How To Protect Tans People Right Now

While the United States has never been a safe haven for trans people, many people are left wondering how they can help transgender people after the election. Here today to tell us how we can *actually* protect trans people is Charlie Alexander, one half of the life-saving duo at TNET.

In episode #85 of the Unruly Podcast you’ll learn how to protect trans people right now and how to support trans rights in general. At the end of the episode we answer FAQ’s from parents of trans youth like, Does my trans kid need to go to therapy? and share the facts about puberty blockers.

This episode gives step-by-step instructions on:

  • How to be a safe person for trans kids to come out to (what to say & do)
  • What to do if you mess up someone’s “coming out” moment
  • What not to say to trans people
  • What to do if you misgender someone
  • How to protect trans kids in schools as a teacher or parent

 At any point in time, you could hold the life of a young trans person in your hands. What you do and what you say can be a deciding factor for potentially how the rest of their life might go. – Charlie Alexander

Shownotes:

Additional Resources:

Language Guide:

  • Transgender / trans: Transgender is an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity, gender expression or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex and gender to which they were assigned at birth.
  • Cisgender / cis: Cisgender describes someone whose internal sense of gender corresponds with the sex and gender the person was assigned at birth.
  • Deadname: To deadname someone is to call a queer person by their name given to them at birth when they have changed their name.
  • Puberty blockers: Puberty blockers can be used to delay the changes of puberty in transgender and gender-diverse youth who have started puberty.
  • HRT: Hormone replacement therapy is a treatment in which people take hormones such as estrogen or testosterone, or hormone blockers, that help achieve physical characteristics that are more masculine or feminine.

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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Calen: My surprise question for you is, at what age or moment in life did you know that you were trans? If there was one?

Charlie: Even when I was a little kid, I always was considered a “tomboy” which didn’t really necessarily have to do with my own feelings about my own gender, but, people often put me in some box and. Then I also just never really felt like a girl and I never really felt like a boy.

So I don’t know. I feel like even when I was a little kid, I definitely felt and knew that I was trans, but I just knew I wasn’t a boy and I didn’t know there was any other option to be non-binary.

Calen: This question I’m thinking is coming off of what you just said, have you heard feedback from trans kids about knowing that they’re trans?

Because one thing that people are so confused about that they have so many questions about is they think there’s this age limit that when you’re under it, you can’t know, [00:01:00]

Charlie: right? , I think that is. Can I cuss? Yeah, you can say whatever you want. Okay. Sorry. I think that is bullshit, frankly. Some people know from a very young age, like some of their earliest memories are them knowing for a fact that they are not the gender that they were assigned at birth. And also, , people don’t always know that at such a young age, they may not figure that out for themself until they’re 15 or 25 or 30, or 50 or 80.

So I don’t think there’s any magical age in which this is something that you can just know. And a lot of people. Can feel it from a young age, but don’t really know what it is. And some people have really great parents who are very supportive of them and hear them and are [00:02:00] willing to change how they, interact with their child.

And that if their kid comes up to them and says like, Hey, I am actually this gender, A really supportive parent would be like, cool. What are we doing about that? Like, do you wanna change your clothes? Do you want this? , What do you wanna do?

No matter when that understanding comes about, we should always believe people when they tell us who they are and. It’s not invalidated just because you are a young person figuring things out. And add onto that some people think that, , when you’re a young person and you come out, they’re like, oh, well it’s not gonna last.

How could you know things like that. And the thing is, a young person may not fully understand the whole breadth of what it is to be trans in the world , but that does not mean that they do not know who they are and that they don’t have words to put to that, you [00:03:00] know?

It can also be flexible. It can change over time. It doesn’t have to be permanent. . 

Calen: I guess something that I’ve been thinking about lately a lot, which coincides with this, is I think that you were the first person to introduce me to the idea that everyone is queer.

On episode number 58 of this podcast, I had Robbie Lockey on who’s Non-Binary, and they presented this idea that stuck with me of , gender, , sexuality, all things queerness. More like a galaxy rather than a spectrum. So I’ve imagined it as queerness is just, the empty space.

And then there’s all these little stars. That’s in it. That might be gay, lesbian, by cis, whatever. After imagining that and learning so many things about nature, I just feel like the world and humans and nature and other animals are just in inherently queer and straightness and sis ness are just some [00:04:00] point within that.

And so it makes sense to me as kids that we already just know who we are. ’cause we’re already in it and, it shouldn’t be a big deal. It should just be like, mm-hmm. Yeah, there’s all these options. We’re humans. We have so many different, , sides of us, of course we could swing this way or that way.

. I’m wondering if you agree with any of that. How you feel about the idea that everyone is queer and what your thoughts are. 

Charlie: I always, I mean, even with Tenet, we always say that , it’s not a spectrum. It’s definitely way more than that because a spectrum is a straight line with different points on it, where it is more like a galaxy.

I think that that is a good, analogy for it. I do think that that is probably very accurate. I think that, definitely everyone is queer and everyone is trans, probably, in my opinion. , Or there’s a lot more gender fluidity or , if cis people sat and [00:05:00] actually thought about their gender,, I don’t know, maybe they wouldn’t feel 100%.

Cis or whatever. Our society is so built on binaries and I don’t speak any other language of any non-human creatures, but as far as I’m aware, there’s not binaries.

There’s potentially not even , understandings of these things. And so our human world, we decided everything has to mean something and has to have a word to it and it has to be like this or that. And I just think it can be a whole universe of things. And it’s just a lot more complicated than a spectrum.

Calen: Yeah. Which I think having this understanding bothers me now because , it’s so inherent and it’s so. Natural. The fact that it’s been so politicized and so much violence because of someone’s gender or sexuality is while I’m aware that it’s so real and it’s such a huge problem, seems so ridiculous to me.

’cause literally, [00:06:00] there’s not one person that is a hundred percent straight who’s never had a thought about someone of the same sex or gender or whatever. Mm-hmm. Um, it’s just, it’s just not possible. So it’s, yeah, I guess it’s been bothering me the more I lean into queerness and the more I see the world through this lens.

And I know that you speak to a lot of people about queerness, about transness and. From what I’ve seen, you leave a lot of space for people to ask questions with the language that they already have. Mm-hmm. So while we go through this episode, people will hear things like cisgender or trans or whatever.

I’ll have a little, , code in the show notes that if they need to reference that to figure out what something is that’s there. And then maybe at the end of the episode we can do a little q and a, um, with questions that you get on a regular basis. Sure. Okay, great. So today we wanna talk about [00:07:00]how to actually protect trans people because this seems to be a sort of fad that we’re seeing on stickers, on water bottles, on sweatshirts, but it’s like, what does that actually mean?

How do we actually do that? And of course, you’re the perfect person to tell us about this. Um, so yeah, where do we start with all of this and. What are you seeing as an educator and someone living in a sanctuary , state, , with movement patterns of trans people trying to relocate to better areas?

Charlie: I am in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and there have been a lot of people moving here specifically to Albuquerque from Texas, all over Texas, even from Austin, which is the one little blue sanctuary area in Texas and we are kind of a blue state in a sea of, of a few red states around us there’s a lot of anti-trans. [00:08:00] Bills being introduced specifically in Utah, Oklahoma, and Texas. So a lot of people are moving here because our laws and we don’t really have any anti-trans bills ever being introduced.

And even if they were, they most certainly would not pass. We do have a thriving population of trans and queer community here. Being safe, walking down the street, going into trans and queer spaces safely and not feeling, , like something bad is gonna happen to you due to your transness.

Albuquerque is a really great place to be for that. And it’s not just Albuquerque. There’s lots of different states people are moving to and different cities to get out of Very repressive and violent laws and policies taking effect right now.

Calen: Which I think is something that people imagine happens overseas, happens in other countries.

Mm-hmm. It [00:09:00] doesn’t happen here where people have to flee from their homes and try to move to a safer area. Mm-hmm. But it’s absolutely happening and it seems like it’s happening way more than people are aware of. 

Charlie: Yeah, there’s, there’s so many bills being, , introduced that are anti-trans. And even when a place , has a lot of bills being introduced but not passed, that still creates like a, really negative atmosphere for trans people.

That means there’s a lot of people who potentially support that bill, which means there are like unsafe people, living near you or supporting things like that. It definitely shouldn’t be taken lightly that it is really scary for trans people to exist in the United States right now in many places, especially.

Calen: Yes. And for the people who want to make it a little less scary, hopefully we wanna talk about how they can actually protect trans people. So let’s start with kids, since we were [00:10:00] talking about this already. And you have a really great guide that I have that is about talking to kids who are trans when they come out or queer.

And there’s some steps that you have in there, like getting down to eye level using words that they’re using. So maybe you could walk us through some of these things and add on anything else that you think is important. 

Charlie: Yeah. , Well, it is proven by studies that I. When a youth can come out and feel safe with even just one adult, that they have better mental health outcomes.

And so we do have those two guides of like how to talk to trans youth about these topics and then how to talk to parents of trans youth in a safe way or in a safer way. I always say , in our trainings that at any point in time, you could hold the life of a young trans person in your hands.

And what you do and what you say can be a really big deciding factor for potentially how the rest of their life might go. Or at [00:11:00] least how they feel about themselves. Even when I was younger, I remember.

The two or three people who just did like, not even, it doesn’t even have to be a nice thing. It just has to be an accepting thing or a compassionate thing. And I remember in my mind when I was young, what they said to me, and that did change, how I felt about myself over time because they made me feel cared for and accepted

and I held onto that even to this day. And I also have held onto the people who did not support me, but those positive experiences definitely impacted me quite deeply. And so we have to remember that young people are remembering these things. And they’re gonna make decisions based off of what you say, , if you were trustworthy, if you respected them and accepted them, if you use their correct name and their correct pronouns and kept them safe as, as well as you could, they’re gonna remember that.

And our main goal should always be to help trans [00:12:00] youth become trans adults. And that is something that, again, I always try to drill home for people that there are young people who don’t feel safe, who look at the state of our country, who look at these policies being introduced

they look at the atmosphere of the United States right now and how it feels being in school. And a lot of bullying is occurring, especially right now about bathrooms and just so many different things. And young person, , might feel that, They can’t continue to be alive anymore because they can’t make their own decisions.

They’re at the behest of parents and other people above them. They often feel like they can’t do the things that they need to do to feel successful and happy and to thrive. And so our main goal should always be to help them as best we can, no matter what, to get to adulthood.[00:13:00]

Calen: And if someone’s listening and they have a trans child and they feel like, oh, my kid came out to me and I really messed up the moment, what can they do or know going forward? 

Charlie: So that is definitely a thing that happens. We don’t always have the answers right away. And I would say to that person.

, It’s okay to not have done the right thing in the moment. The most important thing is that you learn from that and you do better next time, and that you admit that you made a mistake. And I think that is really hard for people to do because in our society, I feel like you, you’re supposed to just know everything.

It’s bad if you don’t know the answer or if you’re quote unquote ignorant about something . But we don’t really know where to get the answers or , we don’t know who to ask. Because if we do ask, then we have to admit we don’t know and we don’t wanna do that

it is okay [00:14:00] if a young person comes to you and comes out to you or. , Expresses, sensitive information that you don’t really know how to respond. It is always okay to say, Hey, I actually don’t know the answer to that, but , let’s talk tomorrow and I’m gonna go do some research and I’m gonna come back to you with an answer.

Or if you’d say the wrong thing, coming back to that young person and saying, listen, I did not realize how much I did not know I did some research. I apologize for reacting the way that I did.

So I think admitting when you’re wrong are so important for making repairs, especially when, in that moment you could potentially have caused harm.

And if this was like five years ago and you’re still thinking about it, all I can say is it sucks that you did that.

And it’s okay though because the next person that comes up to you. You now have a responsibility to do even better this time. 

Calen: Yes. So I’m gonna encourage [00:15:00] everyone to get your guide on how to talk to trans youth, and we’ll link it in the show notes. But for those people who haven’t had this situation yet, or maybe they did and they’re like, I wanna do better next time, are there a few bullet points that they can try to keep in mind?

Because I imagine for some people they don’t know a lot about this, they’ll get super nervous, they’ll forget what we talked about in this conversation. But if you could give them some bold steps, like 1, 2, 3, try to keep this in mind, what would that be? 

Charlie: first of all. Remember that that young person is autonomous and knows who they are, and we have absolutely no right to have an opinion on who they are.

So the first thing you do , if a young person comes out to you or if a person expresses something along these lines , I always say the number one thing is you say, okay, you don’t get to have an opinion. It’s literally has nothing to do with you. So just just [00:16:00] say, okay, that’s all that’s needed for that.

And , especially for young people, this is actually a parenting technique where you get on their eye level. Because if you’re standing up or you’re sitting higher than them and looking down on them, they feel the the power dynamic. So if you get down to their level and look them .

Eye to eye the, and have a conversation face-to-face, then they will feel a lot more supported

and always, no matter what, use their correct name and pronouns in the context that are safe for you to use them. And on that note, the only time you should ever misgender or dead name a young person or a trans person in general is when they have explicitly told you not to use their correct name and pronoun in a certain situation.

I. Such as if you talk to a young person in school, maybe they’re like, yeah, this is the name and pronouns I know that are true for me. But [00:17:00] if you called my parents and used that name and pronouns, I might get kicked out and not have a home.

Calen: Follow up question to that if a trans youth comes to you, maybe you’re a teacher, like you said, , maybe you’re a family friend, something like that is then a good question to ask.

When do you not want me to use your true name and pronouns?

Charlie: Yes. I do think that that is a, an appropriate question to ask if a young person has come out to you.

If you just know that that kid is trans and has just told you their name and pronouns, they’re, they’re not coming out. They’re already out and just existing as a trans youth, it is not appropriate to ask that because one, they’ve never expressed that it’s unsafe.

They’re just existing and to do so. May make them feel outed or may make them feel like, oh my gosh, you could tell I’m trans because you’re asking me this question. And we never wanna out young people. So the only time I would say it’s appropriate to do that, and it is very appropriate to do that,[00:18:00] is if a young person is coming out to you, as in they are saying, Hey, I’ve never told this to anyone before, but I think I might be trans.

Here’s the name I wanna use. Here’s the pronoun I wanna use. That is an example of coming out. And it may not be as explicit as that, but in that moment, that’s when you say, okay, you believe them, you use their name and pronoun that they have given you from that moment on.

And then you say, Hey. Is there any situation in which I should use a different name and pronouns for you? In that case, you’re not making any assumptions, a lot of the time, the only space that they’re not comfortable using their true name and pronouns is at home, depending on the safety that they have in their home life.

Calen: And moving on to teens or adults, is there a different way that you would want to handle when someone comes out to you? Because I think a lot of this applies there. Like, [00:19:00] okay, I believe you. All of these things, respecting name and pronouns going forward.

Is there anything else that you would add or a mistake that you’ve seen people make when people come out to them? 

Charlie: All of these things definitely apply to all age groups. With adults, people tend to feel more comfortable saying their opinion right away for some reason.

Like the minute I say my pronouns are they them, there are people who just have to say their opinion on that. And I don’t know why it’s not even like, cool, nice to meet you. It’s like, oh well I don’t really understand, I would say for adults specifically, seriously, stop saying your opinion.

It’s actually really annoying and unnecessary and it’s just embarrassing for you to say, so don’t do that.

Calen: So let’s say that I am sort of on the outside looking in at a trans kid, maybe a [00:20:00]teacher, and then they go home and they don’t feel comfortable, disclosing this information to their family. What could a person in that situation do to actually try to protect trans kids outside of

the steps when someone comes out to them. 

Charlie: Number one, maintaining privacy. , If you’re at a school, sometimes there’s legal documents that have your legal name on it that is separate from your true name that you’ve chosen for yourself.

And so kind of maintaining privacy in that regard. And if the kid does not want people to know their old name that you make sure you’re always maintaining that privacy. Especially in schools, schools can be potentially the only safe space a young person has because they’re either at school or they’re at home.

There’s not really other places or those third spaces, which are really important, but a lot of youth don’t have. And so we can make. Schools [00:21:00] be a third place in a way. we can do that by, a teacher opening up their classroom at lunch. So kids, trans or not, who feel alienated have a place to go

that can be a really important thing for trans youth who are experiencing bullying, who are experiencing exclusion. Teachers don’t have to say, Hey, this is for trans kids they could just be like, Hey, anybody who needs to eat lunch in here, you can. I think that’s a really big one, supporting GSAs, youth have to have the idea to have the GSA, but they always need a teacher to sponsor it.

A GSA stands for Gender Sexuality Alliance. And it’s a club you can have at schools. Any school that allows clubs has to allow GSAs to form. Oftentimes this is a, lunch meeting, once a week or once a month where kids can go and it’s a safer space to gather.

Calen: Was there any other tips you wanted to include for , people [00:22:00] outside looking in? 

Charlie: One of the most important things I always tell people is that sometimes.

You need to break the rules and you should break the rules. There’s a lot of laws being passed, a lot of policies in schools and or first certifications, things like that, licensure. And I understand that those things are very important and we’re in capitalism and you need to have your job

but is that more important than potentially keeping a young person alive? In my opinion, no. So I think that if you can do anything you can to bend the rules or break the rules. To keep a young person safe. If that is what’s necessary . because there’s policies in schools that say that if a young person comes out as trans, you are required to inform the parents. That is something that, , passed here in Albuquerque [00:23:00] a few years ago.

And I am saying this right now, that you need to break that rule and you need to not be calling parents and outing children and young people to their parents.

Calen: We are literally on the Unruly podcast, so be unruly and break the rules. Hell yeah. So what if someone is more on the inside looking out like they’re a parent and their kid came out to them, but then they go to school and they don’t feel safe, or they live in a community where they don’t feel safe.

What can you do to protect your kid then? 

Charlie: I would say, number one, make sure your home environment is as accepting and loving as. Humanly possible. Parents can do a better job of doing research or reaching out to super great, , businesses like T Net who can offer space to ask the hard questions and get answers to them.

And unfortunately, sometimes you cannot just change [00:24:00] schools. I mean, ideally, I. The, the answer is to change schools, go to a charter school or somewhere that is more accepting or homeschool or whatever. Some people may say that’s the answer. But, , for lower income families, single parents, things like that where , they don’t have all the time in the world to drive their kid across town to the charter school that’s safer.

Or they can’t just pick up and move to a different district. , Saying like, oh, we’ll just change schools is a bit classist of a take in my opinion. And instead of just changing schools, being an advocate at that school.

So as a parent going into that school, talking to the principal, advocating for your kid and advocating for other kids. By causing a ruckus. Every time my kid comes home and says they’ve been misgendered. I was going into the school every time and I was talking to the principal, I was talking to the front desk people.

I did cause a ruckus. , They really hated me for, [00:25:00] for doing that. But I knew that I have the power to advocate for my kid. And everyone needs to do that. 

Calen: Yes. So hopefully any parents that are listening that they’re like, all right, I definitely need more information. I don’t know how to do this. I wanna learn more. We are gonna link to Tina in the show notes, of course, so they can browse through your resources, , they can see what you have to offer.

And you are a great person, a great resource for these parents because you meet them where they’re at, and you let them use the language that they have, even if it’s inappropriate or harmful. It’s what they got. You know? We have to be able to convey our thoughts somehow and answer those questions, which is amazing.

Could you tell us a few of the most common questions you hear? Maybe it’s from parents or maybe other people about, trans youth. 

Charlie: I wanna comment a little bit on us meeting people where they’re at really quick. [00:26:00]Just that I know that I definitely am saying a lot of things like it needs to be like this, blah, blah, blah.

But I think it’s important to know that also we should have compassion for each other in ourselves where we don’t always know the right thing to do. And there are resources and there are people who are willing to again, meet you where you’re at and hear you out, and not just decide that you’re a bad person because you don’t know the language and things like that.

I have heard a lot of things of really well-meaning parents who do love their kids so much and they’re going about it the wrong way. I can. Take what they’re saying and be like, okay, I see that this is actually an expression of concern.

This is an expression of worry that your kid is unsafe. And it’s, you’re saying a lot of words to me that are actually really not cool, but I can see that it comes from a caring, loving place. And, we have to have patience with each other and we have to also be [00:27:00] willing to be educated also to not say those offensive things.

Now , the most common questions, number one is, does my kid need to go to therapy? Now, that is a huge thing, is if your kid comes out they’re trans and you’re, you don’t know what to do. A lot of people are like, oh my gosh, I need to get them in therapy stat. Something’s going on.

That is not necessarily the case. I don’t know. Your kid may need therapy for other reasons. Oftentimes they need therapy because they’re trans and being bullied at school and then are depressed about it and are having a lot of anxiety about it. Does, is that because they’re trans or is that because they’re being bullied and in a un, in an unsafe environment?

I would obviously say it’s not because of the transness itself your kid doesn’t need to go to therapy just because they’re trans. , That’s is what I’m saying. They may need to go to therapy because our [00:28:00] society does not treat trans people well and causes them to, experience difficulties in life.

another question is often about pronouns They them pronouns or changing pronouns or things like that. a lot of parents are like, well, what if it’s too hard? Like I, I don’t know, I don’t get the whole pronoun thing . My kid now uses, they, them pronouns.

, I don’t even know what that is. That’s a plural, whatever. Um, I often tell those people, first of all, they, them came about as a singular first person, personal pronoun first. And, even if it doesn’t historically have that context, it’s still if someone tells you a word to use for them.

You use the word period. That is what you do. , And if you can’t get it right, you go home and practice on your own time in an environment where that person who you are [00:29:00] continuously misgendering is not in the room.

Another one would be, okay, my kid came out. Are they gonna now get surgery and be on hormones? And , what does that mean? Can they have babies one day? Uh, the babies thing is a serious, serious question. I have heard from so many parents. And one, if your child does not make it into adulthood, how can they choose to , have a child or not we need to get them to adulthood and if that means they’re going on puberty blockers, get the kid on puberty blockers.

That’s the answer. , If they want to go on HRT, get them on HRT if they want to have surgery, they cannot have surgery before they’re 18, so make plans for them to have a consultation and be able to get surgery when they turn 18, or set them up for success for when they can make those decisions.

And that [00:30:00] is how you’re gonna keep your child alive. As scary as it is to be like, okay, my 16-year-old wants to go on hormones and inject testosterone into their body or estrogen into their body.

That is so scary. I know I have kids. It is scary to think about making decisions like that. And, , puberty blockers is a big one. People ask about where there’s a lot of being said in the media that are not true, where it’s like puberty blockers like are harmful.

, We don’t have puberty blockers for trans youth. We actually already have them for people who experience precocious puberty, which is when you, start having signs of puberty early on. So they already existed. And so we never had a problem when cis kids were going on puberty blockers. We only have a problem when trans kids are going on them. When they’re very safe, they are entirely reversible because the entire point of puberty blockers is [00:31:00] to just delay puberty for a certain amount of time.

There is a time limit. It just gives young people a certain amount of time with the help of their parents and a doctor to make a big decision of whether to go on HRT or to go through their natal puberty. So those are questions I get a lot. Especially from parents concerned that suddenly their kid is gonna just come home surgically altered and have hormones coursing through their veins and it’s like, first of all, chill.

And second of all, yeah, they may want that. Let’s make sure they get the things that they need in an appropriate and timely manner that they need them. Yes. 

Calen: And thank you for sharing those because this is information that we definitely need to know. Is there anything else that you’d like to share on how to actually protect trans people? 

Charlie: Another thing I think about a lot is the fact that we need to be talking about this [00:32:00]more. , People who are supportive, especially cis people need to be doing their research and need to be talking about it. Because when we don’t talk enough about it, and the only people we hear talking about it are the news stations or people talking about things that are not based in reality

how are we expecting people to believe anything otherwise, I also don’t fault people for believing all of that. , It is hard to know what to do. And so cis people, we need to be we. Y’all need to be.

So to all the cis people listening, you need to be doing your research and you need to be talking about it. And you need to be advocating for trans people all the time. Every day. If you hear someone saying a transphobic thing, you need to step in and stop that from happening and coming in with as much knowledge as you [00:33:00] have , literally stopping someone from saying something transphobic or standing up to someone saying something transphobic. Is a matter of protecting at least one trans person, if not trans people in general, because now that person has been shut down and they may not say that thing again, or they may think differently. And once you hear something eight times or whatever, it starts to like burrow into your brain and you’re like, Hmm, okay, let me think about that a little bit more.

This is also true if you’re in a situation where there’s a person who’s . So passionately, vehemently against quote unquote transness. If they are spouting all of this stuff I see those people and I’m like, there’s an opportunity here because this person has a lot of passion that could potentially be redirected.

I am more worried about the people who don’t care and have no opinion at all. , I used to co-facilitate a parents of trans youth support group.

And almost every time they came [00:34:00] in angry or irate and they would say things that were really hurtful or offensive and sometimes they’d be outright mean

and I would sit there and , while someone else might be like, oh my God, trans phobe, I don’t ever think anyone is any one thing. And so I see that parent, I’m like, listen, they came to the support group. They clearly love their child.

It is really covered up by a lot of hatefulness or meanness . But that is a person that I could tell wants to do better. And when I was patient with them and I heard them out. And patiently redirected them to the correct language and also pointed out to them that I notice their passion.

99% of the time that parent would keep coming to the support group and would later be like, you know what? You’re right. , I don’t need to be mad about that. I love my kid. This is the right way to do this. And so when you meet people where they’re at and really talk to them and just be talking [00:35:00] about it in general, then that is a huge way to indirectly protect trans people.

The best way to protect trans people is to, sometimes physically put yourself. , In the middle of an altercation or, offering resources, breaking the rules, things like that. And supporting tea is a great way to and support trans tea.

Calen: Absolute, absolutely. So that you continue to do this work, you can continue to educate people. So yes, throw your money attnet and then obviously if you’re listening, , share this resource, especially with other cis people so that we can get the word out and be prepared in these situations. When you were saying that about parents coming in really angry and then eventually leaving with a sort of change perspective, my brain was like, oh, so there’s some hope in the world.

’cause I think it can start to feel so hopeless for good reason., But this is a great reminder that [00:36:00] people can actually change. And we’ve seen that in other movements., For people listening, this is just a little spark that like, hey, this can happen, but we have to organize and we have to put in effort to make it happen.

 So before we close out this discussion, we have to talk about the Trans Love Project, which is a documentary that you and Stacy made together, , under Tea. And , we wanna support that because I watched it and it was wonderful and tender and lovely and I’m so proud and so impressed.

I feel like it really just normalized what trans life can be like. People think it’s all these scary things and all of this like. Wild sex stuff and, and body changes and I don’t know all of these things that sometimes are true, but in this, it was very like, this is our life every day and this is how we work together and, and this is what we’re [00:37:00] interested in.

So yeah. Tell us a little bit about the Trans Love Project, and I wanna know what your intentions were to create it in the first place. 

Charlie: Yeah. So the Trans Love Project came about because Stacey and I had . Separately, previously thought of a concept like this, and when we came together and talked about it, we decided to make a documentary.

And we wanted to find trans people in a relationship and just show what their life is like, how they interact with each other, , things they do together, what they talk about, what they like about each other. And the intention behind that was number one, normalize trans people loving each other and being alive and having a successful partnership and relationship.

I immediately thought of my friends, Julie, Eli, and River. So [00:38:00] we basically filmed them just doing stuff, like they make dinner together. They , make tea, they eat soup, they go grocery shopping, they sit at the cozy, it’s, yeah,, and we film them playing video games together or they’re regular things that they do, which aren’t so exciting.

It’s just life and that was important to us is, you can just have a regular life or you’re just doing regular things and you can be okay and feel happy and thrive and feel a lot of love and. That was really important for Stacey and I to show that because I think a lot of youth right now and in the past are thinking , if I come out or now that I’m out, , I may never find love, , in this very transphobic world,

and so this documentary is for all of the youth that maybe don’t see themselves growing up and having [00:39:00] a really beautiful life and

that they will be loved one day by someone who truly loves them and loves their transness. It’s definitely for the youth. We made this for, for young trans people 

Calen: and it’s super beautiful. We will link it in the show notes.

It is free to watch.

You are doing a lot of stuff and if people want to find this stuff, they wanna connect with you, support you ask their questions. Where can they do 

Charlie: that at? Our main website is trans education.net. Going onto our website, you could see our trainings and our contact information. We are always open to do the set of trainings that we have, and we can always make trainings for different businesses.

We do them virtually and in person. And we are on YouTube, Instagram. , All the social medias.

Calen: ., Is there anything else that you wanna add

Charlie: um,

I don’t think so. Yeah. Just be nice to trans people [00:40:00] and stop being fucking assholes.

Okay. I’m 

Calen: definitely gonna put that in there.

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