Black Rainbow Love

As a lesbian, raised by a lesbian, and now the mother of a lesbian daughter, Angela Harvey brings a unique and deeply personal multigenerational perspective to the journey of LGBTQ+ identity and parenting. Her lived experience of navigating queerness within three generations of women has brought both the wisdom and compassion to speak to the challenges and joys of raising—and being—an LGBTQ+ child. Today In the Den, Sara talks with Angela about creating transformative spaces centered on healing, identity, and empowerment

Special Guest: Angela Harvey

Angela Harvey is a multifaceted speaker, author, poet, filmmaker, and advocate whose work centers on the intersections of personal growth, mental health, and LGBTQ+ empowerment. With over 25 years of experience, Angela's background as a social worker and facilitator informs her impactful approach to storytelling, which she weaves into everything from her debut poetry self-help book Poetic Alchemy to her award-winning documentary Black Rainbow Love. As the Director of Black Rainbow Love and the founder of Let’s TALK University, Angela is deeply committed to creating spaces that elevate the voices and experiences of marginalized communities, particularly the Black LGBTQ+ population. Through her writing, films, and workshops, Angela Harvey continues to transform narratives, empower others, and advocate for emotional healing, resilience, and authentic self-expression.

Links from the Show:

• Black Rainbow Love: https://filmfreeway.com/BlackRainbowLove500 
• Find Angela’s books here: https://sites.google.com/view/poeticalchemy/home/?trk=public_post-text 
• An article about Angela: https://www.voyageraleigh.com/interview/conversations-with-angela-harvey/ 
• Join Mama Dragons today: www.mamadragons.org 

In the Den is made possible by generous donors like you. Help us continue to deliver quality content by becoming a donor today at www.mamadragons.org.  

Transcript

SARA: Hi everyone. Welcome to In the Den with Mama Dragons. A podcast and community to support, educate, and empower parents on the journey of raising happy and healthy LGBTQ+ humans. I’m your host, Sara LaWall. I’m a Mama Dragon myself and an advocate for our queer community. And I’m so glad to be part of this wild and wonderful parenting journey with all of you. Thanks for joining us. We’re so glad you’re here. 

Hello, Mama Dragons! Today, we are honored to welcome Angela Harvey. Angela is a speaker, an author, a poet, a filmmaker, and advocate whose work lives at the intersection of personal growth, mental health, and LGBTQ+ empowerment. With over 25 years of experience in social work and facilitation, Angela brings a grounded, transformative approach to her storytelling. Her work spans genres and mediums from her debut poetry self-help book, Poetic Alchemy, to her award-winning documentary, Black Rainbow Love, which she wrote, produced, and directed. In all she creates, Angela invites us to witness truth, to heal openly, and embrace the full spectrum of identity and love. And Angela is also the proud parent of an LGBTQ+ child. And she brings that lived experience, not only as a queer person herself, but as a mother who is parenting with intention and vulnerability and deep love. We are so fortunate to have her with us today. Angela, welcome to In the Den.

ANGELA: Thank you very much! I feel so blessed and so honored. Thank you very much for having me In the Den.

SARA: It is great to have you. I'd like to start with your story, a little bit about who you are, your life growing up, and your journey, particularly as a Black queer woman, and how you came into the work you're doing now. 

ANGELA: Oh, wow. What a story. How much time we got going on here? Um, if I start at the beginning, where I'm gonna start is at the place where I recognized that I was being parented at some point by a woman who loved women. And I can recall there being parties in the basement. I remember one time going in the basement, and it was this blue light. I'm like, “Why is the light blue?” So that's where it kind of started with that. And then I would sneak out of bed and watch these women, some that were dressed like men, but they had breasts, and some were dressed like women, and I didn't know what was happening. And I remember bringing that up to my mother, and I was told at that point, it was none of my business. Which in a Black household, “none of your business” means the conversation is absolutely cut at that point. But then I began to know a little bit more just in observation. I think I've always been a social worker, so I've always been observant. Um, fast forward then, I'm then raised in a household with a lesbian. I didn't know what words to use at that time. All I knew is that, at that point, my mother slept in the same bedroom as my auntie. Like, back in the day, that's when things had to happen in that way. Even though I talked to Granny, and Granny said that that's not her daughter, so I went through all of that. But it was so normal for me. I didn't know any other thing. This had been what I saw, and the way I lived since I was as young as 4 that I can remember. I even want to believe that even in junior high school, I remember kissing a girl in junior high school. And then there were certain things that just happened because you were close to people, so I wasn't claiming anything at that point. I've been with one fella who happens to be the father of my daughter. But absolutely, I've never been in the closet, because in my head, I did exactly what was what I knew. And initially, that's the way I thought about it, like, that's what I knew, so that's what I did, is to be a woman who loved women. And then as I got more educated, I started college, and that's where I got my first girlfriend. And I'm like, “Oh, okay, so this is a whole thing.” This is a whole thing. This is not just because my mama was, because I am. This is a whole thing, and that's when it began to take shape for me. And the only reason I was not ever in a closet is because I didn't know I was supposed to be. It was always so open in my household. And I would even say accepted. I learned different as I got older, but accepted in my family, meaning no one talked about my mother, or talked down about my mother. And so I didn't know that this wasn't the norm for everybody. It wasn't until I wasn't in the closet and family members wanted me to be in the closet, because they saw me going to school and they didn't want people to discriminate, this woman having a – because I intentionally got pregnant.

I can tell you the exact date I got pregnant. I could tell you the exact date I conceived, because the last time I slept with a man. All of those wonderful things, I got the opportunity to be a little bit more vigilant about, because I was raised in a household with a lesbian, and because I find myself being a lesbian. And so I knew things had to be very intentional. I have one daughter, and she happens to be a lesbian, so we're keeping it strong in the family.

SARA: Wow, that's so great!

ANGELA: Yes, yes, yes, yes. And it has been an experience, me coming into myself, and then learning that my mother wanted to be closeted, and wanted me to be closeted. And I can remember her saying like, “Angie, can you not put any flags up?” To this date, I've never seen my mother kiss another woman.

SARA: Wow.

ANGELA: And so even the first time she saw me do it, in her mind, because of the way she was raised, that was considered to be disrespectful. But because I was not ever aware that this was something I should be ashamed of, that it wasn't natural and normal, I didn't hide any of those things. I was told don't go around your grandmother, she won't understand. And I was like, I'm not gonna do that. I love my grandmother. And in the end, my grandmother would call me and be like, “Y'all having a parade downtown.” Or “Y'all on Oprah,” because she thought we all knew each other. 

SARA: I love it! 

ANGELA: We just all kind of hung out like, let's go on Oprah, type of thing. I'm so very happy that it happened the way that it happened, because the shame that so many people, my clients, people I do workshops with, the shame that they had to come live in and attempt to grow out of, has been so pivotal in their adult lives. I'm so very happy that that wasn't a part of my story. So I didn't have to be in a closet. I didn't have to come out of a closet, I didn't have to have those things that make you shameful and feel guilty and feel embarrassed. I never had that because. It wasn't something that stuck with me. And because I treated it like it was normal, the people around me, in my head I want to believe that I never got treated any differently. There were people that had different thoughts about different things, but I believe that shared stories save souls, which is the reason I do the work that I do now. And I believe when people know your story – it's hard to hate on somebody when you know a piece of their story. So I have been consistent in sharing that story and being transparent because transparency sheds shame. You can't be really and truly shameful about something that you put out there yourself. So I got to write my own narrative, if you will, and I got to be very proud of it, and so either you were proud of it. Or you got gone. That was it.

SARA: That is so fascinating and so lucky, because as you mentioned, that is not a typical experience for a lot of queer folks. Particularly of our generation who really felt like they had to be closeted, unaccepted by their family, grew up with so much shame, bullying, all of that. So, what a beautiful story that you got to live in this world where it was kind of not talked about, but accepted at the same time.

ANGELA: Absolutely, absolutely. It was almost an earlier, don't ask, don't tell. I didn't have to hide it, but if people knew, they would just know, and that would just be it. That's one thing I love about people. Most people will only talk about you behind your back. And then you have to add the component of being an African American, because absolutely there's a different flavor that comes with that. There's a different source of embarrassment and shame that comes about that when you're in – in the African American community as well. But yeah, I took it all on. 

SARA: Talk a little bit about that. What are some of the differences and challenges with that African American identity and queerness?

ANGELA: Well, I believe, based on what I've seen, definitely in the Caucasian place, when someone comes out or identifies themselves as being lesbian or same-gender loving or queer, or what have you, there's a thought about them being, uh, maybe being sick, or being mentally disturbed. In the African-American community, it was you were going to hell. You were going to die. This was a sin. So it was definitely more religious-based, and they would take that book, that same book that condemned Black folks, women, anybody that wasn't a heterosexual man, and they would beat you with this, and if you were raised in a spiritual household, you battled with yourself. I just can't – well, I can imagine, because I have done it in some instances, but not with my sexuality, where you're having this inner conflict with yourself. You're being pulled to something and drawn to something that you love and admire and would love to get to know, and then you got this other thing saying, “But if you do this, literally, there's a stake being thrown in your heart, and you're gonna lose your family and you're gonna lose…” I mean, that's a lot to carry. And when people use the Bible, or they use religion, and a lot of African Americans, that's where they went with it. 

SARA: Yeah.

ANGELA: We've not been great with mental health and things of that nature, so a lot of African Americans weren't thinking, oh, it's something wrong with my child. They don't drag them to the therapist because black folks don't go there, they go to God, right? You know, they're going to pray. They're going to those types of things. So, we were drug to church where other people were drug to institutions. We were drug to get laid hands on where other people were taken to psychiatrists and psychologists to fix them, type of thing. So that's some of the things that comes into play. 

SARA: Were you raised in the church?

ANGELA: My mother didn't, uh, attend church regularly. But we were with my grandmother, and my mother's girlfriend's mother, my other granny, a lot. All of my grandmothers went to church, so I knew of church, and I knew enough to not tell what was happening in my household. I knew enough to be – because most of my girlfriends were gonna look, as my grandmother would say.

“Are they like that?” She’d put her hand like, are they queer? There used to be a little thing that older people would do, and I said, “Granny, if they're walking in here with me, they're like that.”

And usually they had the look where they looked more masculine identified. Well, you knew not to say, or not to bring your partner to church if, in fact, you were going to Granny's church, because that was a level of respect. So the quiet, I wouldn't say that I was closeted, but absolutely there were places where I kept quiet to not have that come back on my grandmother.

SARA: Yeah, I'm curious, with your story, was there a moment when you came out officially, clearly, to your mom and your granny?

ANGELA: I remember coming out to my grandmother, only because people were saying, like, “Don't tell her. This will kill her.” Literally, they hyped me up to believe that this was gonna be for her first granddaughter to be a lesbian, and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, and I was like, “Well, y'all better go say goodbye to Granny, because I'm about to kill her.” Because I just didn't see myself not being able to be around her, and I didn't see myself not being able to bring my partners in the house and having them sit, because I spent a lot of time at my grandmother's house. So I remember saying to her, “Granny, I like girls.” And she said, “What you mean?” I said, “Well, I like women, so I won't have a boyfriend” – and they've only known me to have one boyfriend – “I would have a girlfriend.” And she thought about it for just a second, and she said, “I don't like what you do, but you're my granddaughter and I love you.” That was it. That was the death right there. And she didn't treat me any different. And then because I wasn't hiding things, and I didn't tiptoe around things, she would call me and be like, “Y'all on Oprah, you know, or y'all having a parade downtown.” I didn't even know about a Pride. My grandmother was the first person to tell me about “Y'all having a parade downtown.” And so those things, that was me coming out to her, and I remember my mother finding out. Not finding out because it was a secret I kept from her, because I knew who she was. And my mother took it very hard. She took me out of her will, she put me out of the house as a lesbian herself, But she said she knew what that meant, and I think she knew what that meant from her era and from her being closeted. I had not experienced that. I can't remember one person that ever said, “Oh, you're this,” and went away. I didn't have that happen in my world. But that coming out to her was as I was getting ready to give birth to her first granddaughter, me saying, “my girlfriend.” Because I did what I was supposed to do with the man to have the baby. And again, that was intentional, because I knew that I was attracted to women, and that's where I would land. That was the coming out. 

SARA: Wow. Wow. That's a great story. And I can hear in your story how much it has influenced the work you do, and your passion for storytelling. And your work is multifaceted. I mean, you're a coach, a poet, a filmmaker, a public speaker, and I want to try to talk about as many of those things as we can in an hour, but I want to start with the documentary, Black Rainbow Love, which you wrote, produced, and directed. 

ANGELA: Yes. 

SARA: This film is so beautiful and heartfelt. And it shares this wide variety of stories from the Black, LGBTQ+ individuals and couples. And I'm curious what made you decide to make that film?

ANGELA: I was watching a show one night, and my thought was, “Where are our stories?” And so, in this shower, which is when I usually am given my assignments, it came to me that “You tell them,” and I was like, “But I'm not a filmmaker, and I have no desire to be a filmmaker. I know nothing about filmmaking, kind of get somebody else.” That's what I'm telling God. Like, “Can you go get somebody else?”

SARA: It was like Moses. 

ANGELA: Oh, right, that's not my lane. That's not my lane. And what I know now, very clearly, is that when an assignment is given, you already have what you need to complete the assignment. You just don't know it yet. So what I did have in my back pocket was all of these relationships that I've been their therapist, I've been their facilitator, I've been their retreat, uh, host, I've been all these things, so I knew all of these people with all of these stories. So when I cast this net to these 50 people, I get 37 people back that, without question, answer this three, four-page questionnaire probing into all of their personal business, and they say yes. They say yes to sharing their story out loud with people. And that's how it came to be. I know now that I had what it took in that I didn't have to, like most editors or directors or producers have to go find people, they have to – I already had the relationships, already knew the stories, I knew the people, I had already been speaking around the country, and had connections with over 34 LGBTQ organizations around the country. I'd already had all of that at my disposal, so me getting people to do a documentary was a no-brainer. And I did it all. I did two days in Washington, and interviewed 17 people, and then I interviewed another 19 people here in North Carolina the following weekend. That was in March of 2022. It premiered May of 2022 at DC's Black Pride. I had to look up what a director and a producer did for the credits, because I was like, “Oh, I did that. Oh, I did that. Oh, I did that.” There were two people on the credits, me and the cinematographer. 

SARA: Wow, and that is the fastest timeline for any film.

ANGELA: For any film. And we've been in 37 film festivals and won 11 awards.

SARA: Amazing. Congratulations!

ANGELA: A blessing.

SARA: A blessing, I can see why. I watched quite a few of the clips, and I was moved to tears, really, by all of them. It is so interesting to listen to people tell their stories. Is there a particular story from the film that really captures the essence of what you were going for that you might share with us? 

ANGELA: Absolutely. So, one of the things I was very clear about is that I didn't want to be in the film, it was my cinematographer's like, “Angie,” and this was the line he gave me, I'm not sure whether it was BS or not, whether he just wanted me in it. He said, “Because people didn't respond in a way that you knew what questions was being asked. I'm gonna need you to make a, like, a segue into each little interval.” And I'm like, “Oh, okay. I guess I could do that.” And then I end up being such a big part of it. So one of the things that I love is that I give people the opportunity to grow from our stories, and to be able to grow into your own. So, the best part of the film to me is to be a part of it. And I never want anybody to just see something or just read something. I think there's growth in everything we do and everything that we encounter, and I wanted people then to sit down and watch the movie, to be able to grow from our stories, and then be able to grow and tell their own. And when I came up with that acronym for STORY, to me, was like, “Yes.” That literally came together on that park bench when I created it, so all of the little intervals that happened, and I think there's 6 of them, I created off the fly, but knew then, I want people to see this. But not just see this, I want you to sit in my shoes, I want you to feel how comfortable or uncomfortable they are, I want you to put yourself in this position. Because many people can identify, if you close your eyes and you don't know who you're listening to, you can identify with everything that was said by these women, trans men, couples, things of that nature. And all of my straight audiences absolutely would tap me on the shirt and be like, “I had no clue that I would have something so much in common with people.” That's what I was going for, growth. I'm all about the growth.

SARA: Yeah, I was really struck by the snippet of the lesbian couple, one of whom had served in the military and served in Afghanistan. And she was talking about how difficult it was for her to really come to her own self-acceptance about whom she loved, and she kept second-guessing it, and just kept wondering if she hadn't done it right. If she needed to try men again, because she was somehow – like, the struggle.

ANGELA: Right.

SARA: For her to accept herself and allow herself to be in a loving relationship was really bittersweet. I mean, hard to hear, but really profound to watch her express that out loud. That was a gorgeous story. 

ANGELA: Absolutely, and I'm not sure whether in that clip it says, she was with her now-current partner for almost 15, 20 years, literally in the closet. That was her roommate. So when she first came out to her mother, and that part is actually in the actual film, she came out to her mother, and her mother's like, “Well, you know, I'm not rolling with that.” And so, it is very powerful, because again, there's this pull. You're going towards somebody you love that might be able to give you some joy and happiness enhancement, versus the mother that has given birth to you, that is looking at you like, “You gotta be out of your mind if this is what you think you're about to do.” So definitely the struggle continues to be real. 

SARA: It's so important, you have mentioned, to tell stories, to, especially to have representation of the untold stories. Particularly, as you said, you were wondering, where are the Black queer stories? Where are my stories?

ANGELA: Right, right.

SARA: And it feels like in this particular fraught political moment, it's even more important for these stories to be out there and be part of a sort of common understanding of humanity. Are there stories that you think that still need to be told, or told differently?

ANGELA: Absolutely. I live in an apartment, and I happen to be surrounded by people who supported the current administration. And you know that by the bumper stickers on their car. And so I make it a point to live out loud. Meaning, when I take my black rainbow stuff to the car, I make sure that the thing is facing so you see it, uh, any place I can put a rainbow or something, I'm seeing it, and I'm talking out loud because I need the people that say, “Oh my goodness, she's the best neighbor,” to know that your best neighbor is a lesbian, because you're sitting here with thoughts that are being projected at you. Most people got gay folks in their family. But they've probably either been ostracized or been cast away, or not taken seriously. My transparency allows me to casually let people know this is who I am, this is what I do. Because, when you get close enough to somebody to know a little bit about them to know that what you're hearing is not what the truth is, or what they're seeing or being told is not how we are. Like, “Oh, your sister just the nicest person,” as if you would believe that I was someplace, you know, attempting to recruit or that type of thing. So that's why it's important. I tell people, when I go to companies, the person to your left and your right in your cubicles, all of them should know who you are. Why? Because their votes are absolutely going to be, in some ways, uh, giving you life or death. So it's important for them to know your stories, where before, we were told that what happens in your house stays in your house, it's not everybody's business. You can be private. Well, guess what? You being private gives somebody else the opportunity to tell a story that's not yours, that's not true.

SARA: And I'm thinking about how storytelling and your film are a form of activism, especially for marginalized communities.

ANGELA: Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, people, because many times it was screened in a theater, people said, “I never, ever thought I would see people that looked like me and that love like me, and that live like me on a screen.” And I get that from the older people, I get that from the young kids, I get that from the trans men, I get that from the trans women. Never did they think they were gonna walk into a theater and see 5 couples and 16 individuals to be able to tell a story that they could so relate to. And in this climate, it's so very important that not just us but everybody – because I didn't make this movie for just us. I made this movie for everybody that doesn't know things about us. And because our stories are not being told, and that's why my hat that I made says “I'm unmuting Black LGBTQ stories.” And I've become obsessed with it, because I do believe that it's gonna be one story that gets told that will change a ton of people. 

SARA: I love that tagline, “unmuting stories” because, coming back to it, I know watching it for me, and I'm thinking about this particular moment when stories are being silenced, when voices are being muted, when our government is attempting to erase Humanity, to just watch some of the stories in your film brought me so much joy. 

ANGELA: Yes. Yes.

SARA: Just be able to celebrate these stories and these lived experiences and these beautiful humans and relationships. There's something very joyful about getting to do that, and, I'm just so grateful for that. I want to shift a little bit to coaching and mental health.

ANGELA: Okay.

SARA: Because you've mentioned that already, you work as a coach. You work at the intersections of mental health, you were trained as a social worker, and you talk a lot about growth.

ANGELA: Yes. Yes.

SARA: And the power of growth. So what led you to the work of growth coaching?

ANGELA: Probably the same thing that I remember seeing when I was younger, that I wanted to give away the government's money. That's what I knew about social work, that you, you know, you were someplace, and you were gonna sign something, and somebody was gonna be able to get some money. But I've ventured into that, attempting to get to know myself better, and realizing I was an RA in college. And the stories that I would hear from people about their parents, or about their roommate, or about themselves, and about their struggles, and about their things, and I was thinking to myself, “Oh my goodness, we let these 18-year-olds out in college by themselves?” We shouldn't be doing this, because in my mind they were in no way prepared, and so I find myself attempting to grow up grown folks. Like, you know, you left and let them go because you said they were grown, but these kids are drinking, they're doing all kinds of things.

And so not aware, so not self-aware. You cannot change anything if you're not aware of who you are. And so many people spend so much of their adulthood attempting not to feel, not to think, not to do all those things. I'm known now, anybody that sees the word grow, they're gonna take a picture of it, they're gonna send it to me, because I am – I'm the woman on the grow, they call me a growthologist, and I just knew that it cannot be that grown had an end on it. Grown is not ever going to end an end. It's going to be growing, so you're going to be grown and growing. And in my head, that means that you're constantly taking in information. Because I'm different than I was three days ago. So that means me getting to know me and so many people have all these other intersections that they pay way more attention to and not themselves. Literally, in my head, I'm finding creative ways of being able to speak to different people in different ways, because coming straight directly with the therapy or with the coaching, doesn't work for a lot of people. It feels like it's too much, but if I come by way of a movie, that works. If I come by way of a workshop, and I tell people at the end of the workshop, I say, “Now come close. I called it a workshop, because I knew if I called it therapy, you wouldn't come. But what just happened was group therapy.” And they could go, “Oh, so it's not as bad.” You know, if you think I'm Dr. Phil and I'm pointing my finger at you, or Iyanla Vanzant, just, you know, trying to fix your life. You're not coming for that, but if you think you're someplace, and we're gonna laugh about it, and we're gonna, you know, kiki about it, and I'm gonna make a few jokes about it, and we're still… people either come, and they either accidentally grow, or they grow on purpose, but either way, when you leave me, growth is gonna happen.

SARA: Well, I've read in interviews with you that you are also very transparent about your own self, your own growth, your own life, your own struggles, and I imagine that is a really powerful tool. Why does that feel important to you? Tell us a little bit about how that plays out in that work.

ANGELA: It absolutely gives you street credit. It gives you street credit. I remember being a drug and alcohol counselor, and I remember those clients getting on me like, hey, if you've never used drugs, you don't know anything about this, we don't want you here. They gave me a really, really difficult time, and I was like, Okay, wait a minute. But I got a shopping addiction, I got a food addiction, like, I got all these addictions, so I came back, like, hey, look, I got these things going on. So I understood better that when people know that you've come and grown from a place, they're more apt to follow you. So, my line of work is something that the books will tell you that is taboo. You don't tell your own personal stuff, you don't do any of that, and I'm just the opposite, which is the reason that God didn't allow me to pass my LCSW exam. He was like, “Listen, I took it 11 times, and I was like, I'm gonna let you come one… I was one question from passing, but this is not where your ministry is, this is not where I need you to be. I need you to continue doing what you do.” So I live transparent in talking about my codependency – which I just discovered at 54, that has put decades of my life in shambles – my suicide attempts, the fact that I've been the most creative that I've ever been in my life in the last 5 years, and I did most of those things, depressed and suicidal. My own isolation being my response to loneliness, me going days and weeks without human contact, and I know thousands of people, I don't know just hundreds of people, I know thousands of people. And for me to be in this space, and where people go, oh, if Angie could feel… Or if Angie could think, or if Angie could believe. Then if I could tell you how many people would go, “Oh, ah, wait a minute, I think the same thing, I feel the same thing, I da-da-da-da.” And I tell people, if misery loves company, baby, I'm great company. Unfortunately, I feel like I had to have on-the-job training. Like, I couldn't just learn it from a book. I had to go be depressed to help the people that were depressed. I had to go be codependent to help the people that were codependent. I had to go have an addiction to be able to treat people with addiction, and I think it does give you lots of street credit. Now, when you're bound by certain ethics and things of that nature, and you're not able to say those things, there's a distance that I think that happens when you're not able to produce some of that. And I'm blessed enough to be in a space and place where I could do that without consequences. And it absolutely has worked in my favor. People follow me, because they know and have seen me grow from one place to another.

SARA: I think it's a very powerful tool. It is part of why we do this podcast, so that our listeners and our parents can hear stories of other folks, other parents, other queer folks, and their lived experience, and maybe feel some connection, or get some greater understanding in that sense that we're not alone, even though when life is hard, it often feels like we are.

ANGELA: Absolutely. And the fact that people do get over it. They do grow past it. They do grow around it. Because people think, “Oh my goodness, I'm gonna die here trying to raise this she that wants to be a they, or this him that now it wants to be a she, or this lesbian that wants to love it.” There's many of us that have grown to the place where we need to grow, and it's a ride for both the parent and a child. And many of us usually spend our adulthood raising our children, attempting to reconcile our own childhood. That's the other piece you have to recognize, is that it's not just you trying to raise a kid, you're trying to reconcile the things that have happened to you in this space and place, and believing there's no room for error. All of this is done by trial and error. You know, and all you can do is pray that one day the two of you get it right. And get it right isn't getting right by any other standards, it's getting right where you are at peace, and I'm at peace. That you can feel joy, and I can feel joy, and that we can be happy, and so many people are dependent upon what other people think, feel, and believe. I believe if your kid, if somebody's kid could be a lesbian just in the house, and nobody would have to know, people would be okay with it. But because the church members and your bridge players and your family and other people gotta know, they think it's self-reflective as you as not being a good parent. And that is the furthest from the truth, Baby. People should be proud, because it takes an extra something to walk in this earth as an LGBTQ person. And it's something that heterosexuals don't have to deal with. And thus, they don't have that same muscle that we have.

SARA: You talked about some of your most creative projects coming out of the deep struggles of depression and suicidality in your life. And I think that is probably a common experience. It sounds like, that creativity was an outlet for you, helping you kind of work through that moment, and one of the projects is this poetry self-help book that recently came out called Poetic Alchemy. Tell us a little bit about that.

ANGELA: Well, oh my goodness. So, in 2019, I had a breakup and I initiated the breakup, but you would have thought that somebody had drug me from a house and beat me and made me leave. I was devastated. That's when I learned that I was codependent, and this thing that I was feeling was with codependence, rejection makes you try harder. And you're wanting to be loved, and you're wanting to be worthy. And my pain came out in poetry, even though I wasn't a poet.

I didn't write poetry all the time. I would be on a plane, barfing in the bag because I was sick to my stomach, writing on the back of the bag, and I still have all of those things that I wrote. Nothing was on paper. Like, it had to be a pen, and it had to be a napkin from Starbucks, or it had to be a barf bag from the airport, or it had the back of a paper bag or something. And these poems just kept oozing out of me. Until I got to a place where I was going from hurt to begin to heal, to begin to transform. And, you know, I put it down and didn't think anything of it, like, whew, okay, I made it through that. A year and a half later, I moved to Texas to kind of get away from everything. The world shut down, I sheltered in place by myself, then my sister passed away, and all these things. And in 2021, I thought to myself “You know what? I'm gonna put these poems to use, but I'm not gonna just create poetry.” I don't want anybody just to pick up a book and read a poem about my story. I want people to be able to grow from my story. And then be able to grow and connect with themselves, because that's what was happening with me. Here I was resuscitating lives, and resurrecting spirits in all the people around me that would come hear me speak, or that would be that would be clients of mine, but yet I was dying on the inside of me. So here this little chicky is, you know, experiencing for the first time being without a partner, without a co for her dependency and all this stuff churned out. And so, it ended up being a 216-page book with over 36 poems, but there's over 400 prompts and questions. There's a place for a dictionary, because we use words that we don't know, so I give them word prompts, and then I'm giving them prompts to be creative, whether it's writing a story, or writing a poem, or drawing with a crayon, whatever that looks like, and people getting to know themselves better. So you read my stuff, and then after every poem is 14 prompts and questions. That's after every single poem. I teach people about identifying their emotions, because Fine, Okay, and Good are not emotions. You can't manage what you can't identify.

You know, so all the emotions are in the back of the book, and on the back, right at the top, it says, this is my pain repurposed. And that was the whole purpose of it. I did not want just a poetry book, I wanted people to be able to grow from that. And I tell people all the time, I don't want you to buy the book to support me. I want you to buy the book because it's a save. It's a save. It's a save for whoever dares to read it and grow from it.

SARA: Do you happen to have a poem handy from the book that you might share with us?

ANGELA: I can absolutely find something. Here’s one right here.

SARA: Excellent.

ANGELA: In writing these poems, though, I made a decision that I wasn't gonna consider myself a Poet because in my head, I know Poets. And there's spoken word artists, and they are just, they're flied. I just love how they flow with things, because I didn't want to be boxed in in that way, meaning I didn't want for myself, for me not to be able to validate what I was thinking and feeling. So this is called “Jab”. And if I gave you a little backstory, it would be that I call myself – again, as codependent, I'm in this to love you, not necessarily to be loved. And I'm looking, I just discovered that I was putting love on this boomerang, hoping that it would sling back at me, and I thought I was the best contender. This is called Jab. J-A-B.

  I took the emotional blows to prove I was the best contender.

To show my love and respect would last and be something you'd remember.

 I was prepared to go all 12 rounds if it meant I could witness your love switch. 

Instead, I was knocked out in the fifth round with a jab.

 I was down for the count. I was just another bee.

 Jab, J-A-B. 

Because it was something to discover that I had listened to everything that they didn't get. And made a decision that I was gonna put out everything that they didn't get, and here it is in the end. I was just another one. Nothing that I did was special. And so that piece is very powerful for me, because that's what it felt like. It felt like a jab. It felt like, you know, it felt like I absolutely was knocked out. And even then, you know, you're knocked out, and you're bloody, and you just open your eyes, like, let me try one more time. Let me just get it right one more time. Not even concerned that you're not getting anything, just concerned of what you could give. Extreme people-pleasing, I call it. 

SARA: Yeah, oh my goodness, how many of us suffer from that? Thank you for sharing that, I really appreciate that. In all the growth work that you're doing, and the workshops and facilitation, and public speaking, do you observe some common barriers to growth and healing that you see from folks, particularly queer folks or people of color?

ANGELA: Absolutely. The biggest barrier is that it'll kill you. Because the first thing for me, I'm gonna ask you to go and look in the closet and look at that one thing that you stuffed everything in in the back of the closet. I need you to bring that out. And most people would rather die than to feel some of those emotions. I used to be a drug and alcohol counselor, and I used to work at a methadone maintenance clinic, and I was blown away by how many people would come and get this little juice of methadone, not to experience 3 hours of extreme withdrawal to be rid of it. They would rather come every day. And that's the way a lot of people live. They would rather just kind of fight this demon every day, then to take a week and have somebody come and rip out all the stuff and be able to feel, because those feelings are painful. Now, I do understand that I feel differently. I do feel deeply, but I feel differently. So, pain coming through me is like, okay, I know at the end of this, there's a rainbow. There's something at the end of this, but you have to really and truly believe that. But people have to get here to prove me wrong, and that's a very long trek for some people. Mainly because we've had so much trauma. And so much things, and they shape our world. So along with me becoming a recovering codependent, that means now this chick got boundaries. Now, people are looking at me. I've shown people how to treat me for decades, and I did a horrible job. I got boundaries and lost a lot of people. So that's the other thing that you know, and you feel – and even though there's lots of consequences behind being who you think you are – at least it's what you know. This other thing is so scary. It's so scary, especially considering all of the different mental illnesses that keep you from feeling deeply. Whether you're somebody on the spectrum, whether that's someone with borderline personality disorder, whether that's somebody who is narcissist or somebody… Those things leave you without empathy, they leave you without the depth of being able to feel, and those things for people are defense mechanisms. Me not being able to show emotion is what I use to keep myself safe. So here comes this goody-two-shoes going, “Hey, how about we do some therapy?” And there's very few people that will take that journey across because it is emotionally painful. And imagine having those emotions and not knowing what to do with them. I mean, literally, the emotional pain being something that you cannot bear, but you also can't speak about, because you don't have the emotional intelligence to do it. Like, who wants to do that on purpose? No, I'm good. Let me just go out here, make money. Millionaires, the people that go make millions and literally will suffer in silence, but at least it's a silence that they know and they're familiar with.

SARA: Well, and a silence that is reinforced in our culture, I think where we're not taught how to invite our feelings forward, and it's certainly frowned upon when people are emotional. 

ANGELA: Right? 

SARA: So, all of that are real barriers to getting in touch with that inner self.

ANGELA: I'm getting ready to start a class, and I'm basing it on my hip-hop theory. And hip-hop is healing in public and healing on purpose. Because people told people that they have to heal in private with nobody else around you. You write in your journal, and then you slide it away. But I believe that when you heal in public, and you heal out loud, and people hear you, and people see you, and they get to support you, they get to all those things – When you're healing in private, you don't get all of that. And then healing on purpose means you're doing these things on purpose. So when I talk transparently about my suicide, or about my depression, or how I got over not having boundaries or being alone. I've been single for over 5 years, and me being introduced to loneliness. There's a poem I have in my book, like, “Where'd you come from? I never met you before. And at 54 I'm getting ready to be your best friend.” I wasn't prepared for that. 

SARA: Yeah. 

ANGELA: You know? 

SARA: Yeah. 

ANGELA: It's something. 

SARA: I want to shift now to your experience as a parent, as a queer parent of a queer child, and talk a little bit about that, particularly for our listeners, all of whom are parents of queer kids of all kinds, all ages. How has your own identity shaped how you parent?

ANGELA: Wow. So, I told you I was just the opposite of my mother, in that I was very open, not at all hiding anything, there was nothing that was taboo. I didn't necessarily have overly displays of affection, but I wasn't gonna not kiss my partner goodbye if I was leaving, those types of things. Because it was so normal for me, I think I was more concerned about the emotional well-being of my daughter. And me being able to do what I needed to do emotionally. Because the things about parenthood, people just did not teach you. And I thought – the entire time I was pregnant – I thought, “Well, obviously, it'll be delivered to me when I have the baby, they'll bring me the book.” And I was like, “They didn't give me the manual, like, wait a minute, we can't leave yet.” So it has not been something that has been forefront, but again, I was privileged enough in my own world not to have that be the hang-up of sorts. But I also will tell you this. So, in other words, I didn't compensate then, for me being a lesbian. Like, I didn't do, but I did compensate for me being absent. Because now I'm growing up grown folks. I'm flying across the country. I'm doing this, I'm doing that. I also just realized through my own codependency journey that I gave my daughter the responsibility to create her own world in that, oh, she's in her room, that must mean she wants to be, uh, left alone. Oh, she doesn't want to go with her friends, that must mean that she's this. And here I am, the adult, going – the codependent adult – “Well, I don't want to disturb her groove, so I won't go in her room. I don't want to, you know, put pressure on her so I won't do this.” And so, when she finally, her coming out to me look like this: “Ma, I got something to tell you.” And I said, “I already know.” And she said, “You already know what?” I said, “You like girls.” And she said, “How did you know?” I said, “Dominique, I'm your mother. I'm your mother.” That was it. In my head, all I could do is hope that I'd shown her enough for her to be able to take some of that with her. I left myself open to be able to give her questions. I remember inviting her. I was going to speak at a retreat in California. And I invited her to come to this lesbian retreat, Black Lesbian retreat in California. And that was the first time we were in the same space, doing the same thing, and I could just remember thinking to myself, “Oh my goodness, like, what have I done.” And she had a ball. I was surprised. I offered, not believing in the world, because she was definitely an introvert. I didn't believe she would come when she said, yes, I was blown away. She ended up meeting somebody there, they got married, they had a baby, they bought a house. 

SARA: Wow!

ANGELA: And it has just been amazing in that, and I don't know that that's the formula of having allowing them to trek their own, but that was my experience with her, is to allow her to trek her own. Be available. But I definitely wasn't, because of my own experiences, I wasn't a parent that, you know, was gonna condemn her to hell. The biggest fallout we had was about the baby. I didn't want my baby to have a baby. But she had a job making good money, and so I couldn't use the, “You can't afford it right now,” and like, “Okay, well, you know, you can't stay here.” So I couldn't put her out and deter her, any of those things. She was dead set against it, and I said, Angie, this is where you having understanding has to come in at the same understanding you expected and wanted having to do those things. We had more static around those things than we ever did around her being a lesbian. For sure. 

SARA: How old was she when she came out?

ANGELA: She was 18. And just like her mother, we had children, and right after we had those kids, we were with women from then on. 

SARA: Wow.

ANGELA: Yeah. 

SARA: Wow.

ANGELA: Yeah.

SARA: That's a beautiful story. I want go back to the moment of talking about codependent parenting. I've been doing a lot of thinking about this. But I've been thinking about it with the intersection of raising queer kids, and raising queer kids in an unaccepting world, very often. And for many of our listeners, that world can be religion, family, not just our government. And I feel like sometimes that activates that codependency that may be dormant in some, or that may be just kind of on the surface in others, out of that deep sense of fear and protectiveness and just wanting to help and support and protect, maybe even overprotect and shelter our children, and I'm curious how you think about that? 

ANGELA: I mean, you just made a great point, and that is this extreme – and I say extreme people-pleasing because people can relate. When you think, codependent, people think of a lot of different things. But the premise of that is just extreme people-pleasing, where you will do anything, usually at the detriment of yourself even, and I do see many people, many parents attempting to give that everything, thinking that that everything is going to do something to keep them from something. And I believe that it's usually embedded in us already. And we believe that if we give our kids everything, especially if we feel like they're getting ready to be without something, or they're getting ready to be condemned, or they're getting ready to be bullied, we want them to get something different from us. But there's not ever a place that I can think of that my codependency has been able to strengthen something, because here it kept me from being able to communicate with my daughter effectively. It kept me from knowing that I was the parent. I was the adult. She was a kid. But because I didn't want to hurt her feelings, I didn't want her to feel pressured, I didn't want this, I didn't want that, all these little things that we take on as codependents and allowed to be, you know. So I think that it's important that parents, especially parents of queer children, are able to identify that in themselves because it absolutely cannot – when that transfers onto someone else, you're then able to show them, well, you have to tap dance for people in order for people to love you and accept you. Or that you need other people to love and accept you, because I absolutely believed. Yesterday, I came home a couple of days ago from my first exhibit of this new project I did. My phone did not ring, nobody called to see how it was, and I have a thing on my mirror that says, “Congratulations, Angela. I love you, good job.” Because in many days, I have to celebrate and pat myself on the back, all those kudos that you want, and affirmations, and our LGBTQ kids try to compensate in every corner, And that could look like doing things they don't want to do, being around people they don't want to be around, saying things that they don't want to necessarily say, trying to get someone to like them, trying to get someone to accept them, trying to get someone to acknowledge them, and that is absolutely not the way that we need anybody to grow up in that way. It has to be inward. We have to then focus on what it takes for you. And so that would be one of the questions.

Not just give you everything, believing that's what you need, asking you, what is it that you need from me? Because some of it could be a break. Some of it could be silence, some of it could be therapy, some of it could be any of those things, but when you love yourself, it's harder for you to even give a crap about what these other people are thinking. And that's the way I think about things. When people get really razzled with something. And I'm like, “Okay, what hit you and where did that come from?” Because 9 times out of 10, it's not the person that's talking about you, it's about resonating with something that you already think about yourself. 

SARA: Hmm, that is really good advice. Really good advice for us as parents, as individuals, and anyone holding a marginalized identity. I think that is just really good advice about that loving ourselves, and fostering that in our kids. How can we foster love of self without entangling ourselves in that love. 

ANGELA: Being clear that we are. There's not an adult raising a kid now that isn't reconciling their childhood. 

SARA: Yeah.

ANGELA: And so, being clear about that actually happening, that's why the emotional wheel, I keep emotional wheels close to me all the time, where people are able to identify. You being able to identify, when you wake up, I feel overwhelmed. I'm feeling contemplative. I'm feeling pensive. I'm feeling this. I'm feeling that. And then being able to get those things from your kid, and knowing what they feel, because you can cater to something, you can cater to a feeling better than you could what you think is the matter, or that fine, okay, and good. Most people that end up trying to leave this world are saying, “Oh, I'm good.” Or “I’m fine.”

SARA: Yeah. 

ANGELA: And as a parent, what does that really mean to you? If somebody says they're okay? That means nothing, but if I tell you that I'm feeling anxious that looks different to you, for I tell you, I'm feeling excluded, or I'm feeling confused, or I'm feeling playful, all of those things you could play into as a parent. 

SARA: Love that. I love the emotional wheel. I want to make sure we put a link to that on our show notes so people can explore what we're talking about, in addition to links to the documentary information and your poetry book. All of that will be in our show notes, and a reminder to our listeners that you can go to the Mama Dragons bookshop, and you can search for Angela's book, and purchase it, and a little bit of those funds help support Mama Dragons.

ANGELA: Yes! I love it!

SARA: Angela, I'm curious, how do you stay grounded and inspired in this world that often resists the kind of radical truth-telling and healing that is so important to your work?

ANGELA: Well, I start by not having a TV. I haven't had a TV since 2019. Because what we don't know is that even listening to it gives us baggage. People that listen to the news all the time, or even, I find, listen to a half an hour of news in the evening can be overwhelming. So all of that thing that everybody experienced during the pandemic, where they were counting down. I had no idea that they were counting down bodies on every show that people would listen to. I cannot imagine having carried that. So one of the ways I stay grounded is to absolutely know what I need to know, and not anything different. I'm also a person that, I want to do something about everything. And I know that I can't, so I stay in my lane, and I just make it the best lane I can make it, on purpose. So anything that I can do to empower, to enlighten, to encourage, to entertain, to engage, those are things I could do with my eyes closed. I just practice doing those things. Staying in that space, and allowing myself to know that I can't do everything. And allowing myself to know what I can and cannot inhale. It has been detrimental, and most of us don't know that we carry that weight. And I tell people that I used to have some of my clients walk around with 50-pound backpacks every day, so they could know the amount of weight they pick up, like, literally like the American Express, they didn't leave home without it. So imagine every day looking at something. And you having to put another rock in your bag, and you're having to put another rock in your bag. There are a few consequences that might happen as a result of me not being aware of certain things but I guarantee you it's not nearly as detrimental as me listening to something, not being able to operate in my lane. Because many times, it takes us out of our depth. It takes us out of our passion, out of our purpose. It knocks us off our horse when we encounter with all this stuff from all these sides. Well, if you just rolled down the path, and do what you need to do, then guess what? If we share stories. And we stay in our lane. And we respect other lanes. You're doing a podcast, you encountering all these hundreds and thousands of people, and empowering all those people. That's not Angie Harvey's lane. Angie Harvey’s lane is getting the people to your podcast, coming on your podcast, da-da-da-da-da. Guess what? If we all do all those things well. But if you got people throwing rocks at each rock you're picking up, eventually, you're not growing anywhere. And anybody that isn't growing is dead. Anything that isn’t growing is dead, and I see dead people walking all the time.

SARA: That's really helpful. That's really great advice, and really clear. I appreciate that, especially now when it's just so easy to take on everything. 

ANGELA: Yes.

SARA: Angie, this has been an amazing conversation. I am so grateful to you for your work, and I have a few questions before you go. We like to ask our guests the same two questions at the end of every episode. 

ANGELA: Okay…

SARA: So, I'm going to ask them to you. The first question has to do with the Mama Dragons name, which came about out of a sense of fierceness and fierce protection for our kids. So we like to ask our guests, what are you fierce about?

ANGELA: I am fierce about personal growth and development. For sure.

SARA: Excellent. And you can tell by hearing that in all of your answers, and it's wonderful. It's so helpful for all of us. And the last question is, what is bringing you joy right now, especially naming in this moment, it is so important for us to be cultivating joy. 

ANGELA: My joy brings me joy. The fact that I can carry it, and there is not – my little cousin this morning asked, “What does peace look like?” I said, “Peace looks like me being able to be serene in my mind, me being able to surrender my will, and me not allowing anything external or physical to be able to distract me from my peace.” I can have peace without having a dollar. I can have peace without having company. I can have peace, and that peace brings me joy. It's so very important to me, and that everybody recognizes that. That the things that we are able to obtain in life that can give us peace and grounding in all the things you speak about don't cost a dollar. But you gotta get to a place where mentally and psychologically and spiritually, you can come back to one and deal with it. And if no one is responsible for that, that means no one can take it.

SARA: Beautiful. Yes, no one can take your peace. No one can take your joy.

ANGELA: Yeah. That's right.

SARA: Perfect words to end on. Thank you for this time, thank you for your work. I hope our listeners all get a chance to see your film, Black Rainbow Love, maybe host a screening and a conversation, because it is a great conversation starter. Thanks for all that you are doing to tell stories and help people find themselves and grow. 

ANGELA: Absolutely, and thank you very much for operating so efficient in your lane, and being able to draw people in. I think it's an amazing concept, and I love the fact that you too are unmuting LGBTQ stories and allowing people to grow from the stories that they hear, and being able to grow and tell their own, so I absolutely honor and thank you for being able to do that. 

SARA: Thank you. 

ANGELA: Yeah. Thank you. 

SARA: Thanks so much for joining us here In the Den. Did you know that Mama Dragons offers an eLearning program called Parachute? This is an interactive learning platform where 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, we hope you’ll take a moment to tell your friends and leave us a positive rating and review wherever it is you listen. Good reviews make us more visible and help us reach more folks who could benefit from being part of this community. 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 the podcast, you can follow us on Instagram or Facebook or visit our website mamadragons.org.