Think Queerly

Critical thinking is not about being judgemental of other people for their ideas or beliefs. Instead, critical thinking is the practice of impartiality — attempting to suspend opinion, subjectivity, or outrage — while practicing logical, open-ended questioning and sometimes dialectical reasoning. In this episode, I discuss, The willingness and openness to understand another person - without prejud...

In this session, I ask Lachlan how I can help. What he needs is clarity and direction for how to maintain and cultivate an open and welcoming space for all voices to be heard at the Birmingham Unicorns Cricket club meetings.  The challenge he has is that committee meetings are open to all who wish to attend. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the individual voices, but the club wants to remain op...

In the book, “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times,” Pema Chödrön expresses the idea of not causing harm to yourself or others. Of course, she means causing no physical harm, but just as important, not causing harm to ourselves by the ways in which we think about ourselves. For example, not being self-deprecating when we don’t believe in ourselves and not being overly self-crit...

Ken Popert’s name kept showing up in the historical research Jeff has been doing at the Human Sexuality Archive at Cornell, and for one of his courses, “Making Public Queer History.”  Jeff recognized Ken’s name because I used to work at Pink Triangle Press (PTP) in Toronto, Canada where Ken was my direct report. I had also talked about PTP, and its founding publication, The Body Politic, in an int...

Ro Rose is currently a student at the Somatic Sex Education Institute . They have been working with me for the last four months. I coach Ro around IDEA(tion) — to help them gain Insight , establish consistent Direction , and take efficient steps that are in Emotional Alignment to maintain momentum while making progress on what they want to accomplish. In this Think Queerly IDEA(tion) Coaching epis...

Over the past year or more in publishing my ideas, I have noticed that my messaging might appear scattered, if not confusing. That’s on me, and I have taken to rectify that.  If you only want to hear about Queer topics, Think Queerly is what you want in your ears. The Think Queerly Podcast explores the mutually arising relationship between the status quo and all things queer. A queer perspective i...

“RED X ,” David Demchuk’s second novel, is about a series of disappearances from Toronto’s gay community over a 40-year period (actually over 200 years), and the efforts of surviving friends and family to find out who or what is responsible. Interwoven is David Demchuk’s own story as a horror writer, as a gay man, and as someone whose novel is breaching the boundaries of fiction and entering his l...

Underlying my work is my philosophy of human-heartedness. This is a non-dogmatic approach to lead with personal responsibility for equity and the common good — a way of being that improves open-mindedness, reduces contention, and increases kindness, compassion, and understanding for others. Looking back over this past year, I believe that I have created and shared meaningful content that speaks to...

What Are Character Traits? A simple way of framing character traits is to think of an actor playing a character in a movie. The actor needs to embody the character’s attitude and personality for the viewer to believe how the actor is behaving. Character traits are what we use to describe who we are and how we act.  For example, you can describe someone’s character as kind, thoughtful, aggressive,...

It’s time for something new on the Think Queerly Podcast. I’m excited to bring you what I plan to be a once-a-month feature episode in which I coach one of my clients — raw, unscripted, and unplanned. If you ever wondered how I coach, or what it’s like to be coached, I know you will enjoy these episodes. This is what you will hear during this IDEA tion Coaching session with Jon Carl Lewis . In him...

I Envision a World that Respects All of Humanity To lead yourself from such a noble place — as if that place already existed — you will need to practice and embody values, principles, and beliefs that support a universal human dignity. However, I’m not suggesting a belief in a spiritual entity, following a religion, or a set of commandments. Instead, this is the personal responsibility of cultivat...

Recently, I read in the Guardian that "Top Republicans rub shoulders with extremists in secretive rightwing group, leak reveals." The details of the reporting stuck in my head. Then a question came to mind: Why are some rightwing extremist groups so secretive? What have they got to hide?  The only reason these kinds of groups are secretive is not because they are ashamed. These organizations are s...

Over the course of a bit more than a year, I’ve published a number of personal growth exercises. I gave the process the name, Personal Evolution Process (PEP) .  Each process follows a structure to help you define the problem or challenge at hand. You then further refine the problem by turning your thoughts around or considering influencing factors. Lastly, you create emotional alignment with your...

When you’re faced with the choice between two significant polarities in life and don't know how to decide which one is best, try this Personal Evolution Process. This process will help you to get clarity and certainty about what's most important and meaningful to you about both options, and then choose the one that provides the most emotional alignment. In other words, when you can connect your ch...

Last week, a friend of mine wrote a post on Facebook to say that she was strongly considering leaving Facebook forever. While she benefits from some aspects of the platform, she wrote that she feels out of integrity supporting a platform that is detrimental to the current and future society she wants to live in. By remaining on Facebook, she is encouraging their business model and rewarding their...

Freddie Lewis offers a rarely seen or heard genuineness of character that connects to our deeply humane level of self-acceptance and being seen for one’s truest self. Through his poetry or his words put to music, he shares expressions of happiness, joy, playfulness, prettiness, and rhythmic beats that catch your ear, invite you in more deeply, and won’t let go. Freddie demonstrates a simple, joyfu...

Why are so many people afraid to take personal responsibility for their actions that affect the common good? Note that I did not say negative or damaging actions because I believe we must take personal responsibility for our actions, regardless of their intent. We need to be cognizant of the choices we are making, especially if we intend them to be beneficial. What we think is morally good or righ...

In the 1950s, as 15-year-old Jim Foshee hitchhiked from his tiny Idaho hometown to Los Angeles, he met kind-hearted strangers, kindred souls, and drag queens as well as con artists, liars, and ruthless cops. His vivid memories of McCarthyism, government hunts for homosexuals, and routine firings sit alongside remembrances of the Beats, hippies, and liberation protests fill the pages of Banned From...

Michael Bach is the founder and Chair of the board of directors of the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion. He is nationally and internationally recognized as a thought leader and subject-matter expert in the fields of inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility, bringing a vast knowledge of leading practices in a live setting to his work. Read the complete show notes here: https://dar...

The Living OUT Podcast launched June 20, 2018. I renamed it to Think Queerly after the 100th episode. That means over the last 3 years I have published approximately 5 episodes per month! The influence and importance of my purpose statement to everything I do in my coaching, my articles, and the podcast: “When you freely love who you are, you can freely create the life you want.” Realizations whil...

Human beings are not unchanging. We are not a rock or even a tree. We are not a solid form. If we don't like who we are, we can change who we are. Our essential nature is not a fixed one. We have the capacity to change who we are because we have the ability and the skill to do so. Our character, our identity, and our choices are amorphous. The way in which you can be different today is in the acti...

The minute we think we have control, it can be taken away. In essence, there is really nothing that we can hold on to with the absolute certainty that it will never change. We might hold on to a rock and believe that is the perfect example of permanence until we accidentally drop it and it breaks into several pieces. In today's episode, I will take you through a 3-step Personal Evolution Process t...

The other morning, I was deep in thought about the sadness of nostalgia I had recently experienced. Nostalgia had overtaken me numerous times in the past year, and I wonder if there’s a tipping point in one’s life that’s related to getting older.  Is nostalgia somehow related to wisdom and a greater critical mass of life experience, and thus memory? Perhaps the COVID-19 lockdowns have something to...

Have you ever had that dream where you are trying to get somewhere, but as you make your way, the destination moves further and further away? When I have that dream, it feels like I’m in a long and narrowing tunnel. As I try to move towards my goal, the space around me stretches out further ahead, taking my destination with it — like an alternate reality or special effect in a movie. Time and spac...

Life is short. Too short in fact to be stuck behind a problem that keeps you from moving forward in life, seeing what’s beyond the next turn, missing valuable opportunities, and being generally unhappy and uninspired. The purpose of coaching — in how I practice coaching — is to help my clients get clarity, focus, and direction. I help them get into emotional alignment with strategies that they cre...