Blake Allen - Coming Out To Mormon Parents

On this week's episode of Redefining Family, Jonathan has the pleasure of speaking with his old friend Jonathan Goldstein and his daughter Madi Goldstein.   At seventeen, Madi came out to Jonathan and his wife as transgender.  Since then, they have not only supported her, but have become advocates for her and the trans and queer communities.

Jonathan discusses the realization him and his wife had that Madi was struggling with her gender identity.  Madi explains that she felt a disconnect with her mind and body, which made her feel so very isolated.  With the support of her family, Madi is thriving and finally feels like she belongs.  Madi also talks about finding community and support online, and Jonathan discusses advice he has for parents of trans and queer children.

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More About The Goldsteins

Jonathan and his wife have been married for over 20 years and are the proud parents of two amazing kids. Madi who is 18 and Micah who is 16. In addition to parenting two amazing teenagers, Jonathan has been a youth group advisor to temple youth groups affiliated with the North American Federation of Temple Youth (NFTY) off and on since 1998. When he is not attending youth group events,  Jonathan can be found at his synagogue where he is a Cantorial Soloist. But, more often you can find him managing the Energy & Utility Practice at CG Infinity.

This week on "Redefining Family,"  Jonathan interviews internationally recognized and award-winning musician and composer Blake Allen.   Blake was raised Mormon and came out to his blood related family at 18 years old, which at the time, did not go over very well.  However Blake explains that since then, him and his parents have learned to love each other in the way that they know how, even after he stepped away from the Mormon church.

Blake also opens up about how in college, the suicide of a friend took him through a really dark time in his life, and how he then decided to live his truth and not be afraid of telling his family, and the world, who he really was.

Blake is now married to political drag champion Marti Gould Cummings, and his father even walked him down the aisle!  While Blake and his family are examples of how blood relatives can eventually come around,  it is always your choice if you choose to let them back in and to also have boundaries and decide the kind of relationship you want to have with them.

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About Blake Allen

Blake Allen, PhD(c) is an internationally recognized, award-winning composer, musician, orchestrator, and educator. Allen has performed on and off Broadway and at many major music halls around the country including Carnegie Hall, Dr. Phillips Center, Strathmore Music Center, Kennedy Center, as well as on and off Broadway.

Allen has 4 chart-topping albums, with his autobiographical musical-opera the shards of an honor code junkie (#1 Classical Charts and the #1 new cast album on Billboard) garnering 4 million streams. He currently is traveling around the globe with RuPaul’s Drag Race star, Tina Burner, as their music director and collaborator, with their latest show Mix Queen: A Relationship Mixtape topping the comedy charts. Allen also frequently can be heard performing viola with the New York City Ballet and on the Seven Seas on VACAYA with their spouse, Marti Gould Cummings.  

This week on Redefining Family Jonathan opens the episode talking about the very scary state of our country and worries for our future.  

Jonathan then interviews Robert Oliver, LGBTQ advocate, political organizer, and is also running for the West Hollywood City Council.  Robert opens up about always knowing he was gay but also feeling like an outcast.   Robert was raised in a reform, Jewish family, that was very accepting, and he explains the amazing values that were bestowed upon him, like doing a Mitzvah.

Jonathan and Robert then talk about the fact just because you are related to someone, it does not mean that you should accept abuse from them.  Robert explains that self-esteem comes from estimable acts, it comes from within.

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About Robert Oliver

Robert is a passionate activist and political organizer. Coming from a family of immigrants who fled persecution, Robert has always felt a personal responsibility to fight injustice against anyone. After coming out at 14, Robert took to the streets, organizing for marriage equality and LGBT rights, and against the Bush-era wars. As a student, he worked full-time on the No on Proposition 8 campaign, as well as Pacific Pride Foundation, Santa Barbara’s LGBTQ Center. His professional career also includes working for a U.S. Senator, a Los Angeles City Councilmember, and the LA Jewish Federation. 

Along with his husband and their adopted bulldog-mix, Robert lives in West Hollywood, where he previously served on the West Hollywood Lesbian and Gay Advisory Board, and represented West Hollywood on the LA County West Vector Control District Board. Robert currently serves on the city’s Public Safety Commission, where he has been an advocate for reimagining policing and public safety, as well as underrepresented members of the community. Robert is running for West Hollywood City Council in the November 2022 election.

This week on "Redefining Family" Jonathan opens the episode by discussing the devastating overturn of Roe Vs. Wade and where we go from here.

He is then joined by Laura-Rose Thorogood.  Laura-Rose Thorogood, the founder of the LGBT Mummies , which is an organization based in the UK but provides support worldwide for LGBTQ women wanting to start a family.   Laura-Rose did not officially come out until she was 29 years old due to a lot of self-loathing and trying to understand her identity.    After she met her wife, they decided to go on a fertility journey, which was difficult to say to least.  She discusses their struggles with IVF as lesbians and how they powered through and went on to have five beautiful children.

Laura-Rose shares the struggles not only lesbians, but trans and non-binary individuals face, not only with fertility, but with discrimination in those areas as well.

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About Laura-Rose Thorogood

Laura-Rose Thorogood is a married lesbian mother of five children by IUI through a fertility clinic.  Finding a lack of support, information & community when she & her wife started their path to parenthood, they decided to set up an organization to provide just that. She is the Founder of The LGBT Mummies , a global organization that supports LGBT+ women & people on the path to parenthood. She is an LGBT+ Family Activist, Fertility & Mental Health Advocate & Campaigner for Policy Change for LGBT+ families globally. She works directly with the NHS, & other global organizations & the UK Government to improve policies, support & visibility of LGBT+ families on the path to parenthood through pregnancy, birth & general healthcare.

https://lgbtmummies.com

This week Jonathan speaks with Arsham Parsi,  an Iranian LGBT human rights activist living in exile in Canada.   Arsham discusses when he first realized he was gay and what it was like growing up in Iran knowing he was different.  

Arsham discusses the consequences of being gay in Iran, fleeing the country and how his family had to flee soon after.  He also discusses his relationship with his family, what his life has looked like since he had to flee Iran, and all of the work he does to help others like him.

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About  Arsham Parsi 

Arsham Parsi is an Iranian queer rights activist who was born in Shiraz, the largest city in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

He is the founder and head of the Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees an international non-profit organization based in Toronto, Canada that is helping Iranian queers and those who escaped Iran on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity and expression.

He is currently living in exile in Canada, but whilst still living in Iran in 2001 he started Rangin Kamin (Rainbow Group), a group for LGBTQ Iranians which he later renamed Persian Gay and Lesbian Organization, and then again as the Iranian Queer Organization (IRQO). Because homosexuality is illegal in Iran and can be punished with death, Parsi registered the organization in Norway and kept most of his LGBTQ activism to online spaces, where he operated a chatroom for queer Iranians.

Parsi himself fled to Turkey in 2005, claimed refugee status, and was eventually resettled in Toronto, where he founded a new organization, the International Railroad for Queer Refugees (IRQR).

The organization assists LGBTQ refugees who have fled their home countries because of their identities and are currently living in Turkey. The organization provides food, shelter, guidance, and education until they are eventually resettled.

His work has earned him several human rights awards including the 2008 Felipa de Souza Award from the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and the 2008 Pride Toronto Award.

His 2015 book, Exiled for Love: The Journer of an Iranian Queer Activist, chronicles Parsi’s incredible journey from his first understanding of his sexual orientation to his eventual exile. It explores the reality for LGBT people in Iran through his personal experiences.

This week on Redefining Family Jonathan interviews author Jonathan Alexander.   Jonathan first talks about his struggles growing up in the deep south, especially once he decided he wanted to come out.  He turned 18 at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic and he tried to come out in college, however there was no real support or community for LGBTQ+ individuals. 

Jonathan then discusses how he ended up marrying a woman and the realizations they both came to about their relationship before the split.   Additionally, Jonathan talks about learning to love himself as a kid and his close relationship with his mother.

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About Jonathan Alexander

Jonathan Alexander is a writer living in Southern California where he is Chancellor’s Professor of English at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author, co-author, or editor of twenty-one books. His cultural journalism has been widely published, especially in the Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB) for which he is the Special Projects Editor. He is also the host of LARB’s “Writing Sex,” a YouTube series of short interviews with contemporary writers on sex and sexuality. (Previous guests include Garth Greenwell, Andre Aciman, and Dennis Cooper.) LARB founding editor Tom Lutz has called Alexander one of “our finest essayists.” He lives with his husband and cat, and when not writing, dabbles in watercolors and plays piano in a music ensemble with friends. For more about Jonathan Alexander and his books please visit www.thecreeptrilogy.com and www.the-blank-page.com.

Twitter: @profjalexander
Instagram: profjalexanderART

In this week's episode of "Redefining Family" Jonathan opens the show by talking about his amazing weekend at PRIDE in West Hollywood.  He then talks about his cousin that got HIV and how the mental effects of what was happening to him turned out to, sadly, be his demise.

Jonathan then interviews HIV educator and advocate Kalob Gossett.   Kalob first opens up about coming out to his family and their initial reactions and how he was the first gay president of his fraternity in college.  He then gets into how is HIV activism started and has now turned into a successful career he is extremely passionate about.

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About Kalob Gossett

Kalob Gossett is an HIV educator and advocate with a Masters degree in Health Administration located in Chicago, IL. His work on HIV initiatives spans over 8 years, which has given him the opportunity to work with and educate a variety of people ranging from patients and community members up to medical providers and directors. Kalob's goal is to bring awareness and create a passion for HIV as the older, queer generations once did; and one of his main strategies to achieve this goal has been the use of social media to educate the masses. He strives to meet people where they are, mentally and physically, to empower our communities to join the fight against HIV.

Kalob Gossett Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/kalobgossett/

On this episode of Redefining Family, Jonathan first opens up about the boundaries he has had to create with his family to protect himself, which included a recent interaction with a close friend of his father's.  Jonathan then gets the chance to speak with standup comedian and LGBTQ+ activist Calvin Cato.  

Calvin first talks about his upbringing, not being exposed to the gay community as a kid and the homophobia that existed in his family of immigrant parents.   He talks about how he finally started to understand what being gay meant, his first sexual experience and then trying to reinvent himself as a straight man in college.

Calvin also shares the story of losing his father and the ways in which he did and did not come out to him before his passing.

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About Calvin Cato

Calvin S. Cato is a comedian, storyteller, and rare-times actor based in New York City. He has been heard on Sirius XM and has appeared on Oxygen, National Geographic, Netflix and a pilot for Vice Media called Emergency Black Meeting. He has performed in numerous festivals including San Francisco Sketchfest, FlameCon, Brooklyn Pride, Women In Comedy Festival, and the Gotham Storytelling Festival. In 2017, Calvin was named one of Time Out New York’s Queer Comics Of Color To Watch. Most recently he has been published in Kweendom, an anthology of queer comedic essays. He recently wrapped up hosting and producing a daily online comedy talk show on RushTix.com called The Calvin Cato Show.

On this week's episode of Redefining Family, Jonathan starts the show by opening up about his time at The Men Having Babies Conference in San Fransisco.   Jonathan then has a wonderful conversation with Erick Matos, an advocate for the LGBTQ+ community and a public policy specialist with nearly a decade of experience in state and local government.

Erick opens up about what it was like growing up in a religious family in a small town, and when it was that he first realized that he was gay.  He talks about everything from the desire to be a good Christian son, to his first closeted relationship in college, to then finally deciding that he wanted to live authentically.

Erick also talks about the importance of having a close circle to support you, whether they are blood relatives or not.  And of course, how to show up for the ones you love.

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About Erick Matos

Erick Matos (he/him/his) is a public policy specialist with nearly a decade of experience in state and local government. He currently works for a public health insurance plan that provides affordable coverage to over 2 million low income Los Angeles County residents. He holds a Master’s Degree in Public Health, with a concentration in Health Services and Policy from the University of Southern California. Erick grew up in a religious family in Central California, having struggled internally for years before finally accepting his identity as a gay man. He lives in West Hollywood with his partner Jon and their beloved dog Niko. 

On this week's episode of "Redefining Family" Jonathan starts off the show by talking about how he felt like he came out later in life when he was in his 20's.  However, after talking to this week's guest Kathy Kiger, he realized that there are people that come out even later than he did, and wow, does Kathy have a story to tell.

Kathy grew up in Texas to a very religious family, and she felt as though religion was forced on her.  She felt like her whole life she was "pushing the gay down", not consciously acknowledging her true sexual preferences.  She then got married, had 4 kids, and one day she had an epiphany....she was a lesbian, and yes, she was fifty years old. 

Kathy discusses what it was like coming out to her family, and how to her surprise, several of her kids came out when she came out to them.  She then gets into what her current relationship with her ex husband and the rest of her family is like and how her life has changed for the better.

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About Kathy Kiger

Kathy Kiger is a copywriter in the holistic health space. She writes blogs, emails, and sales pages for nutritionists, dietitians, and other health professionals. Kathy has wandered the career path extensively over the years as a private flute teacher, public school educator, natural childbirth instructor, and nutritional therapist. 

Kathy was raised as an evangelical Christian and dutifully followed all the rules — from homeschooling her kids and baking her own bread to suppressing her sexual orientation for decades. 

After being married for almost 15 years, and then divorced for 10, Kathy finally had her “holy shit I’m a lesbian” day in early 2021. She is a single mom with 4 kids ages 15 - 23, many of whom are also queer.

Kathy has recently started the Better Late Than Straight blog and email digest where she shares her own insights as a late-blooming lesbian, along with resources, and the stories of other women who have embraced their queerness later in life.

https://www.betterlatethanstraight.com