Celebrating Diversity, Advocacy, and Hope in Leadership with Dean Nelson

Welcome to Just Breathe: Parenting your LGBTQ Teen, the podcast, transforming the conversation around loving and raising an LGBTQ child. My name is Heather Hester and I am so grateful you are here. I want you to take a deep breath. And know that for the time we are together, you are in the safety of the just breathe nets. Whether today's show is an amazing guest, or me sharing stories, resources, strategies or lessons I've learned along our journey, I want you to feel like we're just hanging out at a coffee shop having cosy chat. Most of all, I want you to remember that wherever you are on this journey, right now, in this moment in time, you are not alone.

Welcome to Just Breathe. I am so happy that you are here. If this is your first time listening, welcome. I'm so delighted that you have decided to play an episode of Just breathe and you are in for a treat. Today. Today is a interview episode. And the person who is here with us today is a remarkable human being. I am so delighted that I had the opportunity to meet him and that he is here with us today. So before I welcome him on, I just want to give you a little bit of background. Dean Nelson is a vibrant force in his community, and he has catalyzed change and championed inclusivity. Throughout his remarkable journey, educated and resort management and Japanese language and culture. Nelson's career spans esteemed roles and Hospitality and Tourism before he founded and globe productions Corporation. The driving force behind Whistler pride and ski festival is notable positions and contributions include directing Vancouver pride, co founding Mr. Gay Canada, and spearheading initiatives like the Vancouver North American out games Planning Committee. Nelson's dedication hasn't gone unnoticed, earning him accolades such as pride Toronto's Award of Excellence in sports, and the Thompson Rivers University Distinguished Alumni human rights Leadership Award and an Honorary Doctorate of Laws. With unwavering commitment, Dean Nelson continues to inspire, leaving an indelible mark on the landscape of equality and inclusion. I am so so thrilled for you all to hear this interview. So without further ado, here is Dean Nelson.

Dean, thank you so much for being on the show today, I am really grateful that you're here. And I'm giggling because we've had a little recording snafu. So we're trying to recall where we where we figured it out and where we want to jump back in again. But I am so excited for you all to hear what Dean has to share with us today. He has just an incredible legacy, that he has created so many things that he has done just for humankind, let alone specifically the LGBTQ community. And I'm really, really excited to because we were we were discussing some things that I don't typically discuss on the show. But that has been my desire for this year. So we'll just go ahead and start it right there. And, Dean, thank you so much for being here.

Well, Heather, it's so great to be on your show and then being able to reach out to some of your your listeners, and hopefully we can inspire some to be better citizens. And what we were talking about earlier was who do we want to lead our communities, and we always have a choice. And right now it's in America, it's very polarizing, which is really quite frightening. And in my opinion, I would love to see a leader who's leading with love and compassion, who's leading with optimism, and it's doing the right thing versus a leader who is wrapped up in conspiracy theories and leads with hate and and is just a terrible person. And it's just, if you feed more energy into that type of leadership, you're gonna get more of that crazy. And unfortunately, America right now is pretty crazy. It's like, Oh, we've seen more trans murders in this decade than we've ever seen in the history of the United States. It's, it's terrible. And the racial issues that are happening right now, it's just, it's so polarized like, and let's just the gun violence is out of control. And I think when you have a leader who's strong, and leads with love and compassion, you're going to have a society that doesn't feel like they need to be carrying guns, and having their houses armed to the brim, worried about their neighbor. So it's just it's my perspective. And, and it's, for me, it's personal, because being a sexual minority, being in the LGBTQ community, it can be quite scary for us. And we need to have leaders that are able to, to lead with compassion and that optimism and make a much brighter and better future for our children.

Very well, sad, very well. Sad. And one of the things that, you know, as you were saying that it that I often think is we need leaders who celebrate this diversity, right? Instead of, you know, criminalize it, frankly, and innovate, I think that's one of the biggest things that we are seeing right now is that, instead of celebrating, there's this like, creation of fear, right? There's so much fear mongering around a subject that, you know, many subjects that there if you don't understand it, then you're afraid of it. Right, instead of being curious, and being open. And, and we're seeing so many, I mean, I just feel like one by one I've rights are being taken away, right? And it started very, very small. So we perhaps, if you weren't paying attention, didn't really notice it. Right? Well, now you can't help but notice it. And I find it fascinating. Being related to people who are of that mindset. It is helpful for me, I think, to continue fighting and continue to really start talking about this with everyone and the importance of choosing leaders who are compassionate, who do lead with love, who do lead with curiosity, who do lead with fact, not conspiracy theory, right? And because those who, who liked the other person, it's fascinating, like they actually believe this stuff. Right. And they actually believe that they are oppressed, like I actually had a family member who is who was white, male, cisgender, straight Christian, telling me that they were being oppressed. And I literally was like, I don't even know how to respond to that. But I think that right there is what we have to figure out. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's the whole critical thinking. And, unfortunately, I think with social media, it's that has just complicated things even more. And with artificial intelligence, that's complicating things even more because you just you have no idea what's true anymore. Because somebody can say something. And yes, they totally said exactly what's being displayed on TV, except for it's in the wrong sequence. It's, it's being cut up and repurposed. And, you know, TV producers have been doing it for years with with reality TV, like the character said all these things, but it's taken out of contacts, and spun a different way to create that character to look like a terrible person, when it actually In reality, they really weren't. So it's just, it's just one of those things. It's just it's, it's a crazy time right now.

And yes, I think that's one thing to to keep in mind that television specifically, but a lot of you know, different media, their their job is to entertain moreso than it is to inform or accurately inform. Right? Yeah. What they've taken on their job to be, that has not always been the case.

Yeah, yeah. And it's, it's really comes down to the shareholders, where it's all about the share prices, and click baiting and, and creating sensational news, which, again, how does that help society? Really? It doesn't, it's just, it's things that we have a lot of work to do.

That in mind, for everyone listening? What are in your opinion? What's one actionable thing that someone could do right now, or between right now and November to make a difference?

Well get to know who your local constituents are, and really get to know like, what do they really stand for? And are they going to make a better community? Are? Is tomorrow going to be better? What is their stance on human rights? Are they How have they voted in the past? Are they wishy washy? Or are they just doing what the party wants them to do? Are they standing up and, and have a backbone and say, No, this is wrong. What happened on in January was was a terrible thing. And you cannot rewrite history on saying that. What happened in January? Didn't happen? It did. Yeah. Like when you have people storming the capitol to overturn an election, like that's, that's your democracy, America screams that you're the most democratic country in the world. Yet you're allowing leaders to rise up and represent you that don't value democracy. They privilege climates, and that's what they're going for. Because there's a big difference between freedom and privilege.

Yes, yes. Well, and it's I mean, now the, the one who is the front runner, and who will probably be the Republican nominee has stated very clearly that he does not want democracy, he wants a dictatorship. He has said those words, people need to start believing what he's saying. Because he's been telling everyone since 2016, what his plans are people just thought he was, you know, spoke, and he does speak in hyperbole, a lot of hyperbole. And he's been pretty clear. And so let's take this serious, like this is it. This is not like, time to mess around. So I think that that is a great, great point. To find out, I will actually link in the show notes, a really, really good tool that you can use to find out who you're local, and local. Every election matters, not just November, every election matters. So, so a way for you to find out who your people are, how they have voted, if they've already been in government, if they are, have not been, you know, what their beliefs are, where they've, you know, where they volunteered, where they've put their, their money, all these things, right. So you can find really find out what they support. The second thing is, is you want to make sure that you are registered to vote, because there has been there's an ongoing effort to take people off of the rolls. So you want to make sure that you are in fact registered, where you need to be registered. And there's still plenty of time to do that. So those are two things as well that you can do. Absolutely.

And just just having that conversation of, of the potential of being, like 1000s of voters being disqualified, is frightening. Because again, that's it That's eroding your democracy. And people should be listening to that and just like, hey, what's going on? Like this is? That's not right. Ya

know, and realizing that these, these are the things that you can do, right, you aren't helpless. You There are very specific things that you can do. From from your home, to leave home to make to do that. So really, really important. I really appreciate you bringing bringing that up and bringing in the perspective from, I think it is very helpful to hear perspectives from people who live outside of the United States for how you see it, right. Because it is sometimes hard when you're wrapped up in the middle of it to be like, gosh, this is so much. And it's so loud. And it's so scary. And so thank you, I appreciate that. Yeah, I would love to shift just a little bit, because I am so excited for everyone to hear just your story, because you have the coolest story. And you have just accomplished I mean more than people do in like 10 lifetimes you have in your life. So I am just I just want to say I'm so grateful for everything that you have done. And I give you the floor because I just want everyone to hear, hear your story.

Well, I'm just one person that's wanting to make a difference. And, and it's it's amazing the journey that it's taken me on. So my story is, I grew up in Alberta, which is kind of like America's Texas. And it's, it wasn't a safe place for a person like myself who was attracted to men. So I needed to navigate how to be invisible, and survive without getting beat up. And, and I had to be very careful on how I walked and even eating food to really concentrate to ensure that I wasn't giving off any mannerisms that would give me away. And you know, that's quite exhausting. And eventually I moved to British Columbia, and found myself in Whistler, beautiful ski resort. And that's when my awakening really started to happen. And I as I became more comfortable with my sexuality, I started to open up with a couple of colleagues at work. And then unfortunately, one of the colleagues outed me out work. And when that happened, I just said, Okay, enough. And I just don't I go, Yeah, so what about it? And everybody does froze, and just like, oh, well, that's cool. Sure, whatever. And I was like this huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders, just like wow, I don't have to hide. I don't have to be so coy about who I was hanging out with on the weekend. That kind of stuff. And then working in in Whistler, I there was a large gay ski week that happened every year. And unfortunately, this one particular year, the ski week was in jeopardy of being canceled. So myself along with a couple other business partners, we came together and we decided that we have 12 days to try and save this event and create a new event because all these guys were coming into the ski resort and we can either be proactive or reactive and we chose to be proactive and and do our best to welcome everybody and entertain everybody and and that was an amazing experience like it was pretty scary like we had to remortgage homes to try and and pull this event out of the out of the water out of the ashes and we did it. It was amazing. And then the following year, pride was getting very political in Canada and Toronto had put forward trademarking the word pride. Because there was too many corporate entities that were taking advantage of pride for their own gain and not not providing any benefit to the community. So, we didn't know what this meant, because we called ourselves was surprised. And so we went to Vancouver to meet with Vancouver pride people. And before I knew it, I was elected onto the board of Vancouver pride. And I was like, Okay, how did that happen? And then from there, I was off to Zurich, Switzerland, to attend the enterprise conference, where we would meet other pride organizers from around the world. And it was at that stage that the lights really went off going, wow, you know, we're very privileged in Canada, where we can have Pride marches, we can be gay, we can get married, we have a pretty decent life, where other countries around the world, it's still punishable by death. And, you know, to march in Uganda is at one time was a criminal offence. And it was just, it's really quite crazy. In Russia, we met the Russian pride organizers. They were detained and arrested and beat up and staying with our colleagues in Belarus and Warsaw. That was really mind blowing. So we, we really started to work. And when I say we Vancouver pride, we wanted to bring some of these pride organizers from places of conflict to our city to show them what pride could look like in their community, if they elect the right leaders and and are able to make those changes. And there's this one particular activist that we brought over Saran, he was one of the organizers for Sri Lanka pride. When he was organizing pride, it was very scary for him because he would lose friends in the middle of the night, the police would come and just take people away and they just disappear. And so he was always afraid of the police and being a grand marshal for Vancouver pride. He was able to meet with the RCMP, the Mounties. And it was just such an emotional moment for him to see that the military was embracing pride and the place where embracing pride. And he was just like, wow, this is amazing. So we Yeah, it's just having those moments just really, really solidified. Why pride is so important. Like why we need to create these events. And you know, the first year that we we created pride in Whistler, we worked with the municipality and we asked them to put out rainbow flags. So people knew that pride was on because there was lots of misinformation that was going out. And people didn't know and people were coming and just like what's happening, what's not happening. And I remember talking to some of the attendees, and as they're riding the shuttle up, and they come around the corner and they saw pride flags, the bus erupted in tears, because it was the first time in the whistlers history that we were out and proud and visible. And then we weren't this event that was hiding underground. And that really set the tone of making Whistler, one of the leading gay ski weeks in the world, which was amazing. And then a few years after that, I got involved with the Mr. Gay world competition, and we started inspiring young men from around the world to be the better leaders of tomorrow and, and bringing sports and culture and, and visibility to life, which was great. And then we won the bid to host the Olympics and I'm just like, well, we need to create a pride house because the Olympics was still very homophobic. So in 2010, we created the very first ever cried house, and it was just one of the most amazing moments For me, was being on the front page of the Monday sports section of the New York Times. I never thought in a million years, my dad would ever see my name, or my picture in the sports section of any newspaper, let alone the New York Times. So when we were the breaking story of the Olympics, and the IOC and Switzerland, of course, they were quite upset about this, because they're just like, Who are these guys? And what are they doing? We we worked really hard to make these games the most inclusive ever. And, you know, VANOC, our organizing committee, they did an exceptional job and engaging our indigenous folk, engaging the LGBTQ community, helping us navigate the space in creating pride house without being official, because it was so controversial at the time. And we're just very grateful that the Pan Pacific, they stepped up and they said, Yeah, we will support you. And we will give you the space to create the pride house. And we did and we became the third most talked about new story of the Olympics, the first being the weather, and the second being the whistler sliding center. So it was it was an amazing experience.

Yeah, yeah, one of my favorite memories of the 2010 Olympics was when this little girl was pulling her parents into the pride house. And she was from, I think she was someplace in Kentucky, and southern state. And she was explaining to her parents that she needed to get a pride house pin for her classmate, because her classmate was gay. And this is going to be really important to her, to her to give to her classmate, and her parents were not really understanding everything. And then we took them over to the freedom meter. And it was a huge world map where it showed where it was safe to be gay, and where it was hostile to be gay. And at that time, it was like, I think it was around 90 countries in the world that was still not safe to be gay, and 12 of those countries, it was punishable by death. And there's still many countries, I think it's still around eight countries, that it's still punishable by death. And in Uganda, if you know of a person who's gay, and you don't report them, and people find out that you knew about a person being gay and not reporting it, then you you could get 25 years in jail, and the person who's gay would be executed. So it's just, it's terrible. It's terrible.

Yes, yeah.

Yeah. And unfortunately, we're seeing similar kinds of things happening in America, where we look at some of the southern states and the rights of women being stripped the rights of other human beings that are non binary, that are sexually diverse. Their rights are being taken away. In some states, you can't even say the word gay. Without getting into trouble.

It's terrible. Yeah, yeah. It's it's

and what what, what's the fear about? Like, I've I have not seen one drag queen in the history of humanity, robbing a bank, or kill a person? No,

no, not not violent people, and not our people. And I mean, I think it's, you know, kind of circling back to your very, you know, earlier earlier when your points of there's a narrative that has been created, that people are believing that is so false, so dangerous, so harmful, and people are dying because of it. Yeah.

I remember going to a couple of conferences and one of our keynote speakers was a trans person from a tech company that was based in Georgia, and relocated to Vancouver. And during their interview process in Vancouver, they disclosed that, you know, interested in transitioning and what would happen. And the company here in Vancouver Electronic Arts, they sat down with human resources and set it up with, we don't have a policy per se in place because this is new to us, because this was happening like 10 years ago. And they go, but we're here to support you, because we believe in your talent, and whatever is going to make you more authentic and be more comfortable being you. That's what we need. And so having your employer creating a safe space for you, to be yourself, where you don't have to hide, part of you. Like, I think back at Mark took spring, he won gold in 1992, for Canada, in swimming. And he talked to his coach Debbie Reynolds, just before he was to go sweat. And and Mark said, you know, I have something I need to share with you. And Toby goes, yeah. And he goes, You know, I'm, I'm gay. And she goes mark, I've known for years, we're just waiting for you to, to share for you to come out. And so he came out to his teammates and his teammates were all very supportive, and they all knew. And again, he said this huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. And when he went out to swim, he he won the goal, because he wasn't harboring all that extra energy to try and be somebody who he wasn't he could swim, and be free and just do what he wanted to do. Just like this person, that Electronic Arts, they could be the amazing engineer that they are without fear of being different. Right.

Right. I mean, just as you're saying that I'm like imagining the amount of just adrenaline in Marks case like that had to I that was probably like, I just can't even imagine. So extraordinary. But Bravo in both of those cases, because they both were in the 90s. Correct? Yes. Right. So I want people to like hear that. It's not hard. Yeah. And it's not disruptive. In fact, it's actually, you know, people perform better in the workplace, right? There's, there's less stress, there's, I mean, the number of positive things that come from allowing someone to be their authentic self. It is amazing. It's beautiful. And we shouldn't have to talk about it. Like it's hard and difficult and scary. And it's like that, shouldn't I don't want that to be our our goal is that that is not the leading, right that someday that we can be. It is beautiful and amazing. And all of these things not it's terrifying. And it's getting more terrifying. And I'm so worried for all of the people around me. And it doesn't matter where you live, which is right now. Yeah. So that's the goal. So I love these stories, because that's really cool. I want to circle back. So I'm curious. The parents in the pride house of the little girl from Kentucky. Did that map? Did that seem to hit home? Yeah.

Yeah, it was interesting. Because they I think their reaction and just talking with them after they, they were just completely clueless, like they just they just didn't know so and I'm a huge believer in you don't know what you don't know until you know what you don't know. Right? And they were just ignorant people that didn't know. And it's I'm not being judgmental. It's just, they just didn't know. Now, they know and they're just like, wow, that's just terrible. Like, yeah, so they were so proud of their daughter for pulling them into pride house and they're just like, well, we're not gay. Like why are we going in here and and she was able to explain like, you know, I'm an ally to my friend, and to get this pin is really, really important. And in, in doing so, and being part of that journey, and she was able to help make her parents allies, so, yeah.

And I think that is such an important distinction that you've made right there, because that is the sweet spot. There are so many people who are using that term as a fair term, because it's not ignorant as a judgment call. It's ignorant as and you just don't know, right? You don't know what you don't know. And so that those are the people who you can have these conversations with, and, and, and pique their curiosity. Right? And that's who is going to be like, Oh, my goodness, like, these are human beings. Right? That's it. Yeah. And so that's, I mean, I think that's where you're gonna beat your head against the wall. If you're, you're trying to talk over here all the time to people who are over here. But they're all these people here who just don't know. Right? That's where the education happens. That's where the sharing happens. That's where the, you know, just being loving and curious. Yeah. So

yes, magic happens when, when you are able to be yourself. That's just when you love yourself, like mama roo says, You can't love anyone until you love yourself.

My favorite? Oh, my goodness, can I just tell you like the funniest story ever? I think it's funny. So I'm a huge, huge RuPaul drag race man. When Connor, my son first came out, he had really struggled. And in his first years, he spent some time at a therapeutic boarding school. And I remember one of his first calls back, he was like, We they're letting us watch drag race. I had never heard of drag race. And I'm literally on the phone with them. I'm like, why are they watching cars? Like Then why is he excited about this? Like, that's so not something he is going on and on, we get to watch it. It's so great that the whole thing and all of a sudden it was like, oh, that's what this like it like was this huge, like light bulb. So, you know, we started watching it then and have been, you know, addicted ever since. So. So, so excited when you know, somebody gets to meet somebody. I mean, I was in London a couple years ago was right after. Oh, my goodness. Why is her name dropping out of my head? Anyway, she was a runner up, and I loved her so much. And she was my favorite. And so I had to go where she was from, she's not even there. But I'm like, I'm taking the bus and the train to get myself there. So anyway, there's my there's my little RuPaul drag race. But yes, that is those are wise words, many wise words. That's true. So I just want to kind of do like a little, a little summary tour of, of the different kind of the way that your path has led you from one opportunity to make a change. And in every instance, you had choices. And you chose to make a difference to do something that was probably uncomfortable, right, probably outside of anything anybody was doing at the time. And each one of those instances, that's extraordinary. So I'm wondering where that came from, like, where you had, like the was it just this like, forever inner strength that you had that you're like, This is just the right thing to do, and I'm going to do it kind of what helped What led you what guided you?

Well, I think there's a couple of different things. But there was this one moment in 2008. I was invited to be international judge at the Mr. Gay Europe competition in Budapest, and Hungary had just entered into the EU. And the Hungarian nationals and the Neo Nazis weren't too excited about it. riot happening in their city and having Mr. Gay Europe there. And so they wanted to do everything to, to disrupt it and and make sure that I cancelled. And the organizers of both Pride March, the dignity March, they call it a dignity March. And Mr. Gay Europe, they advocated to the EU to advocate to the Hungarian government, that it's under EU law, they're obligated to protect this type of activation. And so they did they, when we did the parade, it was just over a kilometer long convoy of army vehicles to flank us on one side to provide a shield. There were probably maybe three 400 marchers, and probably about 4000 Anti protesters. And they were throwing feces at us. They were throwing eggs filled with acid. They're throwing rocks, firebombs at us, it was probably one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. And at the start of the march, we're corralled in this little area. And the police are saying, Okay, once you cross this point, this, you have to go all the way through because we're basically caged in. And there was this older couple that must have been in their late 70s, early 80s. And was like, why are you here? And they they go, we've been through this before. When we were children, we saw our neighbors being taken away. And our parents didn't do anything, our neighbors didn't do anything. People just were taken away and sent to the camps. We cannot let this happen again. It was a different circumstances back then. But it's same, it's hatred. It's fueled by hatred. And that really gave me the the power, the motivation that you know, if I'm not here to witness that, if I'm not here to speak up, who is and we need more people like that, to call out terrible behavior and terrible leadership, and find those leaders that are going to make a much healthier, stronger community.

Thank you for sharing that. I can't imagine how terrifying that that must have been. And I can see. Yeah. Enough to give you that resolve for a lifetime, right? Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Thank you, thank you for sharing that. And thank you for sharing. Everything, everything that you have been so intentional about creating along along the way. And I'd love for you to just kind of full wrap up by sharing what you do now, which is so fun. And and anything else that you would just like to put out into the world?

Yeah, well, so now I'm, I'm helping people travel the world, which is pretty exciting. So I've, I've had the privilege of being able to visit over 130 countries around the world and, and now I'm helping other people travel and experience the world, which is really great. So I have a great network of contacts all over the world that I'm able to help navigate safe places for people to visit. Even in hostile environments like Kenya, we have some great tour operators that we work with that will ensure that our our folks stay safe and, and are treated with respect which is great.

Fantastic. Yeah. That's really, really important because that is something again, that is can be off off limits, right like off the list of things that you can do. So to know that and to have that connection is great. We'll definitely put your information in the show notes so people know how to contact you for that that's really, really horse. Anything else that you would do I'd like to share.

Well, I just I hope your listeners take to heart to really think about who they want leading your community. And because come November, the decision that's made doesn't have a effect just in America. It's it's a worldwide situation. So yeah, it's this vote is probably America's most important vote in your history, because it will play out over the next four years as to what kind of world we'll live in tomorrow. And I'm optimistic that the current administration with their State of the Union address, which was very inspiring that people will be able to see through the falsehoods and lacked a government and administration that is wanting to be better. They might not be perfect, but they're better. And they're striving to to create a safer, more secure world for everyone. Regardless of where you stand on the spectrum of gender and sexual diversity. Regardless of what your skin tone, it's regardless of what religion you believe, or faith you believe. This is an important election, and I really hope America chooses to go with a good person.

Thanks so much for joining me today. If you enjoyed today's episode, I would be so grateful for a rating or review, click on the link in the show notes or go to my website, chrysalismama.com. To stay up to date on my latest resources, as well as to learn how you can work with me. Please share this podcast with anyone who needs to know that they are not alone. And remember to just grieve until next time,