(upbeat music) - [Announcer] "A Slice of the Community" is made possible by the support of the First Horizon Foundation.

- Hello and welcome to another episode of "A Slice of the Community."

I'm your host, Jerome Moore, and today we are joined by council member at large and Tennessee's first transgender-elected official, Olivia Hill, how you doing?

- I'm doing wonderful.

Thank you so much for having me here.

- Nah, it's always good to see you, Olivia- - Good to see you.

- Always.

We always have good conversations, good dialogue.

- Yes, we do.

- So, but now you're a council member at-large, so congratulations on that.

Congratulations on that first.

What is life like at this particular, now, like right now, what is life like as council member at-large?

- Oh, gosh, it's amazing.

I am meeting so many people and connecting with so many different departments and things like that.

It's just, it's wonderful.

I really thought after the race that things might slow down, but they've actually gotten busier.

- [Jerome] Really, no way.

- But I operate best in controlled chaos.

So when things are really busy and really hectic is when I do best.

When I retired from Vanderbilt, I was working at average of 60, 80 hours a week.

So, sitting in around at home, it's not my gig.

It's not something that I enjoy doing.

So I love a connection with people.

I love being able to get the emails and talk to folks and be able to help with problems.

It gives you a huge sense of accomplishment when somebody says, "My trash didn't get picked up," or "There's a pothole out there," and you're able to report back that, that was taken care of.

- What does that mean to you being the first official elected transgender?

Well, when you hear that out loud, how does that hit you to think that you're the first in Tennessee?

- To be honest with you, I really moved past that, because I really ran this whole race as a qualified human, for the right to sit at the table.

I didn't run as a trans woman.

I didn't run as the first trans woman.

I didn't run as a woman.

I ran as a qualified human to sit at the table to get the job done that needed to be done, which is what it really should always all be, but it's not always that way.

And so I kind of look past that a little bit, because I feel like that's not why Nashvillians elected me.

They didn't elect me to be the first trans woman.

They elected me, because I have the experience to fix the broken infrastructure in Nashville, and that's my whole goal in life.

- Let's talk about your background and journey a little bit of (laughs) 'cause of course, the transgender is part of your identity, it's who you are.

But that wasn't always the case.

And so, can you walk us through a little bit, just your background and journey and what got you inspired to want to get into politics in the first place?

- Well, I'm a native Nashvillian.

I'm a fifth generation Nashvillian.

- Yeah, me too.

We right there together on that.

Yeah, gotta stick together.

- Yeah, absolutely.

I went to Hillwood and then after I got outta school, I joined the Navy.

I served 10 years in the Navy where I did three deployments, two of which were in the Persian Gulf, and I saw a combat and Desert Storm.

And then after 10 years, I got out and came home to Nashville and I got a job working at Vanderbilt University at the power plant.

I started out at the bottom shoveling coal and pulling ash from the boilers, and I worked my way to the top.

Along the way, I held every single position in my department by trade.

I'm a plumber, pipefitter, welder, high voltage electrician, diesel mechanic, jet engine mechanic, boiler specialist, steam turbine specialist, and control specialist.

And so, that's part of why I ran for at-large, because I felt my expertise could better serve the entire community.

But how I got involved in politics was I was not prepared when I transitioned for what was gonna be the outcome.

After I had all my surgeries, and I came back, and I re-pushed myself out into the community, I really tried to be prepared for any of the transphobia that I would have, and I had very little.

Almost every single person accepted me as a woman and treated me 100% as such.

"Honey, why don't you go sit in the office?

"This is men's work," or mansplaining.

I've never, pre-transition, had a man come up to me in public and correct me.

"You shouldn't be running your car "while you're pumping gas," or "You can't park there.

"You shouldn't do this," or "You should do that," I've never had anybody in public.

And so I really got heavily involved in women's rights.

I got heavily involved with HRC, Human Rights Campaign, and got involved with their steering committee.

I joined the steering committee.

I got involved with their governor's group, and I got so involved that they invited me to the annual convention in DC in March of 2020.

And so, I went up there and one of the first speakers was Danica Roem, which is the first trans woman elected in the South.

She got up and spoke and talked about a lot of things.

And then she had a microphone up there and she said, "Does anybody have any questions?"

And I'm like, "As a trans woman, "when am I ever gonna get an opportunity "to speak to Danica Roem?"

And so I go up to the microphone, and I'm nervous, and I'm like, "Danica, I don't have a question.

"I just wanna say thank you.

"Thank you for blazing the trail "for so many other trans community, "so many trans people like me, "to be able to help elected officials like you stay elected "to help more elected officials get elected "and do things like that."

And she went like this, put her hand up and stopped me.

I'm like, "Oh!"

- So I gotta ask you about this.

This intersectionality of combat, being in the Navy, Desert Storm, plumbing, engineering, being the senior supervisor of a power plant, all of these things scream out stereotypical man things.

Right?

- Yes.

- And so, how did that translate over after you transitioned as far as male privilege, male White privilege, did you see any of that being taken away?

How did you adjust to those type of things that only White men experience after transitioning?

- I do a fair amount of public speaking, and it's one of the things that I always put as my topic I speak of in the very first thing is the first thing that happened to me that rocked my world, absolute most of my transition, was the loss of my White male privilege that I had no idea that I possessed.

I've listed my resume.

You know what I'm qualified to do.

And I was under the impression I did all that on my own.

I'm the one who showed up on third shift and got the third shift guys to teach me how to weld.

And I'm the one who went in off-the-clock to meet with the high voltage electrician to say, "Can you teach me how to do this?"

And, "How does this work," and this, that, and the other.

And it was me who did that effort.

But I learned that had I been a woman, I probably would've never been hired in the power industry.

And when I showed up at 3:00 in the morning and said, "Can you teach me how to weld?"

They would've said, "Honey, "won't you go make us some coffee "and let us men do the work."

And so it really got me thinking about so much, and I really try to advocate for all minorities everywhere.

- Before that transitioning period, what was your own perception of the transgender community?

Did you think about that?

Did you wrestle that?

- Honestly?

- Honestly, yeah.

- I was a little transphobic in the beginning, because the short version of my story is I felt like me growing up until age 10.

I wanted to start wearing dresses to school and I couldn't, so I got the talk, and I was sent to a psychiatrist for two years, every Wednesday, to teach me I had to be a boy and like boy things.

And so, it was the start of me feeling broken.

And so, I started trying so hard to be this man that I thought I was supposed to be, that this doctor told me at age 10.

And so, I found the most alpha people that I could find to hang out with, to learn how to be a stronger man, a better man, and it's the reason why I went in the Navy, because I thought, I still feel like me on the inside, and they can fix that.

They can make me not be that way anymore, because I just felt broken, and I adapted and learned a lot of things that (sighs) straight people talk about.

- Learn and unlearn, right, and the whole process- - Yes, that's been the hardest part is not just to unlearn a lot of that stuff, it's to let go of things, like male pride, and it's okay to ask questions.

It's okay to say, "I don't understand that."

It's okay to say, "I'm scared."

- Right, well talk about family.

And a lot of times, family can be your biggest supporters or sometimes they can leave you hanging, they can abandon you.

It can be a loss of family after transitioning or just coming out in general.

Did you face any of that, or was that a part of your transition, a part of your journey up until this point?

- I usually try to skirt around this, because I lost everything.

I lost my family.

I lost my friends.

I've lost friends that I've had since high school.

I've lost both of my adult children.

Both of my children have kids.

My son has three daughters, and my daughter has a son, and I have a dad that lives in East Nashville, and I've got family that have just moved away.

And it's not all just negative.

And what I tell people is stop and think for a second of what your greatest wish in the whole world is.

And imagine what that could possibly be, whether that's to be CEO of some amazing company, own your own island, to be a billionaire, to own your own show, whatever.

Imagine what your greatest wish is, and imagine how you would feel tomorrow if you woke up and that wish came true, and that's what it's like for me every day, because I've wanted to be me for 50 years, and I get to be me, and I paid a heavy price.

I lost my career.

I lost my family.

I lost my friends.

But I get to be me.

- Have you had any conversations, especially with the intersectionality, with your Navy combat, with being a veteran?

What are those kind of conversations with those constituents in the community that say, "Hey, this is something "maybe y'all want to transition into too as well, "but I'm a veteran," or "I'm currently in the service."

Have you had those conversations, or have you been able to let your light shine, to allow other people to let their light shine too, be themselves?

- Yeah, I do stuff with the VA.

I go to different veterans groups.

I work with Operation Stand Down.

And I try to be an advocate to say, "I'm here.

"Come talk to me if you have questions "and you have concerns and you wanna work through this."

I tell everybody in the community like that, that if you just want somebody to reach out to and say, "Hello, how do I do this?

How do I get started?"

And I advocate for that.

- As far as getting started, we're not in the most pro transgender state being Tennessee.

Now, being in this capacity as council member at-large here in Nashville, how can you see your role being more of inclusive into politics, being a transgender woman in Tennessee and allowing other people to say, "Hey, you can do it regardless, "but you definitely can do it even if you are transgender."

- Well, the biggest thing that I concentrate the most on, and I feel like I've got an awful lot of eyes watching me, is I'm just there to do my job.

And I work on utilities and infrastructure, and I've been going around meeting with all the different department heads and a steam plant downtown.

I walked the tunnels under Broadway up to 7th Avenue.

I've met with the folks at Metro Water and stuff like that.

And I really want to just do my job.

And by doing so, people wanna go, "Okay, she's trans, but so what?

She's doing the work."

And it proves that we're just plain old people.

We don't have horns and a tail.

We're not something weird.

We're just a normal human like anybody else, and we can do the things.

And so I think the biggest thing that I can do is just do my job and do what I was elected to do, and that's fix the broken parts of Nashville.

And by doing so, it's gonna give representation to the trans community that they can say like, "She's doing that, and she's not running around going, "'I'm trans, I'm the first trans, I'm this, I'm that.'"

I'm just like, "So, infrastructure's broke.

"We need to fix that."

- Because I think in those positions, people are either going to work with you and see that you're doing the work and say, "Olivia's doing the work, let's make it happen."

Or they're going to use your transgender identity as a reason not to work with you.

- And so many people, there's been quite a few people that have done that, and it was like, "Well, yeah, but you're trans," or "You're this," and I was like, "That's true, but this waterline is too small, "and we need to fix this waterline.

"It needs to be upsized, and we need to make sure "that we do a study to find out everything "that's on this waterline that we upsize this waterline "to be sufficient for what's gonna supply things "for the next 15 to 20 years."

And they're like, "Oh."

- Yeah.

So how does that dialogue happens a lot of times when people just see you as transgender and not say, "No, look at my resume.

I've done the work.

"I've served my country, I'm qualified to do this, "and I wanna make my community better.

- It's been amazing, 'cause we've had a few people reach out that have said, "Olivia, I didn't know you were trans."

I'm like, "I'm sorry, no take-backs.

"You gave me your vote already.

It's already there.

"I'm sorry you didn't do your full research."

Because when they read my resume, they're like, "Oh my gosh, we need her."

And they looked past the trans.

They didn't see it then.

They just saw me for a human that was trying to get a seat at the table, and they looked at my resume and thought, well, she's qualified.

And most of the people have really stuck with that.

And the few people that have had an issue have watched and seen all the different things that I've done, and all the places I'm becoming more and more involved and they're like, "Okay, maybe she's gonna do alright."

- Right, speaking of issues, like any other big city, Nashville has their laundry list of issues.

Being in this council member at-large role now, what are some of the key things you mentioned, I know infrastructure, utilities, homelessness, housing.

What are some of those things that you wanna focus on and take advantage of this opportunity to show people, hey, regardless, I'm a human, I can do this work, that naturally they should focus on, - One of the biggest things that I'm pushing very, very hard is transit.

We've got to have transit in the city.

I think that it's something that we need to do today.

And there's been talks going on, and we're moving towards some things to do that.

I have had meetings with the mayor's office to pitch some of my ideas and listen to some of his and let him know that I am there for anything that he may have in transit.

The other thing is I'm looking at all the different departments and how they all communicate with each other, and I wanna spend some time the first couple of months to make sure that I've got like 400 ideas, that this idea doesn't make another problem.

Because we've all had that boss that comes in and kicks the door down and says, "We're gonna do it this way," and then six months later they go, "Oh, that's why y'all don't do it that way."

- You gotta do an assessment, right.

- So I'm trying to be methodical about it and try to meet with everybody and see how, and then I'm gonna start...

I've got a ton of ideas of things I really wanna make Nashville one of the greatest cities in the South.

- What have you learned about yourself that you maybe didn't know before running and then actually, winning a campaign.

- This has been an absolute crash course in time management, my entire life.

- Really, no way.

- My entire 40 years of my career has always been reactive.

And so in the military, you get up.

You don't know what you're doing today.

You do whatever your petty officer or your division officer tells you to do.

And you're just like, "Yes sir, yes ma'am," and you go on about your business.

You don't plan much.

And then working in a power plant, you kind of make some plans, but if a boiler goes down or a pump goes out, then you stop everything you're doing, and that goes on that concentration, and so it's very reactive.

Now, the role I'm in is very proactive.

And so now I'm making meetings with people in March and in February, and I am doing things, and I'm looking ahead and making plans and doing things.

And so that's a different way of looking at everything.

And I'm learning so much.

I'm meeting so many great, wonderful people.

And I ran for office, and I made my political calls, almost every elected official told me two things, one, "Olivia, you're gonna meet "some of the nicest people you will ever meet."

And two, "You have no idea how big Davidson County is "until you've campaigned an entire county."

I made the mistake of buying a brand new car in February.

- Miles are crazy on it, I know.

- I put 20,500 miles when I pulled in the parking lot here today, and it's not even a full year yet.

- See, that's why we need that transit.

- And it's all Davidson County.

- That's why we need that transit.

- We need transit yesterday.

- (indistinct) miles on them cars or vehicles.

Being in a state that is very anti-transgender, what can Tennessee be doing better right now to support our transgender community, our lesbian, our queer, our gay community at this particular time, especially going into 2024?

- Yeah, I think it's just something that we have to just continue to advocate, and we've got to educate people.

So many people don't understand what the trans community.

In the first two years that I've transitioned, I've shrunk an inch and a half, because the disc in between the vertebraes is less on a woman than is on a man.

My skin is thinner, so I cut easier, I bruise easier.

My pores are smaller, so I sweat less.

Because I sweat less, I have drier skin.

I like to moisturize all the time.

My lung capacity is three fourths of what it used to be.

My red blood cell count's almost half.

I lost every bit of my upper body strength, and for some reason, I only put on weight just right here in the hips and thighs area.

I don't know what's all about that, so it's just education.

The biggest problem that we have in the trans community is a lot of folks see us as men in wigs.

And they don't see us for everything that happens and all the stuff that we go through.

And so I think it's just education and spending some time with people.

And I've sent a letter to Governor Lee, Speaker Sexton and Speaker McNally, and asking for a meeting that as an elected official and as a constituent, that I would like to spend an opportunity to just educate you on some things.

Of course, neither one has answered, and I didn't expect- - Of course, they emailed you back, and you got right on their schedule immediately, right?

- And so I'm free to meet Thursday, Olivia.

But and I'll keep pushing, and I'll keep trying.

But my main number one goal is to fix the broken parts of Nashville.

And when I have some free time in the evening, I'm a activist for trans community.

- You mentioned advocacy.

You talked about community engagement.

This buzzword goes around a lot, ally, right?

What does that actually mean to you, being an ally of the transgender community, being an ally of elected officials that are trying to build power in community?

What does that mean to you precisely?

- Well, there's really, in my opinion, there's two types of allies.

And there's a type of ally that says, "I'm 100% okay with you," to your face.

And then behind your back they're like, "I'm not so sure I'm okay with the trans community.

"I mean, I tell Olivia I'm okay with her, "but I don't really know."

And then you have the person who says they're an ally and says, "Olivia, I'm with you 100%."

And then you're in a smaller group with other people, with no other trans people around, and they make a slur or something about the trans community, and that person stands up for you while you're not there.

And so, there's two different types of allies.

There's the ally that will really fight for the LGBT community when there's not an LGBT person around, and then there's the people that do it, because it's a boutique cool thing to do.

It's like, "Hey, yeah, I'm an ally.

"I am okay with that," you know?

- Yeah, and Nashville, we like to claim that we're a liberal city, we're a progressive city, which I think we are on many things- - And Nashville really is a really pretty blue dot in the middle of an ugly red state.

- But it's the closed rooms though.

And that's when I say, you have to embrace diversity.

You have to embrace trans.

You have to embrace women.

You have to embrace Black people all the time, not just when it's easy and it's convenient, but when you in those boardrooms, when you in those smaller meetings with White men with power that you know probably feel a particular way, might not be front facing or out in public with it, but you know you need to speak out.

You willing to risk your privilege or your position to speak up for Jerome or for Olivia?

And that's what I mean.

You have to prove it to me all the time, not just when it's the cameras and you get some glory behind it.

- It's like, "Olivia, I'm behind you 100%.

"Good to see you, let's take a picture together.

"Good to see you," and then you walk away, you're like, "Oh, oh, I'm not okay with that."

And what I've heard is, "I'm really okay with you, Olivia.

"I think you're great.

You're smart.

"You really can do the job.

"I'm not sure I'm okay with what you all are doing "to the kids and stuff, but you're okay.

"I'm 100% behind you."

- What's a great conversation starter?

You know, it's holiday season- - Disperse lies that are out there.

Almost no trans child is having any kind of surgery.

Let's just get that out of the way.

Number two, hormone blockers, they are just a pause button.

They were originally invented for young girls to have who started puberty just way too early, and they take the puberty blocker.

Maybe they start it at eight or 10 years old, and they took 'em for a couple years.

They stop and then they continue on.

And then you give a child at say, 12, puberty blockers, and then at 18 they're like, "Yeah, maybe I'm not trans.

"Maybe I was just trying to get attention," or whatever.

You just stopped taking the hormones, I mean, the blockers, and you have puberty at 18 years old.

There's no less side effects to that than there are just any other medication that's out there.

- People that may be watching or listening to this, and some of those people may be feeling uneasy about this conversation, but they really, truly want to maybe unlearn some things and learn some things and maybe get rid of that transphobia that they may be wrestling with.

What are best ways for them to do that?

Is it reaching out and talking to someone from the community that they know, not know.

- It is.

- 'Cause that's something you had to wrestle with personally before you're transitioning and understand, I might be a little transphobia myself, but that's something you had to wrestle with.

- You know, I've met with an awful lot of people, and I used to run a trans support group for a while, and I've been around the community for a while, talked to an awful lot of people, and I've never met an LGBT person yet that didn't know that they were LGBT at five, six, eight years old.

Now, maybe it took 'em a while to come out.

Maybe it took 'em a while to be brave enough to tell anybody, but almost every single LGBT person I've ever known knew that they were at that age.

The other thing real quick is people that are left-handed.

My daughter's left-handed, and I tried everything I could do from age zero to three to get her to use her right hand.

The whole world is all around right-handed people, baseballs, gloves, writing, everything is around right-hand people, "Honey, use your right hand."

She's left-handed.

She didn't get the pick that she's left-handed.

That's just how she was born and how she was made, and I needed to be okay with that, and I was.

- So use that same philosophy versus somebody that might not identify sexually the same as you.

- People think that being trans and being LGBT is a choice, and it's not, it's how we are born.

It's like people are attracted to tall people, people are attracted to short people.

You don't get to pick what you are attracted to.

- The future.

- Yes.

- What does that look like for you?

Couple months in, council member at-large for Nashville.

What are some things you're looking forward to in the future just as a council person and as a person that just happens to be trans too, to amplify that and let people know like, hey, you could do this work, and if you are trans and wanna do this work, reach out.

Let's figure this out.

- I really just want to concentrate the best I can to make Nashville one of the greatest cities in the South and fix the broken parts of it and put my efforts in that.

And by doing stuff, that elevates the entire trans community in this state, because when people say, "See, she's trans, she's doing a normal job.

"She's not waving her flag saying she's trans.

"She's not saying I need any extra attention.

"She's just a human doing a human job, being a human."

- Any last thoughts, Olivia?

I wanna give you the last word.

Anything that you just want to leave people at home with to extrapolate on that we didn't touch on and just wanna give you that moment?

- I appreciate that, but I just wanna say thank you for having me here and the opportunity to be able to explore these things and hopefully, the people that have watched, have learned and grown a little bit.

Because I think that's the biggest problem.

Most of the hate that we have seen has been for lack of education.

It's not been real hatred, and once people learn, they're usually like, "Oh, okay, I understand now."

- All right, well Olivia, I appreciate you and gotta have you back.

- I hope so.

- For sure, and I appreciate y'all for watching another "Slice of the Community," and I'll see y'all next time.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] "A Slice of the Community" is made possible by the support of the First Horizon Foundation.