Parenting is Political

How do we disrupt patterns of white supremacy and racism at home? Guests Jasmine and Mo of the Parenting is Political podcast join to share their experiences, advice, and compassion. We're in this together. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
There are some great podcasts out there by and for

(00:26):
LGBTQ plus families.
What I learned about the podcastand the website parenting is
political.
I listened to the most recenttwo episodes and I was hooked.
After you finish listening tothis episode, I highly recommend
listening to parenting ispolitical, especially two recent
episodes on urgency andperfectionism with me today.

(00:47):
To continue the awesomeconversations started on their
own podcast are the hosts, moeand jasmine.
Mo is a queer gender non-binaryperson and jasmine is a queer,
cisgender person.
Together they raise theirblended family in Arkansas where
things are always political.
Parenting is political, is adigital project that seeks to

(01:07):
shift to the conversations andnarratives that surround family
and parenting, moe and Jasminepresent culture, influencing
conversations via their podcastand provide resources for the
community via their website.
So welcome Mo and Jasmine.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Hey.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Um, so the question that I ask everybody as we start
all the episodes and you canboth answer is who is in your
family and how was it formed?

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Go for it man.
All right.
Well in our family it's um,jasmine and myself, Mo and we
have our oldest daughter's Zahrawho just turned 12.
Our middle daughter Addison whois nine to bias is our older of
the two.
He's about to turn, what is it,eight, that's almost a nine, but

(01:53):
that's how old last news.
And then, um, we have a littlebaby who just turned one whose
name is August.
And then we also have um, twodogs, which are also very a
giant wiener dog named Kevin anda tiny little rat terrier named
Bruce.
Kevin full name is Kevin BaconAlexander, which is critical
information primarily so thatwhen we're at the park we can

(02:16):
scream, don't pee on that KevinBacon.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
That sounds so satisfying to get to.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yes, exactly.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
What then inspired you to create parenting is
political both as a websiteresource and as a podcast.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah, I'll take that one.
Since it was my idea to jasminewas like, I'm going to help you
mo.
I recently found myself withouta job as a nonbinary person
living in Arkansas, which wasunfortunately pretty common and
our youngest child August hadjust been born and so I decided
instead of trying to go back andfind a job where I would be

(02:58):
treated fairly, that I wouldjust hang out at home with
August and help raise thatlittle one and in my free time I
just kept thinking, man, I am inlove with podcasts.
I love listening to them, but Ihave not found like a parenting
podcast that is inclusive of whoI am as a person.
I didn't want to keep listeningto these podcasts about the

(03:20):
seven best tips of how to getyour kid to take a nap when you
want them to or like what to doon your family, vacation to
Disney.
Like those things just are greatfor some folks, but they didn't
apply to me as a non-binaryparent in a blended family.
I'm with black kids and a blackwife living in the south and all
of these things mixed together.

(03:40):
It's just it.
I'd never found that.
So in my frustration, I wasventing one night to jasmine and
I said, I just want to start myown and I'm going to call it
parenting is political becauseeverything about our lives is
political and she goes, youshould.
And here we are when you'relater.
I'm fumbling our way through,uh, making these podcasts that

(04:03):
are just driven out of a desireto have conversations centered
around, um, what it means toexist in a society and just
based on your existence, ifyou're outside of the norm as
just resistance and how, how toshow up and, and, uh, take care
of yourselves and that and begentle with yourselves and also

(04:25):
continue to push, push theboundaries of radical living,
which is just basicallyexisting.
[inaudible] that makes sense.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
I think that often what we were running into is
that, uh, is this reality.
We of course, we know that sortof like this libertarian
archipelago of violence exist,right?
That uplifts the quote unquotetraditional family, which is
super rooted in white supremacyand cisgender patriarchy and

(04:54):
those values and we know they'reinherently, they're inherently
violent and that they erasequeer families.
The other thing though is thatthere is also the left and some
of the kneel liberal movement in, in political conversations
really just only normalizedheteronormative relationships.
Um, it's typically two cisgenderqueer folks who are playing man

(05:17):
and woman sort of energy thatheteronormative, um, expectation
of how families are built.
And so as you know, one of thethings that we've talked about
previously is we're also likenon-monogamous people and so
interested in really importantfor us to say, Hey, there is
nothing, quote unquoteunwholesome about our pure
family.
And that everything that we doin life is a political choice,

(05:39):
right?
It either seeks to support thestatus quo, which is rooted in
patriarchy, capitalism andanti-black white supremacy or it
subverts it.
Um, it comes into directconflict.
And so we wanted to create aspace where people could have
those conversations, they couldexplore what does it look like?
I'm being open and consentingand informed.

(06:00):
And how you create a culture offamily and the story of family
itself.
And I think that we've beendoing a pretty good job so far.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
Yeah, I'd say so.
So those, the, the two episodesthat I had mentioned earlier,
you did an episode on urgencyand perfectionism.
So how did you decide to focusthose episodes on those
particular two characterizationsof white

Speaker 3 (06:23):
supremacy culture?
Yeah.
Um, we have a resource and welink to it on our site that is a
part of a training, um, resourcethat several folks developed in
community with one anotheraround how white supremacy
culture shows up inorganizational settings.
And we believe that it's notjust organizational settings,
right?
It's any, any kind of a systemor partnership that's developed

(06:47):
within that infrastructure of anorganization or life.
Um, and so we chose thoseparticular episodes because we
saw in the questions and thecomments that folks would send
us or email things they, theywould always ask around, I have
this respectability, I have thisneed for my kid to not make

(07:08):
these mistakes or we know thatthings are really politically,
uh, violent in this time.
And I want to teach my child howto be an ally, but I have to do
it now because it's otherwiseit's too late.
And so we just sort of the tenorand tone of how people were
approaching things since then.
We, um, recorded an episode onconflict, you know, open

(07:30):
complex, which is another habitof white supremacy.
So we're continuing in thatwork.
But those two in particularperfectionism and urgency are
pretty pervasive in parentingmanuals in what we were told to
be as parents who are childrenand caretakers.
So

Speaker 2 (07:45):
yeah, we, we definitely wanted to focus on
those two.
I think because of thatcentering it back on the
parenting, it's just so hard toovercome that idea of like I
have to be the perfect parent.
Um, but s so much in societydefines perfection as a standard
of whiteness or a standard ofbeing cisgender standard that's

(08:05):
compared to heteronormativityand we were trying in their
heart and those episodes was tokind of course correct how we
were defining perfectionism andhow, who gets to set that
standard even in the first placeand why it's a myth.
And a second place and how, howyou as parents or as individuals
are caretakers.
Because our podcast is also forfolks who aren't, aren't parents

(08:28):
who, um, are just existing themin the world.
And it's also for folks who takecare of young kids but don't
consider themselves parents.
Um, to just really like focus onnot falling into that trap of
perfectionism.
And then to also kind of bounceoff of what you said with the
urgency episode, we just havenoticed, especially since the

(08:50):
2016 election, this sense oflike, I have to do this now.
It has to be done because I wantto stop the next terrible thing
from happening and I'm justgoing to jump in.
And it just kind of likesnowballs from there.
And it's usually done in thissense of like, I'm this like
white savior person who isneeded in this instance and I'm
going to jump in and not thinkabout it.

(09:11):
And it's like very harmful.
And if we relate that toparenting of just like this
sense of urgency to make surethat our kids are being taught
x, Y and Z or even like superbasic like everyday stuff like
we have to get to the store intwo minutes so I don't care that
you're having a meltdown aboutthis.
We have to go and keep thisschedule and like Dah Dah Dah
Dah Dah.
And so just try to like on ourend of things to just really

(09:34):
provide concrete examples of howin everyday living on a very
small scale and very micro scaleand then also on like a very
large scale in our society, whatit means to push back against
that idea of perfectionism,innocence of urgency.

Speaker 1 (09:48):
Are there ways in which perfectionism and urgency
and th that white supremacyculture uniquely impact Queer
families?
You, you've mentioned that alittle bit, but I'm really
interested in talking about thatmore.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
There's like basically the gist of our
podcast.
You know, kind of going back towhat I had said in a previous
answer about who gets to createthat standard, that sense of
urgency that we feel, um, is a,it's a, um, it's a standard that
was set against, you know, whitesupremacy.
Patriarchy is capitalism ablebodied, um, cis-gendered

(10:22):
standard.
And so for Queer familie s andfamilies that fall in all
iterations outside of thatstandard, we will never match up
to that perfection, right?
It, we're set up to fail fromthe very beginning.
And so it deeply impacts usbecause not only are we striving
for a standard that wasn't meantfor us, but we still feel that,

(10:43):
you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (10:43):
Our society socializes us toward transphobia
and queer phobia.
There is a lot of pressure.
Like we can talk all day aboutthe external pressure, but the
internalized messages we oftendo not address.
Um, and one of those that I seeshow up with so many families
that we have touch points withis this, there's only one right

(11:04):
way to be like a good queerfamily.
And it's around how the systemof patriarchy and white
supremacy and capitalism usetokens to uphold their, their
standard.
And so you'll have queer folkswho are in their forties and had
found themselves in heterosexualrelationships and only just are
realizing the depth of theirqueerness or that their gender,

(11:28):
um, was wrongly assigned to themat birth.
And that they have a differentway that they are identifying or
expressing themselves and thenthey, they build so much
pressure to change their storyor to be ashamed of it or, or
not lean into that story becausethe, there's the real quote
unquote Cinderella Story.
Acceptable story of queerness islike, I came out when I was

(11:49):
young and I knew when I datedand I fell in love and then I
got married and we bought aVolvo and, or Subaru.
Yeah.
And we got a golden retrieverand then we found a donor and
then we had a baby, right?
Like it's, it's the blacks sorooted and like classism and
Whiteness and accessibility.

(12:09):
But for some people it's like,Yo, I, uh, got married to a dude
and wasn't, didn't understandand went through a bunch of
trauma and came out as queer andnow my non-binary wife is
raising three of my children andwe had one together with someone
that we borrowed their spermfrom.
Right?
Like it's, it's not this cleancut story.

(12:32):
And often those stories arepitched as like mistakes or too
messy or they would confuseother people.
But families come together inall sorts of ways.
We can have conversations aroundperfectionism and not, and not
realize that we're reallyapplying this pressure on
ourselves to have the idealfamily story.

(12:54):
But no, there, there is no wrongway to be a queer family.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I, I had an episode not too longago where it was myself and two
other people with queer parentsand talking about like divorce
and our families and howdifficult that can really be for
people going through a divorce.
But then for the youth, youknow, or, or adults of, of those
queer folks because so oftenqueer spas, people with LGBTQ

(13:18):
parents feel a pressure to, touphold that perfectionism.
And we have to be happy, ourfamily has to be healthy and
happy and we have to be doinggreat in order to like prove
something

Speaker 3 (13:28):
right and just so much social pressure of hide
what's happening because if theysee that queer folks can't keep
it together, it will prove thatwe didn't deserve to be a family
member or that we shouldn't havebeen given the rights marriage.
But listen, heterosexual peoplehave been jacking up the
institution of more than familyfor far longer on the books.

(13:51):
So, uh, if anything, I feel likewe're improving it and we're
expanding the, the definitionsof boundaries in love and, and
what makes up family

Speaker 1 (14:01):
[inaudible] yeah, something else that you had
brought up and one of theepisodes talked about hierarchy
in our families and how thatplays into urgency.
And so I really, really likedthat.
How you discussed how a sense ofurgency can amplify those
hierarchies or those sort ofunequal dynamics in families.
You know, you talk about I'm theparent and we need to do x right
now and without having then thattime for discussion and other

(14:24):
voices.
So in your, in your own family,what are some of the ways that
you've taken more time todeconstruct those hierarchies or
, or think about them as parentsand then also like together as a
family?

Speaker 3 (14:40):
Yeah, we just did this last name[inaudible] we're
over, you're chuckling cause wewere like, oh goodness, we were
having this conversation becausean extended family member is for
a job in the New England areaand we of course are in the
south.
And uh, Mo really wants topursue some educational
opportunities that aren'tavailable to nonbinary people in

(15:01):
this area.
And we just had this moment ofclarity of, oh okay, we probably
going to have to move again.
And we just moved in April.
And before we even got into theofficial planning process, they
said, well, we have to put thisbefore the kids and we have to
have a conversation, uh, becausewe made some commitments to them
around school.
And you know, this is a part ofshaping their lives.

(15:21):
And so we sit down with our kidsand we say, nothing's in stone
right now, but here's what we'rethinking.
We'd love your feedback.
We'd love to see, um, where yourinput is.
And that's just really ourattempt to deconstruct this
hierarchy of we, you know, havepower as far as your parents.
So we know that what is best foryou.

(15:43):
And also trying to model consentand interdependence in the
context of family so that ourkids, whenever they become
adults and whoever they decideto have any kind of relationship
with, they have a blueprint ofhow to negotiate their needs and
communicate, right?

(16:03):
This is a time for testing andexperimenting for how, for them
to advocate for themselves, forthem to disagree in a way that's
safe for them to escalate thingsthat they think should be
escalated.
And if they can't do that in thecontext of family, where do they
learn that usually out in theworld after the time has passed
for them to develop those skillsand it's incredibly painful, um,

(16:24):
psychosocial developmentalprocess to have all these
pressures on you as a youngadult and have no skills around
being able to be in principlestruggle or your needs and
negotiating the needs of thecollective and whomever else
you're engaging with.
So that's really how we try anddeconstruct our full power
family.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah.
And I, um, I spend, you know, alot of my time with those Kiddos
and um, I tried to do it on avery like, micro level and so
that usually comes down to like,Hey Baba, can I have this sugar
item?
And I'm like, okay, well like asthe parent who could take all
the power and say, no, you know,we're not going to do that right

(17:04):
now, or whatever.
I say, well, what do you think?
Let's talk about it.
Like if you have this sugaritem, do you think that'll
affect how you're going to likebe able to follow directions
whenever I say it's time toclean up the front room or do
you think that if you could havethe sugar item right now, you
think that you'll still be ableto be in control of, you know,
your responses and your thoughtsand your actions and if they

(17:25):
say, yeah, I think I got it,Baba, I think I can do it and
I'll be at, cool, go for it.
Try it out, try it out.
Because that's just so oppositeof how I was raised.
I was raised as this likeautonomous like robot.
Like I just had to follow thedirections.
I never questioned it.
And then I got to college andgraduated college and I didn't
have that life plan set out forme anymore.

(17:48):
It was like you got to it out onyour own.
I was like, I don't even knowhow to make a basic decision
because like I've been told mywhole life, no or yes and don't
question it.
And because I was the person inthe family who didn't have the
power because of the hierarchyof like parents making the
decisions and kids don't.
And we just don't believe in ourfamily that just because like
we're older that we can controlour kids, they're not ours to

(18:10):
control.
They're, they're ours to likehelp understand the world and
the impacts of those choices.
And our job as the parents ofthese beautiful children is to
like, just offer our wisdom andour devices as best as we can.
But we, we don't want to beraising a generation of kids who
don't know how to do this

Speaker 3 (18:29):
empowered in jobs.
I think the other like strikinglayer to that around our race
shows up is, uh, you know, andof course is our, a, is a
transgender girl.
So there's also implicationsthere, but black children are
socialized everywhere externallyto accept authority,

(18:50):
particularly like white stateauthority.
Um, and to be like, Here'scontrol of your body, here's
control of your thoughts.
Anti-Blackness is the controland subjugation and ultimately
leading to the violence anddestruction of black lives.
Right.
And so the last thing we want todo is condition our children to

(19:10):
completely be okay with powerand control from hierarchical
powers.
Right.
It's, and so we want to alwaysbe mindful that we're not siding
with those oppressive dynamicsin society and conditioning our
children to accept thosestandards.
Right.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
But no, as, as you mentioned, that was so different
than your own experience growingup.
So I imagine there's gotta bemoments where you have to like
remind yourselves or like dothose like personal check-ins or
like step into another room,breathe a little comeback in,
you know, so w what have youdone to enable you to do that?
Because that's something that itseems like you really have to

(19:50):
think things through in prep andlike, you know, also be present,
you know, as another person in,in that, you know, family
cohort.

Speaker 2 (19:59):
Oh, totally.
Um, I mean it's, for me it'slike, it's, it's a lot of
conversations with jasmine andwe have with each other about
like how we were raised and theimplications of that as we are
parents now.
But honestly, a lot of it's alsolike I make mistakes and my
family calls me out on it.
Yeah.

(20:19):
And they go, hey, that's a, wedon't actually, we don't
actually believe that.
Or like that's not how we'regoing to like show up in this
space right now.
And so I've had to learn how toreceive that feedback from my
kids and from my wife in frontof my kids.
This idea of like we're usually,we're very scared of conflict or
being corrected.
We want it to be private andsecret because we are afraid of

(20:41):
what that might mean or whatthat might say of us.
I'm in a way to push backagainst that is to practice it
our own families.
Right.
That's the place where we werestarting.
The other part of it, eitherhalf of it is I go back to my
kids and I apologize s like themain like society, you never
hear of anybody encouragingparents to go and apologize to
their kids because that quoteunquote will be like, you served

(21:04):
their power and they'll notrespect you anymore.
But we just think that that's sofalse and we think that it's so
important to show young folksthat like we make mistakes as
older people as adults.
And, and it's important that yourealize that like you deserve an
apology and you deserve thechance to be like, Hey, that

(21:25):
hurt me and I didn't like that.
And for the person who you knowis older to be like, you're
right, I'm sorry that I didthat.
I will try my best.
Here are the steps I'm going totake to make sure I don't do
that again.

Speaker 3 (21:35):
Yeah.
So K so accountability, regularhabits of repair.

Speaker 1 (21:40):
Well, so something that I've been thinking after
listening was white supremacyculture touches everything from
how we learn to publictransportation and access to it,
to health care and for LGBTQfamilies and people like we're
not that standard model.
So we are men or non-binarypeople having babies where two

(22:02):
people, two men adopting and whoneed parental leave that is not
built into their work policies.
You know, we're queer spawnwhose school is holding a daddy
daughter dance or you know, amother son something.
And so like, again, our familydoesn't fit into that.
So I'd love your, your thoughtson how can we be pushing back
against these, you know, forcesthat want us to fit that certain

(22:26):
model.

Speaker 3 (22:27):
Yeah.
So I think that one of the mostbeautiful habits of resistance
that's happening in our, all ofour movement spaces is just sort
of like this punk rock spirit ofI like we can make it ourselves,
we can do it ourselves.
And instead of trying to reforma system that was designed to
harm us, right?
Like a lot of the familymovement stuff is designed to

(22:50):
harm us and to um, ostracize usor a racist.
We are creating our own spaces.
So I think it takes all of us inevery cross-section.
It takes folks like us who aretrying to inform culture and
just develop stories.
It takes research, it takespolicy change and then it just
takes practice.

(23:10):
But so many of us areconditioned to want to be
excepted by CIS Hetero societythat we want to go to those
daddy daughter dances and wedon't want to plan our own.
We just want to be included.
But what we don't realize isonce we're there, it's, it's
harmful.
The messaging doesn't change.
And to be present just forrepresentation Sake is not

(23:30):
justice.
So justice is that selfdetermination and that powerful
spirit that I often see in myblack movement spaces of how can
we make something that isappropriate for our culture and
our ecosystem.
So I love seeing familiescreating their own dances and

(23:51):
you know, figuring out newradical ways to, to school or
unschool their children.
Those kinds of things are thesolutions and there's a critical
mass that happens, right?
The more of us who are findingourselves in spaces that were

Speaker 2 (24:06):
we're passionate about and we're showing up fully
as our authentic selves, thenmore people are invited and it's
you being vulnerable andauthentic and then soon like
it's a room full of us.
And some of us just have thecapacity to just like keep
living, you know, because likeour living in our existence is
resistance enough.
Absolutely.
And taking good care of yourselfand taking good care of your

(24:26):
family is not selfish.
It's like literal resistance ina system that wants to squash
you.
There's no right way to do it.
And so in the middle in thatmiddle ambiguity and like that
gray space of just like, I wishthere were a model but there's
not and like we're going to pushback against that idea of there
needing to be a model.
We just always encourage folksto just like rest take care of

(24:49):
yourself as well in the media.

Speaker 3 (24:51):
Yeah.
We have to hold intention tryingto build this brand new world,
this like speculative fictionworld where black lives are
centered, queer black lives inparticular Trans folks, right?
But we also know that we live inthe constraints of this current
existence.
And so for some people getting,you know, quietly attending a
daddy daughter dance is thereharm reduction and that is

(25:12):
completely valid.
Not everyone has to be this likeorganizer disruptor who's
sticking it to the man.
So how has being a parentchanged your perspective on the
way that these negative outsideforces are impacting you?
You know, there is a saying inaddition to all the hundreds of
other things.
I do in this role, I'm also alicensed therapist.

(25:34):
And one of the things that youlearn as you go through that
system of training andexploration is that each
developmental milestone whereyou experienced trauma, when
your child hits that milestone,even if they haven't experienced
trauma, user re-experience itwith them.
And so for me, as I wasdeveloping a critical
consciousness or sort of likewhat people call woke, you know,

(25:56):
when I was waking up to all ofthe things, all the trash that
is a part of our, the frameworkof our society, I realized how
complicit I was and how much Iwas a participant in that
system.
And I just had this intersectionwhere I realized I could
recapitulate those harms thatI'd experienced as a young
person and I'm still facing asan adult or I could choose a

(26:20):
different way as much aspossible.
And so it really became aboutconscious parenting at each
moment that I'm able to bepresent and make choices to no
longer condition my childreninto that violent system and no
longer be complicit in it.
But kids are really young peopleare really good about bringing

(26:41):
us back to ourselves in thepresent moment and acting as
mirrors.
And I didn't like the version ofmyself that I was seeing
reflected back at me in so manyways.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
And did you seek then the like being around other
parents or therapy, you know, asa licensed therapist?
Like, so when you saw thosethings, what did you, what did
you need and what did you findin those moments to help you
through that?

Speaker 3 (27:04):
Yeah, it took a lot of internal work around therapy
for my own traumas because youknow, there are some big t
traumas and little t traumas andthen a lot of it was just
political education[inaudible]and rejecting standards of
parenting that is reallycommercial and mainstream.

(27:26):
And then just being inrelationship with my child
instead of being, you know, I'mthe parents or know how to do
everything and I'm just going todo this thing.
I'm going to raise you, I'mgoing to rear you.
It became, we're in arelationship, so how do we, how
do I listen to you?
How can you listen to me and howcan we figure out what the way

(27:46):
for it looks like?
And my kid's relationship withme is going to be different than
everybody else's.
But really I just have thisbeautiful collective of parents
who are trying to figure out howdo they also raise their kids in
a way that is just and orientedtoward liberty liberation and we
just workshop stuff together andwe're just really honest and
vulnerable with one another andit's messy.

(28:07):
There's no, you could not buy abook to parent in this way,
although we are working on that.

Speaker 1 (28:14):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (28:14):
I think for me, I had a very different experience.
I was an instead of parents.
So Jasmine had already when to,when we fell in love, she had
already had three kids.

Speaker 3 (28:25):
The U haul on our second thing.
Yeah,

Speaker 1 (28:29):
yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:30):
You're going to be asking for those.
And so I jumped into like thiswhole family system thing that
was already kind of going forme.
However, I am a white person andI found myself, I'm suddenly in
a relationship with threebeautiful black kids.
And so for me, I started a veryrapid education of what it means

(28:50):
to be black in America, um,particularly what it means to be
like a black kid in school, inAmerica.
Um, and so I started to do a lotof self education around
basically how to not be aterrible white person.

Speaker 3 (29:04):
Yeah.
The anti racism, politicaleducation.
Yeah.
It's like a iron man if you'regoing to raise a child.
Yes.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
From a different race.
I just feel like everything haschanged for me since I've been a
parent.
I guess to answer your questionaround how we understand this,
because I, I never would've hadthese experiences this
intimately had I not been in arelationship like this.
I don't think,

Speaker 3 (29:22):
and I have to name that even as like a queer black,
black feminist, I did not havean analysis or practice, meaning
I didn't have a practice.
And, um, anything that informedthe philosophy of my life around
gender identity.
And so when my, when my childwho I designed male at birth,

(29:45):
started showing somedevelopmental manifestations
that were in misalignment with agender that I had wrongly
assigned, it took me like I hadto come to terms despite the
fact that I was in the communitywho I knew Trans Women in the
world.
It took me evaluating my owninternalized transphobia and
figuring out, okay, how do Itake care of this kid?

(30:07):
How do I show up?
Um, and, and support this selfdetermination and dignity that
is owed to this child.
And so I also had a rapid, likemoe had to come to terms with
history of white supremacy.
I had to come to terms with theways in which queer folks in
particular perpetuatetransphobia and violence.
And during that time, of course,moe was also on this path of

(30:30):
psychosocial development aroundtheir gender identity and
expression.
And so, yeah, it's just been,and it's, it's one of those
things, right?
Like if someone revealssomething to you about
themselves and you love them,and justice orients us to
transforming in service of thatperson's wellbeing.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
Any final thoughts or even a thought of like, what's
next?
What's next for parenting ispolitical,

Speaker 3 (30:55):
what's next for us

Speaker 2 (30:57):
next?
And like you said, we're goingto continue our series on
exploring what thecharacteristics of white
supremacy culture are and um,how they relate to us as
individuals and us as parents orpeople who are taking care of
young kids.

Speaker 3 (31:10):
And we've got a book proposal together and look for
literary agents, uh, to, to, to,to do that.
What we said, we write thatmanual about what does radical
parenting look like, what canthose real tangible resources
that we can get in the hands offolks.
Yeah.
So hopefully a book will becoming soon and we're just live
in our queer black life here inArkansas.

Speaker 1 (31:30):
Awesome.
Well, I really, reallyappreciate it.
Thank you both so much.
Again, encourage everybody tonow take a listen to parenting
is political and read in, checkout the website.
So, uh, thank you Lauren.
Jasmine, thank you so much.
[inaudible] again, thank you forjoining us today.
Please rate, review andsubscribe to outspoken voices.

(31:52):
You can find outspoken voices onour website, soundcloud, iTunes,
stitcher, and wherever you get[inaudible]

Speaker 4 (31:58):
your podcasts.
You can find family [e-mail] and
on Facebook and Instagram atfamily equality and on Twitter
at family underscore equality.
Until next time.
Remember that love, justice,

Speaker 1 (32:15):
family and equality is what brings our families
together.