Ep. 21 - Radically centering trans teens with Nico Lang
#21 This episode's guest is journalist, editor, culture critic, and essayist Nico Lang!
Nico is the author of the upcoming American Teenager: How Trans Kids are Surviving Hate and Finding Joy in a Turbulent Era, which comes out on October 8th. I cannot WAIT to read it.
We talk about:
📖 Nico's Avengers origin story (hint: lots of fan fiction)
📖 the need for queer stories
📖 heart-wrenching and beautiful trans teen stories
📖 unsettling endings (like that f*cking Sopranos ending)
📖 the value of trying
📖 THEIR BOOK!
You can find Nico on Instagram @Queernewsdaily and pre-order their book before October 8 here.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
The Boxcar Children books
Mulholland Drive
Magic City Acceptance Center
PFLAG
Trans Family Support Services
Desi Rainbow
Everyday Trans Activism is a production of Parents of Trans Youth, a social impact business providing learning, support, and community to parents and caregivers of transgender, nonbinary, and gender-diverse kids.
Host Mandy Giles (she/her) is the Texas parent of two transgender young adults and a fierce advocate for trans kids, their families, and the transgender community.
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Thanks for listening!
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Mandy: Hey y'all and welcome to Everyday Trans Activism. I'm your host, Mandy Giles. My pronouns are she/her, and I am the parent of two transgender young adults and the founder of Parents of Trans Youth.
Today's guest is Nico Lang. Nico is a journalist, editor, culture critic, and essayist. They are the founder of Queer News Daily and have previously worked as the deputy editor of Out Magazine, an LGBTQ+ correspondent for Vice, news editor at Them, and a contributing editor at Extra Magazine. Nico's work has been published in Rolling Stone, Esquire, the Daily Beast, HuffPost, and BuzzFeed News, among others. They were named the 2023 Online Journalist of the Year of the year by the Los Angeles Press Club Association and is a recipient of 10 awards from the National Association of LGBTQ+ journalists, the GLAAD award, and the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund's inaugural Visibility Award. And if that isn't enough, Niko is the author of the upcoming American Teenager: How Trans Kids are Surviving Hate and Finding Joy in a Turbulent Era, which comes out on October 8th, 2024. Whoo! Niko, welcome. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me.
Nico: Yeah, and thank you for reading all of that bio. I always get incredibly mortified when people have to read the whole thing. I just want to like hide in a hole somewhere.
Mandy: But it's so impressive! There's a lot of stuff. Yeah. And that leads me to my first question. I can't wait to read your book, and we'll talk about that in just a second, but I was getting up to speed on some of your recent pieces. And like you said, you told me before we got on, you've been writing forever and ever, and you've been in this business forever. And it looks like you are the go-to writer for queer issues. And I wanted to know, have you always been a writer? Have you always written about LGBTQ+ issues? Just tell me your origin story.
Nico: I, I guess what, where does one start with one's Avengers origin story? It's funny.
Mandy: I was born …
Nico: Oh, it's like, you're the first person to ask this. So I'm like, Oh, I'm not. Yeah. I'm like, I'm not that polished on this question yet. Who knew?
Um, well, it's funny, like for me, like writing was just something that came naturally in a way and that I was a lonely kid, like a lot of queer kids. So I read a lot. Um, and I wrote, wrote a lot of what I was reading. So anything that I wrote when I was really young was essentially just like fan fiction of the thing that I was reading at the time. Like I got really into the Boxcar Children. So I wrote a series of mystery novels called the Chandler Children. See what I did there. And they were really bad. They were really not good. I'm glad that my grandparents did not keep them because they were of no, no, no value whatsoever.
And then. Well, like, you know, I experimented, I would write, full-length books, that, but again, that was, based on whatever I was watching or reading at the time. I wrote, essentially, my own version of Mulholland Drive that I, like, inserted myself into, but except I was a bisexual woman of color, so, which was, you know, the only difference.
Mandy: Oh, that's all. Okay.
Nico: I think that to me, like the most like dope thing about the whole thing is that for some reason I was like, I should give this to my junior year English teacher to read and give notes on which, and if you've seen Mulholland Drive, it's like quite a, like dirty movie. So like, I can't, I'm like, why did you do that? Why weren't you like, this woman doesn't want to read this, but yeah. And for me, it's like, I think a like,
Mandy: But what happened? Did you give it to her?
Nico: I did! She liked it. She was used to actually gets the dedication and or not the dedication. We call it and the acknowledgments at the end. She gets like a shout out because I still think it's amazing that this woman was reading, like, like my, like bisexual Mulholland Drive fan fiction in school and was being like, sure, whatever.
And she was honestly just really happy. Because a lot of her, the books or like, writing that she would get from students would be about like gargoyles and werewolves and stuff. And she was just really happy to read like a bisexual neo-noir, you know, she was like, this is great.
Mandy: Like, Oh, something different. Yeah. Oh, cool.
Nico: That That's literally was her feedback. Like I I'm so glad you wrote about something else. Um. I think you'd have to pry her teeth out of her to, find out what she thought about it otherwise. But at least she was glad for the variety.
But then, you know, as an adult, I didn't think that I would do queer journalism. I thought that I would be a film reviewer. Like I grew up reading Roger Ebert and I just so loved his work. There was just so much personality and life to it. And it was like, here was this person experiencing the world and experiencing culture, and writing about it, you know, like really interacting with it. And there was just something about that that as a really poor kid growing up in Ohio who just didn't have access to anything that just felt so like, I don't know, like, what a way to live. What a way to be in the world. Like who wouldn't want that for themselves.
But then, you know, when I got into journalism, I found that I did get to review movies for a while. I wasn't that great at it. You know, I was okay. There were a lot of people who are a lot better and I think I just got to a point where I'd run out of things to say, and it just didn't really like interest me that much of it anymore, just because it was like, what did I really have to offer?
And I just like at that time was when HB2 happened, the North Carolina anti-trans bathroom bill. And there was just so much like, yeah, evolving around like queer issues. And there was just so much need to tell queer stories that very quickly I pivoted to doing that because it just seemed like it like was the thing that was really needed. I wanted to give somebody not give the community, not something just that I wanted, but that they really needed. And that just seems so much more necessary than like another film reviewer who's not that great doing what they do. Um, and it turned out that I was way better at this anyway. So who knew?
Mandy: Well, yeah, you're definitely good at it. And I wonder if we see the telling the news and the stories that people need to hear. I'm wondering about disinformation that's out there and misinformation. Do you see what you do as combating that, like a certain large publication that is putting out stories and, and opinion pieces that are super harmful to the trans community? And I'm wondering how, if, if you feel like you're combating that, or just kind of separate, just kind of doing your own thing.
Nico: I try not to think about what they're doing because frankly, like they're so much larger than I am. And they have so much more power that even if I wanted to combat that level of misinformation, I just don't think that I could. If you look at that sounds really fatalistic, but even if you look at the data, um, right-wing news publications that run stories about queer people get so much more traffic than queer people just telling stories about our lives. Like, uh, Media Matters has done like report after report on this, that for the most part, the like vast majority of traffic to stories about LGBTQ people comes from people who don't want us to exist. So I'm not even trying to like David and Goliath that, because I just feel like that's setting myself up to fail. You know what I mean? Like, I just can't put that on myself.
Mandy: Yeah.
Nico: For me, I think I just focus on the people like I focus on that. I have these people that I interact with every day whose stories deserve to be told, right? They need to be out there. They should be like sharing their perspectives and their lives and just talking about things that have happened to them.
That for the most part, when people reach out to me to tell their stories, it's not because like, you know, they had the best day of their life, and they want to call Nico Lang about it. That's not really my role. It's usually because something bad has happened and you know, they need to process it. They need to sort of like get through this moment, and they want other people to learn from the thing that they've experienced, you know, and to me, I think that that's reward enough.
And I don't even think about like reception so much, like, are people reading this, you know, how much are people enjoying it? That's like not the goal here. It's like, I kind of am like a therapist who does like very specific kind of client work. And I just happen to be sharing my like therapy sessions with the world.
And I really do hope that other people benefit from them for sure. But for me, I always try to focus on, what are the things that I can control, and I can handle and the rest of it is just an externality, positive or negative, like whatever comes, comes.
But that part, getting to connect to people and making them feel seen, that's just so valuable that that's the thing you devote your life to. I don't try to think too much about horrible right wing trolls because like, like what, like what a place, you know, like, uh, what a thing to have to think about, you know?
So,
Mandy: uh, I get a lot of trolls on my, I'm probably nowhere near the number that you probably get, but just, I, I can't give the energy to that. And so that I think that's, understandable. It's sort of a David and Goliath situation that why waste your energy in trying to, you know, quote, combat. some other kind of, organization or, media outlet that, that is so much bigger.
Okay. That's a good segue because I want to hear about your book and those stories. How did you decide to focus on trans teens and their stories?
Nico: Yeah. So, the book sort of began really with me realizing that I could do it and knowing that it needed to be done, you know, because I, I had known so many of these families for such a long time because I'd been reporting in this space for such a long time that I've, you know, built this network in this community.
And like, these people know me and they trust me, and when you have that level of trust, you can really do a lot with it. And I know a lot of other reporters just don't really have that. So for me, it's like, if I could do it, that meant I really needed to do it. And at first, to answer your question more directly, I wasn't really sure what the book would be or like what age range it would be, would focus on because a book like this had never been written before.
You know, so it's like, how do you write something that's never been written and I had to sort of figure that out. And at first I was casting a really wide net and talking to like all these different kinds of families and families, you know, with kids with like all these different ages, I was talking to, you know, families with kids like five-year-old kids, you know, um, but with younger kids, it's not that they don't know who they are or like, I want to invalidate that kind of journey at all.
I think that journey is really important. It's just that they can't narrativize their experiences as much. It often has to be, the, the parent who's helping them express themselves and helping them find the right words to say what they want to say, because it's like, you know, like five-year-olds and like complex thoughts, you know, you're still getting there.
You like, you've got time. And this stuff, you know, it's big, right? These are big ideas. These are big feelings. And that takes, I think, a certain level of maturity to be able to like process that in a complex way.
And I wanted kids who could really be the narrators of their own stories, like where it's not the parents who are having to help them do it. It's not me who are helping to do it, but it all really comes from them. So you feel like these kids are really the driving force in their own lives.
And when it comes to teens, like you can't tell teens anything, So it's like, exactly. So it's like, for me, it's like, that felt really natural because it's like, if you wanted someone to really tell you the truth about what they're thinking, what they're experiencing, what they felt and the journey they've gone through, talk to teens, cause they're going to tell you, you know.
And I, in retrospect, I feel like that was really the right choice because you're able to get so much depth from this book and from the teens in it that I feel like before we really only scratched the surface of. Because it's not like this is the first like work of art or like piece of media that has included the voices and perspectives of trans teens.
People have been doing this, you know, for years, right? But I just don't think that you've gotten this, level depth before you haven't gotten to go this far down and to really like sit with people and to go like, I keep saying the word deep. So sorry, take a, you know, take a shot, but to go deep into their experiences with them and have them lead you in that them guide you.
And that just felt so different. and just really valuable to me. It's really missing in the discourse. Like, I'm glad that I got to, because it feels like I was able to give people something that doesn't exist right now and that they really, really need.
Mandy: Definitely. And I think, yeah, that a lot of what's out there about trans teens or trans kids is a little bit surface level or just doesn't go well, you know, deep for a variety of reasons. And I think that is really important because so many times, especially in kind of a policy landscape and stuff, we know that just trans kids and trans teens are used as a policy thing or as pawns in this political game, which is so incredibly dehumanizing and objectifying. And so to have a work that it sounds like really shows who these kids are inside and out and just like normal teens just, you know, except that that your state maybe wants you to not exist. I think that is, is hugely needed right now. Oh gosh. I can't wait to read it. I can't wait for October 8th.
In, in one of your endorsements, Samantha Allen called your book a masterclass in journalism as a force for change. I'm wondering if you had an idea of kind of changing something, changing the world, and this kind of goes back to what we were talking about earlier, wondering what the external reception or effect or, or reaction might be to your work. Did you think you were, you were going to change something, or was that even on your mind?
Nico: I don't know, like, it's so, it's, it's so hard to think about things that way, right? From like, impact perspective, because you just don't know, like, there, there are amazing, you know, journalists and reporters who work like months or years on this incredible project and then you put it out and no one reads it. There's often sort of an inverse relationship between the time you put into something and how much people actually pay attention to it.
Mandy: Oh no!
Nico: The most, the most successful things I've ever written like we're things I wrote in like a half hour, you know, pop it out there, and then everyone's reading and you're like, that did well?
So like, I don't, I don't know how much this will change things from like a global or societal scale. Right.
You know, I don't know how much this, this will change things. What I do know is that being with these families and being part of their journeys for like two and a half weeks was so incredibly valuable for all of us that it was just a really extraordinarily healing thing for them to get to do because the way this was structured is that I would go with them, and I would just hang out with them every day and we would have these deep conversations.
There's another shot for the listeners at home, um, out, you know, whatever they wanted to talk about, really. Right. A lot of it really came from them that I wasn't like, of course I had things that I felt like I wanted to know or needed to know, but if there were things that, that you know, felt really valuable for them to discuss like it was really up to them. Like, you know, we can talk about whatever you want to talk about. Right. And you're doing that every day and it becomes these therapy sessions, right? These long, long therapy sessions, often like an hour and a half or two hours. And if you're doing that over the course of like two and a half weeks, like you're really working through some stuff.
And I got to see people go on these incredible journeys in a really short amount of time. And you see that in the book that there will be like these families who have these really major breakthroughs over and over again, because essentially they have their own private therapists to work with them for two and a half weeks through stuff that they've like never really had the chance to talk about or process or to work through, you know?
So it was like being the private social worker of these families for a year, like was such a reward that like if this comes out and it changes absolutely anything, that would be a dream, you know, like if any policy like gets passed or anything, it changes because these kids were brave and put themselves out there and allowed me into their homes, like that would just be like so much more than I could have ever like envisioned.
I didn't even think this book would be good, you know, like, because going to the first, the first family's home, you know that like that September, we were really for two and a half, three weeks figuring out what the book would be and how it would work. How can you tell stories like this? How do you radically like center like the lives of trans kids?
Because, you know, again, nothing like this had ever been written. So how do you even do it? Right. How does it look? And I think we all were just kind of like, well, if this book ends up being anything at all, or even like readable in a basic way, like, well, that's great. So the fact that it did turn out well, and it means so much to people and it's getting, you know, like good notices and it seems to be really connecting with people.
That's just like, that's so much more than I thought. Like I truly thought this would be like my unreadable scribbles that no one would ever, you know, get to see. So. Cause I didn't even have funding when we started this. Like I started out without a book deal. Like I was self-funding this to like, you know between all these different states. So, you know, at this point, here talking to you about it and it's a month away from being a thing, this is all just like a fantasy I'm living in, you know.
Mandy: Ah, well, I'm wondering, can you share an example or two of the, these revelations that you're talking about, the families or, or, or the kids going through, like some examples of your, your social work, your, your therapy work that, that you were doing with the families. I'm curious about that.
Nico: Well, I think the most obvious one is you wouldn't see it as much like thematically of them just being like, I am putting this together. You see it more like externally, the kinds of like steps they're taking in their own lives. The most obvious one for me is our third chapter was about a black gender fluid teen, Micah, in West Virginia, who had recently been experiencing some pretty grave depression, which was a surprise to me because when I met Micah, they're just such a force of nature and this really larger than life personality, like just so big, so buoyant, so just lovely and full of life.
And one of the reasons I wanted them to be in this book was to showcase that, right? Like here's this person that just was this incredibly vibrant personality. I was thinking like, wow, that's a character that would just really leap off the page, you know, because if you meet Micah, you'll never forget it. And I wanted to give readers like, you know, someone they'll never forget.
And I, we still do get that that Micah is still all those things, but at the same time, Micah was experiencing a pretty severe mental health crisis, and that had to do with the fact that for years, they'd had this dream of going to NYU, majoring in musical theater, and they sort of had this entire, like, life plan mapped out for themselves.
Unfortunately, as sometimes happens, they bombed their audition. Um, they had COVID during the week of their audition. Um, I know, I don't know why they didn't reschedule, but that's another thing.
Mandy: yeah.
Nico: They go with the through with the audition. They're barely able to sing, very pitchy, you know, as Randy Jackson once says, and I think starts crying during like one of the numbers because they know they're not doing well.
Like this is not good. They thought it would because they, you know, they just had this built up in their head for such a long time. And then seeing what it actually was, was just soul-crushing. And of course they ended up not getting in. Um, and it was just kind of like, well, what is my life now?
Essentially I was there as this like young person was really realizing just how difficult life can be and that your dreams don't always work out for you in the way that you thought. Right. And it's like, how do you see that? Right.
How do you sit with this person as they're finally realizing that, how do you tell them to like, it's okay. You can still go leave the house. You can, you know, there are other dreams out there. They were still figuring that out. and they hadn't left the house in like weeks, like months even, because it just had hit them so hard. And Micah just wasn't the person that I knew, but you know, through two and a half weeks of me being there, have somebody to just like witness, your pain and like the grief and trauma that you're going through. I think that it wasn't anything I did. I think it was just my physical presence because they had someone to share, you know, to share in the trouble. It wasn't like it was just them doing it because, you know, they, their family is there and supportive and like trying.
But their mom's busy, you know, she has to work, they have their own stuff going on. Um, and it feels sometimes like they can't always make adequate space for each other's struggles. But here you had somebody whose job it was to be there for your struggle and to talk about.
Mandy: Yeah,
Nico: and that made a big difference.
And sadly, not all kids get that, right? Not all kids are going to have this reporter come to their home to listen to them for two and a half weeks. So I think for me, I hope that you're seeing Micah and the journey that Micah goes on during, you know, during the two and a half weeks we were there, they ended up accepting, how do you say the acceptance admittance, um, to another call. Um, that they've been going through and doing great.
Mandy: Okay,
Nico: they, you know, they started leaving the house again. They started volunteering with the ACLU of West Virginia.
Mandy: hmm,
Nico: We went on tours at these different places that they might like get a job and, you know, it all ended up going okay. But the thing is, is that it went okay because they had an ally, they had like support.
Mandy: Mm
Nico: And other kids need that. Right? So those kids for don't have a private social worker to come to their home or a journalist for two and a half weeks, you know, what can we do in local communities to make sure that they do have access to those resources?
Mandy: Mm
Nico: You know, that can be Pride groups that can be like a local community center. But again, not everybody has that. Something I think is great is that there's this Alabama organization called the Magic City Acceptance Center. And they have a Discord platform for LGBTQ youth across the state where people can come, they can like build community, they can just like vent if they need to.
And especially if they can't access that in-person space, it means that they have a digital space that they can.
Mandy: Mm
Nico: I just wish more queer youth and wherever they are, wherever they happen to live, had something like that, or even had an online community, that would be even better just so that way they can have these kinds of experiences. I think we just forget like how impactful and transformative small things can be, especially when you're young.
Mandy: Definitely. And I was just talking to someone about this the other day about having peer spaces for trans and queer youth and how important that is having the, like you said, the mentors and the allies to listen to them and, and help them along in these journeys. Like if you, if you don't have a, you know, live-in social worker free with you for two weeks. And, and the demand for digital online virtual services, because, you know, like in Houston where I am, we are so lucky to have a community center that has an in-person youth group, but I'm not sure if they have a Discord. They probably do. But not everybody has that. And so that that's something that I know parents struggle with to try to find that space for their kids. The parents who recognize like my kids need something else besides me to for me to talk to. They need some, a third person, a third party to, to hear them and to, to get advice from.
You know, something that struck me when you were talking about Micah's story. Just thinking about how universal that is of this either unfulfilled or I guess, shattered dreams or just this, Oh, it just, my heart hurt when you were talking about it. I'm clutching my chest in thinking about just watching someone grow up in a way in real time and, and recognizing that those things don't always come true.
And I would, I would hope that that kind of thing resonates with a very wide audience and not just someone who is, or maybe a reader or an audience who's looking to learn more about trans kids, but just like, here's what teens are going through. They have to learn these really hard lessons and, kind of grow up right in front of your eyes, which is heart-wrenching and beautiful in a way, I guess, just watching that process. I'm wondering if there were any themes that you saw with the eight kids that, that you talked to and followed. Anything overarching?
Nico: No. And that's what's cool about book. Is that one of the things that made this book so hard to pitch is that publishers didn't understand what it would be in that All of the kids have such different stories from each other. Like people wanted this idea that I'd be really like, like drawing out connections and making you know, bigger proclamations of like, Oh, these two kids were both like this.
Thus all trans or kids are like this, you know, I thought what was so neat is that, and this was not. I kind of wanted this a little bit, but I got it even more than I thought. Like I wanted people who would have different stories from each other, but I didn't just realize like how wildly diverging everyone would be that you'd have, like, you know, one kid would be like, I love being trans and it's the coolest thing about me.
And another kid would be like, I hate being trans or not, I hate being trans, but I hate being known as being trans, right? Like that's not my goal at all. Like, um, Clint is a great example. He was our like six, wait, how does this go? Fifth chapter in in Illinois. Like he said that his goal is to be known as a boy, not a trans boy, and that he doesn't really identify with his transness.
It's not that he thinks there's anything wrong with being trans as a trans person. It's just not really how he thinks of himself, especially because he had such severe dysphoria about his body before. You know, he's got under undergone like, you know, a medical transition and it's gone really well. And it's been such like, a benefit to his life that he doesn't want to think about all that stuff before.
And when he thinks about being trans, it forces him to think about like where he came from, right? And all these things had to go through to get to the good place he is now. So he doesn't really identify with that. He identifies with his Muslimness, um, because his family is Pakistani Muslims.
Right. So that's the part of his identity that he puts first. And that felt like a really cool perspective to include because I just never heard anything like that before with this, with this book, I really wanted to make space for so many kinds of stories that I just hadn't heard in so many different ways, whether that was the stories of the kids, the stories of the families, or just like the ways that they exist in the world.
For me that like multiplicity the ways in which all of these families are so diverging from one another That's what makes a book like this really special because it makes it feel like life like we're all so different from each other. We all have different ways of existing in the world. why would I want to create a book where I'm trying to make the argument that everybody is the same? To me it's the argument is everybody is different. That's really good. And we should protect that difference, you need laws protecting that difference because right now I think you have all of these lawmakers who are going, well, these trans kids, they're different in a way that I feel like I don't understand and doesn't comport with my worldview or, you know, my religion seems to like, you know, cast dispersions on.
And because of that, that difference needs to be restricted or illegal. Right. And the more that we make it clear that these kids might be different from you. They might be the same as you, you can have a lot in common with them, right? Some of these like kids, there's so much that we had in common, even though we come from different backgrounds, different experiences.
There was just so much that we would just really bond over, like whether that's, you know, shared interests, liking the same movies, having some of the same things happen to us, but at the same time, there were ways in which we couldn't relate at all. Right. And that we were just so different from one another.
And I think that both of those two things are equally beautiful. And I hope a book like this makes space for people to read it and identify with it and go, Oh, you know, this reminds me of my story or the story of somebody I know, but also to not relate to it at all. And that be okay. So many of the most interesting chapters to me were the ones I didn't relate to that were totally different from my experience.
But with that, I feel like I can, I can learn from it. So I hope that for readers, that they can do that too. They can like feel seen by the parts they relate to and then learn from the parts they don't.
Mandy: That makes sense that you wouldn't want to put an overarching theme or pick anything out that sounds like that would have been, forced, I think. And if, if the whole, the whole point of the book, it sounds like is to tell these, these very, I think you said divergent stories. So yeah, that makes sense that, that you wouldn't have like, and then they all were this, and I think, you know, it's something that, that you hear all the time, like, oh gosh, I'm thinking like in PFLAG rooms and stuff, you've met one trans person, well, you've met one trans person. And just like any other person that everybody has these incredibly different and unique stories. Like you said, there's some similarities, but, but everybody is different. And gosh, I don't, I'm not sure I want to get on the political stuff, but that these overarching policies and laws and like, All trans people are this and so none of them may have licenses or whatever it is. so yeah, that kind of, that's the change. That's the change that's going to, that's going to come from this book. Hopefully it's that the humanizing, the individualizing people. That's what I'm predicting. I don't know.
Nico: I think it was also important that I not project too much, you know, that I've really let these kids speak for themselves because it was interesting. You know, I forced my book club to read this.
As I was in like a queer book club for like two years now, I won't have time because you know, I'm doing this literally all day. This is all I'm doing is this book. and I was just really curious how people would react to it. And one of the, the not really, uh, how do you say criticisms, but one of the things that people wanted to know is why there wasn't a concluding chapter, you know, often in like books like this, there's like a big wrap up chapter where you pull themes and you just like tell people what to think.
Mandy: huh.
Nico: I felt like that was too heavy-handed. Like the kids already told you, like what you needed to know, why do you need me as their journalist to do it?
Mandy: hmm.
Nico: just felt like the whole point was to give the platform to the kids, to speak about their own lives.
Mandy: hmm.
Nico: if it was speaking about their lives for them, at least in the context of this book, unfortunately for the book tour, it's kind of like, you know, I have to a little bit,
Mandy: Mm
Nico: But for the content of this book, it's like, if I'm trying to do that for them, like I am missing the point of my own book.
Mandy: hmm.
Nico: in a way I had to bake that conclusion into like the very last, like proper chapter and just kind of let the, the kids' words speak for themselves, which is tough. I feel like as a journalist, you're like, you're giving people a lot of trust in doing that by not telling them what to think, by giving them this information and letting them make up their own mind and draw their own conclusions. But I just feel like it's so much, so much more rewarding when we let these kids speak for themselves that I just really had to take that leap of faith that people would understand and get it.
And maybe some people won't and you know, I'm sure I'll hear on the Goodreads reviews, but to me, it's just the point is to just like, finally give the platform and the microphone to these kids. Cause they're the ones that we should have been listening to all along.
Mandy: Yeah. Oh, gosh, yes. And, oh, and I'm just thinking about, like, say, in, in Texas, that it's we've got such a catch-22 situation down here that because of the laws and policies there that are in place right now, trans kids cannot speak publicly for themselves and families of trans kids can't even say, hi, I'm the parent of a trans kid, cause, you know, somebody could call CPS on you. And so, so, the stories are not being heard. They can't defend themselves against these laws. They can't speak out for their rights. And so to have this kind of platform and this source to have their voices and their stories and their deep inner feelings and, and, and stories really come out, I think it's going to be absolutely beautiful and it's going to be life-changing. It's going to be world-changing. I'm just going to say that. And so. That's fine. If it's not, you can come back and fuss at me. I don't know. Um,
Nico: Yeah. I will have, I will have words with you if those things don't come.
Mandy: Nobody has been changed. What's going on? Um,
Nico: Everything is exactly the same. What did you mean, Mandy?
Mandy: Well, it's something else I was thinking about by not having a concluding chapter. Sometimes the best, say, novels that I read or movies that don't have a very neat bow at the end of them of like, wait, what happened to the characters are like, you have to figure it out on your, on your own, those, and obviously that I'm talking about fiction. Those are the kind of stories that resonate with me and that stay with me for a long time. And I'll be thinking about them for weeks later. And like, gosh, I really wonder what, what happened to those characters because the, I guess, uh, the writer, the director, whoever didn't tell me how to think about that.
And like, here's how the story ends and all of the conclusion and the theme, and here was the theme of the story that maybe as a reader I would be pulling out themes or not, or just again, like, whatever it is. But I like the idea that you are not telling the reader what to get from these stories and that the kids are speaking for themselves.
Nico: Yeah. Can I actually say something to that? Okay. Cause I love that you brought that up. Cause my, my husband's a painter and I feel like I learn a lot from the way he views the world as an artist and the way that he looks at art. And something that he often tells me is that perfection in art can actually be really boring because it doesn't give your brain anything to focus on.
It doesn't present any problems for your brain to solve. Right. I think that books that are a little too neat in the way that you're pointing out, don't give you anything. They don't present problems, right? They don't present something that's going to stay with you because they haven't unsettled you in any way.
It's settled by the end because it was perfect. And this, because it's like life, I do give you a little bit of an update about how the kids are doing, but I didn't want like overemphasize that. I wanted to take a really light touch because the thing is, is that life is always going to be going on, right?
All of these, their situations have changed like five different ways over since I wrote the book, right? So sure, I could give it that, that finality, but you'll never really know what's going to happen to these kids until the end of their lives. Right. And then you can look over like the course of everything and see what happened.
But for now, we don't really know. They're still like going on their journeys.
Mandy: mm-Hmm
Nico: There's this really great movie I love called Cache. It's a French movie directed by Michael Haneke, and I think about it all the time. It's a thriller about this couple who get these videotapes that, um, just show up at their house.
And the videotapes are just somebody taking, like, video footage of the house, right, and sending it to them. Um, and it's very unsettling, obviously, and weird. And they have to figure out like who's doing this and why they're, why they're doing it. And the whole movie is about the couple trying to figure out who would do this and why they would do it.
And a little bit of a spoiler alert, but you never find out at the end. And there's something about that to me that is so much more intriguing because like, there is a final shot that maybe suggests some sort of connection, but you don't really know how, and it doesn't present you all of like the answers just like tied up neatly in a bow for you.
It's still, I think about it and go, Oh, well, how does that connect to what I already know? Right. And because of that I've thought about Cache, you know, it came out in 2005 for the last like 19 years in a way that like, I don't know if I would have thought about it if some, if the movie was like, well, the butler did it and here's why the butler did it. You know, that's just not as interesting.
Mandy: Mm
Nico: So for me, it's like you get to do two things here. It gets to be more intriguing because you haven't solved all the problems, you know, and the way that I don't think art should. And then on top of it, it's just more like we all experience life, you know, who among us could like, if a book was written about you and they were doing a flash forward five years later, who could have that like nice end cap that's like, Oh, this is how everything turned out in Mandy's life. Like everything is always changing and evolving for you. Like I imagine, Every year, something is happening that's different. You know, you have someone you love pass away or you get a promotion at work or you're doing this, you're doing that, or this happens.
So it's like, how do you choose which moment to focus on, you know, so I didn't want to give people this, like this false closure when we all exist in the same world. We know how life works. People would know that's fake. And I wanted something that would feel just really real.
Mandy: Yeah, I'm thinking about that word unsettling and in, you know, in a thriller movie, that could be more in like a creepy way, but more unsettling, of the, you know, trying to figure out a problem and, and making you think, I think that's the biggest thing. And actually, I was thinking about the end of Sopranos.
So maybe a little, not, maybe not quite as, um, highbrow as a French film. Yeah, that now I'm thinking about the ending of that in a different way. Cause people were like, Oh my gosh, why did it end that way? Fade to black, you know, or not even fade to black. It was like black screen. But now I can see there was, there was no closure because there is no closure in, in life. I mean, we don't need to, talk about the end of the Sopranos and analyze that, but if we could, that's a different episode. Um, it pissed me off so bad. Um, but, Okay. Now, oh my gosh, I can't wait till October 8th. Cause so I can read the book.
Well, I'm curious because this podcast is about people working for, in their own way, to work for trans rights, trans equality. What advice, if you had any, would you give to people who wanted to get started in that, in your experience?
Nico: Gosh, I'm so not an advice person and that whenever like I have a friend like telling me a problem, I'm always just like, do you want me to give you advice? Is this something that you even like require right now? Because I think a lot of people just really want to be heard. And for me with this book, it was that it was kind of like your friends telling you about something that's happened to them and you're not giving them any advice.
You're like, you're not trying to be like, I can fix it. Like I know the best solution for you because I don't. Um, but I can tell you, I think the best thing to do is always to just get connected to local community. You know, for me, that's always a place to start, like find, you know, we were talking about this before.
What's your local pride group? What's the like, LGBTQ+ community center in your area? Do they have that? If they don't, often there are like affirming therapists that you can go to like people like who specialize in queer kids or trans kids and can offer you some support.
Or, there are even parent networks like on the internet. If you live in a super remote area where you don't have any of those things, a lot of these parents have been really great at getting mobilized. The obvious one is PFLAG, right? But then there's, um, Trans Family Support Services, you know, they're like standard in the South.
They're really great. And then whatever your city is, the Dallas-Fort Worth, right, not super far from you. They have a very mobilized, you know, parent group online. It's had to get quite insular because of the attacks on trans kids in Texas. I don't know how often they're always like quote-unquote taking new members or whatever you would call it.
Um, but you know, it does exist and these, you know, pop up in all these different places across the country. So I would just say, do your research, like who are your people that are around that will help you? Um, I was just talking to a parent about this yesterday because I'm doing a story about, you know, Canada is starting to see the attacks on trans kids that America has been seeing for a really long time.
And I'm writing a piece that's just offering advice to Canadian parents about like, how do you get through this? Right. What do you do? One of the parents that I interviewed in the U.S. said something that really resonated with me. And she basically told me to like, find your ride or die. Like, who's going to be that person who's going to stick with you through all this?
Like, who's your bestie BFF or just like that confidant that, you know you can go to at the end of the day to just talk about stuff, to vent, to, you know, to just feel seen and heard in the way that maybe your kid needs to feel seen and heard. Right. I think yeah. Like that can be really important too, because you're going through this with them and you're trying to figure out all the stuff and how to get them these resources and to make sure that your kid is like provided for and taken care of.
That's like not easy work. So having people that you know that can be your allies is so critical and so important. And that can even be your spouse, you know, like making sure that you have that kind of relationship and open communication to where you can share those kinds of things with each other at the end of the day, because there are times that you might feel isolated in the, I always get that messed up on the chapter order again, but 5th chapter Clint, his mom, Maha, runs a group called Desi Rainbows
Mandy: Oh, yeah.
Nico: and they have these like a monthly parent support groups online and sometimes these parents come in and they're really struggling, and they're really lost. At the end of the day, I always find some solace and that they still have each other, you know, and I don't want to take that for granted because I think a lot of people don't have that. They really go through this alone.
Mandy: Mm
Nico: So I think that you get to go through that with like a spouse or a partner or somebody who's by your side, you know, that really means a lot.
Mandy: Definitely. And the people that I have known who have tried to go on this journey alone for whatever reason, that they just haven't been drawn to, uh, you know, maybe they feel they don't need support in terms of like a support group and that's fine. But I think community, oh, my gosh, is so important in so many ways for, for everybody.
But to have those people, whatever your community is, who get it and the people I've seen who choose not to engage and just are like, we're just going to do this on our own. We're just gonna be fine. It's a lonely road, and it's so much harder than it needs to be just to, to be able to have someone who gets it that you can be like, you know, it really sucks right now or whatever's going on.
And like, that's why, next week I'm having what I call a stitch and bitch session for this one is for, Texas people, but I've had them for, for parents all over, but, just to talk to people who get it and maybe we're not going to solve all the problems that are going on, but that we're just together and that we can just bitch it out or whatever and, and just have that place to vent about. I mean, this is Texas in particular, but there's all sorts of places that, that, people are from that, that they need that as well.
And so, so yeah, I could see how that would be very, very good piece of advice just to have at least one person that you can be able to, to vent and who gets it. Cause that's important too. Cause maybe your best friend is a ride or die in some ways, but if they don't get what it means to what you're maybe going through with having a trans kid, nonbinary gender diverse kid, it's just harder. It's, it's a lot harder. So, so maybe that friend is for different things.
And I'm thinking about parents too, and just the role of parents. And maybe allies in general, in the work for, for maybe speaking about, or, I guess working for trans rights and trans equality. And I wonder, now I'm thinking about it in terms of your book, because I think there is some, I guess, disagreement in the place of where parents should be in talking about trans rights and equality or talking about their kids' experiences. and I'm curious what you think about that and where parents' voices might be.
Nico: I think something this book did really intentionally is to recognize that parents' voices are really important, but that they're not like the whole conversation in that they take up one subsection of each chapter, but they're not the whole thing. That I, they have a place in the conversation, but the conversation should be in an ideal world led by kids themselves.
And what I wanted to present with the parents wasn't this idea that in order to have like a valid journey as a parent with trans kids, that you have to be like perfect or have everything figured out. I think a lot of parents are doing a really, really incredible job and they should be affirmed in that.
But a lot of parents are still on their journey, like they haven't figured it all yet. They're still getting there. They're still working through all this stuff. There's so much just like culturally and religiously that you have to unpack and just your own like mental obstacles that you have to get through.
And sure, it would be nice to live in a world where people didn't have to do that. Right. And we were all just like perfect allies right away. And yes, we get the language, you know, we use everybody's pronouns, but some people have to learn.
I just said this in a different interview, but I go to a Buddhist temple every weekend, and they said something this weekend that I thought was really powerful that trying increases karma. That it just like increases your merit to try. And I'd never heard anybody say that before. And for me, that felt really powerful. And I think it also connects here because we sometimes underestimate the value of trying. And that's not going to be good enough forever. Like you can't just like try and screw up for the next 20 years and everybody just pretend it's okay that you're still using the wrong pronouns.
At some point there has to be some level of accountability. But if you are incrementally improving, right, you're doing the work, you're putting in the work, you're showing everybody that you're like putting in the work and you're getting better little bit by bit by bit. That's pretty great, and I think that that like should be recognized and that should be seen.
And I think you see a lot of the parents in this book who are like that, that they're not where they want to be yet. They're not at that like perfect ally, Yes, Queen person, but they want it. And I think the striving and the wanting it, sometimes that's, you know, that's, that's enough.
Mandy: Because as parents, maybe as cisgender parents or parents who did not have any kind of knowledge or background in gender diversity before either their kid came out or that they learned that their kid was transgender, we're always going to be catching up.
I have fully accepted I will never understand and fully get what my kids are going through, what their life experiences. So I always use the metaphor of a train that like the kid is the conductor of the train, the train has left. And as parents, we're kind of running alongside and, hopefully we'll hop on, but, but we'll always be catching up.
Nico: Yeah. And it's also important to have grace for yourself too. One of the most powerful stories in the book for me was Micah's mom is a white lesbian woman who lives in West Virginia with, with Micah. And she has a really hard time getting Micah's pronouns right. And you would think that like also being queer and, you know, sharing part of a similar journey, that she would get it. And that she would, I think like have like home-field advantage in a way to use the sports metaphor on this podcast. I am sorry, but you know, it's not that easy for everybody, you know, that she like she has her own cultural upbringing, right? She has the way that she was raised, she has the way that, you know, the way that she was taught things are, right?
And she's still working through that. And at the same time, it's just, you know, she's a woman in her late fifties who just forgets stuff a lot of the time, who's also dealing with brain damage because of an accident, right? She, she still has all this stuff that she's working through. But she's so hard on herself that as much as anybody in the book might judge her for almost never getting Micah's pronouns right.
Like she judged herself so much more harshly. And that really broke my heart because you, you know, She's such a good mom in a lot of ways. This is just like one of those little ways in which she has some room to grow. And I think we do a lot in the chapter of providing space for that, of making sure that Dawn, Micah's mom, feels seen and feels validated and that you can be a good parent and still be learning, you know? And I think a lot of the parents that I know do have that kind of similar relationship. They are really hard on themselves. They do beat themselves up when they don't get everything right. They're always apologizing for themselves.
Like, sorry, sorry, sorry. And it's good to, you know, recognize, right? Like, you know, apologizing can be good. Right. And it could be a good way of recognizing that you do have learning to do, but I don't want that apologizing for anybody to be like a source of trauma, you know, or to be like based on, you know, this, internal struggle for them.
I think to me the struggle should be external. It's just about how do we all show up for each other? Like how do we be the best for one another? So I, I just hope for me that this book inspires people to be their best and always be striving to be their best, but also to just like cut yourself some slack when you're not, you know, who among us is their best self all the time? Like I'm not, so I wouldn't expect that of anybody else either.
Mandy: Mm hmm that I always tell parents just give yourself some grace, space and grace, like you said the trying is the important part and I like that, but I did think like that's the opposite of what Yoda says, so now I'm gonna have to really reconcile these like there is no try. Okay. Um, but that sorry for the Star Wars reference. Um, But it is and the kids know that you're trying and so that that is the important thing.
Okay I have taken up so much of your time and thank you so much for your time today. Okay. Where can people find you? Where can they buy the book? Where, where do you want them to go?
Nico: Well, I hope they can't find me physically anywhere, but I'm online. It was just funny when you're like, where can they find you? I'm like, God, I hope they don't find me. That sounds scary.
Mandy: On line. Okay. Uh,
Nico: Online, they can find me at Queer News Daily. That is my Instagram account that I am currently taking a little bit of a break from due to some online harassment. So that's fun. Um, but when it comes to the book, yeah, these things that we all deal with, unfortunately, every day. Um, but when it comes to the book itself, it is, as we have mentioned, available everywhere in stores on October 8th.
But you can also pre-order it online and I beg all of you to please do that because pre-orders are so important for the industry. They do a lot of good, especially for a book like this, because I'll be honest, we've had a really hard time getting like mainstream media buy-in. I use like big air quotes there that like queer people and like trans folks and like parents of trans kids have been like so welcoming and affirming and really understood the need for this book, right?
But when it comes to like trying to get the, I'm not, I'm trying not to say any names, but when I, when it comes to trying to get the bigger power players and like gatekeepers to like, to, you know, give us any kind of coverage on a platform that's been really hard. So like showing people that there is an audience for this book. There's a need for it. Um, and that matters to people. I think that'll be really important because it's not that I'm thinking about my own bottom line here. Although, you know, goal does want to make some money. Um, it's that that's how we tell other people about the book. You know, that's how other people find out about it.
Like I'm doing everything I can right now to email LGBT groups, like to just get the word out as much as possible, but I can only do so much. I'm only one person, right? And so much of that has to be just organic, right? And there are certain ways that like people can organically find out about this, that happen when the book is just a little bit successful.
So I want it to be that self-perpetuating engine just because I want people to know that this exists. I want people to know that there's a resource out there that speaks to their lives that can make them just feel more humanized that so many of us are just like being dehumanized right now as trans people, as queer people, as parents of like, of trans and queer people, right?
We're just robbed of our humanity by this discourse that treats people as literal child abusers if they're just like supporting and loving their kids for who they are. And I think that a project like this seeing people living their lives, like healing, like going through stuff, but then, growing and becoming better.
That's really important. And there's just not a lot like that. So I just want people to know that this exists so that way they can have it, they can benefit from it and they can heal too. I think we all just need a little bit of healing right now. We've been through a really traumatic eight years and I don't think we talk about that enough.
Yeah. And how often do we have the chance really to heal from all that? And I don't think that this book can heal everybody's struggles. I'm not wacky here. I think it can be a reminder that we can do that, that a little bit of healing is possible right now.
So like, I don't, it's funny I don't know if I've gotten that yet from this book. I'm still doing like my healing from having written it, but I hope that the gift for folks is not like going on the entire journey of healing, but just showing people that it does exist. People have done it. You can do it too.
Mandy: Gosh, what a wonderful message. And I think, and see again, there's the change there. You are changing the world. So I don't want to hear that again. So listener, if you want to show gratitude to Nico for their time today and for all their incredible work in so many ways, please go pre-order the book, if you're listening to this before October 8th. After October 8th, go buy the book, it is sure to be fabulous and I cannot wait to read it. So again, thank you for your time and I wish you well.
Nico: Yeah, thank you. This was great.