November 28, 2022 • 41 mins
Hilaria and Michelle are joined by social activist, entrepreneur and writer Jodie Patterson. Jodie shares her experience of raising a trans child and details her emotions during their initial discussion. Plus, she explains her method for sourcing energy called “Gather The Women”.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Which is anonymous with the Laria Baldwin and Michelle Campbell
Mason and I Heart Radio podcast Hey, which is welcome Back.
I'm me Lariya and I'm Michelle. Today. We are very
pleased to have such an impressive guest. She is the
chair of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation Board. She is
(00:22):
a globally renowned activist speaker. She's a fantastic writer. She
focuses on gender politics and identity. She has really changed
a lot of people's lives with being such an accessible
and concise speaker in these realms. And she's also had
a huge career in the beauty space. Co owns show's
pub at the Public Theater. Today, we have none other
(00:45):
than Joey Patterson. So we're so I'm so excited for
the two of you guys to meet, you know, and
I've had the pleasure of spending time with you Jody before.
I mean, you're a mom, you're an author, you're an activist,
you're an entrepreneur. You do so many things. You were
so many different hats, and you do it so beautifully
and inspiring. The way I described you was just your force.
(01:07):
You had this amazing energy of like I want to
do what you are doing and sign on to all
of the amazing things that you're doing. How where do
you source all of your energy from? That's a good question,
because you know, depending on the day, I'm feeling more
or less depleted. But I do have a method for energy,
(01:27):
and I think my primary things gathered the women. I
do that. I've been doing that for years, for decades,
gather the women. Sometimes it looks like I have this
mural of women on my wall, and it's about fifty
pictures tacked up on my wall of fifty different women.
Some of them I know well. Some of them I
(01:49):
don't know, like Billie Holiday or Nina Simone. And some
of them I know very well, like um There Vivier
or Bethann Hardison h And these are women that I
really admire for something, and so every day I spend
time with these women. I look at their pictures, I
see how they stand, I see their posture, they look
(02:12):
in their eyes, and then I imitate them. Literally, I
don't walk out into the world is like just Jodie.
I always try to imitate and embody and practice in
the spirit of these women that I admire. So that's
a lot of my energy. A lot of my energy
is not a singular woman energy, it's like collective women energy.
(02:34):
And I do that every day. I've been doing that
for decades, like spending time with the women on my wall,
and then I also gather the women in real life,
like I have a team of aunties that um are
some of them biologically related and some of them are not.
And they have agency over my in my life, in
my children's lives. They actually call some of the shots.
(02:55):
They support me, they help me to answer questions and
problem solve and I've never been afraid to get that
female energy UM on a daily basis. Is that something
you grew up with? I think? So, I mean, we're
we have a matriarchal family in many ways, some strong men,
but definitely the women were buying property, buying houses, big careers, UM,
(03:22):
lots of children, heads of churches, heads of communities. So
I grew up with a lot of strong women. And
I like women. I really like being around there, and
we're problem solvers and so yeah, I think I must
have learned that from my mom to gather female energy.
And the interesting thing is I found that that female
(03:43):
energy comes in lots of different forms. These days. It's
not one way that sounds um, you know, like Oprah's
kitchen cabinet that she always talks about, Right, it's like
your your most trusted advisors and in essence, your family, right,
your family, your family of support. And that said, we
both know so much about you, and you know, I'm
such a fan of your work with the Human Rights
(04:05):
Campaign and you're writing, Um, could you tell us a
little bit about your story how you became a writer
and you know if so much of your work is
based around your family and how that inspired you in
that direction. Thank you for asking. My kids swear I'm
an influencer, and I'm like, no, I'm a writer. But
(04:26):
that's a cool that's a cool thing, because yeah, that
that is that that makes that I think that you're cool.
They do think that it's a cool thing to be
an influencer, and I am. I had an aversion to
the to the title and to how it was playing
out for so long. But when I think about it,
(04:46):
and when I think about you know, what I do
is partially because it motivates, because I love it, partially
because it services my family and allows me to provide
for them, and partially because it moves the dial in
terms of society influencer or fits into that. You know,
it's like so, but you know what I really um
honor in myself is the writing. And I've always loved
(05:09):
to write. I've always loved to read. I'm majored in
literature at Spellman College, and my first job outside of
when I graduated college was working in a publishing company UM,
and I was editing books like right out of college UM.
And then I realized that was not enough money to
(05:31):
survive in New York and I didn't have a trust fund,
and so I did a couple of other things in between.
I worked in music, and I worked in fashion, I
worked in beauty UM. But I circled back decades later
to writing because it was there was a compelling story
that I was playing out in my own head, like
how this woman got to the place that she is
(05:52):
now where the reality now is almost the upside down
reality of where I was thirty years ago, And I
was like, how did I get here where things are
totally different from the way I was taught and totally
different from the way I lived. And so I went
back in memory and wrote a book about gender UM
(06:16):
and identity through the lens of my family, my Black
American family. And so I wrote that book called I
wrote a book called The Bold World, and it's about
my my journey as a person UM through gender and
then raising a trans kid, and then re raising myself
as a as a liberated woman. UM. And then I
wrote a children's book. And those two things were happening
(06:39):
at the same time. I was trying to find organizations
and people also investigating gender and supporting diversity. And so
the Human Rights Campaign is our largest LGBT organization in
the nation, and I just started knocking on their door, like,
tell me more about what you know. You've got three
million supporters, What are the needs, what are the concerns.
(07:03):
I joined the board, I asked to be chair of
the board, became chair of the board. UM, it's just
a it's been an investigation of a world that I
knew very little of. UM and it's an important part
of this human experience. The LGBT community talked talked to
us a little bit about your family. You have a
(07:24):
bunch of kids, almost as many as I do. But
I feel like last time we talked to you had
more kids than I. UM, so you talked to us
about your family. I am a mom of five. I'm
a native New York Harris. I raised my kids between
Manhattan and Brooklyn. UM. But I have and I have
two dogs. I don't know if you can hear them
in the background. I'm like a real, like mama type
(07:44):
of person. And you know, I raised my children I
thought to be very open minded and very verbal and
very opinionated. And I found myself struggling with this one
kid who wasn't doing anything, wasn't getting dressed, wasn't playing nicely,
(08:05):
didn't want hair brush, didn't want to be around mama.
Just didn't want much of the things that I thought
that child should want. A need um. And as year one,
two and three came around, that child became so disruptive.
I wouldn't get dressed, was always fighting, was always crying, nightmares,
(08:25):
reoccurring nightmares, biting nails until bloody, just a real troubled kid.
And I couldn't figure it out. I asked one day,
what's wrong, and my child said, well, everyone thinks I'm
a girl, and I'm not. I'm I'm a boy. And
that was the start of this journey that I've been
talking about. Where I'm trying to understand gender from a
(08:48):
different perspective. And that one kid then made me three
evaluate how I was raising all the kids. So I
have a very diverse family. I've been married twice, one
child from one marriage to a swissman, three children from
marriage to an African man, one adopted kid. It's just
a big, robust families. Some of us are atheists, some
(09:12):
of us have strong faith. We speak multiple languages Swiss, German, English,
tweet from Ghana, Latin. So what one of the things
(09:34):
that I and I've had the privilege of speaking with
you before, and I learned a lot. You taught me
a lot last time that we spoke. So one thing
that you you taught me was that genders in the brain.
Um and so we you talked just a little bit
about about that because so a lot of people, you know,
even people who are kind of more liberal to be like,
(09:56):
but I don't get it because this is anatomy. Therefore
that's gender and um and and you spoke about it
so beautifully last time. Thank you. Um And And the
funny thing is, I'm not a scientist, I'm not historian,
I'm not a doctor. Um and I get asked to
(10:16):
speak on gender all the time, and I speak from
a perspective of a mom, So I just put that
out there, like, this is not something that I understand scientifically,
but I've decided that I don't need to, so you know.
And I also say, like there are lots of things
that I use in this world and interact within this
(10:39):
world and believe in that. I don't understand the science
behind aspirin, Like I don't know how it works, but
it works my cell phone. Don't have a clue how
I can speak into it and then someone else get
But I believe in these things because they are tried
and true. So with gender, some of it is just
trust that my son is actually not abnormal, right, So
(11:00):
that's that I don't know the science fully. But then
there's this thing. I mean, I have studied some of it,
and gender is much more complex than we've ever thought
growing up. And it's not just if you have a
woman of vagina you are a girl. It's not just
if you have testicle as you are a boy. The
physical body does not determine how the brain does not
(11:23):
necessarily determine how the brain identifies. So every person identifies
at around three, the brain places you in the world.
Who are you in this world? And my kid's brain
said boy. And the body looks looked at the time
like a female body. Um, and that's not as abnormal
(11:45):
as we think. I mean, a lot of times there's
ambiguity between the body and the brain, and a lot
of times there's even ambiguity in the body. But somebodies
have multiple ambiguous characteristics. So what I do know is
that there's more reason to believe that my son is
(12:10):
telling me who he is out of a need for
me to support him, out of a need for me
to push the world out of his way so he
can just exist more so than he's playing games because
it's too hard. It's too it's too hard. So I
just know that the brain is an active thing in gender,
(12:33):
an active participate in gender, and we've yet to discover
all of the ways of the brain works. So I
just trust when someone says, please see me as I
see myself. It's the safer route, because when we insist
that someone is not who they see themselves are as,
it invites suicide and your ted talk in which is
(12:54):
very popular. Um. I really think that the the theme
that has derived most from it really is about gender
being a construct. And you know, you you sent very
clearly Penelope as a boy with a vagina, and it
was such a beautiful way to state it, like you
just had your you know, let's say it, put it
out there. And I think that you had such a
(13:15):
great analogy of colors not having constructs. But there's something
we believe and like all these boxes and limitations that
we used to a limit or be expand our perspectives.
I'm sure that you have a much more broader, a
much broader view since that period. But if there's anything
you could say that you think is like the most
important or helpful nugget to kind of opening up that
(13:39):
perspective to others, what what would that be to you?
So much of what i've the language that I used
a decade ago or even five years ago, is not
the language I use now. So I very loosely and
liberally spoke of my kid's body in public. I just
don't do that anymore, um, And I would not want
(14:01):
them to discuss my body on a stage. At the time,
I was so new, and I was trying to speak
to people who are also new to this, and I
was very like crudely talking about the body being one
thing and the brain and the identity being something different.
And I wanted to jar people into to the to
(14:26):
the moment that I was in. I wanted to bring
them along quickly, and so I use really crude language.
But I think, um, the crux of it is that
this idea of gender that we've that I grew up with,
is not wide enough, like gender being one of two choices.
It's just not wide enough. There's nothing in nature that's
(14:49):
one of two things, like the way we describe the
trees and the ocean and birds, and they're multiple. There's
like a denseness to the language. But then humans are
you either boy or a girl? I just this is
such a random story, but I had a plumber in
my house the other day and the plumber started talking
about podcasts or things that he was listening to, and
(15:11):
then he started talking about trans issues, and he said,
you know, I just I'm really scared. This is a
random plumber now, because I'm really scared and disgusted by
doctors who are mutilating children's bodies. And I should have
just kept my mouth shut, but I didn't. And I said,
that's just not a thing. It's just not a thing.
(15:32):
And there are doctors that are dealing with adults and
young adults to alter their bodies, and it's happening. It's
more prevalent with Cish gender people, periodis gender people have
more reaffirming surgeries. I'm more concerned with what the Kardashians
(15:52):
are setting as an example, like five women, more so
than the millions of trans people like I think that
if we look at the despair or the unfair situation
trans people are doing, um are having surgeries on their bodies,
and cys gender people are having surgeries on their bodies.
Sis people like you and I are doing more reaffirming surgeries.
(16:14):
We're making our breasts fit our presentation. We're making our
hips and our butt look the way we want to
present ourselves as feminine beings. Our jawlines, our lips, our
noses are I mean, these are all things. These are
gender reaffirming changes so that we can present the way
we feel our femininity or masculinity should look. And no
(16:37):
one's bothered by that. That is such a mind blowing point.
Every single time I talk to you, I have this
like negat I'm like, oh my god, you're so right.
But there's something really interesting about watching these transformations through
social media that people like don't really talk about. And
then you scroll down and it's like, oh, it's a
glow up. What you got a facial like, let's talk
(16:57):
about it. And we're sort of policing some folks and
saying you're not allowed to do anything right, and then
the other folks are doing everything. And it's like you said,
a glow up or come up or a beautification or
a sign of stat social status to be able to
(17:18):
spend money on enhancing the way you feel inside outside, right,
and so, and this is the same thing with puberty blockers,
Like precocious puberty has been a thing for generations. Young
girls who get their puberty early, they've been put on
puberty blockers and no one, no one had a problem
with it. And now trans children are using it, trans
(17:41):
young people are using it, and it's seemed it's deemed
as inappropriate and dangerous. So it's just there's this imbalance
of the way the world believes everyone assists and we
think of it, think of the world through our own eyes,
assist gender and it's just not a thing. Well, and
the like conflict between being being a woman who identifies
as such and is doing all those things and being
(18:04):
a feminist, and how there's so much pushed back to
that you can't be both right, the duality can't exist.
And then then that's one more limitation that we're dealing with.
Yet you know, we've got all these pop culture examples
that that allow for that. So UM, going going towards
pop culture with this, I did want to ask you
your take on how the trans community is perceived in
(18:26):
pop culture. Obviously, you we've all seen and heard of
the show post Ballroom Culture. How we really like that
expanded the conversation into ballroom and you know, gender constructs
um to a much wider audience and ended up, you know,
giving MJ. Rodriguez the first Emmy to a trans person
in history, which was phenomenal. Um, how do you feel
(18:48):
about how gender constructs have been portrayed in pop culture
or if there was any like resoundingly great example of
such shitty for a long time? Um, in inaccurate, not
fully rounded characters, people stories, Um, And I think that
is changing. I mean I've when I grew up, I
(19:11):
knew I saw gender nonconforming people in documentaries that were
really sad and like Paris is burning. Um, it was
a story that kept going over and over again, like
if you're gender nonconforming, the story told me that that
person would not make it through life, that person would die.
(19:32):
It also conflict. The media also conflated drug addiction and
poverty with gender nonconforming identities, and that again is it's
it's a made up thing. It's not. They don't go
hand in hand necessarily, um, And so I think that
was portrayed in the media. Um. Psychopaths were gender nonconforming
(19:54):
addicts with gender not conforming And so it is only
of recent that we're seeing triumphant stories, funny stories, witty stories,
loving stories, family stories of folks who are gender not conforming.
And you know, I need more of them because in
my family we're pretty I just want to see my
(20:16):
family with folks who had trans that are cysts, that
are straight, that are queer in one family, I would
love to see that. And the thing the interesting thing
is that we don't even agree in my own house
on this topic. Like some of us are trans, and
some of us don't understand being trans. Some of us
(20:38):
aren't scientifically convinced yet that it's a thing. How do
you parent through that? That's an interesting table conversation for Thanksgiving. Well,
you know, we do it all the time, and I've
taken it even off of the big moments of Thanksgiving.
But I have this, so how do you parent through it?
I have this thing called the lab and we just
lab out big scary idea. So whoever has the microphone
(21:01):
gets to say whatever they want for however long it
could be like thirty minutes your microphone, and then the
next person gets to speak their truth. The rules are
you just can't like, it's not a it's not a debate,
so you're not trying to prove your point. You're just
stating your issues and stating your your perspective with no
goal of agreeing. And so we've done this, like one
(21:23):
kid will say, this was years ago. You would say, um,
I love my brother. I think he can do anything
in this world that he wants to, but I don't.
But scientifically you're a girl now, he said, I'll always
use the right pronouns because that's what you want, but
scientifically speaking, you are female. And then my other kid
(21:46):
would step in and say, look, it's not about science,
like I've already proven it just being here. I'm trans
it exists in the story, this is how God has
made me. And then the scientists would say, I don't
even believe in God either, So like all of this
is not making set. And they've been debate, not debating.
They've been arguing this point on opposite ends of the
(22:07):
conversation for years. They still don't. Really they might have
inched a little bit closer, but they're basically, you know,
my house looks like America. Once you can put it
on the table, once you can decide that it's okay
to be a conservative and progressive, or a person of
(22:28):
faith and an atheist at the same table or on
the same basketball court, it's all good. So they've not
try to agree. They've just stated who they are, what
they believe in, and then they've gone on to the
better things like playing basketball and eating dinner. I love that,
you know, recently, as i'm you know, as we all
have our documents in our life that we're constantly on,
they want you to fill your life out into like
(22:50):
these little boxes. And I'm just like, I don't want to,
Like I don't even know anymore, because it all seems
like like sports teams, you know. I mean, you're either
all the way over here, you're all the way over there,
and then you can't be friends with the person over
there or even agree with them on anomnything, and you
have to kind of isolate them ostracize them. And it's
just you know, seeing what hearing your your story and
(23:13):
and the mix that you have in your home. I mean,
that's that's total goals, just being like, hey, we're we're
all different, and we can all co exist and come
together and love each other and be together, and then
we can have a moment where we disagree and then
we come together again. I think that's a great a
great point to in terms of like, you know, we
live in a very adversarial society these days, right. I
think that's a really cool principle to put a moratorium
(23:36):
on debate. Like, while we all want to be able
to debate our point, that really just creates space to
listen and really like absorb what someone's point of view is,
and so you can come at the conversation from a
much more educated position, which is kind of I think
in essence, what we're trying to do here. It's just
listening and learning. But that said, I'm I'm curious too
(23:56):
if you because you're such you know, you are an
outspoken advocate. Do you get obviously you can't moderate every
conversation in that way. Do you get a lot of
online hates for for your person? There was a time
when I was I was listening. I would read all
of the comments, thousands of them, you know, one at
(24:16):
a time, and respond to almost all of them. And
my friends were like, you're just torturing yourself. And for me,
it was less torture than research. I was trying to
find where the gaps are and I figured that out.
For the most part, it's faith, economics, education, grace. Those
(24:36):
are where the divide seemed to fall and the confusion
and the lack of information. And once I understood that,
it was easier to proceed with like raising my kids
and moving through life and then kind of knowing how
to possibly shift the dial a little bit, like you know,
but I still get um hate hate, you know, d
(25:02):
m s and what how do you deal with them? Now?
I you know, my kids are older, and so when
I start to see things coming in on Instagram, I
just blocked that person or shut off the comments. I've
only done that a couple of times, but sometimes I'll
delete the comment and then block that person because no
one has time now, Like are were so inundated with
(25:23):
pressure and hate and death that I don't even want
to My boundaries are much wider now, much wider. I
just I'm I rarely stay in the neighborhoods of anger
and hate, um and division, and I'm always in the solution,
(25:44):
finding the collaborative neighborhoods. And that's why I work with HRC,
That's why I stick around young people all the time,
because that's, to me, the neighborhood of change. And a
lot of these um, a lot of these negative people
and they don't even be leave what they're saying. They
just want to say it to to get a rise
out of you. I mean, there is It is a
(26:05):
really ugly toxic culture that is that is online trolling.
And again you think about, like you, for out of
all the things that you have to do with your day,
you've decided to enter one person's account to harass them.
You probably get it too, Oh my god, I get
it so much. I've turned off my comments. I've turned
off my comments because you know it was exactly what
(26:26):
what you're saying is that I have so much energy
at me all the time, and um my, and I
need to be a good mom and having Genie four
nine tell me that she thinks that I have a
boob job and pretend to breastfeed or I wear a
(26:48):
fake pregnancy belly like nine, I really really don't need
your energy coming in at me. The hard thing with
that is it blocks out of normal human beings who
want to come and just interact with me. So I'm
trying to figure that filter out at this point of
you know, I miss my community, I miss my people,
(27:10):
And at the same time, I also realized that my
priority are to my seven little people that I need
to not feel like I want to jump out my
my my building because I'm so sad with you know,
all these random people saying all these things to me.
Um and it is that that thing it is positive,
and then you have like that one thing that bothers you,
(27:31):
and there's the things that they're saying are just so ridiculous,
you know, Like it's like I remember one comment it
stood out. It was like, oh, yes, I know Jody Patterson.
That's that crazy white woman who tortures our children. And
I'm like, I would even bother to look at the picture.
(27:54):
I'm not the crazy white woman. I'm actually this black woman,
and there's no torturing of kids like it's just there
were such um sloppy. Yes, it's just to tear you down.
So one of the things that I actually get get
hate about is, you know, every once in a while,
I'll do UM, I'll do videos talking about how I
(28:14):
parent my children, teaching them about l g B, t Q,
I A plus UM and why I think that that's
very important. Just as I grew up immersed with all
sorts of different people and it was never a thing.
I want my kids to know that it's not It
doesn't have to be a thing. I mean, we can
learn about all these different things and it's important, but
(28:36):
we don't have to think, oh, that's different, or that's weird,
or that's not normal. These are all normal and okay
and part of life. UM. And so I'll talk a
little bit about how I speak about these these topics,
just like I speak about you know, heterosexual marriage and relationship. UM.
I find that one of the things that people get
(28:56):
confused with is they do they think LGBT, and then
their brain goes to sex rather than LGBT love identity.
I mean, I don't know what kind of lives you
guys all have at home, but like, sex is a
very small fraction of everybody's life. Okay, So like the
fact that we're so hung off on sex when like,
(29:17):
again I hope that your life is this, but like
what percentage of your life are you actually having sex?
You know what I mean? And um, and so the conversation,
especially with my small children around this topic has zero
to do with sex. Nothing. And so talk to us
a little bit because you have even you know, more experienced, UM,
(29:39):
talked to us a little bit of how you would
recommend parents talk to their children about this. It's it's
daunting because I think you're right, we've sexualized and demonized
the LGBT community. And so you know who wants to
bring that to the dinner table, right with a breakfast
table with our kids? But in reality, we're cousins and
(30:01):
mothers and uncles, um, And so there's a very family
loving conversation you can have. I when I was first
trying to figure this all out, I would just share
my experiences as a mom raising a trans kid with
my other mom's over lunch at the office, like anywhere
(30:24):
I was where there was a conversation about anything, I
would say, here's what I'm going through, like my kid,
you know what is doing X, Y and Z, and
I would just tell the stories of what was happening
in my house. I think that there are enough of
us that have written books, and you can bring our
stories into your family. So I would say, share books
(30:45):
with with them, your your kids, UM, talk about one person,
you know, maybe one family that's trans. A lot of
us are sharing our stories, our family stories, not because
we want to be just suddy, but because we want
an example for your kids. Right. We wanted to give
you the language. So you know, my thought is, bring
(31:09):
books to the dinner table, share families, family stories. If
you know of Jody Patterson and her children, talk about
us at the dinner table. UM. And then the reality
is that most kids have many kids, not most many
kids have a trans kid in their classroom or um
(31:29):
somewhere in their world. And so you become closer to
your children once you get up enough nerve to talk
about these things, because I think it's already out there
for them. It's not as big of a secret speaking
to how we have these conversations with our kids, um,
and being that you know Harry Potter and the series
and J. K. Rowling and you know, the whole turf
(31:50):
conversation of trans exclusionary radical feminists who believe that there
isn't you know, their possible to the inclusion of trans
people in the in this movement? Have you had that
conversation with your family and it's so like, um, how
would you say is the best way to go about it? Basically,
we talked about all of it, not in silos but
(32:15):
being connected. So if we believe that racism needs to
be eradicated, we also have to believe that sexism has
to be eradicated and transphobia. And so that's a reality
in my life and I try to express that to
my kids that there's not one is um that's more
(32:39):
sort of important in the other Sometimes it's we have
moments that the population or community is being hit harder.
But if we are activists, and I raised my children
to be activists, we have to stand up for all
of us. And you don't have freedom if some of
us are not free. Um, And that's a except that
(33:00):
they know, and I've been teaching it to them. Of course,
it has to play out in real life, in their
in their own lives. Like I have a teenager in
high school who experienced racism firsthand, very clearly for the
first time. Not theoretically, not out there, but it's him
exactly and specifically, and so that you know, I think
(33:23):
it takes time for children to understand how serious this is.
But we do talk about this super wicked problem of
compounded issues that make for a ship shop and then
you know, and I talked about it in also in
relationship to capitalism, because so much and you were talking about,
(33:45):
you know, packaging people. It's like most of this is
to get the dollar, right, So like if you're this
kind of person, you buy here, this kind of person
you shot here, and if you're that kind of person,
we're going to direct you over here. It's just a
very clear and easy path to making a dollar. And
so I talked about racism and sectism and transphope be
being attached to capitalism, not that we want to not
(34:07):
live in this world of capitalism, but that we have
to just be aware of how we're being marketed for
other people's profit. You know, as opposed to like, really,
some of the lies about the trans community are so
ridiculous that they're not even about the trans community. It's
just about hurting people and separating people so that it's
(34:28):
easier to market money and to make money. That's that's
my simplistic version of it. But we do talk about
all of this at home, and my kids are like, enough,
can I just have the lamp job please? Right? Well,
it's fantastic to like not playing us algorithm, right, I mean,
we're trying to, you know, as much as kids are
so absorbed by social media that all of these things
are still steering you into one category where you'll inevitably spent,
(34:52):
and just breaking it down like that it makes it
all the boundaries even more absurd. And you know, just
one more point of that, Like I I'm not trans.
I'm a mom raising a trans kid and assis gender
kid and a queer kid. But if my kid is trans,
I can't be so far away from that. I cannot
be so far off of that. As his mom and
(35:15):
as a human, we're very close to one another, and
so I don't I refuse to see the difference, this
brave difference between my son and myself, and so I
have really just rejected that idea that he's different from me.
I think the world treats him differently. But I don't
(35:36):
see this as like a trans issue over there. I
see us and this is gonna be hard. I see
it's a we are trans, we are gay, we are queer,
Like we've got to embrace it as we because if
it's not you as your kid, if it's not your
kid as your aunt, if it's not your aunt, it's
your friend's kid. And so this is really a wee issue.
And I bring that to the table with my kids,
(35:58):
like you're not going to avoid this. You cannot avoid
this conversation. It's a human issue. Absolutely. We do something
here um called what are what are we coveting in
(36:19):
the coven? And um it's like this, it's a silly
fun part of it where it could be you know,
something that you're that you're liking, that you're doing, could
be a product that you're using, you know, I mean,
like I love this cup. I constantly come with it.
You know, it could be the cup. I don't know
anything that you want to sort of share with us. Okay,
(36:40):
so I have I'm two and I'm going through full
on menopause UM and I've declared it, like I don't
like when people like, oh, your menopausal, that's why you're glumpy.
But I I'm acknowledging that I'm a menopausal. And I've
been working with my friend Naomi Watts and she has
a really great brand UM called Stripes. I am Stripes,
(37:00):
and it's product from Badge to Scalp, and it's community
and it's um research so that we can find out
more about this important phase in life that affects half
the population. I'm a better mom when I understand what's
going on in my body. I'm a better lover, better
(37:21):
friend when I have you know, agency over my own self.
And so I encourage anyone who's going through menopause to
tap tap into Stripes. But also any kid who's trying
to figure out what their mom was going through, or
any kid who's trying to figure out what this person
in my life who maybe menopausal is going through. Log
(37:42):
on because I tell my kids, now, UM, don't talk
to me. I'm going through a hot flash. I just
need five minutes. I love that because I forget Michelle,
you and I were talking about I'm like, I have
no idea about the next phase in my life. I mean,
I'm making I said, like, the biggest joke is I'm
not having need more children, and every single time I
swear no more kids. So right now, as my baby
(38:05):
is two months old today, I am not having any
more kids. But then I'm thinking the next days in
my life is menopause, and I know zero about it
out as well, and like there's so much more information
happening now, more conversation and more research, so hopefully, like
you know, in five years, we'll just no more. But
it was the big mystery for me too, And so
that's the thing I've been gravocating towards understanding the second
(38:28):
half of life, which is a biological phase. You can't
avoid it, um, and looking at it as opportunity as
opposed to like, you know, nail in the coffin. Yeah no,
I've heard that it's not to grow. Yeah, absolutely, all right,
mine mine today. I'm cheating today, guys, because you're not
supposed to have connections to it too much. Um, you
(38:51):
know what. Yeah, we're all cheating, you know what. But
we get to make our own rules because we're witches. Um.
I Mine is actually these these earrings that you guys
constantly see me where they're like these little hoops and um,
and you guys write me about them all the time,
And they're actually Michelle's brand of her we her jewelry
brand her, and I love them for for many reasons.
(39:13):
So the gold hoops for you guys who are like
not seeing me because this is radio and I still
you know, from they're pretty gold, yes, they're and they're
very light. And the other thing I like from having
small kids is that they open easily, so then undoubtedly
when one of my kids pulls it, it never hurts.
It just pulls right off. But I also haven't lost
them too, so I don't know what kind of like
(39:34):
magical powers you put in these hoops, Michelle, but those
that's my favorite thing. I can't indulge. My witch secrets
its energy. But I'm wearing a pair too, even though
again this is an audio show, going to send you
some hoops, Jodie, but mine is because Jodie, I also
know you have like career and skink in you know,
(39:56):
beauty and skincare, and you've done everything I I'm doing
the mask. I've got the led mask. Today, Doctor Gross
red light because I just got a peel last week
and so I was filtered as hell when we were
recording the show, looking like a snake. And I've been
learning this thing. Blue light therapy combats wrinkles, bacteria, all
(40:17):
the things this once Dr Dennis Gross, and I like
it because it makes me look like Darth Vader and
it scares all my house guests and my dog, so um,
you know, yeah, I will thank you, Thank you so much. Pleasure.
All right, ladies, thanks for listening. Don't forget to rate, review, subscribe,
(40:41):
share it with your friends. We love having all of
you guys coming and joining our coven. We're really having
so much fun with this project. Thank you, ladies. Find
us on Instagram, at which is a non pod, and
anywhere you get your podcasts, and we will see you
next week.
Which is anonymous with the Laria Baldwin and Michelle Campbell
Mason and I Heart Radio podcast Hey, which is welcome Back.
I'm me Lariya and I'm Michelle. Today. We are very
pleased to have such an impressive guest. She is the
chair of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation Board. She is
(00:22):
a globally renowned activist speaker. She's a fantastic writer. She
focuses on gender politics and identity. She has really changed
a lot of people's lives with being such an accessible
and concise speaker in these realms. And she's also had
a huge career in the beauty space. Co owns show's
pub at the Public Theater. Today, we have none other
(00:45):
than Joey Patterson. So we're so I'm so excited for
the two of you guys to meet, you know, and
I've had the pleasure of spending time with you Jody before.
I mean, you're a mom, you're an author, you're an activist,
you're an entrepreneur. You do so many things. You were
so many different hats, and you do it so beautifully
and inspiring. The way I described you was just your force.
(01:07):
You had this amazing energy of like I want to
do what you are doing and sign on to all
of the amazing things that you're doing. How where do
you source all of your energy from? That's a good question,
because you know, depending on the day, I'm feeling more
or less depleted. But I do have a method for energy,
(01:27):
and I think my primary things gathered the women. I
do that. I've been doing that for years, for decades,
gather the women. Sometimes it looks like I have this
mural of women on my wall, and it's about fifty
pictures tacked up on my wall of fifty different women.
Some of them I know well. Some of them I
(01:49):
don't know, like Billie Holiday or Nina Simone. And some
of them I know very well, like um There Vivier
or Bethann Hardison h And these are women that I
really admire for something, and so every day I spend
time with these women. I look at their pictures, I
see how they stand, I see their posture, they look
(02:12):
in their eyes, and then I imitate them. Literally, I
don't walk out into the world is like just Jodie.
I always try to imitate and embody and practice in
the spirit of these women that I admire. So that's
a lot of my energy. A lot of my energy
is not a singular woman energy, it's like collective women energy.
(02:34):
And I do that every day. I've been doing that
for decades, like spending time with the women on my wall,
and then I also gather the women in real life,
like I have a team of aunties that um are
some of them biologically related and some of them are not.
And they have agency over my in my life, in
my children's lives. They actually call some of the shots.
(02:55):
They support me, they help me to answer questions and
problem solve and I've never been afraid to get that
female energy UM on a daily basis. Is that something
you grew up with? I think? So, I mean, we're
we have a matriarchal family in many ways, some strong men,
but definitely the women were buying property, buying houses, big careers, UM,
(03:22):
lots of children, heads of churches, heads of communities. So
I grew up with a lot of strong women. And
I like women. I really like being around there, and
we're problem solvers and so yeah, I think I must
have learned that from my mom to gather female energy.
And the interesting thing is I found that that female
(03:43):
energy comes in lots of different forms. These days. It's
not one way that sounds um, you know, like Oprah's
kitchen cabinet that she always talks about, Right, it's like
your your most trusted advisors and in essence, your family, right,
your family, your family of support. And that said, we
both know so much about you, and you know, I'm
such a fan of your work with the Human Rights
(04:05):
Campaign and you're writing, Um, could you tell us a
little bit about your story how you became a writer
and you know if so much of your work is
based around your family and how that inspired you in
that direction. Thank you for asking. My kids swear I'm
an influencer, and I'm like, no, I'm a writer. But
(04:26):
that's a cool that's a cool thing, because yeah, that
that is that that makes that I think that you're cool.
They do think that it's a cool thing to be
an influencer, and I am. I had an aversion to
the to the title and to how it was playing
out for so long. But when I think about it,
(04:46):
and when I think about you know, what I do
is partially because it motivates, because I love it, partially
because it services my family and allows me to provide
for them, and partially because it moves the dial in
terms of society influencer or fits into that. You know,
it's like so, but you know what I really um
honor in myself is the writing. And I've always loved
(05:09):
to write. I've always loved to read. I'm majored in
literature at Spellman College, and my first job outside of
when I graduated college was working in a publishing company UM,
and I was editing books like right out of college UM.
And then I realized that was not enough money to
(05:31):
survive in New York and I didn't have a trust fund,
and so I did a couple of other things in between.
I worked in music, and I worked in fashion, I
worked in beauty UM. But I circled back decades later
to writing because it was there was a compelling story
that I was playing out in my own head, like
how this woman got to the place that she is
(05:52):
now where the reality now is almost the upside down
reality of where I was thirty years ago, And I
was like, how did I get here where things are
totally different from the way I was taught and totally
different from the way I lived. And so I went
back in memory and wrote a book about gender UM
(06:16):
and identity through the lens of my family, my Black
American family. And so I wrote that book called I
wrote a book called The Bold World, and it's about
my my journey as a person UM through gender and
then raising a trans kid, and then re raising myself
as a as a liberated woman. UM. And then I
wrote a children's book. And those two things were happening
(06:39):
at the same time. I was trying to find organizations
and people also investigating gender and supporting diversity. And so
the Human Rights Campaign is our largest LGBT organization in
the nation, and I just started knocking on their door, like,
tell me more about what you know. You've got three
million supporters, What are the needs, what are the concerns.
(07:03):
I joined the board, I asked to be chair of
the board, became chair of the board. UM, it's just
a it's been an investigation of a world that I
knew very little of. UM and it's an important part
of this human experience. The LGBT community talked talked to
us a little bit about your family. You have a
(07:24):
bunch of kids, almost as many as I do. But
I feel like last time we talked to you had
more kids than I. UM, so you talked to us
about your family. I am a mom of five. I'm
a native New York Harris. I raised my kids between
Manhattan and Brooklyn. UM. But I have and I have
two dogs. I don't know if you can hear them
in the background. I'm like a real, like mama type
(07:44):
of person. And you know, I raised my children I
thought to be very open minded and very verbal and
very opinionated. And I found myself struggling with this one
kid who wasn't doing anything, wasn't getting dressed, wasn't playing nicely,
(08:05):
didn't want hair brush, didn't want to be around mama.
Just didn't want much of the things that I thought
that child should want. A need um. And as year one,
two and three came around, that child became so disruptive.
I wouldn't get dressed, was always fighting, was always crying, nightmares,
(08:25):
reoccurring nightmares, biting nails until bloody, just a real troubled kid.
And I couldn't figure it out. I asked one day,
what's wrong, and my child said, well, everyone thinks I'm
a girl, and I'm not. I'm I'm a boy. And
that was the start of this journey that I've been
talking about. Where I'm trying to understand gender from a
(08:48):
different perspective. And that one kid then made me three
evaluate how I was raising all the kids. So I
have a very diverse family. I've been married twice, one
child from one marriage to a swissman, three children from
marriage to an African man, one adopted kid. It's just
a big, robust families. Some of us are atheists, some
(09:12):
of us have strong faith. We speak multiple languages Swiss, German, English,
tweet from Ghana, Latin. So what one of the things
(09:34):
that I and I've had the privilege of speaking with
you before, and I learned a lot. You taught me
a lot last time that we spoke. So one thing
that you you taught me was that genders in the brain.
Um and so we you talked just a little bit
about about that because so a lot of people, you know,
even people who are kind of more liberal to be like,
(09:56):
but I don't get it because this is anatomy. Therefore
that's gender and um and and you spoke about it
so beautifully last time. Thank you. Um And And the
funny thing is, I'm not a scientist, I'm not historian,
I'm not a doctor. Um and I get asked to
(10:16):
speak on gender all the time, and I speak from
a perspective of a mom, So I just put that
out there, like, this is not something that I understand scientifically,
but I've decided that I don't need to, so you know.
And I also say, like there are lots of things
that I use in this world and interact within this
(10:39):
world and believe in that. I don't understand the science
behind aspirin, Like I don't know how it works, but
it works my cell phone. Don't have a clue how
I can speak into it and then someone else get
But I believe in these things because they are tried
and true. So with gender, some of it is just
trust that my son is actually not abnormal, right, So
(11:00):
that's that I don't know the science fully. But then
there's this thing. I mean, I have studied some of it,
and gender is much more complex than we've ever thought
growing up. And it's not just if you have a
woman of vagina you are a girl. It's not just
if you have testicle as you are a boy. The
physical body does not determine how the brain does not
(11:23):
necessarily determine how the brain identifies. So every person identifies
at around three, the brain places you in the world.
Who are you in this world? And my kid's brain
said boy. And the body looks looked at the time
like a female body. Um, and that's not as abnormal
(11:45):
as we think. I mean, a lot of times there's
ambiguity between the body and the brain, and a lot
of times there's even ambiguity in the body. But somebodies
have multiple ambiguous characteristics. So what I do know is
that there's more reason to believe that my son is
(12:10):
telling me who he is out of a need for
me to support him, out of a need for me
to push the world out of his way so he
can just exist more so than he's playing games because
it's too hard. It's too it's too hard. So I
just know that the brain is an active thing in gender,
(12:33):
an active participate in gender, and we've yet to discover
all of the ways of the brain works. So I
just trust when someone says, please see me as I
see myself. It's the safer route, because when we insist
that someone is not who they see themselves are as,
it invites suicide and your ted talk in which is
(12:54):
very popular. Um. I really think that the the theme
that has derived most from it really is about gender
being a construct. And you know, you you sent very
clearly Penelope as a boy with a vagina, and it
was such a beautiful way to state it, like you
just had your you know, let's say it, put it
out there. And I think that you had such a
(13:15):
great analogy of colors not having constructs. But there's something
we believe and like all these boxes and limitations that
we used to a limit or be expand our perspectives.
I'm sure that you have a much more broader, a
much broader view since that period. But if there's anything
you could say that you think is like the most
important or helpful nugget to kind of opening up that
(13:39):
perspective to others, what what would that be to you?
So much of what i've the language that I used
a decade ago or even five years ago, is not
the language I use now. So I very loosely and
liberally spoke of my kid's body in public. I just
don't do that anymore, um, And I would not want
(14:01):
them to discuss my body on a stage. At the time,
I was so new, and I was trying to speak
to people who are also new to this, and I
was very like crudely talking about the body being one
thing and the brain and the identity being something different.
And I wanted to jar people into to the to
(14:26):
the moment that I was in. I wanted to bring
them along quickly, and so I use really crude language.
But I think, um, the crux of it is that
this idea of gender that we've that I grew up with,
is not wide enough, like gender being one of two choices.
It's just not wide enough. There's nothing in nature that's
(14:49):
one of two things, like the way we describe the
trees and the ocean and birds, and they're multiple. There's
like a denseness to the language. But then humans are
you either boy or a girl? I just this is
such a random story, but I had a plumber in
my house the other day and the plumber started talking
about podcasts or things that he was listening to, and
(15:11):
then he started talking about trans issues, and he said,
you know, I just I'm really scared. This is a
random plumber now, because I'm really scared and disgusted by
doctors who are mutilating children's bodies. And I should have
just kept my mouth shut, but I didn't. And I said,
that's just not a thing. It's just not a thing.
(15:32):
And there are doctors that are dealing with adults and
young adults to alter their bodies, and it's happening. It's
more prevalent with Cish gender people, periodis gender people have
more reaffirming surgeries. I'm more concerned with what the Kardashians
(15:52):
are setting as an example, like five women, more so
than the millions of trans people like I think that
if we look at the despair or the unfair situation
trans people are doing, um are having surgeries on their bodies,
and cys gender people are having surgeries on their bodies.
Sis people like you and I are doing more reaffirming surgeries.
(16:14):
We're making our breasts fit our presentation. We're making our
hips and our butt look the way we want to
present ourselves as feminine beings. Our jawlines, our lips, our
noses are I mean, these are all things. These are
gender reaffirming changes so that we can present the way
we feel our femininity or masculinity should look. And no
(16:37):
one's bothered by that. That is such a mind blowing point.
Every single time I talk to you, I have this
like negat I'm like, oh my god, you're so right.
But there's something really interesting about watching these transformations through
social media that people like don't really talk about. And
then you scroll down and it's like, oh, it's a
glow up. What you got a facial like, let's talk
(16:57):
about it. And we're sort of policing some folks and
saying you're not allowed to do anything right, and then
the other folks are doing everything. And it's like you said,
a glow up or come up or a beautification or
a sign of stat social status to be able to
(17:18):
spend money on enhancing the way you feel inside outside, right,
and so, and this is the same thing with puberty blockers,
Like precocious puberty has been a thing for generations. Young
girls who get their puberty early, they've been put on
puberty blockers and no one, no one had a problem
with it. And now trans children are using it, trans
(17:41):
young people are using it, and it's seemed it's deemed
as inappropriate and dangerous. So it's just there's this imbalance
of the way the world believes everyone assists and we
think of it, think of the world through our own eyes,
assist gender and it's just not a thing. Well, and
the like conflict between being being a woman who identifies
as such and is doing all those things and being
(18:04):
a feminist, and how there's so much pushed back to
that you can't be both right, the duality can't exist.
And then then that's one more limitation that we're dealing with.
Yet you know, we've got all these pop culture examples
that that allow for that. So UM, going going towards
pop culture with this, I did want to ask you
your take on how the trans community is perceived in
(18:26):
pop culture. Obviously, you we've all seen and heard of
the show post Ballroom Culture. How we really like that
expanded the conversation into ballroom and you know, gender constructs
um to a much wider audience and ended up, you know,
giving MJ. Rodriguez the first Emmy to a trans person
in history, which was phenomenal. Um, how do you feel
(18:48):
about how gender constructs have been portrayed in pop culture
or if there was any like resoundingly great example of
such shitty for a long time? Um, in inaccurate, not
fully rounded characters, people stories, Um, And I think that
is changing. I mean I've when I grew up, I
(19:11):
knew I saw gender nonconforming people in documentaries that were
really sad and like Paris is burning. Um, it was
a story that kept going over and over again, like
if you're gender nonconforming, the story told me that that
person would not make it through life, that person would die.
(19:32):
It also conflict. The media also conflated drug addiction and
poverty with gender nonconforming identities, and that again is it's
it's a made up thing. It's not. They don't go
hand in hand necessarily, um, And so I think that
was portrayed in the media. Um. Psychopaths were gender nonconforming
(19:54):
addicts with gender not conforming And so it is only
of recent that we're seeing triumphant stories, funny stories, witty stories,
loving stories, family stories of folks who are gender not conforming.
And you know, I need more of them because in
my family we're pretty I just want to see my
(20:16):
family with folks who had trans that are cysts, that
are straight, that are queer in one family, I would
love to see that. And the thing the interesting thing
is that we don't even agree in my own house
on this topic. Like some of us are trans, and
some of us don't understand being trans. Some of us
(20:38):
aren't scientifically convinced yet that it's a thing. How do
you parent through that? That's an interesting table conversation for Thanksgiving. Well,
you know, we do it all the time, and I've
taken it even off of the big moments of Thanksgiving.
But I have this, so how do you parent through it?
I have this thing called the lab and we just
lab out big scary idea. So whoever has the microphone
(21:01):
gets to say whatever they want for however long it
could be like thirty minutes your microphone, and then the
next person gets to speak their truth. The rules are
you just can't like, it's not a it's not a debate,
so you're not trying to prove your point. You're just
stating your issues and stating your your perspective with no
goal of agreeing. And so we've done this, like one
(21:23):
kid will say, this was years ago. You would say, um,
I love my brother. I think he can do anything
in this world that he wants to, but I don't.
But scientifically you're a girl now, he said, I'll always
use the right pronouns because that's what you want, but
scientifically speaking, you are female. And then my other kid
(21:46):
would step in and say, look, it's not about science,
like I've already proven it just being here. I'm trans
it exists in the story, this is how God has
made me. And then the scientists would say, I don't
even believe in God either, So like all of this
is not making set. And they've been debate, not debating.
They've been arguing this point on opposite ends of the
(22:07):
conversation for years. They still don't. Really they might have
inched a little bit closer, but they're basically, you know,
my house looks like America. Once you can put it
on the table, once you can decide that it's okay
to be a conservative and progressive, or a person of
(22:28):
faith and an atheist at the same table or on
the same basketball court, it's all good. So they've not
try to agree. They've just stated who they are, what
they believe in, and then they've gone on to the
better things like playing basketball and eating dinner. I love that,
you know, recently, as i'm you know, as we all
have our documents in our life that we're constantly on,
they want you to fill your life out into like
(22:50):
these little boxes. And I'm just like, I don't want to,
Like I don't even know anymore, because it all seems
like like sports teams, you know. I mean, you're either
all the way over here, you're all the way over there,
and then you can't be friends with the person over
there or even agree with them on anomnything, and you
have to kind of isolate them ostracize them. And it's
just you know, seeing what hearing your your story and
(23:13):
and the mix that you have in your home. I mean,
that's that's total goals, just being like, hey, we're we're
all different, and we can all co exist and come
together and love each other and be together, and then
we can have a moment where we disagree and then
we come together again. I think that's a great a
great point to in terms of like, you know, we
live in a very adversarial society these days, right. I
think that's a really cool principle to put a moratorium
(23:36):
on debate. Like, while we all want to be able
to debate our point, that really just creates space to
listen and really like absorb what someone's point of view is,
and so you can come at the conversation from a
much more educated position, which is kind of I think
in essence, what we're trying to do here. It's just
listening and learning. But that said, I'm I'm curious too
(23:56):
if you because you're such you know, you are an
outspoken advocate. Do you get obviously you can't moderate every
conversation in that way. Do you get a lot of
online hates for for your person? There was a time
when I was I was listening. I would read all
of the comments, thousands of them, you know, one at
(24:16):
a time, and respond to almost all of them. And
my friends were like, you're just torturing yourself. And for me,
it was less torture than research. I was trying to
find where the gaps are and I figured that out.
For the most part, it's faith, economics, education, grace. Those
(24:36):
are where the divide seemed to fall and the confusion
and the lack of information. And once I understood that,
it was easier to proceed with like raising my kids
and moving through life and then kind of knowing how
to possibly shift the dial a little bit, like you know,
but I still get um hate hate, you know, d
(25:02):
m s and what how do you deal with them? Now?
I you know, my kids are older, and so when
I start to see things coming in on Instagram, I
just blocked that person or shut off the comments. I've
only done that a couple of times, but sometimes I'll
delete the comment and then block that person because no
one has time now, Like are were so inundated with
(25:23):
pressure and hate and death that I don't even want
to My boundaries are much wider now, much wider. I
just I'm I rarely stay in the neighborhoods of anger
and hate, um and division, and I'm always in the solution,
(25:44):
finding the collaborative neighborhoods. And that's why I work with HRC,
That's why I stick around young people all the time,
because that's, to me, the neighborhood of change. And a
lot of these um, a lot of these negative people
and they don't even be leave what they're saying. They
just want to say it to to get a rise
out of you. I mean, there is It is a
(26:05):
really ugly toxic culture that is that is online trolling.
And again you think about, like you, for out of
all the things that you have to do with your day,
you've decided to enter one person's account to harass them.
You probably get it too, Oh my god, I get
it so much. I've turned off my comments. I've turned
off my comments because you know it was exactly what
(26:26):
what you're saying is that I have so much energy
at me all the time, and um my, and I
need to be a good mom and having Genie four
nine tell me that she thinks that I have a
boob job and pretend to breastfeed or I wear a
(26:48):
fake pregnancy belly like nine, I really really don't need
your energy coming in at me. The hard thing with
that is it blocks out of normal human beings who
want to come and just interact with me. So I'm
trying to figure that filter out at this point of
you know, I miss my community, I miss my people,
(27:10):
And at the same time, I also realized that my
priority are to my seven little people that I need
to not feel like I want to jump out my
my my building because I'm so sad with you know,
all these random people saying all these things to me.
Um and it is that that thing it is positive,
and then you have like that one thing that bothers you,
(27:31):
and there's the things that they're saying are just so ridiculous,
you know, Like it's like I remember one comment it
stood out. It was like, oh, yes, I know Jody Patterson.
That's that crazy white woman who tortures our children. And
I'm like, I would even bother to look at the picture.
(27:54):
I'm not the crazy white woman. I'm actually this black woman,
and there's no torturing of kids like it's just there
were such um sloppy. Yes, it's just to tear you down.
So one of the things that I actually get get
hate about is, you know, every once in a while,
I'll do UM, I'll do videos talking about how I
(28:14):
parent my children, teaching them about l g B, t Q,
I A plus UM and why I think that that's
very important. Just as I grew up immersed with all
sorts of different people and it was never a thing.
I want my kids to know that it's not It
doesn't have to be a thing. I mean, we can
learn about all these different things and it's important, but
(28:36):
we don't have to think, oh, that's different, or that's weird,
or that's not normal. These are all normal and okay
and part of life. UM. And so I'll talk a
little bit about how I speak about these these topics,
just like I speak about you know, heterosexual marriage and relationship. UM.
I find that one of the things that people get
(28:56):
confused with is they do they think LGBT, and then
their brain goes to sex rather than LGBT love identity.
I mean, I don't know what kind of lives you
guys all have at home, but like, sex is a
very small fraction of everybody's life. Okay, So like the
fact that we're so hung off on sex when like,
(29:17):
again I hope that your life is this, but like
what percentage of your life are you actually having sex?
You know what I mean? And um, and so the conversation,
especially with my small children around this topic has zero
to do with sex. Nothing. And so talk to us
a little bit because you have even you know, more experienced, UM,
(29:39):
talked to us a little bit of how you would
recommend parents talk to their children about this. It's it's
daunting because I think you're right, we've sexualized and demonized
the LGBT community. And so you know who wants to
bring that to the dinner table, right with a breakfast
table with our kids? But in reality, we're cousins and
(30:01):
mothers and uncles, um, And so there's a very family
loving conversation you can have. I when I was first
trying to figure this all out, I would just share
my experiences as a mom raising a trans kid with
my other mom's over lunch at the office, like anywhere
(30:24):
I was where there was a conversation about anything, I
would say, here's what I'm going through, like my kid,
you know what is doing X, Y and Z, and
I would just tell the stories of what was happening
in my house. I think that there are enough of
us that have written books, and you can bring our
stories into your family. So I would say, share books
(30:45):
with with them, your your kids, UM, talk about one person,
you know, maybe one family that's trans. A lot of
us are sharing our stories, our family stories, not because
we want to be just suddy, but because we want
an example for your kids. Right. We wanted to give
you the language. So you know, my thought is, bring
(31:09):
books to the dinner table, share families, family stories. If
you know of Jody Patterson and her children, talk about
us at the dinner table. UM. And then the reality
is that most kids have many kids, not most many
kids have a trans kid in their classroom or um
(31:29):
somewhere in their world. And so you become closer to
your children once you get up enough nerve to talk
about these things, because I think it's already out there
for them. It's not as big of a secret speaking
to how we have these conversations with our kids, um,
and being that you know Harry Potter and the series
and J. K. Rowling and you know, the whole turf
(31:50):
conversation of trans exclusionary radical feminists who believe that there
isn't you know, their possible to the inclusion of trans
people in the in this movement? Have you had that
conversation with your family and it's so like, um, how
would you say is the best way to go about it? Basically,
we talked about all of it, not in silos but
(32:15):
being connected. So if we believe that racism needs to
be eradicated, we also have to believe that sexism has
to be eradicated and transphobia. And so that's a reality
in my life and I try to express that to
my kids that there's not one is um that's more
(32:39):
sort of important in the other Sometimes it's we have
moments that the population or community is being hit harder.
But if we are activists, and I raised my children
to be activists, we have to stand up for all
of us. And you don't have freedom if some of
us are not free. Um, And that's a except that
(33:00):
they know, and I've been teaching it to them. Of course,
it has to play out in real life, in their
in their own lives. Like I have a teenager in
high school who experienced racism firsthand, very clearly for the
first time. Not theoretically, not out there, but it's him
exactly and specifically, and so that you know, I think
(33:23):
it takes time for children to understand how serious this is.
But we do talk about this super wicked problem of
compounded issues that make for a ship shop and then
you know, and I talked about it in also in
relationship to capitalism, because so much and you were talking about,
(33:45):
you know, packaging people. It's like most of this is
to get the dollar, right, So like if you're this
kind of person, you buy here, this kind of person
you shot here, and if you're that kind of person,
we're going to direct you over here. It's just a
very clear and easy path to making a dollar. And
so I talked about racism and sectism and transphope be
being attached to capitalism, not that we want to not
(34:07):
live in this world of capitalism, but that we have
to just be aware of how we're being marketed for
other people's profit. You know, as opposed to like, really,
some of the lies about the trans community are so
ridiculous that they're not even about the trans community. It's
just about hurting people and separating people so that it's
(34:28):
easier to market money and to make money. That's that's
my simplistic version of it. But we do talk about
all of this at home, and my kids are like, enough,
can I just have the lamp job please? Right? Well,
it's fantastic to like not playing us algorithm, right, I mean,
we're trying to, you know, as much as kids are
so absorbed by social media that all of these things
are still steering you into one category where you'll inevitably spent,
(34:52):
and just breaking it down like that it makes it
all the boundaries even more absurd. And you know, just
one more point of that, Like I I'm not trans.
I'm a mom raising a trans kid and assis gender
kid and a queer kid. But if my kid is trans,
I can't be so far away from that. I cannot
be so far off of that. As his mom and
(35:15):
as a human, we're very close to one another, and
so I don't I refuse to see the difference, this
brave difference between my son and myself, and so I
have really just rejected that idea that he's different from me.
I think the world treats him differently. But I don't
(35:36):
see this as like a trans issue over there. I
see us and this is gonna be hard. I see
it's a we are trans, we are gay, we are queer,
Like we've got to embrace it as we because if
it's not you as your kid, if it's not your
kid as your aunt, if it's not your aunt, it's
your friend's kid. And so this is really a wee issue.
And I bring that to the table with my kids,
(35:58):
like you're not going to avoid this. You cannot avoid
this conversation. It's a human issue. Absolutely. We do something
here um called what are what are we coveting in
(36:19):
the coven? And um it's like this, it's a silly
fun part of it where it could be you know,
something that you're that you're liking, that you're doing, could
be a product that you're using, you know, I mean,
like I love this cup. I constantly come with it.
You know, it could be the cup. I don't know
anything that you want to sort of share with us. Okay,
(36:40):
so I have I'm two and I'm going through full
on menopause UM and I've declared it, like I don't
like when people like, oh, your menopausal, that's why you're glumpy.
But I I'm acknowledging that I'm a menopausal. And I've
been working with my friend Naomi Watts and she has
a really great brand UM called Stripes. I am Stripes,
(37:00):
and it's product from Badge to Scalp, and it's community
and it's um research so that we can find out
more about this important phase in life that affects half
the population. I'm a better mom when I understand what's
going on in my body. I'm a better lover, better
(37:21):
friend when I have you know, agency over my own self.
And so I encourage anyone who's going through menopause to
tap tap into Stripes. But also any kid who's trying
to figure out what their mom was going through, or
any kid who's trying to figure out what this person
in my life who maybe menopausal is going through. Log
(37:42):
on because I tell my kids, now, UM, don't talk
to me. I'm going through a hot flash. I just
need five minutes. I love that because I forget Michelle,
you and I were talking about I'm like, I have
no idea about the next phase in my life. I mean,
I'm making I said, like, the biggest joke is I'm
not having need more children, and every single time I
swear no more kids. So right now, as my baby
(38:05):
is two months old today, I am not having any
more kids. But then I'm thinking the next days in
my life is menopause, and I know zero about it
out as well, and like there's so much more information
happening now, more conversation and more research, so hopefully, like
you know, in five years, we'll just no more. But
it was the big mystery for me too, And so
that's the thing I've been gravocating towards understanding the second
(38:28):
half of life, which is a biological phase. You can't
avoid it, um, and looking at it as opportunity as
opposed to like, you know, nail in the coffin. Yeah no,
I've heard that it's not to grow. Yeah, absolutely, all right,
mine mine today. I'm cheating today, guys, because you're not
supposed to have connections to it too much. Um, you
(38:51):
know what. Yeah, we're all cheating, you know what. But
we get to make our own rules because we're witches. Um.
I Mine is actually these these earrings that you guys
constantly see me where they're like these little hoops and um,
and you guys write me about them all the time,
And they're actually Michelle's brand of her we her jewelry
brand her, and I love them for for many reasons.
(39:13):
So the gold hoops for you guys who are like
not seeing me because this is radio and I still
you know, from they're pretty gold, yes, they're and they're
very light. And the other thing I like from having
small kids is that they open easily, so then undoubtedly
when one of my kids pulls it, it never hurts.
It just pulls right off. But I also haven't lost
them too, so I don't know what kind of like
(39:34):
magical powers you put in these hoops, Michelle, but those
that's my favorite thing. I can't indulge. My witch secrets
its energy. But I'm wearing a pair too, even though
again this is an audio show, going to send you
some hoops, Jodie, but mine is because Jodie, I also
know you have like career and skink in you know,
(39:56):
beauty and skincare, and you've done everything I I'm doing
the mask. I've got the led mask. Today, Doctor Gross
red light because I just got a peel last week
and so I was filtered as hell when we were
recording the show, looking like a snake. And I've been
learning this thing. Blue light therapy combats wrinkles, bacteria, all
(40:17):
the things this once Dr Dennis Gross, and I like
it because it makes me look like Darth Vader and
it scares all my house guests and my dog, so um,
you know, yeah, I will thank you, Thank you so much. Pleasure.
All right, ladies, thanks for listening. Don't forget to rate, review, subscribe,
(40:41):
share it with your friends. We love having all of
you guys coming and joining our coven. We're really having
so much fun with this project. Thank you, ladies. Find
us on Instagram, at which is a non pod, and
anywhere you get your podcasts, and we will see you
next week.
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