70. Living Outside the Box: Compartmentalizing Love & Acceptance with Jordan Reeves

Jordan Reeves is the Founder and Executive Director of VideoOut, an organization dedicated to producing LGBTQ+ stories, content, and programs to educate the world about the LGBTQ+ community and how to best advocate for it. Jordan has written for Huffington Post and created LGBTQ+ inclusive content for major brands including Hulu, Verizon, P&G, and AARP, and they’ve even given a TED talk.

Jordan’s belief that stories are a powerful tool that can connect the entire world is completely aligned with the mission of Gravity. We learn about their religious upbringing in Hueytown, Alabama, and the moment (or lack of) when they realized they were queer, trans, and non-binary. 

Jordan’s parents love them but acceptance isn’t something they’ve arrived at yet. We explore how Jordan has made their peace with this for the sake of maintaining their relationship, as well as the everyday struggles faced by the LGBTQ+ community, and the idea that we should look beyond the categorization of gender.

We also touch on the importance of gifting our stories to the world, the support hearing other experiences can provide for those of us in need, and the way that hearing about other people’s lives can normalize and cultivate acceptance across the planet. 

What Brett asks:

• [01:30] Let’s dive right into your childhood.
• [08:30] Can you elaborate on the idea of knowing who you were from a young age?
• [17:00] How did you come to accept your parents’ views about who you are?
• [24:55] Would you say that society conditions people to believe they’re something that they’re not or that they just hide their true selves?
• [30:20] What happened to you once you became a teenager?
• [38:40] How did you break away from your religious beliefs at the time?
• [45:00] What happened after you left for New York, through to the present?

To learn more about intentional living, and for the complete show notes, visit: gravityproject.com

Resources:

• VideoOut
• Jordan Reeves on LinkedIn
• Jordan Reeves on Instagram
• Jordan Reeves on Twitter

Gravity is a production of Crate Media.