Speaker 1: If you just tuned in a civic cipher. I am
Speaker 1: your host Ramsey's job. Big shout out to my man
Speaker 1: c Ward, who is out of the country again because
Speaker 1: he's out there changing the world for the better. But
Speaker 1: have no fear. It is business as usual around here.
Speaker 1: I am joined in the studio by a very special guest.
Speaker 1: My good friend Maya is here with us, discussing her,
Speaker 1: he him, they them pronouns, and how important it is
Speaker 1: to be acknowledged in the light that you choose for yourself,
Speaker 1: and how we can be better siblings to our siblings
Speaker 1: who are trans or identify as something other than what
Speaker 1: they were born as. And I'm learning in real time
Speaker 1: along with you, and so fortunately, I feel like this
Speaker 1: is a great opportunity for all of us to gain
Speaker 1: some insight into these other marginalized communities and hopefully find
Speaker 1: more commonality, as is always the expectation and hope around here.
Speaker 1: All Right, it is time for a b A becoming
Speaker 1: a better Allied BABA, and today's BABBA is sponsored by
Speaker 1: Friends of the Movement. You can sign up for the
Speaker 1: free voter wallet from fotmglobal dot com to support black
Speaker 1: businesses and allied businesses as well as make an impact
Speaker 1: with your spending again. That's fotmglobal dot com. Today's reading
Speaker 1: comes from Black Enterprise and according to an October eleventh
Speaker 1: post by Flickshop, Arlington County Detention Center is bringing a
Speaker 1: transformational entrepreneurship program to its inmates, providing them the tools
Speaker 1: to rewrite their personal narratives and inspire hope for a
Speaker 1: brighter future. This initiative, led by a flick Shop School
Speaker 1: of Business, aims to expose individuals in detention to stories
Speaker 1: of reinvention and success, shedding light on the possibility of
Speaker 1: a fruitful life beyond incarceration. The FSB program was sparked
Speaker 1: by Marcus Bullock, the CEO of flick Shop, who shared
Speaker 1: his vision and the Aspen Ideals festival years ago. In
Speaker 1: a recent workshop, instructors from flick Shop School of Business
Speaker 1: introduce residents to the residence in the substance abuse treatment
Speaker 1: program to the strategies Marcus leverage to build this professional
Speaker 1: brand as an impact CEO and motivational speaker. The entrepreneurship
Speaker 1: program empowered inmates with the tools to learn, grow, and
Speaker 1: reshape their narratives. Bullock explained, when I sat in Fairfax
Speaker 1: County Detention Center. I wanted to believe that I still
Speaker 1: had value, but more importantly, I wanted to ensure that
Speaker 1: there was a community that would not ostracize me because
Speaker 1: of my mistakes. Response from the program participants has been
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly positive. Aubrey Graham, one of the instructors, noted that
Speaker 1: the guys were ecstatic and that they continued to receive
Speaker 1: rave reviews. And we thought this was important because a
Speaker 1: lot of times people that end up in the criminal
Speaker 1: justice system are people who were poor and did not
Speaker 1: have access or ideal circumstances, not necessarily bad people, and
Speaker 1: so with a little bit of instruction and some alignment,
Speaker 1: they can actually do well. Okay, So where we left
Speaker 1: off was you were describing how trans a trans identity
Speaker 1: and a trans narrative, the trans conversations, the ripple effect
Speaker 1: of those conversations, and and that narrative is that other
Speaker 1: people are coming to terms with different parts of their
Speaker 1: own personalities and identities and so forth. And I want
Speaker 1: you to mention the author one more time, just in
Speaker 1: case there are people want to do more research. Can
Speaker 1: we spell that just a l okay.
Speaker 2: V A I D and then M E N O
Speaker 2: n they're phenomenal. Uh yeah, and they're on Instagram. You
Speaker 2: guys find them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay, So, so here's what I wouldn't be doing
Speaker 1: doing my job as a journalist if I didn't bring
Speaker 1: up some of the things that other people are saying.
Speaker 1: Some of these things I've heard personally. Okay, this is
Speaker 1: not meant to amplify ignorance or hatred, but these are
Speaker 1: things that exist in the world, and this is the
Speaker 1: forum where we talk about these things. So I appreciate
Speaker 1: you allowing me to do this. You know, I love
Speaker 1: you with my whole heart. And I mean so, I
Speaker 1: still want to be as kind as I can. I
Speaker 1: don't know how to not be him, So let's try
Speaker 1: it this way. They them typically refers to more than
Speaker 1: one person. People are being forced to use awkward language,
Speaker 1: or if they forget or don't want to accommodate that
Speaker 1: be labeled as a bigot. Is that fear to them?
Speaker 2: H It's a good question. I think that. Well. First
Speaker 2: of all, I think there's a huge difference between forgetting
Speaker 2: and intentionally not using that language. Okay, because one is
Speaker 2: one is human. It could also be that you change
Speaker 2: your name and sometimes you forget you know when my
Speaker 2: friends change pronouns, I have slip ups accidentally. I'm human
Speaker 2: and even though they them is in my lexicon, if
Speaker 2: I have a friend who starts using a pronoun that
Speaker 2: I'm not familiar with, it's gonna take me a little
Speaker 2: bit to adjust to that. And that's okay. I love
Speaker 2: them with my whole heart. I show up for them.
Speaker 2: People that I love in my life don't use they
Speaker 2: them all the time and accidentally use she or just
Speaker 2: really struggling with it.
Speaker 1: And that's what I.
Speaker 2: Know. You love me. I know where your heart is.
Speaker 2: It'd be different if you to be like I refuse
Speaker 2: to call you that. I think that. Then. I was
Speaker 2: having a conversation with a friend about this recently as well.
Speaker 2: I think the noun this is I'm going to try
Speaker 2: to lay this out as much as makes sense. I
Speaker 2: think the noun bigot is difficult because people can change.
Speaker 2: I do believe that. I do think that. Also, that
Speaker 2: doesn't mean we don't take accountability for our Like if
Speaker 2: you are saying things that are bigoted, if you are
Speaker 2: saying things that are transphobic, I still think that's true. However,
Speaker 2: I do think that I don't want to necessarily condemn
Speaker 2: people for being like that. It's necessarily like that forever.
Speaker 2: One of my dearest dearest friends, when I first met him,
Speaker 2: told him I used say them. He's like, I, I
Speaker 2: don't like, I don't really get down with that. And
Speaker 2: then over time, as we've talked, because he's someone who
Speaker 2: really wants to grow, it's like, okay, let's talk about it.
Speaker 1: I love you.
Speaker 2: We're getting to know each other. And we met in
Speaker 2: a context where if i'd met, you know, maybe if
Speaker 2: we had met each other just on the street, I
Speaker 2: probably wouldn't have wanted to be friends. But we had
Speaker 2: this friendship develop and over time and now he almost
Speaker 2: only uses say them, almost never slips up, and it's
Speaker 2: really like, I want to understand you, and I want
Speaker 2: to like understand what this means for you. Right, So
Speaker 2: I think that there's like I just want to name that.
Speaker 2: I guess that I think people aren't necessarily fixed. I
Speaker 2: do think so I'm not necessarily gonna, I guess maybe
Speaker 2: use the noun bigot, But I do believe that people
Speaker 2: should also be accountable for their actions in the same
Speaker 2: way that like, if you're doing something like there's been
Speaker 2: a lot of like people don't want to be called racist, right,
Speaker 2: but if you're doing things that are enacting white supremacy,
Speaker 2: if you're doing things that are racist, you also need
Speaker 2: to be accountable for your actions and for the impact
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 1: Can I add something right here? Go for it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I'm glad you said that, because I was having
Speaker 1: a conversation with with a dear friend of mine. This
Speaker 1: was the pandemic was still going on. Yeah, so this
Speaker 1: was a couple of years back.
Speaker 2: But he.
Speaker 1: Was very, very opposed to switching up the pronoun game, Like,
Speaker 1: why do I need to switch up my pronoun game too,
Speaker 1: you know, accommodate this new blah blah blah. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: this friend of mine, just because it's important to the story,
Speaker 1: because it identified it helps you to identify potentially what
Speaker 1: his blind spots might have been. He's a white man.
Speaker 1: I love him my whole heart. I'm as black as
Speaker 1: a asspades. So he and his family, if they were
Speaker 1: ever going to be racist or bigoted or anything like that,
Speaker 1: it would have stopped when they met me. And I'm
Speaker 1: known this whole family for decades, plural, very very close,
Speaker 1: very good people, good good people. I want to make
Speaker 1: sure I say that these are good people him in particular,
Speaker 1: he says this to me, I don't want to switch
Speaker 1: up my pronoun game, blah blah blah. And I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: how could you say this? Oh goutted. So we had
Speaker 1: a back and forth again. I want you to see
Speaker 1: his blind spots. You know what I mean, I says
Speaker 1: to him. You know, once upon a time, my dear friend,
Speaker 1: black people, we didn't want to be called certain things,
Speaker 1: and we needed to affirm who we were, and we
Speaker 1: needed to make it very clear who we were not.
Speaker 1: We needed everybody to understand that, and it's challenging to
Speaker 1: do that. I was not alive during the time that
Speaker 1: I was envisioning in this story I was telling him,
Speaker 1: But I know the people that were alive, A lot
Speaker 1: of them their last few moments was hanging in a tree,
Speaker 1: burning or getting beat or you know, the last moments
Speaker 1: of their life were lived in horror, hearing the language
Speaker 1: that they didn't want to be called any affirming their
Speaker 1: humanity and fighting for their dignity. That's heavy, right. So
Speaker 1: to this man that I love, and in this conversation
Speaker 1: that I had with him, I learned, and he learned
Speaker 1: a very significant parallel because I'm gonna I'm gonna say this,
Speaker 1: I mean no disrespect to all of my trans brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters. When the language is taught to me, that
Speaker 1: is more sufficient than that I will use it. But
Speaker 1: to my trans brothers and sisters and my l g B,
Speaker 1: t q I A plus brothers and sisters, I will
Speaker 1: say siblings. There we go. I like that. Okay that,
Speaker 1: and again I mean no disrespect. But I want to
Speaker 1: say this, Once upon a time it was fashionable to
Speaker 1: be bigoted against black people. It's not fashionable to be
Speaker 1: that anymore. Despite what we've seen in the past couple
Speaker 1: of years, I know that in society, like advanced society,
Speaker 1: you still got to got to get your racism off
Speaker 1: and hush whispers in the corners still very powerful, has
Speaker 1: a very significant impact on outcomes and shapes what we
Speaker 1: how far people like me can go. Not every time,
Speaker 1: but if we look at the numbers, you can see
Speaker 1: it clear as day. Absolutely. But I say that to
Speaker 1: say that nowadays, I think it is perhaps more or
Speaker 1: fashionable to be bigoted out loud to my trans siblings.
Speaker 1: And in that conversation with my dear friend, that parallel
Speaker 1: certainly helps to illuminate the similarities. There's obviously more black people,
Speaker 1: there's more terror that has lasted for longer time in
Speaker 1: this country in the way that we would describe it.
Speaker 1: But I don't think that we as a country changed
Speaker 1: how we dealt with black people because we all of
Speaker 1: a sudden started liking black people. I think that we
Speaker 1: changed as a country how we don't black people because
Speaker 1: it was the right thing to do, and if we're
Speaker 1: committed to doing the right thing, then those parallels translate
Speaker 1: and transfer quite easily to our trans siblings. The last
Speaker 1: time we talked about this, I asked if we could
Speaker 1: have this conversation, and you said not right now. I
Speaker 1: don't know if there was something there that requires maybe
Speaker 1: a degree of you know, you have to be calculated,
Speaker 1: or if it's just a lot you know, if I
Speaker 1: don't know what life is like as a transfers. I
Speaker 1: just learned that you were trans in this conversation, right,
Speaker 1: I always know you were, Maya. That's the main thing
Speaker 1: about you, and that's the thing that I've chosen to love.
Speaker 1: And I don't even think I chose. I think that
Speaker 1: it just kind of was going to happen either way.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it hasn't changed. Yeah, of course not, of
Speaker 1: course not. But I want to ask maybe why conversations
Speaker 1: like this could be scary or overwhelming, because what I
Speaker 1: don't want to have happen is we have a great
Speaker 1: conversation today and then everybody's like, Okay, I remember that
Speaker 1: one guy that went to high school with Hey, what's
Speaker 1: up man? So you're trans, so let's talk about it.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. And I approached you in
Speaker 1: that way where I was like, oh, it's type. Now
Speaker 1: you got pronouns, let's turn the micro on, let's get
Speaker 1: let's get something recorded, and you know it, just I
Speaker 1: saw an approach that I saw you heed the gravity
Speaker 1: of the conversation I was asking you to have, and
Speaker 1: I would like for you to walk us through your
Speaker 1: thought process as an emotion, so that when we're on
Speaker 1: the streets, or maybe when we're as we're learning on
Speaker 1: our own journeys and as we're blossoming those of us
Speaker 1: who don't identify as trans or don't use separate pronouns,
Speaker 1: but we are committed to respecting and loving the human
Speaker 1: beings with whom we share this planet, regardless of regardless.
Speaker 1: I'd like for you to give us a little bit
Speaker 1: of that thought process and that emotional space so that
Speaker 1: we have insight into how the best approach. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Thanks, Well, I think I'm going to answer the question
Speaker 2: a little bit more broadly in than reagent, just in
Speaker 2: that it's not, I guess, all relevant to how to
Speaker 2: have conversation with other people or for that purpose, but
Speaker 2: I think that well, one, I want to be intentional
Speaker 2: because I can never speak I'm not speaking for all
Speaker 2: non binary trans people by any means, can't do that.
Speaker 2: But I want to be really intentional about like what
Speaker 2: I do say because I also understand that like that
Speaker 2: that still has well, I guess whatever impact it has, right,
Speaker 2: And then it's a conversation. That's it's intimate, it's vulnerable.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to be on a mic because I
Speaker 2: didn't want to have to worry about being rambly or
Speaker 2: about I think there's nothing wrong with crying, but I
Speaker 2: didn't want to have to worry about being rambly or
Speaker 2: crying or whatever it is, because I just wanted to
Speaker 2: be real with you, you know, and be present with you.
Speaker 2: And you are someone who I love and who I
Speaker 2: know is invested in understanding me, and I want to
Speaker 2: understand me, just as I want to understand you. And
Speaker 2: I'm also someone who is like I'm generally I'm down
Speaker 2: to talk about this, especially with all of the people
Speaker 2: I love, Like I'm always I'm always open to whatever
Speaker 2: questions there are because I know I know the hearts
Speaker 2: that they come from. I know it's I love you,
Speaker 2: I want to get to know you better. Why don't
Speaker 2: understand these things? So when I know that I'm down
Speaker 2: to have the conversation, I'm not interested in having this
Speaker 2: conversation with people who aren't interested in understanding, because I
Speaker 2: don't want to have to defend my humanity to you,
Speaker 2: and like I don't if you're not gonna see me
Speaker 2: as valid, or if you just don't think that I
Speaker 2: should be how I am and that's not going to change,
Speaker 2: then I'm I don't have the energy to have that
Speaker 2: conversation most of the time. I do think though, for
Speaker 2: folks who do want to understand, it's all you know
Speaker 2: it would be. I also know that I am a
Speaker 2: lot more open to having conversations about this with people
Speaker 2: who I know way less than a lot of folks.
Speaker 2: I think that, like, because everyone's different, right, some people
Speaker 2: are down to have. Some people are down to have
Speaker 2: those conversations, and you know, I've had people where we
Speaker 2: don't know each other very well but are like, hey,
Speaker 2: you know, do you mind if I ask you? Can
Speaker 2: you explain why you use them? Because I know a
Speaker 2: lot of people use it, and I haven't really been
Speaker 2: down with it, but I just want to understand. And
Speaker 2: a lot of times, if it's the heart that's coming
Speaker 2: with it's like, yeah, sure, I'm totally happy to talk
Speaker 2: about it, you know, or talk about it with anyways. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm happy to talk about that. I do think also
Speaker 2: part of that, I honestly think part of that comes
Speaker 2: from the fact that I don't have to do that
Speaker 2: for a lot of other parts of my identity. I'm white.
Speaker 2: I don't have to walk around explaining different things about
Speaker 2: white people to different folks. A lot of my friends
Speaker 2: who are black and non binary, or black and queer,
Speaker 2: black and trans, et cetera don't want to be doing
Speaker 2: that work, which I understand because people come up with
Speaker 2: all sorts of other questions about other parts of their identities,
Speaker 2: and that's fair. I don't think that, like, we'd also
Speaker 2: be fine if I didn't want to have conversations like
Speaker 2: this with other people other than the people who I
Speaker 2: deeply love and care about, and I lo love and
Speaker 2: care about me, So it's kind of like, I'm down
Speaker 2: to talk about this. This is something that I'm more
Speaker 2: than willing to do and happy to do. And also
Speaker 2: because sometimes it's they're just like questions that you can't
Speaker 2: find on the internet, right, Sure, And I do think
Speaker 2: the internet's a really helpful resource and tool, and there
Speaker 2: are plenty of people.
Speaker 1: It can be, ye, can be, can be well, yeah,
Speaker 1: let me say this before we're done. If I'm in
Speaker 1: for people that want to have these conversations, it sounds
Speaker 1: like the right thing to do is to approach it
Speaker 1: with the right intentions, wanting to learn more. Intentionality, I
Speaker 1: think translates quite a bit. It's not a freak show,
Speaker 1: it's not a sideshow anything crazy like that. I love
Speaker 1: how you say humanity. I think that that dignifies every
Speaker 1: conversation that people might want to have if they center
Speaker 1: the humanity. The other part of it is that I
Speaker 1: think that anybody who approaches this conversation as though they
Speaker 1: somehow are going to be the ones and enduring a
Speaker 1: hardship by accommodating a pronoun. They've completely missed the fact
Speaker 1: that other people are living in a hardship as defined
Speaker 1: by them, and I think that's more than enough, and
Speaker 1: that's going to do it for us here today on
Speaker 1: Civic Cipher. Once again, I am your host Rams' JA
Speaker 1: and trust and believe that Cubboard will be back soon
Speaker 1: enough to provide his insightful commentary and hopefully he's bringing
Speaker 1: back some really cool experiences as well to share with us.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, do us a favor. Be sure to
Speaker 1: check us out on all social media. You can follow
Speaker 1: us on all platforms at Rams's JA, and if you're
Speaker 1: doing that, please be sure to engage with us. That's
Speaker 1: very important for us. Also, you can download this in
Speaker 1: any previous episode from our website at Civiccipher dot com.
Speaker 1: That is also the place where you can submit any
Speaker 1: topics you want us to cover, make a donation, and
Speaker 1: download of course this in any previous episodes that you
Speaker 1: can keep and review at your leisure. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank Maya for stopping in today. It was a fantastic conversation.
Speaker 1: I certainly learned a lot and I hope that you
Speaker 1: did too, and I think we'll leave it right there
Speaker 1: until next week. Y'all, peace,