The Young Turks - TYT's PRIDE SPECIAL

Episode Date: June 13, 2022

Join an amazing lineup of LGBTQIA+ voices as they discuss the issues impacting their community the most. Guests include Laverne Cox, Margaret Cho, Daniel Franzese, Cáne Lopez, River Butcher, Plastic Martyr, Jason Carter, Ben Carollo, Rayyvana, and hosted by John Iadarola and Adrienne Lawrence. 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. Welcome to Pride. You have reached a stop on our Acast Audio Pride parade, where we travel around the world to hear from our LGBTQ Plus creators on what Pride means to them. So grab your whistle, get your face paint on, and settle into a special celebration of Pride. And at the end of this podcast, we'll hear where our audio pride parade is heading next. So stay tuned.

Now, 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. 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. 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? 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 have been legislative attacks in state legislatures all over the country. This year, over 200 pieces of legislation have been introduced in state legislatures 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 just treat it 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. 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. Our two next guests, first comedian Margaret Choate. And we're also joined by actor and host of the Yas Jesus podcast. Daniel Francazi, welcome to the show as well. Since this is the launching point, we're launching in a Pride Month. I'm going to start with you, Margaret. What does pride mean to you in 2022? You know, I've been intending gay pride since 1978.

And so I have met many of many memory, you know, the roar of the sun bikes that just fills my heart with so much promise and joy for the future. And I think we need it now more than ever. So I'm looking to this pride to bring some of that energy back, some of that healing energy, that togetherness, it's exciting. And Daniel? I just think it's an incredible time to just be an example of love in this world. I love the fact that I think that's the number one thing for LGBTQ people to think about us

to just be an example of love and walk around and just unequivocally be you and be with whoever you want to be with. I think it's an amazing feeling. My first pride, I was in the closet and working as a bouncer and it passed by my bar. And, you know, now to be somebody who, you know, I live my life out and proud and it just feels so amazing to be able to see that journey. It's never lost on me. And now it is time to welcome to the show to guests are going to be joining us, Lifestyle Editor for them, Kanye Lopez and comedian River Butcher as well. Thank you to both of you.

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. 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 of 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 forever. It's really about for me finding queer joy amid our fight for liberation. 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. Welcome back to TYT's Pride Month special. I'm Adrian Lawrence and I'm very excited now to be joined by two incredible guests who should be very familiar to you. First we have Plastic Martyr,

who is an accomplished entertainer. She's also set to star in a new film called Yellow Bird. And for someone I am also very excited to see, let's talk about Jason Carter. That's right, you know him as the pop culture and entertainment commentator. He also hosts hashtag Jason Unleashed. First, I want to kick off our conversation and I will hand it over to you, Jason. What does pride mean to you? Oh, you know, Adrian, one, glad to be here. I'm glad to be back here on the Young Turk Celebrating Pride Month. You said it so beautifully uplifting voices. And that's exactly what pride means to me. It's uplifting voices because in the, in our

In our community, there is so many different wonderful, I would say, threads in that tapestry, right, LGBTQ plus, IA, and people who are still exploring their own identities. And for me, pride is just being vocal, being out there, being unabashed, being unashamed, being very proud, being very present in who you are. And sharing that magic, you know, I grew up in a time where, you know, as a 90s kid, And the only thing you saw about LGBTQ plus on TV and the media was either men of color or gay men dying of AIDS and HIV, you saw violence against trans people. So now I think that it's our responsibility to spread other positive messages to Gen Z younger, younger millennials that, hey, that's not the reality. It is a reality, but we can we can also celebrate the beautiful, wonderful elements and strengths that are the LGBTQ plus.

So that's what pride means to me every year. And it's not just a one month thing. It's a 12 month, 365 day, 24 hour, a day thing, really. Absolutely. Yeah, that's the only way to roll. I can appreciate that very much. And Plastic, please tell us what does pride mean to you? To me, pride is just really a way to celebrate who you are as the individual that you are.

And no matter where you come from, who you are, what you identify as, I think it's important to have pride and to show that to the world. And pride is just a great, like, I mean, again, it's a we have pride month, but really I think we need to continue our pride longer than just a month. And there's such an attack on us right now. And it's really, it's really important to not let your pride be diminished. Now we have two Rebel HQ contributors. That's Ravenna, host of reactions on TYT's Twitch and Ben Corrolo, host of Galaxy Brain. Thank you both. much for joining us. I would love to ask you, Ben, first, what does pride mean to you? Pride to me is really about confrontational joy, which is like, I mean, it should be revolutionary in and of itself. It should be you rejecting the system as it is today and demanding a new one that is not you accommodating other people, right? It is society having to accommodate your existence, Right? Because really queer folks throughout history, especially like obviously in the colonial world, have really been expected to tailor their entire existence towards cis head folks around them.

And pride is really about trying to flip that on its head and basically just creating a space in a moment where all of these systems and structures aren't allowed to define or shape who you are. Yes, absolutely, the ability to define yourself for yourself. That is incredible and powerful and part of our own humanity. And so, Ravenna, can you tell me what does pride mean to you? Yeah, I mean, I think Ben really hit the nail on the head there because, you know, pride is a time of self-acceptance, but it's also a time to do it loudly and very publicly. And, you know, demand from the world really that same acceptance that we find within

ourselves, you know, and it's it's a time of celebration. But, you know, it's also a time of protests and a time of revolution. I mean, Pride month is in June for a reason. You know, and we, you know, honor all of the LGBTQIA plus activists that came before us. But we have to continue that fight because the work is not done. Our next stop on the ACAST Pride parade takes us all the way to Bordeaux, France, where the Les Enfons Van Bien podcast or in English, the Kids Are Fine podcast, is ready to celebrate all things pride. Listen to their special episode airing tomorrow, June 14th. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t.

I'm your host, Jank Huger, and I'll see you soon.