The Trevor Project - with founder Celeste Lecesne
Breaking Down Patriarchy
Amy McPhie Allebest
4.9 • 654 Ratings
🗓️ 11 June 2024
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Amy is joined by storyteller and founder of The Trevor Project, Celeste Lecesne, to discuss his incredible life of acting and activism, plus how a story can save a life, and exciting new ways our world is changing for (and thanks to) queer youth.
James Celeste Lecesne is an American actor, author, screenwriter, and LGBT rights activist, best known for the Academy Award winning short film 'Trevor'. Lecesne has written several books, including Absolute Brightness and Virgin Territory, and is also active in the entertainment industry as an actor and producer. In 1998 Lecesne co-founded The Trevor Project, a nonprofit focused on suicide prevention for LGBT youth.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Breaking Down Patriarchy. I'm Amy McPhee Allabest. As listeners may know, I grew up in the 80s and 90s in a household and community that was very deeply religious, very deeply patriarchal, and very deeply heteronormative and homophobic. |
| 0:18.3 | I didn't know the words heteronormative or homophobic as I grew up, |
| 0:22.6 | but the message I absorbed was that it was simply a given that everyone was comfortable in their |
| 0:29.5 | gender identity and everyone was straight. I was taught that to deviate from that at all was a very, |
| 0:36.2 | very bad thing. And to my great sorrow, as I look |
| 0:40.0 | back, I didn't develop a critique of that system or even empathy for people who are struggling |
| 0:46.9 | inside that system until I was much, much older. So how did I finally begin to wake up to the reality of so many of my fellow |
| 0:58.4 | human beings? Partly, I began to wake up through people I know being brave enough to share |
| 1:05.6 | their stories with me, and partly through some online initiatives that opened my mind and heart. |
| 1:13.1 | One of these was the Trevor Project. |
| 1:15.8 | Simply knowing that there was a helpline for LGBTQ folks forced me to confront the fact that queer folks needed help, |
| 1:25.5 | which was the beginning of a growing awareness that queer youth especially |
| 1:30.6 | needed help, not because there was anything wrong with them, but because there was something |
| 1:36.3 | wrong with our society. So I am deeply honored to be welcoming today the founder of the |
| 1:43.9 | Trevor Project, James Celeste Lassine. Welcome, |
| 1:47.0 | Celeste. I'm so excited to have you here today. I'm so thrilled to be with you, Amy. Thank you for having me. |
| 1:53.0 | Yeah, thank you for being here. As usual, I'm going to introduce you with a tiny little professional biography, |
| 1:59.0 | and then I'll let you get into all of the wonderful |
| 2:01.9 | details of your life. But just to acquaint listeners, James Celeste Lassine is an American actor, |
| 2:07.8 | author, screenwriter, and LGBT rights activist, best known for the Academy Award-winning short |
| 2:13.8 | film Trevor. Lassine has written several books, including absolute brightness and virgin |
| 2:19.2 | territory, and is also active in the entertainment industry as an actor and producer. |
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