Okay, now it's working. I was trying to save it to a folder that didn't exist anymore. So, okay, there we go. Hello, welcome back to transcending humanity. This is episode three. Today we are joined by Devin and Erica, two new hosts with us today, the topic of conversation is very topical, if you follow me on LinkedIn, it is how to be an ally. And when I mean that, I mean an authentic ally and not a performative ally. And we will get into the differences between those here and our conversation.
But first, I would like to have Devin and Erica introduce themselves and say a little bit about themselves and all that wonderful stuff. So Devin, go ahead. Yeah, hi, I'm Devin pronouns, are they them? Live in Chicago. Basically, I have a background in got my degree in social work, but I work in financial services now as a compliance advisor. So I'm basically like Toby from the office telling financial advisors No. So obviously loved by everyone. Some ways to do it. Exactly. And hey, you know, I
can work in this field. And I can actually, like, make a small difference by saying, Hey, you can't promise things you can't actually, you don't know what's gonna happen.
In June of last year, I started an organization called Trans rally. It's a membership organization for members and friends of the trans community were 170 879 strong. The idea is to provide a safe space for people to network professionally, to get internal job posting referrals, or to build a financial base for the community.
Awesome. Erica, you're up?
Hi, I'm Erica Vogel. Sorry, I just got a weird alert on my computer buzzing everything up. No, nope. We can cut and start again. Okay, sorry. I might leave at the end just because I like stuff.
At the show, you get bloopers if you cut it? Well, there's the humanity part of transcending.
Yeah, hi, Erica. De, I'm still doing it. And then this encapsulates me entirely, I get flustered and I'm you know, I just started talking. Hi, I'm Erica clearly just had a weird issue in the intro, their pronouns are she her queer transgender woman. I am a senior product manager in financial technology. And before that, I was struck designer, illustrator photographer, also with big, other big businesses. I'm married to a wonderful queer woman, we have a child at home.
And I have three adult kids, all of whom are part of the LGBTQ i a rainbow. So cool. So yeah. Well, welcome both of you. It's wonderful to have you on the show. And I'd say let's go and just dive in about being an ally.
To give a quick synopsis, a performative ally, is essentially a corporation in June where they're in LA, as long as it's convenient to them. So like, it'll be the people that say, Oh, I appreciate you that kind of stuff. But they will talk the talk, but they're not going to walk the walk. And authentic ally is the person that is willing to get down in the trenches with you. They're the people that will lose friends and family to be an
ally. Because it be, as you both know, coming out all that is, you're gonna lose friends and family. And it's terrifying. And it's hard. And it's sad, and it's heartbreaking. And an authentic ally is going to have that as well. And it's hard to find people that are willing to do that, but they're going to be ostracized just for deciding to put humanity above whatever else so So yeah, let's just talk about performative experiences that you too have had all that so just knock it out.
Yeah, Erica.
Sure. performative ally ship is definitely not my favorite. I prefer closer to the variety that that you spoke about already. In my day job, I work in financial technology, as I said, but as part of my day job, I am part of the national leadership team of our LGBTQI erg. ERG affinity group depending on what you guys call it, right, and I've been it's coming up. Right now we have a robust calendar, and we do a lot of things to celebrate out actually be having my own event as part of it.
And that's the way I think a lot of sort of middle of the road companies that that they're kind of good in that month. We're great in that month. But we're really good all year long something every single month we send people to we're conferences. And I think most companies don't get anywhere near that. And frankly, most companies sort of rely on the ones that decide to do it informally, if not actually squashing the idea, right? So
oh, that's performative. If, if you only care about pride in June, where you make money off of pride as a big part of your revenue, and you don't care about others, the rest of the year, you're really a performative ally, in my book, that way I kind of differentiate really good allies is, it's not the person that says they're an ally, just online, or maybe to you in person, but you never see them show up. That's really more like, finding a good way to
voice tolerance. In my mind, I'm tolerant of you, like, you don't mess with me, I don't mess with you. That's tolerance. And Ally, to me, is the person that speaks when I'm not in the room, and the subject comes up. Right? If I'm in the room, you guys believe I'm gonna be talking about it. And they'll be supporting me. But they have the courage, the the strength, the fortitude, and the humanity to stand up when I'm not in the room. And that's not an easy thing to
do. And I think, yeah, and I think a lot of people sort of feel like, was it worth it? I have a lot of people in my life who are allies in a lot of places in their life. So yeah, as you caught up and as some people do lose friends, and they lose contact with family, but I would say don't let that discourage you. Because it's probably not just this one thing. Right? Yeah. If you lose your dad over supporting people with trans rights, there's probably some other stuff going
on, too. So I don't want people to feel like this is just sort of adds and maybe expedites those situations. But yeah, anybody who chooses to give their fellow person space to be themselves, the benefit of the doubt, does decides not to put them in a box. There's someone that's an ally. Yeah, everybody who needs to put something in a box has some work to do. Yeah, and it's unfortunate, I think that we're gonna have to, like, distinguish people who are allies, because we live in such
a hostile world. You know, like, it should be that you're just a person, I'm a person, we have differences, cool, we bring something different to the table. Cool. But like there are people who want to hurt other people, and to basically use anything that they can as a weapon, either for their own self interest, or because I guess they're sadists or something. But just it's
it's not, it's not. Coming up, hopefully, it doesn't come up as I'm trying to talk here. So my I have a friend that works for a large software company that I'm not going to name it, but it's a large cost software company that suddenly became less large, because they did some really shitty things to their employees. But so my friend was telling me about the diversity groups at that company. And it's all 100%.
Like that, in order for employees to get involved, they have to sign up through HR, but it's completely unpaid has to be completely outside of business hours is be completely outside of all of your duties. And everything is completely outside and it doesn't factor into performance reviews, nothing. But the company can then use the fact that those programs exist, that they're not paying for, they're not supporting in any way. But they can use those as
bragging rights. So that's just dangerous, and it's not ally ship at all. So if like, if you're at a company that it does stuff like that, it's it doesn't benefit anybody, companies. If a company wants to be an ally, they, it's, they might lose some customers over initially. Yes. But in the long run from everything I've seen, it kind of works out for them in in the future. So I have I guess two examples top of mind for myself, at least one is recently Dylan Mulvaney with Bud Light.
The fact that, you know, as every beer drinker, a lot of beer drinkers are like someone who's trans, you know, having any sort of relationship with Bud Light. Okay, cool. Now let's just basically You know, a lot of board of people in the board of directors were like, Hey, this is we don't want this, it's hurting us now. So let's bring out commercials that are all about patriotic flags and stuff. And illicitly
stepping away from it. But I think that there's also positive positive examples to one, it's like not very known, which is actually like, it's not great that it's not known, but it's, in some ways, a little bit more substantive. But T Mobile, actually, they have a bank account for T Mobile customers, where people can actually change their name to their preferred name. MasterCard has a program called the true name, program, and you can change your name without it
being legally different. But for example, T Mobile just decided to just do that, which is amazing. And they're like, they're not like, waving it around and being like, hey, here's what we need people who are queer, look at this. No, it's just like, hey, well, let's just do it. That's, you know, in an act of being an ally, even if it's something small that
Makes me wanna switch to T-Mobile
I work in FinTech, financial technology. And what you're talking about Devon is a trend that's growing fast. I think. There are other banks, other financial institutions that have also rolled out something similar with a credit card or whatever. But just about every single bank is working to bring that about, and we'll probably see it widely distributed everywhere, at least in the US within the next year.
Which is a great thing for for a variety of reasons, but particularly for trans and non binary.
Yeah, to touch on that, too. And I'm just sorry for just talking so much. But I just a lot of stuff is happening with this, because I'm in finance and everything, too. I spoke to someone who I'm not going to name their name, but they worked at daylight bank. And that's one of the FinTech companies that is marketed towards queer at queer community. And there was an insane expos. They I think it was in New York Mac, and you should all read it, like there
is. So there's someone suing daylight bank, because it's basically like venture capitals, trying to like wrap itself in a veneer of the peer community. But actually, it's like, tech bro. 1,000%. And like, they have this crazy party in Mexico. And now they're trying to like, basically do something with like, making people surrogate parents against their will or something. If something weird like just it's it's a crazy story, but that's that happens.
And it's daylight Bank, which is like the queer bank, at least that's what they were trying to market themselves as
just makes it makes my brain hurt. Like, here in a T Mobile makes things easy is refreshing. Because I have 18 T. And it is not easy at all, I did my entire legal name change right down to my birth certificate. And right down to the gender marker, I'm over certificate, which is a pain in the sto in Ohio. In some states, you can't do it at all but and I updated I tried updating my name with AT and T you can't do it online. And I was able to quote unquote, update my caller name
on my caller ID. But anytime I called someone it was coming up with my dead name. So I called customer support. They're like, you can only do that at a store. And so I went to the store near me but it's an affiliate store. And just the look I got walking in from the person working there kind of told me how that entire thing was gonna go. But I live in a very red area and I'm pretty visibly trans specially in person. And you know, how does, but so they supposedly changed it and updated it. But
it still hasn't changed. So it shouldn't be that hard to change your names for sign up and phone bill, but it is. Yeah. So ways that companies, companies can be authentic. That's the more interesting part because we can we can rag on people for being performative all we want but in the end, we're here to educate and to just bring knowledge to people and ways that people can do that is as Devin said, don't make a big deal out of it. But you can put it into your company's mission statement.
There's little things like discord perfectly Example. And on my massive job, I applied to discord occasionally. And they put rate on their application that part of what they do is they give $25,000 towards gender affirming surgeries. And that is right there in the open on their job descriptions when you apply. And it's just little things like that, knowing that a company has your back is extremely
important. And because especially those of us in the job hunt, we're looking around for things that it's hard to find a company, you don't know, if you're going to be signing up for a place that's just going to be completely toxic. So seeing things like that, where they put it right there in writing, so you can see it, but they're also not bragging about it. And that's the important thing is to be subtle, but be strong. And I very appreciative of this court
for doing that. There's a lot of other companies that do that name and things like that as well. But
what if you do something crazy? I mean, I would be like, if someone's like, yeah, we're giving $10 million to trans lifeline. I'd be like, Great that all you want. That's substantive. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But don't be like, Oh, we bought someone something for $400 and then spend $10,000 on marketing, saying that you spent $400. Yeah, like, why?
Yeah, sorry. I think if we want to, sort of point to people at smaller companies, or medium companies, or even if you're in a large company, towards improving your ally representation of LGBTQ people, and by the way, intersectionality all marginalized give me a nice, right. But what you should be looking for is your company has a calendar of holidays, right? I'm sure Christmas is on there.
And New Year's Memorial Day and, and Fourth of July, and Labor Day and Thanksgiving in this country, it's really easy to find very published calendars that have days that covered diversity, inclusive, trans Trans Day of visibility, for example, not just pride. So ask your company why they haven't built out occur a calendar of all diverse events, right? Because they probably don't just have, you know, Joe, this hat white guy is the only employee if they're even considering
this. Right. So that's, that's number one. Find those days, your company doesn't have to take those days off. To do is let people know, hey, it's intersexuality day, it's lesbian awareness a day, it's whatever day and write a little something about it, and to start to bring this to your attention. And like I said, while you're at it, don't just stop with our community if you're gonna go
that route. Yeah. I think pulling together, you know, creating affinity groups, whether they are usually things and in some way or casual ones and getting people just talking and visiting and building community. And I think what happens when you put some focus on that as your company helps new people a find a group of people to talk to, but it also helps maybe people newly to their weirdness start to find a place to go, many people feel
isolated. And so work on your company, getting people together to talk and plan and listen. And then of course, obviously, you shouldn't celebrate all of the high queer holidays, right. But there are plenty of conferences, there are plenty of courses they're consumed. There's so much out there to educate your people on how to care for make space for advocate and elevate your career employees. It's not hard to find, it's not hard to
consume. If your company is not doing these things, just pick one and start and then pick the next thing. Do you want your company to improve? And they do all these things? Do they send people to conferences? Do you have internal content to consume, right? There's always something to add.
Yeah, yeah, definitely. It sounds simple. And really, it doesn't it's not even that expensive to do it. Nope. But then people will start people will be drawn to your company, especially employees. I mean, because they're like, Okay, a safe place for us. You know? Yeah, Starbucks, but then the Starbucks NASA has the whole union thing going on. So you have the two Yes, it's very queer friendly. But they're also trying to get in bus so but I see what you mean like because I know they have amazing
insurance. And but just being when people find out that that accompany is going to actually value them as a human, be it any sort of minority, especially race because in the end EIA starts and ends with racism. And everything has to be acknowledged, like you see, just let it like little things like why is Easter a holiday where companies are closed, but not Martin Luther King Jr. Day. You know, it's kind of food for thought kind of things like
that. And it wouldn't be a big deal to, to have holidays and non traditional holidays, non Judeo Christian holidays really is what it boils down to be. So it, it doesn't take much. But just to kind of step back and look at your employees, talk to your employees. As a leader, I've always valued. I don't like to be a boss. As a leader, I've always been in management positions in one way or another and ran a business for 13 years.
And my leadership style was to listen to the people, because they're the ones actually doing the work. They're the ones that are doing the job day by day, seeing everything I full on realize, I don't know, I know the gist of what they do. But I don't know all that nitty gritties. So when people are listening to be it, work performance, or b and d are just knowing that they can go someone that will just hear them, if they're having a shitty day, you know, you shouldn't be afraid to
go to your supervisor. I don't even know what's going on with all this. But it's just it's important to make sure that your staff feels heard, especially since Gen Z, and soon Gen alpha are joining the workforce. And those generations. Don't take shit, it's there. I have so much respect for them. Because if they don't like something, they're just gonna leave, they'll find something else. And so my dad go hurtling down the
stairs. So it's a couple of these needs to get with the program here or else they're going to be left behind. And yeah, there's my point right there.
So I have a question for both of you. One of the ways I like to talk about ally ship is to talk about the differences between what it means to be my ally, versus an ally to the trans community versus Devon's ally. I think it it helps opens up conversations that help people to know their role as an ally, that I think we call this out at the top allies act. Is it as an action word, it means action. So what would it mean to you Vanessa, for for me to be the kind of ally that I would
need to be for you. And is that any different than the rest of the trans community?
Personally, it's what I asked people I've made posts on it, but usually it's on Facebook, and the algorithm just makes it fall flat. But if you see my content, and it resonates with you, hit that fucking share button, and comment on it, when you share it set the privacy to public, not just the friends show support, that also helps
get our, our words out there. So for me, most of my activism is on social media because I'm a parent, I'm, if I'm not parenting, I'm job planning, so I don't have time to go out and like do things. So I do my activism online. And the best thing that people can do is help me get my voice heard. And I think that goes for the entire trans community because a lot of us all of us online we're just sitting there just screaming out to the void and it's some of us our voices are heard more than
others. And luckily we happen to have some of those people on staff at this podcast but others you know, we're pushing we're struggling and we just need to be able to be heard and if people really want to support us it's as easy as clicking that share button or in my case I have some family members that I can't get the step going to fucking Chick fil A and no matter how much I say they're like well you know other companies are bad too it's just just like all they want you to
do is just not go to chicken Chick fil A that's all I especially don't take my kid there and but I'll come down I'll come downstairs and throw something away and I'll see typically things in the garbage I'm like sake it's cluck sick. Yeah. I have the explicit Mark checked on this podcast so you guys you too can just unload. But no, I get up Chick fil A i Yeah. The other day. The power went out here for like a long time and like it knocked out everywhere. And Chick fil A was
included. I'm like, Yeah, fuck you. So But anyways, yeah, for me, that is my main thing is to be an ally to me, help me help my voice get out. So awesome. What about you done?
Yeah. So on a day to day at least, you know, I kind of have a strong personalities slash on a stubborn son of a bitch. So I honestly, for me personally, I don't have an extreme attraction, I guess to any any, like a gender binary necessarily. So non binary. So I honestly don't really care what pronouns people use, I used to play them. But if it's socially fluid, and I feel like I look like a dude, that day or something, I'm okay. He has, that's fine. It's not a huge
deal. But for me, the thing I think, that I want people to do on a day to day basis is do something difficult. Because being a real ally is not easy. And you know, there's that one episode or that one show? Because like Dateline NBC or whatever it is, like, what would you do? And it was, you know, they were staging fake, like arguments like abusive arguments and that kind of thing. And people would just walk by, and not do anything. And that was the whole premise of the show.
And I would say, just, if you see something, say something, and just speak up, I would say to for myself, at least, you know, I run trans rally, be a member, become a member, get people jobs, because our goal is to like network, and to build an economic base for people. Because I think it's something like 80% of people with autism are unemployed, or underemployed, and autism, and the trans communities have a
pretty large overlap. And also like our appearances, especially if you live in an unsafe area, aka anywhere, not in the city, pretty much in the United States, even in blue states. If you live outside the city, it's not safe, usually. And there's just so much that goes wrong. Like there was a politician recently that I think it was in like Montana that was censured for speaking out
Zooey Zephyr; that's actually something I wanted to talk about today.
And, like, in the century letter, you know, they misgendered her multiple times, so that it's a hard world out there. And Ally ship that really matters is not easy. And it might put you at risk, and it will cost something either monetarily or social. If it's true ally ship, I will say.
But it's also extremely rewarding.
It's so rewarding. Yeah. Because it makes you live an authentic and genuine life. And it actually does something for the world. Instead of like, you know, we're in this podcast, and everyone competes with all those stupid ads that just flood our eyeballs every day. Like I hate personally Liberty Mutual ads as an example. Not a huge fan. No, horrible. But we're competing against that for our humanity. And so it's hard it just if you do something genuine and authentic, just be yourself.
Because that's what I would say to anyone who's listening
that the line if you hear something, say something that sums up ally ship, really. So another line I saw is real allies show up? Yep, it's that simple. So
yeah, I have some similarities to both you in terms of what it means to be my ally. I think number one is that you identify yourself to be I want to know, right? And you ask what I need. Right? And so if we walk into the room and someone says something that I don't need you to get in front of me, I need you to stand behind me while I handled the situation. But there might be some where you're gonna get a cue from me and it's okay for you to step
forward. So I think when we're talking about ally ship, we can always have to remember that there's what the community needs but you might not if you have someone you know these trends ask they would like you to show up so it's kind of goes back to what you said show up take action. Stand by behind me stand with me when I can't speak use your words lend your privilege
to me. Yeah, right. That's that's to me is what it means to be my personal ally but it also means like, be there with just be in the moment with be because I'm gonna like be loud about my trans Joe weigh in, I want you to share that and feel proud that we get to stand together on something that's about basic humanity. Obviously, when it comes to the community, like help use your voice, but don't talk over ours elevate marginalized voices, right?
Advocate for the bull to like, let me know in private, please. It's like if you have a piece of paper on your foot or something. Yeah, no.
But when you see us post, something you've I think you both have talked about earlier. Share that, add a comment, like, but pass it on, elevate our voices, don't speak over ours. When you can't use your voice, use it. Right. And lend your time. Like I said earlier, lend your privilege show up with us. If we're going to a rally show up. If you want to go to the rally, and we don't know about it, let us know and show up. Right. Speak up when we're not
there. That's my ally, the people that I find out, didn't speak up for me when something went down in the room that I wasn't in there out of the circle, man.
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And honestly, allyship this, this can go for any marginalized community. Don't just scroll on by when you see something, you see something. It's like, if you read it, and say, hey, that's fucked up. Well let other people know that it's fucked up. And that you will that it's fucked
up. And you know, it's a spread that up, no thing that people can help that the trans community and a very simple thing is if you're out hanging out with us, to the bathroom with us, just that makes life so it's such a simple thing. But we're also let last week's episode was about bathrooms, and we're just terrified. The bathrooms. Just go with us, please. That's a very powerful way to be an ally. Honestly, it's just make sure that we can pay, especially for our training
here. So yeah, because that that that
That episode was so like, affirming, like, Oh, I'm not the only one that's like nervous and the ladies or in a changing room or loving loving that. Where's the Starbucks on the road trip? Right? You know, my someone said to me last week, cuz I was sort of relaying some of the experiences I had while I was out of town recently. And I had to sort of be in a public changing changing space, even though there was private cubicles. You had to go to that you had to be in the ladies,
right? And she wanted to be like, Hey, by the way, cisgendered women aren't looking at anybody else, either. Probably almost no one noticed you because they were busy dealing with their own shame of being kind of naked in public. Yeah. Right. So anyways, when we go to the bathroom, I'm certainly not thinking about
anybody else. I'm trying to, I'm thinking about being as least intrusive as possible, and to be a much smaller version of my 511 frame, and all of the things, but that's what we're going to get out. Yeah. And what I look like my wife will get with me when we're out together places, which is great. It's always helpful to have someone kind of hold my hand because I get scared too, sometimes. But occasionally, I'll see other women in public and they're
like, let's go. If you see us, and you support us, and right there with us in the bathroom, make sure
I'll go pee with you. Yes, exact guarantee. We need to pee especially trans people, trans transplants that are still on Spyro guarantee you that person has
done mascara.
Yeah, I got I hit my orchiectomy last year and it's so nice. So but yeah, it's for those that people listening that don't know what it is a spiral is a testosterone aspirant electron, it's a testosterone blocker. And it's a horrible, horrible, horrible drug. And one of the many things that does besides make your brain just not work is it's a diuretic, and you're just constantly paying, and you have to just bring in so many pickles, you're just eating salt constantly. So yeah,
inspira it sucks. Yeah. So
I do early in my journey. And that's something I'm like, a little bit scared about as I start presenting them our fan is I'm only a year into my own transition. And I mean, I'm probably gonna go full fan, slash like, maybe not fourth, I don't know, like we'll see asked me again in 12 months. Using that mascot privilege is something that I'm scared about.
It is scary. It's very valid to be scared. But I can tell you that once you it's jumping into a pool of cold water, but once you do is it is very liberating. So I am kind of fast tracking my own transition. Like I had my orky and my one year anniversary of starting hormones, so but I'm also a lot older and I just don't want to wait but yeah, it's, there's there's no right or wrong way of doing it. but once you finally do, it is it's liberating. It's
also terrifying. But if someone asked me if I would change how I did things, no, only thing I do is do it sooner.
It's because yes, you are. It's one of those big steps along a lot of big steps, right? When, you know, teaching, deciding to choose to take hormones, whatever they might be, is a big scary one. Because that's like when oh my gosh, things are really gonna happen. And then they kind of happen and don't happen based on your sense of reality and expectations, right? And then the next one is like, when do I go out and the light of day like people see me,
you know, that whole thing. And there's more choosing to have that first gender affirming surgery, you know, choosing various paths get into legal stuff, there's all these big steps along the way. And they all have some fear that come with them. Maybe they get less over time, I don't know. But I remember when I first like really started not just kind of being neutral, a little bit, but like, Nope, I'm going out in public and makeup and whatever I
want to wear. And it was nerve racking for like two months, but it got a little better every day. And today. It's no big deal to me, I just like I dress however I want wear as much makeup as I want or don't wear heels because they suck for my feet. But I wear some nice chunky boots. And I don't even hardly think about it. Unless someone goes out of the way to give me like a really crazy look that I can't dance. And it from where you're standing. I never thought I would feel okay with
it. But I knew it was something I had to do. Yeah, yeah, it gets better. It gets so much better steps that you take,
but also do it as it feels comfortable to you. So don't ever let anyone rush your transition. Use. You go as you go. Oh, that's you know? Yeah. So and I'm proud of everyone there under transitions be a matter how they do it. It's because it's brave. However you however you do, whichever way you're going.
Exactly. And speaking of ally ship, internal ally ship with our own transit lanes, is not putting our point of view on what it means to transition on them. leave people alone, they don't need to live by your expectations. I did not choose to divorce myself from manhood to listen to what you think I should be as a woman.
I had to block someone on Instagram for that, because she's like, Yeah, your hairline is very masculine, you should do this and the other to mask it. And, you know, you shouldn't you shouldn't epilady You should just go and get electrolysis with everything. I'm like, Lady egg broke, I recognize that you have a lot of money and you can buy whatever surgery is never that you want. I don't have that luxury. So why don't you shut the fuck up? And I haven't kind of called that out on a post.
And she made a snarky post on it. So I just blocked her. So because of that. Yeah.
It's not stepping away from where the gender binary says we should be to be put in another narrow box. Yeah, whoever you are as trans and non binary. And no one gets to tell you who that is.
But yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's transit transitioning. It's an adventure. I didn't want to talk about Zoey really quick. Devin. You brought her up? Zoe is a fucking hero. I have to say like her in Aaron read together. I mean, they are together. They're a couple.
And what they are.
Yeah, yeah. You didn't know. I didn't know that. You can see them here. And it's amazing. You can see them in Colorado on social media. That's the issue.
Oh, yeah, yeah. They're so adorable. So I don't know if either them listen to this. But Erin Zoe, YouTuber amazing. And well, Erin probably already knows I fangirl on her all the time. She likes my post case. But it's currently what Zoe is doing is like she's been, as you said, she's been censored by the by the majority in the Montana house. And it means that she's not allowed to talk to speak on bills. And it's only because she was trying to defend kids from
being killed. That's what these Republicans are doing is they're trying to kill kids. And they Republicans can spin it however they want. But that's the truth is what they're doing is horrible. And they know it's horrible. And they don't like being shamed for it. And that's exactly what they criticize Zoe for doing is Zoe was talking about, look, you are actively hurting these people. What
you're doing is horrible. It's, I believe the word she used was it's tantamount to torture which is true and the If the majority leader spoke over her saying, Who are you to shame us that you can't shame us in our in here, so and that's what they brought up in that letter to where they misgendered her, you know, it's just just absolutely shitty. And Zoey is still there, she's still fighting. She had a post today where she's like, I may not be able to speak on the floor, but I'm still here for my
constituents. And it mirrors what happened in Tennessee to the point where the the Republican caucus in Montana in their letter even mentioned, they kind of blaming somebody for the shit that happened in Tennessee, which that's something we talked about last episode where one trans shooter out of 1000s of shooters have Matala trans problem, but
whatever, whatever. But the same thing happened in Tennessee with the Tennessee three in that power is being abused to silence any sort of dissent that could start pushing forward progress, which is it, this is why I am hoping to find a way to get a political action committee together for the trans community. Because this is something that the three of us have talked about in our Discord. And I made a post about
it on LinkedIn today. And other people like Devin, it's something that you've been working on for a while to what we need is a consolidated voice. Because we're scattered all over the place right now we need, we need a loud voice, we need support we need money is one of the main things because like it or not, in this country, the only thing that matters in this country is money, period. That's all that matters. Humanity does. People don't care about humanity. The Democratic Party
is a perfect example of that. I don't like the Democrats either. They're fucking worthless. I vote for them, because the alternative is voting for my own extinction. But every one is bought and paid for. So the way to get around that is to throw
money at the problem. And I what I would hope to see in APAC is to help our voices be louder than all of this, just all these lies that all this legislature is coming from just these these groups that are just helping these legislators write these bills, it's all the same people doing it. And it's all lies. It's all fake science, it's nothing's real. But they're taking advantage of having their their majorities and just shoving it through. Like sometimes in secret meetings. It's it's
horrible. For me, it seems like it's just a display of raw power to hurt people. And as another example, is on the 18th of April, two days ago, apparently, there were people who were protesting in the Missouri House, I believe. And they were in the galleries and they were kids, they're trans kids. And so what they did is they actually locked the kids away from their parents, and didn't let them in the gallery. And that was that you visit them out after like an hour or two.
But that was just a display of power, saying, look what we can do. Look what we can do. And for me, at least, my beliefs personally, is generally on the right. Most things are about business. There are some people who are very religious and it's zealotry. And that this is I think, more driven by that. Definitely. I think that honestly, political contributions, especially with the overtime Supreme Court decision a while ago, I forget
what it's called. But basically legalizing Super PACs and dark money and unlimited contributions. It's all just a return on investment. Honestly, that's all it is. Because the only real legislation that Donald Trump got passed was the Tax Reform Act, that decrease taxes. So it's a very simple and very logical calculation, we'll spend $4 billion to buy all the politicians and then save $40 billion in taxes over the next 10 years. It's a wonderful
return on investment. Yeah, and for me, that's what I'm trying to do with trans rally is to build an economic base, that self sustaining is sort of a quasi union. So that will, it will then be a self sustaining self funding thing. Because if we just like ask people for money, what's in it for them? Yeah, you know what I mean? And that kid that that spigot, that faucet of money can just stop at any time ever. Someone else
gives them more money? Yeah, because there's only like, two or 3 million people or trends that are the I think that our trans that, like surveys or whatever, I mean, I think it's probably like 30 million, but 3 million people or something, say they're trans. And like, that's a very small interest group versus like all the business owners in America.
Well, that's why I think it's important that we find ways to contribute No, Zoey who ran and want to see, right, we need more people to get out there and do that we need a political action committee, we need to come together as a as a coalition. There's many of us out there, but it's usually just a few of us in places and many of us spread out by ourselves. We need to find ways forums online and things like this podcast, to come together to have a single big voice that's
so much louder. And I'd love that we have so many content creators doing out there doing their own things driving the methods forward. But if we can all start to bolt together, instead of one person here, one person or one person here, we're going to do better get out there and build your communities find others join places like this, where your voice adds to an exponential effect. Yeah,
it's like the movie enhanced life or whatever, via Pixar answer stronger together. You know, it's just one of those things where you're together
for a more more current thing for people to saying the Mandalorian they're stronger together, too. So it's when they're divided. It's when they fall.
My favorite shows?
To give spoilers?
I haven't seen it at all. How is it? Oh, it's
amazing. Oh, you have to watch it. So yeah. That's one of the goals of the show. One reason that I love that we're having rotating hosts is people listening to this are going to be able to get fresh perspectives. Like I don't want to be on every single episode, I just have been so far. But like, I'm hoping next week that I won't be on the episode, we'll have other people there to talk, because next week's topic is going to be about parents of
trans kids. But I love that we have so many different voices, like this week, to fresh faces, we had fresh faces last week. And that's my goal for this because people will be able to come here to listen to us to watch us. But every week, they're going to have different hear different experiences, and but everything's still gonna be easy to find in this one spot. And that's what we need, as the community at large is, everyone needs to come together. So Devin, go ahead and plug trans
rally. However much do you want to rally.org,
please, what we're doing is we're going to be sending anyone who joins, so it's $3 to join as an individual member, we have 100% off coupon unity, that makes $0, what we do is we provide a safe space on Discord that people are verified to have that a real identity. So it's troll free. It's extremely good. There's not been any trolls at all, I see the logs of people trying to come in, and then they can't get in, and then they get
out. And it's been amazing. But what we're going to be doing is we're going to be sending QR code stickers. And we're going to be, you know, basically giving one of these to people who join, even if they're free members. And they can essentially kind of have that physical show of force in a physical location, you know, outside of a Starbucks in a rural area or something like that, to act as a counter voice against these crazy people. Were
trying to hurt us. And it's where we're stronger together. That's really what it comes down to. So trans rally.org, please. I said it wouldn't plug but then Vanessa Gates said,
no, no, that's one thing I want people I want and I want hosts on the show to plug anything that you're working on. Because not only do we are we looking for allies, but we also speak up for ourselves so and if allies can sign up for a membership to trans rally, just the price of a fucking Starbucks a month, just sign up for a subscription. I'm going to be honest, I had to cancel mine just because I have absolutely
no income. But as soon as I have some income again, I'm going to be I want to bring on and actually have a larger portion of money going into it so
that we want to be fiscal sponsors of nonprofits, whenever we're profitable. I will say to you, like I My ass is on the line too. I mean, like I put all of my financial life sorted into this and I'm contributing, like over half of the monthly income that we have for it not as our household income but of the income that we bring in as trans
rally. So 300 bucks a month currently is but I guess so like I'm putting my money where my mouth is and not just like it's a net loss for bees, so I'm not making money off of it for sure. Yeah. But it's like it's we're trying to build a movement will be, I think it'll be successful, just kind of whether it will grow quick enough to meet the need now, because a lot of shits happening right now,
to get us a promise, it's all happening so fast. That's why I'm pushing for us to find. We need allies with money and power. So that one thing like you'll see in our community, there's GoFundMe is constantly and like, I'm going to have another one starting up next week, for my I'm meeting
with my surgeon. And it's our GoFundMe, it's, it's pretty much just all of us in the trans community sending $5 to one and then once ours comes around, all the trans people send $5 to ours, and it's just, we're just moving money around in our own community. And it's hard. But, you know, that's what, I guess we have to wrap this up. But that's what being an ally is about is just, if you're not sure how to help us, but and you want to you actively want to help us just ask, that's all you
have to do. Just ask. And, yeah, it's as simple as that. Erica, do you have any closing thoughts?
Um, yeah, so you can find me at Oh, erica.com. So that's O H, like, Oh, my God, Erica, er, I see a.com Oh, Erica, and you can from there, you can read my blog, it puts out something every two weeks or so. And then you can find me on LinkedIn where I'm pretty prolific in other places, so you want to check what I'm doing. Go find me there. I think it's sort of a final plug to kind of go on here, you know, support support this organization, right? We're trying to do something good.
We're trying to pull people together, we have these rotating hosts. We're building a coalition here in Germany, if you can. And look out for us show up for us support artists who are trans as well. There's a lot of great ones out there selling stuff, support our community pump that money in, so that we have the help to make sure our rights are brought on par with everybody else and maintained.
That's all we're asking.
Yeah, yeah, it's simple. You know. I had another Oh, yeah. I will have links to both both sites in the description of this week's podcast and in our in the YouTube release, so people can find them easily there. And something that we've been talking about the discord is getting into some merch so I know Erica was talking about we were all talking about trying to find artwork and stuff like that, because right now the artwork that we're using is just some shit I threw together in
Canva. And about five minutes so but
logo logo coming your way soon. The
new logo was I heart New York, the new logo that they did the redesign of it now, after this, it's horrible.
Well, thank you, Erica. Yeah, that were. So we want to have merch. And we want to grow. So the ways that if you love the show, the way so you can help us is Tell your friends. If you're on if you're listening to us on Apple podcasts or other podcasts that you can leave reviews, please leave us a five star. Because once the farts find us, we are going to have a lot of negative reviews and a lot of trolling, stuff like that. So the more reviews we get, the higher we're going to get in the
search rankings. And our voices will get out there even more. So I am so appreciative of all the kind words I've had people reach out to me and say they love the show. And it's it's been helpful for them. And I love hearing that. Anyone that wants to reach out to us directly our email is transcending that humanity, that podcast@gmail.com I know it's long, but at least it's pretty easy. Or you can send any of us
a DM on LinkedIn. Our our current just podcast site also has like lists of all the hosts so you can learn about us as well. So I want to thank you too, for joining us. This has been lovely. It's been wonderful having some new voices here. And I'm looking forward to seeing both of you and for for future episodes. So
yeah, it's nice to get to talk to all of you and seeing your faces actually on camera and hear you since I know both of you for a little while now. So I really enjoyed it. Thanks for having me.
What I'm saying like, Oh, you're a real person. Oh, yeah.
I'm a real person this fight ya know what you think? But it's has been really nice.
It's weird to actually talk to people like in quote unquote in person. Switch so used to just text and chat anymore so, okay, thank you both so much for joining. Everyone listening. Thank you so much for listening. Tell your friends. We love hearing from you