Arizona Equals Chris

On this week’s episode of the Arizona Equals Conversation, Chris Tompkins joins Jeanne to talk about his book, Raising LGBTQ Allies, and his journey to becoming an educator, public speaker, and advocate. Links & Shownotes * Raising LGBTQ Allies * Chris’s TEDx Talk * Toastmasters * Social-emotional learning (SEL) * Arizona’s “No Promo Homo” law repealed in 2019 * PFLAG * HRC Full Transcript 00;00;00;28 - 00;00;27;23 Jeanne From Equality Arizona. You're listening to the Arizona Equals Conversation. I'm Jeanne Woodbury. Each week on the show, I interview an LGBTQ+ person living in Arizona about their lives and their community ties. But this week is a little bit of an exception. My guest today, Chris Tompkins, doesn't actually live in Arizona, but he grew up here and has done a lot of advocacy work in the state. 00;00;28;15 - 00;01;03;11 Jeanne He has family here and he visits often. So it felt appropriate when he reached out and shared his book to sit down with him for the podcast. And I really enjoyed the conversation that we ended up having. He's the author of a book called Raising LGBTQ Allies: A Parent's Guide to Changing the Messages from the Playground. I've gotten to talk with a few authors on the podcast now, and it's always interesting for me not just to talk about the book and the ideas in their books, but how they ended up making the decision to write a book in the first place. 00;01;04;08 - 00;01;29;19 Jeanne A lot of people will never do that in their lives, so it's super interesting to me. Chris's path to becoming an author is really moving and it also informs most of the ideas in the book — about the closet, but more than that, everything adults decide shouldn't be talked about and the shame it can make kids feel, especially LGBTQ+ kids. 00;01;30;23 - 00;01;55;21 Jeanne It's a wonderful conversation, but before we can get to it, there's very little time left for you to mail your ballot. I'm recording this intro on Tuesday, October 25th. That's exactly two weeks before Election Day, but you really only have one week left to mail your ballot. If your ballot's been delivered and maybe it's still sitting on your kitchen table, now's the time to fill it in. 00;01;56;05 - 00;02;24;02 Jeanne So pause the podcast and go to EqualityArizona.org/vote for our full voter guide. Are you back? Okay. Here's my interview with Chris to listen to on your drive to the mailbox. 00;02;24;02 - 00;02;37;13 Chris Hi, I'm Chris Tompkins. My pronouns are he/him/his and I'm the author of the book Raising LGBTQ Allies. 00;02;38;03 - 00;02;38;15 Jeanne Wonderful. Thanks so much. 00;02;38;15 - 00;02;40;26 Chris Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thank you. 00;02;41;08 - 00;02;58;09 Jeanne When we first got in touch, you were telling me about your book? You sent me a copy, which I thought was really nice. You sent me a really nice note with it, which I don't know, I loved it. I've been reading it and it covers a lot of ground. So I was wondering if you could share a little bit about how that book came to be and how you chose the topics of the book? 00;02;58;10 - 00;03;18;26 Chris Sure. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. And thank you for having me. And thank you for allowing me to be here and talk, to talk about my book and its message and really, it's kind of interesting because I was reflecting on originally how it started is, is from a question that my six year old nephew at the time asked me back in 2015 and interestingly enough, I was here in Arizona, I live in Los Angeles. 00;03;18;26 - 00;03;37;22 Chris I was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona. And so I was coming to Arizona for the Equality in Arizona, there was a conference that they had way back in 2015, and I was giving a workshop at that conference. And so I chose to do that workshop or chose to do that conference versus coming home for the holidays. 00;03;38;08 - 00;04;06;29 Chris So after that conference was done here in Phoenix, I drove down to Tucson and that's when my family had the family function that my nephew asked me a question. And for the listeners who aren't familiar, my mom had a bunch of my family over to her house and a bunch of family friends. And there was a woman, a childhood friend, who was sitting next to me and my nephew, who most kids, you know, they, they think thoughts and they have a question. 00;04;06;29 - 00;04;26;24 Chris And so they'll just ask it, you know, whether they're at the store or in public. And my nephew at the time, his version of whispering was talking out loud. He didn't really have an idea of how loud his voice was. So he ran over to me and whispered/talked out loud, Uncle Chris, is she your girlfriend? 00;04;27;10 - 00;04;54;03 Chris And I had just come from, like I mentioned, this conference LGBTQ related. I was giving a workshop on the importance of self-care for advocacy and how that's a really important factor in doing advocacy work and taking care of ourselves. And, and so here I was and I just kind of was really caught off guard. And so that propelled me on a path of asking questions in my own family about, you know, conversations that they're having with their kids. 00;04;54;03 - 00;05;13;16 Chris Because my nephew was six at the time. And so I just was really surprised by a lot of the parents' response. You know, they felt uncomfortable. There was some discomfort or, I've thought about it, I just don't know what to say or, I don't know what things are okay to say or, Oh, they're not old enough to understand. 00;05;13;16 - 00;05;31;01 Chris And so this whole notion of kind of old enough to understand was curious. And so that really was the impetus of, of the book. And so I started to do a lot of research and just really wanting to encourage because the way that I thought about it, Jeanne, is that there are, I have a big family and there are a lot of kids in my family. 00;05;31;01 - 00;05;55;29 Chris And so it wasn't so much about me. It was about right now in our family, there are LGBTQ kids. And if we're not considering that as a possibility, we're just kind of perpetuating the experiences of the closet, which is like, We don't talk about it or it's They're not old enough. Which underneath that I felt was a little bit of like maybe discomfort around what it means to be LGBTQ. 00;05;55;29 - 00;05;59;16 Jeanne Right, that it's somehow only an adult experience. 00;05;59;16 - 00;06;18;21 Chris Yeah. Yeah. And so I really, in my own experience of teaching and working and teaching social emotional learning, I just really realized like kids are really insightful and they know stuff. And I remember when I was a kid and you know, I was around six when I discovered that I was gay. And at the time I didn't necessarily know or have a word for it. 00;06;19;14 - 00;06;31;08 Chris There was, though, an experience that I was having internally that wasn't being, I wasn't seeing it or hearing it reflected back to me from the outside world. And so I just kept it inside. 00;06;31;24 - 00;06;35;24 Jeanne Is this the kind of book you would have wanted adults in your life to have? 00;06;35;25 - 00;07;04;16 Chris Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. Because I feel like in my experience and really this is kind of the overarching message and my hope of having these conversations and and inspiring families to have conversations and communities is that, you know, kids are really great interpret— like they're really, really intuitive. They're not so great at interpretation. And so oftentimes when children are young, they're so intuitive and they're picking up on so much, they're like sponges. 00;07;04;26 - 00;07;30;12 Chris And then sometimes they interpret things, maybe not as what the adult's intentions were, but that can still leave a lasting mark. And so my hope is to kind of build that bridge of being able to help parents and caregivers and families to think about what it would be like from a child— like really to center the children's experiences, get on their level and be curious. 00;07;30;21 - 00;07;51;01 Jeanne Yeah, I love things that encourage curiosity. I think something that stood out to me … This is a public episode. 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