>> Exploring hate amid the onslaught of anti-trans legislation produced across the country.

The New York trans community standing up for themselves.

In honor of Transgender Day of disability, Cooper Union hosting a major event with Peppermint to take a stand against hate.

MetroFocus starts right now.

This is MetroFocus with Jack Ford and Jenna Flanagan.

MetroFocus is made possible by Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III, Sylvia A. and Simon B. Poyta Programming Endowment to Fight Anti-Semitism.

The Peter G Peterson and Joan Ganz Cooney fund.

Bernard and Denise Schwartz.

Barbara Hope Zuckerberg.

Dr. Robert C. and Tina Song Foundation, The Ambrose Monell Foundation, Charlotte and David Ackert, Tiger Baron Foundation, Nancy and Morris W. Offit, and Josh Weston.

>> Good evening and welcome to MetroFocus.

Since the beginning of 2023, nearly 20 350 anti-LGBTQIA plus bills have been introduced in state legislators across the country.

They specifically target Jan's gender people.

Gender performances including those aimed at educating children have also come under attack with some protests even turning violent.

This was the case in a recent clash when the Attorney General hosted a drag story hour event in which protesters and counter protesters clashed, leading to at least one arrest and one injury.

Spike uptick in anti-trans activity.

Many New York -- New Yorkers stand in solidarity with the trans community and are making their support known.

On March 31, international transgender Day of visibility, a special concert taking place at the Cooper Union called shine on.

The show will be a celebration honoring transgender and non-binary people and are called to action to fight against hate.

Joining the are two people who will be performing at this very important concert.

I would like to welcome you both to the show.

Welcome, Peppermint and Jolie.

>> absolutely.

>> I want to start off with you and get your take on the importance of something like the transgender Day of visibility.

Why is something like that critical to acknowledge and celebrate every year?

>> trans day of visibility like any other type of holiday or commemorative day is an opportunity not only for people within the community to celebrate each other and ourselves, celebrate opportunities to be uplifted, stories of joy and awareness, it also allows people who are not in the community to learn more about those in the community and engage with us in a way that perhaps they have not thought of before.

>> I want to turn to you.

You are not just a non-binary individual, but also a member of the gay man's chorus.

I wanted to ask.

I know you use they them pronounce.

Something we have seen get a lot of attention.

Mocking from people who may not understand.

Can you spell out why something as simple as a pronoun is so critical to the way someone is able to identify themselves?

>> the way I put it to folks, I've had the conversation acknowledging someone's pronouns , acknowledging their humanity, how they express their humanity.

Sometimes it means we exist that side of the norms we have been raised and learned to think about our own identities.

For folks like myself who kind of exist in between outside of those norms having the language of they and them as pronouns helps me express two other people who I am and who I want to be.

>> of course.

I think it is very interesting even in your description, you are still using the word norms.

I'm wondering if the concept of what society is normal is part of what is causing so much confusion or resistance.

>> are due.

Whether you are accustomed to thinking about a particular way.

Confronted with something that is different or challenges, the way you want to shape your life or the way you have learned to shape your life.

That is difficult to deal with.

And sometimes, people respond to it with an attack.

My identity is not an attack on anyone.

My identity is my identity.

>> what is your response, perhaps cisgender people, who want to be allies, who want to show support, but are hesitant of saying the right thing and not asking about pronouns.

Something about those lines.

>> I deal with this on a week to week basis.

I'm surrounded by cisgender men all the time who happen to identify as gay or queer.

In having conversations with people, I encourage folks there is a certain amount of grace that I give to people because it is very new.

It can be challenging to learn those things.

I also tell people to ask then find yourself in a situation where you might miss gender someone or say the wrong thing.

And feel like the villain in the situation.

It is not that you use the wrong pronouns that makes you a bad person.

It means you use the wrong pronouns, but there is an opportunity for you to self correct and hold yourself accountable.

You can do that in a way that is responsible, encouraging.

When you hold yourself accountable to the people you're interacting with, -- when I have had chorus members come up to me like my goodness, I used the word guys when I was referring to seeing a bunch of you together, sending me a message or pulling me aside at another rehearsal saying I want to apologize and hold myself accountable to that.

That does a lot for me.

It says you are not just thinking about yourself, you are thinking about how your words and actions have an impact on others.

As an ally, no matter where on the spectrum you find yourself, responsibility and accountability are always going to be a good look.

For when you are interacting with folks you might have harmed intentionally or not.

>> I wanted to ask about the controversy surrounding drag queen story hour.

I had a chance to cover drag queen story hour as a reporter.

It seemed like a library story hour, but if you could lay out -- I don't know if you told a story hour yourself, but knowing what a drag queen story hour is and more portly, what is it for little kids?

>> I do think it is -- I don't usually do a lot of drag queen story hours.

I'm not usually awake that early.

But I've done one or two in my life.

Drag queen story hours are like any other Silla Renda -- Cinderella story hour.

Or clown story hour.

I don't know what others exists.

Someone who goes in costume, in this case, drag, and reads a book we have probably already before, to a bunch of kids.

That is it.

Kids like having stories read to them.

Obviously that is like an age old tradition.

Dragon's retainers doing that is the same exact thing as any other person you can get to read stories to kids.

They usually take place in a library, pretty innocuous place.

Drag queen story hours definitely don't take place in some kind of dungeon somewhere.

They are just at the library with the kids.

The parents are with them.

The kids did not drive themselves to the story hour.

These are events put together where parents decide to bring their children, their right to do.

It is in partnership and conjunction with the library or someone who puts together reading materials that are preapproved and completely innocuous.

Drag queen story hours are not -- unfortunately, people making these bills and policies and attacks on drag queen story hours are framing drag queen story hours and entertainers by way of the drag entertainers all LGBT people as what they are calling groomers, which is frankly another word for pedophile.

That is certainly not what is going on at a drag queen story hour.

I believe the attacks on drag, as egregious as they are, are a distraction.

People do complain drag entrance people without saying there could be a distinction, that there is a distinction.

And basically drag is a job, artform, something that people do.

While it can connect, and many people who do drag are part of -- identify with the LGBTQ spectrum, being trans is part of your identity, who you are.

Who you were born as.

Those things, while they can be related and you can have a farmer who is straight, it doesn't mean all farmers are straight.

It can be confusing for some.

Drag queen story hours are harmless.

Drag entertainers are people in -- people who have been the bastions of entertainment, and often times political uprising within the queer community.

I think that is a threat to some people.

It is also drag queens and drag entertainers are an easy target.

It is not a political group people think of.

We have to divert our resources, attorneys, the money we raise in our communities to guarding a drag story hour.

When really we should be focusing on LGBT youth and the anti-trans policies across the country.

Removing access to health care for what they said was children, but now are trans adults who are not children.

These things I believe are a really difficult thing to deal with, and are serving as a distraction to the larger story that they are currently dismantling a lot of access to health care and bodily autonomy and a lot of other things for not only queer people, but people of color and women.

They have been doing it all year.

The biggest distraction is away from the gun debate.

We are not talking about that, even though there is basically a mass shooting in our country every week.

We are not talking about that.

Those things are dangerous to children.

>> I want to bring up the celebration, trans day of visibility and the shine on concert that we will get to, is all about activism.

We have seen so many state legislators debating, perhaps not including people from the LGBTQIA plus community or the trans community specifically, but are passing legislation that directly targets them.

Again to both of you, what is your take on what seems like a legal level of hostility coming from governments, at least at state levels?

>> that is a lot.

It is hard for me to exist in digital spaces because it seems all I'm hearing about is the next state passing anti-trans and anti-non-binary bills.

The thing that hurts me is the message it is sending to our nation's young people.

In the way that it endangers those young people, because queer youth and trans youth are already at more risk for self-harm as it is.

So when the news or media is showing us who America wants to be in this moment, it can add to the hurt and the shame those young people feel.

My heart goes out to them.

I have the luxury of having grown up in a city like New York, where I can see people who are like me all the time.

But young people who exist in small towns who feel they don't have the support system, I cannot imagine what they are going through.

All of this language and vitriol we see people coming at us with, it is like none of it is based on fact.

All of it is based on your resistance to people stepping into their truth, people seeking their own joy.

And you perceiving that as a threat, you perceiving that as an attack when the truth of the matter is all we want to do is exist in peace and joy and share it with others.

And what you are doing is diminishing that, that is diminishing our humanity and boiling us down to nothing more than villains in your story because it is convenient.

>> your thoughts on the legislation that is being passed ?

The impact on particularly trans youth, even things about bathroom usage, etc., it seems so overwhelming.

>> it is overwhelming.

I want to echo my sentiments to the trans youth who may be listening.

It does send a message that we are unworthy, undesirable, unlovable, and it is damaging.

It would be to any human.

I think people have heard the statistics LGBTQ youth are at higher risk for self-harm and depression.

That is in effect of a cause of discrimination.

When we are several times more likely to experience violence at the hands of either family members or strangers, we are more likely to be targeted in many ways.

Being teased at school, the anti-bullying movement that happened over the past several moments is primarily focused on the LGBTQ youth.

That is why the rates of self-harm are as high as they are in LGBTQ individuals.

We experience a higher rate not only of self-harm, but homelessness or lack of finding shelter, joblessness.

And access to essential services and things that anyone these two function and thrive in a healthy way in society.

Naturally when someone else is putting those things off for you, you may be a greater risk for self-harm.

I also want to say I don't think it is because they are afraid.

I'm looking at these attacks, as egregious as they are, and as damaging as they are, they are also basically the same playbook they used solely attacking gays, whether in the military, marriage equality, they're using the same playbook for decades.

Before that, they used the same playbook during civil rights.

Dehumanize these people and limit their access to water fountains, laces to eat, on the bus, in the schools, health care.

This is the same exact pattern that has happened over and over again.

The targets of the group have changed.

And the flavor has changed.

But the perpetrator is exactly the same.

Long enough to know they are not afraid of who we really are.

Some of them are us.

But what they really want, I believe, is to disenfranchise these different minority groups.

Whether people of color, LGBTQ people of color, women, all of these different minority groups.

They disenfranchise us and we will be disconnected from our own bodily autonomy, access to health care, housing, and job security.

All these forms of equity that are essential to thriving and being able to -- you are not voting if you don't have a place to live.

That is part of their big plan.

I believe it is part of the plan to disenfranchise folks for political power.

Those who happen to be in power remain in power.

And they can change the laws and regulations to best serve the corporations they are a slave to.

>> the show shine on.

Both of you are going to be performing and that.

I think for a lot of the public, if they don't really know any trans or non-binary people in their life personally, they're only through performances, seeing them as performers.

I want to ask how you came to performing as a way to express yourself, and I would assume that performing well it comes natural to some is not indicative of the entire community.

How did you come to being a performer?

>> I don't know whether it was something about who I am and who I would eventually identify that may have drawn me to the arts.

Certainly it cannot be just a coincidence with so many queer people completely interwoven through the entire industry of entertainment, weather film, television, theater, music, makeup, all of those things, queer people have always been the taste makers.

I don't know if it is a coincidence.

I have always been -- certainly a knack for performance and expression, self-expression, it felt like second nature.

It has been something I've done since I was a little kid.

I think a lot of performers share that same history, experience, and connection to the world of entertainment.

Certainly if it was not a cause, my need and desire to be involved is compounded by the fact I'm queer.

That I wasn't able to express myself the way I wanted sitting at the dinner table, or at school, everyday situations.

So I would have to make believe and create these situations.

I think that has been the glue to my attachment to the entertainment industry.

>> How did you come to entertainment?

>> A lot of my experience is parallel to Peppermint's.

Music has always been attached -- I grew up in a very famous church in New York.

I will not say which, it can be an episode in and of itself.

I grew up singing.

In elementary school.

When I had theater, music class, I was lucky to go to a school with that program.

My teacher singled me out all the time and gave me opportunities to shine a little bit more.

That carried me through.

When I was a teenager in dealing with it, not being comfortable with it, I found my solace in music and performing.

Over the past -- My coming out process was very much attached to my experience as a performer.

About a year after I came out, I joined youth pride course, which was founded by New York City -- I don't think people know that.

And I joined the chorus.

Through the chorus, I have opportunities to develop as a music producer, as a performer.

I have been privileged to be a soloist several times.

Each of those times I have been able to step further to who I am.

Also dealing with tone wall, who had conversations about my gender and gender expression.

Someone said they worked with young people at the time and were talking about how their young people were using they and them as pronouns.

And I felt alarm bells going off in my head.

I was at that is the missing piece.

And so through that and since then, the opportunities I have been given to perform, I have been given a and freedom to express that a little bit more and take ownership a little bit more and having those conversations.

Inside of the course, but also with our audiences.

>> Have a few seconds left.

Tell us in about 10 seconds or so the shine on performance that will be taking place.

>> yes, I'm so excited.

It will be taking place downtown in Manhattan.

Everyone invited, get tickets online.

Myself, Joe, Murray Hill will be performing with Gay men's chorus.

It is a wonderful program we put together.

It is my second time performing with them.

I was so overjoyed when they called and asked.

Not only when I performed, but also that they were doing something intentional on transgender Day of visibility.

It is a wonderful opportunity for people to engage.

I think the first question was how can people engage with transgender Day of disability?

This is a great way to do it.

Other things are happening.

More political leaning activations.

Also just opportunities for people to be involved in some of the joy queer people and trans people have to give.

I urge everyone to come to the show.

If you're walking you cannot miss it, because you are walking past Cooper Union.

You can see it wrapped around the building, a huge advertisement celebrating transgender Day of visibility, it's chorus, and -- ♪ >> thanks for turning into MetroFocus.

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>> MetroFocus is made possible by Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III, Sylvia and Simon B. Porter Programming Endowment to Fight Anti-Semitism.

The Peter G. Peterson and Joan Ganz Cooney fund.

Bernard and Denise Schwartz.

Barbara Hope Zuckerberg.

And by Jodi and John Arnhold, Dr. Robert C. and Tina Song Foundation, the estate of Roland Garland, Charlotte and David Acker.

Patty Asquith Kenner, Tiger Baron Foundation, Nancy and Morris W. Offit, and Josh Weston.