In an all new episode of Here & Queer, the second of a two-parter, we hear more from Ravanna Michelle Menendez. In our last episode, we heard about her life and public transition. In this episode, we hear a lot more about how she wants to use her experience to changing hearts and minds to improve the lives of trans people everywhere. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Overcast and more!
Excerpts:
"There's still this societal ignorance, blissful ignorance and willful ignorance. But for a lot of people they just don't know. And so it takes conversation and education to really drive home that point [that these surgeries are] what we need. And this is something that's a right for us. This shouldn't be seen as cosmetic, it should be seen as medically necessary for us to live and to live authentically. It is! I mean, for the sake of your safety, like it really is. It really is. And you know, what's crazy about it, I'm really glad that you bring that up, because the safety portion is so important to being trans, because that's one of the biggest things that you really find out being trans is you're not safe, especially here in the Bible Belt in the south. You know, it's a constant fear of is somebody going to come up and attack me? If I go online and I try and do an online date, is this person willing to catfish me specifically so that they can rape me and kill me? Is this person just looking to fetishize me?"
"It takes more people to come forward and really put that out there... It takes more people like me to further educate people on trans existence. Because at the end of the day, people don't know what they don't understand. And for so many people, they have this idea of who a trans person is, without the humanity aspect attached to it, right? I can't tell you the amount of people that I've met, that didn't know that I was trans. And then afterwards and they find out, they're like, 'Oh, I had no idea. I mean, honestly, I had a really bad misconception about trans people. But you've really changed my mind...'