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How to Humanist asks life’s questions big and small with the help of brilliant humans along the way.
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SHAY:
Welcome to How to Humanist. It's Shay Leonia, I'm your host, and you're reaching me at a bittersweet time because I really feel like it was only yesterday that we were starting Pride Month with my tour to Stonewall and this incredible episode that we have with Cain Culto, who has since the episode gotten engaged. So be sure to leave him lots of congratulations on all of the socials.
But today we had to end things with an overview of where we're at in the world, what's going on in this country with LGBTQ rights. And who better to do that than Jack Harrison-Quintana, who I... Thank you so much to Kevin for introducing me.
Let me just tell you, Jack Harrison-Quintana is a queer Latino activist, author, and researcher. His work at the intersection of digital advocacy and LGBTQ justice has earned him recognition as one of Foreign Policy magazine's top geopolitical thinkers of 2016, as well as Fast Company's most creative people in the business.
Over the course of his career, Jack has worked with the National LGBTQ Task Force, the National Center for Transgender Equality, the Global Trans Research and Advocacy Project, Grindr for Equality, and Camara, as well as five state and local LGBTQ-related ballot measure campaigns. Jack has spoken in over a quarter of the world's countries.
He has presented to the National HIV Prevention Conference, International AIDS Conference, ILGA World, and Creating Change. He's also briefed the US House of Representatives, the US Senate, the United Nations, members of the British Parliament, the Norwegian Stortinget, and the Hong Kong Legislative Council. Woo.
He has co-authored two books, Outing Age 2010: Public Policy Issues Affecting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Elders, and Injustice at Every Turn, a report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey.
I mean, let's get into this conversation.
SHAY:
All right, so the Fanta thing. What is your Fanta lore?
JACK:
Well, in the small town that I'm from, there is a Japanese factory that is a major employer, and they have a contest every year for kids to write an essay saying, "I wanna go live in Japan." So I won when I was 15, and I spent a semester and a summer there, and I experienced Japanese Fanta. And then there was also a Thai market in my town in Japan that had Thai Fanta, and both had very different flavors from what we have in America.
And I got really fixated on the idea that Fanta is the opposite of Coca-Cola. They change it for every country, and now I've had Fanta from 78 countries.
SHAY:
Get out.
JACK:
I wrote my college essay on Fanta. I worked on the original Wikipedia page on Fanta.
SHAY:
Jesus.
JACK:
I am a Fanta expert.
SHAY:
That is... What a niche thing.
JACK:
Yes, that's right. It's part of my personal branding.
SHAY:
That's fascinating. Now, okay, now it's all coming together, because I had seen some footage of you with Fanta and I was just like, "Huh, I don't know what that is all about." Yeah, it's hard to guess that story, I think.
Do they all taste different?
JACK:
Yeah, they do.
SHAY:
Which country has the best one so far?
JACK:
In the Gulf countries, so like Qatar and UAE, they have the most actual fruit in Fanta. So my favorite is Gulf Strawberry, and it has pulp, real strawberry pulp in it. It's like a totally different drink 'cause it's like actual fruit. But that's my favorite.
In Hong Kong they've done some of the funkiest things. Like, once I had milk Fanta in Hong Kong. That's one of the places in the world where they do non-fruit flavors sometimes. They're not always delicious, but they're fascinating.
SHAY:
Milk Fanta. Is it still carbonated?
JACK:
Yeah. It doesn't taste anything even remotely like milk. Have you ever had Calpico? Probably not.
SHAY:
I haven't.
JACK:
Okay. Well, if you ever see it at a Japanese market or an Asian market and you wanna try it, I think it's delicious. And it's kind of the taste of milk Fanta because there's a flavor in East Asia that they call milk. You know how in the US strawberry candy doesn't necessarily taste anything like strawberries, but you kind of know what strawberry candy always tastes like?
SHAY:
Yes.
JACK:
There's an East Asian milk flavor that is consistent but nothing like milk. And Calpico is the easiest version of it to get in the US.
SHAY:
Huh. Is there a dill pickle flavor of Fanta yet?
JACK:
You know what? I don't think so, but I do think I saw a dill pickle soda recently, 'cause that does ring a bell. Are you a pickle person?
SHAY:
I'm... See, I'm not a pickle person to the tune where you are a Fanta person. But I've just been seeing lately that they're trying to dill pickle everything.
JACK:
Yes, yes. And I can't say that I am opposed to it.
SHAY:
But like, I had dill pickle cotton candy recently.
JACK:
Okay. And how was it?
SHAY:
Not something I would want to have again.
JACK:
Okay. Yeah.
SHAY:
But definitely something that piqued my interest.
JACK:
Totally. I actually really like cotton candy.
SHAY:
Same. Same. Yeah. But the dill of it all.
JACK:
No, I mean, that's kinda random, but I also would try it. That's the kinda thing that I would try out of interest.
SHAY:
So you actually have traveled to these countries to try it?
JACK:
I have been to 76 countries as part of my work for LGBT justice mostly. Not all countries have Fanta, so some of the ones that I've had I've been able to get in other places. Like when I was in Japan, having them from Thailand. Sometimes when you're nearby a place, you can get the neighboring country's Fanta.
And then recently I have also ordered some from abroad, which is a little crazy. My husband thinks it's a little crazy sometimes that I will pay a little bit more than I think most people would to have a soda imported. But it's my special interest.
SHAY:
That's so funny to think of what snazzy, bougie products people are paying to import.
JACK:
I know. I've imported a lot of stupid shit in my life, if I'm being honest.
SHAY:
Really?
JACK:
Yes.
SHAY:
I love that. Oh, I love stupid shit.
JACK:
Me too.
Okay, so you were in these other countries doing work for the LGBTQ community. What does that look like? What kind of work was it?
SHAY:
You know, there is a network of global LGBTQ activists in the way that there is a network of global indigenous activists, global climate justice activists. There's a circuit of conferences called the ILGA Conferences in particular, where every other year there's a global one for people from anywhere, and then also there are regional ones, so like Pan Africa ILGA or ILGA Europe.
And when I got out of college, my first job was here in the US in DC at the National LGBTQ Task Force. And I worked on the first quantitative research on anti-transgender discrimination that had ever been done in the US at the scale that we did it. So we surveyed 6,456 trans people from all 50 states and two territories, and put together the first quantitative look at transphobia in the United States.
And it was a big deal. That study was basically cited by every piece of writing about trans people for the next like ten years. And after it was published, a couple of us who worked on that project got a grant to take that research around the globe and introduce it to LGBT activists in other places, and in particular trans activists in other places.
Basically to say, your government is probably not collecting data on anti-LGBT discrimination, but that doesn't mean that you couldn't just do it yourself. And here's what we did to do it ourselves, and if you want help with doing that in your country, we're here to help you.
I was already kind of an internationally-minded person. I'm Mexican American. I speak Japanese and Korean. I have this history with intercultural communication. But that was the moment when I really got plugged into the international LGBTQ network.
From there, because I had built this network and I was on good terms with LGBTQ activists in all different countries, I got hired at Grindr to start their corporate social responsibility program and really just figure out what could Grindr be useful for to LGBTQ activists around the world, to sort of augment or help to raise awareness of their great work that they're already doing.
So I was well-positioned to get that job because I had this network. And then when I was there for ten years, I had a pretty decent budget to be able to travel and work with folks on the ground in different places. And so that's basically how it got set up. A lot of what I did was technical support, and has been technical support, for people operating in different contexts.
I also, when I was at Grindr, I created the policy that we would have a blanket offer of free ads to any LGBTQ nonprofit around the world who wanted to reach Grindr users in their local area. So there are a lot of people on Grindr in, let's say, Kenya, who are a part of the community in some way but don't necessarily know what the activists are up to in their area. They're connecting to the community in some ways, but they might not know, like, where can I get an HIV test, or how do I get involved with the activism to make it legal to be gay. Because right now in Kenya, it's illegal to be gay or to have gay sex.
So I worked with about 150 organizations around the world to make use of our communications channel to reach their own community folks. I also gave away money. I also helped with some online safety type stuff. I've developed an expertise in LGBTQ online safety, especially in parts of the world where it might be illegal to be LGBT, or even if not illegal, challenging in whatever way.
And so that's basically what I've done with my career, which has been super fun.
JACK:
I don't even know where to begin because my jaw is dropped right now at all you've accomplished on a worldwide scale. Like right now, AHA, we are partnering with a few other progressive organizations to put out this report. And just between the four organizations, organizing who's gonna do what has been so much fun, let me tell you. I can't imagine doing that on an international scale.
SHAY:
Yeah. I think that's right. I mean, there are so many challenges working at that scale. And I think what has felt really amazing in my life is that when you build real relationships with people, you can do it. Those relationships are tested, and there's tension, but I really love my people in this network of activists. Like, really. I would take a bullet for these folks, and I think vice versa in many cases.
And that is what allows us to do it. It was a privilege to be able to do the travel part, but that was really necessary. It's hard to build those really real relationships when you're not spending time in person. That's a lot of what has really allowed me to do it.
JACK:
Yeah, and sharing a meal and sharing what you've all been through and finding those commonalities. That's incredible.
And particularly because not everyone is totally open to Americans immediately, and I was working for a for-profit company. Not everyone in a nonprofit-type space or an underground space is open to that. But when you can get in person, you can get through those things.
SHAY:
When you were at Grindr, was the culture already there for you to be able to have the room to play and do this? Or was it more siloed, what you were doing?
JACK:
No, it was pretty well set up. The founder of Grindr, whose name is Joel Simkhai, really had a social justice heart. And really still does. He's no longer the CEO, but he's still really committed to global LGBTQ justice. And that just made all the difference, you know what I mean? Like, I didn't come in having to prove that this was something that the company should take on. I was really asked by him to do that, and he really set the tone for the whole company.
And then by the time he left, it was so much a part of the corporation that even if folks had wanted to get rid of it, it wouldn't have been easy to do. So it's really much credit to him that that was happening.
And more than half of the employees at the company were LGBT themselves, and honestly, some of the straight cis people who worked there were even just as committed, really, really strong allies. But I think everyone really understood that this was a unique opportunity for us to have a positive impact on the world, and that we should do that.
And the other thing is, to be perfectly honest, it made business sense too. Because the more healthy, safe, free, liberated LGBT people there are in the world, the more customers there are for something like Grindr.
SHAY:
Mm.
JACK:
So it doesn't not make sense for the bottom line.
SHAY:
Oh, I didn't think of that.
JACK:
Yeah. The more people who are dying of preventable diseases that are impacting us through LGBT health, that's not good for the customer base.
SHAY:
Oh my God.
JACK:
I mean, it's not good for humanity either, right?
SHAY:
Oh, yeah.
JACK:
But when you can find a win-win-win, it's a win for the community, it's a win for the company, and it's a win for the movement. You gotta lean into that kind of thing.
SHAY:
Oh my goodness. Okay, so you're really tapped into where queer rights stand around the world. Is that fair to say?
JACK:
Yeah.
SHAY:
So I would love to get a sense from you about where we're at versus where we've been. Because I know right now in the US, we're in danger.
JACK:
Yes. Yes, that's right. And I'll certainly share with you what I think, and I will also tell you that not everyone in my field would say it this way. And I affirm the people who are not as optimistic as me. I understand where that's coming from. And I would never want to dismiss the people whose top-line reading of the situation is worse than this.
But I will tell you where I stand. I mean, first of all, I would say that what you're describing is happening in the US is a global phenomenon. That doesn't mean that it's happening to the same degree everywhere, and it doesn't mean that there aren't places that are making great strides. We have definitely seen some huge steps forward in Southeast Asia, and we're seeing some huge steps forward in other parts of the world.
But overall, I would say we are in a moment where the pendulum is swinging back in the direction that we don't want. But I do believe that is part of the overall forward motion process. Like, I think that part of what has happened in the last six years, in the United States, and of course we could trace an even longer history than that, is that every single person in the United States now knows what transgender means.
When I started my career and I was working on those statistics, trying to look quantitatively at transphobia in the United States, my collaborators, many of whom were trans themselves, would have to say up top in those presentations, "This is what trans means." Because there were always people in the room who just didn't have that first-step context.
Now, I don't think that's true. I think most people now know what trans means. Now, with that has come an extreme amount of transphobia. There's no doubt that the amount of transphobia that we have seen from state legislatures, from individual violent people, from school districts, from all quarters, is an unthinkable, unconscionable amount.
But I'm not sure that there was any other way for everyone in the United States to find out what trans means. In a way, that's part of the process. And I am not saying that to be dismissive of it. I wish it weren't so, no question, and I think the impacts on individual trans people have been really, really disturbing and upsetting. But I do think that this is how this often works when you are bringing forward a human rights issue that people didn't know about.
So I see that we're getting further, and that the next steps from here will only be improvement. That's my hope. And I think you could say the same thing globally about LGBT people, not just trans people. More and more, everyone knows that we exist, and that's coming with a lot of negative impacts. But the next generation who is in high school now are gonna grow up with this being more normalized. And I think that when the pendulum swings back in our direction, it'll go further. It's a little bit like two steps forward, one step back. We're in a one step back moment, but that doesn't mean that we're not moving.
SHAY:
Yeah. And now I have Paula Abdul stuck in my head.
JACK:
Well, that was my secret intention.
SHAY:
I saw you posting about the latest stories that are happening in Ghana and everything like that. So do we have a sense of how many countries it's still illegal?
JACK:
It's over 50. And when you get more specific, this is my researcher brain, you start to have to make decisions about what exactly does it mean for it to be illegal. Because some of these countries it literally says, if you have gay sex and you're caught, then it's the death penalty. That's very clear. Some of them are less clear. But it's about 50.
SHAY:
And are they pretty much all to that extreme of death penalty type of thing?
JACK:
No, no. But maybe a fifth of them are death penalty. And it's also probably important to say that even within the countries that either have the death penalty or where it's just prison time or whatever, there's still a variety of how much these laws are being enforced, right?
There are places where yes, it's illegal, and you certainly could be put in jail for being gay, but they haven't actually prosecuted someone in a very long time. Like somewhere like Trinidad, right? It's still on the books because Trinidad was an English colony. They got the English buggery law that has never been taken away. So it is still illegal, but they're not actively prosecuting people for it.
SHAY:
What is that law? The buggery law that you mentioned.
JACK:
Oh, it's a part of the old British penal code that got exported to all of their colonies that says anal sex between two men is punishable by prison time.
The majority of the laws in the world that criminalize being gay are actually from British colonization, and then in a few cases, other kinds of colonization. But most of them come from Europe. And Europe has, of course, since gotten rid of them, but the places that they exported them to, not so much. Although some have.
SHAY:
Wow. What a fucking shit job they did.
JACK:
In so many ways.
SHAY:
In so many ways. Because like, there are so many countries, and in the continent of Africa even, I think about how normal it was for people to be what we would consider two-spirit or trans or having gay sex. And just for them to have stepped in and actually imposed this outlook across an entire continent.
JACK:
Yes. And it's such important context because it's easy for people in countries like the United States to look at a country like Kenya and say, "Oh, this is so backwards that it's illegal to have gay sex here." But it's a kind of racialized colonial assumption that this was an opinion that emerged from Kenyans as opposed to being put on them by the colonizer.
SHAY:
Exactly. So do you have any research that shows any correlation between religious affiliation in these other countries and these harsher laws around being gay?
JACK:
Not really, I think is the answer. And it's an important answer because there is an assumption that, for example, Muslim majority countries would be the ones. And that's not untrue, but there are also plenty of Christian majority countries where it's illegal to be gay.
So I talk about it in the context of faith mostly to overturn people's assumptions about which faiths are doing this more than others. I don't think that's the right way to look at it.
SHAY:
Is it even like, does it even come down to a theist versus non-theist type of thing, or...
JACK:
Not totally, but I mean... This is now getting into truly my opinion, not necessarily something everyone in my field would agree with. But I actually don't think that most of the homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia in the world emerges from religious beliefs.
I believe that people use religious teachings to rationalize their own discomfort or their own feelings that are emerging from somewhere else. It's like, "Oh, I feel uncomfortable with the idea that this person is trans, and I know that my religion also says that, so therefore it must be right, and I'm gonna say that that's the reason." But that's post hoc to me. It's like, "Oh, that's how I can make this make sense." But it's not necessarily the origin of it.
I mean, what we know is that for many of the most virulently homophobic or transphobic people, often they're reacting to something in their own self. Like, "Actually, I'm a little bit titillated by the idea of men having sex with each other," or, "I'm a little bit excited by the idea that men might express their gender outside of the confines of masculinity that I was taught. And I'm so disturbed by my own attraction to this stuff that now I'm upset, and now I'm gonna be super homophobic. And I know Leviticus says this, Paul said that. Great. That's gonna be the framework that I put over this." But actually what's going on for them is something much deeper.
SHAY:
Right.
JACK:
And to give you a really concrete example, Japan, which I have a long and deep relationship with in terms of both the LGBT movement and everything else...
SHAY:
And Fanta.
JACK:
And Fanta, well, let me tell you, so many things. Japan is not a super theistic country. Now, of course, they have Shintoism, they have Buddhism, these are a part of life. But it's not a theistic country in the way that many countries in Europe have been or in the West in general. It works very differently. And I would say from my point of view as a Tennessean, Japan doesn't look that theistic to me.
And yet they're the only G20 nation that doesn't have gay marriage. The movement is powerful, and I support them, and I want all the best for them, and people put a lot into it. But it has been slow to find success, even in a country where the issue preventing their success from moving faster is really not religion. Like, that's not the problem. There aren't churches leaning on politicians to do a certain thing.
And they still haven't been able to move very fast because of more like just family values, more like traditional values that are not linked to religion. So to me, that's a really good example of a place where looking at that de-centers the religious issue in the conversation in a way that I think is useful.
SHAY:
It's so interesting to hear though, because from what I've learned about Japan, there are so many corners and crevices to be sex positive and to have your needs met, for lack of a better way of putting it.
JACK:
No, that's right. But corners and crevices are not the same thing as legal marriage. You know what I mean?
SHAY:
It's true. Yeah.
JACK:
That's totally right, and I often talk about that. Japan has a... People like to say Japan is sexually repressed, and I don't think that's a totally unuseful way to frame it, but it's really not how I see it. I think of it as Japan has a different distribution of intensities.
There's a lot of pressure in Japan to make Japan work, right? It's a series of islands. They're a little bit isolated. I wouldn't call them a monoethnic nation because I think that the indigenous peoples of Japan and more recent immigrant communities are a very important part of the fabric of society. But it is true that a huge majority of Japanese people are one ethnicity. And there's just a huge pressure for everybody to work together to make this country work.
And that pressure has meant that people are more buttoned up in a lot of contexts. They're not littering as much as us. They're following the rules. But in order to do that, you do have to have spaces in society to let off steam. And as you have noted, those definitely exist. Americans definitely know about, like, weird Japanese porn, for example, or a non-sexual example would be very violent animation. These are ways that people let off steam so that in public, in the main part of their lives, they can conform.
So of course there's been gay sex in Japan forever. There have been couples who love each other. There's a totally long history of trans people and non-binary people. But when it comes to creating legal equality, those spaces don't add up to everybody just being ready to do it.
SHAY:
No.
JACK:
And it's not about religion. It's about the way we've set up society and how slowly or quickly we are comfortable with changing what we've set up.
SHAY:
Wow. I guess I would've thought that it was at the very least a chicken or the egg situation. But I hadn't taken into account that Japan, you wouldn't know that it was based on any type of religion. That's gonna fuck me up for a while.
JACK:
Happy to give you that.
SHAY:
Thank you. Yeah. So clearly, around the world, depending on which activist group you're gonna be talking to and where, there are gonna be different, more pressing, urgent short-term goals. Do they still all arrive at the same place? Like, how do you...
JACK:
Oh, what a great question. No, I think we would say no. A kind of radical post-colonial point of view would be that people should go whichever direction is right for their country, and it may be really different.
And when you look at trans issues, it's really evident, because the way that trans issues get publicly debated in India, let's say, is totally different than the United States, because the history of trans identity is totally different.
But having said that, there are four laws that are the most important to me that I talk about as the big four, that I do generally believe every country kind of needs. And that is decriminalization. We can't have being gay be illegal. Marriage equality, we need to be able to get married. Non-discrimination, which means that whatever your local mechanisms are for preventing or responding to discrimination, sexual orientation and gender identity need to be on that list. You should not be able to be fired from a job just 'cause you're gay.
And then the last one is legal gender recognition for trans people. So if you're a woman, no matter whether the doctor thought you were a boy or a girl or intersex when you were born, the government needs to have an easy avenue for you to get recognized as a woman.
Those are the four, and I do think that most countries need that. Now, the specifics within those or other issues around those could be wildly different, but those are the four things that I am always looking at. If I'm gonna go to a country, I'm gonna look up those four things.
SHAY:
So you're almost like scoring them in a way.
JACK:
Yeah, ish. People don't necessarily like their country to be compared one-for-one with other countries. But in a way you could say that, yes.
SHAY:
So is it just that it's a further reach to achieve those four in certain places than it is in others?
JACK:
It's just a different journey, you know? Like, yeah, of course some places come to these laws faster than others. I mean, we can't deny that. But it's just a totally different journey.
Like, when I think about, I had a job in Cambodia when I was younger. And when I was working in Cambodia in the mid-2000s, they were still really coming out of the Pol Pot period, even though it had been like fifteen years or whatever. When they had the Khmer Rouge self-genocide regime, for two decades after that a lot was going on to just get everybody fed. We've gotta build a modern health system. There was a lot to do. And how LGBT issues fit into that, and how fast we could get laws there that were what we wanted, amidst that situation, is just gonna be different than the Netherlands.
Like, it's just a different journey. Sometimes it's useful to compare them. Of course I know where it's illegal and where it's not illegal, where you can get married and where you can't get married, and these comparisons aren't meaningless. But countries are just living their own story, and how LGBT issues fit into that is just not gonna be the same. So it's not just about like, it's a harder thing. It's just, these are wildly different places.
SHAY:
Yeah. But why does it matter even that we look at other countries and know where these issues stand there? Because there are so many people that are like, "Oh, we need to pay attention to what's happening in our own backyard." And I've never been a fan of that for any cause. But I've never been able to articulate why, aside from Martin Luther King, so...
JACK:
Yeah. Well, it's interesting 'cause I think about this question and for me, I find myself in a position to take action. Like, I think think global, act local is a good rule in a lot of ways, and for a lot of people, the impact that they're able to have is gonna be local.
There are some of us, though, where we can have an impact globally because of the skills we have, because of the history we have, whatever. And so there's one answer that's like, if you have the ability to make an impact in another place, you may want to do that. And the right way to do that is to support the local people who are setting the agenda. But you still may find yourself in a position to support that agenda, which I have, and so for me, making those comparisons is necessary.
Beyond that, I think it's still useful. I think it's interesting. I think it helps us to make our local action if we have a broader consciousness of what's going on around the world. But you have to keep in mind what is impacting those comparisons. If a country doesn't have any money, comparing it to a country that has a ton of money, if you're not taking into account that difference, then you're not really getting the consciousness.
So I think that's part of my answer. And it's been a different answer for me personally than I think for most broadly.
But I do think it's useful to know. And I think it's also nice, it matters to people when we celebrate with them. When Taiwan got marriage equality, and we at Grindr, an American company, put out basically a shout-out to Taiwan celebrating in Chinese, but also to other Asian countries celebrating the regional success, that matters. And I got so much love back from the Taiwanese activists who opened Grindr and saw that. And people said, "Gosh, it just really felt amazing that y'all were celebrating with us."
So sometimes maybe you can't do very much, but that does matter. Being conscious of what's going on in other countries kind of matters in that way.
And you know, you can learn a lot. Even if you're Dutch, and they have some of the best LGBT laws in the world, I think it's probably still useful for them to learn how Middle Eastern LGBT activists are proceeding. In what exact way does it help? I'm not sure. But I think it's enriching.
SHAY:
When you say that the Dutch have some of the best LGBTQ laws, what are some of those laws? Like things that we don't have available yet here?
JACK:
More like just a higher level of guarantee. So for example, it's in their constitution that anti-LGBTQ discrimination is not allowed.
SHAY:
Whoa.
JACK:
That's in a few constitutions. It's in the South African constitution, I think. It's in the Dutch constitution. We don't have that in the US Constitution. There's no amendment that says no discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation.
So in a way, yes, they have more than we have. The laws are better. But what they really have that's better is that there's less anti-LGBT murder. Like, that's really what they have that we don't have in the United States.
SHAY:
Yeah. Ugh.
JACK:
But yeah, there are things that people do. Like in Malta, for example, if a baby is born intersex, meaning that their primary or secondary sex characteristics are between what the standard doctor consensus are about male or female, it's illegal to do medically unnecessary corrective surgery on a baby's genitals.
SHAY:
Wow.
JACK:
We don't have anything like that in the United States.
SHAY:
That sounds so barbaric, and to think that we don't have that here.
JACK:
Right. Holy shit.
JACK:
Yeah. There aren't too many countries who have achieved that. But that's a good example of a policy goal of the LGBTQ, or LGBTQI in this case, movement that we have not achieved in the United States.
SHAY:
Yeah. So I don't wanna get people confused. You're no longer at Grindr, right?
JACK:
That's right.
SHAY:
So can you tell me more about the work that you're doing in this moment? Is it still overlapping?
JACK:
Yeah. I am basically a consultant. I work with a few other LGBTQ dating apps to do some similar things that I did at Grindr. I work for a few nonprofits. And I just wrote a book called Kink For Dummies. That's what I've been up to mostly in the last few years.
SHAY:
I need that book. Oh my gosh.
JACK:
I'll send you a copy.
SHAY:
Please do. I would love that. Oh my gosh, I haven't announced it on the podcast yet, but we have something in the works that I will absolutely share with you about. But that book would be incredibly helpful to have.
JACK:
Oh, great. Well, it was super fun to write. Really, in addition to my work, I have maybe three areas within LGBT that are my favorite issues, which is international, which we've talked about, digital, which we've talked about, and then sexual liberation. Which to me really means, beyond just not being able to be fired from a job because of your sexual orientation, how do we also build a world where people are free to lean into their most authentic sexuality and derive the energy and all of the positive benefits from that?
And when I present that to activists, I say, if you are having the sex that you want, or the sex life that you want, including if you don't want it, then that will feed your ability to do your activism.
SHAY:
Ooh. Ooh, yes.
JACK:
Yeah.
SHAY:
Wow.
JACK:
That was one of the underlying theories of Kink For Dummies. If we teach you to be able to access this, it will pay dividends across your life.
SHAY:
It's so funny because I had grown up in the aughts. And the '90s. I had a conscious mind in the '90s. And so I was growing up witnessing how trans people were spoken about, how gay people were spoken about. And it was, for Gen Z-ers especially, it's very hard to imagine this world where we only viewed gay people as their desires for sex.
JACK:
Totally.
SHAY:
And it was just a bizarre time now in retrospect. But in the moment it felt totally normal. Like, "Oh, why do we need to fight for people to be able to have sex?" And it was just never about that. I can't even imagine the effort that had to go into putting in activist work throughout that time, while still being willing to advocate for the sexual portion of it.
JACK:
Yeah, that's right. My kind of cohort of sexual liberation activists within the LGBT community have sometimes been marginalized by people who don't want us to derail marriage movements, or movements that will make us look like normal.
SHAY:
Oh, shit.
JACK:
And it didn't stop us. And I think we've only seen through time that straight people, cis people are also in need of sexual liberation. They are also not getting the affirmation of their sexual expression that they need to be their healthiest selves.
SHAY:
Even if it's wearing a breastplate.
JACK:
Of course. Totally. Even if it's having no sex ever, even if it's, "I'm asexual and repulsed by sex, and I want to be free from it." For me, sexual liberation says that's just as good as anybody else's sexual needs.
SHAY:
Yeah, because they are.
JACK:
Totally.
SHAY:
Wow.
JACK:
But yes, it has been a wild ride through the portion of the American movement that was centered on marriage equality. But it's been a while, and that's not taking up all the air in the room anymore.
SHAY:
Yeah. Were you... I saw a post that you had made on LinkedIn about activists being able to push movements further than the elected officials who should just be doing the right thing. And I saw you mentioning people that are household names today, Biden, Clinton, all of these people that came forward and said, "I believe in marriage between a man and a woman." What was the forgiveness process like as it was happening, to where we're at today?
JACK:
Highly individualized, you know. I definitely know people who don't forgive some of those people you just mentioned. Really. I mean, I was a little too young to really be active in the movement during Clinton, but a lot of my peers who are slightly older than me hate him. And her potentially, depending on which Clinton we're talking about, but I'm talking about Bill Clinton.
He was one of the first presidents who ever even mentioned LGBT people during their campaign, and then ended up saying and doing some of the worst things, including signing the Defense of Marriage Act, including enacting Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
And yes, not everyone gets to a place of forgiveness, if I'm being honest. I think for me, I try to be open to forgiveness. I also kind of don't care, you know what I mean? Like, what Bill Clinton said in the '90s about my people, I'm not losing sleep about it.
But that's not true across the board. And there are people that I struggle with too. Barney Frank just died. I don't know if you know him. He was one of the first members of the US legislature to be openly gay. He didn't come out before he was elected. He was kind of outed while he was elected. And he was very important in all kinds of pieces of our government that have nothing to do with LGBT people.
But he was not very fast to understand trans issues, and there were some really key moments where he, you might say, threw the trans movement under the bus. And even though he's gay, that has been very difficult for me. And when he died recently, I had to really have that conversation with myself of, do I forgive this person? Am I hanging on to negative feelings about what he said ten years ago? Does that serve me? Now he's passed. What is his legacy? I had to have some hard conversations with myself that were not as quick to forgive and move on as maybe I would love to be in my heart.
SHAY:
Wow.
But yeah, the forgiveness process, I mean, it can be tough. And some of us probably never do. But the younger people won't know or care.
JACK:
Yeah. I mean, it's kind of equivalent to what cancel culture has become.
SHAY:
Interesting.
JACK:
There is... Like, as humanists, we believe that there is always room for reform, but also what I'm learning about how humanists approach forgiveness is that it's a very Christian concept to us, so we are also totally fine holding people accountable to the shit that they've said and just making sure that they do better moving forward. But man, do they have a hell of a lot of a lift to prove that they're doing better, I think.
SHAY:
Yeah. And you know, you do have to do the internal work of, like, does this serve me? Is this tearing me up that I'm holding onto this? 'Cause if so, forgive them for yourself. Do it for yourself. That person may not even care if you forgive them or not, but it may matter to your peace.
JACK:
Yeah, to your peace.
Okay. The last thing I wanted to mention, I think I learned that the hill that you die on is that bisexuality in men is a real thing.
SHAY:
Oh, sure. There are a lot of hills that I'll die on.
JACK:
Okay, please, share.
SHAY:
Well, I mean, do I think that women's and men's sexuality are exactly the same, or that men and women and trans women and trans men and non-binary people are all exactly the same? Like, probably not, if I'm being honest. Which I think is also not everyone's opinion.
But I do think that the gender you are does matter, and that it is potentially different for different gendered experiences. And having said that, I think anyone can be bisexual. And the definition of bisexuality that I most like is from a bi icon named Robin Ochs, who wrote this definition kind of in response to the idea that as we understand more about trans people and non-binary people, and the idea that there aren't just two genders, what does the bi in bisexual mean?
Because I think a lot of people would initially say, "Well, bi means you're attracted to men and women. Those are the two, and that's the bi."
JACK:
Yes.
SHAY:
But what Robin did with her definition was to broaden it out to: I am attracted to people whose gender expression is similar to mine and different than mine. That's the two, and that's the bi.
JACK:
Oh, I love that.
SHAY:
I do too, because I think it's then less about putting everyone into two camps and more about, well, some people are similar to where I'm coming from and some people are not.
JACK:
Yeah.
SHAY:
And then for me, I identify as bisexual, but not necessarily romantically attracted to all genders the same. I have mostly dated men. And I'm married to a man.
JACK:
Right.
SHAY:
But for me, there's been a distinction between who am I romantically drawn to and who I might be sexually drawn to. And in terms of sexual draw, I have experienced myself being way more open. And I've had a lot of fun and a lot of joy with a lot of people of different genders.
So when people say I am gay or refer to me as gay, I think that's right. And I think I'm also bi. Both labels apply. So does bisexuality look the same in men as in women or other genders? Like, maybe not. What we see is not exactly.
JACK:
Yeah.
SHAY:
But when people say that there are no bi men, I mean, that's crazy. That's so crazy that it's like I barely know how to respond to it.
JACK:
I don't even know why anyone would think that was scientifically provable.
SHAY:
Yeah. I mean, I think what they see is that there are a lot of women who will tell you that they are bisexual. That's very visible. And male bisexuality has not been as visible. And I understand that people then draw further conclusions that are not right.
JACK:
And we definitely, I'm sure you have the same theory I do about why that's been that way.
SHAY:
Because of oppression.
JACK:
Because of patriarchy and sexism, yes. For sure.
SHAY:
Yeah. I think that's right. And I am open to the idea that there's a little more than that too. I don't know what. Like, any time I would ever try to articulate why there might be more bisexual women than men, what I hear myself saying always feels too simplified. It never feels quite right.
But I am open to the idea that there's something about being a woman that is slightly different that might make bisexuality more likely or look different. Though not everyone in my world would say that. Some people would say, "That's crazy."
JACK:
Yeah. "Gender and sexuality are separate, and anyone could be any gender, and anyone of any gender could be any sexual orientation."
SHAY:
Which I think too, right? But...
JACK:
I'm open to the idea. I'm not a gender anarchist. I don't necessarily think gender doesn't exist. And part of why I think that is that I've known so many trans people who have said, "Hey, listen, everyone told me I was a boy forever, and I was certain that I was a woman. I didn't grow up thinking, 'Well, gender simply doesn't exist.'"
So some people might say that. But many binary trans people would say, "No, I knew I was a gender," just not the one that they thought. And I was so clear about it. And for me, that's like, okay, well, gender must be something. We don't really know quite what it is, but it's something.
SHAY:
Yeah, I can imagine that being invalidating to somebody who's gone through that experience.
JACK:
Totally.
SHAY:
Yeah.
JACK:
Unfortunately, when we make these pronouncements, it could feel invalidating to a different person.
SHAY:
Mm, yeah.
JACK:
But I'm committed to muddling through that.
SHAY:
I can't thank you enough.
JACK:
Well, this was so fun.
SHAY:
Yeah, wonderful meeting you.
JACK:
Yeah, so fun. Thank you so much.
SHAY:
Kevin just randomly brought you up, and I was like, "Please connect us."
JACK:
Oh, that's so fun. Well, love Kevin.
SHAY:
So thank you, Kevin.
JACK:
Thank you, Kevin. What a mensch, right?