I think that made me realize quickly that there were a lot of things that needed to be addressed at a higher level than we have time to one-on-one sometimes.
I think that made me realize that I needed to figure out a place to do that and there was an awesome policy that an awesome position created in New York State government, a fellowship that I was very proud to be one of the first people who received places for the Office of Children of Family Services and the branch of the policy that now run for foster care youth or identify as LGBTQ plus as well as youth who are homeless or marching out and in detention. So it meant a lot to me to get to try to do something at that top level of the world.
I think that's a great thing at that top level but it also dawned on me working there that these conversations have to happen in person.
I've learned a bunch of things from the Mount and now I want to get back to the space and just start talking more because it takes a decade for any meaningful concept or change that starts at that level to trickle its way down.
I'm just going to say that on front, please take notes or get your auto AI app and start recording all this so you have notes later. I wish I had that in college.
But just like, please pay attention and this Megan said, we really want this to be a discussion. We want to say some challenging things. We want to be challenged on the things that we say.
We want to have this as a real discussion in debate because this does not live in theory. For the kid who got caught back in on this campus today, I'm sure that has already happened at this 137 hour.
Many times. Many times. I'm sure. I have contacts through that because in every high school, in middle school that I've gone to, I speak at over the past year and a half in this role, as well as when I did it for the state.
As well as when I did it before that when you were a city as its social worker as a trainer, I would ask that question, who here has heard the word faculty in the school?
In every student raises their hand and if we teach your raises their hand and the superintendent raises their hand and they've accepted that they all already knew they lived in a school environment where every day that word is used.
At a time in suicide is a second meeting called for a day for teenagers generally and LGB less being gave by sexual hand sexual red. We're talking about sexuality identities three times more likely than all their peers to commit suicide trans you five times more likely.
So there are times as you heard this morning in the first session when there are exceptions to freedom of speech. It is not as some people may have said absolute if exceptions exist. Those two things cannot be.
So what we're going to do today is talk a little bit about the realities of freedom of speech as it actually applies to a person in their day to day life and not the lie, the myth of a white flag to wave around and say that all speech is free.
Then we're going to move into the queer experience and how freedom of expression. There's so many seats right down here on the front right hand side. That's what you give for being late friends, love you.
That's what happens. And then there's a pocket over here by these wonderful folks who live down. Thank you for that.
All right. Oh, that wasn't it though. What's it friends? You chose the second row. That's fine. That wasn't it. And the back is definitely not meant for the people coming.
So we're going to talk about how there are already exceptions and what this framework actually looks like for freedom of speech. Then we're going to shift into things about how freedom of speech is actually also freedom of expression and what that looks like for queer people on a day of a basis.
And how that's actually the real discussion needs to be how that is robbed from us. We are at risk for freedom of speech.
And then the final piece that I want us to move into is an understanding that some of those exceptions that we talk about in the beginning.
Would they apply in spaces like on this campus? It may not be appropriate or even aligned with some laws that we have in New York state to have any person come speak in a position of power on this campus who have blatantly broken the disdainous
just non discrimination protection that exists on this campus inviting them to this campus is inviting this respect to those people. And it is a problem.
We live in the internet. If you wanted to Google me right now and see if I'm ever setting in word, I bet you could find it. I've never said that on stage because I'm not that person.
I have apparently that freedom of speech right. But if I ever said it, you could Google it, you find video me doing it and I would have already been canceled.
And I would not be sitting here right now. Promise you. So those are the big buckets that we're going to cover today.
So I want to pass it to Megan to talk a little bit about those exceptions just to make sure that we understand the concept of the non-absolute speech that we have in America.
Good. Thank you, Daniel. I wonder first before I give any information out just remind everyone that we are not lawyers.
Daniel and I are both social workers. So we are going to talk about free speech and what it means to your rights from a point of a human rights perspective.
I'm not going to be able to break down to you at every time that this could fly and pour. I don't know at all. But I do know when somebody's human rights based on human rights under attack and how to decipher what that looks like.
So what I want to kind of practice before we start this conversation is that we hear a lot about free speech and how we need to protect it and how it's, as Nathaniel mentioned earlier, this absolute.
But that's really not true. Right. I think it may have been mentioned earlier that there are some exceptions to the rule. Right.
In your happy sessions today, did you all hear any of those exceptions to the rule? Is anybody brave enough to talk about one of these microphones and list one or all three of them?
I would have thought it was probably too bad luck to share.
Well, one is a really easy thing. Someone like you, like, you know, like, reputation, which can be a whole whole sort of all.
Yeah. That is correct definition. You can't just land or someone's character with no proof evidence or whatnot claimed to be protected by free speech.
Also, like threats or anxiety violence. Yeah. Okay. Attention. You cannot claim free speech if you tell someone you're going to bomb their house. That's not free speech.
You can't get a fire in a ground theater. That's Nathaniel's favorite one. You are correct.
So because you can create an incident in which people get hurt through directly false claim and that case causing a panic slash riot, I caused people to get jammed up.
Absolutely. Those three exceptions are synony, right? Defamation and inciting violence.
So just keep that in the frame of your mind when you hear people claiming free speech and fact check it, right? Okay. That's free speech.
But did you cause harm to someone? Did you incite a riot at some point in your professional career? Did you defame someone's character because you didn't like who they were, how they identified, how they looked to you, how they presented, ex-mine and do?
So I just want to drive those points home and to keep those in your mind as we talk today because those are the three exceptions.
And those are also the exact three ways that LGBTQ plus folks, more particularly transgender, do not conforming non-mine-air folks have been directly targeted for the last 18 months.
Now, you know, it's been longer than that, but we also haven't watched what has happened in the last 18 months.
And now our attacks are coming with behind claims of free speech, even though you're doing one of those three things that make free speech as a protection common point.
So thank you, awesome, great, and thank you for the participation I've appreciated. I'm just telling you, I'm going to be that guy the whole time.
So I want to now talk about something else that we don't think about a lot, but how many, we're here in Albany right now, raise your hand if you think you can guess how many layers of government are you under?
As a student, or let's even say layers of policy, as a student at U Albany.
Check it out, we can all hear.
It's first the federal government, where it perfects.
Yes.
The federal government, but then the state, then it's your county.
I'm going to pause you because we're going to do this together because you're right online, but I'm going to add some layers in the middle of you, right?
So there's the federal government and then there's the state, and that's like laws at the state has, but then the state has an agency called SED, right?
That's the state education department division.
They oversee all the policies for public schools in all of New York State.
All right, so now you got state law, like legislators make that happy.
Local has to help write some of those, keeps them in check overseas, right?
And executive branch not just getting available.
Then within the executive branch you have an agency where they accept those policies and laws.
Now what do you say after that?
And then I was going to say, and then after state, probably in all of us, our brother comes like your county.
Big though, so we've got county.
If you really want to talk SUNY specifically, then you could say that SUNY school systems has its own policies.
And then county, and that's a public situation, right? For county where will we go maybe?
And the state department can be like your city or the town's living in a defense of it, then it starts to like really...
So then we go to all of the city government for the policies and laws that they have in protections that they provide.
And then when you all got your student packets and when you all became faculty members or guest lectures or whatever position you have,
you sign something to be here, right?
You sign some kind of code conduct and agreement of how you behave on campus and agreement of what you do as a teacher.
Ed and person has never had a job agreed to the job.
That's what you do. You sign something for the job and you can pay to do the thing, right?
So if we count that out, we're talking federal.
And if we really wanted to get hyper specific, there's the federal education agency as well.
So like the executive branch federally, the federal agency that oversees education, New York State, New York State's education agency,
SUNY as an entity, some policies and laws, Albany County, Albany City, this actual campus and everything you'll assign.
All right, that is a lot of different layers.
And what you've done in some of those times, each time you creep down a layer, is waved a little bit of your freedom of speech.
Right? Because some policy says, except you can't do this now because while in New York State, you can't walk around being open, these inephobic on campus or transphobic on campus or the racist on campus.
Those are not the policies and laws of all the other states. Some states don't care about them.
Right? So freedom of speech changes then. It's vital, it's divided. It's no longer that because we have more strict, and actually if you are at a CUNY campus, you have even more strict freedom of street policies.
Because in New York City, you have all the fair policies for the five boroughs and things you can't do and say, their own education department, but the things you can't do and can't say, and then CUNY as a system within them.
Why is it important that I bring them up? Why is that even matter? Shouldn't it all, it's just freedom of speech. Right?
So the reason that's important is because we actually have something in the law. Again, now that we're just for lawyers, I've worked with the employers to pretend like I'm one for five minutes.
But also I am a policy maker of New York State government to administration. I understand what policy works. And policy is like an org chart. Right? Policy is like a family tree. There's this layer and then all of these layers underneath.
And so like I said before, absolutely. Do I have the freedom of speech to like point it up a student of color right now and call them the N-word? Yeah. Of course I do. And then be a scored dot campus because I broke campus policy.
They'd be chastised by New York City or any city government potentially, if some kind of hate crime potentially depending on what the student and the campus would like to do. All many counties, I wouldn't work for the state ever again as a policy maker.
But would it make freedom of speech? No. We wave those things away with every layer of law and policy. That's the reality. The people who worked on the Beyonce album that dropped in one day with visuals. Why was she waiting so long for these visuals? I don't know for the sound of them dying. All of those people sign an N-D-A. They contractually gave away their freedom of speech.
If they spoke, they would be breaking the rules. They would be breaking the rules for speaking. So it's not this absolute simplistic. Everyone should be allowed to say what we want. It's all the town square. It's fine. It's not. Now if you want to keep your job. Now if you want to keep your kids, the things you say can and will be used against you in the court of law.
So the first thing we've got to just get out of here is that anyone gets to walk through and wave around this big flag of freedom of speech as a car crash opportunity to speak at you.
You're free for teary for your government for your speech. Not a rep for your job. Right. Not the people who won't go into Chick-fil-A sandwich because you shouldn't need a Chick-fil-A sandwich. Honestly, y'all don't. There's so much other better chicken.
Pop-Less Chicken sandwich is like, dap-o. That's perfect. Seriously. So that's where I just want us to start. Does that make sense to people to be able to have questions about how that works? Does it have a challenge to that? I'm happy to be told I'm wrong. I've got a boyfriend. You know, it's fine. Does that make sense? Questions? Just give me the Zoom head nod. So I'm feeling good about myself. Okay, thank you. Awesome. Yes, down here.
Can you just quickly clarify? We're saying, uh, because of the other sessions. Like if I generally say the anti-trans thing about the concept of trans people, that would not, right? Like, move it. That would not fall because it's not directed at an individual person.
Or one of the programs that you work in here? No, like, uh, walking down the street, a random person could say out loud in no necessary context. My religion says that, you know, for me, people are not born. I'm a living-to-gue plough. I am part of an extremist group that defies biology, history, and reality that would suggest that trans people and trans people,
and gay queer people aren't real, that is hard. Absolutely. That's religious freedom. That's freedom of expression. If you are in the moment as a counselor, while a trans student is telling you that they're going to kill themselves because of the abuse that they're experiencing from their family or their student body,
and you say what my religion would say, you don't exist, that's not part of your work speech. That's not part of your job. We can all come in here and say what we think if we want to be doing that.
Because when that happens, then I think we have to open it up and say great, and what's your religion, what's Buddha say, what's Islam say, what's an atheist say, what's spiritualism say.
So we do have our freedom of expression, but when we use it in a work environment, right, or I'll give you a different example, which is not, it's what I don't love sharing, but it's recent, very real. I have my right-pipper place. I know I don't look at me, but I am. I'm 39.
But I had my right-hip-replaced up Friday last week. I had some complications. I went to the ER. I was there for hours. We could go on another tangent, another time about how we use the ER in this and every other city as a homelessness refuge, because we don't have enough services and care.
But as a person who seemed to be street homeless, who maybe has mental health issues, felt really comfortable walking through, and as I'm sitting in a wheelchair in crisis with my little pink fanic hat on the front, he just started calling me in fact again.
In front of other people, he didn't know who he was talking to. Right? He messed up. Because I was like, absolutely not. Get this guy out of here. I know the lawyers. I know the policies here. He can't stay. No.
The security guard, what I was swimming to be a middle-aged white cisgender street man, told me that we have a tolerance of policy here and I need to respect all people.
While I have 100 more fever two days after my hit was replaced and I was just living with a pink, merc, and I got polyphagot six times at one hand.
I need to respect all people. Did that person, any of the exceptions that we just talked about by doing that to me?
That's an open question to the room. I don't want to ask to answer that. Did that help what you were trying to get to? If not, please bring me back around.
I wanted to pull this together. I think the point to this is that depending on where you are, depending on your level of protection in this.
If that would have happened to the Daniel Long, he was walking down the floor of the street.
There would not really be many protections for him there. We free speech around the middle of the street.
But as the Daniel mentioned earlier, if you all hear our students or staff or whatever it might be, you've probably signed some type of non-discrimination policy or non-discrimination paperwork or someone rented to you or whatever it might be to cover every single bit of security.
The point is, if you are in a business or a place of learning, like education, or a place like a hospital, there are protections ingrained in that establishment that make it so with something like that happens, you can't just play free speech.
God don't play tolerance. Because I'll say, nothing worse than LGBTQ plus community than being tolerated.
It's nothing worse than someone saying, will we tolerate that? I don't want to be tolerated. I want to be allowed to exist in the same spaces that everyone else is allowed to exist in.
Without any to worry about my safety, my physical safety in those spaces. So, driving back to your question is, if you are in a place that provide you those non-discrimination protections, then free speech can't just be waived around like that way.
Because those exceptions come into play. Many non-discrimination policies include things like, you cannot discriminate on someone based upon their gender identity, their sexual orientation, their gender expression, their national origin, their race, their ethnicity, right? All of that's included and we are so lucky and privileged to live in New York State where gender identity and expression is regarded just as highly as any other type of minority or moralization of the state.
We still have a lot of room to grow. But we are looking to have those protections. So many non-discrimination policies will include that. Which we, you can't just treat someone or say something that will harm someone in a space like a school and have no repercussions because of your risk of speech rate.
And fortunately, there were some nurses that stepped up and they were like, that's not the policy. And they asked the guard to come over and take the person outside and not be there.
They came up and checked in with me to make sure that I was actively okay.
I'm sorry. There's a difference between harm directive, harassment, saying that to you. And the concept of saying, there are blank exploits of rape.
And like I'm saying, as it generalized all people, anybody who happens to have this identity is, it's whatever. Right?
There's a difference between saying you're free to speech them and then directing it at somebody and saying, you, because you have this identity, go that way.
I would actually say no. If you're someone who is in a position that feels it's appropriate in the work setting to share what could easily be considered a discriminatory view from your culture or religion, then you need to realize that there are some extreme cultures and religions out there that have plenty of views.
And we can all start expressing all of those things like even views like I don't think you should be alive because you're a woman who had sex with someone before marriage.
Right? There's a stream. And when we go there, we're inciting violence. And when we go there, we're also not asking every other perspective in view.
So I think that where we're talking about places of protection, not on the sidewalk, unfortunately, although Albany is a safe place for us to be to human people, supposedly.
When we're talking about the layers and layers and layers and layers, I think it calls into question, why did you say it?
Why was it expressed? I don't express my identity as a gay man to harm. I don't give a shit when anyone thinks about it. I have to live.
That's my choice. I have to live. Right? And when someone else chooses to make my living, my freedom of expression, a problem and cut off my freedom of expression, speech as we're going to go into, that's not OK.
So I don't know that I would say, just generally walking around and waving. I'm talking about all of you is just, it gets you out of jail free.
I think it's still there as a discussion. Right? Thank you.
So this is an open campus. So people just walk on here to like theoretically, if I was in a situation someone would like call me, yes, a slur.
But they don't work here. They're not like the inside anymore because people just walk here. Could I, that could I have the movement campus or a charge?
That would be anything. I don't know what your policies are, but it may or it's going directly to wherever you're like in a high school, you could a task that they're going to need for a student's act coordinator.
And I'm going to do the sort of DDA person you're checking with this year or something like that, but it may or it's a complaint.
And that person needs to be maybe told that it's not appropriate for them to be back here because they are for grass and food.
So I've had a situation like that happen to me and I was pointed to the right people. Because as a legal form, I unfortunately do not remember the name of the organization.
So I have a situation like that happen to me and I do not remember the name of the specific organization, but there is an organization where they have like this.
It's just straight up a move before where you can just input like where you were, what time it happened describe me and it doesn't matter whether the agenda was in like on campus, like either a resident or like a student or a staff.
Or if there's somebody who like in my circumstances just happened to be using home circle as their bus stop, they'll still investigate the situation.
And then from there, it's like up to you how you want to address this like off campus individual.
Yes, the formal name for that is the bias incident response protocol.
But does it answer the answer protocol?
Yes, you can use the QR code. You don't have to disclose your name if you choose not to.
If you want to report confidentially, you can.
If it's determined that what occurs is because of your protected class status, you may not be guaranteed an entity, but that's in order for an investigation to take place not to put anyone on blast or put anyone out there.
Thank you for that.
So I want to practice this by saying that I'm a trans-boiled student and I feel like the way that you are framing the free speech issue in some ways is actually giving the big, too much water.
In the sense that I'm not really sure I like the analogy of saying that people give up the right to free speech in order to be part of these nested organizations.
People just aren't free of their repercussions. If I went out and said the N word as a student here, my free speech is being mitigated by having repercussions because free speech refers to specifically the way the federal government and then do the 14th Amendment, the state government, it being incorporated against.
They can't just jail you for it, but nobody is going to be jailed for using the slur of a canvas.
No one is going to face any legal consequence for being a bigot. Nobody is going to face legal consequences outside of civil lawsuits for breaking a non-astosure agreement.
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and English and WGSS.
And I was just thinking, you know, one of the sort of limitations of like kind of illegal
or like even civil rights framework to discussion of trans issues, even though obviously it's
really important, not saying that it's not important, is that often a lot of the ways in which
transness is discussed, you know, even in a classroom or workplace is in this sort of
kind of, I think Courtney was also sort of getting on this right where it may be less likely,
especially in environment where there are these regulations and repercussions, maybe
less likely for someone in a classroom, for example, to stay directly to a trans student,
you know, something discriminatory, but it may be very likely for people to debate trans
existence as a political matter, right?
Obviously something that's highly, highly politicized.
So this sort of border line between, you know, protected identity versus a politicized
issue that is kind of up for defeat, I think is a lot of the way that this transphobia
and anti-transness and de-queerness circulate in classrooms, you know, in addition to,
like, anti-blackness and other forms of oppression.
So I guess, you know, where I'm not sure if this is exactly a question, but maybe it's
something to throw to the room is where this kind of fits in there, right?
When the ways in which transphobia circulates is not always like direct attacks, but, you
know, an environment of hostility that hold it size as people.
So thank you for that and awesome to anyone who has them as a professor and a GSF social
services school English.
Okay.
I love a good social worker, but you're pretty good too.
So what I wouldn't start off with is just an open question to the room and there's literally
only one right answer to this, dethranction or people exist.
No, I need a better answer than that, and dethranction or people exist.
Okay.
Does the student body need to all believe them?
Not necessarily.
That's not what we're here to do because there's some students who might also believe
the birth is flat, and there's some students who might have bought it to birth to create.
There's some students here who might have eaten Thai ponds as well, right?
And we're not talking about European as real.
I also want to comment on this too, and I think this annual appreciate it because I'm
always ready for a fight.
So I want to also put out there that none of this is a perfect system, right?
Well, I should, I should restate that.
The system's working exactly as they were meant to, and that just happens to be non-clunctional
sometimes for the people who need to use it.
So while we, and again, it's difficult for us to disseminate too much into the law
and practice, but we can share kind of the framing of this with the caveat that if any
of you faculty or students think that you all believe is not creating enough space for
you to be able to have these conversations, unfortunately that is your fight, and we
are here now before it.
If that's what the stance is that you think, you know, that that's kind of what is
happening on campus.
We in the bright center can be in these rooms and in these spaces so we can say how things
should look, how we wish they looked, how we can protect ourselves in spaces that look
like this, but I don't know what it looks like inside of its classrooms.
We've got our own direct view to legal organizations like the Legal Aid Society, or there's a
one called the Legal Hand that Megan has worked with a bunch that give it free legal advice
that can help you find out what your repercussion options are.
Because that's actually what all on discrimination policy is, it's a check.
Does it prevent discrimination?
If in 1964 we said we stopped discriminating against black people?
No.
But you can get a check.
If you can prove it and you're wealthy enough to make for a lawyer, you can prove it,
then you can get a check.
That's what non-discrimination policy felt that it just opportunity.
It should be that it's preventive.
So for example, when I went to go use the bathroom, as I do everywhere that I go, I don't
need a gender non-conforming or non-conforming.
I don't need a single stall to feel safe.
A lot of people do, and I ask every time I go to the bathroom where the third option schools
never have one.
This one has downstairs, which is awesome.
Not up here.
Unfortunately, I have been in temporarily disabled, so it was a bit of, it was quite a
bit of an added life.
For me to think about, to our really wonderful, the way downstairs, just to prove a point
when, in fact, I could just use this bathroom in high-speed safe.
So what is a school doing to prevent the discrimination if they're not willing to do training?
If they're not willing to hold people accountable for what's being done?
If they're not willing to take complaints about the issue, what is the state doing if they
sign a law saying they prevent it, but we are seeing in all of the rural counties we
go to, queer people being bullied out of their own towns constantly.
Homeless shelters in New York City are overflowing with queer people who each pipe their way
down there front of here when we have taxpayer-funded social services here that are too dangerous
for them.
So I want to prevent the discrimination and not just making it an opportunity to sue
them once you've been discriminated against.
I just want to go back to what I was saying and kind of that comment that the Halloween
kind of provides you spaces when it's more blanketed and less directly targeted and my response
there is go to your school because you deserve to sit in every single space in this campus
and feel safe and feel like you can exist, right?
I have the day to go, but you're earlier, I have been a five-minute session to person,
but I identify a gender non-conforming.
And every single time that I do things in public like trying to use bathroom or what people
hear me speak and then they see how I look, I'm already ready for, you know, some type
of pushback.
But my response to that is create these spaces that they're not already here to you in
this afternoon.
You know, go ask why.
Why do you not feel safe?
Why do you trans kids on this campus not feel safe?
What is the regret that is circling around the school and find ways to put that in your
policies to protect?
Because that is a possibility, right?
We talked earlier about all the different layers of government that are in play here.
Your policies for you all, but it could be changed and shifted to create a more welcoming
environment and try to come up with things from the present that have 10 points of a
shriot.
Yes, yes.
So this is a perfect segue into, we got a question.
Hi, I just want to comment on I am a trans and non-binary library professional here
of the U of New Libraries.
And I think something that sort of has arisen throughout this presentation.
I'm thinking a lot about how we rely on legal systems and sort of punitive measures to
enforce this idea of non-discrimination, especially using police.
I know that last semester when there was an instance of a transphobic speaker on campus,
we had counter-diving strikers who were pro-trained for LGBTQ who were arrested by campus police.
I don't necessarily feel as a peer person in any police department that the police are
there to protect me.
And I would say that those double, triple exponentially for people of color who have an added
layer where the police are not necessarily there to protect them, but rather their
basetutions.
And I think also about some of the nice circulated reasons be where in Brazil, using homophobic
slurs as punishable with like up to five years of prison or something like that.
And just as someone who generally is of the position of believing in prison abolition,
I don't necessarily see that as a solution if somebody comes up to me in the street and
calls me this or the other thing because of how I identify it for five percent.
I can also see, you know, I am a someone who is white.
I've had access to higher education.
So I have all these privileges and the status of somebody go to jail because you go to the
police and you go to jail or when that was my drag you.
I think that there's a really, it's conflicting.
I think that there's a lot to chew on there.
But yeah, I think just thorough violence on police and criminality and punitive measures
like that.
And carceral measures like that is really problematic, especially as I want to point out again
as white educated queer people.
I think we have our responsibility to think about that as well.
I think you did an absolutely good degree more.
I wanted to put in some hate crimes provisions when I worked for the state government around
families that kicked their kids out for an identity related issue.
Like it's one thing if you kicked your kid out because they're punching you in the
math every day and it's 15 years old and bigger than you and they can't be there anymore.
That's not a files.
It's another thing to say, I just don't like that your kids can't get out of my house.
You mean like and it doesn't happen a black parent thing because they're child, that
right in your black and get out of my house.
Right?
Like it is this identity that's being attacked and I had a friend also in the state government
say and if we created a provision like that it would won't be in black families.
It's like well, you're dead right?
So we can't do that.
And at the same time I live somehow the idealist in me has been shaped down a little bit to
the pragmatist that says, I hear it, I agree with you, I support it, it's an aspirational
future that when we have prison reform we could talk about, we have police reform, we
could talk about but now that this could easily become subsumed by police reform issue which
could easily become subsumed by poverty issue which could easily become consumed by a capital
is a issue and then that's actually how it's always been a racism issue in the inception
of a country, slavery.
You know like it could and you're right that our privilege we have to weaponize it in
those spaces to make sure we're not creating more dangerous and carcassertory states for
people of color and also this is all we've got.
We are state that is at the forefront of this and you told me that last semester a transphobic
speaker who broke the probably rules that would not be permitted on this campus was inviting
us and some kids were arrested, that's all legal right, that all is legal unfortunately
so then we have to play in the sand lots that they've been given us so it's both the end.
I thought I had over here and then I want to jump back two minutes awesome and I just
want to jump back into the house.
Yeah I was going to say it because you know we all know that this rhetoric is like
a lot of the way and it's definitely a form of loyalty specific groups and we talk about
what you're discussing it as it's like these protections are plays but like the university
actually has some addicts specifically outlawed by the use of transphobic rhetoric in its
own language.
I was not a transphobic speaker because transphobic speakers were not protected from
transphobic rhetoric and so we were there and I was so jealous also there and we were
faced with so much negativity and apoprotest and following the protest trying to organize
and create a community and save space for my fellow trans students like we it was so
hard if so many random roadblocks and the university and their outward message to like
everybody regarding the issue didn't say anything to specifically support and acknowledge
its trans community it simply that things on the basis of protecting free speech and that
all ties back to like the way in which we politicize people because like trans people
are not a political issue we're just human existence but it was making it out to be this whole
political issue when it's not and this whole symposium just seems funny because like we
know that it's in direct to address like what happened like students were arrested like
in front of us and not only did black but also queer students did not really say that
instance like whatsoever.
Yeah like thank you no thank you for that.
I think so if you I know I saw your hand but if you don't mind that I scoop into the
middle section for a bit and then I would love for you to definitely speak up because
we got another third and a two minutes so what I want to talk to you is exactly what
you just said so freedom is speech and expression are you free to be voting flagrantly
if definitely gave away on this campus.
And free from harassment free from discrimination free from being mistreated by other students
free from being called back as you all class and then you're expected to do well on your
test.
After you've just been called out.
No that does not currently presently exist I just know that anecdotally from everything
I've done in my life.
I know if I walked out large street was called that word last week if I was called that word
in an ER at Albany Med last Saturday it's happening.
And gender expression non discrimination act as a sonless sexual orientation non discrimination
act as a three gender expression was 2019 we can get into that later.
That those two laws apply to education and human rights law in the state of New York.
And so now what we're going to do is talk about the freedom to express yourself as a trans
person.
You should be allowed then in common space to say I am transgender and no one should have
anything to say about that.
Appearance about your identity are limiting your ability to express yourself.
A really simple like benign example that I'll be as a comparison.
Left handed people were 4% of the American population up through the early 1900s.
Left handed people slowly rose because this crazy fat everyone just saying they were
left handed and now steadily 11% of the United States population is more likely that
4% scientifically rose over the last 60 years to 11% or that it was always 11% and decades
of the United States population.
We used to vilified left handedness that's how want to this non-tenseless and there was
no culture war over left handedness.
Some saying they were left handed but not trying to start a political fight in the classroom.
They were saying they were left handed and anyone who suggested otherwise is wrong is wrong.
So how do we talk about expression and freedom of speech for people to hurt others when
the others in question are having their freedom of expression and speech limited?
Does that make sense?
Questions or thoughts about that?
The thing that I often think is that the phrase culture wars was invented by not me, not
trans people, not queer people, not black people.
It was invented by angry, loud, mad, conservative, screaming, white, straight, cisgender men against
any person who would dare stand up and say, I am.
And now it's a war.
Did Ukraine start the war?
No, they were invaded by another country.
This is invasion.
When we're talking about freedom of speech and we're prioritizing a discussion about someone's ability to arm or
diminish your ability to be free, we're ignoring the fact that freedom of speech should start with every individual person
being able to be themselves first.
Show up as you first.
No one takes that away from you.
At all.
And there's a biological reality of this.
There's paid drawings and gender transition.
Every continent has hundreds, if not thousands of years, of recorded history in every country that exists on those
continents of trans identities.
All indigenous culture in South and North America was pro-trans and queer people before the colonizers came over.
So we've been here.
This new concept that we have is crazy.
I'm just comfortable.
People can at me as much as you want for that.
The proud path that Instagram.
Go ahead.
Right?
But this new extreme belief that our suggestion of existence is the problem is not it.
The problem is if we're talking about freedom of speech and expression, how are we centering a trans person's ability to exert their own
freedom of speech and expression?
Do you have any thoughts about that?
And I know I'm going to hand over here, but just a second.
I just wanted to.
I mean, I first wanted to touch on kind of dancing to the room so that we are not just ignoring, but to give the caveat that we don't know what happened last year.
But I feel it picking up kind of what you're putting down, so to speak.
So I want to acknowledge that something really horrible must have happened for you all to feel like you're not going to be able to do it.
I want to acknowledge that when we're talking about freedom of speech and what that means and what that looks like, we are also aware that that is not always what that means and what that looks like.
Right?
And I think some of you may be from this of an angle of how do you protect yourself of something's happening to you that that is an danger?
And not how we all have had a nice point for freedom of speech, right?
Because we are very aware of that, just kind of throwing it to the system of law and the first one is not how it affects things.
But you may find yourself there engaging with it someday and want to be able to disseminate what is happening to you and this information so that you will have some kind of protection.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
I just want to point out from you.
You know how I said I was a political science student.
I used to also be a history student as well back in undergrad.
And I kind of felt like at my undergrad, which was another city school, I was kind of forced out of the program so to speak because of LCT issues and the idea that many of my professors thought that they were trying to explore trans-cast was trying to put modern,
just like the idea that she's on the path.
It's very academically controversial and it's not really the most conducive space for an LCT historians.
It's end-historical, right?
It's fully end-historical to suggest that LGBTQ people don't exist.
It's the blindness of your own eyes and ears because I'm sitting right here.
I'm exhausted by being asked to prove that I'm sitting right here.
And I'll just share with you that both of my parents and Marines I was raised in southern Ohio in a town of 4,000 people.
And if I'm about to church environment and they support me every season, I'm still here as hell.
I'm sitting right here.
So my proof is not on me.
And so thank you for that context.
Yeah, appreciate it.
I want to thank you for re-reacting me and let's get things that still go.
Yeah, so I just wanted to talk a little bit more about the events from last year.
And also because you have mentioned that it's important to have a preventative response as a university as an institution to these transphobic instances.
And also the culture of transphobia that's developed nationally.
And in response to the events from last year, so for context, there was a student organization who brought the transphobic speaker to campus.
And students decided to come together and to draw out the transphobia.
To show the trans community that they below and are accepted.
The transphobic speaker, his name is Ian from the team, he never came out.
They ended up moving the location of the event.
You try to make it a member's only event for the student organization when we tried to go.
When you tried to find them, we were blocked from entering.
That's when students were arrested.
But in the aftermath of that, we did as form a coalition of queer students to try to put together some demands for the university to ensure that this doesn't happen again.
And that students are protected.
And we have yet to hear back from the university.
And some of those demands include that we demand that the university albony is divest from UPD, University Police Department, and invests in the social worker-based mobile crisis response unit that responds to mental health calls rather than armed PD officers.
So there is a way for an MPD to not be involved in escalating Exodus further.
And also we demand that the creation of restorative justice and implementation also over restorative justice programs that prioritize input from marginalized student populations, along with a lot of other demands that protect queer and trans students.
And so on the website, one of the first sentences, this symposium was created as a response to events from the spring 2023 semester.
So it's pretty clear what those events were.
And we think that their symposium was great that they're putting together and that they're trying to uplift marginalized voices as a country.
Yeah, and have conversations. Ultimately, it falls flat without actually enacting change and enacting these demands.
Thank you for the context on that. I will say, I can take what I can explain that might be.
First and foremost, I work here. And I believe that if they might be different.
And I don't know all the specifics. I think that it sounds awesome. But you all put together and organized to create organized events really, really critical.
I have to work here. I would say you also have freedom of speech, like you get together and off at for the time of the union or even the New York Times to explain what it's like to be a student campus, a student campus student.
And the list of the response potentially. And then this to your point friend, between you.
Game awesome. You're awesome point about the reality and the realities of that. The privilege of people who mostly want folks, bites this fear folks, but then everyone else who understands those things.
Need to be in the room with you when you're making those demands because I've worked for the York County Constitution. All they have to do is find one reason for any of those demands that it doesn't make much of.
And we can't afford to do that. It's already dead. It was already a dead demand. I've been on advocacy calls where people say that I was still the right thing.
And as soon as the call line is dead, the whole world is like, and that's never going to happen. So if you know the system, you can mess with the system.
And so that's what we might think of on it is. And I will also share that we do a lot of projects with student campuses, queer youth groups, queer student body groups.
I would love to eat you all. Many queer group involved. I love your instant page and thank you for all the awesome meetups you're doing for all of your individualized and, you know, sort of individual marginalized folks and intersections.
And understanding where this actually lives and not this is something else I'm just going to throw in it. Treating it like a cooperative endeavor when it shouldn't.
It doesn't feel that way right now. But treating it like a cooperative endeavor and going up and staying. So I know you've been on the budget to disband all of this.
They may have contracts that you don't know about. They may have union rights. They may have all of these things that immediately take what you've offered and just destroy it.
Instant. And so outsmart them. You're smart. Just use risk risk. Right. So start doing some digging on the things that you can today and that you cannot say no to.
And so what I'm saying is we work currently with.
Restless age. We're actually looking for more campuses this year to do this kind of advocacy work. We're getting into the dirty.
I think get away from the sort of. And this is not to diminish anything that has been done here at any time. But moving away from the.
I'm going to go out here in these streets. I'm going to let you know about how I'm green.
I'm going to get really. I'm going to get really. And scary. I'm going to read every by.
I'm going to copy a piece and I send it back to you. I was at a conversation that Paul Tomco our congressman.
And also representatives about youth work. There was one youth advocate there for March for our last and he was the only person in the room.
My staff included who looked right up.
Paul's like well, and I know that bill number six seven five two hasn't moved out of this.
And he got what's wrong with that.
17. No other adult in the room could even compare to this kid's out.
Because he was there talking to Paul Tomco about Paul Tomco job.
Not some lost key concept of like just standing something which is an awesome idea in theory and practice.
But really just go directly to Paul Tomco about Paul Tomco's actual job.
So you these are all public documents pull the violates. Find out if there's a contract. Find out if there's a union contract.
Find out what is the hold up for that particular endeavor. And then what's the next step you could get to before they tell you no.
And then let them tell you no and find out why they say no and then work around that.
You know, but is it important to understand the system in order to change it?
Unfortunately, and that's what I would say is awesome.
List of demands awesome that you organized. And now how do you get really nearly ready?
Because the advocates at the state level who get stuff done are not always.
Oh, actually the ones who are in the streets screaming.
Those people awesome need those people. We need numbers. We need voices. We need it.
But the person we get to die is the person who calls us. It's next to the governor's policy person who works there and means over those.
When we need it first week and there's.
And they actually said that this line is is is is be broken and they're right.
And so we need to talk about that. And that's when you get scary.
Because you're playing on their level.
That would be my advice. At least in this situation in general.
And then I'd love to connect about the queer campus group here and how we can bring some advocacy training to y'all.
Yeah, please.
Thank you. I wanted to comment a little bit on the.
The Bible and I had to pull up waiting for the right questions.
One of the things that happened that that the controversial is that the student activities fee was used to pay for the transfer of the speaker.
And.
And we got by.
Well, right. The policy is going to be said all events they've been listening activities fee must be open to the public.
Well, the school got to remember all the event and any students that tried to access it was arrested.
So we have to work hard to do.
We can't change the Bible as you mentioned and it might be a place to start here with the first night hours in activities fee bill towards funding.
Absolutely. So I want to just thank you for that.
And did you want to comment on it?
I just wanted to reiterate as the average and advocacy coordinator and the friends that are that there's a price in our opening that serves all of the.
Service its community and my job as I come out reaching is advocating for folks.
It's not always been safe for transgender people. I'm just going to say as the executive director that works and runs it now.
The price that I was not always going to say for transgender black and brown people it is now.
Absolutely now.
I won't work there.
But it would be understandable if you didn't know about us or did we want to reach out?
Thank you. We cannot run my friends truly empty suite of things all.
So I just I really encourage that if there is anyone in this student group that is willing to reach out and work with us and see what it is that we can do to collaborate together because it has to feel pretty help us at this point.
And that is a shitty place to be.
And I really sorry that you all have experienced that.
I would love to know more about what happened because I'm getting it in bits right now.
So that was just my.
Thank you.
And if this is not a reparative on that I can understand I think that we all leaders could do a better job of seeing the horse for the trees sometimes that.
Y'all are smart enough to know I mean things that happen in response to an event are become very clear right.
So I'm not all going to shy away from it but that this is this particular conversation.
I think it's also an opportunity for the many people to hear to not only hear the anger that you all have which hopefully they think hearing about but also to get to get it on a much more academic level which is very narrow language right.
Get it on the line.
You used funding that blah blah and this happened and now that doesn't seem like it's a big and it follows all the violence.
Let's have a discussion about that right.
So I appreciate it. I would just caution and say for the 13 minutes left I don't want to keep going down the rabbit train of this because we certainly could and lose all time to it.
There's a discussion that needs to happen that is big and I think that we certainly could be a part of that to help you better understand where you all are so we can better understand and then we are here to advocate.
I'll do key up here to advocate for the queer community and whatever way we possibly are existence is not a debate.
It's not absolutely not and hate is not accepted part just point my period that's it right.
So the last piece that I want us to just scoop into which is going to be tricky but I just said is thinking through how the first conversation we have these layers of policies that exist constantly.
I'm relays that get smaller as you go to know right. How does that plus that discrimination policy that you have here on campus for trans and queer folks right which has to exist.
How does that all come together when thinking about what's appropriate for the school environment in general.
And so that we're not talking about one event we're going to broaden this and say if someone is a known hate eager against Jewish people I imagine the Jewish coalition here would have something to say about the ADL which has an enormous presence in Albany would be here same day right like there are lots of times and other communities historical examples in which someone being a danger someone
yelling fire in a crowded theater and then suddenly a bunch of people are at risk that person should not be someone we're invited.
And that is never a favor of broader policy discussion I think is narrative here and that is not all the problem with all of this is it less there is in what's the policy was was been here about not having a specific policy about anti trans language right something I go out and I say to
human rights directors all the time or a lot of our human resources directors all the time is what would it look like how would it change conversations if the policy wasn't just you can't be distributed against for your gender identity or sexual orientation.
Okay, I will start there and the next sentence says all people on Albany Sunni's campus system are free from discussion that would imply that their gender identity or sexual orientation is immoral or less than in any way.
What would that look like how would that change debates in the last rose if a teacher had to say okay, okay, it's finally you boys with your thought was generally that you're specifically saying to the people burn and hell that's a problem you're creating a moral hierarchy and you're placing trans and queer people at the lowest number that's important you're calling them in moral people we're not allowed.
That's very different than the blanket concept that you just can't say because into the points that if a day there's many work areas to that concept right but that all students are free from discussion and that that would actually protect girls.
This girl discussion that girls are weaker and should be playing sports or should be in STEM right saying some race had not be used as a concept for immoral or less than speech.
All right, so now how would that change the discussion around the alien on this campus?
To say that you can't have to meet on the merits the merits are trans people exist and they're not immoral that's real.
Their existence can't be made immoral and if that's the case then let's go back to the left hand people don't exist.
We can do that we're trying to do that.
So what would it look like to actually create provisions that speak to what God's prevention is which is we don't accept this language on campus that would have placed on them blessed.
And again, and this is another policy ticket just for you all all those rocks and so when you create policy for the most marginalized people it trickles up and what I mean by that is when the ADA happened disability act in the same thing.
That policy forced towns to create the divots that we now have in all of our sidewalks all the sidewalks before that were hurt all the way around.
We created a policy because people in wheelchairs need to get around.
Mothers pushing strollers start stopped meeting to get help pushing their stroller and getting it down to the street and then up on the other side.
Being a killer manslaughter plummeted because people didn't fall off of the side of the edge they knew exactly where it stopped they could see it's looking down and stopped.
When you create policy that protects one group of people well it actually protects everybody well.
So saying you can't talk about someone's gender identity and a majority way as though they're immoral due to their gender identity in some way is also saying you can't tell the girl that she's too dumb to be in a step class you can't tell a boy he's not allowed to wear a dress like campus.
Right? It cascades up when you do that and so that's another piece of advice I would offer something for you to consider is that as you look at cooperatively creating these new policies with these people who are beholden to you that's where I would meet.
And if they are a flopper that's when you go to the time you get free speech.
If you have any questions about those you need it to you but also give them a five stick list for some questions so that folks can do that too.
Good. All right.
Yes please.
Prime Minister, I'm a student here. I'm also president of Pride Alliance and I'm a queer join which is a coalition of campus.
I'm giving you a business card that's okay.
Yes.
I was going to say my question.
This was a very great opportunity to know that we have resources outside of the school to lean on for support and advocacy but I guess not to just put you guys on this spot but I'm just wondering where you guys are going to be.
I mean, where you guys are going to be formed about the events of last semester prior to this to prepare because I feel like you a has had multiple opportunities to you know what dress that has gone on or like just like to at least say like we support trans people and they have missed that opportunity.
I feel like this was the perfect opportunity to bring in that knowledge for you guys to prepare yourselves more and you wait just in my event has always acted as like a performative.
Why?
Because they say they want to foster you know an inclusive diverse environment but then when you might host the city and you foster that how do both coaxes so I was just wondering where you guys informed or was there like.
I love you guys can answer that but I was not.
I actually for full disclosure saw a query because so we should statement last night on Instagram and it was very confused coming in today because there was information there and I was like I think that is actually the event I'm attending so that was the extent of my knowledge.
So I knew that it was something that had happened I also knew that this was likely my piece together that this was likely response you know there was no outreach to say like we're trying to bandage and fix and tell everyone to stop being so vocal about it if that's what they were hoping for the probably shouldn't ask me.
But no what I want to share is I've had someone to rent higher than me in state government say on the phone someone I did not feel safe with I'm your man.
And I had to say to them that's actually something you can't say white people don't get to say it's not racist.
You can't say I'm your man I can say you support trans people you support people you don't get something the other way around you can't be punching someone in the face saying I'm your man right.
So no one right and I hope that that is something that the administration here here is that people know how they've been made to feel people know how these things show up and how how it smacks sometimes right and doesn't feel like a tick and also we are outside people advocates and supporters and they did as some loud people to come up here and talk about this stuff not specifically this issue right.
And that's what I think is the important piece is if you want to run the most out issue that that's a window that's created and we've got something even as an outside that they can be we can come to create but this was created as a one round for us.
Is that the ideal? I don't know. Is it further the conversation? Yeah. Could they have stuck it under the rug entirely? Well, so yes. They could wait three years and none of you would be here on campus anymore.
That's how all of your work.
So take what you can with a grain of salt and know that it's about also creating a better space for your next students your next students your next students your next students your next.
Thank you. I believe that we're at time and I want to thank you all for the amazing conversation and an interesting thank you for showing up and having a good time.
Thank you very much.
I'm going to take privilege of holding my right now.
One, I'm just joining the lawyer myself and was this starman is coach or GPTQ advisor council university we would love to work with you and your demands and see how we can work together to make our campus better.
I first made exactly correct.
But in the morning, we moved forward at all activities and just one of the things in that that's the minute of opinions but from what I understand they remember we talked about the speaker was not paying using the say points was paid by external issues.
So it's something that's the relation can do.
Please be supportive is not direct response to the events of us semester.
But really it's in help us now understanding this lot of conversations about please teach across the United States.
The polarization of our understanding what this speech could actually do, especially in a political realm but in all other ways.
But the biggest thing is that the community put together an event that highlights many instances of this speech and that's why we're here today to kind of explore and expose and continue conversation about what the streets please teach is isn't and how it can be damaging or helpful.
We have another wonderful conversation coming up right now so you will go up to five because we have got an excuse of that to remain with us.
Again, I want to say thank you very much.
I think I'm being asked to sing.
Yeah, you ate that down.
Like I'm saying for the.
I know.
I'm going to say that.
I got my glasses.
I have to confirm.
I feel like I'm not happy with you.
I just thought I'd be more of a discussion about self-expression.
I thought it would be for a change of balance.
Beautiful things.
What?
I was the other day.
I was like, is that so?
I'm going to say that.
I'm going to say that.
I'm going to say that.
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I'm going to say that.
We put together.
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You guys had something planned out like questions.
I was going to bring it here.
Yeah.
I got to go get it.
I'll go get it.
I'm going to put it on.
So I'm gonna give you...
