Keywords:
chosen family, community, friends, support
chosen family, community, friends, support
Video Transcript
Tara: Who’s your chosen family?
Alex: Us. This is our chosen family.
Tara: There’s three of you! Yeah!
Alex: Yeah, exactly. We have a lot of really supportive friends.
Jessica: We have a fan club.
Alex: Because.
Jessica: We literally have a fan club.
Alex: We do literally have a fan club.
Jonathon: Because of the podcast, yeah! Although, it sounds a little dismissive to call it a fan club. Because they’re really our friends. Sort of the layers of the onion. The closest ring is our closest friends.
Alex: I mean, we meet up with them and go to their
Jessica: Their Bar Mitzvahs! We drive to their home towns!
Alex: The Mac and Cheese Festival in Toronto! We have people coming that listen to our show that visited us there and met our kids, and are all so supportive.
Jessica: But yes, we all have that common bond of trusting our parenting
Alex: There are times...
Alex: There are times when Jessica will be like “Somebody just said some crazy stuff to me, internet! This is what they said, am I nuts?” And they’ll be like “No you are not nuts. You’re a wonderful parent and you are doing what is good for your child!”
Jonathon: So much of the close family issue is the Jeopardy problem. Like it’s so easy to see the answer when you’re not actually the person being asked the question. But as soon as you’re the person like in that situation, that’s when your family will freak out and be like “I don’t care about transgender people! They’re great, I don’t care! Oh wait, one of my family is transgender? No, that’s a problem!”
Jessica: “No they’re not. They’re not transgender.”
Alex: Exactly.
Jonathon: So we’ve been very lucky in having… as things have gone on, we’ve mentioned you know, because so much of social media these days, so much of Twitter and Facebook, we’ve mentioned you know Wolfgang really wants to wear pink to school today. And people pick up on that, and if people can’t handle it, they sort of filter themselves out.
Jessica: But there’s a way they can follow that journey with us. They can see that kind of evolution of it. There’s also some really really great trans parent groups on Facebook. Uh, that were like, are so important. Like when there was things going on, these are all experiences that people have had before. And it was just like, if I needed help, instantly I had like 50 people who were listening to this specific problem, or this specific email with this specific person, like “What do I do?”
Alex: And 30 of them had already gone through it before.
Jessica: Yes! It’s been like invaluable.
Tara: Who’s your chosen family?
Alex: Us. This is our chosen family.
Tara: There’s three of you! Yeah!
Alex: Yeah, exactly. We have a lot of really supportive friends.
Jessica: We have a fan club.
Alex: Because.
Jessica: We literally have a fan club.
Alex: We do literally have a fan club.
Jonathon: Because of the podcast, yeah! Although, it sounds a little dismissive to call it a fan club. Because they’re really our friends. Sort of the layers of the onion. The closest ring is our closest friends.
Alex: I mean, we meet up with them and go to their
Jessica: Their Bar Mitzvahs! We drive to their home towns!
Alex: The Mac and Cheese Festival in Toronto! We have people coming that listen to our show that visited us there and met our kids, and are all so supportive.
Jessica: But yes, we all have that common bond of trusting our parenting
Alex: There are times...
Alex: There are times when Jessica will be like “Somebody just said some crazy stuff to me, internet! This is what they said, am I nuts?” And they’ll be like “No you are not nuts. You’re a wonderful parent and you are doing what is good for your child!”
Jonathon: So much of the close family issue is the Jeopardy problem. Like it’s so easy to see the answer when you’re not actually the person being asked the question. But as soon as you’re the person like in that situation, that’s when your family will freak out and be like “I don’t care about transgender people! They’re great, I don’t care! Oh wait, one of my family is transgender? No, that’s a problem!”
Jessica: “No they’re not. They’re not transgender.”
Alex: Exactly.
Jonathon: So we’ve been very lucky in having… as things have gone on, we’ve mentioned you know, because so much of social media these days, so much of Twitter and Facebook, we’ve mentioned you know Wolfgang really wants to wear pink to school today. And people pick up on that, and if people can’t handle it, they sort of filter themselves out.
Jessica: But there’s a way they can follow that journey with us. They can see that kind of evolution of it. There’s also some really really great trans parent groups on Facebook. Uh, that were like, are so important. Like when there was things going on, these are all experiences that people have had before. And it was just like, if I needed help, instantly I had like 50 people who were listening to this specific problem, or this specific email with this specific person, like “What do I do?”
Alex: And 30 of them had already gone through it before.
Jessica: Yes! It’s been like invaluable.