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Love is proven by what you're willing to unlearn. This is a check-in on that, for you and for me.

Year-one unlearning is loud: fear, shame, and often a full religious deconstruction, and impossible to miss. What comes after is quieter and easy to overlook entirely: the automatic reach for a label, a tidy category, before you actually know anything true about someone. This episode is an honest look at where allyship goes once the big, obvious work is behind you.

In this episode, you'll learn how to:

• Recognize the difference between year-one unlearning and the quieter unlearning that follows
• Notice the habit of labeling, and why it creates comfort for you and walls for someone else
• Run a quarterly self-audit to keep your unlearning honest and ongoing
• Normalize still catching yourself, years into this work, as the actual practice rather than failure

Press play for the full Quarterly Unlearning Check-In, five questions to return to every three months.

Hi, I’m Heather Hester, and I’m so glad you’re here!

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At the heart of my work is a deep commitment to compassion, authenticity, and transformative allyship, especially for those navigating the complexities of parenting LGBTQ kids. Through this podcast, speaking, my writing, and the spaces I create, I help people unlearn bias, embrace their full humanity, and grow their capacity for courageous, compassionate connection.

For parents, allies, and those pioneering a way to lead with love and kindness, I’m here with true, messy, and heart-warming stories, real tools, and grounding support to help you move from fear to fierce, informed action.

Whether you’re listening in, working with me directly, or quietly taking it all in, I see you. And I’m so glad you’re part of this journey.

More Human. More Kind. formerly Just Breathe: Parenting Your LGBTQ Teen is a safe and supportive podcast in a heartfelt and empowering space where a mom and advocate offers practical guidance and education to parents and allies, fostering empathy, kindness, love, and strong boundaries while supporting LGBTQ teens and the diverse LGBTQ community—including gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, transgender, and queer individuals—through conversations about mental health, grief, gender identity, sexual orientation, human rights, social justice, parenting, parent support, and meaningful LGBTQ allyship and allyship in action.

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Love is proven by what you're willing to unlearn.

I say that a lot on this show.

Today's episode is a check in on that for you and for me.

Not the big dramatic unlearning, the quiet kind, the kind that's easy to miss because it doesn't feel like progress anymore.

It just feels like being a person.

Welcome to More Human More Kind, the podcast for parents of LGBTQ kids and anyone trying to stay human in a world that keeps hardening.

I'm Heather Hester.

And here we talk about fear, belonging, boundaries, courage, love, and what it means to protect what matters without losing yourself in the process.

Your child doesn't just need a parent who's informed.

They need a parent who is grounded and strong.

Let's take a breath and let's begin.

Welcome to More Human More Kind.

I'm Heather Hester.

By the end of this episode, you will understand the difference between year one unlearning and the quieter unlearning that comes after so you can recognize where you actually are right now.

You will hear a specific current example from my own life of the subtle bias I'm seeing still catching myself in.

And you'll walk away with a short list of check in questions you can return to every quarter.

To keep the unlearning honest and ongoing unlearning during that first year after Connor came out was all of the really big stuff.

So, so pitch of the big stuff.

The fear, the many fears, the shame, all of the flat out disinformation and misinformation and religion.

All of the questions that I had about religion and then the deconstruction that started after that and honestly hasn't fully stopped yet.

That first year was a lot.

It was extremely overwhelming and frankly, a little brutal.

It was messy, especially considering everything else that was going on within our family.

Once I got through the big obvious stuff though, something shifted.

I started noticing the habitual automatic responses underneath it, the reflexes I didn't choose the ones that just fired before I had a chance to think.

Noticing those took a completely different kind of work.

Awareness and the ability to pause and actually examine a reaction instead of just having it.

That took practice, it took humility and it took a lot of time.

And here is where I actually am right now, today.

Not just some resolved past version of myself.

Every once in a while I catch myself wanting to label a gender assumption I make before I've actually been told anything.

A stumble over uncertainty with a pronoun or an identity because some part of me wants A tidy category to file it under.

As humans, we like having a label for everything.

I get.

That's why we do it.

And frankly, it's also because it's comfortable.

But that comfort is exactly what creates walls and bias.

So I'm sharing with you that I am still, right now, in the place of catching myself, reaching for the label and diligently working to put that reach down.

This is the part that nobody warns you about or talks about.

Unlearning doesn't end.

It just gets quieter, more nuanced.

Year one is loud because the stakes are so exposed.

Those top layers of our belief systems take up so much space and just flap around, making noise even at the smallest disturbance.

That's why they need to be faced first.

You're likely confronting fear and shame and grief all at once, often because your child has just handed you no other option.

It's visible, it's dramatic, and people notice when you're in it.

What comes after is different.

And honestly, it's sneakier.

It's not fear anymore, it's habit.

It's the automatic reach for a label, an old belief that surfaces out of nowhere, even just wanting a tidy box to check, because tidy boxes are comfortable even when they exist to box someone else in.

Nobody applauds you for catching a labeling reflex the way they might have applauded you for surviving year one.

It's less dramatic.

It, however, is not less important.

This is the work of an ally over the long haul.

Not one big transformation.

You complete and then coast on a quarterly return to the question, what am I still doing on autopilot that deserves a second look.

So here are a few tools to help with that.

Check in.

Set a recurring reminder every three months and ask yourself these questions honestly.

What assumption did I make about someone's gender identity or experience this quarter, before I actually knew anything?

Where did I reach for a label to make myself more comfortable rather than sitting with uncertainty?

Is there a belief I inherited about religion, about gender, about family, that I'm still partially carrying, even though I've consciously rejected the rest of it?

When was the last time someone corrected me, gently or otherwise?

And how did I actually respond in that moment?

And what did unlearning look like for me in year one?

And how is it showing up differently now?

You don't need perfect answers, you just need the honest ones.

I want to normalize something for you.

Still, catching yourself even years in, is not a failure.

That's actually the practice if you expected to arrive somewhere and be done.

I want to gently take that expectation off your shoulders.

It was never going to work that way.

And that's not a bad thing.

It means there's always another layer to peel back, ways that you can expand and grow.

And that's actually really good news.

So I invite you to sit with these questions this week.

What is your version of my labeling reflex, the small automatic thing you're still catching yourself doing?

How is your unlearning gotten quite quieter, even as it's gotten deeper?

And what would it feel like to treat this quarterly check in as a permanent practice rather than a phase you're trying to finish?

Unlearning doesn't stop, it just gets quieter.

And quieter isn't the same as finished.

I'd love to hear what you are still catching yourself in.

So come tell me over on Substack.

It is my favorite place right now to dig a little deeper and connect with people.

A new episode will hit your inbox on Friday if you're subscribed Intent and until then, keep choosing to be a little more human and a little more kind.

Of sam.