Amber Rose Discusses Transgender Awareness Month On 'Loveline'
By Rahul Lal
(RADIO.COM) – On the latest episode of Loveline with Amber Rose on CBS Radio's Play.it podcast network (subscribe to the podcast here), Amber and co-host Dr. Chris Donaghue had comedians Krystyna Hutchinson and Corinne Fisher guesting on the show.
Early on, Chris mentioned that November is Transgender Awareness Month, and added that it's a bit ridiculous that a month of awareness is still needed in this decade.
"Psychology recently defined transgenderism as a gender identity disorder," he said disappointingly. "It was a diagnosable disorder. The belief was that if the gender you were diagnosed with at birth is something that you're not comfortable with, there's something wrong with you. I always say, 'Actually, anyone who is born with certain genitals and are told they're a certain gender, which they go along with their whole life, that's the disorder."
Chris said that these are basic things that should be respected, valued and practiced but unfortunately still aren't. One of the most common examples he drew from was the commonality of gender reveal parties when a couple is pregnant.
"You cannot reveal the gender, the child reveals its gender," Chris definitely said. "You cannot determine ahead of time what a child's gender is, we have to wait until a child tells us what their gender is. For you to raise your child in a specific gender is possibly very violent. Assuming your child is straight or a boy or a girl is an assumption you cannot make."
This statement urged Amber to draw on an experience she had recently when she took her son, Sebastian, to get his nails done after he continuously asked to join her. She posted a video of her son's nails and his happiness after getting them done and received a lot of flack but also a lot of positive comments about it.
"I took him with me and sat him down in the pedicure chair," she said. "I was like 'You're going to get your nails done buddy. What color do you want?' He was like 'I want orange' because he likes pumpkins and so I got him orange nails. I posted on social media today and everyone is calling my son a 'faggot' and it's crazy."
While it's hurtful, Amber isn't as sensitive anymore about comments on social media though she still hates seeing hurtful and ignorant things said about her own son. Part of the problem and reason why Transgender Awareness Month is still needed in 2016 is because of comments like the ones she talked about as well as a lack of acceptance in many cultures.
"I knew ignorant a– people were going to do that anyway," she said. "It's cool because it actually starts a conversation. When you start looking through the comments, you see people say 'You're f—ing dumb, what are you talking about? This has nothing to do with sexual orientation; it's just a f—ing color on nails.'"
She went on to say that she sees more conventionally masculine boys come into the nail salons with their mothers and it has nothing to do with their orientation or anything else – it's simply just a preference, and they have the right to choose their own gender regardless of it. Relating the story back to Transgender Awareness Month, Chris stated his hope for it is to ensure that children have the right to choose their own gender rather than being labeled as one because of their sex, orientation or any other potential factor.
"You have to let them emerge and say that," he said referring to gender. "That's what I want to be known during Transgender Awareness Month is that there's high numbers of trans people who are coming out and realizing that and wanting to try to play with the shifting gender. Gender isn't even a real thing anyway but those that want to subscribe to it, we have to allow more space for that."
To hear more about Chris and Amber's thoughts on Transgender Awareness Month as well as issues of sexual education in schools and sexting, listen to the latest episode of Loveline below.
©2016 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All rights reserved.