08 – Voices Podcast

Guest: Emma Bryn

Guest Emma Bryn’s childhood was overshadowed by her father’s gender transition. By age 12, she had developed a severe eating disorder to cope. “For me, it was like my father had died,” she says. To acknowledge that loss would cast a negative shadow over her father’s transition, so her grief wasn’t permitted. “What was expected of me was absolute, 100% compliance. I couldn’t show any negative emotions at all.” Accidentally calling her parent “Daddy” provoked a violent and traumatic rebuke that still haunts her. “My language was policed so much.”

She notes that for many children of gender transitioners, “lots of people’s feelings depend on you suppressing yours.” Emma hopes to use her story to encourage trans parents to allow children to express the full range of their emotions, even the unpleasant ones, during a parent’s gender transition.

Guest: Jeannie Burnett

In today’s episode, guest Jeannie Burnett talks about realizing her husband of 25 years is asexual. For years Jeannie tried to find answers to her sexless marriage. Sex was “mechanical and cold,” she says. “I tried to fix myself all those years, and nothing worked.” After an emotional breakdown and the reckoning that it had been 10 years since she and her husband had last been intimate, Jeannie researched until she found her answer and her explanation: her husband was asexual.

On this show we discuss what asexuality is and isn’t’, how Jeannie found support, and how she is rebuilding her life after divorce.

Guest: Dr. Amy Baker

Today on the show, expert and researcher Dr. Amy Baker discusses parental alienation, what it is, what it isn’t, who it affects, and how it affects them. She lists some of the 17 behaviors that taken together constitute parental alienation so we can identify it early. She gives us tips and strategies for parenting children who show signs of alienation, and for handling the emotional fallout from this type of abuse.

Guest: Dr. Joe Kort, Marriage and Sex Therapist

Marriage and sex therapist Dr. Joe Kort discusses whether or not straight men can want gay sex, a controversial position among straight spouses. When a wife discovers her husband’s gay porn, explicit chats with other men, of evidence of infidelity, she rightfully asks if her husband is actually straight. We dive into the nuances of straight men who, for myriad reasons, might seek sexual contact with other men. Dr. Kort gives his assessment for determining if men who are troubled by their same sex interest are gay, straight or bi, and advice for women concerned about their men.

Guest: Claudia Coenen, Grief Counselor & Thanatologist

Have you ever been told to just “get over it already?” Today on the show, grief counselor and thanatologist Claudia Coenen talks to us about complex grief (grief that is clouded by ambiguous circumstances and takes longer to resolve) and disenfranchised grief (when our grief is publicly minimized or de-legitimized). Straight spouses often experience disenfranchised grief when there is pressure to be “over it,” or when anger at an LGBT spouse is not seen as politically correct. “There is this external pressure from the outside world, from society, from what people consider to be the norms…that there’s some sort of timeline you’re supposed to stay inside of, and anyone who’s grieving a deep loss will at some point have somebody say to them, ‘why aren’t you over this yet’.” She gives us advice and strategies for coping with enormous grief and anger.

Guest: Tiffany Butler, SSN Board Member

Today on the show, SSN’s own Tiffany Butler discusses how the friends and family of straight spouses can support them post discovery and disclosure. She discusses what to say, what not to say, and how to hold space for a loved one who has discovered their partner is LGBT. She clears up myths and assumptions people make about straight spouses (no, they do not always know), and she gives us explanations for why a straight spouse’s post-discovery trajectory might not mesh with what family and friends think it should be. “There’s no road map for this,” she says. Finally, she gives the LGBT spouse insight into what their straight partner might be feeling and advice on treating the straight spouse with respect, care, and honesty.

Guest: Dr. Lisa Diamond, Psychology and Gender Studies Professor

Today on the show, psychology and gender studies professor Dr. Lisa Diamond shares her research into sexual fluidity and same sex attraction. She has studied how same sex attraction, primarily in women, ebbs and flows over the course of women’s lives, and how that attraction influences sexual identity. We learn what sexual fluidity is, what it isn’t, and why sexual identity (and the sexual attractions those identities are based on) are so variable in women. And we learn what happens when reported sexual identity and actual genital response don’t align. “Most people base their [sexual] identity on what they anticipate their life path will be, and that may not jive completely with how their sexual attractions end up unfolding.”

Guest:

Guest Shelly Johnson shares her story of coming out as a lesbian at age 43. Growing up in a deeply Mormon family, Shelly believed her role as a woman was to get married, have lots of kids, and take care of her family. When that guaranteed formula for happiness failed her, she began to question what she was taught. After she realized that “God doesn’t hate gay people,” which is what she had always been taught, she started finding herself attracted to women. This lead to her realization around her sexuality, and then it lead to leaving the church, and eventual divorce. Shelly’s is a cautionary tale about how lack of education around sexuality can lead to unintentional closets.

Guest: Dr. Joseph Ibrahim

Dr. Joseph Ibrahim was the Trauma Director at an Orlando hospital during the Pulse Nightclub shooting when 49 LGBT people were murdered, and over 50 injured. After 40 hours straight in the OR, he came home and told his wife, “I don’t know why anyone would want to harm these people, they aren’t hurting anyone.” A month later, he learned his wife was having an affair with a woman. He shares what it was like his marriage and his home life fell apart even while his professional career as a nationally renowned Trauma Director took off in the wake of the shooting.