The Illegal Trans Woman – Ep. 21: Barriers, Empathy, and Becoming

The Big Story this week is about the Mississippi Supreme Court refusing a sixteen-year-old transgender teen boy’s application for a name change, despite his parent’s consent to the change. The Court rationalized that the youth wasn’t “mature enough,” and additionally, to allow the name change would assist with his gender transition in violation of MS law. What cruelty! The Big Interview is with Peggy Mason, PhD, who talks about “rat empathy” and that familiarity with “other” can erase barriers/spark compassion for another person who is “other.” With that, I thread the needle to how it offers hope that if people can just meet one friendly transgender person, maybe they will be more willing to accept other trans people, too. In Random Acts, I share about how someone told me that reading Getting to Ellen made it easier to accept their transgender daughter.

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