Dr. Lulu's Queer Awakening: A Story of Affirmation and Change

Hello everyone, this episode of Teaching While Queer includes a trigger warning. During this episode, we will be speaking with a medical professional regarding suicide within the LGBTQ community. Please proceed as necessary. Teaching While Queer is a podcast for LGBTQIA plus teachers, administrators and, well, anyone who works in academia to share their stories. Hi, my name is Brian Stanton, a queer theater educator in San Antonio, texas. Each week, I bring you stories from around the world centered on the experiences of LGBTQIA folks in academia. Thank you for joining me on this journey and enjoy Teaching While Queer. Welcome back to another episode of Teaching While Queer. I am your host, brian Stanton, and I have the pleasure to speak with Dr Lulu today. We are heading to medical school today, folks, and I am so excited. Hello, how are you doing?

Hi, brian, I'm doing. I guess I'm doing fine. I'm doing great. It's Sunday morning, it's easy, like Sunday morning. Oh yeah, awesome.

Well, tell me a little bit about yourself. You are an actual doctor, so that's pretty cool.

I know I usually lead with. I'm a real doctor and I play one on the radio. So yeah, I'm a 31 year old as a physician, 31 years as a physician. I did retire from what I call active duty medicine last year, but I'm still a physician. I still work part-time at the border here in and in southwest Texas, I don't know, but in Antonio, I don't know where southwest I think. So, yeah, I'm still a physician. I just you know, I'm less where my status could be less these days and more holding my microphone these days. So yeah, I was born, bred, buttered and slightly burned in Nigeria, which is one of the two most homophobic countries in Africa in my opinion. So growing up queer was interesting and, like I tell the parents that I coach, today I check off two boxes I was your child and today I am you. So when I say stuff I'm talking from lived experience, like I didn't just randomly just come up with information that I'm sharing. So I love what I do right now. It's what I define as the ultimate form of suicide prevention.

That's awesome. Let's dive into that a little bit. You said that when you're a coaching parent, you'll tell them that I was your child, and now I am you. So you identify as part of the LGBTQ plus community, and so does your child.

Yeah. So that's the best kept secret is I am proudly bisexual, even though I prefer to go with queer. And in the last several weeks I've found that I also am demisexual, which is underneath the asexual umbrella. I'm also sapiosexual and I mean I just like, oh my goodness, thank you, god, for all of these information that's just coming to me right now. I just feel like everyone is questioning is my own, I know Lizzo said everyone is gay. I came up with that Everyone is questioning because if you just look a little bit deeper you will see that, wait what? That's me too and that's me too. So I grew up as a bisexual African child. It was only recently that I settled with the word bisexual. I kind of thought it was lesbian Then I was like no, no, no, no, no, no. I love men just as much as I love women. I mean, I have phases, obviously, like anyone who wants to dabble into that. You know that they have phases that sometimes that you're more attracted to the one than the other. But anyway, I don't want to digress too far. And then I also have a child who was assigned a male gender at birth until they are 24. We're proudly transgender women, so you can imagine being a black mother of a black trans woman in Texas.

Yeah, that seems hard.

But I've been served 95 miles an hour tennis ball by the great tennis ace herself, serena Williams. And guess what? I returned to serve. I returned to serve. I'm here for all of it, so yeah.

That's awesome. So let's dive back a little bit. We'll go back in time, if you will, and talk a little bit about your experience growing up in Nigeria. You said it's one of the most homophobic places in all of Africa, so can you tell me a little bit more about your experience growing up?

I said, it's one of the two. The second one is Ghana, our next door neighbor, and that's purely my own. That's my own perspective. I don't know any other country because I already know my country. So my father is Nigerian, his Igbo, and he is Catholic. So if I don't say, if you don't know anything else, the Catholicism aspect already and the Igbo people are extremely proud, extremely misogynistic I got that word right. Yes, you did. Very, very male dominant mindset. That said, the Igbo woman also has her place in the society. As a first daughter, I have a special place in the society but, no matter how high I was, as a first Igbo daughter, which is what we call an Adak, adak A-D-A is the first daughter. So, as the first daughter, first granddaughter of a huge homestead, my grandfather had eight wives and you can just imagine how many grandchildren and how many great grandchildren, and I was the first, the ace. My dad is the first son. I'm the first daughter. No matter how high I'm placed, I'm still beneath the man, no matter what the Igbo custom, igbo tradition does not measure up the woman close to the man. So, that said, we can imagine, with that mindset and the Catholic sprinkling of hot sauce, to now tell my dad at 16, gingerly, that I like girls. What? Get me behind me, satan, but anyway. So my dad was like no, in all fairness to him, he was like no, that's a phase darling. Next, like it was it so when I grew up and never talked about it again until I turned 42, and I met my ex-wife and the rest is history as far as my father goes. And growing up, so naturally I was confused, I was perplexed. I struggle with F-A-G, which is kind of funny that he spells that F-A-G and you can put an S if you like, but fear, anxiety and guilt. And then the S is about my sexuality. So just this F-A-G-S. You know what that spells and I like that because it reminds me of it, centers me. So I struggle with those four, those three things, and there are other things I shame. If you want to put the other S is shame actually. So F-A-G-S spells fear, anxiety, guilt and shame about my other S, my sexuality. And I just, you know, went into that space of doubt. Maybe my dad is right, maybe not, because I was also attracted to men, which brings me to the topic of bisexuality and the fact that, as a teacher in that realm. Today I just won the award for diversity and inclusion by the San Antonio Business Journal and the San Antonio LGBT Chamber, namely the advocate of the year this year. So I must be doing something right. So, now that I know what I know about bisexuality, I know that 57% of adult LGBT members identify as bisexual. Now, that's only those who raise their hands one, two, because of the uniqueness of bisexuality, many will go about their lives living a heterosexual life and I don't, even, I don't ever say lifestyle. Lifestyle is a haircut, is a nail polish, is the way you dress. That's not a lifestyle, this is your life. So they can go undetected as heterosexuals because of the dynamic of bisexuality. So, like I said, everyone is questioning. That's a global term that I came up with, just that sentence. It's not a rule, but I like it. I think it's true. It's my experience and it's anecdotal, but it is. So I am the queer child that I coach the parents about. So I don't know how much you're, you know what people say on your podcast, but I do know that as a pediatrician, I worked only with parents and their children. So, naturally, when I grew up and decided to become a live coach and get certified. It was a natural progression to become a parent coach. I mean, it's like hello, hello, I was already doing this as a pediatrician, as a consultant. Why not take it to the next level and coach the same people? However, I settled with coaching parents of LGBTQ kids specifically because before the lockdown, I had a private practice where I only saw high risk suicidal youth aged eight through 24. Majority I don't know what 80% is, but that's majority. So majority of my patients, maybe even 100% of them, but I don't want to say that but almost every patient I saw struggling with suicidality was in the queer space, almost every patient that I saw. Now, almost every last one of those patients struggled with one thing acceptance by the family. And by family is predominantly I want people to notice my choice of words by family is predominantly their parents. Of course it could be grandpa and grandma and uncle Buck, I know, but one of the things I tell my parents is you're not the most important person in your child's life. You're not. I know we think we are. Your child is always going to be the most important person in their life. You are always going to be the most important person in your life, but you are the most insuential person in your child's life. They're different, yep, and as a result, you must be aware of what you say, what you do, which all come from how you think what. Once I settled on that mindset shift, I was like Lord Jesus, thank you, I'm going to quit medicine so I can do this. So that's why I said at the beginning it is the ultimate form of suicide prevention. Get it now, get the con Okay, because why would any child choose to jump off the ledge if life is good? Well, we study show that in the last 12 months, up to 47% of LGBTQ kids have seriously considered suicide. I don't know, maybe we should give a trigger warning. It is September in a few days, suicide Awareness Month. So this is actually what the doctor ordered, like, literally speaking. Okay. So why would a child who is living happily living in that big deluca make that decision? And while it is easy for people to chuck it up to mental illness and depression, I always ask have you asked the child what happened? Because at six months old it was a happy, go lucky baby. Maybe at six years old it was a happy, go lucky child. Why, at 16, they want to jump? What happened? You can give all the antidepressants you want, but studies have shown that in the last five years prescription strength antidepressants this person's use has more than quadrupled. Suicide rates have continued to soar. So allow me to ask you the question what's wrong with that math? And as a teacher, let's go there. So numbers don't lie. It's a Dr Lulu's random thought process. You just do your research. That's what they say in America, right? This is not drlulucom. This is what I have on my first TED Talk. The numbers show that suicide rates are soaring. In 2019, that number was 40% of queer youth had seriously considered suicide. In 2021, that number was 42%. Today is 47. Please tell me why. And so it's never because the child is LGBT, because that's what people want you to believe. Yes, of course you're going to be suicide because you chose that lifestyle and for that I beg to say who in their right minds in today's world will say I would like gay with fries on the side as a choice, right, this world today? So I love that I've been chosen to do this work. I'm M equals one. I'm the one black Nigerian physician, female mom, also queer, doing this work that I'm doing and then forget that I even have a transgender child. Hello, and bring it home. So I don't know your question. I don't know your question, but I hope my answer touched on it a little bit.

Yeah, that was fantastic. I think there's a lot to dive in there, and I think the work that you're doing is so important. I actually am a pretty big advocate of making sure that there are brave and safe spaces in high school places for children to be themselves, and really that's for everybody. But what I'm struggling with as an educator in the public school system is that there is this pushback about cis-het children feeling uncomfortable, while trans and queer students might feel unsafe, and so that's been a struggle the last couple of weeks. There's been some stuff arising at my previous school district that I just left. I'm so glad to be gone, because it's getting increasingly more toxic and I fear for the students there.

I love that you chose uncomfortable versus unsafe. I love, I love. I'm a word smith, I dig deep into words, I swim in words and it's funny. Every time I hear something I say that's the title of a book, or that's the title of a blog, or that's. You know, I should blog about that or I should tweet that I love words. Ironically, I have a sister who did fine arts in school and she says she thinks in color and I think in words, you know. So I love that you chose unsafe versus uncomfortable, because I always go back to the parent who tells me well, my child wasn't gay when they were, you know. You know, in elementary school, when they got to high school or when they got to college, they became gay. And I always say, yes, and if your child hanging out with gay kids makes them gay, then maybe let's put them to hang out with heterosexual kids and then they'll become heterosexual. I mean, it's not a thing that is catching Like. You don't acquire gayness, you don't, and I love that. You mentioned cis-het ideology. In my commentatorx talk, one of the lines I use is what if we abolished no, I think I said what if we eliminated cis-heterosexual ideologies like gender assignment at birth and just allow kids to be themselves, like that line. I know it's controversial to those who choose to make it controversial, but we do assign gender at birth. Fact. It is a cis-het ideology fact. So what if? What if?

Honestly, and it's been around for millennia. Well, not, I don't really think that's true, cause I do think in ancient times that there was much more queerness happening. It's just the onslaught of patriarchal Christianity across the world Christianity.

let's go there, yes.

That has kind of led this way. And I'm not saying that all Christians are bad. I know very great Christian people who actually follow the teachings of Jesus in a way that is.

Inclusive.

Yes, that is inclusive, because I read the Bible. When I was a kid, I was not forced into religion. My parents gave me choice. They didn't teach us religion. My mom sometimes regrets that, but I think that it saved my life, cause I told her I don't know that I could have survived a Catholic upbringing, and so I did my own research and I went to church camp when I was a teenager to find out what is this all about. Is it for me? It wasn't, but I don't think that everything that was being taught was innately discriminatory.

Yeah.

And it's so interesting to see how, even in the last 10, 15 years, it's gotten so much it has to be this way or that way.

Yes, yes, and I love that you chose the word not all, no, rather the sentence not all Christians are bad. I don't even like the word. I don't even include the word bad. I just know that we all have our own faculty and we all have our own agency to choose. And I like that because I used to teach Bible study when I was a younger version of me and Saint Vincent the Paul, I was a Bible school teacher, so I've read the Bible, just like you, and I know I always end up with two things. We only were given two commandments. They summarized it all to two, and one of the questions I always ask people is that can you tell me what were the criteria that Jesus gave for the neighbor? And then they look at me and they're like what do you mean? Jesus said I want of all those commandments, I want you to just sum it down to two. The first one is love God, and so we don't talk about that because hopefully you love God. But what about the part of loving your neighbor? I want you to qualify the neighbor. Did he say your black neighbor? Did he say your white neighbor? Did he say your tall neighbor? Did he say your quick. No, he just said your neighbor who added the othering we did. We are the ones that introduced the fact that if you're Jewish you can't come to this church. If you're black you can't come to this church. I'm Catholic and I have been to mass. When my baby was seven it's frozen in time we walked into the pew, sat down, the white family got up and left at the Catholic church and sat somewhere else. So don't tell me that we don't have haleration in the church. Of course it's not everybody in the church, because we sat there and other white people came and sat and mass went on. So it's an individual thing. It's not a church thing, it's a person thing. Sadly, people are gollible. They believe what their pastor says or whoever they believe it, and then it becomes a guiding principle for their lives. Thank you, that's my vision.

I agree with that. So let's talk a little bit about your teaching. You said that you've taught Bible study. You are now a coach, like a life coach for parents, which I think is fantastic, and there's so many, there's so many things like people think teacher and they're like, oh, high school, middle school, elementary school, but there are so many realms of teaching out there. So let's dive a little bit just into your teaching experience and how being a queer person informs how you work with students and their parents. If you have to interact with their parents, yes, I love it.

So I am definitely an unusual teacher. With regards to that, people forget that as a physician, I teach. That's what I do. People forget that as a consultant pediatrician, that's what I did. Ma'am, your child has strep throat that's a topic and so it's caused by bacteria. That's the content. And the treatment is penicillin. That is the medicine. So it is teaching on a daily basis. Well, we're going to take some medicine for fever. That's teaching. You need 200 milligrams or whatever. That's teaching. That's transfer of information, is a definition of teaching in Dr Lulu's book From the person who has information to the person who maybe has less of it, maybe not none of it at all or none of it. So that's what I did my whole entire life in the consulting room. For 30 years I was teaching and guiding and informing and correcting and adjusting. That's what I did. I'm learning, because a teacher knows that they are learning twice when they teach. This is not Dr Lulu, this is not Rocket Scientist as Berdad like those same Spanish. So I taught parents for 30 years and then in my latter years, when I joined the Air Force as a Lieutenant Colonel and Commander, I taught my troops. I taught the medical students at the medical school. I taught the medicine and I taught them life. And you know what? I was nominated two times for best teacher of the year and the word was teacher of the year Teacher of the year. I didn't win. I always lost to this other gay friend of mine I don't want to call his name, but I was nominated as teacher of the year two times. So even as a physician, I was teaching. And then I was actually requested when I joined the Air Force at 42, I requested to be placed in a station at a place where they had a medical school because of my love for teaching. So I was handpicked and hand selected and hand placed at Lackland because I requested a medical. What do you call it? Gre program, graduate, residency, education or something like that. That's the name. So I was a teacher as a medical in the medical school and then, when I got done and I decided to leave medicine and become a life coach, another thing I'm doing is teaching. Think about your child's basketball coach. What are they doing? They are guiding, they are informing, they are correcting right, they are holding space, they're letting you shine. The coach never plays the game. In that sense, same thing as a life coach, I'm not making any decision for you. When you are playing the game whether soccer or football or basketball or whatever your coach trusts that you will make the right decision and make the right play. Now you discussed the play right. So I love using coaching as a basketball, because people understand that Life coaching is still a little new for some people. But I said, forget the Lord life, insert basketball and then they get it. Who makes the play ultimately in the game? The player, you, the parent, another P right, or the queer student, or the queer team, whoever? So my job is to hold space for you, show you a mirror of the way your brain is making decisions and how you came to where you are now, which is called stuckness. You're never going to come to me if you're not stuck. Usually they are stuck because they're having a hard time deciding to accept their kid. That's really what it is. But that's what it is to the outside world. I'm an insider. When I come in because I'm an insider and I say you know, what you're struggling with really Is acceptance of self, your struggle truly is how to accept yourself as a parent of a queer child. That's it. And once we get you to self accept your kid is fine. So I love it. I love what I do, I'm passionate about it. I feel like I'm painting a canvas every time I talk about it. I love the choice of words, I love the. It's just amazing and I'm just so thankful that I've been chosen to this and I answered the call because many people called and even of those few who were chosen, they had to say here I am, lord, send me. Even amongst those who were chosen, you still have to accept. They say your mission, max, from double of seven. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is go to wherever you know. I love that term. So my I'm Max and you are double of seven. So your mission, if you choose to access it, max five I forgot her name is if you choose to accept, you see how to choose to accept it yourself as a parent of which, and then come out of your own closet. Because what parents do when their kids tell them is they now replace the kids in the closet. They don't want to talk about it. They show you that I don't want to discover, I don't want to talk about it. It's all about fear.

Yeah, I agree with that. There's a lot that you said in there, and I also am a huge proponent of words, but, like your sister, I'm a fine arts person, so I see things in images.

But I see the background, I see to your background, yeah.

I teach theater, and so what I love about this is that here we're talking about what is what does it mean to be a teacher? And I always go with my students down the path of like what does it mean to do theater? Because my experience was working in theme parks, working in live musical productions and whatnot. I've done a lot of varying.

I've done it.

Madonna is everything, and so it's. It's funny to me because I think that for me, theater is everything. I include football games in theater and basketball games because you've got a halftime show, you've got special lights that are used, you've got announcers making voices, you've got a team on the field doing certain plays it's their scenes, you know, and so you've got the master.

That's also, you know, yeah exactly.

And the cheerleaders?

got the cheerleaders. I was going to say you've got the cheerleaders doing the little rockets things. I mean that's and, but that's because you're a creative. So you see, that, you see, and I used to talk about it when I was a physician, which I also got many, many awards as a physician for the same thing teaching. I got a lot of patience because you explain it to me like no other doctor. So I've always known I've been born to use my words. I mean, everything is coming full circle for me now, at 53. I'm realizing I was born to do this and the words just come to me, like people are like, oh my God, the way you explain. I said, well, because I've leaned in to this project that I've been given to manage. I've leaned in and so the words just come from wherever I can pick up a ball and I talk about it. Yesterday I was giving a talk and I picked up a flask. This flask, you know this is a I'm just going to pick up my candle and I was trying to explain pronouns and I asked the gentleman. I said if you saw this candle lying on the roadside, what would you say? You would say someone lost. He said their candle. I said stop there, someone lost their candle. They them, their pronoun singular. And he got it. I said people, because it puts me why they it's not. Listen at yourself. If you found my cell phone on the street, you would say, oh my goodness, somebody lost their cell phone. You would say without even thinking about it. So why, when your child tells you that their pronoun is they them, do you? They'll push back. You see, that is all in perspective and thought processes, and so I'm just proud and thankful that I've been given this amazing gift to explain things concrete like to the granular version, so that even the five year old will be like I get it. And if you sit and get it, then you are. Now it's about you having a block somewhere. So now it's for us to figure out where did that block come from? And usually it's just childhood socialization. And you were right when you said in the old days, in my, in my language, ebo, our pronouns are only they, them, theirs, indigenous, most indigenous language, are non binary. It's not even like a new concept. I put two and two together. I said, hey, did they hit me? I screamed. I said I called my mother. I said do you know that we only use they, them pronouns. She was like what, what do you mean? I said, and I said it to him. I said all means he and he means she and he means they.

And I said that's wild and so great Like. I just wish for the world that we had more people connected to their indigenous roots who would be able to explain this kind of stuff, because I really do think that a lot of it comes down to Western sentiment right, Western being, you know, European, because that's where the colonization is really strong.

Yeah, yes, because I mean ancient evil women took wives. It's in the Harvard journals, the Harvard Chronicles, the Harvard Library that ancient evil women, my ancestors women, took wives. Now, that's a fact. However, patriarchy will not let anybody look deeper into why they took the wives. Well, maybe they took the wives to their husbands. I don't care the reason. We know the what wives. And then when you go in, because my book that's coming up called Invited In. I actually went and looked into dozens of African countries who have a history of same gender-loving relationships and the ancient drawings in Tanzania. They showed pictures of male, male to male unions. I mean, these are things that have been there. And one group of humans came and said, no, it's bad. I mean, the one that is easily accessible to us as Americans in quotes is the two S, the two spirits.

Yeah, two spirits. I was actually just talking about that last night Exactly.

That's down the street from us in Hawaii. They have two spirits. And then what happened? The colonialists came and said no, drive them out. They're evil, they are bad. But they were the teachers, they were the healers, they were the seers. Just because a concept is difficult for you to grasp doesn't make it wrong, doesn't make it incorrect. My grandfather was not a Christian. My grandfather never set foot in a school, yet he was a traditional bone setter, a traditional orthopedist. I got my traits from him in my fingerprints. I was a doctor from my fingerprints. Because we believe in that, we believe in reincarnation, and the lady that I reincarnated as her children will see me when I was a child and they'll be like oh, mom, I'm like, what's that? You're like mom. They'll bring me gifts and give me fruits because they believe that I came back as their mother. I am their mother, reincarnated and so. But this is real, authentic culture. I cannot toss that away. It's too powerful, it's beyond, it's bigger than me. How dare I try to toss it away? This is who I am, this is my kid's legacy. So it's powerful and therefore there's so much more. I don't know. I'm happy you don't teach English because you teach art, a reason which is great because the English language is so limited.

Yes.

At the end of my TEDx talk I say je vous remercie beaucoup. That means I thank you very much, but really it's just thank you. In English, but it's je vous remercie beaucoup, it has like muchisimas gracias de mi corazón. It means thank you so deeply from my heart. But in English it's just thank you. My language is indibai eke nei mono. My people, I thank you. Let me say I see you, I respect you, I give you honor, I give you praise, but in English it's just thank you. So it's important that we who are the last of the Mohicans, the last frontier of this, my kids, speak a little bit of my language, but I'm sad to say that they don't get it. They think there are no rays in Nigeria, not for any fault of theirs, but me. As a quintessential Nubian god. I must bring that which I have to everything. I do so. Even when I talk to parents of queer kids, I'm bringing this information to the table. They are mesmerized, they are amazed, they are like wow. But really what I want you to do is recognize in yourself the greatness that only lies within you and that you can accept yourself first and then your child, because I'm about suicide prevention in your kid, so I'll do whatever it takes to get you to get it If it means reaching deep down into my own culture, my language, which has no he, him or she, her pronouns.

Gosh, there's so much unpack there that I absolutely love. Just one side note I study theater, I'm a theater teacher and I'm getting my master's degree right now. This summer I saw a play that was written and performed by an indigenous woman who is Mohican, and so she's sharing her culture and what it's like to be Mohican after the last of the Mohican, and so your conversation just resonated with me on that level, because I'm connecting two stories now. I'm connecting your heritage and her heritage and just being like, boom, this is what I want. I want all these voices coming together. And then there are two things that have come to mind that I want to address. One I love that you are focused on acceptance. There was a long time where the educational field was a proponent of teaching tolerance, and it just rubs me the wrong way, because I can tolerate the heat. Right now, I can tolerate eating this food that I don't really want to, but I shouldn't have to tolerate a person. I love it. It seems to me like tolerance is a negative. I love it Just putting up with it right. So the fact that you're focused on acceptance, I think it's beautiful, because that's what I started telling teachers it's. Take down the teaching tolerance poster and teach acceptance. I love this You're seeing the person. You're saying this is who they are and that you don't have to have any opinion about it.

Exactly. I am here for all of that. And here's what my eldest child, who is my transgender kid, said to me. She said, mom and I know you want to teach about acceptance this is the smartest human being I've ever met, and not because I'm her mother, this is a full scholarship to Stanford kid. Ok, so just take that, just right there. Just, I'm not making it up. But she said, mom, I know your whole everything is about acceptance, but really what it should be is about affirmation.

Oh, oh, it's the next level.

Absolutely. I mean and this is the power of teaching to also know that you are also a lifelong learner and a student, and the fact that this child owns and understands herself so much. She was like you know. I know you want to teach about acceptance, I know. But really the next level up is really affirmation. And I have to go look at the difference in the definitions. They are close but not the same, just like importance and influential close but not the same. When you look at the context, when you really dig deep, you see that they are two different things. Acceptance is like oh, I want to wear this dress. Ok, sure, let's go. Affirmation is I want to wear this dress. You look beautiful in the dress. Affirmation is I want to wear this dress. How do you feel when you wear the dress? I feel fantastic. Then you are fantastic. Affirmation. Acceptance is I want to wear this dress. Okay, sure, let's go Versus rejection I want to wear this dress. No, go take it off. You see the difference.

Right, and then tolerance would be. I want to wear this dress, I guess. Well, fine.

I Don't let us. I want. I want to wear this dress. I don't care. Thank you.

Yeah, I don't care exactly.

Don't let us is. I want him here. This I love it. And this is this. Four words. We could do a whole, we could write a whole skit, because I'm also an indie actress. I know you probably didn't notice. I've been in my first movie, my first short film, and you know you've arrived when you play yourself in a movie. So I played my own self in a movie recently, this summer, this past summer, and so these four words is a whole blog post. You see how I love talking about words. You know acceptance versus affirmation versus tolerance versus Rejection. Rejection is go change that dress, so I don't care. Acceptance is okay, let's go. I from a certain affirmation is you look amazing in it. What that's a new? You blow my mind every day, girl.

I love that.

But that's what I said. By when you, when you now understand what you are placed on this earth to do, the words just come to you. Look at that nice grind. The words just come to you once you accept what you're put on this earth to do.

I Love that so much, everything you just said. It's just so powerful and I think there's there's immense power in words and I try to teach that to my own children because they'll say things and I'm like yeah, but do you understand where that comes from?

Do you?

understand where these things are. You know what what that word means and and the power that it has, or, or there are other words that may be more powerful for explaining. As a theater teacher, I've been really enraptured with Branae Brown's new book Atlas of the Heart, because it's all about diving into emotions and like really building a stronger vocabulary for For emotion, and as an actor, you kind of need to know more than I'm mad or angry. I'm Content versus happy, like you need a deeper understanding of emotion and I think it's so powerful and that's where the words and definitions of words are are immensely powerful as far as becoming Humans and I think, to put it in perspective, in context, english words which again, yep, I Begged to say are not enough, I agree with you.

But I but I do agree with you. I always say don't pray for happiness, pray for contentment. I am the one I've always. I'm so happy that you said that content is deeper than happy, is deep the next level than happy. But, yeah, I love me some brine Brown, my effect. I have a TEDx talk. My third TEDx talk is titled vulnerability in parenting how to embrace vulnerability as the key tool in your parenting to box. And this is again because I'm a pediatrician. I work with parents my whole life and I'm a parent coach. So you see, everything ties in and I'm just so thankful that I've gotten that I've lived long enough. When I was, when I decided to retire, I Called my father and I said dad, I Want to retire your name. My name was dr Oomey for a long time as a pediatrician and dr Oomey and my dad said you have earned it. He said you have reached the pinnacle of your role as a physician. You have my blessings. I Wasn't taking permission, I Was telling and my dad was affirming. Now had my dad said well, why do you want to? Maybe he will have planted doubts and I'd be like oh yeah, I don't know. He didn't say that. He said you are enough, you have done what you want to do as a physician. Now, almost every doctor that I told said have you lost your mind? Right, you're gonna lose that notoriety, right?

Why would?

you want to leave Madison Hmm. But in more perspective. Why would you want to leave 300,000 plus a year to make less than 75,000? Because that's all I make right now as a retired physician who is on disability from the military and just trying to Build my business as a life-quit. But guess what? That's not stopping me, because I know that I believe Fully in what I'm doing, that ultimately, once I can help enough people, like zigzagla said, the money Will pour in and I'll be like huh. And one of the things I teach is what if it turns out better than you ever freaking imagined? What if, on Monday, I'm going to be having an interview with Oprah daily? When I was a child in Nigeria, I watched Oprah and I declared them I'm gonna meet this woman. I want to be on her show. I have three Vision boards. My third vision board only has one picture on it Oprah's. My first vision board was made in June of 2019. I can bring it and show it to you now. It has Lady O and it said all magazine in it June 18, 2019 or something like that. My second one has Oprah in it pointing at me, me saying Oprah. Now I don't know how it happened. That's the thing about vision boards. Don't worry about the how, just know the what. But I'm going to be interviewed by Oprah Daley tomorrow at 2.30 pm, central Standard Time. That's not an accident. That is me believing deeply in what I was put on this earth to do and the universe serving it to me on a platter. And so, as a parent, let me bring it to you, because it's not about me. I want to bring it to you. I want you to ask yourself what do you want? And by that I mean what relationship do you want with your child? I say that because, while your child might stumble, while your child might even fall on their face from your rejection, still they rise, still they find their tribe, still they survive in spite of your rejection. And so the decision is yours. Are you going to make their life a little bit easier and support them and affirm them and accept them, or are they going to stumble a little bit? But there's Dr Lulu out there and there's Brian out there and there are other members of their tribe and the other members of the village. That is going to take to, not only because people that, oh, it takes a village to raise it. It takes a village to raise it, but I said, it also takes a village to save the child. And we will come and we will raise your child up. And now you end up being like my ex-husband, who my own eldest child has completely excommunicated. And guess who is thriving? My kiddo? Because the studies have shown that if you have just one single trusted adult in your circle, you will thrive, even as a suicidal teen you will thrive, because suicide rates drop to 7% just by having one supportive parent. So the decision you have to make is are you going to be the parent that's going to hold your child and proudly say I am a proud mama, or papa bear? Those are the deep questions to ask yourself. Parents are very busy saying well, you know, I don't want them to be bullied, I don't want. The world is cruel, I don't want, I don't know. Are they going to find someone to? Those are all valid questions, but the most important question is are you going to be their first bully? Are you going to ask yourself what does my child need from me today, right now? How can I make their burden lighter? How are you going to ask yourself those questions? Because that's where the chicken crossed the road, that's where the rubber meets the pavement At that hinge point. And that's where I come in, because they say if you could have done it yourself, you would have done it already. That's where you get a mentor. That's where you get a teacher, that's where you get a coach Someone who's lived through it. It doesn't get any better than that. I'm not just tossing out words. I struggled. My own child said, mom, our home was mainly transphobic when I was growing up. My child said that to me. My child said, mom, this is not about you. The first words in my book mom, this is not about you. I made it about me by saying what is my church going to say? What is my mom going to say? What are my friends going to say? What am I? What I made it about me, I centered it on me and that's why I'm preaching inviting in as opposed to coming out. I don't talk about coming out anymore. Inviting in is about allyship. It's about you earning your invitation from the queer child who was born that way and you assigned a gender to them. You see, that is all so powerful.

I just want to take a minute and thank you for your time today. This has been a really fantastic conversation and it's gone in lots of different directions that I just love that there's your perspective that gets to be shared with everybody. So thank you for being here today and I am looking forward to the Oprah interview. I will definitely be finding that once it is published, and checking out your TED talk. Do you want to tell the folks where they can find you social media and whatnot?

Yes, absolutely. So I am the quintessenture Renaissance woman because I tell people that I am a doctor and I do play one on radio. So I have a radio show called the Parent Hour. You can hear on KLMO 98.9 FM and 92.1 FM every Saturday morning. It's live and I also stream it live on my TikTok On social media. I'm on TikTok as Dr Lulu. I'm one of many Dr Lulu's, but I'm the only one who looks like me. I'm also on Instagram as Dr Lulu Talk Radio. I'm on my YouTube, where I try to upload as many of my videos as I can remember to as Dr Lulu Talk Radio. I'm also on LinkedIn as Dr Lulu, which is Dr Lulu, I mean, because Dr Lulu is my registered trademark. So really, if you type Dr Lulu right now, I am the first four hits. I'm so proud of that. I'm so proud of that. So if you type Dr Lulu, you will find out that I'm the one who is talking about what I'm talking about. So just type Dr Lulu LGBT things that you will pull everything about me up, including my TEDxTalk. My second TEDxTalk is going to be recorded October 1st, so I'm really excited. It's titled Rethinking the Closet Coming out versus coming out, lgbtq plus versus inviting in.

Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of Teaching Wild Queer. If you haven't done so already, please consider subscribing on your favorite RSS feed and sharing the podcast with your friends and family. New episodes will come out every other week during the school year. If you're interested in joining us on the Teaching Wild Queer podcast, please email us at teachingwildqueerpodcast at gmailcom. Have a great day.