Ok, But Seriously

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Hello, hello everyone. Good evening and welcome to the very first episode of OK, But Seriously, the show where we talk about serious topics in a non-serious way. I am your host, Vanessa Lauren. I am so excited and honored to be part of this UNLV broadcast family. This is literally a dream come true for me, so thank you so much for everyone who's tuning in. You are listening to 91.5, The Rebel HD2, KUNV. We are listener supported, so I want to start with a shout out to all of our listeners. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thanks for supporting us, both practically and financially. We would literally not be here without any of you. So thank you. Today, for the first episode, we're going to take a deep dive into the history of Pride Month and gender equality. I have a wonderful guest here in studio with me who I will introduce you all to here shortly. But first, I just want to give a quick overview of what the show is going to be about. Okay, so the goal here is to talk about these everyday topics that are going on in our world that make us maybe a little uncomfortable, right? Growing up, I was the why kid in my family. Why do we have to even do the dishes if we reuse them? And why are we making the bed if no one comes in my room, you know? Parent's dream child, for sure. So now, I'm taking that curiosity to a new level. I'm turning it to topics that we could all use more insight and knowledge on. Every week I'm gonna try and bring in some experts and individuals with unique life experiences to talk with and learn from. I'm going to be coming into these interviews with minimal knowledge. I'll do a little research, but the purpose is to represent the average citizen. And that way, you and I, we can all learn together. So, without any further ado, my first interview for today is a professor here at UNLV who works for the Interdisciplinary Gender and Ethics Studies Department. She's getting all excited. She's been with us since 2016. She has a bachelor's degree from DePaul. She's got a PhD from Washington State University and has spent some time in Chicago as well. So she's also a published author, a poet, and an essayist. Her accolades are quite impressive. Please welcome Dr. Erika Abad. Am I saying that correctly, Erika? You are. Thank you for asking. I was actually born and raised in Chicago.

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Oh, wow, okay.

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Yes, and there's a funny story behind that. I bought my car from someone from Chicago. I bought like half my furniture from someone from Chicago. There's a huge Chicago connection between Las Vegas, in Las Vegas, which fascinates me. Like when the Cubs won the World Series I was like am I in Chicago because I've never seen so many Cubs t-shirts outside of Chicago. Yes we used to be the melting pot of all the different sports teams and now we are slowly growing our own love and brand here in Vegas. I'm born and raised here so I love watching everybody come in and out of the city and grow a love for the city. I have a sister currently who lives in Chicago right now so welcome welcome. So I hope I introduced you properly. Something, we're just going to get right into it. I asked you before we went on air, what are your pronouns?

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How do you identify?

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And you said-

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I had an answer. So today I identify as she, her, hers. And I say today acknowledging that there are people whose gender pronouns may change over time. And even though I was she, her, hers yesterday. I also acknowledge gender is fluid and a social construct and that many of us who have our relationship with a particular gender, it may not always stay fixed because of how we come to understand ourselves and our gender expression and our gender identity as ever evolving. And while there are those who identify with the gender assigned to them at birth, there are many who come of age, come into themselves, and don't necessarily want, feel that that's their truth. Right. Right. And so I want to be mindful of that and acknowledge that today someone may say their pronouns are one thing and realize that in reality they are something else altogether tomorrow. I love that. Realize that in reality. There are something else all together tomorrow I love that and that's a little bit of what we're gonna get into that more in a little bit But let's walk through What walk us through in a in a timely fashion your your background? So why why did you choose to study what you studied? What brought you here? And so What brought me here is that I was going to have a queer Chicana supervisor. As a queer woman of color, I've had the unique experience from my first year in college through my dissertation to work with queer Latinas on my research and on my acclimation to higher ed. And it was so uplifting and powerful to me. I would talk to friends and my sister, who's also my twin, and I would say, I have professors who look like me. This is awesome. And having gone to private schools most of my life, I wanted to be, I wanted to be for students what these professors had been to me. And the more I learned, the more I realized I wanted to be in charge of my own story, not in a literal sense. I also wanted to create content that spoke to me, that looked like me, and I wanted to teach content that looked like my students and that reflects my students' experiences. One of the things I tell my students in my special topics classes, in my first year seminar, which is gonna be on Hamilton and in the Heights this fall, because I love Miranda, is that I, sometimes we don't get people who look like us in the classroom, which is unfortunate. Right. And having the privilege of having had that so intensely, I'm grateful that I can be part of facilitating that for some students, as well as being mindful for the students who don't have my, come from where I come from, ethnically, in terms of queer experience, et cetera, that I make a point to introduce them and engage them with content that reflects as much of them as possible. Because there's something powerful and beautiful about picking up a book, listening to a podcast, watching a film that says, this is me. This is me and I want it done differently. And you know what? I'm going to invest in doing it differently in X, Y, Z capacity.

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How does that feel now that you, cause it sounds like you've had, you started a while ago.

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So now you're sitting here and you've, you're doing it. So how does that feel day to day? Do you ever just stop and soak it in? There's a little plaque in my office that says Living the Dream. And when people ask me why Vegas, I say I get to teach 55% students of color who have a lot in common with my mom, who was a nontraditional student, who have a lot in common with the people I worked with at a call center a few years back. And there's something enriching about having had my first university position navigating a politically unstable climate with a community that was as concerned as I was about what that would mean for us. Whether or not we would count, whether or not we LGBT people, children of immigrants, would get the rights, would get the protections we needed, the services we needed, so that we could serve this country better. And I feel like it's been a beautiful journey, and I'm grateful every day to work with colleagues and students who are invested in making Vegas better.

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A little side bar question,

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what would you say to someone who may be out there, hears this and goes, gosh, I wish I had colleagues like that. Maybe they feel more like they aren't supported. What would your encouragement be to people who are struggling to feel that representation? In the workplace, it's tricky for a variety of reasons, because different workplaces have different standards and cultures that either invite collaboration and self-advocacy or that oftentimes feel that it's discouraging. And so my question is, what is the concern? What is the culture of addressing concern? And how safe do you feel navigating those spaces? Even though I've been living honestly as a queer person for over, for almost 13 years, there were jobs I had in that, in this time period where I wasn't out because I didn't feel safe because of the kind of work I was doing. And I felt if I was out and living queer, I couldn't necessarily serve the immigrants I was working with adequately, or be taken seriously, or even listen to. You know, as a woman of color who's done advocacy work on and off in different capacities for as long as I can remember, I've had been able to have honest conversations with folks about why being out in one space is not the time, and yet, and figuring out a care strategy so that I can either navigate that space until I find something better, or a care strategy to make an intervention which I feel is necessary and possible, right?

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Right, because the- Because that takes time.

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Yes, the word you said that stuck out to me is saying you don't feel safe. And I want us to stop there because that's something I think we can't just glaze over that feeling safe. Can you I'm going to challenge you to kind of describe what about it is not do you do? Why don't you feel safe?

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In? So, so growing up Catholic, right? Yeah. One of the reasons I didn't come out was because coming of age Catholics, we didn't have the Pope we have today that said, God loves you. God loves you. Yes, you're gay. And God loves you too. So right, like, that's a huge I remember I was like, and then he's from South America too. So I was like extra in my field.

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Extra young.

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Extra young! And being like living the gospel of the poor. Okay, that aside. And, and so I knew that I needed to come out that I needed to be able to say, okay, I know this is going to be hard. I come from a religious family, and it's going to take them time and it's going to take me time. I need specific tools in my arsenal Before I decide to live honestly, which is why I decided to come out in graduate school, which had its pros and its cons and I know that I live fiercely and honestly now Because of everything I've experienced before and I when I when you're asking me about safety, what I'm thinking about is economic stability, access to healthcare, which we need to talk about and transgender stuff in a minute, access to housing, feeling safe walking your neighborhood at night. What's the other one? Feeling safe, going grocery shopping, buying your clothes, listening to music, going to events. There's a lot coming out, whether you're coming out, whether you're living honestly as a person who's attracted to the same gender or multiple genders or living honestly in your gender is still a life risk. And so when I say safe, I'm thinking about, do you have the tools you need to live well? And do you have a strategy in case your self-advocacy doesn't go the way you do? That's a hard thing to ask for because I wish we didn't have to ask for it especially since the Civil Rights Act, thanks to the recent Supreme Court decision, now includes the LGB and T community. But just because we have federal protections and recognition of those protections doesn't mean it's going to happen overnight. It's going to take time.

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Right. And we still want to eat and have housing. Yeah. And because I think a lot of the times, and again, this is you and I are both speaking from our own experiences here. But a lot of the times the conversations I hear on the other side of it is like, well, why do you care what anyone thinks? Just be you just love who you love. And it's not necessary. It sounds like you're not saying like, look, I don't I don't care what Instagram thinks about me. I don't care what people down the street think about me. Yes, there's a mental health issue there as well, especially for younger people, but this is, we're talking our day-to-day struggles, like the healthcare. Let's get into that.

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Tell us what we need to know about that. So for example, up until this current administration, the CDC couldn't count or talk about transgender. Transgender community who faces the highest rates of homelessness, job insecurity, and as a result limited access to health care, limited access to stable housing, weren't being counted. And in not being counted, there's no legal or state-sanctioned way to support them in getting social services that people who can count can get, right? I remember in the job I had before this, I was interviewing community leaders in Chicago's Puerto Rican community and one of, and there was a professional who was working with an LGBT youth of color centered transitional housing. And he said, we don't have the numbers to articulate that trans youth of color have the highest rates of healthlessness. And while I have seen over the years a growth in that targeted service sector here in Las Vegas, if we don't have the numbers, non-profits can't ask for federal or state funding. And if there's no way to get those numbers, how are they supposed to have those interventions, right? And if those numbers don't exist, how are fields training health care professionals supposed to train healthcare professionals to work with those populations. It's almost like they don't exist. It's like they don't exist. And it's incredibly disheartening. Like when I was going through confirming I didn't have breast cancer and in the fall of 2019, and my then partner was waiting for me in the lobby, they were okay because they were female presenting, right? But they were also being harassed as to why they were there, right? Like if they're not there for an appointment, what's the, why are they there, right? And it's because the rules in that particular site were gray. And while, right, we were both college educated so we could navigate that space. There are people who will enter into a healthcare unit and be like, I want services but I want to be treated with respect. Because sometimes that respect is discouraging. I've had students who tell me, I have people who ask me who to go to for healthcare needs because they're looking for trans-friendly doctors.

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They can't just walk into any...

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They can't just walk in.

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Yeah.

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I'm getting a tooth extraction and the form I had to fill out had two options for gender. And I was like, this is annoying. We just, we can't, like the transgender community counts. Why isn't there another option?

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The other option, which is something that you and I had talked about beforehand. Like the female, there's the male, female, other, or don't, don't want to answer, right?

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Or the prefer not to answer. Exactly, and one of the things I like about the FAST Clinic here is that, in part due to the interventions of folks like at the care center, which was formerly the Women's Center, and some former staff from the SDSJ, there are more than four options. And having multiple options is important. One, so that a community can feel seen. And two, because in that seeing, a patient can feel safe enough to request what they need. And healthcare is so important to me because my mom has worked in healthcare my entire life as an administrator or an intake person. And right now she's organizing fellows. She's a fellowship coordinator. And so I knew how to talk to healthcare professionals and I knew how to advocate for myself, which I didn't realize was so rare until I was no longer in my mom's professional network bubble of healthcare professionals. And then I said, oh, people don't take me seriously. Oh, I'm going to be loud and obnoxious in advocating for my rights because if I'm not, people who look like me who didn't grow up with a mom who just made a few calls so I didn't have to wait in the ER, right? They're not going to be able to learn how to advocate for themselves and ask for bill payment options and ask for doctors to treat them with respect. And this is just race, and when you have gender and sexuality in the conversation, it's talking about the rights appropriately. A friend of mine tweeted about this Women's Health Care Act and it's like, not all women have uteruses and not all people who have uteruses identify as women. So the law is limiting by naming.

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But yes, just by the lingo. Now, I'm gonna, I guess, play devil's advocate here, because this is what we're here to do. There are those. There are those that poke fun at like, Oh, well, if we keep making a long list of things to identify as then what are we doing? And what are we like, I see a lot of that, especially on social media, a lot of people are like, it is what it is, you're either this or that. And for me personally, I look at that and go like, okay, but we don't know. There are 7 billion humans, right? So we don't know what it feels like

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to be somebody different than us. I'm excited and a little nervous to ask you this question, but what would you say to someone who's so stuck in that mindset of like, look, it's this and it's that,

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and it just needs to be this, and it just needs to be that.

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How come?

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Ooh, I like that.

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Have you, okay. What, and it depends on how heated I am at the moment. And so, cause I get, I sometimes get those questions in class cause I teach gender studies, intro to gender studies. And when someone tells me this is how it is, I was like, how come? According to what? What was your exposure? What if I tell you that there are people whose genitals are cut off so the doctor and parents have an easier time with their gender? Because that happens. Because if you're going to say science, there are people born with XY, XX, among other chromosome variations. So, if you're going to argue science, there's more than two genders. Next question, right? Yeah. So, if you're going to go to the science route, there's that. If you're going to go, it's not science, it's just culture. Culture according to whom?

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Sure.

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Because these are cultural norms that are being passed down to us from decades and decades and decades of, well, people who... The world is growing. It's changing. It's evolving. It's like what you said in the beginning, right? Like even individually, we grow, we change, we evolve.

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So how we are today may not be how we feel tomorrow. Exactly. And some people say the point of sex is procreation. I was like, so people who can't have kids shouldn't have sex.

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Right. Which is a whole nother topic. And there's so many people that yeah. And like, because I do a podcast about child free living. And so I'm laughing. So I'm going to say this because I think it's important. I was here at UNLV, and I'm going to be really honest here. I mocked it because we were in class and a professor said, everyone get up, tell me a fun fact about yourself and then your pronouns. And I remember being in the class and I remember feeling like, oh my gosh, like, why? And then as I went, we went around the room, everyone was uncomfortable. Everyone was uncomfortable to say it. And then when I went home and the journalist in me did research, because that's just who I am, and I found that this lingo, people sometimes think like, oh, what's the big deal? And so I really, I have this question for you of like, why is identifying pronouns such an important thing?

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I'm going to throw a run to this conversation as to where you thought it was going.

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It's gonna be great.

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No, go ahead. People being able to self-identify their gender pronouns is an act of self-determination, right? And if we're going to look at the right of every citizen to free speech and self-expression, gender is part of that conversation. Now, having said that, I've lived in a variety of cities, cities that are queer-friendly, like my hometown Chicago, like Las Vegas, like Portland, Oregon. I have lived in not-so-friendly cities, like Pullman, Washington, where my grad institution was. And outing your pronoun can be a life risk. In other words, I always gauge where someone is. And I gauge my environment. And if I don't know my environment or my students, I don't do it because I don't know who's in my classroom. And I want to make sure my students are safe. I've had encounters where I have students do blind peer review and they freak out because they've outed themselves in their assignment, right? I don't want my students to feel distressed. At the same time, I have no problem outing my gender because going to your point of your discomfort, I'm not uncomfortable with it. educator, as an ally to the trans community, to my non-binary chosen family, one of the things that I try to do, as we're waiting for the lights to turn on, this is fun, is to read someone where they are and receive someone where they are and let them identify their own journey and their own standards of safety. And if they don't know, be an avenue, be the space to have that conversation.

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Yes, because then my follow up question to all of that is, so we're learning, we're growing.

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If you do misidentify somebody,

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what's your advice in that?

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How do you navigate those conversations?

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Don't apologize, just keep going. Apologize to yourself, own the fact that you stumbled and keep going. If the person brings it up to you and says, you misgendered me before you catch yourself, right? Then apologize. Because one of the things that the LGBT community has consistently had to do is say, we're here, we are not a threat, we want to live with joy. And unfortunately for a lot of us, it's harder work than it is for someone who looks like the president. Yes. Okay. And so, right. There's a lot I'm saying without saying it's great. And so for, for everyone who doesn't look like the president, fighting for joy, living whatever our dreams is, is unfortunately sometimes harder than for others, partially because of how our desire to have fun, to play, to dress, to see ourselves is perceived as a threat and all we're doing is existing.

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Because you know what, I heard a saying one time that says we have more in common than we don't. Like, for example, if you and I were going to go to dinner, what's one of your favorite types of food?

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I'm going to have Puerto Rican and Colombian food this week, it's totally going to happen.

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Oh, that's okay, so you picked the one thing I don't really eat, but that's fine, that's fine. My point is, like, little things, like, you know, it's not about an us versus them. There's a lot of things, more things we have in common, like everybody likes some kind of different kind of music, everybody has like a hobby or whatever, you know, it's like there's so many things and the one thing that I hear throughout what you're saying is that, I mean, let's just talk about life in general stressful. We don't have to go into the world, we can just talk about America, just navigating like finances and the economy and just deciding if you're going to have a family and what kind of car you want to buy and just the day to day things, but then add on top of that, having to worry about all of the extra things that the LBGTQ community has to worry about, not because they want to, but because people are not willing to have those conversations, right?

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Yeah, I remember we were talking about, um, Christianity came up in our pre-conversation, and I said one of the best things about being out and arriving at a satellite campus of my graduate institution to write my dissertation was, I was able to participate in Pride with my Catholic church.

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And-

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Which already makes people go, what?

0:26:13
You're welcome.

0:26:14
How? Right? And when I got here, I said, okay, my mom's gonna come visit, she's gonna wanna go to church. I'm still getting used to this place. Let me find an open and affirming Catholic church so we can go do Christmas there. And we did, and it was great. And I was like, I love this. But then life happened and I'm learning to teach full time. I was like, I should go to church. Right? And I say that because I know, even as a Catholic, I have had a positive experience attending churches and finding churches that don't think I'm going to go to hell, right?

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Yes.

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And that is one thing we have in common, right? We both believe that God doesn't, isn't going to condemn me or trans people for living their truth, right? Because God's love is unconditional.

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Correct. God's sin is sin. Like we were talking before we came on air and I was telling you that I'm a Christian. And so I was saying how it's a difficult conversation to navigate sometimes because as a Christian, I believe that we are called to just love everyone, all people. And what happens between a person and God is between a person and God. And that's a difficult conversation to have sometimes, especially in the Christian community. Because there are those that feel like, well, no, this is what it's supposed to be. But that's a whole other thing that we won't get into.

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Yeah, that could be like a whole three hour conversation.

0:27:36
Exactly. I want to ask if there's anything more you want to touch on and talk on. Our

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time has quickly gone by. Of course it has. I feel like we need more time. Always. So I'm going to do a shameless plug because I can't wait to see how people react to this show. Las Vegas born and raised Michael Cimino stars in a show called Love Victor and I've been following it not only because I've been following queer Latinos on TV, but more because I like what they're doing with family and how they're allowing, and the season two is not out yet, and how they are allowing a family to be messy in the acceptance process. A lot of the content I have seen, queer content I have seen over the years, and not just because I was at ClexaCon for like two years, in terms of panelists and doing panels for that convention, but also just this moment after the repeal of DOMA is that LGBT characters are getting full, whole stories that aren't tragic or just HIV-centered or just hate crime-centered. We are getting stories that say, parents struggle and that's okay. Or, queers in relationships have the same struggles as straight people in relationships. Or, we have the same family values and I'm looking forward to seeing how the greater public reacts because we don't, because media and representing LGBT characters tends to not, tends to be completely supportive and have unicorn parents that are P flag parents, or they have parents who kick kids out. And I'm looking forward to seeing a show attempt to make it messy and not give us either extremes. Because I think about my family who struggled with my honesty, and they've all come a long way. And it's because, one, I said, I'm not talking to you until you figure it out. And two, because I was able to have those vulnerable conversations, and then also, like, reference media that was doing it well. And and use media to have those difficult challenges. And I know that Love Victor has been that tool for a lot of young queer people. Because they're so careful. And now that we're like out of quarantine, I'm looking forward to see how content that humanizes parents' struggle while also being tender with young queer youth is inviting us to have conversations about being okay with the growth of visibility and support for the LGBT community of all ages.

0:30:27
Yes, I am also excited to see that because there are things that I feel like being in the heterosexual community, like we reference media all the time, like as our day to day, you know, like, oh, did you see this funny show? Like, oh, I do that with my so it's only it's only fair, right? Yeah. Thank you so much for coming in and sitting down and talking so openly, so candidly, so honestly. Love this, love talking with you. If anyone wants to follow along your journey, is there a way to do that?

0:30:59
You can see my hiking selfies at prof underscore eabod on Instagram, and I engage with my students on Twitter at prof underscore eabod on Twitter. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

0:31:12
And now back to your tunes. All right, everyone have a great night.

Transcribed with Cockatoo