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We bite into a hard conversation around Nex Benedict’s death as well as the two teenagers who killed Brianna Ghey receiving life sentences after jury conviction. Robert Alberts (they/them) and host R.B Brooks (they/them) process their rough thoughts and devastated feelings in an attempt to answer “what does it mean that the project of annihilating trans children has fallen into the hands of other children?” and also “what does justice look like in these instances?”
Additional Resources and References from this episode:
- Oklahoma Medical Examiner’s office releases Nex Benedict’s autopsy report
- Teenagers who killed Brianna Ghey receive life sentences after jury conviction
- TransLifeLife – a trans peer support and hotline run by trans volunteer
For questions, comments or feedback about this episode: lastbite@sgdinstitute.org
Host: R.B. Brooks, they/them, director of strategy and impact for the Midwest Institute for Sexuality and Gender Diversity
Cover art: Adrienne McCormick
Creators & Guests
What is Take the Last Bite?
Take the Last Bite is a direct counter to the Midwest Nice mentality— highlighting advocacy & activism by queer/trans communities in the Midwest region. Each episode unearths the often disregarded and unacknowledged contributions of queer & trans folks to social change through interviews, casual conversations and reflections on Midwest queer time, space, and place.
For questions, comments and feedback: lastbite@sgdinstitute.org
To support this podcast and the Institute, please visit sgdinstitute.org/giving
Host: R.B. Brooks, they/them, director of programs for the Midwest Institute for Sexuality & Gender Diversity
Cover Art: Adrienne McCormick
Hey. Hi. Hello, y'all. This is RB, curator of the greatest collection of contemporary Midwest queer and trans relics in the world, exhibiting a treasure trove of invaluable stories on take the last bite, a show where we pick up Midwest Nice's DoorDash order and forget the beverage every time. Today's episode is a difficult one.
Speaker 1:It was hard to record, and it may be hard to listen to. So this is a content warning that we will be delving into a conversation about 2 key incidents involving the deaths of trans children who were killed or brutalized by other kids. We will also be discussing mental health and make general references to suicidal ideation and attempts. Please take care of yourself as you engage with this discussion, and give yourself permission to pause or disengage from this episode if the weight of the content makes it difficult to extract lessons from the conversation. Our discussion centers around 2 main questions that summarize how Robert and I, in our daily lives via text conversations, were processing news about Brianna Gaye and next Benedict's deaths as well as learning that the 2 teenagers who enacted fatal violence against Brianna Gaye had been charged with life sentences through the UK legal system.
Speaker 1:As queer and trans folks who also work with young people, we found ourselves asking, what does it mean that the project of annihilating trans children has fallen to the hands of other children? And, also, what does justice look like in these instances? In the time since we recorded this episode in early March, updated details and information, particularly about NEX Benedict's death, have been released and discovered. We've maintained some of our initial assumptions and questions we had about the 3 high schoolers attacking necks in a bathroom to show how gender and other identity factors play heavily into society's assumptions and ideas about and around violence. I will also name that even though an autopsy report has been released by the Oklahoma medical examiner's office ruling next's death and alleged suicide, make no mistake that the real cause of death when a trans person dies is rampant, unmitigated, soulless transphobia, and to call it anything else is a lie.
Speaker 1:Next's death, Brianna's death are not new or anomalous, and they will not be the last as long as the current climate for queer and trans people persists. Today's discussion attempts to make connections between what we currently know about adolescent development, the impacts of anti trans legislation and rhetoric on all young people, and the experiences of queer and trans youth. We work through our rough thoughts, big questions, and devastated feelings and invite others into thinking about what these emerging patterns of kids who kill trans kids means for the work of protecting queer and trans youth. Check-in with your inner child. Let them know they're safe, and tell them you're committed to learning about how to protect them on this episode of Take the Last Bite.
Speaker 2:Why can't we be in space with 100 of other queer and trans folks and having these necessary conversations?
Speaker 3:When it comes to dynamics around privilege and oppression and around identity, well intentioned isn't actually good enough.
Speaker 2:And how far is too far to drive for a drag show? I don't know. We're in Duluth right now. I would straight up go to Nebraska, probably.
Speaker 3:If you are not vibing or something's not right or also, like, there's an irreparable rupture, you have absolutely every right to walk away.
Speaker 2:Definitely gonna talk about Midwest Nice. And if that's if that's, as real as it wants to think it is. Midwest Nice is white aggression. That's what it is. Let's go ahead and get into it.
Speaker 2:Why don't you start off with a little bit of a introduction? Who are you? You've been here before, but maybe your relationship to the Midwest has changed. So if you wanna tuck that in there too, we'd like to talk about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So my name is Robert. I think the last time I was honest, I maybe lived in the southwest, didn't I? I, like, lived in Arizona.
Speaker 2:I'm still down there. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, that's wild. It's been crazy. I live in Iowa now, which is lovely. Listen. Iowa's the best.
Speaker 3:I live in the quad cities, and, like, quad cities are great. Living on the border between Iowa and Illinois is just like fire because I can go up to Minnesota. I can go to Chicago. I go to St. Louis.
Speaker 3:Like, fantastic. And it's cheap to live here, which is really great. The last time I was on this, man, I worked in higher education. I don't remember what job I worked at, but I worked at several different kinds of jobs. I think what's most pertinent here is that I worked previously as someone in residential life who did a lot of student support, students of concern.
Speaker 3:And so a lot of my job was, like, figuring out how do we address serious mental health issues, how do we address students that are gonna hurt themselves or could potentially hurt other people, how do we address, like, major misconduct, so, like, sexual misconduct or physical misconduct. Mhmm. And then I did some, like, organizational misconduct there. I left that job, moved back to the Midwest. I did a lot of work for a couple of years, at an agency in the Midwest that did, like, domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, labor trafficking work.
Speaker 3:In that job too, I worked with adjudicated youth. There were 2 groups of youth. 1 of them who had been through, like, the adjudication process through juvenile court and were sentenced to a, detention unit. So not to juvenile detention. We were a step down from juvenile detention.
Speaker 3:The hope being that they were with us for 6 to 9 months, and if they could could successfully complete our program and reintegrate back into society, it would help defer placement in juvenile detention. And then another the other piece was like a a Department of Health and Human Services placement for youth that maybe didn't have somewhere to go or maybe they were runaways. Or in the state of Iowa, we have what's called a china. So a child in need of assistance, is what a legal paperwork is called. And so that's, people can get China's for lots of different reasons.
Speaker 3:Parents need help. Parents aren't parenting appropriately and those sorts of things. And so custody looks a little different. And so I did some placement there. And then I left that place and I now, work part time in a standalone psychiatric hospital.
Speaker 3:And so we're a 72 bed facility that serves adults and youth. And so there, I do psychiatric assessments. Like, I do what are called biopsychosocials. I run group therapy. I do psychoeducation.
Speaker 3:And then I also will do, like, help create and implement alternate programming. So some folks, based on the severity of their mental health issue or other behaviors, like, just aren't appropriate to do group programming with folks. And so we have to be able to provide alternate programming. So I have moved much from, like, the the student affairs realm, right, of, like, connecting people with therapists to all the way moving to doing the therapy. I'm currently in a master's of social work program right now.
Speaker 3:I graduate in 2025. Hell or high water, I'm graduating in 2025. Let's go. Listen. I am tired.
Speaker 3:But in that program, it's it's been a lot of fun because I think, you know, with my first master's degree in counseling and now this one, there's a lot of overlap, which has been great. But with social work, we pull back to look at the larger system as well. We're counseling you maybe focused on your relationship with the individual client or or patient or whatever. We spend a lot of time talking about, great. Like, I've got this patient for an hour, in this session, and that and that's awesome.
Speaker 3:But, you know, I'm not gonna be able to solve white supremacy and how it impacts this one patient in an hour. You know, I'm not gonna fix that. That's just not gonna happen for folks.
Speaker 2:You know, we
Speaker 3:could try. I'm good, but I don't know that I'm that good. Yeah. I think that's a little bit about me that I think directly impacts maybe the conversation I think we're hoping to have today.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yes. Yes. Yes. You're also, an Aries sun, which is really, really relevant, from my perspective, a long term friend of mine, which I think is gonna be helpful because you know how my brain works, and I know how yours works mostly.
Speaker 2:There's always, we're always relearning, I think. So, yeah, I feel like I've kind of debated with myself how to even tuck in to this conversation because there's there's no plan. You and I are just kind of thinking through from our respective positions, and lived experiences, some key things. And so the best way I think I landed on how we might lay on the table kind of the 2 key incidences in the last month or so that are kind of inspired me wanting to get on the mic with you, and then see what our conversation plays out around that. The first one was the individuals who enacted violence, fatally, against Brianna Gay, who's a, I think, 16 year old at the time, trans youth in the UK.
Speaker 2:That incident happened technically last year, but the charges and court process and convicting, and sentencing just recently happened, I think, either at the very end of January, or into early February. And so up until that point, those individuals' names had not been released. So with the convictions, the names were released, and it was also learned that in that scenario, it was 2 15 year olds, who were 15 at the time when they committed the act of violence, and are now 16 as they are receiving their life sentences in the UK court system. So that that was one incident that I popped into your inbox, and I was like, hey. Let's unpack this because this is complicated.
Speaker 2:And that kind of petered out for a second and then spurred back up when pretty much everybody is realizing, some of the emerging details about next Benedict's fatal beating in Oklahoma. So there's details that have been pouring out about that, but the gist of that scenario was that they were in the women's bathroom, which is notable because, in the state of Oklahoma, they had laws on the books that require people to use bathrooms that associate with their sex assigned at birth, so NeX was theoretically forced, to use that bathroom because of their legal documentation, and they were jumped in the bathroom. And within a day or so of of that incident, died in the hospital. There's not been a lot of detail about the individuals who jumped, which makes sense because they're minors, but we can assume that if they are peers, in the high school level, that they're anywhere between the ages of probably 15 to 18 or so. So again, we've got some teenagers enacting fatal violence against trans folks.
Speaker 2:So when I think about those two recent instances, I think what I landed on when you were like, well, what do you wanna talk about? I was like, I don't necessarily know, but the question that I think keeps pulling back for me is, what does it even mean to exist in a moment where the project of annihilating trans kids has fallen into the hands of other kids. And then to that point, right, what does justice possibly look like when that violence is being enacted by kids against trans kids. What have you been holding onto? Like, what are you thinking?
Speaker 2:What are your reactions?
Speaker 3:And Yeah.
Speaker 2:Where are you at with any of this?
Speaker 3:So you gave me an easy question to answer, which I I
Speaker 2:always do. Infamous or easy questions.
Speaker 3:I'm trying to pick the the best place to start, and there's lots of places we could go. These these conversations are messy only because I don't know that we figured it out for adults in a great way. Right? Like, I think, like, starting there, like, I don't know that we have, like, in the world figured out a great space and way in place to even design what justice could, should, would, does look like. In our prison system, we generally take retribution as justice.
Speaker 3:Right? That's how it feels a lot of the time. If I get to detain you in this little box and and control your entire life, then I will somehow get justice if you're there for x period of time. And then we have to layer the fact that we're having kids. And I use kids, like, specifically.
Speaker 3:Right? Because I think a lot of the conversation is gonna be around, like, well, did they know what they were doing? Are they able to tell the difference? Do they know the difference between right and wrong? And I just don't know the conversation's that simple.
Speaker 3:I don't I don't know that it's as simple as right and wrong. I talk with my patients. So I I work, predominantly our adolescent patients in the hospital. And I I try and do a lot of conversations with them about what is what's happening in their brain. Right?
Speaker 3:Like, why are something difficult? Because I think a lot of the times, my patients want to do well. They just don't know why it's so difficult for them sometimes. Right? So I had a patient one time that was talking about how they were driving their car, like, a 100 miles an hour out in the backcountry roads.
Speaker 3:And my first thought as a 30 year old daughter was like, oh my god. Like, what if a deer, like, walked out in front of your car? Like, that's game over. Right? Their first thought was, like, oh, this is so much fun.
Speaker 3:Right? And it's, like, the context of, like they know it's not right. I'm gonna put in air quotes. I don't know if people can are gonna see this, but, like, air quotes. They know it's right, but they, like, don't understand that there's longer implications to that.
Speaker 3:And it's because their brain hasn't finished doing the things that needs to do in order to make that the the primary focus. And so I think when we talk about severe violence like this, I'm not saying that they shouldn't be held accountable. Right? And I think accountability is a very, very specific word that I use. But I I don't know that incarceration necessarily addresses what got them there, number 1.
Speaker 3:I think number 2, the place that I struggle with but when we talk about, like, kids, and we talk about brain development and we talk about decision making. Right?
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:A lot of times, even from when they're a baby all the way up until they develop critical thinking skills, kids mirror behavior and language and actions around them. Right? Mhmm. They mirror, they enact, they wait for results. It's a constant test because they have to figure out what works and what doesn't, what's appropriate and what's not.
Speaker 3:And so I always think about, like, if a kid is enacting this large significant violence, what's happening in other places of their life? Like, what has told them? Mhmm. Right? And where has it told them that this is okay or appropriate or encouraged?
Speaker 3:Because somewhere has. And people will say, like, oh, well, they watch these movies, and they play these video games, and they do all this stuff. And it's, like, sure. Fair. There's there's some limited research that tells us that, like, in popular culture, right, if you're watching these video if you're playing these video games, watching these movies, listening to this music, right, when everything around you is socializing you that this behavior is okay, you can draw an equivalency to say that, like, you're gonna think this behavior is okay.
Speaker 3:And when people have engaged older folks in their lives that are helping them learn and understand who they are and what behavior is appropriate, there are guardrails. And I can't help but think, like, what happened to the guardrails in these situations? And again, this isn't about dispelling their accountability because I think they should be held accountable. I just wonder, like, who else was involved in their lives, and how did we end up here? I'll also say, and I wanna be clear before we move forward because I'm gonna forget to say this, is that, like, I'm not going to attempt to equivalate that, like, people who are mentally unhealthy are violent or dangerous all the time.
Speaker 3:And I wanna be, like, super clear about that because as we know from research and studies and statistics that, like, people who are mentally, ill, right, is the term that we use or have a mental health diagnosis, are generally more at risk of violence. And so I want to make sure that that's very clear. Like, when I'm talking from mental health perspective, I'm not saying that, like, people who are mentally ill are dangerous, or that I'm saying that these folks in these situations have a mental health diagnosis because I've never talked to them.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 3:And so I'm not gonna make that equivalency there. But those are the first two big things that kinda pop out of my brain. How did we end up here? How did we end up in this space where they thought that was appropriate?
Speaker 2:For me, I think about how Oklahoma is a proud red state. Right? Like, I've already seen clips just in recent weeks of legislators at the state level talking about how, like, you know, we are a religious state, like and there is no national religion. So they're just kind of making up their own identity as a state and then allowing that to inform policy, which is not good policy as we know. So Which
Speaker 3:we've also seen in Alabama recently. Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. You know? Just like all of these, like, anti trans legislative pieces popping up that aren't as simple as what's written on the page. Right? It comes with rhetoric.
Speaker 2:It comes with conversation. It comes with public comment from folks who truly think that trans folks are vile peep vile people, or monsters or fill in the blank trope. Right? So when I think about a state like Oklahoma that has this environment codified, it doesn't feel like a far cry to say the environment created in a state like Oklahoma that is so rampantly red and anti trans, right, makes it make sense that this type of violence and rhetoric would be present for high schoolers to pick up on and then make I think there was something that you mentioned when we were texting of just like, they know not what they do. Like, do I yes.
Speaker 2:Just like, what are the ultimate consequences of this thing? Mhmm. And I don't know that that's present. I don't know that it's there. So, like, do we blame the whole state of Oklahoma?
Speaker 2:I mean, I would argue would argue I know. I would argue that maybe, but, like, I don't know. I think
Speaker 3:the big thing that we're running into and and this is maybe I'm not we're not gonna go down this route because I think this is it's too heady. But, like, it's it's the nature versus nurture argument. Right? Of, like, is how are they born? Like, are people born bad?
Speaker 3:Or is the environment that they grow up in, does that help them be that way? And, like, everyone's gonna say, it's both. I am sure the rhetoric and the language and the conversations and the ideology that is put forth allows maybe emotions or feelings or decisions to to grow. Right? And so I think about these kids that have killed someone.
Speaker 3:Right? Like, let's be really transparent. Right? That they it's alleged that they assaulted this person, and it ended in their death. What we really need to think about is, like, how did they like, again, how did they get there?
Speaker 3:And if I had to create a hypothesis, it's probably because people in their life used rhetoric and language and talked about how certain things would be better or appropriate. Or they grew up maybe in a place in a home where physical violence was how you solved issues. Right? Or you solved concerns. We also could dive into the, like, group think sort of ideology.
Speaker 3:Right? The bystander effect of, like, this diffusion of responsibility when it comes to, like, oh, okay. Well, if these other 2 people are doing this, I can do it, and it's not just me. Right? I'm not solely enacting violence.
Speaker 3:I'm with 2 other people. And maybe I'm hesitant to do it, but maybe I feel more comfortable now that there's other people. Mhmm. We could also talk about, like, there's always generally I'm speaking very generally here, here, but there's always generally a leader. Right?
Speaker 3:Someone who who enacts the action. And so that person is generally probably the person who pulls people towards them and is is probably pretty engaged. And so I think all of those factors coming together. Right? You have the the perfect powder keg.
Speaker 3:And I I wanna be pretty clear, that we don't know the gender of these people. I'm gonna make a few assumptions, just because I think assumptions are helpful. I think when people think of physical violence, I think they I think they think of men or boys or people who are raised as men or boys. Right? Like, that's generally what is seen as appropriate.
Speaker 3:I think what's really interesting is that this happened in a girl's bathroom. Right. Right? And so I think there's some assumption by the general public that these were maybe 3 girls that that did this. And I think there's also, like, we have to contend with, like, men or not men or boys or people who are raised or men or boys are not the only ones capable of engaging in physical violence.
Speaker 3:Anyone can engage in physical violence, but I think it's it's really fascinating based on our culture and the way that we do things that if it was 3 girls in a girl's bathroom that engaged in this level physical violence, it's gonna be a different it's gonna change the conversation. It's gonna change the national conversation if or when their names are released because I think there's a lot of thoughts about what is socially acceptable behavior, depending on the gender that you grow up as. I'll be interested to see how people respond.
Speaker 2:I don't
Speaker 3:know where I'm going with that, but that's where I'm
Speaker 2:gonna do it. I think I think that's a valuable thing to name about this particular scenario. I do believe that in the incident with Brianna Gay last year and the 2 young folks who were sentenced to life in prison, if I remember correctly, 1 is a young boy and one is a young woman. So even in that scenario, right, there's some gender complexity too. There's value in naming the scenario being one in which what is for sure the case with Brianna Gay's murder and what is very likely the case with murder is that there were women identified folks as part of the scenario, which I think has been building up as kind of the Mentos dropped into the Coke bottle, if you will, which if you don't know that metaphor, when you drop a Mentos and it goes pew and explodes.
Speaker 3:Sorry. Do that do that one more time. It does what now?
Speaker 2:Pew. That that has been the rally cry in one of the largest talking points from anti trans legislators and their supporters is that bathrooms are not safe for women and that this is all about a crusade to protect women and children. And so now we're seeing, you know, women identified folks acting on that in spaces where people are under the age of 18. What I might form into a question is just what are some of the things that you hear from folks kind of in that age bracket around how they how they understand their choices. Right?
Speaker 2:How they maybe rationalize or what is considered reasonable for them based on their experiences? Right? Like, what are some of the ways in which you've you've witnessed that in your work?
Speaker 3:I think for me, we talk a lot about anger with teenagers, right, is is a big thing. In our society, anger is what's socially acceptable to display in a lot of cases. Right? We have determined you get caught off in traffic. Right?
Speaker 3:It's socially acceptable to yell and scream and and curse at them. Right? Or, you know, you had a bad day and, like, maybe you're playing a a sport and you lose. It's socially acceptable to, like, throw something or to to be very upset. Right?
Speaker 3:Or Mhmm. Argue with a rep. Like, that anger, our society says that's appropriate. What we talk a lot of times is anger is considered a secondary a secondary emotion. And so what I always ask people is, you know, what is a secondary emotion?
Speaker 3:Think of the color wheel. It's not a primary color. It's a secondary one. It comes from the mixing of other, of other emotions. Because in the US, because in a Western society, we don't do a great job of talking about our feelings.
Speaker 3:Right? We tell and especially, I'm gonna talk about men and boys specifically for just a second, just because it's easy to draw that comparison, and I think people can relate to it. We tell them a lot of times that, like, boys aren't allowed to cry. They're not allowed to be upset. They're not allowed to be they're not allowed to be sad.
Speaker 3:Right? But they're allowed to be angry. So if a boy is playing football, for example, and something happens. Right? And he, like, throws his helmet.
Speaker 3:It might say, like, hey. Next time, don't throw your helmet. Not, hey, you you just had a really big reaction there. What's going on? Like, what are you feeling?
Speaker 3:And so a lot of the times when I work with kids, they don't know how to name their feelings. And so it comes out as anger. And a lot of times anger comes from this place of like, I can't express what I'm feeling. In play therapy, there are the four goals of misbehavior. What it talks about is a little bit of like, what's the incentive behind this behavior?
Speaker 3:And I think about that when it comes to anger. Right? If I'm gonna punch a hole in the wall, that could really say one of 3 things. Right? Either I feel broken or upset or angry inside.
Speaker 3:I can't be the only thing in this space to be broken, so I have to break something else. Right? Because then I'm not alone. Then I'm not the only thing going through this. Right?
Speaker 3:The second thing is that, like, I don't have the words to describe in my anger or my frustration, so I'm going to demonstrate it by punching a hole in the wall. You know that I'm having big feelings if I hit something. And then the third thing is that if I can't deal with my emotions, so I'm gonna deal with my physical pain. Right? So putting my hand through a wall, I get to deal with the physical pain Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Of that, and it's so much easier to deal with it. And so when we think about physical violence, a lot of the time when we talk about physical violence in relationships, we talk about power and control. When we talk about teenagers, I think the added layer that we have to add on there is, like, it could be about power and control. Right? It really could be that, like, 3, presumably, I'm gonna make a presumption.
Speaker 3:3, presumably, criminals, cornered next in a bathroom, and said, I have power and control. I can do whatever I want to your physical body, and there is nothing stopping me. Especially in a country where we've determined that women's bodies are up for control. And, like, people in legislature and other places get to control women's bodies. Right?
Speaker 3:Mhmm. Women turning around saying, I want to now control someone else's body because I think this is appropriate. Makes logical sense to me. But I would also argue that there's potentially a place in there that says, what you're doing and who you are goes against everything I know to be real and true, which means you are now causing some sort of issue in me. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And I don't have the language to show you that I'm angry, or frustrated, or dealing with it. But I know that you're the problem. You're making this difficult, so I'm gonna hurt you, because you're doing something to me that I can't name or explain or discuss. Mhmm. Because it's not appropriate, because I don't have no words, because developmentally, I'm not there.
Speaker 3:Whatever it is. And I find a lot of the time that kids explain it in that way. Right? Not with those words. Right?
Speaker 3:But they they make those explanations. Right? Of saying that, like, oh, man. Especially, I have a I had a patient one time look at me. They said, you know, I'm just I'm just a bitch to sometimes to people because that's just who I am.
Speaker 3:And I looked at them and I said, really? Are you? I'm like, or do you sometimes push people away because it's easier to push them away rather than to watch them walk away? And the patient just went like, oh. Right?
Speaker 3:Because they
Speaker 2:weren't ready for that. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But that's but that's the reality of it. Right? Is that, like, we engage in behavior to protect ourselves. And so the term that we use in therapy is called maladaptive behaviors. Right?
Speaker 3:The the understanding that, like, you have adapted. So maladaptive. Right? We're gonna break it down. Male, bad.
Speaker 3:Right? Adaptive is that you've changed something. So you have changed something in a way to protect yourself. And so maybe these kids decided that physical violence was the way that they're gonna protect themselves of, like, if I physically hurt you, you can't hurt me in some way. Whether that perceived hurt is real or not, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3:It was it was there for them. I think kids don't have and again, I'm using kids very intentionally. Right? Not to be rude, but, like, they're children in in some level. They're adolescents.
Speaker 3:Right? But, really framing it in a way of, like, they're kids. And they don't also have the words or the language, and so they engage in behavior. Right? The same way that I don't know if you've been around a 4 year old toddler or, like, a 2 year old toddler in a while.
Speaker 3:Right? But when they get upset, they go to hit. And, like, the number one thing parenting that you do when you have that little human is to teach them to, like, hitting is not appropriate. But sometimes, what we don't do is, like, we need to give them words. Because if you're telling them not to hit and you're not giving them words, then what are they what are they supposed to do?
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:How else are they supposed to express themselves? Mhmm. And I think when we don't do that well, we don't treat them well, and teach them good, like, language skills to connect their emotions and feelings to words and language, and how to express that and regulate that appropriately. You have kids where, you know, I've been in an, a massive fight in a in a secure facility where, you know, 3 kids got into it, and we had to put them all in restraints and seclusion rooms because they, like, pulled a TV off the wall, and we're trying to hit each other with it. Right?
Speaker 3:Or, like, pull the a water fountain out of the wall and, like, you know, this is a cinder block wall. And so these kids are are so angry. And then at home or wherever they're they're coming from, they see that how we appropriately address stuff is by enacting violence. Alright. I'm taking this power.
Speaker 3:You disrespected me. Right? Mhmm. So you're trying to take power from me. I'm taking my power back by physically overpowering you.
Speaker 3:Because I know that if I can physically overpower you, then I have the control of that situation. But they don't think about the fact that, like, homie, like, you're here on 4 different charges, and you're about 5 minutes away from going to detention. But for them, it's worth it because they can't see the long term vision. Or
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 3:I would say too, especially thinking about folks that are black and brown, that are overpoliced in our society. That's the future that they see anyway. So why would I why would I choose to make a different decision? Right? I had a I had a teenager.
Speaker 3:He was 16. This kid's, like, 62. And I saw him when he came in, and he was that kid that, like, get into fights and angry and all of that stuff. And then I remember, probably like 5 and a half months later, he was getting close to discharge. He was working through his program, and a staff member said something to him.
Speaker 3:And I'm standing in the we call it a milieu, but it's, like, the middle of the, like, the unit. So there's, like, a central unit, and then there's 2 hallways off there for bedrooms. And I remember standing in the middle, and he's all the way at the end. And I just hear his voice starts yelling. And I'm like, oh, I have not seen this version of you in a very long time.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. So he walks out. My friend is sitting there. He immediately goes to her and says, hey, this man's blah blah blah. And she goes to respond.
Speaker 3:And he's like, no. Fuck you. Like, you're doing this, that, and the other thing. And I look at him, and I'm like, what's going on? If he comes to me trying to, like, plead his case.
Speaker 3:And looking back on it, it's like he's so angry because he doesn't think people are gonna believe him. He's so escalated because people are not going to listen to him because he's a bad kid, air quotes, bad kid doing bad things. And so adults dismiss him. We took a walk. He came back.
Speaker 3:He apologized for his behavior, explained point by point why he was frustrated. And then I had a I had a a staff member look at him and went, I'm sorry you feel that way. And I went, I'm gonna launch across the
Speaker 2:table on
Speaker 3:you. Like, I have this 16 year old boy who got here because he was beating people up and stealing stuff and threatening people. And he's gotten to the place where he sat down with you respectfully and said, hey. In the future Yeah. Like, I am almost a grown adult.
Speaker 3:If you need something from me, can you please ask me and not threaten me? Because I don't respond well to being threatened. That's true. And it, like, overwhelms me, and then I get angry, and I lose a little bit of control. So, like, if you say it this way, I am more than happy to do it.
Speaker 3:But, like, a grown adult couldn't even hear that and respond appropriately. So now, traveling back to our original conversation, how do we expect teenagers who maybe haven't had that model for them before do it appropriately? And, again, this isn't to defend the behavior that happened, but I think drilling in on, like, how nuanced this is. This isn't as simple as, like, they should have known better. Cognitively and emotionally are 2 separate ways that we handle situations like that.
Speaker 3:I don't know if I actually answered your question.
Speaker 2:I will honor a name, right, that you and I are kind of intentionally intellectualizing this. Right? Like, which Yeah. You know, if folks are not prepared for this flavor of conversation, like, trigger warnings abound. These are the things that get really messy in my brain, and I think as someone who lives in a Yeah.
Speaker 2:Fat, queer, trans body and exists in the world in this way. Right? And who advocates and works with LGBTQ young people and is an LGBTQ in person. Right? Like, this is more than just, like, you and I looking from afar and intellectualizing this as though this is a case study.
Speaker 2:Like, there is lessons to extract from this, and this is how you and I process, which is important. And this might not be other people's tactic, but, like, this feels so personal and so complicated. And what I think really sparked it for me, is that as someone who's chronically online, the media conversation about things, right, really indicate kind of where we are with this larger conversation, like, as a as a society, as a collective community, whatever. And I think that between what I saw online when the conviction and the sentencing was announced for the 2 teenagers who killed Brianna Gay, and it's always a hashtag. It's always, you know, a sound bite.
Speaker 2:And so there's not nuance online. Like, that's that's a given. I'm not expecting it. I'm not going there asking for that because that's insanity. Right?
Speaker 2:But when we see the hashtag justice for Brianna and justice for next and just in justice for fill in the blank, you know, person who's been killed by systemic violence of any form. Right? We're not having the conversation about justice. Right? I got into an exchange with someone online recently where they had had said, you know, those 2 teenagers need to be locked up.
Speaker 2:Similar conversations about the high schoolers in Oklahoma needing to be arrested. And I'm like, these are teenagers we're talking about. Like, this doesn't feel that simple. Like, what's the goal? Right?
Speaker 2:And I actually asked someone multiple ways the same question of, like, okay. So let's say you get the version of justice you're asking for, then what? What is next? And folks are not prepared to answer that question. Right?
Speaker 2:I'm not trying to antagonize these people, but I'm like, if you're gonna call for people to be locked away, in this case, we're talking about kids. Right? What is next? Are you gonna brush your hands of this and walk away and not engage with any of the other hard fights for trans people after you call for this and because it's gonna make you feel better? Like, that's the frustration.
Speaker 3:And what research tells us is that recidivism is high when people leave prison facilities. What we've also learned is that trauma literally rewires our brains. Right? Yes. So, like, brief for folks that may not know.
Speaker 3:When you are developing as a teenager, I the metaphor that I use is a Christmas tree. Even Even if you don't celebrate Christmas, most people know what a Christmas tree looks like. Right? Mhmm. As you continue to develop, more and more of your Christmas tree turns on.
Speaker 3:Right? More of those lights pop on. But what happens when you have trauma is that you're breaking off branches Mhmm. And you're expecting the lights to still turn on. We have to change the way that the tree lights up.
Speaker 3:And so what's happening is, like, we are taking people who have done some, honestly, pretty horrible stuff. I get very careful about classifying people and their behaviors together. People are not the summation of all of their decisions. Right? They are individual humans.
Speaker 3:Right? Have made some pretty pretty bad decisions. And we're putting them all together in a place where transparently, more violence is enacted on them by each other. Right? Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And so what we are saying is that we are okay and comfortable with the fact that these people deserve violence unto them as well. And that when they leave, we acknowledge as a society, as a group of people, that they are more likely to continue enacting violence on society after they leave from whatever facility they're in if or when they leave. I'm not sure most people know this. I know that I didn't until a couple of years ago. A life sentence does not mean they're there forever.
Speaker 3:I wanna be clear about that. Right? Like, it's like a 25 year kinda get like, cap. So if this person is 15, they'll be out when they're 40. Right?
Speaker 3:So what I'm arguing here or what I'm kind of hoping that we could talk about, not us talk about, but society talk about is like Mhmm. You're causing more physical violence to rewire their brain that could inevitably cause more harm down the road when they leave again. Because we're taking these kids, putting them in a situation that arguably is gonna have them make maybe some more maladaptive decisions in order to to fit into the culture of what's there. And then we're gonna ask them to leave and then not do that again. That feels you know, if all of their growing up has been assaultive and aggressive, what is telling us that them spending them leaving that place are all of a sudden gonna be better?
Speaker 3:I'm sorry. That just, like, that just, like, doesn't that just, like, doesn't happen. And I will argue that significant not argue. I don't have to argue this because it's proven. Trauma also stunts development.
Speaker 3:So, like, if we're gonna continue to traumatize kids, if that's the decision we as a society are gonna collectively make. Right? Like, the goal is, okay. You've done enough violence. We're now gonna stick you in a place where you're going to be traumatized because that's what's appropriate.
Speaker 3:Then we're okay with both stunting growth and preparing for the fact that when they leave incarceration in whatever way makes sense, they're more likely to go back because they will most likely enact more violence on other people. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And
Speaker 3:we're cool with that. Like, that's what we're saying.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Is that we're gonna address it now, and then down the road, we know we're gonna have to address it later. So, like, that's cool. We'll address it later down the road.
Speaker 2:Well and it speaks to this ongoing delusion that is why mass incarceration continues in the way it does, that prisons, jails, and detention centers are corrective, whatever that means. Right? That they are receiving either treatment or yeah. Yeah. Like, that yes.
Speaker 2:That they're gonna learn a thing. When in reality, we know that because those are sites of immense violence, inevitably, there's new types of violence or new different ways in which they will see violence played out that will be normalized, but they will have less power in that moment to respond to said violence and never have the trauma of having an act with their original violence address. And that that's what I think for me too is so fucked up about this. I'm torn. And I I have TikTok my way through this to try to name as many many, perspectives as I can about this.
Speaker 2:But I think in my even in my most angry moment about the fact that Nex is dead and Brianna is dead. Right? And the Yeah. The continued experience of being a trans person, grieving trans people I've never met and only know by name because of the fatal outcomes that they, experienced. Even at my most angry and devastated about that reality, what doesn't satisfy my grief and my desire for a different world, a liberated world for trans people.
Speaker 2:Right? It doesn't make me feel better to have people call for or to have in the UK example, right, these teenagers sentenced to life sentences 20 some odd years in prison because it doesn't address Yeah. The the circumstances in which those those deaths even even manifested, even happened. Right? It doesn't address that.
Speaker 2:So it feels lazy. It feels misguided. It feels disproportionate. Right? I would rather see a structure in place where, a, the trauma that those kids experienced of having killed someone, right, is addressed because that's gonna live in their body in really fucked up ways, in ways that I cannot even imagine.
Speaker 2:If it's not addressed right, like, chances that they are going to kind of harness that as an additional anger that could manifest in different ways or play out in different ways, either for the 20 some odd years that those two individuals in the UK are in prison, or whatever befalls the the high schoolers, if anything, because we don't know yet, in Oklahoma. Right? Like and I shouldn't have to care about them, but it doesn't help in the long term when I'm someone who does think about the bigger picture and the long term and the connections and the patterns. If you just disappear these teenagers, they're not participating in the project of improving the lived experiences of trans people. They're just being told, well, you took it too far even though you are surrounded by comments and media and conversations and politicians who say, fuck trans people.
Speaker 2:Right? You took it too far, and now you're the scapegoat for something that these adults are not willing to contend with. Oklahoma politicians will not take response like, they're not gonna take responsibility for this even though they're the ones that have created these earworms for young people in the state of Oklahoma or Texas or Florida. Right? Like, they will never see the correlation, and it's it'll be a hard fight to make the connection to say that you are actually complicit and responsible because you're the ones that have been feeding young people this bullshit, And now this has been the outcome that they will they will never.
Speaker 3:And I think about, 1, I remember sitting with a a 16 year old who, was the enforcer, quote, unquote, enforcer in his group. The only reason he had friends, was because he enacted violence on other people. It's the only reason. I just remember sitting down with him and and looking at this kid and being like, you know, you're you're not like the sum of all your bad decisions. Like, that's not who you are.
Speaker 3:Like, I think you're an angry, sad kid. You know, looking at this kid, watching him, like, break down. Right? Like, it have these, like, major emotions because someone finally, like, didn't just see what he wanted people to see but dug a little deeper. I I use the term a lot at work is that we need to treat them like adults but expect them to respond like children.
Speaker 3:Like, especially when you're working with adolescents, when you're working with teenagers, treating them like an adult or giving them options, allowing them to make decisions, giving them the information, but expecting that they are going to respond like a child. If you expect them to respond like an adult, you're not gonna get it. It's just not gonna happen. But what happens is is, like, when you don't treat them like an adult as they're growing up, and then hold them accountable like an adult, they don't understand why. They can't cognitively make that jump.
Speaker 3:I think the other piece that I think about too when it when we talk about violence, I've been trying to find a good place to bring this up because I think it's important. I use the terms the two terms that I use are, like, reactive or responsive violence versus opportunistic violence. Right? Like, those are very different. Okay.
Speaker 3:So opportunistic violence would be like we had a situation where in the cafeteria one day, this kid waited until a staff member walked away. And then he picked up his his lunch tray and smashed it across the face of another kid because that kid was making mean comments, to one of his friends. And they'd known each other for, like, a day. And that resulted in this kid getting probably, like, 8 or 9 stitches in his face and just, like, a concussion. When you asked the other kid why he did this, he wasn't able to articulate why it was so extreme.
Speaker 3:This person's making mean comments to you. And and again, I I tend to approach things in a really non judgmental way. Right? Of like, I'm not here to tell you you are a bad person, but, like, why was that appropriate? Like, what like, based on everything you told me that happened, why was that the response?
Speaker 3:And I I can't tell you how many times a teenager will look at you and be like, I don't know. Mhmm. And it's because they can't cognitively understand it.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And so when we're
Speaker 3:saying, like, oh, this person should go to jail, they don't even understand what they did wrong. And it's it's not that they don't understand that they did something wrong. They do. But they can't rationalize why that was their behavior and their decisions. And so I think for me, us sitting there saying, hey, this person did the shitty thing.
Speaker 3:We're going to lock them away. It absolves us of the responsibility of having to critically look at, how did I participate in this process? There are some really great prison social workers. There are some really great prison therapists that are doing some awesome, incredible, intentional work. Right?
Speaker 3:Like, I wanna be very clear about that. Social workers also contribute to the prison industrial complex in weird and gross ways, and so I wanna name that as well. However, there are some great folks doing trying to do some really good work. And the one session that you have every 4 weeks because your caseload is a 150 people Right. Isn't gonna do much.
Speaker 3:Right? The same way that I can't cure racism in a 1 hour session with a black client who's experiencing depression because of all of the things stacked against them and racism. Right? Like, I'm not gonna be able to address all of that. We're not gonna be able to fix it from that inside place.
Speaker 3:It's just it's just not gonna work. And quite honestly, like, it it's a sinking ship. And so I think for me, what does it look like for us to address people who engage in opportunistic or responsive or reactive violence, in ways that make sense. Right? Because for me, violence is about power and control.
Speaker 3:But it also can be about expressing things that we don't have emotions or or language to express appropriately. And I think for me, like, we're doing transparently. We're doing teenagers. We're doing kids. We're doing our country a disservice.
Speaker 3:Right? We're doing our world a disservice by not having these hard conversations, by not engaging with it. And I think it's because people are scared. I can't tell you how many times I've sat in a room where patients looked at me and then, like, yeah. And I'm gonna kill you.
Speaker 3:And this is her. I'm how I'm gonna do it. And I'm like, okay. Like, let's like, let's talk about that. Because number 1, if you are actually going to try and kill me, I don't necessarily know that you would tell me as overtly as that.
Speaker 3:You're also 15, and not trying to be mean or dismissive when I say this, but, like, teenagers generally are a little dramatic overall. Right? And so how much of this is you seeking attention? How much is this you trying to get a need met? And this is the only way that you know how.
Speaker 3:And that doesn't make it okay. It doesn't make it right. It changes the way that we respond to stuff. We had a a a teenager who she had some developmental delays. It was very clear that people had dismissed her as, like, the angry, aggressive person.
Speaker 3:And that we just, like, we had to appease because if we set a boundary, immediately, it would be all it would be chaos. Right? And I just remember so we have, at the the at the hospital, we have we call them beacons, but they're basically like little monitors that allow us to regularly report your behavior, where you're at, those sorts of things. She had, we we have them secured, so you should be able to take them off. People figure out how to take them off all the time.
Speaker 3:She took it off, and she was like, I wanted to go she's like, I wanna go to seclusion. We have a seclusion room, when people are being highly aggressive or assaultive or whatever that we we place people in. It feels weird to do it. We could unpack that later. But she wanted to go.
Speaker 3:Truthfully, I think some of her developmental delays meant she was getting a little overstimulated and being in a cool, sterile place with limited sensory, impact was was ideal. I also think she wanted people to pay attention to her. And so going to seclusion, she knew that a staff member would have to sit with her while she was in seclusion. And so I looked at her, and I was like, I went down the hallway, and I was like, you know, I wanted to take you to seclusion, but, like, you don't have your beacon on, and I unfortunately cannot take you to seclusion without your beacon on. Like, that's not an agreement I'm willing to make.
Speaker 3:And the nurse was like, we should just take her anyway. She's gonna get upset. And I was like, no. Like, I this is a boundary. You know the expectations.
Speaker 3:You know the rules. Like, you put the beacon on. I'm happy to give you 10 minutes in seclusion. And she got upset, and she started throwing stuff around the end of the hallway. And I turned on and I walked away.
Speaker 3:I'm not gonna, like, I'm not gonna engage in that behavior. Right? She wants me to respond in a way that gives her more attention, and I'm not gonna do that. And so, you know, I finish up some of the paperwork I was doing. I walk back down there, and I'm like, hey.
Speaker 3:Have you gotten a chance to put your beacon back on? Like, I'm not gonna address all the papers everywhere. I'm not gonna address the other stuff. Like, that is that is not important. And she said, I don't wanna put it on.
Speaker 3:And I'm like, I hear you. I wouldn't wanna wear it either. It's weird. It's probably not very comfortable. But it's what we need.
Speaker 3:It's to make sure that we are keeping our focus and attention on you. She said, well, can I just put it in this pocket here? I can't put here. I'm like, no. Like, the rule is it has to be around your ankle or around your wrist.
Speaker 3:Like, those are your options. And so we sat for a minute, and she finally did it. And it's one of those where we're like, okay, cool. Let's go sit in seclusion. I could've been a jerk, and I could've walked away from her, or I could've engaged in that behavior.
Speaker 3:But showing kids, like, this is how you ask for help. This is how you do these things. It doesn't necessarily matter. They need someone in their lives that's gonna be able to have those conversations with them. And if you have parents or staff members or places that can't do that, how can we get upset at kids when they engage in serious behavior?
Speaker 3:Because if they're upping the ante and not getting the attention that they need, how do we get upset at them for that? It's worked before. I would be I would be shocked if those 3 kids who murdered Nex, if there wasn't previous inappropriate behavior in the past. And I don't mean that they had assaulted people, but boundary violations. Sure.
Speaker 3:Were they acting up in class? Were they doing this? Were they doing that? And how is that addressed? Because kids continue to up the ante until they get their needs met.
Speaker 3:I think of it back to, like, even when a baby is crying. Right? A baby will cry louder and louder and louder until they're fed. Sure. That's what kids learn.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. How can we get upset when they're when kids are engaging in behavior that has quote, unquote worked for them before? Mhmm. But we now, at their age, or because of the reactions or responses from it, find it inappropriate. And we haven't taught them anything different.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. And we're gonna throw them away and just sit in a box for 20 years.
Speaker 2:Well and, again, as I've pointed out, and I I'm realizing another example is, again, we've, especially in the US, where I can't speak to the level of, like, law that exists, but in the US, I know that we have transpanna clause, And so we have enabled, we have an existing system in place that approves and lets people get away with essentially, right, if you react to finding out that someone that you're maybe gonna be intimate with is trans and you react violently and you assault them or you escalate it to killing them. Right? There are existing protections on the books in many states. Right? I'm not talking about a couple.
Speaker 2:Right? Like, there are several. I don't know how many, but there's many states who are like, well, you know, that checks out. Like, you reacted and your reaction to this and the violence that you enacted as part of your reaction is okay. And I can't imagine that these 5 teenagers involved in these respective incidences maybe even know the trans panic laws exist when there is a precedent for approving instances where folks are reacting to the existence of trans people, and there is coverage, and there is acceptance of that being a justifiable reaction that lives in the culture, that lives in in in how we function as a society and trickles down into young people who are also trying to figure out who they are.
Speaker 2:And I think too, I believe it was, Patrice Cullors who's talked about this at length, especially from her vantage point as an abolitionist who has family, who have been entrapped by the, you know, criminal injustice system, who also experience significant mental health obstacles. Right? That we don't have a mental health care system in this country, and so folks fall through the, you know, through the gaps in that, and I would imagine that children are probably even more so or in a in a different way, right, that then sets them up to be emotionally dysregulated adults.
Speaker 3:Number 1, don't get me started on the, like, insurance, like, sort of mental health system because Sure. Working for a hospital man has really helped me further entrench myself in the fact that I fundamentally believe we need to remove insurance carriers from approving care. Like, there is no reason to do that, number 1. I have seen some wild stuff that I am not gonna put out here. But let's just say that, like, there are decisions that, like, I think would be fundamentally unsafe that insurance has told providers to do, then it's just kind of like, that's crazy.
Speaker 3:Like, why would I do that? Number 2, I think, like especially when you think about mental health care. I sat with a father one time who, like, was just completely downplaying his kids' mental health, like, experience. Right? This kid had been in our hospital.
Speaker 3:Trigger warning. I'm gonna talk about, I'm gonna make a vague reference of how he attempted suicide. He made, like, a lethal attempt. It's pretty significant. Some people try and, like, attempt suicide by ways that maybe aren't super lethal.
Speaker 3:This was a pretty lethal attempt. And then when talking to his dad, his dad gave out, like, all of his excuses. Like, oh, he's been making stuff up. He's lied in the past about this. He's lied upon the past about that.
Speaker 3:And I remember looking at his dad and being like, okay. I'm like, can we play pretend for a second? He was like, sure. And I was like, what if he's not lying? What happens then?
Speaker 3:Do you wanna be the first person your kid thinks about when he is thinking about hurting himself again, saying they're not gonna believe me anyways. I can't tell you how many parents have their own stuff that they have to deal with. Like, you and I both know that sometimes the people who create us and raise us, like, are not the most mentally well people in the world. Right.
Speaker 2:It's another episode. That's a that's a that that is that will be that will be another episode. Let's go.
Speaker 3:But I think, like, I think when you talk about kids, right, like, I'm gonna make this claim. And, I'm gonna say this again, not in a way to absolve, but, like, you cannot tell me that a mentally healthy, well adjusted adolescent kills people. That doesn't happen. I'm I'm so sorry. Like and I'm not saying that, like, all people who kill people are mentally unwell, which, like, we could have a conversation about psychopathy or, like, impulsivity control and other stuff like that.
Speaker 3:What I'm saying is that, like, you can't tell me an adolescent who engaged in this behavior is mentally well. I'm I'm so sorry. I I'm just never gonna be there. And if they're not mentally well, regardless of what that means, how are we going to make sure that we're we're addressing it? Because if they're not mentally well and they're not engaging in ways to get better, either because their parents don't want to, don't believe in it, whatever it is, how are we expecting different outcomes?
Speaker 3:I agree with you. You know, I've been thinking a lot of like and and again, I spent a lot of my time working with maybe transparently working with kids that want to kill themselves, not not necessarily other people, but sometimes other people. When you start learning more about who this kid is and what's happened in the world around them, I'm not gonna say that I condone any of it, but I start to understand a little bit more about how they end up where they did. I'll forever remember the first time, I had to make a a duty to warn. So different states have different legal requirements around a duty to warn.
Speaker 3:And that basically means, like, a a mental health provider or a doctor or someone basically says, hey. This person has such a, like, a well developed plan that I believe they're actually going to go and kill somebody. And I have hit a legal obligation where the law says, you have to say something. Right? You have to intervene or do something in some way.
Speaker 3:Some states, some professions have different kinds of requirements and different kinds of, things. So the state of Iowa is a little weird. There's not technically necessarily always a duty to warn law. I have some ethical guidelines, but unless it's a very, very specific set of circumstances, there's a lot of things a patient can say to me that I legally don't have to say to anyone. And I'll remember the patient that, like, first triggered my first ever duty.
Speaker 3:I've never been in this position to duty to warn. But this person, you know, is like, hey. I'm going to do this thing. I'm gonna lure these people to this place. I know it's gonna work because I've already taken these 3 steps.
Speaker 3:And it's just like, you're just like sitting here telling me how you're gonna kill your 2 classmates, like step by step. Or the patient who's like, yeah. My parents have a gun. I'm gonna bring a gun to school, and I'm gonna kill this person, this person, this person, and this person. And when you sit there and you learn more about who they are and how they ended up that way, you start to be like, oh, okay.
Speaker 3:It's not that you just fell into this. There were circumstances that that led you down this path. There were things that occurred to you in this world that that led you there. I've treated patients. The the, like, in cell red pill moment was wild.
Speaker 3:I had a patient like that who was, like, 14, 15 in a self described in cell and just, like, you know, like, had some legal stuff going on where it wasn't legally allowed to access the Internet because some some of the stuff that they had posted at 14 or 15 years old. Right? Like, that's that's crazy, but, like, had gone had been so severe. And so, like, I see some of these things, and I just, like, our kids are struggling. I think, like, when it comes to accessing mental health services, honestly, there's a deficit in this country on what's available.
Speaker 3:As a therapist, it's so hard for me to find a psychiatrist. It's so hard for me to find another therapist for me to go to. And, like, I I fucking do this work. Like, I couldn't imagine a single parent with 2 kids who works a full time job and maybe a part time job on the side to make ends meet. And now I have to find ways to get therapy for my kid who clearly needs it.
Speaker 3:Absolutely not. And then you've got states like Oklahoma, where just like the amount of available providers, I'm sure is not very high. You wanna drive an hour both ways to go to a provider once a week. Do you even have the money for gas
Speaker 2:for that? I have lots
Speaker 3:of thoughts about our mental health care system or lack thereof in general as someone who's gonna be doing this work long for long term. I want some feelings.
Speaker 2:A couple thoughts. Right? A, COVID kind of blew the the veil off of that one. Right? We came to realize that in this instance where there was a increased demand and increased instance in which folks actually had the time, right, and wanted to access care, the the system that already wasn't really equipped to handle its existing demand, right, could not hold the new demand.
Speaker 2:Right? Something that I'm also tracking is that what I think is so key about what makes it so that we, a, don't really have a mental health care system, and, b, that even in the the patchy structure that we have and with, like, the health care system more broadly, right, is that there's a PACE issue. And when I say pace issue, I mean, right, like, the types of conversations you're naming that you're having where you're sitting down with these teenagers and these kids and these their parents, right, is that you're taking dedicated time to tease through things that our existing system. Right? When you go to the doctor, they're trying to get you in and out because they've got 16 other people to see that day.
Speaker 2:And you might, you know, if you're lucky, get, like, a 20 minute conversation, and they're gonna try to sign you up for Ozempic and send you out the door even though that's not what you fucking came in there for. You know what I mean?
Speaker 3:This podcast was sponsored by Ozempic.
Speaker 2:Then don't even it will never be. It will never be. The pace that is required, I should say, in my opinion, to really get to the core of things when it comes to folks' experiences with maybe complex PTSD. Right? And I I wanna name too the the other point I was headed towards, but I'll make it now, is that we're so limited by the language and the definitions that we have.
Speaker 2:Right? Like, even in this conversation you have I you and I have had this whole time. We are beholden to legal terms, medical terms, things that live in the DSM and and state law. Right? And, like, that is its own limitation, but you and I are just doing our legible and understandable to the general public.
Speaker 2:But, like, murder murder is technically a legal definition, and, the folks at in Oklahoma have not been charged. But, like, we're naming them as murderers because they killed a person. Right? And that's the language we have access to, but that's technically the legal definition. I think I'm naming too or trying to name that, like, we have this arsenal of language available and you have this background and the the this experience and this training and these this lived, experience.
Speaker 2:Right? But we don't have to pathologize or, like, add, like, any diagnosis related language to these situations to still be able to make the same case that we need to slow down and really unpack and pick out the root causes of what is causing anything from problem like, annoying behavior. This person interrupts constantly. This person doesn't understand when the adults are talking and comes and interrupts. This person, you know, has the impulse to hit.
Speaker 2:Right? Like, all the things that we've said, we don't have to put diagnosis related language. That's what we have access to and you're also intimately familiar with. But at the end of the day, I'm hoping that regardless of the language we've had to trudge through to even have this conversation from all these different, like, legal, medical, personal perspectives, right, is that at the end of the day, we need to slow the fuck down and reach to the core issue of what is happening, which is that there are all of these varieties of green light being given to young people to say, well, I'm not gonna take the time to talk to you about what is bothering you, or I'm not going to take the time to teach you how to appropriately manage your emotions or your reactions or give you that language. Right?
Speaker 2:That has been the big theme, I think, across our conversation, whether it's parents or other glorified adults in a young person's life, whether it's teachers, whether it's politicians. Right? Whatever the proximity is of that adult, like, we just move at the speed of light and say, you better keep up or there's going to be Keep up. Punishments, not consequences or, like, things that you're gonna be required to do. So I think pace is what I'm sitting with as something that just, like, we don't have the capacity across any of these systems to really offer on a grand scale.
Speaker 2:And I would say that there's also
Speaker 3:things that are, like, developmentally appropriate for people to engage in at their age. We don't get a lot of 12 year olds at the hospital. But when we do, I am just, like, so profoundly reminded. The difference between a 12 year old and a 14 year old is, like, light years. Like, the development between those two ages and it's crazy because it's 2 years.
Speaker 3:Because, like, I would tell you the development between a 14 and a 16 year old is there, but, like, the stark contrast between 12 and 14 is mind boggling. Right? Kids are supposed to be impulsive. They're supposed to be. Sure.
Speaker 3:So people who are like, oh, my kid can't sit still, and they're always moving around all the time like they've got ADHD. And it's like, do they have ADHD, or are they 11? And they've got a lot of energy because we've been asking them to sit still all day. Like
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Are you actually 14 and bipolar, or are you going through puberty? Mhmm. And there's a lot of fucking hormones in your body right now. Mhmm. And your frontal lobe isn't fully developed.
Speaker 3:And do you maybe struggle with self regulation? Like, we don't have to clinically classify all of our behaviors and actions into something in order for it to, like, mean something. Right? Like, you can struggle with impulsivity and not have ADHD. You might just struggle with impulsivity.
Speaker 3:And if you're 16 and you're making impulsive decisions and you don't want to, but you're struggling in it, it's probably because your brain's not done cooking yet. It's not giving you an excuse. Like, you should probably, like, find a way to make good solid decisions and have people in your life that can help you do that. That doesn't necessarily mean you've got some diagnosable thing. And I think people sorry.
Speaker 3:There's a dog that's having a blast outside. I think there are some people that, saying, I also want to roll on the grass with my belly up. I hope that stays in. I think folks cling on to this clinical language because I think sometimes it it makes them feel validated, almost like they have a valid reason or it adds some validity to what they're saying.
Speaker 1:And Sure.
Speaker 3:In reality, it it can it can just be true. Mhmm. Like, things are allowed to just be true to you. We don't need to, like, pack a label on this. I also say this is a great time to introduce that, like, good therapists and clinical workers, I use the word good intentionally, will not provide a personality diagnosis to a teenager.
Speaker 3:So any any mental health care provider that comes and says, this person's a psychopath. This person's got antisocial personality disorder. This person's bipolar. This person is borderline. No.
Speaker 3:No? Nope. We don't assign personality disorders until they're much older. So, like, 18 is, like, what we've been using. I make an argument for 25.
Speaker 3:Your personality is not, like, really set in stone until you're much older. A 15 year old is never, should never get classified with, like, a borderline personality disorder. So sorry for you, friend. They might have borderline traits or borderline behaviors. That's not a thing.
Speaker 3:So I also want us to be very clear before we start diagnosing these folks and as an attempt to, like, not write them off, but to, like, describe or explain their behavior. Number 1, people are allowed to have behaviors without having a diagnosis. And number 2, not all diagnoses are appropriate developmentally for where you're at. And behavior sometimes is developmentally appropriate. Sometimes parents will say, my kids are narcissists.
Speaker 3:And I'm like, yep. They're supposed to be. And they're like, what? And I'm like, your teenager is supposed to have is supposed to they're supposed to be narcissistic. Developmentally, it's appropriate.
Speaker 3:What's not appropriate is, like, them manipulating people. Right? That's that maladaptive behavior that, like, we talked about earlier. In these conversations where people engage in some of this, like, maladaptive behavior, we have this, like, really quick jump to, like, oh, they're this. And it's like, let's not let's not do that.
Speaker 3:Partially because of what you talked about. Right? We haven't had people sit down with them and spend time and really understand who they are and how they come to us. That's not appropriate. Right?
Speaker 3:People are not the summation of all of their bad decisions. They are unique individuals that need to be provided assistance to in in ways that are helpful.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I do think that's valuable and something that it's something that has come up while you and I have spent the last handful of weeks chatting about and around these respective things because I somewhere in there too had talked about some a little young one in my life who is exhibiting behaviors. Right? And in conversation with you, right, you brought up that it is not precise enough and it is not appropriate to put those clinical diagnoses onto someone who's developmentally at a place where they're still growing. Right?
Speaker 2:Their personality, who they are as a person, and in a place of learning what is appropriate and what is not socially, personally, familiarly, whatever. Right, which was really enlightening for me. What I took away from that when we talked about it and what you're saying now, right, is that there are behaviors that we should not ignore and that should be addressed. And ideally, there are glorified adults in young people's lives that can take the time or find the resources. And, like, that's what's fucked up about the systems that sometimes that's not available.
Speaker 2:But I think if
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:If folks are kind of inclined to think about not jumping to a diagnosis or trying to retrofit an existing, like, clinical diagnosis onto a young person. I would say for me, right, I've used existing language that we have because that's still useful to as, like, a a guiding post of what might be emerging and what might be manifesting because of patterns in the family, for example, if I have a larger picture. Picture. But when we're talking about, like, young folks that we don't have that full fuller picture, right, like, I think it's a very valuable lesson to say that we should be cautious and careful with jumping to just a prescriptive diagnosis term versus looking at what are the behavioral traits that come with that and addressing them. What I'm learning is someone who's doing more homework around cluster b personality disorders, for example, for my own personal interest that, like, said we'll talk about in the episode.
Speaker 2:No no reason. Particularly. Yeah. Is there's a lot of overlap. Right?
Speaker 2:So if you jump to one diagnosis without some of the information, especially for folks under the age of 18 or in in in I agree with you under the age of 25 because that prefrontal thing that I talked about, the prefrontal cortex, is not fully baked. Right? We I I would imagine it creates limitations on being able to address the actual behaviors because you're maybe cutting off some other relate just you know what I'm saying. I hope other people do too, but I I value that perspective of just saying if we jump to a diagnosis label, we might be prematurely limiting what we observe from that person, and then we're also kind of slapping this label on them without giving them the opportunity to grow as a person. Be like, well, this is who you are, and now it's a fixed immutable thing.
Speaker 2:And now we're going to treat you as such even though that's not built into you yet. Could be. And I feel like that's fair to say. Like, it could be.
Speaker 3:Like, it could become
Speaker 2:a thing longer down the road. And I feel like my experience with a young person in my life is just I feel very confident that by observing the behaviors that are causing, you know, social barriers, for example, or just, like, behavioral behavioral things that are coming up on a recurring basis, not just 1 or 2 times, right, is how to mitigate those in this moment so that even if maybe a diagnosis were to happen to crop up later, right, like, we've softened some of the edges because there's people who've taken the time to give them that feedback and explain why and have those conversations versus saying, like, well, that's a shitty kid or that kids never do behave right. Like, that's also not fair either. And so when I decide, I guess, because of who I am as a person to try to give some level of humanity, that's they think that's what's important for me. It's not grace right now for the folks who killed Brianna and the folks who killed Next.
Speaker 2:I don't have grace necessarily, but it is important to me to hold the humanity of them as people who are growing up in a society that has made it absolutely appropriate to hate on queer and trans people, and that this is an unfortunate and devastating outcome of something that is part and parcel of every of their daily life that they have entered into and did not necessarily consent to. And now they have made choices and impulsive actions that will haunt them for the rest of their lives, but I would rather the trauma that was already living in them and the trauma that is now growing in them for having done this type of violence to be addressed so that they don't continue to grow into that as an identity, and blow that trauma through other people because it continues to be unaddressed, unmanaged, and unmitigated.
Speaker 3:And I think, truthfully, the only thing I would add to is, like, I think we make a lot of assumptions about why or who they are. Right? Like, why did they engage in this behavior or who they are as people? When in reality, like, what what if we were to come with more questions? Right?
Speaker 3:Like, what if we were to approach this? Again, not giving them grace, but allowing ourselves to ask questions. What happened to you? What happened around you that led you to feeling that this was appropriate, acceptable, and and necessary? Right?
Speaker 3:Like, how did we end up here? I think that's that was my first question when we first started talking. Right? Is and this is the place that I always start with any patient that I work with is, like, how did we end up here? How did we end up in this spot?
Speaker 3:You tell me you're the expert. I didn't engage in any of this behavior. You did. How did we get here? Asking questions allows us to invite some care.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna use care. Regardless of what that person's actions are is not gonna change the way that I care about other people. Right? I'm I'm allowed to care about people even if I don't necessarily love the actions that they engage in because I get to decide who I am as a person.
Speaker 2:The end. It feels like this might be a good place to just, like, put a put a bow on it. I'm not putting a bow on this. There's some something else.
Speaker 3:Put a pin.
Speaker 2:Lock lock and key. Oh, yeah. Okay. Just to close out, if there's any final parting thoughts, words of wisdom, considerations, you kind of started to to package it in that way of kinda just like, how do we hold care? Yeah.
Speaker 2:How do we hold folks' humanity, especially when it's this hard in these very extreme examples? But it for me, right, when I think about what's upcoming, it's an election year, a presidential election year, and we know what kinds of rampant rhetoric starts to spur up when folks are trying to make their case and just with the patterns and ways things have been going. I I don't know what we're about to see, but we also know that when there's heightened instances of especially politicians, or media pundits who are naming anti trans things, we see increased calls to health crisis hotlines. Yep. So there's just there's just a lot.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm thinking of going into this. So just where what what you got?
Speaker 3:What do I have? Again, easy questions.
Speaker 2:Oh, I know. I know.
Speaker 3:I think the first thing is that, like, we talked about around this a lot. I don't know these individuals, right, that murdered that murdered these 2 kids. Like, I I don't that killed them. Right? That their actions resulted in their deaths.
Speaker 3:I I don't know those folks. I I haven't had a chance to interact with them. Right? And so I think there's also, like, this acknowledgement of, like, we're doing a lot of guesswork. We're doing a lot of inference.
Speaker 3:I think for me, it's, like, a gentle reminder that it it doesn't, like, an until you sit down with these people and you talk to them, which, like, I would love to as a sidecar, I would love to be able to interview murderers. I think that'd be fascinating, but it's a separate conversation. I think for me, like, reminding that again, people are not the sum of all of their bad decisions. Right? That's not who you are as a person.
Speaker 3:When we think about accountability and again, I'm using accountability. I'm not using justice. I'm not using punishment. I'm using accountability because I think people need to own what they've done. And to own what does it look like to make a difference moving forward in a way to repair harm and to repair harm in the community and to people and and all of that stuff.
Speaker 3:What does that look like? I think when we talk about accountability, I don't think we do it well as a society, and I wish we could do better knowing that accountability is not punishment. And then I think the last thing is that these conversations are hard and they suck because we're talking about real people's lives. Right? Right.
Speaker 3:Like, we are talking about real humans in this world. And I think humans are complex and diverse and nuanced, and it and it makes it so difficult. And so I would say that, like, kids are still growing. Right? Our adolescents are still developing, and and they need solid people in their lives in order to show them what the future can look like and all of its possibilities.
Speaker 3:They don't need people that are gonna shut them out from from all those opportunities. And I think when we start focusing on potential and start focusing on, not necessarily grace, but like care and community care. I think that really leads us into a different spot. Right? We all have some responsibility for the folks in our communities in some way, shape, or or form.
Speaker 3:That's what I fundamentally believe. Right? That's why I do the work that I do is because on a fundamental level, I believe that I have a responsibility to care in some way and provide that care. Part of that providing that care means digging in and doing work, especially with people that maybe you wouldn't want to. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:But if if we're not going to do work with them, and we're not going to show what change looks like, how can we expect them to change, period? And that's not a requirement on us to, like, use our identities as queer folks to fix the world, but more about, like, we as people need to show care and love even when other folks aren't because it's not about other people. Right? It's about us and who we are humans.
Speaker 2:It always impresses me and shocks me how you you have always found yourself in the spaces where you are engaging with the folks that I think, a lot of the rest of society has either given up on or won't take the time. So I just wanna name that I think that is just so important, and I can't you know, I also imagine it's very hard for you to maintain a sense of sanity and security for yourself, right, engaging in those, you know, routine hard conversations of just seeing what is going on in the world that other folks have, chosen to ignore or chosen to decide that, well, I don't wanna deal with that. I'd rather see folks go to prison or I'd rather see folks, you know, disappeared or moved out of this space, right, for their comfort. And so I I guess I'm just naming appreciation that you have chosen that you can, in some way, sacrifice some of your comfort in the moment if it means that there is a greater good for it, that someone is going to ideally leave conversations or interactions with you. Their humanity has been held intact and that they're being provided options and that they're, you know, being talked to as a person or in some cases as an adult, but that their youth and youngness and discovery of who they are is still being held as as a a big piece of the those interactions.
Speaker 2:So that's that's what I've got for you.
Speaker 3:Thanks. That's okay.
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