The Young Turks - Laverne Cox, What Does Pride Mean To You

Episode Date: June 2, 2022

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You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. I am very excited to welcome you to our annual Pride special. I am John Iderola, host of the damage report, and occasionally the Young Turks as well. And through the course of the next two hours, you're going to be joined not only by a number of awesome people from here within the team. TYT network, but some of our favorite guests, people who are doing amazing work in film and TV, activism, authors, playwrights, everything.

It's going to be absolutely awesome. And I can't wait to jump into it. So why don't we actually do that? I'm very lucky to be joined first on the program by actress, producer, and advocate. Lavernecox, welcome to the program. Hello, John. How are you? I'm doing well.

Much better now that you're on the show. We're very excited to have you here. Thank you so much for taking time out. Of course, I'm so excited to be on TYT. I'm a huge fan. I watch every, I try to watch every day. Thank you so much. I mean, we feel like exactly the same work, same way.

We don't need to remind people of the many different programs. You've done amazing work on and you've also been recently recognized for your activism as well, online and otherwise. And so it's great to have you here. And so I wanted to start with you. I mean, we're launching in to Pride Month. What does pride mean to you, particularly in 2022? What does this month mean to you?

Oh my, it's really, it's for me, it's always a reminder of how far we've come and how far we need to go. Every year for the past several years, there've been legislative attacks in state legislatures all over the country. This year, over 200 pieces of legislation have been introduced in state legislature. all over the country attacking transgender children, their ability to play in sports, mostly trans girls, their ability to access gender affirming care.

Many of these bills that have been introduced have been passed into law in Arkansas, in my home state of Alabama. There's policies in Texas, in Florida, and many states that are criminalizing trans folks getting access to gender affirming health care, banning them from sports and stigmatizing them. And these families are living in fear and being just treated terribly.

I think it's really important when we have conversations. We always, we often hear this cloaked as a culture war, right? We talk about CRT and we talk about the attack on LGBTQ plus folks and we say culture war. This is really a human rights war. This is a war on human rights, our access to, I mean, for me, I think that just with reproductive rights, a decision about whether a child can access gender affirming health care should be a decision between that child, their parent and their doctor. Legislators are not doctors. They actually don't know what they're talking about. There are many pundits, both conservative and liberal leaning who

don't know what they're talking about. It's really no one's business on what a trans child is doing with their bodies. I totally agree. I think that there should be far more people in the media and in politics who are able to own up to their own ignorance. In this case what what you're talking about is for some, I think it's just regular ignorance. For some, it is very willing, enthusiastic ignorance. I mean, we've talked for a long time on the damage report. There are people in right wing media that cannot do a show without talking about the trans community. And it does not appear that they have ever talked to a person in the community. Like day after day after day, they talk about, they talk at it or they send their

audience at it. But they don't seem to understand it. So you talked about, you know, recognizing how far the communities have come and how far they have to go, does it feel it all as if it's actually been steps back in terms of the attacks that have been coming from the right? Yes. Yes, absolutely. And I think the piece that you talk about with the media, I think it's twofold, right? So we learned with the whole sort of Taylor the Rand's Libs of TikTok situation that the creator of the Libs of TikTok Twitter account was communicating directly with, the Ron DeSantis press secretary, right? So that it's that this social media account that stigmatized LGBTQ folks was influencing policy in Texas.

So that there's what is happening in mostly conservative media on the internet and Fox News, OAN, et cetera, is misinformation, propaganda about trans people, stigmatizing us, dehumanizing us, calling us all sorts of things that I just can't even repeat. And then though that misinformation is being legislated. Similar to CRT, all the misinformation. And interestingly enough, Chris Rufo, who basically, you know, sort of confessed that the whole plan with CRT was basically to say anything that has to do with race, we're going to like cloak it under CRT. And, you know, basically, and that's what they've done. And they've actually, they're legislating on that. And they're doing the same thing with trans rights. LGBTQ rights for children. Now it's important to note too that the same organizations

Alliance Defending Freedom, the Heritage Foundation, etc. These organizations tried it with bathroom bills and they failed. They tried it with marriage equality and they failed. But now they're using children. Now they're saying, oh, they're trying to indoctrinate children. Oh, they're trying to experiment on children. A cable news comedian said a few weeks ago that we're experimenting on children with hormone blockers. This hormone blockers have existed for 40 years. 40 years hormone blockers have exist and they've been used to treat non-transgender children who have precarious puberty, meaning they their puberty happen too early and they base,

and hormone blockers just delay puberty, right? So this is a there are people who don't know what they're talking about. They're not talking to trans people. And I would even say I'm I'm a deeply appreciative of the coverage that TYT has had, but I want to see more trans folks, Not just during Pride Month on TYT talking about these issues and not trans people who are informed about the issues. I think it's deeply problematic when we just sort of take in, you know, bring in, you know, a black person or bring in a trans person if they don't have a depth of knowledge on the information. And I think last thing I'll say on this is that the humanity, the beautiful humanity of trans people, of trans children is just being discounted in these moments. And it's just the ways in which we're being talked about by legislators, even as children, And nine, 10 year old children are testifying before state legislatures and saying,

please do not take away my health care. They're doing it anyway. They're not listening. They're not seeing us as human and as the beautiful humans we are. And I'm here to celebrate trans folks. I'm here to celebrate LGBTQ folks and not just rehumanize us, but rehumanize the people who have been propagandized to and radicalized by social media and misinformation. That is, I don't know how we like sort of of breakthrough predatory algorithms that sort of feed this misinformation. But it's really important that we continue to elevate the real lived experiences of trans people and we do it with love and do it with empathy.

Yeah, and especially when the stakes are as high as they are, when we're talking about people's literal lives. They are, they're really high. Yeah, whether it's people being targeted for violence in the community, or if it's kids who desperately need a sense of acceptance and understanding community, To have a political movement, this massive, well-funded political movement preemptively, before socially it even really exists. Stripping away all of those protections is particularly grotesque.

And to do it under the auspices of protecting children is even worse. And to the misinformation, as you're right, there's a lot of misinformation. Like I watch, you know, millionaire right-wing pundits who talk about how people like you, trans people are going to make people trans. they're going to convince them, trick them, I guess. Like, so you're, you're charismatic and knowledgeable. So, like, could you? Could you make someone by, like, if we were to have a really long conversation, could you against my will make me trans?

Because they would have you believe that that's what people are doing, teachers and all that. I can't think of something in an area where already there is so much ignorance for them to indoctrinate their followers into thinking that an orientation. of identity that is core to you could be inflicted like a virus on someone is even sicker than all of the other ignorant ways that they've approached these sorts of identities? It's, I mean, it's laughable. It's absolutely laughable. And for me, and most of us, I tried everything I could to not be trans. I really didn't want to be trans because when even, I think

right now too, I'm so blessed with my life, but and I'm really visible. So people see my life and they say, well, Laverne Cox is doing well. Well, Caitlin Jenner is doing well. So trans people are fine, but they don't understand that the employment rate and the unemployment rate in the trans community is three times a national average. Four times that for trans people of color, they don't realize that over 50% of trans people make less than $10,000 a year. They don't realize is 78% of children, of students, according to a study from Glisten, experience harassment or bullying in school. Just walking down on the street as a visibly trans person, you are a target for violence. You are a target for harassment. No one chooses this. We, I, my choice was do

to live as myself, or do I want to kill myself? I don't think we should, even though things have gotten better and they have in terms of, in terms of media, representation. I think that is the tricky thing. There is an unprecedented visibility that trans people have right now that I celebrate that it's beautiful. We're winning golden globes. We have Barbie dolls. Thank you, Mattel. We have so many, so much beautiful positive visibility. And so sometimes people are like, well, in that, that skews the real lived experiences of poor and working trans people. That obscures the experiences of in Texas right now, you know, Abbott's attorney general said we need to investigate trans children. If you say, trans child report them. We're going to have the Department of Children and Families investigate them, investigate the parents for child abuse. Now there is an injunction. I talked to my friend Ches Strangio about the status of this. He's a staff attorney at the ACLU. So with that case in Texas now, there is an injunction against them investigating one family and the Department of Children and Families can investigate other families and they're we're not sure what's going

to happen. So the families in Texas are living in fear, right? They're basically like, parents are like, are they going to come and investigate us and take our, take my children away from me because I'm supporting them. Children are living in fear. And so that's what these laws are doing. We have to look at how these things are affecting real, the lives of real people. And so often we're we just are treated like this political football that's being used as if we're not human. And so I think it's so important to elevate the stories of people like Fisher Wells, the child in Kentucky, who is the only trans girl that we know of who plays sports in middle school or high school. And the state, the assembly and the state Senate

overwrote the governor's veto of a bill that would prevent one child from playing sports, one child from playing sports in middle school or high school. There are no other trans girls that we know of playing sports in middle and high school. So a law targeting one child. Yeah, it's disgusting. Yeah, it's disgusting. And and, and, Look, obviously nothing else is going wrong in America that an entire party can put all of their attention into stopping a single individual from playing a sport. Clearly, that's the lesson that I'm getting from it. But look, you covered a lot of ground there and I love that you did. You cited some stats that I sort of suspected, but did not know how bad they were.

So I really do appreciate that. Thank you so much. Can I say one more thing? Of course. I think that like it is, it is deeply urgent that we get get some kind of strategy together. Those people who support trans folks, support LGBTQ plus folks, because the people who are anti-human rights for the LGBTQ plus community are winning. They're winning in space. They're winning the communication war.

They are coordinated. They have a message that is, it's all lies, but they're consistent with that messaging. They pound it over and over and over again. There have been over the past several years have been hundreds of Fox News reports. on trans kids playing sports and schools and like in mainstream media and even independent media, there's like not nearly enough stories countering those narratives, right? There's like so much. I mean, when you look at, for example, the sports, the trans girls playing sports, there's there's not even really been

enough studies done to really give us the correct information about whether there is an advantage or not. And there's just all this mis-improve information. So we need to get coordinated. We need to get active and like across all, all, sorry, it's thunderning lightning in here. Right here, right here. But we need to be coordinated. We need to get organized. We need to get our messaging consistent because it is, you know, it's CRT, it's anti-LGBQ issues. They're banning books. Democracy is on the line. And nothing is happening from our legislators. And I think what the last thing I'll say is that there are organizations out there and I want to highlight a few campaign for Southern

Equality that are providing resources for people who may need to move out of the state that they that that has these discriminatory policies campaign for Southern Equality Southern Equality.org and trans family support services transfamily sOS.org organizations who are helping people on the ground if they to get access to services trans people have always gotten a hormone since I know a story of major Griffith Gracie when she was 15 years old in Chicago. was getting hormones on the street, getting a German hormones. Trans people have always gotten hormones.

Trans people have been transitioning from at 12, 13, 14, without doctors. Do we want, they're gonna continue to get hormones. We're gonna continue to transition. Do you want us to do it safely or do you want us to do it, you know, go elsewhere? And I think that's the same thing with abortion. People are still gonna have abortions. So I think that's the piece and we have to our laws and our politicians are not helping us. We have to be there for each other.

We have to form communities and support each other. And that's what LGBTQ people plus people have been doing for decades. And we will continue to have chosen families and chosen communities and support networks, what will be there for each other. I love everything you just said. The defense, the support needs to be at least as strong, if not stronger than the attack that we're experiencing. So I really do appreciate that. As I said, you're touching on so many things that I wish we had time to dive into.

I hope that we get future opportunities to talk about all of this and more. And, you know, unfortunately, anytime you want, we don't have to do it just during pride now. I'll come back another time. We'll talk. I would love that. Let's definitely set that up. For now though, Lavernecox, thank you so much for joining us. We really do appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, John. Thank you to you. Thank you so much. Hi, Anna. Hi, Jank. I think Anna's, she's not in the room, but she is watching. So hopefully she'll see that. Thank you. And for those of you watching at home, we've got a lot more to get to. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.

Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com at t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.