Interview with Melissa N. Stein, May 2, 2018

SISKO: This is Adriana Sisko, and the date is May 2nd. I'm here in the Nunn Center with Melissa Stein. Thank you for joining me, Melissa.

STEIN: You're welcome.

SISKO: And to start with, I want to ask to you to tell me a little bit about yourself.

STEIN: My name is Melissa Stein. I live here in Lexington. I have a wife and two kids, uh, and a dog and a cat and I'm a professor here at the University of Kentucky in the department of Gender and Women's Studies.

SISKO: So, where is it you grew up?

STEIN: I grew up in the Philly area in the um, suburbs of Philadelphia, New Jersey. Yeah.

SISKO: So, tell me a little bit about your childhood, what it was like.

STEIN: Okay, um, I was an only child. My parents were, um, they both had kind of working-class jobs. But, um, uh, because I was an only child, uh, they did a little bit of that kind of moving-on-up, um, thing through the, kind 00:01:00of, class structure. We originally lived in a very working-class suburb just on the other side of the river from Philly. It was a very mixed, racially mixed, neighborhood. And we lived there until I was eight. My mom was a hairdresser. My dad worked in a chemical factory in Philadelphia, where his father also had worked for his whole life and so, I grew up an only child. We lived there until I was eight. And then we--my parents moved to a further out the suburb when I was eight. And it was much less mixed, more homogenous, more upper middle class. And that's where we lived through high school. Yeah.

SISKO: Tell me a little bit about school. How was high school?

STEIN: Eh, um (laughs)--

SISKO: --right?--

STEIN: --you probably get a lot of sighs--

SISKO: --oh yeah--

STEIN: --for this question, right? (laughs)

SISKO: --and I'm sighing in my head when I ask that question. (laughs)

STEIN: Yeah, yeah. Um, it was all-right at different points. We--the part of New Jersey I grew up in is not the densely packed part of New Jersey that most people are familiar with in North Jersey. We kind of lived on the edge of the suburbs and then it got rural very quick. So, the townships at that point, like, don't support their own high schools. So, we go to big regional high schools. So, my high school was actually bigger than my college. So, we--I went to a high school with, I think, like eight other towns and it was in the middle of like a cornfield. So, it was okay. In the beginning I was never particularly popular or anything like that. But I had friends who were, and I was a little 00:03:00bit their flunky. The designated driver kind of person. (chuckles) Yes. For the people who were perhaps more popular than myself.

I had friends in a variety of different cliques. But I tended to be a little more quiet. I was not a party person at all. I was fairly shy with my own age group, but not very shy with teachers or, you know, little kids. I liked babysitting, things like that. But, other teenagers, I was usually very shy. So, that was fine. I started to kind of come out and be--slash and kind of be outed my senior year of college and it was both a really hard time and an exciting time, you know, at once. I had a friend at that point who I never was 00:04:00actually in a relationship with, but we kind of toed the line a little bit in terms of letting people, you know, jump to conclusions because people were very quick to do so. And we kind of laughed it off and let their imaginations run wild. Never, never was as true as I wanted it to be. But was the subject of the rumor mill. And some people didn't care. But this would have been like ninety-four, ninety-five, in a fairly rural school with mostly suburban kids. And some people did, you know, we, we, did get made fun of a lot.

At my graduation, somebody yelled, "Dyke!", out at me, as I was walking in graduation. But, it was also kind of an exciting time too, because I 00:05:00had always been very quiet and very concerned about what other people thought of me and all of that was happening so fast, I suddenly just didn't care what people thought anymore and was just having a lot of fun and (chuckles) kind of, realizing some things. And, you know, but having a lot of conflict with my parents at that point as well. That was, you know, the harder, harder part. Yeah.

SISKO: When you were, you know, before you got into college, when you were in middle school, high school, what was your awareness of the existence of LGBT people? Like, did you know those words? Did you know this people existed? And to what extent?

STEIN: A little bit. But, it was all very derogatory. And, I was even less aware of gay women because, you know, I was born in seventy-seven, so I was in elementary and middle school during the height of the AIDS crisis. 00:06:00So, any mention of gay people, it was always in conjunction with gay men and AIDS. So, that was sort of visible to me. But it was always like, that they were "diseased", you know, I heard the word "fag" all the time and I never really made the connection at a very young age that, you know, that there could be women who were gay, because that's just not the visibility that I had at that age at all. My parents didn't have any LGBT friends, there were no LGBT adults in my life that I knew of. So, yeah, the visibility was very wrapped up in in the AIDS crisis at that point and about gay men. Yeah.

SISKO: When did you become aware of the existence of gay women or lesbians, or even just the word?

STEIN: Um, probably high school. Um, probably--probably high--high school, maybe late middle school. Yeah, I guess--I guess, high school. I mean, 00:07:00because I'm starting to like having those feelings, but I had no idea that it was different than what any other girl experienced. You know, I had these very intense female friendships, very intense crushes, but, I didn't know they were crushes and I didn't know that my other female friends weren't feeling the same way towards their female friends. You know, and when they would be talking about crushes on boys, like I didn't make the connection that there was any genuine feeling behind it, like what I was feeling. So, that--I think those connections started to come a little bit, um, in high school, where I started to put two and two together. I mean, the feelings had been there for a long time and I had a lot of these really, really intense female friendships. But, I didn't realize that what I was feeling was a crush and more similar to what, you know, some of my female friends were feeling about boys. Yeah.

SISKO: When was the first time, even if it was just in your head, that you applied the word lesbian to yourself?

STEIN: Um, probably by my senior year in high school. Yeah, junior--senior year in high school. Yeah. There started, um, there started to be some visibility in the media too, with women. You know, Melissa Etheridge came out. There were things like, you know, the movie Fried Green Tomatoes was out and people were talking about, you know, whether or not, you know, Idgie and Ruth were lesbian. So, I of course, ran and got the book and read the book, (laughs) you know, eighty times trying to figure that out.

The Jill Sobule song was out, "I Kissed a Girl", the song, came out, I think, my junior--senior year of high school. So, there started to be some lesbian visibility in kind of mainstream media that I had access to. 00:09:00And--but, there were a few moments like, younger too, but it was in really derogatory ways and they didn't necessarily use the word lesbian. It was just like, you know, "women like that" or, you know, you know, women, you know, "perverted women" or something like that. They didn't actually use any kind of neutral terminology. Yeah.

SISKO: So, you're having these thoughts and these feelings and, you know, at a certain point you started applying the word lesbian to yourself, even--

STEIN: --Um-hm.

SISKO: --you know, just in your head. Did you tell anyone that you're feeling that way or was this just a private sort of thing?

STEIN: I--I--I started to tell a few friends in high school that I thought that, you know, that--that I liked girls, you know, and that I might be gay or--or, bi. But, I thought I liked girls. And like, I think even then, I knew that I was probably not bi, (laughs) but I had no experience with men 00:10:00whatsoever, so, I think I was thinking that I guess it's theoretically possible, you know, that I would eventually, you know, find that appealing. Um, so, because I kind of knew that I was young and, you know, like didn't want to "knock something until I tried it", kind of thing. But I was increasingly aware that I definitely liked girls. How I felt about boys was more of an open question. (laughs) But, I started to tell a few a few friends that I--you know, that I was feeling this way--or wondering, um, my senior year in high school. Yeah. And then by my freshman year in college, pretty much everybody. Yeah.

SISKO: The friends that you did tell in high school, how did that impact your relationship with them?

STEIN: Um--

SISKO: --and what did they think, too? Like, what did they say in response?

STEIN: Um, one of the--one of the friends that I told I didn't realize at the time, it was a male friend and he was one of the first people I told 00:11:00because he was very--he was a good listener, I seemed to be able to confide in him with anything. I didn't realize that he actually liked me and was hoping that we would be dating. Um, so I think his response was somewhat colored by that. (laughs) Um, It wasn't entirely negative, but it was--he didn't have much of a response. You know, he just sort of let me talk and didn't say very much. And now, I realize that he didn't say much because he was probably really disappointed and hurt, but was still trying to be a nice guy. You know, other--other people at that point. I told a, um, an aunt, um, that, you know, that I think I, you know, that I might like girls and she had a 00:12:00fairly neutral response and that, you know, um, you know that and also that I was young and you never, --like, hard to say at this point. Fair--but fairly neutral. It wasn't it wasn't overtly negative or anything like that. Yeah, yeah. That would be high school. So, I started telling a lot more people more overtly and directly in college. Yeah.

SISKO: Right, you mentioned that freshman year, I think you used the phrase like, "everybody knew?"

STEIN: Yeah, but well-- (both laughs)

SISKO: Tell me more about that. (laughs)

STEIN: Okay, yeah. Well, I went to college at a--a small liberal arts college in Pennsylvania and it was a fairly conservative school among the student body. So, the faculty, like anywhere, were (laughs) not conservative, but the students were more so. A lot of like, prep school kids and, you know, private 00:13:00school kids are fairly well off.

So, you know, I came into my freshman year still with this friend from high school who didn't go to the school with me, she was a little bit younger. She didn't go to college with me, but, you know, I was still on the phone with her constantly and writing letters and all of that. So, you know, people were starting to wonder, um, early in my freshman year and I kind of like, played it up and joked about it like, "Oh, everyone thinks we're like an item." But, you know, "La, la, la, la, la." (laughs) But, I was kind of I think I was kind of testing the waters to see how people would react if that was the case. You know, I kind of made it clear that that was it. But everybody thought that and "ha ha, isn't that funny?" And tried to, I think, gage people's responses. And, um, nobody seemed to care all that much. (laughs)

And, you know, I had my first experience with a with a guy in 00:14:00college, my first semester--freshman year in a very clinical way. Where I was just like, "Okay, I feel like I need to check this off my checklist so I can (laughs) eliminate this possibility." So just approached like a male friend who seemed like a safe person and hooked up with this, you know, this guy, one time and found the whole thing for--pretty revolting. (laughs) And that was the end of that. And I was like, "Okay, I feel like, I--you know, from a scientific perspective, you know, that, I have had the control". (laughs) You know, the controlled experiment where I can kind of "rule this out".

And then, shortly after, I think within a week, I had sex with a woman for the first time. Yeah. So, it was like, this all in my first semester. So, all--and I had really, really not done anything in high school at all. I never 00:15:00even kissed anybody in high school. I never smoked, never drank. I never did anything. I tried everything my first (laughs) semester, freshman year--checked off everything you could possibly check off on your list. And it's like, "Okay, that was awkward and clumsy, and I didn't know what I was doing. But I think that's what I'm supposed to be doing." You know? So, freshman--and then after that happened, I told a number of friends who were not remotely surprised (laughs) and I had a fairly good experience with peers; it was my family that was the more--more challenging.

And I had--once, I told my roommate, who was kind of a sorority girl and from a pretty conservative family, our relationship got pretty strained. And I ended up having to move out. And the college rez life was being run by a 00:16:00lesbian at the time and she found me a single in a co-op that was owned by the college. But it was like a block off campus. And it seemed to be where all of the like, "weird" people were. You know, the people who didn't fit in with the like, wealthy kids in the Greek system. So, it was like; all of the art students, you know, the foreign students, you know, the gay one. (laughs) You know, the people who worked for the radio. (laughs) Oh, we all lived in that house together. So, it's also a pretty welcoming environment.

But, so, by the end of my freshman year, I was out to pretty much everyone that I knew at college and was increasingly kind of coming out in a very public way and like marking myself, as, you know, as a lesbian. At the end of the--my freshman year, I cut all my hair off. I had had waist-length hair for 00:17:00most of my life and I cut it, shaved it up the side and cut it all off. I got my nose pierced, I got more visible tattoos and stopped shaving, wore freedom rings, which were, you know, the thing in the nineties. So, every possible way you could mark yourself, I did. (laughs) And I was at the time, the only out student at my college. So.

SISKO: I was actually about to ask about the--

STEIN: --yes.

SISKO: --LGBT presence on campus. Like, were there a lot of people who were out?

STEIN: --no.

SISKO: --Yeah, tell me about that.

STEIN: Yeah, it was just me. So, my freshman year, my first semester, there was a gay male student who was graduating in December. So, there was one other gay person for one semester of my time there. And then he graduated. So pretty much the whole time I was there, I was the only out student. I found out later that there were all sorts of, you know, lesbians on the different sports 00:18:00teams and they were all in relationships with each other. But they all avoided me like the plague because I was so visible and out and none of them were out. So, they had their own kind of like underground culture that I was not a part of. But I was the one doing all the chalking's on campus and I was like the campus activist.

So, at one point I was the president, the vice president, the treasurer and the secretary of the LGBT and the only like member of record. So, there are other people who came to meetings but would like refuse to put their names down. And we held the meetings in like the basement of a dorm for my first couple of years there. And people would bring laundry and pretend to be go into the laundry room. So, you know, I--I wasn't real close friends with a lot of them because they didn't really want to be seen public with me--in public with me because I was so visibly out, so guilt by association. But I had some straight 00:19:00friends who were incredibly supportive and like joined the LGBTA as like, allies and, you know, were much more supportive than some of the other LGBT students who were terrified of me. (laughs) So, that was my experience.

And the faculty really went out of their way to kind of take me under their wings. Not all gay faculty, it was pretty much all straight faculty, as well. But, were very protective of me, very supportive. So, I was lucky there as well. Like, the--one of the deans, you know, is really supportive. I think they realized that it was probably not the easiest thing to be the only out person there, but that it was necessary, you know, to get the ball rolling somewhere. You know? Yeah.

SISKO: The woman you became involved with your freshman year--

STEIN: --Um-hm.

SISKO: --um, how was it she identified? Because I know you mentioned 00:20:00that not a lot of people were out--

STEIN: --yes, yes--

SISKO: --so, I'm assuming that, you know, maybe some, if not most, of the women who ended up being involved with weren't necessarily out the way you were?

STEIN: They were not out. Yeah, definitely not out.

SISKO: Yeah, so how did that work usually?

STEIN: Um, this woman had a boyfriend. So, publicly, you know, had a boyfriend. But she had come to, you know, some of the LGBTA meetings, you know, ostensibly as an ally, but in the in the context of those meetings said that, you know, she's probably bisexual and we became friends. And then, you know, friends with benefits occasionally. But then she got very threatened by that. You know, she was, you know, always very, very, very concerned with making the distinction that we were not an item. You know, that that she had a boyfriend and that was her like, you know, "real" relationship and this is just kind of an 00:21:00experiment on the side and that, you know, anything that, you know, I would have even considered like under the guise of good friendship in terms of, you know, like, I don't know, just like the intimacy of friendship that's not physical. Right? You know, that's just like, "Hey, let's get dinner again tonight." Like, a lot of things, because she became paranoid about a lot of that stuff is just like, "Well, that's not a date!" and it's just like, "No, we're going to Taco Bell, like, it's not a date." (laughs) Like, you know. But, I think because she was she was probably struggling and she got really antsy and that friendship fizzled. Yeah.

SISKO: So, this experimentation dynamic you're describing, or, like the fearful experimentation--

STEIN: --yes, yes--

SISKO: --um, was that a dynamic you experienced with more women than just her?

STEIN: Yes! Yes. (laughs) Why, yes it was!

SISKO: How frequent was that?

STEIN: Not as frequent as you might think. Because each one lasted a 00:22:00while, so it wasn't multiple people, you know, multiple women at a time. I think, I always wanted them to be actual relationships, so I probably treated them in my head as such and in my actions as such, even if the other women didn't. So, that was in my freshman year and persisted a little bit into my sophomore year and then and then I met a--I started talking to a woman online who went to a Catholic university nearby, like an hour away. And we started talking online a lot and e-mailing back and forth. And then she came up for a visit and we then fell into the same kind of relationship and we were on again, off again all through my junior year, a little bit of my sophomore 00:23:00all through my junior year. And she was the one that really, really, really broke (laughs) my heart, uh, the--the other one I didn't--the first one, I did not have as much emotionally invested. I mean, it really hurt me, but I got I bounced back a little bit further. The--the one--the other one, we ended up being sort of on again, off again at various points in various iterations, like just friends, friends with benefits. Sort of dating, but she's in the closet. You know, all these different iterations into my early twenties and kind of beyond. And yeah, she definitely ripped my heart out and she was very closeted. And to this day, still is. Married. Suburbs. Kids. You know, is like a Girl Scout troop leader (laughs) and everything. Yeah. So, never did come out. Yeah.

SISKO: How did things--how did the on and off thing end? I'm assuming 00:24:00it ended at a certain point. (laughs)

STEIN: Yes, yes. Uh, yeah, she always ended it. Yeah, she always ended it. And would, you know, go further back into the closet and--and, I guess at some point she just couldn't keep doing it and keep lying to herself. And she ended up meeting a guy that she went on to marry and didn't want to keep cheating; at various points she did have boyfriends and would cheat on them with me. And at another point, she didn't have a boyfriend, but still can, you know, admit at the time that we were in like a full on relationship, even though we clearly were. Yeah. So. Yeah. She's now totally. As far as I know, you know, still never actually came out. She--she claims that the people who are closest to her know, but I find that dubious. (laughs)Yes. So, who knows. But we were friends on Facebook and that's the extent of it. Yes. (laughs) Yeah. Facebook 00:25:00exes. Yeah.

SISKO: You mentioned your senior year that there was some kind of-- outing?

STEIN: My senior year of high school?

SISKO: Yeah.

STEIN: Yes. Because we--I was the subject of the rumor mill with this other girl. I mean, and we would do things like, hold hands in the hallway and stuff, but were playing it up. I mean, to get a reaction and then laughing at, you know, people's reaction and things like that. But I started--it wasn't until later that, you know, I really realized that, I was doing it because I really wanted to be doing it. She was doing it for the reaction and to, you know, to be rebellious and different--

SISKO: --yeah, well, let's ask about her end, what did she--did she ever talk about the jokes?

STEIN: She did, but she always thought it was funny and yeah, it was clear that the feelings were more on my part and the, you know, thumbing her nose at high school society was kind of more her--her angle, which in the beginning I thought, you know, was what I was doing, too. But it was clear that, 00:26:00no, I was holding her hand because I really, really wanted to be holding her hand and I really wanted it to be a real relationship. So, yeah, I think the feelings were more on my part and that was the dynamic I kept playing out so many times. You know, although the other ones were women that were really closeted, so they were not, you know, doing it for a reaction by any means. But clearly it was something I took more seriously than they did. Yeah.

SISKO: It sounds like you were very politically active--

STEIN: --yes--

SISKO: --during your undergrad. I want to hear more about your activism during that time period.

STEIN: Um, I was active on a lot of different levels, so I-I mentioned that I was the head of the LGBTA. Um, I also was on the women's center executive board. So, I was like the most visible feminist on campus as well. I had a 00:27:00radio show on college--that I, um--on the college radio station and I--and I played a lot of like queer core, feminist punk, women's music, stuff like that. And so, and I had a weekly column in the newspaper where I wrote and I frequently wrote on feminist and kind of social justice issues, so I had a variety of venues where I was active.

And so, I ended up being on a lot of committees on campus. I ended up being like the token diversity (laughs) on a lot of things. You know, and I thought that was kind of funny that the white girl from the suburbs ended up being their token diversity, which said a lot about the diversity at the time, which has changed a lot at the college. But, I think a lot of people said to me later, including a lot of faculty, that I managed to make the campus look much more LGBT friendly and more politically engaged than it actually was and 00:28:00it was really just me with like a bucket of chalk. (laughs) But, I made it look like there was this big presence and there really wasn't at the time, but now there is. So, kind of fake it till you make it, was my attitude toward, you know, feminists visibility and LGBT visibility and so on. You had to start somewhere. Yeah.

SISKO: The radio show, do you know if anyone listened?

STEIN: Well, yeah. And, um, it was broadcast around town, too. I went to school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, so it's not that big of a city. It's probably Lexington size or maybe a little smaller. And so, I would sometimes get people from the town calling in and they were all excited. So, like, lesbians like, outside of the campus. I had one who would bring pizza to the studio every week (laughs) to thank me for, you know, playing this stuff that you could 00:29:00listen to in the car while she was delivering pizzas. But on campus, I think, you know, there was like a small cadre of people who listened to it. But then, one year I got the time slot during the dinner hour and they played it in the dining hall. And they--they played the college radio station in the dining hall. So that semester, I know that it was being heard. Yeah.

So, I was kind of notorious on campus through all those different, you know, the newspaper, the--the radio show. You know, the LGBT activism. I was just kind of infamous on campus. And, you know, this was the nineties, you know, so I had this like wallet chain and blue hair and I didn't shave and had multiple piercings and all that kind of stuff. So, I stood out tremendously. So, it seemed like everyone knew me, even if I didn't know them. Yes.

SISKO: So, it sounds like you were very visible--

STEIN: --very visible (laughs) --

SISKO: --on different levels--

STEIN: --on many different levels. (laughs)

SISKO: --Yeah, you're visible as a lesbian. You're visible as an activist and as a feminist. I wanted to ask, what was the climate on your campus with regards to feminism, specifically like where people amenable to it or did they not understand or were they against it?

STEIN: Um, I found that there was a lot of misunderstandings about feminism and women's and gender studies is now a major, but at the time it was it was only available as a minor and I was a minor. So, and then even with the women on the executive board of the Women's Center with me, there were a lot of women who were very defensive about kind of--defending what feminism was and wasn't, you know, a lot of like, you know, you know, "Being a feminist doesn't mean you're a lesbian." It's like, "Okay, well, what if (laughs) what about people for whom that is the case?" Or it's like, "Just because, like, I'm a feminist, 00:31:00doesn't mean I'm like, you know, a hairy lesbian!" And it's like, "Okay, well, you know." So, I felt like I was often the stereotype that they were trying to buck against and didn't necessarily fit into their kind of like feminist respectability politics. So, there were times that I--I felt like I was standing kind of at a sharp angle to their attempts at like redeeming feminism for a mass audience. You know, and that was among the other women that were ostensibly feminist. Right? Or who rela--you know, who called themselves feminists, but in a very cautious kind of way. But then, you know, there were other women that were not like that as well. You know, that I had a lot of strange female friends that had no problem, you know, calling themselves feminist without having to say, "Um, I'm a feminist. But, (laughs) you know, I don't hate men" or, "I don't, you know, whatever."

SISKO: How did you first come to feminism?

STEIN: Um... let's see-- probably--a couple of different things that were happening simultaneously--so, late High school and early--and early college was the height of Riot grrrl, so that was probably my biggest entry point into feminism. You know, it was through the music, you know, and not just Riot grrrl, but all the kind of like, female centric music at the time. You know, I was a huge Tori Amos fan and, you know, all these just, you know, female singer-songwriters who--some of whom explicitly identified as feminist. You know, Ani DiFranco, things like that. But then, Riot grrrl um, and kind of third wave feminism, you know, got into the zine culture, into the music 00:33:00culture in high school and into college, not just the music, but there is also kind of like, a poetry angle to it, as well.

So, I start going to a lot of spoken word poetry like, poetry slams, late in high school and early college. A lot of that was explicitly feminist as well. And then, I took in terms of the more academic side of it. I took a women's history class my first--my first year, I think, my spring semester, my first year and I had gone in as a pre-med major. I wanted to be a forensic pathologist. I went in pre-med, but I took a history class as one of the liberal arts requirements and I loved it. And then, my sophomore year, I ended up taking some more, you know, gender focused stuff and ended up declaring--like dropping the pre-med major --and picking up a English and History double major 00:34:00and a Women's Studies minor and in history in particular, even more so than English. A lot of the coursework I took was very explicitly feminist and that my G.W. was minor. Yeah.

SISKO: How did you get access to the whole zine and like, Riot grrrl, and all that kind of stuff, because I know you said that started like, kind of in high school--

STEIN: --um-hm--

SISKO: --were there people you knew who were into that?--

STEIN: --yes--

SISKO: --Like, how did you get access to that stuff?

STEIN: Um, part--a part of it was through that friend that I had in high school who is into punk and stuff and I had been always kind of like, like the proverbial good girl, I was like very preppy and (laughs) very quiet. I was not somebody who would have stood out at all, you know. And then I started hanging out with friends who were into--into punk and into Riot grrrl, specifically, and you know, started handing me CD's and yeah. And--and that was that. 00:35:00(laughs) Yeah. Yeah. And you know, and we lived right outside of Philadelphia. So, there were a lot of all--all-ages shows and all-ages venues. And we could take this speed line, which is, you know, like a commuter train and right into Center City, Philly.

So, we started--I started going to shows and there's you know, I'm sure, you know, in Philly, all the Ritz theaters like, the art house movie theaters. So, I started going to--taking the train over and going to all the like, foreign and art films that I couldn't see out in the suburbs, many of which were like, queer focused. So, I remember like, taking the train and going to see Heavenly Creatures and--and then like, Go Fish (laughs) and all these different films in high sch--starting in high school and then, in my first couple of years of college as well, even from col--from my college town, I would take 00:36:00the train into Philly and they had an all ages night at Woody's, the big gay bar, and I would go to that occasionally and stand awkwardly on the side (laughs) because I had no idea what I was supposed to do from there. But yeah, I would just kind of stand around for a while until I finally felt so uncomfortable, I like went to this all-night diner and just like, ate French fries until I took the train back to my college town, but it was like my first foray into trying out the scene. Yeah.

SISKO: Were your parents aware of these trips and the kind of movies you were seeing? And if they were, what did they think and say?

STEIN: Oh, yeah, that's--that's a can of worms, right there! (laughs) Yeah. Hmm-- they were--they were not--well, they were aware that I was taking the speed line in. They didn't want me to drive into the city, but they were okay with me taking this speed line in and going to the movies. They 00:37:00didn't always know what the movie was, just said I was going to like, "the Ritz" or "the Bourse", you know, and seeing some, like, you know, art film that they would find boring, or whatever. So, they weren't always totally aware of--but they started to get very suspicious my senior year that I was gay and because of this friend that I was with nonstop. And--and so they started getting very suspicious and very paranoid. You know, going through my stuff, listening in on phone calls, asking teachers, very intrusive. And then, you know, asking me outright a few times. But in a very kind of aggressive way, like, you know, "Are you?" you know, "We'll kick you out if you are, are you?" It's like, "Well," you know, "since you put it that way, um, no." So, they were wondering already my--my senior year of high school.

But they were really threatened by this friendship and kept trying to 00:38:00tell me I can't hang out with this girl anymore and it was causing a tremendous amount of conflict with my parents. And we were fighting all the time. And I had always been, you know, the kind of kid who never got in trouble. And I still wasn't necessarily doing anything wrong. But all of a sudden, we were in constant conflict and had a very negative relationship at that point. Like pretty much always negative. And that had never been the case. I'd always had good grades, never really did anything. And they, in fact, were always encouraging me to, like go to a party like, let your hair down. But apparently, they had a very distinct idea of what it meant to acceptably let your hair down and which side of the fence I should be letting down on. (laughs) So, that as they started to realize what I was doing. Yeah. Then it got negative real fast. Yeah.

SISKO: When they'd ask you if you were a lesbian and you'd say, "no", because obviously there was a threat going on--

STEIN: --yes--

SISKO: --of course, you're gonna say no. Did they seem to believe you 00:39:00when you'd say no?

STEIN: Unh-uh. Not entirely. No. And then they would just get snoopier, you know where they were--if that's even a word--they would be snooping into my stuff more, going through my backpack, and purses, and room and trying to find some "evidence". Yeah.

SISKO: Did the snooping continue once you went to college?

STEIN: Yes. Yes. And the ironic thing is, when I finally did confirm it and I told them at the end of my freshman year, they didn't believe (laughs) me at first. Their reaction was sort of like, "No, you're not. What do you know?" It's like, they had been wondering for like two years at that point and then, when I actually said they were right and that I was they--they insisted that I was not. (laughs) But yeah, that they continued to be snoopy. And then at that point, anything they did--anything I did, they seemed to think I was doing something like, gay and they would get upset about it. You know, if I wanted to 00:40:00go out, you know, just run to Wawa to get a cup of coffee, they thought I was like, going to a gay bar. I'm like, "I'm gone ten minutes, what kind of (laughs) gay bar do you think I just went to?" You know, like, "I've got the Wawa coffee right here!" (laughs) you know? So, everything I did suddenly became a big issue.

I came home between my freshman and sophomore year for the summer and I lasted maybe like a month. And then, I finally, I went and stayed with a friend in college, who was older and had an apartment. So, I went stayed with her for the rest of the summer. That was the last time I came home for the whole summer in college. I stayed--after that point, I stayed home every year and took a summer job on campus, like in admissions office or something. Yeah.

SISKO: When you came out to them officially, tell me more about like, that setting like, where that took place and specifically like, what they said back to you once you finally confirmed the--

STEIN: --yes--

SISKO: --question they had been asking for two years.

STEIN: Yes. Um, let's see. I told my mom first. My mom was visiting 00:41:00me for the weekend in Lancaster and so, at the end of her visit before she left, I had been trying to find like a perfect time to tell her all weekend and then she was getting ready to leave, and I still hadn't told her, and I had promised myself I would. So, you know, we were just in my room in the co-op and I said, you know, you know, "I have something would tell you." And she's like, you know, "What?" and then I, like, froze for a while, probably only for, you know, a minute, but it felt like an eternity, where I just froze. And then, I think I finally choked out that, that I was bi, because I think I felt like it was a softer blow, somehow. (laughs) You know, I like to leave some hope alive? Which ended up backfiring and in the long run. But, and yes, she was very, 00:42:00very upset and she's like you know, "You don't know, you've never even had any experience with, you know, a woman!" Or, something like that. And I said that I had and then she was all upset about that. (laughs) And she you know, she started crying and she was very mad and then, you know, was really mad at me and really mad that I told her even that I said, "But, you know, you've been asking." And--and then she's like, "You shouldn't have told me." And, "I didn't want to know that. And now I have to drive home and you're gonna give me a heart attack." And, all this kind of stuff. So, she handled it badly.

And, you know, I remember after she did leave, sitting with some friends in the co-op who were all straight but all very supportive. And they were kind of, you know, giving me some pep talks and, um, and that was shortly before the end of the spring semester. So, I came home a few weeks after that and I had 00:43:00asked her specifically not to tell my dad. I went and tell my dad myself, and I wasn't ready for that yet. And she immediately told my dad and I didn't know she had. So, I came home for the summer, not realizing that he knew when I first got home, he was acting really funny. And he asked to go--he said he wanted to talk to me and he wanted to talk to me, brought me into the like, the living room where we never sat. You know, we sat in the family room. It was like the room that, you know, you'd never go in, except when there's company over. And it was very weird, we're sitting at these like, sofas across from each other and he's just sitting there real quiet for a while, and as his jaws clenched and--and he starts crying and the first thing he says is, "You've killed all of 00:44:00my dreams." And just like, "What?" (laughs) You know? And I was like, "What are you talking about?" And he's all, "You're--you're--you're mother told me and you've killed all my dreams. And I was just like, _________(??) You know, I had no idea how to respond to that. And so, I just started crying and then, you know, and he's like, "You really sure about this?" Like, "You cannot change--you're sure about this?" Like, "You really think this is the right thing?" And, you know, and he just kind of kept saying that over and over again and he's like, you know, "I don't think this is possible." And he kind of went through all these different things.

And then, you know, said someth--I went and said something to my mom. Like, "You weren't supposed to tell him." And she's like, "You know, you dumped that shit on me and, you know, and I--you just expected me to deal with it on my own." Like, you know, "I was going to have a stroke, you know, and I had, you know, I had to talk to your dad, you know. It's not my fault, you dumped this on me and--" Okay. So, it was really, really rough for a while there. And then, for the first, I would say, somewhere like six to eight years, my dad 00:45:00wouldn't go out in public with me at all. Like, my mom and I had a very tense relationship at that point, but we still did stuff together and she would periodically come up with like zingers like, you know. She was very pro-life and things like that, but at one point said, like, "If I had known you were gonna be gay, I would have had an abortion." And stuff like that. Then, she would just continue talking about something else. She would just like drop these, you know, bombs and then, move on. So, it was still really tense with her, but even more so with my dad for a while. And he just, you know, as my appearance changed, too, he just wouldn't go out in public with me. He said that I was an embarrassment, he wouldn't go out in public. That lasted probably into my late twenties. And, you know, even --even beyond that, there were a couple 00:46:00of times--he worked downtown in Philly and I live downtown after college and I was out with my mom. We were like, shopping or going to lunch or something and we ran into my dad and a couple of his coworkers, just by chance. They were heading out to lunch, too. And he never introduced me. You know, like he introduced my mom and I was just like some (laughs) random lady standing there and he never said who I was.

So, the relationship with them, like, you know, when I first came out was tense and continued to be for quite a while. They never threw me out, but it was rough for a very long time. And, you know, my dad eventually came around more than--even more than my mom and especially once I met Kelly, who is now my wife. I think he just felt good that I wasn't doing everything by myself. You know, like when I was single, I was, you know, going for like long hikes by 00:47:00myself and camping and all these things and he was so afraid, you know, his daughter was gonna get you know, murdered and, (laughs) you know, and like I think he felt like I was being taken care of at that point. And like, he warmed up, too, into that. And he liked Kelly.

SISKO: Yeah. You mentioned that saying you were bisexual backfired.

STEIN: Yeah.

SISKO: In what way?

STEIN: Because then they kind of kept asking like, well, you know, "Why don't you try having a boyfriend?" Like, "Why don't you try going out on a date with--with this guy?" Or, you know, you--you know, "You say you're bisexual, but you're not giving men a real chance." And, you know, "You're not really committing to this and you're not giving them a chance and you're not actually acting on this." And, we ended up going to family therapy for a while. And, you know, so the three of us, it was just torture. And this was--

SISKO: --how old were you in the family therapy thing?

STEIN: --eighteen. Eighteen and then, you know, I turned nineteen. 00:48:00Yeah, my--I turned nineteen right after my freshman year ended. Yeah. So, at one point in therapy, my dad's like, you know, because my mom was still going on and on about like, just you know, "I just think," you know, "she's not even giving men a chance!", and all this. And my dad's like, "You know, what did you just say? Like, why don't you just say that you're not bisexual, you're gay." And--and it's just like (gasps) and--and you know, and you like, he just kept saying that. And I was like, "Yeah. That's right." You know, and I'm su--you know. And yeah, I think it was something to that effect. Yeah.

SISKO: How was the therapist during these sessions? I'm assuming there is a therapist present, right?

STEIN: There was a therapist present. He was, he was not that helpful. (laughs) He really took a back seat and didn't really direct the conversation 00:49:00very much. So, I always, you know, found the therapy sessions really nerve wracking. Because I didn't feel like I didn't necessarily feel like he was taking their side, or my side, but I didn't feel like he was moderating as much as he could and it just ended up with us saying, you know, hurtful things to each other, without any context or any kind of resolution at the end of therapy where they could just say whatever they wanted (laughs) and did. And then, you know, I was just supposed to sit there because it was their turn to talk and they could say anything they wanted. (laughs) Yeah, so.

SISKO: How long did the therapy last for and how and when we did it end?

STEIN: We did it once a week for, I don't know, maybe like four months or something. Yeah and then we just decide like, I think we all mutually decided--not the therapist, but the family--that it just wasn't that helpful. Yeah. We didn't want to keep paying for it.

SISKO: It seems like putting this lightly, coming out to your parents was complicated--

STEIN: --yes (laughs)--

SISKO: --and you had mentioned that, you know, in high school you said you told like an aunt that you liked girls and she an unusual reaction--

STEIN: --um-hm--

SISKO: --how about the rest of your family, outside of your parents and outside of that aunt?

STEIN: They were all fine. They were all completely fine. My parents made me promise not to tell my grandparents, which I always thought was stupid and I was like, you know, "How--like I have my own relationship with them, like, why, you know, like, why would you interfere with that?" And they're like, you know, "Look, you've, you know, put all this on us. You've done all, you know, you've made us deal with so much! Like, just do this one thing for us. Like, don't tell your grandparents. Like, it'll--it'll kill them."

And it's like, I knew that that was not the case. And I knew that they would be fine. I--so, I honored their wishes against better judgment for quite 00:51:00a while. But it was always kind of clear to me that they probably knew, you know, that they had probably figured it (laughs) out by that point, they were not stupid. I never brought home a boyfriend and all the time, I always had, you know, some woman with me. My senior year in college, I lived with a woman like, I was actually dating someone who was out, who is not a college coach and she was like eight years older than me, she was a "townie" and we lived together for a year and my grandmother had dinner at our apartment and, you know, my mom insisted that I just introduce her as my friend. But, you know, grandma, you know, Nana wasn't a total moron. Look, that I'm sure she figured it out.

So, it's like I went along with them, you know, with like the eye-roll like, "Okay, you know, I won't say anything about the very obvious elephant in the room that, you know, the grandparents probably already know and don't care."

So, I never did get the chance to actually tell my dad's parents and I was close to all four grandparents and they always lived close to me my whole life. But, I--I never brought it up. And, you know, they passed away, you know, before I met Kelly and got married and everything. And so, I never got the chance to formally tell them. My grandmother died when I was like, twenty-two--twenty-three, and then my grandfather, right at the end of grad school, so I'm sure he knew, but I never had a formal conversation with him.

Um, my mom's parents, when I first graduated college, I was living with my cousin, the son of the aunt that I had told, I was living with him for a few months, while I was looking for an apartment in Philly and so obviously, he knew, all the extended family knew at that point, and he's just like, "You know, you got to tell Nana and Pop-pop." And I was just like, "You know, my 00:53:00parents told me, you know, that I couldn't." And they were like, he kept saying, "They have no right to do that, you know, Nana and Pop-pop keep asking me." And he's like, "They know. Like, just tell them."

And it's like, okay, you know, and he's like, "Let's go over and just tell them." And it's like, I'd prefer to tell them. I don't know why I can't tell them. You know, my parents told me not to. And I said, "But, you know what? I never promised that I would lie." And, you know.

So, we went over and, you know, I said, "Do you have anything you want to ask me?" And they're like, "No!" (laughs) And like, "No, seriously. Do you have anything you want to ask me outright?" And, um, and, you know, my cousin kind of intervene. He's like, you know, "Go ahead and ask. Like, you know, she--her parents said like that, she's not supposed to tell you, but if you ask, she's not going to lie." And so, they finally did. And I was like, you know, "Yes, and I think you already knew that." And they're like, "Yeah." And that was that. And they always invited my girlfriend to, like, barbecues and stuff 00:54:00like that. And they were totally fine. Yeah.

-----(??) and my mom--my nana was often actually calming my mom down like, she would, you know, tell my mom to, like, "Just get over it already. Like, it's not that big of a deal." And she's like, "You know, there's lots of, you know, gay people in my on my side of the family, she probably got it from (laughs) my side, like, you know, like Marilyn, just calm down. Like, this is not that big of a deal." So, the grandparents were fine. It was always my parents.

They were pretty image conscious of like, what other people thought of them. So, you know, when my dad died last year at the funeral, I realized there were people who still didn't know. You know, even though I was married with two kids and having been out to them for at that point twenty-two years, (laughs) you know, there were people, you know, coworkers of his and friends that were surprised to see me and a wife at the funeral. You know, not many. 00:55:00But there were--it was clear that there were some people who did not know prior to that.

SISKO: What role, if any, did religion play in your childhood or in your family, to any extent?

STEIN: I don't think it had a huge impact on my parent's reaction, I think my parents reaction was much more about what will other people think. It did have some--in terms of coming out and me being out--because they did a lot of like, you know, "It's fine to be gay, but do you have to be so obvious about it? Do you had to be so public about it?" So, it was clear that the image was, you know, one of their main concerns, not whether or not I was actually dating women, but how it looked to other people.

But we did go to church when I was younger. My dad grew up Catholic and his parents were Catholic. My mom's parents were, you know, assorted Protestant on different parts of the family. And we ended up going to a Baptist 00:56:00church when I was a kid because that was where I went to daycare, like nursery school. And then they just started to go to the church that was close to our house. It was not Southern Baptist. This isn't New Jersey. So, it was a fairly mainline Protestant at that point and had never been particularly conservative.

And then, at one point when I was in middle school, they got a new like, youth director who was like evangelical and it had never been a conservative church and had never been like holy roller at all and then we got this like youth group director who was and he scared the shit out of me. Absolutely scared--like, terrified me. He was, you know, kind of talking about like the apocalypse and the rapture and, you know, I would get into arguments with him because he would say, like, "Animals have no souls." And I would argue with him because we had pet and I just hated everything he was saying. And I went on a youth retreat, which I had done many times before to Cape May and they had this 00:57:00like, big retreat center there and always had fun, and I was wearing a Madonna T-shirt, because I had always been obsessed with Madonna and he got really mad and he told me that, "I needed to take it off," and that, "I can't wear that at church," and that, "She was going to hell," that, you know, that "she had sex--you know, constantly bragged about having sex outside of marriage, having sex with other women." All this kind of stuff. And I was just like, "Oh, shit." you know, and I made this connection like I hadn't done any of those things yet, but they sounded pretty good (laughs) you know, and he got really upset with me. So, I had to take this shirt off, you know, ------(??) made a bi--big production of it. So then, you know, but I was starting to have like a little bit of a rebellious spirit with this guy because I thought what he was saying, it was terrifying but it also, like some part of me knew that I didn't 00:58:00believe it. And so, he made me take my Madonna shirt off and then I was sitting down in the rec room and I started playing like, a prayer on the piano and then, he recognized what song I was (laughs) playing and then he, like, slammed the piano shut and he was like, just getting really worked up.

So, I stopped going. I stopped going to youth group, I refused to go to church anymore and wouldn't go at all, you know, and didn't go back. By the time I was in high school, I still wouldn't go to services or anything like that. I would go for Christmas Eve and that was it. And I would work in the nursery. You know, so I wouldn't go up to the services, I would sit with a little kids and help out with the babies and everything. But I refused to go to the services. Yeah.

SISKO: When you started refusing to go, did anyone react to your refusal?

STEIN: My--my mom got really like--it's funny, my parents were not really that into organized religion and then they'll invoke it now as if like, they had been these devout people, which they never were. My mom doesn't even go to 00:59:00church now and then will complain, you know, that I that I don't "take the kids to church". We do. They go to the Unitarian church. But that's not real church to her. And, you know, apparently real church--who knows what that means, because she doesn't go to church at all. Somehow, we're bunch of heathens for not taking the kids to real church. But at first, I think she thought something had happened like, that I had been molested or something in the church and was like, you know, "What happened? Did somebody do something to you?" And I was just like, "No, but this guy, I mean, his like, rapture stuff was giving me nightmares. And he just--he just absolutely terrified me." And he actually got fired, shortly after that, the church realized that this was not in keeping with the kind of more liberal church that they had and they got rid of him, but I still felt like I was so freaked by the experience that I just never went back and I just said, "No, I didn't like it, I didn't want to go." You know, my mom was upset about it for a while, but they just, you know, 01:00:00finally let it go and I did other stuff. You know, when they were going to church, I would work in the nursery. I would help out with things like the crop walk, you know, for charity and like the Third World handicrafts and stuff. But, I just refused to go to the youth group and the services.

SISKO: So, backtracking to something you mentioned earlier--

STEIN: --um-hm--

SISKO: --there was that young woman you were involved with during undergrad who was attending a Catholic school and you were talking online, initially--

STEIN: --Um-hm--

SISKO: --before you met in person. I want to ask, what kind of online spaces--

STEIN: --Hmm--

SISKO: --did you frequent at that time? And did any of them hav--were any of them specific to--

STEIN: --yes--

SISKO: --LGBT things?

STEIN: Yes. They at that point, they were occasionally I would frequent like, you know, like fan chat rooms, you know, things like--and this was, so this was like the mid-nineties. So, this is where, you know, the technology was pretty rudimentary, but chat rooms and things like instant messaging were 01:01:00becoming pretty popular and there was like an internal instant message service within the college campus where, you know, you could have like a screen handle and message other anonymous people on campus and then there was more like the you know, like, you know, Internet kind of instant messaging and chat rooms. So, occasionally I would go to ones that were like fan-based, you know, like chat rooms --------------(??), or like, "The X-Files", and stuff like that. But most of them were explicitly LGBT, specifically lesbian chat rooms. Yeah.

And that's where I met--our chat rooms, or like bulletin boards and that's where I met this woman and then, we started talking privately over email and then, eventually, on the phone. Yeah.

SISKO: Were they pop--like these chat rooms that you're talking about? Were they populated mostly by like vocal lesbians in the sense of people who were saying they were lesbian?

STEIN: They were saying they were lesbians but, I think there was a 01:02:00range of whether or not the women were out as such. Like, in their real lives, like they were openly lesbian in these lesbian chat rooms where they were very anonymous. But, I didn't get the sense that--like, I got the sense that a lot of people were finding refuge there because they weren't necessarily out in their real lives. Yeah.

SISKO: Did the chat rooms continue to play a role in your life even after you met this young woman or--or not?

STEIN: Um, yeah. Yeah. And I ended up meeting other people through that, many of whom ended up becoming friends. Like, I never really ended up with other--in other relationships with women from that context in college, but ended up meeting people who became friends and still are, you know, that were located close by and met up in person and like didn't hit off in any kind of like romantic way, but, you know, did in a friendship kind of way and still actually have some of those friends. Yeah. So yeah, those--those spaces continued to play a role probably throughout my teens--erh, uh--college years and 01:03:00twenties and I know I've told you that I met my wife in a, you know, message board or like, an online community and that one was not explicitly lesbian. But, it was it was a Buffy chat board, which, you know, skews pretty heavily queer. So, it wasn't, you know, devoted to queer issues, but it was very queer friendly and a lot of people on it were--were queer in some way and probably a good fifty percent or more. Yeah.

SISKO: So, after undergrad, walk me through what happens from there in terms--

STEIN: --Okay--

SISKO: --of like, education here and whatnot.

STEIN: Yeah. So, after undergrad I graduated in ninety-nine, um, after a short stint of living back in the Jersey suburbs with my cousin for a few years--erh, a few months--while looking for apartments, I moved to Center City, Philly, which was great. Ironically, I lived just a few blocks away from the 01:04:00woman from college who was--that I had met on the chat board, who was very in the closet and at that point we were not in contact.

She, you know, had had, you know, had pulled out of my life again. And so, occasionally I would run into her in public and it was very awkward. She'd kinda run the other direction and then at one point, we tried to be friends and then, you know, she called that off as well. So, there is a little bit more of that going on during that period as well. And so, I lived in Center City and I worked for three years before I went to grad school.

So, I worked for the Philly School District in the central administration as a grant writer. So, I worked downtown. I lived downtown. I could walk from my apartment to work. Um, had a lot of friends, really loved living in the city. I absolutely loved living in Philly, loved everything about it. After, 01:05:00I think maybe two years, I moved to a different apartment. I originally lived like right by the Kimmel Center. So very, very, very downtown. And like more commercial area, you know, in the arts district and then I moved to kind of the southwest-inner city. I lived on South Street, but on the end, that wasn't all the stores and everything that you're probably familiar with. And after three years working as a grant writer, I went to grad school. So, I got into I had applied to fifteen different programs and I ended up getting into records and I already had an apartment I loved in Philly, and North Jersey is real expensive, and I would have been paying more to live in North Jersey than I would have been to live in Center City, and I thought that was stupid. So, I stayed put (laughs) and I commuted for the six years that I was in grad school. So, I lived in Philly that whole time. Yeah.

SISKO: When you were living in Philly, did you have the blue hair and the piercings still in still, or not?

STEIN: Nah--I still had the piercings--um, when I worked for the Philly school district, I couldn't do that because I worked in the main office so, I couldn't have the multicolored hair. So, I stopped dyeing my hair. But, I still had a nose ring, I had to tone down the size of it (laughs) was still--I was still allowed to wear it, just not a giant one. And I--I took out some of my ear piercings and stuff like that, but toned it down a little bit, but not entire--you know, not entirely. And that was during the work week. Yeah. Yeah.

SISKO: So, when you were accepted into Rutgers, was it a master's program--

STEIN: --PHD--

SISKO: --or a PHD program?

STEIN: Yeah. I never did the Master's, I went right to the PHD Yeah.

SISKO: Same. (laughs)

STEIN: Yes, (laughs) yes.

SISKO: What was the PHD in?

STEIN: Um, it was in history. So, I did a certificate and junior women's studies and a PHD in history. And, you know, the PHD in history at Rutgers is 01:07:00so geared towards women's and gender history and, you know, kind of feminist history any way that it might as well be a GWS degree (laughs). You know, it's a huge department, for one thing. And I think there's like sixty standing faculty members in the department. And a lot of them are affiliates in general women's studies. And most of the people in the department work on gender and race, gender and or race in some form. Yeah. So, it's a pretty explicitly feminist department and at the time it was the number one women's and gender history program in the country. It was--and it's still like even today, like Rutgers and Wisconsin are always kind of swapping back and forth with that title.

SISKO: What was going on in your life romantically during the grad school--

STEIN: --(laughs) absolutely nothing! Absolutely nadda, nothing at all, whatsoever. Complete dry spell without exception. (laughs) Uh, I 01:08:00really just got into my schoolwork in a dry spell of epic, epic proportions. (laughs) Yeah, my friends liked to tease me about everything, but yeah, I just spent a lot of time with my dissertation advisor and just did a lot of work and a lot of commuting back and forth. And, um, yeah. No relationship to speak of in graduate school.

SISKO: So, it seems like the history department was very much like women's history, feminism friendly--

STEIN: --yes, absolutely--

SISKO: --to say the least. How was the LGBT presence in terms of like faculty, or other grad students, like, were they there?

STEIN: Absolutely. Yeah, it was a total opposite experience that I had in college. You know, where I in college, I stood out for being queer and feminist in grad school, like I was boring, you know, like I was old news. Like I was not exciting enough. I wasn't trans, I wasn't, you know, I wasn't like 01:09:00polyamorous or anything (laughs) like that, I was just gay, among like, a sea of gay. So, I was really like, mundane in that context. There were out faculty and not as many as you would think in a department of that size. But there--but I also was doing GWS stuff and there were a number of out lesbians over there. And, um, and then, you know, among the grad students, I would say, at least--I would say a good fifty percent of the grad students were queer. Like gay men, like, you know, queer women. Yeah. So that was a very different experience. Yeah.

SISKO: And I'm assuming during that period you were out to them all-

STEIN: --oh, yeah--

SISKO: --and they knew--

STEIN: --oh, absolutely.

SISKO: ------------(?)

STEIN: Absolutely. yeah. We were all out to each other. It was a very easy place to be out. Yeah. And it was. Yeah. It was just sort of mundane there. Yeah.

SISKO: And so, you go to Rutgers. How many years did it take for you to finish up--

STEIN: --six--

SISKO: --with Rutger?

STEIN: --six, yeah--

SISKO: --and so what happens after year six?

STEIN: After year six, I actually turned down a tenure track job in faculty position and took a post-doc at IU. So, at Indiana University in the Gender Studies Department, they had advertised post-doc and gender race in science, which seemed like tailor made for me, and I got it. And the school that I had been offered a tenure track job at, I tried to negotiate for them to let me do one year of the two-year post-doc, and then start. And they wouldn't let me. So, I ended up turning down the job and taking the post-doc, which was like a real leap of faith. You know, I thought it would position me better in the long run. It was more of a teaching university that I had gotten the job offer at and I would have had like a five-four load and all that. And most of my dissertation committee was telling me to take the job. I had one person who said, take the post-doc. You know, you know that it's definitely the less secure 01:11:00route, but, you know, I think in the long run, it will position you better and so, I did.

And then each year that I was there at IU, I kept going on the job market and then nothing would pan out. And then I was like, "Oh, my God, what have I done?" You know? And I was also kind of miserable in--at IU, I was lonely. I had never lived outside of the Philly nexus before. You know, the furthest I ever lived was Lancaster, Pennsylvania, you know, forty-five minutes by train (laughs), you know. So, I was lonely. I liked--I had liked living downtown. I was in an apartment complex like on the edge of Bloomington. I--you know, I was there by myself. You know, I made friends very easily. But I just I just missed, you know, I just missed Philly. And I was there alone. And I just like started walking all the time. Like, I would take my camera and do like nature photography. And I was just walking non-stop. I always joked that I 01:12:00was subconsciously walking back to Philadelphia.

But the first couple of years there, I was a little bit miserable and I was wondering if what I had done because I wasn't getting any action on the job market. I'd get like campus visits, but then I wouldn't get the job. And I was just like, "Oh, God. Like, I had turned down a secure tenure track job."

So, two years pass of a two-year post-doc. Still don't have a job. I negotiate with them to let me stay on a little longer because somebody was out on sabbatical. So, I do that and then they were only able to do it for the fall semester. So now, I'm like in Indiana, I've got nothing for the spring and I'm stuck. You know, luckily Rutgers came through and offered me a one semester postdoc to come back there, and I did. And then, during that spring semester, I got the job here. Yeah.

SISKO: And so, during the first post-doc, romantically, it was it still a dry spell at that point?

STEIN: Oh! Um, no. During the post-doc is when I met Kelley, also 01:13:00online. It was towards the end of the second year there that we started talking online and then started talking like on the phone and, you know, texting and stuff. And then, we met in person the summer between my second and like partial third year of my post-doc and then started dating right away. And when I got the job here, you know, we were, you know, a pretty firm item and we were--I--I when I was done with my post-doc at Rutgers, I moved in with her in Ferguson. And then my first year here, we commuted back and forth between Ferguson and Lexington. And then she moved down. Yeah.

SISKO: You mentioned that gender, race and science in the sense of like scholastic subjects was your thing. How did that end up becoming your thing? Like what drew you to that combination of topics?

STEIN: Hmm. Um. Yeah, It's interesting because when I first went to 01:14:00grad school, I thought I was gonna do something on like very recent, like feminist history. I thought I would do something on like Riot grrl or like, you know, the fifties and sixties, like lesbian culture or something like that.

And I took a class with the woman who ended up being my advisor later and it was like a cultural history class and she's an African-American historian. And we read a bunch of stuff and like the history of, you know, racial ideology and we read, Queering The Color Line, in there as well and I started to think about some of those--those readings about race in conjunction with some of the stuff that I was doing on gender and sexuality in GWS and in other history classes and what it would look like to put that kind of--the kind of scholarship around kind of gender and biological determinism and conversation with the all 01:15:00the readings on race and biological determinism and thinking about them together and the idea that your body determines who you are and what you can do and who you can be. And, you know, that really resonated with me in a lot of ways.

SISKO: Yeah. Why did it resonate with you?

STEIN: Um, let's see--

SISKO: --it's a big question--

STEIN: --it is, it is. Um--

SISKO: --yeah, I dig deep. (laughs)

STEIN: I guess, some of--some of it might have been, you know, on a psychological level. Uh, I had been sick a lot as a kid. I had rheumatoid as a kid. And I had to do a lot of physical therapy. And, you know, there were a lot of things in gym that I couldn't do or couldn't participate in and got teased a lot for it. I had a pretty pronounced limp as a kid. I had to have a 01:16:00lot of like reconstructive facial surgeries because my jaw wasn't growing. So, I'd have all these jaw surgeries and leg surgeries and stuff like that. So, I think I felt very like body conscious. And I--so, the idea that that would somehow determine who I was, you know, I think was kind of like anathema to me. Yeah. Yeah.

SISKO: So, how was your first-time teaching?

STEIN: Uh--

SISKO: --first time being in charge of your own classroom, teaching.

STEIN: Let's see, I'm trying to think my first one, I think was a Rutgers summer class, and then shortly after that I started teaching at a college in New Jersey. And most of my teaching was there, a little bit--some were at Rutgers, Rutgers, Newark, Rutgers, Brunswick. I taught at Penn. These are all places I taught when I was a grad student.

But, um. I was really nervous, but luckily, you know, when you're a 01:17:00grad student, they don't typically give you huge courses and my first class was a summer class. So, I think I had like somewhere like in the fifteen to twenty range. So, I was able to do it mostly like a seminar. You know, where I, you know, kind of sat and talked through the readings with them and had a good rapport with the students and it was relaxed. So, I think that was a good way of getting my feet wet because I could carry on conversations, you know, the idea of just like standing there and lecturing made me anxious. But it wasn't really that kind of class at first. So, I kind of gradually worked up to that. Yeah. And they were an easy bunch. Yeah.

SISKO: So, it sounds like, at least for the most part, you're--you're in the Northeast at least somewhere, whether it's New Jersey, Pennsylvania, etcetera--

STEIN: --yeah--

SISKO: --eventually you move to Lexington--

STEIN: --yes--

SISKO: --um, tell me more about that transition and moving from that region, to this region.

STEIN: Um, I thought it was going to be awful (laughs) and was very 01:18:00pleasantly surprised. I think also by that point, I had been out for so long that I was sort of, impervious to other people, or just oblivious, maybe is a better word. Like, I was--I didn't notice that people were looking at me, or if I stood out in any way. I had been out for a very long time and I just was really oblivious to it. Um, and there was nothing that was like overtly homophobic that I had experienced and it ended up being a really cool town. I thought I was gonna be miserable, but I think Bloomington was a good transition because it was--it already was bigger than Bloomington. So, it felt like I was kind of going up. (laughs) You know, it was it was more like Philly than Bloomington was. You know, it was more of a city. There--you know, there was, you know, a lot of different restaurants that I liked. It was--it 01:19:00seemed way more progressive than I was expecting. So, I think I came here think--with all the Northeast stereotypes about Kentucky, that I'm sure you can imagine, you probably had as well. And then, being pleasantly surprised.

Does it mean it's utopia? No. But my expectation was so low, you know, that I've been--I was really pleasantly surprised and really liked it right away. I mean, that there was like enough of a city atmosphere, but I could still do a lot of that stuff that I had learned to enjoy in Bloomington, like the like the hiking and things like that. You know, that I could kind of integrate both parts of my life, you know, the kind of like love of the urban, with the love of nature as well. Um and it was kind of a nice mix of both worlds and Kelly and I never really had any problems here. Yeah, pleasantly surprised.

Yeah, I mean, Philly will always be home to me, but I like it here 01:20:00way, way, way more than I ever expected. And I think at that point in the job market, too, I was also very keenly aware of the horrific places you could end up as an academic and Lexington, which is clearly not one of them. You know, I have friends that have ended up in really heinous, heinous places that were very conservative like that, not only had a reputation for being so, but like were actually, you know, really conservative or really remote and Lexington was none of those things. Yeah.

SISKO: So, you've been out for a long time--

STEIN: --um-hm--

SISKO: --but do you ever find yourself coming out still--

STEIN: --yeah! Yeah--

SISKO: --to anybody? Like, what kind of situations does that happen?

STEIN: Yeah. I feel like even in this day and age, like to me, you know, I feel like I code very gay. But, you know, I think as I've gotten older, I realize that not everybody realizes it right off the bat. You know, I had 01:21:00always assumed that people could tell right away. But I mean, all kinds of context now where I think I just get read as like a tired mom, you know, of indeterminate (laughs) origins, you know? And so I think the times where I most end up having to come out over and over again and are in contexts around the kids, like, you know, go into little league, you know, each time on a new team or, you know, or I go to the school for a parent teacher conference or something, you know, music lessons and then they're like, "Oh, you know, okay. Well, what's your husband's name?" I'm like, "I don't have a husband. My wife is Kelly." You know, I feel like, you know, like that kind of coming out process happens all the time, you know? You know, and not just with kids, but like, you know, a contractor will come to the house and they'd be like, "Oh, well, I can be here that time. Is that available? Is that good for you or would that work for your husband?" "Well, you know, my wife works in Frankfort. So, no, but I can be there." You know. So, it's like that kind of correcting 01:22:00assumptions a lot.

So, even though I think I look as--just as gay as can be. Apparently, I don't look as much so as I did in college or maybe people are just more dense or (laughs) I don't know. But I do find myself having to come out in those contexts and I think there's still a lot of people who don't expect--who don't connect parenthood with queerness. You know that when, you know, I'm identified in some context as a mom, it never occurs to them that I could be gay and a mom. You know, they just--it's just outside of their worldview. Yeah.

SISKO: Talk to me a bit about campus life here at the University of Kentucky. So, you're a professor here. You've been here for some years. Um, how has had--how has the um, I lost track of my wording___(?). How has your identity in any way impacted your experience at UK, whether positively or neutrally or negatively? But how are those two things interacted?

STEIN: Umm. I mean, I--I think kind of in a neutral way, I mean and 01:23:00maybe this would be different if I was in a different department, but I'm not in history here and I'm not in, you know, classic's or whatever. I'm in gender and women's studies where, you know, queer people I think are right now the numeric majority of the department, both in terms of faculty and probably fifty-fifty in the grad student--grad student body. So, it's sort of like a non-identifier, you know, like it's not one of the things that people, you know, are--it's not one of the first things people identify me as at this point. I think I probably stand out more for from my colleagues for having kids. There's a, you know, a very small number of faculty in the department who have children. So, I think that is something I stand out for more than being LGBT, which I think is, you know, almost a--you know, not expected, but, you know, I think, you 01:24:00know, you go in to the department, you think there's a good chance that somebody will be, right? So, I think, you know, that that is not a--you know, it's still a huge part of how I think of myself, but I don't think it's necessarily the biggest way that people identify me. I think, you know, maybe I stand out and to students too, because I think, especially our majors in GWS, they're used to having queer faculty and queer grad students teaching their classes, that they know our queer either by the fact that the faculty member has identified as such or that they have, you know, marginally good gaydar (laughs) and can tell on their own, right? You know, but they're you know, I probably stand out for being North-Eastern and not from Kentucky, as I'm sure you sometimes do, too. You know, so I think people can tell that I'm not from here and I think that sometimes stands out more to them than whether or not I'm LGBT as a 01:25:00GWS professor, (laughs) you know? Yeah.

SISKO: How has being a mother impacted your professional relationships on campus?

STEIN: That--that one's actually probably more challenging because, you know, when you go from having kids to--from having no kids, to kids, you have a lot of friendships that developed in the context of not having kids, right? And then, once you know, like where your interests are not about children, the things that you do with them are not, you know, child friendly, you know, activities. And then, suddenly have kids drawn into the picture. I think it shifts your friendships a lot. You know, there we have all sorts of friends that we don't see as often now because we have kids. In part because we can't get out as often, but when we do, you know, we're going to have a babysitter, eh--now that they're a little older, we're having a much easier time finding babysitters, um, when they were real young and when we had three for a while there, you know, it was very hard. But, you know, not everybody wants to be around kids 01:26:00all the time and, you know, so you end up having your friends kind of compartmentalized, like friends that you see when you do have a baby sitter or if you, you know, are doing something at work, but you don't necessarily hang out with it on the weekends as much if you don't have a babysitter because of the kids.

And then we've also developed friends because of the kids that have become closer friends than they were before or new friends because of the kids. You know, the kids, you know, they have the biological siblings, as you know, and their biological siblings, adoptive parents have become very close friends of ours and like family. You know, we have friends with other faculty members that we've met through the kids (laughs) tha--they're in the campus daycare together and now they're like some of our closest friends and we go on vacation together and we see them all the time. So, friendships change. Yeah.

SISKO: Tell me about uh, how your children entered your life and when.

STEIN: Uh, they--we, um--I have always known I wanted to have kids. Um, Kelly always knew she didn't want to (laughs) have kids uh, and she would say stuff like that on the chat board all the time. So, when we ended up on our second date, I decided to address this. She jokes about this all the time that I brought this up on our second date. Like a crazy person. But I was in my thirties at this point and I didn't want to proceed if this was like something that was not an option because it was non-negotiable for me in my life.

I knew I wanted kids, whether I was in a relationship or not. So, I brought it up on our second date. You know, whether or not this, you know, how strenuous did she feel about this? And she said, you know, "When I said that I was in a place in my life where I kind of hated my life and I didn't want to 01:28:00bring kids into that and so, if I was happy with my life, I could see that, you know, changing and it's not, you know, a closed door for me." And I was like, okay, because this is non-negot--like, if you proceed, like this is going to come up, because I really want kids. So, she agreed to that. And then, you know, after we were together for a while, you know, it's like. Let's start thinking about this, and she said, "Okay." And we investigated a lot of different ways to have kids.

We looked into the artificial insemination, but it felt kind of like eugenic to me and I felt really uncomfortable with it, like the profitability of it. But also, the kind of like searching for like the perfect genetic profile. It just, you know, with my research on like scientific racism, it felt very eugenic and I just--it didn't feel right for me. And it was exorbitantly expensive. We looked at private adoption that was also exorbitantly expensive. But we were trying to come up with ways that we can fund it. And then we were like, "You 01:29:00know what? In the meantime, like, let's foster you know, like let's foster. Maybe we'll end up being able to adopt one of our foster kids. We can adopt an older kid. In the meantime, while we're saving money and figuring this all out, we have kids in the house. We're helping somebody who needs it, you know, and then maybe one of those will actually pan out into an adoption, we'll adopt an older kid, and then maybe, you know, some years down the road we'll be able to adopt an infant from a private agency." And then, it just didn't work out that way.

Like, we ended up--our first placement was an eight-year-old girl that we had for three months that we went into it thinking we were gonna get to adopt. She was already available for adoption and it just she had more problems than we were equipped to deal with. It was our very first placement and she had some pretty major psychiatric problems and we just we knew we had taken on more than we were prepared to deal with. So, she moved out on January 2nd. 01:30:00January 3rd, we got a phone call.

I was, you know, I had just turned in my book manuscript. I was at FedEx turning in my book manuscript. When I got the phone call, "Could I take it could we take these three kids?" It was two four-year-old boys and a baby girl. And had that call come like, earlier that day, I probably would've had to say no, because I had to get that book manuscript out. And I called Kelly and she said, "Okay, you know, we'll try it." And it originally was supposed to be a short-term placement. So, I had to rush home, put together a crib, you know, clean up this other child's room and everything. And the three of them moved in. And it was a biological brother and sister and then another child that had been living with them. So, that's how we got them. And eventually got to adopt the--the two siblings. Yeah.

SISKO: How much later did the actual, you know, official adoption--

STEIN: --two years--

SISKO: --take place?

STEIN: It was, um, two weeks short of two years. So, they moved in on January 3rd, 2014. We adopted them on December 15th, 2015. So, two weeks shy of their two-year anniversary from moving in with us. Yeah.

SISKO: And, did they--well, I'm not really sure how young they were when you first were living with them, but did they have any reactions to the fact that you and your wife are two women?

STEIN: Um, no, not at all. Um, so, the boys were four and Bella was a baby. She had--she had just turned one. So, she was an older baby. Um, and the previous foster family that they were living with were two women as well and they had lived with them for a year. And I think they had placed Alex, in particular, deliberately with lesbian households because he was afraid of men. He had a pretty severe abuse history and was scared of men. So, I think they 01:32:00were deliberately placing him with female led households. Yeah, and so, they weren't at all surprised. They had already lived with a lesbian couple for over a year when they moved in with us. Yeah.

SISKO: You also mentioned that you socialize with other parents a good bit, now that you are parents yourselves. But tell me a little bit more about your social circles. Like, who do you surround yourself with? Are they LGBTQ, or no?

STEIN: I would say. Probably fifty-fifty, you know. Yeah. We have a lot of older lesbian friends. I think we just relate to them more like, on a cultural level, like women in their fifties, sixties, seventies. So, we have a lot of like older lesbian friends that don't have kids, you know. Then, we have--we have some lesbian friends with kids, because even though we're not currently 01:33:00taking placements--um, foster placements, we've stayed involved as a--foster parent, mentors. So, we mentor new--new foster parents for the first six months and they've been feeding us primarily lesbian couples. So, all the people we've mentored so far have been lesbian couples and then we've become--ended up befriending them even after our official like, mentor period is over, we're still friends with them. So, we do have some other queer parents that we're friends with, but most of the parents that we're friends with are heterosexual couples. And, you know, we have the parent bond. We have plenty of straight friends. We have a lot of queer friends from the department as well. Kind of a pretty, pretty big mix, I would say. Yeah, I wouldn't say there's any one feature that defines the bulk of our social circle. It's pretty 01:34:00diverse. Yeah.

SISKO: Why is it that you--and I assume you meant your wife as well, but why is it you all relate to the older lesbians in your social circles? Like what is it about that--

STEIN: --(laughs)--

SISKO: --dynamic that feels comfortable to you?

STEIN: Probably some of the same things that you've identified as, you know, sources of frustration. Some of the self-righteousness, (laughs) or some of the--the younger queer-identified crowd as just being really, really, really competitive in terms of like queer identity and you know, who's like, "queer-er than thou" and not--not a whole lot of sense of humor (laughs) perspective. And yeah, and--and the inability to--or refusal to identify as lesbian, 01:35:00you know. You know, I think it's a younger generational thing. So, I think just the more laid back comfortable without--comfortable enough with themselves that they don't have to kind of posture (laughs) we relate to--sounds horrible, but uh, yeah.

SISKO: So, now that we're on the subject, this is a topic that comes up a good bit in these interviews, the word, "queer". Because that can mean different things to different people--

STEIN: --yeah--

SISKO: --um, so, I'm going to pose the question you, as well. What does the word queer mean to you and what did it mean growing up if you ever encountered that word growing up?

STEIN: When I encountered it as little kid, it was always like a playground taunt, you know, like queer, or queer-bait, was a word that I heard a lot as a kid, but it was like synonymous with like fag, or weird. Queer, when I was in college, people were starting to use it a little bit as just kind of 01:36:00synonymous, or shorthand for LGBT, you know? And that's like--I know there's more of a distinction now as queer as a distinctly political term, but I sort of feel like for me and my own identity, they're all kind of interchangeable, like, I'm fine with gay, I'm queer, I'm fine with lesbian.

I mean, I think, you know, for me, I mean, I've been out for so long, it doesn't really matter to me what I mean, you know, I have a wife (laughs) you know, it's pretty clear that, you know, my--my romantic relationships are with women and I just don't have that much invested in what people call it anymore. Like, I'm comfortable, I have no problem with the term lesbian, I have no problem with the term gay, you know. Queer is fine, particularly as a shorthand for like a larger community and it's a little bit easier to say than LGBTQIA, you know, 01:37:00alphabet soup. So, I'm fine with it as an umbrella term. Any--any of that is--like I don't put as much stock into terminology at this point in my life, you know? Yeah.

SISKO: What spaces do you feel have been welcoming to you in the sense of your identity as a lesbian and also as like a mother--

STEIN: --yeah--

SISKO: --what spaces do you feel of welcome to you, whether that's a particular building on campus or a particular business or someone's house. What spaces do you feel that you have been welcomed in and feel safe?

STEIN: Um-hm. Um, I mean, I definitely feel very comfortable in the department. Um, my daughter goes to daycare on campus and it's a very, you know, progressive daycare and there are other same sex couples there and people we've 01:38:00become friends with I feel very--and a lot of faculty--I feel very comfortable there. Um.

SISKO: So, you have the department--

STEIN: --we have the department--

SISKO: --that works for you--

STEIN: --yeah, yeah. Uh, we've actually been fine in our neighborhood, too. You know, we live in a--we're actually gonna be moving shortly just because we needed a bigger house, but our neighborhood, we live in a very blue-collar kind of working-class neighborhood, which I think people would make all sorts of assumptions about conservatism and that's not the case at all and we've always had very good relationships with all of our neighbors and the kids play outside with other kids, nobody's ever, you know, given us any trouble whatsoever. There are a few other LGBT families in the neighborhood. So, we feel comfortable there and safe.

I take the kids to the Unitarian Church. Kelly doesn't go because she just doesn't want to sit through church at all of any variety. I've been taking because I wanted them to have a deliberately progressive space because, you know, the schools are not enough for what I would like them to get in terms of like social justice education and progressive kind of education. So, you know, what they're getting out of that is seeing a bunch of other progressive people and social justice minded people without a lot of like actual religious dogma. But they're getting kind of--they're getting the social justice stuff that I would like them to see. Yeah. So, I go for them--for them to have that. Yeah. And they go to the Sunday school and you know, and then they learn about different world religions and tolerance and stuff like that. So, 01:40:00that's good. And so, I find that to be a good space that I mainly do for the kids. But I feel comfortable there as well. Um, yeah.

We've had some experiences through the kids some years when we've done Little League with the kids, where the parents were very, very unfriendly to us and then other years where they were wonderful. I think the first year we had a lot of really, really wealthy parents who were very--like the very stereotypical kind of soccer moms and they just did not talk to us at all, at practices or games, and we felt really ostracized. And in the last couple--the last couple of years, we've ended up, you know, their teams have shifted and stuff like that and we've ended up with like, great other parents. So, what was a really unwelcoming and uncomfortable space for us where we felt like we really stood out, has now become like, a good space for us with different parents that are just nicer and more welcoming. Yeah.

SISKO: I was actually going to ask about that. Like, what has your experience been with the schools your kids attend or just like things surrounding that, like Little League--

STEIN: --yeah--

SISKO: --etcetera.

STEIN: Yeah. Um, as the kids have ended up on more diverse teams, it got a little better the first year that Alex played baseball. They were almost all--his team--he was the only kid of color on this team. So, the kids are Latino. And then all the other teammates were white and very like--like, upper middle class and fairly conservative. A lot of them went to a private Christian schools and--and we were just really (laughs) suddenly shunned. And then he was on a new team the next year and the--there were more kids of color, you know, more parents of color. There were some younger moms who seemed to 01:42:00be--like, went out of their way to be really friendly. I think they had been ostracized for being young moms previously. So, they were like bending over backwards to be nice to other people and really welcoming. So, I think we had all had--and some of the kids of color like, their parents that just kind of sat on the sidelines in previous years and we ended up on this team that was a little more diverse and I think we all had similar experiences of--of, kind of shunning (laughs) and so it ended up being kind of a source of camaraderie, yeah, and a much friendlier space. Yeah. And we deliberately try to like chase, you know, neighborhoods with like a good amount of racial and class diversity. You know, also for our kids' sake, so they're not the only kind of, brown kids in any space. So, we tried really, really hard to inhabit diverse spaces and send them to diverse schools, which tend to be more progressive as 01:43:00well. It seems to be more a part of their kind of ___delivery of_(??) curriculum. Yeah.

SISKO: What have your interactions with their teachers been like?

STEIN: They've been fine. Yeah, we have not any--we have not had any trouble on account of them being--of us being same-sex parents. Yeah, they've been totally fine. Lexington's been surprisingly good. Yeah, I really do mean that. Yeah. The--the mean baseball moms aside (laughs) the one year.

SISKO: Ah, one of the questions--well, this is a subject that keeps coming up--

STEIN: --yeah--

SISKO: --in these interviews and now I've just decided to just make it an actual question. But, thinking about our current administration--

STEIN: --[exasperated gasp] (laughs)--

SISKO: --right?

STEIN: Now I wish I had brought alcohol--

SISKO: --(laughs)--

STEIN: --instead of just Gatorade, yeah.

SISKO: So, thinking about our current administration, what are your thoughts and feelings toward the future, particularly, you know, for your kids?

STEIN: Um, we worry about it all the time. I mean, we were really 01:44:00scared. I mean, on multiple levels, you know, this is where, like, you know, intersectionality really comes into play, right? So, it's like, you know, our kids are you know, they have two moms in this particular climate. They're Latino and specifically Mexican-American at a time where, you know, Mexican people are just denigrated constantly in the media and in this political climate. You know, our son has asked us things like, you know, "Am I really un-American?" And, you know, having to navigate that conversation. And, you know, I mean, my scholarship deals a lot with race and, you know, I'm pretty invested in, you know, Black Lives Matter, for example and we take our kids on Black Lives Matter marches and other, you know, standing up for racial justice and stuff and we did the Women's march with them and we try to be politically 01:45:00engaged with them, while also navigating this line of protection, too, particularly with our son, because we didn't adopt him as an infant, we got him as a kid who'd already been traumatized.

So, we're always having to navigate this line of making him socially conscious and aware and you know, and having kind of a social justice framework for him while also not--while also making him feel--feel safe, you know, and--he's still at the, you know, at the point where he needs to feel safe and secure because he hasn't always been safe in his life. So, trying to be realistic that, you know, the world is not fair and is dangerous, especially for, you know, boys of color while still trying to navigate his trauma background and give him safety and security is kind of like a tough boundary that we're always 01:46:00navigating and revisiting and giving them as much positive, you know, kind of positive examples of Latino culture as humanly possible to counter some of that negative noise that they're hearing. You know, we do all the Latino festivals in town. We try to make sure we live in neighborhoods and go to schools with other Latino families. You know, we try to find Latino dolls and books that have, you know, kids of color as the as the main characters and not just Latino characters, because we also feel like it's important for them to be able to empathize with people who don't look like them, too. So, they have lots of African-American dolls and toys and books and, you know, books about with Asian characters and so on. But, making sure they do see their culture reflected. Because we're white parents too, to not--have them lose that.

We were very excited that we were able to get our daughter into a Spanish immersion school that celebrates all the different kind of countries of the Spanish diaspora. So, that was exciting for us. And we just try to be really conscious of--of trying to buffer the current climate as much as possible. Yeah.

SISKO: What are some things that give you, if you can find it, hope for the future?

STEIN: Human mortality, for one. (laughs) The fact that there there's a certain generation that, you know, a lot of generate a lot of political change happens when certain generations just plain die off. You know, every poll, you know, shows younger generations being more LGBT friendly, you know, more 01:48:00invested in things like Black Lives Matter more amenable to these issues and so, you know, I feel like some of it is just going to be time, but not just time, because it's time and overt resistance and there has been plenty of it. You know, that there have been so many different forms of resistance and segments of the population resisting in different ways and I'm seeing more coalition building, you know, more conscious coalition building, too. So, I find all that really helpful. I don't feel like people are taking this particular moment laying down at all. Yeah.

SISKO: So we've reached the end of my questions pretty much, but I wanted to turn it over toward you and ask if there anything else that you would like to add or say that, you know, maybe I skipped over or you didn't get a chance to mention.

STEIN: I very rarely, you know, forgot to mention--

SISKO: --(laughs)--

STEIN: --something. Yeah, I'm usually pretty exhaustive, I'm sure I 01:49:00gave you more than you asked for. Yeah. Yeah--

SISKO: --okay, well I'm glad that it was thorough and thank you for talking to me.

STEIN: No problem--

SISKO: --awesome--

STEIN: --no problem.