Transcript: [00:00:00] Speaker A: If you found yourself historically aligned with the Conservative Party, I’m asking you to reconsider your own values and that of the party that claims to represent you. Silence, complacency, and above all else, loyalty is what has made discrimination and genocide possible in the past. Today is no different. It’s not enough for you to not hate trans people. It’s not enough for you to, quote, unquote, allow them to exist. It’s everyone’s job at this moment to fight for their humanity and their. If you have a question I know for you, you can simply ask your. Trust me. Dear Queen, dear queer, we’re back. [00:00:57] Speaker B: Hi. [00:00:57] Speaker A: Hi. How’s it going? [00:00:59] Speaker B: Fine. [00:00:59] Speaker A: I know, right? That is the right answer. Fine, fine, you know, just fine. [00:01:05] Speaker B: You. You had a recent article in the Toronto Star. [00:01:09] Speaker A: I did, yes. I did. An op ed in light of Trump’s recent anti trans policies, essentially that he’s trying to push through and maybe. Should I read a little part of it? [00:01:23] Speaker B: Let’s go. [00:01:24] Speaker A: Okay, I’ll read, I’ll read the intro. Like many people, there was a pit in my stomach on January 20, the day of US President Donald Trump’s inauguration. It was too depressing for me to watch it live, so I sat in a fog of disassociation most of the day, waiting for the news and podcasts to trickle in over the radio and in my feed. In pieces and already a bit pre digested, what I heard and read was worse than I could have imagined. His extensive list of executive orders, what is being called a quote, common sense response to woke culture, amounted to a targeted attack on one of our most vulnerable populations, the trans community. Yeah, it was just, it felt, I mean, it still feels so heavy and just as someone like. I’ve studied conspiracy theories and things like that in the past and not to say this is conspiracy, but it’s what you would call a moral panic. And we’ve had them over and over and over again in our history. Which is a targeted attack on a community that’s based on nothing truthful, but it’s based on like exaggerations and falsehoods and misinformation. Basically. [00:02:42] Speaker B: Yeah, it’s. It’s fear mongering. Yeah. I mean, day one of Trump being in office, he signed an executive order stating there are only two genders that will be recognized. And the idea of that is just to create panic and confusion for folks and othering of our trans and non binary communities. It’s horrific. [00:03:09] Speaker A: Yeah. And we know that Trump’s followers follow him devoutly and you know, the January 6th uprising wouldn’t have happened without Donald Trump’s blatant and explicit encouragement of it. Yeah. Call for it. [00:03:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:24] Speaker A: And we already know that, that trans people are at greater risk of violence against them. And, and so like you put, when you put these things together, it’s like Trump is kicking the door open for more hate. [00:03:40] Speaker B: Yeah. He’s basically co signing what is acceptable in our communities, big and small. And yes, we are located here in Toronto in Canada, but we are not immune to these things either. We have a conservative premier who loves Trump. We have a conservative prime minister waiting in the wings, Pierre Poliev, who has also espoused some pretty hateful things about the trans community. And. Yeah, so we basically wanted to take this episode to talk about some of these things that are happening and also to provide some support and maybe some resources and things that you can do in your individual communities to help combat this. Because, you know, trans and non binary folks have always existed. They will always exist. [00:04:40] Speaker A: Yeah, it’s so, it’s, it’s interesting because Trump, you know, calls, it calls basically what we would know in our understanding as queer folks too, about, you know, the gender spectrum and the idea that gender is something that’s socially constructed, it’s something we create, it’s something that can change over time, our ideas about it. Whereas sex is biology. But that being said, the biology is also more complicated than people understand. [00:05:07] Speaker B: Biology is not black and white. [00:05:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Trump is calling this understanding a gender ideology as if that’s a bad thing. Whereas exactly what he’s espousing is a gender ideology as well. It’s just a very strict binaried one. [00:05:23] Speaker B: Correct. Also, can I just say, you know, for someone who cares so much about populations, gender identities, pronouns, names, the idea that this person is changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico and yet can’t respect a trans or non binary person’s name. Get bent. [00:05:42] Speaker A: Totally. That’s so funny. Yeah, I didn’t even think of that. [00:05:46] Speaker B: Yeah. So in this kind of, in this time of fear mongering, what folks can do who are listening to support their queer community, their trans friends and family members, they’re non binary folks and. Yeah. Do we want to talk about. Polly, have any more around, like, his views? [00:06:04] Speaker A: I mean, I don’t know them enough. I just know that they echo the same kind of thing. [00:06:08] Speaker B: Yeah. He said there’s like two genders and his main concern is around keeping biological, his words, like biological males out of like women’s sports and restrooms and spaces. [00:06:21] Speaker A: Okay. So this is fascinating. So before I. I don’t go on Twitter anymore. I didn’t even know if I have the app anymore, to be honest. But at a certain point I was still sort of going on there and it felt like a real exercise in like, you know, how the algorithm always sends us things we believe typically on most apps. [00:06:40] Speaker B: Sure. [00:06:40] Speaker A: But Twitter was at that point was so inundated with. [00:06:44] Speaker B: I love that you’re dead. Naming Twitter right now. [00:06:46] Speaker A: Yeah, that’s true. [00:06:49] Speaker B: Okay. [00:06:50] Speaker A: X. Okay, that’s true. X. I totally forgot about that. No, we can Twitter in my mind. I mean, at this point it would have been X, I guess. Yeah. I think at this point it would have been X. And that’s why it was so inundated with, with like right wing stuff. And it felt like not a museum, but I really felt like I was visiting somewhere else and I. And it was useful in the sense that. So let’s, let’s say I could see a bunch of tweets from J.K. rowling, who we know is very like transphobic. [00:07:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:22] Speaker A: And people jumping on the conversations and echoing similar things. And it was interesting in the sense that I could see what, like it was helpful to try to understand where they were coming from because I’m like, I don’t agree with you and we’re not aligned, but yet they think that they are. It is about protecting women in their mind. [00:07:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:51] Speaker A: So I mean, I’m about protecting women. I’m about like, you know what I mean? So you’re like, okay, we there on some fundamental. [00:07:58] Speaker B: The logic. [00:07:59] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:08:00] Speaker B: That has like if this, then that. And it’s almost like you’re being led down the garden path, but you don’t realize that it’s lined with hate, misogyny, all these other things. Right. [00:08:12] Speaker A: Or the fact that like. Yeah, the fact that sure, I believe in protecting women, but that’s not the way I do it because I understand like trans. [00:08:19] Speaker B: The trans are women. Yeah. [00:08:21] Speaker A: So it’s interesting to be like, oh, we can like kind of on at its core value maybe believe the same thing. [00:08:29] Speaker B: Sure. [00:08:29] Speaker A: But we go in completely different directions with it. [00:08:32] Speaker B: Does that I guess give you some optimism that it’s almost as if, like if you could just have a one to one conversation maybe and break down, take some kind of hot button issue like abortion. And it’s like, hey, so do you believe in women having bodily autonomy? [00:08:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:49] Speaker B: Yes. Oh, okay. So then how does. [00:08:53] Speaker A: Totally. [00:08:54] Speaker B: It’s like, okay, you can you believe that? And yet your actions and the way you vote and these things run counter to this belief in bodily autonomy, autonomy and a woman’s right to choose and all of that. [00:09:07] Speaker A: And there’s also this element where, and I run into this a lot when I’m teaching or whatnot. But there’s also this, this argument that you could say, I mean, even against family members who disagree with you and things like that, where it’s like, like let’s say they don’t quote unquote, believe in trans people or whatever, but like in the same way they might not understand or like believe in gay people or something, or not understand how, why you’re gay or anything. But like, it’s one of those things at its core where it’s like just because you don’t experience it doesn’t make someone else’s experience not valid. [00:09:43] Speaker B: Correct. [00:09:44] Speaker A: So if you can even just get to that fundamental in some way that, and I guess, you know, this, this does take conversations with people and I think, you know, that’s one of the things we are all responsible to do at this point is to have those conversations with people who believe differently than. [00:10:00] Speaker B: You or even in your own families, absolutely different. You know, there’s often generational divides and you know, you may be the closest link to the queer community in your own family and you never know what conversations you might have with your aunt, your grandparents, your parents that then they can take back to their circles, which are different from yours, and expand that conversation. [00:10:25] Speaker A: Yeah. And just to understand, to help people understand the reality of, of trans people, especially before they’re able to transition. And the kind of like the statistics around, around self harm or suicidal thoughts are just, you know, staggering by comparison. And it’s, it’s a tragedy. And so if they can even just understand, like why would they want someone to feel that way? Why, why would they want someone to live in that despair when the answer is right there, you know? [00:10:59] Speaker B: Well, I think it goes back to this kind of fear mongering and the moral panic things because it’s like, okay, you know, when you talk about gender affirming care and the things that politicians, especially in the US and in certain states point to is like they try and evoke this image of this child who doesn’t understand and they’re getting, you. [00:11:24] Speaker A: Know, manipulated or something. [00:11:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Tricked into surgeries. Whereas like in reality, these types of care, they, they often start slowly, it’s over time. And the statistics of folks who receive some sort of gender affirming care and the like, recidivism is not the right word. The like oh, regret, right. The regret percentages are like so, so minuscule. Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s absurd. Versus, you know, you look at, um, folks who, like, we, we support all different types of gender affirming care. It’s not just for the trans and non binary community. Women get breast implants. People are constantly modifying the way their face looks. I mean, look at Trump, for fuck’s sake. Like, do you know how much makeup and hair dye, hair dye, probably hair transplants and like actual gender affirming care that Trump has had? Like, yeah, I’m sure plenty. [00:12:28] Speaker A: Totally. And, and, and you’re right. You’re absolutely right. And in these cases with, with children, when they’re trying to get gender affirming care, it is driven by their needs. Like, it is not the parents trying to convince them to do something. It’s not doctors trying to convince them something. There’s not some scary gender like wizard somewhere like Illuminati that’s trying to, you know, make everybody queer or something. It’s like, so that’s part of that fear mongering is making what appears to be is making a problem out of nothing and making it look bigger than it is. [00:13:00] Speaker B: Yeah, it’s like, would you rather your child live to see their 18th birthday or have access to something like a hormone blocker which can delay the onset of puberty while they figure out and identify their path in this world? It’s like, yeah, I’d rather have kids alive. [00:13:17] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. [00:13:19] Speaker B: And to your earlier point, I think if you break it down into those smaller parts and have those conversations with folks that most people would agree with that on some level. [00:13:29] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And that, actually, that reminds me, I watched Will and Harper last night. The, the documentary about Will Ferrell and Harper Steele. So Harper used to write for snl. That’s where, that’s where she met Will. And they’ve known each other for like 30 years or something and always really got each other. Like when Will first started and other people on SNL was like, ah, this guy’s not so funny. It was Harper who was like, no, I think there’s really something here, you know, and would write the wackiest sketches and things for Will to do. And so then when Harper transitioned and basically wrote this like long email to friends and family and previously, before transitioning, Harper used to travel around the United States on her own and go to dive bars and all sorts of things in the small towns and basically kind of felt like she wasn’t sure if she could do that. Anymore as a trans woman. And, and so Will was like, well, why don’t we do it together and I’ll get to know Harper and we’ll visit all those places and, and you know, you can get a feel for it and see what you’re comfortable doing. And this might be like another layer of your, of your coming out. And it was really beautiful. And it was, it was nice to see, you know, I mean, not every experience they had in the world was positive, definitely. But it was nice to just see sort of regular small town folk and, and to have even just like, like there’s one that stood out to me when they went to see some. It was like an Indy car race or something. Sure. And you know, very bro y people typically in these spaces. [00:15:13] Speaker B: Honestly, a space I would have hesitation. [00:15:15] Speaker A: Absolutely. Absolutely. Right. And there’s this like, average guy is talking like from the small town is talking to Harper and Harper’s just like, you know, I wasn’t sure if I could come to these spaces anymore. And the guy was like, yeah, absolutely. And, and then there’s a moment where he’s like, are you happier? And it sounded like it was a genuine. I, like, I do wonder where that came from. It might have been like, I wonder if this man has ever met a trans person. [00:15:39] Speaker B: Right. [00:15:39] Speaker A: Like, maybe not. So it could have been like first time decides or thinks or sort of be like, why are you happier? Because who knows what messages there, you know, he’s been getting in the media and who knows if he’s a Trump supporter or anything. And Harper’s just like, oh my God, like 100 million percent more, you know, and he was like, well, that’s all that matters, I guess. Right. [00:15:57] Speaker B: Like if people can. And simplistic. [00:16:00] Speaker A: Exactly. At its. At his most basic level, that’s what’s important. And if people can just see that, I think it, I think it can make a huge difference. [00:16:09] Speaker B: Yeah. I think that’s also a great example of someone using their privilege, you know, and, and that’s something that we all have in different arenas of our lives and. Yeah. Showing the trans and non binary community our support. Right now it’s. [00:16:27] Speaker A: It’s even more important. [00:16:28] Speaker B: Yeah. It’s more necessary than ever. [00:16:30] Speaker A: Yeah. And that’s what Will really did in this, in this experience, on this road trip and, and you could see him struggle. There were a couple moments, like there was one time that they went to this steakhouse and it, they were basically ended up in a fishbowl. Like everyone was staring at them and watching them and he was trying to eat this whatever ounce steak in an hour. And, and even Will was like, I’ve been in fishbowls before, but like, this is way worse. This is the worst one ever. And after that, he was crying in the car and he was like, I just feel like I let you down. Like, he’s like, I have to remember that your safety is the most important thing. And like that’s he what he. Because he walks through the world as Will Ferrell. Right. And so it was, it was special to see that too, because it was a real kind of awakening for Will too, to be like, this is how I live and this is how you live. And I, I see it now. [00:17:24] Speaker B: You know, to not have to make choices about whether or not it’s safe for you to travel. [00:17:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:31] Speaker B: Or be in certain spaces is absolute, absolutely a privilege. And it’s like Trump’s, you know, recent executive orders are putting people’s lives in danger. Yeah. [00:17:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:47] Speaker B: I’m not sure if you saw Hunter Schaeffer. So euphoria actress. She recently had to replace her passport and when she got her passport back, they had, you know, changed her gender marker from F to M. This is, this is someone who has been out and moves through the world presenting female. And now this person, like, she’s going to go to the, you know, if she wants to travel or go anything and like her safety is potentially at risk. It opens you up to violence. It opens you up to someone being like, this isn’t you. It opens you up to, to so much things. It’s like these, these orders and policies have direct impact on folks lives and safety in, in far, far reaching implications on their lives. [00:18:37] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, another maybe, maybe tiny little flicker of hope is that there are, there’s always going to be pockets of resistance. Like, you know, we’ve heard cases of, even within the government when Elon Musk is trying to get certain departments to do things and employees. And there’s been departments who are like, we’re not doing that. [00:18:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:58] Speaker A: And, you know, but even they’re being asked to take their pronouns off their signatures on their emails and things. And, you know, we just have to hope that people continue to resist even though it might be, you know, there might be consequences for it, but you just have to hope for that. Right. [00:19:18] Speaker B: Yeah. This, this is not the time for people to say, oh, well, I’m fiscally conservative, but, you know, my values are more liberal. It’s like, well, no, actually that doesn’t exist if you are voting conservative or your family Members are voting Conservative in Canada, in the us you are directly impacting your community members in a negative way. [00:19:43] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. The values are attached to it, to the party. You can’t separate the two. [00:19:46] Speaker B: You don’t get to bifurcate and, like, choose. It’s, it’s, it’s not a thing. [00:19:52] Speaker A: What? I finished my. So that article that I wrote, I basically felt like I was addressing people in my family. [00:19:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:00] Speaker A: Who are conservative. What did I write? I wrote, if you’ve never considered yourself an ally of the queer community before, I’m asking you to do so now. If you found yourself historically aligned with the Conservative Party, I’m asking you to reconsider your own values and that of the party that claims to represent you. Silence, complacency, and above all else, loyalty is what has made discrimination and genocide possible in the past. Today is no different. It’s not enough for you to not hate trans people. It’s not enough for you to, quote, unquote, allow them to exist. It’s everyone’s job at this moment to fight for their humanity and their lives. And I know some people might say, like, oh, is that an exaggeration? But it’s like, it’s really not. And that’s the saddest part of it. Like, and I think, you know, we just all have to know that our job is also just to uplift everyone else in our community. And when some groups are struggling more than others, that’s when we lift more. [00:20:53] Speaker B: Yep. Yeah. And the stakes could, you know, seem and certainly feel higher than ever. I think that’s a great point to end on. I also just want to give a few resources for folks, for sure. Trans Lifeline is a really great organization. They’re based in the States. They offer things like mutual aid in the community. They also work in advocacy. They have a lot of resources for queer, trans and non binary folks here in Toronto. The 519 is a really good resource. And in both Canada and the us, Rainbow Railroad does a lot of work with the trans community and relocating people. Yeah. This has been another episode of Dear Queer. Just a reminder, we are not actually experts. Any advice given should actually come from our experts who we will bring in from time to time. Music brought to you by Sean Patrick Brennan. Produced by myself, Lauren Hogarth, and your host as always, Elena Papienis. I’m getting that.
