00:00We often in the beginning would just answer yes to like the question,
00:04are you a girl or a boy? And then just leave it. And then people get to sit with,
00:08wait, what? Because we wouldn't actually give an answer.
00:21Good morning, Dewey. Good morning.
00:26We always wanted to have kids. Well, I think it was an argument for a little while about who would
00:31carry first because we both wanted to do it, but I am older and so I won.
00:41As queer people, it was really difficult to get pregnant and it was like a really big struggle
00:46at every level. And it wasn't something necessarily that we heard a lot of people talking about.
00:51It was so expensive and we were tapped out. So the baby came right in time to be broke with
00:57us.
01:10I'm non-binary and he's trans. And I think what we ultimately decided on was just,
01:17we want this kid's feelings about gender to come from this person and not to come from us
01:23or from grandparents or from schools or from wherever.
01:27Can I use a fork?
01:29Okay, hold it.
01:31I think some of the questions that come up often are like, why not just raise
01:36to like the sex that matches with like their genitals or whatnot? And then, you know,
01:41if they decide that their gender is something else, go with that. But I think that still sets
01:47sets this kid up for certain expectations that would come from outside of themselves. So if I'm
01:54raising you to be a girl, like you're going to feel some kind of expectation to be a girl.
02:02This person's gender or gender identity or expression has like zero to do with anybody else. So we never
02:10said that, you know, everybody else has to adhere to our rules or lack of rules about gender. We never
02:17said that, you know, somebody else has to change their pronouns. It was just this person. And really,
02:22it's just listening to this person. 2018 was when California actually started allowing people to
02:31get X's on their driver's license as a way to identify so you can either get M, F or X.
02:40And so
02:41we had a conversation with our doctor and was able to get it approved to have just a blank space.
02:47So
02:48nothing on his birth certificate. I don't think either of us put a lot of thought into the social
02:55security number. I kind of just assumed that they would have to do something differently since we had
03:00a birth certificate for this kid with no gender assignment. But that wasn't the case. I think they
03:06just like sized up our like six month old baby and then decided, yeah, then decided for us, which was,
03:15what it was, but they came back and said, you know, your baby is a boy and handed his paperwork
03:25back.
03:26And we were like, wait, what? They gave us all of our information that we had back. And then he
03:30said
03:30that our social security card would be in the mail and closed the window. And that was kind of the
03:36end
03:36of that conversation. Um, yeah, there was no, there was no follow up or explanation around how they came
03:44to the conclusion that they came to. We weren't able to file taxes unless this kid had a social
03:50security number and we needed the money. So we had to, we had to do it. So we did.
04:05Both Jay and I know that it's not fun to have documents that don't match. I've gone through it
04:12with, um, I had my name change and I was able to get my license changed. Idaho residents can now
04:21go
04:21gender neutral on their driver's licenses. This legislation is very clear. It says you can
04:27identify yourself as a male, female, or with an X on a New York City birth certificate. Well,
04:33right now in Colorado, you have this third option right there to put on your driver's license.
04:47I definitely feel like I get the pushback of like, but this kid is not you. You know,
04:54I understand this is not me and that it's pretty likely that they'll be cis and not queer. But
05:05to deny that they could be is also kind of like denying my own existence. How can I say
05:11Zoo wouldn't be this if I grew up to be a certain way? And it would have just been easier
05:17for me if I
05:18knew about these different identities and was able to learn about them and see where I fit into them.
05:26It's definitely something that we try to, I guess, model in a way.
05:30Come on a little bit, let's go. And so when we're out, you know, right now this kid is obsessed
05:36with
05:36buses. If we're talking about the bus driver, like we're not going to say he or she will say that
05:41person. And it's just a way to show Zoo, like, we don't want to assume anybody else's gender the way
05:48we wouldn't want anybody to assume yours. So I think it's just those kind of small things for now until
05:56Zoo has the capacity to have a bigger conversation. And at that point, we're hoping that these smaller
06:03things have added up enough that it'll be a little bit easier to have those conversations.
06:09I do want this baby to know also that there are people in the world that don't agree with what
06:14we're doing. And so you're going to encounter those people. And so we practice saying things and I don't
06:22pull my punches when people come and are combative with us in the street because the baby's there.
06:28I want this person to know that it's okay to stick up for yourself and it's okay to not have
06:33people step on you.
06:38It's something that I think is important enough that Miguel and I are willing to to fight for it
06:44for this baby. And if it means we gotta take on more than makes sense, then we will because it
06:50doesn't
06:51feel right to me that we would be forced into a space where we would have to do something that
06:55we
06:55don't believe in and push that on our kid. I don't do that with me and so I don't think
07:00it's appropriate
07:01to do it with the baby either. It feels like the best choice because it's the best reminder for me
07:07that this is Zoo's life and you know even though we were the ones that did all these things and
07:17spent all this money to bring this kid into this world, this is still now Zoo's life. Folks feel like
07:23this is very new and very different the way that we're parenting and I think I'd just like to remind
07:32folks that it's really not like we're still just overwhelmingly regular parents and we're still
07:39trying to make sure this kid stays alive and find food that they'll actually eat and our house is a
07:46mess and we've got piles of laundry and so much of this is just regular parenting and we've just added
07:54this one other thing that quite honestly doesn't come up all that often.
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