Julie Rei Goldstein was an absolute pleasure to talk with. She is so knowledgeable and is an amazing advocate for trans youth. She is transgender, and her scars very much deal with that.

There is still so much I don’t know or understand about the transgender experience. But here is one thing that I do know. They deserve love and support just like everyone else. They have inherent worth just like everyone else. Because they’re human. They shouldn’t be an “other.” Everyone deserves love and respect. Full stop.

There really is so much I could say about this, but I will just leave some of my favorite quotes from this recording with Julie. (Time stamps are where they are in the episode.)

28:05
“Apart from the bar mitzvah, I could tell that puberty was beginning and it was like, I need to stop this, I need to stop this.”

28:24
“But the more your body changes in a direction that you know isn’t right, the more painful and the more desperate you become.

28:58
“A couple days after I came out, I started seeing a conversion therapist... It’s hard to explain what they do and the way they do it. But it’s almost like they untuck you’re brain, and place in this idea that you’re at fault for why everybody sees you as bad.”

42:44
“I think that in a way this empathetic disconnect, too, I think. Just not understanding that we’re all different and that’s something that instead of judging should be celebrated and accepted.”

44:57
“This is why I do it. To give that next generation that hope and that visibility that I never had. Because I see girls like her who are being supported by their parents, who have that visibility, and who have role models and people to look up to. And ya know, like Jazz Jennings going to Harvard, I see kids who are gonna just change, I’m sorry I’m gonna swear, change the damn world. These are kids who are gonna have the greatest leg up, and having gone through the experience they have, and having had their family there, and not having to go through andogenous puberty which is it’s own physical scar in itself to trans people... God, if we after going through what we did and surviving and still accomplish stuff, I can’t even imagine what’s going to be possible for these kids.”

Your health is important and improvising binders can cause permanent damage. If you can’t afford one, Point of Pride provides binders at no cost.

Please bind safely.

If you’d like to support this podcast, become a patron today. As a bonus, you get access to unedited (and ad-free) episodes as soon as they’re recorded.