Panelists
Michael Larsen (INTRO):
Hello and welcome to The Testing Show. Episode 138. Qualipride 2023. This episode was recorded Friday, June 2nd, 2023. In this episode, to celebrate Pride Month and the Qualipride Initiative, we welcome back Fiona Dawson, our guest host, to talk with special guests, Bleighton Eppard, Jessica Hose, Miguel Urdinola, Mafalda Chambel, and Elizabeth Argall about their experiences as part of the L G T B Q I A community, their roles and work with Qualitest and their focus on Qualipride and what it means to them. And with that on with the show.
Fiona Dawson (00:56):
Hello everyone. I am honored and delighted to be back again as your guest host for the Qualitest “The Testing Show” podcast for the Qualipride special edition 2023. So welcome everybody. My name is Fiona. Yes, Fiona (like the princess in Shrek) Dawson (like Dawson’s Creek, If you’ve seen that movie, I love it). And I know that we can’t tell someone’s pronouns by how we look or how we sound, so I’m going to let you know that my pronouns are she/her. I am a cisgender, bisexual immigrant woman living in Austin, Texas. I am founder and director of my company, Free Lion Productions, where we use our advocacy and filmmaking skills to create short inclusive storytelling videos that center on people sharing their values, experience, and aspirations. Basically, my team and I help make diversity, equity, and inclusion or DEI programs work. I also do speaking engagements and I have a book called “Are Bisexuals Just Greedy, which is basically answers for all people who simply want to understand the spectrum of being LGBTQ plus.
(02:04):
So as I said earlier, I live in Austin, Texas, but the accent is English. I left in 1998. I’ve traveled around the world and today I just love my career, especially because I get to meet people from many different walks of life and many different countries like yourselves listening today and like the five incredible people that we are gonna have a conversation with today. We’re here for a very upbeat, positive, inspirational conversation on what it means to be LGBTQ plus. So let’s get right into it and meet your panelists. We really have an incredible group of people who I would love to invite to give a very quick introduction of themselves and then I’m gonna dive into deeper questions. Let’s start with Bleighton. I would love you to start off with how long have you been with Qualitest, can you share your identities with us (so like your labels) and let us know where you’re located, and finally what you love about your job?
Bleighton Eppard (02:58):
Yeah, so my name is Bleighton Eppard. My pronouns are she/her. I identify as a straight cisgender female. Been an ally of the LGBTQ+ community for most of my life and I’ve been with Qualitest since 2018. Coming up on five years here in July, which is really great. I’m located in Central Virginia and what I love most about my job is Qualitest is really fluid and I mean that in a bunch of different ways. The way that we operate, the way that we’re open with our employees, the way that we’re open with our opportunities for rotation, things like that. Very, very open. And that also includes Qualipride, which I’m very proud of being a part of in Qualitest.
Fiona Dawson (03:43):
That is amazing. Bleighton, thank you so much. I have a great question for you within this conversation, but let’s move to Jessica. Jessica, if you would like to come and introduce yourself and again say how long have you’ve been with the company, your identities, where you’re located, and what you love about your job.
Jessica Hose (04:00):
Hello, I am Jessica. My pronouns are she/her or they/them. I have been with Qualitest for almost nine months now. I am cisgender or agender pansexual female. I currently reside in Kirkland, Washington and my favorite things about working for Qualitest would have to be I do a lot of testing of innovative and really cool creative tech every single day and I adore my coworkers. This is a wonderful community to be a part of and I’m also excited to be here.
Fiona Dawson (04:32):
That’s awesome, Jessica. I just got warm chills when you just said I love my coworkers. That sounds great. It feels great. So Mafalda, are you there?
Mafalda Chambel (04:41):
? Hello everyone. So my name is Mafalda. Mafalda Chambel, to be more exact. My pronouns are she and her. I identify myself as a lesbian. I’ve been in Qualitest for nearly four years since we started with a big client in Portugal. I’m Portuguese, by the way. What I love about my job? So I’m part of a department that works a lot with transformation of processes and support a lot of people. So we deal with many different nationalities, many different ways of doing the work on their daily operation. Sometimes it’s the hardest part of my job, but it’s also the part that I love more. It’s to deal with people. So I think I can simplify by saying this.
Fiona Dawson (05:27):
That’s great. You’re people person. .
Mafalda Chambel (05:30):
Definitely
Fiona Dawson (05:31):
. Okay. And next we have Miguel. Miguel, I would love for you to introduce yourself. Great to have you on here as well.
Miguel Urdinola (05:41):
Hey everyone, great to be here. I’m originally from Argentina and I started with Qualitest about 11 years ago now. I started with Olenick and then it was acquired by Qualitest. I identify as a gay cisgender man. I’m now located in Dallas, Texas. What I like more about my job is that as a project manager I get to work with a lot of different kinds of professionals and everyone here that I’ve met in this last 11 years, there’s a reason I stayed with first Olenick and then Qualitest. Everyone is super friendly, collaborative, it’s been a great experience working with everyone I’ve met so far. Some more than others, but in general I love collaborating with teams and with other professionals and helping them make their best work. I get to talk with so many people from different cultures too and even more so now in areas of expertise and I love that. I am sort of a people’s person but also an introvert. So it works great for me. ,
Fiona Dawson (06:52):
That’s fantastic, Miguel. Well, I mean we are all like icebergs with different identities and all of us are completely unique so it’s great to have such a broad spectrum of different personalities on the call as well. And of course, we have our fifth panelist, Liz. Liz, if you would like to give us your introduction now too.
Elizabeth Argall (07:11):
Hi, I’m Liz. I’m also a migrant Australian living in Seattle U S A. I’m a cis woman and I’d say queer as a verb and passionate about allyship in multiple dimensions. I think to describe my sexuality, the easiest thing would be in high school in the mid-nineties when a lot of conversations had still yet to happen, people were so confused by how I didn’t fit into neat gender roles and gender performance , that’s my orientation to the world. What labels I have depends on the advocacy work that needs to happen, whether some labels would take space from others. When an editor asked me if I wanted to contribute to Queers Destroy Science Fiction, I said, “Mmm, I’m not sure I feel queer enough in my experiences in terms of I wouldn’t wanna take space from others, but in other places where it might be more uncomfortable to be more queer or bi identifying, I’d be like, yeah, I’m totally that” .
(08:08):
It’s so complicated of my answers to things. I’m new to qua test, but I’ve been with QAnalysts in my current position for about a year and this is my second position with QAnalysts. I was a little bit nervous when QAnalysts got acquired by Qualitest, but I’ve been really excited by the various opportunities and what a bigger organization can provide. I have a lot of really amazing colleagues at QAnalysts that I’ve lost because they needed to go somewhere else for career opportunities. And so it’s exciting to be part of the bigger organization that seems so committed to inclusion and has more positions for people to go in, so I don’t lose some of my amazing colleagues. I’m a technical writer for a Fortune 500 company and I love my job that I get to work in an area of research and untangle lots of knotted bits of string and help people communicate themselves and give people the information they need.
Fiona Dawson (09:08):
That’s great Liz. And going back to the mixture, and I think you even said the word complicated yourself and I think it can feel complicated, but there are so many different nuances with our labels and we don’t always identify with how we present ourselves to the world. And I was relating to what you were saying in that I present as a very femme looking woman. I carry a lot of privilege in that. My voice is very firm, I identify as bisexual, but inside I feel like I’m a gender queer unicorn dressed up as a pirate wrench , which I think is complicated in itself, isn’t it? Liz .
(09:45):
So anyway, well, thank you all five of you for making that introduction. And on behalf of the audience, I want to say I also really appreciate all of your vulnerability and willingness to be out and to share your personal stories. Personal stories make such a difference in the world. And so thank you all for being here. I also want to acknowledge that being LGBTQ+ is not that new and I think it feels new to lots of people, especially in countries that are debating identities. But in fact, when we look back thousands of years ago, people have been documented as not being a hundred percent straight or a hundred percent male or a hundred percent female. Historians have found many artifacts showing a spectrum of gender and sexual orientation identities across the world, but we just didn’t have that language. Having this new awakening I feel in terms of people finding language to express how they are. So I’m just really delighted to have this chat with you all and just explore the different ways that we identify today. Jessica, I’m gonna move to you to ask a deeper question for you to spend a little time talking about. You shared with us that pronouns she/they and they/them feel good for you for your gender identity and you label your sexual orientation as pansexual. Can you talk a bit more about how you came to the conclusion that these labels were the right fit for you?
Jessica Hose (11:06):
Yeah, absolutely. It took a long time for me to figure out who I was in those areas or even find those labels. It wasn’t until I was out of high school that I really even started questioning anything. There wasn’t a lot of role models in media. I grew up watching different Disney movies and things. I’ve always been a huge fan of just like wholesome romance, but there wasn’t a lot out there. And because I knew that I was attracted to guys, it was something that I never really questioned cuz it was clearly an avenue in terms of relationships that I could explore. So I never really considered anything else until I was older. And then I started asking myself a whole bunch of questions because I started seeing more representation out there and I realized that it was actually something that I also really identified with.
(11:57):
It took me a long while to really come to understand and I actually had to do a chunk of research into figuring out what I liked, who I was, and what labels that would fall under. So it was something that definitely took a bit. A lot of these things are relative, a lot of things are on a spectrum. I identify as she/her or they/them. Typically I go by she/her, but honestly, it’s not something that I really put a lot of weight into. And I think that’s mostly why, because in my personal opinion, I’m me and that’s all I really have to be. I don’t really mind too much whether I go by she/her or they/them. It was only through experience of getting to meet different people and experience different kinds of relationships that I discovered. I don’t really mind what people look like or what their gender is. There are things that are beautiful about everybody and those deeper relationships can only really be built for me once I actually get to know someone. But the rest doesn’t really matter too much.
Fiona Dawson (13:06):
Yeah, thank you. So people are sharing their pronouns more and more visually, video chat calls and all that kind of stuff. And I think people are becoming more aware of how important pronouns are for different people and how hurtful it can be to some when you use the wrong pronouns. So when somebody sees somebody else expressing both she/her and they/them. If someone wants to be a good ally, is there a time when they should use she/her and a time when they should use they/them? How do they decide which pronouns they should use when somebody’s comfortable with more than one pronoun?
Jessica Hose (13:44):
For me personally, I don’t particularly mind either way. I wouldn’t say that there’s like a specific time or place that one would be used in a better context than another. But I know for a lot of people that is very important. I have plenty of friends who are very specific about their pronouns because they either didn’t have a lot of support or they know exactly who they are and it’s important for them to be treated and respected as such. It’s important to be able to be upfront about and just be aware that it is a sensitive subject for some people and that it’s important to help others feel good about themselves and make sure that they’re comfortable with the way that you’re referring to them.
Fiona Dawson (14:30):
Yeah, and that’s why I feel like it’s always important if you want to be a good ally, is to volunteer your own pronouns first and acknowledge that we can’t guess somebody’s and then politely ask them what pronouns they like. And then also I say if you’re not in a position to ask, then just simply use that person’s name. It’s okay to repeat the name so you don’t use the wrong pronoun. Would you agree with that?
Jessica Hose (14:53):
Oh absolutely. I think that that’s a great way to go about it and just being open and honest with other people about yourself and letting them know that they can be open and honest with you. Treating them as a human being, letting them know that that’s okay. And then also, yeah, if it is one of those situations where you don’t feel that comfortable or they don’t feel that comfortable, then just using names is always a good alternative too.
Fiona Dawson (15:17):
Perfect. Well, thank you. Liz, I’d like to direct the conversation to you. As I said earlier, I really love the combination of the words that you used to describe yourself. And it’s been my belief for a really long time that there are many people who consider themselves heterosexual, but they do really relate to the spectrum of identities too. Like queering, I think, is a brilliant verb. I think I might start using it more often myself. If heterosexual is a label for you, how and do you feel included as a member of the LGBTQ+ community?
Elizabeth Argall (15:52):
I think some people intuitively know what sort of sexuality they have and other people, it’s a much more slow and painful process. Like I’m always an awe of people like, “I knew I was gay or straight at the age of eight”, um, . Cause you know, I had to do an empirical study on how I liked my Vegemite on toast, you know, at the age of 10, well I have these as
Fiona Dawson (16:14):
Vegemite or Marmite ,
Elizabeth Argall (16:18):
I have these assumptions that I like it this way, but do I really know this? Part of it is that so many people tried to conflate my identity as a whole with a sexuality that it made me very uncomfortable. So it felt like a more restrictive box than it needed to be. I did a lot of soul searching in university. I’m supposed to belong to a label and I don’t know how to belong to a label. Is asexual/demisexual a label that fits me? And you know, I thought about that for a long time. I was like, I think I have more trauma rather than asexuality as a core, but still I still sort of play with it. I feel most strongly that I belong to the community as an ally and creating spaces as much as possible and helping make things be more complicated .
(17:04):
And I think the conversations have evolved so much. I think part of it is a punishment for my cowardice that I never got further than third base with a woman cuz I was scared and it felt a bit hard and it’s a bit tragic, but the level of biphobia that was around in the nineties, it made it scary. I had bi friends who were just heartbroken cuz they weren’t allowed to march in Mardi Gras Pride Parade. You’d never know from year to year whether you would be allowed to march. And I’d have gay friends that had scornfully referred to LUGs (Lesbians Until Graduation). And I didn’t wanna like,
Fiona Dawson (17:41):
Wow!
Elizabeth Argall (17:41):
what if I only ever dated a woman in college and then got together with someone, my one true soulmate was a guy and then I’d have people scornfully referring to me as that. I’m like slow to relationship anyway. It’s a very slow, uncomfortable, neurotic process for me to fall for anybody. So you know, I’m certainly in the asexual/demisexual range. And then I would think about it and I’d be like, I don’t wanna experience those oppressions. In part, I think the only reason I don’t more strongly do the bi label is like a punishment of myself for not being more brave around them in the nineties,
Fiona Dawson (18:20):
Gosh, Liz, lemme first of all start off by completely affirming you and sending you love and hoping that I can help extract the level of shame. I’m trying to hold back and not take school into session right now because I have this habit of wanting to put my teacher’s hat on and educate everybody on the spectrum of gender and sexuality, which is why I wrote a book about it. So , I mean what you’re describing to me, you know is very much bisexual, pansexual, and spec. One of the things that I like to raise awareness about is that asexuality, demisexuality and I’m sure that there are people listening who might be hearing some of those words for the first time and they might not understand their definition. And I hope that we can put a link in the show notes, but let me just take on asexuality or ace at this point where their capacity is like zero or very little, you know, sexual attraction to people.
(19:14):
But attraction is more than just a sexual attraction. It can be a love or a romance and in fact straight people can be asexual, gay people can be asexual, lesbians can be asexual, bisexuals can be asexual. I just feel like your story just is such a great illustration of all of these different intersections. I think another analogy I think of human beings is like being like a mosaic. Every mosaic is unique. We’re all born so differently with these different layers. You know, I just commend you in having an awareness of all of these different layers of yourself.
Elizabeth Argall (19:46):
And I do think in terms of love for my parents and their level of support, there’s been social barriers and fears, but I’ve never felt an internal conflict around myself around, “Is it wrong to love a woman? Is it wrong?” Then so I think, weirdly enough, I feel like often coming into bisexuality for some people is like this internal struggle and like fighting impulses. So I think in some ways like I’m a reflection in some ways of slightly more advanced time than having parents who are ahead of their time. I know women who like, they’re happily married in a heterosexual relationship, but they go through this journey and this internal struggle where they need to sort of come to terms with their bisexuality. So to me like
Fiona Dawson (20:33):
mm-hmm
Elizabeth Argall (20:33):
it could be a label of struggle. And I never had that, you know, I just said to my husband, you know, if anything happened to you like looking around, I I’m not sure, I think you’d be my last man. Like there are nice guys around but like you know .
Fiona Dawson (20:46):
Yeah, your story is not uncommon. You are reminding me of many different people I know. And another thing I like to remind people is that you don’t have to act on anything. You don’t have to behave a certain way to prove your identity. There are people out there who identify as female. They could be in a long-term monogamous relationship with a man, they could maybe never have a relationship with a woman but they could still be bisexual. And I think that that is one of the reasons why bisexuals often have poorer healthcare disparities and that kind of stuff. And yet here in the United States outta the lesbian, gay and bi community, 56.8% identifies bisexual. Bisexual is actually the largest percentage of the population. But that’s, those numbers only are known because people are doing anonymous surveys. And just because that’s a stat in the US I’m sure it’s reflective of countries around the world, we’re not gonna have a high population in the US versus anywhere else. But in fact global reports as well.
Elizabeth Argall (21:49):
And certainly anecdotally, I had some friends who were sex workers in the nineties and two thousands and they’d say a lot of their clients were gay men who didn’t want to face that stigma
Fiona Dawson (22:00):
Yes.
Elizabeth Argall (22:00):
But still wanted to have sex with a woman sometimes.
Fiona Dawson (22:05):
Yep. Bi stigma is definitely a thing. We would love to provide resources for people listening to be able to learn more about that and to be compassionate and supportive and decrease the stigma and be better allies in the community . So, okay Liz, before we go off on a tangent and have our own conversation, take the podcast over, I’m delightfully gonna move to Miguel. You grew up in Argentina and now of course live in Dallas, Texas. Has your experience of being a gay man in those different places been different at all? Like how were you treated as a gay man in Argentina versus Texas?
Miguel Urdinola (22:39):
I would have to say that I consider myself pretty privileged in that sense. I felt shortly after recognizing or realizing that I was gay, I felt privileged to be born in the eighties in Argentina because I recognized that a lot of similar people around the world weren’t in such a good place. So I always felt lucky about that back in my hometown in Posadas, in Missiones up north in Argentina, it was a little town kind of feel. It’s a city but it’s a little town really. And I think I grew up kind of internalizing what I thought was the boundaries I had to navigate throughout my, mostly throughout my teenage years. I felt like I had to hide a little bit and I was also raised Catholic in a Christian family that also played into the sort of feeling that I had to hide a little bit, that I had to fight that feeling during the teenage years. After that, I would say I was very lucky to feel comfortable 99.9% of the time in my hometown after coming out at around 18 years old, later in Buenos Aires for the 13 years I’ve been there. Of course Buenos Aires is very open, as a capital city for the country and I very, very rarely and I would have to do some serious thinking to identify the very few times that I felt oppressed or discriminated against in Argentina. And coming here to Dallas one year ago, we basically buy the idea that we had about Texas and I know a lot of Americans and a lot of people around the world really share this idea.
(24:48):
You know Texas is cowboys and guns and very conservative. We were advised, me and my husband were advised to live in the gay neighborhood in Dallas. So it was a fantastic experience. We just moved now closer to my husband’s work because his commute is a little complicated. But that one year we’ve been here, living in that community was pretty much great. Everyone I met here in Dallas so far has been amazing about it.
Fiona Dawson (25:22):
It’s so interesting like so using Texas as a kind of case study that might represent other thoughts and opinions around the world where we’re seeing kind of a backlash.
Miguel Urdinola (25:34):
Yeah.
Fiona Dawson (25:34):
Not only in the US against LGBTQ+ people and it’s really interesting like just using Texas as an example, over the last three years of the anti-LGBTQ bills that have been trying to push through the Texas legislator, only five of them pass and it’s like over 300 in the last three years. So it’s like 98% of them don’t pass. And in fact today 76% of Texans think that discrimination against LGBTQ people is wrong. And then global reports show that as well. Globally, there is more support for LGBTQ people to be out and safe than there is against. And so it’s really quite strange where very small minorities of opinions seem to be getting the loudest voices, but I think in general people around the world do love and respect people across the spectrum of gender and sexuality. And so I can understand moving to Dallas, did you have any concerns about moving to Texas from Argentina?
Miguel Urdinola (26:41):
I did. I did have some preconceived ideas as I was saying. I also got some transferred into me by some other people both in Argentina and in the States. Like why are you moving to Texas? Are you not concerned about the guns? Are you not concerned about discrimination? I was pleasantly surprised. I kind of thought that some of it would be just prejudice, but I was pleasantly surprised to arrive here in Dallas and feel welcome and comfortable and not experience any of what would’ve been the fears that I had before being here.
Fiona Dawson (27:21):
Yeah.
Miguel Urdinola (27:21):
That said, well there’s other things about Texas but to what you were saying, sometimes the media and what we hear through news articles and TV and et cetera, it seems to represent we’re going backwards sometimes. But I see in general what you were saying, small progress all the time, more of the world opening up and being in close, inclusive and understanding. So I’m optimistic in that way.
Fiona Dawson (27:56):
Yeah, I believe in and I see good and I think that any negativity comes from fear and not knowing someone.
Miguel Urdinola (28:04):
Yeah.
Fiona Dawson (28:05):
But when you share your stories and like all five of you here today, you know, just talking about your personal experiences, this makes a difference and this changes and I think that the future, not just the future, the now, the today , it’s positive and bright so. Well, thank you Miguel. I am gonna move on to Mafalda. Mafalda, I have a very soft spot for Lisbon, Portugal. I lived and worked there for a year teaching English in the Cambridge school from ’98 to ’99. So I love knowing that you were there in that beautiful city and country . Ahead of this conversation. You had shared with me your very heartfelt coming out story and I would love for you to tell our listeners what happened and your story starts where you came out to your mom when you were like 21 years old and how did that go?
Mafalda Chambel (28:59):
Thank you, Fiona. And I’m happy to know that you felt welcome here in Portugal. Always happy to hear people speaking well about Portugal. So around the time that you were here. I was still a very young person. It was probably more or less the age that I found out that I liked women (in ’99, ’98). But yes, the story I shared with you and I thought when you invited me to participate in this Qualipride podcast, the value of it is to be personal, to tell a story of a person that is part of the LGBT.. L in this case and that has something to tell you, something that is very personal but can be the reality of anyone else. And in many cases the outcome was way worse than it was with me. And in other cases the outcome is much better.
(29:54):
So it depends, but it’s good to bring this awareness because we still have these situations happen. Even if it sounds like everything is more or less resolved for the LGBT community, let’s not forget that for Portugal, although the legislation is very advanced for LGBT rights, we still have 64 countries around the world where LGBT communities criminalized some of them with the penalty of death, so we should never forget this, especially when the right movements, politically speaking, start gaining strength. When things got complicated in US, in Europe, everywhere, financially speaking, things change a little bit and we should never forget things that did happen in the past and learn from that in the future. And for people that have strong connection with religion aspects, they never know what is going to happen to them, what is going to happen with their kids.
(30:59):
And it’s important that people get awareness of what are the stories, real stories of life people that identify themselves as part of the LGBT community. Sorry for bringing this intro but I just,
Fiona Dawson (31:13):
it’s so important.
Miguel Urdinola (31:15):
That is so important. Yeah.
Mafalda Chambel (31:16):
And I love the fact that we could participate everyone. I wanted to say to send some love to Liz. I heard her story and I felt pretty connected with her story. It would be interesting to have everyone commenting at some point, but let me be short because I know we don’t have enough time. Yes. I did come out when I was 21 years old to my mom at the time, I was having a online relationship with a woman from Russia. We met when we were 19 years old and we were always traveling to meet each other and at that time she decided to don’t take the plane back to Russia.
(31:58):
And especially imagine it’s way more complicated to travel from Russia to Portugal, especially in that time. And my mom, when I told her she was not supporting the fact that I was identifying myself as a lesbian and that I was in fact with a woman so I could not stay with her. So I had to find two jobs at the same time.
Fiona Dawson (32:25):
Wow.
Mafalda Chambel (32:25):
To have enough money for me and for Victoria to survive for at least one year before she was able to find a job for her own. She was actually amazing. She learned Portuguese in one year, which was very
Fiona Dawson (32:41):
Impressive.
Mafalda Chambel (32:42):
Sorry. Yes. It’s very impressive, especially when you come from, from a very different language. It’s not something common for people to learn Portuguese that fast. That was the beginning of my relationship with communities of LGBT. So that time was also when I joined association that supports youth of LGBT communities. So it’s called [Cridizek]. They work very closely with ILGA, the International Lesbian and Gay Association, , but they focus mainly on young people. So I was a volunteer working as a group coordinator and also in a project called Project Education where we were called to speak in schools, about our own sexuality and have some very interesting open questions from the students. And during all these periods of course there was a lot of work in therapy. And eventually after some years I got back my relationship with my mother and I feel very proud of the path that she took because mm-hmm she was, you know, when you grow up with a certain culture and you are teached certain values, it’s difficult and it can be shocking for people to learn differently.
(34:08):
So mm-hmm She was opening herself to a different world and nowadays I feel that she supports the community. She even goes to these pride sessions. So I feel it’s a good story to tell. Nowadays I’m 36 years old, so for many years now we have a good relationship but there was a period on which it was very difficult and I was very strict that I would not accept to have a relationship with her if she was not going to accept me as I am. And this is very difficult to do. Okay. This is not something I’m going to say everyone should do like that because every single person has their own experience, has their own constraints and do what they can do. Even coming out, not everyone comes out. Yeah. I have friends that are on the forties, 50 years old that are lesbians but they never identified as lesbians to their parents still today.
Fiona Dawson (35:13):
Yeah. Yeah. So was there anything that happened to help your mom change her mind? Like for our listeners who they themselves like might be wanting to gain parental acceptance or, or parents in fact wanting to understand more about their kids. Like was there anything particular that helped change your mom’s mind?
Mafalda Chambel (35:36):
So first I think she needed to understand how much she was hurting me. And I believe that the fact that she cared a lot about me made her start trying to be more empathic toward the things that she was saying. Things like, “Oh you know, this guy!” Saying this in front of me, knowing that I am a lesbian and that I have a girlfriend and that is someone that I was even considering to marry saying, “You know this guy, this could be a good guy for you” and things like that. And I was imposing myself and letting her know that that was unacceptable for me and that she was hurting me. I did leave the house, turn my back to her many times at the moment in our relationship, I stopped taking her calls and I stopped talking to her. And I think at that moment something changed. She started telling me that she went to see some movies, probably not very good movies, , but . And then I brought her one time because she accepted to the LGBT Community Association.
Fiona Dawson (36:42):
Yeah.
Mafalda Chambel (36:43):
And it was in fact about friends and family. So there was a lot of young people, we had some exercises to do in group and they would at least what was the first person and the second they would talk if they were to talk about their sexuality and talk about the coming out. And there was a kid there that put the mother in the last place. .
Fiona Dawson (37:11):
Yeah.
Mafalda Chambel (37:12):
Exploded!
Fiona Dawson (37:14):
Mafalda Chambel (37:16):
Saying, how can you say that the mother should be the first one in line. I think she was starting to understand it. Trust requires that people have empathy and tries to understand what the other person is feeling, even if
Fiona Dawson (37:33):
Yeah.
Mafalda Chambel (37:33):
They don’t feel that way. She went through a process, it took a lot of time.
Fiona Dawson (37:38):
Yeah. Yeah. And I think it’s okay for things to take time and have a process and it sounds like a combination of you putting up healthy boundaries for yourself, like mental health is so important and a lot of rejection can negatively impact people’s mental health. So I think healthy boundaries, her getting educated, maybe a bit of therapy and as you say, like building empathy. And again, I go back to storytelling cuz storytelling is proven to build empathy. So I’m so delighted to hear that this has a positive outcome and the story of you and your mom is quite an inspiration. So thank you so much Mafalda for sharing that. I’m gonna move to Bleighton, our fifth panelist. Bleighton, you shared with us that you are a straight cisgender female. So firstly I would love you to talk about do you describe yourself as an ally to the LGBTQ+ community? And then I’d like to have a bit more of conversation about allyship with you. I have written about four steps to allyship, knowing yourself, knowing others, being kind, being courageous. So I’d love to know about your journey to allyship and how and why it’s felt so important to you.
Bleighton Eppard (38:46):
Yeah, absolutely. Like I said, I’m from the Central Virginia area, which can be rather conservative even though we’re only two hours south of DC, which is a little bit more liberal. And so I kind of grew up in a setting where we were a little more closed off and we weren’t very open to anything different, let alone sexual orientation. You know, we’re talking even race. It was something that I had to learn as I even went to college. Even in high school we weren’t really exposed to anyone LGBTQ+. We were not very diverse community. But then when I went to college, I actually went to James Madison University here in Harrisonburg, Virginia. They bring everyone from all areas of the United States and even other countries sometimes. And I was able to be exposed to all those different types of people, culture, sexual orientations, things like that.
(39:42):
And then that was what was able to let me see all of it and be exposed to it and decide how I wanted to respond to it. And luckily my upbringing, which was not as open as I would like to for my future children, we’re gonna be very inclusive. I wanted to make sure that I made the right decision for me and for my future and just loving of human beings. And that’s what I decided to do to become an ally and just love everybody. If they’re not hurting me, if they’re not hurting anybody else, then we should love them and be allies. Period.
Fiona Dawson (40:17):
I love hearing that. What has your experience been like in the E R G? Cause you said you’re a member of Qualipride, right?
Bleighton Eppard (40:23):
Yes. Mm-hmm. ,
Fiona Dawson (40:24):
Tell us about that.
Bleighton Eppard (40:25):
It’s been really great. They’ve been around, I think a year now. I think they were April, 2022 when they started. The head of marketing who approached me about it is a wonderful man and just shared that he really wanted to grow this in Qualitest and see how we can build more allyship within Qualitest. And it’s been really, really great. We’ve done a couple of webinars and things like that. And then I think this podcast is obviously a really cool addition.
Fiona Dawson (40:51):
Yeah. What would you say to people who might consider being an ally? Because I think oftentimes with ERGs people forget that they could join that ERG as an ally, kind of stick to our own groups. How would you invite other people to be allies to the LGBTQ+ community at Qualitas?
Bleighton Eppard (41:13):
I’d say if you would like to be exposed to different people, whether that be different cultures or different sexual orientations, it’s great to expose yourself to something new like that. I love it because I get to meet a bunch of different people. I’m also a people person, even though I don’t identify as part of that group, I want to understand it and be part of it and just show my support and give them what they need. It gives me a lot of gratification, you know, selfishly then I’m kind of like helping out this community and supporting them. And then also leads to friendships. I go to Pride Festivals every year and I meet wonderful people. We’ll be best friends till the end. So I think it’s about meeting new people, even though you don’t identify as that, it’s learning new things, experiences and meeting new people.
Fiona Dawson (42:04):
Is there a certain person or experience that you’ve had as a member of the ERG that educated you in some way or changed your mind or opinion about who people are?
Bleighton Eppard (42:17):
Yeah, definitely. Not only just in my community here in Central Virginia. I mean, I’m not sure if you guys have met Adrian Maynard with Qualitest, but he’s an incredible individual and we went on an offsite, I think it was last year sometime, and he was just telling me all about his journeys and things through life and not even just in LGBTQ, just his life, but we were kind of brought together through Qualipride, which is what I really enjoyed. You know, I probably maybe wouldn’t have talked to him as much cuz marketing and project management don’t always come together. But through this we were able to meet and you know, we’re both dog lovers so we were speaking about that. So very cool experience.
Fiona Dawson (42:55):
Actually bringing up the dog just reminded me of a story I heard recently about somebody who has challenges. Somebody was talking about how challenging it is because they want to have a photograph of their husband, he’s a gay man and he wanted to have a photograph of him and his husband, the typical family portrait with their dog and how hard it is to be able to have a picture of family at work. And so I think most of us love dogs, don’t we? Like dogs bring together. And so it’s really fun that you are bonding over dogs and animals. Yeah. As well. Because I think, you know, as a straight person it’s easier, isn’t it, to go to work and talk about what you did at the weekend and have a picture of your family and that kinda stuff. Have you noticed those differencea yourself?
Bleighton Eppard (43:39):
I have, yeah. Luckily, like I said, qualities I haven’t seen where someone has felt kind of suppressed by that, but in previous employments and things like that. But I’m really, really proud of how we’re moving in the world, specifically as the generations keep growing and evolving that we are getting more and more open. So I’m hoping it’s just up and up and up from here.
Fiona Dawson (44:03):
That’s great. Okay, so we only have a few minutes left, so I’m gonna go round in the order in which you all said your piece and I’m gonna invite you to do two things. One is like I felt a lot of energy between the group of five of you, so when it’s your turn to speak, if you want to say something to somebody else on this call, please go ahead and say that. And then also add what are you most excited about for the LGBTQ+ community this year? Just to recap, say anything you want to share with the other panelists, and then what are you most excited about for the LGBTQ+ community this year? So in fact, Bleighton, we’re gonna actually start off with you. So you go first. Bleighton.
Bleighton Eppard (44:43):
Yeah, like I said, for this year, very excited to hopefully see some changes with these new generations coming up and us being a lot more open-minded than we were in the past. And like I said, growing and evolving.
Fiona Dawson (44:56):
Right. Jessica, anything you want to say to the other panelists and what are you most excited about?
Jessica Hose (45:01):
A lot of what everybody said really did resonate with me. It can be really hard in terms of just coming to accept who you are. That was something similar to the different things that Liz brought up. It can be difficult. I was in a hetero relationship for a very long time that I had to figure out who I was through that. So it’s one of those things where the really nice thing is that it only takes one person to discover understanding and be supportive of the community. There were a lot of studies done in which they discovered it only takes being an acquaintance with like one gay or queer person to really understand we are people who deserve rights and respect and care just like everybody else. And that’s something, especially as we have more support right now than the community has really ever had before because we’re gaining more and more of that understanding and respect. There is a lot of pushback politically, but it’s one of those things where because of that this year, what I think I’m looking forward to most for the community is seeing that kinship and support, it’s always good to find places that you can donate to whenever possible and just make sure that everyone feels accepted and respected in the community because that is so important.
Fiona Dawson (46:29):
Thank you. Jessica. Mafalda, something you’d like to say to any of the panelists and then what are you most excited about?
Mafalda Chambel (46:37):
So what I would like to say to the other people that are present in this podcast is thank you for sharing your stories as well and your feelings. And I hope to see all of you in Europride in Lisbon because it’s going to be hosted here in two years. That’s what I’m going to say. So just to end up with the positive note. What am I excited to see this year and the following years? I believe that the Generation Z has different view than the previous generations on pro identity and gender identity. So I feel that it’s going to be interesting to see how much things can be more natural over time. And I hope that the remaining countries where we cannot still leave the comfortable situation with our reality, that things get better at least as we get along and new generations gain more space.
Fiona Dawson (47:44):
Thank you. Mafalda. Miguel, something you wanna say in your positive note?
Miguel Urdinola (47:51):
Yeah, I love what Mafalda said on the Generation Z. It’s through the kids. They have a different viewpoint and a different mind and it’s very exciting to see how they adapt to all of this. They are really teaching us these days. Something I am excited to see and it’s very specific this year there’s been going around a discussion about the drag shows and whether they’re family friendly or not and a lot of politics going against them here in the states. And I’m excited to see what this pride month this year brings in terms of support for specifically the drag expressions, which is just a little bit of the community, but it’s so joyous and fun and I’m kind of hopeful to see what comes out in the parades and the allies in the artistic community, how they show their support for that. That’s something I want to see. Yeah, hope to see you guys on Pride parades and events this year. I would love to be in Portugal for that event, Mafalda.
Fiona Dawson (49:05):
Yeah, I think that has to be a mess for all of us. We’ll have to have a reunion, and Liz, if there’s anything you wanna say to the other panelists and what you most excited about for the community.
Elizabeth Argall (49:17):
Thanks again for all sharing your stories. It’s really wonderful. And my intense gratitude to how people have broken ground, are breaking ground, whether it’s within themselves or within our society. Our world is so geared towards being heterosexual. So to have the courage and self-knowledge, to choose the hardest difficulty setting for a long time to say I’m gay, to break that ground, that then helps set up, break the ground for more numinous space in between. So my incredible gratitude for all the people who’ve broken ground or continue to break ground because social justice is not evenly distributed. And I think my hope for this year, I’m gonna twist it a little allyship, is how we can all level up our allyship. All of us can be allies in one way or the other. None of us have all the intersections. And I think one of the most powerful things for allyship is that act of listening.
(50:11):
Listening to trans stories, listening to gay stories, listening to bi stories, queering our world in all these different ways. So I’m really, the internet can bring about terrible things, but it can also bring about wonderful connections and just that armoring ourselves. For myself, I’ve experienced some horrible transphobic comments from people and I know that there are even more ways that I can level up my knowledge and ability to speak on that area. Like I have, I have knowledge that, you know is above average I would say. But there are more things I can do around listening to, which at 90 minutes long and I haven’t found time for it yet. So I’m really excited about how we can listen to each other more and level ourselves up so that it’s better that me as a cis woman deals with the horrible transphobic conversations, although the genuine conversations that are well intentioned, but from a place of ignorance, it’s gonna hurt me less leveling somebody up than a trans friend. So whenever I can step in and help in the areas that don’t hurt me personally, I’m much more equipped to help speak and level people up because I’m, I’m not in extreme pain. At the same time,
Fiona Dawson (51:24):
All of us have an opportunity to be allies, including all of us within the LGBTQ+ plus community. So thank you Liz, for those wonderful words and thank you Bleighton, Jessica, Mafalda, Miguel, Liz for this incredible conversation and connection. It’s been so beautiful and thank you Qualitest and all of you for having me as your guest host for The Testing Show, the Qualipride special edition 2023. And with that, I think we’re a wrap. So goodbye. Thank you so much, everybody. Happy pride.
Elizabeth Argall (52:00):
Thank you so much for making this space .
Fiona Dawson (52:04):
Lovely. Wonderful. Likewise. Thank you. So good. Thank you everyone. Happy pride.
Elizabeth Argall (52:10):
Happy pride.
Michael Larsen (OUTRO):
That concludes this episode of the Testing Show. We also want to encourage you, our listeners to give us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts. Those ratings and reviews help raise the visibility of the show and let more people find us. Also, we want to invite you to come join us on The Testing Show Slack channel as a way to communicate about the show. Talk to us about what you like and what you’d like to hear. And also to help us shape future shows, please email us at [email protected] and we will send you an invite to join the group. The Testing Show is produced and edited by Michael Larsen, moderated by Matt Heusser with frequent contributions from our many featured guests who bring the topics and expertise to make the show happen. Additionally, if you have questions you’d like to see addressed on the testing show or if you would like to be a guest on the podcast, please email us at [email protected].
