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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Today, if you didn't know is Trans Visibility Day, the International Day of Transgender Visibility, and we can't do visibility on the radio. Trans listeners, we can also call it Trans Audibility Day. If you're a transgender person, you are now invited to call in and tell the rest of the world anything you would like them to know about you, or about being trans. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 for our Trans Visibility Day call in.

For all the talk about discrimination, which is of course real, for all the talk about hate legislation that's going through various states, which is real, for all the talk about gender dysphoria as a way of analyzing people who want to transition. We also invite you to talk about your trans joy, as the guest who we will introduce in just a minute does. Call trans listeners and say anything you want the rest of the world to know about you, or about being trans, or about your trans joy, or anything else you want to say.

212-433-WNYC on Trans Visibility Day, trans audibility day here on this show. 212-433-9692. You are invited. We will say that this year's Trans Day of Visibility does come at a time when anti-trans legislation is popping up across the country at an alarming rate in Florida, Missouri, Tennessee. We talked about a bill in Texas for a long segment on the show last week. These bills aim to exclude trans youth from access to sports in some cases, from gender-affirming care at all in some cases.

Other legislation is intended to ban books and discussion about trans experiences from classrooms and school libraries, but a new series amplifies the voices of trans youth at the same time. It's called Trans Youth Town Hall. It's a three-part series on LOGOtv. Part one is on sports and school, part two, health and safety, and part three, which aired yesterday, is on representation and identity and each episode features open discussions with trans youth on one of those topics.

It's an opportunity for audiences to hear directly from the people most affected by who many of these pieces of anti-trans legislation cropping up would affect. Crucially, the series also celebrates trans joy-- it's where I got that term, and the diversity of trans experiences. We'll talk about all of this now as we invite your calls with Raquel Willis, award-winning writer and activist and host and executive producer of LOGOtv's three-part series Trans Youth Town Hall.

Hi, Raquel. Thanks so much for joining us on Trans Visibility Day. Welcome to WNYC.

Raquel Willis: Thank you, Brian, and so great to be on.

Brian Lehrer: What does Trans Day of Visibility mean to you? Let's just generally right there.

Raquel Willis: Well, Trans Day of Visibility was founded around 2009, so it's been over a decade now, but it definitely grew into this global movement with the course of social media blowing up, particularly the Tumblr era. That's where my introduction came. It's really a day for us to celebrate all of the strides that the trans community has made.

I think of it as the balance between this day and Trans Day of Remembrance which happens in November, which tends to be more full of tragedy because we're remembering the trans folks we've lost throughout the year.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call right off the bat. Jordan in Detroit, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jordan.

Jordan: Hi, Brian. How's it going?

Brian Lehrer: Good. You want to tell us about yourself?

Jordan: Yes. I'm an MD Ph.D. student at Wayne State University in Detroit. I grew up in New Rochelle, New York, which is how I've got my connections to WNYC. I came out just a few months ago as a trans woman while enrolled in medical school, and it was not an easy thing to do, but the community here, they made it a lot easier.

When I went to my school, the conversation I expected to be like, "What do I need to take care of in order for the school to recognize this," but they basically told me, "What can we do to accommodate you?" I thought that was wonderful and just absolutely beautiful to see that higher education and the medical field at the level where people are getting started is so open and accepting.

Brian Lehrer: Can I ask? People who are not trans but are willing to be accepting of you, as you transition, what conversations people most want to have?

Jordan: Yes, I think the thing people most want to know is how did I figure it out? How did I realize that? Was it something that was always there? It's a tough question to try and answer because, for me, it was a pretty instantaneous realization when I decided to wear makeup one day and wear a wig. When I saw what I could look like, I was like, "This is the version of me that I want to be."

Then after that, it was looking back on the rest of my life where I realized these are things that have always been here, I just didn't acknowledge them.

Brian Lehrer: Jordan, thank you so much for your call. I really appreciate it. I guess that last part of what Jordan was saying, Raquel, relates to your concept of trans joy. Would you talk about that for everyone?

Raquel Willis: Yes. When I think about transness, one of the things that is so powerful about this experience is that it is expansive. It is a completely paradigm-shifting way of thinking beyond these boxes, these expectations, and really a lot of the structures that are put forth in society to tell us who we are. It's really about resisting all of that and saying who we are on our own terms.

For me, trans joy has been about finding out about my history, that there have been trans people throughout time who have resisted in their own ways. We're not new people, we've always been here, it's been about finding community. All the folks who maybe had to run away from their origin families and find new families or found ways to incorporate both of those elements of their lives, there's a particular struggle that tends to be there.

I think of transness as just an overwhelming boundless experience of just creativity and figuring out what your lot in life is.

Brian Lehrer: Tyler in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Tyler.

Tyler: Hi. Great to be on the show here. Just responding back to your earlier question about-- I'm a transgender woman. Just one of the things that I think are very interesting that I'd like to share is that we say that trans visibility is a day that we need recognizing, but something that I often think about is the goal for many transgender people is actually to not be visible, to not have our transness very visible because the whole concept to passing is such that we just want to blend in.

I don't know, it's just one of those interesting nuances to the day that many people don't think about.

Brian Lehrer: Raquel, do you want to talk about this with Tyler? I could see that dichotomy where part of your goal as a trans person might be, "Stop just asking me about being trans all the time."

Raquel Willis: Yes. Oh, I totally feel that. Hi, Tyler.

Tyler: Hey, [inaudible 00:08:19] .

Raquel Willis: A lot of people don't necessarily know about my experience is that I actually was in the closet at the very start of my professional experience as a trans woman, so I remember those days. I remember just feeling like I couldn't fully bring myself into my writing and to my journalistic work because there was such a barrier there. That there was something I was filtering out of my lens as a reporter, as someone connecting to others through empathy, and I totally get it.

I think that for a lot of people, visibility is scary. It's a double-edged sword. We see it now. Yes, it's great we see more folks that are trans on TV and in magazines, but of course, we know that this visibility has caused this uptick in anti-trans legislation. I think it's a double-edged sword, but we all deserve to be as visible as we want to be.

Brian Lehrer: Tyler, anything else you want to say?

Tyler: I just to clarify, I think it's very important that we have this day, but I just think it's one of those things that can be a little controversial to say. Well, as a trans person, is it weird if I don't fully vibe with this day because of what I just mentioned? I think it's just representing that there's a diversity of experiences out there and that what sounds like is the nominal meaning of the day can mean something totally different to each transgender person. Thanks for having me on the show.

Brian Lehrer: Tyler, thank you so much. Raquel, one point in the second part of your series, which is on health and safety, you ask a panel of young trans people how many of them have been able to find an affirming doctor, and they all raise their hands halfway as if to say, it's complicated. Here's Finn 10 seconds from that moment in the episode.

Finn: It took a while to find even like an endocrinologist. It's like somebody else is telling me who I am, and why I still can't be myself.

Brian Lehrer: I wanted to give you a minute here to say anything you want about that episode and what you learned from experts about keeping trans youth healthy and safe, and that half-hands raised or hands half-raised response that you got from that group?

Raquel Willis: I think two big things in talking to these trans youth about health care is that so often we don't hear directly from trans youth who have been able to access health care and what that experience have been. A lot of times, we hear especially on testimonies about this anti-trans legislation, from people who are not trans, from people who are not young, talking about an experience that is not theirs.

I think the other part of it too shows that even when we can access healthcare as trans and non-binary folks that there's still often this uphill battle in terms of having to educate the folks who are our healthcare professionals. It shows that there is still a failure writ large in our health care system around providing the care that trans people need.

Brian Lehrer: Lily, calling about her trans joy from Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Lily.

Lilly: Hi. Can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: I can hear you.

Lilly: Oh, hi. I just wanted to call in and just share a little bit about my trans experience. Things have just gotten a lot more complicated, and it's hard to live in a world where sometimes it feels like you don't even have the language to assert who you are, and an assertion of who you are almost disproves itself in the act.

Just the joy of meeting another trans person and of connecting so deeply and feeling like part of a community that is just always together and always has its back, it has just been the rarest joy that I've ever experienced. Yes, I just wanted to share that.

Brian Lehrer: Lily, thank you so much. Paula Whitney in Crown Heights, you're on WNYC. Hi, Paula Whitney.

Paula Whitney: Hello Brian. Good morning, and guest, good morning.

Brian Lehrer: Good morning.

Paula Whitney: I'd like to share my extreme joy about being trans. As I told your screener, I knew I was trans since I was seven, particularly when my mother would burst into the bathroom, see me urinate like a boy and chastised me for doing that, so I just completely shut down. I shut down for 50 years until I can take it. I'm 63 now, at the age of 57, I eked my way into my doctor's office wanting assistance. He completely blew me away, but I didn't stop there.

He did give me one tidbit. He told me to see a geneticist. Then I [inaudible 00:13:25] the world's most wonderful geneticist, Dr. Karen David, at Methodist Hospital, and she helped me. What did she do? She listened. She listened to every word I've said. Holidays and birthdays, I always contact her to let her know that I'm alive and well. I'm thankful to Dr. Karen David.

Brian Lehrer: That's a wonderful story, Paula Whitney. Raquel, do you want to react to it?

Raquel Willis: Yes, I think your story is so beautiful, Whitney. You're close to me in Crown Heights, so repping that. I think that's such a beautiful story and such a testament to the fact that transness again is so expansive. We come into our experiences in so many different ways at different ages and I think that that is a beautiful thing for our community.

Brian Lehrer: On coming into yourself so many different ways in so many different ages, let me ask you a stupid cisgender person's question.

Raquel Willis: That's [inaudible 00:14:26], Brian. [chuckles]

Brian Lehrer: This is just me speaking for myself as a stupid cisgender person. I bet a lot of people who don't have contact with a lot of trans people wonder like, "Where's the point where you call yourself trans?" You know what I mean? Is it a feeling? Is it after surgery? What defines somebody who's trans?

Raquel Willis: Wow, this is a very big question. The definition, of course, is someone who identifies with a gender other than the one that they were assigned at birth. We're all assigned genders at birth. For a lot of people, those boxes don't fit, but I would gather to say in the future, we will continue to expand these ideas around gender.

I think that more and more people are at the very least gender nonconforming than maybe they imagine themselves to be because I think we can all agree that gender oftentimes acts as this restrictive force in our lives. Boys are supposed to play with this, have these interests, wear this, like these things. If they don't, then they're not masculine enough, and girls are supposed to do these things and vice versa.

We all fall within a gender spectrum, and I think it's about us lessening those restrictions on us just living our best lives.

Brian Lehrer: Sure, but there are a lot of people who call themselves non-binary who don't necessarily call themselves trans, right?

Raquel Willis: Yes, there definitely are. For me, when I think of transness, I always include non-binary experiences under that umbrella, but again, I know that that is a very different experience. Even for me as a trans woman, I'm not beholden to this idea that because I identify as a woman that my womanhood has to look a certain way, and the next person who identifies as a woman has to have their womanhood be expressed in the same ways as well.

I believe that there's so much potentiality and non-binary concepts because we're all mixed up, honey. None of us are going to fit these perfect scripts around manhood or womanhood and beyond, and we've got to get more comfortable with mixing it up.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Just tell people on the way out the door where they can find your series Trans Youth Town Hall and more of your work.

Raquel Willis: The Trans Youth Town Hall was produced with LOGO, so you can find it all on YouTube. Actually, in the next few minutes, the last installment will be up at the LOGOtv YouTube channel. I've also been working with ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio who I know was on the show last week, and we did the trans week of visibility and action. A lot of those action items around supporting folks in different states is still up and we still need your support, so please check that out, and that's it.

There's so much work to be done, so please join our fight.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, this just in from City Hall, the Empire State Building will be lit up in light blue, pink, and white tonight for Trans Visibility Day. We thank Raquel Willis, award-winning writer and activist and host and executive producer of LOGOtv's three-part series Trans Youth Town Hall. Thanks for making it trans audibility day on the show.

Raquel Willis: Awesome. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

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