Queerness Beyond Trauma with Ira McIntosh
Welcome to resiliency the podcast, the place to find stories, strategies, and inspiration to help you embrace change, overcome challenges, and redefine resilience in today's ever evolving world. I am Gin Quater. I'm a strategic communications expert and CEO of a company called the SMART Agency. I am joined by my brilliant cohost, the world's first doctor of resiliency, Doctor. Kelly Culver.
Jenn Quader:She is an international business consultant and works through her firm, The Culver Group, and she's also a widely respected expert and researcher in the field of resilience. Our show brings together diverse, intelligent, and wonderful guests from all over the world who share their experiences to help inspire, educate, and motivate our listeners to find their own inner strength in everything from the minutiae of everyday life to world altering problems. Today, we are honored, excited, beside ourselves, and already dancing to welcome a wonderful, wonderful guest that we met at the TEDx series at the American University of Paris. Today's guest is a modern day renaissance man. Mister Ira McIntosh holds a master's and bachelor's in opera performance and has spent the last decade as a drag performer in Seattle and New York City.
Jenn Quader:He is currently pursuing another master's degree at the American University of Paris in global communications, and his goal is to have a future as a queer historian and to work through academia and communications to find a use for social media as a tool for gathering historical information. Please join me in welcoming the great, the wonderful, the very talented, mister Ira McIntosh.
Ira McIntosh:Hello. How is everyone today?
Dr. Kelly Culver:We are so excited.
Jenn Quader:We are ready to rock and roll and Rezillify. Is that a word? Can we Rezillify today?
Ira McIntosh:It's a word now.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Yeah. Ira, we wanna know something. So this is a global podcast. Jen's in The States. I'm in Canada.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Where in the world are you, and what time of day is it?
Ira McIntosh:Where in the world is Carmen San Diego? I'm at had to throw some nineties in. I am currently in Paris where I am finishing up class work for my master's degree. Oh, just had my first meeting with my thesis advisor to get that off the ground. I have a giant notebook of research behind me.
Ira McIntosh:So, yes, I am residing in Paris, France, which is not something I ever thought I would say.
Jenn Quader:Can I ask what brought you to Paris? You know, look, you're you were performing in Seattle, in New York City. You're obviously really, well trained in opera and beautiful performance. What brought you to Paris?
Ira McIntosh:So Paris was a little bit of a fluke. I had moved to New York out of Seattle because I'd grown up in Seattle. I'd lived there almost twenty eight years of my life. I just was done with the West Coast. I needed something new.
Ira McIntosh:I was at my Saturn's return. It just was time for for change. And I moved to New York thinking it's gonna be the big city. It's bright lights of Broadway. It's gonna be exciting.
Ira McIntosh:And I got there and it's like, oh, no. What did I do to myself? This was not what I expected. Oh, yeah. Was working three jobs at a time.
Ira McIntosh:It was it was an insane experience. It taught me a lot, but it was it was not something that I I knew I wanted to live in for the long term. So I knew I wanted to leave The US. I I wanted to to get out. And I applied to a bunch of schools in The UK and randomly ran across AUP's website.
Ira McIntosh:And I was like, wait. This sounds interesting because I hadn't thought about communications prior to that and ended up having a Zoom call with the head of the program at the time. And from what she told me and from the opportunities that would be possible after the degree, I said sign me up, send in my application, and got in and uprooted my life yet again and moved to Paris.
Jenn Quader:Congratulations. What a bold and brave step that demonstrates a lot of resiliency.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Yeah. But it's fun.
Ira McIntosh:Brave is one word for it. Yeah.
Dr. Kelly Culver:It's fun. You know? Yes. So one of the things about resilience is, like, it it you can channel your inner explorer. You can channel your inner adventurer.
Dr. Kelly Culver:It's like you're the captain of your own ship, and you're doing that.
Ira McIntosh:I mean, maybe more of a captain of my own raft, but No. No. You gotta ship. You gotta ship. You gotta ship.
Jenn Quader:Look. It's look. If it's a raft, it's like the it's like the glamping version of a raft. Okay, Ira? Come on.
Jenn Quader:You know what I mean? This is high level.
Ira McIntosh:I don't
Ira McIntosh:know who here is a Katharine Hepburn fan, but it's definitely the African queen.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Oh, it is not.
Ira McIntosh:Putt putt putting down the down the river, giving a swift kick every now and then at the end of it.
Jenn Quader:Look. If it gets us where we're going, we can raft it all the way there. It's all good.
Ira McIntosh:Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Oh my goodness me.
Jenn Quader:I I wanna talk a little we're gonna get into your TEDx talk. That's something we're going to share. But I wonder if you we're gonna do something a little different. And I wanna actually tell you I wanna have you talk for a moment about what brought you to this because this is your thesis that you're that you're building. Mhmm.
Jenn Quader:And you, you know, you edited that and and and transitioned it into a really powerful TEDx talk. The title of your talk is queerness beyond trauma, where is our history? And I wonder if you can give us a little history as to what drove you to this topic and why it is so important before we share with our listeners all that you're gonna share today?
Ira McIntosh:The topic kind of came from a long lifetime of of figuring out who exactly I was. I grew up in a fairly conservative home. It was in Seattle, so I was surrounded by a fairly liberal progressive community. But I also grew up going to church four times a week and being in bible study and and Awana and bible quizzing. I was memorizing whole books of the bible and didn't feel any kind of a connection to a real community at all in my life.
Ira McIntosh:One of the things that I've kind of been interested in pursuing is figuring out how community is built, where community comes from, and how people are able to tap into community, especially in today's day and age where we are living more and more of our lives online. What creates the boundaries of a singular community when those boundaries are not physical in any way, shape, or form. And then on top of that, I've just been grappling with the fact that the queer community has has no codified history. We don't have history books. In fact, a lot of the world is trying to make sure those books don't get written.
Ira McIntosh:And so there there are all these kind of legends and there's so much lore and just hearsay surrounding queer history. And so those those two kind of desires in my life came together during my first semester at AUP. We we had to do we were required to do a project where we interviewed people, and it had to be something about communications. And I was like, well, what if I interviewed queer millennials just to see what it was like to be out on the Internet in the early two thousands. And so I got a few interviews for that and started really digging into this idea of what it was like to be online, how anonymity could work for people, how to find people to talk to and learn from when you aren't necessarily able to act out your your truth in reality.
Ira McIntosh:And that just kind of took me down this road and grabbed me and said, here's where we're going. And the, the snowball kept snowballing and getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And so now I'm, I've kind of opened that up a little bit more to discovering exactly how we find each other's stories and how we figure out community and where where do those how do we decide what is real and what isn't? Which I think is is the whole question with history. Like, how do you teach history when you weren't there?
Ira McIntosh:And so my thesis now has grown into this topic of, exploring the idea of gossip and how gossip is utilized on the Internet to create those boundaries for community and to share truth. So rather than being this negative force of tearing people down, what are the positive aspects of gossiping and telling people, oh, this person is safe. This blog is a safe place to talk. This, website is a safe place to post images. Here are the things that you can put in your images that we know, within the community are things that show that you are also queer and are a safe place and are someone that's part of this.
Ira McIntosh:So it's a whole lot of different puzzle pieces that all just kind of click together in a way that I never thought they would. And it's been really exciting to let my research take me along the journey with it.
Dr. Kelly Culver:You've just said something that is so interesting to me. It's this juxtaposition between the concept of gossip and positivity. Mhmm. This positivity can come out of understanding gossip in a different way and being able to dive into a space that is safe because you've talked about a history that isn't written. Or if it is written, where it's difficult to find that light.
Dr. Kelly Culver:It's under the bushel.
Ira McIntosh:Absolutely. Especially when you live in a society that teaches you that you have to be in a closet, that you're not allowed to be out there talking openly. Yep. And I mean, there are conversations to be had about, lavender linguistics, like the languages that have grown out of that closeted nature, that their entire lexicons and grammars that have grown up alongside, queer people and being able to talk to each other. There's there's the hanky code.
Ira McIntosh:There's there are all sorts of ways that queer people have found to communicate with each other in safe ways to and to to find those people that they're okay to talk to about certain things and not get arrested or get killed.
Jenn Quader:To me, I'm I'm so fascinated by this concept of growing up and not being able to find a community to ask, hey. What is this feeling I'm having? What is this this thing I'm experiencing? You know, again, citing and recognizing my own privilege in kind of how I grew up. You know, I I grew up going to girl slumber parties and being able to talk about all those things very openly.
Jenn Quader:And so it it really I I wanna commend the research you're doing because and doctor Culver and I talk about this a lot. Community is such a critical element of resilience. There's a collect a collectiveness that's needed. So I I think I wanna ask you, Ira, before we get into your talk, how has your perception on, let's say, the queer community or really any community that supports you, how has that perception changed from the beginning of this as you were growing into it to now where you see all of these different pathways?
Ira McIntosh:You know, I think I'm starting to be able to see my community in a much more complex light. I wasn't really integrated into the queer community until after my first master's degree. So I was 24 when I really was letting myself come out and go to gay bars and and get started in drag. I started drag at the same time that I came out, basically. And I used it as a way to to start conversations because I'm a very introverted person naturally.
Ira McIntosh:So being able to because I'm a very introverted person naturally. So being able to put on a costume and makeup and basically be a clown or a another character gave me a way to talk to people that I didn't know. And so that that really colored my perception of my community because I came into it already defensive. And I think that's a very common experience for queer people that we grow up defensive. So we come to our community defensive and expect our community to hate us because everyone else has, so why wouldn't they?
Ira McIntosh:And so I think by taking a step back and looking at things a little bit more objectively and looking at it from a historical standpoint and and seeing this constant movement forward, I've been able to contextualize some of those conversations and relationships that I've had and be like, no, I don't think they hated me. They we just didn't know how to talk to each other. And we were we were using characters that we'd created literal facades to communicate rather than being able to sit and actually have a conversation. And that's a huge movement that's happening in the queer community right now, especially around the idea of sober spaces because a lot of places that are safe for queer people to be queer are places that revolve around alcohol and drugs and dancing. And not that dancing is unhealthy, but that that kind of dancing, and and that that sort of escapism, and finding new places to come together as a community where we can have sober conversations with each other and be able to have intergenerational conversations where we're not drunk off our minds expecting that everyone wants to sleep with us.
Ira McIntosh:So it's definitely, getting back to your question, it definitely has allowed me to take a spectator's position for a moment and reevaluate my own positioning within my community and grant some grace to the people that I've had interactions with and understand that they're coming to it with the same baggage that I'm coming to it.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Or seeing through the disguise. You know, you've I think what you've just described is being able to see through the disguise.
Ira McIntosh:Absolutely.
Dr. Kelly Culver:And that's a journey too.
Ira McIntosh:Both literally and figuratively.
Jenn Quader:Exactly. Because you talk about you you know, one of
Dr. Kelly Culver:the questions I I haven't asked anybody yet, and I will at some point in time, is like, is it resilience? Is your superpower? What's your superhero costume look like? But that's not what you mean.
Ira McIntosh:Lots of later.
Ira McIntosh:I I
Jenn Quader:was gonna say, I need to know what
Ira McIntosh:Ira Zinn
Dr. Kelly Culver:said. Okay. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Okay. I'm gonna ask you another question, lots of latex. We like to ask people, what does resilience mean to you?
Ira McIntosh:In in the famous words of the now truly famous crossover artist, Jinkx Monsoon, water off a duck's back.
Dr. Kelly Culver:I love it.
Ira McIntosh:Realizing that a lot of things that are done to us and a lot of things that are said to us, whether we're queer or not, just as humans, come from a place of self disgust rather than disgust of you. So people people are reflecting themselves onto you when they're talking to you. So if someone comes to you with hatred and with malice and with things that they don't like about you, they're just talking about how they don't like themselves and how they have malice towards themselves, and that's really been something that's helped me. Now that in my thirties, I I have gotten to a point where I realized that I can't expect other people to have a true picture of who I am because I don't have a true picture of who I am. And so if someone is coming to me with issues they have with me, unless, I mean, there are valid things that people could come to me with, but the things that someone might say to me on the subway or walking down the street or on a YouTube comment or something like that is just going to be a reflection of themselves and what they don't like about themselves.
Ira McIntosh:And that has really allowed me to to let everything just kind of fly off into the wind. It's not something that I have to deal with. It's not my circus. Let you you go deal with your own things. I have my own things.
Ira McIntosh:We're good. Have a have a great rest of your day.
Dr. Kelly Culver:I love the analogy.
Jenn Quader:Yeah. Me too. I I I see that little duck. And, actually, as I see the water flying off his back, I see his little his little legs going underneath, just swimming forward, swimming forward, which I think is so important. Because there's that concept of letting go, letting go of what people say and not attaching yourself to it.
Jenn Quader:And then there's that concept of moving forward, of of finding these communities. As you're saying, carving new places, sober communities, places that that perhaps the queer community could not be themselves in the past, but finding that. Again, before we get into your talk, which is just packed with data and information, and I'm really excited to get to it. But but I wanna ask just you know, you brought in a lot of really amazing concepts, and and and they come from your own personal history of you growing up in Seattle, moving to New York, now moving to Paris, doing all of this research. And you brought up a really interesting concept, I think, in in what you said was self disgust.
Jenn Quader:And I think the lens you talked about that was was the people who may say hateful things. They're they're sharing their own disgust, and that can be let go, like water off the duck. But I think there is an element to be talked about that affects resilience for a a young queer person who's growing up that they might feel an element of self disgust because they cannot find themselves in another. They can't find their community. They they think that what they feel is wrong based upon something they were taught.
Jenn Quader:What I wanna ask you today is what would you say to that young person today that might feel that?
Ira McIntosh:I think the thing that that got me through a lot of that is, like I said earlier, I came from a very Christian background. So I was reading the bible a lot. I think, honestly, queers who grew up in the church have read the bible more than most other people, including pastors, just because we're we're bombarded with information saying that we're not okay and that we're it's evil and it's a sin. So we're looking through it for those answers. And one of my favorite books of the Bible, and I don't think anyone who anyone anyone ever will will or has said this, is Ecclesiastes, and it's the most depressing book of the Bible.
Ira McIntosh:It was written by King Solomon. It's a bunch of poetry, and it's literally him. There's a verse at, in, like, chapter four or five where he says, meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless. And it's, if you've ever heard the the old song, turn, turn, turn, to everything there's a season, turn, turn, turn, that's from Ecclesiastes as well. So it it's this idea that whatever you're going through, a, has already been gone through billions of times before you, and b, it's just a season.
Ira McIntosh:It's just a short time that you're gonna be dealing with this, and there's gonna be the next thing soon. And it doesn't mean that the next thing is always gonna be sunshine and rainbows, but it means that you are building tools now, and then you might be building different tools in the next month or two. And that was something that I just kept clinging to over and over, especially my teenage years, was just just deal with it, just move through it, and eventually it'll be something new. And there'll be something that you've learned from what you're going through now that's gonna help you in the next stage. So that's what I would say is there's nothing's new, and it will always change.
Jenn Quader:So beautiful because, you know, change can be can be stressful, but it's often quite a relief. Change is something that that keeps us moving forward. And I love I had a visual as you were talking. Doctor Culver and I have talked with another guest who who equated resilience to a willow tree that stands during the storm. I would take that same willow tree and say, you know, every tree, if you drive by a row of trees, when winter comes, those leaves are gone.
Jenn Quader:And and and they are bare, and and then there is that rebirth. And that does happen over and over. So I I think what you're saying is really important. And it's a great kickoff to to bring our listeners into your TEDx, where, again, you are going to give us some really important information about how we are viewing queer history and about where, people who are navigating this can begin to find themselves in the online world. So I would like to invite our listeners that we are about to play mister Ira McIntosh's wonderful TEDx Talk, and I will remind you to please stay tuned because as soon as it's over, we're gonna dive into a deep discussion about, some of the things that he's talking about.
Jenn Quader:So without further ado, I give you Ira McIntosh's beautiful and wonderful TEDx talk entitled, Queerness Beyond Trauma, Where is Our History?
Ira McIntosh:Once upon a time. Queer people love these words. Whether we're in it for the villains, or the heroes, the princesses, or Prince Charming. Something about those four words, causes something deep within us to leap for joy. We're about to hear a story.
Ira McIntosh:As humans, we love to hear stories about ourselves. We love to tell stories about ourselves. Even if ourselves don't actually wear tiaras, or have wings, or breathe fire. Fairy tales begin to fail us as we get older, however, unless you're a Disney adult, you don't really think about these stories as much. So how do we satisfy our need for fairy tales?
Ira McIntosh:Who tells us our stories? I was recently discussing the topic of social media with one of my friends, and whether or not it has any positive merits. During the course of this conversation, they said something that made me pause. We live in a reality where social media exists and puts us under a microscope to whatever capacity we have signed up for. We create history books on ourselves through social media.
Ira McIntosh:We live in an age where not only do we have the pleasure as a general populace of listening to stories from our past, but we also have the privilege of writing down our own stories for the future. But before we had social media, how was history codified? My background is in music, so I immediately have
Ira McIntosh:to think of someone who's considered to be
Ira McIntosh:the forefather of ethnomusicology, Bela Bartok. A brilliant composer in his own right, he took to the road to copy down and digest folk music, so it wouldn't be lost. He took an active role in his community, hearing stories, writing them down, publishing books, and tomes, and volumes of tunes that were previously known only to a small portion of the world. These melodies were then able to be disseminated across the globe, leading to a surge in scholarship. Let's pause for a moment and zoom in on Bartok.
Ira McIntosh:He was a Hungarian composer who had made a name for himself by his early twenties composing completely original music. Even though he was successful, he felt there was something missing. He knew there had to be more than simply following the set rules of music theory and writing original melodies over and over again. He was introduced to folk music by another Hungarian composer, Zoltan Kodaly, who gave him a phonograph and encouraged him to record this music. Something awoke in Bartok, and he spent his days traveling all over the countryside, writing down music, interviewing the people who sang the music, and becoming part of the culture.
Ira McIntosh:But he didn't stop there. He then went home and began to use what he had learned. He began incorporating these folk tunes in his grander compositions, interweaving larger theoretical ideas with these seemingly simplistic rural melodies and harmonies. This opened a new door not only for his own work, but also for the rest of the world to hear and appreciate something new, All growing together in knowledge. Ethnography is one of the most important avenues for historical data collection.
Ira McIntosh:Going out into the world, joining communities, meeting them where they are, and writing down their stories. There are many ways to verify information, but this is where history begins with the people who experienced it. We can come across these stories in many different ways via interviews, novels, letters, recordings, even photographs and paintings. Any form of human communication can be collated and constructed into viable history. This brings me to the concept of grafting.
Ira McIntosh:I grew up in The United States, in Washington State, the far northwestern most corner. And we're known for a lot of things. Starbucks, Microsoft, Nirvana. But our main export is apples. Now if you've never had the chance to go apple picking or talk to an apple farmer, give me a moment to tell you my favorite fact about apple trees.
Ira McIntosh:Apple trees don't have to bear all the same kind of fruit. Well, that's a lie. They all have to bear apples, but it doesn't have to be the same kind of apple. In fact, it's common practice for apple farmers to graft multiple types of apples onto the same tree trunk. This allows you to have multiple flavors and uses of apples all in one place.
Ira McIntosh:Some for pies, some for sauce, some for eating whole. Each of these kinds granting their best traits to the rest of the tree, making the tree stronger than it would have been otherwise. Doctor J Newsome took this idea and ran with it. Currently, the foremost author studying World War two era queer history. Newsome proposed this idea of memory grafting following the Holocaust.
Ira McIntosh:This concept encapsulates how the queer people of New York City reached out across the Atlantic to gather stories from those who had first hand experience of the holocaust, and were willing to share those stories. Grafting them together into a singular tree of knowledge. The transfer of ideas, memories, and historical information is not static. Understandings of a topic change as they're introduced in a new setting into new audiences. As we seek to make sense of ourselves and our place in the world, we collect bits and pieces of memories, narratives, and histories bringing them together into a constant state of reassessment and transformation.
Ira McIntosh:As we mold the boundaries of our identities. He continues a bit further down the page by saying that the metaphor implies that although memories may originate externally, they ultimately become enmeshed in one's own subjective memory and sense of place in history. That is, we require this grafting to occur in order to better understand our own sense of selves, and find our place in the greater tapestry of history. But there comes a risk with this grafting. Sure we can enmesh the best parts of history into ourselves, but doesn't that also mean we can enmesh the worst parts as well?
Ira McIntosh:Who is to say what is important or not except for the individual? This is the problem of representation in media. When one thinks of queer cinema, one immediately thinks of the AIDS epidemic. We think of works such as Angels in America, Dallas Buyers Club, Philadelphia, films and plays that talk about the queer community in crisis. When one sees oneself represented as a victim, that is the attitude one takes on.
Ira McIntosh:We are shown versions of our reality reality that however true they may be, ignore the core joys and beauties we see in our everyday lives. Nora Kelly et al studied this idea of collective trauma in their October 2020 paper published in sexuality and culture. In this study, they were specifically looking at the queer community of Portland, Oregon, and trying to contextualize the effects of collective trauma that had been found in other marginalized groups to determine if these effects held true for the queer community. In the article, they wrote, and I'm just going to read the bold parts. These events contributed to tension and disruption within the queer community, ultimately threatening the cohesion of the collective sense of community.
Ira McIntosh:Queer people do not often have other queer people in their families of origin. There's a lack of access to intergenerational relationships, and there is a lack of queer spaces. It is due to the lack of safe spaces and intergenerational relationships that we are finding it difficult to deal with the effects of trauma on us as queer as queer individuals. How do we learn if we do not have a tangible connection to our past? How can we cope when those who have come before us are not available to us either familiarly or because they were lost to AIDS or Holocausts?
Ira McIntosh:What tools can we create for ourselves if we have no blueprints? We are raising consecutive generations of queer individuals who are not being given information about their history past the points of trauma that have so far defined us. Because we cannot see how our queer forebears handled themselves in their daily lives, and celebrated with each other during times of triumph, we get embroiled in negativity and anger, and begin to see our community as one of infighting and fear. In 02/2005, Allen Downes wrote a book entitled, The Velvet Rage, In which he discusses this idea that shame is a key driving factor in many queer men's lives. We are fiercely protective of our experiences and our stories, because we are so used to having to live double lives.
Ira McIntosh:Because of this, we inevitably hide our real selves, even from each other, making it even more difficult for younger generations to learn from us, or maybe even more important We remain to live in fear, hiding between the emotional baggage
Jenn Quader:in our closets.
Ira McIntosh:We remain to live in fear, hiding between the emotional baggage in our closets. We became bitter choosing to inflict this on we onto further generations, rather than focus on the beautiful parts of being queer. The damaging part of learning to live your life in two parts, whether in reality or fantasy, cannot be underestimated. It is an infectious skill that you learned. One that would eventually spread beyond the bedroom of your life.
Ira McIntosh:Life wasn't ever what it seemed to be on the surface. Nothing could be trusted for what it appeared to be. After all, you weren't what you appeared to be. In learning to hide part of yourself, you lost the ability to trust anything or anyone fully. Without knowing it, you traded humane innocence for dry cynicism.
Ira McIntosh:Our own internal conflicts prevent us from gaining the emotional clarity needed to maintain a safe, and satisfying bond. Working in bars, I'd often hear young men making excuses for not talking to their elders. They would assume they were just going to be hit on, or that they didn't have anything constructive to add to the conversation, and they would just leave well enough alone. This is an example of that distrust, that loss of ability to open oneself to the possibility that someone else might have something important to say. So where then does this leave us?
Ira McIntosh:How do we pass on a history when the younger generation doesn't have access to information via their elders? What do we do when we live in a community that has been systematically destroyed, dissected, and disarticulated? We must turn to the media. The thing that seems to be failing us so miserably. We create history books on ourselves and our timelines and through our images and video clips.
Ira McIntosh:We go through journals and history books and letters with a fine tooth comb and reinterpret the mythos of best friends and roommates. So that future generations know that they never have to live in the dark again. We have an obligation to our community to curate our online presence to whatever extent possible, so that future generations have a clearer picture of those who came before. We have an obligation to future generations to spend the time now to find those historical references, collecting family stories about that estranged uncle or that aunt that lived on the farm with her best friend. We have an obligation to make sure that states passing legislation to keep queer history out of schools are stopped, so the coming epic can be one where children grow up knowing that they are part of a bigger story that is worth scholarship, so they don't have to live a double life anymore and lose that oh so important ability to trust.
Ira McIntosh:Once upon a time, there was a group of people who loved each other very, very much, and the world seemed to rise up against them tearing off their wings. So they dusted off their tiaras, and went to war breathing fire. Thank you.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Ira, Ira, Ira, Ira, Ira, I love that as much today as I did at the March, just a couple of months ago. And that imagery at the end, you put on your tiara and breathe fire, and I see the fairy wings and the dust and the swarm. It's a beautiful, beautiful image. And we talked a bit before before the TED Talk. Jen asked you about, well, this TED Talk was a bit about how you were framing your thesis, you know, and helping you with that.
Dr. Kelly Culver:So it's been a couple of months since we were all together, a couple of months since you did that phenomenal TED Talk. How has this changed your life?
Ira McIntosh:By the time I was doing this talk, I, was really questioning how how it is that people become historians, and why it is that people become historians. And honestly, the point at which one can begin to call themselves a historian. And since the talk, I've kind of not kind of. I've decided to just embody that idea of being a curator of my history, of of taking charge of that history and and joining with the people who are actively looking for it. For instance, I actually I referenced doctor j Newsom's book in my talk, and I was able to to get on a Zoom call with him and discuss his work further and discuss my work a little bit with him as well.
Ira McIntosh:I also have, you know, embraced my age a little bit and become a little bit of a TikTok troll. As I'm as I'm planning my own sorts of of content, just trying to find ways to gently nudge truth into those conversations, especially because it's now June, it's Pride Month, there's so many people posting about Stonewall and Marsha p Johnson and Sylvia Rivera and just all of this all of this queer lore that honestly isn't true and doesn't need to be true for those people to be honored. Something I I have had a conversation with many people about is this weird obsession that the queer community seems to have with the idea that you only have some kind of rapport as as a queer forebear if you were at Stonewall itself, which there there's many issues with that. It it completely leaves out the the sit ins, the sip ins. It leaves out everything that was going on in San Francisco before Stonewall happened.
Ira McIntosh:Completely leaves out lesbians from the story because lesbians are a huge part of the story. Stormy DeLarvary was the first one to actually say, someone do something at Stonewall. Marsha and Sylvia weren't even there. Marcia showed up after the riot happened, and Sylvia was just uptown getting drunk, which isn't a bad thing. That's what drag queens do.
Ira McIntosh:Like, that's so I've been able to kind of inhabit this understanding that especially at my age, I'm now kind of sitting at this crux between generations. It's why my thesis is about millennials. I think that's this real turning point because we we did come of age before social media, but our entire adult lives have been spent on social media. So we have these two disparate ideas that we can look at simultaneously versus Gen x and the Boomers don't necessarily have as much to do with social media in the same ways, and Gen z and Gen alpha have only ever known social media. So we sit at this specific place in history where we can look and say, okay, how is all of this information that's being put online, how do these computers that sit in our pockets that give us access to a universe of information, how do we use it to our advantage to get information out?
Ira McIntosh:And so I've just been spending the last couple of months beyond my research, beyond figuring out how Facebook governance works, which is a journey in and of itself, really letting myself believe that I'm a historian and that I have some kind of hold over my own history that I'm allowed to be a part of it and allowed to help mold it for future generations.
Jenn Quader:Well, if I can help in any way on that, Ira, I would share with you that you are a historian and that you are you're a historian the moment you start telling these stories. And you are doing so in a way that is impactful and strong and out in front of a in front of an entire audience, in front of a global world. You know, you're you're giving a TED talk about this. You're doing a thesis about this. My my my side by side Jen and Ira advice would be, you know, they they used to say dress for the job you want, not the one you have.
Jenn Quader:And I think Yep. You know, if maybe what you're saying to yourself is, well, I don't know if I can call myself a historian because I don't yet have a paying job that says historian as my title. Make that duck off the waters back. You know what I mean? Because you are, so own that.
Jenn Quader:Now I wanna dive a little bit looking at you as a historian, looking at you as an expert in this field who is looking at this from a perspective that most people are not. You know? You said something really interesting. Prior to us airing the TEDx, we were talking about your journey and how when you first began coming out as queer, you went you went to drag queen, and you talked a little bit about how you did that so you could create a character and that you yourself were actually a little introverted. And in your talk, you say we hide ourselves even from ourselves.
Ira McIntosh:Mhmm.
Jenn Quader:And so so there is a real, challenge to overcome here. And so the question I have for you is, what do you think, from your perspective as a historian, as an expert in this field, what do you think can be done to help the LGBTQ community to be more resilient, to to get out of that hiding from themselves, and and to be able to be their true selves without that fear?
Ira McIntosh:Fear is a big thing for humans in general. So it's it's a it's a tough question to deal with. In fact, one of my one of my favorite lines from the musical Rent is when they're at life support, and the the person leading the meeting says, what are you afraid of? And the guy says, I'm a New Yorker. Fear is my life.
Ira McIntosh:As a former New Yorker, I could tell you that is accurate. But, I've been getting questions about recently, I I've basically given up doing drag, not not as any kind of, like, personal dilemma or anything or any kind of drive against it. I do have my issues with it, but not that's not what keeps me from doing it. But the reason for that is because I started drag as a way to explore parts of myself that I wasn't allowed to as a male presenting person, especially my femininity. And I think within the queer community, that's something that is a huge point of fear, especially for gay men, is being able to express themselves in a feminine way.
Ira McIntosh:In fact, I find it very interesting in studying feminism and post feminism, and looking into further degrees and and further areas of studies, there's a new entire area of study that just became a thing about ten, twelve years ago called the study of masculinities. And it's because there is currently no definition for the word masculine except for that which is not feminine. And so I think that is that's been a a huge driving factor in my life. And for a lot of gay men, there's that that shame around why don't I know how to be masculine? Why can't I be a man?
Ira McIntosh:And it's because there, a, there's no definition and, b, there's no reason to. But I started drag because I wanted to live into that feminine and I wanted to create a character that embodied that side of myself that I had no idea how to express. So now, I've gotten to this point where I've been able to begin expressing that in my life, and I live that that duality daily. And so I don't need the drag character really anymore. Like, she'll be pulled out for special events.
Ira McIntosh:I'll probably do something for pride. I'll do if someone wants to pay me, I'll do private events. Sure. But she's not something that I I need to do weekly or multiple times a week anymore because I I got what I needed from her. She taught me how to be me.
Ira McIntosh:And I think that's ultimately what I wish I could impart to other queer people is is find ways to explore those parts of yourself that you are not comfortable with, that are safe, like drag, like performing, music. For some people, sports allows them to to live into the parts that they aren't comfortable with. Just find something that forces you to live that and allow yourself to learn from it, and you're going to get to the point where it integrates into your life and you're not gonna be scared of it anymore.
Dr. Kelly Culver:If you're looking at finding that place, that you've just said, you know, go to that place where you can be comfortable. It's almost like allow yourself to be curious about you.
Ira McIntosh:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Dr. Kelly Culver:By the time we're 17, the concept of imagination we have, you know, scientific evidence that says by the time someone hits 17, we have indoctrinated them on how they should think, and they've lost that sense of imagination, wonder, and curiosity. And I think that's just such a shame.
Ira McIntosh:I I I fully remember having conversations saying, I don't have an imagination anymore. I don't know where it went. Like, this was in my early twenties just talking to my friends and being like, I used to be able to sit in the corner of a room with, like, two Playmobil characters and just have an endless conversation between the three of us. Just not because I was sad or depressed or needed to be by myself, but just because I was living in an imagined universe for a few minutes and letting those things run wild. And then by my early twenties, I just didn't have that anymore.
Ira McIntosh:And I was all analytical and completely, like, one track minded. So I completely agree with that that that we're the world indoctrinates that out of us. We're not taught how to be creative and how to be imaginative, and it's so hard to reteach that to yourself. It's possible, but it's so hard.
Jenn Quader:Well, and I'd say too, it's it's hard to reteach it, and it also, we are bucking up against a society that doesn't really want us to have it. And when I look at that through the lens of what I've learned from you, Ira, you there's an entire community in in the queer community that's that suffers from and lives in the bitterness and the cynicism. And when there is a community that says, look. You you can't be creative and enjoy that because we have to remember these trials and tribulations we've had. And and, again, it goes back to what what your entire speech is about, which is it's so important to tell a history, but how do you tell that history?
Jenn Quader:How do you tell those stories? Because if it's told only through the lens of cynicism and and negativity, then how will how will you find that self discovery and that imagination, which is so key to resilience? And then being someone who just watched your TED Talk, and I think about you starting it and saying, once upon a time. You know? And you talk about the power of storytelling.
Jenn Quader:And something that I got from your TEDx, really in a clear way is, you know, when someone's trying to come out as queer, they don't have anyone they can go ask. You know, they can't just ask their granddad what was it like to be queer unless he happened to be queer. You know? You you don't have that. So what I visualize, you know, let's say let's say in addition to, because I love everything you've said, and I I certainly think the school districts could take some points from that.
Jenn Quader:But in addition to it, I see it as as perhaps a private storytelling communication PSA type of movement that says, hey, moms out there. The story until 2024 was, hey, when your kid says that they are queer, be open to it. Today's story is be open to it and introduce them to five more queer people of all ages. Campaign? Mhmm.
Jenn Quader:There there there needs to be some sort of education because, again, I I grew up in theater. I've had queer friends and loves my whole life, but I didn't live that experience. And I never thought about you know, I could call my aunt and ask her, what was it like to be a woman when you're first becoming a woman? And so I I think it's it's such an important thing, even if we pull it out of the the chasm of of traditional education, to say there's some education that could be done for the parents, for the loved ones, for friends like me who could help to to make those connections and help to build community.
Ira McIntosh:Absolutely. And I I think to the point of storytelling, that's where it's exciting to see TV shows like Heartstopper on Netflix. I I remember and this is actually what got me to Allen Downes' The Velvet Rage, was watching Heartstopper the first time. I was sitting there angry the whole time, like just expecting the shoe to drop, expecting the mom to not be okay with it, expecting the friends to continue bullying them, to expecting him to decide, no, you know what, I'm not actually gay. To heck with this, I'm out.
Ira McIntosh:Like, expecting all of these things and them never happening and just getting more and more angry till I got to the end of the season. And I was just like, this is awful. How dare you? This is not my experience. And coming away from it just becoming so bitter, like you were talking about earlier, that that that bitterness that we just want to to inflict on other people, the like, initiation rates almost of of I want you to feel as bad as I do in this moment.
Ira McIntosh:And then one of my friends was like, it sounds like you need to read this book. And I read it, and it's about that and about realizing that the things that have been fought for are coming to fruition, and we're seeing our our people being accepted in new ways, maybe not the ways that we wanted it to happen, but in new ways, and allowing those changes to happen not only with baby queers, but also with us and allowing ourselves to take a breath and say, they don't have to hurt just because I did. And now that they're getting to grow up like this, what can I learn from them in terms of joy? And I think that's, that's what I was talking about in my TED Talk in terms of what can they learn from us and what can we learn from them. I think that's our job as elder queer people is to learn joy from younger queer people.
Ira McIntosh:The baby gays are out here just having fun and being silly and feminine and ridiculous and looking ridiculous, but so has every generation ever. And you just gotta let them and and bask in the the fun and the joy and the silliness of it as they grow up and learn to yourself that, guess what? I also can go out and do that now because they're getting to do that. They're setting an example for us just like we set an example for them. I don't know if that answered your question, but that's how I feel.
Dr. Kelly Culver:We're all different generations, you know, and we look at the one that's coming up behind us, and we say, oh my goodness, me. Right? And you're doing and you're doing that. But you're you're also what I'm hearing is this this this other element of they're free. They're expressing themselves in a very free way that I didn't do or didn't feel I could or wasn't able to, whatever the context happens to be.
Dr. Kelly Culver:And how do I take that, what I observe from them? Because a historian observes. You taught us that with ethnography. You know, a historian observes his or her surroundings and situation. And you're taking that, and you're applying it to yourself to say, how do I transform Mhmm.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Looking at what I'm observing them behave?
Ira McIntosh:It's also we know what childhood looks like for kids who aren't different. Mhmm. We that that's been documented. We know what that looks like. And now we're starting to get to see what childhood looks like for queer kids.
Ira McIntosh:And it's completely new territory. We have no idea what it's looked like because we've never allowed them to be queer when they're children, which I think is where a lot of the fear around, oh, no, they're gonna make trans kids have sex changes, which isn't happening. And in fact, doctors are saying don't do that because that's a big decision to make at an early age. But it it's realizing, oh, yes, all of these things do happen way earlier than we think we they do because up until now, we haven't let people experience these things until they're in their twenties and thirties, and then they're having to go through a secondary adolescence experiencing their adolescence and their adulthood, which is also not healthy. This is a huge point of change for us because we don't know what queer childhood looks like yet.
Ira McIntosh:So we're having to learn that as it happens, which is terrifying, because we want to protect them. Every queer person is like, oh, no. You're gonna go out there wearing pink and they're gonna scream at you. And then we see them go out wearing pink and they're not screamed at. And we're like, wait a second.
Ira McIntosh:What? Excuse you? Hold on. You have fake nails on and no one cares. Excuse you?
Ira McIntosh:So I I think that's where it's exciting and it's scary. And that's where some of that trepidation comes from is we just don't know what it looks like yet. And we're having to let it happen with a watchful eye, but we're having to let it happen so that we can document it. And that's terrifying.
Jenn Quader:Well, it's so cool that you use the word terrifying because it brings it right back to fear. And I think fear, we've discussed many times on Resiliency the podcast. It's one of the one of the quick ways to douse your resilience is to jump into that fear pot and swim around in it. You know? And and I think it's so interesting because you're correct.
Jenn Quader:The, the nondifferent or however you say you know? The the traditional childhood has been well documented. But it's not only documented, it's scripted and prescripted. It's what should you do, and a lot of that comes from fear of what what if I'm not. And, you know, I I could take this for a moment outside of the queer realm just for any listeners who who don't have that connection and say, you know, as a young woman, I was told I was supposed to be about a size six.
Jenn Quader:That never happened for me. You know? And I kept waiting. When am I gonna look like those ladies from the Grease the movie? You know?
Jenn Quader:So so really through any lens, when there is a societal expectation, and and not only an expectation, but a prescription. You know, a a young boy should act like this. A young woman should look like this. That is how it is, and that's what you should be. And then what we're talking about is that society itself has started to snip those those lines, and we are all rolling within that.
Jenn Quader:So I I think that the point I'd make, and I'll drive it back to a question for you, Ira, is as we're in all that change from your perspective as a historian, and one of the things in your TED Talk that I really loved was you gave every one of us a call to action. You said, look. We are making history, and we are telling these stories, and here we have in our hands, in our pockets, these platforms that will let us do it. So my question is, as society changes, as as these people have these different experiences, and as we work to build these resilient communities, what can a person like me do? And then separately, what can a person like you do?
Jenn Quader:What can a person within the queer community do on their social media step by step to really drive resilience and positivity and get into it? And then what can a non queer person, but who loves the community and wants to see it thrive do?
Ira McIntosh:Oh, I mean, this is there have been questions about allyship that have been coming up a lot in the last probably decade, since the fight for same sex marriage, which my thesis is specifically looking at the fight for same sex marriage just because you have to have a very specific case study for a thesis. But this question of what does what does allyship look like? During the pandemic, we saw the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and and how white people trying to figure out how is it that we're supposed to help. Like, we saw the the blackout of social media and people like, no, no, no. That's not no.
Ira McIntosh:Don't do that. That's not helping. It's just just all just trying anything to help. And the thing that I learned from that and that I still tell people is you don't have to have an opinion on something that you want to get out into public knowledge. So if you see something that deserves to be reposted, you can repost it, you can share it, you can make sure that the people in your lives that need to see it, see it, but you don't have to put your own opinion on it.
Ira McIntosh:It doesn't have to be in your words. You can just allow the person who has experienced those things speak. That goes for the queer community, that goes for the Black community, that goes for any minority group that or any group that is experiencing repression or oppression, they're the ones who know what's happening. They're the ones who know what they need. So you just need to let them be the ones speaking.
Ira McIntosh:As hard as it is sometimes to not put our own spin on it and to not say, yeah, go this, this is great. Sometimes just hitting that repost. I find myself on TikTok the most often just hitting repost, not commenting on something, just repost, repost, repost. Because it's the more those get reposted, the more people will see it. It's so funny in doing my research on algorithms and social media governance, I feel like I've, for a long time, looked at the algorithm as this evil entity that's forcing things down our throats, when in reality, it's doing its job, we're just not using it correctly.
Ira McIntosh:I think that's what needs to happen is really realizing that there are tools there that are definitely being used against us, but that can just as easily be used for our own use as well. We just need to tap into it. So reposting, commenting, just even like an emoji or a thumbs up or something, just so there's interactions with the media that you want to be boosted, sending it in a private message to someone. All of those things are ways that the algorithm picks up and says, oh, this is something that people wanna see. I'm gonna push it to more people.
Ira McIntosh:Specifically on TikTok, if something doesn't get, I think it's like a hundred views in the first sixty seconds, it stops pushing it to people. So you want to get something to that hundred views and then to the thousand views and to the 10,000 views. If it's really important, you need that kind of coverage and that kind of visibility on something if you want it to be seen in very short amount of time of it being posted. So reposting is a really important thing. Same with Instagram stories, same with Facebook.
Ira McIntosh:That's definitely how I would encourage people outside of the queer community. Inside the queer community, just let's stop tearing people down. There's a lot of queer people, a lot of queer artists that I don't like, but it doesn't mean I have to go around shouting about them. And I've done a fair amount of that in my younger times, and I've now realized it's very useless. There are certain queer music artists that I don't enjoy their music, but I'm not gonna go around tell people, oh, don't listen to this.
Ira McIntosh:That's terrible music. Because I'm trying I want queer people to get the platform. It doesn't mean that I need to listen to it, but I don't have to go and tell other people not to listen to it. Now, there are certain people that, yes, if they're being problematic and they're they're pushing things that are not okay, I absolutely will call them out because they're part of my community and I'm allowed to call out people within my community who are not acting correct. But if it's just a matter of an opinion on someone's art, who cares?
Ira McIntosh:I no one cares about your opinion. If you like it, you like it. If you don't, if you don't, like, just just go with it. Let a queer person win for once.
Jenn Quader:Well and and Let a queer person win once. I love it. Well and what I hear in that, you know, because there there's a lot of, I'll call I'll say this in a tongue in cheek way, but there's a lot of, like, fun cattiness in the queer community. Right? Like, that's part of the fun.
Jenn Quader:It's almost like the gossip discussion. It's like, oh, what is she wearing? What is she doing? And that kind of thing. And so what it sounds like you're saying is perhaps there's a way to evolve that.
Jenn Quader:So we can there still can be the fun.
Ira McIntosh:That can still happen in real life. The problem is I I think younger generations have forgotten that people's lives aren't lived online. We are not electronic beings. We're electrical beings, but we're not electronic beings. And so if you're having some of these conversations online or making some of these comments online, tone does not come across.
Ira McIntosh:It's just it doesn't. Text does not allow that. We are evolving text. Emojis are evolving. Images are evolving.
Ira McIntosh:There is this is what I'm studying. My thesis is how do we get these things across through, social media platform and allow people to, like, get in on the joke? But I think that's that's where people need to kind of take a step back and realize this could be misinterpreted. Is it necessary for me to say this right now? And it's not about self censorship.
Ira McIntosh:I don't believe in self censorship. It's about social media. You, unfortunately, have to think about optics, unfortunately. It's just, it's a thing. And there are people out there who are waiting to for a queer person to shit on another queer person so they can start shitting on them too.
Ira McIntosh:It's knowing there are people waiting to tear us down. And if we give them any kind of a foothold at this present moment, they will take it. It doesn't mean that it'll be like that forever, but we have to let things evolve to the point where we can make some of those jokes again.
Dr. Kelly Culver:The last thing that you just said was super interesting, and I thought it was a segue into whether or not you're ready for a couple of questions, like our rapid fire questions.
Ira McIntosh:Let's do it.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Are you?
Ira McIntosh:Okay. You know I'm probably not, but let's do it.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Alright. Alright. No. But this is really easy. This is really easy.
Dr. Kelly Culver:So have fun with this. What's your favorite movie or TV show that makes you feel or think about resilience?
Ira McIntosh:I have a lot of answers for that. But I think the the one that always comes to mind, my, like, my go to movie when I'm having a tough day and wanna just, like, have a mug of tea and just, like, sit and feel good is specifically the 1997 version of Little Women. Don't get me started on Greta Gerwig. I could go on for three hours about her.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Okay.
Ira McIntosh:But the 1997 version of Little Women, and it's because it's a story about queerness that was written at a time when you couldn't be queer, and so she had to change the ending to make her to make the lead character not look queer. But ultimately, all of the characters deal with the worst things that you could deal with and find community and find those ways to be resilient as they move forward. So that's been that's a movie that I, honestly have probably mostly memorized at this point.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Oh, that's a beautiful example. That's a beautiful example. Alright. So now tell us, what's your favorite song that makes you feel resilient?
Ira McIntosh:See, this one's a hard one. This is way harder than movies, because I'm a musician. So music, the I have to go through an entire library of music in my mind. So I think I'm gonna cop out Adaka with a specific song, but I'm gonna say, again, the the music that helps me get through tough days and tough times, like when I was sitting in New York just after, like, a eighteen hour work day on the subway home, I would always turn on Christmas music. And I know I know Christmas music is not for everyone, but it could be boiling hot.
Ira McIntosh:I could be sweating my ass off, and that's the only thing that's gonna get me better, specifically Kelly Clarkson's Christmas albums.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Oh, yeah. Yes.
Ira McIntosh:Wrapped in red will always pick up my spirits in a heartbeat.
Dr. Kelly Culver:I love it, and I know Jen does too. I can see her reaction.
Jenn Quader:I I now I'm I I because you said you would do it for money, we're gonna have to hire you to do your drag acts to Kelly Clarkson's album. I'm I'm I'm booking you. That's it.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Christmas Special Resiliency, the podcast. Here we come.
Jenn Quader:I can I'm ready. I'm I'm here for it.
Ira McIntosh:Oh, that's super.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Okay. It's a deal. What's one last thing that made you laugh? Like, laugh out loud, laugh, crazy laugh.
Ira McIntosh:I have been it has been hard finding laughs recently just because I've been studying a lot of really heavy stuff and in the classroom a lot, and cities are not my favorite thing in the planet no matter what country I'm in. So laughing has been hard to come by. So I turned to one of my favorite shows, and I'm rewatching it for probably the fifth or sixth time. So it's The Marvelous Missus Maisel. There's just it is so well written.
Ira McIntosh:And I'm a Gilmore Girls fan too. Anything Amy Sherman Palladino does is brilliant. But there's just something about The Marvelous Missus Maisel that they hit so many great there's so many great one liners. There's so many great monologues. The situations are just so ironic and beautiful.
Ira McIntosh:So I've been watching that a lot this last week and just laughing out loud to myself in my apartment. I'm sure my neighbor thinks that I'm going completely crazy at the
Dr. Kelly Culver:time. You're in Paris. They don't care. Listen. I lived there three years.
Dr. Kelly Culver:They don't care. You're fine.
Jenn Quader:I I also lived there two and a half years. They do care if you're American. Just FYI. Okay. Alright.
Ira McIntosh:And a doctor, I just speak French, so they're okay with it.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Yeah. It's true. It's like it's your inside voice laugh or your outside voice laugh. Depends.
Ira McIntosh:You know,
Ira McIntosh:it it depends on the episode. Okay. Love it.
Dr. Kelly Culver:What what's the question that you would like to leave for a future guest?
Ira McIntosh:If you were a kind of cookie, what would you be and why? And the why is an important one in that in that question.
Jenn Quader:Okay. Okay. I'm in love with that question. Okay. I'm already, like, answering it in my head, and and I'm going through a lot of cookies.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Yeah.
Jenn Quader:Yeah. Great question, Ira. Great question. I used to be
Ira McIntosh:a camp counselor. I had to come up with questions like that all the time.
Dr. Kelly Culver:I love it. What color would
Ira McIntosh:your lightsaber be? If you were a shoe, what would you be? Icebreakers are the best kinds of questions.
Jenn Quader:I'm I'm like, I'm an Oreo because I'm sweet and gushy on the inside. You know? I'm just thinking it through.
Ira McIntosh:But then you have to question what is a cookie? Like, what are you going to accept as an answer? So there's there's a lot of ways it can go.
Jenn Quader:Now you're getting into grad school speak.
Ira McIntosh:Just like, is a hot dog a sandwich? Is a taco a sandwich?
Jenn Quader:Perspective. Both are delicious.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Yeah. It's about perception and perspective. And they're not
Jenn Quader:the same thing, right, Doctor. C?
Dr. Kelly Culver:They're not the same thing. Now, Jen, you need to ask the last question, which is a really cool thing someone in a previous episode left for us.
Jenn Quader:So this is what we're gonna take we'll we'll take it full circle. We've gone from cookies all the way to, we're talking about legacy. And the question is, what would you say in your epitaph?
Ira McIntosh:Oh god.
Ira McIntosh:I mean, that's that's hard because I feel like my headstone is gonna have to be a joke. Like, I'm not it's not gonna just be Iron Macintosh, born, died, beloved friend and whatever. There's gonna have to be some kind of joke on it. But an epitaph is so much more heartfelt. Now I'm questioning my question that I asked.
Ira McIntosh:Feel bad.
Jenn Quader:No. Yours is great. Don't worry.
Dr. Kelly Culver:I love yours.
Ira McIntosh:I would like to be remembered as someone who cared about themselves as much as they cared about their community because I think it's really easy to care too much about the people around you and not put care into yourself. So I think in my epitaph, I would like to be remembered as that person who took the time for themselves when they needed to, but then also made sure that there was time for everyone else too.
Jenn Quader:That's beautiful. Ira, that's beautiful. It is. Yeah. The it's it's beautiful.
Jenn Quader:And you know what? It's so real to who you are. I I wanna say a huge thank you for having the bravery, the resilience, the, wisdom to be able to tell this story on the TEDx stage and then again today on Resiliency the podcast. I wanna thank you for being so open and honest about all of the things you've experienced. Everything you are doing is speaking exactly to what you just said.
Jenn Quader:You are really guarding and taking care of yourself as you nurture this this language you're learning and these communities you're building. And then, you're really making a major difference for those who don't understand some of the the work, that and and the ability that they have to make a difference in the world through social media, throughout queer communities, and really on everyone they love. So, Ira, we wanna thank you for coming to Resiliency the Podcast. It's been our absolute pleasure. And then to all of our listeners, we wanna thank you for being here with us.
Jenn Quader:As always, we ask that you like and subscribe our episode if you have enjoyed this. We certainly hope you do, and we've got more coming for you. So please look us up. You can find Resiliency the Podcast on any station where you like to listen to podcasts. You'll find us on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, etcetera.
Jenn Quader:You can also find us online at resiliencythepodcast.com. Now I wanna ask our guest today, mister Ira McIntosh, where can our listeners find you if they'd like to learn more about the wonderful things you've talked about today?
Ira McIntosh:I mean, surprisingly, for someone who is studying social media and preaching social media, I don't use it a whole lot. But you can find me. I do have a TikTok. I don't post very often, but you will see me commenting my merry little heart out. You can follow my TikTok at an American gay in Paris.
Ira McIntosh:On Instagram, I am just Ira a McIntosh. There's no a in McIntosh, so I put it before it. Oh, come on. And then, also, if you want to look at my drag page, I haven't posted there in a while too because it's been a while since I performed, but you can check her out. That's on Instagram at the gaborium.
Ira McIntosh:That's t h e g a b o r I u m.
Jenn Quader:Beautiful. Thank you for sharing so much of yourself, Ira. We will put all of those links into the show notes so that all of our listeners can find you, engage with you, and continue to learn from you as you continue to grow as a historian and just as a wonderful person. You can find me, Jen Quater, at JenQuater.com or online at, the @thesmartagency.com, which is my company, or on all social profiles at Jen Quater. And then our illustrious and wonderful cohost, doctor Kelly Culver, you can find her at the Culvergroup.ca.
Jenn Quader:That is .ca because she is the queen of all things Canada. She is also online at doctorkellyculver.com, and you'll find her at doctor kelly culver on LinkedIn and Instagram. And as always, we just want to say thank you, listeners. This is a place that's really special to our hearts as we share stories, strategies, and inspiration as we all work together to overcome change. So until the next episode, we wish you resilience.
Jenn Quader:We wish you a lot of love and happiness. We'll see you next time.
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