I am delighted to welcome Tony on to the podcast, who you first met in Alexi’s episode. But today we deep dive into Tony's own journey and story, with Alexi along for the ride! Yay!
TL;DR? Cool hair, cool swords, cool person.
Identity for Tony means they don’t care too much about labels, they say “I am me”, and that works best for them. Sword fighting, which paralleled their gender and sexuality journey, was a declaration of “This is me!” and they both were happening as Tony started to care less about what other people think and felt more and more like themself.
Being Latino, Tony says that in their culture, it can feel a lot more judgemental, even when joking, so realising most of the time people don’t actually care, they were able to live life more authentically. This is something Tony hopes for everybody.
Producer Alexi’s appearance is iconic, of course, and we hear how they gave Tony gentle encouragement to explore themselves more which led to where they are today.
Tony doesn’t see their coming out as revealing things that they once hid, as it wasn't actually the case. Tony sees their journey rather as ever-growing, ever-evolving, and ever-expanding into themselves and feels very lucky they have had the space and support to do so.
P.S. After the ep, I journalled A LOT on “having room for more love”.
In this episode:
-Tony learned so much about themself by hitting other people with swords for fun!
-People think they mean well by implying bisexuality is a stepping stone to gay when they say “It's okay to come out as gay to me!”. Please stop!
-This is a coming-out story that involves a Bitmoji hug!
-What’s harder for parents to get on board with? Queerness or vegetarianism?
-Fan Fiction thrives on this podcast!
-We love when Hollywood doesn’t create gay characters but rather features characters that just happen to be gay!
-You can find pride events in your everyday community!
-Trolls on the gram say “That looks a bit gay there!” Tony says “Thanks for noticing!”
Resources:
-Follow Tony on IG! @_tonypacheco
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CONNECT WITH MDSML:
resources, with love
be a guest on MDSML
email the pod: mydadstolemylimelight@gmail.com
podcast production and editing made possible by: Alexi Johnson and Alistair Ogden
logo art: @raphe.ca
music: Shawn Kangro
follow the podcast network: @604podnetwork
love you!
lauren deborah
xx
Tony Pacheco (him/her/they)