Susan
Welcome to Who We Are Inside, a Cupid podcast. I'm so glad you're here. I want to come back to one thing and make sure that we kind of talked about it enough, and that is the intersectionality of being Black and genderqueer. In your experience, how has that really shaped you compared to others?

Jule
Yeah, you know, outside of things which I'm very thankful for, like shows like Pose. I love that show. I pretty much annually binge all three seasons. Most of the representation that you will see of the queer community at large, but yes, even more specifically trans and non-binary, genderqueer, et cetera, folks, is through a white lens. And that's how most of our media is. Again, there is power and privilege in that, right? So, you know, I don't, and this is a conversation that I have had to have with my parents because, you know, they are not queer, right? They are both heterosexual. So they don't necessarily get why if we were to, for example, decide to leave this country, why certain countries that they recommended would not be ideal for me, right? Or my sister, who is also queer. Because the thing is, because they were prioritizing spaces that are heavily black and brown. And for obvious reasons, I feel, right? To not have to feel like there's an inherent power lorded over you simply because of the color of your skin. And I fully get that. But I also don't get to pick and choose, right? I exist as being black and genderqueer at the same time all the time, right? And so there are differences in how that experience happens, especially in the ways in which authority figures might approach me. In the ways in which we even see the statistics around the murder of trans people in this country, which is heavily black trans femme people, right? So people do not value blackness in our country a lot of times. I think Colin Kaepernick is a really good example of that. When I was working for that call center, I was the regional DEI person. They selected me because I speak so well and I'm so kind. But what they don't know is that I will tell you off if I need to in a professional way, but I will get you together. So I was flown to Chicago. I go to sit in this meeting with the other regional folks. I'm the only person of color in the room. There is one white woman and the rest of them are white men in their 50s. And this is your DEI board. And when I walked in, there were only a few of them there. People were arriving. When I walked in, two of them were having a conversation and Colin Kaepernick came up and they were like, you know, he should just play the game. I'm like, wait, okay. So that's your statement and you're supposed to be representing DEI. Wow. Okay. This is going to go great. And it surely did. It was just as terrible as you might imagine it was. Definitely was one of the reasons I left that place. People don't value the blackness. They fully don't value transness or anything outside of this concept of you can know who someone is by their genitalia, which is ludicrous, right? Like if I were to ask a bunch of women what it means to them to be a woman, I'm not going to get the same answer every time. There's going to be differences. There's going to be different ways that they know themselves and that doesn't change them knowing themselves as women. And so the same is true for all factors there, right? Me being genderqueer, the way I know myself is not necessarily the same as someone else who is genderqueer. And for some people that's scary because it's much easier when we have a binary system, when it's yes or no, when it's black or white, right? That is easy. That is simple. It's also one of the earlier stages of how we conceptualize society. Like that is not considered mature, right? This like black or white systems thinking, we understand that the world is much more complex than that. That humans are much more complex than that. So if we understand that on a societal level, why can't we also understand that on an individual level? Why can't we just allow people to do that? And I think a lot of it does come from fear, fear of messing up or fear of fear of everything you knew, suddenly being upended. Because I can imagine, I know for me, before I came out as genderqueer, I was often very jealous of people that had the courage, the ability, whatever it is, to simply be who they were without fear of whatever might come, right? Whether someone would make fun of them, or, you know, deny them a job or whatever it is, right? And in some ways, that jealousy turned to anger, turned to, I don't want to accept that, because I want to be able to do that, and I can't. So if I can't, then you can't, right? And that's very childish.

Susan
But I think it hits on such a fundamental human thing. One of the, another person we interviewed for Cupid, who's no longer at the university, Bea Schindler, you know, they said they would always ask folks in their, like, educational programs, they would say, you know, how have you, even as a white cishet Christian male, been robbed by white supremacy? You know, what have you lost? And I was like, yes. And I think that's it. It's like, there is something inherently that they were told they couldn't do, be, want. And it's this anger and this fear of what could have been. Yeah, I feel like fear is, it's the death of community. Like, I think that that is what trickles in and gets into all the cracks and just blows it up. Um, which I think we're seeing now on a national, international, interstellar.

Jule
I mean, in some ways, fear is kind of the antithesis of community, because you can't build community if there's not some trust, if there is not some care. And, you know, again, we're not going to create binaries here. So it's not truly an opposite. But of course, that's going to start to break that apart. That's not. Now, from a psychology perspective, yes, it is very effective at creating a group very quickly. When you create an outgroup, a scapegoat, to fear, right? Oh, very easy to get that group together. But that group falls apart very quickly.

Susan
And I would say that that's not a community.

Jule
Oh, it's definitely not.

Susan
That's a group. It's a mob. It's a mob, right? Yes. Yeah. And that's a great point is that it's it's such a powerful way to bring people together until you recognize how disingenuine it is. And how fragile those connections are and how quickly that fear can then like, turn into itself. And then, you know, collective we studies, how do we use radical self-love as a way to overcome, vanquish fear and build community, loving and cherishing our differences? Just a really simple question. Yeah, you know, two minutes. I'm just kidding.

Jule
I think in my perspective, in my mind, part of loving myself, part of having pride in myself is being kind to others is caring, right? It's so intrinsic to me. And perhaps, you know, being raised in a Christian household and that idea of love thy neighbor, right? The golden rule and all those things. Those are things that even though I do not identify as a Christian today, those are things that I do still hold very dear and close to my spirituality and faith. How I hope to live. How I hope to create. Because, you know, in this world, you have to be just a little bit deluded in order to continue, right? You have to find hope even when it seems hopeless. Because, again, this comes back to just thinking about, like, I know my grandmother's sister, my great aunt, my grand aunt, she was a part of the civil rights movement, right? And the training that she went through where she had to let people spit on her, right? And not react, right? If if my ancestors can go through that, right? I feel like I owe it to myself, right? To do the same, right? I just refuse to give up that self-love because it really fully changed my life. And that doesn't mean that life isn't hard because it is. Life still happens. People like me are still murdered in the streets senselessly. And oftentimes it's not reported or nothing's done about it and no one cares. But part of the reason that I got to where I am is because there were people around me who were like, but I love you. I see you as you are and I love you. And that helped me be able to love myself, right? And so I just feel like I need to do the same, right? I don't envy people that either are too afraid or maybe simply don't have the means, the privilege, the access to be who it is that they know they are, right? So I want to be able to help show that there is an ability to do that. When I was in high school and dealing with my parents and the coming out, as many a queer child will tell you, was very close with my AP Lit teacher. And we were talking the one day and I was upset at my parents for something they had said. And he's like, listen, I get it. They really did not take that well, but they will come around. He's like, I've been teaching for 25 plus years and I've seen a lot of kids and a lot of parents. And one thing I can say is that your parents love you. They will come around. Mark my words, they will come around. And that, again, such a huge privilege that I had. And I know so many people that that isn't the case, right? So if I can then, as he said, just remember to be the person that you needed when you were a kid, right? And how instead of thinking, oh, I had to go through all of this homophobia and transphobia, so these children have to too. Why would I do that? No, if I can spare them that, if I can make my corner of this rock that we're on just a little bit better, right? It's worth it, right? I know that, especially in my lifetime or maybe ever, would we reach perfection? Would we reach complete harmony? But that doesn't mean I can't inch a little bit closer, that I can't be that person that I needed.

Susan
Wow. That, yes. And I think that that is like a universal calling that all of us can do regardless of our lived experiences. I'm thinking about, you know, as educators, as healthcare providers, as community workers, you know, wherever you are, I think we could all look back and find a childhood memory where we needed someone to be something and they weren't. And how can we then translate that into being that person for someone else? That is so beautiful. Thank you. You have this space to share your peace, your truth. What have we missed?

Jule
You know, in all of the joy, there is still a lot of fear and sadness. Being someone who was assigned male at birth has no desire to have any type of medical, gender-affirming procedures or interventions. But presenting very femininely, even going to the restroom is not fun because it doesn't matter which restroom I choose. I most often am being stared at. I most often am sometimes told that I'm in the wrong restroom and it literally does not matter which one I picked. I'm still told, you're in the wrong restroom. And I'm like, listen, I'm just trying to pee real quick and wash my hands and you're actually standing in front of the sink. So if you could just, I will actually get out of here. But it makes it really uncomfortable. And not everyone feels safe enough to do that. I've been physically threatened while sitting on a bus by two men using a number of slurs towards me, saying that they would follow me off the bus and beat me to death. And that was at 930 in the morning on a Pittsburgh bus going through Lawrenceville on my way to work. Those types of fears are part of the reason that so many people can't be themselves. Because I've been lucky that none of those things have come to fruition, that those threats have either come up empty or in a number of situations, I've been with some of my friends who are strong strapping men who, before I can even respond, stand up and say, excuse me. It's not easy to simply get dressed and walk out of the door. Because, you know, in my home, of course, I can be exactly who I am. The only people I allow in my house are people that see and know me as I am and that I don't have to mask, that I don't have to perform. But when I leave that place, it's not guaranteed. Right? And people might think that, you know, Pittsburgh is a bit more progressive, which, sure. But these types of things happen right here in the city. These things happen on January 1st, 2022, the first recorded murder of a trans person was a black trans woman in Wilkinsburg. Right? So it's not, and yes, it is true that I definitely feel a lot more anxiety in certain spaces. Absolutely. But especially in places unknown, there's always a level of anxiety because I just don't know. I don't know how people are going to respond. I didn't know how people might respond when I went to a Penguins game and I had this yellow skirt with my Guentzel jersey and I was standing in line for the men's bathroom. And I was like, okay, hopefully no one will say anything. Literally was at the urinal flushed. The guy next to me goes, Hey, by the way, love your fit, bruh. I was like, Oh, well, thank you. Oh my goodness. And I firmly believe that bra was very non-gendered. I was very here for it. You know, sometimes people will surprise you in the best way. People will, instead of pushing their own view of maybe what their truth is, what they know is true for them and trying to impose it on someone else. But that is unfortunately, by and large, the experience of trans and non-binary people is this constant expectation, whether it is you just shouldn't be the way you are or that you should perform it a certain way. That trans women should be the ultimate forms of femininity and trans men of masculinity and non-binary folks of androgyny. No one owes you any of that. Like, cis women don't owe you femininity and cis men don't owe you masculinity. We owe ourselves to just be who we are because that's where the happiness lives, right? That's when you're not just walking through life like a ghost, like I said, right? Feeling so detached because, well, it's not actually you. And that's something that, I don't know, for me, it's been such a revelation. And honestly, a lot of times when people are like, like, I like Halloween, but I'm like, why would I want to be anyone else? Like, I'm me. And I'm just also just more, I don't like to always do like a direct copy of things anyway. So, like, if I want to do a character, I'm going to do it. It's me as that character, right? Because I love being me. Why would I want to be someone else? Like, other people are dope, right? Like, but I want to be me. And I didn't feel that way all throughout childhood. I did not want to be me.

Susan
I have, I think, one final question. And I don't think there's an easy answer, but I'm curious to get your perspective anyway. I not only heard you talk about that fear and that anxiety, but like, I felt it in my bones for a moment, I think. And I'm wondering, is there a way that other people can help to carry that weight? Or is it something that is truly, that must be done, like in solitude?

Jule
I think it's a shame that that framework is what it is, right? That it's us just acknowledging what the world is, but we all can absolutely do something about it, right? On an interpersonal level, right? If you see someone taking a chance, right? And maybe someone chooses to make fun of them because of that. Doing something as simple as, I don't think that's funny, right? There are ways that we can interrupt the things that we have been, you know, socialized to do this gender policing that we'll do. And that, it's not just gender, right? We do it in many different ways, but to go back to that ladder, right? We're literally constructing the ladder when we do that. So we can start in that interpersonal level of when you see it, when you hear it, doing something. Because very often, folks feel very alone, right? They're being attacked and no one says anything, right? And it's also important for us to do that on a grander scale, right? Interpersonal is much more direct, but I think it's equally important, and in many ways even more so, to do that on the larger level when we're thinking about making sure that people's identities are not being criminalized, because that's what is happening, right? And there are parallels to many moments in history where these things happen, and very often it does start with people in the trans and non-binary communities, maybe partly because we make up a smaller portion of the population, and thus it's easier to sequester us, in the same ways that people might vilify immigrant populations or religious minorities, right? It's the same type of thing where you pick a small part of the group to vilify, but then that's not where it stops, right? That's just the starting point before they continue to erode all parts of society until they force all of us on this ladder, where really the ladder doesn't go anywhere, it's all an illusion, right? That's the big thing about white supremacy is it deludes people to act against their own best interests, right? It creates an inflated sense of your station despite your reality. It says, the reason why I am poor, the reason why I'm out of work, the reason why I'm having difficulty in my life in one way or another is because of those people. Rather than, well, let's look around at the society that we built, let's look around at the policies that got us here, right? Is it those people that created this scenario? Or maybe there's something bigger at play, maybe there's something we need to address and fix, rather than being distracted.

Susan
That's it. Yeah. So the interpersonal, being an upstander and not staying quiet and not falling prey to that, you'll probably know the name of it, that tendency in sociology when like something bad is happening and there's a group of people and like nobody does- Yes. Yeah. Yes. Not falling prey to the bystander effect, but being an intentional upstander, no matter how many people are around. And then also considering how do we dismantle these systems of oppression on a larger scale. And this is timely, right? Yeah. Because this is August of 2024 as we're recording this. So yeah, we've got, I say we, and I recognize that in saying we, I have less on the line than you do. And that's a privilege that I am not going to squander. Thank you so, so much for talking to me today, for sharing your journey and your experience and your wisdom. It has been truly a pleasure, Jule.

Jule
Thank you.

Susan
Who We Are Inside is created and hosted by Susan Graff and Adriana Modesto Gomez-Da Silva in collaboration with Karthik Hariharan and John Ganan. Thanks for being here. Thank you.

Music
♪ I still have stories to tell ♪ ♪ I feel ♪ ♪ I still have stories to tell ♪