September 30, 2024 • 11 mins
Jane VanMeter from Trans Safe Action Fund discusses the advocacy group's bill in Franfort to have gender neutral bathrooms available in schools and other public areas. She also discussed other trans issues...
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, Miles, thanks a bunch of congratulations on another
(00:02):
victory in our basketball competition, our waste basket ball competition
that Miles won again today. Now we can't access our
in house basketball court because our sales department is having
some kind of a special and there are gigantic letters
outside my studio. Let's say, let's groove, and I'm like,
(00:22):
is this nineteen seventy eight? What just happened? We're grooving again?
I guess we are. Everything that was is back again.
So we're grooving. So this afternoon, we're grooving with Jane
van Meter in the studio with me representing trans Safe.
What's up, Jane?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Hi? How are you welcome?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Good to have you here.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Good, good, it's good to be here. Thank you very
much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Now, I know this is an advocacy group. We'll talk
about that in a minute. But are you also a comedian?
Is this something else that you do?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I do comedy? I do comedy.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Do you do comedy? And then what other kind of
jobs have you had? Have you been a teacher? Oh?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
No, I was everything. I was a farmer and I
raised strawberries and cows and tobacca in Kentucky. Yeah, or
strawberries good from here? Yeah, they're great. They're great.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
It's kind of dependent on the rain though, is and
how fat and wet they are.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Juicy not really well, you got to have rain to
grow anything. Yeah, but it's a lot of fun. It's
hard work. It's hard work.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Are you still a farmer?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
No, I'm not. I am without a farm right now.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
That's kind of sad. I'm working on it. I love
talking to farmers, that's for sure. All right, what else
have you done?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Coached high school soccer? Tell you truth? And interesting thing is,
my best friend is Jackie Vale, and he's a fifty
one year old ex player of mine. So you know,
we love each other all the way. So that's a
great that's fantastic to have happened.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Soccer is obviously still growing by leaves and bounds in
our culture. I mean, football is taking some hits. I
think one of those big letters is fell down.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
I heard that.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
I hope that lady's not hurt. Some woman putting up
some letters out there. So the group that you're advocating
trans Safe is obviously has to be in response to
a lot of the activity we've seen in Frankfort over
the last few years where there have been limitations on
trans rights and people are pushing back against that. So
(02:27):
you know, you tell me what is your advocacy group's goal.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Well, our mission statement is to make transgender people safe
so we can live our lives the way we want
and without fear of harm. It's really simple. And we
do a lot of things. We do narrative, we do ads,
and we do electoral work helping people that help us,
(02:52):
and we do legislative work. And that's kind of where
we are right now because you kind of get ready
for the legislature session January and February much earlier in March,
much earlier than they used to, and we start talking
about bills now, and we're working on a bill. We're
we're kind of talking there's a gender neutral Uh. You
(03:14):
look like you're gonna ask a question. No, I'm just
talking too much.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
You're doing fun. If you're an on stage person, doesn't
ignore the heck alergists to your thing.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Okay, I will, I will anyway. Legislatively, we're working on
a gender neutral bathroom. And the reason I'm gonna get
honest here, I was looking for some way to make
an offensive bill. We are so much on our heels
(03:44):
with anti trans bills. I said, let's get offensive. Let's
think of a bill for us. And and the more
I thought about this, and and I spoke to my secretary,
who just died about three weeks ago. But she little
shout out to her. She said, why can't they just
(04:05):
have the bathroom doors locked behind you? And because those
are safe Starbucks. I don't know if I'm that's.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Right, but that's that's a good point though, that you
lock your door at Starbucks or at Walgreens or wherever
you're going.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yeah, is that the concept. That's the concept. In a way,
there are stalls and it's open. You can see things
from the hallway. There are stars that go all the
way down to the bottom of the floor. You lock
it behind you, and then you get out and you
wash hands with boys and girls and then you're free
to go. But it's all open, able to be seen
(04:43):
by teachers. Teachers like it because they can monitor the bathrooms.
Bathrooms are kind of unsafe in some place.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
They are in many places. Yes, I mean, the horrible
things can happen to people in any public place where
it's somebody who's a predator of some sort goes in
and obviously can harm a man or woman or a
trans person, doesn't matter who the person is. So yeah,
we're always looking for security measures. Yeah, so as long
as your vision involves the security of each individual, what
(05:14):
could be wrong. Well, we're protecting people from bullies. You know,
there are bullies in high school and middle school and
uh and and here's the thing, And this was a
young girl in Oklahoma.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Uh and uh And I'll give a shout out to
the other side too for their example. But in Oklahoma,
there was a girl. She ended up committing suicide, but
she was attacked and accosted in a bathroom in public
school by other women that hurt her and kicked her
when she was down. And so it's good for girls too.
(05:50):
There sometimes when girls get bullied in their bathroom. So
we're not looking for one hundred percent gender neutral. There's
a bill right now they're working on it, and it's
by a fellow by the name of Representative Lockett, and
he wants to make it ninety percent biological bathrooms door
(06:13):
behind you, just like regular. And we're trying to get
to about seventy five percent gender neutral. I think there's
still a place for biological bathrooms, there's no doubt about that,
but there needs to be safe places. And it isn't
just trans. We just happened to get lucky that this
would work for us. Isn't that great?
Speaker 1 (06:32):
That makes sense. A lot of people are worried about
parental information, that that information is being kept away from
parents by schools who are trying to be protective of
trans kids. But parents are saying, wait a minute, that's
my kid, and until they're eighteen, the age of emancipation,
(06:53):
I should know what's going on with them. Would your
bill address any of that issue?
Speaker 2 (06:57):
That specific part of it would not be addressed, But
that was a bill that we're talking about, and there's
a little confusion between myself and some people talking about
it about whether or not this already is allowed that
the school does have to tell the parent. We did
a poll that it was really when you look for
(07:22):
medical intervention for trands, it's almost equally fifty to fifty
forty five percent forty five percent, just right down the middle.
But when it comes to when you ask parents, do
you want to know if your child is having gender
stuff going on? It was like sixty nine percent to
thirty percent or something. Yes, most parents want to know.
(07:47):
And here's the thing. I'm for that. I know that
sounds strange, but I'm for that in it. And there's
a danger to it too. I believe years ago there
was a guy by the name of Kevin Art. He's
a comedian and he says, if now you sense, apologize,
But he said if his son came home and said
he was a transgender woman, he would hit him over
(08:08):
the head with a dollhouse. I am. We need to
protect that. We need to make sure we put safety
measures in to teach parents how to handle this.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Yeah, I mean, I'm of the mind too as a parent,
I want to know everything because I want to be
able to just talk to my child about what how
they're feeling, and then we're all participating in the roundtable.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Absolutely, there are two There are two things that could
come of it. One will find the good parents. You know,
you might have some kid who thinks their parents who
go to church or something, don't like trands and will
commit suicide because they didn't trust their parents. But the
parents we have found, especially in gay families, it's it's
(08:53):
parents changed their mind. Parents changed their mind. They love
their kids. They follow the love, and I think that's
the best thing going for us.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
I guess what you find more often than not, you know,
in most of all of them. I mean, we know
there's extreme issues. And you're talking about Kevin Hard a
comedian who says outrageous things. You're a comedian, you get it.
You say provocative things to try and elicit laughter. Yes,
he lost his Academy Award hosting job. I mean he
(09:22):
paid for that.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Yes he did. But but you know, but that attitude
was real.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
That that's right.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
I don't think that was in a humorous spot. I'm
not for certain. Maybe it was, but I think the
attitude was real.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
But we can go back and watch Chris Rock say things, and.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Well, Dave Chappelle, let me tell you something. These comedians
that are you hit me on a real I know
because you do this for a living. But people like
Dave Chappelle, they go after trans and they make us
others and and it hurts us. It's you know, they say, yeah,
(10:00):
it's just joking. Well, we don't do blackface. Do you
remember the animations from the fifties They would have Africans
with bones in their heads and big eyes, and they
and it and it made them less human of course,
and it's dehumanizing. And when you dehumanizing, whether it's humor
or any other thing, you end up putting them in danger.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
That's all that was well stated.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
But Kevin Hart is still a comedian and he's on
commercial and so it was on the TV three hundred
times over the week. And tell me the bet On
fan duel or something. Yes, I see there his life
over that either. Okay, where can we send people to
learn more about your organization?
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Ah? Yes, I'm glad you asked that because I get
into the issues. But uh, trans Save Action Fund is
the name. We have a website. If you look up
on Transsave Action Fund, we will be there. There will
be ads, Uh, there'll be an interview from me and
and I'm trying to think what else we have on
it besides an and two interviews. And there's a Rolling
(11:06):
Stone interview on there that I was on and so
should be good fun for you, And donate and donate.
I'm always people are egging me on dont we do
need help? It takes money to do ads and everything.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Jane van Meter, it's great to meet you. Let's go
out and bail some Hey, it's that time of year,
isn't it.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Yes, it is.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
See I'm a city boy, but I've had to do
a little farm work. My hands are still callous from it.
Great to meet you, Thank you. It was nice to
meet you. Coming right back on news radio waight forty
wha s.
All right, Miles, thanks a bunch of congratulations on another
(00:02):
victory in our basketball competition, our waste basket ball competition
that Miles won again today. Now we can't access our
in house basketball court because our sales department is having
some kind of a special and there are gigantic letters
outside my studio. Let's say, let's groove, and I'm like,
(00:22):
is this nineteen seventy eight? What just happened? We're grooving again?
I guess we are. Everything that was is back again.
So we're grooving. So this afternoon, we're grooving with Jane
van Meter in the studio with me representing trans Safe.
What's up, Jane?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Hi? How are you welcome?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Good to have you here.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Good, good, it's good to be here. Thank you very
much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Now, I know this is an advocacy group. We'll talk
about that in a minute. But are you also a comedian?
Is this something else that you do?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I do comedy? I do comedy.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Do you do comedy? And then what other kind of
jobs have you had? Have you been a teacher? Oh?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
No, I was everything. I was a farmer and I
raised strawberries and cows and tobacca in Kentucky. Yeah, or
strawberries good from here? Yeah, they're great. They're great.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
It's kind of dependent on the rain though, is and
how fat and wet they are.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Juicy not really well, you got to have rain to
grow anything. Yeah, but it's a lot of fun. It's
hard work. It's hard work.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Are you still a farmer?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
No, I'm not. I am without a farm right now.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
That's kind of sad. I'm working on it. I love
talking to farmers, that's for sure. All right, what else
have you done?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Coached high school soccer? Tell you truth? And interesting thing is,
my best friend is Jackie Vale, and he's a fifty
one year old ex player of mine. So you know,
we love each other all the way. So that's a
great that's fantastic to have happened.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Soccer is obviously still growing by leaves and bounds in
our culture. I mean, football is taking some hits. I
think one of those big letters is fell down.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
I heard that.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
I hope that lady's not hurt. Some woman putting up
some letters out there. So the group that you're advocating
trans Safe is obviously has to be in response to
a lot of the activity we've seen in Frankfort over
the last few years where there have been limitations on
trans rights and people are pushing back against that. So
(02:27):
you know, you tell me what is your advocacy group's goal.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Well, our mission statement is to make transgender people safe
so we can live our lives the way we want
and without fear of harm. It's really simple. And we
do a lot of things. We do narrative, we do ads,
and we do electoral work helping people that help us,
(02:52):
and we do legislative work. And that's kind of where
we are right now because you kind of get ready
for the legislature session January and February much earlier in March,
much earlier than they used to, and we start talking
about bills now, and we're working on a bill. We're
we're kind of talking there's a gender neutral Uh. You
(03:14):
look like you're gonna ask a question. No, I'm just
talking too much.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
You're doing fun. If you're an on stage person, doesn't
ignore the heck alergists to your thing.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Okay, I will, I will anyway. Legislatively, we're working on
a gender neutral bathroom. And the reason I'm gonna get
honest here, I was looking for some way to make
an offensive bill. We are so much on our heels
(03:44):
with anti trans bills. I said, let's get offensive. Let's
think of a bill for us. And and the more
I thought about this, and and I spoke to my secretary,
who just died about three weeks ago. But she little
shout out to her. She said, why can't they just
(04:05):
have the bathroom doors locked behind you? And because those
are safe Starbucks. I don't know if I'm that's.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Right, but that's that's a good point though, that you
lock your door at Starbucks or at Walgreens or wherever
you're going.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yeah, is that the concept. That's the concept. In a way,
there are stalls and it's open. You can see things
from the hallway. There are stars that go all the
way down to the bottom of the floor. You lock
it behind you, and then you get out and you
wash hands with boys and girls and then you're free
to go. But it's all open, able to be seen
(04:43):
by teachers. Teachers like it because they can monitor the bathrooms.
Bathrooms are kind of unsafe in some place.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
They are in many places. Yes, I mean, the horrible
things can happen to people in any public place where
it's somebody who's a predator of some sort goes in
and obviously can harm a man or woman or a
trans person, doesn't matter who the person is. So yeah,
we're always looking for security measures. Yeah, so as long
as your vision involves the security of each individual, what
(05:14):
could be wrong. Well, we're protecting people from bullies. You know,
there are bullies in high school and middle school and
uh and and here's the thing, And this was a
young girl in Oklahoma.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Uh and uh And I'll give a shout out to
the other side too for their example. But in Oklahoma,
there was a girl. She ended up committing suicide, but
she was attacked and accosted in a bathroom in public
school by other women that hurt her and kicked her
when she was down. And so it's good for girls too.
(05:50):
There sometimes when girls get bullied in their bathroom. So
we're not looking for one hundred percent gender neutral. There's
a bill right now they're working on it, and it's
by a fellow by the name of Representative Lockett, and
he wants to make it ninety percent biological bathrooms door
(06:13):
behind you, just like regular. And we're trying to get
to about seventy five percent gender neutral. I think there's
still a place for biological bathrooms, there's no doubt about that,
but there needs to be safe places. And it isn't
just trans. We just happened to get lucky that this
would work for us. Isn't that great?
Speaker 1 (06:32):
That makes sense. A lot of people are worried about
parental information, that that information is being kept away from
parents by schools who are trying to be protective of
trans kids. But parents are saying, wait a minute, that's
my kid, and until they're eighteen, the age of emancipation,
(06:53):
I should know what's going on with them. Would your
bill address any of that issue?
Speaker 2 (06:57):
That specific part of it would not be addressed, But
that was a bill that we're talking about, and there's
a little confusion between myself and some people talking about
it about whether or not this already is allowed that
the school does have to tell the parent. We did
a poll that it was really when you look for
(07:22):
medical intervention for trands, it's almost equally fifty to fifty
forty five percent forty five percent, just right down the middle.
But when it comes to when you ask parents, do
you want to know if your child is having gender
stuff going on? It was like sixty nine percent to
thirty percent or something. Yes, most parents want to know.
(07:47):
And here's the thing. I'm for that. I know that
sounds strange, but I'm for that in it. And there's
a danger to it too. I believe years ago there
was a guy by the name of Kevin Art. He's
a comedian and he says, if now you sense, apologize,
But he said if his son came home and said
he was a transgender woman, he would hit him over
(08:08):
the head with a dollhouse. I am. We need to
protect that. We need to make sure we put safety
measures in to teach parents how to handle this.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Yeah, I mean, I'm of the mind too as a parent,
I want to know everything because I want to be
able to just talk to my child about what how
they're feeling, and then we're all participating in the roundtable.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Absolutely, there are two There are two things that could
come of it. One will find the good parents. You know,
you might have some kid who thinks their parents who
go to church or something, don't like trands and will
commit suicide because they didn't trust their parents. But the
parents we have found, especially in gay families, it's it's
(08:53):
parents changed their mind. Parents changed their mind. They love
their kids. They follow the love, and I think that's
the best thing going for us.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
I guess what you find more often than not, you know,
in most of all of them. I mean, we know
there's extreme issues. And you're talking about Kevin Hard a
comedian who says outrageous things. You're a comedian, you get it.
You say provocative things to try and elicit laughter. Yes,
he lost his Academy Award hosting job. I mean he
(09:22):
paid for that.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Yes he did. But but you know, but that attitude
was real.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
That that's right.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
I don't think that was in a humorous spot. I'm
not for certain. Maybe it was, but I think the
attitude was real.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
But we can go back and watch Chris Rock say things, and.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Well, Dave Chappelle, let me tell you something. These comedians
that are you hit me on a real I know
because you do this for a living. But people like
Dave Chappelle, they go after trans and they make us
others and and it hurts us. It's you know, they say, yeah,
(10:00):
it's just joking. Well, we don't do blackface. Do you
remember the animations from the fifties They would have Africans
with bones in their heads and big eyes, and they
and it and it made them less human of course,
and it's dehumanizing. And when you dehumanizing, whether it's humor
or any other thing, you end up putting them in danger.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
That's all that was well stated.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
But Kevin Hart is still a comedian and he's on
commercial and so it was on the TV three hundred
times over the week. And tell me the bet On
fan duel or something. Yes, I see there his life
over that either. Okay, where can we send people to
learn more about your organization?
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Ah? Yes, I'm glad you asked that because I get
into the issues. But uh, trans Save Action Fund is
the name. We have a website. If you look up
on Transsave Action Fund, we will be there. There will
be ads, Uh, there'll be an interview from me and
and I'm trying to think what else we have on
it besides an and two interviews. And there's a Rolling
(11:06):
Stone interview on there that I was on and so
should be good fun for you, And donate and donate.
I'm always people are egging me on dont we do
need help? It takes money to do ads and everything.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Jane van Meter, it's great to meet you. Let's go
out and bail some Hey, it's that time of year,
isn't it.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Yes, it is.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
See I'm a city boy, but I've had to do
a little farm work. My hands are still callous from it.
Great to meet you, Thank you. It was nice to
meet you. Coming right back on news radio waight forty
wha s.
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