840: How Are You Not Seeing This?

A quick warning, there are curse words that are un-beaped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org. From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Tobin Lowe and for Ira Glass.

You may have heard of comedian Tignitaro, but if you're a gay person like me, you have really heard of Tignitaro. She is what I would call gay famous. which makes the story of what happened to her so surprising.

She and her wife, Stephanie, have two kids, twin boys. And after seven years of living in the same house with Stephanie and Tig, having their two moms tend to every meal and butt wipe,

seven years of the boys telling their teachers and random whoever's that they have two moms. They're all in the car on the way to first grade one morning.

Stephanie and I were just in the front seat talking and they were in the back seat talking like we always do. And then Stephanie said something about us being gay and our son Finn leans forward and pokes his head between us

and he says, you're gay. We were like, obviously just as shocked as he was. us. We were like, yeah. And he said, what's gay? And that was a whole other level of stunned. Oh my gosh. How is this information only just now coming out?

Tiggs been with her wife for over a decade. And as far as they knew, they've been gay for the entirety of their children's lives. But apparently it was news to Max and Finn. When I started to feel insecure thinking, oh my gosh, here he's lived seven over seven years not knowing he had gay parents.

What if he's upset now? What if he doesn't like his life or his family or he's disappointed in some way or- What's the first thing you say back to him when he asks that question? I was saying, okay, so gay is when a boy likes a boy or a girl likes a girl.

And that would be specific to being gay. And they were just like, oh, okay. Before Teg can say more, they're pulling up in front of the school. The car ride is only a couple of minutes long.

And then the kids are running out of the car and Teg and her wife are left to wonder how their sons had possibly not seen something right in front of their faces. And we drove away maybe going half a mile an hour. We were so stunned.

Stephanie and I glanced at each other like, what in the hell just happened? Do you have a moment after this comes out where you're like, oh, no, what kind of parent am I that this hasn't been discussed? Is there like a part of your brain doing that?

Oh, a million percent. I mean, when there's any sort of moment, I was gonna say moment like this, but I don't know how many moments like this I've had.

I mean, I did have a similar one when they were five and I was reading them a story before bed and Finn interrupted me and said, They call me mayor, which is for mother French.

And, um, and Finn said, mayor, are you a boy or a girl? Um, and that was when he was five and I just stopped and I laughed. And I said, well, what do you, what do you think I am? And he said, I think you're a boy.

And I said, okay. I said, well, uh, I am a girl. And he said, huh, okay. Well, but you look like a boy, right?

And I said, yeah, yeah. And then we just kept reading the book. And I was just laughing to myself, like, oh my gosh, my son didn't know I was a girl.

One reason all of this was especially mystifying was that the boys, like I said, definitely knew they had two moms. We're kind of proud of it.

Not like in a, oh yeah, we have two moms. They're just like, we have two moms. We have two. Also, the school they go to is very progressive

and celebrates pride every year. And we, you know, everyone drops their kids off in rainbows. And it's like, I guess they didn't know. I guess they didn't know what the pride was, you know, they're just running

around with rainbows on them. They're like, sure, happy pride. Tagan Stephanie eventually figured out what happened. Sure, Max and Finn knew they had two moms.

But Tegan Stephanie had never sat down with them to say, two moms who are married, that's what gay is. And more importantly, they never said the words, we're gay. Took a while for me to sort that out

and understand that a wedding picture and two moms doesn't equal gay. Right, right. And I was thinking about how like when you first come out,

there's like a moment where you like have to do the spiel a bunch to people. Mm hmm. And then it's sort of like tapers off and you just start living your life.

Like I can't remember the last time I had to sit down and have a coming out conversation with somebody. It has been so long since I had to come out to anybody. Anybody.

Right. And I would never have guessed in my own house. Right. There were two people that didn't, like we have three cats.

I feel like they probably know we're gay. This stuff happens all the time. The people close to you miss something about you that seems so obvious. The truth is right in front of their face, and they don't see it.

Today on the show, we have stories of people trying to end this misunderstanding once and for all. In one, they build an actual machine to try to convince the other person. In another, they call a scientist for help.

One person even tries reaching out to the federal government. Which kind of works. Actually, in every case, they get a certain kind of satisfaction. Stay with us.

It's this American life. Act one, there will be blood. Okay, so in this first story, a person gets so fed up with other people dismissing a thing that was happening to them.

But they devise a way for the other person to actually experience it. First hand. They build a machine that simulates period pain. Maybe you've seen these videos on TikTok of people, mostly men, getting hooked up

to one of these things. Getting to feel for the first time what a person with a uterus goes through regularly. Aviva DeCornfeld, one of the producers on our show, got curious if this social experiment really changes anything.

If men who didn't really believe their partners about what happened during their periods would be convinced by this experience.