You know, if I looked at the bearded lady or the small man or the disfigured person, what I felt and saw in their eyes was not pride of where they were at or what they were doing, but pain. Pain. When people would laugh and point fingers and pain that I felt at their childhood, their traumas, it would all happen to me and come in on me. It's like their life was my life, and I felt it
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 0:50
Kathy, this is very intense because of the word you chose to own back and empower with the word freak because I think your connection to it, how your empathy as a young person conjured up this connection, and now you are living into it. And owning that word freak is so intense. It's similar to how when you're queer, you say that's my name, queer is my name. People use it as a negative. I'm going to own it as a positive