How do you approach gender as a parent? (with LB Hannahs) (Transcript)

[00:00:00] Chris Duffy:
You're listening to How to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. Today on the show, we're gonna talk about parenting and self-expression with Dr. LB Hannahs. LB knows how to connect with kids, not only from their own experience as a dad, but also from working as a diversity educator and running an LGBTQ center at a university.

In their professional life, LB is often working with organizations, helping them to become more inclusive from the top down, but then in their personal life with their own kids, LB is experiencing all the ways big and small that society thinks about gender and parenting. And all of that is to say that I am thrilled to talk to someone as thoughtful as LB about the ways that all of us can broaden ideas about what parenting looks like, how it works, and how to teach kids healthy self-expression on all fronts. To get started, here’s a clip from LB’s talk at TEDxUF.

[00:00:53] LB Hannahs:
So the other morning I went to the grocery store and an employee greeted me with a “Good morning, sir, can I help you with anything?” I said, “No, thanks. I'm good.” The person smiled, then we went our separate ways. I grabbed Cheerios, and I left the grocery store, and I went through the drive through of a local coffee shop.

And after I placed my order, the voice on the other end said, “Thank you, ma’am. Drive right around.” Now in the span of less than an hour, I was understood both as a “sir” and as a “ma’am”. But for me, neither of these people are wrong, but they're also not completely right. Uh, so more specifically, I identify as genderqueer.

And now there are lots of ways to experience being genderqueer. But for me, that means I don't really identify as a man or a woman. I feel in between and sometimes outside of this gender binary. And being outside of this gender binary means that sometimes I get sir-ed and ma’am-ed in the span of less than an hour when I'm out doing everyday things like getting Cheerios.

But this in-between land is where I'm most comfortable. This space where I can be both a sir and a ma’am feels the most right and the most authentic, but it doesn't mean that these interactions aren't uncomfortable. Trust me, the discomfort can range from minor annoyance to feeling physically unsafe, like the time at a bar in college, when a bouncer physically removed by the back of the neck and threw me out of a woman's bathroom.

But for me, authenticity doesn't mean comfortable. It means managing and negotiating the discomfort of everyday life. Even the times when it's. And it wasn't until my experience as a trans person collided with my new identity as a parent, that I understood the depth of my vulnerabilities and how they were preventing me from being my most authentic self.

[00:02:25] Chris Duffy:
We're gonna be back with more from LB after this quick break, don't go anywhere.

[MUSIC BREAK]

Chris Duffy:
Okay. We are back, and today on the show, we're talking about parenting authentically and how to create space for the full range of human complexities.

[00:02:48] LB Hannahs:
My name is LB Hannahs. When I'm being fancy. I'm Dr. LB Hannahs. I am a researcher and a diversity equity inclusion practitioner during the day, and I parent and survive pandemics at night.

[00:03:00] Chris Duffy:
So let's talk a little bit about some of what you discussed in your TEDx talk. Um, you talk about balancing these conflicting desires for ease in your everyday life versus authenticity in your interpersonal interactions. How does that play out for you in a, in a given day?

[00:03:17] LB Hannahs:
Oh my goodness. I feel like that if there's no more present threat, uh, in my life at large, when it comes to my gender experience or parenting experience, right?

Like every parent can probably empathize with like, “Alright, am I going to do the thing that's going to make this human learn from this experience, or am I just gonna let that one go?” You know, it's, it's always a balance of easy or what's right. And I don't wanna like reduce it to this binary of like, there's always a black and white, this is right or this is wrong and this is easy and this is hard. ‘Cause it's not, but in the span of a day or the span of a week or a span of a chapter of your life, how much are you… what's the ratio of choosing what's easier for me or what's hard and really being reflective about making sure that you're living in your values?

Sometimes the easy route is not living in your values, whether it's at a personal level or at a kind of larger social level. And so that, that theme around choosing easy versus authentic is pretty frequent for me and trying to instill that process in kids as well to think about what's the easier route here, but what's, what's right for you as a, as a growing into yourself person and then what's right for the larger either family or collective or the larger right thing to do.

[00:04:29] Chris Duffy:
Did you always know that you wanted to be a parent?

[00:04:31] LB Hannahs:
I think so. I grew up as, um, the oldest of, of a large family and, you know, as many older kids do we take on a lot of parental duties and I love kids and I love babies.

So I think it was, while I wasn't always conscious that I wanted kids until I met a person I wanted to have kids with, and this was like, “Yeah, let's do this.” But I think so it was, there was never a “Definitely not”. There's never a journey of no to, yes, it was. “Yeah, probably”, and then it became “yeah”.

[00:04:57] Chris Duffy:
I know that for some people who don't conform to gender standards, that like, it can be a little bit fraught because there is this big question of like, are you gonna be the mom? Are you gonna be the dad? What are you gonna get called? How are you gonna deal with these things? And you talk about that a lot in, in your talk and, and also in your, your other writing. So how did you navigate that, that world? And how did you come up with something that worked for you?

[00:05:19] LB Hannahs:
Yeah. I thought a lot about it. And it's partially like, as all of us as gendered people do this, some of us do it more consciously and some of us have an easier time than others around putting on the words or the literal clothes that feel right to us. It's about putting on this clothes. I'm like, “Oh, this feels right. This word. Let me try this word out for a while.”

You know? So in a past life, I was a lesbian. In a past life, I was bisexual. In a past life, I was Butch. And then the language I use now is genderqueer and queer. And so I just tried stuff out. I did a lot of thinking. I did a lot of feeling. I did a lot of processing with the people in my life and my partner at the time.

And looking at the, the possibilities out there and I'm not gonna lie. I was like, all right, “I'm gonna go with daddy or dad.” And, um, it didn't feel, like, super comfortable right away. It was something that I had to like sit with and get used to. Not that it felt uncomfortable from a gender perspective, but in the beginning I was like, “Oh, this is new.”
And it's not only new to me, but it's new to everybody else. It was like, you get a, a great pair of shoes that looks great and you know, they're gonna be great, but you just gotta break them in. And I feel like I broke in being called “Daddy” because your kids don't call you that for like a year. Right? Like everybody, all the adults were calling me Daddy or calling me Mom, and I had to correct them.

And then once your kids start calling it, I'm like, “Okay, now this is what it's supposed to be. This is the pair of shoes that just like, like, feel your foot and the shoe are the same thing.” And then they grow up and become teenagers and start calling me dad, and then I'm gonna have to get used to them dropping the softer part of that calling me dad.

[00:07:00] Chris Duffy:
Yeah. Well, it's also interesting to me because like, obviously when you start with a baby, right, it's a, it's a blank slate. There is no, like, they're not pre-programmed to say certain words, you teach them everything from the beginnings of phonemes to the, all the way to what they mean and how to put 'em together.
And I think sometimes, sometimes, especially for people who are cisgender, heterosexual couples. It can just feel like, “Well, that's just natural. That's just nature.” And I think something that's very important to remember for not just raising kids, but for being humans is that these things are not natural, right? They’re creations. And we can choose which ones work for us and which ones don't.

[00:07:37] LB Hannahs:
Exactly. Everybody chooses. Everybody chooses. Some people consciously do it, or some people just, like, some of us are forced into to, to going against the stream because of how, who we are and how we show up in the world. And some of us are choosing just to go along with the stream, but it's still a choice.

It's just not a conscious one for cisgender heterosexual folks. We're just, you're just, you're, you've stepped on the—I had a colleague that would talk about the like moving sidewalk. You step, you made the choice to step into it, and you're just riding that out and you're choosing not to think not to do anything different.

[00:08:11] Chris Duffy:
It’s interesting because one of the things that I think happens a lot is the color conversation of like pink and blue. And I really liked this quote that you had about how at first, you were like, I'm gonna tone down and eliminate like femininity and masculinity. I'm gonna like cut out all the gendering in the parenting.

But then as you did that, you kind of realized that the default in the society we live in is if you don't do any gendering, it just becomes all masculine. Cuz that's what the absence of gender is in our society as the default. So you had to kind of reevaluate, like how do you actually raise kids without having them be stuck in a, a paradigm where like they, blue is only for boys and pink is only for girls and all the other problems that come with that.

[00:08:57] LB Hannahs:
Yeah. That, that is the challenge. And, you know, my partner at the time, and she’s my co-parent still was really instrumental in helping me understand that too, is kind of a collective understanding that we needed to be more intentional about the abundance of gender rather than the removal of gender options.

And that's really kind of this, I think sometimes, particularly folks that aren't in the kind of like conversation or aware of kind of the movement around gender and gender expression and trans and, and multiple expressions of genders. Like, the goal here is not to like take away and make everything homogenous.

It's to be expansive about gender. A lot of trans advocates and educators talk about this. It's like we just want more options to match the complexity of humans. And then what we wanna get rid of is all the harmful rules and consequences for breaking those rules, because gender is part expression, and we want more of that, not less. And so part of that is allowing femininity and masculinity in its many iterations to be what it is.

[00:09:58] Chris Duffy:
So how do you do that in, with your own kids? How do you do that?

[00:10:00] LB Hannahs:
Yeah, I mean, since the talk I had, we had another kid and then there's a third in the mix with our other co-parent and it's a daily practice. This is the thing I want. If there is advice for being a better human is around being aware of gender, and thinking about the consequences of gender is a daily practice because it's all in the nuance. I was talking with a friend this weekend around how the, the devil’s in the details around how, how am I gonna mess up my kid and thinking about that.
But like, so for example, she was talking about having an experience that her parents think that they, she and her brother were raised pretty egalitarian and equitably. And we were thinking about how she was socialized to capture all her thoughts and things in a diary, but we don't necessarily encourage little boys to keep diaries and be expressive in their emotion.

That's not a common practice. I can't tell you how many diaries people have bought for my daughter. Nobody has bought a diary for my son, including me. He has a diary, but it's because his sister was like, “I have a diary. He should have a diary.” But, but that is a nuance and a significant practice and like, why are we encouraging little girls to be expressive and in their emotions and writing them down and getting 'em out, but we don't encourage our little boys to be expressive and have diaries and, and write down how they're feeling and what's going on for them in their daily life?

It’s, it’s in the details it's in the everyday practice. And so that's part of it, giving them language, being, not being reactive to things that other folks might be reactive to, and really thinking about that everyday practice of what explicit or implicit messages of support or not am I giving around gender? It's exhausting. I'm not gonna lie. And some days I'm like, I'm not gonna do this. Like, it's fine. but more people need to do more of that.

[00:11:51] Chris Duffy:
Well, I think that's that same balance, right, between like ease and authenticity. You can't be working 100% of the time and kids are a 100% of the time job. So you, you have to pick your battles in some, some senses.

[00:12:04] LB Hannahs:
For sure.

[00:12:05] Chris Duffy:
I’m curious to think of a little bit more about that. Like question of picking the battles, because I'm not a parent, but I have a lot of friends who are parents, and obviously I, I have parents myself and something that is very clear is that there's the stuff that you do and that you talk to your own kids about and the values you try and impart. And then there's the things that they pick up from the world and from the people around them. And I think one of the challenges that a, a lot of people I know really struggle with is what to do when your kids are picking up things from the world around them that are not what you want, not the messages you want them to be learning.

[00:12:39] LB Hannahs:
Yeah. I mean, that's real and it's, it's a kind of constant battle to be honest, right? Like part of what we're transitioning now, ‘cause my kids are getting older and going to school and coming out of the pandemic is how are they managing other people's interpretation of my gender?

So a kid comes up, she, you know, my, you know, my daughter, I'm her daddy and I'm daddy to everybody in her life, but she's already, she's only in first grade and gotten kids being like, “That's not your daddy, that's a girl that can't be your daddy.” And how do we make space for her reality being shut down at, in first grade?

How do I empower her to stand up for herself, stand up for me, but also not put all of the weight of her standing up for me on her? ‘Cause that's a burden and a weight that no kid should have to, should have to carry, but it, the imbalance is the cards are kind of stacked against trans folks in particular around representation.

We watch a lot of TV and movies and the kids use the word “boygirl” for me now because their, their ability to comprehend with like genderqueer and trans in terms of like this big kind of theoretical language, it's not there yet. So I've always been a boygirl to them. Boygirl, boygirl. There's no boygirls in kids' shows there's, there's no gender-fluid parents on TV.

There's no versions of a family like ours at their fingertips to have it be reflected or be able to connect with other kids. They're not… other kids aren't seeing our family reflected in what they watch. And so it's pretty constant and having to remind them and empower them and make them feel like they don't feel that like they're not any different or that’s, not, like that's less than, but it's, it's pretty constant.

[00:14:24] Chris Duffy:
So I have a couple of questions about that: One is I think there is this idea, which has certainly now become kind-of coded language, and it's fraught of like the idea that talking about some of this stuff is, is not, and I'm putting this in very much in quotes, “age-appropriate”, right?

But for your kids, how could it not be age-appropriate, right? It's like this is their life. And if the other kids in their class haven't ever heard about it, then they're the ones who have to educate their peers on how can they possibly do that when they're in kindergarten? So, that's one of the obvious problems with people who say like, “These are issues that kids shouldn't have to talk about until they're in college or until they're dating” or whatever the line that they draw is.

[00:15:05] LB Hannahs:
Right. And, and how can they possibly be educated when the adults around them aren’t, you know? I, I love my, my daughter's teacher. I'm very happy with our school. But they still call me and say, you know, “is this Elliott's mom?” And I'm like, “No, LB Dad”. I wrote it in the paperwork and it's, and, and not, not granted all power to the educators out there.

And the administrators, like it's, COVID, they're surviving, they're making it work. And at the same time, the adults that are supposed to be in charge of helping kids through these kind of things aren’t educated. So like, I can't put on the expectation of young kids when their adults don't even know. And I think that's just the testament to the vacuum of collective consciousness around trans people out in the world.

I think I, I’ve been doing this work for 10 or 15 years now, and I have seen progress and improvement and people's understanding that trans people exist, but the kind of, they they're aware. But then that, that awareness is just, it stops there, there. The, the discomfort around asking pronouns or asking about people's identity or even knowing what cisgender means is just no, it’s just not there. And, um, we just have so much work to do.

[00:16:14] Chris Duffy: Even just hearing you talk about this and answer these questions, I, I hear some of the like exhaustion in, in your voice of like, this is, you've answered these questions so many millions of times and had to think about this so often. So is there a way in which you can like deal with these issues and talk about these things with your kids in a way that still feels joyful, or is it always just a chore that you wish you didn't have to do?

[00:16:38] LB Hannahs: Oh, it doesn’t, it doesn't feel like a chore, particularly with my kids, because to me it's, it's developmental. It's they’re, they, they're like a sponge. It only becomes tiring when it's, when the people on the other end are closed off or I have to kind of convince them.

I am actually, totally both intellectually and emotionally, spiritually invigorated by being part of this learning process with them and seeing what kind of humans they're gonna grow up to be by having this lived experience and what kind of world they can help create. And by their lived experience being one of gender expansiveness. Not just like a theoretical thing that they learn from a textbook, but a, a, a lived one, right? Like I'm using son and daughter, particularly because they, they have expressed to me what their gender is already, right? Like, I, it wasn't something we assigned to them, but my kids feel very strongly about, oh, my daughter feels very much like a girl and my son feels very much like a boy, even though we asked that question since, as early as possible, like “How do you know? Here’s some other options. Tell us if it ever changes.”

So also it might change, but they, their bodies even down to like, how do you, how do you help them understand their bodies, not in a gendered way that they're just bodies. And we had my daughter for a while, was singing this song about “Girls girls have vaginas and some boys have vaginas and some girls have penises and boys, some boys have penises and some girlboys have vaginas.” There's some songs she made up. She would just sing it in the tub because this is not just about gender expression. It's also about how do we help them understand that bodies can be many things as well? And how do you learn masculinity and femininity from differently bodied people?

[00:18:18] Chris Duffy:
Related to that, what do you, what kind of tips or maybe even activities do you recommend to other parents of kids about your kids' age or, or younger to get into this and to have these conversations and start give their kids that, that gender expansiveness and that feeling that you just described?

[00:18:36] LB Hannahs:
I think an important thing is to like help make it part of the everyday. Like my first advice would be help make it part of everyday conversation rather than like, “let's sit down and talk about gender” because that, that separate separates it from like the everyday for parents or people that are new to this. So think about what's one thing you can do differently when it comes to gender and kids?

So it could be, when, when a kid genders, somebody that they know, like that's a boy, be like, “How do you know that's a boy?” We, they didn't tell us that, that, that they identified as a boy. Just kind of like in a very accessible, low stakes, low stress, not proving them wrong, but just like, pause. Think. Why? What is, what is telling you that this person is a boy?

How do you know? And do that over a period of time, and ‘cause really the goal here is for people to just be more critical and conscious about the way that gender shows up in your life. Or it could be like asking your kid how a certain article of clothes makes them feel? Pretty, beautiful, strong. All of those words can be described.

Another tip would be to just think about the ways in which you gender everyday things. Why do we call the dog a boy? Is it because he has a penis, you know, is this energy a boy? What are we putting on this inanimate object? And just think about where in the everyday gender shows up and do a pause pause and maybe do it differently.

I, back when I was more specifically in the LGBT space, I would prompt folks to think about not using pronouns all day. Like try, can you go through a day without using, without assigning someone pronouns? Using someone's pronouns, just to elevate your consciousness around how often you use gendered pronouns.

So that next time when you have to interrupt your consciousness, because you've met someone new who uses a pronoun that either doesn't jive with what you think it is, or they're explicitly asking you to use a, a different pronoun that you've not used before. It's a skill to pause, unlearn, relearn, and be conscious about how often you just naturally just, not naturally, but like you've been socialized just to use a gendered pronoun. So small things that then accumulate over time that will help you just become more conscious overall about how gendered of a world you live in.

[00:20:54] Chris Duffy:
Okay. We're gonna take a quick break, but we will be right back with more from Dr. LB Hannahs.

[MUSIC BREAK]

[00:21:11] Chris Duffy: And we are back. We're talking about parenting authentically with Dr. LB Hannahs, and as LB discusses in their talk, a big challenge for them, a challenge that I think many, many people can relate to, is having to deal with their own insecurities and their own hangups to make sure that those don't get passed along and taught to their kids. Here's a clip from LB’s talk.

[00:21:31] LB Hannahs (recording):
I have to confront my own assumptions about what a dad's body can and should be. So I work every day to try and be more comfortable in this body and in the ways I express femininity. So I talk about it more. I explore the depths of this discomfort and find language that I feel comfortable with.

And this daily discomfort, it helps me build both agency and authenticity and how I show up in my body and in my gender. I'm working against limiting myself. I wanna show her that a dad can have hips. A dad doesn't have to have a perfectly flat chest, or even be able to grow facial hair. And when she's developmentally able to, I wanna talk to her about my journey with my body. I want her to see my journey towards authenticity, even when it means showing her the messier parts.

[00:22:12] Chris Duffy:
Something that I I've heard from people across the gender spectrum is that while parenting is amazing and it can bring so much joy and, and can really expand your life, it, it's also a challenge when sometimes you're put into this box by the concept of parents.

And I think, like, people feel sometimes trapped by like the word mom and like the expectations around what being a mom means, or the what being dad is supposed to be. How do you try and expand what that box means and, and make it fit you rather than trying to fit into the box?

[00:22:48] LB Hannahs:
Yeah, it's funny. The other day I was at my dad's and he was talking about how he had bought a, a saw chainsaw, but one that's on the end of a stick to take down a branch and I was okay.

[00:22:57] Chris Duffy:
Extremely dangerous purchase. Definitely.

[00:22:59] LB Hannahs:
That's what I said. I was like, “Dad, that's what? That scares me a little bit. That's a little, little dangerous, little risky.” And he's like, “This is what dads do. Come on. You wanna be a dad? You gotta, you gotta be able to cut down the tree.” And I'm like,

[00:23:13] Chris Duffy:
You literally need a chainsaw on a stick to be called a dad.

[00:23:15] LB Hannahs:
Yeah, exactly. And, and that's was, and, and he was half joking, but I think there was a little bit of, like you say, you wanna be a dad, prove it, kind of language, no caveat. My dad is wonderful and supportive, but there are these constant messages. And I think cisgender dads too deal with this as well about like, what does it mean to be a dad? Is there, are there biological parts that are required?

We know that's not true because there's many ways people become, come to be a dad. And I think the beauty in my lived experience and the opportunity that I have stepping into the, the dad box, but from a different body than typically the dads are, I get to choose what part of the, like, stereotypes around “dad” I participate in and which ones I don’t. Like, however I show up that day is a dad way of being. Now that folks around me might not always feel that way, but if I'm doing it, and I'm a dad, then it's a dad thing.
[00:24:09] Chris Duffy: I love that. You wrote an article, “I am Florida”, and you, you wrote about raising a family as a queer parent in Florida. And you talked about, you know, not being allowed to be on your child's birth certificate. That these, these choices that are political choices and legal choices have, have really directly affected your relationship with your family, how do you navigate living in a place that I think to most of us at, at times seems like it might even be actively hostile to your family's existence.

[00:24:37] LB Hannahs:
Yeah. Well, since, uh, that article came out, I've moved back to my home state of New York. I'm in upstate New York now. So I don't live at Florida anymore, but there are many people that can't leave, that choose not to leave, that that is their home, that live under state antagonism, really is what it is.

And here's the thing I, for folks that haven't lived in more antagonistic states and come from those places that are considered, quote-unquote, more liberal New York, California, those kind of places, while the state antagonism isn't as present in your everyday life, there's still plenty of, like, cultural antagonism. And it's not necessarily a place where you are welcome or thriving. It's just that the laws aren't trying to erase you in the moment. And so there are ways that communities and local efforts that, and, and, and ways in which people survive and they find ways to find joy and, and, and fight when they can and rest and celebrate when they can and advocate and protest and, and do all the kind of efforts that you need to do to resist the, the antagonism.

[00:25:41] Chris Duffy:
If someone is listening to this and they're not a parent, but maybe they are someone who works in a school or they work in a medical facility, maybe they're a pediatrician or they work in a hospital or something like that. What are the kinds of considerations that you wish other people who interact with your kids and with your family knew and just did as the default, what would make your life easier and, and better?

[00:26:03] LB Hannahs: For so long, a lot of these places like a pride center or, you know, cultural center have been in triage mode where we create spaces and programs. For those of us that experience the oppression and those spaces are needed. But if we're really gonna think about change and cultural change, you know, in this case of LGBT folks, the best guess out there is 10 to 15% of the population is LGBTQ.

We need the 80 to 85% to be doing their own work, to be interrupting their, their parents, their cousins, their kids, and, and to be identifying as cisgender to be doing their own exploring of their own identities and getting familiar with the language and getting more comfortable and having it be part of their every day.
And particularly for parents and other people that are in the education space or really the human services space, is stop putting all the labor on us to educate you and to get you to change, do more self-work. The internet is a great resource. Participate in trainings, participate in conversations, deepen and change so that you can interrupt those cycles too.

And it's not just on us to be like, “Hey, you misgendered me again.” Get out in front of that and do your own kind of changing so that we don't have to be in triage mode all the time because trans kids, suicidal rates are high, not because other trans kids are bullying them. It’s because cis kids are and the state is working against them, and all the messages that we're receiving is “They're not valid. They're not worthy.” And we can't change that. Y’all gotta change that. You gotta listen, you gotta, you gotta change. You gotta make, you gotta take on the responsibility to do that yourself and big in small ways: who you vote for, what TV you watch, what TV you don't watch, what you consume.
And then all of those little things that I've already talked about, not just from a parental perspective, but in your own life, pay attention to where gender, where gender is and where it’s not.

[00:27:48] Chris Duffy:
You know, we've talked a lot about your, you as a parent, we haven't really talked about your own childhood. What was your childhood like and how did that shape how you want to be a parent and how you are a parent?

[00:27:58] LB Hannahs:
Yeah. I grew up in a small, predominantly white, pretty rural town in upstate New York. And while there were known gay folks in our town, certainly no examples of trans folks. I mean, this was the eighties and the nineties. It was, and it was not a major urban center, and certainly TV.

We all know what TV was in the eighties and nineties. So trans films were like, not, not in existence. My parents, working class people always had two to three jobs. Loving, but you know, not, not in terms of like being intentional around this kind of stuff and, and weren't able to be as present. So we were left to our own devices a lot.
And my sister and I were tomboys, and she grew out of it and I didn't and to their, to their defense, they didn't, they, they weren't heavy fisted about shutting that down. So we were running around with our shirts off. We wanted short haircuts. They let us get short haircuts. I think part of it was like exhaustion, just like, okay, “I'm not gonna fight this. Just, whatever you want.”

There was, I think more than average room for just being able to be before puberty hit. And then, then things started to have to change. There was a small window of time where I, where there was some freedom around being able to try on boyhood or masculinity as a kid that I think probably prevented me from having more, more discomfort or struggle around coming out.

Now, it still was really hard, but I think because I had that lived experience as a kid where I could try it on and the consequences weren't so forceful, it wasn't like as strict as we know some other households are and some other families are. So I think that pos—that window of, of trying it on, stayed with me. If I think about the time period where I have the most memories from childhood it’s then. And before then, and after then is a little bit more fuzzy. And I think that's not a coincidence. I think that makes sense because I was probably living in a more authentic version of myself in those that window of time, where I was a tomboy, and then I had to, I had to put on a different dress, literally, and metaphorically and play pretend and not be in my own body enough until I found my way back in my twenties. And so, it was mixed, but it could have been way worse. Could have been way better. Could have been way worse. I think I got kind of in that, in that middle experience.

[00:30:22] Chris Duffy:
Are you trying to, to recreate that, that middle space for your own kids?

[00:30:26] LB Hannahs:
I'm trying to create all the space for my own kids, all the space. And luckily I have co-parents that are on the same page and well, the rest of my family parents their kids a little bit differently, but they know how we're raising our kids. Honestly, I'm trying to recreate that space for myself, because I think it's hard when you don't grow up, you don't have that foundation of expansiveness, you revert and you, and you morph.

I’ll speak for myself. Like I've morphed into different versions of myself to try to fit in. And now I'm like, “Okay, what is what I need to get back to that place where I felt like the most me?” So I'm trying to create all the space for my kids from a gender perspective and then all the other ways. So, yeah.

[00:31:05] Chris Duffy:
That’s beautiful. I mean, I think what more could any kid want from a parent, and what more could any parent want for their kid than to create all the space that's in every way of that.

You've talked about co-parenting and having been in one relationship and, and it changing. How do you navigate these issues when it's not just you?

[00:31:21] LB Hannahs:
I feel like I hit the jackpot with my co-parenting situation, to be honest. But co-parenting is not for the faint of heart. I know there's a lot of people trying to rethink, like, family structures and family dynamics. And me and my kids' mom have been on the same page about so many things and being really intentional about what other adults we bring into our circle.

And so we broke up in terms of our, our, our marriage and things like that. And she has a new partner, a cis man, and that creates a whole new dynamic because we have a cis man in our co-parent constructure, we have a cis woman, and then a trans, a trans dad. And it's interesting to watch how the world consumes us and what sense they make of it.

We, my son plays T-ball and we go to every game. I'm the coach, and the other two parents with all three kids. Now they've subsequently had a kid. My co-parent’s partner is my kid's stepdad, and their kid, we’re trying to find a new word right now. We're going with “Dunkle”, which is a combination of dad and uncle. So we're trying to create new words. It feels a little clunky. I'm still trying it out. We don't know yet, but it requires a lot of intentionality in, in making sure that whoever we bring into our family from a co-parenting perspective is on the same page about what we're trying to do here, which is like center the kids.

From a values perspective, we're all on the same page, you know, that our relationships as the adults has to be symbiotic for the kids to be centered. And so we've done a lot of work. I'm sure there's gonna be more work to do, but I feel really, really thankful and grateful for the co-parenting situation. I'm um, I'm in.

[00:32:55] Chris Duffy:
I just think it's, it is really refreshing. And I think so relatable to just hear you say, you know, like “We're figuring it out, I'm trying this out. Maybe this is gonna work. Maybe it's not.” But like that is the reality of what parenting is. No one is perfect at, at it. It can't, you can't possibly be perfect at it.

[00:33:09] LB Hannahs:
No, they're bullshit. If they're talking like it is cuz it's, it's the most messy experience, particularly if you're doing your own work and like being conscious about how you're showing up in it. It is, the only consistent is that it's messy and it changes.

[00:33:23] Chris Duffy:
Okay. Uh, very, very different end of the spectrum question: um, what is one idea or book or movie or piece of music…what’s one thing that has made you a better human?

[00:33:35] LB Hannahs:
Uh, the movie Dirty Dancing is my favorite movie, and the reason it's made me a better human is because I always really identify strongly with the Johnny Castle character. And it's only in my adulthood, I’m like, “Why did I just wanna be him?”

And one, ‘cause he's a great dancer and I have a thing for dancing and wanting to be a better dancer. But his version of masculinity in that movie, Patrick Swayze's character was just softer and more gentle, especially in the eighties and nineties in movies around masculinity. He was just softer and gentler and wanting, wanting to be kind of authentic in that version and not being taken advantage of rather than this like macho, you know, version of masculinity that just wasn't resonating with me. So it was, it was an aspect of masculinity as a person that was not born and raised a boy. That's the first time I felt like, “)h, I can… some connection to”, and I always watched that movie. I love that movie.

So I think that's helped me make a better, helped me be a better human ‘cause it helped me feel connected to my masculinity before I knew what that even meant.

[00:34:37] Chris Duffy:
That’s fantastic.

[00:34:38] LB Hannahs:
I thought that first, but I was trying to come up with something way more intellectual.

[00:34:41] Chris Duffy:
Oh you can't beat that. First, first answer, best answer, especially in this case. Well, LB, thank you so much for being on the show and thanks so much for talking to us. It was really a pleasure.

[00:34:48] LB Hannahs:
Yeah, it was a great time talking to you. Appreciate it.

[00:34:55] Chris Duffy: That is it for today's episode. This has been How to Be a Better Human. I am your host, Chris Duffy. And thank you so much to today's guest. Dr. LB Hannah.

How To Be a Better Human is brought to you on the TED side by Sammy Case, who is currently using a chainsaw at the end of a stick while Anna Phelan and Erica Yuen try to stop her.

From Transmitter Media - Gretta Cohn, Farrah Desgranges, Leyla Doss who are all pioneering a new fashion trend called Dunkle-core

And From PRX: Jocelyn Gonzales and Sandra Lopez Monsalvez who are all currently reenacting the choreography from Dirty Dancing.

Thanks, most of all, to you for listening, if you enjoy our show, please share it with a friend and we'll be back with more for you next week.