body is ready to you know start shutting to down get it moving towards sleep instead like sunlight, sunlight, sunlight. stay awake. and so that can cause it could contribute to insomnia. so sleep experts hate daylight time. and there's like a built in the senate now, i think to make it permanent and that people are just up in arms about furious because. it could actually cause a lot of public health problems. yes. good evening. happy saturday of the 22nd annual fall celebration. wisconsin book festival. i just really want to thank you all for being a part of this. literary magic is what i am

referring to it as because really is it's so wonderful. see all of you in the library enjoying these amazing author talks about amazing books. i want say i invite you to share your experience on social media. use the hashtag wri book. and yeah just let other people see how much fun we're and hopefully inspire them to come again because we'll be keeping it going tomorrow. so i didn't introduce myself, so i'll do that. i'm jane rotunda, am the director of the book festival, and i'm really, really honored to be here with you all and to be putting these amazing author events tonight. it's a true honor. i use the pronouns. she her and i want to start by also thanking the madison public library. i want to thank the madison public library foundation. it's because of their support and festival sponsors that were

able to provide these free public to our community. it's it's why it's all possible. and this is a special, an important moment that i'm really honored to take part in is in drew's intraday using our author for this event, skyler baylor, an author educator advocate. he uses the pronouns he him. he is also the first transgender athlete to compete in any sport on an ncaa division one men's team. is skyler's exemplar work has earned him numerous honors, including nyc grand marshal. the out of 100 lgbtq nations instagram advocate of the year and and the harvard varsity

director's award. skyler also hosts his own podcast, dear skyler on gender and culture and is the creator of the groundbreaking lane changer e-comm gender literacy online learning syrias series. he holds a degree in the cognitive and, cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary from harvard. schuyler baylor didn't set out to be an advocate. his very public transition to the harvard men's swim team put him in the spotlight, and his choice to be open about his transition share. his experience has touched people around the world. tonight, we'll get to hear him talk about he she they and his book skyler offers an essential and urgent guide that the conversation about gender identity and how we talk about it anti-transgender legislation is being introduced in the states governments around the us and groundbreaking numbers. trans people are under in sports and health care school curriculum, bathrooms, bars in

nearly every walk life with a relatable narrative in facts, science and history. skyler helps restore common sense and humanity to a discussion that continues to be divisive, co-opted, and deceptively politicized. he doesn't stop there. he she they is more than a book on allyship. it also speaks to trans folks directly answering the question, does it get any better? will it change with a resounding yes celebrating radical trans joy he or she has been as myth busting, affirming, compassionate and fierce, and a crucial, urgent and lifesaving book that forever changes the conversation about gender. skyler, we could not be more happier and honored to have you with us this evening. please join in welcoming scott skyler baylor baylor.

thank you so much. i'm really excited to be here. i've never been to madison so i'm. how many of you are actually from madison? okay. a lot of you. how are you? not from madison? okay. also a lot of you. impressive. okay, well, i'm that you all came to here to this talk and to this amazing book festival. i'm. i'm so honored to be here. and, you know, i'm going. i'm going to do a little reading in a moment, but i before i do that, i. i was just reflecting, showing up in this space as a mixed race. korean-american, asian, queer, transgender man. there's a little something in there for everybody, right? as myself, you know, as my whole self. and earlier, i spent about an hour and a half with a group of trans kids. they they like it's like a support group for trans kids in their families. and i watched all these kids like running around this field just having a good time. you know, these little kids, they're, you know, six years old, five years old, ten years old, 14 years old. and they're just having fun.

i mean, one of them threw a soccer ball at me, was like, can you juggle? i was like, with my hands or with feet. and they were just like, i was like, okay, let's play. you know, there were so excited to just hang out and. and i watched all these kids running around and i thought, gosh, this is what i needed when i was a kid, you know, this is what i never had. and what's beautiful is i get to watch it now from a place of a lot maturity that i didn't have at time, but also a lot of grief. right? a lot of grief for what i, i wasn't able to hold. and then another layer of grief, that's what maybe these kids won't be able to keep. right. and the reason i'm sharing that is because their joy was so unbridled and so beautiful and so special and it's so endangered right now. and when we think about kids being endangered, i think about all of us being endangered. and so when we think about this conversation about gender and conversation that's attacking trans people, it's actually all of us. and i hope to have delivered some of that message through my book so i'm a i'm to start with a reading and i'm going to i'm

just to i like to go and order. i'm a rigid rules guy, except not in gender. so i'm kind of broke that one. so i'm going to i'm going to do the introduction and read for about 10 to 15 minutes and then really want to open up for for conversation with you all, because that's really what this is about, a conversation. so you have questions. please make sure that you hold on to them just for a little bit because i will make time for questions. and if you're in the back and you want to come sit down. yeah. awesome. cool. great. i don't bite. there's no splash. i'm all right. cool. introduction. i am just who i am. we walk out one at a time in alphabetical order. my last name begins with b, so am first. i can feel my heart in my ears. the sound held inside my head by my silicone cap. a little echo chamber from washington, d.c., freshman baylor. the announcer booms.

i know everyone watching me. i know i've done this on a thousand occasions before, but this time is different. underneath my crimson warmups, there is no longer a one piece swimsuit. women usually wear. instead, i'm wearing a tiny little speedo. i'm now on the men's team. hundreds of articles have been published about my switching from the women's to the men's transgender swimmer. they all write some attack me for my history saying i'll never be a real man. others make my history of an eating disorder into meaning that i am just a deluded woman with body issues. many claim is no way i could keep up with with much less beat other from beautiful competitive to mediocre, ugly man. one commenter wrote on a national profile about me as i stand by the edge of the pool waiting for the rest of my teammates to join. i'm 15 again, standing in my

women's swimsuit behind the blocks with girls from my relay. i remember the confidence, the feeling of knowing i could do exactly what i had set out to do. i remember rush of the natatorium going silent. i put my hand over my heart. my pre-match ritual. my fingers and thumbs straddling my swimsuit strap on my shoulder. i had done this at the start of every single meet during the singing of the national anthem. i remember staring out at the pool as the music, and i took a deep breath, imagining the final stroke of my race. i take a deep breath now, staring out at the pool as i do college swimmer everything feels so different. i've never alongside 38 college guys before. i'm at a pool. i've never raced in. and it feels like all eyes are on me. but as always the water resembles beautiful blue glass. and i breathe a sigh of relief. this is different, but it's also the same. the same 25 yard pool, the same

100 yard breaststroke race, the same breaststroke i've done since before i. could remember the same echoing acoustic that make hearing so difficult. the same chlorinated air that makes everyone cough the same. take your mark up before we launch off the blocks. it's all the same when the team is gathered along the edge of the pool, the natatorium. we stand in identical clothing and the anticipation dances my fingertips when i am this nervous. the most nervous. i imagine. the blood is rushing my veins like whitewater, rapids. when the star spangled banner begins to play, i instinctively begin my preemie ritual. but this time my fingers seeking shoulder strap find nothing. in that moment, i realized that while everything is the same, it's also different. it's also new. for the first time in my life, i'm competing as just myself without baggage of who everybody told me to be, who everybody said i was, who thought i was

supposed to be. today i am just who i. i'm skyler. my eyes. well, with. more than 19 years of stumbling to get here. just a few months ago, i was ready to quit swimming. a year ago, i was ready to quit the world and life altogether. but today i, standing tall, a proud queer transgender swimmer on harvard men's swimming dive. the first openly transgender athlete to compete. any d-1 men's team in the ncaa, a. of course. surviving my first meet and not getting last. i got fifth. did not that everything was easy from then on. it would take my teammates the rest of the year to consistently gender me correctly. it would take me nearly three years to feel comfortable around them. and all the years since came out are still not enough to dispel all the hatred and bigotry about transgender people, especially in athletics. over next four years, i not only became the first and at the time

only athletes to have competed for the team that aligned with their gender identity. all four collegiate seasons. but i also became a well-respected educator on trans inclusion. i never knew where this journey would take me when i began. the first speech i gave was at my own high school the night before i was awake until two or three in the morning attempting to write the speech itself. dozens of draft in the trash. i had no idea what other people would want from me. what should i tell them? what could they learn? me? that was better received than i had expected. some students even said it was the best they'd experienced. so as word spread. one speech led to another. by sophomore year, speaking was the primary way i spent my free time. by graduation 102 speeches were in the books. despite regular assurances that what i had to say was valuable to others, i often found myself perplexed over why wanted to listen. i was a college kid who wanted to swim when news outlets would

call me an advocate or an activist, i would them. no, you only think that i'm an activist. i insisted because i am a trans swimmer and i'm talking about it before every single speech wondered to myself, why are they here? why do they care? and only rarely was the answer clear. i was talking to a group of swimmers or trans folks like me. we were comrades, but most the time i spoke with people with whom i had little to nothing in common, or so it appeared. i tried to imagine the perspectives, the audience members, the students, coaches, administrators, teachers, mental professionals, medical providers, or employees at a bank. how could i connect with them? because in the end, the inability to connect is what breeds hatred and bigotry. that is connection, is the essence of our humanity itself. at a small school in northern vermont, i gave a speech to a room filled with student athletes. it was a standard event.

i shared my story and provided on trans literacy before opening questions. after the event, a group of students gathered in line, waiting to. talk to me. a young man approached, explained he was on the wrestling team. he said, you know, before i came here today and met you, he paused. i nodded and waited patiently. before i met you, he began again. i was nervous about. people like you. my girlfriend's best friend, bisexual, and i used to make me uncomfortable. i'm not homophobic anything, but i didn't want hang out with her. he stared at the floor and then glanced back at me as. he admitted this. i didn't say anything yet. i wasn't sure where this was going. but now i've met you. and you're just like me. we're both just athletes. we're just guys. he looked directly me now. so now i understand. i began to smile, relieved at another speech at a high school

in. pittsburgh. the audience was mostly students from local public schools. jesus gender and sexuality alliance clubs. with the exception of a few athletes at the end, two football players accompany gsa officers to the stage to give me small gift. when asked if, you could say something to the audience, not knowing what he would say. i agreed. listen before i came in, i was uncomfortable, he said into the mic. you know. i can't do this. i can't speak. i just want to sit over there and stay quiet. but when i came in, it was a very inviting environment. i was. i can do this. there's no difference. you know, we're all the same. he turned to me and continued. and i want to say thank you for opening up my eyes to a brighter future. the audience's almost drowned out his voice as he finished. this is reality. this is life. i just about cried. really? i had to try very hard not to ball on stage. and while this is still one of the most touching moments i've

experienced at a speech such an empathy has not been unique in my career. moments like this happen over and over again. people they would find themselves uncomfortable around me. a transgender person, but then meeting me and learning i am also just someone living life like them. these moments serve as resounding reminders of the power of empathy and shared humanity that there is so much more love than we imagine. for us, queer and trans folks, or for anyone really. sometimes this love comes in a form of hope. after a speech in north carolina, i spent nearly hour with people who'd stayed after a line that snaked from the stage all way to the entrance of the large auditorium. the last person in line was a shorter curly haired individual with a baggy sweater jeans. he wore a pin with scrawled across it, presumably in his own handwriting, and he burst tears as soon as he met my eyes. i. he tried before his voice caught again. and he stared at the ground. take your time.

i said gently as i could. he took a deep. i drove 6 hours to get here. he finally wiping his eyes. wow. i said, genuinely surprised you. so much for coming. i'm honored you came far. i hope you have somewhere to stay tonight. it's late. i smiled to offer softness. he laughed and then gestured behind him a person who stood watching about 20 paces away, waved as we made eye contact. my friend is here with me. i'm staying with her, he assured me. you were the first trans person i found online. i'm trans too. he shared the words, almost tumbling out of him for so long. i want to be here anymore. i didn't see trans adults know living their lives, seeing you and reading your story. i felt my chest tighten. i listened. i too, struggled back tears. it saved my life, he said. after a few heavy breaths. you saved my life. and i needed you to know.

love and sharing love in the form of hope is incredibly powerful lifesaving even. every time someone shares experiences like these, i find myself holding back that threatened to break my whole body. sobs i'm not sure would ever end if i ever let them escape. unrestrained the experience is certainly optimist and deeply meaningful. someone has chosen to stay because of me. but grief floods all the spaces in between. this is the grief that we live in world where trans children want to and do kill themselves. this is the grief that so many trans children do not see their own futures and their ability to thrive beyond the stereotypes trans trauma. this is the grief. i am the first and sometimes only trans person so many have and have been able to find resonance with. this is the grief that i hope to turn into love. through writing this book. in 2020 and 2021, record breaking numbers of anti-trans legislation were introduced in state governments across the us.

most of these bills focused on two arenas. first, banning trans athletes from competing in sports aligned their gender identity, and second, banning children from accessing gender affirming health care. the two years 20, 22 and 2023 have only seen worse with each editing pass of this book. legislative bans are increasing and in severity, including a comprehensive overview of every tack, was simply impossible at the final stage of editing over 491 anti-choice bans pieces of legislation across 40 states have been introduced just in 2023. that number is now 501 bans on gender affirming care expanded to include trans adults in addition to minors, countless bans to criminalize the presence of trans or otherwise gender diverse people in public bans threaten the legality of drag performance. anti-trans rhetoric and anti-trans violence have reached all time high, fueled by media

and politicians demonizing trans people and transness. every year has been more savage than the last with 2021, becoming the deadliest year on record for anti-trans violence. and although anti-trans has claimed anti-trans legislation to be protecting children or women, the transphobia has grown increasingly brazen conspicuous shedding this disguise of alleged protection. in 2023, the daily wire commentator michael knowles said it loud and clear transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entire. the whole preposterous ideology at every level. after graduated from college, i went on a speaking. it was a busy few weeks. i gave 43 speeches in 39 days. in 26 cities around the u.s. and the majority of these events were in red cities and red states. i wanted to bring trans awareness to places would not otherwise have access. while i was very excited to meet

new people and continue this work, i was also very nervous. i my life mostly living in very cities. d.c., york, seattle, boston. traveling to remote and rural areas in kansas or illinois or pennsylvania was daunting. wasn't sure if i would be able to connect with people in such unfamiliar settings. at one such speech, i was with a group of athletes and community members at a university in a small town in kansas. when it came time for questions, an older in a purple shawl asked what you. what do people like me? she hesitated, clearly nervous. i don't know what the right words are. i don't want to mess up. that's okay. i encouraged her. let's work through it together. okay. what do people like me? she tried again. do to help people like you. she finally finished. i smiled. this is a wonderful question.

what? asking is how to be the best ally an ally is someone who is not or lesbian or transgender. so not lgbtq. plus, but who supports us and wants to help. the lady beamed, and before could continue to answer her question, she interrupted. thank you so much. oh, isn't this wonderful? you've given me a new word. ally. i want to be an ally. that woman, purple and so many more like. her is exactly why i am a firm believer that most people are good people. some just need a little help finding right words. trans or not. of course, finding the right words. no panacea for the horrible often violent discrimination trans people face, but is most certainly a step in the right direction. the first step toward connection. so whether you're trans like me or not, i hope this book helps you find ways to connect first with yourself and then with others. after connection is the essence of our humanity.

thank you. so. i chose to start with the introduction. mostly because i'm rigid and i like starting where the starting point is. but other reason is because that's really i wrote that to introduce us all into this conversation and i think that oftentimes when we think about these anti-trans bills, when we think about transphobia, when when we think about trans people, oftentimes it's it's a bucket over there of. oh, trans people are over there. and we want to be allies of trans people. and and we should, you know, and accept trans people. but they're over there. right? and the reality is that gender is experience we all have. right. you don't have to be trans to have a gender. in fact, cisgender people, people are not transgender, are also very connected to their gender identities. and if you've ever misgendered a person, you know this right? okay, so gender is actually an

experience we all have and therefore gender is also something that can limit all of us, right? even if you're not trans, you felt not man enough or not woman enough. you might have felt too masculine, too feminine or not feminine enough. not masculine enough. all right. we're all these experiences of being limited or sort of boxed by. and i think when we think about liberation and it needs to be thought of in the context of with oneself first, as i was just writing, connecting with myself and my own gender means i can connect better with you. all. so i think about that as sort of the core tenets of this book that i've written and of how we just have conversations with each other because the society right now is so. we've got people that are just from separate sides of the room and no change that's actually occurring except honestly for the worse. and we have to figure out how to have these conversations is better, right? and with humanity, facts all at the forefront. okay, how am i doing on time?

okay, cool. perfect. i to go about 30 minutes and i was like a little bit shy of that. i'm an athlete as, we said, and i don't like standing in one place the whole time, so i'm going to do a bit moving around, too, to keep you all paying attention. so what i really want do is have a conversation with you all and. we have plenty of time and i want to make so much space for questions, for comments. there's a lot of topics that are in my book that i think a of people have a lot of opinions about right. trans people in sports being a big one. gender for. caribbean another one. trans people in bathrooms. right. minors having access to transition at all and i want make sure that we talk about the things that you're actually curious about. i also want you to read the book so, only talk enough about it. but but i do want to have these conversations with you because i think that's where the change occurs. so i'm an invite you to ask questions. jane, is standing at the mic. if you a question, we'd like you to use it because of recording this event and why your beautiful voice is on the on the

recording. exactly. so if you have a question, we're going to have you go line up. and as get up the courage to get out of their chairs i'm going i'm going to tell you, i truly want you to ask whatever questions you have. some people get nervous around trans people or social social justice conversations that like, oh my god, i'm going to say the wrong thing. you're not going say the wrong thing. i've given lots of presentations to a lot of different kinds of people. and one of my favorite audiences is. okay. and i have to tell you something about kindergartners. kindergartners have absolutely no filter. none. so today, access that inner kindergartner have no filter. truly ask me the questions you curious about because think it would be questions that other people have as well and i'd love to answer them. and if you could say your name and your pronouns be fantastic. hi, i'm gina. she. her. two quick things. one, congrats on your wedding this year. thanks for sharing that with all of us. thank you.

beautiful. i manage social media for a trans owned business that does not have the following and does not all the advocacy you do. and the things we receive are vile and scary. and i want to know know one. how are you dealing with that? because i'm sure you get much worse than we do. and to how are you staying connected to your in a world hellbent on dehumanizing people? okay they're kind of similar questions, actually so i appreciate that. is it okay if i like tug this out of the way? okay. no, no, it's okay. i got it. i got it. any use? might someone for something, huh? i haven't been swimming in a long time. in case anybody was going to ask me that question.

okay. how do i maintain my humanity? and especially, like on social. so i am. i am like, despite the fact that one of my jobs is theoretically a creator on social media, i actually am almost never on social media. and that's how i maintain my sanity is. i don't go on it for fun. i'm not like, you know what i want to do right now? i want to go read all the hate comments on my instagram. but and i like make a joke out of that but it's tempting to do right. a lot of us want to know what are people saying about us? what are people saying about things that are related us like what kind of comments do people have about what we posted? but i have learned early on that that never helps me. and the other thing is the transphobes are not so creative. all right? the questions are really the same. if you read like two or three and it's like, okay, you're a woman, you're okay. i got it. you think i'm a one? cool. right. it's really repetitive and that actually helps me to some degree because i understand the repetition is not a reflection me, but rather of them. i have people that will follow me solely for the sake of actually saying negative things

to me and know that because i restrict them. and when you restrict people, you can see their like comment grayed out. and so, you know, they're coming back repeatedly and i like that has caused me a how do i say this best i've learned in empathy for these people because they are actively following so they can hate me and take time out of their day every day to comment on my material. how are you? right i mean, it's funny, but it's also like really sad, you know? and i've had i've had some deeply like they would be deeply painful if i wasn't grounded. people attacking like parents or my teammates or, you know, one of them said something about like, i bet your your male teammates all secretly hate. this is a message somebody sent me once and i was just like, what? like, what is going on for you? that that's what went online to do today. and i think this of thought actually really helps because there's two things that are happening in this moment. i'm reminding myself that i'm actually not the problem. all right. and we can all do that right. and then the second thing i think actually is also really

important, something i never want to lose is the answer to the second question i'm recognizing humanity. and if i don't, if i stop doing that, then i start being that. and i think that's really important. me that's why in the ways that i wrote my book, i tried really hard to recognize that people who do have hatred for us, people who do struggle with trans identity are struggling with their own humanity first right when we section off the humanity of a somebody else. we're also cutting ourselves off of our own. and i think that's that's like something i never want to forget. other questions you all can like also go and don't have to like wait until the next, you know, til i ask you to ask me a question question. eric him. so i have reading your book and without giving too away, i like how you are using real life examples and kind of turning the

question back on those who are maybe being a little aggressive during some of your presentations but yet you're you're doing it in a way where it puts more of the thought on them. and so question is like as an ally or for anyone to really like how much time did that take for you to kind of learn that skill of, not not being immediately reactive, but instead turning it on that person to eventually have them basically answer their own question? yeah, yeah. thank you for that. okay, so how long did take? i'm not really entirely sure. i will that i think there's one factor i have to name before i talk about like logistics of how i engage that way and that's privilege. so the privileges that i have and i about this in depth in the book, especially in the about allyship which is one of the last chapters where i have i have privilege of therapy and i

go to therapy, i have a therapist i bend a life saving therapy. i wouldn't alive without going to residential treatment center for my eating disorder. right. so these are like very key pieces of my ability to emotionally regulate and feel emotionally safe myself, right? without any inside or outside input. inside, i'm i'm like, safe with myself. right? that's a huge privilege. not everybody has a kind of access and the resources to gain that kind of grounding. the second thing in that privilege bucket, that i have support in my nuclear circle, my parents support me and partner supports me and my close friends or i have close friends, right? i don't have close friends don't support me. that would be self-effacing and my close friends support me right. what that means is that if i step of my my bubble right and somebody is being transphobic to me or they're something that would otherwise cause me to be reactive, i'm not also going home and that at home right. and that's not the case for a lot of other trans. right. they're going home to the same -- that the world is giving

them. so i have a safe haven. and so both of those and there's so many other things in the privilege, but those are two main things that allow to be internally grounded in moments where people are presenting to me something that would otherwise anger me. that's one. the other thing is like in the actual i have found that kind of like talking about the purple. purple shawl woman. most people really do seem to care. they're asking these questions. their curiosity just kind of doesn't always spit out the question in a way that makes sense. and i feel that it's really important to create safe places for people to learn. but not everybody wants to that. and that's the where the line is. it's not we shouldn't have safe places to learn. is that not everybody has consented to being that. educator does that make sense? right? not every trans person's job is to educate on transness, and so we shouldn't ask random people to the trans people to educate other people, but we should ask the people who have consented to educate, to educate. so that's kind of, i think, the framework that i'm thinking of. the other thing about sort of not getting reactive in a moment

is also about how you validate your own emotions, right? like in a moment where somebody saying something that's really angering to me, i can say that can be like, hey, that question that you ask really hard for me to hear and, i get why you're asking it. i can understand where you're coming from, but the way you're asking it is making me feel unsafe in this moment. so i'm going to need you to give me a moment where i can myself before i finish this conversation with. you and that is me expressing the emotion. it's communicating emotion, but i'm not using the emotion to have conversation. and i think that's a really skill for anybody to learn. and i detail more about that in the book like i have. i'm like a very tangible skills kind of person. so there's like a list of skills and when you get to that part, that's what i'm talking about that answer your question, go awesome. go for my name is liz. am she, her and i am a parent of a genderfluid child. and i just want to know what your bubble. i want to make a good public how

do we do that for my child? yeah. thank you so much for that question. don't say sorry. thank. i'm really grateful you asked that question and that you showed up in that way. how do you create the bubble? so it's to create a bubble perfectly, right. and i think one of the questions i hear from loving parents, parents, allied parents, is they want to create that bubble, right? they want to have a space where nobody else can hurt their child. the problem is the world doesn't work that way. no matter who your kid is, even if they're the most privileged kid in the world, still going to break their heart one day, somebody's still going to not, you know, reflect them back the right way. they're not going to get in some way whatever it. they're going to have their heart heartbroken one day. and the thing is that this is something i'm not a parent. so to take my advice with some grains of salt. so thank you but coached a lot of parents i've talked to a lot

of trans kids and one of the things that i think is a seems like a very common struggle for parents is the ability to let the kid fall right. and my i can remember where i first heard this, but if a kid when they're learning to walk falls lot, which they do, and you pick them up every single time they fall, they will never learn to walk, right? because they don't how to take that step without. and i think i'm trying to say put them in a in a room full of bullies. but they do need to learn how to stand up when somebody says, you don't exist here. right and i think there's a balance that we need to strike and every kid's going to be different and you're going to fail at some point. your kid, right? and the way i like to think about is a framework of support and agency and i talk about this as well in the book, but support is i'm here, i'm going to do things for you. i'm to be here. i won't explain things. i'm going to hold your hand through an agency is. i'm going to let you figure it out and i'm going let you choose. i'm going to make you feel like autonomous like you're an agent in your own life. we need both support and agency. if there are too much support, smother the kid.

there's not enough support and there's too much agency. and then the kid doesn't feel like they have somebody holding their hand and a different. we need different balances of support and agency. right. and again you're going to fail at that balance. at some point you're going to say give them too much agency and they're going to fall flat their face, and they're going to need a hand up. right. or going to give too much support when they need it to fall flat, their face. right? or maybe not. maybe they're good at and then fall. but point is that you need to give them that space. and i think especially parents, trans kids struggle to give them that space because they know how cruel the world is. but your job is create a space at home where there isn't bullying. it's not to create a world outside where there isn't bullying because you can't you promise them that. but can show them how to stand up for themselves, how build resilience and how to know that they're worth is not dependent on other people's of them are. to question okay one on how what

what does say to your middle school a gym teacher. this might be a hard one and bring when they hear that it wasn't just micro-aggression as you daily like what do you say to him yeah well i probably. i would say a lot of things to me specific to your gym teacher or, your theoretical gym teacher that i don't know exists. okay. so one of the things i think about microaggressions is, is about making people think a more. this goes back to eric's range. he's a eric eric's question about making other people think about it and you have the energy sometimes this is better than actually telling them what they're saying is wrong. i ask them, what do you mean by that? because if they actually answer the question, usually they have to expose the actual thing that's powering their micro-aggression, which is usually transphobia or whatever else that they're perpetrating. so, for example, people will say to things like, oh, well you know, you're like beautiful, or

handsome for a trans person. and i'll be like, what do you mean that? and in order to answer that question, they have to say, well, i thought the trans people were ugly, right? so we ask them, what do you mean by that? and we see where they go most. then they get really uncomfortable and then they get angry and then you have to sort of move on. but it makes them think and i like to make people think. so that's a tactic. use the other thing and this is actually that's what i would say when i would probably you to say is something, you know, talking to another teacher, right. talking to somebody that you trust, talking a counselor, talking to your parents because you shouldn't have to actually advocate for yourself in those moments. that's not your job. your job is to be a kid to go to gym class. it's to skip out on a couple of push ups here and there right. and that and that's it. i'm so sorry if that is your experience that what's happening, that's unacceptable and your your peers actually know your peers the adults around you should be protecting you. thank you. okay. question number two, kate, moving on. next one, any any advice on when

when, when the world is full of awful things that you've experienced, how do you how do you how do you put yourself away from it? how do you recognize that that is me right now? and also b, with the fact that the awful are still happening and that it's it's not going away anytime soon. yeah, i this is a beautiful question and i want everybody to to hear it, so i'm going to repeat it. what do you do? the world is filled with awful things and you still have to take care of yourself. and how old are you? i'm 12. okay. is 12 year old asking this question? we have failed this kid. all right? we all continuously failing this kid. and that's one of the reasons we have to step into this work, because kids should not be asking why, are there awful

people doing awful things that i have to learn how to take care of myself for right. so it's a beautiful question. thank you for asking it. my answer to you is i wish, to god, to everything good that you didn't have to ask that question. there are awful things happening in the world and i'm never going to try to lie to any kid to tell that that's not true because the world is already trying to gaslight you. i'm not going to do that. the world is putting out a lot of things, but i have to tell you, adults are often wrong and they're often wrong, especially when they're trying to tell you who you are. and i, a lot of adults to tell me who i was when i was a kid. and that was probably the most painful thing that i ever went through, was people trying to who i was for me before, i had any ability to say anything and then even when i did say this is who i am, they said no, right? and i think the thing i regret the most about my childhood, letting them make me believe them i believed them. i thought i, am wrong, they are right. and i spun myself. i got myself stuck in a world where i thought they were right and i was wrong.

so what i want you to remember, even there's all these awful things happening that's not awful because you're awful or because we are awful or because there's anything wrong with being trans. it's because there's a lot of wrong with the people who are perpetrating that kind behavior. right. when somebody transphobic, they're saying a lot about and i want you to remember that. and i also want all of us to remember, because our job is to fight for this kid and for everybody else who's getting stuck in between because it's not any gender queer kids or trans kids or queer kids. these are all who are getting stuck in this regime of gender, who are not man enough, who are not girl enough, who are being told to man up, or that boys don't cry, or that girls have to do this, or these are all kids. it's not just the trans. and if we think that it's just the trans, we're a dehumanizing trans people and b or missing the. thank you so much for that question. hello, my name is rem.

him and this really cool. thank you. oh, sorry. these sentences, pronouns these are so it's interesting because my my son is gay and his partner is is a trans man. and so it's close to us. and what i kind of find is sometimes, no matter where we are, we're on one side. we're being criticized, being accepting if we're in the radical side and the other side we're being criticized for even asking questions. and so we're just trying to understand. so my questions are very very practical. i have two questions, and i'll just throw them out there right away. one, you mentioned the the restroom thing. i'm a manager of like 400 people in a company. i've trying to try to go to gender neutral restrooms and just an amazing pushback. and remarkably, it's actually from the women in the company that push back the most. i was curious about your ideas on restrooms. and then the other one is sort of the athletics part, because i think you're very qualified to talk about this.

you know, i get questions all the time about, well, should we allow somebody, you know, genetically a male, to compete on a women's team because they have an advantage. and i just have the answers to those questions. so i was just about your thoughts. well, good thing i have lots of answers. both the great great you has the right. okay. these are both very big questions, but they have a very similar route. the first thing that i'm going to say is if, well, let's let's back up a little bit and the picture. so just for anybody who doesn't know, i don't know how you'd be here and not know this, but i'm going to tell you just in case there's been a lot of hubbub about people in bathrooms who are trans right. most specifically, people don't want trans women, people who are assigned male at birth who are women who identify as women in the bathrooms with other women. this woman says women being women who are assigned at birth. and so people have this whole they're like, oh, we don't want them in the bathrooms. there are laws in certain states right now that would require me technically to enter women's bathroom. by the way, if did, what do you think would happen to me where i

would welcome their? no, i would actually probably accused of being a trans woman if i said i belong to their right, which really is a huge mind boggling experience. you really think about it. okay. they're also impossible to enforce without you expect inspections of body parts and, birth certificates. i don't know about you all, but i. i usually forget my birth certificate when i go to the. so you. okay, so i'm trying to show you. ridiculous, right? bathroom is ridiculous. but what people are most easily sort of manipulated by is this fear that we've stoked about trans women being dangerous to women or this is actually even more common people saying, well, if we let the trans woman in the bathrooms, then men are going to go into the bathrooms pretending to women to hurt women. okay, let me rephrase that again. so you heard it one more time. we're afraid of who men going into the bathrooms pretending to be women, to hurt women. who are we afraid of? men. oh, okay. not trans people. okay. not trans women. and what's happening is that the

fear, right of the need to protect women, which is very valid and important, actually direction. right. i would hope that we're all positioned, wanting to protect women this anti-trans rhetoric has co-opted that by saying, okay, we understand people are fearful. women's safety. great. now we're going to inject this fear. trans women, women's safety and boom, we get the outcome we're looking for restricting trans people in. bathrooms are restricting trans people altogether. but the problem is that there's actually no data that supports that trans people have any of threat in any kind of way. and bathrooms. in fact, there are actually research that that the people who are most threatening to young people or girls in any kind of sexual assault, those people are the people that actually know your daughter mostly. and 53% of girls there there are assailants are actually their fathers, biological fathers, 53%. okay. but we're afraid of trans women in bathrooms where there's been zero documented cases of ever having assault.

so i think we need to really understand, when we're afraid of a man masquerading as a woman in order to gain to women's spaces. first of all, let's really about that. if you're going to commit the most heinous that you could probably ever commit, are you waiting for permission to enter the women's bathroom? like the whole concept of that attack is about not having. right. so really think about that. and then if we're afraid of men were afraid of men, and we should stop punishing trans people, particularly trans women, for the harm, the patriarchy and cis men perpetuate. okay, so that's like that's the tldr that's too long. didn't read answer for the bathrooms. we can apply the same thing to sports, right, people, i don't want men pretending to be women to win women's sports. first of all, this has never happened. if you know how toxic masculinity works, please about an insecure man, just think about any insecure man. you got lots of them. your life okay, think of what one is he going to to be a woman till win women's sports and that's going to make him boost

ego like really think about that. but they're of that they're genuinely afraid about that. then logistically add the fact that in order to in women's sports you usually to go through extensive processes just to gender affirming care remember how they're also banning gender affirming care around the country. yeah. you have to actually get gender affirming care to be able to have the gender care to go through at least 1 to 3 years of that gender affirming care to then be on the women's team and. remember, we're afraid of these men who are going pretend to do all that to win women's sports right. so we're again, who are we afraid of men. thank you specifically in this case, cis men. all right. so we have to stop punishing trans people for the harm that the patriarchy perpetuates. and this isn't also, by the way, pointing out any one specific command. this is all of society. right. and all of the patriarchy creating this situation of having a lot of men that actually are very ungrounded in their understandings of their own manhood. and this gets into a different conversation. and i talk about it in my chapter called masculinity from the lens of a transgender man.

but one of the things i've noticed about toxic masculinity is it's all about wanting to belong to the core of this is a broken in many ways a broken of how we're able to be men. and i see that as i explain my manhood to people say, i'm a man and i'll explain my transness and. i'll have six men that will come up to me. they make well, if you can just declare your manhood, what does that mean about mine? i'm like, nothing, absolutely nothing. this one's mine. that one's yours. like, that's it. but it does mean something to them because they're defining masculinity by other people right. by how society has crafted masculinity in order for people to be able to feel like they belong. so it's a very complex thing. i didn't get into the sports too much, but i want to move to next. we can go back to sports, but there's a lot there and a lot of it is not in any kind of danger about trans, but rather that are the manipulation and the perversion of actually this

fear. i that people have their good fears right protect women and protect children and so on. but they're putting on trans people as opposed the true perpetrators of those crimes. hi, amy scheer i like in your book, but i do have it and i will read it and i will ask you to sign it later. thank actually less of a question and more of a statement you mentioned in the beginning about you are considered an advocate simply because you're speaking well, at least my perspective. i do feel like i of have to be an advocate because have some, you know, of my life experience to go on. and i have testified both to the wisconsin assembly here and, also to my school board. and i plan to do it next year. the next legislative session begins. also, i definitely need to be an advocate going forward. i'm also just wanted to point out about the kids. i have two kids, 13 agers. and when i came out to them as trans last year, they they picked it up. they call, me, they pronouns. they never miss gender once the

entire time. that's amazing. thank you. thank you for sharing that. i think one of the things that we that know that people talk about kids all the time, oh, we're going to confuse the kids like we're going to, you know, indoctrinate the kids. it's all about like this, you know, panic. the kids who's panic is that is it the kids panic? no it's always the parents panic, right? the school boards panic. the administrators panic, the government's panic. well, i because it's about free thinking, right? about self-determination about agency autonomy. kids are i have heard that where you go. and so, yes, i heard sorry. that's something like i've heard people share very similar of what you just shared where they're like, yeah, i came out and then my kids were like, yep, moving on. thanks, mom. thanks, dad. thanks. parent. and they just they're fine. but the panic we create around it is really what the problem is. like i said earlier, i spoken to so many and young people and

always the conversations them about transness so much shorter because they're just yeah yeah, whatever. i don't like what do i care what what's part is relevant to me, you know, like, are you going to play with the toys i want to play with or like, you know, one of the things the so funny one time i was at a middle school is like a bunch of like sixth graders and this and know i was like well people ask standard questions about being trans to some degree asked me about like my experience with my teammates. there's one kid in the back raises their hand and they're like, do you like. and then the whole audience, like, burst out. and i know it is a very it is a really important question here. thank you yes. i didn't think about it's an excellent question here in wisconsin i was not in wisconsin but anyways, they were dead serious. this kid was dead serious and like because i laughed and i was going to move on and they're like, no, no, no, i'm serious. my favorite monster. what's yours? but as the ages get the audiences more and more focused on transit. and if after like past a certain age, it's like older men are

really only focused on sex and how exactly one has it. but as you get younger and younger. it's like a flatline don't care about everything's the same like, why did you stop skateboarding? why are you trans like, what about the cheese and what about that? it's all the same. so kids actually they don't they don't as much because they just care about what's relevant to them and what's interesting to them. and gender isn't all that much more interesting. we force it to be right across. hi, my name's levi. hi, levi. i use him pronouns. i am a uw madison student and just come a little closer to the makes of the c-span gotcha. yeah. thank you. i, um. i go uw madison. i'm a trans student. i to competitively swim until i was 15, but i stopped once i transitioned, i got ups top surgery last year and i had this huge like i had this huge like fear of wearing like going swimming and then not wearing a shirt because in competitive swimming you don't wear shirt and i know i can, but i want to.

but i'm worried about the looks. i'll get in the pool or just all that type of stuff. so i was wondering how you dealt with that because as a competitive swimmer, i just really want to get back into it, but i'm terrified by the the ridicule i get from other people, especially men, because like my buzzword men. yeah. one more time was the last thing everyone heals differently. yeah. my scars are still visible, so i feel like when i take my shirt off, i'm coming out to everyone and i'm not publicly out. and so it's scary for me to be publicly out. yeah, around ben, you know, if women would have an issue, i highly doubt it. it is really just assessment. i have an issue with. mm. so i'm hearing a theme. just for any system out in the crowd. this is not pointed directly at any of you. all are going to be careful not to make direct eye contact. anybody. it's a call, it's a discussion of i mean, i'm an answer your question.

i want to make it make a point about this and i talk about this in the book. it was something that really struck me when i started being in the men's locker room was watching the sort of the desire for belonging that each of my teammates portrayed through their behaviors with each other, like it was like this dance, like, oh, if i say this joke this way, will that guy think, look at me? well, that think that i'm cool. like, well, i belong here. well, i belong here. that was what i heard. and over through any of the comments people made. and that will i belong here. and then the use of many may be toxic behaviors that make you feel like you couldn't come out those spaces, or that i couldn't be safe in those spaces. those toxic behaviors have been taught to young boys from before. they could even speak. and so we are also, like i said, we're failing. what was your name again? i'm so sorry, arlene. failing kids like arlene were also failing cis boys. anybody who's young who, like, wants to be a human right. like when these little kids are crying and we say, yeah, man, man up, we're cutting off young boys from their humanity.

so any cis men in this space, if you're attacked by any of the comments it's not about you, it's about the systems that have forced you out of your own humanity. and the goal for me here is to invite into the fight where you get your own back, right? not where it's being taken from you. okay, answer to your question you know, i outrageous right. and sharing your transness in whatever fashion up to you and how you want to do it. and when you want to do it. so if you don't want to go swimming without a shirt, then get a rash guard. right. you can't have those. they even have like binders for that. the might be outing to some degree as well. but if you were like a rash guard, i know cis men who don't want to be shirtless and who wear rash guards of some kind, you know like the stretchy, like athletic material, and they swim with that, i will say, and i'm sure you know, as a competitive swimmer, not great for drag not good for the whole swimming thing, but you could do it if you wanted to, and it would be a really good workout. i for me. i was going to be out anyways.

and for me, i just, i kind of committed to that because i wanted to put the priority swimming higher than, than the fear of coming out. but that was that was right. and i'm not trying to encourage that. i'm just sharing that. and what i found was i was a lot more comfortable once i in the water so sometimes i would do is i'd leave all my clothes on. i have my swimsuit on underneath but i leave all my clothes on, get the edge of the pool and like very quickly take my clothes off and jump in the water because. once you're in the water, like nobody's looking right. and so i think there's a safety that water provided me. and i got more and more that way to wear. then i was comfortable out of the water to the other thing is to think about how i say space. we are far aware of our own transness than anybody is. and yes, the world is focused on trans people. to some, but i still have people come up to me like, dude man, bro, i you just am i my they say it just like that you my chest is like bright purple have a

very big scar because of the way chest healed and just the way my skin is my scar is very purple. it's very thick and is never going to go away. and so people are always seeing it. and they ask me, they'll ask me what happened to it, and sometimes i'll tell them, hey, i'm trans, you know, i had top surgery sometimes i'll be like, oh yeah, i was just like genetic thing. i had to it removed. like, i'm totally fine now. and it's great. all of it's true. leaving out some other details, but it's the confidence that i think is key. so when i say something like that, oh, you know, just this what i know about whatever, what i'm telling somebody through my body language, through my tone and through how i'm talking about it is let's move. this isn't important, right? you have better things to worry about and that helps us actually move through it. but if i get nervous, people are often going to notice that and they're going to press in. so it's not that you can't feel because i still feel nervous. it's like literally an act of like, okay, this what's happening and move on right. i like to have a canned answer for what's wrong with your chest? which for me, like i just said,

oh, i just had something generic. had to get it. i'm totally fine now. come on, let's go. right. and people really just move right on because they know they're not supposed to ask questions about your private parts, but they forget that when they ask them. oh, that's helpful. actually, one more thought is that if people do have a negative response, that's really for you to press back into your self and community because there are going to be people who are going to say something who know something, who might not be kind to you, and you want to prepare yourself for that, to some degree. and it's really about making, sure, you've got people to reflect back who you really are as opposed to who somebody else, especially somebody who's transphobic, is going to try to tell you. you are going to have hello, hello, my is zach and i use him his pronouns. i also am a trans man, got a set of embarrassing shout out to uw madison. i want to begin by saying thank

you so much. i every single word you say is exactly like. i'm like, yes, i think that exact same thing. it's spot on every single word. and i'm to give you a little bit of history and, then ask you a question. so when i was figuring out my gender identity and was trying to explain this to my parents, trying to explain this to other adults, doctors. it was a lot of weight on young to educate themselves to a high degree. and i also be that teacher to adults and you have taken this big weight off of me very much my mom, you know, like she's very into social media. she looks it up. your name pops right off, like on the top list. you have educated her so much more than i could have ever.

and you've taken a tremendous weight off of me. and i hope that happens to other, too. and i i'm just so thankful. so thank you so much. my question following this is so you take this weight off of me and hopefully for others too, but how did how you up here writing books, doing speeches doing all this heavy lifting for us? how do you handle with that? like because you're doing work for yourself and now you're also doing it in the public eye and for many other people. so how how do you go along with that? using all my swimming years training, right? an athlete enlisted. i'm kidding. i'm not that strong. that's a beautiful question. and such a beautiful lead up. thank so much for for all those comments. yeah. it means a lot to me.

i'm really touched by the way you describe the weight as well. yeah. you know, it's i'm trying to think of the best way to answer when you when i was thinking about like, like you said, it took the weight of your shoulders. you know what see is, like, we're both lifting the weight together off, right? because when i do this work, it's for me. it's also for you. it's also for all of you who are not trans. right. i'm going to keep coming back to this reminder that work of liberating trans people is all of you from the jail that gender binary is right. so i see it, i think because i see it this expansive concept, it's i really feel like we're of a bigger fight here. it's not just me being like, cause the right name and pronouns, right? and like, telling people how to do that. it's like a bigger understanding of like, can we all be more human? like, can we all recognize of each other's humanity? so part of it is like, i think, perspective of how i see it part of it is a lot of privilege. like i'm going to go back to the fact that i have the privilege, supportive family that allows me to be able to do this. i'm lucky. like that's like luck.

that's not like i can't create that as much as it's just i happen to have people that are supportive of me, have done things to really good conversations with people, to keep them in my life. sure, right. and i can teach people how to have those and that's in the book as well. but it's there's a bit of luck to i think that i also have to be careful with how well i care for myself. and it's something i've failed at repeatedly in my life, which is creating space for self-care. and i think think self-care is a bit of a buzz word to be quite people like, oh, everybody needs a self-care, go home and self-care and like, i don't know, i always vision like bubble baths and both of which i hate. and, and so then i'm like, well, what is it? what do you mean is self-care right? people like, have boundaries and like, will and how, right? i don't if you all can like evenly or clearly define your boundaries, but it's hard to do right. and so i think what what really come to is what suffers when don't maintain my boundaries. what are the metric that i can clearly take of so that if those aren't being held, then i know i

need to take better care of myself. so for example, i'll just give you a couple of those metrics. one of them is sleep. if i'm not sleeping for 8 hours a night, i'm probably doing something that isn't taking care of myself. and i say this after having slept very little last night, so what? but there's also other kinds of for myself. so sometimes there needs to be compromise is right. but sleeping is a big one. spending time with my partner is a really big one making if i'm not consistently spending time with her, i'm not carving out time for myself either. if i'm not like all my meals, for example, because i'll get so busy that i don't have time, that means i'm saying yes to too many things, right? so i like to actually make a really practical what are the things that suffer when we don't take care of ourselves and how can we actually shift so that we can do those non-negotiable roles? and if we do that, we actually have to take care of ourselves better right? so i kind of go from backwards. it's not like a profound answer, but for me it works because otherwise i'm lost in this world, like what do i deserve? and like, how i care for myself and like i actually deserving is

irrelevant and get very angry when people are like, you deserve. i'm like, no, no, no, i don't deserve rest. have to rest and whole deserving thing is putting us on some sort of hierarchy of who gets to rest and who doesn't. and that is capitalistic white supremacist and horrible as heck. so we have to actually think about like, what do we need. right. and then the next question, which i think is sometimes even more important. what do we want because sometimes people will not give themselves they want because they don't think they need it. and if you think it's going to make yourself better, right, if it's going to be better for, you wanting is enough. well, thank and thank you for taking care of yourself. thank you. thank you. appreciate how are we on time? can i can i answer just a couple more? are we? oh, there you are. i was looking you. i was thinking one more. okay and then we are a scholar. will be signing books as well. so you can obviously talk with him as you get your book signed. yes. yes. okay. you also had a question, though, too.

but what we can do again, you rapid fire. we'll do both. we'll do both. yeah. i'm going to i'm going to shorten my answers, folks. i'll try. go for it. my name is julie, and if i was non-binary and my pronouns are they them awesome? thank you. this a question about intersectionality? yeah. and i'm also just another fact. i'm newly out. as in person, but i was out as queer for many, many years before. okay. so my boss, probably the most important person in my professional life right now is korean. she's an immigrant who came over at 14, so she still really identifies with her cultural aspect. i'm trying to navigate newly, you know, being really out for a couple of years and fairly new. my job less than a year to fluid gender space. so i just wondered if you had any from the cultural korean

perspective around our our space. yeah, i love that question. thank for that. can i have you ask your question too because i'm just i'm on the chance i can weave them together you said intersectional so maybe i can do both. so hi i'm sam. i use, i see them pronouns. wonderful. so i imagine that there might have been sections that got cut out of the book and the editing process and what some like topics that you're passionate about. but did it make it in. oh boy. okay, well, that's that's not the same question. okay. okay. let let's see, how do i want to do this? okay, so. my answer to i'm going to answer your question first, because i think it's it's shorter. even though it's longer. there a lot that i could not put in the book. there's nothing that cut, cut out because that would mean i had to write it and then take out and i wasn't going to do that. so i actually got there's pieces that i wanted to write, but matter was, nope, you're done.

like you cannot add any more. and it was actually because she it was too long. people wouldn't read it. we had to stop stop writing. i wanted to write a lot more about drag. one of the things that was really difficult, exceedingly difficult about this book was that every single time i sat down to write, there was more hatred, there was more bills, there was something else that was horrible that had happened, and i could not feasibly keep adding to it. so the book was probably two thirds as long at the first draft, at the first manuscript, because time i edited it, i added probably another 20,000 words because something else had happened. and i was like, i can't i have to conclude this thing? and so then the drag bands came out that was done that after my second pass. and i just i couldn't add anything else. so to drag and sort of the expansive understanding of gender expression means and how we try to police gender expression. there's bits in there, but not as much as i wanted to be. and then since i've published the book or since i've not allowed to edit any longer, those are different dates.

i have i have really, i think, solidified understanding of or a framework i like frameworks of how we have these sort of like rallying cries like protect then these stoked right of like i for example gender affirming care is going to hurt children and then we've got these outcomes that are the the bands that we're looking at. but fears are valid. the rallying cries sorry, the rallying cries are valid. protect children. great. but then it's the how that like fear that they're giving. that's false. i wish i had written more about that pathway but it's more for the next book. okay intersectionality talking about your boss specifically so there's a there's like i could probably talk about this for a long time. i think when we think i'm not going to give specific advice about like how to talk to a korean about trans people because i don't know, i can't do that. but i don't you're not asking for that. but i will. when we're talking about difference, i know about culture. we have to go back to what's in common. and we often think about culture as like distinctly different. but as much as i've lived in the

world, the more different people from different cultures i've met. everybody is always like, oh, and my feeds me too much. oh, it's a korean thing. oh, it's an iranian thing. oh, it's a german thing. oh, it's everybody's grandmother. feed them too much really mean and. there's always these cultural things that are overlapping. we just put them different buckets. why? because we use them to identify ourselves. and there's nothing wrong with affinity groups and identifying ourselves except when we then think they're so different we can't connect. so i think really about what can you connect? how can you bring people together? there's my i don't know if there's language barriers, but it might about finding language that might be helpful. and then i think it also might if somebody really doesn't understand, regardless of their cultural background. first about not necessarily it to their cultural background because a lot people make that mistake. and then second, i think treating anybody as i would when somebody does understand is their journey and i'm going to have my journey and i might have to have it over here. right. and i have to be able to protect through that process, i think

this is a really good lead into to quickly close with a story actually, my korean grandmother. so i'm going to just tell you a quick little story and then we'll be done. i want to intersectionality something i think a lot about as a mixed race korean-american transgender man and athlete and my grandmother harmony is a korean woman who moved to the states and the 1960s and is a very catholic, very conservative, very immigrant. i'm transgender just in case forgot. and i was to tell her that i'm trans absolutely terrified and. she actually now that you can go to like zoom mass. i did you know you can go to zoom mass. okay. she calls duma mass, but she that's just zoom mass in korean accent case couldn't understand so she goes to zoom. she's very catholic. anyways, i'm trying to tell her i'm trans all right. and i was very afraid to tell her i was trans. i wrote this long letter explaining what it means to be trans. there's no word for trans in korean. it just sounds like transgender

in. a korean accent to the nsa gender gay is e not helpful all so i really tried to explain what it meant to be trans. and when i when i finished this letter that i sat down to read her, i have to tell you i was absolutely petrified. i was very pessimistic. i did not think the outcome was going to be good. i was actually pretty resigned to the fact that i might never speak to her again, that she kicked me out of the house. but i ended with, i love you. and i waited. my grandfather was also sitting at the table and he began this slow clap like an old man clap. and he goes, oh, you come out of the closet now. and i was like, i looked her, and i was like, what? what do you mean? coming out of the. you don't even speak english. where did you get coming out of the closet from. he goes, oh, congratulation. that's some like it's absolutely stunned.

but how about you? my grandfather is not the one i'm nervous about. i'm nervous about my harmony. she's the matriarch of the family she runs the household. so everybody's looking at her, she's got this very stern look on her face and she's like, i knew that that. i was like, excuse me, what do you mean? you? that i didn't know that. what do you mean? you knew that? she goes, i knew that. okay. i have two grandsons from your mother. that's fine. my mom is in tears and i'm like, i'm getting there. but i'm also very because i'm like, why is going i'm like, treading very like, what is going on here? this is a little too easy, right? so she launches into this discussion of how it's normal that i'm transgender. all these things made me transgender. she's like, oh, you have boy hormones. i'm like, harmony. i don't have those actually kind of part of the problem here. and she goes through all of these things that are completely scientifically incorrect. i have no idea where she's gotten them, but it doesn't matter because it got there. she says, okay, skyler, you can be a boy you can be a brother.

she says oh, you can be a husband. i'm like, whoa, whoa, i may. i'm 18. slow down. she says, oh, you can be a doctor no. don't we come back to that one? she says, you can be a man. but in korean, it is a daughter's responsibility to take care of the parents. and your mother has no more daughters. you must still take care of your parents. so i have her words. premature, though it means take care of your parents. mother, father, filial piety, tattooed in her handwriting beneath my mastectomy, next to my heart. it's my tribute to the history. the people from which i come, my culture, my grandmother. a tribute to north korea where she was born, walked it to seoul in south and all the way to the united states is a tribute to the fact that i'm the first of my korean family to be born in united states with a name that means foundation of beauty.

it's a tribute to all the daughter hood i was assigned, never truly identified with, but the duties of which i will fulfill. i share this to, and it's actually in the book, too. so you can read it again if you'd like, with more color and more details. it takes a little longer to read it, but i close this and i close the book with this because i need you to remember that there is this powerful love that if my grandmother, my korean immigrant, catholic grandmother can accept me, her transgender grandson with open arms, even a right a tattoo for him that she knows is on my body. right very woke grandmother if you think about it. but if she do that, anybody can does that i mean, anybody will know. and i'm not trying to paint with large brushstrokes because there are many people for whom this is not reality, but it should be. and i hope you all will join me in for the day that it is, because we're going to need every single one of you. thank you.

good evening. want to warmly welcome you to deloitte and to the book launch for america's new map. my name is roger hill and i have the privilege of serving as the sector for the defense, security and justice sector at deloitte. it is my privilegee