Ep 29: How to Support Trans Rights, Reproductive Justice & Disability Justice As A Decolonized Parent

[INTRODUCTION]

Sawadee ka, and welcome to the Come Back to Care podcast. A place where we’re re-imagining parenting to be deeply decolonized and intentionally intergenerational. If you’ve been looking for ways to practice social justice in your daily parenting and nurture your child’s development while re-parenting your inner child, I’m so glad you’re here. I am your host, Nat Nadha Vikitsreth, a decolonized and licensed clinical psychotherapist, somatic abolitionist, and founder of Come Back to Care. A dot connector, norm agitator and lover of liberation. In this podcast, we turn down the volume of oppressive social norms and outdated family patterns so that we can hear our inner voice and raise our children by our own values too. We come back home to our body and the goodness within. We come back to our lineages and communities. And we come back to care… together. So come curious and come as you are.

[EPISODE]

Welcome to episode 29 of the Come Back to Care Podcast. We are winding down season 3. The next episode will be our season finale. Then, I’ll take a month off to visit my family in Thailand. I’ll be back to reconnect with you for season 4 mid-May. I appreciate you so much for tuning in. And if you’ve been wondering how you can nurture and grow this podcast with me, I’ll share some invitations with you at the end of the episode. 

In this episode, you and I are going to explore a thread that weaves trans issues, reproductive issues, and disability issues together to see why trans issues affect all of us, not just me. After this quick political analysis, I’d love to share one invitation with you so you and I can continue to resist the anti-trans narratives that are pushing forward so many violent anti-trans bills across the US. This invitation is especially important if you’ve been taking actions like giving your money to trans-led organizations or reading books with trans and gender nonconforming characters to your child. Those actions are amazing, and this practice we’re going to do together will enrich them even further. I’ll also share personal stories about my trans experiences with you as a way to inject humanity back into those dehumanizing narratives about trans individuals.

I hope that the political education and self-reflection practice in this episode will engage your brain. And that my personal stories will engage your heart. So you can I can bring both our heads and our hearts to the liberation work in our communities and in our homes. If that sounds generative to you, let’s get started.

Whether we’re talking about trans issues, reproductive justice issues, or disability justice issues, one common thread that weaves these issues together is the colonial conditioning which claims that some bodies are holy and good and some bodies are uncivilized and deviant. This tactic of erasing humanity from non-dominant bodies justifies the policing and purifying of those bodies that are deemed deviant. The colonizing logic makes it okay to police what one can and cannot do with their bodies. Who can have children and who can’t? Who can pee and poop in which bathroom? Which type of body deserves access to healthcare and contraception? The tactic of taking away one’s right to make decisions about what to do with their body is so vile and violent because it strips away your agency and your human rights of self-determination. And this violence leaves wounds: the moral judgment of who’s valuable and who’s disposable inflicts a psychological wound and the dehumanizing othering inflicts a bodily wound. And when this policing and oppression of one’s body happens generations over generations, it inflicts what Dr. Eduardo Duran, an Indigenous psychologist, calls a soul wound. 

This violation of bodily autonomy and self-determination isn’t new and certainly doesn’t begin with the overturn of Roe v. Wade either. Resmaa Menakem, the author of My Grandmother’s Hands, wrote quote: “For most of our history for the last 400 years the white body has had full and unfettered access to every orifice and idea of black and indigenous bodies.” End quote.

Examples range from non-consensual experiments of cesarean and other surgical procedures on Black women without anesthesia … to… again non-consensual birth control pill testing on women in Puerto Rico. Or, removing Indigenous children and putting them in boarding schools, stripping them of their languages and cultural practices. Another example is the forced sterilization of disabled people due to ableism and eugenics. 

U.S. history is filled with these racist, ableist, eugenic examples of violence done to queer, trans, disabled bodies and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color’s  bodies. But you already know where I’m going with this next. With this history of oppression always comes a history of resistance. Cara Page and Erica Woodland shared many examples of resistance in their incredible book, Healing Justice Lineages: Dreaming at the Crossroads of Liberation, Collective Care, and Safety. The examples Page and Woodland covered in the book include the Women of All Red Nations, a pan-indigenous women’s organization that quote “helped bring national attention to the forced sterilization of Native women.” End quote. Or the Young Lords who organized a community detox program in response to hospitals’ failing to meet the medical needs of Puerto Rican and Black individuals with care and dignity.  

I’ll leave links to the references on these issues I just mentioned and resources like the documentary called Dawnsland- very powerful- if you’d like to deepen your study. They’ll be in the episode show notes for you at comebacktocare.com/podcast. 

Fast forward to the present, the racist, eugenic, and ableist forms of violence against bodily autonomy and self-determination are still here whether in the medical industrial complex or the prison industrial complex. 

One example is the policing of trans bodies. The ACLU is tracking 321 anti-LGBTQ bills in the US, some of them have already become law in some states. And you heard me correctly three hundred and twenty-one bills. These bills prevent trans youths from accessing gender affirming medical care or trans adults from using bathrooms that match their gender identities, to name just a few. Whether all of these bills become laws or not, the damage has already been done because this dehumanizing rhetoric adds to the attacks and violence against LGBTQIA+ communities. And those who are historically the most severely impacted by this hateful rhetoric are Black and Indigenous trans individuals. 

I find it so challenging personally to talk about trans issues. It just hits too close to home sometimes. But I really believe that our action and advocacy are much more centered and aligned when they’re rooted in context and history. Otherwise, we tend to rush in and save that marginalized trans community over here or that disabled community over there when, in fact, bodily autonomy and self-determination are issues for all of us. They are every body issues. 

An antidote to this systemic erasure is self-determination. Or as En Vogue sang in their 1992 Funky Divas album: “Free Your Mind…And the rest will follow.”

Ok, that’s a wrap for our political education. Shall we take a collective breath? Hah. Next, let’s roll up our sleeves and put that education into action.

There’re many actions we can take to re-imagine and re-build a culture where all of our children- disabled, neurodivergent, trans, gender nonconforming- can fully embody all of who they are without having to fear state-sanctioned violence, institutional punishment and discrimination. 

These actions can be on a macro level like policy changes and on a micro level like supporting your local trans-led organizations or teaching your child about gender. In this episode, I’ll share one macro-level action and one micro-level action. So you can check your bandwidth and boundaries to see where you’d like to plug in and take action.

The macro-level invitation is to check out the Trans Formations Project at transformationsproject.org. Did you get that? Trans-Formations? We know how to come up with a great name. That’s for sure. My silliness aside, the Trans Formations Project has what’s called Legislation Scorecards where you can enter your state and look at your state representative to see whether they’ve voted for or sponsored anti-trans bills in your state. This way you can contact them and let them know where you stand on the issue. The ACLU website has great email templates and telephone scripts that you can easily personalize if you’re not sure what to write or say. As an introvert, I find these templates so helpful when I’m on the phone, leaving a voice message for my state representative. I know it’s just a voice message but my nerves still get to me sometimes when speaking to the authorities.

So if you want to go macro this week in your advocacy, that’s one invitation. If your bandwidth and boundaries want to go micro, I invite you to do self-reflection on self-determination together. 

Because both you and I are swimming in this same water that has oppressive conditionings of race, gender, class, and ability. Even though we’ve been taking really aligned actions like talking to our kids about gender or buying from Global Majority-owned businesses, it’s a nourishing practice to pause and reflect on our “Why” once in a while. Cars need an oil change once in a while. We need to do self-reflection and value re-alignment too to keep things running smoothly. 

One of the most violent yet most insidious forms of oppression is when the oppressors take away your ability and your imagination to define who you are. They do so by handing you social identity scripts to perform for your survival. There’s a script for your race, a script for your class, a script for your gender, and so on that says what a nice Black individual should look like, sound like, and behave like. Or a script that says what a proper woman should look like, sound like, and behave like. Or a script that says what middle class family should look, sound, and behave like. Perform them well and we’ll keep our jobs, our houses, and our food because we keep the status quo going. The thing is the more praise we get for performing these social identity scripts, the further away we are from our true homes, our bodies, and our essence. Because we have to twist and contort our bodies to fit into these tiny demographic boxes and to conform to the status quo. Yup, the status quo that only serves those at the top of the power hierarchy. This survival strategy sure keeps us alive, but it leaves a wound. An internalized oppression wound to be specific. And this wound cuts the deepest when we’ve come to believe that all that we can ever be is those social identity labels the oppressors force us to wear. And when that’s all we see ourselves as, we surrender our self-determination and become our own oppressors.

When I was in high school back home in Thailand, anyone born male at birth had to attend a three-year military training. I had to shave off my hair. And walking around outside being so femme and flamboyant with a bald head and with my teenage anger towards the injustice of it all? That was not safe. Let’s just say I learned to run really fast while screaming for help. To keep myself safe, I had to learn to blend in and present as a cisgender passing woman. Yes, I do honor the hustle and the survival strategy of passing, otherwise I wouldn’t be here talking to you. But all I could live and breathe for back then was what lipstick to wear and what kind of outfit to put on to look like a woman…real woman. And mind you all that time my friends were applying to colleges and getting internships. They were all beginning to thrive and I was out here surviving. I remember there was one day I was leaving home for work and I looked at myself in the mirror. I saw a woman but I didn’t recognize myself in that person at all. I didn’t know who I was outside being trans and trying to pass as a cisgender woman. 

To survive this gender-based violence, I’ve contorted, conformed, and performed the oppressors’ gender scripts since I knew I was a girl at 5 years old. It’s like I handed them my right to self-determination by reducing the fullness of who I was to fit into their gender binary boxes.

To reclaim my right to define who I am, I’ve untwisted my body and unfurled my fullness to come back home to my body and come back to my ancestors. I had to abandon myself to survive but now I’ve come back home. 

I slowly came to love parts of myself that had been contorted and erased to survive. I reclaimed a wider range of pursuits and pleasures, like baking and cooking; singing to trees and my hamsters at the time  (named Dolce and Gabbana); I embraced how nerdy I could be when someone asked me about Mortal Kombat.

When I see myself for myself, I am joy. I am love. I am compassion. I’m messy because I’m healing. I’m constantly in awe of people’s humanity and divinity. I’m with my ancestors. I’m supported by the Earth and the stars. I’m both-and…and whatever is in between. 

That’s why when people ask me to introduce myself, I rarely say I’m a transgender, Asian immigrant woman. I wasn’t born that way. I was socialized and assigned and forced to contort, to conform, to perform those social identity scripts. Of course those scripts shape my daily experiences, but who I am isn’t structured around my oppression. Who I am has nothing to do with my oppressors’ lack of imagination and their inability to see liberation.

Okay, your turn… you too have these social identity scripts handed to you whether because of your race, class, gender, ability, or even your role as a parent. While playing by these scripts helps you survive the Hunger Game of capitalism and stay proximal to whiteness at the top of the power hierarchy, all the contorting to conform leave some wounds on you too. So, who are you outside those scripts? When you set aside who you need to be to survive, who are you?     

I truly believe that resistance begins with reclaiming the right to define who we are and what to do with our own bodies.

I have one more script to explore and reflect on with you. Whenever your discomfort gets too intense, please hit that pause button to take care of your body. Getting free is a lifelong journey. Alright?

Okay, here’s the final script to reflect on together. When I acted out a hardworking immigrant script from Capitalism and a smart Asian woman script from White supremacy, I had to over-learn things like urgency, productivity, perfectionism, and coercion. At the same time, I under-learned rest, play, joy, creativity, awe, and delight. To perform the scripts capitalism and white supremacy assigned to me, I over-learned different ways to extract as much labor out of my exhausted body and frizzled nervous system as possible. I drink coffee to coerce my body to work longer hours only to put myself to sleep with a food coma from overstuffing my body. I also over-learned staying busy because keeping busy tastes like productivity. And the anxiety and perfectionism in productivity feel familiar and safe even though this chronic stress is inflammatory to my body according to Marya and Patel, the authors of Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice. And the worst of it all is when I weaponize these scripts against others when I’m not grounded. I’ve become my own oppressor when I dehumanize others. I would judge those who are resting as being lazy, for example. 

Okay, your turn again. I have a few reflection questions on self-determination for you, if you’d like to think along or journal along with me. If not, that’s absolutely okay too. I honor your agency. If you’re multitasking, I got you. Whenever you’d like to revisit these questions, they’ll be in the transcript in the episode show notes for you at comebacktocare.com/podcast. 

Question one: What did you over-learn and under-learn to be accepted and approved in your family? I invite you to reflect on any of these things: urgency, productivity, perfectionism, domination, coercion; rest, play, joy, creativity, awe, and delight. 

Question two: What did you over-learn and under-learn to survive in the big family which is society? Meaning What did you over-learn and under-learn to pay bills, have shelter, and find food? I invite you to reflect on any of these things: urgency, productivity, perfectionism, domination, coercion; rest, play, joy, creativity, awe, and delight. 

Question three: Who did you learn these survival strategies from? If you say your mother, your uncle, or those who raised you, where did they get the scripts from? Perhaps, white supremacy or capitalism or patriarchy?

Question four: Without these scripts, who are you? What might be three words you use to describe who you are?

No shame on doing what you need to do to survive. You can honor that survival intelligence and, at the same time, be aware of how your survival strategies shape your day-to-day parenting. 

Question five: When your child embodies rest, play, joy, creativity, awe, and delight, what’s that like for you?

The parents I’ve worked with often share different responses based on their regulation. Let’s see which one you resonate with. The first common response I hear comes when parents are rested and anchored, they can step back and witness their children embodying rest, play, joy, creativity, awe, and delight. Even though the parents themselves didn’t grow up with this kind of experience, they’re anchored enough to see their children as their teachers and they begin to re-parent their inner child by learning how to play and actually have fun instead of playing to teach math or vocabulary, for example. And sometimes sadness may arise when parents remember that they missed these experiences as a child. If this sadness could speak, it might say something like “I wish I didn’t have to grow up too quickly to take care of my family,” or “I wish I wasn’t so alone and there’s someone there to show me how to play, have fun, or rest.” And when parents aren’t rested and anchored, they’re reactive when they see their children rest, play, and be. When they react, they revert back to old habits which are often controlling, coercing, and dominating. For example, when your child is playful, a part of you might feel uneasy because being playful isn’t being productive. You might hear a critical voice in your mind saying “Shouldn’t you be doing something quote unquote useful with your time like studying?”

Tensions between you and your child can reveal that mismatch between what your child is doing and what script you’re forced to perform. 

Question six: Without these scripts, how would you like to raise your child? 

Our final question: As you reclaim your right to define who you are, what kind of parent would you like to be?

Thank you so much for reflecting along with me or for holding space for me as I went through each question. 

At the end of the day, reclaiming our bodily autonomy and our right to self-determination is all about loving well. As we reclaim parts of ourselves that don’t fit the scripts and that we had to shame away, we begin to heal our internalized oppression wounds. So that we can advocate for trans justice, disability justice, and reproductive justice with our whole selves. And at the same time, we heal so that we can raise the next generations to be free as decolonized parents and caregivers.

I’ll wrap up our unfinished business of lifelong unlearning with this medicine from Audre Lorde, a self-described "Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet. Lorde delivered an address in 1982 to celebrate Malcolm X and said quote “As a Black lesbian mother in an interracial marriage, there was usually some part of me guaranteed to offend everybody’s comfortable prejudices of who I should be. That is how I learned that if I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.” End quote.

If you’d like to support my work and sustain our free and accessible psychoeducation and political education on this podcast, please visit comebacktocare.com/support to make a one-time or ongoing financial redistribution. Or, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcast or a rating on Spotify. Your rating and review will help more social justice curious families like you find this podcast. So we can all do this decolonized parenting and inner child re-parenting work together. Visit comebacktocare.com/support for more information.

As always, in solidarity and sass. Until next time, please take care.