32 min listen
Strange Fruit #82: Trans Parenthood, Preventing Rape with Cosmetics, and Beyoncé's F-Word
FromStrange Fruit
Strange Fruit #82: Trans Parenthood, Preventing Rape with Cosmetics, and Beyoncé's F-Word
FromStrange Fruit
ratings:
Length:
29 minutes
Released:
Aug 29, 2014
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
In many ways, Nick and Bianca Bowser are very typical parents. They have two children; Kai is three and Pax is one. "We are exhausted all the time," Nick laughs. "We both work at a bar, so we both work at night, so there's very little sleep." The thing that sets this family apart, and has recently landed them on the Riki Lake show and in international headlines, is something strangers on the street usually don't even notice: Nick and Bianca are both transgender. Nick was assigned female gender at birth, and Bianca was assigned male. Neither has undergone full surgical transition (partially because it's so expensive), so when they decided to have children, they were able to conceive. Nick and Bianca are part of our own community right here in Louisville, and Nick stopped by this week to share their story. We were curious about why they chose to go public with their family's story, when they otherwise have no problem passing. "We want people who are like us to be able to get help if they need help," he explains. There's a mountain of different issues that trans people have to face, and we feel as thought bringing our story to the public and letting them know, hey, we really are normal, but there's something different about us. We have a family. We've had children. We're the same as everybody else. But we had to face all these other obstacles because you (as a whole) don't understand who we are, so were discriminated against because of that. In our Juicy Fruit segment this week, we focus on the so-called anti date rape nail polish, "Undercover Colors," and how it's been criticized as just another instance of putting the onus on women to prevent rape. Dr. Story talks about how she teaches her classes about rape and gendered violence, but says college students in general are still woefully uninformed about consent. "They just really have no idea what equals consent, what is actually rape," she says. "A lot of times young people are saying in classes that they don't really even think about consent when they are about to engage in a sex act, period." And, of course, we couldn't let this week go by without delving into Beyoncé's legendary performance on the VMAs, the giant F-word she flashed at the world, and how we still live for her.
Released:
Aug 29, 2014
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Strange Fruit #40: Don Lemon Says Don't Litter!: While we spent the week celebrating Jai's birthday and recovering from [EOY](http://www.eoy.net/), CNN's Don Lemon was busy making people mad and [agreeing with Bill O'Reilly](http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2013/07/27/nr-lemon-no-talking-points.cnn.html). In our Juicy Fruit segment this week, we deconstruct his list of advice for black folks. The video is worth a watch, but if you're pressed for time, it boils down to pulling up your pants and not having babies out of wedlock. It was a disappointing reminder that just because someone's family doesn't make them immune to the lure of respectability politics. But as Doc said, he's certainly no [Boykin](http://keithboykin.com/) (and we did agree with him that littering is gross). Also this week we bring you part two of our chat with Louisville activist Carla Wallace, and author Chris Crass. Chris was in town recently to celebrate the release of his book, [Towards Collective by Strange Fruit