Aime (00:00):
Sitting in the middle of the class and I blurted out in week three of six that I'm bisexual with a lean to the feminine and I haven't told my parents and the class stopped. The class stopped dead.

Host (00:20):
Gay in America is an oral history podcast sharing experiences of gay people from all orientations, backgrounds, and ages in America. Our goal is to inspire each other to live our best gay lives and help us all understand that our shared experiences unite us as a community. I got distracted by life and time went flying by, so it's been a few months since I've published a new episode of the podcast. Sorry about that. I have some great interviews recorded, so if you hang in there, I'll get them out soon to get the podcast going again. Today I'm introducing you to Amy. She's the first Canadian in the Gay in America series and has a lot going on in Calgary. One might assume things are much better for the lgbtq plus community in Canada, but it depends on where you are in Canada.

Aime (01:22):
Hey everyone, my name is Amy Hutton and my pronouns are she her. I am coming to you from Calgary, Alberta, which is also home to the treaty seven people, the Blackfoot Nation and the Alberta region May team number three, and to give you some geographical landmarks, the state of Montana is below Alberta and that's where Calgary is when I am doing my passions. One of them in particular is all about helping our youth age 11 to 14 with private coaching on how to be themselves and their coming out journey and being comfortable with that. I'm also a professionally trained keynote speaker and trainer talking about DEIB around the LGBT community because employers still need that type of resources and training. I'm also an educator with emotional CPR, which is a peer-to-peer support training program. That's me.

Host (02:56):
See, I told you she has a lot going on. I wasn't sure where to begin, so I just asked her which of her interest is most important to her now.

Aime (03:05):
I love speaking. I love that one-to-one with the youth and helping them figure themselves out and coming their coming out journey. Yet what's really spiking and sparking my passion right now is that speaking in training to employers, I am a person who is a part of the LGBT community out and proud. I'm also a person who lives with anxiety and PTSD in some learning challenges. So combining those three lived experiences, I've been noticing that employers, yes, are a little bit more open to things yet much more work can be done. Thinking about the LGBT community specifically, I had an former employer who needed more training and for example, a supervisor who was above me so to speak, in the chain of command, she made a joke about the LGBT community, about the lesbian community, specifically in earshot and visual to where I was in front of people I supervised.

(04:19):
I just laughed because I didn't know what to do. I'm like, Hey. So that's where this drive, this passion has come from to help employers understand that situation. That interaction is not cool, and there's so many DEIB people, trainers, speakers out there, and they're all amazing. Yet what makes me different and unique is I have life experience and a life story related to being a part of the LGBT community living with past trauma and anxiety and PTSD and the workplace all combined in one. When I first came out publicly, semi publicly in 2019, I didn't share with the upper management at all. I was afraid,

Host (05:11):
And this drove her to ask how she could make systemic changes so others didn't have to be afraid to.

Aime (05:18):
A little bit ago, a coach of mine who I took the professional training to be a speaker with, she said to me, she's like, Amy and the other people in the class stories sell and stories will change the game and people can relate to a story and then they can relate to you, and they're like, oh, yes, you are the one I want to hear more stories from.

Host (05:45):
With this idea planted in her head, she began seeking ways to tell her stories to others.

Aime (05:51):
Here in Calgary, we have the YYC coming out monologues and back in 2020 when the world went upside down because of Covid, we were supposed to have a grand performance at one of our library's beautiful library downtown here in Calgary, and then they had to shut down because of Covid. And what they did was they pivoted like many organizations, companies did, and we each booked a time to go to the library with the set crew, with the visual, the camera, like the director, and we videoed our monologue, just one-to-one inner auditorium full of nobody, well, maybe five people, and I did my first monologue that way and it was amazing just the feeling I got, even doing it in front of five people that were there. It was really cementing in me that, oh, my story needs to be told.

Host (07:00):
One chapter of that story is familiar to many of us coming out.

Aime (07:05):
When I first came out to myself in 2018, I thought I was bisexual with a lean to the feminine and I hadn't told my parents I was afraid out of my skin maybe others can relate to, and I felt like I was going to be sick. And the other memory I have of those feelings is that I felt like an alien inside my own body at 40 something years old, like I've dated boys. Yeah, one was a stalker and not the greatest guy yet. I've dated men and boys and stuff. So it was a big realization for me to be okay with that. And then doing the monologue and telling my parents before I did the monologue, obviously telling them and being okay with that. And there was times when I was afraid to tell my parents. Thinking back to my speaker coach, I did a few different programs with her, and one of them was actually all about overcoming fear, and I was sitting in the middle, well zoom sitting in the middle of the class and I blurted out in week three of six that I'm bisexual with a lie to the feminine and I haven't told my parents.

(08:29):
And the class stopped. The class stopped dead, and my coach was like, Amy, you're okay. You are safe. We got you. At that point in my business, my entrepreneur life, I was working more just with girls and helping them just be brave and be themselves in the world. And she said to me, Amy, you work with girls in helping them live authentically themselves. You are not. There is a disconnect. So really when are you going to tell your parents? And I was like, oh my gosh. I remember all the emotions, the feeling I'm going to be sick and the crying and the, oh my gosh, my coach was amazing. She helped everybody in the class. If you had to tell somebody the truth, here's how you do it and here's what you write and here's the letter. So I copied it word for word, and then I remember when I was telling people, I told a few people in private personally that I knew, and then I wrote to two of my cousins, then my sister, and then finally my parents, and it was making a smaller circle every time.

(09:40):
And when I said to them, my parents, I'm like, this is who I am and I am fearful and all this kind of jazz. And they wrote back my parents and they said, we love you, we accept you. We'll try to help as we can. And then at the bottom my mom wrote, she's like, we thought something was going on and you tell us when you were ready and I guess you're ready. So that was really cool. And then fast forward again to 2020 in the spring, and I was working with this same coach, but now in a more one-to-one sessions with her. And we were sitting in a zoom call just like this, Robert, and she looked at me through the screen and she still is very intuitive, and she's like, Amy, there's something you need to tell me. She was picking up on some energy and she's like, what's going on? And I just started to cry and then she said, okay, do you think you're only attracted to women? And I just cried and cried and I sat there with it and I'm like, yeah, yeah, I am. So she had me say it to her first. It only came out as a whisper, and then slowly it came out little by little that I could say it louder, and then the rest is history.

Host (11:06):
Indeed, things fell into place quickly after that.

Aime (11:11):
I met a beautiful woman a few months later and fast forward to today, and we had a spiritual commitment ceremony and we're in a committed relationship to each other. That's my story. That's my coming out story.

Host (11:28):
Then other things fell into place too.

Aime (11:31):
Some of my friends call me like a serial volunteer. I don't even say that I'm volunteering. It's my gift of service I'm serving. And the two things I volunteer with here in the city, there's an organization called Calgary Outlink, and I volunteer there once a month hosting a in-person coffee chat. We meet at a local coffee shop and grab coffee and just have conversation. And it's really cool because a lot of the time we have some repeating customers or returning people that come every month and it's nice to check in with them and see what they're doing,

Host (12:15):
But that's just one of our volunteer efforts.

Aime (12:18):
The Calgary Police Service has diversity advisory boards at our civilian, so LGBT community has a gender and diverse advisory board for the Calgary Police Service, and I sit on that, I sit on the advisory board and I get to hear what's going on with the Calgary police service, the good, the bad, the ugly, and then we as a board also get to say, Hey, this is what you're doing really good at, and then here's some ways to improve or here's some things you can improve upon. I really enjoy giving back that way to the advisory board.

Host (13:02):
I'm guilty of sometimes fantasizing about moving to Canada where everything is wonderful for the LGBTQ plus community, but Amy sets the record straight with a couple of examples that may sound familiar to someone living in the United States

Aime (13:19):
Pretty soon after. I came out publicly in 2019, and it was when we still had to wear masks in different buildings and stores and things, and where I live is in a community area in the city that has lots of shops and things going on, and I had to go run an errand at lunch and I have a mask that is all black yet in one of the corners it has a rainbow heart and it says Pride 2019 on it. And so I put that on to get ready to go into the store, and there was a person on the corner that saw me with the mask on and he pointed at me and he looked at me and he is like, you're going to go burn and help.

(14:10):
I was like, okay, I'm not going to engage. I only have a certain amount of time I need to get to the store and get home yet. So from that point though, it's like I'm not feeling fully safe in my own city, in my own community. That was roughly two blocks away from where I live was this interaction, so it wasn't the greatest. And then I know here where I live in Canada across the country, there was all these protests on a certain day in September that was all about Soji, which stands for sexual orientation, gender identity about schools and wanting things, schools and not in schools, and this whole craziness going on. There was a big, huge protest in a march here in the city in Calgary, and I had to go downtown that day and I looked at the time and I'm like, okay, I'll be good. The protest and everything is in a different part of downtown, not too far away yet. I won't see them, I won't hear them. I'll be cool. I got into downtown and I was walking around this one building to go to the job fair, and I heard this yelling, commotion, chanting all about leave our kids alone, and they walked right past me. I visibly started shaking. I remember having a full blown panic attack and I started shaking

Aime (15:49):
The cake. The

Aime (15:55):
Jacket I wear has a little lapel pin of a pride flag. I even covered that up and I started shaking and crying, and it wasn't pretty at all

Aime (16:13):
Against.

Aime (16:15):
So those are two things recently that have not been so pleasant

Host (16:21):
With my image of Canada as a gay Paradise shattered. I asked what she remembered about growing up there in the eighties.

Aime (16:30):
So I actually grew up in Ontario, so on the more east ish of Canada. What my remember because by that point I was very, very, I didn't know who I was. This was mid eighties, early nineties, sort of in there. I think we had a family friend who was gay, I think, but I don't remember for sure. It was kind of not talked about. It was somehow a family friend. The other interesting point about that time period thinking of the world, that's also when the AIDS crisis was very much around and when I was going to church, I went every Sunday. At that point, I taught Sunday school, the whole nine yards. Our minister, we found out, went down to Haiti, the country of Haiti for a church mission or something, and he got sick and had a blood transfusion. When he came back to Canada, back to the town where I grew up in Ontario, they found out through tests and things that he had gotten hiv aids.

(17:44):
And so that was an interesting observation because all in the news, all you heard was that it's gay men who were getting aids. Yet my pastor and his wife, they were straight, so we didn't know how that happened, and then the research and everything came out and said, no blood transfusion needle. You can contract aids and HIV and also remember too, and he's out publicly, so I know this is okay to share. I had a friend in high school who was gay, and his circle of friends seemed okay. I didn't know him that well. We were on the swim team together, but it was just the interactions and it's just different. And I remember too growing up at that time, and this is why I think when my coach said to me in 2019, you haven't told your parents yet why? Back in that time period in the nineties, I stereotypically in air quotes, I wore Doc Marten hiking boots and plaid flannel button tops, and my parents were like, do you need to tell us anything? And I'm like, no, no. And my mom and dad, they're great. They're still alive. They're amazing. At that time period though, they would make little side remarks about all the boys in that high pitch kind of tone from memory. That's what I remember because I wasn't out and I was a teenager at that point growing up, I didn't really see much. So those are my memories.

Host (19:26):
I enjoy asking people in our community what they like about being LGBTQ plus. Here's how Amy answered.

Aime (19:35):
Wow, that's a fun question. I like that. I've been open to a world of all different kinds of people I've met and just learning about the history. I really enjoy the history learning of different things, and it's sad history to be completely honest about the LGBT community in the eighties, in the nineties and two thousands here in Calgary. I also like that my wife and I can be wife and wife in Canada thinking of history, the same-sex marriage, gay marriage ruling from the federal government here in Canada came down the pipes in 2005. So Canada's been well ahead of the USA to my knowledge in that respect. I think it's just a joy to live my life as I am authentically me and just getting to know people and hearing their stories. When I did the coming up monologues twice each time, I loved hearing all the different stories.

Host (20:46):
What would she do differently if she could go back in time?

Aime (20:51):
I would've gotten clear who I was at a much younger age. I also remember too, when I was 13, 14, I remember watching Baywatch and I wasn't attracted to David Hasselhoff wasn't really attracted to Pamela Anderson either, but there was a couple other women on the show that I was like, oh, those feelings as a teenager, yet I stuffed them down because of what was going on around me going back in my younger years. It would be, yeah, to totally be okay with who I was then when I was 13, 14, and acknowledge it. It was a different time period in the eighties and nineties. I don't know if I would've come out to be honest. So I don't know.

Host (21:47):
Finally, Amy has some good advice for people in our community.

Aime (21:54):
Breathe, take a breath and take a step. And with my business name, inch by inch empowerment, well inch by inch and step by step, we all win our own marathons and we all can win. Be brave, be yourself and speak your truth even if your whole body is shaking and you want to be sick.

Host (22:39):
This podcast is produced by me at Open Roads Media, LLC, and features new episodes each month. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share with your friends. We do love hearing from you. Tell us how this podcast has impacted your life. Go to our website where you can record a voice message and we may include it in a future episode of Gay in America. We do need your help to keep this podcast going. Your support helps us inspire more people in our community. Thank you so much for listening to the Gay in America Podcast and keep coming back for more inspiring stories about being gay in America.