Well, hello, everybody. Welcome back to transcending humanity. This is episode 26. I set our recording for night, and nobody showed up. So I guess you're stuck with me. It's kind of topical, I guess for what I'm going to be talking about tonight, I'm going to be talking about voting and running for office and stuff like that. But first off, I wanted to ask people, please, if you love the show, please check us out, check out our website to get a link to our Patreon. Right now, the show is all self funded and could really use $5 a month, just price of a coffee would go a long way to help keep the show going. Anyways, I'm Vanessa, you know me. I wanted to I guess we're gonna have a short episode this week, because it's just me and I don't really have anyone to talk to. But I wanted to talk a little bit about voting. And its importance, especially for people so I just bought my desk if those listening what but those watching and be like, Why did your camera go crazy? Anyways? It is important for people of my generation. I am a millennial, technically, I guess I'm an example. Since I was born, 81. We're kind of the generation that we grew up analog, and our adulthoods are digital. So our generation is huge. If you listen to last week's episode with Landon Reed, if you haven't stopped this, build this into that one, or watch it wherever you get this podcast, but he had just some amazing points about how millennials need to step up. So I wanted to follow up this week, with with my conversation with Landon from last week. Millennials this episode, I'm looking at you right now. I'm guilty of it, too. Before I came out, I just lived the clueless just typical white guy kind of thing where it doesn't really impact me. I don't like the kind of candidates I don't want to point out that I had all sorts of excuses for not voting. I didn't vote for the first time until I was 40, I believe. Which is a shame. And I also know it is a pretty common thing amongst my generation. There are many of us, as Linden said, Uh hum. A lot of Gen Z folks call us millennials. Like, a second generation of boomers or something really exactly what he said. But he's not wrong. There are a lot of us. And we could admit so much change. But we're not. And that's a bad thing with the way that our country is kind of sliding into fascism with the Republican Party doing what they're doing. If you follow any trans people, myself, Liam, Taryn, anybody we say over and over and over again that the Republicans are coming for us now. But we're not going to be the last ones that they come for. So we need some fresh perspectives in our government nationwide from the bottom up. And I mean, that when I say you from the bottom up the reason it's important to vote is one, it's it's something that it's your right, and a lot of people have thought to do it. And again, I'm guilty of not doing it for a long time. I'm doing it now. But a lot of the people that start off spewing all this vitriol in state, government and federal government start off low, they start off simple. They start off in school birds, they start off in town councils, they start off in wards and stuff like that. And that's what we have to stop. We need more millennials to one, get out and vote to run for office. I am currently putting my I'm currently doing what I'm saying that I want to do. In that I have decided to run for the Ohio House of Representatives in my district, which is district 50. It is a ridiculously gerrymandered district. If you look it up. You can just do a Google search for Ohio House of Representative district map the gerrymandering here is to the point where if you zoom in, they have like individual houses cut out. It's absolutely ridiculous. It's been deemed to be illegal, but the Republicans have a supermajority in Ohio. So there's no one really to stop them, even though the court says that they can't do it. So all that's still pending right now, there's an initiative for citizens to be able to retry it. But I'm sure the Republicans can do everything they can to stop that. So if you get out there, vote for, as I said, Start low vote in your school board run for your school board. I really I honestly am talking to Democrats here. Republicans. I don't love you. I'm sorry, if you're still voting Republican this day and age. Honestly, I feel like you have something morally wrong with you at this point. If you're still voting Republican, if you just sit back and ask yourself, what is the last thing that the Republican Party did for you did for the people there, all they do is take things away, all they do is give money to the rich and get I know, I'm sounding like you're fired at conservatives will call me a far leftist. Push really, anywhere else in the world, I'd be centrist. I just want. I would like some sort of equality in this country. So get out there vote. You can start early voting. Now I just voted today. In Ohio. I like to vote early for a number of reasons. Even though I have to drive like 25 minutes to to vote early. But the place where I vote normally is a local church. And every time I go in there, it's very awkward, because it is very, a very red area. And a trans girl is kind of a novelty there but not in a good way. So I just drive out to the stark county board of elections and vote there and they're very nice, and you're in and out, wham bam, so get out and vote. If you have people that want to vote there, they have trouble getting transport, please drive them. Get it together as a community, we can do this. We need to pave the way for the generations that follow us. A lot of millennials say and Lenin mentioned this last week. And I said I'm guilty of saying it. But we keep saying oh Gen Z will save us Gen Z will save us. But Lenin at a good point when he said you know, millennials were huge generation Gen Z, he isn't nearly as big as us. And we can't count on them to save us. They're already turning out in record numbers to vote. So what are millennials doing? We need to get out there people. It's just do it get out. It doesn't take long. You can even do mail and voting, whatever you need to do, but start making a difference. And I hope that people seeing me running for office will be like, Okay, if the 42 year old trans girl from super red, Ohio, is willing to run in her district to make change. Maybe I can tell that's one of the main reasons I'm running is I want to pave the way for other people other Gen X, millennials, Gen Z, even Gen Alpha that's coming up. I want them to see that. Okay, there are people of my generation that care, that are willing to take the risk, I'm taking a giant risk. And I'm going to see a friend getting signatures is not easy, because it is not safe for me to go door to door to knock. So I have to leverage my network, which has been difficult. And I only have two months to get about 100 signatures. So you it's gonna be an uphill battle. But I want people to see me if I can get on the ballot, and be like, hey, I can do that too. That's how we make change. I'm not a politician. I never set out to be in politics. I I'm running my platform I'm running on I'm not running on trans rights, because that's not going to be popular in my area. Of course, if I'm elected, I will focus on that. And I will give the dirtiest of dirty looks to all the trans legislators in Ohio especially Gary click. But my platform I want to appeal to everybody. Right now my my main thing that I'm looking at is the cost of childcare, which per child is it's just astronomical, and Republicans want babies born but then they don't want anything to do with the kids once they're born. And so we have parents out there that are just absolutely swamped. They don't know what to do because they it's either they don't work so they can take care of their kid or they do work. try to find some sort of way to take care of their kid. I was talking to one parent that spends 1400 a month per kid and their childcare. In Ohio right now, subsidized childcare is only available if you make out to 45% of the federal poverty level or lower. And that equates to be about $20,000. And with rent being, you know, at least$1,000 a month, it's how can people afford to live? How can people afford to raise their kids? How can people afford anything? So my goal I'm not making campaign promises, I do not like the idea of campaign promises. Because how often are they actually held up? I personally don't like making promises in life because promises are hard to keep, you can't always keep there's, there are things in life that are beyond your control. So I don't want to give up make a promise that I can I be sure that I can keep, but my goals are that is my number one goal is to get childcare, subsidized childcare available to more Ohioans, to people making under a much higher amount of money. Because, you know, even me, even if I were making $50,000 a year, I'm not I make about $12,000 a year doing what I'm doing. But I wouldn't be able to have my kid in into care with out seriously hurting my income if I was able to do it at all. So we, my goal is to bring money to the people that bring money to Ohio. Republicans aren't doing that. They're just taking rights away. My opponent here in district 50 is a guy named Reggie Stoltzfus. I don't know how to pronounce his last name. But he's a co sponsor of the bathroom bill, which seeks to ban essentially banned transgender people from bathrooms in our hot in school bathrooms in Ohio, from kindergarten all the way up through college. So it's one of those you can only use the bathroom of your sex assigned at birth. And so I look at this guy and like, What is he doing actually help anybody in this district. He's just worried about his genitals. I'm not worried about that. I'm just worried about people. So I want to focus on the community, I want to focus on veterans, I want to focus on health care, I want to focus on human rights. And I want to be able to reach across the table if I can. I believe I mentioned it in other episodes. But my stepfather I've never met. Because my mother and I do not get along. I have no interest in speaking with her ever again. But her husband is an Ohio State Representative. And I looked up, but he sponsors and co sponsors, and I was pleasantly surprised. He is a Republican, but nothing that he is involved with, has anything to do with taking rights away. It's all just solid economic stuff to help Ohio. So I want to give kudos to Bill Romer, my stepfather, highly W listens to this. But as he is a Republican that is actually seems to be doing the right thing. Now, I don't know how he's actually voting on issues. If any of these anti trans things actually get up for vote, I'll be very interested in seeing how he votes. But if he doesn't vote for them, and I do get in to get elected, I would like to work on policy with him. I'm running as a Democrat. But I do not like party politics. I am hoping that in the future, the parties get dissolved in. We focus more on being a democracy rather than just pleasing one party. The other. I can tell you my experiences with the Democrat party so far have not been pleasant. I mean, I realize I've only been running for about two weeks, but I cannot get a hold of anybody. I went to to start county stir counties County I live in I went to their headquarters, the Democratic headquarters, and I couldn't even get a phone number for the chairman. They gave me they told me to email him, they didn't even give me his email. I got it offline, contacted him. And I've heard nothing. I'm trying to get some signature parties going. And I would like the assistance of the Democratic Party. And they're just falling short. I reached out to Ohio Democrats absolutely no word. I reached out to the Ohio House Democratic Caucus. I didn't hear anything from them until I got the phone number of the person that leads it. And I finally got a hold of him and he sent me a link to fill out a form to show that I'm interested in running so Who knows if anything will come from that. But it just goes to show me the Republicans. I do not like Republicans, as you know, but they are much more organized. And Ohio ballot right now. Is the citizens initiative to legalize abortion. And the, to legalize it the voters? Yes. So most Democrats are voting yes. But the Republicans got way ahead of it, because they were the ones that got to decide the issue number and whether or not yes or no would be put on there. So they had all their signs in advance. And there are a vote no one issue one signs everywhere around here. And no one can get their hands on vote yes, issue wants to very rare, the headquarters keeps running out. And its Democrats are just falling asleep at the wheel. I don't like running as a Democrat. But I have to play by the rules, I would much rather just run as an independent. But honestly, I need the money from the Democratic Party. If I do get on the ballot, I have a feeling that a transgender candidate in Ohio is most likely going to make the news. So I'm probably going to get some press. When and if I get on the on the ballot. And I need the I need the backing of a political party to push through what the Republicans spent because they spent a ton of money on on the elections, just the last election where the current, the current rep, got elected in he ran unopposed and they still spent a ton of money on him. So yeah, that's my dilemma. So I guess I'm just gonna circle back to my point is, get out there vote get out there run for office. It's, I know can be scary. I have no experience in politics. But here I am. I'm going it alone, because I have no faith in the Democratic Party that actually helped me. But hey, I think I can do this, I want to do this, I want to make a difference. I want to show my generation Gen X, Gen Z Gen alpha, that we can make a difference. If I just little Vanessa can make an inroad into this very red Republican gerrymandered district. I think that it could have very powerful effects on the rest of the country as a whole to see that. A queer woman like me, can do this. And whether or not I get elected, my goal is to get on the ballot and go from there. So I'm taking it a step at a time. But it is now voting season. Please get out there. Please vote. And a very much please don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, hit all those buttons send us money on Patreon. I only make $12,000 a year as I said, and I'm funding the show and it's expensive and I want this to keep going. But it is definitely becoming a very heavy financial strain me right now. So if you're willing and able to help, please do. We'll see you next week.
