Join us as we chat with Scarlet and Krystle, lesbian parents raising their family in Texas.
In this episode, we discuss their whirlwind COVID romance, their journey to parenthood, the battle for family acceptance, and how it feels to be out in proud — both in Texas and online. With their home-state leading the way in anti-LGBTQ+ attacks, their story is a testament to the power of love and representation.
Listen above as we embark on a journey of courage, empowerment, and unity in the midst of adversity, featuring stories that remind us that LGBTQ+ families — like everyone else — just want to live a normal, safe, and happy life.
Episode Transcript
Krystle:
We were just talking about who was the hottest mom, and at this point, Jocelyn was not at my school anymore, and I was telling him, I said, “I don’t know if you remember this student, but her mom was top notch”. And then one of my coworkers were like, “Yeah, actually I do. I actually follow her on Instagram.” I was like, “What?” And I was like, “Let me see, just to be a little creeper and just like some photos.” And she actually hit me up first she left with comment, right? Yeah. She left the comment and was like, “Oh, you have a beautiful smile.” And I sent it to one of my coworkers who would always talk about her at the time with me, and he was like, “Are you kidding me?” Yeah, it was nuts. It was like meeting a celebrity or something.
Eric:
This is Shining Through the Clouds, an exploration of the resilience of LGBTQ+ families in America. I’m your host, Eric Fleming.
Okay. You’ve heard about the hot mom of it all. Now, let’s go a little deeper here. A COVID love story, what?! We’ve heard so much about COVID breakups and relationships shifting over the pandemic, but what about those that found each other? This is Scarlet and Krystle. They are a lesbian couple living in Texas that want people to know that some queer folks just want a family in a normal life, and we should be entitled to have those things. But what are the barriers and obstacles to having that? These two tell us about their struggles with family acceptance or lack thereof, receiving threats online, not just to them, but to their kids too, just to name a few things. Let’s take a listen.
Scarlet:
Well, honestly, at first it was COVID. We started our relationship during COVID. So, we spent so much time together. It was like we just knew off the bat something was going to come from the relationship. Because COVID is like…We started talking and right at the beginning of 2020 and then months…Literally right after we went on that first actual date, COVID hit two weeks or so after or something right in there. It got so serious that it was like, now I’m driving to your house and staying over here all the time. Or I had a shop at that time. She’ll come almost every day to hang out with me because COVID started and a lot of people weren’t coming to the shops anymore.
Eric:
These two go on to tell the story of how they connected over long walks around the lake in Krystle’s apartment complex. Very storybook romance vibes, super cute. They quickly found an alignment on values and a strong desire to create a family. They knew what they wanted, and they went for it. It was like this Petri dish of imagination and possibility. When they came out of it, the reality of two women trying to build a life in Texas proved to be quite the challenge. The biggest hurdle? Family acceptance.
Scarlet:
We knew from the beginning that having our family as a lesbian couple wasn’t going to be easy. Starting with my family because it all started there. My family, we had to pretend like we were friends for so long.
Krystle:
So when I started dating Scarlet, it was tough because now this free bird…I got to contain myself. I’m not a PDA person, as she could tell you, but I still like to be known of who I actually am. Like, yes, this is my girlfriend. Well, now wife, but at the time, this is my girlfriend. And I’m very respectful around families, but it just really hurt me. And she’ll even tell you, I’ll be like, “You just got to talk to your parents.” And it was hard because I didn’t want to have to force her out like how I was forced out. So it was like a two-way battle for myself because yes, I want you to come out so that we can be out. Because I don’t want to go back into the closet, but at the same time, I had to respect the fact that she needed to tell them in her time. So it was tough, and I think we did have a few arguments about that, and it did put some stress on the relationship in the beginning.
Scarlet:
It was scary. It is like I knew she wanted me to talk about it, but I wasn’t ready. I am a social media figure. I run my business through social media. I have my children. I didn’t know where all this was going to go, and I wasn’t ready for an audience to hit me because to be honest with you, through the process that I came out, I lost friends. I lost family. I lost people that I thought were always going to be my life. I lost a lot of followers. I did gain a lot from it, but at the same time, I lost a lot and I needed to mentally and physically be ready to lose because sometimes we think, “Okay, I’m just going to jump out there and say, Hey, I want to be with a girl.” But we don’t think of all the consequences it’s about to bring. Because even though I hid it for a long time from social media, people knew I was with someone. You can tell there was things going.
Eric:
Scarlet’s coming out process came with a ton of consequences and loss, not just with family, but extended family, friends, even clients in her coaching business. People dropped off the face of the earth. In some cases, they even spoke out in harmful ways against Scarlet’s decision.
Scarlet:
But me and my parents had to go…We went from September all the way to December or January of the following year of 2020 to 2021 — about three, four months — that we didn’t say a word to each other. Because when they found out she was living with me, everything went loose…all the judgment. And my parents are those people who bash you on social media, like, on their Facebook. They weren’t supportive of anything. They were like, “Oh, you with this girl” and “What kind of parent are you trying to be to your daughter?” and “Who are you? Who is this person?” And I had to send them ugly messages on WhatsApp because that’s where our group chat is, right? My brother lives in Honduras, so the way we communicate all of us together is through WhatsApp. And so I had to write these real ugly messages to them and say, “You know what? I’m tired of hiding. I’m tired of being who you want me to be, who y’all wanted me to be for all these years. Since I was 12, 13, I had my first year girlfriend. I knew who I was and who I wanted to be, but because I’ve always been afraid of losing my family, of not having their blessing in my relationship, or not being able to be happy how I really wanted to. I discovered that when I got with her. The way the educator in her is so beautiful that she finds ways to educate me and telling me, “Okay, well these are the things that if you either see it like this or you’re going to see it like this, and no matter what, there’s always a wrong and a good way. So either you have to learn how to take it and live with it because eventually people are going to get over it or you’re going to be stuck, and we’re never going to move past this phase.”
So I had to just grind my gears and be like, you know what? I love her. I want to be with her. You like it. If you don’t, then that’s up to you. And if when you’re ready to let me be a part of your life and my relationship with my wife and my kids, then you come and look for me. If not, I’m not going to beg for your blessing anymore. And I had to go. I didn’t take that just for my parents. I took that for people because so many friendships and relationships that I lost at the beginning, it was crazy. People just stopped talking to me left and right, and business partners and so many social media people just, you can see my following, just slowing down every day, every day, every day, every day. But it’s like, you guys want me to have this fairytale love story, but it’s not my fairytale love story.
My fairytale love story is next to her. It’s with my wife. And now with my parents, they love her. They love Krystle. I mean, they have real negative, so they all say negative things, but they say negative things about all of us all the time. But overall, they love her. But I had to put my foot down and say, either you love us or you don’t love me, because now we’re one. And as time has gone, my parents have learned to accept me more and more and realize that can’t do nothing about it because I feel like my parents also lost friends because of my relationship. They lost some type of respect. And my parents are big on my respect with my friends and my family and what they say. So they noticed that after time I didn’t care no more. So if I didn’t care, you had to learn not to care. And now my mom, she’ll defend me with her friends and say little things if anybody ever makes a comment because I had to keep my children away from her. I said, because “If you don’t accept me, guess what? You are going to say things to my children that I don’t need my children to know because I’m an adult. I made my decision. And if my children love me and her together, then nobody else should have a problem because it’s between us and everything else doesn’t matter anymore.”
Eric:
This story is a clear illustration of why representation matters. In our current media landscape of drag and queer makeover shows, I think we can have this pseudo sense of security about advancement of queer people and queer rights. But this story clearly shows us how people aren’t necessarily open-minded everywhere, right? There’s still struggles for people coming out, and safety is still a huge issue for people in certain parts of the country.
Scarlet:
Even our social media base, it is scary sometimes. We get so many comments and things that people are like, I be like, “Excuse me, you want my kids to die?” We’ve had comments like that because of our relationship. It is like, who sits here and bashes people like that. We are not the first couple that came out that had a baby together, that is building a family. We’re not, and we’re not even the closest to being the first. We’re in this era. We live in one that I feel like people need to start getting over it. People just started seeing me like I was disgusting. And people started saying comments. I was just like, you know, this holy child that doesn’t deserve to be here and doesn’t deserve to have kids and doesn’t deserve to have the family and be in this environment. And I feel like people started pushing me away from being around them. And a lot of my friends that were my friends are not my friends anymore. I think honestly, we stay in places where we know we’re invited. We hardly go to real high class restaurants that we know people. I feel like we’ve learned what places we feel comfortable in what places we really don’t because I can feel when people look at me crazy and I’m at specific place, and so if I feel that way, I know I don’t want to go back there.
Eric:
Despite all of these challenges, Scarlet and Krystle pushed on to start their family through reciprocal IVF. For those that aren’t familiar, reciprocal IVF is where one partner’s eggs are fertilized. Then when we have embryos, those embryos are planted in the other partner for pregnancy and gestation. In this next segment, we hear their journey of turning this dream into a reality.
Krystle:
I’ve always wanted, I always knew, I was like, “I want my wife to carry my child. Same donor. Then she also does it.” But I wasn’t sure how everything worked. Alright, so she had her tubes tied, so we were like, I don’t even know if it’s going to be able to happen. So that was another reason why we did the consultation to see. So once we found out, yes, she can still have — because the way it works, you don’t need the tubes like that — so learning, we were excited about that. And after that stage, it was like doctor visits all the time. How many times a week did I have to go to? Twice a week? Twice a week for four weeks? Five weeks? Yeah. I had to get on birth control. I never been on that day in my life. I’m like, why do I need to be on this?
But yeah, it was a lot of doctor visits, going through the injections. Not fun. Yeah, that part. Oh, for her for sure. I had to get ’em what? Started off in my stomach, but wasn’t working very well. So we went to the arm, and it stung, but it wasn’t terrible. But then when it was her time for the injection, she had to get ’em…
Scarlet:
Right on my tailbone.
Krystle:
Yeah. I was like, oof.
Scarlet:
And they hurt and they were long.
Krystle:
Yeah, my needle was like this big, her needle was like this big, and I was yikes. But it was also not fun, but it was almost empowering because we’re like, “We’re not making this baby, but we’re making this baby!” You know what I’m saying? Having to do the injections, getting our bodies ready, and just watching the process. And man, when she actually received my egg, taking it out of me putting her and then watching it on the screen, it’s like, how many people can actually watch the moment when you are impregnated? You know what I’m saying? It was crazy. It was beautiful. It was awesome.
Yeah. I don’t even know how to really describe it because I look at Christopher all the time, like, dude, you’re me but you came out of her, and it’s like this little perfect little angel baby.
Scarlet:
It’s like the feeling is so great, but what makes it better in this process is that we are more connected because we actually did something that put our bloods together in a sense. Because most people don’t get to do that, whether it’s the cost or they don’t have the place where to go, or a lot of people don’t even know that because I didn’t know that. I was so new to the whole process that I was like, I knew I could have babies with my tubes being tied only because people, I knew people that did IVF. I didn’t even know there was such thing as reciprocal IVF.
And when we met even our doctor, she was going through the process and was pregnant with her wife. So it felt so good to have people by our side that majority of the whole entire clinic there had wives, pretty much, too. So it was like that moment of like, “Oh my God, this is real and we’re going to have a child together and nobody could tell me nothing no more.” I don’t care what you say!
Krystle:
It was stressful at a couple points. We were like, all right, how many times it going to take? Because that was…And we actually got pregnant off the first try, thankfully, thank goodness. Yes, picking a donor, it was fun, but it was a little stressful. It was like you got to—
Scarlet:
It’s nerve-wracking.
Krystle:
Pick the right one, and you also don’t get to do that every day in life. You know what I’m saying?
Eric:
Texas is another one of those states that is leading the legislative attacks towards LGBTQ+ people. So of course my question is, “Girl, what y’all doing in Texas? Why stay? What keeps you invested?” I’m struck time and time again by the resilience of queer people in the face of opposition. So if you take nothing else away from this, remember Scarlet and Krystle are two more examples of people that are not laying down and passively accepting the vitriol coming their way. They’re fighting and choosing to remain visible.
Krystle:
It is not terrible, so to speak. But again, I feel like my world is so small within my friends and my circle and my coworkers and family that sometimes I don’t, maybe a part of me doesn’t want to think about it sometimes about what’s going on because it is scary. When I do think about it, it makes me nervous because I’m like, this life that I am living can be taken away or threatened in some way. So I think a lot of times I try just to enjoy the moment and what’s going on. And I also like the fact that we’re doing something. We’re being open, and we’re not the only gay people here. There’s other gay people. So, be open and forget other people and other people are going to see that and they’re going to do the same thing. And then eventually people are going to, at some point, these laws and all these ugly looks are going to stop because there’s just going to be more and more people.
And I feel like you’re not going to be able to contain it anymore. You know what I’m saying? You’re not going to be able to try to stop it, so to speak, because you need to see other people and know it’s okay. And I feel like me staying here instead of running away, people are seeing me because we have tons of followers in Houston, a ton. And they tell us, oh yeah, I seen you. Or even allies. It makes you feel better. Like, okay, one, there’s other people out there, of course, that are like me. And then two, you got friends that are straight and they are very accepting, and they’re like, we got your back. So it’s like, I don’t want to run away. I don’t want to be afraid of these things. And, at the end of the day, if something’s coming from my family, I’m going to fight back and I’m going to do whatever I need to do, and we’re going to do what we need to do. We got to sign some papers, we got to protest, whatever, but we are going to make it work.
Eric:
Scarlet and Krystle, were recently at the White House and hanging out with Joe Biden to celebrate Pride Month and represent for LGBTQ+ families. These two are visible community members that seek to remind the country that we deserve safe places for our families too. So shout out to you, Krystle and Scarlet. You can follow Krystle and Scarlet’s journey on their Instagram page at dustncali. That is dusty dot the letter N dot Cali, c a l i. This has been a Joy channel production in partnership with Family Equality. As the leading national organization for current and future LGBTQ+ families, we work to advance equality through advocacy, support, storytelling, and education to ensure that everyone has the freedom to find form and sustain their families. Our executive producer is Luna Malborough. Sound designed by Sean Braley. Music designed by Will Clemens of Ill Will Rhythms incorporated. Story production and hosting by yours truly, Eric Fleming. You can follow us on socials at Find Your Joy Channel. Don’t forget to rate, subscribe, and review. That helps us out a lot and spread the words. Send this to your mama, send this to your cousins. Take good care y’all.