Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hey y'all, welcome back to Made It Out. Today I am here with comedian and activist Esther Fallon.
Hi. I'm so excited to be here.
I am so excited. And we did our pre-call.
Yes.
And it felt like you were a little hesitant to tell me what you wanted to talk about.
Yes. Because it's a little woo. It's a little woo. A minute into our conversation, I was like, she's woo. I'm going to be fine. We're going to be okay. I'm going to be fine. Yeah.
I'm woo. I embrace the woo.
I honestly, more woo 2026.
More woo 2026. Me too. Yeah.
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Chapter 2: What challenges did Esther face in gaining her parents' acceptance?
He's from New York.
Oh, wow. Okay.
And my mom is from Mexico. When they got married, she was like, we can live in New York if you can promise that we'll make two million a year.
Chapter 3: How did Esther's childhood influence her identity journey?
And he was like, OK, cool. Where else would you like to live? What's your option to? So they ended up moving down to Texas. Oh, my gosh. OK. And still in the States and stuff. I was the youngest of four. I was kind of like the golden child. My two older brothers were the fuck ups. Like all love. They would agree. They were doing drugs, skipping school, all that.
Meanwhile, I was like, don't worry, mom and dad. I'll be the lead in all the musicals.
I love that.
like I'll take care of myself like just get the carpool there on time you know like and my dad he was a psychiatrist for a while like a child psychologist there were a lot of people like at my high school I didn't know were his patients oh my god that would sometimes come up to me and be like hey tell your dad I said hi like oh your dad's the best like he saved my life I'd be like cool what's your name again
It was like, oh wow, my dad is having such an effect in people's lives. It made me feel really proud. And because I want to have an effect in my own way, and I felt like he was having an effect in his way, and I really looked up to that. So we had a really solid relationship. he was always in the front row for all my shows, you know? Yeah. After he passed, I guess that's a spoiler. Yeah.
After he passed at one point I was like watching old high school show tapes and I like would recognize the back of his head, like in the front row of all the shows. He was so proud.
What a beautiful gift.
So special. Like I knew that he was supporting me there. Like never any questions, you know? Now, in some ways, I think it has contributed to certain pathologies now. I felt like the only time when I could count on my family's attention was when I had a show. Mm-hmm. So now sometimes I'm like, if I don't have some big project, I have to remind myself I'm worthy of love, et cetera, et cetera.
You know?
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Chapter 4: What was the impact of losing her father on Esther's life?
That's a good looking dude, you know. But when she called me beautiful, I was like, I want to be that. And I can believe it when she says it. And you should feel attractive. So after we broke up, I remember I was talking about the breakup to a friend. And I said, I think that I want to begin thinking about what it would be like if I explored in the gender playground.
Like that was how far I had to be realized. removed from it I was like I want to begin thinking about if I considered what it would be like in another universe where I you know like if I read a book about yeah exactly right right exactly and she had the best response ever which was she just was like amazing here's four of my dresses what a beautiful friend truly an amazing friend.
I started kind of playing in the playground, would wear the dresses and be like, whoa. Look in the mirror and start to see a glimmer of something, you know? And then during the pandemic, the universe was like, you're gonna need to untie a lot of knots. So we're going to give you some time to do that.
I resonate with that so much. I almost feel guilt sometimes.
Really?
Because the pandemic, obviously, fucking terrible.
Yeah.
But the world stopped, and that was when I came out. I had a very similar experience. It was when I had my first girlfriend. Whenever I was having sex with a woman for the first time, I was having a lot of sex. It was great for me. I'm like, oh, all we have to do is be in the house and fuck all day? Yeah.
oh wait that's so beautiful but it what that's what it felt like like the whole entire world is shutting down okay here you go figure it out what a beautiful gift you got too there's like a whole class of us i feel like totally you know totally like pandemic queers yep we're in quarantine what's the what do you start doing to untie the knots meditating journaling yoga every day how did you know to turn toward that
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Chapter 5: How did Esther cope with the aftermath of her apartment fire?
Right before the pandemic, I had started going to like Al-Anon, like 12 Step. I'm in like Coda, Codependents Anonymous.
Totally.
Starting to look at all that. I was going to meetings virtually, then I was journaling, yoga, meditating, and I also had a friend who does angel readings. I was starting to sense that there was something here. This little light in my chest that was slowly starting to...
be uncovered and I had this dream at the start of the dream I was like riding on a whale I had like friends over I was in my living room like my floor is made up of that mesh that's like under carpet sometimes you know under it was like an ocean and the whale tried to come up and breach but got like caught on the net I turned to it and I was like really anxious and I was like no no no don't do it yet like they're not ready yet they're not ready wow
And then when I woke up, I was like, that whale is ready to breach. It's just me stopping it. Yeah.
Holy shit.
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, then where the fuck do you go from there?
You sob with your therapist.
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Chapter 6: What role did comedy play in Esther's self-discovery?
You know? So then I ended up having to move home. And it was during the pandemic. Yeah. And I ran out of money. And it was, like, while I was home that I went from, like, he, they to they, them. Okay. And then to, like, she, they. Like, I ended up, without telling my parents, like, going to an informed consent clinic and, like, starting hormones and stuff.
Did you go alone?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah. But I was so excited about it. I was scared, but I was also like, I'm doing something for myself here. And I had friends that I was on the phone with during this whole period.
Can I ask if there was like a specific moment that you made the decision? Was there an impetus? Was there something?
Yeah. I don't know if there was a specific moment that I can point out, but... What I will say is it just came from researching it and then realizing you're probably not going to be researching this if you don't want it. You're probably not going to know everything about hormones. If you don't want hormones. Yeah. You know?
Yeah.
Well, and also one of the big things is like I was starting to bald. That was the ultimate source of dysphoria.
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