The Young Turks - River Butcher & Cane Lopez, What Does Pride Mean To You

Episode Date: June 2, 2022

River Butcher & Cane Lopez, What Does Pride Mean To You, Queer Joy & Solidarity. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. On July 18th, get excited. This is big! For the summer's biggest adventure. I think I just smurf my pants. That's a little too excited.

Sorry. Smurfs. Only theaters July 18th. Welcome back to the special, everyone. And now it is time to welcome to the show to guests. We're going to be joining us, Lifestyle Editor for them, Kanye Lopez. Welcome to our special. Thank you for joining us. Hello, nice to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Great to have you here and comedian River Butcher as well. Thank you to both of you.

What's up? Thanks for having me. Good to see you. Great to have you here. I wish we had more time, but I'm going to see how much we can back into this. We've been asking each of our guests throughout this hour, Whether just generally or specific to 2022, what does pride mean to you? What does this month long celebration mean to you? I'll start with you, River. I mean, this time around this year for me, this month long celebration, which I do believe in celebrating, you know, is really about like looking back to why pride started in the first place and which was a revolt. It was a riot, it was an uprising. And we've been,

back to those roots for a couple years now in this country. And I think we need to remain connected to those roots, clearly with everything that's going on across the country and globally, to be, to have pride is to remain rooted to, you know, revolution and change and liberation for everybody, not just queer folks, but that's where it starts. And Connie, what does it mean to you? Absolutely. Well, it means a lot of PR emails about rainbow tube socks and more seriously, you know, I have to agree with forever, it's really about for me finding queer joy amid our fight for liberation and like actively considering how we need to fight against systems of oppression as queer and trans people, against white

supremacy, against capitalism, against everything, especially with the year we've had already. Well, you know, I want to continue on that because I really like that, but I also find intriguing how do you strike that balance of because there's so many battles that you have to fight simultaneously constantly and it never ends and obviously in this areas we've been talking about with our guests throughout the hour the right seems to have like they they seems to their attacks went down a little bit for a little bit and now it's just all out every day attacking members of the community so how do you balance those things of finding joy and celebrating and living your life but also

So, like, having that revolutionary spirit to fight against these attacks that are so unrelenting. Yeah, I think for me personally, it's really about surrounding myself with chosen family in these really difficult moments in history, right? It's about like having queer and trans family to be checking in on, to be supporting, and also just to be able to focus on our joy in addition to our liberation. Because I think when we have a group of people that is constantly under attack, especially politically, especially now, without like considering how, why we're fighting and what our liberation is for, then I think it feels very, it can feel very hopeless. So queer and trans family is the way that I personally keep myself mentally healthy during these times. Yeah, I mean, I totally agree. I think that you can't have liberation without joy and without rest and without wonder and art and creativity because if we give those things up then they've

already won and what are we fighting for? All we're doing is fighting at that point. And I would say the thing is about the right is it's they've been consistent, you know, it might it might get lower and it might seem like they backed off but they never do. And so for me it's realizing that the harder that I fight, the the more it works for them and the let the more that I find solidarity within queer community but also outside of it and solid class solidarity racial solidarity you know spiritual solidarity like that is where the movement needs to continue going is is finding solidarity across these lines so for me Pride Month is about

everybody realizing like we're all in this together and not in the the cheesy target t-shirt, we're all in this together way of like we literally are all stuck on this rock together. So like we got to find each other no matter what and like let's have some fun and not you know vodka float fun like actual real rooted deep fun like it within each other and creating these spaces and creating the movement together because that's what we're actively doing. Yeah you know River I was I was walking through the Isles of Target and I saw their pride themed ice cream and I looked and I thought we are all in this together and then I here we are yeah anyway this ice cream all together look I I love what you said about finding solidarity across

all of these lines what I'm curious is it sort of fall to I don't know if you saw but in the first segment of our special we were speaking with Laverne Cox the Laverne Cox was saying considering the all-out attack the defense the solidarity needs to be stronger there needs to be some sort of organized his response to it. And obviously, you know, a lot of that and the leadership is going to come from inside of the community. But ideally, culturally, allies understanding beyond the community will also be helpful in fighting back against this. There are many, you know, politicians on the Democratic side that maybe deep within their hearts have the right position, but they aren't necessarily doing much about it in all this. So I'm curious actually from both of your point

of views, how would you rate the other, the defense at this point? The level of solidarity and the allies that are available at this point. I mean, I'll start by saying if if I'm keeping this, if my rating is going for, you know, political public, you know, like public servants, elected officials, I'm going to go with a one because, you know, like, Representative Marie Newman, like has a trans child. So she is like openly speaking about trans support. Like she literally says the word transgender on a regular basis. She has a trans flag outside of her office. Can I name that many other politicians? who are actively saying the word transgender when they are speaking up to these things, not many.

Like the word, the literal word transgender does not come out of most people who would consider themselves to be allies mouths. And that to me is incredibly important because it is, it is a lacking of political will to put your money where your mouth is and actually say like, I care about transgender people because they are people, because they're people just like you and me. This is not about love is love anymore. This is literally about human rights. And it's not that trans rights or human rights. It's human rights or human rights and we're human beings. And so this is unconstitutional.

And so I would I would ask for people to literally not be afraid to say the word transgender anymore because I feel like people still are. They feel like it's, I don't know, some political football or bomb or something that if they say it, then they're going to have to like defend their saying it. Just say it. You know, full-throated solidarity is very important. And I'm sure that LaVern talked about this, but what we're living in now is the result of visibility without security and without safety and without solidarity. And the fastest way to raise that up, that like raise up to where we are with visibility versus safety is material well-being, material support for the people who need it most. because most trans people in this country are not wealthy and they're not affluent and they're not Hollywood stars. They live in Missouri, they live in Mississippi, they live in Alabama, they live in

Texas, and they don't have a lot of money and they need a place to live just like most Americans do in 2022. Yeah, I just have to agree. And also I'm sick of allies. I want active accomplices, you know, people who are actually going to show up with tangible policies and actively defend us. I feel like so often queer and trans people literally have to show up for ourselves because no one else is coming. And that's the problem. Yeah, I mean, look, at this point, hoping specifically for Biden or his close allies in the Democrats feels a waste of time, but like in theory, let's say that he was watching and there was something that we could want him to step forward and do since, you know, maybe he would punt on the Senate,

he can't get anything done, but he could still pass executive orders. Is there any Anything that you think, especially in this moment, would be helpful that either of you think would potentially help to push back against a little bit of what we're seeing? I mean, in terms of executive orders, can he pass universal health care with an executive order? Because I mean, I think, you know, honestly, like many of these laws are targeting transgender health care, and they're starting with kids. They found a perfect target with children, which is a sad thing to say, and it crosses all kinds of lines these days. that that to regulate the health care of another and this there's solidarity in abortion care here

reproductive justice we have a lot of lines we can cross and and build with each other this fight so to me universal health care is truly where it starts because if we have universal access to free health care not just free of cost but free from regulation then you can't be passing laws that certain people can't have this health care if they can you know within this state if we have federal universal universal health care that sets to me like a platform for everyone, trans and cisgender and anything in between, to have access to the same care, which I think is ultimately what we're all fighting for. In addition to that, honestly, I have to agree. And also, I think that just having laws that protect what experts already say are the guidelines and standards of care

for queer and trans children, you know, this like across the board, there have been studies that again and again prove that gender affirming care isn't just necessary. It's life saving. So when these politicians are targeting this with like misinformation, because the general public doesn't have a grasp on sex education broadly, let alone what trans health care looks like for somebody who's 13 or 14, right? So, you know, it's really easy for politicians to sway public opinion when there isn't information. So I think education around it is deeply important. actually having comprehensive sex ed so that voters can be empowered to understand what is being sold to them is complete misinformation. And in addition to that, just protecting the guidelines that literal doctors are saying are necessary and have been in place for decades.

The standards of care, you know, trans health care isn't constantly evolving in terms of the standards because there isn't enough funding there anyways. But that's a whole other issue. Just supporting the standards that have been around for like 20s would be helpful. Can I just say to add to that just to throw out there for anybody that's like worried about health care for trans kids and like gender affirming care? Just to say we do circumcisions every day and like nobody's scared about that. Nobody's freaking out about that. You know, so like just to offer that as the comedian, I want to throw that one point in there just to get people thinking a little bit. That's true.

I mean, there's a few. I get some DMs about it. But you're right. Of course. And I also am in solidarity with people who wish that. they had had the choice to have that or not have that because we're taking that choice away from that child in that moment. And so I as a trans person have like understanding and empathy for a person who wishes they had had that choice. And that's what trans people are fighting

for. So that's another line we get to cross with all kinds of folks. See, now that is awesome comedy. It was funny and it also was substantive. I appreciate that. Anyway, we unfortunately are running up against the end of our time. But I want to make sure that especially because there's so much more than I wish we could have gotten into that people watching this know where they can follow both of you and your work. So starting with you River, where can people follow you? Yeah, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram. I'm at Riv Butcher on both of those. I have a stand-up half hour out on Comedy Central. It's on their YouTube. It's called a different kind of dude. You can catch me on there. And then I'm also going to be Netflix is

putting out a special like a queer special. It's coming out, I think June 14th is the date. It's like me and Rosie O'Donnell. Don't know if you've heard of her. Trixie Mattel, Bob the drag queen, just a few stars, Sam J, Mateo, Elaine, Joel Kimbooster, all kinds of great queer folks on that show. So check that out. That's on the 14th. And then there's a documentary coming out after that. That's awesome. Kenny, where can people follow you? Yeah, you can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Ganilat Lopez. You can also catch me on them.us. Any of the lifestyle content you see, that's me.

We read about sex, relationships, all things queer. It's It's queer Wikipedia. So go there, check it out. Thank you to both of you. I really do appreciate it. Thank you for joining us. Yeah, thanks, John. Thanks for ever.

Thank you. And for those of you watching at home, there's a lot more special where that came from. We're going to take a short little break. But when we come back, Adrian Lawrence is going to be taking the reins. There are so many awesome guests from both inside and outside of the TYT network. They're going to be joining us. So we're going to go for just a couple of minutes, which is a great time, by the way, to head over to shop TYT, where right now, Right now, 100% of the proceeds going from Shop 2.IT are going to go to support the Trevor Project.

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