SPEAKER_00: To not affirm is to be complicit.
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Queering Education, where we challenge what school is and build what it should be.
SPEAKER_01: I'm Brian Stanton.
SPEAKER_01: This is a Teaching While Queer podcast about inclusive teaching, queer pedagogy, and showing up authentically in every classroom.
SPEAKER_01: Alright, let's do the work.
SPEAKER_01: Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Queering Education, a Teaching Wild Queer podcast.
SPEAKER_01: I am your host, Brian Stanton.
SPEAKER_01: My pronouns are they, them, and I am so excited to be joined today by SJ Miller.
SPEAKER_01: Hi, SJ.
SPEAKER_01: How are you doing?
SPEAKER_01: I'm great.
SPEAKER_01: How are you?
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's honestly my pleasure.
SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you reached out to me on Instagram, and I just appreciate when people find me to share your story.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm so excited to have you here.
SPEAKER_01: And I would love for you to just introduce yourself a little bit to those people who are listening.
SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: I first of all, I wish you had been around when I first started teaching.
SPEAKER_00: Um we had nothing like that.
SPEAKER_00: I don't even think we had podcast.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and I started teaching when I was 23.
SPEAKER_00: And I have I'm a lifer.
SPEAKER_00: So I initially started teaching sixth grade in a super conservative area in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and then ended up teaching in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
SPEAKER_00: So I taught high school English, AP English, and I was coaching soccer.
SPEAKER_00: And back then I actually started the first Glisten chapter in New Mexico.
SPEAKER_00: And like I said, that was around 94, 95.
SPEAKER_00: And that's when Glissen, the old Glyson, G L-S-E-N, was just starting, right?
SPEAKER_00: So most of us are accustomed to that name.
SPEAKER_00: And I got super involved as a queer activist at that time.
SPEAKER_00: At the time, I identified outside of the binary.
SPEAKER_00: Again, we didn't have language back then.
SPEAKER_00: You know, so many of us were struggling.
SPEAKER_00: I felt like I had an inner male that was living within me that I needed to figure out who that was.
SPEAKER_00: And there were some people coming out as trans around me at the time.
SPEAKER_00: And I just started seeing more of myself in them, not really understanding it.
SPEAKER_00: And so I was going through my own metamorphosis while I had all these queer youth in my classes.
SPEAKER_00: And I had more and more students come to me because of that.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and in New Mexico, you know, we are one of the most progressive state, progressive and liberal states around queer issues.
SPEAKER_00: And so they found a real safe space in me.
SPEAKER_00: And then later I went on and did my PhD here at the University of New Mexico, and I really carried that with me.
SPEAKER_00: And I ended up doing my doctorate in educational thought and sociocultural studies, and I became the first person, the very first person in the US in teacher education to do work work specifically around gender identity.
SPEAKER_00: Um, there were lots of people doing LGB work, LGB, you know, the T really wasn't part of the acronym.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but that became my career.
SPEAKER_00: And I spent 20 years as a professor in higher education, and that's what I do now.
SPEAKER_00: And I work with student teachers all over New Mexico in their classrooms, as well as I adjunct at two different institutions, and I do the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: Like I teach at the University of Washington as an adjunct, and I teach courses, uh, just invented a course, and it's been sold out.
SPEAKER_00: It's been so popular it caps at 60, but it's called Liberation and Justice for Queer Students.
SPEAKER_00: And I have mostly first gen Muslim um students at fam whose families are just coming to the US, and I can't tell you how deeply moved I am that they really want to learn, even in spite of what their families are telling them about you know, queer students and K-12 education.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01: I think that is so powerful.
SPEAKER_01: I love just how you're phrasing that as well.
SPEAKER_01: I'm a huge Chabelle Hooks fan.
SPEAKER_01: I know that she focused a lot on liberatory practices and liberation in the educational space, so I love that it's like a continuation of like four ancestors in the education space.
SPEAKER_01: So I think that's so cool.
SPEAKER_01: I also love what you're saying about um working with students from different backgrounds.
SPEAKER_01: I think that there's a lot of kind of random like randomized hate happening right now.
SPEAKER_01: I think a lot about um people when it comes to um the the crimes that are happening like in Gaza, and they're being like, well, you try to be a queer person in Gaza and see what happens to you, and this like rhetoric that like just because you're Muslim that you are innately anti-queer.
SPEAKER_01: And while I know that there's teachings in that regard, I also look at what is being spouted and taught by Christians right now in the US, and seeing how those two things are not mutually exclusive.
SPEAKER_01: Like, what I'm seeing is that religion is focused on patriarchy, which is going to demonize anything that is anti-patriarchal.
SPEAKER_01: So feminizing uh men, quote unquote, so being a queer person or not conforming to like a heteronormative male archetype in religion as a whole, and I'm I am generalizing and I am not meaning to be offensive to a religion like anybody specific, but I want to say from an outside perspective, because I am a religious but spiritual, um I see patriarchy in all organized religion, and I see it coming for anything that doesn't meet a certain archetype, and just because stereotypically, regionally, you know, Muslim and Islam uh archetypes are uh they have darker skin, they are more Middle Eastern, and kind of real realistically speaking, Christian archetypes should be that because you know the people who come from Jerusalem are not blonde-haired, blue-eyed, um, the archetype that is Jesus Christ in America.
SPEAKER_01: But just because one religion has more melanin in their skin doesn't mean that like it's worse than the other.
SPEAKER_01: Like, they're kind of spouting the same kind of hatred towards marginalized communities and then trying to get the marginalized communities to be like, but look at what they did.
SPEAKER_01: So I love I love the fact that you have a community that you've built within your students that are coming to you to maybe not necessarily unlearn what they've learned, but be exposed to a different perspective.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I will say this um I will get emails from my students saying things like, um, I need to share this with you privately, but I have family that don't know I'm in this class.
SPEAKER_00: And I I have been brought to tears so many times because I really admire those students stepping out of what how they have been, I don't want to say indoctrinated, but socialized, right, and culturalized into those beliefs and saying, no, you know, I I need to learn differently.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's really powerful.
SPEAKER_00: And um I just I really admire those students.
SPEAKER_00: I learned so much from them because I don't have that international lens, right?
SPEAKER_00: The cosmopolitanism that we talk about in in higher ed, the ways in which they're socialized to exactly what you said.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, based on your skin color, that's another level of um of colorism that you know we don't often see within the Muslim community.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, in terms of in terms of how they have been socialized to believe about themselves.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that you're you're spot on with that.
SPEAKER_01: And I think that what's really great is to be in spaces where like conversations around colorism are are coming to the forefront because I think that people assume that racism works one way.
SPEAKER_01: It's like white people versus the world, but in fact, I've seen people who have very similar skin tone be racist towards other uh races, um, which is also a social construct, right?
SPEAKER_01: I yeah, I am so like uh existentialist that I'm like everything's made up, everything that everything we do right now is made up by a person.
SPEAKER_01: It's all fake.
SPEAKER_01: There is no binaries, there are no hard lines, like it's all fake, it's just something that someone decided to say one day.
SPEAKER_01: Um but that makes people's heads kind of go go a little exploding.
SPEAKER_00: And and Derrida, that's it all comes from Derrida.
SPEAKER_00: You know, he was the ultimate deconstructionist who said that you know, there are no original ideas because all those original ideas are gone and we just have cons continue to mashup of ideas.
SPEAKER_00: So how do we even know what reality is, right?
SPEAKER_00: So I mean, everything like Baudrillard says is we live in a hyper-reel, you know, we we have Disneyland as an exemplar to think about, well, if we have Disneyland, is that what's true or is that what helps us project the way we think we're living on the outside world, like living in this fantasia?
SPEAKER_00: Um so I think it's really important that we provide as queer educators, or me, I identify as a gender, right, outside of the gender binary.
SPEAKER_00: However, you know, I get read as male, um, but I think of I think of my life as an embedded reporter.
SPEAKER_00: You know, um, no matter where I go, right, I have male privilege.
SPEAKER_00: So you talk about the masculine the masculinizing of identity, but I push back on guys like all the time.
SPEAKER_00: Like they'll say things to me that they think I want to hear, you know, like, oh, I got laid last night, or man, check out that girl, you know, and I push back.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you're totally objectifying that, you know, and I I put my own safety um at risk sometimes, but to me, it's worth it because I I totally believe this, Brian, that trans people are the solution because there are so many ways, like for instance, I've been socialized to see the world through a female lens, right?
SPEAKER_00: So I bring a softness to my to that.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I could have been socialized as an aggressive, you know, female I wasn't.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I really I challenge binary in the same way that you're talking about for yourself, that everything is a construction.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01: I am intrigued and kind of want to uh talk about something that I don't think I've actually addressed on the podcast, and it's more about like a transition experience.
SPEAKER_01: So if you don't mind like going down a uh rabbit hole with me.
SPEAKER_01: Um no, don't get me started.
SPEAKER_01: It's a very specific question, but I want I would love to kind of address a question.
SPEAKER_01: I have a question that I ask my students specifically when I'm working with college-age students and I'm I'm working with educators and whatnot, um, and those moments that I'm talking with folks who are getting ready to talk to other people.
SPEAKER_01: And my questions center on like, um, I've read some anti-racist work that's like, what was your first memory of race?
SPEAKER_01: Right.
SPEAKER_01: So there's that question, and so I've expanded that question to be like, what is your first memory of gender?
SPEAKER_01: Um, what is your first memory of realizing that gender is different or people are socialized to gender differently, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so my my question just popped into my head is when did you realize and what was it like to realize that you had male privilege?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, when did I first realize?
SPEAKER_00: I I thought we were gonna go back even well, I'll go back a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, I mean I mean specifically like male privilege because I think that's I I think about some of my trans friends, trans mask friends, um, who I don't think realize yet.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think they have the realization that they are being treated with male privilege.
SPEAKER_01: Um it's something that like because I I am non-binary, but I grew up, you know, masculinized.
SPEAKER_01: Um, I grew up as a feminine masculine person, right?
SPEAKER_01: As opposed to um, you know, what the archetype of big was.
SPEAKER_01: But like I have always recognized that I have male privilege.
SPEAKER_01: Um, even now as a non-binary person, like I do my best to make sure I'm sending signals to the world that I am somewhere in between uh with how I look, how I present myself, how I speak, but um from the outside, from a distance, you're I I'm going to be clopped as a male person.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I really do believe that there are some of my trans mask friends who have reached a precipice in their transition where they are treated with male or white or male privilege, but like I don't think they realize that.
unknown: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm I'm kind of curious if you if you know, if you can remember, like, oh shoot, that's what happened.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, it's it's so it's interesting because I think I re well first of all, they thought that I was male in the womb, apparently.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and oh, go you.
SPEAKER_01: Go you, big binary from before birth.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, from the birth.
SPEAKER_00: Well, there's studies too that talk about um like gender identity is formed by like I think it's six months, something starts to happen.
SPEAKER_00: This is interesting.
SPEAKER_00: There have been studies around if the mother had a high level of testosterone, there's a correlation with that person becoming, you know, eventually non-binary or trans.
SPEAKER_00: And my mother was on steroid steroids because she had severe asthma, so her T level was heightened, you know.
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: But I saw a lot of male privilege around me.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think I really identified with my father, and I knew that.
SPEAKER_00: And so I used to run around and I would get hit by my dad.
SPEAKER_00: Like I would run around, I'd take my shirt off, I'd go out and play sports in the street with my friends, and didn't even give a second thought to it, right?
SPEAKER_00: Um, sometimes I'd get on my little huffy, you know, bike and I'd go buy donuts like five or six around the corner and bring it home.
SPEAKER_00: And I felt like I was taking care of the family.
SPEAKER_00: Like I just started adopting a lot of that.
SPEAKER_00: And I was very much a tomboy.
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I was a super high-powered athlete.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I went and played D1.
SPEAKER_00: I was an all-American um at UC Berkeley.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, played on the women's team.
SPEAKER_00: And I was also for one of the first people came out as trans, like in early athletics.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I was benched a lot.
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, anyway, I I started because I was so male identified.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you looked at me, I was very masked and I did see a lot of male privilege hap, you know, happening everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And I think I just there was something, and I'm not saying it's a good thing, but I saw how men were treated.
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, if you start to really think about that concrete privilege, as soon as I I would say, you know, six to seven months on T, you know, after you start to grow facial hair, your your faces also shift.
SPEAKER_00: You know, if I look back, I was a little bit more um cheeky everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, testosterone makes your fat redistribute.
SPEAKER_00: I was already pretty lean, I'm an athlete, but um, you know, I'd say as soon as I started going into men's bathrooms, that was really when I started started to see my privilege.
SPEAKER_00: And just over time, um, I mean, I'm super aware.
SPEAKER_00: Um I often I'm tattooed head to tail, head to head to tail, head to head to foot head to head to foot.
SPEAKER_00: And it's really interesting because we're very much here a bro culture.
SPEAKER_00: And so I get read in two different ways.
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, at the gym, if it's a big buff guy, I'd be like, you know, give me the head knock.
SPEAKER_00: And then a lot of gay men, like I get totally clocked by gay men.
SPEAKER_00: So it's like interesting to me that dichotomy.
SPEAKER_00: If the tats give me um entrance into the bro culture, right?
SPEAKER_00: And then I don't know, I've been told strange things by gay men that I didn't even know existed.
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I live that way, but I also I'm very I'm very different in places.
SPEAKER_00: Like I will back down in conversation.
SPEAKER_00: Um I want other people to have the lead, right?
SPEAKER_00: Things that you often see at a table where white men, you know, where there's this kind of hegemonic, like domineering way people con can com conversate.
SPEAKER_00: And I so I'm super aware of that in public, especially.
SPEAKER_00: And so I I have to work very hard at softening because I rec I also recognize that softer males are then I I get you know pushed around sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: And that often it also tells me like how gay men get pushed around a lot.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Um this is anecdotal and just kind of like my experience as an educator who's worked with with students who are in high school, kind of transitioning trans mask students, is that it is almost safer to embrace like the misogyny uh at the start to kind of establish the manhood, right?
SPEAKER_01: And then and I don't and I don't mean that like for better or for worse, because of the the constructs of our socialism that perhaps the the socialization that we have, um it's a safe route.
SPEAKER_01: It is much easier to not easier, but like safer to deny all the femininity and really, really become hyper masculine um in order to create a safeness for yourself.
SPEAKER_01: And then once you are secure with that, and I think that most of the students that I'm talking about as they're getting into their young adulthood are starting to balance somewhere in between, but at least when you think about high school culture, I was teaching in the South when I was having high school students who were um who were transitioning.
SPEAKER_01: I was teaching in Texas, right?
SPEAKER_01: So it's it was where I was in San Antonio, things were more progressive, but it wasn't great, like it was good, it wasn't great.
SPEAKER_01: Um, so doing whatever you could do to be safe.
SPEAKER_01: I had a student who had like transferred from one school to another, and um it was during COVID, right?
SPEAKER_01: So we didn't always see everybody.
SPEAKER_01: It was during the time where we had some students at school, some students at home, we were teaching hybrid, but everybody had to come in to take the state test.
SPEAKER_01: So the student came in to take the state test.
SPEAKER_01: Um, wasn't my personal student, but I was checking people in at the door, making sure that people got to where they needed to be.
SPEAKER_01: Um, students started having a panic attack because their dead name was listed on the roster and pulled me aside and was like, it's that name, but that's not my name anymore, and no one here knows about that.
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, I just was gonna tell you a story about this.
SPEAKER_00: This is crazy.
SPEAKER_00: Go ahead.
SPEAKER_01: No one here knows about that, and I need it to stay that way.
SPEAKER_01: So I like got my Sharpie out and I had somebody else man that table, and I went upstairs and I crossed out that old name.
SPEAKER_01: I can't even remember what it is.
SPEAKER_01: I never bothered reading it.
SPEAKER_01: I just crossed it out and then wrote his name in it, and then had a conversation the next like the next week with the counselors about how we need to be more proactive about that situation.
SPEAKER_01: That if there's going to be something that's just sitting on a table, that we need to make sure that we're using the appropriate name because we are potentially outing someone, we're putting them in danger when they are working very hard to create a safe space for themselves, and part of that safe space is the denying all the things that have happened thus far and the real acceptance of who they are at this moment now, and and what I saw in young people is that the best way to socialize was to almost caricature, like go to the extreme of what they wanted, what they needed, so hyper masculine because they were.
SPEAKER_01: Transitioning to masculinity and being like the ladies' man, and like you know, um, and and looking at like what is keeping boys safe from bullying in a high school setting and just like latching on.
SPEAKER_01: Um I don't know that I saw the same kind of things happening with students transitioning who are trans feminine, but I think it's a much harder experience because of patriarchy.
SPEAKER_01: It's almost right.
SPEAKER_01: I think about this in relation to like gay men are less as accepted as lesbians in some heterosexual culture because it's like, you know, it's sexy, lesbians are sexy, and gay men are like feminizing themselves.
SPEAKER_01: And I think that like women, not women, but like the idea from a heterosexual perspective of like a person transitioning to be a man is more accepted than the other way around, which is why when we're looking at all the headlines that are happening right now, it's all centered on trans women.
SPEAKER_01: Like it's like trans men are completely out of the conversation, people don't even realize they exist when quite literally um everybody probably runs into at least three trans people a week.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, a couple things.
SPEAKER_00: I I'm really grateful you took the conversation this way.
SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite authors is Juliana Serrano, and one of the things she said in Whipping Girl, which has stood with me probably for 15 years, is that until men come to terms with misogyny, we are gonna continue to have um there men are gonna continue to struggle with trans women.
SPEAKER_00: And I think trans men, and you know this too, have much a much easier time passing.
SPEAKER_00: That's just it, right?
SPEAKER_00: Unless a um, you know, I I I think sometimes when you're in between hormones and you're you're not your body is still feminized, that's you know different.
SPEAKER_00: But with trans women, you know, unless you started puberty blockers, right, before 13, which suppresses a lot of the body development, trans women end up sticking out more.
SPEAKER_00: And for me, like it it's very emotional because we're still part of the same community, and I recognize the trans privilege that I have, you know, and um I wish it were different, you know.
SPEAKER_00: You look at all the the homicides and the murders, and I don't know if you've ever seen the trans murdering project.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever seen those stats?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's ridiculous.
SPEAKER_00: I mean they're they're horrific.
SPEAKER_00: Um and when I put those slides up, you know, my students are often like they're they're in shock.
SPEAKER_00: And then if you see like the top ten ways that they've been murdered, it is it is beyond um it's beyond it's beyond words.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think about that a lot, especially when because everybody's an expert now because we watch so much television.
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, after you've watched your 37th season of Law and Order, you obviously know what's up.
SPEAKER_01: Um and so I'm thinking about like, you know, when they describe serial killers, I'm thinking about criminal intent, I'm thinking about criminal minds, they're describing acts of violence, and that like truly violent acts are personalized, and that there's something innately uh specific that the perpetrator is like fighting against.
SPEAKER_01: Like if someone is stabbed multiple times, it really isn't about the other person, it's about what the other person represents to the person who's stabbing.
SPEAKER_00: Right, right, right.
SPEAKER_01: And so when you're looking at this data and you're seeing these horrifically violent crimes that are happening, it really has nothing to do with these trans women, it has everything to do with what's happening to the usually men, usually straight appearing or at least identifying in that moment.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but something that's going on with them internally is triggered by the existence of a trans woman.
SPEAKER_00: Threatens our male privilege.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Threatens our male privilege, yeah, completely.
SPEAKER_01: So um let's talk about happier things if we can.
SPEAKER_01: Uh just like we got a little heavy there, folks.
SPEAKER_01: Sorry about that.
SPEAKER_01: Um tell me a little bit about your class.
SPEAKER_01: Like, what does it look like to liberate schools and school spaces for queer students?
SPEAKER_00: What does it look like?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I'm gonna take a little bit of a detour here.
SPEAKER_00: So I have a new book coming out called We Refuse to Disappear: Resistance Amid Antitrans Policy.
SPEAKER_00: And what the book is about is it's working, I've worked with teachers for years, and it is teachers.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, the book is situated in what I call the 10 that target, and I scaffolded the most um egregious language that came up in the policies that we're seeing around the United States.
SPEAKER_00: And I took seven different policies, there's eight different policies in eight different states, and I laminated it on to um each of those states, and I looked at the de facto and the de jure law.
SPEAKER_00: So I took different stories at the elementary, middle, high school, and post-secondary levels.
SPEAKER_00: And within each of those vignettes, what I have are acts of refusal, and this is getting to my point.
SPEAKER_00: And the acts of refusal are the ways in which the teachers are stopping classroom instruction, redirecting it based on what they know about the law, because it's really important for them to know the law.
SPEAKER_00: So um, this comes from years of ethnographic research, but those acts of refusal are based on what they know, recoding it, redirecting it in a way that preserves the identity of trans kids.
SPEAKER_00: Um, the argument is that what's happening around the country, it's not so everything has to be standardized, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's what we're seeing.
SPEAKER_00: So it's not the content, it's how the content is given.
SPEAKER_00: Now we do know that in most of these states where the anti-trans laws are, teachers can't, they're not, they're not um, they're allowed to dead name, right?
SPEAKER_00: So there's no penalty.
SPEAKER_00: Um in some states, right, they can't do the don't say gay.
SPEAKER_00: Um, there's bathroom issues, sports, et cetera, et cetera.
SPEAKER_00: But in the class itself, what I'm doing is work, I work those teachers on redirecting it.
SPEAKER_00: So I've taken that framework and I'm using it in my classroom, basically, with these students so that what they begin to see, there they study the law too.
SPEAKER_00: So we're studying Idaho, Montana, I these are the states I chose.
SPEAKER_00: Idaho, Montana, Texas, Florida, Mississippi.
SPEAKER_00: Uh where the house did I pick?
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm missing something in there.
SPEAKER_00: Anyway.
SPEAKER_00: So we're looking at those laws together and we're studying those laws so that those acts of refusal become elements of hope.
SPEAKER_00: So that they then, when they're, you know, wherever they are in their, whether they're teaching or even it's it's an interdisciplinary course, right?
SPEAKER_00: So some are doing commute comp uh computer science, some are going into nursing, so you know, some are going into health education.
SPEAKER_00: And so they, regardless of the areas they have, they have those, they have the capacity then, right, in whatever environment they do have, to talk about the law, to have, to be empowered, right, with these tools to challenge what we would say becomes codified within.
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's very powerful to hear them talk about it.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, their final project, which I'm excited about, I don't think they're excited about it, is they get to choose any policy that is of interest to them in the country related to um anti-queer politics, and they have to study the law.
SPEAKER_00: They have to write the Republican senators.
SPEAKER_00: They're they're so they're reading how to do it, right?
SPEAKER_00: The sponsors, and they're writing to them to say, do you know what you're doing to youth?
SPEAKER_00: And here's some suggestions.
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, in the past we've gotten some responses.
SPEAKER_00: There's no guarantee we'll get responses, but I show them how to do a phone call, you know, how to call several times, um, tell them who you are, what you're doing, and you'd like to have a conversation.
SPEAKER_00: And the data is if they don't get a response too.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, these folks have a lot of people to respond to, but it also gives them a message that not all people want to cross the aisle and listen.
SPEAKER_00: And the youth, as you know, they're they're our future.
SPEAKER_00: Like these are the students that are gonna be voting for our rights as we get older.
SPEAKER_00: So the joy is is seeing them really take those laws and and and take action, right?
SPEAKER_00: To do community-based work.
SPEAKER_01: I love that so much, and I'm definitely gonna have to get your book and read it.
SPEAKER_01: Um it is dovetelling directly into something I'm in the process of writing, but mine is centered on like queer theater education because that is my focus.
SPEAKER_01: It's your area, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: It's my area, but what I love so much about what you're saying is how do we effectively subvert these laws but do it in a in a way that doesn't jeopardize livelihood.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think that is so helpful and necessary because so many people are afraid or or rather don't necessarily even understand the laws because I'm gonna tell you what.
SPEAKER_01: Educators um are really fantastic, but aren't necessarily gonna read a 400-page legislative document, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's a lot of these laws are written with so many words, and legislators are not educators.
SPEAKER_01: And so the wording of these these laws isn't great, but what they're hoping for is that the headlines, the headlines direct people on how to respawn.
SPEAKER_00: Yep, exactly.
SPEAKER_00: Am I able to show you something?
SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't think that it will show up, it will show up on here, but if you want to talk about it and I can link to it.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: So it's exactly what you just said.
SPEAKER_00: Not everybody's gonna want to study that.
SPEAKER_00: So what I did is I went in and I pulled out the specific sentences that were related to the law.
SPEAKER_00: Some are some are richer than others, and there's more detail.
SPEAKER_00: But what I do is and I just put this up on social media yesterday because I got my final proofs back and it's coming out right before November midterms, which was totally intentional.
SPEAKER_00: Harvard Press was just like, let's get this out.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm building, I have a thousand resources.
SPEAKER_00: I have to show you though, I'm building uh it's a toolkit for for any educator.
SPEAKER_00: And um, I just got it up, but it's you know, it's still in process.
SPEAKER_00: So it's all the major disciplines, which is also in the book.
SPEAKER_00: So I do a chapter on uh English language arts, science, math, theater, and visual arts, um, social studies, physical education, and so forth.
SPEAKER_00: And the resource list it includes um key readings, um news stack, news and substacks, open education resources, policy trackers, uh key films, and political organizations.
SPEAKER_00: So you can go into any of those tabs and then cross-click on each of those areas and you'll see tons of resources.
SPEAKER_00: Um where was I going with that?
SPEAKER_00: Uh we were talking about um uh I just lost track of where I was going.
SPEAKER_01: Um We were talking about people not wanting to read the documents and and the legislators on headlines.
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
SPEAKER_00: So so then in those areas, you'll see like the sentences literally parsed out, and I have them look at that closely so then they can like talk about it at a table talk.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, and what I put out on social media was that I'm gonna offer anyone who wants to do workshops.
SPEAKER_00: Like, let's get on and let's talk about this.
SPEAKER_00: Um, because I want teachers to know this isn't about making money, this is about preserving the livelihood and the lives of you know trans youth K16.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that so much.
SPEAKER_01: Um, this is a lot of heavy work, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because we are dealing with like law after law after law, and now we've got states like basically copying and pasting things from other states.
SPEAKER_01: So it is pretty heavy, and I'm wondering what is bringing you queer joy right now.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think the acts of refusal um are really helping.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, it's interesting.
SPEAKER_00: I I gave a keynote last year at AERA, that's the American Education Research Association, on this topic, and I had not heard the word queer joy or trans joy before.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, why are you talking about like and and introducing that into my vocabulary has really shifted.
SPEAKER_00: Not that I I really think it's important to have positive stories out there completely, you know, and I love that Glisten has gone to Glisten now.
SPEAKER_00: I I couldn't figure out the I.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, are we including intersex in there?
SPEAKER_00: And then I realized I listened to your interview with Damon, and I was like, oh, I'm so glad I I listened to that.
SPEAKER_00: Um but I've been thinking a lot about joy and what are the synonyms and what does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: And you know, trying to talk about trans exultance, trans celebration, queer celebration, exultance and putting these words, isn't that beautiful?
SPEAKER_00: Um I just wrote a poem about it, and shifting that narrative and giving those examples and having youth embrace those.
SPEAKER_00: Um everywhere I go right now, you know, I see non-bare non-binary youth.
SPEAKER_00: I see kids in tutus, kids as furries, you know, the furry community has really inspired me.
SPEAKER_00: Um I had no idea what that was until Pride last year, because I always had a thought it was a fetish party, and then I realized it's a young, it's a younger generation, right, embracing their identities.
SPEAKER_00: So I always go up and they say, I I love you.
SPEAKER_00: I love how I love what you're, you know, I just I love your energy.
SPEAKER_00: So and I love to see those reactions from kids.
SPEAKER_00: So no matter where I go and I see a student who's really sticking out, you know, in a way that challenges what you would see as normalcy, it's just having those conversations.
SPEAKER_00: My favorite phrase in the whole world is be you.
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I even tear up because I wish somebody had said be you to me at some point in, you know, my youth.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely that.
SPEAKER_01: I I'm gonna challenge everybody out there who's listening to go, you know, compliment that child who brings the different energy, who is querying the youth experience just by being themselves.
SPEAKER_01: Go out, find them, give them the compliment because we need that kind of positive reinforcement, especially for young people.
SPEAKER_01: Um, even if it's just a passing comment.
SPEAKER_01: I used to get, I used to get this comment from my students in Texas who are like, we call you behind your back, we call you the theater dad, because you just have a way of like looking at us and knowing what we need to hear.
SPEAKER_01: It would be like in the hallway, and I would be like, Hey, it's gonna be okay.
SPEAKER_01: And you know, like whatever the situation, I would just look at my students and I could feel that they were dealing with something, and I would be able to respond in in a way that was appropriate to what they were feeling.
SPEAKER_01: And I think that more kids need that kind of reassurance from from adults that what they're feeling and how they are expressing themselves is okay.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: More than okay, it is perfect.
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
SPEAKER_01: As we wrap up, I would love uh I would love to know what you want to say to queer educators.
SPEAKER_01: What do you think they need to hear right now?
SPEAKER_00: First of all, I think it's important to talk about the states that have repressive views.
SPEAKER_00: And some teachers leave those states, right, because of that.
SPEAKER_00: But we need you in those states.
SPEAKER_00: We need you there.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know Texas, right?
SPEAKER_00: Um I I mean it's like how do you if you're inside the belly of the whale, you gotta sometimes just stay there as uncomfortable as it is, because you're the one that's gonna be that teacher that makes a difference in that child's life.
SPEAKER_00: So before you think about radically making a change, I think again read my book, Acts of Refusal, Ways of Navigating.
SPEAKER_00: And for teachers who are not living in these repressive areas, you have to continue to be out, you have to continue to be inclusive, talk about intersectionality, that there's no that there's no one identity that should be privileged over any other.
SPEAKER_00: You know, volunteer, march, speak up, put stickers up, put other pictures up, ask students to bring in their own narratives.
SPEAKER_00: But to not affirm is to be complicit, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's it's important to name things because when we name things, we give it power.
SPEAKER_00: And when it has power, it becomes part of the conversation.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for being a part of Queering Education.
SPEAKER_01: This is a Teaching Well Queer podcast.
SPEAKER_01: Take what you need from this conversation and bring it back into your classroom and your students.
SPEAKER_01: I'm Brian Stanton.
SPEAKER_01: Until next time, keep showing up.