You Might Also Like: Mind If We Talk?

**Sreela Roy-Greene** (0:00)
Today's conversation contains mentions of sexual assault and suicide, so please take care and be mindful of who is listening with you.

**Margaret Cho** (0:08)
As I started doing stand-up really early, I got some success really quickly, and these kids who would bully me would come to shows and pay VIP prices to get a meet and greet, and want to take pictures. And remember when we were in school? I'm like, I go, no, I don't remember you, and I don't know who you are.
And the look of disappointment and shock in their faces, and I'm like, you know what? You really don't want me to remember. You really don't want me to remember you writing graffiti about me pecking on the walls of the school. Why would you think that I would forgive that?

**Sreela Roy-Greene** (1:14)
Welcome back to Mind If We Talk, where you get to be a fly on the wall for many therapy sessions and learn some mental health tips in the process. I'm your host, Sreela Roy-Greene, a licensed mental health counselor with over 19 years of experience. In today's episode, I sit down with Margaret Cho, a trailblazing comedian with a career that spans more than four decades, including her 90s ABC sitcom, All American Girl, and five Grammy nominated comedy albums. Margaret has been an inspiration and mentor to many comedians that came up after her, including Dylan Adler, who also joins us today. Dylan is a stand-up comedian, writer, and actor who has written for The Late Late Show with James Corden. In our conversation, Margaret and Dylan reflected on their distinct journeys with queer identity and shared how, as adults, they found ample support and a sense of belonging. Later in today's episode, Dylan joined by Hope Giselle, a nationally recognized organizer, author, and activist. Hope made history in August 2023 as the first openly Black transgender woman to speak at the March on Washington. She helped me break down the psychological impact of positive representation, how bullying shapes the nervous system, and how to start healing from something you were never taught to talk about. I am so excited for this one, so let's jump right in. Welcome both of you, Margaret and Dylan. Thank you so much for joining us today for Mind If We Talk. I want to start with you, Margaret. If you could go back and talk to your past self, what wisdom would you impart on that younger version of yourself?

**Margaret Cho** (2:48)
I think it's always, everything's going to be okay. I would always be very worried about what the future would bring, and I grew up in San Francisco, if there was going to be a big earthquake.
Just weird, we're like walking, standing in the doorway. You're just always worried about things. There were some awful things that happened for sure. One of my very first traumas was Harvey Milk's assassination in 1978 The tragedy of that, the needless tragedy of that, so shocking because he was such an important figure in my childhood.
To go from that to the absolute devastation of AIDS, that completely rocked the entire community that I was in, it destroyed my family's business, the loss of life and culture and people, just the friends that we loved. So there were reasons, valid reasons to worry, but now coming through it, I realize I didn't have to worry so much. I didn't have to be so scared because we're resilient as a community, as queer people, we are endlessly resourceful and incredibly hopeful, and we're able to rise. And now we're fighting a new enemy, of course, with transphobia, which is something that I'm really putting all my energy against. But I think I've learned to stop obsessively worrying the way that I used to. And that's been a help.

**Sreela Roy-Greene** (4:28)
I'm so glad you shared that because again, I think it's one of those topics that people are, it's almost like in the periphery or a vague awareness of, that we don't actually talk about it, and it becomes a form of disenfranchised grief.
So Dylan, I want to talk to you a little bit here for a second. Was there a moment in particular where you realized that you needed someone, specifically Margaret, in your life?

**Dylan Adler** (4:53)
Yeah.
Well, getting emotional, but I also grew up in the Bay. And the Bay, you think of it sometimes as like, oh my gosh, it must be a bastion of just like, everyone is queer, blah, blah, blah. It's like, well, I don't know. For some reason, the school I went to was very homophobic, transphobic. And I kind of relied on like a small group of theater kids and friends. But also what helped me was seeing people like Margaret and hearing her comedy, like having a queer Asian role model like that was so awesome. And we, us Asian American comedians are very lucky to have Margaret. We are very lucky.