Knee Deep in the Passenger Seat

Knee Deep in Syphilis

• Cady & Sharilyn • Season 1 • Episode 6

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🎙️ Syphilis, Sex Ed, and Waffles, Oh My!—With Epidemiologist Stephanie Booth 🍁

In this episode of Knee Deep in the Passenger Seat, Cady and Sharilyn sit down with epidemiologist Stephanie Booth to unpack the alarming rise in syphilis cases across the U.S. and the urgent need for improved public health strategies—especially for LGBTQ2S+ communities. They dive into the barriers queer folks face in accessing accurate sexual health information, the importance of inclusive risk communication, and how misinformation fuels disparities in care.

Beyond the science, the conversation explores the quirks of Canadian identity, the challenges of navigating bureaucratic health systems, and the power of data (and its frustrating limitations). They discuss why better funding, education, and outreach are essential to closing knowledge gaps and promoting health equity.

Of course, it wouldn’t be Knee Deep without some laughs! Expect reflections on musical theater obsessions, favorite cities, and the joy of community traditions like Waffle Wednesday. This episode is a perfect blend of insight, advocacy, and fun—don’t miss it! 🍽️🎭💜

Referenced in this episode:

Lorals - Use code AGEOFSEXPLORATION for 10% off your first order!

JVN podcast episode about New Orleans

“Fever 1793” Book

Organizations to Support:

Rainbow Railroad is a North American charitable organization that helps lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI) individuals escape violence and persecution in their home countries.

Camp fYrefly is a leadership retreat for queer and trans youth ages 14 - 24 in Alberta, Canada

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Cady Moore (00:24)
Welcome to Knee Deep in the Passenger Seat, the podcast where we take the scenic route through sex, dating, relationships, non-monogamy, queer culture, and all the spicy stuff in between. My name is Cady

Sharilyn Wester (00:37)
And my name is Sharilyn and we are here to bring you unfiltered conversations with humor, heart, and just the right amount of chaos. Of course, it's us. Whether it's navigating love, unpacking identity, or diving headfirst into hyperfixations, we've got your back. Seat, that is.

Cady Moore (00:58)
So buckle up friends because today we are diving into the intersection of public health, social change, and some sibling silly time with our guest who is none other than Stephanie Booth, an epidemiologist and public health girly with experience at every level of government

Sharilyn Wester (01:16)
So from tackling vaccine epidemiology to harm reduction and building public health capacities, she is a badass advocate for equity, diversity and inclusion in health practices.

Cady Moore (01:27)
And she is also Sharilyn's older sister, which she proudly claims as her biggest accomplishment, which I think is cute as hell.

Sharilyn Wester (01:34)
And she should. Thank you so much. We're just sister wives.

Cady Moore (01:36)
I mean I would just I'd Sam I love you Yeah,

we're sister wives. It's fine. I still get to I don't know I don't know

Sharilyn Wester (01:47)
Exactly.

In this episode, we're going to chat with her about the intersection between LGBTQ2S plus community health and epidemiology, the importance of queer sex ed, which as we know is Cady's wheelhouse, whether a carrot is a carrot, and of course, some good old sibling tomfoolery and you're probably going to get some good background stories from her on our childhood. Yes, yes.

Cady Moore (02:11)
some sister lore for sure, I can't wait. So

everybody grab your favorite bevvy settle in for a conversation that is equal parts informative, maybe a little inspiring, but mostly just a little angsty sometimes and always chaotic. But before we do that, per usual, Sharilyn, why don't you tell us what is in your passenger seat today?

Sharilyn Wester (02:33)
I would love to. Yes. I think where we last left off, I was talking

school and starting school for the semester. I did start. I'm like knee deep in schoolwork basically. And so I've have found I have like I'm getting a bit of a rhythm. I'm definitely having to be a lot more particular about my schedule and making sure I'm like making time for breaks and time for myself and all that. But yeah, my New Orleans trip was incredible. I love that city. I can't wait to go back.

The culture there is amazing. The food there was amazing. I went with my sister and a bunch of my friends and it was just really, really exactly what I needed. The intersection between that and the first week of starting school was a bit much, but we're good. And it also snowed here in the deep

which was crazy. Apparently it hasn't happened since like the nineties. And so it was actually really cool for me, I think, cause I'm Canadian and like a lot of our culture is like around like literally weather and snow.

You know, snows from the end of September until like late May. Having kids who don't really remember snow or like, you know, my youngest didn't remember interacting with snow when she was a baby when we lived a little farther north. Seeing that was really fun and seeing her like come inside with her hands like raw and Red, she's like, they hurt. I'm like, yeah, baby, you can't just grab it with your bare hands. And so it's ice. Yeah, exactly. It's ice. And so.

Cady Moore (03:53)
It's ice.

Aww.

Sharilyn Wester (03:58)
That was really, really lovely. But yeah, so it's been good. It's just been very busy. What about you? What's been in your passenger seat?

Cady Moore (04:06)
My

mine is a little less cheerful. I, my passenger seat is, and I'm not going to say PMS because I feel like I am always blaming my menstrual cycle for whatever's in my passenger seat. But today in my passenger seat is rejection sensitive dysphoria, also known as RSD, which is a comorbidity of ADHD. It's really common in folks with ADHD and it is

Sharilyn Wester (04:20)
you

Cady Moore (04:35)
Defined as the extreme emotional sensitivity and pain triggered by the perception that a person has been rejected or criticized by important people in their life It can also be yeah. Yeah, I girl. I know that resonates We got so many conversations about this and for me the big way that it well, I mean it manifests in like a severe

Sharilyn Wester (04:44)
Oof.

feel that. Yeah, we've had so many conversations in the last week about this. Yeah.

Cady Moore (05:00)
sensitivity to be the feeling of being rejected even if I'm not actually being rejected. But one of the ways that it manifests that really trips me up is I often code a neutral response as

no even though it is just a neutral response and I like if somebody is not giving me enthusiasm that I'm like so you hate me got it.

Sharilyn Wester (05:27)
So you hate me? so

you want me dead in a back alley? So you're gonna, yeah, 100%.

Cady Moore (05:29)
Okay. Yeah. So

like, unless I get an enthusiastic yes from someone, I am like self conscious and anxious that like, I'm just dragging them through whatever I'm doing. It also means that I am like, always worried about the perception of others and what others expectations of me are and making sure that I meet those expectations.

Sharilyn Wester (05:44)
same.

Cady Moore (05:57)
and have very high standards and expectations for myself. In short, it's just like real nasty. It is not very nice and it leaves my brain to do some like very creative storytelling. And so when you combine RSD with the PMS, it's real gnarly mess. So in my passenger seat today is my rejection sensitive dysphoria because, ooh, we've been feeling it.

Sharilyn Wester (06:19)
Yeah.

And have you

have

found ways or are there ways that you have explored in like, helping talk yourself out of those stories for anyone who might relate on like, you know, you text a friend and you're like, Hey, oh my god, like, this new place opened up, this sounds so exciting. Do you want to go and you get a text response of like, sure. Your mind starts reeling and you're like,

Cady Moore (06:44)
i

Sharilyn Wester (06:46)
They don't actually want to go. They feel obligated to go. Now I feel guilty for even asking. I should probably ask them if they're sure they want to go. How do you walk yourself back?

Cady Moore (06:55)
Honestly, I am just radically candid with everyone in my life.

But for me, it's just easier to be straight up and be like, I'm...

Sharilyn Wester (07:04)
Yeah.

Cady Moore (07:04)
This is what I am reading. This is what I am hearing. Is this right or am I in my head? Am I trippin'?

Sharilyn Wester (07:06)
Right.

Yes.

Cady Moore (07:11)
I have found that voice memo has been really helpful. Like being able to hear people's voice as opposed to reading over text is sometimes helpful. But yeah, no, for the most part, I will just straight up ask. And I don't even necessarily need reassurance sometimes. I just need to tell them how I'm feeling and have them know that that's what's going on so that like they can be aware.

Sharilyn Wester (07:20)
Right?

Right.

Cady Moore (07:36)
of it and or like affirm if I'm correct because sometimes I'm right and sometimes they're like, like, yeah, you're right. I wasn't really looking forward to this can we do something different? And I'm like, yeah, absolutely we can. Thank you for being on this. But yeah, that is that's what's in my passenger seat today. And I don't have a creative segue to introducing our guests. So.

Sharilyn Wester (07:41)
Right.

Yeah. Absolutely.

Cady Moore (08:06)
So instead of doing some cute creative segue, I'm going to take us to a brief sponsor break. And then when we come back, we're going to welcome Steph back to the pod. Not back to the pod. I'm going to welcome Steph to the pod.

Sharilyn Wester (08:17)
Yay!

Cady Moore (08:20)
let's get rolling because today we are so excited to welcome Stephanie Booth to the pod. Stephanie is an

and public health girlie who has worked at the local, provincial and federal level on topics including vaccine epidemiology, harm reduction and the opioid crisis, public health workforce capacity building and communicable disease epidemiology.

She is passionate about social change and promoting equity, diversity and inclusion, RIP to DEI in the United States, but whatever, that's not the point right now. Specifically within the public health and epidemiologic practice. She is involved with and dedicated to advocacy work that focuses on the health and wellness of the LGBTQ2S plus community. Outside of her paid labor, she loves crafts, craft beer and general tomfoolery. Her biggest accomplishment though is being Sharilyn's

older sister, welcome Steph to the pod.

Sharilyn Wester (09:16)
Welcome! Hi!

Steph (09:17)
Yeah,

okay. I was so, so I've obviously big fan of the pod. I've listened to all the episodes except the newest one that just came out. And I think it was like in the first two or three episodes in a row, Sharilyn had like casually said something like, about my sister or like mentioned me and I was like, am I becoming part of the podcast lore? Like, am I the secret third host? Like, I don't know.

Cady Moore (09:32)
Haha

yeah.

Sharilyn Wester (09:39)
Yes,

you're a silent backer actually to all my most interesting funny stories because you're usually like the funnier one and it's funny because I've talked a little bit about this New Orleans trip that me and my gal pals were going on and my sister actually came down with us and I had to preface to all my friends I was like okay guys I know I'm really funny but like my sister's funnier than me so like go easy.

Cady Moore (09:40)
Yes.

Steph (09:43)
Yeah.

Cady Moore (09:51)
that's relatable as hell.

Well, and I love

that so much and and stuff I love that you brought that up because that is very similar to my relationship with my sister like I Just think she's the coolest person I'm like wow. my goodness. You're so funny No, she's younger, which is which is the like the funny difference, but that's a whole other tangent about our very specific brand of childhood

Sharilyn Wester (10:20)
I know.

Steph (10:23)
older?

Sharilyn Wester (10:26)
Shit.

Yeah!

Cady Moore (10:37)
Not the

point. The point being that you, yes, are absolutely like a part of knee deep in the passenger seat lore. Just as much as my sister will be. Because Sharilyn and I are absolutely, we are girls girls, but like we are thithers And we talk about it, yeah, we talk about it often that like being a fifter is such an identity and such a formative, yeah, yeah.

Sharilyn Wester (10:46)
Absolutely.

We're sisters!

It's such a core part of my identity. Yeah, absolutely.

Cady Moore (11:06)
So super, super stoked to have you here. And I know that I read off that very long, amazing intro about you, but why don't you in your own words, tell us a little bit about who you are, where you're from, what you do. Tell us.

Steph (11:21)
Yeah, it's a good question because I am far enough into my career that you kind of have your two-liner or hover-long professional bio that you do if you're going to a conference or speaking or whatever. So I kind of just sent that, but then I was like, okay, but who am I really? So I guess I'd say I'm Sharilyn's sister, obviously, and sister to many other people. Yeah, I'm a... Yes, yes, they do. Yes, they do.

Sharilyn Wester (11:21)
Take it away.

Cady Moore (11:30)
Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Sharilyn Wester (11:40)
Aww. Yeah, we have a lot of siblings. Our parents love marriage.

Steph (11:49)
I'm a Prairie girl. And I think I didn't like really understand like what that.

meant or how being from like the rural prairie shaped my identity until I'd like traveled a bit more and moved more but I definitely identify as a prairie girl.

Sharilyn Wester (12:03)
Can you

with us a little bit about what that means? Because I've tried to explain it to people. I'm like, no, I'm from the Alberta prairies. It's kind of like the Texas of Canada, but they don't get it. Could you share what you kind of came to?

Steph (12:09)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's

so

the place in Canada we're from, it's like, like, basically kind of in the middle of the country, like, but it's like not Vancouver, and it's not Toronto, it's like the other place, the third space. So basically, like the place we grew up in, I'd say, was is predominantly from people who've been settled there less than five generations, it's a lot of farmers and a lot of people who moved

Sharilyn Wester (12:27)
You

Steph (12:42)
to that part of the country for resource extraction related jobs. So basically we grew up in a town when we moved there that had 5,000 people. It grew a little bit. It has like this historic ties to like the Canadian railroad, but like mostly a farming community where like during the school year, like it wouldn't be strange in September if half of your class is missing because they're helping their family harvest, like that sort of thing.

My former gym teacher is the mayor. Like that is the vibe of the town.

Sharilyn Wester (13:12)
Yeah,

Cady Moore (13:12)
That's so awesome.

Sharilyn Wester (13:14)
we went to a middle high elementary school combined that, for example, at one point had like 12 kids in the graduating class. So this is what we need to make people aware of what we're working with of how isolated our communities are in the prairies.

Steph (13:24)
Yeah.

Yeah, our town, like my high school had like a football team, a basketball team and a rodeo team. So like that's like what

dealing with. yeah, I think so being from I think the prairies and like coming from like a farming background and like it's it's a very specific like cultural, I think identity that yeah, I didn't really realize honestly, even until I got into grad school and was like in school with all these people who are from very different places than me and like didn't quite understand sometimes what I was talking about or like

when we were talking about our different experiences and how it related to what we're learning, they didn't quite always get that. So yeah, I'd say that's a core fast of my identity. Besides that, I'm a crafter, I'm a girly pop, and I'm a public health lover and gal. So yeah.

Sharilyn Wester (14:17)
I

was going to ask you, especially when you're talking about grad school and obviously we've introduced a little bit about your background in epidemiology, take us through what that journey has been like in your career, what areas you've kind of like to focus in. I know queer health has been a big part of that. Would you mind sharing a little bit more about how you got into the field and how you went from rural cow town, 12 in a graduating class into the field and the experience you have?

Steph (14:44)
Yeah, so it's a good question. I did my undergrad in biology. When I was in my early like 20s, I thought I wanted to be a physician. And so I went to a small liberal arts, essentially university. Liberal arts is less of a thing in Canada than it is in the States. So it was like a very unique place, a very small liberal arts faculty that was in a small town.

where basically it was like a bunch of like other rural kids who weren't ready to like go to the city. And so we all did university in this like very small town, which is like very not typical of Canada. Our universities are usually like quite centralized. We have way less of them than the US. And so yeah, I had this very special experience at the small university. And when I was there,

Some of my closest friends were going through the process of kind of coming out and the journey that many of us make in our early 20s. And at first I was alongside them and supporting them and involved in LGBT kind of general advocacy at our university because it wasn't a small town. There was like still some like regressive attitudes, I'd say, towards LGBTQ identities. So we would do some advocacy in that area. And then I realized like, I'm actually really interested in this and like,

I think this is such a fascinating area that has to do with sociology and communities and health and all of that sort of thing. And then at the time I was went from being an ally to being like, maybe this is me. And like, this sounds a little familiar. So was also like going through my own process, which yeah, does that sound familiar to either of you when you're like, I'm just an ally? And then you're like, no, that's not what that is.

Sharilyn Wester (16:21)
Yeah.

told

stories. You know me. Yeah. I was the only queer kid in our town, openly queer kid in our town's best friend. I mean, you first open poly relationship when I was like 13, so yeah. Yeah, Cady what about you?

Cady Moore (16:32)
you

Which is just wild that is like gotta be a Sharilyn claim to fame like

Steph (16:47)
Yeah.

yeah.

Cady Moore (16:53)
I had a lot of queer experiences in my twenties, but didn't identify as bisexual or queer in any way because I felt like it wasn't real. Like it didn't count. It was just like,

Sharilyn Wester (17:05)
Yep.

Cady Moore (17:06)
fooling around, like trying new things. So my, I actually really only, now that I'm thinking about it, I really, wasn't prepared to answer this question clearly, which is fine. I didn't really start identifying as queer until I got on dating apps once I became non-monogamous. And I was like, I have to figure out how to identify myself, which means that I need to figure out what my identity actually is. So.

That was really the first time. So yeah, it was like 2020 where I was like, I guess, yeah. And like, I think

Sharilyn Wester (17:42)
This isn't just something for fun, this is maybe an orientation

Cady Moore (17:46)
So with that being said, no, I do not share that experience with you. But I know that there are a lot of people who have had that experience and I'm sure there will be listeners who absolutely relate to that story because it is so much easier to advocate for others than it is to advocate for yourself.

Steph (17:50)
you

Sharilyn Wester (18:06)
And I think, yeah, I think sometimes when you don't realize it in yourself unless you're enmeshed within that community and you recognize like parts of it or maybe some shared experiences with others as you grow closer to them that mirrors or reflects your own. And so for you, Steph, like as you're coming closer to the community and you were finding yourself like advocating more for rights on a personal level at this like very liberal arts area.

What prompted you into making it part of your career then and really integrating it with epidemiology?

Steph (18:41)
Yeah, okay, great

Also, the segues are great. You're bringing it back around. You're putting the reins on the horse, as we say in our hometown. Okay, yeah. So, as I said, I did a biology undergrad because I was like, think I want to be a clinician or a doctor. After undergrad, I worked for a year in like a clinical setting at a physio clinic. And I was like, oh, actually, I like I really hate this. And so it's kind of like, oh, like, I don't know what to do. And then

Cady Moore (18:45)
We're trying.

Sharilyn Wester (18:47)
Episode six now.

Steph (19:08)
magically in the year of our Lord 2014. So, okay, take yourself back for a moment. 2014, this is a time before TikTok and like Instagram is just kind of a thing. But Facebook at this time is not just like targeted ads and your grandma. It's like actually people on there and like not just people selling you stuff. So one day I was on Facebook and I got like this weird thing popped up and it was like a targeted ad, which I like didn't know about.

Cady Moore (19:16)
Wee wee wee wee wee.

Steph (19:38)
And it was like, University of Alberta School of Public Health. I was like, what is this?

then I clicked in and was looking at it, because I'd never heard of a Master of Public Health or Public Health as a degree before. Again, because it's way less common in Canada than the States. It was still kind of a newer thing back then. I was like, this sounds interesting. And I was scrolling through the faculty website and being like, this is cool. So I was like, sure, I'm going to.

apply for this and I went to the faculty office and was like, like, what are kind of the specializations you can take? They were like, well, there's like biostatistics and like global health and epidemiology. And I didn't really know what the differences were. Like to me, they're all kind of the same thing. And so I was like, sure, I'll apply for epidemiology. Not really knowing what it was. Yeah.

Sharilyn Wester (20:22)
Mm-hmm

Cady Moore (20:22)
Hey Steph, I'm

because I, like that is, I almost went to epidemiology for exactly that reason. Cause I was like, I don't know, this sounds the most fun. Like, like this sounds way more fun than like the other options. I don't get what it is. I don't really know what it means, but like, sure, let's do that. And it just makes me giggle.

Steph (20:34)
Yeah.

Yeah.

I think there's a part of me that maybe is more of a health promotion girly,

but like at the time I was like, sure, I'll just like apply for this one.

Cady Moore (20:51)
Yeah, this sounds right. Let's throw spaghetti at a wall.

Sharilyn Wester (20:51)
Mm-hmm.

Steph (20:53)
Yeah, then,

yeah, pretty much. And then I got in, which was great. And I was like, okay, cool. Like for my master's degree, I want to focus on LGBTQ health. And I got there and looked at the course list and was like, oh, they don't really talk that much about like diversity or intersectionality. And then my faculty advisor, I kind of told them my interests. I was like, yeah, I'm really interested in like LGBTQ health and like what that means holistically. And the person was like,

Well, I wrote a paper on HIV in 1989. So is that kind of what you're interested in? was like, that's not what I mean. But thank you. Yeah. But even through that, I was able to kind of like forge my own path, which I think is a nice thing about like a course based masters. I don't know if you know this, but you can kind of like do

Cady Moore (21:29)
Yeah

Steph (21:44)
like what you want, like it would be like, okay, you have to like write a paper, use apply this theory. And I'd be like, do it for everyone's like LGBT health. So I was kind of like expanding that. And then because I'm bossy, I like, well, I'm no, would say bossy, like, I went to the, I went to the faculty. Yeah, okay. Easy. Easy.

Cady Moore (21:53)
Cool. What a trailblazer.

Sharilyn Wester (22:00)
I would also, as the little sister, can advocate for that.

Cady Moore (22:01)
Bossy trailblazer.

Hahaha!

Steph (22:09)
In

my second year, I went to the faculty and I was like, hey, you have this class on social determinants of health. You never at all talk about gender or sexual orientation. And so I made them give, let me give a one hour lecture to the class about that. So yeah.

Cady Moore (22:22)
That is so

hot. That is some real boss bitch energy. She said, no, no, no, no, no, this is not going to fly.

Sharilyn Wester (22:24)
That's so you. That's, that's deaf.

Steph (22:25)
Hahaha

Yeah.

Yeah. like the good thing is like at that time, again, this is like the mid 2010s, like I feel like LGBTQ health as a part of public health, like was like an emerging conversation and it definitely has become more since then. And it's like a bit more included, I think, when people talk about public health, but there's still a long way to go. So, yeah, basically I just like did what I wanted in grad school.

Sharilyn Wester (22:31)
Yeah.

You literally applied

your special interest to your masters with epidemiology. I love that.

Steph (22:59)
Yeah, I did. Would recommend.

Yeah. Yeah, my special interest.

Cady Moore (23:03)
So was this before,

Same sex marriage was legalized in the United States in 2015. Was this before or after that?

Steph (23:11)
This was, I started, I was in grad school from 2015 to 2017. So it was like during that time in the States. Yeah, but in Canada, same sex marriage has been legalized since I think 2003 or 2005. So I would say in the 2010s, like there obviously was still a lot of work around like same sex rights, but like trans rights were really at the forefront in Canada during that time. And so I got to like liaise with it.

Cady Moore (23:18)
You're really really in it.

hate it here.

So we're like 10 years

behind Canada when it comes to caring for people.

Steph (23:41)
Well, you were.

You were 10 years, but we'll see. Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Cady Moore (23:46)
And now we're decades behind.

Well, we don't have to get there yet, you guys. For

Sharilyn Wester (23:54)
Yes.

Cady Moore (23:54)
further context, we're recording this barely a week after the inauguration of that one guy. And it is going to come up, but I'm not ready yet. So keep telling us. So you boss bitched way through your masters. And where have you landed now?

Sharilyn Wester (24:07)
Yeah.

Steph (24:12)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Cady Moore (24:16)
And can

you tell us more about what you're up to now in that intersection of LGBTQ2S plus and epidemiology?

Steph (24:24)
Mm hmm. So I spring. So I will say kind of quickly, like after grad school, I springboarded between a bunch of different jobs, now

I have a job where

I work for a jurisdictional health system in Canada, and I do mostly communicable disease epidemiology. So what that means is day to day, my team and I look at different communicable diseases in our province, and we essentially look at the trends and try and better understand what's happening in our jurisdiction and support

responses and figure out like what people should do what's working what's not working. So it's a really cool job. I really like it. And my area kind of the portfolio I work in is sexually transmitted and bloodborne infections. So that includes HIV, hepatitis, syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, which is sort of ironic because when I kind of first went into public health, I was like, I don't want my

career to just be like LGBT focused through like an HIV lens because unfortunately, lot of times, sexuality and like LGBTQ identities are thought of in public health

as like an HIV issue and not this like much broader picture. But I have ended up in the realm of STBBIs, but I do love it because I feel like it is a great way for me to apply both my like, like epi

Cady Moore (25:41)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Steph (25:56)
data-y side as well as my understanding of the LGBTQ context and my own lived experience. So yeah, it's a good way to kind of merge those right now.

Cady Moore (26:06)
Well, and I think the more people who are very into are working in that field and who are intentionally trying to separate the stigma of like, and this is a phrase that actually comes from, I teach a course on like the history of sex work and sex work in 2024 or 2025, what that looks like. And

the idea of like sex workers and gays being seen as best vectors for disease. And I'm doing quotation marks for those of you

aren't going to be watching the video of this. So for someone to be in the field who very specifically is like, this isn't the end all be all of public health when it comes to the queer community, we don't just need to talk about avoiding risk and we don't just need to talk about bloodborne pathogens and or not pathogens, bloodborne infections. what

did you use?

Steph (26:56)
Infections,

yeah.

Cady Moore (26:57)
Yeah, I was like, pathogens isn't right, right?

Having someone to advocate for a different lens and a different perspective on that I think is just as important as saying, I don't want to be stuck in this box and I would rather do something else. It's like, well, or you could be in the box and pushing everybody else to think outside of it and changing what the box looks like.

Steph (27:14)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. And that's been like my experience working both in like an activist space and now like within a bureaucracy. It's like we need people across the board who are like doing work from outside and inside. I do truly believe that. Like I think sometimes it's easy to like look down on people who are

working in bureaucracies and like these systems. But I do think that it is like the everyday work and us continuing to push things and like, even every day when I am like chatting about data and I correct someone when they're talking about sex instead of gender, like again, just like those little pushes and like chipping away at these larger issues, while hopefully we're seeing larger societal change, like I do find meaning in that and it can be hard sometimes but yeah, it's.

It's the fate I'm continuing to fate.

Cady Moore (28:10)
Absolutely.

Sharilyn Wester (28:12)
Mm-hmm. Did we want to do a quick break before we get into topic two?

Cady Moore (28:17)
You're so good. Yes, we absolutely we actually should take a quick break. So we're going to take a sponsor break for y'all and a bio break for us.

Sharilyn Wester (28:18)
Okay.

Yes.

Welcome back, welcome back. I hope you had a good bio break. Thank you to our sponsor. We don't have.

Cady Moore (28:40)
Ha!

mean, we do. I'm gonna put an ad there. I'm gonna put an ad for our Patreon or something. I don't know. We have sponsors? We're the sponsors. We have money. We don't have money. It's fine. It helps.

Sharilyn Wester (28:48)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Thanks so much to our... Yeah, we're sponsoring this. Help me, I'm poor.

So

where we left off with Steph was actually a really great point. She talked about advocacy within bureaucracy and how the two are often misconstrued or looked down upon and the work itself is quite important, obviously.

The organizations who have the dollars really need representatives behind them, pushing them to spend those dollars or to put attention on issues that might otherwise get overlooked. When it comes to general, when we're talking about truths and one thing that we've talked about a lot on this pod is misinformation and disinformation and how it can often be weaponized against our marginalized communities. We wanted to make sure that we asked you about the role of misinformation in shaping

public understanding of queer health. And if you can share more in your experience actually doing research and providing data to these people, how that impacts access to care,

especially for marginalized or rural communities. And we're talking about misinformation and disinformation.

Steph (29:59)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's interesting because I feel like those two words right now, at least in my world, are like so

to related to COVID. Because that was like such a big part of my and everyone's life for the last five years. But yeah, so these topics are important. And the thing is, talking about knowledge translation and risk communication has always been like something that's been recognized in public health. I don't think people understood risk communication.

Sharilyn Wester (30:09)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And can you explain those briefly?

Yes.

Steph (30:33)
Yeah, so risk communication is essentially like, how do we

about the benefits and risks and strengths and weaknesses of things to do with health, whether that's like, things that we're recommending people to do or telling them not to do? How do we actually like summarize complex information from like

statistical journals and findings into something that is palatable and makes sense for people and that they can actually use to make informed decisions. Cady does that kind of, did I, does that sound kind of right? Yeah.

Sharilyn Wester (31:04)
Right.

Cady Moore (31:05)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Sharilyn Wester (31:08)
I'm sure that's where some of the issue from my understanding, I know obviously both of you are my public health hotties, but from my understanding is when you do generalize information or try and summarize information, that way then you also get a sound bite that people take as the full picture and are able to then flip it just on that generalized statement without doing further research or without doing more investigating on their own. So continuing Steph what kind of impacts does that kind of stuff have on impacting

Cady Moore (31:29)
Mmm.

Mm.

Sharilyn Wester (31:37)
how queer health is shaped.

Steph (31:40)
Yeah, so I'll talk about one thing that I did in grad school, which I think is a good picture of this. So when we were doing some risk communication work, the topic that I chose to do, other people were talking about, like, how do we talk about the risks of vaping back before everyone was vaping? And how do we talk about the risks of like...

being online all the time. And the topic I chose was risk communication specifically to lesbian and queer women around cervical cancer risks and particularly HPV. So a lot of studies have shown that

queer women because they oftentimes lack access to health education and don't have queer specific sex education, that they have this like skewed understanding of their risks when it comes to like.

risks surrounding sex, like infections and that sort of thing. Particularly many queer women, especially who are maybe a generation or 10 years or so older than kind of my age group, there's this persistent belief that, belief that women, queer women couldn't transmit HPV. And because of that, so many queer women were not getting screened for cervical cancer. Not only that, but there was clinicians

Cady Moore (32:51)
Mm-hmm.

Steph (33:00)
who also didn't know, they hadn't been taught about queer sexual health. so they were also exactly. so people would be doing, physicians would be doing screenings and they wouldn't be recommending cervical cancer screening and pap smears to queer women. yeah, exactly. And even though research was more and more showing that this was an issue and queer women can...

Cady Moore (33:03)
because doctors don't get sex ed either, which is crazy.

They're like, you're gay, so you can't be pregnant. Like, it's fine. We don't need to examine you.

Steph (33:26)
transmit HPV between each other. That wasn't trickling down to medical education and to kind of like in community education and awareness. So part of what I was looking into was in our, so online, if you were to like Google like cervical cancer screening or pap smears near me or whatever, there's usually like your health authority will have a page that kind of talks about the risks.

My suggestion was that we actually need to specify, instead of just saying anyone who's sexually active, I was like, it is important to specify queer women as well and like actually use terminology that reflects our communities so that we see ourselves in risk communication and messaging and it actually like will make sense and start to mitigate some of these existing beliefs that are already in our community. Yeah.

And Cady, like this totally ties into what you do and like having to like do the sex education work and actually like banish some of these myths.

Sharilyn Wester (34:22)
I've been saying for years that you guys would be good friends because you guys are so similar. I'm just saying.

Steph (34:25)
Hahaha.

Cady Moore (34:28)
It's, it's true. And the minute you

talking about this, my, like, my, like lit up inside because I was like, this is where we talk about queer sex ed and the importance of having sex ed that is specifically for queer folks. And that is not upholding these like cishet norms that we are taught about sex. And I mean, we could just start with comprehensive sex ed as a whole being something available, but like, that's really not enough because we're not.

Steph (34:36)
Yeah.

Cady Moore (34:56)
we're not addressing the years, the decades and centuries of stigma that exists and misinformation that exists about what it means to be sexually active as a queer

I also lit up because I, and I shamelessly plug this particular like protective, this particular method of barrier protection. I shout out to everyone about it. I give it away for free, even though it's kind of expensive.

Sharilyn Wester (35:25)
Is it the internal

condoms? Okay, I was gonna say, I know we do. I was like, condom mule

Cady Moore (35:27)
No, I love internal condoms also, but you're so good. You know me so well. But yes, also, internal condoms are amazing and you can get them for free

through your insurance if you go onto the FC2 website and they will get delivered to your door. I get 36 every three months and I'm not even having that much sex. anyway, not the point. No, but a brand called Lorals makes latex underwear that can be worn instead of dental dams because people don't want to use dental dams, both because it's not really talked about.

they were not taught how to use them and frankly they like get in the way and you have to hold them in place. So like they're just a pain in the ass. So you started talking and I was like, queer sex ed and an opportunity to shout out Lorals This is amazing. I'll put those in the show notes though for y'all. yeah, like can you tell us more about your experience? Because I mean my experience in queer sex ed is really only the lot over the last like three or four years.

and you've been doing this for like a decade. So can you

share more about the benefits of inclusive and non-heteronormative sex education for everyone, but specifically for queer folks? Like what it means to have affirmative sex education for queer folks.

Steph (36:38)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so I think like

and Cady, this will probably make you smile it's like we do need queer sex education, but we need better sex education across the board for the whole population. So in the US and Canada and many other places in the world, there are rising rates of sexually transmitted bloodborne infections. So we're seeing rising syphilis, rising rates of congenital syphilis. And what it comes down to a lot of times when you work directly with cases or are looking through notes about people's understanding of like how they got infected, is people don't think these are issues

Cady Moore (36:53)
Yeah.

Steph (37:15)
anymore. Like when you talk, when I talk about syphilis and say, I'm mostly working syphilis, people say syphilis, like, isn't that a thing that like sailors got in the 1930s? And I'm like, no, like this is like, there's like thousands of cases, like, like, like public health can't keep up with all of the STI cases we're seeing right now. So again,

Cady Moore (37:16)
Mm-hmm.

That's still a thing?

And I'll put an aside

here sharing some facts about the rates of syphilis, both in Canada and the United States, because I love an aside and I think it's important that we give people actual stats here. Not to be scary, but kind of to be scary. You guys have to remember that it's a real problem. Anyway.

Steph (37:46)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, no, I love that. I love

like the little bits where it's like science, but data, you're doing a data corner of course.

Cady Moore (37:56)
Here's the science.

Sharilyn Wester (37:58)
TAKE IT!

Cady Moore (38:02)
So syphilis cases in the United States have actually surged to levels that have been unseen since the 1950s. Between 2018 and 2022, reported cases increased by 80%, climbing from 115,000 to over 207,000. Most alarmingly, congenital syphilis, where the infection is passed from mother to baby during pregnancy, has seen a tenfold increase since 2012, with 3,700 cases reported in 2022.

This resurgence underscores the critical need for enhanced public health initiatives, including better access to sex education, STI testing, treatment, and education on prevention strategies.

Steph (38:43)
Yeah. So it's like, again, even in like the general population, you are doing air quotes, because like, what does that even mean? And like, as a queer person, I am in the general population. Yeah, it's like, so many people don't actually understand, like, the

Cady Moore (38:51)
Yeah.

Steph (39:00)
not only the benefits of having sex, also the risks involved and things that they can do to keep themselves healthy and how to keep themselves healthy, what it means to protect yourself. so, yeah, it's hard to see that and just realize that there are so many gaps in sex education, not only for people before their sexual debut is what the literature term is.

Cady Moore (39:24)
Yeah, we love sexual debut.

Steph (39:26)
Yeah, so not only for people kind of when they're in their formative years, but also throughout the life course. You know, something that you maybe have one class on when you're 13 or 14 is probably not gonna really help you when you're in a situation and don't know what to do when you're in your 20s or 30s or 60s. yeah, sex ed throughout the life course,

Cady Moore (39:42)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sharilyn Wester (39:45)
Well, and Steph, one point I think that you make, and this is going to be question to both of you, is talking about age inclusion as well when you're talking about people who might have their sexual debut in their 60s or even sex just looks different when you're in your 60s versus maybe when you're in your early 20s. So I think one question for both of you, especially now that you, again, also pose this issue of like it is clearly an issue in gaps of education is,

how can sex education evolve to be more inclusive, especially in areas with limited access to resources? of your perspective is on that.

Steph (40:18)
Yeah, so I can kind of talk from my experience and like a data-y bit. It's when, so for me, when, you do, like if you look at any government publications or research publications that are looking at population health or like say STI rates in a population, they usually will bin people's ages in certain ways. So they'll say like 18 to 25, 26 to 35, blah, blah, blah, blah, then 60 plus.

Sharilyn Wester (40:42)
And like 40 plus,

yeah.

Steph (40:43)
And

yeah, and it's just this big other thing. And for me, it is important to actually look into those differences and see because sexual health and those concerns don't go away just because someone hits an arbitrary age. And I think if we, we,

as epidemiologists sometimes do ourselves a disservice when we bin anyone over 60 or over 65 into one category and don't actually look at that. I think it makes us miss things. It makes us not really understand what might be going on in those populations or if there are issues or opportunities to reach people in those age groups in certain areas who the data may show actually do need direct content and some additional support.

Cady, what do think?

Cady Moore (41:29)
Well, and

that's the first thing that I was going to say is, and God, this is true of so many things, but really like stop making assumptions. Stop making assumptions about who is having sex and who isn't. Stop making assumptions about what all people know versus all people don't.

Because when we're assuming that certain folks are having certain types of sex, we're leaving out the people who are maybe having different types of sex. If we're assuming that this population isn't,

or that this whole population is.

And so I just, in general, I think that a lot of people, including myself, like we're all guilty of it, make assumptions. And that gets in the way of being able to be curious and to question what narratives we're receiving and what information we're receiving. And I want, yeah, and I want to give you a chance to respond to that.

Steph (42:13)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

I just think it's this issue

assumptions. So it's like, if we have misinformation and assumptions that exist in the general population, and among everyone, that also means that your policymakers and decision makers are going to have those same assumptions. And so it's like, how can we make effective public policy and public health programming if there's all these things that people just assume to be true and aren't willing to actually look into and try and explore and like, listen to what they're hearing and not what just they think.

Cady Moore (42:28)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm, totally. this is a kind of a can of worms, but one of the things also is, and I know this is something that's really important to you. this is, mean, technically this was one of our bonus questions and we probably don't have time, but whatever, I'm gonna bring it up anyway, because fuck it, this is our podcast. Looking at who is funding the information that we're getting and the statistics that we're getting. So when we're talking about making assumptions, it's also being critical of like,

Well, the information that I'm getting who is that information coming from? What does that information actually entail if I look at this critically who is this leaving out? Because it is definitely leaving out someone because we know that inherently our systems are racist and they are Homophobic and they are all Yeah, like like inclusivity is not built into the systems that were built to oppress people. So like

Sharilyn Wester (43:36)
inclusive.

Cady Moore (43:43)
we are not getting access to all of the information in a way that is actually representative of what's going on. And so I think that is also a factor. And we could go on about media literacy also, but instead of media literacy, let's talk about critically looking at the data that we receive and understanding what barriers are existing in understanding that data. And I know that's something you're really passionate about, so I will let you.

take off with it because I think it's really important.

Steph (44:14)
Yeah, so I think I even go a level behind that. And a big thing I think about and talk about a lot is measurement.

And how do we actually know what we know? Epistemology, Sharilyn one of your favorite words. So how do we know what we know? And for me as an epidemiologist, it's hard because I have to think a lot of time about like,

Cady Moore (44:26)
You

Sharilyn Wester (44:27)
Yes.

Steph (44:34)
how do we actually find, like how do we make statistics? for example, like how do we actually know how many syphilis cases there are? If we're counting something as a case, what does that mean? And like who potentially is that excluding? So I think about measurement all of the time. It's like in my brain constantly. And so for me, it's like looking at statistics and facts and also trying to think of like, okay, like.

What are the actual limitations of this and like, who is in this capturing? So for me, like an area that I have worked in previously, so I used to work as a trainer in essentially training other epidemiologists on different topics.

and kind of like continued professional development. And one course that I really loved getting to develop was about LGBTQ epidemiology. And a lot of that course was about measurement. So like, how do we actually measure what someone's sexual

is? And like, what does that mean? And how does that change over time? And what does that tell us? How do we act? Exactly, it's not just one to six scale and like, it changes over time. And like, when we see like sex and gender

Cady Moore (45:34)
It's not just a one to six scale, Kinsey.

Steph (45:42)
sex and gender on a forum and male and female, like how do people actually interpret that? How do we actually accurately capture that? And so that's like something very basic I think about all the time. So when I see statistics broken down by male and female, I immediately have so many questions. I'm talking, what about intersex people? How are trans people captured in this data? How are non-binary people captured? Like, yeah, that's like the core of my everyday voices in my head. Yeah, and so

Cady Moore (46:00)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Steph (46:11)
Like even Cady, when you were talking about having to like identify yourself on the on dating apps and like saying what you are. Yeah. It's like, do those categories make sense to people? Are those accurately is that one term accurately capturing like your your sexual orientation, your identity, your expression, which are all different things like, yeah. So yeah. So mostly I just like spiral about that and actually go backwards and say do.

Cady Moore (46:15)
dating apps,

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, not ultimately we're talking about humans. Like we were talking about

human beings and every like God, was talking about this in couples therapy today. Shout out to therapists. everybody has their own interpretation of the world around them. Everybody

Steph (46:44)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Cady Moore (46:52)
living in their own reality and in their own truth. And that is going to look different from what somebody else's look like. And so when we are making, it's the same reason that standardized tests are fucky. It's like,

You cannot possibly expect to gather information on human beings who are such complex individuals and just get that from a scantron. Like you're just, you can't do it. It's not, it's unreasonable. And I mean, I might be a

in STEM, but I've got some beef with it because I am a woman who stems with my little clicky.

Sharilyn Wester (47:23)
You're also a woman who stims.

Exactly.

Cady Moore (47:31)
Like, yeah, that's, this is a terrible segue and a segue nonetheless to another break. So we're gonna take, I gotta go, I gotta go click my clicker.

Sharilyn Wester (47:42)
Guys I gotta go stim! Guys I gotta go

chew my drywall real quick, I'm sorry! I gotta go rip up the floorboards and run through my open floor plan.

Cady Moore (47:50)
You

my God, that's how I broke my best friend's nose. It was an open floor plan and running in the house. Just side story, shout out Rachel if you're listening. I'm really sorry for that. I know we've gotten over it, but all right, let's take a break y'all. BRB, can you hear me, hear

Steph (48:19)
I guess first of all, I'm gonna use my NPR voice for this.

Cady Moore (48:20)
Okay, all right.

Wait, wait, I haven't welcomed us back yet.

Sharilyn Wester (48:28)
You're like, I'm ready to fucking spiral. Is this mic hot?

Cady Moore (48:33)
All right, welcome back everyone. We had a very fun, silly little stimmy break and I'm going to welcome us back.

Sharilyn Wester (48:41)
I did chew my drywall.

Cady Moore (48:43)
She chewed

her drywall. It was really fun to watch. She kind of turned me on. I didn't understand it, but whew, whatever.

Sharilyn Wester (48:48)
You

Cady Moore (48:50)
okay. We don't have to understand to love it.

Sharilyn Wester (48:52)
Beavercore!

Sorry.

Sorry.

Cady Moore (48:55)
And I wanted to

welcome us all back with a very important question for

What makes a carrot a carrot?

Steph (49:04)
Well, I guess there's many schools of

on this. One, does the carrot think that it's a carrot?

Cady Moore (49:08)
You

Steph (49:13)
Two, do the public think it's a carrot? And would a normal, like would a person just walking by and looking at it think it's a carrot? Three, would a scientist who breaks down its molecular structure think it's a carrot? And four, would a cat think it's a carrot?

So mean, many schools of thought would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Cady Moore (49:34)
This sounds like a euphemism for

people.

Sharilyn Wester (49:39)
Yes, when we're talking about,

which is I think also a great add-on to what Cady was talking about is how we all have these own like universes of perspective and how we view something. How do we know a carrot is a carrot?

Cady Moore (49:54)
love that so much.

We don't. Like we don't. It's all made up. It's all fake. We live in a simulation.

Steph (50:00)
Mm-hmm.

Sharilyn Wester (50:02)
So how do we quantify

Steph (50:02)
Truly.

Sharilyn Wester (50:03)
that in data when it comes to public health stuff?

Steph (50:06)
So we would use different measurement tools. Part of it, I think, is defining first what is a carrot So we'd make a case definition that says if x and y are true, then this is a carrot. If those are not true, this does not meet the case definition of a carrot. So really, but then again, who gets to choose? Who makes the definitions?

Sharilyn Wester (50:24)
Okay.

Cady Moore (50:28)
Yeah, because if we did like long and orange, like

traffic cones are also long and orange. If we did grows in the ground and is orange, not all carrots are orange. no, there's rainbow carrots.

Steph (50:33)
Yeah.

Exactly. this is like,

when you're talking about traffic cones, this is also like the thing with AI, you know, when you do those things that it's like selective, if this is in the picture, I'm like, how does AI know if it's in the picture? How do I know if it's in the picture?

Sharilyn Wester (50:56)
Is the traffic cone only the orange part? I see the little tiny like edge of the traffic cone, little vertices of it in the like part of the box underneath it.

Cady Moore (50:56)
that do.

Yes, yes.

Steph (51:01)
Mm-hmm.

Cady Moore (51:03)
Yep.

And I always fail. I'm like, no, there's definitely a bike wheel in this. Like, like that's a corner of a bike. Why aren't you counting it? Damn.

Sharilyn Wester (51:07)
Yes.

Steph (51:09)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sharilyn Wester (51:10)
Right, right.

Cady Moore (51:11)
us into some sillies? It feels like it's about time. I'm starting to feel the sillies.

Sharilyn Wester (51:14)
Yes.

Yes. Well, absolutely. Well, and first, I want

thank you, Steph, for such great information and Cady, for your input. I love just being able to volley these questions. Again, our group chat in discussing this episode is called Public Health Hotties because you both are my public health hotties. So on that note, Steph, we famously, as you are a fan of the show, know that we love musicals. We're musical theater gorleys. I would say I got my musical music theatricality

Cady Moore (51:21)
Hehehe.

Sharilyn Wester (51:43)
probably influenced heavily by you. So could you

your top three musicals for us?

Steph (51:52)
Okay, I guess. No.

Cady Moore (51:52)
They don't have to be in any order if you don't want to. I find that

Sharilyn Wester (51:55)
Yeah, we try not to rank things

Cady Moore (51:55)
really stressful.

Sharilyn Wester (51:56)
like really like for best to last, but just three.

Cady Moore (52:00)
It's really hard.

Steph (52:01)
Okay, but my first question is like, what are you counting as a musical? we saying like, stage musicals? Okay, thank you. Thank you for your time.

Cady Moore (52:04)
Do stage musicals? Yeah, yes. I'm glad that you

asked that question because I regret my rankings from our first episode because I wish I had just kept it to stage musicals. But anyway, not the point. Yeah, I love Disney. Don't get me wrong. I'm not a Disney adult, but like I am.

Steph (52:17)
Mm.

Sharilyn Wester (52:17)
And not like Disney, yeah, gotcha.

Steph (52:19)
Yeah. Yeah.

So I'm secretly, well, I'm not really secret. I'm like kind of a recovering theater kid. my undergrad, my...

Sharilyn Wester (52:29)
This is not secret.

Cady Moore (52:33)
It's secret

for me. So much about you is a secret.

Steph (52:36)
So I was a theater kid growing up. And then because I went to a liberal arts university for my undergrad, my major was biology, but my minor was theater. And so, yeah. Yeah.

Cady Moore (52:46)
Oh, fuck yeah. What a dream. I had

a Hebrew minor. That is so useless. Why? An Irish history major and a Hebrew minor. Yeehaw, sister. Anyway, tell us about your theater experience. Sorry. That's just so much more fun.

Steph (53:00)
Okay,

three stage musicals in no particular order are Sound of Music, Chicago, and Rent.

Cady Moore (53:08)
Amazing choices. Yeah, we do share one for Rent Though, I need to, we need to talk about Sound of Music because it should have been online for sure. And I have a sibling story that if my sister listens to this episode, she will feel very vindicated. My sister came up to me at a holiday event this last year and she said, Cady, can you tell my spouse what...

Steph (53:10)
Yes. Yes.

Sharilyn Wester (53:10)
You both share one for Rent

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Cady Moore (53:36)
what roles did I play when we performed Sound of Music for Mom and Dad? And I was like, well, she's like, well, actually, first, what did you play? I was like, I was Maria. And she's like, OK, and who was I? And I was like, Gretel. She goes, was like, Kurt, and? Brigitta, and? And she was like, yes, I was all of the siblings. So I made my sister play all of the Von Trapp siblings except for Liesl because I wanted to be her. And then I was Maria.

Sharilyn Wester (53:55)
Luisa.

Yeah

Yeah, yeah, cuz she was the beautiful...

Liesl you were the hot girls and you made her play all the annoying kids.

Cady Moore (54:11)
And I

Steph (54:12)
shit

Cady Moore (54:13)
just... the older siblinghood is really a power trip sometimes.

Steph (54:15)
Mm-hmm.

Sharilyn Wester (54:18)
Yeah, Steph,

can you share a little bit about our Sound of Music Lore? It's extensive. my gosh, I've never shared this with anyone.

Steph (54:21)
So it's so good.

I think, okay, so in my mind share, the main thing is like our grandma, our paternal grandma, she like kind of looks like Julie Andrews and she like kind of has this like, like late kind of like Scottishy accent from growing up. And so the way she says things are like kind of Julie Andrews reminiscent. And for me, when I was 16, I like did

Sharilyn Wester (54:33)
does.

Steph (54:46)
Most of our dad's siblings live in Europe. And so my grandma and I had gone to Europe for summer to see them. And we went to West End, essentially London's version of Broadway, and we saw the sound of music. But the issue was my grandma sang so loudly through the whole thing. And we're at West End, and my grandma just would not. And I got so mad at her. And it's funny now, but I was so embarrassed because she was so loud.

Cady Moore (55:07)
my God.

Yeah, I would, how old were you?

Steph (55:15)
I was 16.

Cady Moore (55:17)
I would have been mortified. I'm so sorry.

Steph (55:18)
Yeah, like people were

turning around and looking but she was just having the best time and like, yeah.

Sharilyn Wester (55:23)
We grew up watching

that movie. We would go to our grandma's house in the summers. Our parents would send us out there. And she only had four or five VHS tapes and one of those was Sound of Music. So every year, throughout the summer, we would just constantly watch Sound of Music. Our grandma would join, we would sing along, we would do musical theater nights when our dad would come for the summer as well with all of our uncles and aunts and we would all sing the Von Trapps.

Steph (55:49)
Yeah, someone would get an acoustic guitar, my grandma would get her ukulele, and we'd have a jam. I think, I'm sure we played it twice,

Cady Moore (55:54)
And you would play Edelweiss?

Sharilyn Wester (55:57)
Mm-hmm.

Cady Moore (55:58)
I sing that often to our cat. because, but I say every morning you meep me. I change the words.

Steph (56:06)
That's

Sharilyn Wester (56:07)
that's

so sweet. Yeah, Edelweiss is a banger, certified banger.

Steph (56:10)
really great.

Cady Moore (56:12)
It really is

Steph (56:13)
Yeah.

Cady Moore (56:13)
it really got now I'm gonna am I really I'm about to watch that movie tonight. What the fuck? Um,

Steph (56:18)
You're

Cady Moore (56:18)
we do have a shared love of rent, and I love that for us, but.

Steph (56:22)
Hmm.

Sharilyn Wester (56:24)
Speaking

of shared loves, this is a question for both of you. What is your favorite Princess Diaries book? And that specifically means...

Steph (56:33)
you

Cady Moore (56:34)
You mean the Royal Diaries, right? Yaaaas!

Sharilyn Wester (56:36)
The Royal

Steph (56:36)
Yeah

Sharilyn Wester (56:37)
Diaries, these

ones.

Cady Moore (56:40)
Yeah, I sent that one in particular I sent to Sharilyn for her girls.

Cady Moore (56:46)
Okay, so if you grew up in the late 90s or early 2000s, chances are that the Royal Diaries and the Dear America series were on your bookshelf. Both series were published by Scholastic and they brought history to life through the eyes of young girls living in different time periods. The books that Sherri Lynn is holding up is specifically from the Royal Diaries, which launched in 1999 and it gave a peek into the imagined private thoughts of historical princesses.

So the original series ended in the early 2000s, but Dear America had such a devoted following that Scholastic actually rebooted it in 2010. So very impactful books, obviously, for all three of us.

Sharilyn Wester (57:29)
Yeah, I have like four or five of them now and I look through them all the time. I love them.

Steph (57:34)
pulling up the list.

Sharilyn Wester (57:36)
Cause we had a bunch and I remember I loved the Marie Antoinette one. I loved, I think Mary, Queen of Scots and I loved the Anastasia one.

Steph (57:41)
Mm-hmm.

Cady Moore (57:45)
feel like my Marie Antoinette

is missing. I am legit getting up to see if it's still here and I don't care.

Sharilyn Wester (57:50)
Yes, the Mary Queen of Scots one I loved. love yeah, Marie Antoinette. Cleopatra.

Steph (57:52)
Yeah.

Those books

ran so that American Girl dolls could run even more.

Cady Moore (58:04)
My Marie Antoinette is

missing!

Sharilyn Wester (58:07)
So Cady did you hear what Steph just said? She said that those books walked so that the American Girl dolls could run. And I just pictured an American Girl doll running and I was like,

Cady Moore (58:08)
No, I didn't. I'm sorry. What did you say?

Steph (58:15)
Yeah.

Sharilyn Wester (58:17)
We didn't have them!

Steph (58:19)
It's not a thing

Cady Moore (58:20)
okay, when you were talking about being a Prairie Girl, I absolutely was about to be like, so are you a Kirsten?

Steph (58:20)
for us.

Sharilyn Wester (58:25)
We were not raised with American Girl Dolls as a thing. In our culture, right?

Steph (58:26)
That's not, that's not our, that's not our culture. our culture.

Cady Moore (58:28)
Well yeah, because you're Canadian girls.

You couldn't have American girls, you were Canadian. It's against the rules. Were there Canadian girl dolls?

Steph (58:33)
That's well true. We had, we had, Sharilyn remember those, La Senza girl dolls?

Sharilyn Wester (58:33)
Exactly.

No, I remember, they weren't La Senza girls. They was groovy girls. So it was like, so we had groovy girls, which were like, I loved them. Do you remember? I had like a tent, I had a house, and they weren't like actual dolls. They were like stuffed, like plush dolls. And I would make my dad buy them for me all the time, but they were so expensive.

Steph (58:46)
Perfect girls.

Cady Moore (58:48)
We're gonna put this in the Instagram post for sure.

Steph (58:58)
Yeah. my god.

I forgot it was.

Cady Moore (59:04)
Wait, I remember these.

We had these too. Yeah, we totally agree, we girls.

Sharilyn Wester (59:05)
You had Groovy Girls? I fucking loved Groovy

Steph (59:08)
We love giving love.

Sharilyn Wester (59:09)
Girls.

I loved Groovy Girls.

Cady Moore (59:11)
We'll include a picture of our groovy girls. Okay, sorry. wait. So Steph, so Sharilyn you liked Marie Antoinette and Mary Queen of Scots. Cleopatra, Anastasia. Yeah, same. Yeah, those, damn. Those three plus Marie Antoinette. But I don't know where my Marie Antoinette is and I am devastated. Like, it's okay. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. Am I going to go on thrift books and buy myself one tonight?

Sharilyn Wester (59:15)
We didn't have a, yeah, I had the stuffed version.

Steph (59:20)
Uh-huh. I liked... Yeah, I liked Elizabeth I, Cleopatra, and Anastasia.

Sharilyn Wester (59:22)
and Cleopatra and Anastasia.

no.

Cady Moore (59:41)
Probably. Yeah, and I have all my other favorites. Because yeah, it was Elizabeth I, it was Cleopatra, and it was Marie Antoinette and Anastasia were my favorites. I have a Romanov hyperfixation, but it's not a hyperfixation because it's been my whole damn life. yeah, we love a tragedy.

Sharilyn Wester (59:42)
Yeah, because I think they stopped publishing those books now.

Yeah. Yeah. my gosh.

Same. my gosh, again, so many similarities.

Steph (59:59)
same.

Sharilyn Wester (1:00:03)
we let the, the, I know. And then let's popcorn read the Princess Diaries books. Okay, so for both of you, those were yours. Steph is a Canadian. I'm always interested in this one. What's your favorite American restaurant and your favorite American city?

Cady Moore (1:00:04)
Guys, let's watch Anastasia.

I'm in.

Steph (1:00:19)
Firstly, I like how you're like Steph as a Canadian. I'm like, girl, you also are.

Sharilyn Wester (1:00:23)
I know, I'm

Cady Moore (1:00:24)
You are also

Sharilyn Wester (1:00:24)
like,

Cady Moore (1:00:24)
a Canadian.

Sharilyn Wester (1:00:25)
I know, I've just lived here for so long now. I've spent all my adult life here, so it's like, I just wanna see for you just being a little like coming and visiting.

Steph (1:00:28)
Ha

So what's my favorite restaurant?

Sharilyn Wester (1:00:36)
American restaurant, yeah. It could be fast food, could be sit-down.

Steph (1:00:38)
Yeah,

I have to say I haven't been there actually in so long on any of the times we visited but Sonic holds a special place in my heart because when Sharilyn was living in North Dakota and she was really pregnant, she was like obsessed with their this this like grape slushie that had like pop rocks in it and like literally every night we'd go to Sonic and get a snack and I just like yeah yeah and I just always think about that and even

Cady Moore (1:00:47)
Mm.

Sharilyn Wester (1:01:00)
But I couldn't drink it, I had to eat it with a spoon. Pregnancy's weird, guys, I don't know.

Cady Moore (1:01:04)
Yeah, I don't have fallopian tubes.

Sharilyn Wester (1:01:07)
Yeah.

Steph (1:01:08)
Even as you keep moving further south and taking me to like Cracker Barrel and all the other places, Sonic is still it for me.

Sharilyn Wester (1:01:12)
I'm spayed.

Cady Moore (1:01:16)
Dude, Cracker Barrel.

Cracker Barrel's... Cracker Barrel, chicken... The chicken soup with biscuits. What the fuck is that called? Chicken and Dumplings! Boom, boom. I was like, there's a word here. Dude, yeah. Fuck. But Cracker Barrel politics are probably messy, right? Like, they're bad, right? Okay.

Sharilyn Wester (1:01:17)
Cracker Barrel fucks.

Chicken and dumplings. so good. Yes. Okay. What's your favorite American city?

Steph (1:01:32)
The other thing I love.

Sharilyn Wester (1:01:36)
Yeah.

Steph (1:01:37)
Yeah,

they can't be good. Yeah. The other thing I love is Dunkin Donuts, which I know is basic, but I feel like their coffee is like infused with sugar. so it just like and they have the accoutrement on top of the coffee. We're talking whipped cream full cookies. Yeah.

Cady Moore (1:01:41)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sharilyn Wester (1:01:49)
Yeah, when Steph came to visit recently,

we did get a little dunks. We had a dunks run. Yeah, we went to see Baby Girl the next morning. We went on a dunks run. It was like the best day of my life.

Steph (1:01:54)
Mm-hmm.

Cady Moore (1:01:55)
fuck yeah.

Steph (1:02:00)
I'm still sad we didn't go

to the furnace museum, but that's neither here nor there.

Cady Moore (1:02:04)
The what museum?

Steph (1:02:06)
In Birmingham, Alabama, they have a furnace museum. And so my big plan for the day, I was like, we're going to go get like boiled peanuts and then go to the furnace museum. And I was so excited. And then Sharilyn was like, can we just like go to the art museum and Starbucks? I was like, I guess.

Sharilyn Wester (1:02:19)
Yeah,

Cady Moore (1:02:20)
I guess fine, whatever.

Sharilyn Wester (1:02:21)
I guess fine, but it's okay. It was an incredible art museum, by the way. Shout out Birmingham.

What's your favorite American city Steph?

Cause you've been to so many.

Steph (1:02:32)
I,

yeah, I've been lucky enough to travel for work a bit and then just like to see Sharilyn a bunch of times. I really like San Francisco. San Francisco is a good one. Portland is like special to me. It's like such an interesting place. I've to New York City. Yes. And I really love New York City too. I think it has like this, not being American, it does have this like special like mythology, I think. And like this like, yeah. Yeah.

Cady Moore (1:02:41)
Mm-hmm.

Sharilyn Wester (1:02:41)
Yeah.

Cady Moore (1:02:44)
Ugh, their food scene is so good.

Sharilyn Wester (1:02:57)
I've said this, yes. I haven't

been yet, but I'm like yearning to go. No, and I wanna go, see my dream, it's literally always been on my bucket list. I wanna go and I wanna spend like four days and just go to museums and just eat. All I wanna do is go to museums.

Cady Moore (1:03:01)
You've never been to New York?

Mm-hmm. Yes, you will have to. will need

two days minimum for the Met

Sharilyn Wester (1:03:16)
Right, exactly. Like I wanna like that and like natural history, like there's so many great museums and so many great works of art that I really wanna see that are like only housed in major cities like that. like, it's been on my bucket list. I really wanna go like so badly. Cool.

Steph (1:03:29)
Yeah.

Cady Moore (1:03:30)
Okay, I hate New York, so let's go. Because

I will love it with you.

Sharilyn Wester (1:03:35)
Yes.

Steph (1:03:35)
Yeah, you

guys have a good time. And then New Orleans, like I loved New Orleans. I want to go back and spend way more time there. Yeah, I'm sad we didn't go to the swamp.

Sharilyn Wester (1:03:41)
we have to go. Yeah, we have to. it's like, go to go to swamps.

Cady Moore (1:03:42)
Gotta go to the swamp. Go to

the swamp.

Sharilyn Wester (1:03:45)
Yeah. And we actually listened to a really interesting podcast.

Cady Moore (1:03:49)
podcast episode about

gators? Wait, really? Wait, was it about alligators?

Sharilyn Wester (1:03:52)
Not about Gators.

Not about Gators. It's actually about how Yellow Fever in particular shaped the like cultural and like political arena where New Orleans was like coming up, especially like... Yes, it's a JVN one. Yes, it was so, so interesting.

Cady Moore (1:04:05)
Send me that podcast, please, because that is also one of my hyper fixations. I read a book in

elementary school about yellow fever called 1793, and it was really good. so because of that, I have an interest in mosquito-borne illnesses. I have like three different books on my shelf about that.

Sharilyn Wester (1:04:18)
Yes!

Yes, I know

it was a really great marriage of like some like epidemiology like born illnesses from like Steph's you know, wheelhouse and me just like liking history and all of that like Steph does too. But yeah, that was amazing.

Cady Moore (1:04:32)
Yeah.

Send me the episode, I wanna

Sharilyn Wester (1:04:40)
Cady, do you have any sillies that you want to ask before we wrap things up?

Cady Moore (1:04:44)
I want to know what waffle Wednesday is.

Steph (1:04:50)
So Waffle Wednesday is an idea that my friend came to me with. So

I have a group of about four or five of us who are still from high school. We're still tight, even though we live in different provinces and different countries. We still like have a group chat and like chat quite a bit. And she said, I saw this TikTok about how people are doing this thing called waffle Wednesday, where every Wednesday you just like send a short like video to your friends, like updating them on your week and like what you're doing. And then it like prompts discussion. And so since November, my like group of high school girls

have been doing this and it's honestly so cute. It's like, each of us will take a minute out of our day, like pop the front camera on, be like, hey, blah, blah, blah, this is my weekend, this is something funny that's happened. And it's like such a nice way to connect. And it like, kind of feels like it's like a TikTok almost, because it's just like short form and it's like your friend just like talking directly to you. But it's just like been so special and like such a nice way to connect with my friends and just like literally hear like.

not just like when I see them maybe once a year, what's been new with you, but like getting to hear their week to week, like who at work is annoying them and like what is the thing that their husband did that they're mad at and like stuff like that. So it's really sweet and I'd recommend it to any friend group.

Cady Moore (1:06:08)
so wholesome, I love it. Ugh, I love girlhood.

Sharilyn Wester (1:06:08)
I that.

Steph (1:06:09)
Yeah.

Sharilyn Wester (1:06:12)
Love girlhood. my goodness. I love being a queer ADHD drywall chewing woman. American. Yes. All of those things. Beavercore! I'm so sorry. Sometimes I get like compulsions like that. Like those are my stims where I just need to like... Anyway. On that note, thank you so much for joining us, Steph. You obviously are a fount of knowledge.

Steph (1:06:13)
I love being a woman.

Cady Moore (1:06:15)
Me too.

Steph (1:06:18)
Monster?

Cady Moore (1:06:21)
Beavercore.

That's an intrusive thought. Perfect segue!

Sharilyn Wester (1:06:38)
I am perpetually in awe of you. I am your biggest fan, your number one fan. I'll never stop screaming about how much I love you.

Cady Moore (1:06:46)
And if anybody tries to claim they're number one, she will fight them.

Sharilyn Wester (1:06:50)
Exactly, And yeah, do you want to take us away, Cady?

Cady Moore (1:06:56)
Yeah, Steph, can you tell our listeners where to find you on the internets if you want to be found?

Steph (1:07:00)
Yes.

Well, I don't necessarily want to be found on the internet. I do work for like a bureaucratic organization. so and like I don't post anywhere. Like I just I'm a lurker. So there's no way you can really. Yes. OK, so some organizations I'd love to shout out one is Rainbow Railroad, which is an organization worldwide, but particularly in Canada that helps refugee.

Cady Moore (1:07:13)
So who would you like to shout out instead?

Steph (1:07:27)
claimants to different countries who are part of the LGBTQ community helps them get to safe countries. in Canada, they've helped thousands of people come here as refugee claimants so that they can be safe and live their authentic lives. So they're one of my favorite organizations. Another one is one that I've previously volunteered for called Camp Firefly, which is a Canadian organization where every summer we do

multi-day summer camps for queer teenagers to come and talk about identity and community and health and all sorts of things. So they're great organizations that I'd recommend.

Sharilyn Wester (1:08:06)
and you got

to be your best little gay camp counselor.

Steph (1:08:09)
I know, I gotta be a camp counselor and I loved it.

Cady Moore (1:08:12)
If you have pictures, we would love to see them for the Instagram. And we will link both of those organizations in the show notes. So thank you so much for hanging out with us today and for chatting all about public health and nerding out with us. This was fantastic. Thank you for the sister lore. We love sister lore. Yeah. And we will let you go and go off into the great wide universe of Canada.

Steph (1:08:15)
yes, yes.

Sharilyn Wester (1:08:35)
Yeah, Sister lore's the best.

Steph (1:08:39)
Thanks for having

me. This was so fun. I hope Sharilyn name drops me on the rest of the podcast episode so that my lore will continue to grow.

Sharilyn Wester (1:08:48)
Absolutely. Well,

Cady Moore (1:08:48)
Always. I'll

Sharilyn Wester (1:08:50)
you have to keep

Cady Moore (1:08:50)
make sure of it.

Sharilyn Wester (1:08:50)
listening through every single episode. Yes. And on that note, y'all, we're going to take a quick break and we'll catch you on the outro.

Sharilyn Wester (1:08:56)
Welcome

back guys, thank you for hanging out with us today. Your co-pilots, Cady and I, we hope you enjoyed listening to My Better Half, My Big Sister Stephanie, who gave us some really great perspectives on the intersections between epidemiology and queer health. And again, more musicals, of course, it's us. We're gonna talk about them whenever we can.

Cady Moore (1:09:19)
Well, and we weren't recording during the break, but we ended up going off on another tangent about the sound of music and just the... I'm giggling. I'm giggling about the overlap between our mutual love for the sound of music. But yeah. Anyway, if you loved what you heard, don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Sharilyn Wester (1:09:34)
sister experiences.

Cady Moore (1:09:42)
You can slide into our DMs on Instagram at Knee Deep Podcast to share your thoughts, ask questions, or suggest what we should dive into next. You can also find all the information in our show notes on anything that we referred to in the podcast as well as where to find and follow us.

Sharilyn Wester (1:09:59)
Absolutely, and until next time, keep it curious, keep it spicy, and remember, you are valid, your identity is valid, and don't let the bastards grind you down.

Cady Moore (1:10:10)
And I'm gonna go pack a bowl and watch the sound of music now. Good night y'all.

Sharilyn Wester (1:10:13)
Bye!