Arizona Equals Samual

On this week’s episode of the Arizona Equals Conversation, Jeanne talks with Samual Kahrs, a trans teenager who leads his school’s GSA club and who has distinguished himself as a voice for his community at the state capitol, standing up against an onslaught of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. Full Transcript 00;00;01;18 - 00;02;29;16 Jeanne From Equality Arizona, you're listening to the Arizona Equals Conversation. I'm Jeanne Woodbury, and each week on the show, I sit down and talk with an LGBTQ+ person living in Arizona about their path in life through a network of relationships to communities, places and people. Today I'm publishing an interview I did with Samual Kahrs a trans teenager living in the East East Valley. He's a student athlete and advocate who's been involved in a lot of our Queer People Fit programing and is very active as the leader of his school's GSA club and an advocacy at the state capitol, which is where I first met him. I'll always say that the bestSamual thing about my job is getting to listen to and learn from really smart people. I've had the opportunity to interview politicians, business owners, and something I always try to ask is how they think about making the difficult decisions they have to make, which of course they have to make all the time. And I asked Samual about this, too. As the leader of his school's GSA club, he's had to make some surprisingly difficult decisions. And I really appreciated getting to talk with him about that process for privacy reasons and considering the political climate that we're in. I've censored the name of his school. This won't affect really anything about the interview, but that's why they're some static in a couple of places. With that out of the way, I think it's important to mention that if you're listening to this episode on the date that it's published, it's October 12th. Today is the day that early voting begins in Arizona, and your ballot could be in your mailbox right now. So don't forget to vote. If you're curious about anything on your ballot at all, just visit EqualityArizona.org/vote for our full comprehensive voter guide. And while you're on our website, you can also check out EqualityArizona.org/stories for the full archive of Arizona Equals interviews. And if you want to add your story to the archive, you can sign up to be a guest on a future episode of the podcast. For now, I'll let Samual introduce himself and get this conversation started. 00;02;34;00 - 00;02;38;21 Samual Hi, my name is Samual Kahrs and I am a youth advocate here in Arizona. 00;02;39;10 - 00;02;40;27 Jeanne Awesome. Thanks for being on the show with me today. 00;02;40;28 - 00;02;41;18 Samual No problem. 00;02;42;00 - 00;02;44;29 Jeanne So we were talking about San Tan Valley. Do you live in San Tan Valley? 00;02;45;00 - 00;02;45;13 Samual Yeah. 00;02;45;19 - 00;02;46;20 Jeanne How long have you been there? 00;02;46;21 - 00;02;48;27 Samual I've been there my entire life, technically. 00;02;48;27 - 00;02;50;16 Jeanne Okay. 00;02;50;16 - 00;02;57;17 Samual Well, we were in Gilbert until I was two and we bought our house out there on my second birthday, actually. 00;02;57;25 - 00;02;58;05 Jeanne Okay. 00;02;58;07 - 00;03;01;12 Samual So. Yeah. So I've been out there basically my entire life. 00;03;02;02 - 00;03;24;14 Jeanne And all of that time. I mean, Gilbert. San Tan Valley, East Valley, and then even farther east. What has that been like, I think the general impression I have of the East Valley, I didn't really grow up in the East Valley, but I did grow up in Chandler and Tempe. I think the general impression is it's not the most accessible environment and sometimes it's not the safest environment. 00;03;24;15 - 00;03;34;14 Samual Yeah. Especially some very rural. Like it's very rural where I'm at. Like literally I can walk in my front door and I can see horses. 00;03;34;14 - 00;03;35;10 Jeanne It's very rural. 00;03;35;10 - 00;04;45;26 Samual Yeah, that kind of deal. And so, I mean, I'm not allowed to use the men's restroom at school because they're worried about my safety going into the men's restroom, and they’re worried about me getting hate crime and stuff because it is that rural and a lot of kids, a lot of kids, have problems with me, especially being president of the GSA club and stuff. So a lot of kids know and I'm very open and proud about like being trans and being bisexual and stuff. And so a lot of kids aren't educated on like what it actually means to be trans and like just LGBTQ in general. And so a lot of kids still have problems with me without even meeting me. And then they get to know me and then they realize like, oh, this is like I was just brought up wrong and like the education that they were given by their parents and stuff was not accurate to like the information we have now. Like one of my best friends. Super country. Super Mormon. And he was like extremely against it until he met me. 00;04;46;10 - 00;04;46;27 Jeanne Oh, yeah. 00;04;46;28 - 00;05;28;10 Samual And now if I'm see, like, if I say that I'm like dysphoric or something, he'll go on 30 minute rant on why I look masculine that day, or something like that. Yeah. So he's a really cool dude. And so a lot of the time it just takes like educating people. And that's a big thing that like my school’s GSA would do this year is like we're putting up posters and like each month we're putting up a different poster about like different identities within the LGBTQ community and stuff and sort of putting them up around school because we have a lot of LGBTQ kids, a lot who are not out because of their safety. 00;05;29;05 - 00;05;38;17 Jeanne Well, so that's something I want to ask about, that safety question. You mentioned not being allowed to use the men's restroom because of a safety consideration. 00;05;38;17 - 00;05;38;28 Samual Yeah. 00;05;39;11 - 00;05;50;27 Jeanne But it's not a safety consideration that you're making. It's yeah, the school is still excluding you under the banner of safety. And so I wondered, how do you feel about that policy? 00;05;51;18 - 00;06;09;20 Samual Honestly, I. I appreciate the fact that they give me a restroom so they don't make me go to girls or they let me use the nurse's restroom. And I appreciate the fact that they do that, because I have been deliberately told by guys that if they saw me in the men's restroom, they would beat me up. 00;06;09;27 - 00;06;11;23 Jeanne Okay, so it's not an abstract. 00;06;11;24 - 00;06;42;05 Samual Yeah. So it's like so there's a lot of kids who don't feel safe going into either the restrooms and so they also use the nurse’s restroom but I knew when I was at ASU Prep that was not an option, at my old school that was not an option. And so they basically were like, no, you have to use the girls restroom. And so I definitely appreciate able to like actually have like my own restroom, and have somewhere where like, I can feel safe to just use the restroom. So, it's definitely nice. 00;06;42;29 - 00;06;45;25 Jeanne And it's a big change from not being given that option. 00;06;45;25 - 00;06;46;08 Samual Yeah. 00;06;46;22 - 00;06;49;12 Jeanne Is that the main reason you left ASU Prep? 00;06;49;29 - 00;07;04;09 Samual That played a big portion into it and a lot of kids, a lot of kids had known me for a decade at that point. We’d grown up together. And it wasn't those kids that had problems with name and pronouns. It was the new kids. 00;07;04;26 - 00;07;05;21 Jeanne Oh, interesting. 00;07;05;23 - 00;07;35;16 Which didn't really make sense to me because I came out like the second week of eighth grade year. So like most of these kids barely even knew me and my eighth grade year, they let in a whole slew of new kids like I had grown up with the same like 60 kids for most of my life, and then they let in like a hundred brand new kids. Like, I hadn't even seen a fight before my eighth grade year. Like, my eighth grade year was the first there was like an actual legit fight at school. 00;07;36;12 - 00;07;41;03 Jeanne So that's a huge change from a relatively small and lon… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit equalityarizona.substack.com