Speaker 1: But We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
Speaker 1: the Outspoken podcast Network.
Speaker 2: I went to speak at of a children's book festival
Speaker 2: and written by a bookstory called Reading Reptile, and one
Speaker 2: of the librarians came up to me and she said,
Speaker 2: you know, I lost my job because of your book.
Speaker 2: And I said, oh, I'm so sorry I didn't. I'm
Speaker 2: really sorry about that. And she said, no, no, I'm
Speaker 2: very proud of that. Well you can imagine how that
Speaker 2: made me feel. I mean I almost wept. I was
Speaker 2: just so so impressed with her stamina and her refusal
Speaker 2: to knuckle under.
Speaker 1: As a gay kid, growing up religious and in the South,
Speaker 1: I thought being gay was the worst thing I could
Speaker 1: ever be. Now, as a journalist, I'm trying to unlearn
Speaker 1: that by seeking out our history, and what I've found
Speaker 1: are people and stories full of courage, perseverance, and love.
Speaker 1: In this episode, we'll meet Michael Wilhoyt, the author of
Speaker 1: the second most banned book of the nineteen nineties. We'll
Speaker 1: learn why his children's book about two gay dads became
Speaker 1: the centerpiece for a culture war in America, and how,
Speaker 1: nearly twenty five years later, history seems to be repeating
Speaker 1: itself from my heart podcast. I'm Jordan and Solves, and
Speaker 1: this is what we loved growing up. I loved TV
Speaker 1: and the movies, but I wasn't so crazy about reading books.
Speaker 1: I dreaded all of my required reading in high school,
Speaker 1: and I slogged my way through The Great Gatsby. Frankly,
Speaker 1: I just thought reading books and novels wasn't really my thing.
Speaker 1: Until I was twenty one. I came out and a
Speaker 1: friend of mine recommended that I read Call Me by
Speaker 1: Your Name, And once I started, I read the entire
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty page book in one sitting, the
Speaker 1: soaring highs and the deep, deep lows of a gay
Speaker 1: first love. I felt like the author had almost written
Speaker 1: that book for me, and I felt inspired to start
Speaker 1: reading more and more and realized I loved reading. I
Speaker 1: just never had a book that spoke to me as
Speaker 1: a child. My next guest, Michael Wilhoyt, actually wrote one
Speaker 1: of the books that I wish I had read as
Speaker 1: a kid. Michael is a cartoonist in his late seventies.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety he authored and illustrated one of the
Speaker 1: very first children's books that addressed gay life. His book
Speaker 1: was called Daddy's Roommate. It's about a little boy whose
Speaker 1: parents get divorced because his dad is gay. The dad
Speaker 1: finds a loving partner that he moves in with and
Speaker 1: who the boy grows to love too. While the initial
Speaker 1: reception was positive, it became the center of a culture
Speaker 1: war in America about queer people in society. It would
Speaker 1: go on to become the second most banned book of
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties. But Michael never set out to be
Speaker 1: radical when he wrote Daddy's Roommate. He just wanted to
Speaker 1: write a children's book, and in some ways I found
Speaker 1: that to be radical. He wasn't trying to make a
Speaker 1: political statement. He was just trying to make kids happy.
Speaker 1: Michael always knew that he loved telling stories through his drawings,
Speaker 1: ever since he was a little boy in Oklahoma.
Speaker 2: My name is Michael wilvoych w ill Hoige, and I'm
Speaker 2: an artist and writer.
Speaker 1: So Michael, why don't we start at the beginning. Sure,
Speaker 1: you are very famous for authoring and illustrating this children's book,
Speaker 1: Daddy's Roommates, that has become quite infamous over time and
Speaker 1: one of the most banned books of the nineties, the
Speaker 1: second most banned book of the nineties. But was that
Speaker 1: what you always wanted to do even when you were
Speaker 1: a kid. Did you always want to be an illustrator
Speaker 1: or a writer?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yes, yes, I was an artist from the very beginning.
Speaker 2: I was raised by my grandparents, and my grandfather was
Speaker 2: the president of an insurance company, and he had all
Speaker 2: these outdated forms of blank backs. So I had stacks
Speaker 2: and stacks at drawing paper, and they just gave me
Speaker 2: a few pencils and other paper and let me go.
Speaker 2: When I was a kid, I made I was drawing
Speaker 2: fish and I made one with dots all ever, and
Speaker 2: I called it a mazlefish, and everybody thought that was
Speaker 2: so cute and the durable and everything. And I'm just
Speaker 2: really real merry and bright kid. Also a gay one,
Speaker 2: but I didn't realize that then.
Speaker 1: Well, how and where did you grow up? You said
Speaker 1: you grew up with your grandparents, right, tell me about that.
Speaker 2: Yes, I grew up in Hobart, Oklahoma. It was then
Speaker 2: a very attractive and a welcoming town. I was always
Speaker 2: I was a churchgoer. I'm not anymore, but I grew
Speaker 2: up thinking that people were worth a good bit more
Speaker 2: than sometimes that were given credit for. I was raised
Speaker 2: by great, great people. My parents married very very early.
Speaker 2: My mother was sixteen and my father was seventeen, and
Speaker 2: they ran off to Texas to get married and I
Speaker 2: was already on the way. Oh wow, Yeah, apparently they
Speaker 2: loved each other very much, but they were just too
Speaker 2: young to be parents. So anyway, I don't really remember
Speaker 2: any time that I lived with my parents. Very early on,
Speaker 2: I stayed with my maternal grandparents.
Speaker 1: What was it like, you know, growing up gay in
Speaker 1: Oklahoma in the fifties.
Speaker 2: I didn't honestly know, because I didn't know I was gay.
Speaker 2: That came along a lot considerably later on. In fact,
Speaker 2: when I was a kid, I I was. I was
Speaker 2: bonkers over girls, I mean crazy over them from the
Speaker 2: from the very beginning. I fell in love in kindergarten
Speaker 2: with this with this one girl with whom I was
Speaker 2: still close friends at seventy eight, and I noticed boys.
Speaker 2: You know, there was a kid that moved to town
Speaker 2: in the third grade that I suddenly became just really
Speaker 2: enraptured with. But it wasn't until until high school I
Speaker 2: really fell sort of in love with one of my classmates.
Speaker 2: He was straight and a nice guy. But and I
Speaker 2: never acted on it or anything like that. But I
Speaker 2: never thought I was gay. I didn't when I when
Speaker 2: I thought of Bill, I didn't think of of a
Speaker 2: stripping off and going to it. It was, I don't know,
Speaker 2: just sort in effecting.
Speaker 1: And when did you end up coming out? Like what
Speaker 1: age were you when you ended up coming out?
Speaker 2: I was in my late twenties. It wasn't until something snapped.
Speaker 2: I would go down to Georgetown some I was living
Speaker 2: in the Washington suburbs. But there was a guy that
Speaker 2: ran a bookstore in Georgetown and he was very openly gay,
Speaker 2: very attractive in sort of a wolfish manner. And I
Speaker 2: kept going into the shop and one night I went
Speaker 2: in and he said, you know you're interested in me,
Speaker 2: aren't you? And I said, well yes, And he said, well,
Speaker 2: I would love to help you, but you see, I'm
Speaker 2: a Buddhist and I'm trying to negate all desires. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So I thought, well the hell of that. So I thought, well,
Speaker 2: all right, game on. So I walked about three blocks
Speaker 2: down Connecticut Avenue and walked into a gay bar and
Speaker 2: met somebody and his name is Bob. He had sort
Speaker 2: of a short, dark mustache, of a bright orange of oakswagon,
Speaker 2: and he came home with me and we had a
Speaker 2: lot of fun. It was quite a surprise. And then
Speaker 2: I kept doing this, you know, going out and finding people.
Speaker 2: And then finally I was in a play with a
Speaker 2: guy named Artie, and he was very openly gay, wore
Speaker 2: buttons of and so forth. Say don't try to change
Speaker 2: me in all this business. And he was immediately attractive,
Speaker 2: and he was very cute too, blonde with mustache. And anyway,
Speaker 2: we were in this play together, and after rehearsal, i'd
Speaker 2: sometimes ask him if he would get to like to
Speaker 2: get together for a drink. And one night, already and
Speaker 2: I went to bed together, and I thought, all right,
Speaker 2: this is the way things are. This is not a
Speaker 2: phase I'm going through. If it is, it's one hell
Speaker 2: of a phase.
Speaker 1: Oh you still thought up until this point, I'm just
Speaker 1: going through a phase.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh yeah, Wow.
Speaker 1: So you weren't really out yet.
Speaker 2: I was not out yet. I was out. Two days later.
Speaker 2: I called my friends Bob and Lisa and and I
Speaker 2: was I knew I had to I had to come
Speaker 2: out to somebody, So why not my best friends? So
Speaker 2: I called up and I said, hey, can I come
Speaker 2: over and talk for a while? And Lisa said what's wrong?
Speaker 2: And I said, well, what do you mean? And I said, well, uh,
Speaker 2: I'll tell you when I get over. She said, do
Speaker 2: you have cancer? And I said no, I don't have cancer.
Speaker 2: So I said no, I I have come to the
Speaker 2: conclusion that I am homosexual. I couldn't quite say the word,
Speaker 2: gave in for some reason, much simpler word, and she said,
Speaker 2: is that all? And so I came out to Bob
Speaker 2: and Lisa and they were so completely, so wonderfully accepting.
Speaker 2: They just just said, people are going to love you
Speaker 2: no matter what I mean. I could. I almost get
Speaker 2: teary thinking about it. This was the happiest night of
Speaker 2: my life. They also gave me some really good advice.
Speaker 2: They said, you don't have to come out to everybody,
Speaker 2: just come out to the people who matter. So I thought, well,
Speaker 2: that's pretty good advice. So the next night I started
Speaker 2: calling everybody in my family. I called my sister, I
Speaker 2: call my aunt Judy, I called my cousins, and I
Speaker 2: did not call either of my grandmothers, both of whom
Speaker 2: were still living at that time, because I figured they
Speaker 2: were as older people. They might be upset or worry
Speaker 2: about me, but everybody was completely accepting. It was wonderful,
Speaker 2: it was it was thrilling. I thought, why didn't I
Speaker 2: do this before? In fact, I only have two real
Speaker 2: regrets in my life that I didn't come out earlier,
Speaker 2: and then I gave up piano in the third grade.
Speaker 1: What was the feeling that you got when Bob and
Speaker 1: Lisa had given you such warm reception.
Speaker 2: Well, I thought that they have opened the floodgates for me.
Speaker 2: I went out and had a lot of fun. I mean,
Speaker 2: it was Washington in the seventies, and my dance card
Speaker 2: was always filled, if I may put it that way.
Speaker 1: While living in Washington, D. C. Michael became a contractor
Speaker 1: for the US Navy, creating medical illustrations for them, posters, caricatures,
Speaker 1: and murals. He loved his job, but he had a
Speaker 1: dream from a very early age of writing children's books.
Speaker 1: What was some of the artwork you were doing for
Speaker 1: the Navy.
Speaker 2: I did a lot of medical I did cartoons and caricatures,
Speaker 2: very good cartoonist by the way, and caricaturists, calligraphy, signs, posters, exhibits, murals.
Speaker 2: I painted murals in the Pentagon at Fort Knox. It
Speaker 2: any kind of artwork, It's wonderful. That's what I was.
Speaker 2: I was not a gay man or an American or
Speaker 2: I was an artist, and I was a working artist,
Speaker 2: and I loved it.
Speaker 1: Well, now, where does Daddy's roommate come into this, because
Speaker 1: it sounds like you had a full time job.
Speaker 2: While I was in the Washington area, I started doing
Speaker 2: cartoons for the Washington Blade.
Speaker 1: What is the Washington Blade.
Speaker 2: It's a gay newspaper. I think it's still publishing. Don Michael's,
Speaker 2: the editor, said I would you like to do a
Speaker 2: cartoon strip for us, caricatures of gay men and women
Speaker 2: and gay icons. So I did, and over the years
Speaker 2: I did about I probably did five hundred or more
Speaker 2: caricatures for The Blade. I didn enough cartoons that I
Speaker 2: thought that maybe they should be put into a collection.
Speaker 2: So Sasha Allison and Allison Publications on Plimpton Street in Boston.
Speaker 2: I went down and I said, I'm a cartoonist and
Speaker 2: I here are some of my cartoons and would you
Speaker 2: like to publish them? He said, well, I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: We're thinking about doing another collection, but let's see how
Speaker 2: this works out. And in the meantime, could you design
Speaker 2: a cover or two for us? And later on Sasha
Speaker 2: contacted me and he said, you know, I've been thinking
Speaker 2: about doing a line of children's books with a gay theme. Wow,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna call it Alice in Wonderland. So I said, well,
Speaker 2: all right, I think I can come up with an idea.
Speaker 2: So I went home, and I did not come up
Speaker 2: with a great idea, but I did come up with
Speaker 2: the title Daddy's Roommate. Didn't know what it was gonna
Speaker 2: do with it. It just sort of popped into my head.
Speaker 1: It's nineteen eighty nine and Michael is forty three. He
Speaker 1: had suddenly gotten the opportunity to fulfill a childhood dream
Speaker 1: of his writing a children's book, and he had just
Speaker 1: thought of the title Daddy's Roommate. Little did he know
Speaker 1: that title would cause a firestorm in American life.
Speaker 2: So one day I was I was taking off lunch
Speaker 2: and I brew over to Wellesley and I there's a
Speaker 2: little restaurant there called Popovers, and I like to go
Speaker 2: in there and have their pop vers and coffee and
Speaker 2: then go back to the office. So I was sitting
Speaker 2: there reading a novel and eating my popover and suddenly
Speaker 2: the book flashed into my head complete like I'm Minerva
Speaker 2: out of the House of the you know, out of
Speaker 2: the brow of Zeus. So anyway, I grabbed a couple
Speaker 2: of napkins and I wrote it out, and I met
Speaker 2: grabbed a couple more napkins and made notes for illustrations.
Speaker 2: And then that night I went went home and I
Speaker 2: collated everything, and I made some additions and changes and
Speaker 2: took it into Sasha and he said, let's go with it.
Speaker 1: Wow, Well, what was your intention in writing Daddy's Roommate?
Speaker 2: Simply to get a children's book published. I knew that
Speaker 2: there was an audience out there for and I thought
Speaker 2: that was great. But I did not go into it
Speaker 2: with thinking, all right, I'm going to change the world.
Speaker 2: I guess I'm not really a pioneer and I'm not
Speaker 2: a firebrand. I mean I I just wanted to write
Speaker 2: an illustrate children's book. As it turned out, it was successful,
Speaker 2: and I was benefit was finding out that these kids
Speaker 2: benefited by these books. I thought it would be a
Speaker 2: book for a season or two and be forgotten, as
Speaker 2: most children's books are. But Newsweek did a little story
Speaker 2: on it, just a little blurb and my cousin Paula
Speaker 2: called me and said, you're a Newsweek and I said, wow.
Speaker 2: I looked at that up and sure enough, there it was.
Speaker 2: And it was a very positive old story. It didn't
Speaker 2: go into a lot of detail, but at that moment
Speaker 2: things started to pop.
Speaker 1: In January nineteen ninety one, Newsweek published an article about
Speaker 1: Daddy's roommate titled Daddy's Out of the Closet. It reported
Speaker 1: on the some seven million American kids at the time
Speaker 1: that had gay parents and the yearning of those parents
Speaker 1: for children's stories that reflected their lives. Shortly after that article,
Speaker 1: a massive backlash ensued. According to the American Library Association,
Speaker 1: Daddy's became the second most challenged book of the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 1: It sparked fearce school board debates about parental control across America.
Speaker 1: In Oregon and Colorado, conservative groups used the book to
Speaker 1: inspire ballot measures that would strip legal protections for gay people,
Speaker 1: and in the cases where Americans across the country tried
Speaker 1: to have the book banned from public libraries, librarians pushed
Speaker 1: back and the ACLU defended them. The book triggered a
Speaker 1: fear that mainstream America had people didn't want their kids
Speaker 1: to be gay, and the prevailing thought at the time
Speaker 1: was that being gay was a choice, and that you
Speaker 1: could be persuaded or convinced or recruited into homosexuality. In fact,
Speaker 1: Michael's publisher wrote an opinion piece in The New York
Speaker 1: Times defending the book. At the height of the controversy,
Speaker 1: a new culture war in America was born, and Daddy's
Speaker 1: roommate and the librarians fighting to protect it were at
Speaker 1: the very center of it all. The Newsweek article was positive.
Speaker 1: So when did the backlash begin?
Speaker 2: Almost immediately after Alison Publications would keep me posted with
Speaker 2: what was happening, and then suddenly it was all the media.
Speaker 2: So libraries were being challenged. There was a library in
Speaker 2: Wichita Falls, Texas. There was a local minister, Reverend Robert Jeffries,
Speaker 2: who challenged the book, In fact, checked it out the
Speaker 2: library and refused to return it. Linda Hughes, the librarian
Speaker 2: in which it all falls, challenged him and made it
Speaker 2: a cause, and suddenly people were sending in multiple copies
Speaker 2: of the book for the library.
Speaker 1: To keep it on the shelves.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah, And they went back and forth like this
Speaker 2: for a long time, and finally it went to the
Speaker 2: Supreme Court. Now whether it's the US Supreme Court or
Speaker 2: the Texas Supreme Court, I'm not sure, but it went
Speaker 2: to the court and it was adjudicated that the book
Speaker 2: could stay in library. So I assume that this Jeffrey's
Speaker 2: character went off to Luca's wounds, But I've never heard
Speaker 2: anything more about him after that.
Speaker 1: What was the main argument that people were making against
Speaker 1: Daddy's roommate.
Speaker 2: Haven't you heard? We were trying to turn children gay?
Speaker 2: They were offended that it was published in the first place.
Speaker 2: They thought it was I was trying to indoctrinate children
Speaker 2: into the gay lifestyle. Oh god, I mean, you can't
Speaker 2: turn somebody gay. You know, if that were possible, you
Speaker 2: could turn people straight. And nobody has ever quite affected
Speaker 2: that as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 1: Well, it sounds like, you know, all these librarians were
Speaker 1: on your side.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: What was that like for you, like like a block?
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just an army of librarians refused to
Speaker 2: knuckle under to the book banners. I went to speak
Speaker 2: at of a children's book festival and run by a
Speaker 2: bookstore called Reading Reptile and one of the librarians came
Speaker 2: up to me and she said, you know, I lost
Speaker 2: my job because of your book. And I said, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry I didn't I'm really sorry about that.
Speaker 2: And she said, no, no, I'm very proud of that.
Speaker 2: Well you can imagine how that made me feel. I mean,
Speaker 2: I always wept. I was just so so impressed with her,
Speaker 2: her stamina and her refusal to knuckle under. But that's
Speaker 2: that's the way with all these libraries. I call them
Speaker 2: the foot soldiers of the First Amendment. That's it precisely
Speaker 2: what it is, freedom of speech, the most sacred thing
Speaker 2: in the Constitution.
Speaker 1: What was it like sort of being in the midst
Speaker 1: of all of this criticism.
Speaker 2: I was delighted and frankly a bit amused at the
Speaker 2: at all of it. I did get a death threat wow,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, yeah, yeah over the phone and for real,
Speaker 2: oh yeah yeah. And so for the first week or
Speaker 2: so I was a bit careful walking past the open
Speaker 2: windows in my in my my condo.
Speaker 1: What did they say to you? And how did that happen?
Speaker 2: You should be shot and we're the ones to do it. Wow? Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you know, I guess, like you mentioned on one hand,
Speaker 1: you're getting death threats and on the other hand you're
Speaker 1: getting librarians standing.
Speaker 2: Up for you.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yeah, What was that like for you to
Speaker 1: kind of be in the middle.
Speaker 2: Of all of this. I was enjoying it. I really
Speaker 2: realized why. I was sent to New York to film
Speaker 2: a segment in New Jersey called One Broadcast Plaza, and
Speaker 2: it was right after the book to have been published.
Speaker 2: There were other people there. There were a male couple
Speaker 2: with children, and there was a single man with a daughter,
Speaker 2: and he was the one who said that his daughter
Speaker 2: kept my book under her pillow at night.
Speaker 1: Eventually, the controversy around Daddy's roommate died down, and throughout
Speaker 1: the twenty first century, gay rights made huge strides, including
Speaker 1: the legalization of gay marriage and representation of high ranking
Speaker 1: gay people in Fortune five hundred companies, the media, and
Speaker 1: the government. But now there seems to be a new
Speaker 1: campaign on book bands that's growing. According to pen America,
Speaker 1: an organization that tracks book bands, there were ten thousand
Speaker 1: book bands last year, a two hundred percent increase from
Speaker 1: the previous year. Overwhelmingly, according to PENN, the authors of
Speaker 1: those books are women, black people, and LGBT people. Like
Speaker 1: many of those banned books, Daddy's Roommate was seen as
Speaker 1: political when it came out, and probably still is to
Speaker 1: many people today. But again for Michael, he was never
Speaker 1: trying to be political. He was just trying to write
Speaker 1: a children's book. There's something, you know, kind of a
Speaker 1: little radical about being an LGBT person and doing something
Speaker 1: inherently political by being LGBT. But you weren't trying to
Speaker 1: make anything political life. No, no, no, you were just living
Speaker 1: your life, living.
Speaker 2: My life and enjoying it. Yeah, And so I was
Speaker 2: doing a little good. I was. I was pleased about that.
Speaker 2: In fact, I think I think that was something that
Speaker 2: I have not been altogether forthcoming about. I was. I
Speaker 2: was proud of having done this and having made a
Speaker 2: difference in some children's lives. And I've done other children's
Speaker 2: books since then, but that's that's the one that that
Speaker 2: people will always remember. I mean, if I were discover
Speaker 2: a cure for cancer, my on my on the obituary
Speaker 2: would read that his roommate author dies also cured cancer.
Speaker 1: Pen America, they're one of the organizations attracts these kinds
Speaker 1: of book bands that they just reported that there have
Speaker 1: been over ten thousand bands since twenty twenty one. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm just curious that so many of those books kind
Speaker 1: of focus on themes that your book covered. Oh yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, what do you think about that?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm deeply offended. I hate it. I just hate it.
Speaker 2: I loathe censorship. I don't think anything should be censored.
Speaker 1: And why not.
Speaker 2: Because I believe in the free play of ideas. It's
Speaker 2: one of the things that I that I just took
Speaker 2: into my mother's milk. I guess, I don't know. I
Speaker 2: just feel like you everybody should have the right to
Speaker 2: read anything they want, and I don't think reading anything
Speaker 2: is going to hurt anybody.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, young people have been at the center
Speaker 1: of protesting against these bands, and you've been through this before.
Speaker 1: What can young people learn from what you went through?
Speaker 2: These book bands have to be fought tooth and nail.
Speaker 2: They can learn what their parents would would already tell them,
Speaker 2: to keep fighting and believe in your believe in yourself,
Speaker 2: and don't let anybody tell you that that something is
Speaker 2: wrong when you know it is not.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, tell me about that. I mean, what's your
Speaker 1: message to all of the young authors that may face
Speaker 1: some of these bands as they inevitably sort of embark
Speaker 1: on the exact same course you did, maybe not inherently
Speaker 1: intending to write about something political, but by writing about
Speaker 1: their life it it is political and may face bands.
Speaker 2: Write what do you like, and don't try to edit yourself,
Speaker 2: don't try to please or displease anybody writing a self expression.
Speaker 2: But it's also communication, and if you have something to communicate,
Speaker 2: do it and let the chips fall where they may be. Bold,
Speaker 2: be brave, come out early the closet. The closet's the
Speaker 2: enemy in a way.
Speaker 1: I kind of think, you know Daddy's reommate in some way.
Speaker 1: I know you didn't mean for it to be political,
Speaker 1: but or or even have some grand intention in shaping
Speaker 1: people's lives. But in a lot of ways, I think
Speaker 1: it indirectly does help people come out of the closet.
Speaker 2: I hope, so, I really do.
Speaker 1: When you wrote the book, were you sort of hoping
Speaker 1: that you, in maybe some way would give people the
Speaker 1: same feeling that Bob and Lisa gave to you?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1: And last question, Michael, what's your favorite line in daddy'smant.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, I asked Mommy, what gay met and she
Speaker 2: said being gay is just one more kind of of love.
Speaker 1: But We Loved is hosted by me Jordan Gonsal. New
Speaker 1: episodes drop every Wednesday. If you want to write in
Speaker 1: to tell your story, email us at Buttweloved at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com, or you can send me a message on
Speaker 1: Instagram or TikTok at your underscore gooin solve this. We
Speaker 1: are a production of The Outspoken podcast Network and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: But We Loved was originally developed with Pushkin Industries. Our
Speaker 1: producers are Joey pat Emily Meronoff, and Christina Loranger. Our
Speaker 1: executive producers are me Maya Howard and Katrina Norvil. Original
Speaker 1: music by Steve Boone. Special thanks to Jay Bronson and
Speaker 1: Roquel Willis. If you loved this episode, leave us a
Speaker 1: rating and follow us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and
Speaker 1: thank you for listening. I'll see you next week.