LGBTQIA+ Pride Month with the Happy Hour Ladies
LGBTQIA+ Pride Month with the Happy Hour Ladies
Today is the last Friday of the month and my regular listeners know that on the last Friday of the month, I host the happy hour on the podcast where I gather great friends with me to drink cheap drinks and talk about money topics.
June is LGBTQIA+ Pride Month and as we have with the previous months, we’ll be celebrating and amplifying the voices in this space. In addition to celebrating the events of June, we’ll have an extra special and bittersweet celebration at the end of this episode for one of the Happy Hour Ladies. This is an episode you won’t want to miss.
What are we drinking?
Melanie from Dear Debt, Lola Retreat, and MentalHealthandWealth.com — Water
Tonya from Tonya-Stumphauzer.com — Pink Lady Apple Kombucha
Kassandra from kassandradasent.com — Filtered Water
Shannon — Rosé
Podcast Notes
Lessons learned, thoughts, influencers and prominent voices of the LGBTQIA+ community are discussed.
Melanie is a big fan of the debtfreeguys who discussed on her show the inequalities and historical issues that have affected the money mindset and financial planning of many of the LBGTQIA+ populous. She notes there is an under-representation in mainstream finance as well as mental health awareness for these marginalized communities.
Kassandra likes Daniella, the Side Hustle Queen. Kassandra also notes the disparities she’s personally noticed over the years in how LGBTQIA+ members have been treated.
Shannon looks back on her learning of a close family member who was a lesbian and then realized the conflict and contradictions when questioning her religious teachings. This original experience and subsequent inquiry helped establish her stance on LGBTQIA+ people and issues. She notes that although views and stigmas have changed in 30 years, in many ways; not enough. She elaborates further of the extreme challenges and costs of family planning and surrogacy for queer couples.
Kassandra follows up with the similar struggles of adoption by non-hetero couples.
Shannon shares some observations on people in her life who have had to temper their sexual leanings as not to draw attention to themselves.
Melanie hopes that we can eventually get past the senseless name-calling and questions the false assumption of someone “choosing to be this way”.
Tonya talks of the TLC reality series, I Am Jazz; which tells the story of a transgender girl in the process of gender reassignment and the associated surgeries. She also talks about Hulu’s documentary, Changing The Game; which gives insight into the lives of 3 high school athletes, all at different stages of their athletic seasons, personal lives and unique paths as transgender teens.
Shannon discusses the complexity of and the need for education for the expanding gender identification lexicon. It was noted that there could be as many as 72 gender identifications.
Kassandra feels it’s important not to place the burden of teaching gender identification by the LGBTQIA+ community, but rather a willingness to learn by everyone in general.
Shannon stresses the need for “grace on both sides”, where consideration can be given to both the person wanting to be identified correctly and the other who is just learning of these identifications and pronouns. She also notes how the pronoun evolution is still a work in progress and business & social platforms are starting to come on board.
Melanie notes that it’s important for people to learn about these changes and not to assume how things have been were necessarily correct. She shares a story of using the term “Womenx” in an attempt to be inclusionary but discovered that it can be perceived in the opposite way.
Kassandra talks about assumption vs. preference in how people address each other and makes a point to be cognizant of someone’s preference vs. your assumption.
Shannon shares the inevitable, bittersweet news that Tonya will be retiring her Happy Hour seat and this will be her last show. Shannon put together a little “This Is Your Life” segment for Tonya, recanting some very early shows, drinks, topics, pets, hometowns, beach volleyball and conventions along with Tonya’s invaluable viewpoint and insight to the podcast.
Melanie tells Tonya of all the things she’s appreciated that she has brought to the show.
Kassandra speaks of her history with Tonya and the positive attributes that drew her to Tonya.
Tonya talks about what she would like to do going forward and wants to focus on her new chapter being joyful and healthy.
Tonya will be checking out the MAYM Listeners Facebook page, be sure to stop by and wish her well!
TAKEAWAY: My biggest takeaway is just a moment of gratitude for friendship. For over six years, Tonya has been an amazing friend and supporter of my blog site initially, then the podcast and then the Financial Gym. We’ve been through so much over the last six years and we’re continuing to work together so I’m looking forward to many more years of friendship with her but she’s one of those amazing examples of online friends who become IRL friends and change your life for the better just by having them in your life. I applaud and thank her for all she’s shared on this show and taught me and so many others. Thank you for all the things Tonya, your presence at Happy Hour will certainly be missed.
This pandemic has impacted all of us in a number of ways, and if your finances were something that stressed you out in 2020, I hope you’ll break the cycle in 2021 and start fresh with The Financial Gym. We’ve literally seen it all and we’ve literally fixed it all, so I hope you will leave your financial stresses in the past, like 2020, and head over to, or send friends to, financialgym.com.
If you have any topics you would like for us to talk about during happy hour, please feel free to email me at shannon@fingyms.com or tweet to me at blonde_finance or join the private martinis and your money Facebook group and let us know. Until next time, take care!!