The Boy Who Skated Anyway: Stef Vachon's Story

The Boy Who Skated Anyway: Stef Vachon's Story

Content note: This conversation includes language that references homophobic slurs and a discussion of suicidal ideation and mental health struggles. Please listen with care, and reach out for support if you need it. What happens when the thing you love most is the very thing the world tells you is wrong? This week we sit down with Stef Vachon, a proud queer man, husband, father, keynote speaker, and former international professional figure skater with over 30 years of experience performing around the world. Stef grew up in a small French speaking town in Quebec where every boy was expected to play hockey. Instead, he fell in love with figure skating, and the bullying began almost immediately. Stef shares his decades in survival mode, the breaking point that led him to write his entire life story and hand it to a therapist, and the piece of homework that sent him back onto the ice and back to himself. We talk about learning to be alone before finding love, the pressures of image and perfection in gay male culture, chosen family, and the movie that opened the door to fatherhood in his fifties. Today Stef hosts the Together Moving Forward podcast and speaks on moving from survival into self respect, self love, and pride. His story is a reminder for all of us that it is never too late to come home to who we are. Resources and Mentions * Together Moving Forward podcast, hosted by Stef Vachon: https://www.youtube.com/@TogetherMovingForwardPodcast [https://www.youtube.com/@TogetherMovingForwardPodcast] * Reinventing Your Life by Jeffrey Young and Janet Klosko, the book Stef's therapist recommended: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/43866.Reinventing_Your_Life [https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/43866.Reinventing_Your_Life] * Lion (2016), the film that opened the door to fatherhood for Stef and his husband: https://youtu.be/-RNI9o06vqo?si=YvZBBnQhp24aX3XY [https://youtu.be/-RNI9o06vqo?si=YvZBBnQhp24aX3XY] * Heated Rivalry, the series we cannot stop talking about (hear our full episode on it with Barb Rowlandson): https://youtu.be/7ws7-FvaW38 [https://youtu.be/7ws7-FvaW38] * This Time I Know It's for Real by Donna Summer, Stef's coming out song: https://youtu.be/U4_X2p6rPJI?si=-J9S3QpetZS5lu3n [https://youtu.be/U4_X2p6rPJI?si=-J9S3QpetZS5lu3n] Connect with Stef * Website and podcast: togethermovingforwardpodcast.com [https://togethermovingforwardpodcast.com/] * Instagram and social media: @togethermovingforwardpodcast If Stef's story stirred something in you, that feeling is worth paying attention to. Our 3 Day Clarity Experience is a live, guided event for women who are questioning, wondering, or somewhere in the middle of figuring out who they are. Over three evenings together, July 21 to 23, we create a safe and welcoming space to help you find clarity about your own journey, surrounded by women who understand because they are walking it too. You do not have to have it all figured out to join us. You only need to be curious about what your most authentic life might look like. Learn more and register at https://annemariezanzal.com/3-day-clarity-experience/ [https://annemariezanzal.com/3-day-clarity-experience/]

Real Talk on Sapphic Dating and Relationships

It is the second Friday of the month, which means Anne-Marie is joined by dating coach Barbara Rowlandson and Nashville photographer Tonda McKay, to talk all things sapphic dating and relationships. This month the trio takes on four real questions from women navigating the queer dating world. How do you slow down when every connection turns intense within weeks? Are you a jerk for losing interest when someone shows up looking nothing like their photos? What do you do when you want more intimacy than your partner does? And how do you recover when a promising connection ends after six lovely dates? Along the way, Barb teaches the WIN language formula for hard conversations, Tonda shares her hard-won wisdom on representatives, resentment, and why community will pick you up when heartbreak knocks you down, and Anne-Marie reminds us that bed death is not a lesbian thing, it is a long-term relationship thing. Expect honest talk, big laughs, and one unforgettable New Year's Eve story from the Lipstick Lounge. If you are questioning your sexuality or reconsidering who you are, you do not have to figure it out alone. Join Anne-Marie and Barb for the Three Day Clarity Experience, July 21 to 23, a safe and supportive space to explore your questions alongside women who understand. Our last event welcomed 54 women and many called it life changing. Save your seat at https://annemariezanzal.com/3-day-clarity-experience/ [https://annemariezanzal.com/3-day-clarity-experience/] New episodes of Coming Out and Beyond drop weekly. Follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube https://youtu.be/NXWUe52DKmM [https://youtu.be/NXWUe52DKmM] so you never miss a conversation, and if this episode spoke to you, consider leaving a review. It helps other women find us.

🏳️‍🌈Allyship That Truly Matters

When you come out to someone, you learn very quickly to tell the difference between the half embrace and the full embrace. The half embrace turns the conversation back to your husband, your children, your family system within the first thirty seconds. The full embrace simply asks, how are you doing. In this episode, Anne-Marie sits down with frequent guest Anna Empey for a tender and honest conversation about what we wish straight allies actually knew. Together they unpack why coming out is never about sex, but about identity, love, community, future, and wholeness. They name the responses that wound, the ones we have all heard, like this is just a phase, you are so brave, and I will pray for you. And they move toward something more hopeful, the real allyship that defends us when we are not in the room, that learns our partners by name, that follows up two years and five years and ten years later, because coming out is not a single moment. It is a lifelong unfolding. Whether you are walking your own coming out path or you love someone who is, this conversation offers language for the difference between the ally sitting safely in the chair and the ally who steps into the room beside you. If this conversation stirred something in you, and you are sensing there is more clarity waiting for you in this chapter of your life, we would love to welcome you into the Three Day Clarity Experience. It is a gentle, guided space to listen to yourself and begin to understand what is true for you, in community with women who understand. There is no pressure here, only an invitation. You can learn more and join us at https://annemariezanzal.com/3-day-clarity-experience/

Finding a Self I Couldn't Name: Part 2 - Dahron Johnson's Story of Coming Out as Trans & Learning to Trust Her Inner Voice

In Part 2 of this conversation, Anne-Marie Zanzal continues her talk with Dahron Johnson, a trans woman, advocate, lifelong cyclist, and chair of the Metro Human Relations Commission in Nashville, who came out in her late forties after decades of quietly knowing. Dahron shares the rush of the days right after she realized a change had to be made, from calling care providers within 48 hours to playing the "wait list shell game" that shortened a six month wait down to six weeks. She remembers her first public moment out in the world, changing into a brand new outfit in the back of her car and walking across legislative plaza into a Glennon Doyle book reading just days before the world shut down for COVID. The conversation moves into the tender territory of telling her wife, "I need to let you know that I'm trans," after almost 25 years together, and the grief work both of them have navigated in the six years since. Anne-Marie and Dahron, both former hospice chaplains, talk about ambiguous grief, the courage it takes to trust your own inner voice, privilege and representation, and what it means to be married to several different people over the life of one marriage. It is an honest, hope filled conversation about becoming the self you could never have imagined. Connect with Dahron Johnson on social media. Her name is spelled D A H R O N Johnson, and you can also find her as DJ Contraption on most platforms. Feeling that quiet inner voice nudging you toward your own truth? Join Anne-Marie for the 3 Day Clarity Experience, July 21 to 23 at Authentically Us, three evenings of guided support for women navigating identity discovery in midlife and beyond. Save your spot here: https://annemariezanzal.com/3-day-clarity-experience/ [https://annemariezanzal.com/3-day-clarity-experience/]

Finding a Self I Couldn't Name, Part I: Dahron Johnson on Faith, Advocacy, and Making Room for More of Us.

Dahron Johnson grew up surrounded by voices. Thousands of books in her parents' home, two people who met in divinity school, and a faith that taught her every person is fearfully and wonderfully made. And still, for decades, she could not find the words for who she was. In this episode, Anne-Marie sits down with her dear friend Dahron, a clinically trained chaplain, a tireless advocate, and the first openly trans person to speak from the floor of the Tennessee House. The two of them share roots in the North, in the church, and in the long work of coming home to themselves. They move through faith and the work of welcome, the cost of advocacy in Tennessee right now, and what it means to hold the whole person rather than the narrow slice the world finds convenient. Then the conversation turns inward. Dahron walks us through the years of living with no language and no container to put herself in, the ballet class and the leotard, the three days she spent tucked into the corner of a closet, and the hope bargain she made with herself to survive. She tells us about the lung collapses and the tumor that kept whispering there was a self she had never let herself know. And she brings us to the end of a therapist's driveway, the left turn and the right turn, the moment fifty years finally crystallized into one decision. It is time to get this done. This is a conversation about faith, courage, and the long road to naming ourselves. We are honored to share it with you. If you hear yourself somewhere in Dahron's story, you do not have to sit with it alone. Authentically Us is our community for women finding their way toward a more honest life. It is a soft place to land, a space for your queerness to bloom, and a room full of people who understand the questions you have not said out loud yet. We would love to welcome you. Come find us at https://community.annemariezanzal.com/ [https://community.annemariezanzal.com/] This is Part One of our conversation with Dahron. The rest of her story is coming in Part Two. Follow Coming Out and Beyond wherever you listen, and share this episode with someone who needs to hear it.