Episode 4: Gender Euphoria

As lawmakers consider more than 500 anti-trans bills nationwide, experts warn that these efforts will increase already-high rates of depression and suicidality for trans kids. But what happens when these kids are affirmed and supported in their transition? When their communities welcome them with open arms?

Hear the story of Oli Oski, who, when he was just seven years old, helped convince an LGBTQ resource center to start offering play groups for trans and queer kids under 13. Oli is 19 now, and already he’s left a legacy for the next generation of LGBTQ kids who face acute social and political persecution. Host Ashley C. Ford helps tell this story of self determination, legacy, and sanctuary.

Learn more about Outright Vermont here.

Read Episode 4 Full Transcript Below

ASHLEY [VO]: You’re listening to Into the Mix, a Ben & Jerry’s podcast about Joy and Justice, produced with Vox Creative. I’m Ashley C. Ford. A quick warning that this episode contains discussion of suicide.

[Fade up sounds of city life: jackhammer, cars, people walking]

ASHLEY [VO]: It’s a spring morning at Drexel University in Philadelphia, and the neighborhood is thrumming with jackhammers and construction.

We’re getting a tour from first year student Oliver Oski – who goes by Oli. He’s wearing a beanie and baggy jeans, with silver rings on all ten fingers, and he seems excited to be showing us his favorite spots on campus.

OLI: This is the squash center, US squash center. Our president, John Fry, loves squash so he put squash everywhere... I have no idea how to play squash [laughs]

OLI: there’s a park which overlooks, like, the train tracks and then the whole city skyline. That’s a fun place to sit.

[Oli’s voice fades, music comes up. Drums and jazzy horns with lofi crackle. Music fades under Ashley’s voice.]

ASHLEY: So tell us how your first semester has been?

OLI: Overall really good. I mean, half of my high school experience was interrupted by Covid, so I was really, really, really excited to come to college. I’m a global studies major. I was a minor in Arabic and I just switched out because I want to continue to learn the language. I was just really so stressed out being graded on it. So I just switched into being a Spanish minor. Um, I’m also a theater minor. But I love my, I love the stuff I’m studying right now.

ASHLEY [VO]: Oli is 19, out of the nest and still brand new to this adulthood thing.

OLI:  It’s definitely been a big transition just leaving home. I’m not that far, but I just don’t have that, like, driving force of my parents like, ‘Did you do your homework?’ I’m like, ‘Well, did I do my homework? I guess I gotta do my homework.’ [laughs]

ASHLEY [VO]: Oli says he can feel himself really coming into his manhood, which feels significant because Oli is transgender. So making male friends and building positive relationships with men his age feels precious.

ASHLEY: So tell me about living in the dorms, having a roommate for the first time. How’s that going?

OLI: My roommate is someone I knew from home. We coincidentally got paired together.

ASHLEY: Wow.

OLI: Which was a big relief for me because it’s definitely something I worried about going into living with another person who, like, I didn’t know. I didn’t know how, like, they felt about things, how they identified with certain topics.

ASHLEY [VO]: Oli’s not just talking about keeping shared spaces clean or negotiating quiet time. He’s had classmates use slurs and threaten violence.

So ahead of move-in, Oli was worried. What if his new roommate didn’t get it? What if it didn’t feel safe to come out, or take his hormones in their shared space? To be transgender means that there’s often an extra layer of caution as you move through the world, asking yourself questions like: ‘Is that a safe bathroom to use?’ ‘Can this person be trusted with my history?’ ‘Will I be welcome there?’

Fortunately for Oli, his new home has been a sanctuary.

OLI: He’s really great. We like don’t argue on anything. We’re very similar people. He accepts me for who I am, as the man I am, and I don’t have to prove anything to him. It’s really nice.

ASHLEY [VO]: Oli says he feels really lucky, for a lot of reasons. He’s lucky to have a great roommate and be able to go to college. Lucky to have loving, supportive parents. Lucky to still be here.

OLI: Reaching adulthood or like what is deemed as adulthood, the age of 18 is a really exciting thing, but also, like, really, really heavy.

Um, because it’s weird to be excited that you got to a point in your life that you never thought you would. It’s weird to feel like you celebrate something that a lot of people never even question reaching.

I mean… I’m here because I want to be, because of all the people that love me. And I want to be here because of my parents, and I want to be here because of my friends. But if I didn’t have that, if I didn’t have my friends, if I didn’t have my family, if I didn’t have a community, there would be like… I would have no reason to be here experiencing the things that I’ve experienced. It wouldn’t have been worth it.

ASHLEY [VO]: Trans people experience some of the highest rates of suicidality in this country. One 2020 study shows that as many as 82 percent of trans people have considered ending their life, and 40 percent have made attempts. The highest rates of suicidality are among transgender youth.

Add to that the fact that trans people are significantly more likely to face discrimination across every sector of public life – from housing to healthcare to employment and more – and the fact that trans adults are at least four times more likely to be victims of violent crimes.

[Music fades back up, the same jazzy horns and beat as before only quieter, more pensive.]

ASHLEY [VO]: Oli is entering adulthood as dozens of state legislatures are considering and codifying that violence and exclusion into law. In Arkansas, lawmakers tried to pass a bill that would make it a misdemeanor for sexual indecency to use a bathroom or changing room that didn’t align with your sex assigned at birth. In Texas, parents supporting their child’s gender identity are considered abusive, and must be reported to child protective services. In Alabama, doctors can be charged with felonies and face up to 10 years in prison for providing gender-affirming healthcare like hormone treatment and puberty blockers to youth.

While those lawmakers work to erase trans youth from public life, an estimated 300,000 trans kids are living life – or, trying to anyway. Learning how to ride a bike, taking dance classes, working weekend jobs, saving up for college.

Instead, many are in fear for their safety and wellbeing – from bullying, and from the law.

But what about what happens when trans kids are accepted, protected, and celebrated? When they’re allowed to be kids?

Oli’s is a story about self determination, legacy, and sanctuary. A story about the power of trusting children to be the experts of their own experiences.

Let’s get into it.

[Transition to theme music]

[sounds of Oli walking to class fade in and play out under narration.]

ASHLEY [VO]: Oli is from Burlington, Vermont, a city of about 45 thousand people and Ben & Jerry’s hometown. Small enough that it can still have that ‘everyone knows everyone’s business’ kinda feel. Especially for Oli.

OLI: My mom is very involved in the community, so a lot of people know her. So through that, a lot of people know me and have followed my journey as I’ve grown up and kind of figured out who I am. But like my whole life, I feel like with my transness and and queerness, I’ve always had to live with it right out there because either way, like people are gonna know or they’re gonna find out about it.

ASHLEY [VO]: So the anonymity he’s found in Philly is a gift. Oli is one of almost 3,000 first year students at Drexel, living in a city of 1.6 million people. No one here knows Oli’s history, except for a small handful of students from his hometown, including his roommate. So for the first time in his life, Oli gets to choose who gets to know that part of him.

OLI: The second I was seen as a cis man, it’s like all the guys I see on the street are my buddies. Like, we nod to each other, we say hi, we wave. It’s like this really weird thing that, like, once you’re seen as this, like, you’re in it.

[Sounds of Oli walking to class fade back up, he says hi to friends walking past.]

ASHLEY [VO]: For Oli, and for many trans people, there is safety in the ability to pass - to move through public spaces undetected. He feels it now, more than ever, because he knows what it’s like to grow up feeling like you’re under a microscope.

[Music starts, layered keys with an uneasy tone]

OLI: When I was around the age of like five and six, I started kind of figuring out that I, like, was not like everyone else. I didn’t feel the way everyone else did, I didn’t dress the way everyone else did as, like, a little girl. I was always wearing like, my skull printed pants and like my Boston Red Sox shirt and stuff like that. what you would call a “tomboy”.

ASHLEY [VO]: Home was always a safe haven, and his parents were supportive. But what Oli really craved was time with other kids – kids like him.

OLI: So around that age, I started really struggling and kind of feeling like I’ve never met anyone else that, like, looks the way I do or like, feels the way I feel.

[Music concludes.]

DANA: When you move through the world as “the only”, you are the only one that you know that is like you, it is life changing to just get to be a kid with other kids.

ASHLEY [VO]: Dana Kaplan is Executive Director of Outright Vermont, an organization that offers support groups, safe spaces, and advocacy for LGBTQ youth.

DANA: It can be really hard to navigate a world where you don’t see yourself included in curriculum, where you feel like you are the only one, where nobody understands you, um, or where you are targeted based on who you are because people really do understand you.

ASHLEY [VO]: Outright Vermont got started more than 30 years ago with Friday Night Groups, where queer teens would meet weekly to build community and spend time with positive adult role models. Today it’s expanded its mission: to transform public spaces to be more hospitable to LGBTQ youth.

DANA: We do a lot of education and training work in schools and with youth-facing professionals so that they can ask the questions that they have to better show up for all young people.

We are making sure that trans youth are included in extracurricular activities, specifically sports. Making sure that youth have access to gender affirming gear like binders, like gaffs, things that people need to be their authentic selves.

ASHLEY [VO]: Dana says it’s the little, everyday things that can gnaw away at you, things that can be hard for others to see.

DANA: You’re trying to just sit in your math class and the teacher is using the wrong name or the wrong pronoun. You have to go to the bathroom, but you have to go to the bathroom, you know, eight minutes away in a far off corner because that’s the only single-stall bathroom. And otherwise it’s not safe for you to use a bathroom because you have peers who are bullying you and tormenting you.

And we need to create spaces of celebration, of resilience, of joy, where young folks know that who they are is beautiful, and that we embrace them for exactly who they are to counter so much of the toxicity that they otherwise have to navigate on a daily basis.

ASHLEY [VO]: Oli learned about Outright when he was around 6 or 7 years old, back when Outright was only offering services to kids 13 and up. But he and his two close friends wanted in.

OLI: So we all got together and our parents got together and, and they started talking.

They’re like, ‘well, we also want a place to be supported.’ So they’re like, ‘well, why don’t we, why don’t we have a place for our kids to be supported and then a place for us to be supported as well’?

[Same pensive music from before fades back up, only this time joyful and reminiscent of gospel.]

ASHLEY [VO]: Dana was Outright’s director of education at the time.

DANA: I can picture in my, in my mind’s eye right now, those young people. Who said, ‘Hey, what about, what about us? We see this service that you’re providing for teens that are just a few years older than us, can we have something like this, too?’

ASHLEY [VO]: Over the past 10 years or so, kids have started coming out younger and younger. Back in the ‘80s, most LGBTQ people came out in their 20s, but these days more people are coming out at 16 and even younger. Lots of kids today are finding community and support where previously they might have only witnessed hostility towards LGBTQ people.

DANA: The first number of meetings that happened, happened in the living room of community members, and it was kind of word of mouth.

ASHLEY [VO]: The idea was simple: a weekly meet up for kids under 13 who needed a space to just be kids. Their parents could come, too. Like a playdate for other kids and families who understood.

OLI: And so people would go on a Sunday to everyone’s house and the kids would, like, go out and play games and just do really whatever they wanted.

DANA: And then simultaneously, to have a separate space for families, parents, caregivers to be able to talk with each other while their kids are hanging out and playing. Whether that’s Play-Doh or games of Hide-and-Go-Seek, where they could safely explore their identity, or talk about anything that wasn’t their identity.

OLI: And the parents would sit and be able to talk too, like. That’s a really, really great thing because I think my parents gained a lot, and I gained a lot out of my parents being able to talk to people that either had more or less experience, because they were getting helped by other people’s experiences.

It’s just like this, like, loop of community helping community.

ASHLEY [VO]: They called the group Gender Creative Kids.

[Joyful music concludes.]

OLI: And Outright just opened me up to the world. Like, to be able to have a space for you to go in and be like, ‘well, during this meeting today I’m going to, I want to use they/them pronouns and I want to use this name just to see how it feels,’ and like to be able to have a space where people are like, ‘yeah, okay, I will, switch up your pronouns right now. I’ll switch up your name right now. There’s no judgment. I totally accept that,’ is not, it’s not something you will get anywhere else.

ASHLEY [VO]: Spaces like Gender Creative Kids are part of a lifeline that helped Oli make it to his freshman year of college, to be the man that he is today.

DANA: You know, one of the most significant predictors of suicidality is an internal sense of belonging. So if I know that I have my people out there, even just one other person who gets me or who mirrors some of my experiences, I am going to have fuel to face the world in a different way than if I didn’t have that.

So we are creating opportunities that in other circumstances wouldn’t really be a big deal, but for young people who are robbed of those experiences, they’re life changing.

[Music fades in, with old school hip hop disc scratches and affected flute melody.]

It’s a beautiful story to think about the folks that first started Gender Creative Kids and the ways that they have grown up and ultimately left this legacy for the next generation, and the generation after that.

ASHLEY [VO]: When we come back, we’ll tell the story of a new generation of Gender Creative Kids.

[Music transitions to midroll break]

SYBASTIAN [VO]: Hi, my name is Sybastian, my pronouns are he/him, and I’m the organizing director at the National Center for Transgender Equality.

We are in a moment of critical importance for the rights and protections of transgender people in the U.S. Currently 45 out of 50 states are actively considering legislation that would specifically target transgender youth – bills that would restrict access to healthcare and equal protections, and even punish parents and healthcare providers who seek to provide transition related health care to their children. This is an unprecedented effort to legislate trans people out of existence, and it targets one of the most vulnerable groups in our community – our kids.

But you have the power to help. Our State Action Center has a range of tools to help you stay up to date on anti-trans legislation, as well as resources to help you take action, such as contacting your representatives and testifying at your state legislature.

And don’t underestimate the power of your personal connections. Talk to family members, colleagues, and friends, and advocate for the rights of trans people at work and at school.

NCTE envisions a society in which transgender people not only survive, but thrive, and for this vision to become a reality, we need your help. Go to ‘trans equality dot org’ to learn more.

[Music fades back in, low keys and murky beat. The tone is thoughtful and wistful.]

VERA: Pearl is just deeply curious and just like super, like, mischievous in a good natured way. But you know, just like, finding the boundary and then tap dancing on it a little bit.

ASHLEY [VO]: This is Vera; she asked us only to use her first name.

VERA: I am the mom of two kids. My husband and I grew up in the Houston area. We met in high school, at Cy-Fair High School. Bobcat fight never dies. Our oldest is Otto, he’s 12. Uh, our youngest is Pearl, they’re nine. And my kids are at least, like, at the very least fifth generation Texans, but maybe further back?

ASHLEY [VO]: The first thing Vera will tell you is that despite what you might think, Texas was everything her family needed it to be - accepting, supportive, and affirming of her child, Pearl.

[Music fades out]

VERA: We came to understand around age four that Pearl was on, like, not the assigned gender journey that we had expected. Immediately we assumed that they were still on the binary, they were just trans. And then we’ve come to understand probably in the last year, maybe year and a half, that they’re, not on the binary.

We were living in Austin, Texas. Really well supported by our community, school, neighborhood workplaces, family.

We thought we’d be there forever, honestly.

When we came to understand that we had a trans child in our house, we thought, “Well, you know, good thing they’re here.” Like, “good thing there in our family. Good thing we are in Austin. You know, like what a lucky child.”

But we did acknowledge like probably by the time they’re, you know, college age, like Pearl might wanna, you know, leave Texas.

A few years later, things got a lot more intense, things got a lot more heavy.

[Sounds of newsclip fades up]

ANCHOR: It is the latest fight over transgender rights, and once again the epicenter is Texas. Governor Greg Abbott and State Attorney Ken Paxton have directed state agencies to conduct investigations of families when they provide gender affirming medical care for transgender children.”

[Newsclip fades out]

ASHLEY [VO]: Vera and her husband had already been making plans to exit Texas when, in early 2022, Governor Greg Abbott released a directive that made the move even more urgent.

VERA: It was just a new interpretation of existing law. That under the current definition of child abuse in Texas, where everybody’s a mandated reporter and everybody must report abuse immediately if they see it, gender affirming care meets the definition of being abusive.

ASHLEY [VO]: Legal experts in Texas were quick to point out that the guidance is not actually legally binding since there is currently no law that categorizes gender affirming medical care as child abuse. What this guidance does is strongly recommend that Texas Child Protective Services expand their definition of abuse to include gender affirming medical care.

But in some ways that makes the process even murkier, because whether or not your family is investigated could come down to which county you live in, or whether or not you have a sympathetic judge. It put a target on the backs of every trans kid and families that supported them.

VERA: You know, things will get better in Texas, like Texas will be unrecognizable in 20, 30, 40 years. Like, I swear it’s gonna happen. But it’s not gonna get any better between now and my child starting puberty, between now and my child reaching adulthood, between now and my child starting their own family.

In the short term, it’s gonna get… it’s gonna get a lot worse before it gets better.

ASHLEY [VO]: Vera and the family knew they were moving to Vermont – it checked all the boxes for what they were looking for in a safe place to live. So she wanted to find a group like the one they had left back home in Texas.

VERA: So I just Googled, like, ‘transgender youth, Vermont’ and Outright is what came up. And they had these great Zoom meetings and I just thought, “oh, I’ll just join one and I’ll just introduce myself.” I just wanna like, see some faces and, and say hello. And everybody was just so, so welcoming and so, so kind. These, these are our people now, you know?

I mean, it’s the people at Outright that, like, helped me find a realtor, it was people at Outright that, like, told us what county we should look at and what schools have been really, like, affirming for their own children.

A weird part of my story that doesn’t really tie into this at all, but we actually lived out of our camper for 86 days [laughs] because we left our house thinking that it would sell like overnight and that’s just, like, not how it went down at all. And one of the families we connected with, we just camped in their yard for a month. Like, we just, like, lived in their driveway. [laughs] You know, they’re just like our family.

There’s also like a Gender Creative Kids group and so once we got here, we were able to start getting the kids together with other kids and go on little outings to like the Audubon Center and do nature walks and stuff. I think we’re fixing it to see how they make maple syrup. They’re like tapping the maple trees, so we’re gonna go check that out this month.

It’s been such a good resource for us.

[Music starts, a wistful and distant trumpet plays behind a heavy upright bass.]

ASHLEY [VO]: Outright had become a port in the storm for Vera and her family, just like it had been for Oli and his family.

OLI: It’s meant to be a place where queer youth can congregate and talk through their problems, talk with people of their own age, talk with people who are older than them, like, that have also gone through it. Like, just a place for us to feel safe, welcomed, supported, and like, honestly needed.

Because everyone that steps into that space is contributing to making it better and contributing to like how long it’s gonna be there, and how many more people it’s gonna help.

[Music concludes]

ASHLEY [VO]: Vermont is not a utopia though. Nowhere is. And while Oli and Vera and their families have found refuge in places like Outright, the fact remains that we are in a moment of unprecedented legislative efforts to undermine transgender people - and that impacts trans people everywhere.

DANA: I think a lot of people do turn to Vermont to see how we are tackling various social issues, but it has the danger of potentially invisibilizing the places where young people are really shouldering a massive burden.

And when there’s an instance of harm that happens to a peer of yours, whether they’re in your school district or across the country or in another part of the state, there is a massive impact. Like, ‘I see that this is happening to somebody else. What does this mean for my safety? What does this mean for me?’

ASHLEY [VO]: Vera knows it, too. She’s grateful to be in Vermont where protections for her child are codified into law. But these attacks don’t end at state lines.

It’s hard to know how many families there are like Vera’s; there aren’t concrete data on how many lives have been uprooted because of this spate of anti-trans legislation, not to mention the kids who can’t relocate, and who don’t have parents like Oli’s and Pearl’s, creating safe havens for them.

There are 300,000 trans kids in this country, and each deserves love and protection and care. Not fear for safety and dangerous policies. All 50 states need to be a haven for them.

[Fade in sounds of Oli studying, writing with a pencil and flipping pages.]

OLI: I wish the general public, like, just viewed trans kids as regular kids.

I’m the same as you. Just because I look different, just because my body’s different than you, I’m still a human and I still, like, live on this earth and contribute like you do.

[sounds of Oli studying continue and then fade out]

ASHLEY [VO]: Governor Abbott’s guidance and other legislation that targets trans kids claim to be efforts to protect children from making decisions they’ll regret. Underlying is the assumption that kids don’t know who they are yet, and to support their transition is to lead them down a path they’ll regret.

[Music comes in, hopeful and defiant, swirling strings around a determined beat and bassline]

ASHLEY [VO]: But that’s not what the data says. A 2022 study shows that about 94% of kids surveyed still identified as transgender 5 years after they came out. Another 2022 study showed a sharp decrease in rates of depression and suicidality in youth who were given gender-affirming medical care.

In contrast to gender dysphoria – which is a persistent feeling of uneasiness and discomfort that motivates transition – trans people are often striving for a feeling of gender euphoria. I’ll let Oli explain:

[Fade in sounds of Oli walking. He’s recorded this last thought on his phone, so the audio quality is diminished. Still, you can hear birds chirping around him.]

OLI [radio diary]: The feeling of gender euphoria is feeling like yourself.

To feel fully and wholly yourself. And when it comes to a memory of gender euphoria, I mean, it’s easy to say like, when I got top surgery and when I was able to look at my chest and see a chest that I’ve always wanted and felt like I should have. But I think that maybe one that seems smaller, but I think meant more to me was the first time I was able to ask my dad to teach me how to shave.

I mean, that’s, that’s an experience. That’s like every father/son has, because, you know, it’s like my grandfather taught my dad how to shave and, and my great-grandfather taught my grandfather how to shave.

And I don’t know, I think it was just like a really, meaningful step and building block in feeling like I was developing this father-son relationship with my dad that I had wanted for a really long time.

ASHLEY [VO]: And here’s Dana from Outright.

DANA: We live in a society with the idea that adults know better than youth know, and it’s just not true. They are the experts of their lives, and it’s our, it’s our role to step back and to take their lead and to help create connections to people and resources and policies, based on what they know they need.

[Oli fades back in, again from his phone recording.]

OLI [radio diary]: Being a man, it’s just how I see myself and I think that people deserve the chance to be able to be like, “This makes me feel good because this is how I’ve always wanted to feel and be seen.”

[Music concludes and fades to credits]

ASHLEY [VO]: Into the Mix is a Ben & Jerry’s Podcast produced by Vox Creative.

This episode was written by Bethany Denton.

Special thank you to our guests, Oli Oski, Dana Kaplan from Outright Vermont, and Vera.

Archival footage came from PBS Newshour.

To learn more about how to join the fight to protect trans rights for Oli, Pearl, and other kids like them, visit the National Center for Transgender Equality’s State Action Center. There you’ll find resources about how to contact your representatives and join collective action to protect the rights of trans people. Go to ‘trans equality dot org” and find the tab that says “Take Action”.

The Vox Creative team includes Executive Producer Annu Subramanian, Lead Producers Bethany Denton and Martha D. Salley, Production Manager Taylor Henry, and Production Coordinator and Associate Producer Jessica Bae.

The team also includes ArianaJiffo, senior manager of creative services, Design Director Brittany Falussy, and post-production stars Greg Russ and Andrew Hammond.

Kyle Neal engineered this episode with original music by Israel Tutson.

Thanks to AJ Gutierrez, Steven DeVall and Kelly Stewart for their production support, as well as Josephine Jaye McAuliffe.

The Ben & Jerry’s team includes Jay Tandon, Jay Curley, Sanjana Mahesh and Chris Miller.

I’m Ashley C Ford. Thank you for listening.