Mama Dragons Stories: Britt

There are similarities and differences between all of our individual stories. We come from diverse religious backgrounds, political parties, family dynamics, and geographic areas. Each of us started at different levels of acceptance, but we all relate to the desire of wanting to protect our children over our own biases.  A few times a year, we will be sharing a Mama Dragon’s story. Today, Jen visits with Mama Dragon Britt Celusta In the Den. 

Special Guest: Britt Celusta

Britt (they/them) currently lives in Boise, ID, with their husband and three kids. Britt works in a daycare part time. In their spare time, they enjoy being with their kids, building miniatures, baking, and playing video games. Britt’s middle child, Ellie, is their baby dragon. Ellie is 11 years old, gender fluid, and has identified as gender nonconforming since they were 7. 

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• Join Mama Dragons today at www.mamadragons.org 
• Mama Dragons on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mamadragons 
• Mama Dragons on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themamadragons/ 

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Transcript

JEN: Hello and welcome to In The Den with Mama Dragons. I’m your host, Jen. This podcast was created to walk and talk with you through the journey of raising happy, healthy, and productive LGBTQ humans. Thanks for listening. We’re glad you’re here.

It is time for the next episode in the series we call Mama Dragons Stories. Mama Dragons are all very different from each other. But we’re able to support, educate, and empower each other because of our desire to truly understand and actively love our LGBTQ+ children. That common thread is enough. But we also see and celebrate the differences found among us. And hopefully these stories, that we’re sharing three or four times a year, will help with that. Today we are going to chat with Britt Celusta and listen to her Mama Dragons Story.

Britt currently lives in Boise, Idaho, with their husband and three kids, including an LGBTQ+ child. They work in a daycare part time. And in their spare time, they enjoy being with their kids, building miniatures, baking, and playing video games. Welcome in the Den, Britt! I’m so happy you are here!

BRITT: Hi.

JEN: I’m so happy to have you here.

BRITT: Yeah. I’m happy to be here. Thank you.

JEN: So, I want us to start at the very beginning. Introduce us to a young Britt. What was childhood like for you?

BRITT: So I was born overseas on an American base in Germany when my father was in the military. And then me and my mom traveled around. She got divorced and remarried. And then in my elementary and middle school years, me and my mom and my step dad lived in Southern California, the Long Beach area. And then in high school, my mom and step dad moved us to a small town in Kansas, kind of halfway between Topeka and Wichita, just a little drive through town. I was an only child. I had a best friend who’s still my best friend. We’ve known each other since I was eight years old. But for the most part, it was just me and my mom and my step dad and some pets here and there.

JEN: So originally, you were with the military and moved around a lot. But even after the military part was separated it sounds like you kept moving quite a bit?

BRITT: Yeah. It was just for my mom would go wherever her husband needed to be for work. And so when we moved from California to Kansas, my mom had found a bed and breakfast there and she had just really wanted to get me away from the craziness that was the LA area.

JEN: I can see that as a mom. So, did you have any sort of roots? Did you feel connected to any area? Or just your mom was the root connection to life?

BRITT: My mom was really my root and my best friend. So it was never really a location for me.

JEN: So when people ask you, “Where are you from?” How do you answer them?

BRITT: I kind of just say, “All over, mostly southern California.”

JEN: All right. That makes sense. Did you have any sort of concept in your younger years of LGBTQ people or issues or anything surrounding that? Was that on your radar at all?

BRITT: Very little. I was kind of the sad, emo kid when I was in high school. But, my high school years in Kansas is really where that journey kind of started. I thought I was interested in girls as well as guys. I never dated a girl in high school but I kind of had some feelings for girls. And I went to go and tell my mom, this is one of my first memories of the LGBT community.

JEN: How old were you?

BRITT: I was 16 or 17.

JEN: OK.

BRITT: I was like, “Hey. I think I might be bisexual.” And my mom was like, “Probably not. It’s just a phase.” But now I’m more pansexual. So it really wasn’t a phase.

JEN: When your mom said that, how did you feel at the time?

BRITT: I was pretty bummed because I thought my mom knew me better than that at that age. I felt like I could tell her everything. And I still can tell her everything. She’s also gotten a lot more open-minded since then. But even just those simple, kind of brushing it off, was really kind of like, “Oh, I thought you were going to take that a little better.”

JEN: Before you talked to her, did you have to build up your courage? Did you just assume she’d be fine with it?

BRITT: I assumed she’d be fine with it.

JEN: Okay.

BRITT: And she was for the most part. She just didn’t really care or didn’t think that it was going to go anywhere or anything was going to happen.

JEN: So at that point did you internalize, “Uh Oh, I better be quiet.” Or were you like, “I’m out. I’m just going to be out.”

BRITT: I kind of was a little bit more quiet about it. I was also very awkward so I didn’t know if it was okay at my school. There was like the one guy in band that was gay that everybody knew like, “Oh that’s so-and-so. He’s gay.” That’s kind of like the first label that was put, their name and their orientation and that’s not really what I wanted because I already had kind of negative labels of being sad and angsty and always wearing black.

JEN: Were you sad and angsty?

BRITT: Yeah. Very much.

JEN: Any particular reason or just puberty is tumultuous.

BRITT: There was a lot of conflict between me and my step dad for sure. He wasn’t the most level-headed person. So he tended to raise his voice quite a bit. And there were times when his punishment methods were a little weird. Like, I dyed my hair purple one day and he got mad at me. And he took away the lightbulbs in my room.

JEN: That is an interesting connection. Okay.

BRITT: It was very interesting. So, yeah.

JEN: So you’re a feisty teenager struggling with your step-dad, right?

BRITT: Yeah.

JEN: But you made it through high school. And then what happened next? You’re out of the house, you’ve graduated, what’s the next step.

BRITT: So I graduated and my mom – I also really like ancient Egypt, like the pharaohs and the pyramids and stuff. My mom wanted to take me to Egypt as a graduation gift.

JEN: Wow.

BRITT: But there was some political conflict going on during that time so it wasn’t very safe for us to go. So my mom said, “How about instead, I will buy you and your cat a one-way ticket to Idaho.” Because my grandma lived down in the Twin Falls area at that time. So my mom sent me down on a plane from Kansas to Idaho.

JEN: That’s not like Egypt.

BRITT: No. Not at all. And then a couple months later, my mom divorced my step dad and my mom moved here to Boise. And me and my mom still both live here in the valley and we’re still really good friends.

JEN: So you took a graduation trip to Idaho and never left?

BRITT: Pretty much.

JEN: Okay. All right. That makes sense. Did you take classes? Did you get a job? Did you live with your mom?

BRITT: So I lived with my grandma that summer after I graduated high school. And then I think that September, after my mom moved to Boise, I moved from my grandma’s back in with my mom. And then I had a couple boyfriends. I was 18/19 years old and then I dated a guy. I lived at his house with his parents for a little bit. We broke up. I moved back in with my mom. And then I met the father of two of my children.

JEN: So how old were you when you got with him?

BRITT: I was 19 so I had been out and about for about a year. And then I found the father of my two oldest.

JEN: So did you have kids right about that same time or did you find him and then he became the father of the kids later?

BRITT: I got pregnant when we were dating and then I had my first son in July of 2011. So he’s 13 now.

JEN: So you had your first baby when you were a baby?

BRITT: Yes. I’m 20 years older than my oldest son.

JEN: Okay.

BRITT: And I absolutely loved it. He was an accident and he knows it. But he was the best accident ever because it really brought me down from being a crazy teenager to someone more mature.

JEN: I had my first pretty young, also.

BRITT: And I like how I had energy from being younger.

JEN: I couldn’t do a newborn now, that’s for dang sure. So, at this point, did you still think maybe you were bisexual? Had you kind of put that out of your mind?

BRITT: So we ended up getting married in October of 2011. So when my oldest was 3 months old, we got married. And I went into the relationship originally by telling him that I was bisexual and also that I was polyamorous meaning that I like to form connections with more than one person in a more serious way than just friends. So, yes, he went into the relationship knowing that I was bisexual.

JEN: Okay. So you weren’t still grappling with identity or trying to figure out, you pretty much by this point knew what was going on and your mom was onboard?

BRITT: Yeah. As far as I could tell at that point. I thought I knew who I was at 20 years old.

JEN: Okay. Were you working? Were you just raising kids? How many kids did you have?

BRITT: Right now I have three living children.

JEN: So talk to me about that.

BRITT: So my oldest was born in July of 2011. My second child, who is my baby dragon or my LGBT child, was born May of 2013. So my first and my second are only 22 months apart. And I was with my first husband until summer of 2019. And then I got remarried February of 2020 to my now husband. And we had two children together. Our first one, we lost when she was three weeks old. And now we have a 9-month-old together.

JEN: Okay. So you’re busy. You’re doing a lot of stuff.

BRITT: Yeah.

JEN: Are you still living with your mom? Are you finding some roots?

BRITT: So my first husband and I, we lived in a couple of different places. We had our own house for a while.

JEN: All still in Idaho?

BRITT: Yes.

JEN: Okay.

BRITT: So I moved here in 2009 and I’m still here. My mom lives in Nampa and so I’m only half an hour away from her, like 20 minutes away from her.

JEN: And at this point, to kind of tie it back to our audience, are you struggling with identity, are you struggling with beliefs about your identity or everything's just good and you’re living life, and new husband, and raising the kids?

BRITT: So I went through the ability with my now husband to really figure out who I am completely as a person. My first husband, he thought he knew who I was. And he tried to mold and shape me into a person that he wanted me to be. Meaning if I was bisexual and polyamorous, that must mean that we can have a girlfriend. But it didn’t really work out that way. So there was some repression going on on my end of, “Well, if I say I think I might be this way, I will definitely get some push back.” Unfortunately, and that relationship really was just toxic for both of us. So he is a lot better now. My ex, we co-parent very well. But now, I identify more as asexual, meaning I do not care for any sort of physical intimacy. I am pansexual, meaning I am interested in people who are not just male or female. Basically, I describe it as, if I find someone attractive, I really don’t care, kind of, what organs they have, I guess you could say. If I’m attracted to a person, I’m attracted to their personality, their looks, and not so much their gender.

JEN: I often hear pansexual described as “hearts not parts.”

BRITT: Yes. Exactly.

JEN: Falling in love with someone’s heart. So about this time, your personal understanding is good. Your understanding of your gender, has that come along at all also in part of this with your new relationship?

BRITT: Yeah. With my current partner, I feel a lot more of the ability to explore myself as a person without having to worry about upsetting my partner. Like, speaking to my partner now, after we have had two children, we’ve had a lot of trauma that we have gone through together, mostly dealing with the loss of his first child.

JEN: That’s a big one.

BRITT: It was. It was very, very difficult and it still is very difficult for both of us. So that and some issues that were reoccurring in my previous relationship, the connection of those sparks that go off during any physical intimacy, they’ve stopped going off for me. And I love that in my relationship now, I have the ability to communicate that and really say, “If I’m not intimate anymore, it wouldn’t bother me.” I haven’t had the desire in over a year now. And it really hasn’t been an issue in our relationship. So definitely the ability to talk through who I might be. Like, “I might be feeling this way. I’m not sure.” “Okay. Well, that’s okay.” “If I am this sort of person, is that okay?” “Yes, that's fine.” So being able to have those talks openly with my partner has been very, very helpful in my growth and my journey. And that’s all happened in the past four years.

JEN: That’s a lot in four years. So at some point along the line – I knew that you’re a queer child because you’re a Mama Dragon – so talk to me about how you learned about that?

BRITT: My second child has always been very unique. Like I said earlier, my first and my second born were very close together, 22 months apart. My first one was a couple months old when I started having these reoccurring dreams. And it was kind of like a little angel. I’m not particularly religious myself. But you could equate it to an angel coming to me and saying, “Hey. I’m going to be your child. You need to get pregnant now because I want to come to earth.” So basically, this little spirit was flying like a little fly in my ear saying that it wanted to be born. So I told my husband at the time and we made that happen. I was very, very sick during my pregnancy. I was always catching little colds or little germs or whatever. Just feeling like crumbs the whole time. And then my child comes into the world and is very extroverted from the first moment. And I love my child so much. So it was, I want to say, December of 2019, I am sitting with my children because I share custody with them still with my ex-husband. So we have 50/50 custody. We trade off every Friday. So I was sitting with my children and my now husband and we were sitting at my mom’s house. And my baby dragon comes up to me and says, “Mom, I kind of want to wear boys clothes.” And I’m like, “You’re six years old, but okay. That’s fine. Do what you want.” My whole philosophy on raising my children has been, “You can do whatever you want as long as you’re not hurting yourself or not hurting anything around you.” So hurting themselves, of course, would be staying up late, drinking, drugs, reckless driving, too much soda, anything that could hurt.

JEN: I like how we have reckless driving and soda in that in the realm of danger.

BRITT: Right. “Or you can’t hurt anything around you. You can’t pull the cat's hair. You can’t kill the bug. You can’t litter. So I was like, well, you’re not hurting yourself. You’re not hurting anything around you.” So we took a trip to Wal-Mart and we went to the boys section and I said, “Alright. I don’t know if this is going to last. So I’m not going to buy you a whole wardrobe. But I will buy you one outfit.” So at Wal-Mart we picked some maroon pants, a long sleeve striped shirt, and a dark blue beanie.

JEN: I like how maroon pants was the go-to for boy clothes.

BRITT: I can still remember very vividly those pants because my little dragon was also wearing black and bright pink little tennis shoes. So I’m like, “I’m not buying new shoes. I’m not buying new underpants. I’ll buy you pants and a shirt and that’s it.” But we went back to my mom’s house and my kid was just parading around like, “Look at me. I’m wearing boys clothes.” And just so happy and confident. This kid wanted Rapunzel hair, like very beautiful long hair, but had pulled it up and tucked it under the beanie. And was very much like, “Can I cut my hair?” And I was like, “Let’s not for now. Let’s slow down a little bit. You’re still little.” So I was like, “I support you, but we’re going to take this in little steps.” So basically, it kind of exploded from there. My baby dragon wanted to feel more like a boy, more boy’s clothes, more of “I don’t know how I feel.” “Okay. That’s fine.” A lot of talks. And I remember one day, my baby dragon was in the bathroom with me and I was getting ready. And we were both just brushing our hair and stuff. And my baby dragon was looking in the mirror at their very, very long hair, almost waist-length, very, very long. And was like, “Well, sometimes I feel like a boy. But sometimes I feel like a girl.” And so that’s when I kind of introduced pronouns. And they didn’t describe it as, “I feel like a boy. I feel like a girl.” They started switching it to, “I feel like she/her today.” Or, “I feel like a he/him today.” So I had a whole bucket of rainbow beads. So I said, “All right. We’re going to try something out.” And we made little bracelets. One of them was pink. One of them was blue. And then they said, “Well, what if I feel like neither.” I’m like, “Okay.” So we made a little black and white one. And I’m like, “Okay. When you feel like a he/him, you put on the blue bracelet.” “Oh, but what if that changes? What if I feel like a he/him for five minutes and then I want to go and change?” “That’s okay. You’re not hurting anything.” So I kind of left it very up to my child on the journey. I was trying to take a backseat as much as possible and allowing them to explore and giving them little tools when they encountered a roadblock or had a question. So that was the beginning of that journey.

JEN: Was any of that difficult for you to process?

BRITT: It was. It was a little bit. Part of me was excited because I had gone through my own journey and it was very empowering for me. And I felt honored that my kid could come to me with any questions and any concerns. So I was excited. I was happy. But then my kid started talking to their dad.

JEN: I was just going to ask how everybody else in the family was doing with all of this?

BRITT: So, at the beginning, their dad was not very onboard. I would say he was more scared and confused than – he wasn’t angry. He wasn’t angry about this. He was just, “Oh well. I wanted to walk my little girl down the aisle and now I can’t do that.” Or like, “I’m just so used to referring to you as a girl or she.” And I would have talks with my child and I would have to kind of help and be like, “Well, those are your dad’s feelings. Just because your dad is sad, does not mean that you have to go and only be a she/her forever. If you still want to be a they/them, you can.” So it was difficult because then he would call me and he would be confused or frustrated or trying to figure out why. “Is this a result of this, this, and this? What if she is just doing it because she sees you wanting to use they/them pronouns or starting to fly a rainbow flag? What if she just wants to be like her mom?” I’m like, “Well, they are not hurting anything and it is okay if our child only wants to do this for a couple weeks. What’s it hurting? It’s not hurting anything. If your child decides that this is who they are forever, it’s not hurting anything.” So I had a lot of conversations with him about it. And I gave him a lot of resources. I invited him to online classes. And after a while, he started getting really receptive to it, which was really good. For our child’s tenth birthday, I rented a pavilion down by the lake and I’d gotten everything ready. And I was still setting up, I remember. And I see my kid's dad walking up and he was wearing a shirt. And it was kind of colorful and it had some writing on it, but I couldn’t read it. And he comes up to me and he kind of flattens out the shirt and he’s like, “Look what I got.” And I read it. And it said, “Proud Dad of a gender fluid child.”

JEN: Cute.

BRITT: I was so happy because I felt like all of my hard work the past few years had really paid off and this was just him cementing his acceptance. And so he got our child a shirt and it said, “Drink up, haters.” And it had a cup on it that had the gender fluid flag.

JEN: Cute.

BRITT: And so they took a picture with each other. They took a picture together on that day of both of them wearing their gender fluid shirts.

JEN: There’s sometimes a bit of a learning curve. And it sounds like maybe dad had that going on. How long did it take him between the initial shock and the acceptance?

BRITT: Total, I would say it took a few years. Probably about three years for it to be complete.

JEN: And how was your baby doing during all that time?

BRITT: It was pretty rough. There were times when my child would try and say that they didn’t want to be gender fluid anymore. They didn’t want to feel this way anymore. They didn’t want to see their dad upset. But then it got to the point where, “Oh, Dad used my proper pronouns today. Dad called me a they/them today.” I’m like, “That’s awesome.” Or like, “Oh, Dad said she, but then he corrected himself and said they.” I’m like, “That’s awesome.” So, it was kind of flipping from telling me all the sad stuff to telling me of his successes.

JEN: Good. You got to watch that growth process for him. How did your own personal journey with your own orientation and gender identity and stuff prepare you to have this queer child? And were they aware enough of it that it prepared them to be able to come out to you?

BRITT: I think so. Yeah. I have gone to every Boise Pride here for, I want to say, seven years. I’ve gone at least seven years, maybe closer to ten. So I’ve always taken my kids to that. I’ve always been very open about who I am to my children. I’ve never hidden anything from my children. So, I think building that trust really made it easier for my child to come out and have an easier time transitioning. And I think knowing my own journey, I was able to kind of take from my own experiences. And, well, if somebody says this to me, this is how I felt. I don’t want my child to feel that way. So I’m going to shield as much as I can.

JEN: What does it mean to you to identify yourself now as a Mama Dragon?

BRITT: I absolutely love it. I found Mama Dragons at one of the Prides, I think two or three years ago now. I think three, three years ago. Goodness. I just found Mama Dragons at a booth at Pride and I was so relieved because I was like, “I have a kid who’s going through this. This is exactly the kind of resources that I need.” Having all of the resources and the ability to talk to people in this community has been absolutely incredible. Mama Dragons have been so amazing even with stuff that didn’t involve my baby dragon, which I – as a mom – I’m going to put myself on the back burner because it’s all about my kids. I’m going to put my kids up front. So having the Mama Dragons put me up front was really special.

JEN: All right. So, what does life look like now for you and your three kids and your spouse as you’re living in kind of a conservative place? There’s some legislation? What does it look like right now as a family for you guys?

BRITT: It is a little bit scary living in Idaho right now. That’s for sure. I feel there’s a lot of push back against who we are as a family, a very LGBTQ friendly and inclusive family. But the school district that we are in right now has been quite accommodating for pronouns, at least so far. At the moment, now that there’s not anything stopping preferred pronouns from being used. So I was definitely pretty fierce that I was speaking up for my child. I don’t generally speak up for myself. Like my preferred pronouns are not always honored in the mundane day-to-day setting. And that doesn’t bother me. But if somebody uses the wrong pronouns for my child, then I get pretty fierce. Like I will grump at anybody who does not use the proper pronouns to the point where I have daydreamed about getting a little squirt bottle and just going like, cht, cht, to anybody who uses the wrong pronouns.

JEN: You could hook it on your belt loop and carry it around with you.

BRITT: Right.

JEN: Any regrets so far in this parenting journey, like in the ways of not personal regrets, but in things that maybe we could help other people avoid, things you wish you would’ve done differently?

BRITT: I’m not sure if there’s anything I would’ve done differently.

JEN: It sounds like it was pretty much ideal.

BRITT: I mean, looking back on it, I’m glad that all the bumps are done and over with. It was definitely difficult. But I was very persistent in sheltering my child but also letting them lead the way because I didn’t want to have my child feel like they couldn’t be who they are.

JEN: Awesome. Do you have any advice for others out there who might be listening who aren’t quite as far along in the journey as you are?

BRITT: I would say just keep going because that’s your baby and they’re not hurting anything. And kind of like how I was at the beginning of my journey, if whatever transition they’re going through is temporary, that’s okay. Especially as kids, they’re figuring out who they are. It’s natural for children to question their entire identities. So questioning their gender or their sexuality is just a natural part of being a kid, really. And if it turns out that that’s who they are, they’re not hurting anything. It’s okay. Just kind of go with the flow and let your kid tell you what and who they are.

JEN: That was awesome. Thank you, Britt, so much for coming today, for sharing your story with us. Very nice of you, we appreciate it much.

BRITT: Yeah. Thank you.

JEN: Thanks for joining us In the Den. Did you know that Mama Dragons also offers an eLearning program called Parachute? Through this interactive learning platform, you can learn more about how to affirm, support, and celebrate the LGBTQ+ people in your life. Learn more at Mamadragons.org\parachute or find the link in the episode show notes under links.

If you enjoyed this episode, please tell your friends, and take a minute to leave a positive rating and review wherever you listen. Good reviews make us more visible and help us to reach more folks who could benefit from listening. And if you’d like to help Mama Dragons in our mission to support, educate, and empower the parents of LGBTQ children, please donate at mamadragons.org or click the donate link in the show notes. For more information on Mama Dragons and on the podcast, you can follow us on Instagram or Facebook or visit our website at www.mamadragons.org.