Purity culture in the UC with Kale

Hey everyone. Welcome back to the blessed child podcast. This is your host, Renee, AKA Ren robot. Uh, just a reminder. If you enjoy this podcast, remember to like share and rate after you give this a listen. In this episode, I have invited a guest kale back to the show. Kale is a 30 year old white nonbinary queer person.

They grew up in the unseated Oloni territory. The San Francisco bay area, kale is currently organizing with U C R T F. They are an internationally anti imperialist ex member educational collective AKA reading group, discussing the unification church as a reflection and tool of fascism. I'm going to attach some contact info for kale and the organization in this.

Kale is organizing with U C R TF and is intentionally inviting anyone interested to join to get into contact with them? A little more about kale. Kale has a master's in clinical psychology from Columbia university, and is currently working as an, as a psychiatric patients rights advocate, providing representation for individuals receiving involuntary mental health care.

This is totally in line with our upbringing and I am so honored to have kale, someone that is such a powerful voice for people that cannot advocate for themselves in an oppressive system. I am so honored. Them on this show. Kale is also going to be in a book publicly talking about their experiences with the mental health and voluntary system, uh, from personal experience when they went into psychosis themselves.

So the book is going to be, your consent is not required. The rise in psychiatric detentions, forced treatment and abusive guardianship by Rob we pawned. So without further ado, let's get into the episode. I will be talking with kale about growing up in the unification church and identifying as a queer non-binary person, a trigger warning.

We do get into talk of yes, you know, sexual development, possibly sexual traumas. Yes, sexual trauma. If you grew up in the unification church, you without a doubt have sexual trauma and, um, yeah, we just get into it. We do a little bit of rambling. I enjoyed this episode, uh, trigger warning. I did get stuck in some flashbacks, And and kale with their psychiatric background was able to ground me and talk me back into the episode.

So this one is really interesting. Um, you know, we might have some viewpoints that you don't agree with and that's fine. We're just creating the language and having a good time. So listen with caution, uh, trigger. You might get stuck in a flashback as I did. And, um, for comfort and we'll talk you back. So here we go.

So welcome back, Kale. Thanks. It's nice to be. Nice to have you, um, I reached out to you L because well, it's pride month coming up in June, is that correct? Yes, it is. Heck yes. Let's celebrate, let's get the unique perspective of coming out. Not only queer, but coming out Mooney and queer and those intersections, because I think that's extremely difficult to do, and I commend your bravery for being able to do that and come talking with us about that journey and that experience.

Thanks. I feel like I didn't have any other tourists just had to go through it and get to where I am. Just gotta survive any way you can, you know? Yeah, yeah. Survive any way you can. And you did. So that's also kind of rare, um, So let's get into whatever you feel comfortable. Uh, we can start with your childhood if you like.

Sure. Let me just start. I'm 30 years old. I grew up in the San Francisco bay area. I have three other siblings. I think my parents moved to the bay area in, I want to say 89 during the hometown promise Providence thing. My dad also grew up in the bay area and I grew up in Concord, um, which is about, I want to say 40 minutes from where the church center was in San Leandro.

Um, as a small child, the church center was in Berkeley, which is a little closer also, I think at that time we were more involved, but, um, hometown Providence. I, I remember this. Uh, so let's go back to your parents are first-generation Moonies. They were matching yes. Matched and blessed in 82. I think my.

Wasn't supposed to be ready for the matching. Like she was supposed to be too young, but they had more brothers and sisters. They, they pulled her in like a couple of her friends from the overflow room. Um, yeah. What a crazy experience, uh, how will not be, oh gosh, how old was she too young? She was born in 54 to 82.

I was 52. She wasn't, she was 28. So she was, I think actually a lot older than we were when they started wanting us to maybe she didn't finish her MFT course or anything like it's seven years until they get, oh, that is seven years. Yeah. She joined about 20 ones. That would have been the end of her seven years.

Yeah. And some, some I know that I think American women had to do like seven years on MFT, like to earn the right to be married Shafiq to a total stranger. A hundred percent. Yeah. And I know that she had a couple of spiritual children, um, One of whom was like matched to one of my friend's parents. Um, but he rejected that matching.

So I'm not sure what happened to him after that, but like that kind of bonded my mom and this other woman. Um, especially when they both ended up back in the bay area. That was my, my best friend's mom. Um, I can't help, but look at this with the human trafficking lens. Like when we say spiritual children, I now think pimping and grooming and getting new targets.

Like that's all I can think. Yeah. And you know, the, um, the new Providence is that you have to have seven spiritual children to get into heaven, the MLM or pimping scheme, where you get new recruits. And my question with that is like, do those, the ones that have like, come and left count or do you have to have like, oh, absolutely.

They were definitely. Even, even if you like, like, like let's say in pimping, like even if you've just get one traffic girl, one time, if you prophet it on her, that one time it's still a profit. It's still, yeah. I'm sorry. Okay. So like, this is all really important. So she did her, your course, she got pulled from the overflow room.

She got matched with your dad at random, married, blessed under Reverend moon. And then the hometown Providence that was specifically named hometown Providence, because moon was like, okay, Uh, the heat's high on MFT and all our activities, like go, go back home, like disappear and, and, and spawn and recreate w we'll call it hometown Providence.

Um, it's really tactically smart, but he did that, but like, we have this lens and I'm trying to peel it off. It's not just, you know, spiritual, chorus, Providence, all this it's actually like him avoiding the law, pulling in. And actually, yeah, it's all very intentional. So this is like two worlds colliding, trying to figure it out so interesting.

And we didn't even get into your childhood yet. I think also with that too, like part of that was. Right out of like religious church jobs. And like these couples were starting to have children. They couldn't afford to feed their children. So it had to be like kicking him out of these church jobs in order to like, you know, actually have enough money for the people who were higher up in the hierarchy, um, to be able to pay for their, their kids and finance their families.

At that time. I think my mom was very focused. Like even when she joined the church at 21, she was like, I'm looking for an intentional community to build a family. And she was really focused on having children, like the first thing. Um, I don't know why they always tell the story, but she, she and my dad say the first thing they talked about when they got matched with how many kids they wanted.

And she immediately said as many as I can have, um, And I know we don't have any direct ties, kinda like the Mormons do that. You're like populating the physical world from the spirit, from the spirit world. Yeah. But it's still like, oh, I'm going to create as many heavenly soldiers as I can in order to advance the Providence, you know?

Yeah. No, I think that was part of the, um, have dominion. And that part of that dominion saying was having kids like be fruitful and they called it being fruitful. I know there's a loaded language, but, um, and then also Reverend moon, you know, had what 13 kids with Dr. Han. So it was definitely, uh, I think it was definitely a conscious, uh, influence from the church to have as many kids as possible.

But, but that also makes me want to ask, how did your mom grow up? Like what was her religious upbringing? Oh, okay. So my mom was, um, I wouldn't say born again because she grew up in the church, but a very poor family. Her childhood started in Oklahoma. I think they went back and forth between Oklahoma and Arizona, several times trying to settle and find farmland essentially.

But the dust bowl in Oklahoma made it very hard to plant any crops I've found out in recent years that, uh, going back in her lineage, um, I think to her, her grandmother came from a family that owned slaves. So I assume that there was somewhere in the rural south and like 30% of whites in the rural south in the 18 hundreds had slaves, regardless of like economic status.

Like they were very poor, but like, they were not poor enough to not own slaves or not participate in that culture. Um, and I think that also really influenced my mom. She really didn't jive. I think a lot with racism. So I think that, like, it's funny though, because like a lot of the whiteness and the unification church is just like appropriating Asian cultures to like fill this void that white people, especially in the United States have created, like as an exchange, like we got rid of our cultures in order to adopt like the American whiteness and the American ideals of like patriotism exceptionalism.

What have you? She was the first person in her family to go to college. She had a full ride scholarship because she was, um, a writer and an artist and she applied herself. She was approached on the, well, I think she actually approached the person, um, who ended up bringing her in because she heard her lecturing about Christianity and she was like, that's not true.

And so the, the recruiter was like, oh, let's talk about it. And then they set up like a later. And I don't, I don't really know what the rest of her course was from there. I know that she did no witnessing and fundraising for many years. I don't think she was a captain, but my dad was, he's also a state leader for certain times.

And he was assigned, you know, Taiwan in the early nineties to go and be a national Messiah to, I think that was 90. I think it was when I was in utero, it would have been 91 and I've asked them about it recently. And I think that was for like six weeks saying how it was, but I've done some research about like Taiwan, um, for like 20 years, they didn't allow any religious expression of any kind before.

The nineties. So essentially since like the early seventies that they hadn't had any religious wow. Contact, never ripe for the colonizing with one young moon, man, all of this is so deliberate and well thought out. It's like, really, who was organizing this? Like whoever was on top of your dad basically just sent like, Hey, go spread my word in Taiwan.

They just opened up their ripe for the picking that's. So it makes you wonder really who's pulling the strings and, and how did they get their Intel? And I'm sure it had to do with, you know, anticommunist efforts in the areas as well. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, we weren't the only cult going in and doing this.

Like I think the children of God were also, uh, doing this, like one of the most similar codes that I've heard is the children of God also did overseas missionary work to spread their about. But anyway, that wasn't, if I think, I think if that had gone better, it's possible. We might've moved to Taiwan. Um, when I was, you know, an infant, but it didn't.

So, uh, I think he got a, a church job at a jewelry store. They, they also owned jewelry, a jewelry chain in the nineties called Christian Bernard. Um, so he worked for them, I think for the early years of my life, but they went under, I'm not sure exactly when I think around 2000 and essentially after that we were, you know, destitute, my mom didn't work.

She had been, you know, coming, bringing us in and out of homeschool, trying different intentional community schools. But I think she really took her new mission as being like the primary caretaker of this little brood of wild feral children. Yeah. So I've, um, I have an older brother and older sister and a younger sister.

Um, the age spread between my oldest sibling and my youngest sibling is eight. Okay. Yeah. Wow. So she was, you got, your pants are very active, doing a lot. And, um, my mom had wanted to be a teacher when she was in university. And I think that, um, she saw the church as a way to apply those skills, especially in, you know, witnessing or in like our, our upbringing.

So I'm fortunate in terms of like our homeschool, because she was always associated with like a homeschool program that was giving us like accurate materials. We weren't getting, you know, Christian science, like bullshit. Like she didn't, she did not believe in evolution, but like she wasn't trying to hide us from like the reality of science per se.

I think. For me, I did a kindergarten in an intentional school. Then she pulled us and I did first and second grade and half of third grade homeschool. And then when I was in third grade, I think there was like a big workshop where Reverend noon wanted all of the, the mothers to attend. I think it was the start of like ancestor liberation.

So she put us in public schools that she could go attend this workshop and following that, and she was like, oh, this is I'm going to try to start witnessing again. Um, so when you were in third grade, your mother got pulled away for the cold. Yeah, I think that she didn't, she didn't do so much again, because we were very poor.

It's interesting because like, we didn't have to tell that my older siblings don't remember help or I think. Aaron. All right. So your, your siblings didn't realize how poor you were. It was the last thing I heard. Yeah. I don't know. I've, it's been a while since I've tried to breach the subject with them.

And I think we were intensely lucky because my dad had it completely cut ties with his family or they hadn't cut him off. So when they moved here, my grandmother helped them buy a house. And before they bought the house, they, she had like a rental apartment. So she was leasing essentially at costs. I mean, we were paying like a hundred dollars a month for, for rent in the bay area.

Emily, it wasn't as bad as it is now, but like, I think that was still at least, you know, a third of what most people were paying for rents. And like I said, fortunately, it brought us farther away from the church community. Like the church in the bay area. Has a school. They, they run also out of the church building and most of the people that lived close enough, went to those schools for K through eight.

So I think that, like, for me, the indoctrination wasn't as intense as many of my peers was your mom with you or was she doing missionary work? I think she was mostly at home. Um, I don't remember exactly what the extent of her activities were. Cause I was a child, but, um, yeah, most of the time she was just staying home.

I think she, she did try to get back into like youth ministry. She was doing like a lot of the summer camps either as like, uh, a cook or, um, for the little kid camp, like the family camp, she was doing a group leader. Um, but just like made me flashback to all the camp memories and seeing all the, what we would call aunties, like slaving away for free in the kitchens and like just being so self-sacrificing so we could have flipped the irony is that they didn't actually have to do that.

If you had money, you could pay so that you didn't have to, you know, work the camp, you could just have a nice experience with your family. Um, yeah. Yeah. I remember, um, I was on the Portland too. And so like signing up for maintenance or like they had little jobs you could do to pay for your stay. Um, like I remember waking up at like five o'clock in the morning to make breakfast for the whole camp at like 12 years old.

Those were the positions available. Like, if you wanted to say, like, I get that part too. Yeah. Yeah. Like at that point, I like, you know, I don't want to say that all queer and trans people have markers in childhood, but like, I was very clearly like a gender deviant child. Like I would say until, until I was in like third grade, like I dressed, however I like, and usually that was to look like a little boy.

Um, I do think I had longer like shoulder length hair, which could still be construed in that way. Um, and like I liked to be outside. I liked to read and always doing stuff mostly by myself. I think that, um, I don't remember a lot of the early socialization. Like I don't even remember having, you know, friends in the church until around the time I started going to school, which was in like third grade.

Um, but I know that I did because there are there photos of us, like, um, myself and other people, my age, as you know, small children playing together, you being like a genderless child is like the ideal Mooney though. Like you were supposed to look for them. You were just supposed to look genderless and like asexual, no bringing no attention to yourself.

So you were, you were perfectly, you were, you know, doing the perfect child, blessed child. Do you think that strikes with you? I would say so, but my mom definitely did try to dress me and my, my sisters in dresses. And I think when I was a small child, I didn't care. Like, I didn't really associate them with being a girl or being like feminine.

Yeah. I did often want my dresses to have shorts on me cause I was, you know, climbing trees and stuff. Yeah, yeah, for sure. But once I realized that they were, you know, feminine, I started like veering away from that and wearing just like shorts I got, of course, you know, to your fingertip Lang and like baggy t-shirts and yeah, I would say in like in fourth grade I started to like develop breasts and it was one of the most traumatic things for me.

Cause like before that I was fine with everything that I was, I was working with. Um, and I don't have a small chest. I have like massive Tootie to excuse my language. Um, And I, I have memories of like other kids, like running up to me and grabbing my boobs and squeezing them and running away and like try and like chase them down and be like, Hey, you shouldn't do that.

But just being like, so enraged that like someone had invaded my space, my body like that. Um, is that, or is that no, those were, were outside. Um, other school friends, friends, you know, I use that term very loosely. Yeah. Uh, but it was interesting because before I went to school, I didn't really have many friends.

I wasn't a very social child again, probably because I innately felt this difference. Like, I didn't feel like I really fit in with the girls or the boys. Um Hmm. But like when I came to public school in third grade, I think because I was like a new student, I was interesting. And I was smart because I'd been doing homeschool with my older siblings.

I was doing work. That was like, Three four, uh, grade levels above where I was supposed to be. Um, so I got like fast-tracked into all these like, uh, gifted programs. Um, but yeah, I don't really, I don't really care about that anymore. Um, it's just as interesting because now I have a critical lens and I can see that they use gifted programs as a way to like segregate, um, public schools, essentially.

So it sounds like you grew up, grew up on the outskirts, but your parents were deeply submerged in the theology. Absolutely. Yes. Even though we weren't going to church every Sunday, we were getting up at 5:00 AM every day. We had to wear white to do pledge, um, Hanukkah every one every morning, regardless.

So, you know, weekday or not, um, and get every morning. So that's what, what time is that? Like everybody. 6:00 AM. Yeah, I think my dad was also doing it with us. Um, okay. So basically, like how does, how do you feel like that influenced how you felt about, I mean, I guess you're just, you're in third grade, you're not even having sexual experiences yet.

Are you like starting to explore yourself? Like how does, so it's interesting that you asked that question that way? The year before that, um, I had been, you know, in a homeschool program, um, that we would meet up with other families and do like arts and crafts or like, um, science projects or field trips.

And, um, I was in like a girl scout troop, and I, um, uh, I had several friends with girl scout troop. One of whom was like obsessed with like playing house. Right. Approximating like, uh, like courting rituals. So she always wanted to play this game where we were like boyfriend and girlfriend, but of course I was always the boyfriend.

Um, and like, I didn't think anything of it. I was just like, whatever, like it's interesting. Cause I had, I didn't have a lot of, um, cognitive dissonance about it. It was because I was like, so submerged in both. It was like, oh, both of these things are just natural in the way the world is. So it's not a big deal.

Um, and I guess like my siblings and I also played house, but we like focus on like the sibling aspect. So like I was an adult, which is weird. And then my brother was a dog and then my, my sister was a cat and my, my youngest sister was, um, she had many roles. Uh, we would call her either. Um, baby gorilla or the dentist among us.

Um, and I don't know what those two things mean, you know, but she was a gorilla and she was in this weird family with us. Um, but with my, my school age friends, at that time, they were playing like, again, like house. Um, and so at one point this girl was like, okay, you're going to meet this Backstreet boy.

And you're going to, um, we're going to go on a date and then we're going to come back to my house and you're going to kiss me. So like, she kissed me against this doorway and I was like, oh, that's interesting. Um, you know, it didn't, didn't hate it. Um, it wasn't something I was like initiating. Um, and I think this is very normal for kids that age they're, they're mirroring, you know, now they're matching behaviors that they're seeing in their parents or in TV shows that they're watching, um, trying to figure out what it is to be a normal person, to be a girl, to be a boy.

Um, And we didn't have TV. So I didn't really have that. I just had, you know, our weird family and, um, what my friends would tell me about some very minimal musical influence, um, and very heavy, you know, Bible indoctrination as well. Um, I think the first time I learned about sex, I was like four years old.

And my, my dad had told my older siblings and they came to me and were like, we know something you don't know. Ha ha. And I was like, you know, an intellectual child. I was like, this isn't fair. You have to share this information with me, tell me what they, what they know. And so my dad like pulled me aside on our porch.

He's like sex is when a penis enters a vagina. And I'm like, what's a peanut. No, it's a male. I don't know if I said that. Exactly. But like, you know, you don't have any, any concept. Cause like I had one brother and he was older, so it wouldn't be appropriate for me to be like undressing him. Um, so I didn't know what a penis was.

Uh, so he told me that and I was like, oh, okay. And I remember asking my parents later to like, okay, I guess I'm assuming they showed me like an anatomical pictures or something like that. I was like, okay, how's it. How does the boy know which hole to put it in? No way, because I understood that, like, there was a urethra, there was a vagina and there was an ADAS.

Right. So I knew that there were three holes, even as like a five-year-old. Yeah, of course. And I was like, and my mom was just like, oh, he'll know. It's like, if you could search number, he might not, but you know, whatever. Okay. Okay. So, so they're telling you about sex, the anatomy of it. Um, what, like explicitly, yeah, very detailed.

Where they telling you anything about the fall of Eve or the parallels of history or anything like that? I think so. I remember. Can you hear me now? Yeah. Yep. I can hear you now. Okay. Okay. I'm sorry. No, no. It's okay. So, um, I got that. How was like the influence of the church on your childhood, on your sexual development?

Cause it sounds like you're on the outskirts for me, the church and my sexual development were like, uh, integrated into, cause I was going to new hope school. So it was like constant. Constant reconditioning for, for believing like the fall of Eve was very literal and all this other stuff, but it just, again, cause I don't remember when these things happen, but they definitely were, you know, using followup man using, you know, for position foundation, like all those tools, like explaining the course of human history and why there's the need for that?

The change of blood line, whatever, all that stuff is like all this gobbledygook that a child cannot, you know, fathomly, you know, critically examine it. Right. Um, but you can have the emotional ramifications of those stories, like feeling the weight of humanity on your desk. Yeah. So I do think that my mom was like, um, all of human history has like convened in order for you to be born.

Right? Like very early on putting that really strong. This is what you were born for. Like, this is the purpose of your creation to use a church term. Right. And talking about like, why you need to save here. And like, even though as a small child, they were explicit about talking about sex. Like, they didn't talk about like anything besides that PI the penis and vagina, like stuff, they didn't get into why dating is wrong.

Cause you know, children aren't dating. I think they did address like crushes. Like, oh, you might have a crush on somebody and you know, while it might feel good, you know, you don't want to like give in to that or associate with that kind of feeling because it'll grow in third grade. By the time you were in third grade, did you identify as a blessed child?

Like would you call yourself a second gen low child? I think so. Okay. So that in it, in and of itself shows that you are already like influence to identify that you were different, that you had to remain pure, that you were blessed. If that's how you identified. I'm sure it was. I mean, it's, it's again, very interesting because like, um, so I've, I've been to grad school now.

I have a master's in clinical psychology and one of my research interests is like, um, the intersections of like queerness and religion. Right. And they found, they have found through repeated studies that children who are queer that grow up in religious households, go through identity issues much earlier because they're being taught this stuff in the church.

Right. And like, queerness is an inherent, it's intrinsic. It's not something you can repress or change. Um, they do repress it and it causes, you know, issues for our mental health and for our self identity. Because of that, we go through a lot of these identity stressors way earlier. So I think that even if I wasn't consciously aware of these conflicts, they were still like battling internally.

Um, and I think I mentioned this in our last podcast that like, as an adult, I've had to do a lot of like re parenting and thinking about what it would be like to be raised as a gender expansive or gender diverse, have any of that shame or like expectations put on you, like just being able to explore different aspects of gender of makeup and not have it be associated with anything like male or female, or like a value determination that like, if you don't stay here and like, get married to a man and have little heterosexual babies, like your parents, aren't going to go to heaven and like, you're going to have be the cause of suffering for God, you know, for eternity until they restore you later on like yeah.

That's not just, Mooney's like all, all queer people that grew up religious confusion and conflict much, much earlier. So I think I'm, I, I must've been going through it at that time. And I would say that like, so going back to the story with my, my little friend who liked to play house, um, eventually came to the point where like, we should have sex.

And I was like, I don't think so. And she's like, oh, we can just pretend. So I was like, all right, that's fine. Um, you're not a boy, so it should be fine. Um, and so we had. Me and my siblings, um, my brother had his own room and knew my sister has shared a room. Yes. We had this like three layer, loft bed. And so me and this girl had had our little date or whatever, and I was pretending to be a Backstreet boy.

So we went up to the loft, like we took off our pants and they were still wearing underwear, but we were like simulating sex. And we're like, oh, this is interesting and weird. And, um, my mom comes in and she just yells the word. No. And, um, I don't remember what happened, like how we got off the loft bed, but essentially she like grabbed my little friends and like took her home and like left me with nothing.

There was no debris, no explanation of like, why she reacted that way. And I think in some senses, because she and I have talked about this at length since I've been an adult, uh, several times. And she was like, I was just trying to like end the situation as quickly as possible. And she thought that that by not talking about it, she wasn't going to like reinforce or shame that behavior.

But that initial. Like action. I think in some ways, like classically conditioned me, like any time that things were going to become physical with a girl going forward, I like have like a really strong adverse reaction. And like, anytime, like someone would invade my privacy again or touch me nonconsensual sexual way, like that girl did with my chest.

And like fourth grade, I would like become enraged and like, try to take action. I was like, I don't want to have that reaction again. I don't want people to, like, I didn't, I didn't realize what I'd been doing, you know? Um, and like, again, it's a completely normal thing that so many kids do and go through.

And to have that, that shame put on it. And that, that strong adverse reaction from my mom, she didn't like make sure that I never saw that kid again. I was still in the same brownie that brownie troop with her. And I still went to her house. Um, the next time it happened and she, she tried to like kiss me or whatever.

I was like, I'm not doing this. And I literally left her parents' house and walked to my grandmother's house that was across like a busy thoroughfare. And this was in like, again, second grade. So I don't even know how old you are. Seven in second grade, like an inflated responsibility, for sure. That sounds like I'm like a core memory, like a blueprint, for sure.

Absolutely. And interestingly from like third point on, I like repressed that I didn't, I didn't think about it. I just completely shut it out of my mind. I was like, that's. Um, but interestingly I, at that time associated, um, because of what my mom was telling me about, like my body and about purity and how we have to like, you know, do things as women to control other people's perceptions of us.

I was like, that was my fault. It was my fault because I didn't stop it because I didn't realize it was happening. Um, and you know, I have to make sure it doesn't happen again, essentially. Like it's my responsibility to protect myself. Um, and at that time I think I also had broken my arm. Um, so my activity level drastically changed, but I remember thinking if I'm not attractive, then no one will do this to me again.

So I started intentionally gaining weight, um, and like, I'm not. I wouldn't say I'm like a super fat person, but I'm like a larger person. And like, from that time onward, like my mom got really concerned about it. And she was like asking doctors, like, why is this happening? Like you can't like, we're not feeding her anymore.

Like, sorry that many more. Um, and they're just eating, you know? And like, I think I was also using, you know, food to manage my emotions because, um, with four little kids and like my mom having that strong, emotional reaction, my mom became someone I can no longer trust with my like emotional health. I couldn't be vulnerable with her anymore.

I mean, there's so much, I want to say, like, I feel like as a parent listening to this story, um, sexual experiences happened with children. Like they that's what happens, but it's not, it creates. It's not something to be ashamed about. It creates an opportunity for you to speak, and I wish your mom could have been there for you.

Cause it sounds like you needed somebody to talk with you about how you felt and to make you feel you safe enough to explore your emotions. And maybe you didn't want to do that. Maybe if she had talked with you about boundaries and consent and the problem, you know, how you felt and explored your emotions, you would have the tools to navigate later in life.

Do you know what I'm saying? Like, but that didn't happen. Everything just got shut down. And so that language was never developed early and also damage your relationship with your mom to such an extent that you couldn't feel safe emotionally with her anymore. And that's like that, that story is so popular.

That happens. That's how so many parents react to situations like that so many times. So it just, it, it really like. Disables people from having the right tools when these situations occur later in life and even processing it with my mom as an adult, uh, like repairing that relationship, she still believes that like, that child assaulted me and it's like, kids don't get this from nowhere.

Like it's possible that like she experienced some other kind of abuse and was trying to reenact that, or like process that like, we can't, we can't know what these kids are going through because we can't ask them anymore. So like, she, she very heavily blamed the other child. Um, and I think she never wanted to talk about it because she didn't want me to have that association that like, oh, my purity was lost or whatever.

But like, I think I internalized that to an extent it's also why I felt so separate from the church for many, many years. I was like, well, I'm already kind of fucked over why continued to invest in this. And like, I wasn't that interested in the idea of marrying a dude or marriage in general. Like I liked caretaking.

I liked the animals. I liked children. But it's just so weird to be like, you're going to get married and have babies. That's your ultimate role in life? Nobody ever asks you how you felt about it. Exactly. And that, that was a blueprint. Oh man. I can just imagine your mom's screaming. No. And then just having that as like a blueprint reaction, like, like trauma, trauma lives in your body, right?

So like anytime you have a sexual experience, it's going to bring you back to that first time. And that, that voice, that shout it's interesting too. Cause like, after that, like, because I wasn't processing it verbally, I became very hypersexual, like constantly touching myself, trying to be alone so that I could be like, what's going on over here.

And like, even I think at that time I was like, this isn't normal. But like if we had conversations about masturbation with kids as early as like. Toddlers are touching themselves constantly. We have to be like, no, go wash your hands. We do that in private and it feels good. Yeah. But like, there are times when it's not, not something to be doing because that's just for you and yourself until, you know, um, you're an adult and you feel ready and able to engage in another person in that way.

You know, I feel like for little kids, it's like, they're going to touch themselves, just make sure they're and then they're in room. Like it's not appropriate when they're in the classroom. Exactly. But like, you know, you're taking a shower, like go, I mean, go figure yourself out a little bit. Um, but, but yeah, with other people, yeah.

You have to teach about consent and boundaries and, and those are all opportunities like to do that. That should be part of our natural language because sexuality is part of our natural oneness, our wholeness. Absolutely. I saw a great tech talk of a mom who has, I think an eight year old and a 10 year old.

And she was like, I did a preliminary conversation where I was like, you know, as you're going from being a boy and to being a young man, your body is preparing and readying itself for you to have sexual experiences. Because, you know, that's how our species evolved, like to survive. Like we have to have sex in order to like continue our species essentially.

And like, it's not something you can control. And as you're walking around doing whatever your, your regular life things are, you're going to see something and it is going to make you excited. It's not going to have any conscious connection. You know, you're not going to have any control over it. And you are going to have interaction.

And like, until you're an adult or until you are ready, you are the person who's responsible to take care of that erection. And its primary purpose is to like, to. Chief friction and then adapt. You await like nothing, nothing about, you know, a PIV, nothing about like partnered sex. Like it's a natural thing that your body does and you need to prepare for it, you know?

And I was just like, wow, where was that for us? You know, like, yeah, you could even keep the purity stuff and the outside stuff and just have that as. Um, but you know, the, the absence culture is, oh, touching yourself as evil, and it's going to make your hands fall off. Or like every time you touch yourself, an angel dies other stuff from evangelical Christianity, not so much, you know, our, our propaganda and conditioning, ours was like, your ancestors are watching all the time.

And if you start masturbating, that just means you're being possessed by sexual spirits. It's like, your body is never here own. I also remember catching my older siblings watching porn, and I was like, oh, interesting. Um, I never, you know, it's interesting cause we didn't have really like a. Um, I reporting culture as siblings, but to an extent, if your sibling has made you mad, you're like, I'm going to get back at you by telling our parents you're doing this thing, it's against the rules, you know?

Um, but that was like my introduction to, to porn. And like, I remember starting to obsessively watch porn, like when I was alone online. And I knew that there were no parents or like siblings around, um, to the point where sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night and like go on to our family computer.

They, they did not tell us the password, but the password was like shim Jong. So it was easy to guess. Um, she would even put like the password hint because my parents would forget or like lose the internet router sometimes. So she would like write herself clues as to what the password was, but, you know, you're indoctrinating these children.

We know what those words mean. Yeah. Um, just got to try it enough times. Uh, if you were watching porn, when did you know you were like, Um, I remember having my first crush in kindergarten and it was on my kindergarten teacher, which is like, again, a normal thing that little kids do. Um, but I don't think I coded that as a crush until I was in like third grade in public school.

And other kids were like, oh, who do you like? And I had to be like, I don't know what you mean. Um, and I had to like, like I had friends that were both boys and girls, but I, I already knew that, like, I couldn't be like, oh, I like this girl. I already knew that even in like the outside world, like, I couldn't say that I like to girl.

Um, and this became like a pattern for me throughout public schools. I would just choose a random boy that I was usually friends with to be like, oh, I like that boy. I don't know, because if he found out, I knew if he found out it might be a big deal, but it was something that I could like deal with as opposed to like actually naming, you know, My attraction to women or to girls.

So you were already protecting yourself from persecution? Yeah, absolutely. And like, I think that it was not that hard because like I can convince myself into liking men sometimes. Okay. Like I'm bisexual. So I like men and women and other genders too. But like as a child, that's kind of why I didn't have a lot of conflict directly around the church.

I was like, oh, I guess if I, you know, I'm going to marry a boy, he must be really special and he's going to be prepared for me. We're going to have this perfect relationship. Like it allowed me to like also disconnect from having to process feelings about crushes and natural attraction and what I actually wanted to do and express myself as.

Oh, and then you've got this like gender fluid unification church environment, um, where they're like, don't, don't be feminine. Yeah. Don't don't wear, make up like don't you're yeah, you have to dress like a boy. Like I will wear on my brother's clothes till I was like 14, 15. Um, and that was fine, but it's a gender fluid environment.

So let's say like, did you go to camps like camp one heart or I did. I went to one heart every year, starting in like sixth grade. Um, and one part's interesting, right? Because the first time you're really in like a group and they're teaching like the fall of man lecture. And for one heart, I don't know if they in recent years have done this, but in the mid two thousands, it was very segregated by gender.

Like the middle school camps you were in groups just of your gender. And then you would sit on opposite sides of the room. Yeah, all your leaders were of the same gender. Uh, and then I think in high school they did integrated groups, but you still couldn't sit next to someone of the opposite sex. You had to always be in a group of more than one of either gender.

So you couldn't be a girl hanging out with a group of guys and you couldn't be a guy hanging out with a group of girls. There had to be at least two of your gender in mixed groups, which I always thought was like very funny. And so did other people that were, you know, in that environment, We used to like prank each other, but it's running up to a group of guys be like, oh no, no, it's a posse Hong Kong.

I want to break it up. I just want to quickly interject, like in the close dynamic, uh, following Robert J Lifton's eight criteria without reform, that is like, perfect. Number one mil you control, which is like tiny details. High control. Like not only were we segregated, but we knew which side of the room we had to go on.

Like I bet I can, I can bet you a hundred dollars the side of the room that you had to go on. It was on the left side. Absolutely. The left is the object side. Exactly. Like that's merely a control. That's like the age that, that takes off. One of the, the biggest criteria for thought reform is just miliue control.

And like, so women or female signed up. Always on the left side, men always on the right. Yes. I remember the group dynamics too. That must've been, so it's the, I remember in these group dynamics, it was very gender fluid, but also nonconsensual touch. Like a lot of that, like, we couldn't identify as, as girls because that was bad.

That was evil. Um, but then also like if you're falling asleep, somebody would just randomly massage you or like, we would have to hold hands for long hours of prayer. Like people I remember praying and getting so uncomfortable having to hold people's hands. Like whoever was next to you, you had to hold their hand and get all sweaty and gross and pray.

And just like, I just remember it reinforced for me, like these ideas of lack of identity. Cause I couldn't express who I was. And also like non-consensual touch is just something you're going to have to deal with. Yeah. It's interesting because. Following that childhood experience. I became very conscious of how I touched other people, because I didn't want to do that to anyone else also.

And like, even though I wasn't, you know, assigned male, um, I was still listening to all this propaganda about like how to prevent like sexual things from happening, how to prevent boys from, you know, objectifying girls and how to like, control that. So I don't think I, I was usually initiating those kinds of touches, but absolutely like being massaged and touched by, you know, older girls, like sounds good.

Even if it wasn't actually like a. Uh, healthy, you know, or consensual dynamic. Like, and I did not want people to know that I was queer because like, if they did, then they would no longer like, engage with me in that way, you know? And, um, I don't know if other camps did this, but at one heart, for sure these, you know, sex, segregated parts of the groups, they would have, like, they would assign you a certain group member to be like your special friends.

And essentially it was like, you were supposed to be really nice to them. And you were supposed to do like acts of service to them and give them gifts, write the notes. And like you would enlist other girls to like, bring them something to do. Like, this is from your secret sister. She loves you. It's just so wild.

Cause like that was like romantic training, like to teach you how to, you know, give of yourself. Essentially I'm conditionally and not expect anything in return. Like again, setting it up for a later dynamic in life in which women are doing all this service and doing all this, this care and support tasks and the man is supposed to, or women give like beauty and the man gives love back and like the give and take relationship or whatever.

I remember that it also setting you up for flirty fishing and love bombing and recruiting and complete subjugation of whatever. Yeah. Like, ignore, ignore how you feel and just continue to do this because it's for the sake of the other person, right? Yeah. It seems like so low stakes play to just assign somebody, a secret sister.

In the grand scheme of things, we're talking about a mastermind cult, like a mastermind, psychologically manipulating cult. So all this stuff starts very subconsciously, very young. So you had assigned a secret sister, basically peer policing too, because like, I'm sure you always had your eyes on your secret sister when, like, I actually had a crush on a girl or wanting to befriend someone.

Like I had no idea how to do that because I had been, you know, in homeschool or in public school where people just decided that they liked me through proximity. Like, I always felt, you know, distanced or alienated from like these group dynamics. Like, I didn't feel like a girl or a boy, like neither of those things felt like they applied to me.

And at the same time I was applying both, both gender roles to myself too, because I was like, oh, well, if I'm experiencing, uh, you know, attraction to girls, like. I have to apply the same kind of paradigm that I already know about, you know, that was just mostly really hard because there's only two clear cut gender roles and assignments and the unification church to they're like be the man and have dominion or be the woman and be fruitful.

So what's, what's in between that. And so you took on both like responsibilities or how did, how did you navigate that? I was like, I it's interesting because I, there wasn't conversation about trans people, like besides, you know, the one thing that river moon said was that transsexuals will be like the downfall of America and blah, blah, blah.

Um, but like I did always really wish that I was a boy like playing video games was actually very gender euphoric for me because I got to let go of the roles that I was assigned, um, in being a girl. And I got to. You know, adventure and like save a princess, you know, like, and like the, I never really knew if I wanted to be a boy or if I just wanted the freedom that being a boy, like granted both inside the church and out,

or are our brothers. Um, because I know that that their, their sexual policing was also so intense and so detrimental as well, but like, they are double allowed more freedom than we were, I would say in terms of their expression, like woman and boy, that was, I can't say how that was. That kind of transitional stage.

I started being very online. I was like a really big reader and around, I would say like 13, I started seeking out other people's opinions about the books that I was reading. And like, I wanted to like talk about them critically. Um, and so I met, met this group of mostly other teens. There were some adults mixed in, um, that were like aspiring writers and that some, some of them were also, you know, religious now retrospectively a good portion of us were queer.

Uh, but it was essentially like a safe space to explore gender and sexuality and raunchy jokes that had nothing to do with the church, nothing to do with mainstream culture. It was like,

and forbidden, but also I felt so liberated in that space. And like, I didn't have to like even engage with my physical body. Right. Because it's just. Your mental projections in conversation and how you represent yourself. It was the first time I really had control over my image and what people were perceiving me as.

Um, how did you meet these people? Yeah, there was a book that I read that I, um, was very critical of. Um, the book was Aragon by Christopher Paulini, it's essentially a star wars knockoff with dragons. Um, so it's like a chosen one narrative. And I was like, this is, I don't remember exactly what my critique was, but I was frustrated with the book and like the sequels.

And so I started searching online for the book, title, looking for reviews and things. And then I found a CMDB forum for, uh, an upcoming screen adaptation of that book. And other people were talking about how they disliked the book there. And, um, one of these people. Um, their internet name, which was silver, uh, silver, um, created this separate messaging board specifically for providers and for people who wanted to talk about writing as a craft and reading and like look at those things critically.

And, um, so I joined the forum and then they had group chats, you know, almost every, every day. Um, so I started like engaging in the forum and they were like, oh, why don't you come to a chat? So I started coming to these chats every day in the afternoon after school. Um, and they would go, you know, long into the night.

Like I think that's where a lot of my sleep issues started was staying up late to talk to these people. Um, and silver and I, like, I would say I was really invested in talking to this group of people for like, from 13 to like 17 and silver. And I had like a weird like prodo prototypical, like relationship where we were joking about dating and being girlfriends.

We weren't serious because they were a Mormon and I was wasn't voting. And we talked about that too. Um, but yeah, it was, uh, we would often both be in the chat room would be talking, you know, privately the entire time every day. And so, like, I think that without intervention, I probably would have fell out of the church naturally as like, I was accepting my sexuality, but in like a sophomore year, I would say my best friend's older brother attended NGA.

And that was the second year. And they were starting like a summer program that was going to be 40 days long. They needed bodies essentially. Cause it was a new program. No one had heard of it. Siblings were often the first people. I, I spent so much time in their household as a kid, but they kind of were like, oh, okay, Phil, would you like to come to this program?

So my best friend and I went and, um, that's really the first time I was, I felt accepted at the church and like also love bonds. And NGA is interesting because they use like the regular cult stuff or they did when I was there. Um, in later years they divested and removed, um, anything, money from curriculum or programming or scheduling, but, um, they add like breakthrough activities and like self-help jargon in order to utilize like emotional experiences as transformative.

So they were doing things like bungee jumping, like high ropes courses, things that like really accelerate, like emotional. Uh, like in your body and then using the emotion, um, as like an internal goal, like fundraising, you always had like an internal goal in addition to your external goal, and you were using whatever experience you were going through as a way to like, get to that internal goal.

Um, and I had like this transformative experience where I was digesting, like my family dynamics and I had a lot of rage toward my older brother, especially because, um, he, he started using drugs, I want to say at like 13. Um, so at this point I was 16 since it'd been like five or six years into the course of his drug use and like his struggle with the church and like my mom, I want to say at the time I was like 12 years old, started relying me, relying on me heavily for emotional support.

And they call this, you know, parental education where an adult puts, you know, Ah, what's the word, not even unnecessary, but like really harmful expectations on a relationship with a child and requires them to do emotional labor in order to get their own needs. So my mom was using me essentially as her therapist and her way to process her emotions, dealing with both of my older siblings struggles as they were, you know, forming and leaving the church.

Yeah, I think that's like emotional dumping, but the worst part and that I call it emotional abuse is because they dump on you and then nothing actually changes. Like they just keep dumping the same garbage on you without breaking the cycle. So it's just like trauma, traumatizing and repetitively. And if she was like, oh, when you think about this, if I had been, you know, emotional, mature, I could've been like, well, you can't control what he does.

You have to set an emotional boundary. And then she, maybe she would've done that. And then things will be different, but it was like the same conversation over and over again where I was angry because he was like, obviously harming her, but then it was turn harming me. And, um, I think I let go of a lot of that during the, this MBA program using these emotional experiences.

Um, so I had like a net positive experience. Like I made friends at that time that I I'm still in contact with folks who have exited the church, um, who I care quite deeply about still, you know? Um, but like that summer, like convinced me that like, oh, maybe I do need to like, you know, get with the church more.

And there was like an older sister on the program. Talking to this boy extensively at school who really liked me and had liked me for several years. And he was starting to like make physical moves on me. And so, like I said, this like at the beginning of the summer program or whatever, and she was like, you have to break up with him.

You have to tell him, you know, I don't want this. Uh, we can't continue this anymore. It's not part of my religion. I'm going to have an arranged marriage. And like at first I was like, no, but this, this pretty unkind older girl that I really liked was, you know, influencing me. So eventually I was like, okay, you're right.

I am misinterpreting this, this boy that I mostly find is like an annoyance, even though we're friends and I liked him. Um, and so I broke things off with him and I was like, oh, I really got to like commit myself to the church. So I've got to like find God and do all that stuff, you know? Um, and none of it's real, it's all controlled.

It's just, you know, keeping you in a. But without that intervention from her, I think that I might've just gone back to public school and continued that relationship with that boy or ended it and you know, who knows. And I was like, I gotta, I gotta get out of public school. I've wasted my time here. I want to go into NGA full year.

So I, I pulled myself from public high school and I finished, um, my last two years of high school in. Did they make it independent study? They made you want to do this. I'm sure. Like you really wanted to escape public school to go to NGA because let me guess that made you super shameful about your life at home, that you had built for yourself and then offered you like an alternative route.

So like with a lot of gumption, you were like, yes, I feel so manipulate. Like looking back I'm like they manipulated you to think that what you had was bad and that your individual existence was not living up to some ideal. The love bombing from this older girl, which you know, is my natural preference is towards women like attraction wise.

Um, I was like, oh absolutely. This boy doesn't matter to me like this. This is so much more good and normal, not even processing like that attraction piece. And I'm sure again, it was more of that nonconsensual touch where she's like touching my shoulder or holding my hand as we're pressing sing this emotional.

That you know is how they got people. I don't know when or how our parents like trained us to do that, but that was ingraining. It sounds like you got converted. Uh, like again, like for me, my identity as a second gen was solidified because I went to all the schools. But for you, it sounds like you kind of lived on the outskirts and then, and then got witnessed to, at this MBA program, like, like they won you over.

Even at that program, I thought that, you know, my close friend might've been queer because she had like this deeper relationship with another woman that was on the program. And I was like, oh, maybe I could continue to like be queer in the church. You know? So I made like getting onto NGA. Full-time like my.

Yeah. I want to say like, my dad accused me of being, um, bisexual with my best friend. Um, I, I'm not denying that. That was some of the dynamics that were at play, but also like I was, I don't have the language for it because it was constant state of trauma, but I was also really depreciated of love and physical touch and being queer, like joking about being queer in the church was almost a safe place.

Like, but, but only joking. Cause if you were serious, then you get sent to champion. But if you were just like, oh, I'm just going to, like, I would just sit on other girl's laps. I would like be like, Hey, you want to take a shower with me? Like in GAAP, like I would have ice cream parties in the shower room with like a bunch of other naked girls and like, yeah, no.

And we're in chump young. I mean, we had to take showers together. So why not make it like a little bit queer and a little bit of fun and playful, but, but if anybody likes suspected you of being. I can't imagine what that was like. Cause like I, I came to terms with my sexuality in a very cognitive dissonance way.

Like I was completely separated from my sexuality. So I would see my body doing these things, but I wasn't actually there in my body doing those things. Does that maybe you were trying to disconnect from our bodies and to not process as a whole person. Yeah. Like I remember playing shower tag, but like if I had been in my body and be like, oh, this is a sexual experience.

It wouldn't have been, it would have been high stakes, like too high stakes to be present in the moment. I was realizing that there were some experiences I had with like close friends from my local community that like looking back, I, I can be like, oh, that person was making a pass on me. Like if I had been open, we could have like cuddled or made out at that time.

But like that was so forbidden that like, and I was already, you know, consciously controlled. My interactions with other women and like how I related to my friends, especially my best friends, uh, interestingly grew up in a family that didn't touch at all very rarely would they hug. And it was interesting because when she came on NGA, when we were on NGA together, she liked became an incredibly touchy.

And like, to the point where it was uncomfortable to me, because I was witnessing this dramatic shift. And like, I was like, oh, I thought we were both in the place where like, we didn't do that. There's also different types of intimacy. Everyone. I just wanted to pause it real quick to explore the types of intimacy that I'm aware of to give language, um, to further expand beyond just horizontal, vertical conjugal and parental relationships that the unification church espouses constantly.

So intimacy can be broken down to many different types of intimacy that are outside of sexual and romantic intimacy. There's also physical intimacy, emotional intimacy, creative intimacy, intellectual intimacy, aesthetic intimacy, and then there's also experiential intimacy. So those are just some types.

Those are just some branches just because you're attracted to someone or have an intimate connection with someone doesn't mean it's sexual or romantic. Um, and then we can go into the types of sexualities, but we won't here. I just wanted to branch off and pause real quick, because I think that's important.

It's good to have a language in your toolbox. Then once you were raised in a cult, um, it can help you. Reality a little bit differently. So there you go. Let's get back to that episode there, you know, there's like romantic or sexual or just, just intimate playfully. Yeah. So I think we're all like also exploring all those dynamics, but man, I'm just having, I'm like in a flashback right now.

No, it's, I'm just like skipping through all these chapters of my life of sexual development. And like, I just kind of realized, like I was never really in my body because it wasn't safe. It's so terrible. And like imagining what it would be like to have those experiences now as an adult and like realizing all of this stuff, didn't have to be here.

All of these blockages that you have to process through and like retrain your body to learn because like, Just like that mom said to that boy and that tick talk about her son. You actually have to learn how to engage your body sexually, because if you don't, you're not going to know what to do. Like you, you masturbate in order to like, know what you like so that you can share this experience with a partner later on or multiple partners, you know, whatever you want to do.

Um, I will say also this is kind of an aside. Um, I don't believe that monogamy can really exist unless you examine why you're choosing to be monogamous. And you're choosing that consensually, like without any thought control without any behavioral control, it's like a autonomous decision. Like I recognize that I have the possibility for multiple attractions at the same time.

Right. I recognize that those things kind of come up, but I don't want to jeopardize what I have with this person, unless we talk about it. That link when those other attractions come up, And until that happens until those conversations happens, these are the rules I'm going to engage by. Like, because we were never taught what consent is and how to navigate consent.

We never knew that. Like, you can tell people when you don't want to be touched because you weren't allowed to do that because like, if you're falling asleep and someone massages your shoulder is like, you can't tell them to bug you. No, no, you couldn't. That'll start so young. Wow. It's like the powerless, this helplessness.

I feel like I learned about my sexuality growing up in the church and it, it all did start around the workshops and like these weird dynamics, this control, this identity assignment. Prescribing these things means that you'd never get to freely choose them. So maybe later in life, you know, you're able to be like, what do I like about being a woman or a girl?

And then you can like consciously choose to do those things if that's what you want, but not giving people the breadth of opportunity to try different things that are, you know, associated with different vendors. Um, it's just so damaging and like, even like the idea of like women as objects as like someone who receives like the sexual initiation of men, it's not, it's not realistic.

It's not like a healthy sexual dynamic for a woman to lay there. You know, like, like a fish and not engage and not be, you know, it's so funny because the church terms are the first thing that pops in my head and not get, you know, being involved with, give and take in a sexual relationship.

Yeah. And when you objectify someone, you you're treating them like a thing. They're not a person anymore. And like that was so ingrained in the church doctrines that women are objects for men to obtain. Yeah. And, and, um, when you can objectify objectify, somebody like that, then that then you create the power dynamics of oppression and oppress, right.

So it's just the toxic cycle and that's something I'm still healing from. Um, so yeah, this conversation isn't easy. I don't think it could be easy to like face these things and wait up to talking about this. You know, I've talked about it at length, you know, with different friends, partners, therapists, but it's very different to be a public person regarding, you know, formative sexual experiences and how they were damaging.

Yeah, a lot of learned helplessness. And I keep saying that just because like, I am reflecting on how I felt in those camps and with all the, even an en-suite like that was sexual assault, but having this like state of yeah. Helplessness, what is it called? Um, yeah, the listeners don't know the history of that term.

It comes out of, um, this observed condition a psychologist had in which he had allowed that was at basement level. And he had dogs that he was doing a testing on. I don't remember what the context of his initial plan was. Um, but these dogs were trapped in cages and there was a. And essentially the water kept rising and it initiated trauma responses and these dogs to the point where they couldn't even, if the cage door was open, then they then did these other experiments where they would, you know, initiate like a shock.

And they would have either a closed cage or an open cage where the dog could escape. And if the dog could go on, because even if the cage door was open, they would shut down and they would cower and just receive the shock rather than trying to escape or leave the traumatic experience. Um, because prior to that, there was no escape, you know, and we were raised in these conditions where there is no escape.

This is your identity. This is who you are and you cannot leave. And like that was ingrained in us that learned helplessness. Like you cannot take agency to go, oh yeah. And that, I was just reading the book. Um, your body keeps score and that's on page 29. Actually the, the, the guys who did that experiment, Stephen Meyer and, um, And I might be butchering it, but yeah, it's called like a state of inescapable shock.

So like, no matter how much you're abused as a, as a, as a human in the unification church, you're not going to leave because if you were abused in a, in a way where you couldn't escape, then your body's been blueprinted to react with helplessness learned helplessness. Ooh. I'm just like, whatever, whatever we've developed as coping mechanisms, like those are not your faults.

Like the coping mechanisms you have, have gotten you through to this point. And you can now decide whether those are still healthy coping mechanisms for you, or if they're interfering with your ability to make, you know, cognizant empowered choices. Like if you're experiencing like a panic attack or like you're shutting down emotionally, you can't necessarily continue to move.

But like, if you're in the middle of a workshop and you're shutting down emotionally, that's protected. Like that's keeping you from direct harm, you know? Yeah, though. I'm sure like if I'm having flashbacks right now, that listeners that are also second gen, I'm probably having flashbacks right now. So it's probably a good time to like, talk about coping mechanisms if that's okay.

Um, I want to say something that helps me a lot, you know, I'm going to do it right now. Is that feeling activated? Yeah. Is, um, creating by directional like conversation throughout your body. So you can take your hand and put it out on your chest. You're it doesn't matter which order, you know, we're not Mooney's here anymore.

And just put both hands on your sternum. You can also put one hand on your chest and the other under your armpit and just put pressure there. You can also tap or rock. Those are all, you know, biological, um, coping mechanisms that we use and children use in order to like create safety within the. So anytime you're rocking, that's, that's helpful.

Cause it's, again, engaging that back and forth singing does the same kind of thing because it engages both your brain and your body together, but making conscious space for your body and the communication across it. Also taking action to like interfere with the neurological networking. That's already been ingrained in you and like changing it up and just observing what your body does.

When we talk about these traumatic things. Uh, I think just the act of observing and intuitively changing the direction in which things go is healing. The trauma. Yeah. That too is engaging the different parts of your brain. So in our brain, the left side, right, is the analytical side. The, the language side and the right side is where the emotional centers are.

And like when we're in a trauma response, there's no communication between the two. Like our brain activity is decreased. And so you want to do something that elicits the communication between those sides. Um, something that works for me really well too, is a physical weight. Like if I'm experiencing a panic attack or anxiety, like I have a, um, a chain that I wear, that's pretty heavy, like, um, a couple of punk chain, whatever.

Um, and also like weighted blankets and like just that weight and having something to like touch, um, can really ground you. And like this reality, you know, what you just said is that your right brain, when you're in activation with emotions, you're right by your bright brain takes over, which is like your emotional and artistic creative side.

Um, and your left and your, your speech center, disengages your Broca's area from, you know, I'm reading this book. So. Got it in my head right now, but you're broke this area shuts down. So when you're in an elicit emotional state, your, your speech actually shuts down. But a way to counteract that natural occurrence is talking through your feelings and giving words to what your sensations are, just this sensations and like re-engaging your left and right brain and building a bridge between your emotions and the language and that like consent you, I think.

And, and get you out of that elicit emotional state and back into an equilibrium between your, your brain function. Like literally because you saying that it brings up stuff about MTA. For me, like I was saying, I use these emotional experiences and like breaking through your emotions with words and with these physical actions in order to like heal, um, or to like in code safety or what have you, it's make you feel empowered.

And like, just thinking about how the church even uses like real practice. Stuff in order to legitimize itself, you know, that's part of why MGA was so popular because it works and people did feel healed. And like, that was part of the initial reason why, um, Jeff had said he started the program that he wanted to offer something to like the second generation who he saw were, were like traumatized and like struggling with their identity and like how they got here.

Um, like I haven't spoken to him in many years, but I think that's what he expressed his intention was over and over again. Um, to us, at least with real self-help and empowerment, but still you were given a core mission. It was still not your personal transformation. Yeah. And like how muni is that to like transform yourself to change the world?

Yeah, this is a trip. It feels like we keep going down the rabbit hole. I feel better. I feel less activated just because we spoke about what was going on. How do you feel, do you feel as activated as we were, when we were diving into the camp experience? No, I'm okay. Actually, um, you know, sitting on a bed.

Okay, cool. Cool, cool. So we dive pretty deep into the camp experience. Um, I wanted to ask you a question about coming out, you know, there's the term coming out in society and there's coming out queer. There's also kind of coming out with your gender, but for you, you had the extra layer of coming out of not being in the church, like coming out of being a second gen yes.

Blessed child. So that's like a lot of layers. Do you feel safe to dive, like to explore how that made you feel? Yeah. So when I exited the church, I feel like ingrained in other, other public society type thing. Like I had like ideas about what I wanted to do with the job. And I had this supportive network of friends, like complicated, cause like coming out for me in the church, like as queer was over my MBA year, I had started a relationship with someone right before I, I joined the program.

So I had already committed to be there. And I had started this new, new thing and I, I slowly started, you know, telling people what I was going through. Cause I was spending so much time, like speaking around, trying to talk to this ex of mine and it had different reactions. Uh, the first person I came out to in the church, I believe was faith yen.

And faith was like, oh cool. People are just gay. That's fine. And it was like a complete non-issue. And I think that that made me feel, you know, comfortable and safe enough to tell other people and to not expect the worst every single time. Um, But within the, within that, that year, um, I was outed to several different people at different times, um, where, you know, information about me was shared non consensually.

No one ever asked me if it was okay to like report these things upward. And like, I think eventually when I came back from NGA, those things or those, those questions about my sexuality started being, you know, raised by the general church community. And like one of the biggest things that pushed me away was this, this woman that was involved with almost all of the education programs at the bay area church, uh, came to my mom, was like, oh, it's such a shame.

You know, people are asking about kale and you know, they're very interested in them, but you know, they're not interested in getting matched. And that was kind of the framing. And I said, this. You know, after church during like the social hour or whatever, uh, when they're eating bagels. Um, and like, just wait, I don't know.

I don't even know, like, because I just removed myself from church events after that, like yeah. It's so fucking brave that you came out as queer in the church in NGA. Like you did that. That's cool. Like, that's very cool. That's a lot of, I have a lot of respect for you. Okay. Yeah. Like I said, the reaction was very like, faith was like awesome.

I had queer friends, you know, in high school. Um, I don't care. Like that's such a cool thing to know about you. And, um, I can also, at that time I had started processing like my early sexual experience, um, with that other girl. And like people reacted and said like, oh, you're queer because you have.

Including like the leader of NGA. Uh, and he tried many times to have conversations with me where he was like, this is what you're queer. You need to like cut off from that relationship. You need to heal whatever is broken in terms of your sexuality in order to come back to like a default CIS heterosexual, like norm to like, overcome that trauma.

Because that's also what they're always trying to do is overcome the trauma. Right? Um, that's so they, they look at it like a, like a brokenness, like a flaw or a fault, and that's like the wrong framework. It's just what, it's your sexuality. That's a lot of like baggage and a lot of shame to put on somebody for no reason you can change.

Like if you're dealing with these feelings, you know, first of all, most people who identify as heterosexual have had some kind of queer context where queer thoughts, you know, it's just part of being human. Like this is a normal experience. And it's, you know, diverse and interesting and fun, but we have so shut down the conversation about like sexuality to the point where people don't want to address like experiences they've had that have been like, you know, inciting in like a queer sense, like, yeah.

Yeah. And I think that's what the Judah like the mostly Judeo Christian influence of one man, one woman for life. Um, cause that's not just a new new term. Um, and just having just really stark black and white gender assignments for everybody. And that no one was like, let's send them to chunk young either in terms of my sexuality or my gender, because I know some that happened to so many of us queer people in the church.

And I, I want to give space and recognize that we don't know who we lost. We don't know what people have gone through. We don't know what kind of intense. Conversion therapy and the church has caused, like, we don't like, we, there might've been many people who, you know, took their own lives that completed suicide because they couldn't reconcile, you know, who they felt, you know, at their core, um, with the church teachings and programming, like we talk about the dual consciousness that's instilled and like how harmful it is to like integrate those two halves and to like, recognize that like, even if this was, you know, implanted in me, it's still something that I've dealt with, you know, in terms of the church.

Um, it's still something that I've had to like unlearn and unpack. Um, and I wanna, you know, give a shout out to all my queer and trans siblings out there. And I want to say that I'm so proud of all of you and if you're, if you're struggling with it right now, like we're here for you. You can reach out to me and I can get you into contact with folks who are ready to talk about this with.

You don't have to be alone in this. And I don't know what kind of resources the church is offering you, but we are here. And, um, we have these experiences and this knowledge, and we want to share it. We don't want anyone who's young and struggling to have to go through what we went through alone, because we don't need to, you know, to go down these paths of self shame and hatred, you don't have to accept that.

Other people tell you whether that's from the church, what is that's from, you know, us imperialism that kind of conditioning. You tend to look at your beliefs and the things that affect you and say, who is this serving? Does me believing that I'm inherently sinful and dirty and wrong helped me in any way.

And if not, why are you still believing that have some self-compassion like, it's hard. And have you worked okay. We're hearing we're ready to do it together. You know, don't have to, you don't have to be silenced anymore. I love that. Who is serving? I love that. That's an insightful question. Every single belief or thought you have, you can trace that way.

Yeah. Is my life better for believing in this? If it's not, then why am I still believing in this R weigh the pros and cons it's. If it's not in line with who you are, it's usually something you should be able to toss human freedom and liberation. Does it liberate others or does it, you know, force them to strain and silence themselves?

Oh yeah. This is not unfair to territory. If you're walking down this as the second gen, I'm thinking you're alone. Like w we're here. We've gone through it or still unpacking it. Um, hopefully being brave and showing you how it's affected us and where we're coming from and how we're still healing can help you avoid the landmines.

We stepped on. We also wanted to bring up part of the reason we don't have a blueprint as to how to do this is because so many of our queer and trans elders were exterminated in the aids crisis. Like the U S government did not intervene and put effort into saving our lives and to saving our elders lives.

And we would have much more rich and diverse communities, but we lost an entire generation. Um, and those that survived our offer and only, you know, the folks who had wealth and access in order to get to that point. And if people did survive, otherwise it was through an incredible community efforts, you know, to care for them.

Um, like lesbians often, um, we're the only people who are willing to caretake dying, you know, gay men and trans women. And like, there's this, this even dichotomy that's that we assume from the way that like mainstream culture presents queer and trans communities is just completely a historical. And out of, out of context, it's an outsider looking in, you know, it's not, it's not real.

And these people still exist. They're still living. That was 30, 40 years ago. Right. And like, you can find them, like, I absolutely encourage you to look into even the mainstream and look for people who are queer and who are thriving, you know, and who will not let people demean them or belittle them because of who they've chosen to marry or how they've chosen, chosen to dress.

Like definitely, you know, seek out others and, you know, just tell people, you know, I'm struggling with my sexuality. Like, can we talk about this? There are support groups online. Even if you don't want to go to a physical space, there are people out there who are waiting for you. Yeah. I, I love that you're bringing up that this is not new.

It is not like, I think we were, there was propaganda in the, you know, 50 years ago to make America think that being queer or transgender was like a new epidemic. Um, but I mean, in multiple cultures, in multiple religions being trans or queer is part of the culture. I'm specifically learning about it on Tik TOK with the, the language of two-spirit, which is like the third, the third gender and native American culture and, and finding out how, how normal it is.

That this, that being queer and transgender is a human trait for things at the beginning of man. I mean, it's normal. Sexuality is fluid and it's always been fluid and it's the psychological warfare that's been going on in the last hundred hundreds of years to make us think that it's not normal. And it's, it's, it's like a, it's a cult tactic to instill shame in a very human aspect of our, of ourselves for control.

I would say because the money is really latched to like this idea of like the traditional family, right. But even up to a hundred years ago, families weren't incorporated in his kind of way. Like there were large networks of, you know, aunts and uncles and things who were there to support families and like families lived in community.

They didn't live in these individual units. And I think that. Our indigenous, you know, uh, communities can really show a blueprint of how, you know, we could create new things. Um, don't intrude on their, you know, experiences or try to name that for ourselves. But like, there's something very special about that.

And scientifically that talk about the idea that, you know, queer and trans people exist in order to provide that bigger net of community. If there are fewer children, then you have more adults available to take care of those children, you know, Shared a load or whatever. Yeah. And that's seen in nature as well.

I mean, there's multiple animals and birds that are gender fluid for many different reasons. Um, like the EAL, I think there's a Turkey, there's all these different in nature. It shows that the, you know, gender fluidity is natural, um, for survival for community and for pleasure, it's just, it's the light. A lot of those creatures can literally change their sex exactly.

In order to make up for the lack of, you know, same males in a group. Um, I think mostly amphibians can do that, but, um, you see, you know, lions, there are, you know, female lions who end up growing names and. Uh, displaying like male behaviors. It's like the church has all these lives that they've told you about what nature is like this dualistic nature, like nature.

Doesn't do dual meter. Doesn't do a binary, like all on the spectrum. Yeah. The spectrum first are vital for good reason also for, you know, play and socialization. Like socialization is a huge part. That's overlooked in the church too. If you want to go further down the rabbit hole of gender fluidity in nature, look up the term parthenogenesis that's right.

Parthenogenesis yeah. Have fun with that. Let's go back to the episode. It's just, it's an incredible, it's not something to be ashamed of, um, is pretty much what we're getting at it. And, uh, and trying to undo the church rhetoric of, you know, you're flawed. If you're queer, it's not a flaw. And that was going to bring us back to, to like the U S culture, right?

So the U S culture of imperialism exists to uphold and enforce capitalism. And you can make the most profit out of people if they are separated from community, if they are individual families, right? If you break down the community into these small units that then have to depend on each other, for everything, the stakes become much higher, like you can't like rely on an extended family member to taking your kids.

You can't rely on know, taking time off from your job. Like you have to keep working and you kept to keep going because there was no one else. And you have all of these bills that they're, they're forcing on you. Um, and it's interesting to think about our parents too. Having rejected those ideas. And then still being morphed back into them.

Like I think that the church in many other Colts in the seventies scooped up peop revolutionary, who were rejecting what they were experiencing and seeing like, especially with the Vietnam war, especially with the nuclear family, especially with like this puritanical ideal and they just, you know, tweaked it a little bit.

And they were like, oh, the free sex, free love movement. It's like, know so negative and it's destroying the family. But like, there are so many people who grew up in hippie communes that were also went cold. Um, you know, it's like the family is always going to be there no matter what, because we do pair in order to create children in order to have deep, intentional, you know, bonds with others.

But like not to this extent, not to the extent where you cannot leave, not to the extent where you're bonded from them. No, you're not like we were talking about in the previous security culture episodes. You're not a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for a class soda or a piece of bubble gum. Um, and all of that is designed to control you and to keep you plugging into this system that exploits you, whether it's the church or capitalism or another, you know, like MLM or other, you know, high control group, man, this is good conversation.

There's there's so many, there's so many specifics from like my life story. We've got suspects, bring your life generalizations about the church, that generalize to greater society. I mean the whole shebang, all connected, like in America, there's a sickness. There's, there's an illness. I mean, one out of 10 people are on Prozac, but I guess it don't, there's, there's something wrong with our society.

And I think you're really poking at a lot of the core issues that we don't talk about. Hey, quick fact check. Just because I'm a nurse and it's bothering me. It's actually one in 10 adults in the United States has been on a antidepressant is on or has been on an antidepressant. I just use Prozac as a general term, but let's get back to the episode.

Oh, like mental health. I work in mental health now. I want to say mental health or mental illness, is it predictable response to stress? If you stress the body in certain ways, the mind follows. If you tell someone that like the world is failing and we're going into like climate collapse and then no one does anything about it, they're going to be traumatized.

Like if you deprive someone of sleep of regular food, um, putting them on meds and taking them off frequently, their brain is going to be in an altered state of reality. Like we've all experienced sleeplessness and the church, like you start to hallucinate, you start to like be in between sleep and wake, like, and at that point you're very suggestible and influenceable and, and our brains are, you know, these crazy sensory processing machines.

Um, but they're not proceedings, right? They're, they're trained. They're they're animal. Making me think that, like I just had this thought with learning about the terms of learned helplessness and animals with Stephen and Martin I'm with their experiment. I'm starting to see that on a wider scale. Like that's, what's going on with us.

We're alert. We have this inescapable shock in our society and we're being manipulated like petty, like animals conditioned to being helpless in a state of inescapable shock. And it's, I don't know this isn't a political podcast, but there is something larger. I play about political stuff. When the church was funneling all of this money into the right way, who, you know, does not invest in mental health care again, mental health care is individualizing a collective problem.

That's why they have all these prescriptions that they're trying to treat people with. That don't solve the root issue. You're treating the symptom, not the cause. And the cause is this exploitation. Disconnection from reality from others in humanity, this propelled in humanity for profit. Um, just, uh, yeah, I mean, from pedagogy of the oppressed, from oppressing and being oppressors were losing our humanity, or we never had it, we have to evolve towards it and there's a serious illness and it's being treated with capitalistic agendas and it's not actually being fixed, it's being profited on.

And the only way to like overcome those things is not individually. It has to be collectively, you know, and for me, I have to believe that other people are also seeing the system and seeing the church and seeing, you know, unhealthy dynamics for what they are like I'm we were raised to believe that we're special and chosen.

Right. But like, we're not, um, we're just human and we're all just trying to learn and do better. Um, so seek out your fellow fellow, man, you got your fellow person. Who's also doing this work. Talk about these things. I know the church has like this, the shutdown. Cool. Share that. You just don't talk about these things because like you might be saying, or like coerced or forced into conversion therapy, like we were saying before, but seek out people who are safe and, um, unpack these things together.

And I got my coming out, but I think that's why people are so obsessed with cold fall with them. There's been a huge craze of talking about cults and cult, podcasts and documentaries. And, and I think it's because cults like reflect the extremism that people can't see in everyday culture. And it's, it's so interesting.

I just I'm, I'm glad we got here, but yes, we will get back to the subject of, uh, let's go back. Okay. Let's go back to. Yeah, coming out. Right. We were talking about coming out queer gender and as a second gen pile on NGA, man. Ooh, what a tantalizing ending? We actually have another hour and a half for you guys.

I have to get it together, get some episode or edit it and I'll release it as soon as possible. I absolutely loved what we ended on. It was delicious. Um, one of the big things I don't talk about is my experience as a nurse seeing, yeah. A lot of these, you know, we treat the illness, but we don't treat the cause.

And, and I view the medical system, almost like a cult. I don't say this a lot, but it's a very information controlled, uh, area. I mean, you can't even find out how much the surgery costs. I don't even know. I can't even tell you. And I'm the nurse. Um, it's, it's, there's a lot of information control there's I mean, there's HIPAA.

There's a lot of, um, there's a lot of control and there's a lot of profits and, and you know what, there's a lot of human suffering, all of it's about human suffering and profiting on human suffering. So actually the reason I, I do not do full-time nursing is because, um, it's a little bit triggering but the hospital I work at is absolutely amazing.

And it's not their fault for being triggering. I have the best crew that I work with the most intellectual, um, empathetic nurses that you could find in the state of Texas. I work with such a good crew. It it's, it's not the crew. It's, it's the structure. It drives me crazy. And, um, yeah, no, this isn't a podcast for that, but yeah, it's something that.

That we touched on briefly, and I just think it's amazing how diverse and dynamic this episode was. And kale is just so, so wonderful. So come back next week, when we released the second part of this amazing interview, happy pride month, I hope that you got some tools out of this episode that will help you thrive as an autonomous, authentic human being, wherever you are in the world today.

And that healing is not linear. As you can see, we can be healed from one thing and get pulled into a flashback in an instant, but kale give us some amazing tools to get out of that. So I'm just so glad that they could be here with us and without for your mental health. Okay. Take care of yourself and we'll talk again soon.