This map shows where it's safe to be trans in America. It's shrinking. | w/ Erin Reed & Zooey Zephyr

[00:00:00]-I'm gonna pee.

[00:00:02]and... -okay.

[00:00:03]while Emily's peeing, we're gonna try to have a conversation with each other that also keys you, the viewer, into what it is that we're talking to Erin Reed and Zooey Zephyr about today before Emily gets back from the bathroom I'm gonna share with you a couple of things here.

[00:00:22]Erin Reed is a journalist and an advocate for trans rights she is put together this incredible map of America and trans laws there and where it's safe to travel if you're trans.

[00:00:36]and her wife, Zooey Zephyr, is a member of the Montana Legislature she is a leading voice for trans rights in America, and obviously in the state house in Montana as well, but these two women are inspiring and really leading the charge of keeping trans rights on the front burner... and now here comes Emily.

[00:01:01]-so last week, Kansas sent letters to people who have on their license a sex different sex than the sex assigned at birth and they said your licenses are now invalid.

[00:01:13]invalid immediately.

[00:01:14]-you can't even drive to the DMV anymore with your -right.

[00:01:18]-cause it's invalidated -and also some bathroom components which are, I think, ridiculous and scary and potentially really consequential for people and you and I have talked about like, not really understanding how is this a tool– a tool for what, really is, are these types of attacks and so it just feels infuriating and counterproductive on so many levels -and baffling - right!

[00:01:43]-just baffling it's like what the what what are we doing?

[00:01:46]-right? what are we doing?

[00:01:50]-okay!

[00:01:50]without further ado... -both of your names floated back up to us recently apropos of the Kansas initiative and letter that went out and so it just seemed like really good timing to to check in and say hi and meet you and hear a little bit about what's happening specifically.

[00:02:10]-yeah.

[00:02:11]and the legislation that you're talking about, for people who are watching who don't know, in Kansas the... in the state now, you're not allowed to have a driver's license or a state ID that shows any gender identity other than your sex at birth.

[00:02:26]-yeah. yeah.

[00:02:27]so the way the way that this new law works, they passed it and immediately it invalidated trans people's IDS from across the state so it made it actually- it put it put a lot of trans people in Kansas in a very difficult position because you have to drive to the DMV to get your updated driver's license but it was invalidated overnight.

[00:02:44]-a new Kansas law takes effect requiring transgender people to use public building bathrooms corresponding with their sex at birth.

[00:02:51]it also requires Trans Kansas to use birth gender on driver's licenses.

[00:02:56]-and so you can't drive to the DMV to get your updated driver's license without breaking the law.

[00:03:02]I know that lyft had to offer, like free rides to a bunch of trans people across the state to get to the DMV.

[00:03:08]on top of that you know, this law is being challenged right now and as a trans person, you have to make a difficult decision do you go and turn in your driver's license and hope that the lawsuit, you know, goes your way, or do you hold on to that driver's license and hope that the lawsuit goes your way.

[00:03:26]-this is the letter that was sent to transgender Kansans Thursday.

[00:03:30]about 17 driver's licenses will need to be changed and new birth certificates will have to be issued for up to 1800 people.

[00:03:37]-yeah. you wind up in a situation where the states are trying to make it increasingly hard to update your license as a trans person, update your identification, and so if you say, well, right now the law is in effect, I can't drive, it sucks but I need to go swap my license back, well, even if you win the the court case- even if trans folks are upheld in the end it's now, the state can say well, we did that but now we're gonna do another Bill and it's gonna be harder to update your license again and you find yourself saying, well, it actually might be better for me if I hold my license.

[00:04:11]I think about how these intersect with the other attacks- you know, if you look at in Montana, where I'm from, where I serve in the house of reps, last week I spoke on the governor's amendments to Senate Bill 99 which banned gender affirming care we saw a lot of attacks on trans folks, but even more than that, we saw attacks on the judiciary, because it was about consolidating power and figuring out how to do that and we're seeing at the federal level the attempts to sort of deal with which lawyers can get... can pass the bar. like how do you handle lawyers getting certified in various states figuring if they can make it harder to get lawyers across and only get those they want across they can keep these laws up the anti-trans laws upheld.

[00:04:58]-the Supreme Court tackling the heated debate over whether transgender girls should be able to participate in girls and women's sports -anti-trans not... not only rhetoric, but policy has been such a galvanizing force for the right in the last decade really, but it's like, coming to a head now and like, why is that so potent for them?

[00:05:21]why is it so important? Why... why have evangelical Christians glommed onto this particular issue so vehemently?

[00:05:30]-do you feel like you have a good sense of that underlying... like why does, why is this an effective tool and not just- not just a tool for those in power, but like, how is that really resonating at the community level?

[00:05:42]-yeah, so, you know I have spent the better part of like, my five years doing journalism at exploring this question and seeing all of the different threads and where they connect and where... what the history is and why- why we're in where we are right now and what you can do is you can go back to Obergefell, which is whenever the gay marriage fight happened, and you know LGBTQ people won that fight.

[00:06:05]we won the right to marriage.

[00:06:06]and I think a lot of people saw that as sort of like the end... that we we got our goal and everything was done.

[00:06:12]but what a lot of people don't realize is that the... the groups that were on the other side of that fight, you know your Heritage Alliance Defending Freedom type people, they didn't just stop like that wasn't the end of the fight the very next year they pushed the North Carolina bathroom ban which passed a year later and banned trans people from bathrooms across the state and- and so you know, that particular Bill it failed.

[00:06:35]it ended up becoming a... a terrible sort of scourge on North Carolina and they ended up, you know, voluntarily dropping the law because it was such an unpopular law at the time -North Carolina lawmakers announced a deal to repeal the bathroom Bill that means sounds like some people have been holding it for about six months.

[00:06:54]-but the groups that were responsible for the current wave of anti-trans panic were in... were in place before Obergefell, and so now, what you have is if you look at the at the way that people actually treat this issue if you look at polls people have a variety of opinions on transgender things like athletes and... and bathrooms and whatnot but they also don't vote on this.

[00:07:18]like this isn't an issue that everybody cares about.

[00:07:20]people aren't walking around all day long wondering who's in the bathroom.

[00:07:23]they care about, you know, the money that's in their pocket the jobs that they have etc, and... and so the reason why you see this as- as big as it is right now is not because this is a community-level thing it's not because there are people in the community that are pushing for these laws it's that the the biggest Republican donors- the billionaires, the ones who really, really, really are the engines behind Republican Party success in elections- you know we're talking about Thiel, Musk, all of the Heritage Foundation, Alliance Defending Freedom types- people with war chests that are measured in in the billions... they're the ones that are pushing these policies.

[00:07:57]they want them.

[00:07:58]that's what they want.

[00:07:59]-in general, if you whether... wherever you fall on the political side of the spectrum you have a sense that things are getting harder and it's really easy to find a scapegoat.

[00:08:11]if it's a scapegoat that is small enough not to be present, you know, it's the same reason you know Critical Race Theory came up in 2019, 2020.

[00:08:21]that was, you know, the buzzword.

[00:08:23]it's why every election you watch Fox News say something about a "migrant caravan" that is making its way to the border just about to show up on Election Day and then that drops off the radar.

[00:08:36]looking for voter mobilization strategies and then again the the far right, the- the sort of MAGA faction of the Republican Party is looking for things to pull the rest of the Republican Party towards fascism, towards authoritarianism, and one of the ways you do that is you find something you can send out horrible mailers on again and again and again.

[00:09:03]-we were talking yesterday about this the sort of sum total of all the little... the little wars and that the sort of collective villain that is... that is sort of brought to life in all of those little bits and pieces, which is part it is, it's it's sort of like your the things that people do care about- cost of food and gas and access to things, right, like the real micro, often times, economic impact on people's lives, it could be hard to draw a line from that to some of these little pieces, but when when the... the boogeyman in the story that has negatively impacted your pocket is also tied to a value system that then feels threatening, it- it creates this narrative of all of this, you know, "woke" all of this "woke agenda" aspect has created an environment that is a threat to your value system your way of life and consequently, your opportunities and the money you have to take care of your family and make your decisions.

[00:10:02]-I wanna name something that you you identified, which is, you talked about like macroeconomic factors, you know, what is the cost of this and the cost of that but the other thing that you talked about is it's not just oh, things are more expensive, we can't afford it.

[00:10:17]it is a lost sense of community but folks are saying, "I don't feel connected in a way I once was."

[00:10:25]and there's a group of a faction saying, "oh, that's because LGBTQ people have come in.

[00:10:30]oh, that's because black and brown people have taken your jobs."

[00:10:34]and then there's other folks saying, "well, it's actually, it's cause we lost all our third spaces.

[00:10:38]it's because we're all driving in, in cars isolated from one another.

[00:10:42]it's because the internet has made it so easy to hate in a way that it wasn't- didn't used to be."

[00:10:49]and so you look at the ways the community gets fragmented and fractured, and how that makes it, that is, as you said, we're saying part of that small piece that makes it easier to build the- the whole of the attacks, -you know, talking about the economic issues, the social fabric issues, you know, the fact that we're more isolated, the fact that culture and the economy are changing so fast that nobody knows how to keep up anymore- all of those things are actually, like real issues that politicians could be addressing and dealing with and trying to improve ordinary people's lives marginalizing the already marginalized and othering trans people is... is like an emotionally resonant issue- way to avoid actually dealing with the real issues that are confronting ordinary people's lives.

[00:11:42]and it, you know, it's proven to be unfortunately effective.

[00:11:46]-you know what's so interesting, too, is that when you bring up something like one of these bathroom bans or trans athletes, it... it then you have to respond to it, right?

[00:11:57]it creates a a required show of support, which then you can villainize people.

[00:12:03]you're like, see?

[00:12:04]they want to put, you know, you know men in your daughter's bathroom, right?

[00:12:09]so it sort of creates this opportunity to then further weaponize support for... for those issues, which I think feeds that ongoing you know value- attack of your values and your safety.

[00:12:25]-in Montana, that actually became a force in the opposite direction.

[00:12:31]and Montana was the only red state in the country that killed half of its anti-trans bills and we had, at some points, half of Republicans voting with us to shoot down these anti-trans measures and that came- I remember this, this beautiful moment where a Republican colleague of mine, Representative Sherry Esman, got up on the house floor and was like, "I am tired of seeing this nonsense.

[00:13:00]like we're halfway through the session, we're not dealing with anyone's taxes, we're not solving any of the problems that I was elected to come here to solve.

[00:13:09].all we're doing is attacking a community.

[00:13:11]we're wasting this body's time."

[00:13:14]-so Zooey, that's interesting to think about, that... that experience, your experience within that legislative body, and then think about Erin - your map of what's happening in the country and, and I guess, I just wonder about- -can you say what her map is?

[00:13:30]-oh the... Erin, you should say what your map is and and and how the... yeah, tell us about your map and how the colors are changing currently.

[00:13:39]-yeah, sure, sure.

[00:13:40]so for years now, I've kept up a risk assessment map for transgender people.

[00:13:44]it's at the top of my website.

[00:13:45]erininthemorning.com and you'll see all of the different colors, you'll see it'll range from a sort of bluish color to a dark red even to stripey colors that show do not travel warnings for certain states, and trans people use my map pretty heavily it's been something that, you know, helps people understand where they can go to college, what conferences are safe to attend, which states are safe to travel to.

[00:14:07]there are some states in this country right now that if you're not very careful as a trans person, you could end up in jail because you use the bathroom that they say that you shouldn't use or because you're driving on a certain license in the state of Kansas, for instance, and so you... you have this sort of construction of all of these different laws that trans people have to learn how to live by in each state.

[00:14:29]like, it's- we don't have equal Protection under the law right now.

[00:14:33]we don't have that sort of constitutional doctrine that we're really striving for from the Supreme Court, and which I don't believe the Supreme Court will give us and until we do, then as we travel through this country we're we're navigating a mishmash of laws that change not just in geography but in time, you know?

[00:14:50]where you see new laws that are worse get passed every single day.

[00:14:52]and that that map has shifted from whenever I first started doing it- there was a lot more blue and a lot more light blue and a lot more white, and now it's very red in many places.

[00:15:01]-as a person who moves easily through the gender world, I- it just like, really struck me, like, what do you mean, do not travel to this state?!

[00:15:10]so that was... it's a great map, and- and so how do we learn from how do we learn from that and how is that then useful in this this climate that we're in when we talk about going forward really clearly and directly toward legislation versus backing up from it and trying to just not make things worse?

[00:15:30]-can I... can I - I would like to piggyback on what you're saying there, because it it actually strikes me- we had we had another conversation yesterday, we were on a hike with some friends and one of our friends was like, talking about how do we move Republicans over to our side, and we were both like, dude, you're asking the wrong question.

[00:15:46]don't even bother.

[00:15:48]lost cause.

[00:15:49]but it actually occurs to me in this- in this particular issue, actually, no.

[00:15:55]like bring them over.

[00:15:57]bring over all of the, you know- -well that was the point.

[00:16:01]-and somewhat moderate Republicans right over, because it is like, this is an issue I mean it's like, it's fucking maddening, because the Republican ethos for so long has been, "government stay out of my business."

[00:16:17]let us like, let free the free market do its job, don't- don't impinge my freedoms with your woke censorship or any other censorship, let us just- you know have our guns and do our thing, and this is a great example of that.

[00:16:33].like stay out of our business let people make their own choices in life, and it seems like this almost should be something that is like a conservative rallying call, right?

[00:16:45]-Zooey preaches this all the time.

[00:16:47]-oh man.

[00:16:47]-I... do we have an hour and a half left?

[00:16:49]I could talk about this... we should go on a hike so that I could wax poetic about this.

[00:16:53]so I'm gonna hit- there's two aspects of that: one of them is, I would say, the personal strategy and one of them is the political strategy.

[00:17:02]what I'm looking to do as a policy maker is identify the differences between the far right and the moderates and whatever that line is- I call it like, the fracture point, the fault line between the two the two sections of the Republican Party- is making sure the things that the moderates care about, I can identify how they are incompatible with the vision of the far right.

[00:17:30]you care about mental health for your children.

[00:17:34]the far right don't.

[00:17:35]I mention that 'cause they're scared that they're gonna... it's gonna, you know, turn them trans somehow.

[00:17:39]you care about, infrastructure and building this... well, that's actually not where the far right wants to spend their money.they wanna focus it on vouchers for, you know, their children to go to Christian private schools.

[00:17:54]and so the more you draw attention to that fault line- and you're not inventing the fault line, it's there- but the more you're helping the moderate see that fault line, the more they're willing to say, OK, for my policy sake I need to push back on that fault line.

[00:18:10]I need to be different from from the far right.

[00:18:13]and the more times that they're willing to separate themselves from the far right the easier it is for them to say, "well, actually, Zooey was right.

[00:18:22]Zooey helped me stand with my policy against the far right.

[00:18:27]and now when they're attacking her and her community I can do the same. " that is easier when you have a trans person in there, that is certainly true and I think we need more trans representation across the country.

[00:18:40]and then on the... on the personal side of things, I do believe wholeheartedly that the personal conversations make a difference.

[00:18:50]and I always tell folks, like, you don't owe individually- you don't owe a conversation with your terrible uncle or your mean grandpa or whatever who is spouting conspiracy theories during the holidays.

[00:19:05]you can tell them to to f off and protect your your mental health.

[00:19:10]but collectively, we need to do that work.

[00:19:13]and I always say I approach those conversations believing certain things about the people I'm talking to: the first is that they came to their beliefs genuinely.

[00:19:26]it's not true of every politician, but it's true of most people.

[00:19:30]they come to their beliefs through their lived experiences.

[00:19:33]they're walking, they're learning, they're picking things up day by day.

[00:19:36]the second thing is that their opinions are nuanced.

[00:19:39]they don't just hold a blanket black and white opinion.

[00:19:42]they have rationale behind it.

[00:19:45]and the third is that they're willing to change their mind under the right circumstances.

[00:19:48]and then the goal of the conversation becomes how do you keep their guard down?

[00:19:54]I'm gonna talk about family and I'm gonna talk about community and my community.

[00:19:59]and on the floor I often talk about my wife and my- my son,and here I am thinking about my partner, who I would love to invite out here.

[00:20:10]and that makes it harder.

[00:20:11]that keeps the walls down and then you're trying to plant a seed.

[00:20:15]-I came from policy work around children and families and mental health and housing, and I felt strongly that it didn't matter what your political sticker was, I could find common ground with you from a value perspective, because I'm talking about kids and I- I think that's it's a really important dynamic to spend more time thinking about as we talk about messaging and engagement and progress.

[00:20:40]-yeah it it dovetails into that question that we're always asking, which is you know this, the big the big question that we're trying to address in in this forum on Substack and in our sort of broader public-facing conversations but also in our life just between us and in our family is, "how do we stay useful and stay happy when it feels like the world is crumbling around us?"

[00:21:06]and this is, I think, a great example of that.

[00:21:09]like one... one way you can stay useful, and I think also check the the stay happy and grounded box is- is actually making those more granular attempts to engage with people who don't necessarily agree with you.

[00:21:24]I was just texting with Daryl Davis this morning.

[00:21:28]Daryl Davis is a black musician who invited a Klansman who came to one of his shows to sit down and have a drink with him, and they started talking and then he invited him to come back to his next show and the guy came back to his next show, and eventually after years of engaging with Daryl, this guy presented him with his hood and robes and said, "I'm leaving the Klan.

[00:21:54]I can't now that I know you.

[00:21:56]I can't hate you."

[00:21:57]and Daryl now has like 200 Klansmen's robes in his closet.

[00:22:03]-you know, the- the hardest part is... this are twofold. one, you can't ask somebody to do that individually.

[00:22:10]like you can't come out of here and be like, "hey, you! stranger!

[00:22:14]your job, black American, is to go to the Klansmen and change their hearts."

[00:22:19]like that's, again- no one individually owes that work.

[00:22:24]but collectively, it is the path for change.

[00:22:28]and then, the other deeply frustrating thing that people feel right now is like, okay, that's the path to change, but we're hurting now.

[00:22:36]we're dying now.

[00:22:38]the laws are destroying us right now.

[00:22:42]what do we do?

[00:22:43]it's really hard to say, okay, this is the most effective thing, but it's also not a prescription that saves lives in the moment.

[00:22:51]-I think one of the reasons that we wanted to talk to you, speaking of saving lives, is there are a lot of people with untraditional gender identities- there are a lot of trans people in, in our following, and I feel like- I think I think we really want to send the message that we're- you're not forgotten by us.

[00:23:18]we're still engaging in this conversation.

[00:23:21]we collectively still care.

[00:23:23]and we're still fighting for you.

[00:23:25].you're not alone in this battle and um... and and we're going to keep fighting.

[00:23:31]we all know that trans, you know, teenagers are the most likely to commit suicide, and we need to keep letting them know that we're gonna keep fighting for them.

[00:23:43]don't give up.

[00:23:44]-a recent study came out showing that 40% of transgender people have a have attempted suicide at some point in their lives, and 25% attempted within the last year- many of them transgender youth- and this number is going up right now, and when you ask them why they're doing it, they tell you, they tell you it's because the state doesn't want me to be myself; the state doesn't want me to be alive.

[00:24:07]the state doesn't believe I am who I am and like, this number is not gonna stop.

[00:24:13]like, people are dying because of this they really are.

[00:24:16]and it's- what do you tell that person?

[00:24:18]I mean sure, you can tell that person, "I support you, and I still love you for who you are."

[00:24:24]but if that person is, you know, watching their body change because their medication has been banned, if that person is suddenly unable to drive because the state has taken away their driver's license, if that person can't go to the bathroom in public because they might get arrested, and they have to,you know, plan out every single trip outside of their home to whatever Starbucks are nearby so that they can find a gender-neutral bathroom somewhere, that person is suddenly told that they can't stay in their college dorm that they've been in for the last three years because the new state law is kicking them out because they don't know who they - they don't believe them for who they are, you know... I don't have an answer as a trans person myself.

[00:25:01]I struggle with these issues.

[00:25:03]I live in a relatively safe state, and I struggle with these issues.

[00:25:07]what can I tell, you know, the people who send me suicide letters to my inbox?

[00:25:11]10... 10 of them a week or two... what- what can I tell that person?

[00:25:16]like, can I tell them it gets better?

[00:25:17]I don't know. like... I don't know if it gets better, because everything that we've seen every single move that we've seen over the last five years has been a story of of it getting worse and worse and worse.

[00:25:28]you know, whenever we talk about all these issues, trans people aren't out there asking for new rights- like we've been able to get this medication for the last 20, 30, 40, 50 years.

[00:25:38]trans people aren't out there, you know, asking for this new right to play sports.

[00:25:42]we've been able- we've been able to play sports for 50 years we've been in- in various sports for 50 years.

[00:25:48]we're not asking for the ability to suddenly be able to change our gender marker documents.

[00:25:51]we've been able to do that since 1979.

[00:25:54]and I don't know what the message is.

[00:25:55]I struggle with this.

[00:25:56]it's something that I don't know what to tell these people, because if you tell- if you tell somebody, you know, like you say it gets better, like you give them false hope that can feel disingenuous whenever they watch the world around them say that we don't want you here, we don't feel like the future is guaranteed.

[00:26:11]-it's not... it's not a it... we're just gonna, you know, little wibbles, but in the long run, the arc of justice, right?

[00:26:17]it feels precarious, and so then the question becomes you know not- not to feel like everything is lost, but what are the things that we can do and and the things that we can do is extend love, right, and acknowledgement and say, "we see you and I- we I can't fix that, but I want to... -right.

[00:26:35]-and you matter. " -right.

[00:26:36]-like those are that- that's like, -and I think that is the messaging that we wanna send right now and in addition to here are some policy initiatives we can support, and here is how we strategically proceed with the fight, but saying we we are still fighting with you.

[00:26:53]we still care.

[00:26:55]not that everything is rosy, yeah, -the other thing that you always say when you talk about the activism side and the activism in the fight is you always say like, activism doesn't always look like activism.

[00:27:08]it doesn't look- it can look like going to your state house and speaking to your representatives or protesting, but it has a thousand different looks.

[00:27:17]it can look like being the happiest, bubbliest person at your office that everyone just loves and then, you know, they go home and they're like well, I have a trans daughter who I maybe was- I didn't understand but now my trans colleague, I like, see how she's successful, how she- how she's fit into the world, and it starts to make a little bit more sense.

[00:27:41]it can also be, you know more broadly, you know, the way you show up in whatever your space is.

[00:27:49]you know, I think about you, Misha, and the way you're showing up and saying hey, Dean and Castiel, like- that's a thing.

[00:27:57]-I love you.

[00:27:59]-hey, LGBTQ representation is there.

[00:28:02]like that... that matters.

[00:28:05]and it doesn't just matter 'cause you're saying this would be cool.

[00:28:09]it matters because you're saying this is something that I'm not going to let you walk away from.

[00:28:14]like the way you go to bat in media, the way you go to bat on the sports field, the way you perpetually ingrain that kind of advocacy in whatever your sphere is, it makes it harder for people to peel folks away because they can't just go after the art community, they can't just go after, you know, we talk about trade union members and the way- how do we get them to stand with us on this because the more you interlock your spheres of influence with advocacy work, the harder it is to peel away individual- the rights of individual community members.

[00:28:51]-and I want to actually jump in on this to bring it kind of full circle to something that Zooey mentioned at the very beginning of all this which was community and, you know, being able to find community and and using community spaces to do that.

[00:29:03]one of our most powerful tools is in our presence in in community and she gave a lot of really good examples of different communities- art, music, you kno,w games, etc, where you can where you can have this representation.

[00:29:16]you can have this sort of activism that doesn't look like activism but there is a reason why these laws are being written in such a way to keep us out of community, you know?

[00:29:24]whenever you have a sports ban, you no longer have trans people that are in that community where people form community very strongly around, you know, local school sports.

[00:29:32]whenever you have bathroom bans, it makes it harder as a trans person for you to find community with other people.

[00:29:37]it's for you to go out to a concert with your friends, for you to go out to a bar with your friends.

[00:29:41]whenever you are a state like Texas banning gay-straight alliances in schools you were legitimately and literally banning community.

[00:29:49]you're trying to prevent that form of what what we consider to be the best activism- the kind where you are in your community and getting to know other people you know?

[00:29:59]your conversation that you had earlier about the the black man who had spoken to the Klansman and who had gotten... who had gotten the the robes, you know, he was able to do that because he used his art- he used his tools to be able to form that community with other people.

[00:30:13]but you know, that's what's being threatened for trans people- the ability to do that, because all of our avenues are being attacked right now.

[00:30:21]-well, I think community is is a central... community and community building and creating those connections has been a central part of the antesocial for us and really thinking about how can we show up in the world.

[00:30:32]we have -one of the... one of the fortunate things there's a ton of unfortunate consequences, but one of the fortunate things about internet and social media is that we can connect to people from all over the globe and extend some of that community even when it is not possible within the specific geographic location that they're in, and that feels like a- a thing that we can do and and rally folks to show up for one another when you know, we... we can't escort someone to to a bathroom, but we can show up for them in that way and and hopefully remind each other that it's through our connections with one another that we are our best selves, our most happy selves, and that we get to create that social that that change of goodness that everybody can benefit from.

[00:31:19]and I- it's hard to do that, I think it's hard to feel optimistic about that for a lot of people in this environment that we're in, but I do think that that is a- that is within our control, is one thing that we can do and can always do is show up for one another and and- -yeah.

[00:31:39]and when we're under, I mean when the community is under attack and when people are feeling vulnerable and needing that community it's a time to really reach out and form those bonds and connections and support one another.

[00:31:53]but also, like, if you are feeling alone or in distress, reach out.

[00:31:57]there are people who care a nd who wanna help and who wanna be there for you.

[00:32:01]and we're not gonna be able to fix all of the problems quickly, but we're gonna keep trying.

[00:32:06]like Zooey said, and I think that's so important- like that's such a- that's such a wonderful message to send.

[00:32:12]like, I don't know if I can fix it, but I'm fucking gonna try.

[00:32:14]-right.

[00:32:15]-it's a great message to send -that sense of like, I don't know if it's gonna get better, I don't know.

[00:32:19]but I'm gonna push... and we were talking about the sort of the Overton Window and the paradigm of like, what feels possible and what doesn't, and you're pushing at the edge of the possible, and you are sort of, it's not moving, and it's not moving, and you push and you're screaming for other people to come join you and push, and it doesn't change and it doesn't change and whether that is something like universal basic income or childcare or trans rights or you know, the list goes on and on and on, you push at the wall of the paradigm and what you don't know is when it's gonna move but what you do know is whenever it does move it moves in response to how many people are pushing.

[00:33:03]to how loud they are.

[00:33:04]when finally the paradigm gives, you don't know how far it's gonna go and you're maybe you'll get to a point that's not just a little better, but much better.

[00:33:12]-I think that's a very nice closing image and encouragement to everyone about continuing to put your hands- put your hands up and push in the right direction -never know when that- it's... it's such an interesting reminder like, I remember, as a kid, stuffing envelopes with my mom for Jesse Jackson and I was nine and I was licking stamps- I remember we were doing all these mailers and at the end of the day, I was like my tongue feels terrible.

[00:33:41]you're literally licking- and, but I remember, as a nine year old thinking, this is" a- this is a fool's errand, America is never going to ever have a black president.

[00:33:55]that will never happen."

[00:33:57]and yet, you know, you you fast forward 15 years and we did.

[00:34:02]-all because you licked those because -but but but... but you never know. you... there are so many things that are- feel so deeply entrenched and that it's never gonna change, and we just have to give up on it and keeping that that perspective of actually envision something something wonderful as a future possible state, and the more we can start doing that, the more we can inspire one another to do that, I think the better off we're gonna be, for sure, in the long run.

[00:34:33]-right.

[00:34:34]-if we don't do the work we're guaranteed to not get the outcome we want, so the only other option is keep working at it.

[00:34:41]okay, of those two choices let's... let's keep working at it.

[00:34:46]- it's lovely to meet both of you.

[00:34:48]Erin, thank you for the work that you're doing in the- in the reporting sphere and Zooey, thank you so much for giving us a a map of what that could look like at the state legislature level.

[00:34:58]and thank you for spending this time with us today, -and thank you for leaving us in the wake of this conversation feeling, I'm feeling inspired and energized and not um defeated and despairing which could it could have been, -would have been.

[00:35:14]-would have been.

[00:35:15]-amazing.

[00:35:16]-yeah, god.

[00:35:17]that makes me really happy.

[00:35:18]-any, any like last things that you would like to share before we close?

[00:35:24]-I'm just grateful.

[00:35:25]I'm grateful for this space I know I talked about it in the advocacy side of things and what it looks like- this is one of those spaces, and you've carved it out and I'm grateful for that carving and all the other ways that you show up and that we show up and that your audience shows up.

[00:35:44]each of those matter and I'm just grateful to be a part of this, uh this space.

[00:35:48]-the same.

[00:35:50]-oh, thank you.

[00:35:50]-thank you both.

[00:35:51]-nice talking to you both.

[00:35:52]-thank you so much, y'all.

[00:35:52]-bye.