Latest / Tony & Sarah Unscripted / EP 12: For Us, By Us: A Conversation with Dru Levasseur (Part Two)

Transcript

EP 12: For Us, By Us: A Conversation with Dru Levasseur (Part Two) · Tony & Sarah Unscripted

0:09
I don't
0:09
age, you know, I don't even age mental like I am.
0:13
I am proud of my immaturity.
0:15
It's just the way I am.
0:17
So you got glad you got used to it.
0:18
Oh, yeah, he got used to it.
0:20
He's just as mature as I am.
0:22
I can tell the stories, but I won't.
0:24
Yeah, I digress, like that's some of the work
0:27
that I'm looking ahead at is just creating more,
0:31
kind of building power.
0:32
I had this unbelievable experience last month of being included in this
0:38
like 500 plus building Trans power conference in Minneapolis.
0:44
It was hosted by the Transgender Law Center, and they flew us all out.
0:47
I mean, I got an invitation, an email, and it was nontransferable,
0:52
and they flew us out to Minneapolis and took care of everything.
0:55
It was like the best.
0:57
It was something about like,
0:58
I talk about that because it was something about that experience of,
1:02
you know,
1:02
all the years I was working at nonprofits and I would go to a conference
1:04
and I felt like, oh, well, they're paying for me to be here.
1:06
And I have to, you know, do the work and make sure I get everything out of it
1:10
and bring it back to the, you know,
1:12
and it was a feeling of like, they're taking care of me.
1:15
I needed that.
1:17
And when I got there and I saw at on the stage
1:21
the words building Transpower, getting chills, it's like
1:24
seeing those words in the stage, the word trans on the stage.
1:28
It was like on like any other conference where I'm normally like, oh,
1:31
they're going to let the trans people in.
1:32
Are they going to be nice to me? Are they going to listen to me?
1:35
I didn't feel that.
1:36
I felt like I truly belong here.
1:40
Nice.
1:40
And it was led by indigenous folks.
1:44
Black trans women were like most of the speakers.
1:47
It was black and brown trans women mostly.
1:49
And it was like the people who, like, are most normally, like
1:53
marginalized at these kinds of, you know, conferences, LGBT conferences.
1:57
It was the reverse and it was amazing.
1:59
I learned so much, you know, like Wolfram Cox was there and Zaya Wade,
2:02
the NBA star's daughter, and they had just unbelievable speakers.
2:08
And I have to admit, like, I took a lot of breaks
2:12
back in my hotel room and was like sobbing.
2:14
And I was like, what?
2:15
Like I didn't know how much I needed to be in a space of our community.
2:20
And I felt so like I felt so lucky and grateful.
2:25
But then I also felt like so sad for like,
2:28
the thousands of trans people I knew that weren't invited or weren't there with us.
2:32
Yeah.
2:33
And so, I don't know, for me, it was just another sign that like,
2:37
community is everything right now.
2:39
And so for my time, you know, at this point in my career,
2:43
I really want to invest in building trans community,
2:47
like holding space for people and also creating that kind of pipeline
2:53
where we as leaders need to be succession planning.
2:56
Like, that's something you plan, who's going to take your spot like you identify
3:00
as soon as you're in a position of power,
3:02
you identify who's going to who am I making space for?
3:06
And, you know, like one of the stories I'd like
3:08
to tell is like, when I was at Lambda, you know, I did,
3:12
you know, I did really high profile cases and I did, you know, all this work.
3:15
And I was on the evening news and I was very visible.
3:18
And I'd love to talk about that too, but the, you know, the cost of visibility.
3:22
Yeah. It's not easy. It's terrifying.
3:25
And it comes at a cost, but it you know, the impact
3:29
that that we have heard from like you and I being visible.
3:33
Yeah.
3:34
As much as it's, you know, impacted our lives
3:37
and you know, our finance like all the different financial being,
3:40
all the things that we could have done, but we were doing this.
3:43
We have an army of people who are like, you changed my life.
3:47
Yeah.
3:47
I had people at this conference
3:48
come up to me and even know who they were, and they were like, I saw you.
3:52
And also suddenly I was like one of the elders in, like, being the old guard.
3:58
Elder Levasseur.
4:03
It's terrible.
4:04
It's terrible.
4:05
Oh my God, I saw that, and I knew I could become attorney.
4:09
I was deeply in the cloud,
4:10
like all of this feedback that was like it was overwhelming.
4:13
You didn't even know that you had.
4:15
It is overwhelming.
4:16
It is overwhelming.
4:18
And that is something that I still like.
4:21
The woman that came up on.
4:22
My God, you know, you saved him and that I learned to say it was my honor.
4:27
If you you'll hear me say that a lot, right?
4:29
It's my honor. It's my honor.
4:30
Because I used to say, no, no, no, it's it's just a weird.
4:35
Yeah. Did you watch our. Did she listen to our podcast?
4:37
Because I think I spoke to that.
4:38
I think she came up to me, the parent that you're talking about.
4:41
Yeah, that was the art show.
4:44
I'm not sure. She bought.
4:46
She bought a she bought the three Buddha pieces.
4:49
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
4:52
There was well, just so there was another parent there,
4:54
and she knew that I was with you on this podcast.
4:58
She said she listened and she was talking, and we were just both talking about what
5:02
you have done, have done for our children, but also for us.
5:07
You know, I mean, you know, where we were not so long ago as parents.
5:10
Yes. So,
5:13
so, yeah,
5:13
I think that you think that you're not doing the work anymore.
5:16
But as drew says, your work just continues.
5:19
You just don't know that it continues.
5:21
And also, anytime somebody says to me,
5:23
hey, do you do you know of such and such like someone that can help here?
5:27
Or do you know, my child needs this or that?
5:29
And I'll say, hey Tony, do you have any?
5:30
And he's like, okay, what can I do for the person?
5:32
Can I send you here? I'll send you there. Do they need this?
5:35
Did they meet like mediately ready to just jump on and help?
5:40
Well, yeah, as much as you can.
5:41
And I think for like, I feel like part of the, the process for me
5:46
being available and doing the visibility and impact on those people.
5:50
And it is hard to take it in.
5:51
But what I'm working on right now is thinking about how valuable
5:56
the work that we've done has been for people,
5:59
and then internalizing that to value myself.
6:03
Like that's what my process with my business is like realizing I'm
6:06
I should be expensive, like what I'm bringing to people.
6:09
There's like decades of all of this knowledge around,
6:12
like philanthropy and like law, but, you know, but beyond that,
6:17
I know how to, like, hold a family and and to get resources
6:22
and to help my community members survive, you know, like in this way.
6:26
So, you know, I feel like your next phase of like,
6:29
I think you, you, you are
6:31
you should be very expensive for that person that's available
6:34
that has the knowledge and is available like that.
6:37
And that's where I like, want to like look at other
6:41
trans leaders of saying like what we're doing is invaluable.
6:45
Yeah.
6:45
And so how do we make that work for us to sustain and have a life where we get
6:49
like the feeling that it got to the conference
6:51
where we get to actually have wellness in our lives as well.
6:54
We deserve to be happy and calm and peaceful and to have that.
6:59
So, you know, but I think the succession planning and so on, like
7:03
I wanted to tell the story of at Lambda, like it got to do all these fancy cases.
7:09
I got to be at the first white House meeting or,
7:11
you know, the trans White House meeting and like,
7:13
it was, you know, all these access points and worked on like,
7:17
you know, the case with the ex gender marker.
7:19
And most of my work has now been like turned over.
7:23
I will say that what I'm most proud of, of my decade
7:26
at that organization was building trans power from the inside.
7:32
When I started, I was hired as the token transgender rights attorney,
7:36
and my mission there of that, and it was that great expense
7:41
to be the one person at the largest legal, you know, LGBT legal table like that.
7:46
And to be the one one trans person and to speak up, to
7:50
not agree with everybody, but to say, what about these issues?
7:54
What about these poverty issues?
7:56
What about the
7:56
and to be that person was very hard and very I remember those days, man.
8:02
But it came, you know, like I needed to that.
8:04
So it was about making the case internally in that organization
8:08
that there needs to be actual project and that mission.
8:11
I got that the courage to do that was because they sent me away to this
8:16
Rockwood Leadership Institute, and I got like two weeks of where I got,
8:20
you know, I was with other leaders
8:21
and got to learn and think about myself and my own empowerment.
8:25
And I went back and I was like, we need that transgender rights project.
8:29
And so I was that pain in the ass person, you know, there.
8:33
And it worked.
8:34
And so eventually you started hiring a staff attorney and staff
8:37
and, you know, and we built trans power of trans numbers.
8:40
The representation mattered in there.
8:42
So we built numbers back then.
8:44
And it was during the first five years I was there, it was all about marriage.
8:47
It was like,
8:48
you know, when we won marriage in 2015, all of a sudden, that's when the backlash
8:52
that we're seeing right now happened.
8:54
So suddenly the backlash was like, oh, who was the easiest scapegoat?
8:58
Who's the easiest target?
8:59
Trans people.
9:00
And all of a sudden it was like 70% of the docket was now trans rights work
9:04
and it was in the hot seat.
9:05
So building that, having more trans experts at the table and more trans
9:09
people leading the work, it was all emissions.
9:11
So I just want to quickly say that my biggest
9:15
like success, I feel, was like we hired our first black
9:19
trans woman attorney in the 45 year history at the time.
9:22
Wow, wow.
9:24
And this was like she was an intern.
9:27
She was a rock star.
9:29
And she was an intern for the Treasury and Rights Project.
9:32
And then we hired her as a staff attorney and so on.
9:36
And I just remember thinking, like, I tell this story of, like to model,
9:40
especially for other white folks of like when I brought a case, it was like,
9:44
oh, that's great, I'm trans, but I'm a white trans guy.
9:47
But when Taylor, a black woman from the South, her vision of the work
9:51
was next level and it really matters who's at the table, you know,
9:57
and you could see it in the way that she brought the legal cranes
10:00
and the way she approached the work, the way she connected with her clients.
10:04
It was it was, you know, it really, really mattered.
10:07
And in an upgraded the work.
10:09
And she went on to go to the ACLU, LGBT Rights Project.
10:13
She then went to the attorney general's office in New York.
10:15
And she, just a few months ago, was appointed by a mayor Mamdani
10:20
to be the first inaugural director of LGBTQ Affairs of New York City.
10:25
And the work?
10:26
Amazing.
10:26
She's hiring and building out of staff,
10:28
but the work she's doing in New York now is a model for the world.
10:32
Right?
10:33
So like when I chase, it's like, maybe your legacy
10:37
is that case you won or how fancy your resume looks in this way.
10:41
Or maybe it's the people you invested in
10:45
who went on to do the next level, or didn't do it better than you.
10:50
I mean, that's what for me is like succession planning is like making space
10:55
and having younger trans folks believe in themselves
11:00
and realize that they could actually do not just do what we did, but do it better.
11:05
Yeah, I mean, I love that.
11:07
And when she I'd say when she took when she was introduced by the mayor
11:12
and took that stage and she mentioned you, she said,
11:15
she mentioned a couple of mentors, I there was like I sobbed
11:19
because it was like to to know that that actually meant
11:23
something, you know, like in sponsoring, investing people.
11:26
So I hope when people hear this, it's like,
11:28
you never know how you really impacting people.
11:30
Getting back to what you're saying
11:32
about the work you're doing with Alex include creating a space like that.
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And you might be like,
11:36
oh, I don't know if we're having all the right voices and stuff, but
11:39
just your the in your own network, your friends, seeing what you're doing
11:44
and what you stand for and all the ripple effects, you know,
11:47
there's you never know how you're actually impacting people.
11:50
I mean, just look at Guilford Pride.
11:52
I mean honestly yeah. Yeah.
11:54
I mean it is I mean, the Guilford you went to, you you and Bailey showed up.
11:58
It was a lost last year. I think you went.
12:00
It's always a great time, good energy, good entertainment.
12:03
And you created all that.
12:04
But, like, you know, you just do it. Like, you don't even think about it.
12:07
You just.
12:08
You just say, okay, this is something I want to do.
12:10
Oh, you know what I think, Tony?
12:11
In December, I think we want to have a physical space for Alex.
12:15
February.
12:16
We're moving in the furniture.
12:17
I mean, you know, it's.
12:21
Yeah. And you are listening to the community.
12:23
You're listening to what they need.
12:24
That's why the groups
12:25
that we're having at Alex matters because it's what the community says.
12:29
Like, what do you need?
12:30
And the needs have changed from when we first started doing the work, for sure.
12:35
Yeah.
12:36
Let me ask you, were you always like this with, like, when you were younger?
12:41
Did you have this in you with the kind of like desire to do stuff change or we.
12:46
That's a great question.
12:46
Okay.
12:47
I so thank you for asking that.
12:50
Is that a serious thank you.
12:52
I love the question.
12:54
It's good I guess so.
12:57
My sister my I have an older sister who informed me.
13:00
I always thought that I was just very scared and and she said,
13:05
oh no, you were the one that would stand up to the nuns and do the thing.
13:09
And I had never thought of myself as like, I'm gonna take this on for everybody.
13:14
But I guess, the feedback I've had or people who were watching
13:18
during all the traumas of like, you know, I was raised Catholic
13:21
and my mom was a nun.
13:23
Thank God that didn't work out.
13:25
Whoa. Oh. You didn't. Oh, I.
13:28
Whoa.
13:28
Yeah. She was a nun.
13:30
And, And then, you know, she, thank God,
13:34
you know, left and met my dad and my sister and I exist.
13:37
But we were sent to Catholic school
13:41
in Connecticut and and raised very, conservatively.
13:46
And I think you just talked about, like, you knew you were trans kid.
13:50
I didn't have the language.
13:51
I think I have a similar narrative to a lot of folks were like,
13:53
I knew I was different.
13:55
I didn't even aware of, like, I didn't know the word either
13:59
back then, but I would I was like the tallest kid in the class, you know?
14:03
That was that was terrible.
14:04
You know, all those things.
14:05
I was trying to be like a good girl.
14:08
I wanted to be.
14:09
I wanted God to love me. I want to make parents love me.
14:12
I just wanted to to be a good kid.
14:15
And it was so painful to know that there wasn't something
14:18
inherently different about me that I was trying to hide.
14:21
And the shame around that and not really understanding what it was.
14:25
And you know how that showed up.
14:26
But when people were bullies to me, I guess when I was younger,
14:32
yes, I think that I was always like, that's not okay.
14:38
He was always an attorney.
14:40
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've got me in trouble.
14:43
I was, I was, singled out,
14:46
I think, by some, like the bullied bully nuns and things like that.
14:49
Because there are bully nuns.
14:52
It's just not.
14:53
Say it, say it, say the words because it's true.
14:57
You know, one of them that really, really impacted my journey.
15:01
You know, I after I went off and I left Connecticut to survive, to be honest.
15:05
And I talk about that, I just testified or not the the state House,
15:10
you know, recently about that just I had to leave
15:12
so that I could understand myself and find my way and then come back.
15:17
But I found out, you know, that she's still still at it.
15:20
And I wrote a letter.
15:23
I wrote an email and I said, you know, I said my former name and I to her.
15:27
Yeah.
15:28
And I said, I wanted you to know
15:31
that this is, you know, how you impacted me.
15:34
And but I ended up surviving and that I not just survived, but I
15:39
this is who I am in transition.
15:40
I'm a treasure, you know, guy,
15:42
and I'm aware and I'm helping other people and doing social justice work.
15:46
I also think that my upbringing for my social justice,
15:52
you know,
15:52
my desire for fairness and humanity,
15:56
that I don't know if I would have had the same one,
15:58
you know, version of that if I didn't have a amazing mom and dad
16:02
the way that I, you know, so everything about that upbringing,
16:05
all the pain, I think the good part was that
16:07
I saw the world through that lens of like, you can't just sit by.
16:11
Yeah.
16:11
Can we go back to the did that did that.
16:14
Well, you sent the email.
16:15
Did you respond? Did she respond?
16:17
She did not. And I had to let that go.
16:20
But I have know it feels that's listen, that's that's a felt good for you.
16:26
Like that's you know I felt you know what?
16:27
I heard a lot of guilt that I knew she was still, you know, hurting people.
16:33
And you know that some of that stuff is like I,
16:37
I'm supposed to go back in this end, stop her, you know?
16:40
So I think I had some of that, and I think I just needed to let
16:43
that go and be like, I hope people, you know, I don't
16:46
I think I'm just trying to to put that into the work I'm doing now of
16:50
like standing up to bullies and seeing it for what it is.
16:53
And, yeah.
16:55
So your parents were supportive.
16:58
Their parents had their own journey.
16:59
Like, I actually told my more personal story in this chapter.
17:03
I was the token lawyer in the book called Surviving Transphobia Token.
17:07
Lord, he's the token. He's a token.
17:13
But my chapter was
17:14
called your your Authenticity is Your Power Tales from a Trans Lawyer.
17:18
But I wanted to tell that version
17:21
of the story, of my story and my struggle because I was out there for, you know,
17:26
being this, like, professional and expert
17:29
and, you know, and the best mentorship.
17:32
I don't know about you guys, but like, the best mentorship I've had for people
17:36
were not the people who were fancy and smart and did everything right
17:40
and were like the people who were like, yeah, I screwed that up.
17:43
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
17:44
Struggled here and you know, and then but I this is how I did it.
17:48
And I thought about that like that.
17:50
The impact is
17:51
where it's people's mistakes that it actually makes me feel more human.
17:55
And so I wanted to tell the version of my story of like
17:58
it was a journey, like it's so it was about like,
18:02
I never thought I'd get a bachelor's degree.
18:04
I went to like nine years for schools.
18:06
I was poor, I was gender nonconforming, you know, queer.
18:11
I had, you know, different violent things happened just because of how I looked.
18:16
It was just it was the 90s.
18:17
It was just like it was a different time.
18:19
You know, I'm Tony Scott, you know,
18:22
his memoir is like, unbelievable next level story.
18:25
So mine is just like a chapter of that.
18:26
But it was the kind of a vision.
18:28
And to what I talk about in this is exactly what your question is.
18:32
How were my parents the moment that I needed my parents the most?
18:37
Like at the beginning,
18:38
like when I first came out the first time, I think when I was like 17, 18
18:42
came out as gay.
18:43
I tried to be a lesbian for ten years, the moment that I was most at risk in
18:48
the world was the moment they had the least understanding.
18:52
And that's sometimes the way it is, because it's new.
18:56
Like, I feel like you talk about you teach a lot about that around.
19:00
Yeah, sometimes, like parents need their time to be like, wait, what's happening?
19:04
What does this mean?
19:05
And that was my parents.
19:06
And it was when I was like, I needed you to know this yesterday.
19:09
Yeah.
19:10
So for me getting through that and finding support and then
19:14
for giving them the time to be like me for my, for my mom, for example.
19:19
And then like every I mean, she was a nun.
19:21
Everything she believed and she actually, you know, left the church
19:27
because she was like, my child is not wrong.
19:32
And it was such a hard thing, you know?
19:34
So the love was always there,
19:36
but it was about everything she understood in the world.
19:38
So, you know,
19:40
you know, let me tell you, I love this because that's that's the truth.
19:44
We have to give parents time.
19:46
And a lot of older trans people or other people say, well, what do you mean?
19:51
It's unconditional love?
19:52
Yeah.
19:52
They still love their kid
19:54
most of the time, but they're just trying to say, wait a minute,
19:57
like Joe, like Joe said, like, why would we know anything about.
20:01
Yeah, no, I mean this.
20:03
You said it right when you said and you just said it yourself.
20:06
You had been dealing with this for ten
20:09
your entire life, right?
20:10
And they're just getting it now.
20:13
So is the same thing.
20:14
Like, Cameron was dealing with something
20:16
and knew that he was dealing with something.
20:17
And then it kind of and then we get it and we're supposed to like that,
20:21
understand it right off the bat and like, hey, what are you talking about?
20:24
And to my parents credit,
20:26
I mean, they came around and they're both the most amazing advocates.
20:29
I have my dad holding signs at,
20:32
you know, the No Kings protests of trans rights or human rights.
20:36
And like my mom had testified in 2009 to help pass
20:40
the nondiscrimination bill, and she begged me to be able to do that.
20:45
That was when I was like, mom, I'm trying to get a job like, you know,
20:48
why are you going to tell how I played the organ in the cathedral church
20:52
and all the embarrassing stuff?
20:53
You heard it here, folks. You heard it here
20:58
again.
20:58
Somebody have an organ we can put? I'm kidding.
21:01
I mean, all the stuff that I felt a lot of shit.
21:03
Yeah, yeah, that she.
21:05
But she needed to tell the truth about my struggle of,
21:09
like, how, you know, I was the, you know, top of my class.
21:12
I was the all star jock. I was very
21:16
I needed to over achieve to be loved because I knew, like, you know.
21:20
And so she talked about the struggles behind the scenes of this, like,
21:24
you know, overachieving like all these different ways.
21:27
And it was because, you know,
21:29
it was this the world wasn't structure to include me at that time.
21:32
And so it was very powerful for my mom to become,
21:36
you know, being at the price she does the mom hug stuff.
21:39
Oh, yeah.
21:40
She just posted on Facebook, like,
21:41
if you don't have a parent, I'll be your parent.
21:44
Then, you know, like what you do.
21:45
And it's so. Yeah.
21:46
But like what you were saying though, about that moment
21:50
getting back to Tony and his work, like I do think that
21:53
because that is the way for a lot of folks were that the hardest moments
21:57
that they're having in crisis, where they're coming out and realizing this
22:01
and they don't have the resources yet themselves,
22:04
sometimes they're most people that they need them to get it right away.
22:08
Don't have that either.
22:09
That's why the work that you've done, I think holding
22:13
families like, you know, like just that
22:17
having an adult trans person who is, you know, okay in life,
22:24
successful, amazing, like a funny, I'm funny
22:29
handsome.
22:30
Thank you. I wasn't even going to say that, Andy.
22:32
Well, ish, you know, I cut up, he fixed the deck, I fixed the deck.
22:38
But, like, just having that, those resources are life saving.
22:42
That's why I feel getting back to, like,
22:44
some of the work that I want to do and that I'm, like, being available.
22:47
Like, most of my career, I.
22:49
We would get 7000 calls a year at the help desk at Lambda,
22:52
and we would only take a handful of cases a year.
22:55
So I was seeing thousands of calls of people's worst moments.
23:00
People like me talk about secondary trauma.
23:03
I was like, oh my God, look at all this stuff that's happening us.
23:05
But no one could reach me.
23:07
And now I'm in my 50s.
23:09
I'm at this point in my career, I'm like, I can I have a flexibility.
23:14
I want to ask you, what do you need?
23:15
And could I be of service?
23:18
And I am highly available, you know, like, I, I'm like,
23:21
stalking my sponsoring into the people that I, you know,
23:24
particularly black trans folks that are in a legal profession.
23:27
I'm like, how's it going? What do you mean?
23:29
You know, it's like they're like, leave me alone.
23:31
Yeah, but that's it's true again.
23:34
Yeah, but I mean, I'm just saying that, like, I think the work
23:37
that we can do as adult transpose,
23:41
to really kind of fill in those gaps while people can understand that
23:44
and then be back, you know, back online like our parents.
23:47
Absolutely. And I think that what,
23:51
helped so much from you
23:53
was that you didn't judge Joe and I and you,
23:57
you were so helpful to Cameron because you were like, what do you need?
24:01
What do you need? I can help what do you need? What do you need?
24:03
And so it was the first time.
24:04
Cameron, I remember that every time you talk about it.
24:08
I remember that FaceTime.
24:10
Yeah.
24:10
The first time Cameron spoke to somebody who understood. Yeah.
24:13
And you were like, yeah, we can.
24:16
Yeah, we can do that.
24:18
Or we can.
24:19
I mean, I felt like he could have got off the call and got off the gurney.
24:22
It was all said, I know what I could do.
24:26
Yeah, but, but then you could have been the person that has, just like,
24:31
because we've had people turn tried to turn Cameron against their God.
24:36
The therapist tried to turn Cameron against us as a family
24:40
and but but but you could have done that.
24:42
You could have been like, well, I'm here just for Cameron and that's it.
24:45
You know, I learned long ago.
24:48
Yeah, that you didn't judge us. You gave us our time.
24:50
You explain.
24:51
I'll never forget the one time that I was on the phone with you,
24:55
and you were telling Cameron he needed to wait till he was 18 to get top surgery.
24:58
Yeah.
24:59
And you were like, okay, so let's talk about your other two boys for a second.
25:05
And you said if they were developing breasts, what would you do?
25:10
And I was like, oh, I, you know, obviously would help them or whatever.
25:12
And so you were like, you need to look at this the same way.
25:16
Yeah.
25:16
For Cameron and my biggest worry at that time.
25:22
What and I'm sure a lot of parents feel this is
25:25
the Cameron would regret it and blame us because you see.
25:28
Yeah.
25:28
You see these come out or whatever.
25:31
What do you call them?
25:31
I call changing gender journeys, changing gender journeys.
25:35
And they'll say, oh, my parents shouldn't have done this,
25:37
or my parents should have done that, and they blame the parents.
25:39
And that was the most those few years were terrifying for Joe
25:43
and I because we were making decisions for our under 18 year
25:48
old child that we knew Cameron needed.
25:50
But you really helped that.
25:51
And so I'm glad.
25:53
Like, those are huge, huge things.
25:54
And that's why when drew says what you did,
25:56
you may feel like your work is done, but it has just changed
26:00
everything about me and my thinking, and it led me to do what I'm doing.
26:05
And that helps.
26:05
Other parents, like parents, have reached out to me and said,
26:08
I'm dealing with this with my child.
26:09
I want to help others so we as parents know, which is a whole other
26:16
like line of people.
26:17
Right now we are taking our goal is to take care of our children.
26:20
But now you're bringing something
26:21
that we have no idea, no understanding of and what can we do?
26:25
And then how do we also make space for ourselves?
26:28
Well, you know,
26:28
I realized from the first time I started working with a kid who had parents because
26:33
originally I was working with kids who were in the system.
26:35
That it wasn't that kid wasn't the only one that was transitioning.
26:40
The whole family was.
26:41
And we had to give parents space enough to hold acceptance.
26:46
And then from acceptance go to affirming.
26:48
And that's like affirming and acceptance are two totally different things.
26:52
So but you have to yeah.
26:53
I never judged parents.
26:55
Never ever do know you had a you I mean, God, we could talk forever
27:00
because there must have been a religious side of things for you.
27:03
I would imagine.
27:04
We had a couple on, Tim and Eddie
27:08
who spoke about how the them being Catholic, particularly Eddie,
27:13
he could not accept being gay because he's like,
27:16
I was sure that I was going to go to hell, but God was going to hate me.
27:19
That all of these things that nobody was telling him,
27:22
but it was just growing up in that Catholic atmosphere, atmosphere.
27:27
Yeah.
27:27
I mean, I think the work I feel like I also follow Tara Brock.
27:32
So do I.
27:33
Tara Brock just that a lot of what she talks about is that underlying
27:38
fear, like the feeling that people have is that there's something wrong with me.
27:42
Yeah.
27:42
Like, she tells a story about the woman, her deathbed, and.
27:45
Right.
27:45
The last word
27:46
she said, she said, like all of my life, I thought something was wrong with me.
27:50
And I think I can pinpoint the teachings of, like, what I was raised with of like,
27:56
yeah, that I know where that came from
27:58
because I was being told something was wrong with me.
28:00
So, you know, when I heard Laverne Cox speak at the building
28:05
Transpower conference, she's got a new book out
28:07
and she talked about, her three chapter or three
28:11
sections are called, like, what's wrong with you?
28:15
And then section two is what happened to you,
28:21
Oprah.
28:21
Right.
28:21
And then section three is what's right with you.
28:25
And I feel like that's a journey that a lot of us are on,
28:28
not just trans and non-binary people, but like all of us who are kind of
28:32
feeling like,
28:33
I mean, everybody can relate to feeling like there's something
28:36
like different about me.
28:37
And do I belong in that feeling of like that?
28:40
Authenticity is your power piece, you know, that relates to everybody.
28:44
And so the journey that we're talking about
28:46
is not just about your child transitioning.
28:48
It's about we know anybody like accepting a little bit more of themselves and like
28:52
allowing themselves to be who they are in the world is good for everybody.
28:56
It's good for business.
28:57
Yeah. Yes.
28:58
You know what I mean?
28:59
So I remember one of the one of the saddest things Cameron said to me is that,
29:05
that he
29:05
didn't he wished he wasn't transgender in the beginning.
29:08
Yeah, right.
29:08
Because he knew what that meant as far as what his future would be like.
29:13
And if he could be happy with being a girl, he would have.
29:17
Or his first choice would be being born as a boy.
29:20
Yeah. And a second choice would be. Could I be happy as being a girl?
29:22
And he tried every way possible, I guess, as you do.
29:25
Right? Yeah.
29:26
Like dressing really girly and getting his nails done.
29:30
And, then he's like, oh, maybe I'm just a lesbian and, you know, all this stuff.
29:33
So, and then the other thing that I found so interesting and,
29:39
and this was a couple of years ago, he was in having a really tough time.
29:43
And he said to me, I could have continued being who everybody else
29:46
wanted me to be and be so unhappy.
29:50
Yeah, myself.
29:51
Or I could say I need to be who I am
29:55
and accept that I was losing or what,
29:58
except knowing that I was going to lose a lot of people, which he did.
30:01
He lost a lot of people.
30:03
That was the and gain new people, and that was the best decision for him.
30:06
But there were times
30:07
where he was very lonely because he had no friends, no community.
30:10
Yet that was the most important thing was finding that community.
30:13
And I remember that day at North Haven every time, you know, yes,
30:16
I did this art like,
30:18
you know, like how to be kind to yourself, stuff like that in North Haven.
30:22
And I was leaving and she was sitting in her car.
30:24
So what are you doing? Well, I'm hoping he's going to make some friends.
30:26
And he made a friend or 2 or 3.
30:30
But then at his birthday party, what was.
30:33
How old was he then when you had that, that little 18.
30:37
18? Yeah.
30:38
And I leaned over. He was leaving.
30:40
I said, look at him.
30:42
And he was leaving with all these friends. He had all his friends.
30:44
And so it does happen.
30:46
But community matters because, you know, if you ask me what community was like,
30:51
like before last June, it would have been a totally different thing.
30:54
But really, community
30:56
can bring you through
30:57
and help you and guide you through the most hardest times in your life.
31:00
And I have to say that the two of you are part of my community,
31:04
of course, but you have helped me through the most hardest part of my life,
31:08
the two of you together.
31:09
I don't know what I would have done,
31:11
so it's important to make those connections and
31:15
part of the community well, well, you're part of my community,
31:17
part of the community, and you're part of the community.
31:20
Well, yeah.
31:21
You're not going to another filter.
31:24
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
31:25
So but yeah, it's you know, it's funny because we can be talking
31:29
to each other and like, either he'll call me struggling.
31:31
I'm calling him.
31:32
But it always ends up that we're laughing our asses off.
31:35
Yeah, yeah. Humor. It's just it could.
31:38
It can live together like joy and and sadness.
31:41
You can heal and hurt at the same time. So.
31:44
But you do bring a lot of laughter, sometimes not on purpose.
31:50
Laughing out here.
31:51
I'm laughing with you. With you.
31:53
We we we can't wrap up here without talking about what?
31:58
The best friend.
31:58
My best friend.
31:59
Oh, Lynn,
32:02
that's because I just watched the clip.
32:04
Oh, yeah.
32:05
Lynn.
32:08
But when Tony would talk about you and he'd be like, my my best friend drew,
32:11
I was always like, I always think it's so funny
32:13
when people say best friend
32:14
because they're like, listen, Sarah, as close
32:15
as we're going to get, that best friend's already taken the spots is spots
32:19
taken, and I usually say BFF best friend forever, forever.
32:25
But I never once forgot Drew's name.
32:26
Never.
32:27
Well, that's because, well, listen, I didn't forget that last time,
32:32
Lynn, listen to the last one. And she's like, Now I'm Jen.
32:34
I'm like, yep, I just can't.
32:35
Yeah, I don't know where that came from.
32:38
Listen, Lynn, Lynn, I know, I know who you are and I love you dearly.
32:43
And I get really nervous when she asked me a question.
32:46
That's the only reason why I screwed that up.
32:47
But Lynn is Sara's best friend, and drew is my best friend.
32:52
And I did ask Lynn, I'm like, you should come on.
32:54
Sometimes she goes, absolutely no.
32:56
Well, can we have coffee or something?
32:57
Maybe we should meet for lunch anyway.
33:00
All right, so I think we have to wrap it up.
33:03
Yeah, true.
33:04
Thank you so much for being on the show.
33:06
I really it went by really fast. Right?
33:09
So amazing to see to to learn a little bit more about you, but all the work
33:12
that you do and continue to do, and it's just amazing stuff.
33:17
And I'm thrilled that Tony has brought us together. Yay!
33:20
Maybe for the work.
33:22
Yeah.
33:24
Why not? Why not?
33:26
Then you'll have to change the sign.
33:30
True, true cover.
33:32
Tony put drew. True. And Sara.
33:34
Yeah.
33:35
Thank you for the community that you guys are creating by having this dialog.
33:39
And I think you don't even know
33:41
how many people are just listening and watching and hit subscribe.
33:45
Yes, it's really, really important.
33:48
And there's a lot of people who
33:49
maybe are not ready to be in a room with other people or not out to themselves yet.
33:53
Who knows who are just needing a little support,
33:56
and you're actually putting that out into the ethers and helping a lot of people.
33:59
So thank you for the work.
34:00
Oh my God, thanks for being on the show, drew.
34:03
Hey, listen everybody, thank you for tuning in.
34:04
We'll see you next time. Bye