Summary
This Part 2 conversation delves into the complexities surrounding trans rights, particularly focusing on the impact of misinformation, media sensationalism, and anti-trans legislation. Jess and Adrienne discuss the use of fear by politicians to sway public opinion, the misconceptions surrounding gender-affirming care, and the importance of understanding the implications of policies on trans youth. They emphasize the need for empathy, informed discussions, and the recognition of bodily autonomy in the context of healthcare decisions.
ASK (Acquiring Sexual Knowledge) on Instagram
This episode is not available on YouTube, as Jess has received endless death threats from being trans and discussing trans rights and hence worries about their own safety as well as the safety of their children.
Books mentioned: We’ll All Be Free by Caroline J. Sumlin (book here, audible here)
Also mentioned: Pink Manta Ray on Instagram, Trevor Project on Instagram
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Read the Transcript:
Adrienne (00:41)
Hi everyone, welcome back to part two with Jess Ask Educator on Instagram. And on our last episode, we talked about the gender binary as being a tool of oppression and white supremacy. And we talked about how decolonizing that is really just liberating for everyone. And the segue that I kind of wanted to make was,
One of my good friends, Caroline J. Sumlin talks about fear as being the number one tool used by the oppressor. And I think we definitely see that and feel that and hear that. As far as the queer community goes and the trans community goes, I think a lot of people who are I think there are people who are willfully hateful. But I think there are a lot of people who are just unaware and misinformed.
And a lot of that comes from fear. I was watching a Netflix special by Trevor Noah, earlier this year, and he was talking about the very specific issue with trans people using the correct bathroom and just commenting on how it is a distraction to the general public and that the government or media outlets will sensationalize something that really isn’t an issue for like media outlets will sensationalize something that really isn’t an issue for like 99 % of people, but they turn it into this big issue to either make people very afraid generally and then to distract them from other things going on. So I just was wondering what your viewpoints are about that as it relates queer and trans political policies and the fear that exists within schools and banning books and all of that kind of behavior.
Jess (02:16)
Yeah, fear is definitely, I think, at the heart of how politicians are getting voters to align with their policies in order to push them forward. I think if the majority of people actually understood the policies and the situation at hand, they would not be in support of these politicians nor these policies and so they just wouldn’t have the voter backing that they’re trying to get. And so these, you know, these politicians will use fear as a tactic in order to, create the kind of voter base that they need.
A really good example that you brought up is the bathroom. So bathroom bills, are being presented in various regions that would seek to essentially ban trans people from using public bathrooms. A lot of times they’ll be worded in such a way that like implies that people must use the gendered bathroom that corresponds to their sex assigned at birth. But in reality, what ends up happening is that trans people are just unable or even not even trans people, but just like people who don’t necessarily conform to a certain gender are policed out of using public bathrooms at all, which I think a lot of people would not agree with. I think a lot of people are like, yeah, everyone should probably be allowed to use a public bathroom.
And so the way that they get people behind this kind of bill is like a bathroom bill is to create fear about what happens if we allow trans people to use the bathroom. And I want to point out here that this is so interesting because trans people have been using public bathrooms for a very long time. And it’s only recently that these bills are starting to be introduced. As if like trans people don’t already use public bathrooms and they’re like, if we let them, this is what’s gonna happen. But we actually have years of evidence to suggest actually we’ve been letting trans people use bathrooms and it’s been fine. There are like no incidents of like, trans people attacking your daughter doesn’t happen. In fact, we know the opposite. We know that trans people are way more likely to be attacked by cis people in public bathrooms than the other way in public bathrooms rather than victimizing others.
Adrienne (04:48)
I find it so cruelly ironic that the ones who are most at risk, as you said, trans people are now framed as the perpetrators of harm.
Jess (04:59)
Yeah, I think it is being done maliciously and that those folks are using fear to convince people who aren’t malicious, who are just kind of like average, maybe not really strong opinion on either side, convincing those people that like, there’s a real fear here and we need to step in and do something about it so that we can protect the children and unfortunately it’s just full of misinformation and so you’ve got people being scared of the wrong things.
Adrienne (05:28)
And I think too, as you were saying, like, clearly, people have been using bathrooms this entire time. I always think of how it is then regulated, like, is everyone then now required to show their genitals? Because I think if cis people were required to do that, that wouldn’t be happening. I certainly am not interested in having to show my parts to, I don’t know, is there some person at the door like checking? And I certainly wouldn’t want my kids to have to show theirs either, which is essentially like if you just follow the logic train, that’s where you’re headed, right? Is having people prove what is under their pants or dress.
Jess
Yeah, absolutely. It’s absolutely bonkers what these bills actually imply. If you’re making it illegal for someone to go to a bathroom that doesn’t align with their assigned sex, now you need to have people prove what their assigned sex was.
That’s not something that I think cis people want to do. And you cis people are putting yourself at risk by supporting bills like this, right? These bills come after you just like they come after trans people. If you do not look feminine enough today, then maybe you will be policed out of the women’s bathroom because you can be accused of being trans. I mean, there are so many cis people accused of being trans by other cis people, you know, trans detectives who are, they’re trying to find out who’s trans and who’s not. J.K. Rowling herself has been accused of being trans. So no one’s safe. No one is safe.
Adrienne (06:59)
Yeah. And I think that’s really what we need to do here is instead of focusing on, you know, this clickbait headline, we then actually one educate ourselves to see what the bill really says. And two, what does that mean? what are the implications of this? The consequences, the ramifications. Cause that’s, think where most people don’t go into that territory as they stop at the clickbait headline like, my gosh, yeah, you’re right. We can’t have this. But then they don’t actually think, well, what does that mean? What does that mean for this person who looks like you said, not like the sex they were assigned at birth or whatever. what are the, how would you actually regulate that?
Jess (07:47)
Yeah, I think a very similar thing to this is with sports bands too, right? So like another set of policies would seek to ban trans people from playing on sports teams that best align with their gender identity and rather force them to play on sports teams that align with their assigned sex. And just like the bathroom bill, the ramifications of this are twofold.
First, you’re gonna get a ton of trans athletes, including trans kids, who simply drop out of sports altogether. I know a trans girl who likes to play soccer, but if she were to be placed on the boys’ team, I think she would not like soccer very much. And it’s not because she doesn’t like boys, and it’s not because she doesn’t like boys’ soccer, or she isn’t good enough to play on that team. It is because of the endless questioning and harassment that would come not just from other kids but from other kids parents from seeing this girl on the boys team right and on top of that you’re now forcing all these kids to out themselves who may not be comfortable outing themselves
How is this fair to essentially ban kids from playing sports at all or else force them to play on a team where they are unsafe, where they are harassed and bullied?
Adrienne (09:07)
And again, how is that being regulated? Does that look like a referee, a gender referee at the beginning of every game, checking what’s going on under every single child shorts? Cause that’s what’s gonna happen. As soon as any parent or someone in the stance is like, well, I think that kid is trans and they’re playing for the wrong team. You could say that then about any kid, you could accuse any kid. And then like you said, one out them, but two.
How are you regulating this in any way other than showing what’s underneath?
Jess (09:39)
Yeah, absolutely. Just like with the bathroom bell, it not only affects trans kids and trans athletes, but cis kids and cis athletes as well. In where I live, there was a girl who competed, I think it was at a track and field meet and she had short hair and was wearing, you know, a t-shirt and shorts, which yeah, not hyper feminine, but like good thing to wear to a track meet.
And there was a grandparent in the field watching who accused that girl of being trans and her, you know, personal gender history had to be verified to prove that she was not in fact trans and was allowed to compete on the girls team. Imagine what that would be like for your kid to go through, right?
If you have a cis child, imagine what it’d be like to not appear feminine enough or masculine enough to pass someone else’s test in the audience to then be accused of being trans. And now you have to prove to everyone publicly what’s in your pants to be allowed to compete. That’s the kind of world that these bills would create.
Adrienne (10:51)
Well, and I just want to point out too that like, when cis people get misgendered, they are usually very offended and refuse to make the connection of what that is like for queer or trans people in their misgendering. I was just thinking of, you know, that grandparent in the stand, were they to be misgendered and accused of being a gender that they are not accused of being trans? How offended would they be? And how angry that would make them and how ostracized they would feel and stigmatized and how they just wouldn’t stand for it, but it’s okay when it’s the reverse.
Jess (11:28)
Yeah, absolutely. It seems that a lot of these people are fine asking what’s in everyone else’s pants, but not okay with people looking in their pants. And while I think it’s simply enough to care about the rights of queer and trans kids when it comes to playing on the sports team they want to or using the bathroom they want to, make no mistake that cis people will also be affected.
Adrienne (11:53)
Yeah, thank you for bringing that up and pointing that out.
Jess (11:55)
I think another fear that comes up with sports specifically is parents and adults worry that if we allow trans kids and trans athletes to play, particularly trans girls and trans women to play on girls and women’s sports teams, that because of their scare quote, like “natural abilities”, they will dominate the sport and it won’t be fair to cis girls and cis women who are competing on the same teams. I hear you. I get that. I get that there’s been years and decades and centuries of messaging that would imply that girls and women cannot possibly beat boys and men at any sport.
This is simply not true.
There are many examples of female athletes that have out-competed male athletes. We have also seen, in the years that trans people have been allowed to compete even at the Olympics. So this is since 2004, okay, that trans athletes have been able to be at the Olympics. Zero trans women have won gold at any event. So I’m not saying trans women shouldn’t win, right? I think I would celebrate that, of course, but this just goes to show that trans women do not in fact dominate cis women at sports.
If you want to look at, reasons why male athletes out compete some female athletes in some sports what the evidence actually points to again and again are not things like genetic ability or testosterone levels and things like that, but actually socioeconomic factors. So whether that athlete had access to elite training from an early age, whether there was a lot of funding in their country for that specific kind of sport. And as we see from this evidence, boys are given this kind of training and this leg up many more times over than girls ever are. Male sports are funded at a vastly higher rate than women’s sports. This results in the kind of advantages that we see of male athletes over female athletes, right? So if you are trained, if you are funded, if you are given access to elite coaches from a young age, then yeah, you can excel at that sport, even if your testosterone levels are lower than your next competitors or what have you.
Of course, there are always going to be biological advantages that some athletes have over another. Michael Phelps, for instance, is a very good example. He has an unnaturally large wingspan. He has abnormally low levels of lactic acid that allow him to swim for longer than other competitors. Do we ban him because of those advantages? No.
The public celebrates him for these advantages. They celebrate every gold medal he gets, even though he dominates the sport and makes it potentially unfair for other competitors.
But if a trans woman does that, well, that should be illegal.
Adrienne (15:19)
Yeah, I think Pink Manta Ray is a good account to bring in here. Definitely seen a lot around trans policies around trans youth, but especially with sports, I found that just such a there’s such a wealth of information and knowledge and insight just to support basically everything that you just said. I’ll link Pink Manta Ray in the show notes
Jess (15:40)
Yes, absolutely. I follow Skyler and he has fantastic talking points for anyone who is finding themselves in a difficult conversation with someone who believes trans people do not belong in sports. In fact, I think one of the biggest takeaways I got from Skyler’s account was not so much about elite level sports, but how people can found trans kids and legislation about trans kids in sports with elite level sports.
Adrienne (15:52)
Mm-hmm.
Jess (16:05)
Okay, let’s put aside the moment of trans people competing at the Olympics. Can we just let little kids play sports to have fun? Right? Do we need to check inside their pants before we let them join a sports team? Or can we really just let them play? Right? Isn’t kid sports about fun and inclusion and good sportsmanship and all that stuff? or is it about something else? Is it about politics? Is it about competition?
Adrienne (16:34)
Mm hmm. one would hope it is about fun, good natured fun, but I think so often the opposite is the case. And I think that’s often parents, right? Parents, grandparents, people in the stands, imposing all of this going on in the field and the kids literally just want to play.
Jess (16:51)
Yeah, unfortunately, I do think we often let our egos get in the way of our kids’ enjoyment.
Adrienne (16:57)
Alongside sports and bathrooms, there’s definitely a conversation around gender affirming care and people tend to worry about about health care being given to, you know, help kids transition. I think there’s a lot of misinformation there. There’s a lot of worry and fear. And it’s, you know, a politicized issue. So I was wondering if you could talk to that a little bit about what gender affirming care is, what gender affirming health care is, specifically what that looks like, both for cis people, cis children and trans people, trans children.
Jess (17:38)
Yeah, absolutely. Gender affirming care is a huge umbrella. It can involve things like, you know, top surgery or bottom surgery, but it could also involve things that are as simple as a haircut or a name change or, you know, using the right pronouns. So gender affirming care, yeah, big, big umbrella term. It really just refers to any kind of care that you’re receiving that or want to receive that affirms your gender. Gender affirming healthcare, on the other hand, is that kind of care that specifically involves the healthcare system or the medical system. So for that kind of thing, we’re talking about surgeries or hormone therapies that would help affirm someone’s gender.
Adrienne (18:22)
Okay, how does this look different for cis people and trans people?
Jess (18:27)
Yeah, so it can be a bit different, but it can also be really similar. a really good example are men who get like hair plugs or hair treatments, hair surgery in order to grow their hair back so that they get that like masculine vitality back that they’ve always wanted that they had in their youth. Another example would be like Elon Musk who had cosmetic surgery, I think on his jawline to make it look more masculine. I believe he also got hair transplants and he takes testosterone. So these are therapies, medical treatments that are provided to assist person in order to affirm their gender. Similar things can be provided to trans people. The only real difference being that they’re trans, whereas Elon Musk is cis.
Adrienne (19:20)
Mm hmm. That is such an ironic example. I love that you use that maybe I assume purposely, but it’s such an ironic example since he is repeatedly dead named his trans child and, made up wild, wild stories about that situation. So how ironic.
Jess (19:37)
Yeah, I think a lot of people don’t realize that cis people receive gender affirming care regularly. cis women who get breast augmentations, who get their eyebrows done, who shave their body hair off in order to look more feminine, this is all gender affirming care. And no one’s coming after you for it, but there are people coming after trans people for the care they receive.
Adrienne (20:00)
I do know this really came up again with Elon and his trans child, but there was talk of, what gender affirming health care are children actually receiving? I know there is maybe sensationalized worry and fear around permanent changes that are done and this worry that children shouldn’t be allowed permanent changes to their body before it’s done developing. And what if they are worried about regretting, I think parents are worried about their children may be regretting those changes and it causing, more confusion and they should, you they were born into a certain body. And that’s the body that we often hear God gave them or that’s natural, and they should just love their body or whatever. And we also hear the phrasing people born into the wrong body. sorry, I know there was a lot there, but I just wanted to touch on for a minute. Could we dispel some myths here about what care is actually being given to children and what is permanent or not permanent and you know what happens in case of regret, for example.
Jess (21:09)
Yeah, absolutely. This is a topic that’s just full of misinformation everywhere. So I’m glad that you asked that. It depends on where you live, of course. Where I live, bottom surgery, so surgery involving the genitals, isn’t available to people who are under 18, so to minors. no kids are getting the surgery, right? Despite what some would have you believe. Top surgery, so surgery that involves the breasts very rarely occurs in patients under 18. And in exceptional cases that it is done, they are over 16 and they must have their parents consent. It’s so funny that a lot of the misinformation on this topic is fear mongering that they’re coming after your kids and they’re gonna, you know, come home from school with surgery done to them, because it is so difficult to get anything done. There are super long wait lists, you need to pass psychological assessments.
I know a trans girl who needed a psychological assessment just to have the gender marker on their ID changed. So this is zero, nothing done on her body, just wants to change the marker on her ID, needs to have a psychological assessment by a mental health professional in order to do that. That’s how hard it is to get things done when you’re trans. So yeah, this fear that like, your kids are gonna be like secretly having this done and parents won’t even know about it. No, that’s literally impossible. You need not only parental consent, but like there are several hurdles along the way in order to get anything like a surgery or hormone therapy that’s desired.
Now, there are certain medical treatments that are available to youth who are under 18, and those are hormone therapies. So, one example of this, the one that’s available to the youngest of kids is called puberty blockers. These are kind of like anti hormones. So what they do is they put puberty on pause. And then when you stop taking the puberty blockers, puberty resumes again. And when I say this is available to the youngest of kids, what I mean is kids that have already started stage two of puberty.
So that is a stage at which you are growing pubic hair around your genitals. So think back to yourself, like how old were you when that happened? That would be the youngest it’s possible for you to access puberty blockers as a trans youth. So again, not like super little kids, you don’t need to be worrying about kindergartners here. What’s really ironic about this is that cis kids have access to this same hormone treatment, so puberty blockers, from an even younger age. So cis kids can get puberty blockers from before 10 or stage two of puberty if they are experiencing what’s called precocious puberty. So this is a condition where their body is producing puberty hormones before the age of eight. the parents usually will notice that their child is like experiencing puberty changes and it seems too young because they’re under the age of eight. Maybe they talk to their doctor, their doctor refers them to an endocrinologist and they start these puberty blockers. So it’s okay for cis kids who are under eight to access puberty blockers, but it’s not okay for trans youth who are like 11 or 12 to access puberty blockers. That doesn’t really add up in my head.
Adrienne (24:49)
I am speechless. And I feel like what’s been such a common thread through this episode and our first episode together was it really is only a problem when it starts disrupting the world order. Like it really is only a problem once the same rights and freedoms or whatever start being applied to non-cis people. That’s when people start getting, you know, all up in arms about things. Just the blatant irony and prejudice in all of these examples that you’re giving.
Jess (25:21)
Yeah, another really good example of this that I probably should have mentioned earlier are genital surgeries that are performed on infants that are not trans. These are infants that are cisgender and or intersex. And there are surgeries performed on them to make their genitals conform more to our gendered expectations of what those genitals should look like. So in fact, yes, there are surgeries being done on kids, just not the ones you think are being done.
Adrienne (25:52)
Yeah, wow.
Jess (25:55)
A lot of people are surprised when I say that because they aren’t aware that these surgeries are done on infants. And they aren’t aware that intersex infants even exist or intersex people exist. I’m not going to go into detail about what this looks like because I think it betrays the trust of intersex people to keep their lives and medical histories private. But all you need to know is that decisions about a child’s body should be between the child, their parents, and their medical professionals. There is no good reason why the public needs to be involved in what kind of alterations are being done to your child’s body.
Adrienne (26:28)
Right, yeah, and since when are these conversations, how did they get politicized? Why are they politicized? Why is that triangle that you just talked about between the child parent and medical health care professional available to the greater public and even an issue of voting?
Jess (26:57)
Yeah, it reminds me a lot of the issue of abortion rights, Like, I myself am an abortion rights advocate for sure. I don’t see why the public and politicians need to be involved in a decision about any other person’s body. If they want to take medical steps to help them achieve their goals in their lives, isn’t that a discussion between them and their doctor? What do politicians have to do with this? Why does the public need to vote on what they can do with their body?
If you can see past the fear mongering that the right has done to make it seem like doctors are stealing your children and doing surgeries on them against your will, if you can see past those very obvious lies, then it becomes apparent that actually it makes sense for these decisions to be out of the hands of politicians and out of the hands of the public.
Why should other people get to vote on what kind of medical care your child gets to receive?
Adrienne (28:00)
it becomes very apparent to when you put it in the perspective of cis people and how much they would hate to have their bodily autonomy violated and have their health care rights and freedoms constantly being voted upon every four years or what have you. And how really, all that’s happening, as you described in part one, was everyone’s just trying to exist and thrive and flourish the way they feel comfortable and that really shouldn’t be a threat to anyone else.
Jess (28:34)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, gender affirming healthcare, like I mentioned, is available to cis people as well. So are cis people wanting to have their boob jobs taken away? Do you want to prevent, you know, hormone therapies, like testosterone and estrogen available to cis people? Do we want those taken away?
I don’t think so. I think cis people like having access to various options so that they can make informed choices themselves. I don’t think they like anyone legislating their options away from them. You mentioned also regret. And I think this is another big fear that conservative legislators like to instil in the public. So they say things like, we need to ban these practices because kids might regret them later in life. first of all, I just want to dispel this myth that we need to ban anything that may be regretted later. It’s okay for humans to regret things, right? People regret tattoos at an enormous level, way higher than any trans surgery, and we aren’t banning tattoos, right? That’s a body modification that’s permanent. There’s a high regret rate, and yet we still like for everyone to have the option to get one. why aren’t we talking about banning tattoos? Well, because that’s not specific to trans people. We’re talking about banning access to trans specific healthcare for a reason, right?
The other myth that I wanna bust here is that trans kids are de-transitioning at an alarming rate later in life or that they regret these surgeries at an enormous level. This is simply not true. The regret rate for gender affirming care is so low, it’s lower than other kinds of surgeries that are commonplace among cis people.
Adrienne (30:33)
Yeah, I think I was reading about that with like knee replacement surgery and the percentage of the regret rate was like way, way higher than I had ever imagined. And it’s something that no one talks about and no one cares because it’s not related to gender, right?
Jess (30:49)
Yeah, absolutely. Cis people want to have the option to have knee surgery if they so choose. And so they’re not supportive of banning knee surgery, even though the regret rate is high. This, can be replicated among so many examples in and outside of the healthcare system. I know someone who regrets dancing when she was younger because it has permanently altered the way that she stands, her feet turn out, her knees turn out.
She doesn’t walk and stand like she would if she had not danced from a really early age. Are we banning people from doing dance as kids? No, we are not. Because cis people want the option for their kids to take dance if they want, even though it can result in permanent body changes, permanent body changes that their kids later regret in life.
Even though that’s the case, we still want the option.
Adrienne (31:43)
I grew up in the gymnastics world and it is very much a part of my life now with my kids. And I was always reminded of all these girls, very young girls whose puberty was literally delayed by years and years based on their heavy involvement in gymnastics and their, you know, body changes and all these things like that with the very strong encouragement slash coercion from their parents. So I always laugh at the it’s about protecting the kids. When we have a plethora of examples of parents, one forcing their kids into things they don’t want to be in and two, I just use that gymnastics example because it physically was affecting their bodies with puberty even, so something that you know is always mentioned around trans kids or whatever, but that’s like such a clear-cut example to me where well because it was cis parents wanting that for their cis child there’s no discussion around it and it’s irrelevant that it affected their body and their puberty and high levels, high probability of regret.
Jess (32:53)
Yeah, if we’re going to talk about protecting children, we need to acknowledge that it’s not the public bathrooms that are endangering them. It’s not the sports teams that are endangering them. It’s not the gender affirming healthcare that’s endangering them.
It’s these anti-trans policies. They are the policies that are actively harming our kids, both trans and cis.
Adrienne (33:19)
Yeah, one of the things that really pushed me to reach out to you to come onto the podcast was the stat that I came across. I follow the Trevor Project, which I’ll link in the notes. It’s a really great account to follow, but they came out with a study in 2024, so very, very recent study. And they stated that anti-transgender laws caused up to a 72 % increase in suicide attempts among trans and non-binary youth. 72 % is no small number and it’s directly correlated to policy, not as you said, proper bathroom use or healthcare.
Jess (33:58)
Yeah, in fact, it’s the very opposite, right? It’s not being allowed to use the public bathrooms that they want. It’s not being allowed to play on the sports teams. It’s not being able to receive the healthcare that they need to thrive. That’s what’s driving up these suicide rates. And while it is devastating, it does reflect what queer and trans people have been saying for years now which is that this kind of legislation is dangerous and it will cost lives.
Adrienne (34:28)
Which I always like to definitely bring into discussions around this because it’s always that same demographic saying that it’s about protecting the children and they have, they spout this idea that all they care about is children and protecting kids and yet take very proactive steps to harming that community and harming youth and children with how they vote with how they talk about trans people and trans youth, with how they parent their children and whether or not they’re a safe space. And I really, just kind of want to leave parents with the same idea that I talk about parents being a safe place for how they talk about Black and Brown people and how they talk about disabled people and how they talk about Muslim people and refugees and immigrants and unhoused people and those struggling with addiction. It’s the same thing. How you talk about those people will inform your children on one, whether or not you’re a safe space and two, it very heavily influences their opinions about those people as well. And it’s not just a matter of, I think a lot of people like to talk about all those things like will you do you or it’s, you know, personal opinion.
And I always say like personal opinions are for pizza toppings and beards and low rise jeans, like it is not for people’s actual lives and well being. And I think that is such a missing connection. I think that privileged people walk around not understanding that how they talk, how they act, how they vote everything about what they do is very much political and their silence is political and it very much lets your kids know, lets the trans people in your life know, lets your kids friends know, lets your, you know, people of color, friends know whether or not you are a safe place for them to exist and just be in this world or not.
And every step that you take or don’t take and every discussion that you have or avoid and every question that you address or dismiss, in my opinion, literally makes the world a safer or less safe space for people.
Jess (36:52)
Yeah, I hear you. I think a lot of the cis people that I talked to aren’t even aware that these bills are being presented or aren’t aware that they’re being platformed on politicians that they may be electing. And that scares me, honestly, because that means that these pieces of legislation will be able to pass without the support of the majority simply because they’re not noticed. As a parent, I think it’s fantastic if you can talk to your kids about these issues and let them know which side you’re on, like you pointed out. And also, I think it’s important to educate yourself on the issues at hand. Don’t let yourself just become one of those silent bystanders, bystanders that let the rights of trans and queer people be demolished because of a conservative fad. After trans and queer people are taken care of, they will come after you. They will come after others.
Adrienne (37:51)
Yeah, I hear that same sentiment with what’s going on with Israel and the Zionist movement now and a lot of, you know, indigenous people, black and brown people saying it’s all that’s happening is we’re being tested on what we’re allowing to happen. And it’s just going to move on to the next demographic, the next group, the next identity, the next whatever it is. And it’s, you know, that’s how fascism works. And so we definitely need to be awake, we need to be informed, we need to be empathetic, we need to look at who is trying to keep rights and privileges for themselves, and who is trying to limit it for everyone else, because that’s the much more dangerous narrative going on.
I always ask all my guests if there anything they want to leave knowing that they have an audience of, you know, 10,000 plus parents. And if there’s anything in particular that they just feel they want to really make sure parents understand or hope they understand.
Jess (39:01)
Yeah, thanks for asking.
I would say to the parents listening today, particularly parents of cis kids,
Try to imagine every discussion that we’re discussing here today as if your child were trans. When we’re debating about whether trans people should be allowed in the bathroom, whether they should be allowed on sports teams, whether they should be able to get healthcare, just pretend like your kid was trans and then review that debate. How do you think differently?
I think when I ask some parents this question, what surprises them most is that they are offended that this debate is even taking place. They don’t see why it’s anybody else’s business, what their kid does or doesn’t do. And yet it’s hard for them to imagine that when their kids are cis and they feel like they’re not being affected. Now they can debate another parent’s kid’s right to be on the sports team or whatnot because it doesn’t involve their own kids. So try to do that exercise.
Adrienne (40:03)
What that brings about for me is thinking that the same way like, okay, now imagine your kid being disabled. How passionate would you be about disability rights? You know, now imagine if you were a refugee, and how much would you want to be welcomed into another country? And I think people just privileged people have an impossible time imagining themselves in an unprivileged scenario because it’s just so foreign to them. But it is such a good exercise. So I love that you bring that up and end with that for sure.
Jess (40:35)
Mm Yeah. I think it takes a lot of situations from being kind of like a far away topic that’s, you know, happening to these other people over there and like, hmm, maybe I do have an opinion about whether they should be allowed this or not. And maybe my vote matters. And maybe, you know, I should be allowed to decide what happens to that person over there. But when it when it happens to your own kid. You know, all of sudden people can really appreciate how personal and private this matter is and how much it does not belong in the realm of politics, how much it is not up for public debate.
Adrienne (41:14)
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your knowledge and expertise and your personal experience and insight. I know I appreciate so much pages like yours because it really reminds me that we, one, all know people that are trans. It’s just, we’re not sure how many of those people have felt safe or unsafe coming out to us or not. as much as you think you might not be touched by this, there are most likely people that you love who are trans or non-binary and how you vote and act and speak lets them know how safe you are to come out to. And that has always been the most insightful thing for me that I’ve learned from your page among thousands of other things, but I have found that to be so helpful to always remember that there are people in my life most likely who I know and love dearly and I am not necessarily privy to that based on whether or not I’m a safe space or not.
Jess (42:17)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Adrienne (42:18)
So thank you so much again for coming on. really appreciate you.
Jess (42:21)
Thanks for having me. Always a pleasure.
