66. The Impact of Representation and Visibility for LGBTQ+ Folks in Education

Ever wondered how educators can create safer spaces for queer students? Join us as we dive into a conversation with Phil Vilar (they/them), a theatre teacher from Dallas, Texas, who shares their journey and insights on navigating identity and inclusion in education.

In today's episode, we explore Phil's experiences growing up as a queer student in New York and how those experiences shaped their approach as an educator. Discover how Phil's journey highlights the ongoing challenges and successes in fostering inclusivity and support for LGBTQ+ students in schools today.

Through our conversation you will:

• Uncover practical strategies for creating safe environments for queer students within educational settings.
• Gain insights into the impact of representation and visibility in curriculum and classroom discussions.
• Learn how personal authenticity can positively influence both students and colleagues, fostering a more inclusive school culture.

Tune in now to gain valuable perspectives and actionable insights on fostering inclusivity in education from Phil Vilar's experiences and expertise.

Transcript

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (00:01.504)
Hi Phil, how are you doing today?

Phil Vilar (00:03.692)
I'm doing well, how are you Brian?

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (00:06.016)
I am doing fantastic. Do you mind taking a second to introduce yourself to the listeners?

Phil Vilar (00:11.308)
Yeah, absolutely. My name is Phil Villar. I am a theater teacher, theater and stage design teacher over at Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts here in Dallas, Texas. And my pronouns are they, them, theirs.

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (00:27.456)
So I love that there are so many of us kind of uniting on this.

Phil Vilar (00:31.084)
for sure.

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (00:32.512)
Let's talk a little bit about you. This is all about you, right? What was life like for you as a queer student?

Phil Vilar (00:37.324)
Yeah.

Phil Vilar (00:42.7)
So I was born and raised in New York and I was a first -generation American so both my parents being Latino from Brazil, you know, like it was one of those situations where like

Being queer was like, as long as it wasn't a member of your family, live and let live was always kind of like thrown around a lot, right? It really kind of came down to really, at least being in New York, it was really easy to see who was safer than others. I was born in 89, so I'm very much a knee deep millennial there. And we're kind of getting into that point

of like, you know, by the time I was in high school, like the term safe spaces was just being coined. So for a lot of times we really kind of had to just trust our own gut and you know, really kind of trust in our, our gaydar, I guess we're all intended to purposes of being like, Hey, like is, you know, like, what do you think of Madonna? You know, and just kind of like go with the vibe from there.

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (01:52.736)
Survey says gay.

Phil Vilar (01:55.116)
Yes.

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (01:59.492)
I fully relate to that. I'm five years older than you, so just a little bit behind or ahead of all of those things happening, but definitely understand the kind of queer coding that we had to do in order to identify each other. How do you think your experiences growing up have impacted your work in education?

Phil Vilar (02:16.652)
Mm -hmm.

Phil Vilar (02:25.356)
I mean the big thing for me is like and it's always been as an educator like I I always want I I always kind of Fell into this idea of I want to be the person I needed when I was younger You know, I I wish I could tell you that I found this really prolific You know ideology or mantra for myself from like a fortune cookie or something like from like a mentor. No, I found it from a tumblr post you know, and when I was younger, you know, I I you know, it was just scrolling and I found it and it was something that just

really need near and deep to me and I didn't really quite realize it until I really kind of became an educator that it was something that I always kind of aspired to be the person you needed when you were younger because I didn't have you know a queer mentor or somebody to really work and identify with it. The closest would be my friend Rachel's uncle, him and his husband Eugene and Pilly. They were kind of like my

my own gay uncles that really kind of helped me explore my you know, my sexuality and my gender and in the context of just being like hey, you know, this is who you are. This is what it means. And this is the community that you know, we openly accept and it is and it's always been a sense of like home for me in that kind of situation that always going over to their house and being with them, you know, and just being my most truest authentic self there because eventually when I

did come out, you know, I did have to kind of leave my house for a couple of days. And they were one of the first people that I went to say, Hey, I kind of need that next level of health.

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (04:07.968)
I think that's so important because I don't think we realize the impact that people have on us until later in life and sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad and sometimes in the moment we think it's good and then we realize down the road that it's it's bad.

And so I think that mantra of being the person you needed when you were a kid is so incredibly important right now because there's so many of us who went through life without having a queer role model and had to figure out how to become a queer role model.

Phil Vilar (04:39.372)
Yeah, I -

I 100 % agree with that. You and I probably would know from a similar situation where we didn't really have any sort of media and anything for us to really connect to. The closest was maybe Frasier, and that wasn't even a show really geared to our audience. So we had to find characters that were queer coded, but would never openly out as queer. For me, a big one would be Sora.

Digimon, you know, like who I really queered it as like a bisexual icon and like this tomboy -esque like gender bending aesthetic and I just like that connected to me so well even though you know she was a girl to me like especially being non -binary I was like that's kind of where I'm like feeling gender wise

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (05:31.52)
Absolutely. I think that it was almost a game to figure out which character was going to be the one that we connected with the most, who kind of showed up as someone who represented us, even though it wasn't meant to be explicit. Though I have to say that there were a lot of writers and artists, especially in the animation field, who did those things on

purpose to make sure that the representation was there without being overt.

Phil Vilar (05:58.38)
100%.

Phil Vilar (06:03.468)
Yeah, no, without a doubt. What would you say is a character for you that really connected, that fictional character in that situation?

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (06:11.2)
Here's the wild thing, right? I grew up on Doug and I think that Skeeter, who was like his best friend, and I think of Skeeter as being a little bit queer coded at times because he was, you know, he was artistic and he was always with his best friend. Like he was definitely, I don't know.

Phil Vilar (06:18.732)
Ha, yes.

Phil Vilar (06:28.076)
Yeah.

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (06:39.904)
the only phrases coming to mind is inappropriate, but you know, bros before hoes, quote unquote. Like he was always, he was always, you know, there for his best friend. And like, even when crap was going on with Patty mayonnaise, you know, Skeeter was solid. And so I think that he, he kind of represented to me, like some of the experiences that I had where I was like the friend on the side while my friends were dating.

Phil Vilar (06:44.62)
Yeah.

Phil Vilar (07:07.564)
Yeah.

No, a hundred percent and like I really resonated with Skeeter as well and Doug just because he was so like it was like coded but in a weird way as a person of color, you know, like like Skeeter he was blue right and like it was so odd in that situation where like I you know in that show like the people of color were actually like different viper colors like especially like Roger and you know and Skeeter and so on and so like, you know for me like I totally get what you're coming from

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (07:19.2)
It's blue, in fact.

Phil Vilar (07:38.718)
from like the sense of like, you know, closer relationship that is bigger than just, you know, being friends that there's a certain level of you removing a toxic masculinity. I'm just like, it's okay to be intimate and close with your friend who is a guy when you are a guy.

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (07:56.288)
Yes, exactly that. That idea of just having a relationship that's beyond the activities that you do together. Like, we're friends because we're on the baseball team. Or we're just friends. Like, it's OK to just be friends and have this actual relationship with someone where you're just talking about things or enjoying activities together and not letting that activity define your entire relationship.

Phil Vilar (08:04.492)
Mm -hmm.

Phil Vilar (08:21.612)
Yeah, especially when that activity is removed from the equation like that it You can start seeing really like that that friendship has always been there and that you really kind of lean on For sure for sure

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (08:34.208)
Absolutely. So thinking about relationships and kind of just how you kind of handle relationships with people, what are some of the things that you do when you're confronted with anti -queer behavior?

Phil Vilar (08:47.212)
You know, for one thing, I'm very, very fortunate, especially as a teacher where I'm not like I teach at a performing arts school, right? And we're fortunate enough in a situation where like it's a public school system at Dallas ISD, right? And but even though it's still a public school, like students still have to audition, right? And they're auditioning not just on, you know, their inherent talent that comes in, you know, coming into ninth grade, but how's your grades, right? How's your moral character? Right. These are things that kind of really play a

role in our school. So we're very fortunate enough as a magnet school that can do that. And when we do find that there is anti -queer behavior occurring, oftentimes that born comes from a place of immaturity of where they were beforehand. Right. And usually like social Darwinism kind of kicks in it like, you know, like us as teachers can step in very quickly. But like our students are also very good at, you know, educating them and being like, hey, like

this is not okay and like who are you to you know say that this student is you know is a girl you know when he is a trans man he is saying he is a man like if you have a problem with that please keep going we'll fix it you know while you know for me being younger you know and like just in general like like i'm still in texas right and living in a very much a red state in a blue city right i can

say with confidence funny enough that since I've moved to Dallas I've actually accounted less anti -queer behavior.

you know, living in Dallas versus when I was in New York. And I think part of it was just because Dallas is almost like in also like other like major cities in Texas, like Austin and Houston. Like, it's kind of like, we know we are the we are the minority in this situation. So we, you know, overcorrect so quickly when we find injustice when it comes to minorities of any kind. Right. Well, in New York, it was always like, you know, like, get a thicker skin, you're in New York, you know, like, hey, somebody's gonna call you a DF word, hey, you know, at least eating

Phil Vilar (10:55.87)
punch you in the jaw, right? You know, and that's kind of like that weird irony in that situation. But...

when I do encounter it here, honest to God, I'm fortunate enough now being older that I know that like when they do say it, they have to rely so much in numbers. It's almost kind of like in a reverse where like I needed a strong enough numbers to be out as a queer person. Now it's kind of like the reverse where a lot of homophobic people like are anti -queer people. They need numbers to be able to be more comfortable being that hateful.

You know, they need to be like, okay, I think I see a guy with a Confederate flag over there. And then say something mean, because thinking they have somebody on their back, right? And it's, there's something, you know, blissfully, cautiously optimistic about that.

You know, I I'm fortunate enough that like of where I work where I live when it does happen against social Darwinism kind of kicks in really really fast when back then for me when that happened We just had to be you know First thing I always did was cover my head because I don't know if they were gonna throw something at me enough at the very least if they throw something Hopefully it's not heavy and it's not hitting my head Right, you know, I don't care if it ruined my clothes I don't care if it you know braised my body on my skin or my torso I just got to make sure I didn't get it concocted

right so you know yeah I hope that answers that question

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (12:28.96)
It's so interesting because to some extent I can validate your words and to some extent I cannot. When I was teaching in San Antonio, I had a different kind of discrimination happening where I literally had people running on the school board to get the faggot out of our school. And that was me having the faggot at the school. And so I had been teacher of the year and I just, I had a spotlight on me. They did not like that. And so it became a huge thing. But.

Phil Vilar (12:45.1)
wow.

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (12:57.792)
To the same extent, I moved to New York City and I deal now more with individuals saying stupid shit than I did in San Antonio. And I think part of it is also because Southern hospitality forces you to be nice to someone's face and talk crap about them behind their back. So there's a little bit of relief that comes from

Phil Vilar (13:06.732)
Mm -hmm.

Phil Vilar (13:16.428)
Yeah.

Phil Vilar (13:22.156)
Yeah.

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (13:27.04)
from that because while no one ever said, you know, I want that faggot to get out of my school, you faggot to my face in San Antonio, there were like meetings and like videos and like all of those things happening, you know, quote unquote behind closed doors. But here, definitely people are like, I'm just going to tell you what I think right now. And it's funny because my response is always like, my God, how did you know?

Phil Vilar (13:44.46)
No, for sure.

Phil Vilar (13:56.236)
Yeah. my god. Yeah.

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (13:56.896)
I thought I was being so subtle. Like, yeah. Thank you. Thank you for telling me. I had no idea. You know, just because in my opinion, that has more to do with them than it does with me. And so I think you're you're right. You know, there is the option of violence. But a lot of times when.

Phil Vilar (14:11.276)
Mm -hmm.

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (14:20.384)
when I'm dealing with folks, even here, there is that idea of like, if they're by themselves, it's like my head is popping up behind something and I'm saying what I need to say and then I jump back down and I hide. Because there's not a comfort with being an outright homophobe or anti -queer just in general.

Phil Vilar (14:34.604)
Yeah. Yeah.

Phil Vilar (14:43.5)
Yeah, no, without a doubt.

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (14:45.216)
I mean, I had someone talking to me on the subway and there were at least six people I didn't know behind me ready to like beat this dude if he were to touch me. And luckily I defused the situation and got him off the train. But it was like there was a community of people behind me being like, nah, this isn't okay. And so I think you're right in that sense of like, I mean, it's not, it's not cool.

to be anti -queer, it's not cool to be discriminatory. And if you are gonna out yourself like that, you're taking a risk.

Phil Vilar (15:13.9)
Yeah.

Phil Vilar (15:24.556)
Yeah, exactly. Funny enough, like, so during COVID, right, because I taught, I started teaching during COVID. So like my first classroom was on Zoom and Google classroom. And I was fortunate enough that Dallas ISD wanted to interview me as like a teacher during COVID, like a first year teacher during COVID, right? And I was just literally like, I didn't even talk about that I was the, you know, that I worked with, you know, theater kids. I didn't even talk about that I am a sponsor.

I didn't say any of that, right? But just literally being on camera at Fox 4 News, our local news in Dallas, like I got so much hate just on Twitter and Facebook. I've been called like, I was called a breeder, a groomer. I was called, I was saying, this is crazy. This one's my personal favorite that I definitely drink. What's that chemical that was really popular during like Q and A?

on that like it kept us young by drinking the fear of children's blood I forgot what it was adrenal glean or something like that I forgot what it was called but I was like literally like there's no way that this person looks 30 years old there you know that if he is 30 years old it's because he's drinking the youth and I'm like what are you talking about it was honestly hilarious but yeah I mean but funny enough that it

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (16:49.12)
It is so strange when people are willing to leave.

Phil Vilar (16:51.5)
Exactly. But you know what, like going back to like the people in the comments being like, what are you talking about? You crazy old man, like down vote down vote, like let's hide this person in the comments so quickly.

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (17:05.408)
That's really funny. This will be the audience participation section of the show. So for those of you who are listening, please raise your hand if you've ever been called a groomer. My hand is up like two weeks ago. It's so dumb because I literally go like.

Could you do just like a tiny bit of research to find out who is actually grooming children and who are actually the pedophiles in the world? And like, maybe we should solve that problem instead of just demonizing a whole community that has nothing to do with the situation. Like recently, recently.

And I'm so angry about it too because now it validates people, right? Recently a gay porn star was caught with child pornography and it makes me so mad because I'm like, dude, first of all, disgusting. Second of all, now you're giving people more ammunition to go against the queer community and it's like.

Phil Vilar (17:59.852)
Yeah

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (18:11.744)
I have so many frustrating things that I would say, well, I'd probably beat him up, so never mind.

Phil Vilar (18:18.86)
I mean, but the thing is though is that like, here's the thing, like as an educator, right? As an educator, it is already hard enough to get my students to do their Photoshop homework, right? Like if I was going to groom anybody, like especially my students, it would be to turn in their assignments on time. That would be, that would be my big thing. Yeah. Like.

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (18:38.496)
Absolutely. Wear deodorant, sit down and stop touching each other. These are the things that teachers would want to groom and I feel like if it actually worked, the parents would be happy about it.

Phil Vilar (18:53.484)
Exactly. Just like, I'm sorry. I don't care. You know, like, I don't care enough as an educator that it's just like, if you're coming up to me while I'm teaching, right? Like, I'm not thinking about your sexuality or your gender while I'm teaching. I'm just want to make sure that you understand the content because that is my job. Now, granted after school or after class, if you need to talk to me, I'm here to listen. Absolutely. Right. And there I can be that listening ear, that sense of mentorship. But I can promise you this. Like, if I had the ear of the youth as, you know,

as older teachers like to say, hey, you know, it would be for them to be able to turn in their assignments on time so I can grade them on time and not be as behind as I usually am.

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (19:35.2)
favorite is when someone turns something in late and then they're like I turned it in why haven't you graded it like five seconds later because it was due two weeks ago that's why.

Phil Vilar (19:40.908)
Mm -hmm.

Phil Vilar (19:44.684)
Yup, yup, I see my students go through the five stages of grief in that situation. And then the bargaining goes up so fast.

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (19:50.689)
I'm ready.

Absolutely. So thinking about being yourself and being authentic in the workplace, what advice would you give to someone from the queer community about showing up authentically at work?

Phil Vilar (20:05.708)
You know?

The first thing I always say is mind your safety -ness. Authenticity is important, but it's more important for you to be able to make it to the other side in the end. Regardless of how you want it to define authenticity, you will always be queer. I'm non -binary and I don't prescribe to hetero male prescription, but I do dress still.

very mask right that doesn't make or remove my queerness any any less I have a son right now right I have a son in my and I my partner is a cis woman right but we are in a very queer defining relationship am I in like we're still trying to export things for what the child should call me because it's not gonna be dad and Millennials have already ruined the word daddy so you know like it's not gonna be those things but that doesn't remove the authenticity of who I am as a queer person right and that's in a

safe environment of just being a parent, right? And so when we define authenticity, you know, I always start with what are you most comfortable with, right? Where you're most comfortable with is your authentic self, right? And that authenticity changes over time, right? Because how we define authenticity and queerness changes over time, right? Back then, you know, like not even like maybe what 10 years ago,

authenticity for queerness was being a Lady Gaga fan, right? If you were a Lady Gaga fan, you were probably in our alphabet club, right? 20 years before that, probably Madonna, right? Now, Chaperone is really out there, right? You know, exactly, right? And so,

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (21:49.984)
correct, and share for all the oldies.

Phil Vilar (21:56.588)
When we talk about authenticity and we talk about like how do you show up at work being queer? You know, I always like to start with the fact of do you feel safe? Right, if you do feel safe show a little bit more come in with makeup if you know that it's safe for you. If it's not then maybe coat it in with some eyeliner, right? I paint my nails, not right now because I've been working with my hands all summer and I don't want to waste money doing it in time. But I paint my nails, I do my makeup.

right? And

you know, when I feel safe, I do it to the highest degree. If I know I need to be outside of Dallas to do it, I'll wear maybe something a little bit more conservative, but I still always have like say, you know, for those of you who aren't, are video listeners, I always have a non -binary earring that I always wear, you know, something very subtle for me, you know. My tattoo, for example, has the non -binary colors on it as well, right? You know, something that is just,

me just as a touchstone to my queerness. Something for me to just come back and be like, yes, I'm still here.

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (23:07.36)
Absolutely. I think that is so interesting.

and an interesting perspective on it because I think you're absolutely correct in that like authenticity changes over time and ultimately you need to do what's going to be most successful for you and so having those little things for yourself that are like you're almost like you're wink wink nudge nudge to who I am even when I have to go into a space it's almost like you have this little piece of armor with your earring and your tattoo of like

I'm still me even though today I'm dressing in drag as like a more heteronormative person.

And so I think that it's incredibly insightful information because sometimes when we're teachers, we do have to put on armor and we do have to kind of go into work and be more quote unquote professional. So this is our professional persona as it were. And so when you're doing that, there's still a level of you in the center. And that is authentic.

Phil Vilar (24:14.604)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, and especially as an educator, right? We wanna be mindful of that as well, that like what we define professionalism as well, because we want our students to know like those levels of boundaries as well, because, you know, being younger and being especially around like, depending on the school you're in, right? Maybe you're at a very, very safe school.

Part of that conversation is knowing like hey, how do you handle when you're not as much of in a safe environment as you usually are? Right, you know and on the flip side if you're at a school that's not safe and that you do have to you know hide or you know shield that authenticity a little bit more right what are the like as you say like those little key points that can you know highlight it is it a pen is it a earring is it you know, Maybe not a tattoo not necessarily in ninth grade, but who knows right but like, you know

What what do we define that you know and it's like for for educators like us, you know and queer educators when we work with students It's all about establishing that that boundary like what are those lines, you know and knowing that those lines changes year after year and that's part of our job to so that we remain relative right I don't put signs on my door anymore that I'm a safe space because I know now especially in Gen Z culture. It's a given it's an expectation

Right when back when I was in high school, we needed that now. It's not so much now It's almost like to them. They're like, why is there a safe space sign on my door? It should be that would be like a pilot saying hey, we're gonna land safely gosh I hope so that's the bare minimum right so we you know, we need to be cognizant of like How we established, you know and educate like what that authenticity means and how we deliver it

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (26:10.368)
Absolutely. So thinking about like the school community, you were just talking about in your community at least not needing safe space science because it's kind of a given in the culture. What in general do you think the educational community can do to be more inclusive of queer people?

Phil Vilar (26:22.092)
Mm -hmm.

Phil Vilar (26:28.812)
I think, you know, I think, you know, just simply just regarding that they exist plays a big role. You know, I remember at one point when I was in, granted this was in college, but in my US history class, my teacher, who is a straight man, you know, his name is John Palansar, he passed away a couple of years ago. He talked about Marsha Johnson.

had a whole unit a whole day talking about her and talking about what the Stonewall riots really were. Right. And I'll be honest, even as a queer person, I didn't know Stonewall. I was in New York. I wasn't familiar with Stonewall. How could I? You know, like, you know, social media was just becoming a thing. Right. You know, you know, like how we define and absorb information was so different then. Right. Where now it's so easily given. You know, I needed to hear it from an 80 year

old, you know, old Italian Jewish man just telling me right off the bat, hey, this is Marsha Johnson. She took good care of you guys. So everybody here in the Alphabet Club, you thank her, okay? The next time you're out at Pride and you're there, you know, hanging out shirtless, no, it was because of a trans woman throwing her shoes at a cop telling them to go fuck themselves. And I'd be like, thank you. Yes, you know, and...

You know, for me, like, I bring that into context in regards to, you know, bring it into my content, right? I teach theater. It's very, very easy for me to incorporate queerness into theater, right? Whether if you want to gender Ben, Romeo, and Juliet, right? Whether you want to talk about a play like Bent, right? You know, there's tons to really use and it's ultimately...

For you know to answer really your question. How do we incorporate more? You know idea of queerness into our classrooms and to the world the answer is just effort

Phil Vilar (28:27.436)
Just take the effort, take the time, right? It's unfortunate in my situation where like June, we're done with school, so it's hard to celebrate Pride Month there. But like New York, we don't end school till the end of June, right? Incorporate Pride Month just as much as you would incorporate Black History Month, Women History Month, right? For us, we really strongly encourage wearing pronouns. Something simple as pronoun stickers,

on our ID badges, right? Is it required? No, but we know well enough in our culture, right, that like if we see, even if a cis hetero man wearing a he -him sticker, we identified that easier as a person who's an ally than a person who isn't. It's just kind of just showing that inclusivity, that it does exist.

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (29:22.624)
Absolutely. I love that idea of just like, it seems so counterintuitive to have to say this in 2024, but like put in the effort to acknowledge that we exist.

Phil Vilar (29:33.164)
Yeah. Mm -hmm. Yeah, it's really that easy, right?

U .S. history bring on Marsha P. Johnson, you know music bring up queer, you know musicians throughout history like you know, like there's Plenty, you know, we we do all the things right computer science think talk talk about Alan turning right like there's just we've done so much shit throughout history. It's just

It took till the 21st century for students to realize that those people were queer. Because it was okay to say it out loud then.

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (30:17.28)
Absolutely. So we're getting ready to wrap up here and we've got a question from one of our listeners. This one comes from Caleb in New York and Caleb asks, how did you know you were queer?

Phil Vilar (30:34.616)
I knew I was queer from my mom took me to a summer camp it was a YMCA summer camp on Long Island and there's these two boys they were brothers named Nick and Anthony and you know and the the the the day camp was

was co -ed but like the counselors matched your gender at birth right so I was all around all boys with a male counselor right until like a year or two you know because I went there for almost like three or four years at the end of every

summer, right? The last couple of days, it was when we were allowed to really just kind of like just do our own thing. We would just have fun. And we would always hang out with the girls for a while. And it was something that always looked forward to year after year after year. This was the thing I looked forward to all of summer. It's why I begged my parents to take me there. Is when I get to hang out with the girls and they got to put makeup on me, you know, and they paint my nails. I was...

what, maybe 10 or 11 years old, you know? And here I was excited, not from the pool or hiking in the woods or the camping, but for this one or two days near the end of the camp session that I get to hang out with the girls and they make me pretty, you know? And make me feel comfortable.

I loved it and adored it and I still think about it every once in a while when I ask myself like, when did I realize that was queer? I was very fortunate that in that...

Phil Vilar (32:29.356)
that sense of toxin masculinity just didn't exist in a day camp of all things. We all did it. We all put on makeup for a couple of days and it was nice and it was sad when we had to clean it off before our parents picked up.

Man, you know, if there was ever a time I wished that I was born in this time period where we had phones in our pockets, man, I wish there was pictures of that. Because I think that would uplift my spirit every day up until, you know, even now.

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (33:01.824)
Absolutely, it seems like a moment of body euphoria.

Phil Vilar (33:04.844)
Yeah, no, without a doubt, you know, and it was before I even obviously didn't even know the word, you know, like that was then when I was just like, maybe I'm not straight, you know, but it was something even deeper than that. Yeah.

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (33:21.92)
Thank you so much for sharing. That was a very personal question. So thank you, Caleb. And if anybody out there wants to ask Queer Educator, you can click on the link on all of that podcast apps and it'll just send a text message to our website and then we will put your question on the air.

Phil Vilar (33:26.156)
No thanks, Kitlo.

Bryan Stanton (he/they) (33:40.032)
Hey Phil, I really appreciate you taking time this evening to talk to me. I've really enjoyed our conversation and all the insight you've been able to give to everybody listening. So thank you, thank you so much for being here.

Phil Vilar (33:53.068)
No, thank you, thank you. And for people who are listening, you're more than happy to reach me. My Instagram and my ex are all the same. It's at PhilVillar, you know, P -H -I -O -V -I -L -A -R. Reach out, talk to me. I'm more than happy to hear your story, because we're not going anywhere, and we're only thriving even stronger every day. Hang in there.