(downtempo music)
- The internet is a space that we all engage with,
and it can be both this glorious,
joyous place and this dark shadow side,
and I think my advice to all of us
who are engaging with the internet is,
remember that you are enough.
(downtempo music)
My name is Brandon Kyle Goodman.
My pronouns are they/them/theirs, he/him/his,
and I am an actor.
I'm a writer, I'm an activist, I'm a social media person.
I'm also a husband and a dog dad.
I feel like I'm always on the chase for inspiration.
I write on a show on Netflix called "Big Mouth",
and then I'm on social media.
I do something called "Messy Mondays",
where every Monday and Thursday,
I got on social media and I talk about sex,
and good sex, and bad sex,
and how to look in the mirror and feel yourself.
(funky music)
All right, we're going live.
What is your, what's your favorite place
to be kissed or touched?
- Recently I've discovered my stomach.
- Oh.
- Which has always been a problem area of mine,
but then I sort of allowed some freedom.
- But that area now is kind of like heal it,
and you've reclaimed it. - Yes, yes.
- See, this is why I love talking about sex,
because the ability to reclaim your body
and your sexuality, inside of the room,
with the right partner,
with the right partner and communicating...
The internet can be used as a way to remind
yourself of how valuable you are,
and it can also be something that tells
you that you're not valuable.
And so you have to be really careful
about what you're engaging with.
It's given me a space and a platform to speak.
It's given me a platform to tell stories.
I always say, I always tell my followers,
this is my little corner of the internet,
and when you're here, you're safe.
If I can make somebody feel (sighs)
less alone, then that's what the fuck I'll do.
(reflective music)
Growing up, I think I felt alone a lot.
Whoo, okay, girl.
I think I felt alone quite a bit,
and I think that I did a really good job of numbing that,
like not acknowledging that, to survive,
and then you realize, oh, the reason
I feel this is not because I'm a bad person.
It's because I'm gay.
It's because I'm Black.
It's because of these things that are so beautiful,
and yet aren't valued.
Growing up Black, queer, non-binary,
there's so much messaging,
that there's something wrong with me,
in addition to the fact that,
when you turn on the TV, or the books you read in school,
and there's just not a Black protagonist,
let alone a Black queer protagonist.
So it became really important to kind of reclaim
and refocus and reframe that, which is, I am enough,
that there's nothing wrong with me, that,
even if the world is not ready to see me or hold me,
that I have to see and hold myself.
And so it's the message that I say to myself
and I say to everyone else, like, you are enough.
So I wanted to come on here and make this video about...
When my social media following grew,
it was in 2020, after the death of George Floyd.
I sat in front of my phone
and made this video for 10 minutes.
Well, what I want you to know is that,
every time a headline or a video surfaces,
or I learn about a Black person being murdered,
there are no words to describe the depth
of pain that I experience.
So I went to bed after making that video
and I woke up to close to a million views,
and now, 30,000 followers.
I remember being in the living room
and just feeling my grandmother,
who was a minister, and feeling ancestors
whose names didn't know, and it was that question of,
you can completely ignore this and go about your business
or you can step into this.
I heard, very clearly, "Step in.
"You can do this."
And so that was the choice that I made,
was to continue to make these videos,
and then to engage, and I just kept doing that,
kept making videos for six or seven months.
I was always getting complimented
about how articulate or how palatable it was,
'cause I'm, I talk like this.
I'm very soft and very gentle,
or very whatever, and I was like, yeah,
that's just 'cause, who I am,
but the person who's screaming
into their camera is just as fucking valid.
We should be having these open conversations about things.
Let's normalize talking about messy things.
I'm a comedy writer.
So here I am, spending every day talking about my traumas.
It was like, I need to find my joy,
and I wanted people to tell me things
that were bringing them joy, as well as telling me things
that they considered messy.
But then it kept going and I was like,
oh, I'm gonna lean into this because
there's such a taboo about sex and sexuality,
and especially queer sex.
When you think about sex education,
it's trash, in our country,
but it also doesn't include queer people at all.
Here was this chance to redefine that,
but most importantly, I think it's still connected
to everything else, because when it comes to sex,
it's about you.
It's about your Blackness, your queerness,
your womanhood, your non-binary-hood,
your man-, it's about you.
This is also part of my act, is my relationship to sex.
And so for me, to be a part of a collective
of influencers and educators and activists
and people who are boldly talking about it is
so liberating, and I wish that young Brandon had that.
(downtempo music)
So I grew up in Queens with three women.
So it was my grandmother, my mother,
and then one of my godmothers.
You know, I banged around Queens for a little while,
but around middle school is where things started
to shift, and that's where boys become boys
and girls become girls, and queers try
to fit the fuck in somewhere.
It was the first time I had been called gay,
and I didn't know what it meant,
but I knew by the tone of voice
that it wasn't what I wanted.
But then, slowly but surely, as puberty hit,
I was finding myself attracted to The Rock, specifically.
(Brandon laughs)
Specifically Dwayne Johnson,
but to men and trying to figure out what that is
and how lonely that was, how isolated that was,
to be feeling that thing and to not know
why you just can't be like the other boys.
And then I went to high school,
and I was a boarding student in Rome, Georgia,
for four years, and here I am,
this skinny and Black queer kid,
just trying to not be seen,
and then I found theater in that time.
And so I threw myself into the drama department,
which obviously didn't help with the gay rumors.
It just kind of exacerbated it.
But it was where I felt safest,
and I decided that that's what
I wanted to do professionally.
I was at NYU, was still in the closet,
and came out when I was 20, 21,
and the next couple of years were rough,
just trying to figure out what that means,
how people are gonna see it.
Are they gonna accept me?
More importantly, how my family's gonna receive it.
My mom was not about it, thought it was a phase.
The choice was to do as my mother wanted,
which was for me to be straight
and marry a woman, and some people do that.
Or the choice was to live my queer life,
and I'd hoped that I could do that with her.
I was willing to have a relationship with my mother
where my gayness was not a conversation,
and every time this thing would come up,
of saving my soul and sin and choice and lifestyle.
And so I stopped talking to her, and it's been 10 years.
There you go.
Hi, hi.
I think that blood family can be a beautiful thing.
But blood family may not always be capable
of taking you through this human existence.
And so chosen family became really, really important to me
when I lost communication with my blood family.
There's no way that I could do what I'm doing,
especially in this industry, if I didn't have the people
that I could call or text or go out with,
who can remind me, when I have that imposter syndrome,
or when I'm feeling low, or when I'm feeling whatever,
like, "Hey, you're good.
"You got it."
That's your family, 'cause you chose them.
Now I'm trying to take these things
that are awful and process them
in a way that puts forth joy.
I'm not the only person who doesn't talk to their mother.
I'm not the only person who has struggled
with my sexuality.
I'm not the only person who had a religious upbringing.
So how can I use that to make those people feel less alone,
to know that you're gonna be fine?
I also wrote a book called "You Gotta Be You",
which is part memoir, part self-help,
a guidebook to self-love.
It's all the things that I wish I knew,
growing up, about race, gender, sexuality,
their intersections, and being a human.
So this is my introduction, which I say,
"My intention is to revisit the experiences
"that have brought me to this present moment
"with as little judgment as possible,
"but with as much curiosity at I can muster.
"This book is my love letter to Black queer folks
"and anyone fighting to love themselves unconditionally,
"despite not knowing what that looks
"or feels like, or if you're worthy of it.
"Spoiler alert: You are beyond worthy.
"You are enough as you are.
"If this is the last thing you read in this book,
"know that you are enough."
(uplifting music)
That is that intention.
(uplifting music)