Journalist Resources
No matter who we are or where we’re from, we all deserve to feel seen, understood, and represented by the media we consume. Media shapes how we view the world, helping us make sense and meaning of polarized and emerging topics. The existence of trans people is as old and inarguable as society itself, yet the rise in far-right attacks on trans folks has contributed to an escalation of mis- and disinformation in reporting on our communities.
As journalists and storytellers, you are a key part of the solution.
Transgender Law Center’s Journalist Resource Series offers an actionable rebuttal to dehumanizing, incomplete, and inaccurate narratives about our communities. Each guide, including youth athletics, medical care, reproductive justice, and anti-trans violence provides a critical analysis of common issues in reporting on transgender people, along with a roadmap to improvement. These guides also serve as timely resource hubs for journalists and community members seeking to dive deeper into some of the most salient issues affecting the trans community.
By committing to telling better stories, you can help create a world where people of all genders can grab a magazine off their corner newsstand and see themselves reflected in its pages.
For media inquiries or to be added to our press list, please contact Sue Yacka-Bible, Communications Director, at [email protected], who will connect you with a TLC spokesperson.
For media requests with a more flexible or longer term deadline, please fill out the Media Intake Form and we will get back to you within a day or two.
Sign-up to receive journalist-specific updates
Part 1: Mapping the Influence of Christian Nationalism Across All Beats
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Welcome to everyone who’s come into this space. So today’s webinar is kicking off a 2+ year webinar series at Transgender Law Center, which is also an extension of our Journalist Resource Series, which, K, if you can go ahead and put that in the chat for folks so they can access it. Our goal with our Journalist Resource Series, as well as the webinar series, is twofold. We want to support journalists to become more confident and comfortable including trans people in stories, and we also want to engage journalists in conversation with subject matter experts, which today are our wonderful panelists, who you’ll be hearing from for the next 90 minutes, uh, to possibly connect with for future stories and to learn more from. Uh, so today’s webinar, as we have named, is about mapping the influence of Christian nationalism across all journalistic beats. We know, and we’ll hear from the panelists, that, uh, the rise in Christian nationalism intersects and reaches every sphere of our society. And so we want all journalists to understand how it intersects with the work that you each are doing. I would love to now turn it over to the panelists for a round of intros. I would love for each person, uh, on the panel to share your name, your pronouns and your job title. And then, as we discussed for accessibility purposes, please, please give a visual description of yourself, uh, what you’re wearing, and you’re the first person to go should describe the background that we all have.
[HERON GREENESMITH] Yeah, I can go 1st. Hi, my name is Heron Greenesmith. I use they. I’m the Deputy Director of Policy at the Transgender Law Center. Each of us has behind us a background that is orange with kind of pink and lighter orange and darker orange paisley shapes, kind of like commas behind us in a little halo. Um, I’m a white person with short gray hair. Um, I’m wearing a gray sweater and a white shirt and my nails are black and I’m so happy to be here. Thank you.
[REV. KEATS MILES-WALLACE] I’m Reverend Keats Miles-Wallace. I use they/them pronouns and I am the pastor of Technicolor Ministries. Uh, I am also enjoying the lovely orange swirly background. Uh, and I’m wearing a black clergy shirt with a white collar. Uh, and then I’ve got my, my Birkenstocks on cause it’s hot down where I am. Um, and I am a white appearing person, though mixed Mexican descent, wearing glasses and with dark brown hair.
[VIVIAN MCCALL] Hi, my name is Vivian McCall. I’m a staff writer at The Stranger, which is an alt weekly in Seattle, Washington. Um, I use she/her. I have brown hair. I’m a white person. I’m wearing a black turtleneck with a silver necklace that has a sword charm on it, and I’m very excited to be here.
[REV. NAOMI WASHINGTON-LEAPHEART] Hi, everybody. I am Reverend Naomi Washington-Leapheart. I use she/her pronouns. I am a Christian minister, I’m a [indecipherable] a strategist and a theology [indecipherable]. Skin the color of milk chocolate. Um, I have a short, natural haircut. Salt and pepper distributed throughout my hair and some silver hoops on. I have on a gray tunic dress, uh, and have red lipstick on. And I have the same, um, orange, orange ish, pink ish, uh, background. Happy to be here.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Yes, the backgrounds were my doing. I felt very excited about it. Um, I, my name is Arielle. I am your moderator for the day. I have a sort of balayage brown hair that extends into blonde, uh, at the bottom that I play with as a stim, uh, which you will see me probably doing throughout this webinar. And I am a white person with long hair flowing down to my chest. I am wearing a black shirt and I have a green background that has green rays extending from the center as if it is a green sun. Uh, and my pronouns are they/them. I am the communications consultant at Transgender Law Center and I’m also responsible for putting together the, uh, this webinar series. So I’m very excited to have everyone here today.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] So I’m going to start off with Heron. So, Heron, I’d love if you can give us a quick primer because I am sure a lot of us have been hearing a lot and reading a lot over the past couple of years about Christian nationalism. I’m curious to hear from you. What is it, first and foremost? Also, why is it important to understand? And why, more recently, are we hearing calls to expand our understanding beyond just Christian nationalism and instead talk about Christian globalism?
[HERON GREENESMITH] Thank you so much and I apologize if there is a little bit of background noise behind me. I’m in a large building and people are moving around, um, but I will try and be as clear and concise as possible. So, Christian Nationalism is a conservative Christian ideology under which there’s no difference between church and state. Um, and a very specific, narrow interpretation of the Christian Bible is considered a primary influence on all areas of society. So Christian nationalists believe, or say they believe, that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation and should be returned thereto. Christian nationalism describes an ideology held by a considerable minority of Americans, um, the majority of whom could also be described as conservative or right wing evangelical Christians, um, Christian nationalists and right wing evangelical Christians also hold white supremacist and specifically anti-Black views. Um, so I referred to this specific, narrow interpretation of the Christian Bible. Christian nationalists want to spread a very specific ideology. One that upholds what they call the traditional family. Christian nationalists believe that God made man and woman only to get married and have sex to create children. Transgender people don’t exist. Gay, lesbian, and bisexual people don’t exist. Abortions don’t exist. And of course that family is a white one. Um, the ideas that became Christian nationalism came out of shifts in theology in the late 80s and 90s among evangelical Christians which included the rise of the New Apostolic Reformation that I think Reverend Naomi will talk to us a little bit more about, and the rise of dominionism. This is the idea that the church must have dominion over the seven mountains, or seven aspects of society that include family, religion, education, media, arts and entertainment, business, and government. And we’ll come back to why those seven mountains are important. And then finally, some journalists studying Christian nationalists, um, looking at, uh, Fred Clarkson and Andre Gagné, who have been writing for, um, Political Research Associates, recommend that we refer to Christian globalists instead, because the ultimate goal of Christian supremacy and evangelism is a Christian globe, not just a Christian nation. Christian globalism is necessary and underpins evangelism. And viewing Christian nationalists as Christian globalists instead underscores the racism of evangelism, spreading this myth of white supremacy and the white traditional family throughout the entire globe. I’ll pause there.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Thank you so much, Heron, and thank you for that very nice segue into what, uh, I believe, you know, I’m about to ask, uh, Reverend Naomi, which is I, I would love for you to take us a little deeper into these two, uh, terms that Heron used, uh, I’d love to, I’d love to hear you talk about the dangers of Dominionism and the New Apostolic Reformation movement. So lay it out for us. You know, I want to hear how these ideologies are threatening American democracy, and who are the key players, what are they trying to accomplish, and how are they trying to do this?
[REV. NAOMI WASHINGTON-LEAPHEART] Sure. Thanks. This is Reverend Naomi. Um, thank you, Heron, for that framing and that foundation. Um, I want to just build on what you said. You know, so Dominionism is the ideology that gives Christian nationalism an agenda, right? It’s one thing to say that you believe in the conflation of church and state. Um, it’s another thing to actually have some activities behind that belief, um, that support um, what we, what we’re describing as dominionism. So this is a key element of Christian nationalism. It is the belief that Christians are called by God to exercise dominion, as Heron said, over every aspect of society, and we’re seeing dominionist, uh, informed or dominionism informed, um, conservative Christian support for political candidates at all levels, uh, from school boards to the presidency. So we’re talking about something that is pervasive and that has wormed its way into the political discourse, um, at every level of government and every, um, aspect of society. Some of the major organizations or are people who’ve been influenced by dominionist thought, to name a few, include the Family Research Council, which we know is a major player in establishing a kind of dominionist discourses , um, discourses around family as Heron has laid out what family really means. Um, and all of that is in quotes. Um, uh, um, the, uh, organization Alliance Defending Freedom, which we know is, uh, weaponizes our legal system, um, to diminish, uh, and eliminate the rights of, uh, folks in LGBTQ+ communities, um, the, the smaller Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation, which publishes manuals that contain model state legislation, uh, that that statehouses can just copy and paste, um, as they seek to further these dominionist policy goals, um, in local, uh, environments, um, the National Legal Foundation, the Truth and Liberty Coalition. So. Um, there are lots of kind of anchoring or conservative Christian organizations that are promoting and, um, leveraging dominionist claims, um, to, to, um, take over, uh, statehouses and school boards and to support candidates like Donald Trump in the presidency. Um other, other names we might know that are associated with the New Apostolic Reformation and dominionism: Doug Mastriano, who was a 2022 Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate. Um, I live in, in Pennsylvania, so we got to know Mr. Mastriano well. Uh, for better or for worse, uh, in terms of his relationship to the New Apostolic Reformation. Um, Florida State Representative Kimberly Daniels. Um, of course, um, Speaker Mike Johnson. I mean, there are from, from the ceiling to the floor, we have folks who have been introduced, uh, introduced, who’ve been influenced by Dominionism, um, claims. Um, and I just want to. Say that the New Apostolic Reformation was founded by a guy named C. Peter Wagner, who was a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary. Again, we need to understand that this is anchored by a certain brand of theological scholarship, that lays out an interpretation of the Bible and articulates a, quote, “biblical worldview” that they say is anchored by scripture, um, anchored by, you know, the Christian mandate. But again, it is a very narrow, and minoritized, uh, view of, of the Christian faith. Um, so these are some of the organizations and some of the people whose, whose, um, um, political platforms have been hinging around um, Dominionism and the New Apostolic Reformation.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Thank you so much, Reverend Naomi. Uh, so I want to zoom into the local scene for just a minute here, just because I know that a lot of, you know, it just makes it a little bit more tangible to folks. And so I want to hear, uh, from you, Reverend Keats. You are based in Texas and you did a lot of work around the 2023 Texas State Legislature. Yes, thanks. I see folks commenting on my cat. Saffron has entered the frame. And specifically, I want to hear about your experiences interfacing with Christian globalist bad actors. So what specific communities, marginalized communities, did you see being targeted? And then in the time since, I’m curious, how has this ideology continued to take hold in Texas?
[REV. KEATS MILES-WALLACE] So, uh, as many of you may know, the Texas legislative session happens every two years, theoretically. We have special sessions in between, um, that usually are not, uh, as active as they have been recently. Uh, so last year’s legislative session was one of the ones that carried some of the most record breaking numbers of bills against marginalized people. Um, and so we were seeing bills specifically targeting women, immigrants, and LGBTQ people, which we see all across the country. Uh, Texas is one of those hotbeds of the dominionist and Christian globalist ideology. So, uh, without certainty, but with some conjecture, I can say most of our Republican and highly conservative legislators in the state of Texas are espousing this ideology. Um, I specifically personally saw this espoused by Tom Oliverson, Tony Tinderholt, Matt Schaefer, all Texas state representatives. And Senator Donna Campbell of Texas state senators. Um, and so we’re seeing the same legislation, uh, that the American Legislative Exchange Council, ALEC, is, is throwing all over the country, um, uh, as Reverend Naomi mentioned, they’re these kind of stock legislative models, and then they get passed place to place. And so we were seeing many of the same things here. Um, and so those are kind of the broader big groups, but we had smaller groups as well. The American Principles Project was very present for much of the legislative session. Um, and in ways that are really kind of disturbing there are many of us clergy who were there who were just there to show our support for different parts of different bills and we’re, we’re openly, uh, challenged and sought out by people from the American Principles Project to challenge our beliefs. Um, and it was really strange. Uh, continuing since 2023, uh, we see all of this just, just keep rolling. So we had, um, bills against reproductive law targeting women that have continued. We’re now looking, uh, we have a, State ban on abortion. We have a bounty law that allows people to, uh, basically put a bounty on any woman who seeks an abortion. And we’re looking now, uh, the state, I’m not, uh, the state is looking, uh, towards the death penalty for any woman that acquires an abortion, which is horrifying. We’ve gone from, uh, just trying to stop immigrants at the border and slow things down. And now we’ve got razor wire killing people in the river. Uh, and then on the LGBTQ front, we have had, we had not just bans for care for minors, uh, transgender minors, but now we also have our attorney general literally hunting people across the United States, trying to find lists of transgender youth. So this is, just continued, uh, to get worse and worse and worse in the state of Texas.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Thank you so much for that, Reverend Keats. Uh, Vivian, you know, zooming into another local scene and specifically where you live in Seattle, people often think of major metropolitan areas like Seattle, like Chicago, where I am, uh, as these progressive safe havens where surely Christian nationalism, Christian globalism, far right ideology, they can’t take hold there. And we know from your incredible journalism at The Stranger that that’s simply not the case. Your work as a journalist at The Stranger has exposed the influence of far right bad actors even there. And we also know that sometimes a person can espouse these viewpoints without knowing it. And so what does that look like in practice and how do you handle that as a reporter?
[VIVIAN MCCALL] Sure. Thank you very much. Um, you know, I think all reporters know that typically when you’re working on stories that have to do with ideology or people’s points of view on social issues, that by and large, people are not wearing shirts that say, “Hi, I’m a Christian nationalist. This is what I believe. Ask me about it.” Um, and often those same people may not know that they’re espousing Christian nationalist viewpoints. They may not know that they are espousing far right, conspiratorial beliefs, because also, by and large, people usually think of themselves as reasonable and this process of being sucked into far right ideology is one that can take years. Um, I think, you know, one pretty clear example that we saw years and years ago, and this is largely on sort of the far right front, is that in the Tea Party, there were militia members that got involved with the Tea Party and were sharing ideas about, like, the Great Replacement Theory without identifying themselves as militia members. And it was just this piece of ideology. Was sort of at the beginning sucking them into sort of a tornado down and down and down and it is hard to track how far somebody can go and they may not even really realize that. So when you’re working on these stories as a reporter, you have to go in with the knowledge that not everybody is fully aware of how they’re world differs from the norm, uh, because they may be surrounded by groups of people who echo their particular viewpoint. They may think that, you know, they have done a lot of personal work to realize the truth about the world around them. And, you know, you have to be somewhat gentle with that, you have to approach people and say, you know, push back on them a little bit and say, this particular thing isn’t true because of X, Y, Z, that’s sort of your average person. If you’re talking about leaders, those people are typically a lot more aware of what they’re doing and saying, and you can call them out as such. Um, so it, it is a complicated issue of really understanding that this is not a cut and dry thing, and ideology is a really complex issue, and usually people do not have neat and clean ideas about the world, and that also follows when it comes to extremism.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Thank you so much, Vivian, for laying that out for us. Uh, so Heron, I want to bring it back over to you, and we know that we heard Keats and a number of you mention, uh, already that one very clear place where we know we are seeing the impact and the influence of Christian globalist bad actors is in statehouses. And so I’d love to hear from you a little bit about how this ideology came to influence among legislators specifically and about the situation now, as well as like some specific connections you can outline for us between Christian globalists, lobbyists, bad actors, you know, like these nonprofit organizations we see peddling this model legislation, and politicians in statehouses.
[HERON GREENESMITH] Yeah, sure. And again, apologies for the background noise. So I’ll take it back a little bit and just mention that some theological shifts among evangelical Christians in the last century included the spread of dominionism. Reverend Naomi and I were talking about this idea that Christians need to have dominion over the seven mountains of society. And government is one of those mountains, one of those areas of dominion. And dominionism represents a shift in how evangelicals understood their power. It used to be, uh, I would say maybe in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and before evangelicals understood that their role as evangelicals was to evangelize um, person to person, um, and try and spread their narrow theological interpretation of the Christian Bible, um, as individuals. Um, talking one-on-one with people, um, to convert them to evangelicalism. Um, the Seven Mountains Mandate and Dominionism was a big shift for how Evangelicals and churches and the Christian Church and conservative Christian churches in general understood their power. And as megachurches rose in power and para church organizations like the Family Research Council, as we’ve mentioned, and Focus on the Family were — short aside, they were both founded by James Dobson, who also founded the Family Policy Alliance— um, churches realized that the power of politics, so Christian nationalists threw their political weight behind Trump, fast forwarding 40 or so years, um, calling him their Cyrus in a reference that underscores conservative evangelical Christian Zionism. Um, Cyrus was a Persian king who overthrew Babylonian rule and freed Jewish enslaved people who were living under Babylonian rule, allowing them to return to Jerusalem. So Christian nationalists don’t need Trump to be the perfect Christian himself. He is, according to this prophecy, the one who will free the country from Babylon and let Jewish people return to Israel. Of course, we know the end of that prophecy, all Jewish people are forced to convert to Christianity, um, just dovetailing and tying in and above how closely Christian Zionism and Christian Islamophobia and anti-Black racism combined with the other theological traditional family beliefs of Christian nationalists. Um, so over the past 10 years, as Reverend Naomi was illustrating, Christian nationalism has increased in influence in statehouses, library boards, in the halls of Congress, school boards, federal agencies, um, and now the Supreme Court with Samuel Alito’s wife hanging a Christian nationalist flag outside of their house. Um, as I was writing these remarks, I was looking at the invited and confirmed speakers lists at Family Research Council’s annual Pray Vote Stand conference. And as my final remark here I’d just like to leave us kind of with who was been invited and who has been confirmed to speak at this year’s conference so we have Senator Marsha Blackburn, Dr. Ben Carson, Governor Ron DeSantis, Senator Josh Hawley, Speaker Mike Johnson, Senator James Langford, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Governor Kevin Stitt, and Senator Tommy Tuberville. Just to illustrate how deeply, um, and thoroughly the impacts of Christian nationalism have percolated through, uh, federal government.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Yeah, well, those are some big names. Thank you for laying it all out for us. Um, also we seem to have, uh, lost Reverend Naomi on this call. So K’s going to go ahead and help figure that out for us. Um, but so I want to turn it over then to you for, uh, Keats for a minute while we, uh, hopefully get Reverend Naomi back in this call. But we know tech issues are always a thing. Uh, so I know that you, Reverend Keats, frequently interface directly with Christian globalist bad actors in your work and I know the rest of you do as well, and so if you feel compelled to weigh in, please go ahead and do so. What are some ways that you feel like a journalist can identify these bad actors when they’re covering a story so you know what are some of the tells, what are some of the dog whistles that you think might show up? Um, and maybe if you have some specific examples of insidious ways that you’ve seen the influence of Christian globalism play out, uh, in Texas or nationally, I’d love if you can share those with folks.
[REV. KEATS MILES-WALLACE] Absolutely, so, the best I can give you is the dog whistles that I look out for myself when, uh, dealing with folks who espouse this ideology. I don’t, I don’t really want to get into arguments with people that are, uh, not there for good faith debate. Right? They’re, they’re there to force an opinion that I don’t really care for, um, and I’m not one who’s going to be changed. So the things that I look out for are, uh, things like people using Christianity as an imperative for exclusion. If someone says that God believes, uh, or, or divines that some person should not be part of the world or society because of the Bible or God said, that is a major red flag right off the bat. Um, uh, I also— there are some things that aren’t, uh, full stops, but that are things that cause concern. Anything that talks about protecting families or saving children. And I hate that because I would like to do both of those things. Um, but usually the people who are using that language are not using it in good faith. And so if you hear things about protecting families or saving children, that is a, a curiosity that you might want to delve into a little further before you just jump right in. Um, also things like saving jobs, saving our way of life, same sort of thing. Um, any organizations that use the words freedom, liberty, family, or principles. Uh, again, I would love to use those words in their intended meaning. They are not being used that way very often anymore. So. Just more things that kind of pop up that you might want to consider. Hey, maybe this person is espousing an ideology I won’t agree with. Um, in terms of LGBTQ issues, specifically using the words lifestyle and mutilation red flags run from those, uh, or carefully consider at least, um, referring to God as exclusively as male saying things like God doesn’t make mistakes. Uh, my real favorite across the board of issues is “my family has been here since…” Uh, you know, 300 years, 400 years, the inception of the country, and, uh, I’m Mex-indigenous descent, and I’m sitting here like, yeah, my family’s been here for 10, 000 years. I don’t really care how long your family’s been here. Um, so consider that if people are making a claim about how long their people have been here, and they’re not Indigenous people, that their claim is likely, uh, an indication of something else. Um, and also, uh, reproductive rights, uh, in Texas is another, I think we’ve, we’ve talked a little bit about how that rundown has happened in the state of Texas, but the, the literal meaning of the word insidious is that it’s a step by step process, right? And so you’re looking at we have, uh, in Texas said, great, no abortions. We’re not going to go there at all. And then we’ve said now that we’re going to have a personal and private penalty here, um, that says that any one of your neighbors, if they hear that you have sought out an abortion, can go and sue you and receive $10,000 as a bounty for suing you. And that that now makes that person who sought an abortion a felon who can’t vote, uh, and that that may now also include the death penalty. So you might not have the right to live if you sought an abortion. Uh, that, that’s the very definition of insidious. I’ll, I’ll hand it over to Reverend Naomi because I know you were the next on our list for this question.
[REV. NAOMI WASHINGTON-LEAPHEART] Thanks, Reverend Keats. I appreciate it. This is Reverend Naomi. Um, yeah, I mean, you know, it’s what’s really interesting about this political moment is the, um, the emergence— well, I won’t even say emergence of— there’s use of vocabularies that were relegated to the spiritual space to the spiritual space that are now being used in the political space, like talking about spiritual warfare in a political context. Right. So if you hear language that seems to suggest that there is a is a war going on, a supernatural war going on between, you know, saints and sinners, or between the demonic forces and the forces for God, right? These are all, um, dog whistles for dominionist claims, dominionist ideologies. Um, so, you know, referring to, you know, queer folks as demonic or referring to homosexuality as demonic, right? I think that, um, for, for too long, we have— we have, uh, dismissed and disregarded that kind of language, thinking that it is outmoded, outdated, relegated to us, a minoritized, you know, really, really small, um, um, group of folks. And while dominionism, um, claims are the minority claims, um, those minority claims are undergirded with power and political access. And so thinking of hearing people referred to as apostles or as prophets, right? This is pointing to the biblical worldview kind of prophetic claim that there are those who will emerge from dominionist circles to lead us into some sort of Christian promised land, right? These are our apostles. These are our prophets, right? Um, again, thinking about the seven mountains, I mean, You know, when I grew up in faith communities that are adjacent, kind of adjacent to dominionist communities, you know, the seven mountains were, were sort of implicitly referred to. But now we’ve got folks actually talking about these seven mountains in public political discourse. And so, uh, that’s how we know that these, these ideas are— the attempt is to mainstream these ideas, uh, so that they become part of everyday vocabulary. So those are just a few more, um, uh, dog whistle terminologies that we might want to look out for.
[HERON GREENESMITH] I can go briefly. Um, And talk about gender ideology, um, which is a conspiracy theory, um, that grew out of the Vatican in the 90s in response to increased, um, conversations at the, uh, global level, level for, uh, human rights specifically around reproduction and bodily autonomy. And gender ideology has become such a mutable plastic term that it has been used from everyone from the president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro, who stood in the rose garden next to President Trump and said, “The President and I agree on a lot of things, including the eradication of gender ideology.” Um, that it has become almost a meaningless term, but is a dog whistle that refers back to anything that will (sarcastically) “eradicate the traditional family.” So, trans people existing are “gender ideology.” Reproductive healthcare is “gender ideology.” LGB people are “gender ideology,” but so is the migration of people around the globe, “gender ideology” because it will “dilute the white Christian family.” So too is Islam, “gender ideology,” by the same tokens, anything that will attack this traditional family can be referred to as “gender ideology.” So another dog whistle to watch out for. And then in the United States, it has become iterations like “transgender ideology” or “gender identity ideology”. So, watch out for those terms too.
[VIVIAN MCCALL] That’s exactly what I was going to say. “Gender ideology” is a very good indicator that you’re dealing with this.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Yeah, thank you all so much. There’s some great takeaways. And I think, you know, these are some things that as you’re researching, like, um, I know folks have asked, you know, what are some ways to identify folks? Well, these are some clear phrases that even if someone doesn’t necessarily know that they themselves are holding a Christian globalist, Christian nationalist ideology, the folks around them will likely have been using some of these dog whistles, uh, to refer to our movements and so those are some clear ways to identify these bad actors as you are conducting interviews as you’re engaging with community members, um, even if they themselves don’t know that they hold, um, Some of these far right ideologies. Uh, Vivian, I want to hear from you because I also know that you’ve talked a lot about safety concerns, um, when a journalist does make a decision to cover far right bad actors. Can you share some strategies for how you and other journalists can stay safer while covering this topic?
[VIVIAN MCCALL] Absolutely. And I also, I do actually want to add one last point. These terms, they will come up again and again if you’re doing any amount of reporting on this, and not everybody in the journalism field is necessarily coming from a religious background, and when you hear things that you don’t necessarily understand, it is a really good time to just slow down and look things up and define these things for yourself, because there can be, you know, an urge to hedge sometimes when you don’t fully understand, especially if you have to work fast or you’re on deadline, but don’t forget that people are saying these things because it will unlock for you and your readers, a profoundly deeper understanding of what’s going on. And if you’re not looking, these things up, you can miss the story entirely, or not figure out who’s in the room with you if somebody is speaking up at a city council meeting, for example, and not identifying themselves as a member of a church that is espousing this kind of ideology. Like, this is the work that you can do for yourself as a journalist and for your community. To talk about safety. Uh, social media is obviously a very ubiquitous thing in all of our lives and I think people have become quite accustomed to, you know, posting photos of where they’re at when they’re there or posting detailed photos of where they’re at on vacation or taking photos in their apartment that has a clear view of the street or in front of their home. If you’re reporting on this stuff regularly, like, these are the things that you need to think about, um, quite seriously, because it is very easy to figure out where you live with a picture. Um, if there are things about your personal life that you don’t want out there in the public, I would suggest not putting it out online. I think a lot of journalists know this out already, but if there are people who are actively seeking to defame you, you have to be quite careful what you put online. Um, there are services like DeleteMe that can take your personal information offline. Um, when you’re source gathering, maybe you’ve become accustomed to tweeting out your phone number, especially if you’re on deadline to be like, “hey, I’m really trying to get in touch with somebody. Please get me here.” Um, I would suggest getting a Google phone number for that kind of work. Um, you know, even if you’re using a signal and it happens to also be your phone number, unless you want somebody knowing who your phone— knowing your phone number and posting it in a extremist chat, you don’t want to put it out there. It can be a bit of a sacrifice, because you do have to stop and think more often about who could read the things that I’m putting online. Um, you know, I, I sound like a parent from the 90s or something here, but it, it truly is something you have to think about. And I would also say that if you know that you are going to be putting a story out about somebody who is likely to send a horde of people in your direction looking for information about you or to harass you, just lock your account down for a few days. These things can pass quite quickly. People will forget about you and oftentimes they’re just thinking about your publication and not necessarily your byline. They might not really care too much about who you are once things have died down, but it really is just basic internet safety. It is taking your information offline with services like DeleteMe when you can, and just being aware of when you’re going to publish a story, you know, maybe it’s a good time to lock down my social media just for a couple of days.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Thank you so much for that, Vivian. I think that’s so important. And just piggybacking off of what you said, you know, we’re, Vivian is sharing this not to scare folks out of doing this reporting, but rather to provide insight into, uh, ways that you can protect yourself as you are including, uh, these insights on Christian globalist, uh, bad actors into your stories. And Saffron has returned. Yes, he too thinks that you should practice internet safety. Uh, so, you know, turning it to a couple of the other of you, because each of you has done work within your role, not just to, uh, highlight the impact, of Christian globalist bad actors, but also to fight back, to combat them. And that is really what, uh, the work of all of us is, not just journalists, but all people doing advocacy, telling truth to power, is figuring out strategies to fight back. And so I’d love to hear, uh, Heron, from first from you, some strategies that you and other progressive policy professionals are using to combat Christian globalist influence, uh, either specifically in statehouses or outside of them.
[HERON GREENESMITH] Sure. I think the number one, the number one strategy is what we’re doing right here, which is education, education of journalists, education of voters, education of constituents, educations of our families. Um, by understanding the, discrete but outsized power of Christian nationalists, we can correctly assess our reaction to them. This is a very nuanced area, we have different actors within statehouses, state agencies, federal agencies, federal halls of Congress, judiciary across the country, and we need to know who our specific bad actors are. So, for example, look and see, is your local library board, for example, being taken over by Christian nationalists? That may be true in your area. It may not be true in another area where, for example, you know, instead, there’s a Christian nationalist is running for the statehouse, for example, but knowing those people, how they’re connected to this larger movement, why they’re espousing a very narrow theology that is not the same theology that other Christians, even right wing Christians may be bringing into that area is I think one of the most important ways we can combat the spread of Christian supremacy um, and conservative evangelicalism in the United States. Um, so, education in places like these. When I was at Political Research Associates working with Naomi, um, we put together a, um, a 101, uh, resource on how to recognize and, and, and, um, spot, uh, Christian nationalists, I can probably find that resource um, and drop it in the chat for folks if people are interested, or get it to K so that he can drop it in the chat. Um, I guess I’ll stop there because I know that everyone else is going to answer too but I would say the education of our constituents, of friendly lawmakers, is going to be number one because this is a knowable enemy— I think an enemy that we too long have placed on a shelf as this amorphous, scary kind of beast. But this, these people are people who are pushing their own agendas. Um, they are knowable and they are findable.
[REV. KEATS MILES-WALLACE] Sure. This is Keats. Um, I mean, even just last night, I got a call earlier in the day that said, “Hey, I need you at a city council meeting.” And I said, “great, I’ll go.” We were in a town nearby where a group of city council members had attended a local pride, and there were some people there who were angry about it at the city council meeting, and there was a huge group of clergy that came to say, “hey, we know that there are some people who are going to disagree on a Christian basis. Um, we agree (chuckles) on a Christian basis, and there are actually quite a few of us here. Um, and so that’s, that’s one of the big strategies is saying there is not one Christian voice on any of these issues. I mean, if you ask me, (jokingly) I think there is one and it’s mine, but that’s a different story (chuckles). Um, the reality is, is there is more than one voice that is claiming to be Christian. They are not saying the same thing. And so, um, as. Clergy is religious leaders to say, “nope, we’re, we’re going to be visible and present and stand up and say, this is not what we believe. Or in fact, here is what we believe” is a big deal. Um, and additionally, for those that are doing work with congregation specifically, or with laypeople, I’m very excited in our denomination to be seeing a variety of churches that are leading lay[people] classes on what Christian nationalism and Christian globalism are, especially leading up into the election to say, “hey, just so you know, here is is what we’re looking at.” And especially in this area, you have lovely people with with lovely hearts who are starting to use some of these dog whistles because they don’t know better and they don’t know what they’re saying. And so, educating people about these words and about what they mean when you’re in the know is really, really helpful.
[REV. NAOMI WASHINGTON-LEAPHEART] Yeah, this is Naomi. I, I totally agree with what Reverend Keats just said that, that, um, to surrender or, or , or, um, roll over in the face of, um, religious bullying, uh, let’s just call it that, um, is to completely, um, admit that, that we don’t have any power, um, and so what, what I’ve been imploring progressive faith leaders to do is to say, you know, dominionists don’t corner the market on having a biblical worldview. Right. We too can have a biblical worldview that is not depoliticized or somehow apolitical because we, we understand that the context of the Bible is not, is not apolitical, right? We’re talking about people who are negotiating use of power in the biblical text. And so part, part, part of what progressive, I think progressive Christians in particular need to do is to reread the biblical text for its politics, for its political content, right? We understand what the ministry— and I’m getting real Christian here for a minute—we understand what the ministry of Jesus was all about when we understand Jesus’s political context, right? Somebody who’s saying that the last will be first has to, that only means something in a political context where the last have been utterly discarded and written off. Right. And so to say that those people who have been politically disenfranchised, you’re actually going to be first. Um, you know, no wonder the Jesus movement was under threat from the beginning. Right. Um, so anyway, um, I think that having the, the audacity. You know, part of what I see in the New Apostolic Reformation is just a bunch of audacity, right to declare that you know better than anybody else what, right— we need to take a ch— we need to be inspired to be audacious and making the claims that Reverend keeps just just me, right? And, you know, I think, I think we, we need to, you know—having grown up in a, like I say, a faith community that was proximate to dominionism, um, you know, we were taught that, that we should believe in something that was worth our whole lives. Right. Not just a, you know, every seven day commitment, not just a, you know, barely hanging on kind of commitment, but a commitment that was actually worth our lives and progressive faith leaders need to make a proposition to folks that feels like it’s worth their whole lives. You know, I think the freedom, freedom for all is actually worth my whole life. And so by faith, I want to declare that every person, every human being should be free. Um, so, so I think, I think leveraging the power that we have, that’s what organizing is, and that’s what I want to be doing in faith communities, right? Helping people to come to know themselves as powerful. We don’t have to surrender the power to those who would use that power to
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Uh, Reverend Naomi, were you finished? I could, I wasn’t positive.
[REV. NAOMI WASHINGTON-LEAPHEART] I was, I was heading into a coughing spell.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Totally, totally. Thank you for still being here. We appreciate you. Yeah, so I’d love to turn it over to you, Vivian, because I know that as a journalist, there are a few additional concerns that I’m sure are on folks minds, which is not just how do you combat this, you know, this, this scary specter of Christian nationalism that folks are talking about, but how do you as a journalist do this while still reporting fairly and avoiding spreading misinformation?
[VIVIAN MCCALL] I think it’s all contextual. You know, I, I think that I, I can think of an example where in Washington there was this small town pride that was under threat because of some misinformation that, that city leaders believed about some drag queens allegedly being child predators. They weren’t. There was no proof for this. There was a city council meeting about this, and there were a fair number of people who stood up and said, like, we don’t want this in our town because of X, Y, Z reasons. And they used a lot of these terms like gender ideology that we’ve previously talked about. And I figured out just through some, you know, Facebooking really, it wasn’t like intense Sherlock Holmes sleuthing. It was just like, “Oh, okay. A lot of these people belong to the exact same church.” And then I looked at the pastor, watch the sermon. I was like, all right, I know what territory we’re in now. He actually was there as well. Did not identify himself as such. So, if you as a reporter are going into that situation, and you, you know, report on what, what happened at the city council meeting, if you don’t do that extra work, people can get the idea that this is just a organic idea that is springing up in your community, and that there just must be changing opinions about queer people and, trans people, and maybe you might be leaning on your own biases about what some people in small towns believe, which is often different than, than a lot of people assume. And, um, if you don’t get that information down, you’re not really telling an accurate story. Like you’re telling a fiction that somebody has manipulated you into believing. And we talk a lot about, in journalism about like, you know, you’ve always got to follow the money. Frequently, we don’t do that enough. And it’s also about following the ideology. It’s a very similar thing. It is in a sense, forensic, you can locate where it’s come from. And as you’ve heard from some of these experts today, it is not like these things come out of nowhere, they exist for decades and are, you know, filtered out and passed along and they change. And it is your responsibility as a journalist to understand that and define that for your readers so they don’t get the impression that, you know, people just wake up one day and they start believing these things because it’s never true. And I think we all know that as people, but that’s often missing from reporting. Um, and if you are reporting on a story where ideology is a factor, you know, don’t just write everything about the ideology and be like, then do another paragraph and divide the story in 2. It’s about weaving in the context as you are writing so people understand what’s going on. So, if they don’t, you know, if they stop reading, they’re not just like, unaware of what you were then correcting or defining. It’s, it’s all about form. It’s just, you know, that’s somewhat just good writing, um, but it is also making sure you’re not just leaving mistruths just dangling there. That’s very important.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Yeah, that’s really helpful because we don’t want to reinforce misinformation in people’s minds, even if our intention is dispelling it. We want to make sure that it, within the story, there are several different points at which, like, we’re leaving readers with, uh, an analysis that they can come away with like “this isn’t true. And here is what we understand that Christian globalist bad actors are saying,” Um, and I think, you know, as far to what you said about follow the money and follow the ideology like that that is a big reason that we are doing this webinar first is because we understand that the context of the rise of Christian globalism underpins, uh, anti-trans and gender affirming medical bans, which is what the next webinar is on, underpins bans on, uh, trans athletes, underpins so much of the far right policies and rhetoric that we see proliferating throughout the U.S.. So thank you. Thank you so much all. And before we get to the Q&A, uh, something that, uh, I would love to hear from all of you, um, and we will answer everyone’s questions in the Q&A in just a few minutes. Uh, but first I want to hear from each of you just a quick little like—we know that people are feeling pretty bleak right now. You know, we know that we have this election around the corner that people have a lot of thoughts and feelings about. We know that the rise in Christian globalism is scary and leaves people often feeling, uh, hopeless. And we also know that so many of us are mobilizing to win, and there is hope. And so I’m curious to hear from each of you just a brief, uh, some words of hope that you might offer to a young journalist right now, or journalists in general, who are feeling fearful or uncertain about the current state of the world.
[VIVIAN MCCALL] Yeah, I can say something, you know. Heron said this earlier, but like, all this stuff is knowable. It isn’t just this thing that you now have to deal with as a journalist, and it is like indefinable for your audience, and there’s just no way to write about it. Like, there is an unbroken chain of people who are passing along these ideas. You can identify them. They write a lot. They talk a lot. Like, it’s not as secretive as people think that it is. It isn’t, because if it were, then it wouldn’t be passed along so easily. Um, and you know, another thing that you should realize, like if you’re, if you’re a cis journalist, if you’re a trans journalist, like you might encounter some people who don’t really want to talk to you or don’t like you, um, because of who you are, what you’re doing, and you just can engage them as a human being. And you’d be surprised how many people who seem like they might really dislike you might actually engage with you. Just a little bit polite, you know, maybe that’s just because I’m from south and I’m just sort of a polite person by nature. But, you know, a lot of people who believe these things, or are saying these things, not a lot of people have gone up to them and just said, well, “why do you think that?,” you know, and you’ll be surprised, often they’ll stop and really start to think about it for a second. You know, I, I think, um, Reverend Keats said this earlier that, like, there are a lot of people who, they don’t have, like, hate in their hearts necessarily. They just have been told these things. They believe these things. And, you know, it’s your job as a journalist to educate the public on where these ideas come from and what they seek to do. And that in itself is, you know, that combats dogmatic thinking, and that’s a very important thing to do, and, you know, you can, and you can change minds with your work.
[REV. NAOMI WASHINGTON-LEAPHEART] This is Naomi. I mean, you know, one thing that I’ve learned over the years is that community will mitigate and help manage fear and anxiety, right? Knowing that you aren’t the only one who’s out here trying to tell a story that though, you know, some wouldn’t want told, right? Um. Find your people. Find a couple of, of journalists, you may not be on the same beat at the same publication, you may be in different parts of the country, but if you know that there’s somebody else who is also, um, trying to, um, expose and illuminate and course correct and, um, celebrate, amplify the stories that are not being told now, then you’re, you’re a little bit more emboldened to, to keep going because you know, you’re not by yourself, right? And so, um, this is, this is not Lone Ranger work. Right. Um, and so, you know, commit, commit yourself to finding at least one other person who has the same kind of integrity as you and, and be accompanied in this work. Right. We cannot we are not— my spiritual director loves to say all the time, we are not individually salvageable we are only salvageable within the context of community. And so, you know, get your people. Get your people. Be surrounded by your people. Um, and, and, and we can make the way by walking together.
[REV. KEATS MILES-WALLACE] Sure. This is Keats. Uh, in the same vein as Reverend Naomi, Also, don’t be afraid to make your people preachers. Uh, there are a lot of us out there that you can call us for the interview. That’s great. But we’re also happy to be some of your people and to support you, no matter what you believe, uh, because this is hard and exhausting work and we’re here for you and just one little side, uh, other piece of hope, uh, the thing that I noticed last night in that city council meeting was that the people that are espousing this ideology intentionally are afraid. They’re scared right now. Uh, and they’re using big, loud, shaky voices to try and feign confidence and, and they don’t actually have it. And that tells me a lot about the state of the world that, that it is truly a vocal minority, that there was a room in a conservative city council meeting full of supporters and pro-LGBTQ people and like four loud, scared people. Um, so. I know it sounds, sounds loud out there. Try and remember that there are a lot of quieter people who aren’t saying something right now, but that will one day. Uh, and that it’s, it’s not as bad as it sounds right now.
[HERON GREENESMITH] Yeah, I’ll just, this is Heron. I’ll just underscore what Reverend Naomi said about community being the only way that we can succeed together. I agree completely that we are unsalvageable as individuals, but as, as groups, as humans, we can create the difference that we need to see in the world and bring us all to liberation. Um, and it’s not a, that’s not a maybe situation. Community is, and humanity is the only way we’ve ever reached liberation together. So, um, find your people and do this work together. This is not work that, although it feels very emergent right now, uh, this is work that people have done for generations and thousands of years before us and will continue for thousands of years after us. Um, so, um, another quote, uh, I don’t know which Jewish book it’s from, but it is not our obligation to finish the work, but it is our obligation to continue it. Um, I hold that very, very dear to my heart. Um, and it helps ground us when we feel burnt out. Um, we are not the solution generation. We are just one of the marches of millions of us who are in this [ fuzzy audio] liberation.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Yeah, and underscoring what each of you has said, like, each of us is only one member of this community, right? Like, we not, no one of us is going to create the solution, but together we are powerful. Together we hold so much power to influence change within our lifetimes and beyond our lifetimes, to set the ground for solutions, uh, throughout the next, you know, century, several centuries, however long. Um, we can set the foundation just as people before us had for future generations to continue this work.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Uh, so I want to pivot to the Q&A. Uh, again, I know there was an issue with, uh, changing folks’ names. Uh, so folks can feel encouraged to add questions to the Q&A and we will answer them live. And go ahead and if you are a journalist, put “journalist” at the start of your question, and so we can prioritize what you are asking. Um, if it is not accessible to you to, uh, to put questions in the chat, you can go ahead and message, uh, myself or K, and we will, uh, take you off mute temporarily to ask questions. Uh, so, with no further ado, uh, I want to turn it over to, uh, Vivian. So, someone asked Vivian, uh, can you talk a bit more about how you navigate interviewing subjects about their ideology? Are there any best practices or things about reporting you wish you knew sooner?
[VIVIAN MCCALL] I think confronting people and saying that they’re wrong is a pretty good way for people not to talk to you, because anyone who has an entrenched worldview, as I said earlier, uh, is quite certain that they’re one of the more reasonable people in the room, and you are not going to get anywhere but maybe a, you know, like a slammed down phone or someone just turning away and walking from you if you are not softer in your communication. Again, there are people who have power and they are really well known bad actors in their community who exercise influence over people. If you’re talking to those people who are likely being influenced, you know, approach them as a human being. If they give you a viewpoint that you find questionable or is, you know, factually wrong, you can ask them, why do you think that? Or where did you hear this from? Or like, when did you start believing this? Or like, you know, do you feel that people don’t believe you, like when you talk about these things, just having kind of a normal conversation that you’re engaging with them on a reasonable level. And then you can point out, well, actually, you know, there is this evidence that this is like this, or in my experience, or I’ve talked to people about this. And if you have been polite and cordial, they’re a lot more likely to listen to you. And I’m not saying— you’re not in the business of convincing anybody what’s right or wrong, like you’re a journalist, but if you expect to get anywhere with sources talking about their ideologies, you know, that’s how you do it. If somebody is a bad actor, you can be a lot more aggressive and say, you’ve done X, Y, and Z, and like, why did you do these things? Or like, you said this, or you, you know, took this amount of money from this person and you spoke at this, like, these are the kind of things, and that just takes background research. Don’t go up to somebody who has a lot of influence, because they’re slippery. They’re like snakes, like, they’ll get out of your hand so easily if you let them, and it really takes a lot of pre-reporting just so you understand, like, who you’re talking to, what they believe, who their associates are, and, you know, what they’re actually likely to say to you when you talk so you can counteract what they’re saying. You know, don’t treat those two people as the same thing. I think socially a lot of people do, but they’re not. And I think as a reporter, it’s, it’s really important you think about how you’re conducting yourself in that situation.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Thank you so much. Um, and Heron, I know you answered this sort of in the chat or rather in the Q Q&A at the beginning, uh, but someone asked, uh, is there a complication that arises when switching to the terminology of Christian globalism, given that globalism has become an antisemitic dog whistle in these exact spaces.
[HERON GREENESMITH] Yeah. The way I —this is Heron— the way I answered in the Q&A was to direct folks to André Gagné and Fred Clarkson’s writing reporters’, guides on talking about the new apostolic reformation and Christian nationalists. Um, I think the real answer is this is an emerging way to talk about Christian globalists and there’s certainly some possibility there for being confused. Um, for globalists, which is an antisemitic slur um, uh, that the some of the same people used to talk about Jewish people, um, or people who have power who they think might be Jewish. Um, so I guess, I guess the real answer is, I don’t know, follow Fred Clarkson and André Gagné’s work as they kind of wrestle with how to talk about the larger movement of Christian supremacy to turn the world into a Christian globe.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] I really always appreciate the answer of, I don’t know, but let’s keep talking about it because it’s just honest, right? Like, we don’t have all of the answers, but we know that we need to shift our understanding and our frames of understanding, uh, the far right in order to come up with a strategy to combat and continue providing solutions. And thank you for sharing that, sharing what you did in the Q&A section. And folks are encouraged to read what Heron shared and follow Fred and André for more information.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] So the next question is, I think, again, mainly for Vivian, but folks can also weigh in because I think you’ll all have insights, is what are some common traps to avoid when covering this beat?
[VIVIAN MCCALL] That’s, let me think, that’s a pretty broad question, but I think one of the common traps is going in armed with very little information. I think a lot of journalists would do that, particularly if they’re working on deadline. Like, you know, this is a kind of beat where you need to read some books, you need to read some articles, like you need to really be doing your due diligence and pre-researching people before you’re talking to them. Uh, sometimes you will, of course, just encounter this on a daily story, and I think communicating to your editor, like, “Hey, there is something a little bit more complex going on here. I need like an extra hour. I need an extra, you know, hour and a half to just do a little bit of basic scrubbing on these people.” Because like I said, if you are not fully reporting what is going on or who’s in the room, particularly in like settings like council meetings or something, um, you can give readers and people in your community a, like, inaccurate picture of what’s going on or an inaccurate picture of what people in that community believe, um, which certainly doesn’t, you know, that’s not a good story, and it doesn’t make, you know, you any more credible or your paper any more credible, and I think your editor would be much more inclined to get the full story rather than something a little bit faster. In that particular case, um, if you have any like specific other questions, feel to drop them, feel free to drop them in the chat, though, as far as like pitfalls to avoid.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Yeah, thanks so much, Vivian. And I’d love to hear from other folks, not necessarily from a journalistic perspective that Vivian provides, but just in general, if there are other pitfalls to avoid when speaking to communities or speaking in general more broadly about Christian globalism, Christian nationalism.
[REV. NAOMI WASHINGTON-LEAPHEART] This is Naomi. I, you know, one, one thing that I think is, um, thorny is to make a binary. So to say this is, you know, right Christianity, this is wrong Christianity. Or this is good religion, and this is bad religion. You know, I think these are just unhelpful. Binaries are unhelpful. And I think these are, these are not um, you know, I think people get triggered by the you’re calling me a bad Christian, um, accusation. Um, and so we need to, we need to think about, you know, Christianity is capacious enough to contain both New Apostolic Reformation folks, dominionism folks, and folks like me who are Black, queer and Christian and, you know, I dare you to argue with me, you know, right, right. So, so I think. I think we need to be honest about the fact that Christianity is vulnerable to these kinds of interpretations. And what, the question we need to ask is, which interpretations lend themselves to abundant life for all human beings? Right? It’s not a matter of good or bad. It is which interpretations, which theological frameworks lend themselves to abundant living for all people? That’s my, that’s my North star, right? Um, and that leaves room for the Bible to actually be problematic. Now, you know, I get in trouble when I say stuff like that. Some Christians are like, how could we ever think the Bible is problematic? Well, have you read the Bible? Right? So, so anyway, I just think that that, um, that’s enough when we start thinking about religion as good or bad and thinking about people as good religious actors or bad religious actors, right?
[REV. KEATS MILES-WALLACE] Sure. This is Keats. Uh, I think in the same vein, and I mentioned it earlier, too, remembering that these are not all bad people that espouse this ideology. There are genuinely good people who just don’t have the language. Um, that’s the big thing in my, my day job is I firmly believe that we do not as a country have the language or etiquette to speak to one another about difficult issues. And so then we end up blowing up at each other because we say the wrong things. Um, and so just being gentle and as Vivian said, probing gently with your questions, letting people believe what they believe. We don’t need to change everybody’s mind right now. Um, but, but asking gently, remembering that this is a human in front of you who also deserves abundant life as Reverend Naomi said, um, and trying to keep that it’s a person in your head. It’s very easy to narrow, uh, just as they do with the other side for us to say, “Oh, but this is a representative of an ideology.” And that’s not always true. Um, it’s just remembering that is really helpful.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Yeah, and I think as Vivian pointed out, like, the role of journalists is not necessarily to convince people of a thing, but it is to expose the truth, right? It is to speak truth to power. It is to, I mean, for investigative journalists to investigate, to expose, to interview, to tell stories, and readers will draw their own conclusions, but if you present people with the truth, and if you’re like in interviews and speaking with folks, um, it with gentleness, they will, they’re more likely to meet you with gentleness. We know that in and out of these contexts like interviews, or elsewhere, if you speak to someone and are you are on the attack, they are more likely to go in the attack and they are also more likely to become more entrenched in their worldview. You know, we speak a lot in specifically like progressive communications about the movable middle, and these are folks that are not necessarily fully entrenched in their worldview, they can be convinced one way or another. And they will not be moved one way or another by being attacked. They’ll be moved by being met with kindness and compassion for where they are.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Um, we do have one question that came up in the chat. Um, and someone is asking, are there examples of what we consider good journalism? And I know that’s a very broad framing, but good journalism on this topic that has resulted in a shift in the local or public understanding of this issue. Um, Vivian, I want to start with you because I think, you know, this is specifically your beat, but if other folks have stuff to add, feel welcome to.
[VIVIAN MCCALL] I can’t think of anything off the top of my head. I know there is.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Sorry to put you on the spot.
[VIVIAN MCCALL] I’m sorry. I, I, if I can, let me think about this for a second, but if anybody else wants to speak on it.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Uh, I mean, I will share about, uh, so Imara Jones, TransLash Media has The Anti-Trans Hate Machine, uh, which is a podcast and does a lot of really great, uh, investigation into the Christian far right, um, with interviews from folks, uh, in far right movements to sort of lay the foundational understanding of, um, specifically with regards to trans folks, but also communities of color, uh, how it— the machinations of the far right actually work and operate. Uh, I saw in the chat, uh, James put Molly Conger does great work.
[VIVIAN MCCALL] I would say one of the better journalists in the extremism space would be Leah Sottile wrote this book, When the Moon Turns to Blood, which is a really famous, it’s kind of a true crime book. But it’s a, it’s a really fascinating, famous, fascinating book about religious extremism. It’s kind of on a smaller scale, but it, uh, it, it’s really informative and like her approach, if you’re a reporter, is really one to admire.
[HERON GREENESMITH] This is Heron. I’ll just add the recent coverage, and I’m sure that Reverend Naomi can talk more about this, the recent coverage of Doug Mastriano’s sen— gubernatorial run in Pennsylvania. Um, he was set to win, um, and I think a lot of pundits predicted that he would. I don’t know how much, Naomi, you think the coverage of his race and of his theology impacted his race, but he eventually lost.
[REV. NAOMI WASHINGTON-LEAPHEART] I certainly think that the, I mean, the great coverage of like baptisms happening at his rallies, I mean, people were like, “What?”, you know, like, “make it make sense!” I certainly think that, um, it exposed, um, these conflations in ways that people were really s—uh, folks who were already kind of disgusted were even more disgusted, uh, whether or not they changed their minds about him, I don’t know, I think that remains to be seen, but certainly some great coverage of his, of his campaign.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Yeah, thank you all so much. Uh, so we have one more question in the chat and I think I can weigh in a little bit here and other folks as well, uh, which is, uh, an attendee is curious about We Make the Future’s research and messaging of “protect our freedoms”, specifically with some of the dog whistles that we were naming earlier in this call. Um, and so they were curious, you know, I saying, “I thought if marginalized communities use this message, it would be like reclaiming these values, but given how these words can be dog whistles, I’m not so sure.” So I would love for folks who are familiar with, We Make the Future’s, uh, research and message testing to speak to that.
[REV. KEATS MILES-WALLACE] So I’m going to, I’m going to be upfront and say, I’m not familiar with their messaging. Um, but I do think that there’s an interesting thing that happens when we work on reclaiming words, um, and that is particularly potentially happening right now. So we’ve got this, this intense conservative right wing use of “freedoms.” We’re starting to see maybe a reclamation of that word. Um, I know I’m seeing reclamation of things like patriot and such too, um, which is great and wonderful. And yes, it’s complicated, but I think it does a really cool thing right now where it makes it confusing. Um, and so for the people who are on the fence or who are using words without really knowing what they mean, now it’s just becoming a word again, instead of a dog whistle, because of, of this complication and confusion. You don’t know who you’re talking about anymore, potentially, at a certain point, with the use of the word freedom or patriot. Um, and so, yeah, definitely, uh, complicated and weird, but I think it serves its own purpose in moving those words back into general public use and out of standard dog whistle.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Yeah, and I mean, I want to share and I might invite some TLC folks who are in the audience to come off mute for a second, is that We Make the Future’s messages that they use are message tested frequently. And so while I’m not familiar with the research on the Protect Our Freedoms guide, specifically, I will share that Transgender Law Center participated in messaging research back in 2021, uh, with ASO Communications and We Make the Future around, uh, a few different messages, including, uh, the idea of freedom from boxes and the right to be our authentic selves, uh, that were found to, when those phrases were used, uh, to move people towards the messages of, uh, liberation for transgender people, specifically with, uh, and, and when messaged in conjunction, uh, with race, class, and gender. Uh, we’re seen to be able to move like messages about each of those towards what we believe, which is freedom for people across the lines of race, class, and gender. Um, so if you look up, you know, We Make the Future’s guides, they do have a Transgender Youth and the Freedom to Be Ourselves, uh, messaging guide, which is what I am referencing, that includes analysis on the race, class, gender narrative. But I will say that Transgender Law Center is pretty closely aligned with We Make the Future and ASO Communications. And so leaning into trusting the analyses and the research that they have found, uh, would be my personal take. And I’m going to share something that our Principal Narrative Strategist, Anna Castro, just shared with me in the chat. Um, but you know what Anna is saying to me is not getting, it’s not about getting stuck on words, but it’s about understanding the narrative frameworks that work in favor of what we are trying to accomplish, is freedom from boxes, right to be our authentic selves, liberation for all people, no matter their race, their class, or their gender. Our goal for these spaces is to, again, provide insights to journalists, but also to give journalists access to spokespeople for your stories. And because of that, these are not panelists comprised of journalists entirely. Each of these panels will feature a journalist covering the beat that we are talking about on that specific webinar, as well as folks who work in community with community members, uh, around the specific issues that we’re addressing. Um, so we’re trying something new here and something exciting, uh, that I feel excited about. But, and if folks have feedback to help me hone, uh, to help us hone, rather, our approach to future webinars, that would be super, super, super appreciated.
Part 2: Trans Youth Power & Hormone Therapy
[ARIELLE] Panelists, I would love to begin with a round of intros on today’s call, which is Trans Youth Power and Hormone Therapy. And I’d love to invite you all to go in the order that you all are listed on the screen, going from left to right for accessibility purposes. The first time that you speak, please go ahead and give a visual descriptor of yourself and a reminder that every time you speak to introduce yourself with your name, just to make sure that everyone is aware of who’s speaking. And I’m actually going to go first to sort of break my own rule of going in the order on the screen, because I’m not on the screen.
My name is Arielle. I use they/them pronouns. I’m based in Chicago, and I am a, slightly blonde, depending on the angle, slightly brunette, white trans person, wearing a keffiyeh. And I have a green background with a sort of, rainbow ish squiggly on the side. And I will popcorn over to Ericka, who’s the next to my screen.
[ERICKA] My name’s Ericka. I’m really excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me. I am a Black, non-binary femme with short, shoulder length-ish, chin length-ish. Curly hair or twisted hair, Black twisted hair with, an orange and pink kind of swirly background. I am a senior national organizer with the Disability Project at the Transgender Law Center, and I am based on the island in Brooklyn, New York. And I will pass it to Zane.
[ZANE] Hey y’all, my name is Zane McNeill. I use he/him and they/them pronouns. I am a white, queer, and trans person with long brown hair, wearing a color blocked, pink and Black corduroy shirt. From West Virginia, currently in Tokyo. And super excited to be here. And I’ll popcorn to Gabriel.
[GABRIELE] Hello, everyone. My name is Gabriele-Marion, and my pronouns are they/he. You’re also welcome to address me with just my name and no pronouns. Today I’m calling from a red sofa, in front of a beige wall with a painting nailed on it. My skin is light brown, my hair is short and dark, and I appear androgynous as a two-spirit person. I am calling from Kusso-Natchez’ land, the land of my ancestors. I am also Black Native American. I’m wearing glasses today, as well as a denim blue farm shirt. For four years, I’ve spent my time serving as an artistic advocate for transgender and other marginalized rights. This fall, I also had the privilege of testifying against the anti-trans proposals of U.S. v Skrmetti as an intersex, two spirited citizen of South Carolina. And I’ll pass it to Sara.
[SARA] Hey, everyone. Good to be here. My name is Sara Mar. I use they/them pronouns. I am the advocacy and communication strategist at Whitman-Walker Institute based in D.C. I am a light skinned South East Asian person with short Black hair and a, golden button-up also with an orange and pink, a swirly background. And I will pass it over to Shawn.
[SHAWN] Hey y’all. I’m Shawn Thomas Meerkamper. I use they/them pronouns. I’m the managing attorney at Transgender Law center. I’m a white, non-binary, 30 something, person wearing glasses. I have red hair which is cut and styled in a way that neutral observers have described as very punk rock. I’m also wearing, a, navy blue and tan plaid shirt, and I have the same, orange swirly background. Other folks have mentioned.
[ARIELLE] I did go ahead and try to give everyone the identical background, but for some reason zoom decided that Gabriele was not allowed to have one. And so, for those observing the mystery that is zoom, that is, in fact, what happened. So, Shawn, I’d actually love for you to get us kicked off.
[ARIELLE] I’d love to hear a quick primer on this case that a few of us have mentioned tonight, U.S. v Skrmetti, which you spearheaded on behalf of TLC, an amicus brief efforts for. And I’m curious to hear from you. What felt most important in the approach you took, and also, what impact do you hope that this approach that you all took will have both on the case and also on the issue of trans youth power more broadly?
[SHAWN] Sure. Thanks, Arielle. So, U.S. v Skrmetti the case. It’s going before the Supreme Court. Coming up, if you’re on this call, you, I guess are likely aware over the last couple of years, depending on how you count 23 or 24 states have banned, medical transition hormone therapy, and puberty blockers for trans folks who are under the age of 18. Almost every single one of those laws has faced a challenge in the courts, from non-profits like Transgender Law Center or like our friends at places like the ACLU or Lambda Legal. And some have been blocked by the courts. Some are unfortunately. aren’t in effect right now, U.S. v Skrmetti is the one of those cases, the version of that case, if you will, that has made it to the Supreme Court. First is the challenge to the Tennessee ban. And something specifically about the case that I want to make sure everyone is sort of aware of before I talk about our history, one thing is that, as this case is appearing before our Supreme Court, the question here is, do these bans, violate the Constitution and specifically, the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment? I say that because, when lawsuits challenge these bans, we had a whole array of legal theories, that, different organizations used in challenging them. And so this is one specific question that the court is deciding. So the court’s decision is not are these bans okay or are they not okay. The question is, are they illegal in this specific way? And that’s one thing. The other thing I want to make sure people know is that even though the case at this point is called, U.S. v Skrmetti, this is not just a fight between the United States and the attorney general of the state of Tennessee. Right. This case was brought by trans youth, in Tennessee, who are affected by this ban, was brought by their parents who support them. And it was brought by doctors who treat them. So, there are real humans involved, right? This is not just, a question of how our government is disagreeing with the state government. Now for our amicus brief. So, if folks aren’t familiar, an amicus brief, is when people who have an interest in the outcome of a case but who aren’t direct parties in the case. File, a brief with the court and say, hey, this is what we think. Think about this case from this angle, right? In this case, at the Supreme Court level, there were 31 amicus briefs that we’re supporting, overturning this ban. And they come from all sorts of perspectives. They are from doctors, who treat gender dysphoria and views. They are from, loving parents of trans youth. They’re from philosophers who have ideas about it. And when Transgender Law Center legal team was looking at this sort of wide array of different perspectives that were going to be put in front of the Supreme Court, it dawned on us that, wait a minute. There’s not actually, any amicus brief yet that is here. That is just about, trans youth speaking in their own words, speaking truth to power, saying, this is what these bans mean to us. This is how you are messing up our lives. So that was really sort of, the guiding principle behind our brief. Transgender Law Center very much, I think, believes in a ‘nothing about us without us’ approach. And so the impact that I hope the brief has is that, I hope folks read these trans use words, and, really understand that, at the end of the day, that’s, that’s what this is about.
[ARIELLE] Thank you so much, Shawn. I really appreciate that. And I think, something to just name is that nothing about us without us is, call a rallying cry that often is attributed to disability justice movements, but it’s also used to message across additional movements, with an understanding that all of us should be included in conversations that impact us and sort of, you know, to that effect of recognizing the humans behind these bans, recognizing youth power and encouraging, you know, welcoming in trans young people who have been impacted by these bans, who speak in their own words. We have Gabriele with us here today who, was one of the people who was actually part of this amicus brief.
[ARIELLE] So, Gabriel, I’d love to hear from you. What is it that you wish more people, and specifically the journalists in this room, understood about trans young people who need to access hormone therapy and other forms of gender affirming care?
[GABRIELE] Hi again. I’m Gabriele, thank you so much for your question, Arielle. While giving my thoughts, I like to use my own experiences with HRT and gender orientated surgery as sort of an anecdote. My story is sadly not a completely joyous one, but I hope that it not only shows the importance of HRT access, but health care that is not dictated by cisgender standards as a whole. The U.S. v Skrmetti brief was one of a few times I publicly shared my story as a two spirit youth living with an intersex condition, meaning that my sex characteristics do not necessarily align with the typical male female binary. I shared before, growing up in a rigid rule town did not offer me, or children like me inclusive resources to better help them understand, HRT, intersex conditions, and transgender journeys. When my condition triggered a massive stress and early onset puberty, I could have easily, gone to a doctor and use puberty blockers to ease my stresses and hormone imbalances. Starting as early as age nine. Nothing had to be permanent then, and with the right guidance, I could have also found another solution. If the one I had selected did not suit me in the long run. Joining a support group for teens navigating unique gender experiences would have also worked fine, but I did not know of any at the time. That’s what autonomy is really all about to me, and I want folks to understand that HRT is not the only form of trans affirming care available, although it can be a life changing treatment for many, it’s also absolutely not the only healthcare at stake in cases like U.S. v Skrmetti. Unfortunately, the doctors I saw did not share this mindset of mine that day. They also pressured me into undergoing an invasive surgery, which would, in their words, normalize my body and remove my pain. This, of course, was a disorientating experience. At age 14, and it only worsened my hormonal irregularity a year later. And to manage the chronic discomfort I face now because of that operation, I’ll likely need to take hormone replacement therapy for the rest of my life, even if I am not medically transitioning as a gender non-conforming person. My point here is that HRT and the stressful conditions it can heal are not new or strange in America or anywhere else in the world. I’ve lived as an intersex person since 2006, a perfect year to be born. And I say that we trans and technology patients deserve empathy and earnestly at all times. Nobody ever asked to live as a minority or in misery because of a marginalized identity, whether they gain that identity from birth or find it within themselves later on. Today, there are so many compassionate physicians who understand gender dysphoria and other transgender experiences, plus the few risks and many rewards of HRT. But their names are not. RF Kennedy Jr. Texas Governor Texas Governor Greg Abbott or even Texas state Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti. Those men cannot ever comprehend the pride or perseverance of trans youth like me in this battle for HRT, because they themselves have often, or really ever, have had to fight for such essential rights for themselves. If we do not protect our legal right to choose treatment methods and receive safe surgeries from open minded professionals, medical abuse stories like mine will be written in history again and again. Even if HRT may not suit every transition, which is completely understandable. HRT, like any medication, can rouse undesirable side effects. I do want more people to understand that a freedom to choose HRT is a medical and social liberty worth fighting for. It rings to a right to autonomy, self-expression, LGBT affirming therapies and programs, and most of all, pain relief in your own body without being misunderstood or belittled.
[ARIELLE] Thank you so much, Gabriele. I really appreciate that. I think, you know, hearing what underscored a lot of what you shared is, this right to autonomy, which is not something that we often hear talked about for young people. You know, young people in our society are often talked about as, being at the whims of their parents, which under the legal systems we live in, they often are. Right, like there are gatekeepers for all of us in society, including medical professionals and government officials. But for young people, often the first gatekeepers are parents. We don’t often hear the idea that young people deserve autonomy over their bodies, but we know that young people do because all people do. And that is the value that unites all of us in this space.
[ARIELLE] And sort of pivoting from that. Sara, I’d love to hear from you, because a big part of your work specifically is working with, medical providers who want to speak with the media and, encouraging them to tell stories that not only, like, elevate their perspectives as professionals, but also still, highlight the importance of centering and uplifting, trans youth and bodily autonomy. And so I’d love to hear from you, how you do this, how you, you know, bring forth medical provider stories while also balancing the need to center trans youth autonomy and trans youth power.
[SARA] Thanks for that question, this is Sara. Yeah. So medical providers are a really critical part of the support team that I see around trans youth to really work alongside them as they navigate their gender identity and the care that they need. And the providers I work with are really just so dedicated to their practice, and I believe can be really great messengers to talk about the trans youth that they’ve seen over their careers, and how those young people, how those young people thrive when they can get the support, and the access to health care that they need. I think it’s also really important to remember that providers are often like family medicine physicians, pediatricians, adolescent medicine physicians, depending on the age of the young person, which means that they see youth, who aren’t trans. And so they can really speak to how this particular segment of care, gender affirming care is just being is being targeted as a result of the media climate of the disinformation, and really speak to the impacts both on their patients and their clinic and their communities. In terms of we’re talking a little bit about, avoiding those right wing traps and rhetoric. You know, it’s really easy right now to talk about how bad things are. And I think that weighs on a lot of us very personally, we see coverage about trans youth, leaving their communities for care, providers talking about some of the impacts on their patients and clinics, whether that’s, like bomb threats at Boston Children’s and other hospitals and such. And that fear and anxiety is super real. Like, I don’t want to discredit that. But also, I think we can do a lot to share those narratives. Again, uplifting trans joy and like possibility, again, like those providers that I work with have very long careers. And they might have seen a young person who is in their teens and now that young person is a young adult, and maybe they are an entrepreneur or they’re going to community college, four year college, working in the arts, like, whatever it is, there are just so many endless possibilities for who trans youth can be, and become when they have the support and the care that they need. And then I think, lastly, like we’ve touched a little bit on this, but that frame of protecting kids, protecting youth, I think we in that frame, we really can shift it to talk about rights like that. The right for young people to get the care that they need, the right to bodily autonomy, as Gabriele mentioned, the right to determine our own future and what that looks like for us. And so not losing sight of that again, to your point, Arielle, that, you know, we think about often adults in this context, but we all have certain rights and we all should have that right to live as, as our healthiest selves.
[ARIELLE] Yeah. And I think messaging about trans youth autonomy or youth autonomy in general really paints a vision of the future that we all want to live in, right? Like a world where every single person, whether or not they’re trans, like, no matter who they are, no matter where they live, have the right to make decisions for our own bodies. We hear this in the fight for reproductive justice as well, and in, disability justice movements as well. it’s a right to autonomy over our bodies.
[ARIELLE] And so Zane, I want to hear from you as the journalist sitting on this panel, you’ve been reporting on gender affirming care and hormone therapy bans for a number of years now, at Truthout. Now you’re independent. I would love to hear, what is most important to you about your approach to this coverage, and also if and how your approach to this has shifted in the years since you’ve been doing this, especially because there’s been a lot happening in the news in the world since you started covering this beat. I’d love to hear this from you.
[ZANE] Thanks so much. This is Zane. Yeah. I feel like one of my first stories at Truthout was on one of the gender affirming care bans in Georgia. Right, it just passed the Senate. And it was kind of going to be called, like, a disaster. I’d love to say a disgrace. I think it was the exact words, and at that time there were a good number, like a legislative onslaught, right, of, gender, for trans kids. And so when I started working on it, I really wanted to couch it in the like couch these incidents in this larger, orchestrated attack. Right. And really focus on the statistics. So I included, like a numbers from the ACLU that tracked, how many attacks on LGBT rights or movement advancement project. And the Trevor Project, which really focused on how detrimental these bans were for trans youth’s mental health. So I really wanted to focus on the scale and coordination of these attacks. And I, I really would recommend that journalists do that. Right? Not just focus on this one incident, but how it’s a larger wave, happening in many states, and really focus on how it’s affecting trans youth. But at the same time, with it, there’s so much bad news all the time, and it’s in a lot of ways it’s getting worse. And so, like people have said on this panel, it’s so important to focus on joy and humanity and resilience, especially when there is an attempt to dehumanize, trans people right now, and really center those who are directly impacted. Right. I feel like that’s one of the things that we’re talking about is really the trans youth know what they want. They know what they need. They just need to be given a platform to talk about it. And so amplifying the voices of these trans advocates and organizers is really important. And so I’ve kind of shifted to, yes, cover these bans and legislative attacks, and issues in the courts, but really also just, movements. So I’ve reported on walkouts, mutual aid initiatives like the Transcontinental pipeline and transitional Justice provides critical support to those who are fleeing these bans. And then I really have been trying to balance the harm, like the mental health impacts and barriers to care with stories of solidarity within trans community, because trans people are not just victims, but as attacks, trans youth are not victims. Right. They’re these kids are leaving the fight for their own survival. So people, right, are currently preparing for worst case scenarios under the next Trump administration. And, but at the same time, right. We’re creating mutual aid networks, especially in regards to being able to access HRT and keep ourselves safe. So this is one case. It’s going to have a detrimental effect, right? Possibly a very large consequence on trans kids, but at the same time, there is a history of attacks on our rights. And people and trans folks specifically have always organized their own care. So I would recommend reporters really focus on not just the urgency of this moment, but also the strength of those who are affected.
[ARIELLE] Yeah, thank you so much. Really makes me think of sort of this initiative that is launched at Trans Law Center of the, it’s called Care Is Our Legacy and just this idea that the way that trans people, our communities and other marginalized communities, communities of color, disabled communities, immigrant communities have always survived is by being in relationships of care within their own communities and really like seeing how that relates to this moment in time, where, you know, folks are showing up for each other, not just within trans communities, but across marginalized communities, and how that is the way we have historically fought back against oppression, against state violence, and is what we’re doing again in this moment.
[ARIELLE] So thank you so much for all of that. Zane, I want to talk sort of about the state attacks, about the far right, strategy. But for a minute here, I’m curious, you know, we’ve seen that far, right bad actors have already exported the, strategies of the ways that they’re targeting hormone therapy to also attack access to reproductive health care. And, Parker, if you can click to the next slide here, that would be great. Thank you. I’d love to hear now from Ericka and from, then from Gabriele afterwards. And, you both sort of work across, movement spaces. Ericka, your work crosses, across disability justice and gender justice, and racial justice spaces. Gabriele, yours across intersex work and trans work and various other spaces as well. And so I’m curious to hear from you how this demand we’re hearing from all of our panelists for trans youth justice and trans youth power, connects to other forms of justice, on the ground.
[ERICKA] Thanks, Arielle. So as a disabled, non-binary person, I really work at the intersections between disability justice and trans justice. And, recognizing that the fight for trans youth like gender affirming care and the fight for access to hormone replacement therapy and other forms of gender affirming care connects to decades of activism and blood and sweat and tears of disabled folks, regardless of gender identity around bodily autonomy and what that means and all that can accomplish or that can encompass and accomplish. and what does it mean to have bodily autonomy? And we can’t talk about bodily autonomy without talking about ableism and the idea that someone’s worth and inherent right to dignity, and even inherent right to be alive, to have a life. Depends on how a body produces for capitalism, how healthy a body is perceived to be based on what we know to be, idealistic in white supremacy. We know that ableism also encompasses how controllable a body, can be, or seems to be. And what we see throughout justice movements is that we’re really–what we’re really talking about is dismantling ableism, dismantling eugenics, thinking about how, how do we have the right, how do we organize for the right to, live our lives with dignity and care and the things that we need? And that’s across justice movements. We see that with reproductive health care, with migrant and immigrant rights, with climate justice. And so I really think that disability justice organizing is something that is inherently, is something that’s anti ableist and antigenic and is something that can be carried throughout justice movements as if through stone for what we’re fighting for.
[ARIELLE] Yeah. Gabriel, you want to hop in there?
[GABRIELE] Of course. Thank you. Arielle and Ericka, this is Gabriele again. Through the stresses social distress of the last eight years, I am at least glad to see an increased understanding of how a bill’s effect on one demographic can inflict harsh restrictions on several others without us even realizing when it first begins. Maintaining the choice to pursue HRT does so much more than granting peace of mind to the trans community, so bans will never banish the resilience within us all. Unwittingly, this fight for HRT access also aligns with movements working to uplift the voiceless of countless Americans, who too have been daunted, by malpractice and discrimination fabricated as sacrifices for what they call the greater good of this country. My examples are far from a complete list. When I name events like the overturning of Roe v Wade, homophobic desire to destroy marriage equality and LGBT pride celebrations, the ableism and classism in denying elderly, immigrated, low income and disabled people assistance programs, safe havens, or the right to even rest in public spaces. I also, think of the politicization of essential treatments like Narcan to reverse drug overdoses, abortions, as mentioned in Roe versus Wade, oral contraceptives and insulin, as well as the fundamentals of white nationalism, which has been amped, so to say, by the Trump administration. From our president elect, remaining loyal to groups, in my opinion, is so important. We should always be proud to feel a part of the groups we identify with, especially marginalized ones. However, in this battle for HRT access, we must be mindful and remember that our choices today do not just maintain our personal freedoms, but set a precedent for others facing political prejudice. Red states next door to Tennessee, where US versus Skrmetti, is again the state official, a state official of Tennessee. Like mine often take inspiration from other states discriminatory decisions in a swift, sinister manner. If Skrmetti is successful in what he aims to do, I can easily foresee the many more barriers that trans folks, though rare in small agricultural communities like mine, will face when seeking HRT, inclusive resources and support groups to aid their transitions, or even just to hear more perspectives outside of the cis heteronormative worldview. When researching nonwhite communities like mine, I also found that Black and brown Americans significantly face more barriers when accessing the aforementioned treatments. A 2023 report by Jillian McCoy at Boston University’s School of Public Health, for example, analyzes these struggles thoroughly and I’d be happy to link the report in this meeting. Though I, as a trans person of color, am fortunate to be connected with grassroot organizations, it’s like We Are Family in Charleston, South Carolina. I am still daunted by the same challenges that described in their medical report, especially considering that I also live in a small, same minded town 17 miles away from the support groups location, and it’s a very long drive, and I’m happy that online resources are available to youth like myself. By maintaining access to HRT, we show that we value the triumphs and tribulations of gender diverse Americans and refuse to have our voices suppressed. Additionally, our discussions in favor of HRT also keep trans affirming nonprofits and educational resources thriving in all of our communities so that one day, no person of any marginalized status may feel ostracized or uninformed about their unique experiences. And this again placed so well into our fight for autonomy.
[ARIELLE] Thank you so much. So I’m going to kick it back to Shawn to sort of bring this back over to the legal angle and what we’re what we might see in this case. I’m actually sorry I updated, the deck. If you could reload, this slide should have switched. But, Shawn, bringing us back to this moment in time. Specifically I’m curious how the outcome of the Skrmetti case might impact health care. Not just for trans people, but for all people.
[SHAWN] Yeah. So, so earlier I said, right, that this case is about this specific question of are these bans legal or not? Under this specific constitutional provision? I’m going to take that back now, and say that, actually, the, the real question, right when you get past that, the real question in this case is, can powerful interest groups like the Heritage Foundation or Alliance Defending Freedom, right. Can, powerful interests make up lies about your health care and then use those lies, to make your health care illegal, right? Because that’s what’s happening here. This is a manufactured controversy, right? People will say it over and over again. It’s become like a chorus that, like every major medical association, knows and understands and advocates that this care is safe and effective and necessary and lifesaving. Right. So much so that, like, the other side has to have a fake advocacy organization, right? The American College of pediatricians, which was sort of founded, to be an anti queer and trans hate group, with a very official sounding name, to go out there and and oppose, this health care. Right. So, you know that to me is, is the real question here, right? Especially at a time when, Robert Kennedy Jr is getting nominated to be in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services. Right? Who has some really like, you know, has never met a conspiracy theory, health related conspiracy theory that he did not love. And so, right. It it sounds outlandish, because it is outlandish. But when, you put powerful interest groups behind it, this, you know, the fact that in this case has gotten this far, that’s what we’re seeing.
[ARIELLE] Yeah. Thank you so much for really highlighting that. And I want to also hear, from Sara. You know, we’re talking a lot about some of the losses we’ve seen. And I know, Zane, you specifically talked about a need to highlight wins as well.
[ARIELLE] And so, Sara, I’d love to hear from you. Like why it is important to highlight the policy wins and like organizing efforts that specifically trans folks, but also other marginalized communities are conducting on the ground, and not just the losses. And I I’m also curious for you if there are specific stories that you would like to see uplifted, by journalists and storytellers in the media.
[SARA] Yeah. Thanks. This is Sara again. Yeah. Policy tends to be super slow, and long and draining and the way the system is set up, it just takes so much energy to navigate the political process or how something comes to be. And so when, when we win, it’s because of that, as you mentioned, mass mobilizing, organizing among trans folks, among our allies and across movements and highlighting those wins is just so important to let the community know that positive change is possible and really keeping that energy alive. That kind of reporting can send messages to our community and to our policymakers that trans folks aren’t going anywhere. We’re going to keep showing up, on the steps of the Capitol in the courtrooms. Again, in the streets of our community, with our neighbors. Like, we’re still here, and we’re going to keep we’re going to keep in this like that there that those attempts to isolate us and make us feel scared or immobilize us with this political process, is not going to work. And so in terms of stories, I mean, yeah, I in particularly in context, so coming up, I think we should also really highlight there’s a lot of anxiety, you know, around what could happen at the Supreme Court. But I think we should highlight that lower courts have ruled on our favors, that governors in red states have vetoed these bans before. And it’s a really good reminder that when people can hear from trans young people, and when they logically look at the evidence, judges and some of these governors, like, can see how these bans are really unjust, have no sensical basis or evidence basis to them. One ruling I would point folks to, which was, a little bit a while ago now, but Judge Hinkle, who’s out of, one of those, district courts, in Florida, I’m just going to read a quote from part of his opinion because I thought it was quite good. It’s 105 pages. But I’ll post the link if folks want to read it later. But Judge Hinkle wrote, quote, the elephant in the room should be noted at the outset. Gender identity is real. For some, the denial that transgender identity is real is not different in kind or intensity from the animus a has attended racism and misogyny. The state of Florida cannot flatly deny transgender individuals safe and effective medical treatment. Treatment that medications treatment with medications routinely provided to others with the state’s full approval, so long as the purpose is not to support the patient’s transgender identity. End quote. And so I thought, like, those little pieces is like great, one, like gender identity is real. Like we’re here, two, the fact that, kind of drawing those threads like that, this is clearly animus that fuels other attacks on, for example, DEI. You know, he talks about racism and misogyny. And then really drawing that thread that. Yeah, these medications, this treatment is available to any other trans young person if they’re accessing that care for a reason other than gender dysphoria. And so yeah, I’ll post a link there. But I think highlighting that judges have ruled on our side. And I think that will be really important as we head into the Skrmetti case.
[ARIELLE] Yeah, I think this is awesome. And I think a couple of things I wanna uplift that a couple of you have mentioned is this idea that this is like, very clearly a targeted, manufactured attack on trans people specifically. Right? There’s not any reason beyond a small group of far right bad actors that decided to make trans people political wedge issue and manufacture a national like war against trans people. And that’s like the clear reason why this is all happening. And it’s important also to uplift how many wins there have been. Right? Like we have, organizers and advocates have struck down and fought back successfully against way more anti-trans bills that have passed.
[ARIELLE] And so Zane with with a lot, you know, the Segways very nicely back into coverage specifically, with oral arguments for Skrmetti now coming up in about two weeks. I’d love to hear from you. What are you hoping, is the focus of media coverage? What types of stories are you hoping to see? And maybe what are there any, like, narratives or stories that you’re kind of tired of seeing and would rather not see repeated this time around?
[ZANE] Thanks y’all, this is Zane again, I’m going to reiterate a few things that people already said. Right. But I really hope coverage, in this case, really contextualizes this one, oral argument and Supreme Court case as part of this larger effort, this orchestrated and manufactured effort to restrict, autonomy and individual freedoms, including, you know, body autonomy and privacy, for all people. And just trans people are sometimes the first folks on the cutting block. I think much like the aftermath of Dobbs, which was the case that overturned Roe v Wade. This case does threaten to set a precedent, for rolling back other rights and other liberties and then can be cited again for future attacks. I also think that coverage should really focus on the discriminatory intent, you know, behind these bans and how it’s aren’t just isolated cultural issues, you know, but is orchestrated, and tied to other attacks on abortion restrictions, anti DEI, and other repressive policies pushed by the actors we’ve talked about before, like the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Heritage Foundation. And when we’re talking about this one case or other cases that make it to the Supreme Court or even, other federal courts, I think it’s important to notice that the law is not apolitical, and really focus on who was appointing these judges and who’s interpreting this and why. I think about like 90% of Trump’s first administration’s federal judicial appointments were members of the federal society, which is a conservative legal organization that really is sort of incestuous with these other, far right groups. We’ve talked about. And so why lastly, like, why the Skrmelli case is really important for trans folks and will have a really large impact on trans folks. I think it’s also important to know that the law’s long been weaponized against trans communities. No matter how this case comes out, trans people continue to exist and survive and thrive and find joy. And we have consistently built networks of care, and movements outside of legal structures like we saw during the AIDS epidemic and other attacks on our community and harm we, we figure out ways to, to live, and for things I’m hoping that won’t be repeated. Is this the sort of both sides-ism. I think sometimes reporters, in an effort to seem apolitical, end up trying to uplift both sides as if they both have standing, at the end, as we have mentioned, every major medical organization supports, gender affirming care as necessary and important. And a lot of these groups that are bringing these issues create fake organizations and fake dissent, to create fake controversy. And so there’s not, of equal standing between wanting some–people, wanting trans kids to be able to survive and live and have access to the care they need. And this web orchestrating this, this coordinated effort on eroding our rights. So really, sort of taking off that shroud and figuring out and really naming, who is doing this and why and how it’s not just, a controversy that is legal or, or not targeting queer folks.
[ARIELLE] Yeah. Thank you so much. Your mention of the AIDS epidemic also sort of, you know, segues nicely into what I want to hear from Ericka, which is about the idea of eugenics. Which is very clear how that came up during the AIDS epidemic. Right. Like a group of people that was predominantly dying was queer and trans folks of color. And as such, the government ignored it and egged it on. And so I’m curious to hear from you, Ericka, how the ideas of ableism and eugenics under really underpin all these attacks that we’re seeing across the country against our bodies, and specifically hormone therapy and what journalists should make of this.
[ERICKA] Yeah. So just a little bit first on like, what eugenics is for folks. So eugenics literally is the desire to have a pure, healthy like white stock of people that can continue to create more pure, healthy, white people. Generally cisgender. It’s generally cis-het folks, generally class male folks. And that what that creates is this control of all of us who don’t fit into that. So we think about disabled folks, we think about Black folks, people of color, indigenous folks, poor folks, migrants and immigrants. what eugenic logic creates is this idea that everyone else’s body is inherently wrong and that we either have to control, surveil, criminalize, and literally disappear or, yeah, disappear, dispose of, folks who don’t fit into that kind of white supremacy, anti-Black, idea of eugenics. And so when we think about hormone therapy and thinking about, the generalized attacks on trans bodies, really thinking about how eugenics and ableism is creating this narrative that trans bodies are things that–are bodies that shouldn’t be, that don’t fit into what the white cis-het, wealthy, male ideal is and therefore it has to be controlled, have to be, surveilled, have to be criminalized, have to be disposed of. And what we also think about, that I wanted to mention, in terms of eugenics and ableism and thinking about how these systems work, I think it’s really important that journalists think about the systems, not just the interpersonal, and either interpersonal attacks, interpersonal violence, interpersonal, stories of people. We have to think about the systems that are creating the context for how all this is happening. And at the disability projects with my colleague Sebastian, what we talk a lot about is the disability carceral state and this idea that there’s, there are systems in place that surveil, criminalize and dispose of disabled people specifically outside of prisons and jails. And we’re thinking about kids who are in group homes, for example, kids or institutions, kids who are in special education, adults that are under guardianship, those kids. can’t even have these conversations about hormone therapy. can’t have these conversations about gender or gender identity because things are so controlled and everything is so surveilled and so criminalized. So when we think about, what I want, like, folks to really take away from and understand is that we have to make sure that we aren’t, like Gabriele was saying earlier that we’re in solidarity with, like actually in solidarity with other movements, and really thinking about how this moment, how do we get smarter and how do we get more strategic to use gains for trans youth to also create space and create gains for youth across the board? And so I think that’s something that I really want. Folks to take away from this. And then also as a little like preview teaser, we are we have journalist guides specifically on disability, and how to, report on disability issues and disability justice that’s coming out soon. So if folks are interested, definitely, look out for that because there’s a lot more on this.
[ARIELLE] Yes, so Ericka and I are meeting in two weeks to finalize that guide. So it’s, coming to you all soon. We’re very excited to finally share with the world. We have been working on it for several months. I’ve partnered with the Disability Project folks who have led this work, and it’s, something that we’re almost ready to share with the world.
[ARIELLE] And so, you know, bringing it back to you one last time. Gabriele, I’d love to hear, you know, you have now lived through, like, really through your adolescence. This escalation in anti-trans attacks. And in the interest of encouraging journalists to continue to adopt, a humanizing lens that centers people that are most impacted, such as yourself. I’d love to, you know. hear. I’d love for you to share with the journalists in this room, like what that has been like for you living through these past few years of anti trans and anti justice attacks.
[GABRIELE] All right, Gabriele speaking again, in truth, Arielle, it’s been extremely tough as most imagine. Many members of my chosen family somewhat fortunately, live in states that are traditionally more left leaning, such as California and Oregon. I am very vocal about my distaste for this. When, and especially considering this year’s election results, as well as many conflicts that we are now facing, especially, with more vehement bills against transgender youth, as many of my loved ones do. But my heart aches most when my family and neighbors seem as though they would readily make a scapegoat out of trans and other marginalized justice movements. Some do know that I am transgender, some do not. But either way, it’s still is such a painful experience for me either way. I do digress a bit. No matter what parts of progressive justice we’re fighting for, for the majority of us activists here in the South, particularly South Carolina, we’re still trying to grapple with the mere existence of these bans and the unsettling results. Again, at this year’s election. All we can really do is keep hope and take it all in stride. Medical, medical excuse me, mental health must come first in these daunting times, and I often encourage folks to rest from the revolutionary path if needed. Many people often hear me say practicing self-care and finding authentic peace is a form of protest in this time. But on the battleground, one of the most daunting questions I’ve asked myself is what bills could Skrmetti inspire? In South Carolina and neighboring states? The answer is not pretty. But organizations like South Carolina United do an amazing job at breaking down each of these bigoted bills, such as the Parents Rights Bill aiming to ban sexual education and lessons about LGBT rights, history and acceptance in public charter schools. Another example, off the top of my head that comes immediately is spotlight Bill H. 4624, which, like Skrmetti, aims to prevent youth from accessing puberty blockers and HRT. South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster slyly supports this bill. To my greatest chagrin. But it’s it’s heartening to remember, too. We do have victories in this valiant battle, as you all have said, even the ability to connect with journalists tonight, as well as other activists to this panel, is a small win for us all. And there are many joys in my life that are much like it. For instance, when I go on my college campus this month, I feel comfort and love for who I am, even if widely sharing my name or pronouns is not a daily priority. Nearly all of my classmates as minorities in STEM are all united in this grief and understanding because we see each other as real people, despite the chaos in our state and national capital. I’m also now seeing a lot more queer people very adamant about defending their freedoms alongside disability, people who live with disabilities. And they also come to the stage when it comes to advocating for trans youth and trans affirming care, because they too understand the struggle, what it means to have, say, marriage licenses, necessary medicine at stake when it comes to these selfish bills. I am now very happy to see intersectionality awareness grow more and more. As we not only brave these transphobic bills, but also fight for families who have lost everything, whether it be to the war, mainly the war and genocide in Palestine, poverty across America and other countries, natural disasters, particularly the one in North Carolina that we just saw with our previous hurricane, and especially if there are, storms worsened by climate change, which I see a lot of trans and queer people more and more passionate about each year. As an agriculturist and artist, I’m very happy to see all these things, and I see people connecting with not corrupt. Not only, systems that are helping them flourish, that are not corrupt and punishing to who they are, but with a charm of nature wherever they can find it in their neighborhoods or even beyond. When they go and travel and explore the world, they may also create art just to release some hurt that they feel inside or help a progressive cause. Some people even use their art as charitable foundations to raise money for causes that mean a lot to them, including myself. And on topic, and on the topic of safe spaces, LGBT affirming areas and centers are serving and standing strong each day and night so they can bring a little soundness to our lives. And this is something I always appreciated. My soul. I feel like it’s slowly healing every day, even when some challenges in advocacy seem grueling or even, on my worst days, worthless to fight. I see that America is not completely devoid of empathy, even when the news, or even our social medias tell us that the world has essentially gone to crap. And I’m really looking forward to see what our movement can do. Even with these trials that we face on a legislative and government level, we can definitely power through it all, even when it’s our darkest times.
[ARIELLE] Thank you so much, Gabriele. That was beautiful. Yeah. Really just, you know, grounding. Grounding everyone in personal experience, saying I, something that I tend to ask in each of these webinars because, this is a real problem that comes up in newsrooms, is, you know, a lot of journalists unfortunately work newsrooms where even if they have really wonderful practices and understand everything that you’ve said here today about, you know, the stories that we on this panel and we as advocates, want to see that’s not always reflected in newsroom leadership and editors.
[ARIELLE] And so what advice can you give to journalists? Whose editors or newsroom leadership might be hesitant to adopt these practices?
[ZANE] Thanks so much. This is Zane again. I, I have a bit of advice. I know it’s going to be really difficult for us. I’ve been really lucky to work in, newsrooms and spaces that, really wants to center, trans folks and our stories. But for so many journalists, it can be really difficult to navigate, if you’re able and feel safe enough to try to campaign for better coverage, which I know a ton of journalists have done, really, and sort of quietly and under the scenes, and sometimes more loudly, I think there’s a few things that we can do to say try to persuade newsrooms and the people who are paying the newsrooms to really want to tell these stories and tell them, well, I think first off, it’s bad reporting to not do so and to not tell these stories and to not really center trans youth. And the idea that every major medical association says and has done research saying that, hormone therapy is safe and needed. I think also it can be really important to say, hey, our stories are harming people. Our these, our bad coverage is having a negative political impact. We’ve seen that specifically unfortunately with like the New York Times bias. And days during trans people by publishing inaccurate and this disinformation pretty much on trans health care. Because these groups like the ADF don’t have research, on their side, they are really grasp at straws, and have even cited op-eds published in the New York Times, because their position is so unfounded. I also think that if you can’t, don’t feel safe enough to really advocate, really openly, with managers or something like that, then you can also just build relationships with friends, activists and organizations, you know, get press releases, and have relationships with sources and just bring those voices in as part of your normal reporting. And really pitch these stories as necessary and important and keep going back to those, research. I was talking about that movement events. that the Trevor Project has done and tried to advocate in that way. And then lastly, there’s just a lot of resources available. I know we’ve talked a little bit about, TLC’s reporting guides, but there’s also resources at the Transgender Journal Association. They have a stylebook and coverage guide that can really help reporters and editors improve their coverage.
[ARIELLE] thank you so much. Yeah. So connect with TLC for a story. Thank you so much. And then the chat I also just pop Trans Journalist Association’s link in the chat because as Zane mentioned, they have a number of resources for reporting on trans communities.
[ARIELLE] Before we get to the Q&A and I do encourage anyone who’d, like to ask, to pop questions in the Q&A chat. I’ve also just enabled folks, in the audience to message hosts and panelists. So if you feel uncomfortable with that, feel free to do that. I would love to hear from two of y’all. Specifically, like when you envision a hopeful future for trans people in the U.S., and I believe that there is hope in our future because we have to when we’re fighting for that, what does that look like? Like what? What does it look like to fight? What does the future itself look like? And also how can journalists and storytellers help us get there? And in the interest of time, I will ask folks to keep it to a like pretty concise.
[SARA] I’ll hop in. This is Sara. So when I envision the future that looks like no matter what, no matter what area of public life we’re in, whether that’s a school, park, library or our own homes, knowing that no matter where we go, that will be not just safe, but also embraced for who we are and that our humanity is recognized. And, for journalism, you know, I think it’s journalism is such a powerful way to shape that narrative ecosystem that we all live in and really share with the world. Again, I think of possibilities again, like share with the world who we are and who we have the ability to become. When we have access to both health care we need and other like critical supports. In our life.
[ARIELLE] Thank you so much.
[ZANE] I can also hop in. This is Zane. I feel like when I think of dreaming futures that we can exist in it’s futures where we’re able to choose how we want to live and feel safe all the time. Not having to be productive just for the sake of productivity under capitalism. Right. Having our just respect in who we are and what we want to do, feeling safe and our different positions in the world, and being able to choose every day without this, the stress or the potential of harm. Right. And and just to exist freely. And I think for me personally, why I, I, my background’s more in activist scholarship. And then I moved from this sort of academic writing into journalism was because I felt like I could better write these stories and make a quicker impact. On trying to translate those dreams of the future into everyday coverage. And so I think journalism is so important because I get to talk about these issues that are really exhausting and hard for me to talk about, but then also bring in other folks I want to hear from. They keep helping me feel grounded, and on the path towards that future. And so I feel like writing is so important because it is a way of translating the world we want to see into the world. And roadmap to how we get there.
[ARIELLE] Thank you so much. This is Arielle, and I will actually share some as well. Something that I think about sort of in my role as a communications professional. But that also translates to, I think really any field is that in order to. Build. The future that we want to live in, we have to individually believe that that world is possible. Because if we don’t believe that that world is possible, like personally in our souls, and keep that sort of like hope alive as much as we can, then in ways subtle and not so subtle, we’re not going to be orienting ourselves towards that dream, right? If we’re constantly on the defensive and thinking about how bad things are, which like, I will absolutely see–things are rough right now, we can look out into the world and the in the election, in the legislative landscape, in the legal landscape, and acknowledge that things are rough and we have gotten through as communities, really rough moments in our history and built the future that we live in now. And we can acknowledge that this moment is scary and difficult and tough, and building that future together involves all of us: journalists and advocates and, lawyers, you know, policy professionals, like anyone in any space they occupy to believe that that future exists for us and then figure out how we’re going to make it a reality.
[ARIELLE] Thank you, panelists, for joining me today. I do see that we, don’t have Q&A in the box, which is totally fine. I think we covered a lot of ground today. I do want to give a few minutes now to see if anyone in the audience does have a question that they haven’t had a chance to add. And while folks are adding those questions, I will invite all of the panelists here. If there is anything that you wanted to say on this panel that you didn’t get an opportunity to share, I invite you, while folks are adding potentially to the Q&A box, to share that now. And it’s okay if you don’t.
[ERICKA] This is Ericka. I could add, something I was thinking about in terms of, like, bracing for the future. Like thinking about how disabled people and disabled trans people, have been raising, like, our material needs and, getting our material needs met for so long and are still, like, living our lives and, experiencing high levels of violence and, experiencing such high levels of control and things like that, and so and not being seen as an issue of justice. And so I would love for journalists to, again, like, look for those pieces of solidarity in those ways of solidarity between movements, and report again, like reporting on not just kind of like the way class trans person, but also like thinking about, Black trans disabled people, indigenous disabled people, poor disabled people, trans disabled people, and look for those stories as well.
Part 3: Echoes of Eugenics: Reporting on Marginalized Disabled Communities
[ARIELLE] I am so, so excited to share this content with y’all today. So I wanted to run through a few ground housekeeping rules for this session here today. First and foremost, I know that some of you are journalists. Some of you are not. We welcome anyone who wants to be in this space, into this space. However, as is indicated in the title, this webinar is specifically geared towards reporting. Folks who are reporting on marginalized disabled communities, which we know is anyone who reports on anything because disabled people, like all people, are a part of every story where in all areas of life, being people, existing on this earth with everyone else. So if you add a question to the Q&A, which we encourage folks to do throughout our time here today, if you are a journalist, I encourage you to indicate that somewhere in the body of the question that you ask. So if we do have too many questions to answer, I, as the moderator, can make sure to prioritize your questions over other folks, to make sure that we maintain journalist front and center in this space.
[ARIELLE] I’d also like to quickly introduce you to some support folks we have in this room today. So first I want to introduce folks to K Richardson. K, I invite you to come off camera for a moment here. Thank you K. So K is Transgender Law Center’s communications manager. He is also our wonderful content moderator for today. K’s role is to make sure that this space remains respectful and supportive. And so, you know, we know that folks can’t use the chat, but we want to make sure that if there are any issues, folks feel like this is a respectful space to honor the content we’re talking about today. Folks are welcome to message K with that. The second, and thank you so much K, is Oliver. Oliver, feel free to come off camera now as well. Oliver is with TLC’s Narrative Lab, and Oliver is our technical and accessibility lead for today’s call. Each of you should already have the ability to enable closed captioning in any language that you would like in the bottom of your screen. If you have any issues doing that, feel free to message Oliver with those concerns. However, if you go to the bottom right hand corner of your screen, there should be a button that says ‘Show Captions’. You should also be able to see the full panel transcript at any time, using that button. Thank you so much, Oliver. You can go back off camera and, great. And Oliver, also thank you. Just drop the participant agenda in the chat. And I encourage folks to open that up to follow along. True to what I encourage you all to do. I really need a sip of water. So I’m going to go ahead and take care of my body right now.
[ARIELLE] Thank you so much, K. Thank you so much Oliver. So excited to have everyone here. So this is the third webinar in a multi-year series focusing on diving deeper into Transgender Law Center’s Journalists Resource series. Which one of my lovely friends can drop into the chat now for folks who want to peruse, our goal in this space is to unfold, as indicated in your agenda. We really want to connect each of you to the subject matter experts that we have here in this panel today. Ericka, Cara, Sebastian, and Akemi, who you’ll hear from in a moment, are subject matter experts across areas of disability and eugenics. With particular areas of expertise. And we would love for you all as journalists or communications professionals, to feel you can lean on them as subject matter experts on these topics. When you are exploring this in your work.
[ARIELLE] And then lastly, also to support journalists with becoming more confident reporting on marginalized disabled communities because, as we said, no matter what your beat is, no matter what the focus of your organization or your newsroom, there are disabled people in your stories. The question is, how do we, as storytellers, make sure to respectfully and meaningfully include disabled people in all the stories that we tell? So now I’m going to go ahead and turn it over to my wonderful panelists. I would love to have folks start with their round of introductions. Your name, pronouns, and job title. And for accessibility purposes, giving a description of yourself, what you’re wearing, and your surroundings. I will actually go first and then pass it down the line of who I have in order of this screen.
[ARIELLE] My name is Arielle, I am a white femme presenting person with long, wavy brown hair with blond highlights. I am wearing a red keffiyeh and a blue button-down denim, like, but, very much, for sensory reasons, not denim shirt. And Saffron has joined me on the screen with his orange tail. I’m, the background is orange with these darker and lighter orange little floral designs. And I will go ahead and pass it to Sebastian.
[SEBASTIAN] Thanks, Arielle. Hi, everybody. I am actually going to pass it to Ericka, and then we can have it back as needed.
[ARIELLE] Great. Thank you, Sebastian.
[ERICKA] Hi, everyone. My name is Ericka Ayodele Dixon. I use they/them pronouns. I’m a senior national organizer and co-lead the disability project with my brilliant, wonderful colleague, Sebastian. I am a brown-skinned femme non-binary person. I’m wearing a blue shirt that has varying colors of blue and white on it with a collar. My hair is braided, with various shades of brown in kind of like braided Mohawk style. And my background is, I believe that’s green. It’s kind of green with white spots and a little wavy, kind of psychedelic looking little wave thing on the left side. Red side, right side. That’s like pink, blue, and green. And I will pass it to Cara.
[CARA] Hi. My name’s Cara Reedy. I’m the executive director of the Disabled Journalists Association. My pronouns are she/her. I am a middle-aged, light-skinned Black woman with long, dark brown hair with blond highlights. I’m wearing a navy blue shirt with a scoop neck, and my background is the same as Ericka’s. Except my little wavy thing is to the right, not to the left. And I’ll pass it to Akemi.
[AKEMI] This is Akemi Nishida. I use she/her gender pronoun. I am an advocate for disability justice activism. And also I do teaching and research at the University of Illinois in Chicago. The visual description of myself: I’m a North East Asian cis woman who’s ally for the trans community. I’m wearing a neon yellow, pink, orange sweatshirt, sweater with black, straight, medium hair. I have a visible physical disability I was born with, among other invisible conditions. My background is same as Ericka and Cara. Sebastian, can I send it back to you?
[SEBASTIAN] Thanks, Akemi. Hi again, everybody. I’m Sebastian Margaret and alongside the incredible Ericka Dixon, we co-lead the disability project as a senior national organizer. The disability project is a program of the Policies and Programs department of the Trans Law Center. It’s a tremendous honor to be here with you all. Pronouns mine are they and them. I am an older trans masc, non-binary, white, old school butch wearing a kind of lavender floral collared shirt. My background is blurred and not at all like any of the other panelists, because that’s just how we are sometimes, a little on the noncompliance side, we like to mix things up. But it’s a blurred background. Me wearing gray see-through glasses, and me think that’s it. So we will pass it back to Arielle.
[ARIELLE] Thank you so much. I invite your noncompliance in this space. Wonderful. One thing I wanted to address that came in through the Q&A. I had accidentally messed up the settings, but folks should now be able to message only panelists and hosts. And so now you should be able to message K and Oliver with the appropriate problems. I know folks were asking about messaging other people in this space for the purposes of cybersecurity and meeting the moment that we are at as, you know, in this country at this political moment. We at Transgender Law Center feel elected not to reveal other attendees to each other. However, I do know the wonderful folks at Press on Movement Journalism are curating a lot of spaces where there are those opportunities. This space, unfortunately, and I’m sorry to say, is not, is not for that purpose specifically. That is not to say that we are the only subject matter experts, is not to set up a hierarchy. It is purely to ensure that any risk that people are taking, they are fully briefed on that risk with the understanding that no matter how much people that come into this space, there’s always the opportunity and there’s always the risk that people take by entering into a virtual space. And so I hope people can join me in that understanding today. And, so I apologize if that was not what some folks in the audience were hoping for. But I hope folks still get a lot out of this time here today.
[ARIELLE] I am going to actually start by kicking it over to Seb and Ericka. So I’d love for you both to kick us off. When people talk about eugenics, often they think of it as something from the distant past. Right? But we know that eugenics rhetoric and practice are unfortunately still really common today. So I love for the both of you to share some examples of how eugenics is practiced in present day, how this connects to the history of eugenics, and how journalists in this audience can contextualize that in their writing.
[ERICKA] Okay. Thank you, Arielle. This is Ericka speaking. I’ll start us off. So I wanted to definitely, I appreciate this question about recognizing that eugenics is still alive. Well, very present in this current moment. I think a lot of folks believe that, you know, eugenics really started in the period of the 1920s. There’s the eugenics movement, and then it kind of went away. And what we know, especially as like a Black disabled person, is that like eugenics started way before that. Eugenics started with the colonization of this country, of this land, started with the genocide of indigenous folks, started with the Middle Passage for Black folks. And, recognizing that all of this was really predicated on the idea that there are some bodies that aren’t worthy of being considered human and that there’s some bodies that are needed because they’re less than human, need to be controlled, need to be criminalized, need to be punished, even. And those bodies were not anyone who is not white, able-bodied, cisgendered, heterosexual, male, wealthy. And we know that, because of these ideas, steeped in ableism. Indigenous genocide, enslavement, all of these were mass disabling events for folks, for a huge swath of populations and communities. And that idea of assigning value to certain bodies enables a lot of what we’re really like, the grounding of a lot of the, what we’re seeing now.
[ERICKA] And so thinking about rhetoric around certain people and government, you know, really pushing the idea that disabled folks are inefficient for the economy, that there should be like a different registries for people. Even like the idea of floating around like work camps for mental illness, quote, unquote, like all of that is really steeped in idea that disabled life is not worth living. And disabled people aren’t seen as human beings. And if we think about that fundamental piece of ableism and we think about how it’s connected to anti-Black racism and how Black people, we’re not seen as human beings and were disposable. And that led to direct violence to Black folks. Just as this idea of ableism leads to direct violence and disabled folks, that’s interconnected. We can’t talk about disability without talking about anti-Blackness. We can’t talk about disability and ableism without talking about misogyny and capitalism and imperialism. So all of these things are like, are all connected. And, if we think about what’s happening now with like cuts to Medicaid and Snap and the overpolicing, over criminalization of Black and Brown folks, of migrants, all of these are based on the idea that there’s still a hierarchy of bodies and that in order to maintain the kind of like moral fiber, quote unquote, of this country, they also put in quotes, that we need to maintain the kind of white, wealthy, male status quo.
[ERICKA] And I think something that journalists can be really helpful in is really like being able to name eugenics when it’s happening right now. So even the things I talked about with like Medicaid and Snap, and then a very specific example is the recent migration, I guess, of White South African families being brought to the United States as like the good immigrants seeking refuge from their country. And thinking about, like, literally bringing more White bodies into the United States while actively trying to dispose of, criminalize, curtail and dispose of Black and Brown bodies from the United States. All in the name of eugenics and kind of keeping the power consolidated with the wealthy. So I’ve been talking a lot, so I’m going to stop and pass it to Seb, but that’s kind of what we’re thinking about.
[SEBASTIAN] This is Sebastian. Trying to figure out what is left to say. Yeah. That was incredible. Thank you. Possibly some recommendations for reporters to take out of that. If you have some ideas, or just any additional context you want to provide.
[ARIELLE] Yes. No. Thank you, Arielle.
[SEBASTIAN] Well, we are trying to shift through because we think, to Ericka’s point and the kind of concept whole of this time with you all. And thank you so much for being here, is that there is so much that needs to be covered as it relates to eugenics, as it relates to that in all the ways that Ericka very specifically and precisely outlined and more, as deeply connected to eugenics and White supremacy, misogyny and I would add, like this deep, deep, deep hatred and repulsion of the poor. That is true in many countries, but has a particular veracity for the U.S. And right alongside that, because these things never work solo, is the kind of growing tide of vitriol and attack against those of us who are trans or non-binary, which of course lands and affects all trans and non-binary folks, and then particularly impacts large folks who are marginalized even within that identity of like gender deviance.
[SEBASTIAN] And the eugenics in that is critical to pay attention to because it both mirrors and fuels the tide. The eugenics mechanism that Ericka outlined as it pertains to anti-Black racism, misogyny and I would say the really like horrific and foul like leveraging of a really fundamentalist Christian nationalist agenda that has always been integral into the founding of this country, has always been at the forefront of how this country created itself. But has been, has had checks and balances, has included the notion of pluralism, has recognized that there was a flaw from inception about who was, in fact, deemed to be a citizen of this country and to what end. But there has been progress that is currently being incredibly attacked, really eroded and the driving factor behind that is this ideology of eugenics, which disabled folks, particularly marginalized disabled folks, have a very particular connection to and have a very deep familiarity with.
[SEBASTIAN] And whether we’re talking about the way that the poor are being attacked in this moment, the way migrants are being attacked, the way population control that is historically seen as being only in a certain moment, is beginning to be resurfaced in this very explicit way around who is a legitimate refugee to enter or not enter the borders of this country, who are legitimate bodies to carry and bring forth a suitably morally like, morally deemed, valuable personage, whether that’s body, mind or character. These are all eugenic tropes that date way back to the eugenic area, and prior, and that context cannot be either understated or overlooked. Like the ask of you all is to really pay attention to those, to those connections and to those overlaps, and recognize that neither one of them operates in isolation from the other. And that’s critical to know, because it is how ableism works. And I would say most potently, it is how the far right have always mobilized their attacks against each and every one of us as marginalized disabled folks and our communities, even if able-bodied. And so if we don’t match that strategy to scale and with clarity, we won’t meet this moment nor protect the people in the way that we are bound to. And, our very existence and moral compasses dictate that we should.
[ARIELLE] Thank you so much, Sebastian and Ericka, that was all incredible. And so to sort of draw out some top line concepts, you know, one of the asks that’s being made of storytellers is to connect all forms of violence and oppression to each other, to connect anti-Blackness, to ableism, to eugenics, to all these forms of violence, and understand that there can’t, there is not one, no form of violence, no form of oppression lives in isolation. And to really interrogate the impact and the influence of eugenic rhetoric and practice in whatever it is that you are writing about, whatever it is you are talking about. Did I miss anything, Seb and Ericka, in that sort of top line just take away?
[ARIELLE] Cool. Yeah. So that being said, you know, we’ve heard about attacks. We’ve heard about the context both historically and current that we’re living under. I want to hear from Akemi now. Akemi, as someone who was a community organizer, is now working in academia, wrote a wonderful book that I’m gonna embarrass you by pulling up to my screen right now. If folks… And actually, actually, I’m not on speaker here, folks can’t see me, but, you know, talk to us about some key wins from your time as a community organizer. And particularly any wins that you experienced related to eugenics.
[AKEMI] Yeah. Thank you, Arielle, this is Akemi speaking. So to start talking about some example wins. I want to start by saying that disabled people, we are winning every day in small ways, just surviving every day in this current political context that Ericka and Sebastian explained, is the win. It’s on its own, even though it is getting harder with a deep cut in the Medicaid budget. That’s going on and going to happen. So as you try to broadcast about wins from disability community, I want you to adjust to what counts as a win and whatnot.
[AKEMI] With that said, one example I want to give from Illinois and in Chicago is the Community Emergency Services and Support Act, which we called CESSA, C E S S A, which was passed and became Illinois Law in 2021. So CESSA is the alternative to police deployment. So the Chicago-based grassroots racial justice disability justice organization, AYLP, Advanced Youth Leadership Power, has worked to create this law with the family of Stephon Watts, who was a Black teenager who is autistic, who was killed by police in 2012. So the families and young adults, Black and Brown, disabled young adults, organizer of AYLP worked, you know, ten years to develop CESSA. So with CESSA, what’s happening in Illinois at implementation, it’s going on right now. But what’s happening in Illinois is that when people with psychiatric disability experience episode or people with health, behavioral health, experiencing behavioral health crises. Before this law, they had no choice but to call 911 to receive the support because the Chicago previous mayors cut the budget for the mental health and wellness.
[AKEMI] So this law, what this policy is doing is that when people have such mental health behavioral health crisis, they can call alternative number and mental health professionals and a support team is dispatched instead of police. And the ideally, each neighborhood of Illinois will develop their own wellness mental health specialists team, whatever that makes sense to the local, and they will come to support the person who made the call. And by honoring the self-determination of the person. So the person might say, I just want to go home and be surrounded by loved ones, and don’t send me to a psychiatric hospital, for instance. And this policy demands those teams to respect and honor such request. But again, implementation is ongoing. So there is multiple people working to make it to realities.
[AKEMI] And as one of that person in the chat, ask what’s example of current day eugenics, which Ericka and Sebastian directly responded, but I would like to add police brutality is an eugenic issue, particularly how it targets Black and Brown disabled people and in Chicago, in Illinois, unfortunately, witness so much of such murders. So CESSA is a very revolutionary act to that young Black and Brown disabled people from the South side of Chicago, most of them with the leadership of Chicago-based activist Candice Coleman, created and passed and now implementing that, to change the ways in which we think about the response to people who are having crisis.
[ARIELLE] Amazing. Thank you so much, Akemi. That was really wonderful. And it’s, I’m as a fellow Chicagoan, it’s always wonderful to hear about organizing here on the ground. Cara, I’d love to now finally turn it over to you. So, you know, as I’ve mentioned several times throughout today’s conversation, disabled people are a part of every story, not just stories that are viewed as disabled stories. Right? Like we are anywhere. We can be everywhere. We are in every story that a journalist could write about. And so I’m wondering, what recommendations you have for journalists who are seeking to include disabled people in every story. Even if that might not be their specific beat.
[CARA] Thank you so much. So, because I report about disability a lot, and I ended up spending a lot of time when I was in newsrooms trying to find out disabled stories, mostly because in the newsroom, I was marginalized so much that I was like, oh, let me find my own, like, path that no one else is doing. And that turned into disability. And here’s the thing. Like when you’re looking at stories to cover, whether it’s climate change or police brutality or, you know, name it, housing, all of them disabled people are always going to be deeply affected by that. Like, we’re always going to have less supports. We always are going to have less funds to get us out of situations. So there’s not a story that you can do that is not going to affect disabled people.
[CARA] And I, I find, and this is just my own personal bias. But like if you’re going to tell a story about climate change, like and this goes for everything, if you look for disabled stories, you will get the full story of the system breakdown, because we as journalists are supposed to be pointing out where the system is failing or where the system was never built, was for purpose, and so if you look for disabled people in that story, you are going to find the nexus and the crux of the brokenness of the system. And if you avoid it, you are never going to get to the root issue. Like that’s just basic stuff. And we just, because we live in a society that was based in eugenics and it’s continued to be based in eugenics, we don’t look for disabled people. We think of them as sort of this additive, this extra. Well, if we have time, we’ll write about disabled people, which means we’re going to continue to have a broken system, like all the way through. It never serves anyone to ignore us.
[CARA] I mean, you look at the current what’s happening in the current system and this just, this doesn’t have to do political parties like, you can look, both sides are doing some really gross things to disabled people right now. You look at, Cuomo is running for mayor, and he did some really awful things during Covid that, that killed people. And we’re still and, and everyone is acting like he’s the next savior. But meanwhile, there’s all these people that died, and there were all these people that were traumatized by what he did, and no one’s really talking about it. It’s kind of a blip, like, oh, yeah, remember that time he killed all those people in the nursing home? Oh, well, anyway, he’s really going to reform the world, like. And, you know, but Gavin Newsom is running around in California, with all these new rules for disabled people because, you know, if you’re out on the street and you’re disabled and then you have a certain number of months, you have to comply with him. And if he don’t comply, then we’re going to put you in a conservatorship, which means you have zero. And like, who’s making these rules about who’s complying, like or what compliance needs and why aren’t we questioning him about that? He’s also been photographed throwing away people’s documents and stuff. And these are all disabled people. Like a huge portion of the unhoused population are disabled and so when they tell these stories and they lionize people, and you avoid the fact that he’s doing this to disabled people, well, he looks like a real champion. Getting those disabled people and getting those homeless people off the street because they’re just not complying with society. And no question of why society has left them on the street, or why their circumstances have put them on the street, there’s just punitive. And I think, and that’s what you get when you don’t include disability in the story. It’s a one-sided thing. And so I think, I think that when you’re covering anything, you should think of disabled people first and figure out what’s happening with them and then see the system for what it is.
[ARIELLE] Thank you so much, Cara. Yeah. So part of what I’m hearing from you is instead of having disabled people be an afterthought, having disabled people be the first people that you go to as journalists, as storytellers, when you’re digging into how one of the causes you’re organizing around, one of the causes you’re reporting on is impacting people and using that as a starting point rather than an ending point to ground your story, not just round out your story and how this topic is impacting specifically marginalized disabled people. Right? Like, not necessarily the disabled people that are at the front of organizations, but the disabled people, as you mentioned, who are unhoused and how did they become unhoused? Well, a lot of it is because of lack of access to services, forced poverty, because of supplemental Social Security income limits. There’s so many reasons that, so many systems that cause disabled people to become unhoused. And unless you as a journalist, interrogate that and speak to disabled people ourselves…
[ARIELLE] And so that’s really wonderful context, Cara. And I want to bring it back, actually, to what this webinar is stemmed out of, which is the beautiful guide for reporting on marginalized disabled communities that Seb and Ericka co-led the creation of. I had the honor of supporting this project alongside Transgender Law Center and a number of wonderful reviewers and contributors. Folks, funding our social media is just a really robust team of people added their thoughts to this. So curious to hear from you coming back into this guide, what is it most important for journalists to take away from this resource?
[ERICKA] This is Ericka speaking. I think for me, one of the main points I would love journalists to take away from the guide is exactly what Cara was talking about. Like making those really explicit connections for folks between what’s happening and ableism and anti-Black racism and eugenics. Because usually, like, just like Cara said, whatever story you’re reporting on, like there are disabled people at the forefront of that story. So I think that’s one of the things, and then also like specifically again, like seeking out stories from marginalized disabled communities. So many stories about disabled folks right now, especially stories that are on the more like—I don’t even say like never mind. Stories that appear to be on the positive side, quote unquote, about disability or usually about middle upper class white disabled kids who have somehow overcome their disability by, I don’t know, participating in the Olympics or like, whatever, like, really like leaning into what we call inspiration porn. And this idea that the good disabled person is the person who doesn’t let their disability, like, stop them. And that’s really, like, based in its own form of ableism and anti-Black racism. Because on the flip side, a lot of Black and Brown and Indigenous disabled folks are often portrayed as threats, as burdens, as dangerous, so really like making sure you’re not falling into those tropes and actually, like finding the stories that aren’t already out there. And then the third thing to, like, tie it all together, something that I know I’ve seen journalists do is instead of talking directly to the disabled person themselves about their own stories and their own experiences, they will often talk to a caregiver or a service provider. And those folks cannot speak for the disabled person and their experiences. And so what you’re getting if you do go to those folks is it’s filtered version of what this person’s actually experiencing. And oftentimes, again, it’s being filtered through ableism. And so actually talking to the disabled people themselves about their own experiences is the only way to actually center disabled people in your journalism.
[SEBASTIAN] This is Sebastian, me can add to that, Arielle, if that’s the correct order. And we want to a moment take because we think this continues to kind of like frustrate me and astound me having been doing this work on some level for like multiple decades at this point. Is how prevalent it still is to Ericka’s last point. But we can literally have people who are not living the experience of the systemic oppression and discrimination that needs to be addressed and have other people speak for them and not be considered in any way, form or shape, reasonable or acceptable or viable form of information, a viable place of like inquiry like that astounds me and infuriates me still to this moment. And journalists, amongst other like multiple other places, are really either unintentionally or accidentally or by not really like digging deep on how complex and tenacious ableism is as a system. Often folks who perpetuate that the normality and the acceptability of that when at the same time, we have thankfully reached a point where it is not acceptable for me as a white person, to be talking about the experience of Black folks or other folks of color. Like we know that it’s not things when we have to litigate more any or we certainly shouldn’t or not at the extent that we used to, but it is disabled person. We see this happen to us all the time. And what that does to our capacity to affect change is deep and what that does to your capacity. And folks who want to be aligned with you to affect change is equally harmful. And it really needs to stop. And it needs to stop like a decade ago. So we really, all of us on this panel and the folks that we’re connected to are the bare minimum trying and to up that, try not to be complicit with it, just leave it behind in the kind of medieval time that it kind of really should exist in. So thank you for indulging me in that moment of reflection and frustration. Me would say that the other things that are really critical that me love about this guide and to the endless community folks who helped create it, because of course, there’s always more folks behind the scenes working who don’t get credited. So please know this is a multitude of folks who helped make this happen is the way that it also asks not only that we get smart around the system of ableism as it connects to its cousins, and that it doesn’t work in isolation, is that disabled folks live in a very particular, precise and specific way in relationship to the ways in which our lives are threatened. The amount of violence that we live in and the way that that violence and that humiliation and that mistreatment and abuse usually happens behind closed doors. And the way I myself have come to think about this is that there are systems and mechanisms and locations that were created specifically and exclusively for the service and care of disabled folks. Whether that’s special education, whether that’s the system of guardianship, whether that’s sheltered workspaces, group homes, congregate living centers, daycare centers, psychiatric wards, and on and on. And they are in fact, deeply carceral, deeply violent, deeply extractive, deeply and deeply segregated places. We think of these as a disability council state. So as an entire system of that exists alongside and parallel to, but distinct from the prison industrial complex and the system of mass incarceration and enslavement and imperialism and instruction that both those systems we know are deeply connected to. And me think that would be one of the other things that me would, you know, invite, cajole, entice some vigorous journalism about because we don’t see it. It doesn’t happen. There’s a silence about the amount of violence we live under or it’s excused through ableist notions of stress and burden and burnout. Or it is this, like absence of a systemic approach, right? That the journalism that you’re doing actually is looking at is not an individualized story about an individualized person in an individual moment. We know that’s not how power and supremacy works. Pan out, get bigger. Take what you know about other supremacy systems, apply that journalistic rigor, apply that kind of like deep sense of needing to investigate and reveal and explore how these places that are specifically designed for disabled folks are deeply connected to population control, are highly eugenic, and a places where violence is enacted upon us at an endemic level that is not recognized, not reckoned with, and not at all in the forefront of the public’s mind because of the lack of access to that information. And we will pause there and pass it to whoever else is next.
[ARIELLE] Thank you so much. In the interest of time, we’re going to kind of keep moving through the questions. That being said, if there’s anything that panelists feel is really missing from the context of any of these questions, you are always welcome to chime in, in those moments. Yeah. Thanks so much, Sebastian, for highlighting the workings of the disability carceral state. I think that’s so critical. And I do hope that journalists in this audience, who are interested in talking, will reach out to SEBASTIAN, Ericka, via zoom is our communications director, which is where most of the media inquiries come in. And other care Oliver can drop Sue’s email in the chat. For folks who are interested in reaching out, but really digging deeper and investigating the disability carceral state in particular, who is benefiting financially from the incarceration and the subjugation of marginalized disabled people. Where who where’s the money? Coming from? Where is it going? Is something that I think a lot of us have been curious about. And there are numerous instances, such as Arcadia Health Care, profiting from keeping patients against their will, that we already know this is happening. And we also know that just like with the prison industrial complex, the disability carceral state runs deep. And so I want to turn it back over to Akemi.
[ARIELLE] So, you know, obviously something that journalists do in reporting is contextualize past wins, contextualize the past in the, as it relates to the present. But something I want to hear from you, because we know that community organizing wins are ongoing and deserve more consistent coverage. How can journalists plug in to community organizing wins in the present day, particularly anti-eugenics organizing?
[AKEMI] Yeah. Thank you, Arielle, this is Akemi speaking. I think my response is that I could dig and dig and dig and keep digging. So with that said, the first point I want to bring out is a look into local organizing. You might start, you know, looking for someone to interview by asking national organization like a disability project led by Ericka and Sebastian. But from there, I want you to dig deeper and ask like, who are in Chicago, can talk about these things going on in Chicago right now. Even when you search somebody from the Instagram, go deeper, because oftentimes those who are multiply marginalized, who’s just spending, you know, their day to chase the doctors, chase the insurance company, chase the Medicaid payment chase, you know, whatever they need to chase, they might not have a most fancy Instagram in the world. Right? So I want you to dig deeper and go to always go to local. Don’t, you know, I don’t want you to go to disability activists in Washington, DC to represent every corner of this country, right. So the first point is look into local organizing. The second point, as you reach out to disabled people to interview or get inside. The second point I want to bring up is the importance of building relationship with those who you interview. I want you to understand that in the current political climate, particularly, disabled people have so many things we want to say, but so many of us are afraid to say so. With our name and a face attached to the story, particularly, as you know, the government’s thinking to develop autism registry, wellness forms and such and such. So I want you to understand that. And clearly explain to the people you’re going to interview what’s going to happen to their story. And I want you to support our risk characterization and decision making. The final decision should stay with disabled people who is sharing their stories, but you can inform us what are the potential risks, because many disabled people are not used to or have many experience of being interviewed or their stories to be featured in different news sources. So sometimes we don’t know the full picture of risks we are putting ourselves in. I think that’s where you can support to inform us so that we can make informed decisions. So the second point is to consider, you know, building a relationship with us as you interview us or ask for our insights. The third part is don’t give up on us with just the one try. I know the journalist needs a story quickly and articulated right away and into whatever the time frame you follow. But for many disabled people, responding to journalists is not their priority. They have so many other things they have to prioritize to survive again. So even if certain activists or organization you reach out might say no for the first time or might say, like, we don’t have time or they might never get back to you because again, that’s not their priority. When that happen, I don’t want you to give up. I want you to keep trying and trying to think that it’s part of their relationship building so that we can trust you. We know our risk, and we can get to know you as we trust you with our stories.
[ARIELLE] Yeah. Thank you so much Akemi. Something that’s coming up for me, too, is this ongoing conversation about anonymity and pseudonyms within journalist spaces that I’ve particularly heard resurface, since the election. And one thing that I would push for is continue encouraging your newsrooms, if they are still oppositional, to allowing pseudonyms and anonymity, to allow that and, and have the burden of anonymity of, like, what it means to be unsafe to be public about who what your name is and who you are to be much lower. Right? Because there are risks, there are people being criminalized for things that aren’t illegal. There are people that are being removed or pushed into the disability carceral state. Whether or not you based on your newsroom’s understanding of criminalization or illegality, that person has done something that were inside. And so leaning into trusting people about whether they need to be anonymous and, really representing that voice to your newsroom, when it comes to someone’s request to be anonymous or to use a pseudonym, or to not use a picture or to leave their location, obscure things like that.
[ARIELLE] So, Cara, I want to hear a little bit more, you know, Akemi touched on this, what it is like working with disabled sources and some things to balance. Do you have other tips for journalists trying to balance the pressure of deadlines with that slower pace at which many disabled people often need to move? And also what happens when journalists don’t do that?
[CARA] Yeah. Thank you. So, this Cara speaking, so I think part of the problem, too, is that when you have the idea that disability is an additive, not the main story, you haven’t spent the time to build up your contacts. And so that should really start happening before you have a story. I’ve spent the I’ve, I’ve had the I’ve been lucky and I’ve spent a lot of time building up relationships across the disability community all over the country. And that comes from just having conversations and asking questions. Sometimes when you’re working on one story and a question comes up in your mind and you’re like, oh, I don’t know the answer to that. That’s that. And it may not go in that story, but that’s the time to reach out to somebody and say, hey, I have this question like, what does this mean? And start digging. Then like as a side hustle, like a side project so that there isn’t really a deadline with that. That’s just something you’re working on for later. And it may turn into a story, but the main thing is that you really need to be really curious about what’s happening. And so if every thing can’t be, well, this is on the deadline. And so I need this answer now. And so then you go to the same five people that you know will answer, or the person with the largest Tik Tok following often those people. And no, no, I’m not trying to down anyone for having a huge Tik Tok following. But like a lot of times that’s what they do, is they spend their days on TikTok and they’re not actually experts, but they’ve but because they have spent so much time on Tik Tok creating content, they’re really good at spinning it and they’re really good at like kind of looking at the field and being able to have an opinion and kind of talking about things. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they have any contact with people on the ground. And so that is a way of of getting someone to say something. But it may not be the best person to say that to get a comment down. And so you’re passing on more sort of bad information or uninformed information. So I think the real the biggest thing is that you need to take the time to make the relationships in every newsroom that I’ve ever worked in, the people that were the most well-sourced on whatever subject, not just disability. Like I knew a guy that had all of the sources for like the automotive industry and the banking industry like two sort of disparate places. And it was because he just spent his time, like calling people and talking to them and sort of indulging in his curiosity and asking questions when he wasn’t on deadline. You know, if you think of a question one week and you start looking for a person to ask a question, by the next week, you will have that, and then maybe you’ll have another story to tell that you can expand on. And you’ve built a relationship. So relationship building is the biggest thing. Like I don’t think that they we teach enough of that in journalism is that this is about talking to people and getting gaining their trust.
[ARIELLE] Yeah. Thank you so much, Cara, this is Arielle again. Something that I also think is both applies to communications professionals, because I know there are some comms folks in this room and two journalists is, I mean, particularly as comms professional. Something that we can do is as we build relationships with disabled people, as we build those people into our stories, metaphorical bench of spokespeople. If we know that there are topics that they are experts on, that they want to comment on getting quotes ahead of time. Right? Like banking quotes ahead of time about topics that we know might enter the news stories, and then the burden of finalizing that quote to make it particular to something that shows up in the news later on, is just about tweaking that quote to apply to what is currently happening. This is something that allows, you know, folks that need to work at a slower pace or need to prioritize other things other than replying to journalists to still be able to get a quote in the media, get their perspective in there without having to move on. Such a fast paced deadline. It is a way to sort of balance those, often opposing forces.
[ARIELLE] So I usually like to stop for Q&A at the hour, but it looks like we only have one question in the Q&A. So I am going to keep going with sort of the predetermined questions that we have discussed. I’m curious to hear from anyone who wants to share. Now, if a journalist in this audience were to write a story about marginalized disabled life or even about your life in particular, you know, in general or particularly your life, what would you want that story to focus on? What would you want it to share about?
[CARA] I’ll jump in. This is Cara. So I’ve been actually the subject of journalist, like, wanting because I, I didn’t mention in my description, but I, I’m a dwarf. So, like, I’ve had a lot of journalists reach out to me to talk to me about my life and like, I don’t personally, I don’t want to talk about my life. Like, that’s just me. Like, I don’t really want you in my business. I am happy to talk to you about the larger, like, here’s what’s happening. Like, here’s the things that we need to talk about and system wise. But like, I think sometimes journalists focus too much on what is personally happening to someone, which then quickly devolves into inspiration porn. And I, I get that like, I mean, I’m a journalist. I get that you have to ask people about their lives in order to illustrate a story, but I’m really weary of getting too in the weeds about what’s happening in my family. And I think I think a lot of people are, too. So I think we need to, as journalists need to watch that. Like if you are being affected by Medicaid cuts. Okay, let’s talk about what my how my life will be changed with my Medicaid cuts. I don’t need you to know who my mom is or or her thoughts like that kind of stuff. So that’s my two cents.
[ARIELLE] Yeah. And I want to add sort of a what might be a potential reframe coming in from an audience member is what are some stories surrounding or relating to disability and or disabled people that are either not being covered or are under covered right now by journalists? So, you know, that is similar to the question we’re already answering, but curious if that helps folks think about what you might want to see.
[ERICKA] This is Ericka. I think, kind of back to SEB’s point about the disability carceral state. That’s and that’s severely under-covered. I think, and really, like me, like understanding, you know, just like the systemic nature of how ableism works. And I think the thing that comes to mind is like, I think there is such a missed opportunity, for example, with this whole idea of guardianship and guardianship, you know, was in the news a few years ago or whatever, because celebrities like all the things. But there wasn’t ever that I saw any other like in-depth news reporting of the actual like systemic nature of guardianship and how it specifically affects Black and Brown disabled people in like, various specific ways, and how difficult it is and for people to get out of it, how all encompassing guardianship is. And so that that’s something I think about. It’s like a missed opportunity. And then looking at like group homes and like Arielle was saying like following the money, like a lot of group homes are privately run. Who’s investing, who’s benefiting, who’s making the like day to day decisions? Are disabled people in group homes able to, like, assert their agency usually not. So it’s it’s like looking into those specific locations of the disability carceral state. For me, it’s something I would love for there to be more like deep investigative journalists journalism into.
[AKEMI] I can add that to about the question of what about the story about disability is not covered. And this is Akemi speaking as Cara and everybody else describes everything you’re covering had something to do with disability, something to do with ableism. It’s not about specific disability studies that’s omitted, but I think just disability and ableism in general are somehow missing or eliminated or neglected from every story you tell. For instance, again, going back to the police brutality in Chicago, some of the areas report include that persons disability identity alongside with race and gender and such. But as the story goes on, somehow the disability identity gets dropped in the second or third or fourth time that story is told. So what I want from, you know, journalists reporting about the disability community is to report complex humanities of ours as a complex. I don’t know why you have to pick 1 or 2 identities and the, you know, leave the rest like we are more than just the 1 or 2 things. So as you, you know, broadcast about disabled people’s situations or stories and such, I want you to kind of, you know, take us as complex being and report us as a complex being as well.
[SEBASTIAN] This is Sebastian and we can add in fast, as fast as we can ways. And me think another opportunity that’s missed being in this moment, which is, is the piece around body autonomy, right, and self-determination and dignity, and specifically for disabled folks, which is a fight we’ve had from time and that there’s this moment and me speaks as a trans person, like in a trans organization that is working hard to but like whether it’s on a legal, a community, a messaging front to navigate this moment of intense attacks upon the bodily autonomy of trans and gender non-conforming folks. And we are committed to that. And at the time, saying, what is, what TLC and the Disability Project and other disability activists are pushing for is, in fact, an alignment of movement to be like, we need to connect the the bodily autonomy of trans folks that’s under attack right now with the absence of bodily autonomy for disabled folks, trans or otherwise, you know, and how that is different depending on whether you are white and disabled and trans or whether you are Black and disabled and trans. And we feel like that is another massive gap, that is being tackled within movements, slowly but surely. TLC’s one of the places that leads that. And yet we would love the support of journalists to expand that frame of what does get what does. As we navigate and wrestle with and reconcile, what does gender affirming care need to be like? How does it need to be implemented? It is a given. It’s a right. It should happen. What does disability affirming health care look like? What does disability affirming housing look like? Like? These are, I think this is another moment where there’s a tremendous opportunity. There’s a lot of political pressure. It is a moment. I think journalists play a tremendous and key part of helping expand the frame on a political issue that builds alignment across differences, and this would be one of those moments. So lean on it and back towards us. We are you. We’ve existed from time.
[ARIELLE] Thank you so much, all. I think that’s a beautiful note to close out before we move into, there’s a couple questions from the audience that I want to make sure we get to you before we go to time. And I’d love, just in the interest of time for only one of the panelists to answer each of these. We have about five minutes left, before the close of our time together. So the first one is from a journalist, asking what advice do you have for balancing sayings, someone is espousing eugenicist views and legal concerns with calling someone a eugenics?
[CARA] So I don’t necessarily think you have to, like, say the word eugenics or eugenicist in anywhere in your writing. Like, because that’s a tricky thing to say. It’s like calling someone a racist. Then you’re going to get like, people are going to be like, what? I’m not racist. But you can question them based on their eugenicist ideas, and you can bring history and context to them without using the word and say, well, this feels like I mean, I’m always like, hey, well, this feels a little bit like this. Back then when this many people died, what do you say? Like, you know what I’m saying? Like, what do you say to people who are bringing up the past and relating it to what your decisions that you’re making today? And what what are the outcomes that you’re looking for? Because the outcomes last time were this and have you studied that. Like what? What are you expecting to do. And the numbers like you just keep keep dancing around it. But keep asking the more and more questions. I think a lot of, how you get around it is you ask more questions than the one and then it they will reveal themselves, because that’s all you want is for them to reveal themselves and their goals. I hope that helps.
[ARIELLE] Yeah. This is Arielle. Thank you so much, Cara, for that. Okay. So, the last question we have from audience is, are there any local or national reporting strategies that you’re starting to see being utilized more for deeper investigations?
[CARA] Sorry. Someone was texting me from the house. Like, what was the question? That happens during webinars. It just does. Well. What was the question again, I apologize. Local or national reporting strategy that you’re starting to see being utilized more for deeper investigations. What are the local strategies that are being used, local or national? So, I, I’m I’ll be real. I don’t see it like there’s, there are people that are doing the work, like there are individual reporters that are absolutely doing the work. And so I don’t want to denigrate I mean, one of them is on the call right now, is doing work and like pumping out work. But like as far as like, are there networks that are that have like, strategy to cover disability, to cover trans issues, stuff like that? No. And like that’s partially because of the environment we’re in. And like, journalists journalism is under attack, but I’m not going to let them on there because that’s not actually the full picture. The full picture is they didn’t have much taste for it before anyway. So it’s not like they’re retracting that much. It’s they never really had the base or the strategy. And now they’re just kind of I mean, a lot of them are just like, oh, well, we don’t all of those one offs we used to do, let’s just not do any of them because we’re in trouble. And so let’s not worry about it. And so they’re not it’s not like there’s an infrastructure that, that they’re now dismantling within journalism. They never really built it.
[ARIELLE] Thank you so much Cara. This is Arielle again. So yeah, I mean, one of the things, though, to Cara’s point is there are some people that are doing this well. And based on the tips and things we’ve shared today, connect with other people doing this reporting. Connect with people. You see doing it well in some of the ways we’ve discussed today, and talk to them to get some, you know, reach out for some peer for peer support. The the movement journalism listserv by the folks in Press On has a number of great journalists. It is a place to connect with journalists who are doing this kind of work and doing it really well and thinking about how to do it better. So I do encourage folks who are looking for examples to join that listserv, and be a part of that community. I realize we are at time now. So I want to do you want to close us out and encourage folks to head to that Bitly? bit.ly/tlc-jrs which I will also put in the chat. That is your way to sign up for future programing with TLC. We will have multiple additional webinars. We will distribute resources. You are welcome to indicate that you’d like to join our press list at that link. There is a sign up sheet on that page, in addition to the guide for reporting on marginalized disabled communities that inspired this call. So thank you so much to my brilliant panelists, Cara, Sebastian, Ericka, Akemi, you all were wonderful. And I am going to go ahead and stop the recording now. Thank you all so much.
Fall 2025: Reporting on Trans Migrants
Coming soon!
Part 5
Coming soon!
Part 6
Coming soon!
Journalist Resource Series
Guides for Reporting on Trans Communities
Guide for Reporting on Marginalized Disabled Communities
Guide for Reporting on Trans Youth and Gender-Affirming Medical Care
Guide for Reporting on Anti-Trans Athletic Bans
A Language Guide: Abortion and Reproductive Care
Messaging Trans Futures: Narrative Power for the World We Deserve
[MODERATOR] So all of us want a future where we are free, where we are free to be our authentic selves, where we are free from rigid boxes, where we are free to make decisions about our bodies, free to show up for our families, for our selves, for our communities in all of the ways that we know how and that we want to. And we unfortunately know that there is and has been for many decades, this extremely vocal minority of far right bad actors that are continually organizing to move us further away from this vision of the future that we are all working towards. So we know that that world is within our grasp, and we know that the road to get there cannot be paid simply by saying what we don’t want, right? We have to think of the shared vision of the future that we want to, and can create together and will create together when we join forces, when we bring together panels like this, discussions of leaders across movements to create that shared vision and create that shared roadmap and integrate what we’ve found together into building that future. We have to all continually work together, and specifically within narrative and comms work, to develop a consistent and coordinated narrative strategy across organizations, across movement ecosystems, across community that brings together the largest number of people possible into that shared vision of the future, and into developing the path that we are building to get there. So you’re going to hear over this next hour from a number of wonderful panelists, movement leaders who have worked together prior to who have work to do just that, who have work to build infrastructure with their eye movements, build narrative strategy, generate ideas, come up with teachings, learnings, and really, get us closer to building narrative power for the world that we deserve. So, since we are live streaming, one of the things I’m going to have the panelists do as we go ahead and do a round of intros is to, describe what their, their visual presentation so that folks following along at home, especially those who are visually impaired, are able to follow fully. So I turn it over to all of you panelists. Going straight down the line, starting with Anna to give a brief introduction.
[ANNA CASTRO] Hi, all. My name is Anna Castro. My pronouns are they them, and I am the principal narrative strategist at Transgender Law Center. I am a brown Latin person that is extremely oily right now under these shiny lights, with curly hair, sweating. And I work for the nation’s largest trans led organization, advocating for a world in which trans and non-binary people are thriving or live thriving and fighting for liberation.
[TEAL AND SUNISA] Good afternoon everyone. I am Teal and Sunisa. I use she and her pronouns. I have brown hair. I’m wearing a black mask and a black short sleeved t shirt. I am the associate vice president of justice initiatives at the Urban Resource Institute, which is located in New York City. I’ve been an economic justice advocate for over a decade, and I’ve been specifically working with survivors of violence and queer and trans folks for that amount of time. I’ve done organizing on a city, state, and national level around issues of economic justice. And I’m really excited to be here with you all today.
[LUCY O’MEARA] Hey, y’all. My name is Lucy O’Meara. I use any pronouns. I am a black trans masculine person currently wearing a black mask, also wearing black traditional Nigerian wear. If you can smell through the TV, I smell delicious. I am a Leo sun. Scorpio moon. Libra rising. That matters. I am the co executive director and co-founder of the Black LGBTQIa plus Migrante project, or Bill. And we work at the intersections of race, sex, gender, and sexuality and migration. To see a world without forced migration where no one, especially black people, are forced to give up their homelands.
[MARIA CHO] Hey, my name is Maria Cho. I use the and she pronouns. I, from Chicago, Midwest pride. Yes. I am a white, short haired person wearing a maroon blazer. And my background is in reproductive justice and more broadly, in gender justice. Most recently an organization called Ultraviolet. And when I think about gender justice, I really think about it as an expansive framework that encompasses all of us and all of our gender expressions, and building a world where we can all express ourselves in the ways that, that we want and that, we need.
[ARIEL] Thank you everyone. Can confirm we are all a group of oily but wonderful smelling people up here. My name is Ariel. My pronouns are they them. I am a communications consultant and media strategist. Currently working with Transgender Law Center and separately for A Jewish Voice for peace. Doing a lot of communications, work. I want to start off by defining some of the terms that we’ve already used up here, that I used in my introduction and have Anna sort of, bring us into this session that way. So, Anna, I’d love if you could get us started off by defining narrative power, narrative strategy, and also how, narrative strategy is a way to get us closer to the world that we deserve.
[ANNA CASTRO] Yes, absolutely. So we are human beings who love stories. Stories are how we understand the world. And using some definitions from reframe narrative initiative. Just starting with a story is something that has a sequence of events with a beginning, middle and end. And therefore a narrative is a collection of stories told over time that articulate a particular worldview value set that allows us to understand the world. A, you know, beautiful metaphor for this is, you know, stories are to titles as narrative is to a mosaic. So we tell a lot of stories in our work in order to be able to actually communicate through complicated legal jargon, through 100 page reports, through legislation that can be up to a thousand pages. Stories actually help us ground ourselves in a vision of the world. And therefore, you know, narrative strategy is actually an excising the stories that are being told. Understanding the narrative ecosystem that they encompass and actually finding the ones that we want to turn the volume up on and the ones that we want to turn the volume down on. For every narrative, there is a counter narrative, for every helpful narrative, there are harmful narratives and in order to build narrative power, we have to work together to understand the stories that are meaningful to our communities, the stories that allow us to share a vision of the world that allows us to one build on economic, social, or political power to shift material conditions on the ground for our communities. And one of the things that I am just like, very excited about is that everyone is talking about narrative right now. Is that hot little jargon word, that everyone is throwing around and I think that it’s a beautiful beginning to us really understanding what is the story of the movement that we have internalized? What is the story of the movement that we are sharing, which is separate to the stories that we are using to build power, and the stories right now being leveraged against us to take away power.
[ARIEL] Thank you so much, Anna. I also want to turn it over to some of our other panelists, starting with Tio, to talk a little bit about how this looks, within various movement ecosystems. So to a lot of people, describe economic justice as the type of work that you do as, one of the key underpinnings of collective liberation. So I want to hear from you a little bit about how this is, why this is and the version that other leaders in this room, outside of this room should be gleaning from this.
[TEAL AND SUNISA] Sure. So I’m going to start by defining how I view economic justice. And we might all have different definitions, but in my mind, economic justice, imagine, is asking us to imagine a world where no one experienced the violence of poverty. And that’s a that’s a big ask. And for that very reason, it is the connector of all movements. There’s not a person in this room who isn’t impacted by money and scarcity. Unless we have, like, secret billionaires here. But I don’t think we do. So if you are, you know, you could give someone a look at a movement. Or you can leave, so I’m just saying, so, you know, we all need money to survive in the world in which we live in at this very moment. And the communities that we’re a part of are often those that have been, very systemically and systematically removed from those from those sectors. Right. Many of us who grew up, you know, as Latino or Latinx are, you know, in different communities have not been able to access these financial sectors, in order to survive in our current context. I think that we often talk about economic justice and it sounds like very scary, like the stock market or like your credit score. But, you know, essentially economic justice is really about how we live. It’s how we have access to food, safe and stable housing, quality education, meaningful work. And essentially are able to live the life that we want and that we choose. Poverty restricts choice. And by doing so, we’re forced into living lives that are difficult and are struggles. There’s a scarcity mentality among many communities. So I think that when we’re talking about how our movements are connected, if our movements aren’t focused on people’s ability to like, live and like have access to basic needs, then they’re then we’re not really serving those that we’re organizing for. So I think that yeah, it’s a major connector. And so I thank you so much for like one of the foundations before we can get any other sort of meaningful justice has to be fed by having the money and the resources that we all need to thrive.
[ARIEL] So, rich, you have a lot of different hats in a lot of different, workspaces. But one of these hats that you have worn, is as a community organizer, and I am wondering, I’d love to hear from you, about the role of community organizing, organizing and of protest in building not only people power, but this idea of narrative power that we’re talking about today.
[LUCY O’MEARA] Yeah, definitely. I can start, to answer the question. I can start with a personal story. My coming into organizing, per se. So I started organizing in 2011, 2010 when I was in college in New York. And I remember at that time it’s when I came out. And so, like most people in college, when they come out, they join, the GSA at that time and start becoming, political queer. And I remember at that time, in 2011, there was, a black trans woman who was arrested, and put in a penitentiary, in Minneapolis. And so, for context, I am from the great state of Minnesota, born and raised. My parents are from Nigeria. And I remember being in New York at that time. And organizing with people in New York around things that were happening in Minnesota was wild to me. And it was wild to me that like, this narrative, these, these protests were were happening all over the country when no one in New York, even knew where Minnesota was, to be completely honest. And so after that, I came back to Minnesota. And because of the power of protests and organizing, I started doing organizing in Minnesota at that time in 2012, 2013. And that was when we saw a lot of what we now call the black liberation movement and the movement for black lives, which for me has been the biggest narrative shift of my entire life. Like I reiterated before, my parents are immigrants from Nigeria. And one of the dominant narratives in a lot of African, communities is the fact that you are African and not black. And that was something that was put into my mind at a very young age. And I had to do a lot of unlearning with protest and organizing to undo some of those harmful narratives that were separating, these two beautiful communities. And so we talk about narrative power mixed with organizing, and we talk about the Black Lives Matter movement, because it actually shifts culture and shifts material conditions. And I say that as someone who has been shifted by the Black Lives Matter movement specifically. And in 2015, Minneapolis, I was working with Black Lives Matter Minneapolis at that time. I was on the court team, and there was, police killing in Minneapolis from, by a black man of a black man named Mark Clark. And that was when we started the, coldest 18 day occupation of a police precinct. Shout out to Minneapolis for always being, ahead of the curve as far as protests. We also shut down the Mall of America not once, but twice. We shut down the highways when one of the first highways shut down, the United States had to have a have ever seen. And I say this because this is what activated people and continue to activate people towards motion. I also say that’s because in 2015, I remember I was staying outside all the time and -30 degree weather. If you’ve ever been to Minneapolis in the November, you know it’s very cold. And I remember my parents at that time didn’t understand why I was doing what I was doing. And they were like, you are not like you’re not like black people that are descendants of slaves. You are African. Why are you doing this? And I remember that we had a lot of deep conversations about why it was important, because at the end of the day, I am black. And so fast forward after Philando Castile in 2016, that happened in Saint Paul. And then also, as most of you know, in 2020, I’m also the co-founder of Black Visions in Minneapolis, which is an abolitionist, black, queer led organization. That galvanized, literally the entire globe in 2020 around abolition and defunding the police. And at that time, I remember having conversations with my parents, and it was no longer, why are you doing this? But I understand why you’re doing this. And that is the power of narrative shift work. Mixed with protest, is that we are actually seeing the shifts in our parents generations and even our generation’s mentality around why it’s important to show up another kind of example of protest that a lot of people don’t really see us. Protest is the interrogation of our democracy in this moment, right? So there’s a lot of conversations on the left around do we just vote or what does a protest vote look like? And we’re constantly being pitted to choose between the lesser of two evils without actually interrogating. Are we in a democracy in the first place? Right. What is the narratives around our civic engagement that are harmful? And how is it that the narratives that we’re trying to output are being lessened or are not being listened to? And so as far as like the, the importance is what we know that when we have a narrative that is actually strategic and is moving people, there will always be an anti dominant narrative. We saw that with Black Lives Matter. We saw blue lives matter. We saw all lives matter right. And so what are the ways that we are actually combating that as activists, activists and advocates and still continuing to push, as we said, a bigger we and a narrative that more people can actually cling on to.
[ARIEL] Yeah. That was beautiful. Thank you so much. So, Maria, I want to turn to you. And you, you your work is within the repo space, within the gender justice space. And we know, unfortunately, that even within the left, there are a lot of divisions with regards to how we talk about reproductive justice. So I want to hear from you a little bit about where these divisions lie, how the right wing actually exploits these divisions, and how we can leverage that desire and that, mobilization on the right to build control for our own movements and for our own narratives.
[MARIA CHO] Absolutely. So I really think that kind of the divisions on the left come down to whether you see abortion specifically as a political tool to get women voters. And I put women voters in very heavy quotes because we’re talking about white women voters. And I think that’s a very cynical way of looking at it. But I think if we sort of boil down to the core of it, that’s that’s really what it boils down to. And if you look at abortion in that way, then you find yourself in a lot of defensive fights. You find yourself talking about, you know, is it, six week abortion ban or a ten week abortion ban? We’re going to fight for a ten week ban. Well, guess what? A ten week ban is still a ban on people controlling their own bodies and their own decisions. So and I think that’s the that’s the ground that the right wants us to fight on. The right wants us to be in these conversations that are about these nuances of policy that for an average person, the average person is going to say, you know what? I still can’t get an abortion. Like, it doesn’t matter if we win or not. I still don’t get the thing that I need. I think the the alternative, the alternative vision here is one that does bill that biggest possible week that looks at, okay, what is at the core of this, what is at the core of reproductive justice. And you know, the, the folks, the black women activists who coined the term reproductive justice really looked at this as a broad framework. That’s not just about abortion, but it’s about the ability to have a child will not have a child to raise a child in safety, to raise a family, in a community where you feel safe to make decisions about your own body. And when we talk about it and we think about it as a broad framework, then we are bringing in so many more people into that struggle and into that conversation, and we’re having a conversation that people can say, okay, I get how my life will be different if we win. And that’s I think that’s the thing that’s going to empower people to fight for the the vision of what we want. There’s a book called, Seven Strategies for Practical Radicals. And one of the things that the authors, Deepak Bobroff and Stephanie Luce, talk about is this idea that the right is terrified of our vision, because if we get to be in a place where we actually lay out our vision for the future, that’s really compelling. And so they want to keep us from laying that out at every possible way. And so I think the thing that we do, the thing that we counter, is at every possible moment, we need to be focusing on what’s the bigger picture. Who are all the people who are impacted? How do we bring more people into this conversation? And how do we give people something to fight for that they actually feel like is going to make a difference in their lives?
[ARIEL] Yeah. And I, you know, going off of what you what all of our amazing panelists have said, you know, going back to the idea of like, what is our movement narrative? One of the things that I note as like being something that is we need to unpack as a movement, whatever movement were a part of, is this idea that if a person has one belief and they express it in some way, that that’s it, that’s all there is about it. We’ve embedded a lot of disposability, politic within the work that we do, and we’ve forgotten something that is core to being in any movement, which is organizing and relationship building. And I really love how Lucy brought in the fact that, like for many of us and I think Maria or Maria everybody and have brought it in as well, it’s this idea that we have all within our families, particularly, if you have an identity, that lies at the intersections of liberation, we have had to be in relationship with people within our communities, within our families that don’t necessarily share our beliefs, and we remain in conversation with them. We continue on telling the story of the work that we are doing. And I think that’s core to really understanding. Like, is our movement a space in which people are allowed to transform. And are we doing work in communities that engages in these harder, tougher conversations in a way that understands that you will experience discomfort in this work? You are you are in a movement and doing work to change conditions on the ground, because you are capable of holding that discomfort. And that is one of the meta narratives embedded in the space right now, that the right is also weaponizing against us. And at times it’s hilarious because I’m like, I’m in plenty of movement spaces where we believe that if you’re using the right language and if you’re in the right meetings, and if you’re working for the right organizations, that you somehow have a particular politic and refuse to work with others, refuse to work with other organizations, refuse to work within other movements. And I think throughout netroots conference, we’ve heard from intergenerational movement leaders who have told us this is a struggle, y’all. And it doesn’t end. We achieve one beautiful dream to find another that someone else has borne, you know, borne forth in this moment. And so I feel like, you know, in trying to gather, like, how do you actually build the bigger, stronger we it is about holding that discomfort, holding those conversations and remembering that at the core of whatever role you have in this work, you have to be an organizer.
[ARIEL] Yeah, I this is a I really appreciate that. And even just like my question is like, where’s the debate and movement? And I’m really happy if y’all were like downstairs and you saw like, the person that had like, net roots as I’ve seen change my mind like, that is the energy that we need in our movements, while holding the humanity of everyone. But still challenging the idea of, like, where is agitation? And agitation doesn’t mean disposability, but agitation doesn’t mean questioning the comfort that we all have. And I think just to anchor that, I think the things that we need to do, especially contextually in the United States, as I’ll talk about in a little bit, working in the Global South and outside of like the imperious imperial underbelly, is your comfort or your discomfort in this moment? It’s actually less than the majority of the people in the world. And so how are you holding that discomfort and not coming out with a sense of urgency, but also questioning, why are we not following the lead of the people that are the most uncomfortable? Yeah, that pause and reflect that’s really necessary in our movement spaces to the pause to assess where the urgency is coming from, but also the assessing, like what are the political conditions that I am not yet aware of, and how am I making space to be uncomfortable? I think I think also it’s easy to feel like, you know, this is a short term like struggle. But those of us in this work are going to do it for life, and we’re all just shuffling around to different organizations, but we’re in relationship and community with each other for much longer than we work at one place, or we’re at one specific job. This is we’re all, I’m sure, doing this work because we care deeply about it. It’s rooted in love and care for our communities and wanting to see the world look different. That means that we have to learn to work together and struggle with each other. This work is about the struggle. It’s about working and getting right in relationship with each other. Because if we can’t create that within our own spaces, we can’t create that in other spaces.
[ARIEL] Thank you so much, everyone. And I think something I want to emphasize and something that I’ve heard a lot throughout, not reuse throughout the past couple of years, is that none of us arrived into this role, that perfect politics, in fact, none of our politics are perfect right now. Right. And like, we can I mean, to offer an individual example that just over five years ago, I was on birthright Israel because I was raised in a Zionist family that believed that Israel was the birth, that was the birthright and, the property of the Jewish people. While I was on this trip, I was messaging called in by a number of my friends, a number of my, family members who did hold more progressive views on Palestine than I did. And they didn’t yell at me. They didn’t, you know, call me names. They asked me why I thought what I thought, why I felt, what I felt, why I believed what I believed they called me in with kindness and compassion. And I met them at that. I met them there. And it wasn’t an immediate switch. I didn’t just drop that Zionist upbringing right away, but I took the next like, admittedly, a year and a half to two years to unlearn the Zionist upbringing. I had and came back to those same people with and with. Like I said, gratitude and thank you for thank you for helping me develop my understanding of the world. And like now I stand up here as a proud anti-Israel Jewish person who works with JVP and like that. These, on a macro level, are the conversations that each of you as people in the movement, each of you within your families, within your communities. This is the impact that you can all make when you commit to meeting people where they’re at, helping understand why they believe what they believe and bringing them forward to the world that we all know that we want to live in. I also just want to add, I think it’s really important, like, I think, you know, we’re talking about kind of the, the narratives that we have around different aspects of our movement. But I think we’ve also talked about how all of it is so interconnected. Right. We all need we all need financial security. We all have bodies that we like navigate the world through. We all experience all of these different compounding oppressions, in different ways. And I think it’s really important for us to understand that we’re gonna make mistakes. I mean, I think Ariel’s example is is great. Like we are going to say things, we are going to do things and holding yourself to like a bar of perfection is going to just leave you paralyzed in this place of like, okay, I guess I can’t say anything, I guess I can’t do anything. And I think that I would really sort of advocate for folks to like, you know, don’t go out there kind of from the hip, but like, really move through this space with the assumption that you’re going to make mistakes and build the kind of community that’s going to call you in with love. And that’s going to help you navigate through that. And that’s a really important component of building narrative power. The infrastructure to actually leverage narrative power is built only through relationships and only through relationships that can stand the test of time, that can stand the test of, you know, the gentle call in that can stand the test of the loud online call in, like we’re talking about. And I think Oluseyi was referring to this as well. We’re looking at the transformation of so many institutions in this moment. And that type of paradigm shift is only possible when people are able to have these conversations in which they’re sharing other visions for what the world can be. And that is, you know, again, everything that we’re talking about here and even the work that we’ve been able to do together only happen because we were able to see each other and be with each other and hold each other through times of immense struggle.
[ARIEL] So I, I’ve heard, from a couple of you sort of some of these messages that, we can make when we’re working in silos, like ways in which, when we work in silos, we miss opportunities to build a better way to work together across movements, to bring more people into our movements. Like, I’ve heard that in Maria talk more about, but about the way that other, organizations message for reproductive justice, and Anna, I kind of want to turn it over to you to talk about a tool that we use a lot at Transgender Law Center, which is the, race class gender narrative messaging framework. It is 1 to 1 of one tool for messaging in class movements. And so after hearing about some of this work, can you talk to us about race, class, gender, narrative messaging? And how we can use this as a tool to bring us closer to the world that we deserve?
[ANNA CASTRO] Yeah. So the race class narrative, which some of you may have heard up, was developed by, a notch anchor Osorio. And so communications, along with Lake Research Partners and demos. It was a messaging framework that was developed both with quantitative and qualitative analysis. It was tested in the field through deep canvasing in various states. And from that in around 2020, 2021. It became clear that the transphobic siren song of the right had to be countered with another, tool that would allow us to have race, class, and gender in conversation with each other. The reality is, you cannot do LGBTQ work without a race class. Plus analysis. We’re talking about national origin. We’re talking about disability. We’re talking about faith. It all has to be included in there. And so the race class gender narrative was, developed with Aso communications, Lake Research Partners and GSA network because we were looking at specifically the ways in which trans youth were being attacked and how we could combat that via messaging on athletics, medical care. And obviously y’all have walked in in the back. I’m gonna plug it again. We have these wonderful reporter guides that talk about what are some of the ways in which we can engage in mobi suasion, which, again, if you have heard and not Osorio speak, you know that mobi suasion is both mobilization and persuasion at the same time. And so the race, class, gender narrative talks about two particular narratives that I want to touch on, which the first is we all have an authentic self. We all have this idea of who we are, that depending on the spaces that we are in, we either feel comfortable sharing or have felt at times hurt by. And so, using the context of an authentic self, we’re able to engage in conversations with people who may not be thinking about their own gender experiences. In that context, you know, for the first time that you were told that you look prettier when you smile, the first time that you were told that boys don’t cry. All of these things are gender experiences that people tend not to think about. And then add in that level of the first time that someone assumed that you were the assistant, and not the manager. The first time that you walked into a courtroom and someone thought that you were the plaintiff and not the lawyer. Adding in that race, class, gender component of that to the concept of authentic selves. Next, we also have the concept of freedom from boxes. So the idea that none of us, nobody puts baby in a corner, nobody likes to be put in a box by someone else. And more than that, we don’t like being put in a box. That then dictates what types of schools we can go to, what type, how we can dress, who we can love, what we can accomplish. Those two concepts freedom from boxes and authentic selves, are ways in which we can engage in conversations with folks. And again, going back to the conversations, because we all have to be organizers in this time. How do we have conversations that open up people to understand, that gender or genders are things that are our own, are things that should not be, you know, things that put us against other communities and also should not be legislated on in ways that deprive of of the ability to live authentically.
[ARIEL] Yeah. Thank you so much, Anna. So we have about seven minutes of for I want to get to the Q&A. So I do want to hear from just a few of you. We’ve talked a lot today about creating this. Probably the messaging across movements, bringing people more people, helping more people be seen by our messaging, by not just guessing, but actually being in conversation with organizers within those communities, individuals within those communities, understanding their daily lives and what is important to them, the struggles they face as a way to bring more people into our movement and build together narrative power for this world we deserve. So I want to hear from a couple of you examples from your work of how you have done that.
[LUCY O’MEARA] Yeah, I can start, thank you for breaking that down. And I appreciate you deep. So, like I said, one of the co-founders and co-executive directors of the black LGBTQ Migrant Project, or BLM, and that fiscally sponsored organization, shout out to Trenton. And last again for incubating us, is a product of a race, class, gender narrative framework. And so when we were coming up with BLM at that time, it was the rise, the peak of the Black Lives Matter movement and a bunch of us realized that in conversations around black liberation, we’re not actually talking about the root of forced migration and black immigrant folks specifically in the United States. We saw a whole that needed to be filled. And even when we think about the vision statement of BLM, it uses that race, class, gender analysis or narrative framework. So we believe in a world where no one is, no one is forced to give up their homelands. Right. That is a broader we when we think about all the things that tie together. Black people, regardless of where you’re from, is this idea that you have been forced to migrate for some reason? If not the transatlantic slave trade or economic disparities because of, loss of labor or imperialism or patriarchy or, patriarchal violence. So on and so forth. So this idea that what ties black people together is this idea that we have been forced to migrate sometime in our ancestral life or in our lifetimes right now. And so BNP, as an organization specifically, we go to different movements that we should be included in and do some of that deep relational work. So, me and Anna actually met in 2018, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where we brought together, all, a bunch of national queer and trans immigrant rights organizations. And we were under this umbrella of, trans queer, migrant freedom, trans queer migrant freedom. And that space was one of the most transformative spaces that I’ve ever been in. Right. We talked about what does anti-Blackness look like in the Latinx community and in the AAPI community. We had a copy of them, which is a very amazing API queer organization. And we were having conversations and being in struggle around, even though we have these same identities, one of the places that we’re missing, and where are we missing and where are we, where, where, who are we not advocating for? And so those are just some of the ways that BNP uses that framework, to propel our work.
[TEAL AND SUNISA] I want to just add and you mentioned it already allude to. But, when we’re talking about forced migration, those, the way in which that often looks is that the US has, has created circumstances and other countries very, very, very specifically that have forced people to need to leave their countries and come here to experience additional financial and economic hardship. That is not an accident. I’m Mexican, my family immigrated here from Mexico. That’s not an accident that the countries that we’re seeing immigrate here are doing so because of severe poverty in their countries that were literally created by the United States. So I want to mention that I also want to mention and the economic justice movement as a whole, I’ve heard a lot recently around wealth building, and I would just like to take a moment to talk about Rockabye because I have a problem with it. And, you know, I think that when we think about what it means to solve for poverty, it’s easy for us to have the initial reaction to say, I want to build wealth within my community and financial wealth specifically. And I understand that intention because it’s a reaction. Right. And that makes so much sense. And if we’re leaning into our anti-capitalist values, we’re not trying to build independently wealthy people to just exist in this world. We’re looking to build a society and a culture that involves community, that we take care of each other, that we have stability and safety. That is, that is not look like a bunch of people who are financially wealthy. And I think sometimes we forget that because we’re all living with a lot of scarcity. But I think if we take a moment and we envision what we want our world to look like, it does look like community and us caring for each other and us being able to support each other together, not separate, is. The other thing that I would add is that, kind of building on what we’ve been talking here is that, and I think Imara Jones talks about this, most kind of succinctly is this idea that, you know, it’s not that one day a large swath of Americans woke up and we’re like, you know what? I really don’t like trans people. That just didn’t happen. This is an orchestrated effort by folks on the right to say, okay, what? Let’s message Tess. Let’s find out where the fissures are, and let’s find the folks that we are going to target. And the reason I think that’s important, going back to what Anna was talking about is because if we believe that there are just like people out there who just out of their own volition, don’t like us, it’s going to be a lot harder to have that conversation. Whereas if we know that there are folks and forces on the right who are selling a story that is wrong, and that we need to figure out how to tell our story, that’s going to be the thing that is going to help us have those conversations, have those uncomfortable conversations with folks who hold beliefs that have been ingrained in them through right wing efforts. But that’s also how we’re going to bring those folks back to a world, back to a back to that bigger. We, I think this is, you know, this is also true within the abortion rights movement and the reproductive justice movement, where as folks are, you know, since the Dobbs decision, as folks are really starting to see where this path is leading us, we are seeing more and more people who are like, you know what? I’m not super comfortable on a personal level with abortion, but actually, like, we’re I don’t like where we’re going, like, this is going to look real scary. And we need to welcome those people back and say, okay, like ultimately we have some disagreements, but we all agree that this is a scary place to be. And like, it’s getting scarier. And how do we kind of how do we build that work together?
[ARIEL] Yeah, I really appreciate both of what Omran said. Just to like, reiterate, Thiel’s point around the solution to poverty not being while I think we see this in the immigrant rights movement a lot, is that the solution to immigration is the pathway to citizenship. And I’m telling you, I’m going to say twice because I want everyone in this room to hear the solution to forced migration will never be American citizenship. It will never be American citizenship. It will never be access to American citizenship. And so one thing that BNP is very cognizant of and invests a lot of time in, is organizing in our home countries, right? So organizing to stop forced migration up to at the head, rather than only thinking about immigrants when they come into this country. And so when we think about how do we make this bigger and broader, we I also behoove us, to include people in the global South when we’re doing our work, because that is something that we’re missing right now, something that is not happening. We are never going to get to liberation if people in the Congo are still suffering. Right. And so how are we continuing to broaden and make ourselves more uncomfortable, for our society as a whole, to become comfortable?
[ARIEL] Thank you so much, everyone. And I just want to, to, Maria’s point, the Imara Jones, resource that they are mentioning is called anti-trans hate machine. Folks want to check it out. And translations website has a lot of really great context for many of the discussions that we’ve had today. So I do want to turn it over to the Q&A for this last like ten, 15 minutes to see if there are questions from the audience. For our wonderful panelists.
[KATE HIGGINS] Hi. My name is Kate Higgins. I’m with blue Rose research. We do a lot of surveying and policy polling and generally asking people questions and trying to understand, you know, what the electorate thinks about different progressive issue areas. One thing that I’ve noticed, like having been part of like, queer, at least, you know, campus organizing back of the day and just watching, you LUCY O’MEARA, the movement. As I’ve gotten older, it feels like we’re very reactionary and not as proactive at combating Republican disinformation about trans lives, trans health care, etc., etc.. There is some interesting social psychology research that suggests that if you give people, some kind of information before they’re exposed to that disinformation, it has an inoculum of effect. And I’m wondering if you guys have done any thinking about about that, about how we need to be proactive because because, you know, people who don’t know anything about trans people and most people in America still don’t really, an opportunity to get to them before the first thing they hear is bad info is, I think maybe were some digging into, what are your thoughts on on that?
[ANNA CASTRO] I mean, to start, I think there are a lot of wonderful trans led local organizations that have been doing that. And so there are so many you can find, like in this room, there are organizations and brilliant, beautiful leaders, that have been putting forth stories, content, all of that talking about what trans lives are about and not just focusing on the trauma. Novella narrative around violence. But I also think that one of, you know, in terms of talking about tough conversations, it is that the LGBTQ movement for a long time was led by white, cis, middle class people. And still, you know, very loudly lots of white trans folks that are leading the conversation in this very reactionary place. This is one of the things that, you know, queer and trans folks of color in this space have consistently pushed for is we know exactly what it is like to navigate moments like this. We live at the intersections of liberation. Please uplift the leadership of black trans leaders, period. And give them money to do this work on a broader scale.
[MARIA CHO] And I’ll add so we we’ve done some work on this in the reproductive justice space, we called it pre banking basically the I. Yep, yep. This idea of you know can we expose folks and specifically expose folks to stories of people talking about their experience with reproductive health care. And can we normalize it? As you know, if you have the flu, you go to the doctor. If you are in a place you know where you need reproductive health care, you go to the doctor like where no one here is going to argue, no one is going to argue against abortion. But, no one in the world is going to argue that you shouldn’t go to the doctor if you are, you know, if you have the flu, if you have Covid, if you have whatever, then why are we arguing about abortion? And we found, in message testing that that is really effective. The challenge then is scale is how do we get this in front of folks. And I think we’re seeing, you know, to to Anna’s point, we are seeing more and more people talk about narrative strategy. But and this is like plug to the funders out there. We’re not seeing the resources to put that strategy into practice. So, you know, more dollars, please. Because we do I actually think we do have the knowledge. We just need to get it out there. And I also want to note a lot of the messaging research firms do not do their research on the issues that they’re being paid to do messaging, research on, and do not actually have a narrative strategy to do it. They are just do not have the range and so you have a lot of message testing that focuses predominantly on trying to convince, again, white middle class voters and is again, kind of also furthering a narrative of trans medical, essentially ism that trans experiences are solely medical experiences. And this is where the narrative strategy part comes in, because we have to talk about trans lives, period. All of them. We do not start at the health care part that is arguing on the oppositions terms. So this is again where like everybody focuses on pre bunking Mythbuster eating all of that. I’m like, please stop. Focus on going back to your narrative strategy, proactively thinking about the vision of the world that you want to push and actually build from there.
[ARIEL] Yeah, I really appreciate that. Thank you. And and just to expand, I think two communities know how to talk to their communities. A really good example of a narrative strategy that was so it was impactful for me. And I’m not even Asian. And copy, did a narrative campaign around, queer parents of queer children speaking in their own languages around why they support their children. And I remember, like when that came out, my mom, like, best friend, was just like bawling. And the parents were shifted by that conversation. And so just thinking about like, not only does narrative strategy have to broaden the way, but it also has to be culturally relevant. Right. It also has to move the people that are necessary to move forward. And that also speaks to the building, the broader because in order to build a better way, we have to do it in a way that is called for relevant to the people that we want to bring into the we like.
[ARIEL] So I want to turn it back to the audience, by our videographer. And I wonder who Mike runner. We can add two more questions.
[UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER] Thank you. You know, I’ve been doing immigrant rights work. And then, now I do a lot of different things, but, mostly in comms and, you know, I, I think I do understand the race class and plus narrative, fairly well, but I feel like the right’s narrative is just it’s I mean, it’s a conspiracy, right? But it’s, like, very simple and, like, you can condense it into one sentence and, you know, from immigrant rights, it’s like white genocide, abortion. I also hear a lot about, like, it’s white genocide. And then I’m starting to hear a lot about like, LGBTQ people. It’s like indoctrination for white genocide. So like, how do we combat this one? Very simple. Like, you know, viral in a way. Disinformation conspiracy theory thing.
[ANNA CASTRO] Right? I think this goes back to the myth busting and reactionary strategies that we apply. We spend so much time talking to them. Do you know what they are doing? They are talking to their base. They are always talking to their people. We talk to lawmakers. We talk to media. We respond to their arguments. We spend no time talking about our affirmative vision of the world. I am not interested in combating what they’re putting forth. I’m interested in ensuring that us as a movement, I know this moment is scary. That’s not every single panel has said this moment is scary in some way. What it has done is robbed us of the imagination to actually believe that in this paradigm shift moment, we can be proposing things that move us forward. And so, you know, to your point about like, how do we respond to this moment like this is an opportunity for folks to say universal basic income, guaranteed income. It’s a time to identify as a reparation ist. It is a moment to identify as being a part of a global struggle. It’s a time to redefine what a democracy can mean when it is not based on extraction, productivity, etc. so that is like the direction to go in. What is your actual vision and are you talking to your community about it and are you getting them excited about it? So excited that they talk to other people about it?
[LUCY O’MEARA] Yeah, I think just to like further, that white supremacy only works is if it expands its definition of who is included in inside of white supremacy. Right. And so when we see, like we see queer game white men now supporting these white supremacist tropes, we see, for example, the white trans woman, I forgot her name. Jenna. Something working with Jenna. Yes. Right. We see discriminated or, like, underrepresented minorities now touting these, like, right leaning, narratives. And so I like what is the affirmative that we’re putting out. And I think that’s very important. And also, who are we listening to? Right. Who is leading? Who is saying these things? I, I say this all the time, but black trans women specifically are the gateway to liberation, because at every single intersection they have thought about what liberation looks like. So who are you actually listening to? And also, how are you then talking to your communities that you can move around this liberatory vision?
[ARIEL] Yeah. Thank you so much. I do want to take one more question. So we have, I believe sighs next, someone I know.
[EMMA] My name’s Emma. I work with campaign for seven equality. We’re an LGBT rights organization doing work in the South. And I work in communication. So I’m messaging about trans issues all the time. And one narrative that I’ve been seeing a lot is the parents rights narrative, which for those of y’all who aren’t aware, it’s it’s basically the message, around gender affirming care. That parents know what’s best for their kids. And the government shouldn’t be interfering with this care, and that’s why it should be legal. And I really don’t believe that that’s the best narrative to use, because it leaves out so many trans kids whose parents don’t affirm them and don’t want them to have care. And I just feel really strongly about that. But I keep seeing from national organizations putting out this messaging about the parents rights narrative. I want to shift more towards like, a bodily autonomy narrative. But people are I think I get a lot of pushback because people are like, that’s not it’s not legal for a someone under 18 to get this care without their parent’s permission. So we can’t say that it’s going to freak everyone out. It’s going to get us this pushback. But I don’t know. I guess I’m just looking for advice on like how to convince folks that this is the right way to go. Especially someone who’s coming from a place without a ton of, like, organizational power.
[ANNA CASTRO] Yeah, I mean, this it it goes back to organizing principles 101 in terms of finding the folks that you can rock with and building with them. And at times you need to build up that kind of social proof of like, hey, we started talking about this and it got people excited. And this fear of pushback. Again, I think going back to a Lucy’s point and going back to like, tell Maria or made points about how sometimes when we’re pushing forth these bold ideas, people within our own movements are going to be uncomfortable. But then you can roll out the receipts of look at within the reproductive justice movement, what it look like when we hinged access to abortion, to parental rights. What is it look like, you know, to have those moments where that’s so the pitfall is so clear. And then again, building up the ecosystem of people, it might not be your organization that is pushing that forth, but are you continuing to agitate within that organization, to lift up those narratives?
[MARIA CHO] Yeah. Know that. Yes. I absolutely agree with all of that. I think the other thing that I think about a lot of times with these, like the right, has had the same playbook going back to the civil rights era, like this parental rights argument. That was the same argument that was used to support school segregation like that was they’ve been saying the same thing over and over again, and they just sort of roll it out. So in some ways, like we know what they’re going to say. They have like they’re five kind of things that they talk about. And so I think for us, for our side, what’s always useful to come back to is you know, it’s like messaging 1 to 1. We don’t want to be repeating their talking points. So like at a very practical level, if you’re like me, trying to get your organization to do something, be like, do we really want to be saying what they’re saying and saying we’re not doing that. Like it’s again, to, to Anna’s point, like we’re not mythbuster and we’re not debunking, we know what are the narratives that work on our side. We know what are the narratives that shift people’s hearts and minds, and so what are the ways that we can then shift the conversation to our ground? So, like, we’re not constantly responding, but we’re actually talking about the thing that, you know, the thing that we, we know is going to be, is going to be most impactful.
[ARIEL] Thank you so much for, this panel. Thank you all for joining. This is messaging trans futures, narrative power for the world that we deserve. I know that there’s another panel in this room in about 15 minutes. So I do invite folks who have questions, or would like to speak to the panelists up here to relocate to the hallway in order to do that so that the wonderful networks, production team can set up for the next panel. Thank you so much, everyone, for your time.
Responsible Reporting on Anti-Trans Violence for Journalists | SXSW 2024
[IMARA JONES] Welcome everyone to our panel today, which is going to be on responsible reporting, um, on anti-trans violence. Um, we’re thrilled to have this conversation with you at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, which of course, is a focal point for not only anti-trans laws and anti-trans violence, and there’s a relationship between those things which we can help unpack, um, and discuss as well. Um, and also a place where, because of the way in which trans people are often portrayed, um, it contributes to the atmosphere of violence, um, physical violence, policy violence, cultural violence. Um, and, um, and all of the ways that, that people can be attacked. And we know that the media has a really important role in shaping the way issues are framed and shaping the way that people think. Um, and it’s the feeling on every, uh, the feeling of every single person on this panel that if you can move those two things, that they can have a direct impact on increasing, um, the safety and the strength of ability for us to live long, productive, and healthy lives. Um, because trans people are only 1 percent of the population, it means that we have to be, um, even more reliant on the ability of media and journalism in all of its forms to portray us in a way so that people can get to know us and understand that we are human beings and to serve the same human rights as everyone. So what we are going to do today is to show the way in which, um, media portrayals of us and the way that we are reported on, um, in both the political mainstream and entertainment press directly impact our safety. And we’ll also talk about ways that we believe that, um, the reporting on us, And those various spheres of journalism can be improved and what action people can take in order to help make us safer. Um, we’re going to talk for about 35, 40 minutes, um, to kind of start the conversation and let you all know what we are thinking, um, and then move to questions, uh, from you all, which will be a really valuable and enriching conversation part of this conversation. So we just want to thank you for joining us. Um, I’m going to start with introductions and then we’ll move to the conversation.
[IMARA JONES] My name is Imara Jones. I am the founder and CEO of TransLash Media, which is a journalism and nonprofit storytelling organization which uses the power of narrative in order to center the humanity of trans people. And we do so with the very direct idea that, um, that the power of storytelling and by centering our humanity is a way to decrease violence, uh, against trans people, because we believe at TransLash that the ignorance about our communities is what contributes to our lack of well being. And we do so in a variety of ways. We do so through video, including documentaries, short documentaries, animated films. We do so through- Now we have three podcasts, one just launched, uh, um, Thursday, just yesterday, um, called The Mess. It’s a political podcast. We do so through zines, we do so through a variety of media, um, and at Translash, what we say is that we tell trans stories to save trans lives. And so it’s one of the reasons why I’m thrilled, um, as a part of my work to be in conversation, um, with everyone here. Um, and I’m just going to tell you who all of these amazing people are because, um, each of them could be a panel by themselves and in their own right.
[IMARA JONES] Um, the first person to my left is Serena Jazmine. Serena is a Senior Digital [Media] Manager at The Transgender Law Center. Serena is also a journalist, having been a correspondent at Condé Nast, as well as at Mic, which is where we first met, um, all those years ago. Um, who’s counting? Uh, Serena also has a TikTok, Serena Jazmine, you know, on brand. Uh, which, um, seeks to, um, talk about the reality of trans people, both in terms of politics and what’s happening to us, and as well as centering our humanity.
[IMARA JONES] Uh, next to Serena is, um, Eva Reign. Eva is a GLAAD and Peabody award-winning actress, as well as journalist, uh, having written for in prints, um, like, uh, Vogue, Vice, um, as well as Translash. Um, and then Eva is also the star of Anything’s Possible on Amazon Prime. So for all of you Prime subscribers, you know, we get Prime video as a part of that. So it’s real easy to go there and type in Anything’s Possible where you can see Eva’s work, um, one piece of work, Eva’s work, so we’re thrilled to have Eva here.
[IMARA JONES] And then last but not least is Arielle Rebekah, who is a communications consultant at the Transgender Law Center. And also, I’m going to get this very right, Arielle is the founder of Trans & Caffeinated. I mean, so many things you can do with that brand, right? So a trans flag on a coffee mug. There are all these ideas I’m getting. Founder of Trans, and it’s not my job, but I’m coming up with branding ideas. Founder of Trans & Caffeinated Consulting, which offers communications and advocacy support to progressive organizations and anyone who wishes to inject those, um, perspectives in their work. Please welcome our panelists today.
[IMARA JONES] Um, one of the things that I wanted to start you all with in terms of contextualization is to show just how much, um, stereotypes disinformation and the misrepresentation of trans people has funneled into, um, the mainstream ideas of America and specifically mainstream journalism. And we know that if it’s there, it’s everywhere. It is literally, um, as the as the pop culture collaborative says, is, you know, the ocean that we are swimming and it is the narrative ocean that we are swimming in and gives context to what we’re going to talk about today. Um, at Translash, we have, um, a group of investigative journalists that since 2020, has been working to unpack the people, the money, the organizations, um, that are driving anti-trans hate and subsequently anti-trans violence in the country. And their work is encapsulated in, um, a podcast that we have, an investigative series, uh, that we have called The Anti-Trans Hate Machine: A Plot Against Equality. And each season we take a different look at what’s driving the, um, that violence in these bills. And most recently, we had an entire season that was devoted to the media and to the media landscape and the penultimate episode of that podcast focused on the New York Times and the way in which misrepresentations, disinformation, stereotypes about trans people have made their way into the New York Times, um, and, uh, how that is being weaponized against trans people. For people who don’t want to spend an hour, uh, and ten minutes with that episode listening to it online, we’ve also developed a two and a half minute animation, which encapsulates some of the main points. But essentially what we show is how the New York Times, Um, has essentially decided to become a repository for anti-trans information by centering the conversations of pseudoscientific groups like the American College of Pediatricians, by uplifting, um, discredited, uh, disgruntled Christian Nationalist parents who say that their kids are being trans is a result of social contagion. Um, and also by listening to, um, and also by listening to, um, other various discredited voices —and I mean discredited scientifically—um, uh, who support these ideas about transness essentially not being real. And we know that those representations that are in the New York Times are actually being quoted, um, in the various state capitals across the country as a legitimizing factor for anti-trans bills. And we know that in those states, that whenever those bills are discussed, that um, anti-trans, um, I’m sorry, that the calls to suicide hotlines of trans and other queer youth shoot through the roof. Which means that there’s a very clear connection between the media landscape, these bills, and violence that trans people face. And one of the most stark examples of that that we have recently, although it is clearly not the only one, is Nex Benedict. And Nex Benedict lives in a state, um, in which, uh, they have increasingly passed laws to erase and make schools hostile to trans youth. And their murder shows the consequence of that. Um, and that’s on top of the violence that trans people face overall. Um, the fact that for several years in a row, we’ve had record breaking years of murders of trans people in this country. And what’s most stark about a lot of those murders is that the people who kill trans people don’t believe that they’ve done anything wrong. And they don’t believe that they’ve done anything wrong because they live in a world where they receive messages that trans people are fake, not real and therefore not human and don’t even deserve, um, the basic, um, uh, uh, the basic ability to breathe. Um, in some of these cases, when you read about these murders, um, the men that commit them, um, will literally wait for the police because they don’t believe that they’ve done anything wrong.
[IMARA JONES] And so what we want to do is to talk about the messages that people are receiving that allow them to commit these extreme acts of violence in all of the ways. Um, and so first I want to talk to you um, um, Serena, who understands kind of the digital landscape In great detail, but also has been a reporter in newsrooms. Um, and can you just give a sense of what the conversations are like? about trans people that leads to some of these misrepresentations.
[SERENA DANIARI] Yes, absolutely. Um, so I’ve been working in different newsrooms for a decade now, um, starting at the Huffington Post, Mic, Slate, Condé Nast. Um, so I’ve gone from a period where newsrooms didn’t care at all about trans issues and, uh, the trans community was underreported on, and now what we’re seeing is a saturation of coverage about our community, right? But, as we all know, visibility without protection is a curse. And it’s ultimately detrimental because, um, we’re seeing, like you mentioned, legacy publishers, some of the most storied brands in journalism, like the New York Times, like the Washington Post, um, amplifying anti-trans rhetoric that the data shows has a direct through line to acts of anti-trans violence being committed. Um, so I think a lot of times when publishers like the New York Times are, covering the trans community in this way, maybe they think that it’s a good business decision, because for better or for worse, people are invested in our community right now. You know, across political leanings, across beliefs, people really want to read and consume news about the trans community. And so, uh, in a way, these publishers are capitalizing on it, but They’re actually doing themselves a disservice in the long run because, um, in order to build sustainable journalism around the trans community, you have to build a through line to the community. You have to develop trust. And what they’re doing is breaking trust because we take notice of the publishers that are reporting sensitively and responsibly about a community, and we take notice about the ones who don’t. And we become more reluctant to speak to them when incidents happen. We tell our community members not to trust these journalists, journalists, uh, these reporters. And it, um, erodes trust over time. And so You know, as reporters, I think we should care about, um, finding solutions to end anti-trans violence because it’s the morally and ethically responsible thing to do, but I know publishers don’t always care about that. Um, so it’s also, if they don’t care about that, should be an incentive to them from a business model perspective to start responsibly reporting on trans, on the trans community because when they unearn trust, They’re basically, uh, building a wall between themselves and a community that they’re relying on right now to meet their KPIs, their page views, you know what I mean? So, um, I think another issue is that legacy publishers like the New York Times are using their opinion sections as a way to just amplify and platform blatant anti-trans personal essays from people who just dislike trans people. And so, they’re giving legitimacy to views that are completely, have been debunked by science and, um, by medical professionals. And so, I think this is especially troubling in an era where we’re seeing, um, Publications that are actually reporting on the trans community in ways that are accurate, like BuzzFeed and, um, the Huffington Post and Vice being completely shuttered, their newsrooms gutted, so it’s like the, the space that’s being occupied by journalists who actually want to report on the trans community in ways that are beneficial is shrinking, and now it’s leaving this huge space for publishers who don’t care about our community, um, to basically say whatever they want without any resistance. Um, so that’s why I encourage journalists who have been laid off, um, or who are looking to pivot in a different direction to start a Substack, to start a TikTok account, to um, to start a podcast, to find ways to tell these stories in ways that circumvent the legacy media world because they’re going to filter our ideas and they’re going to filter trans voices.
[IMARA JONES] Um, Eva, given your unique role as having been in the world of mainstream journalism and now in the world of, um, entertainment and Hollywood, I’m wondering what you see as the echoes between what you see, um, the way in which media coverage and mainstream press happens and how it actually influences how Hollywood sees us and therefore, um, the roles that people are offered or the stories that get told.
[EVA REIGN] That’s a good question. Um, I’m just kind of sitting with it. I’m like, “hmm.” Um, well, you know, one thing that Hollywood does is, Hollywood does chase the money, right? So, pretty much anytime that Hollywood sees that there is a group of people that is trendy, you know, that’s like, starting to pick up steam, that’s like, that is when we start to see that reflected back in, uh, shows and films, um, or even music. Um, you know, I think one thing that, yeah. So with, so with, with like trans narratives, Um, oddly enough, Hollywood was kind of one of the Hollywood was one of the arenas that we started to see more positive representation, while that wasn’t always the case. You know like, I mean if you look back at like what was happening, pretty much like anything pre 2012 was pretty negative when it comes to trans rep, right? Um, the more that we started to see different activists speak up and, um, people slowly started to change their views on us that is, that is when we started to see more trans roles on television. Um, which, you know, they weren’t perfect. They were kind of clunky, uh, and I think part of that is, um, Hollywood saw that there was something that was eye-catching about us, and they wanted to use that to garner more attention, to garner more views um, to kind of have this, like, wow factor to all of their programs. Um, a lot of trans actors, unfortunately, really suffered through all of that. And trans, um, writers did, um, also. But you know, thanks to people like Laverne [Cox] who were able to really like push through that, we then started to see this shift where, um, there was more positive representation of us, um, there was more holistic representation of us also, um, that kind of went beyond just like the coming out story, and, you know, talk around like what body parts we have, but actually talked about who we are as people. Um, you know, and like that led to shows like Pose. That led to, um, us seeing trans, trans people just a part of people’s everyday lives on, on screen. Whether that was, you know, Elliot Fletcher on Shameless, or, um, Ian, or like Ian Alexander on Star Trek, um, uh, And, you know, and now we’re slowly starting to see more starring roles, such as Trace Lysette in Monica, me with, um, you know, me with Anything’s Possible and Crime. You know, we’re starting to see this shift. But it is slow. I do think it’s steady. Um, and I think that Hollywood is kind of like one of the few mediums that we have to really show ourselves in a positive light. Um, after, you know, yeah, like the shuttering of several newsrooms. Um, Now that there are a number of trans people who do have strong platforms who are on talk shows, like going on there and talking about their lives, um, or on TikTok, or on Instagram, you know, like, we have other ways to show our voices and show who we are, um, you know. So, yeah. But yeah, it gets, it gets tricky with Hollywood, you know, I think Hollywood, I think they don’t quite know how to always cast us in things because they don’t really understand who we are. They just know that they want to see trans people in different roles. But you know, I mean, oftentimes when I get a breakdown for stuff, um, it’s not quite clear, like, what kind of trans person they’re looking for, you know, it can be super broad, you know, um, even from, like, the age to, like, the look, whereas with any other casting that isn’t trans specified, um, you know, I mean, it’ll say, like, they want, like, um, You know, like a white guy with blonde hair who’s like really buff or whatever. But then when it comes to trans people, um, it can just be as broad as like, um, trans slash genderqueer person ages 18 to 50. And I’m like, what does that mean? You know, like, what exactly are you searching for? Um, so, I think, yeah, I think there’s a lot of ways in which, um, people are slowly becoming educated on us. Um, even with, like, the negative, um, Uh, the negative stories that we’ve seen from, you know, like, from the early aughts. There’s, I mean, there’s lots of people who actually saw something positive in that, and it did shift how they viewed us. It made them think twice about how they interact with trans people. So every, like, every little thing does count. Um, but I think the biggest thing that we can always do is to, um, really make sure that we’re telling our stories accurately and make sure that the people who call, who like, you know, call themselves our allies, that they are also holding themselves to a high, to a higher standard on, um, you know, how they show, you know, like, like how they show up for us.
[IMARA JONES] Yeah. I think one of the questions, I mean, it’s interesting because you’re saying that the roles are trickling in and they’re slightly getting better, but then you can get, have a situation where, you know, someone like Dave Chappelle is suddenly platformed and then, you know, with anti-trans rhetoric, they, you know, have the biggest um streams of that year, um, on Netflix. And so it’s the way in which, like, even though there are these trickle of roles, you’re still, you know, contesting the images of trans people that still can garner huge audiences, right?
[EVA REIGN] Absolutely. Um, yeah, because I mean, trans, I mean, transness is such a, It can be such a spectacle to different people, you know? And I think that is where a lot of the draw comes from. Um, especially when it comes to trans women. We have always been the most visible. Because people, um, people are very caught up on the whole notion of what makes a woman, what makes a woman appear attractive, what makes her appear not attractive, all these things. And so, you know, even when we turn on like, Uh, very, um, like, you know, just like, very like far-right media, like, you know, like, um, like Fox News, um, they’re typically focusing on trans women, and they’re focusing on us entering the bathroom, and us, um, entering sports. Um, and yeah, like when you go on, like, when you go online, you see the major impact of, uh, of, you know, all these negative ideals and notions that are being output. Um, with people very much focusing on this whole idea of like a man being in the bathroom, or a man being in a dress, or whatever, whatever, whatever. Um, all of it’s false, all of it is, uh, It’s, you know, it’s all, you know, it’s all fueled by people who, um, probably don’t know us. Or maybe they do. Or, you know, maybe they do know us in a very personal way. You know, I mean, we’ve seen that multiple times. But people who have the most to say about us are also the same ones who are hitting up, you know, who are, uh, hitting us up in our Instagram messages in the middle of the night. Right. Um, you know, or they’re on Tinder or whatever dating app, you know, and they also are turning around and trying to save face by being so adamantly anti-trans. And it is this big question of like, you know, why are you so concerned with us? Um, why is there such a big spectacle of us in journalism? Because that gets, because that, that like gets clicks, right? That gets lots of clicks. That gets lots of traffic. Um, and, uh, you know, I think there’s I don’t have a through line with where I’m sup—where I’m going with this. Uh, but, um, I think when it comes to the spectacle, that sadly is what has, um, garnered more roles for us in, in Hollywood. What’s, um, you know, that is also what has generated more storylines for us. And that also gives us so much more to push back against. You know, and I think that’s why, um, you know, the fact that we all make our own media, that we all are showing our faces and being proud of who we are, that is such a powerful thing. Because in this world with so much, so much, um, propaganda around our very being it can be very easy for trans, you know, for, um, for trans folks to feel that we can’t even walk outside our front door because we think that people are going to put this camera up to our face. You know, we see this on social media. We see it in, um, the news, um, and yeah, I think like the more that we just keep generating and the more that we keep showing up for ourselves first and foremost, um, the more we will see a positive change in helping people like Dave Chappelle, and all those other people who probably do have a fetish for us, if I’m being totally honest. You know, the, you know, the um, the more we can get them to shut up and mind their own damn business. So, yeah.
[IMARA JONES] Yeah, I think that’s true. Um, as Trace Lysette’s famous TikTok, um, framed, uh, Dave Chappelle, uh, it’s giving client. [Scattered laughter in room] Yes. So, it’s giving clients, um, Dave Chappelle’s rants.
[IMARA JONES] Um, Arielle Rebekah, I want you to help take us to two places where you know a lot about, I think. The first is the way that anti-trans violence is reported in local newsrooms, and specifically in relationship to the murders of, of trans people, specifically Black trans women. So take us into the things that they’re getting wrong and how those portrayals are harmful and what’s wrong.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Yeah, no, thanks for that question. Um, so I think what’s so interesting about, uh, reporting on anti-trans violence is there’s basically this like one Facebook group called Trans Violence News where all of the conversations, um, all of the initial reports about incidents of anti-trans violence begin. And so it basically is like, Sue Kerr of Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents or a couple of other folks will post that they heard about an incident that happened, uh, somewhere in the U.S., somewhere around the world. Uh, it is a global group. Um, and basically all of the conversations of anti-trans violence start in that group. Often what we will see is the way that folks in that group pick up on incidents of anti-trans violence in local media is by having some, like, really awful Google words set, so like, man in a dress, um, like, uh, presenting as female, like, all these things that, all these little buzzwords that we see in local newsrooms where we know that these are buzzwords indicating that generally transgender women, uh, or trans people more broadly, are being misgendered. These are the buzzwords that folks in that group use to monitor local incidents of anti-trans violence, which is really freaking telling that that is how we pick up on these local incidents. And so to answer your question, you know, often there are all of these indicators that local newsrooms either intentionally ignore, that indicate someone, uh, a victim of violence was trans, um, or just lack the expertise, understanding, or desire to pick up on, um, to pick up on these indicators. And I think, unfortunately, it is often the first. It is often this intentional lack of respect for transgender people. Because, um, you know, how I got my start in this work was, uh, one of the things that I was doing was reaching out to local reporters and saying, “Hey, we picked up on this incident of anti-trans violence.” “I have noticed that you have misgendered this person. I’ve noticed you’ve called them a man in a dress. I’ve noticed that you, used a photo from before they transition, and as, um, you know, as a reporter, you should care that this is inaccurate.” And that was sort of how I got my start in, uh, responding to anti-trans violence, was reaching out to journalists to get them to correct inaccurate reporting. And the reason I think it is intentional is because nine times out of ten, they would respond to me— if they responded at all— and say, sorry, my local, my newsroom guidelines say that I have to report what was on this person’s ID. Or I have to report what the police are saying this person’s gender is. And no matter how many times I push back on this, no matter how many times I tried to offer them guidelines for how to improve, uh, their strategy of reporting about trans people, there was very little shift and we’re starting to see some of that with, um, you know, there are some more, uh, sort of like progressive local news outlets, even in, uh, more right wing states, like even in Texas, there are a couple local publications that are doing a much better job reporting on anti-trans violence.
[IMARA JONES] Can you just name them really quickly?
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Um, oh my god, it’s escaping me right now. Um, but there, uh, the, the Texas, I can’t remember right now. Um, but there are a number of local papers that have popped up, like, dedicated to telling progressive stories within more right wing states. Um, and if I remember it, I’ll name it. Um, but, you know, by and large, it does seem like an intentional lack of respect for transgender people. And so, there becomes this over reliance on people like Sue Kerr of Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents, um, to be the one to correct all of these stories. And, you know, there was a six week period of time where Sue was dealing with a personal problem in the fall, and there were like ten incidents of anti-trans violence that came up over that six week period of time that either weren’t reported on at all or were reported on so disrespectfully without any regard for trans people’s lives. Um, and because of this, like, over reliance on this one Facebook group that maybe has, like, 20 of us active in it at any given time, um, unless people in that group are responding to it and doing this work, most of whom are doing it without being paid, local news gets carte blanche to say whatever they want.
[IMARA JONES] Yeah, I mean, I think that one of the things that is interesting, sadly, about local news reporting is, not only do they do everything that you said, misgendering, using the, um, the wrong photos, all the rest of it, deadnaming, you know, all the things that, I mean, should be utterly unthinkable in this age. Um, but it is also the case that they rarely actually report on the people who have died as human beings. So they talk about where they lived, how they died, What the police are doing about it and quotes from local officials. They rarely have things about “this is where this person worked. This is who loved them. This is what their friends and family are saying about them.” Like, They don’t actually center them as human beings, which is kind of standard for other stories of people who are murdered. Like, you center the person who was murdered as if they were a human being, and then the other things are around that. And that’s one of the most glaring absences for me and the reporting on, on trans people and trans death.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Yeah, and I think that that’s so interesting that you bring that up because I, I mean that’s, in the, y’all all have these journalist guides on your, um, your seats and these, uh, the anti-trans violence one we just came out with in September at TLC and Serena and I worked on that together. Um, and that is, that is one of the things that we really see so often is this, um, this lack of reporting on who trans people were in their lives. And what that leads to is a lack, uh, an inability of folks reading the stories to actually comprehend that trans people are human beings, that this person that died was a person that had family, friends, loved ones, coworkers, that they were a human being. And it, it, it, it It just perpetuates the dehumanization that perpetuates anti-trans violence, because if you don’t see trans people as human beings, similar to any other group that, you know, gets dehumanized, we’re seeing this with Palestinians in Gaza right now, if we see the repeated dehumanization of a group of people over time, then it is very difficult to get the general public to become invested in finding solutions to the, uh, conditions that place them in harm’s way. And so it feels, um, sometimes intentional, or an intentional lack of a desire to do it differently, where local newsrooms are just not reporting on who trans people were in life, probably because they aren’t personally invested in finding solutions to violence. They are just like, well, this is a breaking news piece of, Um, murder of this person that I don’t care about, and so I’m going to report on it as such, when the reality is one of the biggest indicators of, uh, one of the biggest, uh, factors that increases empathy for any group of people is portraying them as human beings with full, robust lives and experiences. And we see when, you know, TransLash tells trans stories to tell [save] trans lives, well that increases empathy for transgender people and pushes the needle forward because if more folks are invested in finding solutions to anti-trans violence and solutions to violence impacting all of our communities, then we as a collective have the power to shift the narrative and to shift the conditions that place us in harm’s way. But if local media and media outlets by and large continue dehumanizing trans folks, continue, you know, platforming groups like the freaking ADF as quote unquote “experts” when their whole lane is targeting and increasing hate towards transgender people, then it becomes really difficult to push the needle forward, uh, in our favor.
[IMARA JONES] It reminds me of, um, so, um, there was a gruesome murder, I think it was three years ago, of, um, Dominique “Rem’mie” Fells, a Black trans woman in Philadelphia, whose— whose murder was among the most extreme that I had ever heard of. And if you read the details— I’m not going to recount them— but they are, they are, they are almost in the realm of Dahmer. Right? Like, it’s wild what happened to her in every single way. And I spoke to her mother Um, about it. And one, her mother was never included in any of the articles that was written about her before she died. Right? Like, and she was like, the world never knew that my daughter had a job, that she had a mom that loved her, that she had a family that supported her. You know, the world never knew that about her. And the second thing, I asked her was on this issue of humanity. I said, if you could be in a room along alone with the person who murdered her, what do you want them— what would you say to him? And she said, the thing that I would say to him is that my daughter was loved, right? That she was a person. And that was so poignant to me. And that shows you what’s absent in everything that you’re saying.
[IMARA JONES] Okay. Um, what do you think are some of the solutions, before we kind of move to the questions, what do you think are some of the solutions, because you’ve also done a lot of thinking in terms of the guide that you all have worked on.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Uh, solutions in terms of your reporting solutions? [overlapping speech with Imara]
[IMARA JONES] Yeah, yeah, so how do you, what are the things you think that journalists can do to improve?
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Yeah, I mean, I think the number one thing is, is always, always talking to trans people, um, always talking to family members of trans people, you know, the sort of, uh, soundbite framing of Nothing About Us Without Us, um, every story about trans lives, whether that is about anti-trans violence, anti-trans legislation, should always include trans voices, and should always include the voices of those most impacted, and so we know that Uh, you know, poor and low income families of trans youth are more impacted by anti-trans legislation because the ability to relocate out of state is significantly lower. We know that Black and disabled trans youth face increased barriers to accessing health care, and so really thinking through Not just about including trans people in general in reporting, but thinking through, okay, the issue that I’m reporting on is such and such thing, so, you know, if it’s healthcare, okay, I know that ableism in healthcare, especially in the era of the COVID pandemic, Prevents disabled and immunocompromised people in general from accessing health care because masks are not mandated in health care anymore— How do I bring that angle into reporting on gender affirming health care knowing that disabled and immunocompromised trans youth Can no longer access health care for now multiple reasons because of ableism in health care and because of transphobia in healthcare? You know, it is asking those questions of “what is the story I’m telling? Who are those most impacted even within the trans community? And how do I access those, uh, spokespeople?” And I think one of the recommendations that I would give is that Transgender Law Center, one of the things that that we do is connect, uh, journalists with spokespeople who can speak on certain issues. And one of the, uh, series that we are launching in 2024 and 2025 is a series of webinars aimed at increasing familiarity with spokespeople around certain specific issue, issue areas being anti-trans violence, uh, medical bans, athletics. Uh, Disability Justice and Reproductive Justice, um, to, and Christian Nationalism, to name six. Um, and so, you know, increasing familiarity with spokespeople who can speak on issues, and if you aren’t able to connect directly with a spokesperson or don’t know someone offhand, connecting with an organization like Transgender Law Center or your local Equality Federation representative organization, or local ACLU to connect with spokespeople who can add the personal angle to the story you’re telling because, as we’ve been talking about, that personal connection, that humanization, is what will push the needle for your readers in favor of solutions towards, uh, with regards to violence towards trans people, not just like, Fatal anti-trans violence, but anti-trans legislation, but harassment, but, you know, what happened to Nex Benedict. Right? These are the stories that we need to tell, including trans people, to increase the empathy necessary to end violence towards our communities.
[IMARA JONES] I would also add that, like, in addition to the, um, TLC resources, That there are lots of other resources with regards to style guides for how people can write about these. So the Trans Journalists Association has a style guide. Um, the, actually the National LGBTQ Journalist [Association] also has a style guide. Um, I know that the New York Times, a lot of the journalists there were actually pushing for various parts of those to be incorporated into the way that the, that paper covers trans people. So. The point here is that the things that journalists need to do are not a mystery, right? This is not like, you know, trying to figure out how to land on the polar axis of the moon. Um, which is really hard. I don’t know if you’ve seen the two things where they both landed upside down. So it’s a really hard thing to do. But this is not that hard. Like, you actually, you actually, have tons of resources to be able to tell you how to cover these things accurately. And so the point here is to urge people to actually use the things that are out there. This is not rocket science. And this is something that like all of us have done in our jobs. All of us do routinely. It’s something that’s, that’s kind of, that’s kind of not that hard.
Responsible Reporting on Transgender Communities at NLGJA
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] All right. Thank you, everyone, so much for being here. So this is responsible reporting on transgender communities. My name is Arielle Rebekah. I’ll give us a little intro, to talk about why we’re here, and then pass it over to some of our wonderful, wonderful panelists to improve yourselves. So we believe at Trans Law Center that no matter who we are or where we are from, all of us deserve to be seen and understood and heard by the stories that we consume on TV/in a newspaper. We deserve to be able to open the pages of the magazine and say like, hey, that story. That sounds like my story, that makes me feel seen, that makes me feel understood. I see myself reflected back in the pages of this paper. We know that trans people have existed forever, and we also know that right now there is this objectively small but powerful and loud group of far right bad actors that are enacting a series of attacks across statehouses, across the media, on transgender people and on bodily autonomy for all marginalized communities. We also know that the media and journalists in particular, are a key part of creating the world that we all deserve. That world where all people, including transgender people, can look at the news, listen to a podcast, and hear a story that makes us feel seen and represented. And so we’re going to talk today on this panel about what it looks like specifically across, some of the attacks we’ve seen. Some across athletics, across, bans on gender affirming care, across repro, with regards to anti trans violence, to tell stories about transgender people that get us closer to that world, that we all want to build together. A world where people of every single gender, every single racial background, every single class background, whoever they are, can see themselves in the media they consume. So I’m going to start off, with a round of intros, starting with, myself, my pronouns, and we’re going to go down and do names, pronouns, and our current job role.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] My name is Arielle Rebekah. I am a communications consultant, currently, at least today, here with Transgender Law Center. And I’m going to pass it on to Elly.
[ELLY] Hi, I’m Elly. I use they/them pronouns, and I am a freelance journalist.
[ALE] Hi, I’m Ale. I use they/them/elle pronouns and I am a freelance journalist as well. On anything sex/gender and reproductive health.
[SERENA DANIARI] Hi. I’m Serena Daniari, I routinely lose my voice so I’m sorry about that. She/her pronouns and I am the Senior Digital Media Manager at Transgender Law Center.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Great. Thank you so much, everyone. And can everyone hear all the panelists okay? Wonderful.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] So I want to start off with a question about, you know, something we often hear is this catchy retort that an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us, and we often hear this without much of an explanation that might seem like a deeper political analysis. I would love to hear, particularly as, as it pertains to your, later work as a journalist, as a reporter, how specifically attacks on trans people are directly connected to attacks on all our freedoms, and why it is important for journalists to include this in their coverage?
[ELLY] Sure. So I’ll start, the same people pushing acts like Florida Don’t Say Gay. Saying that kids can’t and shouldn’t be able to learn about racism. Are the same Christian nationalists essentially pulling the strings at places like Council for National Policy and people on the far right who are trying to ban abortion and take away trans people’s rights, to medical transition and gender affirming surgeries, things that are literally lifesaving, connecting the dots on these issue areas helps to show that trans panic and trans demonization is orchestrated by the same people who want to weaken rights and civil liberties. Keep people from being educated, keep people from having better qualities of life, to maintain the status quo. Especially as far as it concerns Alt-right nationalism. And when I think of or say, an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us, I think about how one depiction of one trans person affects all trans people, and how trans people are treated by systems and individuals in society, and especially how inaccurate and hateful depictions of trans people pardons the trans people who are already most systemically harmed. So black trans people, indigenous trans people, fat trans people, disabled trans people, and in that vein, in the affirmative, that means that our words as journalists, our reporting has the power to completely flip that and be so influential and provide a blueprint for the better world that trans people deserve to live in. One where we have respective care that we need to live peaceful, boring lives. Instead of constantly having to combat hate and beg for our basic needs to be met all the time.
[ALE] Okay? I’m just really short. So. So I think this connection is especially true when it comes to reproductive justice, because it all boils down to bodily autonomy. If you’re someone who believes in the right to self-determination, if you’re someone who believes that the decisions over your body should be yours and yours only, then this is something that you can really connect these two movements and boil it down to how is it that, an attack on all of us is an attack on all of our bodies? I think, when you see this, connection of this specifically is in the way in which that it is being used for anti abortion and trans bills we actually see it. It’s basically like a copy-paste messaging over the language that is being used by the conservative right to go after all of our freedoms. Yea. There’s no coincidence that after Roe got overturned, it was like, I think the number is 527 anti LGBTQ+ bills that were passed at the same time, that really just tells us that this is all about control, over our bodies and our decisions. Yeah. We often see things when we look at the language that is being used for these bills. It is our job, as journalists, to read between the lines, to look at the patterns, connect the dots. And when you see a sentences that say something like protect your people from gruesome environmental practices, the young people on that sentence could either be a fetus or trans youth unless you change the subject, we really don’t know what is it that we talking about? So when we see these things happening on the language that is being used then really does tell us what is it that we’re going after that this is more about power and control than it is about a specific groups of people. and I mean, not to say also that trans people do need abortions. Trans people do birth control. Trans people are highly affected. By any of the bans on all aspects of reproductive health. So yeah.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Actually I think to really briefly bringing it back to both something that Elly said and that you said also. it’s connecting to the players behind the scenes. Right. This is you know, it’s not just that the people pushing the anti trans bills or listening to the people pushing the anti abortion bills. No, they’re actually the same groups of people. Right. The Alliance Defending Freedom, Heritage Foundation, Liberty Council, all of these far right think tanks, organizations, bad actors. They like draft legislation, send it out to legislators across the U.S.. They have model legislation that gets exported across the entire US and then used to attack rights across reproductive care. The anti CRT attacks that we are seeing right now. The anti trans athletic bills, all of it is connected, not just from learning from each other, but actually the same far right small group of bad actors is pushing all of it and exporting it across the U.S.
[SERENA DANIARI] Thank you. Yeah, I definitely want to echo what my panelists has stated, I think in the line of, an attack on one of us was an attack on all of us, a recent phenomenon that I’ve been noticing, although I’m sure that you can trace it back further, is, cis folks being mistaken as trans and as a result, sort of having reap the negative consequences of transphobia. And I think, a lot of cis people have been historically comfortable, you know, turning the other way when it comes to, the way some trans people are attacked because they think that they’re immune to experiencing it themselves but but we’ve seen it at the Olympics. We’ve seen this trend of ‘trans-vestigating’ cis folks in bathrooms. And it really impacts, cis people who don’t necessarily fit this like Western, westernized notion of, you know, white beauty, you know, certain facial features. But it has a detrimental impact that it’s way more far reaching that just within the trans community. Additionally, at Trans Law Center, we recently created a journalist guide focused on reporting on anti trans violence. And, I also think it’s important to, zoom out as journalists because we, we tend to– I worked as a reporter for many years covering anti trans violence, and I’ve fallen into this trap as well. Looking at individual incidents of violence instead of zooming out and looking at the extrapolations and the societal ills and failings that, create the conditions to make this violence so pervasive, like, you know, lack of equitable housing, lack of accessible health care, lack of community resources. And so, I think the ultimate goal of our reporting is to guide readers towards solutions. So it’s also really important to, zoom out and show how, the larger collective is impacted, so that they can sort of see themselves and related to those in the trans community as well.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Right? the empath for all of us, but also the solutions benefit all of us, and that’s something that often gets missed when we’re just focusing on attacks and the harms is what are actually the solutions, right? As I was saying at the beginning, what are the systems we can put in place that do bring us closer to the world that we deserve? And I mean, who in this room saw that news story about, Imane Khelif. The boxer at the Olympics. raise your hands. Yeah. I mean Imane Khelif is not a trans woman. but we’ve seen time and time again how transphobia is used to targeting any person, and especially black and brown women, often black and brown athletes, that don’t fit this prescriptive notion of what, quote unquote, women are supposed to look like, which is usually a Eurocentric white standard. of what Christian Nationalists think a woman should be and look like and behave like. if someone is a little too strong, if someone is a little to powerful. And then when you look at the Olympics, they point fingers, they say that can’t possibly be a woman. And that’s based on this is one idea of what it means to be a woman. And so we’re not just seeing this hurting trans people. We’re seeing this logic exported to hurt all people, no matter their genders. And so we know that far right attacks aren’t going to stop with trans women. And so, again, the solutions that are put forth by journalists, by you all should paint a picture of a world that creates a better world for people of all genders. Have we got systems in place that benefit people no matter their race and class and gender. Starting with, the solutions that have been come up with by trans women of color, who we know are impacted by these systems disproportionately because of the intersections of trans misogony and war in which they live.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] So I’m curious and we talked a little bit about how some of these issues are connected, but I would love to hear from you all. We have a group of journalists in this room that are here because you are interested in this issue, and you want to do better. And we also know that often even the most well-meaning of journalists, right? All of you are here because you want to do better. There are these traps that many of us fall into unknowingly? So I’d love to hear from all of you. What are some damaging frames that you have seen come up from well-meaning reporters? And what are some alternative frames, that you would like to propose instead for people to include in their coverage?
[ALE] Well, let me begin by saying that I do know when trans and non-binary folks are included on messaging about mental health and repro justice– love that, we’re here for it. There’s something that happens often. A damaging framework that I see is, including the trans folks some kind of concept of requisite to make a larger point about cis women issues. And so when we’re including trans and the nonbinary folks in this messaging and we don’t specify why is it that we included them. It really makes it, so the place that trans people have on this movement on repro health and repro justice is very passive. And we know that when there’s a passive, you know, placement, then it’s really easy to ignore. How is it that this community is affected? So I think specificity is really key when it comes to, you know, reporting any reporting on trans folks, on any repro justice work. And so really see how people, and I guess that, at a given point in time. There was this narrative that said, maybe people who have abortions because there might be an infirmity with the fetus. We know now that that’s outrageous. but in that case, abortion to eugenics. And when that happens, when that kind of messaging makes it into the mainstream media, then it really opens the door for anti abortion agents to cherry pick those kind of arguments and go after abortion. We saw it happening, not that long ago, when Clarence Thomas from in the Supreme Court, used the eugenics argument equating abortion to eugenics. To go after medication abortions. So that’s something that’s I feel like that’s a frame that we just that it’s really damaging. And one more thing that I will say last is that whenever we’re talking about trans rights and trans people in general, there’s a hyper focus on trans ammonimidy. Which in a lot of context, it should be so, I mean, trans misogony is extremely dangerous. We know that the experiences of trans folks is entirely different from the rest of the community. Then when we do that and make context of reproductive justice, we’re completely eliminating the place of trans masculine folks having this. And we know that they are affected. that we know that this is something that highly affects trans masculine folks. So if I was a cisgender reporter– if I was really any reporter, and I’m trying to make the case for abortion and why people should care about reproductive justice. I would want to include the stories of masculinity, because it really just captures how this is something that affects all of us. This is not just a single woman issue. This is an issue for everybody.
[ELLY] Framing that I see a lot is one, hyper focus on transition, on medical transition. That’s all that trans people are. Another framing is that trans people don’t know what we need. Shouldn’t get to be in charge of our own decision making or that someone should give some power or something to us, as opposed to just respect us to live our own lives. We specialize, see these kinds of framings for trans youth or explanations as to why young trans people shouldn’t have bodily autonomy to make decisions around transitioning, whether medically, socially. But we also see this apply to adults. And journalists should defer to trans people’s perspectives and experiences, and kind of not have, specific angle that they want to come in on that this will show basic and obvious to me to say, but like as a trans reporter, as a trans journalist, like, even as someone who has lived experience as a trans person, I don’t go into a story that is about trans people or has anything to do with trans people prescribing, you know, what I want them to talk about or what I want the angle to be, you know, my advice would be like, don’t go into a story with an angle necessarily. Don’t go into an interview with any trans person having something specific that you’re trying to get from them, like when you talk to trans people and you’re open to actually listening to our perspectives instead of, I think all of this, like cherry picking you know, trans people who have detransitioned or trans people who fit some framing that you want. You’ll hear that, you know, you’ll hear so many different kinds of stories. You’ll hear that there are, you know, trans people who live happy, healthy lives when we’re given the tools that we need and allowed to just live in our power and just respected, and I think that we really need more, hopeful stories and framings that are humanizing. And we need to come from, from a human place and from a place of care when we report and not just, like, have our reporter hats on, this is feedback that I have gotten from other trans people that I have interviewed that I have worked with and collaborated with as sources on stories like they always thank me for, like they’re like, oh, thank you for for literally just like treating me like a human being and, you know, like asking my consent around things and like asking, you know, making sure like that you’re using the correct pronouns for me, making sure that you’re using the right name, like, whatever. Just like really simple little things. And the last thing that I will say is that when you are reporting on trans people, no matter what it is, whether it’s like a silly, fun little story or like something very, very serious, you’re taking on a level of responsibility. It’s so important to do your due diligence and talk to trans people from all kinds of different backgrounds black trans people, disabled trans people, poor trans people, trans people of different statuses and classes. The works, no trans perspective is going to be the same. But listening to the stories of as many trans people as possible will help you report most accurately, even if you only quote one person. At this time in the world, we need to care so much about each other because the stakes are so high. And I kind of that’s the framing that I come from when I report, like, the stakes are so high. What you’re committing to when you report on trans people is being part of the work that shapes how systems treat us. If people get the medical care they need, whether that is, you know, their ADHD meds or, you know, some things for gender affirming transition. And, it shapes everything. And we’ve seen that literally translate in, for example, how anti trans articles from The New York Times have been used to pass anti trans laws like bathroom bills and bills trying to make access to gender affirming care impossible. So yeah, especially during this time, especially in an election year, at so many levels, it’s critical to be truly honest about how trans people are being criminalized, having rights taken away during, you know, a rise in fascism. We need the truth documented. There’s no one way that trans people are affected. But talk to a lot of different trans people. Don’t focus just on transition. Yeah.
[SERENA DANIARI] The first harmful framing that comes to mind for me, is one of victim blaming of trans panic. Obviously trans panic has been widely condemned from a legal perspective. But I think journalistically it still kind of has a hold on certain, publications and certain styles of reporting. I can think back to the story of one trauma, which was like decades ago, how in the initial reports, there was a lot of focus on this notion of, like, deception or trickery. And now, I’m Brianna Ghey and Pauly Likens, I’ve seen some publications continue to extend, that idea well beyond its, reasonable. expiration date. But it’s probably always really immiscible. But, so that’s, that’s one of, ones that I encourage journalists to actively avoid. and resist. And then also, I think around this notion of justice coming from carceral ones. A lot of times, we see journalists, you know, plugging certain resources. That encourage further policing or the enforcement of hate crime laws. And this ends up actually harming the very communities that they are reported to protect. So it has this opposite impact. And so as, trans reporters, as queer reporters, I think we have a unique responsibility to, to highlight different ways that justice and collective safety can look like, you know, adequate resourcing of communities, mental health care, restorative justice. And so, yeah,
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Something that we see a lot and, and part of this is like our, you know, the, the job of journalists is to report on what is happening in the world. And at the same time, so much of the reporting that we see about the state of trans lives in the U.S. right now, is about how bad things are, right? And we know things are bad. We know that there have been 600 plus pieces of anti trans legislation proposed every year since 2021. We know that attacks on trans people not just in legislation, statehouses, but also in our communities, fatal and non-fatal violence is significantly impacting members of our community. And as we talked about earlier, trans women violence is impacting cis people as well. And what I think about a lot is what message that sends to trans young people, trans young people at this moment, many of them are struggling to see hopeful, joyful futures for themselves. Because why would they write in all these senior in the media and already here in your community, this is about how bad things are and if they’re not able to connect to members of their community, who see hopeful joyous futures. If they don’t have that in their lives. they often exist in this sort of echo chamber, where that is the only narrative they hear and we have seen, how this living in this world and not just living in this world, but living under the perception that there isn’t a joyful future for them, has led to really negative mental health outcomes for young trans people in particular, but also trans people of all ages. And so one thing that I would like to, you know, propose to all of you as journalists is what first, what are the hopeful trans stories like several of my fellow panelists have said. Like, what are the stories of trans joy, but also something that we know 600 plus anti trans bills have been proposed in state houses over the past few years. Yes. Who can throw out rough numbers? How many have passed? Who has a rough estimate of like how many have actually passed this year? In the dozens that is not an asset that is not because anti trans bad actors are failing to push through legislation, that’s actually because organizers, advocates, lawyers, people are fighting these and they are winning. We are winning. Organizers, advocates are winning at striking down so much of this legislation young trans people, trans people in general, none of us really think about that when we look at the news. I want to hear those stories. I want to hear the stories of not just that we defeated all this anti trans legislation. But also how, right? The strategy is something that other activist, community organizers can learn from. How can we learn from it? How will they hear the stories of defeating anti trans bills, it’s from all of you? You have the power to put those stories and victory in front of the people. And so I would love to see that. I would love us all to be putting that out in the world.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] You know, something else I’m thinking is that it is not just the idea of like harmful frames, right? When we say harmful, it’s things that are actually exacerbating harm, right. Like, you know, the victim blaming narrative is the idea that is an idea that actually targets trans people, increasing targeting against trans people. You know, being the only seeing negative stories decreases mental health. But also, something we know is that in media often journalist will take sort of the wrong focus, right, it’s not necessarily a harmful narrative, but it sometimes, there may need to be there may be a need to pivot the way that journalists are reporting on an issue, to get us closer to the world that we deserve. And so I’m curious for each of you, talk to us about how this plays out in your beat and also what stories you personally, as a journalist, want to report on instead.
[ALE] I can start. Something that I see happening a lot in the reproductive justice field. Instead, there is a hyper focus on abortion when we talk about reproductive justice and rightfully so Roe got overturned, in ‘22 then we have to really report how dire the situation was for abortion. Then what happens is that reproductive justice is way more than abortion, reproductive justice is birth control, HIV treatment, IVF, hormone therapy, sex education. So when we hyper focus on abortion in the context of reproductive justice, we’re really not calculating the scope of what is happening. And make no mistake that Christian nationalists who going after abortion, are going to go after all of it. They’re going to go after birth control, after IVF treatment, this is just the beginning, you know, so when we don’t include all these aspects of reproductive health in our reporting, we’re not doing justice to the story. We’re really not capturing the full scope of how dire it is, you know, but also of how much of this anti abortion bills, anti trans bills are going to affect everyone in the services that we all need. So as for stories that I really want to see more. I really want to see more stories of trans people being involved in reproductive health. I mean, we know that reproductive, you know, health environments are not the most gender affirming but despite that, there are plenty of stories of trans folks still feeling extremely affected by their gender when they’re engaging with the reproductive health. So things like trans men getting an abortion, trans men, becoming pregnant and having pregnancies. Trans men on PreP, which is historically, as we know, is a medicine that is used for cis gay men. And also, like trans couples engaging with becoming parents. In the whole process of it, I really just want to encourage in mainstream media, in legacy organizations to really put into the stories of trans folks, the stories of joy, the stories of, positive stories of trans folks getting involved in reproductive justice and reproductive health.
[SERENA DANIARI] I want to see well rounded fully realized coverage of trans people, obviously trans people face, our fair share of trials and tribulations. But, we’re also doing so many incredible things across industries. And so I think highlighting the accomplishments and of the achievements of trans folks, you know, in front of this backdrop of all of these attacks is something we should continue to do. I also think, coverage of queer and trans issues is heavily westernized. I think about this a lot as, an Iranian trans woman, about how we’re failing to, to represent the stories, of trans folks and, areas like Gaza or, other colonized territories, you know, Lebanon, Ethiopia, Sudan. and how, the framing of the attacks is often relegated only to the U.S. which is not the case. And also stories that I’d really like to see, would focus also on this intersection of, trans rights, with intersex justice because there’s like a very unique contradiction with what happens, in the, enforcement of non-consensual surgeries being performed on intersex children at birth and is misreported by the far right, as opposed to, gender affirming procedures for trans kids being condemned by the right. I just think it is a very interesting contradiction that journalists could definitely further explore.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] And talk to us about why that is. why would the far right, on the one hand, you support intersex surgeries and on the other hand, condemn trans affirming care
[SERENA DANIARI] It’s about this fear of gender nonconforming in general. And this, idea of trying to, you know, quote, normalize people who express their joy of authenticity in ways that deviant outside of, you know, binary forms of gender expression. And so I just think it’s like the tragedy but also like, kind of hilariously hypocritical about the same people saying about kids are too young to have scientifically proven, you know, medically beneficial healthcare. Are saying that infants should be able to have these surgeries operated on them before they have any sort of conceptual realization of who they are.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Yeah. and in order to defend and justify the far right logic that there are only two genders. They need to also, be able to justify that there are only two sexes. And the second in those walls, those lines become ambiguous it threatens the whole foundational logic of their argument that there are two sexes and they are immutable. You can’t change them, right? Like intersex people show us that not only are there more than two genders, there are more than two sexes. And all of this is like kind of just like a made up architecture that we as human beings have designed to understand a species that at its core is diverse, right? Like there’s so many different ways for people to be across race, genders, bodies, faces all of us have like such difference among us and the far right cannot stand that’s true and will do everything in their power for that to not be true. So they can control marginalized communities and continue to force us into boxes. Which is why one of the narratives that we try to push at Trans Law Center is the idea that all of us, no matter who we are, what we really want is to be free from box and free to be your authentic self. I think that’s a very clear demonstration of how the far right tries so very, very many ways across many fears to violate that value that the majority of people hold, the very people believe everybody deserves to be their authentic selves. Everybody deserves to be free of boxes.
[ELLY] Yeah. Everything that everyone has already said before. Like I said, medical transition and the ways that it might harm people or even how difficult it is, especially for trans youth, is really overly focused on, and as for, you know, what kind of stories I would prefer to tell instead, and I do try to tell, I will see more stories about what trans people are able to do, and how we’re able to contribute positively to the world or literally just live like happy, healthy lives when we have our basic needs met, when we’ve been given the tools, to transition both socially and medically, or just be respected, but also the stories that we’re still somehow able to thrive and care for each other, even when we don’t have any of those things. Like, I got to write a story last year about queer and trans disabled people. I myself am multiply disabled, was born multiply disabled and I got to write this beautiful story that I’ve wanted to write for years and years about queer and trans disabled people and how we provide community support to each other. And it was a framing that I have never gotten to see out in mainstream media. And was something that I just deeply wanted to see, I wanted to give hope to disabled trans people who needed to see those niche experiences reflected in the world. And how we’re not given the respect that we deserve and the tools we deserve, and we’re still able to create communities of care. And then the other thing I’ll say is that you’re reporting on principle again, everyone has kind of said this, but it needs to be as accurate and complex is how you report on other people. And your reporting on trans people should not be relegated or minimized to like, oh, you’re literally just reporting on trans people, like talk to trans people for other stories that are expressly about trans people, the way that you would be like, oh, I need to get a variety of sources for this, you know, story about, I don’t know, corn in Nebraska. I don’t know, like literally just talk to trans people over for stories that are not about transition or not. you know, the stakes are higher for us. And people need to see us. I don’t want to say normalized because I think that word is overused, but like, they need to see us in a variety of contexts. And, you know, journalists in general, who are not trans, even if, you know, we’re queer journalists tend to fund trans narratives and treat them like a monolith, but also only focus on transition. Trans stories should be about more than just bodies. Talk about how old trans people’s lives get to be. And the ways that we make a positive difference in the world or literally just who we are in the world when we have the resources we need, who were in the world apart from anything about our bodies or transitions. Yeah. Like I said before, include, you know, variety of trans voices when reporting, if you’ve met or talked to one trans person, you’ve met or talked to one trans person, and the burden of of telling trans stories accurately, and with more breath should not be on trans people. An example of some really excellent, storytelling about trans people, that I’ve seen recently is a piece from Jireh Deng from the LA Times who wrote about LGBTQ+ healthcare workers, fighting for gender affirming care amid the rise in anti trans laws. And not only is it written by a trans person who intimately understands these struggles and these experiences and has the lens of expertise to write it, but it’s from a place of like, such journalistic standards that it really paints a very, nuanced picture of queer and trans people being in solidarity. And the work that we do to protect each other. As anti trans legislation is proposed across statehouses, you know, has tripled between 2022 and 2023 and is growing all the time. They did a really excellent job of of using facts and stories from healthcare workers to push against false narratives, that transness is a social contagion. There was so much about it that was excellent. But yeah, most of the excellent reporting that I’ve seen on trans people has come from trans people. And I think that’s wonderful and amazing. And I would also love to see, non trans people push the boundaries of, you know, how they help us to tell our stories and to, pass the mic, there are more trans journalists than ever, who were, you know, informing the ways that trans people are covered. And that’s amazing. And that’s made it possible to fight back against terrible disinformation. And. Yeah, and they have incredible places that you can look to, to see how to more accurately and hopefully talk about, trans people, trans issues. We have the Trans Journalists Association, and we have, a lot of great guides from Trans Law Center. So I would definitely recommend on top of, you know, just broadening horizons by talking to more trans people, learning from the resources that are out there.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] Yeah, absolutely. And, to Elly’s point about the, journalist resource series that they mentioned. So if you look at the front two rows in this room, but also if we look, back at my buddy, K who is sitting right by the door, who’s raising his hand, we actually have, copies of all of our journalist resource guides here today. And we have guides reporting on anti trans violence, gender affirming care, athletics, and reproductive justice, and abortion. folks pleaser be encouraged to take copies of these guides before you exit the room today. And additionally, we’re going to be hosting a webinar series that if we stay, clued in to Trans Law Center on Instagram or online, we’ll be promoting, webinars on these guides over the coming years to really engage journalist in the conversation about these topics.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] And in terms of the from the standpoint of athletics specifically, something that I wanted to touch on is like a frame that I am, you know, the entire scene is, it has long been talking point of the far right that trans people and trans women specifically have a quote unquote, biological advantage in sports. They are pushing this point that testosterone, puberty leads to an irrefutable biological advantage that trans women have what we know from messaging research is that when we as communication professionals, when journalists repeat that idea, bring the idea of biological advantages into reporting, even if you are bringing it in for the purpose of refuting it, what it does is that the people that agree with you, that it doesn’t matter whether you know there’s a biological advantage because there’s all sorts of athletes biological advantages. Right? The people that are going to agree with you, will continue to agree with you and the people that are on the fence, already have that idea of trans women have a biological advantage in their brain. You have just planted that seed again. By bringing in the far right frame. This frame that they have, really forcefully, imprinted into the media narrative. You often unintentionally reinforce it for readers. And so, again, what I want to hear a more is supportive coaches. And what are supportive coaches talking about? What are athletics associations talking about? Because what we know is that the majority of athletics associations and many, many coaches, many parents, support and respect trans youth’s right to participate in sports. And when we’re talking about youth athletics specifically, what we know about young people is that the reason, by and large, all young people, this is not just trans people, the reason, by large, young people participate in sports is because they like it, because they love it, because they enjoy playing sports, because it benefits them. Right? We know that sports increase young people’s ability to understand how to work as a team, for people that are winning and enjoying it, increases their self confidence. It is a social activity for young people to bond. And we know that all young people and we want to hear this new, that all young people, regardless of their gender, regardless of how much money they have. or for the equipment to participate in sports, regardless of where they live, what school they go to. Regardless of any of these things, all young people deserve to experience the benefits of participating in sports. The more you can bring that idea, the idea and the reason young people play sports is because they love it and they benefit from it. The more we want to be the narrative, the idea that carries forward and the more supportive we believe in for the idea of trans young people being included in that because all young people deserve to be included in that.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] The other thing I want to mention is the idea of, when we say, like we say, often this narrative that we hear is that the far right is attacking trans people because they hate us. We hear of hate groups, we hate crimes. We hear this hate narrative repeated over and over again. Hate is something that is very hard to prove. We can’t prove, we can’t point to someone and say, you’re doing this because you hate me. But part of the far right is saying out loud in their own words, is that the reason that they are attacking trans people in state houses in our communities is because they want to create a Christian world where the only people that are able to truly be free are white Christian men, and everyone else is subordinated underneath white Christian men. They are saying this part loud and proud. They’re not necessarily saying they hate us nor is that necessarily strong messaging, but we want to hear in the media, what are the parts to say out loud and what is the what is the antidote to that, what the antidote to their narrative is supporting and respecting all people, regardless of their gender, and working together to make the world that we deserve.
[ARIELLE REBEKAH] And so I want to turn it over to the audience. We’ve just stood up and talked to you across, athletics, across gender affirming medical care, across abortion and reproductive care. About anti trans violence. About our thoughts. I want to hear your questions for us. What are the things that you want to know from us? Turning it over to y’all for a Q&A and my mic runner, K, is gonna come up and grab a mic and run it to people that want to have a mic. And saw a hand up here first, with the person blue hair.
Coming Fall 2025: Trans Storytelling Mini-Documentary
We’ve been chatting with trans storytellers around the country about the future we want to live in.
No matter who we are or where we come from, we all deserve to see our authentic selves reflected, with respect and kindness, in the media we consume. Trans storytellers hold the solutions that bring us closer to the world we deserve.
In Spring 2025, check in with trans storytellers to hear their thoughts.