Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to woka F Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody recording from the Fucking Toe
Speaker 1: reconstruction Zone and the Brooklyn Bunker. Happy Pride, folks, it
Speaker 1: is officially June. I myself cannot believe that we have
Speaker 1: made it here as a country as a group, but
Speaker 1: we are here and for this pride on woke F.
Speaker 1: We are conjuring up the spirits of our LGBTQ ancestors
Speaker 1: and leaders, and we're going back to what the core
Speaker 1: of pride has been and was born out of, which
Speaker 1: is a riot. For many of you who listen to
Speaker 1: me on a regular basis and have been listening to
Speaker 1: and been a part of the woke a F community nation,
Speaker 1: I want you to understand that when pride originated, as
Speaker 1: some folks know, came out of the Stonewall riots. And
Speaker 1: Stonewall is a bar located in New York City, in Manhattan,
Speaker 1: in Chelsea, an area that during the time was very
Speaker 1: much frequented by LGBTQ plus people. And what we have
Speaker 1: always known is that the queer community has never been
Speaker 1: accepted and embraced. It has always been the ire of police, politicians.
Speaker 1: You name it, and how pride began was out of
Speaker 1: a sense of exhaustion, out of a sense of you know, folks,
Speaker 1: particularly black, queer, black trans women saying, like Marsha P. Johnson,
Speaker 1: I've had enough. We've had a fucking enough of cops
Speaker 1: coming into this bar, hustling us from money, you know,
Speaker 1: beating us, and we do nothing because we are forced
Speaker 1: to live in the shadows, in the margins. And what
Speaker 1: the Stonewall riots did was bring to the consciousness the
Speaker 1: forefront of the New York City community, of the state
Speaker 1: of the city, how dismally, how poorly, how disgustingly the
Speaker 1: LGBTQ plus community has been treated, and from their pride
Speaker 1: birth itself into not so much of a riot, but
Speaker 1: instead of celebration, an unapologetic celebration of who we are,
Speaker 1: who we love, how we exist in a world that
Speaker 1: believes in boxes. And if you can't fit into said box,
Speaker 1: then you were cast aside, you were ostracized, you were
Speaker 1: made to feel small and insignificant and worse, violated in
Speaker 1: ways that no one, no person should experience. There have
Speaker 1: been so many markers of violence, and there continue to
Speaker 1: be markers of violence. Black trans women are killed at
Speaker 1: an alarming rate, their identities, their existence thrown literally and
Speaker 1: figuratively in the trash. It is through our quest for
Speaker 1: liberation that isn't about assimilation into what it means to
Speaker 1: exist in the heteronormative confines. And funny enough, I've been
Speaker 1: having a lot of this conversation as a person who
Speaker 1: is still relatively newly divorced but really operated inside of
Speaker 1: this assimilation model. We'd us like you, right, is you
Speaker 1: know what the queer community was forced to say in
Speaker 1: order to be able to access the same rights and
Speaker 1: privileges that our straight neighbors and friends and colleagues have,
Speaker 1: is that to bring down the level of hysteria and
Speaker 1: threat that our opposition has made it seem as if
Speaker 1: we are in society a threat, something to be locked away,
Speaker 1: to never be spoken of, to be beaten into submission,
Speaker 1: to be jailed, to be prosecuted. Is that we made
Speaker 1: a campaign out of saying we're just like you. We
Speaker 1: want to get married, we want to have kids, we
Speaker 1: want to live full and complete lives. But the reality
Speaker 1: is is that, yeah, I want to live a full
Speaker 1: and complete life, but what I deem as full and
Speaker 1: complete may not be what full and complete looks like
Speaker 1: for you. I don't have to want to get married
Speaker 1: in order to be seen as a full and complete
Speaker 1: citizen of these United States. I don't have to conform
Speaker 1: right and fold myself in order to fit into what
Speaker 1: other people's beliefs and desires are. And I have only recently,
Speaker 1: recently truly been able to really understand that because I
Speaker 1: spent a large part of my career in politics, in
Speaker 1: movement work, particularly around LGBTQ politics, with trying to fit in.
Speaker 1: I became one of the voices for marriage equality back
Speaker 1: in the early two thousands because who was speaking out
Speaker 1: at that time were white gay men, double income, no kids.
Speaker 1: That's where that saying came from. White men. As we know,
Speaker 1: right outside of orientation, our gender identity are the oppressor,
Speaker 1: right hold all the mechanisms of power. So when you
Speaker 1: had white gay men in the beginning of the two
Speaker 1: thousands talking about their rights and what they're being denied,
Speaker 1: you think that that was invoking empathy. It's surely the
Speaker 1: fuck was not. So enter the voices of black queer
Speaker 1: people like myself, who at the time were getting married
Speaker 1: or were married, and so we were able to insert
Speaker 1: a different perspective into the conversation about what discriminatory policies
Speaker 1: due to already marginalized communities. But as I have moved
Speaker 1: through life and my own understanding of my identity how
Speaker 1: I want to show up in the world, I realize
Speaker 1: that assimilation is honestly what has been beat into us
Speaker 1: since the beginning. When I talk about our public education
Speaker 1: system being a product or a tool of white supremacy,
Speaker 1: I mean that, and I mean that in all senses.
Speaker 1: I also mean it in terms of patriarchy and how
Speaker 1: we come to understand who is supposed to be raising
Speaker 1: their hand and who is supposed to sit quietly, who
Speaker 1: was supposed to be playing with dolls and who's supposed
Speaker 1: to be playing with trucks. Who can be the aggressor
Speaker 1: and situation and who has to be the submissive. You
Speaker 1: learn all of these roles through societal standards, and where
Speaker 1: do we learn society standards through school? So it makes
Speaker 1: sense then that the opposition, the Republican cult, would turn
Speaker 1: once again to our education system as a way to
Speaker 1: pose their will on already marginalized and oppressed peoples. The
Speaker 1: don't say gay bills, the bathroom bills, they're all directed
Speaker 1: at queer youth at a time when you are young
Speaker 1: and trying to understand who you are in the world
Speaker 1: outside of your parents, gays, and outside of society's desires.
Speaker 1: So how are we setting up our young people, whether
Speaker 1: they are queer or not, to be able to be
Speaker 1: critical thinkers, global citizens to feel safe in their own skin,
Speaker 1: which means that if you are safe in your own skin,
Speaker 1: then you are able to tackle some of society and
Speaker 1: the world's biggest problems. But if I'm so busy looking
Speaker 1: over my shoulder, how can I see into the future,
Speaker 1: How can I offer myself as a way of being
Speaker 1: of service. So I've been thinking a lot as a
Speaker 1: person who has come from Even though I am black,
Speaker 1: I am a woman, i am queer, I'm a child
Speaker 1: of immigrants, I'm all of these things. I still have
Speaker 1: points of privilege. I still grew up in a suburban
Speaker 1: tree line street neighborhoods where I could walk to school
Speaker 1: and go to the pizza place and get a slice
Speaker 1: after school, where I played sports, where I had series
Speaker 1: upon series of microaggressions but at the time didn't realize them.
Speaker 1: It was upon reflection, but my orientation into the world
Speaker 1: was important, which is why I feel like the way
Speaker 1: that we treat our youth and how they show up
Speaker 1: and how they are able to succeed is about our
Speaker 1: own success as a country, as a people, and if
Speaker 1: we're not nurturing our young people, whether they are queer
Speaker 1: or straight, or non binary or somewhere on the spectrum,
Speaker 1: that is about nurturing our own success. So this month,
Speaker 1: during Pride Month, which also encapsulates June teenth, we were
Speaker 1: going to tackle some of the biggest issues that are
Speaker 1: facing the LGBTQ plus community, which are entwined with all
Speaker 1: of the issues that we are all facing. But what
Speaker 1: does it mean to face issues of voter suppression, of
Speaker 1: living in a time of a police state right where
Speaker 1: you can be shot dead because you are black, because
Speaker 1: you were queer, because you exist at these overlapping intersections
Speaker 1: of identity. So we're going to go throughout the weeks
Speaker 1: of this month and talk to some of my friends,
Speaker 1: some of my colleagues, people that I admire, whose work
Speaker 1: that I cherish, to really get a better perspective of
Speaker 1: who America is in this moment. For me, Pride over
Speaker 1: the last decades plus has always been a celebration it's
Speaker 1: when you get to dress up and go to the
Speaker 1: marches and the parades and see old friends and dance
Speaker 1: and literally be gay, be merry. But in the climate
Speaker 1: that we are living in right now, I don't feel
Speaker 1: that level of joy. I know that it is important, however,
Speaker 1: I know that it is necessary. It is necessary now
Speaker 1: for us to be unapologetic in the streets with our
Speaker 1: glitter and our rainbows and our you know, bearing our
Speaker 1: vulnerabilities to the world and saying you don't get to
Speaker 1: box me, you don't get to judge me, you don't
Speaker 1: get to define me. I get to define myself. And
Speaker 1: so for us here on Woke f this month, Pride
Speaker 1: is a riot. It has always been a riot. And
Speaker 1: what are riots? They are the voices of the unheard,
Speaker 1: those that have been invisibilized. Right, And so this month,
Speaker 1: during this time, we are going to paint the picture
Speaker 1: of who this community is, who I am, what we
Speaker 1: are up against, but also what we are looking forward to.
Speaker 1: It isn't all bad, right, but there are a lot
Speaker 1: of bad things on the horizon and a lot of
Speaker 1: evils that we need to push back against. Coming up
Speaker 1: in our first Pride conversation, is my friend, and you've
Speaker 1: heard from him before, Preston Mitcham, who is the director
Speaker 1: of Policy and government Affairs for the Trevor Project. The
Speaker 1: Trevor Project is a national organization that works to prevent
Speaker 1: LGBTQ suicides. You will hear in this conversation with my
Speaker 1: dear friend Preston about how the suicide rates among LGBTQ
Speaker 1: people and LGBTQ youth specifically are up. If you've listened
Speaker 1: to the show over the past couple of months. I
Speaker 1: also iterated that after I watched a special on sixty
Speaker 1: Minutes which was just about youth across the board and
Speaker 1: how youth are attempting suicides at higher rates than we
Speaker 1: have ever seen and why is that? Because we are
Speaker 1: all living in compounded trauma, living through compounded trauma. So,
Speaker 1: if we're all struggling with a global health pandemic with
Speaker 1: the rise of white supremacy, fascism, violence, and you are
Speaker 1: also a queer youth, and you live in a state
Speaker 1: where you're a you're governor like Rhonda Santis, Greg Abbott
Speaker 1: and others are telling you that you are unworthy, that
Speaker 1: your family should be criminalized for caring for you. How
Speaker 1: are you seeing yourself? Years ago in the early aughts,
Speaker 1: it was a campaign that was started called it Gets
Speaker 1: Better because if you remember, in the early two thousands,
Speaker 1: there were a rash of suicides ten year olds, twelve
Speaker 1: year olds, thirteen year olds who had been bullied relentlessly
Speaker 1: and took their own lives because they couldn't envision a future.
Speaker 1: We know that Republicans are trying to create an environment
Speaker 1: where we don't see past our present misery, which is
Speaker 1: why pride as a riot and pride as joy is
Speaker 1: so incredibly important now more than ever, because the lives
Speaker 1: of our youth, of our community is at stake. So
Speaker 1: Preston will discuss with us the latest numbers, the latest
Speaker 1: data points from the Trevor Project offer us opportunities to
Speaker 1: engage and then talk about what we can each do
Speaker 1: for our own self care. That conversation, dear friends, is
Speaker 1: coming up next. Hey, I'm David. Plots of Slights Political Gabfest.
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Speaker 1: your podcasts. If you like what you hear, be sure
Speaker 1: to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Folks I
Speaker 1: am very excited to welcome back to Woke f Daily,
Speaker 1: our friend, my friend over so many years. My god,
Speaker 1: we won't even tell the kids. We just have good
Speaker 1: skincare Preston Mitcham, who is the director of Advocacy and
Speaker 1: Government Affairs at the Trevor Project. You know, the Trevor Project.
Speaker 1: But I want to give Preston an opportunity before we
Speaker 1: even jump into this important conversation this Pride Month, presdon
Speaker 1: tell folks, remind folks what the Trevor Project is and
Speaker 1: what the important work is that you all do. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I'm really excited to be here friend, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to represent the Trevor Project as well.
Speaker 1: And we are the world's largest suicide prevention and mental
Speaker 1: health organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer and
Speaker 1: questioning youth. And we know because of all of the
Speaker 1: unprecedented attacks, we know that we need organizations like the
Speaker 1: Trevor Project which really are life saving tools and providing
Speaker 1: resources and advocacy and education and public trainings to the
Speaker 1: general public, to schools, among others on how to save
Speaker 1: LGBTQ youth lives. So, Preston, I mean I will say this.
Speaker 1: You know, you, like my self, have been an LGBTQ
Speaker 1: plus advocate for ever at this at this point right
Speaker 1: like we have for our entire careers. I think we
Speaker 1: have made it a point to always put our community upfront.
Speaker 1: Have you ever, in the course of your career, not
Speaker 1: just with the Trevor Project, but just in your career
Speaker 1: in general, seen the types of unrelenting attacks against LGBTQ
Speaker 1: plus people that we have been seeing over the last
Speaker 1: two years. Have you seen this before? I certainly have not,
Speaker 1: and I think many others would agree with that. Of course,
Speaker 1: we've certainly seen state based attacks through bills at the
Speaker 1: state level, at the federal level as well, But right now,
Speaker 1: it's such an unprecedented number of attacks that are happening
Speaker 1: to LGBTQ people, especially LGBTQ young people. And not only
Speaker 1: is it unprecedented, it's coordinated. So there seems to be
Speaker 1: a nationwide coordinated campaign by anti LGBTQ organizations and elected
Speaker 1: officials seeking political gain admitted election year especially, and again,
Speaker 1: what they're once again doing or treating one of the
Speaker 1: most marginalized groups in our country, trans youth and non
Speaker 1: binary youth, especially as a political wedge issue when they
Speaker 1: are certainly not. You know it every week aside from
Speaker 1: us dealing with the gun violence and gun massacres that
Speaker 1: are many being done so at the hands of white
Speaker 1: supremacists right with manifestos that purport their ideology. And part
Speaker 1: of that ideology isn't just about their hatred towards black
Speaker 1: folks right or people of color by the bipop community,
Speaker 1: it is also queer people. And we have seen through
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson's many, many segments on Fox News, through Ron
Speaker 1: De Santis's statements as he is signing anti LGBTQ plus legislation,
Speaker 1: that they are one and the same, right, that this
Speaker 1: desire for white supremacy is at the hands of sis
Speaker 1: white hetero men in this country. And so, what do
Speaker 1: you think or how can you tell us how these policies,
Speaker 1: how this rhetoric that has now transformed into violence is
Speaker 1: affecting LGBTQ plus people. What has the Trevor Project been
Speaker 1: able to uncover over the past couple of years in
Speaker 1: terms of where things are trending for the community. So
Speaker 1: I'm glad we started there because the truth of the
Speaker 1: matter is that this year we've seen a record number
Speaker 1: of anti LGBTQ bills, and right now, I want to
Speaker 1: be clear that we're at tracking more than two hundred
Speaker 1: and forty bills that are sweeping the nation. It's a
Speaker 1: broad wave of anti LGBTQ rhetoric that even targets trans
Speaker 1: in our binary youth as Stata before. But also want
Speaker 1: to be clear, it's it's to your point, it is
Speaker 1: also things that expand the gamut. Right. So, of course
Speaker 1: we do have these bills that you see the restrictability
Speaker 1: of trans folks to play sports, receive gender framing care,
Speaker 1: access bathrooms, and really be representing classrooms, discussions, and curriculums.
Speaker 1: But we also see many of these same bills discussing
Speaker 1: things like critical racing and other things that are related
Speaker 1: to systemic racism too. And so that actually is backed
Speaker 1: up by some of the data that we've seen in
Speaker 1: so far as the people who we see are experiencing
Speaker 1: a lot of mental health challenges and negative mental health
Speaker 1: outcomes are LGBTQ people of color. So in early May,
Speaker 1: the Trevor Project put out it's twenty twenty two National
Speaker 1: Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental health. In particular, what we
Speaker 1: saw as a racial disparity that worsens the mental health
Speaker 1: impacts of and on bipod LGBTQUTH so that's black, Indigenous
Speaker 1: and other people of color. To provide some data, we're
Speaker 1: really excited because this year we surveyed nearly thirty four
Speaker 1: thousand LGBTQ young people and that was across the entire
Speaker 1: United States. It is also one of our most diverse
Speaker 1: samples to date, and that forty five percent of respondents
Speaker 1: were LGBTQUTH of color and nearly fifty percent were trans
Speaker 1: or non binary. What we also saw was alarming and
Speaker 1: sobering statistics that had trended upward for suicidal thoughts among
Speaker 1: lgbtquth as well as well as focused on key barriers.
Speaker 1: And we know the reasons why we're seeing these increases
Speaker 1: suicidal thoughts among others is because of these wave of
Speaker 1: unprecedented and coordinated attacks on LGBTQUTH. You know, it is
Speaker 1: it is almost as if I believe, and let me
Speaker 1: not put words in your mouth, I believe that it
Speaker 1: is a coordinated attack. I believe that they absolutely are
Speaker 1: going for our mental and emotional well being as well
Speaker 1: as our physical safety. And so you know as you
Speaker 1: all are you digging through these over two hundred and
Speaker 1: forty plus pieces of legislation, what do they have in common, Preston,
Speaker 1: and what do you perceive to be the ability to
Speaker 1: work around Like, what are we missing on our side
Speaker 1: that they have been able to replicate, replicate, replicate across
Speaker 1: the country. One of the things that we're consistently seeing
Speaker 1: quite frankly, albeit misguided policies, but they really do help
Speaker 1: in particular election years. And so that is some of
Speaker 1: the things that we're seeing, you know, while so while
Speaker 1: we have elected officials who are continuing to target LGBTQ youth,
Speaker 1: our polling data in particular has found a majority of
Speaker 1: adults reject this government overreach that we are seeing across
Speaker 1: the country. Even though there are still some consistency in
Speaker 1: some popularity if we want to use that language among
Speaker 1: certain communities, among certain and elected officials, we know that
Speaker 1: written large, the general public reject them. And so, but
Speaker 1: the things that are coordinated right are banning books, censoring
Speaker 1: school curriculums, intervening in medical care decisions that we know
Speaker 1: our best left to doctors and patients. And so those
Speaker 1: are some of the coordinations that we're seeing. We're also
Speaker 1: seeing this attack. You know, to the point earlier around
Speaker 1: systemic racism, that it is rare that in most of
Speaker 1: these bills, we're going to find an example where they're
Speaker 1: attacking book bands and school curriculums and also not attacking
Speaker 1: things like critical race theory. I want to be clear,
Speaker 1: I'm a lawyer. I went to law school, and I
Speaker 1: didn't take critical race theory until I went law school
Speaker 1: and almost graduate. Are you sure are, Preston, it wasn't
Speaker 1: part of your kindergarten first grade curriculum? You sure? Positive?
Speaker 1: Absolutely positive? Right? And so I think that is the
Speaker 1: part for many of us that becomes quite frustrating, particularly
Speaker 1: when we are black and queer or Latin X and queer,
Speaker 1: or indigenous and queer, right, those of us who have multi,
Speaker 1: multi faceted lives, and you know, we don't live single
Speaker 1: issue struggles or lives for that matter, right, true to
Speaker 1: our proogle word and even hearkening in Kimberly Crenshaw, and so,
Speaker 1: you know, when we see people are attacking every facet
Speaker 1: of who we are, right, we know that we start
Speaker 1: to then internalize, right, we then start to think differently
Speaker 1: about ourselves and who we are, and that is actually
Speaker 1: rooted in so much data and science, and so that
Speaker 1: is why, even if it's not intentionally focused and targeted
Speaker 1: on our mental health, we inherently start thinking negative thoughts
Speaker 1: about who we are, about our own history because all
Speaker 1: we know is a rature right, and so that is
Speaker 1: what we're trying to combat every single day. So tell us, like,
Speaker 1: what are some of the ways in which you are
Speaker 1: tackling this moment that feels like preston. It's so difficult
Speaker 1: to wrap our arms around, right, Like, how are you
Speaker 1: able in this role to be able and the organization
Speaker 1: as a whole to be able to tackle what feels
Speaker 1: like everest at this moment? It does and many I
Speaker 1: mean listen, you know, working obviously in like avoccing government
Speaker 1: affairs and even in media in comms, one of the
Speaker 1: things that we see is it feels like everything is
Speaker 1: drinking from a fire hose. Right, There's so many things
Speaker 1: happening all across the spectrum that you don't know how
Speaker 1: to prioritize. And so one of the things that we
Speaker 1: really wanted to get comfortable with was what does it
Speaker 1: mean to prioritize the health and well being of LGBTQ
Speaker 1: youth because we know our research in particular has found
Speaker 1: that lgbtqth who lived in an accepting community and had
Speaker 1: access to these LGBTQ affirming schools and are felt high
Speaker 1: social support from family and France reported significantly lower rates
Speaker 1: of attempting suicide in the past year. And so for us,
Speaker 1: what that means is prioritizing safety by schools, prioritizing safety
Speaker 1: and communities figuring out if you have any alliances in
Speaker 1: your universities or your high schools or your middle schools,
Speaker 1: and really figuring out how do we provide resources not
Speaker 1: only to LGBTQ youth, but to their parents and to
Speaker 1: their other family members and to their friends who are
Speaker 1: really trying to understand a little bit more about what
Speaker 1: that looks like. Right, And we know that some of
Speaker 1: this has shifted because of COVID, So you know, mental
Speaker 1: health challenges did not take place because of COVID, but
Speaker 1: they certainly exacinate it. It's already in reality for people
Speaker 1: pre COVID, and so for us, it's about resources. It's
Speaker 1: about creating these affirming environment right, and it's on all
Speaker 1: of us to create these safer, more accepting world for
Speaker 1: LGBTQ youth, right, Like, I always try to think of
Speaker 1: who I was and who I did not want to
Speaker 1: be when I was younger, right, And so by that end, right,
Speaker 1: I'm comfortable now, I'm confident, now, I'm securing who I
Speaker 1: am now. Many lgbtqth don't have that environment and they
Speaker 1: don't have that reality. So a lot of our research
Speaker 1: and our advocacy work is really grow toward, grew toward
Speaker 1: those people who frankly don't think they have possibility models
Speaker 1: around them. What does it mean these days, Preston? Because
Speaker 1: I learned that phrase from you, possibility model? What does
Speaker 1: it mean these days for you? For myself too to
Speaker 1: be that model? When frankly I'm scared, right, Like, I
Speaker 1: am scared about my well being in safety as well
Speaker 1: as those of my friends and family. But recognizing that
Speaker 1: I'm not a young person going to middle school and
Speaker 1: high school right now, right whose fear is so much
Speaker 1: more compounded in terms of what they are experiencing. I
Speaker 1: can choose not to go to set place or choose
Speaker 1: not to do So what does it mean these days
Speaker 1: for us to be possibility models? And how can we
Speaker 1: show up more at a time. As LGBTQ plus adult
Speaker 1: and those that are you know, quote unquote professionally gay
Speaker 1: doing this work, how do we show up for our youth?
Speaker 1: I just want to make sure we're not forgetting about them, right.
Speaker 1: I think so often it's easy when we become a
Speaker 1: little bit more comfortable and who we are, to forget
Speaker 1: about the people who are who we've left behind sort
Speaker 1: of speak. And I think that with organizations like the
Speaker 1: Trevor Project and with us individually, will make sure that
Speaker 1: that will not happen for us. Right. I want to
Speaker 1: admit that I also am afraid. Yeah, right. I think
Speaker 1: fear is such a valid emotion that many times we
Speaker 1: attempt to go over or push to the side, But
Speaker 1: it is a it is a healthy emotion, and it
Speaker 1: is one that is a real emotion. So you know,
Speaker 1: I always say we don't have to lie in sack.
Speaker 1: We should not lie to young people when we are
Speaker 1: feeling these exact feelings and thoughts. I also believe right
Speaker 1: that when it comes to these coordinated attacks, have to
Speaker 1: all be on the same page as far as like
Speaker 1: who the enemy ultimately is. Oftentimes say that you know
Speaker 1: our opponents regardless of what we're looking at may hate
Speaker 1: understandings of intersectionality, but they sure do know how to
Speaker 1: attack issues intersectionally. Right. That's one of the things that
Speaker 1: I try to focus on so much. It's like it's
Speaker 1: not either or it is oftentimes both. And so how
Speaker 1: are we doing? Are we offering lines to people? Are
Speaker 1: we offering crisis services of people? Are we offering resources?
Speaker 1: And then sometimes you know, you'll have to offer things
Speaker 1: that may meet people's material conditions a little earlier. Are
Speaker 1: you offering them housing and shelter and access to food
Speaker 1: and healthcare? And so there are many things we can do.
Speaker 1: I just always want to make clear to people that
Speaker 1: we all have a role to play, and everyone's role
Speaker 1: is going to look different person. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: really know what the future holds, and I think that
Speaker 1: you know, tell me if I'm wrong. But in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, that kind of drives attempted suicides, right,
Speaker 1: not being able to see outside of the present moment
Speaker 1: that there is possibility, there is hope, and at a
Speaker 1: time when we are all struggling to find hopefulness. Right, Um,
Speaker 1: I tell people on this show to not marinate a
Speaker 1: misery like I do, right, to try and find avenues
Speaker 1: of joy, to find those pockets of joy connection. Um,
Speaker 1: what is your recommendation just as a member you know
Speaker 1: of the community and somebody like you said you are
Speaker 1: scared as I am scared, right, Like you know, you
Speaker 1: always show up on the front lines for black trans
Speaker 1: women that are murdered at an unrelenting rate. That again
Speaker 1: does not make the headlines in the way that these
Speaker 1: horrible bills and these horrible massacres make. And so what
Speaker 1: what advice do you have for people in order to
Speaker 1: be able to hold on to their joy, to seek
Speaker 1: their joy and also seek the care of community. I
Speaker 1: love this question because so often the data is hard
Speaker 1: to actually extrapolate. How do we find joy and balance?
Speaker 1: And so for me at least, that oftentimes means disconnecting
Speaker 1: when I'm able to do so. Right, we can't just
Speaker 1: sit with the reality of attacks every single day. We
Speaker 1: have to, if we're able to do so, find an
Speaker 1: outlet to joy, whether that's singing and dancing, whether that's
Speaker 1: watching a movie right, whether that's writing or journaling, whether
Speaker 1: that's drawing. Like, joy does not have to cost money, right,
Speaker 1: there are so many ways we can connect with other
Speaker 1: people with community members, right, So I think sometimes it
Speaker 1: starts local most times, and start local, right, That means
Speaker 1: it can start at home, at school, or in your community.
Speaker 1: And again it's on all of us to create these
Speaker 1: like more accepting environments. And the Term of Project even
Speaker 1: has data that show at least one supportive person can
Speaker 1: reduce thoughts of suicide considering suicide by forty five to percent.
Speaker 1: So len mean just one person could actually make someone
Speaker 1: think differently about their life or attempting or considering by
Speaker 1: upwards of forty to forty five percent, And that is
Speaker 1: a huge deal, because we know a little support can
Speaker 1: go a long way and help save a young person's life.
Speaker 1: And it will be remiss for me to not also
Speaker 1: saying surely about research and what it show in terms
Speaker 1: of youth of marginalized identities, and how many of us
Speaker 1: experienced disapportionate rates of mental health challenges like bullying and
Speaker 1: suicide risk and these things that may seem to bring
Speaker 1: about lack of hope and despair, But it's because of
Speaker 1: It's not because of who they are, right, It was
Speaker 1: never because of who we are as queer people, but
Speaker 1: because of how society, yes, right, how lawmakers sometimes treat
Speaker 1: us how community members treat us, which of course drives stigma.
Speaker 1: It drives discrimination, it drives criminalization, and to your point,
Speaker 1: it drives thoughts of suicide and maybe even attempts of suicide.
Speaker 1: And so that is why I always want to go
Speaker 1: back to we all have a role to play, you know.
Speaker 1: So oftentimes people make it about parties, and you know,
Speaker 1: for me, I'm not there. I am at a point
Speaker 1: where I recognize that every single person has a role
Speaker 1: to play, and surely we could argue that some do
Speaker 1: better than others, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: everybody needs to do better to support LGBTQ youth. Preston Mitcham,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for the work that you do,
Speaker 1: for the work that you do with the Trevor Project,
Speaker 1: for the work that you do on social media, for
Speaker 1: the work that we have done over the decades together.
Speaker 1: I just genuinely appreciate you, and I hope that you
Speaker 1: will join us again and we wish you a happy pride.
Speaker 1: I would love too happy. Brian Indisputaful with Doctor rashid
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Speaker 1: That is it for me today on Woke f I
Speaker 1: wish all of you a happy, happy, fucking prode and
Speaker 1: we'll be here all month. Power to the people and
Speaker 1: to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke
Speaker 1: as fuck.