Hey, welcome to Beyond the Scenes, the podcast that goes deeper into segments and topics that aired originally on the Daily Show with Trevor Now. This this is what you gotta think of this podcast as, right, This podcast is like all you can eat buffet, Right, you do it a buffet, You keep coming back for more, And we got all the cuisine you could want. We got a little bit of spicy, a little bit of sour, sometimes sweet, we got the ice cream machine, and your plate is overflowing with goodness by the end. That's what this podcast is. It's broccoli and a fajita and sprinkles for no damn reason, because you deserve them. I'm Roy Wood Jr. And it is Pride Month, so we're talking about trans rights and anti trans legislation that's going on all over this country. Roll the clip. These Republicans act, they act like all they care about is the health and well being of the kids. But it kind of gives the game away when they start adding on stuff that's basically just and don't play with dolls. Will tell your mom and look, I'm not a doctor, all right, as I found out when I try to take out my Cousin's appendix. Alright, but these Republican lawmakers are also not doctors, and people who are doctors see things very differently. Major medical organizations such as the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics opposed the bill with alarm and dismay. Pediatricians have watched bills through state legislatures across the country. It threatens the health and well being of transgender youth. Young people when they reach a certain age um, if they have gender dysphoria, which means that they experience mental durest because they are transgender, might not want to go through puberty, and so their doctors might pursue them puberty blockers so that they don't have to go through puberty and can make a decision when they're older about whether or not they want to medically transition. So look, medical professionals and trans people themselves say that treating kids early can be extremely beneficial, Which makes you wonder what's really behind all of these laws. If you ask me, it's hates. Yeah, a lot of these people are angry because trans people don't conform to a neat idea of gender, and as humans, we like things when they are neat and organize the way we want. That's why people got so mad when they said Pluto wasn't a planet. Well, if it's not a planet, then what is it. Actually, it's a rocky Kuiper Belt body that struggles line between a kill you. But as scared as some people might be by the idea of a trans person, it is nothing compared to how scared trans kids are dealing with problems that they don't always understand in the world that oftentimes does not accept them. So if these states are going to be passing laws to help anyone feel safer, it should be there. Today I'm joined by a c O you, Deputy Director for Transgender Justice, Chase Stranger. You welcome to the show, Chase, Thank you for having me. I'm psyched to be here. Also joining us for this wonderful, wonderful conversation is the author of the present Age newsletter Parker Alloyd Parker, how goes it? Hey, I'm doing all right? Thanks for having me. Well, thank you as well. Now we've seen a wave of anti trans bills across the country. Can can the two of you set the stage for our listeners? Number one for what's going on in Texas and across the nation. We just talked about this on the show. UM about a week ago, we were talking about how they're trying to pass laws now where if you're a trans athlete competing in particular sports, we wanted genitals, internal and external organs. Like it is getting wild out there, but let's just start first with fucking Texas. Beep it. I know I'm not supposed to curse. I don't care. Let's start. Let's start with Texas. Uh. The two you can just kind of set the table for what's happening right now in the country. You know, we can always look to Texas when some terrible legal thing is happening. UM. And unfortunately that is true right now. UM. Texas isn't even in legislative session right now, so this is the legislature is not even convening. But of course Governor Abbott Attorney General Ken Paxton have decided that the priority in this moment of many many crises is to target trans kids and not just target trans kids, uh in the way that many other states are targeting trans kids. And we can talk about that, but to really escalate at another level. And unfortunately, what we've seen in Texas is that the governor issued a directive essentially announcing that in the state gender affirming healthcare, which is just the basic health care that is supported by every major medical association in the United States, that healthcare when it is recommended by a doctor, by parents, and by a young person, they're all agreeing that the hair is medically necessary um and prescribed by a doctor. That that's a form of child abuse. And what's terrifying here is that they issue this directive to the Department of Child Protective Services UM and essentially, within a few days you start having families in Texas who are investigated by the government for simply loving and affirming their their their child UM. And that means that kids are afraid to go to school because they could be reported to CPS just for being transgender. Parents are afraid to take their kids to the doctor. Uh. And you know, we're talking about care that is being recommended by doctors, that is supported by medical associations. So your parents following the medical advice of their doctors. You have parents trying to do right by their kids who are suffering and struggling and seeing their kids improved. And now you have the state coming in and say, you know, not only are we going to take away that care and we're gonna make it a crime, We're going to criminalize you for providing that care to your kids. And so this is a really drastic escalation. It's terrorizing families in Texas. Many people are trying to flee this date. Those who can't flee or don't want to for good reason, because their lives are are there are stuck in the situation where they don't know how to care for themselves, they don't know how to care for their families. UM. Thankfully, we were able to block much of this directive in court UM, but there are parts of it that are still being implemented. We're going to have a subsequent lawsuit to try to expand the nature of judicial relief that we're able to get. UM. But this is a situation where, you know, we have a conversation that starts about at bathrooms, UM and quickly escalates to where kids are being threatened to be removed from their homes, from their loving and affirming homes. UM. This is a really scary time for trans young people in their families UM, and Texas is in many ways ground zero for that remember the good old days, just a good old bathroom argument, the good old fashioned days of bigotry. And now you know, things have just started changing. You know, Alabama has a law that they're trying to get passed that as wild, the same thing going on in Florida. Almost three hundred different laws across the United States right now, Parker, why do you think, well, here's a better question. What's the motivation behind these bills? And why is there an uptick in so much anti trans legislation, specifically from the right and targeting trans youth and the education of children, about about this whole, this whole issue. I think it goes back to the marriage equality decision at the Supreme Court. After that happened, what you started to see was a lot of the anti marriage equality groups, anti anti LGBTQ generally uh shift their focus to trans issues because that we made for an easier target. And for a while you would see things like bathroom bills popping up, where it would be, oh, we're going to require people to use the bathroom that matches their original birth certificate. And over over time it seems like the public wasn't quite on board with the bathroom stuff. Because a lot of the time they would be stumped by questions like, is there any evidence that this is necessary? And the answer was pretty much no. So the there was this sort of shift over to focusing on UH public accommodations more generally. You had in North Carolina passed HB two, which was a bill that targeted trans people, but it also preempted a lot of the other local level nondiscrimination protections, and that was met with some backlash and that pretty much went away mostly. But in recent years it doesn't seem like our allies necessarily have our backs as much as they used to, and there hasn't been that kind of North Carolina sized backlash to these bills. So what you have is you have a state trying to push something that is anti trans or anti LGBT generally, and if they're not getting a lot of pushback, if if businesses aren't threatening to leave the states, if boycott's aren't happening, if if all of this other stuff that that made HB two North Carolina so ta toxic for the governor at the time, who lost in his re election bid. Those elements that that hurt the economies of these states just aren't there anymore. And so what happens is they'll pass these bills and there won't be a whole lot of public backlash to it. Trans people will see this in the news and think to themselves, oh, my god, I am terrified because it is scary. And I think that one of the reasons that they're they're shifting to too children, focusing on trans children is it really appeals to this old school sense of um, save the kids, protect the children. It's the same sort of thing that happened in the seventies when it came to you know, Anita Bryant and just general gay rights. There was this whole oh, they're trying to recruit your kids, and so we're seeing a lot of that same stuff happening now. Yeah, because because at first, you know, with the trans bathroom bills, it was what if you get attacked in the best from them by one of them, It could be you, and that didn't work. And now they're going, well, it could be your kid, a trans athlete just dunked on your assist gender child. You don't want that to happen again. Is part of the strategy of the right to deliberately create bill after bill after bill, and headline after headline after headline, so that it just gets all lost in the smoke, so that people who don't know everything that the trans community is going through just become apathetic. Yeah, I think that that is a big part of it. Just a few months back, there were there were all those big states pushing the anti critical race theory type bills where it was they were saying, oh, they're trying to indoctrinate your kids with critical race theory and all of this stuff that wasn't being taught in first grade or whatever. And the same people who were behind that push are the same people who are behind this this current push to target trans kids, and they're really just kind of war bang a lot of this language. They're saying that, um acknowledging the trans people exist in a classroom setting. People are trying to frame that as a form of sexual grooming, trying to groom kids to be trans or gay or what have you. And it's the same it's that same sort of you know argument, Oh they're trying to recruit your children, and so they say all these things, and they make all these arguments and and suddenly you have parents who you know or people just generally who have a lot of they mean, well, but every time they turn on the TV or read the news, they're seeing some story about a politician talking about, oh, this man just came in and beat all these girls and you know basketball basically, yeah, yeah, if you've you've got that, this this idea that there is this this you know, epidemic of trans people dominating sports. I mean, it's it's the plot of the movie Ladybugs, but it's it's not really reflected in reality. I mean, even with that, they found one great trans athlete who dominated her sport and she won a national championship, and they're using her story, the story of Leah Thomas, as kind of a pretext to attack trans people. Generally. There's no reason to ban trans girls in second grade from competing against six gender girls in second grade. There is not a physical advantage that's happening there. The whole point of it, the goal of it is to essentially drive you know, hopefully trans kids stay closeted and they grow out of it. That's kind of their argument. They think that they can push that. But I mean, as someone who who I'm trans and my whole life, believe me, if I could grow out of it, I probably you know, that would have been great for me. But I can't tried. And uh, I think that that's that's kind of the big problem. The people who are pushing these laws against us. I don't think that they actually care. I don't think that they actually believe that, oh, if you just take this away from trans kids, if you don't affirm them, that they'll grow out of it and they'll be better. They just don't care if we exist in a happy sense, or exist at all. And that's that's what's what's been frustrating, is to try to cut through the noise and get down to what it's about. When someone talks about, oh, I just care about fairness and sports, I keep trying to tell them, but none of this actually has to do with fairness and sports. Are using sports as a way to get there, to kind of get a wedge in there so they can attack trans writes more generally chase to that point, like like, let's let's just go with with this notion of protecting the children, as Parker says, what does that actually mean for trans children? Because you don't we can't argue with that, right, you know, everybody wants to protect the children, right, I mean yeah, I mean so. First of all, so much violence has been done in the name of protecting women and children, and which in this country almost always means white women and children. And it's been the ways in which the government has leveraged its most violent impulses under that discourse. And if you look at what's happening in Texas, if you look at Texas, right, you know, I'm a parent, I'm in a state where I'm afraid to send my kid to school because of COVID, I'm afraid to send my kid to school because of shootings. Texas just had this horrific murder of in schools of you know, mostly Latin X kids. And the government's response, the first thing they ban is drag queens, Like are we are? We? Are we a serious country at all? The idea that the greatest threat to our young people is that they'll feel free and happy and joyful as opposed you know, so instead of looking at actual violence that people are experiencing, we have this goal of repression. And I think going back to the sports discourse and this reality, uh, you know, the sports bills in this country originated most aggressively after two young black girls in Connecticut who are trans had some success in Connecticut and a bunch of white ciss girls freaked out and went on Fox News consistently to talk about how they were threatened, and the discourse of their threat was deeply raised in a state with a lot of white, wealthy people. And you have these two young black girls who enjoyed running, who were thriving in their sport. They were attacked so aggressively. Uh, And there was a right wing media circus focused very explicitly on then, which then fueled the anti trans bills UH that then proliferated around sports. And this connects I might add to a one hundred year long at least history of notions of sex verification and sport that can be traced back to the earliest early twentieth century that had a lot to do with policing the bodies, particularly a black and on women from the Global Cell who are not transgender. Just telling women who are sis gender who just happened to be black, who happened to be brown, who happened to be from the Global Cell, that they're not really women. That implemented the first sex testing regimes that we saw in the international context which were now importing into the kindergarten through fifth grade contexts in the United States and opening up the door to this type of policing of the bodies of young women which is almost always going disproportionately hard black and brown young girls who are already told that they're not the right kind of girl. Um. And that's the reality of how this is happening. But it again goes back to what does it mean to protect children? Which children and how and when it's the power of the state deciding which children are valuable. We know which children are going to be valuable. It's going to be white, sis, Christian, heterosexual children at the expense of everyone house. Now you have said a lot, You've said a lot. I want to talk a little bit about how these laws affect the trans community. Medically is that a word medically medically medically medical care. We want we want to talk about how access to medical care and the lack thereof and the hurdles. And also I want one of you to define for our listeners the term safe folder will do that after the break. This is beyond the scenes, Parker. Let's let's start with you let's just talk about the implications in terms of medical care, and like, how have the strategies and attacks from conservatives evolved over the years to create a system that has now expanded beyond bathroom bills and sports and is now attacking medical care to the trans communities. Yeah, well, so one thing that I have learned, and this doesn't just apply to trans issues, but but this is a great example of it. In my years of working as a media critic and working at progressive media washdog groups, I have noticed a very consistent strategy on the right. And what it is is it's to take an issue and it's too poke little holes in it, and then repeat those over and over and over and they don't have to be true. They make Joe Biden out to be the coolest man on the planet when it comes to trans issues. They're like, Joe Biden wants to abolish gender, Joe Biden wants to you know, like Joe Biden wants to hand out hormones like candy. And yet all of these things that would be awesome if if Joe Biden was was half as cool as they made them out to be, you know, And and that goes goes to show on a on a lot of other issues too, but in this case, what they do is they say that trans people basically have it too good, that it's too easy for trans people to get medical care, that there are people that there are loads of people who are just being waved through you know, clinics and getting put on medication, that they don't know what it is, that the people aren't stopping to think about the implications of any of this, and that's I mean, it's just not true. It's not an easy task to get put on you know, to to get put on hormones as as as an adult, even in a lot of places, but especially for kids, that is a it's a long process. But they make it out to be like one day your child comes, your boy comes home from school and he says, I like playing with dolls. In the next day you're like, send them in for surgery. It's like that doesn't happen. But that's how they're framing it to be. So they're telling these horror stories and saying we have to do something to address this because children they don't have they don't know what's happening, and they're being forced to do this and all of that sort of stuff, which would be kind of scary if if that was true, But it's not. It's not. How how are we listening to the politicians and not the pediatricians. Right, We'll see one thing that they have that that I think is uh important to note. So there's I can't remember see, and this is the problem. I can't remember which one is the good one. There's one group that is a like I think it's the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the College of Pediatricians is bad. Yeah, there's the America. There are two groups with very very similar names. One of them one, yeah, exactly, one of them is the actual, like legitimate, large group of pediatricians in the country. The other one is a conservative group that has something like a hundred members and exists mostly to argue that gay people shouldn't be allowed to adopt, that HIV doesn't have anything to do with AIDS. You know, all of these or these weird right wing conspiracy theories that they push that stuff. And they've been one of the ones saying no, no, no, trans kids don't need don't need to be a firm. You should just reinforce their reinforce gender roles and reinforce stereotypes. And you know, your your son who likes to play with dolls, he'll be a tough dude. And you know all of that stuff, even though there is no one on the planet who is saying if a boy plays with dolls, he's trans or if if a girl likes playing with trucks, she's she must be trying to starts to pick up a truck and the next thing you know, you're playing softball on ESPM. You know what happens next. Yeah, So, so that's kind of the trick here, is they they start these arguments from such a place of bad faith that you spend all your time trying to get back to reality to where you can't even advance your argument because you've you've been dealing with hers. One thing that this segment brought to my attention, and you know, the thing with a lot of these segments that we do on the Daily Show, we only have like four or five minutes for the most of the time, so a lot of stuff gets cut, but it is an opportunity to educate people who think they're allies about things that they did not know we're happening. And in the research for this piece, the words safe folders kept coming up. To be honest with you, as a supposed it thought I was an ally ally I didn't know what a safe folder was before we started researching this, and Chase break that down in a way that our listeners could understand the threat and why these even exists. Yeah, I mean so. Essentially, what a safe folder is is something that parents of trans young people UM specifically have developed over the last several years and decades really UM. And it's a folder that they carry around to show that their child is trans and that it's legitimate and that they're not doing anything wrong. So often it will have things like letters from family and friends saying I know these individuals, and I know this child, and this child is living consistent with who they are. These are good parents. They'll have letters from doctors and pediatricians, maybe endocrinologists say this care that this young person is being provided, whether that's just simple affirmation in the home, or whether that some form of forrmone therapy is being provided under the supervision of a doctor, and that The idea of the folder is that it's a way to protect the family against any sort of accusations from the state or from other private actors that they're acting in such a way, UM, that's not in their child's best interests. So it's a countermeasure to the widespread systemic transphobia and society in order to protect loving families, UM to be able to continue to love and care for their children. And it's so counter factual. I mean, it's like the idea that in this country of gender reveals of little ladies, man onesies, that the pressure is to be trans is like absurd right there there, there's like we're actually entertaining a discourse that people are pressured into being trans in a society that is so fixated on enforcing sex binaries, Like we can we're starting wildfires with our gender reveals, and yet we're told that it's it's the transnise that people are being pressured into, when I mean, I spent most of my life trying not to be this way because of society. People are struggling deeply. The idea that people are just like popping out and everyone's like happy. Yes, being able to be who you are is incredibly liberating. It takes a lot of time, It takes a lot of struggle with family, with community with doctors, and then people finally get to a point, a point of feeling good, of loving themselves, and the state's coming in is like, no, we're gonna take that away. We're gonna take away your health care. We're gonna push you out of school, We're gonna tell your parents that they can't affirm you in this way. I mean, that's what we're talking about here. Um. And it's a totally counterfactual but quite terrifying narrative that we're letting flourish. Um. And they're coming in and trying to make these like seemingly reasonable arguments that are like, oh, no, you know, the data is just not out yet. We need fifty years of randomized controlled trials before we know if this is really safe. I'm like, I'm sorry, have you ever gone to a pediatrician with your kid? If you ask one question, they're like, you know what, I don't know. We don't know a lot. That's how pediatric was worse. They're like, it's a leap of faith. You're like, I don't know. My kid is has a stomach ache, and we can give them this, and we can give them this, but like, we don't have fifty years of data, because that's not how pediatrics works, but where the state is coming in and saying, oh, but with this one thing, we need fifty years of data, and that's just a really disingenuous argument. People are buying it hook line and sinker, and that's what's so frustrating. Well, and also one thing that's happening right now is there are people who I think are very well meaning, and they will we'll see that, and they'll hear those arguments and they'll go, well, why not just let them wait until they turn eighteen and then they can do whatever they want. Just let them go through puberty. Maybe they'll be fine. But here's the thing. I mean, puberty is going through puberty is not a neutral It's it's not a neutral option. It's when people talk about when they're worried about, oh but what about been in effects of possible hormones or this or that. I mean going through your body's natural puberty that has some permanent effects too. I wish more than anything that I hadn't gone through my body's natural puberty because it's it's created headaches, it's made me feel terrible, it's it's awful, and that's why I care about this, It's it's because I worry that we're at this point where people who don't know what they're talking about are trying to force kids to undergo their their body's natural puberty who may not benefit from that. You're allowing something to happen that you ultimately will medically have to reverse at some point anyway, exactly. I mean, that's that's the thing when people talk about trans women, especially You'll see, you know, the joke's always like, oh, here comes that this big burly you know, it looks like a dude, and you know all the stuff that the jokes in the nineties movies basically, um, you know, those those sorts of things that comes from the fact that, you know, a lot of trans women have to go through their bodies natural puberty, and some people after puberty there's six ft five and some people after puberty are you know, I mean, I'm lucky in the sense that I'm five nine, Like, I'll take that at five nine is okay, Um, but you know, it's possible I could have had could have finished puberty with with super broad shoulders and a super deep voice and all all of this stuff that that would have been pretty much impossible to do anything about. I mean, there's no there's no surgery that makes your shoulders more narrow, there's no surgery that that makes you, you know, a foot shorter. These things just don't exist. So really, when when people are forced, when children who know that they are trans and their parents know that their trans, and this has been something that's been happening for years, forcing them to undergo puberty is cruel. The whole point of things like puberty blocking medications is that it helps parents and and trans teens by time so that they can make the closest thing to a neutral decision on this at the latest possible stage. And that is what's what's so frustrating about this is that asking for that bit of neutrality is considered radical in a lot of a lot of places, Like nobody's telling all kids to go on puberty blocking drugs. But if if you know your kid is trans, and your kid knows that they're trans, why would you force them to go through something that is going to be so physically and emotionally painful for them and have no benefits, which is what a lot of us had to go through. So with sports and I guess as a fan of sports. Most sports, I'm still trying to figure out hockey, yes, where I do not understand icing. I'm trying. I swear I'm trying. But I imagine that sports is the easiest vessel to make the analogies for non trans people to latch on to be it as an opponent or proponent of the issue. You know, because there's a common sense appeal to the idea of fairness parking. You have a pretty nuanced view of how trans and since people should compete against each other. But also you think that most of the laws being passed around sports aren't really about fairness. If there aren't about fairness, then what are they about? Sure, I well, these laws that target they typically target kindergarten through twelfth grade. They're just an excuse to send a message to kids saying you are not valid. Trans kids are not valid. They are not who they say they are. They are always other. And that is the frustrating starting point here. I mean, my view on trans people in sports I think is pretty nuanced. And when someone says, do do trans athletes have an advantage over cis gender athletes? I mean the answer is sometimes maybe it depends, and it depends on what sport, It depends on when they start, how long someone's been on hormones, It depends on any number of factors. I mean, one of the most clear cut examples of a trans person having an advantage in sports was a trans boy who was forced to wrestle against girls because of Texas. Once again back to Texas. Because of the way Texas laws were set up, you had a trans boy who was on testosterone. His name was Mac Begs. He was forced to make this choice of can he wrestle he would have to wrestle against girls in high school because that was the way their law was set up, or he could just not participate in sport at all. Those were the options given to him by the state of Texas at the time. And what he did was he ended up winning two state championships, I believe. And in that case, it was an example of a policy that was meant to prevent trans girls from competing, and all Mac wanted to do is wrestle against boys because he was a boy. This policy was meant to ensure fairness, but what it did was it ensured that there was not fairness. And so when all of this was finished, you would think that the state would go, oh, we got this totally wrong. We're gonna we're gonna fix that. We're gonna let him wrestle the boys, and we're gonna figure this out. No, that's not what they did because they didn't actually care about fairness. And I think that's why that's That's one of those examples that I keep going back to because it just shows that how quickly they will shift from one one point to another. They'll talk about, well, what if Lebron James decides he wants to play in the w n b A. I mean, that's a really out there kind of hypothetical, but I've heard it a ton. But when you're talking about kindergarteners, and when you're talking about children who school sports are mostly just about competing and making friends, that's where it's just cruel. You're you're telling these kids, no, don't accept the trans student as one of you. That can't happen. And so really what it's about is it's about sending this message that trans kids aren't real, that there, they can't be taken at face value, that they can't be trusted, and all of that and a lot of this is based on this assumption that people always know who is trans. If I was a trans student right now in school, I love sports, I would not, you know, participate, because I would be afraid. I'd be afraid that if I was if I was terrible, that people would go, you're taking a spot that someone else should have. I'd be afraid that if I was too good, they would go, you're you're taking a spot that someone else should have because you are cheating and you are really a man, and all of this stuff that kind of comes up. It's very, very frustrating to to watch this play out and to just see how completely devoid of compassion a lot of it is. To that point, then Chase about lack of compassion. The a c l U has to fight multiple fights on multiple fronts at all times. But when we look at let's just say, anti trans legislation and anti abortion legislation, what do you think that says about this government's care or concern about gender roles in this country and healthcare issues in this country. Yeah. So, so going back to the Lebron James example, I was doing a panel with Lesia Clarendon, who plays in the w N b A and Megan Rapino, who's a soccer player, and they were like, oh yeah, Like all these men are really going to fake transition to play in women's sports where they get paid less, where they have to travel coach, where they don't get supported. Like, let's talk about the actual realities. And the same people who are pushing these bills in the name of supposedly protecting women's sports, they're never advocating for equal pay, they're not investing in girls programs. The only way they seem to care about women's sports is by banning trans women and girls from sports. And that's not the primary priority of people who are invested in gender equity and sports, which is why Women Sports Foundation National Women's Law Center opposes all these bills. They don't do anything for women's sports. They harm women's sports by empowering the state to continue to surveil and regulate the bodies of women and girls, which goes to the very question of look at the way in which anti trans bills and anti abortion bills are also being pushed in concert. UM. So you have lawmakers who are standing up saying they're pushing these anti trans bills to protect women. Um and the same hearing they're trying to ban abortion. Um and ultimately, what this is about is a government that is invested on, you know, reinforcing a very specific Christian, heterosexual, white colonial notion of the family on the entire country. Um and in the process restricting people's ability to have autonomy over their bodies. And that's why we're seeing, uh, you know, more and more anti abortion bills, more and more restrictions on access to contraception, more and more restrictions on access to gender affirming healthcare. Because at the end of the day, it's all part and parcel to the same set of systems that are designed to control us and to limit our ability to control our bodies. You're not supposed to. It's not legal to carry a flamethrower. I don't know if you knew that or not. It's not streaked legal, but you over there spit infects. After the break, I want to talk about the miseducation of us allies and who's culpable in that, as well as what can people do to be better allies. Two members of the trans community. It's beyond the scenes. Will be right back, Welcome back to Beyond the scenes, bringing it home talking trans rights. Chase Parker, not Parker. I want to correct you on something from the previous break when we're talking about, you know, this idea of the things physically that the changes the human body goes through physically through puberty, and the things that cannot be reversed. And you are five nine and you said you cannot get shorter. That is true. However, there was a new plastic surgery procedure going down to Miami where they will chop your shins, break it and put a three inch stint in both of your legs and attach and fuse your bone to that three inch stint, and you can't walk for a year, but after you're walking again, you'll be five ft eleven. I have price dollars not cover and it is terrifying it just thinking about, just thinking about it, just talking about it. So what where are the blinds? But before we get into salute in ways that people can be better allies to the trans community, Parker, what are some of the blind spots that you think people have to what's actually happening in the larger sense of this conversation. Is it really just about not wanting my child to know about the l g B t q I A plus community too soon or is there something deeper and treacherous that we're just not getting sure. I think that what it comes down to in a lot of cases is that there are people who just wish that trans people weren't trans, and that gay people weren't gay, and you know that everyone was straight and Christian, and if they had it their way white. You know that that is just kind of their their ideal world, which is so flawed in so many ways. However, one thing that I think sort of gets gets missed in a lot of these conversations is just how exhausting it is existing as a trans person in public. You know, there there are states that make it that have recently tried to make it more difficult for trans people to updade their ID documents, whether it's their driver's license or birth certificates. Imagine if you're going out to a bar and you walk up to the front door and you have to give the bouncer your your I D so they can check it, and it looks and they sees, you know, a photo that that looks like you but then has the wrong gender on it. Right there, you are outing yourself as trans to this bouncer and anyone he he comments about this too, you know, anyone he if he asks a question out loud, it suddenly becomes everyone's business. You know, these sorts of sorts of things that are just such subtle invasions of privacy that that factor into our everyday lives. I mean, there are there are cases where people have have lost jobs after being hired at places because oh we ran we ran your I D. Documents through a background check, and we realize that they don't match. You know, these sorts of things, and most states. I mean, I'm lucky enough. I was born in Illinois. I'm just raised in Illinois. I live in Chicago. I'm I'm about is okay as humanly possible for someone who has trans in this country as far as location is concerned. My driver's license says female, my birth certificate says female, my passport says female. So I don't have to worry about that sort of situation. But others aren't so lucky, and I think that that is something that you know, these are just the small sorts of things that we do in our everyday lives, the small sorts of you know, indignities, essentially, uh that I just wish people could could understand. And I think that there's this idea that trans people owe it to literally everyone around them to constantly be announcing to them, like bt dubs on trans. That is not how I want to live my life. If someone knows I'm trans, that's fine. If someone thinks I'm trans, that's also fine. But I don't go around announcing it to people. And I would rather not have to tell people constantly if that's the case. But that is the sort of world that even if, even if people are still allowed to access medical care, even if people are allowed to you know, exist and live and all of that stuff, if they are chipping away at our ability to be seen as who we are, as recognized as you know, as men and women and non binary people. When they're doing that, that is just it's it's getting involved in our lives in a very personal, invasive way. It's just not their business. It's just it's really really frustrating. And I think that allies could do do a lot just to just to listen to our experiences, to not get their news from from Fox, and to think about things beyond sports, and to think about things beyond drag Queen's story out or whatever they're talking about a fox and you know, all of that to that point. To that point, then chase two questions for you. Chase one to the point about allies doing more, you know, for kids that are struggling with their identities. What can family, friends and people within that community, what can they do to be a better ally? And what role does the media play and contributing to misinformation with regards to the perceptions of children that are going through um this process and or becoming members of that community. Yeah, I mean, I think we're talking about young people and how do we support them. I mean, first and foremost, it's just to be open, to be kind, to not be enforcing, uh, you know, assumptions about gender at every turn. Like maybe next time someone is pregnant and they're you're you're talking to them, don't ask them if they're having a boy or a girl. Maybe next time you hear someone you know has a kid, you say how old are they? Before you ask, you know, are they a boy or a girl. We cannot conceptualize anything without this binary and yet the reality is is that we are so much bigger than that um and maybe you should ask, you know, if you're going to a birthday party, it's like maybe the interests of the child are more salient than their genitals. Perhaps, UM, And that we can actually do a lot of work to deconstruct all of the assumptions that we're putting on kids, which are actually deeply harmful for almost all the kids. Norms of masculinity and femininity are greatly harmful across the board for so many people. We can do more to give our children more to work with, to be more expansive and they're thinking, and so that goes for those of us who are parents, those of us who are caretakers, those of us who are in community. UM. Push your school to do better, you know, push your school to be more open. UM. There's a lot that we can do, particularly in this moment of extreme backlash, where we're having governments try to stop history from being taught, try to cut people off from their histories. His you know, the truthful history of this country, UM, the truthful history that includes indigenous genocide, UM, and the enslavement of people from Africa. That is our history, and cutting people off from it doesn't benefit anyone. It benefits those in power and benefits those in power, of course, and same with cutting off discussions of LGBTQ communities because we have a long history. We need to know that history, and that that's something we can do for our young people is give them that history. So I think there's that piece of it. Then the media is a huge problem. The reality is is that the media is completely and utterly complicit um in what's going on right now, in part because the media takes debate from the right to engage in debates that actually just reinforce the underlying assumptions that are fueling the anti trans discourse. Every time we have a conversation that says what is a woman? Every time we have a conversation that starts with our trans girls taking over sports instead of you know, how could we advanced gender equity of sports? Really, why are we having that conversation or why don't we have a conversation and say how can we support our kids in the midst of a pen m it um and school shootings? Because they answer is this is bigger than Fox News right when the New York Times, Washington Post, I will every single outlet that has a huge platform is complicit in this and repeating the assumptions on the other side as if they are factual, and not calling out the misinformation about what is fueling the santi trans discourse. We have an obligation to be more accountable to each other by naming things that are part of a weaponized misinformation campaign that is designed and it's core to stop people from being trans. That should concern us greatly, and I think that the media can and should and must do more. So I'd like to end with a question to both of you, Um, Chase, I'll let you fire off first, Parker, take us home, kind of a one A one B question. You know, it's Proud Months, so we're gonna end hopeful and positivity, you know. And then after this I will be all milling you all a point of that wonderful Pride Month ice cream that Walmart pulled off the shelves. I have a secret stash. What can people do to help make things better for the trans community and what brings you joy? Chase? First, I'll start with the joy because I think it's what people can do as well, which is just see us in our fullness. Because I love my community, I love being trans. It brings me immense joy to be around people who are so willing to challenge the assumptions about the limitations that were put on them. Um. And it is beautiful. It is liberating to say I can be more than what I was told I could be. That is a expansion of limits and I love expanding limits, um. And that gives me joy. And so to allies. I mean, there's lots of things you can do. Of course, there's ways to engage, there's money you can give, there's political ways to engage, there's changing your conversations that you're having. But also just see us, see us, see us for the full people that we are, see us living our beautiful best lives. I am the most disgusting things are said about me on the internet every day, every day, telling me I shouldn't have a kid, telling me I'm disgusting and hideous and all of those awful things. And it's like, I feel great. I have a full, beautiful life, um And I want people to see that in us, um. And I think that goes a long way to shifting the narrative wherein we're only ever situated as monsters or victims, but we're neither of those things. As a general matter, UM, and so I think it's important um to be seen. I love it. See that was a great answer. Now here I am like, oh god, what can we do? Get the l and tips strap us all right? So, one thing I think that that people can do is push back on politicians who are pushing these anti trans bills. It may not directly affect you, but trans com unity is so small compared to the general population, compared to everyone else, that we cannot necessarily affect change on our own. It's important that other people have our backs. We cannot fight back against anti trans legislation, anti trans policies if other people aren't willing to say this is wrong. I am standing up for this too. I am on your side. And I think that that is is one of the most crucial things you can do when you when you see or hear someone saying something transphobic or just just being hateful generally, I mean, say something. Talk to them. If you've got a relationship with someone and you think you can get through to someone, talk to them. Great. Don't vote for politicians who who push anti trans, anti LGBT policies. Hold them accountable. Even if you if you vote for a politician and they're not advancing trans rights or they're not fighting back against these attacks on trans rights. Hold them accountable, call your senators and your congressman, and all of that stuff. These things matter. They're important because we need numbers. It's a numbers game, and that's one thing that we we just don't have. As much as people like to talk about how out of oh, there are more people are identifying a trans I mean, yeah, but it's still a very very tiny fraction of of the population, and and it's it's very easy for us to get crushed if we don't have uh, people willing to fight for us. Okay, as far as joy is concerned, Yes, what brings you joy? Like, what makes you proud to be who you are? Yeah? I mean I think one thing that brings me joy is just just still existing. I'm still here, and that that is something that I didn't think would be the case ten years ago, twenty years ago. The fact that I am here, I am thirty six years old, I am I am as surprised as anyone. So I think that that's that's it. I try to remember that being alive is success in itself, even if I even if I struggle even if I'm depressed. Being alive means that I have stood in there, and I have hung in there, and I have fought back against the things that are the people who are trying to make people like me not exist. So I live to spite them, and spite makes me happy. Let's go with that. I love it. We'll make sure to call your senators and get the Equality Act pass. This has been a wonderful discussion. I can't thank you all so much for being a part of it. Thank you so much to our guess, Chase and Parker. Thank you all for going beyond the scenes with me. Happy Pride, Happy Pride Pride played by Theme Music. Listen to the Daily Show Beyond the Scenes on Apple podcast, the I Heart Radio app, or wherever you get your podcasts. M