Summary

In this podcast transcript, Marcia and Kai discuss the prevalence of fear in today’s society and its connection to violence and discrimination. They explore the impact of fear on social behaviors, such as the reluctance to share resources and the resistance to accepting diverse gender identities. They also address the misconceptions and stigmatization of trans individuals, emphasizing the need for understanding, acceptance, and support for trans rights and equality.

Kai highlights the vulnerability of trans and gender nonconforming individuals to intimate partner violence and sexual abuse, emphasizing the importance of creating an environment where children can express their gender identity without fear of rejection. They encourage listeners to educate themselves about trans rights issues and to advocate for equality and equity by engaging with local politicians and leaders in their community. Throughout the conversation, they promote empathy, dialogue, and the cultivation of a more inclusive and compassionate society.

[00:00:00]: Introduction

[00:00:18]: The Rise of Fear and Violence

[00:01:03]: Understanding Fear and Its Impact

[00:02:23]: Power, Privilege, and Fear-Based Behavior

[00:03:52]: Abundance Mentality vs. Scarcity Mentality

[00:04:10]: Inclusivity and Overcoming Fear

[00:05:54]: Generosity and Its Impact on Happiness

[00:06:54]: The Joy of Sharing

[00:08:36]: Backlash and Concerning Developments in Canada

[00:09:58]: Challenging New Brunswick’s Legislation

Transcript

[00:00:00.840]
Marcia: Ruthless Compassion is a podcast about how you can turn your emotional shit into fertilizer for success and see your darkest moments as opportunities to transform into a powerful kindness warrior. If you enjoy this podcast, please leave a review wherever you listen.

[00:00:18.100]
Marcia: I’ve been thinking a lot about why our world has gotten so, so violent lately. There’s like a mass shooting almost every five minutes these days in the United States. It’s horrendous. It’s heartbreaking. I mean, sometimes I just have to turn off the radio because I can’t listen anymore because I start getting so upset. I get physical symptoms. I get so upset when I hear all this news. And I was thinking about, why is there so much violence? And I think it’s because there’s so much more fear. We’ve gotten so afraid and we don’t know what to do with our fear. And so we regressed to the most primitive state. When you think about you have a cornered animal, what do they do?

[00:01:03.360]
Kai: Yeah, they do the fight, flight, freeze.

[00:01:04.960]
Marcia: Right. And often they lash out. They lash out because they feel cornered. So we are so full of fear these days. There’s so much to be afraid of. And there’s a huge section of the population that doesn’t know what to do with their fear other than lash out and other than other.

[00:01:25.690]
Kai: Yes, exactly. Exactly. And I think the social justice piece of that is that when we’re afraid, we forget that we are powerful. And I think about… I used to work a lot with parents who would be too aggressive with the children they were raising. And of course, children are incredibly triggering, small beings, beautiful beings, incredibly triggering for parents, especially. And I think I would see parents who would get afraid, get triggered, and they would forget that they had the power of the adult. And so their behavior was more damaging than they understood it to be because they forgot power. And I think that’s true for, we might say, socially privileged groups. It’s more complex than that. But when I think about, say, straight people who are homophobic or non-trans people who are transphobic, they often express the fear of gay, queer, trans people, the fear that we’re in the bathroom doing something sinister or whatever, which we’re not. They believe that.

[00:02:23.330]
Marcia: We’re going to the bathroom.

[00:02:24.230]
Kai: We’re just trying to pee. They fear that. But their fear, it makes them forget who is in the social majority. And so I think it’s easy to justify our fear-based behavior when we are not adequately taking stock of the power that we have.

[00:02:44.470]
Marcia: Over others. Yeah, absolutely. I also think that one of the things that we are afraid of is losing what we have or having to share what we have. And the other piece, aside from owning our power, I think is also having stop having this a scarcity mentality and have an abundance mentality and realize that we have enough. We actually have enough. We have more than enough. We have so much. And it actually feels good to share. It feels better to share. It feels better to share what we have with others and to make space for others to have rights and privileges and opportunities as well. We actually feel good when we share. And people feel more depressed and more alienated and more angry and unhappy when they clutch everything to their chest and won’t let it go with these clutching fingers. So if we know that we have a lot and that it feels better to share, then we don’t have to be so afraid of having to lose one or two, or three, or four, or six, or eight, or nine, or nine, or the whole iota of our privilege or our opportunities or our wealth or our rights or our power.

[00:03:52.030]
Kai: I love that. Well, it makes me think of the article that you wrote about women’s day, including trans women. And I think a lot of cisgender women have some fear about including trans women. And I just wonder, yeah, what is your message to them? How are you managing not to be afraid of losing what you have?

[00:04:10.670]
Marcia: I’ve always felt like our beliefs are very distorted. There’s the truth and there’s beliefs, and we get caught up in these incredibly distorted beliefs. We feel those of us who have the most often feel like we have the least, and those of us who have the least often feel like we have enough. It’s a really strange thing. And I’ve traveled extensively and I’ve been to cultures where they have so little and they feel such a sense of abundance because they have one another or the things they have they really value and appreciate and enjoy. And they share, they know how to share. And so they feel like they have enough because they know that if they don’t have it, their neighbor has it or their family member has it and they’ll share with them. So we live in a very isolated individualist culture where everyone is for themselves and alone and don’t know how to share and don’t know how to give others opportunities and don’t realize that there is tremendous abundance. In fact, there’s tremendous waste. We have too much and we don’t know what to do with it. And it goes in the landfill.

[00:05:08.820]
Marcia: It’s horrendous. So if we could just work on those distortions and see how we have so much and we can share it. So why not? To me, it’s like, why not share? And if we have some concerns, we can dialog. We can talk about the things that we’re concerned about. I am not concerned about who’s in the washroom with me. I truly believe that if some predator wants to go into the washroom, it doesn’t matter who they are. If a predator wants to go into the washroom, they’ll go into the washroom. It doesn’t matter how they identify. So it has nothing to do with an ordinary person needing to use the washroom. If predators want to do bad things, they’re going to do bad things regardless of the rules. The rules don’t apply to the predators. So it’s not even a meaningful argument to me.

[00:05:54.540]
Kai: Right. No, I super agree. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, of course, we know also most of the intimate violence does not occur in public washrooms. It unfortunately occurs in private homes. We need to be having a different dialog about that. But I just appreciate the spirit of generosity that you’re talking about here, which is like, it feels good for the people receiving generosity, but it also feels good for the person giving the generosity, which should be a cliché, but we don’t actually know it in this culture.

[00:06:23.740]
Marcia: Yeah. And you have to look at all the studies that have shown over and over and over and over again that the greatest determinant of happiness is our social interactions. And that being a giver, a person who is loving and giving and kind and generous actually creates much more happiness and mental wellbeing than being and just holding everything close to your chest and not wanting to share. People who don’t share are less happy than people who share. It’s just proven over and over again in the millions of studies, right?

[00:06:54.810]
Kai: It’s so fun we teach that in kindergarten, but it doesn’t follow us, does it? Really, not even to middle school. Somehow we lose that. Sharing makes us happy.

[00:07:05.380]
Marcia: I think our capitalist society has really… The more profit they have, the more profit they want. And they try to teach us that accumulating stuff is what makes us happy. Accumulating and holding on to stuff is what makes us happy. So we just keep accumulating and we’re unhappy. So we think, Oh, we need more stuff. The reason I’m unhappy is not because I’m doing the wrong thing, it’s because I don’t have enough of the wrong thing. So they keep doing the wrong thing and it never works. And then they just keep doing it. And if they just stop and say, Oh, this is wrong. I need to have relationships and share and be kind and be loving, that’s the direction. We’re going the wrong direction. And doing more of the wrong thing never works. I’ve done a lot of work on addiction, and it’s the same thing, compulsive behavior. They just keep pursuing the wrong answer, thinking that, Oh, it’s just not enough, but we just need to change directions.

[00:07:55.760]
Kai: That’s true. And relationship is such a powerful to a lot of problems. When I think about this discrimination thing or the social transphobia, really, part of it is like, I’m wondering how many homophobic or transphobic people out there have really met to have cultivated real relationships with trans people. We’re not all great, we’re complicated people like everyone else, but there’s a lot… I like to think there’s a lot to love. And when we’re in relationship with somebody, then it becomes much more difficult to have this caricatureized fear of a whole group, right? Yeah.

[00:08:36.490]
Marcia: Yeah, I think you’re absolutely right. I think we get frightened because we’re ignorant. But the way to deal with ignorance is not to avoid, it’s to learn.

[00:08:47.720]
Kai: Right. Yes, to meet other people and to have the conversation.

[00:08:52.650]
Marcia: To get to know each other, right?

[00:08:55.360]
Kai: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Well, we solved the world’s problem. They should make us president.

[00:09:03.000]
Marcia: Absolutely. We can be co-president. Yeah. I want to ask you, though, because before we started recording, we mentioned some of the stuff going on in the world. And I wanted to start with Canada and New Brunswick and then maybe go to the United States because there’s some very concerning changes, not for the better. Things were so good for a while and now they’ve rebounded a little bit. So in New Brunswick, the premier has decided in his great, quote unquote, wisdom that now children who want to be called by their chosen names or pronouns have to get parental permission if they’re under the age of 16, I believe. And it’s a new bill. I can’t remember, C something or other. And it’s really upset a lot of young people, first of all, but a lot of teachers and some politicians resign from the cabinet. Yeah, like a few of them did. And so I just wondered your take on this.

[00:09:58.900]
Kai: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Well, I think you’re pointing to something really important when you say things seemed like they were going really well, and now I think there’s a backlash, and it’s a coordinated backlash. I think there’s been lobbyist groups, mostly from America, who then have influenced what’s happening in Canada. Yeah, there’s three major political things that have happened in the past couple of months that I might point to. One is this shift in New Brunswick. The second is there was a very disturbing incident in Kelowna, BC, where a young girl, not a trans child, a cisgender child who had a short haircut, was competing in a track and field competition in the Okanagan. And an adult man came up to her and her parents and demanded to see her birth certificate because he thought that she was a boy competing in a girl sport. And he really apparently, allegedly, went quite far in his verbal demonstrativeness. So that was very disturbing. And then the last piece is really tragic is that a couple of weeks ago in Waterloo, a man walked into a classroom at the University of Waterloo, asked what class it was. It was a gender studies class, and he stabbed three people who, fortunately, no one died, but they were seriously injured.

[00:11:04.550]
Kai: So there are some very concerning developments here in Canada. I think a part of it is like the backlash of things. Whenever we’ve seen in the 20th century at least the progressive social movements, there’s always seems to be this pattern of a few years of progress and then a few years of backlash, which is really too bad. It is unfortunate. I also think that it is this thing we’re talking about with maybe it’s like the fear of sharing. For a few years in the mid-2010s and later on, there was this massive expansion of trans visibility and trans rights. And I think a lot of people felt really threatened by that. And because we have not been able to have truly transformative social dialogs around these issues, I think things haven’t shifted. When it comes to that issue in New Brunswick, I actually really understand, as most, I think, mental health professionals would, why parents would want to be involved in their children’s decision making about names and pronouns. The reason, of course, that a lot of people are upset with this bill is because it exposes trans, gender, nonconforming, and queer children to the potential of domestic violence in their own homes, and it’s also a violation of their privacy.

[00:12:14.450]
Kai: And I actually think that these things can be worked out. The value of keeping kids safe and also respecting their autonomy could probably be balanced in some way with the balance of parents having a parental right to be involved in their children’s lives. But we don’t have that dialog. Instead, unfortunately, the premier just decides to make a really intense move. And I think we really forget the most important people who are, of course, the children in that situation. And I think that’s true as well. If we think about the sports issue or even this horrible stabbing, when we are in that fear mode, that lashing-out mode, we dehumanize. And unfortunately, I think that’s where we are. We’re in this dehumanizing place. And then I would say, what I really want to see is the people who are in positions of leadership actually not coming from a fear-based place, because those are the people who set the tone for society, the politicians, the political leaders, some of the artistic or cultural leaders. If we are coming, even you and I, as writers and podcast makers, if we’re coming from a secure a place, we help other people to come out of their fear.

[00:13:23.860]
Kai: And I think really, I wish that’s what the premieres and the Prime Minister, Trudeau is doing okay with this particular issue. But anyway, I wish that there was more of that.

[00:13:33.250]
Marcia: Yeah, absolutely. Sorry, I’m just just thinking about all these terrible things that have been happening lately. It’s left me a little bit speechless for a second. But I wanted to ask you about how in the United States, you alluded to it earlier, there’s this accusation that trans people now, especially our grooming young people. And I find it horrifying, but also bizarre. So I just wanted to get your take, first of all, to explain what they’re saying, what they’re referring to, and then give us some truth as opposed to the story.

[00:14:13.180]
Kai: Oh, my gosh. Thanks so much for asking the question. It’s so important. Yes. So there is this horrific social current, like this dialog that’s emerging. It’s not good dialog, it’s bad dialog, coming from the States, and it’s leaking into Canada and the UK as well, Australia, the Anglo sphere, that trans people are grooming children. And there’s like, yeah. So what they mean by that is they have a fear that adult trans people are luring children and adolescence into the lifestyle, quote-unquote, of being trans. And then it’s usually implied that there’s a nefarious sexual purpose, a sexual predation happening. And that’s a very serious accusation to make about an entire group of people, first of all, and it is also abhorrent. And it’s not new. I think it was so important to recognize this, the stereotypes about trans people being inherently sexually predatory have been around for a really long time. They’re embedded in culture and film. If folks who are listening want to get a deeper look into this, I really suggest watching the Netflix documentary, Transparent, gives you a really great look at anti-transphobic stereotypes and film over the past few decades. And that stigma also, and continues to be in some places, really heavily applied not just to trans people, but to gay, lesbian, and people as well.

[00:15:31.430]
Kai: And what’s really interesting is if you look at old news footage or headlines from the ’80s and ’90s, you see pretty much the exact same thing, except applied to gays and lesbians. And this idea that gays and lesbians were grooming young children into a lifestyle for nefarious sexual reasons. And I think that what that’s about is it’s actually, it’s the fear of the other, as you’re saying, of dehumanizing, and also the incredibly badly sexually educated nature of this society that we live in. Almost nobody has given good sexual information. We’re all terrified of sex. We do live in a sexually-violent society in many ways, unfortunately. So all of that is projected onto this idea of the freakish, predatory outsider. And throughout the ’80s and ’90s, that was the gay, lesbian, bisexual community with trans people included. And then now it’s shifted solely onto trans people. And the truth, honestly, is that trans people are just normal people trying to live our lives. And for a lot of trans people, trans gender identity is not even attached to sexuality. Now for some it is, and others it’s variable. But the reality simply is that trans people are people whose gender identity and gender expression does not align with what has been assigned to them at birth, to us at birth.

[00:16:54.490]
Kai: And so there’s really actually nothing. It takes a lot to assume there’s a sexually predatory conspiracy going on. Really, I think it’s that the rights that trans people are seeking are just the same rights that everyone else has. And then when it comes to children, what we are really asking for, I think, is that gender nonconforming and trans children have the right to autonomy, that they have the right to explore their gender and express their gender in the way that is right for them at that moment in time in their development, and that they get to change their minds at any time. No child should have to commit to being any one particular way for their entire life. They get to change over the course of a lifetime. It’s just inevitable. And that applies to gender as well as to any other facet of personality development.

[00:17:43.190]
Marcia: I always joke that I never got a tattoo because I always knew that I would change my mind and I would look at this bloody tattoo and I would regret it. I go like, what the heck was I thinking? And sure enough, any ideas I’ve ever had, when I look back, I go, oh, God, that would have been a disaster. Years. So I know myself enough to know that there are some things that are very constant and there are some things that are changeable. So I totally agree that we should be free to change our minds and not have to commit to something if we know that it might change to give ourselves some space, right? I mean, that was a jokey example, but just to give ourselves that space.

[00:18:20.720]
Kai: Oh, it applies. Yeah. Well, one thing I might add too is I think that when it comes to gender medicine for children, people are really afraid that if kids transition, then they won’t be able to change their minds. And I think if we really… Having practice in that area for a long time and also looking toward building better medical healthcare systems around gender, like good gender affirming treatment for children is not about forcing kids to be trans. It’s not about saying, Oh, you thought you were trans when you were 10, and now you have to stick that way forever. It is about this affirming process of growing into who you are. And I think what a lot of people don’t realize is that in the society we have today, there’s a bias toward telling children it would be better if you were not trans. And so we’re just when we create these systems of gender affirming care, it’s really about saying either is good. Really, I think good clinicians should not care about whether a kid turns out trans or not trans. It’s about, is the kid happy, healthy, and embedded in a loving network of relationships.

[00:19:20.750]
Marcia: Right. And feeling authentic to who they are in the moment.

[00:19:24.120]
Kai: Exactly. Exactly.

[00:19:25.280]
Marcia: Yeah. So I want to go back to the grooming thing because it is so important because it’s in the news, right? Yes. I wanted to talk about how in the United States, they’re saying that… Well, the politicians and certain right-wing and white supremacist speakers are saying that, especially trans people these days are grooming kids. But the reality is, as you said, a lot of trans people are actually the recipients of violence and sexual violence. I wanted you to maybe say something about that.

[00:20:02.790]
Kai: Oh, yes, that too. Yes. So yes, unfortunately, trans and gender nonconforming people statistically, we know report very significantly higher levels of intimate partner violence and sexual abuse than non-trans people or cisgender people. And that, unfortunately, is also especially true of those in the adolescent age range. And I mean, I don’t think we know for sure, but I suspect that’s because so many queer and trans children are rejected by their families and society, which makes them more vulnerable. And for those who are predatory, because unfortunately, there are predatory people out there, they look for vulnerability. And if we really wanted to keep queer and trans kids safe, we wanted to keep all kids safe, I think what we should be doing is cultivating an atmosphere of openness where we are affirming kids to be to express who they are so that they trust the adult professionals and family members in their lives so they can speak about what they’re experiencing and what’s going on, so that if there should, God forbid anything happen, then there’s a community of adults right there that a child trusts to tell. But if the message we’re sending to kids is, We reject your gender identity, we won’t use the name and pronouns that you want to use, and you’re wrong about who you are, well, guess what?

[00:21:21.140]
Kai: That kid is not going to feel like they can approach to whichever adult said that in a time when they might be confused and actually experiencing danger. Yeah.

[00:21:30.870]
Marcia: Yeah, that’s an excellent point. Well, I see that we’ve been talking for an awfully long time, which is wonderful, but I probably need to let you go. So I’m going to ask you my three final questions. Oh, yes. So the first question is, so I guess your next steps are promoting your falling back in love with being human book, is that correct?

[00:21:50.830]
Kai: That’s true.

[00:21:52.060]
Marcia: Yes. And then where can people find you if they’re interested in learning about your work, whether it’s writing or social justice?

[00:22:01.240]
Kai: Oh, thanks for that question. Yes, all over the internet. I’m on Instagram. My handle is @kaichengthom. Com, so it’s just my full name. I’m on Twitter @kaichengthom, but it seems like Twitter might not be happening for very much longer. So people can find me on Twitter as well. The same handle. And I have two websites. One is kaichengthom.com It’s for my writing. And then if people go there, you’ll also see a link to my business website, which is more of the workaround facilitation and to group work that… I’m a big fan of YouTube, so on the internet. Oh, and I have an advice column with Extra magazine as well.

[00:22:34.450]
Marcia: Oh, what’s it called?

[00:22:36.040]
Kai: It’s called Ask Kai, advice for the Apocalypse.

[00:22:38.870]
Marcia: Oh, my gosh. Okay, I have to have a look at that. That sounds like fun. All righty. And the last question is, do you have a call to action for the listener? Something that they could consider doing, having listened to our conversation today?

[00:22:53.970]
Kai: Oh, my gosh, I love that question. You’re good at this. You’re a good podcaster. Yeah, I would say my call to action for listeners would be actually to get more information about some of the issues around trans rights that we’re talking about. So there’s a ton of really unfortunate anti-trans legislation happening in the States. There’s a lesser amount, but still some happening in Canada. And I would just invite listeners to look that up online, get some information. And then if you feel so moved, write to your local politicians, just letting them know that you care about trans people and equality, equal rights and equity for all, and that you want to see politicians and leaders in your community being those brave and secure people who are leading the dialogs that we need to take us into a better society.

[00:23:42.660]
Marcia: Well, it’s a great call to action. Well, Kai Cheng Thom, it’s been really, really fun talking with you today and super important things to discuss. So I really appreciate you coming on the show.

[00:23:54.260]
Kai: Thanks so much for having me. It’s been a delight.

[00:23:57.500]
Marcia: This is Dr. Marcia Sirota. Thank you for listening. Please leave a review and your comments wherever you listen to podcasts. And don’t forget to sign up for my free newsletter at marciasirotamd.com, where you’ll learn about upcoming online events as well. Also, we love getting referrals from our listeners about future podcast guests. So please email us at info@marciasirotamd.com.