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Welcome back to the show. Today is National Transgender Children Day, so let's get started. Before I get into today's topic, I do want to put it out there that I finally did it. I got Malik Sharad's video out there, so if you heard the interview that I had with Malik Sharad for Suicide Prevention Month, you can now go to the YouTube page at Hey, Evette, and see our actual interview.
It's way longer than what was on the audio version of the podcast. You get a little bit deeper look into who Malik is and how he is. I think it's a really good listen, and it's an even better watch. Head on over to YouTube and check that out.
I hope to one day soon have a video for today's topic as well. Today is National Transgender Children Day. Basically, this day was established from a mother's desire to be able to let trans children kind of shine. When you think about the troubles that plague the transgender community as adults, the adult transgender community, and then you kind of turn the clocks back to what that's starting to look like for the lives of children who identify as transgender, it's really, it's troubling.
It's very troubling. Now, I will say this, everybody has troubles, so where I can see the parallel of the issues that transgender people are experiencing, that a lot of those types of things are the same type of situations that African Americans have been in in various situations. I just watched a movie of, well, I guess it's more of a documentary from HBO. It was aired back in 2020.
The name of it is Transhood, which kind of is a mashup of transgender and childhood, girlhood, boyhood, just mash it all up together and you get Transhood. And they followed four children who identified as trans. And of the four, by the end of the documentary, one of them went back to what their assigned gender at birth was, but the other three were moving forward with their lives as their gender of choice, if you will. And in watching that documentary, my eyes are open to a lot of things because I don't have much experience with that community.
I don't know that I know many people. I do know of one person, but I haven't had that conversation with them yet. I'm hoping to maybe reach out and see if they would be willing to sit and discuss with me like the ins and outs and what this journey has been like for them. But just in watching the documentary, like I said, I saw lots of parallels, which then took me to that poem where they were saying how they came for this group of people, but because it didn't affect me, I didn't have anything to do with it.
Then they came for this group and then when they came for me, there was nobody left to fight for me, type deal. And I see that where when African Americans were fighting for equality and rights and whatnot, when you think about women's suffrage, fighting for women, initially it was for white women. And they didn't want to have anything to do as far as including black women in that. It's like, we just can all be women.
We had to be women of a certain ilk. And then, you know, but we got in there somehow and then things got better for women on a whole, even though there's still things like pay to spare, pay discrepancies and things like that. But you know, that's a constant battle. We're still fighting those things.
But then when you look at situations dealing with transgender, a lot of the things that they are experiencing with violence and things like that, those are the types of things that African Americans are dealing with. And so rather than letting things be like a fight for black people, then I just feel like the fights that we get in should be for people in general. Because in one way, shape or form, there's something in common in all of these situations, even if it's the fact that this trans-gender person might be black, you know? And so there's that intersectionality of, yeah, I'm this, I'm this, I'm this.
And on top of that, identify as transgender, you know, those types of things. So yeah, I'm really looking forward to possibly having a conversation. If not with somebody who identifies as transgender, maybe the parent of somebody who identifies as transgender. One of the things I learned from watching this HBO documentary, Transhood, was that prior to puberty, there's no physical change that a family or a child can do if they identify as trans.
So everything that people that haven't gone through period can do is all just surface, you know, you can change how they wear their hair, you can change how they dress, you can change their name, just surface things. And you know, you change how they interact with groups of people, you know, maybe they feel more comfortable with, you know, playing with little girls and little boys or vice versa or something like that. You do those types of changes. But the other thing too that was very evident in this documentary was that this was a trying time for all four of the families because they lost friends, they lost family members, due to death, but due to ignorance that, you know, one lady said that her mother viewed her as a child abuser because she allowed her child to cut their hair and present as a male, although the gender that they were assigned at birth was female.
Another thing that I was very intrigued by was a doctor on this documentary. She mentioned that she has been there to deliver a number of babies for families and that you would be amazed at how many babies don't necessarily have, I don't even know the proper way to say it, but that their gender at birth isn't like 100% like, bam, I can call it, like that some of some of his gray. And I was very intrigued by that. I'm like, oh, wow, you know, and I've heard of different things like hermaphrodites and things like that.
And I don't know that I know a whole lot about it. So I don't want to throw those words around too really nilly. But you know, I have heard that there are people who maybe have like they have both sets of genitals when they're born and then somebody at birth had to choose for them like, okay, let's go with this one or let's go with that one or whatever it is that the parents wanted, you know, there are a lot of people that want to design a baby and say, you know, we want to have a boy and then a girl and then another girl or, you know, they want to design their family so that it works for their situation and their liking. It's just kind of kind of creepy, kind of weird.
But to hear this doctor say that, you know, that it's not black and white all the time, leave some room open for discussion for the people who are dead set against it. And it's very disturbing also to see adults speak out against children who identify one way or the other. Or in some cases, people don't identify with either. They're kind of just really fluid in how that whole thing goes.
And that should be fine. The way how I look at it is like, I shouldn't be more concerned about how you identify that that's not my place. That's not my life to live, whether I'm your parent or I'm your next-door neighbor. I'm the woman walking past you on the street.
It doesn't matter. I mean, sometimes things catch you off guard and you're like, oh, that's just because maybe you're not used to seeing something or you were caught off guard. But you know, it shouldn't be something that you see and then you feel like you have to act on it. You have to tell them how they're sitting and how they're bad and you know they're going to hell and all this other stuff.
That's that's uncalled for. So if this topic is in the least bit intriguing to you, just if it's just a hint of intrigue that you feel there, I would definitely recommend that you go check out Transhood. It's the HBO documentary. It runs about an hour and a half, but they follow four families for five years.
Now one thing I do wish I wish they would have added in an African-American family, but I don't know how difficult it was to get these families to put their lives out there like that for five years. So I can understand that if some families are like, ah, no, that's not quite for us. We were working this out in our own way. We don't want to work it out on your cameras.
But it just really would have been nice to see the similarities and differences with an African-American family as well. Now the Transhood is, I say the Transhood is just Transhood. That was covering youth, young people. The other documentary that HBO has is called the Trans List and that one covers adults.
I'd recommend that one as well. It runs about an hour, but it also gives you insight and information about, you know, how these people identify and some of the highs and lows of what they experience. And I think that, you know, it's good to be able to see that sort of thing. So speaking of being able to see that sort of thing, I can remember probably the first person, young person that is, that was in the news about being trans and that was jazz Jennings.
And I don't know if jazz still has the reality show, but there was a show that was following jazz and, you know, all the ups and downs of being trans as far as seeing things through her lens. And then you also have people like Dwayne Wade's daughter, Ziya, who, you know, Dwayne Wade and Gabrielle Union, they've been very vocal, very upfront and, you know, quick to put something on social media about what they're going through, what their journey is like with Ziya and people come for them all the time. And I just really don't understand that. I don't understand why people feel it is their job or their duty to have to have something to say.
Just this past August, Dwayne Wade went through legally to change Ziya's name and gender across the board and people were losing their ish about it. And it's kind of like, I don't understand why this child's gender and the way they identify even makes a difference to people. I mean, places like TMZ and Page Six, they're all about finding out what celebrities are doing because people want to know. And that's fine and dandy that people care to know what their favorite celebrities are doing, how their families are, you know, kind of unfolding.
But to see it is one thing, to chime in on it, that's a bit much. Like, you know, go somewhere and sit down. Nobody asks you for your opinion. These people are proud of their child and they want to show them off just like everybody else shows off their kids.
Now, the fact that, you know, Ziya identifies as a female, that seems to offend people. And they actively speak out and not just Ziya, all of the people, the ones from transhood, the ones that were actively speaking out that were advocates for the transgender community and transgender children, they were actually going through it. And it's sad, it's hurtful that, you know, people just want to be themselves. Like, I can even say that as a female, there are times that I go shopping and I see an outfit and I'm like, oh, that's so cute.
I'm going to get it and I get the outfit. And then I get it home and I go to put the outfit on. And although I love it and it might make me feel like a queen, there have been some outfits that I have put on, took it off and put it back in the closet. Like, you can ask my mom, getting dressed in the morning was an ordeal for me growing up, you know.
And it still isn't a way because there are sometimes when I don't have the confidence to put on what makes me feel comfortable and walk outside my door because for some strange reason, it matters to me what people are going to say about me when they see me. And so I've come a long way. I'm not that woman anymore. I'm not that girl anymore.
I really don't care. And sometimes I trick myself into it. Like, I won't look at myself in the mirror. So if I did something different to my hair, maybe I added some color to it or took some color out of it because, you know, that white beat jumping up in there.
But you know, you do that and then I don't check the mirror to see. I don't need to see it because if I see it, then I might start having second thought. I might, you know, something might shift in me and that confidence might wane a little bit and then it's like, oh, maybe I shouldn't. So I just don't look.
There are some, um, I've got some African print clothes that I had never worn before. And I don't know why I hadn't. But one Sunday, I said, you know what? I'm wearing the stress and I wore it and I love it.
I felt great. People didn't, the thing I thought was going to happen didn't happen. Now, there may have been some people whispering like, Oh, she thinks she is the queen is a moon. Yes.
Yes, girl. Yes, the queen is here. Thank you for joining me for today's episode. So I put that last little piece in there about myself and dressing because we all have insecurities, we all want to be accepted.
Nobody wants to be rejected. Nobody wants to be ridiculed. So even in my own desire to not have people point fingers, it's the same with transgender children or adults or people that they don't want you pointing out the fact that they are different. It shouldn't matter.
Why should it matter that make me understand that? Why should it matter? If they don't want to follow traditional norms of society and dress according to the way that society says that people assigned with their gender at birth should dress and act, what should that matter? Why should it matter?
It doesn't. So having said that, I want to shout out trans youth equality. You can find them on Twitter at T Y E F official. That's T Y E F is in Frank official.
The trans youth equality foundation provides education, advocacy and support for transgender and gender nonconforming children and youth and their families. So if you know of somebody who may be identifies as trans, but they are feeling some type of way about letting other people know, maybe trans youth equality can help them. Maybe you know of a family where the parents are struggling, feeling like maybe that they did something wrong because their child identifies differently. Maybe trans youth equality can help them.
So once again, you can find them on Twitter at T Y E F F is in Frank official. Check them out. They have a website trans youth equality dot org. You can go there as well.
And you know, it's time that everybody got the opportunity to be their authentic selves and live their best life.