What The News Isn't Telling You About Trans Teenagers (with Nico Lang)

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Intro – 00:00

 

BLAIR HODGES: Welcome to Relationscapes. We're mapping the stories and ideas that shape who we are and how we connect with each other. I'm journalist Blair Hodges, and our guide in this episode is author Nico Lang.

NICO LANG: So many of us have families that are kind of a mix of supportive and not. So pretending like the only stories that matter are people who totally reject their kids or totally support their kids just felt like it was missing the point.

I wanted a story that felt like life to me as I know it. The highs and lows in all of it, you know? The sweet and the sour, the good days and the bad. But so often I see these depictions of queer people and of trans people that don't feel like reality as I know it. And for the queer people who read this book, I just wanted them to go, “yeah, that's life, that got it.”

BLAIR HODGES: As a journalist covering news about queer communities, Nico Lang became frustrated at how often reports talked about trans people without actually including the voices of trans people themselves. That's why depictions of queer concerns don't feel like reality. And this is especially true when it comes to younger people.

Nico wants people to hear directly from trans teenagers. So for the groundbreaking new book, they spent a year traveling the country to document the lives of transgender, nonbinary, and gender fluid teens and their families. The book is called American Teenager: How Trans Kids Are Surviving and Finding Joy in a Turbulent Era. And it puts perspectives of gender diverse teens front and center, where Nico says it always belonged.

 

Letting Trans Kids Represent Themselves – 2:04

 

BLAIR HODGES: Nico Lang, welcome to Relationscapes.

NICO LANG: Thank you so much. It's good to be here.

BLAIR HODGES: We're here to discuss your book, American Teenager: How Trans Kids Are Surviving and Finding Joy in a Turbulent Era. "Turbulent" almost seems like an understatement right now. Trans rights are under attack across the United States, not to mention what's happening in places like the UK. There were a record number of anti-trans bills proposed in 2024, and a lot more is happening in 2025. The federal government is enthusiastically persecuting trans people.

Instead of writing a book about all the different bills and the broader social context, you decided to zoom in, right? You spent time with seven trans teenagers and their families to really get to know them, in order to tell their stories in your book. Why take this approach rather than writing about the bills and all the broader context?

NICO LANG: Because I'd been doing that already, you know? I felt like I wasn't covering any new ground there that I hadn't already treaded and had been treading for a really long time. As a reporter I don't want to just repeat myself. That's boring for me. I wanted a new challenge. So rather than trying to just reach people with facts and figures and data, which is, you know, what I've been doing for years, I wanted to give them something else.

And I also feel like we miss something when we're only ever trying to just use facts to sway people. Because we've seen Republicans don't necessarily care about facts. Like every once in a while they decide they do. But when it comes to things like gender affirming care and trans youth, the facts are on the side of trans kids and Republicans have already shown they don't care.

What we need to do is reach people by storytelling. It's like how queer people got rights to same-sex marriage, right? It wasn't necessarily about facts and figures and data, or about, you know, a mental health care report that shows what a great benefit it would be to the mental health of people to be able to get married. That didn't really do anything.

What did do something is storytelling. Is being able to tell the stories of queer couples who would be able to get married, whose love would be legalized by same-sex marriage. And that really swayed things. I mean you even see saw shows like Modern Family make such a big difference when people were able to see this queer couple who is just like them, or you know, a lot like them in some ways and not in others, or reminded them of people they know.

It sort of humanized that struggle. It brought the voices of people into their living room.

And a book like this does the same thing, right? It brings the discussion to you. It humanizes these people and brings them into your life, into your sphere. And I hope this book is effective in doing that and in breeding that level of empathy, because we really need that right now.

BLAIR HODGES: I wondered if you'd got any challenges about this, because some people might ask why listen to kids at all? They're dumb, they lack life experience, they have limited perspectives, their brains aren't developed. [laughter]

How do you respond like to the sort of cultural disrespect a lot of people have for younger folks?

NICO LANG: Well, I mean, what's the harm in listening to kids, right? The most Republicans can do is what they always do—just not listen to them. You see this happen over and over again where you'll have these like incredible, brave, inspiring kids who get up before their state legislature and they say their piece, they talk about how these bills are going to harm them, and Republicans don't listen. They're on their phones, they're staring at the ceiling, they're checking their emails where they're not even there. And you see it again and again and again.

BLAIR HODGES: It's pretty heartbreaking to see it.

NICO LANG: It's just so—I feel like this word is overused, but cruel. Like they say, the cruelty is the point. But I just don't know, like, they disrespect them.

BLAIR HODGES: They won't even look at them. They, like you said, I've seen some of these videos.

NICO LANG: And I just don't know how they do it. I'm such an empathetic person, partially because of my job. You have to really develop a big heart for this. I just, I don't know how they do it. Like, I would love a Charlie Kaufman-esque portal into their brain to see what's going on there, because I don't, I don't know.

But nonetheless, you know, with that erasure over and over again, these kids aren't being listened to. Right? And the policy reflects that. And I just felt like even if Republicans still don't listen, and they probably won't, I have to try. Like, as a journalist, I've got to put these stories out there. I've got to make sure that I am doing whatever I can to ensure these kids are heard. And again, it might not make a difference. I don't really have any illusions that it will or that we'll see this nationwide movement of support for trans kids now, you know?

It'll probably make the most difference to the kids who spoke in the book, right? And to kids like them who see themselves and their stories being reflected. But to me, if I have to sort of miss the mark by not changing the world, if I can at least make some kids feel heard and respected and loved, or just a little more affirmed, I think that's pretty valuable in itself, right?

 

We Need More Trans Representation – 6:42

 

BLAIR HODGES: Yes, even if it doesn't connect with other people. You talk a little about your hopeful audience for the book. You’re hoping to reach people who don't know they know any trans folks, people who do know some, but maybe need—they’re kind of curious, they want to learn more, but they're not exactly sure what to ask or how to engage.

So a book like this can give them something to chew on. Something to consider. And then as you mentioned, trans youth themselves who need to feel supported and need to see themselves reflected in the public records so that they feel that sense of validation and connection from someone like you. A reporter. Like, this is a book published by a press. This has some prestige behind it.

One of the things I keep going back to, though, is there aren't a ton of trans people. It's a pretty small subset of folks. And so with something like gay marriage, a lot more people I feel like might be familiar with gay people, far fewer familiar with trans folks. That's one of my worries. Can we have enough people, actual trans people, to start changing hearts? So I think your book telling these stories really matters in part because fewer people right now are trans, so fewer people have a chance to get to know these people.

NICO LANG: Yeah. I don't remember which figures I cited in the book because, you know, I wrote this so long ago at this point, certain parts of it. But I was recently reading figures from the Public Religion Research institute that only 11% of people know a trans person and 1% of those people are trans. So they know themselves at least. Right?

So that then gets down to like 10%. So that's, I mean, 1 in 10, that's not a lot. You're totally right that for those folks back in the day who didn't know a queer person, they could still turn on a TV show and see somebody that reflects that story for them, that they could see that same-sex couple who humanizes the community for them.

There's still so little trans representation in the media. Like, we talk about how much things have changed and how far we've come. And that's true in some ways. But like, name a trans character on TV right now, quickly off the top of your head.

BLAIR HODGES: Uh…RuPaul? [laughs]

NICO LANG: Yeah—

BLAIR HODGES: They're not a character in a show, they're just a real person. And they're not trans! They're in drag!

NICO LANG: I know!

BLAIR HODGES: See? I pulled out a wrong person.

NICO LANG: But we have like the queens of like Drag Race. There are a lot of trans women on that show.

BLAIR HODGES: Okay. Yes.

NICO LANG: You know, Sasha Colby is one of my favorite people in the world, legend and icon, a fabulous trans woman. But like, that audience is so self-selecting, you know?

BLAIR HODGES: It's not Modern Family, right?

NICO LANG: And we haven't really had that in that space. You've had people like Laverne Cox who are doing a fabulous job. She was nominated for an Emmy for Orange is the New Black. And, you know, I don't want to minimize what a trailblazing figure she's been, but we just need more.

BLAIR HODGES: It's still a niche show. It's not your sitcoms. And I think the media landscape's changing to where we have fewer those shows anyway, so we're hitting a point where we can't even really maybe get those inroads because they don't really exist much anymore.

NICO LANG: I will say—not to be Laverne Cox’s PR person here, but to be her PR person for a second. Pay me, Laverne!—that Orange is the New Black was huge. Like, it was one of those shows that even my grandmother was watching. And I was like, when my grandma's watching that show, I'm like, all right, this is penetrating the culture.

But the thing is, is that my friend Jen Richards, who is a fabulous writer and actress, says that every problem with queer representation can be answered by, like, one word. “More.” Right? We just need more. We need more stories of, like, trans people living their lives authentically and openly. We need more stories of trans kids being affirmed by their families and finding their way in a harsh society.

Like, this book is great and I'm so proud to have written it, but we need a thousand more like it. And I really hope that's what we see is just so many other books coming out after this that also continue this work.

BLAIR HODGES: I hope so, too. The book, again, is American Teenager: How Trans Kids Are Surviving Hate and Finding Joy in a Turbulent Era by Nico Lang.

 

Wyatt Loves Ballet – 10:46

 

BLAIR HODGES: Alright, let's talk about some of the folks you met in the book. Wyatt is first. Wyatt's in South Dakota, a 15-year-old trans boy. They're in ballet class. And that stood out to me because it's such a gendered space. We have someone who is assigned female at birth, is a trans boy, and remains in this heavily gendered ballet space. Talk about that.

NICO LANG: I mean, I don't know Wyatt's origin story in terms of what got him to do ballet to begin with. I don't think we ever really talked about that, but we did talk about ballet and what it means to him now. And he likes it as an artistic form, because to him, it encourages this space for play, right? That he's always getting to, like, futz with the timing of a move and adjust it. And it's just sort of this creative space for his brain.

And as a very creative young person, he's always looking for more outlets. Like, he's really into poetry. He loves music. He's writing all the time. He's doodling in his books. He just wants to express himself in every way he can. And ballet was just another way to do that.

And it was really interesting because I think that you have a fascinating parallel between the state of South Dakota and ballet itself, because you have this kid who just wants to express himself and, like, be his own person. But ballet is actually a really rigid art form. There are ways that you are supposed to do it, and if you don't do it this way, you're going to get yelled at.

And it's the same with, like, state policy that it was like, well, he just wants to be his own kid and go on his own journey. And the state's actually like, no. Now there are these new rules and restrictions in place that decide the type of teenager you get to be.

I'm actually sort of putting together that connection now. But it is interesting that his chosen sport—well we don't call it sport—

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, sort of. Yeah. His chosen activity, sure. [laughter]

NICO LANG: Sport, sportivity?

BLAIR HODGES: Sport. Well they don't really get, like, graded. There's not competition in the same way. So maybe not a sport?

NICO LANG: God, like I wouldn't go to that, though? Like, a ballet competition? That'd be so much better than watching golf.

BLAIR HODGES: No offense, Golf. All my golf listeners, I apologize. I'm gonna get letters now.

NICO LANG: Come for me. Send me emails. I would love your golf emails.

BLAIR HODGES: Follow Queer News Daily on Instagram. Leave all your golf comments there.

NICO LANG: Although they do have those putters to swing at me, so maybe I shouldn't slander the golf community this way.

But nonetheless, you know, it was interesting that he was sort of battling a weird funhouse mirror version of his state battle against the legislature also within a ballet space.

 

Let Trans Kids Be Kids – 13:19

 

BLAIR HODGES: And one of the frustrations Wyatt expressed was just feeling like being trans was becoming his whole life, and he actually didn't want that. And it was becoming his whole life because of all the external pressure and the political controversies and the judgment from people and the questioning. And he's just like, “Hey, I actually wish being trans wasn't my whole life. It's really not. But it affects so much of my life.” That was a big frustration for Wyatt.

NICO LANG: Yeah. And I think for him, he feels like he missed out on so much of his childhood. That was a really common refrain from the kids in the book because he's had to be at the frontlines of fighting back against anti trans legislation. You sort of make a lot of sacrifices there.

And one of those sacrifices is that he rarely feels like he's gotten to be a normal teenager. And he and I have stayed really close since this book was written. I think of all of the kids we’re like, maybe like one of the closest. Just because we're so much alike. He reminds me of what I was like at that age. And he just comes to me for advice often. And one of the pieces of advice he often asked me for is sort of permission to just be like, an ordinary kid. He'll be like, “Oh, I'm gonna go to like, a party tonight with my friends. Do you think that that would be an okay thing to do?”

And I'm like, “Sweetie, you don't really need to ask me for this. “A,” this is what your parents are for, and “B,” you should, like, absolutely go do silly stuff.

But I think he just doesn't know how to do that because his whole childhood has been so serious and devoted to these really serious things.

And I think now that he's a little bit older and a little past some of that stuff, he's figuring out not only how to be a child, but to be, like, a person in the world. And it's just really overwhelming. He hasn’t had time to think about this stuff before.

BLAIR HODGES: Right. I love the conversation you describe where you asked Wyatt, “Who are you at your core?” And you wanted to find out if Wyatt had some kind of guiding answer, like, I'm a strong person, or I'm this or I'm that. And you say Wyatt's answer was actually really age appropriate. Wyatt said, “I'm not sure yet.”

NICO LANG: Yeah. And I loved that answer, actually, because I thought it pushed back a little bit from me in a really helpful way, against this idea that kids are just these tiny adults, right? And we often treat them as tiny adults. And sure, in a lot of ways they are very mature and they have this wisdom past their years.

But I think when we frame them—like, movies are a great example, like all kids in movies just talk like these middle-aged trained writers rather than just like talking like kids. And I loved Ladybird, that Greta Gerwig movie, because they talk like kids and they're so teenagery and they misspeak and they're kind of dumb sometimes in the way teenagers are dumb. I was a dumb teenager, right? And they're not all, like, wise beyond their years in this way.

And it really reminded me in that moment, like, right, he's just a 15 year old trying to figure it out. He does not have this stuff figured out yet. You did not have this figured out at 15. And I think that it helps reaffirm the point the book is making, which is that trans kids are just kids and we need to see them that way and to treat them that way.

 

Parents of Trans Kids Dealing With Grief – 16:14

 

BLAIR HODGES: Another point in this chapter that stood out was how family and community are so important. Wyatt's mom became a huge advocate for Wyatt, which wasn't guaranteed because his mom came from a really religious tradition that condemned trans identities. It wasn't acceptable there. What did you learn from talking to her? Because you wanted to talk about what parents were going through as well in this book.

NICO LANG: Yeah, I think I learned about just the value of doing the work. I think Susan makes it look easy because it's like, her kid came out, everything was great, and then she founded this, you know, statewide advocacy group for trans youth. And all of that's fabulous. So let's affirm that first. Yay, Susan, you're the best!

But on top of it, she had to do a lot of work to get there. That woman read, like, every book on trans kids, right? She was talking to local community members. She was educating herself because she didn't expect this to happen. She had really no experience with trans folks, no education on this whatsoever. And she got herself up to speed, you know? She knew, all right, if this is my kid and this is what they want for themselves, this is who they are, then I need to be a good advocate for them. How do I do that? Right?

No one sort of comes into this with a manual. So she had to write that manual essentially for herself. And then now that she had founded a statewide trans advocacy group, she's giving that to other people. So I hope people look at that as being aspirational in a way, that if you're the parent of a trans kid, you can do that work. Like, Susan isn't getting more of a head start than you. You can read all those books; you can do all that stuff. You can be the best advocate for your kid there ever was. It just like, you know, it gets down to doing the work.

BLAIR HODGES: It seemed like she could also be honest with you about going through a grieving process. And this is a sensitive topic because when you talk to trans kids, this isn't something I would want to be dumped onto them, trans kids having parents talk about how hard it is for them to see their kid go through transition or to be part of that as a parent.

But the fact is that a lot of parents who have trans kids experience a sort of grieving process. And it seems like Susan did.

NICO LANG: Yeah, I wanted to acknowledge that without focusing on it too much. And I also loved giving Wyatt the chance to speak back to it because he talks about the fact of what it feels like to have all these people grieve someone you never were, and how frustrating that is.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, there's that phrase, “I lost a daughter but gained a son,” which sounds affirming and happy. But Wyatt didn't like that.

NICO LANG: No. And honestly, now that he said that, I don't like it either. Because it's like this person isn't someone to be grieved. You're not grieving anything. That person never existed. So there's nothing to grieve. You are grieving a fictional person. You should just celebrate this person finding themselves and being the person they were born to be. That's a beautiful celebratory thing. Why are we talking about grieving here?

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, I agree with that.

Also, I would say I have compassion for people who experience grief around a loved one's transition, in addition to other feelings. I mean, the gender binary is so strongly instilled in everybody. And parents who aren't differentiated enough from their own kids can feel a kind of ownership over their kid’s identity and their future that they need to learn how to let go of.

I think feeling grief is valid, but I also think these parents must be careful about how they're processing it. I suggest people look into “Ring Theory.” This is a theory put forward by a clinical psychologist who says to think of the person who's impacted most by something, that person is in the center ring. In this case it would be a trans kid. And then there's rings around them. So in the next ring there's parents and then loved ones and family and close friends and on and on. And this psychologist says to direct comfort inward toward the center ring, the person most affected, and always to direct stress and processing of emotions outward to the outer rings.

Pouring support toward the person who's most impacted is so vital. So I really appreciated the care you took, not just with the trans kids themselves, but also the stories of the parents and what they were going through.

NICO LANG: Yeah. And to me, I think it was just being open and empathetic about these parents’, like, quote, unquote “struggles.” Right? I think sometimes parents come in with judgment of themselves for not being the perfect advocate or for having, you know, their own journey to being accepting when it comes to their kids and who they are.

And I think rather than coming to that from a place of self-judgment or flagellation, I just want parents to recognize that they're human. We all have things in our lives, these attachments we had that we had to let go of. Like, often I feel like adulthood is a process of letting go of the life you thought you would lead and then embracing the life that you're actually leading. And that can be really difficult. And I think you see that in Susan's parenthood as well, that there was this way her family—she thought her family might be, and then her family happened to be really different.

That's not just a trans story. That's a parenting story. Like, that's the same for my parents. I ended up totally different than I would be, and all the dreams they wanted for me. I think my family got, you know, a good trade off. I think I'm pretty cool. [laughter] But there is a letting go that you have to do. Like, my dad wanted me to go to Ithaca and study computers for some reason, I have no idea where he made this up in his head, right? But it was hard for him to allow me to go on my own path, you know, to be my own person. And trans kids are doing the same thing, just in a different way.

BLAIR HODGES: But, Nico, there is still time! Ithaca is calling.

NICO LANG: Omigod. Every time I see the phrase Ithaca on a piece of paper I'm still triggered by it.

BLAIR HODGES: So good. To me, the overall message I got from Susan was, learn how to grieve, learn how to learn, and then learn how to lobby. Be there with your kid. Not just an ally, but, like an advocate. And we'll get back to that because there are some other stories in the book that are really interesting when it comes to how involved parents can be.

 

On Being a Reporter Not a Therapist with Micah – 22:08

 

BLAIR HODGES: But let's talk about Micah in West Virginia. Micah is a Black biracial 18-year-old senior in high school. They're gender fluid, so they use different pronouns depending on what they're feeling. And you first met Micah at a camp for queer kids. They were kind of this superstar there who seemed to be in a really good spot.

But then when you caught up with them for this book, a lot had changed.

NICO LANG: Yeah, I have to say of all of the chapters in the book, this is the one that surprised me the most. Just because it was so different from what I thought it would be like. I thought it would be this really celebratory look of this larger than life Black gender fluid person living in an often harsh and difficult place, but still having this vibrant personality and not letting it get to them. Right?

Because when I first met Micah, that was very much their life. That despite everything going on around them, Micah had it going on. You know? They had their future figured out. They were going to go to NYU. They were doing it for themselves. And I just thought that was so cool and inspiring.

And when I wrote the original article I had interviewed them for, I knew their story was just too big for that. Like there was just too much there. There's so much of a character that they needed essentially their own star vehicle, like their own spinoff. [laughter] So when I was putting together this book, I knew I wanted Micah to be in it. I think Wyatt and Micah were the first two people I decided absolutely have to be in this book, one hundred percent.

But then when I got to West Virginia, things were just so different. That they didn't get into NYU—which, light spoiler for the chapter. And after that it caused this downward spiral, this incredible mental health crisis that was jeopardizing not only their mental health, but their entire future, because they sort of stopped going to school. They weren't doing their homework. They weren't even doing basic things like showering. It was a really bad situation. And their mom didn't know if they were going to graduate on time. And if they don't graduate, then it's not just that they're not going to NYU; they're not going to any college. And that was sort of, you know?

They want to do theater, right? They're interested in fashion, design, that's their entire future. There's no backup here. So for Micha, a lot of it was about that moment as a kid where you realize that your dreams might not work out and how crushing that can be for you. And I was just seeing Micah in real time, like processing that, how very difficult the world can be and just learning how to still go out there and be a person anyway, to just deal with it.

And I think there are some people who have to learn that really, really early on. But Micah, it's just been the past couple years, you know, because they've had such utter confidence in themselves. That there was no idea in their mind that things wouldn't work out. There's just no room for doubt. And it was just at times just really heartbreaking to share that space with them.

And to be honest, they're still going through it. We sort of end on a hopeful note in the chapter, but Micah is still having a really hard time. And I still find myself wanting to help. Like, whenever we text I'm immediately cycling through stuff in my head, like, what can I do? Is there anything I can connect them with to help? And I have to stop myself a little bit because it's sort of not my job.

But I hope that for folks reading the chapter, if you're reading about Micah and empathizing and wishing you could do something, you can do something. Micah lives in a state that has anti-trans policies. You could not vote for those. You could not vote for people who will vote for those policies. You could do that wherever you are. Because these kind of policies help dictate the lives these kids lead. So if we want them to lead better lives, we need to start passing better policies. There is something we can do here.

BLAIR HODGES: It was hard to read some of these chapters and see you struggling with maintaining that role of being a reporter and not a therapist. And there were times when you really did need to kind of step out of your reporter role for a minute and offer some therapeutic advice or be supportive for these kids.

And seeing you negotiate those roles was interesting. You're not just a disconnected, heartless reporter just writing the facts. You're also kind of feeling for these kids and really trying to help them in some ways as well.

NICO LANG: Well it’s like, I'm a human, man! Like, I'm a human sitting with another human, watching them really go through it, what am I supposed to do? Not feel something, not empathize with them, not try to offer some sort of not even support? But just a little bit of affirmation, you know? Like, I didn't know as a reporter, pardon my French everyone, but what the f*ck else I was supposed to do, you know? Like, I just couldn't sit in that space with Micah and listen to them hit rock bottom here and not try to offer some little bit of comfort.

And it didn't work, really. Like, there's nothing I can say, which I sort of recognize in the book, that when somebody's going through something like that, that even as much as you want to offer a helping hand or you want to say that exact right thing that'll help, there's really nothing you can do.

You just have to kind of sit there with them and walk through it with them. And I think that's really what I was there to do, right, with being with these families for two and a half weeks, essentially, I was just walking with them and their struggles, and I think it just helped them to be seen and heard and affirmed and whatever they were going through.

So sure, there were times in which I had to step out of my reporter role to just be a human for a second and have a human moment. And I'm glad I allowed myself to do that. But I think actually being a reporter and doing my job was really the most valuable thing that these people could have gotten from me.

 

Imperfect Parenting – 27:43

 

BLAIR HODGES: You also got to see the family dynamics up close. Like we mentioned Susan from the previous chapter. In this one, Micah's mom's a lesbian, but that doesn't mean she was ready to be a strong ally for a trans kid, which might surprise some folks to think like, oh, if you're gay or if you're lesbian or if you're bi or whatever, that you might just be right on board.

I mean, we say “LGBT,” the T is in there, but that's not necessarily the case. What was going on with Micah's mom that you noticed?

NICO LANG: Micah's mom was really tough because she's had a lot of trauma that she's been through that very much affects her, I don't want to say mental capacity, but her ability to sort of be present.

BLAIR HODGES: Her bandwidth, maybe.

NICO LANG: Her bandwidth. That's a good way to put it. Like, she's a domestic violence survivor. She also was in this terrible car accident, which is so Appalachia in this horrible way where she hit a patch of black ice, and then her car slid down a hill and she ran into a tree, and she has permanent brain damage because of it. She almost died. She was this close to dying. And she believes that God saved her life that day. And, you know, this is a woman who's really been through it and brings her own trauma into the space, wherever she is, like, it is very much with her. And you can tell.

And I think because she's dealing with so much already just to be a person and stay alive and also, you know, support her family and carve out a little bit of time for herself, that she isn't always able to be present to Micah in the way that maybe she needs to be.

And I think that's really hard for them to deal with, like, as their kid. Micah is very kind about Dawn, their mother, always defending her. And I think Dawn should be defended. I think Dawn is, like, a fabulous mother. But it reminds me more than anything that parents are limited, you know, that we view them as these boundless sources of love and affirmation, that they can do everything. They're like superheroes. But they're also just people who have their own stuff going on.

And that’s not an excuse for anything. Like, it doesn't excuse not correctly gendering your kid or, like, using the right name for your kid, or even being, like, evil and hateful to your kid, which Dawn is not. Dawn very much loves Micah and wants to do what's best for them and just trips up a lot along the way. Like, that woman cannot use the right pronouns to save her life! Which is so funny because Micah uses myriad pronouns. You think it would then be easy, but, like, girly can't do it. [laughter]

But, you know, nonetheless, through all that, she is still a person. And I think we need this holistic view of parents who are trying. We need to still sort of, like, affirm their humanity, rather than calling them out. It allows us to call them in a little bit, right? It allows them to say, like, I see you. I know that you're a person, too. But also, let's work with you to, you know, move you a little farther along this journey.

Because I just don't think—there's that old saying about, like, catching flies with honey, not with vinegar. And I feel like we often have a vinegar approach to allies who really just could use a little bit of honey. So for me, with this book, I gave Dawn as much honey as I was capable of, and I hope that she got entrapped in my little spider web or whatever the extended metaphor is.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, that's an interesting family dynamic where the people who are sometimes closest or should be the best help, when they're not, we can be most angry with them or, you know, when someone who's really expected to be an ally isn't, we could be even more harsh with those folks.

And I think your approach to these parents is a reminder to really try to use that honey.

 

Surgical Transitions – 31:19

 

BLAIR HODGES: Micah had prepared a speech they were going to deliver to the West Virginia House of Representatives. And in that speech, they were talking about Black pride and also trans pride. And they made an interesting point. They said, “I can't speak for all trans people, but not everyone wants or needs to transition or to have surgeries. Knowing that we can at any time is enough for us. I know you probably don't care, but listen when I tell you my community is strong and powerful and resilient.”

So Micah is sort of saying, look, you're trying to pass these really rigid laws around health care, and you're misunderstanding a lot of trans people, where a lot of trans people aren't even necessarily going to go for surgeries, for example. But having the option there for people who do need, that matters to most trans people.

And that reminds me of Ruby, who's the next person that you talk about in the book. They're a trans woman. She's about 20 at the time you met with her. She transitioned socially at 16 and medically at 18. And this chapter talks about surgical transition. And I wondered if that was awkward for you or how you approach that, when you're talking about surgery.

NICO LANG: I just don't ask about that kind of stuff. I think, like, if people tell me about it, that's great, but I never lead with it. There are just certain things that I, as a reporter, never really ask about. And one of those is people's bodies. Because I just think there are certain things for me that just seem really off limits with people. Like, I just don't ask them. I don't ask them about their bodies. I don't ask them about their, like, sex lives.

BLAIR HODGES: Well, how often do we ask people about their genitals and stuff? Like, how often are we doing that and why do we think we should be able to about trans folks? How is that any different than just asking anybody about their genitals or whatever? It's like, okay.

NICO LANG: And it's a boring answer. Like, if someone were to tell you, you would just be like, okay. Like, it's not interesting to talk about. And that's one of the reasons I don't put it in my journalism, is that people's surgeries, what they've done, don't fascinate me. It's very mundane.

They got it. It's done. It's over. Bada bing, bada boom.

And it's the same with Ruby. Even if I were to relay that story, because I do know that story now, because she told me, it's just not, like, narratively interesting. She did tell me all about it, but I didn't include it because it just wasn't that good of a story for me.

I focused on the material that that I really engaged with, that I felt like she really cared about and that I felt like the reader hadn't heard before. If you're a trans person, you know a surgery story, like, you heard one or you have one, right? There's just nothing new that you can learn there.

And for cis people reading this, I just didn't think there was any value in that necessarily. Like, what are they gonna learn other than, like, some people have surgery. That's great. So to me, it was about getting to all the stories that I felt like hadn't been told that really needed to be told.

And surgery just didn't achieve that for me at all. So, of course I'm not gonna go asking about it.

 

Ruby’s Supportive Church – 34:09

 

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. And the story with Ruby that needed to be told has to do with her connection to religion. A lot of trans people have had negative experiences with American Christianity in particular. But this chapter shows that not everybody does. Ruby actually transitioned with the blessing and support of her faith.

NICO LANG: Yeah. So essentially, when she came out as trans, she had what one might call a coming out party in the church. They call it a “liturgical renaming ceremony” where, you know, you sort of stand up in front of the church, you give a speech, you recite some scripture based on whatever theme sort of appeals to you and feels right in the moment. And the whole thing is about, like, casting out your old name in favor of the person that you were born to be.

And this is actually like a rite, a ceremony in the Episcopalian faith. It is something that, if you go to a particularly affirming Episcopalian congregation, that might be a thing that your church does.

I liked the routineness of it that. It wasn't something they just made up. That it is an established part of this faith. Because we get often told as queer people and as trans people that if you come out in your church, they're just never going to accept you. You'll face rejection, you'll be cast out. And that is the story for a lot of people, right? There are a lot of queer people who face religious rejection and experience, like, incredible religious trauma. There are stories of kids in this book who experienced religious trauma.

Wyatt is a great example in our first chapter. They went to, I believe, a Baptist church in South Dakota, in Sioux Falls, that essentially told them they couldn't go there anymore if Wyatt were trans, which he is. So obviously they couldn't go there anymore.

There are other families in the book who are still kind of negotiating what faith means to them, right? Like, how does all this fit together? But for Ruby, it's just never been a conflict because of the faith that she was born into and the fact that she's lucky enough to be in a worship space that is so affirming.

And I think you just see the difference in her life, that even though Ruby is dealing with such incredible hardship as a result of the Texas legislature there, right? All these anti-trans bills that are being introduced, all these anti-trans laws that are being passed, she's still kind of doing okay because she has this wonderful, supportive family and she has this faith that has always loved her and affirmed her for who she is.

When the family pitched me about being in the book and we were sort of talking about what their chapter might entail, her mother, Molly, mentioned the show Schitt's Creek as a reference point. And I made sure to put that in the chapter because it meant so much to her. Because Schitt's Creek is a show where homophobia doesn't exist and where you can be, like, the pansexual shop owner in this small town and gallivant around with your boyfriend and nobody seems to really care very much. It just doesn't come up, up.

And she loved that because that seemed to be outside of the legislature, more or less her daughter's life, that her daughter has been loved and accepted and affirmed as who she is before she even came out. That they had a sense from an early age that they had a queer child or a trans child. They didn't really know how things were going to go, but they sensed that Ruby had some gender difference or that she was just, you know, a very feminine boy. Because, you know, the sissies are out there! They're doing it. So they didn't know, but they wanted to create a space for her, whoever she turned out to be, they were gonna love her for whoever that was. Not all kids get that, but I think you can see the difference in Ruby's life and just like, how confident she is, how unburdened she seems by a lot of things that feel so heavy for kids in other states.

And part of it is also that she's, you know, 19 when the chapter was written, so some of the anti-trans laws affecting kids, minors don't apply to her as much. But I still feel like you could see a lightness in her and in her step that I didn't always see in some of the kids that have to exist and find a way to exist in harder places.

BLAIR HODGES: And even with all of that positive stuff, she was still thinking about leaving Texas. And this is a hard choice, because, I mean, a lot of kids go away for school. That's actually pretty common. But to leave such a supportive church community and also her family…

But on the bright side, to leave some of the legal and political pressures that are happening in Texas. So it seemed like a really complicated decision to leave. Like, there could be some great things about it and some really hard things about it for her.

NICO LANG: And I think it also shows that if you’re somebody like Ruby, you can have everything going for you. You have a family that supports you, you have a community that supports you. You have a great boyfriend for whom your gender is not an issue whatsoever. You can have like, everything lined up. But if you have a government, a political apparatus that doesn't support your right to exist, it kind of negates all of that in terms of your ability to stay in your own community.

Like, we forget sometimes how important our political leaders are. I think we as queer people are so used to having to exist without that support, you know, or not thinking about whether these people, like, you know, are in favor of your rights whatsoever. You just go on like as is.

But the thing is, you can do all that to compartmentalize and separate yourself and distance yourself. But, like, state laws matter. State policies matter. What's happening in Texas right now in terms of them revoking birth certificates and driver's licenses, it's going to make it harder for trans people to stay in the state.

Because it's like, let's say you are a trans woman who hasn't corrected your driver's license yet. You get pulled over by a cop. You don't know what's going to happen. Or if you go to the bar and you get carded.

Like, I've talked to trans folks in other states who have been through this.

There are these two trans women in Alabama who fought for years and years to get their driver's licenses corrected. And one of the women in the story has essentially gone on house arrest rest for years because she lived in a place where you needed to drive to be able to get around, right? You know, this is rural Alabama, so you can't really just walk places or, like, take the bus that didn't exist. So she was pretty much homebound. Like, if she wanted to leave, she would have to take an Uber. There weren't a lot of Ubers out there. Or she would have to get, like, a ride from a friend or family member.

Other than that, she was stuck at home all the time. She would have people, like, come deliver stuff to her, drop stuff up to her, and that was her life. Life. The other woman, her name was Destiny. She talked about the fact that, like, she's often, like, limiting where she goes. Like, she doesn't drive in unfamiliar areas anywhere so that she's concerned about being pulled over.

Even driving late at night. Things like that in Alabama, like, cops will often pull you over to pardon my French, but to kind of f*ck with you, right? So she can't do things like that because she couldn't risk being pulled over. She couldn't risk what was going to happen. So your world just becomes really small.

And that's what's happening to folks in Texas, too, is they're trying to make your world smaller and smaller and smaller until it's so small that you can't be here anymore, because who wants to be forced to live in this tiny cage? So when people read Ruby's chapter and sort of see this dichotomy between, this girl's got everything going for her, but she still can't stand the state. I hope it forces us to reflect on all the other people who are facing the exact same thing right now. Like, we've got a transmigration crisis in places across the country. So what's happening to Ruby is really just a drop in the bucket.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. Some studies suggest somewhere between 100 or 200,000 people may have been relocating over the past few years. You cite some of those studies in the book, and that's a lot of people. To see a real story of someone like Ruby who's moving, again in part for school, but in part because of the political and legal situation of Texas, it can be heartbreaking.

I mean, she had just started this wonderful relationship with a boyfriend who appreciated her, loved her for who she is, and that's a hard thing to leave behind. So, again, this chapter speaks to some of the highs and lows, I think, that can happen with some of these trans teens you were talking with.

 

American, Muslim, and Trans – 42:22

 

BLAIR HODGES: Your chapter about Clint is another unexpected story around religion. This is a practicing Muslim who transitioned to become a trans boy around 8th grade, a trans young man. And he has a white father and a Pakistani mother who have divorced. And he's transitioned, and he's still a practicing Muslim with his dad.

People might be surprised to know that that's even possible in the context of Islam, that someone could transition, having been assigned female at birth, become a man and continue to practice Islam. Because these mosques are often divided by gender. They're gendered spaces. Like, the men go here and the women go here. So Clint is practicing his Muslim faith as a young man.

NICO LANG: Yeah. And there just hasn't been very much strife around that in the mosque. And that could be for one of a number of reasons. It could be that people are super aware of it and they just really don't care. Right? Because when Clint came out and he started socially transitioning, you know, dressing in male clothing, just, you know, being the boy that he already was, he started worshiping in the men's space, and just no one stopped him. Like, he was wearing the men's attire and worshiping alongside the men, and no one said no. And they never really talked about it. Like, it wasn't a discussion. No one ever came up to them or approached them or said anything. It was just kind of what it was.

And they don't really know if it was that people didn't notice or they did notice and just looked the other direction to being like, I'm just not going to deal with that. But you know, for Clint, coming so early in his transition, that was just such an affirming sign from his own faith that people weren't going out of their way due to like, you know, lack of knowledge or just like they didn't care. They weren't going out of their way to be bigoted or ignorant. It just wasn't really an issue.

And for him, I think it colored for him that he didn't see a conflict between his faith and his gender. That they just felt like, you know, that it wasn't really a big deal. He even talks about the fact that in Islam, in the Quran they speak of Allah as being nongendered. Even the word “Allah” means the one, right? So it's sort of like the unified, this thing that brings together all of existence, all of the genders. Allah is thought often to be beyond gender.

And I think even like a lot of Christians are like, “Yeah, sure, you use ‘he’ in the Bible to refer to God. But God is so much bigger than all that, right? God is the divine, the eternal. God is everything. So of course God is going to be male, female, everything in between.” And even in depictions of Islam, they often they represent Muhammad as being a cloud. So you see that there too, Muhammad isn't like a man in the physical way that you are. He's more of an idea, a concept, a bigger thing.

So Clint is just thinking so far past all this stuff that he doesn't even think about being trans in Islam. Like he'd never talked about this stuff before because it just doesn't really come up for him. It hasn't really been part of his daily reality. And I think honestly that's so cool that he's never really had to think about this very much. His grandparents had some sort of early apprehensions, but that had less to do with religion than the fact that they're like a little bit older. And I think they just had a lot of questions. Like it seems like all the stuff that they've had a hard time with as a family was outside of religion.

There was Islam, like the Islamic stuff maybe they argued about, which really has to do with his mom and the fact that she's a very free-spirited woman—

BLAIR HODGES: Right.

NICO LANG: —and then there's all the stuff with his gender, and the two never met. And I think that's kind of cool that they got to just have normal family problems that have nothing to do with Clint's religious faith. I often think about the fact that my family—me, you know, I'm a very out queer person. It's literally pretty much my entire life. [laughter] I mean, it's never been an issue with my family. I don't think we've ever argued about it or they've ever been weird or it's ever come up. We do argue about everything else though. Like my aunt and my grandmother once had a nine-month fight over a hamburger. Like, and I love that we fight about everything but me being queer. [laughter]

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

NICO LANG: And it felt really cool that it was the same for Clint. Like, sure, there's a lot of disagreement in the household. Like his mom is dating this guy who used to be Jewish. He converted to being Christian. He is a supporter of Israel in the whole Israel, Palestine conflict. And she's very pro-Palestinian. They argue about that all the time, right? But they never argue about Clinton, his identity.

BLAIR HODGES: And his mom's kind of out of the faith. She doesn't really practice Islam anymore. All the men in Clint's family are definitely still involved. And this is in Chicago, by the way. Chicago, Illinois.

 

Individualism and Activism – 47:06

 

BLAIR HODGES: It also struck me that Clint's not interested in advocacy and almost doesn't really identify as trans. He made a comment that he just wishes he was cis. So there was also a little bit of patriarchal privilege, it seemed, happening for Clint. Clint didn't have to reckon with what was happening in other states. Like the fact that Clint could access top surgery where that would be denied to other people in other states. Clint didn't really seem very concerned about that. Clint didn't seem activist-minded at all.

NICO LANG: Yeah, well, I think that's sort of the goal in a way, that in a perfect world, all these kids wouldn't have to think about being activists. That they would live in states where they get to take this stuff for granted. For me, there was something so hopeful about that, that we could get to a space and like a time in society, maybe sometime in the future when kids will have the choice whether to engage in activism or not, whether to really, like, identify as trans that much or not.

Because what he says is that he doesn't want others to see him as a trans boy. He wants them to see him as a boy. Like, that's really his ultimate goal here. And particularly he doesn't want to think about being trans very much because it would put him into a state of gender dysphoria, because to him, his transness is so bound up with his gender dysphoria that to think about being trans is to think about gender dysphoria.

And he doesn't want to think about gender dysphoria because then he'll become dysphoric. So for him, he's just trying to live his life and, you know, be the boy that he is. And I think that's cool. I think that every kid should get to choose for themselves. Like, if you want to be an activist and do advocacy, I think that's great. You absolutely should. God knows the world needs more advocates and activists out there. We need as many people on the front lines as we can. But, like, that should get to be a choice.

So many of the kids in the other states, I don't think they really want to be activists either. Like, Wyatt doesn't want to be doing any of this. He didn't have another choice. He had to sacrifice virtually his entire childhood to advocacy because somebody had to be out there fighting for trans kids, and he had sort of, like, the privilege to do it, right? So, you know, he had to.

But for Clinton, he doesn't have to make that same sacrifice. He doesn't have to give all that up. So sure, I think that might be weird for people to hear, right, because it's not what we expect. But it makes me glad for him, you know? I'm glad that he gets that. And I'm glad for Maha, his mom, like, she gets to decide how to be Muslim on her own terms.

But, you know, there was the Islam that her parents practiced in the way they wanted her to be. And she's just not that person. She's had to live life on her own terms and to also be a Muslim on her own terms and figure out what all this means to her.

And I think it's sort of like part of the same journey in a way, that her son had to figure out what kind of boy he wants to be and how he wants to engage in advocacy. And the answer is not at all. And for her, it's like, yeah, she still is Muslim and she still wants to be a Muslim, but like, she has to do it her way.

 And I think Clint said something that, to me, is maybe the most important statement anybody says in the book, which is that it's everybody's own life. You've got to live it the way you want. Right? And that's what we all do as people. It's not just a trans thing, it's not just a queer thing. It's an everybody thing. Every single one of us has to decide the journey that's best for us and the path that makes the most sense for us. And for Clint, this is what he's chosen.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. See, and that's where my wheels start to spin because I start to say, for me, that feels too individualistic. The fact that, like, we are all connected and that I'm part of broader systems. I'm part of a community, a city, a state, a country, and there are laws and I have civic responsibilities.

So on the one hand, I understand exactly what you're saying, that we want people to have that freedom, to have autonomy, to be self-directed, to own ourselves and to be able to make choices in our lives. But then also for me, my choices do impinge on other people, you know, that sort of thing.

But again, I'm coming from a place of privilege for that. Right? Like, I'm a cishet white guy. Like, in some ways, the world was sort of set up for me to not have to worry about that. So it was just funny for me to feel tension seeing Clint and kind of maybe even feeling a little moment of resentment of like, “well, no, you gotta advocate!”

And then to hear you say, you know, that can be a positive sign too. The fact that there are spaces for somebody to feel that way, that can actually signal some kind of progress. I mean, there's more work to be done, but you'd rather more people have the freedom to explore than, like you said, have to be constant advocates and, and constant activists.

Does that make sense? I'm kind of coming at both sides.

NICO LANG: Yeah, no, I understand what you're saying. And I do think, in a perfect world, of course, you know, all these kids would be out there fighting, but that's really hard. It's so emotionally strenuous and challenging. And a lot of these kids deal with such long term trauma, like, like, you know, based from begging for your rights year after year after year. And, you know, these lawmakers just doing whatever the heck they want anyway, that I can understand why Clint wouldn't want to put himself through it. And I think it's fascinating that you have the same tension there, because his mom has the same tension! [laughs] You know, she's a dedicated advocate for South Asian LGBTQ folks, and she doesn't identify with his need not to be an advocate either. So it's like you get to see even within his own family, there are all of these differences of opinion.

And for me, with the book, what I loved getting to do is, I loved getting to let the kids say their piece, whether or not their parents agreed with them, whether or not I agreed with them, like, that they just got to express themselves, whatever was on their mind, whatever their point of view was about the world. It wasn't for me to make judgments on that. It wasn't for their parents to make judgments, or even for the reader, right?

And when we were sending the chapter around to early readers to kind of get feedback on it before it went to print, to make sure I didn't do a terrible job, so many people found Clint's—like, not Clint's family, but I think found Clint, frankly, unlikable because they felt like [Blair Laughs] Yeah, I know, like, what a strong word for a child. It's a child!

BLAIR HODGES: That's what I went back to, by the way, is I kept reminding myself, like, wait a minute, this is like a teenager, a teenage kid. Like, of course they're learning.

NICO LANG: 17. Yeah, let him be. But, like, you know, they would describe him that way. Or like Kylie, in our last chapter, who has a similar story of not wanting to be an activist, right? That they would have found them unlikable and bristled at this stuff.

And for me, it's not about liking these kids or not liking these kids. It's that they should get to be whoever they want to be, whether we like them or not or agree with the choices they've made. So much of the book for me was about challenging this notion that we once had in queer advocacy, that in order to have rights, we had to be the same as everyone else. You saw this in marriage equality fights in the 2000s, this same love idea, right? That it's like, in order to prove that we deserve to get married, we should show you that our love is the same as other people.

BLAIR HODGES: We are like you. Yeah. Respectability politics.

NICO LANG: Exactly. But for me, I almost wanted, like, what's the opposite of respectability? Disrespectability?

BLAIR HODGES: [laughs] Yeah, I don't know!

NICO LANG: Like, I wanted these kids to be able to be different. Right? To get to, like, say their piece or say things that were unpopular or, like, maybe be a little bit unlikable. I'm a little bit unlikable. I'm a lot unlikable sometimes, but I think I still deserve rights anyway.

BLAIR HODGES: Yes.

NICO LANG: Like, my rights shouldn't be contingent on whether or not people like me or they see themselves in me. Right? I should get rights because I'm a person who is deserving of rights.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

NICO LANG: And the same way all other people are.

 

When Teens Are Teenagery – 54:58

 

BLAIR HODGES: Well, and I'm glad you brought up Kylie. This is the person in the next chapter. She's in California, and in a lot of ways she seems different from Clint. Clint is from this more conservative religious tradition of Islam. Kylie from a very progressive Asian American family in California. But the common thread here is that, like Clint, Kylie didn't seem interested in the politics of being trans.

She has very supportive parents in a state with access to healthcare and a family who can afford it. And she started socially transitioning at 7. And she's been on this path for a long time. But you saw tension between Kylie and her mom because her mom is, like, all into the activism, too. You were there for a couple weeks and sometimes it felt like you're a little bit in the middle of that, too, because, like, Kylie would check in with you about stuff and be like, oh, here's what I'm thinking. And then Kylie's mom would be saying stuff. So how was it to be in the middle of that dynamic?

NICO LANG: I don't know if I'll get in trouble for saying this, but those two and a half weeks were stressful because, like, you know, Kylie didn't really want to be part of the book. And I didn't know that until I got there because she and I did a pre-interview and we had a lovely conversation. She was really fun, and I liked her energy. I liked how teenagery she was. Because so many of the other kids just, you know, they seem so wise beyond their years, and I was not wise beyond my years at that age. I was very much a dumb teenage kid. So getting to include a kid who just seemed young and didn't feel so, just like, I don't know, mature all the time, like a tiny adult. I loved that, and I knew I wanted to write that, and I felt like things were hunky dory and good. And then I got there, and I found out that it was really her mom who wanted to do the book, and she only did the book because her mom wanted to do it.

So for the first, like, seven days I was there, that girl wouldn't give me anything to work with! And we were hanging out all the time. I would ask her questions, and it would be like, one-word answers, two-word answers, like, shrug. I don't know, like, you know, eye rolls, and just, again, being very teenagery. I was like, you wanted a teenager, you got one.

But she did eventually open up to me. I think we found a way to really engage with each other in a way that really made sense for her to carve out space to allow herself to just, like, be a teenage girl. Because I think that's what she was looking for, is that she had struggled to articulate for herself the need to just be a normal teenager who doesn't always have to think about, you know, the encroachment of the anti-LGBT movement on Southern California.

Because it is very much a thing here. Even though we like to pretend that we're this, like, liberal, progressive bubble, that is not so. You know, they were having a problem in Torrance, which is the LA suburb where they live at the time of, like, pride flags being torn down in the city, the city council had backtracked on its commitment to LGBT equality. We were seeing all of these protests of schools for issuing Pride proclamations. The anti-LGBT Right has really taken over in a lot of states. We're not immune, man. It could happen here, too. And I think they were realizing that and kind of freaking out a little bit.

But for her, she was still kind of trying to preserve for herself that ability to be a teenage kid and to protect it. That like if Clint in some ways represents the goal, right, that you could live your childhood and all this stuff isn't really a thing for you, you can even be stealth and be kind of lowkey and in the closet a little bit if you want to be. You know, for Kylie, I think she was just really worried about that going away. Like, what if California becomes like all these other places, like my friends who are dealing with this in Alabama, because her best friend lives in Alabama and is a dedicated advocate there who has had to fight for her rights because she hasn't had any other choice.

So I think she was just so worried that would have to become her life soon. And thinking to herself, like, God, what am I gonna do? It's just a lot to have put on you at 17.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, they're kids. Again, these are kids. I loved meeting every one of them, and there were things about some of them that bugged me and things that really endeared me to them, just like any teenagers that you would be involved with. So you painted some really great portraits of the people throughout the book.

Again, the book is called American Teenager: How Trans Kids Are Surviving Hate and Finding Joy in a Turbulent Era by Nico Lang. Nico's a journalist whose work you might have seen in Rolling Stone and the Daily Beast and Time, Teen Vogue and other places. They also run Queer News Daily on Instagram. It's a great source if you want to stay up on the latest LGBTQ news.

 

The Toll of Human Rights Journalism – 59:27

 

BLAIR HODGES: Nico, I wanted to know more about your own life experiences. We don't learn much about you in the book, but you do say at the end that you're a different person for having done this project. How did the project change you?

NICO LANG: Yeah, I mean, you just become more empathetic from doing this work. I think you become a lot better listener when you're forced to do it for an entire year, where you just go from state to state, listening to people all the time. I felt like my ears were a little exhausted at the end of all this.

There's a word for this. Empathy fatigue, where you're just, like, constantly performing empathy all the time, and you just feel really worn out. But I think what I was referring to there for me is my health and mental health, that doing this really takes it out of you.

Like, I don't want to overemphasize my own struggle here because it's not really about me. It's about the kids, which is why I'm sort of barely in the book. I didn't want to shy away from the fact that I am an observer. I do have a presence here. So it's not like I'm just this neutral, I don't know, blob floating around or something. [laughter] Right? I am a person. I'm a human like you, who is going to be having certain emotional reactions to these kids. So I didn't want to shy away from that. But at the same time, the story isn't about me. The thing I do hope, though, that people can take away, and I think other reporters know this well, is that journalism is really hard, especially doing human rights journalism, and it really takes a toll on you.

After a certain amount of time, I'd gotten to a point where I felt like I had adjusted to it and that I was kind of good. Because it's like, I've been doing this for so long that, I don't know, you hear about this terrible thing, and sure, it's awful, and it's devastating to the lives of the people who live there, but it becomes sadly, so dime-a-dozen. It's like the twentieth horrible thing you've heard this month. So you're just like, “well, put it on the pile,” right? And you do your job, you get this story out there, but it just stops affecting you at a certain point because it becomes so horrifically regular. It's like being on a conveyor belt of terror.

But with this book, I wasn't moving on from those stories so quickly, right? I wasn’t reporting this, moving on to the next thing, reporting this, moving on to the next thing. I had to really stay in it with these families for such a long time. That vicarious trauma really, really, really got to me.

Like, I had to get a therapist when I was doing this book. I was once so stressed out, and when I was in West Virginia, I was so stressed out that I accidentally washed my phone. Like, I sent it through the rinse cycle.

BLAIR HODGES: Oh no!

NICO LANG: I know. And then I was without a phone temporarily in West Virginia, and my credit card was attached to my phone. So it was just a whole nightmare for like, half a second. Really not a good day that day. But even afterward, it's like I noticed my heart is different. I had to stop drinking caffeine. I can't do crowds or loud noises the way I used to. I don't really watch anything that isn't a comedy. If there's something that's like a horror movie or like a really loud movie, I don't really go see those things in theaters as much anymore. And the reason I put that in there is I think we just need better mental health support for journalists.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

NICO LANG: Because even if you work in a newsroom, there's very little mental health support. You might get like, BetterHelp or something covered, but you probably don't. You might get mental health days, but if you do, your boss expects you to take them next week or something when it's like, that's not how a mental health day works. The idea is like, I'm not doing well. I need to not come in tomorrow.

I worked at this old publication a couple years ago where my boss never let me take a mental health day because he was like, sorry, we need you. So he would just like, turn me down all the time. I don't think I ever got to take a mental health day. So it was not good. But it's even worse if you're a freelancer, right? Or if you're working on a book like this. What resources do I have? Sure, I have a publisher who's like paying me to do this, but it's not like a full time job thing with benefits. I don't have insurance, so I'm not going to be able to do this for myself. So I was paying out of pocket for like this like, BetterHelp-style thing. I think it was called like Pride Counseling or something. Something that was okay, that was helpful. It was good to have that.

But I think we just need a better system in place to support people because it's like you hear all the time about journalists burning out in the industry and deciding they can't do this anymore. And burnout is really a coded word for damaged mental health. It's depression, it's anxiety, it's all these other things.

And in order to keep people doing journalism and to keep making sure they are out there reporting the news that matters, we have to make sure they are healthy and well, or they will get to a point where they decide they just can't take it anymore.

 

What About Outright Rejection Stories? – 1:04:05

 

BLAIR HODGES: There's one other thing I wanted to ask you about from the Acknowledgments. You say there was an editor on the book who raised an objection that none of the stories feature kids who have been disowned, or kids who've been kicked out by their families. And that is something that happens with LGBTQ kids and with trans kids. I wondered about your choice to not feature a kid who had experienced that kind of trauma.

NICO LANG: Because which family is going to let me do it? That's what I didn't understand. Kike, okay, so if the structure is, I go and hang out with these families who are, you know, supporting their kids or, you know, just trying to follow along with their days, right? To make this documentary. What family's gonna let me do that? If they don't support their kid being trans, they're not gonna let this journalist hang out with them for two and a half weeks. It's an absurd request. So thanks for that note. Great job.

BLAIR HODGES: [laughs] Well, an 18- or 19-year-old might've been able to, you know, maybe cut the family out of the equation?

NICO LANG: Yeah. But then structurally I just think the chapter would have been so different. Like, because you notice—

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

NICO LANG: —even the way all the chapters are structured are really similar, and that the third section is always the parent section. We have a different voice come in, in the fourth section. And I just felt like putting in a different kind of story would have been throwing it off.

And it's not that that kind of story wouldn't have value or wouldn't matter. We can tell that story whenever. Like, I'm going to be doing this forever. I have the rest of my life. The window to tell that story is my whole life. But for this, I wanted to have a really clear and specific focus. Or then you just kind of end up telling every kind of story. It just ends up being this grab bag of things. So I wanted to stay really narrow.

But then on top of that, I think you can better get to that kind of story by talking to parents who aren't perfectly supportive but don't totally reject their kids either. Like, Micah's mom is a perfect example of a parent who wants to be more supportive and is just struggling all the time and just like, constantly failing at things like pronouns.

But that person is still a human, right? That person still has feelings and still wants to do a good job. I think all these parents at the end of the day want to do a good job for their kids. So being able to tell her story, someone who's trying, just felt more valuable to me than that parent who doesn't support their kids.

Because, I don't know, what am I gonna learn from that? What do kids learn from that that they don't already know? What do other families learn from that they don't already know? Nothing. And besides, you still do get little glimpses. Like, Micah's dad isn't around anymore for a reason. Right? There's a reason Micah doesn't talk to their dad.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

NICO LANG: So we do get that little bit of family rejection, but I don't dwell on it because it's just a story kids have already heard. And with this book, I wanted to use this platform to tell the queer community and to tell trans kids stories they hadn't heard over and over again.

I wanted to expand representation to bring new stories into the mix. Things that I felt like kids wanted to hear, that I wanted to hear. And when I'm doing that, I just didn't feel like it would be purposeful to tell a story that we just heard over and over again.

Like, I know that story because I've faced it. Kids across the country know that story because they faced it. So for this, it's like, yeah, maybe there was a bit of a hopeful spin on it and that all of these kids have, for the most part, you know.

Well, not for the most part. They have families that support them, but they're still dealing with hardships. So, let's also not put too much on these kids, right? Imagine you're a kid in a state that doesn't support you, and also your family doesn't support you. And then, you know, a journalist wants to come over and be like, hey, tell me about all this. How does this feel? That would just be. That's a lot for a kid to take on.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

NICO LANG: You know, so at least these kids, by having supportive families, I thought were in a good place to talk about all this, the highs and lows and all of it, you know, the sweet and the sour, the good days and the bad. And that, to me, this book felt so much like life and that I feel like it exists between those kinds of poles.

So much of life isn't really just good or bad. It's somewhere in the middle. So many of us have families that are kind of a mix of supportive and not, right, so only pretending like the stories that matter are people who totally reject their kids or totally support their kids, just felt like it was missing the point.

Like, I wanted a story and a book that felt like life to me as I know it. And so often I see these depictions of queer people and of trans people that don't feel like reality as I know it or life as I've ever experienced it. And for the queer people who read this book, I just wanted them to go, yeah, that's life, you know, that got it.

BLAIR HODGES: And there are other stories we didn't have time to cover here. The book is American Teenager: How Trans Kids are Surviving Hate and Finding Joy in a Turbulent Era. So folks that want to meet even more of these kids can check out the book.

 

Regrets, Challenges, & Surprises – 1:08:36

 

BLAIR HODGES: Nico, let's close with Regrets, Challenges, & Surprises. You can speak to any of these things. Anything you regret now that the book's coming out, something you'd want to change about it, but it's too late. Or what was most challenging about putting it together, or something that genuinely surprised you in the course of creating the book. You can speak to any of those.

NICO LANG: So regrets. I wish we put a trigger warning in or a content warning. I think we should have done that. I got talked out of it by my publisher, and I now regret that.

BLAIR HODGES: What would their justification be?

NICO LANG: I think they just thought people would already know. It was like an early discussion that I wanted to have one, and for some reason, I think someone was like, we don't think it's a good idea. And I went, okay. And I should have pushed back more on that. And I now, like, I don't know. It's my first book, and I didn't want to rock the boat too much.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

NICO LANG: But I wish. I wish I'd pushed on that one. There are so many things I had to push on later that I didn't know I would have to that later I was like I really should have used some of my chips for that. So I wish we'd done that.

I wish I'd had a Mormon story in here. That would have been really great. Just because, like, so many of these kids are dealing with incredible religious trauma. And also, there's often this story that you hear over and over again about kids being kicked out of their homes when they come out as queer. For a minute hat was the story about Mormon youth. But I also just know so many families who have been really cool and who have gone on a journey with their kids to love and support them. I've heard so many of those kinds of stories for queer kids or for gay boys, essentially. But I haven't heard as many for trans kids. And I think one of those would have been really valuable because I just think people need to hear it. Like, we need to hear a hopeful story, and we need to hear hopeful stories in spaces where we don't normally get them.

And then I would have loved—I wanted so many things—I wanted to go to Alaska. I thought going to Alaska would be great just because it's such a one-of-a-kind place. There's nowhere else like it in the world, and there's nowhere like it in the US.

I wanted to go to Ohio because that's where I'm from. So that would have been nice to have a part of the book that was part of my own journey. I would have loved Tennessee because Tennessee has amazing food, and they also have the most anti-LGBT laws in the country. So often, if you want to know what's really happening to trans kids and to queer kids, talk about Tennessee, because that's where they're getting the worst of the worst.

I love that I got to tell two AAPI stories. Because then it sort of doesn't tokenize people. It's not like, oh, you have to speak for an entire community. I would have loved a second story from an African American family. Because it was really great that that Micah was in the book.

And I loved getting to work with them on it because they're so cool. But again, I don't ever want a Black person who participates in something like this to feel tokenized, like, “oh, we told one story, so we just don't have to do more.”

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, I run into that on this podcast. The same kind of thing. I want to cover so many different things, but I also don't want to make any one person’s story supposed to symbolize everybody or to be representative of entire group. So I totally get that.

NICO LANG: Yeah. And so much of this book was about breaking down the idea that any trans person has to be a monolith, right? And I think by having two stories with African American families or biracial families—because, you know, that's what Micah's family is—I think it helps, speak to that. No family represents a community. They represent themselves. And yeah, I think at some point, I'm even exploring the idea of what would it look like to do a book like this, but with stories outside of the US, you know, like you go to Spain and you hang out with a Spanish family for, like, you know, two and a half weeks.

You go to Hanano, go to Australia and talk about what's going on there. I think it would be really cool to make it as international as possible, because part of the point of this book is that it touches every kind of family in the US right? That there is no one trans family. There is no one trans person. And that's true of kids around the world, too. There is no one kind of family that's touched by this. It's all kinds of families everywhere who are navigating this and trying to support their kids. So, you know, expanding representation as far as wide and wide as I can, I think that'd be cool to explore at some point.

Okay. Surprises. Honestly, it really surprised me how hard releasing a book is. Everybody tells you how hard writing the book is. No one tells you how hard it is to release it. It is so grueling. You are your own PR person for, like, 100 hours a week.

It is one of the hardest things you will ever do in your entire life is to release a book. So if there are aspiring authors listening to this and you do hope to write a book someday and put it out there, just remember, yeah, writing the book is really tough, but prepare yourself for actually releasing it, because it's maybe even harder. So that's been quite a shock to me.

BLAIR HODGES: Well, I'm glad you finished it and that you've got more stuff to do. Like you said, you have more stories you want to tell. I appreciate this book and congratulations on getting it out there. It's American Teenager: How Trans Kids Are Surviving Hate and Finding Joy in a Turbulent Era by Nico Lang. Nico, thanks for taking time to talk to us about it.

NICO LANG: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

 

Outro – 01:14:10

 

BLAIR HODGES: That's it for this episode. Thanks for listening to Relationscapes. And there's more to come soon. In fact, for Pride Month, I'm releasing three full episodes this month instead of the customary two episodes. So you got an extra episode coming your way this month.

And if this episode meant something to you, let me know. You can leave a rating, a review in Apple Podcasts or on Spotify, or you could pass the episode along to a friend. Word of mouth is the number one way that podcasts grow.

Mates of State provides our theme song. Relationscapes is part of the Dialogue Podcast Network. I'm journalist Blair Hodges in Salt Lake City, and I'll see you again very soon.