[00:00:00] Eric LeMay: Hello, this is Eric LeMay, a host on the New Books Network. Today I interview Erin Reid. Reid is an activist, public speaker and writer across multiple platforms, including a CK newsletter, all of which she gathers under the title Erin in the Morning. Reid's work centers on advocacy for the transgendered community and the greater queer community.
[00:00:27] Eric LeMay: At the moment, she's undertaken the momentous task of tracking the anti-trans legislation that's being forwarded in state houses across the country and exposing its troubling, deceitful, and vicious nature. Through her newsletter, social media posts, and in-person appearances, read supports not only trans and queer rights, but also a vision for our communities and our country in which mutual care and kindness are our abiding values.
[00:00:56] Eric LeMay: To say it another way, Erin supports the fight against cruel anti-trans legislation currently underway, and she also connects her readers with Trans Girl Scouts so she can help these kids with their annual cookie sale. Erin Reid, welcome to the New Books Network.
[00:01:14] Tony Reed: Thank you for having me on.
[00:01:16] Eric LeMay: So I am so excited to be able to talk to you, and I'm, I'm so grateful to be able to talk to you, and I think the reasons will become clear as our, as our interview unfolds.
[00:01:25] Eric LeMay: Um, but I wanna, I wanna start off by just if you're willing, having you. Introduce the work that you do to our listeners because it takes place in a lot of different locations in, in person and across media platforms. Um, so I'm just curious how you describe. What is the work you do? Um, what are you hoping to achieve?
[00:01:50] Eric LeMay: You know, you have this Aaron in the morning is sort of the, the arch over which all of this work happens. Um, what's Aaron in the morning? What's that all about?
[00:02:01] Tony Reed: Yeah, absolutely. So, um, I track transgender legislation and legislation that targets the L G B T Q community at large moving around the United States.
[00:02:12] Tony Reed: I've been doing this for God around three and a half years now. and what I do is essentially I research all of the bills that are moving around the country. And this year, for instance, we're at, I think 270 bills. I, I read them, I, I delve really deeply into them, find the little provisions and sort of figure out what they're trying to do and who's writing them and who's submitting them.
[00:02:35] Tony Reed: And then I, I report on them. The community at large, because one thing that I feel my community has struggled with is getting the message out there and letting people know what kinds of ways my community is being targeted. And so I do this, um, I, I started doing this essentially just on Twitter writing, you know, little summaries of what was going on.
[00:02:56] Tony Reed: I got a lot of followers from there. Eventually decided to reach younger followers, so I jumped onto onto TikTok and started recording videos. But then around three months ago, um, with Elon Musk takeover of Twitter, I I, I saw that it was really important for me to cultivate my own audience and to, to go a little bit deeper and longer form, and to longer written, written work.
[00:03:19] Tony Reed: And so I started a newsletter, uh, it was called Erin in the Morning. It's on CK and very quickly, it, it took off, it, it, it blew up. And, you know, I've got over 10,000 subscribers now, and people are constantly telling me, I, whenever I speak to legislators, whenever I speak to reporters, whenever I speak to the parents of trans kids, that they see my newsletter every morning.
[00:03:40] Tony Reed: And it helps them guide what they do and guide their advocacy. And for that, you know, I'm, I'm really humbled. Yeah.
[00:03:46] Eric LeMay: Um, and full disclosure, I am a, a grateful subscriber, paid subscriber, um, to the, to your, your newsletter. And, uh, it's just so helpful to have both this larger picture that you provide and this granular.
[00:04:03] Eric LeMay: detail, you know, and, and just as a reader, I can say to the listeners, you'll see, you know, Aaron will provide context, um, and then will actually give us, you know, the testimony that's happening on the State House floor of any given place like Utah, um, and the, the actual wording of the bills. Um, and so you, you get this sense of like, here's what's actually happening.
[00:04:28] Eric LeMay: Here's what's being written, and then you do this wonderful. Work of, of giving us the larger state and national, and even global context of, of why this matters. And for somebody that hasn't, hasn't encountered your newsletter, could you, you know, you, you were talking about what's going on, what's happening to our community.
[00:04:50] Eric LeMay: I wonder if you could, if you could do sort of the, the, both, the, the macro and the micro, like in one sense, here's what's happening. Um, To the transgendered community and to the queer community in general, but also then why is it so important to look at the way that, that an article is written in that larger sense of what's happening?
[00:05:15] Tony Reed: Of course. That's a great question. And so right now in the trans community, it's kind of, we're facing this tension because on one hand, In the last four years, it feels like transgendered people have finally found a way to step out into the public and exist. without dealing with, you know, constant barrages of, of attacks and loss of rights.
[00:05:41] Tony Reed: Mm-hmm. , uh, in, in the sense that we are visible and yet the reaction to that has been an increase in the attempt to do just that, to, to go ahead and legislate our ability to exist in the public away. I think that. Many people have come out in the last four years, and the visibility that came as a result of that, um, is now making a bunch of us targets in some ways.
[00:06:06] Tony Reed: And so, um, you know, whenever I talk about the legislation, whenever we see, you know, bills that seek to ban our healthcare, whenever we see. bills that seek to ban us from bathrooms that call us danger to kids that, um, that penalize people for accommodating us. Uh, it, it feels like. You know, an attack designed to make us go back into the closets that we came out of.
[00:06:32] Tony Reed: And the way that I cover this in my writing and the way that I focus on this is twofold. Um, number one, I do like to provide the bills themselves so that people can see the language that. In which we are targeted. Because one thing that you'll notice, especially if you're a subscriber and you, and you read the bills that I drop in there, um, a lot of this language is recycled.
[00:06:54] Tony Reed: It's brought from state to state, and a lot of these bills are not being pushed by people that live in the States. It's being pushed by larger organizations like focus on the Family and the Alliance, defending freedom. Uh, but secondly, one really big thing that I like to do, and you just mentioned it, is provide the testimony, the video of the testimony.
[00:07:13] Tony Reed: one of the biggest barriers to advocating for transgender people in your lives is, is, is stepping up in front of, you know, a, a group of legislators and speaking on their behalf, because that's intimidating. A lot of people have never done anything like that. And by providing video of, of people doing it effectively, of regular people, like, you know, you and me just doing it effectively, I think that that, and I've been told that that helps whenever other people.
[00:07:40] Tony Reed: Need to make that choice of how do I do it? Can I do it? If they see somebody else doing it, then maybe they can see themselves on that place as well.
[00:07:48] Eric LeMay: Yeah, it, it shortens the. The imaginative range of how do I speak in front of a state house or, you know, even what does it look like to advocate to, oh, you know, you, you posted video the other day of a father just stepping up and speaking about his transgender daughter.
[00:08:07] Eric LeMay: Um,
[00:08:08] Tony Reed: oh God. Yeah. That was a good one. .
[00:08:09] Eric LeMay: That was a good one. Yeah. I, I don't wanna miss, I I, some of this testimony has been so beautiful and so powerful, and, and I think even if it seems a little bit backward, I would like to to hear a couple of, you know, a couple of the instances that stand out to you as you do this work.
[00:08:31] Eric LeMay: Um, Because it's, it's so powerful. And then maybe we can step back and we can think of, and, and you can speak a little bit about why these kids are having to come forward and do this at all, and why these parents are having to come forward and do this at all. But I, I don't, I don't wanna foreground these legislators.
[00:08:51] Eric LeMay: I want a foreground, these kids and these families and these young people who are just fighting for their very ability to exist. Um, Could you maybe talk about a little bit of what you're seeing there?
[00:09:05] Tony Reed: Yeah, absolutely. I think that having watched hundreds of hours of testimony, the testimony that I always like to highlight, I.
[00:09:13] Tony Reed: are the transgender people themselves and are the transgender kids themselves and are the families of the transgender kids themselves? Because I feel like there is, whenever we see this debate raging across the country, now we've got presidential candidates that are talking about it. It, it can be very easy to detach the words and the rhetoric and the language from the people that they affect.
[00:09:38] Tony Reed: And whenever these decisions are made, I think that transgender people need to be in the room and centered. And so one thing that I, I've done is I've, I've recorded all of the instances, for instance, whenever trans kids are testifying, are the families of trans kids are testifying. And I do wanna be upfront by saying, I don't think that trans kids should have to testify for their right to exist.
[00:10:01] Tony Reed: And. To the ones that do, to the ones that feel so moved to do that, and to the ones that show that bravery, they have been some of the most effective advocates. I'll give you a really good example. Um, in Missouri, you know, they were hearing a, a ban on gender affirming care. They were gonna withdraw.
[00:10:19] Tony Reed: transgender youth from their, uh, from their puberty blockers in hormone therapy. And, you know, this is, this is very damaging for, for these kids. They, they've essentially been told that they would be allowed to grow up as their gender, and then they get pulled from it. It's, it's very traumatizing. But there was this one, um, this one son, this one trans boy, uh, 11 years old, and his family sat down on the stand with him.
[00:10:44] Tony Reed: He gave such an impassioned plea about how he just wants to exist. He wants to play sports with his friends. He wants to be with his friends and, and be seen as who he is and, and begged them to stop attacking him and just show that he was a normal boy. And then the next person that came up because they were doing people who were for and against an alternate, the next person who came up, who came up to support the bill, that would target that.
[00:11:11] Tony Reed: fumbled through her entire speech and at the end said, yeah, this is government overreach. I don't know why I'm here. Mm-hmm. , and it was such a powerful moment and it was like, you not, that was what I wanted to capture, and that's why I do this, that's why I record all of this, is to see those moments where like you see somebody come across and you see.
[00:11:32] Tony Reed: Somebody, the light turn on in somebody's head, and I don't know what that woman is going to do in the future. I don't know if she's gonna have her mind permanently changed or not, but that's something.
[00:11:43] Eric LeMay: Yeah, I think, you know, this is so obvious and yet it gets overlooked and in these processes is, is just real human beings.
[00:11:55] Eric LeMay: It is a, it is a very, very hard thing. Target, bully and attack real human beings, which is why so much of this anti-trans legislation attempts to dehumanize humans. And so to suddenly have them sitting in front of you and saying, you're about to do this to me, um, I think that, that it's, it's so brave for these kids and their families to step up to do that.
[00:12:23] Eric LeMay: And you suddenly realize that this. These are people, and we are people, and this is not a political debate. This is about the right for human beings to exist is who they are.
[00:12:36] Tony Reed: Exactly. And you know, the, the, the dehumanization part, I'm glad that you mentioned that because like I've seen dehumanization among the legislators.
[00:12:44] Tony Reed: I've seen transgender people referred to as viruses and as you know, infecting the community and all of these terms and, and. Whenever you have somebody like this 11 year old trans boy that is just sitting there like, Hey, I just wanna play football. Or, Hey, I just wanna like be with my friends. It's, it's that rhetoric doesn't match reality.
[00:13:06] Tony Reed: And I think that that cognitive dissonance that forms as a result of that kind of rhetoric clashing with. What, what is in front of you. I think that that helps. And so, yeah, I, I do like to capture those moments, um, through video, through TikTok, through writing, through my, my articles. And I hope that, like, I hope that as time goes on, cuz we're in the legislative session right now for the next five months or so, I hope that as time goes on we have more of those moments because they do help.
[00:13:36] Eric LeMay: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. I wish we did not have the need for them, as you have said. And I'm grateful for the people who offer them. because we do need them. Um, so somebody that might be listening that isn't as familiar with what's happening, um, I'm thinking about these kids again and I'm thinking about gender affirming care, and I was just wondering if you'd be able to offer to someone who's perhaps only heard that term, like when we're thinking about children or we're, or thinking about young people who are at the start, um, of their gender journey.
[00:14:12] Eric LeMay: What is gender affirming, Karen, and why is it so necessary and helpful? And then also, what isn't it? What isn't it? Because I think one of the ways that this legislation works is through lies. Um, of course, yeah. And in fact, you know, as you've shown and, and I think other transac activists have shown, it's actually built on lies in the exclusion of truth.
[00:14:35] Eric LeMay: Um, so just. Hey, gender affirming care. You know, why do we need this? What is it helpful? What is it? Um, would you be willing to do that for us so that we know like, what is it these kids are actually just asking for? ,
[00:14:50] Tony Reed: of course, of course. So gender affirming care is this broad variety of care that is given to transgender people to improve their lives and allow them to express themselves and form a.
[00:15:06] Tony Reed: Concordance between the body and mind because gender dysphoria, which is the thing that transgender people often experience, it's a mismatch between the way that you see yourself and the way that you innately feel yourself to be. And. What your body is doing. And so gender affirming care can, can be so many things.
[00:15:27] Tony Reed: Um, for, for young people, for people that are younger than 12, gender affirming care is merely a haircut. Pronouns changing your clothes. Um, and, and, you know, we often see, you know, like a, a nine year old who, you know, feels very confident and has been asserting their gender identity for a long time. Um, a nine year old trans girl, uh, assigned male at birth, now presents as a girl and has likely been presenting as a girl for a while.
[00:15:53] Tony Reed: A gender affirming care for her is likely just going to be, Hey, we, you're, you're, we're gonna let you grow your hair out. You know, you can use a new name. Um, , we can use she her pronouns and, and that's it. You go to school, you're happy. I know many parents of transgender, uh, transgender, transgender youth, 9, 10, 11 years old, that that's what it consists of.
[00:16:14] Tony Reed: Once you start getting into the, your teenage years, um, puberty begins and they do allow, like,
[00:16:19] Eric LeMay: yeah. I'm so, I'm so sorry to interrupt, but that's so important that I just want to just underscore it again. Right. A haircut, a change of clothes. , you know, a different set of pronouns. My child has, um, fellow, fellow children who are seven and eight, who are, are doing this as well, right.
[00:16:38] Eric LeMay: Like, that's it. Mm-hmm. . Um, and so please continue, right? Absolutely. But gender affirming care, it's a, it's allowing a kid to explore and be who they are in these very low stakes and compassionate ways that the kids, at least in the, the ones I've seen, transform and flower.
[00:16:58] Tony Reed: Absolutely, and I'm glad that you mentioned transformative flower because the, the, the universal story that the parents of trans get ha, that the parents of trans can tend to have is that they see their kid at 6, 7, 8 years old experiencing extreme depression.
[00:17:15] Tony Reed: Like things that you shouldn't see a six year old experience. Mm-hmm. , you know, a lack of wanting to get out of bed in the morning as a six year old, as a seven year old, because, Of the pain that they feel due to their gender identity never being respected and due to, you know, they, them knowing who they are and yet all of the adults in the world not allowing them to be that.
[00:17:36] Tony Reed: And then you always hear that like the moment. that the parents start to allow them to present that way and start to give them the pronoun and the names. You always hear about how these kids just suddenly flourish. How like they, they blossom into these active, happy, smiling, playful kids. And, and, and that's why we do this.
[00:17:57] Tony Reed: That's why, that's why this is done. That's why we allow, you know, kids to express their gender identities in all kinds of ways. And I, I really think that, like that point is, is really, I.
[00:18:08] Eric LeMay: Yeah. Yeah. The, any parent would want their child to flourish. I mean, that's, that's the hope of being a parent and this is a way to do that.
[00:18:18] Eric LeMay: This is a way to love.
[00:18:20] Tony Reed: Absolutely. And, and you know, so, so then what'll usually happen is as they get older and they start to go through puberty, a lot of these kids have been experiencing their gender identity for a long time. Um, Put them on puberty blockers, which are a reversible form of delaying puberty.
[00:18:36] Tony Reed: They've been used for decades in children, for instance, that have precocious puberty, which means that they went through an early puberty. Um, and this essentially buys them a little bit more time through their teenage years, uh, to say, okay, you've lived as your gender. You, you're not gonna go through through this puberty yet.
[00:18:53] Tony Reed: Let's make sure. You are well taken care of, and they usually have very big care teams. Um, most of the parents that I speak to, their kids hide care teams of, um, of a psychologist of a doctor, a medical doctor, an endocrinologist, or a hormone therapy doctor. Um, and they've, they've met many physicians by the time they get to the point.
[00:19:12] Tony Reed: And then sometime at around 14 to 16 years old. , uh, they'll begin hormone therapy treatments, which will allow them to essentially enter the puberty of the gender that they've assigned or that they have identified as for a long time. These kids, I've known people that have transitioned during their teenage years, they've grown up now and they are.
[00:19:33] Tony Reed: Some of the happiest people that I've ever met, they are, they managed to avoid a large amount of trauma that's involved in experiencing a liberty that you don't belong to as your, as your gender identity. And many of these people have turned out to be, you know, big time activists for, for the cause because of the benefits that it gave them on top of.
[00:19:54] Tony Reed: Um, on top of that, they get, whenever you do this, you get to avoid very costly and painful procedures that you would otherwise have to do later in life. So, for instance, I did not get to Tran to to gender, um, um, to transition. As a kid, I was a transgender child and I very much, um, , you know, lived that. But I, I wasn't able to transition as a kid because of an accepting family.
[00:20:17] Tony Reed: And, you know, having gone through my teenage years, I could have saved myself a lot of pain, a lot of damage. I, I had panic attacks for 16 years of my life after, after puberty and, , um, no, nobody could solve them. And then the day that I started hormone therapy, they, I haven't had a panic attack in four years.
[00:20:39] Tony Reed: Mm-hmm. . And I think that, I think that, like, that experience is so common among transgender people that have been forced to go through this, that haven't been able to, to transition, uh, during their teenage years.
[00:20:53] Eric LeMay: Yeah. Thank you for sharing your story. Of course. Yeah. I feel that, I feel it in my heart. Um, can, let's loop back.
[00:21:05] Eric LeMay: I mean, you, you had shared how difficult it was for you not to have this opportunity to transition. Um, , we, we know this not just from the stories, like the ones you were kind enough to share, but organizations like the the Trevor Project have data that what happens to, to transgender children when they're denied gender affirming care is that depression rates go up, suicide rates go up, um, that, that things go very badly.
[00:21:44] Tony Reed: Mm-hmm. , and I don't know a single transgender person who. who, who does not know somebody who has lost their life due to suicide because of a result of their gender identity not being respected or because of not being able to transition. I, I've been sadly, um, you know, very used to this and I've, I've seen many, many examples of this in, in all of the scientific literature.
[00:22:11] Tony Reed: The one thing that everybody agrees on, even people that you know, are, are testifying against our care is. , transgender people do have a high risk of suicide, a very high risk of suicide. Now, the medical research shows that 40% of transgender people will attempt to take their lives, and that is one of the highest numbers of any.
[00:22:38] Tony Reed: cohort of people that are out there. Any category, any grouping that you can make of human beings. Transgender people have one of the highest suicide rates. But the, but the, the flip side of that is that there has been so much research that shows that the mere act of, of allowing a gender affirming, uh, of allowing a transgender person to obtain gender affirming care.
[00:23:00] Tony Reed: and the mere act of respecting the identity drops the suicide rates dramatically. Um, there was a study, for instance, that recently came out in pediatrics last year, uh, that showed a 73% reduction in suicide rates. And if you think about the number of trans kids that are out there and the number of transgender people that are out there, a 73% reduction.
[00:23:22] Tony Reed: That's saving tens of thousands of lives. Mm-hmm. . And so this is, this is essential care for a lot of people. And, um, and I think that like it's important to highlight that, that this is, this is why this care has been deemed even by insurance companies as medically necessary. It's because the evidence is so strong out there.
[00:23:42] Eric LeMay: Yes, yes. If we were in the transcript for this, I would be underlining essential. Right. This is, this is medically necessary, this is lifesaving. Um, and then when you add on it to just, you know, the human wellbeing that comes with being able to be who you are. . Well then it's immeasurable. Um, I, exactly, I did wanna look back to, or, or loop back to, you know, you had mentioned, um, when, when somebody who's transgender, you know, reaches their teenage years, they have a care team.
[00:24:21] Eric LeMay: And I would, I would like to, to dispel once again another set of lies that is out there in circulating. Um, which, You know, you, you bring this up quite often, like every major medical association in the country, and I think in the world right? Is is thoroughly behind gender affirming care. I mean, could you speak to that, like the actual scientific experts and doctors?
[00:24:50] Eric LeMay: Um, Where are they on gender affirming care? Just so we know
[00:24:55] Tony Reed: a Absolutely. So the Transhealth project at, um, at TL Deaf, the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, um, has a list of all of the medical organization statements. And this includes statements from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Nursing, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Medical Association, uh, the American Psychiatric Association, the apa, the American Psychological Association.
[00:25:20] Tony Reed: The Endocrine Society. This is literally, you can go down the list. There's, there's, you know, dozens of, of these medical organizations that have released statements. And in fact, one of the things that I'm seeing in a lot of the, um, legislative debate this year, whenever these bills are being targeted towards the community is these organizations aren't just passively supporting it.
[00:25:40] Tony Reed: They are sending representatives of their organizations to say, Hey, look, you can't ban this care. This is important. And we as a medical organization, United around in ensuring that this care is accessible. And so, um, yeah, I think that there is a strong, um, there, there is a strong sense that the medical community is behind this, and that's because the evidence is there.
[00:26:05] Eric LeMay: Yes, it's fact-based, it's evidence-based, it's, you know, supported by research studies, um, and by a human experience. And I think what I, I was hoping to land for our listeners is that what you hear in this end, anti-trans legislation is often, you know, Th these legislators will trot out a doctor or someone who seems medical ish, but they are not representative of the same people that we go to for our care for anything else.
[00:26:38] Eric LeMay: They are, mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. , you know. Eccentric, to say the least.
[00:26:43] Tony Reed: Yeah. And, and you know, I, I do wanna highlight that the fact that, um, again, transgender people, especially trans youth, often have large care teams and, and they've spoken to their care teams on a regular basis. And I think that like one of the rhetorical sort of.
[00:27:02] Tony Reed: Techniques that I've seen from people that are trying to ban gender affirming care, um, is that these are just decisions that are made on a whim that like somebody wakes up and they put on a dress, a a boy quote unquote, wakes up and puts on a dress, and then. , the parent rushes the kid to the doctor where they're like, let's go ahead and do the surgery.
[00:27:21] Tony Reed: Like, that's not how any of this works. And, and the parents of trans youth, whenever they hear this, they, you know, they would have to laugh if it weren't so serious, if their rights weren't being targeted. And, and it's, it's because. , all of these, these families, they know all of the hoops they have to jump through with their trans kids.
[00:27:39] Tony Reed: And, and there are many hoops that they have to jump through. Legal, medical, psychological, dealing with schools, dealing with systems. Um, you know, there, there's, there's a lot of things that are involved in this. And so no, these, these decisions are not made willy-nilly. And yet on the other side, whenever we do.
[00:28:00] Tony Reed: Um, these legislative debates, it really is, they, they do pull out random doctors that are seemingly, um, that are, that are seemingly just like not practiced and that don't even associate with the medical organizations to somehow justify what they're doing. . And, and so, you know, you have like these organizations like the American, uh, college of Pediatrics, uh, American College of Pediatrics, which is a right wing organization meant to confuse people with the American Academy of Pediatrics.
[00:28:30] Tony Reed: And so yeah. This is, this is fairly common.
[00:28:32] Eric LeMay: Yeah. Yeah. It's intentionally obfuscating and, and I think one of the things that I've noticed through your work is that often the very legislators who are bringing forth. The, the anti-trans legislation, they don't understand what's in it. Some, some of them don't even seem to have read it.
[00:28:55] Eric LeMay: Um, and I wonder if here might be a moment where you could speak to what you mentioned before, that there are these organizations like the Alliance, defending Freedom, um, That, that are, are in some ways behind this, like drafting the bills. Right. And so what seems like, oh, there are all these different states all concerned, you know, and all these legislators.
[00:29:22] Eric LeMay: I think the actual situation is something much more like there are one or two organizations that are highly anti-trans and have been in some cases, can't categorized as hate organizations feeding legislators documents. .
[00:29:37] Tony Reed: Yeah, I'm glad that you mentioned that. So I've been tracking these organizations for a long time now.
[00:29:41] Tony Reed: Um, Back in 2000 and, um, 18 2017, 2018, um, the American Principals Project in the Alliance defending Freedom. They began their, uh, targeting towards transgender people in sports. And we have information, uh, and quotes from them. Stating that the reason why they focused on transgender people in sports is because they felt like that was the easiest, you know, sort of like gateway law that they could quote, that they could, that they could use to introduce people to the idea of passing legislation against transgender people.
[00:30:16] Tony Reed: But they've stated that this was never their end goal. That their end goal was to eliminate gender affirming care. Um, for, for essentially all, all transgender people, uh, trans youth, trans adults and all. And so, What, what you see is these bills that are moving around the country, you'll notice that, um, they're, they tend to be carbon copies of each other and, you know, I, I get a lot of questions like, Erin, how can you, how can you possibly read 270 bills that are, that are out there?
[00:30:44] Tony Reed: How could you have read them all? Mm-hmm. . And, and the answer to that for me is that I, I haven't, I've. 10 bills and maybe a few variations of those 10 bills, I know exactly where to go to see where those variations are. And so, um, you'll, you'll notice that whenever these bills are introduced in, in these states, I, I'll give you a good example.
[00:31:05] Tony Reed: Um, I recently just watched the Montana hearing where they're introducing such a bill and in Montana there were, um, I think 90 people that spoke out against the bill. All of them. Were from within the state, from the state's largest hospital organizations, from the state's, largest medical organizations, from the parents, from all of those people.
[00:31:26] Tony Reed: And then the people that spoke out, that spoke out in favor of the bill. Um, Were were people that you see fly from state to state testifying. So you had people like the, like, um, like uh, Walt Tire. You had people from the alliance defending freedom that, that will travel from California to Montana to Florida.
[00:31:48] Tony Reed: They're the ones that are writing these laws and they've. They've got their whole sort of dog and pony show set up, um, essentially to target the trans community. And so yeah, they're, these aren't, these aren't, like, one thing that I think you'll hear from a lot of trans people is that most of us feel like we are loved in our communities and that like we have friends, we have a lot of us live lives without, um, without like people constantly, um, focusing on, on attacking us.
[00:32:16] Tony Reed: And yet, and we get a lot of support from the communities, and yet the people that are trying to legislate our existence away, they're not coming from within our communities. They're not coming from a grassroots support in these states. They're, they're being flown around for ideological purposes.
[00:32:32] Eric LeMay: Yeah, they, they're political operatives.
[00:32:36] Tony Reed: Absolutely. Absolutely. I, they, they admit as much, you know?
[00:32:39] Eric LeMay: Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, again, as someone who's following your work, I know the gravity of what's happening. Um, and, and you're just this tireless advocate for, for showing us how it's happening. Um, but I'm wondering if, if, for somebody who's listening who might be like, You know, as a human being, I find that this sounds horrible.
[00:33:08] Eric LeMay: You know, that, that these kids should be able to have care, that people should be able to, to be who they are, that we should support. Our fellow citizens and our, our families and the people that are in them. Um, right, like the kind of legislation that's taking place. When you say to legislate people out of existence, um, you and, you know, la.
[00:33:32] Eric LeMay: Is it Alejandro Caraballo? Alejandro, yeah. Right. You've shown that, that it's nothing less really than genocide, that that's what's happening. And so, so there might be somebody who's listening that says, well, lame, that, that seems extreme. Mm-hmm. like, right. Is it
[00:33:50] Tony Reed: Okay? So yeah, this is, this is such an interesting.
[00:33:53] Tony Reed: Topic to talk about, because I feel like whenever people mention the word genocide, um, it brings to mind the, the very worst examples of that that have occurred within human history. And, and it should. Those, those are the, in, in, in historical context. Those are the, the end results of some of the worst targeting of oppressed peoples.
[00:34:15] Tony Reed: But genocide in and of itself is not just. Those events, genocide, and, and you can look up the un definition of genocide and like just how it's, how it's treated internationally. Um, the goal of genocide is, is the elimination of, of, of groups of populations. And, and there are several ways that this is done.
[00:34:35] Tony Reed: Sometimes it's done by reducing healthcare access. Sometimes it's done by culturally. Trying to stamp out a culture. Sometimes it's done by, um, taking kids away. Uh, all of all of these things. And, and so whenever we look at what is occurring, Within the trans community, we are seeing kids getting threatened with being taken away.
[00:35:00] Tony Reed: Tennessee's, HB one, SB one. This bill right now that's moving through Tennessee would do just that. It would take kids from their parents. Um, same in, in Texas with Greg Abbott, who has been investigating the parents of trans youth for child, for child abuse, uh, we are seeing an an end of access to healthcare.
[00:35:16] Tony Reed: You know, we have 22 bills right now that are promoting, removing gender affirming care from, from all, uh, trans youth and even some of them that are targeting trans adults. We are seeing a reduction in the ability to participate in public life. And, and one final point that I would make. is that, you know, I live in, I live in the Washington DC area.
[00:35:34] Tony Reed: Um, we've got an amazing Holocaust museum, and whenever you wander those halls and you read about what happened, the big message and like the, the museum constantly presents this message to you is, it. This does not just happen. It doesn't. Just one day a light switch comes on and it happens. It's a process and it's something that the only way you can defeat and stamp out is by stamping it out early in its earliest stages, anywhere where it rears its head.
[00:36:09] Tony Reed: And so, yeah, right now we may not be at the point where transgendered people are being split up and thrown into camps. Uh, but we are at the point where transgender kids are. about to get taken from their parents. We are at the point where transgender people are having their healthcare removed. Mm-hmm.
[00:36:25] Tony Reed: and so, and so. I think that keeping that in mind, it's important to, to attack that before it becomes something that we can't, that we can't end. .
[00:36:35] Eric LeMay: Yeah. Yes, yes, absolutely. Thank you for that. And, and we're hearing presidential candidates start to stoke that kind of action and that kind of hate. Um, and so I, I, I just wanna like lay a, a situation out there for the listeners so the, they can say, am I hearing this right?
[00:36:56] Eric LeMay: And I can, and, and you can say whether or not, uh, indeed they're hearing this right? That if you are the parent. Of a trans child in say, Texas or Tennessee, and you are caring and loving for that child in part by giving them the gender affirming care that scientists, doctors, and medical profession say is the best thing that you can do for that child.
[00:37:24] Eric LeMay: You are at risk of having your child taken from you. and being put in prison and are currently in a situation where you might be having to ask yourself, do I have to leave this state? And even then, if I do for the good of my child and my family, can I be brought back and put under charges? .
[00:37:46] Tony Reed: Yeah. Yeah. And this isn't, this isn't even rhetorical or hypothetical.
[00:37:50] Tony Reed: This, this is something that is happening. People are leaving these states. Um, Texas, one of the biggest advocates for transgender youth, the Chaley family, uh, Kai Shapley in 2001, is she's, she's a little trans girl. Um, she sat in front of the Texas legislature that was about to vote to make gender affirming care trial abuse, and she said, She, she talked about her love of Dolly Parton and about her, her cats, and about how she was just a normal girl and she wished that these legislators would just leave her alone.
[00:38:22] Tony Reed: And you know what? It was one of the most powerful pieces of testimony and the Texas legislature did not, um, pass that bill that year. Uh, things deteriorated since then. You know, whenever Greg Abbott started investigating families, Kai and her family, They had to, they had to leave. They ran, they, they moved, they moved far away from Texas.
[00:38:41] Tony Reed: And I've spoken personally to many families that have done the same ever since the child abuse stuff started going on in Texas. And now whenever we're seeing states begin to try to codify that into law, uh, with, with Tennessee, with Texas is attempting to codify it into law or with, with, uh, Wyoming is one that I'm following as well right now.
[00:38:59] Tony Reed: People are basically going to be faced with that decision. , do I stay and take my kid off of this care and watch as they deteriorate? Or do I try to run? Do I try to flee? Can I flee? Can I run? There are so many families that are gonna be trapped there. And so, you know, like even that isn't a decision that a lot of families get to make.
[00:39:21] Tony Reed: Mm-hmm. and, and I think that like the pain and the fear, is so high in those places, and this is, this is a big reason why, why I do all the writing I do and all the reporting I that I do, because I don't think that they should have to live in fear and in pain without hearing from, from every, from, from everybody experiencing this.
[00:39:41] Tony Reed: Like I think that the world should have to see what's going on. And I, I'm, I'm hopeful mm-hmm. that I can continue to do that.
[00:39:49] Eric LeMay: Yeah. Yeah. and, and I'm deeply grateful that you're casting a light on what would otherwise, I mean, the people that are doing this are trying to do it literally sometimes under the cover of Darkness and Night.
[00:40:05] Eric LeMay: They're trying to, there are often bills that sneak things in. There are often legislative meetings that happen late into the night in which this, this anti-trans legislation can get brought in because the communities don't want it. .
[00:40:20] Tony Reed: Yeah, I, you know, it's, I've seen, I've seen examples of hearings that were announced with only a few hours notice.
[00:40:28] Tony Reed: Um, you know, there was, I think, uh, There was a recent hearing in, in Montana that was announced with like three hours notice, and we had to really quickly blast to all of my followers and to all of, um, representative Zephyr's followers. She's the trans legislator in Montana. Um, We had to blast, Hey, look, this is going on.
[00:40:51] Tony Reed: We need, we need people to testify right now. We managed to, to scrape up enough people to testify, but like we see these bills put on calendars with very little notice of, in fact, this in Tennessee, this, this bill that I, that we've been talking about that would remove the, um, That would remove trans kids from their parents.
[00:41:10] Tony Reed: That amendment was not announced on the website. Usually they announced these amendments on the website. They held that amendment until the session began. The only reason why, um, why we even knew what was about to happen is because it got leaked. And so, you know, I was able to report it. I, I threw it on my, on my newsletter, on my, um, and, and people realized like, Hey, look, this is, this is what's about to happen in Tennessee and.
[00:41:38] Tony Reed: Yeah, they do try underhanded tactics. I've seen, I've seen some of these meetings go on until four in the morning. I, I watched Ohio's meeting that went on until four in the morning and Yeah. Yeah, they go late into the night. Yeah.
[00:41:51] Eric LeMay: Well, Aaron, I, I am mindful of our time and I am deeply grateful for your sharing of your expertise and, and your experience and your own story.
[00:42:01] Eric LeMay: And I wanna end on a note. Your work centers on, which is about activism and doing, and so if, if someone is listening right now, is having a, oh my God, kind of reaction. Where, where would you direct them? Uh, you know, we're ab absolutely gonna link to your, your CK which is a clearing house for being able to reach other organizations as well.
[00:42:27] Eric LeMay: Um, but I wanna have a chance to, you know, Aaron, what should we do? Says someone, because a lot of people come to you over and over again and say, Aaron, what should I do? I see that in your comments all the time.
[00:42:40] Tony Reed: Yep, I get that. I get that a lot. And I, you know, there, there are a number of things that I always say as a response to this.
[00:42:48] Tony Reed: Number one, get to know your local L G B T orgs and start doing the work in your own backyard. Because I can tell you that even if you're listening and you're, and you live in a state like. like Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, places that like, are typically not seen as the places where these attacks are happening.
[00:43:08] Tony Reed: There is not a place in this country that is perfect on transgender legislation. The transparent defense is still legal in Massachusetts, for instance, this is a defense where somebody can kill a transgender person if they didn't know their gender identity and they had a romantic relationship with them.
[00:43:24] Tony Reed: Mm-hmm. and, and, and this has been used successfully. And so like this, this is still legal. In, in, in Massachusetts, there are still several states where it's hard to change your birth certificate, where it's hard to change your, your driver's license. There are still several states that don't have modern healthcare coverage for transgender procedures, and so, The, the local organizations are gonna know what the fights are in your own home state.
[00:43:47] Tony Reed: Another thing that I'll mention is that try to try to use your professional advocacy, and everybody has their own skills that they bring into the world. You know, there are graphic designers, there are artists, there are lawyers, there are teachers, and. doing the advocacy within your own profession is so, so, so important because the, these issues are not just located to political bodies and states.
[00:44:12] Tony Reed: They stretch or they stretch around legal bodies, around professional societies, around, um, around your place of work and how your place of work handles transgender people. And so there's a lot of, there's a lot of good that can be done. And, and the other thing that I would also say is that, and this is, this is less of a.
[00:44:31] Tony Reed: and what do you do to fight things, you know, legally and what do you do to fight things politically, but also what do you do to like find the mindset required in order to be a good advocate? And, and one thing that I will mention is that media representation of transgender people is, is very, It's, it's, it's very rough and, and problematic in the past, and, and a lot of people don't understand the way that their media diets carry into their daily lives.
[00:44:59] Tony Reed: I would actually recommend a documentary called Disclosure. Um, disclosure documentary, and anybody can look it up. I believe it's even on Netflix. Um, and, and that documentary essentially goes into the history of transgender representation in media versus like the people that are doing the work today.
[00:45:16] Tony Reed: Include transgender people in your media diet. Include them in your social media, include them in, in the content you read. Like all of this is so important because once you start to not just hear from transgender people, Listen to them and understand them and, and, and, and make an effort to engage in the content.
[00:45:38] Tony Reed: I think that's whenever people can become the best allies.
[00:45:43] Eric LeMay: Erin, thank you so much. Thank you for your time. Thank you for being on the New Books Network.
[00:45:49] Tony Reed: Of course, anytime. Thank you so much for having me on. My name is Eric
[00:45:54] Eric LeMay: LeMay and you've been listening to an interview with Erin. Activist, public speaker, social media presence, and writer of the CK Newsletter.
[00:46:05] Eric LeMay: Erin, in the morning here on the New Books Network.
