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Talk to kids about gender, sexuality, and social justice with Lindsay Amer
You’ve probably seen the viral videos of Lindsay Amer’s Queer Kid Stuff show because I’ve been seeing them EVERYWHERE. Of course, I had to reach out to Lindsay to talk about what they’re creating because it’s so adorable and important.
We chat about Lindsay’s coming out process, first as gay and more recently as non-binary, and why it’s so important to Lindsay to make content for kids around gender, sexuality, bullying, and social justice. We dive into the feedback they’ve gotten, plus what it was like to be on Dylan Marron’s show talking with someone who left a hateful comment.
We wonder what it might be like to live in a world where our identity and gender are encouraged to be fluid and explored from the youngest of ages, and what it means to choose authentic community and relationships that honor the complexity of who you are.
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In this episode, Lindsay and I talk about:
- Lindsay’s journey in creating a safe space for their show, “Queer Kid Stuff”.
- The distress that some adults experience in later life around their own genders especially when they were brought up in a more traditional/strict construct.
- The patience we need to work with ourselves and our identities no matter how long it takes and giving yourself the permission to experiment and even have a change of mind.
- What kinds of feedback and comments Lindsay’s received about Queer Kid Stuff and their experience on a conversation with a viewer who disagrees with the show’s values.
- How the show created a community for both kids and adults to be able to share and learn from one another and how it brings out an active engagement towards more healthy conversations and relationships.
- The exciting thought of showing up in the world as we are and having the people around us and who love us come to accept and continue to build relationships with us instead of clustering to people who we know don’t hurt us.
- Using the show as a foundation for both kids and adults to dive into a conversation around queerness and diversity and remembering the show Mr. Rogers.
About Lindsay Amer:
Lindsay Amer is a queer activist, artist, and storyteller. They create and host Queer Kid Stuff, an LGBTQ+ educational web series for all ages. They obtained their BS from Northwestern University in theater and gender studies and their MA from Queen Mary University of London for theatre and performance studies. They were named a Rising Star by GLAAD, are a Webby Award Honoree, and have been recognized by HuffPost, Teen Vogue, Refinery29, and Kidscreen for their work. They also serve as co-founder and artistic associate of Bluelaces Theater Company, making multi-sensory theatrical experiences for people with autism and other developmental differences in New York. When they’re not taking down the patriarchy, they’re probably roaming around Brooklyn with their uke, their incredible partner, and their new puppy!Listen and subscribe to Sex Gets Real
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Episode Transcript
Dawn Serra: You’re listening to Sex Gets Real with Dawn Serra, that’s me. This is a place where we explore sex, bodies, and relationships, from a place of curiosity and inclusion. Tying the personal to the cultural where you’re just as likely to hear tender questions about shame and the complexities of love, as you are to hear experts challenging the dominant stories around pleasure, body politics and liberation. This is about the big and the small, about sex and everything surrounding it we don’t usually name. The funny, the awkward, the imperfect happen here in service to joy, connection, healing and creating healthier relationships with ourselves and each other. So, welcome to Sex Gets Real. Don’t forget to hit subscribe.
Welcome to this week’s episode. I love that you’re here with me and that you could to join in this really fun conversation about Queer Kid Stuff. So before we jump in, I just want to first thank several of you for reaching out about coaching support. And to remind the rest of you, I will be raising my rates January 2019. So if you have been looking for some support or you’ve been looking for some ways to get unstuck around body trust and the stories you have about your body, about communication, about desire and libido, kind of breaking out of some of the cycling and the stuckness you’ve had in a relationship or if you just really want to change your relationship with pleasure. I work at all of those yummy intersections and I still have a few spots left in my coaching practice. You can head to dawnserra.com, Serra is SERRA, and learn all about my coaching practice. There is a “Work with Me” page where you can learn more about coaching and a little intake form if you get through the coaching page and decide it sounds like something you want to explore more. So please head there if you could use a little bit of support. We can do one or two sessions or we can have an ongoing supportive relationship. It’s totally up to you and what you need, and I would love to be that support.
Dawn Serra: This week’s episode is with Lindsay Amer. And you probably actually know Lindsay because Lindsay is the creator of the YouTube web series Queer Kid Stuff. There have been some viral videos circling on all of the social media channels over the past couple of months because Lindsay’s work is so rad. It’s so sweet and so helpful. They’re these short just couple minute little episodes with Lindsay sometimes with guests and always with Teddy, the talking Teddy Bear, talking all about gender and sexuality and bullying. And though it is a kids show, there’s an awful lot in there that can help adults unpack their stories and their fears, too.
So, let me tell you a little bit about Lindsay and then we will jump in. Patreon supporters, Lindsay told me that Steven Universe is one of their most favorite things to geek out about. I have only seen a handful of episodes of Steven Universe. So our Patreon bonus is Lindsey telling me why they think Steven Universe is so frickin’ rad and what they get out of it and what their favorite stories are. So if you’re a Steven Universe fan or you’ve heard lots of people talking about it and you don’t know why everyone thinks it’s so rad – totes, check out the Patreon bonus. $3 a month and above gets you that weekly bonus content. You can go to patreon.com/SGRpodcast. You cannot search for us because despite me fighting back and forth with Patreon, they have deemed the show pornographic. And, that means you have to actually type the URL and you can’t search for sex gets real once you get there. So patreon.com/SGRpodcast
Dawn Serra: Here is a little about Lindsay. Lindsay Amer is a queer activist, artist, and storyteller. They create and host Queer Kid Stuff, an LGBTQ+ educational web series for all ages. They obtained their BS from Northwestern University in Theater and Gender Studies and their masters from Queen Mary University of London for theatre and performance studies. They were named a rising star by Glad. They are a Webby Award honoree and they’ve been recognized by HuffPost, Teen Vogue, refinery 29, and Kids Screen for their work. They also serve as co-founder and artistic associate of Blue Laces Theatre Company, making multi-sensory theatrical experiences for people with autism and other developmental differences in New York.
When they’re not taking down the patriarchy, they’re probably roaming around Brooklyn with their uke, their incredible partner, and their new puppy. You can click through to see Queer Kid Stuff in the show notes. I’ve got all the links for both Lindsay and Queer Kid Stuff. So, that’s nice and easy or you can head to sexgetsreal.com/ep236. And, I would love your questions. I’ve got several questions waiting for an episode coming up soon. But I would love to hear from you. Where are you feeling stuck? Where could you use more resources? Where are you feeling confused? What’s not making sense when it comes to your body to sex to relationships to hooking up? All of the things please go to dawnserra.com and use the send a note link where you can send in your questions. You can do it anonymously if you want to. I would love to hear from you. I’m going to have a few question-answering episodes coming up. So send them my way. Here is my conversation with Lindsay.
One other quick note, I am so sad about this but it is what it is. My conversation with Lindsay is so great and sadly, Lindsay’s audio is not the best. It’s a little bit garbled and staticky. You can definitely understand everything but it’s just got a little bit of a kind of raw edge to it. So, please forgive the audio quality and enjoy the conversation.
Dawn Serra: Welcome to Sex Gets Real, Lindsay and our conversation about Queer Kid Stuff today should be super fun. So, welcome to the show.
Lindsay Amer: Thanks for having me.
Dawn Serra: You’re so welcome. I found you, like I’m sure so many people have, in that lots of people are talking about your show these days. So many posts have been going viral and you’ve been featured some really exciting places like Teen Vogue and on Dylan Marron’s Show. So, how has it been for you to be getting all of this attention on a show called Queer Kid Stuff that you make?
Lindsay Amer: It’s pretty cool. I think I originally started about two and a half years ago. I knew I was like starting like something that could get pretty buzzy. Mostly because things like this just don’t exist and there’s inherent controversy around it, which shouldn’t exist, but does, unfortunately. And, I think I’ve worked really hard to get a lot of the buzz that’s happening. It’s cool that it’s starting to really gain some momentum and that’s been a culmination of a lot of things. So this is like a really exciting point to be at for me of having done all this work and it feels like it’s finally at the tipping point where it’s really starting to pay off. It’s getting in bigger circles and it’s been it’s been really cool to watch that happen.
Dawn Serra: Oh, my god. I’m so excited because we desperately need stuff like this.
Lindsay Amer: I think so too.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. So, would you tell us a little bit about your story kind of how you came into your understanding of your gender and your sexuality and what brought you to here?
Lindsay Amer: Yeah, totally. So, I grew up in New York City, actually – white, liberal, relatively well off family. I grew up with a lot of privilege, which I’m incredibly grateful for and really try and pay back as much as I can. And the thing is about that is that I had an untraditional family structure. I had step-parents and my siblings. But everyone was all very straight; and it was okay to be gay for like other people but it was never really internalized for me like, “Oh, that’s something I could be too.” So I really struggled with coming out. I was kind of out to a few good friends at high school. But for the most part, I didn’t come out until I was in college. And I had a really tough time in high school and I kind of struggled with that. Then college kind of took me a little bit but eventually came out as gay. And then, went off to grad school and found myself while I was there for a year; came back to the states and kind of decided to make Queer Kid Stuff. And it just kind of happened from there.
In terms of my gender coming out story, that’s actually pretty new. I came out of non-binary, I think, almost a year ago. So, that’s definitely been a pretty long journey. I come from this background where I have a lot of privilege and I come from a liberal space. I come from New York, arguably one of the most liberal places, most diverse places you could grow up. And I still had a lot of trouble figuring this out. I only came out as non-binary a year ago. So I constantly am asking myself, if I had so many issues with this, I’m not the bottom line in the story. If there’s someone who doesn’t have even the privileges that I have, what would they be going through? And I kind of make Queer Kid Stuff for a young me but also for me to pay it back to those people who need it. And yeah, that’s a lot of work that came from just wanting this content to be out there. For people who– and for the young me who wanted it.
Dawn Serra: A lot of people listening to the show are very familiar with gender queer and non-binary and trans identities but just in case there’s someone listening who is kind of new to, how do you describe non-binary gender to folks?
Lindsay Amer: Yeah, the way that I like to talk about it is non-binary being in between or outside of boy and girl. That’s kind of like the simple way I like to put it.
Dawn Serra: You did this interview with Teen Vogue, which first of all so exciting, because they are doing some amazing work in the world these days.
Lindsay Amer: Yeah, The first time a Teen Vogue article came up about me, I hadn’t reached out to them at al. I guess, I had picked up an episode I think it was, I want to say it was my consent episode that’s some forever ago. Every once in a while in the earlier days, I would google Queer Kid Stuff to just see what the chatter was, and to see if anyone has picked it up or anything like that. And I found the Teen Vogue article and I was like, “What just happened?” It had gone up two months before that. And I was like, “What? There’s been a Teen Vogue article about me up for two or three months and I didn’t notice?” My Google Alert clearly wasn’t working. They’ve been really great. They covered a couple things as well. I did that interview with them and they’ve been really supportive.
Dawn Serra: I get a fair number of questions on the show from people who are usually in their 40s and 50s, and are just starting to really question their sexuality or their gender. Maybe they’ve been married for 15 or 20 years. Maybe they’ve got kids. And they’re just starting to kind of go, “Wait a minute. Maybe this weird feeling I’ve had my whole life is because I’m a different gender than I thought or maybe I’m bisexual and I always thought that I was straight.” And there’s a lot of distress for adults, especially who are in somewhat more traditional situations, cities, families, those kinds of things to kind of start butting up against this. Something that you said in your Teen Vogue interview about gender was, “My advice is to throw out the rulebook. Wear what feels comfortable. Do what you enjoy doing. Follow your own happiness. Who cares what you should and shouldn’t do? Gender is a construct.”
Kids have kind of this beautiful position where they don’t have history, they don’t have baggage around what these words mean. Everything that they’re getting around what these words do or don’t mean is from adults. And adults tend to have lots of baggage and lots of feelings.
Lindsay Amer: Lots and lots.
Dawn Serra: A lot. So, what would be your advice to an adult who’s starting to ask themselves these questions and maybe finds it really uncomfortable or really scary, that you would want to just throw out there?
Lindsay Amer: I’d say be patient with yourself. Talking to adults is very different from talking to kids because of those baggage – I don’t know if I would call it baggage. But, we’ve constructed, as adults go, how we understand the world around us – how it works, how it functions, how we perceive other people, how we predict other people to function, and all of the logic structures that make up the world we live in and how we live our lives. So that is all super solidified, especially by the time you’re like 30s, 40s, 50s. And it’s really hard to undo it. That’s a huge reason why I primarily work with kids because I want to kind of help them build their own scaffolding. Whereas, let’s take this metaphor for a second, you’re talking about a kid who is just building the foundation of their identity house. So, I can come in and I can help them build that up and we can start building that structure from the ground up – from scratch. Where as with a 30, 40, 50-year-old, you’ve got a fully home-decorated house. So, when you’re coming in at that point, you got to invest time, you got to invest money, you got to invest a lot of emotions into doing a renovation. And that takes a lot of time and a lot of patience.
So I would say, if you’re having these feelings, if you are thinking that something’s not right, if something feels like – there’s that little tingling feeling of something just isn’t quite fitting here. If you’re feeling that, be patient with yourself. Let yourself go through that process. What is this? Where is this not fitting with my construction of the world? And where might I need to make an adjustment? Where can I? Where can people in my life help me make that adjustment? What are all the steps in that? Because it’s definitely like a thing and, yeah, be patient with yourself. That’s the message there.
Dawn Serra: I really appreciate that. I think that patience can be really hard when we kind of start to, “Oh my god, what if I’m gay?” And then kinda you’re off to the races and we’re all so good at being super busy and thinking about all the things past, present, and future. I think that often when we’re like, “Maybe I’m kinky. Maybe I’m queer. Maybe I’m…” whatever it is. It can take up a lot of space. And so, I think that patience is super important. I also think just naming, we’re allowed to change our minds and we can try things on and see if they work for us. I think that’s something else that happens, too, when we tighten up and constrict. It can feel very all or nothing.
Lindsay Amer: Absolutely.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. So first of all, I just want to say I am deliciously envious, in the most supportive of ways, that you got to be on Dylan Marron’s conversations with… Dylan is doing such amazing work in the world.
Lindsay Amer: Yeah. Dylan is lovely.
Dawn Serra: So, you had an opportunity to talk to someone who left a comment on some of your stuff who disagreed with talking to kids about queer stuff. And I’d love to hear a little bit about what that was like to really have a conversation with someone who had made it really clear that they don’t think talking to kids about queer stuff is something that they agree with.
Lindsay Amer: Yeah, I mean, there’s definitely an exercise and patience. And it was pretty eye opening, I have to say. During the conversation, it was also a much longer conversation and Dylan edit it down, so it feels a lot more intense to listen to than it actually… It was definitely an intense conversation, but it was over a longer period of time. We were kind of able to adjust and adapt as the conversation was going and really figure out where the other person was coming from, which is something that I had never really sat down and taking the time to do with someone who has a different opinion from me.
I’m not like someone who really seeks out conflict in my everyday life, especially conflicts like that. That’s the kind of thing, I felt super comfortable with Dylan and I really trusted him to be able to facilitate that conversation for me. And that was a huge, huge part of it. I’m really glad I went through that experience just to hear where all this was coming from. It came down to a very philosophical ending of how we view the world and how constructs are built and whether they can be shifted or not.
I hope I planted a seed in him – in the commentary I had of, I am a person too and there are people who identify as non-binary in the world and there are people who identify as trans in the world. There are kids out there who need to learn about different people and diversity. I hope I was able to get that across and I think I really listened to why he didn’t get – why he liked wasn’t there. But it was super interesting conversation.
Dawn Serra: It struck me that one of the ways that you described Queer Kid Stuff is gender studies 101 – meets Mr. Rogers Neighborhood and I literally, just this past weekend, watched the Mr. Rogers documentary. And what really struck me about so much of what they were saying was how at the time, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood was very radical. And he was really taking a pretty political stance but from a place of love and reaching across the aisle and bringing people in who were black and bringing people in who are disabled. Seeing you do something very similar from this place of love and acceptance and kindness and then talking about drag and talking about asexuality and talking about bullying. So, as someone who is doing something really radical, what’s the response been?
Lindsay Amer: The response to what, in particular?
Dawn Serra: To just Queer Kid Stuff and what you’re putting out into the world.
Lindsay Amer: Oh, what the response is from the world. It’s definitely pretty black and white, I would say, but for the most part – at least, it was what I hear. People are either super on board, really are into it or are messaging me about their gender creative kids and how they’re using in their classrooms and all this really cool stuff – those are the people who are totally on board with me are getting it and getting the message and understand why it’s important. And then like the polar opposite is like, “This is like child abuse.” “This is indoctrination.” “This is a detriment to society.” People who just don’t see eye to eye on what I’m trying to do. People who think that I’m trying to teach kids about sex and teach things that are inappropriate in their eyes to kids. So those are kind of the two ends of the response that I get.
Dawn Serra: Has there been an episode that you’ve had that either gotten overwhelmingly, “Holy shit, this is the best ever response,” or a really big kind of knee jerk like, “Oh my god, this is literally Satan work.” Has there been a particular episode that’s just really, really fucked people up?
Lindsay Amer: Yeah. Yeah, I’d say that the two episodes that really got people just hit a nerve were, super surprising too. Well, the first one was “T is for Trans.” So kind of explaining what trans identity is to kids. And that was the tail end of the first season. That was one of the first ones that got people really up in arms. Then in my second season, I did an episode with a drag queen for Pride and people flipped their shit about that episode which is still surprising to me. There was a bearded drag queens, I was trying to play with gender a little bit and show kids you don’t just have to be super high femme to be a drag queen. But, yeah, people were not happy about that.
There was like a thing. There like a meme that went around about it. I think it was on the front page of Reddit at one point. And this was really intense. But, I think, one of the people who made the meme that was going around that was super violent and awful was someone who marched at Charlottesville. So yeah, the nazis are definitely on my tail sometimes. So, that one definitely got– And the very first episode. The very first wave of internet harassment that I got was on the very first episode – the pilot. I can’t watch it now. It’s such bad quality. But it exists on the internet. It got like written up on a Nazi publication and I got like this huge wave of Nazis and I’m Jewish. That was interesting. So I’ve definitely gotten, I’d say those are the three that are most stick out in my memory. I’m pretty good ignoring it at this point.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. And what about, for you, what conversations have felt the most nourishing? That you’ve been the most proud of?
Lindsay Amer: Oh, that’s a great question. I think since I’ve gotten better at ignoring the backlash of it- I’ve, in turn, gotten better at kind of trying to connect with my community around it. So I get emails and I get Facebook messages sometimes from parents who watch what I’m doing. And I love getting messages about people who’ve shown this to their kid. I’ve been doing t-shirts and stuff recently. I got a like an Instagram message of a kid and a Queer Kid Stuff shirt. And that was amazing. I don’t know if there’s anything in particular. I guess the consent episode had some really good feedback. Particularly because it was right around when Me Too was happening. I guess it was a little bit before a lot of stuff started breaking. But it felt super, super relevant and that’s something that I was really proud of. And I think that episode just turned out really well also. I think that that’s like an episode that continued to stay relevant. I’m like, “Hey, if any of your adult friends need a lesson on consent, watch this video, please.”
Dawn Serra: It works for everyone.
Lindsay Amer: It does, it does. The secret of Queer Kid Stuff is that it’s not for kids.
Dawn Serra: Right. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think one of the beautiful things about the show is how much permission you’re giving to adults to be able to then share content and ask questions with young people and share their own stories with young people. And, it’s really powerful.
Lindsay Amer: Exactly. And I think that’s where my theater background comes in a lot, too, of not wanting to talk down about these topics; and making it entertaining and clearly it’s for kids. But really, what I’m doing is simplifying and taking out all of that adult baggage away from these topics. And just getting to the core of what these issues are and saying, “Hey, anyone can understand this.” Really, what it boils down to is gender, most of the time honestly, and if we can kind of pull that apart and make that accessible for kids, we can make that accessible for anyone.
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Dawn Serra: So, for people who are listening that do have young kids in their life, and they aren’t sure how to initiate conversations about things like gender or sex, what is your hope for them and the ways that they can initiate those conversations or even tips or suggestions that would make it just a little bit easier than, “Now we’re going to have the gender talk.”?
Lindsay Amer: Yeah. I mean, honestly, if you’re scared to have a conversation yourself, have your kids watch my videos. Watch the videos with your kids. There’s so many different ways to engage with this material. And if you want to watch it yourself and then have the conversation and you feel like you have more knowledge and the language to be able to do it, you can do that too. It’s really not that scary. And honestly not talking about it is more damaging, because kids are going to be curious and they’re going to figure something out about it anyway. Wouldn’t you rather have control over that conversation? Wouldn’t you rather be able to kind of couch that in a space that’s positive and affirm them and who they are and who they could be? Rather than hearing from their friend in the courtyard like, “Oh my God, he’s so gay.” That’s not the space where you want them to hear the word gay for the first time as potentially a slur. And if you can, going back to that metaphor I had about the house, if you can build that foundation with them, first of all, strengthens your bond with them and being able to have difficult conversations and not being scared of that. Opening it up for them in the future to feel comfortable going to you if they’re having questions about their identity, that is a huge part of laying that foundation.
You’re also letting them be themselves. And, if they have a positive association with something they could be… There’s so many issues with mental health and LGBT youth. And this is really a huge way to combat that. It’s as simple as having a conversation.
Dawn Serra: The laying the foundation around the conversation is – it’s such great advice. And I love that metaphor. I think that that metaphor really works for so many types of conversations in our lives, whether we’re talking to kids for the first time about gender and consent and bodies or we’re just entering into a relationship for the first time. It’s so much easier to enter into relationships with other adults where the foundation is one of curiosity and open conversation and letting space for awkwardness and, “I’m not really sure what to say,” than to try to initiate those conversations five or 10 years into a relationship when now you’ve got this whole house; and to ask some of these questions might shake the foundation a little bit.
Lindsay Amer: Yeah, totally.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. When I grew up, there was definitely nothing about queerness or gayness. Will and Grace was kind of a thing when I was in high school or maybe in college, I don’t remember. Now we’ve got kids who are coming up in a world where their pop culture is talking about gender and showing a variety of ways to be. And there’s YouTube full of incredible people making content like yourself. When you think about, four and five year olds today, growing up and being adults, what is your hope for the future of queerness and gender in the ways that people experience it? Moving beyond oppression, where do we end up?
Lindsay Amer: I just want people to feel comfortable being themselves out in the world. And not having to wait so long to come out and figure that out. What would my life have looked like, especially when I was a teenager, even earlier in my 20s if I had come out as queer and non-binary and figured that out when I was a little kid? What would my life look like? And that struggle I went through when I was a teenager in high school and having a really hard time – would I have the same struggles?
I think a lot of queer people go through this thing where, because a lot of people, especially a lot of people that I know, might come out later in life in college and their 20s; they feel like they’re back as teenagers when they’re in their 20s and they kind of have to go through– Not like a puberty or anything but figuring out how to have relationships. And, it’s definitely like lost time, you know? Of not being your true self. So, I just I wonder what that world will look like where people feel more comfortable just being themselves from the get go and be able to have that time of exploration that your childhood is supposed to be, and it’s not just supposed to be that for straight white kid.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, if we were able to grow up in a world that had less bullying and less violence, so that whether we were fitting in with kind of traditional gender roles are not, to have the people around us just being like, “Oh, cool, that’s who you are. No distress there. Let’s figure out if we like each other based on other things,” but it has no bearing on on like your identity and how you show up in the world. It feels like there’s so much more potential to actually be able to connect with people based on beliefs, and values, and desires, rather than, “I’m just clustering with the folks who don’t harm me.”
Lindsay Amer: Yeah, and also being successful in whatever ways you might categorize that. There’s a crazy percent of the wealth in America that’s held by straight cis men. And, what would it be if we were able to pursue our selves and our passions, and be able to bring ourselves fully to that. I think, honestly, I think it’s like an economic thing as well.
Dawn Serra: Yes, yes. ‘Cause it’s not just our personal relationships. Iit’s not just the people we’re having sex with. It’s not just the people that we’re cohabitate with or whatever kind of relationship structure we have, which you’re right. It’s like, who’s creating the media? Who’s winning the awards? Who’s creating the companies and how much of ourselves are we hiding or code switching because we can’t show up fully? What a loss for us, collectively, when people are spending so much time and energy hiding parts of themselves. What innovations and what kinds of connections are we losing?
Lindsay Amer: Yeah. I mean, I think diversity is twofold of like… up at the top you need to be seeking out those who are from marginalized identities. If you’re making a blockbuster film like we need more like POC directors, POC people in film crews and on camera – things like that. I have a friend who was working on a project and really wanted a woman of color to direct the web series. And, she just couldn’t find someone because there’s so few and that has so much to do with accessibility, and with economic status, and racism, and systemic racism, and all that. The same obviously goes for queer people, especially queer people of color. And it’s twofold. It’s up at the top and it’s down at the bottom. It’s a question of global happiness. How do we get people into these spaces where they feel like they have the ability to pursue what they want to pursue? Yeah, I don’t know. I feel like I’m talking to myself in circles. It’s just this topic ideal. And, I think that kids are the way to get there.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, there’s so much. I mean, I feel like the violence and the trauma is more visible than ever. There’s also so many more resources available not only for kids, but for the adults that are in kids lives to be able to support them in different ways than it has ever really been available. And, I think that that’s really hopeful.
Lindsay Amer: Yeah. And I think something that I was looking at a lot when I first started Queer Kid Stuff was that the things that did exist around very young kids and queerness and social justice – the things that didn’t exist were parent and teacher guides of how to talk to kids. And that puts so much pressure on the adult, especially someone who hasn’t had that much experience. I think something that I’m really trying to do is take that burden off of adults to be able to have a tool to use with young people and that makes it so much less scary. And it’s about mitigating that process of, “How do we get this information to kids because they need it?”
I think that was a big thing – trying to do what I’m doing in the way that I’m doing it, particularly.
Dawn Serra: So on Queer Kid Stuff, which for anybody who hasn’t seen it, please go check it out. The videos are adorable and wonderful. And just a side note, your mom is so talented. The song you two did on Mother’s Day, so cute.
Lindsay Amer: Oh, thanks. I’ll let her know.
Dawn Serra: You’ve talked about binaries and what the gender binary means, and drag queens, and trans, and intersex. You’ve been teaching kids who watched to ask people for their pronouns and to not talk about bodies. You’ve gone so many incredible places and I wonder where do you want to go next – like in future seasons, what are conversations you either haven’t had yet? Or conversations you want to revisit in new ways? What’s on the horizon?
Lindsay Amer: Yeah, so I’m going to be dropping a fourth season of videos. We just had a fully funded Kickstarter, which was great that I’m using to pay my crew for that. I’m actually just really quickly pull up an episode during that season just to remind myself that I’m actually putting up a mini series of episodes to hold everyone over until January when season 4 comes up. And that’s going to be specifically for grown ups. So, I’m doing just a couple topics that I wanted to touch on because my stuff is so geared towards kids, but the people who really are watching are– what I found is that a lot of classrooms use my work and adults will watch it with their kids during family time or it does tend to be an adult and child activity. I mean, I obviously don’t hear from the kids who are watching it by themselves because they don’t have access to communication tools to talk to me.
So I wanted to get in front of the adults and talk to them about how best to use Queer Kid Stuff at home. I have a couple of tips that I’m going to do in one episode. We’re going to meet a queer kid, which is going to be really fun. I talk about parenting a little bit, which is, it’s going to be interesting, and I’m going to see how that goes over ‘cause that’s a dangerous territory sometimes. But, I mostly just want to start that conversation and kind of get adults to maybe trust me a little bit more and include them in the conversation. So that’s something I’m looking at for this early part of the next season. And then, I’m really working on expanding because we’ve basically covered all the points. For the most part, we’ve covered pretty much all the foundational queer stuff you need to understand to be able to get to a new place.
Lindsay Amer: So, I want to talk about a little bit more about diversity and what that means in different aspects of queerness. I’m going to do an episode on immigration. And I’m working on a potentially a Spanish vocabulary episode – moving into those spaces and then being politically relevant. I think that that’s important to be reacting to what’s going on in our world as well. And, there’s only so much you can do in a kid show to undermine that.
You brought up the Mr. Rogers documentary before and there’s this great segment where they talk about how there was a law that was going on at the time, where there were segregated public pools, and Mr. Rogers did an episode where he had the black mailman come into his backyard and share a little foot bath with him and his little kiddie pool. It’s so small especially looking back on that – not having the context you watch that. And it’s evergreen. It’s not something that’s really directly didactically talking about that political moment. But that is so in your face radical that he was doing that at the time. That’s kind of the kind of activism that I’m interested in. Is this very subtle subversion that’s kind of getting into kids brains. Maybe you’re hearing a little bit about that those like whispers about current events that are probably going on in your house. But this is what I’m talking about. This is how I’m reaffirming that “No, don’t listen to what the grownups are doing. Listen to this.”
Lindsay Amer: I’m also going to read you the bisexuality episode. That’s been a long time coming. That first episode that I did, is a little bit of a definition I have is low to binary and that’s a result of when I was first starting the show. I’m not doing quite as much research as I should have been. And that was my fault. I haven’t taken it down because I don’t want to erase that representation. But we’re going to reboot that.
This next season, I’m looking at autism and queerness. Because there are a lot of kids with autism and it’s super connected to queerness. I’m actually really excited about that episode. I want to talk about transitioning and what that is because that’s something that trans kids are going through. And people who might have young kids who might have parents who are transitioning. I want to talk about adoption. I’ve actually had that as a request a lot. I’m curious about– I’ve been wanting to do a religion episode for a long time some kind of getting the guests together to do that one. But yeah, you’re listeners just got a pretty good season sneak peek for next season. As far as I know right now, I’m going to do season four and then I’m planning on a season five. No idea what I’m going to do for season five but I think that’s probably going to be the end just because I don’t know how much more I can pull out of my ass. It’s meant to kind of live there. Pretty much all the episodes are evergreen can be watched whenever. Quality obviously gets better with each season as we have a little bit more change and we get better at doing it in my crew. But yeah, I just don’t know how much more I can do after that. There’s only so much you can kind of cover. But seeing where that goes. If I feel like we haven’t covered enough after season five – fully happy to do a season six. But I don’t feel like I’m going to quite have enough content to do that.
Lindsay Amer: After that, I am right now a big part of – I actually just turned freelance. It’s very exciting.
Dawn Serra: Congratulations.
Lindsay Amer: Thank you. And I’m doing a little bit more, not quite full time, but a little bit more part time freelance. I’m really working hard on trying to expand Queer Kid Stuff into kind of different modes and pitching places and doing kind of cool things in other sectors. So keeping this ethos of queer all ages media, and trying to spin it into whatever else it can be. So I’m really excited about those possibilities and they’re definitely possibilities.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, I think what’s so important is that there just isn’t a lot out there. There’s definitely, over the past decade, been some great growth around kids books and diversity with Flamingo Rampant and some of the other publishers picking up on things. And Tango Makes Three was one of the very first ones and so many other kids books have come out since then. But we’ve got a couple of animated cartoons that are out there that have some cool queer representation – not enough and some YouTubers. So, I love that you’re thinking, “What can I do beyond this YouTube channel?” Because we need so much more.
Lindsay Amer: Yeah, we really do. And the growth has been enormous and I loved watching that like this is this is getting somewhere, but how can I situate myself so that in five years time, five or so – I think this is the five years. That’s my goal of like, Where can I be? Where I can move this forward. That’s what excites me because the wave is gathering. It definitely is. It just it hasn’t quite reached where it needs to be yet. In terms of general representation and kids’ media. And I think it there’s a lot of stuff, especially in books, where it’s been growing pretty rapidly. I think you have a lot more freedom in book publishing. Because I actually don’t know why. But I’ve got this like giant stack of picture books in my office. There’s so many queer options that are actually, some of them suck, but some of them are really, really good. And it’s cool to see diversity of quality.
I mean, I think that that’s a big thing in television right now is that there’s a lot more of it, but some of its bad and some of its good. And we would like it all to be good, but the fact that there’s enough of it, for some of it to be good and some of it to be bad is kind of an achievement, weirdly. Just the quantity is pretty… It’s getting there. It’s not quite there yet.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, yeah. So, I have one last question for you before we wrap up and then go record a little Patreon bonus chat. And that is your bullying episode, I think is so important for so many reasons. One, we know bullying happens for so many different kids in so many different bodies and identities. Growing up often bullying is a way to either deflect pain off yourself or to feel like you belong. And so, having those conversations throughout kids lives is super important. I think, also, it’s important for adults to think about. I think adults engage in bullying online all the time without realizing that they’re being bullies. I think it’s kind of like, “I’m just expressing myself.” So what was it like for you to, one, take on the topic of bullying? And what do you want adults to really think about when it comes to bullying?
Lindsay Amer: Yeah, I think that episode was one I kind of held off on for a long time. I talked about homophobia in my first season. But bullying didn’t come around ‘til about season three, I think. And it’s one that had been requested for a long time as well. Something I try and do on the show and the way I kind of categorize my activism is through joy. And this positivity and those kinds of those conversations – those more serious conversations don’t obviously fit into that space. I would love to not have to do that episode. But unfortunately I do because of the world we live in. So it’s definitely an interesting question. Just because I wish that episode didn’t have to exist and yet it really, really does. Because I need kids to know that this message that I’m trying to get across of you are enough and you can be who you are who you are, does have a catch to it sometimes. I want young people to know that, like I acknowledge that and it’s something that you do need to be aware of if trying to live truthfully. That’s kind of like the unfortunate truth of it, and to prepare yourself for it and not let the haters get to you.
I do those episodes pretty infrequently because I do want the message to be this positivity and I don’t want kids to be scared to be themselves because of these realities. But I think it’s kind of like, “Okay, we’ve gone through all this awesome stuff.” These abilities, these different ways of being just FYI this thing could happen to you. And if it does, you got to talk to adults about it. And because we’ve already built the trust and the series of… I’m obviously an adult in this kind of setting that I’ve created who can hopefully be trusted. And hoping that the episodes and if kids are watching them with adults, that that space can build trust, as well. So it’s a hard thing to talk about. I also I did that bullying episode in the same hand as a school safety episode after the Parkland shooting happened. And those are two episodes that I felt were really important at the time to react to what kids are gone through on a day to day basis. It’s hard to acknowledge that and really recognize that reality. But those are real emotions that are happening in children’s lives and I want to make sure that they feel heard in that as well.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, and I think it’s just important, too, for adults to know that it’s okay to not get it right. I mean, these conversations have to happen continually.
Lindsay Amer: Oh, yeah.
Dawn Serra: And it’s not like you just have one conversation about bullying or about queer issues or about sex and it’s over. It’s an ongoing dialogue. I think one of the things that’s so beautiful about what you’re offering is the sooner you start the dialogue, the easier and the more natural it becomes a part of your relationship. And so, it doesn’t become this huge cliff you feel like you have to jump off of in order to have this scary and uncomfortable conversation. Because it’s not easy to talk about bullying, even if you’ve got all these resources.
Lindsay Amer: Yeah, exactly.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. And the same with queer stuff. Especially if you’re straight and you’re trying to talk to your kid about an experience that you’ve never had before. The conversations can be uncomfortable, but that’s a good thing. Modeling that is a good thing. We need kids to see us kind of struggle and still do things anyway.
Lindsay Amer: Absolutely.
Dawn Serra: So for people who want to stay in touch, find you online, check out Queer Kid Stuff, where should they head?
Lindsay Amer: Yeah, so it’s at Queer Kid Stuff – just one. Queer Kid Stuff. It’s probably wrong if it’s Queer Kids Stuff. I get that a lot. So that’s where you can find me. Twitter, Facebook. Queer Kid Stuff is on all the places. I’m Lindsay Amer – @lindzamer that’s my handle. You can also find us at Queer Kid Stuff. We’re Queer Kid Stuff on YouTube. It’s pretty easy to find.
Dawn Serra: Awesome. Well, I will have links to all the things and folks who are listening be sure you subscribe to the channel so that you can get notifications when new videos come out. So, you can click in the show notes or head to dawnserra.com to find all the information. Of course, you can also head there to send me a note if you got any questions or stories that you want to share. Lindsay, thank you so much for being here with us and telling us all about the amazing work that you’re doing out in the world. I’m so excited that you’re sharing yourself this way.
Lindsay Amer: Thank you so much for having me.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, you’re so welcome. To everybody who tuned in, thank you so much for listening. If you support the show at $3 and above each month, you get weekly bonus content that you can’t hear anywhere else. So head to patreon.com/SGRpodcast. Lindsay and I are going to go record a little bonus chat for you over there. And until next time, I’m Dawn Serra. Bye.
Lindsay Amer: Bye.
Dawn Serra: A huge thanks to The Vocal Few, the married duo behind the music featured in this week’s intro and outro. Find them at vocalfew.com. Head to patreon.com/sgrpodcast to support the show and get awesome weekly bonuses.
As you look towards the next week, I wonder what will you do differently that rewrites an old story, revitalizes a stuck relationship or helps you to connect more deeply with your pleasure?