Announcer: Coming up on "The Whitney Reynolds Show"...

I want people to see the humanity and the dignity that each of us possess, that we are another kind of diversity.

We're another kind of family.

"The Whitney Reynolds Show" is made possible by... Yates Protect: a minority-owned business focused on protecting communities and providing solutions to safety problems for public and private institutions including air purification, metal detectors, thermal detection, and more.

Safety is a right, not a privilege.

And by, O'Connor Law Firm.

When it comes to your injuries, we take it seriously.

Carrie McCormick, a real estate broker with @Properties.

With more than 20 years of experience, she understands the importance of the customer relationship during your real estate journey.

Theraderm, committed to developing skin products designed to restore and promote natural beauty.

Sciton, because results matter.

Additional funding provided by Mid-West Moving & Storage, Galileo, The Gumdrop by Delos Therapy, Happy to Meat You, Kevin Kelly with Jameson Sotheby's International Realty, Fresh Dental, Ella's Bubbles, Tutu School Chicago, Hi-Five Sports Camp, and these funders: We are so glad you are joining us here today.

We are meeting guests who have given themselves permission to live authentically, and because of that, their platforms are now elevated.

[opening theme music] I wasn't a failure.

It wasn't my fault, you know.

But we've seen great stories of people who have overcome some incredible challenges.

Every day we hear about another story of whether it was someone in an accident or someone coming from nothing.

And I wasn't trying to be an inspirational story, but what I was trying to do was beat the odds, and instead, I was not going up against the odds, I was going up against the U.S. military.

This is an issue if we don't bring forward and keep talking to other people and giving others the courage to come forward, this issue's never going to get resolved.

That was a step too far for the military, and so when I reported that in 2018, they immediately sent me home and placed me on administrative leave where I remained for the next two years until they ultimately terminated me.

I again, will do everything in my power to make sure that nobody feels that degree of loneliness because you still have to get up every morning and put on a face and just like any kind of trauma, you have to keep going.

Welcome to the show.

Thank you, thank you for having me.

So, you've been identified, you've been called, oh, "whistleblower."

Correct.

And this is something that today we are not calling you that, we are calling you our expert because we want to understand the situation, and it's happening in our military.

Exactly.

I really appreciate not being called a whistleblower because I think it has this negative connotation to it.

And what's happening in our military is just tragic, that we have service members that their voices are being stifled.

They're being sexually abused, and they're being retaliated against at this alarming rate and nobody wants to talk about it.

Why is it that no one wants to talk about it?

Well, I think that the subject matter of sexual abuse in and of itself is kind of a taboo subject.

And we don't really want to believe that people can commit these heinous acts, and so, it's just a very hard topic to discuss.

How did you get into the realm of advocating for people that have been sexually assaulted in the military?

So, I started my career as a child abuse investigator, and then I became a forensic interviewer and I ran a child sexual abuse center.

And so, then I saw in 2012 that the military had made some changes, there were some new laws in place, and that they were reforming their advocacy program.

And I thought, well, I'm going to go advocate for some service members.

I grew up in the military.

I have a huge love for the military.

The men that raised me were retired colonels and generals, and I just thought everybody acted like my dads and uncles, and I got a rude awakening.

What was that like when you did see a side of it that maybe you weren't expecting?

It was just quite devastating.

You know, I see the military with all of this honor and integrity and selfless service, and when people have the courage to come forward to say that they were being sexually abused, whether it was sexual harassment or all the way to a violent rape that they weren't being believed, they weren't being protected, and their rights were being violated.

Wow.

And they had no voice.

And I just want to bring it up that you took the position that was actually, like, you didn't create a position.

-They had this position there -Right.

to actually advocate for people, is that right?

Right.

So, I was hired initially as a victim advocate.

And I have worked as a sexual assault response coordinator, and a program manager for a two- and a three-star command, and again as a victim advocate here in the Chicago area.

And it was just really shocking because the way the system is, you don't have any power as an advocate.

What kind of power did you want, or would you like to see?

[sigh] Well, when you are going to the person that's in charge of the program and telling them that they're harming people, that the process is harming people, and yet they are your boss, it's counter intuitive.

You know, it's very similar to if a woman is being abused by her spouse and that spouse is also abusing the children, and the woman has really nowhere to go because they also are in this economic thing, right?

So, it's just very cyclical.

How have you gained your footwork with all this?

Well, from my perspective, when victims of crimes come to me, that's my job to believe them.

It's not my job to judge them, and it's my job to ensure their federal victims crimes rights are intact.

And, if that is not in alignment with what the command's doing, then I'm going to stay on the ethical side and uphold those federal victim crime rights.

Being assaulted myself as an employee in the military, they told them not to help me because of my status as a whistleblower, so it's just been a whole nightmare of things that have occurred.

And so, you've experienced this firsthand within the military as well.

Mm-hmm.

What was that like for you?

Here you are supposed to be protecting people, or helping them, and then it happened to you.

I think that defining sexual abuse, whether it's harassment all the way to rape, as an abuse of power, is the important thing to understand because it's not about sex, it's about abusing your power and controlling that person and shutting them down.

Now, have you been shut down?

Well, they have attempted to, but I'm not going to stop using my voice.

I'm not going to stop helping victims.

I've been on a suspension, paid suspension from the military.

November 19th will be two years.

Whitney: Wow.

Amy: And, I've been doing my work through my non-profit now, and I get two to three phone calls a week of sexual assault victims and domestic violence victims within all service branches that need help.

How do you find your strength to keep going?

I don't know.

I just think, I just truly believe that God puts you where you're supposed to be, and that if your voice can help uplift others, and these people's names don't get loss-- And, you know, we have these beautiful, young soldiers that are committing suicide after being sexually assaulted because they're not being protected, and I don't want to hold the hand of another parent that their child has killed themselves because the command failed to protect them after they reported being raped.

I mean, there's so many young ladies, and young men as well.

We can't forget that male victimization in the military is also a very real thing.

Well, thank you so much for coming on.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

Our next guest has identified his gift here on earth and is using that to lift others up by his voice.

The platform, or in this case a real-life platform stage.

And for Dante Bowe, this is where he shares stories on life's realities and inspires his listeners to keep going.

Yeah, stories about a kid being abused in church.

It tells stories of, you know, my grandparents overcoming and being the first in our family to buy land, and my mom and my dad, you know, their battle with drug dealing, and overcoming that.

It tells all of these stories and I think God had to give me this kind of a voice for the story that I have.

Whitney: He is a Christian singer and songwriter that has had his fair share of hardships.

During the pandemic, his honest lyrics and unique voice started resonating on a whole new level.

I started understanding that it was a superpower, and that it connects differently because it has some dirt on it.

Some people feel the dirt, they feel the history and I started just using it as my advantage and I lean into it more.

I don't like-- I used to try to cover it up and sing differently and stuff.

Now I just lean into it and understanding that people are relating to it because it has history.

Whitney: He has identified his gift and shares it almost everywhere he goes.

It's always more, and sometimes it feels like I am running on empty.

Like, there is nothing else.

Like I've exhausted every opportunity, I've made the content that I was supposed to make.

No one's following me, no one's believing in me, all this stuff.

There's always more, and I'm so grateful that when I was going through that patch, my now manager, Tywan and Sydne, they saw me there, and as friends were like, "No, you hadn't done all you can do.

There's still more left to do."

And I'd say that to somebody right now, "There's still more left to do.

"If you're finding yourself in that patch, "it's not the end.

"Don't make it the end," I'll say that.

Because it's easy to make it the end.

Don't make it the end.

Whitney: And what an exciting future to see where this can all take him.

♪ I can hear it in the busy New York city streets ♪ ♪ And I can hear it in the country ♪ ♪ Georgia fields of green ♪ ♪ It's something I can't explain ♪ ♪ But it makes me want to cry ♪ [segment music] Sometimes our platforms use pieces from our past to move the dial forward, and our next guest is doing just that with her new movie.

Rebecca Hall's recent film, "Passing," is based on a 1929 novel.

It tells the story of two women who are reacquainted under new pretenses.

One is struggling with her racial identity and hiding her true ethnicity from her husband.

It was like a compulsion.

I couldn't not sit down and write this script.

I finished the book and immediately opened my laptop.

I wrote the first draft of this movie 13, 14 years ago.

The journey of getting from that first draft to screen sort of parallels a huge personal development of my life.

I mean, both sort of professionally and personally and also, it charts the years that I uncovered a history of passing in my own family.

Whitney: Rebecca hopes this film will speak to all people who feel they need to hide who they truly are.

You know, I think the miracle of the book, and I hope comes across in the film, is that there is a universality to it.

You know, she transcends the specificity of a story about racial passing, and really makes it a story about any of the ways in which all of our personal insides don't match up with our outsides.

And I suppose more specifically what I might mean by that is the sort of people that we think we have to be, versus the people that we actually want to be.

Like, how much freedom do we have in that negotiation of our own identity?

Whitney: Living your truth: the movie "Passing" is passing that message on.

There are a lot of passing narratives where there's a character who passes and she, you know, essentially the story criticizes her for doing it and then she's punished in some way.

And I think Nella Larsen is taking that idea, but she's not punishing-- she's not making moral judgment about the person passing as much as she is about the society that makes it necessary.

What's tragic is everybody else in this society who is not performing, but is stuck and can't speak their truth and can't express themselves clearly, and that becomes the critique of the larger society at whole.

Any of these structures that people are living under, these systems, of whether it's racism, white supremacy, the patriarchy, or, you know, a world where you can't express your sexuality or gender or any of these things.

Whitney: Precious is a transgender activist who had a child with her transgender husband.

Together, they are using their platform to write a new story for families, one that is breaking barriers and showing that love can prevail against all odds.

Welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me, Whitney.

I'm glad to be here today.

Well, your story is powerful across the board and it's become your platform.

Tell us a little bit about what makes you, you.

I am a proud, Black trans woman.

I am a wife.

I am a mother.

I am a professional.

I am an author of the recently published book, "I Have Always Been Me," and I am a person who believes that I leave places better than I found them, and I feel like there's so much diversity in my life that is intersectional.

I'm short, I'm left-handed, I'm bi-racial, like, all of these things I feel make my experience so unique.

When did you know that you were going to set out on a different type of path?

When I was 6 years old, I was given up by my biological mother, and I would see her on supervised visits.

And I'll never forget going to see her on a visit and hearing her say that she didn't want me.

Oh.

I knew that she wanted my sister and that she wanted my brother, but she didn't want me.

And I'll never forget leaving that visit, jumping in the back of this car that the social worker had picked us up in, and I remember closing and slamming the door, and I remember looking into the sun saying, "I'm going to show you that I am going to be the biggest person that you've ever seen and that you'll regret that I'm not in your life."

There was just this inner-resilience.

Whitney: As a 6-year-old.

Precious: As a 6-year-old.

Do you think that moment shaped you into transitioning?

I think that, that moment created a resilience that has lived with me my entire life, you know.

And I think after that I was in foster care, and I know lots of foster kids go through that experience because within a matter of minutes often your life can change, and you have to take your life with you.

Right.

And so, I think that, that taught me early in life that transition is inevitable.

And I think that each of us are always in transition in our lives.

And so, I think that there are facets of that, that created who I am today.

Right.

Well, it's interesting because when you were naming off things that describe you, that you don't hear very many Black trans women that are thriving, and why is that?

Because there are so many pervasive stereotypes when it comes to accessing employment, when it comes to accessing housing.

There are so many systemic barriers in place that prevent trans people from thriving.

I think that is really rooted in the stigma of understanding trans folks.

We are human beings like everyone else.

We have hopes, we have dreams, we have fears, and I think it's about creating opportunity for people.

I think when it comes to any kind of diversity, especially marginalized communities, I think we need to be creating opportunity.

And I think for so long the doors have been closed when it comes to opportunity, and I think I've done a lot of kicking and screaming.

Busting down those doors.

Busting down those doors to be heard, to be seen.

And I think that I stand on the shoulders of so many people within the LGBTQ community who came before me.

You know, these great trans women who stood in the face of history and refused to be refused.

That is amazing because you're saying, I'm going to blaze a trail here.

And with that, you've done beyond just blazing a trail for yourself.

You and your husband had a baby.

Tell us about that experience.

So, my husband, Myles Brady-Davis is the love of my life.

We've been married for five years, and our child, she comes out of the love that Myles and I have for each other.

And Myles came from a very stable background growing up.

You know, I grew up in a very dysfunctional family.

I never thought, you know, that family would be something that I would create on my own.

And, once I fell in love with Myles, I knew, and he knew that we wanted to start a family together.

And Myles is transgender as well.

Absolutely.

So, my husband is also trans, and I think that is one of the-- Whitney: And carried the baby.

Precious: Yes.

But I think that is the foundation of our story, you know that two trans people can love each other, and that we are worthy of love, and I think the reason that Myles and I share our story is because we want folks to see the humanity of our lives.

We're married to each other.

We love each other.

We can be parents, we can be professionals, and that we are multiple things.

We are brothers, sisters, right.

Like, all of these multiple things.

And, yes, Myles carried our child beautifully as a trans masculine person.

And I am Zayn's mom.

And it was such a healing experience going through the process of, like, being a parent because, you know, I write in my book "I Have Always Been Me," I went with this reoccurring theme of motherlessness in my life, and I never knew of the feelings of what it would be to become a mother -and to be so nurturing.

-Yes.

And not only did it come full circle, but then, like, now you are in this place of mothering.

Have you gone back to your own mother and said, "Here I am"?

Absolutely.

So, when I was writing my book, I really wanted to understand when I was writing my memoir.

I really wanted to understand because I grew up with so much trauma, and one of the reasons I wrote the book was I wanted to break these cycles of inner-generational trauma.

And for so many years I had so much prejudice against her.

I had so much anger-- -You held onto it.

-that I held onto.

And I think as I was writing my book I started to see, you know, what was underneath all of that.

And one of the things that I learned when writing is, people can't give you what they don't have.

And she didn't have the capacity because she didn't have that kind of love in her life.

She didn't have that to give and-- Such a wise statement.

Thank you.

And that's one of the most things that makes me extremely happy about writing my book, that we now have a relationship because the doors of communication was closed.

And so, we now have a relationship.

What does she-- Yeah, I was going to say, what does she think, and where does she stand with you and love?

My family accepts me.

I have an adoptive family.

I have my biological family.

And both of my families, most of them, not all of the members of my family, I write about that in my book.

You know, one of my grandmothers is extremely outspoken, and one of my sisters is outspoken about my identity as a trans woman, but that's not about me.

That's about them.

But my biological mother is extremely accepting, and I think they've seen this for many years.

And what do you want the world to know about you and your husband and your family and the life you've created?

I want people to see the humanity and the dignity that each of us possess, that we are another kind of diversity.

We're another kind of family.

And as long as love is at the center, I think that we are-- I think we're doing a beautiful thing.

I think we're creating a beautiful future for our daughter and any other children that we might have in our lives.

And you said something before we started taping that I just want to point out because it was beautifully said is, sometimes people can change their identity of like, their past, or I want to change this for my future, and sometimes people look at trans families or people different, and really, it was a change.

I think that we have the right to change.

And I feel just when it comes to trans identity and in particular folks say, "Oh, no, you can't be that.

"You can't change.

There just is only one gender."

No, this is my experience.

This is my life.

In your book, I feel like each chapter is like, "Whoa, here she goes again.

Here she goes again."

And with that, what's upcoming for you?

Yeah, so, I think next in my life, I think it's continuing a career of public service.

So, I see myself advocating for clean water in Illinois.

Well, I think I want to continue using my voice to speak out for issues that I care about strongly.

Oh, I love that.

Well, thank you so much for coming on.

Thank you so much for having me.

[segment music] Our platforms are ever evolving.

Our stories are still being written, and like we say here on the show, that story does matter.

Thanks for joining us today.

[segment music] Announcer: The Whitney Reynolds Show is made possible by... Yates Protect: a minority-owned business focused on protecting communities and providing solutions to safety problems for public and private institutions including air purification, metal detectors, thermal detection, and more.

Safety is a right, not a privilege.

And by, O'Connor Law Firm.

When it comes to your injuries, we take it seriously.

Carrie McCormick, a real estate broker with @Properties.

With more than 20 years of experience, she understands the importance of the customer relationship during your real estate journey.

Theraderm, committed to developing skin products designed to restore and promote natural beauty.

Sciton, because results matter.

Additional funding provided by, Mid-West Moving & Storage, Galileo, The Gumdrop by Delos Therapy, Happy to Meat You, Kevin Kelly with Jameson Sotheby's International Realty, Fresh Dental, Ella's Bubbles, Tutu School Chicago, Hi-Five Sports Camp, and these funders: Announcer: Go beyond the interview with Whitney Reynolds and her 52-week guide of inspiration.

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To get your copy for $12.95 plus shipping and handling, go to whitneyreynolds.com/store and use code PBS.

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Kids: Our mommy.