Self, Faith, Love and Labels - Splintered Grace Hosts - Bonnie Violet, Tina Frank

It's All about the Questions - Wisdom Learned from the Trenches
Host - Laura Steward

My Christmas week show is, at the end of the day, about love. I was honored to have Bonnie Violet and Tina Frank say yes when I asked them to be on my show. Their story is a powerful one about how love is more powerful than any barrier if you choose to allow it into your heart first.

 Take a listen as Bonnie Violet and her aunt share how they came back together after almost 20 years apart because of labels and how they had defined each other based on outside factors. This is a heartfelt and, for me, eye opening conversation about labels, faith, love. perception and perspectives.

 Tina Frank, a conservative Christian woman and Bonnie Violet, a transgender queer drag queen have an anti-cancel culture conversation on their podcast, Splintered Grace. While many family members are choosing to no longer speak after a revelation like Bonnie Violet shared, they have chosen to sit at the table and engage in difficult conversation to find peace and restoration.

a queer chaplain 
Helping to lace one’s narrative with a spiritual thread.

Big shout out and Thank you to our monthly supporters. With your support we can continue to bring and upgrade Splintered Grace Podcast quality and reach.

To learn more or to join our Patreon go to patreon.com/bonnieviolet

a queer chaplain 
Helping to lace one’s n

Engage! Rate, Follow, Subscribe & Share
Book ME! - Keynote, Panel, Guest on Show, Officiate Wedding /Memorial in/out of drag.
Collaborate! - Join Team, Guest, Make a Pitch
Sponsor! Patreon, Venmo, PayPal

It's All about the Questions Podcast
Living an amazing life is not about finding the right answer…

a queer chaplain
Helping to lace one’s narrative with a spiritual thread.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

good morning afternoon and evening everyone and welcome welcome welcome to the show today as you can see it looks a

0:06

little bit different this is my first show using restream.io which i am loving loving loving and it's giving

0:14

me an opportunity to do something very unusual today and the reason i wanted to use it was because i have

0:19

two guests on my show today for my christmas week show to end 2020 for christmas

0:26

i wanted a show that's gonna make you think that's going to make us realize that love is what

0:32

matters all in the world and also to talk about being your authentic self and what that

0:38

really means and and how to express yourself whatever that means no matter what other

0:44

people say and i am honored to have my two guests on the show today tina frank and bonnie violet the host of

0:50

splintered grace podcast somebody that i met through my dear amazing friend who i think i've known

0:56

for close to three decades howard cohen a geek friend of mine who said you must

1:01

meet tina who then introduced me to bonnie violet and the rest shall we say i hope is

1:07

history as today so i'm gonna bring my guests on today bonnie violet good morning hi everyone

1:15

i am so excited to have you both on the show today because really for me what this is about

1:22

is conversing it's about the three of us talking about

1:29

just what it means to be yourself i mean i think at the root of it now

1:34

your podcast splintered grace um is really uh

1:40

to me a groundbreaking con um podcast so tina you define yourself as

1:46

beyond being a woman and a person in the world um you define yourself as a christian

1:53

correct okay and bonnie violet you are just you right you

2:00

started out in the world as dwayne and now you have transitioned to be

2:07

the spectacular you that was always inside and your family as well yes

2:14

and you hadn't talked tina you had told me for like 20 years

2:19

yeah i'd love it if if you would guys would start sharing one of you start sharing the

2:25

story about well bonnie violet why don't you start because you cut off communication with your family when you realized who

2:33

you truly were and wanted to express it yeah um thanks for having having us on the show this morning um

2:41

yeah um bonnie violet here i am i identify as being trans genderqueer

2:47

and a drag queen so this is my drag look um this isn't necessarily how i look every day though i would love to i love it right

2:54

um but yeah tina tina and i grew up in a really small town in idaho um we're just about a decade difference

3:01

in age so she was still kind of young when i was young compared to you know what i think some aunts and uncles are

3:08

in my understanding and so she really got me going into church and she was kind of like my hero she got

3:13

me to church i was really into jesus in the same way she was you know i was saved and did all that as a teenager and then

3:20

moved out to phoenix arizona and i actually lived with my aunt when i was i was infected with hiv

3:28

at the age of 19. and that caused me to um have to address some things with myself

3:34

i hadn't realized that i had just kind of come to my own understanding that at that time i identified as being gay

3:40

um but i didn't quite know how that fit in my relationship with god my relationship with other christians

3:46

and just and with my family and but when i got that hiv diagnosis it kind of forced me to

3:52

address some things and in doing that i realized that church probably couldn't hold me and hold all

3:58

of me um and church has had always been that for me church was kind of like a a refuge um i didn't always feel great

4:06

at school at home i i didn't always feel um i don't know it just was a refuge for me

4:12

to to get to go to church and and to find my way there and so it was definitely a challenging thing at the age of 20 to

4:19

to have to leave church and then kind of like i just kind of felt like i was on my own and part of that was i felt was losing

4:26

losing tina yeah that was that was tough because i didn't understand what was happening

4:33

and i didn't give you very good counsel because i wasn't sure what to do i was so busy trying to protect you

4:39

from our perception of what reality was instead of just embracing who you were

4:45

so it's been a journey that we've been on yeah it

4:51

it's interesting to me the choices that you had to make and on a level i understand why you felt

5:00

that you needed to make those choices i i was raised roman catholic right but every priest i ever knew said that

5:09

one of the tenets of being catholic about being christian was this acceptance of all

5:18

of whoever they are because jesus loved all he said it didn't matter who you were or

5:23

what was going on in your life jesus was always there for you and i know when my my brother died i got

5:31

really really mad at god right and i left the church for a while i still had my relationship with god but i was just

5:39

okay i'm not on you know national broadcast radio anymore i was pissed off plus some other words

5:45

that take this right this safe place that i always felt yeah

5:51

so bonnie violet for you i i can only imagine i know i can't even imagine this moment

5:59

i grew up i had people i grew up with pass away from hiv at the very early stages when nobody

6:05

even knew what hiv was right that's got to be one of the hardest

6:13

things ever and then for you and tina to reconnect i mean what did it take

6:18

for the two of you to now look at each other as family again i mean are you

6:25

looking at each other as family again oh absolutely absolutely i think the first thing we

6:32

had to do is make some choices would you agree oh definitely yeah yeah yeah we had we

6:38

had to choose to set some of our own ideas and and traditions and things that we had maybe

6:43

even been taught aside and to be open to pursue one another at the risk of

6:50

being rejected and i think we had to decide that um our the relationship that we desired the

6:57

love that we had for one another um needed to take precedent over anything that we may come up again

7:04

i think that's for me at least yeah anything you want to add yeah i

7:09

mean that was a big part was you know like once it kind of got to that space i think it took a while

7:15

for me to even be open to the possibility that you and and this wasn't

7:22

this is the way that i experienced for you to love and accept me as a godly spiritual person again

7:28

um it took me a while to realize that i could exist as who i am and be spiritual and be

7:35

strong enough in my own identity and my own spirituality finding because i didn't

7:40

have i didn't have a good relationship with my spirituality for a really long time until i got sober

7:45

but even after that it took me a while to to really come to a place that i could maybe trust you

7:52

yeah enough to think that maybe you could still love me and that maybe that you had changed and

7:58

that your understanding was different than what my perception of the world was at 20 i mean it's just

8:04

the world is so much more bigger and so much more like there's more of a spectrum than i ever

8:09

could imagine that i just didn't see at that age everything was so black and white

8:16

i'd like to explore that a little bit if i may this show is all about shifting

8:22

perspectives using questions to shift perspectives and

8:27

bonnie violet and tina as well you both talked about these shifts these changes

8:33

that you had to go through in order to see yourselves and see each other

8:40

as more than just say how you defined yourself or how the

8:46

world defined you how does that factor in to

8:52

your conversations with others outside of yourselves because to me so many of us

8:59

we we had we categorized right yeah i was a caregiver

9:04

um a sister um i've never been a mother but i felt like a mother to my mom the

9:10

last six years of her life and she lived with me and we were going through a lot of different things

9:15

and some people try to categorize me as you know i'm a christian i'm a catholic

9:21

right and then we just finished these really crazy elections where it's you're a democrat you're a republican

9:28

and i just kind of laugh at all that because to me that doesn't matter i just want to connect with an

9:34

individual and look at the issue not the label so how do how did you guys

9:40

begin to let go of the labels and be comfortable go ahead bonnie

9:49

yeah well yeah i mean i think the biggest thing was is that you know i think we had to come to understand that our labels

9:55

i know for me i had to realize that a lot of the labels i carried for a long time i never fully landed in

10:01

like i was more than just what that label said i was and so um i think

10:06

just knowing that i was more than that allowed me to think that maybe other people were too

10:12

that we were more than just what we called what um how we might identify um and so but we

10:18

also knew that that was part of we talk a lot about kind of identities and those sorts of things because we realize that

10:24

a lot of the world is set up in a way in which you have labels and you have identities and that's how you kind of

10:30

get around in the world i believe kind of an ideal in my ideal spiritual

10:35

understanding all of those identities just go away and we just are um and i feel like that's what we

10:42

have to be willing to attempt to do with one another is to be willing to just kind of let all those things

10:48

go go down and then just be able to know that we love each other and then begin to be in conversation

10:54

with each other and um and to you know like and that's pretty much what we do i don't necessarily think that we do anything

11:01

super groundbreaking except for that we like we just we just commit to show up every

11:07

like we met every every week for a while and we just talked and we shared what was going on with our lives

11:13

and we tried not to hold back um anything that we were experiencing so that the other could

11:18

have an opportunity to try to hold that um for us and i mean i feel like you know that's

11:24

that's a lot of what we did was just kind of showing up i know that i've had a fear that at some point

11:29

in time there's going to be something that's going to be said that's going to like blow up and that's going to end us um

11:37

but but i don't i feel like that's a fear but i don't think that that's reality it is a possibility it is a possibility

11:43

but i don't think it's something that we we will allow ourselves to experience i really hope

11:49

and that's where it comes back to you know we're making we're making a choice here and and i think the the labels or titles

11:56

or whatever you want to call them i think that's really a true uh detriment that we

12:01

carry and allow on ourselves and on the people around us if we can't see each other in love

12:08

um then we're stuck and sometimes coming above those labels for ourselves

12:14

or for one another it comes with an accountability uh and that people don't like

12:19

accountability it's much easier to settle in this labeled space than to move forward

12:25

and and break free of all of it and we just decided we were going to do that you know it's funny because we were

12:31

talking on one of our episodes about our titles that we had chosen to represent us

12:36

on splintered grace you know and the titles that we have carry lots of different ideas and perceptions

12:44

based on who's here in the actual title and so when we title ourselves or label ourselves

12:50

it creates a potential um i want to say border or barrier or even

12:56

a negative uh boundary where people can't see past so we we really we just want to be tina

13:04

and bonnie and we just want to love each other and we just want to do life together

13:10

and we want to accomplish everything that god has put in our hearts to accomplish and if anything

13:17

that we can do can be encouraging or empowering to someone around us or give them an example of how to love

13:23

the people around them then we are so excited about that um but we're committed

13:28

and i'm sure we're going to have our moments but but we're committed that even if we can't agree on some things

13:34

that we're still going to love each other no matter what

13:40

what you both said is so beautiful yet i know that my listeners out there are struggling with it

13:46

because it's very hard to well it is perceived as being

13:52

very hard to let go the labels the labels that you've taken on that

13:59

society has put on you that you've accepted as the norm for

14:05

your life whether it's a year of your life or it's 57 years of your life i'm 57 now

14:14

and but yet there can be a moment in time where all of a sudden that identity is completely shaken body

14:22

violet like it was for you and that impacted tina tremendously

14:27

when you had that moment bonnie violet that was like

14:32

okay i thought i was this but i wasn't fully comfortable in it but

14:39

now i know who i am and tina it must have shaken

14:45

to the core some of your beliefs as well as as a christian the whole idea

14:52

of how can how can this be you're born into the life that you're born into because

14:57

god has decided you know whatever it will be the fact that you commit to show up for

15:04

each other now no matter what others may be saying is not something easy for a lot of people to do right

15:12

so god i think the key for us is that we're both grounded in in our spirituality and our

15:18

understanding of of of god or or what have you and i think when we're rooted in that

15:24

then we can kind of meet at that level and i think i know it for me for my understanding of my

15:30

spirituality and beliefs to change and and even for for tina as well you know we had to

15:36

ex we had to see things from a different light in a different point of view that actually just

15:42

expanded my understanding of god and expanded my understanding of jesus in the word i don't necessarily

15:48

identify as a christian but it's a big part of my what i would say my culture because i grew up in it so i

15:54

i have a lot of love for it i have a lot of appreciation and i've i've come to see that i actually can

15:59

exist as who i am fully in that space and still be loved and be fully

16:04

a child of god within the christian realm um if i but i haven't necessarily said

16:10

that's who i am um but i know that i know that i could fit there if i chose to you know like i know that i wouldn't

16:17

have to leave a bunch of things at the door in order for me to um exist and be a

16:22

christian it's just not quite where i've gone but i think that that um i know for me if i didn't think that

16:28

tina saw me as a beautiful child of god created by god created in the image of

16:35

god within her own understanding and beliefs that um i would not be i would not be at

16:41

the table with her because that's a big part of it i didn't want her to be like okay i'll love you anyway i'll pray for

16:48

you to change you know the fact kind of exactly and i and that was a little bit of the um relationship in

16:55

the in the first few years maybe there was a time when that was the reality right tina yeah

17:03

and and just to say that i just want you know i pray for you every day that you change into the amazing

17:10

uh person that god created you to be um so i still pray for you to change so i don't but you don't pray for me not

17:17

to be who i am that's right that's hard for somebody else to come and make me something different exactly

17:23

you're right so i just i just want i just want to clarify but you know we had a lot of growing up to do both of

17:29

us you know when when all this happened uh we were both um in a very vulnerable

17:34

stage we were both still trying to figure out who we were although i was 10 years your senior

17:40

um i think more than that but thank you for saying 10 years

17:45

so you know and i was still trying to figure out you know i had gone through a divorce i'd had another horrible breakup

17:50

i was by myself with my four kids trying to define who i was trying to survive

17:56

you know and i was in survival mode under a covering of a label of christianity

18:04

and so we were both grasping at whatever we knew and what we did was we took on the um legalism i think

18:11

for it's a good word to say it but we we [Music] understood to be god

18:19

and it was only a small piece it wasn't the fulfillment of god it was just the baseline and so i also had to learn what love

18:26

looked like because at the end of the day when we look at love it really has nothing to do

18:32

with us it has everything to do with how we reach out to the people around us

18:38

because me being a christian being sold out to jesus i believe that my life was bought with a

18:44

price and it's no longer my own my life is to serve those people around me no matter

18:50

what they look like no matter how they act no matter who they choose to be it's just my role is to love them

18:57

and to live the best life i can to exemplify the fullness of god's glory

19:04

and so that's what i desire to do and and i'm grateful that um although i've had to come a long way

19:10

to get to this point that there's still an opportunity and i believe it's because of god that bonnie and i have been able to

19:16

reconnect that we have been able to agree on love

19:21

and be able to decide that no matter what because i'm not perfect by any stretch of the mile and i'm sure

19:27

that there's a lot of allowances that i get from bonnie to be who i am because he

19:34

doesn't want to stifle who i am either he wants me to fully be able to envelop

19:39

the fullness of who i believe god's called me to be and so in that we have the same desire for one

19:45

another and we've made a commitment to not dictate what one another looks like

19:50

right because when we have a picture of what we think someone should look like i think that's when we fall out of love

19:56

and fall into judgment and therefore we don't have the ability to pray

20:01

that god would have their way in their life and i don't want his my way in his in

20:08

your life i don't want it because i'll just mess it up i have a hard enough time having my way

20:14

in my own so yeah amen to that right exactly i mean

20:20

i i listened to the both of you what you just said and i sit here i think about the

20:27

questions i get from my clients from my listeners about their own lives and

20:34

so many are just struggling to know who they are right and then

20:42

to accept who they are if it's against what their family

20:48

wants them to be or their job wants them to be or or who

20:55

their place that they feel like they are in the world and i know i've struggled with it myself

21:02

not to the levels that you guys have but you know i've struggled with it myself when when i sold my company i i was so

21:09

defined by that and that role when my mom passed away three years ago and all of a

21:16

sudden i felt lost

21:21

the day that god came back into my life like literally knocking me to the ground

21:27

saying you're my child you know and and i sit here and i listen

21:35

and i wonder what i wonder how we can let go

21:45

what religion has done to love what religion has done

21:52

to faith and i know this is probably controversial for a lot of my listeners out there

21:58

right now my first season this is my fifth season doing this show

22:04

my first season on the show on broadcast i had a reverend a rabbi and a swami on the

22:09

show all in the studio together this is before we did video it was just literally broadcast radio they all came to the

22:15

studio and people were like why are you having these three people on they're completely different faiths

22:22

they're completely different religions and by the end of the hour everybody realized no it's not it's

22:28

all about god and your personal relationship with god and that we needed to let go

22:34

this idea that them and us and even he or she

22:40

or they or whatever it may be which by the way bonnie violet i don't understand all the pronouns still so perhaps

22:46

you could explain that because i i i see you as she but i know there's some people that are

22:52

they and and i don't i just mentally i guess because grammatically i can't get there

22:58

but um for the for the two of you what i hear is that somewhere along the way you

23:08

both have said society and the strict the structure

23:14

and the strictures that have been placed on both of you and by society i mean more than just

23:21

culture right it's all of those pieces that you've said being me and being me in relationship

23:29

with this person is more important than the stuff

23:37

would that be accurate and how do you respond to this rambling thought i just had

23:46

bonnie violet do you want to start um sure um i'm trying to think what comes to mind with that i i

23:53

i do think and this might not be quite exactly what you're going for but when you were talking about this idea of kind

23:59

of like religion impact on love um and this idea that love is kind of i

24:05

think what we learn what love is whether it's we learn it from our families we learn it from

24:11

relationships we learn it from church whatever you know i think my understanding and a lot of the world

24:17

tells me all these kind of like um not healthy ways of what is love

24:24

that's not really love it's like conditional it's um it's often

24:30

obsessive or um submissive to a point of harm or you know like

24:35

there's there's all and love doesn't really work that way i think love love and i think for me it's really

24:41

about i think love because it is so complicated grace is simpler to me the idea of grace to me is what it is

24:48

the fact that you have value and you are just because you are and you

24:53

have the same value and the same worth as anyone and everyone else and i believe that in my heart

24:59

wholeheartedly however i have a hard time living my life as if i really believe that because most

25:05

of the time i just feel like i'm not enough or that i have to do more in order to be

25:11

like at the same level and worth and value of everyone else and sometimes i feel like i even have to

25:17

do even more to make up for um for like the past or whatever and that's

25:24

why i love grace and i feel like that's why we went with splintered grace as well as this idea that we have to allow one another

25:30

i think maybe more than just love but actually grace in order to be in relationship with with

25:36

one another um and maybe to experience love but i think grace is is is really what where it lands for me

25:44

i love that wow i mean i just feel that from you that whole idea of

25:50

grace versus love and and how they interlink and that grace is so much bigger

25:57

yeah there's a lot of healing that has to happen because you know they're like a few

26:03

years ago there are certain ways that um things might be said or not said to

26:08

me or words that were used that i would have been like no you can't use that word that's offensive

26:14

that's like whatever and now i can be in a relationship in which somebody can say something that's not quite the way i would say it

26:21

and i would rather than not but i don't have to take offense to it and i don't have to i don't have to

26:27

shame them about it i think where you live in this culture right now where you just shame people into some sort of behavior

26:34

change which i don't think is really behavior change i think it's all performative um when we can actually just be create a

26:40

space in which we can be wrong and we can say things that are foolish and not skillful to one another um

26:48

then that's when we can really grow and that's when we can really change and and i think begin to be better with

26:54

with people yeah i agree and i think that that

27:00

portion about offense i think our culture and even us sometimes are too

27:05

easily offended and if we can look past that to grace um

27:10

then i think yeah i think that gives us room to grow in love and understanding and give the ability

27:16

to um it's a sacrifice at that point because we're choosing not to be offended we're sacrificing that offense

27:23

for the purpose of someone else to receive grace from us and it just elevates both of us to a new place so that we can build on a

27:30

new foundation we every every step we take is is a a cornerstone or a block and a foundation

27:37

that builds our relationship and so if we can just not be offended by these

27:42

little things and and i think that's one of the things that we've agreed to not be offended by one another you know by

27:48

how we conduct ourselves the things that we do um the things that we say sometimes

27:54

that we just have chosen not to be offended we'll talk through it but we'll choose not to be offended and i think offense i think is definitely a

28:00

trigger into or not even a trigger or just a a pathway maybe it's a better way to say it to a

28:06

space of grace um and into love yeah i yeah go ahead bonnie violet no i was

28:13

gonna say i also feel like he for me healing had to happen before i could give grace

28:18

like grace had to be given to me healing by god and understanding our spirituality

28:24

which could allow me to experience it and then to heal and then to be in a space in which i i

28:31

can't really be harmed in the same way by the world that i once was um and once i have that healing

28:39

then i can and go and you know be have grace um in the world um

28:46

better or you know like i just feel like healing is a really big part and i feel like i don't i'm not blaming anyone who does

28:53

take offense or does get upset or does i know that that's coming from a place of pain and a place of hurt

29:00

um and you know hurt people hurt people but healed people heal people and that's

29:06

what i feel really called is to be a healing person i'm not completely healed but i'm a healing person

29:12

who can then transmit you can only tran you can't transmit something you haven't got that's right i've been healed you can

29:18

heal if you experience grace you can give grace if you experience love you can give love um at least that's the

29:25

way that i i that i feel yeah i agree yeah i i agree a thousand percent as

29:32

well and i i took some notes on a couple of things because i had never thought of some of the

29:39

perspectives that you both had talked about um where you where you talked about look

29:45

past offense to grace and can say anything not skillful

29:51

to each other and you know when when we first met and we

29:58

were just talking separately and then i was like i need to have you both on my show

30:03

i remember bonnie violet i said to you i was so afraid of offending by not

30:10

knowing how how to speak to you how to refer to you that i didn't

30:17

want to offend by not knowing and i kind of feel like

30:24

that's a big problem in our world right where we're only allowed through media

30:32

exposure on a certain level on a certain perspective as to what they want and

30:40

funny i don't know about you but and tina i don't know about you as well in this one i don't meet a lot of

30:48

transgender people in my daily life i know

30:54

in my community that i live which is a very small town sebastian florida i know there was one restaurant

31:03

server that when my mom was alive was transitioning and undergoing

31:09

the actual hormone therapies to begin switching and i wasn't sure how my mom

31:17

was gonna respond coming from being born in 1929 to this and i just

31:25

i was like i was gonna let whatever was gonna happen happen praying that with some of my mom's dementia that

31:32

it may not offend right at the same time and i'll never forget

31:37

this one moment when my mom looked at him her she because i i didn't know at

31:43

that point what to what to say and my mother just goes oh my god i love

31:49

your makeup where did you get those earrings and what color is your nail polish that's awesome and my mother in that

31:56

moment just saw the person in front of us

32:02

and and i did too but i was so worried about my mom and what she may say through

32:09

innocence yeah we have to we have too many relationships in our heads yeah

32:15

and actually not being in relationship with people and body it all happens in our head you know like

32:20

i was really nervous to come on this show today i was afraid that you might say something that would hurt my feelings to

32:27

be honest you know because i i don't know you in the same way that i know tina and so i just wanna you put your i think you

32:34

put your vulnerability out there as well and i just wanted to say as well as yeah like i didn't just show up here all like i'm just gonna

32:41

give lots of grace today no there was a part of me that was just like you know like i uh i just prayed

32:46

before this that you know that i just show up and be in a way that i needed i need to be and sometimes people

32:52

might say something and i do need to say something and other times i don't and so for me i just

32:58

really try to keep myself in a good space so that when something does happen to me that intuitively i will just know how i need

33:05

to respond in this particular moment so i just wanted to match my vulnerability with yours yeah and i think when we respond even if we need

33:13

to feel a need to respond if we respond in love then i think it's received well so that offense could be avoided either way

33:20

back to what you guys were saying is the bible says that we should all be like little children

33:26

we should we should be back to like little children to receive god's grace and it's like this is what

33:31

we're talking about your your mom you know she had no

33:36

no um preconceived ideas she was just open just being open little kids don't you know little kids they're the ones who

33:43

say crazy things to you when you're like oh like oh man your breath stinks

33:49

they have no filter you know they know they don't know it's not okay to say that to people or man how old are you you know we've all

33:56

experienced little children in their in their just rawness you know what i mean and i think that's the mentality that

34:02

god wants us to approach people you know with openness no preconceived

34:07

ideas every encounter that we have with someone else is an opportunity for us to connect

34:13

positively or negatively so the way i present myself to someone is going to have a positive or negative

34:19

the way i respond to how they present themselves is a positive or a negative and the power that we really hold is

34:25

when some comes at us in a negative and we can still respond positive

34:30

and i think that's what what you were yeah i mean you were ready to do today no matter what happened today you

34:36

were going to respond positive you already decided that in your mind you already decided you weren't going to be offended right and that we were going

34:42

to have a conversation for however amount of time we committed to so see that's a that's a that's brave

34:49

that's that's in my opinion that's a power move and we all have that power inside us and we

34:55

just need to exercise it i i just i just really feel that's a key

35:00

and the way we find strength in that is to set ourselves aside and allow god's love to flow through us

35:06

to one another and not be offended right and you know bonnie violet thank

35:12

you for sharing that about that and before the show

35:17

today and actually all weekend since we set this up i just i prayed and went

35:24

please just allow me to ask the questions that will show the world the grace and

35:30

beauty of both of you and and share

35:36

the the light that i saw in both of you when when we met and um

35:46

and somebody just posted on on the stream um i love this conversation and in

35:52

quotes i don't know how to speak to you because i don't want to offend you i think so many people feel that is what

35:58

somebody said and it it's so much what i felt but i knew that i needed to try with this show

36:06

with this christmas week show to to have this conversation because it's a conversation i've

36:12

wanted to have with somebody but i myself number one was afraid that

36:18

my listeners might just not appreciate the vulnerability

36:25

of all of us to be on the show today and the fact that to me i want to just love everybody

36:33

even when i don't necessarily like them yeah you know what i mean so

36:40

um thank you bonnie violet for sharing that because i would never want to hurt anyone in any way

36:47

intentionally or unintentionally oh my god it just sits with me forever when i found out that i

36:53

might if i realized afterwards i might have said something so thank you for sharing that um

37:01

so i do need to ask this one question because i know that it's out there because i have it can i i mentioned it earlier but bonnie

37:08

violet can you share the whole pronoun thing because i frankly don't understand it and i i'm so deathly

37:16

afraid of offending somebody who's queer transgender gay

37:22

otherwise by not using the right pronoun or the right name

37:29

and how to necessarily ask that yeah well i think it's yeah i mean it's

37:37

you know it's we have not been trained to we like we automatically see certain people um

37:43

we we decide if they're he we decide if they're she we decide if we say sir we decide if we

37:49

say ma'am we like you know those were just stuff that were trained in in us like automatically and i think the

37:55

biggest thing is just to not make assumptions to ask people what they would like to be

38:00

at like and sometimes you can even lead with your own hi i'm laura i use sheer her pronouns

38:07

what's your name you know like and then that way you're not putting the trans person

38:13

um having to like you know out themselves necessarily you know i mean i

38:18

don't even necessarily i don't know i think calling people by their name uh when you don't know their gender pronouns um

38:24

you know i think people use they them as an eye as a possibility of

38:31

helping people understand that there's more there's more than one way to exist or more than two ways more than two ways

38:38

to exist and and don't get me wrong um men there are a lot of men who live in a lot

38:44

of different ways but there's still kind of this idea of what makes a man a man and what makes a woman a woman oh yeah

38:50

and so i think um it's people's ability to be able to

38:56

tell the world that i'm not that type of man or i'm not that type of woman and we all have different ways of doing

39:02

that um so i mean i'm trying to explain it in a way that kind of like

39:07

makes sense but i don't think it's really any different than calling somebody by their name even you know like even like there are

39:14

plenty people that you don't call them by the name that's on their birth certificate because they always go by al but their

39:20

name is alvino or you know like that's my dad's situation but you know what i mean like like and nobody questions that nobody

39:27

says oh no we can't we got to call you all vino because that's what your mom put on your birth certificate you just call him al because that's what

39:34

he wants to be called al you know and um so i think i think it's really not any further than that

39:39

it's just about having like you don't need to understand and i think we talked about this once before you don't

39:45

necessarily need to understand me in order to address me as i would

39:51

like you know like it's just respect it's just um and and it's it's also something that

39:58

i think we need to allow ourselves a lot of grace is that we have been programmed and the program

40:04

might not be the best way but we have had habits and practices that have

40:09

become so ingrained with us that it takes a while to undo that you know there's still some times when i

40:15

i'll call myself dwayne or i'll say like he and i'll be like wait that's not

40:20

that's not right you know and i'll say it i'll be like oh that doesn't feel right or that doesn't land right or um you know like so it's it's just a

40:26

pro it's being in a process of like it's just a process for all of us and

40:32

it's not something to be afraid of and as long as you're if you put your heart out there first most people are going to be pretty

40:38

cool with it it's when you're being you know not so great of a person

40:45

that people are going to be um you know not risk not super responsive to it so

40:50

i mean i would encourage you there's a lot of really great videos on youtube there's a lot of really great

40:55

information so that you can learn um learn this on your own so also you don't put that on the individual you

41:01

know a lot of us just we just i just want to exist some days i want to just walk down the road

41:07

and wear what i want to wear just because i want to wear it and i don't want to have to explain myself and i don't want to have to defend

41:12

myself and i don't want to have to you know and you all know i mean everybody knows that

41:18

like everybody experiences that i think women in particular have dealt with that a lot

41:23

you know i just want to look good today because i want to look good today i don't need no attention i don't need like whatever but then i'll

41:28

choose not to dress one way because of how the world is going to treat me that day because i don't want to deal with it you

41:35

know what i mean it's like okay i'll just put on something sloppy and i'll like go to the store because i don't

41:42

want to deal somehow bonnie violet having seen you with your your drag and not

41:50

i can't picture you ever looking sloppy well i have my own style that's for sure

41:57

so gorgeous and so beautiful and my mom would have ripped your earrings right off of your ears so you had an

42:04

earring thing oh yeah totally she has amazing earrings

42:09

i'm not sure that i've seen the same earrings twice and every time i'm like oh my gosh i

42:14

can't like and i can't wear those big earrings like that they just don't look right on me and the reason why i wear these i wear

42:21

um these big i like to wear hoop earrings because so bonnie violet is actually named a name i've chosen it's

42:26

my grandma bonnie and my grandma violet so it's my dad's mom and my mom's mom and i've they're now my name um and my

42:34

grandmother she was one of my favorite people but she died when i was young but there was a story about her have like

42:41

about these hoops and she would refer to these hoops as hoops for people who maybe have a lot of

42:47

sexual partners yeah and so and so um so i kind of wear

42:53

it in a way of just kind of claiming it and also just owning my owning my connection with my grandma a

42:59

lot of my um the way that i put things on is very intentional and it's often

43:04

reminders of my divinity reminders of my spirituality and reminders of the people

43:10

that i love or the people that have come before me or the people that are in my life so um to me it's just putting all of my

43:16

sentimental like crap on the outside instead of just keeping it in my head to myself i put it

43:23

on me to to not only show it to the world but also to remind myself because i can forget um if it's just

43:30

living inside my head i i think that's

43:35

a key to so many things you know living inside your head living inside your heart

43:40

your soul they're they're two different things i know for myself um i used to when i do a keynote speech

43:49

when i'd go to a client i'm a geek okay i owned a tech company for years and i didn't look like the usual geek you

43:56

know the pocket protector the broken glasses the the whole thing i was a woman and

44:01

back when i started my company i was a heck of a lot thinner you know so i i wore short skirts and

44:08

heels and and all that stuff and it was the way you were perceived

44:14

by the outward appearance that you put out there to the world and my parents have both

44:21

always said to me laura you need to mess your outside appearance with your internal

44:28

being and find the way to express who you are in in a way that aligns with who you

44:37

are right and i i embraced that when i started my own

44:43

company the tech company i was just like you know hey guys this is who i am i i don't approach tech the way

44:50

everybody else approaches tech and and now with my book and all the other stuff that i'm doing even with

44:55

this show i the first time i was on video

45:00

after broadcast radio the station switched from talk radio to oldies music well how do i

45:06

do this now i said oh let me add video i was petrified

45:12

i was so petrified because i didn't really like the way i looked

45:17

with all the weight and um just

45:23

if somebody saw me when the sound induced vertigo hit it was easier to hide it on audio only she couldn't see

45:31

what happens to me yeah i feel like it's the same conversation yet not

45:37

only because my persona is more accepted

45:44

by more of the world than [Music] the conversation the two of you are

45:50

having yet um body violent when you talked about the name right how you picked your name bonnie

45:56

violet everybody called my mom nancy when i was growing up aunt nancy and nancy this and nancy that

46:03

my mother's name is barbara okay i remember my cousin ricky

46:10

when he found out that my mother's real name was barbara and not nancy he freaked out we were really young and

46:16

he freaked out and i said i didn't know this either and i'm like how did because it was mom

46:23

right i'm like why are you nancy barbara and she said well growing up in

46:29

the bronx one of the neighbors said there were too many barbers in the neighborhood and declared you are nancy

46:36

you know and i mean i was so much older when i found this out but at the same

46:42

time i was always kind of there in my head right so i feel like internally we all

46:48

are these different people it's what we choose to show to the world in any

46:56

one moment in time maybe it's the business leader maybe it's the mom or the dad maybe it's

47:02

um the priest or the pastor um somebody just po posted it's about

47:08

congruency for all of us aligning and accepting who we are and how we look throughout our lives

47:15

it's not easy but it should be so simple for tina

47:22

for you to be you and for bonnie violet to be you i mean it's i hate

47:30

that the world has put this label on and i don't doing the show was the only

47:36

way i knew how to break labels and you know as much as we want to

47:42

break free from that it's one label at a time you know just because we have chosen not

47:47

to live under those labels or to ensue labels on others we're still going

47:53

to have to be labeled by people probably um and and have to probably even come to a

47:59

place where we have to overcome those labels or even defend so it's part of the culture that we live

48:05

in and and that's why um we choose grace and that's why we choose grace so we're

48:12

just not going to take offense to any of that stuff and it's amazing to me

48:17

how easy a label comes and not just in these extremes where that bonnie and violet and i

48:23

represent you know we we labels on on all different kinds of things

48:28

you know old young immature lazy all these labels that we just

48:35

put on ourselves on the people around us and and if we could just just one stop

48:42

remind what where does the label come from anyway have you ever thought about that where do these labels come from anyway

48:48

you know i was to say maybe possibly

48:56

thinking people yeah but think about it because i'm guilty when i see people go

49:02

by i have a label pop in my head we're all guilty we we we did that it's when we how we act on that

49:09

but that that label is a is a is a detriment usually or

49:16

an opportunity and pride so for when i look at someone and i say oh man what are they wearing that shirt for

49:23

okay what am i saying one what business is it of me mine that they wear whatever they're

49:28

wearing two do i think my shirt's better than theirs is that why i have a negative opinion

49:34

about their shirt and three are they a lesser person than me because they chose that shirt to wear that day because i think it's ugly

49:41

so we have to i know that seems trivial in the big scheme of things but it's but it's those details it's

49:49

those little details that we allow that happen in our mind that grows into these bigger

49:54

bigger things that we're dealing with in our culture and society today and so these are areas that i sorry i

50:00

keep interrupting you let me just finish my thought and i'll be still i promise um

50:05

but i think if we can manage our own mind to that level at least commit to manage our own self

50:12

to that level i think we can see change so go ahead bonnie violet i'm sorry

50:17

no i was just gonna say that yeah that's more of a that's more of a like that's more of a reflection of us

50:24

and not of other people and i think i think i know for me the thing that's changed is

50:29

for most of my life i've sought sameness i've looked for sameness and i've connected with people

50:36

with where we are alike and it's really important for me to realize that we are different that

50:42

no one person is the same even if we hold a lot of the same identities we are not the same

50:48

and it's in that difference that i think is where the beauty is and i think that's where it's you know

50:54

it's i don't know i think we're just naturally we connect where we're alike instead of um being in

51:00

relationship with each other where we're different um and i feel like that's what i'm trying to do and that's what tina's been

51:06

that's been a big part of our mission is to to our mission but a big part of our our

51:12

like desire to be um fuller humans on this earth

51:18

is to to be in environments that are different from what we're used to so that we can

51:23

hopefully be so that we can be changed by that it changes the key in that we can't

51:29

change if we stay in our comfort zone you know it's kind of like like you laura i love the title of your show

51:35

one of the things that i say when i'm teaching or training or doing anything is that if you want to learn something

51:40

you need to ask questions because we can never learn or grow or reshape who we are or whatever mission

51:47

that we're working on without asking questions questions of ourselves questions of the people around us questions even of the material that's

51:53

provided for whatever situation we're in if we don't ask questions we're never going to move forward

51:59

and so so yeah so i was just like oh my goodness the three of us i don't think this is by chance that

52:04

we're having this conversation today bonnie violet i think he wanted to say

52:09

something thought i saw that yeah i mean the only thing i you know i think it's really interesting that society decides

52:16

certain things they want to make a thing for whatever reason sexuality gender you know there kind of be these

52:23

bigger things uh that i don't know like these blemishes if you will

52:28

um whereas there are a lot of things actually that our thought is blemishes blemishes if you

52:33

have things that people struggle with existing having that part have that be a part of them

52:38

and for whatever reason i think sexuality and gender has that sort of thing but i think also

52:43

you know i i don't like equating like somebody's like my gender identity

52:49

to like um a malady or something that is

52:54

a product of something that's not normal or something that's like i don't know like it's just it's just a

53:01

difference but for whatever reason we say if people are a certain size that that's not okay if they're a certain color

53:07

that's not okay if there's a certain height there's a certain age there's certain like all these sorts of things just start to chop away from people's ability

53:14

to be um who they are but i think for whatever reason we get hung up on sex and

53:20

sexuality a little bit more maybe not more that's just my experience so that's what feels

53:26

like more to me but i'm sure there's plenty of people i think that's part of the human experience in a lot of ways

53:32

and and i think it depends on the culture and the society because in the us it's perceived one way

53:38

in europe it's perceived another way in some other cultures it's why are you even having this

53:44

conversation you know like it it's just it's not even a conversation worth

53:51

having because it's not an issue for them you know um to me when i i look at

53:58

a trans uh somebody i know that has declared that they're gay or lesbian

54:04

or queer or whatever the the few that i know i was always like yeah you for

54:09

finally you know declaring and accepting who you are you know because to me that is the most beautiful moment

54:17

in the world is for you for somebody anybody no matter what the situation is to say

54:23

this is who i am yeah whether gay straight doesn't matter you know

54:29

just accept who you are god it's unfortunate that

54:34

it's a brave thing to you know like that should just be something that can

54:39

happen you know like it doesn't i don't know i just don't feel like it needs to be an adversity that you overcome

54:45

right that's who you are um and but but that is the experience for a lot of

54:50

a lot of people that you have to come in it i mean to me i mean i find it i love who i am

54:55

and i love that i've been on the journey that i've been on because i couldn't imagine being anyone else and

55:02

um to be honest yeah i mean i just i just couldn't imagine living or being or having had

55:08

the life any different than i have today and i just love every minute of it and i don't

55:13

yeah i think it might be brave and yeah it might be challenging but i cannot not be me

55:21

regardless of what it whatever whatever it is you know like i often want to judge why i am the way i

55:26

am and it doesn't matter i am the way i am because i am and that's okay yeah yeah don't you

55:33

think some of that adversity though for all of us helps us to develop things within ourselves

55:39

to move us forward you know i i feel like that makes us stronger gives us character so life without

55:45

adversity for me would be have no meaning really or had no

55:50

opportunity for me to be developed and to create or to be unique

55:56

yeah i desire to be unique the bible says that we're all unique he created us each unique for a unique

56:03

purpose and um you know we just got to stop stealing one another's uniqueness from

56:08

them right to allow us all to go through our own adversity

56:14

and come alongside and be cheerleaders i want i want to be your cheerleader i want to see you succeed

56:20

at the the highest capacity that you can without telling you what to do right and bonnie

56:26

you wanted to say something yeah i mean i just would like to see that our adversities are not attached to our identities i want our

56:32

our adversities to be how do we feed everyone who needs food how do we shelter everyone who needs

56:38

shelter how do we protect you know what i mean like those are the adversities i want to deal with i don't want to be

56:44

so stuck up stuck in my own struggle and my own just trying to exist

56:50

to not be able to actually be part of who we all are is we're all one and actually be

56:56

focusing on on stuff that matters a little bit more like this is like great and i love it

57:01

and it's been a beautiful experience but it's not that serious but for whatever reason it is right and

57:07

so like i want to be able to just forget about this so that i can go feed somebody who needs food

57:14

yeah i think you have the freedom to do that so do you and i'm just devil's advocate here just as

57:20

we're talking here um where do you feel like your adversity has come from has it been self-inflicted more

57:25

or from the world around you because i think we may have a different idea or perspective on all that how

57:30

about how about you laura i'm sure you've had some adversities on your own you just talked about being a woman in the tech era um

57:37

you know i can't imagine what that was like [Music] you know it's a fantastic question and

57:44

i'm not used to my guest always throwing crazy questions at me like that and bonnie violet i'm still

57:49

processing what you just said because i realized i had some

57:54

some uh perspectives that you just helped me completely shift even more so thank you thank you for

58:01

that for myself around adversity where i

58:07

normally go well i really don't have a lot of adversity right because i i look at what else is

58:12

going on in the world but yet with my clients the first thing i'll say to them is your adversity

58:18

is as important and big as somebody else's because you feel it yeah right it's

58:24

whatever you feel whatever is going on for you at that moment in time

58:31

um i feel like to say that's my adversity or somebody else's adversity

58:36

is not as important or more important devalues what i'm feeling and

58:43

my goal for this show is to hopefully help people let go

58:50

of the way we're thinking about people the way we're thinking about things and having conversations

58:57

that maybe other people don't want to have so i'd say my mind creates my own

59:03

adversities for me of what i think others

59:09

are telling me i must be or what i must do like when i had the rabbi the reverend

59:14

the swami on i'm like who's going to be really upset with me because i think that they're all the same god

59:20

you know um like having the two of you on having this conversation

59:26

to me it was because i'm so tired of having nobody to ask the question of

59:32

because i'm so afraid that even asking the question could offend yet to me asking questions

59:40

enables healing of myself it was opening to the world of something that maybe

59:47

somebody else is on is so afraid to ask but they can listen to this show

59:53

and then go oh i got it now yeah and so that for me i don't know if

1:00:00

that fully answers your questions you know yeah you were just talking about that's sort of where i came from

1:00:07

with wanting to have this conversation today was because i know that some people

1:00:14

never have the opportunity and all they see is what mainstream media

1:00:21

wants to show them or all they see is like the movie bird cage with robin

1:00:28

williams and i feel like it's major different

1:00:33

things but it's really about the people not about the other thing yeah i don't know that

1:00:40

makes sense to to you is bonnie violet you wanted to say something well just in response to the

1:00:46

adversity i think that it's adversity is all of that like so i think it's mind

1:00:51

i think it's spirit and then i think for me the biggest challenge is body and so like for me i

1:00:56

feel like i've been able to approach adversity in my mind

1:01:02

and in my spirit and with my spirit really kind of helps me with my mind but i think being in the body is that

1:01:09

adversity that i can experience with other people so i don't necessarily think like that's how i interact with you and

1:01:16

that's that's that's sometimes yes i have some control in that but also i don't have some control in that and so

1:01:22

it's like how can i exist with you my body and your body rather than me being in my head or being

1:01:28

in my spiritual realm while sitting next to you yeah yeah see my

1:01:34

my whole my whole thought process on this as we've been talking is that even though each of us are experiencing

1:01:40

adversity no matter where it comes from the challenge is for us to still look past our own adversity to do all those

1:01:46

things that bonnie violet was explaining right you know because we're always going to have adversity within ourselves

1:01:52

or within the culture around us but we still need to feed everybody we still need to clothe everybody we

1:01:58

still need to do all those things that are bigger than ourselves and i think part of that is our is

1:02:05

love that's how we set ourselves aside love is a surrendering position we surrender okay we're going to go

1:02:11

through this we're still going to go through this we're still going to take all the crazy but i'm still going to do this because i love you and i love god

1:02:19

and he's put this purpose in me so that was my my my focal point because we all remember my thought process we all have

1:02:26

we all have different types of adversities and based on who we are how we present ourselves who people think we

1:02:31

are whatever that is and it's only when we rise above that like bonnie violet and i have done we've

1:02:37

rose above all that adversity that we put on ourselves that the world has put around us our religion maybe as one others and we've

1:02:44

risen up in grace expanding our faith and deciding to walk in love every

1:02:49

single day and to be one another's cheerleaders and to encourage our voices

1:02:55

together or separate so last thoughts we're coming up on the end of the show bonnie

1:03:01

violet anything you want to add last thoughts um what comes to mind i mean i just

1:03:07

thank you for um you know providing this space for us today and you did hold a good space

1:03:13

so don't don't like leave here today and think you fed or did something wrong you held a great space here and i really

1:03:20

appreciate you being brave enough to do this you know i think a lot of what

1:03:26

this takes is us being willing to do things that we've never done with before with um care

1:03:34

and concern and prayer whatever way you want to you know if we can approach

1:03:40

relationships and situations like that that are different i think that's how we're going to

1:03:46

experience one another a little bit more united or in unity and oneness i don't

1:03:52

think separation separation is a delusion it's not reality but it's a real like it's not for

1:03:58

realsies but it's how we live and that's how we choose to see the world but separation isn't real

1:04:04

and the more we can kind of lean into those situations the more likely we're going to live as if we know

1:04:10

that we are not separate i say i agree with all of that just to add thank you again for having us today

1:04:17

it's been our pleasure and thank you both for being here and

1:04:22

bonnie violet thank you for saying to me that i handled this space because what's going

1:04:29

through my mind um you know i do care when people think

1:04:35

um people that matter to me i care what they think and i know we've only met but you guys

1:04:42

matter to me oh thank you thank you for that that thank you for my christmas present

1:04:50

you're so sweet so i purposely brought tissues because that

1:04:56

this was gonna happen um to me this is what

1:05:06

the world should be about these conversations and the

1:05:12

vulnerability and um the respect as also has been

1:05:17

commented on in in the thread from the social media

1:05:23

that if we all lived in respect of each other and respect of the choices we all make

1:05:30

even if we don't fully agree with the choices still respect the choices that each

1:05:37

other makes i think the world would be truly an amazing place that god would go

1:05:45

thank you you are blessed you know because we respect each other and

1:05:52

by having respect for each other and for the world we live in

1:05:57

we have the ability to make lasting change i call it the star trek version of the

1:06:03

universe where everybody gets along everybody

1:06:09

lives to support and lift each other up and that's the geek in me showing yeah i

1:06:15

wanted to be an astronaut but i wanted to be an astronaut in the star trek way of being you know where everybody's out on the ship and

1:06:21

there's gravity you know it's a whole different way of

1:06:27

being and when we approach people who look different or feel different or believe different that

1:06:32

we are open to a dialogue to understand them so i want to thank you both for sharing

1:06:38

with me your dialogue and allowing me to ask questions that i

1:06:46

i don't know where some of them come from i just say a prayer before every show saying please give me the words that

1:06:54

need to be said the questions that need to be asked even if i don't hadn't thought of them before

1:07:00

wherever they come from i choose to believe that it's about furthering love and light so

1:07:07

thank you both for being here with me thank you so much it's our pleasure thank you

1:07:12

touch so thank you thank you both um now normally with this new method i

1:07:19

would take you both off screen but i'm not going to because i want people to to see you as i say this okay

1:07:27

so in the world as i just said everybody we make choices we make choices in how

1:07:34

we present ourselves and how we allow others to present themselves to us

1:07:40

this christmas week going into 2021 as well i i ask you to ask yourself the question

1:07:48

am i allowing those in my life and myself to fully express who we are

1:07:56

or is some way of being that i'm doing not allowing somebody to be who all they

1:08:02

are and allowing myself to be who i am i'd love to know your thoughts on this

1:08:07

episode thank you to everybody that's been commenting in here the last comment here

1:08:13

it was great hearing you three have this wonderful and uplifting conversation that's what somebody just posted

1:08:19

we choose the labels that we put on ourselves and others and

1:08:24

i hope today that perhaps you've let go of a few labels

1:08:29

remember at the end of the day the right question can change your life so what are you

1:08:34

asking today have a blessed holiday season everyone lead with love and i'll see you next

1:08:40