Ep. 2 - Organic social support and surviving the Texas Capitol with Meghan Fairbanks

#2: This episode’s guest is Meghan Fairbanks! Meghan (she/her) is a long-time Houstonian currently living in Montrose and working as an IT professional.

As a late-blooming transgender woman, Meghan discovered a passion for advocacy and activism in response to the anti-LGBTQ+ legislation being put forth by the 87th Texas Legislature in 2021. She continues to make her voice heard, regularly advocating for LGBTQ+ rights and other social justice causes.

In 2022 Meghan founded Trans & GenderQueer Houston to provide transgender and gender non-conforming folks a place to socialize and network outside of the traditional support group environment. She is also currently a board member of the Transgender Foundation of America and maintains memberships with the LGBTQ+ Caucus and the ACLU. Additionally, she is a graduate of Equality Texas’s Equality Leaders program.

Meghan received the Horizon Award from the Houston Transgender Unity Committee in 2022, the Monica Roberts Transgender Activist of the Year award from Equality Texas in 2023, and was named Most Valuable Female Trans Community Volunteer by OutSmart Magazine in 2023.

You can find Meghan at @megrises on Instagram.

Links/resources in the episode:
Trans and GenderQueer Houston
TGQ Social
Equality Texas
Texas Freedom Network (TFN)
Transgender Education Network of Texas (TENT)
Texas House Bill 1686 - 3014 total Texas citizens “dropped cards” to register their position that day. 2917 (96.78%) opposed the adolescent gender-affirming healthcare ban, and 97 supported it.
Texas Senate Bill 14

Everyday Trans Activism is a production of Parents of Trans Youth, a social impact business providing learning, support, and community to parents and caregivers of transgender, nonbinary, and gender-diverse kids.

Host Mandy Giles (she/her) is the Texas parent of two transgender young adults and a fierce advocate for trans kids, their families, and the transgender community.

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

Content warning: descriptions of die-in demonstration, transphobia, police brutality

Mandy: [00:00:00] Welcome to Everyday Trans Activism, the podcast spotlighting everyday people working for transgender rights and equality, so you can be inspired to take action. This podcast is brought to you by Parents of Trans Youth. Go to parentsoftransyouth.com for more information. And now onto the show.

Hey y'all, and welcome to Everyday Trans Activism. I am your host, Mandy Giles, and my pronouns are she/her. I'm the parent of two transgender young adults and the founder of Parents of Trans Youth. So I am super excited to talk with today's guest, Meghan Fairbanks. Meghan is an all-around, badass activist. We met during the 2021 Texas legislative session, and our paths just kind of kept crossing. And so we decided to get together and get to know each other. And so today I can [00:01:00] say that Meghan is a very good friend of mine. So Meghan, thank you so much for being here, and I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me.

Meghan: Of course. Meghan Fairbanks. My pronouns are she/her and yeah glad to be here. I mean, you talked me up really nice there and it's like, okay,

Mandy: Well, go ahead and introduce yourself, however you would like to.

Meghan: So I guess I would say I am a 52-year-old transgender woman. I started my transition about 5 years ago at the age of 47.

I never envisioned that I would be any kind of activist or anything when I started doing this and I just kind of fell into it. Just as an aside, I have a day job. I work in IT. Doing this stuff is purely just kind of a passion project on the side because I like, you know, helping the community and helping us [00:02:00] thrive and grow and one of the things I've said before is one of my main motivating factors is I want things to be easier for the folks that come behind me. And I also, a couple years ago, founded an organization called Trans and Gender Queer Houston. We are primarily a social group, just providing a social space for people in the trans community to get together, network, get to know each other, talk about what's on their minds. I don't necessarily call it a support group, but there is some peer support stuff that goes on at these, at these events. And TGQH has, has been really helpful to some folks in just getting feedback from people saying, you know, Thank you for doing this. And, or some of the ones that have really blown me away are things like This is the first time I've ever come out in public as myself or first time I've ever met another trans person.

Those things just mean the world to me and I'm just, I'm really grateful to be able to provide this [00:03:00] space and those are the kinds of things that just makes me want to work harder to make the space even better, so.

Mandy: It's an amazing group. I've been a few times I can't wait to go to more and it always blows me away how many people come to, to those events, what like for the last event, how about how many people came?

Meghan: The past few months we've been right around 50, 55 people or so.

Mandy: That is absolutely incredible.

Meghan: Yeah.

Mandy: So what gave you the idea to start a, a social group?

Meghan: So it was kind of a perfect storm. I had been aware of a similar group in Austin called the TGQ Social. I hadn't actually been to one of theirs, but I kind of wanted, I kind of got a vibe, like I followed them on Facebook and got a vibe for kind of what they did. And it's like, you know, I kind of really wish we had something like that here.

And then Covid happened. [00:04:00] And we'd gotten to a point where Covid was winding down, people were starting to go back go out in public again. And I saw that that group in Austin had started up again. I saw some stuff on Facebook where people in the Houston area were saying, you know, hey, is anybody doing anything in person?

Plus my own just desire to have a group like that. So I'm just like, yeah, I'll just start one. Before like really kicking things off I did travel to Austin and went to one of the socials up there to see what it was like and I talked to one of the organizers of that group. And she actually encouraged me to take the TGQ name, so I kind of took it, made it my own.

And yeah, that's, yeah, we had about 20 people at the first one, and we just kept going from [00:05:00] there.

Mandy: That is amazing. Yeah, obviously there is a real need for that social space. And I think you've, you've talked about this before that it's a different kind of need than say a support space or something that involves action or advocacy or whatever. Can you tell me the difference of those? Why that, that especially is needed?

Meghan: Yeah, so, I mean, like, I've been to my share of support groups. You know, speaking from my own experience like a lot of times when you go to these support groups, like any support group, you know, after it's over, you get a number of people in the group that are like, hey, let's go out and get something to eat afterwards.

And, and, you know, you're sitting around at whatever place, just kind of shooting the bull. And it's like, it doesn't feel so structured. It doesn't feel so like formal or rigid for lack of a better word.

Mandy: More organic.

Meghan: And yeah, more organic, more laid back, you know, we're not like, oh, let's, let's all follow a topic.

And don't get me wrong, support groups are wonderful [00:06:00] things. I may not be where, I may not be where I'm at right now if it had not been for support groups, but I had really started finding that going to them, that I enjoyed that after, after group interaction. When we went out to eat or whatever than I did the actual support group. And so that's kind of part of the vibe I envisioned for TGQH.

Mandy: Awesome. That is great. Well, I wanted to hear about some of the other stuff that you do. And it's hard for me to remember that you actually have a day job because you do so much. You're always - we both live in Houston. You're always in Austin and in other cities. Tell me some of the things that you've been involved in, I know that you're super involved at the state and local levels and where do you see, I guess, where you can make the most difference against you know, anti trans[00:07:00] laws and policies and all that. Is there something that, that you're drawn to specifically or especially.

Meghan: I kind of have felt that my niche has been in the state level politics and I can't really give you a good reason why other than I just kind of fell into it and it felt right, for lack of a better word. I don't know. I, you know, I had gone a little bit on the tail end of the 88th session. I'm sorry 87th session. And that was where I guess. Yeah, yeah.

Meghan: I don't know it just it felt empowering to, to go to some of that stuff even if it was just showing up at a protest or, or whatever. And then when the most recent legislative session started the 88th and this summer, I had found the Equality Leaders Program that Equality Texas does and started doing that. And I even did another couple of trainings with a couple of other [00:08:00] organizations like TENT and TFN and it's like, this is It's fascinating and it helped me, like, I remember seeing emails from Equality Texas like even a couple, three years ago.

It's like, you know, we need volunteers. We need people that can go visit legislators’ offices and make phone calls and stuff. And I'm like, you want me to do what now? You want to talk to these people? Are you crazy? But, like, going through those trainings really helped get past a lot of that. And I have to give credit to, honestly, the state representative Jon Rosenthal. He has been a good friend of mine, and he invited me out to go to opening day of the state legislature back, I think it was in March. I didn't know what that was even. And for anybody who doesn't know, opening day of the legislature is like a big open house. It's kind of like when you go to an open house at the school and you get to meet all the teachers and all [00:09:00] that stuff. And everybody in those, it really, oh my god, just going and visiting people on opening day, it was like, okay, these are real people and I can talk to them and I can do this and it's not that bad.

Because everybody's welcoming, even the politicians who don't necessarily support trans folks, you know, their offices are open and you can go talk to them, and it's not that big of a deal, especially on opening day, because nobody really has an agenda on that day, at least not per se, and it really broke the ice for me doing that.

So, piece of advice, anybody who's interested in state level activism, when the next legislation, legislative session comes up, go to opening day. I highly recommend it. So yeah, and then, you know, I started showing up at events that, you know, like we had the All In for Equality Day, or TENT had their Advocacy Day, and going with big groups like that is just, it's very empowering.

And then, it just made it so much easier [00:10:00] to show up for the other events that weren't quite so organized, you know, the, the ones where you get the email saying, Hey, they're gonna be debating SB14 on the floor tomorrow, we need people to show up. It's like, okay, let's go, you know.

I'll throw as many people in my car as I can, you know, or 1686 when that one came up, just that was intense too.

Mandy: Do you want to say anything about those two? We're both kind of sort of talking around it. Those were two pretty intense days. The, the, I guess it was the first floor debate of SB14 and then the, the hearing, the committee hearing for HB1686.

Meghan: Okay, let's back up. HB 1686 and SB 14 were companion bills. If I remember correctly, they were both identical. HB 1686 went to hearing first. That was the day. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry. Both of those bills were the purpose was to remove, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna state it [00:11:00] from my blunt opinion.

They were to strip away life-saving health care from transgender youth and strip away a family's right to make medical decisions for their child. 1686 came up first, it went to hearing the committee that started way early in the morning. I think about 8 o'clock or so. I was one of the folks that was there very early.

We actually drove up the day before and spent the night and I registered to testify at 7:30 in the morning. Which registration for testimony started at 7. I registered about 7:30. Testimony went on all day, up until midnight. They went through, I forget the phrase they used, something like preferred testifiers or something like that.

And they, they alternated back and forth to try, you know, for people that were pro, [00:12:00] people that were con. To try and make it look balanced, but one of the other things you can do in the Capitol, as you know, is drop a card. Dropping a card is basically you go and you fill out a thing, and you have to do this on the Capitol property.

And, registers your position. Now you can, in addition to your position, you can also register to testify, but if you want to just drop a card to register your position, you can do that too. There were, oh man, I forget the numbers.

It was well over a thousand. I want to say it might have even been close to two thousand, or over two thousand, I forget.

Meghan: It was, it was ridiculously lopsided though, the people that were against that bill. And less than a hundred signed up to oppose it.

Mandy: In favor of it. That less than a hundred

Meghan: bad. My bad. I'm sorry. Less than 100 in favor of passing that bill and the vast majority supporting or opposing. Good Lord.

Mandy: It's a hard, yeah. Fewer [00:13:00] people wanted to take away that health care than people who wanted to keep that health care legal for, for kids. Okay.

Meghan: And just seeing the number of people that showed up in person in the building to support us that day was just so overwhelming. And testimony went up until midnight. I did not get called and I was ready to go and I was, I was quite irritated that I did not get called. If I remember correctly, they, the reason they cut off testimony at midnight was quote unquote for the mental health of the hearing committee members.

Mandy: Oh, I'm so sorry that that they were, yeah, uncomfortable.

Meghan: Yeah, yeah. I had gone down to the hearing room and was sitting in there for about the last half hour on the off chance that I got called. And when they cut that meeting off, I walked out of that room into that die-in. Just all these people laying on the [00:14:00] floor, chanting, Click lies, kids die, over and over. Click being

Mandy: the chairwoman of the

Meghan: Of the health committee. And it was intense. That was literally the most intense thing that I had ever witnessed or been a part of as an activist or advocate, at least up until SB 14 came up, but

Mandy: Yeah. Yeah.

Meghan: Yeah, it was, it was just, it was crazy. I have so many emotions from that day. And like, I've gone back and watched video of that again, and it just stirs up all those emotions again. And even though it was somewhat traumatizing, it's like, I don't ever want to forget this. Because we had so many people there to, to support us. So many people there that were opposed to this BS legislation.

And, and just, it was, I don't know. The feeling is just really indescribable. [00:15:00] Mm

Mandy: It is hard to put into words. I remember being in the meeting the, the secret meeting where some of the organizers were talking about what was going to happen and it, it was, oh, well, I was about to say deadly serious. And people had to know what they were getting into - that there was a risk of being arrested.

Meghan: hmm.

Mandy: And to see all those people in this active demonstration laying on the ground to signify the kids that would have their lives in danger if this bill passed. And that they were willing to risk that there was a lot of, yeah, that it's that two, the pulling of the two feelings of this is horrible and I can't believe we're here and I can't believe this is happening and: look at this community, look at all these people who are chanting and we had to be escorted out by[00:16:00] the DPS, not DFPS. That's a whole different thing. Officers are like, we're closing the building now. Please go home. We would like to leave. Yeah, yeah, that was pretty intense.

Meghan: So somewhere after that die in, All the folks had marched down to the outdoor rotunda, and I had my trans flag with me. And I had kind of gone into the rotunda and was kind of trying to hold it up or whatever. I was like, okay, there's way too many people in here. I have video of this.

It's kind of intense. I decided, you know what, I'm going to go, I had my friend Emily with me, and I'm going to go up to the upper level of the rotunda and just drop the trans flag over the edge. Not like drop, you know, fly it over the edge.

When I did that, the crowd just went nuts. it was just like, oh my god, I can't believe this. This is just amazing. Yeah.

Mandy: Just the, the, the unity and the [00:17:00] solidarity

Meghan: Yeah. Yeah.

Mandy: Oh yeah. That was one of the tough days. Do you want to say anything about the other most horrible day? Okay. Okay. Let's get into it.

Meghan: So this is where my knowledge of the legislative process gets a little fuzzy, but essentially they directed their energy away from HB 1686 and towards SB 14, SB 14 being the identical companion bill. SB 14 had already made its way through the Senate and had been passed to the House on one of the days when it went to the floor for reading, The Equality Coalition had asked for people to show up.

We showed up. The opposition, whose names I don't, I don't know the name of that group and it doesn't really matter, but they were there too. They showed up wearing their red shirts and everything. That was also the day that we did the banner.

I had helped participate in making that [00:18:00] banner the night before. That was another day that we had, we drove up like the night before and spent the night. I think we had spent two days there that, I don't know, it doesn't matter. But we were there, we were, yeah, no, we were there the night before. And we helped make that banner.

And, I say we, I'm not going to name names. And I hadn't even planned to be part of the, the, the lowering of the banner. I was going to go up there and put my trans flag over the edge on the other side. But then I saw somebody else is already doing that. And I was like, Oh, I'm going to walk around over and see, you know, if they need help with the banner.

So, boom, we dropped the banner.

Mandy: Enormous. It was, it was giant. Yeah.

Meghan: Huge. And then not even a few minutes later, we have a DPS trooper coming up going, you know, y'all need to pull that banner up or whatever. And then, I was closest to him. He skips right over me, ignores everybody else, and looks straight at Sofia from Equality Texas, like, is that your banner?

And, [00:19:00] yeah, it just turned into, you know, they're kicking her out, they're gonna ban her from the, the property for a year. Somebody told me to go get Brad.

Mandy: Another Equality Texas employee,

Meghan: and then later in that day, the floor debate took place and I was in the gallery. The point of order had been called. And for those that don't know, point of order is where they basically debate the bill on for parliamentarian reasons, like strictly like on procedure stuff. And you can get the bill kicked doing that.

But while they were in the midst of determining that, anytime there's a point of order call, you're just sitting there sitting on your hands waiting because there's, that's all you can do. And somebody in the room in the gallery upstairs started chanting I'm not sure what the chant was, it doesn't matter, but they started a chant, [00:20:00] and somebody, I didn't see this at the time, I've only seen it after the fact because of where I was sitting, somebody had dropped a banner over the edge of the railing in the gallery, which, that, yeah, that's

Mandy: yeah, not, not allowed. And again, for those who don't know, that neither of those things are allowed. You're supposed to be, if you're sitting in the gallery, you're supposed to be quiet, not waving anything that remotely looks like a flag. Like somebody said they had a handkerchief taken off of their bag or, you know, just silly things.

Meghan: Yeah, you can't have a little tiny flag sticking out of your pocket or anything. I think, I think you can get away with this, but you know, but

Mandy: Your pin. Yeah.

Meghan: So the crowd started getting noisy and I remember hearing speaker of the house banging the gavel and asking them to have the gallery cleared. And. At some point, I did see a bit of a commotion off from where we were.

And then I believe it was about that time, outside, right outside of the [00:21:00] gallery was when Adri Perez from TFN got arrested, and when I heard about that, I was just like, what the F?

Mandy: Yeah, because Adri is one of the most gentle,

Meghan: Adri is a shining light and as many, no seriously, as many times as I went to that freaking Capitol, Adri was one of the people that I absolutely look forward to seeing there because Adri always had a smile on their face, always. willing to help, willing to, to do so much for the community. And we lost Adri that day, like not, you know, and I blame DPS for that. [NOTE: “lost” means that our friend Adri moved to California] Cause I think he was unfairly, I'm sorry. They. Adri uses they/them pronouns. I think Adri was unfairly targeted that day. And I think Sofia was too. I've seen the video of what happened to Adri, and then, for the rest of us that were in the gallery, we started moving out into the main rotunda, and [00:22:00] people were starting to chant like trans rights, or, no, no, no, we're here, we're queer, we're not going anywhere, the reason I'm specifying that one is because I kind of got caught up in the moment of that.

I was there, somebody else had come up I had my trans flag with me. Somebody else had come up and asked if they could hold the other side of it. And I was like, sure, and I started getting caught up in that moment. You know, we're queer, we're here, we're not going anywhere. And, I saw one of those folks with the red shirt.

It's actually a little clump of them, not too far from me. And I just kind of was caught up in the moment and I started not like I don't know how to describe it, but I was inching kind of towards them, kind of, I wanted to give them the vibe of, look, we're not going anywhere, you know?

And I didn't want to up in their face or anything, but you know, I was, I was getting closer and the one person turned around and just started screaming at me, you know, get out of my face or get away from me. I don't, I forget exactly what it was. [00:23:00] And the person that had been holding the other end of my flag reached over and put their hand on me and kind of pulled me back to calm me down.

I had somebody come out of the crowd, come up to me and be like, Hey, I'm a therapist. Are you okay? And I just said, No, I'm not. Because I wasn't.

Mandy: yeah.

Meghan: And she pulled me aside, and we did some breathing exercises, and at some point, Brad, Brad Pritchett, from Equality Texas, just happened to be passing by or something, I don't know, And looked at me, he's like, hey, are you okay? And I was, by then I was better. I was like, yeah, I am. And by the way, the person whose face I was quote unquote getting into Turned out to be Kevin Whitt, who is a - I didn't know who he was at the time - but anti-trans activist, one of the detransitioners, who called me out and said some things on Twitter that were just blatantly untrue.

I may have spit on him, I don't know, but I sure as hell didn't assault him.

Mandy: [00:24:00] Maybe not spitting intentionally.

Meghan: not like spitting spitting, but you know, like when you're yelling and screaming and, you know, stuff comes flying out. That may have happened. I will,

Mandy: happy accident.

Meghan: You know what, Kevin? If I did that to you, I apologize. I didn't mean to spit on you. Now I will gladly come back and spit on you on purpose now that I know who you are, but

Mandy: Oh, that guy's

Meghan: I don't know if I should have just said that. Anyway. But I didn't, I didn't so much as lay a hand on him.

I mean, I'm, I'm getting emotional just talking about that and I've talked about this numerous times and I still get emotional anytime I ever talk about it. I mean, not going to lie. That day was traumatic and then they pushed us downstairs like DPS. Basically, okay, you're getting out of the, the rotunda, okay, now you're going downstairs, okay, now you're going out the front door.

And, you know, there was a barricade of freakin DPS troopers at the front door, like, we're gonna rush the place or something, it's [00:25:00] like, Y'all are effed up, y'all. So.

Mandy: yeah,

Meghan: And then, as we know, SB 14 passed, and,

Mandy: yeah,

Meghan: is the law of the land at the moment, so.

Mandy: yeah, that was a, a very, very hard day. Mars and I got there, my, one of my kids and I got there just about the time that the gallery was being cleared so we didn't see what kind of started at all, but we were caught up in the rush, or the, the, the push, I should say, to, to get out and Yeah, being in there with one of my kids was terrifying.

I was so afraid we were going to be separated because we didn't know what was happening. And to clear the entire building was bizarre. And I don't know if it had ever happened before.

Meghan: So, first off, yeah, I remember you being there and I literally remember you and I crying on each other's [00:26:00] shoulders.

Mandy: Yeah.

Meghan: and and yeah, I remember seeing that yes, the Capitol has, I mean, the gallery has been cleared before. It's not a common occurrence, and it's been a very long time since it happened, so Yeah.

Mandy: yeah, we've been, we've been through a lot together and you've done so much. Like you said, both on the state level. I, I have a pull also to that, to the things that are going on at the state level, I think, because it's, there's so many horrible things going on at the state level in Texas right now.

And I feel like that's where I want a lot of my energy to go when I can.

I want to switch gears a little bit and I would like to ask you how you see the role of allies in trans rights activism.

Meghan: We need allies to show up. We need allies to speak on our behalf. When you hear [00:27:00] somebody making trans jokes, Or commenting negatively about people who are trans, or just saying things that are blatantly false, correct them, if you feel comfortable doing that. Don't put yourself in any kind of danger or anything.

Or if you know trans people who are comfortable, you know, like if you know me, talk about me. I, you know, I'm open to that. Now, there's a lot of people that are trans that they don't want, you know, they're concerned about their personal safety, you know, there's the whole thing about don't share someone else's story unless you have permission to do so.

You have my permission to share my story. But seriously, talk, and talk about, the positive things that transition has brought to those folks in your life. Counter the negative narrative. Counter the lies. Counter the, the bullshit. And you know, just showing up at rallies for anybody who wants to be in activism or advocacy or [00:28:00] whatever, you know, show up to as much stuff as you can within reason, take care of yourself first.

You know, even if it seems pointless every individual person in that crowd makes a difference. When you have a crowd of thousands of people that show up on behalf of an issue, whether it be trans or anything else, that gets noticed. It makes politicians at least think a little harder about it before they, they cast that vote.

And you know, you may think, well, I'm just one person, you know, I, I have an expression. The ocean is made up of nothing but individual drops of water. So,

Mandy: Well, thank you. That I think gives allies and direction in how to help because a lot of people don't know where to start and even starting in those very small situations or what seems to be small to, to combat those those jokes or, or incorrect terms or information or whatever, just on that very [00:29:00] personal level can be so helpful and can, and it can make real change.

Well, I want to thank you so much for your time today and talking with us. And I did not expect us to go down the rabbit hole of a little trauma today. So thank you for, for sharing your experience in those two extremely difficult days in this year's legislature in Texas.

I appreciate your vulnerability and, and honesty and sharing that with us cause I know remembering those times stir up a lot of feelings for me as well. So, so thank you for that.

Meghan: I would just add real quick. I mean, yeah, it's tough to talk about this stuff sometimes, but I think it's important for people to know about it. I think it's important for people to know, you know, on a personal level, what it's like being in something like that. You know, we see, I've seen news stories and whatnot about stuff that [00:30:00] happened at the Capitol, but it's like, that doesn't tell all of it.

Mandy: No. Yeah. It's important to hear from people who've been there. Definitely. We've got to have that, that lived experience is what it's all about. So for sure. Okay. So where can people find you if you want them to find you, where are you directing people? Are you promoting anything right now? Where can people go?

Meghan: If people want to find me, that's a good question. I would say I mean if you really want you can follow my Instagram at @megrises. I used to have a pretty good account on that other platform that the certain billionaire took over, but I have left that platform because I don't, I haven't, I mean my account still exists for historical purposes but I don't use it anymore.

But I've kind of funneled that energy towards Instagram. Instagram is so weird to me. [00:31:00] But I'm, I'm slowly but surely getting the hang of it as a 52-year-old IT professional who should probably know how to do this stuff better. I still don't know what the difference between a reel and a story is. I'm kidding. But no seriously though, sometimes I'm poking on there and it's like, I don't know what I'm doing. But yeah, no, I would say that's probably where I'm funneling more of that energy.

TGQH has also got a public presence. Well, TGQH. org we have public and private social media presences the private are more for event announcement stuff, because we don't publicize that.

We don't really, we don't want to attract the wrong attention. If you are watching this and, and you're try to follow one of the private ones, we're gonna do the best we can to vet you before we let you in. And if you are a person who should be in who should be vetted and it takes us a while to get to you bear with me, especially on Instagram [00:32:00] because it's it's hard to do sometimes.

Mandy: That is true. Well,

Meghan: Don't know this person they look sketchy. I don't know. Yeah. No, I don't know. I try because I want to I want to keep the group a safe space.

Mandy: I'll put all this in the show notes so that people know where to find you, how they can do all that. And listener, if you would like to show gratitude for Meghan and her work and for TGQH, you can go to the TGQH site. Buy some of the cool merch buy a virtual cup of coffee and support that work. Beause that's really important. And it's obviously serving a huge need in Houston.

Meghan: No one has ever used that virtual cup of coffee link, so if somebody does that it'll surprise me.

Mandy: Okay. Awesome. Okay. Listener. I expect you to do that. So that's what's going to happen after this. After you listen, go buy a cup of coffee and support them cause they're doing great things. All right. So Meghan, thank you. Thank you. [00:33:00] Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today and I'm sure I will talk with you soon.

Meghan: All right. Thank you so much for having me. I've enjoyed it.

Hey y'all, thanks for listening to the everyday trans activism podcast. For show notes and resources mentioned in today's episode, head over to parentsoftrans youth.com/podcast. This show was produced by Parents of Trans Youth, a resource providing learning support and community to parents and caregivers of transgender non binary and gender diverse kids.

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Ep. 3 - Redefining masculinity, becoming a Black man, and starring on POSE with Jevon Martin

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Ep. 1 - Why a Cisgender Woman Made a Podcast About Transgender Rights Activism