Rebecca Kling
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Consider the relevance of someone's identity. This week, Rebecca Kling (she/her) discusses the importance of creating inclusive summer camps for LGBTQ+ youth where they can be themselves without making everything about being from the LGBTQ+ community. In this episode, you will learn 1. What conversations are coming up at summer camps 2. How B'Mitzvahs/B'nai Mitzvahs may differ from Bar and Bat Mitzvahs 3. When we might engage in understanding and empathic conversations and when it's time to disrupt and agitate for change.
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Full Transcript
[00:00:00] Chris Angel Murphy: Well, hello there. I'm Chris Angel, and my pronouns are they/them. Welcome to Allyship is a Verb, a podcast for people practicing allyship for the LGBTQ+ community and beyond!
[00:00:25] Rebecca Kling: My name is Rebecca Kling, and my pronouns are she/her.
[00:00:30] Chris Angel Murphy: Rebecca is nationally recognized as an educator, activist, and advocate who works with families, community leaders, and elected representatives to elevate the stories of transgender people and their allies. She advances the transgender movement through storytelling, seminars, community workshops, political advocacy and arts education.
We were introduced through a former guest, Leanna. Thank you, Leanna!
Now three self-reflection questions to think about during our conversation. Stick around after for three more to take with you.
1. Is there a term or word people call me that's meant to be derogatory, but actually is a compliment to me?
2. What's a social issue that I was previously against, but now support? What helped me to get there and be more open?
3. Is there a day or sleepover camp I would've loved to have gone to as a kid but wasn't available to me? Who would it have been for and what kinds of activities would we have done?
And now our conversation:
You are queer, trans, Jewish, Chicagoian - (laughs) I was, like, trying to practice that before our conversation - an aunt, a geek, a writer and performer, and a rabble-rouser. So, I wanna just pause quickly to ask, you know, especially for folks who may not be familiar with it, what is a rabble rouser? Because like, honestly like, you know, I grew up with my dad and my grandma, and that I - it just feels like something my grandma would've yelled at me in a bad way, which - but would've felt like a compliment to me. So what does that mean to you?
[00:02:18] Rebecca Kling: A rabble rouser is someone who gets folks riled up. And it is often used sort of derogatory. I could totally imagine a grandmother saying, "You're being such a rabble rouser today." (both laugh)
[00:02:29] Chris Angel Murphy: Yeah.
[00:02:30] Rebecca Kling: In my mind there are things that people should be upset about. And I recently heard - and I love this phrase - a friend of mine who's at the ACLU Jillian Branstetter talks about an "enthusiasm gap" that the people who are out to get trans people are really enthusiastic about getting trans people in trouble and hurting trans people, and the people who wanna protect trans people are not always as enthusiastic about that - that there's an enthusiasm gap. And so we need people to be roused up. We need the rabble not only to vote, but to speak up and speak out and protect those in their community.
And so sometimes there's cause to get people a little riled up.
[00:03:17] Chris Angel Murphy: I noticed in the conversation we had before this that you had used the term "disrupt" a few times, and I think that's like another, you know, kind of, like, politically charged term. I know for myself, I've been organizing an LGBTQ+ community for a really long time now, and I remember I was working on this campaign called Get Empathy, and it was part of this nonprofit called The Relational Center in Los Angeles.
And when I was working with those organizers, it was really interesting cause they kept saying like, "We needed to agitate people into action." I'm like, "Ugh" I just, I had such a resistance to that cause, like, I don't know, I don't think this work is always like rainbows and butterflies and stuff, but I was having a lot of trouble getting behind that kind of language because I think it just felt to me so aggressive and I'm just, not that kind of person, typically.
And so, yeah, I don't know. I think the wording we choose and especially in the certain spaces that we choose to use it, is just super interesting. But now I think I've like grown to be okay with it, and I understand it - because the way I would share it with someone else - is, you know, we are trying to break patterns that are not serving us.
And you're nodding your head.
[00:04:38] Rebecca Kling: Exactly. Nodding my head makes for great audio.
[00:04:42] Chris Angel Murphy: Yes. (laughs) I'm trying to make sure people get the vibe of what's happening.
[00:04:47] Rebecca Kling: I think you're completely right in that we shouldn't start with agitation or with disruption, but that those need to be on the table that we can't assume that really calm, polite, respectful conversation is always the answer. I think it's always the place to start.
[00:05:08] Chris Angel Murphy: Mm-hmm.
[00:05:09] Rebecca Kling: And it's always important to give that empathy and allow that room for growth and understanding, but there have been many opportunities for growth and understanding. It's rare that some of these politicians are taking those opportunities.
There was a really beautiful piece recently about a Republican state official in Oregon who talked about how he learned what the trans community was and he talked to doctors and he talked to trans people and went from supporting a ban on medical care for trans youth to opposing it. Or I think more specifically from opposing something that was supportive of trans people to supporting something that was supportive of trans people.
And those people do exist, but there are also lots of, unfortunately, politicians and elected officials who have had countless opportunities to learn and grow and have been met with empathy countless times. And at some point the response needs to be we're disrupting, that we're agitating, that we are getting people riled up. We are rabble rousing (Chris Angel laughs) and saying this isn't acceptable.
And whatever the "this" is, whether it's racial injustice, or lack of access to reproductive healthcare, or lack of access to healthcare in general, or trans issues, or immigration, or accessibility; like there are all of these issues that are connected and that we should always start from a place of empathy and understanding with those who disagree with us, but I don't think that empathy should necessarily be infinite.
[00:06:40] Chris Angel Murphy: Yeah. Something that was interesting about that Get Empathy campaign, it was one of my internships in my social work program, and by that point I was in my master's program, and what was interesting is we talked about the professor out of Harvard who had come up with - and they modified it for the program - but how to tell your story, which I know is part of what you do as well, but breaking down like what are the elements of storytelling so that you can tell people the "why" of why you're involved in a certain, like, kind of activism, for example. And I think that's a really interesting place to be.
But before I take us down, all of the rabbit holes (laughs) that my ADHD ass will take us on - rewinding a bit with the other intersections; what do all of those intersections mean to you?
[00:07:29] Rebecca Kling: Part of what I try to remember is that no one is just one thing. So walking through the world, there are lots of things we - people may perceive me as, and some of them are things that I want people to perceive me as, or I expect people to perceive me as, and some of them may not be, but to remind myself that everyone walks through life like that. And that the people who I see as one thing are also complicated, nuanced people who again, deserve to be met with empathy and understanding as much as possible.
And then to think about, well, what does that mean in the real world and how does that play out real life? So backing up to "What do all of those intersections mean to me?" It means that I'm a part of a bunch of different communities and that I get to learn from those communities and grow with those communities.
In my mind, all of those identities are related, or most of those identities, are related and connected in terms of being queer, definitely informing how I think about being trans. Being trans, informing how I think about being Jewish. Being Jewish, informing how I think about writing and performing. Writing and performing think about how I am an aunt and how I play with my niece and my nephew. That informing the type of activism and advocacy I do. And so all of those things trying to connect across differences and connect across identities.
[00:08:56] Chris Angel Murphy: You've spent time in your youth going to day camps, and eventually you became a camp counselor. I'm curious about if there's been any particular shifts within the camping industry that you've seen over the years that you think are worth noting?
[00:09:16] Rebecca Kling: A big shift in summer camps over the last couple of decades is around autonomy. And I think this is a great trend in youth development in general, of that young people are not adults, but that they are people and deserve to have an input in what happens and how it's structured.
And that some of that is coming from camps to take more input in terms of what activities people want, to think more outside the box in terms of: do we also want Dungeons and Dragons? Or do we also want podcasting? Or do we also want other things that might not have been in camps 10 or 15 or 20 years ago?
And then similarly, youth are just demanding this, that they expect to be listened to in a way that wasn't always true. And that as an adult, working with young people can sometimes be frustrating, but as an activist I think is awesome. And so even in a moment when a young person may say, or a camper may say, "I don't think this policy is fair," or "I don't think this activity is set up right," even when that might be frustrating in the moment, there's always a part of me that loves hearing campers or hearing young people push back against adults and push for changes they think should happen in the world.
So I think that's an awesome shift that's happened in terms of an expectation from campers and from young people that they should have input into the world that they're living in.
[00:10:47] Chris Angel Murphy: I love that so much. That actually just gave me a bunch of chills because you're right. I could absolutely see that. I went to a queer leadership camp for the first time in 2009, and I had already graduated from high school. I had graduated 2005, but it was my first time ever going to any kind of camp. It was non-traditional in that we went out to Maryland and we were staying at a university and we were in their dorms and you know, we weren't out, I don't know, rowing or something like you've done in your history of camp, like summer camps.
But you know, we were more doing activism and listening to like trans elders for example, and hearing their stories. And, yeah, I do remember (laughs) - I don't, I just, I don't know, like I, I remember it just being like a really big hookup opportunity too, cause I think just, you know, all the queer and trans people were very excited about being near each other because we were all young leaders, you know.
I think part of the program was that because we were like, organizing GSAs or queer student alliances or, or whatever that, you know, we wanted to build on those skills and everything and go on to do other things as well that, yeah. So like that was fueled, but like at night when things finally calmed down, yeah, I - hookups and, yeah. All sorts of interesting drama.
Is that something that's changed at all over the years that you've been both a youth and also a camp counselor, or is that like pretty much par for the course?
[00:12:27] Rebecca Kling: So I should say I never went to sleepaway camps as a kid.
[00:12:30] Chris Angel Murphy: Mm-hmm.
[00:12:31] Rebecca Kling: That I had anxiety and separation worries and for better or for worse, and I think probably a little of both, I never went to sleepaway camps as a kid. So coming as an adult, first as a counselor, and now as someone on a leadership team with a summer camp for trans and gender variant youth, we certainly see some of that happening and for lots of reasons don't encourage it. But we do sort of laugh and roll our eyes when, for example, we find campers playing spin the bottle of bug spray, (Chris Angel laughs) where we hear about so-and-so as a crush on such and such, but such and such, like so-and-so.
We wanna make sure that we're creating a space where campers are comfortable talking with each other and interacting in spaces with lots of trans kids, which many of them haven't done before, but also making sure it's a space where there is not hooking up or physical intimacy in that way.
I don't know as an adult how to balance that. On the one hand, as an adult who's responsible for children, I can't allow that to happen. On the other hand, as a trans person who remembers being a teen, I would like there to be space where trans youth can experiment and explore their identities the same way that any teenager does.
[00:13:47] Chris Angel Murphy: Right.
[00:13:47] Rebecca Kling: I want the entire world to be safe for that, even though sometimes with these designated spaces like camp or like a GSA might be the places where they find that safety.
[00:13:57] Chris Angel Murphy: Yeah, it's really tricky. When you were going to those day camps and your youth, what did you get the most out of those experiences and how has that changed being a camp counselor and then part of like the leadership?
[00:14:15] Rebecca Kling: I love structured fun. (Chris Angel laughs) I am a sucker for board games and for organized activities and for, you know, the water balloon toss where you are standing a foot apart and you hand it and then each person takes a step back and you toss it and each person takes a step back. Like I think that type of structured fun is great and is so much about what camp is.
So as a kid I loved - I grew up just outside of Chicago in Evanston, Illinois - and biked to the lakefront and went to aquatics camp where we learned how to sail and canoe and when the boat was working jet ski. (Chris Angel laughs) And so I have just very fond memories of that as a big part of what I was doing during the day in summer.
As a camp counselor and now as someone on a leadership position, wanting to make sure that we are balancing between what campers want to do and what communal experiences are valuable for everyone. And what I mean by that is we want to encourage campers to be outside of their comfort zone, but in ways that are safe and hopefully fun. So everyone being able to go to the campfire and make a s'more; it's okay if that's not your favorite part of camp, that's a communal experience that's important for everyone to share together.
If you have soccer on your agenda or soccer on your schedule for the day, you do actually have to go to that activity. If that's something you know you hate, maybe we can tweak it so you're helping referee, or maybe we can tweak your schedule for the rest of the week so you can participate in it today and then tomorrow it won't be on your schedule.
So try to balance, again, listening and being informed by what campers are saying they want and also balancing that with running something that's gonna work as well as it can for everyone, and not just sort of devolving into camper anarchy where everyone gets to do their own thing all the time.
[00:16:12] Chris Angel Murphy: Thinking about logistics, some concerns I understand that like maybe parents and caregivers can have, are how in the world do progressive camps deal with concerns like the sleeping arrangements, bathrooms, showering, you know, spaces that may be typically gender segregated in public?
[00:16:31] Rebecca Kling: Absolutely. Part of working in gender segregated spaces with youth is making sure that they work as well as they can for as many people as they can. And what I mean by that is doors that don't have gaps in them in bathrooms or showers.
[00:16:45] Chris Angel Murphy: Yes.
[00:16:46] Rebecca Kling: Individual shower stalls rather than communal showers and making sure there are private changing spaces rather than assuming everyone is gonna change in the middle of the bunker, in the middle of the bathroom. And those are things that I imagine most people, whether or not they're trans, feel like, "Oh yeah, that's much nicer," that for cultural reasons, we've gone from the expectation that in gym class or whatever, there's a communal bathroom where all the boys shower together and there's one where all the girls shower together, but that's never worked for everyone.
[00:17:19] Chris Angel Murphy: Yeah.
[00:17:19] Rebecca Kling: Like that's never been a space where everyone has felt safe and comfortable and confident. And so a lot of the things that are coming from the push might be coming from trans youth or from trans communities, are really things that are not specific to trans communities. So again, bathroom stalls that actually have privacy, shower stall that actually have privacy.
Thinking about, you know, a shower curtain immediately over the shower stall, and then a second curtain so having a little changing area that's private. So that no camper, whether or not they're trans is being asked to do something or be in a space where both they have to reveal their body or where they're being seen - they're seeing other bodies that maybe they don't wanna see.
And so some of that is whether or not someone is trans. More and more camps are thinking about who do campers want to bunk with rather than what gender should campers bunk with. Sometimes that is gonna turn out to be boys cabins and girls cabins, and if that's what campers are selecting I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that. I don't think we should be forcing that type of mixing or that type of in - we should, I don't know that we need to be forcing that in cabins or in restrooms or anything.
There should always be an option for someone to go into a space that feels safe and comfortable for them. But I think a lot more of it is coming from how can we ensure that for every camper rather than, how can we assume campers are gonna fit into this box or that box.
[00:18:55] Chris Angel Murphy: Right.
[00:18:56] Rebecca Kling: Sleeping arrangements can feel a little trickier, but I don't think they fundamentally are for all of those same reasons: that campers are not necessarily actually observed by awake counselors 24/7. And so if a counselor is in a cabin, if that cabin has all of one gender or mixed genders, there's still adults in the cabin, they're still supervising the campers, the campers are still being watched and taken care of and being kept safe.
And so the specifics of, "Is it a boys' cabin?", "a girls' cabin?", "a mixed cabin?", "a non-binary cabin?", "a trans cabin?"; those become less important if you're focusing on "How do we make sure the campers are appropriately supervised?"
[00:19:39] Chris Angel Murphy: There are so many kinds of camps now, including for folks that maybe have had similar experiences, I think, of youth who are grieving loved ones, for example, maybe they lost their parents. Do you think that there should be LGBTQ+ camps and that all other camps should strive to make those campers feel welcome and supported too?
[00:20:04] Rebecca Kling: I absolutely think it's a both/and; that there should be camps available for folks who want that identity community as well as camps where all different types of people and identities are mingling and mixing.
And to use some specific examples, many camps that are just sort of general summer camps don't necessarily have the thought or the leadership or the staff, yet, to really uplift and support trans campers in the way that they deserve to be uplifted and supported. Some of them do, and more and more of them do. And for campers who want a space with other trans people, with other kids like them, having that as an option is really important.
Also, having broader queer camps that aren't just for trans kids, but for the entire LGBTQ+ community. Also, having camps for different experiences, whether it's different health conditions or different physical conditions or different experiences of grieving the loss of a loved one. It's really important to have spaces in our life where there are people like us around, and there are parts of our identities we don't need to explain.
[00:21:12] Chris Angel Murphy: Mm-hmm.
[00:21:13] Rebecca Kling: For some kids who are coming from communities that might already be really supportive, that might be less important at a summer camp, and they might want or not want to come to a camp just for trans kids, for different reasons. For some kids who don't have that community in the outside world, that camp becomes incredibly important. But in a perfect world, having options where there are lots of different things.
One of the things that the camp I work with is, intentional about is we are as much as possible a traditional summer camp. We have canoeing and archery and arts and crafts, and a Rockwall and a variety show and s'mores, at the campfire; and we do not have talks about what it means to be trans or activism workshops. Inevitably that stuff comes up and we work with our counselors for how to facilitate those conversations, but we don't build structured space for it. For some of our campers, that's really what they want; they want a space where they can "just be a kid."
[00:22:18] Chris Angel Murphy: Yeah.
[00:22:18] Rebecca Kling: For some of our campers, they are activists and advocates in the rest of their life and they might really like a space that talks more about advocacy and activism. And for them, that might not be something they get at our camp, or they might go to other camps, like you mentioned, where there is more of that advocacy and activism focus.
And I really think it's different strokes for different folks - that different campers, just like different adults, are looking for different things, different youth are looking for different things and having all of those options. The end goal should certainly be a society where any camper can go to any camp, but also that we have spaces where, when there are unique identities or backgrounds or experiences, that that community is really, really important.
[00:23:06] Chris Angel Murphy: Something that's been top of mind for me as of late is being non-binary and also discovering that I'm ADHD and autistic. I really love being in spaces that, other people are also neuroqueer; I just, I love being in those intersections. And I know - and I couldn't spout the facts off the top of my head right now of what the numbers are - there's a pretty significant chance that those who are gender expansive in some way may also be autistic, like more specifically.
Is that a conversation that y'all have been having in leadership about how to make those spaces more accessible for folks and learn what y'all need to learn to know about like sensory experiences and things like that?
[00:23:56] Rebecca Kling: When we're thinking about the type of camp space we're building, we wanna make sure that it's working for as many of our campers as possible and balancing that with creating a cohesive experience. So something that's come up more and more is sensory sensitivity and particularly noise sensitivity.
[00:24:15] Chris Angel Murphy: Mm-hmm.
[00:24:15] Rebecca Kling: And that has been an increasing conversation as more, and- and this is anecdotal, this is not research based this is only my personal experience with what I've seen - that we certainly have had more and more campers who either in their intake forms or once they're at camp, identify some sort of noise sensitivity that's led to some difficult conversations around when and how do we wanna have camp songs. That's a really important part of camp culture and of a communal experience, is singing silly songs together and being silly together.
And I would even go so far as to say that there is value in sometimes being pushed outside of your comfort zone and being in a space where everyone is singing, even if you don't love that, or being in a soccer game, even if you don't love that, or being in a canoe, even if you don't love that.
I think there's value of trying things outside of your comfort zone, balancing that with not wanting to force anyone to do something that is harming them or that's really causing to stress.
[00:25:13] Chris Angel Murphy: Yeah.
[00:25:13] Rebecca Kling: And so we've had a lot of conversations about you know, inside the dining hall is an incredibly echoy space and one of the things campers love to do is called sevens, which is about banging on the table and then banging cups on the table, and then you clap and it's this whole rhythm thing that I can never remember. (Chris Angel laughs) And it is miserably, obnoxiously loud; and that's sort of the point, is that sometimes it is fun to be miserably, obnoxiously loud.
And so we've tried to figure out, okay, how can we also seat campers outside where there isn't that echoey and there isn't that noise in the same way? How can we maybe, say we can do sevens once at dinner and that's it, rather than three or four times at every meal?
And how can we say, if a camper comes up - and this goes back to camper autonomy and youth autonomy - if a camper or a counselor comes up or a staff member comes up and says, "This isn't working for me." Whether it's the noise or where they're seated or how it's played, and maybe yesterday they were fine, but today, the way their day played out, they don't have the same reserves and energy.
[00:26:16] Chris Angel Murphy: Yeah.
[00:26:16] Rebecca Kling: To be able to take that seriously. I've sort of joked that 50 years ago there might have been the attitude of "Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about." And that now we, we wanna avoid that and we wanna say, "Okay, I'm taking what you're saying seriously, and I'm trying to figure out how we can both give you what you need as a human, whether that's a camper or a counselor or a staff member, and also be mindful of how we're part of this full community."
And one of the things that we've tried to talk a lot about is what is the difference between being uncomfortable - which we all experience from time to time, and I do think that there's, we wanna build resilience in our campers - versus being unsafe or causing harm, which we never want. Those aren't easy things to answer as adults, and they're certainly not easy things to answer for young people; so it's definitely an ongoing conversation.
We are not as concerned, it's not as relevant to us if a camper has a specific diagnosis, other than wanting to make sure we're able to support the needs that come from that.
[00:27:24] Chris Angel Murphy: A piece of allyship is also when you can do so as an organization; and so something that's come up in the camp that you've worked with for, I think you said this is the 12th year, is there was a name change. And I was curious if you could talk about that experience of like why and how that came to be?
[00:27:43] Rebecca Kling: I'm not naming the name because we're in sort of anxious times, and there is lots of push against trans rights and so I wanna share what I've learned from camp without necessarily sort of quote unquote "outing" camp.
So I work with a summer camp that was originally named from a native language and a native word. And this comes in the long tradition in the United States of summer camps, depending on the camp and depending on the situation, either being inspired by or borrowing or just feeling and appropriating language and cultural experiences from native communities.
And over the last number of years, certainly before 2020, we had been talking on leadership and would sometimes get questions from counselors or from campers: where does this name come from and why is this our camp name? And we would talk about that and share why that name was chosen and the history and connection.
And over the last number of years, I've been thinking more seriously about, "Well, does this name reflect who we are now? And do we wanna think about changing the name, both because we want to be forward thinking and think about where we want to go and we want to think about and reflect on the decisions we've made and ask if this is still the right name for us."
And we joked a lot that of course changing a name is a very trans thing to do and so it felt appropriate for a trans camp. (Chris Angel laughs) And the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020 really accelerated the conversations we were having around race and racial justice, and I think that's hopefully true for lots of organizations and, and lots of summer camps in particular. And the fact that we weren't able to meet in person the summer of 2020 also meant we had maybe more opportunity and space to hold conversations on the leadership team and for the board to talk and reflect.
Ultimately, what was decided was to go with a name that we felt better fit what the camp is now, and that really looked ahead at what we want camp to be. In talking about this with folks on the leadership team and with the camp director, we really felt like that was something that people could take away: that our camp is not unique in having these conversations.
If you Google "Native American summer camp" or "Native American summer camp controversy," tons of stuff comes up from the American Camp Association, from newspapers. And certainly growing up in Chicago and in Illinois, I'm familiar with - so the Chicago Blackhawks, the hockey team have a Native American mascot, which may or may not be okay depending on who you talk about. The University of Illinois Chief Illiniwek as their mascot, which may or may not be okay depending on who you talk to.
But what a lot of those conversations do is look backwards at "Is what we've done right or wrong, offensive or not?" And part of what I feel like we really stumbled onto, and I think this was. A lesson we all learned together that I'm excited to be able to share is, rather than looking backwards, which can get people really tied into, "Well, it was what my camp was called when I was growing up," which can be a really powerful emotional connection, particularly for camp that have been around for 50 or a hundred years.
[00:31:01] Chris Angel Murphy: Mm-hmm.
[00:31:01] Rebecca Kling: Looking ahead to what do we want our camp to be moving forward, and does our name reflect that? I would argue for a lot of these camps who don't really have relationships with native communities and have appropriated native language or culture or identity, the answer is "No. That's not who we wanna be moving forward as camps."
I can't answer for every camp or every organization, but I do think there's a lot of, "this is the way we've always done it" that scares people and there's a lot of understandable emotional connection. Again, names have really deep emotional resonance. So it's understandable that if generations of a family, cause some camps are over a hundred years old, and so it's entirely possible that a child today and their parents and their grandparents, and maybe even their great grandparents went to the same camp.
It's understandable that there's an emotional relationship to that name, but being able to take a step back and say, "Is that name really representing us the way we want to be represented?" And if not, "How do we rethink what our identity is as a camp and how do we have that reflected in our name?"
Those were not fast or easy conversations always, but I am really proud to think about how we've talked about it with our camp and the lessons we've learned in terms of - simply because it's scary or difficult doesn't mean it's impossible. And that, using that forward-thinking framing of "who do we wanna be?" rather than "who were we?" or "who are are you today?" can be really useful.
[00:32:44] Chris Angel Murphy: Thinking about all of the anti-trans legislation across the US and there's similar stuff going on in places like the uk, is there an issue that is particularly closer to your heart?
[00:32:57] Rebecca Kling: I would say there are two things I've been thinking a lot about lately around anti-trans legislation. One is how anti-trans legislation connects to other issues of oppression and discrimination. So healthcare is sort of the clearest example where the language and arguments being used to block access to trans healthcare are almost word-for-word the same being used in the reproductive healthcare space; and it's not a coincidence.
And in fact, in Nebraska, we just saw the first bill that explicitly linked them and said, "We're gonna ban gender affirming care and we're gonna ban abortion access." And it seems like the thinking there is really, "people hate trans people enough that they're willing to give up abortion rights." I don't think that's true, I don't think people hate trans people enough to give up abortion rights. I think most people don't hate trans people at all, but the push from the right is very clearly saying medical decisions should be politically decided, and conversations between you and your doctor should also have politicians in the room.
That's ridiculous. That is so problematic for everyone. That it's frustrating that people don't necessarily see that connection, whether it's around reproductive access or trans rights, that having government intervention in healthcare in that way is only a bad thing and only hurts people. Which again isn't to say that there should be zero regulations around healthcare, I'm a big fan of like medicine being tested by the FDA or knowing that what I buy at the drugstore is what it says on the label.
So I'm not saying it should be a anarchist free for all, but that when it comes to what is actually being prescribed and what patients can and can't do with and to their body, that should really be an individual decision or individual evaluation with doctors, not with politicians.
The other issue I've been thinking a lot about is around fairness in sports, and I've really changed my thinking about this in the last couple of years from, "Well, maybe there's room for compromise, maybe there's interesting perspectives" to, "It's not seen unfair to be a left-handed person playing baseball. It's not seen as unfair to be a tall person playing basketball."
Bodies are different. We're all on a bell curve. Those bell curves overlap a lot more than they don't, and the range of what it means to be a man or a woman is huge. A man being shorter than a woman doesn't mean that they're both not really that gender. A woman being taller than a man doesn't mean they're both not really that gender. And that I would rather focus on fairness of allowing everyone to participate, which is just like a true or false thing: can people participate on the teams where they feel most affirmed and included?
Versus this wishy washy, "What does fairness mean? How long has someone been on hormones? What's their testosterone level in their blood?" Like those are just not relevant questions to me. When we talk about someone like Michael Phelps, his "unfairness" is seen as a benefit that he's such a good athlete because of these physical differences. But when we talk about someone like Caster Semenya, or very often Black women who are viewed or tested and have different testosterone levels or different chromosome issues, or just not what the people in charge expect women to look like or act like or be like. It's somehow "unfair."
I wanna meet people with empathy and I wanna help people learn and grow from where they are, but I'm kind of done with having a conversation about whether or not it's fair to have trans kids playing sports, because that just doesn't feel relevant to me of "what is the fairness we wanna build in our society, and what is the fairness we want to teach kids, in particular?"
[00:37:04] Chris Angel Murphy: When thinking about Jewish culture and how that can intersect with like one's queerness and transness, you had mentioned on another podcast that you had a bar mitzvah and not a bat mitzvah. In recent years, I've been aware that there have been folks that have had more gender neutral events for that, and they may call them b-mitzvahs, or, I don't know how to pronounce it -
[00:37:29] Rebecca Kling: B'nai mitzvah.
[00:37:31] Chris Angel Murphy: Thank you for that. But especially during the time that my friends were having those rite of passage opportunities, we just weren't really talking about things like "gender neutral" and you know, like just those weren't conversations we were quite having yet.
So I'm curious to know: are there differences between what would happen in a bar mitzvah versus a bat mitzvah, and do you think it would be better - and I'm not trying to like erase cultures and you know, things that are important to them and traditions, I'm just curious - do you think it's worth exploring, just making it more neutral, moving forward? Or do you think it's important for a person to decide for themselves what would best honor them, of those, let's say three options?
[00:38:15] Rebecca Kling: Difficult questions of identity and of tradition and of faith in community. One of the things I love about Judaism, and I draw a lot of parallels to trans identity is if you ask any two trans people what it means to be trans, you're probably gonna get different answers. If you ask any two Jewish people about what it means to be Jewish, you're probably gonna get different answers. And there is a joke, two Jews, three opinions (Chris Angel laughs) to reflect that Jews are an argumentative people, even among ourselves.
What those ceremonies look like, a bar mitzvah or a bat mitzvah, can really depend on the particular synagogue or congregation and depend on the community that that person is in. The synagogue I went to the bar mitzvah and the bat mitzvah were almost identical except for that language.
[00:39:05] Chris Angel Murphy: Hmm.
[00:39:06] Rebecca Kling: In some more conservative spaces or Jewish spaces, they may look a little more different and talk more about what are the roles of a man versus a woman in Jewish life. The synagogue I went to was not coming from that perspective, and so the roles of being a Jewish adult didn't really look different for men and women.
That said, language matters. And so the fact that I had a bar mitzvah rather than a bat mitzvah had an impact on me. And I would've loved to have the opportunity to have a b'nai mitzvah or something that felt a little more gender neutral. It is difficult and I'm- I actively resisted learning Hebrew in Hebrew school, so I certainly don't remember any now - but Hebrew, like many languages is a gendered language, and so that's difficult. And there are different Jewish communities who are trying to make more gender neutral Hebrew.
I don't think those are easy questions to answer. I think my preference would be to default to something more neutral like a b'nai mitzvah, but I also don't wanna take away the opportunity for someone who really identifies as a Jewish boy, becoming a young man or a Jewish girl, becoming a young woman, to have that.
Language is also funny because how we talk about it can change over time. So in my mind, I had a bar mitzvah I remember wearing the tie, there are still photos of it somewhere in a box in my closet. If it ever comes up my mom talks about my bat mitzvah, which is her way of showing allyship and of showing how much she supports who I am now, and who she thinks about who I was or how she thinks about who I was in the past.
[00:40:40] Chris Angel Murphy: Mm-hmm.
[00:40:40] Rebecca Kling: That's not something I asked her to do, and that's not something I think other people should or shouldn't do; it's just an interesting way to think about language differently. At the very least, I would encourage any community, in any faith community, in any Jewish space, to ask these questions of themselves and of their communities: why do we gender things the way we do? And do we need to, is this something that is fundamental to our religion or to our practice of our faith?
Or is it just really the way things have been done and maybe it isn't that important, or maybe it isn't foundational. Maybe it was important and isn't any longer, or maybe it is important, but not as important as allowing people to live with their authentic selves.
I think more and more Jewish spaces are going in that direction, at least more and more of the sort of progressive Jewish spaces I'm in. But I also don't have kids and don't have friends with kids who are at that age yet, so I'm not really sure how those conversations look like today.
[00:41:41] Chris Angel Murphy: Do you know of anyone who's, who's trans or non-binary or, or gender expansive in some way and who's had a bar or bat mitzvah and, I don't know, maybe recreated it later on in adulthood?
[00:42:00] Rebecca Kling: I certainly know folks who have informally done that sort of for fun to not do a formal ceremony in a synagogue with a rabbi, but maybe on a birthday that is a multiple of 13, or maybe not even on a birthday that's a multiple of 13, maybe having some sort of party or celebration that is framed as a bar or bat mitzvah.
There's a great website that I would encourage people to check out if they're curious, Trans Torah, which has a lot of resources and compilations and potential ideas for what prayers might help in transition. And in Judaism for conversion, people immerse themselves in what's called a mikva, which is a ritual bath where someone dips themselves entirely and they have to get it - every part of the water is supposed to touch every part of their body. And so I know some trans folks who have used a mikvah as a ritual or ceremony as part of their transition. These are still things that people are sort of figuring out.
And again, one of the things I love about Judaism is that there's really no one way to practice or to be a Jew. And so I love that people are experimenting with that and I'm sure we're gonna see more of that as more people continue to think about how do I be trans and these other parts of my identity.
[00:43:19] Chris Angel Murphy: I became a social worker because the legal world and politics have just been way too emotionally charged for me. So is social work, but it's been in a different way that's been easier for me to care for myself. How do you take care of yourself in this space? Especially when there's ass-hats coming at you after you've said something and they didn't like it. Like, yeah, how do you take care of yourself?
[00:43:46] Rebecca Kling: I take care of myself, well, inconsistently, I'll be honest. (Chris Angel laughs) I try to do the things that we're all supposed to do of getting enough sleep and eating well and exercising and all the things that everyone tell us. Some of that is easier now that it's getting into the summer, so we're recording this in mid-May, and I got to go for a bike ride yesterday along the Chicago lakefront, which I deeply, deeply love being able to do.
Some of it is being in community, working with other trans folks and allies to be able to vent and commiserate and share with each other, and, not feel like we're going it alone. A phrase that I've really come to like - so I've never been a fan of, "it's not a sprint, it's a marathon" (Chris Angel laughs) cause marathons sound miserable.
[00:44:33] Chris Angel Murphy: Yeah.
[00:44:33] Rebecca Kling: Like I have no desire - deep respect to anyone who's running a marathon - not my cup of tea.
But I've really come to like the phrase, "it's not a solo, it's a chorus." But the thing with a chorus is that not everyone is singing at once. I can take a breath knowing that you're gonna be there to maintain the melody. And I really like that metaphor of if I need to take a step back, I hope and rely on there are enough other people in the movement that they're able to step in as well.
[00:45:04] Chris Angel Murphy: You've told me that the work is never done and I agree. So what support outside of the self-care that you've done, like helps keep you to keep going? Like what keeps you motivated that "this is the work I need to be doing right now"?
[00:45:20] Rebecca Kling: I stay motivated both by thinking ahead and looking back. So the thinking ahead: I love seeing trans youth, whether it's at the camp that I work with or online or in the media, and knowing that there are just more out trans people of all ages than there've ever been before.
And thinking what gives me hope about, even in the decade or so that I've been doing this sort of formal advocacy work - eh, I don't know that it's, that, I think it's more longer than that - so even in the time that I've been doing this formal advocacy work, seeing more and more people in businesses saying, "I care about this because my sister or friend or child or child's friend or child teacher or neighbor or mail delivery person is trans." That there are just more out trans people and more people who know us, and it's really hard to imagine that going backwards. And so that's something that gives me optimism.
The existence of an outness of, and presence of things like this podcast that just didn't exist fundamentally, didn't exist even 10, 15 years ago, let alone 50 or a hundred years ago.
Looking backwards, I've been thinking a lot lately about issues that were multi-generational fights, and I would say at the end of the day, all issues are multi-generational fights; but things like what must it have felt like to be a Jew in Germany in 1930? What must it have felt like to be a woman pushing for women's suffrage in 1880? What must it have felt like to be an abolitionist working in 1810 and thinking about those who are all - what must it have been like to be an AIDS activist in 1980?
Like thinking about all of these different things that took generations, and are still not done. Certainly accessing the vote, racial equality, the AIDS crisis, like none of these things are over. Victories in some of them took a long, long time. That still meant that people continued to fight and that community continued to be built and that generations learned from each other.
And I am not a glass half full person by default, by nature, I am a glass half empty person and sometimes even a glass is on the floor broken and now there's liquid everywhere. But I try to think about, I am part of a long line of - and I mean that literally in terms of the many times that Jews have been oppressed throughout history and also just sort of figuratively in terms of advocates pushing for change - part of a long line of people who don't always live to see the changed world that they believe in, but continue to push for it and believe that it's possible.
And that's really what I keep coming back to, that I hope the world I wanna see is coming within my lifetime. I certainly wanna see it and will be bummed if I don't, but that continuing to push for that change, is possible and continuing to hope and imagine what that changed world will look like is critical, even when it feels like it's impossible.
[00:48:57] Chris Angel Murphy: Just like the work is never done, transition may never be done for some folks. I'm more of a visual person. So I, when I think about transition and when I think about medical, social, and legal aspects of that, historically, a lot of folks have made it sound like you're going from one point to another, and it's just like very definitive.
And for me it's just felt like a very complex subway system that I'm like, you know, moving on and off of trains and going in different directions and you know, decide I want to go completely different direction from where I've gone previously or where I was planning to go. And I, I guess like when you are explaining transition as a concept to other folks, and especially when you're driving home the point of - for some folks or a number of folks, I don't really have, you know, an exact amount there - it's never done. How do you typically explain that to people?
[00:49:53] Rebecca Kling: A metaphor that I really like is that it's not all or nothing, it's a buffet and that people can pick and choose what works for them and learn and experiment what works for them. That some trans people know from day one, this is their journey and this is their arc, and these are the medical and legal and social changes they wanna make. And that is great.
I didn't feel like I knew all of those things, and so in my mind, to use a specific example, I didn't decide one day to go on hormones, I decided to ask my therapist about it. And then I decided to make an appointment with an endocrinologist, and then I decided to keep that appointment, and then I decided to get a prescription for estrogen, and then I decided to fill that prescription, and then I decided to take a pill on day one.
You know, a lot of the things we talk about, particularly with medical transition may be permanent eventually, but not on day one and learning about them certainly isn't permanent. For me, the idea of ala carte or a buffet says you can try things out, there's no one order you have to go in and there's no ranking of what you should or shouldn't be doing.
In terms of what that means for folks to transition, also just thinking about there isn't one life path for anyone and we all learn different things about ourselves at different ages. While on the one hand it is convenient to go through those phases alongside your peers in terms of, you know, their expectations around high school or middle school or college or whatever, and what social skills you should have or what you're learning about or what dating is like. Then lots of people don't have that, whether or not they're trans, and that's okay too.
[00:51:42] Chris Angel Murphy: Is there a person from the broader queer and trans community, whether they're still with us or not, that you wish you could have a conversation with, and if so, what would you wanna talk about with that person?
[00:51:57] Rebecca Kling: When I was first transitioning, I went to programming at the Broadway Youth Center in Chicago, which among other things, does some great programming for 24 and under trans people.
And I remember we went out as a group to an event and some of us were taking the train back and the two facilitators of the group, who I am now quite a bit older then, but at the time I was looking up to - and then they were in their, must have had late twenties, maybe early thirties maybe - and I remember looking at the two of them sitting on the L train in Chicago and the two of them talking. And it was sort of the end of the night, most of the other people in the group had gone and so I think their guard was down and they were being a little more social and a little less at a distance than they might've normally been with the members of the group.
And I remember it being maybe the first time that I'd ever seen trans adults and felt like. "Wow. They're just people. They're, they're -" because there weren't trans adults I was seeing on tv, there weren't trans adults I was reading about in books who felt like a life that I could imagine myself building.
And this felt like, wow. I had this moment of sort of vertigo, of going from seeing them as these wise, older trans people who are running this group to the potential of being peers and living in a world where there were just trans folks hanging out on the L and chatting.
And I wish I could talk with them. I'm confident that they don't remember the situation the same. Maybe they don't remember it at all. But I would love to hear, now that I'm a little older and have gone from being a youth participant in that programming to helping run programming for trans youth, I would be really curious to hear what that was like for them and what it felt like for them at the time and, and how they think about those moments.
[00:53:54] Chris Angel Murphy: What's one allyship tip you'd like everyone listening to consider?
[00:53:59] Rebecca Kling: I would like people to consider the relevance of someone's identity when they're being an ally. And what I mean by that is I don't go to the trans dentist to get my trans teeth trans cleaned. Sometimes me being trans is super duper relevant if I'm at the doctor talking about my hormone levels. Sometimes it's maybe relevant. When I had my gallbladder out, I told them that when they do an abdominal scan, I don't have ovaries or a uterus because my body wasn't built that way; they didn't come pre-installed at the factory. (Chris Angel laughs)
Sometimes being trans might be relevant. So these days I would say unfortunately, some travel within the United States and certainly some international travel may feel more or less safe for someone who's trans; that's a maybe relevant. And then sometimes being trans is not at all relevant. If, if the question is whether we wanna order pizza or Thai food, me being trans has nothing to do with that.
And so I would encourage people to think about when they're an ally, is that part of someone's identity relevant right now? And if it's not, that's okay. And if you're unsure, that might be a thing to ask, "Hey, I'm thinking about this issue and I'm not sure if it's really connected to you being trans or not - or any other part of your identity - how should I be thinking about this?" So again, thinking about relevance.
[00:55:36] Chris Angel Murphy: Rebecca, thank you so much for taking that time to have this conversation with me.
I am so proud to work alongside folks such as yourself in this movement. Especially when things feel hard, and it's my turn to take a breath. I appreciate your vulnerability and the great care you took with talking through crunchier topics. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I appreciate you so much.
If you're interested in learning about different LGBTQ+ camps, I have a list of them on one of my websites. It includes camps for youth, adults, and families. They're primarily in the United States, but I also have a few in Canada and the UK too. I'll include a link in the show notes and on the episode page.
Also, I want to quickly announced that Allyship is a Verb was nominated for the Rainbow Mic category of the Sonic Bloom Awards. I cannot believe it. Honestly, (laughs) this is a really wild year. But it's organized by She Podcasts who produces She Podcasts Live. I am truly touched and excited, and this is the third nomination we've gotten this year overall, so I just want to take a moment to celebrate that with all of you.
So thank you for listening. Thank you for helping in all of the different ways that y'all do; when you're sharing episodes, you're telling other people about the podcast. To my lovely audio engineer and transcriptionist like couldn't do this without all of you. And especially the folks who support financially through buying merch or stickers or donating monthly, like all of that makes a huge difference to make it easier for me to produce this.
So thank you. Thank you, thank you.
Well, and bittersweet news folks, this is a wrap on season two. I hope you'll join us for season three in August. Until then, happy Pride, and take good care. I'll miss y'all, until next time.
Before you go, here are the final three self-reflection questions for this episode for you to think about as you go.
4. Do I feel safer in gender segregated spaces? Do I wish spaces were more gender neutral?
5. What kinds of descriptors do I use for people when I'm telling a story? Are they truly relevant to the story?
6. What am I planning to do for Pride Month? If this is my first one, how am I feeling about it?
Visit AllyshipIsAVerb.com for any resources and a full transcript of the episode. And remember, sometimes allyship means considering the relevance of someone's identity.