Will is a youth and equality Activist, Solution-Focused practitioner, a Speaker, and LGBTQ+. As Will put it, "with my lived experience as a queer and genderqueer individual, I believe I bring a nuanced take on issues affecting Young People, particularly those from marginalized backgrounds." I was very excited to talk to Will because I wanted to learn. I wanted to learn directly from someone who could shed light on two areas it is almost impossible for me to fully understand-- how youth view the world today and what is means to be genderqueer. These are topics which can be super emotionally charged and carry a lot of societal baggage. They are complex and messy, which is why they can be so difficult to talk about.

I really appreciated Will's willingness to open up about their experiences and emotions. It was really helpful to hear in their words what it was like to feel fundamentally "wrong" just for being yourself. It is so easy as someone who has never experienced that to not fully embrace and accept what that must be like. It helps me to understand so much more about Will's value of "caring" and why that is so important. To try and prevent anyone else from having to feel that way, to try and get to a place in the world where people can feel accepted for whoever they choose to be. At the same time, we talked about the practical/societal challenges of this. We didn't shy away from the idea that maybe that is too idealistic. Maybe human nature and the world is such that some people are always going to feel "on the outside." 

In one of my favorite parts of the discussion, towards the end, Will and I tried to model what a healthy conversation about these sensitive topics could look like. I tried to be as honest as I could about not fully understanding what non-binary or genderqueer meant, not in a hateful way, but in an honest way. If we hope to get people at scale to be more caring and accepting, we have to understand what hurdles are preventing them from doing so. We have to get to the truth of where the issues might be and Will and I agreed that the only way to do that is to dive right into the mud and messiness. So we both tried to be as open and authentic as we could about the topic. 

Some people might look at an episode like this and think, "oh great more people virtue signaling about equality" or "oh great another straight white guy trying to put the burden on a marginalized person to explain why people should care." I don't know, I am humble enough to acknowledge some of that might be true. But as Will said, if we could put those stigmas and the baggage aside, maybe we can just view it as two people trying to learn and be better people. I really appreciate you all for listening and I hope you enjoy this one.