MANY VOICES, ONE CALL
Many Voices, One Call is SUNY Schenectady's student-centered podcast for courageous, honest, open, and unscripted conversations about all those things that move us, make us curious, and concern us -- as students, faculty, staff, or simple, as people!
MANY VOICES, ONE CALL
Many Voices - One Call: Season Two/Episode Three: Safe Spaces for LGBTQI+ students
Join host Professor Babette Faehmel and student cohosts Val and Zia for a discussion of what real inclusion means for LGBTQI+ and Trans* students, of what makes a space a truly safe one for non-binary people, and of how to be an effective ally.
Val and Zia are the President and the Vice President, respectively, of SUNY Schenectady's Pride Alliance. They are joined by Pride Alliance advisors Jacquie Keleher, Director of Library Services, and Mykha'el Wilson, Accounting Instructor in the Division of Business, Criminal Justice and Law, as well as Justice Dazzle, Transgender Activist, Poet, and author.
The views voiced on this episode reflect the lived experiences and uncensored opinions of the guests; they do not necessarily capture the full diversity of attitudes within a larger community, nor do they express an official view of SUNY Schenectady.
Babette Faehmel, Host: 00:05
Many Voices, One Call is the podcast you didn't know you wanted. It's space for courageous, honest, open and unscripted conversations about diversity, equity, inclusion, teaching, learning, and all the other things that move us. It is where students, faculty staff, alumni, leadership, and community guests reinvent higher education, one episode at a time. On today's episode, I'm joined by two student co-hosts, Val and Zia, the president and the vice president, respectively, of SUNY Schenectady's Pride Alliance Student Club, and also by the club advisors, Jacquie Keleher and Mykha'el Wilson, and further by Justice Dazzle, transgender activist, poet and author. Jennifer Malave is on a well-deserved spring break. Before we get started, we do a round. Everybody once again introduces themselves so the listener can link the name and the voice, and you tell our listeners whatever you think is really needed for them to know about you. Justice, do you want to start?
Justice Dazzle: 01:06
All right, yeah, I can start. Hey everybody, my name is Justice Dazzle. My pronouns are she, her, hers. I am a poet, activist, professional IT person, web programmer, gamer, all that type of stuff. I live here in Schenectady, moved here in 2018, and pretty much immediately got involved in LGBT activism here in the city of Schenectady and am involved in a whole bunch of different things, you know, as well as supporting BLM and as well as disabled and autism acti... (Enunciates.) activism, not Activision. That's the word that started popping up... and I think that's it.
Babette Faehmel: 02:00
When did you say did you come?
Justice Dazzle: 02:06
Oh, 2018.
Babette Faehmel:
Okay.
Justice Dazzle: 02:08
Yeah, I'm from way up north originally, right on the Canadian border.
Babette Faehmel: 02:12
Oh la-la.
Zia, Co-Host: 02:15
My name is Zia, my pronouns are they, them, theirs, and I am a general dabbler in hedonism. I do things that I think are going to be fun and are generally fun and are worthwhile and a good time. So, yeah, I do whatever I want, ignoring the consequences. But yeah, I've lived in Schenectady my entire whole life, 21 years, never once being anywhere else but Schenectady, New York. Not even Albany, New York. No, sir. Schenectady.
Babette Faehmel: 03:01
Not even Niskayuna?
Zia: 03:01
Not even Niskayuna. You cannot pay me to live there. I don't understand. I don't understand.
Babette Faehmel: 03:10
I take your word. I take your word.
Zia: 03:12
Yeah. This is where I live. This is what I do. I'm a freelance artist on the side of being a student. Family of artists. My mom has a ton of murals around Schenectady.
Babette Faehmel: 03:25
Oh, where?
Zia: 03:26
She's got one—it's like down by Broadway?
Babette Faehmel: 03:31
Uh-huh.
Zia: 03:32
Like, you know where Pinhead Susan's is?
Babette Faehmel: 03:34
Yes.
Zia: 03:35
So straight down that street you'll see the mural. It's, like, the hill with all of the kids and the air balloon.
Babette Faehmel: 03:43
Okay.
Zia: 03:44
She did that with a couple of students from the Hamilton Hill Art Center and my uncle.
Babette Faehmel: 03:48
Cool.
Jacquie Keleher: 03:49
That's awesome.
Val, Co-Host: 03:50
I'm Val. My pronouns are they, them, theirs as well. I'm the president of the SCCC Pride Club—have been for a year or two now. I do things sometimes.
Zia: 04:03
You sure do.
Val: 04:04
I do things sometimes.
Babette Faehmel: 04:06
Elaborate.
Val: 04:08
That's it. No. There’s no elaboration. Sometimes I do things.
Justice Dazzle: 04:11
Sometimes you do things, sometimes you don't.
Val: 04:13
Sometimes I do things, sometimes I don't. I was on a panel at last year's Pride for Ace and Aro Awareness. I've been a part of the Pride Club and the Drama Club at SCCC since I started here. I've helped out with events and productions. As soon as I have to talk about the things I do, I forget what they are.
Babette Faehmel: 04:37
I hear (Unintelligible.)
Zia: 04:38
You play the harp.
Val: 04:39
I do play the harp. Forgot about that. (Laughter.) I play the harp—I've been playing the harp since seventh grade?
Babette Faehmel: 04:49
I know Val, you are in the Music Department, correct? And Zia, you are Humanities and Liberal Arts?
Zia: 04:59
I’m Humanities. But every now and then I find that something musical will tickle my fancy, and so I'll...
Babette Faehmel: 05:03
And you do whatever you want anyhow.
Zia: 05:04
Oh, absolutely.
Babette Faehmel: 05:05
Okay. Yeah.
Val: 05:06
Yeah, sometimes, when I'm working on my audio projects, I drag Zia with me and make them help me. By help, I mean be moral support. They sit in the room with me.
Zia: 05:14
I have no idea what I'm doing. I can't read music.
Babette Faehmel: 05:16
Did you meet here, or did you know one another from the community?
Val: 05:20
Technically, we met in high school. Neither of us remember meeting in high school, but we were at high school in the same time in the same club.
Zia: 05:27
In the same club, the same exact club.
Babette Faehmel: 05:29
And I would presume that was Schenectady High?
Val: 05:31
Yes.
Babette Faehmel: 05:31
Because Zia doesn't go anywhere.
Zia: 05:36
Nope, no. I go places, but I always come back. (Crosstalk.) I'm like a boomerang.
Val: 05:41
I grew up here, left here for, like, two years—came back.
Babette Faehmel: 05:45
It's a beautiful place.
Val: 05:46
It's got a gravitational pull.
Babette Faehmel: 05:47
I don't blame you.
Val: 05:48
It's like a planet.
Babette Faehmel: 05:51
All right, Mykha'el, that's a hard one to follow...
Mykha'el Wilson: 05:54
I know...
Babette Faehmel: 05:55
Make yourself...
Val: 05:55
Be better than us.
Babette Faehmel: 05:56
...be known.
Zia: 05:57
You've got to tell us you play the sousaphone.
Mykha'el Wilson: 05:59
I actually used to play the tuba, so I have played a sousaphone. My name is Mykha'el Wilson, Accounting Instructor. Pronouns are he, him, his. And I am very passionate about creating a safe space for the LGBT community within institutions of higher learning. I was very active in the LGBT and Ally Club at Fulton Montgomery Community College. And then at the College of Saint Rose, I was also active in that club as well as in Residence Life created an LGBT and Ally house, so that students that were experimenting with their particularly gender expression had a safe place to do that instead of being separated into a, you know, all male or female identified student housing, particularly as a first year student. So, I think accounting is the best, very closely followed by LGBT rights and inclusion. That's all I got.
Babette Faehmel: 06:58
Oh, that's a lot.
Jacquie Keleher, Guest: 07:00
That's also hard to follow.
Zia: 07:01
Yeah, I can't do numbers.
Jacquie Keleher: 07:02
Right, right? Me neither.
Val: 07:03
Don't know what a number is. That's why I'm doing music. (Laughter.)
Jacquie Keleher: 07:07
I'm Jackie Keleher. I'm the Director of Library Services on campus. I'm also very proud to be the co-advisor for the Pride Alliance at SUNY Schenectady County Community College. The Pride Alliance accepted me as their advisor this past fall, and it's been fantastic.
Val: 07:25
The Pride Alliance refuses to let you go as advisor.
Jacquie Keleher: 07:26
Oh, that's fantastic. I really don't want to go anywhere.
Zia: 07:30
You're stuck with us.
Jacquie Keleher: 07:31
Perfect, it's good. I'm an ally to this community and passionate about it. I am originally a Western New Yorker, but I moved here to Schenectady from New Orleans, where I lived for about eight years. I moved here five years ago and have been at Schenectady since.
Babette Faehmel: 07:52
I still don't quite get that. From New Orleans to Schenectady.
Justice Dazzle: 07:55
Why would you move from New Orleans to New York?
Val: 07:56
Gravitational pull. (Crosstalk.)
Yes, it's like a planet. It just drags you in. (Crosstalk.) There's a guy in the middle of Schenectady with a robe and he just kind of lassos people in and goes like this.
Zia: 08:07
Oh, that's me. Yeah, you've seen me.
Val: 08:08
Yeah.
Babette Faehmel: 08:09
As long as that, as that guy is bringing in all the good people, I don't have a problem with that guy. (Laughter.) Speaking about guys—so, we already, we already kind of got to the topic of pronouns, because you all, like, most of you, well...
Val: 08:25
I’m sure you have pronouns.
Babette Faehmel: 08:26
I was—the exception of me, I guess. And you?
Jacquie Keleher: 08:29
I forgot too, yes.
Babette Faehmel: 08:31
Well, they came up. Can you talk a little more about why pronouns matter and how they matter?
Val: 08:42
Pronouns tend to be an important part of self-expression, especially when it comes to gender. And when you're publicly... transitioning—that's the word. I remember the word. When you're publicly transitioning, that tends to be one of the first things that you tell people. Your pronouns are now this, this or this.
Justice Dazzle: 09:03
Or this, this and this.
Val: 09:04
This, this and this, this, this, also this and sometimes this. You can have so many pronouns at once, because pronouns are not your gender, they're your gender expression. But it also tends to be something that meets a lot of pushback when you tell people that, or if you say your pronouns are this and your physical expression is something else. So, if you say that your pronouns are he, him, his, and you're wearing a skirt, people will push back on that. And it's incredibly important for people to accept that pronouns: A, are a personal decision; B, not a sign of your very specific gender label that you may or may not choose to use; and, C, aren't your other person's business to choose. You can't choose someone else's pronouns. It's not your job.
Zia: 09:52
Unless they ask you to, which is a very rare occasion. I don't think that happens often, but, like, I don't know, I think it'd be funny. But yeah, I think you're 100% correct. Pronouns are, for many people, a crucial aspect of their gender expression and their identity as a whole. So, you know, when you take into consideration this, you know, the constructs that we have within our norms. Your gender expression is associated with your pronouns. So, most of the time when people are transitioning from female to male, male to female, they'll be like, ‘well, I would like you to use these ones for me. These ones feel right. I like this better than the other. This just works for me. This makes me feel good. It validates my expression and my identity.’ And, you know, it's such like a little thing that means a lot to a lot of people.
Val: 10:57
It's also important because there tends to be the idea that pronouns are very specifically something that's in the community, like people outside of the community who aren’t allies: a lot of transphobes, homophobes tend to say they don't have pronouns when the discussion comes up. And then you're like, ‘okay, so you just go by your name?’ Which isn't true: they have pronouns. It's just that they tend to be binary pronouns, and they haven't changed them. So, they don't tend to recognize that they do use pronouns. It's a normalized thing and they only don't like it ‘cause they don't like that this person has chosen to express themselves in a way that makes them feel comfortable.
Zia: 11:35
Absolutely, I think as a whole people need to go back to first grade and learn the grammar again and learn that pronouns are not explicitly something having to do with the LGBT community and that it's grammar. (Laughter.) It is grammar that you learn in school. Pronouns are he, him, his, they, them, their—referring to one thing, referring to a noun. It's the proper noun. Like, I don't understand this hang-up with it where I don't have pronouns Like yes, you do.
Val: 12:11
I can assure you you've had them your whole life. In fact, you've been using them.
Babette Faehmel: 12:16
Do you mean when people say, ‘I don't have pronouns,’ that they mean this doesn't matter to me?
Justice Dazzle: 12:23
No, a lot of times. What will happen when you have someone that is—let's just call a spade, a spade: a bigot—and you ask them, you know, ‘hey, these are my pronouns, what are yours?’ And they'll be like, ‘my pronouns are attack helicopter or I don't have pronouns,’ and them not recognizing that not that doesn't mean, ‘oh, I am agender and I don't use pronouns, or I use my name.’ They think that, ‘oh well, that is something that only a trans person would use.’ So, I don't have those because I am not like you. I am different than you.
Val: 13:05
It also pushes the idea that not using pronouns—especially when it is explained that you do use pronouns, your pronouns are just the ones you were assigned at birth—is also an othering thing. Because there's then the separation of, ‘okay, so you have pronouns, you don't have pronouns,’ and then that becomes a whole other thing that is seen as bad and weird. When it's not. It's completely valid to not have pronouns and prefer to just be referred to as your name.
Zia: 13:33
Absolutely.
Justice Dazzle: 13:34
Right. Like there's a minister in town who—Wendy goes by Wendy, you know, and that's perfectly fine, you know. And it takes a little getting used to learn how to speak about someone while only using that person's name instead of a third-person pronoun.
Val: 13:57
But it's still a very similar process, as someone who used to go by she/her pronouns and is now going by he/him pronouns. And it's also important to normalize changing your pronouns more than once, because there is a very high chance that—yeah, sure, it is a phase and that's not a bad thing. It's valid to go through phases of life where you're learning about yourself and how you identify and how you feel comfortable presenting yourself to other people, and sometimes that involves changing how you label yourself or changing how you want other people to refer to you, and that's okay and it shouldn't be seen as bad.
Zia: 14:32
Absolutely.
Val: 14:33
And there's a lot of language that adults, especially as I was growing up, would use towards me where I would be interested in something or express interest in something, or express interest in how I presented myself, and they'd be like, ‘it's just a phase.’ And it was for some of those things, and for some of those things it wasn't. But either way it was important to my development that I was able to explore those things of myself and how I saw the world.
Zia: 15:03
Absolutely.
Justice Dazzle: 15:04
And sometimes those interests are to the level of some people, like, you know, like guns and alcohol, you know. But if you come up, go up to one of those guys and say, well, ‘it's just a phase.’ Can you imagine how they would react? (Laughter.)
Val: 15:20
If it's guns... (Laughter.)
Justice Dazzle: 15:22
If it's guns, it could be very bad, or whatever it is, you know. Whether it's art, whether it's music, whether it's—you know. There were those kids that had the emo or goth phase in high school. Some of them stopped and some of them are still that way.
Val: 15:38
And that’s okay.
Justice Dazzle: 15:39
I have friends that are in their 40s and they still are just learning to use anything besides for black makeup.
Zia: 15:47
I mean...
Val: 15:48
If you're not hurting someone else with your interests or your expression, then it should never be an issue to express those things. You should feel comfortable and safe expressing that, ‘hey, you want to try out these pronouns. Hey, you want to dress this way for a while and see if you like it. Hey, you want to try this hobby.’
Zia: 16:07
Exactly. I think that most of the pushback from—I would say—people who don't understand is because they don't understand, and they don't want to be embarrassed.
Babette Faehmel: 16:19
Okay.
Zia: 16:19
That's what I've experienced. It's a lot of, ‘I don't understand this thing. I know the people that we know aren't going to understand this thing.’
Babette Faehmel: 16:29
Yeah, yeah.
Zia: 16:30
‘So, it's a weird phase that you're having. I get it, you're a weird kid right now, but please do not bring it up. It's weird, just let's ignore it.’
Babette Faehmel: 16:36
Right.
Zia: 16:37
And I think that's an issue, like, a lot of people tend to have when they love somebody in their life, but they don't—they're not quite getting it. But their desire to save face in front of others as a whole and be accepted by the community overpowers the want to fully connect and understand with this individual.
Val: 17:04
It's like when you correct a teacher in class and they immediately go, ‘what's wrong with you? Or send you to the principal or just start screaming.’
Babette Faehmel: 17:11
Oh my god. Well, that's actually what I was interested in and where I wanted to go to. Because you said pushback and you talked about, maybe, like, parental reaction, responses, right? And that's one thing, if it's from a parent, like, that's a—that's not our, like, professional environment here, that we—. I mean, it's not something that we necessarily deal with. But in an educational classroom setting that's supposed to be inclusive: what can we do to make you feel included and welcome? And what does pushback look like? That's just, like, a teacher, a professor who's screaming and getting and telling you what's wrong with you. That's absolutely, completely unacceptable. I really hope that this doesn't happen here. But let's just talk about the positive. What does a welcoming, inclusive, empowering classroom for you look like?
Val: 18:11
In the classroom for me, I've seen teachers who will have a sheet, and they ask for your preferred name if you have one. I have teachers who will use the wrong pronouns on accident, but if you correct them, they will correct themselves and say thank you for correcting them. I have teachers who might not hand out like a sign-up sheet or something where you can put down your preferred name, but if you go to them, they're incredibly receptive and they immediately enact the change. They'll write it down on their roster. They'll make sure to have that information there for them. I have a lot of professors and also faculty in the school who make sure to include their pronouns in their email signature. Normalizing things like people having preferred names, even if for a lot of people, it ends up just being a nickname. Making sure that you have pronouns in your email signatures, where it becomes a normalized thing, everyone has pronouns. You're just making sure people know what they are. Being able to confide in a teacher and feel safe doing it. All of that is very, very important, especially in school, where faculty and staff are all authority figures and if they don't make you feel safe, then you don't feel safe.
Zia: 19:26
Absolutely. I definitely think the most important thing, it begins with the staff making sure that when they address students, they let them know, ‘hey, it's safe to take me aside. Let me know what your pronouns are. If you have any specific ones that you want me to use that are different from the presentation that I see, if you have a preferred name or you know if that ever changes along the line, just tell me, let me know, email me, pull me aside, whatever you have to do.’ Because I think it can be really daunting if you're in the middle of class and your teacher is like, ‘pronouns,’ as you're going around the class and...
Jacquie Keleher: 20:15
That was my question actually.
Zia: 20:16
Yeah. Like, let's say, you're the first one whose pronouns don't necessarily match your presentation. Nobody really wants to go first because what if you're the only one, and then everybody's looking at you like, ‘okay.’
Jacquie Keleher: 20:31
So, it's interesting that you bring that up, because we were in a professional development session a couple years ago, and one of the things we had to do was work around the—you know, introduce ourselves in the room and use our pronouns, and I thought, what if I'm super uncomfortable using my pronouns in this space with my colleagues even? So, why would we put a student in that position?
Val: 20:51
It's also that if you end up being the only person and your pronouns don't end up matching your gender expression, that immediately clocks you. You're part of the LGBTQ. If there are people in that room that are against that, you're now that person that they can target immediately.
Zia: 21:05
You’re immediately unsafe.
Justice Dazzle: 21:05
And you've immediately taken a potentially safe space and made it a unsafe space.
Val: 21:09
Yeah, and you've now identified to everyone else in the room that you're different from them, and they know where you go to school, or they know where you work.
Jacquie Keleher: 21:24
They learn things about you that you're talking about in class, right? Depending on the class, that could be a wide range of topics that, you know, and all of a sudden it's people see you through a different lens that they might not. So...
Val: 21:35
Right. it, I would say. Setups like that do more harm than good, despite what they want to do, so desperately. It's ultimately just really harmful. It puts somebody in danger, it could put multiple people in danger and it gives people who don't have the best intentions all of this information where this person is, where they frequent, and it's just not safe. Opening it up so people can come to you and let you know, ‘yeah hey, these are my pronouns. Do you want me to use them in class for you? No, but in our private correspondence you can use them for me, please, and thank you.’ I don't feel comfortable having them publicly in class, but this is what my deal is.
Babette Faehmel: 22:29
So, I know of a number of instructors here who sent out a link to a survey at the beginning of the semester, basically asking students, ‘what do you want me to know about you and what are you comfortable sharing with class?’ And then you get at who is, like, an English language learner, who is an international student, who is LGBTQ, who wants you to use a different pronoun than the one that is like officially registered and I think—would you say that's a safe way to do it and an okay thing?
Justice Dazzle: 22:59
Absolutely. Because that allows people to... yes and no.
Babette Faehmel: 23:07
Okay.
Justice Dazzle: 23:08
Because if it's before the beginning of class, I may not know, ‘hey, there's somebody that I walked in and I immediately know that I do not want them to know this about me.’ I am going to stay as incognito as possible, but if I get the survey before and I'm like, ‘oh yeah, that's fine,’ I don't have that. But then the first day of class I walk in and now this instructor has already started referencing me with something different than my presentation. You know, like, because every situation I walk into, I have to judge on whether or not it is safe for me to be fully me or not and how much I want to press that. Because there are some situations where I feel safe, comfortable, and I have the spoons to correct people. And there are ones where I don't, and where I want other people in my life who know me and who care for me to be able to correct them. And other ones where, no, I don't think that we would be safe doing that. And so, it's a constant judgment call.
Val: 24:25
When I started coming here, there were very specific people that I would not tell that I had changed my name because I knew that they'd be coming in contact with my parents, and if they were to use a different name or pronouns for me in front of my parents I would have felt unsafe. I probably would have been unsafe when I went home.
Babette Faehmel: 24:42
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's another thing.
Zia: 24:45
Yeah, it's... You don't want to make it so that your students are unsafe when they leave the building, and you don't want to make it so it's unsafe when they come to the building.
Babette Faehmel: 25:01
Right, right.
Val: 25:01
It being a safe space needs to continue beyond when you leave the room and the presence of someone who can stop a situation, if it were to occur.
Zia: 25:10
Exactly. It can't be like tag rules you run to base and you're safe. But the moment you leave base, it's not safe anymore. We can't have that. That just... nobody likes that. It doesn't work out.
Jacquie Keleher: 25:21
It's a great analogy.
Zia: 25:22
Yeah, it's... We're not running around going, ‘ahhhh, school, I'm safe!’ And then you leave and you're like, ‘uh-oh, I gotta go home now.’
Justice Dazzle: 25:40
And it's higher stakes because you're not playing a game where, ‘oh, I'll guess you lost.’
Zia: 25:38
Exactly.
Justice Dazzle: 25:39
It's, you know, that person could react violently. That person could react... really violently.
Val: 25:47
It's a matter of your physical safety.
Justice Dazzle: 25:48
It's your physical safety, potentially your life. Your mental and emotional well-being—depending on how they react to it. You know, we are lucky in New York in the fact that we have GENDA which protects us so that we can use the bathroom we want to. We can, you know, we can't be fired for being trans or non-binary or agender—being non-cisgender. You know we can't be kicked out of an apartment. That doesn't mean that people aren't going to do it but call it, it's for something else. And you know if somebody comes after us, you know we're one of the 11 States—out of 50—where gay panic and trans panic are not an acceptable legal precedent. In 39 States if I, for example, went on a date with someone and then they found out that I was trans, and they killed me, they could stand up in a court and they would walk away with no charges and a free person. Because my identity being so different from the norm is so shocking and so horrifying that it is allowable for them to kill me.
Babette Faehmel: 27:08
Yeah.
Justice Dazzle: 27:09
And we're one of 11 states. still in 2022.
Babette Faehmel: 27:11
Yeah, and even here, right? I mean GENDA—you referenced GENDA—Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act still took 16 years to become law after originally introduced, so it's not that...
Justice Dazzle: 27:26
And we're the only state that has that.
Babette Faehmel: 27:28
Yeah, wow, wow!
Zia: 27:30
Like, and thinking about that, you know, when you know about it as an adult. And then you have the younger generation coming up and they—what they have mainly seen of our community has been hate crime, hate crime, hate crime. If you do this: hate crime, hate crime, hate crime, hate crime. And that's what you learn about the world, right? Like, aside from the community that you can build with other people and knowing that there's people like you, you learn immediately that you are in danger.
Val: 28:05
You're coming up in an environment where everything you do is to protect your physical safety. You're coming up in an environment where you learn to keep pepper spray on you, just in case. You're coming up in an environment where you feel like you have to learn self-defense because if someone comes at you, you need to know how to handle that.
Zia: 28:21
But also, you're growing up in an environment where you are learning that if you defend yourself, you can still get in trouble for it. How do you win? And now you're coming into college, and you want to be respected in your identity, because this is you. But the stakes are so high, it seems like they aren't, and something as small as a pronoun and you could lose.
Babette Faehmel: 28:54
Yeah, and something as small than a pronoun is already such a big thing that, because some people make it such a big thing.
Zia: 29:00
Exactly.
Babette Faehmel: 29:01
And college should for—. I mean college usually is for people, like, a place to explore their identity, like, who they want to be or not to be, right? It's like it should be like a playground for that kind of stuff. So, Mykha'el, because as somebody who was at Fulton Montgomery and Saint Rose, how have you seen these issues be handled? Like inclusive, welcoming, safe environments?
Mykha'el Wilson: 29:45
The thing that was surprising to me is the institutional barriers that you wouldn't necessarily think of. And then you have the legal barriers of, ‘okay, your legal name is A, but you go by B, your transcript has to have A on it.’ Because legally, unless you change your name. So then, working with security to try and get—and I don't even like the term preferred name, like that's their name—getting their name on their ID badge, with it not being compatible or the same as what's on their birth certificate. You have to get the legal team involved. You have to get Board of Trustees approval for these things. So, it's a lot of work. It's worth it, but it's a lot of work. You know, there are things that I don't think the average person has ever thought about. Like, I'm adopted, and when I was adopted, my last name changed and that gave me a lot of perspective of, you know, you're born and you're told what your gender is. You're told what your pronouns are. You're told what your name is.
30:44
So, even if you're cisgender and you say, ‘I don't like the binary, I'm gonna go by they, them, because I think the binary is not adequate or not okay.’ Even that is a process, and it doesn't even have anything to do with your sexuality. On the flip side, it was really cool to see people kind of band together and really like wave the flag of, ‘let's get this done and let's help these students.’ When I was at Saint Rose, I came up with an idea, because we had themed housing, so we did the LGBT and Ally house, and administration was so about it. So that was really cool and encouraging. The thing, though, that was interesting that I wasn't expecting is the assumption was we wanted this very loud and proud gay house. We're going to decorate it with rainbow flags. We're going to call it the, you know, whatever pride house. And I had to kind of put the brakes on that a little bit with one administrator in particular and say, ‘we kind of want this house to be incognito so that if...’
Justice Dazzle: 31:57
So, it doesn't have a target on it.
Mykha'el Wilson: 31:58
...if Adam...
Zia: 31:59
I was just about to say...
Justice Dazzle: 32:00
Even if you don't live there, just walking in the door, you've now put a target on your back.
Mykha'el Wilson: 32:02
Exactly. And if Adam wants to present as male in class because they feel safe that way and then wants to explore being Angie and wearing dresses and makeup when they're in their dorm, they can feel safe doing that. And it was a place, like you said Babette, like a playground, where they could explore and experiment and kind of figure out—. You know, I think a lot of times we have to try these things on before we know what fits, and having that space allowed that for students, which I thought was really fantastic. But again, there are so many barriers and hurdles that even if everybody quote, ‘gets it,’ and they're in support of it, you still have a lot of hoops that you have to jump through to get students to just... (Whispers.) Am I allowed to swear?
Babette Faehmel: 32:53
Yes. (Laughter.)
Mykha'el Wilson: 32:56
It's like, I don't know if I'm allowed to swear, but I do swear. It's like, can we just put their damn name on their badge that they swipe? And it really doesn't matter at the end of the day if it has their legal name on that particular badge that they're swiping to get access to buildings. Because, look, the College of Saint Rose, like SUNY Schenectady, we know who that person is, we know their social security number. It doesn't matter. It's not material to what that's used for.
Justice Dazzle: 33:24
Plus as someone that works in IT, I know that if you've done good data, the name is not the unique identifier because it's going to change. For 99% of people it's going to change.
Val: 33:36
Your picture is on your ID.
Justice Dazzle: 33:43
They're going to get married so they're going to change their last name. They go by Joey, but their legal name is Joseph. They would have no problem if you went to them and asked to do that.
Mykha'el Wilson: 33:51
Can you put Joey on there? Not a problem.
Justice Dazzle: 33:52
Just because that person is trans, it then becomes a problem.
Babette Faehmel: 33:55
That's a good point.
Zia: 33:56
It's like the name doesn't matter. The numbers are going to stay the same.
Val: 34:04
My student ID number doesn't change if you change my name on it. (Agreement.) I have my student ID number memorized. That's how you identify me.
Justice Dazzle: 34:10
I still have the same ID, they can still look up the speeding tickets I got back in 2010. (Laughter.) I have a lead foot, you know? Like, it's still linked to me. You know my social security number is still the same number, my license number is still the same one, the ID on my birth certificate is still the same, but it's updated on all of those.
Val: 34:32
And it's also the idea that these things are only being pushed back against because of our identity. Because, like you said, if this person was just going by a nickname, there would be no issue.
Babette Faehmel: 34:44
Right, right.
Jacquie Keleher: 34:45
So, the name is from a place of very much a privilege. My email is what one of you called my government name, but professionally I don't use my married hyphen name, so I don't even know who this person is. Like, people will address me by my married name and I'm like publicly and I'm like I, I don't know what they're talking about, right? (Laughter.) So, I'm just, like—and if I find that annoying, like, for someone who absolutely does not identify with that name, it must be so much worse, right? And I'm like—you know, my nickname is on my office door and three people asked me if I didn't want it to be my full name. There's no reason for my full name to be on my office door. That's not what I respond to, right? So, I just I can't imagine the weight of that.
Val: 35:39
I grew up with my last name being mispronounced and that irks me to this day. But then having my name that my first name that I want people to use being blatantly ignored, hits so much deeper.
Jacquie Keleher: 35:51
Right, right.
Babette Faehmel: 35:53
It's like somebody just calling you, I don't know, like Eric, and you say my name is Erin and then, like the person just, like, keeps ignoring it. It's just, like, ‘do you see me? Hello?’
Val: 36:03
And it's willful ignorance at that point. (Agreement.) I know you're wrong about it.
Zia: 36:09
Like, when I explain it to people who don't quite understand the concept of, like, using the wrong pronouns, using the wrong name. I'm like, ‘you know that really annoying thing when you're in a class and somebody has a similar name to you, but they talk more than you, so people use their name more?’ So now, every time somebody refers to you, you're like Janet, but that's... Jane. So, like, everybody's like, ‘oh, hi Jane,’ and you're like, ‘...Janet.’
Babette Faehmel: 36:28
I have to confess I do that a lot, just because, I don't know, my brain... is my brain. But so, let's just say somebody messes up, somebody does mis...
Val: 36:52
There needs to be an environment where it's okay to be corrected and then to simply correct yourself and move on. I think the most inclusive classrooms I've been in where I felt the most comfortable is where the teacher said someone's name or got their pronoun wrong, were corrected on it and they went, ‘thank you. I'm sorry, I messed up.’
Justice Dazzle: 37:09
And then they just moved on.
Val: 37:10
And then they kept going.
Zia: 37:11
Exactly.
Justice Dazzle: 37:12
Because one of the problems, a lot of times, is. . . (Sighs.) If somebody messes up and then you correct them and they're like, ‘oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, blah, blah, blah.’ And they make this big thing out of it. And now they've given you the emotional labor of having to forgive them when it's not okay. You just need to fix it and move on. And it's taken it from being a, ‘thank you and moving on,’ into now everyone's attention is now drawn to this. And if there was anyone in that classroom that or that—whatever the setting is—that person, there's somebody there that's not safe to be around, or that, ‘oh well, now I know what that person's name they don't want to be called and that's what I'm going to call them exclusively.’ They now know that, like, that's where they can, you know, like, and it becomes this whole thing and it's, like, and then I have to make this judgment call every time of am I going to correct this person? Because is it going to be this whole big thing and do I have the energy and the spoons and the emotional bandwidth to handle that right now?
38:17
So, it's when people correct them—don't correct you, it's not, ‘oh well, it's okay now.’ They're done with it. They've been dealing with it all day, all week. I have family members that still. I've been out to them for over three years and my mom still will not use my name or my pronouns. I've legally changed my name. I've told her hundreds of times. I've gone low contact with her and it's still. I will correct her every once in a while, and she'll be like, ‘oh right, I'm sorry.’ And then the next time she uses the name it's right back to my birth name.
Val: 38:58
And in a setting like a classroom, chances are no one else is going to bat for you. It's on you if you want that person to fix it right there have been situations where my teacher has used the wrong name for me and because I knew I was going to be the only one who was going to have an issue with it and try to fix it, I just didn't bother because I was tired it was 9 am in the morning. This is something I deal with constantly. I don't want to do it again. You've been using this name for three years. I'm tired.
Zia: 39:23
Yeah, it's a matter of people don't understand that for the individual experiencing this, it's not just one isolated incident, it's not just, ‘oh, this happened one time.’ No, this happens time and time and time again over a span of weeks, over a span of years, and it just gets old. People don't want to constantly have to explain themselves because it might turn into, I have to justify myself to you. I have to explain myself to you.
Justice Dazzle: 39:55
I have to identify and justify my identity and my existence... on a constant basis.
Zia: 40:01
Ridiculous.
Val: 40:02
I shouldn't have to tell someone that I'm allowed to be a person on a daily basis. I should...
Babette Faehmel: 40:08
It becomes like this psychic burden and this like extra tax on you, like, with every microaggression.
Zia: 40:19
And it's like... I'm gonna be honest with you. You messed up, okay, you're sorry. Whatever. Don't do it again. If you do it again, try not to—don't make a big deal out of it, I'm too damn tired.
Val: 40:32
And it's this thing where you could be in a group of people, everyone else is using the right name and pronouns—and there's just one person—and even with everyone else using the right name and pronouns, you don't know that they're going to defend you if you go, ‘hey, can you use the right name and pronouns too?’ You don't know that they're going to be like, ‘yeah, you're using the wrong ones.’
Justice Dazzle: 40:48
Or even notice.
Val: 40:49
Especially because if this person's been using the wrong name and pronouns for you this entire time in this group of people who know the right ones and are using the right ones, and no one else has tried to correct them or be like, ‘hey, that's not cool,’ then why would you saying anything change that? Why would you saying that, other than making the other people feel guilty about not going to bat for you, make them change their behavior?
Justice Dazzle: 41:14
And are those people that are using the right name and right pronouns but that haven't said a damn thing, are they actually safe for me to be around? Are they healthy for me to be there? Because what else are people saying about me when they're around that I'm not—that they're just letting slide?
Val: 41:33
How do I know that they're not reverting back to my dead name and the wrong pronouns as soon as I walk away?
Zia: 41:39
Exactly.
Babette Faehmel: 41:40
That brings up, I mean, the topic of allyship, like actual meaningful allyship, right? And, like, actual meaningful, like—what is it, bystander intervention and stuff like that? We have, actually, faculty staff around here, we do these professional development, professional research teams and we have one on allyship, we have one on microaggression, and so we are trying to be very conscious of what we can do to make the space inclusive. When you hear allyship, what do you want to see?
Val: 42:14
On a day-to-day basis especially, I just want to see acceptance. I want to see that if you know someone's using the wrong name and pronouns for someone, you're going to correct that person. You're going to make it clear that it's not okay to do that in your presence or at all, and you're going to do something about it if it's going to happen. It needs to be much more often that people who aren't yourself are going to help you with that. Because, like we said, it's exhausting to correct people day in and day out, to have to prove your existence day in and day out and for no one else to help you with that.
Babette Faehmel: 42:51
Yeah. And it should actually be kind of, I mean, I can relate to the this, like, nagging anger, you feel, because I mean I have a thing with the honorific. Is it honorific?
Val: 43:04
Honorifics.
Babette Faehmel: 43:06
I hate Miss, I just cannot stand it, or Missus. I just want to jump at people and say, ‘why does my marital status matter? I do not call you bachelor or husband when it comes to a guy. (Laughter.)
Zia: 43:20
I like that one. Can I use that?
Babette Faehmel: 43:22
Of course.
Zia: 43:23
I love it.
Babette Faehmel: 43:24
Any time. So, I can relate to that, but—where did I want to go with that? Oh, right. (Laughter.) So if we just naturalize these things, like, just talking, like, taking on this, or trying to denaturalize the naturalness of being gendered based on your, I don't know, appearance. Like for anybody, just, like, as a default is—maybe that's a way to go.
Zia: 43:51
Yeah, I like to see when people stop acting like the main character in a coming-of-age activism story.
Babette Faehmel: 43:59
Yeah, Okay,
Zia: 44:03
Where they're like, ‘I am doing so much for this community right now.’ You know the kind of attitude where it's very performance. It's very...
Val: 44:15
You're doing it for show.
Zia: 44:16
Yeah, you're doing it for show.
Val: 44:17
You're not doing it to be helpful.
Zia: 44:18
Or you're making a huge deal out of it. Like when you mess up somebody's pronouns it's the, ‘oh, my god, I'm so sorry. I can't—how could I do this? How can I do something like this?’ And it's like you're making it about yourself.
Babette Faehmel: 44:29
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Zia: 44:30
This isn't about you.
Val: 44:32
It ends up being worse for the other person too, because now you've put a stronger emotional burden on them.
Zia: 44:36
You’ve made them like... you’ve made them the issue.
Val: 44:42
Chances are you've made them incredibly uncomfortable.
Justice Dazzle: 44:47
As well as, ally isn’t an identity, it's a title. And it's not something that I can be like, ‘oh, I'm just—I'm an ally.’ And then not do jack shit. Or, you know, like, stand in a group of people and somebody gets dead named and you act like nothing is wrong and you pretend like that's not happening because you don't want to have to deal with the potential blowback or whatever. When it's like that person is then—is now getting just constantly attacked and you're just standing there, like, watching it happen and doing absolutely nothing about it. But then you go and have a conversation or go online and being like, ‘I'm such a great ally,’ like they were just talking about. As well as, this could be a good or a bad thing, but becoming educated so that when someone comes at—whether it's a group of trans or non-binary or agender people or non-cisgender people online or in a group setting, or whether it's a friend—you don't immediately look to the people that have to deal with this on a constant basis, to correct and educate these people.
46:08
Because, for you, it's information. For us, it's our lives and it's a constant thing. It's the same thing if you're Native American or you're Black or you're somebody in a wheelchair, like those types of things. Those aren't identities that I have. So, I can stand up and I can make those educate, you know, do that education and it doesn't grate through me. For them, it does, in the same way that gender and transphobia—and just plain and simple bigotry when it's dealing with gender—does for me. But then I will be standing in a group of people who are all cis and something happens and I'm the one that gets turned to fix it.
Val: 46:58
Being an ally is a role you take on and you need to constantly be educating yourself and making sure that you're taking in other people's voices. If you have a trans friend who says that this is an issue, then you need to be aware of that and you need to accept that and not try and talk over that person. Being an ally is a supportive role. It's not trying to take over the voices or say what you think is right about this issue. You are supporting and you're learning and you're helping.
Justice Dazzle: 47:30
In addition, trans people can be transphobic. So, if you're—you have one friend that said, ‘oh, hey, this is okay.’ Okay, maybe that's okay for them, you know, like, but for the other 99.99999 repeating percent of trans people it's not okay. And they've said so. I can't tell you how many times I've been in, like, a discussion online where I'm like, ‘that's not okay,’ and this person will literally be like—. You know, it's the same thing as like, ‘I'm not racist, I have a Black friend,’ you know. Wow, okay, you just pulled that, and it's the same thing. It's like, ‘I have this trans friend,’ or, you know, ‘a couple people I know mentioned this.’ Well, I have never met your friend but, who knows, you could be best friends with Blair White and so I don't want anything that she has, and I don't want you to speak to me in the way that she would. So, why don't you listen to an actual person and at least, when we're in this conversation, react and do the things that we are agreeing as societal, conditional, transactional rules that we are currently in?
Val: 48:45
Be at least a little bit open-minded. You're not going to take one news source and go: that's correct, that is the end-all, be-all for this information. You've got to cross-reference. You've got to talk to more than one person.
Zia: 48:56
Yeah, like taking one person's opinion and going, ‘that is how the trans people—they are.’
Justice Dazzle: 49:03
‘That’s the trans agenda!’
Zia: 49:04
‘Those are the trans’s...’
Val: 49:05
‘Those are the trans people.’
Zia: 49:06
‘They are all... they all do this thing.’
Val: 49:09
‘That is the entire trans community right there. That person, there they are.’
Zia: 49:15
One hundred percent. ‘I've got it from my best friend, Blair White.’ Some people are part of a community but they're also bat-shit insane... and against their community.
Val: 49:25
We all know the crazy people are the loudest. Come on.
Zia: 49:27
Kanye.
Val: 49:28
He's Black, but he don't speak for Black people.
Zia: 49:30
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We... we put him elsewhere.
Val: 49:35
He's Black, but we've kind of contained him in this little box.
Zia: 49:37
Absolutely. That's what I think we...
Justice Dazzle: 49:41
It's the box his MAGA hat came in.
Zia: 49:41
Yeah, yeah. We put that on top of the box just for enrichment. Keep him happy.
Justice Dazzle: 49:46
You can take one person's word for it and that can be your rules.
Val: 49:51
And that could...
Justice Dazzle: 49:53
And you are going to hurt people.
Zia: 49:54
Absolutely.
Justice Dazzle: 49:55
And it doesn't matter what marginalized people that you are dealing with, that is the rule that you are going—that's what's going to happen. Because that one person has the—you know, there are things that I do that a lot of other trans people wouldn't allow. There are things that I am okay with, you know. And, like, referencing myself, you know, like, I'm okay with certain slurs because I use them at myself to take that power back, but not everyone does that. It's the same thing with, like, even just the word queer. There's a lot of people that a lot of damage was done with that word, but those people are older than us or have been out much longer, and so, they don't necessarily...
Val: 50:47
Or we're just in a more dangerous community.
Justice Dazzle: 50:48
Right, exactly. Where it was used as a slur for a longer period of time or continuously, you know. Whereas for me, like, that's part of my identity, you know. Which is why, when I reference the LGBTQIA plus community, that's what I reference. I don't reference the queer community, because the queer community exists within the LGBTQIA+ community. The queer community is not the LGBTQIA+ community. They are distinct and separate—but overlapping. It's a Venn diagram.
Val: 51:21
A really big one. You need to be aware when you're with a group of people what they're comfortable with. Because you could have one friend group where you're comfortable saying queer, you're comfortable identifying yourselves as queer, you're comfortable identifying the group as queer, but then you're in the presence of someone who probably has PTSD—from being called a slur. And they're not comfortable.
Zia: 51:44
I've got a two separate groups of friends, where one group they're like, ‘yeah, we're queer, Yada, yada, yada,’ and there's, you know, some friends—I've got a cousin who was like, ‘do not ever refer to me as queer. Ever. That is a bad word to me. That is a bad word for me. I don't like it. It's not something I feel like I want to reclaim.’ And I'm like, ‘yeah, easy, no problem. I'm not gonna use it around you, and I'm not gonna use it for you.’
Val: 52:16
Especially for allies. You need to be aware also that you can't reclaim someone else's slur.
Zia: 52:20
Oh, heck no.
Val: 52:21
You weren't called that; that's not your word to use.
Justice Dazzle: 52:24
Right if, if for, but—. And that's why it's a tough one. You have to find out prior, because you know, like, we could be in a group, you know, with the three of us, and two of us are fine with it and one isn't. And, you know, you could be like—and you could, as an ally, come into that circle, start talking and use queer. Two of us are fine with it, one of us is like, ‘what the fuck is wrong with you?’ And so, you need to find out prior to using it in given situations.
Val: 52:59
And it should also be okay to ask. It should be okay to make sure that this is okay and to be trying to be aware and inclusive and to make sure this person feels safe. And it's also important to be aware that—allies especially—if you're in a group where these people are okay with you using this word, don't use it elsewhere. If you're friends—if you have a friend group that's mostly Black people and they're fine with you as a White person using the N-word, that doesn't mean you can say it everywhere else.
Zia: 53:28
If you get that one pass with that one group. You go anywhere else, I'mma hit ya. (Laughter.)
Val: 53:34
If you go anywhere else, we're gonna beat your ass.
Zia: 53:36
Yeah, if you go anywhere else. If I’m even there, I’m gonna get ya.
Val: 53:42
The fact of the matter is if you're in my friend group and I'm fine with you saying it, and then you go somewhere else and I'm with you and you say it, I'm still gonna beat your ass.
Zia: 53:48
Exactly.
Val: 53:49
You have this one environment where we're okay with it. Don't do it otherwise.
Zia: 53:53
I gave you one privilege.
Val: 53:54
Don't do it anywhere else. Don't push it.
Jacquie Keleher: 53:57
Really quickly, Babette. I think it's important—and I hate bringing this up—but to be an ally you also can't always ask the people you're being an ally for to explain things to you. You have to do your own research.
Val: 54:10
Please do your own research.
Jacquie Keleher: 54:11
You have to, right?
Zia: 54:12
Dear god...
Val: 54:13
We will provide you the sources even.
Justice Dazzle: 54:16
But that is part of the problem, because sometimes you're like, ‘well, just Google it.’ But the problem is there is, because of misinformation a lot of those top results can be misleading or just plain abusive and incorrect.
Val: 54:35
They've Googled it, but now they've got the wrong information.
Justice Dazzle: 54:36
Now they've got the wrong information and the education that they're spreading is TERF-ridden.
Babette Faehmel: 54:40
And they can tell you, ‘I Googled it, I did my research, I found this.'
Val: 54:44
I did research and I found this...
Zia: 54:45
You found the biased one.
Val: 54:46
...And now it is once again on us to be like, ‘okay, but that was the wrong information,’ right?
Zia: 54:52
Yeah.
Val: 54:52
And it's important for allies to do their research and make sure that they're doing research. They're not just googling and going with the first result. But then that is putting a lot of burden on people who haven't been doing this their entire lives and don't know, and educating people as a part of the community is exhausting, but it ends up being something we have to do.
Zia: 55:16
Yeah, like if you think about how much work bigots put into educating other people and how easy it is to get that information. It's so easy. It's like right at your fingertips. Even when you're looking up something that condemns them. Here are all of the links that you can find reading up on things about their cause, different slurs, et cetera, et cetera, and you have a ready community, ready just to bring you in.
Val: 55:44
And we have to counteract it and it's tiring. And if allies aren't doing proper research, then now we're counteracting further, we’re...
Justice Dazzle: 55:53
We're vetting the research that they're doing.
Val: 55:54
There's websites for that.
Jacquie Keleher: 55:57
There's librarians for that. (Laughter.)
Justice Dazzle: 55:59
There's librarians for that. There's even on browser extensions... (Crosstalk.)
Val: 56:04
There's classes in the high school and college.
Zia: 56:05
I love that extension.
Justice Dazzle: 56:07
If you install it on your Chrome or your Firefox or whatever, and if a site has been shown to be homophobic and transphobic, the links will show up in red, and if they've shown to be good, it's green. If there's not enough data, it stays the same, and you know, so, like you can just tell by immediately you open your google results and you're like, ‘okay, the first four are all red, I'm not gonna click on those, you know, and then the next two are blank, I'm not sure. But that last one's green.’ You know, and you have to take it with a grain of salt, because those are all people that have put those ratings in, but the majority of the time they are pretty on brand.
Val: 56:53
But just put the extra effort in to make sure that your sources are good and giving good information and that you're getting information from multiple sources. Because if you're going, ‘I'm an ally,’ and then turning to the community to once again explain this or defend this, or be like, ‘okay, this is right, this is right.’ Please don't do this, you're not doing anything. You're putting all of that burden on us. You're not helping.
Justice Dazzle: 57:17
And to some extent, making that burden heavier, because the questions that you're asking are at a much higher level. And so, when you are doing that, asking that person if they have the energy and the spoons to be able to do that now, because I might be able to do it now but in two hours something might have happened where I just don't have it in me. You know, like there are threads that I'll like get into at you know six o'clock at night and I, like, am going back and forth and you know, and then when somebody responds on it the next day, I do not have the spoons to be able to deal with it. And like I have, but I have friends I can tag in. So like I have my friend Jamie, who I'll tag her in it, and she, you know, she's not trans, she's cis. She's ace and you know, and she knows a lot of the stuff and she's educated herself. So, I can tag her in and she can take over when somebody is being a bigot, and that's really amazing to be able to have that, you know, and like of offering that and I know that she knows her stuff well enough that I feel comfortable doing that so that she's not going to misinform someone.
Val: 58:34
With the Black Lives Matter movement, a lot of—mostly white people—who were trying to be activists, and support would get a couple weeks and be like, ‘we're so tired, and we need to take a break.’ That's how it is all the time for us. This is our lives.
Justice Dazzle: 58:48
And when you have that intersectionality of Black and trans...
Val: 58:52
This is now like... (Crosstalk.) ...I'm so tired. Please do research.
Zia: 58:56
I'm so tired all the time. What if I gave you this one link and you went hog from there?
Val: 59:01
What if you didn't make us justify our existence and you did your own research and maybe cross-referenced—if we're okay with it and have the energy—but otherwise were able to be at least a little bit self-functional about it.
Justice Dazzle: 59:17
And just use critical thinking.
Val: 59:18
Yeah, common sense.
Babette Faehmel: 59:19
That's the problem with allyship, right? I mean, if you have cis and white privilege and you feel tired, you have the privilege of opting out and of basically, I don't know, turning your back on them.
Val: 59:33
You can stop. We can't.
Babette Faehmel: 59:34
And then still feel like, ‘oh, I did that. I spent so many hours, and I did this and I did that.’ So, I mean that's because—I mean, that's why allyship is really like a lifelong commitment.
Val: 59:49
Exactly.
Babette Faehmel: 59:51
It should be—it is work, and it's working on yourself, right?
Zia: 59:56
I feel like people get this idea in their head that the allyship is them carrying something all by themselves because they want to help a cause. So, they're going to take this huge thing up on their shoulders all by themselves and they're going to help, and then they burn themselves out. And it's like, no, we have a community for a reason. You have other people, like you said earlier, to tag in. And when you get tired, they're supposed to help until you can get back running again.
Val: 01:00:24
And being an ally isn't just big things. It's not just going to protest. It's not like lobbying for things. Being an ally is correcting someone's pronouns. Being an ally is going, ‘I support you and I'm here for you, and I'm here for you to talk to.’
Justice Dazzle: 01:00:38
Right, and you know, like—one of my best friends is Black, biracial and bi, and so we've had some really great conversations. Including one where, like, you know, she was talking about how, you know, just dealing with some of the just constant racial stuff, you know, like—and this was at the beginning of COVID where, like, everybody was starting to wear masks. And it's like she would go into a store, and she'd have her hood up from going outside and then she's got a mask on—she's getting watched more than the person that walked in with her because they're White, you know. But—and she finally felt that because I gave her a safe space where she could talk about it and it wasn't like the White fragility and all that type of stuff where I had to make the conversation about me as well, as she had to, like, edit things and, like, you know, they're there and all that type of stuff, you know, of, like, providing that space where I can bitch about what's going on and you not have to be like, ‘but it's not me, I'm not like that, you know, not all men.’ I know it's not you...
Zia: 01:01:54
Exactly.
Val: 01:01:55
I'm bitching to you because I know you're not that person. Let me talk.
Justice Dazzle: 01:02:00
And, you know, and give me the space to do that. And just looping back quickly to your question about making those spaces. One of the things that I do is, you know, myself—and I have a couple of friends that I pull in depending on it—is question and answer sessions on. It is question and answer sessions Like where, literally, people can ask the dumb, bigoted questions that they think are okay or they know aren't okay, but they're not sure why. Don't ask your friends, come here and ask them here. Because I'm not going to just, you know, call you a transphobe and slam the door on you. I'm going to explain to you why that phrase is transphobic or why you're doing when you do this. It's incorrect and it's painful, and whether it's just LGBT stuff in general or just focusing on the T, you know it's like.
01:02:58
Those are sessions that I will do, whether it's for, you know, a company or an organization, or you know just for friends or, like you know, at Schenectady Pride. I've done those and that's something that is really helpful because it allows people who may not have that, where they may not have someone that they are close to that is trans who they feel comfortable enough to ask these things. So instead, they potentially are educating themselves with those top three results.
Val: 01:03:32
Normalizing these things also involves educating people and making sure that people can ask questions where they're not intending to be harmful. They're trying to educate themselves, and they just can't find that information themselves. They've tried.
Babette Faehmel: 01:03:42
I love the idea of the like, ‘well, just ask whatever questions you want to throw at me,’ like here's a place to do that, so that you don't ask these questions at people who have already the psychic burn. So, I really like that. And the other thing is that I think people learn a lot— learn a way in which they really see and feel what the other side experiences through stories, right? And the stories should not be coming from our students because that's another burden of representation and psychic burden and whatnot. But there are actually really good podcasts where you have trans people of color talking about their experiences, like of all sorts. So maybe we just need to curate—Jacquie. Librarian. Head librarian. Director of Library Services—need to curate a good resource page. Put it in the show notes and on the library webpage, right?
Jacquie Keleher: 01:04:43
So, we are actually working on some of that. All of our groups, all of our professional development DEI groups, we are working on that. The other thing that I'm hoping to bring back this semester—but this conversation has made me rethink it—is the Human Library. Which is...
Justice Dazzle: 01:04:57
Oh, yeah, right, they have in Sweden.
Jacquie Keleher: 01:04:59
Yes, so we've done that a couple times here. But what I'm wondering is if I need to rethink how we offer the Human Library and think about kind of making days for the Human Library, so that maybe there's an LGBTQIA plus human library day where all the books are from the community right and another for people of color or something like that. But we are hoping to bring that back, so...
Babette Faehmel: 01:05:27
I would love that especially now that we are going back to sort of like normal operations on campus. Yeah, I want to be a—I want to be a book.
Justice Dazzle: 01:05:36
I just said that. (Laughter.)
Babette Faehmel: 01:05:48
Oh, okay, well okay. So, we're coming up on our time limit. Final words, final thoughts?
Mykha'el Wilson: 01:05:55
I—it's interesting, I love groups like this because I have sometimes very controversial opinions and thoughts, like I think allyship is a relationship between the community that the ally wants to support, and I think an ally's job for a long time is you sit back and you listen, you ask what can I do, and then you do what they ask you to do. And when you have that relationship, I think that's when the educational part happens for both sides. I am not a fan of the, like, ‘you need to educate yourself,’ because my thing is look, I'd rather have the ignorant homophobe show up to my door and ask me really offensive questions, because if they're curious, there might be some room to get them from like point A to point B, to eventually get them to where they want to be. I found— I did a lot of things with the Black Lives Matter movement, and one of the challenges that I had as like a White, cisgender, gay man is I had a lot of dumb questions like, ‘hey, there's this book about anti-racism but it's written by a white woman, should I read that?’
01:06:59
Like, is that going to benefit—do you—? And if they were like, ‘well, you need to do your own research,’ I'm like, ‘but I don't want to read a book that's not going to have good information—like, what do you think would be helpful?’ And if you have that relationship with someone and they're your friends, I feel that back and forth happens a lot better. The other challenge that I sometimes have is, don't expect someone to show up with a master's in African studies if they're trying to come and be an ally. They might not have any idea. And I think it's kind of the give and take of allyship, and allyship should be relational, and I think a lot of people are like, ‘I'm an ally.’ You don't get to say you're an ally until those that you're trying to support say that you're an ally.
Babette Faehmel: 01:07:42
Right, right, right.
Mykha'el Wilson: 01:07:43
That's when you're truly an ally. I like to say, like, I want to have allyship with whatever community, and then they decide if I'm an ally or not, right?
Zia: 01:07:52
But are you invited to the barbecue?
Mykha'el Wilson: 1:07:54
Yes, like, and if I am, winning. If I'm not, like, I have more work to do, right? So that's my, like—I think there's give and take in allyship, and I think when we do it that way, we can build a really beautiful, rich community where everybody's learning from everybody.
Babette Faehmel: 01:08:16
Yeah, that's actually a really good point.
Val: 01:08:14
I think the biggest thing with being an ally is to listen. You need to listen, and you need to be present, and you need to be aware. Because educating yourself is important, but you can't just look things up. You need to be hearing the voices of people who are active and around and trying to make these things normal and heard.
Zia: 01:08:37
I think you can have all the goddamn knowledge in the world. You can be a White dude with a master's in African studies and that won't mean shit if you don't do anything for the cause. Yeah, you know a lot about the problems...
Val: 01:08:55
...but you're not experiencing them...
Zia: 01:08:55
...now you are going to brunch. Okay. (Laughter.)
Mykha'el Wilson: 01:09:00
And then you're going to call yourself an ally because you have that master's degree. It's like no, that's not how that works.
Zia: 01:09:02
I'm totally an ally. I have a master's in African studies.
Val: 01:09:06
One of the biggest things with Black Lives Matter was that White people who wanted to be allies were supposed to be helping lift up Black voices. They weren't supposed to talk over them. It's the same idea here. You need to be lifting us up. You shouldn't be trying to talk over us. You should be listening to us, and you should be pushing our voices and being like, ‘hey, listen to this. This person said this.’ Because you aren't part of the community, but chances are that you—as a cis person or a straight person or a White person who has that privilege—is going to have an easier time getting people to listen than we are, and that's why allyship is important. Because these people can lift our voices up and make us heard, and then we don't have to do as much work getting people to listen.
Zia: 01:09:54
Exactly.
Val: 01:09:55
And we can just talk.
Zia: 01:09:56
It's like y'all got a foot in the door. Open the door and let us in.
Val: 01:10:00
You have the stepladder.
Babette Faehmel: 01:10:02
That's a good one.
Zia: 01:10:03
It's like you're standing where we're trying to get, but you're looking down at us and you're going like, ‘you guys need help? You guys got it?’
Val: 01:10:12
There's a podium all the way up there. You've got the ladder. Please lower it.
Justice Dazzle: 01:10:15
To quote Will Wheaton, as well as one of my coworkers, ‘just don't be a dick.’ And just listen when somebody tells you that you're wrong. Don't correct them, because they know better than you do, because it's their life. You work in, you know, in accounting and actuarial stuff, you know. That'd be like me going in and like looking at a problem on your board and be like, ‘yeah, you have that solved wrong.’ Like, okay, I know numbers. I know what numbers are. I know what some of those symbols are. That doesn't mean I know what the formulas are.
Val: 01:10:52
You're correcting this person, but it's just because you don't like that number,
Justice Dazzle: 01:10:54
Like, just because I know some things doesn't mean I know all things. And especially when you have someone where it's that—it's their experience, it's their lived experience and their identity, you know, even more so than experience. Just let them tell you when you are wrong and have the humility to say, ‘okay, I'm wrong. How do I correct myself?’
Val: 01:11:28
Put your dick away and listen with your ears. Come on.
Zia: 01:11:30
Thank you.
Val: 01:11:31
Don't tell me that you think I'm wrong because you don't like the number five. You can listen.
Babette Faehmel: 01:11:38
And, on this note, we are out of time, but this conversation was amazing, and I really appreciate it and my—. Well, thank you once again, Val, Zia, Justice, Mykha'el, and Jacquie. Thanks to the School of Music, and especially Sten Isachsen, and Michaela Stay, for making possible the recording, mixing and editing of this episode. Many Voices, One Call is made possible thanks to the financial support of the SUNY Schenectady Foundation and because of assistance and contributions by the REACH Initiative Leadership Team, the Student Mentoring Program, the Student Government Association, and the Student Activities Advisor.