Trandescendant

Trans kids are not your political scapegoat. As early voting opened in Texas, a glossy pamphlet landed in mailboxes across the state, addressed to the students in the house. It coached trans teens on getting care out of state and even on becoming legally emancipated from their parents. The trans organization it pointed to says it never sent it. The group on the return address turned out to be a co...

We are all wrong sometimes. What matters is what we say next. Most of us reach for one of two reflexes: we defend ourselves, or we fall all over ourselves apologizing. Both turn the moment into something about us instead of the person we hurt. Dale Carnegie wrote about a better way back in 1936, and it still works. Joe and Rya share five simple points to remember the next time it's your turn...

What do you do when the people who promised to take you in close the door? A local pastor and youth director spent six months planning their youth group's mission trip. After driving the whole day in the bus, they learned they were not welcome. Why? Because the youth group included LGBTQ kids. With nowhere safe to stay, they had to decide whether to go home or keep going. What happened next s...

You might think coming out is one brave conversation and then it is over. That framing sets you up to be blindsided by everything that comes after. Nobody warns you that you will have to come out again for the rest of your life. Rya describes what she wishes someone had handed her before she came out, and Joe fills in the part only a parent can see. National Coming Out Day is Sunday, October 11, 2...

Think about the person who gave you hope when you needed it most. Somebody did. Maybe they said one sentence and never knew it mattered. Harvey Milk built an entire movement on it at a time when hope was in very short supply. Joe and Rya trace what happens to people when hope runs out, and what it takes to put it back. Is there someone in your life right now who needs the hope you were given? This...

When his daughter came out, Joe suggested she dress at home and go back to being someone else the moment she stepped outside. He thought he was keeping her safe. Years later, researchers have put numbers to what those compromises do to a young person, and the numbers are hard to look at. They have the difference down to a list of ordinary, specific behaviors. A parent can love a child completely a...

You have probably felt the pull in both directions. Seeing a queer character on screen for the first time can change what a young person believes is possible for their own life. Watching that same character get written off as a punchline can undo years of careful conversation with a parent who was almost there. So which is it? It's often both. Knowing how to tell the difference is the part no...

What does it actually feel like to be so afraid of coming out as LGBTQ+ that dying starts to look like the reasonable option? Rya lived it. These are her real journal entries from 2014, read aloud for the first time, written during the two years she spent bargaining with God over whether she could survive being herself. If you love a gay or transgender person who is still in the closet, you will h...

It is possible to get everything wrong in a perfectly calm voice. Is it true that transgender people had the culture on their side until they pushed too far? Father and daughter, Joe and Rya answer the points one at a time, showing why claims that sound objective can be misleading. You are not wrong to have questions. But this is what it sounds like when the evidence presented gets fact-checked. T...

Most people know the name Stonewall. Almost nobody knows what happened three years earlier in a San Francisco cafeteria. In 1966 the word transgender did not exist yet. Joe and Rya follow the trail from a church basement to the local diner where queens finally stood up to the bullies. History nearly lost this story, and that is exactly why it is worth reclaiming. On the thumbnail: Nearly every pho...

Most parents call the school after something has already gone wrong. By then you are negotiating from behind. The teacher who could have been your ally has already built their own explanation for your kid, and nobody handed them the real one. There is another version of this. You go first, before anyone is upset, and you hand the school the things only you know. Joe and Rya walk through what to sa...

Somebody was probably nervous to send you this link. Nothing here asks you to change your mind. This episode is a conversation between an LGBTQ child and her father, talking about how to stay close to someone you are not going to agree with. Joe and Rya have been doing it for eleven years. If the arguing has cost more than it has won you, that is worth twenty-five minutes. Send us Fan Mail Support...

Content note: This episode includes a personal account of suicidal thoughts and a suicide attempt. If you are struggling, you can reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988 in the US, any time. What do you do when the life you built is wrong? Jess Betts-Nelson chased the marriage, the four kids, the business and the white picket fence for nine years. But you can't mar...

When someone you love disagrees with you about LGBTQ issues, faith, or politics, there is a better way through than fighting. It starts with knowing the difference between a person seeking understanding and a person seeking victory. Learn to tell the two apart and stop wasting your heart on conversations that were never going to move. Most of us were never taught how to do this. There is another w...

Have you ever loved someone you could not talk yourself out of, no matter how much simpler life would have been if you could? King David knew that feeling. Joe and Rya look at the famous Bible story with fresh eyes, asking whether David was actually bisexual. LGBTQ+ readers may meet an ancestor right in the pages of the Bible. You will never read this story the same way again. Thumbnail Image by O...

Maybe you have a question you stopped asking out loud, because the last time you tried you got corrected on your wording or treated like the enemy. So here is something rare. Someone willing to take your hardest objection and build it stronger than you could, then give it an honest answer instead of a script. Rya spent years as a conservative evangelical pastor who held the skeptic's case and...

What if the most important thing you do for your child has nothing to do with whether you understand them yet? Loving someone well doesn't have to mean you agree with everything they do. You only have to be good at the first part. Joe and Rya show how small, everyday choices pull a child closer or push them farther away. The one thing you cannot afford to lose is the relationship itself. Your...

Kris Ripper changed the gender marker on her license because Kansas law required it. Then a rainy night traffic stop over her headlights turned into a ten minute interrogation and the threat of jail time, all for doing exactly what the state told her to. Joe and Rya trace how a law sold as making IDs accurate for police did the exact opposite the first time it met the real world, and ask the quest...

What does it feel like to walk into a place where you finally get to stop explaining yourself? For a lot of people, that place is Pride. This time the microphone belongs to the community itself, real voices recorded right there at the festival. A woman who came out the day she met her wife. A mom who accepted her kid without a second's hesitation. A drag performer in seven layers of tights an...

Most stories about being LGBTQ+ start with what it costs. But ask a queer person if they'd trade it, and most won't. The road that demands so much also gives so much back. And the gifts are not small. You may be carrying something you once wished you could give away, only to discover it became the very thing that made your life worth living. Image by greenmelinda ( Creative Commons ) Sen...

Stonewall was a riot, not a parade. Fifty-seven years later, that fact still shapes every argument about what Pride should be. The people inside the LGBTQ+ community disagree more than you might think. A gay man who fought for marriage equality says the work is done. A trans woman says the backlash proves visibility still matters. A queer author says corporate Pride sold the movement out. All thre...

Some relationships feel harder than they should be. The conversations that used to flow now feel careful. The distance keeps quietly growing. Most advice tells you to talk it out, set boundaries, communicate better, pick the right words. But what if the most important thing you could do has nothing to do with conversation skills at all? One single practice has been studied in depth, and it might b...

Reed Erickson used his fortune to quietly build the foundation of transgender healthcare in America. The first gender clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital existed because of his funding. So do many of the medical pathways trans people still rely on today. He was eccentric, generous, problematic, and absolutely essential. Joe and Rya kick off Pride Month by getting to know an ancestor of the transgende...

At some time in your life, you've probably tried to convince someone that LGBTQ+ people deserve respect and equality. You presented facts, you raised your voice, and you walked away more frustrated than when you started. It's so easy to assume the worst about people who disagree. What if there was a better way? If you've ever wanted to reach someone on the other side of the LGBTQ+ c...

Students rehearsed Omar Thomas's "A Mother of a Revolution" for months. Then their school board banned it. Joe and Rya unpack the Watertown Wisconsin controversy that's now national news and ask the real question underneath it: can honoring LGBTQ history be considered indoctrination when the music has no words?  Send us Fan Mail Support the show