Amy Ray
Appearances
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
Everybody knows that. Society is trying to tamp you down all the time, no matter what you are.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
Yeah, but you, that's, there's anything and everything that can be used in bad ways. Like, don't worry about that.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
Well, here's the truth. You just got to speak your truth to power.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
But, you know, in the context of the second wave, it was a political statement like separatism was, you know, like we need a safe space. Men are doing a lot of harm. And politically, we need to be liberated from that power in order to be ourselves, actualize who we really are. And I think lesbianism was used as a term equated with separatism, right?
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
So I think it's like totally like maybe a different context than like now. I don't know what the science is, but I know that I feel like you can be born in many different ways on the spectrum of who you're attracted to, right? So if you're born kind of in the middle, your nurturing can might push you one way or the other, maybe, or you can be taught that it's not cool to be in the middle.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
And that's a sin too. Or your gender can be forced on you when you don't feel that gender. There's like so many circumstances. I guess I feel like things are more fluid than we know, you know, but but I think the political movements are like second wave. I think they were making a point, you know, which is so different from now.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
I think it's still relevant. Don't you think, Emily? I don't know.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
But I also think it's a weird sort of thought process. But I think like when you come up with – like I came up with feeling at some point the bubble was burst and I was like feeling self-hatred about having – being so masculine, right? It's completely separate from who I was attracted to, right? Yeah. And I became unfree because I was like, oh, now I hate myself. Great.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
You know, just physically hate my body, right? It has nothing to do with who I want to go out with. And then I became attracted to women, but the self-hate You know, I could be, it's a weird, I don't even know how you unwind it, you know, in our generation.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
But we had so much self-loathing that when you found this safety with a woman and you found this love and you're in love and you're sexually attracted too. But also for me, I was attracted to men as well. But I felt completely unworthy of that. You see what I'm saying? Like the self-hate of my body and the self-hate of me not being a good enough woman.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
And the wanting also to kind of be a guy, that kind of fluidity did not go hand in hand with having a boyfriend, right? So I think there's something unraveling to be done for the total freedom that you might want to feel. Like you can be completely attracted to the opposite sex. You can be attracted to the same sex. You can be attracted to people that are genderqueer. Whatever you want.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
There should be nothing limiting you that has to do with you not liking yourself and thinking that you're unworthy.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
And for our generation... it's so different from the young generation now. Like my nephew's bisexual. He's just like, I love who I love. You know what I'm saying? And he's a six foot, you know, like big guy, you know, like actor, big guy, Ren Faire, stage fighting. And he's just like, men are beautiful. You know? And I'm like, oh my God, I love you. Like you, that's what I wanted to be.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
And I had a boyfriend for a while who, who I really loved after I had a girlfriend, but I didn't want to marry him. So I had to just tell him that. And I loved him so much, but I knew that it was not where I wanted to be right with him and, and, and everything. But I felt so, I just didn't feel like I was also worthy, you know, even though he didn't, he was like, I love the way you are.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
You know, I love lesbians, whatever, you know, whatever he meant.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
I love masculine women is what he meant. Right. Yeah. But I didn't love masculine women.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
Right? Wow. But then I have friends where the couple is like a masculine woman and a feminy guy, right? A feminy guy. And some of my friends will be like, oh, they should just be gay. And I'm like, no, they're actually like, can't you open your mind? Yeah. Like they're in love with each other. It's not, they're not covering up being gay.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
They actually love, this is who they want to be with.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
And I think we, even us as gay people, get stuck in that place of like, well, if you're this way and that way, you must just be in the closet, you know? And it's like, no, actually. There's feminine straight men, you know? And masculine straight women.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
Because I... Yeah, and it's not... Yeah, but to say... And it's like when we say that, people say, oh, well... You're just, you know, that's dangerous to say that because then it's like saying you really want to be straight. And if you just felt better about yourself, you could. But that's not the point.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
I don't identify as a, I mean, my pronoun is she, but I don't, but that's just because I've fought so hard to honor the woman inside me. I identify as a masculine female probably is the closest thing to it, but I really, but when I see my inner self, it's very much a guy, you know, like I know, but I've,
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
But I know society has influenced that for so long as I was coming up that I had this benefit of the doubt that I give to the fact that I probably have misogyny drilled into me at an early age. And so I'm. just trying to welcome that feminine, right? And just be, identify as a she.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
But I can theoretically see the idea of, like, transitioning to a guy and what that would mean, but it doesn't work for me for some reason. I... I've thought about it. It doesn't work for me. And I think it's because I could not really feel completely a guy either.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
And so I don't want to go through all that just to get on the other side of it and be like, well, shit, I don't really feel like a guy either. That's right.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
Yeah. I just think it's all so mixed up inside me that I have to just be like, no, no, this is just who I am. Like, this is what you get.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
And I got to just learn to love that.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
You know? And I have friends that have transitioned and... they're so completely who they are, you know, that I'm like, yes, that's, that's like the prime example of like what, what, when it works, you know, and when you become the true being reflected on the outside that you feel in the inside. Right.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
And it's amazing to see that. And it's joyful and I celebrate it, but I don't think I could get there.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
Well, theoretically, I love it. But the 12-year-old in me hates it, you know, or the 14-year-old, I guess.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
Well, you can look at it differently, though, because true tribal thought from an indigenous perspective doesn't have to be that. I think that's a white perspective of what tribal is, honestly. And I think you just have to look at tribe as this is my community of people that work together to create something and help each other. And there are other communities over here that do the same thing.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
Yeah, totally. Such an honor. And wow, what a story.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
And sometimes we get together and have a party and try to achieve something even bigger. Thank you.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
Wait, Barry Manilow is so intense.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Um, so I contributed in so many ways to that shame and that constant thing. Cause I would just be like, well, I'm going to be in the band anyway, but I'm going to be judgy all the time.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
When, what I should have just done is like walk away, you know, I should have just walked away from it because it's like, it doesn't help to just make someone feel shame over and over again, you know? And so you, we were all in our own little system of like, Bad stuff. Family. Yeah. Family. It was family. And I didn't want to leave it, but at some point I had decided.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
And I was like, I'm just going to... I can't do this anymore because it's just enabling. This whole system is being enabled by me continuing to play in the band. Because it's just like... It means that everything can just feel normal all the time. We're making a lot of money. You can sleep all day and then sing your gig and then get drunk and then sleep all day and all that stuff.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
And at the time, I also had like... Oh, my God, I had just gotten through this terrible bout with endometriosis and I had, you know, 20 pounds less and couldn't eat anything. And, you know, that's endometriosis. Stress is like a contributor to that. You know, I was losing organs.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
You know, it was a crazy time.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
that feels crazier when both of us are just inside this time and we both know it's it's going crazy but no one else on the outside does right yeah so we're just kind of in our own little world trying to like muscle through everybody's making money off the indigo girls and we are too you know and it's all it all becomes like that absurd to me you know like that absurd like we're not playing music for joy right now we're we're playing music because it's all we know how to do to survive you know
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
in every way, spiritually, you know, your soul and all that stuff. But I think that's just what we all do. We all get in denial about different things and it had to happen the way it happened, I think, or it wouldn't have been such a great recovery.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
You know, because now it's like, you know, we fought and Emily fought really super hard. People that I know that have gotten through it, I'm just blown away by their By their strength. Yeah. Like people I know that were addicts and heroin addicts or, you know, meth addicts or whatever. And I see them recover and I'm just like, oh my God, that's so hard. It's a miracle. Like, how did you do that?
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
You know, I can't even stop eating chocolate.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
No, I don't know.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
All those husbands.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
Great question. You go first, Emily.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
We knew each other when we were young, like 10, 11. a year apart in elementary school. But I think the way we really found music in each other is high school chorus, right, Emily?
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
I don't really mind if people say God or whatever word they want to use. It doesn't bother me. Because I think we all have constructs that we need to live. You know, Joseph Campbell, the myth and all that stuff. But I agree with Emily that I don't... It's so limitless. It's a great mystery. I think the light is within all of us, as the Quakers say. And we all have it, so...
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
And then we decided that we would get together. We became friends with, like, a group of friends that were, like, cross grades and all had the commonality of chorus. And we were going to do, like, a talent show. We got together in my mom's basement, and we started learning cover songs. And for me... that harmony was, you know, kind of blew my mind. And I didn't know how to sing harmony yet.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
whatever you call God is within us. But my friend Katie Pruitt, the songwriter was asking, she's a recovering Catholic. And she was like, you know, where do you find the divine? And I was like, in, in nature, in science, as Emily does. I mean, I think science is like, a fricking miracle.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
I find it in looking in the stars, you know, and NASA and looking at like the jet propulsion lab and JPL women that do all that research. And I just, I find it in Krista Tippett and people that have that, that are in touch. I find it, you know, there, but nature is my main thing. thing. I was raised Methodist though. And so I have this construct that I still adhere to quite a bit and cling to.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
I mean, I still have a relationship with my Jesus, you know, who is, I guess, non-binary maybe and just called Jesus. I don't know. I just, I have a Southern built-in filter That's like a Southern thing where you go to church three days a week, but all the time you're interpreting it your own way in order to gather what you need to be strong.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
You know, I loved as Abby, I loved, I loved youth group. I love Friday night skating. I love Bible school. I love Wednesday night supper. It's all like, I love it. I never don't love it, but I was taught some pretty bad things as well. But the good stuff has stayed with me equally. So I'm still kind of a churchy person. person sometimes.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
And I hope the Methodists can get their shit together and start welcoming gay people into the true Methodist church. I think curiosity is a divine thing. You know, I think, I think our spirit, I think our great mystery and our God is, Whoever that is, whatever that is, what energy it is, reveals itself in our curiosity.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
You know, so that's the beautiful thing that we have in common with animals, too. You know, like dogs are curious. People are curious. You know, ants are curious. Whatever. Yeah. Curiosity binds us together. And then, you know, my partner, Carrie, she always, whenever things really bad happen or someone's having a really hard time, she always, she says like something that's really comforting.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
I don't know if it's true, but it's comforting. She always says, remember, they have their higher power. You know, everyone has their higher power. Those kids that died, they have the higher power. You know, in other words, we see what's in front of us in our little unfelt world, you know, what we only have. But we don't see this bigger thing of the souls of those kids or all this stuff.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
And it's not comforting when you lose somebody, but it's the wisdom of like that, as Emily says, you know, the long view and like just letting that comfort you sometimes, you know, is okay. Even in the face of like really hard stuff, you know, so.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
Yeah. Thanks for all the work y'all do. I mean, y'all are, y'all are mentors to a lot of people and you do a lot of great work and it's, I'm, I'm thankful for it. I really am. Me too.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
I was in the choir at church, but I just would just do exactly what my choir director told me. I didn't understand, like, how do you write the part, you know? So Emily was already doing that, and... Her family was already singing in harmony with each other. I found it in the harmony, like in Emily's keen sense of harmony and just the naturalness of how it just comes out.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
I was like, oh, wow, that's the magic of music, of this thing, which was, you know, for a high schooler, 16, 15 years old, it was intense.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
I do. I think she, like, I think you always have the, Dynamic that you set when you're young together. Yes. So Emily's always like a year older, better at this, better at that, all that stuff. Bigger hit songs, whatever.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
It's a face she's in. She's doing false lashes and fractal guitar effects.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
It's like a new level for Indigo Girls.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
She's always been the femme.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
Why are you nervous?
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
That's a good question. There's some things that are similar. I'll say like kids that are in certain areas of the country or live in certain families or go to certain churches really still have the roughest time ever. So that's a similarity. But the difference would be I feel like access to language for one thing. We didn't know what the word gay meant. really, when we were kids.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
We were like, is that bestiality? Because we were in suburban South. Now, when you come out, you understand that there's sexuality and there's gender and that's different. And you understand you have the grasp of all these things about gender dysphoria, gender fluidity, bisexuality, trans issues are in the forefront, which they should be.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
And so for me, I think for the most important difference, the thing that helped me the most when I got older was all of a sudden having all this language to talk about where I was at. You know, and I also think you can reach out through the, you know, internet and find some mentors. I mean, when you're suffering, you don't have anybody to turn to, you know, where you live.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
You don't have any role models. There's so many role models and there's so much information. Emily's probably got some.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
Well, it's internalized homophobia. It means you're scared of what you really are. And sometimes you don't want to face it. And I think when you're young, you don't really know what it means and how to talk about it and all that. But I would say... Abby, that we may have that self-hate thing, but Glennon, one of the things about you is that you went through this very compacted experience of like,
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
falling in love, you know, getting sober, falling in love and having to really fight for what you really wanted to be. And I often think that people who have those intense fights feel a sort of freedom that you don't feel the same way when you have this graduated experience like we've had over the years of like,
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
trying to unravel everything, knowing we were gay, and it not being this compacted experience when all of a sudden you have this relief of like, oh my God, I'm finally free. I didn't realize I'm celebrating who I am, you know? And for us, it's kind of like we were just not able to celebrate for so long, you know, that we got conditioned to that. Like, that's just...
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
We were taught that you don't celebrate it for, I mean, years. I mean, just even if our parents didn't teach us that, like Emily's parents didn't teach her that she shouldn't celebrate that. You know, they were progressive parents. And my parents were not happy with it at first, but they were awesome later in my life. But you just get the sense from something, you're just conditioned.