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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We'll finish out today's show and finish out our week with a call-in for International Transgender Visibility Day, that's today. To celebrate, we are hosting a call-in for our trans listeners right now. Lately, when we've covered the issue, we've gotten so many wonderful calls from people in this community, so we're looking forward to hearing from some of you today.

Here's the conversation we thought we might have now, celebrating Trans Visibility Day. What is visibility mean to you? Is visibility desirable to you? Trans listeners, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. The day is meant to celebrate trans and non-binary folks and to raise awareness about the discrimination the community faces clearly, yet often, it is visibility that leads to such discrimination. During a time when the trans community is particularly vilified, is visibility something you're interested in as a trans person? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

Now, we're not implying that trans people should want to hide your transness to avoid persecution more than it's possible that members of the community could feel this way, in some cases as individuals, like experiencing gender dysphoria, which is another reason why many might not be interested in visibility common amongst trans people, especially those who fit the gender binary.

Gender dysphoria is described in the DSM-5 as psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one sex assigned at birth and one's gender identity. Pretty straightforward. Is gender dysphoria something that you experience? If so, does it affect your feelings about this holiday, International Transgender Visibility Day? How much of your dysphoria comes from the societal response to those who don't fit in the binary versus how you actually feel about your own gender expression? Our lines are open, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

We note that the American Psychiatric Association says, "Though gender dysphoria often begins in childhood, some people may not experience it until after puberty or much later." Tell us a little bit of your story. When did you become aware of your transness? What are common myths and misconceptions about transgender life that you would like to break? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

If you don't want to talk about visibility or your interest in or ambivalence about visibility, we could just hear some stories. When did you become aware of your transness? Maybe that's the point of visibility day, just letting some stories get out there of individuals in your lives and letting everybody else hear your stories to help them accept you as just another person on the earth like them. Tell us a little bit of your story.

When did you become aware of your transness? Maybe you want to share your thoughts on some common myths and misconceptions about transgender life that you'd like to break. What's a big one that you wanted a blow open with a few sentences? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Just give us a little bit of your personal history, a little oral history for the ages of when and how you became aware of your transness.

Another question for you. Do you think Trans Visibility and Gay Pride should be treated similarly in the way they are sometimes? While we've lumped the trans community in with gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, LGBTQ, gender and sexuality are not the same thing. I don't have to tell you, gender is about who you are and is expressed outwardly what gender, where on the gender spectrum you experience yourself to be, or where sexuality is about who you're attracted to. That's straightforward and isn't necessarily something that can be judged by others as easily upon first glance.

What do you make of this distinction? What do you make of sharing an umbrella with the rest of the LGBTQ community? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 to call in on this Transgender Visibility Day, International Transgender Visibility Day. Tell us a little bit about how you became of your own gender identity and what myths you would like to break and how do you feel about visibility if you want to get into that as well. 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Happy International Transgender Visibility Day, and we'll take your calls right after this.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now to your International Transgender Visibility Day calls on how you became aware of your gender identity, any myths you want to break for others out there about trans life, or your thoughts about visibility per se. Ceci in Ridgewood, you're on WNYC. Hello, Ceci.

Ceci: Hi, Brian, it's good to be talking with you again. Actually, I was interviewed by you, I think maybe a little over a year ago when we were talking about fentanyl and cocaine.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Oh, yes, I remember that now that you say it. What do you want to say today? Oops, did we lose Ceci? Let me get Ceci back on there. Sorry, I think that was our fault on our end, you're on.

Ceci: Okay, no worries. It's something I wanted to share. It's something that I've written on Vice in an article. I've written to the Brooklyn Rail about this, and it's the question of passing, which means the ability of a trans person to be perceived by others as cisgender in terms of the gender that we identify with, and being able to pass. For me in my case, as a cis woman can both lend itself safety and protection because you're a visible target, but then on the other side of it, and something I frequently experienced on the streets of New York, men perceiving me as a cis woman, and kept calling me, making advances and then whether I speak up and they hear my voice, or who knows, whatever.

They suddenly realize I'm trans, and then they become embarrassed because of the stigma around just being attracted to trans women, like the shame and then what other people might think, or all the different repressed feelings that they might have. I've had this happen multiple times where it incites violence, and these men get angry and lash out at us.

Brian Lehrer: This story, it sounds to me like, is a lesson in visibility is not so much a choice, it's going to be imposed on you, at least in your case.

Ceci: Definitely, definitely. A lot of times I don't really have much say in the matter. I was just talking about this yesterday with a trans friend of mine, we a lot of times feel like if we get misgendered or someone is treating us not how we ought to be treated, we feel like we've done something wrong, we're not being feminine enough, or we're not doing enough to prove our womanhood.

Brian Lehrer: It comes with that baggage, too. Ceci, I'm going to leave it there so I can get some other folks on in our time. Thank you so much for calling in again. Keep calling us. Andy in Elmont, you're on WNYC. Hi, Andy.

Andy: Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me. I wanted to respond to the question you had about some of the misconceptions, and that tied into how I came out and recognize that I am trans. I identify as a trans man. Before I came out, that second time, I had come out as being gay or now lesbian at the time, and I always felt that there was this spectrum of feminine to masculine and that trans was like the farthest point. You were a lesbian, and then maybe you were a butch lesbian, and then you were a trans man. Once I started understanding that gender is outside of just that feminine-to-masculine spectrum, I realize that. I am pretty feminine. I don't have to be the butchest in the room, but I do still identify as a man and that was really key to my coming out. I think that's still a misconception that's out there.

Brian Lehrer: Does it take a lot of repeated explaining to different people you come in contact with?

Andy: I think it does. I'm very lucky that I don't have to come out so much anymore. I'm able to live as myself. but I know when I first came out to family and friends, they would say things like, "Well, but you like chick flicks." I'm like, "Yes, but guys could like chick flicks, and can like them and things as well." That's definitely something I still encounter.

Brian Lehrer: Andy. Thank you so much, call us again. Brent in Bay Ridge, you're on WNYC. Hi, Brent.

Brent: Hey, Brian. I just wanted to partially dispel the myth that men crying is purely about societal pressures. I think there's always a little bit of column A and column B, but it's difficult to try testosterone, you can't just “try it on for size” but if you did, you'd find that it's just more difficult for people with a lot of testosterone in their bodies to cry physically. I've been on testosterone for years and years more than 10 years, and I am still sad about things to the same degree I was before I started taking testosterone. It just doesn't manifest itself physically through crying.

I found that people who I talk to about this are either totally shocked because you don't normally get the experience of having one experience and getting the other and seeing the difference there. I used to cry very easily at the end of movies. I don't cry very easily at all. I've maybe cried a couple of times in the last more than a handful of years just because it just doesn't happen as easily anymore. It's not that men are just being pinned down by society to not cry, it's just not as easy for them physically.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Do you think that you experience sadness differently since you've been on testosterone or is the experience of the emotion the same just not the physical outlet of crying?

Brent: I think that's definitely part of it that the physical response is different. I'm a little bit more quick to anger than I was before, but emotionally very similar, though I would say I am a little bit more-- extreme emotional reactions are very rare for me.

Brian Lehrer: We can leave it there. Thank you so much. Call us again. Read in Yonkers, you're on WNYC. Hi, Red.

Red: Hi, Brian, it's so great to talk to you. Thank you for having me on.

Brian Lehrer: Glad you called in.

Red: Yes. I just wanted to talk a little bit about what it means to be visible, especially as a trans-non-binary man in theater-making spaces. I'm a theater-maker and an artist. My transness comes first while not everyone's identity is-- The only thing about me is not that I'm trans. Obviously, I have a multitude of things about me that make me who I am, but being visible in my artistry and being unapologetically trans and whether I pass or not in certain context is incredibly important to me.

Also on that note, thinking about outside of the venue of theater, then passing becomes a question of safety and where I work to pay my bills, how I pass is received so differently than when I'm in artistic spaces. The recognition of that, as well as the respect of that, vary so greatly. It also has a very different effect on how I move through that world. If I'm being clocked as a cis man, the code-switching I do on the job of-- I don't know, if I'm at the register and someone is like, "Oh, hey, bro. How's it going, man?" Then all of a sudden I'm like, "Okay. All right, yes, bro. What do you want?"

Whereas in other spaces, it can feel at times like there's a knowledge that masculinity lives within me and that is how I inhabit the space in this body, but it's not the performance of some toxic masculinity or a performance of femininity. Then the question of passing becomes about safety, but I think in the spaces where I feel most seen it's just about those out parts of myself existing in a vast expanse and fluidity that other people can take and give.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, really well said. We just have 15 seconds left. Do you experience this code-switching as a power you have or something that is imposed on you by other people's expectations?

Read: I would think it's both because it's a skill that you have to develop in order to keep yourself safe. I think any time it's a failure developing out of safety. It is certainly something that is placed upon you due to oppressive structures because if I didn't have to code switch I wouldn't.

Brian Lehrer: Read, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your calls, listeners, on this International Transgender Visibility Day. That's the Brian Lehrer Show for today. Produced by Mary Croke, Lisa Allison, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, and Esperanza Rosenbaum. We had Juliana Fonda and Matt Marando at the audio controls. Have a great weekend, everyone.

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