Communication for sponsoring this venue, faderman is appearing as a result of senior pride. [applause] were pretty thrilled about that. And ms. Nutt by the tucson medical center. [applause]. And jim is here on his own, i guess. Evidently. The preparation will last an hour, including questions and answers and we want to ask you to hold your questions until the end, and we hope to allow plenty of time for questions. Immediately following the session, the authors will be autographing books in the sales and signing area in the ua bookstore tent on the mall. It says booth 141. Books are available for purchase at this location, but miss faderman will be 20 minutes late since shes going to be interviewed by cspan. We hope youre enjoying the festival and invite you to become a friend of the festival today. You can text friend to 520214 book. Or 5202142665. Our visit to friend of the festival booth number 1110 on the mall. Your gift makes a difference in keeping the festival programming free of charge and supporting critical literary programs in the community. I want to remind you to turn off your cell phones and i want to encourage you to check out the Southern Arizona friends senior pride booth, look for the rainbow flag. Amy ellis nutt is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, she worked for several years as a Sports Writer for Sports Illustrated and currently covers science and health for the washington post. She specializes in the brain. She coauthored a best selling book on the teenage brain and has written shadows bright as glass, the journey of a man with brain trauma. Nicole, the story of a transgender child and the journey she took together. And they break down walls and i think this story will advance the understanding, that gender identity is in the brain, not anatomy. And the lead plaintiff in the case that we all celebrated, the outcome of, on june 25th june 26th, 2015. With deb by, who is also a Pulitzer Prize winner with, its a love story and its soon to be a motion picture. [applause]. Guest william faderman has the distinction of having won lamda literary awards in more categories than any other author. She has won in several categories, fiction, memoir, immigrant history, of course, gay history, and its not possible to underestimate how important the books shes written on lesbian history are to our community. [applause]. She took lesbians out of the footnotes and gave us a way of identifying with some of the most important and successful women in everyones history. Lillian, i understand that during the mid century, i remember that gays and lesbians could be arrested just for wearing the wrong clothes. How did we get from where were sitting today to there . Its a good question and its what my whole book is about. My book is 800 pages long, so im going to condense in ten minutes my 800 pages. [laughter] and i need to say, first of all, that the acronym lbgtq gets longer, qqiiaapp, i think it is now. That, of course, is recent. When i came out in the 1950s, we were all gay, whether we were l or g or b or t or whatever, we all called ourselves gay in the underground and straight people didnt know that term. In fact, if you were interested in somebody and you suspected they might be gay, you could say to her, so, are you gay . And if she said, well, im a little depressed today or something, then you know that that was not for you. [laughter] so, i explain in my book the gay revolution, that i call it the gay revolution even though its about lbgtq, et cetera people because that was the word that we used to describe ourselves through much of the 20th century. So, question, i think that we made the progress that we made for several reasons. One is that we learned how to organize and it was a very long road before we got it right. Another reason is that more and more of us came out and more of us came out because we organized better and we made it safer for people to come out, and so straight people realized that gays, and ill use the word that was used through much of the 20th century, gay people were not these pariahs lurking in the shadows ready to pounce on some 14yearold, but theyre brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and neighbors and good friends. And i think another reason things got so much better for us, is that we were very lucky for eight years to have a real ally in the white house. [applaus [applause] and, of course, we dont have that ally anymore in the white house, needless to say. But i have to say that im optimistic about the future. I think were going to go through some hard times, but we know how to fight back. We have organized. We have powerful organizations that will help us fight as individuals and as a group. We have straight allies because so many of us came out. I was so pleased to see just yesterday, in boston, theres an annual st. Patricks day parade and out vets, lbgt veterans had been marching for the last couple of years and this time, the board in charge of the parade decided that they would not let out vets march because supposedly they registered late and last year they carried a rainbow flag and they werent supposed to do that. Well, the governor of massachusetts said that he would not march in the parade. The mayor of boston said that he would not march in the parade because they they will not condone discrimination. The vote to ban outfits had been 94. Yesterday, the board met again and considered the boycott and 110 [applause] so, the progress we have made is really phenomenal and the fact that we do have these wonderful allies that we can count on, i think, is phenomenal. So, let me, in the five minutes i have left, let me just give you a very quick sketch of how we learn to organize. In 1948, Albert Kinsey pub published a book, sexuality and the american male and a man by the name of harry hay in los angeles read the book because kinsey said so many adult men had homosexual experiences and he thought he would get the men together and organize and see if they could stop Police Entrapment and other terrible things that were happening to homosexuals. For two years, he had no luckment he couldnt get anyone to join his group. Finally, he had a brainstorm. In 1950, the United States entered the korean war. Harry hay had been a member of the communist party and he took a communist Party Sponsored petition to a group in los angeles beach, a gay beach, to people at the gay beach and he went from blanket to blanket on the gay beach and he said, would you be interested in signing this petition to get us out of career . In no time at all, he got 500 signatures. Right after somebody signed, he would always say, and would you also be interested in joining the group to talk about sexual devian deviancesy . He got zilch interest. It was obviously less dangerous to be associated with a communist Party Petition than in any way be associated with homosexuality. But harry hay kept going and finally did find four other men who would join him and grew to a couple of women and the numbers grew a little bit and he called the group a society and told them something interesting, nobody had ever defined lbgt people or gay people that way before. He said we are an oppressed cultural minority. That was really revolutionary to think of gay people as an oppressed cultural minority. Well, the group went for a while and other groups like formed groups for lesbians. They never grew very big and a split immediately developed within those groups. There were some who really liked harry hays formulation that we are an oppressed cultural minority and there were others who said, yes, were all oppressed, but were not a cultural minority. Theres so much diversity within us, among gay people, and except for the fact, the insignificant fact of hour sexual preference, they said in those days, they didnt talk about gender identification, but they said except for the insignificant fact of our sexual preference, were just like all other americans and we want the rights that all other americans have. And that sort of formed the twostrands of our movement. Are we an oppressed cultural minorities or are we simply oppressed, but just like other americans and we should have the rights that all other americans enjoy . Groups like it went on through the 1950s and into the 1960s and they did do some important things. I wont go into detail now, but you can read my book to find the details. But they never became huge. What made a difference in our numbers was, as im sure you all know, what happened, happened the first night on june 28th, 1969, at the stonewall inn, gay bars had been raided, ever since there were gay bars, all through the 20th century. Finally, because it was the 1960s, and this was a radical decade of rebellion and protests, finally on this hot night in Greenwich Village at the stallwall inn, the young people who had been stopped by the police and ordered into the patty wagon or said, okay, you can go. You have your i. D. , but dont come back here, they stood around and eventually somebody, we dont know who, threw the first rock and that was the beginning of a riot that lasted for four days. What was important about that riot is the aftermath of the riot. Immediately radical groups began to form, such as the Gay Liberation front and a little later, the gay activist alliance, and because of their tactics, they sort of put gay on the map. As i said before, gay was an underground word that only we knew. Straight people didnt know that word. They made all the difference. We were no longer the love that dared not speak its name because newspapers and magazines and Television Programs began to deal with us. But as i said, the movement was very radical. Many of the lbgt people who joined it, they joined, for instance, the Gay Liberation front were not interested, and the whole time and we needed to reform things all over again and form coalitions with other minorities and not just worry about assimilating and becoming just like everyone else. But as i said, they sort of made it safer for mainstream gay people to come out. People who werent radical because they were in the newspapers all the time and so, these mainstream organizations began to form and groups such as lamda Legal Defense and Education Fund formed in 1973, and they said that they would fight issues, such as the right of young gay boys to be in the boy scouts, really, sort of assimilationist kinds of issues. A group that was the predecessor of the Human Rights Campaign formed in the 1970s. And they began lobbying washington d. C. For our rights. So, i think that there were these two strands going all the time. But what was so important, it seems to me, for the history of how we got our rights, is that radicals began at all. Radicals were the brave ones. They were the ones that said that we have to fight and once they made it a little safer to fight mainstreaming organizations formed and demanded our rights. And of course, as i said earlier, more and more of us came out and that made a huge difference. And the people, and practically every, i dont know anybody w who slowly started to come out in the 1990s according to the gallup poll, 20 of the population said they had a close friend or a relative who was gay or lesbian. It wasnt enough to make a huge difference. In 1990s, dont askdont tell passed and the marriage act passed, but by 2010, 50 of the population said they had a relative or friend that was gay and that could mean that we could get rid of dont askdont tell and president obama noticed there was enough support to pass the marriage and doma. I think my ten minutes are up. Thank you. [applause] i guess we are going to Flash Forward to present and ask jim, how do you feel after the Supreme Court case . Youve called yourself an accidental activist. Whats your life been like since then . My life has been nothing like it was before. I called myself an accidental activist because in my life and in my life with my late husband john, we were together almost 21 years we were never activists. Our brand of activism was signing a check and it took us being put in a situation we could have never dreamt of, could have never imagined for me to discover my internal activist and that situation was, number one, john being diagnosed with als, lou gehrigs disease and anyone who knows anything about that, its a death sentence within two to five years of diagnosis and we were dealing with that, and in 2013, john was completely bedridden in an at home hospice care. And i was his care giver with the exception of hospice comes several times a week. That was what you do for the person you love. We never married and wanted it to be symbolic. We only wanted to marry if it carried legal wait so we went through our life together. As john was dying of als. June 26th of 2013 were watching the news together when the defense of marriage act was struck down by the windsor decision. And in that moment, i just spontaneously asked john to marry me and im like millions of other people in the state of ohio or across the country who could simply go to the local courthouse and get a marriage certificate, or marriage license we couldnt do that. I had to figure out how to get a dying man to another state simply to do something that others take for granted. Through the generosity of family and friends, and we got a private jet and went to maryland. We wanted to live out johns remaining days as husband and husband and the universe seemed to have Something Else in mind. That was on a thursday when we got married and our story came out on saturday, online, our local newspaper did a story and friends were at a party and ran into a local, a friend of theirs, a local civil rights attorney in cincinnati and our story came up in conversation. And al, the attorney said, well, do you think john and jim might be willing to talk to me . And they called us, john and i talked about it and we said, well, we dont really know what he wants to talk about, but sure. And this is where the accidental activist was born. As al came to our home, he pulled out a blank ohio death certificate do you understand that when john dies, his last official record will be wrong and hell die as a Single Person and your name will not be there as surviving spouse. It broke our hearts and made us angry. We knew that ohio wouldnt recognize our marriage, but this piece of paper, this vital piece of information, the last record of the man i loved and our relationship for 21 years would be wrong. Al asked if we want today do something about it and we said sure and that started our battle with the state of ohio which took us to the sixth Circuit Court. We won in federal court and the state of ohio appealed and we ended up in the 6th Circuit Court of appeals along with cases from ohio, kentucky, tennessee and michigan. And even though the case is known v hodges. It wasnt just about me and john, it was about another widower, parents, children. The youngest plaintiff was twoyearold cooper. The parents adopted him in ohio and they wanted a birth certificate. So, to end up in that Supreme Court on june 26th, 2013, i have to tell you, its not something i ever thought would happen to me, not something i could have imagined in my wildest dreams, but to sit in that courtroom and to hear Justice Kennedy read his decision and you know, the initial, oh, we won, followed by, well, this is legal writing so im not really sure. [laughter] and once it became clear that we did actually win, you know, my first thought was, john, i wish you were here, wish you could experience this and know that we won and know that we do exist, and that followed closely by the realization in my life as an out gay man, i felt like an equal american. [applause] and for me, i loved the fact that, you know, this fight, becoming an accidental activist and then a purposeful activist, it all happened just because i loved john. And i wanted to live up to my promises and commitments to him. And if you havent read Justice Kennedys decision, if not else read the last page, its a beautiful piece of writing, and ive had the pleasure and the honor of reading that in a few marriages, and i actually went online and clicked the ordain me button so i could marry people as well. And i hear over and over how people use part of his decision as part of their marriage ceremonies. What a wonderful gift Justice Kennedy gave us. And its simply because i loved john and parents loved their kids and couples loved each other and they simply want to say, we matter, we exist. To go from somebody who wrote a check, and become the name ab the face of the Supreme Court case, its been absolutely amazing and unexpected and unbelievable experience. And when you buy my book, i will tell you, you know, my coauthor debby and i made a decision from the start that the book had to be more than me and john, and i was one of more than 30 plaintiffs so in the book youll learn about outside, and joe and coon cooper, pat and nicole, and two sons, graden and oryan. And federal judges who did sit and talk to us during the writing of this book and you get to learn about an amazing man, one of amazing attorneys on our case, al, who represented us in cincinnati, this incredible, brilliant man who dedicated his life to civil rights and that experience changed who i am as a person and i cant turn my back, and ive become too much of a part of it and i understood the value and the joy of being something bigger than i am. So, thats how my life has changed and i give john credit. He made me a better man in so many ways, he gave me something so worth fighting for. [applaus [applause] amy, i know you spent a long time writing this book, about four years, as i understand. Could you tell me something about the process of how you got to know the family and then how you saw them evolve . Sure. First of all, i want to say its an honor to be on this panel about lillian and jim. And thank you all for coming, its an incredible audience. The story of becoming nicole really fell in my lap and its been a privilege to write that book, but when the story did fall in my lap five years ago, that was at a time in the beginning of 2012 when i actually said to my agent, this is a fascinating story about identical twin boys, one of whom was a transgender girl and always identified as female. Its a fascinating story, but who is going to want to read a book about a transgender kid. So, this was obviously before caitlyn jenner, really before laverne cox, before the covers of Time Magazine and it was before the transgender moment, but in the middle of writing this book, random house realized oh, my god, weve got to get this book out fast. So i delivered it four months early, i dont know how, but i didnt sleep for months, i realized its going to be an important book, as a journalist its a wonderful occupation, and never having to take the exam up there, and i have a short span of attention, and journalism is a great profession for you. Youre moving from one thing to another. God bless you, lillian for sticking with your subjects. I didnt know what it meant to be transgender, i didnt. And the importance of this book, part of it, part of it was the need to import it all. And the need to get into that, were learning more and more about had the brain imaging and what it means to go to michigan, and the other parts of meeting the family for the first time and realizing this, and realizing, this is on the one hand, a very ordinary family. And they were twins adopted at birth and the parents were middle class in maine and the father worked in the university but nicole. And, frankly, not just nicole, but kelly and wayne maines and jonas maines, the brother who always stuck by his sister. Said about age 9 or 10 said to his father, dad, face it, you have a son and a daughter. [laughter] you know, he always thought of his twin as a for. And, frankly, most of the children who grew up with nicole, who was born wyatt, felt the same way. When she finally changed her name, legally changed her name before the fifth grade and it was announced at school that wyatt would now be known as nicole, she had already been transitioning for years and wearing more feminine clothes and grew her hair, the people in the class said, duh, finally, you know . [laughter] that was, like, no big deal. It only became a big deal to one, one young man, one young boy. And, frankly, it was at the instigation of his grandfather, his guardian. And, frankly, he was really, sadly, used as a puppet to harass nicole and follow her into the girls room. And thus began a case that eventually became the first, the first win in state, in a state court for the right for a transgender girl to use the bathroom of her own identity. That was in 2014 in maine. So if you i urge you to go on the internet, and nicole has given talks, and her father is often, gives talks now. He wasnt onboard for a long time. It took he absented himself from the family. He just really couldnt handle it. He wanted to have twin boys, and they both would have baseball mitts and rifles, and he was a hunter, you know . You go visit their house and, yeah, there is a moose head on the [laughter] and its like, whoa, ive never actually seen that. [laughter] and he killed it. So, but this was really important. This was a family people could understand, could identify with. And this was a mother who was faced trying to understand what, not what is wrong with my child, but why isnt my child happy sometimes . What can i do to understand my child. And because she had not had a perfect life growing up, she had no expectations of a perfect family. She was there to do two things; to love her kids and to make sure they were safe ask happy safe and happy. And that was it. And so she began where so many of us, you know, begin, you know, in the early 2000s, googling boys who like girls toys. And that was really the beginning of her education. And she proceeded to slowly educate her husband. It took leaving books all around the house [laughter] and finally, finally left one in the bathroom [laughter] dont understand that, but that worked. And it took educating even, even teachers and the counselors at the Grammar School where the kids went who were open ask wanted to though how do we understand to know how do we understand and how do we nourish this child. The problem was the administration and their failure to really, frankly, their cowardice in the face of the father the grandfather who was really a bully who enlisted the Christian Civic League of maine to, you know, basically discriminate and harass the family and forced them to move. So for many years wayne was in orono where he had his job and would commute two and a half hours every weekend to be in portland. So i was, i was fascinated by this family. It was a writers dream, when you meet four people who are interesting and who can talk about themselves and who have selfawareness. Not everyone you meet as a journalist, you know, is able to put words to their feelings is and their ideas, and each of these people were. The important to part about the science of this was, and it was a lot of reporting on my part, and it was to learn and to understand that gender identity is different from sex and sexual anatomy which is also different from Sexual Orientation. Gender identity is who you go to bed as, and Sexual Orientation is who you go to bed with. That didnt originate with me [laughter] i picked that up from someone. But gender identity is itself a process, and its a combination of genes and of hormones, and its complex. Who we are is really determined by what goes on this our brains before birth, and identical twins have the exact same dna, they have the exact same genome but not the exact same epi epigenome, the chemical switches that turn the genes on or off are not identical. Subtle changes in the environment of the womb can affect what switches on or off. Even your position as identical twins in the womb, youre getting different amounts of hormones, so your brains develop differently. Its enormously complex, but i believe it was an important to part of book, was to help explain to people that this isnt because of a schizophrenic mother. Its not because, you know, the here gave the young boy too many dolls. You know . This is, this was something that nicole knew from the age of two and a half. You barely have language. And she didnt say i feel like a girl, she said i am a girl. You know . Daddy, when does my penis be fall off . Penis fall off . She thought like a butterfly maybe that was how it would happen. So when you realize how children are talking to you, you listen to them. And its not, its not temporary. Its not, its not trying something out. Its deep, and its deep in the brain, and its deep in their soul, and i learned many, many lessons from this family and continue to. And its been a privilege to go around talking to audiences, because im also learning more from you. So thank you. Its a privilege to be here. [applause] thank you. I think we want to open it up for questions, we want to make sure we have at least 15 or so minutes to, for people to ask the authors what theyd like to know. And wed like for you to go to the microphones. Theres a microphone on either aisle because this is on cspan, so they want to make sure its going to be carried. So ill start with you. Yeah. I have a question for lillian. Youre talking about kind of the evolution of gay rightings. Can you talk about aids and what effect that had on the movement . Thank you, thats a very important question. The worst tragedy to hit the Lgbt Community ever was aids, needless to say. But it had a very important effect on the movement. In the 1970s, for example, there was a huge split between lesbians and gay hen. There was gay men. There was a lot of hostility on the part of lesbian community, feminists who saw suspicion of gay men who were not Lesbian Feminists as well. They really felt that gay men had a lot of privilege that lesbians lacked. With the advent of aids, i think that many lesbians felt that they couldnt afford that kind of hostility, that kind of in the face of death, practically everything is pettiness, that kind of pettiness. So they became very active in many lesbians were nurses, after all. Thousand women can become thousand women can become doctors and lawyers and whatever. In the 1970s there were very few women doctors, and so women who wanted to go into a profession very often chose to be a nurse or a social worker or a teacher. Those were the professions that were open to women. Many lesbians were nurses and helped navigate the very difficult medical establishment. Lesbians started things like in new york theres a group called gods love, we deliver. In san diego, where i live, theres a group called mamas kitchen that brought food to men who were suffering from aids or hiv. And so in that sense, i think there was a real healing of the rift between lesbians and gay men that had been so deep and passionate in the 1970s. But other things happened as well that were very important for the progress of our movement out of all of that tragedy. I can really say there was progress in our movement. Groups such as act up formed and really learned how to demand that the medical establishment be more sympathetic to gay men. One of the committees of act up actually worked with the cdc and the National Institutes of health to change the protocol of how drugs would be approved. They got examendmental aids experimental aids drugs approved much quicker. They really learned how to navigate the system. And so we certainly cant discount the terrible, terrible tragedy of aids, but i think the only good thing to come out of that terrible tragedy is that it brought us together as we hadnt been before, and it taught us a lot more about organizing. Thank you. And this one. Hi. Thank you for coming to speak. This is really nice. But you didnt mention inner in sexuality which i think is kind of problematic, and you didnt i know you only have a limited amount of time, but you didnt talk about the impact of race and class as well as gender and how, you know, maybe a white gay man has a much different experience than a black, nonbinary person. And so i dont want to take the history of gay rights, you know, for granted. I know im young and what i think is acceptable is not what was acceptable, you know, 30 years ago. Buff i was wondering but i was wondering if you could talk more about kind of this idea of moving towards clear justice instead of gay rights and what you think about intersectionalty and current problems with mainstream focus on gay rights and assimilation. [applause] its a very complex question, and i dont want to hog the microphone, but let me just say about it that, of course, people of color have been active within the movement from the beginning of the movement. One of the early periodicals, for instance, that came out of the first periodical to have, first gay periodical to have National Circulation was called one, and it was formed by tony reyes, or he helped form it. He was on the board that got legal right to publish the periodical. He, of course, was a latino. The title, one, came from guy russo who was an africanamerican gay schoolteacher. The title comes from carlyle, a quotation from thomas carlisle, a 19th century writer who says the brotherhood of man makes all men one. But i think its true that people of color had not much recognition within the movement throughout the 50s and the 1960s. I think that began to change with the stonewall riots because so many of the young people who rioted were young men of color, latino and africanamerican young men. I think in the 70s there was, certainly within lesbian feminism, a good deal of sensitivity and recognition of the fact that lesbian feminism had to be open to people of color and women of color and not simply middle class white women. I think that gay men took a little longer to recognize the importance of intersectionality. But im thinking of periodicals that came out in the 1970s that made it a concerted effort to recognize intersectionality such as Lesbian Feminist period calls like conditions and sinister wisdom. Now i think that diversity is honored very much within the lgbtq, etc. , community as it hadnt be in earlier years. The problems continue, and i dont think were ever anywhere near solving them, but its a vast improvement from where we began. Yeah, just to follow up kind of, i wondered if you could speak to the role of queer scholarship in advancing the movement. [laughter] i hate to hog the microphone. Go ahead. Go right ahead. Yeah. Well, well have some questions for jim and amy after this. [laughter] scholarship began, certainly, this academia with Michelle Fuko and eve sedgwick and judith butler, and it advanced the movement in that it head lgbt it made lgbt subjects or queer subjects, i should say, respectable on college campuses. Before queer theory, there had been a few gay courses on various college campuses. My campus had one. I was the director of the Experimental College, and we had one as early as 1972. But we really had to fight to have a gay course can. I remember the really wonderful Vice President , wonderful in all other ways saying to me when he saw that it was in the Experimental College catalog, you know, the community out there wont like this wont like this, but he didnt tell me to take it out. It remained in the catalog, and the course was offered. Nowadays or for the 20 years or so since queer theory has been so fashionable, there would never be a problem like that on college campuses. So i think that queer studies had a very Important Role in advancing the movement because young people were able to study queer subjects in college and then go out and become activists within the movement. And do you have a question for jim or amy . Sir . Its pretty much to the entire group. Im a living, breathing example of intersectionality. I am a disabled man, an lgbtq as well. So i applaud the panel, and i rode in late, so i didnt hear from the beginning. But sexuality and disability alone is taboo still today. And so when you add on the layer of lgbtq, which i am, it adds a and i am writing a book as well it adds a whole different dimension. Was within the culture because within the culture i find that its hard to date because people have to get over the fact that maybe youre disabled as well. So, and so intersectionality, i live and wreath it every day and wreath it every day, to the young lady that, we didnt really speak of intersectionality, thats why i decided to come up. And what is your question . And so the question i have is we are an expanding group, were more inclusive from a social justice standpoint be, but yet we have far to go. And in the Political Climate that we are in today, where do you see us going and how can we get there . [laughter] good question. Jim, do you want to well, i think for me, and this was something, this was kind of my personal journalny over the past journey over the past couple of years. I ended up this this place as an lgbtq activist, but ive realized its more than just that. I really have to fight for just civil rights. And for me, one of the things that i think we all need to do is approach the fight whether were lgbtq, whether were disabled, whether were of color, we have to approach the fight were in with the understanding that with yes, there will be some differences, but were all fighting for the same thing. We are all fighting to be equal human beings. And until we can all internalize that and understand that and actually live that, were going to have issues. So, you know, for me from the perspective of disabled persons, you know, john being diagnosed with als, being out in this world which is built so much for people with ability and not for people with disability, it opened my eyes to how difficult life is when youre in a wheelchair, when youre using a walker, when youre using a cane. That owned my eyes. It took my personal experience be, it took love aring someone, experiencing that for me to understand really what reality is. And i think for all of us it comes down to telling stories. In so many ways, that sounds like a copout, tell a story, you can change minds hearts and minds. But that is really what it comes down to. If we dont get out there and tell our stories, if if we dont share the stories of the people that weve met and the people who have had an impact on us and opened our eyes, were not going to change anyone elses opinion. And, again, another personal experience for me, up until about two years ago if i knew a transgender person, if i had a transgender friend, i didnt know it specifically. Now i have so many transgender friends. And for me, that has opened my eyes and expanded my world, my understanding. And i find i cant go a day without speaking up for my transgender siblings. And i think thats what it takes. It takes knowing someone and understanding we are all fighting for the same things, and if we cant fight for the same things and if were going to say, you know, theres a movement within the Lgbt Community, some people are saying the t should not be part of it. I cant disagree with that hardly enough. No. How dare you say your challenges arent as important as our challenges are . So for me, thats what it comes down to. We are all fighting for the same things. We need to fight for each other. We need to get out of our own personal space and realize while things might be a little bit different, we are fighting for the same thing, and thats where i am now. I cant fight just for lgbtq, i fight for civil rights, i fight for disability rights, anything i can do, and its a personal journey. So we need to be loud, we need to talk, we need to share stories. If i could add to that, as someone who frequently writes, obviously, about the brain, we are built for easy answers. Our brain seeks out the easy solutions. We have to struggle against that. So theres always going to be a struggle to understand complexity and to understand diversity. Society favors conformity. Nature favors diversity. And we have to remember that. And we have to remember that transgender or intersectionality, that its not about aberration, its about variation. And it is, as jim says, so important to put a face to things. Thats why telling his story, telling the story of the maines family, these are people like you and i. Theres no difference. But theres complexity. And theres variety. And if we can keep that in mind, we can really lillian may be more optimistic than i am, but, you know, we can get there. So i think we have time for another question. Yeah. This is directed to you, amy. I think i have an idea for another book for you. Oh. Have you ever heard of tom sosnik . Hes a transgender boy , and his experience is totally, totally different from nicole. The family is originally from israel, but they were living in fresno, in california, and when tom was mia, constantly bullied, all the time. And so his parents decided her parents decided that they were going to have to find a friendly atmosphere, friendlier atmosphere, so they moved to the east bay. And he was in a judeo school where my Jewish Day School where my granddaughters were, and he came out to the middle school. And the support that he got from the community, from his family, its so heart warming. Oh. He came out earlier than he thought he would because he read of the transgender teenager, tale, who killed herself by walking in front of a semi on a highway, and that did it for him. He decided he had to come out right then and there. So is your question and hes on youtube, and if you want to see him talking to the middle school, you can. You know, thank you for sharing that. Ive heard so many stories in traveling around from people, and it reaffirms for me, as jim was talking about, its about telling your own story. And im reminded of something that the poet moore once said, probably paraphrasing here, that we dont tell our stories, stories tell us. And that if we dont share those stories, we are somehow ultimately diminished. And i think that thats my role as a journalist. And i hope i have a lot of hope this young people because i think they are sharing their stories more, and they have more courage than my generation ever had in doing that, because theyve experienced diversity. They are in touch with diversity so, yes, its about telling stories. And its about sharing. Thank you. Not at all. So my name is, my name is tim, im an Elementary School principal. Ive got a picture of my husband, my daughter or and my dog in my school of 650 kids on the south side of tucson, and to be honest, what my students find host unusual about me is not the fact that i have a husband, but that im vegan. They think thats really strange. [laughter] they have a real hard time with that. You know, but [laughter] really odd. But one of the things theyll, that i know just as a School Leader is therell be a need to make a decision. Therell be a need to change something. And whether its how the parking lot situation works or dropoff happens or whatever it is, im often thinking but, yeah, weve got that parent who, dot, dot, dot. So, amy, you mentioned in nicoles case, the School Administration had been a lot more helpful a lot sooner if they had been braver sooner. What do you think helps School Leaders find their bravery . Wow, thats a really good question. Thank you. I think its talking, and i think its communicating. And there were certainly the School Counselors at nicoles school who educated herself and got to know the parents so that she could help other kids understand. The faculty was great. It was the administrators who, i think, were cowed by the possibility of lawsuits. And, you know, i think its important to also educate that she was assigned a staff bathroom and that separate is unequal. And weve been through this before, and bathrooms have been the center of [laughter] discrimination for a long time. And i think if we remind people of that history and how we broke that down, its really no different. Its a red herring, the arguments that are used with regard to bathrooms. They just really are. And i think a lot of it has to do with if you meet someone like nicole, if you meet a transgender person, then i think you understand. It, but it takes talking to that person. And nicole is out this and willing to talk, and not everyone is, but enough people are that it will headache a difference. But you have it will make a difference. You have to be willing to listen, and you have to not be afraid of lawsuits. [laughter] im sorry, i think that were out of time. I want to thank you one more. [applause] do we still have time . Two minutes . Okay. Two minutes. Oh, two minutes. Run, run sorry. Okay. This is particularly for ms. Nutt, but for the entire panel. I am the parent of a transgender child, a young one. And i have to say that i began before my journey, our familys journey before your book came out, and i was another one of the parents who started on google. And the people who have told their stories made a great deal of difference to us. That doesnt change a strange, hard, difficult choice and responsibility that my husband and i have in deciding levels of privacy and publicity. How did you, the maines family, reflected on how you make the choice to, i guess you would say out, a very young child and at one level you do that for the public good . Thank you for that, and its a really important question. The condition of this, of writing this book was that it would not come out until the twins had graduated from high school. And so the last chapter of the book was written very hurriedly when nicole made her surgical transition, and they graduated. Be there there was publicity because of a court case, and the boston globe did a front page story, a very good story and there was a lot of press afterwards, and they didnt want to do it because they wanted to protect their kids and also have them grow up in as mediafree environment as they could. So it was difficult for them. But it made all the difference in the world for writing a book that i could spend time with them, watch them change and watch them grow and then have the book come out at a time when they were going off to college, and, you know, having lives of their own. Its a difficult, its a difficult thing to negotiate, but they did it, you know . Maybe you can too. And thank you. Thank you. [applause] im sorry. Thank you for attending the session [laughter] i know i dont want it to end either, but theres another panel coming in right now, and can im to encourage you to join friends of the festival. Thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] host youre watching live coverage of the tucson festival of books, we are live from the university of arizona. As you can see, large audiences for each of these author panels. And outside of this theater the festival is going on on a Beautiful Day here this in tucson on the campus. Coming up, there are several more author panels that youll hear including slavery in america, big money and philanthropy and the history of women in the sciences. Now, in just a minute one of the panelists are this last panel, lillian faderman. Her book is called the gay revolution the story of the struggle. Shell be joining us to take your calls. Youve been listening to the panel for the last hour or so, and now ms. Faderman has agreed to come over and join us and to take some of your comments as well. 202 is the area code, 7488200 in the east and central time zones, 2027488201 if you live in the mountain and pacific time zones. Lillian faderman, why does the struggle at least in your book begin in the95
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