This week's guest is one of my all-time favorite girlies, the walking ray of sunshine that is Aarthy Lakshmanan (she/her)!

Skip ahead to 10:27 if you want to dive right into our conversation!

In today's intro I give you a quick little update on what I've been up to during our season break, including a very recent lesson learned about building queer community! I'm back in Mexico City and on a mission to build a queer community for myself, something I've lacked here despite all of the time I've spent here recently. I share a very recent story about how I started to do that recently, hoping it might help any listeners who also find making community in a new place difficult.

Aarthy and I then dive into so many great topics!

• Finding and building queer community (a lovely coincidence given the intro)
• Pressures of being a queer woman growing up in an Indian family
• Difficulties of coming out to immigrant parents and managing expectations of their reactions
• The absolute power of finally being able to speak with another queer person about your experiences and them just getting it

...and much more! 

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Episode Links:

• Follow Aarthy on social media:
  • Instagram: @aarthymusic

Follow along with Reaching Out:

• Podcast's Instagram: @reachingoutpod
• Podcast's TikTok: @reachingoutpod
• Michael's Instagram: @michaelwingsit