DEB VANSLET: When Erika and I are out together, it's different.

People look at the baby, they look at us.

Who's the mom?

JJ: Right then and there, I decided, now this is my life's mission.

I will never let my father down.

REV.

IRENE MONROE: She talks to me, and she says this: "I had dreams, Rev.

I'm a good girl.

Why is this happening to me?"

THERESA OKOKON: Tonight's theme is "Taking Pride."

♪ ♪ Having pride requires a recognition of your own self-worth and the courage to stand up for it.

Now, tonight's storytellers are sharing the moments from their lives when that pride and that courage bubbled up within them, their true self started to emerge, and the world around them, in ways large and small, also began to change.

♪ ♪ VANSLET: My name is Deb Vanslet.

I was born just outside of Montreal.

I'm a writer.

I'm a storyteller.

I'm a videomaker.

I'm mother of a 30-year-old daughter.

I'm also the producer of a live storytelling show in Montreal called "Confabulation."

And given how long that you've been involved with storytelling, what is it about this art form that keeps you... like, pulled back into it?

I think it gives me hope, because people really can just sit there in the audience and listen.

And after the show, the audience reaction is so... not just supportive, but clearly engaged.

In what ways do you feel like storytelling is important in the queer community in particular?

I think what's important about storytelling in the queer community is that we speak across generations.

- Mm.

It's not exclusive to the queer community, but I think there's something really vital right now where we have to know each other's stories across generations, because it does feel like the work that's been done to get to a place can easily be undone.

I am a lesbian mom, and people sometimes still like to ask me, "How did you do that exactly?"

(laughter) This is how my daughter was conceived 30 years ago.

When Erika and I first met, she made it very clear that she wanted to have a child, and I had never really thought about this as a possibility.

But here was a chance to parent without giving birth.

Erika also had some ideas about sperm donor dads, which was no small thing.

So, eventually, Michael, a longtime friend, agrees to be sperm donor dad.

And he doesn't want to be an active parent, which is perfect, because Erika and I will be.

Very importantly, Michael lives just a few doors down the street from us, which is critical, because when the time is right, you've got to move quickly.

So when Erika's temperature indicated that her egg had dropped, I called up Michael, he ejaculated into a sterilized glass jar, brought it over.

My job was to put the sperm into a needleless syringe-- Not a turkey baster, 'cause they're way too big-- and then... (makes squirting sound) ...insert it into Erika.

It took nine months, and people are incredulous.

"You mean that worked?"

Like, "Well, sure.

I mean, all the ingredients are there."

(audience chuckles) But it's true that once you remove reproduction from the physical sex act, people think that it must necessarily be clinical and complicated, which sometimes it is, but not always.

Dr. Mok is introduced to us as a lesbian-friendly doctor.

It's more like he's nonjudgmental and kind of indifferent, which, for 1993, is fine.

(laughter) In the delivery room, Michael and I are there, and, in classic fashion, Dr. Mok sweeps in at the end and catches our baby daughter, and he takes the scissors to cut the umbilical cord, and he gives them over to... Michael.

I'm like, "Ah, jeez, you missed the story."

But I look at Michael, and Michael looks at me, and I'm like, "This is moving way too quickly, so go ahead."

So he snips the cord, and it is beautiful.

A few days later, Erika and I take our newborn baby daughter August home.

It's summertime, and Erika is tired and sore, so in between breastfeeding, I put August into a sling, and I go out for a walk in the neighborhood.

And I get so much attention.

I am seen in a totally different way.

People, strangers, want to peek inside the sling.

I am interacting so much.

And when I'm out with her alone, I am Mom.

When Erika and I are out together, it's different.

People look at the baby, they look at us.

"Who's the mom?"

"We both are."

Some people react with, "Cool!"

Others are, like, confused and retreat.

Still others push it a bit, like, "Well, okay, but who gave birth?

Who's the real mom?"

The mid-1990s are early days for out lesbian motherhood.

A birth mom, easy to understand.

A non-birth mom... "Are you like the stepmom?"

"Are you like an auntie?"

Or worse, "Are you a babysitter?"

Honestly, in the first few months, I felt more like a dad.

Nothing physically had happened to my body, and the connection between a breastfeeding mother and child is really intense.

And, interestingly, a couple of my male friends who were having babies really wanted to talk to me about being a dad.

(audience chuckles) The other thing in the mid-1990s was that there was a cultural shift in lesbian visibility.

Dykes were so in.

(audience chuckles) Ellen DeGeneres came out on primetime TV, Newsweek magazine had a cover article about lesbian life.

And we were living quite an out life in Montreal.

I was doing a radio show called "Dykes on Mykes."

(laughter) (chuckling): It is a very good name.

(laughter) And our little unit became the go-to family for media stories about kinship and chosen families and, "How do lesbians have children anyway?"

So, on the one hand, there's all this visibility.

On the other hand, there's still this legal invisibility.

I'm a non-biological mom, so I can't really make any legal decisions about our daughter's education or healthcare.

And even though Michael wasn't on the birth certificate, he still had more parental legal rights than I did.

My biggest fear was that something would happen to Erika and I would have to rush August to the hospital, but I wouldn't really even be allowed to make any decisions or even be with her because I wasn't a legal parent.

And I didn't think about that too much because these were the circumstances.

I had to have trust.

And this was put to the test when Erika and I split up when August was three years old.

And on top of the personal pain was also this sense of failing.

Failing our family, failing our community.

We were model lesbian parents, we were pioneers, and it felt like we had to be twice as good to be as good as straight parents.

And splitting up, we had to do that three times better than anyone else.

In 2002, in Quebec, August is eight years old, and there's a major turning point in the fight for queer rights.

Same sex civil unions are legally recognized, and legislation to protect the rights of non-biological parents.

The law saw me and said, "You, too, are a mother."

Within two months, we were holding in our hands a revolutionary legal document, a birth certificate with two mothers listed as the legal parents.

My name was on the birth certificate.

(cheers and applause) We may have been living an out life in our queer community, but having a kid means coming out over and over again in all these straight places.

Day care, schools, clinics, the playground.

Did this legal document make me feel a little braver about coming out during a parent-teacher interview?

Yeah, it, it did.

A law doesn't mean that you're immune from people's discrimination or judgment, but this really mattered.

This mattered to... to us, this mattered to me.

I needed my name on that birth certificate, and I'll never take that for granted.

Thank you.

(cheers and applause) ♪ ♪ MONROE: My name is Reverend Irene Monroe, and I'm a girl from Brooklyn, and I presently reside in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

I wear many hats, and one of which is a syndicated columnist, a former professor, and, um, I'm still a pastor, as I say, on a good day.

What challenges have you faced being a voice of faith and advocacy in the public sphere?

MONROE: Oh, tremendous.

First of all, when people see me, and, and I tell them that I minister and then I'm, I'm a lesbian, they want to know, "How do you reckon that?"

A lot times, if they come by way of scripture, I'll certainly use that.

And sometimes, you know, it's sort of like when you get to know someone, you think differently.

It's always... depends on the context of how I can change their mind, but certainly when they first meet me, they go, "Huh?

(chuckles)" Like, "Oh, really?"

When you consider the process of creating a sermon, and the process of crafting the story that you're going to share tonight, where are the overlaps?

Storytelling gets me closer to the story.

It helps me to humanize it for folks who can say, "Well, I can see myself in that, in that situation."

It gives me language and it's giving me tools how to do this, uh, which I greatly appreciate because it has illuminated my way now for this Sunday's sermon, as a matter of fact.

(both laughing) So, when you consider the story that you're telling tonight, what are you hoping that the audience takes away from this story?

One, you can change the minds of conservative churches.

And I'm also hoping that it will sort of excavate a bit of history about a group that has gotten lost in this particular epidemic at that... at that particular time.

♪ ♪ I'm in my pastor's study, and I hear this faint knock on my door.

I yell to come in, but the person stays on the other side of the door.

Thinking it's one of the church kids horsing around, I continue with my work.

But then, minutes later, again, the faint knock.

I'm certain now that it's one of the kids horsing around, so I rise from my desk to go to the door.

I open the door, and I recognize this vaguely familiar figure.

This woman has sarcoma lesions on her face and neck, and her eyes are darkened and sunken.

I greet her warmly, and when she tells me who she is, I have to hold back the tears.

We will call her Jewel.

Jewel is desperate to see me because she knows my work in the community.

But I don't recognize Jewel.

Jewel is 40 pounds thinner, and her once huge afro that I absolutely used to love is now willowy, thin hair.

Jewel knows I'm a lesbian, and she trusts me, and the reason why she trusts me is because she knows I don't discriminate in doing funerals for those who have died of AIDS.

And Jewel is in my office this day to set up her arrangements.

This is the height of the AIDS epidemic.

There's no cure, there's no remedy, and I know what's going on in these Black communities, especially with straight Black women like Jewel who are becoming ill. And what I know is that mothers, daughters, aunts, and even grandmothers are dying of AIDS.

And the reason that they're dying of AIDS is because of the rampant homophobia in Black churches and Black communities that has resulted in a "down low" culture, and that is closeted Black men secretly having unprotected sex with other men.

I'm in my office with Jewel now, and I tell her, "I got your back, sister.

I got your back."

But three months to the day that I hear that faint knock on my door, Jewel dies.

We have a solemn gathering of... ...perhaps a dozen people at best.

But then, after Jewel dies, one of the beloved sisters of our church, and I'm gonna call her "Sister," contracts AIDS.

This is the first time, as a church body, we've ever had to deal with this, and it rocks us all.

I'm crying, her parents are weeping.

The church is behaving like it's in mourning.

Just two years earlier, we were all celebrating Sister's wedding before she goes to Atlanta with her new husband to be near his work.

But not long after, here I am at her bedside, holding her hand and looking at this once vibrant woman who has struggled with this virus, mostly alone, because of the shame and stigma of having H.I.V./AIDS.

She talks to me and she says this.

"I had dreams, Rev.

"I'm a good girl.

Why is this happening to me?"

My stomach knots.

I don't say anything.

Sister...

Sister drifts in and out of consciousness, and when she comes... comes to, she asks me some more questions.

"Is there an afterlife?"

"I don't know."

"What will happen to me?"

"I don't know."

"Where do I go once I die?"

"I don't know."

Sister says to me, "I'm mad, Rev.

Is it okay to be mad?"

And I tell her, "I'm mad, too."

I've asked myself over and over and over again, and I ask it today, why can't we, as African American community, tell the truth about our sexuality?

And what price do we pay in not telling that truth?

Because secrets and lies render tremendous harm.

Jewel knew of my advocacy of... of homosexuality and H.I.V.

in the community.

Sister's crisis helped me to bring it into the church.

And knowing my parishioners, and knowing that many of them would attend Wednesday evening Bible study, I had a plan.

I decided to open up Wednesday evening Bible study to the entire community and invite people with H.I.V./AIDS and health professionals.

Now, of course, there was resistance.

Some of my parishioners said, "I think H.I.V./AIDS is God's wrath for people with homosexuality."

And then I had some that just said, "Look, Rev, look, look, "I know what you're trying to do, but look, I don't want those folks in my company."

And then there were those who were conflicted, those who were torn between the sympathy for those who had the virus and their fear of contracting it, because, again, we didn't have very much information here.

But, over time, things, you know, panned out.

Things settled.

My church got to be known as the open and affirming church.

Some of the people were so inspired that they even participated in H.I.V./AIDS training.

But, some years later, Sister died due to complications related to AIDS.

But Sister's legacy was her bravery.

She taught us all with her openness about having the virus.

And not only did it educate us, but it opened up dialogue, dialogue that we still need today.

We've come a long way, but the journey is not over.

Homophobia and negative attitudes about people with H.I.V.

and AIDS is still rampant in many conservative churches.

But this is what I did learn.

I learned that some churches do change, and they change when they heard enough, they have to.

When they see enough, they want to.

And when they learn enough, they're inspired to.

Thank you.

(cheers and applause) ♪ ♪ JJ: I'm JJ.

I am originally from Wuhan, China, and now I live in Boston.

I am a writer.

And can you tell me a bit about the novel that you're working on and what's been the most enjoyable part of the process?

I have been writing an autobiographical novel for almost ten years now.

The moments I truly love are moments when the writing surprises myself.

I constantly discover how I feel, what I think, who I am... - Mmm.

- ...um, when, you know, I let myself you know, put down the critics in my mind and just, like, be immersed in the story.

And I understand that you're also bilingual.

Um, how did you decide what language you were going to be writing in?

My childhood in China, the larger, you know, cultural environment, the words for emotions and emotional experiences, I didn't even have those words in my native language.

I've only developed those concepts after moving to America.

So, in order to write, you know, a book that makes people feel, I had to write in English.

I was nine when my dad first declared that I would become the world's next Einstein.

(audience chuckles) My dad said to me, "I have accomplished so little in life.

"Except for raising you.

You are my greatest accomplishment."

As a kid, I was thrilled to hear that.

Oh, my God, I am my father's source of pride.

In fact, right then and there, I decided, now this is my life's mission: I will never let my father down.

At 13, I moved by myself from China to the United States.

Not because I so badly wanted to live with my mother, whom I hadn't seen in ten years, but because I thought if I wanted a shot at becoming the world's next Einstein, I'd better go to M.I.T.

If I want to go to M.I.T., I better be a high schooler in America.

Seven years later, I was graduating from M.I.T.

and bringing my dad and my stepmom to San Francisco.

But then, I had something I needed to tell my dad.

You see, at M.I.T., I discovered science really isn't my thing.

As strange as it was for an immigrant and someone who speaks English as her second language, to want to be a writer is what I wanted to do.

To my surprise, my dad had a little something to share with me, too.

He said, "You know, I'm no longer so attached to "you becoming an Einstein.

"It would be okay with me, "you know, if you wanted to be more of a Zuckerberg instead."

(laughter) Oh.

I thought, okay, I'm not really a Zuckerberg either, but I can work with this.

You know, if I just write a novel so amazing that it's as influential and life changing as Facebook... (laughter) ...then, you know, everything will be okay.

So, with that exact mindset, for the next seven or eight years, I woke up every day trying to write.

And, of course, that meant I finished nothing.

So I gave my dad very little to boast about.

I became afraid to talk to my dad on the phone.

In 2020, I met a PhD student.

Her name was Taylor, and she said she, um, pursued her field of study not because she thought it would afford her the highest chance of success, but because she thought the research itself would be fulfilling.

I thought, "Come on... (laughter) "You're saying that to sound cool.

Be real."

What's the point of being human if you can't be successful?

She thought the point of being human was to be human.

Soon, we did the very human thing of falling in love.

As our relationship deepened, I considered telling my dad.

Around the same time, China began cracking down on LGBTQ groups, and homophobia propaganda was everywhere on the Chinese social media, among the Chinese immigrant community.

But I thought, "Okay, don't be afraid."

On the phone, my dad was silent for a few minutes.

Then he said, "How can you do this to us?

How can you be so cruel?"

A few hours later, my stepmom called to say, "By being gay, you're plunging a knife into our hearts every day."

It took me a little while to absorb what had happened because it was precisely the outcome I had spent my entire life avoiding.

And suddenly, I brought pain and shame to my family, but not like the way I'd imagined.

In my imagination, it had always been my fault.

But loving a woman?

As much as I wanted to blame this one on myself, I had lived among queer people and allies in America for too long to not know that this one, this one, I did nothing wrong.

Taylor told me, "You know, it might take a long time, "but one day, they will come around.

"They will accept you for who you are because that's what parents should do."

It is June 2020, in Iowa City, ten months since I had last spoken to my dad.

I'm walking down the street, seeing pride flags flying everywhere, and it occurs to me that I have never given a thought to how the LGBTQ rights activists won their victories.

Well, I realized they won because they had an intrinsic sense of their own worth, their own right to be, a conviction that could not be taken away by an outside force.

Of course, this celebration would be called "pride," because pride is something you give to yourself, something you don't let another person take away.

And I think to myself, you know, if I can believe that loving a woman isn't my fault, then maybe, one day, I can believe wanting to be a writer isn't my fault, either.

I don't know when I will talk to my father again, but I know this.

When I do talk to him, I will be a different person because I will have had the opportunity and the necessity to find within myself an intrinsic source of pride.

Thank you.

(cheers and applause) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪