Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
Speaker 1: welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher. I am
Speaker 1: your host, Ramsey's job. Big shout out to my man
Speaker 1: q Ward, who is out of town or the moment,
Speaker 1: but he will be back soon. Trust and believe, but
Speaker 1: have no fear of this week have a good friend
Speaker 1: of the show who is stopping by to have a
Speaker 1: very important conversation and a long overdue conversation with us
Speaker 1: today about pronouns now Again, it's a long overdue conversation,
Speaker 1: and we're well aware that pronouns rather have taken center
Speaker 1: stage over the past few years, and we wanted to
Speaker 1: give this topic the right amount of attention, the right
Speaker 1: kind of attention, and have someone who could contribute what
Speaker 1: we would consider like lived experience so that we can
Speaker 1: understand where it comes from and how to be better
Speaker 1: brothers in our case, Q and I, brothers to our
Speaker 1: siblings out there who are trans, and to become more
Speaker 1: aligned with the transcommunity. So stay tuned because we are
Speaker 1: going to be talking with a good friend of the show,
Speaker 1: her name is Maya, about what that means to be
Speaker 1: acknowledged authentically and in the light that you choose for yourself.
Speaker 1: In addition to that, we are going to discuss sort
Speaker 1: of some of the implications of kind of letting some
Speaker 1: of the air out of the ball, letting people live
Speaker 1: their truth, walk the path that they feel is appropriate
Speaker 1: for them, and what it feels like from that perspective
Speaker 1: to be supported by the people around you, the people
Speaker 1: in your community, and so forth. In addition, we're going
Speaker 1: to touch on maybe the opposite end of that, which
Speaker 1: is what it feels like to be attacked for living
Speaker 1: your truth, which is obviously another part of the reality
Speaker 1: of our trans siblings. And so stay tuned for all
Speaker 1: that and more. But first and foremost, let's discuss some
Speaker 1: ebony excellence. So to be fair, this ebony excellence is
Speaker 1: long overdue. This is something that we've had in the coffers,
Speaker 1: I suppose, waiting to shine some light on it. But
Speaker 1: this reading comes from New Central Africa and we're talking
Speaker 1: about the young lady named Faith Autosuni. She's a Nigerian
Speaker 1: student who won a global mac tournament, beating China, United
Speaker 1: Kingdom and the United States and others and cementing her
Speaker 1: place in history. Odasuni or Odoon. See sorry, this is
Speaker 1: what I'm saying is the winner of the Global Open
Speaker 1: Mathematics Competition. She excelled in all stages of the competition
Speaker 1: and didn't expect that she'd be declared the winner until
Speaker 1: the last round when she answered more questions than her competitors.
Speaker 1: And this is important. She attended secondary school at the
Speaker 1: Ambassador School in Ota Ogoon State, Southwest Nigeria, so she
Speaker 1: was a student of the Urian school system. A couple
Speaker 1: of cool things about her. She saw nineteen mathematical questions
Speaker 1: in sixty seconds, becoming the best candidate in the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one mathematics competition, beating her next competitor who only
Speaker 1: answered him. She took part in the Global Mathematics Tournament,
Speaker 1: which is an international competition with participants from Europe, Africa, America,
Speaker 1: Asia and Australia, where she scored top marks. In twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: she received a record Holder award with the highest number
Speaker 1: of questions answered on cow bill Pedia Secondary School's Mathematics
Speaker 1: TV Quiz Show, which is a Nigerian national mathematics television
Speaker 1: quiz show, where she answered nineteen questions in sixty seconds,
Speaker 1: and I promised this list goes on. She's a fantastic
Speaker 1: young lady, and she's still going right now. She's attending
Speaker 1: MIT studying computer science and electrical engineering. Again. Be sure
Speaker 1: to check out her story again. Her name is Faith Odomsey,
Speaker 1: and I think that you will see, like we do,
Speaker 1: that she is a shining example of ebony excellence. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I have a dear friend, someone that I love
Speaker 1: with my whole heart, and this individual is a flower
Speaker 1: in bloom. This individual is dynamic. We all are, but
Speaker 1: I've been able to observe some specific changes, adaptations. Whatever
Speaker 1: the language is, I'm about to learn it with you
Speaker 1: in real time on this show. I think it's important.
Speaker 1: I will always say that it's important that we learn
Speaker 1: how to love people and we teach people how to
Speaker 1: love us. And recently, in recent years, I should say,
Speaker 1: in this country, we've been having conversations about how people
Speaker 1: wish to be identified, specifically with respect to their pronouns.
Speaker 1: And I consider myself to be a woke individual, rather
Speaker 1: be woke than asleep, but in the like the true
Speaker 1: meaning of wokeism, very progressive in my thinking, very accommodating
Speaker 1: of my brothers and sisters that I share this planet with,
Speaker 1: trying to live at peace and have the best, most
Speaker 1: fulfilling experience with this life, but also advocate for the
Speaker 1: best experience on this life for people who may not
Speaker 1: have the same access as I do. And it's in
Speaker 1: that spirit that I wanted to have today's conversation. So Maya,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Kah. In brief, I want you
Speaker 1: to know a little bit about the person we're talking about,
Speaker 1: so i'll pay a picture. I met Maya when she
Speaker 1: was seventeen. She came to my house from out of town,
Speaker 1: and I am a grown man and you're older than
Speaker 1: that now, of course, But when I first met you
Speaker 1: came to my house and the idea was to learn
Speaker 1: to DJ. I've shared on the show many times that
Speaker 1: I'm a DJ, but you also told me something that
Speaker 1: was very profound. You said, I'm going to school to
Speaker 1: become a civil rights attorney. And that moved me because
Speaker 1: Maya is white. Maya's mother and father are white. They
Speaker 1: are both doctors. So if you know like I know,
Speaker 1: you know that that means that Maya did not have
Speaker 1: to be a civil rights attorney. Maya could have did
Speaker 1: anything that she wanted to. But that's I think that
Speaker 1: kind of shows her heart. Being born with considerably less
Speaker 1: in the way of obstacles and problems that you would
Speaker 1: anticipate on your path to whatever it is you wanted
Speaker 1: to be. You choose to take the hard route for
Speaker 1: the benefit of someone else, people that don't even look
Speaker 1: like you, some people who might even be angry with
Speaker 1: people who look like you for the position that they're in.
Speaker 1: It's a lot to reconcile if you've done that by
Speaker 1: age seventeen, what I said makes sense. What I said
Speaker 1: was anything you need now and forever you call me,
Speaker 1: I got you. And when Maya announced to me that
Speaker 1: she had changed her pronouns to better reflect so she
Speaker 1: forgive me again, I'm learning right now. When Maya announced
Speaker 1: the changing of pronouns, i A naturally would accommodate anybody
Speaker 1: to the best I can. I make mistakes. There's other
Speaker 1: people I know who identify as they. They've changed the
Speaker 1: pronouns from she to he. You know, these sorts of things,
Speaker 1: And I feel really bad because I want to I
Speaker 1: want to make sure that everyone knows they're it. It's
Speaker 1: a safe space. I got you. I would protect you.
Speaker 1: But it's language, and it's I guess it's wired into
Speaker 1: a different part of your brain.
Speaker 2: So and I still know that even if you get
Speaker 2: the language wrong.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. But this you've tasked your brother with
Speaker 1: honoring you as you are blossoming and blooming, and so
Speaker 1: that responsibility is still mine. I appreciate the grace, but
Speaker 1: the responsibilities of mine. What I wanted to ask now
Speaker 1: that we've painted this picture is for you to talk
Speaker 1: us through what it means to go from having one
Speaker 1: set of pronouns to another set of pronouns, and how
Speaker 1: does that fulfill you. I figure the benefit would help
Speaker 1: us people who are coming to terms with pronouns and
Speaker 1: adjusting pronouns. It will help us to be better brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters to those of us who are evolving. Okay,
Speaker 1: glory yours. You can edit this right, of course, of course.
Speaker 2: H Okay, Well I've told you this, But to kind
Speaker 2: of recount, I first started shifting my pronouns in February
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty. Okay, so it's been like three and
Speaker 2: a half years now, and I first started using she, they,
Speaker 2: And it started really just as a I had a
Speaker 2: friend who started to use different pronouns, and I kind
Speaker 2: of thought to myself, like, how would I feel about
Speaker 2: they in reference to me. Then I kind of pushed
Speaker 2: the thought aside. And at that point I had already
Speaker 2: identified as queer like for my sexuality, but I had
Speaker 2: not thought about gender. And then the thought came up again.
Speaker 2: Then I had a friend come to visit and I
Speaker 2: was telling her about it, and I hadn't told anyone
Speaker 2: about it at that point, and we were laying on
Speaker 2: my floor and I was sobbing because it was hitting
Speaker 2: something and I didn't understand. I had no idea and
Speaker 2: I hadn't really thought about it. So I started to
Speaker 2: use Sheeta to try it out to see how it felt,
Speaker 2: and it unlocked something that I didn't know needed to
Speaker 2: be unlocked. And when I think back on my relationship
Speaker 2: to gender, I didn't ever feel when I was younger,
Speaker 2: I didn't feel tied to being girl. I always liked
Speaker 2: that I there are a lot of spaces which I
Speaker 2: could just be one of the boys, I could just
Speaker 2: be myself, and that gender wasn't a roadblock in that
Speaker 2: in terms of me having friends, and I didn't feel
Speaker 2: attached to the identity of being a woman, except for
Speaker 2: when it came to my experience of living under patriarchy,
Speaker 2: like I knew what it meant to connect to other
Speaker 2: women about the experience of like a glance on the
Speaker 2: street that is like very sexualizing and feels deeply uncomfortable
Speaker 2: and sometimes violent, like that's an experience, or being discounted
Speaker 2: on being able to do whatever it was like being
Speaker 2: a DJ, for example, wanting to be DJ. I recognized
Speaker 2: that it was like, Okay, I understand that there are
Speaker 2: so few DJs that I see that look like me
Speaker 2: in the sense of the body type that I have
Speaker 2: that I'm assigned female at birth. It was mostly sis
Speaker 2: men that I was seeing djaying, so I felt connected
Speaker 2: in that way, but it was not necessarily I feel
Speaker 2: like a woman, but I didn't think about it that much.
Speaker 2: I started using she, they, and then for a few
Speaker 2: years it became more comfortable and felt more right. I
Speaker 2: realized I only heard my friends using they them for me.
Speaker 2: I don't really hear many people refer to me as she,
Speaker 2: except for my mom, who you know. She's known about
Speaker 2: this since I started using different pronouns, but it has
Speaker 2: taken a long It takes time for the language to adjust.
Speaker 2: I know that she loves me. I know that it's
Speaker 2: taking time for her to understand what this means in
Speaker 2: terms of identity change, and also that like it's hard
Speaker 2: for her to she, you know, had spent that point
Speaker 2: twenty one years only using she, and so for her
Speaker 2: to use something else, it's taking time, right. And then
Speaker 2: I came home from a trip where I spent some
Speaker 2: time alone that last summer about a year ago, and
Speaker 2: I heard someone refer to me as she. I guess, okay,
Speaker 2: getting a little off track, but that's okay, I'll come
Speaker 2: back around. I heard someone use. I heard someone say like,
Speaker 2: oh she blah blah blah, and I had a moment
Speaker 2: of being like, what are you talking about? Fancy anyone
Speaker 2: else around, Like, oh, that's me, You're talking about me?
Speaker 2: And it just did not it felt like they were
Speaker 2: talking about someone else. I think that since I've used them,
Speaker 2: since I started using them, and I think this whole
Speaker 2: sort of experience of using different pronouns. I was describing
Speaker 2: it to a friend last night. Actually it felt like
Speaker 2: I was in a room and I saw I was
Speaker 2: in this room. I saw that there was a door
Speaker 2: that said man, right, and I was like, that's not
Speaker 2: the door for me. I don't want to walk through
Speaker 2: that doesn't feel like the right door. And I saw
Speaker 2: a door out of the corner of my eye. It's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I didn't really think or you know, I just learned
Speaker 2: about the door. Because also I think using they them
Speaker 2: is relatively newer. Right, It's not that non binary people
Speaker 2: are new, but I think this change in like pronouns
Speaker 2: is relatively new within the past like several years and
Speaker 2: becoming more popular and whatnot. It was like I saw
Speaker 2: the door out of the corner of my eye. I
Speaker 2: hadn't really thought like do I want to walk to
Speaker 2: that door? And then I was like, I'm looking at
Speaker 2: the door. Maybe you know, maybe I might peek through it,
Speaker 2: but I'm not sure do I really need to open
Speaker 2: this door? Like I know this room and maybe not
Speaker 2: doesn't feel like the best room, but it's a room
Speaker 2: that I know. And then I opened that door and
Speaker 2: I'm in a new room and I was like, oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, I didn't know. I had no idea what
Speaker 2: could be waiting beside this door. And and then in
Speaker 2: that room in this analogy, that's like she they, I
Speaker 2: see this other door, right, I see they them, and
Speaker 2: I see more doors. Because also now that I'm starting
Speaker 2: to think about gender. I understand that there are different
Speaker 2: combinations of pronouns and that pronouns are also one thing
Speaker 2: around like gender, that doesn't necessarily determine your gender. And
Speaker 2: it also doesn't you know, I could have I see
Speaker 2: hee him there, I see he they. I say that
Speaker 2: I see they she, I see they them. But I
Speaker 2: see all of these doors. But I see the day
Speaker 2: them door like again in the corner of my eye,
Speaker 2: and I was like, okay, I see it. It doesn't
Speaker 2: really feel right. But then like over time, I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: this room is feeling better. But then start the room
Speaker 2: starts to feel a little bit too small, and I
Speaker 2: see this door and it's again I think about the
Speaker 2: door because I thought about using them. It's like, do
Speaker 2: I really need to walk through this door? Like I
Speaker 2: don't know, people are still gonna call me she you know,
Speaker 2: what's the But I think about this door and I
Speaker 2: start to move close to the door. I'm like, you
Speaker 2: know what, might as well try opening the door and
Speaker 2: let's see. And it's just like it's like you It's
Speaker 2: like I opened to the door and I'm no longer
Speaker 2: in a building. It's wow, like it it is so
Speaker 2: expansive and I have, and that's how it's felt. I
Speaker 2: think to use these pronouns, I continue to feel like
Speaker 2: there's more and more space for me within it. I
Speaker 2: continue to learn more about myself. It gives me more
Speaker 2: freedom internally. I just can't. It feels free. That's how
Speaker 2: it feels.
Speaker 1: So let me let me ask you this when you
Speaker 1: talk about it feeling free. I guess maybe for a
Speaker 1: lot of us that our pronouns are they're they have
Speaker 1: roots there, They're not changing at all. There's no need
Speaker 1: not the changing in anything is bad, nothing like that.
Speaker 1: But I just kind of know me, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. I guess that's it. I guess that's it.
Speaker 1: I think I'm answering my own question because I know me.
Speaker 1: I know who I am, I know the sound of
Speaker 1: my voice. I know when it's me talking, and I
Speaker 1: know when someone is talking about me. And maybe if
Speaker 1: I didn't have that security of knowing those things around myself,
Speaker 1: then maybe I might explore the different rooms to borrow
Speaker 1: from your analogy to see if there's something that works
Speaker 1: a little bit better. One of the things that a
Speaker 1: lot of folks push back against is that many of
Speaker 1: the people who are changing their pronouns. They tend to
Speaker 1: be young. You mentioned that you kind of went through
Speaker 1: this when you were about twenty one. But a big
Speaker 1: part of this country is concerned with I don't even
Speaker 1: know if I'm saying this right, but they're unnecessarily concerned
Speaker 1: with what I will describe here, at least as a
Speaker 1: trans and and they've lumped in the changing of pronouns
Speaker 1: by younger people into that narrative. Now, I want to
Speaker 1: say something because I this is I just know this
Speaker 1: part is true. I don't believe that that is a
Speaker 1: real thing. I think that when people learn a very
Speaker 1: small piece about someone's sexuality, they then define them as
Speaker 1: one hundred percent sexual all the time. Right. If if
Speaker 1: I was to say I'm polyamorous, for instance, then people
Speaker 1: would think that I'm just that I'm a full, full,
Speaker 1: whole person. I go on boats, I cross bridges, and
Speaker 1: there's one part of my life that has that, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. So I think when when people
Speaker 1: think about trans people, they think that that's one who
Speaker 1: they are one hundred percent of the time is their
Speaker 1: sexual expression, and they're expressing that sexuality percent time, And
Speaker 1: that's not true. Another thing that I think is worth mentioning,
Speaker 1: and I want to get your thoughts is a lot
Speaker 1: of people come to terms with their sexuality at a
Speaker 1: young age. Granted, sexuality, from what I understand, it's fluid,
Speaker 1: or it can be fluid. It can change different parts
Speaker 1: of your life, you know, to my understanding of the
Speaker 1: science of it. But for the most part, when people
Speaker 1: start awakening to their sexual self, it happens at a
Speaker 1: younger age typically. And I want to get your thoughts
Speaker 1: on I know you're not trans, okay, so then there
Speaker 1: we go. So I learned that too. So what I
Speaker 1: want you to do is give us some insight into
Speaker 1: maybe how it feels to be to bear witness to
Speaker 1: that attempt at chronicling this narrative and kind of some
Speaker 1: of the things that I said about, you know, people
Speaker 1: coming to terms with their sexuality at a young age,
Speaker 1: and maybe there's the agenda being imagined. Just kind of
Speaker 1: give me some feedback on what I think at least.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, like, well, I think that's something that's
Speaker 2: been interesting to watch in many different ways. Is that
Speaker 2: I think we've come a lot farther in understanding that
Speaker 2: people can understand their sexualities from a young age. Not
Speaker 2: everyone does, and it is fluid, Like I think, things
Speaker 2: can change over time. I didn't start using the language
Speaker 2: of queer until I was nineteen, and it took me
Speaker 2: a long time to realize like, oh, that's what that is.
Speaker 2: And so I think that if we can see that
Speaker 2: with sexuality, then I think that there's it's surprising to
Speaker 2: then see. Also, I also think that can be true gender, right,
Speaker 2: it's just like an understanding of who you are. And
Speaker 2: also these things can change.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: When I think about well, there are a couple of
Speaker 2: things that come to mind. There's this non binary writer,
Speaker 2: poet speaker, a look Weidmannan. They are someone who I
Speaker 2: really appreciate their input. They have a beautiful book on
Speaker 2: called Beyond the Gender Binary, which is like a really
Speaker 2: nice little intro into thinking about beyond the gender binary. Anyways,
Speaker 2: one of the things that they say oftentimes is and
Speaker 2: this isn't a direct quote, but is that what folks
Speaker 2: are afraid of? That it's not that people are afraid
Speaker 2: of gender queer people and people who are exploring gender
Speaker 2: or present in different ways, is that they're afraid of
Speaker 2: like what that means forever for all that folks have
Speaker 2: had to suppress themselves. I think that, like, while I
Speaker 2: don't think there's a transagenda, I think that what I
Speaker 2: find in like trans and non binary community is openings.
Speaker 2: It's like, okay, well what if we take away these boxes? Right?
Speaker 2: What opens Like what does it mean to express yourself
Speaker 2: via dress in a way that feels the best for you? Yeah,
Speaker 2: and everyone should have access to color, to texture, to
Speaker 2: different pieces of garments, like it's not and what does
Speaker 2: it mean to be feminine? What does it mean to
Speaker 2: be masculine? I think it's a lot about like opening
Speaker 2: up that there are so many ways to be in
Speaker 2: this world and we don't have to just be what's
Speaker 2: handed to us. And I think that that and you know,
Speaker 2: encourages I think a lot of imagination, a lot of creativity.
Speaker 2: It's like what's possible?
Speaker 1: Sure? Sure, So, so first off, I appreciate that, and
Speaker 1: let's do this. Let's put a pin in this, okay,
Speaker 1: and we'll come right back to it in just a second. Okay,