Queer Voices
Queer Voices
February 26, 2025 Queer Voices Activist Lou Weaver Trans Visibility, Author Lee Ingalls and LGBT Youth Suicide
Join us for an enlightening episode of Queer Voices as we explore pressing topics within the LGBTQIA+ community, featuring inspiring guests who are making a difference. In our first segment, we welcome Lou Weaver, trans activist and organizer of the Trot for Trans Visibility, an event celebrating community spirit and solidarity within the trans community. Mr. Lou Weaver passionately shares his experiences while organizing this fundraiser, emphasizing the importance of visibility and support for trans rights.
Shifting gears, we dive into the kitchen with R. Lee Ingalls, author of Cooking on the Prairie with the Ingalls. Lee discusses the inspiration behind his cookbook, celebrating beloved family recipes that capture the essence of togetherness. His heartfelt anecdotes about family gatherings and the joy of sharing meals evoke nostalgia for many listeners, illustrating how food can help build and maintain familial bonds.
Lastly, we sit down with Dr. Uchenna Ume, known as Dr. Lulu, who addresses a critical issue affecting the community: LGBTQIA+ youth suicide. Dr. Lulu shares her transformative journey as a pediatrician turned advocate, illuminating the alarming realities facing queer youth and the urgent need for parental support and affirmation. She provides valuable insights into creating safe spaces for LGBTQ+ children, emphasizing the importance of listening to and understanding their identities.
These rich conversations underscore the community's vital role in fostering resilience, hope, and joy. This episode serves as a powerful reminder of the work still needed to uplift and empower marginalized voices while encouraging listeners to engage more deeply in advocacy efforts. Tune in, get inspired, and join us in the movement for inclusivity and support within our communities!
Queer Voices airs in Houston Texas on 90.1FM KPFT and is heard as a podcast here. Queer Voices hopes to entertain as well as illuminate LGBTQ issues in Houston and beyond. Check out our socials at:
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https://www.instagram.com/queervoices90.1kpft/
Hello everybody. This is Queer Voices, a podcast version of a broadcast radio show that's been on the air in Houston, texas, for several decades. This week, brett Cullum has an interview with local trans activist Lou Weaver about the Trot for Trans Visibility fundraiser and social event coming up at the end of March. Then Brett talks with his husband, lee Ingalls, about his new book. It's a cookbook actually titled Cooking on the Prairie with the Ingalls. If you want good old family recipes, this is it.
Speaker 2:By mistake, my mother sent me her macaroni salad that she used to make for our large family gatherings. Now my mother is one of 11, dad's one of six, so when our family would gather there'd be close to 100 people there.
Speaker 1:So her original macaroni salad was huge and it's just comical to read it Davis Mendoza Daruzman has an interview with a queer Nigerian-born retired pediatrician who is dedicated to preventing LGBTQ youth suicide.
Speaker 3:I had to stop and ask myself what am I doing? Writing penicillin for strep throat in the clinic and writing Tamiflu for flu in the clinic when their children are literally trying to kill themselves? I need to figure out what's going on.
Speaker 1:And we have news wrap from this Way Out Queer Voices starts now.
Speaker 4:I am Brett Cullum and today I am joined by transgender icon and activist, lou Weaver. We are talking today about the Trot for Trans Visibility 2025. It's a Houston 5k fun run. It's going to be held on March 29th. Start at Frost Town Brewing. 8.30 is when they gather, 9 o'clock, the run starts. This entire event is supporting the Trans Legal Aid Clinic of Texas and the AAA Alliance, so I wanted to welcome Lou to Queer Voices. Hi Hi, how are you? How did you get involved with this event, lou? How did they draft you?
Speaker 5:Well, actually there was a person running two years ago in 2023, running cross-country. They started in LA and they were on their way to Florida and they were stopping in Austin the end of May to coincide with the end of the session, basically in Sinai Dai, and they were having a 5K and I was like I bet you, a lot of people from Houston would want to go to that and we can't get there. So I just took a chance, I emailed and said hey, I'd like to see if we could do something here in Houston the same day you're doing the trot and kind of pair it together. But do something. It's three hours away, blah, hey, why don't we just have an event in Houston? I was like, okay, I know nothing about running, I'm not a runner Me putting it on in five weeks and just being overwhelmed with the response we got 2023, that was in June.
Speaker 5:It was then the Trot for Trans Lives, like I said, in conjunction with Cal Dobbs, and then a bunch of people that I'm friends with that are actual runners are like hey, if you want to do this again, we're going to help you and we can make it so that we can help you figure out what you're actually supposed to be doing and everything. And so last year was our inaugural Trot for Transvisibility and it's just incredible. We had over 200 people sign up. We had to cut signups off and then people were still shining up at the door, so we were just letting them in and then, hey, you know what, whatever Frost has the room, we have t-shirts. Let's do this, and for me it's a lot of fun and the people are having fun, so that's why we'll keep going and we'll keep doing this. It's just we want to make it bigger and better, and it's just turned out to be a really, really good event for the trans community.
Speaker 4:In March too. 5k. I would hate to have Trot for Trans Visibility in June, july, august, something like that.
Speaker 5:Transday of Visibility is March 31st and so we're on that last weekend of March. We will always be that Saturday. Frost is a great partner to have. It's not very far over one to get onto the bayou. Then we run down. Well, I say we, they, I don't leave the brewery. They run down across the street right by University of Houston downtown, run up, do a quick turnaround and it's about 5K. So some will be back in 20 minutes, some will be back in an hour. We're going to have a drag show and some vendors and resources available.
Speaker 4:I love that it's open to all fitness levels because, trust me, I'm not running more than.
Speaker 5:Text from a friend the other day that said, hey, I ran into so-and-so and they told me I don't have to trot, I can walk, I'm in. I was like, yes, yes, it's a trot, walk, run, sashay, we don't care, just come hang out and do whatever, because when they get back they'll get a breakfast, taco and a drink of their choice. And that makes it easier on us, dude, not a whole bunch of people showing up at the same time.
Speaker 4:And you just look at the vendors, talk to people. You don't even have to get out there and try, unless you really really want to.
Speaker 5:I mean there were some people last year that came to support their person who did leave and do the 5K in whatever fashion, and they just stayed at the brewery and hung out and when their friends got there then they all got to hang out together. So it was a very, very supportive atmosphere of anybody who ever ran, walked at whatever levels, or even if people didn't leave the brewery or showed up at 10 o'clock and they're like I know my friends are gone and I'm here for a drag show and we're just going to have a great time. Brostown Brewing has an amazing outside setup. There's park benches, kind of things, wooden tables out there and it's just a good time. It's a great place just to sit. Hopefully it will be a little bit warmer than 43 degrees outside and we're going to have a good time.
Speaker 4:How do I get the shirt?
Speaker 5:We're going to sell the shirt. I know I'm for voices, we're not allowed to talk prices. The entry fee for the trot itself will get you a Lululemon tank top with our logo on the front and a breakfast taco and, like I I said, a drink of your choice. We'll have cold brew, there's mimosas, there's obviously beer on tap, there's even cider on tap, and then we will have regular t-shirts for people who don't like a tank top or who want both. Those will be available as well to pick up there. Those are going to be a really nice blue color, my favorite. So yeah, you can go home with some swag. If it's as beautiful as a day as last year was, we're all going to be in our tank tops. Last year I think it was like dinner time before I went home because we were just having so much fun.
Speaker 4:Let's talk about your cause to Trans Legal Aid Clinic of Texas and AAA Alliance. What exactly are their missions?
Speaker 5:That Trans Legal Aid Clinic of Texas started back in 2014 because that was before everybody was using Zoom and we would have meetings here at the Montrose Center. They very kindly gave us free space and we would go up and help trans folks get the documents they needed to go to court and change their name and or gender marker here in the state of Texas. And then COVID hit and within COVID hit in March and by July we were doing Zoom. It was great and also overwhelming. All of a sudden, we were helping people from across the state of Texas, not just right here in our hometown, and we have helped people from across the state of Texas people in the Panhandle, people down in the Valley, a couple of folks in El Paso and that's what we want. We want to be able to help anybody and everybody, because it can be confusing on what you need to do, and even more, as last August there was a letter that went out to DPS don't change anybody's gender marker. Then don't change anybody's gender marker on their birth certificate. And then, january 20th also, the federal laws changed and so, as a legal clinic, a lot of what we're doing is I am not a lawyer. I'm not an attorney. I'm just a guy who talks a lot and they let me. We just try and help them navigate the process and understand what they can and can't do or what they should or shouldn't do or might or might not want to do. That's our whole goal. Last year it was the biggest year yet and then so normally for the legal clinic anybody that's come through our clinic, we help them figure out how to file an affidavit for inability to pay, because it costs over $250 to get this court order to change your name and or gender marker. Most of the times the court will waive that, so we encourage them to do that. But then any other fees that come along with having a legal name change or legal transition, we will help pay for those. You need a driver's license in the future. You need your fingerprints done to go there. Do you need a doctor's letter? All of these types of things, and even without considering the $250, we're more than happy to give people a couple hundred dollars to get these things done.
Speaker 5:And then for people who wanted prior to last August, people who wanted that X on something the only way they could get it was a passport. So we were helping people get a passport card because it looks a lot like a driver's license. And then things happened in November and in December we were very, very lucky to partner with the Montrose Center and they helped us fund over 500 folks for passports. We raised enough to do about 250, I think 300 on our own and we wouldn't have been able to go very much further. But then the Montrose Center really came through in a big, huge way that we hadn't seen before and helped us get another 500, which we did in two weeks, the beginning of December, and it was phenomenal. It was just so incredible to help so many people that wouldn't have been able to make this happen, and it was really like the first time we'd seen another organization step in to help us that way. So it was I don't have the words to talk to tell you what it meant to all of us, to Pete and I he's our board chair to make that happen.
Speaker 5:And then we took some time off, but that's really what we're doing. We started back up. We have our clinics now and it's rough. We don't know how much we can help people. A lot of it's like yeah, sorry, no, you can't do that anymore and keep this for the future. You can't change your gender marker on any Texas IDs. We do not suggest you attempt to change it on a passport or a social security card, which it's trying. It's hard, but there's also so many other legal needs that maybe could be met with for our folks, like wills and powers of attorneys and things like that. So we're going to be looking at our future here pretty soon.
Speaker 5:And then the AAA Alliance it stands for. So the legal clinic has one lane and one lane only, and it does it really really, really well, and so we want to stay in our lane. So the triple a alliance was formed to kind of do some events, and that's what it does. It's it's moving allyship and advocacy into action, and action can be a bunch of different things. Once a month, generally on the last monday of the month, unless there's an astros game frost town brewing, which is closed on mondays, is opening up just for us to have a social for the trans and non-binary community to come and hang out. There's no agenda, there's no nothing. Come and eat and just be in a space where it's primarily for us, with us, about us. So that's what we do mostly.
Speaker 5:And then we have art shows. We also have an Off With your Chest program where last year we were raising money for one of the trans guys to get to what he needed to get his top surgery. He had his top surgery in December and we were like you know what, if we could do this, let's just keep doing it. With the help of Julie Mabry over at Pearl Bar, we are continuing to raise funds so that we will be able to continue to help trans masc folks achieve their dream of having top surgery. And then we're working on how do we raise funds for trans women to get what they need or for folks that you know sometimes it's there are other organizations that have access to funds that they do distribute some hormones or binders and things like this. So how can we support things that people actually need here and now? And a lot of that, I strongly believe, is community. We need trans joy in a space that so many people are trying to not only take our joy but in some instances, are taking our lives, our identity and trying to take that.
Speaker 5:I'm sure you know, and hopefully most listeners know by now, that stonewall, the national park, has removed any reference to trans and queer folks, and right when you wake up and you go oh wait, we're back in the 80s and it's lgb again. It's like it's a gut punch and the only way to deal with that is we have so much rage, but we also have to have hope. And how do we balance that? We're not. I'm not pollyanna I mean it might sound like I am, but I have a lot of hope, but I also have a lot of rage. But my, I can't sit in my rage the whole time, and nothing is going to happen without hope. If we do not have hope, nobody will light that spark to keep us going. So that's where the community comes in. Is is giving us hope, giving us joy, being together, knowing we're not alone. Even if it's once a month, we get to show up, make new friends and be in a community where we want to be together.
Speaker 5:We are together and nobody's going to take that away from us and I've talked to John, the owner of Frost Town, and he understands completely and he was like we are going to keep doing this, we are going to keep supporting you, and that's what we're here for. And that's the kind of allyship right, he took his allyship, he moved it into action. The Montrose Center, julie, over at ProBorrow, they're making action happen out of the things that they care about, and that's what we want to do is just bring this to light, bring this into fruition, instead of saying, oh yeah, well, I'm a body, I'm here, it matters, it matters to me, it matters to you. There's so many different ways to get involved with community and some 90% of that is just showing up.
Speaker 4:We have to work that hard, just show up. It's hard and I think it's balancing that this year after the elections and things like that. I, I, just I sit there and go. How can I be an ally? What can I do to help people? And certainly events like this like the trot for trans visibility 2025 perfect way to do it. Hang out and get some social time in as well, with everybody. I am so just horrified at what's happening legally and when I look at the Trans Legal Aid Clinic and what you are doing for people and navigating this process now, which has just become what? Just completely unwieldy. It's always been sort of complicated, but now it's like next to impossible, right.
Speaker 5:Things have changed so much since we started back in 2014. It was me and four local lawyers. We were literally driving people to Austin to try and get this done, and then it became easier thanks to the help of Claire Bowe, an amazing trans activist lawyer, who was in Austin and what her advocacy did there, and for a while it was I don't want to say it was incredibly easy, but it was kind of sort of cookie cutter right. 75% of the people fit into one or two categories and that was really cool. And then it just started getting harder and harder.
Speaker 5:And now we're like, oh my gosh, but we're not going to stop right, nobody's going to make a stop, nobody's going to get in our way and we're going to keep continuing to do what we can to help people be who they are, both legally and as themselves, to navigate society, knowing that at least your name's right on your ID and a lot of people take that for granted, but think about every time you use your ID right.
Speaker 5:We're talking about drinking. I'm going to need my ID. Voting, getting a car, getting a hotel room, getting a job, getting my healthcare right. An ID is central to so much in our worlds that that can be a game changer for folks, our worlds, that that can be a game changer for folks and we need to continue to make that happen and be able to help folks get through that so that they can maybe get a different job or at least go out and get a drink without having a bunch of hassle. And it sounds like it's easy. I know it's not, because even if you're gender marker, but hopefully people don't look at that and they just look at the picture and look at your name and go, yep, yep, that's you.
Speaker 4:I gotcha. Just a reminder Trot for Transvisibility 2025 is going to happen on March 29th, very close to the day of transvisibility. Starts at about 8.30 in the morning. They're going to gather 9 o'clock if you plan to run trot, walk, sashay, whatever you need to do, and then you come back, and then after 10 or whenever we're having this vendor market how? And then you come back and then after 10 or whenever we're having this vendor market.
Speaker 5:How long does that last, phil, probably go to? About noon or 1, depending on how many people are there. The drag show starts at 10.30, and it's being done about noon. We wanted to start earlier this year so more people would still be there before running off to whatever their other activities are. I know that we're going to have Brazos Bookstore there and some other cool things to be shopping, as well as picking up resources. We will have testing for HIV. Allies and Hope Legacy will be doing cholesterol techs, things like that. So, right, we're talking about healthcare. We're talking about our whole health as well, as you know, being in community, but also taking care of everything that's going on with ourselves, whether it's buying a book, watching a drag show or just sitting around sharing drinks with your friends.
Speaker 4:Hey, you had me at drinks drag show or just sitting around sharing drinks with your friends. Hey, you had me at drinks drag show and books. I'm there.
Speaker 5:I know. What more could I really ask for when you design an event or when you think about where you want to go? This is what I want to do. I want to have a drink, I want to talk about books and I want to watch some good drag. Let's make it happen. So, yeah, that's why this game's about, because I don't have anything better to do. I don't have any. I don't go to events, I'll just plan them, and then I have to show up.
Speaker 4:Well, I got you. I feel like we have to show up too, march 29th. Thank you so much, lou.
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Speaker 4:I am Brett Cullum and I am joined by my most frequent guest here on Queer Voices. That is most likely because he is my husband and he is author and social media personality R Lee. Ingalls Lee, as you might have guessed from the last name, is directly related to the Ingalls family of the Little House on the Prairie fame, and he has taken up Laura Ingalls Wilder's idea of writing books about everyday life and their family's history. He already has two books to date and they're out there, but lately he has released a cookbook and it is called Cooking on the Prairie with the Ingalls Family. Lee, welcome back to Queer Voices.
Speaker 2:Thank you, my pleasure to be here. Thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 4:All right, first I want you to tell me a little bit about this project. It's not a history, which your other two books have been that, but rather a collection of recipes. So how did this idea come up and get started?
Speaker 2:The first two books, as you said, are non-fiction. They're continued stories of the Ingalls family. This one kind of takes a sidestep and looks a little closer into the family itself and the way that it came to be. It started in the early 2000s. Our family was gathering at that time during the thanksgiving holiday, and this particular year there was over 40 people that attended the, the lunch and in the holidays. It's a very warm, friendly, family time of year, and then you add to that all the food that we had. It was really an amazing event. So when I got back home after that trip it occurred to me those food items should be captured. They were all so wonderful and it's just good old home cooking comfort food. So I reached out to the family, asked them would be willing to share those recipes and put them in some form of a book that we could share with not only our family but those families that have an interest in Ingalls as well. And so that's how the idea started, and then we started collecting the recipes from there.
Speaker 4:As far as you know, there aren't any other Ingalls cookbooks out there. I mean there's certainly Little House on the Prairie thing cookbooks, but they're more about pioneer cooking and they weren't authorized by anybody in your family.
Speaker 2:That's correct. Yeah, there are a lot of books out there that do capture recipes from that time period, but as far as I know, there aren't any cookbooks that actually come from the Ingalls family itself.
Speaker 4:I find it interesting how folks often define their family by food. How many times have you heard somebody say, oh my grandmother's pie, or oh my mother's this or that? So what foods immediately make you think in your head your family, the Ingalls?
Speaker 2:And you're so right. In most of our family gatherings it all centered around food. Most of them because our family is so large were potluck events, so everybody brought some dish to the family and some of those that I go back to were from my grandparents my mother's potato salad same thing. I've had that since I was a small child, so those are a couple of the ones that I relate back to the family. They were at all of our family gatherings. It takes me back every time I have them.
Speaker 4:Are all of these recipes from your family?
Speaker 2:Most of them are. I try to identify the person that they came from in the recipe itself my grandma Ingalls her sticky bun recipe. My mother's potato salad. I have my grandma Patnode's pie crust recipe in there and that probably goes back to her parents because they were farmers, so her cooking skills came from her family experience as well.
Speaker 4:But some of these are family I would say chosen family. They're from more recent events in your life, right, Like cooking clubs and things like that. Can you tell me where those came from?
Speaker 2:There are several recipes that came from the cooking club and other sources. My mother-in-law one of the salads come from her. They are favorite recipes that when I make them, I frequently get asked for those recipes so that people can then make them on their own. So, yeah, it's a wide variety. All of them are favorite recipes. Many of them come from the family. Some of them come from my personal cooking as well.
Speaker 4:Well, shout out to my mom for actually making the book. I have an unfair advantage because I watched you try and test each recipe, so I know that you actually went back and cooked all of these. You prepared them. I got to taste them. I know a lot of people are going to be jealous right about now, but did you learn anything new about these dishes as you did them with a book in mind? Is there a different mindset when you're making something and you know that other people are going to follow these directions?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so when I get in the kitchen these days, I mean, I pretty much make the meals based on my memory, so they're not always going to be the same. But as I prepared them for this cookbook, I wanted to pay attention to the details. What is it that makes this recipe successful, Makes it different than those other ones that you would find out there? Ease of making the recipe and getting it to the table was also in the front of my mind as I went through these recipes and modified them and then, like I say, capture the details so that I could put them in a book form. Anybody reading the recipe would be able to look at it. Get it from the idea to the table quick and simple.
Speaker 4:How did you start cooking? When did that come up in your life?
Speaker 2:That's kind of a funny thing. Raised on a farm, my parents believed that the boys did all the work outside, the girls did all the work inside. So I grew up not really knowing how to cook my early life. Because of my living situation, I didn't really have to cook until I moved out on my own in my early 30s and then I realized I'm either going to have to learn my way around the kitchen or starve one of the two. So I set about trying to learn to cook and the early cooking experiences were not good. But eventually, through trial and error and commitment to it, I did learn to cook. But I more view myself as a home comfort food kind of cooker.
Speaker 4:I don't think anybody's going to complain about that. I think that most people want kind of that home style cooking and that's what we associate with our family and homes and things like that. One of the things that went through my mind in looking at this book I was wondering is writing a cookbook harder than writing what you've done in the past? You've done a family history, you've done the story of your mother and father, you've done your own story previously as two separate books but what was the challenge in writing a cookbook?
Speaker 2:Far different experience. The first two books, yeah, as you said, are nonfiction, so it was just capturing the details and writing them down. That was kind of the easy part With a cookbook. There is so many variables in each one of the recipes. You had to make sure that you nailed it down the way that you wanted it delivered. And then producing and publishing the book is a far different experience as well. There's a lot more that goes into a cookbook and creating it and getting it done than there is in the previous two books.
Speaker 4:Do you have like one recipe that everybody seems to ask for over and over again and that wouldn't make it into the cookbook this time?
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, there is one recipe that by far stands out in front of all the rest of the recipes that I have been requested, and that's my queso. I've been making it for about 50 years. The original recipe is there, but I've also added the variables that I have used over the years to make it what it is today. Make it what it is today. It's one recipe. I make it a couple of times a year. People come into our holiday party just for that, because they know it's going to be there. But there's a couple other ones also that follow up with that, and that's my mother's. Potato salad is another one that everybody asks for.
Speaker 4:Talking about having to really adapt these recipes. I know from seeing your mother's potato salad it wasn't exactly a small quantity that it made originally. Did you have to adapt a lot of these?
Speaker 2:My mother's potato salad and macaroni salad. Both are in the recipe book. They are pretty much as she made them, but it's for a large family gathering. So if you make those the way that they're written in the cookbook, you're going to have a large potato salad or macaroni salad. And one of the funny things that I included in the recipe book, by mistake, my mother sent me her macaroni salad that she used to make for our large family gatherings. Now my mother is one of 11. Dad's one of six, so when our family would gather there'd be close to 100 people there. So her original macaroni salad was huge and it's just comical to read it, so I included it in there just for the comedy aspect. However, if anybody needs to make a big salad for an event, now you have a recipe for it.
Speaker 4:Do you think there's a recipe in there that you would think would be the toughest for somebody to make? Is there one that's a particular challenge for you or the reader?
Speaker 2:No, I don't really think there is. I tried to put recipes in there that are good for someone who's a novice cook, someone that doesn't really know their way around the kitchen that well, because at one point I was there, this is a recipe book that I could have used at that time to put a full meal together. That would be both good and impressive, and you can do that several times over. So I don't really think there's any there that are particularly difficult.
Speaker 4:Is there any type of cooking that you look at and you go, oh gosh, this is not my strength, or what are your strong points as a cook? What are your weaker points?
Speaker 2:I try to stay away from those things that I don't think I can do well. So, from a cooking perspective, I again I'm a comfort food cooker, so most of the recipes in there that's what you're going to get is you're going to get something that's a comfort food. One of those things that I do try to stay away from are those meats or vegetables or those kind of things that are difficult to cook, and you won't find any of those here.
Speaker 4:I noticed in the back of the book you have cooking tools, you have like conversion charts and instructions on how to do things, how to do certain procedures. Where did that index come from? Where did those basics come from?
Speaker 2:Early on, my mother and I worked on this largely together. We were the two main contributors. One of the things that she said was that, as she was a young cook, she found it very difficult and frustrating that she could not find a complete set of kind of tutorial items in any one cookbook. She had to have several to get all the information that she needed and she really wanted to put it in one book so that someone could use that as a source for all kinds of things. So measuring cooking terms, replacing one ingredient with another ingredient, how much you do that one of the changes that you need to make with that. Her and I put it together. She did all the research. I have to give her credit for that. She would send me that information and then I put it in the form that you see in the cookbook today. So hopefully this can be a single source informational book for someone, especially people that are new to cooking that may not know all the terms.
Speaker 4:We're talking with R Lee Ingalls. The name of the book is Cooking on the Prairie with the Ingalls Family. Where can we find this book?
Speaker 2:The book can be found on Amazon. That's the easiest way to do it. I have not received my author copies yet, but once I do get those signed copies will be available through my social media sites. My family social media page is Instagram. Ingalls on the Prairie all jammed together lowercase. On Facebook you can find me under R Lee Ingalls.
Speaker 4:And how long have you been doing this kind of history of the Ingalls family and things?
Speaker 2:like that Always been interesting to me the history and a family's history, not just our family, but a family's history and my dad was a big photographer amateur photographer so he took tons of photos so I have all that information so I occasionally post that. This is, like I said, taking a sidestep away from the family history itself and kind of giving a glimpse into what our family gatherings were like.
Speaker 4:The book is called Cooking on the Prairie with the Ingalls family. It is available on Amazon R. Lee Ingalls is the author, somebody that I know very well because he is also my husband. So thank you, Lee, for being my guest and for being my spouse and for cooking most of our dinners every night. But I do want to go on the record and say that I do cook occasionally, at least a lunch here and there out of the air fryer. Maybe he does some leftovers in the microwave, that kind of a thing. But you are always my favorite guest here on Career Voices and thank you.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for having me here today and, yes, thank you for the lunches and breakfast.
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Speaker 8:I'm Davis Mendoza-Duruzman. I'm speaking today with Dr Uchenna Ume, more popularly known as Dr Lulu or the Momatrician. Dr Lulu is a queer Nigerian-born retired pediatrician, retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and current parent and life coach dedicated to preventing LGBTQ plus youth suicide, assisting parents in creating supportive environments for their queer and gender non-conforming children. Dr Lulu is also a TEDx speaker and has been featured on platforms like Oprah Daily. Please welcome Dr Lulu.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 8:And your journey from pediatrician and your journey into LGBTQ plus advocate is one that's deeply personal. You've touched on it a bit, but could you just share a moment when you realized that you needed to pivot your career to focus on preventing youth suicides and then LGBTQ plus youth suicides?
Speaker 3:I lost my first patient to suicide in 2015. I lost my first friend to suicide in the year 2000. She was a colleague just like me. She was a Nigerian immigrant female physician. We trained together in Nigeria and she took her life and actually that put me in labor. I had my second child six weeks early because of her death. Then, eight years later or four years later, I lost a patient to suicide. That hurts more than my friend because I was this child's physician and I missed the signs. I didn't think it would ever happen to someone that I know as a patient. I missed the signs.
Speaker 3:I remember the day the kid was in the office and the mother said she was concerned that he was using drugs and he came out clean. He didn't have any drugs, his urine was negative, but he just the light was off in his eyes and we couldn't figure out what it was. I, at least, still never figured out what it was. The next time I saw the mother, she came to tell me that he had ended his life and maybe a couple of years after that I had a seven-year-old who tried to do the same thing. So I had to stop and ask myself what am I doing writing penicillin for strep throat in the clinic and writing Tamiflu for flu in the clinic, when their children literally trying to kill themselves. I need to figure out what's going on. So at that point in time I hadn't even thought about my child being trans. I hadn't thought anything in that realm. I was just worried about my patients.
Speaker 3:And my ex-wife was the one who said you know, every day you come back, you tell me about these kids struggling with depression and struggling with trying to kill themselves. She said do you think maybe you're talking to the wrong person? I said what do you mean? She said maybe you should be talking to their parents. And I was like, oh, my goodness, you're right, I need to be figuring out why a child would want to end their life, I mean, why we need to go to at least the first source, which is the parent. And so that's kind of how I started thinking. I was thinking let me figure out what the parents are missing. What's going on in the house, house, why does a child want to run and jump? And then, about the same time, my own child.
Speaker 3:I started kind of thinking, well, maybe we're gay, maybe we're gay. And I was like okay, so are you gay? And they're like no, I'm not. I'm not sure. And as a black immigrant mother, I heard I'm not sure. And I took it and I ran with it because parents don't want their kids to be queer. No matter what anybody tells you in today's world, no parent will say yes, I want my child to be queer, I want my child to be gay. Nobody just wants that, even as a queer person myself. We don't want our kids to suffer, we don't want our kids to be ostracized, we don't want our kids to be bullied. We don't want our kids to be bullied. We don't want our kids to to be erased, which is what's happening today.
Speaker 3:So, trying to put two and two together, I was still trying to put my mind around that and then at the graduation from stanford we found out by accident, because the the announcer was, he was using they, them pronouns. So my kid and I was like wait, what's? Who are all these people this man is talking about? I thought you're the only one getting the award, because my kid was getting the award of excellence at the graduation and I was like, why does he keep saying they, them, who are these people? And then my middle child was like mom, I think it's because X is non-binary. I'm like what the? Is that? What is non-binary? I thought you were just gay and so, truly, we miss the whole gender diversity aspect of the child.
Speaker 3:And I tell people all the time that queer people, those of us who are sexual minority or who are in the LGBTQ space, we are not always thinking T Many of us don't realize that there's a difference between sexuality and gender identity. I didn't know that. I'm not going to sit here and lie to you. I had no idea and it's not something I was taught in medical school. It's not something I was taught in life. I had to learn. When my child presented this idea to me Somewhere along the line, I decided these kids who are trying to jump?
Speaker 3:What exactly is going on with them? And I found out almost 80% of them were in the LGBTQ space. I'm like wait, what Is this? What is happening? And then, by the time I did my first TED Talk, I found out that Black or African American children aged 5 through 12 are twice as likely to die by suicide as their white counterparts. This study was done in 2016 and then again in 2018. And both times the results were the same. So I'm like wait, what's going on with African-American kids? Why are they trying to kill themselves? Enter intersectionality, enter racism and bullying and just societal rejection. It's bad enough that the child is Black and now the child is also queer. That's a double jeopardy, so to say. And so I can't tell you that there was a moment when I was like this is the day that I realized it was all just. I think Steve Jobs is the one that said you can always end up connecting the dots backwards. So, looking back, I found that it has always been something that I was meant to do. It wasn't one moment. I was like okay, let me just do it today. It was just I'm a queer person.
Speaker 3:Growing up in Nigeria, I told my father that I liked boys and I liked girls, and he thought it was a phase and I believed him. I went to medical school and I was told it's a mental illness. So of course, I remained hiding in plain sight, because I'm like I'm not trying to let people think I'm crazy, because I know I'm not. And then I became a young adult and I did what everybody expected me to do, which is marry a man, live happily ever after. Or did I? I was hiding again in plain sight. Then I had my first kid and I was like, okay, I don't want this child to be gay, I don't want this child to be anything that people are going to think is abnormal or different. But the whole time I was thinking that, I was thinking about myself. I never for one moment thought about the child, and that's my job to help parents think about what the child is going through. Think about what the child is going through.
Speaker 3:Because of the book that I just published, I now know that it takes an average of 10 to 14 years before most children will tell their parents that they're queer. 10 to 14 years. So in my own case, I was 16. Of course, it makes sense that it's 10 to 14 years or more, right? In my kid's case, she was 20. So there you have it.
Speaker 3:The day you find out that you're queer is usually not the day you tell your parents, because first of all, you're like wait, I'm not, I don't want to be. So we have that internalized homophobia or internalized oppression or internalized racism, whatever we're fighting with ourselves. Could this be true? Could this not be true? Can it please not be true? Please, god, take it away from me. I don't want it to be All of those things. And then, finally, you come to the point you're like okay, self-acceptance. Now who do I tell? Am I feeling safe enough to tell my parents? Are my parents safe enough for me to tell them? Which is why I don't use the phrase coming out, I use the phrase inviting in, as my second TED Talk will tell you.
Speaker 3:So it's been a mixture of a beautiful dance and a beautiful poem, so to say, my life in this advocacy work and then, being as outspoken as I am, I used to ask God all the time why me? Why me, why me? Finally, god said, why not you? Why not you? I mean, who do you think you are? That can be you. You know, you're outspoken, you're a mom, you're a pediatrician, you're black, you're fierce, you're all these things. Who else do you think I'm gonna tell to do this work? And so it was humbling for me.
Speaker 3:It was a cross that I reluctantly carried that now I'm very happy to carry, because one thing that the universe will do is it will always send you people to help you get the work done. But you have to do the work, and so this is like queer voices. You are one of the people that the universe sent to me to help me magnify my voice, not because I don't have a voice, but because it needs to be magnified to spaces where maybe it wouldn't get to if I didn't have you. And that's the same thing that parents do with their kids. Their kids are not voiceless. Their kids have a voice, but their parents have to help magnify the voice and be fearless, especially today when an entire legislation, entire government wants to erase my child's existence. That's impossible. My child exists, whether the government likes it or not.
Speaker 8:I really appreciate you sharing your story, because I wanted to close this out with something for some of our listeners may really resonate with, which is the fact that many parents tend to struggle with accepting and affirming their LGBTQ plus children, often due to cultural or religious or just personal beliefs. My last question is what advice do you have for parents who are trying to reconcile their personal values with supporting their child's identity?
Speaker 3:If I had a penny for every time I get that question, I'll probably be a millionaire by now. The truth is, your child actually does not need to be accepted. Your child needs to be affirmed. The person that needs to be accepted is you. What I tell the parents all the time is you have to reconcile your own identity as the parent of a queer child. The struggle is between you and yourself. Your child is who they are already, regardless of how you feel and how you think, and so the first thing to do is to examine your thoughts about the queer community, your ideology about the queer community.
Speaker 3:Where did that idea come from? Did it come from a queer person? Did it come from society? When was the last time society was right? The truth is, society is not always right. We know that because most upon a time in America, a black human being was assumed to be one person. That didn't make it right. Once upon a time, blacks were not allowed to drink from the same fountain as white people. That didn't make it right. Society has a long history of being wrong. Should we go to Hitler? Should we go to the Jews? Should we go to what's happening today in America If your ideology about queer people is coming from society. That is incorrect.
Speaker 3:In my third TED Talk I make a case for that. I say we should parent as students of our children. Our children should teach us who they are. The truth is that you, as a parent, you have to teach your parents who you are. People always teach you who they are, but you have to first allow them. So the first lesson is examine your thoughts about the queer community. The second lesson and I usually use A, B, C, D, E, F as my little example so that people can remember that so the A is awareness. Become aware of your thoughts about the queer community. Acknowledge that you don't know what you don't know about your child. And then the third A is accept yourself and your new identity as a parent of a trans child or a queer child or whatever your child is in that community. The letter B is believe your child when they tell you who they are. The truth is whether you believe them or not. They are who they are, but your best choice to affirm them is to believe them. The C is create a safe space in your heart and in your home so that your child can invite you in. My child was 20 years old before I got invited in. Did I even get invited in? It was an accident, I didn't even find out truly in. Did I even get invited in? It was an accident, I didn't even find out truly. So allow your child to invite you in by creating a safe space for them to do so.
Speaker 3:The D is make a decision to affirm your child, regardless of what anybody else says. And affirming your child looks like saying the right things. Asking your child what do they want? How can you help them? How can you support them? Only the person wearing the shoes knows where the shoes hurt. Only the person who is trans knows how they want you to affirm them. Just because I tell you, Mom, I'm a lesbian, doesn't mean I want you to fly a flag. I may not want you to do that, or I might want you to do that. So ask your child how do they want you to do that, or I might want you to do that. So ask your child how do they want you to approach the support your child knows. And then F is finish strong Find community.
Speaker 3:A lot of parents think that they're doing this by themselves. I thought I was the only one, and the truth is we always think we're the only ones. But go online, find a community, find a PF, a p flag, find a human rights campaign, find the texas equality trying the aclu. Find somebody somewhere who knows what you're going through. Another parent who is not a parent of a child cannot understand my story. Another parent who is a white parent of a trans child cannot understand my story. Another black parent may not even understand my story because they are not a black immigrant. So finding the person who matches your story is the best place to begin.
Speaker 3:And I happen to be a black immigrant, female physician, mom of a trans kid. Those are all my intersectional identities. Trans kid, those are all my intersectional identities. And so I need parents, especially black parents, to hear me when I say your child does not choose to be queer, your child does not choose to be trans. This is not a religious thing, this is not a cultural thing. This is who your child is. And until we begin to close the gap between what we're thinking about our kids and who our kids really are, it's going to be almost impossible for our kids to invite us in.
Speaker 3:So the summary of that answer is number one examine your thoughts Examine the way you feel about the queer community as a whole. As a matter of fact, one of the people in my book said if you don't want to have a transgender child, don't have a child at all. That is a very powerful statement, because you don't get to choose who your child is. The book is called About your Black Transgender Child answers to most of your burning questions. The Kindle version is out. The paperback should be out in the next week or so. Tell me what you think about the book and let's have the conversation. Let's normalize the conversation. My name is Dr Lulu and I'm done speaking.
Speaker 8:Wow, that's incredible. I want to thank you so much for all of your amazing life-saving work it really is life-saving and for joining us on Queer Voices. I've been Davis Mendoza de Roosman speaking with Dr Lulu. Thank you so much for being on the show.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you, David. The night is long and the path is dark.
Speaker 7:Look to the sky for one place where the dawn will come.
Speaker 1:This is Queer Voices.
Speaker 9:I'm Michael LeBeau and I'm Melanie Keller With News Wrap, a summary of some of the news in or affecting LGBTQ communities around the world for the week ending February 22, 2025. February 22, 2025. The world's first out gay imam is dead. Killed in broad daylight on the streets of the South African city of Nabiara, the car Musson Hendricks was riding in was blocked off by a pickup truck. As seen on closed circuit video, two hooded figures emerged from the truck and opened fire into the back seat where Hendricks was sitting. His driver was uninjured. Eastern Cape police say the motive is unknown and the investigation is ongoing.
Speaker 9:To South Africa's second biggest political party. The nature of the killing strongly suggests a professional hit, as a Democratic Alliance representative told the CBC. The 57-year-old Hendricks came out as gay in 1996. He held his first meetings in his home, then in a mosque he established where all Muslims could pray without judgment. The February 15 murder sent shockwaves throughout the queer Muslim community and local and global equality advocacy groups. The International Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and Intersex Association called on local authorities to thoroughly investigate what we fear may be a hate crime. Ilga World Executive Director Julia Ert called Hendricks' life a testament to the healing that solidarity across communities can bring in everyone's lives.
Speaker 9:The Muslim Judicial Council and the United Ulama Council of South Africa condemned the killing. Both leading South African Muslim organizations consistently criticize Hendrick's efforts at reconciliation. Hendricks' efforts at reconciliation. Both maintain the traditional view of Islam that the Koran prohibits romantic, same-gender relationships. His high-profile advocacy made Hendricks the frequent target of death threats In the 2022 documentary the Radical. He said about his coming out the need to be authentic was greater than the fear to die. Musson Hendrick's funeral was reportedly held in Cape Town.
Speaker 6:About 30 young children and adults are traumatized after the invasion into an Auckland, new Zealand drag king story time by some 50 far-right Christians. Hugo Girl's February 15th event was part of the city's annual LGBTQ pride celebration. The disruptive protesters affiliated with the fundamentalist Destiny Church punched, pushed and shoved their way inside the building. According to local media accounts, when they refused to leave the event, organizers were eventually forced to cancel. Auckland Police Inspector Simon Walker thinks the protesters crossed the line. In his words, the group's actions caused considerable distress and concern among children, library staff and visitors. Nobody, especially children, should ever be made to feel unsafe. Walker says that the investigation is in the early stages. Several hours after the library attack, destiny Church members broke through barricades and tried to block the Auckland Rainbow Parade. Police forced them to disperse without any physical confrontations. No arrests have been announced.
Speaker 9:Judge Ana Reyes says the claim that trans pronoun use undermines troop effectiveness is frankly ridiculous. She heard arguments on February 18th in the US District Court for the District of Columbia challenging President Donald Trump's executive order to ban military service by qualified transgender and lesbians. Reyes found some of the government's arguments biologically inaccurate and called them simply evidence of unadulterated animus towards trans people. The lesbian jurist demanded can we agree that the greatest fighting force that world history has ever seen is not going to be impacted in any way by less than one percent of the soldiers using a different pronoun than others might want to call them? Reyes is clearly expected to rule for the plaintiffs.
Speaker 9:Jennifer Levi is senior director of Transgender and Queer Rights for GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders or GLAD Law. Her group has joined with the National Center for Lesbian Rights to represent the plaintiffs. Levi told the Washington Blade the government cannot justify discharging transgender troops who have honorably served our country for years. Judge Reyes still must officially decide whether to issue a temporary restraining order blocking implementation of Trump's January 27th anti-trans order. Reyes still must officially decide whether to issue a temporary restraining order blocking implementation of Trump's January 27th anti-trans order. Earlier this month, another group of transgender service members filed a separate challenge to the ban on Fifth and First Amendment grounds in a federal court in Washington state. They're represented by attorneys from Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign.
Speaker 6:Kansas Democratic Governor Laura Kelly tried again, but the third time. The overwhelming Republican majority in the state legislature overrode her veto of a measure outlawing pediatric gender-affirming health care. It's one of the nation's harshest trans health care bans. Providers can be stripped of their medical licenses for unprofessional conduct or sued by individuals for treating young trans patients. Even the use of state funds to provide psychological support for transgender use is prohibited. Virtually every professional medical and mental health organization in the US endorses pediatric gender-affirming health care. Experts agree that for some patients it can literally be life-saving. Kansas joins more than half of the states in the country to enact some form of restriction or ban on gender-affirming health care for trans young people. The US Supreme Court heard arguments in a case challenging Tennessee's ban late last year. It's expected to announce a ruling before the end of its current term this June.
Speaker 9:Other Democratic governors are on the front lines battling the federal anti-LGBTQ plus onslaught. Trump called out Maine Governor Janet Mills over her state's policy in favor of transgender student-athletes at a February 21st White House meeting. Is the main here?
Speaker 2:the governor of Maine, are you not going to comply with it?
Speaker 7:I'm complying with state and federal laws.
Speaker 2:Well, we are the federal law.
Speaker 7:So you better comply, because otherwise you're not getting any federal funding.
Speaker 9:See you in court. Governor Janet Mills says she won't be intimidated by Trump's threats or by an investigation into Maine's policies by the Department of Education. Illinois Democratic Governor JB Pritzker skewered the Trump administration during his annual State of the State address on February 19th, Reaffirming his state's safe haven for LGBTQ plus people. Pritzker echoed the stark warnings of Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller about Adolf Hitler's rise to power, one ostracized group at a time.
Speaker 7:The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here. They point to a group of people who don't look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems. I just have one question what comes next After we've discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities, once we've ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends? After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face, what comes next? All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question, and if we don't want to repeat history, then, for God's sake, in this moment we'd better be strong enough to learn from it.
Speaker 9:Illinois, governor JB Pritzker.
Speaker 6:Finally, questions abound about how much art will survive at Washington DC's John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the former star of the Apprentice has said you're fired to the Progressive Board of Trustees and installed himself as chair at the home of the annual Kennedy Center Honors. Just before what's seen as a hostile takeover, the center announced the cancellation of A Peacock Among Pigeons celebrating 50 years of pride. The special world pride performance starring the city's gay men's chorus, the National Symphony Orchestra, had been scheduled for May 21st. Nso Executive Director Gene Davidson blamed the postponement on financial and scheduling factors. The center will produce a pride-honoring performance of the Wizard of Oz to take its place. The chorus will now perform A Peacock Among Pigeons during World Pride's International Choral Festival. A statement from the Gay Men's Chorus called the decision deeply disappointing. The group vows to advocate for artistic expression that reflects the depth and diversity of our community and country. We will continue to sing and raise our voices for equality. Meanwhile, artists have already launched protest actions around the Kennedy Center.
Speaker 9:That's News Wrap, global queer news with attitude for the week ending February 22nd 2025. Follow the news in your area and around the world. An informed community is a strong community.
Speaker 6:News Wrap is written by Greg Gordon and Lucia Chappell, produced by Brian DeShazer and brought to you by you.
Speaker 9:Thank you. Help keep us in ears around the world at thiswayoutorg, where you can also read the text of this newscast and much more. For this Way Out, I'm Michael LeBeau. Stay healthy.
Speaker 6:And I'm Melanie Keller. Stay safe.
Speaker 1:This has been Queer Voices, heard on KPFT Houston and as a podcast available from several podcasting sources. Check our webpage queVoicesorg for more information. Queer Voices executive producer is Brian Levinka. Debra Moncrief-Bell is co-producer, brett Cullum and David Mendoza-Druzman are contributors, and Brett is also our webmaster. The News Wrap segment is part of another podcast called this Way Out, which is produced in Los Angeles.
Speaker 10:Some of the material in this program has been edited to improve clarity and runtime. This program does not endorse any political views or animal species. Views, opinions and endorsements are those of the participants and the organizations they represent. In case of death, please discontinue use and discard remaining products.
Speaker 1:For Queer Voices. I'm Glenn Holt, Thank you.
