This is Democracy – Episode 193: Transgender Rights and Inclusion

This is democracy, a podcast about the people of the United States, a podcast about citizenship, about engaging with politics and the world around you. A podcast about educating yourself on today’s important issues and how to have a voice in what happens next. Welcome to our new episode of this is democracy.

This week, we’re going to discuss transgender rights and the transgender community in the United States and the importance of attention and, um, inclusion of the transgender community for a thriving democracy. Uh, this is a topic that’s been in the news quite a bit recently, and it’s a topic that also has a long history.

We are fortunate to be joined, uh, by someone who has written extensively on these issues, who has, uh, been part of a family with a transgender child and someone who is, uh, I think one of the most thoughtful and influential activists around these issues. This is Joe Ivester, she’s an LGBTQ and civil rights advocate.

She shares her family’s story as a way of helping others to step beyond the comfort zones when it comes to. Relating to those who are different from themselves. She was raised in a politically active family that, which is a topic I think for another show. Uh, she spent two years of her childhood living in an all black town in the Mississippi Delta, where her father managed to medical clinic.

Her mother taught in the local high school, and this is something Joe is written about in a different book. And, uh, Joe was the only white student at her high school at a year. Uh, this experience captured is captured in Joe’s first book, the outskirts of hope, uh, which is really a, a compelling account of that period in her life.

Her second book, the topic for today’s discussion is titled once a girl, always a boy, it presents her son’s journey told from multiple perspectives, including her sons, uh, beginning when he was a small child viewed by many as a Tom. Uh, we’re not writing Joe devotes her time to community. She’s very active in various community activities.

Uh, and she serves on the boards of the equality, Texas, which is an organization that is advocated very strongly for transgender rights among other issues. The Anti-Defamation league of central Texas, which we’ve talked about on this podcast before, which. Very important organization in combating antisemitism.

And she’s part of the ground floor theaters board as well. Uh, Joe, you’re a very busy person and we’re fortunate to have you on our podcast. Thank you for joining us. Thank you, Jeremy. I’m delighted to be here before we begin our discussion with Joe. We have of course our, a scene setting poem for Mr.

Zachary Siri. Uh, Zachary, what’s the title of your poem today? Because someday, maybe. ’cause someday. Maybe let’s hear it. They tell us on our own streets that the stop sign wants us to keep on going straight, that the homeless man peeing in a Coke bottle on the subway really wants the world to stay the way it is.

And even while we are walking past in a glorious parade of outrageous Louisiana tears or waiting in the bellows of Roslin station at night, staring up at the escalators climbing towards the light, they tell us that what we really want is to remain here looking because someday, maybe it will be. They tell us in front of our own apartment blocks that we are not who we say we are, that we have forgotten ourselves in the fluorescence of the birthing suite, that our own histories, our fantasies, and they tell us with a smirk, it will all wash away in the flood.

And even while it is dark and you are appearing into shop windows for the warm glow of cameras or secret police watching you trip the light. Fantastic on the sidewalk, watching you twirl into a appear at, on the roof of a Mazda while it all collapses into sunrise, stop, they say you lie to yourself. I lie with myself with my own brain.

It is cold and honest. I will not stop. I say because someday, maybe it will be. There’s a lot of, uh, interesting rumination in that poem, Zachary, about being oneself and true to oneself. What, what is the poem really about? One was really about, um, how even the most simple decisions about, uh, staying true to oneself and, and, and, and, and being who one feels one.

Um, are, are discouraged and, uh, looked down upon by many in our society, unfortunately. And how important and how courageous it is to, to be oneself. Um, when everyone else is telling you. You shouldn’t write how important it is, but how difficult, uh, at times, uh, Joe, I think that, uh, really, uh, opens up a perfect spot for us to start our conversation.

Um, CA can you begin to share your, your journey with us, that you recount so well in your book about, um, how you and your family came to, uh, deal with and, and, and, and learn to help your son, uh, become true to himself? What, what was that. Sure of course. I love talking about that because my son is one of those people that, uh, Zachary was just speaking about, who has been courageous to himself to be himself.

Um, I love your poem, uh, Zack, and there were so many things we could spend the next hour chatting about that, but it really matches my son’s story. And, uh, before kind of jumping in chronologically. To what our journey has been. Like. I wanted to just pull out one particular line. You said about, I live with myself, which of course can be interpreted so many different ways.

And I often get asked, what does it mean to be transgender versus being gay? So I’m jumping in right away to some terminology. And one of the favorite phrases that I’ve heard to capture that is being gay is your sexual orientation. It’s who you’re attracted to, who you go to bed with at night being transgender.

Your gender identity is who you are. So it’s who you, who you are when you go to bed with, when you go to bed at night. Um, the idea of lying with myself can be that I’m. Totally on my own. It can be that I am lying to myself. It can mean so many things. And forgive me if I haven’t captured what you’re trying to capture with it, but it just got me thinking.

So let me back up. I wanted to talk about terminology just so that we’re all on the same page. Cause being transgender is kind of an umbrella term in Jeremy’s case, by my son’s case. It means that when he was born 32 years ago, we thought we were welcoming him into the world as a little girl, and we were wrong.

He’s been a boy all the time. We just didn’t know it. And his journey through childhood and teen years and young adult hood basically was a process of him figuring that out. And in other people, it means something different. It could be the, the flip-flop of saying someone was identified as a boy at birth, but recognizes they’re a girl, or it could be something in between where someone says I’m both boy and a girl, or I’m neither a boy nor a girl.

So in my storytelling, which is really my focus. I’m going to mostly be talking about my son, but I want to acknowledge that his is just one story that that being transgender is, is so many different things. So that’s kind of the, what of it. What does it mean to be transgender? And then there’s the why?

Why do I talk about my own family? Um, why is Jeremy being willing to be public? As a role model, as someone who has gone on this journey, when really what he’d like is just to be Jeremy, the guy, not Jeremy, the trans guy or Jeremy, the guy that used to be viewed as a woman. And the reason is because right now in our country, throughout the world, really transgender people face a.

A real battle for acceptance because people don’t understand. And I believe that sharing stories is a way to build that understanding for me in particular, it’s that while someone might not understand what it means to be transgender, most people can relate to a mother’s love for their child. And so that’s what I build on so that we can.

Start at a point where there’s a connection and an agreement and build from there with a growing awareness and a growing knowledge, because I believe that we will get growing acceptance. So Jeremy can interrupt me if I’m, if I’m going on too long, without a question that’s terrific. And I did want to.

Sorta dig down on one of the issues you raised here. Um, your book is so eloquent and compelling Joe in, uh, describing, um, your struggles as a family in particular, your Jeremy’s struggles to, um, identify and to figure out, uh, who he was. Uh, though, according to your book, he, he knew before many others did.

Um, but, but explain that to us. I think some people have trouble understanding how someone can, uh, be born and perceived as one thing, but really be something else. How does that process occur? How do we know that someone is being identified the wrong way? Well, if you, it’s a great question. If you think about, for all of your listeners, when did you know what your gender identity is?

And for me, if I think back to early childhood, people would say, are you a boy or are you a girl? And I would say, I’m a girl. And apparently that’s what I said when I was two years old, according to my older cousins. And it struck me as an interesting thing, because not everybody says to every toddler, are you a boy or a girl?

And at one point when Jeremy was on his journey, I asked one of my older cousins, why did you keep asking me that question? Was it because my name Joe is, is one that most mostly is a boy’s name. And he said, he said, no, it was the way you said the word girl, you made it, you made it two syllables. And it was really cute.

And you said, good. And they liked hearing that. They thought it was funny and cute, but for me, as a, as a little kid, I had no idea that’s what they were thinking. And so. It made me wonder, are they confused? Not confused. I didn’t know. I’m a girl. I knew that from when I was two years old. And I’m guessing that most of your listeners understand the same thing, that they had a, a sense of who they are for a trans kid.

That sense of who they are. That’s really innate that I believe is hard wired into our brain. Um, was it a conflict with what the rest of society is saying to them? So it’s, it’s very real. It’s something that as a non-trans person, which we’d call a cis-gender person, I can never completely understand. I can listen to it.

I can empathize with the feelings of confusion. It might create. I’ll never really be able to answer your question satisfactorily, because it’s not my own lived experience, but I can, I can sure. Try. And the way that, that I interpret from what my son has said and what other trans people have said to me is that their gender identity is absolutely burned into their brain.

When they look in a mirror and see what society has made them be. With in my son’s case, long hair dresses, you know, before puberty. So you wouldn’t necessarily know what was under the clothes, but, uh, as being any different, but just the presentation didn’t match what he really felt inside. And now that’s, the science is catching up.

They’re doing brain science that shows that a transgender. So now my I’m switching to saying, man, instead of boy, I’m picturing my son at 32 years old, a transgender man sprain is more similar to a cis-gender man sprain than it is to a cisgender woman. So there’s, they’re seeing that there is brain science behind this feeling of gender dysphoria that comes when, what you know yourself to be inside.

Doesn’t match what the rest of the world sees you as. It, it, it, it certainly is. And again, I recommend to all of our listeners to read your book because you go into such a depth from your perspective, from your husband’s perspective, from Jeremy’s perspective, uh, uh, from his, uh, his siblings perspectives, we really get, uh, get, uh, a lived experience of this.

Um, there’s no doubt though, that for many people, this, this seems unnatural. It seems odd. And there are those who think that, um, The that, uh, transgender issues are somehow, um, imposed on children. They were fearful, uh, of that your, your memoir is all about the truthfulness of this and the love, uh, surrounding your, your son.

How, how have you contended though with these, um, awkwardnesses and the people who were opposed or hostile to. I, I try to think about it in terms that they can relate to. And the best example I’ve been able to come up with is left-handed and right-handed, which is something that in earlier times, a left-handed person, which would be.

In the minority in general would be viewed as maybe a witch or maybe evil in some way, or, uh, someone who was, uh, cursed. It was, it, there was viewed as being left-handed was bad and we forced our left-handed children to learn how to use their right hand. Instead, our whole writing system is geared to the right-handed.

The child has a. Th most children, I shouldn’t say have a natural sense of which hand workspace. In terms of coordination, uh, in terms of strength and they, if left on their, to their own devices, a left-handed child will use their left hand a lot more than the right hand. And similarly, a right-handed kid would do the same.

And of course, to add to the comparison, you’ve got ambidextrous kids who are comfortable using either hand, well, when you take your hand or kid and you force them not to use their left hand, Your denying, who that child is in a way. And kids have troubled kids get there. They’re not working as fast in school because it’s not coming as naturally to them now it’s, it’s very different.

Uh, but, but there are some similarities that maybe people can relate to. And I don’t think anyone out there today is denying that being left-handed is a real. And that’s what I’m hoping that we get to with our transgender children is that folks say, yeah, it’s just, it may be different from what the majority of kids are, but it’s very real.

It’s tied to the brain it’s natural and there’s nothing wrong. So the trans community has of course, um, existed in some form closeted or open in the United States for, for, for decades. But I think many people would be, I don’t know if the word is surprised or, or, or, or pleasantly surprised with the, the acceptance of my generation of a younger generation.

Towards the trans community and the blossoming of a more open, uh, vibrant community in the United States. What do you think makes this time? And, and my generation and Jeremy’s generation. Well, your generation gives me great hope, um, because of that openness and acceptance. I think that there are a lot of things driving that I think that the, um, the internet and the accessibility of information has made people more accepting.

I think that the, the. PAC has been already tried by, um, heroes that have come before us that have paved the way. Uh, so that, uh, in fact, just last night I was reading an Oscar Wilde play with some friends and we were talking about how he was arrested and put in jail just for being gay. That’s not happening.

So we’ve, we’ve made tremendous progress as a society in most places where. Folks aren’t getting arrested for being gay. It’s not that long ago where it was illegal and it’s still on the books as illegal in many places. Um, so we’ve made progress, but not that not as much progress as we need to make. I think that’s opened the doors for.

Willingness to accept trans people. So I think the two movements of, uh, gay rights and trans rights are very closely connected. And by saying those, I don’t mean they’re two different things because you can have trans people who are gay and you can have trans people who are straight. You can have gay people who are trans and straight people who are trans, um, they’re they’re excuse me, they’re two very different definitions.

But they’re all tied to together as, um, in the world of sexual orientation and gender identity. And so I think advances in one area lead to advances in another. I also think they’re connected in that. I believe that the, the weaponizing of hate against transgender people really ramped up after gay marriage was legalized.

I think there was a, uh, a very conscious search from a marketing perspective for what can we do to regain territory, to put. Uh, to, to gain control back of the situation and working with think tanks, working with focus groups, the idea was brought up that well, the bathroom, the idea of bathrooms, that’s something we can work with.

And I will tie it even more specifically to a situation in Texas where Houston Texas had passed by its city council, an equal rights ordinance that included for the first time sexual orientation and gender identity as protected Plaza. We don’t have a statewide protection. So it’s up to the individual cities and counties and school districts to include it.

Well, it, it, uh, got put into law by the city council and a group of folks that were comfortable with it sued and it went to the Texas Supreme court that basically said, you can’t just rule on this. You have to put this up for a vote. So the. The city of Houston had to vote on whether LGBTQ folks deserve the same rights as everyone else.

And in their campaign against inclusive inclusivity, they came upon this idea of. Men dressed as women going into bathrooms and threatening our wives and sisters and daughters as a way of getting people upset. Well, the gay rights, the LGBTQ rights community that had been celebrating the passage of the equal rights ordinance was blindsided.

Um, kind of at the last minute we realized what was going on and started phone banking, trying to get the vote out and we faced. And the equal rights ordinance was shot down. Well, once it was a successful campaign to use fears of transgender people in the bathroom where they weren’t even talking about real transgender people, they were talking about cis-gender men dressed as women.

Which already was illegal. There already were protections in case in place, but it worked as a campaign. And so they keep coming back with bill after bill last year in Texas, we had over 70 anti LGBTQ bill. Well, and Joe, why is that? Why is this community under attack with, don’t say gay bills and bathroom bills.

Um, is this a, is this another version of the civil rights struggle that we’ve talked about, of course, on the podcast and that your family has been a part of, uh, for a long time? Or is this something. I think there are a huge number of similarities and it’s always, uh, I always have to be careful in drawing similarities because I don’t want to ever be, um, downplaying the importance of the civil rights movement based on race.

And it is, uh, I think in some cases, when we draw comparisons folks feeling. That’s a possible interpretation. And, and so I, I want to make sure that I’m being respectful of that. And, and instead recognizing the intersectionality of it, the group that is most attacked right now are transgender women of color, where we have seen murder.

Just too frequently. Um, in some cases every week we’re seeing someone else killed, um, just for being who they are. Um, that being said, I do think there are tremendous similarities. The, the campaign that focused on the bathroom bills was so similar to the segregated bathrooms, where, where folks would say, I’m not, I’m not racist.

I just am not comfortable with having a black person in the stall next to me. And that’s an imposition on me, so we should keep them out. It’s the same for. A trans person. When someone says it’s an imposition on me to have to be in the bathroom with a trans person, it makes me scared. It makes me uncomfortable.

So keep the trans people out. That’s almost identical and it’s just a sad and it, and it holds just as little. Honesty. It really is a it’s. I don’t like trans people. I don’t want to acknowledge that they exist. Somehow their existence is a restriction on me, so I want to deny their existence. And that’s one of the saddest things out there.

Could you maybe describe for us? Um, because I think some of our listeners might not fully comprehend the tremendous toll on mental health and physical health that this kind of attitude can take on the trans community. Um, and, and on. Sure. Um, well let’s let me start with trans children. Cause I think that’s where the toll is the worst.

Um, just because of the nature of school, kids often will start school as a five-year-old in the gender that they’ve been assigned at birth presenting that way. And then somewhere along the line, figure out who they are and on nymity isn’t an. So in, in our case, our family didn’t know. So Jeremy didn’t have to face this, but say we had known and say it about eight or nine years old, or even younger.

He’d been able to say, I’m a boy on Jeremy. There would be a bunch of classmates that would remember his past. He wouldn’t be able to have. No one should have to hide, but it wouldn’t even have been an option for him. So his classmates would know. And when he, if he were to then go into the boys bathroom, it would be recognized that here’s a transport and.

He might face bullying. He might face people making fun of them. He might face kids locking the door behind them so that he couldn’t get in. He might face getting punched in the face and our kids are dealing with exactly that. What happens is it’s so difficult that the trans kids end up saying I’m not going to go to the bathroom during the school day.

Well, if you don’t and I’m getting kind of physical here in my description, but it leads to infections and kids can get very sick. They can end up with their kidneys permanently damaged, or their bladder is permanently damaged. And. Uh, that would be the extreme case, but, but they’re dealing with that. And that’s just on the physical side.

Imagine on the emotional side, if every time you went to use a bathroom facility at your school, kids teased you or threatened you. You wouldn’t want to stay at that school. And that’s what happens. Strands kids get pulled out of their schools and homeschooled in way too many cases. That needs to change.

Um, the kids usually are okay if they’re not following the lead of some adult, that’s getting, it started the little kids, the five-year-old six-year-old kids. They don’t care about. Whether they’re the, the other kids in the bathroom are little boys or little girls. They’d be fine with just all the bathrooms being gender neutral and, and no one thinks twice about it, but they get raised to think that there should be a difference.

And, and then they believe the trans kids. And it’s, it’s devastating when. Trans kids are bullied like that. It increases depression. It increases anxiety and an increase in suicide ideation. And it’s understandable that happens. And we do, we do see the numbers. Um, it’s, there’s starting to be more and more statistical and scientific studies about it.

When you take it a trans kid who is suffering from. Suicide ideation, depression and anxiety, and you move them into a setting of acceptance. Those problems go away to a great extent. We see tremendous improvement on the flip side, when Texas started. Discussing all of these anti-trans bills, the kids knew about it.

And the helplines, the suicide helplines started seeing a real uptick in phone calls from Texas area codes. Wow. Wow. It was measuring. Uh, Joe, one of the, uh, really compelling parts of your book for me was at the, toward the end. You have a little section on advice for friends and parents. And, um, uh, we always like to close on a positive forward-looking note, showing how this explanation analysis and history is, is useful and can help us build a better democracy, which of course is the purpose of our podcast.

Um, w what should we be doing? What can we do? What are you hopeful? We, as a society and all of our listeners as citizens of our society, what do you hope we will do going forward? Well, the big picture is that I hope we should start accepting our trans community. For who they are. And to say, this is, this is perfectly normal.

It may be different from what the majority of people experience, but it’s legitimate. And it’s real. I keep coming back to the word real, because I think that if everybody understands that being trans is real and that transgender people do exist, then the attempts to isolate them and to deny them their rights.

I have to go away. So that’s number one is to recognize the reality of being trans. Um, the second thing is that our systems need to change everything from the infrastructure tying in with bathrooms to the, the computer systems that, that forced even supportive, um, physicians into selecting a box that says, this is a man, or this is a woman.

Okay. And then the computers don’t let you. Uh, request everything that needs to be done for appropriate medical care. Um, so we need to change the systems, but mostly we need to change hearts that people need to be accepting and loving of the trans community. A teacher should be it. Most teachers do love their trans students just as much as they do.

All of their other students. And earlier Zachary, you asked about the next generation. I see it happening in the next generation. The kids are accepting when I go and visit high schools, the responses, of course, we should be accepting. Of course, trans people are real because they see it. They talk about it and there’s a much, much higher comfort level.

So I am very optimistic for the future. What can we do? The first is two. Um, follow the lead of our trans kids and our trans friends. Cross them. If they say my pronouns, are he and him and switch. It’s not that hard. If they say my son’s case, my name is now Jeremy. I made mistakes, but he always knew I was trying.

So he forgave me and within a few months I didn’t make mistakes unless I was telling a story about when he was a little kid. And then sometimes I would, I would make a mistake. Now I don’t even do that. Um, Show that you’re supporting by wearing something visible, a button or having a flag. Uh, if we were on video instead of audio, you’d see on my bookcase, several flags of the, uh, um, Gaye, uh, colors and of the trans colors and, and of the, um, uh, by, by the, uh, uh, non-gendered colors, uh, just as a statement.

So someone talking with me can see that I’m being supportive and it declared a safe space. One of the saddest things I’m seeing in schools is that that administrations are going in and scraping stickers off of teachers, doors stickers with teachers have put in a. Okay, flag go or okay. Rainbow to say this is a safe base and the administration is literally scraping those away saying you can’t do that.

Um, so, so visually presenting a safe space and standing up, if you see a problem, um, if I’m in a restaurant and I see a transgender woman being harassed by management about going into a bathroom, a women’s bathroom, I would stand up and. Go with them just as, because it helps. Uh, now I have, uh, certainly come up once, but, um, I, something I’ve thought about ahead of time, we can vote into office politicians who respect.

The reality of being transgender and are gonna not pass awful bills and will instead pass the equality act. We can donate money to organizations that are trying to, to create rights for transgender people where now. We’re having to fight for those. Uh, the biggest thing is probably personal and that’s, if, if you hear someone making a derogatory comment about transgender people, that somehow makes, makes that the butt of the joke you’re telling a story in the last line is, oh, and this man was wearing a dress.

Which may or may not have anything to do with being transgender, but you can, you can stop someone and say, Hey, wait a minute. I’m not, I’m not okay with your making jokes about this. I know someone who’s transgender, or I know someone who has a transgender son in they’re real and they deserve the same respect that we all do.

So please stop calling jokes like that. Right. It’s awkward. It’s difficult to. Make that request of someone, but that’s how we’re going to see change. So it can be anything from the very personal to going down to the capital and lobbying our politicians and going office to office and, and writing op ed pieces and writing books.

Everyone has to find their own advocacy space and grow with it. Uh, Joe, that that’s so powerful. And I want us to close with that because I think you’ve given us some very practical steps forward. Uh, you’ve displayed in your descriptions today and in your book that I recommend to all of our listeners, once a girl, always a boy, uh, you’ve displayed such, such.

And such a commitment at so many levels and it embodies what our podcast is all about. Uh, we’re inspired as our listeners know by Franklin Roosevelt’s comments that it’s to every generation to, uh, write a new chapter for our democracy and a new chapter for our democracy has to involve the inclusion of those.

We have excluded for too long. Uh, you’ve given us. Of the issue of the things we can do at the political level and as always the things we must do as, as individual actors in our democracy. And I really thank you for all that you do, and for joining us. And I want to let, Sacary have the last word as someone who lives with these issues at school.

And as part of this generation, that’s changing things. Exactly. What are your final thoughts on this? Well, I would just encourage everyone to follow through on what Joe was saying and to, to, to make sure that you are aware of how your words and your actions affect the transgender community, um, and, and how you can be an ally, um, in this, this fight for.

Thank you for joining us, uh, for this week of this is democracy

This podcast is produced by the liberal arts, its development studio and the college of liberal arts at the university of Texas at Austin. The music in this episode was written and recorded by Harris codine stay tuned for a new episode every week. You can find this is democracy on apple podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.

See you next time.