073. Eli Green: Gender Beyond the Binary

05/11/23 • 71 min

TODAY'S GUEST

Today we're talking about transgender issues.

Specifically, what should the rest of us know about transgender people? This is a topic that I admit I know very little about, but one that feels important at the very least, if one wants to avoid causing unnecessary pain. Language itself seems to be changing when it comes to gender, and while some resistance is natural and no generally agreed upon set of rules has been widely accepted, it's important to understand why these changes are happening and what's behind them.

I can't imagine someone more perfect to talk to about this subject than Dr. Eli Green. Eli is the founder and CEO of the Transgender Training Institute. They are an award winning educator and author with over 20 years facilitating transgender related education and supporting other gender educators. Dr. Green has helped thousands of people have a better understanding of what it means to be transgender and nonbinary and how to support and affirm the transgender and nonbinary people in their lives, workplaces, and communities. Eli brings kindness, patience, and authentic connection to the topic, making the gender conversation one that seems inviting, a place you'd like to be rather than a place to avoid.

We spoke in mid January 2022, and it was really the first time I felt like I had a grasp of what we're talking about. When we talk about gender and transgender rights and challenges.

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this conversation we talk about:

Eli's childhood and early realization on how people are treated differently based on gender.
How Eli recognized they were nonbinary at a young age, but not having the language for it.
Eli's process of coming out as nonbinary is transgender transition, facing discrimination as a nonbinary person, including transphobia and barriers to accessing resources.
The differences between gender and sex and how they are not the same.
The importance of kindness and affirmation for the LGBTQ plus community.
How Cisgendered people can support and advocate for trans rights.
Eli's work with the Transgender Training Institute, which provides education and training on trans issues to businesses, organizations, and government agencies changing hearts and minds, and the need for systemic change to support nonbinary people.
How does religion enter into the picture?
What do most people still need to understand about transgender and non-binary individuals?
What is the significance of the dynamism of language in this area?
Understanding Gender Prejudice

What stayed with me most of all is the ever present need for kindness, the need to make an effort to see things from a different person's perspective. This applies equally to cisgendered folks learning about gender dysphoria, as it does to activists understanding that ignorance does not equal malice. In both cases, the smallest gesture of kindness can open the door to a whole new way of relating and moving forward, in which specific details can be discussed from a place of trust.

We already have lined up for you with thinkers, designers, makers, authors, entrepreneurs, and activists who are working to change our world for the better. We have some amazing episodes lined up for you, answering questions like:

Why is prototyping essential to making truly new things?

What's the value of knowing what you're about and crafting a personal manifesto? How can we find the freedom to think in an increasingly connected world?

So follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app, or head over to RemakePod.org to subscribe. And if you're a subscriber already and enjoy our show, you can go to RemakePod.org/support and join our supporter community.

And now, without further ado, let's jump right in with Dr. Eli Green.

TIMESTAMP CHAPTERS

[5:31] Life in the Present

[6:53] Early Childhood Realizations

[15:56] Coming Out as a Trans

[20:42] Significance, Evolution and Expansion of Labels and Languages

[28:30] Learning Human Sexuality in Academia

[32:07] From Academia to Establishing the Transgender Training Institute

[35:50] The TTI Teaching Pedagogy

[38:37] Success Stories

[42:29] LGBTQ+ Present Issues and Obstacles

[47:33] Alliance vs Friendship

[51:19] Elements of being a Good Ally

[53:04] Gender Pronouns

[57:15] Importance of Being Kind

[01:02:51] Company Design and Structure

[01:09:33] Short Sermon

EPISODE LINKS

Eli's Links
- Dr. Eli Green

TODAY'S GUEST

Today we're talking about transgender issues.

We spoke in mid January 2022, and it was really the first time I felt like I had a grasp of what we're talking about. When we talk about gender and transgender rights and challenges.

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this conversation we talk about:

Eli's childhood and early realization on how people are treated differently based on gender.
How Eli recognized they were nonbinary at a young age, but not having the language for it.
Eli's process of coming out as nonbinary is transgender transition, facing discrimination as a nonbinary person, including transphobia and barriers to accessing resources.
The differences between gender and sex and how they are not the same.
The importance of kindness and affirmation for the LGBTQ plus community.
How Cisgendered people can support and advocate for trans rights.
Eli's work with the Transgender Training Institute, which provides education and training on trans issues to businesses, organizations, and government agencies changing hearts and minds, and the need for systemic change to support nonbinary people.
How does religion enter into the picture?
What do most people still need to understand about transgender and non-binary individuals?
What is the significance of the dynamism of language in this area?
Understanding Gender Prejudice

Why is prototyping essential to making truly new things?

What's the value of knowing what you're about and crafting a personal manifesto? How can we find the freedom to think in an increasingly connected world?

And now, without further ado, let's jump right in with Dr. Eli Green.

TIMESTAMP CHAPTERS

[5:31] Life in the Present

[6:53] Early Childhood Realizations

[15:56] Coming Out as a Trans

[20:42] Significance, Evolution and Expansion of Labels and Languages

[28:30] Learning Human Sexuality in Academia

[32:07] From Academia to Establishing the Transgender Training Institute

[35:50] The TTI Teaching Pedagogy

[38:37] Success Stories

[42:29] LGBTQ+ Present Issues and Obstacles

[47:33] Alliance vs Friendship

[51:19] Elements of being a Good Ally

[53:04] Gender Pronouns

[57:15] Importance of Being Kind

[01:02:51] Company Design and Structure

[01:09:33] Short Sermon

EPISODE LINKS

Eli's Links
- Dr. Eli Green

Previous Episode

055. Tobias Rees: Transforming the Human

TODAY'S GUEST Dr. Tobias Rees is CEO of Transformations of the Human School, and was formerly the William Dawson Chair at McGill University and the Reid Hoffman Professor of Humanities at the Parsons School of Design. He is a Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and holds degrees in philosophy, anthropology, and neurobiology.

In the early 2010s, he recognized that contemporary technology not only disrupts our historical established ways of thinking and doing, but also creates new ones: radically new possibilities that unfold beyond what we take for granted. This, he believes, is not only a sweeping event in the history of thought, but also a major opportunity; technology itself has become philosophical, and it has become possible to “do” philosophy by building and inventing new technologies.

This led him on a path to building a new institution, dedicated to the interplay of philosophy, art, science, and engineering, and to the way they blur the lines between the human and nonhuman.

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this conversation we talk about:

Growing up with no books and few words in a small peasant village in Southern Germany.
The importance and uses of silence which stayed with him ever since.
How he became interested in philosophy, and the big questions after his grandfather's death.
Moving freely from philosophy to comparative religion to anthropology and art history.
The happy accident that led him to studying neurobiology and learning to see himself as a brain.
The importance of concepts in framing our day-to-day experience.
What do terms like human and humanity mean? When were they introduced? How did they evolve?
What is the relationship between nature, humans, and machines?
His work with some of the largest technology companies who are building a future to bring philosophy and art into the room.
Where does creativity lie with AI algorithms like DALL·E 2?
And the need to always reexamine our assumptions about the world and our values.

This conversation with Tobias is one of many weekly conversations we already have lined up for you with thinkers, designers, authors, makers, activists, and leaders who are working to change our world for the better. So follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app, or head over to RemakePod.org to subscribe.

And now let’s jump right in, with Dr. Tobias Rees.

TIMESTAMP CHAPTERS

[5:18] Life in the Present

[7:00] Early Childhood Silence

[13:44] An Educational Journey

[22:49] The Importance of Concepts

[32:04] A Period of Growth and Sadness

[40:47] An Opening of Doors

[44:55] The Term 'Human'

[56:12] Anthropology of Machines

[1:11:35] Merging Philosophy with Engineering

[1:17:55] A Short Sermon

EPISODE LINKS

Tobias' Links
- 🏫 Transformations of the Human (ToftH)
- 🏫 Berggruen Institute
- 🏫 University of California, Berkeley
- 🏫 McGill University
- 🏫 Parsons School of Design | The New School
- 🏫 Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR)
- 💼 LinkedIn: LinkedIn Profile
- 📣 Twitter: @tobias_rees
Other Links
- 📕 The Apology of Socrates by Plato
- 🔬 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
- 👨‍💼 LinkedIn
- 🌎 Cloudera
- 💻 Microsoft
- 🏨 The Beverly Hills Hotel
- 💉 The Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise
- 🌎 Gates ...

Next Episode

054. Jay McClelland: Networks That Learn

TODAY'S GUEST

Jay McClelland is a Computational Cognitive Neuroscientist and one of the founding fathers of the field of neural networks and deep learning in the 1980s, which led directly to today's explosion in AI and machine learning algorithms that are transforming our lives. He is the Lucie Stern Professor at Stanford University, where he was formerly the chair of the psychology department, and is currently a Consulting Research Scientist at DeepMind, perhaps the leader in machine learning technologies today.

Jay is best known for his work on statistical learning and parallel distributed processing, applying connectionist models (or neural networks) to explain cognitive phenomena such as spoken word recognition and visual word recognition. Today, he works on integrating language, memory, and visuospatial cognition in an integrated understanding system to capture human intelligence and enhance artificial intelligence, exploring how education and human-invented tools of thought can enhance human and machine intelligence.

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this conversation we talk about:

Lessons from his youth, where he moved around the world as a child and interacted with different religions and backgrounds, which helped him understand that we are shaped by our contexts and experiences.
His entry into cognitive psychology, and going beyond the laws of behavior into: Why do people behave the way they do?
Building neural networks to model cognition.
His world-changing PDP paper (Parallel Distributed Processing: Explorations in the Microstructure of Cognition), a paper that was published in 1986 and transformed this whole field, and directly led to more and more people embracing the connectionist model and neural networks.
The fact and meaning of bi-directionality in neural networks. What does it mean that information can flow both ways in the same network structure?
Generative models, and in this context, OpenAI's DALL-E 2 algorithm, which can create amazing illustrations and artworks — and should we credit generative or creative algorithms with artistry and give them credit for their art?
Consciousness — does it extend beyond humans and is it something that we may be able to find someday in algorithms?

Talking to Jay really reminded me of the best in mankind, that through curiosity, asking interesting questions, and constructing thought models and experiments, we can unlock such a subtle and fundamental thing like cognition and the connectionist model, which then unlocks all of this power for society at large. We now have this responsibility to reign in the worst of mankind in how we exploit, curate, and share in the benefits of this incredible power. This will be a running topic for us, AI in the future. We explore the power of design and human-centered thinking to create a better future for everyone.

This conversation with Jay is one of many weekly conversations we already have lined up for you with leading authors, thinkers, designers, makers, scientists, and social entrepreneurs who are working to change our world for the better. So follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app, or head over to remakepod.org to subscribe.

And now, let's jump right in with Jay McClelland.

TIMESTAMP CHAPTERS

[7:28] Life in the Present

[9:08] Early Childhood Perspectives

[12:33] A Path to Psychology

[22:16] Modeling Cognition

[27:37] Neural Networks

[35:16] The Significance of Bi-Directionality

[40:21] Bistable Perception

[43:55] The Truth of Mathematics

[49:24] An Emergentist

[55:17] Technology and AI