Cameron Esposito: How to Save Your Damn Self
May 17, 2022
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, go ahead. Say it how you want to say it.
Abby Wambach:
Welcome everybody. Welcome back everybody. We Can Do Hard Things Podcast.
Glennon Doyle:
Good job babe, that was really good. I should let you do it more.
Abby Wambach:
Go. You go.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Sister’s not here today, but the person who is here is very, very exciting to Abby and me because the person who’s here today is an IRL friend.
Abby Wambach:
Yes, in real life, for those who don’t know that acronym.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, in real life friend. So, we’ve been talking a lot about Abby and I’s new commitment to figuring out what friendship is and trying to have it, and the person who’s here today is one of those people who is one of our guinea pigs, our friendship guinea pig.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, the one we’re trying friendship out with, that’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
We are trying friendship out with this person.
Abby Wambach:
Correct, yes.
Glennon Doyle:
So this person means a whole lot to us. But what I want to tell you is my first experience with our guest today, who is Cameron Esposito, I’ll stop being so dramatically cryptic.
Abby Wambach:
It’s so cute when you do that too.
Glennon Doyle:
I know, because I get so excited. You know I’m really nervous right now. My hands are sweating as usual. And I just want to tell this story because, and it’s a little bit gross, but just it’s important to me that I tell it.
Abby Wambach:
Can’t wait.
Glennon Doyle:
We were on the Together tour a long time ago. Someone said, “This comedian Cameron Esposito is coming, and you all are going to freak out because she’s totally amazing.” And we were like, “Okay, that’s great.” Cameron comes on the stage, and for these events, we were all sitting on the stage together, so we were all lined up in couches behind Cameron, who was on the front of the stage.
Glennon Doyle:
Cameron started to do her set, which is a fancy word comedians use which I’ve learned since I’ve been friends with Cameron. Cameron started doing Cameron’s set, and you’ll remember this night, I actually peed in my pants on stage.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, that’s what we’re talking about. Yes, real pee.
Glennon Doyle:
I could not … Real pee, on a couch, in front of 3,000 people.
Abby Wambach:
I wonder how that must feel to be Cameron.
Glennon Doyle:
It was terrifying, and then I had to figure out like what am I going to do? Am I just going to carry on? Which I did. And I know it sounds weird, but it doesn’t sound weird to people who have had babies, it just happens.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, no judgment.
Glennon Doyle:
On trampolines, when Cameron’s around. I think that Cameron’s the funniest person I’ve ever met in my life.
Abby Wambach:
Yep, she’s freaking hilarious.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, she’s kind of like one of those prophet comedians who says all the true things. She’s like a priest comedian, which we’ll find out. How about we talk to her, since she’s sitting here, and we could just be saying these things to her?
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
Cameron Esposito is a queer, gender nonconforming standup comic, actor, writer, and host. As a standup, Cameron has headlined tours and festivals nationwide and internationally. As an actor and host, Cameron has been seen across television and film, appearing in big budget films and beloved Sundance indies, and on a million streamers. Cameron hosts a popular podcast, QUEERY, with some of the brightest luminaries in the LGBTQ+ community.
Glennon Doyle:
Her first book, Save Yourself, which I freaking love, was an instant bestseller and is available in paperback now. And, very excitingly, Cameron is now on the ABC series A Million Little Things. So exciting.
Abby Wambach:
Listen.
Glennon Doyle:
She’s got tattoos.
Abby Wambach:
I think we should talk to her now.
Glennon Doyle:
Let’s start with this. So Cameron, as you say, right now, right now today, your true bio is that you are a big gay adult.
Cameron Esposito:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Cameron Esposito:
Well, sort of small.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, small big gay adult.
Cameron Esposito:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Right?
Cameron Esposito:
Yes. Yes. I think I’m Abby’s height, but that’s not true, and we found this out in a green room once because I had my arm around Abby and I turned. There was a mirror, and literally I think I said, “And we’re the same size.” I don’t know why that was the summary of our hangout. We’ve been hanging out before the show. I turned, I said, “And we’re the same size.” I think I am nine inches shorter than Abby. Anyway-
Glennon Doyle:
You are. Cam, you are. You are. I mean I hate to break this to you, but you’re actually my size.
Cameron Esposito:
But I’ve got big dog energy.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
Yes you do.
Cameron Esposito:
Not that you don’t.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Cameron Esposito:
Anyway, keep going.
Glennon Doyle:
You do. You have big dog energy, which is why you feel like you look like a big dog. But what you really look like Cameron is a big gay adult is what we’re trying to-
Cameron Esposito:
Yeah, me too.
Glennon Doyle:
But you started your life not as a big gay adult, but as a little gay kid, correct?
Cameron Esposito:
Yeah, absolutely. I’m so glad we’re starting by talking about this because for me, a lot of stuff I’ve been thinking about recently is as a little gay kid, but also a gender nonconforming kid. Even when I wrote, because some of this from Save Yourself, that qualification as a little gay kid, but I think a lot of what I was talking about was gender. When I wrote this book, which was just a few years ago, that was not something that was on my mind the same way.
Cameron Esposito:
I feel like when I came out 20 years ago, I was like okay. Well first, the word that I used was gay, and then eventually I was like, “Lesbian,” and then eventually I was like, “Queer.” And I still use all of those words. But I think the other thing that was going on when I was a little kid is that there’s something going on with me that I notice and that other people have always noticed that is not quite a woman, and also a woman.
Cameron Esposito:
I feel like gender fluid is a word that’s making sense to me right now, but a lot of what I was writing about when I was writing about being a little gay kid is that I was like Robin Hood for every Halloween, and I collected Kens, and I was only ever Joseph when my sisters and I were doing nativity play. And when I was in fourth grade, I auditioned for the male lead of the school play, and my school called home to ask my parents what they wanted to do about this big problem.
Cameron Esposito:
And my parents said, “Was she good?” They were like, “Yeah,” I mean obviously I’m talented. So they let me do it, but the school wouldn’t let there be just me, so I had to split the performances with a guy. There was a guy that they … So they were like, “We’ll do this, but not totally.”
Glennon Doyle:
For real.
Abby Wambach:
That’s so weird.
Cameron Esposito:
But all of those were childhood experiences, and I think a lot of what I’ve been thinking about over the last even just couple of weeks or months as things have been coming out in Florida and Texas about children and preventing teachers from talking to children about the actual world, I’ve never been different than this. And I don’t even know what this is, but I’ve never been different than this.
Abby Wambach:
I think it’s so … And if anybody wants to see some hilarious educational IG videos, go to Cameron Esposito’s IG page because thank you, because these last weeks have been really weird in our community. And it’s almost like part of my consciousness has to forget that Florida exists and that Texas exists in order to live.
Cameron Esposito:
I don’t need to tell you two this because you’ve recently lived in Florida and I have not, but those are our people.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Cameron Esposito:
I mean I travel so much for work, and I’ve been doing this job for 20 years in some capacity. And I often think that there’s this weird, especially in the last couple of election cycles, there’s this coastal elites versus people that live everywhere else. And I will just tell you, queer people are everywhere. I don’t need to tell you, but for any of the listeners that might not know this because maybe your job doesn’t put you in every situation, queer people are everywhere, and can’t leave. Also, sometimes don’t want to leave, that’s where that person lives. And so I think when I think about these folks, it’s like we are there, like that’s us.
Glennon Doyle:
So, it’s interesting because you’re talking about your childhood and knowing that there was something you were that was unique and maybe not as common in everyone else. You call it left of masculine, you are often being mistaken for a boy, but it was also largely about your body, just your body. Like people commenting about your body, because I think it’s interesting that you’re talking about … I’m doing a lot of this right now, stuff I wrote in Untamed that doesn’t exactly feel right any more, and lots of it’s about gender and sexuality. “Wait, what am I talking about?”
Glennon Doyle:
Because when I read your book, it’s all in there. I’m like wait, is she talking about sexuality right now? Wait, is she talking about gender? Wait, is she just talking about body dysmorphia that anybody can have? Because people who live in women’s bodies are just open for debate, everybody can just comment on your body. That’s what happened too to you, right?
Cameron Esposito:
Yeah. And because we’ve talked about this as human friends, I have a very complicated relationship with my bod. I mean I think there’s a couple different things going on, and some of this I’m actually experiencing in such a hot way because I’m on a network TV drama right now. So I’ve done everything in comedy, but when you’re doing something in comedy you can kind of be like, “Hah, I’m joking.” Even if you’re the love interest, you know what I mean? It’s like yeah we’re kissing, but, “Take it or leave it.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, it’s not always vulnerable. You can have an armor, but you have to be earnest in acting.
Cameron Esposito:
Exactly. And so on a drama, A Million Little Things is a drama, my character’s supposed to be hot enough that Grace Park’s character, somebody I’ve been watching on TV since Battlestar Galactica and think is amazing, my character has to be hot enough that Grace Park’s character would want to slam them up against a wall for one of those classic TV make-outs that we all know so much about.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh my God Cameron.
Cameron Esposito:
And my shirt has to come off and all this stuff, and I had to believe that that is true, which has been a really wild thing because I don’t even think we’re used to seeing somebody that looks like me on TV period, but then especially that’s not undercut by joking around. And then, the thing I’ve got going on with my body, which is I have kind of an angular and sharp face and giant sticking up hair, and then I also have D-cup breasts and some Italianness going on.
Abby Wambach:
What does that mean?
Cameron Esposito:
I think it’s like I’m actually supposed to live in Rome and be like airing laundry out the window like, “Aye,” and all my children are supposed to be around. And like body-wise, I’m supposed to be soft. I want to be hard.
Abby Wambach:
Got it.
Cameron Esposito:
I do a billion pushups to be like, “Please.”
Abby Wambach:
Goddamn it, I totally get this.
Cameron Esposito:
“Please make my arms the way I want my arms to be.”
Abby Wambach:
I 100% get this.
Cameron Esposito:
Yeah. And so, this body stuff has been happening my whole life. I think maybe a reduction eventually could be something that happens. But I’m not really looking to have top surgery. I’m not really looking to be on hormones or anything like that right now, which some people are and awesome route for them, it’s not really something I’m looking to pursue. So it’s just kind of I feel like a confusing presence, but there’s also no change or finish line that’s going to un-confuse people. Nothings coming down the pike that’s going to make people un-confused.
Cameron Esposito:
I said this in Instagram recently, but it’s like I feel like a centaur. There’s like half of this, half of that, and it’s just like, “Here you go, accept this.”
Abby Wambach:
Oh my gosh.
Glennon Doyle:
Do you feel, and I’m going to drive people nuts with this question but I just can’t stop asking it, I’m so badly trying to understand what is gender? Is it even a thing? I can’t find it in me, okay? I can’t find it in me anywhere. I don’t feel like a woman. I don’t feel like a man. I don’t know what it means. It just seems like something that was a role that was assigned to me and I was like, “I can do this. I’m an A-plus student. I can be the femmest femme that ever femmed.”
Glennon Doyle:
But I have never, not once, and I just told Abby this, I’ve never looked at a picture of myself ever and been like, “That looks like me.”
Cameron Esposito:
Oh, wow.
Glennon Doyle:
Never.
Cameron Esposito:
Oh Glennon, oh that makes a little … I want to … That’s so … I have, actually.
Glennon Doyle:
Tell me. Tell me what that feels like and what is gender to you? And is it in you, or is it just on you? Are you performing it? Is it intrinsic? What is it?
Cameron Esposito:
Such a great series of questions. Definitely on, right? Definitely on, because I have been cultured as a woman, so I have a woman’s experience. But then also, definitely in, and that’s what I think. I will say there’s something like, I hope this isn’t othering, but you and I, Glennon is who I’m talking to right now, we related to each other in one way, and then Abby and I, we relate to each other in a different way. Like totally across a room, Abby and I are going to clock each other and there’s two options. You can do like a head tilt, or you can do like a bro hug where we’re going to kind of tap each other on the upper-
Glennon Doyle:
A bro hug is so interesting.
Cameron Esposito:
-Wings.
Abby Wambach:
Upper wings.
Cameron Esposito:
I’m never going to touch Abby’s ribs. But if I hug you, I’m going to hug you in a totally different way. Because maybe Abby and I are like the same parts of a magnet, and you and I are on a spectrum maybe not so similar. It also doesn’t mean we’re so different. I don’t think of it as like masc and femme. It’s not like there’s two, right, but I do think that there is something going on because I can place people who are like me. So there’s something going on.
Cameron Esposito:
Maybe it’s limiting, but for me, it’s like I want there to be some stuff that feels like me. Otherwise, I feel too floaty in space. Like when you were asking about pictures, when I see Harry Styles or David Bowie, that looks like me to me. Maybe the rest of the world doesn’t think that looks like me.
Glennon Doyle:
I do. I think you’re correct.
Cameron Esposito:
I think that looks like me, so what is that? That’s still something, right? That’s who I want to dress like. And in terms of pictures that I’ve seen that look like me, I actually like to wear makeup. I don’t really know how to put it on, but I like to wear makeup. But I literally have a makeup artist that I’ve worked with for a decade because makeup is a part of my job, and she and I really know each other well. And I’ve asked her to refer to lipstick as men’s lip tint because it just makes me feel more comfortable.
Glennon Doyle:
Sure. Yeah.
Cameron Esposito:
I like to have my cheekbones highlighted. Well not highlighted, bronzed. And I like to have my nose bronzed, and it’s that stuff that makes you more angular. And I like to have my eyebrows filled in, which again is a way of rebalancing the face. It’s odd to think that makeup might make me feel more myself because I do identify as masculine center, but it does because it’s this sort of glam Bowie version of myself. And then I like to have my hair all big and sort of foppish, and I like to wear suits but I like those suits to be sort of tailored.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. I think it’s so cool that you know all of those things, that you have figured out how to match your insides with your outsides. Because I think when people ask me, “Why is your hair always so different?”, like when Sarah Paulson talks about playing me she says one of the things she’s excited about is like, “How could anyone change their hair so much?” I think I’m always trying to figure out what do I look like?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Cameron Esposito:
I think that’s really common, really human. I think part of the reason I’ve figured this out is because I’ve been in the pressure cooker of having … It’s just part of my job to display. When I first started performing, I was in college and I was just doing improv kind of to survive because I was closeted and I was at a school where you couldn’t come out, you could be kicked out of school for being gay-
Glennon Doyle:
Catholic school, right? You were in Catholic school?
Cameron Esposito:
Yes. Yeah, and I never saw that happen to anybody, but it was literally you were not protected by the nondiscrimination policy. There were 4,000 people in my class. My first girlfriend and I, we eventually went to the commencement ball, the end of senior year college prom, together, really worried that we would not be able to graduate. And there were two other gay dude couples that made the same choice to do that, so there were six of us in my class of 4,000. And I also didn’t know anybody else in other years at that time that were out, so there were like 12,000 undergrads and there were six of us.
Cameron Esposito:
So anyway, comedy was a place that I could be seen for something that felt true, even if all of me couldn’t be true. And I didn’t really know that it would eventually lead to a job-
Glennon Doyle:
Being slammed up against the wall during-
Cameron Esposito:
I didn’t even know it was a profession.
Glennon Doyle:
In Save Yourself you said, “Somewhere around the same time that my internal shame alarm started going off, I started leading a double life. I joked instead of crying. I shoved my pain way down and put a joke on top, getting funnier and funnier by the minute.” And then you say, “11 was the age my self hatred became,” how do I say that word?
Cameron Esposito:
Sentient.
Glennon Doyle:
Sentient, right. I wrote down on my notes, “Glennon became bulimic, Abby became a soccer star, Cameron became funny.” It’s that idea that from eight to 12, cultural scientists tell us that’s the age where you start to really internalize your formal indoctrination and you start to split and you become something to survive. Do you feel like that’s what happened to you, you became funny to survive?
Cameron Esposito:
100%, yes. I didn’t realize this until just a few years ago, but I think I was pretty badly bullied as a child. I thought that’s how everybody was treated. I had glasses and braces and a bowl cut and something weird was going on with my gender and I was gay and I had crossed eyes. This child, there was a lot going on.
Cameron Esposito:
And so, I think I just made the joke first to sort of be like, “I know what you’re going to say. Well, here’s an even funnier spin.” And also, to sort of have value to people. I wasn’t able to play the game of being a girl that might be valuable for some other stuff that women are valued for. This is all garbage, by the way-
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, it is.
Cameron Esposito:
-It’s not like I think this should exist.
Abby Wambach:
It’s true, it was true.
Cameron Esposito:
But it was another way of making myself valuable as a friend or as a student, those types of things. So yeah, I got super funny. And actually, I have in the last couple of years really wondered about the longterm viability of that skillset because I took it to its end. I was funny, funny, funny, and then I was funny for a living, and then I was having success in that area. And then I was married, and that marriage was ending, and it was the first time in my life that I was not … Well, for a while it was private, so I wasn’t able to talk about it on stage.
Cameron Esposito:
And then, it was really sad. I was sadder than I was funny about it. That’s actually a good thing because it changed how I make friends and how I use … I like overdeveloped that skill, so I never really told anybody the truth about what was going on. I just told them like, “Here’s the saddest thing you’ve ever heard, but we’re all chucking about it.” It broke, my sense of humor broke for a while, which actually is one of the best things that ever happened to me.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s how we started trying to be friends with each other. I wanted to talk about this, I think it’s so important. It was like you and I figured out that like, “Oh, we just take our trauma and pain and then we spin it up, and then we serve it to lots of people. But we don’t do the middle step which other human beings do, which is talk about it with other human beings and have actual friends. We just perform it.” And so, we were trying to be like … You’ve recently reached out to me and said, “I’m having feelings, and I would like to talk to you about it instead of the internet.”
Cameron Esposito:
Yeah, so this is-
Glennon Doyle:
And that was the text.
Abby Wambach:
This is so good.
Glennon Doyle:
Talk to us about that.
Cameron Esposito:
This is a rule I have now. It’s a rule I made for myself, and who knows if rules are good, but I actually think this one is pretty good, which is that I don’t bring something to the internet or to stage that I haven’t told someone else interpersonally. And I think part of that is when you do standup, it’s public speaking, and I’m sure you get this all the time too Glennon, and actually I even feel like I know how hard this is for you a little bit just from knowing you, people will talk about public speaking as being the most like, “Oh my God, I can’t believe you do standup, that’s so hard.”
Cameron Esposito:
And I’m like, “I don’t know, different people have different skills. Some people are a brain surgeon.” That’s the first thing I’ll say. The next thing I’ll say is like, “That’s not hard for me.” It’s not that the skill of standup isn’t hard, any skill is something you can work on over time, but standing up in front of 2,200 … The largest audience I’ve ever performed for is 40,000 people. That is like-
Glennon Doyle:
Safe.
Cameron Esposito:
Exactly. You know what’s much worse? Talk to one person that you have to ever see again.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh my God. No. Nope.
Cameron Esposito:
That is impossible. But to thousands of people that are going to leave? Great, easy. Yeah, no problem. There’s no intimacy there. There’s some spiritual intimacy, but it’s not something that you’re going to have to grow. I’m not going to have to show up and have these people know me.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right. That’s right. Oh, that is correct. I just want to say this is I think it’s … Abby and I were laughing so hard on the street last night. We were walking home from dinner. So that text, Cameron told me some of the feelings she was having, I wrote back and said, “I don’t want to be the annoying meditation person, but I feel like maybe this is how I feel when I’m not meditating at all, what you’re saying, so have you tried meditating?”
Glennon Doyle:
And then there was a pause in the text, and then Cameron said, “Well, the thing is I’m in Canada, and they don’t have that here.”
Cameron Esposito:
Oh, yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Did you try the meditating, and did it help?
Cameron Esposito:
Yes. Yes, I did. I really appreciated the reminder, and yes, it did help. Again, performing and stuff, people will ask what the experience is like and I will say, “You are on … One is on is drugs”, the way that it affects my adrenaline and the chemicals inside my body is that I am in an altered state. So performing kind of makes you just want to, if you’re a certain type of person, perform more.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
If you’re a certain type of person, like everyone on this podcast right now.
Cameron Esposito:
Yeah. It just kind of makes you want to perform more. When I was texting about this, I had been working that day and it’s like the up is so intense, and I think I was trying to stay up. Like what else can I do? I have a day off, I’m writing think pieces and pitching TV shows. It’s literally like, “No, sit down, or walk and listen to something, and yeah come down a little bit.” But I think once I’m in that state, the last thing I want to do is come down.
Glennon Doyle:
How is it going for you, the creating more friendships, the reaching out to human beings? Do you feel more tethered to the earth when you do that? Does it help? What are the challenges?
Cameron Esposito:
It really does help. I just said this, I’m repeating myself, but for me it’s very hard to be known. It’s very hard to be open to suggestion if you’re a certain type of person. I don’t want people to know I don’t have it figured out, that feels embarrassing for some reason. We don’t know why that is, that’s not a healthy reaction to not having it figured it out. And also, I want to move fast and loose and have sparky, flame-out relationships, and do a completely wild job, and fling my body around the country in a plane. That’s what feels normal to me, chaos feels calming.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, that really hit me.
Cameron Esposito:
Yeah, did it?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, that’s something.
Cameron Esposito:
Chaos is so, in my experience, chill.
Abby Wambach:
Just like that, let’s go.
Cameron Esposito:
Yeah. I just feel like I can relax. I’m like, “Oh, thank God, finally the world feels like I feel. Finally, there’s not something I’m not doing or something I could do better.” Everything’s so impossible, that it’s like, “Oh, I can really chill out.”
Glennon Doyle:
Wow, cool.
Cameron Esposito:
So anyway, that is what I’m trying to instead have connection and friendship and have the ability to stay, the ability to not run toward or away, but just to hang. I’m finding that a lot in my romantic relationship, I’m finding that a lot in having friends that I go back to again and again. I have hobbies, I’m finding that a lot in having hobbies.
Abby Wambach:
Give us a few of them, because there’s an S at the end of that. What are the hobbies?
Cameron Esposito:
Yeah, I love my hobbies. I run, I have a running partner. That is so bonkers to me, but I have a running partner. I have a running partner I run with. I go swimming at the YMCA that is in my tiny mountain town that I live in outside of Los Angeles. I take dance classes, which is really cool and new for me, like ballet and bar classes, which is so fun and gender challenging.
Abby Wambach:
I was just going to say what outfit do you wear?
Cameron Esposito:
Great question. I wear like a T-shirt and sort of I guess yoga pants. But when I was a little kid and I took a zillion ballet classes, the boys would wear black tight pants and a T-shirt-
Abby Wambach:
Way cooler.
Cameron Esposito:
So that’s what I wear basically.
Abby Wambach:
Way cooler, yes.
Cameron Esposito:
Yeah, that’s what I wear.
Glennon Doyle:
These are all body things. This is interesting, you choose things that get you back into your body. How is it going with having to take your shirt off on A Million Little Things, and being this confident in your body type person? How is that all going? For someone who’s struggled with body dysmorphia and eating and your boobs and all the things, how is the experience of it? Right now, I can see you’re moving around a lot, you’re stretching.
Cameron Esposito:
Yeah. You’re right, these are all body hobbies. We could also talk about theology. That’s something else we could talk about in a minute.
Glennon Doyle:
We’re going to.
Cameron Esposito:
That’s my other hobby. Yeah, I am trying to utilize my body as a better vehicle for my spirit these days. For a long time when I was using my body, it would be alone. Like I’m like, “I hike in the woods. No one’s there,” that’s-
Abby Wambach:
Oh, interesting. Other people have to be around, huh.
Cameron Esposito:
Well, I’m experimenting with other people being around. I did play team sports for a lot of years, but then after that-
Abby Wambach:
Soccer. Soccer.
Cameron Esposito:
But then when Abby was continuing that trajectory, then that was no longer a part of my life. I think I felt like I just didn’t want anybody to look at me. And nobody’s looking at you, but I really felt like even if they terminate or scan past me but don’t register me, I don’t even want that. I’ll really like using my body and I’ll really like moving around, I got a ton of energy. I have been challenging myself to be with other people.
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t know anything about bodies or food or whatever. Everyone knows that I am not an expert on these things, I’m still working on it every minute. But it feels like it must be a move towards health to be doing them with other people because like for eating, I don’t like to eat with other people. I don’t like to any exercise with other people. Abby is always trying to get me to go to these classes, it sounds like the most vulnerable, horrific thing ever. I walk by myself. I do yoga by myself. If I’m at a dinner, I’ll not eat, and then eat when I get home. If there’s something about the isolation of it that feels-
Abby Wambach:
Disordered?
Glennon Doyle:
-Disordered?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
So maybe, it’s moving in the right direction to be vulnerably sharing those bodily experiences with other human beings?
Cameron Esposito:
That sounds right to me. I also will say to be working on my strength a little bit more with these things, as opposed to limiting food intake, because I have had a massive history of disordered eating. And that can still rear its head where I think that the solution is eating less, eating different types of foods that are super restrictive. It’s just a different way, for me, of being in touch with my bod, because again it’s also not like three hours on a treadmill alone. It’s sort of like what the class says we’re doing.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s so good. I don’t need to say what we’re doing, that’s for sure. I should never be in charge of what we’re doing when it comes to that stuff.
Abby Wambach:
I just think it’s really interesting talking about the body and gender and how Cam, both you and I are a little bit nonconforming gender-wise, but I think it’s really interesting because when I think of myself, I think of myself as an attention seeker. And by hearing you, you’ve just said that you’re kind of an attention avoider. And this gender thing is something that actually brings me maybe the most attention in my life. So I don’t know what the question is, I just wanted to make that point that if you were to have a lineup of people, if you’re terminating or scanning, it’s like people stop at the confusing one, which is me.
Glennon Doyle:
Interesting.
Cameron Esposito:
Yes. Yeah, exactly. And again-
Abby Wambach:
And I love that for some reason.
Cameron Esposito:
You love it?
Abby Wambach:
I love it. Yeah, except in a women’s bathroom, I hate it.
Cameron Esposito:
Oh God Abby, that’s so interesting that you like … So, this is a thing that when it was brought to my attention, it almost broke my brain. One thing that’s true is I cry constantly. I cry all the time. I have a lot of emotions. I only found this out a couple years ago because prior to that, I was allowing zero of them to exit my body.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s in your book that you didn’t cry, and so now you cry.
Cameron Esposito:
I cry all the time.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, that’s wonderful.
Cameron Esposito:
Yeah. Thank you my friend, all of your support on this. Yeah, I basically never cried one time until I was 35. Anyway, I cry constantly. My spouse Katie is very gentle, calming energy. And one thing that will happen sometimes is that if she might hug me, if I don’t even know I’m going to cry yet, this is true, sometimes I’m laughing and I’m going to do a laugh to cry, but I don’t know that’s going to happen. But Katie knows that’s going to happen, and she’ll do a little hug on me. And it’s terrible because it’s like, “Oh no, now this is going to definitely happen, and I can’t believe you noticed.”
Cameron Esposito:
And then something I would say to her when she would do this was, “Don’t notice me.” When she hugs me, I would go, “Don’t notice me,” but I would say it frequently, but I didn’t even realize I was saying it. And then, she’s a very noticing person, and so she mentioned this to me one time that I would say, “Don’t notice me.” And I was like, “Yeah, that’s it. That’s it right there.” It’s like I feel over-noticed in my life. I feel like for my whole life, I’ve been over-noticed about being a little kid, people telling me I’m fat when I was also not fat. Being a little kid, and my clothes are the wrong thing, you’re getting absurd but that feels dangerous because it feels scary, and I don’t know when this person’s going to find out they’ve made a mistake? And have they made a mistake? And all of this.
Cameron Esposito:
And so, I just feel over-noticed and I think that’s, again, when you think about something like standup, it’s like, “Okay, fine, you want to see? But you have to pay. And I get to be in charge. And I can kick you out.” It’s a-
Glennon Doyle:
And it’s not a conversation because you don’t get to talk back.
Cameron Esposito:
No, yeah, exactly.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s a monologue.
Cameron Esposito:
Yes. “Your part in this is laughing, which is actually a submissive posture in the primate kingdom. So if you want to notice me, come right in here. I will control and dominate you for an hour, and it will be like wizardry and kind of spiritual, and then you can go home.”
Glennon Doyle:
I find it interesting that I can speak to thousands of people and feel fine about it. I feel like I did you a service, I gave you good things. But if I’m sitting in a room with people, I feel like a burden to them. I feel like I’m so sorry that you have to listen to me talk. I’m always ending conversations quickly because I assume the other person just wants to leave. I feel like I’m on a stage because we’d already decided what the transaction is, and you can’t say you got into this accidentally. But if I’m-
Cameron Esposito:
100%.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Okay.
Cameron Esposito:
No, I love this. I’m just thinking about how I’ve never one time … Well, I’ve been experimenting with this recently, but until about a month ago, never has a therapist ended a session with me. It’s always like I’m looking at the clock and then I’m like, “All right, well I think it’s time to wrap up.”
Glennon Doyle:
Same. Remember our first phone conversation ever?
Abby Wambach:
Oh my God, yes.
Glennon Doyle:
We were on for five seconds. I was like, “Okay, so it’s a good day, blah blah. Are you having a good day?” She said, “Yeah.” I said, “Okay, well this has been great.”
Abby Wambach:
And I was like, “Wait, you’re not going to do the thing where you’re just too nervous to keep talking. We’re going to have a proper conversation here. You’re not just going to get off and be like, ‘Okay, that first call’s over with.’ No, I want to actually talk to you.”
Glennon Doyle:
But isn’t that weird to believe that people want to talk to you, that you’re not a burden? Like in order to have a friend or be a friend, you kind of have to decide that you’re not a burden.
Cameron Esposito:
Huh. Yeah, and the best way that I have found that out is that I now call people when I have something that I’d like to speak with them about, or text them. That has created a situation where other people do that in my direction.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, do you like it?
Cameron Esposito:
And so, I know it’s not terrible. And instead, I realize that it is someone trusting me, and it’s like an honor.
Glennon Doyle:
When you call me or text me, I feel it is an honor.
Cameron Esposito:
Yes, and you have also called and texted me. And so, for me when it’s going out, vomit, I want to die. But because I’ve experimented with that and other people have done it back, I know how it actually feels to receive it, which is like, “Oh, it’s amazing. Oh, this person wants me in their life. Rad.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Yeah, and then you feel a little bit tethered to the earth.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. It’s friends, that’s what friends-
Glennon Doyle:
It’s this friendship idea, which is confusing to me as gender. Okay.
Glennon Doyle:
I want to talk about when you were little, you wanted to become a priest, but of course you couldn’t become a priest because of the vagina, right?
Cameron Esposito:
You almost said you couldn’t become a creep.
Glennon Doyle:
A creep.
Cameron Esposito:
There was a little bit of Freudian slip in there. “You almost wanted to be a priest, but of course you couldn’t be a creep.” Anyway, but …
Glennon Doyle:
And so, you became a comic, where you could hide in plain sight, right? They always say the best place to hide is in plain sight, so you decided to get on a stage so you could hide there so no one would notice the real you.
Cameron Esposito:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. I just think it’s so interesting and cool, and I think you’re a priest. You are a priest, the way you use stages and the way you use your Instagram. I mean everyone has to follow Cameron on Instagram. I think that Cameron is probably my favorite follow on Instagram.
Abby Wambach:
Seriously. I mean I’ve watched your videos-
Glennon Doyle:
Over and over. It’s subversive and it’s everything comedy should be. It doesn’t feel like I’m being educated, but I am. And then during COVID, Cameron signed up for a bunch of college divinity classes. Is this the case? Can you talk about the situation with you and faith and learning and teaching and the fact that you just didn’t get the hell out and get as far away as you could?
Cameron Esposito:
I love this conversation so much. First, I want to say this because when you were saying hiding in plain sight, thank you for giving me that language. That’s so beautiful, and it’s like yes, I have recently been realizing it’s like I created a little avatar, like a little fighter. Like in the video game of life, I created a little fighter who wears motorcycle jacket and holds microphone to kind of go out in front of me. Like there’s the real me, and then there’s this … It’s a dissociative protection of my little self, and it’s actually very sweet.
Glennon Doyle:
Totally.
Cameron Esposito:
Thinking about taking care of myself like that, especially at a young age but then still now, like where there’s somebody being like, “I got you actually. You hang out back there, I got this one.” And then, that high haired standup comic goes out ahead into the world and takes care of my more tender self. Very sweet.
Abby Wambach:
It is.
Cameron Esposito:
I am hoping that other people know that … I’m hoping you two know that little soft guy, and I think you do. For a long time, I was hoping you wouldn’t. Anyway.
Glennon Doyle:
Don’t notice me.
Cameron Esposito:
Yeah, don’t notice me. But anyway. Yeah, I was raised Catholic and I loved it. My sisters were raised Catholic, couldn’t give two shits. I loved it.
Abby Wambach:
Same.
Cameron Esposito:
I thought that Jesus Christ had some cool stuff to say, and I thought that philosophically going in the temple, flipping tables, I thought that was awesome. And I was really into a sort of leftist socialist revolutionary Jesus who also is accepted by certain communities like the Jesuit community, for instance. So I went to Jesuit college, and that’s what I thought I was getting into when I became a theology major was we’re going to fuck some shit up.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s what I thought Cameron. I thought I was joining the people who were ready to fuck some shit up. I didn’t know I was joining the people who wanted to keep building the shit.
Cameron Esposito:
Exactly. You go, “Oh, you’re the shit factory? Oh no, this was all colonialism? I didn’t realize. I thought this was something else.”
Glennon Doyle:
It’s like you go to join PETA and you end up at the cattle ranchers convention.
Cameron Esposito:
Exactly, exactly. Exactly, yeah. I started reading what the church had to say about women first. Even before I realized I was queer, I started reading what the church said about women. Not the bible, like the teaching, the stamped teaching that comes from the Pope and his friends. And I was like, “Oh, this is nothing that I agree with.” And then also, the Spotlight papers were happening at that same time. I lived in Boston, that’s when the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal was really being talked about for the first time.
Cameron Esposito:
And I left, like I left hard. I was truly like, “I believe in all this,” and then the next day I was like, “Actually, just as a correction to myself, none of it. I believe in none of it, and I leave it here.”
Cameron Esposito:
And then, that’s how I operated for a long time. However, standup, as I’ve been saying, has always been spiritual for me. There’s a feeling when I’m performing that I’m actually connected to the audience, like connected through breath. We’re all regulating our heartbeats together in a room like that. One time I was performing at a show, and I felt like … This is in the book, but I was like, “We’re trees. We’re all trees connected through a root system.” And then afterwards, after the show, I hadn’t said this on stage, Reggie Watts, who’s the band leader for the James Corden Show, was like, “Hey man, I liked that set, but what I loved the best is how you were all trees connected through the earth.” He said it, and I hadn’t spoken about it. So my point is, something spiritual is happening when I do standup.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes it is. Yes it is.
Cameron Esposito:
But in the pandemic, when everybody was baking bread, what I was doing was reaching out to eight different masters level theology programs, looking at their course descriptions, writing to specific professors and being like, “Can I take your classes because I’m thinking about a career change? Maybe I’d like to be a non-Catholic priest.”
Cameron Esposito:
Almost all of these professors said, “Yes,” because when a standup comic says I’d like to … I think they were just genuinely curious.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, of course.
Cameron Esposito:
Like, “What are you talking about? Sure.” So I took all these classes, and one of the most impactful for me … I took them at a bunch of different institutions of a bunch of different topics, and one of them was at my college, at Boston College, where when they called me, they used to call me and say, “Do you want to give? Do you want to donate to the school?” And very early I said, “I will donate to Boston College when you apologize for the way that you treated me and the other queer students that went there and continue to go there.” And they never called me again.
Glennon Doyle:
Shocking.
Cameron Esposito:
So it must’ve ticked off-
Abby Wambach:
They’re like, “Noncomplying over there, she’s never going to donate.”
Cameron Esposito:
Exactly.
Glennon Doyle:
They check the gay grievances box.
Cameron Esposito:
Gay grievances, exactly. But I went back to BC because the head of the Theology Department when I was a student there, who is somebody I really loved and was close to, was teaching a class called literally just Forgiveness. So I wrote to him and I was like, “Hey, I don’t know if you remember me, I was your student 20 years ago. Can I take this class?” And he was like, “I just was listening to you on NPR. I’ve followed your career. I think your awesome, and please come take the class.”
Cameron Esposito:
And I did take it, and we’re still in touch and are now good friends. And I will say that it didn’t bring me back into a place of being like, “The church rules.” But what it did do is help me realize that these are all just people, and as an adult with all of my faculties and the ability to support myself financially … I was a dependent child when that was happening to me in college, and I wouldn’t have even gone and gotten therapy on campus or anything like that because it was all not for me. And that’s a terrible thing to do to a young person.
Cameron Esposito:
But as an adult going back, I think I just got to see that these are people who are doing the best, and sometimes somebody’s best is pretty bad. And it’s a bummer for someone to not have the experience and exposure to be able to really live the word that they say that they’re living. That sucks for them. What a huge bummer for that person.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s beautiful.
Abby Wambach:
Well, I mean I got to get there somehow. I just don’t have it yet in my heart to forgive them, for not just my experience but for your experience and for all the fucking millions of us, millions of us, probably billions of us in the history of humanity, that has suffered at the hand of this just, “We’re here as a community to support you, to love you, and also you don’t get to be a part of this community if you’re this or that or this or that.” It’s just so hypocritical to me. So I love that, that maybe one day I could find forgiveness in my heart.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. There’s a freedom to it. We’ve just interviewed Ocean Wang, and he was talking about how if you’re carrying the weight of that constantly, then it’s like what do you get to do that’s creative in your life? And so many people from marginalized groups have talked about that, that it’s like the opportunity cost of the resistance of that constantly is that you’re always directionally moving against something because you’re still just living your life in reaction to the man instead of choosing how you get to live your one beautiful and precious life.
Glennon Doyle:
So I think that is probably what forgiveness is. It’s not like I feel good about you anymore, it’s just I’m sick of holding you. You don’t deserve it.
Cameron Esposito:
I love that.
Glennon Doyle:
Right?
Cameron Esposito:
Definitely. I think that for me, I was consumed by hatred. So I mean congrats to those people, places, and things that I hated because they got so much of my time and energy. Like that’s such a win for them. This is an evolving thing for me. I don’t think I’ve hit some finish line here. But it is that thing of like what is forgiveness? Is it, “I send you on your way sweetly,” or is it just like, “Oh, you’re wrong. Oh well.”? Is it forgiveness maybe really lightness?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, lightness. It’s putting something down. It’s directional to me. It’s like I will no longer live that way towards you, like I’m going to move onward.
Abby Wambach:
I bet you it had to be very healing to also take the class from the place that probably brought so many of these feelings inside of you.
Glennon Doyle:
I find that interesting too because we all wish we could find healing separate from the thing, and it’s very annoying that sometimes … It’s like when somebody gets a snake bite, and then the antidote to the bite has to have some of the poison from the bite in it to heal it. That’s how I feel about people who get hurt by the church.
Cameron Esposito:
I think this is right. I can’t remember where I found this. I was really in this deep dive on forgiveness, this is what I was spending a lot of my pandemic on is I was so angry at so many people, places, and things, and I was like, “Forgiveness, this is what I need to spend my energy on.”
Cameron Esposito:
I came across this Buddhist teaching was like running away from something and running toward something, that’s the same thing. So to need to leave and get the hell out of here, which is how I felt a lot of my life, or to need to find the solution and get ever so close to that, which is the other half of how I felt in my life, it’s just like a panic. It’s just an utter panic, and just a lack of acceptance. It’s like that things would need to be different. That’s what I’ve been working on is less running towards and away-
Glennon Doyle:
And more deciding for yourself where you want to go.
Cameron Esposito:
Yeah, and also more just sitting, just sitting still. Because that’s not even a decision, it’s more like, “Maybe there is no decision.” It’s kind of like what I was talking about with gender, I guess this is what my body looks like and it has this head. I guess that’s true. I guess that’s true. It’s been true for 40 years, I guess it’s true.
Abby Wambach:
That’s so good.
Glennon Doyle:
So, we were talking to our other friends besides you and Katie-
Abby Wambach:
Our two other friends.
Glennon Doyle:
Our two other friends. Okay, and they are like OG gays, they’re like-
Abby Wambach:
What does OG stand for?
Glennon Doyle:
Old Gays, right?
Abby Wambach:
No, but-
Cameron Esposito:
I think it’s Original Gangster?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, that’s exactly it.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, okay, so they’re OG OGs. They’re Original Gangster Old Gays, and when I mean old, I mean like original, I don’t mean old in age. I mean they’ve been gays for a long time in the public eye like you, okay?
Glennon Doyle:
So we were talking, and they were talking about this sort of whiplash that they feel because the way that they would describe it is like one day, and for their whole lives they were being persecuted as lesbians, and then the next day Old Navy was sewing pride flags and everyone was queer. And they just say, “Where is the support group for this whiplash that has happened to so many of us where it just happened overnight, and now we’re all supposed to be happily assimilated without any processing?”
Glennon Doyle:
And interestingly enough, they’re talking about, “What if we didn’t want the assimilation? What if part of our identity was the fact that we created this community, and now everybody wants to be friends with the queers?” What do you think about that? And then also, I want to know do fresh queeries like me ever annoy you? And I want to know the truth about this because I do feel like sometimes those of us who have come out in the pride flags at Old Navy era can sort of have a different energy. It’s almost like Karen queer energy, like queerens, I would call us.
Cameron Esposito:
Oh no, is that from just now?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Cameron Esposito:
You just did it. I can’t believe I was here when that happened. Just now.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, just now.
Cameron Esposito:
You’re kidding.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, I mean I love a smushed word together. Smushed words together are my jam.
Cameron Esposito:
Oh, portmanteau?
Glennon Doyle:
That’s my gender. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Cameron Esposito:
Moi aussi.
Glennon Doyle:
So you know what I’m saying though? Like Abby and I talk about that a lot, like I will say something and she’ll be like, “Listen, you just got here. You just got here.” Do queerens, do you ever experience queeren energy?
Cameron Esposito:
I’m going to tell you … Okay, here’s the thing that I find the most annoying thing on the planet. This is to me … Well, annoying is the right word because there are things that are less just or more angering, so I’ll just say annoying is the right word. To me, the most annoying thing on the planet is the idea that we are somehow at a place that being queer, being gay, being lesbian, it’s like totally chill. Just chill vibes.
Cameron Esposito:
I know you have so many different types of listeners, so I mean this with love. This is often coming from the straight world that seems very surprised that this is still a thing. But I’m going to tell you it’s still stressful to move into a new neighborhood. It’s still stressful to be on a plane. It’s still stressful to wear a wedding ring. I don’t actually think we’re done.
Cameron Esposito:
Now, less often am I being arrested for holding hands with my wife on the street. That’s a thing that used to happen, and that is happening less often. So not that there’s no change, but I do think that one thing that’s very weird is I feel like when marriage equality happened, and it’s not just that trans folks still are marginalized and murdered, it’s that marriage equality, okay so we have basic vague legal protections that are not applied the same in every state, every city, by every landlord. We didn’t really get anywhere. We got somewhere, but when we got to that place, that place was still full of tricks.
Cameron Esposito:
So I think that’s the thing that when you’re asked this question, I feel like the thing that keeps us all … I like being in the fight because I do think it’s part of what makes us special is being in the fight. But the queering of all things, when my straight sister is in a world where people don’t talk about her child’s father babysitting their daughter, then maybe we’ll be at a certain place. But I don’t think we’re at a place yet.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. And it’s interesting, it’s like homophobia and racism, they in our country have the don’t notice me thing too. And the way they do the don’t notice me thing, because racism and homophobia are legislated, they’re like, “Don’t notice me because I’m going to go on stage and create my avatar that looks like Pride Month.”
Cameron Esposito:
Right.
Glennon Doyle:
Right?
Cameron Esposito:
That’s right. Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
So it’s like the queering of everything is only capitalism deep. It’s not in any of our laws, so actually Pride Month doesn’t help us at all. It’s like a red herring.
Cameron Esposito:
Absolutely. Sure, yes.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s like, “Look at us, we’re so gay-friendly,” but we need the laws to be gay-friendly, not Old Navy.
Cameron Esposito:
And then here’s one thing I just want to make sure to revisit, to your question about queerens.
Glennon Doyle:
Queerens, yeah.
Cameron Esposito:
Glennon, I didn’t get to date the people that I wanted to date when I was in adolescence and puberty. I had a lot of boyfriends, which is … I wasn’t somebody who didn’t get to date people, but everybody that I was dating, they were the nicest people. All of my friends, I was in love with my best friends, just a series of best friends, and I wanted to be loved by them. Not necessarily noticed, but loved by them. And it was so heart-wrenching, and it has been a formative part of my whole life, is this feeling of wanting and not having a place for that to land that is receptive in the way that I would like for it to be.
Cameron Esposito:
And I don’t feel like you just got here and I’m pissed. I feel like that sounds so hard for anybody who … Like I lived 20 years that way, that sounds so hard to live longer than that. I mean it is really hard to not be yourself.
Abby Wambach:
For any minute of time, that’s so beautiful.
Cameron Esposito:
For any minute of time.
Abby Wambach:
So beautiful Cameron.
Glennon Doyle:
Cameron, you are one of my favorite people to talk to on this entire planet.
Cameron Esposito:
I basically am tearing up, this is really happening. I love you and respect both of you very much.
Abby Wambach:
Samesies.
Glennon Doyle:
Same.
Cameron Esposito:
And I just want to say thank you for the work that you’ve been doing the last couple of years, especially because both of you are always putting yourselves out there. But it is so intense, the amount of visibility that you’ve both been visible for a long time, but it does feel like an increased number of magnifying glasses-
Glennon Doyle:
It does. It does.
Cameron Esposito:
-And that does seem, again, really challenging. And so, just I see it, and I love you.
Glennon Doyle:
We love you.
Abby Wambach:
we love you too.
Glennon Doyle:
Thank you Cameron. And we love you Pod Squad, and we’ll see you at the next We Can Do Hard Things. Bye.
Abby Wambach:
Bye.
Glennon Doyle:
We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Audacy, or wherever you get your podcasts, especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it. If you didn’t, don’t worry about it. It’s fine.