Two Headed Girl
Episode 32 artwork
Episode 32 · May 25, 2022 · 00:46:34

32. Don’t Think of the Children

This weekAlex talks to special guest and friend of the show Sydney Anderson about the anti-trans legislation across the United States.
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Show notes

Hey pals, Alex here! I had the immense privilege of interviewing queer educator and friend of the show Sydney Anderson . I just wanted to give you a heads-up that this was recorded before (the multiple mass shootings in the US AND) the leak revealing the Supreme Court will most likely overturn Roe V. Wade, which will criminalize abortion and take away the rights and bodily autonomy of people across the US. Lucky for us, Sydney provides some much needed levity while discussing the anti-trans legislation being passed around the country. It’s teachers like them that make me hopeful.


Show Notes

Transcript

Tap a timestamp or any sentence to play from there · machine transcribed (mlx:mlx-community/whisper-large-v3-turbo), expect mistakes

AlexWanted to talk about things that are definitely good and fun and will turn out fine. Hi, I'm Alex Cox and this is Two Headed Girl, a podcast about gender, our minds, and all sorts of transitions. And today we have a very, very special guest. Wow, I sounded so professional. Special guest, Would you like to introduce yourself in a professional or, you know, a professional way?

SydneyI feel like I'm not a very professional person, so let's go with unprofessional. My name is Sydney. I am, I don't know what's interesting about me. I work at a school. That's my job. I'm queer and I identify as trans and I use primarily they, them pronouns right now. But we're, that's all up in the air. I just yeah I'm good at talking apparently you're a teacher

Alexthe and I mean it's probably obvious to folks why I wanted to have you on the show and if it's not obvious I'm really jealous of the bubble you are living in listener I'm much be a most happier one But there have been more anti-trans bills in the United States in the past.

Well, in the year 2020 started or 2022 started like started the year off strong. I believe there are now more than 174 anti-trans bills in various. No, nothing right now in federal court, but all across. the wonderful republic in uh state legislatures some have been successful uh some haven't this morning the governor of utah uh governor cox no relation but the i'm not gonna say he's a good

republican because but he has chosen to not actively ruin children's lives by denying them the life-affirming um life-affirming gender-affirming care and it wrote a nice little uh letter about that oh i should get a very very white man's voice to read the letter oh and anyway sydney i mentioned that kids were the focus of these anti-trans bills but what do

Sydneythey mostly contain and what are they doing what what is even going on so the ones that i'm pretty familiar with are the like i feel like there are like three really big ones currently that are being talked about which is the don't say gay bill in florida which is essentially saying that any kind of like lgbtq plus topic is inappropriate for school settings and you can't talk about being gay, which is really messed up for a lot of reasons. Because we had, I heard someone at my

work say that like, a movie had been shown at school and it had two moms. And like, there was like, a parent who was unhappy about this. And like, my response to that is like, well, there are kids in the school who could have two moms. So if like, a kindergartner has two moms, how is that any more inappropriate than like watching a movie that has two moms but like the don't say gay bill in florida is a really big one and then there's the um i feel like the very prominent anti-trans bill in texas right now i want to just i'm i'm going to interrupt and well actually slash i'll

Alexexplain because it's currently still sort of kind of a bill but it's not it was an executive order from the governor of Texas, which is why I and a lot of people were like, this is horrible, but they're just using kids as pawns. Nothing is actually going to happen. Right,

SydneySydney? What happened in Texas? Yeah. So they basically were saying that if you provide gender affirming care to your child, then you are at risk of being of having your child taken away from you essentially and having like cps called and that it is a form of child abuse to support trans children which is extremely it just makes me really upset and i think it makes a lot of people really upset because it's in my opinion and i think a lot of people's opinions who i am around it is a form of child abuse to not support your trans child and to actively deny them like

gender-affirming care because that like is what leads to bad outcomes for trans kids and yeah so that i think that's like the big one and then i know that there was um someone in like the government has a trans child and they were like reported yes this story was wild because it happened

AlexAnd I believe less than 24 hours after the executive order slash sort of law came out, she was a social worker and went to her boss to be like, hey, what is my due diligence here? And she is she's still under she's still protected as a Jane Doe. And I think her daughter's name is like Jenny Doe. I just remember it made me laugh. And like, I'm like, wow, if you are a teenage girl, that is fortifying. And this poor, her poor daughter, because this social worker is like, hey, my daughter's trans and not even to like disclose that because her mom is not a monster.

It was just like she thought, you know, what should I do in terms of like with my clients? Because we're not going to like actually do this. Right. But no, then her superior reported her. And now, I guess, thankfully, what a weird adverb to use. Um, it, the ACLU, it took up, uh, the case, um, Doe versus governor Abbott, and that will probably end up in the U S Supreme court, which is like the big boy. Well, to my understand, I like how I'm

talking about court laws. If I super know this, um, but if it gets out of the Texas state court, which it probably will, because every, everyone in Texas is apparently like, yeah, this is a

Sydneygood thing like for real this is a good thing it'll go to the supreme court so oh boy yeah and then there's just the general like anti-trans girls and sports bills that i think have been um that those and then like anti-trans bathroom bills but i think the sports bills have been very like consistent i they don't feel new and like maybe they are and i or maybe people are just noticing them, but they feel pretty like has been a thing for a long time and is a thing that a lot of states

feel like they should be taking a stance on, which is super weird. And essentially what's happening is that it's saying that trans girls can't play in girls sports. So if you have, you're like an eight-year-old and you're a trans girl, you're not allowed to play on the girls soccer team. And it's all like based on this idea that like, oh, well, they're men and they're better at sports. So they're gonna compete. It's gonna be unfair, which is total BS. And there was this like, clip I saw of I think it was Iowa, of these like, three white women like signing the bill. And they were like, this is the best thing we've ever done. And I'm like, I want like, this is ridiculous. What are you doing?

Alexit has become a think of the children in a way that it's like you're you're thinking about these children's genitals way too much for me right now like oh they're being groomed it's like i oh i literally forget that these laws at the end of the day are about what like oh god it like makes what is is america now an episode of big mouth and like we're just all

Sydneyshowing baby dick all the time it's i'm sorry it's so no it like it's so much of it boils down to the idea of like these kids have different genitals so they shouldn't be playing sports together or they shouldn't be in the same bathroom or they shouldn't be or like this kid has one set of genitals and by having this set of genitals but presenting as the other gender they're putting other kids at risk and it's like that's so like why are we thinking about this like it's just a kid it's just a kid like all kids are just kids so many like they're especially like now I don't

know why that's not sounds like I'm gonna like be weird but like I feel like especially in the last like like 10 or 15 probably like closer to 10 years because I'm only 23 and it wasn't really a thing when I was a kid, but like letting boys wear dresses and like letting boys paint their nails and like kids who like identify as boys in the last like 10 years have been allowed to do so many things that like even when I was a kid, like I was a kid in the early 2000s, like wouldn't have been a thing. Like I don't think I saw any boys when I was a kid like wearing dresses and painting

their nails and doing things like that and it's like people feel so threatened by these things

Alexand I don't understand it I mean I I think I've come to understand it in I again it's like fortunately is that an adverb I want to use but the threat is rarely and I know that you know this uh and probably a lot of listeners know this i don't want to make people feel dumb uh but this isn't actually about it's about ethics and video game journalism damn it

but like all of the bills like have their genesis in some sort of like political political uh action committee so a PAC that is backed by the GOP especially in um 20 I did not know this but in 2019 there was a just a conference on the far right and they were working on bills and were like yeah oh yeah let's do this like bathroom bill and like oh yeah there's lots of

support so essentially these kids are pawns and the reason i think the threat feels more um imminent now to these people who who like are truly transphobic in the they have most of them do have hate in their hearts but also and that actual fear is them seeing like their parents way of life taken away from them meaning like a working class way of life yeah and assume that

that is like being a coastal elite means trans and it's it is not okay or you know correct but it once you really do the mind sort of chess and see like some places literally the only cable news station you can get as Fox News and like I don't know um it's the doom scrolling for boomers and yeah it's really scary especially because I I mean I have uh I can't believe I'm saying this

but I have a lot of friends who have queer kids which is super cool as that was not a thing in the late 90s early 2000 we wait you were born in 98 yeah 90 good gosh uh but well still like it's it's funny because I um am talking too much but also it was when you were when you were in school

Sydneydid it seem like gay marriage would ever happen so I graduated high school in 2016 and I was in high school when gay marriage was legalized. I remember I was out to like people as I was identifying as bi when I was like a like I started identifying as bi when I was a sophomore in high school and I was out to people around me like I wasn't out to family but I was out to like friends and I remember when it got legalized in Illinois and I remember when it got legalized through the Supreme Court

Like, I remember waking up and, like, going on Tumblr and finding out that it had been legalized because I didn't even know it was happening. Like, I didn't know that case was happening that day. I didn't know we were like I was so like there are so many things about like how I was in the like queer community as like a 15 year old that like if I could go back I feel like I I like wasn't a part of like thinking about like gay marriage or like anything like that because I was so like

not to get like deep and personal but I was so on this show no one ever has I was so caught up when especially when I was like 15 and like first coming out as bi with the idea of like oh I'm bi but I'm gonna marry a man and I'm gonna have kids like I'm gonna have biological kids and it's gonna be the white picket fence two and a half children in the suburbs kind of thing that I don't think it necessarily affected me as much as if it had happened when I was older like if it if it had

happened if it was happening now like I would have such a different reaction than I did when I was

Alexlike 15 because I like what I didn't think it affected me really I mean I kind of like that out I don't like that outcome in that you weren't thinking about you know the multiple life choices you had but i am kind of happy that like it could be totally off your radar because if it like another my person who genuinely is like yeah i like i am a lady and i like to bone other ladies but i prefer i prefer the dick so i'm gonna that's my my choice and if they're like oh cool

gay gay marriage but it they're not obsessing about it since why would you do that about other people like that I mean sure that's what YouTube is for I guess but not legislation I and okay then is this affecting or can you share it all the way this is affecting kids that you're around in schools or is it like when you were you were like out and it's just kind of flying over slash

Sydneyunder the radar for them? I work at a K through five school, so kindergarten through fifth grade. And we do have queer and trans kids. I know that we have queer and trans kids. And I don't think it's affecting them. And I am so extremely grateful for that. It might be, and they might just not be talking about it. Because I don't have super connected relationships with these kids, because they do tend to be like fifth graders and I tend to work with kindergarten first and

second graders so I'm not like talking with them all the time but I think part of it is because we are extremely fortunate to live in a state where like that isn't the case like they're not trying to take away our rights which is really nice like there's no like imminent threat living in Illinois right now at least of like kids being taken away from parents because they're trans or kids not being able to participate in sports or kids not being able to use the bathroom at school

like that doesn't feel like an imminent threat and like even and like there was the whole thing um when Trump was in office about like outing kids to parents and like making it legal to like if your kid is trans, queer, etc. Like, you are legally obligated to out them to their parents. And that's not a thing right now, like in Illinois, at least like that you can't, it's illegal to out the kid to their parents without like, consent from the kid. Because and that's so important. And like, it's just crazy to me that that's a thing that like people

thought was an okay choice to make to be like, Oh, no, we should just like out these kids to their parents that'll go really well but like there isn't that imminent threat here so I don't think it's something that they have to think about which is really nice it is kind of disappointing that while we do talk about like there has been a lot of conversation or like not a lot but like some conversation about like the war in Ukraine there hasn't been any conversation about kids are getting their rights taken away from them and in in my opinion like that feels like a more like

Alexrelevant matter right oh my god this isn't the show where i scream yes and i had to turn myself down but oh my god like we're really talking like i hate being the twitter person who's like why isn't anybody talking about this brother why are we taught why do we have to be talking about this when like even in the queer community it's it's absolutely buck wild that we have to do this and obviously of course protecting trans kids but the there are trans kids at the ukrainian border who

are being turned away and like every day a story comes out and i'm like god these just let the kid wear a dress and oh might be trans might not be trans it doesn't matter fuck cares and it's so

SydneyLike there's so much caught up in the idea of like, well, if they're in first grade and they identify as trans now, then how do you know they're not going to identify? Like what if they don't when they're in like high school? And it's like, why does it matter? Like they can identify as trans as a first grader. And that's really awesome. And I'm glad that they're having like as a first grader, like having a critical thought process about their gender, something that I never would have done as a first grader or as a kid at all. I would be so proud to like have a kid who like maybe what like did identify as trans for like a few years and then realized oh that's actually not how I feel like that's so like that shows such like I don't know just an ability to like critically think about who you are as a person and like an openness to experience things that you want to try that like I don't know why you would shut that down and there's such like a people want to shut that down and it doesn't make sense to me.

because I'm like they're not hurting anyone and I don't know why you think they're hurting anyone

Alexand it's as you said let's say this cute little boy has like no desire to be a girl later on and is like oh nope but seeing that amount of like growth as well as imagination and empathy feels like astounding i mean there's that fake type of genre of tweet of like um my my kid turned to me

and said that in like i don't know a quoted nelson mandela or something and but it's i i think it's way cooler to see a kid asking questions like why is that why is that man wearing a dress in

Sydneythe most innocent and like pure way and I man I don't know and like I think parents are really scared to have those conversations with kids and like I think part of it is because like the generation who is raising kids right now was brought up to just was told that that's like not an appropriate question to ask because it'll make someone uncomfortable and at least for me and for like a lot of the trans folks that I know if a kid is asking you a question like you're not you

know that they're not coming from a place of malice usually they're usually coming from a place of like curiosity and interest and you like I don't know like I have a lot of kids like especially younger like kindergarten first grade age kids who are like are you a boy or a girl and I just don't really answer that question because I'm not like fully out to like students at school but like I I do get that question a lot and it's like I have short hair I dress and like mostly men's clothes like I can be like and like they pick up on that and like I don't think that that

question is inappropriate and I don't think that that question makes me feel uncomfortable like I I don't have a problem answering it and like yes like if I'm at like mental capacity for like dealing with like talking about trans stuff for the day then like maybe I won't answer it and maybe it'll just like not make me super happy but like generally speaking like kids aren't coming from a place of like ha ha ha that guy's wearing a dress it's like oh I didn't know guys could wear dresses I didn't know girls could have short hair I didn't like I remember being a kid and like

when I was like we were driving around and we saw like a group of people who it was like some guy I had like a like rainbow mohawk or something like that. Like he had like colored hair and I didn't know that was a choice. And I will never forget seeing that person because like I was like, whoa, that's so cool. You can have colored hair. And then like however many years later, I like dyed my hair. And like I still think about like seeing that random person on the street. Like, whoa, didn't know that was a choice.

That's such a touching story.

AlexHoly crap. oh my god how pure like i and i sort of imagine um like a baby sydney or any of probably many baby queers you have just being like oh man there's an adult with a super boring job and so i can be i'm i'm a cool soon to be teen and and it's gonna be awesome but i'm gonna wear hot topic clothes and like i i want to be clear i still do not like children and do not want to

be around any teens i think they are terrible but but because uh that overton window i who knows if i'm still saying it right um because that trans lens has shifted it's like okay cool kids are bullying each other about a different dumb thing why are parents still here and i i'm trying to think of like the one thing i still can't really understand and when i ask folks about it they're

like oh it's just different now is when i'm like so did you talk about sex in first grade like isn't Like, did you even have sex ed? And they're like, well, yeah, but that wasn't until, you know, later on. And it's like, well, okay, so then what? I mean, I don't understand. Why would teachers be talking about sex? Oh, they just will now. And I truly can't see where that comes from, except from fear mongering.

But when you talk to, I guess, like a Karen Light, maybe like not not quite racist, not quite homophobic, but definitely transphobic, you know, I just wonder, too, if have you like has anybody a parent or another person in authority come to talk to you and be like,

like hey it's it's not illegal but what you doing there buddy no one has um I had a conversation

Sydneywith someone where like I've had like a few like been in a few situations where people have said things that are not the most like great things to say about trans people and I for the most part like not regrettably but like should I be speaking up yes probably do I want to be speaking up in like my job where I have to work every day and like I need to continue to have like tolerant relationships no I don't want to speak up in that situation um so like there's definitely like

I work I am the second youngest person at my job I there's one teacher who's a year younger than I am um but everyone else like there's a group of teachers who are in their 30s ish and then a lot of teachers who are in their like 50s oh wow yeah it just tends to be that those people in their 50s like and it like not to like shit on my parents but like my parents are also like my mom's 59 and my dad's 58 and they are very much like I think more my mom more so than my dad but like they're

still very much like it's not wrong but like we don't want to talk about like not even like we don't want to talk about it but like we're not gonna like do the research on our own like both of them are super like I come from a very like artsy like theater family so like they're like and my dad has a gay brother and like I've always had like it's always like been a thing in my life like and it's not it's always been like a positive thing like my dad's brother is gay my mom like does my dad too both do theater so like there are queer people who like I've been around since I was

a kid and like that's not a problem like and I don't think either of them are like anti-trans but there are just things that people who tend to be like in that like demographic say that they're not trying to be transphobic but it can so easily come off that way like I think that if you have a conversation about someone in their 50s about unisex bathrooms it's not gonna go well like I think there's a lot of like oh well how would that work like aren't it's just gonna go crazy

like it'll be a bad experience for everyone blah blah blah and I'm like sitting there and I'm like okay but it would be a really positive experience for me as someone who like doesn't feel comfortable using the men's bathroom as a like because like that does force me to out myself but also doesn't love having to use the women's bathroom because it's like it's um reinforcing an assumption that I know everyone's making that I don't want them to necessarily be making. That is a very good point,

Alexespecially when I feel like I, well, I think you are, you're like a baby millennial and I'm, what are we calling ourselves? Oh, an elder millennial. But like, I experience like bathroom ping pong especially at concerts like usually i'll just go to the women's bathrooms because i sit to pee and you can see my boobs at least for the time being and but then and this happens

especially at concerts because i sing like a dork and then as my voice gets lower and lower get excuse me this is the women's restroom which like i totally get because it's it's by well meeting people who are like yeah you would i would be embarrassed so you would probably be embarrassed too and i'm like yep this is embarrassing for all of us but we don't because like the rest of the people in line are like no we um uh and i hear from people too like

in their 50s of if i were to use a unisex bathroom it would be shocking and the first time i used a unisex bathroom that wasn't single stall and um i don't i don't even remember i clearly wasn't paying attention i think i was using my like a queer bathroom privilege and being like i can pass either way so i'm just going to use this bathroom and uh i realized like and there were women at this women at a sink and then uh a i assumed to be a man came out of the stall because

it was it was wd wwdc it was a computer i'm kind of yeah it was um and i was like oh wait what the huh and guess what for 30 less about three seconds i was vaguely confused and it might be a little bit of a shock the first time and it's okay you know it shocked me the first time i saw a woman in a suit like a a men's cut suit and not a hillary clinton style monstrosity and i don't

Sydneyknow surprises can be fun sometimes um yeah i think the first time i used a multi-stall unisex bathroom was in college because i like i grew up um on the north shore of chicago which is very like it's not I don't know how to say it like I think they want to be progressive and a lot of the kids are progressive and a lot of the parents are fake progressive like they all they're all like

millionaires like not necessarily really millionaires but like there are millionaires and there are like almost everyone who lives on the north shore of Chicago like in the suburbs of Chicago are making six figure salaries. Like that's just the reality of the situation and where I grew up. I think a lot of the kids that I've surrounded myself with were really like queer and queer friendly. And we like, I know that our high, like the high school I went to does have unisex bathrooms now, but they are single stall. And I think they were installed like when I was a junior or a senior in high school. But the first like multi-stall unisex

bathroom experience I had was when I went to college. And that wasn't until I was a sophomore I think and it was like totally chill like I don't have a problem with it um because I also like I don't know I was still very like I was identifying as female and was very femme presenting and wore dresses and had long hair and um looked like a girl and I it I don't know it like never like really fazed me but I think that's because I went to like very like hippy dippy liberal college and like I just kind of was like there and like ready to experience anything because it was so

different from what I was used to with the like six-figure salary crowd that I grew up with.

AlexI mean, that makes sense. Like the way you say, I was up for anything. And part of the anything is like the absolute wildness of multi-gender math. And don't get me wrong, single stalled bathrooms, like that, it's a bit of a human rights violation to talk to another person. when like see that's the thing when when women are like but i don't want a man to be in here it's because is it like you don't want to gossip about your date is is that it because you oh oh i

i i hate going to the no oh sorry when i identify like when i identified and passed as a cis woman like that was my nightmare like I just don't gosh the way that cis men have learned to interact in the bathroom is so much better it is shocking to me yeah no I can't say I don't want to go I don't

Sydneywant to go to the bathroom and talk to people people who talk on their phones in the bathroom like why are you taking a phone call while you are peeing what are you like am I like my perfect bathroom situation when I have to use a woman's bathroom is that I can have my airpods in and have noise cancelling on and just pretend that I am alone like that's what I did all through college like whenever I was walking in a room like headphones in like I don't want to know like no one else if I don't think anyone else is there then no one else is there and it's fine

Alexone of my proudest achievements in producing a multimedia experience was putting uh speakers in the we we one had individual stalls because again we did not want to commit a human rights violation and uh two the i made sure that we had little like bluetooth speakers in all of the stalls and had music not not loud but just enough that it's like okay i know that i can't overhear

anybody talking and no one can overhear whatever I'm doing and it's like a perfect experience for everybody and I I don't know I I have so many feelings about bathrooms and so little of them

Sydneyhave to do with gender like I know right like I don't yeah like I don't really care I still like I don't know like I pass as a cis woman which is like disappointing not disappointing annoying um like I'm past as a cis woman is the wrong words I want to use but like I'm perceived as a cis woman like that's how I'm perceived and I'm like aware of that but like it still sucks and like having used the women's bathroom is just like I feel like a very like reinforcing like cause like if you look at me like oh

yeah they're a woman and then if I use the women's bathroom that's just a reinforcement of this idea that you already have and I don't love that but like I don't get like yeah like I don't have like of any other like gender feels about using the bathroom in a women's bathroom and I think part of that is just because like that's what I've done for the last like 23 years or well since I wasn't in diapers anymore as a baby so like less than 23 years but like you know so it's like a comfort thing but like I don't like yeah like I don't mind especially

like no one else is in there like it's not like I say that oh my god wait oh my god I'm so sorry I just remembered something about bathrooms. The bathrooms at my, not my school job. I have a second job because I'm a slave to capitalism. And the bathrooms at my second job, I have used both bathrooms because I work from like, I work until like the building closes. So like a lot of times, like I'll be the only one there at the end of the night. I'm like, I'm going to use the men's bathroom, spicy, mixing things up. The women's bathrooms are painted pink and the men's bathrooms are painted blue. Oh my God.

I, it's so funny.

Alexit's so funny oh god i mean this is a bojack horseman joke but like it's like oh the only thing that america uh who who knew that americans hated women more than they loved guns because women started carrying guns yes and it's like who knew that someone would spend more money to paint different bathrooms different colors rather than just have invoke no feelings

Sydneymaybe we just paint them all green maybe we don't just not just stop it's so bad just don't

Alexpaint them why are we just put a nice antimicrobial situation i don't know i would live in a jonathan ives box if i could that doesn't surprise me i mean i would beg for a headphone port but oh my god very odd one more thing and i think you oh god i did i accidentally did an apple joke uh two in a row gross uh yes you did oh boy again so many strange obnoxious things about me

I don't think gender is one of them. It's pretty boring. But Sydney, I know you as an incredibly funny, interesting person. And but you do have your gender feels at work. Do you like you talked a little bit about this, but is there do you have any sort of like disclosure or routine or coming out routine again it's it's all a weird blob of language so so I have not come out to

Sydneyany students right now like I I just haven't come out to students because I when I started so I started this job in like the fall when the school year started um and I was a lot less I didn't know what the vibe was so I didn't want to be out because I like just like for safety and like for like not even like I don't know like safety feels like such a like I don't know safety feels like the wrong word because it's like more of like emotional safety but like that's still safety but it feels like it's wrong it feels like saying safety is like someone's gonna come and like

Alexhurt me but emotional safety yeah like emotional safety and convenience yeah I don't know like even if I'm in a space where I know that like everyone's cool it's like I just don't want to not not today gender satan not today yeah like just figure just figure it out yourself um yeah

Sydneyand then everyone figures it out the same way and it's the way that i don't want them to figure it out and then i'm a woman and it's awful anyways um i am out currently at work i am out to um some teachers and some like not like high level administration but like I'm out to the principal and I'm out to like the like secretary and the nurse because just like I don't know like what

there was a whole day where like a conversation happened and I got really heated and I decided that that'd be a fun time to come out to people so uh I did just decide to in a a moment of of emotion uh just come out to a bunch of people in the teacher's lounge because they were talking about stuff that was making me really mad um and then later that day I did decide to come out to the principal because I felt like if I didn't then word would get around and I would rather have her know from me than from these teachers so both times are very like just like emotionally charged

I've a fun fact about me is that until this year I don't think I've really ever come out to people in person I've always been the like very bad I'm just gonna text them kind of person so yeah I've I've literally not come out to many people like I just like text people I'm like I will tell you this over text like we are not happy because I don't want to deal with it but yeah so I and then I like came out to the social worker as like uh if you want like if you want to tell students then I am 100% okay with you telling students.

But, like, I just, like, which is more, like, more than anything, like, a, like, safety checkpoint for me of, like, I don't want parents to get mad at me. Like, I, like, I'm pretty open about the fact that, like, I'm queer. Like, I'm not, like, I came into working at this school because, like, I've come into basically every job since I've been, like, an adult as a queer person. I talk about my girlfriend. I talk about like being in a relationship with a woman. I talk about like the fact that I like have an ex-girlfriend, like whatever.

Like I talk about the fact that I'm queer and that's so comfortable for me because it's something that I've identified as for like since I was in high school. And like I, it doesn't feel like coming out. Like telling people that I'm dating a woman does not feel like coming out. And like I, like kids know that I'm queer. Like, I've told kids that I have a girlfriend and I have a lot less fear of backlash from that because I feel like it's 2022 and there shouldn't be any.

Whereas I think part of it is the fact that I've only identified as trans for like a year, two years. I don't know. I don't know. Not as long. I started identifying as trans when Quinn and I started dating. Like, basically, like, we had been dating for like a week and then I sent them a text. I think the biggest thing for me is that like, people are deciding that trans kids shouldn't be kids, basically.

And that's an extremely like, fucked up thing to do.

AlexWhat do you mean by shouldn't be kids? Because I agree, but I wonder how both of us are thinking about it.

SydneyI think that the right is, as you said, like using trans kids as pawns. And I think if you use trans kids as pawns, you strip them of their identity.

You've decided that like everything about them is more important than the fact that they are a child. Like you've taken away, like with the sports bills specifically, you're taking away their ability to participate in sports. Like that's something that like kids want to do. Just like you're just like they're not a child anymore. They're just a piece of equipment for us to use to make an argument. Just all of their humanity is stripped away and stripping the humanity away from a child doesn't allow them to be a child. Like, they can't, like, if this is what they're thinking about, like, if you're, like, 10 years old and you're trans and you're in Texas and the only thing that you can spend your time thinking about is whether or not you'll be separated from your parents, you can't have a childhood.

Like you can't have a meaningful childhood where you're not like forced to think about the fact that you're politicized. Like I, people should, people shouldn't be politicized, generally speaking. But when you get into the like politicizing people who are under 18, it's so gross because you've taken away every ounce of their humanity and have just made them into like something for people to hate. and you it's not appropriate to hate children and it just means like if they're just the brunt of

all of this like they can't live their lives the way that a child should be able to live their

Alexlives see that was so eloquent and just beautiful and i was going to say just let them make their dumb cringe tiktoks because whenever like a fox news airs a segment of like look at this look at this 12 year old talking about wanting one day to start hormones and it's a kid being like oh my god my life will be so much better than instant I start hormones yeah and uh obviously like with trans people that's not the case but when you're 12 and you're so far off it's like

they're stupid children children are stupid I was the dumbest little kid and such a little snowball and and it's like who the fuck cares for once don't think of the children just don't

Sydneyyou don't have to on that yeah on that note like when you like politicize and like just like you're you're forcing them to be one thing and you don't give them room for growth or for change and so much of what being a kid is is experimentation and growth and curiosity and change and you just take it away from them you're like you're 12 like you're 10 right now and you're trans and that's all you are you're nothing else you can't you can never like identify as anything else you can never change anything about yourself because all we will ever view you as is trans

Alexsydney thank you so much for visiting with us today where can people if you'd like them to

Sydneywhere can they find you on the internet yeah i'm hey you know my twitter is famously public and famously not private even though maybe it should be um my twitter and my instagram are both um sid underscore andyson s-y-d underscore a-n-d-y-s-o-n and you can totally follow me. I tweet absolute trash and it's great. So you should follow me.

Speaker AMerlin Mann just entered the chat room.

AlexHold the fuck on. What did... Wait, what did...

SydneyYou told me this wasn't Dubai Friday. I was promised this wasn't Dubai Friday.

32. Don’t Think of the Children 0:00 / 00:46:34