Body Liberation for All

Ian Kumamoto (he/they) is a journalist, a queer person and a Chinese-Mexican who is active on social media sharin what's actually going on in his part of the world and serving us truth. Ian was born and raised in Mexico and speaks fluent Spanish and moved to the US  and spent some time in their childhood in Spain. He graduated BA. in Print Journalism and Globral Liberal Studies from NYU in 2019 and shortly after, co-founded, Chaos+Comrades, a magazine by and for queer people of color.

In addition to their freelance work, they are current a writer for Mic, covering  health, identity, sex, drugs, money, career, and travel.

This episode we discuss:

🌈 Finding your own unique way to get through educational systems that don't support you

🌈Writing in English as multilingual person

🌈 Love-hate relationship with social media platforms

🌈Reclaiming your identity outside of racialized sexual objectification as a queer man of color

🌈Healing race based body dysmorphia

Episode Resources

This episode Goddess joins me in a heartfelt discussion of our shared experience of leaving the cult in which we were raised, deconditioning ourselves, and finding our way to our true selves. 

Goddess (they/them/theirs) is the Proud MoMo of Sun Seed Community; a platform for the practice of collective healing. Creating Goddess’ tools of liberation took a whole community of support and they hope their village's stories can resonate with others.

They graduated from the Healing Arts Institute of Massage in October of 2018 and continue to explore therapeutic and spiritual practices. You can usually find them in the "pagan" section of the bookstore, sitting in the back of a concert, caressing crystals at your local metaphysical shop, or binge-watching old sci-fi movies while cooking.

This episode we discuss:

🌈 Identifying marks of cults

🌈 Recovering your true identity 

🌈 Communicating with family that is inside a cult or high control group

🌈 Weaponization of the need for community

🌈 Critical thinking as protection and a tool for liberation

Resources Mentioned in the Show

Season 2 is launching on January 1st.

Episodes are now monthly.

Resources

Zac Potter, founder of Lion's Heart Health, is an Atlanta-based Health & Wellness teacher and author leading a whole health journey that starts from the heart. With 15+ years of training in Yoga, Weightlifting, Track & Field and Gymnastics, he meets you where you are in your health journey while focusing on balance, function and progressive performance in the pursuit of your best physical self. Zac believes firmly that our physical fitness journey is powered by something deeper—our "why"—and that health is best approached as a way to love ourselves—and others—to our fullest potential.

This episode we discuss

🌈Bringing Your Heart and Love Into Fitness

🌈Functional Strength that Supports Your Life

🌈Posture and Rehabilitating Weak Muscles

🌈Finding Internal, Sustainable Motivation

🌈Healing from the Heart Outward

Resources

After graduation from Prairie View A & M University, Britni D. Andrews became a queer counselor intern based in Houston, TX.

Britni has utilized an artistic medium of language and an eclectic approach to wellness to sculpt their role as Creative Director of @TheKIDDORG, a community initiative. They have produced creative workshops in collaboration with Covenant House California (CHC), Covenant House Texas and Harris County Juvenile Probation Department (HCJPD). @THEKIDDORG has a mission to push the state of change forward in conversations about mental health, community engagement, criminal justice reform and LGBTQ+ community support.

Recently named as an Idea Fund Round 12 Grantee, Britni is producing “The Session: LGBTQ+ Mental Health feat. QPOC”- a short film composed of private unscripted dialogues with Queer People of Color (QPOC) reflecting on their unique identities within their cultures, the LGBTQ+ community and the challenges faced in expression of their gender, sexuality and development of affirming and inclusive relationships.

This episode we discuss

🌈 Being called to create resources that we once needed 

🌈Destigmatizing mental health 

🌈Connecting to the wisdom of our Black Queer History

🌈Managing the stress of holding multiple marginalized identities

🌈How and when to tap in to therapy as a healing tool 

Resources

Connect with Britni

Mike Iamele is a Life Purpose Expert + Brand Strategist and the author of Enough Already: Create Success on Your Own Terms. For nearly a decade, his Sacred Branding® system has helped hundreds of celebrities, artists, entrepreneurs, influencers, and spiritual seekers to map their experiences and discover their subconscious motivations, unique brand, and life purpose. People use this work for all kinds of things — from branding and building a business, to exploring identity and sexuality, to finding their artistic voice, to even re-discovering themselves after a life-altering event, like divorce or retirement. 

This episode we discuss:

🌈Why some of us shy away from clarity on our purpose

🌈What comes after finding your purpose

🌈Coming to terms with or overcoming feelings of being too much or not enough

🌈Recognizing your lived experience as the ultimate authority

🌈Learning to decipher your true self vs your conditioning and social programing

Resources

Amazin LeThi is a global Vietnamese LGBTQ advocate, keynote speaker, athlete and thought leader. She is a former competitive bodybuilder, entertainment executive and the first Vietnamese internationally published fitness author. Amazin has captured audiences with her story from the United Nations to Google and governments from all around the world.   As a thought leader and through conversations, panel discussions and Q&As, Amazin shares her personal journey of homelessness to becoming one of the most visible and influential LGBTQ activists in the world. Her story was included in the It Gets Better campaign and the first White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Asian anti-bullying campaign Act to Change.

In this interview Amazin shares her story of being raised in an intensely anti-Asian environment. This episode will make you want to finish construction on your time machine to go back and back hand some folks in young Amazin’s defense.  If you are able to do that let us all get in on that. 

It's heart breaking to face how much trauma some of us have survived at the hands of white supremacy culture, how much of the racism we internalized and how many years we’ve had to dedicate to recovery.

The beauty of the story is that Amazin not only survived, but found a way to repair her self-worth and actively work to fight systemic oppression and shield the most vulnerable from abuse and bigotry. 

This episode we discuss:

🌈The transracial adoptee experience

🌈Discovering the empowering nature of body building 

🌈Recovering from low-self worth and internalized racism

🌈Intersectional activism and fighting AAPI hate

Resources

Dontá Morrison is a Los Angeles-based community change agent focused on bridging gaps and improving the lives of marginalized individuals. He works tirelessly to change the way communities engage in conversations about sex, sexual behavior, and human sexuality. HIV Plus magazine listed him as one of the top 20 most amazing HIV+ people of 2018. He is the recipient of numerous awards and recognized by many for his ambitious approach to sexual health within communities of color. Additionally, he has challenged the traditional Black church to be more inclusive and welcoming of persons from all sexual identities. Realizing that faith-based sexual exclusion plays a negative role in how LGBTQ persons deal with themselves, he aims to shift the paradigm in that area.

This episode we discuss 

🌈The key to consistently practicing safer sex

🌈The traditional Black American church and its relationship to queerness

🌈Developing a personal relationship with God after experiencing religious trauma

🌈The connection between self-acceptance and HIV prevention

Resources

Connect with Dontá

Celia is an Asian Indian gender fluid, non-op trans woman of color who is an entrepreneur, musician, photographer, storyteller, activist and filmmaker. She writes and speaks passionately about her struggles and challenges she faced in her family, work, and community both in the US and India. As a management consultant with top fortune 100 companies, she educates, empowers, and advocates for transgender and gender non-binary individuals in the business world. 

Celia brings an amazing intersectional blend of ethnicity, creativity, culture, religion, and corporate experience in her activism. Received the 2019 Human Rights Campaign’s equality award for“ Outstanding commitment and service to our community”. She is currently in the Executive Board for Trans Can Work and the VP of Stonewall Democrats of Ventura County, California.

Growing up as a lonely closeted trans child in a conservative middle-class Christian home in Southern India, Celia writes and speaks passionately about their inner struggles, gender dysphoria and social challenges she faced in her family, work, school, and community both in the US and India.

This episode we discuss 

🌈The intersection of misogyny, racism, and transphobia

🌈Surviving years of gender dysphoria with moments of gender euphoria

🌈Reclaiming personal power through intersectional activism

🌈Living for yourself and learning to follow your internal compass

Resources

Connect with Celia

Sarah Osman is a mixed-race WOC entrepreneur with roots in Madagascar, France, India, and Malaysia. She was born and raised in Mauritius (worth the Google search if you don’t know where that is 😉) and has made Canada her home for the past 10 years.

She is a wellness and mindset coach for women of color entrepreneurs who want to break free of burnout and thrive in both their life and their biz.

Last summer Sarah and I were enrolled in a life-changing coaching program for femmes of color with revolutionary messages.  Being guided through decolonizing our mindsets around entrepreneurship was truly liberating. 

This episode we discuss

🌈The transformation that decolonization business coaching made possible

🌈Escaping the grip of fear and self-doubt 

🌈Coming home to yourself and developing self-trust

Resources

Embodiment Coach and creator of the Get Embodied Soul Dance experience, Ifasina, has been a lifelong student of the human experience and self-mastery. They teach, coach, and consult on various issues and topics that involve being the kind of leader that cultivates and invest in their own greatness while being in relationship with others to support them in doing the same. Ifasina is trained formally and informally in various healing modalities and professional development strategies with a focus on experiences and bodies that are often overlooked and ignored in the pursuit of mainstream notions of leadership, professionalism, health, and wellness.

This episode we discuss

🌈How to develop an embodiment practice?

🌈How do you find a spiritual practice that is LGBTQIA+ or Queer affirming?

🌈How do develop a relationship with your body without the obligation to perform wellness? 🌈What is the connection between spirituality and embodiment?

🌈How can embodiment work help queer, black, brown, disabled, and fat bodies counter the damage living in a hostile world?

Resources

Sean Crenshaw is the Founder of betruebu.com (pronounced be true be you). She identifies as a masculine presenting lesbian who has created a dating community that is about creating friendships, networking, and finding someone to date that isn't looking for a one night or a wedding in June. This site is for black professional women who want to start new friendships and are tired of dating apps that focus on looks instead of communication.

This episode we discuss

🌈Love as Hard Work

🌈Why Queer Women Deserve Better than Stereotypes and Misogyny in Relationships

🌈Dispelling the Soulmate Myth

🌈Finding and Creating Safe Spaces for Love

🌈Challenging Internalized Stigma

🌈Healing from Heartbreak and Keeping the Heart Open

Resources

Summer Luk is a musician, transgender activist, and content creator.  She uses her lyrics to challenge the current narrative of the transgender experience.  She's been using her platform to address the issues that she is most passionate about, create safe spaces for her followers, and to build community. 

This episode we discuss

🌈learning to trust your voice

🌈managing the pressure of becoming a public figure

🌈staying true to the topics you are passionate about

🌈passing privilege and active activism 

🌈rewriting your story and stepping into your full worth

Resources

Rawiyah is a kink aware professional with roots in queer, poly-amorous, and fat community. Their tone is reflective of these roots and their work is informed by how these intersect with their Blackness. Magic, massage, storytelling and performance art are tools they use to liberate, heal and reclaim space for themself and their marginalized communities.

This episode Rawiyah explains:

🌈how to set up your first altar

🌈connecting with chosen ancestors 

🌈setting boundaries in spiritualism 

🌈using ritual in healing 

🌈sharing your story in lieu of traditional marketing

Resources

The damage that colonization has done to the consciousness of over half the world's population is mind boggling. Beauty and body image have been in the eyes of the colonizer for long enough.

If you want to honor and celebrate your body and stop viewing it through a eurocentric heteronormative lens, this workshop replay is for you.  

It's decolonization season 💖💖💖

Resources 

January 1 kicks off body hatred season.  Every year like clockwork we can expect companies to prey on our hunger for worthiness.   Hilary Kinavey, MS, LPC and Dana Sturtevant, MS, RD of Be Nourished have been working with folks since 2005 to reclaim their body trust, let go of dieting and weight cycling, and ease into more compassionate sustainable forms of self-care.  

This episode Hilary and Dana 

✨explain the connection between systems of oppression and diet culture(the belief system that posits that some bodies are superior to others and that the thin ideal is the bee's knees)

✨break down how white supremacy is entangled in diet culture

✨developing self-compassion around privilege and the pursuit of social justice 

✨how social injustice impacts health and wellbeing

✨how white supremacy/cultural centrism has influenced western views of 'healthy' food

Resources

Are you feeling lost and uncertain? Have you wasted time, energy, and resources trying to find clarity and meaning in your life? In times like these, it's vital to know who you are, why you're here, and what you should be doing.   Melvin Nix has literally written the book on finding your purpose and living a meaningful life. 

Melvin D Nix is a spiritual teacher, certified reiki master, and energy healer. He is an author, motivational speaker and currently hosts a weekly broadcast called "Putting On The Pneu You," Where he teaches how to transform your life by living through your spirit. His purpose is to teach universal spiritual concepts and principles in an easy to understand format so that anyone can apply them and see tangible results in their daily lives. 

This episode we discuss

🔥how to find your purpose

🔥finding answers in silence

🔥learning how to hear your own voice

🔥learning to manage loved ones that can't understand your purpose

Resources  

Gabrielle Claiborne is Co-founder and CEO of Transformation Journeys Worldwide, an inclusion training and consulting firm with a transgender focus. She helps cutting-edge organizations position themselves to attract and retain the best talent, foster collaborative working environments, and drive innovation by creating fully trans-inclusive cultures. 

Dr. Bacon’s Mission

• to promote social and economic justice and help generate a culture of belonging
• to galvanize a body positivity movement that celebrates the influence of our multiple intersecting identities
• to provide the critical thought, inspiring vision, and practical strategies you need to celebrate and care for your own body
• to help you develop your skills to educate, motivate, and inspire others, and to nurture a culture of belonging

Clearly, Lindo's mission is a perfect fit for Body Liberation for All.  Radical Belonging: How to Survive and Thrive in an Unjust World (While Transforming It for the Better) is an incredible blend of personal storytelling and profound insights that address the role that system of oppression plays in damaging the health of marginalized folx.  

I love that Lindo does more than simply illuminate the issues at hand.  They explain how we can thrive in the present tense while working toward meaningful change.  

This episode we discuss: 

🌈The mythical norm

🌈The impact marginalization has on physical and emotional health 

🌈How to pursue safety, community, and a sense of belonging

🌈Building a self-compassion practice 

Resources

This is part 2 of the Body Liberation for All takeover series I completed in partnership with Nik Whitcomb on "The Come Up"

Lindley Ashline (pronounced LIN-lee, she/her) creates photographs that celebrates the unique beauty of bodies that fall outside conventional "beauty" standards. She is also the creator of Body Liberation Stock and the Body Love Shop, a curated resource for body-friendly products and artwork. Find Lindley's work and get her free weekly Body Liberation Guide at http://bit.ly/bodyliberationguide.

This episode we discuss

📷 The function of propaganda and misinformation 

📷 Intersectionality and Fatphobia 

📷 Purging internalized bias 

📷 Honoring the emotional labor of others

📷 Forms of activism and focusing on serving fat folx

Resources

This is part 1 of a 2 part takeover Body Liberation for All completed in partnership with Nik Whitcomb on "The Come Up"

Steven Wakabayashi is a second-generation Japanese-Taiwanese-American, leading design teams and creating equitable spaces in New York City. When he's not working, he is recording podcasts for his show, Yellow Glitter – mindfulness through queer Asian stories, hosting support groups for marginalized communities, writing in his weekly newsletter Mindful Moments, and hosting evening sessions for QTPOC Design – an organization empowering LGBTQ+ designers of color with education, mentorship, and networking opportunities.- why it is more important than ever now to create safe spaces and share our stories with one another.

This episode we discuss

🦄why safe spaces are crucial to healing

🦄why sharing our QTBIPOC stories with one another is essential

🦄the Gaysian experience

🦄processing rejection from mothers

🦄mindfulness through a queer lens

🦄decolonizing love and relationships 

Resources

I recently had the pleasure of making a guest appearance on the fellow queer podcast "Oh Hey"

"Oh Hey" is a fun show lead by two gay guys from different generations. Every week they discuss current topics in the LGBTQ+ community.

Ryan and Todd will leave no topic untouched. Whether it's trans activism or the proper way to douche. If you are down for a gay ol' time make sure to check out their feed.   https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/oh-hey/id1487480780

Resources

Stephen Indrisano is a bisexual audio fanatic with an education in Psychology and Theater. Having graduated from the University of Vermont in 2018, he had been making a living working as a general theater technician until the COVID crisis of 2020. He has since pivoted to learning everything he can about sound as a freelance audio professional for podcasting and voiceOver. In his spare time, he co-hosts a Stephen King fancast called the Stephen King Boo! Club, which brings a literary eye to popular paperback fiction.

We covered a massive amount of territory in this conversation.  Stephen is hilarious and insightful.

This episode we discuss

🌈Identifying boring racist and homophobic tropes in media

🌈Experiencing film through a queer lens

🌈Queer representation in horror

🌈Bi visibility in the queer community

🌈Speech as performance

🌈Finding ways to nurture your artistic passion and pay bills

🌈The secret to peace of mind in the dumpster fire that is 2020

Resources

Diva Darling is a force of nature who's the perfect storm of high femme and lowbrow, with lightning in her eyes and thunder in her thighs. This queer, curvy Beltway bombshell is a DC-based burlesque performer, writer, sex educator, and producer of the underground hit storytelling show Smut Slam DC. She's editing and writing for the first book of sexy confessions from Smut Slam International, Anonymous Sex Vol. I, due out in October.

This episode we discuss:

🌈Overcoming barriers to great sex

🌈Navigating consent with a new partner 

🌈Healing sexual wounds 

🌈The value and beauty of solo sex 

Dr. Steve Yacovelli  (“The Gay Leadership Dude”) is Owner & Principal of TopDog Learning Group, LLC, a learning and development, leadership, change management, and diversity and inclusion consulting firm based in Orlando, FL, USA, with affiliates across the globe.

Dr. Steve has worked with Fortune 500 greats like The Walt Disney Company and Bayer to amazing not-for-profits like The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and The American Library Association; large universities like The Ohio State University and The University of Central Florida, to small entrepreneurial rock stars like International Training & Development and GovMojo, Inc. , helping them grow, expand, and be successful with change management, diversity and inclusion, and leadership consulting.

With over twenty-five years of experience in leadership, strategy, organizational learning, and communication, Steve is a rare breed of professional that understands the power of using academic theory and applying it to the corporate setting to achieve business results. 

This episode we discuss 

🌈The secret to great leadership
🌈LGBTQ+ Leadership
🌈True Diversity and Inclusion
🌈Queer Leadership Superpowers and the premise of "Pride Leadership"

Resources

David Mielke is a gay man born in Campbell River, BC, where an extraordinary teacher named Marie Rackham helped him turn his life around when he dropped back into high school after running away from home at the age of 15. He went on to work in Los Angeles as an actor and singer, appearing in television and theatre. When Marie was diagnosed with cancer, David returned to Canada to care for her, and together they created the award-winning Cozy Grammar series as a way for her to be, as she put it, “where cancer isn’t.” After her death, he worked in LGBTIQ social services before returning to acting and creating autobiographical stage shows. David lives in a yurt with his husband, Thomas Hitoshi Pruiksma, on Vashon Island, WA.  Their latest collaborations are The Driftwood Bridge - An Offering of Story and Song; and a series of videos called Broadway In The Yurt.

This episode we discuss

🌈Overcoming internalized shame

🌈Turning stumbling blocks into bridges to love

🌈Composting crappy experiences into fertilizer to help others grow

🌈Seeing your life itself as a work of art

🌈The intersection of personal growth and creative expression

Resources

If you, like so many of us have experienced rejection from the religious tradition of your youth, this conversation with Reverence Catherine will touch your heart. 

Rev. Catharine Clarenbach self-identifies as a white, fat, queer cis femme with physical disabilities and managed mental illness. All these identities inform her spiritual work and passion for intersectional justice.

This episode we discuss

🌈Recovering from rejection from your religious community 

🌈The difference between Fat Liberation and Body Positivity

🌈Sizeism in spiritual communities 

🌈The importance of joy in liberation

Resources

Body Liberation For All is an inclusive new resource created specifically for queer folks and POC.  Starting August 3rd I’ll be coming to you every month  with everything from meditations for self-acceptance, intersectional food for thought, tools to adopt body lead eating practices to rebuild your sense of personal power, and reviews of new songs, shows, films and other media that celebrate a diverse array of identities.  

This is not another super white, straight, cis self-care podcast.  This is the resource you have been waiting for.