Cassie Brighter
Be sure to RSVP to the free Trans Day of Resilience: Empowering Trans Youth Through Storytelling event being held on Sunday, November 20th.
Content warning for abuse.
Nothing about us without us! This week, Cassie Brighter (she/her) expands on the hidden costs of being transgender, why TSA PreCheck may make travel safer for trans women, and how she responds to questions about "the surgery." In this episode, you will learn: 1. Why she doesn't want LGBTQ+ events at churches, even if they're affirming. 2. What it's like to run the Support Network for Parents of Trans Kids Facebook group. 3. How she learned about the "unacceptables in society" through bathroom graffiti and inappropriate jokes amongst adult men. We also discuss her being a trans advocate, mother, writer, and public speaker.
PS: It's Transgender Awareness Month! Will you share this episode with someone you think might benefit from hearing it?
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LGBTQ+ Awareness Events | Gender Sexuality Info
Transgender Day of Remembrance | Live in or near Boulder, CO? Chris Angel will be speaking at this event in the evening.
Full Transcript
[00:00:00] Chris Angel Murphy: Well, hello there. My name is Chris Angel and my pronouns are they/them. Welcome to Allyship is a Verb, the LGBTQ+ podcast that explores and humanizes practicing allyship for the LGBTQ+ community and beyond!
[00:00:37] Cassie Brighter: Hi, my name is Cassie Brighter. I go by she/her.
[00:00:41] Chris Angel Murphy: (singing) Guess who got COVID outta their system? (singing ends) Okay, I promise I'm not gonna be like singing every time I do these, all right. I'm just really happy cuz don't I sound normal? Like for me (laughs) . Okay, not in general, but just my voice. My voice is back to normal. I am so grateful. Anywhoo- hi!
If you've been on my Gender Sexuality Info website, which you can quickly access at GSI.gay, you may know I maintain a list of LGBTQ+ awareness events across the year. And November is full of trans-specific events. It's Transgender Awareness Month. There's Trans Parent Day; it's for parents who are trans. And there's Transgender Awareness Week, and then November 20th is either Trans Day of Remembrance, to honor those we've lost within the past year, or some folks like myself turn it into Trans Day of Resilience.
If you listen to the last episode, you may have heard that I'm hosting my own free online resilience event. I would love to have you there. So again, go to GSI.gay, and you'll see a link to RSVP at the top, or you can find out more information to see if you want to go.
However, I will say the Remembrance events are important, too. Trans Day of Remembrance, or TDOR for short, events are organized by the community. It's custom that the names of those we've lost are either read by volunteers, there's a slideshow presentation or some form of having the names visible. It can be challenging, especially for folks from the community. A great way to practice allyship is to see what's being organized in your communities and maybe volunteer to help out if you feel comfortable doing that. You could also offer to go with any friends who may need the emotional support.
Now, again, it just so happens to be that my guest is trans. I'm not trying to tokenize people during all these awareness events. Okay? I promise. This is just how it came out. I know it happened with Ace Week last time, too. I'm not tokenizing people (laughs), believe me, believe me.
Anyway. Cassie is a writer, public speaker, educator, and group facilitator with a focus on diversity and inclusivity. She's also a trans advocate who brings empathy and humor into conversations that lead to social change. One of her main topics is consent culture specific to marriage, parenting, and relationships. We met because I attended one of her online events in 2017 or so, and she's been on my radar ever since.
Here's three self-reflection questions to kick us off. Stay after the convo for three more.
1. If I’m not religious, or spiritual, am I comfortable attending events in religious spaces?
2. How do I feel when people ask me personal medical questions, especially about my body?
3. Do I think there’s any topics that are off limits for comedians?
And now, our conversation.
I'm gonna be my awkward self now taking us through this conversation (laughs).
[00:04:20] Cassie Brighter: You go for it.
[00:04:21] Chris Angel Murphy: You're a trans advocate, a mother, a writer, and a public speaker. What do those intersections mean to you?
[00:04:29] Cassie Brighter: Wow, that's such a deep, profound question. We could talk about that for three days and a half, (Chris Angel laughs) but it's really nice to be asked that. The intersections create a lot of interesting nuance. Being a South American trans woman is different than being an American trans woman or a Filipino trans woman.
And being a mother puts me in a completely different mindset, I think in many ways, and-and grouping when I speak with women and when I interact with the world; than, for example, you know, as a young woman who hasn't had children yet. All of these things inform one another. Right now when I talk about trans rights, I think much more about the next generation than I think about my own, partly cause I'm a mother. And I don't have trans kids, but I do have queer kids. Being a mother really puts you in mind of thinking of the youth.
Speaking about trans experience, and then on a separate vein, learning about race, has led me to understand how deeply intertwined those two topics are.
[00:05:27] Chris Angel Murphy: What do you feel moved to share around those experiences?
[00:05:30] Cassie Brighter: My understanding of me as a person, as a human being, was always extremely informed by some deeply, deeply Christo-centric, Eurocentric, white-centric messaging. Those cultures, those narratives, don't make space for people like me. I felt like I didn't belong. I always felt that I was an abomination and a sin; not that I was doing sin, because I'm talking about myself as seven or eight years old. I felt that I was one, and all of that is driven by my identity, which is not recognized and not celebrated in the white-centric, Eurocentric, patriarchal, Christo-centric settings.
As I learned about race, and then as a consequence of that, I learned about colonization, I honestly got outraged to realize that the validity that we had inherently, and for centuries, for millennia, really… in indigenous cultures, we were stripped off, where it was robbed from us by European colonizers. As I started learning about this, I sort of understood that Europeans just came with a different point of view. And because of the fact that they came with weapons, their point of view prevailed.
I've gotten progressively more angry because now I've realized it's not that they came with a different point of view; it's that they used the gender binary and the patriarchy as a weapon of mind control to convince themselves and convince the European culture that it was okay to enslave and colonize and to push down the throat of indigenous cultures that there was an inherent inferiority to the beliefs of indigenous populations, and that being white was “right.”
They espoused the gender binary and so forth. So once I started understanding all this, I switched from a narrative of self-shame and trying to appease and trying to be more of a normie, which is where I started in my life, to what I feel now, which is, "why was this taken from us and why have we been wallowing in self-shame?" Where in reality, many indigenous cultures that celebrated gender-variant people had understood us to have profound insights. So, it's really changed the way I view myself and the way that I see the raw deal that (laughs) we got.
[00:07:52] Chris Angel Murphy: Many people within the broader LGBTQ+ community can experience great harm in the name of religion. People may tout that the Bible says certain things based on that person's interpretations or religions may outright ban acts or labels, deeming them sins or unnatural, and so on and so forth. Talking about how you felt like you were an abomination in the eyes of God…. there's a lot of spaces that aren't always accessible for folks in the community. I think of PFLAG support groups, right? A lot of them are housed in churches.
[00:08:27] Cassie Brighter: Mm-hmm.
[00:08:28] Chris Angel Murphy: They may be affirming churches, but if someone has enough harm, they don't necessarily want to be in a place like that. What is your relationship with religion present day, and do you find yourself not wanting to be in those kinds of spaces? For example, if there's an affirming event that's at a church or something like that.
[00:08:49] Cassie Brighter: I very much find myself not wanting to be in those spaces and not wanting to have any kind of degree of interaction with believers. I've become a militant atheist, and it bothers me to even say it about myself in those ways. I hope that I'm not coming across in an offensive way to people who are. But I'm speaking about my own experience. The way I look at it is that I've just become an informed, critical thinking, rational person; coming from an education in magical thinking, which was toxic to me.
I think that there's an inherent conflict because the church took- "took" is the first verb that I'm going to use, and I'm gonna replace it in a second- but took a position of being the medical authority, of being the history authority, of being the cultural authority of a town, of a locality, and of whole countries.
There's an inherent conflict with a church holding LGBT and ally events and-and it takes much to talk me down from that. I think that it's sweet that they're doing it, and I think that it's good that they're doing it, but I can't embrace that. None of that is conducive to me blossoming as a woman, period. I would much rather go see LGBT-affirming things at agnostic spaces and secular spaces.
[00:10:10] Chris Angel Murphy: You've written a lot on your website, Empowered Trans Woman, and you cover topics like conversations with your kids, the latest in science, your take on different terms within the community, which was really fun (laughs) for me to read.
One story in particular you shared was about a Lyft driver you had back in 2018. The conversation you had with the driver was off to a pretty good start. You decided to disclose to that driver that you're transgender, because you had a question for him in particular. Mostly saying the right things, having this, like good, open discussion. But then as you near your destination, the last question he asks you is, "So, did you get rid of all your parts?"
First off, yikes. And I love how you responded because you said, "I don't talk about my body parts. That's a bit too personal." That was great and a really confident response cuz you definitely didn't owe him that. And it's baffling to me that people still don't know that they should not be asking folks those kinds of questions.
Thinking about all of the times you've disclosed being transgender to people: if you had to estimate percentage-wise, how often do you think people ask you a variation of that question? Has it gotten less frequent over time at all?
[00:11:32] Cassie Brighter: I would say that it's often enough where I expect it and when it doesn't come, I am relieved, but also quite surprised. It's greatly affected by demographics, where people will know not to ask. People who have queer friends or have exposure to LGBTQ+ people will probably know not to ask. Generally speaking, progressive people will- will do better in that than people who come from the right or from a conservative/religious experience.
I was asked that not too long ago at the Thanksgiving dinner at the friend of mine, and everybody in the room was liberal, progressive, and woke- whatever you want to describe them as- and the lady across from me just very casually asked me as a fun topic of conversation in front of strangers at Thanksgiving, if I had had “the surgery.”
I actually had a prepared answer, which I amused myself with, "Before I answer that, would you tell me, do your labia minora hang out as opposed to your labia majora, or are they tucked in? Are your labia majora puffy enough that they close up all the way?" (Chris Angel laughs) And she was speechless for a second that her boyfriend said, "She means that's personal." (Both laugh)
[00:12:51] Chris Angel Murphy: Glad you were able to have the translator there.
[00:12:54] Cassie Brighter: (laughs) Yeah.
[00:12:55] Chris Angel Murphy: What have been the most supportive actions or questions that have followed your disclosure to people? What's made you feel the most supported, and seen, and affirmed, and validated?
[00:13:10] Cassie Brighter: It's hard to pinpoint disclosure because I'm such an open advocate. It would be very hard for somebody to be introduced to me, or to come into a space that they share with me, without already in some way, shape, or form being aware that they're meeting Cassie Brighter, who is a trans woman. The things that I enjoy the most, the things that are refreshing and therapeutic, I would say to myself, is when people speak to me in the sense of like, "I don't have the burdens that you carry. Tell me about your burdens. What could I do or what could society do to- to lighten those burdens?"
In the same sense as if somebody was carrying a heavy backpack and you see them just arrive to the bus stop and put down this heavy, heavy backpack. You might empathize by saying, "Oh, that looks like a heavy load you're carrying. Where are you headed, and what's in the backpack? Would you need some help getting it onto the bus?" That tone of empathy or concern is very welcomed by me.
But still, that said, that doesn't guarantee that I'll always respond in kind. Like, you might still catch me in a grumpy mood, or I might still be like, "No business of yours what's in the backpack!" (both laugh)
I had a really positive conversation with a coworker of mine because I just traveled and I- I arrived yesterday from, a plane flight. This morning I was rattled, I , I demurred on- on a meeting that we had very early in the day. So he said, "Oh yeah, that's fine. We'll postpone it. And are you okay?" And I said, "Well, no, it has to do with travel." Now, he's a gay man in his thirties. He was curious about that because he knew I was just flying in from L.A. He said, "So, what's hard about travel for you? Is it additional bureaucracy, additional paperwork? Is it that you don't want to be touched?"
And I said, "Yes, it's a hundred percent that. That activated a panic attack, fight or flight response, that emotionally drained me. And then when I arrived home, I was pretty much no use for the world for the next 24 hours." And he was fascinated by that, and he was asking me these questions out of kindness and empathy. He said like, "What did they do and what-" And I explained how a scanner at the airport work works, those, those machines that spin around you. They have a really basic kind of approach to gender.
They have literally, a blue button with a man depicted on it and a pink button with somebody in a dress depicted on it, like bathrooms do. Now the male one knows to adjust for a mass between the legs, and the female one knows to adjust for masses in the chest. In my case, I have both: I'll trigger the sensor either way. For some reason or another when the one that triggers is the one with masses in the chest, that's not approached the same way.
He was in absolute shock, and he just showed up with such sadness for me and empathy. But then he told me, "You know, if you want to take time off from work to recover and stuff-" It was just the sweetest thing. And I did not feel like I often feel with cis people, that I am a museum piece or a trinket at the gift shop that they're holding up and saying, "Ooh, this is exotic. This is interesting."
[00:16:28] Chris Angel Murphy: When you're traveling, especially when you know you're gonna be traveling by plane because they do the body scanners and all of that, what do you do to take care of yourself before and after those events?
[00:16:43] Cassie Brighter: Last time I did several things right. I arrived with over an hour to spare. I also arrived very much with the mindset of, "If I encounter what I encountered in Oakland, which is a large brute telling me 'you want to get on that plane or not?' I will say, 'unless my human rights are respected, I don't give a flying fuck if I get on that plane or not.'" I thought about it after the fact, and I'm not willing to compromise on this point any longer. So if I have to miss the flight, I'll miss the flight, and I will report them. So that's a change in- in my perspective.
But what I was told, actually by- by several other trans women, by one trans woman in particular, Rosalynne Montoya, she- if you don't, if you don't follow her, please follow her on TikTok, on YouTube, Rosalynne is amazing- but Rosalynne has had conversations with these TSA about her and- about this topic. And the key solution is to use the (TSA) PreCheck, the one which is like you become some sort of a VIP member of the cool club, and then you just can go through more easily. So that's vital for trans women.
Ultimately, the TSA supervisor told me, let them know ahead of time. I did let them know, but I let them know after I went through the scanner and she said, "Let them know before you go through the scanner. You're gonna have to scan me twice because I'm transgender.” And let them know also: check your protocols, check your policy because this is in the updated policy. They just mostly haven't been trained on it; they don't know.
[00:18:10] Chris Angel Murphy: Yeah.
[00:18:11] Cassie Brighter: Out of the five at L.A., one of them was a bastard, and out of the four at Oakland, all four of them were bastards. So it varies.
[00:18:20] Chris Angel Murphy: Sounds like it. I'm really sorry that that's been your experience.
You were first on my radar because you hosted the Empowered Trans Woman Summit back in October of 2017, and there were several sessions from people all over the world, which was super impressive, including people's stories, there were Q and A’s, there were sessions addressing very specific issues. What inspired you to host that event? What help did you have in bringing it to life? And how do you feel looking back at it now, five years later?
[00:18:59] Cassie Brighter: (laughs) Those are very insightful questions. I really like it because usually people will ask me about the event, but not in that framing, and this is great.
So what inspired me was: I am an extrovert, and almost to my detriment, I'm an extrovert at heart (Chris Angel laughs) because it's sometimes exhausting to be as extroverted as I am. And I put myself in situations where as I'm going through them, there's a voice inside of me that says, "What the fuck were you thinking?” (both laugh)
But, the premise was this. I was cutting through the jungle as a trans woman. I didn't know anything. I- I really, for many years, thought I was the only freak in the universe. And I did think of myself in those terms. I thought of myself as a freak, which is not good. And having learned now that there's, you know, over 80 million of us worldwide, you get that very different perspective.
As I desperately grasped at straws, looking at YouTube, looking at Google to see anything that would explain to me what it is that I have been going through, beginning my transition… the idea that I had of my transition as I went into it is that I'm going to end up living under a bridge and people are going to be throwing rocks at me. I had zero illusion that this is going to get better, (laughs) it's all uphill from there, right? Like when you have the worst expectation possible.
The only reason why I transitioned is because it was better than death; that was my baseline. I just noticed I had absolutely no compass, I didn't know what the hell I was doing. The more that I researched, the more I'm like, "Goddammit, this should be available broadly and this- I should have encountered this with more ease." And so then I felt like a responsibility, like, "Well, the next girl should have it easier than me."
And so all of that kind of compelled me in sort of like, this almost it didn't feel like I had a choice in the matter. The idea of healing the world, that was something that stayed with me from, ironically, from my religious upbringing. This idea of "Go out into the world and be a force of change." My grandfather wanted me to become a Russian Orthodox priest. That didn't pan out (laughs), but as you know, as an advocate and a public speaker, I carry some of that identity inside of me. That's really funny. I need to be a- an instrument of change to make it better. That's what's come up a lot. People have told me, "that helped me as I was beginning my transition."
Looking back, there are so many things I did wrong at the logistical level. The fact that I did it all my own-, my poor partner at the time really, really had those like stood up for me and helped in many ways. And my daughter came over and was like my assistant, but I did it largely all by myself. This- these days, I would definitely look for allies, I would for accomplices.
I was talking to a white, trans woman who had recently finished college. She was in a band. Living in middle California in an affluent neighborhood. And she talked about how she was picked on in high school and college whatnot. And she talked about the difficulties in dating and so forth.
And then almost immediately after that, I interviewed Hispanic, Afro Latina, Puerto Rican, HIV, uh, advocate, trans woman, Bronx. She started her story by saying, “when I was eight years old, I was taken out of my house by CPS because my father was beating me with a metal rod over the fact that I was a sissy.”
And it was such a gut punch to realize we are not talking about the same narratives. So it's- that was very humbling to realize people of color, especially, um, Afro Latinas especially, I think because of the confluence of toxic patriarchy and religiosity and other things like that. And I mean, the same goes for Black trans women.
They're subject to so much worse. I think that I would— that said, my parents no longer speak to me. I've lost jobs, I've been sexually harassed, I've been violently attacked, but I- I still feel like I had it much easier because of perceived white privilege, cuz I'm very light-skinned. So that's something that I learned through the thing that one point I- I was leading a panel of, of black trans women, and I felt I was entitled to, because I'm the host of the event, so it was going to be three Black trans women leaders in their community and myself, very white-passing trans women who has no clue about race experience going into this.
And as we were about to go live, I said, “You know, it occurs to me that it might be better if one of you were to take on the moderator role.” And one of them, with a very obvious grin in her face, said, “No, honey, you go right ahead.” (both laugh)
Um, and at one point I asked her, “why has it been so difficult for me to get Black trans women to participate in this?” Because it really had been very difficult. Or rather, I would say it was extremely easy to get white women to raise their hands. She said, “do you really want me to answer that?” Keep in mind we're live.
And I said, “Yes, go ahead.” And she said, “You wanna talk about tokenization? You wanna talk about objectification? You wanna talk about the fact that we're not getting paid? You wanna talk about the fact that we don't control your platform? We don't know which way you're gonna take it? We don't know to what extent you understand it—” it was-oh, she schooled me.
Um, but I'm really glad that she did because that started me on a journey of— and I, it was around the time when Mike Brown was in the news and the whole Black Lives Matter momentum was beginning. It started me on a journey, which made me so much of a better person. So I- that's something that I've learned really surprises me is, be a fool publicly. It doesn't matter. You'll learn from it.
The reason why we're still a little pissed off at some of these comics or whatnot is because they refuse to grow. When they don't-when they double down, when- when they refuse to understand what- how they're victimizing us, that's when they piss us off. So that's what I learned is I learned there's opportunity to be a fool in public (laughs) and there's opportunity for growth and change.
Chris Angel Murphy: Even just going off the comedian example that you posed, I mean, we've seen this happen several times now and there’s the story they tell themselves based on just what I'm reading, is that we just don't have a sense of humor. And it's like we do, it's just you punch up, not down.
Cassie Brighter: Mm-hmm.
Chris Angel Murphy: There's a difference. I'm happy to laugh at myself. I make jokes about (laughs) myself in the community broadly all the time, especially in community jokes with people who feel safer and everything. And it's the same if someone else is gonna be making a joke about me or any marginalized group. So there's ways to do it, it's just a lot of what they tend to do is really lazy and not very clever, not very thoughtful. Right? It's just like the easy joke to grab and make.
Cassie Brighter: That's a very good point that you're making in the fact that the lowest common denominator of any comedy, and by the way, I'm a big fan of standup comedy. The lowest common denominator is standing in the center of privilege and pointing at people in the margins and going, “Aren't they weird? Ha ha ha.” It's so easy to do, point at, you know, little people, point at people of color, point at women and say, “Aren't they weird? Ha ha ha.” It's not clever. But then something else that's really important is, is this going to put anyone in danger? Is this going to affect somebody's livelihood? Is this going to put somebody in harm's way?
Chris Angel Murphy: Yeah.
Of all of the projects you've worked on to date, is there one that sticks out as one that you're the most proud of?
Cassie Brighter: I think it's a tie. Volunteering as a group facilitator at, uh, Trans Women's Support Group in a male prison, in a male maximum security prison, was a brave choice. I was challenged by the- that experience, and I'm proud that I did it nevertheless, and I think I made a positive change to those women. And then, just in general when- especially with parents, cause I've done work with parents of trans kids. When somebody reaches out to me, it- it's happening more frequently these days; somebody reaches out to me on Messenger or via email. They say, “I just want you to know how much that video helped me, or how much that live that you did helped me, or your article helped me and then I feel like I'm- I'm doing some good in the world.
Many, many years ago, I was a scout, and we had this practice in our troop that you tie two knots at the end of your handkerchief- at both ends of your handkerchief, and you get to untie them by doing two deeds- two good deeds throughout the day. Which I don’t know who started that tradition, (Chris Angel laughs) but I thought was really nice. So anyway, I can untie some knots sometimes. (Chris Angel laughs)
Chris Angel Murphy: You are the founder and leader of a Facebook group called Support Network for Parents of Trans Kids. It started back in May of 2018, and currently, it has over 3,500 members, which is amazing. I imagine some of the top questions are the same I get when working with parents and guardians.
Did I do something wrong? How do we tell the rest of the family? How do I support my kid? What if I'm not sure about all of this? How do I know if they really are trans? And things like that. What's something you think the parents of trans kids should be asking more that you don't see very often or often enough?
Cassie Brighter: You know, Chris Angel, you ask such really good questions (Chris Angel laughs) because I have been asked several questions about the group, but, uh, that's gonna make me think- that that's going to lead to me potentially doing some additional work in the group. I think that something that I would encourage parents to ask is, “what are the points of burden for you today, this week, this year? What's weighing you down?” A lot of it is not about you being trans and I'm, you know, saying “you,” in terms of like the 11-year-old trans boy or whatever.
Chris Angel Murphy: Mm-hmm.
Cassie Brighter: “What in your surrounding, what in your school, what in your neighborhood, what in our family could be improved?” Uh, you know, “who should I go beat up on your behalf?” (both laugh)
Um, and it could be simple things, you know, like the trans girl that wants to go get a training bra and she dares not. Or you know, like, “Could you please talk to grandma about the way she addresses me?” Or something like that. So, stimulate that thing about like, “what can I do to make your load lighter this week or this month?” That's- that's something I would strongly encourage.
And then the other one, skirting gender, avoiding certain conversations can feel loud to trans kids. With cis boys, you know, you elbow them, and you're like, “so, you know, have you broken any hearts recently?” You know, “how many ladies have you not scored?” or whatever. “You have a girlfriend?”
And to cis girls, it's the same thing. You know, it's like, “what's your crush?” And you know, “who's the cute one in your school?” and stuff like that. And I think with trans kids, because cis parents feel awkwardly about that, cause it leads to conversations that might be uncomfortable for them. I mean it's uncomfortable enough to talk to your teenagers about sex in general.
They just shut down entirely and they never do those gendered things, you know? Something that I would have absolutely loved that was completely unavailable to me when my mother and I went to see West Side Story, which by the way, absolutely loved. And we had this great complicity moment because the movie ended.
It's a long movie, and we sat there just taking it all in. And then my mom turned to me and said, “Wanna see it again?” (Chris Angel laughs) And we stayed another three hours. So, we both loved that movie, but it would've been wonderful as we were leaving if she had said, like, “that Tony guy was dreamy, wasn't he?“ (laughs)
Chris Angel Murphy: Mmm.
Cassie Brighter: But, you know, she didn't perceive me as a girl, so she didn't, and she- she didn't dare say something, like, she wouldn't have thought of saying something like that.
If you know that your kid is trans, and you're supportive of it, then you know, if you're going to go watch the new Ariel movie (The Little Mermaid), by all means. Get your girl dressed up as Ariel and, uh, to celebrate the girlhood in her. But especially, I meant like for teenagers in terms of the awkwardness of dating experience and stuff like that. Like, lean into it, acknowledge the things, you know?
Also, there's patriarchal things in our society and so the cis boy gets to, uh, have more freedoms when he goes out because he's a boy and whatever. And the cis girl is policed a little bit tighter. And so the mother asked me, like, “What should I do with the trans girl? Should I, because it's misogynistic if I curtail her rights, but it's transphobic if I treat her like a boy.”
And I'm like, “Well, obviously, you're learning. Cause I think it was a little misogynistic when you curtail the rights of the cis girl, (both laugh) but I think to be consistent, you would have to treat the trans girl the way you treat a cis girl.”
It gets kinda funny. It doesn't matter how badly you think you're screwing it up. All you need to do is that 51% better. You know, like swing and hit more than you swing and miss. But the main thing is, like, my parents don't even freaking talk to me. If you show up and you're still providing to your kid food and shelter, you're already doing pretty much better than the average.
I've met so many homeless LGBT people in Portland who have traveled from Georgia, from North Carolina, and from usually somewhere in the South and ended up in Portland because it's a really queer-friendly town. Because they were just thrown out. But, so I tell these parents, “look, the first thing is, like, know that you're doing alright.”
“Oh, and by the way, your kids will be assholes to you. Not because they're trans, but because they're 14 and 14-year-olds are assholes.” (both laugh) This is something that comes up a lot, you know? “It's like I'm trying my best and she's still rude to me, and she slams the door, and she calls me names.” I'm like, “Yeah, but she's 14. (both laugh) That's what my girl did at 14, and she’s cis.” (Cassie laughs)
Chris Angel Murphy: In some ways, five years is a long time and also not very long at all. Have there been any changes in the group from its starts till now in terms of the kinds of things people ask, overall vibe of the group, like, the worries of the families? Yeah, like, just, have you seen any differences from when it first started to where it is today?
Cassie Brighter: Yeah, definitely. Absolutely. There has been changes. Delegated much more of seated control, more and more, to other admins because I can't do it all. You know, when you're doing activism, there's always more to do.
In the movie Pride, which is the movie I absolutely love about 1980s LGBT London participating in the miner’s strike. Great moment is when one activist tells a young activist, “leave something for yourself. Don't give it all away.” So, I've started to do that. I've started to allow myself to breathe, and I have 11 co-moderators in that group. We have a messenger group, and we'll immediately say, like, if somebody said something malicious and we say, “Who can take it?” I'll say like, “I can't take it today.”
Chris Angel Murphy: Mmm.
Cassie Brighter: One thing is I've defined it much clearer that this is a support group for cis parents. And when I actually started wording it like that, several group members who were trans parents got a little bit pissed off at me and said, “I thought this was a trans-supportive, trans-inclusive space.”
I said, “look, it is, but what we're seeking to do here is we're trying to educate cis parents who don't have a point of commonality at the gut-level with the trans experience. You being trans come from a different space. In this trans group, we really don't want the kind of trans advocacy that jumps down at somebody's throat for misgendering because we're educating.
We have people who came from the Bible Belt, and they're like, “our daughter has told us two weeks ago that she's a boy, and we have no idea what to do.” And if you post that on most parent support groups, you're going to get 60 messages. Just chiding them about the misgendering and yelling at them, and then they shut down, and then they leave.
And I created a completely different vibe in here, which is if you're going to educate somebody, then you do it softly. You say, “it's wonderful that you're here. It's great. You know, we're gonna address your question. By the way, it might be better if you start using he/him pronouns for your kid.” In general I- I really want to educate people, like, “let's not embrace the internet ethos of being assholes to one another. Think about everybody here as we're in a room together, you can see their eyes. You can see their facial expressions. And would you say that to somebody who's literally next to you? You wouldn’t. Say it with kindness.”
[00:35:44] Chris Angel Murphy: How do you find the balance of making sure that folks are joining who are meant to be there? Like how, how do you find that balance of making sure that you're continuing to make that space safer for everyone?
[00:35:59] Cassie Brighter: It has become, um, harder and harder, which is frustrating because we have enough work as it is. This adds to our workload. We only have myself and another moderator assigned specifically to accepting members, and I've trained this moderator, and this other admin has also come up with wisdoms of her own that she shared with me.
We have a system where the questions that we ask get transferred into a Excel spreadsheet. We have the email address when we're considering somebody for membership. We look at their timeline. We look for particular markers that show them as allies or members of the LGBT community. We look at their political stances over time, so that really helps.
But we do take the due diligence of looking. And who are their friends? We've been at this so long that we can have three or four quick back and forth to the person and already tell is this- is this friend or foe? We can tell by the way they formulate things.
A very questionable guy request to join. And the other moderator was gonna turn him down, and I said, “let me talk to him.” And I said, “the way that you worded things in your answers raised some flags. Do you mind if we talk?” And he said, “look, I'm from the mountains, and I'm a Trumper. I'm probably your worst nightmare. But my daughter just came out,” and he said daughter for a trans girl. So, that was a good sign. “I don't have any resources. Nobody in my circle is going to advise me about this. If I start asking my friends about it, they're gonna disown me.” He proved to be very earnest over time, like months later. He wrote this really heartfelt thing about, like, how much this group has helped them, helped his daughter. So we felt like, okay, we done right. (laughs)
[00:37:40] Chris Angel Murphy: Something that you mentioned earlier is that some of your work present day, your lens is more thinking about future generations and less things that might benefit you in the immediate or even throughout the rest of your lifetime. I'm curious about what specific issues are you focusing on present-day in your advocacy work?
[00:38:05] Cassie Brighter: I have to say that top of mind for me is not trans rights. Top of mind right now is reproductive rights and the possibility of marriage equality becoming an issue. Top of mind for me right now is to arrest the seemingly unstoppable train of fundamentalism and Christian nationalism that's taking the country by storm. Of course, you know, leads also to the 200-plus bills that have been put forward just in the last year alone that harm trans people. But I think at the root, we need to stop the Nazis, we need to stop these awful people.
But, um, I work a lot with cis women. I lead a group of cis women, which is actually very humbling that they let me have that position of leadership. And in there we talk a lot about rights and I’m thinking now of a soundbite where a senator asked a professor of gender studies about “what is a woman?” And she answered that question very deftly. And then she said, “Some women give birth, some women don't give birth, some men give birth, so forth.” And he was trying to get her, I guess. She smiled and she said, “just because an issue affects other people and women, we can still acknowledge the fact that it affects many women. Both don't have to be mutually exclusive.” And it was such a great way to answer that.
A good friend of mine is a transman who gave birth to a beautiful baby boy two years ago. All of these things intersect, you know? Indigenous rights and stuff. We need to- if we all join forces for empathy and togetherness, and then I think we'll defeat this wave of hate. I think that's my- my biggest focus right now.
[00:39:48] Chris Angel Murphy: Thinking back to when you were a kid, do you think that version of you would be proud of who you are today?
[00:39:59] Cassie Brighter: (laughs) I think so. I- I think so. I think nine-year-old me... There was, there was, uh, a TikTok that I saw recently about, uh, a mother showing, uh, an 11-year-old Black girl the new commercial for Ariel, for The Little Mermaid. And she's watching, you know, she's enthralled, she loves The Little Mermaid, obviously. But then, in the reveal, you see that Ariel is played by a Black actress, and she just loses her shit. (laughs)
She's-she's (laughs) like, “Mom, she’s Black!” (laughs) You know? And she's crying and stuff. And I think that nine-year-old me would have that reaction at the fact that I'm publicly a woman in public spaces. I think that she would cry for a while. I think that, you know, she would have a lot to process with the fact that I'm an atheist and the fact that I'm such a slut. Such a public, obvious, like, sex-positive speaker.
Uh, oh my gosh. You know, I think 17-year-old me would feel so freed and so vindicated by the version of me that I’ve become. You know, what I really look forward to is 75-year-old me, 90-year-old me. Cause that woman's gonna know shit. (both laugh)
[00:41:14] Chris Angel Murphy: You know shit now, too. But yes, I hear you. (Cassie laughs)
When thinking about the first time you heard the term transgender, was it a positive experience, or can you tell us more about what happened?
[00:41:27] Cassie Brighter: Something that's constantly a challenge is that you ask one question, hoping to get one answer, and I get five in my head. (both laugh)
The earliest experiences I've had, there were no internet boards when I was growing up. There was no Facebook when I was growing up, so all of the- that conversation was scribbled as graffiti in public restroom walls. I learned all that language, all that hating language and objectifying language from just going to the bathroom in public spaces when I was a child.
So that informed me a lot. I generally had this, “Oh God, oh God. Oh God. Let me not be that. Let me not be what I think I am. Please, please.” And generally speaking when you have to pray, "Oh God, let me not be [blank].” Chances are is that that's exactly what you are. (laughs) Um, that's the first thing.
Now at 11, my family traveled to Brazil. Brazil had a more progressive culture than Argentina by far. I grew up in a Catholic military dictatorship, and in Brazil there was a front cover, very garish, very lurid headline in a yellow, uh, tabloid. Talked about a trans girl with a sex change at 18. This was in the eighties, and I just stood there, and I looked at this. It felt like I stood and looked at this for two years, and all these thoughts were going through my head. I guess I ran all the scenarios, and I concluded, “you can't get there from here. From where I'm standing with the family I have, with the social nucleus I have, there's no way I can get there from here.” So that's something I remember very clearly.
It's like, it's wonderful that this even exists in the world. Very clearly not attainable for me. Kind of along the way in the way that Hillary Clinton wrote to NASA asking how she becomes an astronaut, and they wrote back saying, “girls can't become astronauts.” It's kind of like that experience. And then the next experience was 17-year-old me, very sheltered, suburban kid going to 42nd Street because of sexual curiosity and running into, I would say, six or seven sex workers.
And I was a 17-year-old kid. I- I had never experienced any such thing, and it was such a shock to me. And I, I ran and I cried because I'm like, “that's not, that's not what I aspire to be when I grow up.” And you know, nowadays, I really have to add an asterisk to it, which is sex work is work. I wouldn't encourage a woman to work the street, I think that's dangerous and hard work, but by all means, get yourself an OnlyFans page.
At the time, it was something that really kind of reinforced my feelings of marginalization and shame in the fact that that's going to be my future. And so, there were all these moments. Hardly any of that was positive.
My father and his buddies- the men- would gather by the barbecue. This is traditional Argentinian culture. Every other Sunday, they would gather by the barbecue, and they would chuckle and guffaw and giggle and laugh and tell the jokes. And this would be a contest, generally. It would be like one man would tell a joke, another one would one-up him, and then another man would know a joke.
And it was a constant popcorn-style, just like the jokes wouldn't stop. And they would go from one topic to the other. And that's where I got my passion for stand-up comedy. But I was, you know, perceived as a boy, so I was in that space. The jokes were almost inevitably homophobic, misogynistic, transphobic, ageist, fatphobic. It was always about victimizing someone. I got really informed about who are the unacceptables in society. I felt like I probably checked several of those boxes.
But I was very aware of my sexuality when I was six and when I was seven. I mean, it manifested as I wanted to have a Disney romantic experience. That's the way it manifested for me. But I had romantic feelings for a girl in first grade amd for a boy in first grade, ironically. So, I was very aware of these feelings on these thoughts, so I understood very clearly who the baddies in society are and stuff. There's a great line that Hannah Gadsby said in her special, Nanette, that has stayed with me and haunted me and, at the same time, has liberated me in some ways. It lives inside of me. That's, so, “by the time I realized that I was,” the way she says it is “a little bit lesbian, (laughs) it was too late because I was already a homophobe.” And I was, by the time I owned my identity, I was very much already racist, and a transphobe, and homophobic, and misogynistic. All of those things were festering inside of me, and I had to start deconstructing.
I had to because hating those people is hating myself, and- and it doesn't stop you from- from hating those people, which is yourself. It's such a mindfuck.
My mother was not a feminist. She was a mousey housewife, and my father demeaned her and called her emotional. Thought one of his biggest insults for me is, “you're just like your mother.” And I'm not (laughs) I'm not like my mother. My first experience of who I am and who I wanna be was Wonder Woman. Linda Carter's Wonder Woman. And my next experience of who I am and who I wanna be was Sigourney Weaver in Alien, Ripley. Those were my true North. Follow that star.
And I think the first positive version of a trans woman that I saw was probably Patrick Swayze in, uh, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Am I saying it right?
Chris Angel Murphy: Mm-hmm.
Cassie Brighter: There's that part, I'm sure you've seen it where- God, I wish I knew this actor's name- this woman. I love her. She played Rizzo in- in Grease. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. But she- she plays a cis woman in the town, and she says to, to the trans girl, she says, “it's so important for a woman to have lady friends.”
And Patrick Swayze, as a trans woman says,” Oh gosh if we're going to be friends, there's something you need to know.” And the other woman says, “Adam's apple.” And she says, “What do you mean?” She says, “Adam's apple, women don't have Adam's apples. I noticed that you have an Adam's apple.” And so the trans girl says, “so you know.”
Um, oh gosh. I'm getting just… She says, “What I know is that I'm very fortunate to have a lady friend who just happens to have an Adam’s apple.” I think that was the first time that I saw somebody that I could inhabit, you know? Like, I could be that woman. I'm pretty sure nowadays people will pick it apart because it was a cis man playing it, but I think Patrick Swayze did so well. So, that was my first positive experience. And since then, of course, you know, like, so many others- Hunter Schafer and Laverne Cox. So- so you know, I've changed and it's, it's great to see that there's more and more voices representing us.
[00:48:25] Chris Angel Murphy: You mentioned to me in a previous conversation that there have been hidden costs for you before and after transition. I guess I don't have a particular question other than, can you share more about what that looked like for you?
[00:48:44] Cassie Brighter: Absolutely. The example that came up earlier is one of those hidden costs: is the trauma that I go through every single time that I travel, just because TSA will think nothing of- of victimizing me because I'm a trans woman. And I wonder if they do that to other demographics. So, that's an example.
But then I just came back from Los Angeles from a trip that cost me close to $300 in plane flight and- and close to $500 in car rental fees over the long weekend. I'm trying to update my Argentinian documentation that still has my deadname and still has my birth gender. So, I flew down there in order to fill out one form.
It's been an uphill battle of a year and a half trying to secure my Argentinian birth certificate, which I finally got. So I flew down there, started the paperwork towards requesting an updated birth certificate. Having received that, which will take up to three months, I will then have to fly down again to get my Documento de Nacional, which is the ID that's used across Argentina, changed to my new name. Then I'll have to fly down a third time, months later, to be able to get my passport. I'm planning to fly to Europe next year, so I'm doing all this in preparation of that. That's cost and time, and time off work, and hassle, and I spent three hours at the consulate this time.
Chris Angel Murphy: Oooof.
Cassie Brighter: So, it all adds up. And by the way, they're not letting me change my last name. In order to change my last name, the consulate told me, and they told it to me very matter of factly, like, of course, I'm gonna do this is- “so, you'll have to travel to Buenos Aires. Once you're in Buenos Aires, you're gonna have to hire a lawyer and get the- the papers then- documents notarized. Then we'll be able to get it done.”
And I was thinking, “in what universe do you think I have the resources to do something like that?” So, I can become Cassandra in Argentina, but I will keep my old, detested last name. So, that's unfortunate. There are many things like that.
I started school, uh, a few years back to get my master’s and I wasn't able to get my financial aid for almost a year because my green card hasn't acknowledged my gender and name change, while my social security and my driver's license have. So because of that, FAFSA couldn't close the deal on me and they couldn't give me financial aid. So there's all of these hassles. Generally speaking, and while I keep hear- oh, don't even get me started about the medical profession. What they keep telling me is like, “Well, this is all so new. We're so unprepared for this.” And I've started getting angry at that.
Chris Angel Murphy: Mm-hmm.
Cassie Brighter: I'm like, “the first known trans man transitioned in 1911, the first known trans woman transitioned 1921. You've had a century to prepare. What the hell are you talking about this is new? There's been trans women for millennia. You- you've known about this in the medical profession. You mean it's new in the sense that you finally give a shit.” It's been five minutes of that. You know, every single thing in the medical profession is usually a shitshow.
Chris Angel Murphy: Yeah.
Cassie Brighter: Trans people, by and large, each one of us will tell you horror stories about dealing with the medical profession. I had a urologist speak to me for almost an hour. Told him my pronouns, told him my name. We discussed my transition in detail. Told him I'm a mother. And at the end he said, “thank you, sir.” (Chris Angel laughs) And I just- I looked around the room to find something big enough to throw at his face. Just, what the hell, man?
Chris Angel Murphy: Yeah.
Cassie Brighter: So there's hidden costs financially, logistically, time-wise, energy spent, and most of all just emotional labor that get us tired. And that's why sometimes you might find, (laughs) when you're trying to be an ally, you might find that we’re bitchy. . . (both laugh) Um, so that's something important I need to tell is- allow for the bitchiness. When you deal with Indigenous people, when you deal with Black people, when you deal with anything marginalized, allow for the fact that we're going to be a little bit miffed about the state of affairs (laughs).
Chris Angel Murphy: Absolutely.
Cassie Brighter: Oh, gosh.
[00:53:00] Chris Angel Murphy: What's one allyship tip you'd like for everyone listening to consider?
[00:53:07] Cassie Brighter: It's nothing about us without us. Every cis person needs to- every white person, every male person, everybody in a position of leadership or- or privilege needs to understand this sentence: nothing about us without us. But please start that with the humility of like, “this is not my experience, I'm channeling somebody else. Please ask a trans woman.” Find trans women who will answer your questions. Find trans women who are willing to speak to this. If you're a cis person, start your sentences with, “I don’t know if I'm fully qualified to say this, because I'm a cis person and I don't live that experience, but this is what I can tell you.”
I think that would be a point of humility. And, unfortunately, I have to add this nuance, which is if you're going to ask us, also realize that we might not want to be the ambassador, or we might not want to be the teacher. We might just want to be… Robin Tran is a wonderful comedian out of LA and she has a funny thing that she says, like, “one of the worst things about being a trans woman is that everybody expects me to be the exemplary trans woman. The advocate, the activist.” She says, “I just want to be a shitty trans woman.” (both laugh)
So account for the fact that you might catch us on a tired day. The fact that we, we might have answered this a thousand times, so we might not take you up on it. Give us the opportunity. Look for the opportunity. Have a Black person speak about race, to have a trans man or trans woman, or nonbinary person speak about trans experience, to have a migrant speak about immigration experience. Nothing about us, without us.
[00:54:36] Chris Angel Murphy: Cassie, thank you so much for your wisdom and vulnerability. You touched on a wide range of topics, and I'm glad that we could tackle such challenging and sensitive issues that impact our community. And here's hoping your air travel moving forward is smooth and affirming.
She also mentioned To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! and that movie… I wanted to give a quick nod that one of my early guests, I think the second guest off the top of my head, Coco Peru, was in the film! Just thought that was neat, especially if you haven't listened to that episode yet. So thank you again, Cassie. And now, here are the final three self-reflection questions:
4. If I’ve had a crush at any point in my life, at what age did I first experience that?
5. Have I ever experienced any trouble with travel and the body scanners? Have I seen it happen to someone else?
6. Do I know the names of any of the trans people we lost this year?
Visit AllyshipIsAVerb.com for any resources and a full transcript of the episode. And remember, sometimes allyship means nothing about us without us.