Second Adolescence

This week’s episode is writer, Brian Watson (he/him). Brian brought to this conversation his experience growing up as a gay man born in the 1960s, navigating the underground gay hookup scene in the late 70s during the beginning of his sexual awakening, coming out and navigating life as a gay man amongst the AIDS crisis, and so much more. He has a fascinating personal journey that eventually took him to Japan where much of his Second Adolescence played out and how his Second Adolescence has been about his reunification of between his romantic and sexual selves after he spent his first adolescence divorcing romance and intimacy from sex. This was such a great conversation and I'm excited to invite you into it.

About the guest:

Brian Watson is currently revising and querying his first memoir, Crying in a Foreign Language: Pink Lady, Fictional Girlfriends, and the Deity that Answered my Plea. Originally from New York State, he lives in the Seattle area after years in Massachusetts, Japan, and British Columbia. His recent essays and a book review have appeared in Brevity’s online blog. His essays and book reviews have also appeared in Hippocampus magazine. He is also the author of an upcoming article on marriage equality in the US and Japan for JETs on Japan magazine. He spends his days with his partner/spouse of twenty-nine years, Hiro. Brian lives online at iambrianwatson.com—sign up for his Out of Japan newsletter, a quirky look at Japanese history, culture, and Brian’s time in Japan, there and follow him on Twitter @iambrianwatson and on Instagram @iambrianwatson.

For more, visit www.secondadolescencepod.com and @secondadolescencepod.

Download episode transcript here. 

This week’s guest is artist Brandon Rumaker (they/them).  In sharing their individual story, Brandon highlights so many gems about the greater collective queer experience. They share about their challenging childhood and adolescence, illustrating the different contortions and acts of assimilation our younger queer selves do to hide marginalized identities we hold. They then share about beginning to come out as gay in high school and about the complicated experience they had as a peer educator with their high school’s Gay Straight Alliance. They go on to share about how so much of their Second Adolescence has been about healing, as it is for all of us. They talk about healing from intergenerational trauma and how this impacted their own relationship to sex and sexuality and queerness, healing from internalized oppressive belief structures, and the healing that comes with gaining those first romantic and sexual experiences missed out on in adolescence. They then share about the pandemic igniting a chapter of meaningful internal work that led to inquiry about their true gender identity, and how they are settling into experiencing life as a continuous healing, unlearning, and growing. They also share about the synchronistic moment they found very podcast at a particularly poignant part of their own journey. This was such a powerful conversation, I’m so excited to invite you into it!

About the guest:
Brandon Rumaker (they/them) is a queer, non-binary, gay multidisciplinary creative who creates communal experiences via theater, film, performance art, event facilitation, creativity coaching and tarot for people to examine identity, expand their self-definition, and find clarity. Most of Brandon's work is informed by queer experiences and questions rigid standards of identity while searching for answers (and receiving more questions in the process) surrounding safety, power dynamics, family structures, technology, mental health, relationships, secret-keeping, creativity, and finding acceptance as an outsider. 

They recently developed new work as part of the Spring 2022 Writer's Lab at Exquisite Corpse Co. Their next adventure is participating in the Stillwright Silent Writing Retreat in July 2022. They are also a peer counselor at Identity House, an LGBTQIA+ volunteer service based in NYC.

You can follow Brandon and their work on Instagram: @brandotheoriginal.

For more about Second Adolescence, visit www.secondadolescencepod.com or @secondadolescencepod.

Download episode transcript here. 

This week’s guest is writer and screenwriter Hari Ziyad (he/they). They are author of the incredible memoir Black Boy Out of Time which explores Hari's experience of healing from anti-blackness, anti-queerness, and the carceral dissonance that separates black people from their childhood selves. In this conversation, Hari shares about the book, their writing of it, and their life story of navigating growing up in this anti-black, anti-queer world, and their connection with abolition as the path towards individual and collective healing and liberation. They were so generous with their story, I was so honored they wanted to share this with us all.

About the guest:
Hari Ziyad (he/they) is a screenwriter and the bestselling author of Black Boy Out of Time (Little A). Previously, they were the managing editor of the Black Youth Project, the editor-in-chief of RaceBaitr, a staff writer on The Neighborhood (CBS), and a script consultant on David Makes Man (OWN). You can follow Hari on Instagram at @hariziyad

For more, visit www.secondadolescencepod.com or @secondadolescencepod.

Download episode transcript here. 

This week’s guest is writer Garrett Schlichte (he/they). Garrett recently had published on the New York Time’s Modern Love podcast their essay entitled "Confessions of a Late Bloomer" which literally before you listen to my conversation with Garrett you should go listen (here on Apple Podcasts, or here on Spotify) because it was such a beautiful representation of what Second Adolescence is all about. In today’s conversation, we get to hear Garrett share about writing this essay and the dynamic with their younger sister that was central to it - while their 14 year-old sister was going through her first adolescence, Garrett was going through their Second Adolescence. Garrett shares about how their experience growing up left them without the adolescence they saw her getting to have and how their twenties has been filled experiences and relationships that have allowed them to flex the muscles and parts of self that laid dormant in their adolescence and be in the continuous journey that is queer healing that so many of us have to travel. It was such an honor to get to have time with Garrett and I’m excited to invite you into it. 

About the guest:
Garrett Schlichte is a writer and columnist living in San Francisco. After escaping Florida (no offense) at 22, they've been running around writing about love, dating, and relationships for The Washington Post, The New York Times, Jezebel, and in their column Love, Us for Them. Most importantly, they're looking for someone to read them one of the 17 books currently collecting dust on their nightstand. You can find their work at garrettschlichte.com, and if you can read and would like to slide into their DMs, you can do that @gschlichte. 

For more, visit www.secondadolescencepod.com or @secondadolescencepod.

Download episode transcript here. 

This week's guest is Noris Chavarría (he/him/él). Noris is someone who has dedicated his adult life to serving others, particularly LGBTQ youth through his work in the non-profit sector, and today he’s further contributing to our community by sharing his own story. On this episode, he shares growing up in Queens, New York with his mother who had immigrated from El Salvador. He shares about his own personal journey navigating boyhood, adolescence, and adulthood within our culture of heteronormativity and white supremacy as a queer man of color. Noris was so generous with his story and I’m grateful he wanted to contribute to the collective work of this podcast. 

About the guest:
Noris Chavarria (he/ him /él), a native New Yorker, and queer Latino was raised in Jamaica, Queens. He's dedicated 20+ years of his career life to social impact connecting the nonprofit, private, and public sectors to support his BIPOC + LGBTQ+ community and their many intersections.  After founding Give OUT Day in New York, Noris chased his California Dream and moved to San Francisco in 2014 with Kaipirinha (Kai), his miniature pinscher. Most recently, Noris spent his summer road-tripping across the U.S. with Kai and has now become addicted. His next adventure will take off May 2022, as he makes his way back home to NYC. To learn more about his and Kai's adventures follow him on IG @SocialArtivista.

For more visit www.secondadolescence.com or @secondadolescencepod.

Download episode transcript here. 

Welcome back after a break! This week's guest is Nikki Hiltz (they/them). Nikki is a professional runner and major advocate for the greater LGBTQ+ community. Fun fact: Nikki and host of the show, Adam, knew each other when each were in their respective closets and chat a bit about this on the show. Nikki goes on to share about their experience of growing up, navigating the limiting box of society’s gender and sexuality expectations, the experience of pushing away thought of their gender and sexual identity and using their success as an athlete as a place to focus their energy instead, and then what their own process of coming out and back to their true self has looked like; first embracing their sexual and romantic identity and then embracing their gender identity, and how they have used their platform to be a voice to increase representation, visibility, and inclusion of trans and queer people both in sport and in the world.

About the guest:
Nikki Hiltz is a professional track and field athlete from Aptos, California who specializes in the 1500m. In high school, they were the 2012 California State Champion. In college, they were a 6 time All American while competing for the University of Oregon and University of Arkansas. As a professional runner, Hiltz has become a Pan American Champion, US road mile champion, and a World Championship Finalist. Hiltz is also the founder and race director of the Pride 5k and an avid advocate for the LGBTQ+ community. They are trans nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns.

For more from Nikki, follow them on Instagram @NikkiHiltz

For more about Second Adolescence, visit www.secondadolescencepod.com or @secondadolescencepod.

Download episode transcript here.

Today's episode is a little different than our typical episodes (which will be returning on Thursday, May 5th with new guests each week!). A lot of listeners have reached out with questions and comments about the grief that comes in Second Adolescence, and so host Adam James Cohen is on solo today to talk about this. In doing so, he shares about his own personal experience of grief within Second Adolescence and highlights one way to explore moving through it, all in an effort to support you and your own journey in navigating grief in your Second Adolescence.

For more, visit www.secondadolescencepod.com or @secondadolescencepod

This week's guest is Michael Constable (he/him). Michael hosts the podcast Reaching Out on which he interviews queer people about their coming out journey, and today he’s sitting in the guest chair to share about his own story. He shares about growing up in the midwest and within the culture of football and traditional masculinity, and how his gayness was not something he was cognizant of. He shares about his own process of getting clear on his identity, what coming out was like, and how his Second Adolescence was filled with meaningful and uncomfortable Firsts as he has began finding his self as a gay man over the past four years. This was such a great conversation!

About the guest:
Michael is a 32-year old gay man living in San Francisco. While originally from the midwest, he likes to think he has found "home" in several different places around the world thanks to a few years of being a nomad prior to moving to SF (Mexico City being his all-time favorite place). As someone who came out in his late 20s, he wants to help people who are struggling with coming out through story sharing on his podcast, @reachingoutpod. In his free time, Michael loves to take photos around the city and watch Marvel easter egg videos on YouTube.

For more, visit www.secondadolescencepod.com.

Listen to Reaching Out with Michael Constable here.

Download episode transcript here.

This week's guest is Molly Fosco (she/her). Molly is a queer writer in a polyamorous triad with her two partners, one male and one female. She shares about growing up in a queer supportive context but how she never even thought about if she identified as anything other than straight in adolescence despite having attraction to other girls. She goes on to share about the differences between romantic identity and sexual identity and what her own evolution was of understanding these within her. And what eventually led to being 30 years-old and opening the space to allow for her pull towards women to be able to take shape in her life and relationship. She shares so much about the realities of being in a polyamorous triad and is so generous with sharing her personal experience. Thank you, Molly!

About the guest:
Molly Fosco is a tech writer, originally from Minneapolis, living in San Francisco with her two partners. She loves traveling, her community of friends, and any excuse to dance.

For more, visit www.secondadolescencepod.com and @secondadolescencepod.

Download the episode transcript here.

This week's guest is Zach (he/him) who is a real life friend of host, Adam James Cohen. In the conversation, Zach shares about his experience as a kid and the very different feelings he had towards boys and girls, the meaningful romantic relationship he had in high school with a girl before understanding his gay identity, his own process of gaining that understanding, and what coming out and exploring his gay identity in college and beyond looked like. Zach and Adam share about personal experiences as well as talk about general experience of gayness and queerness, relationships with men, navigating gayness in straight spaces, and so much more!

About the guest:
Zach (he/him) is a high school educator in San Francisco, CA

For more, visit www.secondadolescencepod.com.
Download episode transcript here.