Unveiling Identity Through Body Positivity and Inclusivity: Rachel's Story

Stepping into the world of Mx. Rachel, we embark on a journey of self-discovery and acceptance, where body positivity and LGBTQ+ experiences intertwine. Rachel, a Moorhead-based teacher, opens up about their journey towards embracing a gender-fluid identity. They offer insights into cultivating an educational space that champions authenticity and empathy among students. The personal narrative takes center stage as Rachel discusses the profound resonance of choosing the gender-neutral honorific "Mx." with their identity, inviting us to reflect on the importance of affirming one's true self.

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Transcript

Rachel: 0:01

That intersection of body positivity then allowed me to become more comfortable in my skin in so many different ways. The moment that I started to accept my body and become comfortable in my body intersected almost like it's almost a perfect circle of when I started to come out of the closet.

Max: 0:24

intersected almost like it's almost a perfect circle of when I started to come out of the closet. Welcome to Pride Stories, the podcast where we celebrate the entire spectrum of experiences that make up the LGBTQ plus community. I'm your host, max Krangan, from Tellville Story Cohen Studio On this podcast. We're committed to creating a safe, supportive and inspiring space for our guests and listeners alike, so join us as we explore the heartwarming, sometimes painful and always inspired stories that make us who we are. So welcome to the podcast. Rachel Mix, rachel. Yes, mix, rachel. This is a new one I haven't heard. Can you explain to us what is Mix?

Rachel: 1:11

So a lot of our honorariums that we use before names Mr, Miss, Mrs, even Ms they are all gendered and so Mix is the answer. It's spelled MX with a period, pronounced mix most commonly. Some people say it a little bit differently, but it is that gender neutral honorific that you can use before names, so I use it. I'm gender fluid, I use she. They pronouns definitely in that area of the gender spectrum and I'm a teacher and we are very casual school.

Max: 1:49

So let's actually start there. Can you just introduce who is Rachel, because I jumped right into the mix. Who is Rachel?

Rachel: 1:57

Yeah, so I am a teacher, I am a stage manager, I am an artist, I am a lover of storytelling and fat bears and big hugs, and so I teach at the super cool school called Inspire Innovation Lab in Moorhead it is. Inspire Innovation Lab is kind of this umbrella educational organization that has three different programs that run under it. Innovation Academy is a micro school that focuses on hands-on education, project-based learning. The curriculum is very student-led, it's not standards-based but competencies-based. So we have a lot more freedom to focus on the things that we truly believe make kids into great humans in the world, not just in a capitalist society, but like great humans and people who can contribute and people who have empathy and people who regulate their emotions and people who understand the bigger pictures. And so we have the school. That is grades K through 10. We have about 25 students in that school and then we also have an after school program. I coordinate that and that is students from all over Moorhead, grades K through 6. We have about 35 kids in that program. And then we also have our summer school program or our summer camps, and then we typically have about 40 kids give or take 10, in our summer programming and we focus on really cool camp ideas. We've done a cooking camp. We've done a junkyard wars, where they build things out of trash. We do a Dungeons and Dragons camp every summer. That is my favorite thing that we do, so a lot of really cool hands-on learning, right.

Rachel: 3:55

And one of the things that is so important to me as a teacher is that I show up authentically for my students every day.

Rachel: 4:04

They know who I am and they know my story and they know that I'm not gonna be graphic or go too far, but I'm not gonna lie to them either. Right Like, if the subject comes up, I'm gonna talk about my history of self-harm. I'm gonna talk about my depression and my anxiety and my ADHD. I'm going to talk about how those things have affected my life and have made things difficult and how I've moved through them. When they ask me about my tattoos and my piercings, I'm going to talk about, like, why those things are important to me and how they've become part of my self-expression. When they ask me about my gender identity and then they ask me about whether or not I have a boyfriend, right Like, I'm going to say no, I'm queer, I don't date boys, I use mix because I don't feel like I am all the way girl or all the way boy and they say oh, that's why it's mixed, because you're a mix.

Max: 5:06

Yes.

Rachel: 5:12

Right, and having that moment with a seven-year-old where they're like, oh, I totally get it is brilliant, right, and because I am able to show up authentically for them, then they have the freedom to feel safe, and they have the freedom to explore and try and they know that, regardless of what else is going on in their lives, they can show up authentically for me and that's critical.

Max: 5:38

Yeah. So you gave us a really great primer there and, I think, talked a lot about how you get to show up today and you had started to talk about some of the things you had mentioned depression, self-harm, some of the things that got you to where you are today. So, beyond a teacher, who else is Rachel?

Rachel: 5:59

So Rachel is a person who grew up in rural North Dakota. I lived on a farm in a town that no shit. You turned into town and you could no longer get access to NPR. The only radio station you could get was a country radio station.

Max: 6:21

That was my town Fun fact I was on that country radio station. I was max on hit kicking country from like 6 pm to 6 am Monday through Friday. Fantastic, incredibly conservative radio station back in the day. I don't think it exists anymore so it doesn't matter, but that was the only one that we would get in our small towns because I'm from a small town not far away from you.

Rachel: 6:49

Yeah, there was a giant sign that welcomed you that said the churches of Edgley welcome you when you drove into town. That was the place I grew up and a very German Catholic family. Right, we would go to church twice on Sundays because we were doing the music for two different, for two different parishes, right, and so there was. So I grew up in this idea of even though my family was liberal leaning to an extent, we were the family that listened to NPR.

Max: 7:24

As liberal as we get in North Dakota Right Rural North Dakota.

Rachel: 7:28

There was still that pressure to fit into that family mold right, and I came from a very theatrical family. Both of my parents have degrees in theater. My mom has a master's in theater management. They met doing a play together. We grew up doing summer theater at Lemoore County. Summer Musical Theater in Grand Rapids, north Dakota, Shout out and that is definitely a huge part of my life.

Rachel: 7:56

I ended up coming to Fargo to go to school at NDSU for theater and education and that there's this. There's this thing that they talk about with especially girls who have undiagnosed ADHD, where you are able to get through because you just keep pushing and so it's like, okay, well, I can do this, and I can do that and I can do this, and the inability to focus and the inability to to maintain your world doesn't fall apart until it does and you hit that wall and you can no longer keep brute forcing it. And that happened to me in college, where I suddenly couldn't just do things, I couldn't just first draft a paper, I never learned how to study, I never learned how to, I never learned time management because I was just I was smart enough to get by until I couldn't. And between everything right, being in a space where I didn't have a frame of reference for what to expect and starting to feel myself kind of pushing out of those boundaries that I had built for myself, on top of no longer being able to just brute force my way through academics. My depression was out of control, my anxiety was past my limits, like it was really, really hard, and I nearly flunked out of college.

Rachel: 9:27

I ended up dropping my English education major to an English minor and finished by the skin of my teeth because I just didn't have the capacity. I was burning out and I was tired and I didn't know who I was anymore and I didn't know what I even wanted anymore. So I started working in a coffee shop and I started learning about this culture in Fargo of really cool, weird people right Like. I met a bunch of burlesque dancers and I met improv performers and I became active with the Theater B community in Moorhead although it was in Fargo at the time and I became active with the Pride community and I started finding all of these people who were like me in ways that I couldn't imagine and I started finding all of these ways to fit in by changing my perception of who I thought I was and, like some of that came in the weirdest ways.

Max: 10:37

I hope so.

Rachel: 10:39

I remember somebody telling me to try a particular brand of clothing or like, try leggings. Right, it was like. Leggings was like this world opener for me because I had been like I am a large person right, I have been a fat person my whole life, by varying degrees of that, but I have never not been fat and there are perceptions of what a fat person can and cannot wear and the places a fat person can and cannot exist in. And so somebody telling me that I was allowed to wear leggings and that that was totally acceptable and cool and not a fashion faux pas, not something that was like unheard of and awful. Right, so like that, and being comfortable in that item of clothing, and then, by proxy, by being comfortable in my skin, th at intersection of body positivity then allowed me to become more comfortable in my skin in so many different ways. The moment that I started to accept my body and become comfortable in my body intersected almost it's almost a perfect circle of when I started to come out of the closet.

Max: 12:03

Wow.

Rachel: 12:03

Yeah circle of when I started to come out of the closet, wow yeah. And then, as I worked through, like I, I hit a phase in that where I had, I felt, pretty comfortable and I kind of thought, like I felt like I knew who I was. And then I was introduced to this whole new world of not just body positivity but, like fat liberation and this idea of it's not just about looking good or feeling good, it's about discrimination and it's about the world not being built for you in a totally different way than, like racial segregation or the queer rights movement. We talked about this when I came in.

Rachel: 12:46

Will I fit in the chairs? Right? That's something I have to think about everywhere I go. Will I physically fit in the space that is being open to me? Because if I don't physically fit, I'm not actually welcome, and that's this whole different veneer to things. And as I was kind of being introduced to that world and like it was almost another rediscovery of my body and of who I am, and that's when I started to my perception of my body changed and I started to think about, oh, I'm not just, I'm not just bisexual, I'm not just queer in that way, I'm also genderqueer. Like I've never felt comfortable in my body for more than one reason. But that's not always like there's so many different pieces.

Max: 13:39

Yeah, it is really interesting as you start to talk about how those kind of layer on top of each other, especially during this time of kind of like self-discovery, because this was a little bit later, this was after college, right?

Rachel: 13:51

This was 23, 24?- so I came out of the closet when I was like 23, 24. And then I didn't start identifying as genderqueer until like two or three years ago. Okay, like that is that's a pretty new piece of my identity and it's not even like I typically just use the word queer to describe myself, because I don't think of myself as bisexual or pansexual and I don't think of myself as non-binary. I think of myself as queer, I think of myself as not quite fitting and being a little bit weird and all of these different pieces, and I'm a little bit jagged and I'm a little bit wild, and my students say that I am a unicorn soul with a rainbow heart and like, literally, I don't think that there's a better way to describe me.

Max: 14:39

How magical is that. I want somebody to call me a unicorn soul with a rainbow heart.

Rachel: 14:47

Yeah.

Max: 14:47

I want somebody to call me that one day.

Rachel: 14:49

It was really great. One day I dyed my hair rainbow and I came to school and one of my little girls looks at me with just these wide eyes and she goes Mix, Rachel, your hair matches your heart. That is so sweet. It was like I melted.

Max: 15:09

Fair, I would too. I would be a puddle yeah. And yeah, like that was, yeah, super affirming great is it, though, that it is the young people and the people that just have no filters that can be the most affirming, because they have the least amount of filter.

Rachel: 15:31

Oh, 100%. I feel so honored that I get to work with the biggest weirdos and that I get to be around these kids all the time and I see the best of us right, I'm around those kids and I have so much hope for our future because these kids, they are so accepting and they are so understanding and, yeah, they question and they need to understand, but their barrier for entry is way lower than anyone thinks it is. I had a kid one summer who had been with us as an afterschool kid and was female presenting and had a typically feminine name and over the course of the summer they just decided that they were going to, like write different names on their name tag and like one day they were Bill and everyone was like, okay, hi, bill. And like all the kids were like their name is Bill. And then the next day they had a different name and everyone's like, okay, cool, that's your name today.

Rachel: 16:36

And then, like, over time, like that started being the same male presenting name over and over and over again, to the point where, like that was their name and like the kids forgot that they'd ever had a different name and it was just like, oh, cool, that's your name now. Now we're going to call you this name and you're a boy, cool. That's great and no one questioned it. And I see that side of our kids so much more than I see prejudice or hate or bullying. I see them being open and accepting and affirming and like they will correct other people if they mess up.

Max: 17:20

How great is that, how magical is that. It's incredible.

Rachel: 17:24

It's so wonderful. There's a lot of shit going on in the world right now. There's a lot of ugliness and there's a lot of hate, and I wish everyone had the opportunity to spend time with my kids, because they are they're the kinds of people that are going to change this world. I believe that wholeheartedly, and I think that more kids are like them than not I love that.

Max: 17:52

I love the work that you guys do at the inspire lab. I've been such a huge fan for so many years, all the way back to my destination imagination days, and so I've been I mean, I've been working with Carrie for probably better part of like 1012 years and just such a huge fan of how you guys like meet kids where they are, and I think that is what I love about what you shared so far is like how integrated like those kids are into your story yeah Right, and how each one of those, like handprints, is a part of your story now. But I do want to. I want to. I want to turn the tables a little bit, because what I love is we're already 20 minutes in and I'm like, dang, this is so good. I love the conversation so far, but I really want to know, from from your perspective, the reason that we're here. What's Rachel's pride story?

Rachel: 18:47

So growing up in rural North Dakota and not being able to feel safe and comfortable in my identity and to the point where it was so deeply oppressed. I remember when I was starting to come out and I was driving home every night and like I was just rolling these things, these thoughts over and over and over in my head of like that's not who I am, but it might be who I am, but why like? But I could never tell my dad and like I could never be out. So like, why is that who I am? And like all of those different pieces that felt so big and so scary.

Rachel: 19:27

And I think that there's this expectation that people have that if you're, especially if you're not part of the community, right, if you're on the outside looking in parade for you, and who have known that you were gay since you were born, or you have the story where you were rejected 100% and kicked out right and like that's the stories we see and that's that's not how it is for most of us. For most of us and I 100% fall in that gray area in the middle where everyone that I interact with here in Fargo knows me authentically 100%. I have five siblings. Four of them know that I'm queer. One of my parents knows that I'm queer.

Rachel: 20:37

I have not come to that point in my story where I feel safe and secure enough to come out to those other people. Right, and that's. I think that's the story for more of us than people understand, and this idea that you don't just come out once, you come out every single day, over and over again, and that I think that's important to hear more. I think it's important to understand that we still live in a world that is so deeply heteronormative that it's anything else takes courage, and it takes courage every single day, and that's exhausting.

Max: 21:29

Amen. Can you keep going on that? Because I do think that that is something that isn't talked about enough. In the queer community, in the in the alphabet mafia, we see the movies, right, and they get to come out once and it's like, ah, here we go.

Rachel: 21:46

But the reality is is like we are, we're coming out every single day multiple times, sometimes like right, Like in little ways and in big ways in our, and especially like, okay, so North Dakota is it's not a protected class right, Like you can be fired for being gay, so understanding. Like, am I safe to come out to my boss when there's like an event that you get to bring a plus one to? Can I be out in this forum as a teacher? Can I be out to my students' parents? Can I express myself authentically in all of these relationships? If you're grocery shopping and you're picking up stuff for Valentine's Day and somebody asks about your boyfriend and you're like, well, actually, right, Like you have, every single time you have to decide where am I going to fall on this? Is this a conversation that is important enough? Do I want to deal with this? Do I want to open up this can of worms every single time?

Max: 22:57

It's a fascinating one and it's a hard one, and I think what I love about you is you have been putting yourself now in places to accept it. Yeah Right, you volunteer with the Pride Festival, you're working at Inspire, you're putting yourself in places, you're kind of taking control of that narrative, yeah, yeah.

Rachel: 23:19

Yeah, I reached a point, really when I started working as an educator, where I had to decide who am I as an educator? What is my goal, what is my driving force in the terms of education, what is my why? And I believe very strongly in being the adult that I didn't have growing up, and that means showing up authentically every single day, every single day.

Rachel: 24:09

It means being a role model in every single aspect of my life, as much as I can and being present as much as I can. And it is scary and it is a hard, especially as a person who's not completely out to every single person in their family. Right, Like, who's going to hear this? Right, Is it going to get back to my grandma and I'm going to have this big thing, and that is. It is scary, but also like fuck it. I'm 33 years old and I deserve to be able to live my life without being scared of the repercussions and I want to create a world where those kids don't have to be scared every single day when they come out to the grocery store clerk or their boss or you know, like Susan down the street. So, yeah, I put myself in those places. I make myself scared and uncomfortable and so far everything's turned out okay.

Max: 25:10

Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that. I think one of the things that I've so appreciated about you and our interactions have mostly been at, like, the Pride in the Park and even like the first year that Tellwall was a sponsor. I'll be honest, I was nervous because, like we're a business we're a business in Fargo, north Dakota A lot of our clients are. We have some conservative clients right and so, even coming and being there what I loved you welcomed us with open arms and even though, in the moment, you may have been saying, like who the hell is going to show up? Because it's, I think that was 2021. Like, who's going to show up? How are they going to show up? Like, are we going to protest? Even though, like you were dealing with all of these different things.

Rachel: 26:00

Also my first year as the primary coordinator for Pride in the Park, so I had a lot going on that day.

Max: 26:07

You had a lot going on, but despite that, you welcomed us with open arms and you welcomed all like 140 booths that there were there and you said hey, welcome, this is okay, you're doing great. I'm glad you're here. What do you need? And like you spent so much time giving so much care, and I think that's also what you do in your classroom.

Rachel: 26:33

Yeah, yeah, I live my life, heart forward.

Max: 26:39

Heart forward. Tell me more.

Rachel: 26:42

So, for example, like I joke that my love language is coffee and hugs right Like I human connection and love and being open and receptive and authentic and being willing to try and being willing to listen. All of that is about being heart forward. Right Like it is scary and it is vulnerable, but the rewards are pretty great. Right Like, if you meet somebody with vulnerability and with a willingness to listen and with a willingness to care and you say, okay, yeah, I hear you, how can I help? The reception to that is almost always reciprocal.

Max: 27:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know one thing that I'd be curious to your take on. As somebody who gets to work with kids on a daily basis in the queer community, I feel like kids are sometimes seen as not a burden but something that, like, a lot of queer people just are like. I don't want to deal with this and I wonder, based on our conversation, how much of that is because they don't know how to interact with kids, because they didn't get to see that, they didn't get to like interact with adults in a way that would have made them say you're safe, you're like you're safe here.

Rachel: 28:21

Yeah, I don't doubt that. I think that there's an element of that. I think that a lot of us had again, I am only one person, right Like. I can't speak, I'm not a figurehead, right Like, I can only tell you my story, and I think that for me, and for many perhaps, there is a lot of trauma related to that, to that idea of not feeling entirely safe and not wanting to fuck it up Right Like, and so kids are scary because you know like, I have all this baggage and I have all this stuff and I am just trying my best to get by every day Like I can't bring up another human being into my chaos, right? I think that there might be an element of that. I think that there's also, like, in all practicality, like it's more complicated to have a child in a queer relationship. It's not I mean, it's not easy for anybody, but there is an element of there's a barrier to entry in a queer relationship and that sometimes feels impossible to overcome sometimes feels impossible to overcome.

Rachel: 29:47

I think that there's also a fear of societal repercussions and like backlash and acceptance, because there's that piece of it again where you have to come out every single day. Will my child be bullied for having two moms or two dads? Will my family be accepted at the community potluck Right, like that's a whole other piece that a lot of cis heteronormative couples and families maybe don't have to worry about as much.

Max: 30:20

You share your story like a teacher, right, just by default. You are like a quintessential teacher where you're not necessarily sharing your story in a I did this and then I did this and then I did this like a narrative format. You do it in these moments of like bits of advice and just like. It's so fun to see because my parents are both educators as well and I definitely noticed that they do that. So I just want to hold up that mirror for a moment that all so much of your story is rooted in telling narratives that that give a little bit of a lesson.

Rachel: 31:03

Oh yeah, I definitely don't. I mean and part of that might be the ADHD right, where I don't think linearly, like I think like oh, this is the theme, so we're going to talk around in this circle of this theme, which doesn't have is a linear narrative, right, and then we're going to hop over to this story and there might be tiebacks to this story, but we're talking about this theme here now, right, and that's how I be.

Max: 31:28

I appreciate that One of the kind of recurring themes that we've had so far is kind of being the adult that you wish that you had growing up. What advice do you have to other people in the queer community who want to be that adult that maybe they didn't have growing up? What advice do you have for them.

Rachel: 31:51

I think that a lot of it has to do with owning your story right, like understanding the obstacles that got you to where you are, that you had to overcome, or that you haven't yet. Right Like we're not all perfect. And and understanding that, like, those pieces of you that made things harder aren't flaws and hiding them is not helping anybody. My depression and my body image and my self-image and my issues with my self-worth right. If I can understand that all of those are pieces of me that have made my life harder but they're not necessarily bad things, and if I can be aware of those and I can own those, then I can see them in other people and I can say, hey, I see that you're struggling and you know what. That's okay, you're allowed to feel those things.

Rachel: 33:13

But also you're not that right, like sometimes shit is hard and it's okay that it's hard, but it it's going to get better for a little bit and then it'll get hard again. But find those good moments right, like you can. You can hold yourself up as that mirror. But find those good moments right, like you can hold yourself up as that mirror, right, as that window. And part of that is understanding that where you are now is better than where you were, and being proud of that and being proud of that growth and that's hard, because we're not allowed to be proud of anything, as good Midwesterners, absolutely.

Rachel: 33:52

Not allowed to be proud of anything.

Max: 33:53

You're absolutely right, I have done nothing good in my entire life.

Rachel: 33:56

Please don't look at me, don't say nice things. I can't handle it. I don't take compliments, but reflecting that back and saying okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. Why did that hit you in the feels? Oh well, I'm a crier. I will cry at anything, including MasterChef Junior.

Max: 34:12

Well, that's you know, masterchef Junior. That's fair, they're trying so hard.

Rachel: 34:19

Also, when Gordon Ramsay's like a real human, it's just like he, just he loves those kids and I think that part of the reason that, because I didn't have that right Like German Catholic family in Midwestern North Dakota, right, like rural, that rural sensibility, sensibility of you don't talk about things that are hard, that are ugly, you don't talk about the bad stuff, we just put it in a box and we put it on the shelf and we ignore it, or we talk about it in whispers and we ignore it, or we talk about it in whispers, we don't acknowledge it. I have an aunt, my favorite aunt, who is a lesbian. But I was like that was never talked about outright my entire life. It wasn't until I was fully grown and in college and I was like having a conversation with her and she was like you know that I'm gay, right. And I was like having a conversation with her and she was like you know that I'm gay, right. And I was like, oh fuck, that makes sense. You had a roommate this is auntie's roommate.

Rachel: 35:28

Wow, you come to a lot of Christmases right, this is, yeah, who she lived with for many, many years. A grown ass woman with a roommate and a lot of cats Sounds great of the family. Like we were really close to her and I know some of my other cousins were very close to her but like if there was a family reunion at my grandpa and grandma's, she didn't come and we always talked about that. Well, she doesn't like to travel, but so I remember when I started to come out and I messaged her and I said how did you do it in your family? How did you do it? And she said things were different and I didn't really and we didn't talk about it. And then the next message she sent was I'm so sorry, I wouldn't wish this on you, which is a really hard thing to hear. Wow, yeah, she said I wouldn't wish this on you and your family.

Max: 36:36

Wow, yeah, have you gotten to talk to her about it since? Oh yeah.

Rachel: 36:42

We've talked about it, but like also not really Right, like you still don't really talk about it. We've had some conversations and it's like it's pretty affirming and she's super supportive, but like she's also like, yeah, like there was just no chance that I had growing up Right, and she's very supportive of me and she's very glad that my siblings are all super supportive. But she also understands, like the struggle that I have when it comes to like my dad and also like, to some extent, my mom. Like it was like I had oh, that was. It was really hard. She did not respond the way I wanted her to and that took a while for our relationship to recover.

Max: 37:32

It's great now.

Rachel: 37:32

But we've also had some real hard talks, and one of them was I don't want to be like my aunt. I don't want to be the outcast of the family that you guys don't talk about, that you pretend I'm something else Like that's not the, that's not the future I want, and that was really hard for my mom to hear.

Max: 37:52

Yeah, Well, it makes her like rethink the whole relationship, yeah.

Rachel: 37:59

Yeah, yes, which is a long way to say, like I didn't have somebody who was like me growing up and like part of that is like my body right, like I remember being told by a relative when I was like eight or nine that I ate like a man. I remember being told to cover up because like oh how dare I have chubby arms right? And so being so deeply uncomfortable in my own body and in my own mind and not feeling like I could trust a lot of the people in my life that were supposed to love me made it difficult to trust myself. So that's why I feel so strongly about being that person, because it kind of sucked.

Max: 38:56

Yeah, what's it like for Rachel today? You have, you've built this incredible community around you. You have I know that you do lots of volunteer stuff. I know you do lots of theater stuff and you know, got to love a good queer community theater. But, like all of those things individually contributed to the Rachel of today.

Rachel: 39:23

Yes.

Max: 39:25

What does that Rachel of today look like? Who is she?

Rachel: 39:31

I am somebody that shows up 100% right. I am somebody that shows up 100% right. I have built this incredible army of friends. That is the number.

Rachel: 39:44

One thing that I can tell you is so critically important is building your intentional family, the people that have your back 100% and the people who will call you out on your bullshit, and the people that will hold your hand when things get hard and will listen to you and will support you. And like all of those things like that is the single greatest thing that I have done is building that community for myself. That is the only reason that I am able to be the person that I am today, and like these role models right, like this community that I had built for myself, are all people that I learned from and I take things from like from Carrie, my boss, to friends that I made when I was a barista, and people from the theater community and people that I met doing burlesque. All of these people are fierce, independent and strong and authentic and unique. Authentic and unique and most of them queer and neurodivergent and are people that I want to be in their life and I want to show up for them and I know that they will support me and I know that they will show up for me, and that means that I am able to be a little bit fearless. Am able to be a little bit fearless.

Rachel: 41:21

So, yeah, like I get to do things like Pride in the Park and I get to make really awesome art with Theater B, and I get to be a teacher at a place that lets me be me a hundred percent and I don't have to worry that a parent is going to be pissed that I talked about, you know, being queer or right, like. I don't have to. I don't have to censor my identity at my job and I yeah, I have family that loves me and a community that I love. I got out of college and the first thing I wanted to do was get the fuck out of Fargo. I could not wait to go somewhere else and be somebody else and start over. Be somebody else and start over, and what I found instead was that there's really incredible people here and probably everywhere.

Max: 42:24

right, you just have to know where to look, and oftentimes we're in the dark, dreary corners just waiting for someone to turn on the disco ball what I love about your description of your friends is you listed off all these adjectives and what I would encourage and challenge you to do is hold those up, because I can guarantee you that all of your friends say that about you. I can 100% guarantee it because in just the few interactions that I've had with you in this like incredible conversation that we've had, I've seen every single one of those adjectives pop up about you.

Rachel: 43:14

Well, thank you.

Max: 43:15

So if you were a pop-up video, that's what I would say. So the last question that I have for you what does pride mean to you, Since we're not allowed to be proud as good Midwesterners?

Rachel: 43:29

But beyond that, what does pride mean to you? Pride is community. Pride is safety. Pride is freedom. Pride is safety. Pride is freedom. Pride is love. Pride is confidence and fearlessness and honesty and authenticity. Honesty and authenticity. And pride is facing things that are scary and hard and doing them anyway with a middle finger up. Right Like pride is understanding adversity and saying fuck you, I can do it anyway. Pride is that stout Midwestern farm wife who is not going to back down for anybody. Right Like we can hold up those archetypes too. Right Like we're allowed to take that on.

Max: 44:38

Like that's not just for conservatives. You're damn right. You're damn right Right.

Rachel: 44:42

Pride is strength in numbers. Pride is those quiet moments of acceptance, those quiet moments of acceptance.

Max: 44:59

Yeah, that's perfect Mix, rachel. Thank you so much for joining us on Pride Stories the podcast. Thank you for taking my Pride Story. Cherry, thank you for having me. Yeah, this has been amazing. I can't think of a better way to start this journey, and so thanks for all of the work that you do for your kids at. Inspire Lab. Thank you for what you do in the community and thank you for being that unicorn with a rainbow heart.

Rachel: 45:34

Thank you, thank you.

Max: 45:36

Thank you for listening to Pride Stories, the podcast. I'm your host, max Kringen, and it's been an honor to bring this story to your ears. Pride Stories is proudly presented by Tellwell Story Co and Studio. We have an incredible team that makes this podcast possible every single week, including executive producers Max Kringen and Duncan Williamson, contributing producers Matt Prigge, jordan Ryan, kirstina Trujillo and Ashley Rick, with additional support by Sandy Keene, annie Wood and the entire team at Towel Story Co and Studio.

Max: 46:08

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