EPISODE 5 - C*

An 18-year-old non-binary transgender person walks us through the experience of coming out in a public school and the stresses of trying to navigate that school with their non-binary transgender life in the confines of a heterosexual world.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
What's your name? Hi? Myname is ce I use they them pronouns,
and I am a transgender teenager inLos Angeles County. So what does
transgender mean to you? It meansthat I do not align with the gender
that I was assigned at birth.I identify as gender queer or gender neutral,

(00:23):
and my birth gender is not somethingthat I identify with even remotely.
When did you realize that you didn'tidentify with a gender at birth? Oh,
this is an interesting question. Thefirst time, I'll tell you.
The time that I noticed first andthe time that someone else noticed first were
very different. So for me,it was I was in eighth grade and

(00:44):
I was I had come out asgay already, and I was hosting an
event for queer teenagers, and Ihad to put my pronouns on my name
Tige. Without even thinking, Ijust wrote day them down there, and
I was like, m that doesn'tsound right. So that was the first
time I had a moment of like, oh, maybe there's something going on
here. However, when I wasin kindergarten, I had multiple I had

(01:08):
two friends tell me that they thoughtthat I was actually that I was transgender.
They're the first people to introduce meto the topic. They're like,
I think you're probably transgender, whichwas interesting even now to think, well,
do you remember specifically what you weredoing or how you acted that would
give them that impression. Yeah,so I was pretty adamant that I had

(01:33):
that I had both. I didn'tlike being put in like boys and girls
lines. I wasn't a huge fanof like overly. I mean it was
kind of feminine. But I hada lot of friends who were boys.
A ton of friends were boys,and I was pretty upset whenever someone would
refer to me as like kind ofgirly. I don't know to this day
and entirely sure what caused that.Maybe they were I just think it's always

(01:55):
kind of a funny story. Wedidn't really clarify at the beginning. What
was gender at birth? My genderat birth was female. Yeah, I've
been was assigned female at birth.What was life like for you in school
then when you first discovered that youdid not want to be the gender that
you were assigned at birth? WhileI when I kind of came out over

(02:20):
time. So for me, thefirst time I told someone I was in
high school and I was an actress, actor actress at the time in the
theater department, and I had tobe in a lot of female roles.
I remember putting on a dress forthe first time in years and being like,
wow, I hate this, AndI ended up eventually just transitioning away
from acting. But then I cameout a sophomore year of high school.

(02:46):
At that point, I know,and I've been transferred about two to three
years, and that was in themiddle of the pandemic. So it was
twenty twenty one, and I luckilyat the time there was a huge surgeons
of non binary people online being veryvisible, and so people were not as
weirded out as they were about asweirded out by non binary people as they

(03:08):
were even twelve months ago, Sothat made my life significantly easier. And
I just had amazing teachers. Ionly had one teacher who ever, gave
me like real trouble about it.The problems really only started arising when I
came back to school in person.So according to California law, you are

(03:30):
required to have gender neutral restrooms onyour campus as well as gender neutral changing
rooms, and that had been lawfor a significant period of time by the
time I came on campus, andthey did not want to give me one.
So I personally, I will workwith GSAJSA network, which is a

(03:53):
network that supports queer transuth. I'vebeen working with them since early twenty twenty
one, and so one of ourrepresentatives came down, talk to us,
talk to principles, really committed toworking with us the entire time I was
there, so probably sophomore through senioryear, to try and get this school

(04:13):
to comply with this law. Andit was never successful. So see,
are we talking about a public schoolhere. Yeah, it's a public high
school in Los Angeles County. It'svery sizeable, it's been around a long
time. Yeah. And then youwere talking about you had an advocacycret coming
in. It sounds like to interveneon your behalf about this law. And

(04:34):
you kept saying us, So,how many others were sharing the same situation
as you? Yeah? So Iwas not the only trans, especially gender
queer person at the school. Therewere. I mean I worked with at
least three other kids consistently throughout theyears I was there. And then also
there are a lot of queer kidswho look visibly queer, not in a

(04:58):
not the trans but they look queer. You got to help me understand.
What does that mean when they saythey look queer. Um, they may
be gender nonconforming. Um, sothat means they may wear more masculine clothing
if they're women, or feminine clothingif they're men. M. Their hair
might be a little bit different.Um, it's just kind of a situation

(05:18):
where they are a little bit moreoutlandish, but not in a bad way
with their clothing or their look andtheir mannerisms. And it's not always safe
to be in restrooms when you arevisibly different. Sure, And at this
time, and how old were youat this time? The first time I
had a meeting with a with anadministrator about this, I was sixteen.

(05:44):
And how did the administrator treat you? They were sweet? Um, they
my administrators have always been very sweet, very kind. They just don't they
don't do what they need to do. Um. They'll give excuses, they'll
oh, we'll do it, andthen they won't, or they'll kind of
be borderline condescending. They just won'tcomply with the law. And has that

(06:06):
changed since then? No, thatthe school that I go to, or
went to I graviduated last week hasbeen under fire from this organization that I
work with, say Network since twentysixteen to get this this bathroom implemented,

(06:26):
and it hasn't happened. So whenyou when you go back and you're talking
about so you realized that, ifI heard you correctly, that you realized
you were transgender non binary in yourmiddle school years. Yeah, I was
in eighth grade. Great. Sothen at this time in a young person's
life, you know they're going throughall kinds of changes physiological, biological,

(06:51):
mental, physical, whatnot. Whatabout dating? Did you have any issues
with dating at that point? Ihave never dated it. I just never
was an interest of mine. Ithink I had a crush on a girl
in middle school. I'm pretty sure, but it's just not something that has

(07:12):
ever been something that I've done oreven really pursued strongly. And speaking of
pursuing, you say you work forthis advocacy group. What are your aspirations
for the future. What is ityou desire to do. Yeah, So
I am going to UCSD in thefall. That's University of California, San
Diego, and I'm going to bemajoring in political science. My goal is

(07:32):
to work in public policy later inlife. I've been working in politics and
in advocacy since twenty eighteen, andit's something that I think I'm good at
and that I can help with.Let's talk a little bit about public policy
lately in the news. I'm sureyou've you've been seeing a lot of these
protests between parents and school boards andand you know, Glendale into Mecula,

(07:57):
North Hollywood. First, full yourinitial thoughts about what you see happening,
and then let's dig a little deeperafter that. Yeah, So, what
we've been seeing over the past sixmonths especially is a trend of really alarming,
scary bills and increasing anti transsentiment inthe United States. They are trying

(08:20):
to outlaw transgender people, and they'redoing it in kind of a slow manner,
but it's causing real damaging effects,not just in southern conservative states like
a lot of the media is pushing, but here in California as well.
Just a couple weeks ago, therewas a violent protest where kids were hosting

(08:43):
a pride event at their public highschool and they were physically attacked by far
right protesters high school students and it'sit's really scary, and it's it's not
it's no way acceptable. Then whatdo you say to people that like the

(09:03):
protesters themselves, I mean, takethe violence out of the equation for a
minute. You know, I don'tthink anyone advocates violence, but let's take
that out of the equation for asecond, and let's talk about perhaps their
fears and as parents and their concernsabout what's being taught or could be taught
to their kids in school. Whatwould you tell those parents about that curriculum

(09:24):
with books and instruction and teachers whomight identify as non binary, queer,
transgender. What do you tell parentsthat don't want any of that in their
schools? I'd say that number one, I can say with full certainty that
curriculum did not make me queer.I was raised in the Evangelical Church.

(09:48):
I am still a very strong Christian. In fact, after this interview,
I'm going to work on a sermonthat I'm writing for this Sunday. I
was taught about marriage and having abiblical monogamous heterosexual marriage and a strong identity
in biblical womanhood. It was emphasizedvery very very strongly all throughout my childhood,

(10:11):
all throughout middle school. And itdidn't work. Not that I didn't
want to have this picturesque, perfectChristian life. But I just I couldn't
have it. It wasn't me.There's nothing that I could do to change
the fact that I was trans orthat I was queer. And I actually

(10:37):
I didn't have access to queer curriculum, queer education up until maybe my seventh
grade year, and that led tosome really severe mental health struggles around the
age of ten and eleven that reallyuprooted my life and my family's life.
I couldn't go to school, II couldn't maybe leave the house. It

(11:01):
was it was really serious. UmSo I was going through these things and
understanding and internalizing a lot of problemsaround my queerness without ever being introduced to
queerness. Um, not even inshows, not on TV, not really
by by now, because it's beenmainstream for a long time, so you

(11:22):
didn't have any exposure. Um soI had. I can remember by the
Hoist Town I had two times whereI had ever seen queer people. The
existen of queer pebble had been broughtup. Um once was um maybe not
even not even then. The legalizationof gay marriage is the first time I
remember looking at like a new Mymom got the new Yorker magazine and it

(11:46):
came in and it had a pictureof a queer couple kissing on the front,
and I was like, what's goingon here? My mom was like,
well, it's gay marriage was legalizedin the United States, and then
there was UM. In the fourthgrade, I went to Cannad. I
visited Canada and there was an advertisementon a billboard and had two gay men
kissing and I remember seeing that andbeing like, oh, gay people,

(12:07):
and that those are those are thetwo times the first times I remember,
And it was at least like teneleven. Yeah, did you feel like
at that point that perhaps what youwere feeling and what you were going through
is normal? No? No,I had no idea. UM. I
wouldn't know for years that. Ijust knew I was different. I knew

(12:28):
something was wrong with me, andI knew that I was not the person
that the church wanted me to beand that was a problem and it coused
a lot of problems for me.But I had no exposure to queer people
none. We as a family,we didn't we didn't have tv UM And
it's not a like religious thing.It's just like we played outside a lot

(12:48):
and we my cable was so expensive, so we didn't watch TV. I
didn't have a whole lot of likeaccess to YouTube or anything like that,
so I just didn't. I wentto church, my friends were from church.
I didn't see queer people anywhere.So for me, when I see

(13:09):
this worry about curriculum, I justthink of like the fact that all the
curriculum I had, all the learningand the pressure and the teachings, and
the role models in my life thatI had who were in really healthy,
strong heterosexual marriages, who lived thismodest, pure quote unquote pure Christian life.
All these amazing role models that Ihad that were kind of guiding me

(13:31):
towards this one path, and Icouldn't do it because it wasn't who I
was. And so it's not acurriculum issue. You know, no matter
how much you expose someone to something, it's you can't change who they are.
Fundamentally, it's not gonna it's notgonna happen. So really, what

(13:54):
queer curriculum, queer friendly curriculum doesis it it introduces kids like me to
queer people earlier. It might haveprevented some of the really intense mental health
struggles that I had. It mighthave saved my family from so much suffering.
It might have made it easier forkids in my class to understand their
queer classmates. It might have savedme from a lot of the bullying,

(14:18):
the assault that I got in middleschool and that I faced I have faced
throughout my schooling years. If wehad that access early, I think that
it would have saved everyone so muchtrouble, so much pain, so much
heartache. It really does save lives. So what's You've graduated high school?
You are going to uc SD.You want to go into political science or

(14:43):
public policy? Public policy? Um? What about and you talked about before
that relationships at least when you wereyounger weren't of concern to you. Have
you changed your view on that now? You Are you interested in pursuing maybe
a relationship? Yeah? I thinkso. I'm definitely open to the eye
idea. I really connect a lotwith my friends, especially my queer friends.

(15:05):
I found that just having my ownlike found family, I think it's
what we call it in the queercommunity, has been a huge support for
me. And I think some ofthe stability that a lot of my heterosexual
classmates get from romantic relationships I getfrom my friends. So it's not like
end all be all for me,but I would definitely be open to it.
It definitely be a bonus. Yeah, the protests that you see out

(15:28):
there right now in this curriculum,and everyone's so upset over this, and
they're afraid that somehow their children aregoing to be indoctrinated in some sort of
twisted lifestyle. What would you tellpeople in terms of, you know,
what they should learn, how theyshould learn it, and when should they

(15:48):
learn it. Yeah, So Ithink that queerness exists everywhere. It exists
in in church, in school,in public, at home in some cases,
and so when you run into itis going to vary, and so

(16:11):
it kind of depends honestly where whereyour kid is. UM. If your
kid is in class with a transgenderteacher, they're probably going to have to
learn about transgender people. If you'reyour class, if your student goes to
ballet class and one of your studentsare your children's UM fellow ballet classmates is

(16:36):
non binary, then you're probably goingto learn about their students are probably going
to learn about non binary people.So part of it is curriculum, but
also part of it is exposure.There are queer people out in the world
who your children aren't going to see, and who your children are going to
interact with and build a relationship withand love. Um So there is that

(16:56):
like surface level awareness of queerness thatis going to be more mainstream. But
then I think around when fifth gradeis when I had my first introduction to
sex. Said in the state ofCalifornia, public schools introduce sexual education around
the fifth grade, And at thatpoint in time, kids need to know

(17:19):
about queerness, they need to understandabout gender, about queer relationships. Because
that for me, around fifth gradeis when things really started going downhill.
Possess no, no, no,no, no, you're great, No,
you're great. It just I wantedto get into the thought before I
let you go too far. Sowhen that happens, what do you say

(17:41):
to parents that say, that's thestuff I should be teaching my children at
home, in the privacy of myhome. I don't want a third party
teaching my children about something that intimate. I would tell you teach them them
at home. Then prepare your kidsfor the world so that they can be
safe and they can make smart discsand they can protect themselves. And they

(18:02):
can know what to do when they'reharmed or hurt. That requires an understanding
of sexuality in its fullness, Thatrequires an understanding of consent of queer people,
of queer relationships. You are morethan welcome. I honestly completely understand

(18:23):
wanting to teach your children about sexualeducation in your own house, with people
that they love and adults that theytrust, where you can see them.
That to me makes perfect and totalsense. Queer people should just be part
of that conversation because they're going tobe out in the world whether you like
them or not. And part ofkeeping your children safe and happy and comfortable

(18:44):
is showing them what the world is. You do no good hiding it from
them. And finally, tell methe group you work with and what do
they do. Yeah, So Iwork with GSA Network. We are a
organization that supports Queer trans UH andby queer trans and BIPOX students in California

(19:07):
and across the country. We dosupport specifically in schools and then also education
programs online as well as educating queerkids on their rights as students and as
people out in the world. Howbig is the organization? Um, it's

(19:29):
fairly sizeable. I think a lotof people know of GSA. Their school
probably has a GESA, which isstands for Gay Gender and Sexualities Alliance.
I for one, have done presentationsin like northern California schools. I've had
people in my programs who are inOhio, who are in Iowa, who

(19:52):
are in Minnesota were We're all over, and GSA makes themselves pretty easy to
access for Christians anywhere in the UnitedStates. See, I can't thank you
enough for your time. I appreciateyou being candidate enough to share your story.
Yeah, of course, thank youso much. He said, She
said, They Said is a productionof the KFI News Department for iHeartMedia,

(20:17):
Los Angeles and is produced by SteveGregory and Jacob Gonzalez. The associate producer
is Nick Paliocchini and the field engineeris Tony Sarantino.