Family Proclamations: Rethinking Relationships, Gender, and Sexuality

As a Black woman growing up in England, Catherine Joy White sometimes felt out of place at home, but also disconnected from the heritage of her Jamaican ancestors. Until she began connecting with the stories of remarkable but often forgotten Black woman from history. Their stories helped her re-envision what beauty means, how silence can also be strength, what "self care" really means, and what courage looks like.

She found fortitude which, like a thread of gold, can connect all of us to the past, keep us grounded in the present, and point us toward a better future. 

Catherine Joy White is author of This Thread of Gold: A Celebration of Black Womanhood. She earned a Master’s Degree in Women’s Studies from Oxford. She is an actor, writer, filmmaker, and founder and CEO of the award-winning Kusini Productions, a company established to champion the voices of Black women. White is also a gender advisor to the United Nations, and was honored as a member of the Forbes 30 Under 30 Class of 2022. 

Abi Maxwell's daughter wanted the pink shoes. She wanted to dress as a witch on Halloween in kindergarten. She wore her hair long and envied the dance costumes other girls got to wear for the recital. The problem was that Abi's daughter was "known" to her, and to their conservative New Hampshire town, as a boy.

Suddenly, Abi's beloved hometown became engulfed in a hurricane of controversy with her daughter right in the eye of the storm. In this episode, Abi tells the story of how her own ignorance about trans people turned into understanding about her own daughter, and then fear for her family's safety. 

Abi Maxwell is author of the novels Lake People and The Den. After graduating from the writing program at the University of Montana, she spent many years working in public libraries. She is a dedicated advocate for the rights of transgender youth. Her latest book is called One Day I'll Grow Up and Be a Beautiful Woman: A Mother's Story.

History is full of women who never gave birth to children, whether because they couldn't or even didn't want to. Historian Peggy O'Donnell Heffington says her research about women without children made her feel more settled about her own choice not to have kids, but it also surprisingly made her feel greater solidarity with women who make the opposite choice. She joins us to talk about her book Without Children: The Long History of Not Being a Mother.

Peggy O'Donnell Heffington is Assistant Senior Instructional Professor and Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies at the University of Chicago. She teaches and writes on feminism, women's movements, and motherhood in American and European history. Her first book is called Without Children: The Long History of Not Being a Mother (Seal Press, 2023). Her writing has also appeared in Jezebel, the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. She received her PhD in History from the University of California, Berkeley.

Full transcript available at familyproclamations.org. 

Up to 90% of women and trans men experience menstrual abnormalities or pelvic issues at some point in their lives. Dr. Karen Tang says too many people are suffering in silence, and that's why she wrote a comprehensive guide called It's Not Hysteria: Everything You Need to Know About Your Reproductive Health (but Were Never Told). We're talking all about reproductive health, so if you've ever met with a gynecologist, this one's for you. And if you haven't, this one is also very much for you! 

Dr. Karen Tang is author of It's Not Hysteria: Everything You Need to Know About Your Reproductive Health (but Were Never Told). She's a board-certified gynecologist, a minimally invasive gynecologic surgeon, and an internationally recognized leader in reproductive health, and social media. She received her MD and Masters in Public Health at Columbia University, her residency training in OB/Gyn at Beth Israel Deaconess/Harvard Medical School, and her fellowship in advanced gynecologic endoscopic surgery at Legacy Health in Portland. Her areas of medical expertise include endometriosis, fibroids, chronic pelvic pain, and gender affirming gynecologic care for transgender and non-binary individuals. Follow her on social media (@karentangmd) or learn more at karentangmd.com.

Full transcript available here at familyproclamations.org. 

Bella DePaulo has been single her entire life, but she doesn't want anyone's pity about that. This social psychologist loves being single, and she always has. In her latest book Single At Heart she highlights the lives of people who are thriving not in spite of being uncoupled, but because of it. She joins us to talk about what her research uncovers about the "Power, Freedom, and Heart-Filling Joy of Single Life."

Bella DePaulo has been described by The Atlantic as “America’s foremost thinker and writer on the single experience.” She is a social psychologist who earned her PhD at Harvard University and works as an academic affiliate in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her latest book is Single At Heart: The Power, Freedom, and Heart-Filling Joy of Single Life. She also blogs at Psychology Today.

A full transcript of this episode is available here.

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Lauren Sandler is an "only child" expert. She is one. She has one. And as an award-winning journalist, Lauren dug deep to answer some of the most pressing questions about singletons. Are they more lonely? Are they more selfish? Would they be better off with siblings? She answers these questions and more in her book, One and Only: The Freedom of Having an Only Child and the Joy of Being One. 

Lauren Sandler is an award-winning journalist and author based in Brooklyn. She is author of multiple best-selling books including This Is All I Got: A New Mother’s Search for Home, Righteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement, and One and Only: The Freedom of Having an Only Child, and the Joy of Being One. Her essays and features have appeared in dozens of publications including Time, The New York Times, Slate, The Atlantic, The Nation, The New Republic, The Guardian, New York Magazine, and Elle. She has been on staff at Salon and at NPR, where she worked on All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Weekend Edition, and the Cultural Desk. And there’s even more! Visit laurenosandler.com/about to see what she's up to now.

Complete transcript available at familyproclamations.org.

As an ultra-Orthodox Jew, Sara Glass was raised to believe her purpose in life was to marry a righteous man and bear children, all to the glory of God. On the outside, she was following that plan to perfection. But on the inside, something was pulling her in a very different direction. It was traumatic, and she would have to risk everything to find healing. Sara joins us to discuss her new memoir, Kissing Girls on Shabbat.

Note: This episode includes discussion of miscarriage and also sexual violence. Listener discretion is advised. If you or someone you know is experiencing intimate partner abuse, help is available. Contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233, text the word "START" to 88788, or visit thehotline.org. 

Sara Glass is a psychotherapist and writer in New York City. She earned her a Master’s in Social Work from Rutgers University and a PhD in Psychology from Capella University. She is the clinical director of Soul Wellness NYC, a private psychotherapy practice in Midtown Manhattan, and serves as a Clinical Supervisor for Jewish Queer Youth, a non-profit organization that supports and empowers LGBTQ youth. Learn more at drsaraglass.com or follow her on social media: @drsaraglass.

Complete transcript available here: familyproclamations.org.

What does it mean to be a man? It depends on who you ask. And it depends on *when* you ask, because masculinity has always been a moving target. In this episode we travel back to ancient Rome, where manly men loved war, violence, and sexual conquest. Mike Pope says this history has powerful relevance for us today. We're talking about his book, Lucretius and the End of Masculinity. 

Mike Pope is Associate Professor of Classical Studies at Brigham Young University. He is author of the book, Lucretius and the End of Masculinity. 

Complete transcript available here (familyproclamations.org).

Eris Young is author of the go-to book on everything non-binary. They break down the basics of the gender binary, painting a more expansive, inclusive, and accurate picture of human identity.

What is it like to be nonbinary? What challenges do people face? What about healthcare for nonbinary folks? All this and more, as we talk to Eris Young about their book, They/Them/Their: A Guide to Nonbinary and Genderqueer Identities.

Eris Young is a queer, transgender writer of fiction and nonfiction. Their books They/Them/Their: A guide to nonbinary and genderqueer identities (2019) and Ace Voices: What it means to be asexual, aromantic, demi or gray-ace (2022), are published by Jessica Kingsley. They were the writer-in-residence at Lighthouse, Edinburgh's radical bookshop, from 2019 to 2022, in 2020 received a Scottish Book Trust New Writer Award for fiction, and are a 2023 IPSE Freelancer Award finalist, in the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion category.

Full transcript available here (familyproclamations.org).

Maggie Smith gives us an unflinching look at divorce today and what it means to live and write our own lives. Her best-selling memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, is a story about a mother’s fierce and constant love for her children, and a woman’s love and regard for herself. Need some divorce catharsis? Want to hear what it's like to keep going? Join us. 

Maggie Smith is a poet and best-selling award-winning author of the memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful. She also wrote Good Bones and Keep Moving. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, New Yorker, The Nation, The Paris Review, and The Best American Poetry. Her awards include the Academy of American Poets Prize, Pushcart Prize, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. 

Full transcript is available here (familyproclamations.org).