Episode 16. Trans Rights, Elections, and Job Hunts, Oh My! With Vanessa Joy

Kate Bridal: We have like almost the same mic, I think. 

Vanessa Joy: Yeah, mine's a Blue Yeti as well, so I just don't have a spit guard on it. I'm raw dogging… (Kate and Rhia laugh) … my Blue Yeti. (Close to the mic) Do some Blue Yeti raw dog ASMR. (Making ASMR mouth sounds) Sk sk sk. 

Kate: The mouth sounds. I can't with the mouth sounds.

Rhia Batchelder: It scares me. 

Vanessa: Well, if you don't have ASMR, it's probably super weird.

Rhia: Wait, I didn't know this was like a thing that you could have.

Kate: Me either. No, what is it?

Vanessa: It’s only like 20% of the population. You know how they talk about the tingles? 

Kate: Uh huh.

Rhia: Yeah. 

Vanessa: It's a tingle that it starts here and it goes down your back and down your spine. It's a feeling that I've felt since I was a kid, and I never knew it was a thing until someone introduced me to ASMR videos. I'm like, holy shit, other people experience this!

Rhia: Oooohhhhhh.

Kate: I had no idea.

Rhia: I had no idea either.

Vanessa: Some people get it in both ears. Some people get it in one and I only get it in my right ear. So yeah, if you don't get it, it has to be super weird.

Rhia: Right.

Vanessa: (Whispering close to the mic) I wonder if you’ll leave this in as one of the extra things…

Kate: (Laughing) Oh, no, you saying you're raw dogging the Blue Yeti is gonna be the intro clip. 

(Rhia laughs)

Vanessa: Okay, good. 

Introduction

Kate: I'm Kate Bridal, a former attorney who never cared that much for the law.

Josey: And I'm Josey Hoff, a former paralegal who loves it. 

Kate: And this is our podcast where we talk about all the stuff that leads to burnout in the legal industry, try to offer some solutions, and maybe occasionally live up to our title. Welcome to The Legal Burnouts.

Episode 16

Kate: Well, welcome everyone to another episode of The Legal Burnouts, and this is my first episode that I am co-hosting just with Rhia. How you doing, Rhia?

Rhia: I am doing great. I'm really excited today. I think that this is the best guest possible for our first co-hosting moment together, and I can't wait.

Kate: I absolutely agree. Let's just get right to it. Our guest today is Vanessa Joy. Her pronouns are she, her. Vanessa is a champion of equality and communication in the workplace and in life in general. She's also an exhausted mother of a toddler, a former political candidate, which we will get into, the executive producer of the Transcending Humanity podcast, and she also happens to be transgender. Vanessa, welcome to the show!

Vanessa: Thank you. Is this a, is this a PG 13 podcast?

Rhia: No, you can curse.

Kate: You can say whatever you want. 

Vanessa Joy: Okay good, because I have a potty mouth, so… 

Rhia: Vanessa, I asked the first thing on my first podcast episode. I said, “fuck,” and then I was like, “Wait, am I allowed to say that?”

Kate: It was literally the first question she asked us. 

Rhia: Yeah!

(Kate and Rhia laugh.) 

Vanessa: I was on NPR yesterday…

Kate: (Laughing) Oh!

Vanessa: …and I'm like, “Be good. This is big girl stuff, Vanessa. You have to be good. I mean, I talked about genocide, but I didn't say “fuck,” so…

(Kate laughs)

Rhia: Proud of you.

Kate: Yeah, sounds like you really kept your shit together. 

Rhia: Yeah.

Vanessa: I did. 

Kate: Well, Vanessa, I would love to just like hear a little bit about you, your background for folks who don't already know you, and then we'll get into the fun, fun election race. 

Vanessa: Well, I'm Vanessa. I have a background in small business. I ran my family's manufacturing company for like 13 years. I stepped into it not knowing anything about running a business. And I was the know-nothing boss's kid. So I had a big uphill battle to gain the trust and respect of my crew. And I developed a leadership style that I've used ever since, in that I just listen to people.

Morale was super low and the turnover was ridiculous. Like I think I had about 30 employees when I took over and we were losing about that many a year, so…

Rhia: Wow. 

Vanessa: I knew going in that everybody knew their jobs far better than I ever would. So I would take their suggestions and put them into practice in the company. That showed them that I actually cared about what they had to say and that they mattered. And things just started turning around. Production skyrocketed, I started raising people's pay and I was not losing any employees except for people that had to move away. 

Kate: That’s amazing.

Vanessa: So that's what I'm trying to do now. I'm trying to find a role where I can take that leadership style and put it forth into the workplace. Because it works. I see so many companies that are just struggling because their employees are just miserable. 

Kate: Mmhmm.

Vanessa: It’s so easy to fix the problems. You just talk to people. Within, you know, six months I can get rid of employee churn. But the problem is then you actually have to have the leadership listen. 

Rhia: Yes, that is the problem.

Kate: Uh huh.

Vanessa: But it works!

Rhia: Yeah, it absolutely does.

Vanessa: It sounds so simple, but so many companies struggle with it. 

Kate: People just want to be treated like people!

Vanessa: Yeah! And like after I left that position, which… family business, absolute huge mess. My parents went through divorce, they were both 50% owner, a corporate receiver was put into play. And the company went out of business twice, I got it going again, I had to move it, my mother had me fired through the receiver. Department of Labor came in, shut the company down. 

(Kate gasps in amazement) 

I came back in off the payroll, got it running again. And...then I wasn't able to take pay anymore, so eventually I just left. And then the company failed, and then my dad stepped in front of a train and killed himself. 

Kate: Oh my god!

Rhia: Vanessa!

Kate: I’m so sorry.

Vanessa: Don't be sorry. I wouldn't have been able to come out if not for that.

Rhia: Mmm.

Vanessa:  He would have killed me if I came out when he was alive. So.

Kate: Yeah. Horrible.

Vanessa:  So yeah, so, um, there's so much drama. Um, it's something- Eventually I'm going to write a book on it all. 

Kate: Yeah. 

Rhia: Oooo.

Vanessa: So then after I left, I decided to start my own consulting company and I got hit really hard in the fact that starting your consulting company when you have absolutely no money is pretty much impossible. Because when you're trying to advertise it, you're going up against consulting companies that have a lot of money. 

Rhia: Yep.

Vanessa: So I did the absolute natural pivot to become an Uber driver for a while. And then I did the next most natural pivot to become a real estate photographer. So I started my own real estate photography business and did decent doing that until I came out. And then my business went poof.

Kate: Ugh.

Rhia: Mm.

Vanessa: Yeah, and I had to start a GoFundMe in order to pay my bills. 

Kate: Ugh!

Vanessa: I've been sort of able to rebuild it, but it's just been a struggle since then. So now I've just been job hunting. And…I think I'm way off topic here. So.

Rhia: (Laughing) No.

Kate: No, I'm fine starting with the job hunting stuff, honestly, like we take the conversation as it flows. Totally fine.

Vanessa: Okay. So I have been job hunting for the past two, almost two and a half years.

Kate: Wow.

Vanessa: I worked at a marketing company for a little bit, but it just wasn't working out. But the job hunt has just been absolutely exhausting. I am, as I said, over two years in, I've sent out at least 2000 resumes.

Rhia: Wow.

Vanessa: I've spent over $2,000 in resume rewrites. And I've had maybe six interviews in total. 

Kate: Wow.

Vanessa: The first substantial interview I had… First they had you do this project, which before they even did the screening interview, which, you’d think you’d do the screening interview before the project.

Rhia: I hate when companies do that. 

Kate:  Did they pay you for the project?

Vanessa: No.

Rhia: Of course they didn’t. I hate that. 

Vanessa: And it took about six hours. 

Rhia: Six hours?!

Kate: That’s ridiculous!

Vanessa: Yeah, it was a long project. Then I had the screening interview and I did really well. And then they set me up with an interview with the CEO and it was so apparent that the CEO was- saw, “Oh hey, I have an interview with someone named Vanessa to be my executive assistant.” And then this Vanessa got on camera. And that was before I did any vocal training, so (in low voice) it was this Vanessa that got on camera.

Kate: Yeah.

Vanessa: So… I didn't get that job. I mean, the job market is hard. It's hard for everybody. It's extra hard when you're trans. 

Rhia: Yeah.

Vanessa: And I sometimes I go back and forth with my resume and whether or not I focus on the trans part. It is part of who I am.

Kate: Yeah.

Vanessa:  I don't want to work for a company where there's going to be bias against me. 

Rhia: Yeah.

Kate: Right.

Vanessa: So I don't want to completely leave it off. 

Rhia: Right.

Vanessa: I have some people say you should leave it off. It should not be on there. I have other people saying leave it on. I have it subtly on there. It's on as Transcending Humanity.

Kate: Yeah.

Vanessa: Cause I do have the podcast on my resumé now. 

Kate: Yeah, I do too. I finally did that. 

Vanessa: It’s a job!

Kate: It is! 

Rhia: Oh, absolutely.

Kate: It's a… (Sighs) it's work.

Rhia: Absolutely. I mean, thank you, Vanessa, for sharing all that because first of all, I think it highlights something that I wanted to talk about when I knew you were coming on. The levels of burnout among the trans community are so high.

Vanessa: Yes.

Rhia: I mean, there's the safety and fear aspect, that level of stress. 

Kate: Mmhmm.

Rhia: Then there's the, “Should I put this on my resumé? What are they gonna think when they see me on the camera?” Knowing that there is gonna be this bias and perception of you that you can't really control. I imagine that you're always kinda like bracing yourself to take that from people.

Vanessa: Mmhmm.

Kate: Mmhmm.

Rhia: I mean, it is so frustrating, and it's something that needs to be addressed so that, you know, trans people can flourish.

Kate: Yeah.

Vanessa: Yeah.

Rhia: It feels sometimes like we're really far away from that place, but…

Vanessa: It's one reason I had the vocal surgery, it's one reason I've done so much vocal training, so I can sound like this. 

Kate: Yeah.

Rhia: Mmm.

Vanessa: It’s societal norms, we- we work on a binary.

Rhia: Right.

Vanessa: I can't tell you how many times the depression has just been absolutely devastating, to the point of suicidal ideation.

Kate: Mmm.

Rhia: Mmhmm.

Vanessa: Because just feeling worthless, because I go back to thinking all the times that my parents would always tell me that I was worthless, I'd never find a job working for anyone else and da da. And then I run into this, but then I have to step back and realize: Look, Vanessa, every one of these remote jobs that you're applying to, you're up against two, three, four, five, 10,000 other applicants. 

Rhia: Yeah.

Vanessa: The competition is fierce for these. Our biggest fight is just against ATS and trying to get past just the algorithm. So I'm trying a new thing that I heard. I don't know if it's working or not. I added a third page onto my resume where I copy and paste the entire text from the position description onto the third page, and just put at the top of it, “Applying for…” this position in order to try to game the algorithm. 

Kate: Oohhh, that’s interesting. 

Vanessa: They're looking for keywords and you have to have these specific keywords, but you don't know what the keywords are. You have to work every advantage that you can. So some people say you need one page. Some people say you need two pages. Some people say it shouldn't be wordy at all. Some people say it needs to be very wordy. And…

Kate: Everyone has an opinion.

(Kate laughs.)

Rhia: Everyone does have an opinion.

Vanessa: Yeah, I, what I've realized is that no one really knows.

Rhia: Right. I think it's like it can be different at different companies. I mean, I am so sorry this has been such a arduous process for you, because job hunting is already exhausting.

Kate: Yep.

Rhia: And the stress of not knowing what's next, where the money's gonna come from. I'm just so sorry.

Vanessa: I'm also up against a timing wall now and by the end of June I need to be out of here. 

Kate: Oh no!

Rhia: Mmm.

Vanessa: So like, I need a place to live…

Kate: Yeah.

Vanessa:  But I can't afford a place to live. 

And I also recognize that my skillset is a little dated because I worked in small business and all my HR skills, it's all hands on. I don't have the HRIS, like,  knowledge. Now, I can learn that stuff really quickly.

Kate: Yeah.

Vanessa: But every company uses a different one.

Kate: Right.

Vanessa: And if you don't know their particular software, it hurts your chances.

Rhia: One of my favorite things to say in interviews is like, “No, I haven't used that, but one of my best skills is jumping in and getting up to speed on…” whatever it is.

Vanessa: Yeah.

Rhia: I always say that and people are always like, “Oh great.” 

Kate: Yeah, fast learner…

Rhia: So just throwing that out there. But also, right, don't say that your knowledge is dated. I think that you have really incredible skill set.

Kate: Yeah.

Rhia: and your perspective and point of view on the workplace and leadership is really sorely needed right now.

Kate: Mmhmm.

Rhia: So just remind yourself of that. And why don't you tell everyone who's listening what kind of work, Vanessa, are you looking for? 

Kate: Yes. 

Rhia: Maybe we have some connections. Let's just throw it out there and see.

Kate: Absolutely.

Vanessa: We'll throw it out. I like to say I thrive on ambiguity. When I say I ran a small business, I mean, I ran a small business. Every aspect of the business was up to me. And I had no one to train me how to do it. I made the website. I taught myself how to code a website because this is before things like Squarespace. So I created a website from scratch twice. 

Kate: Wow.

Rhia: Wow.

Vanessa: So I learn things very quickly because I've always had to. 

Rhia: Mmhmm.

Vanessa: I can just jump into roles that you need someone that can just do all the things. My passion is developing culture. Making a happy workplace, making people want to stay there.

One of the hardest parts of running a company is keeping employees.

Kate: Mmhmm.

Vanessa: Because training employees, it takes what, six months?

Rhia: Oh yeah, and it’s expensive.

Vanessa: Yeah, if you're constantly having to train people, you're not getting anywhere.

Kate: Right.

Vanessa: Companies are doing mass layoffs when they really don't need to. 

Rhia: Mm.

Vanessa: And I think a lot of it's because they don't have the productivity that they want, but that productivity is being hurt by their own internal policies.

Rhia: Yep.

Kate: Yeah.

Vanessa: People have to be put first. I look at companies that are just absolutely destroying their company culture and it's heartbreaking. 

Rhia: Yeah.

Vanessa: And that's what I want. I want a role that I can step in, a nice ambiguous role. I think I'd be perfect at a startup.

Kate: I think you would too.

Vanessa: To help develop the culture from the ground up and help them grow. But I think a startup would be a perfect place for me as like the chief people officer or something like that. 

Kate: Yeah.

Rhia: Yeah.

Vanessa: Hit the ground running and create a place that people like to work at. 

If people go to my LinkedIn page-  just look up Vanessa Joy, I'm the queer one on there. (Kate laughs) I've written a couple just simple articles about leadership and there's a difference between being a leader and being a boss. 

Kate: Yeah, I love that. 

Vanessa: Being a leader, you're part of the team. You understand that you're not above everybody. You're just a person in charge of keeping a cohesive unit. So you're more of a cheerleader than anything else. 

Kate: Mmm.

Rhia: Yeah.

Vanessa: A boss just like steps back and just says, “You do this, you do that.” And people hate a boss.

If I'm stepping into an established company, I want to go in and start interviewing everyone. Find out what they like about the company, what they don't like about company, what works, what doesn't, who's helping the company, who's hurting the company. True, raw feedback. And obviously make it so that information can't get back to the leadership. 

Rhia: Right.

Vanessa: It's so simple, but it's just not happening. In a startup, I would just start that from the very beginning. 

Kate: Yeah.

Rhia: Right.

Vanessa: But it's hard to, like, you can't search for that job on LinkedIn. 

Rhia: Right.

Kate: Right, exactly.

Rhia: So if anyone is listening that needs a culture consultant, Vanessa's ready to go.

Vanessa: I just want people to feel listened to and respected.

Kate: Yeah. Rhia is my lovely- I love having her around because she loves to do research. So she sent me this article yesterday. It was a study about workplace satisfaction and burnout rates among LGBTQ employees. And having an inclusive workplace is an important part of fighting burnout among your LGBTQ employees.

Rhia: Absolutely.

Kate: And what better way to have an inclusive workplace than to have a chief people officer like Vanessa, who's gonna be listening to you?

Rhia: Absolutely.

Vanessa: Openly trans.

Kate: Exactly!

Vanessa: And lesbian.

Kate: That's a safe space. that's gonna help combat burnout among probably all your employees, to be honest.

Rhia: Everyone.

Kate: Yeah.

Rhia: Yeah, 100%. Because the lack of inclusivity, I mean, it bleeds into everything, right?

Kate: Yes.

Rhia: It's like we see the highest rates of burnout are for neurodiverse people, LGBTQIA people, women in general, but like Black and Hispanic women especially, and Indigenous. 

Kate: Mmhmm.

Rhia: Obviously, when we think about these issues, it's very intertwined when it comes to culture. And I agree that Vanessa would be an incredible way to help combat that.

Vanessa: Well, thank you. 

Rhia: Of course. 

Vanessa: I think so too.

Kate: Well with that, should we talk about some election shit?

(Kate laughs.)

Vanessa: Oh, yeah. 

Rhia: Let's talk about the election shit. Local elections, discrimination against trans people, and old arcane laws that can put trans people at risk. So Vanessa, with that, we open the floor to kind of give us a little recap of what you've been going through. And we'll just… We’ll just chat about it.

Vanessa: Okay. Well, I mean, maybe you've seen me on the news or read about me in the news here. I've been talking with reporters for the past four weeks now. 

Kate: Wow.

Vanessa: On January 2nd was the first day I talked to a reporter, and by the 5th, which was a Friday, I was live on MSNBC, which was a little bit of an escalation.

(Rhia laughs.)

Kate: (Laughing) Yeah!

Vanessa: So, but if you just Google “Vanessa Joy, Ohio candidate,” you'll see about 50 million articles on me, if you want to do further reading after you listen to this. And if you click the wrong link, you might even see some pictures of my vagina, because of the, uh, the far right, um, conservative, dug up well, they're blurred out, but you know…

Rhia: Oh no, they released pictures of you?

Kate: Mmhmm.

Vanessa: Oh yeah, I'll get into that.

Rhia: Oh, oh God, okay.

Vanessa: I did three weeks of sex work because I'm that desperate for money.

Kate: Sex work is work!

Vanessa: Yeah, exactly. But post-op trans girls aren't popular on OnlyFans. You have to be pre-op. So.

Kate: Really?

Vanessa: Yeah, because there's no novelty to it.

Rhia: Mmm.

Kate: Huh.

Rhia: People are like, “Been there, seen that.”

Kate: Just another boring old vagina.

Vanessa: Yeah. Exactly. So I’m like, this is way too much work for it. (Kate laughs) So I just deleted everything, but okay. I'll get into that.

Rhia: (Laughing) Okay.

Vanessa: So in October of last year, 2023, I was at the TransOhio Symposium. TransOhio is a wonderful organization in Ohio that just helps trans people with legal stuff like helping change names, birth certificates, with advice. Right now they're helping relocate people out of Ohio because of the laws being passed.

Kate: Mmm.

Vanessa: And so now they're helping families escape the state. So if you have some money to spare, go to transohio.org and donate. They're a wonderful organization.

Kate: I’m gonna make a note to make sure to put their link in the episode description.

Vanessa: Yes, please do. They're wonderful people.

So I was at their symposium and just talking to people and like someone had just mentioned that we need like we need some people in office. And the seed got planted in my head like, Vanessa you're not doing anything you should run for office. 

So I started researching what I needed to do and it wasn't much information. But I found the petitions to print out. Found that I had to have 50 signatures from registered voters that could not have voted in a Republican primary in the past two years, and obviously had to live in the district. So those were the rules that I was going off of. 

So I print out my petitions and I started using social media because I live in a very, very red area. And I didn't want to go door to door.

Rhia: Right, it's dangerous.

Kate: Mmhmm.

Vanessa: Yeah, it’s just too dangerous. So I leveraged social media to help get signatures. I did wind up eventually going door to door in my neighborhood because I did eventually find a database of all the voters and I was able to prune it down to just the registered Democrats in my district.

Kate: Yeah.

Rhia: Yeah.

Vanessa: So I went door to door in my neighborhood and got a few signatures from that.

In total, I built up 65 signatures. I needed 50 valid ones. Like throughout the time I was trying to get the help of the Democratic party, but they were not helping. They would not respond to me. I went to the Stark County Democratic party and the people volunteering there were very nice, but they kept telling me to contact the chairman. They wouldn't give me his phone number, they gave me his email. I emailed him a couple of times. 

I tried to get ahold of the state democratic party and it was just wall against wall against wall against wall. And I'm like, a trans candidate should be getting a little bit of traction.

Kate: Yeah.

Rhia: Yeah. 

Vanessa: Because how many of us could there be? At the time I thought I was the only one running. It turns out there are four running. So I was hoping maybe I'd get a little bit of help.

Kate: Yeah.

Rhia: Yeah.

Vanessa: But it was just falling on deaf ears. Everyone was telling me, “Well, you need to try to reach out again after November 5th because of the election. No one's going to talk to you about your campaign.” But like I didn't have much time to get signatures because they were due by December 20th. I wanted to get way more than enough signatures, because they go through every one and verify them. And you never know there could be anything wrong with it, you know.

Rhia: Yep.

Kate: Yep, yeah.

Vanessa: But I could not get help at all from the Democratic Party on it. Eventually the Secretary of State finally put out the 2024 candidate guide. Supposedly, it covers everything that you think that you need to know. 

Kate: Uh-huh.

Vanessa: Everything I saw in there lined up with what I was doing. So I'm like, okay, cool. 

Kate: Right.

Vanessa: I submitted my signatures actually on December 4th. When I filled out the form, I filled out everything. There's no place on there anywhere that mentions that you have to put any former names that you've had in the past five years. 

There's even on the petition, like at the top corner, different laws like reference, like Ohio Revised Code 35, blah, blah.The law that disqualified me, 3513.06, is not on there either. 

Kate: Wow.

Vanessa: So I turned in my petitions and they went over them like, “These look really good.” And I also gave them my court ordered name change. Changing your name in Ohio is a pain, depending what county you live in. You don't just go in and say, “Hey, this is what I want my new name to be” and they stamp it. 

Rhia: Right. 

Vanessa: No, they do background checks. They do all kinds of things. 

Kate: Yep.

Vanessa: So changing your name isn't an easy thing and there's a lot involved in it. And there is, there's a lot of background checking with it. So it's not just like a fly by night kind of thing. 

Kate: Right.

Vanessa: That's something to keep in mind with this. 

So I submitted my signatures. I gave them my name change thing just because I've had to use it for everything else. They're like, “Well, we don't even need this.” I'm like, “Well, just take it. Cause just in case you do.” Which now I wish I didn't get them that because all this might not have happened. 

Fast forward to January 2nd. That was the day that the board of elections met. And a reporter from the Canton repository, which is the local newspaper, was there. And he called me right after I was disqualified. He's like, “So yeah, you had, you had enough signatures, but you're disqualified.” I’m like, “What?” He's like, “Yeah, you didn't put your, your former name on the petition.” I'm like, “Where did it say I had to do that?” He's like, “I don't know. It's a law.”

And then- That was right before I got in the shower, so I was naked. 

(Kate and Rhia laugh.)

Kate: Naked and disappointed.

Rhia: Naked and afraid.

Kate: So vulnerable.

Vanessa: Yeah. So then right after I got out of shower, my phone rang again, it was the Board of Elections calling. They were telling me officially, and they said that like I had exactly 50 valid signatures. But they said that one person at the board knew about this, this law that if you had changed your name within the past five years, you had to put it on the petitions. If you don't, then if, should you get elected, you will be removed from office and have to pay back your entire salary. 

Rhia: Wow.

Vanessa: So it's a pretty major thing. 

Kate: Wow, yeah.

Vanessa: It's not just a small clause. It's something that you would think would be on the petitions…

Rhia: Right.

Vanessa: … and in the candidate guide. A 33 page candidate guide. The law dates back to 1850s. It's 170-some-odd years old. 

So they said, “We didn't know about this when you dropped it off. Otherwise, we would have told you.” And later on, like in interviews with the press, they said, “Well, you know, Vanessa didn't come in and she didn't pick up the petitions here. She printed it off herself. So, you know, we didn't have a chance to advise her.” Well, they wouldn't have advised me on the law anyways…

Kate: No.

Rhia: Right.

Vanessa: … because they didn’t know it existed.

Kate: Obviously.

Rhia: Right.

Vanessa: There's four trans candidates total, including myself. One of them, he's running under his dead name because he hasn't legally changed his name yet. So he's fine. Then there's Arianne Childrey and Bobbie Arnold. And both of them are trans women who have changed their names within the past five years. And they also did not put their names on the petitions because they didn't know about the law either. Their boards of elections didn't know about the law. It appears the Secretary of State's office didn't even know about the law. No one knows about this law. 

Now, apparently last year, the Ohio Supreme Court did hear a case about it where a guy that had been running for mayor had recently become a citizen and he changed his name to a more Americanized version of his name. 

Kate: Mmhmm.

Vanessa: And he ran under his new name and he didn't put his former name on it. And he was refused to allow and went to the Ohio Supreme Court and he was still told no. So that's the only time in at least recent history that this law has been used. The only people that seem to know about this is one person at the Stark County Board of Elections. 

Here's where things start getting wild. So I’m disqualified due to this law. The Canton Repository calls me. They very quickly put out an article, and they print my entire deadname, including my middle name. 

Rhia: Mmm.

(Kate sighs heavily)

Vanessa: Yeah.

Kate: Without asking you first, obviously, right? They didn’t-

Vanessa: Yeah, without asking me. And as soon as I saw it, I emailed them like, “Please take it down.” 

Kate: Mmhmm.

Rhia: Yeah.

Vanessa: They said, “Well, due to AP writing style, if it's pertinent to the information in the article, we're allowed to keep it up.” 

Rhia: Being allowed to keep it up is not the same thing as it being morally correct-

Kate: Exactly.

Rhia: -to do so.

Vanessa: Exactly. 

Kate: Exactly right.

Vanessa: So within eight hours, I started getting trolls pop up in my Facebook profile, sharing photos of, blurred out photos of my vagina. 

Rhia: Mmm.

(Kate sighs heavily again.)

Vanessa: And when you're post-op, you have to dilate your neo-vagina three times a day. So I have, there's- they’re essentially medical dildos. There was a period where I had to do it in the middle of the day. And when I'm alone with my kid, I have to do it. And he would occasionally see my dilators sitting out like right after I had washed them or something and he knew what they were. 

And I had an Instagram post saying, “You know, I don't love that my kid knows what my dilators are.” So of course they grabbed onto that and you know, “This person's using these sex toys around their toddler and da da, they're a predator.” 

Kate: Oh my god.

Vanessa: They used my pre-transition photos and then they used my deadname to look up my background, pulled up information on my bankruptcy. And now all that stuff, like if you've known me and follow me, I'm very open about like my bankruptcy,-

Kate: Right.

Vanessa: -my transition, all that stuff. But the context that they spin it is very negative. 

Rhia: Yeah.

Vanessa: So these, a couple of far right news organizations,grabbed hold of that and started publishing it, which puts me in danger. 

Rhia: Absolutely.

Kate: Mmhmm.

Vanessa: This is why one of the reasons trans people don't want our dead names out there. 

Rhia: Yes.

Vanessa: In a perfect world, it wouldn't be a big deal, you know? But…

Rhia: We don’t live in that world.

Vanessa: We live in a society where we're the most hated demographic in the country. So we have to keep these things close to us to protect ourselves and our families. 

Kate: Yeah.

Rhia: Yeah.

Vanessa: Zooey Zephyr, the representative in Montana, she had people try to find her dead name so they could go after her family. 

Kate: So scary.

Vanessa: There's reasons why we don't want it. It's- it puts us and our families in danger, and I can't risk my kid, you know?

Kate: No.

Vanessa: So I reached out to the repository again, I sent them that article, and I said, “You need to take my name down.” Then they finally did. But the damage was done by then. That right there shows why our dead names being out there hurts us.

Rhia: Yeah.

Vanessa: The news latched onto this quick. It started just with that little article. And then Morgan Trau from Channel 5 News in Cleveland, she's the queer reporter for the Ohio Capitol. She contacted me. And then it escalated to MSNBC, New York Times and I was actually, I was honest with the New York Times reporter. I'm like, “I'm a little bit hesitant to talk to you because your publication isn't too friendly to trans people.” But…

Kate: Yeah.

Vanessa: All these big things. I'm like, Vanessa's getting infamous here. So. (Kate and Rhia laugh.) And I thought after a week it would die down, but no, it's kept starting up over and over again. It was nuts. 

So back to the story.

After my disqualification, I appealed my disqualification. I went in front of the board. I was not given a chance to talk. None of them looked me in the eye. They read off the law again, saying, “No, you're still disqualified. You broke this law.” And it was just over. 

The following week, Bobbie Arnold went in front of her board. And her board, headed by a Republican I might add, said that the candidate guide did not mention this. There's no space on the petitions for listing a former name. It's clear that Ms. Arnold was not trying to deceive the public. She can stay on the ballot. 

Two days later, Arianne Childrey went in front of her board. The Republican Party in her county filed a disagreement against her campaign, but they can't do that because it can only come from the same party when it's for a primary campaign.

Kate: Oh.

Rhia: Mmm.

Vanessa: So the board threw that out and told her that she can stay on. So right after I heard that, I typed up a letter to the Board of Elections, asking them to reconsider again. But the Stark County Board has drawn a very hard line against me, and they refuse to reconsider it despite the fact that two other boards of elections have allowed the other candidates to stay on the ballot. So now in Ohio, the same law is being upheld unevenly. 

Reporters kept calling the board of elections, asking for a statement, and they kept telling people to call the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State kept telling people to call the board, and they were going back and forth, back and forth. The Secretary of State is not supportive of me at all. The governor is though, which is funny. Governor DeWine is not an ally to the trans community. Yes, he vetoed the HB 68, but then he came out with these administrative rules to actually take away healthcare from adults. 

Kate: Oh.

Rhia: Mmm.

Vanessa: But he said that these laws should not be there to keep trans people off the ballot. He doesn't agree with that. 

Rhia: Right.

Vanessa: So Stark County is drawing this hard line, and they put out a press release after I dropped off that letter saying that, “Vanessa broke this law, we sympathize with her feelings, but we don't know why the other boards ruled the way that they did. Perhaps you should just ask them.”  Then they told the NPR that the three of us candidates have different situations. But our situations aren't different. 

We're all trans people. We all did not put our former names on the petitions because we did not know about the law. And so where's the difference there?

Kate: Well and if you need evidence that you weren't trying to hide it, I mean, you dropped your name change paperwork off just in case.

Vanessa: Right.

Kate: You were clearly not in any way trying to hide or deceive or anything like that. 

Rhia: Right.

Kate: And also if this law is on the books, like how hard is it to just put a line of “If you've changed your name in the last five years, please put your former name here?”

Vanessa: Exactly

Kate: I mean, like how often do you see that on things?

Vanessa: Now, not all trans people would. 

Rhia: No, and you shouldn’t have to.

Kate: No, you shouldn't have to.

Rhia: I mean, I've talked to both of you about this a little bit before, but in New York, there is an exception- So typically, when you change your name in New York, at least, you have to publish that name change in a local newspaper. It has to be public. And the idea is these laws were mostly, to my knowledge, created to help creditors. So if you were trying to, you know, like change your name to flee the state and avoid all your bills, then a creditor could look in the newspaper and find you. 

Kate: Right.

Vanessa: Yeah.

Rhia: They weren't meant for things like this, which is why it's so quote unquote “interesting” to see it applied like this. But even in New York- as a junior attorney, I used to go help trans people get their names changed- You could argue for an exception to the rule because it is unsafe, as your story very clearly demonstrates, to publicly announce, “Hey, I'm trans. This used to be my name.” And allow people that access to you. It is extraordinarily dangerous. I mean, what has happened to you…

Kate: Absolutely.

Rhia: …The doxing, the republishing of your photos, is horrific.

Vanessa: Yeah, up until a year and a half ago, you had to publish names in Ohio papers too. They actually just finally did away with that. But this law has an exclusion for if you change your name for getting married. 

So what I'm doing now is, I had a call this morning with Equality Ohio, and I'm trying to work with some legislators to introduce a bill to try to amend this law to create an exception that people don't have to list their former names if it- if doing so puts them in danger.

Kate: Yes.

Rhia: Yes.

Vanessa: There's other people affected by this too, victims of domestic- Of abuse.

Rhia: Yes.

Kate: Absolutely.

Vanessa: Say you're going door to door and you have your former name on there and someone who, someone recognizes your former name, they know your abuser. You could be found that way.

Kate: That’s so dangerous.

Rhia: Yes.

Vanessa: I don't think that that's that unreasonable of an exclusion to do.

Back when this law was written, changing your name was probably very easy. Escaping creditors now is very hard. 

Rhia: Yes. 

Vanessa: Changing your name legally takes many steps and background checks are done in the process.

Kate: Yeah, like it's kind of managed on the front end already. 

Vanessa: Exactly. Things have changed a lot in 170 years. So…

Kate: Yeah.

Vanessa:  …If there's already exclusions for cis people getting married, you know...

Rhia: Right, which is like, what is that exclusion even for? Just for simplicity, I imagine. 

Kate: Right. 

Rhia: And so why wouldn't there be exception to protect actual human beings' lives?

Kate: Right.

Rhia: I love that you're doing this advocacy. I think it's so important.

Vanessa: Hopefully it'll get somewhere, but at least now people know, trans people running in the future will know to put it on there. So the Secretary of State's office has said that they're thinking about putting it on future candid guides and apparently updating the petition will have to actually requires an act of Congress to do, but…

Kate: Oh my god.

Rhia: I just hate that solution. Cause again, like the idea of you as a woman walking around with like your deadname on your petition, going to people's homes, asking them for support is so egregious. I really hope that's not the way that they try to rectify this. Ugh!

Kate: Same. And when I was saying it earlier, I was just like, why wouldn't that already be there?

Rhia: Right.

Kate: I agree though that it should not be a requirement. Yeah.

Rhia: I mean, that can't be the solution, but I'm with you.

Kate: Like if the law is going to be there and disqualify people, then at least you have to make that- like you should have to make them aware of it.

Vanessa: Yeah, that's the thing. Like I didn't have a chance to even rectify anything. You know, it's just no.

Kate: Right!

Rhia: Right.

Vanessa: Flat no. Vanessa didn't put her information on it. Well, Vanessa didn't know. And the Secretary of state's office said that candidates are responsible for hiring their own legal counsel. That's a barrier to entry. I can't afford a lawyer.

Rhia: Oh I mean, an election lawyer? That is incredibly inaccessible for most people. 

Kate: Yeah.

Vanessa: Exactly. How am I supposed to afford that? Elections should not be a rich people's club. 

Rhia: And it is.

Kate: Mmhmm.

Vanessa: So my fight now is to make it so Arianne and Bobby can hold office if they get elected, because as of now, if they get elected, they would be immediately removed. All due to this, it's a gotcha law. And a lot of people think this is just absolutely disgusting and so anti-trans. But I'm in Ohio, and Ohio is an anti-trans fucking state. 

Rhia: Mmhmm.

Kate: Well, that's why it's so smart that you're also spinning it to the domestic violence angle and the victims of domestic abuse. Because I- in my work, I did homelessness prevention, so I was working with a lot of folks who had experienced domestic abuse or were currently. And they would give us like a number for a calling service. They couldn't give us their addresses. And of course we always accommodated that because it is it's so scary.

Vanessa: It is.

Kate: And you're already being so brave by choosing to run for office and putting yourself out there in the first place, and deal with all of the shit that you know is going to come with that when you're actually running, but then you just get blocked right off the bat.

Vanessa: There was an article in Extra Magazine, it's a queer magazine out of Canada. Iit was written by a trans person, so it was a brilliant article. And they said that, “Vanessa now has to deal with all the bullshit that you have to deal with running for office without actually getting the opportunity to run for office.”

Kate: Uh huh. Exactly.

Vanessa: And now I'm getting all the mailers and text messages and emails from like campaign things like, “Here buy your signs from us” and this that and the other and like… 

(Vanessa sighs.) 

Kate: Salt in the wound.

Vanessa: Yeah.

Rhia: Yeah, how rude.

Vanessa, I'm curious. I want to hear from you: What impact did you hope to make if you got into office? 

Vanessa: So I was not gonna run on trans rights at all. I was gonna be a trans person running, but in Ohio last year was the least productive year in legislature since the mid-fifties. 

Rhia: Wow.

Kate: (Laughing) Oh my god.

Vanessa: Nothing got done except for- Yeah- Except for anti-trans bills. 

(Kate sighs.)

Rhia: Right.

Vanessa: Nothing got done. Had I been elected, yeah, I would have introduced bills to try to reverse the shit that's going on.

But my goal would be to provide universal child care to Ohio by taxing corporations and the ultra wealthy.

Kate: Oh, so important.

Vanessa: Parents can't afford to take care of their kids and work. 

Kate: No, childcare is as much as rent, or more, in a lot of places. 

Vanessa: It's crazy! It's absolutely crazy. That's what my main platform would be, that and helping veterans. There are a lot of unhoused veterans around here. There shouldn’t be homeless people in this country period. 

Rhia: Facts.

Kate: Right.

Vanessa: But but especially with veterans. Like if we… We have Veterans Day and we're like, “Honor your veterans.” We're not honoring them. I would wanna dedicate money to helping not just the homeless vets, but unhoused everybody. 

Kate: Anti-camping ordinances, that was a big thing when I was in Boulder. I mean, it’s ridiculous.

Vanessa: It’s evil.

Kate: And Boulder is one of those places that it's like, everyone's like, “I'm so liberal, but also I don't want to look at the homeless people.” Like it's horrible. 

Rhia: Oh, it is vile. 

Vanessa: So yeah, that's what I'd be campaigning on is just helping Ohioans and being a representative of the people. Representatives should represent the people, and we do not see that in the government in this country period. I do think that we are going to start seeing that.

I am under the belief- You can quote me on this and I'm hoping it comes true- that the next five years are gonna be a shit show and then after that things are gonna start looking up. ]We can't really count on the Democratic party to step in and do the right thing because the Democratic party overall seems to just have no spine. (Kate sighs.) If the Republican party has one thing is they are organized and Democrats are not. 

(Kate laughs.)

Rhia: No, seriously, that is so true.

Vanessa: Well, I found it out just with my campaign, like not being able to get ahold of anybody!

Kate: Yeah.

Vanessa: If anyone has a chance of running and winning in Ohio, it's a trans person because it's going to make news. I did make news, national news, international news for four weeks. So…

Kate: For not running.

Vanessa: Yeah, for not running! 

Kate: For not being able to run.

Vanessa: For getting kicked off the ballot. So imagine if I did run. So yeah, it's, I think things will turn around, but it's going to be terrifying in the meantime.

Trans population is in stages eight and nine of genocide right now. Mark my words, we are the test group. They may be starting with us, but they're not going to end with us. They are going to keep going once they're done with us. You have to stop them now. You have to vote them out. The most important thing that anyone can do that's listening to this is talk to your friends that are on the fence about voting, tell them to vote blue. We have to get the Republicans out of office. It's the only way that we can make any change. 

I hate to tell people to vote along party lines, but at this point you can’t trust any of the Republicans to do the right thing. It’s scary. 

That was one of my other major reasons for running. I wanted people to see if a trans millennial slash X slash… I'm an xennial- in red rural Ohio can run for office, maybe I can get out and vote. Maybe I can run as well.

Kate: Yeah.

Rhia: Mmm.

Vanessa: On my podcast, I had Landon Reed, who's this amazing drag queen, a Gen Z drag queen, and he said that we keep talking about how Gen Z will come in and save us. Gen Z will come and save us. He's like, “Gen Z is doing our best.”

Kate: They are hard at work.

Vanessa:  Yeah. He said, “But there's not enough of us.” He said, “Millennials, you are the big group. You need to get out there and do it, but you're not.” Millennials need to get out there and vote. 

Rhia: Yeah.

Kate: Yeah.

Vanessa: I'm hoping to give people the courage to do that. That's what I was hoping to do. So I'm hoping people see my name in the news and what I was trying to do and how I got fucked over by the system and be like, “Okay, maybe it's time for a change.” 

That’s what I'm begging people is… One, hire me.

Kate: Yes.

Vanessa: Two, vote blue. 

Rhia: Three, follow Vanessa and support her efforts to change this law that is archaic and being enforced in a discriminatory manner. 

Vanessa: Yes.

Rhia: I can't agree with more with you. I think there are so many valid criticisms of the Democratic Party that we should keep having those conversations, right? 

Kate: Yes.

Rhia: And we also need to look at the alternative and how dangerous that is, especially for trans folks, black folks, anyone…

Vanessa: Anybody that's not a white, cishet Christian male.

Rhia: Yeah, right.

Kate: Yes. 

Rhia: Let's keep the criticism loud. Let's push them. And, like, not voting is not an acceptable response when there are so many people whose lives and the protection just of their ability to go outside and feel safe is at risk. So thank you for sharing that with us. I think that's an incredibly important message.

Kate: Yeah, absolutely. 

Vanessa: I feel like I hogged the mic the entire time. 

Kate: No! It’s not-

Rhia: No, you sounded great!

Kate: You’re the guest, like…

Rhia: Right, we wanted to hear from you.

Kate: Yeah.

Rhia: You hit on so many issues that are intertwined with burnout and that I feel really passionate about.

Kate: Mmhmm.

Rhia:  So it was really awesome to hear you talk, hear your story, and just hear your thoughts on so many different things. 

Kate: Yeah, we appreciate you. 

Vanessa: Can I plug my stuff?

Rhia: Absolutely!

Kate: That's what I was about to say is now we want to plug the podcast, plug whatever you wanna plug, go for it.

Vanessa: Okay, well people can follow me on socials. I'm easy to find, Vanesstradiol. So it's Vanessa mixed with Estradiol, because Estradiol is the estrogen that trans women take to grow titties. So…

Kate: Love it.

Rhia: Oohhh, cute! How do you spell it?

Vanessa: V-a-n-e-s-s-t-r-a-d-i-o-l. Vanesstradiol.

Rhia: Perfect.

Vanessa: Then I am also the executive producer and head host of a podcast called Transcending Humanity. You can find that at transcendinghumanity.com. We are on all the podcast platforms. We also have a YouTube channel. And that is a source for everything trans, non-binary, gender non-conforming. We are by and for the trans community and our allies. 

We've done episodes on finding bathrooms. We've done episodes on parenting. We've done political stuff. We've done job hunting stuff. I'm hoping to get some Ohio Democratic legislators on the pod here soon. 

Kate: That’s a great idea.

Rhia: That would be awesome.

Vanessa: We're really trying to grow the podcast. It's hard to grow a podcast, especially when you don't have a budget. 

Kate: (Sighing) Ooo, girl. 

Vanessa: So… yeah. If you have any interest in the community, if you have friends, friends with trans kids. It's a very, very good podcast for that because we, we have parenting advice for that.

Because we have not only parents of trans kids, we have trans parents of kids, and trans parents of trans kids. It's informative, it's raw. 

Kate: It's really great. I think it's a great listen for anyone and a great resource for folks who want to learn more, or who maybe are trans themselves and are nervous about talking to somebody about these issues.

Vanessa: Yes. Exactly.

Kate: You can learn in a safe environment from the podcast. I think it's so important what you're doing.

Vanessa: You don't have to listen to them in any particular order or anything. They're, you know, they're all standalone. My favorite is episode 25 with Landon Reed. 

Kate: Yeah.

Rhia: Incredible. 

Kate: I just have one more little shout out, which is that our artists, our cover artists for the podcast, are two sisters who happen to both be trans women. 

Vanessa: Really?

Kate: Yes. Their art company is called Growlforce. Like growl as in the sound an animal makes, force as in force of nature. And they do have an Etsy shop, which is on hiatus at the moment, but they have some great things in there. They have a t-shirt that says, “Shut up terf,” that's like really cute, like little anime.

Rhia: Love.

Kate: And they're very talented artists as well. So check them out. 

Rhia: Awesome. Well, Vanessa, thank you so much for coming on. I know this is really vulnerable. 

Kate: Yeah.

Rhia: We're not New York Times or NPR, but-

Vanessa: You’re better.

(Rhia laughs.) 

Kate: Oh god, wow!

Vanessa: This was so much fun. Thank you.

Rhia: Awww!

Vanessa: I can't wait to listen to this because I'm weird and I listen to my own podcasts. So.

Kate: I do too.

Rhia: I do the same thing. I also watch my own Instagram stories. It’s just called being your biggest fan. (Kate laughs.) I don't think that's weird at all. 

Kate: Yeah. (Rhia laughs.) Self-celebration.

Rhia: Yes, that is an anti-burnout tip. But it was honestly just such a pleasure to meet you.

Vanessa: Same

Rhia: And hear your story. And I hope that all of our listeners go support you. 

Kate: So happy that you came on and yeah, just echoing everything Rhia said, thank you so much for being willing to share all of this with us.

Vanessa: Thank you for having me.

Outtro

The Legal Burnouts is produced by me, Kate Bridal. Our music is by Keegan Stotsenberg. Our art is by growlforce. Thanks for listening.