- Hey everybody, I am
joined by Stef Sanjati.
- Hi.
- She is wonderful and amazing.
We were on a panel a VidCon, I believe?
- Yes, we were, it was fantastic.
Thank you moderating it.
- Of course, and that's how we met.
And you just have a really
wonderful story to share.
Tell my audience a little bit about
what you do on your channel.
- Sure.
I started YouTube when I was
about 11 or 12 years old,
so it's been over a decade,
but it's been across
a few different channels.
And originally, I started, let me give you
the abridged version here, as best I can.
I started originally
because I felt very isolated
in the community I grew up in, so I found
community online,
especially through YouTube,
where I got to explore
queer identity, as a child,
in a town where that didn't exist.
So I thought I was gay growing
up, that wasn't the case.
When I moved to Toronto I
realized I was transgender,
so I'm a transgender
woman, and my channel,
well, it was dedicated
a lot to documenting
my transition process and
educating people on trans issues,
and trans topics, and trans terminology.
And I'm in this weird place
now, where I've done that,
and I don't know what to do anymore.
- I'm worried about that.
- Yeah.
- Because, okay, that happened,
now I'll live my life.
- I don't know what to do, and listen,
we could go into that.
There's a lot there.
I feel like it would be a disservice
to just repeat the same topics I've done
over and over again, right?
- Totally.
I've thought about this.
I do want her to educate us as a community
on how to be sensitive.
- More than happy to do that.
- Just because I know
that I'm always afraid
I'm gonna misstep, and I
don't want to offend anybody,
'cause that's not my
intention, so I'd love for us
to learn together.
- Of course.
- However, I do think that
there is something to be said
about moving on, because
that's what we do.
- Yeah, definitely.
- And you've been so
brave to share your story
so openly and honestly, and
then, now live your life.
- Exactly.
I think the overwhelming
narrative for trans people
in our society here in Canada
and US of the states of America,
that's the way you say that, right?
- That's the way you say it.
- Yeah. (laughs)
It's so focused on physical transition
and Laverne Cox talks a lot about this,
if you look up Laverne Cox trans speech.
- Yeah, Orange is the New Black.
She's Amazing.
- Absolutely.
She talks a lot about that
outside of her acting career.
She talks a lot about, people
are so fixated on your body
and about surgery, and
about hormones, and then,
once you've stopped sharing
that, people lose interest.
'Cause suddenly, their perception of you
is so based on your body
and your medical transition,
that once that's not the focal point
of what you're doing, it becomes
like it's not you anymore,
like it's a different story.
It's really weird.
- That's interesting.
I think, in general, as a society,
we're very focused on appearance.
- Yeah, definitely.
- And so I guess I can see
why that would be the focus,
but then wouldn't they
wanna know what's next?
- A lot of people do.
- Like, what else is to you?
Because that's like such a
small, I know it's a huge deal,
but it's such a small part of who we are.
- Exactly.
Exactly.
I definitely have a
lot of viewers that are
so on board to see what
I'm going to do next,
but it's kind of both ways,
it's not just them watching me,
being like, "why aren't you talking
"about your body anymore,"
it's also me sitting here like,
for the past three years,
I've built my entire career
on my physicality, and now,
there's so much I want to do,
I want to do music, I want to do acting,
I want to direct things, I
want to do all that stuff,
but I almost don't know where to start.
- Yeah, it'd almost be like frozen,
'cause when it's always been
about one thing, then what?
So, just so we can kind
of get on board with you,
so we know where you're at,
talk about how you realized
that it wasn't that you were gay,
it was that you were a transgender person,
how do I say that, 'cause
I know a lot of people
say don't say it this
way, say it this way.
- I can explain for you.
- Thank you.
- So trans or transgender,
trans is just an abbreviation
of transgender in this
context of gender, right,
is an adjective, right?
So when we say tall woman,
that's the kind of place
where'd you'd be trans
woman, or transgender woman.
When people say transgendered,
like it's a verb,
it implies it's something
that happened to you.
- Oh, gotcha.
- And the reality is,
it's just an innate part
of your being, like just
being a tall person, right?
It's not that you're "talled."
That person got "talled."
Right?
It's not like that.
It's "that person is tall."
"That person is transgender."
Yeah, so that's the grammar there.
- Lesson one.
- Exactly.
And I think that some people,
when I clarify things like that,
and I'm so glad that you
asked me to clarify it,
I think some people think
that it's unnecessary,
but the reality is, the way we talk about
people and things--
- It's really important.
- Yeah, 100%.
It shifts your entire
perception of that issue.
'Cause if you perceive
transness as something
that happens to you,
rather that just something
innate about your being,
it also implies it can be prevented.
Right?
And it can't!
- Yeah.
In the same way that people,
it's still happening,
like "praying the gay away,"
like you could change it,
that's not how it works.
But thank you for
clarifying, 'cause I know
that I've misspoken in the
past, and I've apologized
and tried to learn, so
we're learning together.
- Yes.
- Yay.
- Yeah, great.
- Okay, so--
- Oh but, how I realized right?
- Yes.
- You wanted me to talk about that?
Okay.
So growing up in this
small town, I was also
the only gay person that I knew of.
I was the only out gay person, listen.
Listen.
I was not alone, okay?
But people perceived me as alone.
And I didn't really have role models
or resources to explore
gender or sexuality,
so I understood them in very binary ways,
and I thought that because
I was kinda feminine,
and because I liked men, or
boys, 'cause I was a teenager,
I thought that meant I was gay.
Because that was the
narrative that I was fed.
- That was the only other option.
- Exactly.
But I had a very hard
time in that community
and I had to leave,
immediately after graduating
high school.
Two days after I graduated,
gone, I was out of there.
And I'm so grateful I
had my parents' support
to get me to Toronto where
I could be safe and thrive.
- 'Cause safety is a big issue.
Especially in small towns.
- Oh my god, yeah.
I was not safe there.
- I had an LGBT+ workbook
out probably years ago,
where I was like, safety first.
- Yes.
- If it's not safe to
come out, I know it sucks,
I hate that that's the world
we live in, but safety first.
- Yeah, absolutely, you can
only be a murderer for so long,
until it's, that's very dark,
but you know what I mean.
I experienced physical violence,
I experienced harassment,
vandalism, I didn't leave my house.
I lived two blocks from my school,
but my mom drove me every
day, because people would try
to run me over with a car once.
Listen, I wanted to go get pizza one time,
and they started screaming at me,
and I never went back to the pizza place.
I felt I was so forced into
my basement that I never left.
So moving to Toronto where I could leave
and experience things was so mind-blowing.
And it was there--
- That's crazy to me.
As if you being you affect--
- Oh, yeah.
- That's so crazy.
- Yeah, the most intense
incident I had there
was somebody, my mom had this
Jeep, she loved her Jeep,
'cause she's a very small
woman, she's like 4'11",
and she likes feeling big and strong.
So she had this big Jeep, and one night,
the police said it was a machete
because of the way it was cut,
they sliced the tires on the vehicle
and spray painted slurs on the side of it,
so my mom just had to get
rid of the whole vehicle,
she couldn't look at it ever again.
It bled into every
aspect of my life there.
Somebody had a machete on my property,
just because I was in my house.
I wasn't safe there.
- That's so fucked up.
- Yeah.
But it's okay.
I've experienced that.
I've processed that, and it's all good.
So I'm in Toronto now in the timeline,
we're in the timeline here.
I'm in Toronto, and I'm
working at Shoppers Drug Mart,
and they actually have a
great trans-inclusive policy,
and you'll notice, if you're
savvy, you might not know,
you might notice a lot of
trans people work at Shoppers
and it's because they can't
be fired for their gender,
and I think now in Canada that
it's law, so that's great.
- Okay, that's good.
- But that's fantastic.
So I worked there, I met
trans people working there,
and I met trans people as
coworkers and as clients.
And I learned just by talking
to them and hearing them
talk to me, I kind of
saw myself like a mirror
in those people, and I
was like, okay, well,
this makes so much more
sense than everything
I've ever experienced, and
one of the people I met
working there kind of
mentored me, and showed me
how to get a doctor that would
listen to the right things,
and help me get hormones,
and help me get on the path.
Yeah, and it worked.
That was like three or four years ago,
and it's all history now.
- Ta-da.
- Yay.
- Yay.
- I know back in the
day, when I was trained,
which is, oh God, like
10 years ago, I'm old.
- Never.
- It's all relative to how I wanna act.
- Okay. (laughs)
- But when I was trained,
they said that therapy
was, like, mandatory.
- Yeah, it was.
- Is that still the case?
- Um, no.
So what I had to go
through to get my hormones,
which was the first step for me,
and not every trans person
wants or needs hormones
to feel okay, but I needed
them and I wanted them.
So I went to my new doctor,
I explained I am experiencing
extreme discomfort because of my gender,
I know I wanna transition,
how can you help me with that?
I went back to him three
times over the course
of three months, once a month,
just basically to catch up
and say this is something I still want.
The process was called informed consent,
so I was given a form
explaining all the side effects,
and he talked to me
about them too of course,
it wasn't just papers, say here, sign it.
He made sure I understood everything.
And I did, even before--
- Because you'll feel so different,
like things are happening--
- And there's irreversible
changes to your body
physically, too, and
obviously that's the point,
I wanted that, right?
- That was the whole goal.
- There's still a certain
degree of gatekeeping
that I think is somewhat
necessary 'cause, you know,
it's a medical thing and it's permanent.
I think there should be a certain process,
and I think what I experienced,
a three month wait,
I think that was reasonable.
- I feel the same, as
an outside perspective.
Three months seems fine, and checking in
to make sure you still feel that way.
- Exactly.
So I understood all of the
effects and side effects
and I signed the paper, and
I was given my prescription.
There's guidelines, in Ontario at least,
called the Rainbow Health Guidelines.
So any doctor in, well, any
doctor in Canada, really,
can access this information
and it can tell them
what to prescribe at what point,
what patients should expect at what point,
and how to increase dosages over time,
so really there's no excuse
for any Canadian doctor
to not do this, they have
the resources right there.
Does not take long to get them.
- That's awesome.
And I do know, when I was
doing research for my workbook
many years ago, and you can let me know
if this is still correct,
but there is a lot
of, like, black market--
- Yep.
- And that's when it gets really dangerous
because it's a prescription, it's for you,
it's catered to you.
- Yes, exactly.
- And making sure that if you
are feeling this discomfort
and you're wanting to get the change,
that you go through a doctor
because that's the safest,
and, really the only way.
- Yeah.
It's great that in Canada we have access
to things like that, and
there are certain places,
and I know in the UK it
can be years and years
and you have to see
therapists, and listen,
I see a therapist because
I need to, not because--
- Mm-hmm. Same.
- Yeah, right?
- 'Cause life is hard.
- And that's got nothing
to do with my gender,
but I think there's a certain
degree of understanding
you need to have, and I think
informed consent was enough,
but there's certain places like in the UK
where you have to go through,
like, 20 different professionals
that have to say yes,
you need this, but they don't
trust your input for yourself.
- That can feel so invalidating.
- Very, and I cannot imagine
how frustrating, and,
you can find a lot of experiences online
if you look up UK
transition, I don't know,
you can find so many stories,
they've waited for years
and years, and turned
down by this, I couldn't--
- And share any helpful resources
and links in the comments
so if someone is out there and struggling,
they can find the right help.
- Yeah, and that would have
been really hard for me,
and I'm glad I didn't
have to experience that,
but I'm encouraging y'all
to still do your best
to stick to the main pathways because
it can be very dangerous if you
get into black market stuff.
And we don't want you to be hurt.
- No.
- No.
- Okay so then, getting the hormones,
starting the hormone
treatment, how was that?
- It was great.
I think a lot of people,
when they first start
with hormones, they have
all these placebo effects,
they're like, oh, I've been
on hormones for three days,
I can feel my breasts
growing, and that's not real,
but it's okay, if it
makes you feel better,
then yeah, absolutely,
embrace that, right?
So I did update videos
every month for a year.
- Wow.
I've seen some updates, I
didn't know that was, okay.
- Yeah.
- How cool.
- And then I did another,
I haven't done one
for like a year and a half, probably,
but I tried to keep people
updated with my hormones
and stuff, and what I was experiencing,
so that they could, you know,
they could know what to expect
and of course everybody
has a different experience,
everybody's body is different and responds
to these drugs differently,
but it's nice to be able
to follow along and have some idea, right?
And really what it mostly
affects is fat distribution
of your body, so the way that testosterone
places fat on your body and estrogen does
are very different, so my fat shifted more
into, like, hip area, butt
area, away from, like,
masculine-perceived, the
thing is, to remember,
there's so much that
surrounds the topic of gender
and transition that can
make people feel like
there's one way to be a man
or one way to be a woman
and that's not true, so
it's weird to talk about it
in very binary ways, but understand that
nobody's body is wrong.
- But this is just generally speaking,
if we are speaking binary,
for the sake of understanding.
- Medical, like, where things go, right?
So estrogen also caused
breast development in my body,
which, I didn't have
much 'cause I'm naturally
kind of muscular, so I ended up having
breast augmentation not
too long ago, actually.
But some people experience
really impressive growth.
(Kati laughs)
Hormone replacement therapy
is basically puberty again,
with the hormones that
better match your gender.
- So whatever your body would develop
if you had those hormones,
because everybody's body is different.
- Exactly.
So think about like a
11-year-old girl, for example,
that's starting puberty, well
I don't know when it starts,
for everybody it's different of course.
- 11 to 13, ish.
- Right.
So think about how much they change
and develop from 11 to 20.
It's gonna take the same amount
of time for trans people.
So I've been on for four years,
I have the same development
as a 14-year-old girl.
Physically, with estrogen.
So, you have to be patient.
This does not happen overnight.
And I think a lot of people
want these things immediately,
but it's important to me,
I've always been very clear
that this takes time, it's not overnight.
And surgeries, of course,
can help with that,
but those shouldn't be seen as mandatory
because that's expensive,
painful, and dangerous.
- Totally, and they're not all covered,
like most surgeries aren't
covered, so it's super expensive.
A viewer of ours had reached out
because they were looking for funding,
because their parents didn't support it,
and they couldn't get anything,
and it's so expensive.
So, just making sure to ask all questions,
do all your research, I'm
sure there are foundations
and support and things
you can apply for and try.
This is so great.
This will be really helpful.
- Thank you.
- Do you mind if we then get
into things that people do
that are offensive that you
don't think people realize?
- Sure, yeah.
- 'Cause that's what I want.
'Cause I know that I
have an older audience
and sometimes they're--
- I know that a lot of
people just don't understand.
And I've been there, I get it.
With my family, I've
had to explain things,
and it's not that they
want to do anything wrong,
it's hard to wrap your mind around it
when it's such a different concept.
But I can help.
- So I know that I,
personally, in the past,
I said transgendered.
- Yeah.
- And people explained
why that was incorrect.
And that's why I wanted us
to at least talk about that.
But are there other things
people do similar to that
that are offensive but we don't mean to?
- Yeah, and I want to make it clear,
let's say you say one of the things
that I'm about to explain, and
somebody corrects you on it,
it's not that they're
personally attacking you
or that they personally are
horrifically hurt and wounded
and you have to sell your life to them
to make them feel better.
It's more that the way you
say things and word things
is indicative of a cultural thing,
a cultural atmosphere,
that we're trying to change
to better suit everybody,
not just trans people,
but trying to make a better
culture for everybody
to feel comfortable, and to
feel like their best selves.
Right?
So it's not personal when somebody tries
to correct you on something, it's trying
to make the world better.
- Yeah, we're all learning.
- Exactly.
- And so, see it as like
a learning opportunity.
- A teachable moment.
- Yes, exactly.
- Yes.
The same thing, different words.
- Exactly.
- So one thing in particular
that a lot of people say
that they perceive as a compliment
that can be kind of
backhanded or condescending
is "I didn't know you were transgender,"
or like if I say on a panel,
for example, that I'm trans,
to clarify something I'm going to say,
and somebody says, "you look amazing,"
that can be kind of,
it almost feels like--
- It's backhanded.
- Right, because it
implies that trans people
don't look amazing, or
that, because I'm trans,
I'm expected to look bad, or
I'm expected to look trashy,
or I'm expected to look
ugly, or I'm expected
to look manly.
It implies so many things that
you expect of trans people
that are negative or that
you perceive as negative.
- I totally see that,
and as a non-trans person
I wouldn't have thought of that.
- You didn't do it.
- No.
- And I'm not mad at
the person that did it,
but it was a thing that,
I didn't really have
an opportunity to teach in that context,
but I think that's
something that happens a lot
when you meet a trans
person and you're surprised
by the fact that they're
trans, which is okay,
because listen, I promise
you you've met trans people
before and you didn't know,
and it's okay to be like,
oh, I didn't know that about you,
that's interesting and surprising.
But when you say things
like, I'm surprised
because you're beautiful, it
implies that I shouldn't be,
because I'm trans that you
expected me to not be beautiful.
I don't know, there's layers to that.
- I totally see that, though.
- Another thing might be,
something that I got a lot,
and keep in mind I went
to school for makeup,
I learned how to do fashion--
- That's why your makeup's
always so amazing.
- Thank you, I appreciate that.
- She needs to teach me her ways.
- But I learned everything
from this kind of thing
to sculpting monsters and
creating aliens and stuff,
and something that I experience a lot,
or did experience a lot,
especially when I was
more visibly trans, before I
had surgeries and hormones,
was people would say "but
you're better at makeup than me,
"and I'm a girl."
Like, it implies that I'm not a woman.
And that's not what you
just did, to be fair.
- Okay, I was like, no,
you're good at what you do.
- Yeah, because I went to school for it.
It's not that because you
were born a cis woman,
or cisgender woman, and let's clarify
what cisgender means,
because that's something
a lot of people don't know.
- Yep. And people use that term a lot.
- Yes.
And a lot of people
think cis, or cisgender,
is a made up word, for
the record all words
are made up at some point, but
this has been around for a long time.
As long as transgender has been around,
cisgender has been around,
so like a hundred years.
In medical context, cisgender means
your gender expression is
congruent, is that the word?
- Yes. Is congruent.
- It's the same as your
assigned gender at birth.
So you would be a cisgender woman.
- Yes, I was born a woman
and I identify as a woman.
- Right.
And I would be transgender
because I am a woman,
but I was assigned male, right?
I'll get into this next,
actually I'll get into this now.
- Yeah, do it.
Get into it now.
- Some people see transness as, like,
some people might say I was
born a man but I am now a woman.
And the way that it is, really, is that
I've always been a woman.
- Yeah, you're just in a man's
body, is that how you see it?
- Well, not really.
Like, my body is mine, and by
virtue of me being a woman,
it's a woman's body,
regardless of what surgeries
or hormones I've had, right?
But I think because, how do I word this,
when we see it in a way that says,
oh, she's a woman in a man's body,
it gives people room to say I'm a man.
And I've never felt like a
man, I've never been a man,
even growing up some people say,
"oh, you were socialized as a man."
And there's a degree of
that, but also, not really,
because I see it as I was
socialized as a trans woman.
I'm inside my body, I'm
screaming every day.
I'm not enjoying the
privileges of maleness
that I had growing up.
I'm like, why can't I be
happy, why can't I develop
in that way, why are people shaming me
for liking certain things?
There's not really much privilege there.
There's a lot of loathing
and there's a lot of hiding--
- Yeah, a lot of depression I'd assume.
- Oh, yeah.
So the understanding that
trans women were once men
is just a little bit of a
shift, it's not quite accurate.
It's just that they were
perceived to be men,
and they were told to be men,
and they were forced to be men,
because of the circumstances
of their birth.
Because I was born with
a certain body part,
I was given a blueprint and
because I deviated from that,
I experienced a lot of shit.
Can I swear on your channel?
- A hundred percent.
- Cool, I don't know how else to word it.
I experienced a lot of shit.
- Yeah.
- And I think that's not really the same
as growing up as a boy
and being a boy, because
those are completely
different experiences.
So for all intents and purposes,
trans women at no point were men. (laughs)
- Yes.
Okay.
- But I know that that's a
weird thing to understand,
and it involves a lot of shifting the way
you see gender as a whole,
and that can be difficult.
- Totally.
But I think that, just because I see
where you're coming from, I
don't think it's that hard.
Because I think it's
essentially the idea that
whoever we've identified as in general
has just always been us.
- Right, exactly.
- So it doesn't matter
if I was born one way
looking one way, but if I
knew I was this other way,
I've always been that other way.
So I see why to say that okay,
a girl born in a man's body would imply
that I agreed with that man's body.
I never did.
I was always a girl.
But just a trans girl, 'cause
that's what the trans means,
right, would be the
difference between cis and--
- Yeah.
The prefixes cis- and trans-,
cis- on the same side of, trans- across.
So transgender is across gender, right?
And gender...
- I know we're really gettin'
into it and I'm sorry.
- No, it's okay, I just
don't want to imply
that I've changed genders,
'cause I don't see it that way,
it's more that I've changed
my body to match my gender.
- Yes, okay.
- Does that make sense?
- Yes, and I think that's why I see,
the other thing could
be not offensive, but--
- A misunderstanding. A
fundamental misunderstanding
of what gender is for trans people.
Yeah.
Okay, great, I hope I
explained that pretty well.
- Yes, I liked that, though.
It makes sense and it helps me, at least,
better understand how I
can be more sensitive.
- Okay, cool.
- Anything else people
say or do that's really
offensive without realizing it?
- So, something else people
do is they'll like to,
let me give you an example.
Today, I had an Uber
ride where, listen, okay?
This man was very nice.
Okay, I can't tell this
story, this is weird.
Okay, I'll give a hypothetical situation.
Let's say I'm at the mall
with, I'm on a date with,
or not even on a date, I met somebody,
literally I was in a
store and I met a dude,
and we're hitting it off,
and then somebody comes up
to me that knows I'm trans,
and tells that dude that I'm trans.
- Why is that their place?
- Right, that's part of it.
But it's also, there's a time
for me to tell that person
that I'm trans
and to help them
understand what that means,
not only for me but for
them being attracted to me.
'Cause a lot of people are so scared
of what that means for
them, as men, right?
They're like "oh no, I'm
attracted to a trans woman,
"does that mean I'm gay?"
No, it doesn't, because
trans women or men,
gay men are not attracted
to me, look at me!
I'm a woman!
What about this?
You know what I mean?
And I think it's, they overthink it
to the point where it's, like...
It just fucks with their head so much
and it doesn't have to.
You know, it's very simple,
trans women are women.
Therefore it's totally
natural for straight men
to be attracted to them.
It's totally natural for gay
women to be attracted to them.
And I think there's so
much stigma around that,
and that's not necessarily
something somebody says,
but it's more just the
general cultural perception
of women, of trans woman,
in romantic situations.
And if you look at media for
the past, like, 40 years,
any trans women in media
have been villains,
or predators, or sex
workers that are really men,
or it's been funny because they're pretty
but then they have a really deep voice
and that's the punchline, ha ha,
or like, South Park humor, right?
And that is everybody's
perception of trans women.
That has been it for so long.
That was my perception of
trans women when I was a kid.
And that's why it took me so long
to understand that I was trans.
And so, for me to be in public
encountering this man
that's attracted to me,
we're talking in a store for example,
and somebody comes up and makes a point
of me being trans, outing me
effectively to that person,
and then that person's
perception of trans women
is predator, scary, secretly
a man, out to get you,
what do you think his reaction's gonna be?
It's gonna be either rejection
which is fine and fair,
nobody's obligated to be
romantically interested
in anybody, okay?
But it could also be violent.
And trans women suffer
such a high murder rate.
- Yeah, murder rate and suicide rate--
- 48% of us.
48% of us have attempted suicide.
- That's a staggering number, you guys.
- That's probably more
than any other community.
I can't confirm that, but I
can't imagine another community
with a higher statistical suicide rate.
- No, there isn't.
When I did the LGBT workbook,
it's been a few years,
so new stats are probably out,
but it was for therapists such as myself
wanting to be more understanding
and it couldn't have been
more strong of language
to be like, you need to
recognize, you need to support,
you need to try to use proper language
and let them teach you,
because they're hurting.
- Yeah.
The best way I can
describe gender dysphoria,
which is the diagnosable
thing for trans people,
is heartache, and isolation,
and just perpetual loss of a life
that you don't have that you need.
And the best way to get those things fixed
is through medical transition, usually.
It depends on the individual.
But that's why it's so important
for that to happen, right?
To listen, and to let
yourself learn from us, right?
And I appreciate you for hosting this
so that people can learn.
- Of course, 'cause I feel like
a lot of people are afraid to ask.
- Yeah, they are.
- Or people ask really
inappropriate questions--
- At the wrong time.
- Totally, because I've had
viewers of mine reach out
and say that they are trans
and people will feel it
completely appropriate to ask about
their genitals and their sex life.
- Yeah, I should talk about that actually.
Can I go into that?
- Go for it, tell me about it.
- So, um...
- 'Cause that's not appropriate. (laughs)
- No.
I mean, there's certain
contexts when it's appropriate.
It's appropriate to ask
me about my genitals
if we're going to sleep
together or if you're my doctor.
- Fair enough.
- Otherwise...
- Yeah.
Would you ask me about my genitals?
No you wouldn't.
- You would also, and
obviously you are cis,
because we've had this conversation,
but as an outsider, and
I mentioned this earlier,
you've met trans people that
you have no idea were trans.
If you did not know Kati--
- Yeah, you wouldn't, how would you know?
- Right.
Why would you just assume that she's cis,
but with trans people you assume things
about their body and about their genitals,
but then also you ask about it,
I don't understand why you do both.
The point is, genitals
are nobody's business
unless we're sleeping together,
and then some people were
say, "oh, but how do I know
"if I want to sleep with you
"if I don't know what genitals you have?"
And that is a fair point, but let me--
- But then you're already at that point,
it's kind of already
in that romantic realm,
where hopefully you'd be
already having the conversation
about the fact that you even are trans--
- Right, at that point you should know.
- That's already its
conversation of its own.
And not public.
- No, no!
No, no, no, no, no, absolutely not.
And I've had experiences
with dating people that,
they've been very attracted to me,
and they've wanted to, you know,
engage on every level,
but they're terrified,
for example, of what
their family will think,
and I live a very public life,
so it's entirely possible
their family would know.
But, if I was a private person,
if I didn't have a YouTube channel
and talk about these things openly,
why would their family know?
That's none of their business.
They don't need to know that.
So I guess it's just
about understanding that,
first of all, gender and
sexuality are separate,
I don't know I touched on that earlier.
- I've talked about it in another video,
I'll link down in the description
my sex health understanding.
- Love that.
- But yeah, we can explain
a little bit here too.
- I mean, they're separate, right?
You can be transgender and gay,
or you can be transgender and straight,
or you can be transgender and bisexual,
pansexual, whatever.
Or you can be cis and all those things.
Gender's one side, sexuality is another.
And they don't interact at
all for yourself, inwardly.
It's only externally that
your sexuality is important
when it comes to gender.
Um, what was I saying before that?
- Asking about genitals or sex.
- Genitals, yeah.
It's only appropriate in contexts when
you know you're going to be involved
with somebody physically.
And I think what is a
good exercise for people
is to stop assuming people's genitals.
- I think that's the
thing, is assumptions.
Everything you were saying about that
was just, assumptions,
assumptions, assumptions.
If I know one little bit about someone
I'm assuming all of this, and I think
the sooner we can recognize
our own assumptions
which are really our own
stigmas, we all have our own--
- Biases and things.
- Yes, because we're
looking at through our own
filtered glasses of
experience, of society,
of whatever, and sometimes it's just nice
to take a break and be
like, I like this person
because I like them.
- Right, as a person.
- Yes, and I don't have
to assume all this stuff
about them until I get to know them.
- Right, 'cause 99% of people I encounter
that are attracted to me,
like if I go to a club
or if I go to a bar, or if
I'm in an Uber (chuckles), for example--
- Just for example.
- Just for example, it's
not really relevant.
Those people assume I have a vagina
because they perceive me as cisgender,
but the second there's
any hint of transness
it's all of the sudden like, "oh my God,
"what if she has a penis?"
And for the record, I don't know
if this is common knowledge
for everybody, but,
there are surgeries for people to
get their genitals altered.
It's called sexual realignment surgery,
or gender reassignment surgery,
but I think sexual
realignment makes more sense.
- That sounds better,
'cause getting back in line
with what you've always been--
- Sexual organs, right?
Instead of gender.
I'm not changing my gender
when I have a surgery
that alters my body that way.
I'm changing my sexual organs.
- I like that.
- Yeah.
So, it's also not correct to assume
every trans woman has a
penis, or every trans man
has a vagina, because
that's not true either.
So like you said, it's
an assumption thing,
and that need to be
unlearned, and it can be.
But it just takes some
conscious thinking about that.
- Yeah, practice, and being
a little more thoughtful
with the way that we speak.
- Yes, exactly.
But that will help everybody in the end.
- I think so.
Any other tidbits, or--
- I don't think anything else
about offensive language,
there's a million things I
could really talk about--
- Oh, I'm sure.
I just meant when they
don't really intend to.
'Cause there's a lot of jerks out there.
- Of course, yeah.
But those are the big ones
that I've encountered.
I'm sure there's some I'm
missing but they're not
in the top of my head right now.
- That's okay.
- But you can find a million
trans people online talking about this.
If you look up transgender
microagressions,
if you're interested in
learning about these things,
that might be the best path to go,
'cause I think that's what
we generally call them,
is microaggressions.
- Yeah, 'cause it's
that little stab that--
- Right, that you don't intend
to do, but it's still a stab.
- Yeah.
- And there's a lot you can learn
if you look up that kind of information.
- Perfect.
- Yeah.
- Well, thank you for educating us.
- My pleasure.
- And for sharing your story online,
because I do love the
fact, I just have to say,
I love the fact that you
found community online
when you needed it, and now
you've created one for others.
- Yeah, thank you.
That's why I started
sharing my transition,
is 'cause I wanted to give
back to what helped me.
And I'm glad I could.
- Yeah.
It's wonderful.
So go check out her channel,
we've done a video over there.
- Yes we have.
- She's amazing and wonderful.
Thank you for taking the time.
- Thank you, it's my pleasure, ah!
See you guys later.
- Yeah, we'll see you later.
Bye!
- Bye!
