The Queer Family Podcast – LGBTQ Families & Queer Parenting Stories · Jaimie Kelton – Queer Parenting & LGBTQ Families'.

ARCHIVE: Marie Newman on LGBTQ+ Rights, Trans Advocacy & Fighting Anti-Trans Laws

·54 min·3 clips

Evie told Marie Newman, “I can either run away or I can kill myself.”

1. The Queer Family Podcast episode centers on Marie Newman, former Illinois congresswoman, and her advocacy for LGBTQ families and trans rights. 2. Marie Newman matters here because she served Illinois’ 3rd District, worked in marketing and advocacy, and has a 24-year-old trans daughter named Evie. 3. The episode asks how a parent and organizer responds when trans youth, school bullying, and anti-trans policy collide. 4. Newman says she spent years in women’s rights, reproductive rights, pay equity, healthcare reform, gun reform, and LGBTQ rights before running for Congress. 5. She says her oldest child, Quinn, was severely bullied at age 9 or 10, which led her to write a book and develop an Illinois anti-bullying manual. 6. Newman describes November 2016 as a turning point, when Donald Trump became president and she joined the Illuminati Women's Institute for Leadership. 7. She says her 16-year incumbent in Congress was “horrible” on LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, immigrant rights, and the ACA, so she decided to run. 8. Newman lost by two points in 2018 and won by four points in 2020 against three male opponents. 9. She connects her family story to politics by saying trans kids often come out around puberty, when “things aren’t right.” 10. Newman says Evie became deeply depressed, and the family tried about 10 therapists, five programs, activities, vacations, seminars, medication, and other approaches. 11. She says a therapist later told her Evie was “really angry about something,” and a woman she had met about a year earlier helped because her own son had transitioned from female to male. 12. Newman recounts Evie telling her she could either run away or kill herself, which pushed the family into immediate action that night. 13. She says the family took Evie to a 12-hour day program for adolescents with depression and anxiety and then to Lurie’s gender identity program. 14. Newman says Evie later told her, while she was making spaghetti, “I am not a boy. And my name, it’s Evie.” 15. She says she took three months off work to learn how to be the mom of a trans child and then became a spokesperson for the program. 16. Newman says she changed Evie’s birth certificate, Social Security record, passport, and other vital records at age 15 so the family would be protected. 17. She says state protections matter because non-binary people currently face the biggest problem when records are not recognized. 18. Newman describes organizing against a school bullying problem by telling her story at PTA meetings and building a group of parents, experts, and attorneys. 19. The interview is direct, political, and personal, with Jamie and Newman trading stories, laughing at points, and moving quickly between family life and public policy. 20. People dealing with school-board fights, trans-family paperwork, or anti-bullying organizing will get the most from it; listeners wanting a light celebrity chat probably will not.

As heard by us

A clear, urgent look at how anti-trans politics reaches into family life.

The episode frames trans rights as part of family life, not just a policy debate, and that is where it is most effective. Marie Newman says laws and politics show up in housing, education, employment, and other everyday settings, and she brings the steadiness of someone who has…

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Why you'd press play

You want a plainspoken case for how trans rights show up fast in family life.

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