Hey everybody, welcome to this event. I'm going to go ahead and kick it off with a pump. Question box time. The kids fold their papers small. Want to know how much homework they'll get? Wanna know if there's stuff will fit in their lockers? If the kids ever fit in a locker. Wanna know if 14 is too young to have sex? If sex will make God love them less, but what they really want to know is written in red you gay bro. It means how long this materials and I passed it Espanol Lisa Kay said what I meant a coma pollo in Miss Burritos Porcino Pollo Con El Picante so in Chico Feminino can't smile at me. No **** Mia Center Espanol masks on arcona mohair. No impact calimocho Espanol como Calvin. But I'm a I'm a Calvin and L Power school, so I must be gay. The tech assistant says I look like a student. I look so young like a tiny little boy. He tells me this in front of my students, not man enough is small. Not man. Enough is skinny. Now man enough is ending my adjectives with an old just to let my students know I'm no woman. And when I get them on board, I realize it's for diving and they jump to other conclusions. I can't like women with a jawline this soft with this string bean asked body in a mustache, not course, and of course trans is not a consideration even in this generation. I thought, but when I wrote my pronouns as they are heat on my name tag, a student followed me. Change what he wrote from Monday to Tuesday said I'm Leo, I grab his attention in the hallway. Ask him if his other teachers know. He says no. I say Leo, I will tell them and the way his smile glows. I forgot about the question box. I forgot about the question box where my students started adding data. Their name tags next to the pronouns they initially used. When the student responded to a survey, I am **. *** heard they I forget about the question box when my kids just called me profe. When the kids say Mr. See when my students say I see you I wanna pass your class. I'm happy to be in your class. This is my favorite class when I'm standing in the hallway, wiping tears when I offer a hug. To quell 14 year old fears. And how do you come to school every day with such high energy? It's like you're so excited to teach us and I am so ecstatic to teach them who I am, what it means, who anyone can be so excited for them to see that who we are. Extends so profoundly beyond you, Gabriel. Alright, thank you again for being here. I'm just going to grab a sip of water and then tell you who I am and why. I just did all that. OK, my name is Kal kalamia. My pronouns are he or they. I am a Bay Area TFA alum. The 18 core 2018 and I I still work in a school. I work at Gateway High School. It's out in San Francisco. I teach health in Spanish and I also am a runner and an author on the side. I love listening to music, love, teaching. That's a little bit about me. I just want to say again, thank you so much for joining us today. We'd really appreciate you being here to take part in these conversations that are super super critical. I'm excited to be here and spend my time here tonight and this is going to be a really important conversation that we're going to have with Kisha Gillyard, Jessie Holzman and Wren Walker Robbins and we want to bring you into our experiences and hopes for the path moving forward in terms of promoting gender equity and building spaces that feel good for people who bend gender. Before we get started, we're going to talk a little bit about housekeeping. This is for a lot of people in new platform, so put any questions for our speakers or for myself into the Q&A bar using the Q&A function on your console menu bar, you can click the attendee chat icon on your menu bar. Staff are in the chat to dialogue and respond to any questions that you might have throughout the event. We also have closed captioning available which can be controlled using the closed caption icon on your media player. We know this might be a new platform for many people, so just to let you know it's completely customizable to your needs. If you want to make a video bigger, for example, go ahead and do that. You can resize things, you can move things around to suit your needs. We also know that any conversation around equity and injustice has the potential to feel really difficult. It can sometimes be polarizing or divisive. We hope that you're here today because you'd like to learn to listen to question and to participate in a productive and safe environment. Our hope is that we can create that space so people not only feel safe, but feel like they have the capacity to be brave. We want all complex questions to be welcome here and we want learning to be the focus of today, so we hope that you'll keep this. In mind, as you dialogue in the chat today, we've crafted some group agreements as well that we ask the Community to engage with, especially around this topic. First thing is engaging in inquiry, but exercising empathy, right? So wanting to learn more and making sure they were also being conscientious of other peoples feelings and experiences. Listen for understanding. Seek to understand each other and our perspectives. Expect and accept non disclosure sometimes in this work we don't get a perfect solution but we work with what we have and experience discomfort. It might feel a little uncomfortable, a lot of people here have varying degrees of experience having these types of conversations. So if you feel uncomfortable, that's OK. That probably means that you are growing and learning. A couple quick things that I want to make sure to to define as well. Going back to that point about, we all have different degrees of experience, so the word transgender is referring to someone who's sex assigned at birth does not correlate perfectly with their gender identity and the word cisgender is the opposite of that. So cisgender just means not trans. For example, if you were born assigned female at birth and you still identify as a woman, that would be an example being cisgender. And any other questions that come up. Feel free to drop them in the chat if you're not quite sure what we're talking about, so we can clarify for you. And without further ado, I'm going to go ahead and introduce the panelists. Again, we have Keisha Gilliard, Jessie Holzman, and Wren Walker Robbins they exercised advocacy in so many ways. I'm going to let them explain what they're all about, and they're all board members of TFA's National Prism alliance. So welcome to our panelists. Yeah, alright. First of all I just want to give you all the opportunity to introduce yourselves who you are, what you do and why you do it. So let's just start with Kisha. I was like don't start with me. I appreciate it. No problem, no worries. Alright, so my name is Keisha Gillyard. My pronouns are they them theirs? Currently I'm the director of regional engagement for the National Prism alliances for Teach for America. I served under the wonderful Tim who is a wonderful person and I hope that everyone in the audience is has the ability to learn about the work that he's done with Teach for America as well as the wonderful contributions of renin. Jesse, who I also admire and love and. I was in teach for America, the Mississippi Delta in 2012 and teach for America, Miami 2013. That's a whole long story, but those are. That's how I arrived and teach for America, and I recently came back now as an openly queer and trans educator. I am no longer in the classroom, but I am still learning facilitator, so my primary responsibilities and the position that I was just in up until about a month ago was working with LGBTQ. Students, staff and families within South Florida public schools in order to better build capacity, understanding, learning, growth, engagement and development. So that's a little bit about me. Thank you all. I will go next. I'm Jesse Holtzman that they then there's a I am currently residing in Chicago. A little bit about what I do so I really see myself as a community builder. I spent a lot of my time building community, creating spaces for community to kind of develop and grow and meet. I see myself as a connector connector between people and I also do a lot of work surrounding accountability. Uhm, and I think it's something that we oftentimes don't talk enough about, so that's a little bit about that. Often times though, when people ask me what I do, what they're really looking for is like this capitalist answer, so I'll also give you that. I'm currently a pH. D candidate at University of Illinois at Chicago. I'm working on my PhD in sociology and I'm also a research coordinator for Lori Lori Children's Hospital here in Chicago, so I wear multiple hats. I spend a lot of time doing educational work. I do a lot of research. I do a lot of activism and advocacy, and that's kind of where my passions lie. Why? Why do I do my work? Community is really important. It took me. A long *** time to find my communities and life is hard and I have found that with community it just gets a little bit easier. I think I also spend a lot of time building community 'cause I'm like all about that collective consciousness. 'cause I believe that that's how we build a revolution. And so that's definitely part of it. So yeah, that's a little bit about me. When you want to go next. Hi everyone, it's such an honor to be here today with all of you. I'm Ryan Walker Robbins. I'm a Mohawk. I'm a sun dancer. I'm a pipe carrier. I'm a spiritualist on the ceremonial list. I'm someone who tries to deconstruct the world away from ways that have been. That worked to marginalise diversity. Keep, specially people who are diverse in their gender and their presentation. My job is I'm chair of secondary education and Salish Kootenai College. That's a tribal College in Montana. So I work with students to. I trained teachers is what I do. Secondary math and science teachers. And that's always an honor to do. And I'm very glad to be here with you. Amazing, we have such a great set of conversationalists and I'm really excited to see what we can talk about today. Let's start really big with this question. So when we say the word gender, what do we mean when we are talking about gender and what are some of the misconceptions around gender that you often see? This is a big one to tackle, so anyone who feels like getting right into it, the mic is yours. I will start us off. Gender is exhausting and I think that's really important to like. Start off with UM. Right, like I'm a sociologist, my what I do is I study gender and what it is I I still have no idea but I can talk about a little bit about the way that I think about gender and I think for me because of the right, the field in which I come from. Gender for me is not just like we can't just think about it as a singular thing, right? I think about it as something that's individual, right? Like who we are as people are individual identities, right? The way that we express our gender. Right, so this individual level, I think it's also interactional, so the way that I do gender changes based on how I want to be perceived, how other people see me. It's situational, like if I have to go to. That's not true, like I'm I'm I'm very much transgressive, but like maybe if I'm going to go to like a rural area where I'm not feeling as comfortable as opposed to living in Chicago, right? Maybe I will like unclear my gender a little bit. Maybe I will not look. Or tried to look so queer or non binary or androgynous right? So we have the individual. We have this interactional understanding of gender and I think the biggest thing that people often miss when they think about gender. Is this like a macro level right? We we see gender and institutions. We can see gender in our organizations. We can see how our organizations influence the ways that people can do gender so we can think about like the education system and thinking about how often times in classrooms. We have a boys line and you have a girls line. Oftentimes on the forms that we fill out, right? We have two sexes. We have male and we have female and so the ways in which organizations kind of create symbols around gender. They create structures around gender, get embedded into us. So the question is, running gender is like not an easing question and and for me that's kind of how I begin to think about gender is like this multiple level idea or construct where it's not just. This internal sense of self it's also outside the self. That was an excellent answer, Jesse, so I'm I want to add a little bit come. There was a there's an organization called Yes Institute that's based in Miami. Yes, like why is he institute based in Miami? And when I attended one of their trainings around gender they had a very important part of their definition that I think a lot of people missed so I wanted to bring that up. And of course I wanted to credit them because it's an excellent organization and they do national talks just in case you want to hit them up but they said not only is gender about how we. Identify personally gender is also deeply entrenched in how we relate to each other, and I think that that is something that is absolutely missed right? Which is why the conversation around transgender people is at the forefront of politics, right? Because you can't just be transgender, right? People have to think you know cisgender people then think. Or what does that transgender person have to do with me, right? So there's a certain relational aspect that I think that we sometimes don't understand. I was in a conversation with parents. I was doing a presentation, really. To these parents and they brought up Xayah Wade, Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle unions. We got brand new stepdaughter and waste daughter and they said, well, you know, I just don't get it. And why did they have to come out about xayah? Wade and I told them they were first of all conflating orientation and gender because even though you can choose to come out about your orientation most of the time, if you are changing your gender presentation, right? That's going to change how people relate to you and what other people do. So if this person was going to transition. It's going to be a girl. You have to come out like there. There's no secret about that. And on top of that, this is a celebrity's child, right? Like there, there was no. You know they they. They kind of asked what was this attention seeking and why couldn't they keep it a secret and number ones. I had decided to be open. So that's number one right? So they honored their child in their child's wishes and #2. Again. This is a celebrity and this is a presentation change and this is something that is going to change the way that other people have to relate to her like her name, like her pronoun. So there was no secrecy. That could come with that and then like. Also like Jesse said, gender and our relation to each other as far as gender is also institutional, so we already know about the pay gap for women, right? But in some of my presentations I talk about the pay gap between transgender people so often times we have seen that transgender women or transgender feminine people. Generally people who were assigned male at birth and and now our transition would be more feminine or transitioning to be women. They usually say pay cut right while people who are trans masculine or trans men. See a pay increase over time, right? And so this is something that is very much affecting not just children. Young people like Xayah Wade all the way up to our professional aspect and the way that we relate to each other. We know that for black transgender women, there's a very high murder rate. Two of the states that are that stand out there are Florida, which was my home state. I'm on my way to Georgia right now, which is why I'm in my car. I'm moving to Georgia and Texas, right? And so we also have to think about what those two states mean politically and what that means for the murder rate and how that goes back. And of course, the intersectional aspect of not only are you transgender, but you are transgender and you're black and you're a woman and or feminine presenting, and how these things stack up on each other. And so for me, gender is not just about, you know how you identify, but we absolutely have to consider how gender impacts ourselves as we move through this world and how others treat us based upon our gender, whether we're allowed to identify that way or not. So I got kind of winded, so I'm gonna cut it off there. Thank you Keith, I appreciate you rented this. All those ideas, thank you and and I really love that idea. Uh, Jesse, about the idea that it's about how we interact with each other. I think that's such an important idea. You know, if we're not careful. Gender can be a box that we get trapped in. But in my experience, I see gender is evolving as this wild evolving thing and sitting back and watching how gender has changed, our sense of gender, an idea and the horizon that we see around gender. It's really evolving and changing. Especially in the last few years and I was just totally amazed to see you know so many. Schools now where true that they feel represents who they are, and so I think that's a really incredible thing. I know sometimes gender is about power. And somehow privilege associated with their gender. And so it's about social justice as well and now. But I'm just really. Fat fascinated how gender is evolving in real time in front of all of our eyes so. Beautiful thank you all so much for your answers and I love again. That interaction piece and the relationship the relational and how that affects our own identities. And I think even hearing y'all say it, I need to be. I'm always looking for more trans spaces because it makes me feel so much better to hear that common experience and I think like for me for awhile I felt like Oh well am I just doing this for other people for their perception of me and so like knowing that yes, it's rooted in what's relational but. Your your sense of self as a trans person is still incredibly valid. Everything we do is impacted by other people, so having people influenced the way that you view yourself and your gender. Yeah, I mean, just like everything else. So thank you all so much for bringing that up. So now if you'll feel comfortable, I think would be really cool to route some of these questions in our own experiences with our own identities. So when do you think you first understood your gender identity and with a caveat to this too? I think like there's a lot of pressure to be like. Well, when I was six like I this one thing happened and I just knew you don't need to have been six like we a lot of us didn't really have the vocabulary. So yeah, no pressure on like making it really early because we all know that. No matter you know what we experienced are trans. This is valid, so I'll open it up and maybe for this one. I guess we can go backwards. Randy, you wanna answer this one you feel comfortable. Sure, uh, you know, I think I always knew something about who I was as a gendered person, even from a young age. I don't think I understood it. I think there was this. This tension between. Who I was and my understanding of it and who I felt safe to share that too. So I grew up in the 60s and in the 60s. You didn't. You didn't share with other people that you had gender, that your gender identity was different from your born. I didn't you're born. Sex just wasn't because you would've gotten shipped off somewhere so. Right, I mean that's how it was back in the 60s. It was dangerous to be. A transgender person, so there was always that tension in my life. I know when I really began to understand my own order. And. Again, it's it's an evolving thing for me and I think it involves over my life and has changed for me. I began to really understand it when I came into community. When I started coming out, finding the courage to be who I was and finding community of like like like gender like minded people and it was that I think that's what's so powerful about community is it helps us understand who we are and finding that community. It was a really essential part helping me understand who I was and what my this mystery. Gender that. Is always shifting and changing inside. Does that mean it's my turn? Sorry I was confused about the order I can go. So the only thing I would add I'm gonna kind of tie in these two questions question one in question two. So also when I think about gender I think about colonialism and I think about the intentional disruption of how indigenous people in the Americas, indigenous people in Africa, indigenous people in Asia practice gender in a very different, profoundly different way and how that was purposely disrupted. And there's also a lot of writings about how queer. Gender nonconforming people people. We would now place these labels of queer gender non conforming or oftentimes the medicine makers and the ceremonial leaders and you know he's very important places in society and sometimes royalty and some you know the non colonial sense of royalty in certain societies and how that was purposely disrupted by colonialism in order to kind of break the spirit of certain communities. And as a black person growing up. I didn't have this language until later on when I became scholarly, but black people have been ungendered since the beginning of time, so I often say now my my gender is black. Nonbinary is a word that I use for other people to understand my gender, but for me my gender is black. Its roots and I used that purposefully because when I was younger and when I was engaging in gender nonconforming behavior, I was often told by family members that you can't do that, not just because you're a girl but because you're a black girl, right? You know your gender will be policed differently and now that I do these presentations, I do this work professionally. I know that in juvenile justice facilities nationally, which of course overwhelmingly children of color are juvenile justice facilities over 40. Percent and juvenile justice facilities are right, and so there is absolutely a certain way that children of color, especially afab children of color, have their genders policed. Police, quite literally, to the point of incarceration. You know, that has to be purposeful for it to be nearly half of the children utilities nationally. So I knew very young. Not because I knew, but because my family members reminded me that. It's not acceptable for you to wear these things not acceptable for you to do these things not acceptable, you know. For you these behaviors, so I never thought you know I'm queer. I'm trans. To me, those words are used in relation to heteronormativity and I just never lived a heteronormative life. I lived in a net or normative society, but you know, I never though I'm just me, I'm just keeping you know like whatever and so very young my gender was. At least, but I I didn't identify as anything people. Kind of just subjugated who I was based on just natural behaviors. So I would say it's very young. But the way that I came into language for myself was that I saw a non binary person write an article when I was 22 years old and used the pronouns day and I was like that's allowed. You couldn't do that. You don't have to be for she Oh my God, this is serious like I have to be a part of this and so far there from there I just went into like an ADHD rabbit hole and just like dug through all the information. And ever since then, I've really been building myself and my dad. Thank you so much, friend and Kisha. Both of you, I'm just like I love all of it. Yeah, I I think for me what I understood from a really early age was the gender I was being socialized as and what that meant for other people, right? So I knew very early on that there was an expectation for me to wear bows or to wear a dress that there was an expectation for me to sit a certain way or behave a certain way. So I was very and what that meant. It's like I have very vivid memories of like. Being in elementary school and wanting to like be a leader in gym class and be able to demonstrate all these skills that people write that we were learning in gym class and the gym teacher never picking girls to do it and it was always boys and me beginning to learn how gender is a stratification system, right where we oftentimes see SIS, hetero men, white men at the top right and then from there we see gender being stratified. So that became pretty clear. To me, in an early age that I understood in terms of my own gender, I still I like still don't have a lot of clarity on it and that's that's OK. Like there's very. There's things that I definitely know like I know my gender is political. I, I know for certain I see in my gender as political, I know that my gender shifts in changed changes overtime. I know that I'm not a woman. I know that I'm not a man. But outside of that I don't know, and I also only know that for like today I don't know how I'm gonna feel tomorrow. I know that for today. So like like run I very much see my gender as like a mystery. Uhm I see and understand my gender as a way to break binaries and push back against a structure that was imposed on me. That doesn't feel good. I see my gender as a way to challenge people's assumptions about what it means to exist as people in this world. I see also my gender as a way of like decolonizing spaces and ways to push boundaries. Yeah. Kisha I really really loved. What you said about loot having your gender removed doors? Uh. Disappeared and. You know that made a lot of sense to me because. I think. When gender is seen in a binary either or when it's seen as this narrow thing and we don't fit into that, the power to have that done to us really does erase the gender we have because it doesn't, because the experience that we have with our gender is is not the not the one that fits into the. The boxes and. So I that was really powerful, thank you. Renai, your comment also makes me think about the ways in which. Transient queer communities can also reproduce these boxes unknowingly, and I think that sometimes some things that we don't talk enough about is like assumptions that we have surrounding what transness looks like or who gets to be trans and who gets to be nonbinary, and what those people have to look like or what they have to do to fit in those boxes, and so for me, I remember hearing about in learning about nonbinary people, and like so many other. Trans and non binary people. I remember thinking to myself I'm not nonbinary enough. I'm not trans enough to hold and claim these identities right, and thinking about the ways in which trans bodies and non binary bodies are police even within our own communities, right? And so not just disrupting binary notions of gender being like boy Girl but also disrupting. You know these notions of what it means to be sis and what it means to be trans and pushing these categories outside of our limited understanding, like the limited definitions we oftentimes give them. Yeah. Alright, this is a good segue into maybe talking a little bit about representation. I heard a lot of from y'all speaking about like growing up and identifying certain things, and I really, really get to that. I remember a couple specific instances where was just like this sucks. It's totally sucks. I have to be a girl that is not like that's not what I want and I didn't see any examples of trans people until I moved to San Francisco. I mean, I, I knew who Laverne Cox. But that was pretty much like the extent of my knowledge, and so I had people that were just kind of squashing their own identities out of self preservation, but that impacted me because I didn't then see anyone. And so my question for you all is just what examples of people bending gender in any way do you? Did you have as you were coming into your own identity? And also what representation did you not see? Because I often point to she's the man as a pivotal trans experience for me is like literally watching this movie where this girl dresses as a boy and plays soccer. I'm like oh that is part of when I was like wait what is going on? And that's not even really transness that is like acting so. I'm curious if y'all have examples of UM, yeah, that representation that that we're meaningful to you. And maybe we can start with Jesse this time. If you feel like it. Yeah, I spent some time thinking about this question and I don't. I don't like. I definitely have like movies and characters that I connected to right growing up that I can like. Definitely like re look at through a queer lens. So like Spinelli from recess, right? Who like drops her first name, sorry. Sorry kiddo. Grabs her first name, right, gets ****** *** every single time somebody calls her. A girl. Right gets into fights about it and I remember relating to this character a lot and I and I don't want to put a nonbinary identity on Spinelli. I absolutely could. Who knows if right this? If recess was to be remade of Spinelli would be a non binary character, but I do remember resonating a lot with being frustrated over the connotation surrounding how girl is use right and I remember not wanting this label of girl and we can call it like cool. Maybe I didn't want it because of the oppression that I that I was associated with it or the devaluation of femininity like I didn't grow up in a space where femininity. Was valued right? So like absolutely it makes sense that that's not something I would want or want to associate with right as opposed to like I grew up in a household that masculinity was like very privileged, right? It was seen as like positive to be a tomboy, right? I couldn't be a girl that was like athletic or a girl that was aggressive. These were like no Jesse, you know, was a tomboy. And that's how people talked about me growing up. And so those were the representations I had right? I didn't have. Non binary or trans characters. I had tomboys to look up to or to mimic or to kind of see myself resonated, but not even that completely, and oftentimes these were white characters, right? Yeah, so in terms of what I had very limited gender transgression for people who are socialized as girls. I had a lot of that because that is seen as OK again because masculinity is seen as OK for people to perform because again, it's valued. But if I would have been socialized as a boy growing up like I would have not been able to do that, I would have not been able to embrace femininity because we devalue it. So yeah. Similar to Jesse, I didn't have a lot of examples of gender nonconformity. Uhm, the one example that I can think of. Well, I guess two from when I was really, really young. I was watching some award show and RuPaul came out and I and I said wow that ladies tall. But I was like that's not a lady that's a man. I was like why is he wearing a dress? And my dad was like he's just performing and I was like, OK, cool, uhm, I don't. I don't like RuPaul, I don't know if we can say that, but like I, I personally am not a fan of Ru Paul. I think that he is transphobic but that was the only example where I saw it. But my father was so. LAX and kind of dismissive about it, that it it wasn't as impactful as it could have been had I think there's been a different a different way that it was presented. Like people can do this. This is allowed. This is OK. Instead it was just like don't ask any questions. That's weird. And then one time we were driving through Atlanta when I was young. I think I said something the same thing about who I thought was a tall woman who I'm assuming now in adulthood, there's probably a trans person and my dad said same thing, no, that's a man. He's out here tricking people and things of that nature, which is such a triggering thing to say about trans people. So the the few examples that I had of genuine gender nonconformity were not presented well for me and now I have a host of examples and I'm still a child at heart, so I usually still watch cartoons and I'm just like man, these kids don't know how good they have it man like I watch Steven Universe and I'm just like dying and I I almost feel like like this is not a condemnation and I do not mean to be condescending, but sometimes I think like zoomers or even younger than that like almost take it for granted because it happens. So quickly, similar to what rented literally within the last decade like, there's been a complete shift as far as queer and trans present representation in media, but as a young person I I didn't really see it. Now I have lots of people. Laverne Cox was also very important to me in my trans journey. I just read a bunch from Laverne Cox. I saw audience member asked how do I learn him? For more information. I just read other trans people, so I would say. Laverne Cox, Raquel Willis following these people on like Twitter and Instagram is also great. Like they share amazing. Information, but I follow like people who write about gender in really important ways and very diverse groups of people who write about gender. A look I follow on their non binary journey. I just just so many people that you can follow and read about. And as they write about their life you might see similarities and it you know it helps you be less dismissive of yourself. You know 'cause I know somebody said like I, I don't feel enough. Sometimes every trans person goes through that just so you know, like every single transports it goes through the I'm not in a phase. That's completely normal. There is no such thing as enough. All this gender stuff is, you know, made up. You know, very purposefully, usually for the purpose of subjugation. So just you know, allow yourself to be and just read from other people who have written about their experience. And that was really integral to my development. Uhm? When I think about the kind of images of trans people from when I was young. They were kind of scary, you know. I was thinking about Buffalo Bill from silence. To the lamps. Turned into a monster and I I think there was a lot of that that went on especially early. I see so much more in the popular media media around me. That are are much. You know our again, our sense of gender and what it means is. Is expanding and evolving and. I remember the first reflection that I saw myself. It was a painting and I had a friend and I went over to visit them and this was really before I had seen any positive reflections of me. I you know, I know. Often transgender people don't see positive reflection with themselves, and I remember the first time I saw it was I was almost 30 something. It was first time I saw a positive reflection of myself and it was just transformative. And and again, that's how community can be transformative and how especially young folk. Begin to heal. The schism that they may have because their sense of who they are as a gendered person doesn't fit into the accepted boxes, or those boxes that they're in feel oppressive. Uhm? When we begin to see positive expressions of ourselves, it's really transformative for us. It really heals us. So. You know when I work in schools and in a very rural school district in Northwest Montana? And I'm in schools and districts and I know that when I go into that school as an Indigenous 2 spirit. Person indigenous queer person. Uhm? I know that for many of those kids in the school, it's the first time that they see. They may have seen a positive reflection. Of who they are. And so that's such an important thing. Young kids especially need to see these positive reflections, and so they begin to embrace a much broader sense of what's possible for them so they can embrace whatever gender that they feel, because gender isn't it isn't two boxes. It's this expansive thing that allows us to explore. The world and new and different waves and healing rooms so. I'm so glad you said that rent that actually reminded me of a documentary on Netflix called Disclosure, and it's very difficult for me to watch. I don't know if that would be everyone's experience, but I was like sobbing and it was. It was terrible in a good way. You know. Like in a way where I finally felt seen and I know that I said there has been a lack of representation. But rent helped me with that language where there's some. There's been representation my entire life. It's always been negative. He's always been negative. It has almost exclusively been written by non transgender people, and so even the attempts at being positive or skewed to either make cyst people to savior or it's just a complete misrepresentation of the trans experience and so. It's important not only to seek out other trans people, trans writers, and media makers for the purpose of getting like at the true feeling, but we have to understand that oppression stunts the imagination, right? There's this, this black scholar who writes about headspace. The concept of headspace, meaning when you are oppressed and when you will use trans. And they were talking about black people and and gender and everything else. There are so many calculations that you have to make in your head for your own safety. That is difficult to be present. Right, like Jesse said, you know, have to. If I'm going to this town, do I wear this outfit, you know, is this gonna cause me to not be able to get my car fixed or you know whatever? Whatever the situation is and so it's even more important to not just study the positive, but to analyze the negative for your own mental health. And and I think that's really important on your journey, so I hope that is. OK, to just swoop in there. I think about that mask again. How how people, how how some people see positive reflections of who they are throughout their life. And take that for granted. And and there are some of us who don't see. Positive reflections of ourselves or see like you say, keys are broken reflections of ourselves. What a gift it is. To have that opportunity to see. Positive reflections of yourself throughout your whole life. Lots of people don't experience that so. And I think this is bringing up something for me that I saw circulating on social media maybe a couple weeks ago, which was like. We're all talking about the idea of representation, but it's I'm probably gonna not say this exactly correct, but it's you're not under represented. Your systemically systemically excluded, so it's actually not that there's no, you're not represented. It's actually. People are on purpose, trying to make sure that you're not there, that we're not there, right? Like I think about things like gender markers. I think they might be changing it on a passport level, but in California you can get an X. On your license for your gender, but if you want to change it on your birth certificate, you gotta go. You know there, there's not really space, and there's still so many places. Even in California, where there's one gender neutral bathroom and you need to go get a key for it. And so you're the only person who's going to get that key. Like you're. There's not space for you there. So. Yeah, I think part of it too. Is like everyone's talking about how things are evolving. Which is amazing. Gender is evolving and it's expanding and where a huge part of that and that can feel really good. 'cause it's like we're doing it. Look at us and now those people that we didn't have, you know, the queer elders or the trans elders that we might not have had growing up. We are that and we can be that for people which is amazing. And it's also a lot of pressure. So what are according to y'all and y'all's experiences? What feel like? Some of the joys and challenges of kind of being responsible? Or that representation that you know, especially for me, I deal with like. No one did this for me, so I'm you know they have to forgive almost like generations before you or people who maybe couldn't have done what you feel like you needed. But how do we hold that? Like what? What feels hard? What feels good about that? Even with the lens as well of how it looks different for non white gender, expansive folks like the additional burden that might be there. Say the question again for me. Please question big question. The question is you know, what are some of the joys and the challenges of being responsible for representation, right? Like 'cause you're here, we're all here. We're out. We're having this conversation. It feels good and it's, uh, it can be burdensome at some point. So one of the joys. And what are the challenges as well as considering things like race as other layers? That you know. Stack on top of each other. You know, as an indigenous person, I really lament. Sometimes the loss of our oral traditions and and the transition to literate traditions so often there is a story. There's a story about gender. There's a story about what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman. And then there's all these missing stories which have been silenced and in the indigenous traditions. They were oral traditions. And I have learned listening to my elders that when we tell stories. We always want to be sure. To share all of the ways that we've heard that story get talent. And so. Part of that indigenous oral tradition that is realizing that there isn't a story and that. There are stories and the two spirit story isn't a story that got lost. It was the story that was suppressed. And so people have two spirit identity. We weren't invited to tell the story anymore. So there isn't a special two spirit story out there. Even. It's it's when two spirits begin to tell. The traditional stories from the perspective of a two spirit and the joy of that is really amazing to watch. Kids and you know, I'll tell a Mohawk oral tradition. Story of Sky Woman or something like that, and I'll tell it not from you. Know the last 400 years that story has been told from the gender, binary of men and women. That's how the story has been told for 400 years because the two spirits were removed from the story, and so, but I go in and I tell the story. Sky Woman had a partner and she was a woman. And uh, and I remember at the end of this story one of the young ones came up to me and asked me. The sky woman. Partner was a woman. How did she get pregnant? And that was an amazing question for a 4th grader to ask. Oh yeah, that's a great question. I'm glad that you're asking that question. You know that can happen, actually, you know. Uh, so there's such joy in telling these stories. To kids and having them like their their world blown open to to include. You know people who don't fit in those gender binaries and it's. It's wonderful and I do lament the loss of the oral traditions and how how we've lost diversity in the stories that we tell about each other. I'm gonna say something very similar to what Rin said I've been contemplating lately, and this is probably because I'm watching my. My nibbling nibbling is the gender neutral form of niece or nephew, so my sister child, who's just not even two years old. Have been embracing lately the wisdom of children and the wisdom of older people. Because my grandmother is also 97 years old and and even though she has dementia, there are these pockets of clarity and these conversations that we have that are just so profound and there's such an innocence. To my nibling and the way that they receive the world. And I'm really trying to grapple with that. And what that really means, but the joy that I would say in doing this work and being a queer and trans educator would be the youth. Like Ren said to have their entire world light up and to see the endless possibilities of gender and orientation and identity explode before them when they've been taught that it's very simple. That is wonderful. I do almost the same President. Pretty much the same presentation to children as I do to adults, and when I do them to children, they're like wow. This is fascinating. I learned something new today, and when I do them two adults, some of the adults say that and other adults are like kill it with fire. And I'm like what happens between like childhood and adulthood, where you're you're receiving new information, completely changes and the thing that I've landed on is that that's privilege. The adults have a privilege to protect. And in order to protect their privilege they have to condemn anything that's other right and for children they don't have that yet they have nothing to protect, you know, like they're fine, they're like cool. The world is a brand new place. And so I I think that sometimes people hold onto their privilege to a point that it becomes intoxicating. I've had to have you know so many arguments with people who have, you know. When I say when I define gender and I defined it earlier so I won't do it again, I'll have pushed back like no. A woman is someone who can have children and you know, I always say statistically about half of people with uteruses never have children. There are some people who want to have children who can't. There are some people who have to have their uterus removed due to endometriosis or any other thing. You know, like to your, your and your attempt to be transphobic. You are condemning cisgender people too, right? Like there's no right way to slice that. So that would be like both the joy and the suffering of that would be. Just how it's received by people, and I think that you never realize how important and impactful those experiences are, and so I guess you have them for yourself really, and so that that's kind of it's kind of a double edged sword. But that's OK. But yeah, I'm OK with that. I, I think for me like I. Thank you both of you so much and I agree with you both wholeheartedly. And I I also really love and appreciate you all focusing on the joy. 'cause like when I was thinking about this question. The only thing I was like hyper fixating on is like the challenge, right? The challenges that often come from. Oftentimes it's me being asked to represent trans folks, right? So oftentimes my identity is tokenized in different spaces and I'm asked to speak on behalf of trans folks or I'm like working or representing an organization that's. Attempting to serve the trans community, and yet it's a bunch of white cyst people, and so they call me in to make it look OK. Make it look better because they have a trans one trans person in a position of power authority, which is usually not the case. So I really appreciate both of you focusing on the joys and reminding me of like. The reason why I do all of this and and so for me it's very different being asked to be reppert you know to to represent trans people in trans community and to speak to younger folks or people who are just beginning to explore their gender or are in a different place on their gender journey that feels great. I love doing that work. For me. It's more when I'm asked to represent trans people in an organization. Right when I'm asked to do that education work that often doesn't come with being paid right? I'm asked to use my emotional, mental, and physical labor to educate people so that they can be more affirming, but again. I'm not being paid. I'm not being seen in that process, so I think for me, that's where the challenge comes is being asked to do this and not reimburse or be asked to do this. But there is no systemic change, right? There's nothing that it comes about from this education. It's like cool. We will remember your pronouns. Are they in them right? But they don't actually see me as a non binary person. They don't actually see right. A trans man is a man right there. They have to insist that the trans is there. Whether or not that. Individual identifies as trans or not, so it's that type of stuff that's frustrating when my education doesn't like when I'm doing that education. When it doesn't lead to systemic change where it's just symbolic, and that for me is the exhausting part and the challenge that I face. I mean, I think that's really real, like the lifting the quantity of lifting that we have to do as trans people because we don't have these systems or policies in place like I feel like that too, even in a supportive environment. Like you're saying, well, we're going to talk about pronouns. Everyone's gonna go around and say them. I'm like cool, but like I'm still the only trans person in the workplace. So like how, how do I fill out this survey anonymously when I have to choose trans male like that's not anonymous? Now you know everything and so yeah, so I guess I think it could be helpful to maybe just clarify for some people that are listening to like we're talking a lot about some of these burdens, but what what exactly needs to change like what you know? What policies and guidelines would we have if we could? That would make things better, like we're seeing some progress and everything, but it's not quite there, right? So what progress still needs to be made? 4 trans people to exist in the world. I mean it's a lot, but what? What specific things do we wish were different? For me, I think it's it's beginning. I think one of my asks of sits like six people would be to begin. Right with people they know. So when you have a friend that's having a gender reveal party, ask them why? Right push back on some of these things that we consider normal. Push back when your organization refuses to support the Equality Act. Act pushed back when there is a single stalled washroom with a key for. For non binary trans people push back. Ask questions. Yeah, I I really think also making sure that you're centering the experiences of trans people. So oftentimes I will walk into an organization that says that they're trans inclusive, and I'm like cool who came up with these policies and they're like 6 people and I'm like. Great, did you? Did you talk to any of your trans clients? Did you like hire somebody you just like decided that this is how it's going to be? So for me it's really beginning with the lived experiences of people who hold these identities. It's also again uplifting these individuals into places of power so that they have an opportunity to create some of these changes, paying people for their work. Again, like I cannot say that enough. Trans and people of color and people with disabilities are oftentimes asked to do things and to educate, and we are not reimbursed. Yeah, that that needs to stop. I also think we need to again begin this education process early, right? Kids understand this stuff right? It's really getting the parents on board and we don't need to force kids into boxes. We can give kids options. All of the options. And again, this isn't just have to do with trans kids. This also has to do with this kids. We put system kids in boxes that negatively affect them. Like what happens when we tell boys. But they can't cry. What happens when we tell boys that they can't have pink, right? So there's so many different ways that expanding and challenging our understanding of the gender binary can benefit all kids regardless of their gender. Those are just a few things. Resist pushback. Speak up. Jesse, I really like that what you were saying about you know this is hard work. Rewiring our understanding of gender. And some of us are being asked to shoulder that work, especially people who are queer or or gender non binary. Or keep getting putting put into these positions where they're expected to do. They heavily heavy lifting. And so this idea that we need, allies who are willing to do this work who are not. A transgender people who come see. The destruction of their. People they know having these gender reveal parties and and speaking up about it and so that those kids grew up with a much more diverse sense of who they are. So thank you, Jesse. I think that's. You know so important. That was a really good list. Uhm, I don't know how much I could add to that, but what I will say is that it is important to educate yourself before you engage with others, people. You know, trans people shouldn't be your Guinea pig. You know I'm not going to say wait until you have a trans student or anything like that. You should already know you have a trans student right now. Like first of all. Just because a person has come out to you doesn't mean that you don't have trans people around you. There are probably also trans educators in your school who do not feel safe coming out and therefore you don't know, but they absolutely are, because again, there is nothing that trans looks like or does not look like, so you just might not know. So educating yourself first and foremost. Secondly, anytime you see gender present anywhere you know like on a form or a gender themed party like gender reveal. And that's not the only gender themed party. You should question this and and just be a disruptor. This is why we've moved away from the conversation with Ally ship, right, because there's no such thing as an ally, but it's not an identity, it's not who you are, but there is Ally ship. There is coconspirator, right? How are you disrupting the space? You know, dress codes should be gender neutral. In school. There there's no reason for that. It would it would. It was for me and my school district when I made this change, which is that we removed gender from their registration forms for parents. We tried to expand it for students, but the state of Florida kicked it back up and that was like a huge deal for some people because instead of putting mother and father we put parent or guardian. One parent or guardian two. And honestly. I mean I'm a Poly amorous person. It doesn't have to be two people. But whatever, I'm just trying to get in where I can get in so you know, like these things should and can be disruptive. Question yourself. Anytime you see gender listed somewhere, it's probably unnecessary. There's no reason like you know, Cal said you can have X is your gender on your drivers license in California, and that's great and that is progress, but we shouldn't have a gender designation on our license anyway. What is the purpose of that? Who does that serve? How does that help, right? So anytime you see these things, that's a very Broadway question it and question how it. Functions and and and ask yourself who is being excluded when we include these things, because if gender is present, gender nonconforming people are inherently excluded. Inherently. It's not a maybe it's not a what if inherently. There is no way for nonbinary people to fit into the binary. It just does not work right? You're asking people to fragment themselves, and so to just be very purposeful about seeking out this information looking for it, right? You have to look for the racism we have to look for the transphobia. Get the look for the queerphobia and then the second step is to actively disruptive. Disrupt it after you educate yourself, right? This very education is very important. And I think you know is sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead. Uhm, I was just going to quickly add to that is like not just gender thinking about gender but the same thing with sacks. Like why the hell are we asking people about their sex right? Half the time it has no bearing on whatever it is you're trying to capture. Oftentimes we see, at least in my experience, when people are asking me for my sex, they're trying to figure out what's between my legs, and it doesn't. Usually. For those interactions it doesn't matter, right? Or they're trying to figure out what I really am, 'cause, like nonbinary, is not. A good enough answer for them. They're trying to put me into whether I'm like a woman or a man, right? And so really thinking about whether or not like we need to ask the question about sex, right? What are we trying to ask like this is not a bunch of medical providers, but if it was, I'd be like cool, do. What do an organ inventory have people check what organs I have right? If it's about you're interested in how somebody was raised then, then ask that question, right? Ask what you really mean and think about why. Why you're trying to ask that question or what. We're trying to capture so yes, absolutely gender, but also same thing with sex. You know? As an educator, when I think about. Uhm? To ensure an inclusive classroom, I have to be a leader. As as a teacher. And I have to invite diverse contexts. Into the classroom. So I have to make sure that the kids that I'm working with understand that I'm inviting. Their diverse identities. Into the classroom. And I have to be a teacher leader. Yeah, to do that, uhm? And so that's where I think educators have to do. How do you broaden the story? About gender, when you when you bring up ideas in your classroom, how do you breakdown? The single story about what gender is and and it's not about just gender, it's about. Ethnicity, racism. All of these things. How do you as as an educator? You have to be a leader and really work to invite. A lot of diverse perspectives into your class and I think. When you begin to do that, students respond and they begin to see that their voice. Might be accepted. In this classroom. Because diverse voices are what is an important part of this classroom. So invite diversity into your classroom. I want to piggyback on that very quickly. What rent said was so simple and so important as educators. One of the first two things that first two steps you can take is to be visible ally because I'm telling you I have conversations with young people all the time. They assume that everyone is queer phobic, usually because their family is right and so they just think all adults or friends. I don't know. I don't know, and they all think the same way. So unless you are loudly and visibly and ally, this can be something simple like having queer books displayed in your classroom. Having you know queer and trans posters having a pronoun pin, introducing yourself with your pronouns, saying things like if you go by a different name or pronoun than what I've been calling you, please feel free to correct me. So number one, being a visible ally and Co. Conspirator and secondly. Being willing to learn, saying you know, being open and saying I just, you know, went to this great presentation the other day. I realized there's a lot I don't know. I'm willing to learn. Are there any resources that you all can share with me, right? 'cause these zoomers are amazing. I'm a really big fan of zoomers myself. The Generation Z kiddos. I think they're great. I mean, I feel like I would be a better person if I grew up with Lil Nas X. I don't know. But anyway, the point is, be willing to be corrected right? None of us are perfect, but it all has to do with your willingness. To hear feedback that is is meaningful and beneficial. Yeah, I also want to just quickly add to that is. Both of you began talking about it, but again, centering our students experiences and so when they tell you like, hey, this is the name I want to use. Don't share that with my parents right? Be be aware of that right and make sure that you're using the name that they want you to use in different interactions, right? Don't don't then follow up with a question of like, well, do you want me to help you come out? No, no, no like this kid knows what's right for them. Your job is to is to listen right? And like. Not ask questions if they want help coming out right and they have seen that you've supported them. They'll ask you right, they'll ask. Don't don't try and take it a step further. I also think that there's ways in which we can query our curriculum. There are tons of people right who openly identify as non binary. Who are scientists? Who are mathematicians who are writing books who are characters in books who are doing amazing things right? So when you're covering different things like take a second and Google like trans mathematicians, right? So you can. Like right when you're talking about other famous mathematicians. You can also talk about trans identities, right or non binary identities. So definitely thinking about ways to be more inclusive, right? And that also stems from like race, making, sure, like if you're going through your syllabus like making sure that like not everybody on that you're reading is white. Same thing making sure that not everybody you're reading is cisgender, so making sure that you're capturing a lot of different voices in your in your classroom. And don't subject your I mean I? I think we can't subject our students to the stereotypes that we we may have or have learned. Because. That in itself can be oppressive. It's it comes back to what you were saying, Jesse. I think so important is have you have you been open to hearing? What they're willing to tell you, rather than trying, decide. Oh, I'm gonna do this because I've heard that versus. How can how can I create an open? A safe classroom for kids to share? You know, when you invite them in as whole beings when you don't ask? Some of your students to check their identity at the door, and that happens a lot. Classrooms get arranged so some students are invited fully into the classroom as who they are and other students are are asked to check their identity at the door. When you can make your classroom a place where kids don't have to check who they are at the door. Then then you get to know who they are. And and and that's. That's when you can. Ensure. Inclusivity, I think in your class. Wow, this is great. I really appreciate everything that you all have brought up as ways to be Co conspirators in life and also specifically in the classroom and everything your saying resonates so much. I think as a trans person something that can feel so hard about being trans is that there are certain people who genuinely don't think that we exist that our identity is even valid as an identity. So just having spaces opened up. This is for everyone listening. Like if you can open up more spaces for people to be who they are, not even just like. Here are the options, but like whoever you are is perfect. Come on in right just like Ron was saying, don't check your identity at the door. In what ways can we combat like societies attempt to completely erase and exclude trans people? And I think that representation and just permission vocabulary sometimes just like giving people the options to be who they are. The things that we wish we. Would have had just providing that space feels super important. I'm aware of the time. And I was hoping maybe we can end out. That well, obviously. First of all, thank you panelists so much for all of your contributions. And if you wouldn't mind closing us out with, maybe we had one question in the Q&A about any advice for someone figuring out their gender identity right now as they start to learn more, they kind of feel those similar feelings that Jesse mentioned of maybe not being enough. What advice would you have for people who are beginning to understand their own gender identity? Right now, if you want to close this out with that and any final thoughts, that would be great. Anyone feel compelled to start? I I can start uhm. This is something I've thought a lot about because I like to consider myself like. I don't know the fairy gay parents II like I like to bless. New like people who are playing with their gender or not sure about their sexual identity to just be like you are blank enough to be whatever you want to be. And I think that's like, first and foremost that we all you said it before like we're all enough like period. But I also think it's important to the way that I started first play around with my gender identity is to try and things like try on different pronouns. Try on different names like be OK with some things, feeling good. Something's not feeling good. Be OK with not knowing. I think also be OK with not having to check all the boxes like oftentimes when we talk about transness we talk about like body just morphea and like you have to like want all these different things and like that is like not my experience like I don't have body dysmorphia. I don't have other right other things and I have other things that people don't have, so being OK not having to check all the boxes being OK with not having all the information. Being OK with trying things on, taking things off, mixing different things. I know when I first started like out on my gender journey I was like OK, I think I'm nonbinary. I'm gonna like you she and they write and see how that feels. And then I was like, OK, we can drop the day and then. But I like I'm not trans I but I'm not sick and I'm not claiming either one of these things right and being very comfortable in that right? Which is like, not how people often talk, talk about things, right? You have to be sis or you have to be trans. And I was like no. My gender like is outside of this binary, so being OK, like pushing back and creating things that feel good for you. I like to think about gender as a performance for me, and again, right. I see my gender is very political. Other people's gender does not have to be political. We use trans. People get to exist without having to be politicized, right? And so. We should get to exist if we just want to. We shouldn't always have to be doing work, but for me, right gender is very much performativity and so like. I like to mess around with it. There is no right or wrong way for me to do gender. There's no right or wrong way for you to do gender. You get to have fun and you know feel what feels great for you. This earlier, but I will definitely say it again. Reading about other trans peoples experiences was was the best thing that I could have done. I didn't even realize that certain childhood experiences that I had were so similar to other trans people and that helped me feel like enough. Redefining realness by Janet Mock is one of my favorite books of all time. When I was coming out to my family's trans, I gifted my mom the book so she could see like this is a thing that happens to real people. Deshon L Harrison is also a nonbinary author who writes, in particular, about the intersection of gender fat, anti fatness, and blackness, which is really powerful. Laverne Cox has a lot of writings that are really wonderful. Raquel Willis also does a lot of writings that are really wonderful and again, just following these people on social media can also be really illuminating for yourself and the last thing I will say is community is so incredibly important. Find people who you can be safe around, like everything that Jesse said totally. Valid. Totally agree, but in order to do that you also have to be around people who can wade through that with you. And if you have people who are not willing to wade with you, that can be more damaging. So there is a non binary support group at one of my local LGBTQ centers. They had like a trans support group. They had a trans women support group. They had a trans man support group but they didn't have a non binary one and so me and a couple people like we created it. And honestly I don't even go anymore. There was a narcissist in there who like messed up a whole bunch of friend groups and I don't even like. I don't even care like. Even Despite that person I I still needed that experience. I needed to be around non binary people in a safe space doing amazing things like we. You know, we would start spending a lot more time together and we had other resources and we can talk to each other through things and. Again, because you are purposefully left out of society, you begin to question your own experience and so it's so great to have mirrors of people who are like you who you can bounce ideas off and experience is often just sometimes commiserate. There's so much catharsis and commiserating with people like I'm telling you you ever like just be with your coworkers and be like Can you believe like this person said or did this like and you're just laughing about it even though it's a terrible experience? Because you're healing with each other, you know. So community is. Really important and then just reading and watching you know? I don't want to say like watching his bad. Other documentaries. There's this book to survive on this shore which is about trans people. I think 65 and older. That book was very important to me because like. Every black trans person I've known have died has died before the age of 50, right? And so like I needed to see black people survive, I needed to see trans people in their 70s and 80s and 90s like I had never seen that, and I didn't realize how much it impacted me until I saw their pictures and their stories and their visions like I didn't realize that I didn't see myself getting old until I could see them getting old right and so just immersing yourself in other people's experiences and then real life communities. You know, I think about the journey. Embracing who we are on all levels are gender who we are. That that's a healing journey. And it's really about healing. And. And I know in my journey. Where I began to really heal was around other people who were thinking about this journey as a healing journey. And being around community. That we're doing ceremony. That's that's when I started really healing is when I was around people who were. Really, being conscious of of the. The process by which. We become whole again. Wow, you couldn't have said anything more perfect to end this conversation. Thank you so much again to all three of you. It feels so good to be in this space and I hope the. Against is also feeling that positive energy and just like sense of community for all that. Ask questions that we didn't get to. I'm sorry we were obviously sent, but we really hope that you enjoyed the conversation and a lot of us are going to drop our contact information into the chat if you want to reach out to discuss anything further than those who are available to do so, I'm going to drop their information into the chat. Yeah, so as you drop your information, panelists, maybe you want to add in any place where others can learn about what work you're doing. If you have a website or anything else you want to plug, and you could drop that to the audience as well. And I just want to say, I know we ran a couple minutes late, but thank you so much, all of you for being here for spending your time learning and listening. If you could. Published by answering it Super Quick Survey that will open up shortly. That will help us make these events even better and will allow us to continue to have events like this and we are looking forward to hearing from you all soon. Thank you panelists. Thank you. TFA and thank you all attendees. Y'all are amazing and have a great rest of your evening. Thank you Cal. Keep writing. You're a great poet. Thank you so much, I appreciate you. _1714031125959