Episode 93
From Evangelical Roots to LGBTQ+ Champion with Heather Hester
Today’s Featured Uplifter: Heather Hester
Standing in the darkness of a hotel room across the country from her children, Heather Hester received the call that would transform her life. Her missing teenage son was alive – and he had something to tell her. In that moment of raw relief, as her son's voice crackled through the phone line with his truth, Heather felt her world shift. "I'm gay," he said. Her immediate response? "Thank God, because I thought you were dead."
The journey that followed would crack open everything Heather thought she knew about faith, family, and love. As an evangelical Christian raised in a deeply conservative home, she had inherited a set of beliefs that seemed to leave no room for her son's identity. Yet in that crucial moment, maternal love swept away decades of dogma. (The heart, it turns out, has its own wisdom.)
What emerged from this chrysalis moment was not just a transformed mother, but a fierce advocate who would go on to touch countless lives through her podcast, coaching, and newly published book. Like the butterfly emerging from its cocoon, Heather's metamorphosis required breaking down old structures to build something new – something more beautiful and free than she could have imagined.
Her Courage Practice:
Heather's signature practice is what she calls "intentional vulnerability" – deliberately placing herself in spaces where she might face pushback or criticism about LGBTQ+ advocacy. Rather than avoiding difficult conversations, she leans into them, using her own journey from fear to acceptance as a bridge for others. This practice isn't about winning arguments, but about bearing witness to the daily reality many LGBTQ+ individuals face, while creating space for others to examine their own beliefs.
What makes this practice particularly powerful is how it transforms defensive reactions into opportunities for connection. By sharing her own story of evolution – including the fears, doubts, and revelations along the way – Heather creates a template for others to explore their own journey without shame. It's a practice that ripples outward, touching not just parents of LGBTQ+ children, but anyone grappling with the gap between inherited beliefs and lived experience.
"This is not a judgment saying that you need to unlearn bias. You're a human being. We all have them. So we're taking a look at what those biases might be and pulling them apart and working through them and healing from them."
5 Ways She Shows Us How to Build Our Courage Capital:
1. Transform Fear into Fierce Love
Lead with your heart when your head is still catching up. (Sometimes the wisest part of us already knows what to do.) Heather's immediate acceptance of her son came from a place deeper than conscious thought.
2. Choose Growth Over Comfort
Allow yourself to question inherited beliefs when they conflict with love. Break free from the need to please others (even family) when it means compromising your truth or someone else's wellbeing.
3. Create Brave Spaces for Others
Use your own vulnerability as a bridge to understanding. (Your messy, beautiful journey might be exactly what someone else needs to see.) Share your evolution openly to give others permission to change.
4. Practice Intentional Discomfort
Put yourself in challenging spaces not to argue, but to understand. Let the discomfort remind you of others' daily experiences and fuel your commitment to create change.
5. Love Radically and Simply
When overwhelmed by complexity, return to the simplest truth: love them. See them. Hold space for them. (Sometimes the most powerful actions are the most straightforward.)
The Uplifters’ Web
Today’s opening is by Rachel Lipson.
Heather was nominated by Candy Motzek from episode 92.
Let’s keep rising higher together.
💓 Aransas
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Transcript
Aransas: Welcome to the Uplifters Podcast, I'm Miranda Savas and every [00:00:30] week I get to talk to interesting and inspiring women who live lives of purpose.
t on an earlier episode. And [:She calls herself [00:01:00] Chrysalis Mama and she is a podcast host, an advocate, and I'm so excited to have her here with us today. Heather, welcome.
ing me. I am delighted to be [:So that's the short answer to that question. The somewhat longer answer to [00:01:30] that question is that I grew up evangelical Christian, very, very conservative. I married a Catholic boy, which was like, I mean, that was nuts. Like I had family members who just thought, Oh, well, that's it. This is [00:01:45] done, right? Little did they know.
orks. Like this feels better [:And so we really thought that we were pretty on top of things until our son came out and we were like, Oh my gosh, we are so not [00:02:15] prepared. We realized that we needed some support. There was a lot that we just didn't understand and that this kid had been trying to tell us things that we did not pick up on.
And [:And having [00:03:00] three younger children also trying to kind of juggle that like, How do we do this? Right? What do we tell them? How much did they know? How do we continue supporting them as we are shifting and learning and evolving at a somewhat fast pace? [00:03:15] And so it was, you know, 18 months of pretty intense.
ere that needs support, that [:Right. And [00:03:45] so that's really when I started this and it started very much as a resource website and I named it crystal using the word chrysalis is very intentional. I have always loved butterflies. So it was [00:04:00] particularly magic for me to use the whole idea of the chrysalis and transformation because I very much have gone through that and I feel like everyone is capable of that.
ng. I did it. So if I can do [:[00:04:30] And I think if I'd given it any more thought, I would never have done it, but I was like, this is a good idea. I'm going to start a podcast. I, this is fantastic. And I am not an extrovert by any stretch of the imagination. But it's [00:04:45] been around for five years and it's a top 1 percent podcast and I was, have been, I still to this day have been amazed by the reception and the people that, as you know, you don't often know [00:05:00] how many people are hearing it, how many people are really moved or touched or helped or supported by what you're sharing with the world.
ne reaches out, I think, Oh, [:So it is very joyful for me. I am still learning and evolving [00:05:45] every single day. I believe that we all, you know, evolve until we are no longer on this plane. So there's my story and I'm crying because I am highly emotional right now. [00:06:00] What are the tears? When I think about the journey of eight years now, which is so wild to think about, like, when I do sit and think, like, pictures will pop up, and I think, like, the extraordinary [00:06:15] change and, What we have learned and what I, just a singular person, have healed from and then learned to be able, like the capacity to hold, right?
I [:Aransas: What a gift. Yeah. Yeah. To feel it, to honor it, to name it, to create brave space for [00:07:00] it. Exactly. So, this has been a tremendous journey for you and your family. What are some of the biggest ways you personally have changed through this journey? [00:07:15]
Heather: Oh my goodness, so many ways, how much time do you have? I think in the most simple terms, I've really shifted 180.
, [:I'm going to hell for sure. There is very much of this deep desire to please. I was for sure a people pleaser, [00:08:00] but not just people in general, my parents specifically. And so there was always this, like, I've got to make them happy. Like, I've got to do something that's, they're going to be proud of. And so I think like for me, one of my [00:08:15] very defining moments in time, but really on this journey happens right at the very beginning.
country and he had run away [:And of course, you know, at that point, like, and I was just like, [00:08:45] I was so grateful that his voice was there, that I, that we had found him, that he had answered the phone and he was just like, mom, I've got to tell you something. And I was like, what? And he's like, I am gay. And I was like, well, thank God, because I thought you were [00:09:00] dead.
thinking, of course this is [:So then if that took me on very much of a deconstructive journey. Which I am still [00:09:30] on personally, but then as you begin to learn all of these things, you start questioning all of these pieces of your belief system that you didn't even realize you have. I used to vote in a very different way, but I never really thought about how I was [00:09:45] voting.
o many different things that [:So the more that I learned and the more that I allowed myself to [00:10:15] evolve, the more I was like, well, I'm kind of cool. I like who I am and I am capable of all of these things over here. So that's where the tears come from. Cause I'm, I know you get the same joy when we look at our kids and we think [00:10:30] this is so great.
me to us and talk it through [:It has been such a joy that one of my. avenues of learning has [00:11:00] been through my kids and just like hearing what they have to say, like how they see the world, where they're getting their information and sharing it with me. Yeah. Right. It's not saying that they're right. Then what is right?
ou make a really interesting [:Families used to be very top down organizations and Now, what so many of us have come to believe is that there is learning on all sides and that our kids can be our [00:11:30] greatest teachers and yes, we want to help them learn from our own experiences and what we've seen in the world, but we have just as much to learn from them and to benefit from that learning as much from them.
Heather: A thousand [:Aransas: And I think there, if you listen to the body of work that we've created on the uplifters, [00:12:15] you would take away two key lessons. Number one. is that you have a hundred proof points that through the most difficult and dark moments, the brightest lights and [00:12:30] the greatest beauty can be born. And number two, that it's usually with the support of other humans who get it.
d and create communities for [:Heather: Oh my goodness. My tagline for the longest [00:13:00] time was you are not alone. It may feel like you are very isolated and, and you may actually be physically isolated, but you are not alone.
There are others.
e story of what you believed [:Music: Yeah.
it was hell no. Right. That [:Heather: It was something that I was taught and was just kind of in the subconscious.
, like, I just felt it in my [:I mean, I've done lots of research and lots of reading and lots [00:14:00] of, you know, all the things. But for people who, you know, that is their belief system or that is the belief system they were brought up with, that is something that is taught and that is something obviously that we know is out there because it is talked about in the evangelical circles.
I have [:I want to understand more. I am so open about my evolution over time because I think that gives others permission to [00:14:45] take a look inside. This is not saying that you need to, you know, unlearn bias is not a judgment call. It's a, you're a human being call. We all have them. So it's the taking a look at what those biases might be.
[:Aransas: And it's a
Heather: process that it's messy and vulnerable and so worth it.
at it's worth it in terms of [:Heather: And the connection that then you allow yourself with other human beings, [00:15:30] right? Because you're not constricted by all of that stuff. So then you, the judgment, yes, yes. I can learn about people and have conversations with people and [00:15:45] be in spaces and just kind of sit and soak it in and be like, this is amazing.
, that you've watched people [:Heather: I think that many people think that queer people have mental health issues because they are queer. And it is so important to me for people to understand that it is not because they are queer.[00:16:15]
ly Because of what is coming [:Like I, I will often put myself and do posts in different social media spaces because I know what's going to come [00:16:45] back at me. And I think it's really important for that stuff to come back at me because it keeps me. on my toes. And I rarely respond, but I think it's like a, it's kind of a good exercise to be like, you know what, this is what our kids, this is what [00:17:00] all queer people are getting on a daily basis.
Just these subtle and not so subtle messages, right? So this is why we continue doing the work that we do and advocating and supporting and loving and just holding space
ting. So I think what you're [:Yes. Yeah. And it's interesting, isn't it? Like for people who have a choice to be able to do that, not everyone of course has that choice. Correct. But you're choosing to. To do.
Heather: And I will say [:And I still do feel like it's important to put stuff out there, but I would like get this back and I'd be like wounded. And I would be, I'm not doing this anymore. And this is terrible. And oh [00:18:00] my gosh. And then all of a sudden I was like, it's like flipped. And I was like, oh no, this is actually really good because this is not even a percentage of a fraction.
s is, this is good for me to [:Aransas: The reminder here.
is that it's everybody's problem.
Heather: It's everybody's problem.
Aransas: And you're either a part of the problem or the solution.
space, right, that's how you [:So yes, it is hard. The other, I think the thing that helps me also is, Of course, remembering why I'm doing this and always remembering [00:19:00] why I do all of the things that I do and that that is a statement about that person, right? It's not about me. None of this is about me,
It's not about you. We talk [:Being an uplifter is an act of courage in its own right. And We all have fear, like you described at the beginning, right? And they can be [00:19:30] existential fears, like, am I going to burn in hell? Or they can be, am I going to be judged? Right. Am I going to be misunderstood? Am I going to do this wrong? Am I going to be unloved?
And those [:Heather: Initially, it was [00:20:30] very much, I mean, almost like adrenaline driven. Very mama bear, like that mama bear energy, right? You're not really thinking about it so much as you are feeling it. And then as I began to grow and shift and do the inner work [00:20:45] that I needed to do and really come, you know, face to face and name those fears and my own biases and I realized that things that I had thought were like normal ways of handling things.
I mean, I was very [:things that were healthy. And it really helped me kind of go through like peeling back those layers and learning what I needed to do to [00:21:30] care for myself and really knowing myself, not who I was told to be, not who I thought I needed to be, but who I actually am. So that then allowed me to [00:21:45] into a whole nother level of, well, this is how I want to show up in the world.
And what do I need to do to consistently do that?
you create distance between [:Heather: Being vulnerable and putting myself out there, which allowed me to connect with other human beings. Who had different life experience [00:22:15] and who saw the world from a very different angle, a very different way, and really begin to learn
Aransas: from different people.
you think the most important [:Heather: is all very centered [00:22:45] around allyship and parenting a queer child and really holding space for them. And the thing that I kind of always circle back to, because typically people, what's the one thing that we can do?
do, and it sounds difficult, [:Aransas: I am so grateful for you and your work in the world. I'm so [00:23:15] grateful for your courage. Thank you.
e joy, yes, and more impact. [:com head over to Spotify, Apple podcast, or. Wherever you get your podcast and like follow and rate our show, it'll really help us connect with more uplifters [00:24:00] and it'll ensure you never miss one of these beautiful stories.
y. I'm dwelling, perplexing. [:Be your own best lover, relish in a new prime, plant a tree in springtime, dance with adult hindsight, bring the sun to [00:24:30] twilight. Lift you up, whoa, lift you up, whoa, lift you up, [00:24:45] whoa, lift you up, whoa, lift you
oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, [:Aransas: I cried. [00:25:15]
Music: It's that little thing you did with your voice. Right, in the pre chorus, right? I was like Mommy,
Heather: stop crying. You're disturbing the peace.
