Who Is Your LGBTQ Kid Following Online, and What Are They Learning?
Episode 294 •
7th July 2026 • More Human. More Kind. | Parenting LGBTQ Kids, Unlearning Fear, Becoming More Human • Heather Hester | Advocate for Parents of LGBTQ Teens
Your kid has a feed full of people they've never met, and some of those people are quietly teaching them what joy looks and feels like. Do you know what they're learning?
For LGBTQ teens especially, finding creators online who live and love the way they do can be genuinely life-changing. But not all joy is created equal. The most successful queer creators have discovered something worth understanding: authentic, lasting joy comes from within, and it shows. In this episode, Heather Hester unpacks the psychology behind your kid's online world and what it means for you as a parent or ally.
In this episode you'll learn how to:
* Understand what queer creators are actually teaching your LGBTQ+ teen about authentic joy and identity
* Recognize the difference between performed happiness and genuine self-expression in the content your kid consumes
* Start a curiosity-based conversation with your kid about who they follow and why, without judgment or agenda
Press play to understand what's really happening in your kid's online world, and how staying curious keeps you connected to what matters most.
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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Transcripts
Speaker A:
In today's episode, you will understand what exactly queer creators and influencers can teach us about authentic joy.
Speaker B:
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.
Speaker B:
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.
Speaker B:
Your child doesn't just need a parent who's informed.
Speaker B:
They need a parent who is grounded and strong.
Speaker B:
Let's take a breath and let's begin.
Speaker A:
So it is entirely likely that your kid has a phone.
Speaker A:
They probably have some kind of social media feedback, and they probably have people who they follow, they've never met, whose voices they know better than even some of their closest friends.
Speaker A:
And somewhere in that feed, someone is teaching them something about joy.
Speaker A:
Today we are going to talk about what that is, why it matters, and what you can do with that information.
Speaker A:
By the end of this episode, you are going to understand why queer creators and influencers have something genuinely important to teach us about authentic joy.
Speaker A:
You will have a clearer picture of what is actually happening in your kid's brain when they consume this content.
Speaker A:
And you will walk away with one simple curiosity based conversation.
Speaker A:
You can start this week.
Speaker A:
So I want to tell you first about a moment that I have had more than once as a parent.
Speaker A:
One of my kids will be talking about someone that I've never heard of.
Speaker A:
I'm sure you are very familiar with that feeling too.
Speaker A:
They are animated or excited or talking a mile a minute and using shorthand language that I don't fully understand about a person whose content they clearly know inside and out.
Speaker A:
And I found myself so many times sitting there thinking, who is this person and why does my kid care so much about them?
Speaker A:
Early on, my first instinct was mild concern.
Speaker A:
My second instinct, which came with time and curiosity and practice, was to actually look, to ask, to sit down next to my kid and watch some of the content or listen to some of the content with them.
Speaker A:
And what I found more often than not was someone who was just being authentic, someone who was being genuinely themselves and someone who had built an audience not by performing happiness, but by sharing something real.
Speaker A:
Their actual life, their actual struggles, the moments that didn't photograph well alongside the ones that did.
Speaker A:
That is what good queer creators do particularly well and is not an accident.
Speaker A:
So let's talk for a moment about what an influencer actually is, because I know some of you are still a little uncertain about this.
Speaker A:
An influencer is someone who has built an audience online, usually on TikTok, Instagram or YouTube, by sharing content consistently enough and authentically enough that people keep coming back.
Speaker A:
Some of them make a really, really good living doing it.
Speaker A:
Some of them do it alongside other work that they do.
Speaker A:
But what they all have in common is an audience that trusts them.
Speaker A:
And here is what the most successful ones have figured out, especially in the queer community.
Speaker A:
The highlight reel doesn't hold.
Speaker A:
It never does for long.
Speaker A:
What builds a lasting audience is realness, specificity, showing up as who you actually are, not who you think people want you to be.
Speaker A:
Research on queer joy and social media has found that LGBTQ people consistently define authentic joy online as happiness that comes from a person's identity and their genuine expression of it.
Speaker A:
Not performance, not a curated version of themselves designed to get likes.
Speaker A:
Actual self expression and followers can feel the difference.
Speaker A:
Your kid can feel the difference.
Speaker A:
They're actually often better at detecting it than we are.
Speaker A:
Here's why this matters so much for our kids, specifically.
Speaker A:
Adolescence is when identity is being formed.
Speaker A:
It is the season of figuring out who you are and maybe more importantly, whether who you are is okay.
Speaker A:
For LGBTQ teens, that question carries extra weight because the world is still not consistently safe or affirming for them.
Speaker A:
And so when they find a creator online who looks like them, loves like them, who moves through the world similarly to the way they do, and genuinely seems happy doing it, that lands differently than it might for another kid.
Speaker A:
Research shows that when stories of affirmed identity, what some researchers call gender euphoria, are shared online, teens gain language and confidence to live more authentically themselves.
Speaker A:
They are not just being entertained.
Speaker A:
They are being shown that a life like theirs is livable, joyful, worth claiming.
Speaker A:
That is a profound thing to witness.
Speaker A:
And it is also why the authenticity of who your kid follows matters.
Speaker A:
A creator who performs joy without living it is teaching your kid that joy is a performance.
Speaker A:
The creator who has done the work of connecting their inner life to what they share outward is teaching your kids something totally different.
Speaker A:
That real joy comes from within.
Speaker A:
It is sustainable.
Speaker A:
It doesn't depend on likes or views or external validation.
Speaker A:
That is the lesson worth learning.
Speaker A:
And some of the best teachers of it right now are queer creators who have had to find their own joy on their own terms.
Speaker A:
So what do you actually do with this?
Speaker A:
First, get curious before you get worried.
Speaker A:
If your kid is spending time with a creator you don't know, ask them about it.
Speaker A:
Don't interrogate, ask.
Speaker A:
What do they make?
Speaker A:
What do you like about them?
Speaker A:
Show me something you think I would find interesting.
Speaker A:
You will learn so much more from that conversation than any amount of monitoring.
Speaker A:
Second, watch with them sometime.
Speaker A:
Not to evaluate or critique, just to be present in something that they care about.
Speaker A:
Your willingness to enter their world without judgment is its own kind of message.
Speaker A:
Third, help them develop the skill of discernment.
Speaker A:
Not by telling them what to think, but by asking questions.
Speaker A:
Does this person seem happy to you?
Speaker A:
Like actually happy?
Speaker A:
Or does it feel like they are performing happiness?
Speaker A:
Your kid knows the difference.
Speaker A:
Give them the permission to name it.
Speaker A:
And fourth, trust your gut.
Speaker A:
If something about a creator feels off, name it gently and openly.
Speaker A:
You do not have to be the social media police to be a thoughtful, engaged parent.
Speaker A:
Here's what I want you to hold onto.
Speaker A:
Your relationship to the online world is different from your kids.
Speaker A:
Most of us came to social media as adults with an already formed sense of who we are.
Speaker A:
Our kids, many of them have had access to this world since before their brains were fully developed.
Speaker A:
Before they had the critical thinking skills to evaluate what they were consuming, before they understood what was being sold to them and what was genuinely being shared.
Speaker A:
That's not a reason to panic.
Speaker A:
It is a reason to stay curious and stay connected.
Speaker A:
The emotional reward your kid gets from following someone they love is real.
Speaker A:
Understanding the psychology behind it.
Speaker A:
The way authenticity builds trust, the way seeing themselves represented builds confidence, the way genuine joy is actually contagious goes a long, long way toward helping you support and guide them.
Speaker A:
Well, you do not have to become a TikTok expert.
Speaker A:
You just have to be willing to be curious about what your kid finds meaningful.
Speaker A:
That curiosity is the connection point, and connection is always, always the goal.
Speaker A:
So when you get a few moments, I'd like for you to think about these two questions.
Speaker A:
Who does your kid follow that you don't know much about?
Speaker A:
And what would it feel like to ask them about that person this week with genuine curiosity and no agenda.
Speaker A:
Thank you for being here today.
Speaker A:
If this episode resonated with you, I would love for you to share it with another parent or ally who might need it.
Speaker A:
And if you have been searching for real conversations with other parents and allies who are walking similar paths as you come find us in the Kindred Collective community on skrl.
Speaker A:
It is a space that has been built exactly for conversations like this one.
Speaker A:
I will see you on Friday for the Butterfly Effect.
Speaker A:
Until then, keep becoming more human and more kind.
