Yeah. All right. So, this weekend we're, or this week we're gonna actually talk about kind of the onslaught of transgender bills that have proliferated across the country. And, but before we get into that, I kind of wanted to do a little, little survey about, and, and I'll go first. I, I, so you can think about it. let's talk about like the first time that you became aware of transgender rights, or you knew somebody that was transgender. Things like that. So when I moved back from Alaska, I don't think I knew any transgender folks. When I was in Alaska. I knew a lot of drag queens, but they were gay guys. They weren't transgender. And you know, just to be clear on the podcast, there, there is, there's a huge difference. drag queens are people who like to perform in a different gender.
Drea:I wanna be a drag. But I wanna be a drag queen that dresses like a girl,
Carey:that dresses like all drag, well, most
Drea:like a, but like a drag queen dressing like a girl drag. But like, you, you know what I'm saying? Right.
Carey:all. So you wouldn't be a drag queen then you would just be a performer if you wanna be like a
Drea:Oh,
Carey:girl, right.
Drea:But, and I would glam it up like, like a, like a drag.
Meags:Like drag is a very specific form of makeup and dressing and
Drea:Yes. That's what
Meags:that is not necessarily tied to what gender you are and what gender you're performing. It's. Just a very, it's, I always like to compare it, compare it to kabuki, like it's very specific style
Carey:Yeah.
Meags:and like, and like sometimes, like sometimes you go places and, and the, it's, it's evolving and it's always changing and you see different people doing different things. Like some of the people we saw in Galveston when we were all in Galveston. But for the most part, it's very much like, it's just, it's a very specific style of performing in a very specific way of performing.
Carey:Mm-hmm.
Drea:Yeah.
Carey:It's kind of like I, I would describe it as high glam. You know, every, everything is over the top with drag queens, and you have some drag queens who are pageant queens. and Megan is probably, you know, a lot of them work in the makeup industry because I don't know anybody who's better with makeup than drag queens. I mean, sometimes it's maybe a little bit too much, but they know how to transform a person.
Meags:Correct.
Kathy:Correct.
Carey:what, so when I was in, lived in Alaska, kind of my, yeah, my, my first introduction to what I thought was transgender was drag. And I, I came to learn very quickly that that is not transgender. so in the L G B T community, we have, we have people who are their gender, they're recognized gender di female, and is attracted to the same sex, the same gender, that would make you a lesbian. But if you, you gender, you don't recognize your gender and you recognize it as something else. so if I recognize my gender, if I felt like a, a man, that's my gender identity, that is not my sexual orientation. So I could be identify as a man and still like women. So technically I guess that would make me heterosexual. so it, it's important to keep those distinction in mind when you're, when you're thinking about this, it's, transgender really is, it is a gender question, and sexual orientation is who you're attracted to, and either of those can have differences in them. so that that's kind of the,
Meags:both of those can evolve over time.
Carey:absolutely. It, it, you know, we're, we're coming to understand that gender is not static. you know, some, some days you may feel more masculine, or some days you may feel more feminine. but even that doesn't. mean that you're transgender, in the truest sense of the word transgender means that you, you feel your person feels like the other gender. you identify with the other gender way more than you do with your own. so I, I think I'm safe to say that when we were coming of age, this was, we may have known about gay people, but transgender was a little bit different. Like people didn't, e didn't really understand what that was, and I didn't really understand what it was until I got involved in the gay community. and of course, transgender is part of our L G B T. the reason I don't say L G B T Q I A is because today we're gonna be talking about legal rights and the law does not recognize anything but L G B T. so we can't talk about, people who identify as, let's say, oh God, I'm sorry guys. I'm forgetting what the word is. It's not, they don't identify with gender necessarily.
Drea:Like non-binary, non-binary.
Carey:Thank you. Yes. Non non-binary. So we're not talking about that. We're, we're, we're strictly talking about L G B T, but I suspect that non-binary folks would be scooped up in the, in the t part of that. so if any of our listeners are wondering,
Drea:so we're not gonna talk about the non, the non-binary. I
Carey:so non-binary, my understanding of it is that you do not un, I identify as, as, as a man or a woman. You have different characteristics of both genders that you, that you identify with.
Meags:So sometimes the other word they use for that is gender fluid,
Carey:gender fluid.
Meags:which I think is a, a more descriptive term.
Carey:Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. and so
Drea:I guess
Carey:was that
Drea:we're not gender stagnant.
Meags:Correct.
Carey:No, and I, I, I think that, and I'm just, I'm just kind of thinking off my head here. I don't have any statistics on this, but I, I suspect that more people identify as gender fluid than they do as transgender.
Meags:The kids these days. Absolutely.
Carey:yeah.
Meags:Yeah. That, I mean, that's what I the see in both my work life and my child's life is that, just a lot more people enjoying the middle of the spectrum and, you know, Traveling on it as they may, and rejecting the idea that there's only two options and you have to be going from point A to point B,
Carey:Right, which is like incredibly evolved thinking.
Meags:it is, and it's very, it's a, it's, it takes a little bit to get used to
Carey:It does. I
Meags:as a concept.
Carey:yeah. Even, even in my world, you know, I, I am a card carrying lesbian, and it,
Meags:you show me your card someday? I'd like to see your card.
Kathy:the card?
Carey:I can't show you unless you have the password. you guys remember the Alpha Chi handshake? There's
Drea:Yeah.
Carey:one and it comes with toaster. So,
Kathy:Second date toaster?
Carey:so yeah. I mean, I think that it. Kids today are, are, just think about this more and kind of reject the dichotomy of, of anything really. so, so my original question is like, when, when is the first time you kind of knew and understood transgender issues? And, and mine was when I, I came back from Alaska and worked for an AIDS agency in Fort Worth, and one of the women I worked for was married to a str male to female woman. And it was fascinating to me because Mimi, the, the person I worked for did not, she in no way identified as a lesbian. She identified as a heterosexual. She had been married to a man for a very long time. And Carolyn, when she met Carolyn, she was, going through the process. I, I don't know what Carolyn's birth name was, but she was going through the process of. Becoming a woman and it anatomically a woman. And it, I mean, that was, that was in what, 1999? 2000? I mean, that was a long time ago. And it was, it was kind of looked at like, anomaly, right? I mean, she was, I think she was like, and I think the, the gay community struggles with this today. She was kind of like the, the thing we don't wanna talk about in the, in the community. And I think it was extremely hard for, I have so much respect for her that she went through this, and actually at the time she was working for American Airlines and they were the first, company to offer gender reassignment. and that doesn't just mean the parts, you know, that means hormone therapy and everything like that. So I was pretty impressive. I mean, I remember thinking the time I was like, oh my God. I like who else is. Like, what do you even think about this? so that was my first time in like kind of encountering it. And then I got to know Carolyn. She's a lovely woman. and then I think the, the more I became involved in legal advocacy and the community, I met more people. And I, certainly I, I worked for a, a judge at one point who was, she's also a lesbian and she was the administrative judge of the court. And so she decided on her own that she was gonna take all name change petitions that were for transgender kids, or transgender folks, but certainly kids, because the procedure in Allegheny County at the time before she did this was that, you just went, if you were a transgender kid, adult or a woman who just wants to change her name for marial reasons, you went to court just like everybody else. So there were a gazillion people packed into a courtroom and you had to go up and say, while you were asking for your name change. So it was, it was very hard for people who
Drea:the fuck do they care?
Carey:I'm sorry.
Drea:Why do they care? Why you're asking for a name change?
Meags:Because they wanna make sure that you're not changing your name to run away from debt, or because you, you know, you're on the lamb.
Carey:of paperwork that you have to fill out. Yeah. So they, you have like this book of paperwork that comes with you and some of the, you know, it's like, okay, I've done a, this check and, there's no criminal records and, credit reports and things like that. So they just, yeah, as Megan said, they just wanna make sure you're not running away from anything. But unfortunately in Allegheny County, they were making people appear and it's still that you have to appear in front of live court proceedings. so, that was dangerous and could be humiliating for some of the the applicants because the judges necessarily always on board, so, or didn't understand the issue at all. And so it embarrassed these people So my took it upon herself, which was pretty great to she took all of the name change petitions for people who were, doing it because of a gender issue. And it was wonderful. I mean, she made it into a day of celebration. It, I actually got national attention cuz she was one of the first it. So people apply for that. And if it was, issue, it would be routed to her. And then we heard them in court once a month on Fridays and always be kind of a celebration around it. So that was, that was really wonderful. I mean that was activism and I think that she used her. Position really wisely. that's why elect gay people to the bench. but I digress. So, so that's how I kind of became aware of the issues. and I do believe that the, the T and L G B T O often gets discounted. as a matter of fact, I, I've had a lot of jobs, when I was chief of staff to Dan, his signature legislation, was, nos discrim against the L G B T community. so every, every state has non-discrimination act. Some include gay people, some don't. this is the push to get Pennsylvania to include gay and lesbian. And transgender people in employment protections, housing protections, public accommodation protections. And he was approached when I was his chief of staff to the the Republicans would pass the bill, but they wanted the tea, they wanted transgender people kept out of it. Or if we couldn't keep transgender people out of it, they wanted public accommodations, checked outta it. meaning, so you could still trans, discriminate against transgender people when it came to things like. Bathrooms or healthcare, anything that would be considered a public accommodation. And to Dan's credit, because he had introduced the bill for, since like 2004, he didn't take it. He said, no, no, we do, we do it all, or we don't do it all. good news this year, after having him introduced it since 2004, he passed it out of the house. And, we all took great pride in that. Cause we worked very hard and he was, he was wonderful when he told all of us. So, so it can't happen. It just takes, takes a while. so anyways, I'm gonna start with Andrea. Can you tell me about the first time that transgender issues came to light to you and you realized this is important.
Drea:I mean, the first thing I think about is the world according to Garp, because the, there was a character in, John KO's character was a former N F L player, I think, who became a woman. And so, like that's my, that was like my first kind of exposure to something like that. Like, and I was like, wow, that's, that's, it was interesting. I don't remember it being repulsive or anything. but like in my personal life, I really. Like, I don't feel like I know anyone that's going through that or has gone through it. I mean, you know, we have Chris, but that's different. I mean, it's falls more into that, non-binary crowd of folks. And so unfortunately, like, I might have to think some more about it, but, but my intro was definitely, you know, life according to Garp.
Carey:Yeah. Understandable. All right. Kathy, you're next,
Kathy:Okay. I would say like, kind of like Andrea, I think, you know, I was aware that it was a thing, but you know, when we were growing up, People did not say transgender, right? They said transsexual that talk about sex change and all that. And yeah, I remember seeing things growing up. You know, my parents always watched things like 60 Minutes and Dateline or whatever. I remember seeing things about, you know, what people would have to go through for a sex change. You know, like, you know, therapy and all this stuff first and everything. but I do know a couple of, transgendered people. there's someone I know, through work. they don't, they don't live in this state. I met them, and I was flying up to a company to meet with some people and I was told by the person who was taking me, okay, you're gonna meet this person. And, She's one of the owners of this company, and her name is Anne. But Anne used to be Paul and really hit it off with Anne. And, I still talk to her from time to time if the need arises, and very intelligent. But, you know, it's, it's evident that Ann used to be Paul, you know, like far as appearance, you know, some, I think, you know, there's, there's a certain amount that takes place and then it's up to you kind of how far you wanna take proceedings,
Drea:Yeah.
Kathy:and, but you know, always really enjoy her. so I think that's probably the first person that I ever really interacted with. And then I do have a family member who is transitioning from female to male. And I don't know a lot of the details. I, you know, I don't ask. I'm just, you know, people wanna tell me. That's fine. but I mean, it's, it's evident that, you know, at least at a, at a level, there's hormonal changes. so, yeah. That's
Carey:that's an interesting point because you say that, you know, you don't ask, and, and that's probably like the fundamental level of respect, right? It's, it is, it is their health privacy and if they choose to talk to you, great. but if not it, it, it's really none of your business, to, and, and certainly not to put a, a person on, on, on the spot Cuz it could be, I, I suspect, I don't know, but I, go ahead. I'm sorry.
Kathy:as I say, the only question I ever asked was what the preferred pronouns were.
Carey:And, and I mean, that's a, that's a great question cuz that mean, you know, that's showing that you, you care, you recognize it and You care. You don't wanna completely ignore it because then that feels like there's a secret to hide. so yeah, I, I would hope that most, that most people would. If they have a family member would approach it in that way. Okay. Lisa, you're up.
Lisa:Okay, so I remember one of our trips, and I guess this probably was when you were working for the in Fort Worth, and we got in this whole discussion about it, and I think that's the first time I really thought about it in any detail, you know, about transgender and how it affects and the whole, the whole difference between, gender and, you know,
Carey:Sexual orientation?
Lisa:orientation? Thank
Carey:Yeah.
Lisa:The, the wording. So that's first time I remember thinking about it. And then I will, when I was doing my year of family law, I happened to be in the courtroom when they were doing those hearings. And there was one person who I believe was born man was changing, woman. And she got on the stand and was giving this testimony. And I, I knew the judge was really conservative Christian man, but he was very respectful. I really thought that was great. Not everybody in the courtroom was respectful. Some of the attorneys weren't respectful. There's a lot of good old boys network in that county and it was very disgusting. so I just, it was, The courage I saw from that woman was just amazing. So, but now actually my personal life, it's more seeing my son have friends who are having questions about their gender and having conversations about empathy and about
Kathy:Okay.
Lisa:you know, and standing up for your friends without getting into fights.
Carey:Right.
Lisa:those discussions. So more on that and his questions, discussions about, you know, about the whole thing for himself. I think it's, you know, so.
Carey:But that's pretty great that you've raised a kid who, I mean, great that maybe he wants to beat people up who are but you it, it, he, he has that, I mean, I always liked that, and Brian, when, he would, he was, God, I can't remember what they called it, something buddy, but he was a person the school who, like, people who were afraid to go to the bathroom with their, you know, he would, he would accompany them to, to the bathrooms. And so I was always very proud of him for that, but I'm like, you can't, you can't take it too far. Like, he's a big kid, you know? I was like, you can't like, put him into a locker that's gonna get you in trouble, so.
Lisa:Yeah. And that's
Carey:right. right.
Kathy:No.
Lisa:yes, yes. My, my son is, is very tall, very big.
Carey:Yeah.
Lisa:He's not, he can be intimidating probably if he wanted to be, but it's not his nature. But, you know, and he gets angry. It's just like right to breathe. You saying he wanna be protective, that's nice, but what do we, you know, there's gotta be a better way so,
Carey:and it's, I think it's interesting because all of our kids have grown up in this time where it, it is so different from what we grew up. I mean, I don't think that, you know, they, the gender spectrum was really much talked about, when we were growing up or coming of age and figuring out who we were. and unfortunately, I think a lot of people right now blame it on the fact that we're open about, some people are open and talking about this, saying, well, you know, that's made everybody question their gender. I tend to think that maybe that's let people. Have those questions, rather than being in the dark and thinking, oh, well, you know, I have this feeling. Does that mean I'm a girl? It might not, you know, you can assure your kid that everybody has those feelings, you know, or maybe it's something that, that we need to take a look at, but it's not. It's not as well. I'd like to say it's not as stigmatized, but in a minute I'm gonna get into how it is stigmatized, but I think it's great that we're having a conversation about it. All right, Megan, you're next.
Meags:I think Drea has one more to add. I don't
Carey:Oh,
Meags:her to, before she loses her train of thought.
Drea:I, I literally could not, I couldn't, when it came to my mind, I couldn't believe I had forgotten. one of my friends has a, has a son that was a, was a girl. And I remember from the time, The child was, I don't know, four. I know Kathy knows this kid, kid. The kid Kathy knows this kid. I'm talking about like, we're at this, we're at this party. I just remember very specifically, we were at this party and this, this kid was in the bouncy, you know, like in the bouncy thing and comes out. Kathy, you might have been at this
Kathy:I was there. I remember this distinctly.
Drea:and he, and he, well, at the time it was a, she, popped out, was completely sweaty, disgusting, had hi, hi. His hair was, Curly, like curly and short and wearing, like Spider-man shorts and navy blue shirt and totally looked like a boy. And it just like, I knew and already kind of suspected before I was like, this is a boy, this is not a girl. I mean, and the reason the hair was so short was his mother had taken, like, they'd gone to get a haircut. He wanted a boy, he wanted boy hair, right? Did not wanna have girl hair, and was very persistent. And finally they, they agreed to let him have a pixie cut, which like, you know, he was gonna have to keep up with. I was like, I wouldn't even keep up with women and I'm an adult, so, right. Like, OK in the ass. So I just, but what was kind of striking to me, so I was not at all surprised when he hit middle school and decided to start going by coal and his mother was really surprised. And
Carey:Really
Drea:Yeah, I couldn't believe she was surprised. I was like, have you not seen this child? This child wouldn't even touch pink. You know what I mean? Like, like none of it. Not girly, never wanted to get the nails done, just none. And I have a girl, I know what that's like. She's a girly girl. So, so yeah. But this, so this child, he, he is just turned 18, definitely presents as a, as a male, for a very long time. They do not have the, the means for, him to get like any kind of alterations done. and so, but yeah, so I, I have a lot of firsthand experience and it's not does it's, it is a, he's a, they, you guys all know I have a really, it's not that they don't wanna
Carey:know we're all struggling with the pronouns.
Drea:but the, the, they
Lisa:grammar thing. The there for me, I, it's disrespect to the person, It's just.
Drea:It's
Carey:No, I, I, I, I would say I have to. work at it and, I, I look forward to the day where it's second nature and I can just everybody as they, cuz I think that that is where technical writing is I've seen it more in briefs, than I have in the past. law briefs. I've seen I mean, I don't, I don't read the conservative rags, but the New York Times, I've noticed that they use, they much more often, even when the, the article isn't necessarily about somebody who's transgender. so the convention is changing and, you know, we have to keep up. Yeah. All right, Megan, now you're up.
Meags:Oh, oh boy. So, my work life includes a tremendous amount of very interesting people at all points along the gender spectrum and the sexual orientation spectrum, and pretty much any spectrum you could think of. so I have had for a long time, lots of coworkers. Like, you know, I had gay male coworkers who did drag, but really they just really presented like very pretty girls. They didn't really do drag. And it was like, okay, well like this, like this is different than drag, but like, I'm not sure what else you would call this. and you know, as time went by, I started to have coworkers who were, you know, Started sharing things like their journey with, you know, taking testosterone and, you know, changing their gender on their license and how complicated that can be and changing their name. and so like, I've had a couple of coworkers are trans. I have a cousin who is trans and is a stunning woman at six feet tall, let me tell you right now. and it was like the most wonderful thing in the world to sit down with them at Easter dinner because it was just, like I said, I seriously, I've never seen you look so happy in your entire life. I've known you since you were born. Like, you're just like such a, such a happier person. Now, if only this child's mother could get on board, but you know,
Carey:Yeah. Right.
Meags:you, you can't have everything. But you know, so like, yeah. So I have a lot of personal experience. I have child who is, I think this week we're going with gender fluid. Some weeks is more non-binary. Some weeks is more gender fluid. There's a bi flag. I'm like, I'm like, wait, can you have a bi flag and be non-binary? Like they, there's a lot of things here that I just need to like, and it's great cuz I have a lot of coworkers who are like, they like to use the umbrella term queer. And like, I like that one too. Cause it covers a lot of ground. and occasionally I do have to be like, break this down for me. Cause like, I'm not sure I'm completely understanding this in a like, and like, I don't have to understand all of it. It's not my thing, but I want to make sure that I am making every effort possible for my child. so like, we're, we're doing our best around here. Some days it goes better, some days it's a little more challenging. the most challenging thing is of course explaining that. Just because you go back and forth on the gender spectrum does not mean you get two full wardrobes. That was a very long, serious conversation we had to have when we got ready to start freshman year this year. Cause it was like, dude, I love buying you clothes. Like, don't get me wrong, but like, you have more clothes than like both of your siblings combined. Like, you have a tremendous amount of clothing. Like, I, I get it, but at the same time, like, yeah, we gotta draw some lines here. but it's interesting because when I see, my coworkers and their, you know, their spouses and whatnot who are transitioning, who are in their thirties, they are primarily a, a point A to point B group. Whereas what I'm seeing more, especially in the high school crowd and like the younger crowd I work with, who would be, you know, approximately college age or thereafter, is just a lot more like, I'm a they them cuz I'm a they them right on here. Are they them? We're, we'll, we're, we're rocking with that. We're, we're making, we will, you know, and like we are somewhere where, you know, we literally have our pronouns on our name tags, which was one of those things that I felt like it's a little dopey, but all right. and it, well, and I felt that way right up until the point where I've had multiple people come up to me, especially like younger people who are clearly at the beginning of transitioning, who are like overwhelmed almost to the point of tears. So grateful that we have our, have pronouns on and like, how awesome it is and how awesome it is to be somewhere where it's, you know, like nobody bats an eye about your pronouns. Nobody cares. If you wanna talk about how to cover your five o'clock shadow when you wanna wear makeup out that Friday night, like really a huge, part of what do at my job. So like, I have a lot of. Personal interest cuz of my child, but also professional interest because it's just a community that I deal with all the time and it's so filled with so many amazing people who I worry when I see all the statistics, how many of them could be dead
Carey:Yeah. And
Meags:a truly alarming number.
Carey:murder of people is, is, is a real thing. And, and we're gonna talk about that briefly, but I,
Meags:Well, I mean, and the suicide level is unbelievable.
Carey:yeah, I, it, it, it, it's, it sounded different. so it, in, in kind of getting everybody experienced, what I can kind of, what I can gather is that, You know, we all consider ourselves pretty liberal. pretty with it. But, even, even we encountered things that, different. But we've, it seems like we've all approached empathy and, and just the idea of, we don't understand this. Maybe we should, you know, just listen more and just be more understanding. And, and I think that's, I think that's the right way to go about it. I would totally agree with you that there, there is a, a, it seems like maybe, maybe with the end of millennials, I'm not really sure, but there has been this switch from saying, I'm a, I I, was born a male, but I identify as a female or vice versa. Versus this gender fluid or this non-binary construct. I, I actually didn't even know understand what the non-binary construct was, until I went to Pride this year and somebody had a flag that I was like, I don't know what that means. And I, you consider myself pretty up on these issues. And so I had to ask a, straight parent of a, a I I said, and and she's very kind And understanding, and I said, I'm, I'm sorry. What does that flag mean? And she explained to me it was a, a flag for folks. I can't exactly explain it, but it had, it had like a triangle on it and then the rainbow, And then maybe brown and black, I don't know, different colors. And, I was like, oh, wow. Okay. So, so it's become a huge umbrella, which is interesting because legal rights can only extend to Defined classes, right? We can't have a legal right for non-binary because we don't underst. that might mean something to me and to you, it's totally different. so we, so we combine ourselves to these, these definitions. And interestingly enough, in the last, year, I had to say, so in 2022 across the entire United States, there were 166 anti-trans bills. And most of those, focused on what we would call the bathroom bills. And that is, you know, you have to use the same bathroom that you were assigned at gender birth. So you're, you're born, born a boy, you use the male bathroom. You're born a girl. You have to use the.
Lisa:Sorry to interrupt, but it seems like some people are obsessed with the whole bathroom thing. I don't.
Carey:so there is this school of thought, and I, I think it's probably right that if, if you look at the history in the last 10 or 20 years of gay rights, or I should say L G B T before 2013, is when the first marriage decision Boger felt was decided, and that allowed gay people to marry if their state allowed it. that was in 2013. And then there was a later decision in 2015 that that allowed everybody doma, which was the Defensive Marriage Act, a federal act was declared unconstitutional. so states couldn't have a DOMA and limit it any longer. So that's when it really opened up. And anybody, no matter where you were in Texas or in Massachusetts, could get gay, married. So, and what happened then was
Meags:just more colorful than getting regular married,
Carey:fine, right? I mean, when I got gay, married, I got gay, married Nantucket, and at the time it wasn't legal anywhere except Massachusetts. so that's why we went there and Nantucket's kind of a cool place. so, but, Yeah, so we got gay, married, and then just like regular divorced. So yeah. So, but within the last year, there has just been a proliferation of bills across the country, and ending up with this year we had 30 or bills introduced across the country and at the federal level that would somehow limit the rights of transgender people. So that's almost a three time increase. And in the number of bills. Why is that? Well, because, let's think about this. The, the Christian, Right. who is the major opponent to transgender legislation, of course has gay marriage, an issue any longer. that's, decided. I mean, they could bring it back up, but that's, that's, that's a harder path, path to go, abortion. Abortion was decided. so they won that. so what do they have left in, the culture Wars and the culture wars are key since 2016. Trump, introduced the culture wars. And so we have these now that they have, okay, women can't have an abortion and gay married can get married. Who, who can we, who can we go after? Now it's the transgender people. And that's, you know, I I I kept trying to find, when I was looking at these bills, like a different explanation, but there really isn't any other explanation. When you think about, and you think about the timing of all of these, transgender people are easy to pick on. a good fear and. Okay, so we have 388 million people in this country. We have about 1 million people who are identify as transgender, and that's who's counted. And so there's probably more, but we are talking about in a fraction of the, the population that we are making laws to prohibit. luckily the, the, the law in Tennessee that banned, I think they were drag shows or perhaps banned kids
Kathy:drag shows where a child might be able to see them.
Carey:Yes. So I, I, I believe I, read that there, was there, I don't know if it was the federal court, I suspect it was a federal, or maybe it was the state court who said you can't, that's unconstitutional. so there is some court pushback, but it's not enough. and I'm gonna focus a little bit on Texas here because. When you, when you start looking into this, the two websites I went to had, and they were the Transgender Law Foundation and oh, the A C L U. they, had a categorization for each state, under these different types of bills. And then they had a ca categorization that said, only And you, and you, you hit on that. And it was, it's unbelievable. I mean, it's like, I don't know. Greg Abbott was like, this is, of course, I mean the culture wars are huge down here. And so this is an easy, you can't target, African-Americans as much. It's harder to, to target gay and lesbian people as much. but it's easy to try target transgender people. And the reason I had you guys talk about who you knew was because people think Nobody knows transgender people, right? They, they don't really exist, especially to people who wanna, you know, limit their rights. You know, if they do exist, they're, they're men who for some reason wanna get into women's bathrooms and and terrorize them. Or they're products of liberal parents who let things go am mock and, wear their, let their kids wear dresses to school, which, you know, who cares? and, but it's a lot of fear. all based on fear. so in Texas, in the last year, We've had over 52 bills that. were introduced, that somehow limit transgender rights. we have one that prohibits you changing your gender marker, which means that like your birth certificate says male. in some states you are allowed Pennsylvania, you were allowed to change your gender marker. There were procedural steps that you had to go through, such as, you had to have a letter from a treating mental health professional. You had to have a letter from a doctor. I mean, there, it, it wasn't like an overnight thing. You had to work at it a little bit, but you still could make it happen. Texas, you can't make that happen. but the most,
Drea:another state and then moved to Texas? Why does that work?
Carey:I'm sorry, say that again.
Drea:So let's say you, you live in a, a, you live in Pennsylvania and you change your birth certificate and you come to Texas.
Carey:Well, it would've been changed by that point. So because of full faith and credit, Texas would have to recognize that change's birth certificate. Uh, so they couldn't, they couldn't deny that. And they may not even know because at that point your birth certificate would have been changed.
Drea:okay. So you.
Carey:not, right, right. and, and they're not gonna, I, I doubt that they would research it that closely. so, so that's not necessarily a problem. But what is a problem, and this isn't a law, and this is to speak to how powerful states can be, governor, Abbott in 2002 signed an order which allowed ch which classified, God, gender transitioning, let's say like hormones, for, a child. As child abuse and allowed the Texas government to go in and arrest families for child abuse because they were allowing gender affirming care. and this, this wasn't a joke. I mean, my, my sister's a teacher and they were actually mandated to report kids who they thought were transgender. And, you know, my sister's attitude is, yeah, no. You know, it's like the answer is if you saw, if you think any of your trans kids are transgender is No. I mean, it's, that's just the answer. if you are a, any kind of a loving teacher, but I mean, if you make that a mandated reporting thing, it. It becomes a little dicier because what it allows for is, much like the abortion bill in Texas, a, a private right of action. So you could go after a teacher or a school district or somebody like that. and not because it was anything to do with you, but it was just like the abortion law. There was somebody in your sphere that you knew of. and that unfortunately that that still stands and it hasn't, hasn't been challenged. But the other bills that have come up have been, free speech, of course. I mean, if you think about all the book bannings, most of the book Bannings have started because of fear of gay literature. And you know those books that you can find that talk about being gay. I can tell you when I was kind of going through the process of coming out, I vividly remember our friend Chris Telling, telling me to read, Rita May Brown, and I had never heard of her. I didn't, it, it, she was probably one of the very first lesbian, well, not first, I, she was, she was a lesbian author. She is a lesbian author. She wrote this book called Ruby Fruit Jungle. I don't know if you guys remember or not, but there was a bar in New Orleans called the Ruby Fruit Jungle, that we hung out at on various occasions. so this, this was kind of like, it was like scandalous when I read it, you know, I felt like I was such a rebel for reading it and, and starting to understand these things. And I, where did I get that book? I got at the Loyola Library. You won't find that book, you won't find that book in high school now, maybe at universities, but you will not find that book in high schools in Texas. And that is specifically prohibited.
Drea:really.
Carey:you think, God, I mean, so how are kids? The library was a huge part of how I learned to understand what was happening, what was going on. And you know, kids don't have access to that today. And, and that's, that's really difficult, especially if you're living in a rural community where there aren't a lot of resources. so that's a bill that has passed, of course. Frisco, i s d my, where my sister teaches has, you know, I mean, she talks about it all the time. The librarian has to be very careful as to what she, lets go out and, and it, it's not just like a rule that was implemented and nobody's following up on No, no. They, they are watching,
Drea:Really
Carey:so, yeah. Yeah. It's bad.
Meags:they not have anything better to do with their time?
Kathy:Right.
Carey:admit they do. Yeah.
Meags:Like I just feel like, I mean, I, there's just a lot of other things going on. We need to watch librarians cause, I, mean, librarians are so dangerous.
Carey:They are a dangerous sec. yeah, it's it, but it's, it goes back to the culture wars. People want to have something to hold onto that they can say, this is categorically bad. And right now, transgender folks are the people who are categorically bad.
Drea:The, the, the, the literature, the literature you're talking about though, is not just them. I mean, it's the, it's all, it's all of you. They're coming for all of you.
Carey:Well, of course. Yeah. I mean, Florida has the famous don't say gay build, which. you know, everybody laughs about it, but, and you think, oh, well, why would you need to say gay when you're, you know, somebody's a kindergartner. Well, people in kindergarten might have two mommies or two daddies, so not being able to talk about that and recognize it is terribly isolating for those kids. and, and I mean, I remember when Brian was going to, to school and Mother's Day was always, it was hard for him. I mean, he had a lot of work on Mother's Day and, you know, they, the schools just wouldn't, didn't recognize it. and so that, that was tough. And we lived in a, you know, a pretty liberal community. okay, so real quickly, I know we're running up on our time here, but, so the other transgender bills that are, have been introduced and passed are healthcare. and I. I wanna talk about this just for a second, because for people who don't think that Dobbs, which is the decision that reversed Roe v. Wade has an impact beyond abortion, they're wrong. This is, that the decision to hang your hand on right now because it essentially ruled that there is no right to medical privacy. so your hormones, anything that you get from your doctor is no longer subject to privacy. If it falls in one of these categories, you don't have the right to choose. And so that's how states are attacking these, gender affirming care. I don't know how I feel about gender affirming care at, at, at for somebody who's 13, which means hormones. but I know that I'm not a doctor. and I know that it is a doctor and it is a child, and it is their parents that need to make the decisions. Not the legislature. Doesn't matter what your beliefs are on it. I really don't know anything about the development of a 13 year old, but that's why I rely on doctors. so,
Lisa:Did you ask? there was a Sunday CBS Sunday morning did a story this morning about this and they interviewed a con, a guy from some conservative pack, and they asked him like, well, what, what about the parents? Like, what came the parent? Cuz it was all about the legislation to ban affirmative care. And he ba he basically said, we're protecting the kids from their parents. Like basically the government is stepping in as the kid's parents. It was so mad, but I just couldn't, I mean, he actually admitted that's, that's their thinking,
Carey:Which is essentially the same thing in Dobbs, right? We're protecting women from themselves. They don't know what they're doing. When they want an abortion, they're, you know, they're hormonal, they're pregnant, they don't know what they're doing. so,
Drea:women.
Carey:right. They're women.
Meags:Prone to hysteria.
Carey:you're the, the attack, the, the, the way that we're attacking it through medical rights and because of Dobbs is, is frightening. of course there's doesn't, there don't seem to be any regulations on the taking of Viagra or having a vasectomy or, or doing anything else to a male.
Meags:a boob job. I mean, there's lots and lots of gender affirming care that is not have anything with being transgender.
Carey:Right. I mean, it's the best red herring in the world and it riles people up and it gives them something to be mad about. and that's the state of our politics this way. real quickly, the other, some of the other bills, of course, there's the bathroom bills, which essentially say that you have to use the same gender that you were born in. there are bills that affect, well, they affect the outlaw. there are also bills and this, so back in, back in the two thousands they were called, and this is what I wrote my paper on in my article on, in, in law school. There, there were these series of cases. I don't know if you guys remember Matthew Shepard or not, and where he
Meags:Oh yeah.
Carey:It was a very publicized, just torture and beating of a gay man. and their, the perpetrators. Basically pled gay panic, which was, he was gay and I didn't know what my feelings were, so I had to kill him, you know? Which he seems outrageous, but I think he was killed maybe in 1998. At the time, people were so afraid of gay people that it was like, oh, well, you know, I mean, if a guy came on to me in the bar, I couldn't control myself. Of course I'd kill him. So, and there was, there's a huge conflict in the law in that. So we had, we had the gay panic defense, but at the same time where people were pleading this, they were also hate crimes laws where gay people were included. So at the same time of having a mitigating. Defense, we had an en enhancement with hate crimes and it, they're just untenable, right? So you e you either kill somebody because they're gay and you get a hate crime, or you kill somebody because they're gay and you get off because it's a, it, it, it mitigates your emotional reaction. and those
Drea:you just don't kill a person
Carey:well, there's
Meags:Bingo.
Drea:or no, no. It like, it doesn't have to be male or female or trans,
Carey:well, I mean, juries or judges were letting this go to juries and, you know, a lot of juries and we're saying, oh yeah, somebody gay came onto me. I'm, I mean, I might have to kill him too. and it, it worked for a long time. I mean, certainly the, the defendants in, in the Matthew, she case bene benefited from'em. They didn't get, they, they did not get. The death penalty. And I don't know of any crime. I mean, I don't necessarily believe in the death penalty, but you're gonna have it. These people deserved it. and so that, that kinda went away for a little while and the legal analysis kind of caught, caught up to like, okay, we can't have these two divergent theories. but now it's being used on transgender people and it's being used successfully. And there are very many bills across the United States that are trying to enshrine this, this idea of, gender panic, and, and as a legitimate defense. And to me, that's outrageous. Murder is Murder. Is murder is murder. I don't care why you killed a person. I mean, I think it was a hate crime and you killed a person because of a specific character, like, the Tree of Life, the, the Jewish. Synagogue massacre, went to trial this week, or got a verdict this, this week and the guy was convicted of like 62 counts. and he, he may get the death penalty. I mean, he probably will. but there's no question that killing a community of Jews or, it is more killing a bunch of Jews in a synagogue is more harmful to the community, than, you know, probably pretty much anything else you could do. So it, it's, our hate crimes laws. I guess I, I, my point is, is our hate crimes laws should be able to trump these, this legislation that is being brought and passed, but it won't because it's legislation. so that, that could change the laws. at any rate, okay, so the end of the story is that we have gone backwards in rights for transgender folks. I don't think if it, if it weren't for the culture wars right now, I, I don't think it would be an issue, but they're an easy target. There's not that many of them, so it's hard to lobby. and yeah, I mean, if we as a community, there's still discrimination. They have just found another way to express that. and it's ugly and, and it is ugly because it targets kids right now. and so,
Drea:Yeah.
Carey:so the message I leave you with is if you are in a state that has had, transgender bills introduced, find that out and call your local representative. Call your local rep. Call your local senator. Just make your voices known because a lot of these legislatures believe that. There's no consequence to voting, especially if they're in a very conservative district. There's no consequence. so take action. It's, it's still a very, it's, it's a tough issue and I hope, I hope that we can outgrow it. You know, I hope that we will, we get over the culture war soon, but it doesn't look very promising. so I don't mean to end on a really sad note, but that is, I think that's kind of where we are. the last thing I wanted to mention is we, I think we were talking about, people who can, let's say I, I identified it as, as a man, and I, I wanted to pass the, what I have available to me financially is much less than a person like Bruce Jenner, who, Caitlyn Jenner, I should say. there are people who have the wealth to be able to look like Caitlyn Jenner from Bri Jenner. That is not the majority of people. Most people can't afford the voice lessons, can't afford all that plastic surgery, can't afford a lot of things. And, you know, you have to keep that in mind that there are going to be transgender people who still, as Megan said, you can, if you spend enough time, you can tell that they're, they were born a man. but that doesn't mean they're any, they're any less deserving of your care and your empathy. So there you go. That's it. That's it guys.
Meags:Thanks,
Lisa:That's it.
Drea:We'll, we'll try to bring it, bring it back around, you know?
Meags:I will say the kids are on it. The ones who are coming up, they're all about it.
Carey:It gives me hope.
Meags:see
Lisa:My son
Meags:out in that regard.
Carey:Yeah. They all think that we're crazy for worrying about this so much so.
Meags:they're all, they're into it.
Drea:Yeah, they're into it and they vote.
Carey:Yeah.
Drea:even yet, but mine do. Yeah. All right. Thank
Meags:Oh my God, puppy. Goodnight
Carey:Ah,
Drea:Good night, puppy. Good
Carey:stinking cute.
Drea:Let's see, Elena.
Meags:right,
Carey:right, bye.
Meags:Good night.