long time. And you have not listened. You are only listening now because it is impacting you."       BJ is a certified trainer, cat lover, bacon enthusiast and a 3 Sport Gay Olympian. International Women Artists' Salon Instagram Facebook 

"What takes courage really varies.""We can gain strength and gain courage and have resilience supported by other people around us.""I felt like I had to be different than I am in order to be successful.""I'm very forthright; What you see is what you get with me pretty much. I wanted a brand that really reflected that.""The growth for all of us lies in being just even braver than we were yesterday.""There's this way that expertise gets so celebrated and one of the problems experts run into is often they become siloed.""One of the advantages of being a generalist, a lateral thinker, or having a broad knowledge base is that a lot of times we can see the broader picture of impact and the connections that a subject matter expert can't see outside of that silo.""There's a courage even just admitting how much you want something and then to actually swing out and go for it can be all the scarier, too.""Conformity is one of the forces in our society. That's why we need so much courage.""Almost everybody is wrestling with something."Bio: Milo Razza coaches to increase the power, freedom, and choice of individuals and organizations so they can convert intention to action to impact more effectively, consistently, and easily. As your coach, Milo is unafraid to push back, call out bullshit when he hears it, and to be frank and direct for the sake of serving you. He is a dynamic partner in moving you through your internal resistance, and guiding you to see what is in your blindspots. An outsider to mainstream coaching, Milo brings a combination of irreverence, humor, compassion, and encouragement to support your continued growth. Raised in Washington, DC, Milo earned a BA in Semiotics and Critical Thinking at Bryn Mawr College. His fascination with how we read and create meaning allows him to  discern how you are creating meaning and framing your choices in your life and work. He draws on his experiences with The Coaches Training Institute (CTI), whitewater raft guiding, nonprofit management, owning a small business, and other influences. He has served clients across numerous industries in more than 12 years of coaching. He is trans/genderqueer and black/mixed race, and acknowledges the impact of systems of oppression in his coaching with clients, never at the expense of ultimately focusing on his clients’ path forward. Even Bravermilo@evenbraver.com CrossFit Torque Strength Beginning CrossFit (blog post) 

"When you're in a Zoom meeting, you see yourself. It's like looking into a mirror as you're supporting people. Some of my patients, particularly those with dysmorphia or body image issues, often feel very self-conscious looking at themselves as they are confiding. It's a sensitive format.""We are literally forcing areas of the brain that don't tend to work well in anxiety, in depression, in post traumatic stress disorder, in brain injury. We are literally forcing these areas of the brain to fire down into the rich connectome - structures that aren't necessarily physically adjacent to that area, but we know are connected.""A lot of people who suffer with depression - it is the exception and not the norm for people to feel better or to be adequately treated on their anti-depression medication.""I'm a late-in-life nurse. I was just an unsettled young person; kind of a party girl. Then I had an unplanned pregnancy when I was in my first undergraduate degree, which kind of sidelined me.""Psychiatry is just about having a kind ear for people's lives.""I get to bear witness to some of the scariest, most shameful, deepest experiences a person's had.""We can certainly have a meant relationship with a therapeutic provider and it can really take on a very deep soulful quality."On live storytelling: "The person who breaks the ice, that is the hardest job, that is the anchor of the evening.""There was always this one extra layer between me and the story where I wasn't really quite willing to crack open enough and invite that vulnerability in enough for people, to have raised the stakes and to make the story more compelling.""That's why people seek out therapy, right? They need a sacred space with a professional stranger.""The rough part of storytelling is cutting on your baby.  You've got to cut cut cut cut cut. And it hurts.""That's what a good story does, it just shows you an aspect of yourself and helps you know yourself better."Bio: Shauna Hahn is a semi-accurate storyteller who very nearly tells the truth. She is a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner who owns her own TMS practice. She is a veteran of community health and twin parenting. She is a Plains Cree Indian from rural Saskatchewan who writes a lot about her experiences there. She makes and drinks wine, she enjoys reading really stupid books, and she skis—bunny hills only, because she is cowardly (which as she understands it, means towards the cow). Framework Functional Psychiatry and TMS Framework Functional Psychiatry Shauna Hahn - instagram Shauna Hahn - FacebookBad.ndn - instagram Literary ArtsMindy NettifeeBackfence PDXThe Moth - PortlandTiger KingChildren's Book Bank Fundraiser  

"Kids can be pretty harsh.""While I never experienced outright bullying, I did always feel this distance with people. Especially kids my own age."It definitely wasn't easy having such a visible and big birthmark on my face. There was a lot of really difficult times of looking in the mirror and not liking what I was seeing. And being so different from other people.""For me, I would rather someone ask if you are staring. I would way rather you just ask me point blank. Like you are already kind of invading my privacy in a sense of just standing there and looking straight at me.""I have eyes, I can see you looking at me.""The people that matter the most are going to want you to feel the most like you and the most empowered.""I'm still unpacking things and understanding my experiences.""I feel like so much of our world and media and social media, it's beneficial for you not to like yourself.""I think it's just a really radical idea for everyone to just fully love yourself."Bio:Kat Kelley was born and raised in Visalia, California and has lived in Portland, Oregon for the past year. She studied and received her undergraduate degree in Psychology, which she hopes t someday put to use in a therapeutic setting. Kat believes in allowing space and conversations around mental health, especially around self confidence and acceptance. While she herself still has a long way to go with the later, she hopes to encourage others to let go of comparison and step into themselves fully.   InstagramTeal Flamingo Stephanya Lulua PortukalianEverett James Lewis Literary Arts

"I'm navigating - just like everybody else - an absolutely new set of emotions connected to something that we've never been through.""We're all just trying to stay sane.""I dissect and unpack trails of thought. it's always been something that I've loved to do.""As soon as I took accountability for my own life, that's when things really started changing for me as a person.""The basic truth is that, love is the most important thing. It's what matters the most. Compassion is what matters the most.""Love needs to become systematic. Love needs to become part of our government. It needs to be part of our churches and it's not. What is a part of that is capitalism and colonialism.""Love is political.""When I transitioned on T five years into my public career, I lost the majority of my mostly female lesbian audience and there was a part of me that started raging.""I couldn't ungrip myself from the darkness.""I started this journey that was basically, 'if it feels bad, then it's out.' No matter how little or how big.""I started trusting my gut. Anytime I started having negative thoughts about myself, I would find something forceably positive. ""I finally figured out that I had internalized my marginalization and that is a tool of capitalism.""I truly believe that if every marginalized person on the planet starts understanding what it means to love themselves, there will be a revolution.""If it feels like it's not dignified, I have to walk away from it.""Sometimes people are your lessons and sometimes you are the lesson for someone else.""I think being an artist is innate in every human being. It is who we are."Please note: There is talk of suicide in this episode. In addition,  I did not coin the term "divine inspiration" - I use it in the spiritual sense, rather than the Biblical. Feel free to Google!Lucas Silveira info:InstagramFacebookThe Anchor CoachThe CliksCover of Crying by Roy OrbisonCover of Poker Face by Lady GagaBio:Lucas Silveira is best known as the front man for the Canadian rock band, The Cliks. He rose to fame in 2006 by becoming the first out transgender man in history to be signed to an international major label record deal with Warner Music and Tommy Boy Silver Label. The Cliks toured worldwide with Cyndi Lauper, Tegan and Sarah, Blondie, The Cult, The New York Dolls and more. After a long and successful career in the music industry, Lucas now divides his time between writing, public speaking, songwriting and a private practice as a certified Life Coach focused on artists and marginalized communities looking to empower themselves through the practice of self-love. Lucas’ writing is mainly focused on mental health awareness, non-religious spiritual awareness and practices and LGBTQ+ issues with a focus on the transgender community, including how to heal community from within.Lucas’ focus in public speaking surrounds many topics that encompass the transgender experience from his personal story and lending itself to education for those within and outside of the community with a focus on how to educate using compassionate activism rather than call out or cancel culture.Lucas is currently working on a children’s book about trans and non-binary identities and preparing to record his first studio album in seven years.   

"It felt really empowering to do it on my own label. To have complete control of the recording - it feels great.""I want to have a sustainable music career. And I wasn't finding the right label who I thought could do it better than I could.""It's taken a lot of sacrifices and changes in my lifestyle -  what to expect and how to meet this idea half way and have it also meet me where I'm at.""I definitely was making some leaps that felt pretty scary.""I think it's good to demystify the process of diving into a career that feels unstable.""I told my friends and my family, I'm really scared. And they said, 'That's OK. We're not going anywhere.' Just having a community that I knew would catch me was really helpful.""I've been writing songs for like 10 years. I've just always done it because it feels good.""You want everybody to love your music but at the same time that's statistically, mathematically, psychologically impossible. For the people who do like it, it's like cool, we should celebrate that and that's the community you start building with your music.""The theme of the album is pretty bleak and that was intentional.""I feel like a writer first and a musician second. Music is the vehicle for how I'm expressing what I feel I should say."Olivia's Bio:Portland, OR guitarist, singer and lyricist Olivia Awbrey crafts transcendental guitar riffs that pierce through her self-aware and culturally critical storytelling, making way for a new voice on the indie rock scene that parallels the heavy hitters. Her debut, self-released EP Fight or Fight quickly found popularity and led to sold out shows throughout the West Coast and UK. A singer-songwriter by nature, Awbrey balances sardonic critique of politics and culture with measured optimism and witty self-interrogation of her place in the world as a queer woman. Her debut LP, Dishonorable Harvest (Quick Pickle Records), is an unparalleled blend of guitar feedback and pop-infused synth lines, of poetic intrigue and relatable angst.After a year of touring solo on the back of Fight or Fight, opening for artists like The Beths, Mal Blum, and Japanese Breakfast, Awbrey allowed her life-long fascination with English political punk and rock to lead her overseas. She met and became good friends with CJ Thorpe-Tracey, one of England’s most prized underground political songwriters and someone who Awbrey has drawn inspiration from afar. She also met guitarist Jen Macro (My Bloody Valentine) and Jon Clayton (engineer at One Cat Studio). After returning home and partially recording a few new tracks in Portland with her band, Awbrey left her job as a social worker and went back to London in spring of 2019 for another successful UK tour and to finish recording Dishonorable Harvest with input from the British cohort.Lauded as “one of the best albums to come through Portland in a long time,” by #WomenCrushMusic, Dishonorable Harvest takes on the personal and the political with songs that are surprising in structure and viscerally sharp in their message. Awbrey’s songwriting is dense, each line a narrative to unpack. Her ability to transcend listeners into the world she creates, formed by lyrical edginess and sonic flexibility, makes her one of Oregon’s most captivating songwriters to emerge in the last five years.Released on her very own Quick Pickle Records, Dishonorable Harvest is out on international worker’s day: May 1.SpotifyGo Fund MeWebsiteFacebookInstagramTwitterEmail: oliviaawbreymusic@gmail.com.Amazon Dragons Paddling Club

About her book: El Fin Del Mundo: "It's about situations in my life, but actually I'm exploring a different response than I actually made in my own life."On Todd Kincannon's 2013 tweet: "I was really interested based on my entire experience of never having been alive when an entire nation paid attention to something that transphobic. That was a turning point for me.""In 2015 to today, there have been over 300 active legislative laws that went into the House for each state, that were anti-LGBTQ.  The majority of them did not succeed. There was resistance which means there is still fight.""We are still fighting. We are still going out there. We are still winning. That is a moment of hope that should be shared."On being stealth at her job: "Ultimately it was about safety. For me, the idea of being an open trans woman out in the public sector working as my true self didn't seem reasonable.""We have to be responsible for those who can't do certain things. And they are responsible for us for the things we can't do either. Collaboration is essential.""I've been alone. I go to work and talk about the work. I don't talk about my life. I don't talk about my realities. I'm primarily just left alone.""I'm seen as a threat to heteronormativity - the cisgender paradigm of what is acceptable. People  want to treat me as a cisgender person, they really don't want to see me as a trans person.""Trans people would be really good as the CEOs and future bankers. Who's better at risk management than someone who understands risk? You'd get a lot of wisdom from trans women of color. Who better knows risk than trans women of color?""It can be a lot of work hiding.""What is our response? What will our response be as our days go on?"Links:Why Holocaust Analogies are DangerousThe US Holocaust Museum is Wrong to Deny That Trump's Racism Resembles NazismAn Open Letter to the Director of the US Holocaust Memorial MuseumTake it From a Civil Liberties Professor - Trump and Hitler Have A Lot in Common 'I'm a Holocaust Survivor- Trump's America Feels Like Germany Before Nazis Took Over'OutrightCandy's    

"I always sensed things. I had precognition about stuff and I had a mother who was very supportive of that.""As a child, it was scary to be able to sense so much.""A chart is a blueprint. It's a planetary picture of what you've come here to explore.""There is always potential to grow.""The judgement that we carry with us through our lives towards others is unnecessary because people are what they are.""The choice is basically yours - We are willful beings. We have free will and we can choose to move forward in a positive way, as an evolutionary being or in a negative way as a victim.""Astrology is a very truthful way of reading patterns. That's really all it is. It's reading patterns and telling the story.""Watch the movie. Because the movie is what is happening around you.""Every time you insert yourself in someone's drama or engage in more drama in your life, you're literally creating more karma.""The heart is an amazing indication of intuition as well as the gut. Both work in tandem. When we feel anxious, it's usually based on fear and past conditioning.""Everything happens in divine timing. No one should ever question did I do this right?"Contact Diana:Diana Mahiques, an Aries, is a Western Astrologer, Certified Feng Shui Master and Intuitive Counselor with over 25 years of experience and clients all over the US and abroad. She is based in New York City. https://www.integrativeastrologyandfengshui.com/https://www.instagram.com/dianamahiquesquantumcoach/https://www.facebook.com/integrativeastrologyandfengshuiforheartandhome/dianamahiques@gmail.comhttps://www.instagram.com/aaronxrose/   

"Somebody needs to be the first to go through. Somebody needs to be the first to pave the way. Somebody needs to be the first fearlessly to move forward through an environment that might not even be known yet and that's exactly what happened for me.""One thing I learned that has to do with resilience and recovery is sometimes you just have to let go. You don't know the outcome. At all. Period.""You get up and you do. And you do what you think is right and sometimes you are right and sometimes you make mistakes.""Getting over this, 'Oh I can do it myself mentality' and asking for help was actually a really big milestone for me."Mathew Heggemhttps://www.instagram.com/matheggem/https://twitter.com/matheggemhttps://www.facebook.com/mat.heggemGaneshaMastin KippExponentialPurpose Mapping

“I encourage people to go in with no expectations.”“Things that are rewarding don’t necessarily start off fun.”“Relaxing is a huge part of healing because when we hold so much tension it really causes us to not be present.”“When you take care of your body then you can really take care of your spirit. When you take care of your inner knowing, listen to yourself, intuition, creativity – all of those things – come with floating.”“It can bring up a lot of fears just because there’s the opportunity to get to know yourself.”“What are you doing for yourself? Investing time, energy and money into yourself gives so many returns. You are your own gold.”“Being in service is what I’m here to do. It’s also about creating community."Float Northhttps://www.instagram.com/floatnorthpdx/https://twitter.com/FloatNorthhttps://www.facebook.com/FloatNorth/Jessa ReedCellular hydrationAmazon Dragons Paddling ClubTzun Tzun Laureate Institute for Brain ResearchBarbara Sher: People are problem solvers! Ask for help! 

Conversations is produced by Rhino Girl Media, my communications consulting company. Question, comment or feedback on the show? Email me at liz@rhinogirlmedia.com Follow me on instagram @lizstacygoldCheck out my blog www.14karatliving.com Visit my website, rhinogirlmedia.com