Strange Fruit: Nick Bowser on Transgender Parenthood; Plus, a Cosmetic Solution to Date Rape?

In many ways, Nick and Bianca Bowser are very typical parents. They have two children; Kai is 3 and Pax is 1. "We are exhausted all the time," Nick laughs. "We both work at a bar, so we both work at night, so there's very little sleep."

The thing that sets this family apart, and has landed them on "The Ricki Lake Show" and in international headlines, is something strangers on the street usually don't even notice: Nick and Bianca are both transgender. Nick was assigned female gender at birth, and Bianca was assigned male. Neither has undergone full surgical transition (partially because it's so expensive), so when they decided to have children, they were able to conceive.*Nick and Bianca are part of our own community right here in Louisville, and Nick stopped by this week to share their story. We were curious about why they chose to go public with their family's story when they otherwise have no problem passing. "We want people who are like us to be able to get help if they need help," he explains. There's a mountain of different issues that trans people have to face, and we feel as thought bringing our story to the public and letting them know, hey, we really are normal, but there's something different about us. We have a family. We've had children. We're the same as everybody else. But we had to face all these other obstacles because  you (as a whole) don't understand who we are, so were  discriminated against because of that.In our Juicy Fruit segment this week, we focus on the so-called anti-date rape nail polish, "Undercover Colors," and how it's been criticized as just another instance of putting the onus on women to prevent rape.

Dr. Story talks about how she teaches her classes about rape and gendered violence, but says college students in general are still woefully uninformed about consent. "They just really have no idea what equals consent, what is actually rape," she says. "A lot of times young people are saying in classes that they don't really even think about consent when they are about to engage in a sex act, period."And, of course, we couldn't let this week go by without delving into Beyoncé's legendary performance on the VMAs, the giant F-word she flashed at the world, and how we still live for her.* If you are completely lost right now, start with GLAAD's Transgender 101.Strange Fruit can now be heard on 89.3 WFPL in Louisville (and live streaming at  wfpl.org) on Saturday nights at 10 p.m.