Transgender Rights, Political Advocacy, and the Power of Community Action

This clip episode centers on the intertwined battles for trans rights and women’s reproductive rights, emphasizing the critical role of activism in addressing societal discrimination. 

Through personal stories, political engagement, and community solidarity, the hosts inspire listeners to participate in meaningful change.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Trans Rights & Activism in Politics
• 9:45 Political Activism and Fundraising Success

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

when the Family Research Council published their article about responding to the transgender question and in it it was kind of a guideline on how to come after trans people. Go after children medical care first and go after state-supported transition-related care. Go after the sports and spaces, all of those things. Go after ability to change identity documents to conform with your gender identity. So it was set out what all they wanted to do and after the Supreme Court ruled in the Amy Stevens case that being trans you could not fire somebody for that, that that was sexual discrimination under Title VII. And after losing the marriage equality, they had to find a boogeyman, an inordinate amount of money and time and organizations using it as a political weapon, because they seem to think that attacking trans people is this magic bullet for them to retain power. And so getting us out there and talking and meeting folks and being involved in community and stuff is so important that we show them that their idea of who we are as trans people is wrong and taking our rights away from us is wrong.

Speaker 2: 1:35

Yeah, I do agree with you. I feel our community, our people, being used as a weapon and being weaponized. And also online, as you mentioned earlier. People online, they start feeling it's okay to bully us. You know they, they call names, they use wrong pronouns and everything, and and they, they, you know they don't even have their profile picture and they feel this is okay, I'll just. There's no responsibility or accountability doing so. So this, which what you said, you know this is society, this policy is making people it's okay to do that, it's okay to attack another human being, you know. So, yeah, so your friend, I've been through what she's been through partially, so I totally understand and it is not easy for any person, not just a trans person, to get back up like that after what happened. So, yeah, so it's good that she's able to get back up.

Speaker 1: 2:42

Oh, she's like an amazing success story and I am so incredibly proud. We're actually having a party for her on Saturday, because it's her birthday month.

Speaker 1: 2:50

She graduated and she and her girlfriend went to Switzerland for her post-graduation trip and her girlfriend proposed to her, so we're having an engagement party also, maybe we should have her on the show one day, I would love to have a conversation with allison about what all she's been through and how she's been able to persevere because we need a voice like that to inspire others, because I I know how that feels.

Speaker 2: 3:21

Sometimes you are in that level of depression and thinking nothing will work out. We can't get out of that hole.

Speaker 1: 3:32

It's suicidal too it is, and it was so cute. Her dad came up to me at the graduation party. He took us all out to lunch and he just came up and gave me a hug and he just said I want to thank you for everything you've done and it was so good to see her up on that stage and getting that degree and going back in to help the community. Okay, an aspiring woman. Okay, an aspiring woman.

Speaker 2: 4:06

Okay, so let's reach out to her, see if she wants to come on and share her story.

Speaker 1: 4:14

I don't know if we want to spill the beans or anything, but you have been asking me to put together a couple of shows and I think now is a good time to say it. I guess that yeah. I we're gonna we're gonna do that?

Speaker 2: 4:29

Yeah, cause I want to open up this podcast as a, as a platform to to have different voices, not just me hosting, you know, as, as I mentioned earlier, we have a team like Shane and Blossom, and as you come in, you come in with a different angle, more on the legal side, more on the political side. So I think it will make this channel, this platform, more like a full yeah. So let's continue our photos.

Speaker 1: 5:01

Oh, so for Memorial Day weekend it was my 45th high school reunion time frame and I am from a extremely small town in southwest Nebraska and my hometown has like 65 people in it now, if that and the big town has 900. And I had 33 people in my graduating class. But in Nebraska right now there are a number of initiatives that we're trying to get put on the ballot. One of them is protecting women's rights to access to abortion and the other is to overturn an action by the state legislature where they allocated money from the state coffers to go to private education it's the voucher bills where they want to defund public education and fund religious education and that's unconstitutional under the Nebraska statute. So that'll be it. But we are also doing a petition to repeal the law that enabled it.

Speaker 1: 6:07

So I decided to be my activist self and go to Dundee County and get signatures in Dundee County and, surprisingly enough, I got quite a few folks signing the support our schools and I got quite a few people to support the abortion amendment so that we can put that on the ballot and let people decide. And basically, let's put it back to where it was with Roe and get the hell out of women's lives and let them make medical decisions for themselves. And we've seen constantly across even Republican states when we do constitutional amendments to protect the right to access to abortion, they get passed, and that's what people want and people don't want the right-wing extremism of the doctor in your bedroom, the doctor, or the government in your bedroom, the government in your doctor's office, the government interfering with your prescriptions and so, and bathrooms, and what bathroom you can use.

Speaker 1: 7:09

It's like the trans I don't want to say agenda, but the trans rights and access to medical care is so intertwined with women's right to abortion and to receive care in related to reproductive issues, and what some of these laws end up doing is hurting women. There's nothing to protect women. It causes them to. You know, they refuse to allow an abortion when it's medically necessary because it will harm the reproductive system of a woman who may want to have children. So it's so intertwined with bodily autonomy and trans rights and it's trying to get the government involved in enforcing their religious views, and that's not what we do in this country.

Speaker 1: 8:07

And so it was fun. I went back, met with a bunch of my high school classmates, got a bunch of people. We set up outside the post office for part of the day and got people as they were coming in getting their mail and went up to the historical society that had some um programs on and sat outside there and it was good listening to a lot of the folks good, so are these your high school friends these are not my high school friends.

Speaker 1: 8:37

I I, after I got done with my reunion, I drove back to la picked up some stuff and I had to drive hurriedly back to make it back to Omaha because, as part of my getting involved in politics, I'm actively involved with the Democratic Party now in Nebraska. I'm on the Douglas County Central Committee, I'm on the state central committee and I'm the vice chair of the state Stonewall Democratic Caucus, and so we had our first ever Lavender Gala fundraiser for the Stonewall Democrats in.

Speaker 2: 9:15

You have a picture for that too, right.

Speaker 1: 9:17

Yeah, and our guest speaker was Danica Rome, who is state senator from the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Speaker 1: 9:23

So Mike and I got to pick her up at the airport and then we had this fundraiser at the Cornhusker Hotel in Lincoln, and that is Danik and I and that's the board of the Stonewall Democrats, and we have started really getting actively involved as a caucus in politics. We were part of the group that was behind censoring the state senator that we did earlier. There was the reason why LB 574, the gender affirming care ban and abortion restriction ban Nebraska was the first one to actually combine those into a single bill was passed on a very slim, it was a one, it was a single vote, and one of those votes in favor of this, in fact, was a co-sponsor of these bills, was a Democratic individual from Omaha, and so we went to censure him for what he had done the basic core values of taking away individuals' rights to autonomy and so the Stonewall group has become incredibly active on things, and so we got to do the fundraiser and we got brought Danica in and she was incredible and she was.

Speaker 2: 10:50

This one she holding her shoes.

Speaker 1: 10:52

Yes, she was talking about when she first ran for the assembly in Virginia, about the shoes that she had and and they were not very good and and how she totally wore them out by walking through the the district and and she said, how, say, as a queer candidate, you have to put in the shoe lever, shoe leather, you have to put in the work, and that we can make it happen. We can convince people that we are someone who knows right from wrong, someone who knows how to help the community. And she has been incredible In fact was subsequently elected to the state Senate there. So she was an incredible guest. To have come speak to us was very uplifting and helped us raise $6,000 for our caucus so we can get out and we can meet with queer youth and we can start letting them know that there's a community available for them, that they have political power, that if we get together and we use it, we can do things, we can make changes, and so it was fun.

Speaker 2: 12:08

Okay, good so, and thank you for sharing all your journey this past year. And also, you mentioned that things are going to change with your current career. Right, the reason I brought this up. I don't know if you want to share, but because, since we were talking about having you start some shows here and you also have some other projects on the side that you're I've got a lot of things kind of going in the burner.

Speaker 1: 12:38

On the side that you're, I've got a lot of things kind of going in the burner. Two weeks ago we had the state democratic convention Right and I ran for the position of elector. You.