Are you the same person today as you are when you registered to vote?
Central Florida Public Media and StoryCorps are bringing together strangers with differing political views for guided One Small Step conversations. Zander Keig, 58, is a center-right transsexual man.
“I love having conversations with people who have different opinions from me, who have had different life experiences from me, where we might have some connections,” Keig said.
Keig sat down for a conversation with 66-year-old Oviedo resident Dave Shine. Shine is a former Republican who has a transgender son.
Shine is also a member of the Unitarian Universalists church.
“We believe in the inherent worth and dignity of all people,” Shine said. “And that means that we try, as best we can, to have conversations like this, without judgment. No trying to persuade or anything. Simply to learn.”
Meet Zander Keig
Zander Keig is a first-generation Mexican-American raised as an only child in Southern California by a single father.
He works as a licensed clinical social worker, currently doing corporate training. At age 39, he transitioned to live socially as a man, but “acknowledge my natal sex as female.”
Keig said he’s glad he transitioned later in life, because if he’d been younger, he might have been drawn into the “drama” of the activist world.
“My family was completely on board, which I think surprises people, because it is a Mexican Catholic family, but they were very accepting of me as a lesbian prior to my transition,” Keig said.
Politically, Keig said he started off registering with the Green party, and was with them for decades. His wife suggested he register with a major party in Florida because of the closed primary system.
“And I thought, well, I mean: I don't know that I'm a Republican, because I'm part of the LGBT community,” Keig said. “For some reason, it just didn't feel like it was the right one.”
So he registered as a Democrat. But when all the “chaos” came out in 2016 around Bernie Sanders and the Democratic National Committee, he left the party and became an independent.
“I just was disgusted,” Keig said. “I keep my registration as an independent until it's time to vote in the primary. More recently, I would register as a Republican, vote in the primary, and then go back to the independent party.”
Meet Dave Shine
Dave Shine has been a software engineer for his entire adult life, and is on the edge of retirement.
He’s been married for 42 years, and has three children. Shine said his wife has been a huge influence in his life, including introducing him to the Unitarian Universalists church, which has helped shape his politics.
Another influence on his life was watching his father care for his mother, who ultimately died of dementia. Towards the end, his father would go to the nursing home twice a day to feed her.
Shine remembers going up to help him move.
“We were unloading [the truck], and then all of a sudden we say, well, where's Dad?” Shine said. “He went to the nursing home to feed mom in the middle of moving.”
When Shine first registered to vote, he signed up as a Republican. He said he’s waiting for the day the party comes back to him.
“They didn't get all involved in people's personal lives,” Shine said. “They were concerned about fiscal responsibility and smaller government and those types of things. I don't particularly want the city of Oviedo to privatize their police department, but there's things in the federal government that … the private sector could do better.”
Shine has two daughters and a transgender son. One of the issues that drove him from the Republican party was LGBTQ rights.
“Basically my problem with the Republican Party is all the below-the-belt issues,” Shine said.
The Takeaway
Shine asked Keig what he thought about the current legislative environment for trans rights in Florida - because he views Florida as “not the friendliest state.”
Keig said he gets his transition medical services from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Changes to Florida law requiring people to see a doctor, and not a nurse practitioner for care, didn’t impact him - he already saw an endocrinologist annually and had to regularly fill out informed consent.
Keig also doesn’t support minors having access to puberty blockers or surgeries. But there are areas he disagrees with lawmakers.
“Technically, I'm supposed to go to the women's bathroom if I'm in the library or the airport or a courthouse - you know, some government building,” Keig said. “And I always used the men's bathroom. I just figured the women wouldn't want me in their bathroom.”
Shine laughed at that.
“I say the same thing about my son,” Shine said. “If my son walked into a women's bathroom, people would be screaming.”
Keig said he had offered to talk to several conservative lawmakers about the issue, but didn’t hear back. “And it was crickets. No response at all. None.”
Another tough issue Shine and Keig discussed was transgender athletes in sports. Keig said he views it as a competition of rights, from the female athletes and from the transgender athletes.
“I think that there are valid arguments on both sides, and so it's going to have to make its way probably through our courts,” Keig said.
“That's a very sticky issue,” Shine said. “I'm very torn on that one too, but I do know that there's no biological males in high school putting on dresses so they can play women's sports. That's the way it's sometimes painted in our society.”
Keig agreed that issues around gender are being used for political gain. Ultimately, Keig said he hopes people can turn down the rhetoric and the polarization.
“I think they're driving a message that is meant to create polarization, and I wish they would stop that,” Keig said.
Shine agreed.
“It really bothers me that it became acceptable to insult your opponent before you even tried to make a point,” Shine said. “And I guess, quite honestly, I hope that I continue to live in a democracy and not a dictatorship.”
“Absolutely I agree,” Keig said. “And not communism, right?”
