Coming to you from the dining room table at East Barbary Lane. Welcome to a very special edition of Full Circle the Podcast.
I am your host Charles Tyson Jr.
And I'm your host Martha Madrigal. Our guest today is an award winning journalist and our friend who took an incredibly important discussion around our nation. To my mind, their book coming out tomorrow is one of the most important books, if not the most important book of twenty twenty four. The book is American Teenager, How trans kids are surviving hate and finding joy in a turbulent era. Nico Lang, Welcome to the Full Circle Table.
Thanks, it's so good to be here, such a long time coming.
I know, I know. We we were just talking about So we met last year at the LGBTQ Journalism.
Conference and I can't believe it was just a year, just.
A year ago in Philadelphia, and Charles and I got to be panelists on your panel, which was term.
You Saved that wild panel.
So yeah, well, so we had for folks who were not privy to that, you know, to that discussion or we're not in the room, we had one panelist too very much, we'll say, went rogue a bit. Yeah, Martha did a great job of like coordinating with me, if you will, in real time to keep kind of reeling her in and you know, keeping us on topic and keeping us moving along.
Yeah, it worked well. It felt it felt very collaborative.
Yeah, and it was.
And it definitely I was like, oh, this is a podcasting pro right here, because in a podcast you always had a very yes and medium, right, you always have to be like ready and quick and like, you know, like present.
I never really thought about the yes and nature of it, but that is absolutely correct. It is because sometimes you'd have things just happen.
Sometimes I had a client tell me you taught me the word end, and I'm like, what are you talking about? And it was someone said something like, you know, sometimes you come off as intimidating, and I said, and you know, it's like, did you ever think that's you know, expedient, like I'm not trying to be distant, but I'm busy, like at work. And it was like, no, but that was brilliant. Now I know the word end, like I don't have to explain myself like where are you going
with this? So I love it as a question to end and.
You're such a role model, Martha.
Thank you.
And it's so much wise, my friend. It's so much more positive than what I normally do.
Was just so.
I'm very much just so kind of person. So I appreciate that. What a difference a word nakes, right, truly. I think it's like the Jersey in you though. Jersey is very.
So what it is for me, right, and you know you have the neck to us. Cell Philadelphia and South Jersey are kind of one big place true.
Actually, oh yeah, you know.
We get a little money in the neighborhoods in Philly and come over to Jersey. I, on the other hand, grew up here in Jersey and then went to Philly for thirty five years so and then came back with the pandemic and here we are, which is part of the whole full circle thing, the whole full circle thing. I'm back in the house where it all began.
There you go.
So that's us. We had the absolute honor of being early readers of this work. It moved me incredibly because this is such a real account of what is going on. It's unvarnished. It is not as much as I know that you as a human have a point of view. This was really letting the folks you talked with speak for themselves and tell us who they were, and that is That is world class storytelling. And you know, I'm
in love with this book. I've been so excited that about us coming to this place where folks finally will have access to it.
Yes.
Yeah, so your baby is about to be born.
I know I've been pregnant for like two years and really this child's coming out. I keep referring to this as like my like pre partum depression era, where you're like, you've been pregnant for a long time, your ankles are swollen, you have this giant thing inside you and you just want it out.
So I am ready.
I am very ready to finally be a mother.
Yay, yay. So you know I want to go back to I'm not going to speak for you. Clearly, there there was reason this book had to be written. Can you talk a little bit about that? What gave you the not just the idea, but the wherewithal to travel the country and you know, have these conversations.
Sure, I think really for me, what it came down to is that I had the access and the resources to write this book and it needed to be written, So I just had a responsibility to do it because I've been doing this work for such a long time. I know so many of families of trans kids already, you know, like I've been an LGBTQ plus journalist for over ten years. I've been working with families of trans kids for eight years. I know families across the country.
They like trust me, they love me, like we're like friends. Many of them you're not really supposed to be friends with their sources, but it's kind of inevitable if you stay in touch with people for such a long time, Like you watch their kids grow up, you get like photos and updates when they're like graduating from high school, graduating from college. You know, there's this like camaraderie and
this more importantly, this trust that was built in. And I had a sense that if I had that trust already and I didn't have to work for it the way that some other journalists coming into this like, might that I could do something really special with that, that I could go so much deeper and just give people like a more interesting book, not like a better book, but just like something that would like get to this
richness that might otherwise be lacking. So if I could do it, I knew that I had to, and I knew I particularly had to because of everything that we're seeing during this like awful political moment that we're all living through. More than six hundred and fifty bills this year were put forward across the country targeting trans people.
The majority target trans youth, and through that, we very rarely focused on the impact on these kids' daily lives, like how are they feeling all through all this, How are they getting through it, how are they experiencing it? How are they trying to figure out how to be a person like when all this stuff is happening, Because imagine that you are a child growing up in the shadow of people hating you, right and using that like politicized eight hate to try to keep you from having rights.
And this has always been the way for trans kids, right and for trans adults. They've always known this.
To be true.
But it just feels like it's become so much more upfront and so much more organized now than maybe we've seen in some like previous decades, and kids are really like dealing with the front of it, And I wanted to put them at the center of their own narratives. We've very rarely heard from them about what they think about all this, And there's so much value to like learning about the lives of trans kids and like how they're like not only experiencing this moment, but how they
experience the world. Like to me, like, we've treated these kids as if they're like not human or they experience the world differently than the rest of us. But they're just kids, and they're just people like trying to like go about their lives. And I really just wanted to remind people of that, of that it's a really like sad political goal to have to remind people of the humanity trans kids.
But here we are, truly, it is, and you know, that is the biggest fight, as I see it, beyond the political nonsense, you know, and we can get into that a little bit, but the biggest fight is simply the idea that we are real, We exist, regardless of how you decide to talk about us. It's always been thus, you know. And I've got a couple trans elders who I'm really close to who did transition early nineteen seventies, and they're like, you know, we didn't fear in the
same ways. You know, we were not a political football. We were rare and walking around and there weren't many of us, and they might look at us like we're freaks, but they let us be by and large as compared to this onslaught of I think, misguided, outdated, already rhetoric. And it's like I have to ask myself time and time and again, it's why we started this podcast. Why are you even doing that? Right?
You know?
Is this the last group of people to hate? Is that how this works? Because I think, you know, the boomerang effect, if you will, to all of this nonsense is we've got Americans, decent, thoughtful, fair minded Americans who know a lot more about trans people than they ever did because of these jackasses and the harm that they are causing.
Yeah, I think that's true.
But one of the things that one of the reasons I believe that they've been able to exploit trans people politically the way they have is because still even with so many advances and like visibility and education, like these incredible trans people who are out like living their lives publicly, like the Laverne Coxes of the world, the Elliott Pages of the world, They're still like so much like lack
of education that's out there. Like I was just reading a poll this week from the Public Religion Research Institute that only eleven percent of Americans know a trans person. And it's actually even smaller than that because some of those people are trans people who know themselves, right, So you can then shave off another like one percent or one point six percent of that, so that leaves you with around like, you know, ten or like nine point four if we want to be really like granular about it.
So that's not a lot of people that have someone in their lives who's trans. And when you have like like that like kind of lack of knowledge at such a widespread scale, it creates this or that it means that there's this vacuum that can be filled with like hatred, with misinformation, with stigma because there are so few people like gatekeepers, like people in power, who are fighting that misinformation.
Like it's really allowed it to flourish. And that's why I book one of the many reasons that a book like this needed to exist, because like it then becomes an incumbent on all of us to do what we can to speak back to it, right, Like how do you fight miss and information, but with good information, right, but with like humanizing people, but by showing people that they're real, Like I really heard what you said about that.
The fight is to still prove that, like, trans people exist, and I think that there are so many people who still don't know that and don't understand that because they don't have someone in their lives to humanize that, to literalize the struggles of trans people for them. So it just becomes then incumbent on storytellers to do that kind of work to help get people's stories out there.
Absolutely, and that's another reason why your book is so valuable because you know, the big one of the big catchphrases that gets banded about all the time with this this onslaught is you know, we're protecting the children. We're worried about the children. And it's like it's very obvious that a you have never met a trans child, you
have no idea what that experience is like. And have you ever met a child, because it's like they have this like theore medical, fictionalized, romanticized version of what the being a child is and it's like that's never been the case for any walking human ever and you know, nothing that you're you're pushing actually benefits any child ever.
And if I thought that these people actually read books, I would put a copy in each of their hands so they could at least, you know, get an actual idea of what the situation is like for these kids.
You know, Yeah, absolutely, I think you're getting to something really critical here, because it's not just that these people don't know trans kids. That's true, they don't, but they also don't want to know trans kids because they've had the opportunity to learn over and over and over again and have refused it. And I'm not talking about your like you're like run of the mill Republican, right, you know, just your next door neighbor who lives lives near you. Right,
We're not talking about that person. We're talking about Republican lawmakers who that you have dedicated advocate. See groups like ACLU. The ACLU has branches in just about every state that are trying to do education work around this messaging work. They're trying to meet with lawmakers, they're trying to provide
them with better information. They're trying to get trans kids that they know right to come to like the legislature with them or to meet with lawmakers specifically to humanize these stories, to say, like you should meet a constituent who your policy's impact. Please meet Timmy. He's a seven year old trans boy and he wants to be able
to use the correct bathroom at a school. They're not taking those information, those invitations, or if they go to the legislature, let's say, like Ruby is a really great example one of the kids in this book. She's an incredible young trans woman in Texas. She was brave enough to go speak of the legislature there to talk about how anti trans policies affect her, and the lawmakers didn't listen.
They were looking at the ceiling, they were looking at the floor, they were checking their emails, they were like staring at their cell phones, like, oh, isn't this so interesting, rather than just like looking at her and the eye in a knowledging her humanity.
Right.
So it's not just that like Republican lawmakers don't know trans people and that that's breeding a certain amount of like fear and misinformation. Misinformation. I think that's almost too passive here, Like they don't want to know trans people because then they wouldn't be able to do this right, like they wouldn't be able to scapegoat and exploit trans people to consolidate their power in the way that they do. So it's a very unintentional ignorance here, at least on the part of lawmakers.
And it's also really important to note this is not new now. This is you know, queer people and trans people have experienced this for many years. People of color have experienced this for millennia. I mean, this is not new stuff to point to a group of marginalized people and true, the rarer the better you know, the less the less of them you might encounter, the easier it is to lie about them, right and and create something to fear when we are the least scary people in
the world. I just we are. I mean, come on, And that's the thing, you know, I have these conversations all of the time, you know. One of them recently was with a nurse trying to tell me that housing a trans person on a unit with you know, a trans woman with cis women who have you know, survived sexual assault not a good thing. And I said, and why is that? How many of them were actually assaulted
by transwomen? And beyond that point, we are far more likely to be the victims of sexual assault above sis women than we are to be the perpetrators. And that's those are just the facts and you need to know them if you're going to form a policy right around your thoughts and.
Not an opinion, but right.
And the good news is most of the ship doesn't pass right. The good news is a lot of it dies in midi. The little bit that passes gets challenged immediately. Thank God for the the aclu I light candles for Chase Strange out every day that may be stay in good health and full voice, because there are people out there fighting the good fight. But one of the problems here.
You know, every time you know, a journalist wants to discuss, particularly in television journalism, every time you want to discuss trans people, you know, I go back to nothing about us without us. If you don't have a trans person at that table, this is not a full discussion. You know, you talking about my life is such bullshit that you
know I can't watch it. But you know, if you're trying to actually, you know, put some balance into this situation, let's yeah, let's always have an expert, not just an expert, Let's have an actual trans person, and you did that. You did that with you know, the young people who are most marginalized, who are afraid, who just want to be like another kid, you know, the other kids, they
just want to fit in. You know, all of us can remember that part of childhood, you know, of figuring out socialization and figuring out, you know, where we belong. And I remember clearly. I'm fifty eight now, I clearly remember those moments of if they just understood that I was a girl, I wouldn't be on the ground right now, you know, they just saw me as I am instead
of the way that they view me. I wouldn't have bruises right because the other girls didn't get treated that way, but I was, you know, I was something that they were not familiar with. And I still remember that feeling, and I think you capture that like that the folks who are trying to legislate bathrooms and it's one of the most backward things I've ever seen. Like have you never been to a nightclub where there are two stalls
and a line like come on? But you know this idea that we legislate the bastrooms and we're protecting the innocence of children you're none of that is true. None of that is true. When we try to burn books or exclude books. You know, what you're doing is saying, I don't want my child to be more more empathetic, tolerant, or knowledgeable about people that I just don't like. And that to me is not protecting anyone. It never has,
it never will. So you know, to be able to read the lived experience, and you went to how many different places across this country.
At seven states, so seven families in seven states.
Seven families and seven states, different circumstances financially, support wise, state wise, you know what was happening, and they get to speak. Finally they get you know, you can sit with this book and you can pay attention, and you can go back and reread that and understand the humanity. And that is the most important word I think you've said, because you know, when we dehumanize others, we can do almost anything to them and justify it absolutely.
And I think it's interesting that you brought up before the way trans people were often silence and discussions about their own lives, because I that was a really critical influence in the way that the book was written. In terms of me not really being much of a character, Like I sort of like pop in a little bit every now and then, but for the most part, I try to like be as fly on the wall as possible while also you know, being a human presence, so
you'd strike a balance there. But so much of the book really focuses solely on the voices of these trans kids and on the experiences of these trans kids to be almost sort of a character study of their lives.
Because there was.
A time under the Trump administration when they were you know, passing all these anti trans policies and they were stripping away these protections, and you would read about what was going on in like the New York Times or like less of the Washington Post, but definitely the New York Time, and they wouldn't quote a single trans person, like and you know when talking about the impact of this policy.
And it's like, if you want to.
Understand the people who are being impacted by you know, Trump banning trans people from the military, you talk to trans people in the military, or you talk to trans people who are paying attention to this and are worried they're going to come after them next, right, Like, there are ways that you can like humanize that discussion and also like center the voices of the people who are actually impacted here, and it just wasn't happening over and
over again. It still happens in reporting on trans people. And you said it best, like when you take away someone's voice, when you take away someone's humanity, you can justify doing almost anything to them. And here, you know, in responding to that kind of rature, I really wanted to start not with like you know, we often start with like trans one on one when we do education, where it's like, well, these are the words that you need to use. These are the pronouns that people use,
and you know, defining things for people. All that stuff is super like as somebody uses day them pronouns. I am all up on pronoun discussions.
I love them.
They're great, but we often skip over the part where we just explain that trans people are human, they're people, and they deserve to be treated like people. And I keep saying over and over again that it's really sad that we're having to do that, but that's in a
sense where the discussion needs to start. And by spending time with these kids, by like following along their day with them as they like go to school, as they like sit in the cafeteria at lunch eating with their friends, as they like do their homework, as they get ready for prom, and do all these like kind of mundane boring things, like you can stop, like you can break down this barrier that exists in your mind between the two of you, where it's like you're on one side
and you lead this kind of life, and they're on the other end. They lead this kind of life, and the twain shall never meet. You could never have anything in common with this person. You probably have a lot more in common than you think. Right, you probably were a kid like this, even if you weren't trans I imagine that there's a lot that you might like see of yourself in that person. But also I think there's been this line in queer politics for a while that we deserve rights because we're.
The same as you.
Right, you saw that in the marriage equality Fright, like this sort of like same love moment of like, oh, our relationships are the same, our lives are the same, so please give us rights because we're the same as you. I get that. I understand we are the same in a lot of ways, and those ways are important we should talk about them. But I don't want to just have rights because I'm the same as other people. I don't want to have rights because I deserve rights. And
it's the same with these kids. They should like they deserve rights because like they are a person who exists in the world, who has their own unique experiences and like and through their literal birth, has inalienable privileges that are like guaranteed by their own constitution. And I think we've somehow like forgotten that that can people can be their own people and make their own choices and still
be deserving of rights. They can make choices that are different than the choices that you could that you could make or that you would make. They can be unlikable. You can like there was a transman I just wrote about in prison who just won the right to like gender firming surgery in Indiana, and people in the comment section kept asking, like, oh, well, what did she do?
Like why is she there?
As if they don't if they don't like the answer, then like she doesn't deserve that surgery, except when it is there is literally a right to medical care in prison for everybody right. And if we are asking do we like this person, do we agree with their choices, we are missing the point. And it's the same with these kids that so like many readers early on kept talking about like people they did like or didn't like, or stories they related to or didn't relate to. I
almost feel like that's beside the point. I just want people to know about what's going on in these kids' lives, to better understand it, and to support their right to exist and to have rights, whether or not they relate
to it or not. Like I kind of hope that like people don't relate to this book in some ways, right, that they'll read certain chapters and not relate to it whatsoever, but go, like, you know, I want the best for them anyway, Like I hope they get everything that they like, that they deserve.
Like, I think that that's.
When we like make a little bit of progress here rather than insisting that we all need to be the same to have dignity.
Right, Yeah, because that's the thing, that's the conversation that I really wish we as a people, I mean a full whole people would recognize and have rights are not anyone's to give or to take.
Well, right, and if you're measuring my access to care based on whether or not you like me or you can relate to me. That's not a right, is it. That's you decide. That's you thinking that you get to determine my humanity, You get to decide how I will be human, and that you know, we always come back to that idea of you somehow think you know me better than I can know myself, and that, you know, if that's not the height of arrogance, I don't know what is.
And the irony of it is. You know, if we use that rubric that you know, being likable determines whether or not you have rights, then half the people that are fighting to take them away would immediately be stripped of them, right.
I mean, I adore the folks who say, where did queer culture go? Why are we meeting? You know, meetering it so that we find ourselves more acceptable? You know, if assimilation is your goal, have at it, you know, if that's what you want. I mean, we literally do have a picket fence. But it's it's ironic.
Okay, it's a statement fence.
It kind of is it kind of is OSSI and Harriet like you know, I don't know, but thinking back to what you just said about prompt et cetera. The rights of passage of cis heteronormative people are almost always negative situations or have and historically everything everyone else was looking forward to I dreaded, like prom you know.
Like.
Games, sports, you name it. There wasn't a place for me as a young person, and so all of those things that everybody got to take for granted were unsettling. They were one more example of how I did not fit and that still happens, that still goes on. You know, I love to celebrate the places where you know, Okay, this is my friend, and they are they happen to be trans, or they happened to be non binary. But you know, I've had young people stop me and say
pronouns because they want to. You know, it's just the way that they communicate. I will be able to more effectively communicate if I understand how you see yourself. It's a brilliant thing that at least to me, is relatively new, but a lot of young people insist on it. But I also recognize we live in a bubble New Jersey, California,
you as well. You know, we're in these places where what is perfectly logical and protected is on the table, you know, throughout this nation, you know, and I counsel folks who are deeply affected by reading about legislation, deeply affected by you know, what is happening and will it come here and how what would it take? And you know, one election, one federal election can really and did in twenty sixteen, cause a lot of problems for us. You know,
we can't necessarily trust anything. And you know, I do a yes end with that, right, I yess, like, yes, these things are real and you were not in immediate danger. So how can we help the folks who are? What can we do? And you know it's not highly publicized and good, but there are plenty of organizations who are reaching out, you know, who are finding very creative ways to still serve these folks and keep them in care
and alive. And I'm just grateful that that is true, even as we wrestle with all of these things happening.
Yeah, and I hope.
I think I don't want to overstate my own impact here because I think that that can seem a little egotistical, But I do hope that a resource like this can do that kind of work of keeping people here that so many of the book, the kids in the book had really struggled with suicidal ideation, right, that they had wondered to themselves, like do I have a place here?
Do I even want to be here anymore? You know?
Ruby and Texas, her parents had to take all the sharp objects out of her house at one point before she began and her like her medical transition and started sort of really coming into her own confidence because they were so worried about like whether they would have a daughter in a few years or you know, at the time a child, but a daughter in a couple of years, right. And then in Florida, you know Jack, it's the Florida chapter is about two siblings, one who is trans and
the other who's non binary. And the older girl, Jack, who's trans. She was one of the kids who was on Medicaid. That that's how she got her gender firmic care. And in twenty twenty two, I believe sometimes this like the timeliness of all this like get a little fuzzy to me. The state decided that you could no longer like fund like trans youth medical care through Medicaid.
You were cut off.
So she lost her health care and for five months she went without it, and during that time, her mom thought her heart was just going to stop in her sleep. And you know, Jack would have a hard time like waking up every day and just deciding to get out of bed, deciding to be like a person than the world. Like it wasn't even that she struggled with suicidal ideation, is that she just like felt like she just might cease to exist at any moment, Like the world was
so crushing she thought it would just crush her. And so many kids are experiencing this because like for every one of these policies that's passed in Texas, like that's not just Ruby that's going through this. This isn't just Jack that's going through this. This is countless kids whose mental health is being impacted, whose ability to exist in the world is being impacted, who just might like also be wondering like do I even want to be here anymore?
And might be like looking for reasons to stay. So I hope that this book in like some really small way by showing other kids who have gone through this and who are still like leading lovely lives and have
still like found like hope and joy. At the end of the thing that they went through that it's a reminder that like other people can get through it too, Like if there's a possibility model like here right, that if these people did it and they found a way to stick around, you can do the same thing for yourself.
Because I don't think we've really discussed like as a community, the mental health crisis of all of this anti trans legislation, right, Like, how many people are struggling right now, Like and this isn't just trans kids, this is trans adults who are seeing what's happening to their community, who are seeing the ways in which trans people are being like vilified and demonized right now, and like there's a part of them that are going you have fuck this part of my
French but like fuck this right, Like how like do you invest in a society that isn't investing in you, that like it feels like doesn't.
Want you to be here.
So I just know so many like people in my community, even in like my friend groups, like who have a
really hard time. Every year when you know January starts, you get this fresh new wave of the anti trans legislation, and you know at the end of it, you just feel so spent you feel like you don't have anything like left for people, And I just hope that, you know, whether it's through reading this book or like relying on community or reaching out to research versus like the Trevor Project or trans Lifeline, that people just find a way
to keep going, because like, we need each other. You know, it's not going to be like anybody else but each other who are going to lift us up right now right And we need as many queer people in the world as we can get because we need all the support that we can get.
Absolutely. You know, the note I just made to myself was the importance of representation. You know, the program that I run here in New Jersey is centered around addiction and co occurring mental health exclusively, you know, in my program for the lgbt QIA plus community. And you know, we are grant funded through our state, and one of the mandates of the grant in their wisdom, is that the folks running this and leading this must be from
the community. And so my therapy partner, Nicole is an out lesbian and I'm me and time and time again, the thing that we do differently is understand our clients on a level other folks don't, just because it's our lived experience too. And you know there is a shorthand. You know, I've run monthly community events just for trans and non binary folks to meet one another, and I'm like, you know, I need you to leave here with a Facebook friend, a phone number, or an email address that
you didn't have when you got here. That's what I ask of you, you know. And in the meantime, eat spaghetti and chat and go play cornhole and do whatever.
God you guys call it corn hole.
That right, well yeah, but don't get me started.
But it's it's bags.
It bags everyone.
But continue community building is such an important part of it, and so we're seeing outcomes no one sees in this field. Because when you see people and you recognize them and you let them know it's okay to be who they are, that is transformative in itself. I think the magic of this book is that you're a non binary human who gets it. You know that there is an automatic shorthand in the conversations you are having with these kids. That just helps them to open up, That just helps them
to say, I'm seen. I already know I'm seen. I don't have to tell Nico you know what it's like to be in this head because Nico has a very good working knowledge of gender expansiveness, of questioning your gender, of having to figure out what it is and how it fits in this world and what is the language around that. That's the difference with this book. You know, I can't tell you how many times we reference an article each week and you wrote.
It, yep.
It's just like I'll start reading the first paragraph and then I'll look back to see who it's your byline, time and time and time again, because I'm like, this is a brilliant piece that I want to talk about. Of course it's Nicos, because that makes a difference. You know, as sishead writer is not going to have the same level in my mind of storytelling because they don't get
the story they're telling. The example I gave was Brendan Fraser was recently in that movie The Wail a year or two ago one an award, and in his acceptance speech he said, this is not a queer story. This is a universal story. And I to which I said, motherfucker, it is a queer story. Sisht. People don't lose their job, their livelihood, and their social standing based on who they love or how they love. This is a queer story.
You can't recognize it because you're looking for universal universality in what you're in your work, and because you have not lived as that person, you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. So please sit down, but don't tell me what queer storytelling is. So there is an authenticity that rings through your words, through every piece you write that just makes this a powerful work because you know what the hell you're talking about.
Right and the book wouldn't work as well otherwise because it would be like Jane Goodall and the girl is in the mist, and the kids would smell that right away.
Oh yeah, oh yeah. You know that is one thing I resounding about our community. We know what authenticity looks like and smells like, you know, because so many of us have had to live our lives on guard, and you know, you don't touch on the humanity without connection. Connection is so important, and you know you took those connections that you have made through time doing this important work and brought some thing even more brilliant and poignant
and important out of that. That's you know, that's I like it when we can look at our lives and say I didn't waste a moment, you know, because I've been building these things and then I can do something even bigger because of the work I've done.
And yeah, oh go ahead, no please.
Your life is on purpose. It is on purpose.
You know.
It's such an honor to know you, even as we do across the country, because you know, you're an example of that what authenticity, the power of authenticity, the power of storytelling and the power of telling our own stories, you know, not trying to hide behind being I don't know, a music writer or something. You're like, no, I'm going to go for this stuff because I know it, and you tell important stories every day.
This one, yeah, I loved. I loved actually what you both just said, and thank you for saying that. And I loved what you said, particularly about universality because I
talked a little bit. I don't know if you read the acknowledgments at the end, but I sort of wrote it as a little bit of therapy because a note we kept getting over and over again was about like wanting to make sure that like the stories were universal or sort of spoke to everyone, like that would speak to like all trans experiences and you just can't do that because trans people are so different from each other.
Like it's like, sure, like trans people are only like one point six percent of the population or whatever, but that's still a widely disparate group of people who have very little in common with one another, right except for the fact that their trans and even them are they're trans in totally different ways, like you, Martha and I are, like, you know, occupy this community in different ways. I'm a
non binary person. I have a lot of like privilege in that as somebody who like doesn't do a lot to like, you know, I'm not very like I just put on a shirt, you know, Like I'm like clean shirt is good, you know, and you as like a trans woman, like your experience of your own identity is going to be totally different than mine. So like to pretend that those two experiences are the same or it's
just cuckoo to me. So I didn't want to paint with a really broad brush here and say all these kids are the same, the things they go through are the same, because they are so wildly different from one another.
And when I was writing the book, I like really dug into that difference, Like I wanted to make them as different from each other as humanly possible, because I wanted to give you know, readers a really interesting experience where the book's always surprising you and it's changing you, and the stories almost like conflict with one another, because if one kid tells you this thing, another kid's going
to tell you something completely different. Right, Even their relationship to their transness, right, some of these kids it's really important to them. Other kids, it's not a thing for them at all. They don't like see themselves as trans They just see themselves as like who they are. And both of those ways of being are like totally valid.
But I think the thing.
Is is that when you let stories just be what they are, a when you dig into those particularities, when you make them just as like unique and idiosyncratic as they are, that's when they become universal because then so many types of people can still see themselves in that. Like just because like Clint's story is this like Muslim like South Asian story, doesn't mean I can't relate to it.
There was so much about that story I related to, about like intergenerational trauma, about like the expectations that parents have for their kids, that like grandparents like have for their like grandchildren that like Maha his mom that like her parents had for her, That like, I grew up in a household that was really controlling because of just a lot of trauma and stuff my grandparents had been through. So they thought that the best way to protect me was to like control me and to like you know,
essentially keep me from interacting with the outside world. And we're all in like a great place now, right, And I love my family and we've all come a long way.
But like when I heard so much from Maha about like her own relationship with their parents and that she had, like even like as a brown woman who you know, has such different life experiences than I do in some other ways, like I was like, this is me, Like I was that teenager, Like I dealt with the same stuff in the same way that she did, but also
in a different way. So I think that like by letting things just be what they are and not trying to tell us like all stories are the same, there's still a universality there, And by putting so much of those so many of those particularities into this book, like I do think it becomes really universal because no matter who you are. There's gonna be something in this book
that you can grab onto. There's going to be something where you can say, that's like me, or that's like a kid that I know, or that's like my like my friend's kid. Right, there's going to be something that you can pull out. So, like, like, I really hope we get to this point where we stop insisting that, like all queer stories need to be applicable to everybody to be valid. No, sometimes they can just be our stories. But people can see like themselves in our stories anyway.
Absolutely, because the through line the connection is that word humanity, right, is that what that we are all human? That is our connection. We are all having this human experience. So there are many, many more overlaps than there are differences. The problem comes in when we refuse to respect the differences. You know, I am differently human than you and than Charles and then the woman across the street. You know, we are as diverse as any other segment of the population.
The problem is when we try to create monoliths. Right, all black people are, all trans people are, all gay people are and you know they accuse us of identity politics. I think you're going to hear that phrase a little bit about this book. I want to say fuck whoever says it. But you know, because we didn't start identity politics. That's not it's not a thing that we do. It's
a thing. It's a way for you to dismiss us when we insist that we are the ones who need to tell our own stories, whether it be based on our race, our gender, or our financial situation, our our place in the cast, whatever it is. You know, our lived experiences are ours and no one can tell my story better than me. So you know that dismissive phrase. I think we're going to see it a little bit here.
It's right up there with playing the race card, right, because it's a way.
It's a way to not have to dig deeper. Right, It's a way to say, oh, well, they just want this based on their identity, and it's like, no, I
want you to respect my identity. I want you to allow, you know, allow, I want you to back off my rights that I don't actually give a shit if you tolerate me, but I would I would appreciate a live and let live place here where you know my rights are as affirmed as yours because you're kind of an asshole too, but you have full access and have never had to have them challenge by people like you.
I think that's the way that that needs to be rephrased and reframed. It's not give me my rights, it's back up off of my rights because my rights have always been there and always will be there because again, they were not yours to give or to take away. They just are because I.
Am right, and we get we get in all kinds of trouble as humans when we think that we do like we are being tall, we are being so thoughtful. I love the gaze Nata. You probably don't.
I don't see color.
I don't see color. Yeah, you know. One of the silliest someone asked me one time was like, Okay, you're trying to tell me that y'all are people? What about Folsoome Street? And I'm like, what about it? And who said that doesn't matter? Someone that's just so weird?
Like what a non sequitor? Right, right?
But it was like, but it's there is There is an idea there, and that's why I've remembered it. Because the idea is that as a minority, or as a part of a marginalized group, you are responsible for the worst of your people, you know, And when you want to challenge my prejudice against you, you've got to speak to what I consider the worst of it and explain it to me. And I'm like you, first, you explained John Wayne Gacy, and I'll explain Folsom Street.
How about that?
How about that? God?
Explain me Jerry Fallwell, and then let's go right right.
You know, you you folks manufactured the pedophiles. It's actually not us, you know. And you were the ones walking around as children's genital fetishists. That's not us, you know. You like to point at us, but that's always the thing is like there's a bad one. See I told you, like, what the fuck is that? There's okay, bad human? Got it? We're lousy with them, right, I.
Mean I just teld that person go to Folsom he might actually enjoy it.
It's pretty fun.
Well that's usually the problem, right, And it was a she, But that's that's usually the problem. Is there's something fascinating and all that I'm missing out and I'm going to criticize it because Jesus or something.
Somewhere someone's having a good time and I have a problem with that, right, yeah.
Yeah, it's like if we could all just take a breath, and you know, one of the things I wanted to mention to you right now. And I'm starting to see connections. I'm starting to see, you know, associations made from the people who understand that the fight for bodily autonomy is one fight. The fight for trans writes is the fight for you know, reproductive rights. These are both about having agency over one's own body. You know, we don't argue with all the CIS people who go get plastic surgery.
We don't argue with you know, the men who want to make their dick bigger. We don't like, we don't fight with any of that. It's perfectly okay, but God forbid we you know, do anything pretty much. But it's the same fight. And I'm starting to see some natural alliances there, which you know, flies in the face of terf ism, thank god. Where you know, your fight is mine, it's we're talking about the same thing. You know, your right to an abortion and my right to whatever health
care I deem appropriate for me. It's the same thing. It's the same thing. It's the same control over humans. We somehow deem lesser and incapable of making decisions about their own lives.
What do you think, Yeah, it's it's interesting that you said this because I just did a story on the Gender Liberation March. The folks behind that had another rally Washington, d C. Yeah, another rally in Washington, d C. Because they they marched. They marched was from the Franklin Memorial or something, Washington Monument, one of those things, some some famous Washington, d C. Landmark and they marched the Heritage Yeah,
one of the giant penises. They marched to the to the Heritage Foundation, and they you know, like had this party in d DJ set outside the Heritage Foundation. And one of the things that really struck me in talking to the organizers for the story that I did for them, which you should go read, was Jameson Gutierrez, who's a longtime friend of mine.
Yeah, you did.
She organizes with Familia TQLM, which does a lot of advocacy around like immigrants and migrants to the US and undocumented workers and also people who are held in lock up facilities because of their immigrant status. Right, And she said something to me that really that is going to
stay with me forever. That like, this issue of bodily autonomy, of deciding what happens to your body is also an immigrant issue because if you were held in a lock up facility for no other reason that you than that you wanted to come to the country and you had
to because we don't have a functional immigration system. So like right now, if you want to do it like quote unquote legally, you really can't because there's not that many like avenues for you to do it, like as like like say like a Mexican person like or Honduran fleeing violence, right, you pretty much have to cross the
border and just like see what happens. Right, And if you are the you know, a Translatina held in that system, you know, not only are you behind bars, so like you're not deciding what happens to your body in that way, but you're often denied gender firm and care. You're denied like access to just like basic medical care like HIB care. Roxanna Hernandez died in a lock up facility because she had been denied her HIB care, I believe for eight days at the time of her death.
Right like that that all of that is.
Part of the same fight, Like that is the fight for bodily autonomy. And it really helped me think about all this stuff in a new way where I feel like I'm starting to see so many like fights now, or so many justice movements as being part of the fight for bodily autonomy. Right, look at like even like what black folks experience in the US in terms of
being shot by police. You know, if you are suspected of doing this thing that you didn't do, that is also in a way its own fight for bodily autonomy, because if you were being shot by a police officer for something that has nothing to do with you, you were not deciding what happens to your body. You are not decided like whether or not there are bullets in it for no reason.
Right.
So there are so many ways that we all are part of each other's same movements, that we are all allies to each other, that we all like experience the same like disempowerment or people deciding that we don't deserve rights anymore because they don't like us or they don't agree with the choices we make. So I hope that the gender Liberation March or even you know, in a smaller way, this book just reminds us to show up for each other. That like a bunch of allies are
going to read this book. Right, It's not just for like quird people and trans people. I see that as being very much like our core readership, right, or like the people I really want this book to before are like my community. But there are going to be allies. There are going to be like cis heterosexual people who read this. And I hope it's just like it's just a reminder or like a call to like join the fight, right, to like do what they can to protect these kids,
to fight for these kids. Because if you read these books and you are this book, I mean, who knows, it could be multiple books, but for now, just one. If you read this book, I mean you care about what happened to them, You care about their ability to have a future, like get organized, volunteer, donate to some organization, vote, like it is very clear who you should vote for if you like want the best for these kids and their futures, like go do it. Don't set this out like we need you.
Right that the choice could not be more clear, couldn't be more clear, And we have a lot more information in twenty twenty four even than we had in twenty sixteen. You know, that debacle never should have happened if anyone was paying attention at all. However it did. But now we can't say we don't know all of that and
just how ugly it would be. And I have to believe, and you talk to way more people than I do, but I have to believe that the soul of this nation is better than that, because that's what I see every day. I see, you know, reasonableness. And if we only you know, take a look at social media and the comments section, if that's where we're deciding what humanity is,
it's a sewer. Yeah, but that has never been you know, my face to face experience, never not at that level of dismissal, of absolutely denying one another humanity.
Right, because every time we have face to face conversations, that's when the real thing comes out, because people aren't really what they are online, like they actually have reason in logic.
Yeah, I mean that that's my experience. Again, I'm not in the Deep South. I'm not in a state where I'm being challenged my existence is being challenged on such a fundamental level. But again, I do cancel the folks who are just impacted, the adults and the adolescents who just don't know what to do with this, right.
I would say, I don't know. I don't know where I stand in hope right now, you know, Like obviously this book is very helpful, and I found a lot of hope in these kids. But like get back to me after November, Like, and you know, I just think about all the time, like how wild it is to me that it's so hard to keep a rapist felon who like you know, has been recently, you know, convicted of what thirty something fell, he's twenty something felonies, right, Like how hard can it be to keep this man
from being president? And why is it so hard? Why does it take so much work to keep this person who obviously should not be running our country or any country from the White House? And it all has to do with like people's prejudices and biases or the fact that they view, like I don't know, like they view themselves and what they want from their lives as being like more important than other people. Like there's just so much like like ignorance and erasure that's happening right now.
There are so many people who still just aren't paying attention to this. In the opening of the book, we talk about the fact that even in like liberal communities, they aren't always like plugged into what's going on in
the world. That Ki Shapley and her mom when they moved to Connecticut, you know, they would talk about all the things that were happening in Texas in their you know, like supportive progressive, like you know communities, and other mothers would say like, oh, that doesn't sound right, that can't be happening, that can't be true, when it's like, obviously it's true. There are many, many, many news stories about
what's happening. You can literally just google it. But everyone is still just so like stuck in their own bubble and stuck in their own world that they can't pay attention to like what's happening to other people out there. So, like, I think I was more hopeful in a way than when I started this book, but like, I don't think I'll really know until after I see what happens in November. Like I feel like, like, in a way, how do you say, like my own faith in us is hanging
in the balance. I think is maybe the best way to put it. Let's like, yeah, so I hope things turn out turn out well, Like I hope that like America can I don't know live up to a sense of good faith, But I don't know right now.
So here is where I'm basing my optimism guarded. But my optimism is skeptical. When we look at you know, when we look at Republicans trying to spike the ball right and codify, you know, this removal of row into the constitutions, folks are showing up and saying, no, it's too far. You know, we had the survey of Republicans, you know, regular rank and file Republicans who a vast majority, like eighty percent in one way or another said all this trans stuff has gone way too far. It's it's
they've lost. There's no point to this. It's not right, you know, That's what I'm talking about. So I keep seeing them lose in fundamental ways across this nation, and I keep seeing those kinds of results that tell me we're not as hated as some would like us to believe, you know, like us to believe there is not the
vitriol in the numbers. It feels like when you are only being inundated with what they proposed, not what they were able to put through, but what they proposed, you know, even the Dysanta stuff, because we follow that pretty closely. It's like, if you you know, keep reading enough media in Florida, you're going to find out that most of it is him yelling at at a wall. Yeah, you know, he didn't win anything with Disney, regardless of how he
tells the story. You know, there are so many instances, and yet we do have that alleged medical association that is, you know, informed of the what is a CAST report. You know that Florida had the impact over in the UK, which is bullshit and ridiculous because these people are not talking about medicine. So it's a mixed bag. I'll give you that. You know, I I hear you because when you talk with folks about the consequences of this kind of nonsense, Yeah, it challenge is hope, But I am
still hopeful. I am. I am seeing a renewed sense of hope, a renewed sense of political engagement among people who were kind of not going to sit almost going to set this out. And so my hope is the Republicans set it out because he doesn't have the rank and file support that I think we kind of tend to believe because we're we're looking at monoliths two. We're saying they're all the same, and they're not right. I can't find a lot of common ground with them, but
we are. You know, there are still reasonable people in the world that look at a situation and say that's not okay, you know, talking about other people's rights. It doesn't you know, it has nothing to do with me, nothing at all. That's where I hope we get and I think this book helps us get closer to it. I do. I hope people pick it up and read it. I hope they circulate it. I hope I see professors assigning it because it's an important read, and you know
it's I always love your bylines. I always love the work you do. I love the humanity you put in every story and the queer voice that you have absolutely added to our world. It's so important, and you know, I'm so excited. You know, I feel like the godmother.
My godmother if you want, I don't have one, so you know I'm looking.
I love it. I love it. Talk to me about tour dates you're going to kind of be visiting our coast soon. Is that correct?
Yeah, I will be.
Oh my god, let me let me look my spreadsheet, so I don't speak out of turn. I don't remember anything if it's not in a spreadsheet.
Okay.
So I will be in Baltimore, which isn't very far. I'm on the twenty eighth, which is a Saturday.
I'm at the Baltimore Book.
Fair Jabbari Lyles, who is an incredible local like black I believe I believe Jaburi identifies as non binary, so I'm going to say non binary. I'm activist who's not incredible work in the community for a really long time. They were gracious enough to host a Q and a discussion with me, and we're going to be there hanging out outside of Red Emma's, which is an incredible, like local bookstore that's been so supportive of this book and
of the conversation, and I'm just really excited. It's like, it's it's kind of funny that like Baltimore all places would be like my first stop on this tour. It wasn't what I expected necessarily, but given that it's like, you know, you know, the birthplace of like John Waters and this like you know, movement of like queer and
trans weirdos. We've been doing this little John Waters deep Dive my husband and I like it feels fitting in a way, Like it feels like being connected to history and this like history of these like queer like forefathers and four Mothers and four days who have come before me.
So it just yeah, it feels.
Like I love that I have a new word for the four Days continue for yeah, thank you.
So yeah. So I'm excited.
And then after that we're going to be for you know, people who are listening to this from other places. We're going to be just about everywhere. We'll be in Portland, will be in suburban Dallas, will be in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, San Francisco, San Jose, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Salt Lake City, Little Rock, Seattle, Washington, d C, Miami, and Sioux Falls. And that's just what we have lined up right now. That's not in addition to all the other
things I'm in conversation for. I'm talking about something in Jackson, Missus be next year. You know, I'm organizing zooms. I am doing everything I can to make sure this book gets out there. Because I think it's really special and it's about darn time that these kids' voices were heard.
That's amazing.
Come into a town near you, Joe.
And I agree with you. I want to get a Philadelphia date on that calendar somehow somewhere, like I'm behind that idea.
I'm trying just putting it out in the universe.
Vonnie's.
We could do it at Giovanni's room, we could do it at the William Way Center. There are so many angles that we could take. But I'm gonna formally invite you to come onto Transway. So Transway is the zoom call that I run every Thursday night, seven thirty Eastern time, where a bunch of trans and non binary folk get together and support one another. That's what Transway is and does.
And if we can ever find a Thursday evening where you could come and join us and talk about this work, and you know, I am committed to buying a copy of the book for each and every one of the people that show up to that. So hopefully we can carve out a little time for that to happen.
I wish we'd done it yesterday. I didn't have anything to do yet.
This Thursday.
Damn it, I didn't know.
So no, it's okay, we'll figure out a date. I'll send you over my little book date schedule because it really is just I'm going to be traveling a lot.
It's funny.
I went from I didn't want to travel at all, and I still kind of really don't, but like there's been so much instant interest in the book and people just sort of like want your physical presence there. They want you to like bring the book to them. That it's just like, if this is what I gotta do, I gotta do. So I'm going to spend probably the better part of the next year doing this and making sure that we're bringing it to local communities and starting
this conversation. So like that's a long winded way of saying, if we could figure out a Thursday, girl, I'm there, Okay, I love it.
I think that's going to be such an exciting time for you, this book tour, man.
So we're gonna I do too. So we're going to post all the links that you send us. Is there a favorite way to buy the book?
Yes.
My hometown local bookstore is called Joseph Beth and they have it for sale. They better because I'm doing an event there next month, so if they didn't, I would be very mad at them. So please support Josepheth. I think they're really great. If you look at it and you're like, I don't know, I don't trust this bookseller I've never heard of. Bookshop dot org is great. It's a great way to buy it online, and they I
think proceeds go to supporting local booksellers. I'm not sure how it works, but I know it's very like pro indie bookstore and if you prefer buying stuff in person, this book, as of October Eith is going to be in most indie bookstores across the country because we were in Indie next and an Indie's introduced pick so, which sort of gets you automatic distribution in all of these different bookstores. So please go, like, hit up your like local bookseller, ask them if they've got it, and if
they don't, if they don't have it, request yes. You know that's how often how like bookstores stock books. Is somebody asked for it, then you know they order it in you know, the booksellers like, oh this seems interesting, I'll order some more copies to see if there's a readership for it, and you know they find out there is so please requested it your local bookstore. That would be awesome for me. Means I got to do a little less work.
Perfect, perfect, Nico. It's so good to see you. I just want to thank you so much for this time. It has been a long time coming and it's so I'm so excited.
And and I don't want to go without mentioning the fact that you know, Nico your we mentioned repeatedly how we keep running across your your byline when we read an interesting article. I want to shout out your work with many publications like them and the like. And also, you know, I would suggest our listeners support your your Patreon please poured l G B t Q Journalism. You
have informed you know, our podcast a lot. Yeah, oh yeah, you know, I subscribe to the Patreon and I'm always getting the the emails and I'm like, oh, yes, we need to talk about that, oh that too. So you you are, you are stitched into the fabric of Full Circle the podcast.
I must tell you, you truly are. And uh, you make my life so much easier because you know it's right there. You're doing so much of the work all the time. Please give Christian a huge hug for us, your your delightful husband, and I am I am friend of the pod and friend of the pod, and I think we're going to have to try to show up in Baltimore or New York with I believe it's going to be Baltimore because it's a Saturday with our books, and.
Please come to the Baltimore one because well on the book, the New York one it's like in a bookstore that's quite small, so like seating is more limited, and the Baltimore one that's like outside, so like we can like have fun, we enjoy. And I personally like, I ain't got shit to do in Baltimore, so we can hang out.
Oh I love it. Maybe I can get my buddy Elizabeth Williams, who uh oh.
Yeah, John, we just watched one of her movies.
Have to come on yew and hang out a little bit. That'd be fun.
I felt very cool for a second because when she popped up on screen and polyester, I got to like point to that.
I was like that woman.
I'm friends with her on Facebook, right, so I earned some cool points with my husband.
For a second. I felt very awesome.
Elizabeth, by the way, is the facilitator of Transway, so we work together. Oh so yeah, yep, I love that. That's a little world but a big one exactly. Yeah.
Yeah.
So that's one of the best things about being queer, I think, is that fact that we're all so connected to each other.
It feels cool in one way or that way. But well, thank you both for this.
I really appreciate this, and I just appreciate the chance to like hang out with you guys and talk about the book and just yeah, like, I'm glad that we finally got to do it.
I am too, you know. At the last thing I want to say is when I saw that, you know, Susan Striker and Julius Serrano were interviewed and mentioned on the cover, I was like, yep, we've talked to them both and I adore them. So it's full circle, all full circle, so much full circle in this book again, to my mind, the most important read of twenty twenty four. And you know, I hope it reprints and reprints and reprints and we can get into a lot of hands. Nico Lang, thank you so much for your time. We
love you, yes we do. And we're going to speak. We're going to see you real soon.
Yeah yeah, what a fun way to end.
But thank you New God, Mommy and God Daddy.
I appreciate this.
To have a great rest of the day and get out there and buy the book.
Ye do it.
Full Circle is a Never Scurreed Productions podcast hosted by Charles Tyson Jr. And Martha Madrigal, Produced and edited by Never Scurred Executive Produced by Charles Tyson Jr.
And Martha Madrigal.
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