Knon 89.3, Lambda Weekly 2014.10.12 with Randy Marten, Patti, Lerone, Josh, David Taffet

Friends, and good afternoon and welcome to Lambda Weekly, the Dallas Observer's best radio talk show for the year. I'm the genial David Taffet and I'm here with my loyal lieutenants who are always well informed. I have to write that down because I...

Our guest today is Randy Martin. Randy is a counselor, yes, and we're going to be talking a couple of different issues. The one issue I'd really like to start with because it is huge news, huge. The number of equality states by my account is up to 26 from 19. It should be 31 by the time we're done with this little round. It'll get done. Oh, done. Some lawsuits had to be filed, so well, let's start from the beginning. What happened Monday?

Okay, Monday the Supreme Court refused to hear seven cases about five states. Why seven? Because in some cases, the cases themselves were combined. In some cases, they heard these cases separately, so they had to appeal all of the cases. So Wisconsin, Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, and Virginia. The Supreme Court refused to hear those rules, so the stays are done, and Wisconsin, Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, and Virginia are now marriage equality states. That was automatic. The other states in those circuits...

I was going to jump in and say it is just so disheartening that the folks north of the Red River could marry before Texans, but we predicted that.

Yeah, I said Mississippi and Texas will hold out to the bitter end.

Oklahoma. Oklahoma. I wasn't here last week a little bit further right. I wasn't here last week because I was in Oklahoma. First time in your life? First time ever. And I came back Sunday night, and then Monday morning I heard the news. Oh my God. Oh, maybe we did some good. You know, you should have either that or you should have waited because the sky in Oklahoma is red now. Yes, yeah. You know, it's just and it's been raining blood ever since.

Okay, so after those five states, other states that are in the same circuit, the rulings apply to them unless there's a separate lawsuit in a separate stay. So in Wisconsin and Indiana, that circuit just includes Illinois, already a marriage equality state. The circuit with Oklahoma and Utah includes Kansas, Wyoming, and Colorado. Colorado immediately started marriage equality. They had it, they were stopped. There were certain counties had it and they were going county by county. Colorado has it now. Wyoming is saying so. National Center for Lesbian Rights filed a lawsuit there. Kansas, one county, a judge ordered Johnson County to start. The rest of the county said huh, and so a lawsuit's been filed there. The circuit with Virginia in it includes North Carolina, South Carolina, and West Virginia. South Carolina started, then they stopped, and a lawsuit's been filed. North Carolina is preparing to probably will become a marriage equality state this week. West Virginia, the Republican attorney general said, 'We will accept the ruling of the Supreme Court. We will discontinue, and that's my job to discontinue any lawsuits that are going on, but we're not gonna... it's beyond me to actually start marriage equality.' So the governor said marriage equality should start in West Virginia this week. And at the 26th date, you know, well that's 25. And Virginia has already started. Virginia was one of the first five. They started immediately. Okay, so then the Ninth Circuit ruled. This is separate, this is lower court ruling. Ninth Circuit ruled in Idaho and Nevada. Idaho said well, and they went directly to the Supreme Court asked for a stay. The Supreme Court gave them their stay. Nevada, that already had legalized prostitution, didn't have much of a case. You say oppress? Oh, prime. But yeah, so much. And as we've said many times on the show, everyone ought to have the right to get married by an Elvis impersonator. Exactly. And now we can. Now we can because Nevada, which their Republican party actually to their credit this election cycle took all social issues out of their platform. They're more libertarian Republicans. They truly believe out of your own personal business. So they have started marriage equality in Nevada. That brings us to 26 states. Lawsuits in Kansas, Wyoming, South Carolina should start. North Carolina, West Virginia, which will bring us to 31 states. And Texas, Mississippi, we're battling to be 50. They're on Louisiana. I think Louisiana really is working very hard to be the last state to come in kicking and screaming too. I mean they're further ahead in terms of their pursuit in the courts of saying our ban holds. And we have a chance for three more marriage equality states: Arizona, Alaska, Montana. Once the stay is lifted in Idaho, it affects the other states in that circuit. So then Arizona, Alaska, and Montana will be marriage equality states. There's a really interesting article online that draws a really just kind of interesting parallel to what's going now compared to what happened before Loving v. Virginia, which is the interracial marriage case. Before the Supreme Court took the case on Loving v. Virginia, there were other cases that were filed away before the Supreme Court took the case, and there were 17 states still on the books that banned interracial marriage. So we're right at that point now. Now if we get up to 30 or 31, they will leave what, 19 or 20 states. So it is interesting how the Supreme Court works. I guess they really want to make sure that most of the country is with it before they take it. So same thing happened with the interracial. Okay, so our guest today is Randy Martin. He is a counselor. Randy, welcome. Thanks. Welcome back. Welcome back. It's been a while. Okay, so we're talking about all these new marriage equality states. It went from 19 states. It was a minority of states, a lot of them on the east and west coast. It was not across the country as it is now with one swath in the middle going from South Dakota straight down to Texas. There's a divine little America. Yeah. But what does this validation of marriage equality do for somebody? Say somebody who's coming to you for counseling because you know they're like Josh here, split personality, really screwed up and the personalities... What does that do? What can you do with it for somebody seeing you? What does it do for the person right?

Well, you know, in my mind, what does marriage equality really about? It's really about us as a people saying that we're going to protect certain relationships. And for me as a psychotherapist, you know, one of the core needs of human beings is intimate, authentic relationships. We need as much as we need oxygen for our survival, for our physical and emotional, our mental survival. To be healthy people, we have to have healthy connections. That's family, that's friends, and for most people, not everybody chooses to have an intimate romantic sexual relationship. And what we're saying is that we recognize that as an inalienable right. And then everything that we add to it, as you know, the United States, all the protections in terms of legal and financial and all those other sort of things, but what we're really doing is we're saying we recognize that this is a fundamental human right and we're going to protect that. Now, when you're talking about relationships, and this is specifically to Josh, you're talking about with our people, not Josh, with Chris, with Christopher Lee. Well, those are the personality names. Thank you for that clarification. So many people, so much of what their psychotherapy is about is about relationships. We may come in, people may come in with a job issue or they may come in with difficult decisions, career decisions, never know, but it always ends up being a relationship issue. A relationship with self and a relationship with others. And so many people come in with those romantic relationship issues. But to be able to live in a society where there isn't the hiding, there isn't the filtering of language and look and how you stand and who you stand with and all that sort of stuff, allow somebody to live free, not to live in freedom. I mean, I think I've talked about earlier, living in solitary confinement. If you watch what happens in movies and so forth, when somebody lives in solitary confinement, they break down physically and mentally. They break down. Call that depression, call it anxiety, call it any other number of diagnoses. It's not good for us. And so what we're really saying is that we're going to protect that right. And so I think when people see this on the federal level, on the state level, it gives hope that I can live an authentic life and get my basic need for interaction and relationship met. So it offers some hope, even if it takes a while to move from paper to actual experience in any one place, any one neighborhood, rural or urban, and work environments and so forth. But it says at least from the legal perspective, we're going to protect you. At the forefront of protecting our rights have been actually corporations. They don't want to deal with these issues, I think mostly, which is the best reason for them to protect all of their employees. Look, the two of you can't fight about it. He is what he is, the other one is what he is, and you're both protected, and that's just not an issue here. But when you're hearing it from the government, that's taking it to a different level because if the government has actually discriminated in the past and now the government is saying we don't do that, right? And I think people get that message, don't you?

I think so. And what's amazing to me is this disparity between the people who really get marriage equality and states where marriage equality is being implemented through court decision or non-decision as it were, and those who still think that we should be back in the closet and be able to fire us simply because we're one of them kind of things. You know, you're setting court indecision. I was talking to Ken Upton this week, and while it is a non-decision, it actually is a decision. What at least six of the members of the court, because you need four people in the court to say we want to hear that case, what at least six of them said was there was nothing in these decisions that was controversial enough or wrong enough for us to hear these cases. Right. And that's a decision.

Exactly. Yeah. Well, in the lower courts, all of those, I mean, unanimously across those five appeals, something that is unprecedented certainly in this journey, and in most cases, the plaintiffs who already won those appeals cases also appealed to the Supreme Court and said let's look at this. So usually you don't appeal upward if you win. You know, that's not who you're interested to see progress. And stand out of the way of progress is a decision as much as to block it if it seems that way.

Yeah, sure. Sure. So let's go back to patients that you see or clients that you see. It affects them because they're seeing they're getting a positive message. You look like you wanted to say.

Well, you know, part of just not even just marriage equality, but I mean, that's a huge part of it, but just on the job in itself, being out in society when you're causing or having to hide your relationship in any way, that's a lot of stress, right? It's a life of inauthenticity, whether you're hiding, pretending. I guess that covers it. But the amount of shame and stress and we can talk about it from a physiological level, we can talk about cortisol levels and we can talk about muscle tension and we can talk about headaches and all that sort of stuff. And mental health diagnosis of depression and anxiety that when human beings don't get what they need, basic human needs, and I can't emphasize this enough, but intimate connection is as critical to our well-being as oxygen, as food, as shelter. When we don't get that and we have to hide and be limited from that, then all kinds of things go wrong for us.

What about those individuals in our community who we get the love and acceptance and connections that all humans need from our partners or a circle of friends that we've acquired, but not necessarily our families? You know, having a family history of inauthenticity, meaning maybe my family has not accepted me because they don't know me yet because I haven't come out or I haven't shared who I really am, what I think, how I feel. That's hard. Then to come out and then be rejected, that's a different level. That's something different for people. But then to find somebody who accepts me, who knows me, and so forth, in my mind, that's kind of finding the safe haven that every human being needs and longs for. That seems to be for so many people to be able to carry them through the difficulty with the family. Sometimes it's hard to weigh out which has more power. Does that family history have more power in my life and my ability to feel good about myself, or does that new relationship, somebody who knows me and accepts me for who I am, that partner, does that outweigh that? It's always the hope that that new accepting relationship can be that safe haven and even a grounding to deal with the family. You know, I can deal with my family because I know you've got my back, you're at my side. I can even if they're not going to change, but I can tolerate them, I can put up with it if I have to because I know you're here with me. That's why those relationships are so critical and the validating of it is so life-changing for people.

Well, I mean, I can give an example right here in the studio. Lauren has been in a relationship for what, 60, 70 years? You know, he had a good solid relationship and depressed about his family situation at all. It wasn't until they had a child that all of a sudden his father became a doting grandfather and went from being, how would you describe him, mildly accepting? I wouldn't even say that. Okay, more like tolerated. Yeah, okay, to becoming a doting grandfather. Right. But that made you feel great. Yeah, it lessened the stress because I do have a child now. This is whether I like it or not, that is her biological grandfather. I was hoping that they would have a relationship and they very much do. But it changed the dynamics absolutely. And had he kept up his, let's just be honest about it, his homophobic bigoted ways, then that I would have suffered that relationship right. But now I don't have to or I haven't had to.

Yeah, it's amazing how what sort of becomes the crack in different people's experiences, what the normalizing of having a child or oftentimes it's the normalizing of having that gay couple around in the family and just little by little it becomes less and less scary and more and more safe for everybody concerned.

Let's talk about that. We need to take a break, but let's talk about that. How even the child who always relied on his parents all of a sudden, I have to make it safe for you. You're the one right. You're listening to Lambda Weekly on 89.3 KNON FM. I'm Dave Taffet here in the studio with the late Patty Fink and Lauren Landis, and we will be back with more right after this.

And you're listening to Lambda Weekly on 89.3 KNON FM. I'm Dave Taffet with Ron Landis and the late Patty Fink. And just during the break, you were saying I was talking about at the Dallas Police Academy and the Dallas Fire and Rescue Academy. DJ's been doing training there on LGBT issues and community since 1993 at the police academy and for about 10 years now at fire. And one of the things we do as an exercise where they have to hide the gender of their significant other. And we always find pretty much across the board, women do better than men. They can hold that longer, but then they fail. I give them like three or four minutes and they fail. They can't continue to do that. And then we asked them about how was it, how did that feel? And they said, oh, this is incredibly strong. That's all I thought about. I had to think about that ahead of anything else. Like an answer to your question, I had to think about you know. And then when you ask the class, it's like, would you trust this person? You know, they've been hammering around now and say they've been working there 5, 10, 15 years and you still haven't seen this partner, this person they keep referring to as they or whoever, or you should literally falsify the gender in order to you know. So they really get a sense of the energy that it takes to pretend, the energy that takes to hide. And so many of us have done it for so long or did it for so long that we sort of become used to it. But that's like living with high levels of the stress hormone in your body at all times, cortisol levels in your body at all times. Even if you're used to doing it that way, the toll that it takes on your body, on your emotions, even on your relationships. If you're living in constant stress because you're having to hide all the time, how much does that even limit how close you really get to even the person that you consider the closest in your life?

That's the tough thing. Exactly. And you know, just to be able to do it for a few minutes, they found to be stressful. And I said, imagine if your livelihood, this is just an exercise that's going to end and you know it's going to end. But imagine if your livelihood, you have a professional license, you're an engineer or physician or somebody who might lose their job and that would impact their careers and their ability to feed their families, and whether they're professional or not, and that's at stake if you mess up. You know, would you be able to go more than that four minutes? And how much stress would it take to do that?

Really, absolutely. And I think they really get that because it's a real normal way of taking that experience. It's a big price. I want to switch the gears a little bit and do one main reasons I wanted to come on today, Randy, and that is talk about suicide. And before we do that, we just before the break and we'll go right into that. Okay. We were saying the parent is always affected the child. Yeah. And now all of a sudden the child is in a position, you know, might be young, 18 years old, and all of a sudden I have to with my relationship make you more comfortable with the whole community. How does that work for you?

Yeah, that's kind of awkward. That, uh, Mom, Dad, I'm really not a monster. Let me make you feel safe around me. It's a bizarre kind of experience. We haven't to prove your value. We'll go through. Absolutely. You're having to prove your value, prove that you're not a scary... With Josh here, one of his personalities is a monster, so it wasn't such a big deal for him. But all of a sudden you've become this monster in the eyes of the people who are protecting you.

Right. Exactly. What do you think of having to prove yourself based on not on some experience that they've had of you, but of some experience that they had because of past media or family stuff they see? Wherever the images of the gay male, the gay female, and oh my mom, that's not me. I'm you know, my dad is not me. You have to be scared of me. I'm not gonna ruin your life. And how do you teach a kid to do that? Because but you know, they have no contact yet with anybody in the gay community to tell them it really is okay for you to be who you are. You're just be a good person.

Right. So I yeah, I think relying on the resources that are out there past that. I know of a Catholic Church recently gave me a call. They wanted some connections because their counseling department wanted to provide a much more accepting, validating approach to both the gay members of their community but also their family members. And they were starting to develop all these programmings around that. I was pretty amazed. That's awesome. Reviewing that not terribly shocking in light of what the pope has said about his approach. Like I'm not, I don't need to be spouting all the... There's a Catholic organization started by Sister Janine Gramick up in Maryland, and she was on our show one time. But that was her advice to churches that were accepting. And since this was under the last pope, since you can't be very open about having those programs, nothing wrong with having good referrals.

Right, right. Exactly. Anyway, well, we're talking about teens. Part of the stresses or whatever. And again, we were talking about we wanted to talk about suicide and depression within the LGBT community. You know, when did we lose Robin Williams? You know, a month or so ago. And I was just blown away about the negative comments on the internet about his suicide. You know, I'm not a counselor, not an expert about suicide. I don't even really, I've never even known anybody close to me thankfully to commit suicide. But Dave Gainer, that's right, you're absolutely right. I forgot about that one. But with that said, I don't think I needed to have some expertise in it just to have a little compassion for somebody who did that. And I think there's so... I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about the, just maybe clear up some of the misconceptions about what suicide is, why people do it, and so forth, particularly with the LGBT community.

Yeah. And just, Lauren, in response to the people whose response to Robin Williams, for example, the intense anger and the comments of that's a selfish thing to do, while that's really, really hard to hear. It makes sense to me too. And if I have a client in front of me who's actually dealing with the suicide of a family member or a lover or whatever, I have to sort of step in their shoes and understand that they're dealing with the most uncontrollable experience of their lives perhaps. They could not stop somebody else from taking their lives, and that they would have an anger response to that. Make sense to me. Anytime that we're in a situation where we feel like we can't control something, that's an inclination. The fear of not being able to control something turns very quickly into anger. It's an attempt and a way to get our minds around, to get our hands around it and control it. So I kind of get that. But depression is so... It goes so against the core of who we are. At our core is survival, survival, survival. And so when we see the opposite of that, it just blows our minds. We don't know how to deal with that. And so it takes slowing the whole thing down and making some sense of it. But for lots of different reasons, people get to a point in their life where being gone feels like such freedom, such a relief, such a problem solver. Whether it's because my reputation is going to... I'm going to have to deal with such intense shame because the world is going to find out something about me that I have worked hard to keep hidden, whether it's my sexual orientation or my behavior or whatever it may be. Or I'm dealing with a terminal diagnosis that is going to be so gruesome and so horrible I can't stand that. Never mind financial disaster, dealing with the death or suicide of someone. So to get to a point where that seems to be the only solution, I can only imagine the desperation, the total lack of hopelessness. I think the statistics somewhere between 60 and 80 percent of all Americans have experienced some level of depression at some point in their life. It might be a short period or a long period. As a teenager, was I depressed? Yes. I never was on medication, but I had moments when I thought, wow, it'd just be easier not to be here. So I can get that at a really, really low level. So you take that and you multiply it times 10 or times a hundred, wow. I can kind of get that.

And I know you can't paint an entire group of people who have committed suicide with the same paintbrush, but are there some telltale signs that maybe if we've seen somebody that we can at least attempt to try and save them or get them help?

You know, what's often said is just when you notice people's behavior changing, when you notice them being different, more remote, shut down, more distant, less communicative, not doing things they normally like to do. I was saying before the show, when I think about depression, I think of it a little differently than some people talk about. I think about the check engine light on a car. You're driving down the road, the check engine light comes on. You don't go, well, what's wrong with that light? You know, the light is to get your attention to look at something else. Is that what I do wrong with myself? The Band-Aid over the light doesn't fix the problem. Right. Right. So for individuals when you notice that about yourself, all right, that's again, I think sort of that God designed, mother nature built, whatever your background is, our survival system and it's saying something's not right. You're going to have to figure it out. It might be a physiological thing, it might be a chemical thing, but it might also be the way I'm living my life that is not good for me. And so when those things, loss of appetite or increased appetite, loss of sleep, loss of interest in things, loss of motivation, hopelessness, helplessness, all the things that are called depression, when those things start happening, I can say to myself, this is something's not right. I don't know what it is. I need to figure it out. But when we see that in someone else, it's also the check engine light. Oh, something's changing in this person. I don't know exactly what it is, but something's different about them. And I need to check out what the check engine light is saying. So it's sort of the same thing. I think when you look at it from the perspective of the stigma that we give people who have depression, never mind the onward to suicide or suicide attempt, but it's really body saying... In other ways, we say, oh, pain is a change. There's a check engine light that you say, oh, there's pain here. I'm going to go to the doctor and see what that's a symptom of something else. It's not just the pain itself and see what the cause is. And if I just treat the pain, I just take the hydrocodone or whatever it may be, the pain goes away, but the problem might even be getting worse in the meantime. And the treatment itself might be causing more problems, addiction to hydrocodone, never mind any kind of side effects that the medication may have. So while medication can be real helpful to so we won't get blinded by the check engine light, it doesn't bother so much. We really need to look under the hood and figure out what's going on.

Are there any differences between, I know you don't want to go into numbers, but how teenagers handle stress versus adults?

I don't have records in terms of statistics, but there's definitely a higher incidence of, just to go to your question earlier, suicide rates amongst teenagers than there are of adults. Higher attempts among females than there are amongst males. Higher actual suicides amongst males than amongst females. And that has to do with males tend to use much more lethal means. They use a gun instead of pills and they can't get things like that. So the statistics got to be a little careful when you, as with all statistics, right? What are they really saying to us? The statistics on medications for depression, for example, women are two and a half times more likely to take medications than males. Does that mean that they're more depressed? No, it probably means they go to the doctor more often, more compliance than males, and maybe even more compliant with the medication. So that's some of it. And one of the highest suicide rates of any demographic is transgender people. It's one in two. Wow. And that's really, really high. And so providing resources to folks, and again, that's very related to what you were saying. It's the solution when I can't find a solution, and maybe I don't even know what the problem is. It's the one solution that I've come up with after spending a long time with all of these symptoms. I want to be real clear. Depression is a real experience. It's a miserable experience on the upper ends of it, what sometimes people call clinical depression or major depression. It's a miserable experience. But in my mind, it's not an actual thing. It's a bunch of symptoms, horrific symptoms. But the thing is, as Patty was just pointing out as well, is the thing underneath. What is it? I'm not able to live an authentic life because I could lose my job, because I could lose my family, because I could lose my finances. I'm not being able to have a relationship that's important to me. Never mind the physiological. Is it my testosterone? Is it the chemotherapy that I'm taking? Is it a brain tumor? What else? There's physiological, there's chemical stuff, but there's the trauma and the life experiences that don't allow me to live the kind of authentic, healthy life that I need to as a human being in order to survive.

I think it'd be a good moment then to give out the number for the Trevor Project. They have their Trevor Lifeline and it's available 24/7. And that number is 1-866-488-7386. Again, that's 866-488-7386. And explain what the Trevor Project is.

The Trevor Project is an organization that is a national organization available to anyone in the country who calls and seeks, may be thinking about suicide. And you call the number and there's someone on the other end to talk to you and to help you. And it's a frontline organization for our community. It is an LGBT organization that helps available to anybody who calls. And it actually stems from a documentary or short story that was done and won an Oscar. It was about a 20-minute film about a young man named Trevor who was thinking about suicide. And so it was an Academy Award-winning film and it turned into the Trevor Project. The makers of the film turned it into an organization. Generally needs longer term care. It might be just one or two sessions, it could be ongoing. Do you want to talk about that and about getting some good face-to-face help?

Right. And what is that face-to-face about? It's about having a safe relationship, a healthy connection, an intimate connection where I don't have to hide. Whether it's in a 12-step program, Alcoholics Anonymous or some other 12-step program, or a therapist, or a support group. I just find that fascinating. It's not about... Let me back up. No approach to psychotherapy has been proven to be better than any other. People who take advantage of psychotherapy say over and over and over again, it wasn't the approach, it was the relationship. I just think that the power of the customers feedback says for me to get healthy, for me to feel good about myself, for me to feel well, and therefore depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms and so forth to come down, I need to feel connected to somebody who cares about me, somebody who gets me. We do that in psychotherapy because sometimes our family is not available or our spouse is not available. We do that in a 12-step group because I don't have a support system and I have lived this sort of isolated life. My best friend was my model. If I give up my bottle, if I give up my needle, who's going to be there for me? And that's why I always was fascinated that the miracle of the 12-step program for people dealing with addiction is not the 12 steps. They're very important, very important. However, it's a bunch of people getting together in a room to say you're not alone. And I've always thought for people like me who have no patience for a 12-step program, that we should come up with a four-step program. It would work even better for some people.

Let me take our break. You're listening to Lambda Weekly on 89.3 KNON FM. I'm Dave Taffet here in the studio with the late Patty Fink and Lauren Landis. Randy Barton is our guest today, and we'll be talking with him a little bit more right after this.

And this is Lambda Weekly. I'm Dave Taffet here in studio with Lauren Landis and the late Patty Fink. Randy is our guest. Randy Martin, he's a counselor. You're a psychotherapist? Yes. Okay. Licensed professional counselors. So get a call, Randy, and talk to him if you got issues. Yeah, so thank you. Yeah, we do know that we've been talking about depression. And we know that there's a higher rate of depression in the gay and lesbian community. We also, and tell me if I'm wrong in this, we also know that most of it is because of stuff not within ourselves. Not because there's something wrong with us. It has to do with acceptance, with whether we're able to live a fully human life and an authentic life. And again, when we're hiding and we're pretending, we're not getting what we basically need. If we don't get the protein and the vitamins and the minerals we need, if we don't get the oxygen, the water we need, we will not grow and develop and survive well. You can get by for a while, but when you're not getting the basic things, and so not getting what you need in terms of human interaction in its fullness because you're hidden, because I'm hidden from you and you can't know me and therefore that limits the connection, depression symptoms present themselves. And the statistics are a little bit old, but 10 percent of gay and lesbian adolescents identified have attempted suicide, whereas I think it's half of that in the general population. I just wondering if you could give your thoughts about medication. I have a friend who has had anxiety issues all his life, and every once in a while he goes through cycles where he will go to the doctor and get his medication, and he admittedly will tell you it does help, but he doesn't want to stay on it because he doesn't like being on medication. And I, again, I'm not a counselor, but my attitude is do whatever works. If it works, take it. If not working and talking to somebody helps, do that. But whatever works. So I don't understand the stigma about having to take medication if it's making you better.

The medication piece, I guess, for each individual is going to be a little bit different. But it's a constant reminder. It's a daily reminder for a lot of people. Something's wrong with me. You think about people taking HIV medication. It's a constant reminder every single day. I have HIV. I don't want to have to think about something being wrong with me every single day of my life. Now, I might be able to rethink that, rework that so that it's not so traumatizing every time I take that medication. Or some people just say I just don't want to take the medication. The thing about medication is it's a very unclear science. Pharmaceutical companies have done a great job in making us believe certain things about medication that are not actually scientifically clear. We don't know why the medications work, if they even work at all. Much of the science says that medication isn't any better than the placebo effect. I'm not encouraging anybody to stop taking their medication. If the symptoms are relieved to any extent that you can then continue to function, then keep taking them. And if looking under the engine past the engine, the check engine light, so that I can figure out what is giving rise to these symptoms. Does it have anything to do with my physiology? Is my testosterone, I always go back to that one. I've had several clients that were on antidepressants that finally went to a doctor and found that their testosterone was so low that of course they had no energy, they had no motivation, they had no excitement in their life. When they got the testosterone treatment, they came off the antidepressants. So what's really going on? So for your friend, if he's looking for maybe a deeper, longer term, more permanent sort of solution rather than just the medication, I certainly understand that. I wouldn't want to put anybody at risk of really crashing by coming off an antidepressant just to try it. It would have to be done carefully and with some support.

Well, I think so too. There are a lot of medications out there as we know from watching television and the ads that come up, and they sound like auctioneers rattling off all the side effects. And then you get to hear the stuff like your kidneys will fail, you'll die, cancer, all this stuff. But the side effects of many, many medications are more debilitating in many ways to people or are less desirable than the effects they're initiated taking the medication for in the first place.

The two most common side effects are weight gain and sexual side effects, low libido. So if I'm depressed and I'm lonely and nobody loves me, and I take a medication so that I'm not overwhelmed by those emotions and those thoughts, those feelings, but I'm going to gain weight, so now people really won't love me. Or I'm going to lose my libido and then I'm not going to have the kind of connection I have with my spouse or whoever. Maybe why would I want to take that medication? So I'm going to take your medications to make me feel worse about feeling bad about who I am. It's a tough decision. And all medications have side effects regardless of what you're taking. Don't even believe for a second that it's only good.

Exactly. And what I'm wondering in Josh's case, since his medications only help one of his personalities, is it really worth it?

You're really looking at me for an answer to that? He's a counselor, not a miracle worker.

Josh, oh well, I was just gonna say, but you know, my family has a history of depression. And I think that's the other key point in this is that we can talk about the LGBT community not having family support and everything, but if you come from a family where in my case both of my parents have attempted suicide multiple times, what do you do?

The tough thing is, that's a hard reality. I'm just aware that as you say it, first of all, what's not clear, even though there may be several people in a family that have severe depression, it's not clear if that's just because it's in the family. Doesn't mean it's genetic somehow. The genetics are there so everybody's gonna get it, like we all have the same color skin or eyes or eye color. Does it have to do with some genetic component? There may be, we do not have the science for that yet. That is not clear in any way. Secondly, has the family developed ways of living, coping, thinking, managing life that gets passed on more so than something that's passed on in the genes? That's what's always really hard to know. A family that lives for years in abuse or addiction or denial and hidden and shame and so forth. I don't know. But I see that a lot. I have a client in front of me who's saying, well, here's my present experience. Well, tell me a little bit about your family. And I find out, oh, so Mom was abused by her father and he was a war victim. And you just see all that. Okay, is that genetics coming down or is that family history? That's hard to know. But when that's the case, when you do see that, your present experience is what really counts. And dealing with the person in front of me, keeping in mind the history, is important.

Well, and I guess I was just thinking that it's one of those things where, as David said earlier, you trust your family for certain aspects. And then when you know it's not like I can call my parents and get the best advice on how to cope. Exactly. That's the point. Exactly. Did I really learn how to cope with life if my parents, not that they're bad people, but maybe they didn't learn to cope because they weren't taught how to cope. And so we're really seeing, I think, the evolution of the human species as we learn to cope better and better and better. And to go back to the top of the hour, laws that help protect us as human beings more and more as we understand ourselves better and make life better for each other.

Okay, speaking of laws that protect us, hey, that was a good segue. And I don't charge extra for that one. You know, they usually make fun of my segues because they're usually non-sequiturs, but this one we're getting better though. That was a good one. That was a very good one. Okay, the voter ID law that was passed in Texas was overturned. Not overturned, but it was stayed. Yeah, there was an injunction against it. And now the judge has this, they the state then turned around and asked this federal judge in Corpus Christi, Texas, will this law be in place because the litigation continues? Will this law be in place for November's election, which is coming right up next round? Yeah, in just a couple of weeks, and early voting begins in about a week. So this judge said that there will be a permanent injunction against it. It cannot be implemented. And from her ruling, she said, 'The court holds that SB 14, which is this law that the state legislature passed for the voter photo ID thing, creates an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote, has an impermissible discriminatory effect against Hispanics and African Americans, and was imposed with an unconstitutional discriminatory purpose. The court further holds that SB 14 constitutes an unconstitutional poll tax.' That's strong. Those are strong words. But you said which two groups? Blacks and Hispanics. I have a third group that it discriminates against 100 percent: transgender people. Oh, absolutely. Transgender people, 100 percent. Okay. So and elderly people. And you can't even use a state student ID issued by a state university run by our state to vote. Okay. So here's one other thing. You're transgender, you're getting along pretty well. You've met some people in the transgender community who are helping you. Your family accepts you. Now your government's telling you you can't vote because the way you present isn't what's on your driver's license. What does that do to somebody?

Right. Again, just being isolated from the fullness of life, fullness of society. And I can imagine, as you presented that, I was thinking, wow, that would be the least of my worries if my government didn't accept me when I had my family and my friends, my life. You know, I can let that one go for a few years. But nonetheless, I want to be a full participating member of society. Yeah. And I really need to exercise that right.

Exactly. More for somebody who's been having trouble. Absolutely. You know, coming out as transgender but becoming the gender that that person believes he or she is and feels to their very core, because you don't do it lightly. I mean, this odd idea that because they want to go into women's bathrooms is so idiotic. But you know, really having some trouble but finding some friends and you know, it's just at that point and now the government's telling me I can't vote.

Right. And my invitation to anyone who is out there who is trans or a trans ally and wants to make sure that trans people can vote in this election is to be an election judge, be an election clerk. Go to your county's election department and contact them and get some training. It's about four hours at tops. And then go work this election. Work early voting, work election day with their people. It's needed all over Dallas County for sure. And I guarantee every other county needs people too. And be one of those people on the inside who can make those decisions. And that is a great way for people to make a difference.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I'm calling in this one little issue. It's a huge issue because it's a huge issue. The some of the elections that we have statewide are so close right now that whether or not certain people can vote is going to make a difference. Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. I was going to go to other Texas news, but go ahead if you get something.

No, I was going to go on too, but I was just going to add, if you're trans or a trans ally and you want to be that person, you can contact the show or say something on Facebook or give us a shout in some way. We can connect you up because it's a really great opportunity to be that ally at the election.

Sure. Other marriage news. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to fast track that case finally. Because saying they weren't getting, they weren't going to. Why did they decide? Well, one of the couples involved in that suit is pregnant. She is due we think around March. I couldn't find exact today. But she's due here soon and she wants, if at all possible, to have Texas legally recognize her marriage when the baby is born. And I know from experience that is very, very beneficial if she gets to do that. Yeah. When your child was born in Maryland, right? And it was just a matter of a couple of extra steps of paperwork just to have both of you on the birth certificate. Exactly. And Greg Abbott, our esteemed attorney general who's fighting this tooth and nail, but with not very good arguments. I know. Please tell them the latest one. Oh my God. He filed a brief for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans on Friday. And his big argument is that Texas's same-sex marriage ban should remain in place because legalizing it would do little or nothing to encourage heterosexual couples to get married and have children. Okay. Well, at least he's now admitting that it's not going to stop them. There's another one. I thought you were going to tell him the other one. Let me find it. He says, first, Texas's marriage laws are rationally related to the state's interest in encouraging couples to produce new offspring which are needed to ensure economic growth and the survival of the human race. So in other words, it'll be the end of humanity. Right. Second, Texas's marriage laws are rationally related to the state's interest in reducing unplanned out-of-wedlock births. There you go. By channeling procreative heterosexual intercourse into marriage, Texas's marriage laws reduce unplanned out-of-wedlock births and the costs that those births impose on society. Recognizing same-sex marriage does not advance this interest because same-sex unions do not result. Which is why the number of teen pregnancies in Texas is about double teen pregnancies in Massachusetts. But that's exactly... I'm getting off time. And the divorce rate in Massachusetts is the lowest in the country. Right. And they have same-sex marriage. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So okay. So what does, and have you heard this from any of your clients? What does stupidity coming from the top?

That's all you can say about it.

Okay. How would you word it? How would stupidity coming from the top in state government how does that translate into people's self-worth?

Oh gosh. Just what you just read, I can imagine most people just not even getting it. It just never, there's any argument. There's no logic. The Pat Robertson argument of course is that we cause hurricanes and tornadoes. And I love that because we have such power. It's good for us. Yeah. You know, all joking aside, it's just really hard to even try and have a rational argument or even come back. She read from the decision. I know this is his argument. That's his argument. Yeah. That we, by us not getting married, we are helping to reduce unplanned out-of-wedlock births. People listening, you need to get married. You know, as an attorney for the other side, I was like, how do you even come back? How do you even, what do you say to something like that in court when you're giving your oral arguments? I wouldn't know what to say. I mean, I would just have a hard time doing that in front of a court, even a three panel, not the en banc. But okay, the person who is going to face Greg Abbott in court, Ken Upton from Lambda Legal, he said, 'I can't wait.' So your answer to how do you do it? Yeah. You can't wait.

Ah, that brings us to the end of another Lambda Weekly. Thank you so much, Randy. Thank you. Thanks for coming back. Come back and see us again. And we'll be back next week.