Speaker 1: Trans people were more visible post Orange and New Black.
Speaker 1: We had transparent Caitlyn Jenner a year after I was
Speaker 1: in the cover Time magazine choosing the cover Vanity Fair
Speaker 1: and Caitlyn's transition wise international news in a way that
Speaker 1: shook the world.
Speaker 2: And we had a few.
Speaker 1: Good years of progress, like more, a little more representation,
Speaker 1: more influencers, more trans people feeling comfortable coming out.
Speaker 2: And this is the inevitable backlash to that.
Speaker 3: Hi everyone, I'm Kittie Couric, and this is next question
Speaker 3: Laverne Cox. I'm so happy to see you again. I've
Speaker 3: run into you on a couple of occasions, but I'm
Speaker 3: always so thrilled and delighted to talk to you because
Speaker 3: I learned so much from you every time we meet.
Speaker 3: And I thought we should probably give a quick synopsis
Speaker 3: of our backstorre because for people who are listening or watching,
Speaker 3: you and I met Gosh. I think it was in
Speaker 3: twenty thirteen. Perhaps, yeah, it was twenty thirteen. I think
Speaker 3: we shot the show. I feel like it was the
Speaker 3: day before Thanksgiving. Wow, I know I remember because I
Speaker 3: had just gotten back shooting a documentary called Free CC,
Speaker 3: and i'd just gone back from Saint Cloud, Minnesota, and
Speaker 3: I visited CC in prison. She's a trans woman who
Speaker 3: was incarcerated at the time, and I was shooting Oranges
Speaker 3: a New Black, and it was the story I wanted
Speaker 3: to cover before I booked Oranges and New Black. It
Speaker 3: was for a show called In the Life that was
Speaker 3: a PBS show. We're going to do a segment on CC.
Speaker 1: And then they lost their funding, and then I booked
Speaker 1: Orange and I was like, I think we may have
Speaker 1: an opportunity to tell CC's story because of this show.
Speaker 2: And then it happened.
Speaker 1: And so I had just gone back from Saint Cloud, Minnesota,
Speaker 1: and I've been doing a college lecture tour. So that time, though,
Speaker 1: I just think about all the stats that I listed
Speaker 1: because I was doing I was triving the country like,
Speaker 1: so all of that was fresh in my mind. So
Speaker 1: everything I said on the show, I'd been saying on
Speaker 1: the road. So I remember all of that. And I
Speaker 1: also remember that Todd was your booking agent at the time,
Speaker 1: and he emailed me directly and he told me, I
Speaker 1: don't know why I remember. I know why I remember this.
Speaker 1: He emailed me directly and said, we do come on
Speaker 1: the show.
Speaker 2: Karma Career.
Speaker 1: It is going to be on and then I was
Speaker 1: like absolutely. And then he's like, we were so sad
Speaker 1: you were unavailable the first time. And I was like,
Speaker 1: what do you mean, Kate, because you'd had a few
Speaker 1: other people from Orang John earlier in your season, think
Speaker 1: in September Jason and I think I'm Taylor and tats
Speaker 1: it your Katie's favorite character.
Speaker 2: And I was like what.
Speaker 1: And I hadn't heard anything about like not being available,
Speaker 1: and I was just like Netflix and asked me, you
Speaker 1: know about any of this, and so I was just
Speaker 1: sort of like, Okay, that's weird.
Speaker 2: And so I remember that.
Speaker 1: But then what is so beautiful about it is that
Speaker 1: I think things happened way they were supposed to.
Speaker 3: Can I talk about how the show went, because I
Speaker 3: think it's so important and you really saved my bacon
Speaker 3: in many ways. So this is what happened everyone. We
Speaker 3: had Carmen Carrera on, she's a trans woman, wanted to
Speaker 3: be the first Victoria's Secret Model, and.
Speaker 2: There was a petition.
Speaker 1: I've changed that org petition to make sure that first
Speaker 1: trans Victoria's Secret Model.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I had not done I had had little exposure.
Speaker 3: I would say, I mean probably more than the average
Speaker 3: place you had interviewed.
Speaker 2: I mean, you had interviewed a number of trans children, transfers.
Speaker 3: Right right, right, I think I had done one other
Speaker 3: show on that, and Carmen came on and she was lovely,
Speaker 3: and I asked a really dumb question. I asked, what
Speaker 3: is happening? I'm embarrassed. I'm embarrassed even admit this. Now,
Speaker 3: what is going on with your private part? You said
Speaker 3: you have different private parts? Now I'll never forget it. Okay,
Speaker 3: all right, all right, okay, like I'm praying.
Speaker 1: All so it's twenty twenty five, Like, how do you like,
Speaker 1: how do you feel like? I mean, you can't even
Speaker 1: say it now, so like now, like, how do you
Speaker 1: feel like all these years later?
Speaker 3: Oh my god? Well, clearly I'm embarrassed, of course, and
Speaker 3: I was also embarrassed at the time, but this was
Speaker 3: my thinking. I asked this an appropriate question, intrusive in
Speaker 3: every way, and Carmen understandably rejected that question appropriately. Later
Speaker 3: you came on and we talked about it and talked
Speaker 3: about her reaction to the question and why that was
Speaker 3: so offensive. And I learned a tremendous amount from you,
Speaker 3: and you were incredibly loving and gracious about it, and
Speaker 3: my producers came to me later and said, do you
Speaker 3: want to cut that question out that you asked Carmen. Now,
Speaker 3: I've often thought about this, what I have done this again?
Speaker 3: But I said, do you know I'm a relatively well
Speaker 3: read person. I consider myself super open minded. If I
Speaker 3: ask a dumb question like that, or I want other
Speaker 3: people to understand why that's an offensive question, So I
Speaker 3: don't mind making me look clueless if it's instructive to
Speaker 3: the general population, So I say keep it in. It
Speaker 3: will be useful for people. It'll be a teachable moment.
Speaker 3: It was for me and hopefully it will be for
Speaker 3: people watching. Well after that episode ran the condemnation and
Speaker 3: the fury was unleashed social media. At the time, I
Speaker 3: guess it was primarily Twitter. It was horrible because I
Speaker 3: was so attacked and I knew there was a lot
Speaker 3: of anger and hurt in the trans community that I
Speaker 3: had asked that clueless question. I kind of tried to
Speaker 3: explain my thought process and keeping it in because it
Speaker 3: was taped, it wasn't live, and later I ended up
Speaker 3: doing a documentary to educate myself and to go on
Speaker 3: a journey of learning and discovery for myself that I
Speaker 3: hope would help other people learn and discover through it all. Laverne,
Speaker 3: you were so kind and compassionate to me and understanding.
Speaker 3: In fact, a few years after that, you presented me
Speaker 3: with an award for that documentary, and I also was
Speaker 3: recognized by Family Equality, an organization that supports all different
Speaker 3: kinds of faith.
Speaker 1: Your Revolution is the name of the documentary. Yes, promote it.
Speaker 1: It's really wonderful.
Speaker 3: It was quite a journey for me, but you were
Speaker 3: a constant throughout that journey, and I just so appreciate
Speaker 3: you and your support as a result of that situation,
Speaker 3: And so I think now I am quite educated about
Speaker 3: trans issues. I consider myself a proud ally of the
Speaker 3: trans community, and I wanted to have you on this
Speaker 3: podcast because I have been so upset about what's happening
Speaker 3: to so many people in our country, and to prepare
Speaker 3: for this, I asked my team to get a copy
Speaker 3: of your cover on Time magazine June ninth, twenty fourteen,
Speaker 3: so eleven years ago, almost to talk to you about
Speaker 3: what's happening, what has changed, and really to kind of
Speaker 3: explore why I thought it was so interesting that the
Speaker 3: transgender tipping point is what the cover said, America's next
Speaker 3: civil rights frontier. And I was so excited to see
Speaker 3: you on the cover of Time, and I thought it
Speaker 3: was such an important cultural moment. What do you think
Speaker 3: has happened, Laverne?
Speaker 1: There's I mean, there's so much there. First of all,
Speaker 1: before we get to why we're here. And I have
Speaker 1: a lot of theories and I think you know empirical
Speaker 1: data about how we got here. But over the years,
Speaker 1: I've cited our friendship, your evolution, your willingness to be
Speaker 1: uncomfortable publicly, as a really important example of transformation that
Speaker 1: so often, particularly in the environment there we're in now,
Speaker 1: with predatory algorithms, with the profit motive having us sort
Speaker 1: of Atajose throats instead of in a space where where
Speaker 1: we can be educated and teachable, and we have so
Speaker 1: few examples of people having transformations where they truly become allies.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know you were making gender revolution. So
Speaker 1: when I found out that the documentary was done, I
Speaker 1: think I got an email or something.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh my God, Like she's really serious, Like.
Speaker 1: So she's not only because if you recall, it'd be
Speaker 1: the episode aired. I don't know why I remember all
Speaker 1: these details. The episode aired on a Monday. It's the
Speaker 1: first Monday of January.
Speaker 3: And it was I think it aired on my birthday, the.
Speaker 1: First Monday in January twenty fourteen. And then on Fridays
Speaker 1: you were having like a talk back, and so you
Speaker 1: talked about the backlash and how it was a teachable moment.
Speaker 1: And then like June, I think was after the time
Speaker 1: magazine covery, you had me back and we had seen
Speaker 1: each other at a few events, and we kind of
Speaker 1: remember being at the time one hundred and going to
Speaker 1: like a little corner and chatting about how hard it
Speaker 1: had been to receive that backlash and what was different
Speaker 1: about I think what's really really important for people to
Speaker 1: understand is that up until that moment, it was acceptable
Speaker 1: for interviewers to ask trans people about their genitalia, their surgeries,
Speaker 1: and their transitions, and it was to rigor actually on
Speaker 1: television talkships. I had been doing a presentation for a
Speaker 1: few years where I looked at the history of TV
Speaker 1: talk shows starting with Christine Jorgensen, and how the narrative
Speaker 1: about trans people had sort of developed from Christine Jorgensen
Speaker 1: into you know to like twenty twelve or so, and
Speaker 1: every single talk show Christine Jorgenson's story was so much
Speaker 1: about surgery and it was just acceptable Renee Richards, but
Speaker 1: every sing if you look at all these talk shows,
Speaker 1: and we have a little bit of this in Disclosure
Speaker 1: our documentary. Everyone asked about Genitalia. Even I noted an
Speaker 1: Oprah moment, and I live for Oprah, Live for Oprah.
Speaker 2: So there's not a criticism of Oprah.
Speaker 1: But a woman named Kimberly Reid Kimberly Reed Prodigal Son.
Speaker 1: She's an editor and documentary filmmaker. She had directed a
Speaker 1: film about her life story called Prodigal Sons, and in
Speaker 1: the telling of her own story as a filmmaker, the
Speaker 1: only thing she said about her transition is that it
Speaker 1: was like a second puberty. But when she was on
Speaker 1: the Oprah Winfrey Show, Oprah added that she had therapy,
Speaker 1: she had gender reassignment surgery. She added that because it's
Speaker 1: for Oprah at the time, it's like, this is what
Speaker 1: people want to know. People are curious, and we have
Speaker 1: to clarify, like what's going on in people's pants, because
Speaker 1: that's what people want to know. And what I theorized
Speaker 1: at the time is that even when there is a
Speaker 1: humanized and it was a very humanizing interview because that's
Speaker 1: what Oprah does, but even a humanized interview is undercut
Speaker 1: when we focus on surgery and transition, that the audience
Speaker 1: is like, oh my god, you know what happens in
Speaker 1: that surgery if it comes to humanizing, because that becomes
Speaker 1: the takeaway for audiences and it leads to a kind
Speaker 1: of misinformation, and so so much of how we've gotten
Speaker 1: here now is a lot of misinformation, but that we
Speaker 1: still haven't even with the work that you and I
Speaker 1: have done other trans people have done, a lot of
Speaker 1: journalists since then have not been going there. The right
Speaker 1: wing has done a really really good job of reducing
Speaker 1: trans people to medicalization and dehumanizing us like this, it's
Speaker 1: a dehumanizing process and they've done it in a lot of
Speaker 1: different ways right. So specifically, if we look back at
Speaker 1: twenty I think twenty sixteen was the big moment with
Speaker 1: HB two in North Carolina that infamously the bathroom bill
Speaker 1: that attempted to ban trans people from bathrooms. Well it
Speaker 1: did ban bathrooms to North Carolina. That bill was fought,
Speaker 1: it ended up being overturned there.
Speaker 3: The NBA said that they wouldn't play games there.
Speaker 1: Right, there was a movement where businesses in Ncuba, all
Speaker 1: these athletic groups divested from North Carolina and they were like,
Speaker 1: this is bad for business. So they were like, we're
Speaker 1: not going to do this. And bathroom bills had been
Speaker 1: tried and attempted in other states too. After marriage equality
Speaker 1: became the law the land, the Republican think tanks like
Speaker 1: mainly like Alliance Defending Freedom focus grouped trans issues and
Speaker 1: what issue will sort of galvanize or outrage Americans most,
Speaker 1: and it was transluple in sports. And so in twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen we saw the first anti trans girls in sports
Speaker 1: bill introduced are forgetting what state. It didn't pass, but
Speaker 1: the next year they introduced in another state and it
Speaker 1: did pass. And what we should know about this all
Speaker 1: the anti trans legislation now hath the country bands trans
Speaker 1: girls from sports. There is a national band now because
Speaker 1: of this current administration through executive order and some people
Speaker 1: are resisting, but all the executive words.
Speaker 2: Are being folded in the courts. We should all know.
Speaker 2: But sports was the gateway.
Speaker 1: They were like fairness and it was also in the
Speaker 1: language that they used. They language that they used is
Speaker 1: not trans women or trans girls in sports. It's biological
Speaker 1: men competing against girls. So it's not even like boys
Speaker 1: against girls, it's biological men. So the language again becomes dehumanizing,
Speaker 1: it's miss gendering, and so it's been a really effective
Speaker 1: propaganda campaign to dehumanize trans people. Say it's not fair,
Speaker 1: you know, trans people in sports, when now we know
Speaker 1: there's there's less than one hundred trans athletes in the
Speaker 1: country and the NC doublea of fifteen of or fifteen hundred,
Speaker 1: I think trans athletes there's less than ten, right, So
Speaker 1: we're talking about like trans people are less than one
Speaker 1: percent of the population, and trans people actually playing sports
Speaker 1: there's even fewer. There's this really genius. It just lives
Speaker 1: free in my head. He was the governor of West
Speaker 1: Virginia being interviewed by Stephanie will in MSNBC. He signed
Speaker 1: a sports bandage and he was like, you know, we
Speaker 1: don't want people taking advantage. You know this bill and dules,
Speaker 1: can you cite anybody you know taking advantage? Because the
Speaker 1: theory is like anybody can say that there are trans
Speaker 1: and then compete and dominate, you know, women's sports.
Speaker 2: He could name an example.
Speaker 1: And so there's laws being passed anti sports bands being
Speaker 1: passed in states with no known trans athletes. Maybe there's
Speaker 1: one trans athlete two who The right wing is really
Speaker 1: good at making something an issue that isn't an issue
Speaker 1: and then fear mongering around it and then making law
Speaker 1: and policy around it. And people say often say it's
Speaker 1: a distraction, and I don't think it's a distraction.
Speaker 2: Took part of their overall agenda.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, the big piece is that, I mean,
Speaker 1: we saw it with critical race theory, for example, and
Speaker 1: it's always a backlash. So I think that, like if
Speaker 1: we just stay on trans folks, we had a transiter
Speaker 1: tipping point right, trans people were more visible post Orange
Speaker 1: and New Black. We had transparent Caitlyn Jenner a year
Speaker 1: after I was in the cover Time magazine choosing the
Speaker 1: cover Vanity Fair and Caitlyn's transition was international news in
Speaker 1: a way that shook the world.
Speaker 2: And we had a few.
Speaker 1: Good years of progress, like more a little more representation,
Speaker 1: more influencers, more trans people feeling comfortable coming out. And
Speaker 1: this is the inevitable backlash to that. Whenever I think
Speaker 1: CRT emerged the year after critical rights theory emerged. The
Speaker 1: year after Black Lives Matter, the biggest, the largest mass
Speaker 1: protests in like American history, and that happened in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: The next year, CRT is something that most of us
Speaker 1: had never even heard of, becomes the talk of America
Speaker 1: and the target and the target right. And so there
Speaker 1: is a really well funded, relentless right wing through the
Speaker 1: through thing thanks like Alliance Defending Freedom. They're at the
Speaker 1: heart of a lot of the anti abortion, anti LGBTQ
Speaker 1: plus legislation. They write a lot of the legislation. Sometimes
Speaker 1: state legislators copy their legislation verbatim. Alliance Defending Freedom and
Speaker 1: they started as an anti LGBTQ organization, but they've literally
Speaker 1: been at the Supreme Courts arguing against abortion, against gay rights,
Speaker 1: trans rights. They're really well did a lot and their
Speaker 1: global organization obviously they've worked with Heritage Foundation and all
Speaker 1: these other thing tanks as well. And if you read
Speaker 1: a document like Project twenty twenty five, so much of
Speaker 1: the agenda is this Christian nationalist agenda that's returned to
Speaker 1: traditional values. There's a unitary executive theory which is sort
Speaker 1: of about power.
Speaker 3: And you know sort of executive branch.
Speaker 1: The executive branch is stripping away the deep state and all,
Speaker 1: and we see that happening right that I think they're
Speaker 1: like forty nine percent completed.
Speaker 2: If there's a project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: Track, Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think they're like.
Speaker 1: Forty nine percent the last time I checked. So it's
Speaker 1: part of like this Christian nationalist agenda. But there is
Speaker 1: this wonderful quote Jason Stanley, who has written a lot
Speaker 1: of wonderful books, but he's an expertal fascism. He wrote
Speaker 1: with specifically how fascism works. And actually just yesterday I
Speaker 1: was watching an interview with him and Chris Hedges and
Speaker 1: he said something that.
Speaker 2: Really it was like I need to write this down.
Speaker 1: And he said that whatever they target are the conceptual
Speaker 1: resources you need to see what's going on. Whatever they're
Speaker 1: targeting are the conceptual resources that you need to see
Speaker 1: what's going on. For example, the book bands right, so
Speaker 1: much of what fascism and when he talks about fascism,
Speaker 1: he talks about propaganda, misinformation. He lists he gives like
Speaker 1: ten components of it, and any one of these can
Speaker 1: exist without fascism.
Speaker 2: But when they all exist.
Speaker 1: We're talking about fascism, and so rewriting history, for example,
Speaker 1: is a huge part of that. All the books that
Speaker 1: are being banned, any history that might make white people
Speaker 1: feel scared or guilty about their past. All the book banning,
Speaker 1: I mean, banning Tony Morrison for example. It's just seems
Speaker 1: so egregious. But a lot of this, you know, Texasts
Speaker 1: in Florida have been like the kind of you know,
Speaker 1: incubators for a lot of the things that we're seeing
Speaker 1: on a federal level now. But banning books and changing
Speaker 1: history and our access to information is a huge part
Speaker 1: of this. And when he had a press conference to
Speaker 1: Santis banning AP African American history several years I think
Speaker 1: was twenty twenty two, he said, you know, they're not
Speaker 1: teaching AP African American history. They're trying to indoctrinate our children.
Speaker 1: They're throwing in things like, you know, prison abolition and
Speaker 1: queer theory. I mean, what does queer theory have to
Speaker 1: do with AP African American history? And then I'm sitting here,
Speaker 1: I sit there as like a black trans woman from
Speaker 1: the South, and I'm like, can I immediately think about
Speaker 1: Buyer Rustin who a lot of people now know because
Speaker 1: of the film. And I'm like, well, by a resident
Speaker 1: organized the legendary marsh on Washington, where Martin Luther King
Speaker 1: made that I have a dream speech that is often
Speaker 1: referenced by a Rustin was a gay man, and I
Speaker 1: think if you're teaching an African American history class, you
Speaker 1: kind of have to talk about the march on Washington,
Speaker 1: and so then you kind of need to talk about
Speaker 1: who organize it.
Speaker 2: And I was a gay man, and that's.
Speaker 1: And he was queer, So like queer theory like comes
Speaker 1: in because of intersectionality. And then literally in the next
Speaker 1: sentence he says, they're me including things like intersectionality.
Speaker 2: What does that have to do with anything? I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: that's the answer.
Speaker 1: So again, the things that they are attacking are the
Speaker 1: things that we actually need to understand what's going on.
Speaker 1: Because I know that I can't understand my life fully
Speaker 1: in its complexity if I only look through a gender lens.
Speaker 1: I can't understand it effectively. If I only look through
Speaker 1: a race lens or a class lens. I understand my
Speaker 1: life as a trans woman, as a transoman of color
Speaker 1: from a working class background who has raised religious who's
Speaker 1: an artist. There is an intersectional there's intersecting identities that
Speaker 1: are affected through power that help me understand not only
Speaker 1: my life but the world around me and how power works. Right,
Speaker 1: And so these are the things they want to ban
Speaker 1: because they don't want people to have an intersectional understanding.
Speaker 1: They don't want an educated population. I mean funding the
Speaker 1: Apartment of Education is there's a lot of reasons why
Speaker 1: they're doing that. Obviously a lot of it is about
Speaker 1: not wanting people to be educated, but I'll say, you
Speaker 1: want to privatize and make a lot of money. So
Speaker 1: the combination of like this predatory capitalism with miseducating people
Speaker 1: and other risings and other rising them us versus them
Speaker 1: as another component of fascism. But trans, when I think
Speaker 1: about that, then I'm like, trans people really are if
Speaker 1: we think about how, because I think trans people are beautiful.
Speaker 1: I started the hashtag trans is beautiful in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: It's been like millions of people have since used it.
Speaker 1: But we transiople in so many ways are really the
Speaker 1: answer to a lot of the gender stuff. If we
Speaker 1: look at the lived experiences of trans people, the reality
Speaker 1: of trans people through history, that there are different choices
Speaker 1: we can make around gender, and that's so much about
Speaker 1: what feminism has always been about, that we can make
Speaker 1: different choices as women. But another thing about fascism is
Speaker 1: that equality becomes a threat to the dominant group. The
Speaker 1: dominant group sees equality as oppression, and so then that
Speaker 1: has to be suppressed. So trans people, in so many
Speaker 1: ways are like, if I can live my life on
Speaker 1: my own terms and defind my gender on my own
Speaker 1: terms and be the person I want to be, anybody
Speaker 1: can do it right. And it's not easy. It's not
Speaker 1: like I haven't. There have been obstacles there. They have
Speaker 1: tons of policing of my gender, trying to make me
Speaker 1: a boy or a man, and all that stuff, and
Speaker 1: the ridicule and the physical violence and discrimination, all of
Speaker 1: that was real. But the joy on the other side
Speaker 1: despite all of that is incredible, like being true to
Speaker 1: who you are. So many of us, I think women
Speaker 1: who date straight men, I see so many of them
Speaker 1: in prisons. I see so many of them imprisoned by
Speaker 1: this idea of who they're supposed to be as that's
Speaker 1: not liberatory, that's like still based in domination, and so
Speaker 1: much of the anger. I think that when we see
Speaker 1: the MANI sphere on the Internet, these guys who are
Speaker 1: like pissed off at women and feminism, and they're pissed
Speaker 1: off because the world has told them that they should
Speaker 1: be on top.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: They're raised to think that they should be providers and
Speaker 1: that women should be subserving it. Every boy is not
Speaker 1: raised that way, but the culture reinforces it, and then
Speaker 1: wages don't keep up with inflation. Most jobs have been
Speaker 1: shipped overseas, so they actually can't afford to be that
Speaker 1: bread winner, to be that patriarch that they've been told
Speaker 1: that they're supposed to be, and they're frustrated and they
Speaker 1: want someone to blame. And instead of being educated enough
Speaker 1: to blame predatory capitalism, corporations that have shipped jobs overseas,
Speaker 1: depleted manufacturing unions being just you know, death made it,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. Let's blame immigrants, let's blame trans people,
Speaker 1: let's blame women. And that's what fascism does. I think
Speaker 1: it's so important to call it fascism too, because when
Speaker 1: we don't, it's like we're equivocating and the fear. I
Speaker 1: love what Jason Stanley and this is another note that
Speaker 1: I made about Jason Stanley in his book How Fascism Works,
Speaker 1: names ten components the mythic passed. Right, So make America
Speaker 1: great again. There was a time when America was wonderful.
Speaker 1: There's a time when Germany was wonderful, and we should
Speaker 1: return to that. Many people have asked Trump when it
Speaker 1: was America great. Now he's saying, it's.
Speaker 2: The Gilded Age. Girl. He's like, you've heard me. You're aware,
Speaker 2: so you've heard.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've heard him talk about how we were
Speaker 1: just so everybody was rich during the Guilded Age. I'm like,
Speaker 1: everybody wasn't rich, girl, Like there are about ten people
Speaker 1: who were rich and the rest of us were, like
Speaker 1: it was child labor and tenement housing. But he's been
Speaker 1: talking about the Guilded Age. Propaganda, the misinformation like that
Speaker 1: pivotal to a fascist state. We see that everywhere, and
Speaker 1: the extent to which they just lie to us, and
Speaker 1: they can with impunity because there's a whole media equosystem
Speaker 1: that's not challenging them. Right, So that way, Steve and
Speaker 1: Miller basically said that nine zero Supreme Court decision was
Speaker 1: actually in their favor, right, like that they would get
Speaker 1: up and lie about that that they blatantly lie about
Speaker 1: just kind of everything at this point, anti intellectualism on
Speaker 1: reality again lies steals like hierarchy, hierarchy again, I'm talking
Speaker 1: about that dominant class, that there is a dominant class,
Speaker 1: that there's you know, men are better, Whites are better,
Speaker 1: you know than Jews, you know historically, but like that hierarchy, right,
Speaker 1: and that like white men should be in let hararky,
Speaker 1: And if you read probably twenty twenty five, it sort
Speaker 1: of talks about God man patriarch in the family and
Speaker 1: those two first and then women and.
Speaker 3: Right and women need to have more children and stay at.
Speaker 1: Home exactly, victimhood and victimhood of the dominant class. Right,
Speaker 1: all of this conversation by reverse racism that white people
Speaker 1: are so being so the most discriminated against people right
Speaker 1: now are white men in America and they're so put
Speaker 1: upon and they're just such victims and we need to
Speaker 1: like fix that all of this anti white racism.
Speaker 3: Well, how about the Africaners coming to America because they've
Speaker 3: been persecuted.
Speaker 1: They've been persecuted in South Africa when seven percent of
Speaker 1: the population owns seventy percent of the land, but they're oppressed. Yeah, victimhood,
Speaker 1: law and order. So the law and order piece becomes
Speaker 1: in a dictatorial, authoritarian way. That law and order piece
Speaker 1: becomes like and we see it, and it's so sad.
Speaker 1: What the law is is what Trump says it is.
Speaker 1: I mean we see very clearly in that press conference
Speaker 1: with the Governor of Maine when he's like, is she
Speaker 1: here are you and follow our order to like band
Speaker 1: transits to see you in court. She says, see you
Speaker 1: in court, and she says, I'm going to follow the law.
Speaker 1: I'm going to file the state in para la. And
Speaker 1: he says, we.
Speaker 2: Are the law.
Speaker 3: And by the way, she won and.
Speaker 2: She won, yeah, which is really beautiful.
Speaker 1: But the way he's defied the Supreme Court and the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court enabled it obviously with the immunity.
Speaker 2: Oh the Supreme Court. What a mess.
Speaker 1: But the law and order becomes whatever he says it is.
Speaker 3: Hi everyone, it's me Katie Couric. You know, if you've
Speaker 3: been following me on social media, you know I love
Speaker 3: to cook, or at least try, especially alongside some of
Speaker 3: my favorite chefs and foodies like Benny Blanco, Jake Cohen,
Speaker 3: Lighty Hoik, Alison Roman, and Ina Garten. So I started
Speaker 3: a free newsletter called good Taste to share recipes, tips
Speaker 3: and kitchen mustafs. Just sign up at Katiecuric dot com
Speaker 3: slash good Taste. That's a t I E c O
Speaker 3: U r ic dot com slash good Taste. I promise
Speaker 3: your taste buds will be happy you did. It also
Speaker 3: takes attention away from a movement that was gaining so
Speaker 3: much steam that resulted in Black Lives Matter, George Floyd
Speaker 3: and a true examination of bias in police departments and
Speaker 3: police brutality. And now nobody is talking about it.
Speaker 1: It's been demonized so successfully and without any pushback. And
Speaker 1: I think that, like so many people like because he won,
Speaker 1: because they're in power, we have to capitulate to power,
Speaker 1: and so conversations about implicit bias, those conversations are like
Speaker 1: they're too woke. They make it unpopular, and then so
Speaker 1: the conversation is no longer, so no one wants to
Speaker 1: talk about it, and it's bad to talk about it,
Speaker 1: and then it's banned. It's actually banned to talk about
Speaker 1: it at Columbia University. Now, anything that suggests DEI, that suggests,
Speaker 1: I mean the way he's taken over Columbia University is atrocious.
Speaker 2: And the way they've allowed that, it's horrible.
Speaker 1: Sexual anxiety, the sexual anxiety piece is really about the
Speaker 1: trans folks. It's about the trans folks, it's about gay
Speaker 1: and lesbian people. It's about women being in their place.
Speaker 1: So if you think about vymar Berlin, right, but this
Speaker 1: very very liberal progressive society in Berlin, uninhibited environment, uninhibited
Speaker 1: environment that actually was very open and accepting to trans
Speaker 1: people and gay and lesbian people. Magnus Hirschfeld had an
Speaker 1: Institute for Sexuality and Berlin. It started in nineteen nineteen
Speaker 1: and then existed until you know, the Nazis. The first
Speaker 1: major Brooke burning that happened was of Magnus Hirschfeld's research
Speaker 1: was of trans research, research into gain lesbian folks. Magnet
Speaker 1: Schurst film made it possible for trans people to have
Speaker 1: an ID document in Berlin to like identify them as
Speaker 1: trans so they could like just have rights that other
Speaker 1: people could have. In the nineteen thirties, let's say so,
Speaker 1: Major and Hitler and his regime saw this as a
Speaker 1: huge problem, and that first book burning happened. And we
Speaker 1: know that with pink triangles that like gay folks and
Speaker 1: trans people were also in concentration camps, and I didn't
Speaker 1: know this until the Aides Movement Act Up reclaimed the
Speaker 1: pink triangle as a sign of persecution in the eighties.
Speaker 1: So all this sexual anxiety is also a part of fascism. Next,
Speaker 1: Sodom and Goamoor. When he talks about Sodom Moore, he
Speaker 1: talks about it's really cities versus rule. That in the cities,
Speaker 1: this is horrible Sodom and Gomora, awful things happening to
Speaker 1: the crime in the sties, when whenever we hear Republicans
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, crime Chicago, Baltimore, and you know
Speaker 1: black and black crime and all these things happening in
Speaker 1: like Democrat or blue cities versus like our safe suburbs
Speaker 1: and our rural areas. So that, like dichotomy between Solom
Speaker 1: and Golmore, is another a spect of fascism. And then
Speaker 1: the third one is it's a phrase I cannot say
Speaker 1: because it's in German. This last one I break mach
Speaker 1: free and I forget exactly what how he broke that
Speaker 1: one down. But all of these things are happening right now,
Speaker 1: and so I think like it's important because a lot
Speaker 1: of people, like even John Stewart was reluctant to call
Speaker 1: this fascism. And I think that when we look at
Speaker 1: not just a general definition of fascism, but what are
Speaker 1: the components of fascism, and we break them down and
Speaker 1: look at them in relationship to what's going on now,
Speaker 1: this is fascism. And so with that in mind, it's
Speaker 1: like then when we see you know, people like you know,
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom or even thinking wit More, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of standing with Trump, these Democrats sort of standing with Trump, it's.
Speaker 3: Well, they don't really stand with Trump. No, well, well,
Speaker 3: I mean when they need certain things for their.
Speaker 1: State more I did do an event or something with him.
Speaker 3: I think that from what I understand, they are trying
Speaker 3: to have some kind of relationship because a lot of
Speaker 3: their states welfare depends on federal dollars. And my understanding
Speaker 3: Laverne and I should check this was she had a
Speaker 3: meeting and she didn't realize it was going to be
Speaker 3: like a photo op, and I think she was sort
Speaker 3: of embarrassed about it. From what I read, How.
Speaker 1: Do you work with when he is taking away state funding,
Speaker 1: if you know, capitulate when he's retaliating if you against journalists,
Speaker 1: against people who sue him, law firms.
Speaker 2: Law firm exactly.
Speaker 1: It's scary, and it's actually scary to actually speak up
Speaker 1: against what he's doing because he's very retaliatory in many ways.
Speaker 1: A streamer, Hassan Piker would just recently returned to the
Speaker 1: country and was pulled aside in Global Entry and asked
Speaker 1: all these questions about what he does, and he's controversy
Speaker 1: in live ways, but he's left to streamer and he
Speaker 1: was like, you know, detaining he's an American citizen. Eventually
Speaker 1: he was let go, but they, you know, stopped him
Speaker 1: and questioned this American citizen.
Speaker 3: A lot of intimidation happening and death threats even from
Speaker 3: some followers for judges and things like that.
Speaker 1: So the trans piece is part of it. It's part
Speaker 1: of a larger project. And for me, it's always been
Speaker 1: amazing watching the ambidextrous nature of Republicans once they get
Speaker 1: into power that they weren't just passing. I think this
Speaker 1: year is like nine hundred anti trans laws have been
Speaker 1: introduced in state legislatures.
Speaker 3: I know there have been eight executive orders.
Speaker 1: Eighty executive orders, nine hundred. I thought we had got
Speaker 1: to five hundred like last year. I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: that's but nine hundred anti translots is like, what what
Speaker 1: are we doing? But I think it's also important to
Speaker 1: note that when they couldn't get bathroom bands through in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, they've gotten them through now that sports was
Speaker 1: the trojan horse. Then they were like, they're attacking the children,
Speaker 1: and what about children, demonizing healthcare for children that the
Speaker 1: American Medical Association, of the American Academy of Beadrez, the INCANCIDE,
Speaker 1: every reputable sort of medical institution is said that gender
Speaker 1: firming care is the best course of action, and then
Speaker 1: they've demonized that. A lot of it is about misinformation
Speaker 1: about trans people. A lot of it is still when
Speaker 1: people think about trans people, they think about surgery. Right.
Speaker 1: They don't understand that gender firming care, particularly for a
Speaker 1: pre prevescent child, is just a name change, maybe growing
Speaker 1: out their hair or cutting their hair, and they wear
Speaker 1: different clothes. No one pre pubescent is having any surgery.
Speaker 3: First of all, the very few people really under the
Speaker 3: age of eighteen are having surgery exactly.
Speaker 1: And then hormone blockers are in fact reversible like these
Speaker 1: are in.
Speaker 3: This they say've been studied enough.
Speaker 1: They say that, but we mormone blockers have existed probably
Speaker 1: since the seventies or eighties for precocious puberty, so they
Speaker 1: actually have been studied. And literally it was an Arkansas
Speaker 1: They argued in court that hormone blockers for CIS kids
Speaker 1: for precocious puberty healthy fine, but for trans kids no.
Speaker 2: So the same medication.
Speaker 1: That would block puberty for precocious puberty is healthy for
Speaker 1: a CIST child, but it's not healthy for a trans child.
Speaker 1: Just defies logic and it's clearly bigotry. They don't want
Speaker 1: trans people to exist, have the ability to transition and
Speaker 1: live our lives authentically, period point blank. How are they
Speaker 1: safe for CIS kids and not safe for trans kids?
Speaker 1: You can't like, actually look up puberty blockers like online.
Speaker 1: It's everything's trans transtrands, So you have to look up
Speaker 1: prokosis puberty to actually do research on puberty blockers and
Speaker 1: progosis puberty. And when you do that research, a lot
Speaker 1: of it's about if you developed to early, you have
Speaker 1: a growth spurt, but then that growth spurt stops at
Speaker 1: like eleven twelve, and then a lot of kids want
Speaker 1: to go through puberty with their peers.
Speaker 2: But then there is a bone issue if you go
Speaker 2: through puberty too.
Speaker 1: Early, and so part of the work of into chronologists
Speaker 1: with proghosist puberty is studying like your bone growth of
Speaker 1: the child, and this has been happening for decades, right,
Speaker 1: And so when you go off the puberty blockers and
Speaker 1: you have the puberty there you're supposed to have at
Speaker 1: any age, the only issue is potential bone density loss.
Speaker 2: But that's only if you're on them a really long time.
Speaker 1: Usually it's you know, no more than four years, because
Speaker 1: you make a decision if you're trans, to either go
Speaker 1: on hormones or not, and you go off the puberty
Speaker 1: blockers and then you do hormone replacement therapy. And at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, though, for me, why is
Speaker 1: it anybody's business, Like, I think any left leaning person,
Speaker 1: obviously the Republicans and Conservists wanted to make this an issue,
Speaker 1: But any left leaning person that's that capitulated to saying
Speaker 1: that it's up for debate whether trans kids should have
Speaker 1: access to gender from and care, I think I've already
Speaker 1: conceded the argument, and we're having the argument on the
Speaker 1: oppressor's terms. When a kid has cancer and the doctor
Speaker 1: says we should be doing this care to save their lives.
Speaker 1: There's not a public debate about that. There's not, like,
Speaker 1: you know, from people who aren't healthcare professionals, who aren't like,
Speaker 1: what do I know about cancer research? What do I
Speaker 1: know about how to treat kids with cancer? Don't it's
Speaker 1: not up for debate. But when it's trans people, it's
Speaker 1: something we have to debate because you know, these trans
Speaker 1: people and I don't understand it, and what are they
Speaker 1: doing and and it's a dehumanization of trans people. It's
Speaker 1: a mis education and misunderstanding of us. But that's by design.
Speaker 1: When I was on your show, and probably for a
Speaker 1: couple of years after that, when they would talk about
Speaker 1: trans issues, they would actually bring on trans people.
Speaker 2: For the past five years or so, tons of.
Speaker 1: Conversations about trans people with narya transperson insight in the media.
Speaker 1: They don't want to talk to us because when we
Speaker 1: talk to trans people, we become human beings and not
Speaker 1: these sort of monsters or caricatures that they can kind
Speaker 1: of like make up things.
Speaker 3: About forty percent of trans children now live in states
Speaker 3: that have banned any kind of intervention puberty blocker's hormone therapy,
Speaker 3: and it's made me wonder a lot since I've met
Speaker 3: a lot of trans families when I did my documentary
Speaker 3: in twenty eighteen, the impact this is having on these families.
Speaker 3: Can you talk about that?
Speaker 2: This is when it gets hard for me, for you know,
Speaker 2: it was twenty it was two years ago.
Speaker 1: I was in twenty twenty two after Dilomovany calls it
Speaker 1: beer gate in her vot. But when butt Light, you know,
Speaker 1: had that moment and kit Rock was shooting up butt
Speaker 1: lights and then target people were sort of terrorizing target
Speaker 1: workers because they had pride merchandise. I was like, We've
Speaker 1: lost We've lost the culture. I was like, We've lost
Speaker 1: the culture. And that year, close to half the country
Speaker 1: had banned de firming care for young people, and there
Speaker 1: were all these things are being challenged in courts, but
Speaker 1: there is so many families who were making decisions to
Speaker 1: flee states, to flee Texas, to flee Florida, to flee states,
Speaker 1: and then these were families who could afford to do it, And.
Speaker 2: It just broke my heart.
Speaker 1: I spent a lot of time crying and just and
Speaker 1: kind of feeling like as a public figure, like, what
Speaker 1: more could I be doing?
Speaker 2: Have I somehow failed?
Speaker 1: As this is my fault because we're so visible now
Speaker 1: and they were kind of ignoring us. So I've had
Speaker 1: a lot of feelings about it. But it's devastating, and
Speaker 1: you hear from these families and they relocate. There's some cities,
Speaker 1: like places like Minnesota that have become sort of sanctuary
Speaker 1: states for trans people. So if you can afford to relocate,
Speaker 1: right the whole family's relocating. Sometimes what happens is that
Speaker 1: like if there's a two parent household, like the mother
Speaker 1: and kids will go and then the fall will stay
Speaker 1: back and work, or vice versa if they have a
Speaker 1: better job. Because you have to get a new job
Speaker 1: in a new state, you have to be able for
Speaker 1: to do it.
Speaker 2: A lot of people can't afford to do it.
Speaker 1: And then even when you think about getting access to
Speaker 1: gender or firming care as a young person, it's actually
Speaker 1: a really privileged thing. A lot of insurance doesn't actually
Speaker 1: cover gender affirming care still for adults or children. They're
Speaker 1: actually supposed to cover it according to Affordable Care Act,
Speaker 1: but that's been challenged and so many different ways. But
Speaker 1: the devastation of a family having a move, and then
Speaker 1: if you do have to stay in a state that
Speaker 1: discriminates against you, then where you have to go to
Speaker 1: another state sometimes to get a gender firm in care.
Speaker 1: There was the main clinic in the South where young
Speaker 1: people were going to get gender firming care was actually
Speaker 1: the University of Alabama either Birmingham tessk Loosen.
Speaker 2: I'm from Alabama.
Speaker 1: When the band happened in Alabama, then that clinic was
Speaker 1: closed down. So all these people in the South who
Speaker 1: were going to Alabama to get gender firm in care
Speaker 1: for their kids don't have that resource anymore. There is
Speaker 1: a wonderful organization called Campaign for Souther Inequality that for
Speaker 1: many years has been raising money and if people can
Speaker 1: afford to donate to them, been raising money to give
Speaker 1: scholarships to families to get them to a state where
Speaker 1: their child can get access to gender firm in care,
Speaker 1: get them to a state to transport them either by
Speaker 1: car plane, get them a hotel state so they can
Speaker 1: just visit a doctor, and also to relocate if they
Speaker 1: need to. So this has been happening for years and
Speaker 1: the demand is really strong. And also what happens when
Speaker 1: people are migrating places like New York and California, the
Speaker 1: gender affirming clinics are overrun and there's long wait lists
Speaker 1: because so many people have migrated, and so the people
Speaker 1: who already are in New York are having hard times
Speaker 1: getting appointments, is what I'm hearing. Or in California or
Speaker 1: San Francisco, where you can get access to gender firming care,
Speaker 1: wait times so longer because so many people have fled
Speaker 1: states where they can get access.
Speaker 3: What about those people love learned who can't afford to leave,
Speaker 3: who haven't been supported through the fund you mentioned or
Speaker 3: other resources. They are stuck in states that refuse to
Speaker 3: help them.
Speaker 1: They don't have the opportunity to transition. They There's always
Speaker 1: been black markets for us.
Speaker 3: Was just going to ask you about that.
Speaker 2: It's always been black markets for gender firm and care.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of where my focus is right now.
Speaker 1: Not necessarily a black market, but like mutual aid. And
Speaker 1: there's a history like when I started transitioning in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight, there was a doctor that had access to
Speaker 1: here in New York and he retired like a year
Speaker 1: after I started with him, and before I discovered calm Lord.
Speaker 1: Then there was this guy named Ralph who had hormones
Speaker 1: for the girls. And he found out about Ralph and
Speaker 1: he would love it when we were all together, so
Speaker 1: we can sell to a lot of girls. And Ralph
Speaker 1: would come to my house and I'd buy hormones from Ralph.
Speaker 1: I don't know where he got them from. I wasn't
Speaker 1: getting blood worked. So like, these are the things you
Speaker 1: know that like, trans people have always gotten access to
Speaker 1: gender firm and care at various ages.
Speaker 2: If you know trans.
Speaker 1: Folks legal, illegal, we've always gotten access. There's a wonderful
Speaker 1: story that Susan Striker, who literally wrote the book on
Speaker 1: Transhi history. She's a professor in Arizona. She told me
Speaker 1: a story that she interviewed Miss Major Griffith Gracie, who
Speaker 1: was a Stonewall legend. She was also part of the
Speaker 1: Attaka Riots. And she's still alive. She's in her eighties,
Speaker 1: I think. And she was fifteen years old in Chicago
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty five and told a story about the
Speaker 1: fifteen year old like the sex workers in Chicago's interesting
Speaker 1: sex work in nineteen fifty five and on the streets
Speaker 1: of Chicago, And she said the girls had hormones in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty five and so when I think about that history,
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is a few years after Christine Jorgenson,
Speaker 1: and then hormones were possible, and the girls were like,
Speaker 1: we're getting these hormones, and so they found a way
Speaker 1: to get access to hormones to transition and earth control bills.
Speaker 1: But obviously you always want a healthier way to do it,
Speaker 1: like I since I've been on you know, it's been
Speaker 1: twenty seven years, Like I get blood work twice a year.
Speaker 1: You want to get your hypothalamus checked, you want to
Speaker 1: get make sure your blood closed. There are things you
Speaker 1: want to make sure that you're you're healthy with with
Speaker 1: your transition, and though when it's criminalized, you don't get
Speaker 1: that access, but trans people have always found a way.
Speaker 1: And so now what I'm interested in is like how
Speaker 1: we as a community come together and support each other
Speaker 1: in the face of a government that is really not
Speaker 1: going to be effectively there for us. And so we
Speaker 1: have to really look at infighting, at the ways in
Speaker 1: which that US versus them to pieces and another part
Speaker 1: of fascism that we don't allow divide and conquer tactics
Speaker 1: to divide us as communities within LGBTQ communities, there's this
Speaker 1: conversation happening now that's not new, but it's popularized again.
Speaker 1: I think because the Trump adminished as the Trump Administration
Speaker 1: is like left lg and B on different websites that
Speaker 1: have taken out the t It's like these conversations have
Speaker 1: been happening in LGBTQ plus community since civil rights has
Speaker 1: been an issue.
Speaker 3: Is there infighting right now within the LGBTQ plus.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, a lot of There's a lot of people
Speaker 1: who are saying that the trans people have taken it
Speaker 1: too far with pronouns and the non binary people and
Speaker 1: they've messed it up for all of us. That conversation
Speaker 1: is happening now online, but that's not a new conversation.
Speaker 1: That is a conversation that's been going on for decades
Speaker 1: when it comes to those gay, lesbian, and bisexual people
Speaker 1: who are a little more respectable and have always felt
Speaker 1: like drag queens and trans people and non binary.
Speaker 2: People were not.
Speaker 3: Good looks, second class.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's a there's I mean, historically, there's
Speaker 1: a there's an iconic video of Sylvia Rivera, who was
Speaker 1: literally their night.
Speaker 2: One of the Stonewall rebellion.
Speaker 1: Stem Wall lasted for like I think about five days
Speaker 1: for week where they were fighting the police because they
Speaker 1: were just tired of, you know, being criminalized as LGBTQ
Speaker 1: plus folks. She was there night one, Silvia Rivera and
Speaker 1: a founder as she founded Star Street, this organization called
Speaker 1: Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries.
Speaker 2: She and Marsha P. Johnson.
Speaker 1: They were doing direct a two trans people, housing them,
Speaker 1: they were doing sex work and getting like an apartment
Speaker 1: where all the girls can stay so they wouldn't be
Speaker 1: on the street at night, and getting them fed, just
Speaker 1: real basic stuff when they were incarcerated. When transfer were incarcerated,
Speaker 1: because it was illegal to be trans on the street,
Speaker 1: you had to have three articles of clothing, so we
Speaker 1: were routinely arrested.
Speaker 2: They would go and bail the girls out of jail.
Speaker 1: They were doing grassroots activism directly for the community, and
Speaker 1: she was one of the reasons that Stonewall in the
Speaker 1: modern LGBTQ civil rights movement happened in nineteen seventy four
Speaker 1: at the Pride Rally become Pride I think by this
Speaker 1: time and not just scale liberation movement. They did not
Speaker 1: want her to speak. They did not want her to
Speaker 1: speak on the station She had to fight her way
Speaker 1: onto the stage, and people booed her as she finally
Speaker 1: got onto the stage, and she's like, you need to
Speaker 1: quiet down. I've gotten my nose broken for gay liberation,
Speaker 1: she said at the time, I've been raped, I've been arrested,
Speaker 1: and you treat me this way.
Speaker 2: Nineteen seventy four. So it's not new, girl.
Speaker 1: I can go on about other examples of how kay
Speaker 1: and lesbian folks. If you think about SONDA, the Sexual
Speaker 1: Orientation on Discrimination Act that was passed in New York State,
Speaker 1: and think in two thousand and one that initially included
Speaker 1: trans people, and we're not going to get this passed
Speaker 1: if we include trans people. So it took the trans
Speaker 1: people out, got SONDA passed, and then we'll get to
Speaker 1: you later trans people. Eighteen years later, the Gender Expression
Speaker 1: Non Discrimination Act passed. I was going at almany like
Speaker 1: almost every year for Equality and Justice Day talking to
Speaker 1: legislators about gender and it took eighteen years for us
Speaker 1: to have legal productions in New York State. So this
Speaker 1: is not new, but it's a tactic that the Trump
Speaker 1: administration is like now that like people outside the community
Speaker 1: because they're dropping the tea and keeping L and B.
Speaker 2: They're like, let's it's the trans people's fault.
Speaker 1: And so again it's another divide and conqueror strategy that
Speaker 1: we should resist because at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: the Trump administration is coming for I think it's very
Speaker 1: important to understand that. When Dobbs was overturned, Clarence Thomas
Speaker 1: wrote a concurrent opinion. He said any decision that was
Speaker 1: made based on the Fourteenth Amendment and substantive due process
Speaker 1: should be revisited, including Lawrence v. Texas, which basically decriminalized
Speaker 1: gay sex, Griswold versus Connecticut, which decriminalized contraception for married couples, Obergefeld,
Speaker 1: which legalized gay marriage. He said, all of these decisions
Speaker 1: need to be revisited. And then late a few months later,
Speaker 1: cong Grace the Republicans, who had a majority in Congress
Speaker 1: at the time, voted whether there should be gay marriage,
Speaker 1: and the majority I think two hundred and fifty something
Speaker 1: Republicans in the House voted against gay marriage, voted against
Speaker 1: right to contraception, voted against the RATU and abortion. Obviously,
Speaker 1: they didn't have the Senate to do this, but if
Speaker 1: it's up to Republicans, they want to ban a right
Speaker 1: to contraception, to abortion and gay marriage. So it's really
Speaker 1: important that we don't succumb to divide and conquer strategies
Speaker 1: as diverse communities. And so when I think about this,
Speaker 1: I don't think about just LGBTQ plus or straight people
Speaker 1: or non trans people. I think about working people, and
Speaker 1: I think about like when I was on the View
Speaker 1: when it sort of went viral, Less said, I think
Speaker 1: they're worried about the wrong one percent. Trans people aren't
Speaker 1: the reads and you can't afford eggs, We're not the reason,
Speaker 1: like that your rent is too high, you can't, you know,
Speaker 1: buy a house. I think there's a different one percent.
Speaker 1: And I think that it's so clear with Doge. I
Speaker 1: think it's like it was just so clear with this billionaire,
Speaker 1: the richest man in the world, like gutting the Social
Speaker 1: Security Administration and instead of doing it through legislation, firing people,
Speaker 1: making it inefficient, making all these government agencies inefficient, to
Speaker 1: basically dismantle them.
Speaker 2: That's part of part twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: And for years they wanted to privatize education so that
Speaker 1: they could like get vouchers so rich people go to
Speaker 1: school and then poor people a lot of it's about
Speaker 1: privatizations in this neoliberal kind of thing, to privatize everything
Speaker 1: so that they can make everything part of the stock
Speaker 1: market and make more money.
Speaker 2: So much of it's about that.
Speaker 3: Hi everyone, it's me Katie Couric. You know, if you've
Speaker 3: been following me on social media, you know I love
Speaker 3: to cook, or at least try, especially alongside some of
Speaker 3: my favorite chefs and foodies like Benny Blank, Jake Cohen,
Speaker 3: Lighty Hoik, Alison Roman and Inagarten. So I started a
Speaker 3: free newsletter called good Taste to share recipes, tips and
Speaker 3: kitchen mustaves. Just sign up at katiecurreic dot com slash
Speaker 3: good Taste. That's k A t I E C O
Speaker 3: U r I c dot com slash good Taste. I
Speaker 3: promise your taste buds will be happy you did.
Speaker 1: If there's an US versus them, which I don't like
Speaker 1: to subscribe to, it's a it's.
Speaker 2: Not a culture war, it's a class war.
Speaker 1: So then if I think it's about if we are
Speaker 1: to come together, we have to find ways as working people.
Speaker 1: When I say working people, if your money is not
Speaker 1: made through the labor of someone else, you're a working person.
Speaker 1: If you have to show up somewhere to make your money.
Speaker 1: You're a working person, and so working people are being
Speaker 1: screwed over across the board.
Speaker 2: And so I think if we can get broad coalition
Speaker 2: of workers.
Speaker 1: Across gender, race, age, workers coming together because there's a
Speaker 1: tradition with labor movements that we can understand like that
Speaker 1: people should have. You know, we have a five day
Speaker 1: work week because of labor movement, right, coming together across
Speaker 1: these differences. But I think that it becomes difficult when
Speaker 1: a lot of people if don't want to work with
Speaker 1: someone who maybe hasn't like interrogated the ways in which
Speaker 1: they've internalized white supremacy or internalized transphobia, and we don't
Speaker 1: trust each other. And when I say this, so there's
Speaker 1: like this systemic piece that has to happen, but then
Speaker 1: there's a personal thing that has to happen, the individual
Speaker 1: thing and the interpersonal thing. I invite all of us
Speaker 1: to interrogate the ways in which we've internalized transphobia, patriarchy,
Speaker 1: white supremacy. I often say, if I a black trans woman,
Speaker 1: I'm mobile Alabama. I'm not automatically anti racist because I'm black.
Speaker 1: I grew up in the same culture I've internalized the
Speaker 1: same anti blackness, the same white supremacist ideas about myself
Speaker 1: and my people that other people have had that I've
Speaker 1: had to unlearn. I've had to decolonize my mind. It
Speaker 1: took me twenty six years to transition because I internalized
Speaker 1: so much transphobia as a child and was learned to
Speaker 1: hate the feminine part of myself that I couldn't transition
Speaker 1: until I moved to New York and met trans people
Speaker 1: and then start to unlearn that internalized transphobia, which is
Speaker 1: a continuing process. Internalized classism. I did an episode of
Speaker 1: my podcast where we shame poor people. We shame poor
Speaker 1: people in this country. I grew up with so much
Speaker 1: shame about being working class, and so we have to
Speaker 1: do this work to understand how we've internalized oppression, oppression
Speaker 1: that can hurt us and then hurt other people. That
Speaker 1: work has to happen, I think, so that we can
Speaker 1: come together, and there is a concerted effort right now
Speaker 1: to say that you don't need to do any of
Speaker 1: that work. That anybody's saying that like there's internalized bias,
Speaker 1: or there's you know, we are racist country, like they're
Speaker 1: lying to you and they're like, you know, saying America
Speaker 1: isn't great.
Speaker 2: And it's not that America isn't.
Speaker 1: Great because we have a racist history, that we were
Speaker 1: born on a genocide of a Native people.
Speaker 2: Those are just facts. Those are facts. It's like, what
Speaker 2: do we do with that? How do we heal from that?
Speaker 1: And we have never ever in the United States really
Speaker 1: fully reckoned with the legacy of that genocide.
Speaker 2: A little bit more with reservations, but that's a mess.
Speaker 1: You know. When I interviewed dot To Jeory degru who
Speaker 1: coined the term post traumatic slaves syndrome, she would say,
Speaker 1: after emancipation, there wasn't a mass movement to like do
Speaker 1: therapy for black folks who had been brutalized for hundreds
Speaker 1: of years and made to work for free, work for
Speaker 1: free to build this country, and the reparations that were
Speaker 1: allegedly supposed to have them from free labor, that that
Speaker 1: didn't happen. And then in the wake of emancipation and reconstruction,
Speaker 1: the klu Klux Klan emerged. Right, we have not been
Speaker 1: able to reckon with and it's every generation when we
Speaker 1: talk about racism, it's like, let's not talk about it,
Speaker 1: let's just move past it.
Speaker 2: Let's let it go in the past.
Speaker 1: That's in the and it's not it's it just isn't
Speaker 1: the effects of if you just look at housing. I'm
Speaker 1: Richard Rosstein's wonderful book Color of Law.
Speaker 3: If you look at just My daughter loves that book.
Speaker 2: It's so good. I interviewed him from my podcast too.
Speaker 2: It's so good.
Speaker 1: And when you look at the areas that were redlined
Speaker 1: back in the day, if they haven't been gentrified, there's
Speaker 1: still quote unquote slums. There's still low income neighborhoods with
Speaker 1: bad schools that are dilapidated neighborhoods.
Speaker 2: The areas that were redlined that were.
Speaker 1: Black people bull couldn't buy homes, and so that legacy
Speaker 1: because even when I'm ross seen in his books says, well,
Speaker 1: they passed the Fairhousing Act in nineteen sixty eight, but
Speaker 1: they didn't do anything retroactively to fix all of the
Speaker 1: discrimination that it happened before that. Nothing, And so it
Speaker 1: just keeps happening. And then there's real estate agents now
Speaker 1: who don't rent. There was a football star who's from
Speaker 1: Alabama who wanted to buy a house in like a
Speaker 1: wealthy neighborhood in Alabama, and the real estate agent wouldn't
Speaker 1: even show him houses, you know.
Speaker 2: So there's like so.
Speaker 1: Many institutional things that are still happening with real estate agents.
Speaker 1: And then when we gentrify neighborhoods, real estate agents and
Speaker 1: colluding with mayors and police to get certain groups out
Speaker 1: of neighborhoods so they can gentrify them. There's structural things
Speaker 1: in place still to keep us segregated, to reinforce an inequality.
Speaker 1: And if you just look at the wealth gap between
Speaker 1: black and white people, there's just so there's like so
Speaker 1: much evidence that racism is still structural in this country,
Speaker 1: and we have not done the work to undo that
Speaker 1: because there's such a resistance to actually like talk about
Speaker 1: the problem, because I think part of it is power
Speaker 1: people in power who just want to keep that power.
Speaker 2: But for those of us who are well.
Speaker 1: Meaning and want to learn and want to evolve, it's
Speaker 1: the fight, flight or freeze thing. Instead of calling someone
Speaker 1: racist or transphobic, I prefer to like say this behavior
Speaker 1: is consistent with a history of transphobic behavior, because behavior
Speaker 1: can be changed, Racism can be unlearned. I've unlearned so
Speaker 1: to exist as myself now I've had to unlearn a
Speaker 1: lot of racism, a lot of internalized transphobia.
Speaker 2: Be myself. I'm a work in progress. I still have
Speaker 2: to do that work, but that work is possible.
Speaker 1: You are a great example of learning implacit bias or
Speaker 1: just misinformation about trans people and what's You are a
Speaker 1: great example of transformation. Someone who got it wrong publicly
Speaker 1: was publicly shamed. And I'm not a fan of publicly
Speaker 1: shaming people. I don't think that's effective. But you've transformed
Speaker 1: and you're now a fierce ally for our community, and
Speaker 1: I wish we had more examples of that, and we
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of them. The only way that
Speaker 1: we can have that is through that Oh my god,
Speaker 1: save space. And the reason we have to have safe
Speaker 1: space is because neurobiologically we are programmed.
Speaker 2: It's just biological.
Speaker 1: We feel threatened, unsafe, fight, fight fleas and once we're
Speaker 1: in that flight or freeze, we go into limpic brain.
Speaker 1: We're not in our prefrontal cortex. We can't hear. We're
Speaker 1: just in defense mode. So we have to create a
Speaker 1: safe space where there is love. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: attack you. Maybe it's going to be a little uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: but discomfort is not unsafety, right, So we have to
Speaker 1: also create a tolerance for discomfort, that distinguishing between being
Speaker 1: uncomfortable and being unsafe, so that we can have the conversations,
Speaker 1: have those transformative moments, so that we can get past this.
Speaker 3: It was hard before the Laverne. I mean, it's almost
Speaker 3: impossible now. It feels like in the current climate, this
Speaker 3: was something that was considered almost radical ten years ago,
Speaker 3: and now there's so much silencing. How do you create
Speaker 3: that space and how do you possibly in this current
Speaker 3: environment change this narrative.
Speaker 1: Well, for me, I think there's some people who are
Speaker 1: fascist and capitulating the fascism because they're afraid, because they
Speaker 1: just want to be alive with power, And I'm not
Speaker 1: convinced that those are the people we're going to be
Speaker 1: able to change.
Speaker 2: Right, And so.
Speaker 1: You can't meet fascism with like let's sit down and
Speaker 1: have a conversation. I'm so upset with Evin Usome sitting
Speaker 1: down with all these white supremacists because it's like he's like,
Speaker 1: let's sit down with Charlie Kirk, who is a white bandmisist,
Speaker 1: or Steve Bannon, who are white supremacist, you know, transphobic,
Speaker 1: you know, they don't think I should exist, Like, what's
Speaker 1: the conversation going to be? So I think, like you said,
Speaker 1: who are we having the conversations with? First of all,
Speaker 1: and I think we have to fight. It has to
Speaker 1: be a fight against fascism, and we can't capitulate. There's
Speaker 1: not a conversation to be had with a fascist.
Speaker 3: And to your point, we need to bring all these
Speaker 3: diverse groups together and not do in fighting and not say, well,
Speaker 3: this is good for you, it's going to be bad
Speaker 3: for me, or you're going to hurt us in some
Speaker 3: ways in terms of the problem.
Speaker 1: But it can't be like let's just agree on one
Speaker 1: thing and still be racist and transphobacan like that doesn't
Speaker 1: really work, I think in terms of building coalition because
Speaker 1: we don't trust each other.
Speaker 2: Because we don't, we can't come together. So we have
Speaker 2: to be wary of in fighting, but.
Speaker 1: Understand who the if stakeholders are, well the stakeholders are,
Speaker 1: who actually has power is Ultimately this is about power.
Speaker 1: There is the changing of hearts and minds, and there's
Speaker 1: the empathetic piece that's interpersonal and what we can do
Speaker 1: in our lives.
Speaker 3: I wanted to mention that when my documentary came out,
Speaker 3: Doctor Oz, who's now working for the administration, said something
Speaker 3: to me. He said, it's hard to hate up close.
Speaker 3: So I think what you mean about that interpersonal that exposure,
Speaker 3: those conversations one on one or with a small group
Speaker 3: of people.
Speaker 1: But then you know, the structural piece is requires you know, movements,
Speaker 1: and at this point, our government is captured, captured by
Speaker 1: fascists now, and they're capitulating the fascists. If in the
Speaker 1: midterms there could be some kind of reckoning, is there
Speaker 1: a benevolent billionaire who can fund and I and I've
Speaker 1: talked to expose this to Sam Seat or a few
Speaker 1: other people who could fund a fifty state ballot initiative
Speaker 1: to get money out of politics. That is the first
Speaker 1: order of business I think for structural change in the
Speaker 1: United States is to get money out of politics. The
Speaker 1: politicians still happening incentive to do this. Is it constitutional
Speaker 1: because it is since United These are questions I have.
Speaker 1: But if there's a Mark Cuban or Oprah, I don't
Speaker 1: know who the billionaire is. I believe in my heart
Speaker 1: that Republicans, Democrats independence, if they had a ballot initiative
Speaker 1: and had the clear information. I think they would vote
Speaker 1: to get money out of politics. I think most of
Speaker 1: us understand that our politicians aren't working for us, and
Speaker 1: that we vote people in and nothing changes because of
Speaker 1: special interest money corporations funding politicians. So I think on
Speaker 1: a structural level, that has to be a fundamental change
Speaker 1: first and foremost, and then maybe we can talk about
Speaker 1: healthcare and wages. I was salted with the Biden administration
Speaker 1: up front when they didn't fight for minimum wage. When
Speaker 1: Bernie dropped out, it said all he asked for and
Speaker 1: you should have asked for more, said fifteen dollar minimum wage,
Speaker 1: and Biden just said a Senate parliamentarian, had you heard
Speaker 1: the center parliamentarian before twenty twenty one? I mean maybe
Speaker 1: you have, you're in this business. I had not heard
Speaker 1: the Senate parliamentary. I was like, Senate parliamentary. What I
Speaker 1: do know now is that when the Senate parliamentarian challenged
Speaker 1: the Bush administration, they fired the c Intate parliamentarian got
Speaker 1: a new one.
Speaker 2: So that is like there is a bully pulpit that
Speaker 2: you have when you're president.
Speaker 1: And I just but at again, the business interest that
Speaker 1: fund the Biden campaign did not want to raise minimum
Speaker 1: wage so like, I think we got to get money
Speaker 1: out of politics and have structural change, but interpersonally, and
Speaker 1: then I think with as storytellers and the media, we
Speaker 1: have to do a better job of humanizing everyone. And
Speaker 1: it's the problem is that it's not the algorithm is
Speaker 1: not really set up for empathy and love. The algorithms
Speaker 1: are set up for like us being at each other's
Speaker 1: throats and fighting. So again resisting that in capitalism, how
Speaker 1: do we elevate voices that are loving, that are humanizing,
Speaker 1: and beware of dehumanization even when we disagree with people,
Speaker 1: And dehumanization happens primarily through words and images to put
Speaker 1: a certain class into a space of moral exclusion, meaning
Speaker 1: like we aren't as human beings hardwired to be violent
Speaker 1: against each other, to discriminate against each other.
Speaker 2: But when we put this group into moral exclusion.
Speaker 1: And dehumanize them, then we can take away their rights,
Speaker 1: then we can discriminate against them. We've done that with
Speaker 1: the dehumanization of immigrants. I mean, it's so clear how
Speaker 1: the immigrants have been dehumanized. They're eating the cats, they're
Speaker 1: eating the dogs. I mean that was like such a
Speaker 1: clear example of dehumanization. They successfully dehumanized trans people, like
Speaker 1: saying that, you know, calling us predator and so are you.
Speaker 3: Seeing that as the most effective campaign commercial in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty four with Kamala Harris, you know Donald Trump, Kamala
Speaker 3: Harris is for they them, Donald Trump is for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And the trans prisoners, it was it was.
Speaker 2: Trans immigrant prisoners. They like really brought it out.
Speaker 3: They brought it brought yeah, and it was the trifecta.
Speaker 2: And I was, you know, I have to say I was.
Speaker 1: I had moments of being afraid to speak up too
Speaker 1: much during that campaign because I was like, well, my
Speaker 1: transigentity is kind of toxic right now. And I think
Speaker 1: Republicans thought about transit were more than Democrats did. Kamala said, out,
Speaker 1: follow the law, and instead of following up and saying
Speaker 1: that this is a policy under Trump as well, that
Speaker 1: like basically, if someone is in prison, then they are
Speaker 1: entitled to healthcare. It's inhumane that that is the law.
Speaker 1: And transalthcare is healthcare. And if a person is an
Speaker 1: immigrant and they're incarcerated, they're entitled to healthcare. And that
Speaker 1: healthcare can be trans healthcare or could be whatever. And
Speaker 1: so often when people need health care in prison diabetic
Speaker 1: if you're a diabetic. Yeah, but a lot of times,
Speaker 1: if it's really expensive, they'll release them. They'll do a
Speaker 1: compassion release. They don't have to pay for it.
Speaker 2: But that is the law.
Speaker 3: Do you think they were too afraid. Yes, they wanted
Speaker 3: to change the subject.
Speaker 1: It was clear that Republicans had successfully dehumanized trans people.
Speaker 1: Any mention of trans people was like bad, and I
Speaker 1: think that was a misstep. Now, I think if she
Speaker 1: had addressed it and said this is the law, clearly,
Speaker 1: this is the law. It is cool and unusual punishment
Speaker 1: to deny people health care when they're incarcerated in the
Speaker 1: United States of America, and this is the law, and
Speaker 1: this is the law under Trump as well, and explain
Speaker 1: that and really leaning into we want equality for everyone,
Speaker 1: we want health care for everyone. And so she But
Speaker 1: part of the problem with Harris, I think and the
Speaker 1: words out that that would happen is that for me,
Speaker 1: what I saw, it's her triangulating between what the donors want.
Speaker 2: The rollout was good, and Tim Walls with the weird
Speaker 2: was good.
Speaker 1: We're not going back was good, and then typical Democratic
Speaker 1: consultants came in and said, you can't say weird anymore,
Speaker 1: which was really working. We need to appeal to the
Speaker 1: suburbs and get list chaining out those missteps and her
Speaker 1: not talking about price scouging enough, like there was a
Speaker 1: few issues, like the price scouging was great, healthcare and
Speaker 1: then standing up for trans people and just civil rights
Speaker 1: in general, picking a few issues because people like.
Speaker 2: What is she about?
Speaker 3: Would you ever run for office?
Speaker 1: I always say that you are so smart, the upper research,
Speaker 1: the upper research would be fierce.
Speaker 2: I own everything in my past. It's people have asked
Speaker 2: me that before.
Speaker 1: And when I think about what they do to politicians
Speaker 1: like with AOC and how they've demonized her, it's so
Speaker 1: vicious and so mean, and I'm really sensitive. The answer
Speaker 1: right now is no, it's something I've thought. It's I
Speaker 1: thought about it a little bit more, but running a
Speaker 1: campaign raising money. I'm an artist more than I am
Speaker 1: like a politician. Like I've always loved and been intrigued
Speaker 1: by politics and followed it my whole life. But right now, no,
Speaker 1: there are other effective ways I think to make an.
Speaker 3: Impact, and hopefully this is one of them.
Speaker 1: Hopefully because I think that, like there's an inside strategy
Speaker 1: and outside strategy.
Speaker 2: When AOC went in.
Speaker 1: She's a good example because she came in with this
Speaker 1: mandate and then you saw Nancy Pelosi just like not
Speaker 1: have her own commit You have to be on the
Speaker 1: committees when you're in Congress right to actually have power.
Speaker 1: And then the outside game I have agitating using her followers.
Speaker 1: You just alienate the people there. And unfortunately the Democrats
Speaker 1: have this seniority thing too that they really need to
Speaker 1: let go of that the Republicans don't have. The Republicans
Speaker 1: are more responsive to their base than the Democrats are.
Speaker 1: But the problem with the Democratic base is that is progressive.
Speaker 1: It's tends to want healthcare for everyone and to check
Speaker 1: co operations, and that is against again, the corporate interests
Speaker 1: that the Democratic Party as well as the Republican Party
Speaker 1: is beholden too.
Speaker 3: So that's why we need to get money out of politics.
Speaker 1: That's why, and that's why when you look at a
Speaker 1: Bernie or an AOC, those are the ones that I
Speaker 1: don't trust any politicians really, but I trust more the
Speaker 1: politicians who don't take corporate money.
Speaker 3: Whoo wow, Laburne, I'm exhausted and you must be too.
Speaker 1: I've invigorated. Strangely enough, I'm invigorated. I love these conversations.
Speaker 3: I love listening to you. I love sharing from you. Honestly,
Speaker 3: I always appreciate your perspective and your depth of not
Speaker 3: only knowledge, but sort of your bottomless compassion for people.
Speaker 1: It's all about love, but I'm also learning. I'm a student,
Speaker 1: like I'm learning. I'm like, I got to learn about fascism.
Speaker 1: I got to learn about this. So being a constant
Speaker 1: student is really important to me. And then it has
Speaker 1: to be about love. This is wonderful video with Cornell
Speaker 1: West and Bell Hooks Fro nineteen ninety seven where they
Speaker 1: talk and they talk about like how Belle has disagreed
Speaker 1: with Cornell West big millionaire in March and other things,
Speaker 1: and it's hard. It's just hard to like, have I
Speaker 1: haven't seen you in a while. I still love you
Speaker 1: even though I disagree with you. And then they quote
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King's one of his speeches and the quote,
Speaker 1: I've chosen to love is the beginning.
Speaker 2: I've chosen to love.
Speaker 1: And I think that in this very cynical society and
Speaker 1: when politics, when people I remember joy and re laughing
Speaker 1: and Corey Booker's face when you talked about love, when
Speaker 1: he was running for a resident, literally laughing his face,
Speaker 1: and I was just like, oh, this is sad. There's
Speaker 1: a cynicism. And I think when we love and have
Speaker 1: empathy and rehumanize, those are the that's the work to
Speaker 1: love each other better, to have more empathy, and to
Speaker 1: rehumanize ourselves in each other, because when we dehumanize other people,
Speaker 1: we also dehumanize ourselves. And so how do we get
Speaker 1: into that space of rehumanization and empathy? And I think
Speaker 1: the love, love for ourselves, love for each other. Empathy.
Speaker 1: Sympathy is feeling for us. Empathy, It is feeling with
Speaker 1: and rehumanizing that everyone is a human being, deserving of rights,
Speaker 1: deserving of grace. People can do something wrong, maybe it
Speaker 1: needs to go to jail, but you're still a human being.
Speaker 1: Accountability punishment, yes, but you're still human.
Speaker 3: Thank you Laverne, Thank you Katie, Thanks for listening everyone.
Speaker 3: If you have a question for me, a subject you
Speaker 3: want us to cover, or you want to share your
Speaker 3: thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world, reach out,
Speaker 3: send me a DM on Instagram. I would love to
Speaker 3: hear from you. Next Question is a production of iHeartMedia
Speaker 3: and Katie Kuric Media. The executive producers are Me, Katie Kuric,
Speaker 3: and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising producer is Ryan Martz, and
Speaker 3: our producers are Adriana Fazzio and Meredith Barnes. Julian Weller
Speaker 3: composed our theme music. For more information about today's episode,
Speaker 3: or to sign up for my newsletter, wake Up Call,
Speaker 3: go to the description in the podcast app, or visit
Speaker 3: us at Katiecuric dot com. You can also find me
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