Lindo Bacon - Part 1

On Radical Belonging - Series 2, Episode 3

I’m joined by researcher and former professor Dr. Lindo Bacon (they/them) for a special two part episode. For nearly two decades they have taught courses in social justice, health, weight and nutrition. They are also the author of Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight, and co-authored Body Respect: What Conventional Health Books Get Wrong, Leave Out, or Just Plain Fail to Understand About Weight. Their newly released book, Radical Belonging: How to Survive and Thrive in an Unjust World (While Transforming it for the Better) , takes their inspiring message beyond size, to shaping a culture of empathy, equity, and true belonging.

We talk about radical belonging, how hearing Audre Lorde speak changed their life, identifying as trans and taking up space, how coping methods serve us and lots more. Be sure to listen to Part 2 after this!

If you haven't already, be sure to join our Facebook community to connect with other like-minded queer folks and allies.

Find out more about Gem Kennedy and Queers & Co. 

Podcast Artwork by Gemma D’Souza

Resources

Find out more about Lindo’s work and books on their website

Lindo’s new book Radical Belonging: How to Survive and Thrive in an Unjust World (While Transforming It For the Better)

Follow Lindo on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook

adrienne maree brown’s new book, We Will Not Cancel Us

Full Transcription

Gem: Welcome to Queers & Co. - the podcast on self-empowerment, body liberation and activism for queer folx and allies. I'm your host, Gem: Kennedy. My pronouns are they/them and I'm a transformational practitioner and coach living in the UK.

Gem: Hey folx! Welcome to Episode 3. There are two parts to this week's episode. So we're doing things a little bit differently and it will all become clear why. First of all, let me introduce who my guest is. It's someone who I was incredibly excited to talk to and someone whose books I've really enjoyed over the years. They're a researcher and former professor and for nearly two decades have taught courses in social justice, health, weight and nutrition. If you're involved in fat activism or body liberation of any kind, then you will have heard of their books Health at Every Size and also Body Respect and their newly released book, Radical Belonging: How to Survive and Thrive in an Unjust World, While Transforming It for the Better takes their inspiring message beyond size to shaping a culture of empathy, equity and true belonging.

Gem: If you haven't already read Radical Belonging, I'd highly recommend that you do. It's a brilliant book and it brings together so many important ideas and lots of different research. So my guest is, if you haven't guessed already, Dr. Lindo Bacon. Not only was it great to have a conversation with them, but also I learned so much from it. So just to quickly explain why the episodes are in two parts, we had our first podcast recording on 22nd December and during the interview, it just felt like the energy was not quite there, or the connection wasn't there in the way that it might be. I know that I was pretty burnt out at the end of December and I know Lindo mentioned that they were finding it hard to connect, and they'd had a lot of podcast recordings, I think 15 in the last couple of weeks. So we both kind of finished the recording, feeling like maybe something wasn't quite right. And Lindo asked if they could have listened to the episode, and we could kind of sit with it before we thought about what to do next. And so I sent them the episode, and they got back in touch after Christmas, saying that they would be happy for me to release the episode, they didn't feel that it was particularly inspired, but they feel that it is good enough and they're trying to work around perfectionism and you know, not kind of allowing that to stop them releasing things or to stop them in their work. And all of that resonated with me so much. They said that I could release the episode, or we could re-record the episode in January sometime. And there was part of me that felt really strongly that it was important to release the first part, considering we were both okay with it, just because neither of us maybe felt we were at our best, rather than re-recording the episode and getting rid of the first part.

Gem: I suggested to Lindo that we have a conversation about that experience, and what we may have learned from that, because I know that I certainly learned an awful lot. And I've noticed a lot of shame and a lot of discomfort coming up around releasing the episode because I know when I listen back to the first part that I'm not responding to Lindo in a way that I maybe would like to, and feeling that it's not my best work. And it's really interesting that Lindo also felt that it wasn't their best work. And there's something around allowing that to go into the world and for it not to have to be perfect. So I hope that you get something from it, and that you find it interesting, and I'm sure that you will, because the things that Lindo shares are really insightful. I notice that there's part of me that wanted to caveat the work with like, "Oh, this isn't my best interview, I could have done better. I could have asked different questions, I could have whatever". But, I'm actually going to just be quiet, allow you to listen to it, and encourage you maybe to think about where perfectionism or where the need for something to show you in the right light comes up for you because I know that it certainly comes up for me. And Lindo mentioned in the second part that it comes up for them as well. So the first part is the interview that we had on the 22nd of December. And then the second part is an interview that we had last week, just discussing what happened and what we are taking away from it. If you have any thoughts or there's anything you'd like to share, then please do head to either the Facebook group Queers & Co. or you can drop me an email Gem@Gemkennedy.com. So without further ado, I'll introduce you to part one of my conversation with Dr. Lindo Bacon.

Gem: Hi Lindo, thank you so much for joining me.

Lindo: Oh, delightful to be chatting with you, Gem.

Gem: Yeah, I'm really excited. And I was just saying I've got a page full of notes of lots of things to ask. And I guess the first thing I would say is just how much I've enjoyed Radical Belonging, and I've read your other two books as well, but this feels like a real, I don't know, like a real combination of all kinds of cool stuff so I'm really excited to talk about it.

Lindo: That's awesome. I really put my heart and soul into that book. So I feel like... it's kind of like I'm out there on the line right now. And it's scary having this book out. And, you know, I'm in the early stages of getting feedback.

Gem: Yeah, and I'm thinking about the place that it came from as well. I heard you mention in an interview that actually it came from - and I should mention the title so that people if they haven't read it can actually have like a context of what we're talking about - The book is called Radical Belonging: How to Survive and Thrive in an Unjust World, While Transforming It for the Better. And the thing that's so fascinating is it came from you writing a journal on your history of unbelonging.

Lindo: Yeah. And you know, another way of framing what you just said is, it really just came from trauma, you know, from the first step of the book was just writing about the ways in which I felt left out in the world, and then noticing how that set me up to be distrustful and scared of people. And, yeah, and so the first writing where I was focused on all of that was really hard. But fortunately, I also had a lot of perspective. So I went back and recognised that, hey, but that's not all me. I also... there's a lot of happiness in my life and I feel like there's a lot of stuff that's really extraordinary and unique about me too. And part of that came from the struggles, you know? I had to develop... I learned to develop empathy for others, and feel more deeply, and so there was a lot of good, and so I was able to kind of go back to my original journal and kind of look at what strategies I put in place to survive it. And, you know, then I was able to go back a third time, and use my skills as a scientist to explain biologically how all that stuff gets embedded in us physically, and how we take control and can manage it, and also change our physiology in ways that are amazing, to help us to feel more love and connection for other people. So yeah, I know, that's a really long-winded response, but I suppose I'm just really feeling what it's like to release so much of myself into the world.

Gem: Mm hmm. Yeah. And it's very different, I guess, from your previous two books, which still had the social justice lens, and were still thinking about marginalised communities but there was more emphasis maybe on the science and not so much emphasis on your personal story. And I guess, like queerness is woven throughout this book as well, which is really exciting. So I can totally hear that that must feel very different from putting that kind of work into the world compared to what you may have done before.

Lindo: Exactly. It feels like now if people have problems with the book, it's more personal.

Gem: Oh, I have so many questions about that. But I guess, yeah, I guess let's take it from the top. You mentioned kind of in the process of writing this book around feeling this sense of unbelonging and lots of different parts and times of your life. I wondered, I guess, at what point you got involved in social justice or where you became more conscious of it, or it was on your radar?

Lindo: It was a slow boil. I think I grew up in a very conservative household. And so I suppose pre-college, my politics were probably pretty far to the right. But when I went to college, I think it opened me up to a much wider world. And I started to be much more open to social justice. But I'm not sure that I really developed my commitment to change making until well, actually, that's not true. Soon, soon after college, when I went to graduate school, I was already started to focus on social justice issues. I guess it's really been president for much of your life.

Gem: Yeah. Hmm. And have you seen that shift over time, because I guess now your work, and this is my interpretation, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I guess now your work feels like it's more rooted in your queerness and being trans like you're able to kind of weave that in a bit more, whereas before it was maybe more focused on body liberation, how have you noticed that it's developed and shifted over time?

Lindo: Yeah, it's interesting, because I think the central driving issue has always been body liberation but I think in the early stages, I wasn't really even able to envision trans. I didn't even recognise that that was part of it. And I think that the story that I told in my older books where I was focused more on weight was mainly because that's the only story that we're told in eating disorders, you know, that I was told that I was a girl and I was told that girls want to be attractive to boys and girls fear fatness, because it's thinness that gets you attractiveness and rewards in that hetero normative world.

Lindo: And I, I honestly believe that that was my own eating disorder story, because that was the only thing that I could envision, like, there wasn't much trans representation, there wasn't. I didn't know of another world. And so that's what I was writing in my earlier books. And it was only later in life, that I discovered that my issues around my body had more to do with not ever feeling like I was a girl. And that the world viewed me in that way because that's the designation they put on people that had, you know, my particular body type.

Gem: I'm thinking about one story in particular that you share in your book around when you ended up following a group who you later found out were lesbians into a talk at university or college. And the person giving the talk actually turned out to be Audre Lorde.

Lindo: Right. Yeah, that was a pretty profound turning point for me, although I'm not sure that I totally, or in fact I know, that I didn't totally understand it at the time, but piecing it together later on, Audre Lorde really changed my life. So let me tell that story to listeners who probably haven't read the book.

Gem: Please do.

Lindo: Yeah, it was early college and in college, particularly in the early years, I felt like such a geek, like I was just kind of watching the world, and I never really felt like I fit in. And there were a group of people that were in a lot of my classes that I always admired. And, you know, they had a social life and they were active. And I was always kind of jealous of them. And one day, it was like a Friday night or something. And I was about to just go back to my dorm room and just be by myself and I see a bunch of them wandering around campus. And I was kind of wondering, you know, so what do the cool kids do at night on Friday night? And so I just started to follow them. And I ended up following them into an open room. And not even knowing what was going to be happening in that room. And just as I got in, the doors were closing, I was the last one of the last people let in, and there were very few seats left. And so I had to go sit like front and centre, which is usually something that I avoid, and I wouldn't like to be in the back. And I had no idea what was about to happen.

Lindo: And then the speaker walks in and as you mentioned, it was Audre Lorde, who was someone that I had never heard of before. And honestly, Lorde is a woman that has this incredible presence. She's just this, this large woman who emanates power, and she came out and these bright, colourful robes and really just... Yeah, I don't know what else to say except that like, she just has such a strong presence. And it was so intimidating to me. And the first thing she says by way of introduction was something like, "My name is Audre Lorde and I'm a black lesbian, feminist poet", or something on that order. And then she looks around the room. And out of everybody in the room she just points to me and she says, "You, who are you?" and I'm sitting there and I'm just panicking. And the panic set in for me as soon as I heard the word lesbian because lesbian wasn't something that I had ever considered for myself until that moment. There was something in that word that made me realise that, you know, maybe there's something here, maybe, and maybe, you know, I just came to a talk by a lesbian, maybe everybody in this room is going to think I'm a lesbian. And I was shaking. And I'm trying to get her to, you know, move on to the next person and not talk. And she's having none of it. And she just keeps pushing me and saying "Identify yourself". And I say things like, "Well, I don't like to put myself into categories". She didn't like that.

Lindo: Then, you know, I said something like, "Well, I'm a white woman". And she just looks at me with such disdain. And it wasn't because of my whiteness, or saying that I was a woman it was because, that was so unimaginative. I mean, it was so like... there's so much more to our identities than that. And so she's calling on other... she gives up on me. And then she starts calling on other people in the room, and everybody's throwing out all of these much more colourful adjectives. And you know, some people are homos, and some people are queer, and some are socialists, but the thing is that everybody else with what they were naming, they were saying with pride, whereas I felt like I had to hide and didn't want to show up.

Lindo: And Audre's point in all of that, which again, I didn't really understand til later, was that we have to own our identities. And if we don't own our identities, we give the larger culture, the power to define them and define them as good or bad. And that, you know, she took on the word lesbian with pride. And it was just an integral part of who she was, and she wasn't going to feel any shame for it. Whereas for me, that word lesbian conjured up something that was ugly and bad and wrong. And it wasn't a label I could even consider for myself, because I was allowing other people's definition of the word to get in the way of being able to look at lesbians or possibly myself, with pride. And I also just say that... you have read the book...  that I no longer identify either as a lesbian or as a woman. But at the time, those were... I was moving into seeing myself as a lesbian.

Gem: Yeah. And those shifts in our identity are super interesting to me as well and there's something there around reclaiming words that have been used in sort of negative ways, for example, queer or lesbian, and actually proudly owning those identities. But then also how identity changes over time. And it's interesting at that age that the extent of your identity in that moment, when asked was white women, and how much more colourful and kind of varied, it can become over time if we allow ourselves to actually engage with finding out who we are.

Lindo: Exactly. Yeah.

Gem: Yeah.

Lindo: And I remember too just like how in awe I was of everybody else, who had found identities that not only they felt you know, they can see themselves in, but they were things that they took pride in.

Gem: Absolutely. And there's a quote here that you mentioned in your book... it's a quote from you, where you talk about the tipping point of the pain of not being seen outweighing the potential risks associated with being visible. And I wonder, after that encounter, and maybe other encounters later on, where were the tipping point for you where you decided, "No, I do now identify as for example, more recently, trans.

Lindo: Yeah. And actually, that's only come in recent years that I'm identifying as trans. And it's been incredibly freeing. And I'll give you an example. I go on speaking tour now and then, and when I speak people treat me really well. And you know, people admire my work. And so oftentimes, my hosts will sponsor parties for me and take me out and everybody's saying kind things to me. And yet, as much as people are giving me all this reinforcement that what I'm doing matters and it's important, there's always this sense of alienation because people are relating to me as a woman. And I feel like there's this huge part of me that never got seen in all of that. And so we'd have conversations and people would be doing this girl talk that always just felt so alien to me. And yet, they thought that they were connecting with me. And yet, I never just really felt like I was in the conversation.

Lindo: And that is hugely different now. I'm now taking on space, and letting people know I'm gender queer. So people don't try to do the girl bonding thing any more, they have to find other ways to relate to me. And the connections are just so much deeper with people now that I'm fully present. I realised that as much as it was hard for me, because people were making assumptions about me, which weren't my fault, right? Then it takes active work on my part to kind of assert myself in order for people to actually see me because culturally, we're taught that this is a binary world and people are taught to look at someone like me and see girl. So now that I'm asserting myself and letting people know who I really am, it's opened up like a whole world where now I can really feel seen and valued for who I am, and not just feel like I'm valued for people's ideas of what they want to project, you know, I wasn't really seen. And so, what that meant was they weren't really valuing me.

Gem: Mm hmm. Yeah. And I love how you talk about connection and vulnerability in the book, and how important that is. Just that sense of, I guess, finding spaces where we belong. For me that's come through accessing queer community and fat community. But yeah, that process of actually - and it is a privilege, isn't it to be able to kind of show all of ourselves in spaces, because there are lots of people who can't do that for lots of different reasons - but when we are able to do that, what comes out of it, the relationships, and the kind of deepened connection with people is really, really profound.

Lindo: Exactly, and earlier in my life, it wasn't safe to show those parts of me. When I remember the time my mother busted me dressing up in my brother's suit and she was so ashamed of me. And so it wasn't safe. I got the message loud and clear that who I was wasn't going to be valued. If I wanted to get value in my family, I had to assert some femininity so that my parents would be proud of me, instead of trying to change me all the time. So it makes sense that a lot of us don't show our true identities. And this is an example of an identity where we have a little bit of power, or some people do to disclose or not disclose. Other identities, like say fatness is something that is visibly obvious to other people. And so we're stuck with other people's projections. We don't have the power to hide.

Gem: Mm hmm.

Lindo: And you know, how valuable it is when we can find those spaces where all those different identities get valued. And I know what you're talking about, about how important it is to find our little insular communities, you know, like to find the fat community or the queer community or if you're a person of colour to find other people who share that with you, and how necessary it is to have those safe spaces where people can understand your experience. And I also think that we can also keep working on changing that larger culture so that we're valued in that larger culture as well.

Gem: Yeah. And that brings to mind how you mention the shift in your work kind of going from... Well, I guess a paradigm shift that needs to happen everywhere, really. So shifting from the self-help focus to actually looking at community and systemic issues, rather than thinking, "Oh, I have low confidence", for example, "That's something I need to work on and go away and read some books on or have therapy". Yes, that can be really helpful, but actually, there's a wider shift in society that needs to happen. Are you feeling a lack of confidence, because of the continual microaggressions you face as a fat person or as a person of colour or any other marginalised identity?

Lindo: Exactly, because you can do all the work on yourself and improve your confidence and self love. And then you go back into a world in which your othered or denied opportunity and the effects are real. So until we change the culture, we're gonna have to keep redoing the work on ourself.

Gem: Yeah, it makes me think of like... I love metaphors and it makes me think of a little incubator where you have your community that really get you and you can sort of draw strength and energy from, and then you go out into the world. And you're kind of exposed to these really difficult and chilly conditions where you aren't able to be yourself or where just showing up in the world is really difficult. And then needing to retreat again to this little incubator where you can build strength again. And I guess it becomes really tricky when people don't have access to those incubation spaces, for example, at the moment with Covid. I can't remember what number of lockdowns we're in now in the UK, but people are really struggling with that lack of community, particularly if you're in a marginalised community.

Lindo: Yeah, I know, we need each other so desperately right now.

Gem: And I guess that's the theme of the book. Radical Belonging is not about radical self-survival or radical independence, it's about feeling part of a larger thing.

Lindo: Exactly. And I also want to say that in the larger culture lots of times people shut others out, not out of a sense of conscious intention. A lot of the racism in the world isn't because people are consciously thinking that people of colour are inferior. It's mostly because we've been fed these values for so long that we absorb them, and we don't even realise that they're there. And it becomes unconscious. And I think about all of the police brutality that's been hitting the news and if you've been taught to distrust black men, it makes sense that without even consciously thinking about it, your finger might be quicker on the trigger, right? That there's this biological fear that happens if you've absorbed these values from your culture, even if consciously, you might not believe them.

Gem: Mm hmm.

Lindo: And so radical belonging is not just something that we're shut out of, but it's something that we all participate in, sometimes shutting other people out of, and that we can all do work on figuring out how to make this more inclusive, about learning about other people's experiences, and how to welcome them into our world. And so that everybody feels like there's space for them and like they're seen.

Gem: Yeah, well, there are just so many places where that isn't accessible or isn't happening. And I think that's why the book feels so powerful, because not only does it take people through a scientific understanding of things like trauma, and intergenerational trauma, and all those kinds of things like what's going on in the brain. Also it looks at how we go about then building the communities and the connections that we want to build like on an individual level and thinking about the parts or all the ways that we might be part of groups who are oppressing or being oppressed. So the table I'm thinking of that you have at the back of the book, where people can kind of situate themselves in a social dynamic place. I'm not really describing that very well. But they can think about like places they may have privilege and other places that they may not. And so it feels like a really well-rounded approach to anyone kind of wanting to understand more about how they can feel like they belong more, but also creating spaces for others to feel the same.

Lindo: Exactly. And our worlds get so much more exciting, the more we open to being able to see other people and the experiences they have that are so different than our own.

Gem: Absolutely. And thinking about that, I wonder what community looks like for you now? And how that's changed over time.

Lindo: It's a difficult question right now because I think you're catching me at a time that's kind of unprecedented in the middle of this pandemic. Because I feel like I've shut out a little bit, you know, like, it's harder for me to access community now. And I'm not doing as well as I could with it. And yeah, I mean, in some ways, I would have expected that. There's ways in which the lockdown would have been good for me, because my friends tend to be people all over the world, I've done so much travelling, and that's just been like a big part is developing these connections with people. So I've always had a lot of kind of virtual connection with people. And so one would, I would have thought that I'd be able to slide into this a little bit more easily. But it's been hard for me, and I feel like I've retreated a little bit into my own little world, and I'm having more trouble accessing community during pandemic times. And I think too, one thing that happened to me a couple months ago was I got into a bike accident. And my body's gonna take a long time to recover from that. And I'm in a lot of pain, which makes it extra hard to kind of be out there in the world, to know how I'm going to be doing moment to moment isn't as predictable. So I find myself much more protective of my time and it's just too easy to kind of want to retreat. But as I become more aware of it, I'm also realising that I need to take my own advice.

Lindo: Connection's what is possibly going to save me too, and that I do have an amazing community out there. There's so many people that would love to kind of hear more about what's going on for me and be there for me. So it's time for me to use that more.

Gem: Yeah. And is it looking where your based like things might open up anytime soon or is it still very strict in terms of how you can socialise?

Lindo: It's still very strict. And it just recently took a turn for the worse. I'm in California, which is seeing a rise right now in cases. So restrictions have gotten much more serious just over the last few days.

Gem: Okay. Yeah, it sounds very similar to here then. Yeah, it must feel different from the previous two books that you've put out in that you can't really be on the road, getting more instantaneous feedback from people as you talk about the book. And they can tell you their thoughts. I know, obviously, they can do it through the internet, but it's not entirely the same. I wonder how that feels when you're putting out something that is so intrinsically linked to you as a person rather than theory and research.

Lindo: Right, yeah. And I'm really disappointed not to be on speaking tour now. You know, I had like a 30 city tour planned out that was supposed to start back in September and everything got cancelled. I think I might have been scheduled to be in the UK right around now, in fact, but yeah, and so that's disappointing. And I feel like there's something about being in the room with people where I can connect with them much more deeply. And giving talks over Zoom is just not the same. And I'm having to develop way different skills to be able to feel people in the room with me over the computer. And what I'm learning is that the actual lecturing isn't working for me anymore. I need people... I need to be interacting. So the speaking tour couldn't just translate into me just speaking virtually. And I'm working on trying to figure out how I can be with a group of people and feel their presence so that we can kind of be together.

Gem: Yeah, that must be so hard, especially when it's such a part of your job apart from writing as well.

Lindo: Right. And even in this, you and I are connected by audio right now, but we don't see one another. And I'm finding that difficult, like there's something about having a visual on someone and being able to look in someone's eyes that kind of helps me to be more present.

Gem: Mm hmm. Yeah. Are you happy to carry on? Or would it be preferable to switch to something else?

Lindo: I mean this is... We have to figure out how to make all these adjustments for these times and I think more it's kind of important to just acknowledge how hard it is that the usual skills and ways we all have of being in the world don't translate so easily into the tools that are accessible to us right now. And that's making it really hard for many of us to kind of get through this pandemic. There are so many things that I used to do to take care of myself, whether it's going on a bike ride, being out in nature, hanging out with friends, that I just can't do anymore. And I've got to struggle and figure out how do I adapt? What is possible right now, because life will always be changing, even post-pandemic, we still don't know what that's going to look like, but it's not going to be the same as pre-pandemic. And we'll have to kind of figure out the skills to navigate the new situation we have.

Gem: Yeah, and it's that re-navigation that I think is really challenging because especially if we've kind of worked around our trauma and have a good sense of the coping strategies that we've used in the past, maybe like for me dissociation, for example. If we've found other coping mechanisms, but those are now not available to us, or more challenging to access that it's almost like having to start maybe not from the beginning, but we're kind of re-figuring out what it means to look after ourselves without the things that normally help us the most available to us.

Lindo: Exactly. So self care becomes very different and so does community care.

Gem: Hmm. I was gonna ask actually a question around gender-based trauma. You mentioned everyone has experienced that everyone can identify with it to some extent. But also, one of the things that I was thinking of when I was reading the book was childhood oppression. And the way that adults oppress children, I wonder if you'd be happy to talk about that a little?

Lindo: Sure. Well, a lot of the examples I gave in the book were around my own personal history. And my parents loved me dearly, and really wanted me to have a good life. And for them, what they knew to be true was that the more you fit in, the easier life is gonna be. And so it's no wonder that they wanted me to be expressing femininity because they thought that that would give me access to better things in the world. And I think too often, adults see that the more we conform, the easier things are going to be. And so adults out of love end up pushing us into conformity. And that probably was a good temporary solution. You know, had I expressed more of my genderqueer self when I was in high school, I could certainly see then I would have been subject to bullying. They did that to other kids. So there was a sense that they were protecting me. But, you know, on the other hand, what it contributed to was just the sense of alienation of not really being there, but just getting by and we carry that stuff into adulthood. And it's taken me a lot to get to this place where my life feels so much safer now. I can express myself and feel appreciated and valued for it. And I live in this little bubble, the city I live in is called Berkeley, which is this very kind of progressive place, where I don't feel like I'm queer here because it's just so normalised.

Gem: Wow.

Lindo: I only remember I'm queer when I travel to another place.

Gem: Mm hmm. Gosh, that's amazing.

Lindo: Right? So we can do this, like we can create communities where we don't have to think twice, we can just be, and we don't have to protect ourselves anymore because the community provides that protection. And you know, it's a haven for us.

Gem: Yeah, I'm thinking back to the situation with parents sort of wanting to protect their children. It's such a difficult balance. And I liked how you mentioned in the book about how sort of not ever underestimating the importance of having an adult that, for example, a genderqueer child can talk to and just be heard and supported and finding ways that you could maybe partner together to help that child navigate something. I think you give the example of wanting to wear a dress... a child in the book. So if a child wanted to wear a dress, for example, being able to say to them, "Okay, well I hear that that's what you'd like to do and this may be a reaction that you might experience. And here's I could support you through that, or here are some ways that maybe we could through that together", I think that's such a powerful thing to be able to ally with children. And that's something that I spend a lot of my time thinking about, as a parent, but also someone who's really interested in unschooling and home education.

Lindo: Yeah, that's awesome. I know, just having adults in their lives that don't judge but just create safety for them to just hang up their armour and just be who they are.

Gem: Yeah and was that something that you had experience of in your childhood? Did you have access to a particular person?

Lindo: I didn't, you know, and that's why I developed an eating disorder. Food was my friend, I never developed the self care skills to kind of sit with emotion. And that was an easy way for me to calm myself and soothe myself. Later, I moved on to drugs and alcohol, or drugs more not so much alcohol, actually. And I think really what I was looking for was just connection, you know? And without having any kind of role models or skills to stay with emotion, I had to find other ways to soothe myself.

Gem: Yeah and I really loved that idea you mentioned of not attaching shame to those methods, or the ways that we supported ourselves because... yes, while they may not be the most ideal, or maybe not ones we want to carry on doing forever, they served a purpose, and they were ways of us protecting ourselves.

Lindo: Exactly, I'm so grateful actually, to having an eating disorder because it helped me to survive and navigate a childhood when I didn't have any other skills to do it. And, you know, it was a temporary placeholder that worked really well for me for a while. And then later, I could develop the skills to kind of manage emotions and didn't need it as much and then food could take on a totally different role. I mean, I can still use food to comfort myself, but I also have a lot of other tools in my arsenal and so it stops feeling problematic and it just becomes yet another tool I can use when I need it.

Gem: Yeah and I notice sometimes if I'm leaning on food more than I normally would, and sort of more recently in my life, I can generally take that as an indicator that something or some stuff has come up from my past that's kind of really triggered that in me and I find that a helpful gauge actually to be like, "Oh if I'm if I'm using my old coping mechanisms, there's something deeper going on here that maybe is from longer ago that I need to have a look at".

Lindo: Exactly and it makes sense too that since we don't have our usual coping methods available to us, we're all going to just be much more vulnerable to grabbing on to ones that don't serve us as well in the long run. But I also think that we need to give ourselves permission to do that. If we're having a hard time, it's amazing enough to just have a way to get by. And we need to applaud that.

Gem: Yeah, so true. And actually just allowing that without judgment, sometimes, is all you can do. And, yeah, and it's not to say that it'll be like that forever, or that you want to keep using that coping mechanism forever but it's something and it's served you so far.

Lindo: Exactly. And, you know, if it helps you get through the hard time, that's awesome. And you can also be working to develop other skills too.

Gem: Yeah, and I love how the part of the book at the end, and sort of really starts to help you think about how you might develop different things. And I wondered if you had any kind of advice for people who haven't read the book yet about what they might like to start to think about in developing maybe other coping strategies or kind of different ways of thinking about that?

Lindo: Yeah, well, for me, the number one game changer is always about building more community. And so it's about finding people and just getting to know people on a deeper level, you know, asking questions, listening more. People have so many stories to tell, right? There's so much that's fascinating about absolutely everybody. And it's in those moments of connection, that you can feel more fulfilled and at peace. So I would suggest that that's probably one of the best things we could be reaching for right now is just finding ways to reach out to one another.

Gem: Yeah, absolutely. And so obviously, you have this book out, and hopefully you'll be able to tour in some way at some point, I really hope you come to the UK too. But I wonder if you have a sense, and you don't need to this is just me being nosy I guess, if you have a sense of what comes next? Do you have anything in the pipeline? Or is it just some rest time? Because it sounds like this book could have been a really intense period of writing?

Lindo: Yeah, well I'm positive that travels going to play a role, you know, once we figure out how and when that's possible. And I still feel like there's a lot of writing in me. And so I'm not sure what the next book is going to be but I know, there's stuff that I've got to get out so be looking for that. And I'm also really fascinated by this whole idea of community. And I've been building an online community that I haven't launched or made open to people yet but I'm working with some colleagues right now of how we can actually create a space where people can come together across all of our differences and get to know one another. And you know, how we really create that sense of radical belonging. So we're having a really good time, creating the structure for all that, and I bet you that community will be open in a month or two.

Gem: Brilliant, that sounds really exciting. I'll look out for it. Thank you so much for joining me. And I think that the last thing I'd love to ask you is, if there's something that you're really enjoying at the moment, it could be an idea or a thing, or person absolutely anything, but is there anything you'd like to share?

Lindo: Um, I just read a really beautiful book. The author is adrienne maree brown. We Will Not Cancel Us. And it's really important book because it's talking about how in social justice communities, we're just being so hard on one another and instead of forming community, we're just doing a lot of calling out about what everybody is doing wrong.

Gem: Mm hmm.

Lindo: Which, you know, I mean, it's, that's valuable, but we've got to figure out how to do it in a way that's productive and supportive and brings people into community and belonging. Her book is just a gorgeous book that helps us to envision that. So I'm excited by exploring those ideas.

Gem: Yeah, that sounds so great because I loved her first two books. I didn't even know that there was a third one so I'm definitely going to check that out. Thank you.

Lindo: Sure.

Gem: Thanks so much for joining me, Lindo.

Gem: That's the end of Part 1, head to Part 2 to listen to our follow up conversation about the experience of recording this episode together.