Speaker 1: Coming to you from the dining room table at East
Speaker 1: Barbary Lane. Welcome to a very special edition of Full
Speaker 1: Circle the Podcast.
Speaker 2: I am your host Charles Tyson Jr.
Speaker 1: And I'm your host Martha Madrigal. Our guest today is
Speaker 1: an award winning journalist and our friend who took an
Speaker 1: incredibly important discussion around our nation. To my mind, their
Speaker 1: book coming out tomorrow is one of the most important books,
Speaker 1: if not the most important book of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: The book is American Teenager, How trans kids are surviving
Speaker 1: hate and finding joy in a turbulent era. Nico Lang,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Full Circle Table.
Speaker 3: Thanks, it's so good to be here, such a long
Speaker 3: time coming.
Speaker 1: I know, I know. We we were just talking about
Speaker 1: So we met last year at the LGBTQ Journalism.
Speaker 2: Conference and I can't believe it was just a year, just.
Speaker 1: A year ago in Philadelphia, and Charles and I got
Speaker 1: to be panelists on your panel, which was term.
Speaker 4: You Saved that wild panel.
Speaker 3: So yeah, well, so we had for folks who were
Speaker 3: not privy to that, you know, to that discussion or
Speaker 3: we're not in the room, we had one panelist too
Speaker 3: very much, we'll say, went rogue a bit. Yeah, Martha
Speaker 3: did a great job of like coordinating with me, if
Speaker 3: you will, in real time to keep kind of reeling
Speaker 3: her in and you know, keeping us on topic and
Speaker 3: keeping us moving along.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it worked well. It felt it felt very collaborative.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it was.
Speaker 3: And it definitely I was like, oh, this is a
Speaker 3: podcasting pro right here, because in a podcast you always
Speaker 3: had a very yes and medium, right, you always have
Speaker 3: to be like ready and quick and like, you know,
Speaker 3: like present.
Speaker 2: I never really thought about the yes and nature of it,
Speaker 2: but that is absolutely correct. It is because sometimes you'd
Speaker 2: have things just happen.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I had a client tell me you taught me
Speaker 1: the word end, and I'm like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1: And it was someone said something like, you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: you come off as intimidating, and I said, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's like, did you ever think that's you know, expedient,
Speaker 1: like I'm not trying to be distant, but I'm busy,
Speaker 1: like at work. And it was like, no, but that
Speaker 1: was brilliant. Now I know the word end, like I
Speaker 1: don't have to explain myself like where are you going
Speaker 1: with this? So I love it as a question to
Speaker 1: end and.
Speaker 4: You're such a role model, Martha.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: And it's so much wise, my friend. It's so much
Speaker 2: more positive than what I normally do.
Speaker 4: Was just so.
Speaker 3: I'm very much just so kind of person. So I
Speaker 3: appreciate that. What a difference a word nakes, right, truly.
Speaker 3: I think it's like the Jersey in you though. Jersey
Speaker 3: is very.
Speaker 1: So what it is for me, right, and you know
Speaker 1: you have the neck to us. Cell Philadelphia and South
Speaker 1: Jersey are kind of one big place true.
Speaker 4: Actually, oh yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: We get a little money in the neighborhoods in Philly
Speaker 1: and come over to Jersey. I, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: grew up here in Jersey and then went to Philly
Speaker 1: for thirty five years so and then came back with
Speaker 1: the pandemic and here we are, which is part of
Speaker 1: the whole full circle thing, the whole full circle thing.
Speaker 1: I'm back in the house where it all began.
Speaker 4: There you go.
Speaker 1: So that's us. We had the absolute honor of being
Speaker 1: early readers of this work. It moved me incredibly because
Speaker 1: this is such a real account of what is going on.
Speaker 1: It's unvarnished. It is not as much as I know
Speaker 1: that you as a human have a point of view.
Speaker 1: This was really letting the folks you talked with speak
Speaker 1: for themselves and tell us who they were, and that
Speaker 1: is That is world class storytelling. And you know, I'm
Speaker 1: in love with this book. I've been so excited that
Speaker 1: about us coming to this place where folks finally will
Speaker 1: have access to it.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so your baby is about to be born.
Speaker 3: I know I've been pregnant for like two years and
Speaker 3: really this child's coming out. I keep referring to this
Speaker 3: as like my like pre partum depression era, where you're like,
Speaker 3: you've been pregnant for a long time, your ankles are swollen,
Speaker 3: you have this giant thing inside you and you just
Speaker 3: want it out.
Speaker 4: So I am ready.
Speaker 3: I am very ready to finally be a mother.
Speaker 1: Yay, yay. So you know I want to go back
Speaker 1: to I'm not going to speak for you. Clearly, there
Speaker 1: there was reason this book had to be written. Can
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about that? What gave you
Speaker 1: the not just the idea, but the wherewithal to travel
Speaker 1: the country and you know, have these conversations.
Speaker 3: Sure, I think really for me, what it came down
Speaker 3: to is that I had the access and the resources
Speaker 3: to write this book and it needed to be written,
Speaker 3: So I just had a responsibility to do it because
Speaker 3: I've been doing this work for such a long time.
Speaker 3: I know so many of families of trans kids already,
Speaker 3: you know, like I've been an LGBTQ plus journalist for
Speaker 3: over ten years. I've been working with families of trans
Speaker 3: kids for eight years. I know families across the country.
Speaker 3: They like trust me, they love me, like we're like friends.
Speaker 3: Many of them you're not really supposed to be friends
Speaker 3: with their sources, but it's kind of inevitable if you
Speaker 3: stay in touch with people for such a long time,
Speaker 3: Like you watch their kids grow up, you get like
Speaker 3: photos and updates when they're like graduating from high school,
Speaker 3: graduating from college. You know, there's this like camaraderie and
Speaker 3: this more importantly, this trust that was built in. And
Speaker 3: I had a sense that if I had that trust
Speaker 3: already and I didn't have to work for it the
Speaker 3: way that some other journalists coming into this like, might
Speaker 3: that I could do something really special with that, that
Speaker 3: I could go so much deeper and just give people
Speaker 3: like a more interesting book, not like a better book,
Speaker 3: but just like something that would like get to this
Speaker 3: richness that might otherwise be lacking. So if I could
Speaker 3: do it, I knew that I had to, and I
Speaker 3: knew I particularly had to because of everything that we're
Speaker 3: seeing during this like awful political moment that we're all
Speaker 3: living through. More than six hundred and fifty bills this
Speaker 3: year were put forward across the country targeting trans people.
Speaker 3: The majority target trans youth, and through that, we very
Speaker 3: rarely focused on the impact on these kids' daily lives,
Speaker 3: like how are they feeling all through all this, How
Speaker 3: are they getting through it, how are they experiencing it?
Speaker 3: How are they trying to figure out how to be
Speaker 3: a person like when all this stuff is happening, Because
Speaker 3: imagine that you are a child growing up in the
Speaker 3: shadow of people hating you, right and using that like
Speaker 3: politicized eight hate to try to keep you from having rights.
Speaker 3: And this has always been the way for trans kids,
Speaker 3: right and for trans adults. They've always known this.
Speaker 4: To be true.
Speaker 3: But it just feels like it's become so much more
Speaker 3: upfront and so much more organized now than maybe we've
Speaker 3: seen in some like previous decades, and kids are really
Speaker 3: like dealing with the front of it, And I wanted
Speaker 3: to put them at the center of their own narratives.
Speaker 3: We've very rarely heard from them about what they think
Speaker 3: about all this, And there's so much value to like
Speaker 3: learning about the lives of trans kids and like how
Speaker 3: they're like not only experiencing this moment, but how they
Speaker 3: experience the world. Like to me, like, we've treated these
Speaker 3: kids as if they're like not human or they experience
Speaker 3: the world differently than the rest of us. But they're
Speaker 3: just kids, and they're just people like trying to like
Speaker 3: go about their lives. And I really just wanted to
Speaker 3: remind people of that, of that it's a really like
Speaker 3: sad political goal to have to remind people of the
Speaker 3: humanity trans kids.
Speaker 1: But here we are, truly, it is, and you know,
Speaker 1: that is the biggest fight, as I see it, beyond
Speaker 1: the political nonsense, you know, and we can get into
Speaker 1: that a little bit, but the biggest fight is simply
Speaker 1: the idea that we are real, We exist, regardless of
Speaker 1: how you decide to talk about us. It's always been thus,
Speaker 1: you know. And I've got a couple trans elders who
Speaker 1: I'm really close to who did transition early nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: and they're like, you know, we didn't fear in the
Speaker 1: same ways. You know, we were not a political football.
Speaker 1: We were rare and walking around and there weren't many
Speaker 1: of us, and they might look at us like we're freaks,
Speaker 1: but they let us be by and large as compared
Speaker 1: to this onslaught of I think, misguided, outdated, already rhetoric.
Speaker 1: And it's like I have to ask myself time and
Speaker 1: time and again, it's why we started this podcast. Why
Speaker 1: are you even doing that? Right?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: Is this the last group of people to hate? Is
Speaker 1: that how this works? Because I think, you know, the
Speaker 1: boomerang effect, if you will, to all of this nonsense
Speaker 1: is we've got Americans, decent, thoughtful, fair minded Americans who
Speaker 1: know a lot more about trans people than they ever
Speaker 1: did because of these jackasses and the harm that they
Speaker 1: are causing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's true.
Speaker 3: But one of the things that one of the reasons
Speaker 3: I believe that they've been able to exploit trans people
Speaker 3: politically the way they have is because still even with
Speaker 3: so many advances and like visibility and education, like these
Speaker 3: incredible trans people who are out like living their lives publicly,
Speaker 3: like the Laverne Coxes of the world, the Elliott Pages
Speaker 3: of the world, They're still like so much like lack
Speaker 3: of education that's out there. Like I was just reading
Speaker 3: a poll this week from the Public Religion Research Institute
Speaker 3: that only eleven percent of Americans know a trans person.
Speaker 3: And it's actually even smaller than that because some of
Speaker 3: those people are trans people who know themselves, right, So
Speaker 3: you can then shave off another like one percent or
Speaker 3: one point six percent of that, so that leaves you
Speaker 3: with around like, you know, ten or like nine point
Speaker 3: four if we want to be really like granular about it.
Speaker 3: So that's not a lot of people that have someone
Speaker 3: in their lives who's trans. And when you have like
Speaker 3: like that like kind of lack of knowledge at such
Speaker 3: a widespread scale, it creates this or that it means
Speaker 3: that there's this vacuum that can be filled with like hatred,
Speaker 3: with misinformation, with stigma because there are so few people
Speaker 3: like gatekeepers, like people in power, who are fighting that misinformation.
Speaker 3: Like it's really allowed it to flourish. And that's why
Speaker 3: I book one of the many reasons that a book
Speaker 3: like this needed to exist, because like it then becomes
Speaker 3: an incumbent on all of us to do what we
Speaker 3: can to speak back to it, right, Like how do
Speaker 3: you fight miss and information, but with good information, right,
Speaker 3: but with like humanizing people, but by showing people that
Speaker 3: they're real, Like I really heard what you said about that.
Speaker 3: The fight is to still prove that, like, trans people exist,
Speaker 3: and I think that there are so many people who
Speaker 3: still don't know that and don't understand that because they
Speaker 3: don't have someone in their lives to humanize that, to
Speaker 3: literalize the struggles of trans people for them. So it
Speaker 3: just becomes then incumbent on storytellers to do that kind
Speaker 3: of work to help get people's stories out there.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and that's another reason why your book is so
Speaker 2: valuable because you know, the big one of the big
Speaker 2: catchphrases that gets banded about all the time with this
Speaker 2: this onslaught is you know, we're protecting the children. We're
Speaker 2: worried about the children. And it's like it's very obvious
Speaker 2: that a you have never met a trans child, you
Speaker 2: have no idea what that experience is like. And have
Speaker 2: you ever met a child, because it's like they have
Speaker 2: this like theore medical, fictionalized, romanticized version of what the
Speaker 2: being a child is and it's like that's never been
Speaker 2: the case for any walking human ever and you know,
Speaker 2: nothing that you're you're pushing actually benefits any child ever.
Speaker 2: And if I thought that these people actually read books,
Speaker 2: I would put a copy in each of their hands
Speaker 2: so they could at least, you know, get an actual
Speaker 2: idea of what the situation is like for these kids.
Speaker 3: You know, Yeah, absolutely, I think you're getting to something
Speaker 3: really critical here, because it's not just that these people
Speaker 3: don't know trans kids. That's true, they don't, but they
Speaker 3: also don't want to know trans kids because they've had
Speaker 3: the opportunity to learn over and over and over again
Speaker 3: and have refused it. And I'm not talking about your
Speaker 3: like you're like run of the mill Republican, right, you know,
Speaker 3: just your next door neighbor who lives lives near you. Right,
Speaker 3: We're not talking about that person. We're talking about Republican
Speaker 3: lawmakers who that you have dedicated advocate. See groups like ACLU.
Speaker 3: The ACLU has branches in just about every state that
Speaker 3: are trying to do education work around this messaging work.
Speaker 3: They're trying to meet with lawmakers, they're trying to provide
Speaker 3: them with better information. They're trying to get trans kids
Speaker 3: that they know right to come to like the legislature
Speaker 3: with them or to meet with lawmakers specifically to humanize
Speaker 3: these stories, to say, like you should meet a constituent
Speaker 3: who your policy's impact. Please meet Timmy. He's a seven
Speaker 3: year old trans boy and he wants to be able
Speaker 3: to use the correct bathroom at a school. They're not
Speaker 3: taking those information, those invitations, or if they go to
Speaker 3: the legislature, let's say, like Ruby is a really great
Speaker 3: example one of the kids in this book. She's an
Speaker 3: incredible young trans woman in Texas. She was brave enough
Speaker 3: to go speak of the legislature there to talk about
Speaker 3: how anti trans policies affect her, and the lawmakers didn't listen.
Speaker 3: They were looking at the ceiling, they were looking at
Speaker 3: the floor, they were checking their emails, they were like
Speaker 3: staring at their cell phones, like, oh, isn't this so interesting,
Speaker 3: rather than just like looking at her and the eye
Speaker 3: in a knowledging her humanity.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: So it's not just that like Republican lawmakers don't know
Speaker 3: trans people and that that's breeding a certain amount of
Speaker 3: like fear and misinformation. Misinformation. I think that's almost too
Speaker 3: passive here, Like they don't want to know trans people
Speaker 3: because then they wouldn't be able to do this right,
Speaker 3: like they wouldn't be able to scapegoat and exploit trans
Speaker 3: people to consolidate their power in the way that they do.
Speaker 3: So it's a very unintentional ignorance here, at least on
Speaker 3: the part of lawmakers.
Speaker 1: And it's also really important to note this is not
Speaker 1: new now. This is you know, queer people and trans
Speaker 1: people have experienced this for many years. People of color
Speaker 1: have experienced this for millennia. I mean, this is not
Speaker 1: new stuff to point to a group of marginalized people
Speaker 1: and true, the rarer the better you know, the less
Speaker 1: the less of them you might encounter, the easier it
Speaker 1: is to lie about them, right and and create something
Speaker 1: to fear when we are the least scary people in
Speaker 1: the world. I just we are. I mean, come on,
Speaker 1: And that's the thing, you know, I have these conversations
Speaker 1: all of the time, you know. One of them recently
Speaker 1: was with a nurse trying to tell me that housing
Speaker 1: a trans person on a unit with you know, a
Speaker 1: trans woman with cis women who have you know, survived
Speaker 1: sexual assault not a good thing. And I said, and
Speaker 1: why is that? How many of them were actually assaulted
Speaker 1: by transwomen? And beyond that point, we are far more
Speaker 1: likely to be the victims of sexual assault above sis
Speaker 1: women than we are to be the perpetrators. And that's
Speaker 1: those are just the facts and you need to know
Speaker 1: them if you're going to form a policy right around
Speaker 1: your thoughts and.
Speaker 2: Not an opinion, but right.
Speaker 1: And the good news is most of the ship doesn't
Speaker 1: pass right. The good news is a lot of it
Speaker 1: dies in midi. The little bit that passes gets challenged immediately.
Speaker 1: Thank God for the the aclu I light candles for
Speaker 1: Chase Strange out every day that may be stay in
Speaker 1: good health and full voice, because there are people out
Speaker 1: there fighting the good fight. But one of the problems here.
Speaker 1: You know, every time you know, a journalist wants to discuss,
Speaker 1: particularly in television journalism, every time you want to discuss
Speaker 1: trans people, you know, I go back to nothing about
Speaker 1: us without us. If you don't have a trans person
Speaker 1: at that table, this is not a full discussion. You know,
Speaker 1: you talking about my life is such bullshit that you
Speaker 1: know I can't watch it. But you know, if you're
Speaker 1: trying to actually, you know, put some balance into this situation,
Speaker 1: let's yeah, let's always have an expert, not just an expert,
Speaker 1: Let's have an actual trans person, and you did that.
Speaker 1: You did that with you know, the young people who
Speaker 1: are most marginalized, who are afraid, who just want to
Speaker 1: be like another kid, you know, the other kids, they
Speaker 1: just want to fit in. You know, all of us
Speaker 1: can remember that part of childhood, you know, of figuring
Speaker 1: out socialization and figuring out, you know, where we belong.
Speaker 1: And I remember clearly. I'm fifty eight now, I clearly
Speaker 1: remember those moments of if they just understood that I
Speaker 1: was a girl, I wouldn't be on the ground right now,
Speaker 1: you know, they just saw me as I am instead
Speaker 1: of the way that they view me. I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: bruises right because the other girls didn't get treated that way,
Speaker 1: but I was, you know, I was something that they
Speaker 1: were not familiar with. And I still remember that feeling,
Speaker 1: and I think you capture that like that the folks
Speaker 1: who are trying to legislate bathrooms and it's one of
Speaker 1: the most backward things I've ever seen. Like have you
Speaker 1: never been to a nightclub where there are two stalls
Speaker 1: and a line like come on? But you know this
Speaker 1: idea that we legislate the bastrooms and we're protecting the
Speaker 1: innocence of children you're none of that is true. None
Speaker 1: of that is true. When we try to burn books
Speaker 1: or exclude books. You know, what you're doing is saying,
Speaker 1: I don't want my child to be more more empathetic, tolerant,
Speaker 1: or knowledgeable about people that I just don't like. And
Speaker 1: that to me is not protecting anyone. It never has,
Speaker 1: it never will. So you know, to be able to
Speaker 1: read the lived experience, and you went to how many
Speaker 1: different places across this country.
Speaker 3: At seven states, so seven families in seven states.
Speaker 1: Seven families and seven states, different circumstances financially, support wise,
Speaker 1: state wise, you know what was happening, and they get
Speaker 1: to speak. Finally they get you know, you can sit
Speaker 1: with this book and you can pay attention, and you
Speaker 1: can go back and reread that and understand the humanity.
Speaker 1: And that is the most important word I think you've said,
Speaker 1: because you know, when we dehumanize others, we can do
Speaker 1: almost anything to them and justify it absolutely.
Speaker 3: And I think it's interesting that you brought up before
Speaker 3: the way trans people were often silence and discussions about
Speaker 3: their own lives, because I that was a really critical
Speaker 3: influence in the way that the book was written. In
Speaker 3: terms of me not really being much of a character,
Speaker 3: Like I sort of like pop in a little bit
Speaker 3: every now and then, but for the most part, I
Speaker 3: try to like be as fly on the wall as
Speaker 3: possible while also you know, being a human presence, so
Speaker 3: you'd strike a balance there. But so much of the
Speaker 3: book really focuses solely on the voices of these trans
Speaker 3: kids and on the experiences of these trans kids to
Speaker 3: be almost sort of a character study of their lives.
Speaker 4: Because there was.
Speaker 3: A time under the Trump administration when they were you know,
Speaker 3: passing all these anti trans policies and they were stripping
Speaker 3: away these protections, and you would read about what was
Speaker 3: going on in like the New York Times or like
Speaker 3: less of the Washington Post, but definitely the New York Time,
Speaker 3: and they wouldn't quote a single trans person, like and
Speaker 3: you know when talking about the impact of this policy.
Speaker 4: And it's like, if you want to.
Speaker 3: Understand the people who are being impacted by you know,
Speaker 3: Trump banning trans people from the military, you talk to
Speaker 3: trans people in the military, or you talk to trans
Speaker 3: people who are paying attention to this and are worried
Speaker 3: they're going to come after them next, right, Like, there
Speaker 3: are ways that you can like humanize that discussion and
Speaker 3: also like center the voices of the people who are
Speaker 3: actually impacted here, and it just wasn't happening over and
Speaker 3: over again. It still happens in reporting on trans people.
Speaker 3: And you said it best, like when you take away
Speaker 3: someone's voice, when you take away someone's humanity, you can
Speaker 3: justify doing almost anything to them. And here, you know,
Speaker 3: in responding to that kind of rature, I really wanted
Speaker 3: to start not with like you know, we often start
Speaker 3: with like trans one on one when we do education,
Speaker 3: where it's like, well, these are the words that you
Speaker 3: need to use. These are the pronouns that people use,
Speaker 3: and you know, defining things for people. All that stuff
Speaker 3: is super like as somebody uses day them pronouns. I
Speaker 3: am all up on pronoun discussions.
Speaker 4: I love them.
Speaker 3: They're great, but we often skip over the part where
Speaker 3: we just explain that trans people are human, they're people,
Speaker 3: and they deserve to be treated like people. And I
Speaker 3: keep saying over and over again that it's really sad
Speaker 3: that we're having to do that, but that's in a
Speaker 3: sense where the discussion needs to start. And by spending
Speaker 3: time with these kids, by like following along their day
Speaker 3: with them as they like go to school, as they
Speaker 3: like sit in the cafeteria at lunch eating with their friends,
Speaker 3: as they like do their homework, as they get ready
Speaker 3: for prom, and do all these like kind of mundane
Speaker 3: boring things, like you can stop, like you can break
Speaker 3: down this barrier that exists in your mind between the
Speaker 3: two of you, where it's like you're on one side
Speaker 3: and you lead this kind of life, and they're on
Speaker 3: the other end. They lead this kind of life, and
Speaker 3: the twain shall never meet. You could never have anything
Speaker 3: in common with this person. You probably have a lot
Speaker 3: more in common than you think. Right, you probably were
Speaker 3: a kid like this, even if you weren't trans I
Speaker 3: imagine that there's a lot that you might like see
Speaker 3: of yourself in that person. But also I think there's
Speaker 3: been this line in queer politics for a while that
Speaker 3: we deserve rights because we're.
Speaker 4: The same as you.
Speaker 3: Right, you saw that in the marriage equality Fright, like
Speaker 3: this sort of like same love moment of like, oh,
Speaker 3: our relationships are the same, our lives are the same,
Speaker 3: so please give us rights because we're the same as you.
Speaker 3: I get that. I understand we are the same in
Speaker 3: a lot of ways, and those ways are important we
Speaker 3: should talk about them. But I don't want to just
Speaker 3: have rights because I'm the same as other people. I
Speaker 3: don't want to have rights because I deserve rights. And
Speaker 3: it's the same with these kids. They should like they
Speaker 3: deserve rights because like they are a person who exists
Speaker 3: in the world, who has their own unique experiences and
Speaker 3: like and through their literal birth, has inalienable privileges that
Speaker 3: are like guaranteed by their own constitution. And I think
Speaker 3: we've somehow like forgotten that that can people can be
Speaker 3: their own people and make their own choices and still
Speaker 3: be deserving of rights. They can make choices that are
Speaker 3: different than the choices that you could that you could
Speaker 3: make or that you would make. They can be unlikable.
Speaker 3: You can like there was a transman I just wrote
Speaker 3: about in prison who just won the right to like
Speaker 3: gender firming surgery in Indiana, and people in the comment
Speaker 3: section kept asking, like, oh, well, what did she do?
Speaker 4: Like why is she there?
Speaker 3: As if they don't if they don't like the answer,
Speaker 3: then like she doesn't deserve that surgery, except when it
Speaker 3: is there is literally a right to medical care in
Speaker 3: prison for everybody right. And if we are asking do
Speaker 3: we like this person, do we agree with their choices,
Speaker 3: we are missing the point. And it's the same with
Speaker 3: these kids that so like many readers early on kept
Speaker 3: talking about like people they did like or didn't like,
Speaker 3: or stories they related to or didn't relate to. I
Speaker 3: almost feel like that's beside the point. I just want
Speaker 3: people to know about what's going on in these kids' lives,
Speaker 3: to better understand it, and to support their right to
Speaker 3: exist and to have rights, whether or not they relate
Speaker 3: to it or not. Like I kind of hope that
Speaker 3: like people don't relate to this book in some ways, right,
Speaker 3: that they'll read certain chapters and not relate to it whatsoever,
Speaker 3: but go, like, you know, I want the best for
Speaker 3: them anyway, Like I hope they get everything that they like,
Speaker 3: that they deserve.
Speaker 4: Like, I think that that's.
Speaker 3: When we like make a little bit of progress here
Speaker 3: rather than insisting that we all need to be the
Speaker 3: same to have dignity.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, because that's the thing, that's the conversation that
Speaker 2: I really wish we as a people, I mean a
Speaker 2: full whole people would recognize and have rights are not
Speaker 2: anyone's to give or to take.
Speaker 1: Well, right, and if you're measuring my access to care
Speaker 1: based on whether or not you like me or you
Speaker 1: can relate to me. That's not a right, is it.
Speaker 1: That's you decide. That's you thinking that you get to
Speaker 1: determine my humanity, You get to decide how I will
Speaker 1: be human, and that you know, we always come back
Speaker 1: to that idea of you somehow think you know me
Speaker 1: better than I can know myself, and that, you know,
Speaker 1: if that's not the height of arrogance, I don't know
Speaker 1: what is.
Speaker 2: And the irony of it is. You know, if we
Speaker 2: use that rubric that you know, being likable determines whether
Speaker 2: or not you have rights, then half the people that
Speaker 2: are fighting to take them away would immediately be stripped
Speaker 2: of them, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, I adore the folks who say, where did
Speaker 1: queer culture go? Why are we meeting? You know, meetering
Speaker 1: it so that we find ourselves more acceptable? You know,
Speaker 1: if assimilation is your goal, have at it, you know,
Speaker 1: if that's what you want. I mean, we literally do
Speaker 1: have a picket fence. But it's it's ironic.
Speaker 3: Okay, it's a statement fence.
Speaker 1: It kind of is it kind of is OSSI and
Speaker 1: Harriet like you know, I don't know, but thinking back
Speaker 1: to what you just said about prompt et cetera. The
Speaker 1: rights of passage of cis heteronormative people are almost always
Speaker 1: negative situations or have and historically everything everyone else was
Speaker 1: looking forward to I dreaded, like prom you know.
Speaker 4: Like.
Speaker 1: Games, sports, you name it. There wasn't a place for
Speaker 1: me as a young person, and so all of those
Speaker 1: things that everybody got to take for granted were unsettling.
Speaker 1: They were one more example of how I did not
Speaker 1: fit and that still happens, that still goes on. You know,
Speaker 1: I love to celebrate the places where you know, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is my friend, and they are they happen to
Speaker 1: be trans, or they happened to be non binary. But
Speaker 1: you know, I've had young people stop me and say
Speaker 1: pronouns because they want to. You know, it's just the
Speaker 1: way that they communicate. I will be able to more
Speaker 1: effectively communicate if I understand how you see yourself. It's
Speaker 1: a brilliant thing that at least to me, is relatively new,
Speaker 1: but a lot of young people insist on it. But
Speaker 1: I also recognize we live in a bubble New Jersey, California,
Speaker 1: you as well. You know, we're in these places where
Speaker 1: what is perfectly logical and protected is on the table,
Speaker 1: you know, throughout this nation, you know, and I counsel
Speaker 1: folks who are deeply affected by reading about legislation, deeply
Speaker 1: affected by you know, what is happening and will it
Speaker 1: come here and how what would it take? And you know,
Speaker 1: one election, one federal election can really and did in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, cause a lot of problems for us. You know,
Speaker 1: we can't necessarily trust anything. And you know, I do
Speaker 1: a yes end with that, right, I yess, like, yes,
Speaker 1: these things are real and you were not in immediate danger.
Speaker 1: So how can we help the folks who are? What
Speaker 1: can we do? And you know it's not highly publicized
Speaker 1: and good, but there are plenty of organizations who are
Speaker 1: reaching out, you know, who are finding very creative ways
Speaker 1: to still serve these folks and keep them in care
Speaker 1: and alive. And I'm just grateful that that is true,
Speaker 1: even as we wrestle with all of these things happening.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I hope.
Speaker 3: I think I don't want to overstate my own impact
Speaker 3: here because I think that that can seem a little egotistical,
Speaker 3: But I do hope that a resource like this can
Speaker 3: do that kind of work of keeping people here that
Speaker 3: so many of the book, the kids in the book
Speaker 3: had really struggled with suicidal ideation, right, that they had
Speaker 3: wondered to themselves, like do I have a place here?
Speaker 4: Do I even want to be here anymore? You know?
Speaker 3: Ruby and Texas, her parents had to take all the
Speaker 3: sharp objects out of her house at one point before
Speaker 3: she began and her like her medical transition and started
Speaker 3: sort of really coming into her own confidence because they
Speaker 3: were so worried about like whether they would have a
Speaker 3: daughter in a few years or you know, at the
Speaker 3: time a child, but a daughter in a couple of years, right.
Speaker 3: And then in Florida, you know Jack, it's the Florida
Speaker 3: chapter is about two siblings, one who is trans and
Speaker 3: the other who's non binary. And the older girl, Jack,
Speaker 3: who's trans. She was one of the kids who was
Speaker 3: on Medicaid. That that's how she got her gender firmic care.
Speaker 3: And in twenty twenty two, I believe sometimes this like
Speaker 3: the timeliness of all this like get a little fuzzy
Speaker 3: to me. The state decided that you could no longer
Speaker 3: like fund like trans youth medical care through Medicaid.
Speaker 4: You were cut off.
Speaker 3: So she lost her health care and for five months
Speaker 3: she went without it, and during that time, her mom
Speaker 3: thought her heart was just going to stop in her sleep.
Speaker 3: And you know, Jack would have a hard time like
Speaker 3: waking up every day and just deciding to get out
Speaker 3: of bed, deciding to be like a person than the world.
Speaker 3: Like it wasn't even that she struggled with suicidal ideation,
Speaker 3: is that she just like felt like she just might
Speaker 3: cease to exist at any moment, Like the world was
Speaker 3: so crushing she thought it would just crush her. And
Speaker 3: so many kids are experiencing this because like for every
Speaker 3: one of these policies that's passed in Texas, like that's
Speaker 3: not just Ruby that's going through this. This isn't just
Speaker 3: Jack that's going through this. This is countless kids whose
Speaker 3: mental health is being impacted, whose ability to exist in
Speaker 3: the world is being impacted, who just might like also
Speaker 3: be wondering like do I even want to be here anymore?
Speaker 3: And might be like looking for reasons to stay. So
Speaker 3: I hope that this book in like some really small
Speaker 3: way by showing other kids who have gone through this
Speaker 3: and who are still like leading lovely lives and have
Speaker 3: still like found like hope and joy. At the end
Speaker 3: of the thing that they went through that it's a
Speaker 3: reminder that like other people can get through it too,
Speaker 3: Like if there's a possibility model like here right, that
Speaker 3: if these people did it and they found a way
Speaker 3: to stick around, you can do the same thing for yourself.
Speaker 3: Because I don't think we've really discussed like as a community,
Speaker 3: the mental health crisis of all of this anti trans legislation, right, Like,
Speaker 3: how many people are struggling right now, Like and this
Speaker 3: isn't just trans kids, this is trans adults who are
Speaker 3: seeing what's happening to their community, who are seeing the
Speaker 3: ways in which trans people are being like vilified and
Speaker 3: demonized right now, and like there's a part of them
Speaker 3: that are going you have fuck this part of my
Speaker 3: French but like fuck this right, Like how like do
Speaker 3: you invest in a society that isn't investing in you,
Speaker 3: that like it feels like doesn't.
Speaker 4: Want you to be here.
Speaker 3: So I just know so many like people in my community,
Speaker 3: even in like my friend groups, like who have a
Speaker 3: really hard time. Every year when you know January starts,
Speaker 3: you get this fresh new wave of the anti trans legislation,
Speaker 3: and you know at the end of it, you just
Speaker 3: feel so spent you feel like you don't have anything
Speaker 3: like left for people, And I just hope that, you know,
Speaker 3: whether it's through reading this book or like relying on
Speaker 3: community or reaching out to research versus like the Trevor
Speaker 3: Project or trans Lifeline, that people just find a way
Speaker 3: to keep going, because like, we need each other. You know,
Speaker 3: it's not going to be like anybody else but each
Speaker 3: other who are going to lift us up right now
Speaker 3: right And we need as many queer people in the
Speaker 3: world as we can get because we need all the
Speaker 3: support that we can get.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. You know, the note I just made to myself
Speaker 1: was the importance of representation. You know, the program that
Speaker 1: I run here in New Jersey is centered around addiction
Speaker 1: and co occurring mental health exclusively, you know, in my
Speaker 1: program for the lgbt QIA plus community. And you know,
Speaker 1: we are grant funded through our state, and one of
Speaker 1: the mandates of the grant in their wisdom, is that
Speaker 1: the folks running this and leading this must be from
Speaker 1: the community. And so my therapy partner, Nicole is an
Speaker 1: out lesbian and I'm me and time and time again,
Speaker 1: the thing that we do differently is understand our clients
Speaker 1: on a level other folks don't, just because it's our
Speaker 1: lived experience too. And you know there is a shorthand.
Speaker 1: You know, I've run monthly community events just for trans
Speaker 1: and non binary folks to meet one another, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, I need you to leave here with a
Speaker 1: Facebook friend, a phone number, or an email address that
Speaker 1: you didn't have when you got here. That's what I
Speaker 1: ask of you, you know. And in the meantime, eat
Speaker 1: spaghetti and chat and go play cornhole and do whatever.
Speaker 4: God you guys call it corn hole.
Speaker 2: That right, well yeah, but don't get me started.
Speaker 1: But it's it's bags.
Speaker 4: It bags everyone.
Speaker 1: But continue community building is such an important part of it,
Speaker 1: and so we're seeing outcomes no one sees in this field.
Speaker 1: Because when you see people and you recognize them and
Speaker 1: you let them know it's okay to be who they are,
Speaker 1: that is transformative in itself. I think the magic of
Speaker 1: this book is that you're a non binary human who
Speaker 1: gets it. You know that there is an automatic shorthand
Speaker 1: in the conversations you are having with these kids. That
Speaker 1: just helps them to open up, That just helps them
Speaker 1: to say, I'm seen. I already know I'm seen. I
Speaker 1: don't have to tell Nico you know what it's like
Speaker 1: to be in this head because Nico has a very
Speaker 1: good working knowledge of gender expansiveness, of questioning your gender,
Speaker 1: of having to figure out what it is and how
Speaker 1: it fits in this world and what is the language
Speaker 1: around that. That's the difference with this book. You know,
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how many times we reference an
Speaker 1: article each week and you wrote.
Speaker 2: It, yep.
Speaker 1: It's just like I'll start reading the first paragraph and
Speaker 1: then I'll look back to see who it's your byline,
Speaker 1: time and time and time again, because I'm like, this
Speaker 1: is a brilliant piece that I want to talk about.
Speaker 1: Of course it's Nicos, because that makes a difference. You know,
Speaker 1: as sishead writer is not going to have the same
Speaker 1: level in my mind of storytelling because they don't get
Speaker 1: the story they're telling. The example I gave was Brendan
Speaker 1: Fraser was recently in that movie The Wail a year
Speaker 1: or two ago one an award, and in his acceptance
Speaker 1: speech he said, this is not a queer story. This
Speaker 1: is a universal story. And I to which I said, motherfucker,
Speaker 1: it is a queer story. Sisht. People don't lose their job,
Speaker 1: their livelihood, and their social standing based on who they
Speaker 1: love or how they love. This is a queer story.
Speaker 1: You can't recognize it because you're looking for universal universality
Speaker 1: in what you're in your work, and because you have
Speaker 1: not lived as that person, you don't know what the
Speaker 1: fuck you're talking about. So please sit down, but don't
Speaker 1: tell me what queer storytelling is. So there is an
Speaker 1: authenticity that rings through your words, through every piece you
Speaker 1: write that just makes this a powerful work because you
Speaker 1: know what the hell you're talking about.
Speaker 2: Right and the book wouldn't work as well otherwise because
Speaker 2: it would be like Jane Goodall and the girl is
Speaker 2: in the mist, and the kids would smell that right away.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah. You know that is one thing
Speaker 1: I resounding about our community. We know what authenticity looks
Speaker 1: like and smells like, you know, because so many of
Speaker 1: us have had to live our lives on guard, and
Speaker 1: you know, you don't touch on the humanity without connection.
Speaker 1: Connection is so important, and you know you took those
Speaker 1: connections that you have made through time doing this important
Speaker 1: work and brought some thing even more brilliant and poignant
Speaker 1: and important out of that. That's you know, that's I
Speaker 1: like it when we can look at our lives and
Speaker 1: say I didn't waste a moment, you know, because I've
Speaker 1: been building these things and then I can do something
Speaker 1: even bigger because of the work I've done.
Speaker 4: And yeah, oh go ahead, no please.
Speaker 1: Your life is on purpose. It is on purpose.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: It's such an honor to know you, even as we
Speaker 1: do across the country, because you know, you're an example
Speaker 1: of that what authenticity, the power of authenticity, the power
Speaker 1: of storytelling and the power of telling our own stories,
Speaker 1: you know, not trying to hide behind being I don't know,
Speaker 1: a music writer or something. You're like, no, I'm going
Speaker 1: to go for this stuff because I know it, and
Speaker 1: you tell important stories every day.
Speaker 3: This one, yeah, I loved. I loved actually what you
Speaker 3: both just said, and thank you for saying that. And
Speaker 3: I loved what you said, particularly about universality because I
Speaker 3: talked a little bit. I don't know if you read
Speaker 3: the acknowledgments at the end, but I sort of wrote
Speaker 3: it as a little bit of therapy because a note
Speaker 3: we kept getting over and over again was about like
Speaker 3: wanting to make sure that like the stories were universal
Speaker 3: or sort of spoke to everyone, like that would speak
Speaker 3: to like all trans experiences and you just can't do
Speaker 3: that because trans people are so different from each other.
Speaker 3: Like it's like, sure, like trans people are only like
Speaker 3: one point six percent of the population or whatever, but
Speaker 3: that's still a widely disparate group of people who have
Speaker 3: very little in common with one another, right except for
Speaker 3: the fact that their trans and even them are they're
Speaker 3: trans in totally different ways, like you, Martha and I are, like,
Speaker 3: you know, occupy this community in different ways. I'm a
Speaker 3: non binary person. I have a lot of like privilege
Speaker 3: in that as somebody who like doesn't do a lot
Speaker 3: to like, you know, I'm not very like I just
Speaker 3: put on a shirt, you know, Like I'm like clean
Speaker 3: shirt is good, you know, and you as like a
Speaker 3: trans woman, like your experience of your own identity is
Speaker 3: going to be totally different than mine. So like to
Speaker 3: pretend that those two experiences are the same or it's
Speaker 3: just cuckoo to me. So I didn't want to paint
Speaker 3: with a really broad brush here and say all these
Speaker 3: kids are the same, the things they go through are
Speaker 3: the same, because they are so wildly different from one another.
Speaker 3: And when I was writing the book, I like really
Speaker 3: dug into that difference, Like I wanted to make them
Speaker 3: as different from each other as humanly possible, because I
Speaker 3: wanted to give you know, readers a really interesting experience
Speaker 3: where the book's always surprising you and it's changing you,
Speaker 3: and the stories almost like conflict with one another, because
Speaker 3: if one kid tells you this thing, another kid's going
Speaker 3: to tell you something completely different. Right, Even their relationship
Speaker 3: to their transness, right, some of these kids it's really
Speaker 3: important to them. Other kids, it's not a thing for
Speaker 3: them at all. They don't like see themselves as trans
Speaker 3: They just see themselves as like who they are. And
Speaker 3: both of those ways of being are like totally valid.
Speaker 4: But I think the thing.
Speaker 3: Is is that when you let stories just be what
Speaker 3: they are, a when you dig into those particularities, when
Speaker 3: you make them just as like unique and idiosyncratic as
Speaker 3: they are, that's when they become universal because then so
Speaker 3: many types of people can still see themselves in that.
Speaker 3: Like just because like Clint's story is this like Muslim
Speaker 3: like South Asian story, doesn't mean I can't relate to it.
Speaker 3: There was so much about that story I related to,
Speaker 3: about like intergenerational trauma, about like the expectations that parents
Speaker 3: have for their kids, that like grandparents like have for
Speaker 3: their like grandchildren that like Maha his mom that like
Speaker 3: her parents had for her, That like, I grew up
Speaker 3: in a household that was really controlling because of just
Speaker 3: a lot of trauma and stuff my grandparents had been through.
Speaker 3: So they thought that the best way to protect me
Speaker 3: was to like control me and to like you know,
Speaker 3: essentially keep me from interacting with the outside world. And
Speaker 3: we're all in like a great place now, right, And
Speaker 3: I love my family and we've all come a long way.
Speaker 3: But like when I heard so much from Maha about
Speaker 3: like her own relationship with their parents and that she had,
Speaker 3: like even like as a brown woman who you know,
Speaker 3: has such different life experiences than I do in some
Speaker 3: other ways, like I was like, this is me, Like
Speaker 3: I was that teenager, Like I dealt with the same
Speaker 3: stuff in the same way that she did, but also
Speaker 3: in a different way. So I think that like by
Speaker 3: letting things just be what they are and not trying
Speaker 3: to tell us like all stories are the same, there's
Speaker 3: still a universality there, And by putting so much of
Speaker 3: those so many of those particularities into this book, like
Speaker 3: I do think it becomes really universal because no matter
Speaker 3: who you are. There's gonna be something in this book
Speaker 3: that you can grab onto. There's going to be something
Speaker 3: where you can say, that's like me, or that's like
Speaker 3: a kid that I know, or that's like my like
Speaker 3: my friend's kid. Right, there's going to be something that
Speaker 3: you can pull out. So, like, like, I really hope
Speaker 3: we get to this point where we stop insisting that,
Speaker 3: like all queer stories need to be applicable to everybody
Speaker 3: to be valid. No, sometimes they can just be our stories.
Speaker 3: But people can see like themselves in our stories anyway.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, because the through line the connection is that word humanity, right,
Speaker 1: is that what that we are all human? That is
Speaker 1: our connection. We are all having this human experience. So
Speaker 1: there are many, many more overlaps than there are differences.
Speaker 1: The problem comes in when we refuse to respect the differences.
Speaker 1: You know, I am differently human than you and than
Speaker 1: Charles and then the woman across the street. You know,
Speaker 1: we are as diverse as any other segment of the population.
Speaker 1: The problem is when we try to create monoliths. Right,
Speaker 1: all black people are, all trans people are, all gay
Speaker 1: people are and you know they accuse us of identity politics.
Speaker 1: I think you're going to hear that phrase a little
Speaker 1: bit about this book. I want to say fuck whoever
Speaker 1: says it. But you know, because we didn't start identity politics.
Speaker 1: That's not it's not a thing that we do. It's
Speaker 1: a thing. It's a way for you to dismiss us
Speaker 1: when we insist that we are the ones who need
Speaker 1: to tell our own stories, whether it be based on
Speaker 1: our race, our gender, or our financial situation, our our
Speaker 1: place in the cast, whatever it is. You know, our
Speaker 1: lived experiences are ours and no one can tell my
Speaker 1: story better than me. So you know that dismissive phrase.
Speaker 1: I think we're going to see it a little bit here.
Speaker 2: It's right up there with playing the race card, right,
Speaker 2: because it's a way.
Speaker 1: It's a way to not have to dig deeper. Right,
Speaker 1: It's a way to say, oh, well, they just want
Speaker 1: this based on their identity, and it's like, no, I
Speaker 1: want you to respect my identity. I want you to allow,
Speaker 1: you know, allow, I want you to back off my
Speaker 1: rights that I don't actually give a shit if you
Speaker 1: tolerate me, but I would I would appreciate a live
Speaker 1: and let live place here where you know my rights
Speaker 1: are as affirmed as yours because you're kind of an
Speaker 1: asshole too, but you have full access and have never
Speaker 1: had to have them challenge by people like you.
Speaker 2: I think that's the way that that needs to be
Speaker 2: rephrased and reframed. It's not give me my rights, it's
Speaker 2: back up off of my rights because my rights have
Speaker 2: always been there and always will be there because again,
Speaker 2: they were not yours to give or to take away.
Speaker 2: They just are because I.
Speaker 1: Am right, and we get we get in all kinds
Speaker 1: of trouble as humans when we think that we do
Speaker 1: like we are being tall, we are being so thoughtful.
Speaker 1: I love the gaze Nata. You probably don't.
Speaker 2: I don't see color.
Speaker 1: I don't see color. Yeah, you know. One of the
Speaker 1: silliest someone asked me one time was like, Okay, you're
Speaker 1: trying to tell me that y'all are people? What about
Speaker 1: Folsoome Street? And I'm like, what about it? And who
Speaker 1: said that doesn't matter? Someone that's just so weird?
Speaker 4: Like what a non sequitor? Right, right?
Speaker 1: But it was like, but it's there is There is
Speaker 1: an idea there, and that's why I've remembered it. Because
Speaker 1: the idea is that as a minority, or as a
Speaker 1: part of a marginalized group, you are responsible for the
Speaker 1: worst of your people, you know, And when you want
Speaker 1: to challenge my prejudice against you, you've got to speak
Speaker 1: to what I consider the worst of it and explain
Speaker 1: it to me. And I'm like you, first, you explained
Speaker 1: John Wayne Gacy, and I'll explain Folsom Street.
Speaker 2: How about that?
Speaker 4: How about that? God?
Speaker 3: Explain me Jerry Fallwell, and then let's go right right.
Speaker 1: You know, you you folks manufactured the pedophiles. It's actually
Speaker 1: not us, you know. And you were the ones walking
Speaker 1: around as children's genital fetishists. That's not us, you know.
Speaker 1: You like to point at us, but that's always the
Speaker 1: thing is like there's a bad one. See I told you, like,
Speaker 1: what the fuck is that? There's okay, bad human? Got it?
Speaker 1: We're lousy with them, right, I.
Speaker 3: Mean I just teld that person go to Folsom he
Speaker 3: might actually enjoy it.
Speaker 4: It's pretty fun.
Speaker 1: Well that's usually the problem, right, And it was a she,
Speaker 1: But that's that's usually the problem. Is there's something fascinating
Speaker 1: and all that I'm missing out and I'm going to
Speaker 1: criticize it because Jesus or something.
Speaker 2: Somewhere someone's having a good time and I have a
Speaker 2: problem with that, right, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like if we could all just take a breath,
Speaker 1: and you know, one of the things I wanted to
Speaker 1: mention to you right now. And I'm starting to see connections.
Speaker 1: I'm starting to see, you know, associations made from the
Speaker 1: people who understand that the fight for bodily autonomy is
Speaker 1: one fight. The fight for trans writes is the fight
Speaker 1: for you know, reproductive rights. These are both about having
Speaker 1: agency over one's own body. You know, we don't argue
Speaker 1: with all the CIS people who go get plastic surgery.
Speaker 1: We don't argue with you know, the men who want
Speaker 1: to make their dick bigger. We don't like, we don't
Speaker 1: fight with any of that. It's perfectly okay, but God
Speaker 1: forbid we you know, do anything pretty much. But it's
Speaker 1: the same fight. And I'm starting to see some natural
Speaker 1: alliances there, which you know, flies in the face of
Speaker 1: terf ism, thank god. Where you know, your fight is mine,
Speaker 1: it's we're talking about the same thing. You know, your
Speaker 1: right to an abortion and my right to whatever health
Speaker 1: care I deem appropriate for me. It's the same thing.
Speaker 1: It's the same thing. It's the same control over humans.
Speaker 1: We somehow deem lesser and incapable of making decisions about
Speaker 1: their own lives.
Speaker 3: What do you think, Yeah, it's it's interesting that you
Speaker 3: said this because I just did a story on the
Speaker 3: Gender Liberation March. The folks behind that had another rally Washington,
Speaker 3: d C. Yeah, another rally in Washington, d C. Because
Speaker 3: they they marched. They marched was from the Franklin Memorial
Speaker 3: or something, Washington Monument, one of those things, some some
Speaker 3: famous Washington, d C. Landmark and they marched the Heritage Yeah,
Speaker 3: one of the giant penises. They marched to the to
Speaker 3: the Heritage Foundation, and they you know, like had this
Speaker 3: party in d DJ set outside the Heritage Foundation. And
Speaker 3: one of the things that really struck me in talking
Speaker 3: to the organizers for the story that I did for them,
Speaker 3: which you should go read, was Jameson Gutierrez, who's a
Speaker 3: longtime friend of mine.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you did.
Speaker 3: She organizes with Familia TQLM, which does a lot of
Speaker 3: advocacy around like immigrants and migrants to the US and
Speaker 3: undocumented workers and also people who are held in lock
Speaker 3: up facilities because of their immigrant status. Right, And she
Speaker 3: said something to me that really that is going to
Speaker 3: stay with me forever. That like, this issue of bodily autonomy,
Speaker 3: of deciding what happens to your body is also an
Speaker 3: immigrant issue because if you were held in a lock
Speaker 3: up facility for no other reason that you than that
Speaker 3: you wanted to come to the country and you had
Speaker 3: to because we don't have a functional immigration system. So
Speaker 3: like right now, if you want to do it like
Speaker 3: quote unquote legally, you really can't because there's not that
Speaker 3: many like avenues for you to do it, like as
Speaker 3: like like say like a Mexican person like or Honduran
Speaker 3: fleeing violence, right, you pretty much have to cross the
Speaker 3: border and just like see what happens. Right, And if
Speaker 3: you are the you know, a Translatina held in that system,
Speaker 3: you know, not only are you behind bars, so like
Speaker 3: you're not deciding what happens to your body in that way,
Speaker 3: but you're often denied gender firm and care. You're denied
Speaker 3: like access to just like basic medical care like HIB care.
Speaker 3: Roxanna Hernandez died in a lock up facility because she
Speaker 3: had been denied her HIB care, I believe for eight
Speaker 3: days at the time of her death.
Speaker 4: Right like that that all of that is.
Speaker 3: Part of the same fight, Like that is the fight
Speaker 3: for bodily autonomy. And it really helped me think about
Speaker 3: all this stuff in a new way where I feel
Speaker 3: like I'm starting to see so many like fights now,
Speaker 3: or so many justice movements as being part of the
Speaker 3: fight for bodily autonomy. Right, look at like even like
Speaker 3: what black folks experience in the US in terms of
Speaker 3: being shot by police. You know, if you are suspected
Speaker 3: of doing this thing that you didn't do, that is
Speaker 3: also in a way its own fight for bodily autonomy,
Speaker 3: because if you were being shot by a police officer
Speaker 3: for something that has nothing to do with you, you were
Speaker 3: not deciding what happens to your body. You are not
Speaker 3: decided like whether or not there are bullets in it
Speaker 3: for no reason.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: So there are so many ways that we all are
Speaker 3: part of each other's same movements, that we are all
Speaker 3: allies to each other, that we all like experience the
Speaker 3: same like disempowerment or people deciding that we don't deserve
Speaker 3: rights anymore because they don't like us or they don't
Speaker 3: agree with the choices we make. So I hope that
Speaker 3: the gender Liberation March or even you know, in a
Speaker 3: smaller way, this book just reminds us to show up
Speaker 3: for each other. That like a bunch of allies are
Speaker 3: going to read this book. Right, It's not just for
Speaker 3: like quird people and trans people. I see that as
Speaker 3: being very much like our core readership, right, or like
Speaker 3: the people I really want this book to before are
Speaker 3: like my community. But there are going to be allies.
Speaker 3: There are going to be like cis heterosexual people who
Speaker 3: read this. And I hope it's just like it's just
Speaker 3: a reminder or like a call to like join the fight, right,
Speaker 3: to like do what they can to protect these kids,
Speaker 3: to fight for these kids. Because if you read these
Speaker 3: books and you are this book, I mean, who knows,
Speaker 3: it could be multiple books, but for now, just one.
Speaker 3: If you read this book, I mean you care about
Speaker 3: what happened to them, You care about their ability to
Speaker 3: have a future, like get organized, volunteer, donate to some organization, vote,
Speaker 3: like it is very clear who you should vote for
Speaker 3: if you like want the best for these kids and
Speaker 3: their futures, like go do it. Don't set this out
Speaker 3: like we need you.
Speaker 1: Right that the choice could not be more clear, couldn't
Speaker 1: be more clear, And we have a lot more information
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four even than we had in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: You know, that debacle never should have happened if anyone
Speaker 1: was paying attention at all. However it did. But now
Speaker 1: we can't say we don't know all of that and
Speaker 1: just how ugly it would be. And I have to believe,
Speaker 1: and you talk to way more people than I do,
Speaker 1: but I have to believe that the soul of this
Speaker 1: nation is better than that, because that's what I see
Speaker 1: every day. I see, you know, reasonableness. And if we
Speaker 1: only you know, take a look at social media and
Speaker 1: the comments section, if that's where we're deciding what humanity is,
Speaker 1: it's a sewer. Yeah, but that has never been you know,
Speaker 1: my face to face experience, never not at that level
Speaker 1: of dismissal, of absolutely denying one another humanity.
Speaker 2: Right, because every time we have face to face conversations,
Speaker 2: that's when the real thing comes out, because people aren't
Speaker 2: really what they are online, like they actually have reason
Speaker 2: in logic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that that's my experience. Again, I'm not
Speaker 1: in the Deep South. I'm not in a state where
Speaker 1: I'm being challenged my existence is being challenged on such
Speaker 1: a fundamental level. But again, I do cancel the folks
Speaker 1: who are just impacted, the adults and the adolescents who
Speaker 1: just don't know what to do with this, right.
Speaker 3: I would say, I don't know. I don't know where
Speaker 3: I stand in hope right now, you know, Like obviously
Speaker 3: this book is very helpful, and I found a lot
Speaker 3: of hope in these kids. But like get back to
Speaker 3: me after November, Like, and you know, I just think
Speaker 3: about all the time, like how wild it is to
Speaker 3: me that it's so hard to keep a rapist felon
Speaker 3: who like you know, has been recently, you know, convicted
Speaker 3: of what thirty something fell, he's twenty something felonies, right,
Speaker 3: Like how hard can it be to keep this man
Speaker 3: from being president? And why is it so hard? Why
Speaker 3: does it take so much work to keep this person
Speaker 3: who obviously should not be running our country or any
Speaker 3: country from the White House? And it all has to
Speaker 3: do with like people's prejudices and biases or the fact
Speaker 3: that they view, like I don't know, like they view
Speaker 3: themselves and what they want from their lives as being
Speaker 3: like more important than other people. Like there's just so
Speaker 3: much like like ignorance and erasure that's happening right now.
Speaker 3: There are so many people who still just aren't paying
Speaker 3: attention to this. In the opening of the book, we
Speaker 3: talk about the fact that even in like liberal communities,
Speaker 3: they aren't always like plugged into what's going on in
Speaker 3: the world. That Ki Shapley and her mom when they
Speaker 3: moved to Connecticut, you know, they would talk about all
Speaker 3: the things that were happening in Texas in their you know,
Speaker 3: like supportive progressive, like you know communities, and other mothers
Speaker 3: would say like, oh, that doesn't sound right, that can't
Speaker 3: be happening, that can't be true, when it's like, obviously
Speaker 3: it's true. There are many, many, many news stories about
Speaker 3: what's happening. You can literally just google it. But everyone
Speaker 3: is still just so like stuck in their own bubble
Speaker 3: and stuck in their own world that they can't pay
Speaker 3: attention to like what's happening to other people out there. So, like,
Speaker 3: I think I was more hopeful in a way than
Speaker 3: when I started this book, but like, I don't think
Speaker 3: I'll really know until after I see what happens in November.
Speaker 3: Like I feel like, like, in a way, how do
Speaker 3: you say, like my own faith in us is hanging
Speaker 3: in the balance. I think is maybe the best way
Speaker 3: to put it. Let's like, yeah, so I hope things
Speaker 3: turn out turn out well, Like I hope that like
Speaker 3: America can I don't know live up to a sense
Speaker 3: of good faith, But I don't know right now.
Speaker 1: So here is where I'm basing my optimism guarded. But
Speaker 1: my optimism is skeptical. When we look at you know,
Speaker 1: when we look at Republicans trying to spike the ball
Speaker 1: right and codify, you know, this removal of row into
Speaker 1: the constitutions, folks are showing up and saying, no, it's
Speaker 1: too far. You know, we had the survey of Republicans,
Speaker 1: you know, regular rank and file Republicans who a vast majority,
Speaker 1: like eighty percent in one way or another said all
Speaker 1: this trans stuff has gone way too far. It's it's
Speaker 1: they've lost. There's no point to this. It's not right,
Speaker 1: you know, That's what I'm talking about. So I keep
Speaker 1: seeing them lose in fundamental ways across this nation, and
Speaker 1: I keep seeing those kinds of results that tell me
Speaker 1: we're not as hated as some would like us to believe,
Speaker 1: you know, like us to believe there is not the
Speaker 1: vitriol in the numbers. It feels like when you are
Speaker 1: only being inundated with what they proposed, not what they
Speaker 1: were able to put through, but what they proposed, you know,
Speaker 1: even the Dysanta stuff, because we follow that pretty closely.
Speaker 1: It's like, if you you know, keep reading enough media
Speaker 1: in Florida, you're going to find out that most of
Speaker 1: it is him yelling at at a wall. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: he didn't win anything with Disney, regardless of how he
Speaker 1: tells the story. You know, there are so many instances,
Speaker 1: and yet we do have that alleged medical association that is,
Speaker 1: you know, informed of the what is a CAST report.
Speaker 1: You know that Florida had the impact over in the UK,
Speaker 1: which is bullshit and ridiculous because these people are not
Speaker 1: talking about medicine. So it's a mixed bag. I'll give
Speaker 1: you that. You know, I I hear you because when
Speaker 1: you talk with folks about the consequences of this kind
Speaker 1: of nonsense, Yeah, it challenge is hope, But I am
Speaker 1: still hopeful. I am. I am seeing a renewed sense
Speaker 1: of hope, a renewed sense of political engagement among people
Speaker 1: who were kind of not going to sit almost going
Speaker 1: to set this out. And so my hope is the
Speaker 1: Republicans set it out because he doesn't have the rank
Speaker 1: and file support that I think we kind of tend
Speaker 1: to believe because we're we're looking at monoliths two. We're
Speaker 1: saying they're all the same, and they're not right. I
Speaker 1: can't find a lot of common ground with them, but
Speaker 1: we are. You know, there are still reasonable people in
Speaker 1: the world that look at a situation and say that's
Speaker 1: not okay, you know, talking about other people's rights. It
Speaker 1: doesn't you know, it has nothing to do with me,
Speaker 1: nothing at all. That's where I hope we get and
Speaker 1: I think this book helps us get closer to it.
Speaker 1: I do. I hope people pick it up and read it.
Speaker 1: I hope they circulate it. I hope I see professors
Speaker 1: assigning it because it's an important read, and you know
Speaker 1: it's I always love your bylines. I always love the
Speaker 1: work you do. I love the humanity you put in
Speaker 1: every story and the queer voice that you have absolutely
Speaker 1: added to our world. It's so important, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm so excited. You know, I feel like the godmother.
Speaker 3: My godmother if you want, I don't have one, so
Speaker 3: you know I'm looking.
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it. Talk to me about
Speaker 1: tour dates you're going to kind of be visiting our
Speaker 1: coast soon. Is that correct?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I will be.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, let me let me look my spreadsheet,
Speaker 3: so I don't speak out of turn. I don't remember
Speaker 3: anything if it's not in a spreadsheet.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 3: So I will be in Baltimore, which isn't very far.
Speaker 3: I'm on the twenty eighth, which is a Saturday.
Speaker 4: I'm at the Baltimore Book.
Speaker 3: Fair Jabbari Lyles, who is an incredible local like black
Speaker 3: I believe I believe Jaburi identifies as non binary, so
Speaker 3: I'm going to say non binary. I'm activist who's not
Speaker 3: incredible work in the community for a really long time.
Speaker 3: They were gracious enough to host a Q and a
Speaker 3: discussion with me, and we're going to be there hanging
Speaker 3: out outside of Red Emma's, which is an incredible, like
Speaker 3: local bookstore that's been so supportive of this book and
Speaker 3: of the conversation, and I'm just really excited. It's like,
Speaker 3: it's it's kind of funny that like Baltimore all places
Speaker 3: would be like my first stop on this tour. It
Speaker 3: wasn't what I expected necessarily, but given that it's like,
Speaker 3: you know, you know, the birthplace of like John Waters
Speaker 3: and this like you know, movement of like queer and
Speaker 3: trans weirdos. We've been doing this little John Waters deep
Speaker 3: Dive my husband and I like it feels fitting in
Speaker 3: a way, Like it feels like being connected to history
Speaker 3: and this like history of these like queer like forefathers
Speaker 3: and four Mothers and four days who have come before me.
Speaker 4: So it just yeah, it feels.
Speaker 1: Like I love that I have a new word for
Speaker 1: the four Days continue for yeah, thank you.
Speaker 4: So yeah. So I'm excited.
Speaker 3: And then after that we're going to be for you know,
Speaker 3: people who are listening to this from other places. We're
Speaker 3: going to be just about everywhere. We'll be in Portland,
Speaker 3: will be in suburban Dallas, will be in Los Angeles,
Speaker 3: New York, Boston, San Francisco, San Jose, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Salt
Speaker 3: Lake City, Little Rock, Seattle, Washington, d C, Miami, and
Speaker 3: Sioux Falls. And that's just what we have lined up
Speaker 3: right now. That's not in addition to all the other
Speaker 3: things I'm in conversation for. I'm talking about something in Jackson,
Speaker 3: Missus be next year. You know, I'm organizing zooms. I
Speaker 3: am doing everything I can to make sure this book
Speaker 3: gets out there. Because I think it's really special and
Speaker 3: it's about darn time that these kids' voices were heard.
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
Speaker 2: Come into a town near you, Joe.
Speaker 1: And I agree with you. I want to get a
Speaker 1: Philadelphia date on that calendar somehow somewhere, like I'm behind
Speaker 1: that idea.
Speaker 3: I'm trying just putting it out in the universe.
Speaker 4: Vonnie's.
Speaker 1: We could do it at Giovanni's room, we could do
Speaker 1: it at the William Way Center. There are so many
Speaker 1: angles that we could take. But I'm gonna formally invite
Speaker 1: you to come onto Transway. So Transway is the zoom
Speaker 1: call that I run every Thursday night, seven thirty Eastern time,
Speaker 1: where a bunch of trans and non binary folk get
Speaker 1: together and support one another. That's what Transway is and does.
Speaker 1: And if we can ever find a Thursday evening where
Speaker 1: you could come and join us and talk about this work,
Speaker 1: and you know, I am committed to buying a copy
Speaker 1: of the book for each and every one of the
Speaker 1: people that show up to that. So hopefully we can
Speaker 1: carve out a little time for that to happen.
Speaker 3: I wish we'd done it yesterday. I didn't have anything
Speaker 3: to do yet.
Speaker 4: This Thursday.
Speaker 1: Damn it, I didn't know.
Speaker 3: So no, it's okay, we'll figure out a date. I'll
Speaker 3: send you over my little book date schedule because it
Speaker 3: really is just I'm going to be traveling a lot.
Speaker 4: It's funny.
Speaker 3: I went from I didn't want to travel at all,
Speaker 3: and I still kind of really don't, but like there's
Speaker 3: been so much instant interest in the book and people
Speaker 3: just sort of like want your physical presence there. They
Speaker 3: want you to like bring the book to them. That
Speaker 3: it's just like, if this is what I gotta do,
Speaker 3: I gotta do. So I'm going to spend probably the
Speaker 3: better part of the next year doing this and making
Speaker 3: sure that we're bringing it to local communities and starting
Speaker 3: this conversation. So like that's a long winded way of saying,
Speaker 3: if we could figure out a Thursday, girl, I'm there, Okay,
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 2: I think that's going to be such an exciting time
Speaker 2: for you, this book tour, man.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna I do too. So we're going to
Speaker 1: post all the links that you send us. Is there
Speaker 1: a favorite way to buy the book?
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 3: My hometown local bookstore is called Joseph Beth and they
Speaker 3: have it for sale. They better because I'm doing an
Speaker 3: event there next month, so if they didn't, I would
Speaker 3: be very mad at them. So please support Josepheth. I
Speaker 3: think they're really great. If you look at it and
Speaker 3: you're like, I don't know, I don't trust this bookseller
Speaker 3: I've never heard of. Bookshop dot org is great. It's
Speaker 3: a great way to buy it online, and they I
Speaker 3: think proceeds go to supporting local booksellers. I'm not sure
Speaker 3: how it works, but I know it's very like pro
Speaker 3: indie bookstore and if you prefer buying stuff in person,
Speaker 3: this book, as of October Eith is going to be
Speaker 3: in most indie bookstores across the country because we were
Speaker 3: in Indie next and an Indie's introduced pick so, which
Speaker 3: sort of gets you automatic distribution in all of these
Speaker 3: different bookstores. So please go, like, hit up your like
Speaker 3: local bookseller, ask them if they've got it, and if
Speaker 3: they don't, if they don't have it, request yes. You
Speaker 3: know that's how often how like bookstores stock books. Is
Speaker 3: somebody asked for it, then you know they order it
Speaker 3: in you know, the booksellers like, oh this seems interesting,
Speaker 3: I'll order some more copies to see if there's a
Speaker 3: readership for it, and you know they find out there
Speaker 3: is so please requested it your local bookstore. That would
Speaker 3: be awesome for me. Means I got to do a
Speaker 3: little less work.
Speaker 1: Perfect, perfect, Nico. It's so good to see you. I
Speaker 1: just want to thank you so much for this time.
Speaker 1: It has been a long time coming and it's so
Speaker 1: I'm so excited.
Speaker 2: And and I don't want to go without mentioning the
Speaker 2: fact that you know, Nico your we mentioned repeatedly how
Speaker 2: we keep running across your your byline when we read
Speaker 2: an interesting article. I want to shout out your work
Speaker 2: with many publications like them and the like. And also,
Speaker 2: you know, I would suggest our listeners support your your
Speaker 2: Patreon please poured l G B t Q Journalism. You
Speaker 2: have informed you know, our podcast a lot. Yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, I subscribe to the Patreon and I'm always
Speaker 2: getting the the emails and I'm like, oh, yes, we
Speaker 2: need to talk about that, oh that too. So you
Speaker 2: you are, you are stitched into the fabric of Full
Speaker 2: Circle the podcast.
Speaker 1: I must tell you, you truly are. And uh, you make
Speaker 1: my life so much easier because you know it's right there.
Speaker 1: You're doing so much of the work all the time.
Speaker 1: Please give Christian a huge hug for us, your your
Speaker 1: delightful husband, and I am I am friend of the
Speaker 1: pod and friend of the pod, and I think we're
Speaker 1: going to have to try to show up in Baltimore
Speaker 1: or New York with I believe it's going to be
Speaker 1: Baltimore because it's a Saturday with our books, and.
Speaker 3: Please come to the Baltimore one because well on the book,
Speaker 3: the New York one it's like in a bookstore that's
Speaker 3: quite small, so like seating is more limited, and the
Speaker 3: Baltimore one that's like outside, so like we can like
Speaker 3: have fun, we enjoy. And I personally like, I ain't
Speaker 3: got shit to do in Baltimore, so we can hang out.
Speaker 1: Oh I love it. Maybe I can get my buddy
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Williams, who uh oh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, John, we just watched one of her movies.
Speaker 1: Have to come on yew and hang out a little bit.
Speaker 1: That'd be fun.
Speaker 3: I felt very cool for a second because when she
Speaker 3: popped up on screen and polyester, I got to like
Speaker 3: point to that.
Speaker 4: I was like that woman.
Speaker 3: I'm friends with her on Facebook, right, so I earned
Speaker 3: some cool points with my husband.
Speaker 4: For a second. I felt very awesome.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth, by the way, is the facilitator of Transway, so
Speaker 1: we work together. Oh so yeah, yep, I love that.
Speaker 1: That's a little world but a big one exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So that's one of the best things about being queer,
Speaker 3: I think, is that fact that we're all so connected
Speaker 3: to each other.
Speaker 4: It feels cool in one way or that way. But well,
Speaker 4: thank you both for this.
Speaker 3: I really appreciate this, and I just appreciate the chance
Speaker 3: to like hang out with you guys and talk about
Speaker 3: the book and just yeah, like, I'm glad that we
Speaker 3: finally got to do it.
Speaker 1: I am too, you know. At the last thing I
Speaker 1: want to say is when I saw that, you know,
Speaker 1: Susan Striker and Julius Serrano were interviewed and mentioned on
Speaker 1: the cover, I was like, yep, we've talked to them
Speaker 1: both and I adore them. So it's full circle, all
Speaker 1: full circle, so much full circle in this book again,
Speaker 1: to my mind, the most important read of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: And you know, I hope it reprints and reprints and
Speaker 1: reprints and we can get into a lot of hands.
Speaker 1: Nico Lang, thank you so much for your time. We
Speaker 1: love you, yes we do. And we're going to speak.
Speaker 1: We're going to see you real soon.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, what a fun way to end.
Speaker 3: But thank you New God, Mommy and God Daddy.
Speaker 4: I appreciate this.
Speaker 1: To have a great rest of the day and get
Speaker 1: out there and buy the book.
Speaker 4: Ye do it.
Speaker 2: Full Circle is a Never Scurreed Productions podcast hosted by
Speaker 2: Charles Tyson Jr. And Martha Madrigal, Produced and edited by
Speaker 2: Never Scurred Executive Produced by Charles Tyson Jr.
Speaker 1: And Martha Madrigal.
Speaker 2: Our theme in music is by the jingle Berries. All names, pictures, music, audio,
Speaker 2: and video clips are registered trademarks and or copyrights of
Speaker 2: their respective copyright holders.