Emma Goswell: 0:06
Oh hi, I'm Emma Goswell and I'm your host for Coming Out Stories. So we're a podcast from what Goes On Media and every fortnight we bring you real life stories from fabulous individuals who just happen to be part of the wonderful LGBTQ plus community. So if you want to find out more, please go to our website, coming out stories podcastcom, and if you think you've got a story that might help or inspire others, why not put yourself forward to be interviewed? You can email us via our website or, if you want, you can message us on X, where we are at come out stories, or on on Instagram, where we are coming out stories pod. Right, enough of that. It's time to meet this week's awesome interviewee. Ben Green is a young trans activist and speaker and, as of very recently, he's a published author too. He's just written the rather brilliant book entitled my Child is Trans Now what? So I sat down with him to find out all about his life and work.
Ben Green: 1:08
So I came out about a decade ago, in 2015. I was living in small town, connecticut. My town was like one store, one stoplight, tiny town. My high school had 800 people at it. So I came out and the word spread pretty quickly once I had decided I was ready to come out publicly.
Ben Green: 1:28
But my childhood it was very funny. You know, people expect me to have had this very stereotypical childhood of oh, I always knew I wanted to be a boy. I was so masculine, like no, it wasn't that I knew I would wanted to be a boy, it was just that I knew I was bad at being a girl, I was just weird. I, I was a very strange child. I got invited to a princess dress-up party and it wasn't that I wanted to be a prince.
Ben Green: 1:49
I wanted to be Stitch from Lilo and Stitch, his little blue alien with six arms and like it was very interesting. So I was like, okay, I'm just bad at being a person, I'm just strange. And then I started to go through puberty and had more of these thoughts of like oh wow, I hate what's happening to my body. This does not feel right at all. And then I started to feel more of what we would now call gender dysphoria. At the time, I had no language for it, I just knew that I felt like I was not in my body, which was terrifying so would this been like sort of the 90s, then we're going back that far.
Ben Green: 2:24
No, no, no, no no, no, this was about 2013. People think that I'm much older than I actually am. I'm 24. So I was born in 99.
Emma Goswell: 2:33
So when you were a kid growing up, it was the noughties. Then yeah, and I guess even then in the noughties, you know, things have changed a lot, haven't they? There's a lot more visibility for trans and non-binary people, but you know, there was still very little in the noughties, wasn't there? You wouldn't have had role models, would you?
Ben Green: 2:48
Yeah, there was almost nothing. I mean it was really like, especially as a kid nothing, none at all. And that made it really hard to come out because I didn't know that it was allowed. I didn't know that was a thing people ever did. And if there were trans characters on TV shows I always say like victim or villain, those were the options for trans people for a long time. So I didn't know that trans people could grow up or, you know, get married or have jobs or be happy, like I. Just I didn't really know that there were normal trans adults living their lives out there in the world.
Emma Goswell: 3:18
And would you say it's fair to say that probably trans women are more visible?
Ben Green: 3:23
Yeah, I think definitely some of the highest profile trans people are transgender women. Uh and like, listen, they're fantastic. I love. Laverne cox is amazing. You know there are some really phenomenal trans women actresses, advocates and I love this community lifting each other up and it was really hard as a young trans man to say like I don't, who is like me, who am I seeing? You know if young trans man to say like I don't, who is like me, who am I seeing you know if a trans man can grow facial hair or have a waif or be like wear a cool suit?
Emma Goswell: 3:56
There were very few and even still are honestly very few trans men and trans masculine kind of visible people. So what was it like them? Being a kid, did you think perhaps? Oh, I'm just a tomboy like a lot of your friends might have been.
Ben Green: 4:06
Honestly, I didn't. I just was like I'm. I'm just kind of a nerd. I don't really want anything to do with this whole being a girl business like. I just want to read the warrior cats, which were about cats fighting each other in the woods. It was a super weird book series. I just kind of wanted to read my fantasy books and hang out with my very, very small group of friends who also kind of just identified as weird kids. There were people who were tomboys. I wasn't. I didn't fit in with them either. I was just kind of odd.
Emma Goswell: 4:35
Was there an expectation, though, from from your parents to you know, to wear the dresses, cause I mean, I certainly I don't identify as trans, I identify as a cisgendered lesbian, but certainly, as a child growing up, I couldn't bear the thought of wearing dresses or skirts, and I had so many battles with my mother in terms of what I was going to wear and how I was going to present. Were you having the same sort of problems?
Ben Green: 5:07
funny that you ask that I wasn't. My sister was my sister, who now identifies as a cisgender woman. For a lot of our childhood I was like off in the corner, being very weird, pretending I was a wizard, and she was like, yep, I'm going to be a boy when I grow up. I would like to wear a suit to this wedding. Like, please don't make me wear a dress. She was doing all that.
Ben Green: 5:20
So when I came out as trans, my whole family was like, wait, sorry, what Wrong kid, what's going on right now? So they were trying to support her by modeling that inclusive behavior for all of us. They were like, yeah, you all can wear what you want. You know your husband or your wife, because we were, at the time, three girls. They said, you know, you can marry who you want. I think they didn't really know what was going on, but they were trying to be supportive for her. And then I was taking notes and I was like, oh, okay, cool, fine. So I mostly wasn't getting forced into those boxes because they were trying to support her, which ended up inadvertently supporting me in coming out, and she ended up not coming out and being like, yeah, you know, that wasn't actually it for me.
Emma Goswell: 6:02
Funny, that's really unusual.
Ben Green: 6:08
Mostly a lot of, like you know, checkerboard pants and a bright yellow shirt and suspenders with glitter on them. That was my favorite outfit. Like weird clothes. I wasn't really wearing girl clothes. Air quotes Wasn't really wearing boy clothes. Air quotes Like I was just weird was the best word that I had. It wasn't really dresses. I did not like dresses. It wasn't like I want to be in a button down Originally, once I came out, I love a good button-down but for a while I was like, yeah, I don't like being compared to other girls because I know I'm going to fail in that competition, so let me just opt out entirely and just dress like wear leggings that have a picture of like a lightning storm on them.
Emma Goswell: 6:49
But it sounds like you found friends. You had your people. You had your own group who supported you.
Ben Green: 6:54
No, For those listeners at home I'm making a very dubious facial expression. I had a couple of people At no point did I have no friends, but I wouldn't describe myself as having a lot of friends, but I definitely had some people around me that I'm really grateful to who many of them fell into that same kind of outsider bucket that I did, for a variety of reasons. Not just a number of them have since come out as LGBTQ or as trans, but also people who just were like a little bit nerdier, a little bit more quiet. You know, all the outsiders kind of get lumped together. So I was friends with a lot of the people who had been kind of cast out a little bit or had opted out.
Emma Goswell: 7:30
Was there a sort of a moment when the dots joined and you thought this is why I'm an outsider, this is why I'm different?
Ben Green: 7:37
Absolutely. So it started first. Actually, I came out as bisexual when I was 14, because we were all going through puberty and starting to have our crushes and I had always not really had crushes on boys. So I would pick the. I feel a little bit bad about this, but I would pick the boy that I thought was the least likely for anyone else to have a crush on him, cause everybody was always like who's your crush, who's your crush? And so I would pick the boy that I thought I was the least likely to have any competition over, not to go and like ask to date, but just so that there wouldn't be anybody who'd be like well, ben likes the boy I have a crush on. So now we're fighting. So I would just kind of make something up.
Ben Green: 8:13
And then I started to have crushes on girls and I was like all right, I don't know if this is normal. So I started going around to my group of friends and saying, all right, like scale of one to 10, how pretty do you think other girls are? And they were all like, I don't know, like a two, and I was like oh, so not like an eight, that's not normal then. And they were like no. So I was like, okay, I'm pretty sure I'm bisexual, came out to my family and my friends and they were generally really supportive of that.
Ben Green: 8:40
And then I got added to a Facebook group for LGBTQ youth across the whole state of Connecticut Again, not really a big state, every town is a small town so there were only two or three LGBTQ kidsbtq kids in each town and so we found each other across the state in this private, you know underground facebook network. Only high schoolers were allowed in and we had a lot of safety like procedures to make sure we were all taken care of okay yeah, and that was really cool and we had debates and would meet each other, like I met my first girlfriend through that group.
Emma Goswell: 9:10
Oh, wow, I didn't even think young people use Facebook anymore. This is enlightening.
Ben Green: 9:14
Oh yeah. Well, this was in the heyday of Facebook, you know, 2013, 2014 was the big moment that Facebook was having. Then somebody in the group posted that they were transgender and I had this moment of like, oh my God, everything makes sense now and I came out pretty quickly after reading that.
Emma Goswell: 9:37
So you actually came out as bisexual first and what was the reaction to that to people that you told, did you?
Ben Green: 9:39
tell family and friends. Generally it was really supportive because I think there had been visibility to LGB people before. So everyone's like, yeah, I've seen a gay person, I've seen a lesbian. Like all right, fine, you're telling me you want to date other women too. Like cool, I can understand what that is. I had seen them react to that before. So it was also easier for me to come out. Like my parents, we watched modern family every night, which is a sitcom that has, you know, a gay couple I love modern family.
Emma Goswell: 10:05
It's brilliant, isn't it? Yeah?
Ben Green: 10:06
it's awesome and it was great to know that my parents didn't have a problem with cam and mitch being a gay and we laughed at the funny situations they'd be in. But we wouldn't laugh when they came out or when they got married. We celebrated those moments. We, you know, we loved the characters and so I knew that they were okay with gay people. So I said if I was bisexual, they're probably going to be fine with that. And generally they were, they didn't. You know, I had girlfriends. They were supportive.
Emma Goswell: 10:36
They helped me come out. That was really lovely. This is not about you, but I'm just still not over the fact that the actor that plays kevin is actually straight.
Ben Green: 10:40
I think it's quite incredible. Oh my gosh, I know eric's toast tree is a professional he's quite incredible.
Emma Goswell: 10:47
Um, okay, so that was that and that went quite smoothly. But I'm guessing you probably thought, once you twigged that you were definitely trans, that that's going to be a harder conversation to have with family and friends, right yes, because you know, first I couldn't come out because I didn't know it was possible.
Ben Green: 11:02
I didn't have the language. And then even when I said, all right, I know who I am, I didn't have any of those same supports. There are no casual sitcoms about the trans experience like that. I had no way to see them react to trans people, and that was also around the time when Caitlyn Jenner was coming out and everybody hated her. Now I've learned for good reason, because she's kind of just the worst. She's not a great person, but the way that people talked about that was by disrespecting her trans identity and I literally they had never talked about another trans person. She's the only trans person anybody's talking about. So that's the only piece of evidence I have, which is all right. Everybody hates her. Seems like they hate her because she's trans. Guess I have to assume that it's not safe for me either it's such a shame, isn't it?
Emma Goswell: 11:46
because she was so high profile and she just wasn't a good role model for trans people, really, was she? She wasn't even seem to support other trans people, did she?
Ben Green: 11:54
no, not at all. She definitely has, you know, gone pretty hard against the trans community in most cases, which there are a very, very small handful of, like two or three famous trans people who are not in support of the trans community. So that was really hard because she had an opportunity to change a lot of the public like opinions. Instead, I think she made a lot of people kind of regress in their support for the trans community, which is really hard.
Emma Goswell: 12:19
What a shame. So how, I mean? I know the answer to this because I've read some of your book, which we will come on to shortly. But how did it happen, and how did you you know a get the courage to tell another person that you're trans, and how did it come about?
Ben Green: 12:34
get the courage to tell another person that you're trans. And how did it come about? Yeah, so I first came out to a group of three friends my best friend, my girlfriend and my best friend's girlfriend. The four of us were kind of like a unit. So for the first year of my transition I was only out to those three people and I would not have survived that year if I hadn't come out to those folks how old were you then, ben? Uh, I was, was 15.
Emma Goswell: 12:53
It was scary.
Ben Green: 12:54
I had just turned 15. And I was pretty scared and just very, very lonely. You know, to feel so profoundly unseen by everyone in your life is exhausting, and so ultimately, I went through some really, really dark mental health times. And then actually I got into a car accident. It was not major but it wasn't good, Like the car was pretty messed up. And I got home and I said, well, nothing's ever going to be scarier than that and I decided that it was time to come out and I realized that I just couldn't afford to keep living inauthentically anymore and so I came out to my parents. And then later on I came out to my friends at school and posted on Facebook, coming out, and decided to be, you know, really open. But it was definitely scary to decide to do that and I couldn't decide if I wanted to.
Emma Goswell: 13:39
And I wonder, if you hadn't had that sort of near-death experience or a bit of a wake-up call, if you'd have done it as soon.
Ben Green: 13:45
Yeah, you know I think I was approaching a breaking point just because I didn't feel like I wanted to live anymore. I will share openly that I struggled a lot with suicidal thoughts and depression and anxiety because I just nobody saw me as I was.
Ben Green: 13:59
And that was really lonely way to feel, that was really scary, and so I was just waiting to know okay, people see me now. Is it ever gonna be possible for me to be seen, to be happy, to live as I am? And so I think I was getting to a point where I said, if I'm not going to be able to do that, I don't know if it's worth it anymore. And so I was definitely approaching a point where I was like I need to come out.
Emma Goswell: 14:20
For your own sanity, for your own mental health. Absolutely yeah.
Ben Green: 14:23
Even if, whatever I might lose, I can't stay where I am anymore.
Emma Goswell: 14:37
And you of the first people you came out to was your girlfriend. I mean that must have been particularly tough because you know there are people who have lost their partners because they've come out as trans, which I'm sure you're aware of. Oh yeah, did it go okay? Did you get the response you wanted?
Ben Green: 14:43
this girl, to her credit. I mean, we'd been on like two dates. This was not a serious relationship, but I trusted her. I knew that she identified as bisexual or queer, so I knew that she was like had historically been attracted to both men and women and my non-binary people. So I wasn't like, okay, I'm identifying outside of her identity now, but I definitely was nervous about it. But because I had kind of talked to her as I was questioning, it wasn't as much a coming out as much as it was like, hey, here's something I'm going through right now.
Ben Green: 15:14
And so she kind of honestly was amazing. I mean I could go over to her house. She also told her parents. She told her mom and her brother, and so I could come over and like, when I ordered my first chest binder, I ordered it to her house because I couldn't get in the mail at my house and then her family let me wear a tie to dinner and her mom called me Ben and that I had a space I could go most weekends where I knew that I was going to get seen as I was, was honestly really outstanding. She was my first real serious partner. Hannah, if you're listening, thanks for everything. She was really spectacular. We dated for about six months and it was really nice.
Emma Goswell: 15:49
Well done, Hannah. That is amazing. And then it was a while later when you told your own parents then and were able to order stuff.
Ben Green: 15:58
To come to your own address, presumably yeah, exactly Once I came out. You know I always say they did the absolute best they could with the resources that were available to them. At the time they didn't know what that meant, and that's a really hard thing. Like we can't expect people to have perfect reactions right away, because there's a dramatic increase in visibility, not an increase in education. In the same way, so many people have no idea where to even start to learn, so they said, all right, we don't understand what this means, but we love you, so we're going to figure it out together. And that took some time.
Ben Green: 16:30
It wasn't like a perfect, easy process that was completely flawless. There are things that I could have done better, there are things that they could have done better, and there are things that they did do better. That I said, hey, this isn't working for me. And I said, okay, cool, and we like evolved our relationship. They both put a lot of time and effort into learning, which I am so grateful for Overall. Now they are like totally in my corner super excited about the book.
Emma Goswell: 16:54
It is is pretty awesome. It does take a while, though, doesn't it? I think, even today, for people who come out as lg or b, let alone the t or non-binary it's um, it still can be difficult for for parents, can't it? So how did you do it? Did you sit them both down?
Ben Green: 17:06
yeah, yeah, we all were living together, uh. So I sat down with them once my sisters went up to bed. I said hey, hey, you know, I need to tell you guys something I am transgender. I have felt this way for a while and at first, actually, they hadn't understood. I had come up with this analogy to explain being a trans, that I had presented as a project in my health class, that I hadn't explained why I cared so much about you know trans people yet and I went to my therapist and I said, all right, I came out to my parents. I don't think they really get it.
Ben Green: 17:35
My therapist knew I had to come up with this analogy and been teaching it to my health class and she said well, hey, do you want to have them come in and you can teach that analogy to them?
Ben Green: 17:44
So the initial conversation, truthfully, I only remember bits and pieces of, because most of it was just kind of them asking questions and saying you know, we don't entirely know what this means and me sharing. That's why I've been seeming really depressed and, you know, wearing more button down shirts and I have this thing called the chest binder that I wear sometimes because that makes me feel better and they were like, yeah, we have noticed that and wondered what's been going on. So I met with them, with my therapist, and I walked them through this presentation. They were like, okay, this actually makes a little bit more sense now. And so they, you know, slowly learned. My mom does a ton of research privately. She loves to read books and read a million articles and watch every TV show episode she can find, and my dad wanted to talk about it all the time. So we would have, you know, go for a drive and I would explain what non-binary means, or the difference between bisexual and queer, and you know they each learned in their own way, which was also really cool.
Ben Green: 18:35
There's not one way, that's like all right, you have to learn that way.
Emma Goswell: 18:39
They sound pretty cool. Your parents, I have to say.
Ben Green: 18:43
Yeah, they're pretty cool.
Emma Goswell: 18:44
I'm pretty, I'm pretty lucky. Let's talk about the coming out to your class, though, because I read that in your book and I just thought it was pretty unique really to do a presentation to you. Know all of your peers at school. Tell us about how that came about and what happened.
Ben Green: 18:59
So I came out at school, basically I had this health class presentation about gender identity that I had given as like for your junior year. You just needed to make any presentation about a topic that was important to you and present it to your peers. So I made mine about trans identities and understanding and allyship and I gave it to the class and then the teacher said hey, you know, we don't actually have any inclusive trans education for the other grades of health class because sophomore year is like human sexuality. So that's when they talk about condoms and you know all that fun stuff.
Ben Green: 19:31
And so we don't have anything about trans, inclusion and identity in that. Uh, and that seems pretty important. I was like, yeah, I'm not gonna lie, it would have changed a lot of the course of my life if we'd had some of that inclusive education. So they said, all right, that sounds, that sounds great. Would you be interested in presenting to the sophomore health classes? And so all of a sudden I'm like, as I am in the process of coming out to my peers, I'm going and giving these presentations to all the sophomore health classes of like, all right, here's what it means to be trans. This is my story. And it was pretty cool to get to share that with so many students who would then come up to me privately and say, like I think I recognize something in there. And so my parents called me the Pied Piper, because nobody came out in weston without talking to me about it first well, that's it so.
Emma Goswell: 20:15
So, at your school, you were the first, you were the trailblazer at your school, weren't you?
Ben Green: 20:19
I don't actually know, like I know that there was at least one other trans student that was out before me, but he didn't want to be like writing the policies and doing things. He just wanted to be allowed to exist as he was, which is also super fair and and I suspect there were others before, but I was one of the first that I knew of, for sure, and I like the way you did it.
Emma Goswell: 20:37
You sort of gave a whole presentation and said I know this because I am trans. And what was the reaction from your classmates?
Ben Green: 20:44
Mostly a lot of excitement. I think the area that I'm from is an area with a lot of wealth and with that comes a lot of like showiness. So there's very little authenticity among high schoolers, especially in a place where it's all about being like the perfect girl and the perfect boy, getting the right shoes and like. It was very performative. And I think the fact that I had come into this class and said like consequences be damned, I'm going to come out whatever's going to happen, and that radical authenticity people really liked. So mostly I got a really positive reaction and I always think it's so funny because I was not popular. I did not have very many friends, as we've talked about.
Ben Green: 21:24
After I came out I was like Mr Popularity with the girls, not with the boys. The boys wanted nothing to do with me. They did not like what I was doing, and not necessarily from a dating perspective. Everybody wanted to be my friend, though All the girls were like who's this guy? He's so cool. So all of a sudden I got tons and tons of friends and I asked somebody about it recently. I was like why do you think I got so popular? And she said, honestly, because you were just so real and most people not. You know way worth that I'm going to wait until high school to get to figure out who I actually am and not just the roles I have to play in this town. And I was saying, whatever the consequences are, I'm going to do it now and people really liked that.
Emma Goswell: 22:03
That's fascinating, isn't it? And how do you think the school dealt with it? Were they good? Did everyone respect your pronouns? Were teachers good at you know calling you by your chosen name?
Ben Green: 22:12
Yeah, what I'd say is that definitely my teachers. I'm so grateful that people were on it about names and pronouns and a number of my teachers even said, like you know, how do you want me to handle peers using the wrong name and pronouns? Do you want me to correct people? So they were on it. I think the administration again did the best they could with the resources they had available to them. They were really passionate advocates and if I came to them and said, hey, I realized that we don't have, you know, this inclusive curriculum. I noticed that our guidance staff isn't equipped to support trans students. I noticed that we don't have this policy. They said, oh, do you want to help us with that? So it was very cool and it was a lot of responsibility to be this kid and I became an adult overnight, Immediately, immediately. I had to be really well educated, really well spoken, and that's a lot of pressure to put on a kid it is.
Emma Goswell: 22:58
And how old were you then? So there's still young, weren't you?
Ben Green: 23:01
I was uh 16 yeah, I mean, that is a lot of pressure on a 16 year old yeah, and like if you could think of any 16 year old you know, would you describe them as like patient that's not a category people put teenagers in but like trans kids. Okay, you have to be really patient if you want to get support and I read something interesting in your book as well.
Emma Goswell: 23:22
You talk about the pressure of being asked about it and to begin with, you absolutely relished it and of course, it's a big responsibility and you're helping educate the rest of the school. But then there came a point in your life, I think, where you're just like I'm done. I've had enough conversations. Can you explain that process of why you wanted to stop after talking, talking, talking? You were like enough already, weren't you?
Ben Green: 23:46
Yeah, you know, there was a point where the only thing I was so popular and I realized that one of the only things people were asking me about was my trans identity. You know, I'm so much more than that. I'm a huge nerd. I love my dog, I love my family. I've got all these interests and passions, but people didn't want to know about that. They wanted to know about the trans thing.
Ben Green: 24:05
I started feeling like a trans person who happened to be Ben, and that was exhausting. And so I said I'm going to go to college and I'm not going to tell anybody I'm trans, because I can't handle being everybody's first transgender friend anymore. And then I went to a liberal arts college in Boston and everybody was like, yeah, of course I have other trans friends, and I was like, oh, here I can be Ben, who happens to be a trans person. So I did come out and continue to educate people because I knew that they saw me as more than just a fill in the blank trans person whose only personality trait was being trans. Like I was a whole person, and occasionally it would come up and occasionally it wouldn't. Most of the times it wouldn't. I got to be in like theater was most of my activity. It wasn't being in the queer student group, it was performing which like I don't know. Some could say that that's also the queer student group, but that that's beside the point.
Emma Goswell: 24:54
So you weren't actually in the closet for very long, were you, and that was probably a better place for you. But you can understand why some people just don't want to come out as trans, can't you?
Ben Green: 25:04
Absolutely. I mean it's terrifying and I'm really fortunate that I lived in a fairly liberal community. Now I live in Missouri, which is not a supportive community for many people. St Louis, the city I live in, is a bit more liberal, but it is really hard. I mean, there's so much misinformation. There's so many reasons that people use their faith or their misunderstanding or their misunderstanding of science to say I'm not going to support you. I completely understand why so many people just can't afford to guess wrong about their families. For so many people it's not necessarily the presence of clear malice as much as it is the absence of clear support.
Emma Goswell: 25:40
I mean, I talked to a lot of people on this podcast about being out at work and I think you're one of several people I've spoken to and I put myself in this category as well sort of where actually, the fact that you're part of the LGBT community has been your work, has been your drive, hasn't it really? And you know, the fact that you're out and very visible as a trans man has led you to go on to be a speaker and now a writer, and how important has that been to your career.
Ben Green: 26:07
Yeah, absolutely. I definitely. Originally was in school for elementary education. I wanted to be a third grade teacher, and then I had an opportunity to give a TEDx talk. That totally blew up and all these companies were like, wow, that was so cool. Do you do this professionally?
Ben Green: 26:22
And I was like, oh sure, and my catchphrase has always been I try to maximize my good, I go wherever I can do. That's going to do the most good. And so after the second of these corporate speaking events, I was with my dad and I said you know, I think I've got an opportunity here to do a whole lot of good. I know I could do well as a teacher. I know I could really impact my students and my community, and if I go into public speaking, it's a leap into the dark, but I think I've got a chance to do a lot of good here, and so I graduated early and, in 2020, set out full time to do public speaking and inclusion advocacy, and I haven't looked back. You know my work is built around my story, which at times is really challenging, can be really draining, can be really personal and is so meaningful because I can see the impact that telling my story has on all the people around me.
Emma Goswell: 27:09
Absolutely, which is kind of why we do this podcast as well, because actually sharing our stories is so helpful to people that haven't been on that journey yet, and I think for you, it's more about educating allies, isn't it? I think, for you, that's probably the thing that you're most passionate about, isn't it? Am I wrong?
Ben Green: 27:26
Absolutely. I spend a ton of time with allies I love talking to like a day one ally who's all right, I guess I'm ready to start. My catchphrase is the only question I won't answer is the question you don't ask, and I just can see when people go from being so afraid to say the wrong thing to slowly saying all right, I'm curious, I'm excited, I'm ready to learn.
Emma Goswell: 27:48
So tell us about the book then Remind us what it's called and how it came about. To let us know that.
Ben Green: 27:54
Yeah. So I've been working on this book in some way or another for five or six years now. I came up with the idea in 2019. So it's been a while that I've been thinking about wanting to write a book, and in 2020, I started to get a lot more serious about it, and the subtitle of the book I think is so key, which is the whole title, is my Child is Trans, now what? So key, which is the whole title, is my Child is Trans, now what A Joy-Centered Approach to Support, because I do a lot of coaching for parents. I didn't mean to set out to do that, but I would do all my corporate speaking engagements and then parents would call me and say, literally the subject line would be a whole lot of the time my Child is Trans, now what?
Ben Green: 28:29
And I was like okay, let's talk about it. So I'd get on the phone with them and they'd often say I bought all these books, but they all assume that I'm going to be upset and you know they're all really negative or none of them are written by trans people. I went and looked out at all the books and I said, gee, you're right, like most of these are not written by trans people, or they have a lot of judgment for the reader, or they say you know you have to do this because this, like they're, none of the books were really what so many of the parents I was talking to were looking for. And so I said, all right, I could write a book.
Ben Green: 28:58
So I started to put together an approach that really centered my story as a transgender person rather than centering the parents that says, hey, this is not about you, this is about your kid. How are we supporting them through it and how are we really focusing on joy? So much of the way we talk about trans people is as a very miserable community. People are surprised that I'm so happy-go-lucky because they just expect trans people to be really sad and really oppressed. And you know, the TV shows we watch are only ever sad trans sob stories a lot of the time. So it's really about building an approach to support that keeps your kid at the center and is about joy.
Emma Goswell: 29:34
So it's really about building an approach to support that keeps your kid at the center and is about joy, and I love what you refer to, your generic term for referring to trans people or non-binary people. Go and share it with the listeners.
Ben Green: 29:42
So originally in the book I was like all right, is this for parents, is it for teachers? And it was getting really messy to write like OK, so when we're talking to your child, student, neighbor, et cetera, there are so many words you can use. So we're just going to say your VIP, because whoever you've had in mind, this is the person at the center. So we're going to call them a VIP, so we remember that it's about them, that's who we're trying to support, that's who we're focusing on right now, and it's a fun way to make the language a little simpler.
Emma Goswell: 30:09
And why was it important for you to write the book for parents as opposed to writing it for your younger self or for other young trans people?
Ben Green: 30:17
Yeah, you know, there was a phrase that I heard years and years ago that really resonated with me, which is be the person you needed when you were younger. I always say that I was jumping out of a plane with a tarp and a sewing kit. I was building all my support systems once I already needed them and, in a lot of cases, once it was already too late. So now, as an adult, I want to be the parachute factory. I want to build those support systems so that other kids don't have to. I want to write this book and send it out into the world, so that the next trans kid who comes out in a small town at 15 doesn't have to do all this teaching. He can say hey, here's this book that you can read, so that I get to still be a kid. I don't want to have to grow up. I don't want a trans kid to be brave or to be mature or to be patient. I want them to be curious and annoying and like explosive and exploring the world around them.
Emma Goswell: 31:04
Well, this could happen, Ben. In the future, People could come out and go you know I'm trans and, by the way, read this book and hand their parent your book. That your dream, isn't it really?
Ben Green: 31:14
absolutely is my, my hugest dream that I get to take that weight off somebody's shoulders. It really brings me a lot of a lot of joy.
Emma Goswell: 31:22
I'm always in my feels about that these days well, I always ask people for a bit of advice. But I mean, I feel like you've written a whole book of advice, but um and people can go and find that book. But if there was one nugget of advice that you think is the most important thing for parents of a trans or non-binary child to listen to, what would you like them to remember and think about?
Ben Green: 31:44
I think it's two parts. It's the motto of my favorite organization, pflag, which is a lead with love. So the first piece of that is acknowledge that understanding can come on day five, on day 10, on day 100, as long as love comes on day one. You don't have to get every part of your kid's identity, nor do they need you to, as long as you are able to show up with love and respect and let them lead the way. The other thing I'd say is to remember that the person that is coming out, your VIP, whoever that is to you, that is still the same person that you love. They're just more comfortable. They have not died, they have not gone away. It is not a brand new person. That is still the same soul, the same human being. They look a little different, they might go by a different name, but you still know them, you still love them. Remember that.
Emma Goswell: 32:33
That's so good. There will be people listening who you know are trans or non-binary themselves and, you know, haven't got the confidence or they're not quite at the stage that you were at the age of 15. What would your advice be to them?
Ben Green: 32:45
I always say a big thing is find your champions. Figure out who is on your side. Figure out ways that you can test the water, so whether that's having a supportive aunt who can help you come out. I had a supportive aunt in my family who helped me figure out how to tell my parents. Whether it's having a supportive teacher at school who can help you talk to the administration, or someone at your workplace, or if it's another student, or if it's your sibling. Figure out who is on your team. Find community.
Ben Green: 33:11
Do not do this alone. It can be so easy to feel like you are the first person doing this. You are not. You're not the first person in your town, even if you're the first visible person. Find other people in your area, whether it's through a community center, through an online network. You are not alone in this and it's going to be so much easier if you don't try to reinvent the wheel. So find people who can have your back, who can give you strategies that have worked for them, especially if it's a local resource is so helpful, but also national resources are amazing too. Don't go through it alone. Hang in there. Remember that your identity is not defined by what people do or don't call you, and how they do or don't see you. If you see yourself as you are, that is enough for that identity to be true and real for you, and other people will catch up eventually. But that's not your problem. You know who you are.
Emma Goswell: 33:59
Absolutely, and would you have any advice for maybe ignoring stuff that you read online, because it's a pretty horrible world out there on social media and I know trans people at the brunt of a lot of hatred, especially in 2024, sadly, and it must really affect everybody that reads it. So how do you cope with that and what advice would you give to other people trying to? Navigate social media.
Ben Green: 34:21
It's so easy to feel hopeless, but I'll give a couple of important reminders. Social media platforms make more money the more upset you are. They have a financial incentive to upset you, to show you content that will make you angry. To show you content that will make you angry. To show you content that will make you sad. To get you to fight with someone in the comments. That's a business model, especially for something like Twitter. I'm not calling it X, especially for platforms like that. They thrive on your pain.
Ben Green: 34:49
So be aware that it's not that every single person is hateful. It's that they're showing you people that are hateful because that's their business model. Most people out in the world. Social media does not reflect how people feel. I constantly expect to find hate because of social media and instead I find people who are curious and loving, maybe misinformed, but people are not as hateful as social media makes it seem. Even something like the news, which you would hope would be more neutral than social media. For every individual negative word in a news headline, you are more likely to click on and read an article. The news has an incentive to make you feel bad because you're more likely to read it. Good news doesn't get reported Bad news gets blown up because you're more likely to read it. So get involved locally, get involved in your area, so that you're in the room where it happens and you can know that things are not nearly as bad as they might feel. People are not nearly as aligned against us as it might feel.
Ben Green: 35:45
In the US we've got almost 500 anti-LGBTQ bills. That can be scary, but we had this number last year At this point. Last year, 84 of those bills had passed. This time this year, 16 have passed. That's huge. These bills are less and less popular. People think they are an overreach. Including people on the other side of the political aisle don't support these bills. Many of them are just kind of people being showy to get witnessed proposing these bills because they want to kind of show off to each other or activate their voter base. It doesn't mean that everything is good, but it does mean, hey, things are improving and the news isn't reporting on that because you're not likely to click on it. But getting involved is a great way to learn. Hey, here are the victories that we can be celebrating, because there are actually quite a few victories.
Emma Goswell: 36:32
I love this. You're so level-headed but also very optimistic, and it is the only way that we can get through life. I think. Basically isn't it?
Ben Green: 36:39
Yeah, we gotta be a little more optimistic. We gotta stay sane.
Emma Goswell: 36:44
The rather awesome Ben Green there, and his book is out now. It's called my Child is Trans. Now what? And, as you can tell by hearing him speak, it is packed with real insight into what it means to be trans and also great advice for anyone who's a trans or non-binary person in their life. I just love his opinions on social media too, don't you? It really isn't there to cheer us up or make us feel better, is it? He's a wise young soul, right? Make sure you stick with us for the next episode, because then you'll get to meet a gay man called Robert. Now, robert is a children's author, but before that he worked in the West End where he met his now husband in the most unusual set of circumstances.
Robert: 37:29
So within that world of musical theatre, my husband came into my life and we actually met working as Oompa Loompas at Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which, yeah, I thought that's a sentence that no one's ever said on the podcast before.