The Hollywood Reporter held its third annual Raising Our Voices luncheon, celebrating some of the industry's most powerful advocates for diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. Annette Bening took over as moderator for the second panel, called "Freedom to Be: The Future of Trans Visibility," presented by ACLU. She was joined by 'Baby Reindeer' breakout star Nava Mau, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, '9-1-1: Lone Star' actor Brian Michael Smith and ACLU lead attorney for LGBTQ+ legal cases Chase Strangio.
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00:00Okay, so now I'm a moderator. This is
00:10different. I'm a little bit nervous. That's okay. Okay, wait. I have to read a little bit first. I love a script.
00:18Hello, everyone. Okay, good. Am I okay? All right. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the
00:27ACLU's Freedom to Be the Future of Trans Visibility panel at the Hollywood
00:34Reporters Annual Raising Our Voices luncheon. I did it. Okay, just quickly, I
00:44do want to say on a personal note why I'm here. I'm here because there is so
00:54much fear and ignorance right now in the atmosphere, in the political
01:01atmosphere, in the social discourse around trans people, and it is so
01:07destructive, and it is so wrong. I'm lucky I have a trans son. I have four kids, and
01:15I love my kids, and I brag about all of them because that's our job. We're
01:20parents. We get to brag about our children. I'm sorry. That's just how it
01:23is, and I do. I brag about all of my kids, and I brag about my son, and I know what
01:30it's like to be afraid. Okay, I know. I had a kid who said he was trans. I didn't
01:37know what to do. I was scared. I was ignorant, and so I know personally like
01:44what that journey is as a parent. I don't know what it's like to be trans, but I
01:49know what it's like to be a parent, and I am so grateful for this experience
01:56because it has opened up my mind and my soul and who I am as a human being in a
02:04way I never could have imagined, and I'm so grateful for that, and all of the
02:10themes that I heard of even in the film about the East-West Bank, it's about
02:16bridges and connections. There is no reason to be frightened if you have a
02:22trans child or a gender-questioning child. What kids and families need is
02:31support and love and information and counseling and medical care, and it's not
02:42complicated, and when we talk about, we're going to talk about trans visibility
02:48with very visible trans folks, but that's not the goal in my mind. The goal is we
02:56all have trans folks in our lives, and I'm thinking I made it was a list like
03:01of all of the folks that I know. Doctors, caregivers, the guy at the bookstore, the
03:10store clerk, the barista, the scientist, the author, the poet, like this is life,
03:18and everyone deserves to be able to live in freedom and dignity. That's what our
03:28country is about. That's what we want to move towards, and right now we really
03:32need to underscore that. So that's where I'm coming from. Thank you.
03:45I want to start by going to Chase. As many of you know, I hope, we are honored
03:54to have Chase because Chase is one of the most articulate advocates for the
04:01trans community in this country and knows so much. So I wanted to start
04:09actually, if I could, if you can give us a picture about where we are kind of
04:15right now. There's a lot of trans legislation. From what I understand, sort
04:20of since same-sex marriage was approved, then, if I may, the political right sort
04:28of moved over to the trans issue and starts demonizing the trans community in
04:34a very pointed legislative way. So if you would, and maybe Project 2025, a little
04:40bit, or just kind of give us a sense of where we are. Yeah, so first of all,
04:44thank you all, and thank you Annette, and I'm already a little bit crying, and Nina
04:48had me crying, and I'm like, okay, well that's what we're doing, and that's okay.
04:52I'm here for it. We hold multitudes, but we are, you know, I want to bring, you know,
05:00Nav and I were talking about, like we want to really nourish the magic of
05:04transness and the gift of having a trans child, for example, and I just also want
05:10to say we are in crisis, absolute crisis. There are hundreds of pieces of
05:16legislation targeting trans people introduced every year, and after the
05:22Supreme Court struck down bans on marriage equality for same-sex couples,
05:26a hundreds of millions to billions of dollar global movement was weaponized on
05:33the bodies of trans people, and for the last nine years, we have been fighting
05:39just to exist, just to not have our health care criminalized, just to be able
05:46to go to the bathroom in school, to be able to enjoy the activities of our
05:51peers, and it is becoming increasingly impossible, and we cannot fight this
05:57legislative, this political, and importantly, this cultural battle alone,
06:02because we are dying, and so I just I can't raise the alarms enough, and if we
06:10look at what what does the future hold, something like Project 2025, Project
06:152025 posits transness itself as criminal. It suggests that the weight of the
06:20government should be weaponized against us for existing, and so that is what
06:25we're up against, and so I am honored to sit here among these incredible artists
06:30who so often have to speak to their transness, but let's just take a moment
06:33to celebrate their brilliant art and their craft,
06:38and because at the end of the day, litigation, which is what I do, is a form
06:47of storytelling, but it is a form of storytelling that exists within the
06:51cultural context in which we live, and so whatever stories we're able to tell as
06:55lawyers, as policymakers, as litigators, it's constrained by the cultural context
07:00that we are existing in, so whatever power I have in the courtroom pales in
07:06comparison to the power that you all have, and so I'm here today to just be in
07:12your presence, but also to ring every alarm that I can, because our survival is
07:16dependent on the stories that we're able to tell in this society, and so let's do
07:21this. Thank you. Okay, great. Thank you. So, Nava, I'm going to ask you the first
07:28question, so first of all, congratulations on Baby Reindeer, which
07:37is this massive hit on Netflix, and it's a wonderful show, and congratulations on
07:44your Emmy nomination. So happy for you, and sort of what the last panel was
07:53speaking to, the complexity of characterization, and one of the things
07:59that is so striking in this performance, and in this show, is that you are the
08:05smartest, least neurotic, most accomplished, sane person in the show,
08:13which is such a refreshing thing in this character, so I just wanted to know what
08:19you might want to say about Baby Reindeer, and what your experience has
08:23been like, and maybe I hear something about you've been getting particular
08:28responses from cis men that might be interesting for people to hear about. Did
08:33that leak somewhere? Tell us the truth. Well, thank you so much. It's an honor to
08:43be sitting here, and I think I still can't really believe that everything
08:48that's happened this year has happened, and I think that it's been so special
08:53that the way that I think so much of the world has received Baby Reindeer is
08:58exactly the way that I did when I read the script, and when I was filming two
09:05years ago now, and so as you were, you know, asking the question, I kind of
09:14remembered how special it was to work with Richard, and I think it's, it's just,
09:23it's, it feels still very taboo and stigmatized, I think, for cis men to even
09:34speak to a trans woman, which I think is a reflection of the ostracization that
09:43trans people have faced in our society, and the way that trans people have been
09:48placed at the bottom of social hierarchy, and so let alone, so for a cis man to not
09:59only, you know, address a trans woman, but then uplift her in a story the way that
10:06Richard did, was the first time that I had ever seen something like that, and,
10:12and so it was transformative for me, personally, to kind of reckon with the
10:20the weight, and the, I think the pain that that is inherent and, and inherited in
10:32the dynamics between cis men and trans women, but the reality is that we, we can
10:42find love with each other, we can find understanding with each other, and so
10:47it's, it's been incredible now that audiences around the world have gotten
10:54to witness one relationship like that, and, and I think that it has led them to
11:00interrogate what it means for them, and what relationships they might be having
11:07with trans women, and so, yeah, it's been, there's been people that come up to me
11:12on the street, and, and, and I'm always like, wait, you, like this meant something
11:18to you, you know, like, yeah, shout out to that French guy at Huntington Gardens,
11:27like, seriously, it really meant so much to me, like, I was like, okay, like, it
11:31freed you too, so it's been really beautiful to get to share that. I love
11:38that, and I love that you shared just that specific experience, because often
11:43when we're in the public eye, we have a general sense of maybe having some
11:48effect on an individual, but when someone, you have a moment, a personal moment with
11:53one person who comes up and takes your arm, I can think of a number of that I've
11:57had over my life, and I just think, wow, sometimes people even tell you secrets,
12:01because they felt, because I know I feel that when I watch something, I feel
12:06somehow, if it's really touching me, it's, it's about my story, they're telling me
12:12my secret that I didn't even know I had, and that's what it's all about, and that's
12:20beautiful. One of my friends here in Los Angeles just moved here from Texas. She's
12:25a lawyer, she's incredibly articulate and smart, and she's got a trans child. She
12:31has two kids, one is trans. She had to move out of Texas because of the
12:36draconian laws, the scary laws in Texas, armed, aimed at kids and parents, and now
12:45even trans folks. I know there's another recent piece of legislation in Texas
12:50which is aimed at adults. So what I imagine is some kid in Texas, you know,
12:58maybe they're a teenager, they're old enough to watch Baby Reindeer, maybe
13:02they're feeling, they're questioning their gender, they're questioning who
13:07they are, and then they sit down and they watch this show, and they're like, oh, I
13:13see, that's an example of someone who figured it out. And, you know, it's all a
13:21process, we're all figuring ourselves, it's an ongoing process, we know that. But
13:25anyway, that's just, let's, thank you for your answer, that's beautiful. So Brian,
13:29like your fellow panelists, you've also made history. Wow. In 2020, you became the
13:36first openly trans black man cast as a series regular in a network show in 9-1-1
13:42Lone Star on Fox. What an incredible moment. I mean, I know we've got a lot of
13:53things to fight and a lot of hate and a lot of fear out there, but we also have
13:59this enormous moment, this great success, this joy, so congratulations. Really, how
14:07amazing. Thank you. Can you talk about experiences you've had in which you
14:12worked with the writers? From what I understand, you had the ability and have
14:18had the ability to affect the writing and the way that the storytelling works
14:22in your show, and I'd just love to hear about that and how you've been able to
14:28basically be there and be yourself and influence how the stories are told.
14:34That's a great question, thank you, and thank you all for having me here. I'm
14:38also, like Nava, just feeling incredibly proud and blessed to be here, you
14:45know. There's a lot of times I felt like I didn't have a future for myself,
14:48like I didn't see a future for myself just as a black person who wants to
14:53be an actor, as a trans person growing up in Michigan thinking like I'm the only
14:58person like this, and then thinking that the only future for me, you know, is to
15:02try to be someone that I'm not, I don't understand, like I was having a hard
15:05of time just trying to understand how do you be a girl, and it's like I'm
15:09supposed to be a woman, it's like I just, I don't know, you know, and then on top of
15:13that if I do have, you know, transition or something like that, there's no trans
15:18actors, I'm not going to be able to act, what if they find out, just all the fear
15:21around that, you know, because, you know, this was in the early 2000s and there
15:26wasn't much information available, so just being here in this room today as
15:31myself is just something, yeah, and it wouldn't be possible without, you know,
15:40the work that Chase and the ACLU is doing on the legislative side, wouldn't be
15:43possible without, you know, the people who came before me, Candace Cain, you know,
15:46Traceless said, Laverne Cox, people have paved the way for me, so I feel like I'm
15:50standing on the shoulder of giants, you know, in my trans history, so again,
15:54I'm just incredibly fortunate to be here, and I think that spoke to the
15:57significance of being able to even play Paul Strickland, like the fact that
16:01someone decided to write a character that's going to be a trans man, that was
16:08like, that didn't exist, right, so it's like, just to have all these things fall
16:11in line, to feel like I could find the courage to be myself, to gather the
16:16information in the pre-Google era and like, you know, find my way and make my
16:20way out of Michigan, into New York, into this industry, and to build my craft up to
16:25a point where I felt like, I want to be good enough to be honest on screen, so I
16:29want to learn that this craft so that I can do that, and then feeling like, okay,
16:34I'm ready to do that, but no one knows, you know, about me, I've taken on just, I
16:38was just taking on any character that would allow me to show my ability to be
16:42human on screen, and there weren't any trans masculine characters that would
16:45allow me to really step into that, the characters that were being written for
16:48us at that time, you know, were either, they were trans feminine characters, and
16:51they were usually like the victim, or the the villain, or something like that, so
16:55you know, the evolution of the writing was really great, up to a point, you know,
16:58because they were starting to then let more trans and gender non-conforming
17:03people into the writers room, and that informed the stories that were being
17:07told, and I feel like on the show 9-1-1 Lone Star, they didn't have any trans
17:11people in the room, but they were aware of that, and they were like, we want you
17:15to be in here, we want to tell this story, but we're not the experts on this story,
17:18and I'm like, well I'm glad you can recognize that, that's great, let me tell
17:22you something, so it was a really open experience that I felt prepared to do,
17:27because I had the experience of working on Queen Sugar, and what was really great
17:31about that was that a woman-led production, I mean, a lot of the
17:35department heads were women, the first director I worked with on that show was
17:38a woman director, it was the first time someone ever came into the makeup
17:42room, and was like, you know, introduced herself, and she was like, what's your
17:46ideas for the scene, and I was like, I have a few, thanks for asking, you know, and it was wonderful, it was
17:54wonderful to bring that truth to this moment, it was very similar to how Namba
17:58explained her experience in Baby Reindeer, where it's like, instead of the
18:02trans person being the one asking for help and acceptance, it was like the
18:06black trans man was in a position of, this man was in a
18:09position of vulnerability, and my character had his stuff together, and was
18:12able to kind of say, hey this brother's what you need to do, and also express
18:16gratitude for his allyship, right, he said, I didn't know what was going on at
18:21the other time, but I just wouldn't let anybody be mean to you, and I was
18:24like, that is what kind of saved me, so it's just a great example across the
18:28board of how to handle stories that involve trans characters, that I
18:32felt like I want to make sure I bring that to Lone Star, now that I'm in this
18:36position to represent a character that is going to be in the houses of people
18:40in these rural and middle American countries who don't know that they
18:44know a trans person, so it's like, if I'm going to be the only trans person they
18:48know, I want to be as authentic as possible, and as truthful as possible, to
18:53make sure that the humanity of our experience, our shared experience, is
18:58clear in this representation. God, that's so beautiful. I know that privacy has
19:08always been really important to me as a public person, and I think that it's
19:14part of our work that a lot of people struggle with, in terms of invasive
19:19questions, inappropriate questions, I mean, I've been around long enough now, it
19:24doesn't surprise me, and it doesn't really bother me, and it's not like
19:26it's a huge problem for me, but every once in a while it comes up, and
19:31especially right now, in this time of sort of oversharing, if I may, just in
19:38general, there's a lot of oversharing, so having that sense of privacy about
19:44yourselves is also, I think, you know, it's part of this. It's like visibility, but
19:48it's also, well, you get to have your own story and your own privacy, and
19:53sometimes people invade that when you're a public person.
19:58Michaela Jay, so you have enjoyed a run of incredibly diverse roles in TV and
20:04film since first breaking out in the lead in FX's Pose, so you have really
20:16embraced your platform, shall we say, and really spoken out when you felt you
20:21needed to in the New York Times and other places, very eloquently about your
20:27experience, your personal experience, and what your opinions are,
20:31and I applaud that, and I respect that about you. I don't know why so many
20:39public people who aren't even in the political sphere but are more in the
20:45cultural sphere, shall we say, choose to treat trans people with derision as
20:54being the other, as being less than. I don't understand it. I find it
21:00heartbreaking and enraging, so I just want to first of all say thank you for
21:07being such a great voice, and how do you do that? How do you manage that?
21:16The first word I would probably use is when, in any kind of situation like that,
21:22I use grace. You have to have grace for anyone, even when it's negative. I try my
21:28best to live by standards that my mom has raised me on. She's here today. Hey,
21:31mama. I always put her on the spot, too. I'm sorry, girl, I didn't mean to put you on the spot like that.
21:39No, but in all honesty, I try to use grace because when you approach
21:44something with grace first, you get to think about the action to you, how you're
21:48going to react, and the actions you want to take, so when it comes to any kind of
21:53derogatory slur or any kind of person, I try my best to really understand where
21:58they're coming from, and I realize that it's not my problem at all. It's theirs,
22:01and I can't do anything about that. The only thing we can do as people who are
22:05influencing, who are actors and actresses, whether you are trans or not, is to keep
22:09inspiring and helping people understand why we work so hard for what we do, and
22:15that, yeah, that's what I lead by, and I try my best to continue to do that. I
22:19think grace is the most important thing you can have for anyone. Okay, now I'm
22:25tearing up. Now it's my turn. Okay, yeah, I feel like so many of these folks, if we
22:32could just get them right here in this room to sit with us for an hour and a
22:36half or two hours, then so much of that crazy would go away. Okay, so Chase, I
22:43wanted just to ask you, can you talk about the very important case that
22:47you're working on at the ACLU, LW versus Scrimeti, and what's at stake for
22:53transgender youth, please? Oh, yeah, so I just want to just one more time thank the
22:59three of you, because when I was growing up, the only trans masculine person I
23:03ever had heard of was Brandon Tina, and he was murdered, and that's all I knew
23:08because that's all I saw, a future of being murdered, and now I have been at
23:14the ACLU for 12 years, and I'm leading a case at the United States Supreme Court
23:19on behalf of my community because of you, so thank you, thank you, and but
23:27but people aren't aware of what's happening, so we are at the United States
23:30Supreme Court now challenging one of the 25 bans on evidence-based medicine for
23:37trans adolescents, and the court is going to decide whether it is constitutional
23:44to deny people medical care that they, their parents, and their doctors agree is
23:50medically necessary for them, but more than that, the court is going to decide
23:54whether it is legal to discriminate against trans people, whether we are
23:58protected under the Constitution, and spoiler alert, the decision in this case
24:03is going to affect bodily autonomy for everyone, because if the government can
24:08decide to take away people's health care because they don't like what that
24:14health care is, you might remember in 2022 they overturned Roe v. Wade, and this
24:19is an extension of that, and so everyone's rights, everyone's bodies are
24:24on the line at the court, and we are up before this court likely to have
24:27argument in December with a decision in June of 2025 and an election in between,
24:31so we need to be showing up together, and so I am just, I hope that you are
24:38listening to these amazing people and and getting ready to mobilize with us.
24:42Thank you. So now I guess the next question is, given your expertise, what
24:53is something that each of us in this room can do? What is one actionable thing
24:59that each of us in this room can do between now and the election?
25:05Okay, so well, and then I'm gonna, maybe everyone can can share their thing, so
25:09it's not just me, because I, you know, what do I know? But you know, I think for now,
25:14because if you'll notice, between trans people and immigrants, this election is
25:19going to be based on the demonization of communities who are experiencing
25:26material harms and marginalization in this country. Listen to the rhetoric, the
25:30anti-black, the xenophobic, the transphobic rhetoric. How do we counter
25:34that? With stories that humanize the people who are being dehumanized
25:39every day. So tell those stories, share those stories, follow the people who can
25:43amplify those stories, and that's what I would urge you to do, and I want to hear
25:47from these folks too. I would say fight it like it's your fight. Fight it like
25:54it's against you. The target that's on our back, you're on the other side of it,
25:57so please act as if it's your rights that are, that are, you know, on the
26:01chopping block, because they are. And like Chase said, you know, sharing the
26:05stories. There's so many stories now, right? So even if you don't know that you
26:09know a trans person, there's so much good representation in the media that you can
26:13use as an example. You could, you know, share disclosure. I think that's a great
26:16thing for people to watch, to talk about how media has informed whatever their
26:20opinion may be about, you know, a trans people. So I mean, just simple things like
26:24that, aside from going out to vote and voting in everyone's interest, would be a
26:29great thing to do. So those are the suggestions I would make. I love that. My
26:33mother is 95, and when my son came out in high school, he had a, he went to a very
26:40small progressive high school and graduated. And my mom, who is a Republican,
26:46Episcopalian, raised in Iowa, raised in a very patriarchal culture, at my son's
26:54high school graduation, she got up and she said, wrote, spoke beautifully about
27:00my son and said, you know, I used to have a beautiful granddaughter and now I have
27:04a handsome grandson. And it was just kind of that simple. And I thought that, that
27:09is a very powerful statement. Anybody just that can get up and say
27:14something like this, this is how we change hearts and minds. Go ahead. Also
27:20say, mic check, one, two, one, two. I'm a little silly, y'all. I would say what was so
27:28beautiful for me is watching the other women that were up here before us and
27:32hearing the stories that are so similar to what a lot of us as trans people go
27:36through, but more specifically what trans women go through. And we are complex, we
27:40are, we have so many dimensions to us, and I think the best things that we can do
27:46is align and create together. That is how you make a movement. So, and, and
27:52hearing the women before, like I said, it was so inspiring because there were a
27:57lot of circumstances that I've gone through the same exact ways that they
27:59did. And, you know, there were times where I did not know when to speak up, but now
28:03is the time to do so. So, I think that's the best thing you can do. And if you have women like that on your side, you win.
28:07I love that. I love that. So, yeah, I mean, I think as Lisa alluded to, as women we
28:14were taught to be quiet and to listen. And I remember many films as I was
28:20starting and, you know, the director's the, the boss and I'm supposed to do what
28:25the director tells me to do. And I would look at a script and I would think, oh
28:29yeah, this is really good. There's like a little section in here that I think
28:33doesn't quite work. It's kind of boring and I don't know, but, you know, I'm not
28:37gonna say anything because it's not my place. I'm just the actress. And then I
28:42would go to see the film and I would look and I would say, oh my god, I was
28:48right. That is, that's boring. That part of the movie is boring. Oh, okay. Maybe, you
28:54know, maybe I have something to share here. And I, you know, I've learned, I've
28:58learned over the years, you know, how to raise my voice without raising my voice,
29:03but diplomatically and, and, you know, saying what I felt. So, the last question
29:08is, what does the freedom to be mean to you? So, I'll start. So, to me it is what
29:18you just said. I get to have all of my inner complexity. I get, anytime I'm
29:25studying a character and I get to the point where there's an absolute
29:30contradiction within this person, I think, oh, that's where the gold is. Like, that's
29:39where the truth is. It's somewhere in that place that we all have in us and we
29:45all have the right to have that complexity and that mystery and that
29:50ambiguity and that search. That's what we're talking about. We're not talking
29:57about fighting for people that are fully formed and idealized. We're talking
30:02about the nuance and complexity of our experience. And what we do as performers,
30:10my view is that we are in the business of intimacy and that quiet voice inside
30:19of you when you are alone that we all have, that's what we're trying to
30:26dramatize. That's what we're trying to bring out so that when people see us
30:30they say, oh, oh, that's me. Or, I felt something like that. Freedom, inner
30:38freedom, and outer freedom. That's my aspiration. So, if anybody
30:47wants to talk about what does freedom to be mean, Nava, do you want to mention?
30:53Beautiful. Wow. Freedom to be, I think, to me is having self-determination and
31:05bodily autonomy be guaranteed and established in order to be able to
31:12sprout new dreams at every stage of the way. Because I think that so often people
31:17who are marginalized in our society, you know, we can get stuck having to just
31:24fight for our right to exist, housing, health care, and employment. We can get
31:30stuck on just dreaming for that one opportunity and then dreaming to be
31:38recognized. And then, you know, is it ever going to happen again in our
31:45industry? I think that's a question that we kind of return to. It's
31:49like, maybe that was it. And so, I think for trans people especially, because we
31:56have to fight for so much just to get one opportunity, I think true freedom
32:05would be that I get to sprout new dreams over and over and not have to get stuck
32:10on one of them. Anybody else want to speak to that? That was beautiful. I would
32:22say freedom to be to me is like a mix of permission, inner permission to explore
32:29yourself and to change and to sprout those new dreams and protection. Like
32:34whether it's coming from within, protecting yourself when you're doing
32:37something new and vulnerable, and knowing that you have the support around you
32:41that's going to provide both, you know. So, whether it's while you're doing your
32:44inner, you have it in the outer, you know. So, even if you are of my experience or
32:49not, you're going to be a hedge of protection around me while I explore. And
32:52I'm going to do the same thing for you while you explore and you give yourself
32:55permission to be a different version of yourself. Beautiful, thank you. I would
33:02say, the first thing that came to my mind, honestly, like a true freedom is
33:11obviously everything you guys said, but also having a healthy and a healthy
33:16boundary and knowing when to draw the line, you know. Like having a secure
33:21boundary of when, where, and how. Knowing when to say yes and knowing when to say
33:26no. That is freedom because you get to actually choose to say yes or no. If you
33:30only are thinking to say no or only thinking to say yes, that's just, you're
33:34putting yourself in a cage. So, I think you have to have a healthy, healthy
33:37boundary. And also, make sure you live as free as you can when you home. I mean,
33:42like, that's the most important thing. No, but yeah, I think drawing a
33:46healthy boundary, that's, that's crucial. That's how you find your freedom. I love
33:51that. Thank you. My God, yes. Chase, do you want to speak to that? Oh, I just, it has
34:00been freeing to sit here among my trans friends because we all know each other
34:06as it goes. But I guess I want to speak maybe to a more structural notion of
34:13freedom, which is that I think one of the reasons why transness is so threatening
34:17to people is because it represents a freedom that is unimaginable to so many.
34:23And freedom terrifies people because it requires you to confront choice and
34:29uncertainty and mess. And we are unnerving to people because we represent
34:35that freedom. And so what I, I guess I'd put it back to everyone else, which is to
34:39get to experience the freedom of transness.
34:46Absolutely. Oh yeah. No, I definitely feel that in my life, that I've benefited so
34:54much from saying goodbye to the binary world. It's so boring and it's so limiting.
35:03And the non-binary world is so much more interesting. It's always been there
35:08anyway. It's just that now we get to celebrate and understand it better and
35:13show compassion and also joy. So I guess that's it. We'll wrap it up. Thank you.