PRIDE REPLAY: S1E21 with Daniel Blevins - Stepping Up To Stand In

🏳️‍🌈 As Pride Month begins, our community continues to find itself under attack — facing a rising tide of anti-LGBTQ+ hate, harmful legislation, and a wave of fear designed to silence and erase us. But we will not be erased. Pride is not just a celebration — it is a protest, a declaration of existence, and a refusal to go back into the shadows.

That’s why I felt it was not just timely, but essential, to replay one of the most powerful episodes from our 2024 Pride series — a conversation that reminds us what allyship, love, and chosen family truly look like.

Please join me for a deeply moving and affirming conversation with Daniel Blevins, the visionary founder of Stand In Pride. In 2021, Daniel witnessed a heartbreaking viral TikTok: a bride-to-be devastated after her mother chose not to attend her wedding — simply because she was marrying a woman. But Daniel didn’t just watch with sadness — he stepped up. He offered to stand in as her family.

That single moment of radical compassion sparked a global movement.

Stand In Pride is now an international network of thousands of moms, dads, siblings, and chosen family members who show up for LGBTQ+ individuals at weddings, birthdays, graduations, and the milestones that matter most — moments where no one should ever feel alone.

This isn’t just heartwarming. It’s revolutionary. At a time when we are told we don’t belong, Stand In Pride sends a resounding message: You are worthy. You are celebrated. You are loved — fiercely, loudly, and without condition.

Daniel is one of the kindest and most genuine souls I’ve met. Our conversation is filled with joy, truth, and a shared commitment to making this world safer, kinder, and more loving for queer people everywhere.

In the face of hate, Daniel chose love. And that is what Pride is all about.

🌈 Learn more about Stand In Pride and how you can get involved at https://standinpride.org

Follow Stand In Pride on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/standinpride/

Thank you for joining us and we can't wait to welcome you back again next week! New episodes drop every Thursday and can be found wherever you find your favorite podcasts!  

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Transcript

0:05

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Just Do You Podcast. My name is Eric Nicoll, and I'm your host. If you are a first time listener, welcome to the conversation and if you're a regular, I'm honored that you've decided to join me for another episode. I. The Just Do You Podcast is centered around a network of conversations, which are meant to connect us, to inspire us, to find our own confidence, our own voice, and to live our own truth. And who knows, we might even learn a little something new that ultimately allows us to live in the sweet spot that I like to call the Just do you space of being. Each week, I have the privilege of sitting down for unscripted conversations with friends, family, colleagues, community leaders, and influencers that all share their own personal journeys. I hope that you enjoy our time together as much as I have. We are certainly going to laugh, and yes, we might even cry a little, but in the end, we are going to know that we're not alone during our life's journey. So are you ready? Great. Let's do this. Welcome to the conversation. Y'all I am sitting down today with someone that I think is going to light you up like he does me every time I hop on his social media page. Let's introduce you right away. I want to jump right into this conversation to Daniel Blevins. Hi, Daniel. Hi, Eric, how are you? I am so good. I am so good. I told you before we hit the record button that I have been anticipating this conversation for a long time. And so I'm honored that you took some time out of your very busy schedule to sit down with us today and have a conversation. As I mentioned we are in the midst of a pride series. I decided to launch that a couple of weeks ago. We're in pride season, obviously international pride season here. And I thought this was a perfect opportunity to have a really good kind of feel good moment and been trying to focus on members of the community that are out making an impact. And so for our listeners who don't know Daniel and don't follow him on Instagram, you will. By the end of this conversation, but Daniel is the founder of an organization called stand in pride, and we're going to talk about what stand in pride does. But Daniel, I, when I was looking through the social media and through your website, I thought this was a really wonderful kind of description. So I'm going to read this and then we're going to jump right into the conversation. Is that okay? Cool. So the stand in pride says that we believe in the power of acceptance and the profound impact of having a supportive family, especially those in the LGBTQ plus community who have taken the brave step to come out. Unfortunately, not everyone receives the support they deserve. We are not strangers. We're the family that just hasn't met yet. And so I want you from that context, if you wouldn't mind to just explain to our listeners, what stand in pride is. Is and does, and we're gonna go from there. Okay. So my official tagline is, stand in Pride helps connect members of the LGBTQ plus community with other members and allies for emotional support or to physically stand in at live events such as weddings or graduations and stand in pride. Started from a TikTok video that I offered to stand in as a dad. For LGBTQ plus couples whose dad wouldn't attend their wedding. So that, a few years ago, that's what got us started. And it's just a safe place to find chosen family in the nutshell. That's basically what it is. So what had you tell us again where you're from. I'm from East Tennessee, just outside of Knoxville, Tennessee. Okay. And so I'm assuming we're going to go back a little bit. I want to hear a little bit about your background, but at the moment you decided that this was a need. And that you could fulfill that need. What was that conversation like with you? What was the moment that you decided that was something that you needed and wanted to do? I don't know that I made that decision consciously. It just happened. Honest answer. Yeah. Honest answer. It just happened. I made that video on TikTok. Okay. This. Like early 2021, and just reading the comments, it wasn't super viral or anything like that. But just a lot of people engaged in the comments section of that video on TikTok. And it just got me thinking, how can I help these people connect? Because you couldn't really organize it in the comments section of a video. And so that's what led me to create the first Facebook group which back then was called TikTok stand in families. And we were that for about a year. And then I decided, this is going to be a thing. So we need to have our own identity. And I came up with stand in pride. And so it just Snowball, honestly, a lot of people was like, if you knew now what you knew then, would you still do it? And the answer is no, I would not believe it or not. I'm a huge introvert. This has really taken me out of my shell and forced me out of my shell. So it would have terrified me had I known back then that it would lead to the media Circus that have, that's ensued from this. It would have terrified me. I would have wanted to do it, but I would have been terrified to do it. Honest, like I said, honest answer, and I love that the transparency is great. So I have a question that I want to go back just a little bit further, if you don't mind, with your permission. But in that first moment that you stood in, it was a wedding, yes? Yeah, I stood in for a wedding last, it's been two summers ago. The first time. Yeah. Okay. So after starting the group, it was like a whole year and a half before I ever got the opportunity to stand in the wedding. So I really was dealing with imposter syndrome too. Like I was like, I'm such a fraud. Yeah. But I have to imagine that was something, the way that it was received was like, this is too good to be true. Or is this legit? Because I think when you're go and I try to wrap my head around this kind of moment for somebody, I'm very blessed and very fortunate. I have the support of my family and have since day one, it wasn't easy. There was a rocky road to get there which took about a year, but, my mom was there and family celebrated my wedding, That must have been really overwhelming and emotional. It was, like I didn't know what to expect when I showed up with Keisha when I went to her wedding. I had no idea what to expect and she and I had communicated, by text message and everything. And But it was very emotional, but as soon as I got there, there was just a big hug, and she was so excited to have me there, and I was so excited to be there. It was hotter than hell, because it was in August, in East Tennessee. I'm in a suit, and I'm like, girl. This, and it was outside. I'm like, you're just trying to give me a stroke. But, I love it. I love it. But we just had the best time and it was just like we had always known each other and we still communicate like we, even though it's been two years. And I tell people a lot of times because I think a lot of people just have this misconception that it's just Oh, you just show up to their wedding and you never speak to them again. No, it's that's the beginning of a relationship And for most people and it depends on the timing like when you meet the person you're going to send him for you know If it's a year in advance Hopefully you can get together before the wedding and connect but We just had a couple months and she was like two hours away. So it wasn't you know, You Super easy for us to get together beforehand. But yeah, it was emotional. We cried and happy tears like it was amazing. So it's interesting, Daniel, you said when you were talking that you're an introvert which I find surprising. That's not my experience of you on your videos and on your reels. We're going to talk about a few of those in a minute because I find them to be I love watching you respond to comments. But before we do that, I do have a question. It just makes my morning when I'm sipping my coffee in bed with the dog snoring and I'm watching you respond to these comments. But had you always been an introvert growing up as a child? Was that where you just, what was that like? very much. I was super painfully shocked growing up. And I will say too, I have wonderful parents. I have a wonderful family. Never imagined My coming out never had anything to do, or my later coming out, never had anything to do with my family. It had to do with the area where I live. And just my fear of my community. Because, people around here, nobody was gay. There was nobody that I knew of growing up here. And as I got older, I realized that those people left as soon as they could. And came out and never came back. So that's why there was no representation here. But I lost my train of thought. No, I was saying have you always been that shy? What was that child like for you about Yeah. So that made it, that was an added layer for me of being myself because I was painfully shy growing up. Yeah. And now TikTok has taught me that I'm probably on the spectrum, self-diagnosed and so that's, I just have all these layers of things that that we deal with as human beings. But yeah, I was, and still catch myself being very shy, like in social situations, but I'm a hairdresser. I've done hair for 25 years, but, and people are like, how do you do that? But I'm like, it's a controlled environment for me. I'm in control. So that's how, And being a creative person, it just fits. And so I can control the narrative and everything. And so that's just how it works out. You'll find it interesting. We don't know each other that well, are in a very controlled environment as a hairstylist, right? I am not painfully shy, but I energetically really struggle with large groups. And I call it the life force gets sucked out of me and it's, you can actually see it on me when I walk into a large crowd. I don't do concerts. I love music, but I don't do concerts. Never. I've never been to a concert in my entire life. Yeah, it's super bougie of me, but I like to do a concert in a private box, which I used to have a client who had a box at the Honda center. And we used to see concerts that way again, controlled environment. There could be 300, 000 people in the arena, but I'm in a box with 20 people drinking Opus and eating Mexican food out of a chafing dish. It's very controlled. But what's interesting is I, so I don't do concerts. I don't like music festivals, large crowds. And it's ironic because my day job for the past 20, almost 30 years, I'm a corporate meeting and event and incentive planner. So I plan huge events. I've done Oscars, Golden Globes, SAG, Grammy awards. I've done all of that. I've done, conventions for a thousand people and you can see it in my body language and in my face where the color just drains out of my face. And it's like that power plant shutting down. So I get it. different scenario, but I'm really, interestingly enough shy myself in most social situations that are not work related. If it's work related, I'm there with a target. I'm there with a purpose, but in social situations, it's really difficult. And so I definitely control my nerves. So I you're speaking my language there. Yeah I'm starting to get I actually did last week, a corporate event, a speaking engagement, but it was virtual. So it's there was 350 people there. I didn't see them cause I was sitting here just like I am with you in a room by myself. I was cool. But I have had a few that want me to do like in per in person. And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what, I don't know if I can. Like nobody, nobody knows more about stand in pride than I do. So I can talk about it like nobody's business. But, Typically, it's behind a computer screen. Like I'm not seeing people in real life. Like none of the news interviews I've done have been in person. They're all on my zoom. And that's not my choice. That's just how it worked out. Yeah. A little piece of unsolicited advice and listeners will laugh. But what I find really works. Cause I have a couple other people in my life who are like this. You should do it in person because you're brilliant and beautiful and great energy and just a lovely human being. But if you create a scenario where it's like you've seen in the interview styles where there's two chairs facing each other and towards the audience, you're really directing your conversation to the moderator, like we are here, like we were sitting next to each other. And I, a lot of times find that the room disappears, right? You'll hear applause and all that, but you can lock into that. Cause I think what you, I don't think. What you do is so powerful and what you do is so transformational. And the way that you deliver your content on your social media, and also in the interviews that I saw is you're right. More about the organization and you have firsthand experience of what it's like. So I find it interesting. So you, if I can ask another personal question, so growing up. Shai, did you know you always wanted to be a hairdresser, or was that something that also fell into play? Just fell into it. I have no plans in this life. Everything is by accident. And you're still, and you're still in the same town where you grew up, yes? Yes, I am. Wow. So did you go away and come back, or did you never leave? I've always been here. I got married right out of high school. I don't know if that whole story. I couldn't find that story, no. Tell me about that. I've talked about it a little bit on social media, but I got married to a woman right out of high school, and we have two children. Immediately after high school, it's my roots are here. And it was just, there was times that I wanted to leave, but it's I don't want my kids to grow up without a dad. I don't want to be that. I don't want to be a long distance dad or just, not present. So it was just, I made the best of the situation that I had created kind of thing. So yeah, I've always lived here. How are the kids now? The kids are great. They're 26 and 28. And I have six grandchildren. They each have three children. Yes. So they're both married, with their own families and doing their own things. And yeah, they're great. Do they live in town or they live nearby? Yes. Yeah, they're still here. There's something about you Southerners that all stick together. It's I shouldn't say it's Southern, it's Austin. I live like an hour from my mom and she lives five minutes from her sister. We're all pretty close, but I think it's more of the family dynamic than anything else. But I do know a lot of Southern families that don't stray far from the nest. Yeah, it's true. My entire family my parents are divorced, but they're still here. I have one sister, she's here, like everybody, within a 15 minute drive. The whole family is right here. So if the hairdressing kind of fell into place and it wasn't part of the plan, I think I heard you say you didn't have any plans. So you didn't, did you not know what you wanted to do? Interesting. I knew I wanted to be, it needed to be something creative. There was a time I toyed with the idea of being like an interior decorator, but that wasn't something I could do here, college really, I had to prove that I was straight immediately after high school. So college was out of the question. And our son was born not long after we got married. And so I just needed something, I needed a creative outlet and hairdressing was something that I could do here. What's your favorite part about being a hairdresser? I hate every part of it now. After 25 years, I'm like, it's a long time to cut hair. That's a long time. It really is. No, it's my relationship with my clients. After this many years, they're like part of my family because we know each other so well. And that's my favorite part and, that's going to be the hardest part to let go of, but it's coming. And I'm sure you have a lot of dirt and a lot of tea on some of your people. I know everything. I've got my, what's the saying, I've got my fingers on the pulse of this town. I know what everybody's into. Oh, she gonna write a book? She gonna write a book. That's your retirement. That's your retirement. For example this older lady told me last week that she'd been praying that her hair would get some curl in it. And the Lord gave her curl. Had nothing to do with the haircut I gave her. Maybe they're speaking through your hands. Who knows? I was like, girl, we need to market that. Hey, that could do really well there. I could do great. My mom's funny too. She I've been in the events business for years, obviously a very long time, over 20 years. And I've got some stories as well, cause I used to do some of the award season after parties for The Oscars and the Golden Globes and SAG Awards. Yeah. And there's a few, we signed NDAs back then. So there's a few stories that I wish that I could write, but it's been an interesting journey for sure. I love it. It's funny because I have several friends who are hairdressers and stylists and it's, they all say the same thing. It's, grueling at times and very difficult and exhausting. You're on your feet all day long and you're dealing with, a lot of that. You have to almost to me, different occupation but it's like being a massage therapist. It's do you really take on all that energy of every client that comes in and sits down? Yes. And I know for me, I love Ray who cuts my hair. We have talked about some stuff and shared a lot of things and it's, I can only imagine at the end of the day having to process all of that energy and that information. What do you do for you? What's your, aside from standing pride, what's your kind of rejuvenation? What's your moment? What's your self care? I currently have 15 cats. Absolutely. You're not going to believe it. We accidentally started rescuing cats. It wasn't a plan. It just happened. We had this feral colony in our neighborhood and they just kept growing. And I'm just like, honey, we've got to do something because nobody else is doing it. So we started TNR ing. That's trapped, neutered, and released. And then we started rescuing kittens that were, like, live trapping feral kittens. And then I'm socializing them and have, tons of cats everywhere. They're not all in my house, but I think we're feeding close to 30 feral cats. But they're being taken care of because, we just, we stepped up. We're their stepdaddies and we're stepped up and so that is like a big passion like animal rescue We've rescued dogs over the years you know rescuing people's not a far stretch, i'm doing that as well So yeah, it's just that really like I guess rejuvenates my soul. Taking a little feral kitten that's terrified of you and vicious and will claw your eyes out and just turning into this little love bug is one of the coolest things I've ever done in my life. So do you then handle the adoption out of those cats once they're rehabilitated or you have? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Like we're not a formal organization or anything, but yeah, we have found homes for some, but Most of them are probably just going to be ours. I was that was my next question. Daniel, do they ever leave? Not really constantly there. Nobody's good enough for my baby. Oh, trust me. Trust me in another lifetime or in my next lifetime, or maybe in my retirement, I want to own a senior dog sanctuary because my whole thing is like when people dump their dogs, mine's snoring right now at the bottom of my chair here in my studio. And but my thing is. Adoption. There is a dogs and especially the senior ones that get dumped. And when all of the adoptions were happening during COVID and during the quarantine, I just kept thinking in the back of my head, all these people are going to get dogs because they have nothing else to do. And then when they go back to life and they go back to their job we're seeing a big problem right now here in California. With these senior dogs being, dumped back at shelters and then that type of thing. So my, my dream is if I don't meet someone and, ultimately get married and fly off to wherever we're going to go. I will probably be that old guy that has a senior dog sanctuary somewhere living out his life with senior dogs, but I get it. I totally get it. I would have 10 dogs if I could. I'm just, I just can't emotionally, I am banned from the shelter in town and I'm also banned from the lab and Corgi rescue because I want to bring all of them home. I have self banned myself. No one bans me. I self banned myself, but every Sunday they do cat and dog adoptions from Mexico. Cause they'll go down to Tijuana, scoop up the dogs and the cats and they bring them and they adopt them here in San Diego So I know every Sunday I have to drive a different route and not pass by the Petco because they have the most beautiful dogs and cats. It's too much. I can't. So I have to drive around the community to, to avoid that. So I get it. I get it. It's emotional. And like you said, we, at one time we had four dogs before the cat. Things started and slowly started losing the dogs and we're down to one. So I have one dog and 15 cats and Shelly is, she's 11. She'll be 11. She's a Chiweenie. A Chiweenie. Yes. She's the boss. So our inside cats, it's so funny because the dogs were all boys. And then they're my husband and I and then the one girl and then we got these cats and we have three boy cats that live inside full time and my husband and I and the one girl dog. So it's no girl is taking her place. Nope. Not gonna happen. How long have you been with your husband? We have been together for 24 years. Congratulations. And we've been married for five. Congratulations. Thank you. Did you meet there in town? We met in another town, like the next town over which is the largest town, which is Knoxville. Cause there's no clubs here, obviously. But but we met there at a club and found out that we're from the same area. And it's he was actually living there at the time. But he was from here. Congratulations. I love that. Thank you. You're welcome. All right. So let's talk for a couple minutes about the organization because I want the people who are listening to know a little bit more about the outreach. So as I was reading, obviously you're based there in Tennessee, but you have, the organization is spread out, not only across the country, but you've also now gone international. Is that right? Talk about that for a minute. Talk about that. We, like I'm in East Tennessee and so that first group grew, I want to think, I don't remember when, like it's been a whirlwind, honestly. I think it was about a year and a half after starting the first group that it got so large and people were like, we need smaller groups, like state groups was just going to require too much manpower to moderate. So I come up with the idea of doing regional groups. So we have regional groups for the U. S. There are a total of 26 Facebook groups for Stand in Pride now. I only admin the U. S. based ones. Others outside the United States were started with my blessing. I've helped them, I've trained them. They run the groups the same way. I'm just not actively involved. Yeah, we're in Canada, Australia, Europe, Germany. Malta. The little town, a little island of Malta has their own standing pride group, which there's France, I can't list them. There's so many, I can't list them all. So yeah, it just grew out of need. And I've had people recently reaching out to me, wanting to start a group. And I'm like, we're not starting any more Facebook groups because our app is coming out like very soon. So how does this work? So you have the region, let's pick the one region. So there's the U. S. and you're admitting the U. S. and I'm assuming there is multiple states that are participating in that region. And you have Facebook groups for those regions. Is that how the people find you that are looking for a stand in? So the idea is they're not looking for me. The idea is there's such a large need for this. I can't be there for everyone. Oh sure. There when you join a group say you joined a group and you're looking to be offer support Then you would just introduce yourself and say hey, i'm eric and this is where i'm from. This is what I do post a picture of your dog kind of thing And if someone's looking for support, they're like, oh I live there, too Or I love dogs like that, it can be hobbies, something, some sort of connection and they'll reach out to you privately and start a conversation and and that can be vice versa. But typically what we see in the groups and what I have seen. From the beginning, it's mostly our allies or members of the community offering support that we see post. But now occasionally somebody will say, hey, we're getting married and we need a wedding officiant or hey, we're getting married and. Would love to have standing family and so their comments fill up and then it's up to them to go through and Message who they're, interested in Yeah, I wondered how you monitored all of that yeah, we don't really Eventually, like we've had a lot of requests that people I hate to even compare it to a dating app But a lot of people are like I would love to have something that would connect people based on their interest So that's something that we're actually looking into for the app, not the first version, but just to make that connection easier because a lot of people like me, I would find it hard to decide I don't like decisions. If I have two choices, I'm okay. But if you give me hundreds of choices, I'm okay. I'm going to struggle, trying to decide, so if I had some help with that would be nice. But I've always said the interactions take place organically. Like I, I'd never want to be involved and say you go with this person and you're with this one. And, and as large as it's grown, that would just, it wouldn't even be possible for me to keep up with. Oh no. That anymore. That's a full time paid admin. Trust me, it's been a job and somehow I was nominated for the complaints department. So anytime somebody has a problem or something they don't like, or, this rule is getting on their nerves, they have to let me know about it. I can't imagine, I guess I can imagine the joy and the reward of people who offer their time to stand in for. the people who need someone. I'm so curious about that moment right? When you realize that you're providing something that this person has never had, especially within the LGBTQ community, so many struggle with being alone and not having anyone. And if I think back about, my wedding and as an event producer, people had really high expectations of what my wedding was going to be like. And I got questions that would just blow your socks off like, Oh, what's your budget? And are you going to have this band and this chair and that florist? And I'm like, no we're not. And we made some decisions to, get married very small ceremony. And the only people that were there was my mom, his mom, and his sister who officiated my best friend and his best friend who stood in for us. And then we had a big party afterwards, couple months. So we celebrated here in California, cause we got married in Massachusetts. But If I think back about it now, and if my mom had not been there, I think it would have just been devastating to me. And so knowing what that's like to have her there and then to have someone stand in if she wasn't, in my life would be just such a beautiful thing because That's got to be missing, right? That's such a beautiful moment. The fact that we have thought so long and hard to be able to even get married or to have a special occasion like this, which, fingers crossed that we make it through the finish line with that and retain that as we come into a very interesting time in our lives. But despite that, I think it's so important to be able to have that moment. And what a blessing for not only the people who need the stand in, but those that are standing in. For them. I'm it gives me goosebumps and it makes me want to see if there's a local person here in San Diego because I would love that. I think it would be super cool. And really fulfill that need for me. What do you see as you talked a little bit about the app and obviously it's grown so much. What do you see the future look like for? Stand in pride.'cause you've got product now you've got some merch, you obviously raise money, which obviously is a component to this, I would assume. Where do you see this going or do you even know Mr. I don't have plans. Mr. I don't have plans. I'm just flying by the seat of my pants. One thing I think I wanna point out too is yeah, standing pride is not just about weddings. We have people join, and I gave this, I did a podcast earlier this morning too, and one thing we had a young trans man, and this story just these stories just stick out to me, who was going to his first job interview and did not know how to tie a tie, and all the dads were like, oh, let me teach you, let me teach you. So one dad taught him on FaceTime how to tie a tie. And we had a young lady who was Filling out college applications and moms just jumped let me help you, and so three moms got together and helped her through that whole process. So it's really filling in for, like I say all the time, it's just filling that gap that void that's left. But, those of us that have a firming family, if we have a question about tying a tie or a recipe, for example, you'd call your mom. I would. I not even think about it, but not everybody has that option to just call their mom. And sometimes it's because they're no longer here. It's not because they're, estranged it's because they've passed away. But we're standing proud. It's going, we're a nonprofit organization now. So I don't know where that's going to take us, but everybody's you need to be a nonprofit. So I'm like, okay, and so I did it, but the app is going to be owned by the nonprofit, not by me. We're going to have a, we have a board director set up to take care of that. And I think it's going to be huge. Honestly, I'm terrified that it's going to be, it's going to be huge. And it's going to be more of me getting out of my shell and be like, Oh, you got this big, huge successful app. And I'm like, yeah, that's just what I needed. But the reason for the app, one of the biggest reasons that we, that I've been pushing for this is a lot of people don't use Facebook because for our community, it's. It's not a safe place. And that's another thing about the beauty of the Facebook groups being private. We have members that, they just got engaged and they can't share this, these things on their personal page because of the hate they may receive. And so to have a place where they know that they're safe and to have hundreds of people congratulate you, even if you don't know, it still makes you feel good. So that's one of the benefits of that and having our own platform, people will be able to, engage just like social media. It's going to be basically a social media platform just for our community. I don't know where we're going honestly, there's some things in the work aside from the app that I can't talk about that are exciting. Some big things. And for me, a lot, it's just about humanizing our community. I think we need to put our faces. People need to see that we're human beings and I can do that with social media, but I want to do that on a bigger platform too. So I'm a firm believer and I've said this on a few podcasts that There are people in this world who were put here to land gently on our shoulders I say not so gently but to land gently on our shoulders to wake us up so that we don't miss the rest of our lives and I've thought that about you and I've thought that about your organization because Although you are self described Relatively shy. I still don't believe it, but relatively shy. I find it hard to believe. But you're landing very gently on the shoulders of the community, not just within your standing pride community, but the people who are following you and the listeners and the people who are moved by what you're doing. And I don't have the crystal ball, but I definitely see, since you are relatively young in this endeavor, I really see this opportunity to make such a huge impact. And you never know who's going to be on your team. You never know who's going to be one of your stand ins. They could easily knock on your door and say, Daniel, we're here to help. Let's take this to the next level. Let's do this. And it's not all on your shoulders. One of the greatest gifts I ever learned in this personal development course that I took actually came out in this course, I talked about it in my pride kickoff and there was another. Course within this curriculum that was about creating a community project and then giving it away. And what that giving it away meant didn't mean handing it to somebody else and walking away. It meant to give it away, to give it to the people that, that will help you take it out into the community and out into the world. And that's happened for Stand in Pride, right? It's already out there. It's already done. It's already done. Thankfully it's happened because I've had some amazing people reach out to me that want to offer. Their services, like a grant writer and, people that have experience within the nonprofit world are like, Hey, I can help you manage this, or I can help you navigate this. And I'm like, thank God, because I don't know what I'm doing. I've got somebody for you as well. When you are ready, I'll send him your way. He actually helps nonprofits get off the ground and get their funding, but not off the ground, but like to get to that next level, I guess that's what I'm trying to say, but I'm just super excited for the future, for your future as well as the future of stand in pride. I think it's. Definitely feeling a need that will always be there. I think I live this little Pollyanna world sometimes and thinks one day we're going to wake up and it's all going to be, unicorns and rainbows and we're human and we're going to go through life and we're going to have situations where we're going to need support. And I, look at some of the things that I've been through in the last couple of years, my divorce, very painful and very difficult divorce. And although my family was there sometimes you need someone else. And fortunately I had some people in my life who stood right beside me. It didn't help that happened three months before the pandemic, but that's a whole other story. I turned to ice, I turned to ice cream for support. It was very well received as was not the 30 pounds I gained from the company that I was purchasing from. But I was I know what it was like to have somebody by my side. So I'm so grateful to you and the organization and all of the people. So I have a question because this is the thing that just makes me laugh every time I watch your social media feeds. So I'm going to ask you a question. I can't believe that an organization that is out there doing nothing but beautiful, good things that are changing people's lives and filling their hearts is gonna get the kind of responses that you get on some of these posts. So talk to me just as we kind of circle into the kind of, slow down of this conversation. What is that like? Do you just sit there and shake your head? Did you just at one point just say, now I got to bring it to the forefront and talk about it on social media? Cause it's so ludicrous. Have this rule that early on in my content creation career, if you want to call it that I would get very emotional at these, hateful comments and just feel the need to really, defend myself. And then. I started noticing, I'm like, why am I, why do I care what this stranger on the internet actually says? So I created this set of rules and if it's not educational or funny or hopefully both, I block and delete and just forget about it. Because it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. If somebody is being hateful, on social, leaving hateful comments, that's really. A you problem, not a me problem. It's how it looks. It's you're really a miserable person. I see things all the time I don't like, but I'm just like, scroll on. I don't really care enough to leave a comment. It's I don't like this or you're going to hell because you said this or something, so that's just how. And I've had people reach, I recently just had somebody like send me these screenshots, and they're like, how would you handle this? And I was like, why are you involved, because it was, they were in this long conversation with somebody on somebody else's posts. And I was like, block them. Don't put yourself in that position and waste that emotional energy on this stranger who's never, you're never going to change their mind. You're never going to change their mind. They want to live in ignorance and let them live there. You don't have to go, you're going to have to sink to their level and it's still not going to work. So block them and move on. And so that, that's my philosophy for it. And I've had some people reach out to me and be like, what is your advice for content creators? I'm like, you better have thick skin. If your feelings get hurt easily, it's not for you. Trust me. It's not for you, Yeah. You can't because can't, people are cruel. Yeah. You can't live in the comment section for sure. Or the dms. You can't live there and I'm more, I found that the older I'm getting and the more content that's out there about me, the less I look at it. Like you were saying earlier that you had looked up, I don't look anymore, like I don't Google my name. It's I'm really like, I don't care what people are saying or, and it took me a while to get there. Yeah. And be clear. I Google and I do my research because I'd like to know some information. I don't look at comments. I don't look at that stuff. But cause I'm like you, I've gotten a couple Especially after a couple of the episodes, I got a couple private messages or DMS and I didn't even respond. And then there was a beautiful post conversation that we had. And they received on the feed, a negative post. And I deleted it because that my, my feed, my Just do you pod page is not designed to defend the empowerment. It's for empowerment. And that's my page and I can do what I want. Having said that comments all the time. Yeah. But having said that Daniel, there have been a few comments that you've done videos on and my favorite part of you, cause you're just a delight. Your energy is so amazing. But my favorite part. Is the self or the facial expressions and the eye rolls you've given some of these comments and they're up in the corner and you point at them and you make a little commentary. It just, it literally melts my heart and makes me smile. It makes me laugh because I want to be a fly on the wall of the person who sent the message. When you roll your eyes like Are you for real? Yeah. Because you do pick and choose. Obviously you'd be spending all your day if we responded to everyone. But what is the, what's the intention behind that? Is it to bring levity to it? Is it to diffuse the fire? Yeah, it is because, and I feel like the need to make fun of these situations, because we're always going to have to deal with this. And it's we can find some humor in it, whether it's, they spelled a word wrong or, whatever. They don't know what punctuation is. Like we can find, some humor in that. And like I said, if I can't make it funny or educational, then it's not worth responding to. And so a lot of people was like, why do you give these people so much? Attention. I'm like, I'm not this comment. It's not for them, sweetie. This is for other people to watch and to listen and to absorb. They're not listening. They already left their comment. They're not listening to me. But other people, and I've actually had people say, thank you. You taught me a lot. And I'm engaged because it is sassy sometimes or funny that it's not just like boring, me, monotone, just telling, this is how it is thing. You really have to find. a way to keep people engaged on social media because They have the attention span of a fruit block, you know well, because there's also such an amazing abundance of content out there and I was one of my conversations for not starting the podcast because I would listen to podcasts and i'd be like How do they have? 60, 000 followers on this topic. I don't understand that. And are people going to be engaged in a conversation about empowerment? And they are they're slowly coming because we have to fight the algorithms of social media and make sure that we're constantly doing our job. And I made a promise to myself when I launched the podcast that not only was it going to connect and inspire and share stories of people's journeys, it was really designed to educate people who may listen, who may have a certain. Perspective on the LGBT community and by spending a little time with us might see something a little bit different for my hope that paradigm shifts a little bit. And so I love your response to those. Archer also does a really great job and really funny videos about the response to some of the messages. And I appreciate it because I think bringing levity to it also diffuses the fire. It extinguishes the fire and it makes a point. It makes a point. And once you're exposed to those types of comments enough, they don't sting as bad. And I think whether people from our community are realizing that is what is happening, they're, they're becoming immune to it and I'm slowly, giving them that immunity just by exposing them to it because, especially for people who don't create content, so they don't necessarily see that and I think it's important for our allies to see it, too, because they need to experience what we're experiencing. And the huge chunk of my following is allies, so anytime I feel like I can expose them to that and educate them on how to handle situations or, for example, telling somebody that you're their mom. No, you're not. Don't do that. That is hurtful. And a lot of people have reached out to me privately and been like, I feel so bad. I'm like, it's not, that's not my intention to make you feel bad. It's like when we know better, we do better. It's all about education and it's all about time and spending time. No one's ever going to know. I said this morning at breakfast, no one's ever going to know what it feels like to walk in our shoes. Nobody. And also nobody has the right to judge how we walk in our shoes. What they do have a right to do is respect us for the choices that we made, the lives that we live. And so I think that's really important. It's an important message that you give and in those responses. And I, you and I could talk for hours. I'm, I think we could come back and talk about many things. I have one last question to ask you, and then we're going to wrap this up. I'm gonna let you get on with your day and I'm just so grateful for your time, but do you have. A favorite stand in story. That's not yours. You shared one of yours, but anything from any of the other people was there. You're a favorite that you've heard of recently. Not to put you on the spot. Yeah, a lot of the stories I can't share because they're not mine. But I think, the ones that I mentioned, the time of time, the college applications, those are the ones that stand out to me the most. We have actually had and this is not typical of the group. So anybody listening, this is not typical. I know of two different situations where people in domestic violence situations were rescued by members of our group. And. I didn't find out later because it's against the rules because we don't like we, we have to have very clear rules because, we can't offer housing for people. We can't help them with financial needs because that just puts a target on you for scammers. And so these people, after the fact would reach out to me and say, Hey, we did this. We know we're not supposed to, but we just wanted you to know this happened. And of course, I can't be mad at them, but they saved somebody's life. But they're like, because of you, we were able to help this person and that just chills now talking about it because. When you do something, you never realize the ripple effect. Like I still am realizing the ripple effect from starting this organization and seeing how people's lives have been changed. Just knowing that, people and people have told me that I'm alive because of this group. I met someone who saved my life because of your group. So that's one thing I'm so excited about and so proud about you. And I think that's a really good thing too, with the app, because with the app we're going to be able to reach more people and help more people and save more lives and educate more people. And so I guess, just say the lives being saved, that I know about, and I'm sure there's stories that I don't know that would be pretty miraculous that people haven't shared. Those are my favorite part. And I think there's probably choked up again. I'm going to be known as the podcast crier, it's just the way my life is going to go. I cry at Hallmark commercials. So this is just going to be a ongoing thing for me as I talk about these conversations. But I think also too, what I noticed and what I hear and what I feel in my heart is that the difference that you're making. That you will probably never see is changing and shifting the lives of these LGBTQ people that are getting the blessings of being connected with your team and with your people across the country and around the world. I say this a lot, but I truly mean this, Daniel, when I say this, the world is a better place with you in it and your team. So thank you for everything that you do. Thank you for standing pride. Thank you for coming out of your shell again, still don't believe it, but coming out of your shell to step into this light of giving it back and paying it forward. It's a beautiful thing and I'm excited that we've connected. You have a new friend out here in California. I'm excited to watch. The growth and the progress and the good that comes out of stand in pride. Our pride event is coming up in July here in San Diego. I'm going to go out and buy some swag and advertise you proudly. But thank you so much for being here today, but mostly thank you for doing what you do. Out in your little corner of the world has spread worldwide. There are just so many blessings and I can't thank you enough for coming on today and sharing and being a part of the Just Do You family. Thank you. I honestly I appreciate the invitation to join you and share my story. And hopefully this resonates with people. You honestly never know how you can change somebody's love. If something is on your heart to do it and just see where it takes you. And that's the, Accidentally doing things, changing the world over here. That's the way I live. For a guy who doesn't have any plans, you certainly have a plan. So I'm going to leave it there. I'm just following along where, where, wherever it goes, it's where I'm going. So I'm going to say this, maybe you don't have the plan, but the universe has a plan for you. So let's just we'll save that. And I'm listening. Yeah. I'm listening. And listen, when these things come to me, then, I'm like, this is, this is the direction we're supposed to go. So I'm just, I'm open to that. And I think that's what more people in this world need is to be more open and then you're more apt to learn and be a different, a better person. Like we all have room for improvement. Goodness said it better myself. I'm going to let you have that last statement. I wish you a beautiful day and thanks again for being here. Thank you. You're welcome. Alright, everyone, thank you again for joining us on today's episode. I hope our conversation resonated with you like it did me, and I cannot wait to sit down with you all again next week. Remember to subscribe to the Just You Podcast on your favorite platform so you can make sure not to miss a new episode, which drop every Thursday. If you like what you hear, you can easily share the podcast and episode. Directly with your friends and if you would rate us and leave us a review, we'd love to hear from you. You can also follow us on Instagram at just Do you pod as you go out into the world today. Remember to just do you. Alright, talk next week.