May 27, 2019 / Uncategorized / Comments Off

Behold The Bubble&Squeak Podcast: Audio Weirdness

Bubble&Squeak is a podcast with uncanny sounds, funny interludes, and stories—most weird, many true. Like most of my stage shows, this new show is difficult to explain. It is VERY different from Citizens Climate Radio. It is a little like an older show I did, Climate Stew, but Bubble&Squeak is not a climate-change themed show. I think it is a Peterson’s weird random thoughts-themed show. It is an audio version of the bubble and squeak dish.

According to Wikipedia

Bubble and squeak is a traditional British breakfast made from boiled potatoes and cabbage. In modern times, it is a dish made with the shallow-fried leftover vegetables from a roast dinner. The main ingredients are potato and cabbage but carrots, peas, Brussels sprouts, or any other leftover vegetables may be added. The chopped vegetables (and cold chopped meat if used) are fried in a pan together with mashed potatoes or crushed roast potatoes until the mixture is well-cooked and brown on the sides. The dish is so named because the cabbage makes bubbling and squeaking sounds during the cooking process.

You throw into a pan whatever you have and fry it up, and hope it all works together. Usually it does. The logo design is by Christine Bakke. The theme song is Worthless by The Jellyrox (available on iTunes, Spotify.) The show is part of the new Rock Candy Network of podcasts. I do a podcast with Liam Hooper that is also on Rock Candy. It is called The Bible Bash Podcast and is a project of Ministries Beyond Welcome. You can find Bubble&Squeak on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Stitcher, TuneIn, and GooglePlay.

Each episode of Bubble&Squeak will have three parts.

Photo by Eric Muhr

The first episode is entitled Naked Mugging.

Part one: “Is that all you got?” The story about about a real life mugging, and here I thought it was going to be a hook up. It is an weird and important story (yes there is nudity) because it is when I realized I wanted to live.
Part two: Radio Drama: A prank call to the past (Hembach’s General Store in 1944.) I call this country store in 1944 and ask for tofu and kombucha.
Part three: A Sound Slice–a tricycle in Manila December 2018. Each show will include one of these. It is audio I recorded during one of my travels or even at home. I set the scene and play about 30 seconds to give you a soundscape.

As of today I have three episodes available for you. Each one is 15 minutes each. New episodes come out each month.

1. Naked Mugging

2. Hairless Gerbils
Part One: A previously unaired excerpt of an interview with writer Elizabeth Rush, where she talks about sexual harassment all too common with women writers.
Part Two: A Southern preacher, Elizabeth Jeremiah, from The Elizabeth Jeremiah Global Worldwide Ministries in Jesus, nearly wrestles with Donald Trump’s demons.
Part Three: A Sound Slice from Donard Bar in Newcastle, County Down, in Northern Ireland or the North of Ireland or just Ireland, depending on who you ask.

3. Jerk Demons
Part one: A true story entitled “Did you just masturbate?”
Part Two a reading from the Lost Gospel of Thaddeus
Part Three A Sound Slice from Viñales, Cuba.

May 25, 2019 / Uncategorized / Comments Off

Apartheid, Hunger, Miami, and Climate Change. Lessons learned from change agents

Citizens Climate Radio Ep 36 How to be an extraordinary climate advocate with Sam Daley-Harris and Glen Retief

Sam Daley-Harris, author of the book, Reclaiming Our Democracy, helped develop a model of advocacy that empowered citizens to connect directly with lawmakers. This model has helped shape organizations like Citizens Climate Lobby and the Friends Council for National Legislation. Sam reveals some of the sources for his own inspiration. His parents–their faith and public witness–along with insights he gained from his twelve years playing in the Miami Philharmonic orchestra directly contributed to his success in addressing world hungry, promoting micro-loans for the poor, and in training climate advocates. Sam highlights the important roles advocates play in taking on climate change.

Another climate advocate, Glen Retief, had the opportunity to take on the rebel role during the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa. He stood up to the racist policies of his government, but not as a rebel. Instead, he took on the role of advocate–lobbying, writing letters, and going to meetings. You will hear about the seemingly impossible task to turn his country around and the extraordinary lessons he learned that he now applies to his work in promoting solutions to climate change. Glen is the author of the Lambda Awarding winning book, The Jack Bank–A Memoir of a South African Childhood.

Listen Now!

Art House

Elizabeth Doud takes on the role of Siren Jones in her one-person performance, The Mermaid Tear Factory. Based in Miami, Florida, she has been a catalyst to engage other artists in conversations around climate change. Each year she helps organize Climakaze Miami.

Elizabeth explains why she sees Miami as the city of the future–both with its international changing demographics and the many ways climate change is reshaping the city. She also shares why artists need to break away from telling the story of climate science and instead dig deep into the hard emotions around climate change.

Puzzler Question

You attended one of the recent student walk-out demonstrations. While there you spoke to a parent, Claire. Claire’s daughter was a protest organizer. You tell Claire how you speak to legislators about laws that will address fossil fuel pollution. You see yourself as an advocate, working in the system to bring about change. Claire confesses, “I would never have the patience for that. I am so angry and I need to protest.” She then asks, “So why do you do that kind of advocacy work instead of protesting and civil disobedience?”

Try answering the puzzler question. Leave your name, contact info, and where you are from. Get back to host, Peterson Toscano by June, 15, 2018.You can email your answers to radio @ citizensclimate.org or leave a voicemail of 3 minutes or less at 518.595.9414. (+1 if calling from outside the USA.)

Dig Deeper

Citizens Climate University webinar: Reclaiming Our Democracy with Sam Daley-Harris.
RESULTS–Raise Your Voice to End Poverty
2018 Global Hunger Index
Climate Change — A University of Miami Special Report
Interview with Elizabeth Doudin Indicio Magazine

You can hear Citizens’ Climate Radio on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, SoundCloud, Podbean, Northern Spirit Radio, Google Play, PlayerFM, and TuneIn Radio. Also, feel free to connect with other listeners, suggest program ideas, and respond to programs in the Citizens’ Climate Radio Facebook group or on Twitter at @CitizensCRadio.

If you listen on Apple Podcasts, please consider rating and reviewing us!

May 17, 2019 / LGBTQ / Comments Off

International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia

Today is May 17 when people all over the world stand up for equality and justice for LGBTQ+ people. Organizers of the day have decided to focus on Justice and Protection for All.

Over the past decades, protection of LGBTQI+ people and all people with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions or sex characteristics has greatly expanded. This progress is well worth celebrating, and this is why May 17th is also, and maybe foremost, a day for celebration.

But in many places around the world, LGBTQI+ people still face injustice and live in fear and danger, sometimes for their very lives, as was obvious in the case of Tanzania just recently.

The latest ILGA global report on State-Sponsored homophobia lists 72 states that still criminalize same-sex sexual relations. In 45 of these States the law is applied to women as well as men. Many more States restrict the freedom of speech on gender and sexual diversities, or put other forms of legal pressure.

On the other hand, only 63 States provide some form of anti-discrimination protection and in some places, initial progress in Justice has been followed by regression.
This is why more legal and policy reforms are necessary to ensure Justice and Protection for all LGBTQI+ people.

But they alone cannot do everything. While social climates have in some places become better over the years, making people feel safer in their societies, in other places violence, including killings, and stigma have actually increased. Authoritarian and fascist regimes are on the rise and threaten Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and we witness a worrying rise in attempts to whip up moral panics and to scapegoat LGBTQI+ people. And people with diverse gender identities or expressions are still the main targets of social violence and injustice.

On May 17th, individuals, organisations, institutions, corporations, etc. will speak out against LGBTIQI+phobias, continuing our collective journey towards societies that ensure justice and protection for all. In a fair and just world, no one shall be left behind!

Note on Global Focus issues: Each year a large consultation among activists takes place to identify one issue that is considered by most as a priority. But this focus issue is by no means the only possible focus for May 17 mobilisations. Everybody should feel totally free to pursue whichever objective they hold at heart.

Visit the official site to find events near you, download posters, and read news and commentary.

May 9, 2019 / Heroes / Comments Off

Meet Corina Newsome — The Self-Described Hood Naturalist

As a podcaster, I get to do two things I really love:

Spend a lot of time alone in my study with headphones on listening to really smart people
Meeting really cool people who give me a lot of hope for the future

With Corina Newsome I got to experience both in abundance. She appears in episode 30 of Citizens Climate Radio — What Does the Bible Say about Climate Change? In addition to interviewing Corina on-line and then spending several delightful hours editing what she shared, I also got to meet up with her a few months later in Charleston, SC. Together we spoke about Faith, Race, Justice, and Climate Change.

Corina Newsome

Recently transitioning from her career as a zookeeper, Corina Newsome is currently a graduate biology student at Georgia Southern University, specializing in avian conservation. Corina earned her B.A. in Zoo and Wildlife Biology from Malone University (OH) in 2015, and since graduating, has founded several programs to encourage ethnic and socioeconomic minority high school students to consider careers in wildlife science.

Corina grew up in downtown Philadelphia and has always had a desire to participate in, and advocate for, the protection of wildlife and natural spaces, and encourage minorities in the U.S. to explore the great outdoors.

Corina maintains a blog Hood Naturalist–From the Hood, to the Zoo, to the Marsh. I have been encouraging university sustainability programs to bring Corina to campus because she helps draw people into discussions about faith, race, nature, and biology in a compelling and deeply thoughtful way.

She is also willing to break into song if it will help communicate science

I encourage you to follow Corina on Twitter

and check out her blog.

May 7, 2019 / Quakerism / Comments Off

Lazy or Being Productive Doing Nothing?

Photo by Tonny Tran on Unsplash

Olga Mecking of the New York Times writes The Case for Doing Nothing. Reading it though, it sounds like a solid endorsement for what I do every week during Quaker meeting.

Generally speaking, our culture does not promote sitting still, and that can have wide-reaching consequences for our mental health, well-being, productivity and other areas of our lives. Technology doesn’t make it any easier: The smartphone you carry with you at all hours makes it almost impossible to truly unplug and embrace idleness. And by keeping ourselves busy at all times, we may be losing our ability to sit still because our brains are actually being rewired.

Indeed, the benefits of idleness can be wide-ranging.

Ms. Mann’s research has found that daydreaming — an inevitable effect of idleness — “literally makes us more creative, better at problem-solving, better at coming up with creative ideas.” For that to happen, though, total idleness is required.

“Let the mind search for its own stimulation,” Ms. Mann said. “That’s when you get the daydreaming and mind wandering, and that’s when you’re more likely to get the creativity.”

There is no way I could look at my smartphone during Quaker Meeting for Worship; I am so terrified it might go off during the quiet, I leave it in the car.

The sort of quiet, doing nothing mode, Mecking advocates seems to work best for me when I do it with others. It may just be the accountability or there is a strange power in group idling, but when I am in Meeting for Worship, I can sit still for up to an hour. When I go it alone? About 10 minutes. Of course I can easily spend multiples of 10 throughout the day as I sit and pause between items on my to-do list as I often do.

Photo by Afonso Coutinho on Unsplash

Last year physicist and novelist, Alan Lightman, wrote about the importance of being quiet and still. He raises the alarm about how our brains have been altered by the immediate and constant access to data through our various devices. He then outlines steps of what we can do to free up our brains. He makes the case for Why we owe it to ourselves to spend quiet time alone every day.

What can we do? Somehow, we need to create a new habit of mind, as individuals and as a society. We need a mental attitude that values and protects stillness, privacy, solitude, slowness, personal reflection; that honors the inner self; that allows each of us to wander about without schedule within our own minds.

Wilson’s proposal is bold, and I would like to make a similarly bold proposal: that half our waking minds be designated and saved for quiet reflection. Otherwise, we are destroying our inner selves and our creative capacities. Different moments throughout the day can be devoted to contemplation and stillness, free from the external world.

Photo by Natalia Figueredo on Unsplash

Especially when I am not on the road and have some stability at home, I do two things that are very helpful in recapturing my brain.

I leave my devices downstairs after dinner and then spend the evening with a book. I tend to fall asleep faster, and when I wake up there is no device by the side of my bed calling me out of my slumber. Instead I just wake up. (I also have a husband who always gets up before me–a human alarm clock.) I might lie in bed a bit and let the daylight awaken me as I think about the day ahead. I might reach for a book and read a bit. I then stumble downstairs (it takes me some effort to wake up) and make coffee. Then I read news, and finally when I am awake, I go to my study and look at emails and the social media streams.
I take the day off on Sundays. When home, I try to make Sundays a device-free day. I don’t look at email, social media, news, etc. I drive to Quaker meeting, sit in the silence, then spend the rest of the day living like I did before there was all this technology. Sometimes I get painfully bored, then I get an idea to do something–clear out a cupboard, make jam, listen to a Stevie Wonder LP, write a letter, or just sit on the front porch.

What about you? Do you have a way of sitting still and doing nothing? Does it require a special place or conditions?

(featured image: Photo by Vincent van Zalinge on Unsplash)

May 4, 2019 / Climate Change / Comments Off

Inventive, smart, moving, and fun: The RV Sci Pod

Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash

I am always hungry for climate change presentations that include playfulness, creativity, and thoughtfulness to them. Recently at Raritan Valley Community College, I met up with students who were working on the very first episode of their new science podcast. They decided they would start with the topic of climate change. Nothing like jumping right in to take on a tough issue.

Seriously, there is no topic more difficult to talk about than climate change. When I speak to Communications classes, I stress how hard it is to communicate effectively about climate change. Listeners shut down so quickly because of so many reasons–fear, shame, anger, despair, powerless, or a thick toxic combo of all those feelings. I joke that if you want to know if a on a TV cooking show a chef is really good, have that chef prepare a vegan meal. It takes real skill, nuance, and creatively. Similarly, if you want to challenge communication experts, have them give a presentation about climate change. It is the vegan meal of communications.

The students who produced episode one of RV Sci Pod, You Can Keep the Climate Change, met the challenge and created an effective, stimulating, whimsical, informed, and moving podcast about climate change. They play with time having some of the action take place in the future. They include characters, particularly a grandfather of the future and his grandchild. In an especially entertaining and insightful mock trial, they cleverly use real audio clips of famous people talking about climate change. They include the damning dismissiveness of Donald Trump and the passionate appeal of Richard Attenborough.

They pack all this and more into an episode of 35 minutes that never feels rushed or cluttered. The sound quality is excellent, and the tone they maintain throughout is welcoming, playful, and informed. This podcast is an excellent primer for the basics of climate change, but more than that it reaches the heart in unexpected ways. Just have a listen, share it with young people you know and older people too.

You can follow RV Sci Pod on Twitter or find them follow scipod_rvcc on Instagram

(featured image credit: Photo by Matthieu A on Unsplash)

May 1, 2019 / Bible Bash Podcast / Comments Off

Bible Bash Podcast Premieres

A Northern Belle and a Southern Gentleman

Discuss Bible Texts and Other Texts.

Gay Bible scholar Peterson Toscano & Trans Bible Scholar Liam Hooper present queer readings of the Bible.

Photo by Arthur Miranda on Unsplash

Liam M. Hooper

It has been over a year in the works, but at long last Liam Hooper and I have dropped the first three episodes of Bible Bash Podcast. Each episode includes one of us talking about a Bible text. The other of us responds and asks questions and engages in a lively discussion. Finally, the one who did not present the Bible passage reads an “other text,” a non-Biblical text contemporary or ancient.

About Liam

Liam is an out, active, and proud trans-masculine gender theorist, theological activist, educator, and professional trainer. He has previous experience as a mental health counselor, clinical director and program developer. Liam regularly appears as a workshop presenter and on panels at national conferences, is a an active member of Transfaith, and regularly collaborates with several other local, regional and national organizations.

Liam received a bachelors degree in Psychology from Winston Salem State and his MDiv from Wake Forest School of Divinity. Ordained within the United Church of Christ in 2016, Liam lives in North Carolina with his wife and their teenage son. He splits his time between his work and travel with MBW and completing a book of radical, trans-que(e)ried theology. When he can, he enjoys creative down-time in his wood shop, tending the iris beds, learning to play his guitar and mandolin, and spending time with his spouse.

About Bible Bash Podcast

The show is designed for LGBTQ+ people and our supporters/admirers, and weaves in Biblical scholarship with commentary about current events. Each episode is exactly 30 minutes in length. In future shows we want to open up the presenter role to include other people who are doing work around the Bible. You can hear the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, and Podbean. Our logo was designed by Diana Coe. The theme music is by the Jellyrox from the album Bang and Whimper. You can find it on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to music.

In the first three episodes we look at

The earth being in Genesis chapter two.
The Other Ethiopian Eunuch in Jeremiah 38
Hagar and Ishmael in Genesis 16 & 21

The “other texts” include two modern poems and a reading from the ancient poem Gilgamesh (which is delightfully queer.)

Liam and I would love to take suggestions and requests about passages to cover, so feel free to leave comments below. You can also connect with Liam through Ministries Beyond Welcome.

When you listen, you will hear a promo for my other new podcast Bubble&Squeak, but don’t look for it yet. It actually premieres later this month.

Here are the first three episodes of Bible Bash Podcast!!

April 30, 2019 / Citizens Climate Radio / Comments Off

Gagging on Plastic and Listening to Grindcore

Nicole Chatterson

Plastics? Yuck!

Plastic is so naughty. These days plastic products are being vilified because they:

are made from fossil fuels and release a bunch of greenhouse gases while being made.
end up everywhere (including our bodies) except in recycling and landfills
last for a very long time and then release even more greenhouse gases.

While I do a lot of work talking about mitigating and adapting to climate change, I haven’t spent that much time learning about plastic pollution. Thanks to Nicole Chatterson from the University of Hawaii and Dominic Scicchitano from Bucknell University, I know a lot more. Nicole has done research in the Pacific Ocean while Dominic looked into plastics in the Susquehanna River.

I wanted to include Dominic because I live on the banks of the Susquehanna, and I wanted a local perspective. They both appear in episode 35 of Citizens Climate Radio.

Dominic Scicchitano

They are both engaging speakers and told me a lot about micro-plastics, tiny plastics either designed that way for say skin care products, or broken down from larger pieces of plastic that did not get properly discarded. What I especially love is how they are looking at big solutions. Sure do what you can to use less single-use plastic in your own personal life, but they are looking for systems changes in packaging, production, and waste management.

The Art House

The other part of the show that came out really well is an interview with sustainability expert, Peter Buckland. He is a renaissance man–a poet, politician, musician, teacher, and more. He also loves heavy metal music. He told me all about Grindcore (which sounds like a new gay app or else a very gay workout regime) and Thrash Metal (which just sounds like it must be really loud.) These two sub-genres of metal take sources of negative energy, including greenhouse gas pollution.

For example there is the band Testament and their song, Greenhouse Effect.

If you want to learn about the world, there are many ways of doing it. One of my favorites is host a podcast. It forces me to engage with people and ideas that fall well ourself of my experience and even comfort zone.

Check out Ep 35 for yourself and please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts

(Featured image: Photo by Brian Yurasits on Unsplash)

April 17, 2019 / performances / Comments Off

How I connect conversion therapy & queer theology to climate change

No doubt I make strange connections in my head and on stage. The show I am currently touring, Everything is Connected–An Evening of Stories, Most Weird, Many True, (video below) makes some pretty weird connections. Last year for HowlRound I wrote an article outlining what I attempt to do in the performance art piece.

“What you are about to see is a performance lecture in three acts. These acts may seem unconnected. l will talk as myself and also perform in character.” I don’t tell them this type of presentation rose out of the tensions I feel being an artist, an activist, and an academic. These roles pull at each other, competing to take a prominent place. My shows attempt to give them each equal pull, like the cords that enable a tent to hold its shape.

I then describe the three acts. I begin with my own story:

Act One
The first act of Everything is Connected includes me talking about my weird coming out experience coupled with a scene from my one-person play Doin’ Time in the Homo No Mo Halfway House. The play comically exposes the dangerous world of gay conversion therapy—programs promising to “cure” LGBTQ people. As someone who survived seventeen years of this before coming out as gay, I want to highlight both the foolishness and the destructiveness of these “straight camps.”

Then I take an unexpected turn into the world of queer theology:

Performing gender normative behavior as Esau in upcoming film version of Transfigurations

Act Two
I talk about discrimination within the LGBTQ community—racism, sexism, and transphobia. I perform a scene from Transfigurations—Transgressing Gender in the Bible about Joseph and his famous dream coat; I suggest it might actually be a princess dress. I narrate the scene as Joseph’s butch, gender-normative Uncle Esau. Scornful of Joseph, he never once makes eye contact with the audience until the final line. There is a pause and deep breath as Esau lifts his head and in a husky whisper admits, “He saved us all.”

Finally I take the various strands I have been throwing out to audience members and weave them together.

Peterson as Tony Buffusio

Act Three
Tony, a working-class, bisexual, Italian-American from New York City, pokes fun at polar bears, explaining coffee is also an endangered species. He jokes how he came out bisexual and vegan at the same time; his family struggles more with his diet than his sexual orientation.

Talking about queer responses to climate change, Tony revisits the Joseph story as a climate narrative, reveals how early responses to the HIV/AIDS crisis serve as a model for climate advocates today, and stresses climate change is about justice and human rights, “We’re all in the same boat together—just not on the same deck.”

What comes next is explosive, unexpected, and shockingly hopeful. The final line of the play is an essential question for the audience.

Peterson with the LeClair Family

Earlier this year I performed Everything is Connected at Bentley University. The performance was especially moving because it was in honor of a former student, David LeClair. Amanda King, Executive Director of the Office of Sustainability shared how David, a gay young man was also very concerned about the environment. After he graduated and began working, he died in a bike accident during a fund raiser. David’s parents and sister have set up a memorial fund.

The LeClairs have made Peterson’s visit to Bentley possible through the David LeClair Memorial Fund. [COUGH] David LeClaire was a remarkable member of our Bentley community, and a student leader who held multiple E-board and member positions in many student organizations, including Pride and the Greek Society. David was one of the first people who I met when I arrived on campus in 2009, at the time, he was president of the Green Society.

Bentley University recorded the performance and has made it public. They also include closed captioning and a full transcript. Enjoy making the connections!

April 13, 2019 / transgender / Comments Off

The Many Complications Trans People Face While Traveling

I have a dear friend who lives in Canada. I am always looking for opportunities to hang out with him, yet we only ever met during trips I made to British Columbia. One time I suggested he come to the States for a conference, and then we could co-present a workshop and hang out. He replied, “I’d love to but travel for me right now is not easy. Traveling while trans sucks.”

International travel can become a very vulnerable experience for someone who is trans or gender non-conforming. Knowing the local laws and customs is important. India Hayes for CNN

This was not the first time I heard this from a trans or gender non-binary person. The difficulties, costs, and legal limitations in changing a gender marker on a government issue ID makes it nearly impossible to cross international borders. Going through security is a pain for lots of people, but for many trans/gender non-binary people, it can be a humiliating and dehumanizing experience.

Even within the borders of the USA, I hear about the obstacles and risks trans people face while traveling. One friend from Florida drove hundreds of miles out of her way to avoid the state of North Carolina during the infamous bathroom ban that demanded people use the public toilet that coincided with the biological sex they were assigned at birth.

Traveling as a Trans Person: It’s Complicated

CNN just published an excellent piece written by Allison Hope, which highlights some of these travel challenges for transgender and gender non-binary people.

Trans people as a group face a higher incidence of harassment, frequent discrimination and even violence without leaving their hometowns, much less venturing far beyond them. Within the trans community, trans women and trans women of color especially, deal with these issues at an even higher rate.

Travel adds an exponential unknown to the equation, which can make everything from going through airport security, hailing a cab, renting an apartment, or engaging in an excursion a potential risk.

Of course having the sort of job that requires travel, or the resources to travel for fun, is, itself, a luxury that many trans people — who experience poverty, homelessness and unemployment at rates that far exceed the general population — simply cannot enjoy. And yet, the challenges for trans travelers can be significant.

Allison also features people telling some of their stories. Regarding the hassles of getting through TSA security, Jules shares,

“I scramble their signals and cause a meltdown,” Jules said, referring to the way scanners and pat-downs are often ill-suited to the bodies and sensitivities of passengers who are not cisgender. (The term “cisgender” refers to people whose gender identity aligns with the sex assigned to them at birth.) One time, at an airport en route from New York City to Rochester, a TSA officer grabbed Jules’ chest without warning, mumbling something about how she thought Jules was male but was wrong.

Jules has come to realize that speaking to the TSA officer while going through security causes them to read Jules as female, which, even though it’s not how they identify, has helped reduce the number of pat-downs and heightened scrutiny.

Jules also adopted a cumbersome ritual pre-security to change clothes — removing a binder, a piece of clothing that flattens the chest, because it has caused confusion with TSA officers about whether to process them as male or female — and then changes back after going through the checkpoint.

Transportation — whether by air or ground — isn’t the only risk trans or gender non-conforming people face. India Hayes for CNN

The article goes on to highlight the frustrations trans travelers face when accessing hotels, AirBnB, taxis, and Ubers. Alison Hope also offers a list of things travelers can do to better protect themselves from some of the most common problems trans and gender non-binary people face.

Injustice + Climate Change = Bigger Travel Woes

As a result of these injustices and inhumane experiences, many trans people avoid travel unless they simply must. During a time of climate change when we are seeing more and more forced evacuations because of extreme weather events, many people find themselves traveling last minute with the added burden of worrying over what might happen to their home and possessions. People living in rental properties in poorer neighborhoods that are more vulnerable to the risks of extreme weather, often lose everything in the storm and have to start from scratch, without insurance money and little to no government assistance that property owners receive.

Traveling with a companion can help transgender people feel more at ease. India Hayes for CNN

If someone has a hard time traveling and crossing borders on a pleasant sunny day, what happens when all hell breaks loose, the waters rise, and we see temporary sudden mass migration? As a threat multiplier, climate change does not only cause larger and stronger storms, we are also added threats affecting rights, mobility, and leading to greater suffering.

What can a Cis Person do?

Being aware of these issues, cisgender people in solidarity with trans and non-binary people can be helpful. If you run an AirBnB property, be explicit about welcoming LGBT people, particularly transgender and non-binary people. Be prepared to welcome guests when they are displaced because of extreme weather (or because of harassment or the many reasons why LGBTQ people need to leave home to find sanctuary.) You can also be willing to travel with friends.

When a big weather events hits, like a hurricane or flood, be curious about what is happening for LGBTQ people. Find out who is providing aid and assistance and support that work through your financial donations. Also, support the work of local trans/non-binary efforts to build community and LGBTQ youth shelters. Multiple studies reveal that when a community is close-knit and cohesive before an extreme weather event, more people survive. Consider donating to the Trans Justice Funding Project, which provides grants for local trans-run groups doing work in their community.

Dig Deeper

Read Allison Hope’s piece for yourself. It is essential reading for people who aspire to be allies to trans/gender non-binary people.

If you are curious to know more about how climate change and extreme weather affect LGBTQ and migrants without legal documentation, check out the piece I wrote for the American Public Health Association, In the Same Boat, Not the Same Deck.

Please feel free to leave a comment about your own travels stories and any tips and advice you have for traveling.

‹ Previous 1 234 5 Next ›Last »

Blog

Each episode of Bubble&Squeak will have three parts.

Art House

Puzzler Question

Dig Deeper

I encourage you to follow Corina on Twitter

and check out her blog.

A Northern Belle and a Southern Gentleman

Discuss Bible Texts and Other Texts.

Gay Bible scholar Peterson Toscano & Trans Bible Scholar Liam Hooper present queer readings of the Bible.

About Liam

About Bible Bash Podcast

Here are the first three episodes of Bible Bash Podcast!!

Plastics? Yuck!

The Art House

Traveling as a Trans Person: It’s Complicated

Injustice + Climate Change = Bigger Travel Woes

What can a Cis Person do?

Dig Deeper

Please feel free to leave a comment about your own travels stories and any tips and advice you have for traveling.