Life Through a Queer Lens
Welcome to the Life Through a Queer Lens Podcast, where anyone with an open mind and heart can learn about the LGBTQIA+ Community from the people within it! We're your hosts, Jenene (she/her, they/them) and Kit (they/them).
Life Through a Queer Lens
EP53: Kyler Broadus and the Legal Battles for Trans Equality
Curious about how one person can transform transgender rights? Join us as we explore the inspiring journey of Kyler Broadus, a pioneering lawyer and trans advocate whose activism has led to significant legal advancements.
We'll dive into his personal story, from the influence of his father to discovering trans jazz musician Billy Tipton, and discuss his landmark testimony in 2012. Plus, we'll reflect on broader queer history, Missouri's anti-trans discrimination laws, and our plans for an inclusive Discord community.
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he still struggled to accept the disconnect between his body and his soul, praying to god to fix him at a very young age until he found a national inquirer article about billy tipton, the jazz musician who was outed as being a trans man. After his passing I hid this national inquirer in our house like it was a playboy magazine, so I could come home and look at it and I stopped praying to God every day, because at least then I had a role model in Billy Tipton. Hello and welcome back to another solo cast. I think we're just going to start calling this Solo September because it has a ring to it. I don't know about y'all, but I'm a whore for a good alliteration, but I hope y'all are doing well today. We are nearing the end of September, so that's fun. Entering the spooky season. I hope you all are excited for the spooky season because, on top of it being the spooky season, october is LGBTQ History Month, so we have a lot planned for that month. We have a lot of really fun episodes planned for that month that obviously go into queer history but are also pretty spooky themed. Keep checking us out, follow us on socials. They're all in the description down below in the link tree and let's get started today.
Speaker 1:Today we are talking about trans anti-discrimination pioneer and lawyer, kyler Broadus. Kyler is a transgender legal pioneer born August 28, 1963, in Fayette, missouri, the same day as the first march on Washington. He is 61 years old. So I think one of the reasons that's really important to recognize is A most of the photos we see from the first march on Washington I talked about this in a previous episode but a lot of these pictures we see are all in black and white, so we think about them from a completely different lifetime. But a man who was born on that day, who is presently a trans legal pioneer, is still alive. He's only 61. That's only a couple years older than my parents. That's not that old. So I feel like that's something really important to keep in mind, because we are taught about a lot of these people and points in history as if they were so long ago, but they're like in some of our parents' lifetimes, in most, if not all, of our grandparents' lifetimes. It's not eons ago like we have been taught. It is through things like using only black and white photos. Think about it. Have you ever seen a civil rights photo that you didn't go searching for that was in color, that wasn't in black and white. There's a reason for that. It's because they want you to think this shit was from the 1800s, which also wasn't that long ago either, but they want you to think that these things were from a time before colored photographs were invented. But they aren't. They just plain and simply aren't. You're the same film that recorded like parents' childhood photos. That's the same film that was used to take these photos. They just chose to continue to show them in black and white. Remember that Our history is not as far back as we have been taught it is. It is more recent than we think.
Speaker 1:I also changed out my piercings because this lipstick won't dry properly, so I had to change these out because my hoops kept getting lipstick all over them, and that's not a vibe. Also, I did Beetlejuice lips today, which I'm super proud of. So, yeah, I did the most recent makeup trend for the first time in my life, guys. But I ended up having to change out my hoops, my horseshoes for flatback posts for straight posts, and I can't talk. They keep getting stuck on my teeth. I don't know how people wear these all the time. I think I need to do what my ex suggested. Shout out to David, who suggested putting eyebrow rings in your lip when you don't want to wear like full horseshoes Because, rather than the flatbacks, they have a little bit of a curve to them so they don't get so stuck on your teeth and they don't like cause so many issues. This is annoying.
Speaker 1:In Kyler's youth he describes his father as his biggest supporter and best friend, letting him change the outfits his mother would lay out into more masculine ones. He also took Kyler to work with him at as young as five and never corrected his co-workers when they would refer to Kyler as his son of you is. Kyler remembers as being very prominent and important moments in his young life, allowing him to be who he needed to be when he needed to be it. That's something that he looks back on extremely fondly, even now in his 60s. To all my parents of trans kids out there, if you let your kid just do the things that they need to, they will remember and they will appreciate you for that. If you don't and you try to shove them into the back of a closet, you're probably going to stop hearing from them after a certain point. Anyway, even with Kyler's support. He still struggled to accept the disconnect between his body and his soul, praying to God to fix him at a very young age until he found a National Enquirer article about Billy Tipton, the jazz musician who was outed as being a trans man after his passing this is a quote from Kyler Broadus directly I hid this National Enquirer in our house like it was a Playboy magazine so I could come home and look at it and I stopped praying to God every day because at least then I had a role model in Billy Tipton.
Speaker 1:If you're wondering why trans representation is so important and why older queer people have this mentality of not shutting the fuck up and wanting to be out and loud and proud, it's because we understand that there was a point in time when we didn't have these role models. I think back on my own childhood. I did not know the word trans outside of rocky Horror Picture Show until I was 18. And I was introduced to what it means to be transgender and almost immediately came out. Almost immediately was like oh my god, I've never felt connected to my gender and or to my assigned sex at birth. Wow, this makes so much sense. Representation matters. Representation matters because it shows all of the little Kyler Brodesses and me's and everyone else's that there are other people out there like us, that we are not truly alone, which, actually, speaking of which, some historical things have happened recently with the Emmys. Funny enough, the fourth ever trans femme trans woman was nominated for an Emmy.
Speaker 1:She works on Baby Reindeer. I cannot remember her name. I also do not personally watch Baby Reindeer due to my own trauma, because it revolves around stalking and I can't handle a show like that as someone who suffers from paranoia. So I personally have not watched the show or anything else that she has been in. So I can't remember her name. But she is the fourth trans woman to be nominated for an Emmy in general. Laverne Cox was the first, and she is the first trans woman to be nominated for an Emmy in the specific category that she was nominated within. So that's pretty cool. Trans history is happening all around us all the time and that is fucking awesome.
Speaker 1:So after high school, kyler Brodus earned his Juris Doctorate degree at the University of Missouri Law School. So this is the equivalent of a professional doctorate in law. I don't really understand the specifics of it. It's not a doctorate, it's a professional doctorate, which is different and because that didn't have to do too much with the episode as a whole, I didn't do too much digging into it. But yeah, he has a professional doctorate degree in law, called a Juris Doctorate degree.
Speaker 1:In the late 90s, kyler informed his employer of his plan to transition from female to male, which led to the environment becoming increasingly unwelcoming and unsupportive. Becoming increasingly unwelcoming and unsupportive. Violently and vitriolically, he was being handed projects that he was being told to complete in 24 to 48 hours, and these were projects that would normally take weeks to complete and numerous people working together on them, and he was told to complete them alone in a fraction of the time. And he did it. But it hit a certain point where he realized I am not welcome here, this is not okay, I'm leaving. And he left. After being forced to resign, he learned that it was legal for employers in the state to discriminate based on gender. Mind you, it might still be legal to discriminate based on gender within the state of Missouri.
Speaker 1:I was trying to find concrete information about this outside of many of the interviews with Kyler and other resource pages that I use. I was trying to read through actual Missouri law, but I'm not a lawyer. I don't really. I don't understand legalese guys. I never pretended to, so as I was reading through this it was going in one ear and out the other and within my brain it was becoming oatmeal by the second.
Speaker 1:I don't really know if this is something that was on the books and then it was removed and then it was put back on in recent years as a part of the wave of anti-trans discrimination laws that have been being passed in states like Missouri. I am not 100% sure. So if you are in Missouri and you have that information, please feel free to reach out. Our second link in our link tree has a episode topic suggestion area where you can feel free to reach out about information that you have on this. That I don't whether or not that is something that is legally on the books in Missouri and we can share that information via a clip to our social medias. The best I could come up with is that these laws are possibly still on the books but are loosely enforced at best. There are anti-discrimination laws on the book but they aren't really enforced very well, and that kind of makes sense. But again, if you are in Missouri, please feel free to let us know.
Speaker 1:I would love to have actual, concrete information from primary sources on the ground in Missouri. That would be wonderful, because reading the legalese was like prying my toenails off. I can't do it. It just it hurts my brain in ways that I wish it didn't, but it do. I could go through and I know the meanings of a lot of these words too, but having them all strung together, I don't know if it's the formatting, maybe it's the. I need better accessibility settings because it's also like the way it's just like blocks of text and it's all really small and the way it's broken up. So it might be that I need to toggle my accessibility settings on pages that I'm reading that have to do with like actual laws on the book. Let me know if that's something that that's also helped you guys out, if y'all have those issues with legalese and you've noticed that messing with the accessibility settings and making like the font bigger and things like that have like genuinely helped because it hurts my brain.
Speaker 1:So from here, kyler began his lifelong, deeply dedicated journey to developing federal, state and local protections for everyone, regardless of gender, identity or expression. So this is a direct quote from the About Kyler W Broadus page on his website. As an attorney, broadus practiced with a focus on LGBTQ law, particularly transgender rights, but has represented all types of clients. At this point, most other lawyers would not take any of these cases. He received referrals from the National Center for Lesbian Rights, transgender Law Center, lambda Legal and the ACLU. So I almost guarantee you if you follow civil rights cases in any way, shape or form, you have heard this man's name before. Even in doing this research, I was like wait, I think I've heard his name before. I think I recognize him from just different cases that I've seen and read about in the news and stuff like that. Throughout his career, kyler wrote numerous scholarly papers that focused on transgender advocacy within family and employment, all of which have been key in academic and legal discussions since their publications. So again, if you've studied queer theory in college, I am sure you've heard this man's name before. He is extremely prominent when it comes to the legal, anti-discrimination and familial aspects of bettering transgender life. His publications include the first of its kind, essay, the Evolution of Employment Discrimination Protections for Transgender People, which was published in Transgender Rights in 2006, which Transgender Rights was a collection of essays by different transgender rights activists and people just talking about trans and queer rights and it was published in 2006. And when it was published, it was groundbreaking, obviously, 2006,.
Speaker 1:Like I said, I graduated high school in 2014. And, mind you, I was active in the GSA in high school. I what's the word? I was in for. I had come out as bi at 16 and had dated two separate girls. While in high school I was active in the queer community. As a young person I've talked about them before my uncles that were around from the time I was three. Queerness was very normalized in my life and still the only time I had heard the word trans, transvestite, transsexual, transgenic in any type of context was Rocky Horror Picture Show, which we will be talking about in October. So please stay tuned because I don't know if you can tell by looking at me y'all. I fucking love that movie, but we will be talking about that coming soon, so stay tuned. But yeah, that was like the only instance with those terms that I had and I was relatively active in the queer community For this to have been published in 2006,.
Speaker 1:It's like Whipping Girl, being that trans men are not mocked for their masculinity, which is something as a trans man and a trans masc, non-binary person who has been mocked directly for my presentations of masculinity. I don't necessarily agree with that and I have seen a lot of other trans men coming out and disagreeing with that. And I'm a short trans man too. I'm 4'11". Do you know what people's favorite thing was to discuss? It was the fact that there was nothing I could do to prevent the fact that I was the fem boy. I was the fem boy, trans boy. That was frequently fetishized throughout my journey as a trans man and even to this day is something that I have noticed is the fact that I am a very feminine trans mask who is very tiny. I have the femme boy aesthetic and that is something that is extremely fetishized in a very unhealthy way, and I understand that parts of that is the femininity aspect to it. But I think that saying that there is no such thing as a trans man who has been mocked for his display of masculinity, for the way he displays masculinity, I just think that's patently untrue. I just think that is patently untrue. Where do you think T-voice came from, the whole trans man with a high-pitched voice? It became from our presentations of masculinity guys. That's the source of a lot of that is the way we present our masculinity and, mind you, I'm still very early in this book and I love everything else. She is spot on with a lot of her points, but that is the one point that I have thus far taken issue with is stating that trans men do not experience masculinity.
Speaker 1:Gender traitors. I've been told that I'm betraying the female gender. I've been told I'm just a confused little autistic girl. I've been told that I shouldn't want to transition into a man because men are gross and smelly and evil. You sound dumb, you sound like you're doing gender essentialism, you're doing a bio-essentialism and you're pulling a turf. I hate to be the one to tell you this. Trust me, trust me, that's bio-essentialism.
Speaker 1:There is no difference between man and woman, she's saying in Whipping Girl. We have to say that it's not just that men and women are equal. Masculinity and femininity are equal, they are on equal standings. Neither is a performance, neither is a bad thing. They are equal, they are on equal standing. That's the goal, that's the through line that I think that we have in some instances lost. That was quite the tangent. But again, the early 2000s is not that long ago and only then we are having these groundbreaking works from trans people. We are still in a lot of instances, while we are older than christ and we are ancient and we go beyond so many different religions that have tried to squash us, and we have been around since the instances of the first poems, our history is also very fresh and new and exciting, and I think that there's such an interesting dichotomy to that, there's such an interesting piece to that. I don't know, I can't put it into words quite yet. I need to think on that more, but there's something there that I find very fascinating that I could talk about for hours, but let's move on, shall we?
Speaker 1:In 2010, kyler founded the Trans People of Color Coalition, also known as the TPOCC, to help the most marginalized who were, and are, often forgotten by private and nonprofit sectors. So the welcome statement on the TPOCC's website states Trans People of Color Coalition exists to advance justice for all trans people of color. Of color coalition exists to advance justice for all trans people of color. We amplify our stories, support our leaders and challenge issues of racism, transphobia and trans misogyny. It is the only, as of now even still to this day, this is the only national social justice organization that promotes the interest of trans people of color specifically, which is super, super, indelibly important. It is incomprehensible how important something like that is. We need more organizations that are specifically aimed at helping the most marginalized among us. That should be the goal, that should be the heart, that should be the through line. And, just so y'all are aware, this is something that I hinted at in a previous episode, but, as of the posting of this episode at the link tree in our bio it will probably be the third or fourth down, I'm guessing we will have a link for the Trans People of Colors Coalition's EA Story Project where you can share your story, and you can submit your story and share why we need federal LGBTQ plus non-discrimination protections now. Through this, your story and voice can help push the Equality Act into federal law. So that's the entire point of this is to compile as many queer people's stories to hopefully help push the Equality Act through into federal law.
Speaker 1:In 2012, kyler Broadus made national history by being the first openly transgender person to testify before the US Senate. He was speaking in support of the Employment Nondiscrimination Act. Publicization, I think, is the word of trans Americans and trans lives at this point in time, around 2013, 2014, 2012,. In that era. A magazine cover is not a piece of legislation. It is not a court case. We need a social change, not just visibility. Black Americans have been visible forever.
Speaker 1:It takes more than that, and this was specifically speaking on the 2014 cover about trans Americans on Time magazine, and I would say that's 100% true. Look at how far we've come since 2014, but also look at how far we have to go and look at how far we have fallen. You know what I mean. There are certain aspects of just visibility without legislation, visibility without change, that have caused more harm than good. Look at the right wing, look at what Republicans are saying about us. So it hits a point where you have to start to remember that visibility is not the end-all, be-all. It has to go beyond that, to the point of actual legislation and protections, because just visibility winds us up where we're at now, where we were very visible and we had that visibility and it was great, but there was no change or legislation behind that to make sure that our visibility wouldn't then become a target on our backs. Does that make sense? I'm not saying visibility is a bad thing in general, but visibility without any sort of systemic change behind it becomes a target, and I don't think that's a very radical thing to say. I think that's pretty going to be real big.
Speaker 1:We are hopefully I'm going to drop this now because this is something that I really think would be a good idea Fingers crossed. Sometime in October, possibly November, we will be opening and dropping a Discord server for our community to connect within. We will hang out in there, probably have some calls, or we just hang out, listen to music. I was thinking about going live on tiktok. I'll probably still end up doing that at some point, but I think I'd like to start small at first. I this is my first foray into real content creation, doing this podcast, so I've never actually done a live stream before. So, yeah, I'm a little tentative, but I'm considering opening up a Discord where we can all have a community that is built on acceptance and love and understanding and learning more about one another and compassion. I don't want this to be a community where anyone begins feeling ostracized for whatever reason. Unless you are actively and violently violating people's boundaries, don't be a dick. But I want this to be a place where people feel welcomed, and I also wanted to put out a little bit of a call for help to the podcast. A requoi from me to y'all.
Speaker 1:We have been struggling, as I'm sure you've heard from our past content discussing deleting our Instagram, stepping away from meta. We have been struggling with hate comments for a while now and on our TikTok, everything away from meta. We have been struggling with hate comments for a while now and on our TikTok everything's perfectly fine. On our Tumblr, everything's going really well. But our YouTube is a different ballgame a little bit. I'm considering just turning off the comments for the time being, because I was reading online that a lot of people were saying that having the comments on was just like funneling the people that are commenting to your content, which is all just homophobes. Basically, my recall.
Speaker 1:My call for help is if you are interested in a role of moderation, if that is something that you feel like you can handle, if that is something you feel like would interest you, please feel free to reach out. I, again, I've never done a live stream before. Even I know next to nothing about mods and moderators. I understand that it is mainly a volunteer role. I would absolutely be willing to compensate with handmade jewelry and fun little gifts and lots of hugs and love. Again, it's the episode suggestion link, but you can feel free to reach out there and let us know. Hey, I would love to be a moderator or our DMs on TikTok or Tumblr. You could also message us there if this is something that interests you being a moderator. But yeah, I will pay you back with my forever adoration, all the love in my heart and soul.
Speaker 1:Fun jewelry, if that interests you. I make most of the jewelry that I wear. I didn't make this, obviously this is crazy, but I make most of the jewelry that I wear. I also make earrings. I make gauge weights, pins. I have little like roach clip bracelets. If you agree to come on and be a moderator, I would absolutely be willing to send you some stuff for free, 100%. Let me know what you would be interested in and I will send it to you. Now, with that housekeeping stuff out of the way, we're going to jump to our interesting fact.
Speaker 1:In 1963, the same year that Kyler was born, the film Flaming Creatures debuted at a New York City theater. It was a provocative, experimental film depicting queer love, gender fluidity and semi-nudity. Directed by Jack Smith, it was banned by police after that first showing for obscenity. The legal battle that followed made it all the way to the US Supreme Court where, in 1967, the film was labeled as obscene. This ruling was never actually overturned, meaning it's still technically. However, the film continued to thrive within underground screenings on university campuses after the Supreme Court ruling, maybe even because of it, as Darmond Hester, author of Nothing Ever Just Disappears Seven Hidden Queer Histories, sees this as a reminder that queer joy has always existed.
Speaker 1:Students and this is a direct quote from him, students have this idea that before 1969, all queer people were living in isolation and silence, totally atomized from each other. Flaming Creatures is a window into a queer, subversive culture of artistic people who worked together, who created these kinds of luminous works of art, even in repressive times. They were underground, but they did exist and I love that. I think that's a really good reminder. We have always been here. Our history, like I was saying before, our history feels so fresh and new and exciting and recent. Fresh and new and exciting and recent. Queer people have also existed since before most religions. We have been here for ages. We are ancient, we are timeless, we gender variance spans eons. So I think Flaming Creatures that whole idea, is a really good reminder. Queer history does not start and end in June of 1969. That is not the end-all, be-all of queer history. That is a blip. That is one moment in hundreds of thousands of moments that have affected everyone. You know, queer people have touched every aspect of life that we now have. We just don't know it.
Speaker 1:The Turing system, that whole system for training AI, was named after Alan Turing. Alan Turing was gay. The synthesizer was invented by a gay man. That was one of our previous interesting facts. The first non-binary person was legally registered on the books in colonial America in the 1600s, before the Revolutionary War. There was a non-binary colonist on the books who lived through hell. Mind you, they were most likely intersex, but they were registered under a non-binary identity. We are ancient, we have always been here and we are right under the surface. You don't have to look very deep to find where our influence spans throughout history and time, and I think that's really fucking cool. I love that. So, yeah, stay safe, stay queer. I love you all so much. Have a wonderful end of September. I will see you all in spooky season. I can't wait. Clearly, I'm already ready for it, so I hope you all are too. Bye-bye you.