WEBVTT
00:00:00.239 --> 00:00:09.439
A month ago, we lost Dolly Parton, a treasured global icon who held an especially tender place in the hearts of the LGBTQ community.
00:00:10.400 --> 00:00:19.039
Today is September 25th, and I could think of no better way to honor her than to make this from now on nine to five day.
00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:25.120
So we're celebrating Dolly with this special bonus episode of The Secret Is Out.
00:00:25.519 --> 00:00:32.000
Her music, her wit, her contradictions, and the enormous heart beneath all that rhinestone.
00:00:32.399 --> 00:01:00.240
I hope you enjoyed the heard Dolly Parton before I knew who Dolly Parton was.
00:01:00.479 --> 00:01:05.760
When I was little, we'd listened to country music in the car on the way to kindergarten.
00:01:06.079 --> 00:01:10.560
Whenever Here You Come Again came on, I wanted to hear it again.
00:01:10.799 --> 00:01:12.799
I wanted the volume turned up.
00:01:12.959 --> 00:01:16.560
I didn't know her name, I just knew I liked that voice.
00:01:17.120 --> 00:01:22.719
Then when I was eight, 9 to 5 came out, and this time I knew exactly who she was.
00:01:22.959 --> 00:01:25.120
I memorized the opening verse.
00:01:25.359 --> 00:01:29.040
Then I stood in front of the mirror and lip-synced it like I was Dolly.
00:01:29.280 --> 00:01:33.280
I was eight, so workplace inequality wasn't a major concern of mine.
00:01:33.439 --> 00:01:35.519
I just thought it was a great song.
00:01:35.920 --> 00:01:42.799
And yes, the eight-year-old boy performing Dolly Parton songs Into a Mirror probably should have told me something.
00:01:43.359 --> 00:01:46.400
She was there before I knew I was gay.
00:01:46.640 --> 00:01:55.840
Before I knew there was anything about me I might someday feel required to hide, which is probably why her death hurt me more than I expected.
00:01:56.079 --> 00:02:02.799
Somewhere between that little boy in the car and the man I am now, Dolly became something besides a singer.
00:02:03.040 --> 00:02:07.519
There was something safe about her, something almost maternal.
00:02:07.840 --> 00:02:09.360
She felt like a mom.
00:02:10.400 --> 00:02:14.240
My own mother and I have been estranged for a while.
00:02:14.639 --> 00:02:18.319
I love her and I'm not interested in making her a villain.
00:02:18.560 --> 00:02:20.240
She's deeply Christian.
00:02:20.479 --> 00:02:26.719
She comes from a rural conservative world where faith shapes how you understand nearly everything.
00:02:27.280 --> 00:02:29.360
Dolly came from that world too.
00:02:29.520 --> 00:02:32.400
She grew up poor in rural Tennessee.
00:02:32.719 --> 00:02:34.400
Church was part of her life.
00:02:34.639 --> 00:02:35.919
God was part of her life.
00:02:36.080 --> 00:02:41.360
But when it came to people like me, Dolly seemed to arrive at a very different place.
00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:47.120
In 1984, during the AIDS crisis, Andy Warhol asked her about her gay following.
00:02:47.360 --> 00:02:52.960
Dolly talked about her gay friends and said very simply, to me, people are people.
00:02:54.240 --> 00:02:58.800
No sermon, no carefully worded qualification, just people are people.
00:02:59.520 --> 00:03:02.879
She carried that ease into one of my favorite Dolly stories.
00:03:03.120 --> 00:03:09.280
She once entered a Dolly Parton look-alike contest at a gay bar surrounded by drag queens and lost.
00:03:09.759 --> 00:03:10.879
Not nearly either.
00:03:11.120 --> 00:03:13.919
Dolly said she got the least applause.
00:03:14.719 --> 00:03:18.479
She exaggerated the hair, the eyes, the beauty mark, all of it.
00:03:18.639 --> 00:03:20.400
And nobody recognized her.
00:03:20.639 --> 00:03:26.560
Apparently, the room thought she was some short gay man who wasn't especially good at being Dolly Parton.
00:03:27.199 --> 00:03:32.960
Somewhere, a drag queen got to spend the rest of her life knowing she did Dolly better than Dolly.
00:03:33.439 --> 00:03:37.039
But I think those performers understood her.
00:03:37.520 --> 00:03:41.280
Dolly knew that appearance could be an act of imagination.
00:03:41.520 --> 00:03:45.120
People had told her the woman who inspired her look was trashy.
00:03:45.680 --> 00:03:48.719
Little Dolly thought she was beautiful.
00:03:48.960 --> 00:03:56.080
So when she got to decide what Dolly Parton would look like, she chose the hair, the heels, the rhinestones.
00:03:56.319 --> 00:03:59.360
Then she added a few more rhinestones.
00:03:59.599 --> 00:04:02.960
And gay people know the other message pretty well.
00:04:03.280 --> 00:04:04.400
Don't act like that.
00:04:04.560 --> 00:04:05.599
Don't wear that.
00:04:05.759 --> 00:04:07.360
Could you tone it down?
00:04:07.759 --> 00:04:09.840
Dolly did not tone it down.
00:04:10.080 --> 00:04:15.919
In 2005, she wrote Traveling Through for Trans America, a film about a transgender woman.
00:04:16.079 --> 00:04:19.439
The song was nominated for an Academy Award.
00:04:19.759 --> 00:04:27.759
When Larry King later asked her about gay and transgender people, she talked about everyone being God's children and having the right to be who they are.
00:04:28.319 --> 00:04:34.560
Dolly never behaved as though she had to choose between her faith and loving LGBTQ people.
00:04:35.199 --> 00:04:36.079
She prayed.
00:04:36.240 --> 00:04:37.600
She sang gospel music.
00:04:37.759 --> 00:04:40.160
She believed her gift came from God.
00:04:40.319 --> 00:04:44.720
She simply didn't seem to believe God needed her to reject anybody.
00:04:45.040 --> 00:04:48.879
For those of us raised around Christianity, that can be enormous.
00:04:49.040 --> 00:04:54.000
We know the sentence, I love you, but there's always a but.
00:04:54.480 --> 00:04:57.040
Dolly seemed to have very little use for it.
00:04:57.199 --> 00:05:00.079
She even put that welcome into a song.
00:05:00.480 --> 00:05:03.199
Family was released in 1991.
00:05:03.519 --> 00:05:06.480
And it isn't about relatives behaving beautifully.
00:05:06.720 --> 00:05:12.079
It is about the people you inherit with all their differences, trouble, tenderness, and history.
00:05:12.399 --> 00:05:17.120
Dolly explicitly included gay family members among the people who still belonged.
00:05:28.240 --> 00:05:35.360
Because when you come out to the people closest to you, the question underneath all the other questions is painfully simple.
00:05:35.839 --> 00:05:39.519
When you know the truth about me, will I still belong here?
00:05:40.480 --> 00:05:42.720
Dolly's answer was yes.
00:05:44.079 --> 00:05:48.399
My mom and I were already estranged when Troy and I got married.
00:05:48.560 --> 00:05:55.439
Afterward, I reached out and told her, and her response was, Well, I'll pray for him too.
00:05:56.720 --> 00:05:57.920
That hurt.
00:05:58.319 --> 00:06:03.920
And I understand that her faith is real, and I understand the world she comes from.
00:06:04.399 --> 00:06:11.040
I wasn't asking permission, and I wasn't asking for her to rebuild her beliefs in one conversation.
00:06:11.279 --> 00:06:19.680
I just wanted my mom to hear that her son had gotten married and say, I'm happy for you, or simply I love you.
00:06:20.959 --> 00:06:24.319
Maybe that's why Dolly reached me in such a personal place.
00:06:25.519 --> 00:06:30.720
She spoke with the accent of the world that had wounded me, but without the wound attached.
00:06:30.959 --> 00:06:36.079
You could show up as yourself, and she wasn't gonna ask you to explain yourself first.
00:06:37.199 --> 00:06:41.279
I've learned that permission and acceptance are different things.
00:06:41.920 --> 00:06:47.199
I don't need permission to be gay, to love Troy, or to call our life a marriage.
00:06:47.439 --> 00:06:49.199
That part is settled.
00:06:49.839 --> 00:06:51.360
Acceptance is quieter.
00:06:51.519 --> 00:06:53.920
It says, I know who you are.
00:06:54.240 --> 00:06:55.199
We're good.
00:06:56.800 --> 00:07:01.040
That's what I heard in Dolly's voice, even though she never knew me.
00:07:02.720 --> 00:07:06.480
When she died, people tried to describe what had gone out of the world.
00:07:07.519 --> 00:07:12.879
Casey Musgraves wrote, The world feels a lot less sparkly all of a sudden.
00:07:13.120 --> 00:07:16.560
And she said she was glad Dolly was with Carl again.
00:07:17.199 --> 00:07:25.279
Sally Field, who worked with her in Steel Magnolias, called her genuine, humble, supportive, and blisteringly funny.
00:07:26.079 --> 00:07:34.000
Reba McIntyre sang Appalachian memories for her at the Emerys, then said through tears, I love you, Dolly, so much.
00:07:35.040 --> 00:07:40.560
Dolly's family wrote that her warmth and kindness made people feel like family.
00:07:41.439 --> 00:07:42.720
That was it.
00:07:43.519 --> 00:07:45.120
That was the thing.
00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:48.560
She made people feel like family.
00:07:49.839 --> 00:07:55.120
Miley Cyrus, Dolly's goddaughter, wrote something that felt especially true.
00:07:55.519 --> 00:08:02.319
She said Dolly would want her to feel the lost, write a song about it, and then keep going.
00:08:03.040 --> 00:08:07.120
One of their last conversations had been about music and metamorphosis.
00:08:07.360 --> 00:08:08.639
Of course it had.
00:08:09.199 --> 00:08:16.560
A butterfly doesn't deny what it used to be, it carries that history into whatever comes next.
00:08:18.399 --> 00:08:22.160
I don't know what happens between my mother and me from here.
00:08:22.480 --> 00:08:29.279
I still hope something changes, but I can't wait for somebody else to tell me my life is acceptable before I live it.
00:08:30.079 --> 00:08:39.360
Dolly never knew there was a gay man in Atlanta listening to her talk about God and family and thinking, I wish more Christians could sound like her.
00:08:40.080 --> 00:08:47.919
She never knew that the little boy singing into the mirror would grow up, finally tell the truth about himself, and marry a man he loved.
00:08:48.799 --> 00:08:53.360
And maybe that's why Dolly's hope never felt flimsy to me.
00:08:53.600 --> 00:08:57.919
She knew poverty, she knew ridicule, she knew grief.
00:08:58.639 --> 00:09:02.480
Her hope did not depend on pretending those things were painless.
00:09:02.639 --> 00:09:06.879
It came from believing that pain was not the only thing waiting for us.
00:09:07.600 --> 00:09:16.080
But somehow, across all those years, she made this boy and a lot of boys and a lot of girls feel safe.
00:09:17.120 --> 00:09:20.559
And she made a lot of us feel loved.
00:09:21.279 --> 00:09:40.720
So thank you, Dolly, for the music, for the laughter, for losing your own look-alike contest to a room full of drag queens, and for reminding those of us who were told to become somebody else that we were already somebody worth loving.
00:09:41.840 --> 00:09:47.440
The world may feel less sparkly without her, but she left us the rhinestones.
00:09:49.120 --> 00:09:50.799
I'm Stan Statigan.
00:09:57.840 --> 00:10:02.559
Ideally, I wanted to play a song here that was one of my favorite dollars.
00:00:00.239 --> 00:00:09.439
A month ago, we lost Dolly Parton, a treasured global icon who held an especially tender place in the hearts of the LGBTQ community.
00:00:10.400 --> 00:00:19.039
Today is September 25th, and I could think of no better way to honor her than to make this from now on nine to five day.
00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:25.120
So we're celebrating Dolly with this special bonus episode of The Secret Is Out.
00:00:25.519 --> 00:00:32.000
Her music, her wit, her contradictions, and the enormous heart beneath all that rhinestone.
00:00:32.399 --> 00:01:00.240
I hope you enjoyed the heard Dolly Parton before I knew who Dolly Parton was.
00:01:00.479 --> 00:01:05.760
When I was little, we'd listened to country music in the car on the way to kindergarten.
00:01:06.079 --> 00:01:10.560
Whenever Here You Come Again came on, I wanted to hear it again.
00:01:10.799 --> 00:01:12.799
I wanted the volume turned up.
00:01:12.959 --> 00:01:16.560
I didn't know her name, I just knew I liked that voice.
00:01:17.120 --> 00:01:22.719
Then when I was eight, 9 to 5 came out, and this time I knew exactly who she was.
00:01:22.959 --> 00:01:25.120
I memorized the opening verse.
00:01:25.359 --> 00:01:29.040
Then I stood in front of the mirror and lip-synced it like I was Dolly.
00:01:29.280 --> 00:01:33.280
I was eight, so workplace inequality wasn't a major concern of mine.
00:01:33.439 --> 00:01:35.519
I just thought it was a great song.
00:01:35.920 --> 00:01:42.799
And yes, the eight-year-old boy performing Dolly Parton songs Into a Mirror probably should have told me something.
00:01:43.359 --> 00:01:46.400
She was there before I knew I was gay.
00:01:46.640 --> 00:01:55.840
Before I knew there was anything about me I might someday feel required to hide, which is probably why her death hurt me more than I expected.
00:01:56.079 --> 00:02:02.799
Somewhere between that little boy in the car and the man I am now, Dolly became something besides a singer.
00:02:03.040 --> 00:02:07.519
There was something safe about her, something almost maternal.
00:02:07.840 --> 00:02:09.360
She felt like a mom.
00:02:10.400 --> 00:02:14.240
My own mother and I have been estranged for a while.
00:02:14.639 --> 00:02:18.319
I love her and I'm not interested in making her a villain.
00:02:18.560 --> 00:02:20.240
She's deeply Christian.
00:02:20.479 --> 00:02:26.719
She comes from a rural conservative world where faith shapes how you understand nearly everything.
00:02:27.280 --> 00:02:29.360
Dolly came from that world too.
00:02:29.520 --> 00:02:32.400
She grew up poor in rural Tennessee.
00:02:32.719 --> 00:02:34.400
Church was part of her life.
00:02:34.639 --> 00:02:35.919
God was part of her life.
00:02:36.080 --> 00:02:41.360
But when it came to people like me, Dolly seemed to arrive at a very different place.
00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:47.120
In 1984, during the AIDS crisis, Andy Warhol asked her about her gay following.
00:02:47.360 --> 00:02:52.960
Dolly talked about her gay friends and said very simply, to me, people are people.
00:02:54.240 --> 00:02:58.800
No sermon, no carefully worded qualification, just people are people.
00:02:59.520 --> 00:03:02.879
She carried that ease into one of my favorite Dolly stories.
00:03:03.120 --> 00:03:09.280
She once entered a Dolly Parton look-alike contest at a gay bar surrounded by drag queens and lost.
00:03:09.759 --> 00:03:10.879
Not nearly either.
00:03:11.120 --> 00:03:13.919
Dolly said she got the least applause.
00:03:14.719 --> 00:03:18.479
She exaggerated the hair, the eyes, the beauty mark, all of it.
00:03:18.639 --> 00:03:20.400
And nobody recognized her.
00:03:20.639 --> 00:03:26.560
Apparently, the room thought she was some short gay man who wasn't especially good at being Dolly Parton.
00:03:27.199 --> 00:03:32.960
Somewhere, a drag queen got to spend the rest of her life knowing she did Dolly better than Dolly.
00:03:33.439 --> 00:03:37.039
But I think those performers understood her.
00:03:37.520 --> 00:03:41.280
Dolly knew that appearance could be an act of imagination.
00:03:41.520 --> 00:03:45.120
People had told her the woman who inspired her look was trashy.
00:03:45.680 --> 00:03:48.719
Little Dolly thought she was beautiful.
00:03:48.960 --> 00:03:56.080
So when she got to decide what Dolly Parton would look like, she chose the hair, the heels, the rhinestones.
00:03:56.319 --> 00:03:59.360
Then she added a few more rhinestones.
00:03:59.599 --> 00:04:02.960
And gay people know the other message pretty well.
00:04:03.280 --> 00:04:04.400
Don't act like that.
00:04:04.560 --> 00:04:05.599
Don't wear that.
00:04:05.759 --> 00:04:07.360
Could you tone it down?
00:04:07.759 --> 00:04:09.840
Dolly did not tone it down.
00:04:10.080 --> 00:04:15.919
In 2005, she wrote Traveling Through for Trans America, a film about a transgender woman.
00:04:16.079 --> 00:04:19.439
The song was nominated for an Academy Award.
00:04:19.759 --> 00:04:27.759
When Larry King later asked her about gay and transgender people, she talked about everyone being God's children and having the right to be who they are.
00:04:28.319 --> 00:04:34.560
Dolly never behaved as though she had to choose between her faith and loving LGBTQ people.
00:04:35.199 --> 00:04:36.079
She prayed.
00:04:36.240 --> 00:04:37.600
She sang gospel music.
00:04:37.759 --> 00:04:40.160
She believed her gift came from God.
00:04:40.319 --> 00:04:44.720
She simply didn't seem to believe God needed her to reject anybody.
00:04:45.040 --> 00:04:48.879
For those of us raised around Christianity, that can be enormous.
00:04:49.040 --> 00:04:54.000
We know the sentence, I love you, but there's always a but.
00:04:54.480 --> 00:04:57.040
Dolly seemed to have very little use for it.
00:04:57.199 --> 00:05:00.079
She even put that welcome into a song.
00:05:00.480 --> 00:05:03.199
Family was released in 1991.
00:05:03.519 --> 00:05:06.480
And it isn't about relatives behaving beautifully.
00:05:06.720 --> 00:05:12.079
It is about the people you inherit with all their differences, trouble, tenderness, and history.
00:05:12.399 --> 00:05:17.120
Dolly explicitly included gay family members among the people who still belonged.
00:05:28.240 --> 00:05:35.360
Because when you come out to the people closest to you, the question underneath all the other questions is painfully simple.
00:05:35.839 --> 00:05:39.519
When you know the truth about me, will I still belong here?
00:05:40.480 --> 00:05:42.720
Dolly's answer was yes.
00:05:44.079 --> 00:05:48.399
My mom and I were already estranged when Troy and I got married.
00:05:48.560 --> 00:05:55.439
Afterward, I reached out and told her, and her response was, Well, I'll pray for him too.
00:05:56.720 --> 00:05:57.920
That hurt.
00:05:58.319 --> 00:06:03.920
And I understand that her faith is real, and I understand the world she comes from.
00:06:04.399 --> 00:06:11.040
I wasn't asking permission, and I wasn't asking for her to rebuild her beliefs in one conversation.
00:06:11.279 --> 00:06:19.680
I just wanted my mom to hear that her son had gotten married and say, I'm happy for you, or simply I love you.
00:06:20.959 --> 00:06:24.319
Maybe that's why Dolly reached me in such a personal place.
00:06:25.519 --> 00:06:30.720
She spoke with the accent of the world that had wounded me, but without the wound attached.
00:06:30.959 --> 00:06:36.079
You could show up as yourself, and she wasn't gonna ask you to explain yourself first.
00:06:37.199 --> 00:06:41.279
I've learned that permission and acceptance are different things.
00:06:41.920 --> 00:06:47.199
I don't need permission to be gay, to love Troy, or to call our life a marriage.
00:06:47.439 --> 00:06:49.199
That part is settled.
00:06:49.839 --> 00:06:51.360
Acceptance is quieter.
00:06:51.519 --> 00:06:53.920
It says, I know who you are.
00:06:54.240 --> 00:06:55.199
We're good.
00:06:56.800 --> 00:07:01.040
That's what I heard in Dolly's voice, even though she never knew me.
00:07:02.720 --> 00:07:06.480
When she died, people tried to describe what had gone out of the world.
00:07:07.519 --> 00:07:12.879
Casey Musgraves wrote, The world feels a lot less sparkly all of a sudden.
00:07:13.120 --> 00:07:16.560
And she said she was glad Dolly was with Carl again.
00:07:17.199 --> 00:07:25.279
Sally Field, who worked with her in Steel Magnolias, called her genuine, humble, supportive, and blisteringly funny.
00:07:26.079 --> 00:07:34.000
Reba McIntyre sang Appalachian memories for her at the Emerys, then said through tears, I love you, Dolly, so much.
00:07:35.040 --> 00:07:40.560
Dolly's family wrote that her warmth and kindness made people feel like family.
00:07:41.439 --> 00:07:42.720
That was it.
00:07:43.519 --> 00:07:45.120
That was the thing.
00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:48.560
She made people feel like family.
00:07:49.839 --> 00:07:55.120
Miley Cyrus, Dolly's goddaughter, wrote something that felt especially true.
00:07:55.519 --> 00:08:02.319
She said Dolly would want her to feel the lost, write a song about it, and then keep going.
00:08:03.040 --> 00:08:07.120
One of their last conversations had been about music and metamorphosis.
00:08:07.360 --> 00:08:08.639
Of course it had.
00:08:09.199 --> 00:08:16.560
A butterfly doesn't deny what it used to be, it carries that history into whatever comes next.
00:08:18.399 --> 00:08:22.160
I don't know what happens between my mother and me from here.
00:08:22.480 --> 00:08:29.279
I still hope something changes, but I can't wait for somebody else to tell me my life is acceptable before I live it.
00:08:30.079 --> 00:08:39.360
Dolly never knew there was a gay man in Atlanta listening to her talk about God and family and thinking, I wish more Christians could sound like her.
00:08:40.080 --> 00:08:47.919
She never knew that the little boy singing into the mirror would grow up, finally tell the truth about himself, and marry a man he loved.
00:08:48.799 --> 00:08:53.360
And maybe that's why Dolly's hope never felt flimsy to me.
00:08:53.600 --> 00:08:57.919
She knew poverty, she knew ridicule, she knew grief.
00:08:58.639 --> 00:09:02.480
Her hope did not depend on pretending those things were painless.
00:09:02.639 --> 00:09:06.879
It came from believing that pain was not the only thing waiting for us.
00:09:07.600 --> 00:09:16.080
But somehow, across all those years, she made this boy and a lot of boys and a lot of girls feel safe.
00:09:17.120 --> 00:09:20.559
And she made a lot of us feel loved.
00:09:21.279 --> 00:09:40.720
So thank you, Dolly, for the music, for the laughter, for losing your own look-alike contest to a room full of drag queens, and for reminding those of us who were told to become somebody else that we were already somebody worth loving.
00:09:41.840 --> 00:09:47.440
The world may feel less sparkly without her, but she left us the rhinestones.
00:09:49.120 --> 00:09:50.799
I'm Stan Statigan.
00:09:57.840 --> 00:10:02.559
Ideally, I wanted to play a song here that was one of my favorite dollars.
