 Hello everyone and thank you so much for being here. My name is Chanel Sears and I currently serve as the equity community and Title IX program director at Holland's University. I'm just here to say a short little intro just because President Hinton was not able to be with us today. She asked me to say some words on her behalf. Dear Holland's community members, students, visiting guests and alumni. I regret that I'm unable to be here with you today this evening. I hope that this time brings you peace, joy and affirmation. Lovingly, President Hinton. Thanks for coming to Trans Plays of Remembrance. I'm Katie Coleman. Tonight we will be having a couple of performances, a 10 minute play called Son of Apollo by Britt A. Willis, starring Jay Collier and Amy Trowell, followed by a performance of Marcia Enrita, which is written and performed by Asha Ashanti Turner and Sia Sessoms. Followed by a community conversation hosted by the Holland's University Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Thank you. Son of Apollo by Britt A. Willis. Climony sits at a table next to a radio which loudly plays Ain't No Sunshine. Climony does not seem to particularly enjoy it. It's awkward. That's okay. They don't believe me. What? They don't believe me. About what? Either they don't believe he's my father. They don't believe I'm his son. I hate them. What? Well, they're just... Who cares what they think? Yeah, but no, it's not that... Simple? I know. I know that's not how being human works. Faith in turns the radio down. Tell me about my father. Climony turns it back up. Faith in turns it back down. Tell me about my father, please. Hey. Hey, son. Son, you have to let me finish. How am I supposed to get things right if you won't let me finish? I'm sorry I interrupted you. Hey, Mom, tell me about him. What's with the sudden obsession with him? Your father. Your father likes the skies. He chases away the night. He lives at the very top of the world. Those brats would suffer retinal damage if they looked at him. He sounds so cool. He's pretty cool. Do you miss him? Sometimes. Not particularly. Like I miss my father. It's best to love someone like him from a distance. Is he really my? Yes. Hell, if you don't believe me, go and ask him. He'll tell you the same. I believe you. Sorry. I believe you. Do I have reminded you of him? Sure, sometimes. Am I much like him? You aren't much like anyone but yourself. Seriously. Why are you badgering me about it? Climony turns the radio back up, then turns it back down. You worry about what they think too much. You know that's not it. You know that's not all it is. It's not so simple. It's not that easy. Nothing is. It's not fair. The world isn't fair. So it should be. I want them to know the truth. To recognize me. I wish I could be more like him. I wish I could drive his chariot across the sky, striking them with the fervor available to me. I would convince them of the truth of my existence by scorching them with it. Climony turns down the radio. That is not you. What do you know about who I am? I've been here every day. What do you know about who I am now? I know every head, hair on your head, every gesture at every circumstance. What have you needed to learn that I haven't taught you? What, you think you need a father figure now? He can't legitimize you any more than I can. He can. And I'm going to see him. He could teach me his path. My proof would be the sizzling of their skin as I blaze overhead. This vindictiveness, this toxin, these rage-filled desires will burn you alive. This is not what will make you a man. You told me to go. You said to ask him. Isn't it better? Maybe I don't know much. I know I don't know much, but isn't it better to be who you are, who you really are? Embrace your joys, your pleasures and kindnesses, and still be his expectations. Are they really you? I don't know. I don't know, but I have to see him. I have to try. When I see you, I see you running, your feet slapping against the pavement, two big shoes slipping and tripping you, your arms straight, elbows locked, hands pointed out and down, two sides of a triangle trying to touch the earth. And your face tilted straight up, staring directly into the sun. I'm scared this will destroy you, Phaethon. I love you, mom. I'm sorry. I'm just sorry. It feels like I'm losing you. I know that's not fair to you, but it feels like you're pulling away from me because I'm your mother. It all scares me. I know, and I'm sorry. You're right, probably. You should see him. At least get your own affirmation. Do you think he'll even see me or listen? I think he will be proud to see you, his child, his son. How do you think he'll feel? I think he will move him. You know, you are what you say you are. You don't need proof. That's how it works. You are you. Doesn't matter what I or they or your father think. Can I know that and still need this? There's a great divide between my thoughts and my feelings. I need it. I need this. Okay. I'm gonna go now, if that's okay. Okay. I'll be home soon. I'll be here. Fine, when he turns up the radio, end of play. Everybody knew me. Before I was, I had already been. One in five children, another Hester sister. The family knew who I was, for I could be no one else in their eyes. Live large and love big. From Hartford to Boston, I lived large and loved big. Never neatly, always flamboyantly, performer at heart. To Boston. A cat, a boa constrictor. For who would I be if I were not a tornado of interest, ready to take the world? Yet smile so warmly that the pizza and oysters no longer mattered? I was friendly. I exuded beauty and charisma from every pore. Allies feared she may have been too friendly. That didn't matter to me. I wanted friends. I would win them all. November 28th, 612 p.m. A disturbance was reported. Regal was in danger. Fourth century? No, fourth century. 20. 20. 20 times, was it hate or circumstance? She put up one hell of a fight. But November 28th, 1998? All sin Massachusetts. Beth Israel Hospital. Two days before her birthday. I was pronounced dead. Cardiac arrest. For seven years, my mother called the police in Boston every day for updates on my case. In 2006, the case was reopened. After that, nothing was updated. Diana never received any calls. Diana Hester stopped calling. I would have been 58 this year. Marsha loved to wear feminine clothes as a child. It felt right. Unfortunately, other guys expressed their love for me and my femininity in less than savory ways. It was then that Marsha stopped wearing the clothes she loved the most. I moved from New Jersey to New York. $15 to my name and a bag of clothes no one else really wanted. I wanted so desperately to make it work. The P in Marsha P. Johnson stood for pay it no mind. As in pay my life, my body and my gender, no mind. Working as a sex worker was by no means glamorous. But it kept me fed and put clothes on my back. Marsha also juggled jobs as a waitress and a drag queen performer. Marsha didn't seem to mind living this way. It was all I knew. June 28, 1969. The Stonewall Inn. A gay bar visited by Marsha was raided by police who arrested people based on anti-black and homophobic laws. I fought back. We all fought back. It's 1990 now. Marsha's fighting AIDS at home and fighting for our rights in the streets. July 6, 1992. She has found floating in the Hudson River. Head-back. And case closed. Her death was ruled a suicide. What about my death was a suicide? What about her death was unsolved? As happy as you were. As happy as we were. As happy as I was. Transphobia was always lurking around the corner. Watching, waiting, biding time until the opportunity was right. My life snuffed out just as quickly as it started. Our lives are the very foundation upon which Pride One was built. And yet? My case goes unsolved. Cold. The trail is dead. Sorry we took a few more for you. Maybe if you would have stayed in your place. Stop fighting. I'll pray for you. This sin shall pass. You can't be black and gay. Have a struggle. Stop fighting. I fought for things to change, for things to be better in somophobia. Transphobia. Racism. And police brutality that plagued me when I was alive. Same shit different here. But on the bright side, if it had not been for me. For me. And for every other trans person who has lost their life due to senseless acts of violence. We could not be here today. Two black non-binary college kids doing typical gay student things. Majoring in theater. Us standing in front of you is a testament to the legacy of Marsha P. Johnson and Rita Hester. And many more LGBT plus trailblazers. Marsha P. Johnson. And Rita Hester. Rest in power. Would you all like to introduce yourself? Hi, I'm Katie Coleman. I'm a queer trans woman. Playwright and director from Chicago. Hi, I'm Julia Riegel. I'm a professor here at Holland's visiting professor in the history department. I'm a non-binary trans person and a historian. Hi, folks. My name is Justin Rogers and I am a special education paraprofessional in Southbury, Connecticut. I can necessarily know if there's a moment for a lot of people or something that crystallizes. There's a moment when, there was a moment when I knew I had to do it. I think for me, I kind of, as far back as I can remember, I knew. Like, there were no words for it. And part of, you know, education and, you know, information being available, you know, I think would have certainly saved me a lot of stress. But at that point, you know, I was a kid in the 90s. I knew what it was. Like, I knew I wanted to be a girl, but I didn't know what that was and I didn't know what that meant and I didn't know I was allowed to do it. Right, right. And then it took well into adulthood before I gave myself permission to do that. Yeah, I think I also had a sort of series of moments that happened over time, but one that really stands out to me was being, it's a very funny one. I was 20 years old and in a summer language program to learn Yiddish and I performed as part of a skit and there was a role written for a boy and the teacher was like, oh, we could rewrite it to make it a girl. And I was like, no, no, that's fine. No idea why. And someone afterwards said that they'd mistaken me for a boy when I was performing and I had this rush of feeling amazing about it. And I didn't really fully accept to myself what that meant for a long time, but it was really sort of the first moment of thinking about it. And of course it brought up all kinds of other questions for me. It was like, well, am I a boy then? Well, no, that doesn't feel right. But it did start sort of that, it opened a door I think for me, that moment of actual joy, which is I think something that's often missing in these conversations that joy can also be a trans experience. I love that a lot. I think for myself, I always go back to the quote that I actually read today from Stone Butch Blues. It was something like, I don't feel like I'm trapped into someone else's body. I just feel trapped and relatable. For me, it was one of those moments where my mother and my stepfather weren't really supportive. My senior year of high school, when I had the opportunity to live with my father, it gave me a chance to be like, I need to do this for myself and my future and really kind of freeing myself from feeling that trapped. In yourself, I'm like. Y'all are like me starting to jump in. I think something that was difficult for me kind of really back to a section of your last performance actually. I think the intersectionality between being black and also being a part of this community, you're really kind of forced to take and choose. My stepfather, when I first came out to him, he kind of was puzzled by it and he would be like, why would you want to be a black man? And it made me really self-conscious because I didn't want to be taking up a space that did not belong to me. But I felt that I was harboring, felt holding myself back from all these things. I had resentment growing in the two communities who I love the most. Unless I celebrated that intersectionality, I wasn't really honoring that, I guess, not honoring that freedom. So it felt kind of good to be able to educate my family and also to educate my friends. Coming from a different place, I really still recognize that feeling of not, a feeling like you're gonna take up space that doesn't belong to you or feeling even like you're faking it at certain times. I had a lot of doubt for a very long time and I think for me in some ways the hardest thing is that there's no real map for how to do this. It's something you have to figure out in a lot of ways on your own and navigate on your own and it can be extremely, extremely lonely at times, especially if you don't have a community or have trouble finding that community for whatever reason. That I think especially for early years for me was really, really isolating. I think the most difficult part is overwhelming transphobia and built into the structures of government. I think being trans is great and the way that our countries are aligned against us is the problem. There's a lot of things. I mean, I think that there's not just one kind of way of being trans and that it's very hackneyed answer but that if you've met one trans person you've met one trans person and we have very different experiences based on where we're coming from and the places that we live and the environments that we work, social class race, all of these things very much determine our experiences. Yeah. And even to add to that, I think knowing that we're human too and you are capable of making mistakes, I feel like there is a stereotype of when trans people have to say their pronouns and correct their pronouns and sometimes I think it's mislabeled as aggressive or you think that you're holier than that when really we're just kind of doing that as a survival for ourselves and also that we don't think that we're better or we're just trying to, well, I'm trying to really push myself further in asserting myself and my identity, if that makes sense. Sure, I mean, well, without the government, not just the government, I mean the government absolutely but the pop culture and like it's impossible to watch any sitcom from before 2017 without some kind of joke at the expense of trans people. I mean, that is, it's the culture. It's transphobia is deeply ingrained in not just American culture but many other countries' cultures as well and that stretches to the government. In the American government is not as bad as some other governments for sure. The United Kingdom, for example. Yeah, no, I'm actually from Washington state originally but I live here now at least so I can talk about living here. I've only lived here for a few months but I previously lived before this in Indiana which has pretty much nothing and I know that it meant I made all kinds of constant calculations about things like could I safely have a trans flag in my apartment if maintenance came in because I could be kicked out of housing and I was living in a more progressive city in the midst of Southern Indiana and I took the risk and I was fine but it was still something all was in the back of my mind of what situations am I safe in? Where can I take the risks? What risks are not worth taking? I've also done a lot of work and research in Poland which is its own whole other story and it's part of the reason that in a way it took me so long to come out in a professional context. I remain closeted for very many years knowing that a lot of the work I do is there. I have a lot of many colleagues there and it's just, I mean speaking of governments that are more restrictive than ours, it's really bad there. It's really, really bad and it's getting worse and that kind of fear I think is really, it's present so much. And to sort of speak about that in Connecticut, I do feel grateful that they do have some sort of program as far as like informed consent at Plain Parenthood so those who would like to partake in hormone therapy they have the access to do that. One thing I think Connecticut Laksen, well not Laksen, could work better would probably be the amount of red tape it takes to get places as far as doing my name change. So going to court and then going to the Social Security Office and then going to my birth certificate and then if you don't do one place, you can't do anything other. So it's a lot of you having to go from point A to point B and that can be really discouraging and it really stops the momentum of this is how I want to live my life because there's still places where I exist as my dead name. And in many states, you can be fired for being trans. There are I think like maybe 10 that they've passed a regulation permit that's been happening. Most states in America, you can be fired for being trans. Yeah, it was a lot. One thing for me, I worked in a K through 12 specifically middle school level and one thing that I think as you create our first GSA, we really talked about how we use language and being unbiased in our language. I know there are still students and faculty that use all right girls and boys, let's get started for the day and a lot of my students think that I'm from the south or I'm from Texas or because I keep saying y'all, which has been great here by the way, y'all say y'all everywhere, great. I feel very accepted. And just being able to change that language I think is really important because it's something that tangible that people can do and that's really important to me. Yeah, I think role models is really key and providing, making sure that people that kids and young people have, people they can look up to and also people they can talk to. People they know they can safely talk to who can relate to them and can tell them like, hey, I also lived this, I know how hard it is, you're gonna be okay. And I will say also like speaking from this perspective of someone who's gotten to do that a couple of times I'm like the providing the advice and it's like it's so rewarding and so healing also for that person. I mean, I really think it is like providing community. That's my answer to basically everything, but. Yeah, I mean, you have to know one, right? That's the quote. And in the absence of that, not banning a bunch of books in Virginia and the schools. That would help. Yeah. It's because I mean like I grew up in Tennessee and I did not know any clerical until I was in high school. It was, first of all, it was the 90s and secondly it's the culture. Like my, you are, it's just, it's in the water, right? Transphobia, homophobia, mostly homophobia at that point. Like they hadn't discovered like exactly how to be as transphobic as they could yet. They got there, don't worry. Yeah. But it's, if you don't teach children that it's wrong, they don't know that it's wrong. Any time I meet little children, like kids ask, are you a boy or a girl? Oh, I'm a girl. Okay, you know, my best friend has twins and they were like, I don't know, three or something when I came out and it was, okay. No problem whatsoever. It's the children that have already been taught to be suspicious of difference, of clearness and that does not have to be taught word for word. That is taught by actions and the environment that they grow up in. Yeah, it's like the background radiation. Yeah, exactly. To add to that, I see that every day in my job actually and the one thing that I try to do is think about is my role is advocating for my students. Not necessarily even from student versus student but also faculty and students versus students. A lot of the times, especially the K through 12, students may use different pronouns or start expressing themselves differently but when the parents don't necessarily agree, what I'm seeing in the classroom is that you use the pronouns to the student's face but when you're talking from colleague to colleague, those, all of that goes out the window and that can be really frustrated and I think that being able to advocate for those students from adult to adult, I think is absolutely necessary because you'll lose that trust because they're watching and they hear you. They're a lot smarter than I think a lot of us give us credit for. Yeah, and I think that those of us who do have any kind of power in those situations, you know, at least for me it feels like it's sort of a moral responsibility to use it where I can for, you know, especially for kids and for young people who do not have the power to stand up in those sorts of ways to, you know, be able to say like, no, I am an adult and a professional here and I'm gonna draw a line of sand. Like, yeah. Answer, or you did definitely already answer about, you know, making sure of inspecting. Having been in a lot of different academic spaces, not just here, I think one area that needs to be treated with a lot more nuance is actually how we handle pronouns because, and this is something I have experienced myself very many times, you know, you'll have people with great intentions and I wanna make that clear. I know the people who do this have wonderful intentions and I wanna honor that. We'll ask for pronouns or, you know, ask for them either in a group setting or in a public setting and I don't think there's necessarily enough consideration of the ways that that can either put people on the spot in very uncomfortable ways or even put them in danger. A lot of us use, especially, you know, people who are very young or early on in figuring these things out may use different pronouns in different circumstances and may not be comfortable using pronouns in front of an entire classroom but may want to do so one-on-one. There's a lot of sort of shades of gray to this conversation which I acknowledge is complicated and it does mean we make mistakes but I think creating more space for that sort of nuance in these discussions of like how we should handle even something as basic as introductions, you know, and honestly, often that means you just ask people as individuals in an area where they have a certain amount of privacy and also ideally don't feel trapped, you know, but yeah. Definitely, and to follow up with that, as we start the foundation of our first GSA on a middle school level, is really thinking about how we're creating the space. What I'm finding is that the space is not necessarily for providing comfort or inhaling for LGBT students but like surrounding and prioritizing the comfort of allies and what I think is concerning about that is that the focus isn't necessarily for our trans students and for our LGBT students. Fine, I co-facilitated a support group for trans students at the University of Connecticut and during my time there and me and my co-facilitator spent hours trying to find out all these educational rights and advocacy groups and trying to really turn this into a movement and then we got to the meeting and everybody just wanted to talk about their lives and that was the point, right? The point is to support each other and find different ways that we can kind of heal each other and if we're trying to, I do think there's a place for educating each other and advocacy but I think giving trans people the voice and the time to kind of talk about how those areas affect their personal lives, it kind of proves that we are human and we do have goals we want to accomplish and we do have arguments with our loved ones and but I think having that space to kind of just chat about life is absolutely necessary, not wasted time at all. I sometimes think that a lot of us have gotten, a lot of the academic world is getting on board with sort of the 101 level and now there is also a 102 and it would be great to move on to that in some ways. Of course there's plenty of people who haven't gotten the 101 yet, so yeah. Yeah, but it's not one thing that you do and then it's like it's a constant one. It's not step one, it's an ongoing process, absolutely. I mean in terms of disclosure, it's up to you. If you want to do that, that is your prerogative and it's not anyone else's business to tell you if you should or shouldn't but it's your decision as the person who is trans and dating. Yeah, I can agree more, I mean and I know it's true for myself, I think it's true for a lot of other trans people we kind of end up just dating other trans people because it's often the statist option and the place where we feel most at home because you just don't have to do a whole lot of explaining. Honestly, even though our experiences do differ widely in some cases, there's still things that you'll have in common, things that just make sense and that you can connect in that way. And it's not a sort of like an exclusion thing but it's a where do you feel at home thing, I think. To even accompany that, I think in entering different spaces, especially now at this age of social media, I'm very, very lucky to be in a long-term relationship with my partner four and a half years and prior to that, we met on Tinder and we met in these sort of spaces and one of the spaces that's always kind of made me nervous has been Grindr. It's like a specific, whatever I have the expectation and it's still something that I'm kind of working through is it's mainly from what I can tell a very cis gay male space and it makes me nervous, it does make me nervous to feel like I won't be accepted or I don't belong there for being trans and queer and it's one of those things I still think I'm working through as because what you're expecting might not be what I have to offer and being okay with that and being like, hey, I'm happy with the person I'm with and the person who I am with is gonna, the standards that I have are gonna love me for me but that's my personal own. Obviously, like you were saying, it's kind of to each your own. Find someone who can stand by you, do whatever you can and really try to find other trans people. I mean, the thing about the internet is there's a lot of problems with it but it also does mean you can start to find communities and it took me a long time to really properly learn this lesson that there's so much beauty and love to be found in that community with other trans people and that I think is really what has saved me and got me here, so yeah. And it can be hard with mitigating factors like a global pandemic. Yeah, for sure. And that is sometimes all we have is the internet and if you're a closeted kid in Tennessee in the 90s, sometimes all you have is the internet and yeah, it is. It's easy to bust on the evilness of the internet but the internet does a lot of good from marginalized people of all different kinds as well. Even to add to that, I feel like it's a lot of resources to share with that person that you might be coming out to and being like, hey, I might not have all the answers myself but here are some resources that are for the perspective of parents, loved ones who would like to know more or are just kind of figuring things out. Another thing that my therapist noted actually, she also said, have a reward for yourself afterwards. Like if you know that you're about to have a hard conversation, make sure you know that you have something else coming out on the other side. Just kind of like a nice little, whether it be like a bubble bath or just like a nice treat, something to say that like, to acknowledge like, hey, you just took a huge step. Just kind of keep your spirits up. Yeah, don't. And coming out can be fun too. Like it's scary for sure but I think it's also like, there's a high to coming out. Like to someone who you've known for a long time or like, I was a little disappointed but I didn't have anybody else to come out to because there can be like this rush. Like no matter what you, no matter what the response, you have changed your relationship with this person forever. And that can be very exciting. And it can also be really scary and it can definitely have disastrous results but not always. And I think in a lot of people's cases, mostly not. It depends really a lot on the situation of the person. I mean, I will say if I'm saying like if I'm talking to a cis person who's relatively safe wherever they are who's hearing this stuff, I'm gonna say, yeah, you should say something. You should. But if I'm talking to a vulnerable trans kid, I'm gonna say, hey, you know, maybe remove yourself from that situation in whatever way you can, see if you can find a safe authority figure, distract yourself honestly. Like it really depends a lot of the situation and on the sort of defensive safety. Yeah, because it can, even as a cis person as well, can you can definitely make it worse for the person? Absolutely, yes. And also online. Like for example, if you have accidentally created a turf dog pile on yourself on Twitter and you have cis friends who are attacking them in their comments, that's not helpful. That only makes it worse. Yeah, ask someone before defending them. Definitely ask before defending someone. And to also kind of add to this conversation, I think if it's in, if it's a workplace setting or if it's a school setting, document it. Document it, document it, document it. Not on a work device. If you are in a workplace that has work devices, put it on another device. Because if that way, if you can report it, I would because that way, if you could at least get the training, if the administration does not fall through, I do think it's important to at least have said, like, hey, you document at this because if it ends up being a pile and it ends up being a pattern, you can kind of not only help yourself but also help those around you too. That person isn't affecting others in the future. Yeah, yes. Either way to document it. Yes, double one. Document it, yeah. You still have time. Well, you can think about it while we ask. They can think about their questions while we ask it, yeah. I got two things. My nephew and my students. My nephew was five years old. I was the first family member to visit him in Texas. He was a little peanut. And now he's five and we just got his first day, his first picture day. A photo was back. He was my sister's wedding bear. And I love this little boy so much. He calls me Uncle JJ. And it gave me such pride to even though, not even though, because you're not like despite anything. Like you're saying earlier about children, they are so chill and they're still understanding. And sometimes they'll ask questions and they'll be like, oh, okay. And then I'll keep going. And it just reminds me that there's so much hope. And if I were ever to give up or lose the fight that I have with dealing with dysphoria or depression or anxiety or X, Y, and Z, I know that the impact on this little boy would break my heart. And then two, my students, because they're so cool, they're growing up and then they're so respectful of each other in the way that they respect each other's pronoun. They call each other out. I'm not using their pronoun. And I'm just really excited to watch this next generation be able to take space for other people and be compassionate. So those are my key things. Yeah, I have a very, very similar answer actually, especially regarding students. I mean, my students here are obviously a little older than yours, but it just strikes me how much has changed so fast compared to, because I'm really not all that much older than they are in certain ways. And it is truly remarkable to me how fast the world has changed and how fast it is still changing and how much hope it gives me to see, not to be cheesy, but they're great. I know some of you are out there too. So you know, feel good about yourselves. But yeah, and I think also having the opportunity to interact with younger trans people when the opportunity happens, I think back to this conversation I had online one day several years ago with a couple of trans people who are like, I think in their late teens or late 20s, and just explaining to them the concept of gender euphoria. So if most of you are likely have heard the term gender dysphoria before, the sort of like extreme distress and dealing with sort of mismatch between how you're perceived or how your body is and how you feel. But there is also an experience of gender euphoria, feeling like intense affirmation and joy and explaining that to them and saying like this is also part of being trans and like seeing their reaction was like knowing that I can help other people in that way, that kind of thing really for me is very helpful and sort of keeps me at it. You're gonna have some real big surprises. You don't know it yet, but it's gonna be okay. You're gonna make it. So because it's hard, everything that, I mean I ended up okay, it's, I don't know. Like there's that question, right? If you could go back in time and tell yourself, no, transition now, would you do it? Because everything that, like all the mistakes and things that I made would have led me to be a very different person now. Like I don't know if I would have a brother transition at 16, you know? Who would that person have been? It wouldn't have been me. The one thing I think I said, and I wrote this down early and I was like, ooh, that's a fire line. But the one thing I think that I would do, I would tell myself would be, do not like step on yourself to make someone else feel taller. I feel like coming out and the reaction to coming out, my parents laughed at me. And that made me kind of shrink back and I feel like I lead a very passive life now that I'm still trying to unlearn. But if I could have told myself, my like fifth grade, I wrote a whole letter to my dad saying, oh, I didn't wanna wear a dress for the first day of school. If I could go back and tell that kid, eat that same energy, I definitely would. It would save me a lot of money and a lot of therapy. Everyone, every person? Every single person, and there's not a question. From everyone in here. Well first, if you all can join me and just giving them all a round of applause for coming out. Thank you all for just sharing your stories and of course our lovely moderator for today. We really truly appreciate it and you don't know the impact that you all have had on our community just for being here and being your most authentic self. So thank you. But we will start with the questions. If you wanna raise your hand and I will come around and give you the mic. That's my roommate by the way, very sick of them. Anyway, so we have mentioned, like y'all had mentioned the idea of gender euphoria a couple times and the idea of, not the idea of the choice and the, I don't know, the possibility of joy being part of the trans experience and how that should be more known. And I wanted to know if y'all felt comfortable sharing an aspect of like your life, an aspect of yourself, even an article of clothing and object, anything that gives you like gender euphoria, kind of like as a way for anyone else in the audience to kind of like get an idea of other things that they can kind of look to within their own lives or gender euphoria, if that makes sense. Okay, starting, I think first of all, it's, you know, I do also wanna say like as important and valuable as I find it as an experience, it's also something that like in a sense I feel very lucky to experience it at times, like it's not always something that's accessible and it's not something anyone should blame themselves for not experiencing. I think honestly one way I sometimes am able to feel it is just by like being for instance, out in nature in very quiet places and you know, moving around and remembering that as much as I may feel uncomfortable with my body at times, it also can do wonderful things. It can carry me out into a beautiful place and I can see beautiful things and experience those beautiful things and you know, feel big emotions about those things and that I think in itself can be very healing. You know, that and baggy sweatshirts, you know, yeah. And practical shoes. I'm not very cool. I think for me, a lot of it is community and like, you know, looking around and like being in a room with a bunch of really cool trans people and thinking like, I wouldn't know any of these people if I weren't trans. I wouldn't have this experience. I wouldn't have this job. I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have, I would have been in a completely different place in my life if I weren't trans and I think that makes me feel really good in addition to tight clothing and not sensible shoes. Everyone's different. Yeah, yeah. I think for me, I was very fortunate to live on a gender inclusive floor at the University of Connecticut where I could live on a floor with people who lived their lives like me. We're also a part of the trans community and with that, I had a roommate. I'd come on my binder for the first time directly as my roommate walked in the door and they'd be like, they're gone. And to kind of like, like, burrow out for a second. Oh, it made like, it made all the steps and like, I felt like I had gained a relationship with somebody who could kind of relate and be like, oh my goodness, I'm so happy for you. It was fire, it was pretty much all I got. Hello. So my question is, how do you find out what pronouns you're comfortable with? This question a lot, because I've been through a lot of pronouns. And honestly, I just kind of tried them out. And I'm grateful that I had two things. I had the love of my friends who were support from few supporters who were willing to go with the flow and they'd be like, okay, they have them, not cool. I used they, them, their pronouns for a bit. And they were like, cool, all right, whatever. Another thing is Pokemon, where you can kind of, like, it's a game where you can pick different options, like different gender options. And I know it's been really helpful to some of my loved ones who are who are experimenting with she, her pronouns, or he, him pronouns. And it's been kind of nice to have like this video game and it's really interesting to put in you and this game and nobody else is involved to try out different things you might not be comfortable with or are still kind of discovering whether or not you're comfortable with. And I think there are also some tools online, actually. I don't know if this is still around, but I know a couple of years ago, at least there was a site, I think it's called the pronoun dressing room, I think, where you can even like put in your name and the pronouns are trying out and it will like have these very basic short story sort of things where it's like the name and the pronouns. And so you can kind of read it and see how it feels. If you have like, say people in your life who, you know, you feel like you can try this out with, that's the other thing I would try to do, but honestly, it's sort of a trial and error thing. Yeah, somewhere in my bookmarks. I have a whole like trans resources bookmark file for stuff like this. Other questions. How do you deal with being, I don't know, like transmask at a historically women's college? Sorry? How do you deal with being transmasked at a historically women's college? I don't know if you can help. I'm assuming this is for me. So I'm not, I don't actually consider myself transmask. I'm on binary, but I will say when I applied here, I was a little nervous. I was like, oh, I should Google this and Google, you know, Hull University, trans students. And I found the policy and I was like, well, it's not terrible. So I guess I'll see. I mean, not being a student, I think it is a little different. And so I think it's a little harder to speak to a student's experience in that sense. It is a little weird at times, but I think the thing that I have realized since arriving here is that my students haven't blanked about it. You know, I haven't had, I mean, perhaps there are exceptions out there, but I haven't experienced from students any kind of like questioning even about who I am in the classroom or, you know, what my role is here and having that level of acceptance and remembering that that is the case that people just don't even blink about it and really makes me feel more reassured. I hope that is helpful. You know, I'd be glad to talk to you more if you want at some point. Yeah, I can't quite see you out there, I'm sorry. More questions. Okay, we'll make a real round, okay? Hi, I'm also just very grateful for you all being here. It feels really good to like see trans people on stage. I'm just really happy because stuff gets crazy here. Anyway, I have two questions. The first one is I've kind of realized through doing like theater, I've been really mourning the loss of like my queer childhood and like getting to be out as a kid and maybe being like a little boy. Like I didn't really get to have experiences like that. So if you feel comfortable, like are there any ways you, if you've felt that feeling like, how do you like deal with that? How do you like deal with like mourning the loss of all the years you could have been out? Stuff like that, because that's just been really hard for me especially turning 20 this year realizing, I'm really old and I've only been out like three years. I have to leave, I'm sorry. You're, I gotta go, man. Well, I mean, 20 years is a lot of years for me at least. So that's all the ones I have. So, but then my other question is, I'm really interested in working with kids, especially in like theater and psychology. And I just wanna know like, how do you be yourself in front of kids that might have different upbringings and like might think differently of you? Like how do you stay true to yourself and also set a good example for kids that might be questioning or something like that? Sorry, I feel like I made this really awkward. I'm gonna give this back. No. No, it's like. No, we made it awkward. I'm sorry. Yeah. No, and I remember having that feeling. I mean, I definitely remember being 20. I don't know, I think one thing I think about is it wasn't that I wasn't still me as a kid because I was still me. I didn't know all of myself yet and people around me certainly didn't. But I was certainly just as weird, if not weirder than I am now. And to try to treat my past self with love, to know that I just did not have the environment I needed yet to be myself and to love who I was, I think is the best thing I've found for that. In terms of kids, I mean, you have more experience with this than I do, but my experience with most kids is they'll ask you incredibly awkward questions and you just respond to them as politely as you can and they'll just say, oh, okay. I mean, honestly, it makes me very happy whenever a little kid asks me if I'm a boy or a girl. Then their parent, it always flips out and I'm like, no, this is great. I want them asking this question. Yeah. And also the answer, I think those were two great questions. One of which is I want to let you know that there is nothing stopping you. I am, to give you a perspective, I'm 24. I still drink mad apple juice almost every day. Montretox actually, because it's a lot of sugar in apple juice and I can't do it no more. But what I can't offer is to know that there is nothing stopping you from enjoying that child to joy. If there are things you would like to do that you still like to do as a child and that makes you feel like in that head space again, there is nothing wrong with pulling up Amazon Prime and watching SpongeBob for a bit and finding things that you enjoy to give yourself that feeling, I guess. I don't want to say grieving, because I don't think there is anything that you've lost. I think it's one thing to really accept yourself for who you are and know that you can keep going and enjoying, incorporating all those things you like to do as a child now. That's definitely helped me in kind of accepting who I kind of am. Like I'm watching Bleach right now, I'm watching a lot of Shonen anime that I wish I had watched like Naruto. I'm doing a lot of different things that I think if I was a child, I really would have enjoyed. And I think as far as working with kids, I get asked a lot of different questions. And it really does depend on who you're working for. As far as the administration, like my staff and my administration do know that I'm a trans, but as far as the students, they know I belong to the LGBT community. I had a student who asked if they could guess which letter I was. And I had to politely decline, but I thanked them for thinking of me. But I say as far as theater, I think it's a great place to kind of extend yourself and kind of show them what they're capable of and kind of encourage that, if that kind of makes sense. Cool. Just checking. Perfect, I know there was a question over here. Hello. So obviously the queer community can be a really great, helpful area and space and whatever. The kind of my question is, within the queer community, are there ways that you fight back against the conversation of not being queer enough, trans enough, whatever else, enough. And if there's kind of places, if you have dealt with that, that you've validated yourself through those experiences. Can I get a restating of the question? Yeah, I guess pretty much the question is, if you've experienced or seen the conversation of not being this enough within the queer community, are there kind of ways that you push back against that or ways that you've validated yourself, if that's something you've experienced firsthand? That's a necessary question. Yeah, let's talk about the answer. One of the really, I guess, crystallizing moments, there's a book called You Are Trans Enough by Mia Violet, which is great and the sentiment behind that is great. And I think that extends to all of the different flavors of queer as well. Like, you being you is enough to, if you are queer, you call yourself queer, that is what you are. Like, you are what you are. And you don't, I mean, I'm gonna feel baller from Britt A. Willis. Like, you don't have to prove it to anybody. You are trans enough, you are queer enough, yeah. Yeah, it can be hard in the moment, but I think remembering that you are the world's leading expert on you, and no one else, no matter how loud or challenging they may be, knows better than you do about you. And, you know, honestly, sometimes leaving the situation is a good idea, but you know, also I think remembering, this is gonna sound cheesy again, but other people's opinions about who you are can't change who you are. They can hurt, I don't wanna deny that, but they can't change you. And unfortunately, I don't think that it's a constant, like, and even within the queer community. I mean, like the, do you know what trans medicalists are? Yeah, okay. Oh, boy. I mean, that's the thing, right? Like, it's definitely something that you're going to have to go up against. And I guess it's just, I guess it's an aphorism and all that we have to defend it, right? Yeah. Or remove yourself from the situation because so many of those people are not worth arguing with. No, especially online, just watch a puppy video. The puppies don't care. They don't know anything, nothing going on in those heads. I can have said it better myself, I really can. Perfect, we have time for two more questions. So, I was just wondering, it's like based on my own experience with this, how many, like, finding the names or like how many names did you, like, try to figure out, like, if that was the thing that you had to deal with? So the question was about names, you said? Yeah, like picking the right one, how long, how many? Like, name, name. Yeah, names. I mean, you can change your name multiple times. I mean, I would advise you not to change it multiple times legally, just because it's, if you've been in the ass, but, yeah, your name and your gender and your expression can change daily or monthly or yearly and you find out what becomes comfortable for you. I mean, there's the Starbucks thing, right? Like, Starbucks will call you whatever. They'll misspell it, but they'll call you whatever. Yeah, it's a good way to try it out, you know, just say the name, because they don't care and no one is going to judge you for maybe people pick up a few of the drinks and Starbucks all the time if you feel nervous or something like that. They call out the name, you feel how it sounds. Go get it. There's lots of ways to do it. Yeah, and I mean, I still go my birth name in most circumstances, I don't always, but, and you know, I recognize that might change someday and it's okay. I think allowing for, I think again, this is an area where having patience and love for yourself is really important, but like, it's not easy to sort of, in a sense, I think when you're trans, you have to take on all of these tasks that normally someone else does for you, like naming yourself and in a sense, like sort of become a person for yourself that normally, you know, a parent would be in a certain way and to have sort of, I guess in a way, a bit of parental love for yourself in whatever ways you can and patience. But yeah, no, it's trying it out. I have a disclaimer, this is going to sound a little bit silly. So this whole time, because I have ADHD, one of the things that I was constantly thinking was, man, I really love all of their shoes. Just amazing. Like there's not a single pair of shoes up there that I would not love to wear. And that got me thinking. Do you know of any gender expressive friendly brands or have any tips for, I guess, presenting a certain way, you know, just. I mean, there are a lot of Etsy stores run by trans people that specialize in making like gender expressive or like trans color stuff or often stuff like that. Also cannot recommend enough like looking, you know, Googling particular items of clothing and looking like attaching various trans terms to that item of clothing and then looking for a Reddit page because there are a lot of trans subreddits out there and whatever else is going on in that site, they can be very affirming places where people are actually giving legitimate advice and they will name a lot of specific brands, give specific advice and stuff like that. I've definitely done that before, like, you know, looking for where to get jeans that fit a person's shape like me. Like you go to Google and you type in, you know, usually I would type in for my purposes, even though I'm not a man, I would type in something like trans man jeans and I would find the Reddit and it's like all of these things of like, who makes jeans for someone who's really short? You know, essentially. Thank you Reddit. You did something useful today. Yeah. I actually had the privilege of meeting Chanel back in New York about two, three years ago, actually. And one of the places that I ended up servicing a lot or wanting to work with a lot has been the Fluid Project and they have a online store who they really cater to eliminating like the men's section, the women's section, kind of giving a section for anybody who wants to buy their clothes. And another sense, something about these shoes are these are from the children's section. That's true. Yes. I can point out that if for myself, I feel like I felt really weird putting on men's clothing because I always felt like it didn't fit the way it was supposed to. And that can be really crushing in the moment. But shopping in the kid's section. And the clothes are cheaper. Yes, the clothes are cheaper. So those are a few different like little tidbits that I think are kind of important to kind of sorry, trans families. Yeah, it's really not universally applicable, unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's really advice if you're short and skinny, unfortunately. There, yeah. Before we officially close out, I want to give you all an opportunity to say any final remarks to our audience before we officially close out anything else that you would like to add to today. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you for your questions. Thank you for being curious and interested and being here just in general. And thank you to the school for providing the space. Y'all are doing incredible work out here and I really hope to see what y'all do in the future. Yeah, and I also wanted to say thank you to the performers tonight. Those really, really impactful performances and thank you to all the hauls and to everyone here. It's been really great. Thank you all. I'm not gonna drag it out. There are also some resources outside, so feel free to grab that. And then tomorrow, Saga is hosting an individual event at the chapel, right outside of the chapel at 7 p.m. tomorrow. So please join us tomorrow as we honor the lives that have been lost and trans lives that have been lost if you are able to. So thank you.