Speaker 1: But We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
Speaker 1: the Outspoken podcast Network. This episode contains frank discussion on suicide.
Speaker 1: If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health,
Speaker 1: you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at nine
Speaker 1: eight eight. That's nine eight eight, thank you.
Speaker 2: In my bedroom, you know where I grew up, I
Speaker 2: just became hysterical. I just started crying and I couldn't
Speaker 2: stop crying, and I couldn't say why. But I knew
Speaker 2: that there was no place for me in the world.
Speaker 2: And you know, my parents came in and talked to me.
Speaker 2: They tried to convince me that everything was fine, and
Speaker 2: I knew it wasn't fine, and it wasn't going to
Speaker 2: be fine. It was going to be really, really hard.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's important to remember that when I was
Speaker 2: a teen, homosexuality was a crime, it was a mental disease,
Speaker 2: and it was a sin. And that is the world
Speaker 2: that I was growing into. Those were the messages that
Speaker 2: I was being given about who I.
Speaker 1: Was as a gay kid. Growing up religious and in
Speaker 1: the South, I thought being gay was the worst thing
Speaker 1: I could ever be. Now, as a journalist, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to unlearn that by seeking out our history, and what
Speaker 1: I've found are people and stories full of courage, perseverance,
Speaker 1: and love. In this episode, we'll meet Celeste Lessine, one
Speaker 1: of the founders of the Trevor Project, the nation's leading
Speaker 1: suicide prevention organization for queer youth. We'll learn about how
Speaker 1: suicide affects the LGBTQ community and how it affected celeste
Speaker 1: life as well. For my Heart Podcasts, I'm Jordan and
Speaker 1: Solves and This Is What We Loved. I think I
Speaker 1: was in the first grade when I first heard the
Speaker 1: term gay. This girl, Carol leaned over to me and
Speaker 1: accused another boy in our class, Sean, of it. I
Speaker 1: really like Sean. We rode the bus home together every
Speaker 1: day and would gush to each other about our love
Speaker 1: of Britney Spears. But when Carol told me that he
Speaker 1: was gay, I stopped talking to him. Even at seven
Speaker 1: years old, I realized that being labeled as gay was dangerous.
Speaker 1: The disdain and gust in her voice as she accused
Speaker 1: him of this word I barely knew made me immediately
Speaker 1: understand that it was something I never wanted to be.
Speaker 1: But a few years later i'd be in Sean's position.
Speaker 1: Luckily for me, though, by the time I reached high school,
Speaker 1: I found a best friend that was even gayer than Sean.
Speaker 1: We weren't out to each other, but he affirmed me
Speaker 1: and it changed my life. I lost touch with Sean,
Speaker 1: but I hope he found someone like this too. I
Speaker 1: know that for many queer kids that don't have that affirmation,
Speaker 1: the pain of being rejected by your parents and your
Speaker 1: friends can leave you feeling unlovable and unwanted, and even suicidal.
Speaker 1: In fact, suicide is a major issue in the LGBTQ community.
Speaker 1: The Trevor Project, the leading suicide prevention organization for queer youth,
Speaker 1: estimates that only forty percent of LGBTQ youth seriously contemplated
Speaker 1: suicide last year. The stats are harrowing. At least one
Speaker 1: queer youth attempts suicide every forty five seconds. The Trevor
Speaker 1: Project was founded twenty six years ago as a hotline
Speaker 1: that young people could call into when they felt they
Speaker 1: were in crisis. In twenty twenty two alone, they served
Speaker 1: over a quarter of a million people. My next guest,
Speaker 1: Celeste Lessine, is one of the founders of the Trevor Project.
Speaker 1: The name is based on a short film that they
Speaker 1: wrote called Trevor. It's about a young gay boy who
Speaker 1: attempts suicide. The film was largely based on Celeste's own life.
Speaker 2: My name is Celeste Lesine. I'm the founder of the
Speaker 2: Trevor Project, and I am going to be seventy in November,
Speaker 2: which I can't believe. I'd say. What covers it all
Speaker 2: is that I'm a storyteller. I work also using story
Speaker 2: to try to change the story of things that are
Speaker 2: happening in the world that I don't like.
Speaker 1: Tell me about the movie and how the Trevor Project
Speaker 1: sort of got started.
Speaker 2: So back in the twentieth century, I was living in
Speaker 2: New York and I was working as an actor and
Speaker 2: also creating solo shows, as one does in little theaters
Speaker 2: all over in Manhattan, and I wrote a show called
Speaker 2: Word of Mouth. I played a lot of different characters,
Speaker 2: and one of the characters was a thirteen year old
Speaker 2: boy named Trevor who realizes that he's different than his
Speaker 2: friends and family and eventually understands he's gay, and then
Speaker 2: has some trouble with that, as one does, and decides
Speaker 2: that the solution is to kill himself. He fortunately survives
Speaker 2: to live another day. It was just a ten minute
Speaker 2: piece in a larger theater piece, but it was so
Speaker 2: funny and poignant and it really moved people. And you know,
Speaker 2: I was living in New York at a time when
Speaker 2: the AIDS crisis was at its all time high, and
Speaker 2: people were dying, and people, especially in show business, were
Speaker 2: dying at an alarming rate, and really nothing was being
Speaker 2: done about it in the early nineties, and I just
Speaker 2: couldn't believe it. But then I heard on national public
Speaker 2: radio report about teen suicide, and at the end of it,
Speaker 2: they just sort of casually mentioned that LGBT are at
Speaker 2: that time, lesbian and gay young people were three to
Speaker 2: four times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers,
Speaker 2: and it was just to kind of tag on at
Speaker 2: the end. But I was so shocked that I had
Speaker 2: never known that before. So I started asking my friends
Speaker 2: and people I knew, and started interviewing people about their experience,
Speaker 2: and it seemed like everybody had at one point either
Speaker 2: contemplated or attempted suicide, And I thought, how is it
Speaker 2: possible that there is this one generation that is dying,
Speaker 2: one generation of gay people who are dying All around me,
Speaker 2: and also this other hidden story of this other young
Speaker 2: generation taking their own lives at a rate that was alarming,
Speaker 2: and nobody was doing anything about either of them. So
Speaker 2: that's what really inspired me to write the piece.
Speaker 1: What was the sort of process of then turning this
Speaker 1: incredible play that you wrote into a film?
Speaker 2: Well, the director of the show, she reached out to
Speaker 2: someone she knew in the business and named Peggy Risky,
Speaker 2: who was a producer, and Peggy came to see the show,
Speaker 2: and the next day she called her friend who was
Speaker 2: also a producer, named Randy Stone, and they both came
Speaker 2: to see the show, and they called me up and said,
Speaker 2: would I adapt it into a screenplay to make a
Speaker 2: short film? Never having done that before, I thought, yeah,
Speaker 2: sure I could do that. Yeah, no problem, And so
Speaker 2: I wrote the screenplay. Peggy directed the film and produced it,
Speaker 2: and Randy produced it, and they did an amazing drop
Speaker 2: of taking something from the stage to screen, and it
Speaker 2: was an amazing experience for me and Trevor.
Speaker 1: The film is based off of life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I never really wanted to let that be
Speaker 2: known when in the beginning, because I didn't want people
Speaker 2: to look at Trevor and think of me. But I
Speaker 2: mean in order to get some of the details right,
Speaker 2: I really just had to look at my own journals
Speaker 2: from you know, when I was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years
Speaker 2: old and understand from reading those journals how hard it
Speaker 2: was for me at that time as well, and think
Speaker 2: it was an isolated situation. I wanted them to think
Speaker 2: of themselves and make a realization or ask a question.
Speaker 1: What was your favorite memory of the film, filming it
Speaker 1: or writing it at that time?
Speaker 2: You know, so many of the set pieces from the
Speaker 2: film and from the piece at Trevor really came from
Speaker 2: my life, so to watch them be recreated by actors
Speaker 2: was really a kind of an eerie experience. But I
Speaker 2: think my favorite experience that I had was when we
Speaker 2: showed the film for the first time in a theater.
Speaker 2: And see if I can without giving too much away,
Speaker 2: Trevor gets taken out to get ice cream with a
Speaker 2: local priest who's going to tell him the facts of life,
Speaker 2: and it's what happened to me, Like it was really
Speaker 2: the most humiliating experience of my life. My parents set
Speaker 2: me up with this priest, this local priest to come
Speaker 2: to our house and take me to ice cream, and
Speaker 2: I kept thinking this is way too suspicious, like we're
Speaker 2: not even that religious, And so I went to the
Speaker 2: Dare Queen and it was really humiliating, like he basically
Speaker 2: he was telling me the facts of life in very
Speaker 2: graphic detail, and I thought I would die because it's Hey,
Speaker 2: it's not the person you want to tell you the
Speaker 2: facts of life, and b you don't really want to
Speaker 2: know those facts. You want the other facts which were
Speaker 2: not being given to me. And to see it writ
Speaker 2: large up on a screen, played out by amazing actors,
Speaker 2: recreating my most humiliating experience of my life, and listening
Speaker 2: to all these people in the theater laughing hysterically because
Speaker 2: it's so painful and funny at the same time, it
Speaker 2: was like it was a healing moment for me. It
Speaker 2: was just a healing moment. You know, that is what
Speaker 2: as a storyteller, it's what you can hope for in
Speaker 2: your lifetime, that you take the worst moment of your
Speaker 2: life and actually celebrate it and share it with people.
Speaker 1: And you know, then you go on to win an
Speaker 1: Oscar for this, And I wonder what that was like
Speaker 1: for you, because this is nineteen ninety five and it
Speaker 1: seems like Hollywood was pretty divided. You're seeing some straight
Speaker 1: actors being rewarded for playing gay characters. But then yeah,
Speaker 1: but then on the other side, you're seeing Ellen sort
Speaker 1: of get her career totally ended because of the fact
Speaker 1: that she came out. And this is all in the
Speaker 1: same decade. So I'm wondering how you kind of felt
Speaker 1: about winning the biggest award of all for a film
Speaker 1: that was really gay.
Speaker 2: The first time I stepped out onto the stage to
Speaker 2: perform Trevor, I literally had the thought in my head
Speaker 2: that someone was going to stand up in the theater
Speaker 2: and shoot me. It was that scary as a gay
Speaker 2: man to be on a stage in a theater playing
Speaker 2: a thirteen year old boy who realizes he's gay. Like,
Speaker 2: it just was taboo. You just did not, as a
Speaker 2: gay man talk about children and sexuality at that time.
Speaker 2: It was really taboo because you were afraid of being
Speaker 2: branded a predator. Yeah right, you know. I think one
Speaker 2: of the things that we can never tell about the
Speaker 2: things that we make and the stories that we tell
Speaker 2: is this mystical aspect of it that they come into
Speaker 2: the world at a time when the world is ready
Speaker 2: to hear that piece of news. You know, Trevor came
Speaker 2: into the world at just the moment when people were
Speaker 2: willing to accept that this might be possible. It wasn't
Speaker 2: just about sexuality. It was about who you are. It's
Speaker 2: about you being your authentic self, and the price of
Speaker 2: not being your authentic sie self could lead to suicide.
Speaker 2: That was unacceptable, and I think everybody could agree that
Speaker 2: a human life is worth saving, regardless of who that
Speaker 2: person is, so everybody could get behind this idea, right.
Speaker 2: I've never been in the closet, and I think that
Speaker 2: I struggled a lot with show business as a result
Speaker 2: of it. I think that a lot of doors weren't
Speaker 2: open to me, and some were actually literally shut in
Speaker 2: my face as a result of just being myself. And
Speaker 2: one of the reasons that I actually did that solo
Speaker 2: show was to show people that I could play many
Speaker 2: different people. I could play a thirteen year old, I
Speaker 2: could play a woman, I could play a a tough
Speaker 2: guy from New Jersey. And what was interesting to me
Speaker 2: was that the piece that came out of word of
Speaker 2: mouth was Trevor, which was probably the closest to my
Speaker 2: authentic self, and that is I believe why the piece
Speaker 2: traveled so far out into the world because it contained
Speaker 2: a truth, a terrifying truth.
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about the founding of the
Speaker 1: Trevor Project and how all of it came together.
Speaker 2: You know, Randy Stone was an amazing person. He's no
Speaker 2: longer with us, but he was an amazing person, and
Speaker 2: he figured out a way to get HBO interested in
Speaker 2: showing the film, and it was that was so major
Speaker 2: to have this beyond television, and we realized it was
Speaker 2: going to go into the homes of many people all
Speaker 2: over the country, and young people were going to be
Speaker 2: in those living rooms watching. And you know, it was
Speaker 2: really to Peggy's credit that she had the idea to
Speaker 2: put a telephone number at the end of the film
Speaker 2: in case there were somebody out there who identified with
Speaker 2: the character of Trevor. And there was no twenty four
Speaker 2: hour suicide prevention lifeline for gay and lesbian at the time,
Speaker 2: young people. It just did it didn't exist. So Randy
Speaker 2: and Peg and I decided, well, I guess we have
Speaker 2: to do this. We have to make this happen. And
Speaker 2: you know, we knew it was going to get a
Speaker 2: lot of play, and that first night that it was
Speaker 2: on television. We received about over fifteen hundred telephone calls
Speaker 2: from young people around the country in some way relating
Speaker 2: to the character of Trevor right, and they saw themselves
Speaker 2: in that character. I really credit the Trevor Project with
Speaker 2: changing the story around queer youth, because now when you
Speaker 2: think of queer youth, you don't think of oh, that's
Speaker 2: so tragic, or hopefully you don't you think, oh, there's
Speaker 2: a place for them to go.
Speaker 1: When we come back, we'll learn about the childhood that
Speaker 1: inspired Trevor the film. Celeste Lescine had written an Oscar
Speaker 1: winning film called Trevor. It's screening on HBO led to
Speaker 1: the creation of a hotline called the Trevor Project, which
Speaker 1: would go on to serve countless LGBTQ youth in crisis.
Speaker 1: But the story of Trevor was really the story of Celeste.
Speaker 1: So take me back to the beginning. Tell me a
Speaker 1: little bit about how you grew up and who you
Speaker 1: were as a young person when you were growing up,
Speaker 1: and where you grew up.
Speaker 2: I grew up in New Jersey, in a little suburb
Speaker 2: not too far from Manhattan. If you stood on my roof,
Speaker 2: the roof of our house, you could see the glow
Speaker 2: of Manhattan from a distance. It was very oz like, Wow.
Speaker 2: I just had a really sunny personality. But I was
Speaker 2: also very dramatic and extremely gay. And if you've seen
Speaker 2: the Trevor film, you know that Trevor has an undying
Speaker 2: devotion to Diana Ross, which I did. I was actually
Speaker 2: semi famous in my neighborhood for imitating Diana Ross. Wow.
Speaker 2: And I would perform as Diana Ross as a little kid,
Speaker 2: which nobody questioned. They just thought I was good at it.
Speaker 2: But there came a moment in my young life when
Speaker 2: I think my parents understood what was happening and things changed.
Speaker 2: And I'd say that I I lost their love. I
Speaker 2: didn't lose their love, They just pulled away from me.
Speaker 2: And I could see that there is a certain amount
Speaker 2: of disdain and discussed.
Speaker 1: And is that because they sort of figured or understood
Speaker 1: without saying that you were gay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they really couldn't accept it. They had a really
Speaker 2: hard time.
Speaker 1: How old were you when this happened.
Speaker 2: I'd say I was, you know, probably ten, eleven, twelve.
Speaker 2: It began to be a problem, you know, because they
Speaker 2: it wasn't something that was just a facet of my youth.
Speaker 2: It was really who I was, and I think they
Speaker 2: were beginning to see that it couldn't be curbed. You know,
Speaker 2: I just was. I was too a bulliant, I was
Speaker 2: too full of life, and that wasn't what boys did.
Speaker 2: And you know, they weren't mean to me or anything
Speaker 2: like that. It's just I could feel, I could feel
Speaker 2: the distance between us. There were moments when it was okay,
Speaker 2: and then there were moments when it was not okay.
Speaker 2: But I mostly had to watch myself. I think one
Speaker 2: of the big sadnesses that come with being a queer
Speaker 2: kid back then was you had to develop this spidey sense,
Speaker 2: you know, where you were always watching yourself and careful
Speaker 2: and had to monitor your body, you know, make sure
Speaker 2: your arms are not going all over the place, and
Speaker 2: make sure your ass isn't moving around.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I know that. In the film, the character
Speaker 1: Trevor sort of falls in love with this best friend
Speaker 1: of his Pinky.
Speaker 3: Being friends with him means so much. It's the next
Speaker 3: best thing to being popular myself. I think that if
Speaker 3: someone came to town with a machine gun or something
Speaker 3: and threatened to kill Pinky, I'd offer self instead.
Speaker 1: And Pinky kind of ends up betraying him in a way.
Speaker 1: Is that based off of your life as well?
Speaker 2: I did have a best friend named Pinky as I
Speaker 2: can't believe I didn't change the name, but maybe that
Speaker 2: was somehow unconscious revenge. I did have a I was
Speaker 2: madly in love with him in a way, in a
Speaker 2: very sort of chaste way when I was, you know,
Speaker 2: thirteen years old. He was sporty, he was friendly, he
Speaker 2: liked everybody. Everybody loved him. He was you know, he
Speaker 2: was like the classic bro. But he had a real
Speaker 2: sweet side to him. And we became friends, and I
Speaker 2: couldn't believe it, Like we were part of a whole
Speaker 2: group of you know, sort of friends who were beginning
Speaker 2: to experiment with, you know, dating on that level. And
Speaker 2: I just I could I really just I was in
Speaker 2: love with him, you know. I think he realized at
Speaker 2: a certain point that I was a social liability. You know,
Speaker 2: he gave me presents and poems and things like that,
Speaker 2: and then I just was like, I can't believe this
Speaker 2: is this amazing just it wasn't even anything sexual. It
Speaker 2: was really just my heart was open and his heart
Speaker 2: was open to me. But then I think he realized
Speaker 2: what was happening. And he wrote me a letter and
Speaker 2: which is almost verbatim into the letter that that Pinky
Speaker 2: sends to Trevor.
Speaker 1: What did it say?
Speaker 2: Do you remember You're a weak person? And yeah, And
Speaker 2: there was one way an experience where I called his
Speaker 2: house and his mother basically said he wasn't home and
Speaker 2: I shouldn't call there anymore.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And I was so shocked. But it it really crushed
Speaker 2: me because it's it's those not so subtle hints that
Speaker 2: tell you that you're out of bounds. And you know,
Speaker 2: I think they're still happening today for many young people,
Speaker 2: but on a much more well just louder level. But
Speaker 2: the moment that I understood what it meant for me
Speaker 2: in the world happened very given. It's me very dramatically
Speaker 2: in that Sunday morning, I was getting ready for church
Speaker 2: and you were a church kid. Oh yeah, I love
Speaker 2: the church. It was so great. It was showing, really,
Speaker 2: it was so showed that things you got to wear, the.
Speaker 1: Songs, the drama, the moves, the drama.
Speaker 2: It was it was really where it was happening for
Speaker 2: me as a kid, like I couldn't believe how lucky
Speaker 2: I was to be backstage. So I liked going to church,
Speaker 2: but it was beginning to be a problem. I realized. Again,
Speaker 2: putting words to this sounds so, you know, organized, because
Speaker 2: I don't think it was. It was just an emotional
Speaker 2: response to understanding that the world would not welcome me
Speaker 2: as I was, that I would have to change what
Speaker 2: happened in my bedroom, you know, where I grew up.
Speaker 2: I just became hysterical. I just started crying and I
Speaker 2: couldn't stop crying, and I couldn't say why. I don't
Speaker 2: even think I could have put words to it. But
Speaker 2: I couldn't have said it even if I'd known it.
Speaker 2: But I knew that there was no place for me
Speaker 2: in the world and that I was going to have
Speaker 2: to kind of jettison a part of myself in order
Speaker 2: to be able to live into the next phase of
Speaker 2: my life. And you know, my parents came in talked
Speaker 2: to me, and my siblings came in and talked to me.
Speaker 2: Everyone they tried to convince me that everything was fine,
Speaker 2: and I knew it wasn't fine, and it wasn't going
Speaker 2: to be fine. It was going to be really, really hard.
Speaker 2: I really feel like I made a decision that day
Speaker 2: to see if I could be less myself, to see
Speaker 2: if I could tone it down, put Diana Ross away,
Speaker 2: just try to act normal. And the thought really broke
Speaker 2: my heart.
Speaker 1: So, from this very early age, without even having the
Speaker 1: vocabulary to understand what was going on emotionally, you had
Speaker 1: a very clear understanding that if you were to continue
Speaker 1: being yourself, it would be a very difficult life for you.
Speaker 2: At the time, it would. I mean, it's important to
Speaker 2: remember that when I was a teenager, homosexuality was a crime,
Speaker 2: it was a mental disease, and it was a sin.
Speaker 2: And that is the world that I was growing into.
Speaker 2: Those were the messages that I was being given about
Speaker 2: who I was. And I didn't even know I was
Speaker 2: gay yet. I just knew I was different, and I
Speaker 2: knew that from the time I was five years old.
Speaker 2: I just knew I was not like my family, and
Speaker 2: I knew I wasn't like anybody in my neighborhood. I
Speaker 2: knew that there was something different about me. But you know,
Speaker 2: it's a scary thing.
Speaker 1: So, you know, it seems like throughout your childhood there's
Speaker 1: so many different forces coming at you at once. You
Speaker 1: have these experiences with friends where they realize that because
Speaker 1: you are yay, you are a social liability to them.
Speaker 1: Your own parents sort of begin distancing themselves from you.
Speaker 1: What did that sort of lead you to believe about
Speaker 1: yourself at that age adolescence?
Speaker 2: What else could I believe except that I was unlovable?
Speaker 1: Celeste had realized that living one's truth as a gay
Speaker 1: person would make for a deeply painful life. Around this time,
Speaker 1: they attempted suicide but survived.
Speaker 2: I tell this story with the full knowledge that there
Speaker 2: are young people all over this country and all over
Speaker 2: this world who have to carry that burden every single day.
Speaker 2: It's the wound that comes with daring to be different.
Speaker 2: And then what happens is that you understand that that
Speaker 2: wound is really the source of your superpower. Because without
Speaker 2: that wound, without those parents, those particular two parents, I
Speaker 2: never would have created Trevor, and there would never have
Speaker 2: been a Trevor project. And that is the really gratifying thing.
Speaker 2: That is what was so gratifying, is that somehow I
Speaker 2: created a character that touched the lives of young people,
Speaker 2: and they saw themselves in that character and had unlocked
Speaker 2: something inside them to make them determined to be themselves
Speaker 2: or to pick up a phone and ask for help.
Speaker 2: That is really the greatest honor that I could ever
Speaker 2: hope for. And the result here we are twenty six
Speaker 2: years later, and when I tell a group of young
Speaker 2: people that I'm the founder of the Trevor Project, and
Speaker 2: I can see across the room somebody go like, I
Speaker 2: can see them really get it, and they look at
Speaker 2: me and then later come up to me and tell me, well,
Speaker 2: they just thank me and tell me they wouldn't be
Speaker 2: here if it wasn't for the Trevor Project.
Speaker 1: In the film, Trevor wakes up after his attempted suicide
Speaker 1: in a hospital and is being taken care of by
Speaker 1: someone pretty close to his age, a young volunteer named Jack,
Speaker 1: and instead of sort of taking pity on him, he
Speaker 1: invites him to a Diana Ross concert.
Speaker 2: Spoiler alert.
Speaker 1: I feel bad for laughing, but it's just so hilarious
Speaker 1: and adorable.
Speaker 2: It's one of my favorite things ever in my life
Speaker 2: performing that on stage after performing the suicide, just to
Speaker 2: deliver that to the audience and have them burst out
Speaker 2: laughing to know that he lived, and it was one
Speaker 2: of my favorite things was making people cry and laugh
Speaker 2: at the same time.
Speaker 1: Really, well, you know, this character Jack is so interesting
Speaker 1: to me because it feels like he's the first person
Speaker 1: in Trevor's life that really sees him and acknowledges him
Speaker 1: on a level beyond just being a kid. But like,
Speaker 1: I'm gay too. Even though he doesn't say it, it's
Speaker 1: sort of implied. And I had a Jack in my life,
Speaker 1: and I know so many people that had their Jacks.
Speaker 1: And it's a powerful moment in a person's life when
Speaker 1: someone actually sees you for who you are and it's
Speaker 1: sort of unspoken, And I wonder why it was important
Speaker 1: for you to create that character.
Speaker 2: You know. I think years later, when the Trevor Project
Speaker 2: decided to do research in addition to the life saving
Speaker 2: work that the organization does, they found that the presence
Speaker 2: of even one adult in the life of a queer person,
Speaker 2: one caring adult who saw that kid for who they are,
Speaker 2: lowers the suicide potentiality by like, I don't know ninety percent,
Speaker 2: just one person. And I think intuitively I knew that
Speaker 2: for me, I had a lot of Jacks because it
Speaker 2: really came to me through the theater. I was fifteen
Speaker 2: years old. I had run away to a summerstock theater
Speaker 2: to work as an apprentice for no money, and it was,
Speaker 2: oh my god, I found my people.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: I mean I say, I ran away. My parents eventually
Speaker 2: knew I was there, but I did leave without their
Speaker 2: consent because they told me I couldn't go, but I
Speaker 2: had to get out. You know. Andrew Solomon, who's an
Speaker 2: amazing writer, wrote a book called Far from the Tree,
Speaker 2: and he has this beautiful theory that many of us
Speaker 2: are born into what's known as our vertical family, but
Speaker 2: for some of us we need to go find our
Speaker 2: horizontal family. But like say, deaf people, or people who
Speaker 2: are gay, or people who are you know, there are
Speaker 2: all sorts of people who need a community. And the
Speaker 2: need for that community was so great for me that
Speaker 2: I literally ran away from home at fifteen. And when
Speaker 2: I found the theater, I was like, of course. And
Speaker 2: you know, someone asked me, do you know what a
Speaker 2: home what sexual is and I said, I think it's
Speaker 2: boys who like boys, and they were like hm hm.
Speaker 1: In addition to founding the Trevor Project, in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: Celeste founded the Future Perfect Project, an organization dedicated to
Speaker 1: amplifying queer young voices through media projects. The group puts
Speaker 1: on storytelling and songwriting workshops for teenagers to help them
Speaker 1: express themselves, and they've produced with the young people. They
Speaker 1: serve full scale professional albums, animations, short films, comic books,
Speaker 1: and more. In many ways, the Future Perfect Project would
Speaker 1: have served as a home to a young Trevor or
Speaker 1: Celeste Celestia. This show is about intergenerational dialogue. And one
Speaker 1: of my favorite things about the episodes that we've done
Speaker 1: and the guess that we've had on is that so
Speaker 1: often a guest will say, well, you know, for as
Speaker 1: much as your generation is grateful to us, we're grateful
Speaker 1: to your generation too, And so I've kind of learned
Speaker 1: like it's sort of like a give and take. And
Speaker 1: you've done so much for young people. You've given so
Speaker 1: much to young people. I wonder if there's something that
Speaker 1: you've received in any way that's special to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think my mission in life. They gave me
Speaker 2: my mission in life, which is them making sure that
Speaker 2: they're safety and celebrated. Changing the story. You know, I
Speaker 2: have spent the better part of my adult life really
Speaker 2: doing what I can to make their lives easier. And
Speaker 2: so I started, along with my friend Ryan Amador, we
Speaker 2: started the Future Perfect Project, and the purpose of the
Speaker 2: Future Perfect Project at the time.
Speaker 3: Was to.
Speaker 2: Really provide the space and encouragement for these young people
Speaker 2: to tell their story and to sing their songs. So
Speaker 2: we traveled around the country and went to places like
Speaker 2: Alabama and Arkansas and Indiana and iow and all the
Speaker 2: other vowel states. And during that time I got to
Speaker 2: watch them from week to week, changed their names, change
Speaker 2: their pronouns, experiment with who they are, their hair color changing,
Speaker 2: and learning, learning how great it is to explore your
Speaker 2: authentic self. And at some point I realized that if
Speaker 2: I was sixteen or seventeen years old and it had
Speaker 2: been on offer for me, I would I would identify
Speaker 2: as non binary. Like I tried to pass as a
Speaker 2: gay man like and I did an okay job, but
Speaker 2: I just was never really I never aced it if
Speaker 2: like it just there was always something a little off,
Speaker 2: you know, like I was good with the gay part,
Speaker 2: that the man part was like really like the sort
Speaker 2: of a stumbling block. And I went, that's the problem.
Speaker 2: I'm not a gay man, I'm non binary. And and
Speaker 2: you know in Zoom you have to put your name.
Speaker 2: You don't have to, but we always put our name
Speaker 2: and then our pronouns. And one week I suddenly I
Speaker 2: just had this conversation with them while I said, like
Speaker 2: I'm thinking. I told them this thing about being non binary,
Speaker 2: and they were like, well, you have to change your name,
Speaker 2: and I was like, I can't change my name. I like,
Speaker 2: I'm in my sixties, you know this is crazy, Like
Speaker 2: I've lived my whole life. And they were like, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, it's great, try it. Why don't you try
Speaker 2: it here. Then one day I realized that my middle name,
Speaker 2: well I always knew my middle name, but I suddenly
Speaker 2: realized my middle name would be perfect because my middle
Speaker 2: name was Celeste and is Celeste, and you know, it's
Speaker 2: a family name. It's traveled down through generations of my
Speaker 2: father's family. And when I asked my mother as a kid,
Speaker 2: I said, what's with the Celeste? Why do I have
Speaker 2: a girl's name. It's a problem, I mean, And she said, well,
Speaker 2: it's a man's name in France and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: but we live in New Jersey. This is a liability.
Speaker 2: I didn't say that, but like it really was a liability.
Speaker 2: And I lived in terror my entire childhood. So the
Speaker 2: idea that I could use this name and take it
Speaker 2: out into the sunlight. And you know, the thing I
Speaker 2: say is that every time someone calls me Celeste, a
Speaker 2: queer angel gets its wings because I really feel like
Speaker 2: it's like a It's a part of me was liberated.
Speaker 2: And they did that for me. They showed me that
Speaker 2: you don't have to stop asking questions about who you
Speaker 2: are ever and if you think you know who you are.
Speaker 2: I actually think it's why people find it difficult to
Speaker 2: be around young people because they make you question who
Speaker 2: you are. They make you ask questions that are maybe
Speaker 2: not comfortable to ask because you've got everything going. But
Speaker 2: they really inspired me to dare myself to be more
Speaker 2: myself and that I would get that at my age
Speaker 2: from them. That is a greater gift than I thought,
Speaker 2: I think in what I was giving them.
Speaker 1: But We Loved is hosted by me Jordan Gonsalves. New
Speaker 1: episodes drop every Wednesday. If you want to write in
Speaker 1: to tell your story, email us at but We Looved
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com, or send us a message on
Speaker 1: Instagram or TikTok at but We Loved. We are a
Speaker 1: production of the Outspoken podcast Network and iHeart Podcasts. But
Speaker 1: We Loved was originally developed with Pushkin Industries. Our producers
Speaker 1: Areshena Ozaki, Michael June, Emily Meronoff, and Joey patt Our.
Speaker 1: Executive producers are Me and Maya Howard. Original music by
Speaker 1: Steve Boone. Special thanks to Jay Bronson and rockqul Willis.
Speaker 1: If you loved this episode, leave us a rating and
Speaker 1: follow us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and thank you
Speaker 1: for listening. I'll see you next week.