What If We Trusted Our Kids?

In October, Mama Dragons was invited to participate in an annual event in Hollywood called “A Day of Unreasonable Conversation.” This day-long event is an invitation-only gathering of our culture’s most influential storytellers — writers, producers, content creators, and executives — with activists, thought leaders, and individuals with lived experience. The gathering is framed around a simple but urgent question: “In the face of today’s biggest challenges, how can storytelling move us forward?” Mama Dragon Shauna Jones was part of a panel discussion on trans rights which asked, “What if we trusted our kids?” Today In the Den, Sara talks with Shauna and Mama Dragons Executive Director Liz Welch about their experience at the event and what it can mean to trust our children when they tell us who they are.

Special Guest: Liz Welch

Liz has extensive advocacy and lobbying experience in LGBTQ+ and religious freedom at the federal, state, and local levels. While at the ACLU, Liz led a National Faith Coalition that supported efforts to advance protections for LGBTQ+ communities while preserving the rights of faith communities. She also co-facilitated a transgender education and advocacy project, working to train and support trans activists in advocating for their rights across the country. Additionally, Liz is a trained mediator, experienced facilitator, and event coordinator for everything from hyper-local Pride events to coordinating the rallies at the Supreme Court of the United States for the biggest cases of our time. She is the proud mother to Mariah, who is a public defender and an avid baker.

Special Guest: Shauna Jones

Shauna Jones grew up in a small, conservative potato farming town in Idaho in a devoutly religious Mormon family. When Shauna's oldest child came out as bisexual and transgender as a teenager, her worldview was challenged and changed. She joined Mama Dragons in 2015 and has been helping to create queer-affirming homes through LGBTQ+ parent education through the group ever since. Shauna loves gardening, running, and rainbows. She is a firm believer in the power of choosing kindness and love.

Links from the Show:

• Subscribe to the Fix the News Substack
• Learn More About A Day of Unreasonable Conversation
• Listen to Shauna’s Speech at the Supreme Court 
• Listen to Shauna’s Unreasonable Day of Conversation panel
• Caitlin Seida’s Hope Is a Sewer Rat poem 
• Join Mama Dragons today

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. 

Happy New Year, Mama Dragons! We here at the podcast hope you had a beautiful holiday and found some time to rest and restore and have some fun. We have a really special episode today that we're excited to bring you at the start of this new year because today we're talking about unreasonable conversations and the power of storytelling. No doubt many of us have had many an unreasonable conversation around raising our queer kids. So this is a really interesting time for us to be thinking about how do we do that together? And joining us are two of our very own Mama Dragons. We have Liz Welch, our Executive director, with us today, and Shauna Jones, one of our regional coordinators, and part of our fabulous podcast team. This last October, Shauna and Liz were invited to represent Mama Dragons and participate in an event in Hollywood called A Day of Unreasonable Conversation. This is a day-long event that is an invitation-only gathering, bringing together our culture's most influential storytellers, filmmakers, screenwriters, producers, content creators, together with frontline activists, thought leaders, and individuals with lived experience. The gathering focuses on narrative as a tool for social change. And they frame the day around a really simple but urgent question: In the face of today's biggest challenges, how can storytelling move us forward? Each of the conversations throughout the day is structured around its own particular question, and Shauna was part of the panel discussion on trans rights, which asked, what if we trusted our kids? Powerful question. So we're going to talk together about why Mama Dragons decided to step onto this public stage, what it felt like to represent our community there, and what came through as urgent and hopeful and challenging in these times. Liz and Shauna, both of you have been on the podcast before, so welcome back to In the Den. I'm so excited to have this conversation. 

SHAUNA: Thanks! I'm excited to be here. 

LIZ: It's always a pleasure to be part of this group. You all do such amazing work. 

SARA: Thanks, Liz, I want to start with you, because I know that you have really set a priority for your leadership with us to create community partnerships and connect with other organizations in the work. Can you give us a little background on how this opportunity came about and tell us a little bit more about the context? 

LIZ: Oh, I love this question. So, we have actually been very blessed that we are now working with a collaborative that is funding innovation utilizing tech. And they're using it in storytelling to create community, to create opportunities for shared power. And while Mama Dragons is very high-touch, we’re person-to-person, we're human, we're empathetic, we talk a lot about lived experiences. But we're also using high-tech to create online communities and create educational opportunities and create spaces where people may not have access to resources, and other opportunities, And we're really trying to create more opportunities for sharing information, community and support. So this group works with the folks in convening this amazing network of people who shift culture and understanding through storytelling. So it was a natural fit for us to be there. They felt like we should be in the room partly because we do so much work at all the intersections. We're at the intersection of faith and LGBTQ+ issues. We talk about race in meaningful ways. We reach across politics and faith and political divides and rural and urban spaces, and we all have this common ground that we find within Mama Dragons. And it felt like that was important to bring into this room and share it with these storytellers so they know that trans kids don't live in isolation. They live in communities and families, and that's what the goal of this was. 

SARA: That's very exciting to be part of that. Shauna, you have represented Mama Dragons in so many different ways over the years. You gave a stunning speech on the steps of the Supreme Court at a rally around the Skermetti case. And now you're on a Hollywood panel, But I happen to know you're pretty introverted and public speaking for massive audiences does not necessarily come easily for you or maybe isn't the first choice for you. But you are quite good at it. So, why did it feel important to say yes to this event? What did it mean to you personally to be invited? 

SHAUNA: I really believe in the mission of Mama Dragons, firstly. Like, educating people and empowering parents to support their kids. And also, when this opportunity came up, I thought, I have been feeling pretty powerless in a lot of ways, these days with the government and different laws that are being passed that affect my kids and my family and you can feel like a lack of power or voice. And so when I had this opportunity to just go talk about our experience as a family with trans members, it felt important. I'm always up for any opportunity that I have to kind of turn hearts or minds towards people who may not understand but have the potential to get there.

SARA: Well, that's great. And thank you so much for representing us in that powerful way and venue. The title of this, the A Day of Unreasonable Conversation, this is a gathering that happens every year with this big title, very catchy, and I'm curious, Liz, if you can share with us the idea behind it. What do organizers mean by unreasonable conversation? 

LIZ: I thought it was really interesting, because we talk about being reasonable and that kind of a thing. But the goal of it was because they want to have difficult, honest talks with change makers. And those conversations aren't always, they're not easy. They're not comfortable. And sometimes the goal of this idea of not being reasonable is that you drive progress by challenging the status quo. That “reasonable" just kind of takes that middle road where people feel comfortable. And when you say “unreasonable,” it's not that it's a crazy out-there idea, it's that you're challenging those things. You’re talking about fostering empathy. You're talking about how you envision something better. Like when we get on the other side of all of this that's happening now, I don't want to go back to just the status quo. I want to build something better. I want something that is more equitable and more understanding, and more empathetic. And you don't do that just thinking down the middle of the road, and so when they say unreasonable, it's thinking outside those lines. And I think it's attributed to a George Bernard Shaw quote. 

SARA: That makes a lot of sense. I'm really glad to hear that. I think it changes the way that we think about having what we might have described as challenging conversations. But if we're thinking about them from that place of challenging the status quo, and that it's okay to be unreasonable from that place. It changes the nature of engagement, and I find that really helpful and interesting. And this day-long event came with multiple panel discussions and presentations, each centered around its own guiding question. And I'm curious before we get into your panel, Shauna, if you'll share a little bit, and Liz you too, about what were some of the other unreasonable conversations? What stood out to you? 

SHAUNA: One of my favorite conversations was around climate change. It was the -- oh, I gotta remember, Joyners, I think was the, yeah -- Anna Jane Joyner and her father Rick Joyner. She is one of the big climate activists in our country. And he is an evangelical preacher who doesn't believe climate change is real. And the whole conversation was around how they have relationship together. Like, how do you, these people that you love that you disagree with on fundamental things, how do you come together? And I feel like that conversation kind of encapsulated the whole day's conversations of having these conversations that may be uncomfortable but finding common ground where we can or just holding our ground where we need to, that conversation was fascinating to me. And I talked to her afterwards behind stage, and she said, “It can be really hard. Sometimes we just talk about dogs or movies, you know?” Sometimes you just can't have those conversations. But the idea that we keep trying to come together and have relationship with people that we love and respect but who disagree, I just found that so powerful. 

SARA: That does sound powerful. Amazing. Liz, what about you? What conversations stood out to you? 

LIZ: You know, the day started off with an amazing speaker who has a substack called Fix the News, which if you have not followed it, it is incredible. But his whole thing literally started off by talking about in the last, I think it was 22 days at that point, since Charlie Kirk had been killed. And he started off with this screen of all the different news articles and reporting that had been about Charlie Kirk. And then he put up – he said, “Now let me show you what else has been happening in the world that is not being covered.” And he talked about the touchpoints that should have been newsworthy in that time that nobody heard about. And it was profound things. Like one of the ones that really stood out to me was that in that 22 days, they had reached a benchmark that 800,000 children had been raised out of poverty which is so profound. But we don't hear those stories. And his whole presentation was about these mind-blowing things that should have been in the news. And it just really brought it back to, we hear so many things in the news that are anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ. But we don't hear the joyful things. We don't hear the amazing parts that are happening. We don't hear the successes of people. We don't see the families behind it. And it just really drove home to me that we see what people want us to see. And we really need to dig deeper, and that was like the entire impetus for our being there was to have that conversation about what happens with families, and how we see raising children and moving forward. And it just, it set the day for me. It set the entire tone for me of the day. 

SARA: That sounds extraordinary. I would love to put the link to that Substack in our show notes. That sounds great, and we can take listeners, right there. Shauna, the guiding question for your panel, focused on the issue of trans rights was, “What if we trusted our kids?” Just reading that question alone brought tears to my eyes. Can you take us through how that conversation unfolded? 

SHAUNA: It was an amazing conversation. Nicole Maines, who is a trans actress and advocate, was our moderator. And she did such a phenomenal job. Her dad was on the panel. And then Steven Chukumba, who is another dad of a trans child, was on the panel, and then I was there. And we just had this conversation around what it's like to be a family of a trans family member and what we wish for our kids, and how we came to be in those spaces. And I learned so much from listening to the other panelists. It was eye-opening because I have my experience that we've lived through with having our child come out as trans, and having to lose community and lose church support and lose family support, and all of that was hard. But everybody has such an individual journey of having a trans child, that it was such a great experience to listen to their experiences and see where we had similarities and differences. And then we just talked about what we would hope to see in media of trans people and their families. It was great. I loved it. 

SARA: It was good. I got to watch the clip that you shared that your husband shared on Facebook. And it was beautiful. And what your story, Shauna, really struck me – because I think in our Mama Dragons community, it's probably more common – but I was struck by the fact that here you are in what many consider to be progressive Hollywood, talking about your Mormon, homeschooling story and how you came to be a Mama Dragon. And so, I know you've shared bits of it over the years. But I wonder if you would share it again. It's such a unique insight, and that you have two kids who have been connected to this idea of what gender-affirming care is and what it means, and all of those medications. And I would love it if you would share a little bit about that with us. 

SHAUNA: Yeah, I'd love to. So, as I said on stage, is I grew up – I'm from Idaho – I grew up in a potato farming town. And I grew up in a very conservative religious family. I went to a Mormon university and married a Mormon boy. And we had our Mormon family. And I was raising our kids – we were homeschooling our kids and living kind of that conservative LDS path of life. And so when our oldest came out to us, first as gay, and later as transgender, I didn't really have tools for that. And luckily I was connected with Mama Dragons pretty early on. I want to say there were about 50 of us at the time. Which is crazy now 10 years later, there are – Liz can correct me, but, like, over 25,000 people – but that support was so critical for me. When I got into the Mama Dragons group, there were a few moms who had trans sons. And I had no idea what it even meant to be transgender. I didn't know the difference between being trans and cross-dressing. I knew nothing. And so it was kind of a shocking experience for me to be in this group with these women. And just the way they educated and normalized and taught me and led me was so critical because we did lose a lot when we chose to support our trans kid. We lost family support. We lost church support. We lost community support. Strangers on the internet criticized us. And it was really difficult. And the interesting thing is, I have three children. And all of them have required life-saving medical care. And we have been treated very differently in each of those cases. I have two sons. One son had cancer when he was two and had cancer treatment from two to three. And then my other son is transgender. And when our cancer son was going through treatment, we had people show up. And the community came out and threw us a Christmas party, and we had people from church bringing us food and supporting us and loving us. And our families flew out to help us. And it was just a beautiful thing where we just felt supported and lifted in a really hard time. And then, when our oldest came out as trans, it was such a different experience. And so, of my two sons, one, I had conversations with doctors about puberty blockers about how safe they were, how effective they were, how it was often needed for kids who were experiencing early puberty. And it was a very safe way to put pause on puberty. And that was my cancer kid that had that conversation, right? Both of our kids received medical care. And one of those kids has had their fertility impacted by the life-saving care they received. And it was my cancer kid. And I find it so sad when people want to shrink people down to their fertility as their value in life. And so I feel like we've had these similar journeys with our kids. Both have required life-saving care. Chemotherapy and radiation saved one son's life. And top surgery and hormones saved another son's life, just as dramatically, just as necessary care. And so I feel like I have this perspective of both kids following the science, following what we needed to do to save their lives, and being received in such different ways. But I can't help but want to keep trying to push society and people's hearts and minds towards compassion and support and love for families who are going through a transition. Because, like as we know when our kids transition, the whole family kind of has to transition together. And it would be lovely to have support for families, just as much as we had support when we were going through cancer treatment, to have that support when we were going through transition. That's kind of where my passion is, to help people get there, and support families like ours in every way that we need. 

SARA: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. I think that really helps people contextualize the medications involved in healthcare for trans folks in a different way, where we can see that they really are life-saving in so many different ways. And we don't need to be treating them differently. It's such a different kind of conversation. Liz, I know that you're also the mom of a queer kid, and I wondered if you'd like to share your story. 

LIZ: You know, mine is far less dramatic. I worked in queer advocacy for most of my kid’s life. And so she grew up around queer people. We were part of a theater community. So she was practically raised by her “gunkles,” as we call her gay uncles. So when our holidays were spent with people who were open and loving and exactly who they were -- we knew a lot of trans people before she ever, ever thought about coming out – And I think for her, that set a very different case. It wasn't a big dramatic coming out story, it was just, “Hey, I believe in love. I believe that it's not about your genitals. I don't believe it's about all of these things. It's just about you love the people who they are, who their hearts are. “ And so she came out as bi, and it just wasn't ever that dramatic for me. She still has some relatives who are pretty religious and, one, don't understand it, and two, who have questions but refuse to talk about it. So, for me, that's kind of where my passion came out from, how do we have – it’s not just hard conversations when it comes to the legislature, or to putting it in the media, or to these things -- Oftentimes, it's just across the kitchen table with a grandfather who just doesn't get it, has never talked about it, doesn't necessarily want to ever have a conversation about it because it just messes with their worldview. And sometimes those are the hardest conversations there are because the risk for rejection and heartache is so great in those moments. And I think my daughter still has some of those conversations that she wants to have. I know she just got married last year. And her grandfather's comment was, “Oh good. She's not gay anymore.” And so it's kind of like she's like, “Well, I'm still bisexual.” And so I think there's just all these questions. And so for me, it's just supporting her where she is and what makes her happy in life. She defined herself pretty early when she was maybe three years old. We were watching Balto. And there's a comment in there that's like, “Dedicated to the indomitable will of the sled dog.” And here she is three. She looks at me, she's like, “What's indomitable?” And I said, “Well, it means you just never quit. You keep going no matter what your obstacles are and you just do the right thing.” And she's like, “Oh, I'm indomitable.” And to this day, that's how she's defined herself. And so every time we've had a conversation about a challenge coming up or a hard conversation she's had to have, that's just a touchstone for her. And so, like for me, it just kind of, like, what if we trusted our kids? What if I believe my daughter is indomitable? Yes. She is, and everything flows from there. 

SARA: Yeah, that's beautiful. Thank you for sharing. It's important to share all sides of all stories. I think that is what helps us connect with each other and reconnect with our kids. In this conversation about “what if we trusted our kids?”, Shauna, you said some incredible things that were moments that really struck me. And you said, “You are not entitled to a version of your child that's not real.” You must have had a standing ovation. It sounded like the crowd really exploded. I’d never really heard it put in those terms. Tell us more about that. That's a really extraordinary statement. 

SHAUNA: Yeah, I mean, that phrasing kind of came out of the days ahead of that as I was talking with my husband, Mike, about the feelings around that were. I think for a lot of us as parents, we have this idea of what our child is going to be or what they'll do, who they'll marry, all of those things. And I know that I had a lot of those expectations for all of my kids and I really think when our middle kid had cancer and we didn't know if he would see his next birthday. We didn't know what his future would look like. And we suddenly just had, right now. I think that fundamentally changed something in us so that when Beckett came out, we could go, “Okay, this is not about us. This is not about what our vision for our child is. But if we want to have a real relationship with our child, we want to have a relationship with our real child and not the version of our child that we expected.” And that can be a hard thing to practice. I think, like, it's in idea, that's great. But, I think we are tied so much into molding and shaping our kids and just accepting that they are their own human, and we are not entitled to a version of them that isn't real. They don't owe us that. And we shouldn't want that. 

SARA: And it's such a powerful parenting message that reaches beyond gender identity and queer identity, right? It can apply to all kinds of different things and visions and dreams and expectations we lay upon our kids. So I thank you for that. I'm curious from both of you, in that panel, were there moments that surprised you or things you learned from the other panelists? 

SHAUNA: I loved talking with Steven. He had a very different experience from me. He's black, for one. And so it was great to talk to him. He's like, “I feel like a lot of parents who end up having a child who's queer just have no idea what persecution has looked like for them. You know? They just lived a charmed life. But people of color already know how to have those hard conversations with their kids. Like, life is not going to be fair. People are going to be mean. These things are going to happen, right? And this is how we have resilience, and this is how we show up, and this is how we keep doing these things.” And so his perspective, he lost his wife like the year before, I want to say, his child came out as trans and he just showed up as a dad, and did what he had to do. And I think that resilience is built in to a lot of marginalized groups that I had not had to experience in my life. So I have had to learn from Beckett, my trans kid, what oppression looks like, really. I've had to learn from my child, instead of being able to say, “Okay, this is what happens when people are prejudiced against us. This is what we do when people do this.” So I think listening to people of color, women of color particularly, is just powerful in learning how to stay in the fight long-term. There was a section called something about burnout. One of the speeches was about, what if we're just tired, or something like that? And, W. Kamau Bell was the speaker, and he's like, “Black people don't get to be tired. We don't get to be tired, you know?” And I think that that is so true. Trans people don't get to be tired. They don't get to just, like, “Okay, I don't want to do it today.” Like, they don't have that. That was something that I still am learning internally, that giving up is not an option for so many people. And so it shouldn't be an option for any of us. 

SARA: Thank you. That's amazing. Liz, what about you? What stood out to you? What struck you? 

LIZ: I think what really stood out to me was Nicole and Shauna were very much speaking from a woman's perspective, which we hear so much of because of being Mama Dragons. And it was really interesting to talk to the men on the panel and listen to them talk about how they really believe that there needed to be spaces, like what we have with Mama Dragons, where men could talk about their own garbage. Like, they could talk about what the patriarchy looks like, and they can talk about what it means to have feelings when your kid comes out or transitions. And it was really interesting to see how they navigated that space around assumptions and expectations and even beyond that. We hear conversations about “You don't get to grieve your child. They've just transitioned.” Like you don't get to grieve them. And Steven actually addressed that to some. It's like, “We're not grieving like they're dead. We're grieving that we have to change to meet them.” That is a powerful thing when you think about it. And some of the conversations we've had with them was definitely about, there are things you don't say to your child. There are things you don't say publicly. But you still have those feelings that you need to process to be fully accepting and fully affirming. And you have to have the spaces where you can do that with others who are going through that similar thing. And I thought that was powerful to hear. I will also say that I was sitting in the audience watching. And it was fun to be able to see and hear what was going on at the stage, but also to be looking at the audience and watch the light bulb moments, or the yes and the snapping of the fingers, and seeing just how people really were engaging and feeling this conversation. And then to compare that with how it went with other panelists, where they were engaged. But this one was far more visceral to watch for a lot of people. 

SARA: Oh, that's really interesting to hear. And I was really struck by Nicole Maines’ story. The actress on the show Supergirl, who is playing the first trans superhero that we've seen, which is super exciting. But who came out as a young person, became an activist. And listening to her dad talk about how they had to go into hiding and thinking about how few, if any, resources were available in the early 2000s about any of this and how far we've come. That really struck me to be able to put all of that story together. 

SHAUNA: Yeah, that was crazy to me, too, to think they didn't have internet. They didn't really have – I mean, internet was new back when she was coming out. And they had to go into hiding. She had to be stealth. And it's discouraging sometimes to see how far we have to go. But it's also not that far back to look at how far we've come, too. 

SARA: Yeah. I'm curious how you both have been thinking about the question that framed the conversation, “What if we trusted our kids?” That was the one piece, because there were so many of you, and the stories were interesting, that I wanted to hear more from the panelists. So what does trusting our kids mean to each of you? What if we trusted them? 

SHAUNA: Yeah, I was talking to my husband about this recently again. And I think kids are not always going to make the best choices, right? Kids make mistakes. Kids don't have fully formed frontal lobes. They don't always make good decisions or choices. But that is a different conversation from knowing who you are as a person, right? Like I know who I am. And my child knows who they are. And I think that was one of the most powerful moments for me when Beckett came out is that I knew nothing about what it meant to be trans, but I knew my child. I knew their heart was good. I knew that they were compassionate and thoughtful. And maybe not every parent has that relationship with their child, but I would hope that you would be able to understand that, like, identity is so deep within us that when your child tells you who they are, believing them is one of the most powerful acts of parental love that you can offer is just trusting that your child knows themselves because they do. Like, we all know ourselves. But trusting our child and letting them lead is such a scary place to be as a parent. But I feel like that's the key to really being able to show up and support and love your child in a way that is life-saving and life-giving and life-affirming. 

SARA: Yeah. Thank you. Liz, what about you? How do you think about that question? 

LIZ: I think Shauna answered it so beautifully. So it really brings the question to me on the other side, what if we don't trust our children? What happens when we don't believe who they are? What if we don't believe their dreams? What if we don't believe in their aspirations? What if we don't believe in their inherent ability to find their own path and do amazing things? And what if we shove that all down because it just is uncomfortable or unreasonable for us – and unreasonable in a bad way? What does that do to a child's heart and to their mind. to not trust them. And that, to me, is heartbreaking because they're telling us what's important to them. And if we don't trust that they can have their own voice and they can't have their own dreams, and they can't know who they are, then we're telling them not to reach for that, in any way, shape, or form. 

SARA: Yeah, that's really great. And Shauna, something you said really struck me when you said that “I know who I am,” and this connects, Liz, with what you just said, which is also that we give ourselves permission to explore our own identities and who we are, and try things, and learn what we like and don't like in all manner of life experience. And so to withhold that from our child feels really disingenuous. But Shauna, in your story, I'm just curious, it just struck me that as you were living this very sheltered life and didn't know anything about what it was to be transgender. How did Beckett articulate that to you? I'm assuming, Beckett was pretty sheltered, too. 

SHAUNA: Yeah. Yes. Yeah, Beckett was. For us, none of us had, really, the language or the framework to explore or understand Beckett's experience. But when they entered puberty, like, their mental health just tanked hard, and they struggled with suicidality and hated their body. And none of us really understood how this happy, gregarious, bright child went from that to this. You know? And there were days that we just prayed that they would survive high school because life was just so bleak for them. And so we ended up, after Beckett had come out as gay, we went to a conference, a support conference. It was the one we could find. And we met other trans people there. And it was, like, this little light bulb like, “Oh…” And even after that, we left and my husband Mike said to Beckett, “Do you think this might be you?” And Bec was like, “Yeah, but I don't want to talk about it.” And it was another year before they were ready to even admit to themself that that was what was going on. So there's this idea that if we teach kids about being trans or about being gay that it's going to make them more likely to be trans or gay. And that is so not true. These kids are who they are. But giving them the words and the framework to discuss it could make the difference between life and death for these kids. Because gender dysphoria is a life-threatening condition. It was for Beckett and so I think, yeah, we kind of have to muddle our, like crawl our way through this whole thing. And it would have been so nice to have some kind of training or framework or words, yeah, which I think is one of the really great values of this podcast and Mama Dragons in general is, like, giving language and giving light to these issues so that other parents don't have to stumble quite as much as we did at the beginning trying to figure out what was going on. 

SARA: Yeah. Exactly. And that there's a community to turn to, to ask questions of, and know that they'll be answered and you'll be received. That’s really important, really powerful. Thank you for sharing that, by the way. I really appreciate hearing that part of the story. I think that's really affirming for a lot of our listeners who are excavating their own experience of their own child's coming out. I'm thinking about, as you all are up there talking to a group of bigwigs, and a lot of Hollywood types, execs, and filmmakers, and actors, and Hollywood has – in my opinion – been limping along a little behind the times in how it's portraying particularly trans folks. Although at least now we're getting trans folks playing trans folks. There's a little bit of improvement there. Nicole Maines’ story as the first being an example of a first positive, a superhero. It is not the terrible, awful story of having to exist in the world as a trans person. So what would you say if a Hollywood exec comes to you after this moment and asks some questions about how to authentically portray trans people and young people in particular and their families? Where would you tell them to start? 

SHAUNA: They kind of asked us that as a closing question, and what I said to them then and what I would still say is, as the storytellers of the world, you understand how important it is to see yourself in art, right? To feel seen in art. And it would be so lovely to see a trans person as a fully formed character living their life where being trans is not the only identity that we see. You know? And Steven mentioned seeing families with trans family members, just doing their daily lives. We don't talk about trans issues all the time in our house. We talk about lots of things, you know. But I think something that was said that I really resonated with was that media – not everybody is going to watch the news. Not everybody is going to be political. But almost everyone watches media of some sort, whether it's Instagram, Reels, television, movies. And so, the movies really have power to shape people's perceptions of others. Like we've seen it with gay characters where they used to be the sad, depressed, or funny side characters. And now you can see characters who are gay who have, like, fully developed characters in film. I would love to see that same thing. Trans people need that same sort of push so that people who may not know a trans person in real life can watch a film and feel their humanity through the screen. And I think that that, like, adding more trans characters who are real, and not just one, like a cardboard cutout of a trans character, would go so far to helping society as a whole learn to normalize love and accept the trans experience better. 

SARA: Liz, do you have anything to add to that, what you want to instruct Hollywood to do? 

LIZ: Well, I think one of the things that really stood out to me was that years ago, when I would do some lobbying in more conservative spaces, legislators did not know what trans people were. They thought they were drag queens. They thought they were cross-dressers. So they have this stereotype in their mind. And literally, that's what they saw. And I think that one of the things about representation in the media is helpful is normalizing just how normal it is. It's not makeup. It's not hair. It's not all of the things that people see in those spaces that might not have access otherwise. I remember going to a talk that Julius Serrano did. And she talked about how trans women had to be overly feminized to overcome things and the stereotypes. And at the same time, when you are over-feminized, you're like leaning into the stereotypes so that you're not put in this awkward position. And so I think it's important that they're just portrayed as normal everyday people going about quiet lives like we do. They're not all advocates. They're not all public. They have families and jobs. And I think that that's really important. I remember an episode of Grey's Anatomy that there was a doctor who was on the thing. He went through. He kind of saved the day. And you just kind of got this really good feeling about him as, like, being this amazing human being. And at the end, it was revealed that he had to change his gender on something, and it wasn't like a, “Oh, you're trans,” moment, it was a “Oh, well, thank you for your service today.” Advocacy doesn't have to be loud, it doesn't have to be over the top. But it can be real, and I think that sometimes those are the paradigm shifts that people will get that are important when it's just this quiet thing of, “I didn't even think that that person was trans.” And yet they were and it wasn't a big deal. 

SARA: Yeah. Grey's Anatomy is a good example of that. And so, Liz, I'm curious to hear a little bit more from you about how events like this connect to the larger vision for Mama Dragons and the work that we are doing across the country. 

LIZ: One of the things that I loved about this was it gave us some opportunities to meet a lot of people, both that are in the Hollywood industry, but then also who were advocates from organizations that work on gender equity. And so there's a lot of collaborations that are coming out of that time from people that we talked to there that want to work with us on things. For the last – oh my gosh, it's been about a year we have been reaching out to organizations across the country, that are parenting groups, or LGBT groups or all sorts of different organizations and people that are doing good work – and we've been partnering with them on creating partnerships where we can share information with them. They share information about us with parents who are looking for resources. And so I think that it gave us an opportunity to talk about this in a new way, where we can talk about how we're looking at ways to create, I always say, courageous conversations. Unreasonable Conversations is another way to phrase that. But it really made me think deeper about where we can reach into those spaces, and how we can use the things that come out of this one day and use that to educate across the board with these other organizations we're working with, and the people that they serve in places that resources aren't as available. And I think that what comes out of this in the media enables us to have touchstones that we can touch in that people may have seen. 

SARA: Yeah, that's really great. This is the first episode of the new year, of 2026, and I think some of us are maybe bracing where it continues to be uncertain about what we might face. This past year was certainly really complicated and really hard. So when you look ahead to what this year could bring, what gives you hope right now? 

SHAUNA: That is something that I have been struggling with, like, finding hope in these times. I found a poem that I just want to share a little piece of about hope that I love so much, and is giving me, some life right now. It's called Hope is Not a Bird, Emily. It's a Sewer Rat, based on Emily Dickinson's poem of Hope is a Thing with Feathers, it says, “Hope is not the thing with feathers that comes home to roost when you need it most. Hope is an ugly thing with teeth and claws and patchy fur that's seen some shit. It's what thrives in the discards and survives in the ugliest parts of our world, able to find a way to go on when nothing else can even find a way in.” And that is the kind of hope that I feel connected to right now, because it doesn't matter if we don't have a chance. It doesn't matter if the legislature is not going to listen to us. I'm still going to go sit in the governor's office and beg for compassion for my child. I'm still going to go sit in sessions of the House or the Senate and try and testify to the humanity of my child, because, hope, it doesn't matter if we're going to win or not. Hope is the thing that keeps us going because we see how the world should be, and we just refuse to allow any other version of it to exist.

SARA: God, yes, that's fantastic. I love that poem. I've been sharing it with so many people. Let's… let's link that in the show notes, too. 

SHAUNA: I will. 

SARA: Liz, what's bringing you hope? 

LIZ: I think one of the things about stepping in as Executive Director of Mama Dragons, there's quite a history here of people who came from all sorts of backgrounds, that came together and built a community response. And it's the community that started us, and in 2026, my goal is to do more community work for Mama Dragons. We're going back out to Pride events in meaningful ways. We're creating family events, where we can have, not just moms in isolation, because moms don't live in isolation. They live in community. They are surrounded by their family, their friends. They want to meet other families and friends. So we will be doing more community building through family events. And we're also going to have retreats. We're doing five regional retreats where we're going to be bringing together moms and those who identify in the mothering role to have space to talk, and to plan, and to dream, and to scheme, and to go through all the things, and to build a support system that is outside of the walls of technology and outside of the walls of that. And it's very community-based because I really believe in times like this, we are the ones who will support each other. We are the ones who will save ourselves. We are the ones who will save our communities, and it's by doing the things that we do as mothers, which is we foster friendships and foster relationships and take care of each other, and nourish each other, whether it's in our bodies or our spirits. And I am really looking to 2025, or 2026 -- gotta remember not to write that on my checks for the next six months – I'm really looking forward to 2026, the community building that we're looking at doing as Mama Dragons and as people who are all in this together. And I truly believe that that is how we're going to get through this is taking care of each other. 

SARA: That sounds beautiful and exciting, and I can't wait to hear more details and share more details about that work. It sounds just right. Thank you both for those answers, for helping me find some hope. It certainly has been a struggle and will continue to be. And so using each other to find that hope feels really important right now. Okay, final questions. You've listened to the podcast. You know what our final questions are that we like to ask every guest. The first question being reflective of our Mama Dragons name and the fierceness of Mama Dragons. So, Shauna, first to you, what is it you are fierce about? 

SHAUNA: I am fierce about trans joy. And I am fierce about childhood cancer research funding because it does not get nearly enough. So those two things, and those are my children. But like, trans joy, I'm fierce about not just trans rights, but trans joy. 

SARA: Awesome. Liz, what are you fierce about? 

LIZ: Oh man, I could light so many fires with this one. I am absolutely fierce about the power of us. I am fierce about the collective moving forward and being together to both fight the hard things and celebrate the joy. So, Shauna, I am right there with you. Let's go fight for trans joy in every way there is. 

SARA: Perfect setup to the final question, which is also how we help find hope for each other in the world. So, Shauna, what is bringing you joy right now? 

SHAUNA: I just made hundreds of rainbow Christmas trees and sent them out into the world. And people are sending me photos of their Christmas trees in their new homes, and it is giving me joy.  

SARA: I love it. I am the lucky recipient, and it brings me joy just to walk in the door and look at the rainbow Christmas trees. Liz, what is bringing you joy right now? 

LIZ: I am actually going to piggyback off of that because I am also the recipient of some of those Christmas trees. And they are behind me, behind my desk, so you can see me, and then see them behind me when you're on camera. And I had somebody ask me the other day who saw them behind me, say, “Are those dragon spikes or scales? What are those because they're really cool.” And I was like, “Oh, they're Christmas trees.” And they're like, “You should leave them all the time, because they look like very fierce rainbow dragon scales.” And I was like, “I love that.” 

SARA: I do too. Rainbow dragon scales and Christmas trees. Thank you both so much for this time and this beautiful conversation that wasn't at all unreasonable but I hope empowers us all to think about the unreasonable conversations we can have with people out in the world. You both are incredible, amazing, inspiring women I am so blessed to know. Thanks for doing this with us today. 

SHAUNA: Thank you. Thanks, Sara. 

LIZ: Thank you, Sara. And Shauna, thank you for just being an amazing advocate in everything you've done this last year and beyond. 

SHAUNA: Thank you. 

SARA: Thank you 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.