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In this episode, Ross opens with a moment that stopped him mid-commute, two women yelling "you gay" from a passing car and unpacks why four seconds in traffic sent him back thirty years. What starts as a story becomes an honest, unhurried conversation about what it actually takes to embrace a queer identity: the language we inherit, the language we reclaim, and everything we have to do to untangle our understanding.

This one is for anyone who heard words used as a weapon before they ever had a chance to use it as a home. For anyone navigating a need for bisexuality support without a clear roadmap. For the non-monosexual experience that doesn't fit neatly into either/or. For the people whose relationships quietly shifted the moment they started living more honestly — and who are still trying to figure out what that means.

The real work of embracing who you are isn't a moment. It's a lifelong negotiation, with language, with identity, with time, and with the people around you.

In this reflective episode of Embracing All of Me, we step back from the Binary Bashers series to talk about why it was created in the first place...for that person searching at 2:17 AM. This conversation explores what it means to grow up searching for proof that people like you exist, and how storytelling can become a form of bisexuality support, community building, and healing.

Centering the experiences of bi, non-monosexual, and queer people of color, this episode reflects on visibility, lineage, and the quiet journey of embracing queer identity in a world that often asks people to pick a lane or shrink themselves.

If you’ve ever questioned where you belong, struggled with embracing identity, or looked for stories that reflect your full humanity, don't worry, you aren't the only one and this episode was made with you in mind.

In the ruins of post–Civil War Memphis, Frances Thompson lived her womanhood in public despite escalating danger. A formerly enslaved Black trans woman, she survived the white supremacist violence of the 1866 Memphis Riots and testified before Congress, placing her voice into the national archive at a time when Black women were rarely heard.

Later arrested under laws policing gender nonconformity, Thompson’s life reveals how race, gender, and state power intertwined during Reconstruction, and why her testimony still matters as debates over bodily autonomy and public identity continue 150 years later.

Music: “Hard in America” by Gabriel Kelley, licensed through Epidemic Sound.

This episode was made with care. It's based on established scholarship and publicly available information from credible sources. If we've made an error, please let us know at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://embracingallofme.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Embracing All of Me is a storytelling and advocacy platform for the multi, complex, and in-between, uplifting the voices of Bi+ people of color, our kin and friends. ⁠⁠⁠Visit our ⁠⁠⁠⁠FAQs⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠Sources page⁠⁠⁠⁠ to learn more about how this episode was developed.