The Queer Family Podcast – LGBTQ Families & Queer Parenting Stories · Jaimie Kelton – Queer Parenting & LGBTQ Families'.

From Cult Upbringing to Queer Co-Parenting

·56 min·3 clips

At four weeks old, SC’s daughter needed an eight-hour kidney surgery at Children’s National.

1. The Queer Family Podcast episode “From Cult Upbringing to Queer Co-Parenting” centers SC Neely’s path from religious control to a one-block-apart co-parenting arrangement. 2. Host Jamie introduces SC Neely as a guest, therapist, and parent, and names Teek Milan as a returning contributor who discusses gender doula work. 3. The episode asks how queerness, co-parenting, and healing can coexist after cult upbringing, family pressure, and a child’s medical crisis. 4. SC says they go by SC, use they/she pronouns, and have two daughters who are five and two. 5. SC explains that the children’s father is a close friend, not a traditional partner, and that they live one block apart. 6. SC describes growing up in an evangelical cult called Dayspring, later moving to a covenant church in southern Maryland. 7. SC says they were not allowed to wear pants, cut hair, go outside much, watch TV, or access most 1990s and 2000s pop culture. 8. SC recalls hearing a church leader scream that she “was going to be a lesbian,” which became the first time she heard that word applied to herself. 9. SC says her mother only called the upbringing a cult in 2024, after SC wrote about religious trauma and received a care package of related books. 10. SC and the children’s father met at the end of 2018 and became romantically involved while SC was still closeted. 11. SC says they wanted a family, conceived quickly, and then married after her family warned that a baby born “out of wedlock” would not be loved. 12. SC says the marriage did not change her family’s acceptance, which led her to rethink the decision. 13. During the pregnancy, a 20-week ultrasound showed serious kidney and bladder defects, and doctors said they did not know if the baby would make it to full term. 14. SC says she had doctor visits twice a week through the rest of the pregnancy, mostly alone after COVID restrictions began. 15. After birth in May 2020, SC says the baby needed an eight-hour surgery at Children’s National at four weeks old. 16. SC says the child later had sepsis, a medically induced coma, nine surgeries in the first year, and now has half a kidney left. 17. SC says the year of medical crisis tested the relationship because she and the father were “ships in the night” and could not be in the same room at the hospital together. 18. The tone shifts between grief, practical problem-solving, and mutual support, with Jamie asking direct questions and SC answering in detail. 19. People interested in queer family-building, religious trauma, and co-parenting after separation will likely connect with this episode. 20. Listeners wanting light banter or a short, low-stakes chat may skip it.

As heard by us

A blunt, tender queer family story about cult upbringing, identity, and parenthood.

A queer family story with real teeth, this episode follows someone making sense of a cult upbringing, isolation, and the long route into parenthood. What sticks is how it keeps identity, community loss, and family building in the same frame without smoothing over the rough parts.

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want a queer-family story that starts in a cult and ends in chosen family.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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