ACCESSIBILITY NOTE: Captions in English were added to the YouTube video on 9/15/22.
TRANSCRIPT
Imara Jones:

0:00

It is also the fact that this is the most important story of our time because the forces who are opposed to the Democratic vision of our country within Christian nationalism at its core have decided that this is the most important issue.

0:18

And so there’s no way that you can look at the events of January 6, there’s no way that you can look at the issues of the target, right, there’s no way that you can look at the issue of abortion, and not understand the centrality of trans people and trans rights and trans communities to those conversations. And that if you don’t understand my interactions in the story,

0:39

so the challenge for journalists is for us to widen our lens.

0:45

The challenge for journalists is to not think of trans people and trans communities as marginal as something that we get to at the end of a long list of letters, as something that we get to happen after a long list of other things that are important, but understanding that sometimes with LGBTQ we have to start with T.

1:08

And I think that it’s a challenge for many people, because of the natural bent that we all have as human beings, for living in a society, one that’s transphobic.

1:24

And secondly, the success of the 20 to 30 year campaign in which our Docu series died, I’m sorry, which our

1:33

podcasts series documents, the deliberate campaign to confuse, to disinform, to obscure.

1:42

And so a part of our job is journalist as a part of your job to do in newsrooms is to challenge the essential thinking that is [inaudible] about us, to challenge what you think is important about us and trans communities, to begin to challenge yourselves around your own fears and doubts and discomfort around us and who we are.

2:09

Because fundamentally there’s not a future without trans people.

2:14

there’s not a future worth [inaudible] about.

2:26

And the last thing I’ll say, before we get into the stories and how they are told, and how it impacts people is that, you know, as journalists, we’re taught a fallacy.

2:41

We are taught that the truth has two sides.

2:47

We are taught that balance and fairness is looking for another side of the story. When the fact of the matter is, sometimes this truth has three sides. Sometimes it has five sides. Sometimes it has nine sides. But sometimes the truth has no side. Sometimes the truth actually just is.

3:10

And so our challenge actually is to challenge in, when you cover trans communities, is to dis-abuse yourself of

3:19

trying to look for balance in a story. Because when it comes to fundamental human rights, when it comes to issues of life and death, when it comes to the fact that for four years running, we’ve had the most deadly years for trans people on record. And at the core of that is the murder of black trans women. There’s not actually another side to that truth.

3:44

It just is. And the challenge is to examine why that is.

3:50

And so I think that we have a lot of work to do.

3:54

And the reason why I started TransLash is because I realized that we had a lot of work to do and that the only people who could do it in the way that it used to be done are trans people.

4:13

So the last thing, the last challenge I’ll leave you with, [inaudible] challenges, is to think about, look around here.

4:21

Where are your trans reporters?

4:24

If you’re a publisher, where are your trans editors? And don’t point to style section [inaudible].

4:32

Don’t point to the fashion section, or the entertainment section.

4:37

Tell me where they are in the newsroom. Tell me where they are in the finance and business section. Tell me where they are and reporting on local government.

4:48

So we have a lot of work to do. And the time is way pass now because where we are in this country right now on trans

5:00

rights and on LGBTQ rights is in trouble.

5:04

And it’s because we are decade behind the people who wanted to construct the story. And today we’re going to use trans people as a wedge issue to further make political gains. And that’s why we see, you know, 6 anti-trans bills in 2019, and then 127 in 2021, and then 300 this year, with 13 states [inaudible] anti-trans laws. So this is an urgent issue. It is an issue which is vital to the future. It is an issue that’s vital for us to cover the truth and we take our jobs seriously as journalists. And so I want to thank all of you for coming here this morning, to hear these stories, to be a part of this conversation and think about ways that we can do better.

5:55

And to express my appreciation for the [inaudible] not only is not only for this, the award that we got also for this panel, and also pushing us all to do more, because the time is way past now.

6:25

I’m actually delighted to sit down and turn it over to Cathy, whose panel this is [inaudible] conversation.

Cathy Renna:

6:40

Good morning. My intro is so much shorter.

6:47

I can’t say better than that. My name is Cathy Renna and my pronouns are she/ehr. I am the Communications Director for the National LGBTQ Task Force. And I am, I’m so thrilled. like, I’m just, I’m so excited for this conversation. And I’m excited for you to meet all of these amazing people. And hear more.

7:05

Just a little bit to start, when we conceptualized this panel, we wanted to talk about exactly what Imara spoke of, trans lives, trans stories, and trans truth. And trans facts. But you know, it wasn’t a T word. So [inaudible]

7:21

[inaudible]

7:24

This is a time of tremendous challenge. We’ve, we’ve all known that. But I feel like it’s also a time of tremendous hope.

7:33

And a lot that [inaudible] on this stage [inaudible].

7:38

We see the data, we see that young people are, they’re coming out younger, you’re putting out more fluid. As my daughter [inaudible] is saying, I don’t want to check a box. I don’t want a box. She turns 17 next week, God help me.

7:54

And you know, we’re also growing up in a culture with some tremendous disparities, right? We see and we have as queer people, particularly trans and non binary people of all ages, more and more role models. Laverne Cox, Admiral Rachel Levine.

8:13

Right, right?

8:15

So, just so, so so many people, [inaudible]

8:22

up there is some of my people, so [inaudible] Jackson, Elliot Page, [inaudible]. If you don’t know these names, start Googling. Amy Schneider, who I met recently at US Open for Pride Day, and she was like, “Jeopardy is a sport”.

8:42

Jonathan Van Ness.

8:44

ALOK. Please, please, find ALOK on Instagram.

8:50

[inaudible] Rebecca [inaudible] whose mom is in the audience. [inaudible].

8:59

Jazz Jennings. [inaudible]

9:02

Angelica Ross, last but not least, because my girl is going to be, not “in Chicago”. I’ve been saying this all weekend. And people are like, she’s here?! And she’s going to be… Roxie Hart.

9:16

Starting next week!

9:19

It’s gonna be fun.

9:21

And on the other hand, we have the things that Imara talked about, unrelenting, escalating attacks, hundreds of pieces of legislation, anti trans violence that is just completely out of control. The trauma, the pain, the loss, someone said yesterday, Bethany actually talked about her research and how, after seeing an anti trans piece of media, that levels of depression and suicidality and trauma were raised by trans people. And we also have, as Imara talked about, about a very well funded opposition weaponized strategy.

10:00

And again, I don’t have to tell you this, last but not least is we have a massive amount of disinformation up there.

10:07

And the way to combat that is by telling stories. So I will not repeat exactly what I was gonna say, which is what Imara said, which is journalists need to cover trans issues differently. There is not two sides to trans and non binary people existing. This is the same.

[glitched video]

10:39

…other side, and other side, what? like, I want to have a child and get married. What’s the other side of that? Right? If you’re interested in being a bi racial couple, both [inaudible].

10:56

So with that, I bring you to select ordinary voices, some amazing stories of some incredible experts, which I’m so proud.

11:06

I’ll start all the way on the left and we can just go from there.

11:11

[inaudible] is with Equal Pride Media, is going to talk to us from the perspective of someone who are workings within queer media, which I feel like it’s really important, since it often leads mainstream media and on the cover of issues. Ina Fried doesn’t need an introduction in this room.

11:32

[inaudible] later because he said his husband is obsessed with you and is tired of hearing your name.

11:40

Amir is one of our [inaudible] champions.

11:48

He’s not the only one in the room. You’re gonna want to meet all the [inaudible] people in this room after. Next we have Sonia Murphy.

12:00

[inaudible] wonderful things, but is a totally badass lawyer.

12:07

[inaudible] You’ll learn it’s important to all this, [inaudible] is here. So I’m gonna, I’m gonna let Tracy start this off, I [inaudible] hands off Moderator. So I’m just gonna let you go.

12:19

Tell stories that we talked about before.

Tracy E. Gilchrist

12:25

I also moderating [inaudible] moderation myself.

12:31

Thank you for [inaudible], it’s a great honor to be on this [inaudible]. And just a little bit of perspective about who I am,

12:39

[inaudible] Pride, for the past few years, I was the editor in chief [inaudible] So we’re doing that work remotely,

12:50

from my tiny apartment in West LA. And

12:54

I first want to say, [inaudible] years ago, many years ago, now, we had an editor in chief who made the decision very distinct, that we would switch our reporting from this kind of updated LGBTQ+ media and focus more on trans issues than on anything else. And I think those things [inaudible].

13:22

[inaudible] you know, we need traffic, we’re gonna have to work harder. His name was [inaudible], and he was absolutely correct in that, and we got on board and thought, well,

13:36

Then, you know, I think the Advocate began to be a leader in the space, at least in terms of LGBTQ+

13:43

media space, trans specific media, we can, we’ve [inaudible] that. But, I think we’ve really started to do a great job. And, you know, I spoke with Cathy and really, what I would say is I am just kind of like why am I on this panel,

14:03

I’m a cisgender lesbian. And but it is important, because my experience has been to listen

14:12

to a lot of people. And the way that I learned is really listening and trying to amplify other people’s stories and hear how they want to be written about, how they want to be spoken about. And I think that’s worked out quite well. And it’s impacted me so far. As far as I know. So I would just say that to start off I’m going to stop talking and let someone else go.

Ina Fried:

14:40 (19:27 YT)

Yeah, you know, I think Imara reframed the issue incredibly well. And, you know, lives are at stake. It’s really, you know, to Imara’s [inaudible] it’s all of our lives, like trans people are at the forefront of an attack on all of our lives and

15:00

Community. But, it really is starting with trans people, it’s always starting with the most marginalized groups and starting with trans people of color, and it started a long time ago, if anyone who’s listening, the way Monica Roberts tried to warn us, she urged us to listen to the stories of Black trans women. She elevated those stories. Ahe provided us a wake up call that had we listened, we might not have had to go through some of what we’ve been through. I’ve been extraordinarily privileged to be one of the incredibly small number of people initially, thankfully, a growing number of trans people actually geting to tell and shape these stories, there aren’t enough. There aren’t trans people in newsrooms. But they’re here, there’s a lot of them, I met a bunch of them this morning, we had a trans and non-binary meetup. There’s people that want to tell their stories, and there’s far more people out there, it’s not as hard as people make it seem.

And also want to draw the contrast between what life has been like and what life has been, like more recently. I transitioned [inaudible] like in 2003 from like, a lot of people, you know, first go to a bunch of challenges. And then they had about 10 years where I basically just did my job and enjoyed it. And I got to be visibly and audibly trans, I get to go on the air and talk about my field of expertise, technology. And I love the fact that basically, all I did in my work world was do my thing. And to do it while trans, I felt that was enough, I was happy. It was great. And, you know, five or six years ago, it started being the case, that that wasn’t what was happening.

It wasn’t just, I’d have to do my thing. And that wasn’t really the only time I thought about being trans. I’m very proudly, openly trans. But it wasn’t the biggest thing of my life. And the reason was, it wasn’t under constant attack. It wasn’t a daily topic of conversation. And, you know, to the study that Bethany referenced, and can’t begin to describe, for those who haven’t experienced and again, we’re not the first. Lots of communities that have been marginalized in the [inaudible] for a long time, what it’s like to have your humanity up for debate every day, every day in the news. Trans people are being blamed for everything from climate change to the [inaudible], it’s exhausting.

These laws and bills have the direct and initial impact of keeping young people off sports teams, preventing people from health care, but they also have the added impact of telling all of us, we are less worthy. I have incredibly stable housing, a great job, a supportive community. And it’s exhausting and taking a toll on my mental health. And the toll that is taking on our collective mental health is immense. And that’s actually why I started this project, which we will talk about a little later, Letters 4 Trans Kids. As a journalist, I know, I can’t get into every political thing. I can’t take a stand on every bill. But the reason I started this social media effort was I also can’t let the next generation only hear these horrible messages. So I started this pretty simple thing. Drop a note to a video posted on any social media, [inaudible] , and to me, I couldn’t do more than that as a journalist; I couldn’t do less than that as a human being.

Amir 18:59

[inaudible] a little nervous. [inaudible] start with

19:11

kids and sports. I just, you know, want people to understand as someone who I [inaudible] plays soccer, I’m not a superhero.

19:21

I’m not any different than anyone else. You know, I’m just as bad and [inaudible]. I consider myself very average.

19:35

But the thing is, is that I’m in that perspective with being athletic,I’m, you know, I can’t jump any higher than, you know, I can jump higher than some people, others not so much. But even with being you know, a trans kid, you know, and people seeing me and you know, of course not knowing

20:00

But the thing is, I’m normal, I’m the normal, you know, like, this is the new normal, and [inaudible].

20:14

What is really “normal” ?

20:17

Like what is your “normal”? You know, everybody’s normal is different. You know, everybody is different. [inaudible] all of our beauty comes from within. And that’s the most beautiful part of us. Not from what’s outside, you know, [inaudible] picture and like them on Instagram. But who are you? Who are you inside?

20:42

What things are going on in your mind? What is your story? What do you want to tell the world? Because your story is important, just like everyone else on this planet, and the thing is, is that

20:55

there is a trans boy at home, sitting there wondering, you know, who am I, exactly?

21:02

Is there anybody out there like me?

21:05

I was that boy.

21:07

I have been that boy.

21:10

sitting there looking at myself in the mirror like, who are you?

21:14

And the thing is, it’s time to realize and understand.

21:20

You are a leader, you are strong, you are brave, you are worthy. And you deserve the love and support as any other person in this world.

21:33

So do you all.

Sonia Murphy:

21:45 (26:32 YT)

agree that that is the story, we are just living our everyday lives. And as Amir’s auntie, you [inaudible]. We’ve always been more talented.

21:58

people of color. We don’t have the privilege of not having to fight for our existence every single day.

22:05

It is exhausting. And then when you add the transphobia that is happening right now, it’s even more exhausting. But the story is we’re thriving. We’re living, we are redefining [inaudible]. We’re [inaudible], and we’re redefining normal. And we are living our lives. And my goal is that every trans kids to know that they can do whatever they want. They can be whoever they want to be. They can walk in their truth. They can be themselves. They are no limitations. There are no roadblocks. And that’s the story. I really would love to see all of you tell stories of trans kids just living [inaudible] and surviving

22:47

and having fun and enjoying their lives. Are there roadblocks? Absolutely. Do we get over them? Absolutely. I think the problem, one of the problems right now is the opposition is loud. They are loud. They are screaming. And it is not our nature to scream back. Right? That has not worked for us. It’s not worked in the Civil Rights Movement, and it just has not worked. Our nature is to be who we are, and to let you see us: living, surviving, thriving, being who we are. Get to know us. And you find commonalities. I think as Amir said, you know, we gotta get to the heart to heart of each other and not just looking at each other and making assumptions based on the

23:30

assumption [inaudible] what we look like.

23:33

Right, can we get beyond that? Can we get beyond sort of the surface and dig in and really get to know each other on a heart to heart level? Because I think what we’ll find is they’re more commonalities than differences, but we need you all to tell the story. We need you to tell the thriving happy, outgoing, successful stories and re-define.

Imara Jones:

24:06 (28:51 YT)

Okay, panel’s over.

24:11

[inaudible] say, I think for me, the only thing that I can offer is the

24:21

reality check

24:24

that

24:26

we are only 1 to 2% of the population.

24:33

[inaudible] rate is 1.4% and that’s from the Williams Institute.

24:40

So, really small number of people

24:46

population percentage wise.

24:49

So then you have to ask the question. So why are such a tiny group of people,

24:57

Such an incredible focus [inaudible]

25:01

because the numbers just don’t add up, you know, it doesn’t make any sense.

25:07

And I think that when you look at the issue is [inaudible] a year investigating that by, so go to Apple podcasts and it’s going to take

25:29

[inaudible] direct you there. And the reality is that those are

25:38

the

25:41

[inaudible] forces in this country

25:45

understand

25:47

that in order for them to implement their vision of America,

25:52

that they have to get more people on their side.

25:56

And what they chosen to do is to exploit transphobia, which is [inaudible] existed in this country, which crosses all political boundaries, as a way to try to make political inroads, in order to keep safe houses and win

26:11

really important congressional races.

26:16

It is a

26:18

social issue…is a political strategy that’s dressed up as a social issue.

26:25

And there’s a fundamental understanding

26:29

that the smallness of the population makes it easier for trans people to prey upon.

26:36

makes it easier for trans people to be

26:40

to be mischaracterized. It makes it easier version of the stereotype, it’s makes it easier for shadow people to be framed as a danger, because they know that there are lots of people in this country, depending on what survey you look at two-thirds, to, 2 out of 3 to 9 out of 10 is good range. But there’s a big swath of Americans who don’t personally know a trans person. So it makes it really easy to do this.

27:13

And you can see the effort that they have put behind this in the number of bills. How do you think you get 300 bills, and 40 some odd states, in a three year period?

27:28

If that doesn’t scream organization to you, I

27:31

don’t know what does. I don’t know how you can’t look at that and see [inaudible] organized effort. If you don’t understand that

27:40

tactics, and the abortion rights movement which was just a test drive for the way that they tried to deal with a whole host of

27:47

populations that they don’t like.

27:50

Those same tactics are now just being turned on trans people.

27:54

You know, we’re starting to see, we’re starting to approach trans doctors, including my own, I’m sorry, to people who prefer but couldn’t get gender affirming care. And we had death threats at Boston Children’s Hospital, we had a major case facility in Texas close. We have a governor who’s decided to weaponize the entire

28:16

entire government apparatus and thousands of people [inaudible].

28:21

And so this is not an accident. And I can’t, it’s hard for me to underscore how organized this is, how focused it is, how serious they are, and how big the danger for everyone is, because what happens with every successive movement that’s designed to target the population that they learn from that and apply it to someone else. So as abortion rights was a test drive, that they’re now applying the same tactics on trans people, you’re dying to get a case up at the Supreme Court, because I’m pretty sure that given that the

28:59

[inaudible] on that, and then it’ll be time for something else.

29:05

So this is the thin end of the wedge.

29:09

And this is why I think it’s really important to again, as people whose job it is across the country to cover these issues to understand the growing danger, serious nature of this impact on people’s lives and the fact that what they’re experiencing is not accidental. And to do the job of exposing the people in your states or in your cities who are driving these bills. I guarantee you once you start to look to see they’re connected to a vast network that has nothing to do with the interest of your state but has interest in, large national interest and they’re trying to drive.

29:56

[inaudible] questions

Cathy Renna:

29:58 (34:44 in)

[inaudible] What Imara just said

30:00

really struck me. One of the most powerful things I think we’ve had a chance to do this year with the task force was partner with TransLash, an extraordinary project that highlighted the stories of the impact

30:14

of reproductive rights and justice challenges on the trans, non-binary community. So I know there was a panel yesterday about it, [inaudible]

30:25

We were like, after

30:28

Before, during… I’d like to talk about that intersectionality. Because I think that’s such an important thing, not just for journalists, but for our own community to understand, because we have conversations all the time with those in our community who don’t make those connections necessarily. And, you know, they immediately like, oh, no, marriage is in trouble. Okay.

30:50

That’s been in trouble for a long time, Welcome to the party.

30:53

I think that’s really something we need to talk about. So I’d love to hear from your perspectives, a little bit about where, where do you think journalists can play a role in helping people understand that within the community, and then the larger culture, understand how connect those dots better as several people have said.

Tracy E. Gilchrist:

31:14 (35:59 in)

So

31:16

first off, when Roe was overturned,

31:20

the conversation immediately went to my marriage, my marriage, my marriage, and I was on social media with my friends, and we

31:30

can [inaudible] hang on, there’s a lot of queer people who can be pregnant. [inaudible] be first. So let’s not prepare for the course. Yes, marriage community to deal with that. But can we please deal with the problem at hand, and how are we going to help these people first. So I think

31:51

the way that we need to handle a lot of this stuff is to think bigger than ourselves. We look at our own identities, and we’ll how’s that apply to me? Well, it’s affecting someone else to affect you, you know, eventually, as Imara just said, so I think that

32:09

one way as journalists that we can handle these issues is to get outside of ourselves. And we’re supposed to be balanced and fair. But we always bring a bias of what we want to write about what we care about that sort of thing and how we write about it. So the biggest challenge, I think, is to just get outside of ourselves, as I said before, listen to the stories that people are telling.

32:34

And I think sometimes it’s the tail [inaudible] wag the dog. And I think we’ve tried to do that at The Advocate, to, you know, certainly degrees of success, like I mentioned to our editor 10 years ago, so we’re going to cover trans issues more than anything else. And I think that we have to cover trans people of color more than anything else, we have [inaudible], we have to cover all the people who don’t get the coverage, we need to do that more than we cover the rest, in order for it all to coalesce. And at first that may seem uncomfortable, but after a while, it’s just the way to do it. And I think that’s a good way to start.

Ina Fried:

33:17 (38:01)

The next step, obviously agree with all that, I think the next step that we can do as journalists is spotting the through lines, it’s the same people, like one side of the shirt, the front of the shirt, says, you know, “Repeal Roe vs. Wade”, the back of the shirt says, you know, whatever, y [inaudible], and if they get those two things, you know, underneath that is contraception, it’s a whole bunch of things. But it’s not, again, it’s not just waiting till they come for the one you care about. It’s recognizing

33:50

and telling the story of a very coordinated movement. What Imara’s work shows us is, you know, what’s going on? Again, I think there’s so much complexity here. You know, again, you know, from our [inaudible] sometimes there’s nine angles you need to look at, and sometimes there’s one sometimes, you know, there’s just telling your story, and his soccer team and the fact that he contributes to a soccer team and every one of his soccer team benefits from having them. There’s so many good stories, you know, I’ve been a part of this organization for 20 years, and I feel like, you know, everyone should walk away from these conventions with some good story ideas. I mean, it’s, you know, if you’re looking to cover the issue of trans sports, yes, Lia Thomas is one important part of the story. If we have trans athletes, eventually one of them is going to win something.

34:49

Like the story of Fischer Wells, Fischer wells, they didn’t have the trans hockey team at her school. She wanted to play field hockey. So first she got her friends

35:00

together, and that wasn’t enough for a field hockey team. So then she went to the rest of the school, they have a field hockey team. Now, because of the law in Kentucky, the girl who started the field hockey team is the only girl in all of Kentucky that can play field hockey. That’s a story. You know, there are many stories out there and really not listening only to the rhetoric. And the other thing is, you know, again, our lives are politicized, but not framing it as the transgender issue, the transgender question. I can’t believe in 2022, we’re having this conversation. You can’t have a question about a group of people. There are political issues, and I’m not trying to [inaudible] them. But our very existence should not be treated as a political issue. It’s a human rights issue. And it’s so important how we frame these stories. There are so many opportunities to tell better stories and our award winners, there’s so many, so much good work being done. And I don’t want to, I don’t want to act like nobody’s doing a good job of telling our stories, because they are, but our political opponents are doing a better job. And push in your newsroom. I do this all the time. But we can all do this. If you’re writing about gender affirming health care, no story on that should exist without saying this is not a measure of a scientific question. The medical community is 100% that gender affirming care is appropriate. It saves lives. [inaudible]

Cathy Renna:

36:48 (41:34 YT_

Imara [inaudible] are perfect segue to talk about [inaudible].

Cathy Renna:

36:48 (41:34 YT_

Imara [inaudible] are perfect segue to talk about [inaudible].

Imara Jones:

36:53

Yeah, I mean, yes, as I just wanted to say that really important point that

37:02

on the issue of medical bills, right?

37:06

If you aren’t in a story,

37:09

and you’re looking for [inaudible] by another side, right? Your editor says you need to have this [inaudible]. And you’re like, No, I talked to this local doctor, and she’s got a children’s hospital. And she chooses these kids [inaudible].

37:24

But you know, I need to go talk to someone who opposes.

37:29

The only people that in the medical establishment, in quotes that you can who oppose transgender health care, is a pseudo-scientific group set up by the right wing. [inaudible]

37:45

So that means that if you have an opposing voice in your voice and your story, but what you are doing is actually promoting [inaudible] into pseudo-science that’s designed to undermine trans people. Because the American Medical Association, Immigrant Society, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the World Professional Association of Transgender Health, which is now issuing its eighth standard of care for trans people, [inaudible] four years all say that gender affirming care for you administered in the right way in the right time, it’s safe.

38:23

So the only people that you can find, this is what I mean by the fallacy of two sides, because the

38:28

only people that you can find are people who are who are sponsored and set up to disinform.

Ina Fried:

(YT: 43:23)

And we’re not, we’re just not doing a good enough job on the health story. Like, for example, if it gets framed as trans, gender affirming care, trans health is what’s making these irreversible changes to kids bodies. Puberty is what makes an irreversible change. [inaudible]

38:54

Puberty blockers should not be remotely controversial. All they do is what the right pretends to espouse, which is that they want which is to give kids more time. That’s what we’re talking about. In most cases, yes, older teens might make some other medical decisions. But that’s mostly not what we’re talking about. And the reason this is misunderstood, is because we’re all still not collectively doing our jobs well enough.

Imara Jones:

And so on this [inaudible] Cathy’s [inaudible]. One must [inaudible] the way that it parallels to abortion is the fact that by the time a trans kid has gotten health care,

39:36

they have had the sign off of their parents. They’ve had to sign off a therapist or a psychologist or psychiatrist or therapist or a psychiatrist, and a doctor perhaps more than once,

39:51

which means that by the time that’s happened, but the people who are responsible for the care of the child have all weighed in on the decision

40:00

And have come to a uniform agreement that this is the right way. Right? The way that that parallels with abortion is that you are deciding to get in the middle, and to place the government, in the doctor’s office, in the therapist’s office, at the kitchen table of these parents, that’s all you’re doing. You are intruding, you’re making the government intrude on what is essentially a private medical decision.

40:38

It is absolutely not different.

40:42

And, you know, I think that one of the things that we did in this film series and what our entire team did,

40:51

a whole separate team worked on

40:54

Trans Bodies, Trans Choices, which is done really well at lots

40:59

of film festivals this year is we decided to turn the camera on trans people to tell their stories around the importance of abortion in their lives, but [inaudible] that abortion is can be a part of gender affirming care, and the way in which abortion for trans people, when you hear the stories are undeniable, the links and the overlaps with the issue of abortion for everyone. And underscores that the people that you think that are marginal, that their stories are essential to understanding a larger issue like abortion. And so what we did was essentially find people who were willing to tell us their story. And we turned the camera on and we went to their homes, whether it be in Atlanta, or whether it be in Mexico or whether it be in Los Angeles.

41:59

[inaudible] Mexico, that’s a whole ‘nother thing.

42:05

And, you know, to [inaudible] those people tell their stories.

42:10

And those are stories that people don’t listen to. They don’t think they exist. They don’t think that matter. And one of the most important things that I thought was essential about the way in which we did Trans

42:24

Bodies, Trans Choices, that’s the name of the series, [inaudible] a whole bunch of other places, think this

42:28

is this is kind of our approach actually on the TransLash podcast, which is that,

42:35

you know, if I just sit up here, and I tell you a bunch of facts, it’s gonna go over your head, and you might be able to

42:44

deny a truth. If I told you that 2 million people are experiencing something, that sounds abstract, and it’s probably easy to dismiss it.

42:51

It is not easy to dismiss

42:55

a singular story. It’s not easy to dismiss the story that you

43:01

heard. And so we approached with this series was sparked for us to allow the truth of individuals to speak and be presented in a way, that it’s so powerful, that there’s no way to deny it. For instance, you can say that a person

43:19

who

43:21

Well, I don’t know if [inaudible] who experience severe trauma in a way that is unimaginable that they shouldn’t have the right to decide what they can do with their bodies after that event.

43:37

So I think that’s a really important way of storytelling approaching trans stories is to center the voices of trans people, and to allow them to, to run without interruption. Because what you’re going to get is something that’s really powerful.

Cathy Renna:

43:55

Yeah, if you haven’t seen those videos, please please find them. And it’s, again, a perfect segue to part of the conversation here. We’re talking about telling stories. So could you do talk a little bit about GenderCool, because they’re the [inaudible] of the organization, which, you know, full disclosure, fell in love, like two seconds after I met you all Gender Odyssey like a long time ago, but it really wasn’t very long ago.

44:23

And how it’s really creating change, you know, how it’s changing spaces, both in community, in the corporate world, but just talk a little bit about how the work that you’re doing is a shift in the way we do narrative, storytelling and how it’s changing.

Sonia Murphy:

44:41

You know, Amir, and I went through his transition.

44:46

Right, During COVID, we were, we are fortunate we were in DC, we have a supportive Children’s Hospital. Our story is not traumatic in that regard.

44:58

So I’m very, very, very grateful

45:00

for that, but what we did not have as what I call the tribe, right, I did not have another parent to call and say this, this is what’s happening. And for us that was, at least for me.

45:12

That was really, I won’t say traumatic but Amir lost his mom, my sister, a few years ago, and I do not have the opportunity to say to her, what would you do, I am going off of knowing her and knowing as a parent, what she would want me to do

45:32

for her child, but not having someone I can call, and just talk about, here’s what we’re doing. And this is what they’re saying, really praying about this and being throughful about this and wanting to do what is best.

45:44

And then he and I were very open throughout the whole process. Amir has always been very vocal about it, this is why the stories are so important, as we talked about, because I think it took him a long time to come around to the word transgender, although we always knew there was something, but there weren’t stories being told that he could identify with as [inaudible], right. So because of the lack of stories, it took a very long time for us to get around [inaudible] transgender and this is what it is able to do. But when we finally got there, and we began our transition, we didn’t have resources, you know, we were on, scouring the internet, etc. And we came across Gendercool on the Today show. And through Gendercool, we have our tribe. You know, I found a tribe of other parents who have been through the same transitional phrases. And Amir found a tribe of other youth who were going [inaudible] and were using their voices to impact change. That’s what they do. He was already on Tik Tok, you know, social media, telling stories…

46:48

You know, and ginger who provided a larger prep blog, it provided connection, and friendship, you know, an opportunity to get together and learn what, okay, what you’re doing is that, right? And that’s, that’s good that was useful here is not new to me. That’s what I do. And but this was different. And I needed to connect with other people who were like minded. I’m also advocating right using their voices to tell their story. And that’s what you’re looking for. If you don’t know someone who is trying and facet people don’t

47:26

reach out to us. I’m happy to connect you. That’s why general pool is here. We are happy to connect you and introduce you to show like this. And I’ll tell you my story. This there, you know, the percentages are small, which is why it’s funny, because you know, somebody’s gonna win. Yes, but you know, you might.

48:01

Charlotte, if you

48:10

get on a team, and somebody’s not sure.

48:14

But what I think we miss in that conversation, and I don’t want to dwell back on sports, what we missing that conversation is that we are that when we make that distinction. We are elevating somebody’s participation. Well, we’re elevating somebody’s winning, right? The goal to be a champion or a superstar over someone’s participation? Is it really more important? That’s what other kids it’s a shine, right? Or is more important than here?

48:48

Just to be honest, so it’s so much more important that someone be able to shine or be first you know, that it is because we have a participant. So these are the things and it’s a million of them in Africa.

49:04

But the region before we found that track, and we needed a try, if you don’t know someone, please come, please feel free to come talk to me after this panel. I’m happy to introduce you to a mirror the first trans person I met.

49:21

To connect you with gender cool, we want to redefine what we are offering through life just like everyone else. Right? What are stories the stories are important, because as you mentioned, if you have not been marginalized in some way and you feel like none of this matters to me the contrary, trust me when

49:43

they are coming for you next. So you can say I will if you want, you can but when you don’t wake up so late that they’re already on your roof, because they’re coming

49:57

you need

49:59

to know

50:00

I’m sorry, literally you, you can’t sit silent when you see something happening to someone else because they’re approaching next. Right? It’s important to you.

Ina Fried:

If you need another voice in your story college story, we have seen this story. It disgusts me as a child of grandparents who fled Germany from the Holocaust, that we are not, not 75 years removed from the Holocaust. And, you know, people read, you know, that Kneedler, quote, you know, first aid for the trade unionists, and I wasn’t

50:34

like, this is not hard to connect the blue lines, yes, during this people are at the center back. And again, we should point out against trans women of color, primarily, most most likely to be going violence, but this is an attack on bodily autonomy, period for all of us.

50:53

And

Cathy Renna:

50:54

I’m not gonna say, what’s next. America, can you talk a little bit about your experience? Because,

51:01

you know, it’s funny, I, I really, it just drives me bonkers when people say you are our future, like, how do you get these kids to do it more seriously?

51:13

To do and a lot more, and, and there’s a generation coming up. Right, that I hope that makes me more hopeful. Because they are, you know, they are not as interested in just, you know, start like me, right? They’re more fluid, they’re more open and running in a different culture than some of us in this room. But can you talk about what that’s like, because I’ve been at panels with all with, you know, half a dozen gender champions. And they’ll say things like being sex is like, the third most interesting thing about

51:44

entropy talk about that.

Amir:

51:47

So the thing is that you shouldn’t start with, she said, My

51:53

high school going into high school. I was like, should I make it private? Or should I?

1:59

That’s my big question. I thought about it for a week. I was like, No, I’m going to keep an open both

52:08

cases, if you would like to know anything about me, I’m here. I’m somebody who you talk to, you know, I can be there and we can talk, you know, if you want to come to me privately, one on one, because you’re going through something. I’m here. You know, that’s how I am of course, you know, there was struggles there were people who said things, but things, it’s okay. People are going to say things. Who are people who have been on stasis, say things or people that they don’t judge, they don’t really hit you I like

52:39

talking about the thing is, it’s just and that’s fine. You know, the thing is, is that you’re saying that because you just don’t understand. So let me help you understand that meaning.

53:01

Right, being trans you know, it’s just an evil just we’re

53:09

just for who I am and I was just the label, but really truly wrong.

53:16

You are sending the wrong thing. Thank you is that people will start to understand that the more we put stories out there more no other high school or elementary everybody starts to see more stories about people who are like them or people who are around them. You know, people meet you every day on trains, you know? And people meet people

53:42

your teacher your best friend, you know,

53:46

your barista at Starbucks you

53:51

never know so i think is that being a high school is difficult

53:59

sometimes going through a struggle and going to something so simple can be so worth it

54:05

just change one heart one mind and so that’s what’s worked for me

Imara Jones:

54:20 (59:04 YT)

I told you when I first finished like 40 minutes ago the independent

54:28

panels over I mean, I think that they’re just to them that I raise

54:34

you know, one of the things that make that kind of can drive me crazy is that people believe that because we have people like a beer that that’s also have to do your job

54:48

that somehow that you have people who are powerful and who are gonna log in for fighting for their you know who they are and and articulated and more amazing that

55:00

I’m adults don’t happen to our job of creating the space so that people like Aamir can live and thrive. Because you shouldn’t have to be on this panel today.

55:14

And you shouldn’t have to be in the White House.

55:17

Or you shouldn’t have been talking to any of us that maybe we shouldn’t read into.

55:23

And there is a there is a there’s a laziness, that makes me crazy. When people say, Oh, well, there’s a new generation tablet, it’ll just get better. And if that’s just the way, whatever happens in history, just because people put their feet out, right, a

55:41

reason for it.

55:43

Absolutely nothing, you know, and the reason why there there’s a movement to not teach history is to not be able to say these things. Understand that that’s a way to build an alternative future. And so if you think that because, you know, we have a different generation with a different perspective, that it’s natural to change, and naturally be better, you really haven’t read American history.

56:10

And you don’t really know where your world

56:13

is in that.

56:16

And the second thing I wanted to say, because it just makes me it, I hear it all the time, and it drives me nuts. Because kids get to be kids, right, and adults will jump up job with the dogs is to create a world where kids can thrive.

56:31

The second thing is that, you know, just to sort of go back to where I started, kind of alluded to it, as I like what I said at the beginning that like the forces of Januarius thinks they’re also the people who are tied into the anti trans movement. I wasn’t, I wasn’t just saying that as far away like hyperbole, I was talking about me and logically, I mean, there are connections between the Oathkeepers and anti trans individuals and organizations and leaders, there are connections between the proud boys, but one of the leading state legislators in Arizona, who is leading the charge there, it’s true

57:12

that there are people who are in pathway through a deeply connected to and trans and then largely anti LGBTQ, Moonves by the provide security for anti trans people when they show up with different rallies, or are going to protest. So when I say that this movement is deeply tied together, so I’m not joking. So you can’t you don’t understand the way that this is a part of the story. And I don’t know what to tell you. And I first kind of understood that. When actually, as a part of the series, I spoke to mark Bach, who is the president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, it was trying to take groups aside as such. I said, Well, what do you got mores? You what is the area of hate and hate groups and potential hate violence that America that you’re most worried about? That she said, is growing convergence between traditional white nationalist, militant groups, and they’re growing focus on on what they call gender ideology and gender identity issues, when you’re at that organization battles, and that’s the thing that keeps arriving.

58:28

So I just want to underscore the seriousness of the moment and the weight of where we are and the importance of covering these issues. Because if we don’t do our job, people like us not going to have the future that we all can see. And you should have.

Cathy Renna:

58:57

So we’re gonna go into questions. Your question,

59:02

Jackie has

59:05

just been definitely

59:13

very much.

CNN

59:17

Your numbers are small in this world, but your career is sharp sort of subject matter.

59:27

I’m curious couple of things.

59:30

Do you think you owe the far right, a debt of gratitude because they brought this house image to the public, they dropped the battle line or this trans friends of mine are very concerned.

59:43

When in 2016, as as the very conservative movement that began to take hold in this country, and they were afraid of acres a month ago, a organization that does journalism across the board will

1:00:00

leave them behind. And I’m curious to get your sense of where do you think the 30,000 foot level? Where do you see this find out? It’s out in the open. And and across the board, not just journalism and media, but across the board? What are the shoring up, because now it’s been flagged, that’s very, very rare.

Imara Jones:

1:00:36

So rare for me to have requests.

1:00:39

I mean, I just had as a panelist, I should start by saying thank you for the question.

[OTHER VOICE]

1:00:49

Please watch the social media feed.

Imara Jones:

1:00:53

I guess the only thing that I would say to this particular question is that

1:00:59

with all due respect, the only way that you can ask that question is because your life’s not at risk.

1:01:07

Well.

1:01:11

I don’t think that we owe people

1:01:16

who wish to do everyone in this room harm.

1:01:21

who

1:01:23

wish to implement

1:01:26

biological segregation and hierarchy in this country if they had a metal separator power? Who people who showed that amendment at that at a minutes notice that they are willing to kill people and overthrow the government of the United States or overthrow the people. The only thing that we always have is

1:01:59

I, I do not believe that we owe them. I do not believe that we owe them that I can understand from an intellectual standpoint, why you would ask that because, oh, issues are prominent. But

1:02:14

right now, we have political refugees in the United States, because of the far right against trans people. There are transparence, who woke up last night wondering where they’re going to move because they can’t find spaces. And there are networks of transparents underground across the country, we’re talking about other transparents, about places that they can go and how they should get there. And so I don’t understand that if you really understand what’s going on how you can say that we owe the debt, the debt and write off that debt of gratitude for highlighting their issues, when all they’re doing is actually pretty good.

Ina Fried:

1:02:58

Obviously Imara said it incredibly well. I think what’s missing is basically, there are two options, or channels of kids and trans people in this country. And both are happening. And it’s a question of which happens more? Do we get more kids like we’re getting to live their life? Or do we get bored kids taking their lives, and they’re being incredibly bored, that we’re gonna be at the workplace taking their lives. And, you know, as Mark said, there are parents moving across the country, there’s a brave, courageous girl how shackling spent

1:03:36

testifying before the Texas Legislature time again, to be your word. She spent her entire childhood testifying about why she deserves a childhood. And number three, her state. And even more than these kids that are in loving families, there are parents that don’t know any better, because they don’t know what it is. Some of them are making the right choice and allowing the viewers of the world to be their best selves. And some of them are hearing this right wing aid, and choosing not to have another kid.

1:04:11

But I think parents and so that’s what’s at stake. And that’s the challenge. And we should know this, again, like for everyone in this room knew what it was like to come out as gay and have parents who didn’t understand the same thing. It’s not again, these are crazy scenarios we’ve never had to deal with before. And you know, the stakes couldn’t be higher. The reason you see such passion out of trans adults is because we weren’t transparent. And when you say when you ask the question again, I don’t think it came from a bad place. But I have this opportunity to just do my job to just be myself for 10 years and it was amazing. And I what I do, I feel blessed to have an opportunity to use my voice but I wish I had

1:05:00

I have to, I wish I could just go back to doing my journalism back because I don’t love being trans. But I shouldn’t have to fight. I shouldn’t have to fight for a right to be a kid, my kid who’s in fourth grade shouldn’t have more privilege than a trans kid in fourth grade, to play US Soccer, those things shouldn’t be discussions and their discussions because their feet in this country. And there’s also a broader discussion about it, because we aren’t doing a good enough job as journalists of breaking this issue in the proper historical context.

Cathy Renna:

1:05:41

For context, right, I mean, as, as a personal as someone’s been doing this for 30 years, or on all kinds of issues, there’s always there’s backlash and visibility.

1:05:52

But, you know, even if people say things along the lines of

1:05:57

that is my, you know,

1:06:00

ruffle a few feathers definitely has her feathers on today, but ruffle a few feathers.

1:06:07

The AIDS pandemic, is what created the gay movement and broad lesbians and gay men together,

1:06:14

that silver lining, we lost generations to be consistent. You know,

1:06:20

visibility, is what makes

1:06:25

people understand where they can go, when they want a dash back, if this is what I’ve been doing my career, and the challenge that and the reason why I did this is because our community, including our community, journalists, we need to step up. Because know the history, we create an entire organization, because some folks wanted to leave trans people behind the legislation because it would be easier to pass it. And you can talk pragmatism all day long. But it’s about people. It’s about lives. And we’re having the same conversation now.

1:07:07

And I think those that that’s a very important question and a really important perspective, and the pushback and the challenge, and the passion that you’re hearing from everybody is for a reason. So, you know, while it might be a little hard, these are the hard conversations we need to have, you know, to really figure out ways to do better and be more.

Tracy E. Gilchrist:

1:07:33

Wanting to add to that, and everyone’s passionate about this, I get the kind of instinct that oh, the far right.

1:07:43

The open that reason, like a great story, but I think we have to do as journalists, and

1:07:52

more than journalists, I think, firstly, to be allies, we have to absolutely support our trans and non binary folks in ways that we haven’t before. And we have to say, well, is that a good story? Or is that just you know, are we just looking for people to come in and add and add realism? Or is that going to help anybody? So I think that you have to look at those things as well. Sounds pretty good story, but that’s going to harm people. And we have a look at our ally ship.

1:08:24

More than we have to look at this story. Misery means, I don’t know. Probably some joyful certified transcript. So

1:08:34

anyway, I just wanted to add that

[SPEAKER WITH QUESTION]

1:08:41 (1:08:46)

morning, everyone, my name is Sir Lex Kennedy, my pronouns are they serve renewal greetings from Los Angeles. KCTV.

1:08:51

Thanks for this title, because I was like, Ooh, insurance to buy had many

1:08:57

questions answered at this conference. That was sufficient. I felt like coming to this panel, I would get 14 and I appreciate it. So I want to say thank you for my friends, families. Amir brought up tick tock, and I’d love to kind of when you said tick that so Oh, yeah, these are people

1:09:14

just love the space and the connection that tick tock provides. And I just want to offer like a new space as journalists, as people in broadcast, if you’re looking for a great story, and remember like yeah, go to Google, like go to tick tock first. Like

1:09:28

folks are telling their stories better to get directly from the stores. And I found she able to show us something I like to say let me

Amir:

1:09:47

underscore it up here.

1:09:50

Very easy. And the thing is, you’re right. The thing is tick tock has been such an outlet for me to know people my age

1:10:00

And you’d be older than me, you know, younger, everybody’s wanting everybody, you know. So the thing is, it gives me somewhere to go where I can tell people, hey, right, this is what’s going on in my life. This is my story. What’s What’s your story? What do you want to know? What do you need? You know, do you need any resources or, you know, certain things or binders or anything? So, you know, the thing is, I’ve given many people the link to a binder, like I’ve never been over 10 people that link to a binder, the binder

1:10:34

that I think is it goes great to help out other people. And to know that I can do that sets off and through the internet is just great. Because years ago, tick tock was not a date, internet thing, so did not return to help other people was way harder. And I’m glad I can do that now. And at my age, I can be that outlook for certainty. Because once upon a time I never had. So I’m glad I can open that up to seven zero 16 year old survivors, Tina Rhodes, you know, Bernie rose, anyone, anyone who needs an outlet. And that’s why I’m happy to share my story with all of this my story names.

Imara Jones:

1:11:23

I feel like my job today is to be the behind every sign.

1:11:29

But what I want to say is that like, the flip side is that tick tock has also become one of the most prominent purveyors of Trent anti trans disinformation over the last year, because I figured out that it was a place where people I can hear and now is the exact opposite. And we had lives with tick tock, for example, the extremely rare that the anti cheat has been extremely popular. And now tick tock is playing Whack a Mole with a series of places. And so this is what I mean, there’s not nothing is nothing is going to happen without these oppositional forces at play. So even a place by tech time, even a place where you can really hide a lot of positive. So many different types of trans stories is also one of the largest purveyors of chance, disinformation, now, for young people over the past year.

[QUESTION FROM AUDIENCE]

1:12:27

I’m Tara Campbell with ABC

1:12:34

Agency, She reversed.

1:12:37

I believe it’s our job in the media to elevate your client to national stage. That’s nobody else at yours. But we need to work with you. My question for you is what is missing right now? It’s a it’s a pretty simple, direct question. But what is the story? When you wake up and you search through whatever media outlet you look at? What’s missing?

Imara Jones:

1:13:04

This I can answer really quickly, I think that

1:13:09

the stories of trans people crying

1:13:17

there’s not there’s not an area of life in America, where there are non trans people, specifically trans people of color that aren’t innovating creating new, efficient. So for example, you know,

1:13:31

the first trans Historic District in the world is in San Francisco

1:13:40

visit she just had a visit I think maxima of the Netherlands, there’s so many innovative programs and the Dutch interest in historic preservation. So that’s just one example. And there are so many so I think the stories of chance people across the board thriving with a belief in the future, because that’s also one of the things that helps them realize us and will help to decrease the violence and marginalization.

1:14:08

And why they’re thriving on families and community. Life is a privilege like there are a lot of people that I can actually help people understand that it’s family support communities.

[QUESTION FROM AUDIENCE]

1:14:27

Hi, I’m H, pronouns they/them.

1:14:34

For a little background, as last year, I started looking into how trans people

1:14:42

thought about transitioning, but another thing that

1:14:47

made it so that they were afraid to transition in the first place and I found someone who’s at Kansas, transitioning from the transition to AG. She considers yourself both

1:15:00

It’s a show and says like, I’m so great they do twice.

1:15:10

I don’t see trans media reporting on D transitioners, who are grateful for their trans care. And I think it is an area where the only scene, which could be, like not reading the great sites or news sources, but it is an issue that seems to be only talked about on the brain. And it’s like, Oh, if we talk about the transitioners, or multi transitional transitioning, we will, like jeopardize trans care. And I’m curious about the role of trans media in talking about D transitioning.

Imara Jones:

So really quickly, one of the things that’s happening is, so the word that we went

1:16:00

out today was for the first season of the efficacy machine, the second season is coming out, yes, you’re actually talking about the transition phase. And

1:16:09

then one of the things that I haven’t just made to get into, I would say the

1:16:16

string is rare, extremely rare.

1:16:19

And most people who do transition do so for a variety of reasons. And transitioning is a really weird word. Because, you know, trans people may decide to go on and off hormones for a variety of reasons, right, or may decide to change the way they dress for provided reasons that don’t have anything to do with not wanting to be trends. I mean, gender identity is fighting. And so people are looking at what’s the best expression for themselves and trying to figure that out. But that’s just extremely, it’s extremely rare. And the reason why you hear about transitioning on the right is because essentially, the idea of D transitioning, as you understand it is actually a right language.

1:17:01

And that’s why you haven’t been able to find those stories from another standpoint, because the way that we understand that writ large, is largely defined by writing as a part of this effort to this.

Ina Fried:

1:17:17

Yeah, everyone just had a couple things. The one thing is, if you’re gonna write about it, like, it’s critical for building it in context, first of all, we’re talking like 1%. And, you know, the, the rejection, the like, discomfort rate with breast augmentation for sis women is way higher than for anything like any medical procedure that has a 1% Regret rate, you’re talking to good medical procedure. But

1:17:49

there is this, there are stories that I’ve known people who transition and I know the people who got it, but again, look at the reasons I mean, by and large, it’s they don’t have a supportive family, they can’t get a job, they want to stay with a spouse, they want to have a connection to their kids. So I’m not saying never tell these stories, but wow, you we need to be careful when he tells us stories is I’ve learned he took me a long time, because for me, and for a lot of trans people I know detransitioning was often

1:18:24

led to even worse outcomes. I know a lot of people, including former ltj members that are not here after detransitioning. But I also have over the last few years, thankfully, you know, people, including him out to date members who do transitions to for the reasons that we talked about to maintain a connection to a spouse or kids and eventually found themselves. It’s a journey, like the whole point of transgressing gender boundaries is everyone should find their place. And if somebody

1:18:56

starts down the path and decides it’s not for them, and want them to be whoever their selves are, but really, we have to look at the reasons that again, you know, these words get thrown around and look at who’s using them and why.

Imara Jones:

1:19:12

And I think if you decide to cover it, I think it’s extremely tricky to cover it correctly. And I think that if you don’t get it 100%, right, you get to be a part of the spreading certification.

1:19:25

Okay, it’s, first of all, it’s rare. So you want to be magnified something that’s extremely rare, and he wouldn’t be providing all the context around it. And so I think that I think it’s a very tricky thing to report on and you have to be

1:19:41

careful.

Cathay Renna:

1:19:43

So far. Last question, and then we’ll wrap up.

[QUESTION FROM AUDIENCE]

1:19:47

Okay, I don’t really have a question. My name is Tammy Nash and I’m Dallas Voice manager for dallas fort.

1:19:57

Worth crab going on right now. Oh,

1:20:00

On password to the next thing

1:20:03

I know, I started working for Dallas Voice in 1988. And I’ve seen what’s happening in the backlash,

1:20:12

LGBT, lesbian gay people, we fought really hard for the idea of getting married and the quality that represented for us, what I saw is as soon as we got down, you guys started bearing the brunt of all of the hatred. So it takes a lot of guts for us to stand up and speak down. And we appreciate it. I mean,

1:20:32

in the last few years I’ve had to deal with or not deal with heavy cover murder in Malaysia, Booker, and I’ve seen what happened with that. Well, for me, I want to tell folks in this room’s terrible if you were white, and lesbian, or gay, and you think you’ve had a hard time you have it, and I get so much crap from some of the conservative gay folks in Texas

1:21:00

is unbelievable to me that we cannot

1:21:04

you know, that we that are gay people who see trans people as some sort of enemy.

1:21:10

I just want to say thank you, and, and I’m going to be contacting all of you for resources

Imara Jones

1:21:21

you know, from our from everything that we’ve been able to report and learn the fact that she saw that happen right afterwards was not an accident. There were right after gay marriage, there started to be coordination meetings with you know, the alphabet of private organizations and Research Council and, you know, the usual suspects, and they made an immediate push to begin to grow test, anti trans ideas and from that is why it will have gay marriage and right after that you have the bathroom real controversy in North Carolina, which was protested by ATF to see how the public would respond to attach this legislation. So even the pattern that you are describing is not an accident

1:22:06

on the money

Cathy Renna:

1:22:08

so I just want to thank LPGA for creating the space to have this conversation. I really appreciate it and I want to appreciate them and even more, this panel of amazing human beings who have you brought up some you know, some these are my conversations but yeah, I have a right and so I’m gonna give them a gigantic room

1:23:04

and for those of you who are in the newsrooms and all that great energy, we just had all of that applause and all of them how are they

1:23:12

speaking truths are currently incurred.

1:23:16

And go do this go tell their stories.

1:23:22

are very

1:23:30

few housekeeping things.

1:23:33

First of all,

1:23:36

get that phone back.

1:23:39

That is also my wallet.

Imara Jones: Today, we are with Alok, period. No, today we are with Alok at the Invisible Dog art space in Brooklyn to talk about what a trans future looks like. I mean, for one thing, I think a trans future could look like my dress and your hair matching, which, that’s really good future.

Alok Vaid-Menon: Right, totally.

Imara Jones: But Alok, of course, is a performance artist, a writer, a thinker, a fashion designer, so much so that I heard you say that all of your various identities, you’re in a polyamorous relationship with all of your identities, and are trying to figure out how to get them all along. So we are glad that you, and they, and them are all together with us today to have this conversation about what trans futures look like.

Alok Vaid-Menon: That was such a beautiful introduction.

Imara Jones: Oh, thank you!

Alok Vaid-Menon: I love how you brought in the pronouns through the polyamorous relationship with my identities.

Imara Jones: Right, exactly.

Alok Vaid-Menon: That is so clever.

Imara Jones: Thank you! Thank you, we try. So I want to really begin to have us engage in a conversation about what trans future looks like, because I think that at this moment of backlash, which we were actually talking about before we actually started, that in this moment of actual oppression and violence, that it’s important for us to imagine and think about what we want the future to look like, what our role is in it, what possibilities are.

Because so many of us, when we were growing up as trans and gender-nonconforming people never had that opportunity. How we ended up is not what we imagined was possible. And so before we kind of get to the future, I wanted to go back to the past a little bit and to talk, to hear you talk a little bit about how you came to imagine yourself as you were, as the children of immigrants in Texas, right? Because in so many ways, if someone were to look at your birth, and the circumstances of your birth, who you are shouldn’t exist, but it does. And so what was the process even of you as a child imagining what your life could be like, and what your inner life could emerge into?

Alok Vaid-Menon: I think I quite literally gave birth to myself, because I think there’s this kinda emphasis right now on trying to have representation in media, and I understand where that desire comes from, but one of the good things about not being represented is you get permission to create your entire own journey and path. And so because I didn’t see anyone who looked like me at all, I had license to just basically scavenge hunt and make a collage.

And so much of what I am is just a collage of disparate things that I had to assemble together to make a possible life. Because one of the perversities of growing up in an Indian household is even though there’s such, thousands of years of history of gender-variant people, in the diaspora, I was taught a very traditional, formal gender binary. And so I thought it was impossible. And the only kind of queerness that I thought was possible was always through whiteness. And so at the beginning, there was already this war instilled in me between man and woman, but then also between the Western world and the Indian world. And I think creativity was the only place that I could go to escape from those kinds of false dichotomies and dualisms. So I started to write when I was 11 years old. And I just would literally listen to really tragic emo music, I still kinda do, and I would just cry, and kinda just write this journal. And I posted online with a pseudonym, which is such a trans moment of being able to find the most intimacy in a kind of anonymity.

And so I would just be online, and I would be under the name of Larry, which I don’t even understand where that was, I created an inner name club when I was in sixth grade, where we could choose our own names, then I chose Larry. So unambitious, but a marker of Texan times. And I just started to share my poetry online, which I didn’t understand was poetry, and people were like, “I feel the same thing.” And I think that taught me a lesson that I now hold really true in my art practice, which is the thing that we feel the most shame about, the thing that we feel is the most private, is actually shared by people all across the world.

Imara Jones: It’s the thing that humanizes us, and when I heard you say that, it was interesting. When did you realize inside of yourself, or begin to realize, that you were beyond what you were being taught that you could be?

Alok Vaid-Menon: I think that there were so many mini realizations. It was never this one kind of cataclysmic, cinematic, me ripping off the boy clothes, and running into. I think style was always a really helpful medium for me, because as I’ve written about, I couldn’t consent to the sex that I was assigned, or I couldn’t consent to the race that I was assigned, but style became a way to interrupt people’s gazes. So they would very much typecast me as, “Oh, you should be like this because you’re an Indian boy, “you should be like this because you’re in an Indian boy.” And so what I would do is just dress really weird, so I would dislocate that and they would be like, “I don’t, what’s going on with you?” And then in the suspension of that gaze, I finally had a moment to actually be like, “What am I? “People are saying that I’m this, “but now I have to ask myself, “‘No, I am,’ fill in the blank.” And then I think that for me as an artist, what I continually return to is that unknowability, which is seen as a crisis in this country, and that’s the justification for so much militarism, the justification for so much security culture is fear of the unknown.

Whereas as an artist, fear of the unknown is where I live, it’s where I hang out, it’s where I relax, It’s where I invite friends over, because the best art is when you don’t recognize that you made it. And for me, my own gender journey was an extension of my art making, where I didn’t have a conclusion of, “I’m going here,” it was just like, “Let me sense what makes me feel good. “Oh, it makes me feel good to start wearing dresses, “I’m gonna do that. “Oh, it doesn’t make me feel good to be called a man, “I’m not gonna do that.” And then I just sort of ended up here. And it’s not for me like I’m like, “I know who I am definitively.” It’s more like, “I feel like this today.”

Imara Jones: And so it’s interesting, because these two things were moving in tandem, that… Your creativity, and your artistry, and the ability to create a collage, as it were, as you were saying before, moves at the same time as your gender journey. And they’re kind of walking together, building on each other, right? As you were saying that you put this stuff out in the world, that was artistic. And then once people responded, you know, then you do more of that, and it pulls you along as you go. So as you were going along, you were making the road, in a way.

There wasn’t a sense of what you were building towards, as you were moving out into the world. When did you get a sense that you were doing that? That is to say that the thing that you were working on becoming, I mean, we’re all in the process of becoming, but I mean that you found a way to find visual, an actual language to express yourself? When did you have that realization that, “Wait, hold on, I’ve become something different”?

Alok Vaid-Menon: I think that was when I moved to New York City in 2013, that kind of era of my life, because I think I, for a long time, had a lot of imposter syndrome, because I was made to feel, as many are in this country, that to be an artist is to be a white cis man. Because to be an artist is to have the audacity to universalize your particular experiences. And I was told, “No, that’s just your experience as an,” insert identity, insert identity, insert identity. And there’s a way in which that reproduces our irrelevance, ’cause people will be like, “Oh, you’re just in the margins. “You have nothing to contribute.” But what I actually learned is my marginality is mainstream, this distinction we need to resist. And it’s just that, actually, other people are allowed to speak for humanity, or abstraction, whereas we’re constantly supposed to be, minority, minority, but that actually minoritizes us.

I think ideas of gender are not just about trans people, they’re about everyone. Ideas of race and not just about racialized people, they’re about everyone. Ideas of loneliness and trauma are not just about people who struggle with mental health, they’re about everyone. And so I think that that ability to be like, “What I have to say expands “beyond the parameters of my identity,” only happened to me when I met people who gave me permission to do that. ‘Cause I think that for a lot of us in the communities that we’re a part of, we’re never given permission to create. We’re given permission to critique, but we’re rarely ever given permission to create, because to create is to insist on another world. And I think that’s where I really am locating myself now, and especially as we’re thinking about future, is I think the best forms of criticism are the creation of worlds that are so irresistible that when people come to them, they’re like, “I’m never going back,” you know? I feel like what I’m really trying to do is to create the sensations, be that images, ideas, words, performances, that give a glimmer of what things could be.

And I understand that work now to be vital and urgent, whereas previously, I was misled to believe that artistic work was kind of not the real thing, or the real struggle is policy change. And not that that stuff is not important, obviously it’s really important, but I just, I think New York was the first time I could be part of a group of artists that were like, “Hey, actually, cultural change is a strategy unto itself.”

Imara Jones: Right, because to a certain degree, you can’t fight for something until you know what you’re fighting for. And so imagining what’s possible is essential to change. You can’t have it without it. So in this creation of a world that’s so irresistible, what is irresistible about the world that you want to create, that you want to live in? What are some of the things that that looks like, or what are the ideas that you’re playing with in that?

Alok Vaid-Menon: I think that us as trans folks are living that world right now, and I understand the harassment and violence that we experience as a response to that. Yes, of course it’s about gender, but it’s also because we are living artfully in a world that requires a kind of conformity. And when people see us, they’re confronted, because they’re like, “I’ve lost my relationship with my creativity, “and you had the ability to do the thing that I couldn’t do, “which was emancipate yourself and say, ‘this is who I am.’” And I think trans and GNC folks, we know who we are, and a lot of other people in this world don’t know, they know what they’ve been told that they should be, but we had the audacity to say, “I know who I am.” And so I kind of, what I’m speaking about is, it’s not that it’s the world I want, it’s the world that I’m living right now. And it’s a world that so many of us are living right now, and we’re being persecuted because of it. Because to live in the kind of world I’m living is one of constant fluidity, meaning tomorrow, I could be wearing what society perceives as quote, men’s clothes. The next day, I could be wearing what society perceives as women’s clothes. I could decide that I’m shifting, and going, and there’s fluidity and transformation. And this world wants me to say, “This is my gender identity.” And the entire movement thus far has only been around people with a stable gender identity that can become a protected class of people for access to institutions.

But what about those of us who, it’s in flux? What about those of us who, on a given day, experience harassment on this gender, and this gender, and this? And people don’t want that because what I’m actually saying is, “I’m complicated.” In my world, we accept that people are complicated. In my world, we accept that people are in flux, and that homeostasis actually comes from a recognition of the infinite variability of the world, not from its being pinned down. And then I think in my world, it’s one of profound vulnerability. And I remember that the origin of vulnerability comes from vulna, which means wound, and vulnerability means willingness to be wounded. And what that means for me is in my world, allyship is not just like, “I love you,” or, “You’re amazing,” or, “It’s fabulous.” It’s, “I’m willing to be wounded alongside you.” And that means that we are exposing ourselves to pain, and to hurt, and to trauma, but we’re doing it because we know that’s how we heal, is by actually encountering the wound, sitting with the wound, feeling the wound. And in the world we’re in, that we’re supposed to be in right now, but we’re not, ’cause we’re transported in this conversation, but they tell us to just do everything we can to ignore the wound, to pretend it’s not there. That’s the history of this country. And in our world, and I see in so many trans worlds, we’re being insistent to be like, “I am hurt, and I am traumatized, but I’m working on it, “and the way I work on it is through ceremony. “And the ceremonies that I require are where people “can actually understand me beyond visuality.” In my world, we are energetic.

I just think about the trauma of the visual, how so much of anti-trans violence is, “You look like.” And I’m like, “I contain so much more “than what I look like.” That’s always gonna be an approximation. But energetically and spiritually, I have entire ecosystems in me. Are you going to be committed to what you don’t see? And I think in my world, we are just as committed to what we don’t see as what we do.

Imara Jones: And in what ways, so in many ways, it’s expanding the space for the world that you inhabit to be a larger space and a larger ecosystem that encompasses and pulls in other people. So in part, it’s interesting, right? It’s very weird, but it’s, it’s actually to give space for other people’s liberation.

Alok Vaid-Menon: Right, totally. Yeah. A fundamental belief, I believe that my theory of liberation, as it currently is, ’cause it shifts whenever, is I don’t know what’s gonna work for everyone, and I don’t actually think it’s useful to say, “This is what’s gonna work for everyone.” But I know what’s working for me, so I’m gonna do what’s working for me, and my hope is that that will give license and permission for other people to do what works for them. And I think that’s what I’ve found so beautiful to be part of TGNC communities is I think that the cis gaze will make us into like, “There’s one way to transition. “There’s one way to be real.” But with other TGNC folks, I’ve actually been like, each person has their own gender. And we’re actually saying, “My womanhood is this, your womanhood is this, “your non-binaryhood is this.”

We contain so many eons and so many ancestral traditions, it’s just said the way that we get read and spoken about is as a monolith. And I think that’s why I’ve always loved the kind of plurality of gender-neutral pronouns, because there’s been this insistence of being like, “They are singular.” And I’m like, “Yeah, they kinda are.” But I like actually being in the space between singular and plural, because when I’m saying, “I am,” I’m saying “We are.”

Imara Jones: And in this, I mean, I was thinking about it more kind of the concepts that you were exploring in it. In some ways, right, it’s, it’s a world without erasure, all erasures. There’s no compromise. You don’t have to not be. And in the way that you exist, presently, there’s nothing about you in terms of how you’re feeling, what you want, what you’re thinking, that you cannot manifest.

Alok Vaid-Menon: Right.

Imara Jones: If you choose to–

Alok Vaid-Menon: This is coming at a really great time, because yesterday, I just did, my astrological sign is Cancer, so I’m kind of a walking campaign for Cancers being extremely hot emotional messes, but that’s me. And I just resolved to myself, for all of February, I was not gonna allow myself to have any small talk at all, with anyone. So if that’s just anyone on the street asking, “How are you?”, if that’s a store clerk being like, “Have a good day,” any opportunity I have to bring in intimacy, I’m going to. Because what I started to realize is, I physically cannot do that work of erasure, because it just makes me depressed, because I know what the world could be if we were actually talking about the things that were going on. So we were just speaking about before, I’m navigating a lot of pain in my family, a lot of illness, and death, and sadness.

And it’s just such a surreal experience to go from, “Okay, wow, we’re all crying together,” to, “Oh, have a great day!” Why should we have to do that? Why can’t we bring that pain with us, and be like, “I am struggling.” And then the other person could be like, “Hey, I don’t have the capacity to deal “with that struggle right now, but, “so we wish you the best.” Why can’t we get to that place where we’re honest with each other about our emotionality? And I think that that’s a trans politic for me, because I spent so much of my life having to suppress myself that when I came into myself, I said, “I’m never gonna suppress what I feel again.”

Imara Jones: I wonder as well, one of the things that you have spoken about, and written about, and posted about, and given talks about is the amount of violence that you experience on a day-to-day basis. And, you know, I’m wondering, one of the things that occurs to me as you talk is that a part of the violence is resistance to possibility, right? There’s something where in people, they’re, people are deeply afraid of all that they are. And a part of the policing is about that possibility. But we can’t actually have a future that works for everybody unless we have possibility.

Alok Vaid-Menon: 100%, it’s about infinity. Infinity is a concept of something that I really wish that we could appreciate more, because we’ve been taught that we live in a template culture, where there are these options, and this is the pathway. But there’s as many ways to be as there are beings. There’s infinite way to be. And I think for me, my relationship with infinity has been the most beautiful and romantic relationship of my life, because every time I try out something and it doesn’t work, it’s not like, “I’m ruined, I’m over.” It’s like, “Wow, there are a million other ways to be.” It’s kind of like how I’m trying to challenge the idea of being bored. Being bored is so unambitious, because, actually, there’s a billion things that we could be doing. You’re bored? Take up bowling, or start gardening, or learn to plant. But I just realized, “Wait, this world tries “to desensitize us to everyone, “and to ourselves, and to one another, “and make it so that if we don’t have “an attachment to these categories, “then we’re like, we don’t know who we are.”

And so I think that a lot of the violence that I experience, and a lot of other gender-nonconforming and transfeminine people experience is we call into question that entire regime of facts. We show that the architecture that they build, with science, and facts, and objectivity, is false. And in that falsity, they have to look at themselves and be like, “Am I as real as I thought I was?” And so that’s why I’ve written, and I try to reframe the conversation, this is not actually about me, it’s about you, because you are having an existential crisis on who you are, and your trauma is what’s showing up in this encounter. It’s not about me having a disorder, or me being wrong. I’m literally just walking down the street, dressed really cute, giving you a color combination, you know?

And that is literally seen as equivalent to moral, and especially as we’re thinking right now, locating this conversation to what’s happening in this country, right, we’re seeing hundreds of pieces of anti-trans legislation being introduced at the local, the state, and the national level. And I don’t know why I do this to myself, but I read the arguments that they’re using against us, the ways that they’re justifying it. And what they’re really trying to do is to restrict possibility. At a fundamental level, what they’re actually saying is, “You do not have autonomy. “We get to decide what your future is.”

Imara Jones: That’s right. It’s in the interest of the state to decide, because the state rests on our ability to be able to make these definitions. So in this world that you’re creating, and in this relation to pain that we’re talking about, what do you think, what pain that you experience or you acknowledge right now would not exist in the world that you’re trying to create?

Alok Vaid-Menon: That’s a really insightful question, thank you. Because I recently gave an art talk, and it was at a museum, which I rarely do. And so there was just a very different demographic of people in the audience. And there was an old white cis woman, who was like, “So if you didn’t experience violence, “what would you make art about?” And I was just at first mad, because I was like, “You would never ask that to another artist “without these identities. “You just don’t legitimate the violence that I experience, “that’s what’s happening here.” But then I started to think more ambitiously. And I was like, “There is something to be said “about how a lot of my art making “is linked to my experiences of pain. “Do I have a perverse relationship with being in pain, “because that’s where I get my creative energy from?” And so then I started to really question myself, and to be like, “Would there still be pain “in the kind of future that I want?” And here’s the truth, and the difficult truth, pain will be there forever.

And I’ve really been trying to surrender to that idea, because I think that we constantly try to believe that there’s this pure space outside of suffering, and that’s not true. Suffering is a foundational part of life, of any life, of any world. But the difference is that in the new world, we will have ritual and ceremony and protocol on how to grapple with suffering, and in this world, we don’t. So in this world we have suffering, it’s your shortcoming, it’s your fault, go figure it out, desensitize yourself to it. In the other world, it’s gonna be like, your pain is there, and it’s valid, and it’s real, let’s work through this together.

Imara Jones: But it’s also, in this, I mean, this is actually a technology, right? Actually, our friend Dora would say that this is a technology, that the technology of ritual is something that we’ve actually lost, because if you look at Buddhism, Buddhism, you encapsulated it in what you said, the world is suffering, here are the ways that we can deal with the impact of suffering on our life to not cause more suffering. And then there’s a religion and there’s rituals built around that. And there are lots of historical examples of that. It’s just that that’s a technology, in quotes, that we don’t have, or it’s not as available to us as it once was–

Alok Vaid-Menon: And that it’s been dispossessed from us.

Imara Jones: Dispossessed is exactly right.

Alok Vaid-Menon: And the reason it has been is precisely because, if we had it, people would recognize that they were worth something else. The way that this system can naturalize itself is when it dispossesses people of an alternative. And that’s what I read the persecution, in particular of non-binary and gender-nonconforming people, as. They want to disappear us so that they can naturalize a binary to say, “This is the only way to work.” And that disappearance masquerades as these pieces of legislation, but it’s really an orchestrated effort to make us not appear in the public. Because when we appear in the public, we call into question the very authority of a gender-binaried system. And I think that, bringing it back, to that conversation around technologies of healing rituals and whatever, I also am really trying to be generous to the ways in which, yes, there is dispossession, but there also is creative resistance within that.

And I think what I really have felt so rejuvenated by, ’cause 2020 is a year for me of focusing on rejuvenation, I’m really trying. 2019 was really bleak for me. I was like, “The world is ending, whoa, “everything’s on fire, my life’s on fire, heartbreaks.” 2020, I’m trying to be like, “But what is being birthed still?” And what I’m really excited by is, so many of my peers, other trans and gender-nonconforming artists, are creating and reclaiming those ceremonies, where we’re having really profound rites of passage around trauma. And I’m trying to situate myself in that, to be like, “Yes, there is negative energy, “but there’s also such generative energy.”

Imara Jones: So one of the things that’s interesting is, I wonder if… Maybe not to stoke a narcicisstic moment, but in some respects, I’m wondering… I mean, as a person who is trans, and non-binary, and gender-nonconforming, in some respects, you know, are you the future, right? Do you represent where we’re actually going? Does that occur to you? And if so, how do you, how do you process that?

Alok Vaid-Menon: No, I reject that, because I don’t want to pinpoint what the future looks like. I might be able to say what the future feels like, but I don’t want to say what it looks like. And I think that what we’ve learned from social movements across time is that they protest norms and then they impose a whole new regime of norms. And I think when it comes to, oftentimes, the trans conversation, there’s this idea of, “This is the way that you’re being the true resistance, “is by being visibly gender non-conforming, “or being non-binary.” And I’m like, “Hey, actually, challenging the gender binary “doesn’t look like a certain thing, “it’s having a certain set of beliefs and practices. “It’s about supporting people who, in this regime, “are most harmed by it, but recognizing “that we’re all harmed by the gender binary.” So people could still identify as women, or men, or look at what society, look like what society traditionally conceives of as men and women. And that’s still part of my future. And I think people mistake my work and the work of people in our community as being like, “You must all be non-binary and use they/them.” And I’m like, I’m actually trying to resist the uniform.

And as an artist, there’s nothing less, nothing less exciting to me than a uniform. And a uniform for me is not just an outfit, it’s an idea. And this idea that we all have to be the same in order to be accepted, or we have to be the same in order to be revolutionary, we have to be the same in order to be, I say, break that apart. And I think that goes to what I was saying more about the limits of the visual. For me, I’m so much less interested in what people look like, and I’m more interested in how people think. And what I want people to think like is that there are potentially as many genders as there are people. That’s my vision of the future, where man and woman are two of an infinity, not the only options, and where man and woman are not seen as mutually exclusive, or oppositional, they’re just hanging out near each other. And therefore, my vision of the future totally accepts people who identify as men and women, but it doesn’t have space for people who have a belief in the gender binary, ’cause I think that’s a difference. It hold space for man and woman, but not for gender binarism.

Imara Jones: Yeah, I mean, I think that that’s a really powerful thing to say, because I think that we can’t, I mean, what’s really powerful about that is, presentation is commodified in a capitalist culture. That commodification then gets monetized. That monetized becomes a way of life. And so one of the things that you are underscoring in that is that what we have to hold on to is not specifically what the future looks like in terms of how we embody it, but what’s the mental space of the future? What’s the possibility of the future? Not to impose our ideas on that.

And what you said, I really agree with. I tell people all the time that, even as I present as binary, I don’t believe in the binary. Like, I can’t. I can’t, it’s impossible for me, or it should be impossible, right? And it is, rather, because I can’t. So, you know, who we are should not limit our thoughts about who other people can be, and what’s possible.

Alok Vaid-Menon: I think that point is the key, is the reason it limits who other people are is because of insecurity. We need other people to look, it’s kind of just what we were saying before about people voting for political candidates who look like them. We continually fear that if we don’t have someone who looks and thinks and acts like us, then we’re a freak, or we’re wrong, or we’re lonely. But what I want to actually challenge that, and I think this is where disability justice movements have been on the front lines forever, this myth that we are all interchangeable with one another, that actually, we all fundamentally have different bodies and different minds, and that there’s not one prototypical experience.

And I think that is such a beautiful concept, to actually be like, “No, it’s not loneliness “to have individuality, “it’s actually just what it means to be alive.” It’s to recognize that we could speak for 13 years and still never really know each other, that’s so exciting to me! And that no ability is obscurity. I don’t want to know you, I want to feel. And what feeling allows me to do is to be like, “I may never understand or comprehend, “but I will have a deep belief “in your fundamental worth and dignity as a person.”

Imara Jones: Right, and it, nor ability has to be a thing that is in motion, because we’re always changing. You’re not gonna, you’re not, the minute someone thinks that they know you, they’re sunk, because you’re not gonna be the same in a year, or two, or three years.

Alok Vaid-Menon: It’s like Battleship.

Imara Jones: It’s 100%, right? There always has to, I mean, we have to learn how to inculcate and enculturate the idea of possibility in everything. And that is to say that the possibility of what we know and what we are attached to will change. And that’s essential to the future.

Alok Vaid-Menon: And I think that people fear possibility, and my job right now is, how do I get people to develop a different relationship with possibility? And so a lot of the work that I’m creating right now, creatively, is, how do I literally convince people about something they don’t even know that they need? That’s such a deep question for me, creatively, right now, because I feel like I’m in a moment right now, when you were talking about the sort of commodification of these things, where the current conversation is, there are these non-binary people over there, and that’s where we deal with the problem. They are the exception to the rule, we’re gonna put them over there, we’re gonna contain them. But they’re not actually listening.

What we’re actually saying is, “Everyone,” we’re speaking to everyone, and they’ve put us over in this box, and they’ve been like, “My pronouns are she/her or he/him, “I’m within the binary, you’re over there.” AKA, we have to do the labor of everyone else’s gender dissonance. And what I’m actually trying to be like is, “No, what I’m trying to say is that “all of us benefit from the comprehension of man and woman, “femininity and masculine, “but as informed by a rigorous critique “of the gender binary, “and that a world in which we all accept “our gender possibility is a world in which “we’ll literally be so much happier.” It’s so hard, ’cause people resist that. They’ll be like, “I’m not. “I’m not that identity.” And I’m like, “This has never been about identity.” And so I think a lot of what I’m writing about now, and a lot of what I’m curating in my shows is, can I create spaces? One of the things that I’m doing here at this space for this residency on Thursday is I do something called a feelings workshop. And in a feelings workshop, I bring 30 strangers together, and my goal is that, at the end of the workshop, everyone is friends with each other, and has a meaningful sort of emotional support. And one of the things that I do is I just, we scream. I ask people to scream as long and as loud as they want. And most people at first can’t. They’re like, “I’ve never done that, that’s awkward.”

But then most people start crying, they were like, “I didn’t know I had so much rage in me.” And I’m like, “Exactly.” If we don’t have the technology, then we don’t know what’s within us. And I think that when it comes to the question of gender, so many people have had to repress their own incongruity with these systems so much that they don’t even know that it’s in them. It’s just become so desensitized. And so I’m just really thinking about, how do I create art which allows people to resensitize? How do I create art that doesn’t just critique harassment, but gives affirmation? I’ve been really thinking about affirmation. Just aggressively complimenting people and believing in people is so important to me as a practice. It’s just being like, “I’ve got your back 100%.” We really need to support each other in that kind of way.

Imara Jones: Well, I personally feel a sense of possibility in talking to you, and I thank you for that gift, and thank you for your vision, and your work, and your commitment. And I really appreciate the time, and you letting us invade the Dog space.

Alok Vaid-Menon: Thank you, this has been so great.

Imara Jones: Thank you so much, I really appreciate it.

Alok Vaid-Menon: Of course.

Imara Jones: And that’s a wrap!

Alok Vaid-Menon: Yay!