Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to look f Daily with
Speaker 1: me your Girl, Daniel Moody pre recording from the Home Bunker. Folks,
Speaker 1: you know, during this Pride month, I think that it's
Speaker 1: really important one to have conversations about the origination right
Speaker 1: of pride, being a riot, being a pushing back against
Speaker 1: police brutality against LGBTQ plus community, but particularly black trans women.
Speaker 1: And I oftentimes give you the headlines, right we delve
Speaker 1: into the headlines which are heartbreaking, which are traumatic, and
Speaker 1: so it is my hope that during this month of Pride,
Speaker 1: that we're also having conversations about joy, which is why
Speaker 1: we named and themed along with our friends at GLAD
Speaker 1: the theme of Pride for WOK at this you can't
Speaker 1: ban queer joy, and so I'm really excited to bring
Speaker 1: to you this conversation today with kit Yan and Melissa Lee,
Speaker 1: who are award winning queer Asian American musical theater writing
Speaker 1: team based in New York, and they have been using
Speaker 1: art and theater and musicals with their stories to talk
Speaker 1: about the LGBTQ plus community, but through joy, through dance,
Speaker 1: right through characters that have depth, and not through our
Speaker 1: trauma and pain and So Kit and Melissa and I
Speaker 1: get into a really great conversation on this episode about
Speaker 1: the power of art, the necessity of joy as an
Speaker 1: act and form of resistance, and talk about their musicals
Speaker 1: and their work which is award winning and really just
Speaker 1: joyful and exciting. So I hope that you all enjoy
Speaker 1: this episode, folks. I am very excited to welcome to
Speaker 1: wokef during our Pride coverage this month, Kit Yan and
Speaker 1: Melissa Lee, who are award winning Queer Asian American musical
Speaker 1: theater writing team based in New York City. They are
Speaker 1: the winners of the twenty twenty two ASCAP Harold Adamson
Speaker 1: Lyric Award twenty twenty two. In two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Larson grants the twenty twenty one Club CLEBN Prize
Speaker 1: and the twenty nineteen This Award, and have their first musical, Interstate,
Speaker 1: won Best Lyrics at the twenty eighteen in New York
Speaker 1: Music Festival, and their second musical, Misstep, was commissioned by
Speaker 1: the Fifth Avenue Theater's Draft Program, received the twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: Divese Award from the Brett Adams and Paul Rice Foundation.
Speaker 1: So you all are just clearly badass, clearly, clearly everything
Speaker 1: you both touch turns to gold. So let us open
Speaker 1: up with talking about your work and why it's important
Speaker 1: in each of the musicals that you have put out
Speaker 1: to center the stories of queer folks and diverse people.
Speaker 2: First of all, it's an honor to be here. Thank
Speaker 2: you so much for having us and Happy Pride, Happy Pride,
Speaker 2: thank you, and we are super excited to chat with
Speaker 2: you today about our musicals. I'll just maybe tell you
Speaker 2: a little bit about them and then Melissa, please we
Speaker 2: can talk a little bit about what they mean to us. Yeah,
Speaker 2: let's see, we have two main musical projects. So the
Speaker 2: kind of writing we do is we work in theater,
Speaker 2: TV and film, and in musical theater specifically. We have
Speaker 2: two musicals. One is called Interstate and it is a
Speaker 2: semi autobiographical musical about two best friends that go on
Speaker 2: the road, a transgender slam poet and a lesbian singer
Speaker 2: songwriter who just want to share their art with the
Speaker 2: country and along the way they inspire Henry, a sixteen
Speaker 2: year old South Asian dacy transgender teenager in Kentucky whose family,
Speaker 2: community and church do not support him to go to
Speaker 2: see a show of theirs, and that it's loosely based
Speaker 2: on our own lives and journeys, because in two thousand
Speaker 2: and eight we quit our jobs. We both were living
Speaker 2: in Boston performing monthly at a queer Asian drag cabaret
Speaker 2: bar variety show type thing. We quit our jobs. We
Speaker 2: got on the road and we went and did what
Speaker 2: the two characters in Interstate did.
Speaker 1: Wow, oh way, I love this.
Speaker 2: Okay. We were equipped with a Toyota Corolla Corolla, a
Speaker 2: rice cooker, a hot water boiler, and a hot plate,
Speaker 2: and we just we went to about thirty four or
Speaker 2: so states and performed at at venues like coffee shops, cafes,
Speaker 2: open mics, and then San Francisco Pride was the West
Speaker 2: coast cap of our tour.
Speaker 1: Amazing. So wait, let me so let me ask you
Speaker 1: this during your the actual you know tour that you
Speaker 1: guys were on and going into these different states, like
Speaker 1: what were your like did you go into you know,
Speaker 1: the Red States and like were you like how were
Speaker 1: you feeling coming in as you know, as the quote
Speaker 1: unquote other Like what did you have concerns where their fears?
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, that's such a great question. I think when
Speaker 3: we left, we were pretty young, and we were like
Speaker 3: kids said, we're both geminis, and we were like, let's
Speaker 3: just go on tour and like share and like share
Speaker 3: our music and and you know, try to I think
Speaker 3: for us, you know, we you grew up in Hawaii
Speaker 3: and we met in Boston and I grew up in Boston,
Speaker 3: and we just wanted to break out of our bubble.
Speaker 3: We were like, we want to we know there's queer
Speaker 3: people that look like us across the country, and we
Speaker 3: want to find them. We want to go perform and
Speaker 3: put together our own tour. So when we did it,
Speaker 3: we weren't thinking about those things, to be totally honest,
Speaker 3: I think we were just like, okay, like Ohio, like
Speaker 3: you know, Cincinnati, like where is like the you know,
Speaker 3: the queer youth. Whatever. We'll just play, We'll crash at
Speaker 3: someone's house, you know, We'll we'll go to like a college,
Speaker 3: you know, in Chicago. We went to Appleton, Wisconsin. We
Speaker 3: stayed at someone's house and we played at like Harmony Cafe,
Speaker 3: which is just like a quick cafe there. And we
Speaker 3: talked about this recently because we're doing a bunch of
Speaker 3: rewrites on Interstate and we were actually saying, you know,
Speaker 3: like we had a great time on the road, and
Speaker 3: part part partly it was naive day, you know, part
Speaker 3: right right right, we were having a good time. We
Speaker 3: weren't paying attention to any of that, and partially you know,
Speaker 3: sad to say, like the political climate has gotten much
Speaker 3: worse now, like correct words now where if if we
Speaker 3: were going on the road today, Again, we're older now,
Speaker 3: so we're more mindful, but also I think we would
Speaker 3: have been way more afraid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd be a little more concerned just about our safety,
Speaker 2: just because like I'm an openly transgender artist and and
Speaker 2: we're both very openly queer. We write stories about queer
Speaker 2: and transgender people of color, and our main characters are
Speaker 2: often queer and more often transgender, and so we when
Speaker 2: we used to go on the road, it was like
Speaker 2: a really fun time. But that was like kind of
Speaker 2: pre social media boom, and so it was two thousand
Speaker 2: and eight when we weren't as connected on the internet
Speaker 2: as we are today. Yeah, people, we were doing a
Speaker 2: lot of education in those days. I don't think we
Speaker 2: largely have to explain transgender or queer to most people
Speaker 2: we meet nowadays. In twenty twenty three. But back then
Speaker 2: we identified in those ways and sort of went on
Speaker 2: the road and figured it out collectively. I think I'm
Speaker 2: not even gonna we didn't know what we were doing
Speaker 2: back then.
Speaker 1: But you know, I think that that is like I think, well, one,
Speaker 1: that's the beauty of youth, right like this, you know,
Speaker 1: the idea that like we can just do whatever we
Speaker 1: want and do it right. And I think that that's
Speaker 1: the beauty of being artists too. Is kind of is
Speaker 1: the risk taking. Like you may not have seen it
Speaker 1: as a risk, but like you're saying now, in reflection
Speaker 1: and as you're doing these rewrites, you know, how would
Speaker 1: you move differently? The question that I have for the
Speaker 1: both of you is, you know, from from two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight right to twenty twenty three, as you just
Speaker 1: alluded to, the country has seen a real regression in acceptance.
Speaker 1: Right like two thousand and eight, we're welcoming and cheering
Speaker 1: the first black president, you know, entering into the White House.
Speaker 1: We're thinking that America is quote unquote post racial. We're
Speaker 1: thinking we are part of this you know, Obama coalition,
Speaker 1: and look how diverse and open and welcoming, and we're
Speaker 1: watching during this time, you know that the White House
Speaker 1: would turn rainbow, same sex marriage would be past. The
Speaker 1: conversations that were happening around the LGBTQ plus community were
Speaker 1: largely positive. Right about the winds that were happening fast forward,
Speaker 1: we are so fucking far from that place, you know where.
Speaker 1: And you said, KIT like that you don't feel like
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three you have to necessarily explain transgender
Speaker 1: and explain queer two people. But I'm like, we have
Speaker 1: an entire right wing Republican party that is weaponizing people's ignorance,
Speaker 1: is what I will say around the transgender community. So
Speaker 1: how do you feel about while thirty percent of people
Speaker 1: in America? And this I remember this because back in
Speaker 1: the beginning of the two thousands, it was at eighteen percent.
Speaker 1: Eighteen percent of Americans knew somebody that was transgender.
Speaker 2: That number has.
Speaker 1: Now a little more than doubled. Right in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: it's about at thirty percent, But there are still seventy
Speaker 1: percent of the population that has never had any interaction
Speaker 1: with or knows somebody that is trans So how does
Speaker 1: that land for you in terms of how you both
Speaker 1: try to create normal narrative normal you know, stories, comedies
Speaker 1: and what have you. How does is what you're sharing
Speaker 1: in your work educate and inform in a way to
Speaker 1: kind of bring people along in this process of trying
Speaker 1: to better understand and in your work you're actually able
Speaker 1: to aid in using art and comedy and music to
Speaker 1: be able to aid people in that learning.
Speaker 2: Wow, you know what's so interesting? You have totally just
Speaker 2: opened something in my mind about Interstate specifically and the
Speaker 2: time period that it sits in, because that music call
Speaker 2: is a parallel journey. There is an older transgender person
Speaker 2: who is based on me, the slam poet, going on
Speaker 2: tour to share his identity and figure out his identity
Speaker 2: with the country. And then there's a teenager isolated in
Speaker 2: a bedroom by themselves in the South who sees this
Speaker 2: person and is figuring themselves out and is inspired by
Speaker 2: seeing that art to go on a journey of their own.
Speaker 2: And so that's making me think about the fact that
Speaker 2: like two very separate things are happening in our art.
Speaker 2: We have never really set out to educate the general
Speaker 2: public about any issues or identities, but we know that
Speaker 2: we have a responsibility as artists to people who hear
Speaker 2: our work, even if we don't set out to do
Speaker 2: that necessarily. And so I think what's funny is in
Speaker 2: Interstate that the Dash and Adrian, the main characters of
Speaker 2: the show, they are going out to partially educate the
Speaker 2: world slash share their art and open themselves up to
Speaker 2: that kind of vulnerability. But our art, I think largely
Speaker 2: sits in where Henry is, where it's like we're making
Speaker 2: a lot of work that is sort of like for us,
Speaker 2: by us, for us. Yeah, using our own language, using
Speaker 2: our own culture, and exploring I guess like that through
Speaker 2: our art. So I guess it's just makes me think
Speaker 2: about in that show that whole thing's happening at the
Speaker 2: same time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean there's a couple of things I think,
Speaker 3: Like one Kit, when you said like, yeah, we didn't
Speaker 3: go out to set out to educate, I actually find
Speaker 3: personally the best art is not the kind that people
Speaker 3: go and set out to educate, right. The best kind
Speaker 3: of art that actually ends up educating people is stuff
Speaker 3: that doesn't explicitly do that, right, stuff that's just a
Speaker 3: reflection of the stories or of our lives. Right. And
Speaker 3: I think just to I think just say it, maybe
Speaker 3: a different way that you had said it too, Kit,
Speaker 3: is that like it's it's actually for us, our activism
Speaker 3: is around, is around telling and uplifting the stories of
Speaker 3: our communities. That is so needed. Like especially in the theater.
Speaker 3: You know, I think we do have some representation. When
Speaker 3: I say we, I mean I'm really talking about trans
Speaker 3: non binary folks. Uh who I'm sis so, but but yeah,
Speaker 3: like I think like there's a lot more in in
Speaker 3: film and TV, and I think, like you know, theater,
Speaker 3: particular musical theater too is even more specific, is a
Speaker 3: little bit behind. So so for us, like you know,
Speaker 3: coming from a place of queer joy, coming from a
Speaker 3: place of not trauma, not retelling stories that people have
Speaker 3: already heard is really important. I think the more honest
Speaker 3: we are about us and the stories we want to tell,
Speaker 3: the more our communities will feel uplifted.
Speaker 2: Totally. That's not to say I don't we don't respect education, lectures, book,
Speaker 2: that sort of thing, but they all sort of work
Speaker 2: together in a way. Like we as artists, we a
Speaker 2: lot of times when we set out to create something,
Speaker 2: we have more questions and answers. So when we're writing,
Speaker 2: we're processing, like what's happening with the characters the story,
Speaker 2: what's happening in the world around us. We're certainly not
Speaker 2: immune to the state of the world when we're writing
Speaker 2: as well, And that's all sort of like working together
Speaker 2: as a vehicle for us to ask important questions about ourselves,
Speaker 2: our community, and about where and the times we're living in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I think that that's important. I just
Speaker 1: want to touch upon what you said about about queer
Speaker 1: joy because I do. I feel like it is so
Speaker 1: necessary to have stories that are uplifting, that are funny,
Speaker 1: that are you know, that are centered in the good
Speaker 1: as opposed to the continued. And again this is not
Speaker 1: to this is not to discredit those who create work
Speaker 1: that is seeped in trauma right in order to show
Speaker 1: society's impact right on individuals or on particular communities. But
Speaker 1: there is something about I just you know, I sit
Speaker 1: in misery all day. I followed the news on a
Speaker 1: regular basis and have created a career around politics, and
Speaker 1: so the opportunity to really see joy as part of
Speaker 1: the resistance, right like the whole our whole mantra is
Speaker 1: along with Glad's mantra, is that you can't ban queer joy.
Speaker 1: You can ban all of these things, but that it's
Speaker 1: important to show trans people, non binary people, queer people.
Speaker 1: It's just people live in lives, dance, singing, you know,
Speaker 1: carrying on. And I just, yeah, I I respect that
Speaker 1: that that you said that, because I I do. I
Speaker 1: think that if we just see trans people, particularly as
Speaker 1: just the statistics of what's bad, right of of the
Speaker 1: murder rate of suicide, if I'm only talking about that,
Speaker 1: I still don't believe that I'm really talking about the
Speaker 1: entirety of the experience. So how do you Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: so how do you all see now? And you only
Speaker 1: talked about your your your one place, so your your
Speaker 1: one musical. So I want to give you the opportunity
Speaker 1: to talk about this step. Let's talk about that, and
Speaker 1: then I want to ask you a question about just
Speaker 1: how we're moving, how we're how we can use art, musicals, plays,
Speaker 1: theater as kind of escapism from the misery right now
Speaker 1: and your and your thoughts around that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a perfect segue because talking about queer Joy.
Speaker 3: Because the next musical that we've been working on is
Speaker 3: called Misstep, and it's an eighties dance aerobics musical featuring
Speaker 3: an all trans lead cast that is like in their thirties, forties,
Speaker 3: fifties like, and it's like a twenty person dance cast.
Speaker 3: And it's just it's truly is that. And the show
Speaker 3: is essentially it's about Pam, who's like a middle aged
Speaker 3: trans woman who works on the New Jersey Turnpike and
Speaker 3: living a boring, happy life. She calls herself unremarkable and
Speaker 3: essentially her her father, who's a strange of her, passes away.
Speaker 3: She has to go home to deal with the funeral,
Speaker 3: and when she gets back, she opens a box of
Speaker 3: his stuff and realizes that he was an aspiring aerobics competitor,
Speaker 3: aspiring champion and never got to compete. And so, in
Speaker 3: in order to an effort to get to know the
Speaker 3: man that she never knew, she assembles a ragtag group
Speaker 3: of trans friends to try to compete in the regional competition.
Speaker 3: And so, you know, I think, yeah, and I think
Speaker 3: that's just been such a joyous project to work on,
Speaker 3: not just for us, you know, behind the you know
Speaker 3: and behind the stage, and also also the folks on
Speaker 3: stage as well. Getting to embody characters that don't die,
Speaker 3: you know, getting to body get that don't you know,
Speaker 3: have you know all these other issues that they have.
Speaker 2: In real life, Being trans is not part of the story.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and being trans is not the mate. It's not
Speaker 3: something we shy away from. It's very explicit, but it's
Speaker 3: also not really the driving story.
Speaker 2: Right. Actually, I want to take that all the way
Speaker 2: to the personal because I think that's really important and
Speaker 2: relevant to this discussion. Is the reason why we wrote
Speaker 2: the show is because Interstate is about eleven years in
Speaker 2: the making. We have been working on that thing since
Speaker 2: twenty twelve. Yeah, and doing deep introspective, self reflective work,
Speaker 2: thinking about our lives, thinking about the state of the country,
Speaker 2: thinking about queer and trans young people, and really really
Speaker 2: diving into those kind of themes and questions. At some point,
Speaker 2: like you said earlier, Danielle, you need a You do
Speaker 2: need an escape, and you need a break from all
Speaker 2: of that stuff. So my escape when we started writing
Speaker 2: Misstep was I was going to step aerobics classes in
Speaker 2: Long Island in the Export Fitness in the basement of
Speaker 2: the Roosevelt Field Mall. And so I was like in
Speaker 2: this basement just doing step aerobics with like mostly women
Speaker 2: who were significantly older than I. And that was the
Speaker 2: first time in my entire life that I really felt
Speaker 2: free in my body as a trans person. I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: dancing is fun, Like I can dance too. I didn't
Speaker 2: really think I could dance before. I didn't really think
Speaker 2: that movement was something for me. I don't do it well,
Speaker 2: but I had a lot of fun doing it. And
Speaker 2: then and so I kept I kept sharing with Melissa
Speaker 2: this joy that I had found within my own body,
Speaker 2: which was like, I love Stubb aerobics and it's so
Speaker 2: fun and everyone should do this, which it's kind of
Speaker 2: a hard sell. It didn't really come back, but I
Speaker 2: loved it. I loved it. I still love it, and
Speaker 2: so that sort of led us to go down this
Speaker 2: path of writing this joyous musical centered around the body.
Speaker 2: So in Misstep there are some very deep themes around
Speaker 2: bodies and being trands and women's bodies and impossible beauty
Speaker 2: standards that and trans people in sports, all of these
Speaker 2: things that existed in the eighties and and now. There
Speaker 2: are very very big questions that we had, But the
Speaker 2: show itself answers those questions by asking, like, what if
Speaker 2: these this group of people went and found themselves by dancing.
Speaker 1: I think that that's so interesting because I think, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I know, I'm assuming that you chose the
Speaker 1: eighties because that's when step aerobics and like all of
Speaker 1: the video that the you know, the the VHS's and
Speaker 1: all of those you know things, because I know that
Speaker 1: my mother had a step, had a step in the
Speaker 1: house and like had those videos. I remember doing like
Speaker 1: wanting to be like earths and doing it as as
Speaker 1: a little kid, and I you know, when I watch
Speaker 1: it now on TikTok videos of people like they're wild
Speaker 1: with it, like it's you know, it's actually really cool
Speaker 1: to see the evolution. How do you see though, like
Speaker 1: those the different discussions and themes that that you brought
Speaker 1: up kit around you know, uh, body dysmorphia around you know,
Speaker 1: your feelings of being in your body as you're as
Speaker 1: you were writing this. Have we shifted in any way
Speaker 1: in terms of how from the eighties, which you you
Speaker 1: know you case this in, have we shifted? Have we grown?
Speaker 1: Do you think in our way of how we think
Speaker 1: about the body, body images and feeling both for CIS folks,
Speaker 1: particularly women who have to meet these you know or
Speaker 1: forced into these unrealistic beauty standards, but then also for
Speaker 1: for trans folks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not. I don't really know if I'm I'm
Speaker 2: having a hard time thinking about if and how things
Speaker 2: have changed. I guess things are always changing throughout time.
Speaker 2: When I think about like the impossible beauty standards of
Speaker 2: eighties aerobics, it doesn't feel too far from seeing, yeah,
Speaker 2: seeing people on TikTok and wanting to be like wondering
Speaker 2: how you can be like that, or seeing something on
Speaker 2: TV and thinking like, oh, yeah, maybe I could be
Speaker 2: that that movie star or something like that. But what
Speaker 2: I will say that I have seen is like more
Speaker 2: I think because of social media that still exists and
Speaker 2: now there are lots of other people sharing their stories
Speaker 2: and creating content, and that feels really important in terms
Speaker 2: of just thinking about like who I am and what
Speaker 2: I who I could be. It's it's like really heartening
Speaker 2: for me to see lots of trans people on the Internet,
Speaker 2: and people of different bodies and different ethnicities and abilities
Speaker 2: just sort of like sharing themselves and being seen. And
Speaker 2: so I do think that they are certainly more examples
Speaker 2: of people different kinds of people out there are. Is
Speaker 2: that translating into greater opportunities for stuff that we make
Speaker 2: to be produced. That part is why I said I
Speaker 2: don't know, yeah things have changed or not, Because, particularly
Speaker 2: in the theater, we write these kind of stories. We're
Speaker 2: very true to that. It's a very difficult path. Creating
Speaker 2: an original musical is probably the most difficult path in
Speaker 2: the theater you could take because it costs the most
Speaker 2: amount of money. It takes a lot of people. You
Speaker 2: have to sing, dance and act at the same time.
Speaker 3: We're a very specific, trans specific casting yep too.
Speaker 2: And so has the world shifted so much so that
Speaker 2: we can see those stories on stage right now? No,
Speaker 2: But last night at the Tony Awards, two Binery folks
Speaker 2: Wantoni Awards, Alex Dwell and Jay Harrison. So I do
Speaker 2: think that things are changing on stage behind the scenes,
Speaker 2: I haven't felt a giant leap from twenty twelve when
Speaker 2: we started writing musicals together to now. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. I mean it's you know, on
Speaker 1: one hand, hopeful right in terms of in terms of
Speaker 1: the Tonies and that kind of representation. We see more
Speaker 1: representation I think in front of the screens right on
Speaker 1: TV and in film, but it's you know, there's still
Speaker 1: a lot of work to be done for those that get,
Speaker 1: for those that have green lighting power, right, those that
Speaker 1: are the money people and seeing value in in quote
Speaker 1: unquote non traditional stories.
Speaker 2: Yeah. What that says to me is that trans people
Speaker 2: can be seen as someone else, but not themselves.
Speaker 1: Oh damn, Oh you said a mouthful there. Yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: last question for the for the both of you during
Speaker 1: this during this Pride season, you know, what does Pride
Speaker 1: mean for you at this at this time? How are
Speaker 1: you showing up to Pride this year?
Speaker 2: Does Pride mean for me this season?
Speaker 3: I think, well, I don't know. Maybe you start first,
Speaker 3: let me think about it a little bit.
Speaker 2: Okay. I am thirty nine years old. I just turned
Speaker 2: thirty nine two years ago.
Speaker 3: We are old gay.
Speaker 2: Well, haven't gone to Pride in quite some time. Because
Speaker 2: you need to prepare for Pride. You need to get
Speaker 2: a group together, or you could go by yourself. You
Speaker 2: gotta get hydrated because you're in the sun all day.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, get on the train and fight through the crowds.
Speaker 3: There is actually a period of time where we stopped
Speaker 3: going to Pride because it was too capitalistic, and we
Speaker 3: just went camping with our gay group of friends, and
Speaker 3: that's that's just as good of a pride for us, honestly.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, actually, friends i'm thinking about, your question is
Speaker 2: so right on, because where you're catching us right now,
Speaker 2: I'm going to just describe what we're doing right now.
Speaker 2: I'm in Montreal with Melissa and where she.
Speaker 3: I'm turning forty on Saturday.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's celebrity, thank you. And so these two weeks
Speaker 2: we're both working on interstate and many friends are flying
Speaker 2: and driving in to celebrate. Yes, many queer friends are
Speaker 2: flying and driving in to celebrate Melissa's birthday. And it
Speaker 2: pride for me. I'll I will never disassociate that with
Speaker 2: being a riot, a protest fighting for our rights and
Speaker 2: a movement led by trans women of color and black
Speaker 2: trans women, And I think about what they were fighting
Speaker 2: for or asking for. It's unfortunately not too different than
Speaker 2: the things we're asking for now, which is the ability
Speaker 2: to be yourself, the ability to live, body autonomy, basic
Speaker 2: human rights, a place to live, eat, sleep, be with
Speaker 2: your families. Like that stuff is what pride is about.
Speaker 2: To me, is for like it started as like a
Speaker 2: fight for those rights and freedoms. And so this week,
Speaker 2: as we're in Montreal, and we're just not necessarily going
Speaker 2: out to the nightclubs and stuff. It's celebrating at home,
Speaker 2: barbecuing on the rooftop, making chocolate moose from scratch, teaching
Speaker 2: each other how to do those things like that feels
Speaker 2: that kind of family, community, chosen, family building is that's
Speaker 2: the stuff that they were fighting for. And that's something
Speaker 2: that I certainly never want to stop celebrating. Is like, yeah,
Speaker 2: the families were creating during the season.
Speaker 1: I love that. I love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And and and for me, I think, you know, I
Speaker 3: came out when I was eleven, so when I went
Speaker 3: to Pride, I was like thirteen fourteen. This was in
Speaker 3: the nineties. And yeah, and and what's interesting is that
Speaker 3: now we've we've moved on to a phase where maybe
Speaker 3: we don't go out and we and we you know,
Speaker 3: hold the flags and do all that stuff. But what's
Speaker 3: Pride for me is actually little bit about a little
Speaker 3: bit about hope. I think like what's inspiring is that
Speaker 3: actually seeing younger people, you know, and people that were
Speaker 3: like us when we were kids and we were in
Speaker 3: college and having all of that energy to like go
Speaker 3: and like you know, support and shout and protest, you know,
Speaker 3: go to the Dike March, do all of that, and
Speaker 3: so for me it actually is really hardening sometimes to
Speaker 3: see the young folks come out and really yeah and
Speaker 3: celebrate and bye for our rights.
Speaker 2: When our friend group is having kids now, so we're
Speaker 2: talking about bringing the in the newborns to Dike March
Speaker 2: and it is so full circle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that the both of you are fantastic.
Speaker 1: I could honestly talk to you forever. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for making the time to join wok F kit
Speaker 1: Yan and Melissa Lee, thank you so much, and thank
Speaker 1: you for your work. And how can people just lastly,
Speaker 1: how can people follow you? How can they how can
Speaker 1: they get connected with the with the work that you're doing.
Speaker 2: Let's see, we're on uh Instagram and we have websites.
Speaker 2: So my Instagram is at kit Yan Poet and then
Speaker 2: it's kit yanpoet dot com and we're we're about to
Speaker 2: launch a joint site. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Mine is Melissa Lee l I dot com uh, and
Speaker 3: you can find me on Instagram anywhere at melsa boo.
Speaker 3: And also you could find Interstate at Interstate musical dot
Speaker 3: com as well as Misstep Misstep Musical dot com Oh that's.
Speaker 1: Right, awesome, Thank you both.
Speaker 2: Happy pride to you. Oh, thank you, and thank you
Speaker 2: for having us such a joy to chat with you.
Speaker 2: You're so wonderful and smart and generous.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys. That is it for me today. Dear
Speaker 1: friends on woke app as always, power to the people
Speaker 1: and to all the people power, get woke and stay
Speaker 1: woke as fuck.