Trans Soup: Advocacy, Outreach, and Croutons

Want some croutons with that soup? Trans Soup is an all-encompassing advocacy and outreach community that gives voice to the LGBTQ experience. Joni Cromer and Ann Neubauer-Brown began the coalition in March of 2022.

Origins

“We met at a transgender support group during COVID, and we wanted to create something coming out of COVID that would be positive, that would lead a positive spin on the Trans community,” Cromer told Lavender Magazine.

Trans Soup posts information to advocate and guide queer, trans folx, and allies through podcasts, conversation, public speaking, booths at pride, social media, and small videos called Croutons. 

“We felt like we needed to do something because in 2020, during the pandemic, everyone’s sitting on their butts wondering how to make the world better, well that was my experience anyway, but Joni and I were of like minds, so we decided, what’s within our scope of talents? Joni is good at talking to people and being extroverted, and I’m creative. So, we decided to band together and just have some fun at our normal pace, which is fairly casual,” Neubauer-Brown said. 

What is Trans Soup?

“Trans soup is for the entire LGBTQ+ community, we are advocates of the queer community, that umbrella that covers everybody, and we want to make sure that we include everybody, and we have with our podcast,” Cromer said

Some special guests on recent podcast episodes include Farmer Joe and Pastor Cindy.

Farmer Joe is a trans farmer who educates the public about cultivating crops and raising animals such as chickens and worms. Pastor Cindy is a lesbian woman of God who came out at a time when being gay was widely unaccepted. Trans Soup allows individuals in the LGBTQ community to speak out and spread their interests and knowledge, letting the public know that they exist and it is okay.

“The common thread through everybody that we’re talking to is everybody, in their own way, just by being who they are or doing what they do, are advocates for the LGBTQ+ community,” Neubauer-Brown said.

Outreach and Impact

According to both Cromer and Neubauer-Brown, they felt an intense drive to advocate for the trans community due to the current political climate and pushback toward the community. The duo attended a trans conference through the University of Colorado Boulder this past March to present a talk on the future of the transgender community.

Around 400 people attended the Trans Soup talk in Colorado. Neubauer-Brown says the youth contribute curiosity and wonder to each event they grace.

“There are so many trans and non-binary people coming out and exploring this and having the language for it, now. I look at that generation and think you folx are amazing. I love watching what they’re doing,” they said.

“Myself, as a trans elder, 64, the younger folx look up to us, and they’re kind of looking for direction at this point in time. I don’t want to leave them high and dry. So often, in our transgender community, people transition, and three to five years out of their transition, they just want to blend in, and they just want to be,” Cromer mentioned that Trans Soup provides that sacred space.

Cromer shared a touching moment shared between her and an attendee at the Boulder talk.

“One of the people said, ‘I never thought that I would make it to your age,’ which is 64, ‘and what that would like. This was encouraging to know that there is life at an older age.’ This was a 25-year-old saying, wow, to mature and be yourself throughout life and go through your senior years as queer, it’s encouraging,” Cromer shared.

Difficult Topics

Although Trans Soup blends humor into content, they focus on a range of complex discussion topics. For example, a recent podcast episode hosted Joni and Ann’s friend who survived conversion therapy.

An important part of Trans Soup is opening the conversation to the public.

“We want to be a platform, a space where other people’s experience and creativity can have a chance to show,” Neubauer-Brown said. “We open it up because we want the majority of the conversation to be from the people who are there. We want to hear from them. We want to hear their stories. It’s not just us talking to people. We hear amazing things. We were in Colorado, and people were bringing up topics that we hadn’t thought of. Firearms were mentioned.”

Neubauer said this country has too many firearms, which can put trans folx at risk, but “the flipside of that is more trans folx are getting firearms because it’s a scary world out there, and we want to protect ourselves.”

Thanks to the conversation aspect of Trans Soup, many difficult topics are expressed and illuminated that otherwise would be silenced. 

Croutons

One of the quirky parts of Trans Soup is the croutons. A popular ingredient to add to soup is croutons. To Trans Soup, Croutons are podcasts, videos, short sketches, or fun tidbits that go in the overarching soup.

When Joni and her wife Wendy brainstormed names for Trans Soup, they sifted through over 300 choices until landing upon the current namesake. The name perfectly embodies the group since they don’t focus on one advocacy tactic.

“You can put anything you want in a soup. We’re not locked in with that name. It’s a little of everything,” Neubauer-Brown said.

Moving Forward

Trans Soup looks forward to setting up a booth at Northfield Pride At The Park and West St. Paul Pride this summer, as well as their first booth at Twin Cities Pride. 

“A voice together is a voice much stronger, and politically we need that voice together at this point in time,” Cromer said.

For more information on Trans Soup, visit www.facebook.com/TransSoup/. To listen to the podcast, visit, www.soundcloud.com/trans-soup