WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 31 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:02.680 Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:06.359 you know this is a compiletion episode. So every episode 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:09.600 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:09.680 --> 0:00:13.440 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:15.960 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:17.919 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:20.119 there's gonna be nothing new here for you, but you 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:27.040 can make your own decisions. And then the welcome to 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:29.600 it could happen here A podcast that is today about 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:34.600 something that did happen here and absolutely sucked. And with 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:39.199 me to talk about the Atlanta shooting is Scarrison. Hello, Hi, 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:44.760 not happy to be here? Yeah, yeah, no, this is 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:47.040 this is not a we're not talking about a current event. 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:50.880 This happened like what was it last year? So yeah, 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:54.080 in case someone's listening, I'm wondering if there was another one. No, 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:57.840 this is specifically talking about Actually there have been a 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:01.720 couple of shootings in Atlanta since then, obviously there. Yes, 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:08.320 we're talking about is from from last year and the 0:01:08.440 --> 0:01:15.120 ties into many of the topics we discussed at the show. Yeah, 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:19.480 a March sixteenth, two thowy one, Robert Aaron Long, a 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:23.119 regular at Young's Asian massage, refused to tip after getting 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:27.120 a massage shout you a ton. The SPA's owner confronted 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:31.240 him about the tip. Long simply walked away. He got dressed, 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:34.440 went to the bathroom, pulled out his gun and started shooting, 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:38.440 leaving shout you ton dying on the floor. Driving from 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:41.400 spot to spa, Long shot nine people and killed eight. 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:46.520 The loan wounded survivor, Alicia Fernandez Ortiz, got on his 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:50.440 knees and begged Long not to shoot. Long shot him anyways. 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:54.400 There's a there's a there's a tendency, when confronted with 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:58.120 true horror, to retreat into abstraction, as if the abstract 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:00.880 is sheltered from the violence of the storm. I intend, 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:03.880 if briefly, to do it myself. But there is no 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:07.360 safety there, only the same violence, repeated again and again 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:10.960 and again in a thousand ways, with a thousand names, 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:16.400 wearing a thousand faces. Because this is hell and we 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:21.760 live in it, So on onto the abstract. There's a 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:25.560 concept in Marxism called trigger um. It's a German word. 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:27.960 It's usually translated as bearer, in the sense of an 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:32.320 individual capitalist being the bearer of capitalist social relations. They 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:35.960 enact this relation by you know, turning capital into more capital, 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:40.320 which is what makes a capitalists. Uh. There is you know, 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:45.440 literally endless debate over what this actually means. Most of 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:48.920 it is pointless, and the meeting is contested enough that 0:02:48.960 --> 0:02:50.960 I'm going to abuse it a bit further and argue 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:53.280 that a person can become a bearer of historical forces 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:57.040 larger than themselves. Robert Aaron Long was the bearer of 0:02:57.080 --> 0:02:59.920 a great number of historical forces. He bore the violent 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:03.960 of capitalism, of misogyny, of racism, of horror, phobia, of whiteness, 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:07.880 of Christianity itself, and he unleash it into the world. 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:11.639 It's just like the idea of like invoking, right drawing 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:16.040 on these external ideas into yourself and then becoming them 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:18.520 for like a brief period of time. Yeah, I mean, 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:21.880 I think it's slightly different in that with bearing, it's 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:24.280 it's not so much that that you're briefly invoking them, 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:26.919 it's that you're you're constantly a part of the relation. 0:03:27.800 --> 0:03:32.480 So theclation defines you and it and you you sort 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:36.360 of you constantly enacted by the things that you do, 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:40.400 and in doing like the relation reel. It's more of 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:43.160 like an ever present thing that is Yeah, Yeah, it's 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:46.160 it's it's yeah. It's something that's just sort of structures 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:48.400 how the society works. Right, Like, we're all sort of 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:50.760 like enacting the wage relation, right every time we like 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:53.200 do like, you know, like doing this right now by 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:57.960 doing our jobs. Yeah, we are re enacting the wage relation. Yeah. 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:02.160 And you know, I think I think a lot of 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:05.600 people after the shooting were left asking, you know why, 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:10.560 And you know, we can name social and historical forces, 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:13.040 we can talk about sort of antiation, violence and racism 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:16.960 and horophobia, but what does it actually mean? And you 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:19.520 know what, what are the forces that Long unleashed in 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:23.880 this world? What do they look like? And I think 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:25.480 I think we have we have a good example of 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:30.400 this from right after Long was arrested. Police Captain J. 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:35.360 Baker the Cherokee Sheriff's Department said this to reporters at 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:38.600 a press conference. This is about Long and the shooting. 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:41.240 He was pretty much fed up and at the end 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:43.240 of his rope, and yesterday it was a really bad 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:45.520 day for him, and this is what he did. He 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:48.280 apparently has an issue what he considers a sex addiction 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:50.920 and he sees these locations as something that allow him 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:53.640 to go to these places, and it's a temptation for 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:57.040 him that he wanted to eliminate. Now, yeah, that there 0:04:57.120 --> 0:04:59.680 there was a lot going on in in in in 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:05.359 the is like two sentences, Um, so you know Cherokee 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:09.120 Sheriff's Department. Oh yeah, there is. There is so much 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:14.000 like there's somebody, somebody somebody later. Yeah, it's incredible. One 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:15.240 of the things that we're going to go more into 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:17.919 the next episode is it like this, this is where 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:23.560 I what's his name? This is where the guy who 0:05:23.640 --> 0:05:25.480 just like drew a random line on a map that 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:27.040 he found from like that he pulled out of his 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:30.200 like national geographic thing who divided Korea and half like 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:34.360 this is where he's from. There's this is Yeah, there 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:36.840 is a there's a lot of historical violence in this 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:41.320 very specific part of Georgia that is all coming together here. 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:43.960 And oh yeah, his school was also super racist, Like 0:05:44.080 --> 0:05:48.160 there's they had a mascot that was like doing all 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:52.920 the racist stuff. Yeah. Yeah, And you know, before we 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:56.080 go any further, it's worth mentioning that, like almost immediately 0:05:56.200 --> 0:06:01.960 after the honorable Police Captain gave that press conference, a 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:03.640 bunch of people on the Internet found out that Baker 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:07.720 had posted like a shirt that said uh COVID nineteen 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:13.240 and imported virus from China. I remember this. Yeah, Yeah, 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:18.800 sheriff was pretty pretty racist himself. Yeah, a part of 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:23.240 many many anti Asian tropes relating to conspiracy theories. Yeah, 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:25.920 this is you know this, this this is classic twenties 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:28.200 like anti Asian rhetoric. It's you know, it's stuff that's 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:30.680 led directly to hundreds of attacks nation Americans since it 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:34.040 started the pandemic. And you know, the race is on 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:37.440 slot driven by every sector of American society. Now people 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:42.000 immediately start speculating that Jay Baker had collaborated with Long 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:45.120 to cover up the racial like motivation for his violence. 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:50.040 And okay, I think there's some truth to this. The 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:53.080 cops have been collaborating with Long and his family in 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:55.440 various ways. I'm going to read a part of an 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:58.160 article in Vanity Fair written by the journalist May Jong 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:02.000 called how the Atlantis Boss shooting the victims the survivors 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:04.080 tell a story of America? Which is it? This is 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:06.640 one of the best things that anyone's written about shooting 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:08.159 so far. I'm going to read a little bit offit 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:12.920 because it's oh boy. I ring the bell at the 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:16.480 family home. No one answered. Before I could decide what 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:19.600 to do, a police cruiser showed up. An officer who 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:23.239 introduced himself as Sergeant Clement, explained that the neighbors multiple 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:27.080 people had called to report suspicious activity. The one good 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:29.680 thing about Cherokee County, he told me, is that we 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:31.800 look out for each other. It's like how it used 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:34.440 to be in the seventies. I asked Clement what specifically 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:37.040 the neighbors were worried about. To be honest, he said, 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:40.320 what they are worried about is they are afraid of revenge. 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:45.640 What is the context for the like revenge line? Yeah, 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:48.720 it was basically just they were released like they were 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:51.440 terrified that like Asian people were going to show up, 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:55.280 like to this community and take revenge for the shooting. 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:58.320 Thought they were like attack like the church or something. Well, no, 0:07:58.480 --> 0:07:59.880 like they thought they were gonna show up to like 0:07:59.920 --> 0:08:04.160 the family's house and like attack the neighborhood. Ah, when 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:09.920 is when? When is that ever happened? Yeah? Yeah, you 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:12.440 know and and and you know and you can like 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:15.440 what what this demonstrates a is just the kind of 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:20.560 community you're dealing with here and be also like you 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:23.760 just you have very obvious close connection between the cops 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:27.520 and like Long's family at this point. Yeah, and I 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:31.720 mean in terms of like the covering up, the covering 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:34.640 up of like the anti h violence part of it. Honestly, 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:37.000 I don't even know how intentional that would be, because 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:39.760 I don't think he even recognizes that as racism. And 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:41.760 I'm not sure how much the cops recognize that as 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:45.760 a super big part, since that they are already uh, 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:50.079 pretty pretty racist. I guess that Asian people, Okay, Like 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:52.319 I I don't even know how much they recognize that 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:56.280 as being like a thing that isn't normal. Yeah, but 0:08:56.520 --> 0:09:01.400 but I think also like I don't know the the 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:05.800 the explicitness to which particularly Baker is being racist like 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:08.719 makes me suspect that he does. That he would have 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:10.599 been able to figure it out, because he's like, like 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:12.959 you have to go out of your way to like 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:16.760 have a shirt that says like COVID imported from China, 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:19.520 Like yeah, but I don't think that he would consider 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:23.160 that racist, right, Like it's so it's so racist that 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:26.199 but but he can't even consider that. He just think 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:30.439 it's just like normal, right, Like he's yeah. It's like 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:32.880 in terms of like them trying to cover up any 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:35.960 kind of anti Asian um stuff leading towards the shooting, 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:39.400 they may not see that as like as anything to 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:41.719 be covered up because they think that's just normal. So 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:43.440 they're not going to like even focus on it because 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:46.640 they're like, yeah, I mean obviously right, Like it's just 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:50.040 we're so far down the rabbit hole that it's hard 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:54.199 to even like recognize it. I don't know, I'm just 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:58.480 I'm just I'm just it it makes it makes sensesciousness. 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:02.120 And I think also the other thing that's going on 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:05.760 here that that's I think the other part of why 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:10.560 they wouldn't have recognized it if they didn't, is that like, okay, 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:13.079 so like like most people see this and they're you know, 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:16.040 they kind of like analytically, they kind of throw up 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:18.240 their hands. They're like, wow, this is anti Asian violence. 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:21.160 They talk about like the stuff that particular dangerous faced 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:23.080 by like Asian women and sex workers, and they sort 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:24.839 of call it a day, and the nowsis sort of 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:27.319 like stops there, and like they're right, like that this 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:30.319 is anti Asian violence. The violence is primarily inflicted on women, 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:32.520 and it particularly on sex workers or and I mean 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:35.480 this is also very important people who are perceived as 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:38.520 sex workers no matter what they actually do. And yeah, 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:41.360 like it's got worse than the pandemic. But there's a 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:46.120 very very specific kind of violence that long is doing here. 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:50.640 It is and it's not it's related to, but not 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:53.760 identical to the sort of post COVID stuff. And I 0:10:53.840 --> 0:11:02.280 think people really like did a disservice to what happened, 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:04.160 and did a diservice to help the people understand it 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:08.400 by not actually poking at it, because this shooting is 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:11.000 at its core and evangelical shooting like this is this 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:13.240 is this is evangelical violences, is Christian violence, and this 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:16.160 is this is purity culture. And you know, if if 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:18.079 you want to understand what actually happens here, you have 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:19.319 to actually you have to go back and you have 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:24.800 to understand the Christianity angle because it is critical. Now. 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:27.720 East Asia's contact with Christianity in the last two hundred 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:32.240 years has been broadly speaking, extremely bleak. Uh the conclusion 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:34.439 of the First Opium War in eighteen forty two, which 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:37.160 Britain forced China to buy opium to cover Britain's trade 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:39.480 deficit with the country, and then the Britain also stole 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:42.840 Hong Kong and then allowed critics. Yeah, it all also 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:45.680 had the effect of allowing Christian missionaries into the country. 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:49.640 And it is genuinely unclear which one of those acts 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:53.280 has the highest body counts. The product of the Christian 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:55.960 missionaries work was the Typing Rebellion, in which the self 0:11:56.040 --> 0:11:58.920 proclaimed brother of Jesus Christ waged a failed war against 0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:01.800 the ruling Ching dynasty. That like, even if even if 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:03.960 you use like the lower estimates of the body count, 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:06.080 that war makes World War One with like a minor 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:11.199 border skirmish. It is a just incredibly devastating war. And 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:16.840 you know that the product of this is there's there's famines. 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:18.520 There's also just a bunch of floods that happened at 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:20.240 the same time, and this sends an enormous number of 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:22.959 immigrants and refugees fling from their homes looking for any 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:25.719 way to survive. And a lot of those people find 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:28.000 their way to the US and they get imported by 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:30.600 American capitalists, where you know, looking for a new labor 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:33.079 force to serve. It's like a racial racial buffer between 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:36.200 right black workers after the Civil War. And the other 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:37.640 thing is like it's really hard to get to the 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:40.960 west coast in the like they know, in the Panama Canal. 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:42.679 You have to go over land and it sucks and 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:44.360 it's hard, and so they need a labor force that 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:45.880 they can just get to the west coast. And it's 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:50.679 literally easier for people to come from China, and you know, 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:52.360 and so they do, and it is a it is 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:55.079 a brutal existence. Chinese workers are worked at death building 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:57.679 the railroads, and they you know, they struggled to carve 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:01.760 out of life for themselves and they do halting lead 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:05.040 and leaps and spurts, but they create communities, they build 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:06.920 towns and temples and cultures in the beginning of a 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:09.400 new society. And that's when the white working class decides 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:13.280 they want to exterminate them because this is this is 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:16.480 a great country. Uh yeah. White workers, you know immediately 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:19.360 start blaming Chinese workers for the low wages, and they 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:22.439 use their workers organizations to ethnically climbs the west. The 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:24.400 result of this is a series of massacres that goes 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:27.280 on literally for decades, stretching like into the ninth like 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:29.839 this this these things starting like the eighteen seventies and 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:33.040 they're still going in like the nineteen like like in 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:36.800 the in then like the early ninteen hundreds. Um. And 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:39.320 and it's at this point where Christianity gets involved. Um. 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:42.079 I think like most people who are listening to the 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:43.959 show have probably heard at least in passing of the 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:46.760 Chinese Exclusion Act just this sort of like the great 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:49.000 triumph of like the dark alliance of racists and the 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:51.559 white working class. But what I think is less known 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:56.880 about is the Page Act, of which banned quote lud 0:13:56.960 --> 0:14:00.120 and immoral women from entering the United States. And this, 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:02.679 this is like this is directly targeted at Asian and 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:05.120 Chinese women, um, who were seen as a threat to 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:07.760 the sort of racial and moral character of like the 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:11.679 white Christian American nation because of like they're supposed to 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:16.640 like inheritent immorality demonstrated by the popular usical demonstrated by 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:18.920 the popular image of all Chinese women as sex workers. 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:22.720 And you know, I think, like looking back on this, 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:24.680 this is extremely recognizable that this is literally just an 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:28.320 anti trafficking panic, like this whole thing, it's just it's 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:30.200 like this this this this is like this is like 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:36.080 proto this is like proto q shiit um and you know, 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:39.840 and like like there is there is legitimately like sex 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:44.160 trafficking going on, but the existence of like like the 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:47.440 fact that there is sex trafficking gets used as this 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:49.800 sort of like political and racial image. It gets projected 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:52.320 onto just like all Asian women who get portrayed as 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:55.840 a trafficking victims and you simultaneously be like saved but 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:58.880 then also expelled from the US to preserve both there 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:02.560 in the U s's purity. And you know, like this 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:05.040 image of Asian women has literally never changed. You will 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:07.760 find it today like to this day, people find people 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:10.560 using like the exact same racist projections like consciously you're 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:13.680 unconsciously to talk about Asian immigrants and like particularly SPA workers. 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:17.400 It's it's this like it's it's just like incredibly toxic 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:20.640 mix of like Christian moralism, sexism, horror phobia, and racism. 0:15:21.840 --> 0:15:24.800 And the racism element is really important because like, okay, 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:27.960 well this is going on, Like prostitution is legal in California, 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:31.080 Like you can just do this, like there there's there's 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:34.280 no law against it um, you know, and so and 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:36.760 so you think that like oh hey, there, you know 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:38.400 that the sort of like Christian panic would just be 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:40.680 targeted against brothels, like no, it's it's like very specifically 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:43.000 against Asian women. And it's you know, this is because 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:46.680 all of this sort of like the Christian fears about 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:50.920 sex work is you know, and and their horror phobia 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:54.760 is and and still is today incredibly deeply fused with 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:57.000 this sort of like that this is this is like 0:15:57.160 --> 0:16:02.720 incredibly racist like concern over the purity of the race yea. 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:04.960 And yeah, you know this this will sound familiar to 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:08.960 anyone who's been like paying attention at all to any 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:11.160 of the trafficking panics and if the anti trans stuff, 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:16.320 any of just interracial dating was only extremely recently allowed 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:20.520 at all of like the biggest Christian universities, like like 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:26.080 they have like they yeah, not a it is it's 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:30.000 a it's a thing. It's a yeah, it's and that's 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:34.200 and like the thing about it, it's it's really it's 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:36.880 it's really close to the surface, right, even even when 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:39.760 they're not explicitly just saying it, like if you look, 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:42.280 it's been about two seconds looking, it's like, oh, this 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:46.760 is what's going on here? Huh yeah? Yeah, And you know, 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:48.440 so so that that that's sort of that's sort of 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:51.960 one side of this whole thing, right, is you have 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:54.240 this sort of like you have this sort of like 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:58.800 Christian like anti trafficking panic that that creates that that like, 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:00.800 you know, it creates the sort of image of way 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:02.480 age women are and has a lot of effects. But 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:04.440 the other side of this coin is that there is 0:17:04.680 --> 0:17:08.080 a just incredible amount of sexual violence that America has 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:11.760 inflicted on Asian women, like particularly through its war. Successive 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:16.240 invasions of the Philippines, China, Korea, and Vietnam saw American 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:22.640 soldiers committing just untold and horrific sexual violence on Asian women, 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:27.680 like to to the extent that like the US essentially 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:30.840 just inherits Japan's like mass military rape system in Korea 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:35.520 and just runs it for itself. Like there's this all 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:39.679 of all of those things came home so massively, all 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:43.240 the things that were normalized to oversee is just came 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:46.760 right back when all the soldiers came back. Yep, yep. Yes, 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:49.639 I think it's gonna say next year, like the and 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:54.800 this this has a like the I don't know, I 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:58.600 think people get the relationship between pop culture depictions and 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:01.600 of you know, racist despictions of people in pop culture 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:04.920 and the actual culture backwards, like they don't help and 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:07.520 they spread it. But like you know, the the like 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:10.000 me love you long time ship from like Kubrick like 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:11.720 that that doesn't come out of nowhere. That's not just 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:15.000 Kubrick like that's that is that's something that was brought 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:17.520 home by the American racists and you know, like when 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:20.560 when they got back and that stuff. Like it's it's 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:23.199 not just that like the stuff is being spread by media. 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:26.359 It's that the media is being influenced by the people 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:29.000 who did this stuff and then came home. It is 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:31.959 the full circle thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I mean 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:35.280 even still now there's such a such a degree of 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:40.040 like Asian women being like an object to possess, even 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:41.560 more so than right, like like it's like even more 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:44.200 so than like regular women, which obviously under under like 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:46.040 a lot of like patriarchal stuff in the States and 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:49.159 you know overseas everywhere, you know, women are seen as 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:52.639 objects to possess, but specifically there's that is so much 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:56.640 heightened for uh women of color and specifically like Asian women. 0:18:57.160 --> 0:18:59.639 Um that that idea, I mean you see that everywhere 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:04.760 for the libertarian Asian girlfriend. You like you see this 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:09.160 in media all the time. Um that like the Asian 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:13.879 wife is something you own, and it's it's a very 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:18.200 extremely pervasive Yeah, And I think the reason why is that, 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:22.920 like this image gets refreshed every time of generation comes 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:25.680 from from a war in Asia. And you know that 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:27.960 that's what because because the US has been fighting wars 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:32.760 in Asia like forever, I mean basically since like it 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:36.200 we've been fighting wars and Asians late Asian hundreds, and 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:40.040 you know, like the violence of each subject generation just 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:42.320 sort of refreshes this image of like Asian women as 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:44.920 prostitutes bodies are supposed to just be like accessible to 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:48.240 white men at all times. But this has a sort 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:50.879 of there's a kind of clash that happens here too, 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:53.200 because like on the one hand you have this sort 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:55.720 of like racial and sexual feticization, and on the other 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:58.520 hand you of Christian horror phobia. And this gives you 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:01.160 this culture where like Asian women are at once seen 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:03.800 as like hyperdesirable and hyper available, but are also just 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:10.200 like utterly despised for both and this sort of like 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:12.760 racist pathology, this like this like this like this this 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:17.760 sexual desire bixed with loathing. He's at just the absolute 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:21.520 core of of the Atlantic shooting, and as if to 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:24.439 remind us if its origin, Long carries out as massacre 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:29.080 on the fifty three anniversary of my lie and we're bad. 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:33.960 So I think we now have enough context to like 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:37.040 go back to Long's initial description of why he carries 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:39.399 out the attack, which to self describe sex addiction. Is 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:43.399 desired to quote eliminate temptation. Yeah, Because I mean we 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:46.840 cannot overstate the degree to which both the police, the church, 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:50.000 and the shooter himself framed this not as an anti 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:52.680 astion thing, but as like as a as a as 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:56.359 something addressing his sex addiction. Um, that was the angle 0:20:56.400 --> 0:20:57.880 it talked about it. Now, there's all of the anti 0:20:57.920 --> 0:21:00.760 ation stuff that is like right under the surface, but 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:02.639 it's like probably up so much of what's going on. 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:05.639 But the thing that they were publicly talking about was 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:09.600 this uh so called sex addiction. Yeah. And and I 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:11.960 think this is this is you know, this is this 0:21:12.080 --> 0:21:14.280 is a very important angle of this is we should 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:17.520 actually talk about what that is and because and to 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:19.560 understand because he just not like okay, so like the 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:22.679 sex edition is I think like actually sort of a thing, 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:27.080 but people that is a hotly debated Yeah. I don't know. 0:21:27.359 --> 0:21:30.359 I'm not a psychiatrist. Don't take advice to me. I 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:33.399 think it's the slightly more legit of the two. Things 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:36.040 that the of the two like fake syndrome things we're 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:40.400 gonna talk about here, but this is not what's going 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:43.720 on with him, and you want to understand it. Yeah, yeah, 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:45.360 what's going on with this? We need to go back 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:49.280 to enemy of the show, purity culture. Um friend friend 0:21:49.359 --> 0:21:52.240 of a friend of the pod. Yeah, I'm gonna say no. 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:55.359 I I refused, I had I had friends, and there 0:21:55.359 --> 0:21:56.560 are a couple of times and I was like, I 0:21:56.640 --> 0:21:58.680 refused to call this friend of the show. Damn it. 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:03.040 Like I can't do myself to do it right. Joshua 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:08.440 Harris just unsubscribed so long, like by all accounts, is 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:11.600 extremely religious. He's heavily involved both his church and his 0:22:11.720 --> 0:22:15.040 high school. Like his high school he's a public high school. 0:22:15.040 --> 0:22:17.560 But the public high school has like Christian athletic groups, 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:20.879 which is a fun thing that they let you do 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:25.879 in public schools. Um, yeah, it's great. H So you know, 0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:28.119 to get it, to get it an understanding of like 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:30.359 the kind of baptism we're dealing with here. Here's a 0:22:30.440 --> 0:22:33.879 line from the church's by laws. Quote. We believe that 0:22:34.000 --> 0:22:38.760 any form of sexual immorality, such as adultery, fornication, homosexuality, 0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:43.840 bisexual conduct, bestiality, incest, polygamy, pedophilia, pornography, or any attempt 0:22:43.880 --> 0:22:47.520 to change one's sex or disagreement with one's biological sex, 0:22:47.680 --> 0:22:51.320 is sinful and offensive to God. Yep, you know, and 0:22:51.520 --> 0:22:54.280 all of that's in the Bible. Yeah, they have you 0:22:54.440 --> 0:22:56.639 you can tell because they cite three passages. Not if 0:22:56.680 --> 0:23:00.200 we say that, Well, okay, I know there is there 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:03.560 is beast reality stuff. Bit is I think that the 0:23:03.680 --> 0:23:08.040 incess is in there. Well, I mean there's doing this stuff. 0:23:08.040 --> 0:23:10.680 But parts of the Bible are pro incests. Parts the 0:23:10.720 --> 0:23:14.000 Bible are Antians. Yeah, it's um. The Bible has a 0:23:14.080 --> 0:23:19.800 real sticky relationship with the topic of incest um. But yes, 0:23:19.920 --> 0:23:22.920 I'm sure they thoroughly slight all of their passages for 0:23:23.920 --> 0:23:29.920 they talk about when they talk about bisexual conduct. Yeah, 0:23:30.119 --> 0:23:33.200 it's well, I mean, you know, the one that's great 0:23:33.280 --> 0:23:36.320 is the attempting to change one's sex or disagreement with 0:23:36.400 --> 0:23:40.320 one's biological sex. A thing that I I'm guessing they're 0:23:40.320 --> 0:23:44.159 citing God created males and females, and males and females, 0:23:44.359 --> 0:23:46.600 He created them. And I don't actually think so because 0:23:46.600 --> 0:23:49.920 they're not they didn't. Okay, yeah, this this is me. 0:23:51.680 --> 0:23:55.320 I'm just I'm just speculating based on experience in these 0:23:55.560 --> 0:23:59.240 in these types of types of groups. Yeah. So so 0:23:59.320 --> 0:24:02.440 speaking of these types of groups, so Long is like, Okay, 0:24:02.480 --> 0:24:09.960 so Long's church like expels him after the the shooting murder. Yeah, because, 0:24:10.000 --> 0:24:14.160 like I'm they violated their own by laws because there's 0:24:14.200 --> 0:24:16.920 no way they could have done their expulsion their actual 0:24:16.920 --> 0:24:18.880 explosion protocol and that amount of time, because they would 0:24:18.920 --> 0:24:22.000 have acted like send people to visit him in jail. See, 0:24:22.000 --> 0:24:25.040 I think you're overestimating the degree to which churches care 0:24:25.080 --> 0:24:27.600 about what their by laws actually say. Well, I mean 0:24:27.760 --> 0:24:30.240 it's the blanking on it. What's the thing Matt Matt eighteen. 0:24:30.880 --> 0:24:32.720 There's like the thing that churches have that's like their 0:24:32.760 --> 0:24:37.159 explosion protocol and they like send someone to this this 0:24:37.240 --> 0:24:39.680 is the thing into I think you're I think you're 0:24:39.720 --> 0:24:43.160 slightly overestimating how much people actually care about that, which 0:24:43.240 --> 0:24:45.240 it's all just a racket used to prop up the 0:24:45.320 --> 0:24:49.160 authority of the leaders and push people towards whatever political 0:24:49.240 --> 0:24:52.440 gains that the movement has. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, speaking 0:24:52.480 --> 0:24:54.920 of getting people to submit to the authority and polluting 0:24:55.000 --> 0:24:57.680 instant movements. Yeah, So we talked about purity culture on 0:24:57.800 --> 0:25:01.840 this show, like we had dausium um. So we're not 0:25:01.880 --> 0:25:04.080 gonna go into an enormous amount of detail about it here. 0:25:04.359 --> 0:25:08.399 The very should at least describe what it is. So 0:25:09.240 --> 0:25:11.280 the very very very short version is, it's like it's 0:25:11.320 --> 0:25:16.080 an incredibly patriarchal, like evangelical Christian religious system in which 0:25:16.280 --> 0:25:18.720 like sex before marriage is seen as like an incredible sin, 0:25:18.880 --> 0:25:21.000 and there's just like like focused on the purity of 0:25:21.080 --> 0:25:24.399 the wife and like like a woman is essentially the 0:25:24.480 --> 0:25:26.840 property of her husband, and the entire goal of existence 0:25:26.920 --> 0:25:30.480 just to like bare and raised children. So it was 0:25:30.560 --> 0:25:32.520 it was invented, but it was the modern version that 0:25:32.600 --> 0:25:35.680 was invented in the nineties, strongly influenced by a book 0:25:35.720 --> 0:25:38.320 written by someone named Joshua Harris. It was called I 0:25:38.480 --> 0:25:42.639 Kissed a Dating Goodbye. The book promotes a pro courtship 0:25:42.720 --> 0:25:45.720 to marriage pipeline instead of dating. I think dating will 0:25:45.760 --> 0:25:48.159 probably encourage you to have sex before marriage, which is 0:25:48.200 --> 0:25:51.920 of course bad um. And under under all of this 0:25:52.280 --> 0:25:54.320 under like the actual like you know, if you if 0:25:54.359 --> 0:25:56.399 you if you started digging into this all the stuff 0:25:56.400 --> 0:25:59.120 it talks about in terms of like sexual purity um 0:25:59.760 --> 0:26:03.439 is a about you know, women are responsible for men's 0:26:03.840 --> 0:26:07.880 sexual like um sins right, Like if if a man 0:26:08.080 --> 0:26:10.399 lusts for a woman, that's the woman's fault, not the 0:26:10.480 --> 0:26:12.920 man's fault. Right. It's because women must be presenting in 0:26:12.960 --> 0:26:16.320 a way that causes that to happen. Um. Right, So 0:26:16.520 --> 0:26:19.080 women's women's bodies and clothes should be designed in a 0:26:19.119 --> 0:26:22.720 way so that it will not cause men to stumble um. 0:26:23.119 --> 0:26:27.080 And by stumble they mean get horny um. And you 0:26:27.160 --> 0:26:29.320 know it's something that you know, your your body is 0:26:29.359 --> 0:26:30.920 both this thing that should be pure, but also you 0:26:30.920 --> 0:26:34.199 should be ashamed of it, right because it causes the sin. Uh. 0:26:34.359 --> 0:26:36.520 Women can't really have any sexual desire on their own. 0:26:36.960 --> 0:26:39.600 Women are going to really enjoy sex. Um. It's it's 0:26:39.640 --> 0:26:43.720 specifically for men, and it's for procreation. Um. It's in 0:26:44.240 --> 0:26:47.840 in in intense value tied to your idea of like 0:26:48.119 --> 0:26:52.280 virginity and virginity extending out to like personal purity and 0:26:52.359 --> 0:26:55.600 spiritual purity, Like if you have sex before marriage, you 0:26:55.680 --> 0:26:58.840 are like like unclean. It's it's like it's like your 0:26:59.080 --> 0:27:01.720 it's like you're chewed up gum, Like you like you 0:27:01.800 --> 0:27:04.560 would not pick up someone's Like if you found some 0:27:04.680 --> 0:27:06.080 chewed up gum on the street, you wouldn't put it 0:27:06.119 --> 0:27:07.600 back in your mouth. Right, So that's the idea, Like 0:27:07.680 --> 0:27:10.520 if you if you're not a virgin, you are you 0:27:10.600 --> 0:27:12.919 were like chewed up gum, Like you are already used, 0:27:13.000 --> 0:27:17.520 you're spent um. So you have so you save safer 0:27:17.600 --> 0:27:19.760 marriage so that only your husband can chew up your gum, 0:27:20.160 --> 0:27:22.639 and then after your marriage you're just stuck there forever. Right. 0:27:22.720 --> 0:27:26.680 It's also like very very very anti divorce um. And 0:27:26.720 --> 0:27:31.320 there's really no difference, Like there's they don't really there's 0:27:31.359 --> 0:27:35.080 not much discussion around consent. Oddly enough, you know as 0:27:35.440 --> 0:27:37.320 you know that they surprise you based on what I 0:27:37.359 --> 0:27:41.080 all just said, like obviously they don't care about consent. Um. 0:27:41.600 --> 0:27:44.399 There's like they they view any they view a sexual 0:27:44.400 --> 0:27:47.479 assault just as bad as consensual sex before marriage. They 0:27:47.520 --> 0:27:50.920 see them as the same thing. Um. It's it's basically this, 0:27:51.080 --> 0:27:53.280 it's the same structure as that they're both in equal 0:27:53.400 --> 0:27:56.720 sin ah And I mean that is that is purity 0:27:56.760 --> 0:27:58.800 culture one oh one. We could we could just do 0:27:58.840 --> 0:28:00.960 an entire episode on pure any culture, and we probably 0:28:01.000 --> 0:28:03.160 would do. We can do series on it, like yeah, 0:28:03.280 --> 0:28:07.560 like yeah, yeah, I think the really important thing about 0:28:07.560 --> 0:28:10.960 it is like this is basically like in terms of 0:28:11.040 --> 0:28:13.680 they're sort of being like like I don't know what 0:28:13.720 --> 0:28:15.280 if you call it a counterculture, but they're sort of 0:28:15.320 --> 0:28:19.639 being like an evangelical cultural machine, like it's this like 0:28:19.760 --> 0:28:21.439 this is this is what they're pushing as like as 0:28:21.480 --> 0:28:24.000 like their mass movement for for youth expect especially in 0:28:24.000 --> 0:28:26.040 the nineties and two thousand's, we have we have stuff 0:28:26.040 --> 0:28:28.840 like purity rings, which is like you know, when you 0:28:28.880 --> 0:28:32.080 when you're a teen, you'll get like objects or jewelry 0:28:32.119 --> 0:28:35.840 which are like like almost like magical items do you 0:28:35.960 --> 0:28:38.120 put on to like show that I am going to 0:28:38.320 --> 0:28:41.160 keep myself pure and by doing this, by doing this action, 0:28:41.560 --> 0:28:45.240 it's symbolizing that and therefore internalizing it. There's also um 0:28:45.560 --> 0:28:49.760 purity balls, which is not what you'll so when would 0:28:49.840 --> 0:28:53.360 use the word purity ball, certain things will come to mind, right, Um, 0:28:53.840 --> 0:28:56.200 Unfortunately they're not as fun as what that's what you 0:28:56.280 --> 0:28:59.840 are thinking. Um, A purity ball is just like a 0:29:00.040 --> 0:29:02.200 formal dance event, you know, like a ball that you 0:29:02.280 --> 0:29:05.760 put on um, which is meant to it's a it's 0:29:05.800 --> 0:29:09.520 a meant to. Usually it's like fathers take their daughters 0:29:09.560 --> 0:29:12.320 there and then their daughters swear to make a virginity 0:29:12.520 --> 0:29:16.760 pledge um to protect their purity of mind, body, and 0:29:16.920 --> 0:29:21.560 spirit um so that they will not then infect you know, boys, 0:29:22.040 --> 0:29:25.320 uh and cause them to stumble and and commit the 0:29:25.400 --> 0:29:28.239 sin of lust, which again is an incredibly weird thing 0:29:28.280 --> 0:29:33.080 to do at a ball, Like, yes, it's so weird. 0:29:33.200 --> 0:29:39.640 Well also, yeah, it's most most Yeah, it's well, I 0:29:39.720 --> 0:29:43.400 think I think we've got into enough event. Yeah, but 0:29:43.560 --> 0:29:46.640 the specific sort of thing, I think the last thing 0:29:46.680 --> 0:29:48.240 I will look at. There, there is one more thing 0:29:48.400 --> 0:29:52.440 we're gonna so before that, I do want to point 0:29:52.440 --> 0:29:54.640 out that Joshua Harris, who like is in a lot 0:29:54.680 --> 0:29:57.440 of ways responsible, like single handedly responsible for an enormous 0:29:57.440 --> 0:30:01.520 amount of this, she is Japanese. Yeah, fucking thanks for 0:30:01.600 --> 0:30:07.400 that one, buddy, Great job, good ship man. In ten, 0:30:07.480 --> 0:30:11.080 he announced that he and his wife were divorcing. Yeah, 0:30:11.280 --> 0:30:14.680 so you know, and and and now and now no 0:30:14.840 --> 0:30:18.080 longer considers himself like the type of Christian he was 0:30:18.160 --> 0:30:21.280 before I'm unclear what his actual spiritual beliefs at the moment, 0:30:21.600 --> 0:30:23.880 but he did he did try to distance himself from 0:30:24.000 --> 0:30:27.600 his from from what I've read, like it's unclear that 0:30:27.720 --> 0:30:33.800 he knows. So oh, he he knows. He definitely knows. 0:30:34.120 --> 0:30:36.880 I can, I can, I can. I can guarantee that 0:30:37.520 --> 0:30:39.280 he's he used to be running. He has a new 0:30:39.280 --> 0:30:42.920 grift now. It sucks they always get new grips. But 0:30:43.320 --> 0:30:45.280 actually we will, yeah, we will get into the new 0:30:45.320 --> 0:30:49.080 grift industry in a second. Um. But Yeah, one of 0:30:49.120 --> 0:30:50.840 the other things that's that's a big part of this 0:30:51.200 --> 0:30:54.320 is like a deep and abiding hatred of porn. Like 0:30:55.280 --> 0:30:57.680 all of this is yeah, like as you said, like 0:30:57.800 --> 0:31:00.840 in the list of by laws watching porn again, it's 0:31:00.880 --> 0:31:03.840 the same as sexual assaults. Yeah, it's a huge it's 0:31:03.880 --> 0:31:06.520 morally the same level of sin. Yeah. And and like 0:31:07.400 --> 0:31:08.840 you know, I mean, and and you can read that 0:31:08.960 --> 0:31:11.640 both ways as how seriously they take watching porn and 0:31:11.680 --> 0:31:13.959 how not seriously it takes sexual assault because it does 0:31:14.080 --> 0:31:17.200 go it does go both ways. Yeah. Um. And this 0:31:17.480 --> 0:31:19.360 this thing, the fact that that this is this is 0:31:19.560 --> 0:31:23.080 like considered a sin, is the apotheosis, Like the apotheosis 0:31:23.160 --> 0:31:27.800 that this is is porn addiction, which again like not 0:31:28.280 --> 0:31:32.000 really dubious existence. This is this is even more dubious 0:31:32.040 --> 0:31:35.240 sex than sex addiction, Like there's no there, this is 0:31:35.360 --> 0:31:37.920 this is like this is just fake. Um. But there's 0:31:37.920 --> 0:31:40.480 an entire culture that's that's a like developed around stopping 0:31:40.520 --> 0:31:42.520 manifest seeing poor and these like there's like these incredibly 0:31:42.560 --> 0:31:46.360 elaborate accountability setups where like there's like apps you install 0:31:46.440 --> 0:31:49.400 on your stuff, Like there's ways to alter your IP 0:31:49.600 --> 0:31:53.520 addressed to watch certain sites. Yeah, Robert Aaron Long the shooter, 0:31:53.640 --> 0:31:56.280 like he he uses a flip phone instead of a 0:31:56.320 --> 0:31:59.000 smart phone because he thinks having a phone will like 0:31:59.120 --> 0:32:03.640 lead int senation. Um. Now Long. Yeah. And the product 0:32:03.640 --> 0:32:05.080 of this is that there's like there's like this entire 0:32:05.240 --> 0:32:08.440 industry that is built up around quote unquote treating the 0:32:08.560 --> 0:32:13.120 porn addiction. Yeah. Um, and it's it's all bullshit. But 0:32:13.640 --> 0:32:16.680 Long had spent at twice been in one of these 0:32:16.720 --> 0:32:20.760 facilities called hope Quest. Now, hope Quest is an affiliateive 0:32:20.760 --> 0:32:23.719 for old friends that focus in the family. But that's 0:32:23.720 --> 0:32:25.360 not actually the part I want to talk about, because 0:32:25.400 --> 0:32:27.400 what's more interesting about hope Quest is that it's founded 0:32:27.440 --> 0:32:31.080 by roy A Blankenship, a former ex gay who left 0:32:31.160 --> 0:32:33.000 both hope quests and the X gay community to live 0:32:33.040 --> 0:32:37.440 with his husband. Now, now this what a what a 0:32:37.560 --> 0:32:39.800 what what what a what a funny pattern we keep 0:32:39.840 --> 0:32:42.480 finding out? Yeah? No, now I think I think my 0:32:42.720 --> 0:32:44.680 two listeners, if you were, if you were not as 0:32:45.080 --> 0:32:48.440 cursed as as as we are as we are, and 0:32:48.760 --> 0:32:51.360 you don't know what an ex gay is, um X 0:32:51.440 --> 0:32:54.520 gays were there were this movement of like evangelical gaze 0:32:54.560 --> 0:32:56.120 who claimed that like this this is the thing that 0:32:56.160 --> 0:32:59.280 starts in like the nineties and twos. They claimed that 0:32:59.360 --> 0:33:01.320 like they've gone to conversion therapy and it made them 0:33:01.360 --> 0:33:04.040 not gat yeah yeah, and and this and you know, 0:33:04.120 --> 0:33:05.640 and in partial part of partial was going on here 0:33:05.680 --> 0:33:07.959 is they claimed that that like they did it voluntarily 0:33:08.080 --> 0:33:11.680 because like involuntarily doing conversion therapy had gotten to a 0:33:11.720 --> 0:33:15.080 point where it was like bad pr wise, because Jesus Christ, 0:33:15.120 --> 0:33:17.680 you were like torturing children and they're still torturing children, 0:33:17.720 --> 0:33:19.520 but but this time they're like, no, it's voluntary, and 0:33:19.560 --> 0:33:21.520 that this is like they're big, this is the rights, 0:33:21.600 --> 0:33:24.560 big cultural campaign against the gay right through nineties in 0:33:24.640 --> 0:33:27.120 two thousands and uh, like I I would say this 0:33:27.200 --> 0:33:28.800 like it's it's not exactly the same thing as the 0:33:28.800 --> 0:33:31.880 way they use detansitioners, but like there's a lot of 0:33:32.000 --> 0:33:34.800 it's very similar. And of course obviously that we now 0:33:34.920 --> 0:33:38.040 have the x X gay movement. Yeah yeah, and and 0:33:38.160 --> 0:33:40.080 you know and and and to to like so okay, 0:33:40.120 --> 0:33:42.520 So like the X game movement falls apart in like 0:33:42.560 --> 0:33:44.480 the late two thousands and early doesn't tends because like 0:33:44.880 --> 0:33:48.480 it doesn't work. The leaders personal all the leaders were 0:33:48.520 --> 0:33:50.960 initially gay, said they were X gay and then kept 0:33:51.000 --> 0:33:54.160 having gay sex because that rules. Yeah, and they all 0:33:54.280 --> 0:33:56.400 kind of realized maybe we should stop doing this thing 0:33:56.440 --> 0:33:59.880 that keeps killing kids. Yeah, And Blaken Blankenship too is 0:34:00.000 --> 0:34:02.640 credit like he'd been a big person doing this and 0:34:02.680 --> 0:34:04.360 then he was just like like one of his friends 0:34:04.800 --> 0:34:07.480 like commit suicide and he's like, oh shit, and so 0:34:07.680 --> 0:34:09.960 like he stops, like he's announced this in version therapy 0:34:10.000 --> 0:34:13.200 and he's now appropriar so many of the focus on 0:34:13.239 --> 0:34:15.879 the family. People who were involved in like Love One 0:34:15.920 --> 0:34:19.319 out all of these escape programs. So many of them 0:34:19.880 --> 0:34:23.959 then renounced it, accepted their their gayness, and then moved 0:34:24.000 --> 0:34:29.000 to Portland's fucking Oregon. So many of them didn't this though, 0:34:29.120 --> 0:34:31.960 like this this is what's interesting about this. So okay, So, 0:34:32.080 --> 0:34:34.840 so while he was sort of figuring this out, Blancolin 0:34:34.880 --> 0:34:37.920 ship had a founded hope quest, right, and so he 0:34:38.120 --> 0:34:40.920 leaves with the people who are running it now, like 0:34:41.200 --> 0:34:43.560 our X gays who they're like the only X gays 0:34:43.640 --> 0:34:47.080 left who didn't renounce it and who like still claimed 0:34:47.120 --> 0:34:49.640 to be ex I mean, they they've taken their stuff 0:34:49.680 --> 0:34:53.279 about how like homosexuality should be like dealt with by 0:34:53.680 --> 0:34:57.840 saying by having by marrying women and just not acting 0:34:57.880 --> 0:35:00.560 on it or whatever. Like they they took that stulf 0:35:00.600 --> 0:35:02.640 out of their bios, but they apparently they still believe it, 0:35:03.120 --> 0:35:05.279 like like they've they these people have never probably come 0:35:05.320 --> 0:35:08.239 out against it. And you know what essentially happened was 0:35:08.280 --> 0:35:10.759 that like enough of enough of the X gays, like 0:35:11.560 --> 0:35:13.440 but the thing collapsed enough that like they had to 0:35:13.480 --> 0:35:14.800 find and they had to find a new thing to do. 0:35:14.880 --> 0:35:16.719 And the new thing they found to do was they 0:35:16.719 --> 0:35:20.279 went and they went into the porn addiction treatment industry. Yeah, 0:35:20.920 --> 0:35:22.960 and we also if if if you want more background 0:35:23.040 --> 0:35:25.680 like the X gay thing, you can listen to my 0:35:25.880 --> 0:35:27.800 my two part are on focus on the family and 0:35:27.840 --> 0:35:30.919 James Dobson for Behind the Bastards. Also for our week 0:35:31.040 --> 0:35:33.120 on the War on Transpeople, we discussed some of the 0:35:33.200 --> 0:35:37.279 same stuff for the first episode, which is the evangelical 0:35:38.160 --> 0:35:42.960 gay marriage, um like thing that. So yeah, we we 0:35:43.120 --> 0:35:44.879 we have we we we do, we do have something 0:35:44.880 --> 0:35:47.359 like produced scripted stuff on these topics if you want 0:35:47.400 --> 0:35:49.759 more background on them. Yeah. Unfortunately, this is a this 0:35:49.880 --> 0:35:52.920 is a story where there's like every single thread you've 0:35:52.960 --> 0:35:56.040 ever done suddenly is coming together in one moment of 0:35:56.080 --> 0:35:59.800 horrific violence. This is where long like winds up for 0:36:00.080 --> 0:36:03.719 is like treatments for like poor and sex addiction addictions, 0:36:03.760 --> 0:36:06.640 which I kindot emphasize enough. This is literally what he's 0:36:06.680 --> 0:36:09.920 talking about is literally that he watches porn like like 0:36:10.000 --> 0:36:12.640 that that's what porn sex addiction like means. And because 0:36:12.680 --> 0:36:15.160 none of this is real, the treatments like don't work 0:36:15.680 --> 0:36:18.359 because again it's all fake. And I do would also say, 0:36:19.080 --> 0:36:24.640 hope quest Is operates out of Georgia. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:36:25.680 --> 0:36:29.440 but you know so so so. So he goes into 0:36:29.480 --> 0:36:31.720 treatment twice and he's he's he says it like Maverick, 0:36:31.760 --> 0:36:35.680 which is this like recovery center. Um, it doesn't work, 0:36:35.760 --> 0:36:37.480 and he goes home and his parents kick him out 0:36:37.480 --> 0:36:42.640 of his house for watching porn. And you know, I 0:36:42.760 --> 0:36:45.320 think this is something that like is important to understand, 0:36:45.360 --> 0:36:47.560 which is that the people inside of this world really 0:36:47.680 --> 0:36:51.760 deeply believe this stuff, right and and like watching porn 0:36:52.080 --> 0:36:56.120 has real social consequences for them, and it has you know, 0:36:56.200 --> 0:36:58.800 and this, this has, this has has has like a 0:36:58.920 --> 0:37:01.080 profound fact on how these people think. I'm going to 0:37:01.160 --> 0:37:05.399 read a quote from a Washington Post article. Bayless, who 0:37:05.520 --> 0:37:08.680 was Long's roommate at Maverick Recovery, a sober living facility 0:37:08.760 --> 0:37:11.640 in Roswell, Georgia, in two thousand nineteen and two twenty 0:37:11.680 --> 0:37:13.759 and the months between his stay at Hope stays at 0:37:13.800 --> 0:37:17.319 Hope Quest, said Long felt his very salvation was at 0:37:17.400 --> 0:37:20.240 stake as he told his roommate that he was quote 0:37:20.360 --> 0:37:23.640 living in sin and not walking in the light. He 0:37:23.800 --> 0:37:28.600 was walking in darkness. So this this is how these 0:37:28.640 --> 0:37:30.759 people like see this stuff right, like like this is 0:37:30.840 --> 0:37:36.640 this is literally about whether you're you're like yeah, they're 0:37:36.680 --> 0:37:40.080 talking about like something extremely existential like it like it 0:37:40.320 --> 0:37:42.680 is this all seems very silly to people who are 0:37:42.719 --> 0:37:45.080 not inside it, because it is it is. It is absurd. 0:37:45.400 --> 0:37:48.239 But if the people involved in it it is like 0:37:48.560 --> 0:37:51.000 the totality of the universe, like it is, it is 0:37:51.800 --> 0:37:55.640 so big, it's like the biggest thing. It's so important 0:37:55.640 --> 0:37:59.120 because you're you're determining what you're, what you will, what's 0:37:59.120 --> 0:38:03.320 your conscious being will exist for for thousands and thousands 0:38:03.360 --> 0:38:05.280 of years like that, Like this is what they actually believe. 0:38:05.360 --> 0:38:08.120 So it's super important, like it's it is it is 0:38:08.200 --> 0:38:12.200 worth killing before because it's that's that's how important this is. 0:38:12.800 --> 0:38:14.719 Like like I think, I think there's no sense to 0:38:14.760 --> 0:38:16.880 which it is more important than life or death because 0:38:17.320 --> 0:38:19.759 you dying, Like okay, you die, once you go to 0:38:19.800 --> 0:38:24.840 your physical death doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Yeah, and 0:38:25.040 --> 0:38:27.759 and this, you know, and you know, we talked about this, 0:38:27.800 --> 0:38:30.040 like it's there. There's those things. There's there's a social consequences. 0:38:30.040 --> 0:38:31.239 You can get kicked out of your house, you can 0:38:31.320 --> 0:38:33.400 kick out of your church if you keep doing this, 0:38:33.680 --> 0:38:37.400 like like these churches will kick you out. Um, and 0:38:37.560 --> 0:38:40.719 and this, you know, this makes the ideology at work 0:38:40.800 --> 0:38:43.880 here incredibly powerful. And it provides a mixture of this 0:38:44.200 --> 0:38:47.760 like this this really incredible self hatred for like falling 0:38:47.800 --> 0:38:50.600 into sin and giving him too temptation. And it also 0:38:50.680 --> 0:38:54.520 creates a hatred of the temptation itself. And this brings 0:38:54.640 --> 0:38:56.960 us all the way up to the shooting. UM purity culture. 0:38:57.400 --> 0:39:00.239 Purity culture is the key that unlocks, you know, the 0:39:00.400 --> 0:39:03.360 meeting of Long's words. We can understand the explanation that 0:39:03.400 --> 0:39:06.920 the police gave, which again like he apparently has an 0:39:07.000 --> 0:39:09.880 issue what he considers a sex addiction and sees these 0:39:09.960 --> 0:39:12.120 locations as something that allows him to go to these places, 0:39:12.160 --> 0:39:14.400 and it's a temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate, 0:39:14.760 --> 0:39:20.440 you know. And there was a at the memorial for 0:39:20.680 --> 0:39:23.360 for the shooting last year, UM Sex Work or organizer 0:39:23.600 --> 0:39:27.719 kail and Jong said this, they hate us so they 0:39:27.760 --> 0:39:32.120 can hate themselves less. And I think that's that's a 0:39:32.200 --> 0:39:35.680 really great that is a really good analysis. Yes, yeah, 0:39:35.840 --> 0:39:38.880 it's a perfect calculation of like what's happening here. But 0:39:39.960 --> 0:39:41.800 this is the part of the story with the media 0:39:43.239 --> 0:39:49.400 just violently and spectacularly fox up to endaupt. They they 0:39:49.800 --> 0:39:52.319 dropped the purity ball. You might say, yeah, I mean 0:39:52.400 --> 0:39:56.640 it's it's it's really horrible there, Like what they've essentially 0:39:56.680 --> 0:39:58.839 done is an act two years of racist violence against 0:39:58.840 --> 0:40:01.400 people who had either literally just survived a mass shooting, 0:40:01.480 --> 0:40:04.840 or who are literally dead. And the way they do this, 0:40:05.160 --> 0:40:08.239 the press reads long talking about sex edition addiction, and 0:40:08.239 --> 0:40:10.440 they immediately assumed that the women in these massage parlors 0:40:10.480 --> 0:40:12.600 have been having sex with him, and they start, there's 0:40:12.640 --> 0:40:15.000 like this whole hunt that they do to like search 0:40:15.080 --> 0:40:17.479 for evidence that massage workers were doing like full service 0:40:17.520 --> 0:40:19.719 sex work, based off of again the words of a 0:40:19.840 --> 0:40:24.040 literal racist mass murderer and their own racist preconception that 0:40:24.360 --> 0:40:28.520 like all Asian women, especially SPA workers, are also sex workers. Yep. 0:40:29.200 --> 0:40:30.600 And like you know, on the one hand, yeah, it's 0:40:30.600 --> 0:40:32.600 true that this stuff is fueled by horr phobia and 0:40:32.640 --> 0:40:34.680 also like morally, who gives a ship what they were doing. 0:40:34.800 --> 0:40:37.040 But the immediate problem here is that by doing this 0:40:37.080 --> 0:40:40.040 witch hunt, you were sicking the police on the survivors 0:40:40.480 --> 0:40:43.560 you're putting you're putting a survivors in immense legal and 0:40:43.680 --> 0:40:46.520 physical danger. Yeah, and and we we will talk about 0:40:46.560 --> 0:40:50.560 this more next episode. But like, these women have already 0:40:50.600 --> 0:40:52.600 seen more police violence and police raids than all of 0:40:52.640 --> 0:40:54.560 the journalists writing about this combined I've seen in their 0:40:54.680 --> 0:40:58.040 entire lives. And if any of these people had bothered 0:40:58.280 --> 0:41:02.680 to spend five sec thinking about what purity culture is 0:41:03.400 --> 0:41:05.759 they would have realized it. Long is from a fanatically 0:41:05.840 --> 0:41:09.800 puritanical culture, a culture where, for example, in massage given 0:41:09.880 --> 0:41:14.120 by a woman where the man is like almost entirely naked, 0:41:14.960 --> 0:41:17.440 uh is something that would absolutely have been considered a 0:41:17.520 --> 0:41:23.200 sexual service. And like you know, and and if you 0:41:23.239 --> 0:41:26.560 think about this again for like five seconds, right when 0:41:26.600 --> 0:41:31.839 he's talking about removing temptation, he already thinks of all 0:41:31.920 --> 0:41:35.120 of these women as sex workers, because that's that's what 0:41:35.239 --> 0:41:37.400 he thinks the massage is. He thinks like that that 0:41:37.520 --> 0:41:40.839 that that's that's how he thinks about massages. It's yeah, 0:41:41.000 --> 0:41:44.960 it is it women are the like women do this 0:41:45.120 --> 0:41:48.480 then they cause men to sin, right, it's not it's 0:41:48.560 --> 0:41:50.520 nothing to do with what's going on with the man. 0:41:50.760 --> 0:41:53.120 It is specifically what the woman is doing. Yeah. Well, 0:41:53.160 --> 0:41:55.040 and and and even then like it doesn't actually like 0:41:55.120 --> 0:41:56.880 I think I think that the important distinction here is 0:41:56.920 --> 0:42:00.920 that it does not matter when Long talks about how 0:42:01.040 --> 0:42:03.200 this is a place that was giving intemptation and also 0:42:03.440 --> 0:42:05.480 like like he was giving intemptation and he was like 0:42:05.640 --> 0:42:08.600 he was going there for his sex edition. Like it 0:42:08.680 --> 0:42:11.960 doesn't actually matter to him whether or not any of 0:42:12.040 --> 0:42:14.960 these women have ever like exchange money set at all. 0:42:15.000 --> 0:42:18.640 It doesn't, It doesn't, it doesn't need to be, yeah, 0:42:18.680 --> 0:42:22.759 because these people are fucking like it just engulfed in 0:42:23.719 --> 0:42:27.760 Like it's so totally engulfed in this incredibly like violence 0:42:27.800 --> 0:42:30.800 and racist and misogynists be homophobic ideology that it just 0:42:30.920 --> 0:42:33.160 sort of you know, like that that's just how they think. 0:42:35.040 --> 0:42:37.200 And I think that this is where we're going to 0:42:37.280 --> 0:42:40.799 return one final time this episode to race, because there's 0:42:40.840 --> 0:42:43.560 a mistake that people make thinking about this analytically that 0:42:43.600 --> 0:42:46.560 prevents him from understanding both what's happening in Atlanta and 0:42:46.680 --> 0:42:50.040 how sort of capitalist and racist violence happens everywhere. Which 0:42:50.120 --> 0:42:53.799 is that like, okay, so right when this happened, um, 0:42:54.400 --> 0:42:56.960 like when when when the press conference dropped, you got 0:42:57.040 --> 0:42:58.400 all that there are a lot of people like I 0:42:58.400 --> 0:43:00.320 think Glenn Greenwald did this like a leaf sing like 0:43:00.719 --> 0:43:02.279 there's a whole crew of people who were like this 0:43:02.360 --> 0:43:04.680 isn't about Asian racism, but all this is about him 0:43:05.560 --> 0:43:11.480 like hating sex workers, and okay, it is true that 0:43:11.600 --> 0:43:13.960 human labor has been transformed into a commodity that can 0:43:14.000 --> 0:43:17.640 be bought and sold at will. Now on on a 0:43:17.719 --> 0:43:22.439 on a more theoretical level. Right, you will see sort 0:43:22.440 --> 0:43:25.080 of incredibly theory brain people who will talk about how 0:43:25.920 --> 0:43:28.680 you know in in March's Critique of Political Economy, right, 0:43:28.840 --> 0:43:32.000 all labor is astracting, interchangeable, each each unit of labor 0:43:32.080 --> 0:43:36.000 time is equivalent, identical, and exchangeable. But here in the 0:43:36.040 --> 0:43:39.520 massage parlor, this is a deadly simplification this labor. That 0:43:39.600 --> 0:43:41.400 the labor that is going on here is Asian. It 0:43:41.520 --> 0:43:44.600 is indelibly stamped with race and ethnicity and nationality and 0:43:44.719 --> 0:43:49.600 hundreds of years of violence and perception. Um Rumors Paca, 0:43:49.840 --> 0:43:52.440 a assistant professor at the Institute of Women's Studies at 0:43:52.480 --> 0:43:55.080 the University of Georgia, roode a piece last year called 0:43:55.480 --> 0:43:58.560 white supremacy in the Wellness Industry, or why it matters 0:43:58.600 --> 0:44:01.120 that that this happened at a spot ah Um, And 0:44:01.480 --> 0:44:03.080 I'm going to read a passage on it because it's 0:44:03.320 --> 0:44:08.080 very good. Massage spas, also called salons or parlors, like 0:44:08.160 --> 0:44:10.840 the one where these crimes took place, are part of 0:44:10.880 --> 0:44:13.959 a broader industrial complex that capitalizes on the racist belief 0:44:14.040 --> 0:44:18.040 that Asian people and Asian woman in particular, possess magical, spiritual, 0:44:18.120 --> 0:44:22.880 and sexual healing abilities. These attitudes belong to an entrenched 0:44:22.920 --> 0:44:26.640 Orientalist infrastructure in the United States that connects yoga and 0:44:26.680 --> 0:44:30.600 meditation and massage to tourism, pleasure, and escape, signaled by 0:44:30.640 --> 0:44:33.239 the exotic tropical flower and the photo above, if there's 0:44:33.239 --> 0:44:38.520 a photo of flower at a parlor. Yeah, you know. 0:44:38.680 --> 0:44:42.759 And and this this labor, the labor of of of 0:44:42.920 --> 0:44:47.800 the massage that is happening here is it depends almost 0:44:48.000 --> 0:44:50.680 entirely on a very specific performance of a specific kind 0:44:50.719 --> 0:44:53.920 of Asian femininity. And you know, when this sort of 0:44:54.040 --> 0:44:56.680 gender and racialized violence. But when when this gender and 0:44:56.800 --> 0:44:59.680 racialized labor comes into contact with Long and all of 0:44:59.760 --> 0:45:03.040 this historical forces that he's bearing, he murders the workers. 0:45:05.960 --> 0:45:12.840 And yeah, I think, yeah, this is the part of 0:45:12.880 --> 0:45:15.680 the story of the Atlanta shooting that I think if 0:45:15.760 --> 0:45:19.200 people know about Atlanta shooting at all, like, this is 0:45:19.280 --> 0:45:21.120 the part they know about, right, they know the story 0:45:21.160 --> 0:45:24.560 of Robert Darren Long. But there are other stories here, 0:45:24.640 --> 0:45:28.120 stories that aren't stories that in large parts are just 0:45:28.200 --> 0:45:30.880 not about the US at all. Um. There are the 0:45:30.920 --> 0:45:33.960 stories of the victims, the survivors, and the absolute hell 0:45:34.120 --> 0:45:36.200 that brought them into the massage parlor in the first place. 0:45:36.239 --> 0:45:39.160 On the horrific night, and those are the stories that 0:45:39.200 --> 0:45:44.440 we're going to tell him part two. Yeah, well that 0:45:44.600 --> 0:45:47.520 doesn't for us today. I do want to say, I know, uh, 0:45:47.640 --> 0:45:51.279 I know Christmas planning these for the annivers three of 0:45:51.440 --> 0:45:56.200 the shooting, but they proved to be quite the daunting 0:45:56.280 --> 0:45:58.759 task to put together. I had to get had to 0:45:58.800 --> 0:46:01.520 get pushed back for a while. So but but big 0:46:01.600 --> 0:46:05.759 thanks to you for doing the work too. Read through 0:46:05.760 --> 0:46:09.239 all of the horrible things and if like the other 0:46:09.280 --> 0:46:10.640 thing I said about this, like if you if you 0:46:10.760 --> 0:46:13.400 think this is bad, wait till part two, which is 0:46:13.960 --> 0:46:18.840 even more wide spanning, and it has horrific and disturbing 0:46:18.880 --> 0:46:22.160 violence in a way that will I don't know, reduced 0:46:22.200 --> 0:46:25.960 media tears multiple times. And yeah, we'll leave you an 0:46:26.000 --> 0:46:29.880 existential dread of the condition of this world. Yeah, and 0:46:29.960 --> 0:46:34.120 I guess again there there is there, There is ways 0:46:34.160 --> 0:46:35.960 to combat it, right, because all of these a lot 0:46:36.000 --> 0:46:38.640 a lot of these things, all right, you know, problems 0:46:38.680 --> 0:46:40.920 with like viewpoint and ideas in terms of how we 0:46:41.040 --> 0:46:45.319 view sex, how we view women, how we view race, um. 0:46:45.480 --> 0:46:47.640 And there are things that when you see you can 0:46:47.719 --> 0:46:52.719 interrogate in people, um, especially if you're especially if you're 0:46:52.719 --> 0:46:55.239 a Christian, if you're if you're going to church, these 0:46:55.239 --> 0:46:57.080 there are things to watch out for and you can 0:46:57.120 --> 0:47:01.919 push back on because and doing so can maybe save 0:47:02.000 --> 0:47:05.919 people's lives, because these ideas have a death count. Yeah, 0:47:06.080 --> 0:47:10.239 and I think I think there's another part of this too, 0:47:10.360 --> 0:47:12.880 which is that you know, I mean, the reason we 0:47:12.920 --> 0:47:15.000 talk about purity culture stuff so much, the reason we 0:47:15.040 --> 0:47:17.920 talk about the mobilizations of the evangelical rights so much, 0:47:18.000 --> 0:47:21.840 is that they keep producing these movements that you know, 0:47:22.120 --> 0:47:24.960 that that put that put our lives in danger. And 0:47:26.280 --> 0:47:28.440 the only way that we can stop this, and this 0:47:28.600 --> 0:47:30.920 is a thing that we can do, is you have 0:47:31.080 --> 0:47:33.880 to actually destroy their movement, right, you have you have 0:47:34.040 --> 0:47:35.840 to you have to actually break their power. You have 0:47:36.000 --> 0:47:39.360 to you know, you have to find various ways to 0:47:39.640 --> 0:47:42.239 break the power, break the power of these churches, and 0:47:42.320 --> 0:47:43.640 you have to find ways to break the power of 0:47:43.680 --> 0:47:46.560 their political movements. And that is not an easy task. 0:47:47.280 --> 0:47:50.200 But if if we want to live in a world well, 0:47:50.200 --> 0:47:52.400 I mean, just quite blank, if if we want to 0:47:52.560 --> 0:47:55.560 live in a world and not in you know, like 0:47:55.800 --> 0:48:01.800 four degrees fahrenheit, like unlivable death escape, like, we have 0:48:01.880 --> 0:48:04.960 to deal with these people because they are the source 0:48:05.160 --> 0:48:08.120 of almost every right wing movement that that we're facing, 0:48:08.239 --> 0:48:13.200 and they have to be crushed before they do this again. Yeah, 0:48:13.280 --> 0:48:16.600 and they're they're going to try. I mean there's yeah, 0:48:16.680 --> 0:48:20.520 because the biggest thing would would say is like reaching 0:48:20.560 --> 0:48:23.040 out to people who you know are in us or 0:48:23.120 --> 0:48:25.600 if you if you go to church. I think it's 0:48:25.760 --> 0:48:29.399 your duty as a Christian to push back on these 0:48:29.440 --> 0:48:33.959 things because I'm not gonna bash anyone specifically for whatever 0:48:34.040 --> 0:48:36.920 religion they have. I understand why people have this. I 0:48:37.160 --> 0:48:40.400 I can see how they work. Um. You know, I 0:48:40.560 --> 0:48:44.879 was raised in something very similar. Um. But you can 0:48:45.120 --> 0:48:48.280 you can still push back on the type of rhetoric 0:48:48.400 --> 0:48:50.600 that leads to these things in the type of like 0:48:50.880 --> 0:48:56.160 like objectification and racism that necessitates violence and gets people 0:48:56.200 --> 0:48:59.000 to be okay with violence, um, and pushing back against 0:48:59.000 --> 0:49:02.840 like a Christian apocalypse to worldviews and like the idea 0:49:03.840 --> 0:49:08.400 your your actions will determine your you know how, the 0:49:08.480 --> 0:49:11.000 spiritual quality of your soul and where it's going to 0:49:11.080 --> 0:49:13.880 reside for all of eternity. Right, All these things are 0:49:14.040 --> 0:49:18.120 our ideas that are pretty pretty like innately dangerous. Um. 0:49:19.000 --> 0:49:23.560 And there's ways to do religion that don't have that. Yeah, 0:49:26.600 --> 0:49:30.520 but I think I think that is a good enough 0:49:30.560 --> 0:49:33.920 place till even for today, because I know part two 0:49:33.960 --> 0:49:44.080 we're gonna have some more more fire. Why why widespread problems? Yeah, alright, 0:49:44.120 --> 0:49:46.160 well this has been make it happen here. You can 0:49:46.239 --> 0:49:50.160 find us in the social media places that happened here pods. 0:49:51.040 --> 0:49:54.800 You can also flee into the woods. Flee into the woods. 0:49:54.840 --> 0:49:57.600 But but but before you flee into the woods, subscribe 0:49:57.640 --> 0:50:01.239 to the pod and leave a five star review. Bye 0:50:01.560 --> 0:50:23.120 bye bye everybody. I see you tomorrow. Yep, it's it 0:50:23.239 --> 0:50:30.680 could happen here a podcast about things falling apart and 0:50:30.840 --> 0:50:33.920 some other stuff occasionally. I'm Robert Evans. Welcome to the 0:50:34.000 --> 0:50:39.880 show today, our guests fresh off their new hit movie 0:50:40.719 --> 0:50:46.400 by paramount Garrison Davis. Uh and and yeah, what what 0:50:46.719 --> 0:50:51.120 what I'm doing? Like a like a thing, Chris Garrison. 0:50:51.280 --> 0:50:53.239 Garrison's lost the thread? Why don't you pick it up? 0:50:54.160 --> 0:50:57.680 I also have lost the thread. So here's the one. 0:50:58.120 --> 0:51:03.879 This has been very confusing for of an episode, absolutely baffling. Look, 0:51:04.320 --> 0:51:06.520 you want things to not be confusing, you have somebody 0:51:06.560 --> 0:51:12.919 else introduce your podcast. That's just the way it goes noted. Yeah, 0:51:13.040 --> 0:51:19.239 so what welcome to part two of the Atlantis shooting. Um, 0:51:19.560 --> 0:51:23.400 we are back with actually less Atlanta this time, but 0:51:24.000 --> 0:51:30.840 more shooting. Oh good, sorry, this is a very absurd 0:51:31.640 --> 0:51:38.120 Really we found ourselves, dear God, just a normal day 0:51:38.120 --> 0:51:43.640 at work. Oh take it away, Chris, you got this, 0:51:43.960 --> 0:51:46.520 You got this. We believe in you. There's there's a 0:51:46.600 --> 0:51:52.200 tendency I think among Asian American writers where when we 0:51:52.280 --> 0:51:56.280 get confronted with what are you know, considered quote unquote 0:51:56.280 --> 0:52:01.760 Asian American stories, there's almost inevitably an autobiographical pivot that happens. 0:52:01.840 --> 0:52:05.160 Like at some points in the piece Um made Jong, 0:52:05.760 --> 0:52:08.640 the author of the Vanity Fair piece I mentioned last episodes, 0:52:08.800 --> 0:52:11.200 that's been a major source for both these episodes. It 0:52:11.320 --> 0:52:13.759 doesn't her piece, So do I mean? Like dozens and 0:52:13.840 --> 0:52:16.440 dozens and dozens of as American writers who are you know, 0:52:16.760 --> 0:52:19.840 much more accomplished and talented than I am, And like, 0:52:20.120 --> 0:52:22.120 I get it. I I don't blame them for it. 0:52:22.200 --> 0:52:24.239 I think it's a powerful way to anchor a story 0:52:24.400 --> 0:52:26.719 and understand the story. And I also think that it's 0:52:26.800 --> 0:52:31.800 why we miss like half of the story that we 0:52:32.160 --> 0:52:35.920 when we talk about things, because you know, the the 0:52:37.400 --> 0:52:41.560 the audio autobiographical focus has this tendency to narrow the 0:52:41.680 --> 0:52:45.040 scope into looking at just sort of the US. And 0:52:46.719 --> 0:52:49.520 this story and the story of Asian Americans in general, 0:52:49.680 --> 0:52:51.880 isn't just a story about sort of a minority in 0:52:51.920 --> 0:52:55.080 the US or about American imperialism. It's about Asia itself, 0:52:55.840 --> 0:52:58.479 and here especially it's about China and Korea to lesser 0:52:58.520 --> 0:53:04.800 cent Japan. And you know, the histories of these places 0:53:04.880 --> 0:53:08.520 have as much to do with why the people who 0:53:08.640 --> 0:53:10.719 died in Atlanta were in those rooms on that day 0:53:10.880 --> 0:53:15.600 as Christian purity culture does. And you know, by by 0:53:15.680 --> 0:53:17.320 bym actually looking at this, we we got to introduce 0:53:17.360 --> 0:53:19.640 another key player in this horror show who only sort 0:53:19.680 --> 0:53:22.160 of appeared change intily in part one, which is capitalism. 0:53:23.280 --> 0:53:26.320 Because capitalism is about to show up and make just 0:53:26.719 --> 0:53:30.840 all of this monumentally worse. Yeah. It's kind of like 0:53:30.960 --> 0:53:36.040 Steven Seagal in that way. Yeah, I think more much 0:53:36.080 --> 0:53:42.000 more active than Steven Seagal, but by capitalism, unfortunately, moves 0:53:42.000 --> 0:53:45.319 at an incredibly relentless pace. Yeah. Capitalism's knees are an 0:53:45.400 --> 0:53:50.200 incredible shape. Yeah. So, and and this, this, this brings 0:53:50.320 --> 0:53:54.360 us back to Atlanta itself. Now, Yo Fong died a 0:53:54.440 --> 0:53:57.560 hero in the final moments of her life. As shots 0:53:57.640 --> 0:54:02.160 rang across Young Zation missaw she motioned for Marcus Leone, 0:54:03.040 --> 0:54:05.799 still half naked on the massage table, to stay still 0:54:05.840 --> 0:54:07.400 and wait for her to walk in front of him 0:54:07.440 --> 0:54:10.840 before he died behind the massage table by covering Leon's 0:54:10.880 --> 0:54:13.480 movement as she opened the door. She sacrificed her life 0:54:13.520 --> 0:54:15.040 to save the life of a man she'd met just 0:54:15.239 --> 0:54:19.520 minutes before. Her award, in typical American fashion, was a 0:54:19.560 --> 0:54:23.120 bullet in the head. It took six days for her 0:54:23.160 --> 0:54:25.080 family in China to realize that she had been killed. 0:54:25.560 --> 0:54:28.319 By village custom, the remains of an unmarried woman who 0:54:28.400 --> 0:54:30.640 left the village could not re enter it to be buried. 0:54:31.680 --> 0:54:34.200 Her body thus lay unclaimed in a morgue for nineteen 0:54:34.280 --> 0:54:36.040 days before she was buried in the land of her 0:54:36.080 --> 0:54:40.520 killer at a funerals attended entirely by strangers. Marcus Leone, 0:54:40.640 --> 0:54:44.319 the man Fong sacrificed her life to save, was forced 0:54:44.360 --> 0:54:46.480 to return to work at FedEx just three days after 0:54:46.520 --> 0:54:50.440 surviving the massacre. The sound of the packages he dropped 0:54:50.480 --> 0:54:54.520 on his delivery runs sounded like gunshots. He quit soon after. 0:54:57.040 --> 0:54:59.400 There is no justice in this world. Only an unending 0:54:59.440 --> 0:55:02.879 parade of or the details of which are somehow each 0:55:02.920 --> 0:55:09.920 worse than the last. And it is. Yeah, this is 0:55:10.000 --> 0:55:11.840 I think what I wanted to sort of what I 0:55:11.920 --> 0:55:13.759 wanted to talk about this episode, which is that, like, 0:55:15.360 --> 0:55:17.520 it's not just that there was a shooting, it's that 0:55:18.480 --> 0:55:25.680 each element of why everyone is there is its own 0:55:25.760 --> 0:55:31.680 successive horror story, and the conditions that produced this horror 0:55:31.760 --> 0:55:33.400 or not. You know, they're not just two conditions that 0:55:33.520 --> 0:55:36.680 produce Probader and Long. They're not just the conditions that 0:55:36.719 --> 0:55:39.120 produced to shoot her. They are the conditions that produced 0:55:39.160 --> 0:55:42.279 sail Fung. She spent almost her entire life as a 0:55:42.320 --> 0:55:45.000 miket workers, supporting a family whose most pressing concern was 0:55:45.000 --> 0:55:48.440 attempting to marry her off. And and I think it's 0:55:48.440 --> 0:55:51.320 worth tracing out these conditions and how they developed. Because 0:55:52.520 --> 0:55:54.960 a twelve year old girl drops out of middle school 0:55:55.040 --> 0:55:57.320 to work at a factory fifty miles away and that 0:55:57.400 --> 0:56:00.080 eventually is gunned down by an American racist is not 0:56:00.320 --> 0:56:04.279 how the future of Asia was supposed to go. Like, 0:56:04.920 --> 0:56:08.600 you know, I I don't have much love and imagine that. Yeah, 0:56:08.680 --> 0:56:10.160 it's like I don't have much loved for now, but 0:56:10.200 --> 0:56:12.520 I don't think if you showed mouth this he would 0:56:12.560 --> 0:56:14.400 be like, oh my god, this is the future that 0:56:14.480 --> 0:56:18.759 I wanted for my people. Like this, things have gone 0:56:18.880 --> 0:56:21.600 very badly wrong, and I think to understand how we 0:56:21.680 --> 0:56:23.360 got to this hell, we need to go back to 0:56:23.560 --> 0:56:26.120 another hell, which is the beginning of the Korean War. 0:56:27.600 --> 0:56:30.640 And you know, we've talked about the effects that the 0:56:30.719 --> 0:56:32.920 Korean War had on Korean women in the last episode, 0:56:33.000 --> 0:56:34.359 but I think there's a few other things that are 0:56:34.360 --> 0:56:38.280 worth emphasizing here, one of which is that the absolute 0:56:38.320 --> 0:56:42.480 devastation that the war rought on North and South Korea 0:56:43.360 --> 0:56:45.879 is incalculable. I mean, the effects of this I still 0:56:45.880 --> 0:56:52.279 felt to this day. It was a utterly devastating war. Um. 0:56:54.280 --> 0:56:59.080 But it also has sort of more subtle effects on 0:56:59.680 --> 0:57:04.120 the sort of politics and economics of of the region 0:57:04.280 --> 0:57:07.440 because what one of the you know, one of the 0:57:07.520 --> 0:57:09.160 very important things about this war is that the US 0:57:09.200 --> 0:57:12.480 is fighting in East Asia, and this means that the 0:57:12.640 --> 0:57:16.040 US is going to leave an enormous army in South Korea, 0:57:16.160 --> 0:57:18.840 which has its own military and sort of political and 0:57:18.880 --> 0:57:22.880 economic consequences. And you know, those troops are still there 0:57:22.960 --> 0:57:26.760 to this day, like technically fighting a war which has 0:57:26.800 --> 0:57:31.000 never formally ended. And you know, we'll come back a 0:57:31.080 --> 0:57:34.080 bit to this later. But this has a enormous application 0:57:34.120 --> 0:57:36.320 for the entire region. Um. I've I've talked on bastards 0:57:36.880 --> 0:57:41.640 before about like you know, about so many effects this has. 0:57:41.760 --> 0:57:45.640 But you know, Korea and later Vietnam are a major 0:57:45.760 --> 0:57:47.640 like the wars, the US fights there are a major 0:57:47.680 --> 0:57:51.080 factor behind the industrialization of Japan, which sees you know, 0:57:51.240 --> 0:57:53.280 enormous U S investment as part of this attempt to 0:57:53.360 --> 0:57:56.400 like shorten American supply lines by exporting their military industrial 0:57:56.440 --> 0:57:58.840 complex to East Asia. You know, we talked about the 0:57:58.880 --> 0:58:01.920 Japanese ankle this, but sell Korea is likewise industrialized, so 0:58:01.960 --> 0:58:05.040 American capital for you know, pretty much the same reason. Um, 0:58:05.720 --> 0:58:07.200 you know, and and and this goes on to the 0:58:07.280 --> 0:58:11.040 extent that like Korean troops like fight on the side 0:58:11.160 --> 0:58:14.640 of the US in Vietnam, and you know, so in 0:58:14.680 --> 0:58:17.200 South Korea's production base proves a sort of a pivotal 0:58:17.240 --> 0:58:21.320 military asset for the US war machine in the East. Now, 0:58:21.480 --> 0:58:23.000 the thing I think, and I think I think that 0:58:23.120 --> 0:58:27.120 part of it like is understood decently well because you know, 0:58:27.320 --> 0:58:28.600 if you if you if if you do if you 0:58:28.720 --> 0:58:31.160 like you know literally anything about this region. You've you've 0:58:31.160 --> 0:58:34.080 seen the effects of this stuff. But the part of 0:58:34.120 --> 0:58:37.520 it I think is less understood is that in China, 0:58:37.600 --> 0:58:40.520 this the war has a similar effect, which is that 0:58:40.800 --> 0:58:45.520 communist leadership fights this war right and it immediately becomes 0:58:45.600 --> 0:58:48.760 clear to them that there is a looping possibility they're 0:58:48.760 --> 0:58:50.120 gonna have to fight the US again. And if they're 0:58:50.160 --> 0:58:51.520 gonna have to fight the US again, they need an 0:58:51.520 --> 0:58:55.320 actual sort of modern industrial base to fight a war 0:58:55.360 --> 0:59:00.200 against the US. And this, you know, this eas to 0:59:00.240 --> 0:59:02.680 sort of militarization, industrization, and you you get a look 0:59:02.720 --> 0:59:06.480 at two very different kinds of state led developments, uh, 0:59:06.840 --> 0:59:09.880 which I'm going to call state led development corruption and 0:59:10.000 --> 0:59:16.160 state state led development socialism question mark, which sort of 0:59:16.240 --> 0:59:18.280 which sort of a play out in China and Korea. UM. 0:59:18.520 --> 0:59:22.160 And you know, I think it's it's it's worth actually 0:59:22.200 --> 0:59:25.800 talking about this because both of these systems are essentially 0:59:25.880 --> 0:59:29.080 going to collapse, and when they do, they are going 0:59:29.160 --> 0:59:32.000 to send an enormous number of people, both in China 0:59:32.120 --> 0:59:36.320 and Korea, you know, spreading, spreading across the world seeking 0:59:36.520 --> 0:59:42.240 like any kind of sort of economic salvation. And a 0:59:42.360 --> 0:59:45.160 lot of the people who are killed in Atlanta are 0:59:45.440 --> 0:59:49.040 in Atlanta because of these because of these crises. Yes, 0:59:49.120 --> 0:59:51.640 so so. The first of these is the chapel system 0:59:51.680 --> 0:59:54.680 in Korea, which is sort of informally established by the 0:59:54.760 --> 0:59:56.640 dictator Park junk Key is like the core of his 0:59:56.720 --> 1:00:02.200 plan for economic development, and it generates a number of 1:00:02.280 --> 1:00:05.680 extremely powerful family owned megan conglomerates with intimate ties to 1:00:05.720 --> 1:00:07.760 the state and these sort of various political factions, and 1:00:08.040 --> 1:00:12.480 these conglomerates which control just vast sections of the Korean economy. 1:00:12.480 --> 1:00:15.680 I like, like, like to this day, Samsung, which is 1:00:15.760 --> 1:00:19.320 the largest the remaining chabels, Like I think I think 1:00:19.360 --> 1:00:22.600 they're they're total percentage of the GDP of Korea's like 1:00:22.680 --> 1:00:27.680 seventeen percent or something. It's like, it's it's absolutely absurd. Jesus, Yeah, 1:00:27.880 --> 1:00:30.440 like and and and and like and the thing is 1:00:30.480 --> 1:00:32.480 that you know, and it's sort of it's basically about 1:00:32.520 --> 1:00:35.520 this is that like the chabels are much weaker than 1:00:35.520 --> 1:00:39.000 the ust to be um for reasons that we will 1:00:39.040 --> 1:00:43.760 get to in a bit. And you know, when when 1:00:43.800 --> 1:00:45.160 when they're found and when they're sort of at the 1:00:45.200 --> 1:00:48.960 height of their powers they have, you know, they're they're 1:00:49.000 --> 1:00:52.280 they're established with three goals. Um, there's an attempt to 1:00:52.280 --> 1:00:56.480 develop the economy. I you know, there's an attempt to 1:00:56.520 --> 1:00:59.560 sort of the fuel. There's attempt to sort of fuel 1:00:59.560 --> 1:01:02.640 the Abaric in South Korean war machines. And the third 1:01:02.640 --> 1:01:04.080 thing I'm trying to do is to make a lot 1:01:04.120 --> 1:01:06.520 of people in the government and their allies indescribably rich. 1:01:07.240 --> 1:01:12.040 And it works sort of amazingly, which is a weird 1:01:12.200 --> 1:01:17.160 thing to say about development regime started by military edcatorship, 1:01:17.360 --> 1:01:20.200 but they have they have an enormous amount of mill 1:01:20.320 --> 1:01:26.800 of American capital military aids, and like they do successfully develop, 1:01:26.920 --> 1:01:28.760 they kill in enormous sumber of people in the process, 1:01:28.840 --> 1:01:33.000 but you know, they do it. On on the other side, 1:01:34.920 --> 1:01:37.880 you have Chinese datelight developments, and this is also about 1:01:37.920 --> 1:01:40.240 economic development and fueling the military. But you know, the 1:01:40.320 --> 1:01:42.920 goal here is to create an economic base for socialism 1:01:43.040 --> 1:01:48.600 and this does not work. Um. There there there's number 1:01:48.640 --> 1:01:51.680 of complicated reasons for this. The simplest one is that 1:01:51.800 --> 1:01:54.440 China just doesn't get the kind of investment technology transfer 1:01:54.560 --> 1:01:59.560 south Korea gets until like way later. Um. But the 1:01:59.680 --> 1:02:02.920 other really important element of this for this story is 1:02:03.120 --> 1:02:05.600 about the urban world divide, and this is another thing 1:02:05.600 --> 1:02:07.680 I've talked about Bastards like on I've talked about on 1:02:07.760 --> 1:02:10.400 Bastards a bit, but I think it's worth going into 1:02:10.480 --> 1:02:14.360 the details a little bit because otherwise a lot of 1:02:14.480 --> 1:02:19.000 the stuff that's going to happen that is, you know, 1:02:19.120 --> 1:02:22.600 the the part of the story that is directly sending 1:02:22.840 --> 1:02:25.680 twelve year olds off to a factory and Shenzen like 1:02:26.120 --> 1:02:31.320 don't make any sense without it. So to make a 1:02:31.440 --> 1:02:33.880 very complicated and shifting set of economic programs like as 1:02:33.920 --> 1:02:37.680 simple as possible. UM. Chinese industrial policy dread what's sort 1:02:37.720 --> 1:02:41.760 of called the socialist period is about extracting grain from 1:02:41.760 --> 1:02:44.520 the countryside and fuelly and funneling get into urban industrial 1:02:44.560 --> 1:02:47.040 developments and you know, to get it, to get it 1:02:47.120 --> 1:02:51.480 like understanding of what we're talking about here. So the 1:02:52.000 --> 1:02:55.200 CCP is essentially deliberately under developing the countryside in favor 1:02:55.240 --> 1:02:58.200 of developing cities. And this is this is the supposed 1:02:58.240 --> 1:03:01.800 to state policy. UM from three in nine of the 1:03:01.880 --> 1:03:05.480 Chinese population is doing agricultural labor, but agriculture receives less 1:03:05.480 --> 1:03:07.680 than ten percent of state investments over the same period, 1:03:09.240 --> 1:03:14.280 so they are like really really really incredibly not funneling 1:03:14.320 --> 1:03:18.840 any resources back into into rural areas. Yeah, I mean 1:03:19.840 --> 1:03:21.960 is there a degree to that? Is there a degree 1:03:22.200 --> 1:03:25.480 of that that is maybe related to like I know 1:03:25.840 --> 1:03:28.360 in the USS are a lot of the early left 1:03:28.440 --> 1:03:34.240 wing resistance to the Soviet regime came from rural areas. Um, 1:03:34.760 --> 1:03:36.400 is there anything to do with that? Like, is it 1:03:36.520 --> 1:03:40.320 kind of a desire to avoid developing these places that 1:03:40.400 --> 1:03:42.960 are less controllable? No? And this is this is the 1:03:43.000 --> 1:03:46.120 sort of interesting thing about China is that I mean, Okay, 1:03:46.120 --> 1:03:48.880 so the CCP originally has an urban base, but they 1:03:48.960 --> 1:03:55.160 managed to get their retire urban base killed. So this 1:03:55.360 --> 1:03:58.160 is this is this is the cause of like like this, 1:03:58.320 --> 1:03:59.400 this is this is one of the reasons for the 1:03:59.440 --> 1:04:03.640 center Soviet split. Like this is basically like salon in 1:04:03.680 --> 1:04:06.920 Trotsky or bickering, and their bickering gets like a million 1:04:07.040 --> 1:04:10.400 Chinese communist killed, and that means that you know, this 1:04:10.520 --> 1:04:11.880 this this is this is where the sort of rise 1:04:11.920 --> 1:04:14.040 of Mao comes in, because Mao is a mau as 1:04:14.080 --> 1:04:17.040 a peasant organizer, and once the entire World Party is dead, 1:04:17.160 --> 1:04:18.720 it's like, well, okay, so now we have a peasant 1:04:18.800 --> 1:04:22.080 base and they have they actually have a really they 1:04:22.120 --> 1:04:24.640 have they have like a basically unprecedented level of of 1:04:24.720 --> 1:04:28.320 sort of buy in from the countryside. But the problem 1:04:28.480 --> 1:04:32.560 is that the party just isn't interested in world development 1:04:32.560 --> 1:04:34.160 because the thing that they want is they want to 1:04:34.200 --> 1:04:35.920 be able to develop military power and they want to 1:04:35.920 --> 1:04:39.880 be able to develop like heavy industry, and those aren't 1:04:39.960 --> 1:04:41.720 things that they think you can do in the countryside. 1:04:41.720 --> 1:04:44.240 And so their strategy is just to just I mean 1:04:44.320 --> 1:04:47.000 just literally it's just pure grain extraction from the countryside 1:04:47.320 --> 1:04:50.800 and then using that to feel industrial development, which they're 1:04:50.840 --> 1:04:54.720 doing for i mean largely ideological reasons, but it also 1:04:54.760 --> 1:04:56.320 does have to do with the fact that China, like 1:04:59.120 --> 1:05:01.520 like people people talk a lot about how like, you know, 1:05:01.560 --> 1:05:03.680 the communist revolution in Russia happens and like the least 1:05:03.680 --> 1:05:06.520 developed country in Europe, and it's like, yeah, but like 1:05:06.800 --> 1:05:11.120 Russia had like several times more industrial capacity in Russian 1:05:11.120 --> 1:05:14.920 Revolution than China does after the war. So this is 1:05:14.960 --> 1:05:17.920 a country that is like a complete economic backwater. And 1:05:18.280 --> 1:05:19.520 so you know, this, this is this is part of 1:05:19.560 --> 1:05:22.240 what they're doing. I thought it doesn't it doesn't work. 1:05:23.240 --> 1:05:28.160 And you know, I actually mentioned that there's one other 1:05:28.200 --> 1:05:31.080 thing that they're doing here, which is that so they're 1:05:31.120 --> 1:05:35.520 based in the peasantry is fairly solid. But the other 1:05:35.600 --> 1:05:37.560 thing they have to use this grain budget for is 1:05:37.640 --> 1:05:40.600 to buy off this like incredibly bilitant working class that 1:05:40.640 --> 1:05:45.720 they've inherited, because these people are on strike like constantly, 1:05:46.320 --> 1:05:47.960 and this is this is this is a really serious 1:05:48.040 --> 1:05:50.480 problem for the CCP, and so they you know, they 1:05:50.520 --> 1:05:52.320 have all these welfare programs, they have all of this 1:05:52.400 --> 1:05:54.800 sort of these resources that they're they're paying they're putting 1:05:54.800 --> 1:05:57.640 into sort of buying off this class. And the result 1:05:57.720 --> 1:06:01.080 of this is you have just incredible rural poverty because 1:06:02.200 --> 1:06:03.640 like one of one of the things that happens here 1:06:03.760 --> 1:06:06.360 is I guess, I guess you called the benefits, but 1:06:06.520 --> 1:06:09.880 things like there's like housing, education, like medical care, this 1:06:09.920 --> 1:06:13.120 stuff is all distributed like through your work and through 1:06:13.160 --> 1:06:17.800 your household registration. And so you know, if if if 1:06:17.840 --> 1:06:21.280 you're someone who has a job in the countryside, you're 1:06:21.840 --> 1:06:24.760 the resources that you're getting are are also from the countryside, 1:06:24.800 --> 1:06:26.760 and that means that you have just these like awful 1:06:26.840 --> 1:06:29.400 underfooted services, Your benefits are terrible. And even if you 1:06:29.440 --> 1:06:31.120 can somehow get a job in the city, which is 1:06:31.840 --> 1:06:34.440 really hard because China also has these like really intense 1:06:34.520 --> 1:06:38.640 internal like immigration restrictions. So like if if you're like 1:06:38.720 --> 1:06:41.160 in another province that you're not supposed to be, like you, 1:06:41.320 --> 1:06:44.520 you will get deported back to your home province. There's 1:06:44.520 --> 1:06:47.880 all these are these really tight controls, and this means 1:06:47.960 --> 1:06:51.560 that like if you're in a rural area, like your 1:06:51.640 --> 1:06:55.520 livelihood is tied to your family unit in a way 1:06:55.560 --> 1:06:58.040 that's like not happening anywhere near as intensely in the cities. 1:06:58.160 --> 1:06:59.960 And when I say your livelihood is tied to your 1:07:00.000 --> 1:07:04.360 emily unit, what I mean is that like other than 1:07:04.640 --> 1:07:08.240 this like brief like token attempt they make to socialize, 1:07:08.320 --> 1:07:12.560 like housework reproductive labor in the greatly forward men in 1:07:12.680 --> 1:07:16.120 the state are just like entirely dependent on uncompensated housework 1:07:16.160 --> 1:07:21.200 and production by women, which yeah, it's not just a 1:07:21.320 --> 1:07:24.680 China thing. Yeah, I mean yeah, it's like okay, it's like, oh, hey, 1:07:24.720 --> 1:07:26.520 this sounds like your modern system and like yes, this 1:07:26.760 --> 1:07:30.440 is true. Um. But on the other hand, the socialists 1:07:30.600 --> 1:07:33.080 like ideologically are claiming to be better than this, So 1:07:33.200 --> 1:07:34.960 I'm holding them through their own standards and giving them 1:07:35.040 --> 1:07:40.200 just like d on this because this is like yeah, 1:07:40.520 --> 1:07:43.440 I mean, like I think this is really one of like, 1:07:44.320 --> 1:07:46.000 you know, Okay, so they failed to end capitalism. But 1:07:46.200 --> 1:07:47.800 I think if if you look at, like, what is 1:07:47.840 --> 1:07:49.920 the other great failure of the Chinese Revolution, it's that 1:07:50.840 --> 1:07:54.160 they never dealt with the patriarchy. And this means, like, 1:07:54.240 --> 1:07:56.400 you know what, when when Mao is saying stuff about 1:07:56.440 --> 1:07:58.200 like women hold up half the sky, like, what what 1:07:58.320 --> 1:08:01.320 he actually means is that like women's labor is holding 1:08:01.400 --> 1:08:03.200 up like seventy percent of the budget and they're getting 1:08:03.240 --> 1:08:08.680 like twenty of the pay. And this this is extremely 1:08:08.720 --> 1:08:12.400 important for reasons that we will get to in a second, 1:08:12.600 --> 1:08:15.560 because it turns out if your entire economy is based 1:08:15.600 --> 1:08:18.640 on patriarchy, really bad things start happening in terms of 1:08:18.720 --> 1:08:22.639 your gender politics, which is a thing that has never 1:08:23.120 --> 1:08:25.080 has literally never happened in any other regime. But we 1:08:25.120 --> 1:08:27.280 should not at all take any lessons from this about 1:08:27.320 --> 1:08:30.719 how our own economy works. It's great, It's completely fine. 1:08:31.280 --> 1:08:33.200 The other thing that we need to talk about is 1:08:35.080 --> 1:08:40.920 the CCPs just utter full scale war against urban workers. 1:08:42.280 --> 1:08:44.479 And this is not the kind of like abstract class 1:08:44.520 --> 1:08:46.439 war that you hear Left is talking about all the time, 1:08:46.520 --> 1:08:49.200 that's you know about like wages, unionization and so forth. 1:08:49.280 --> 1:08:52.479 Like this is an actual war that is resolved by 1:08:52.600 --> 1:08:55.080 the by just the p l A, the Chinese army 1:08:55.160 --> 1:08:58.519 just butchering the Chinese working class. And this comes to 1:08:58.560 --> 1:09:01.400 a head and the Cultural Revolution ends. You know. I 1:09:01.960 --> 1:09:03.759 have I have a whole rant about the Culture Revolution 1:09:03.800 --> 1:09:06.680 that I will do sometime that's not now. But the 1:09:06.760 --> 1:09:09.360 short version of it is that one of the things 1:09:09.400 --> 1:09:12.919 that happens in the Culture Revolution is that the CCP 1:09:14.320 --> 1:09:17.120 crushes these sort of rebel worker factions and they kill 1:09:17.200 --> 1:09:21.960 a million people, like from from from from Yeah, I 1:09:22.000 --> 1:09:27.880 mean it's like it's really it's really slick. Comparing it, 1:09:28.000 --> 1:09:30.960 like to the scale of like the great anti communist purges, 1:09:31.479 --> 1:09:34.000 like this is I think it. I think it's actually more. 1:09:34.080 --> 1:09:35.880 I think it's a million people. I think it's more 1:09:35.960 --> 1:09:40.200 people than than Sue Hardo killed. It's like there you go, 1:09:40.520 --> 1:09:43.640 see there's some left right unity. Yeah, it's well, I 1:09:43.680 --> 1:09:47.880 mean Mount MoU undisputed greatest anti communists, has the highest 1:09:47.920 --> 1:09:51.280 number of Communism kills. Well, I don't know, let's let's 1:09:51.400 --> 1:09:54.479 I mean, Joseph Stalin's in that running. That's true. You've 1:09:54.479 --> 1:09:56.600 got to You've got to. You've got a couple of 1:09:56.720 --> 1:09:59.799 Titans battling it out here. Yeah, it's it's it's definitely, 1:09:59.840 --> 1:10:02.439 it's it's it's a difficult choice. But yeah, I mean 1:10:02.520 --> 1:10:05.439 like they are like like this CCP is literally fighting 1:10:05.439 --> 1:10:07.640 a war against against cerverin workers, and like this is 1:10:07.880 --> 1:10:10.040 even by like the mid seventies, there are there are 1:10:10.080 --> 1:10:12.280 moments where the army is sending like tens of thousands 1:10:12.360 --> 1:10:14.240 of work since the thousands of troops like in the 1:10:14.320 --> 1:10:17.560 cities to break up strike waves. And this is this 1:10:17.640 --> 1:10:21.280 is an enormous problem for CCP, you know, Okay, Like 1:10:21.400 --> 1:10:24.559 it's an aorways problem for them politically because it turns 1:10:24.600 --> 1:10:27.040 out that being a communist party and then the thing 1:10:27.120 --> 1:10:29.320 that you're doing all of the time is sending soldiers 1:10:29.360 --> 1:10:33.440 to shoot workers is really bad for your political system ideologically. 1:10:35.680 --> 1:10:41.880 Well okay, that's your opinion. Yeah it does. It doesn't 1:10:41.880 --> 1:10:43.519 go great for them. And and the the other problem 1:10:43.560 --> 1:10:47.360 they have is, uh, you know, this this creates this 1:10:47.520 --> 1:10:50.600 like this incredible militarization of society, and this leads a 1:10:50.640 --> 1:10:52.600 stagnation and there's all this corruption that's happening. But the 1:10:52.640 --> 1:10:55.080 other problem is like, okay, so if you're like a 1:10:55.160 --> 1:10:58.080 cadre like Planner, right, and there's always people on strike. 1:10:59.040 --> 1:11:00.880 You need to not be strike because you needed to 1:11:01.000 --> 1:11:05.680 produce stuff for your like central planning production schedules, and 1:11:05.880 --> 1:11:09.320 so all of these like cadre planners start being like, okay, 1:11:09.360 --> 1:11:11.519 these workers keep going on strike, like where where can 1:11:11.560 --> 1:11:13.360 we get labor that won't do this? And they start 1:11:13.360 --> 1:11:18.240 looking at the countryside and they start going like beard stroke, 1:11:18.439 --> 1:11:23.000 can we send this over here? And meanwhile, like the 1:11:23.080 --> 1:11:26.000 actual world, like real lights are fed up with just 1:11:26.120 --> 1:11:31.000 being treated like shit, and they start decollectivizing their farms 1:11:31.080 --> 1:11:33.760 because okay, there's a lot of reasons why they're doing this, 1:11:33.880 --> 1:11:38.080 but they essentially start forming these things that become called 1:11:38.439 --> 1:11:41.400 town and village enterprises, which are these like the civil 1:11:41.439 --> 1:11:44.040 sixplination of it is that they basically start for forming 1:11:44.080 --> 1:11:46.839 capitalist companies and trying to make money. But the ownership 1:11:46.840 --> 1:11:48.600 structures are a bit different because they're like, you know, 1:11:48.640 --> 1:11:50.759 it'll be like a village, right, and like the village 1:11:51.479 --> 1:11:54.960 like technically collectively owns this like company that makes tires 1:11:55.080 --> 1:11:59.120 or something, right, And this is where you start getting 1:11:59.360 --> 1:12:01.519 markets coming China. And the CCP looks at this, it 1:12:01.560 --> 1:12:04.360 goes like yeah, sure this is fine, Uh that this 1:12:04.520 --> 1:12:08.240 this won't stop our communism thing because we're having budget 1:12:08.280 --> 1:12:10.000 shortfalls right now, and if we let someone else do 1:12:10.120 --> 1:12:14.360 this work, we don't have to pay for it. And 1:12:14.920 --> 1:12:18.439 these so these town of village enterprises are called tv s. 1:12:18.640 --> 1:12:20.920 Like mostly what they're doing is they're like selling parts 1:12:21.080 --> 1:12:23.800 and stuff to like these giants. State own enterprises, which 1:12:23.800 --> 1:12:26.000 are you know, your state own enterprises are things that 1:12:26.040 --> 1:12:29.280 are building like bikes, like tractors and refrigerators, so they're 1:12:29.280 --> 1:12:31.360 like you know, they're selling them like wheels or like 1:12:31.880 --> 1:12:37.840 refrigerator parts. And this is this is the thing that 1:12:37.880 --> 1:12:40.840 becomes the core of the Chinese economy, particularly in Dario 1:12:40.960 --> 1:12:45.280 Fung's home province of Guandong, because Gando is really unique, 1:12:46.120 --> 1:12:49.080 well okay, really unique province. Like this is the thing 1:12:49.120 --> 1:12:52.160 you can say about literally every province, but Gwendong is 1:12:52.680 --> 1:12:54.479 particularly unique in this period because it's right next to 1:12:54.479 --> 1:13:01.320 Hong Kong. And this means that, I mean, there's always 1:13:01.360 --> 1:13:05.080 been sort of like capital kind of through really shady 1:13:05.120 --> 1:13:08.719 black markets and like people passing each other like notes 1:13:08.840 --> 1:13:11.439 under dinner tables and extra like all all of the 1:13:11.520 --> 1:13:15.439 weird like diplomacy stuff that like like Kissinger and Dixon 1:13:15.479 --> 1:13:18.559 get up to is happening through these like weird back 1:13:18.680 --> 1:13:20.920 channels that a lot of which are running through Hong Kong. 1:13:20.920 --> 1:13:22.360 There's a lot of stuff that's been sort of running 1:13:22.360 --> 1:13:27.800 through there. And when this stuff starts to happen, um 1:13:29.080 --> 1:13:34.120 you uh Gwendong gets these special economic zones and this 1:13:34.280 --> 1:13:37.880 becomes sort of the prototype for China's like eventual sort 1:13:37.920 --> 1:13:40.880 of capitalist centric like export development model. Um Gwendong is 1:13:40.960 --> 1:13:43.960 like they're they're literally there, They're they're they're they're taking 1:13:44.120 --> 1:13:46.320 like form capital from Hong Kong and they're using it 1:13:46.400 --> 1:13:50.040 to produce good for the market. And this is the 1:13:50.200 --> 1:13:55.840 world that Dano Fong and shout Jitan grow up in. Um. 1:13:56.280 --> 1:13:59.280 It's a world where on the one hand, there's enormous 1:13:59.280 --> 1:14:01.040 economic growth. On the other hand, like all of the 1:14:01.080 --> 1:14:03.320 safety nets that Chinese socialism have put in place are 1:14:03.360 --> 1:14:07.240 just like being completely destroyed and everyone is once again 1:14:07.320 --> 1:14:13.000 dependent on wages to survive. And it's also an incredibly 1:14:13.080 --> 1:14:16.280 deeply patriarchal world. You know, and we've seen this already 1:14:16.439 --> 1:14:21.960 right with Diane Fung's village, just like refusing to bury 1:14:22.040 --> 1:14:26.360 her body because she's not married, and you know, this 1:14:26.520 --> 1:14:28.640 is this is something that's only gotten worse as the 1:14:28.720 --> 1:14:30.479 sort of as the eighties where we're on, you get 1:14:30.479 --> 1:14:32.880 into their form period. You have simultaneous you have the 1:14:32.920 --> 1:14:38.720 one child policy, which is this incredibly draconian state and 1:14:38.760 --> 1:14:42.560 forced destruction of bodily autonomy, and it also serves this 1:14:43.240 --> 1:14:47.320 really horrific role and devalue in girls because girls are 1:14:47.560 --> 1:14:50.360 as having less economic value than boys. And so you 1:14:50.439 --> 1:14:51.840 get all these things where like you get these you 1:14:51.880 --> 1:14:55.519 get targeted like gender targeted abortions. They're these masterializations that happen, 1:14:55.880 --> 1:15:01.880 and yeah, it's this just enormous patriarchal engine and it sucks. 1:15:02.520 --> 1:15:05.360 And there's also there's a return to Confucianism as well, 1:15:05.479 --> 1:15:07.479 because like, and this is one of the things is 1:15:07.560 --> 1:15:11.280 like the most infuriating about this because like like of 1:15:11.400 --> 1:15:13.960 like what the original Chinese Revolution was about was like, hey, 1:15:14.040 --> 1:15:19.880 Confucianism sucks. Like this incredible like reactionary patriarchal ideology is 1:15:19.920 --> 1:15:25.479 in fact bad. And then like forty years in there, 1:15:25.560 --> 1:15:28.960 like hold on, wait, what if we bring this ship back? 1:15:31.000 --> 1:15:35.080 And it is it is it is extremely bad, and 1:15:35.280 --> 1:15:36.960 you know, and it serves as a sort of like 1:15:37.040 --> 1:15:39.640 like this pacifying picture archical ideology that they're using to 1:15:39.640 --> 1:15:42.240 sort of hold the family unit together because the family 1:15:42.360 --> 1:15:45.200 unit are so there's a lot of the firms in 1:15:45.240 --> 1:15:48.160 this period they're just like owned by families, right, and 1:15:48.560 --> 1:15:50.040 you know, you can there's there's a lot of sort 1:15:50.080 --> 1:15:52.280 of similarities here between if you look at your like, 1:15:53.960 --> 1:15:56.280 you know, you're you're sort of like right wing, like 1:15:57.000 --> 1:16:00.519 culturally Christian like small business owner families, and you look 1:16:00.560 --> 1:16:04.600 at this and it's like, uh, we've we've we've redeveloped 1:16:04.600 --> 1:16:07.479 the wheel here. We we have once again created the 1:16:07.520 --> 1:16:15.599 patriarchal death engine. Good who it's it's great, it's yeah. 1:16:15.760 --> 1:16:22.240 And this this is basically this is the world that 1:16:23.520 --> 1:16:29.200 Dayo fang like grows up in. And this is the 1:16:29.280 --> 1:16:32.599 period where the old urban working class is just hammered 1:16:32.640 --> 1:16:34.759 to pieces so that the state and capital just gorge 1:16:34.800 --> 1:16:37.240 itself as well for benefits, and the new Chinese working 1:16:37.240 --> 1:16:44.520 class is born, and this migrant working class, it's vanguard 1:16:44.600 --> 1:16:47.240 are these women who are given to imperatives by their families. 1:16:47.280 --> 1:16:49.839 And these these these imperatives are given I mean literally 1:16:50.000 --> 1:16:53.760 Dayong fang like Dayo fang Like directly and I think 1:16:53.840 --> 1:16:59.920 indirectly to um shout git on well because it like 1:17:00.000 --> 1:17:02.080 with with Daya Fong, like we literally have the quotes 1:17:02.120 --> 1:17:04.760 of this right, like she she is told by her 1:17:04.800 --> 1:17:09.880 family get married and find a job and shout Shitan 1:17:10.120 --> 1:17:13.120 gets married off at twenty but a middle school day 1:17:13.320 --> 1:17:16.960 Fog like drops out of school and just goes to 1:17:17.000 --> 1:17:22.920 work in a factory in Shenzen, and this like these 1:17:22.960 --> 1:17:25.400 are the women who built modern China, like these are 1:17:25.439 --> 1:17:27.639 these are literally these are the people who turned shens 1:17:27.680 --> 1:17:30.960 In from a tiny rural town into a world class 1:17:31.000 --> 1:17:33.200 manufacturing caub that is literally larger than any city in 1:17:33.240 --> 1:17:35.519 North America. And I mean this happens in the span 1:17:35.640 --> 1:17:41.840 of like a couple of decades, and they get jack 1:17:41.920 --> 1:17:44.240 shipped for it, like the wages they are working for. 1:17:44.840 --> 1:17:48.280 Like Dayan Fong's brother is working on rubber plantation. He's 1:17:48.320 --> 1:17:51.880 making five dollars a month. And you know, in Dion 1:17:51.960 --> 1:17:53.800 Fong's case, like the other thing she's dealing with is 1:17:53.880 --> 1:17:56.160 literally these constant demands for a family to get married, 1:17:56.800 --> 1:18:00.679 and Fong just refuses. They try to was a young adult, 1:18:00.760 --> 1:18:03.000 she just goes no, and they try to try to 1:18:03.040 --> 1:18:04.680 to get like when she's like thirty eight, they like 1:18:04.720 --> 1:18:06.280 they bring her back to her village and her like 1:18:06.400 --> 1:18:09.160 pick a husband, she just goes no, and she just 1:18:09.360 --> 1:18:11.600 like they keep showing your guys gypsy come like no. 1:18:12.880 --> 1:18:16.599 And you know what she does instead is charter her 1:18:16.640 --> 1:18:20.080 own path by managing to secure a visa to the 1:18:20.240 --> 1:18:25.160 US where and this this, this is so Diao pongs 1:18:25.200 --> 1:18:28.240 like he's a margant worker for ages and eventually I think, 1:18:28.320 --> 1:18:31.200 like she wasn't sixteen, she moves to the US to 1:18:31.520 --> 1:18:35.439 support her family. Again from afar, there's there's only there's 1:18:35.520 --> 1:18:38.120 one more piece of macroeconomics. I mean you talk about 1:18:38.160 --> 1:18:40.639 before we can follow Dio Pong to the massage parlor, 1:18:40.800 --> 1:18:45.160 and this one is going to get like everyone else, 1:18:45.400 --> 1:18:48.519 to the scene of this massacre. So what when we 1:18:48.640 --> 1:18:53.320 last left our Korean corruption chapels, business business is booming, 1:18:53.800 --> 1:18:57.360 and in the early nineties business is like even more booming. 1:18:57.439 --> 1:18:59.120 It is this is this is the best I've ever 1:18:59.200 --> 1:19:01.559 done economically. And the reason is the best I've ever 1:19:01.600 --> 1:19:06.599 done economically is because is by in large part because 1:19:06.640 --> 1:19:09.080 of the thing that I am just perpetually cursed by 1:19:09.240 --> 1:19:10.840 when I do research for this show, which is the 1:19:10.920 --> 1:19:14.840 Plaza chords. Um. I've talked about this before, but I 1:19:14.920 --> 1:19:17.200 will once again, do a brief summary of this, which 1:19:17.240 --> 1:19:20.720 is that so in the nineties, as people probably are 1:19:20.720 --> 1:19:22.880 aware of the U s the US manufacturing economy is dying. 1:19:24.120 --> 1:19:26.520 And this is a real problem for Reagan because everyone's 1:19:26.600 --> 1:19:30.719 like Reagan, why does the economy suck? And his solution 1:19:30.760 --> 1:19:34.080 to this is just basically, at gunpoint, forcing Japan and 1:19:34.160 --> 1:19:37.200 West Germany to like let the U s D value 1:19:37.240 --> 1:19:39.160 its currency relative to the end of the Deutsche Mark. 1:19:39.200 --> 1:19:40.599 And it's like, Okay, this is a this is a boring, 1:19:40.640 --> 1:19:45.080 tetocratic thing. But the thing it actually does is if 1:19:45.840 --> 1:19:48.920 if your currency is weaker than another currency, it's easier 1:19:49.000 --> 1:19:51.000 for you to like sell them to have an export 1:19:51.000 --> 1:19:55.080 economy and sell them stuff. And this sets off just 1:19:55.360 --> 1:19:58.760 like an incredibly catastrophic chain of events where the US 1:19:58.800 --> 1:20:02.519 manufacturing actually comes back because you know, hey, hey, look 1:20:02.600 --> 1:20:04.880 the dollars the dollars week and now we can produce 1:20:04.960 --> 1:20:09.200 it again. But it just, you know it, it combines 1:20:09.240 --> 1:20:12.600 with this like structural weakness, Japan's economy, Japan's economies dimplodes, 1:20:13.640 --> 1:20:16.160 and Japan goes, okay, funk it. How do we keep 1:20:16.200 --> 1:20:20.320 the economy going without manufacturing sector? And their solution is 1:20:20.479 --> 1:20:25.680 invest in other countries and do real estate speculation, and 1:20:25.920 --> 1:20:28.719 you know, okay, so obviously nothing bad ever happens happens 1:20:28.720 --> 1:20:30.920 when you do real estate speculation. And the Japanese economy 1:20:30.960 --> 1:20:33.960 was completely fine until it collapsed like five years later. Um, 1:20:35.160 --> 1:20:37.800 but this this is a series of effects. One of 1:20:37.880 --> 1:20:41.920 them is that the Korean shables, you know, those those 1:20:41.960 --> 1:20:43.800 companies that are doing like literally the best business I've 1:20:43.800 --> 1:20:46.080 ever done. The reason they're doing this is because of 1:20:46.160 --> 1:20:53.400 Japanese credit and the fact that like there's there's more 1:20:53.439 --> 1:20:56.240 complicated currency bullshit going on. But basically, like the value 1:20:56.280 --> 1:20:58.719 the value of the Korean currency was pegged to the dollar, 1:20:58.880 --> 1:21:02.200 and so when the dollars value decreased, uh, the wand 1:21:02.240 --> 1:21:05.719 also decreased, and so you know this, this this gives 1:21:05.840 --> 1:21:09.280 Korea like a big manufacturing competitive manufacturing edge. But then 1:21:09.560 --> 1:21:12.320 you know, Japan goes under and they start to lose credit, 1:21:12.439 --> 1:21:15.559 and then the US does the reverse Plaza Chords where 1:21:15.600 --> 1:21:18.040 they just reverse the thing that they did before, and 1:21:18.160 --> 1:21:21.800 so now the dollar is incredibly strong again. Every other 1:21:21.880 --> 1:21:23.880 currency is really weak well due to it. And this 1:21:24.120 --> 1:21:29.280 just like this just obliterates like every economy in East Asia, 1:21:30.120 --> 1:21:32.400 like they all just implode, Thailand goes under, and most 1:21:32.400 --> 1:21:34.599 of these countries that have never recovered, like Thailand trickler, 1:21:34.960 --> 1:21:38.720 like the I mean, South Korea kind of does, but 1:21:38.840 --> 1:21:40.479 it's basically the only one. All the rest of the 1:21:40.520 --> 1:21:44.720 economies are just obliterated. And you know, this, this is 1:21:45.000 --> 1:21:48.400 this is the Asian economic crisis, and you know, saddle 1:21:48.479 --> 1:21:50.960 with like enormous debts and declining profits like these tables 1:21:51.000 --> 1:21:54.519 started collapsing left and right, and South Korea just is 1:21:54.680 --> 1:21:57.040 just on the edge of bankruptcy and right on Q 1:21:57.280 --> 1:21:59.240 the I m F shows up and makes everything worse 1:22:01.520 --> 1:22:04.960 because yeah, it's great, it's the I m F. They yeah, 1:22:05.040 --> 1:22:07.200 they do, they do normal I m F stuff, and 1:22:07.240 --> 1:22:09.280 they you know, they impose a bunch of austerity measures, 1:22:09.960 --> 1:22:13.040 and this just this annihilates the Korean middle class. Like 1:22:13.160 --> 1:22:16.360 it's just it just gets obliterated. This is this, this 1:22:16.479 --> 1:22:18.599 is just a death knell. And it it also has 1:22:18.760 --> 1:22:20.160 you know, it has a lot of effects. But one 1:22:20.200 --> 1:22:22.720 of the other ones is the Korean labor movements is 1:22:22.960 --> 1:22:27.040 really severely damaged by just all the economic devastates that's 1:22:27.040 --> 1:22:31.680 happening around them. And the product of this is just 1:22:31.800 --> 1:22:38.240 as sort of rural poverty drives Dayong Fong and Jan 1:22:38.360 --> 1:22:42.719 from their villages. The economic collapse drives Kian Jung Kim grants, 1:22:42.760 --> 1:22:45.400 who's one of the other people who died in this shooting, 1:22:46.200 --> 1:22:49.920 from Korea to the US. And this is something that 1:22:50.040 --> 1:22:55.120 this is there's there's something about the U S here. Well, okay, 1:22:55.280 --> 1:22:57.719 something about the US is that it's economy is incredibly strong, 1:22:57.840 --> 1:23:00.479 and the dollar is incredibly strong. And even in people 1:23:00.720 --> 1:23:03.680 who come to the US for other reasons that the 1:23:04.120 --> 1:23:07.160 two of the women who went up here, like are 1:23:07.240 --> 1:23:10.800 here basically because they buried someone. And but even that, 1:23:10.920 --> 1:23:12.280 you know, they like there's a couple of people like 1:23:12.320 --> 1:23:14.600 they marry someone and they break up, divorces the but 1:23:14.640 --> 1:23:15.760 they stay in the U s. And they stay in 1:23:15.800 --> 1:23:20.160 the US because like the median American income is like 1:23:20.280 --> 1:23:22.400 three times the median American income in China, and that's 1:23:22.439 --> 1:23:28.120 like now, and so you know, and the combination of 1:23:28.160 --> 1:23:30.599 that and the strength of the American the American dollars 1:23:30.600 --> 1:23:34.919 sort of it brings it brings the brave, the desperate, 1:23:35.120 --> 1:23:40.240 and just the love struck to our shores. Um. Now, 1:23:40.400 --> 1:23:46.320 if you remember lcs Hernande's Ortiz, Who's who's the man 1:23:46.439 --> 1:23:50.040 that long like shot while he was on his knees 1:23:50.040 --> 1:23:55.400 begging for his life. Um Hernanda's Ortiz was in that 1:23:55.600 --> 1:23:58.400 mall because he was wiring money home to his family 1:23:58.439 --> 1:24:02.080 in Guatemala. And you know, we could do another entire 1:24:02.160 --> 1:24:04.960 story here about Guatemala and the United Fruit Company and 1:24:05.120 --> 1:24:09.040 these the u S baccus and genocides. But I think 1:24:10.400 --> 1:24:16.080 the thing about this story is that every atrocity is 1:24:16.280 --> 1:24:22.240 tied to every other atrocity, you know, and it creates 1:24:22.280 --> 1:24:23.680 this web of death that we sort of you know, 1:24:23.720 --> 1:24:26.799 we we euphemistically call it capitalism or society or reality. 1:24:27.000 --> 1:24:29.680 And the survivors of this are just flung from meat 1:24:29.720 --> 1:24:32.080 grinder to meet grinder, desperately looking for a new life 1:24:32.120 --> 1:24:35.040 in new country, and you know they get there, in 1:24:35.080 --> 1:24:39.439 the country just buries them instead. Yongfang was also you know, 1:24:39.840 --> 1:24:42.280 constantly sending money home to her family. When she arrives 1:24:42.360 --> 1:24:44.639 in the US. She and she's supporting like ten members 1:24:44.680 --> 1:24:48.120 of her family off of a salary. That is, like 1:24:48.240 --> 1:24:50.960 I mean, like she supporting to members her family off 1:24:51.000 --> 1:24:55.880 of the salary that you get from massage work. Right, Yeah, 1:24:56.000 --> 1:24:58.320 I think that this is like like again, I think 1:24:58.320 --> 1:25:01.760 something like people don't understand about the US is that like, yeah, 1:25:01.800 --> 1:25:05.240 American wages are low, but the dollar is so strong 1:25:05.760 --> 1:25:10.840 that even like like like small amounts of money that 1:25:10.960 --> 1:25:13.400 you can send, like small amounts of money in dollars 1:25:13.439 --> 1:25:15.559 you can send back home have this enormous economic impact. 1:25:15.640 --> 1:25:18.719 And there is there is an enormous like an absolutely 1:25:18.840 --> 1:25:21.880 enormous sort of network of of immigrants in the US 1:25:22.040 --> 1:25:25.439 who are here basically to work in the center business 1:25:25.520 --> 1:25:27.000 is back home. And this is I mean, this is 1:25:27.080 --> 1:25:29.120 like this is an enormous part of just how the 1:25:29.320 --> 1:25:33.160 economy the Philippines works because of yeah, a bunch of 1:25:33.240 --> 1:25:39.439 the just incredibly fucked up stuff that the marcos Is did. Um. Yeah. 1:25:39.560 --> 1:25:45.559 And you know, for for Asian women in particular, once 1:25:45.640 --> 1:25:48.040 they get here, they're often drawn to spot work because 1:25:49.800 --> 1:25:51.479 and there's there's a lot of reasons we'll get into 1:25:51.520 --> 1:25:54.600 in a second, but these spas, the spas are some 1:25:54.720 --> 1:25:56.640 such just like a microcosm of the US, Like the 1:25:56.680 --> 1:25:59.599 pay is good, and the people doing the work often 1:25:59.680 --> 1:26:04.120 like for it to other jobs that are accessible to immigrants. Well, okay, 1:26:04.280 --> 1:26:07.120 they're accessible to immgrants with their levels of political and 1:26:07.200 --> 1:26:10.320 economic capital and social connections, which is usually really not 1:26:10.560 --> 1:26:14.320 that large. But the problem is, you know, as as 1:26:14.360 --> 1:26:17.400 with everything in the US, it's also often dangerous, like 1:26:17.640 --> 1:26:20.840 the particular kind of sort of exposure and performance of 1:26:20.880 --> 1:26:23.320 femininity that you need to do. This leaves these workers 1:26:23.479 --> 1:26:27.360 incredibly vulnerable to stockers, and you know, they face sort 1:26:27.360 --> 1:26:31.560 of constant like racial massages abuse. UM Butterfly, which is 1:26:31.840 --> 1:26:34.800 a Toronto based sex worker group, released a report that 1:26:34.880 --> 1:26:37.439 said that half of all massage parlor workers reported some 1:26:37.520 --> 1:26:41.320 kind of threat to their safety at work. Jesus, Yeah, 1:26:41.479 --> 1:26:45.080 it's it's workplace is both incredibly dangerous. And then you know, 1:26:45.160 --> 1:26:47.400 and when when when when we're saying like threat to 1:26:47.479 --> 1:26:51.120 their workplace, that doesn't that's not even like that's not 1:26:51.200 --> 1:26:54.120 even counting the police. And if you've read anything about this, 1:26:54.200 --> 1:26:57.200 you'll read people saying things like massage parlors face constant 1:26:57.240 --> 1:27:01.720 police raids and this is true. But if anything, it 1:27:01.800 --> 1:27:04.479 understands how bad it actually is because like Asian massage 1:27:04.520 --> 1:27:08.080 parlers are subjected to two different kinds of police rates 1:27:08.439 --> 1:27:10.640 that just happened constantly. Um, I'm going to read a 1:27:10.680 --> 1:27:13.760 thing from BuzzFeed. Yeah, it's it's great, it's it's really fun. 1:27:14.120 --> 1:27:19.120 Fro from three thousand six of people arrested for unauthorized 1:27:19.160 --> 1:27:21.799 practice of a profession for any job requiring a license 1:27:21.880 --> 1:27:25.439 in New York. We're Asian and nine percent were women, 1:27:25.439 --> 1:27:28.479 according to data from the New York Division of Criminal 1:27:29.160 --> 1:27:32.960 Justice Services, and our prostitution is a misdemetor defense. Unauthorized 1:27:32.960 --> 1:27:35.559 practice of a profession, which is the charge that covers 1:27:35.640 --> 1:27:39.720 unlicensed massage along with roles like veterinary medicine, engineering is 1:27:39.760 --> 1:27:42.360 a felony that carries higher penalty, including up to four 1:27:42.439 --> 1:27:45.720 years of jail time. Now I'm no expert, but that's 1:27:45.720 --> 1:27:50.360 sure does sound like racism of that misogyny, because like, yeah, 1:27:50.439 --> 1:27:52.439 there's an argument to me, like if you're if you're 1:27:52.640 --> 1:27:56.000 moonlighting as a bridge engineer and you're not qualified, Yes, 1:27:56.640 --> 1:28:00.960 that's it really just calling me on on the pod, 1:28:01.120 --> 1:28:06.320 just right right in the garrison. We've agreed not to 1:28:06.400 --> 1:28:08.760 talk about all of those people who died when that 1:28:08.840 --> 1:28:12.559 bridge collapse that you built in Florida, on that university campus. 1:28:12.920 --> 1:28:16.080 The thing of value was lost. No, it was Florida. 1:28:16.320 --> 1:28:18.680 Like that's why that's why the d A is not 1:28:18.840 --> 1:28:27.040 coming after you. Yeah, US government not pressing charges. It's Florida. 1:28:27.760 --> 1:28:32.080 Mm hmm. So okay, back to back to back to 1:28:32.160 --> 1:28:35.840 the racism. It's like, okay, so, so you you have 1:28:36.000 --> 1:28:40.360 these raids that are like literally only like targeted against 1:28:40.400 --> 1:28:44.600 Asian massage workers and then on top and so that 1:28:44.680 --> 1:28:46.560 that's type one. And the second type of raid is 1:28:46.600 --> 1:28:48.519 that the other thing that happens at these places constantly 1:28:48.680 --> 1:28:52.800 are I are these anti prostitution and anti trafficking raids 1:28:52.840 --> 1:28:57.720 And I'm putting both of those in enormous quotations. You 1:28:57.760 --> 1:28:59.639 know this, Okay, I'm gonna gonna go on a side 1:28:59.680 --> 1:29:02.920 tangent rant here, which is that Like okay, so, like 1:29:03.080 --> 1:29:05.640 every single person who does reporting on this, and I 1:29:05.640 --> 1:29:07.960 don't know if this is like a journalistic standards thing, 1:29:08.640 --> 1:29:10.439 but like even the good reporting on this, they like 1:29:10.560 --> 1:29:14.679 almost always have like a section that says, I, oh, 1:29:14.960 --> 1:29:21.160 the the Georgia, like Georgia's like resources on sex Trafficking 1:29:21.280 --> 1:29:26.360 says that, uh salon Asian salons are a place where 1:29:26.360 --> 1:29:29.559 there's a bunch of sex trafficking. And it's like mm hm, 1:29:30.200 --> 1:29:32.840 really like this this, this is what you're putting in 1:29:32.880 --> 1:29:36.080 your article about a bunch of people getting murdered by 1:29:36.200 --> 1:29:39.519 a racist dude, Like this is the thing that that 1:29:39.680 --> 1:29:42.439 you're gonna put in here, and you know, and like 1:29:42.560 --> 1:29:47.320 this this is sort of like all of that stuff 1:29:47.320 --> 1:29:50.240 that I talked about, like last episode about Robert Aaron Long, 1:29:50.320 --> 1:29:52.400 like all of your gratification and the racism and the 1:29:52.400 --> 1:29:55.160 horror phobia and that like mixture of like desire and loathing. 1:29:55.439 --> 1:29:59.640 Like the cops have this, Like also the journalists who 1:29:59.720 --> 1:30:02.519 are think about this have this stuff, and the the 1:30:02.800 --> 1:30:04.960 people who don't are sort of like picking up on 1:30:05.120 --> 1:30:06.880 on the sort of like abbeyant racism. So you get 1:30:06.880 --> 1:30:09.680 all this coverage that's just focused on like trying to 1:30:09.760 --> 1:30:11.760 figure out if there was sex work going on here. 1:30:12.000 --> 1:30:14.719 And you know, and like I talked about the last episode, 1:30:14.720 --> 1:30:19.920 like this is really dangerous because exposing people, exposing these 1:30:19.960 --> 1:30:22.920 sites the police investigation means you get more of these stings. 1:30:23.920 --> 1:30:26.439 And you know, like we we we mentioned at the 1:30:26.520 --> 1:30:30.519 beginning that uh Dayong Fong like no no no one 1:30:30.640 --> 1:30:32.280 she knew showed up to her funeral. And the reason 1:30:32.320 --> 1:30:33.920 that no one she knew showed up to her funeral 1:30:34.320 --> 1:30:36.639 is that no one wanted to be at a place 1:30:36.680 --> 1:30:39.720 where they could potentially be cops, so they wouldn't be deported, right, 1:30:41.600 --> 1:30:44.040 How could anyone who knew her come to her funeral 1:30:44.160 --> 1:30:48.679 because that would be well and her her brother wanted 1:30:48.720 --> 1:30:53.600 to come, but the like travel to the US was 1:30:54.200 --> 1:30:56.719 expensive enough that he was just like, yeah, we can't 1:30:56.760 --> 1:31:04.200 do this, and you know, and like and I that 1:31:04.840 --> 1:31:09.479 these these anti trafficking, anti prostitution raids are so common 1:31:09.680 --> 1:31:12.040 that two of the Atlanta victims have been arrested as 1:31:12.080 --> 1:31:14.920 part of raids like before this, and even though both 1:31:15.000 --> 1:31:18.599 of them are innocent. Uh Sum Chung Park was convicted 1:31:18.640 --> 1:31:23.000 of criminal trust passing anyways, again, which is like one 1:31:23.040 --> 1:31:24.960 of the most insane things I've ever heard in my life, 1:31:25.040 --> 1:31:28.439 because she was arrested at the place where she worked 1:31:28.720 --> 1:31:32.479 and they convicted her of criminal trust passing. Because this 1:31:32.720 --> 1:31:36.519 entire system is made up of just like Robert are 1:31:36.600 --> 1:31:39.439 and long levels of of racism, but they have they 1:31:39.479 --> 1:31:40.880 have a legal outlet to do it so they don't 1:31:40.920 --> 1:31:44.720 have to just go murder people and and sometimes they 1:31:44.760 --> 1:31:48.120 still do. Yeah, definitely, yeah, I mean we talked about 1:31:49.040 --> 1:31:52.559 very generous with that sometimes, Garrison. Yeah, I mean there 1:31:52.600 --> 1:31:56.120 there there, there's a really horrific story of that. There 1:31:56.200 --> 1:31:59.919 was there was a Chinese sex worker who the NYPD 1:32:00.400 --> 1:32:03.479 like repeatedly attempted to force her at gunpoint to have 1:32:03.640 --> 1:32:06.800 sex with them, and she refused and they so and 1:32:06.960 --> 1:32:10.800 you know, because because she refused, the NYPD kept doing 1:32:10.880 --> 1:32:14.080 raids on her, and eventually she died because she jumped 1:32:14.080 --> 1:32:17.280 out a window trying to escape one of the raids. God. 1:32:17.640 --> 1:32:22.120 Because these people are just literal monsters. Um. Yeah. And 1:32:22.760 --> 1:32:25.840 you know Sun Chun Park, like, she's convicted of criminal 1:32:25.880 --> 1:32:28.880 trust passing and she gets, you know, the sort of 1:32:28.920 --> 1:32:31.479 particular American humiliation of being forced to wear an ankle 1:32:31.560 --> 1:32:33.400 monitor that you have to pay for around your house 1:32:33.439 --> 1:32:43.559 while being under house arrest. And I've I've talked about 1:32:43.600 --> 1:32:46.760 this with the journalists, but again, like there, this is 1:32:46.840 --> 1:32:50.360 an entire system full of robber aeron lungs. It's the judges, 1:32:50.479 --> 1:32:53.080 is the prosecutors, it's the social workers, is the journalists, 1:32:53.120 --> 1:32:56.839 it's the cops. And this is this is an incredible 1:32:56.920 --> 1:33:01.519 level of systemic state violence that makes these already tenuous 1:33:01.600 --> 1:33:04.360 migrant working communities even more vulnerable because you know, if 1:33:04.400 --> 1:33:08.599 someone's harassing them, they can't call the cops because if 1:33:08.640 --> 1:33:10.120 the cops show up, it's like, oh hey good, this 1:33:10.200 --> 1:33:14.160 is this is even worse than the harassments and that's 1:33:14.240 --> 1:33:15.760 I think where I want to want to end here 1:33:15.800 --> 1:33:19.320 today on with things that can actually be concretely done 1:33:19.439 --> 1:33:22.559 about this to help spot workers and sex workers. Um, 1:33:22.840 --> 1:33:26.160 there's two proposals that spot and sex workers have been backing, 1:33:26.479 --> 1:33:29.479 one of which is just ending the licensing licensing requirement 1:33:29.479 --> 1:33:32.160 from massages because it's it's literally only ever used to 1:33:32.240 --> 1:33:36.200 target Asian massage workers. Yeah, that seems that seems like 1:33:36.280 --> 1:33:39.280 a good call. Yeah, it's definitely not the law, but 1:33:39.400 --> 1:33:41.600 oh yeah, yeah, getting rid of its, getting rid of 1:33:41.680 --> 1:33:45.320 it clarify there. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's you know, 1:33:45.400 --> 1:33:49.040 like this, this is my this is my my, my 1:33:49.080 --> 1:33:53.479 most libertarian position is just being against like a lot 1:33:53.600 --> 1:33:56.640 of these licensing things, because what's next to license to 1:33:56.720 --> 1:34:01.160 make their own toaster. If it's a thing that people 1:34:01.360 --> 1:34:05.080 just do all the time, uh, and in fact cannot 1:34:05.160 --> 1:34:08.639 be stopped from doing under any circumstances, then it shouldn't 1:34:08.680 --> 1:34:13.479 require a license to do, like flying exact Garriet, like 1:34:13.600 --> 1:34:18.160 flying a plane, like performing surgery, you know, um, like 1:34:18.360 --> 1:34:23.639 being a police officer. Just make everybody everything all licenses. Sorry, 1:34:23.720 --> 1:34:27.439 I've lost the thread. It's okay, I mean, well I 1:34:27.560 --> 1:34:29.560 think that the actual thread here though, is that like 1:34:31.360 --> 1:34:33.800 you know, okay, so like yeah, on the one hand, 1:34:33.880 --> 1:34:36.240 in theory, it is good to have licenses that that 1:34:36.600 --> 1:34:39.000 you know, like have a way to tell who knows 1:34:39.000 --> 1:34:41.240 how to do something and who doesn't, Right, But the 1:34:41.320 --> 1:34:45.599 thing is that's that's not what does Yeah, yeah, it's 1:34:46.080 --> 1:34:47.439 and like and the thing that the state actually does 1:34:47.520 --> 1:34:50.639 even with licenses, like and they do this driver's licenses, 1:34:50.760 --> 1:34:52.800 Like even even with driver's licenses, which is the thing 1:34:52.880 --> 1:34:55.320 that like, yeah, like people should know how to drive 1:34:55.360 --> 1:34:58.599 before you put them behind like the four wheel death machine. 1:34:59.439 --> 1:35:01.400 Like what do they do with it? It's like, oh, 1:35:01.439 --> 1:35:04.120 they used to go after a documented immigrants because the 1:35:04.200 --> 1:35:06.640 state is just incredibly racist and that this is the 1:35:06.720 --> 1:35:09.080 thing that's happening with with these licenses is yeah, they 1:35:09.160 --> 1:35:12.639 just they just do racism with it. Well, it's it's 1:35:12.680 --> 1:35:15.280 why you can't have like the common sense. I would 1:35:15.280 --> 1:35:17.200 be like, okay, well we're gonna have sex workers, so 1:35:17.280 --> 1:35:19.120 there should be some sort of system to make sure 1:35:19.200 --> 1:35:21.759 that people are getting tested for things and that basically 1:35:21.800 --> 1:35:24.759 you know, certain safety procedures or that at least people 1:35:24.880 --> 1:35:27.800 know what safety procedures are being you know, used at 1:35:27.840 --> 1:35:32.040 the place or whatever. Um, But what It always boils 1:35:32.120 --> 1:35:35.240 down to, is uh, this is an excuse for police 1:35:35.280 --> 1:35:38.880 to funk with vulnerable people. Yeah. The thing that this 1:35:39.000 --> 1:35:41.280 brings us to is the second proposal, which is just 1:35:41.360 --> 1:35:46.200 decriminalizing sex work, Like, don't prosecute people for this, don't 1:35:46.280 --> 1:35:51.640 send the cops after them, just don't do it. Like 1:35:51.880 --> 1:35:57.200 it it only ever causes violence against people who are 1:35:57.280 --> 1:36:01.200 already the most marginalized people. It doesn't actually help against 1:36:01.240 --> 1:36:04.840 traficking either, in makes it makes pend against trafficking actually harder. 1:36:05.360 --> 1:36:07.600 People feel not able to talk about things when they 1:36:07.600 --> 1:36:12.320 see stuff that's questionable. It's it's I'm sure we can 1:36:12.400 --> 1:36:15.680 do more content content. Um, I'm sure we could do 1:36:15.800 --> 1:36:19.439 more stuff about sex work in the future. Um. But yeah, 1:36:19.640 --> 1:36:23.760 it really should be uh not a crime. Yeah. And 1:36:24.000 --> 1:36:26.840 I think this is something like you know, it's it. 1:36:28.200 --> 1:36:31.200 It reminds me a lot of like of of the 1:36:31.240 --> 1:36:33.400 anti trends stuff where it's like, okay, so you should 1:36:33.479 --> 1:36:35.559 care about the stuff because you should care about trends people. 1:36:35.560 --> 1:36:37.439 You should also care about the stuff because it affects 1:36:37.439 --> 1:36:39.360 people who are not trans and this this is this 1:36:39.479 --> 1:36:43.080 is this thing where these massage workers are like most 1:36:43.160 --> 1:36:45.360 of them are not sex workers. And it doesn't matter 1:36:45.479 --> 1:36:49.160 at all, and it's the splash over effects are hitting 1:36:49.200 --> 1:36:54.599 them too. And yeah, the consequence of that is eight 1:36:54.680 --> 1:36:59.080 people are dead. Yep. Yeah, go hope your local sex 1:36:59.120 --> 1:37:01.240 work or organization and go hope you help your local 1:37:01.280 --> 1:37:04.439 spot workers associations like get rid of this licensing stuff 1:37:04.640 --> 1:37:10.160 and fire for decriminalization because this, this this kind of 1:37:10.200 --> 1:37:14.160 ship doesn't have to happen, and we can. This is 1:37:14.200 --> 1:37:17.720 something that we actually can concretely do and when that 1:37:17.800 --> 1:37:20.400 will make an enormous number of people whose lives are 1:37:21.560 --> 1:37:27.479 incredibly precarious enormously better. Yep. Okay, so we have already 1:37:27.600 --> 1:37:31.400 seen before our eyes that you can do. You can 1:37:31.479 --> 1:37:35.000 do things that involves safety where the police are just useless. 1:37:35.120 --> 1:37:37.680 We we have seen we we we have seen. We 1:37:37.760 --> 1:37:40.439 have seen Zach. But what is his name, Zack? Yeah, 1:37:40.560 --> 1:37:43.000 Zack is his name. Yeah. Yeah, but look we we 1:37:43.160 --> 1:37:46.120 we we we have we have yeah, he rules. We 1:37:46.200 --> 1:37:50.719 have seen Bodega Zach outwit like outdo the entire police force, 1:37:50.840 --> 1:37:53.679 even after literally the guy called them the churn himself 1:37:53.760 --> 1:37:56.439 in and Bodega Zach still got there before they did 1:37:57.640 --> 1:38:01.479 the entire New York Police Department. This isn't himself in 1:38:01.960 --> 1:38:07.200 and left his wallet and good at the scene. Yeah, 1:38:07.479 --> 1:38:08.960 then again, this is this is this is this is 1:38:09.040 --> 1:38:11.680 this is a ten billion dollar police force. The thing 1:38:11.760 --> 1:38:14.200 that the thing that they mostly do is harass homeless 1:38:14.240 --> 1:38:17.120 people and sex workers. For the love of God, we 1:38:17.200 --> 1:38:20.040 don't need them. We could, like literally one man could 1:38:20.040 --> 1:38:23.880 do their job for them. H yeah, get get rid 1:38:23.880 --> 1:38:30.439 of them. Okay, yeah that sounds nice. Okay, well there 1:38:30.520 --> 1:38:55.240 we go. We did it. Happy episode. Everybody's an introduction. 1:38:57.240 --> 1:39:03.240 Good for you, we did it. Yeah, I love what 1:39:03.400 --> 1:39:05.920 what show is this? Uh? This is? This is it 1:39:05.960 --> 1:39:09.360 could happen here a show that is also currently in 1:39:09.360 --> 1:39:12.479 the middle of about seventeen thousand personnel disasters. But it's fine. 1:39:13.400 --> 1:39:15.960 Uh yeah, I am I am Christopher Wong and with 1:39:16.080 --> 1:39:20.960 me is Garrison. Hello, Hi, good morning or afternoon or evening, 1:39:21.240 --> 1:39:24.519 depending on when you're listening. And also Sophie, Hello, Hi. 1:39:27.000 --> 1:39:29.160 So we are we're going to talk about something that 1:39:29.320 --> 1:39:34.400 is I guess technically over. But it was extremely weird 1:39:35.000 --> 1:39:37.720 and did a lot of harm. And that is the 1:39:38.120 --> 1:39:43.880 very weird stuff that Texas General General Jesus hopefully not 1:39:44.240 --> 1:39:49.040 Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who had General the General of Texas. 1:39:49.200 --> 1:39:52.519 Greg at I mean, like you're kind of not wrong, 1:39:52.800 --> 1:39:56.519 but I he wished like that, he wishes, he wishes 1:39:56.600 --> 1:39:59.160 he was the general of Texas. I mean, I feel 1:39:59.160 --> 1:40:00.439 like that's me one of those things words like that. 1:40:00.520 --> 1:40:02.120 That's when we know the coup started, is when he 1:40:02.439 --> 1:40:09.040 promotes himself to general takes over Texas. So Greg Abbott 1:40:09.040 --> 1:40:12.120 is extremely mad, and he's actually mad because Biden finally 1:40:12.240 --> 1:40:15.360 decided to end one of like the absolute worst Trump 1:40:15.400 --> 1:40:18.880 era border policies, just called Title forty two, and it's 1:40:19.400 --> 1:40:23.200 for it was like nominally an anti pandemic measures, like 1:40:23.600 --> 1:40:26.680 the CDC. That's so I don't know why it took 1:40:26.720 --> 1:40:29.200 me like five seconds to remember the name of the CDC, 1:40:29.560 --> 1:40:32.479 the Central Defense Agency. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that one. Yeah. 1:40:33.040 --> 1:40:34.920 So it's normally supposed to be a thing where it's like, okay, 1:40:34.960 --> 1:40:37.679 you can you you cut off migrants from coming into 1:40:37.680 --> 1:40:41.120 the country because there's a risk of a pandemic. Now, okay, 1:40:41.200 --> 1:40:43.840 if if if you have lived the last two years, 1:40:44.040 --> 1:40:46.280 you know that the US just literally does not give 1:40:46.320 --> 1:40:50.880 a single ship about the pandemic at all, like ending yeah. Yeah, 1:40:50.920 --> 1:40:52.680 and so this this whole thing really has just been 1:40:52.680 --> 1:40:58.000 a justification to just boot out. This prevents every like 1:40:58.240 --> 1:41:01.519 asylum seeker, in refugee, an immigrant for getting into the country. 1:41:01.520 --> 1:41:04.880 And you know that you can tell this because the 1:41:05.320 --> 1:41:08.040 title forty two when it was originally invoked, didn't cover 1:41:08.360 --> 1:41:10.800 people who were like driving trucks across the border. Like 1:41:10.840 --> 1:41:13.640 he didn't cover economic activity of course not. Yeah, so 1:41:13.760 --> 1:41:15.200 it's it's it's just a way for the US to 1:41:15.280 --> 1:41:18.160 like not have asylum seekers. And Biden let this go 1:41:18.360 --> 1:41:20.960 for like another fucking year while he was in office, 1:41:21.880 --> 1:41:25.840 and so like it's like like late last monthy like 1:41:25.880 --> 1:41:29.200 he finally got rid of it. And you know, this 1:41:29.360 --> 1:41:32.680 means that like immigrants and refugees now once again have 1:41:32.920 --> 1:41:35.880 their legal right under both American and international law to 1:41:36.000 --> 1:41:38.040 a petition for asylum, which again the US doesn't give 1:41:38.040 --> 1:41:40.280 a shit about because you know you doesn't care about 1:41:40.320 --> 1:41:44.439 laws unless they do bad things. But this finally happens. 1:41:45.000 --> 1:41:49.840 And Greg Abbott, who is once again we must remind 1:41:49.880 --> 1:41:53.160 of you one the great habit, is running for election 1:41:53.200 --> 1:41:57.240 in November, and she's it's thus just literally running through 1:41:57.320 --> 1:41:59.760 the entire right wing like every single right wing scare 1:41:59.760 --> 1:42:02.920 we can possibly think of. Don't worry, Chris, don't worry 1:42:02.960 --> 1:42:06.000 Chris Beto will get him. I believe, I believe, I 1:42:06.479 --> 1:42:13.200 believe in Beto this time lose by like slide. You know. Well, Okay, 1:42:13.200 --> 1:42:14.840 so the thing that could stop him from this is 1:42:14.960 --> 1:42:17.400 Greg Abbott decided to do like two PR stunts, and 1:42:17.520 --> 1:42:20.960 one of them is he's taking busses of of immigris 1:42:21.000 --> 1:42:22.760 than asylum seekers and just busting them the d C 1:42:23.560 --> 1:42:25.360 and I want to talk about this for a little 1:42:25.400 --> 1:42:28.680 like a second, because like this is really shitty and 1:42:28.840 --> 1:42:33.519 that shouldn't be legal. It shouldn't be allowed to really traffick. 1:42:33.720 --> 1:42:37.000 You're trafficking people across the country for a political stunt. 1:42:37.120 --> 1:42:40.400 That's like that that should be allowed. Yeah, Like and 1:42:40.520 --> 1:42:42.200 like I think like everyone's like this book is like 1:42:42.280 --> 1:42:44.479 it is, but like the thing with American political sence 1:42:44.560 --> 1:42:47.920 is that real people get hurt constantly. Yeah, And we're 1:42:47.920 --> 1:42:49.840 gonna come back to that theme more in a second. 1:42:49.840 --> 1:42:51.800 As we talked about the second stunt that he did, 1:42:51.920 --> 1:42:59.320 which was so essentially what Abbott did. Is there are, 1:42:59.520 --> 1:43:01.840 in a norm just a number of trucks that cross 1:43:02.360 --> 1:43:05.640 the US Mexican border into Texas like every day, right, 1:43:05.680 --> 1:43:08.479 I mean, there's like there are individual bridges that are 1:43:08.479 --> 1:43:12.760 moving SI seventy billion dollars of just produce like every day, 1:43:13.240 --> 1:43:15.559 and so that produced when it when it comes into 1:43:15.560 --> 1:43:17.240 the US, it goes to a bunch of checks by 1:43:17.280 --> 1:43:19.280 the border patrol and stuff, and there's all these checks 1:43:19.320 --> 1:43:23.360 and this is this whole thing. But uh Abbott went 1:43:23.479 --> 1:43:27.599 on this incredibly bizarre rants about well, I mean it's 1:43:27.640 --> 1:43:28.960 not bizarre. I guess if you're right when we went 1:43:29.000 --> 1:43:31.560 on this rant about like the cartels and there's immigrants 1:43:31.600 --> 1:43:36.920 we need to stop them, and so he very scary. Yeah, 1:43:37.320 --> 1:43:39.640 it's really weird. Okay, So he's he's doing all these 1:43:39.640 --> 1:43:41.840 bird fairymongering and he's like, Okay, we need to stop 1:43:41.880 --> 1:43:43.599 the people from getting across the border. So we're gonna 1:43:43.840 --> 1:43:47.599 inspect all of these trucks, which again like they're already 1:43:47.640 --> 1:43:50.280 being inspected by the FEDS. Like this this is this 1:43:50.400 --> 1:43:51.920 is you know, this is where like the horrible ice 1:43:51.960 --> 1:43:56.080 budget is going. Right. So he he does this and 1:43:56.400 --> 1:43:58.040 he he calls in a bunch of just like the 1:43:58.080 --> 1:44:00.160 border patrol to just literally do all of the same 1:44:00.280 --> 1:44:04.240 checks again. And this has an enormous economic impact. Um, 1:44:04.320 --> 1:44:06.559 I'm going to read a quote from the American Statesman 1:44:07.360 --> 1:44:10.200 The delays have resulted in a six drop in commercial 1:44:10.240 --> 1:44:12.919 traffic at the border, according to ums U S Customs 1:44:13.040 --> 1:44:16.080 and Border Protections. The agency said the delays are a 1:44:16.200 --> 1:44:20.120 direct results of quote additional and unnecessary inspections being conducted 1:44:20.479 --> 1:44:23.840 at Abbott's request. I I do like that the same 1:44:23.920 --> 1:44:28.679 people who were shooting moms in Portland now inspecting produce 1:44:28.800 --> 1:44:32.760 at the Texas. It's it's pretty well. I mean, I 1:44:32.800 --> 1:44:34.320 think I think that there there there's an important thing 1:44:34.360 --> 1:44:36.080 to note here, writes like, so, why why are these 1:44:36.120 --> 1:44:38.800 the people who are like doing both these things? And 1:44:38.840 --> 1:44:44.240 the answer is that, like those organizations like that, the 1:44:44.360 --> 1:44:46.200 thing that they're designed to do is to protect the 1:44:46.240 --> 1:44:49.000 interests of American capital. And you know, so the interests 1:44:49.000 --> 1:44:51.320 of American capital are we need to move capital across that, 1:44:51.400 --> 1:44:53.479 we need to move goods across the border, and we 1:44:53.600 --> 1:44:58.519 need to just like absolutely obliterate like a bunch of 1:44:58.600 --> 1:45:03.360 teenagers who don't like us. That is pretty much their 1:45:03.400 --> 1:45:06.080 bit um. I mean, yeah, I know we've talked in 1:45:06.120 --> 1:45:08.760 the past about us like customers and worter and water 1:45:08.800 --> 1:45:12.400 protections and the weird the weird like agencies and weird 1:45:12.479 --> 1:45:15.040 kind of almost militias that they operate, and how they 1:45:15.080 --> 1:45:17.280 get deployed into certain areas if there you know, x 1:45:17.560 --> 1:45:20.080 x miles away from the border. Um, it would be 1:45:20.160 --> 1:45:22.360 worth talking about more in depth in the future, because 1:45:22.360 --> 1:45:24.840 I know Robert has done some historical background on them 1:45:24.920 --> 1:45:27.920 for Bastards. UM. But I think, yeah, that is something 1:45:28.000 --> 1:45:30.439 I would I would be down to talk more about. Yeah. 1:45:30.439 --> 1:45:33.000 I think they are a very bizarre agency. Yeah, they're 1:45:33.080 --> 1:45:36.880 very weird. They're also really not like in this story. 1:45:36.960 --> 1:45:40.080 They're basically really just sitting there being mad because it's 1:45:40.120 --> 1:45:43.760 taking longer at what they do. Yeah. And and you 1:45:43.800 --> 1:45:47.320 know because because again like these these actual these inspections 1:45:47.360 --> 1:45:52.679 are being run by like state troopers, and because because 1:45:52.680 --> 1:45:55.479 because Abbott has more direct control over stage. Yeah, because yeah, 1:45:55.720 --> 1:45:58.559 Abot direct power for them. And this means that like, okay, 1:45:58.600 --> 1:46:00.280 so you have your truck right, your rock has a 1:46:00.320 --> 1:46:01.679 bunch of produce in it, you would be it across 1:46:01.720 --> 1:46:06.519 the border. Um. This usually takes about two hours of 1:46:06.760 --> 1:46:09.280 you know, being like sitting there in a truck while 1:46:09.560 --> 1:46:12.000 you're stop your every once cargo gets inspected and stuff, 1:46:12.520 --> 1:46:14.439 which I will say the truckers don't even get paid 1:46:14.479 --> 1:46:16.360 for that. When they're waiting two hours. Yeah, and and 1:46:16.560 --> 1:46:19.120 and you know what would make that worse. Oh yeah, 1:46:19.360 --> 1:46:23.160 now it takes between ten and thirty hours. Because intentionally, 1:46:23.479 --> 1:46:25.840 on purpose, was like, okay, we're just we're gonna put 1:46:25.840 --> 1:46:28.400 six thousand like people total to do this whole thing. 1:46:29.840 --> 1:46:32.840 And so, you know, like hundreds of millions of dollars 1:46:32.880 --> 1:46:35.400 of produce like sins like onions and tomatoes and avocados 1:46:35.400 --> 1:46:38.800 are just sitting in these trucks, rotting in the Texas heat. Yep. 1:46:39.840 --> 1:46:42.559 Hopefully the trucks are refrigerated, but still, well, the trucks 1:46:42.600 --> 1:46:45.439 are refrigerated, but like the people in them, I'm sure 1:46:45.479 --> 1:46:48.360 the cabins are not. Yeah, I'm sure it gets mighty well. 1:46:48.520 --> 1:46:51.400 You know, I I do have some family who would truckers, 1:46:51.479 --> 1:46:54.320 and some of the cabins can't be nice. But still 1:46:54.720 --> 1:46:57.200 that's sitting for thirty hours without getting paid because you 1:46:57.280 --> 1:47:01.240 only get paid when you are moving um to oh 1:47:01.560 --> 1:47:03.640 uh not a great way to you know, run our 1:47:03.800 --> 1:47:06.920 entire economy. Yeah, I'm going to read a quote. I'm 1:47:06.920 --> 1:47:10.360 gonna read a suction from the paragraph of the Texas Tribune. Felix, 1:47:10.439 --> 1:47:13.839 a sixty year old Mexican trucker who was transporting tomatoes, onions, 1:47:13.880 --> 1:47:16.599 and avocados, waited about thirteen hours in line at the bridge. 1:47:16.960 --> 1:47:19.200 He has to be identified only by his first name 1:47:19.280 --> 1:47:22.599 for fear of retribution and targeted inspections from CPB officials. 1:47:23.240 --> 1:47:25.280 Hearing of the delays at the border, he packed water 1:47:25.400 --> 1:47:28.000 and food for a few days, but other truckers didn't 1:47:28.040 --> 1:47:30.200 come as prepared, and we're sitting in stand still traffic 1:47:30.280 --> 1:47:32.920 without anything to eat or drink. Felix said he was 1:47:32.960 --> 1:47:35.120 told by a CPB official that the agency would be 1:47:35.160 --> 1:47:37.759 putting portable bathrooms along the bridge for the gridlocked truckers, 1:47:37.840 --> 1:47:41.000 but he never saw them. Once Felix made it to 1:47:41.000 --> 1:47:43.840 the state troopers inspection point around nine pm, he said 1:47:43.880 --> 1:47:45.800 they didn't even peer into his truck, which had been 1:47:45.840 --> 1:47:49.240 sealed since Mexican authorities inspected about six hundred miles away 1:47:49.280 --> 1:47:52.280 in the state of Sinaloa. There's no possibility of bringing 1:47:52.400 --> 1:47:55.360 legal immigrants in the merchandise or in the cabin, he said, 1:47:55.439 --> 1:47:58.479 referencing one of Abbott's explanations for the inspections. I can't 1:47:58.520 --> 1:48:00.600 bring any illegal immigrants here from money because I know 1:48:00.680 --> 1:48:02.920 inspectors are going to discover them. It's not a thing here. 1:48:02.960 --> 1:48:05.040 I don't know what the politicians ideas are. I don't 1:48:05.080 --> 1:48:07.679 know what they're talking about. So that seems not good. 1:48:09.479 --> 1:48:11.800 It's it's really bad. And like again, like this is 1:48:12.120 --> 1:48:15.000 this whole thing is nonsense, Like that I didn't even 1:48:15.240 --> 1:48:17.120 I didn't even think about having to, you know, use 1:48:17.160 --> 1:48:20.760 the bathroom for hours. Yeah, and like do you think 1:48:20.840 --> 1:48:23.760 the thing with this is like this the backups are 1:48:23.840 --> 1:48:26.519 eight miles long, so like if you want to go 1:48:26.640 --> 1:48:29.879 to the bathroom, you have to walk for like miles 1:48:30.479 --> 1:48:32.760 depending depending on where you are in this backup. And 1:48:33.600 --> 1:48:37.480 you know, this is having like these just enormous horrifying 1:48:37.720 --> 1:48:40.880 because there's like these normous horrifying knock on effects. Um. 1:48:41.600 --> 1:48:43.160 Because you know, it's not that the truckers are really 1:48:43.200 --> 1:48:45.960 affected by this. There's a bunch of workers whose job 1:48:46.000 --> 1:48:47.640 it is, you know, it's to process these goods, right, 1:48:47.760 --> 1:48:49.719 take them out of trucks, put them into American trucks 1:48:49.760 --> 1:48:52.479 to like sort through the vegetables and figure out like 1:48:52.840 --> 1:48:54.679 which ones are good and which ones are not. And again, 1:48:55.000 --> 1:48:59.360 like just enormous amounts of just produce that is like 1:48:59.560 --> 1:49:02.160 fresh and good to eat. It's just being intentionally destroyed 1:49:02.760 --> 1:49:04.439 because it's being forced to sit at the border for 1:49:04.479 --> 1:49:07.759 this long. Uh, there's a bunch of these people whose 1:49:07.760 --> 1:49:09.800 whose job like who who are contract workers whose job 1:49:09.800 --> 1:49:11.320 it is to like go through this stuff, and they're 1:49:11.320 --> 1:49:13.640 all getting fired because they're like there's no work for 1:49:13.720 --> 1:49:16.559 them to do. Um. There's all of these people who 1:49:17.640 --> 1:49:20.800 like their their jobs and they run bodegoes and they 1:49:20.880 --> 1:49:22.680 run like like they were in restaurants. Did they run 1:49:22.720 --> 1:49:24.519 a buch of stuff on the border for these truckers 1:49:24.560 --> 1:49:26.479 and they also don't have any work and those people 1:49:26.520 --> 1:49:28.680 have to on a day by date like it's like 1:49:28.880 --> 1:49:32.680 I think it's per day to rent a terminal in 1:49:33.240 --> 1:49:38.240 like yeah, and they're making nothing, and it's it's it's horrified. 1:49:38.360 --> 1:49:41.920 There's all there's this's just enormous economic devastation that that 1:49:42.120 --> 1:49:45.280 that's been sort of like you know that that that 1:49:45.400 --> 1:49:51.280 that's been happening because of this and well, you know, 1:49:52.680 --> 1:49:56.360 you know what else reminds me of economic devastation, Ah, 1:49:59.120 --> 1:50:03.240 the fact that the fact that our paychecks are solely 1:50:03.320 --> 1:50:06.840 reliant on the products and services that support this podcast. 1:50:08.120 --> 1:50:11.200 It's true. Yeah, Well, we'll talk about the problems they're 1:50:11.200 --> 1:50:17.240 having in a second after this break. Yep, one second. Wow, 1:50:17.479 --> 1:50:20.280 that was that was a fast second that just that 1:50:20.840 --> 1:50:24.559 flew right by time is not real? Destroy the clocks 1:50:24.600 --> 1:50:28.200 the scientists sart the police, all right, if you press, 1:50:30.360 --> 1:50:32.920 if you press the if you press the thirty second 1:50:32.920 --> 1:50:37.680 button four times? Yes, yeah, real speedy. Now this is 1:50:37.720 --> 1:50:40.519 having other problems because, as you talked about the show, 1:50:40.560 --> 1:50:43.320 literally ad nausea, our supply chains are really bad. And 1:50:43.400 --> 1:50:45.040 it turns out, yeah that that does seem to be 1:50:45.080 --> 1:50:48.240 a recurring character on the pod. Is that supply chains uh, 1:50:48.479 --> 1:50:51.599 not the most stable thing we've invented. Yeah, and especially 1:50:51.680 --> 1:50:54.559 with especially with with with fruit and vegetables. Well, I mean, 1:50:55.760 --> 1:50:57.040 well we will be getting some of the other supply 1:50:57.120 --> 1:50:58.479 chains that are like fun because of this. But like 1:50:59.240 --> 1:51:03.040 Prudent VEGTA was in particular, like the way that we 1:51:03.200 --> 1:51:06.120 do them, they're they're designed to be in motion for 1:51:06.200 --> 1:51:07.800 like a very specific amount of time so that when 1:51:07.800 --> 1:51:10.240 they show up to you, they're right, yeah, yeah, you know, 1:51:10.280 --> 1:51:12.320 you add a few hours onto that everything falls apart. 1:51:12.880 --> 1:51:15.960 And this like I'm not sure if it happens because 1:51:15.960 --> 1:51:18.519 I'm not in Texas, but there was there were a 1:51:18.560 --> 1:51:20.560 bunch of articles are talking about like yeah, like avocados 1:51:20.560 --> 1:51:22.680 and Texas are gonna cost five more dollars, Like like 1:51:22.760 --> 1:51:24.760 a single avocados price is gonna increase by like five 1:51:24.800 --> 1:51:27.720 dollars over the weekend because like because it was just 1:51:27.760 --> 1:51:30.240 the enormous amount of produces that that's being destroyed here, 1:51:30.400 --> 1:51:33.439 and you know there there's there's a lot of other 1:51:33.560 --> 1:51:37.200 stuff going on here because American and Mexican supply chains 1:51:37.240 --> 1:51:40.000 are enormously integrated from now. I mean they've always been 1:51:40.000 --> 1:51:42.799 into good to some extent, but like particularly post NAFTA, 1:51:43.200 --> 1:51:45.400 there's a lot of like auto supply chains in particular 1:51:45.960 --> 1:51:48.080 that are that are tied to two plants in Mexico, 1:51:48.080 --> 1:51:51.160 and you actually this occasionally has like interesting effects, like 1:51:51.360 --> 1:51:54.200 Mexico's has a lot of auto strikes, and you get 1:51:54.280 --> 1:51:56.960 like you get these things where like people will like 1:51:57.120 --> 1:52:00.599 tuck messages into like auto parts and like send them 1:52:00.640 --> 1:52:02.840 to the US. People will open these messages from like 1:52:03.240 --> 1:52:06.280 a worker in Mexico too, Yeah you need And it's 1:52:06.640 --> 1:52:08.960 it's cool that there's lots of there's interesting stuff there, 1:52:09.080 --> 1:52:11.519 but this also means that like, yeah, so if those 1:52:11.640 --> 1:52:13.840 parts are moving across the border, those just in time 1:52:13.880 --> 1:52:18.439 production schedules are even more omega screwed than they've been 1:52:18.920 --> 1:52:24.240 already and so yeah, there's been a lot of sort 1:52:24.240 --> 1:52:28.760 of economics stuff that's been happening here. And you know, 1:52:28.840 --> 1:52:31.240 the other people who are getting just completely screwed by 1:52:31.280 --> 1:52:35.720 this are the are the Mexican truckers and so yeah 1:52:35.920 --> 1:52:38.040 and so so so this this this starts on April six, 1:52:38.479 --> 1:52:42.320 on Monday, April eleven, I the truckers are just like 1:52:42.439 --> 1:52:46.920 fun this and they start just completely blockading the largest 1:52:46.960 --> 1:52:49.360 border crossing between like this, it's on the Giant Bridge. 1:52:49.400 --> 1:52:52.040 They started they literally just blockade the bridge and but 1:52:52.200 --> 1:52:57.400 prevent any goods from from getting in. And this this 1:52:57.640 --> 1:52:59.840 has an enormous impact because again, like you know it 1:53:00.080 --> 1:53:01.640 it was going like yeah it was production was down 1:53:01.680 --> 1:53:04.759 by sixty percent, but that means still means are getting 1:53:04.760 --> 1:53:07.000 through and now you know, and bye bye bye. By 1:53:07.040 --> 1:53:12.400 the eleven it's just nothing. Um I do I do 1:53:12.560 --> 1:53:14.559 hope the one the one good thing that can come 1:53:14.600 --> 1:53:19.200 out of the whole Canada COVID isn't real protests, um, 1:53:19.760 --> 1:53:23.000 is that people have learned that blocking off supply chains 1:53:23.040 --> 1:53:25.760 it's a really effective way to do protest because you 1:53:25.880 --> 1:53:29.080 can stop the import of thousands and millions and billions 1:53:29.120 --> 1:53:33.280 of dollars of trade um pretty easily actually, and it 1:53:33.320 --> 1:53:36.080 would be cool if more people realize, Hey, obviously the 1:53:36.160 --> 1:53:38.400 COVID stuff they were talking about in the whole overthrowing 1:53:38.400 --> 1:53:42.240 the government part um to install a right wing dictator, 1:53:42.479 --> 1:53:45.439 that part's obviously bad, but some of their tactics were 1:53:45.439 --> 1:53:48.880 actually pretty interesting. Yeah, we're we're going to get more 1:53:48.920 --> 1:53:53.760 into that, uh like later, Yeah, I mean I will say, like, 1:53:53.800 --> 1:53:55.240 I think that the thing with the U S is that, 1:53:55.360 --> 1:53:57.720 like I think there's been a lot of focus on 1:53:57.760 --> 1:54:00.920 the American left on ports because yeah, there's a lot 1:54:00.920 --> 1:54:01.960 of reasons for that, but like, yeah, you can do 1:54:02.080 --> 1:54:07.479 the border crossings too, and the the Mexican rucker is 1:54:07.520 --> 1:54:10.559 really effective. I mean, okay, so that's this has been 1:54:10.600 --> 1:54:12.479 a thing where it's it's it's kind of hard to 1:54:12.520 --> 1:54:16.479 get information from. I saw a few like newspapers talking 1:54:16.600 --> 1:54:23.160 about um like cartel people like like attacking the blockaded, 1:54:23.200 --> 1:54:25.000 lighting trucks on fire to try to force goods to 1:54:25.080 --> 1:54:29.800 go through again, which it's possible. I I don't know, um, 1:54:31.640 --> 1:54:36.040 but this you know, once once there are like once 1:54:36.120 --> 1:54:37.760 the block like the border is completely block headed, this 1:54:37.800 --> 1:54:41.840 completely changes like the entire political situation because now, like 1:54:42.080 --> 1:54:44.720 you know, ab Abbot's been running this thing sort of 1:54:44.800 --> 1:54:47.000 as a political stunt and as this game he's playing 1:54:47.320 --> 1:54:48.800 with you know, I suppose he's trying to play a 1:54:48.840 --> 1:54:51.760 game with Biden, right, and he's like, Okay, well, yeah, 1:54:51.920 --> 1:54:54.680 you gotta decently about the border or whatever, like you 1:54:54.760 --> 1:54:58.360 know's he's been challenging Biden over like immigration bullshit. But 1:54:58.840 --> 1:55:01.440 you know, now now they're there's a third party involved, 1:55:01.840 --> 1:55:05.200 and that third party is Mexican truckers. And now and 1:55:05.280 --> 1:55:07.400 now Abbots not just in the it's like abbotts in 1:55:07.440 --> 1:55:09.680 a confrontation with the people that he needs to make 1:55:09.720 --> 1:55:13.200 the entire Texan economy run yep, And this starts going 1:55:13.320 --> 1:55:15.360 very badly for him. And the other thing that starts 1:55:16.040 --> 1:55:19.520 going very badly for him is that I it turns 1:55:19.560 --> 1:55:22.600 out if you shut down cross border trade, you really 1:55:22.800 --> 1:55:27.440 really piss off the bourgeoisie. Turns out, it turns out 1:55:27.480 --> 1:55:30.160 that will happen if you ain't careful. Yeah. Yeah, it's 1:55:30.240 --> 1:55:32.400 really interesting and you know, and and I think I 1:55:32.400 --> 1:55:35.400 should mention like stressed this, like they're piste off on 1:55:35.480 --> 1:55:37.520 both sides of the border, and like obviously you can 1:55:37.560 --> 1:55:41.040 talk about the ecents, which like, yeah, they're the same class. 1:55:41.160 --> 1:55:43.440 But like capitalists on both sides of the border start 1:55:43.520 --> 1:55:45.720 exerting their political pressure because they're I mean, they're losing 1:55:45.800 --> 1:55:49.520 enormous amounts of money off of this. That's what they do. Yeah, 1:55:51.000 --> 1:55:53.560 and you know, the way their ability to do capitalism 1:55:53.720 --> 1:55:57.200 as capitalists, they're going to be mad. Yeah, which again, 1:55:57.320 --> 1:55:59.920 you think you would think that the abbot would like 1:56:00.120 --> 1:56:03.960 get this, but he just he it seems to have 1:56:04.080 --> 1:56:06.280 not occurred to him that he was gonna piss off 1:56:06.360 --> 1:56:08.360 like either or like he he thinks he didn't care 1:56:08.440 --> 1:56:10.760 enough and thought it wouldn't matter, but like, no, it 1:56:10.840 --> 1:56:14.200 turns out like you know, one of the things that happens. Yeah, 1:56:14.280 --> 1:56:16.560 it's it's amazing, Like he's you know, like I mean, 1:56:16.840 --> 1:56:18.200 I think this is this is you know, I think 1:56:18.200 --> 1:56:19.520 this is this is sort of a symptom of like 1:56:21.240 --> 1:56:24.120 people lose like right wing politicians losing sight of what 1:56:24.160 --> 1:56:26.600 their actual basis because like this is all this is 1:56:26.600 --> 1:56:30.280 all supposed to be like campaign trail feeding the anti 1:56:30.280 --> 1:56:33.720 immigrant base. But like, you know, you you are a 1:56:33.840 --> 1:56:37.680 politician in the US, Your actual constituency is the capitalists, 1:56:38.080 --> 1:56:40.320 and like do you have an actual job? And let's 1:56:40.560 --> 1:56:43.480 make the economy keep going and keeping people in power 1:56:43.680 --> 1:56:47.120 to have all the power, like you're not just like that. 1:56:47.320 --> 1:56:49.000 That's one interesting thing that Trump was kind of one 1:56:49.040 --> 1:56:52.360 of the first big um indicators for which is like 1:56:52.680 --> 1:56:55.600 a politician now is just the endless cycle of campaigning 1:56:55.920 --> 1:56:58.040 and they don't actually have a job. It's just always 1:56:58.080 --> 1:57:02.680 campaigning and that it's always campaigning. Uh, and they're like, oh, 1:57:02.920 --> 1:57:04.560 I guess I should do my actual job that I 1:57:04.640 --> 1:57:07.200 was elected for or I could just do more rallies 1:57:07.320 --> 1:57:09.920 and that seems like it would be less work. Yeah. Well, 1:57:10.000 --> 1:57:12.440 and I think I think what Trump was like there 1:57:12.480 --> 1:57:14.360 was those things out to which the bureaucracy kept functioning, 1:57:14.400 --> 1:57:16.400 and you know, like like he like Trump got Trump 1:57:16.440 --> 1:57:18.880 got the tax cut right, and like he didn't really 1:57:18.920 --> 1:57:20.560 start getting in trouble with them until he started doing 1:57:20.560 --> 1:57:22.360 the anti China stuff, which was sort of a disaster 1:57:22.480 --> 1:57:24.120 because there was a lot of people who turned out 1:57:24.240 --> 1:57:27.320 like need those trade connections to make money. And you 1:57:27.360 --> 1:57:29.120 saw like and like it was weird. It was a 1:57:29.200 --> 1:57:30.760 very weird thing. Like you started to see even some 1:57:30.840 --> 1:57:33.720 of his like like domestic like small business base. I 1:57:33.760 --> 1:57:35.440 started to get really mad at him because he's putting 1:57:35.440 --> 1:57:37.000 all these sanctions up and it's like, oh, hey, look, 1:57:37.040 --> 1:57:39.520 all these sanctions mean that all these people who are 1:57:39.880 --> 1:57:42.320 reliant on Chinese supply chains have to pay this stuff. 1:57:43.400 --> 1:57:46.720 And an Abbott Abbott has like done this in microcosm, 1:57:47.040 --> 1:57:49.400 and like these these people like the star, they start 1:57:49.440 --> 1:57:50.960 going to the press. Um, I'm going to read a 1:57:51.000 --> 1:57:55.840 quote from Bloomberg. Uh. Some retailers, particularly those in the 1:57:55.920 --> 1:57:58.840 grocery industry, have experienced supply chain delays resulting from the 1:57:58.920 --> 1:58:02.360 extended wait times a lot Texas Mexico border. John McCord, 1:58:02.600 --> 1:58:06.960 the executive director of Texas Retailers Association, wrote in an email, so, like, 1:58:08.000 --> 1:58:11.480 you know these are like like the Texas Retail Association 1:58:11.760 --> 1:58:15.120 is like this is like the most republican solidly institution 1:58:15.720 --> 1:58:18.960 in the country and and you can watch them over time, 1:58:19.040 --> 1:58:23.080 like these people are getting really mad. Like one of 1:58:23.240 --> 1:58:28.720 I I was like, like what if Abbot's like I 1:58:28.880 --> 1:58:31.840 get the exact title, like what one of abbots like secretaries, 1:58:33.440 --> 1:58:35.040 like they're look at the secretary or something. One of 1:58:35.120 --> 1:58:38.320 the like economic bureaus was like, yeah, man, Alvaca is 1:58:38.400 --> 1:58:43.520 gonna cost five more dollars, And you know, you know 1:58:44.280 --> 1:58:47.360 this really hits me hard. Because everyone knows it's about me. 1:58:47.440 --> 1:58:50.160 I care a lot about retail. UM. Retails like my 1:58:50.320 --> 1:58:54.200 one of my big core of personality traits UM. And 1:58:54.840 --> 1:58:56.960 you know who else wants you to care about retail? 1:58:57.360 --> 1:58:59.840 Oh my goodness is that the wash Upton State of 1:59:00.640 --> 1:59:03.320 That is right, Sophie, it's the Washington State Patrol. Are 1:59:03.560 --> 1:59:07.720 are are good friends? Um? So here here is some 1:59:07.920 --> 1:59:11.200 here's some messages about about how you can improve your 1:59:11.280 --> 1:59:15.160 retail decisions. Okay, I I can't find this George Bush 1:59:15.240 --> 1:59:16.520 quote that I was going to use as a bit, 1:59:16.840 --> 1:59:20.760 so instead of that, we will return to this. And 1:59:21.760 --> 1:59:23.200 you know, and one one thing I think we should 1:59:23.200 --> 1:59:27.840 also mention is if you ran into this on Twitter, um, 1:59:29.160 --> 1:59:32.000 you will see a lot of videos of people like 1:59:32.120 --> 1:59:34.520 Democrats like standing at the border and pointing at the 1:59:34.560 --> 1:59:38.240 trucks and going, uh, this is this. This is abbot 1:59:38.280 --> 1:59:41.040 attempting to like make inflation to get worse by sabotaging 1:59:41.040 --> 1:59:49.800 the economy. Cringe and like cringe cringe moments. Yeah, Like okay, 1:59:49.880 --> 1:59:56.000 Like I cannot rule out that this was like a 1:59:56.240 --> 1:59:58.320 part of what he wanted to do, but that's not 1:59:58.560 --> 2:00:01.880 really why he's doing this. Like this, this is this 2:00:02.080 --> 2:00:05.040 is like mostly and I some people talking about like, oh, 2:00:05.120 --> 2:00:08.680 this is like the trucker's buckage and Chile, and I'm like, no, no, 2:00:08.840 --> 2:00:12.600 it's not at all, like like yeah, yeah, yeah, like yes, 2:00:13.040 --> 2:00:14.520 Chile has a bunch of right had I had a 2:00:14.520 --> 2:00:16.640 bunch of right wing anti communist truckers unions that tried 2:00:16.680 --> 2:00:18.520 to shut down the government. But like, that's not what's 2:00:18.520 --> 2:00:22.000 happening here. This is the state and Abbott trying to 2:00:22.080 --> 2:00:24.160 do this is like an immigration pr thing like this 2:00:24.280 --> 2:00:28.440 isn't like he's not actually he's not actually trying to 2:00:28.480 --> 2:00:32.360 destroy the government, because the the only way you can 2:00:32.440 --> 2:00:36.160 get stuff like that is if like is is it 2:00:36.240 --> 2:00:38.720 the capitalist classes like genuinely afraid that they're about to 2:00:38.760 --> 2:00:41.640 get like like wiped out by communists And it turns 2:00:41.680 --> 2:00:45.800 out that is not about to unize the entire US. 2:00:46.280 --> 2:00:49.320 I don't think that's actually a looming threat at the moment. No, 2:00:50.360 --> 2:00:52.040 So yeah, it's like no, it's like it's it's not 2:00:52.200 --> 2:00:55.480 it's not really about that, like it's it's it's it's 2:00:55.520 --> 2:00:57.680 mostly about this sort of this sort of like border 2:00:57.760 --> 2:01:02.680 game that the Communis are coming free of off Picados. Well, 2:01:03.080 --> 2:01:04.880 this is sort of this is the interesting thing here, 2:01:04.920 --> 2:01:08.680 because it's like you have this really weird scenario where 2:01:08.720 --> 2:01:11.680 like it's it's it's the right wing governor like shutting 2:01:11.720 --> 2:01:14.880 down the flow of commodities, and like the liberals are like, 2:01:14.960 --> 2:01:18.080 we must restore the flow of commodities, and the like, 2:01:18.120 --> 2:01:20.440 we must restore the flow of commodities, and like even 2:01:20.480 --> 2:01:23.400 the cartels or something extential, like come on, like we 2:01:23.480 --> 2:01:27.920 all we all need the border open. Uh. It really, 2:01:28.760 --> 2:01:33.160 it really does just showcase the entire bit. Yeah, you know, 2:01:33.240 --> 2:01:35.640 but I mean, like we've been talking a lot about 2:01:35.640 --> 2:01:38.880 the human cost of this, and the reason this stuff 2:01:38.960 --> 2:01:41.920 works is because American politics is literally just a machine 2:01:41.960 --> 2:01:44.200 that turns human suffering into stories and then turns those 2:01:44.240 --> 2:01:48.800 stories into percentage points at the polls. And that's Abbot's 2:01:49.280 --> 2:01:53.160 entire weight. Am I getting him confused with no Greg 2:01:53.160 --> 2:01:56.560 Abbots the governor? I momentarily got him confused with the 2:01:56.720 --> 2:02:02.360 UK guy Tony Emmett ris so bad in very similar ways. Yeah, 2:02:02.360 --> 2:02:04.800 but I think I think we're allowed to have two 2:02:04.880 --> 2:02:07.840 bad Abbots. Yeah. I thought there's kind of Australia too, 2:02:08.320 --> 2:02:14.280 But well, the bad applets are multiplied. To get on this. 2:02:14.720 --> 2:02:16.440 We need we need to deal with the anglos theory 2:02:16.440 --> 2:02:18.680 before they produce the fourth produced the fourth one when 2:02:18.720 --> 2:02:21.120 we get the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. That would 2:02:21.120 --> 2:02:26.480 be funny if you just have four Abbots bringing the apocalypse. Yeah, 2:02:26.760 --> 2:02:29.400 But I think I think that the thing that's important 2:02:29.400 --> 2:02:31.840 to understand about like about Abbott is like that that 2:02:32.000 --> 2:02:35.160 everything that Abbott does is just about inflicting suffering on 2:02:35.280 --> 2:02:37.920 people and trying to use that to do polls. Right, 2:02:38.000 --> 2:02:40.040 Like he he has genuine right wing beliefs, but like 2:02:40.520 --> 2:02:43.200 the timing of everything that he does, that's what all 2:02:43.200 --> 2:02:45.320 of his that's that's that's what all has had anti 2:02:45.360 --> 2:02:48.480 trans stuff is is that he couldn't beat his primary challenger, 2:02:48.520 --> 2:02:50.920 who was trying to campaign a little bit fur them 2:02:50.920 --> 2:02:54.000 to write than Abbott was. Yeah, and this is the 2:02:54.080 --> 2:02:58.880 thing where like politicians are allowed to play games with 2:02:58.960 --> 2:03:03.840 all people's lives, that that's their job. But they're allowed 2:03:03.880 --> 2:03:06.760 to do this up until the exact moment at which 2:03:06.800 --> 2:03:11.200 those real people are the bourgeoisie and the moment this 2:03:11.280 --> 2:03:12.680 is this the thing that Abbott is learning is that 2:03:12.720 --> 2:03:14.480 you can do this kind of stunts all you want, 2:03:14.600 --> 2:03:16.560 Like you can you can like you can shoot every 2:03:16.640 --> 2:03:19.880 trans kid, you can like I don't know, like you 2:03:19.960 --> 2:03:24.040 can you can ban like every school from like saying 2:03:24.120 --> 2:03:27.840 the word race, but you can't funk with the bourgeoisie. 2:03:28.600 --> 2:03:30.840 And you know this, this is this, this is the 2:03:30.880 --> 2:03:33.440 problem that he has is bye by like by like 2:03:33.520 --> 2:03:36.720 the middle of last week. He has the like the 2:03:36.840 --> 2:03:39.360 ruling classes turning on him. The truckers are blockading the 2:03:39.400 --> 2:03:43.440 bridges that preventing all travel, and Abbott is like basically 2:03:43.520 --> 2:03:46.720 scrambling to find a way out. And the thing that 2:03:46.760 --> 2:03:49.280 he does to do this is he like he goes 2:03:49.320 --> 2:03:51.800 to a bunch of Mexican governors who who are like 2:03:51.880 --> 2:03:55.200 that the governors of border states. And these governors had 2:03:55.240 --> 2:03:57.400 like sent him letters being like hey, like what are 2:03:57.440 --> 2:04:01.000 you doing, Like we need like we we we need 2:04:01.040 --> 2:04:04.160 our economies to function. Can can you can you actually 2:04:04.280 --> 2:04:08.160 do this? And you know, so he starts doing these 2:04:08.200 --> 2:04:10.760 negotiations with him where he's like, well, okay, if you 2:04:10.840 --> 2:04:13.880 guys like inspect all of these trucks or whatever before 2:04:13.920 --> 2:04:16.120 and you ensure that there's no immigrants and then where 2:04:16.160 --> 2:04:18.520 whatever before they get here, like we'll reopen the borders. 2:04:19.560 --> 2:04:21.840 And you know, so they do this, and I think 2:04:23.120 --> 2:04:25.640 there's a couple of interesting things about this one is 2:04:25.760 --> 2:04:27.920 that most of these I think there's one guy who's 2:04:28.000 --> 2:04:30.240 from the p r I, but like almost all of 2:04:30.280 --> 2:04:32.120 these governors are from the p A N, which is 2:04:32.160 --> 2:04:37.160 Mexico's like far right wing party, and like these guys, 2:04:37.720 --> 2:04:41.240 these guys are also like hard right, like we're on 2:04:41.360 --> 2:04:43.640 drug hard liners, you hate immigrants and and this this 2:04:43.720 --> 2:04:45.200 has been another big part of how the sort of 2:04:45.240 --> 2:04:47.560 border machine works, which is that like, yeah, on the 2:04:47.640 --> 2:04:49.120 one hand, you have you have Abbo and you have 2:04:49.200 --> 2:04:50.840 like Texas, so you have just the US government like 2:04:50.880 --> 2:04:54.000 projecting its power like into Mexico, which is you know, 2:04:54.400 --> 2:04:56.560 another big part of what this is. But the other 2:04:56.600 --> 2:04:59.720 part of it is has been the US essentially outsourcing 2:05:00.000 --> 2:05:02.400 it's it's border regime and border policy just in like 2:05:02.520 --> 2:05:05.160 to Mexico. And so you get a lot of there. 2:05:05.160 --> 2:05:07.280 There's been a lot in the last especially to dn 2:05:07.320 --> 2:05:10.120 Trump administration. Uh, I mean it goes back much further 2:05:10.160 --> 2:05:12.800 than that, but like in in the last like five 2:05:12.920 --> 2:05:14.800 years have been a lot of really egregious examples of 2:05:14.960 --> 2:05:18.000 just like border patrol ship but by the Mexican police, 2:05:18.080 --> 2:05:20.560 because it turns out there's also a bunch of people 2:05:20.560 --> 2:05:23.800 in Mexico who fucking hates Central American refugees and be 2:05:24.400 --> 2:05:28.480 uh the police or the police literally everywhere. And yeah, 2:05:28.640 --> 2:05:30.000 and this this also for example, like this this is 2:05:30.040 --> 2:05:31.320 how this is how a lot of the border regime 2:05:31.360 --> 2:05:35.000 stuff works in um, in Europe, front ACKs of the 2:05:35.080 --> 2:05:38.720 European border like thing makes you to do like makes 2:05:38.920 --> 2:05:45.120 like basically just negotiates with like literally every like I 2:05:45.160 --> 2:05:46.880 don't even know what you call them, like border state, 2:05:46.960 --> 2:05:50.720 I guess in Africa to ensure that like refugees coming 2:05:50.760 --> 2:05:53.560 up to North Africa like don't ever get to Europe. 2:05:54.120 --> 2:05:56.400 And like this is that they make deals with Gadaffi, 2:05:56.480 --> 2:06:00.400 they made deals with the people who came after Gadaffi. Um, yeah, 2:06:00.480 --> 2:06:04.200 there's the border system is horrible and this is sort 2:06:04.240 --> 2:06:08.440 of the border system like working as intended. Now, the 2:06:08.920 --> 2:06:12.240 other thing that we should mention is that like, okay, 2:06:12.320 --> 2:06:16.320 so they're they're stopping and like supposedly searching all of 2:06:16.400 --> 2:06:19.720 these trucks and they find literally nothing the entire time, 2:06:21.440 --> 2:06:23.400 because like there's there's you know, there's ever anything there. 2:06:23.440 --> 2:06:25.240 But you get all these press conferences they were like, well, yeah, 2:06:25.240 --> 2:06:27.000 of course there is nothing. It's because the cartels were 2:06:27.040 --> 2:06:31.120 tipped off. Of the raid because we did Presston conferences 2:06:31.240 --> 2:06:34.920 about it, and that's why they announced. We announced the 2:06:34.960 --> 2:06:36.440 thing that we were gonna do. So it gave him 2:06:36.480 --> 2:06:43.160 a chance to smartest Wow whoa. Yeah, So that that 2:06:43.360 --> 2:06:46.600 that that's been fun um And the last thing I 2:06:46.600 --> 2:06:48.040 wanna talk about, Yeah, this was part of what we 2:06:48.160 --> 2:06:50.280 were talking about earlier, which is that like, yeah, this 2:06:50.400 --> 2:06:51.960 is the second time this year that we've seen right 2:06:52.000 --> 2:06:54.600 wingers like block off a border for political reasons. And 2:06:54.600 --> 2:06:57.920 I think there's a few interesting things here. Um. One 2:06:58.200 --> 2:06:59.640 is that this is the kind of stuff that from 2:06:59.720 --> 2:07:03.080 like basically from the start of occupy and even before 2:07:03.120 --> 2:07:04.960 then until like the Bernie campaign. This is like the 2:07:05.080 --> 2:07:07.240 core of like what Marxists we're thinking about in the US, 2:07:07.240 --> 2:07:09.760 and also anarchists or something sent like if if you 2:07:09.800 --> 2:07:11.720 go and read anything from that period, like it's all 2:07:11.720 --> 2:07:13.960 about logistics and kinter logistics and how you can like 2:07:14.040 --> 2:07:15.680 disrupt them and whether or not we should try to 2:07:15.720 --> 2:07:18.960 take control of logistics. And you know, and I think 2:07:18.960 --> 2:07:23.320 you see here like like attacking logistics is a very 2:07:23.360 --> 2:07:27.160 powerful political tool, but it's tool that has like limited um, 2:07:27.680 --> 2:07:32.200 like it it has limited utility for the right because 2:07:32.360 --> 2:07:34.400 you know, the right depends on the backing of capitalists 2:07:34.400 --> 2:07:37.320 for the politics to work. They really really need buy 2:07:37.360 --> 2:07:40.720 it capitalists, and those capitalists need cross border trade and 2:07:41.000 --> 2:07:42.680 you know, and the other thing like they also need 2:07:43.040 --> 2:07:45.720 they also need migrant workers to make their money. And 2:07:45.720 --> 2:07:47.680 if you cut that stuff off, your political base starts 2:07:47.720 --> 2:07:51.680 to collapse. And the second part of it that's interesting 2:07:51.960 --> 2:07:54.280 is you get to see how powerful this is as 2:07:54.360 --> 2:07:57.600 a weapon for you know, like the working class because 2:07:57.640 --> 2:08:03.040 of just like how instant enviously Abbott back down when 2:08:03.280 --> 2:08:06.160 the trucking blockhead starts because this this is all over. 2:08:06.360 --> 2:08:10.920 Um last Friday, I think the what date is that? 2:08:12.640 --> 2:08:20.440 That was good Friday, I mean the goodest, the goodest Friday. Yeah, 2:08:22.680 --> 2:08:26.160 Abbott was like, oh, oh, it's all over. We secured 2:08:26.200 --> 2:08:31.160 the border. Yeah everything border, sure, buddy, Okay, yeah, but 2:08:31.240 --> 2:08:32.680 you know, and you but like that's the thing, like 2:08:33.040 --> 2:08:36.840 you can see like, yeah, you gotta see you gotta 2:08:36.840 --> 2:08:40.240 see a rare moment of like Mexican workers and also 2:08:40.400 --> 2:08:42.320 like the the sort of international capital class working on 2:08:42.320 --> 2:08:43.840 the same side. And you've got to see how fast 2:08:43.960 --> 2:08:47.240 they just like collaborate their politicians because yeah, like yeah, 2:08:47.320 --> 2:08:48.400 like that the state is that the state is the 2:08:48.440 --> 2:08:51.560 powerful force, but it turns out it's it's class politics 2:08:51.560 --> 2:08:53.680 all the way down. And I think I don't know 2:08:54.200 --> 2:08:57.800 this in Canada. I think there's a couple of interesting things. 2:08:58.400 --> 2:09:00.920 One is which, Okay, yeah, you're like if you're on 2:09:01.120 --> 2:09:04.400 the left, like already automatically you're going to be fighting 2:09:05.080 --> 2:09:07.520 the capital business ois just always mad at you. So 2:09:07.640 --> 2:09:12.000 that's concern. You will face more suppression immediately obviously. This 2:09:12.400 --> 2:09:14.640 this is this is how the game is played. Yeah, 2:09:14.680 --> 2:09:16.680 your face one suppresion deedily. But it's also like that 2:09:16.800 --> 2:09:19.880 that's not like a your base turning on you, Like 2:09:20.040 --> 2:09:23.240 that problem doesn't stem from capital is not making money. 2:09:23.920 --> 2:09:25.960 The problem you have with your base turning on you 2:09:26.360 --> 2:09:30.280 is about being being able to provision supplies to people. 2:09:30.280 --> 2:09:32.000 And I think this is you know, against even you 2:09:32.240 --> 2:09:33.440 know more about this than I do, but I will 2:09:33.840 --> 2:09:35.720 finish the sentence and then stop talking. Which is that 2:09:35.840 --> 2:09:37.880 like like, yeah, if you look at Canada, it was 2:09:37.960 --> 2:09:40.760 like part of the reason their occupations failed was that 2:09:40.840 --> 2:09:43.200 like yeah, like just like a bunch of ordinary people 2:09:43.280 --> 2:09:46.160 got really really mad at them because their whole their 2:09:46.160 --> 2:09:49.440 cities were being locked down. Yeah, yeah, they started impacting 2:09:49.520 --> 2:09:53.040 not just the economic drivers, but the people who live 2:09:53.080 --> 2:09:56.040 in those areas regularly and need them to operate. And 2:09:56.120 --> 2:09:59.160 that gave politicians enough enough of the incentive to be like, see, 2:09:59.600 --> 2:10:02.320 actually hurting real people. It's not just hurting the economy, 2:10:02.600 --> 2:10:05.360 but it's hurting you know, your grandma who could be 2:10:05.440 --> 2:10:08.400 living in like Ottawa or something. Right, So when you 2:10:08.480 --> 2:10:11.240 when you use these tactics, it's about balancing the propaganda 2:10:11.760 --> 2:10:15.800 of like not severely impacting the people who actually live 2:10:15.840 --> 2:10:19.480 in these places very much, but but targeting the economics, 2:10:19.640 --> 2:10:23.000 policies and the you know, you know, the corporate elite 2:10:23.080 --> 2:10:25.680 or whatever kind of framing you want to use. Because 2:10:25.720 --> 2:10:28.840 as as soon as you start doing tactics that just 2:10:29.160 --> 2:10:32.880 hurt you know, regular people, that is such an immediate 2:10:33.000 --> 2:10:39.040 like propaganda l as the kids would say, um, because yeah, 2:10:39.240 --> 2:10:41.120 you're but you're just giving them the tools to easily 2:10:41.160 --> 2:10:43.200 fight you back. And yes, they're gonna they're gonna try 2:10:43.240 --> 2:10:46.880 to invent tools to to to stop you no matter what. 2:10:47.000 --> 2:10:48.720 Like they're they're gonna, they're gonna they're gonna try to 2:10:48.760 --> 2:10:53.000 do something the via propaganda lens. But there's some propaganda 2:10:53.080 --> 2:10:56.400 is way easier and uh much harder than others. So 2:10:56.880 --> 2:10:59.000 I think a big part of these types of things 2:10:59.120 --> 2:11:01.440 when you're starting to like block off you know, roots 2:11:01.480 --> 2:11:03.800 to cities, block off supply chains as you need to 2:11:03.840 --> 2:11:08.320 be cognizant of making sure that the people who are 2:11:08.360 --> 2:11:11.000 like immediately next to kind of things that you're also cool, 2:11:11.120 --> 2:11:13.280 because that can give you so much more legs. I mean, 2:11:13.320 --> 2:11:16.160 we saw this in the Red House in Portland. There 2:11:16.200 --> 2:11:18.720 was a there was a lot of effort, um to 2:11:19.480 --> 2:11:22.720 make the immediate neighbors not hate the occupation there, to 2:11:23.000 --> 2:11:26.040 to stop the family from being evicted, um, And there 2:11:26.120 --> 2:11:28.240 was a lot of debate around like how much graffiti 2:11:28.280 --> 2:11:31.360 should be allowed in the surrounding area because you know, 2:11:31.400 --> 2:11:33.160 you don't want to piss off the neighbors too much. 2:11:33.640 --> 2:11:35.680 Now that this can obviously stem in bad directions in 2:11:35.800 --> 2:11:38.800 terms of like there was then like self self appointed 2:11:38.840 --> 2:11:42.640 security guards like beating up and shooting people with paintballs 2:11:42.760 --> 2:11:45.960 who were doing graffiti, which is obviously like not not 2:11:46.160 --> 2:11:49.680 not how you do good anarchism um. But then there's 2:11:49.680 --> 2:11:51.800 other stuff being like no, we should just trash this 2:11:51.920 --> 2:11:54.520 area anyway. It's all in the process of being gentrified, 2:11:54.560 --> 2:11:57.440 which mean it is, but you're like, yes, I understand 2:11:57.480 --> 2:12:00.080 that emotional impulse. Um, and you may be right in 2:12:00.160 --> 2:12:02.640 a lot of senses, like like more like more correct morally, 2:12:03.080 --> 2:12:05.560 but to play the propaganda game to actually stop a 2:12:05.600 --> 2:12:08.800 black family from being evicted, maybe we can actually to 2:12:08.880 --> 2:12:11.120 look at this at a more tactical level. Yeah, And 2:12:11.280 --> 2:12:12.880 I think that there's a lot of examples things we 2:12:12.880 --> 2:12:15.360 can learn from strikes that do is very efficiently. Like 2:12:15.440 --> 2:12:17.360 one of the things one of the reasons the wildcats 2:12:17.520 --> 2:12:19.640 in West the wildcat teacher strikes West Virginia and he 2:12:19.720 --> 2:12:23.040 doesn't seventeen worked was that the striking teachers in West 2:12:23.080 --> 2:12:26.080 Virginia were very very careful about making sure that they 2:12:26.120 --> 2:12:29.080 did things like you know, like making making sure that 2:12:29.200 --> 2:12:32.440 kids got like the meals that that the school would 2:12:32.440 --> 2:12:38.120 have been like providing like like you know, like this 2:12:38.240 --> 2:12:40.800 is why this is why mutual aid is extremely important 2:12:40.880 --> 2:12:44.400 because it lets you It lets you provision services, not 2:12:44.640 --> 2:12:47.800 just when they collapse because of like you know, oh, 2:12:47.920 --> 2:12:51.480 hey the government's doing weird stuff or like there's a plague. 2:12:51.480 --> 2:12:54.280 It lets you do it, lets you shut down logistics 2:12:54.320 --> 2:12:56.960 slnes yourself and still have community support and still be 2:12:57.000 --> 2:12:59.440 able to provide people. To think that provide people things 2:12:59.480 --> 2:13:01.320 that they need, and it's just like, you know, if 2:13:01.320 --> 2:13:02.760 if you carry this all the way to like the 2:13:02.960 --> 2:13:06.320 macro macro level, it's like yeah, okay, So like why 2:13:06.360 --> 2:13:08.880 did why did the Russian Revolution not work? And you know, 2:13:09.040 --> 2:13:11.080 like like why did the Pairs Commune fail? And it's like, well, yeah, 2:13:11.120 --> 2:13:14.880 it's because instead of like giving peasants things, they went 2:13:14.920 --> 2:13:18.000 into the countryside and shot them into actepting to get 2:13:18.040 --> 2:13:20.520 those things. And it's like, yeah, like you have to 2:13:21.760 --> 2:13:24.200 what what what what whatever. The thing that you're doing 2:13:24.480 --> 2:13:26.920 is in in in your sort of like base area, 2:13:27.080 --> 2:13:29.040 right whatever. You're like, hey, you're you're doing a strike, 2:13:29.200 --> 2:13:32.320 You're shutting down a bridge. You're like, you know, you're 2:13:32.320 --> 2:13:35.200 blocking up border, you're trying down a port, right you 2:13:35.360 --> 2:13:38.000 you have to make sure you're constantly expanding and building 2:13:38.040 --> 2:13:41.440 out support outside outside of that, outside of that action, 2:13:41.480 --> 2:13:43.800 and making sure you're you're you're able to provision the 2:13:43.840 --> 2:13:45.960 people who are affected by it. And if you don't 2:13:46.000 --> 2:13:48.120 do this, you end up like Abbott. And it's like yeah, 2:13:48.600 --> 2:13:51.720 you know he Abbott had like the entire power of 2:13:51.800 --> 2:13:53.560 the American state behind him, and he was able to 2:13:53.640 --> 2:13:58.160 keep this up for like less than two weeks before 2:13:58.160 --> 2:14:01.000 he had to just pull out. So, yeah, we can 2:14:01.200 --> 2:14:03.480 do this better and for things that are good and 2:14:03.560 --> 2:14:05.720 in ways that don't hurt people or at least hurt 2:14:05.720 --> 2:14:09.520 people significantly less or you know, don't not hurt the 2:14:09.600 --> 2:14:12.800 wrong people instead try to try to hurt the right people. 2:14:13.000 --> 2:14:17.400 Just like an incredible lack of like thinking. That's my 2:14:17.840 --> 2:14:23.240 that's my summaries. Yeah, better do you think? Like? Yeah? 2:14:23.400 --> 2:14:25.919 And I think also like again like Abbott, Abbott's politics 2:14:26.400 --> 2:14:29.760 like is entirely about like infricting cruelty on people, right, 2:14:29.840 --> 2:14:34.240 and ours like shouldn't be and shouldn't Yeah, And the 2:14:34.320 --> 2:14:36.480 fact that we actually care about people makes our politics 2:14:36.520 --> 2:14:40.880 were effective and sho in theory. In theory they should 2:14:41.160 --> 2:14:43.800 um and any time when we take a misstep from that, 2:14:43.880 --> 2:14:46.520 I think is of it is a big loss. Yeah. 2:14:47.800 --> 2:14:49.600 There's there's one more strike thing that I just remembered 2:14:49.600 --> 2:14:51.080 that I was going to talk about, which is I 2:14:51.960 --> 2:14:54.760 So these also trains a lot. There's there's a type 2:14:54.760 --> 2:14:56.600 of striker's name I'm forgetting because I'm a hack and 2:14:56.640 --> 2:14:59.919 a fraud where like the people, the people, the people 2:15:00.080 --> 2:15:01.680 just like take over a train and they'll run it, 2:15:01.760 --> 2:15:05.000 but they just won't take fars. That is incredibly bit Yeah, 2:15:05.040 --> 2:15:07.600 and you know, so that's that's that's like level one 2:15:07.680 --> 2:15:09.760 of it. And then level two of the strike is 2:15:09.880 --> 2:15:12.240 insteade of just we're on strike, but we're running the 2:15:12.280 --> 2:15:14.760 service and not taking any money. It's we now control 2:15:14.840 --> 2:15:17.960 this train and that that has happened on several occasions, 2:15:18.480 --> 2:15:21.440 and well, yeah, you do that. It's cool. You heard 2:15:21.480 --> 2:15:24.720 it here. First take over your local train. Um, it 2:15:24.800 --> 2:15:26.600 could happen here. We could, we we can do it. 2:15:27.200 --> 2:15:31.680 Anarchism can make the trains run on time. Oh I'm 2:15:31.760 --> 2:15:35.880 not sure about that. Pug punk time it is as 2:15:35.920 --> 2:15:38.560 an unstoppable Okay. Here, here's the thing. Here's the thing, 2:15:38.640 --> 2:15:41.880 right like punk time. Like okay, so you don't have 2:15:42.040 --> 2:15:44.320 the punks running the trains. You have the train nerds 2:15:44.400 --> 2:15:46.800 running the train, people who should spend all of their 2:15:46.880 --> 2:15:50.320 time playing train simulator running the trains. Okay, that the 2:15:50.400 --> 2:15:56.840 trains will run great? Alright, that is that is completely fair. Um. 2:15:57.040 --> 2:16:00.240 Where can people find you and or the show on 2:16:00.360 --> 2:16:04.880 the internet. You can find me at three on Twitter 2:16:05.640 --> 2:16:08.200 if you want to do that for some reason. You 2:16:08.280 --> 2:16:11.840 can find us that happened here pod on Twitter, Instagram. Uh, 2:16:12.000 --> 2:16:15.000 there's also the Cool Zone. We have Zone Media. Yeah, 2:16:15.080 --> 2:16:16.920 we have a we have a new podcast that is 2:16:16.960 --> 2:16:18.360 coming so if you do want to want to go, 2:16:19.360 --> 2:16:21.560 we actually got we got two new ones for you 2:16:21.720 --> 2:16:25.120 coming soon. We have a Ghost Church by Jamie Loftus. 2:16:25.840 --> 2:16:31.000 Episode one is out April, and then we have Cool 2:16:31.040 --> 2:16:35.279 People Who Did Cool Stuff hosted by Margaret Killjoy. Trailer 2:16:35.560 --> 2:16:39.880 is out next week and episode one is out on 2:16:40.320 --> 2:16:45.240 May second. Check both of them out. So many, so 2:16:45.400 --> 2:16:48.560 many pods in the pipe, as you say, that is 2:16:49.160 --> 2:16:53.800 the technical term, pods in the pipe. These these are genuinely, 2:16:53.959 --> 2:16:55.840 legitimately very good shows and you should listen to them. 2:16:55.879 --> 2:17:00.520 And I'm really excited. So alright, well, thank for listening, 2:17:00.680 --> 2:17:20.080 and uh go go take over a train. Greetings listeners 2:17:20.280 --> 2:17:23.840 in the podcast verse, this is it could happen here, 2:17:24.040 --> 2:17:28.080 the podcast about things falling apart and sometimes how we 2:17:28.160 --> 2:17:31.959 can put stuff back together. I'm Garrison Davis are Resident 2:17:32.360 --> 2:17:36.680 Gender mess. In the past few weeks, we've been talking 2:17:36.840 --> 2:17:40.080 a lot here on the show about the escalating war 2:17:40.360 --> 2:17:44.200 on trans people and queer folks in general. There's been 2:17:44.200 --> 2:17:47.240 a wave of bills making any gender affirming healthcare of 2:17:47.360 --> 2:17:51.240 felony for people under the age of eighteen, which forcibly 2:17:51.320 --> 2:17:54.760 detransitions teenagers and multiple states, and we've had a lot 2:17:54.800 --> 2:17:58.720 of banning trans people from participating in sports and trying 2:17:58.760 --> 2:18:01.480 to ban books and discussion in schools about the just 2:18:01.560 --> 2:18:04.760 the existence of queer people at all. But today we're 2:18:04.800 --> 2:18:07.040 not really going to be talking about that. We've talked 2:18:07.040 --> 2:18:09.680 about that plenty for the past few weeks. It's good 2:18:09.720 --> 2:18:11.400 to have a little little bit of a break, but 2:18:11.480 --> 2:18:14.720 we'll still be talking about stuff around trans people. Because 2:18:15.000 --> 2:18:18.200 with all the discussion around gender affirming healthcare, I thought 2:18:18.240 --> 2:18:19.880 it would be a good idea to put something together 2:18:20.040 --> 2:18:24.720 talking about what HRT or hormone replacement therapy actually is, 2:18:25.240 --> 2:18:28.119 as since it's the most common form of trans healthcare, 2:18:28.720 --> 2:18:31.960 and since many states are trying to or already have 2:18:32.200 --> 2:18:35.840 criminalized it, perhaps I can use the pod to point 2:18:35.879 --> 2:18:39.920 people towards alternative means of receiving care, you know, in 2:18:40.000 --> 2:18:42.920 the vein of the putting stuff back together side of 2:18:43.000 --> 2:18:46.959 the show. Now, I want to clarify upfront that we're 2:18:47.000 --> 2:18:51.320 not giving anyone medical advice, obviously, I'm just making observations 2:18:51.480 --> 2:18:55.360 and talking about things as they exist, um and talking 2:18:55.360 --> 2:18:57.480 about things that many trans people have been doing for 2:18:57.600 --> 2:19:00.200 a long time, and that includes d y h RT. 2:19:00.840 --> 2:19:04.480 My doctorate program is in parapsychology, not medical science, so 2:19:04.800 --> 2:19:08.320 just keep that in mind. First, I will quickly clarify 2:19:08.680 --> 2:19:14.520 what HRT or hormone replacement therapy actually is for specifically 2:19:14.720 --> 2:19:18.160 non CIS gender individuals because HRT as a term is 2:19:18.200 --> 2:19:22.840 also used for SIS women to describe similar but different treatment. 2:19:23.280 --> 2:19:27.480 So HRT as a form of gender affirming treatment is 2:19:27.600 --> 2:19:31.600 when someone receives sex hormone medication that produces a number 2:19:31.680 --> 2:19:36.520 of desired secondary sex characteristics. There are two broad types 2:19:36.640 --> 2:19:39.680 of hormone therapy that one would receive, depending on what 2:19:39.920 --> 2:19:43.440 direction you want to go in gender of wise, there's 2:19:43.680 --> 2:19:49.520 feminizing hormones and masculinizing hormones. Feminizing hormones produce more typically 2:19:50.000 --> 2:19:54.440 feminine traits, right, big big shocker there. Uh. It usually 2:19:54.720 --> 2:19:58.600 consists of a form of estrogen, usually called estradial. There's 2:19:58.600 --> 2:20:02.480 different types of estradial and also it can include anti 2:20:02.560 --> 2:20:09.160 androgen's aka a testosterone blockers. Masculinization therapy consists of taking 2:20:09.240 --> 2:20:14.480 to sosterone or androgen's and then also less commonly anti estrogen's, 2:20:14.600 --> 2:20:19.440 but usually just taking testosterone will suffice now I'm no 2:20:19.560 --> 2:20:23.680 expert in hormones despite my weekly shot, but lucky enough 2:20:23.959 --> 2:20:26.360 I was able to sit down with an actual expert 2:20:26.440 --> 2:20:30.280 on hormones and talk over zoom. So what follows is 2:20:30.360 --> 2:20:33.920 segments from our conversation. I guess first, do you want 2:20:33.959 --> 2:20:39.279 to introduce yourself? Sure? I am the Reverend Dr Victoria 2:20:39.360 --> 2:20:41.960 Luna B. Grieve. I am an assistant professor at the 2:20:42.040 --> 2:20:45.840 University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy. My primary clinical focuses 2:20:45.959 --> 2:20:50.760 on gender affirming hormone therapy, other kind of advocacy work 2:20:50.840 --> 2:20:53.160 in queer healthcare, and I do a lot of other 2:20:53.160 --> 2:20:57.039 stuff on the side, heatago g LUDC, instructional design, game design, 2:20:57.200 --> 2:21:00.760 just anything that strikes my fancy. Really found fun stuff 2:21:02.120 --> 2:21:05.600 in with within kind of our our coverage of trends 2:21:05.640 --> 2:21:08.640 stuff the past few weeks and months, it's been mostly 2:21:08.680 --> 2:21:11.400 on like the bills and like the politics side of things. 2:21:11.840 --> 2:21:14.480 I definitely had some people like reach out and be like, okay, 2:21:14.560 --> 2:21:19.520 but how like why why trands? Gender? Why why hormones? 2:21:19.600 --> 2:21:21.720 Like why are hormones actually important? Like could you actually 2:21:21.760 --> 2:21:24.720 explain like why, like you know, with all of these 2:21:24.800 --> 2:21:28.080 all these states banding hormones, let's I would like to 2:21:28.200 --> 2:21:30.560 kind of explain why it's such a big deal and 2:21:30.800 --> 2:21:33.959 like how much these things actually are like life saving 2:21:34.440 --> 2:21:41.480 medication for so many people. Yeah, so why hormones? I 2:21:41.600 --> 2:21:44.160 love it because it's a question that as like a species, 2:21:44.280 --> 2:21:46.840 we've been we we have known the answer to for 2:21:46.959 --> 2:21:50.959 like five thousand years. It's it's very funny, but um, 2:21:51.640 --> 2:21:56.160 hormones are Okay. A big part of this requires to 2:21:56.320 --> 2:21:59.480 like acknowledge something that is very wrong in in like 2:21:59.600 --> 2:22:03.200 the medical literature. There's a lot of elements of healthcare 2:22:03.360 --> 2:22:07.320 that are coordinated between like male and female, and there's 2:22:07.320 --> 2:22:11.720 a kind of like obviously is a little so there's 2:22:11.720 --> 2:22:14.440 a lot of mean I mean like from like from 2:22:14.600 --> 2:22:17.280 people's I know, when trans people talk about interacting with 2:22:17.320 --> 2:22:19.560 the medical system, it's always like, oh, yes, we're gonna 2:22:19.600 --> 2:22:23.080 be doing this bullshit, yes of course. Yeah. Well but 2:22:23.200 --> 2:22:25.000 it even goes to it like a really deep level, 2:22:25.040 --> 2:22:26.440 like if you're in the hospital and you get a 2:22:26.480 --> 2:22:30.240 CBC count, there's a male profile and a female profile 2:22:30.280 --> 2:22:32.320 of what your hematocrit should be on, like what the 2:22:32.440 --> 2:22:34.840 level of red blood cells are and and the general 2:22:34.959 --> 2:22:38.240 understanding and like the health industry is that there's a 2:22:38.360 --> 2:22:42.119 biological anatomical difference between them, and for the longest time, 2:22:42.280 --> 2:22:45.280 certainly in this country, trans women would have would be 2:22:45.320 --> 2:22:49.320 compared against the male profiles. But but it's nonsense. It's 2:22:49.320 --> 2:22:52.320 actually should be thought of in form of hormone dominance, 2:22:52.360 --> 2:22:56.760 because the vast majority of medical differences are not anatomical. 2:22:56.840 --> 2:23:00.440 They're hormonal, and and that right there should should give 2:23:00.440 --> 2:23:03.039 the game away, which is really funny, which is why 2:23:03.040 --> 2:23:05.840 I why I kind of hate the term biological woman 2:23:06.040 --> 2:23:08.920 whenever people start using that, because that's not really how 2:23:09.000 --> 2:23:14.600 biology works. Yeah, I mean the joke is my my 2:23:14.680 --> 2:23:17.720 nesting partner, my fiance, wishes that she could be a robot, 2:23:17.760 --> 2:23:19.840 and then if she were to do that and upload 2:23:19.879 --> 2:23:21.880 her brain into an immortal robot body, she would no 2:23:22.000 --> 2:23:24.360 longer be a biological woman, but she would still be 2:23:24.440 --> 2:23:27.960 a woman. It's just cybernetic um. I hate that. It's 2:23:28.000 --> 2:23:30.640 like organic. Organic just means it has carbon in it. Like, 2:23:30.800 --> 2:23:38.080 give me a break. So yeah, hormones, what's what's what's 2:23:38.120 --> 2:23:40.600 the deal do they? Because I know all of people 2:23:40.640 --> 2:23:43.000 will be like, well, all of these treads people sure 2:23:43.040 --> 2:23:47.120 do seem sad. I want that's how how how can 2:23:47.200 --> 2:23:51.720 we make things better? Does this thing actually work well, 2:23:51.920 --> 2:23:55.200 So it's somewhat multifactorial. I have a friend who does 2:23:55.520 --> 2:23:58.480 um sell imaging and her like working theory, which I'm 2:23:58.640 --> 2:24:01.000 a little dubious of. Is it like the brains of 2:24:01.120 --> 2:24:04.119 trans people like have receptors for hormones that the body 2:24:04.160 --> 2:24:06.480 doesn't make, and we should think of being transgender is 2:24:06.600 --> 2:24:10.120 having like a form of hypogonadism. Yeah, there's there's a 2:24:10.160 --> 2:24:12.240 lot of different trains of thought there in terms of 2:24:12.879 --> 2:24:15.640 the different theories of why trans people exist and how 2:24:15.760 --> 2:24:18.720 it's like, you know, the girl's brain, boys body, blah 2:24:18.760 --> 2:24:21.320 blah blah blah blah, which all, if you dig deep enough, 2:24:21.400 --> 2:24:25.240 goes back to eugenic so it's all. Yeah, I've always 2:24:25.360 --> 2:24:28.640 not liked that model. I've always it's always I've always 2:24:28.680 --> 2:24:31.080 found it to be a little bit uncomfortable because I 2:24:31.680 --> 2:24:34.480 take hormones because I want to, and I don't think 2:24:34.560 --> 2:24:38.160 it's because my my my brain is like secretly looking 2:24:38.320 --> 2:24:42.920 for girl receptors or something like, right, I totally agree, 2:24:43.000 --> 2:24:46.560 Like it also requires a certain like extremely binary understanding 2:24:46.600 --> 2:24:48.800 of gender, which I also do not ascribe to. So 2:24:49.000 --> 2:24:51.840 it's a very like odd thought. But putting aside all 2:24:51.879 --> 2:24:53.240 of that if you just wanted to look at the 2:24:53.560 --> 2:24:59.119 like why people want hormones, Because when a person who 2:24:59.200 --> 2:25:03.879 wants hormone gets the hormones they want, their suicidality goes down, 2:25:03.959 --> 2:25:07.640 their anxiety, depression goes down, gender dysphoria, if we wanted to, 2:25:07.760 --> 2:25:10.760 you know, talk about the problems with that, essentially like 2:25:10.879 --> 2:25:14.280 goes away. Uh, and they get they start to get 2:25:14.320 --> 2:25:17.480 treated like the way they want to be treated in society. 2:25:17.600 --> 2:25:19.360 So from the if if you want to look at it, 2:25:19.440 --> 2:25:22.920 not from like the causes, but from the results. Giving 2:25:23.120 --> 2:25:26.800 gender affirming hormone therapy to a person who is requesting 2:25:26.840 --> 2:25:32.600 gender affirming hormone therapy has a success rate. The rate 2:25:32.680 --> 2:25:36.760 of regret from starting hormones is one percent or less, 2:25:37.080 --> 2:25:41.440 which is unbelievable in the health care field, like like 2:25:41.800 --> 2:25:45.040 having a child, like biologically giving birth has a seven 2:25:45.160 --> 2:25:49.760 percent regret rate, Like the idea of any therapy having 2:25:49.920 --> 2:25:56.080 that high of a rate of preventing death, anxiety, depression, bullying, 2:25:56.240 --> 2:25:59.480 like all of the different effects. Being that successful should 2:25:59.560 --> 2:26:02.200 be like a miracle. It should be looked at as 2:26:02.800 --> 2:26:08.920 the thing we in healthcare are like should do absolutely ethically. Uh. 2:26:09.000 --> 2:26:11.680 And it is. It is so much more complicated than that. 2:26:12.160 --> 2:26:15.880 So like hormones from the results obviously makes sense. It 2:26:15.959 --> 2:26:19.760 aligns your body's shape and like fat fat deposits and 2:26:19.840 --> 2:26:21.640 the way that you feel, the way that you relate 2:26:21.720 --> 2:26:25.760 to your emotions, it all goes back to the way 2:26:25.840 --> 2:26:29.720 that hormones work on your body. And there's there's like 2:26:29.800 --> 2:26:32.600 the old saying that like assis person would never want 2:26:32.680 --> 2:26:36.360 to try gender forming hormerone therapy, so like if you 2:26:36.520 --> 2:26:38.560 have the in if you want to try it, you 2:26:38.600 --> 2:26:40.640 should be allowed to try it. I mean, like you're 2:26:40.680 --> 2:26:43.200 you're kind of a good example right here, Like yeah, 2:26:44.400 --> 2:26:46.640 but I'm sitting Yeah, if you're sitting around a bar 2:26:46.720 --> 2:26:48.879 with a bunch of like ciss guys and you're like, hey, 2:26:48.959 --> 2:26:52.040 who wants some estrogen, they would all like shrink away 2:26:52.120 --> 2:26:56.440 from it, Like no, absolutely, because yeah it's definitely a thing. 2:26:56.520 --> 2:27:00.560 Like I'm not the most dysphoric person, but like sure, 2:27:00.640 --> 2:27:03.720 I'll take estrogen. That sounds fun. That's like it's like 2:27:03.879 --> 2:27:06.080 that that sounds like a thing that I could enjoy 2:27:06.160 --> 2:27:09.119 watching my body change. And I'm you know, it's it's 2:27:09.200 --> 2:27:11.760 I'm happy that we're moving more towards that and not 2:27:11.920 --> 2:27:15.959 having to deal with Oh, I'm so dysphoric. I want 2:27:16.040 --> 2:27:18.560 to die, which is obviously a big thing for a 2:27:18.600 --> 2:27:21.680 lot of people. I'm not I'm not minimizing that right um. 2:27:21.959 --> 2:27:23.600 But also a lot of trans people have had more 2:27:23.640 --> 2:27:26.600 kind of complicated feelings on gender, whether they're like gender queer, 2:27:26.760 --> 2:27:30.040 non binary. Having the past had made it more difficult 2:27:30.120 --> 2:27:31.920 to get gender firm in care because they don't fit 2:27:32.000 --> 2:27:37.280 into those specific like male female boxes as easily. Well, 2:27:37.400 --> 2:27:40.959 and what you're talking about is really something that's relatively recent, 2:27:41.040 --> 2:27:43.879 the idea of gender euphoria, like the idea that people 2:27:43.959 --> 2:27:47.760 want to take und because it gives them joy to 2:27:48.360 --> 2:27:51.560 like dress or act or feel a certain way, and that, 2:27:52.360 --> 2:27:54.480 I mean, health care is all about, at least up 2:27:54.560 --> 2:27:58.520 until well, the reality of health care is that it 2:27:58.640 --> 2:28:01.600 is all about finding problem to solve and not really 2:28:01.720 --> 2:28:06.040 looking at like your life just better in general. Yeah, exactly. 2:28:06.680 --> 2:28:09.080 So you know, I know plenty of people who started 2:28:09.120 --> 2:28:12.480 hormones of any type just because they felt it would 2:28:12.480 --> 2:28:14.640 make them happier, and they were correct, And that gender 2:28:14.760 --> 2:28:17.200 euphoria is just as good of a reason to take 2:28:17.240 --> 2:28:20.040 it as the dysphoria. The problem ends up in how 2:28:20.120 --> 2:28:24.320 the medical industry treats it because dysphoria quote unquote is 2:28:24.400 --> 2:28:26.800 something as long. Oh my gosh, I could go into 2:28:26.840 --> 2:28:28.560 the whole history of that if you wanted, but I'm 2:28:28.600 --> 2:28:30.320 sure we could talk about the ds M four and 2:28:30.760 --> 2:28:33.160 five for a long time. Oh it's so frustrating. I 2:28:33.240 --> 2:28:35.400 spend I spend a two hour session in my queer 2:28:35.440 --> 2:28:38.200 healthcare class specifically just dunking on the d s M 2:28:38.280 --> 2:28:43.520 five definition of gender dysphoria. Um. But the real problem 2:28:43.640 --> 2:28:46.440 is like this focus on this negative quality and how 2:28:46.600 --> 2:28:50.120 that actually damages a lot of the conversations around uh, 2:28:50.879 --> 2:28:54.160 gender firming hormone therapy and trans people in general, Like 2:28:54.240 --> 2:28:58.360 instead of seeing it as like this manifestation of people 2:28:58.560 --> 2:29:01.720 like truly taking control roll of their lives to become 2:29:01.920 --> 2:29:05.360 authentic in like the truest way, Like you have never 2:29:05.520 --> 2:29:08.960 met a more truly well self made man than a 2:29:09.080 --> 2:29:12.720 transman who gets hormones. Like it's I mean, it's and 2:29:12.920 --> 2:29:15.880 it's still something we're even we're not quite at the 2:29:16.280 --> 2:29:19.760 at the gender utopia, I mean obviously because of all 2:29:19.800 --> 2:29:22.480 of the anti tran stuff, but even even on like 2:29:22.760 --> 2:29:26.400 just purely purely the medical side, like I even for 2:29:26.600 --> 2:29:30.320 for informed consent um I still needed to get diagnosed 2:29:30.360 --> 2:29:33.160 with gender dysphoria at the Informed Consent clinic in order 2:29:33.200 --> 2:29:36.240 to get hormones, which is in part like an insurance thing, 2:29:36.400 --> 2:29:38.160 and you know it has has all of these all 2:29:38.200 --> 2:29:41.440 of these bullshit reasons. Um, but that is that is 2:29:41.520 --> 2:29:44.840 something we're still we're still definitely dealing with. Oh my goodness. Yeah. 2:29:44.879 --> 2:29:47.240 And the better informed care clinics are the ones that 2:29:47.959 --> 2:29:50.400 they realize it's just like an effort in box ticking. 2:29:50.560 --> 2:29:52.560 So they're just like, Yep, sounds good. You came here 2:29:52.640 --> 2:29:54.760 to this clinic and you asked about hormones. Sounds like 2:29:54.879 --> 2:29:57.600 gender dysphoria to me, Like, we'll say your insurance whatever, 2:29:57.680 --> 2:30:00.520 we gotta say, yes, event we will go into like 2:30:00.560 --> 2:30:02.600 hormone blockers as well. Um, but I want to talk 2:30:02.640 --> 2:30:05.880 about there's a lot of this, there's a lot of 2:30:05.920 --> 2:30:08.480 rhetoric that's been we're growing for a long long time 2:30:08.840 --> 2:30:16.440 about the extremely damaging, irreversible effects of of hormone replacement therapy, um, 2:30:16.640 --> 2:30:19.200 and how they're gonna permanently alter your biology. If you 2:30:19.320 --> 2:30:22.480 give these two children and there's five year olds taking 2:30:22.520 --> 2:30:25.640 testosterone and it's gonna like you're like, you're like really 2:30:26.040 --> 2:30:29.960 that sounds very scary. Um, So that's something I would 2:30:29.959 --> 2:30:31.720 like to discuss. It's like because a lot of people 2:30:32.480 --> 2:30:34.400 when we when we do we talk talk about hormones, 2:30:34.440 --> 2:30:37.119 they think of it as this like big, extremely life 2:30:37.200 --> 2:30:41.720 altering thing, um that has like these you know, irreversible 2:30:41.760 --> 2:30:44.800 effects on your your your bones are gonna get weak 2:30:44.840 --> 2:30:47.040 and trivel to never and never get big again, and 2:30:47.400 --> 2:30:51.640 all of all of this very scary stuff. Um. What's 2:30:51.720 --> 2:30:56.000 up with that? I think a lot of it goes 2:30:56.040 --> 2:30:59.320 back to the biological essentialism, because hormones, even for the 2:30:59.320 --> 2:31:04.360 people who give them, are considered partially like reversible because 2:31:04.480 --> 2:31:07.560 the majority of the things that happen one take a 2:31:07.680 --> 2:31:10.640 long ass time, like you will know whether or not. 2:31:10.840 --> 2:31:13.119 This is a good idea for the majority of people 2:31:13.480 --> 2:31:18.680 well before the physical manifestations occur. Uh. And and considering 2:31:18.840 --> 2:31:21.960 like one of the biggest problems we have with certain formulations, 2:31:22.000 --> 2:31:24.040 like in the once a week or once every other 2:31:24.120 --> 2:31:27.080 week injectable version of estrogen, by the time you get 2:31:27.160 --> 2:31:29.840 to right before your next dose, your estrogen is so 2:31:30.040 --> 2:31:33.199 low you're feeling it and it's starting to like reverse 2:31:33.280 --> 2:31:35.920 some of those So like if you're feeling it after 2:31:36.080 --> 2:31:41.560 two weeks. How irreversible could it be? Uh? And some 2:31:41.680 --> 2:31:45.080 of it depends on like eight timing, because if we're 2:31:45.080 --> 2:31:47.800 talking about a person who has say, already gone through 2:31:47.840 --> 2:31:52.000 a testosterone mediated puberty, then some of the things are 2:31:52.080 --> 2:31:54.200 just not going to be affected. You can't change like 2:31:54.360 --> 2:31:57.880 bone size, height or anything like that. There's some interesting 2:31:57.959 --> 2:32:01.560 things about like hip uh, like flexation and and and 2:32:01.720 --> 2:32:05.920 and pivoting and actually yeah, yeah, and and and even 2:32:05.959 --> 2:32:08.000 like shoe sizes can can change because of the way 2:32:08.040 --> 2:32:11.320 the ligaments work on hormones, but like the bones aren't 2:32:11.320 --> 2:32:14.280 going to change once they're done growing. But that's sort 2:32:14.280 --> 2:32:15.720 of where the puberty blockers come in that we can 2:32:15.760 --> 2:32:18.240 we'll talk about later. Um. But for the for the 2:32:18.280 --> 2:32:21.280 majority of people, if you are going through if you 2:32:21.360 --> 2:32:23.680 have gone through a puberty that you did not want, 2:32:24.120 --> 2:32:26.720 you can take hormones to go through puberty you do 2:32:26.959 --> 2:32:29.480 want and get the effects that you do want. And 2:32:29.760 --> 2:32:33.119 some of the elements sure, like you know, growing breasts 2:32:33.720 --> 2:32:36.800 uh guna coomastia as we would call it, an assist man, 2:32:36.920 --> 2:32:42.920 which is another whole nonsense, UM, is not irreversible, Like 2:32:43.200 --> 2:32:45.480 you can have them removed if you decided that you 2:32:45.560 --> 2:32:48.880 needed to like de transition, which is a whole another story, 2:32:49.200 --> 2:32:52.960 but even then, it takes like five years to see 2:32:53.080 --> 2:32:55.800 your final breast size. Like if you if you're on 2:32:55.920 --> 2:32:59.720 hormones for five years and you're worried about the ir 2:32:59.760 --> 2:33:02.800 rever posable quote unquote effects, like what are we doing here? 2:33:02.920 --> 2:33:04.440 I mean, and even I've heard from a lot of 2:33:04.560 --> 2:33:08.040 my elder trans friends that whenever they go off hormones 2:33:08.360 --> 2:33:10.920 sometimes their breasts just kind of go away because they're 2:33:10.959 --> 2:33:14.680 not massive to begin with. Like if it's generally generally 2:33:15.240 --> 2:33:20.080 generally you don't get the massive, massive honkers immediately. Um 2:33:20.879 --> 2:33:23.480 working on it. I know, I know we're trying, um, 2:33:23.959 --> 2:33:25.879 but a lot of a lot, a lot of even 2:33:25.920 --> 2:33:27.400 the you know, that was one of the big things 2:33:27.480 --> 2:33:30.560 that informed consent thing was like, you know, a lot 2:33:30.600 --> 2:33:33.600 of these changes are reversible except for breasts. These are 2:33:33.640 --> 2:33:35.720 these are these are these are permanent change. Be careful 2:33:35.920 --> 2:33:41.360 and all my transferends are like a little bit but 2:33:41.440 --> 2:33:44.720 I mean, like your nipples won't shrink, Like your nipples 2:33:44.760 --> 2:33:47.600 will definitely be bigger, and that that won't change, but 2:33:47.800 --> 2:33:50.400 a lot of like the size actually does fluctuate, and 2:33:50.840 --> 2:33:53.360 I can't even tell that on like depending on if 2:33:53.400 --> 2:33:55.600 I like missidos or something, being like oh yeah, like 2:33:55.920 --> 2:33:58.240 there is a lot of a lot of fluctuation, even 2:33:58.320 --> 2:34:00.240 like on like you know, like temperature and stuf how 2:34:00.360 --> 2:34:04.640 cold it will determine how how how how how my 2:34:04.760 --> 2:34:07.640 chest looks it is. It is, Uh, it's pretty fun. 2:34:07.720 --> 2:34:10.720 I mean, I am I just like the bio hacking 2:34:10.800 --> 2:34:13.920 thing in general. It is like the cyberpunk and me um. 2:34:14.959 --> 2:34:16.760 But yeah, I guess I guess we could talk about 2:34:17.720 --> 2:34:20.880 hormone hormone blockers as well, because this is the other 2:34:20.959 --> 2:34:23.320 kind of thing you hear a lot about when conservatives 2:34:23.360 --> 2:34:26.600 are very scared about transpeople. The idea of hormone blockers 2:34:27.560 --> 2:34:32.880 like making people infertile or making permanent changes to children's 2:34:32.959 --> 2:34:37.039 health or something blah blah blah blah blah. Gosh, that's 2:34:37.080 --> 2:34:40.640 the thing that is like really really frustrating for me, 2:34:41.600 --> 2:34:46.520 specifically because puberty blockers, the Ganada troupe in the g 2:34:46.760 --> 2:34:50.360 n R H antagonists and agonists which have been around 2:34:50.480 --> 2:34:54.400 for like long time, like ever for for I want 2:34:54.440 --> 2:34:55.840 to say it was like a hundred years, but I 2:34:56.600 --> 2:34:59.640 might be misquoting something that I'm half remembering, but they've 2:34:59.680 --> 2:35:01.200 been a down for like a really long time to 2:35:01.240 --> 2:35:03.360 the point where we have generics and in the in 2:35:03.400 --> 2:35:06.480 the pharmaceutical industry, that means that it's been like decades 2:35:06.560 --> 2:35:10.120 at the very least, something that had rigorous testing that 2:35:10.240 --> 2:35:14.520 has an indication with the FDA for precocious puberty, which 2:35:14.600 --> 2:35:17.840 just means a person who is usually SIS who for 2:35:17.959 --> 2:35:21.760 whatever reason has puberty at a very young age. With 2:35:22.120 --> 2:35:24.600 some of the some of the specific cases that I've 2:35:24.640 --> 2:35:27.360 seen that that I've that I've looked into, um involved 2:35:27.400 --> 2:35:29.480 giving puberty blockers to like a three or four year 2:35:29.520 --> 2:35:32.360 old because their body is trying to undergo puberty. So 2:35:32.520 --> 2:35:34.280 even the idea of like, oh, well, I don't know 2:35:34.560 --> 2:35:36.960 this twelve year old being on a puberty blocker for 2:35:37.160 --> 2:35:40.640 three years, that sounds very dangerous when we have a 2:35:40.720 --> 2:35:43.960 person over here who was on it for fifteen years 2:35:44.800 --> 2:35:48.320 with no ill effects, like like no long lasting ill effects. Um, 2:35:48.680 --> 2:35:51.800 that the idea of anybody describing it as like experimental 2:35:52.080 --> 2:35:57.080 is absolutely a historic outside of the realm of reality. Yeah, 2:35:57.160 --> 2:36:01.000 there's it's it's basic anti anti intellectualism, because yeah, we've 2:36:01.040 --> 2:36:04.400 been giving six children hormone blockers for a long time 2:36:04.520 --> 2:36:08.200 for early onset puberty, and it turns out they work 2:36:08.240 --> 2:36:11.039 and they're pretty safe. So yeah, maybe we should give 2:36:11.040 --> 2:36:13.600 those two trans kids too if they want them. Uh, 2:36:13.920 --> 2:36:15.680 it seems like something we could at least try and 2:36:15.760 --> 2:36:18.680 see if it improves mental health. And then it's it's 2:36:18.720 --> 2:36:20.000 not even a matter that we have to try it. 2:36:20.120 --> 2:36:23.280 We've been doing it for like almost ten years, like 2:36:23.400 --> 2:36:25.959 the it was first and think it was like two 2:36:26.000 --> 2:36:28.480 thousand thirteen. There's a there's a ted talk I use 2:36:28.520 --> 2:36:30.520 in my class of a of a physician who like 2:36:30.680 --> 2:36:34.280 pioneered the use of puberty blockers in trans kids and 2:36:34.480 --> 2:36:37.560 showed that any trans kid who got puberty blockers and 2:36:37.600 --> 2:36:39.959 then was allowed to undergo the puberty that they desired 2:36:40.000 --> 2:36:43.320 at an appropriate age, which is actually like fourteen fifteen, 2:36:43.360 --> 2:36:46.000 at the same time as their peers um. But even 2:36:46.000 --> 2:36:49.400 if they had to wait till eighteen, the psychological effects 2:36:49.560 --> 2:36:54.320 of having in appropriate puberty are essentially nullified. They are 2:36:54.360 --> 2:36:58.600 otherwise psychologically and physically like identical to their their CIS 2:36:58.640 --> 2:37:03.160 gender peers. So it's like we have actual evidence that 2:37:03.600 --> 2:37:07.840 it is extremely beneficial and extremely worthwhile, and like the 2:37:08.160 --> 2:37:11.320 one kind of long term side effect is you might 2:37:11.440 --> 2:37:14.240 be up to an inch shorter than you otherwise be 2:37:14.920 --> 2:37:18.080 which is a wildly like problematic like study that was 2:37:18.120 --> 2:37:19.960 done because like we don't have time machines to know 2:37:20.080 --> 2:37:21.959 whether or not that work, Like what would your control 2:37:22.000 --> 2:37:26.720 group be? Um, And it's just wild. It's very bothersome 2:37:26.800 --> 2:37:29.920 to me because a lot of the gender affirming hormone therapy, 2:37:30.360 --> 2:37:32.400 the evidence is all over the place for a variety 2:37:32.440 --> 2:37:36.920 of political reasons and historical reasons. But for hormone blockers 2:37:37.120 --> 2:37:43.720 or for puberty blockers specifically, the evidence is like really solid, 2:37:43.959 --> 2:37:47.960 really strong, and it's, ah, this is the question I 2:37:47.959 --> 2:37:50.880 actually have because I'm actually unfamiliar with this specific thing. 2:37:51.160 --> 2:37:54.040 But yeah, if you give like, um, hormone blockers to 2:37:54.800 --> 2:37:58.000 like a kid who's tend they still kind of like 2:37:58.959 --> 2:38:01.640 grow at the same rate as a lot of as 2:38:01.680 --> 2:38:05.480 a lot of their peers, and that is it just 2:38:05.640 --> 2:38:09.080 it's it's this specifically like the secondary sex characteristic changes 2:38:09.680 --> 2:38:13.600 that get put on pause. UM. But there's just so 2:38:13.800 --> 2:38:17.600 much Yeah, there's just so much fear around the even 2:38:17.720 --> 2:38:19.880 even just the hormone blocker thing. Right when we're getting 2:38:20.120 --> 2:38:23.920 you know, just like prescribing hormone blockers being like a 2:38:23.959 --> 2:38:27.840 felony offense, and multiple states now you're like, it's like 2:38:28.240 --> 2:38:31.840 it's it is just an extreme degree of anti anti 2:38:32.040 --> 2:38:37.800 intellectualism just like just like purposeful like ignorance, um and 2:38:38.000 --> 2:38:43.960 just extreme hatred and uh bigotry, and it's it is uh, 2:38:44.480 --> 2:38:47.160 I mean yeah, it's a I'm kind of speaking to 2:38:47.240 --> 2:38:51.040 the choir here. But but but but that's the trick. 2:38:51.200 --> 2:38:53.000 And and even like the purity blocker thing, like you 2:38:53.040 --> 2:38:55.720 were saying, your body will still make human growth hormone, 2:38:55.920 --> 2:38:59.160 You will still grow, it's just that the modulation of 2:38:59.240 --> 2:39:03.560 that with testosterone, which would increase the overall growth like 2:39:03.840 --> 2:39:07.240 just doesn't there. And people say make a lot of 2:39:08.000 --> 2:39:11.160 you know, talk a lot about the idea of um 2:39:11.600 --> 2:39:15.480 bone mineral density because you don't have testosterone estrogen, which 2:39:15.520 --> 2:39:18.920 are both necessary one or the other necessary for your 2:39:19.080 --> 2:39:22.279 like bone mineral density to not like have like easily 2:39:22.320 --> 2:39:24.800 fractured bones. But like you don't even have that until 2:39:24.840 --> 2:39:28.240 you go through puberty. If you're just like preventing one puberty, 2:39:28.320 --> 2:39:31.160 the endogenous puberty, and then providing the hormones for an 2:39:31.160 --> 2:39:35.720 exogenous puberty, they're fine, Like they have the hormones they need, 2:39:35.800 --> 2:39:41.120 their bones are happy. Uh So yeah, I'd like to 2:39:41.120 --> 2:39:44.240 talk about I guess kind of access to hormones and 2:39:44.959 --> 2:39:48.920 in like the like the different models of of obviously 2:39:48.959 --> 2:39:52.280 we're not giving up medical advice, but like access to 2:39:52.360 --> 2:39:55.440 hormones and the different ways that people can go about 2:39:55.520 --> 2:39:58.879 that now through doctors, through in form of consent um 2:39:59.200 --> 2:40:02.920 and all of all and all of that jazz. Yeah, 2:40:03.360 --> 2:40:07.800 So the informed consent model is a much more recent option, 2:40:08.040 --> 2:40:10.880 and it's not available everywhere. I have a friend in 2:40:11.000 --> 2:40:12.800 Texas we had to find a clinic that was like 2:40:12.840 --> 2:40:15.480 two hours away to get her hormones. But here where 2:40:15.520 --> 2:40:17.960 I live, we actually have too informed consent clinics, So 2:40:18.040 --> 2:40:22.000 it's pretty convenient, but it varies wildly by by region. Uh. 2:40:22.080 --> 2:40:24.240 And the informed care clinics are great. It means you 2:40:24.360 --> 2:40:26.040 come in, they say this is what's going to happen. 2:40:26.120 --> 2:40:27.800 Do you still want to do it? You say yes, 2:40:28.240 --> 2:40:30.240 They take some blood, they run some tests, you come 2:40:30.280 --> 2:40:32.080 back in two weeks, and they go here. You go 2:40:32.600 --> 2:40:36.160 like that's They work really well depending on the clinic, 2:40:36.200 --> 2:40:39.560 I guess and uh, but the more traditional quote unquote 2:40:39.879 --> 2:40:42.480 standard model would be going to your pc P or 2:40:42.879 --> 2:40:44.480 or whoever and saying that you want to do this, 2:40:44.920 --> 2:40:50.560 which makes most of them very concerned because most physicians, pharmacist, nurses, 2:40:51.160 --> 2:40:54.640 they don't get taught anything about trans people, are caring 2:40:54.720 --> 2:40:57.800 for trans people or gender affirming hormone therapy in their 2:40:57.840 --> 2:41:01.200 school like, so they have nothing to fall back back on. Uh. 2:41:01.800 --> 2:41:04.160 So that makes them very nervous to do it. And 2:41:04.320 --> 2:41:07.240 then UH, if you if you look at gosh, I 2:41:07.640 --> 2:41:10.080 really want to tell you about the guideline stuff at 2:41:10.160 --> 2:41:13.959 some point here because it is buck wild um as 2:41:14.000 --> 2:41:16.200 to why that would be a concern. But another part 2:41:16.240 --> 2:41:19.040 of it is is also the insurance you know, America's 2:41:19.040 --> 2:41:22.400 original sin in our healthcare dystopia, if you will. Uh, 2:41:22.680 --> 2:41:27.520 the insurances historically have required and part of this is 2:41:27.560 --> 2:41:30.840 also from antiquated guidelines that has been somewhat like just 2:41:31.000 --> 2:41:34.320 grandfathered into excuse the term, uh, this idea of like 2:41:34.360 --> 2:41:35.600 we you have to go to a therapist, if you 2:41:35.640 --> 2:41:37.320 go to a psychologist, and they have to say that 2:41:37.360 --> 2:41:39.040 you have gendered dystoria, that's why it's in the d 2:41:39.240 --> 2:41:42.520 s M. And then after you do that, some places 2:41:42.560 --> 2:41:46.720 require you to socially transition before getting hormones or anything, 2:41:46.800 --> 2:41:50.560 which can be extremely problematic for some individuals. That just 2:41:50.879 --> 2:41:54.480 increases like visibility and bullying and and such in a 2:41:54.600 --> 2:41:57.440 way that it may drive people. It's it's sort of 2:41:57.800 --> 2:42:00.840 was intentionally required back in the day to drive people 2:42:01.000 --> 2:42:04.480 to not want hormones anymore. And it's all of these 2:42:04.560 --> 2:42:07.280 gate keeping steps. And it's even worse if you wanted 2:42:07.280 --> 2:42:10.360 to get a surgery later on, where you have to 2:42:10.920 --> 2:42:13.200 have been on hormones for a certain length of time, 2:42:13.240 --> 2:42:17.480 you have to have two different generally like susgender right. 2:42:17.840 --> 2:42:21.280 Healthcare practitioners who don't necessarily understand like the full like 2:42:21.520 --> 2:42:24.440 everything that's going on, write you letters before. The most 2:42:24.480 --> 2:42:28.520 insurances up until recently wouldn't even cover it. So it's 2:42:28.600 --> 2:42:31.320 just gate keeping step after gate keeping step. Because even 2:42:31.440 --> 2:42:34.200 the big guidelines, which is w PATH, which is about 2:42:34.200 --> 2:42:36.960 to put out their so gate guidelines. Um, there's a 2:42:37.040 --> 2:42:40.000 guidelines out of San Francisco, and the Endocrine Society has 2:42:40.000 --> 2:42:44.039 guidelines from two seventeen that are but all of those 2:42:44.520 --> 2:42:48.240 are made by cisgender people, usually with the intent to 2:42:48.360 --> 2:42:51.880 gate keep this care because it's either they're uncomfortable with it, 2:42:51.920 --> 2:42:54.080 because they're unfamiliar with it, they have some kind of 2:42:54.160 --> 2:42:59.600 ideological reason to be against it, or whatever whatever else. 2:42:59.680 --> 2:43:01.920 There's a survey that I often quote to my students 2:43:01.959 --> 2:43:05.520 in class that, Um, they surveyed a whole bunch of 2:43:06.000 --> 2:43:09.720 trans individuals trying to get care from their physicians, and 2:43:10.400 --> 2:43:13.720 it was nearly a quarter of them said that they 2:43:13.760 --> 2:43:18.840 avoided healthcare because of discrimination, and half of them reported 2:43:18.879 --> 2:43:21.680 having to teach their health care practitioner how to care 2:43:21.760 --> 2:43:26.120 for them, which is wild. Like imagine going to the 2:43:26.200 --> 2:43:29.199 hospital with like heart failure and having to like talk 2:43:29.320 --> 2:43:32.240 your physician through how to care for you. Can you 2:43:32.440 --> 2:43:34.520 can you live for two years with heart failure first? 2:43:34.640 --> 2:43:39.480 Before we go, Oh my gosh, could you imagine if 2:43:39.520 --> 2:43:41.240 we treated other things this way? I'd be like, well, 2:43:41.480 --> 2:43:44.360 are you sure that you have diabetes? Are you sure 2:43:44.520 --> 2:43:47.760 that you're? Like, well, we can't treat your diabetes you're 2:43:47.800 --> 2:43:50.560 too fat, Well, your b m I is too high, 2:43:50.640 --> 2:43:53.520 so we can't give you the insulin. Like, give me 2:43:53.600 --> 2:43:59.279 a break. What is happening? Uh? It seems like, uh, basically, 2:43:59.440 --> 2:44:01.680 what you're is that we got a good system. We 2:44:01.760 --> 2:44:04.520 gotta oh, we gotta figure it out. Absolutely no notes 2:44:06.240 --> 2:44:12.959 perfect and every well that does it for us today? Here? Uh? Well, 2:44:13.400 --> 2:44:16.560 specifically if I could, Um, it's really interesting from like 2:44:16.640 --> 2:44:20.640 the healthcare perspective because from you know, the practitioners perspective, 2:44:20.680 --> 2:44:24.080 because there's essentially two kinds of like treatment. There's guideline 2:44:24.080 --> 2:44:27.200 based medicine and evidence based medicine. And a lot of schools, 2:44:27.280 --> 2:44:29.920 like my school teaches a lot of guideline based medicine, 2:44:29.959 --> 2:44:33.400 which is for something like hypertension or diabetes, is put 2:44:33.440 --> 2:44:36.480 out by like large organizations with a ton of evidence. 2:44:36.520 --> 2:44:39.640 It is actually like pretty reasonable. But that means that 2:44:39.680 --> 2:44:42.160 if you're going along with what they say, that means 2:44:42.200 --> 2:44:45.920 that you believe that they read those studies correctly and 2:44:46.360 --> 2:44:50.160 that their interpretation is in no way compromised by like 2:44:50.920 --> 2:44:56.119 sources of their income, say, and that those guidelines actually 2:44:56.240 --> 2:44:57.960 match your patients. So it's a lot of assumptions that 2:44:58.000 --> 2:45:01.000 you're making, which can be extremely pro ablematic an evidence 2:45:01.080 --> 2:45:03.520 based is where you dive into literature and you figure 2:45:03.520 --> 2:45:06.080 it out yourself, which is very time consuming and requires 2:45:06.080 --> 2:45:09.360 an awful lot of like professional uh, like you know, 2:45:10.000 --> 2:45:12.720 criticism in a way. Uh, but when you look at 2:45:12.760 --> 2:45:16.680 it for for trans care, for for gender affirming hormone therapy, 2:45:17.320 --> 2:45:21.160 those guidelines are unbelievably compromised. To give you an example, 2:45:22.000 --> 2:45:26.280 a hotly contested issue in feminizing therapy is the use 2:45:26.320 --> 2:45:30.800 of micronized progesterone in feminizing care. Uh, it's kind of 2:45:30.920 --> 2:45:32.960 like all over the place. There's a long history of 2:45:33.040 --> 2:45:38.320 it of this controversy. In the upcoming w path socate 2:45:38.400 --> 2:45:42.320 guidelines that I had like a preliminary copy to to 2:45:42.440 --> 2:45:46.240 provide notes on there, there's a single statement that just 2:45:46.360 --> 2:45:50.480 says that there's a controversy that exists and you should 2:45:50.520 --> 2:45:53.879 not use micronized progesterone and transfiminine care. And they list 2:45:53.959 --> 2:45:57.320 a study. Okay, if you pull up that study, the 2:45:57.440 --> 2:46:02.520 title of it is progesterone is important for transgender Women's therapy. 2:46:03.000 --> 2:46:07.560 Applying evidence for the benefits of progesterone insists women. And 2:46:07.680 --> 2:46:12.360 it is like a pretty long document that concludes that 2:46:12.480 --> 2:46:15.520 it is like an ethical imperative to offer it. So 2:46:15.640 --> 2:46:17.320 the idea that the people who are writing the w 2:46:17.480 --> 2:46:20.760 PATH guidelines read this article, read this this like meta 2:46:20.760 --> 2:46:23.600 analysis and went, yeah, I don't really agree with any 2:46:23.640 --> 2:46:29.240 of that. I'm just gonna say no, is just so infuriating. Again, 2:46:29.320 --> 2:46:33.040 that seems like we've got a good system going here. Yeah, no, notes, 2:46:33.400 --> 2:46:35.560 I guess on that note, let's do what did discuss 2:46:35.800 --> 2:46:36.960 some of the some of the things that an't talking 2:46:36.959 --> 2:46:41.359 about as much as like um antiandrogen's, uh, progesterone spiro 2:46:42.080 --> 2:46:43.959 and what all kind of those do and how they 2:46:44.000 --> 2:46:50.200 can kind of supplement a regular estradial regimen regiment regiment. Yes, 2:46:50.360 --> 2:46:54.760 that sounds that sounds fancy. Sure, sure, So generally speaking, 2:46:54.800 --> 2:46:57.320 if you're maybe you give a baseline for for folks 2:46:57.360 --> 2:47:00.320 who are unaware. The way that we do feminizing arapy 2:47:00.520 --> 2:47:04.520 is we offer estra dial, which is a bioequivalent version 2:47:04.640 --> 2:47:07.200 of E two, because there's like three different versions of 2:47:07.320 --> 2:47:11.680 estro of estrogen UM and an antiandrogen because testosterone tends 2:47:11.720 --> 2:47:14.200 to be somewhat of an overriding hormone. The presence of 2:47:14.240 --> 2:47:16.840 testosterone will override the effects of estrogen to a certain 2:47:16.879 --> 2:47:19.520 extent depending on doses and stuff like that, which is 2:47:19.879 --> 2:47:23.600 for the transmasculine individuals, why we just give testosterone. It 2:47:23.720 --> 2:47:27.600 just does the job. You don't need to block the estrogen. Uh. 2:47:27.840 --> 2:47:31.160 So there's a you know, there's a lot of history 2:47:31.360 --> 2:47:34.400 and just those hormones as well that we could talk about, 2:47:34.480 --> 2:47:37.800 like conjugated estrogens versus estra dial and and all the 2:47:37.840 --> 2:47:40.840 different other stuff. But for the antiandrogens that we give 2:47:41.080 --> 2:47:44.160 Historically in this country we give spironal lactone, which is 2:47:44.400 --> 2:47:47.879 a mineral corticoid. It's a potassium sparing diuretic, and it's 2:47:47.920 --> 2:47:50.720 just really good at higher levels. We usually use it 2:47:50.800 --> 2:47:53.360 in like cardio issues, like it can be used for 2:47:53.400 --> 2:47:57.480 like hypertensions and other things. Um, I believe it makes 2:47:57.520 --> 2:48:02.040 you pee a lot, So it's a diuretic, meaning that 2:48:02.160 --> 2:48:03.880 it makes you urinate an awful lot. And it's a 2:48:03.920 --> 2:48:07.720 potassium sparing because it prevents your body from eliminating potassium. 2:48:08.360 --> 2:48:13.800 So uh well, so that is that's the thing that 2:48:13.879 --> 2:48:16.320 I think is really really wild because you're using these 2:48:16.400 --> 2:48:20.080 high levels of it. It is preventing your production of 2:48:20.200 --> 2:48:24.240 your endogenous production of testosterone and making you pee all 2:48:24.320 --> 2:48:27.880 of the time, which spoilers estradial also makes you pay 2:48:27.920 --> 2:48:31.000 more often. So like that's a real fun combination. But 2:48:31.320 --> 2:48:33.959 then physicians, if they don't know what the heck they're doing, 2:48:34.360 --> 2:48:36.800 they might say something like, well, you can't eat any bananas, 2:48:37.200 --> 2:48:41.480 and like, historically the people who are on feminizing therapy 2:48:41.640 --> 2:48:44.440 are healthy enough that their body just accommodates for it. 2:48:45.120 --> 2:48:48.040 And if you have hyper kelmia, which is like too 2:48:48.120 --> 2:48:51.160 much potassium, you're gonna know, like your muscles are gonna ache, 2:48:51.200 --> 2:48:52.640 and there's gonna be a lot of like tell teal 2:48:52.680 --> 2:48:56.080 side effects. Usually it's only a problem if you are 2:48:56.400 --> 2:49:00.800 like only consuming a like salt alternative that has potassium 2:49:00.840 --> 2:49:05.920 instead of sodium, which is not super common, not super common, 2:49:06.840 --> 2:49:09.360 or if you have some other reason why your body 2:49:09.480 --> 2:49:13.440 is like holding onto potassium. Um, So it's not usually 2:49:13.560 --> 2:49:17.640 an issue. Uh, it's an inspiral actone isn't sufficient for everyone. 2:49:17.720 --> 2:49:20.520 There's plenty of people who have like refractory testosterone after 2:49:20.640 --> 2:49:23.640 some time, and there's some other options. Uh. There's kind 2:49:23.720 --> 2:49:26.720 of a weird controversy about it that is sort of 2:49:26.800 --> 2:49:29.440 heralded by the San Francisco guidelines. I mentioned earlier that 2:49:29.800 --> 2:49:33.400 spironal actone uh leads to Okay, well, I want to 2:49:33.440 --> 2:49:35.360 make sure I get the wording right. It's leads to 2:49:35.520 --> 2:49:40.320 premature fusing of the breast bud uh and overall smaller 2:49:40.440 --> 2:49:44.200 breast size, which the document that they cite for that 2:49:44.600 --> 2:49:47.920 is a real weird retrospective study from like a bunch 2:49:48.000 --> 2:49:50.720 of years ago on the rate of trans women getting 2:49:50.760 --> 2:49:53.920 breast augmentation, and it found that the vast majority of 2:49:53.959 --> 2:49:57.879 trans women who were on spirontal actone got breast dogment great, 2:49:58.800 --> 2:50:02.400 but the problem is like of their sample group of 2:50:02.520 --> 2:50:05.720 like two people, almost all of them were on spur 2:50:05.800 --> 2:50:10.039 on elactone, Like there's like a sampling error, Like it's 2:50:10.120 --> 2:50:13.640 not it's very silly. Um And also even like that 2:50:13.720 --> 2:50:16.200 premature fusing in the breastbed. I have never been able 2:50:16.280 --> 2:50:20.840 to find anything that suggests that that's a thing or 2:50:20.959 --> 2:50:24.720 even like a way to explain what that statement even means. 2:50:25.840 --> 2:50:28.600 But the San Francisco guidelines, to go back to the 2:50:28.680 --> 2:50:32.039 my guideline thing actually says, has some like maybe don't 2:50:32.120 --> 2:50:33.959 use spur on a lactone, even though it's something we've 2:50:33.959 --> 2:50:37.480 been using since literally like the fifties or sixties for 2:50:37.560 --> 2:50:41.160 this purpose. In other countries, you'll use what's called cyprotorone, 2:50:41.280 --> 2:50:44.879 which is a synthetic progesterone, but it's not actually approved 2:50:44.959 --> 2:50:48.280 in the States because it has a like there is 2:50:48.320 --> 2:50:51.959 actually some evidence that it causes increase in certain specific cancers, 2:50:52.000 --> 2:50:54.360 but it's like a pretty limited overall risk, Like it's 2:50:54.400 --> 2:50:57.480 not like something like you know, going outside increases your 2:50:57.520 --> 2:50:59.480 risk of cancer. It's it's not like a huge deal, 2:50:59.720 --> 2:51:01.920 but it was enough that they don't it's not approved 2:51:01.959 --> 2:51:03.600 in the States, but in a lot of other countries 2:51:03.920 --> 2:51:07.040 you might get cyprotarone, which there's a lot of you know, 2:51:07.320 --> 2:51:11.000 controversy around that too for those reasons. UM. Here, the 2:51:11.160 --> 2:51:14.560 other option that we usually see is finasteride, which is 2:51:15.200 --> 2:51:18.879 a five alpha reductation inhibitor that essentially is preventing testosterone 2:51:18.920 --> 2:51:23.520 from being turned into dihydro testosterone, which we use normally 2:51:23.879 --> 2:51:28.040 for UM to prevent quote unquote male pattern baldness and 2:51:28.320 --> 2:51:31.920 in higher doses for prostate cancer because it's real good 2:51:32.200 --> 2:51:35.400 at because it like reverses some of the feedback loops 2:51:35.800 --> 2:51:40.760 just reducing product testosterone production. UM. So it's just fine 2:51:40.959 --> 2:51:43.080 like that one has like very limited side effects, but 2:51:43.120 --> 2:51:48.439 it might not have as substantial of a UM reduction 2:51:48.480 --> 2:51:52.720 of testosterone that spiral lactone does. UH. And then the 2:51:52.840 --> 2:51:55.360 kind of third one that we really we don't see 2:51:55.480 --> 2:51:57.480 very often but there's a lot of interesting evidence about 2:51:57.600 --> 2:52:01.920 is called bicaludamide. It's also a UH prostate cancer medication. 2:52:02.160 --> 2:52:04.880 It actually blocks all of the receptors of testosterone in 2:52:04.920 --> 2:52:08.320 your body while not reducing the production of it. So 2:52:08.440 --> 2:52:11.039 you'll see a person who has like you know, they 2:52:11.120 --> 2:52:13.920 have like seven hundred there their testosterone comes back is 2:52:13.959 --> 2:52:18.280 like seven six whatever, But they're entirely feminized because none 2:52:18.320 --> 2:52:20.440 of it has anywhere to work. Um. But the problem 2:52:20.480 --> 2:52:23.640 with that is by plutamide being an anti cancer med uh, 2:52:23.959 --> 2:52:27.720 primarily is ridiculously expensive. I think it's like fifty bucks 2:52:27.760 --> 2:52:32.280 a dose or something like here, it's so great, uh, 2:52:33.879 --> 2:52:36.360 I will say, and and for my gender queers out 2:52:36.400 --> 2:52:38.960 there or any anyone else. So you can also just 2:52:39.040 --> 2:52:41.920 take estrogen without any without any blockers UM and you 2:52:42.040 --> 2:52:45.000 still get results as I can, as I can confirm 2:52:45.680 --> 2:52:48.680 UM and for a subset of the population, just taking 2:52:48.840 --> 2:52:52.400 estrogen A sufficient dosages will also reduce your levels of 2:52:52.480 --> 2:52:57.280 progester of testosterone. Like it's your body knows what it's doing. 2:52:58.320 --> 2:53:01.000 Is it is? It is? It is pretty cool. How 2:53:01.879 --> 2:53:05.039 but you can just change things up in your body 2:53:05.120 --> 2:53:07.880 is like, oh, we're doing this now, Okay, got it? Great? 2:53:07.920 --> 2:53:13.200 I have all these mechanisms. It's wonderful. It was that 2:53:13.480 --> 2:53:15.720 That wraps up part one of our little two part 2:53:15.800 --> 2:53:20.440 series of episodes talking about hormone replacement therapy. Tomorrow, I'll 2:53:20.440 --> 2:53:23.680 talk more about access to gender affirming treatment and touch 2:53:23.760 --> 2:53:27.000 on d I y h R T special thanks to 2:53:27.280 --> 2:53:31.440 Dr Victoria Luna Brennan Grieve for chatting with me about 2:53:31.520 --> 2:53:35.120 gender affirming hormonal treatment. You'll get to hear more of 2:53:35.160 --> 2:53:39.080 my discussion with her tomorrow as well, including a brief 2:53:39.120 --> 2:53:42.200 tangent about the Scythian priestesses, which I was it was very, 2:53:42.320 --> 2:53:45.320 very very excited to talk about, but that doesn't for 2:53:45.400 --> 2:53:47.600 us today. You can follow this show at Happen to 2:53:47.640 --> 2:53:50.439 Hear pod and Cool Zone Media on Twitter and Instagram, 2:53:50.920 --> 2:53:53.760 and you can look at my late night gender tweets 2:53:53.920 --> 2:53:57.600 at Hungry about Tie on Twitter dot com. So see 2:53:57.640 --> 2:54:16.320 you all on the other side. Welcome back to It 2:54:16.480 --> 2:54:19.480 Could Happen here, the podcast about things falling apart and 2:54:19.600 --> 2:54:23.240 sometimes how we can put things back together. I'm Garrison Davis, 2:54:23.520 --> 2:54:26.959 Aspiring Rebus, and this is part two of my little 2:54:27.000 --> 2:54:31.800 two part series talking about trans hormone replacement therapy. Last episode, 2:54:31.879 --> 2:54:35.840 we discussed what HRT is, it's various benefits as gender 2:54:35.879 --> 2:54:40.359 affirming treatment, and the informed consent model of receiving hormones. 2:54:41.200 --> 2:54:43.640 Before we continue on with my discussion with Dr Grieve, 2:54:44.080 --> 2:54:46.560 I would like to talk a bit more about informed consent. 2:54:47.320 --> 2:54:50.320 So the informed consent option can be great for many 2:54:50.440 --> 2:54:53.400 many people as an attempts to bypass some of the 2:54:53.720 --> 2:54:58.560 red tape around receiving gender reforming healthcare. For its form 2:54:58.600 --> 2:55:00.640 of consent, all you gotta do is set u an appointment, 2:55:01.000 --> 2:55:03.720 signed the forms, maybe get some blood work done, and 2:55:03.800 --> 2:55:06.040 then pick up your hormones. Right. You don't need to 2:55:06.200 --> 2:55:09.560 live as trans for like two years or have letters 2:55:09.600 --> 2:55:12.360 and therapists. It's it is. It is just up to you, 2:55:13.200 --> 2:55:15.119 so it is. It is really convenient if you can 2:55:15.400 --> 2:55:17.920 get that option. Some places even let you do it 2:55:18.280 --> 2:55:21.160 via telemedicine appointments, so you can just sit at home 2:55:21.320 --> 2:55:24.320 holding your little I keya shark and then get your hormones, 2:55:24.440 --> 2:55:28.360 which does sound very very nice. Planned Parenthood offers informed 2:55:28.400 --> 2:55:31.160 consent trans health care in many states, and in the 2:55:31.240 --> 2:55:33.760 show notes I will link a Google map of the 2:55:33.840 --> 2:55:38.240 informed consent clinics from across the country. Depending on your insurance, 2:55:38.320 --> 2:55:40.680 you can get hormones for a little to no extra cost. 2:55:40.840 --> 2:55:44.320 This way it can be really convenient. The biggest asterisk 2:55:44.520 --> 2:55:47.960 for informed consent is that since it's based on you know, 2:55:48.280 --> 2:55:52.360 informed consent, it often is just for humans age eight 2:55:52.480 --> 2:55:56.600 teen and older, or sometimes teens a few years younger, 2:55:57.360 --> 2:56:01.720 but only if their parents or guardians signed the forms. Obviously, 2:56:01.800 --> 2:56:04.560 this is not ideal for a sixteen year old with 2:56:04.760 --> 2:56:07.960 transphobic parents, who would really be helped by receiving like 2:56:08.120 --> 2:56:11.840 hormone blockers or something, right. Another potential drawback is that 2:56:12.000 --> 2:56:15.360 the clinics can sometimes have quite the wait list. I 2:56:15.480 --> 2:56:18.280 started off with the informed consent model because it was 2:56:18.560 --> 2:56:21.760 the easiest, but by the time I needed more blood 2:56:21.800 --> 2:56:25.280 work done and my prescription refilled, setting up more appointments 2:56:25.320 --> 2:56:28.640 that planned parenthood became kind of a nightmare. I was 2:56:28.720 --> 2:56:32.520 continuously having appointments being canceled on me last minute and 2:56:32.640 --> 2:56:36.000 just getting pushed back months and months into the future. Eventually, 2:56:36.080 --> 2:56:38.640 I just resorted to getting hormones through my regular doctor 2:56:38.840 --> 2:56:42.040 instead of just continuing on within formed consent. Now, this 2:56:42.200 --> 2:56:44.960 is obviously a regional issue, right. I don't know what 2:56:45.080 --> 2:56:48.280 it's like in Florida, for example, but the COVID andeen 2:56:48.320 --> 2:56:51.000 pandemic has stressed a lot of the medical infrastructure here 2:56:51.040 --> 2:56:54.320 in the States, and scheduling some appointments in these clinics 2:56:54.480 --> 2:56:58.720 can be still quite challenging. And as you know, a 2:56:58.800 --> 2:57:01.600 big theme of this show is that maybe we shouldn't 2:57:01.640 --> 2:57:05.480 assume the structures that hold up our society are concrete, 2:57:05.640 --> 2:57:09.480 permanent fixtures. The term the crumbles that we used to 2:57:09.560 --> 2:57:13.000 describe the slow deterioration of the systems that we rely on, 2:57:13.640 --> 2:57:16.560 was initially coined in reference to our medical system by 2:57:16.600 --> 2:57:18.920 a friend of the show who works in the medical field. 2:57:19.440 --> 2:57:22.120 Listen to the first five episodes of The Daily Show 2:57:22.280 --> 2:57:25.760 talking about climate change for more on that. But a 2:57:26.040 --> 2:57:29.440 part of the criminal's idea is trying to learn how 2:57:29.520 --> 2:57:32.039 to become less reliant on the systems that we take 2:57:32.080 --> 2:57:35.040 for granted, right, trying to solve for the fallacy of 2:57:35.160 --> 2:57:39.760 misplaced concreteness before it's too late. On that note, back 2:57:39.800 --> 2:57:43.520 to my discussion with Dr Victoria Luna Brendan Grieve, Assistant 2:57:43.520 --> 2:57:47.520 professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy. For 2:57:47.879 --> 2:57:50.760 places that are getting, uh, you know, all of these 2:57:50.800 --> 2:57:54.440 anti trends bills criminalizing all of this stuff for miners, 2:57:54.520 --> 2:57:57.480 and then you know, eventually maybe even you know, my 2:57:58.040 --> 2:57:59.800 big fear is that, you know, first off, they're gonna 2:57:59.840 --> 2:58:02.440 criminalizing it for minors, and they're gonna say the brain's 2:58:02.440 --> 2:58:04.879 not fully developed, your twenty five, and they're gonna criminalize 2:58:04.879 --> 2:58:06.720 it until you're twenty five and they're just gonna criminalize 2:58:06.760 --> 2:58:09.760 it for everyone after that. Um So for all of 2:58:09.840 --> 2:58:12.560 these places that are making access to healthcare is so 2:58:12.680 --> 2:58:16.000 much harder, What what is what is one to do? 2:58:16.280 --> 2:58:18.800 Like if these if there's these kids and then even 2:58:18.840 --> 2:58:20.720 adults who are like just find it so much harder 2:58:20.760 --> 2:58:24.320 to get stuff. Like I know there's the informed consent clinics, 2:58:24.400 --> 2:58:26.320 but there's there's like there's like a few in Texas, 2:58:26.440 --> 2:58:28.840 but I don't even know what they can even offer anymore, right, 2:58:28.879 --> 2:58:32.760 Like it's really unclear. Yeah, well, I'll tell you some 2:58:32.920 --> 2:58:35.840 of that fear is already becoming reality here in Pennsylvania. 2:58:35.959 --> 2:58:40.040 Just two days ago HP. I think it was HBO 2:58:40.200 --> 2:58:44.600 passed by the House in don in Harrisburg that prevents 2:58:45.280 --> 2:58:48.560 it's a ban on trans people playing sports up through 2:58:48.680 --> 2:58:53.920 the college level, not just high school and grade school, 2:58:53.959 --> 2:58:58.400 it's all the way up through you know, secondary education. Uh. 2:58:58.800 --> 2:59:01.240 And even though our governor like has valve de Vito, 2:59:01.320 --> 2:59:02.880 it like who even knows what's going to happen. But 2:59:03.520 --> 2:59:07.640 they're already taking taking aim at this higher level kind 2:59:07.680 --> 2:59:09.280 of thing. And there's a lot of pressdent for that. 2:59:09.959 --> 2:59:14.360 But my goodness, if there's a long and storied history 2:59:14.760 --> 2:59:19.120 of d I Y hormone therapy, and it's easier for 2:59:19.400 --> 2:59:23.240 the trans feminine individuals because testosterone is actually a scheduled 2:59:23.520 --> 2:59:27.640 to control I think it it might be a three 2:59:27.840 --> 2:59:31.280 I think it's scheduled three steroid. I'll write a little 2:59:31.280 --> 2:59:33.360 thing about it, and I'll say in the episode. And 2:59:33.440 --> 2:59:36.520 it's such a funny reason too, because it's just you 2:59:36.640 --> 2:59:40.160 can use it to dope for endurance based like like 2:59:40.280 --> 2:59:44.000 cycling and running, because it will increase your red blood 2:59:44.040 --> 2:59:47.080 cell account that's a like. And so it's a controlled 2:59:47.080 --> 2:59:49.879 substance because people can use it to dope for for exit, 2:59:50.000 --> 2:59:53.240 for for sports. So it's that's a little bit harder 2:59:53.280 --> 2:59:56.400 to get ahold of in like a meaningful way. But 2:59:56.480 --> 2:59:59.280 there are a lot of different allegedly, there are a 2:59:59.320 --> 3:00:01.400 lot of different place is online that you can acquire 3:00:01.720 --> 3:00:06.200 estrogen or estra dial relatively easily. Now I'm gonna actually 3:00:06.520 --> 3:00:10.360 pause the discussion with me and Dr Grieve to talk 3:00:10.400 --> 3:00:12.720 a little bit about d I Y h R T 3:00:13.240 --> 3:00:16.920 or for those anti acronym people out there, do it 3:00:17.080 --> 3:00:21.280 yourself hormone replacement therapy. Again, I'm not a medical doctor. 3:00:21.760 --> 3:00:25.280 Unless you have a problem regarding parapsychology, I cannot offer 3:00:25.360 --> 3:00:28.080 you any expertise, but I can talk about d I 3:00:28.240 --> 3:00:30.879 Y h R T as it's existed for trans people 3:00:31.200 --> 3:00:34.800 for the past two decades. Because an unfortunate truth is, 3:00:35.160 --> 3:00:37.400 although it's gotten much easier to get gender affirm and 3:00:37.480 --> 3:00:40.720 care and hormones the past few years, even in states 3:00:40.800 --> 3:00:43.920 that aren't facing this wave of anti trans healthcare bills, 3:00:44.440 --> 3:00:48.440 the medical establishment hasn't been the most trans friendly place 3:00:48.720 --> 3:00:53.039 in general. A recent Center for American Progress report found 3:00:53.080 --> 3:00:57.400 that nearly half of transgender people and sixty of transgender 3:00:57.480 --> 3:01:01.160 people of color reported having experienced to mistreatment at the 3:01:01.240 --> 3:01:05.040 hands of a medical provider, including refusal of care and 3:01:05.400 --> 3:01:09.280 verbal or physical abuse, just in the year before the survey, 3:01:09.360 --> 3:01:12.000 which took place in June, so this is this is 3:01:12.040 --> 3:01:15.200 still very much an ongoing issue. One in two trans 3:01:15.280 --> 3:01:18.480 people reported that their access to gender affirming healthcare was 3:01:18.560 --> 3:01:22.280 curtailed significantly during the pandemic, and nearly one in two 3:01:22.400 --> 3:01:26.120 transgender adults have had insurance providers denying them coverage for 3:01:26.320 --> 3:01:30.760 gender affirming care, and very often doctors don't even know 3:01:30.959 --> 3:01:34.720 how to properly treat transgender patients, and often it's up 3:01:34.760 --> 3:01:37.440 to the patients to educate the doctors on trans health 3:01:37.480 --> 3:01:41.320 care issues. The Center for American Progress survey from last 3:01:41.400 --> 3:01:44.640 year found that one in three trans people report having 3:01:44.680 --> 3:01:47.960 to teach their doctors about trans people to get them 3:01:48.000 --> 3:01:53.080 appropriate care, and reported having been asked innovasive or unnecessary 3:01:53.160 --> 3:01:56.280 questions about being trans which were not related to the 3:01:56.400 --> 3:01:59.640 reasons for them visiting the doctor. The report cited a 3:01:59.680 --> 3:02:02.400 twenty eight team brief from the Kaiser Family Foundation that 3:02:02.520 --> 3:02:06.040 found that more than half of medical school curriculums lack 3:02:06.160 --> 3:02:10.480 information about unique health issues the LGBTQ community faces, and 3:02:10.600 --> 3:02:14.800 doesn't cover treatment beyond HIV prevention and care. So obviously, 3:02:14.879 --> 3:02:17.400 that leaves a lot to be desired for people wanting 3:02:17.440 --> 3:02:22.760 to receive transgender health care. Between medical mistreatment, insurance complications, 3:02:22.840 --> 3:02:25.640 and doctor ignorance, many trans folks have taken it upon 3:02:25.680 --> 3:02:28.879 themselves to get the drug necessary for hormone replacement therapy 3:02:29.280 --> 3:02:32.200 because the alternative is often just having to face not 3:02:32.360 --> 3:02:34.400 being able to receive the health care that in many 3:02:34.480 --> 3:02:38.879 cases makes it possible to live. The Center for American 3:02:38.920 --> 3:02:42.040 Progress survey found that twenty eight percent of trans folks 3:02:42.400 --> 3:02:47.040 report having postponed or not gotten necessary medical care for 3:02:47.400 --> 3:02:52.000 fear of discrimination. Taking your endochronology and hormone treatment into 3:02:52.040 --> 3:02:55.240 your own hands has a lengthy history and used to 3:02:55.320 --> 3:02:57.680 be much more common in the days before informed consent. 3:02:59.000 --> 3:03:01.520 In a survey of trans people in Washington, d c. 3:03:01.879 --> 3:03:05.520 Circus two thousand, over half of the respondents so that 3:03:05.640 --> 3:03:09.240 they had used non prescribed hormones also known as d 3:03:09.400 --> 3:03:12.560 I y h RT. So information on how to go 3:03:12.680 --> 3:03:17.240 about d I yng your HRT spread via online forums 3:03:17.280 --> 3:03:20.320 and websites in the early two thousand's, and after some 3:03:20.800 --> 3:03:24.039 trial and error, the information is kind of consolidated into 3:03:24.080 --> 3:03:27.040 a few main information hubs, that being the d I 3:03:27.200 --> 3:03:30.760 y h r T Wiki, HRT dot Cafe, and d 3:03:30.920 --> 3:03:35.400 I y HRT dot get hub dot io. Now, obviously, 3:03:35.520 --> 3:03:39.280 when you're getting into taking drugs from online sources, you 3:03:39.360 --> 3:03:41.800 need to be extremely careful and cautious about what foreign 3:03:41.879 --> 3:03:45.200 chemicals you're putting into your body, including and trying to 3:03:45.440 --> 3:03:48.720 only acquire drugs from trustworthy sources, doing drug testing if 3:03:48.760 --> 3:03:51.440 you can, and doing your own blood testing before and 3:03:51.520 --> 3:03:54.680 after to keep an eye on your testosterone and estrogen levels. 3:03:55.520 --> 3:03:59.160 It is possible to order blood tests via online and 3:03:59.680 --> 3:04:01.600 send it through a lab that you have to ship 3:04:01.640 --> 3:04:04.200 your blood too, but often it's just easier to do 3:04:04.280 --> 3:04:07.640 it by going through the medical system. Now, one massive 3:04:07.680 --> 3:04:10.800 caveat with d y h r T is although it's 3:04:10.840 --> 3:04:14.480 more straightforward to acquire extra dial and antiandrogen's like spiro 3:04:14.640 --> 3:04:19.280 from online sources, getting too stosterone for masculinization therapy is 3:04:19.320 --> 3:04:22.400 much more tricky because in most places it's a restricted drug. 3:04:22.600 --> 3:04:24.800 Here in the States it is a Schedule three substance, 3:04:25.280 --> 3:04:28.600 so technically buying it without a prescription would be a 3:04:28.680 --> 3:04:32.000 felony um. So for this reason, most d I y 3:04:32.200 --> 3:04:35.200 h r T stuff focuses on feminizing hormones since that 3:04:35.400 --> 3:04:39.279 is less legally complicated. Now, obviously you know steroids exist, 3:04:39.520 --> 3:04:42.760 so it is possible to get them, but I will 3:04:42.800 --> 3:04:45.080 not be giving out guides on how to do that 3:04:45.160 --> 3:04:47.280 here on the pod, but you know you can. You 3:04:47.440 --> 3:04:51.240 can look into it if you so desire for feminizing hormones. 3:04:51.360 --> 3:04:54.640 The main way of going about it requires obtaining bioidentical 3:04:54.800 --> 3:04:58.000 extra dial. It can come in a few forms pills, 3:04:58.160 --> 3:05:00.640 which are not difficult to acquire, and assuming you get 3:05:00.640 --> 3:05:02.880 the dose right, it's pretty easy because it's just a 3:05:02.920 --> 3:05:06.360 process of dissolving the little pill tablets under your tongue, 3:05:06.959 --> 3:05:10.560 and that's kind of it, right. Dosage is its own thing, 3:05:10.640 --> 3:05:13.320 which you can figure out if you do reading, but 3:05:13.879 --> 3:05:18.080 the actual taking of it is pretty straightforward. Transdermal estrogen 3:05:18.280 --> 3:05:21.840 or transdermal estra dial is kind of the new hot thing. Uh. 3:05:22.120 --> 3:05:26.400 Usually this has you taking weakly estra dial patches which 3:05:26.400 --> 3:05:28.960 you just switch out every week um or you can 3:05:29.000 --> 3:05:31.600 also do daily gels, which you just rub out your body, 3:05:31.920 --> 3:05:35.680 although unfortunately for dosing gels it can be more tricky 3:05:35.760 --> 3:05:37.560 if you go d I Y because it's hard to 3:05:37.879 --> 3:05:40.240 know what concentration just the jela is if you're just 3:05:40.320 --> 3:05:43.680 rubbing a sav on yourself. It's not already prepackaged, but 3:05:43.800 --> 3:05:47.280 the patches are pretty good. And lastly, the classic method 3:05:47.480 --> 3:05:51.320 is injectable estradial at various concentrations in the form of 3:05:51.440 --> 3:05:56.039 some oil solution. This can usually be the cheapest option 3:05:56.200 --> 3:05:58.480 if you can figure out how to buy estra dial 3:05:59.280 --> 3:06:02.160 and needles. Syringes can be bought at any pharmacy just 3:06:02.280 --> 3:06:05.720 over the counter in most countries without a prescription. For 3:06:05.840 --> 3:06:09.160 ferminizing hormones. Some people also take antiandrogen's a k A. 3:06:09.280 --> 3:06:13.520 Testosterone blockers like spiral lactone, which can be acquired online 3:06:13.840 --> 3:06:16.720 and are almost always taken orally in the form of 3:06:16.760 --> 3:06:20.480 a pill. Now, when getting these drugs online, there are 3:06:20.560 --> 3:06:25.000 two main categories of purchase. There's pharmaceutical grade and home brewed. 3:06:25.520 --> 3:06:29.800 Pharmaceutical grade refers to HRT produced by legitimate pharmaceutical companies 3:06:30.240 --> 3:06:33.160 that are licensed and subject to regulation. They should be 3:06:33.280 --> 3:06:36.040 of the same quality as those found in your local pharmacy, 3:06:36.160 --> 3:06:38.959 and they can be ordered without a prescription from websites 3:06:39.000 --> 3:06:41.640 based in countries that allow for the legal exportation of 3:06:41.760 --> 3:06:45.800 certain medications. These will almost always carry less inherent risk 3:06:46.120 --> 3:06:50.600 versus receiving and taking home brewed hormones, which leads us 3:06:50.640 --> 3:06:52.960 to the second version that you can buy, which is 3:06:53.280 --> 3:06:57.480 home brewed. This refers to HRT produced by individuals by 3:06:57.560 --> 3:07:01.360 sourcing raw extrodial or whatever other chemical you're taking in 3:07:01.400 --> 3:07:04.680 the form of a powder, and then compounding the medication themselves. 3:07:05.200 --> 3:07:08.240 They do not synthesize or from scratch these hormones, but 3:07:08.400 --> 3:07:11.160 they do use the powdered versions of them, and they 3:07:11.200 --> 3:07:15.680 get them from sources from drug manufacturing companies to synthesize 3:07:15.800 --> 3:07:19.680 it into their own estradial or whatever other drug you're taking, 3:07:20.280 --> 3:07:22.720 you know, in the antiandrogen list, there's there's too many, 3:07:22.959 --> 3:07:25.879 too many to name. Now. While this this concept does 3:07:26.000 --> 3:07:29.000 sound scary and it can obviously go wrong if someone's 3:07:29.080 --> 3:07:31.840 not synthesizing it correctly. Uh, there are a couple of 3:07:31.879 --> 3:07:34.160 well respected members of the community that have been known 3:07:34.240 --> 3:07:37.920 to produce high quality and safe HRT medications. But before 3:07:38.040 --> 3:07:41.160 anyone decides to take drugs that you get on the internet, please, please, 3:07:41.280 --> 3:07:46.320 please please do lots of reading beforehand on on dosage effects, 3:07:46.480 --> 3:07:50.040 side effects, and be very cautious with your drug sourcing, 3:07:50.240 --> 3:07:52.640 right you should know who you're buying it from. You 3:07:52.680 --> 3:07:54.880 don't want to just buy from whatever it's catchy website. 3:07:54.879 --> 3:07:58.000 You should make sure that what you're doing is other 3:07:58.040 --> 3:08:00.360 people are backing up on this decision. Make sure that's there. 3:08:00.680 --> 3:08:04.000 You can cross reference information here, because there's a lot 3:08:04.080 --> 3:08:06.240 of information out there online and not all of it 3:08:06.440 --> 3:08:09.960 is good information, obviously, but really try to cross reference 3:08:10.040 --> 3:08:14.520 information on any drug sources, on hormone dosage, on any 3:08:14.560 --> 3:08:17.280 possible drug interactions. If you're taking multiple drugs or you 3:08:17.320 --> 3:08:19.880 already have prescriptions, now I should I should note that 3:08:20.040 --> 3:08:23.480 supply chain issues that affect the medical system can even 3:08:23.520 --> 3:08:25.280 extend out to d y A h r T. There's 3:08:25.360 --> 3:08:29.080 no true escape. There's no true other. One of the 3:08:29.160 --> 3:08:32.880 main pharmaceutical grade online sites to source HRT from is 3:08:33.000 --> 3:08:37.040 currently out of estradial pills, so there there is there 3:08:37.160 --> 3:08:41.120 is no true escape sometimes, but to learn more about 3:08:41.240 --> 3:08:43.560 d I Y HRT, you should check out d I 3:08:43.680 --> 3:08:47.520 O Y HRT dot get hub dot io or HRT 3:08:47.680 --> 3:08:50.879 dot cafe and the d I y trans dot wiki. 3:08:51.400 --> 3:08:53.680 And keep in mind not everything you read on those 3:08:53.720 --> 3:08:56.840 sources is necessarily good advice or up to date with 3:08:56.920 --> 3:08:59.720 the current information on how these drugs work. Recently, I 3:08:59.760 --> 3:09:02.000 would reading a guide I found via one of those 3:09:02.040 --> 3:09:06.000 sites on how to homebrew my own estrogen by buying 3:09:06.440 --> 3:09:09.520 the powdered version of it that synthesizing it myself to 3:09:09.800 --> 3:09:13.360 level up my alchemy stat um, and I found the 3:09:13.560 --> 3:09:16.200 guy that I was reading contained quite a bit of 3:09:16.280 --> 3:09:20.600 outdated misinformation about progester around, So don't take everything you 3:09:20.680 --> 3:09:23.680 read as gospel, but those resources are at least a 3:09:23.800 --> 3:09:27.680 good place to start anyway. Now back to the interview, 3:09:28.440 --> 3:09:30.640 the problem that you might run into with the I 3:09:30.879 --> 3:09:32.280 y ng it is you might not be able to 3:09:32.360 --> 3:09:36.080 get the bioequivalent estradial in some form, you might have 3:09:36.160 --> 3:09:40.320 to settle for conjugated estrogens or even something like an 3:09:40.360 --> 3:09:45.360 ethaniol estradiale, which is like hormonal birth control, which because 3:09:45.440 --> 3:09:49.280 they are synthetics, they actually have a much rougher time 3:09:49.360 --> 3:09:50.920 on your body. And that's where a lot of the 3:09:50.959 --> 3:09:55.040 side effects quote unquote like come from. Like all of 3:09:55.160 --> 3:09:59.000 the worry about like blood clots and things from taking 3:09:59.120 --> 3:10:05.000 estrogens comes from conjugated estrogen sethanio estrodi. Yeah. The actual study, 3:10:05.600 --> 3:10:08.080 uh that a lot of that is citing goes all 3:10:08.080 --> 3:10:10.040 the way back and it was studying the rate of 3:10:10.160 --> 3:10:16.400 plotting in cis gender women taking hormonal and it's just like, okay, 3:10:16.440 --> 3:10:21.000 so this is the wrong population with the wrong medication. Yeah, 3:10:21.040 --> 3:10:23.680 that seems like not a great scientific study, Right, what 3:10:23.760 --> 3:10:25.600 do we do? I mean, it might be great to 3:10:25.680 --> 3:10:32.400 talk about for the rate of yeah, right, or doesn't 3:10:32.440 --> 3:10:37.040 really right, it doesn't it doesn't really help so much. 3:10:37.680 --> 3:10:40.400 Um And what I think is also pretty wild too. 3:10:40.680 --> 3:10:42.920 I mentioned the progesteran thing earlier. A lot of that 3:10:43.000 --> 3:10:45.760 controversy comes from the fact that the original studies on 3:10:45.800 --> 3:10:47.800 whether or not it could be beneficial. We're done with 3:10:48.000 --> 3:10:53.039 medroxy progesterone, a synthetic progesterone that has a really nasty 3:10:53.120 --> 3:10:55.480 side effect profile in a lot of different ways. And 3:10:55.560 --> 3:10:58.560 now that we have micronized progesterone where the evidence suggested 3:10:58.600 --> 3:11:03.040 not only is it safe, actually makes estrogen safer, and 3:11:03.160 --> 3:11:05.160 now they're like, no, we can't give that, that's just 3:11:05.360 --> 3:11:08.440 that's just crazy talk. I will say, I have heard 3:11:08.520 --> 3:11:11.240 from people with more experience taking hormones than me that 3:11:11.320 --> 3:11:17.320 progesterone does make you way too hoarny um heads up 3:11:17.560 --> 3:11:23.760 for for side effects, TAG can confirm, but um, well, 3:11:23.800 --> 3:11:25.480 but but progesterone can have a lot of other really 3:11:25.520 --> 3:11:28.640 beneficial side effects. It can really increase the fat deposition 3:11:28.720 --> 3:11:30.440 to various places. It can help with your mood, it 3:11:30.480 --> 3:11:33.200 can help with your sleep. It actually reduced the period 3:11:33.280 --> 3:11:37.160 symptoms that I was having because I because there's surprise, 3:11:37.440 --> 3:11:41.320 people on estrogen can also have periods. Uh And because 3:11:41.360 --> 3:11:44.120 your body again knows what it's doing, it's gonna modulate 3:11:44.200 --> 3:11:46.040 it through the E one, E two, E three pathway 3:11:46.200 --> 3:11:48.440 like throughout the month in a sixal fashion, and you 3:11:48.560 --> 3:11:51.440 can get bloating and cramps. And I had really bad 3:11:51.520 --> 3:11:54.800 morning sickness like for for three days every twenty eight 3:11:54.920 --> 3:11:59.200 days for months until eventually I started micronized progesterone and 3:11:59.360 --> 3:12:02.520 those some them's alleviated, Which makes a kind of sense 3:12:02.600 --> 3:12:07.200 if you know that progesterone only birth control reduces periods. 3:12:07.400 --> 3:12:09.320 So like there's a there's there's a lot of precedent, 3:12:09.360 --> 3:12:10.960 a lot. It makes a lot of like sense that 3:12:11.080 --> 3:12:15.560 it would work. God, I it's I need to tell 3:12:15.640 --> 3:12:20.240 you have have you ever heard of the Powers method 3:12:20.760 --> 3:12:26.080 of of Oh Garrison, I am so excited to introduce 3:12:26.160 --> 3:12:31.200 you to this person. Like doctor Powers is a fascinating 3:12:31.280 --> 3:12:35.840 grifter in the trans health care space because he is 3:12:36.360 --> 3:12:39.640 a He's a physician who like has has made it 3:12:39.879 --> 3:12:43.640 his duty to to to make sure that trans people, 3:12:43.760 --> 3:12:46.119 especially trans women. He actually doesn't like really have anything 3:12:46.120 --> 3:12:48.840 to say about trans men because the the therapy is 3:12:48.920 --> 3:12:53.560 so like easy to to to do that. He has 3:12:53.800 --> 3:13:00.480 a wild postulation as to like better ways to give hormones, 3:13:00.920 --> 3:13:02.440 and he he has things where it's like, we don't 3:13:02.480 --> 3:13:06.600 need antiandrogens, you just give really high levels of injectable estrogen, 3:13:06.879 --> 3:13:09.400 which like I mean that will probably work because for 3:13:09.520 --> 3:13:12.440 some people, but yeah yeah, but but also estrogens like 3:13:12.560 --> 3:13:15.440 really safe and so like you can give it to 3:13:15.720 --> 3:13:19.359 an unbelievably high level. It's not really going to speed 3:13:19.600 --> 3:13:22.720 things up exactly like it will maybe a little bit, 3:13:22.800 --> 3:13:26.240 but not that much. And any of the side effects 3:13:26.240 --> 3:13:29.519 you might experience, which could also come from the the excipients, 3:13:29.600 --> 3:13:32.560 the non active elements of it, like you can be 3:13:32.600 --> 3:13:34.879 allergic to those if you ever really high dose, if 3:13:34.920 --> 3:13:38.480 you're real problem. Um. But the big thing for him 3:13:38.640 --> 3:13:42.480 is he pushes that micronized progesterone is not only necessary 3:13:42.600 --> 3:13:45.720 and good, especially for breast size, you should also stick 3:13:45.800 --> 3:13:49.800 the oral capsules in your butt. Oh we're we are, 3:13:49.959 --> 3:13:53.800 we are officially boofing estrogen now yes, yes, okay, well 3:13:53.879 --> 3:13:56.640 I'm I'm switching back to pills. This sounds very exciting. 3:13:58.120 --> 3:14:01.800 Well so well, oh my gosh. So the the idea 3:14:01.959 --> 3:14:06.280 is his line is, um that you know that the 3:14:06.560 --> 3:14:09.760 oral capsules you only get a tiny fraction of the 3:14:09.840 --> 3:14:11.960 total progesterone, and you get a lot more if you 3:14:12.000 --> 3:14:14.000 stick it up you get the whole dose if you 3:14:14.040 --> 3:14:16.080 stick it up your butt, which, like if you know 3:14:16.320 --> 3:14:20.720 literally anything about pharmacology is both right and entirely insane 3:14:21.320 --> 3:14:25.800 because anything that you take orally, there's a bioavailable like 3:14:26.240 --> 3:14:30.000 level of it like so oral. Uh, micronized progesterone has 3:14:30.000 --> 3:14:32.000 a bioequivalence of I think like two or three percent, 3:14:32.480 --> 3:14:35.119 which is why when you take like a hundred milligram capsule, 3:14:35.240 --> 3:14:38.080 you get like a certain blood level. If you take 3:14:38.120 --> 3:14:41.320 it rectally, it's like a twelve. It's still not the 3:14:41.360 --> 3:14:46.960 whole thing, which is why the the micronized progesterone rectal 3:14:47.000 --> 3:14:50.600 suppositories or twenty five milligrams to give you the same exposure, 3:14:51.000 --> 3:14:55.800 so it's four times the systemic absorption, which means that 3:14:55.920 --> 3:15:00.440 if you are boofing a micronized progesterone capsule, you getting 3:15:00.800 --> 3:15:05.080 three to four times the dose that you should be getting. 3:15:06.000 --> 3:15:10.480 And uh, the I pulled because I get into fights 3:15:10.520 --> 3:15:12.640 with people all the time about this. I pulled the 3:15:12.760 --> 3:15:17.080 original FDA filing for micro and I progesterone, and they 3:15:17.160 --> 3:15:20.200 suggested that three hundred milligrams is basically getting to what 3:15:20.360 --> 3:15:23.240 like a cis gender person's maximum progesterone levels would be, 3:15:23.800 --> 3:15:26.640 meaning that if you're boofing one or two, as some 3:15:26.800 --> 3:15:31.640 of his regimens suggests, like, you might be essentially overdosing 3:15:31.680 --> 3:15:35.840 on progesterone for no reason, like there's no real reason 3:15:35.920 --> 3:15:39.360 to do that and it is just crazy. When when 3:15:39.400 --> 3:15:41.160 I started this call today, I did I did not 3:15:41.280 --> 3:15:46.560 think we would get to boofing progesterone. It is a weird, 3:15:47.000 --> 3:15:50.480 like a weirdly large part of my Twitter interactions have 3:15:50.600 --> 3:15:55.240 been fighting people to stop boofing progesterone. UM, so I 3:15:55.440 --> 3:15:58.640 needed to say unfortunately, just exposed this idea. Two millions 3:15:58.680 --> 3:16:01.400 of more people know well, no, I'm saying, don't do 3:16:01.560 --> 3:16:04.520 it well and so but you know, you know, you 3:16:04.640 --> 3:16:07.039 know that's not how that works. I do know that's 3:16:07.080 --> 3:16:09.400 not how that works. But I mean, I I tell you, 3:16:09.959 --> 3:16:13.440 if if your your friend Robert Evans were here, I 3:16:13.480 --> 3:16:15.800 could pitch a hole behind the bastards on this Dr 3:16:15.840 --> 3:16:20.200 powers guy um sounds, he sounds fascinating. He has a subreddit, 3:16:20.440 --> 3:16:23.440 like all good physicians do. I love the doctor has 3:16:23.480 --> 3:16:27.520 a subreddit and my my favorite post other than recently, 3:16:27.640 --> 3:16:30.280 he's been pushing this like miracle hair tonic that he made, 3:16:30.360 --> 3:16:33.800 which is like come on, buddy, like like now it's 3:16:33.840 --> 3:16:38.960 just obvious. He calls it to yep, yep, the verbon. 3:16:39.200 --> 3:16:41.400 He might call it. He might even call it an elixir, 3:16:41.520 --> 3:16:46.879 which is very funny, but from a magical hand, tonic exactly. 3:16:47.400 --> 3:16:49.200 It's so funny because one of the components of it, 3:16:49.280 --> 3:16:51.520 I think is finasteride. Like I I looked at the 3:16:51.680 --> 3:16:53.400 and I'm like, yes, that is something for bald for 3:16:53.520 --> 3:16:56.560 male pattern baldness. It will probably work. Congratulations, you just 3:16:56.879 --> 3:17:02.199 remade rogaine. Uh. But the single post that I feel 3:17:02.240 --> 3:17:08.160 like perfectly encapsulates this guy's mentality. Um is, there's this 3:17:08.240 --> 3:17:10.880 big post that went around through like cis gender like 3:17:11.240 --> 3:17:14.200 kind of like centrist spaces that every trans person I 3:17:14.280 --> 3:17:17.240 saw was just like, excuse me, what the fuck? Where 3:17:17.440 --> 3:17:22.320 this guy was secretly micro dosing injectable estrogen that he 3:17:22.400 --> 3:17:26.320 prescribed himself, which sounds kind of illegal. Not gonna lie. Uh, 3:17:26.480 --> 3:17:29.960 and messed up the dose by a thousand percent by 3:17:30.000 --> 3:17:33.600 a thought, by a times thousand Yeah yeah yeah. And 3:17:33.920 --> 3:17:35.840 um like, I can give you the link. I I can. 3:17:36.120 --> 3:17:37.560 I know exactly where it is. I can give you 3:17:37.640 --> 3:17:39.040 the link if you wanted to read this. It is 3:17:39.160 --> 3:17:42.160 buck Wild. But the thing is, he goes on to 3:17:42.400 --> 3:17:46.400 describe this like acute dysphoric episode that he had from 3:17:46.800 --> 3:17:51.000 one high dose of subcutaneous estrogen, a thing that is 3:17:51.080 --> 3:17:55.960 not physiologically possible and completely insane. That and he but 3:17:56.040 --> 3:18:00.320 he was like, but I understand the pain the trans 3:18:00.400 --> 3:18:03.119 women go through because I fucked up a dose where 3:18:03.160 --> 3:18:06.840 I was secretly taking estrogen to make my face look younger. 3:18:08.200 --> 3:18:10.760 So I understand your pain and have so much empathy 3:18:10.920 --> 3:18:13.840 for for the trans women's that I am trying to save. 3:18:14.600 --> 3:18:17.879 And it is so frustrating to me how many people 3:18:17.959 --> 3:18:21.520 give him like credence, give him credit um because he 3:18:21.640 --> 3:18:25.920 he has He has claims like apply progesterone cream to 3:18:26.320 --> 3:18:29.640 the the the smaller breast to even them out, and 3:18:29.680 --> 3:18:31.320 it's like, okay, my dude, have you ever met like 3:18:31.680 --> 3:18:34.640 people with breasts one is larger than the other. That's 3:18:34.680 --> 3:18:37.240 how breasts work. It's like, well, what's your evidence for that? Well, 3:18:37.280 --> 3:18:39.039 I had two people who did it and they said 3:18:39.040 --> 3:18:44.840 it worked. Okay, cool. Do you have those those reports? No? No, no, 3:18:44.959 --> 3:18:47.160 they got burned up in a house fire. It's very sad, 3:18:47.200 --> 3:18:51.720 and I can't give you that act. Yes. So, so 3:18:51.879 --> 3:18:53.959 he worked in a clinic that a friend of mine 3:18:54.000 --> 3:18:58.000 actually moved to after they got rid of him because 3:18:58.440 --> 3:19:01.200 he made all these wildly and total claims and whenever 3:19:01.280 --> 3:19:03.960 anybody challenged, and then his house burned out, which is 3:19:04.000 --> 3:19:05.920 actually very sad because his cats died in it, and 3:19:06.120 --> 3:19:08.680 he didn't deserve his cats because cats are perfect creatures 3:19:08.760 --> 3:19:14.240 and this man is insane and cats never do anything wrong. 3:19:14.520 --> 3:19:19.360 Cats are perfect, magical beings. I love yours so much 3:19:19.440 --> 3:19:23.560 as they keep crossing in front of the screen. They're perfect. Um. 3:19:24.200 --> 3:19:28.680 But so whenever anybody challenges him on literally any of 3:19:28.760 --> 3:19:30.840 his claims, he goes, well, I had all of that data, 3:19:30.920 --> 3:19:32.520 but it burned up in my house, and then he 3:19:32.640 --> 3:19:35.520 like makes it a sob story about like how like 3:19:36.200 --> 3:19:38.880 like horrible this was, which like I'm sure it was 3:19:39.040 --> 3:19:41.160 really bad, Like I'm sure it was like really really bad. 3:19:41.400 --> 3:19:46.000 But even his um like power point presentations that he 3:19:46.120 --> 3:19:48.520 has that he like goes through to like really like 3:19:48.760 --> 3:19:50.520 talk about the powers method and make it sound like 3:19:50.640 --> 3:19:55.400 really really good, has a like fire safety section specifically 3:19:55.480 --> 3:19:59.520 so he can garner this like sympathy so people will 3:19:59.640 --> 3:20:03.880 not question his claims that have no evidence behind them. 3:20:04.400 --> 3:20:08.120 And so it's just such a fantastic examinated to me. 3:20:08.400 --> 3:20:11.160 I like, it's just so weird seeing like a space 3:20:11.320 --> 3:20:14.960 that has historically been denigrated in the evidence. You know, 3:20:15.080 --> 3:20:17.360 you had that whole episode on like the Hirshfeld Institute, 3:20:17.760 --> 3:20:19.920 and you know, we see all this like anti anti 3:20:20.000 --> 3:20:23.920 trans uh like propaganda and legislation going on right now 3:20:24.160 --> 3:20:27.840 that there's a lot of like empty space in the 3:20:28.000 --> 3:20:31.480 medical record and in the evidence record for what to 3:20:31.560 --> 3:20:34.000 do in these situations. There's a lot of confusion from 3:20:34.040 --> 3:20:36.879 the guidelines in these other societies, like I was talking about, 3:20:37.320 --> 3:20:41.200 and in steps this guy who sees an opportunity to 3:20:42.120 --> 3:20:47.000 be like, uh like popular, like powerful individual in this 3:20:47.080 --> 3:20:49.800 space to give people hope that he can cash in 3:20:49.959 --> 3:20:53.120 on uh And since the medications and since the hormone 3:20:53.160 --> 3:20:57.920 therapy is so safe, he doesn't actually hurt that many people. 3:20:58.480 --> 3:21:01.680 And it's it is so wild seeing this juxtaposition of 3:21:01.879 --> 3:21:05.040 individuals being like, well, this is unsafe experimental nonsense, and 3:21:05.120 --> 3:21:09.800 seeing this guy flagrantly overdosing people on hormones with no 3:21:09.920 --> 3:21:15.840 ill effects because they're that safe. Uh. That is that 3:21:16.080 --> 3:21:19.760 is pretty funny. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's funny in 3:21:19.879 --> 3:21:25.040 that like laughing until you're crying kind of way. What 3:21:25.240 --> 3:21:28.840 is the way that people can try to combat all 3:21:28.840 --> 3:21:34.600 the medical disinformation around HRT specifically because we do this specifically, 3:21:34.920 --> 3:21:36.240 let you see this a lot and to save the 3:21:36.280 --> 3:21:39.080 children rhetoric, we see this a lot for just anti 3:21:39.120 --> 3:21:43.920 TRN stuff in general of and like, yeah, just in 3:21:44.040 --> 3:21:45.440 terms of someone who has to deal with this stuff 3:21:45.440 --> 3:21:49.480 on a professional level, like when when we're just faced 3:21:49.520 --> 3:21:52.960 with all of this just complatantly, just like wrong stuff 3:21:53.640 --> 3:21:57.600 being treated as absolute fact when your experience, what's kind 3:21:57.600 --> 3:21:59.360 of the best ways to go about that in people? 3:22:00.240 --> 3:22:03.320 Oh my goodness, UM, it kind of depends on the audience. 3:22:03.920 --> 3:22:07.600 When I'm talking to other other healthcare practitioners, I, UM, 3:22:09.640 --> 3:22:12.080 I can. I I have historically because I do a 3:22:12.160 --> 3:22:14.720 lot of like teaching and advocacy in this area to 3:22:15.040 --> 3:22:20.160 other health care practitioners and UM holding sessions like volunteering 3:22:20.240 --> 3:22:23.120 for to hold sessions of like to educate on this 3:22:23.320 --> 3:22:25.360 and say like these are the kind of regimens that 3:22:25.400 --> 3:22:28.680 are commonly used in clinics. This is why these are 3:22:28.760 --> 3:22:32.400 things to look out for and to stress the importance 3:22:32.600 --> 3:22:38.520 of believing the patient and um, the importance of you 3:22:38.600 --> 3:22:41.959 don't want to gate key because if if which they're 3:22:42.000 --> 3:22:44.360 not that dangerous, but if there is to be a problem, 3:22:44.760 --> 3:22:47.640 you would rather have that patient want to work with 3:22:47.800 --> 3:22:51.600 you to solve it. Is like such a big part 3:22:51.640 --> 3:22:54.000 of it, Like even just understanding that from that level 3:22:54.080 --> 3:22:58.080 that you're not like delivering this kind of like life 3:22:58.120 --> 3:23:01.800 saving medication to them as this like Lord on High. 3:23:02.040 --> 3:23:03.640 It's this idea that like, no, you should be working 3:23:03.720 --> 3:23:05.920 with this person and if you're not familiar with it, 3:23:06.000 --> 3:23:08.840 you need to do your fucking research. Uh. And I 3:23:08.920 --> 3:23:11.280 will give you the resources for that. I will. I 3:23:11.320 --> 3:23:14.480 will walk you through those resources. And that's that's awfully 3:23:14.520 --> 3:23:17.720 convincing for the majority of healthcare individuals at any level, 3:23:17.760 --> 3:23:20.960 because I've done I've done talks for students and nursing 3:23:21.000 --> 3:23:23.120 programs and physical therapy programs all the way up to 3:23:23.400 --> 3:23:29.080 like actively practicing physicians, nurses and pharmacists, and it's basically 3:23:29.120 --> 3:23:31.880 the same. You just you make the argument, you show 3:23:31.959 --> 3:23:33.959 the evidence, You give them the evidence, and you walk 3:23:34.040 --> 3:23:36.600 them through uh like kind of and and then and 3:23:36.680 --> 3:23:39.640 then have a robust question and answer period where they 3:23:39.680 --> 3:23:42.440 will ask you those questions and you can explain why 3:23:42.560 --> 3:23:45.840 they are wrong. Having that kind of dedicated space can 3:23:45.920 --> 3:23:49.600 be really beneficial, but not scalable in a way that's 3:23:49.640 --> 3:23:53.520 necessarily helpful, Like I've made a positive impact on my city, 3:23:53.920 --> 3:23:57.240 but that doesn't really necessarily help if you yourself are 3:23:57.320 --> 3:24:00.600 not a health care practitioner and want to like explain 3:24:00.720 --> 3:24:04.400 this kind of stuff. And I mentioned earlier that on Twitter, 3:24:04.520 --> 3:24:06.600 I've spent a lot of time like arguing that people 3:24:06.640 --> 3:24:10.200 shouldn't be boofing their progesterone. But I've had to stop 3:24:10.280 --> 3:24:13.959 because it's exhausting every single person like coming back. It's 3:24:14.000 --> 3:24:17.360 like the same conversations over and over again, and there's 3:24:17.400 --> 3:24:22.920 no good way to like have a central location that 3:24:23.040 --> 3:24:25.800 just has all that information that anybody is gonna believe 3:24:26.120 --> 3:24:30.640 because of the way the internetworks. Um So, I guess 3:24:30.800 --> 3:24:34.200 my answer is I'm not sure, Like there's so much 3:24:34.280 --> 3:24:36.920 misinformation out there, and so much of it is so 3:24:38.160 --> 3:24:42.560 wrong and not in alignment with reality that looking at 3:24:42.600 --> 3:24:46.720 it at all, it falls to pieces and and the 3:24:46.879 --> 3:24:50.080 idea of the majority of people to I guess I 3:24:50.120 --> 3:24:52.520 could say, if a person is coming to you and 3:24:52.640 --> 3:24:57.760 asking legitimate questions and they don't really know, like they're 3:24:57.840 --> 3:25:00.400 just like parroting stuff that they heard, they they're much 3:25:00.440 --> 3:25:03.320 easier to convince because you can show like, oh, like 3:25:03.440 --> 3:25:05.840 we have a long history of doing this, like look 3:25:05.879 --> 3:25:08.400 at you know. I tell my students about how like 3:25:08.600 --> 3:25:13.320 nineteen fifty two was the first like recognized hormonal mediated 3:25:13.760 --> 3:25:16.840 transition in the United states like she was like a 3:25:16.959 --> 3:25:20.560 movie star. Um and and you know, I talked about 3:25:20.560 --> 3:25:22.200 a lot of the history to be like this isn't new, 3:25:22.440 --> 3:25:25.119 this is something like we have been here forever. Um 3:25:25.720 --> 3:25:27.440 my my favorite story. Do you know about the story 3:25:27.440 --> 3:25:30.920 about the Scythian priestesses? Yes, I actually do, but I 3:25:30.959 --> 3:25:32.960 would love for you to explain it. But oh my god, 3:25:33.120 --> 3:25:35.360 I found out about that a few months ago and 3:25:35.440 --> 3:25:38.880 I was like, oh my god, it makes me so happy. 3:25:39.040 --> 3:25:41.720 So so to to explain very briefly, I think it's 3:25:41.840 --> 3:25:44.240 it's an old um. I think it was like Herodotus. 3:25:44.280 --> 3:25:46.600 It's like an old like Crestian like author that we 3:25:46.640 --> 3:25:51.520 have information, author, philosopher, whatever, historian. But they talk about 3:25:51.640 --> 3:25:56.080 in one of the texts the Scythian priestesses who essentially 3:25:56.240 --> 3:25:58.879 distill the poison of woman. They call it in one 3:25:58.920 --> 3:26:00.240 of the text which I think is just such a 3:26:00.320 --> 3:26:06.800 great term from um uh, pregnant mayor urine, which interestingly enough, 3:26:06.879 --> 3:26:10.520 we actually still make today conjugated estrogens. The brand name 3:26:10.560 --> 3:26:13.720 is Premarin because it comes from pregnant mayor urine, Like 3:26:14.680 --> 3:26:17.600 are you serious? Yeahah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's literally 3:26:17.680 --> 3:26:20.359 a thing that we still do today. That is hilarious. 3:26:20.560 --> 3:26:25.680 It's beautiful, it's so good. Um. And so they were priestesses. 3:26:26.040 --> 3:26:28.880 They were like, you know, people would come to them 3:26:28.959 --> 3:26:31.960 to seek out their wisdom and they're like the spiritual thing. 3:26:32.000 --> 3:26:33.200 And it was a it was like a bunch of 3:26:33.240 --> 3:26:36.560 trans women who like got high, told stories and probably 3:26:36.640 --> 3:26:38.960 sucked each other. And that sounds like a policule to me. 3:26:39.520 --> 3:26:43.279 But like the silly the Sithians were like a nomadic 3:26:43.800 --> 3:26:45.880 group of people who would travel all around kind of 3:26:45.920 --> 3:26:49.720 what is now the Middle East. Um. And yeah, it's 3:26:49.959 --> 3:26:52.960 I mean, I do love the idea of trans people 3:26:53.400 --> 3:26:58.920 having like specific like more esoteric insight almost naturally because 3:26:59.160 --> 3:27:01.920 they've had to deal with ideas of ontology and ideas 3:27:02.080 --> 3:27:04.600 as ontology is just like the nature of being um 3:27:04.920 --> 3:27:07.280 and so having to people with that, having to deal 3:27:07.360 --> 3:27:09.440 with like the nature of reality from a much a 3:27:09.520 --> 3:27:12.480 younger age because their whole perception of reality and self 3:27:12.560 --> 3:27:15.600 is obviously so different because of their experience of being 3:27:15.879 --> 3:27:19.080 what is now called trans um. So it makes a 3:27:19.120 --> 3:27:20.960 lot of sense that a lot of these people would 3:27:21.000 --> 3:27:25.480 have been like basically different forms of Shabin's mediums. We'll 3:27:25.560 --> 3:27:28.720 just have like esoteric insite because they've been thinking about 3:27:28.840 --> 3:27:31.920 these types of like reality altering topics for so much 3:27:32.000 --> 3:27:35.280 longer because it's so much more personally affecting to them. Um. 3:27:35.959 --> 3:27:38.000 But yes, what I specifically read about the cythy and 3:27:38.040 --> 3:27:41.000 priestesses and like, oh my, they're just like doing the thing, 3:27:41.560 --> 3:27:43.360 just doing the thing. It turns out we've been doing 3:27:43.400 --> 3:27:46.480 this forever. My favorite account is one of the reasons 3:27:46.560 --> 3:27:50.720 they commanded respect of the like masculine leaders that would 3:27:50.760 --> 3:27:53.280 come to get information was because they were all terrified 3:27:53.360 --> 3:27:56.280 that they would inflict the poison of women, which of 3:27:56.360 --> 3:27:59.000 them it does spread by the way it is, it's 3:27:59.040 --> 3:28:02.560 highly contagious, contagious. But it's just the idea that like 3:28:02.879 --> 3:28:04.800 there was like some of the respect was from like 3:28:05.360 --> 3:28:09.000 this fear of being force femed is hilarious, from like 3:28:09.200 --> 3:28:13.600 this early BC, the primordial fear of the primordial fear. 3:28:13.959 --> 3:28:16.800 I was gonna say, Garrison, you mentioning like ontology. My 3:28:16.879 --> 3:28:20.320 original degree was in psychology and philosophy, So like, let's go, baby, 3:28:20.360 --> 3:28:22.680 we can go deep on some of this stuff. Sure, 3:28:23.480 --> 3:28:26.480 I'm sure, I'm sure we couldn't talk to the mysticism 3:28:26.560 --> 3:28:28.840 and magic and gender for a long long time. Oh 3:28:28.920 --> 3:28:31.520 my god, that would be a whole another podcast are 3:28:31.760 --> 3:28:34.480 big areas of interest. But I but I, but I 3:28:34.560 --> 3:28:36.440 super agree with you because I've been thinking about this 3:28:36.520 --> 3:28:38.280 and I've ended up having conversations with a lot of 3:28:38.360 --> 3:28:41.640 my peers in pharmacy and in the university. Because people 3:28:41.720 --> 3:28:43.600 might not recognize this, but pharmacy is actually one of 3:28:43.640 --> 3:28:48.640 the more conservative spaces in healthcare. Uh. Like my my 3:28:48.760 --> 3:28:51.600 school had a dress code for the students until two 3:28:51.680 --> 3:28:53.760 years ago when I fought hard enough to get it removed. 3:28:53.920 --> 3:28:57.280 Like it was wild. Um, Like the code of Conduct 3:28:57.320 --> 3:28:59.520 committee tried to get me, tried to prevent me from 3:28:59.560 --> 3:29:03.960 getting my ears pierced. Like, yeah, it's a wild space 3:29:04.080 --> 3:29:08.480 for me to exist in. Um, it's extremely conservative, extremely traditional, 3:29:08.640 --> 3:29:13.840 like the some Like yeah, I got stories that I'd 3:29:13.920 --> 3:29:15.640 love to tell if you wanted to hear them. But 3:29:16.120 --> 3:29:19.440 the thing that I think is really interesting is when 3:29:20.000 --> 3:29:22.119 you look at me in comparison to my my colleagues 3:29:22.120 --> 3:29:26.800 who are predominantly like Christian, predominantly like traditionalist, predominantly capitalist, 3:29:27.080 --> 3:29:31.439 and I roll in as this like anti capitalist, like anarchists, 3:29:32.120 --> 3:29:36.320 trans woman, who's Polly, who's pan sexual, who's a pagan? 3:29:36.440 --> 3:29:39.520 All the p's and it's like, well, once I question gender, 3:29:40.040 --> 3:29:43.400 I started realizing all of culture and society is bullshit, 3:29:43.920 --> 3:29:47.360 and now I can tell you the truth. Come to 3:29:47.560 --> 3:29:51.119 me for the truth of reality. No, it even makes 3:29:51.120 --> 3:29:54.440 sense in terms of like you know, why why did 3:29:54.760 --> 3:29:57.440 two trans women make the matrix? You're like, yeah, no, 3:29:57.600 --> 3:29:59.520 it's like it's it is. It is the same thing 3:29:59.600 --> 3:30:02.880 as your Your entire nature and basis of reality was 3:30:02.959 --> 3:30:06.279 severely questioned. So so you're trying to trying to understand 3:30:06.360 --> 3:30:09.040 these feelings. And for you know, mid modern days we 3:30:09.120 --> 3:30:12.600 have like stuff like simulation theory, we have the matrix, um, 3:30:13.320 --> 3:30:15.440 and then you know, but before before then, you know, 3:30:15.560 --> 3:30:17.960 it would have been taken out in like spiritualism and 3:30:18.280 --> 3:30:20.880 religion and you know, the different levels of reality on 3:30:20.959 --> 3:30:23.520 like the whole like mystic side of things as opposed 3:30:23.520 --> 3:30:25.760 to like the more sci fi side of things. Um. 3:30:26.000 --> 3:30:28.520 But yeah, like it's it's all the same stuff. Like 3:30:28.640 --> 3:30:32.280 you're you're, you're, you're playing with the same things. Um, yeah, 3:30:32.400 --> 3:30:34.640 it is. It is just a funny a funny trend 3:30:34.760 --> 3:30:37.320 that once you once you notice it, you'll you'll start 3:30:37.400 --> 3:30:40.880 seeing it in in like different places. Yeah, so we 3:30:40.959 --> 3:30:44.400 are still mystics who understand the true reality of the 3:30:44.480 --> 3:30:46.800 world and will force them you if you don't give 3:30:46.879 --> 3:30:49.600 us respect. I just don't see what the problem. I 3:30:49.720 --> 3:30:56.920 believe that That was my takeaway from Matrix Resurrections. Oh yeah, well, 3:30:57.120 --> 3:30:59.400 of is there is there anything else you would want 3:30:59.400 --> 3:31:03.360 to you would want to add? Oh my goodness, Um, 3:31:05.200 --> 3:31:07.360 I don't know fight for trans people. One of the 3:31:07.440 --> 3:31:10.000 things that I end up always having to talk to 3:31:10.600 --> 3:31:14.280 my students about in colleagues and things is what ally means, 3:31:15.240 --> 3:31:18.680 because I've literally gotten into arguments with people who are like, oh, yeah, 3:31:18.720 --> 3:31:20.840 it's l g B t Q I A because A 3:31:20.959 --> 3:31:24.640 stands for ally, and I'm like, oh, I will knife you, 3:31:25.040 --> 3:31:27.920 like like, it doesn't stand for ally, it stands for 3:31:28.000 --> 3:31:34.920 a sexual or romantic of all of all of the 3:31:35.000 --> 3:31:38.240 other a's yes. But it's the it's this thing where 3:31:38.800 --> 3:31:41.840 people think being an ally is just being like like 3:31:42.000 --> 3:31:44.200 okay with a person existing the kind of like, well 3:31:44.240 --> 3:31:46.560 if it makes you happy, which is like okay, motherfucker, 3:31:46.720 --> 3:31:51.600 that's not like. That is so belittling of the experience. Um, 3:31:52.560 --> 3:31:54.560 that's not ally. Ship. To be an ally, you have 3:31:54.680 --> 3:31:57.520 to leverage your privilege by not being a member of 3:31:57.560 --> 3:32:01.120 that community to protect people in that community. You can 3:32:01.200 --> 3:32:04.080 be tolerant, but not an ally. And that's sort of 3:32:04.160 --> 3:32:06.440 where the old saying comes from that if that's what 3:32:06.640 --> 3:32:08.959 being an ally is to you, we don't need allies, 3:32:09.120 --> 3:32:14.240 we need accomplices. And um. With the current legislative push 3:32:14.360 --> 3:32:17.840 against trans people, I mean, like literally what I do 3:32:18.120 --> 3:32:20.920 is like a felony in three states now, are almost 3:32:21.000 --> 3:32:23.120 a felony in three states, and it's going to be 3:32:23.200 --> 3:32:26.200 a growing number of states. Yeah, and and and it's 3:32:26.280 --> 3:32:31.680 just so unbelievably depressing. And there aren't enough. I mean, 3:32:31.720 --> 3:32:34.160 there's a lot of trans and non binary and and 3:32:34.320 --> 3:32:36.800 every kind of expression you could want people in this country, 3:32:36.879 --> 3:32:40.200 way more than than a lot of surveys suspected. Um, 3:32:41.200 --> 3:32:46.280 but we're not enough to necessarily fight this in a 3:32:46.400 --> 3:32:49.359 way that isn't going to end up with increasing violence. 3:32:49.400 --> 3:32:53.560 I mean, the the FBI statistics of random violence against 3:32:53.600 --> 3:32:57.119 into like hate crime specifically has been rising against LGBT people, 3:32:57.440 --> 3:33:00.320 especially trans people, in the last couple of years, and 3:33:00.360 --> 3:33:02.360 I'm sure it's only going to get more in the 3:33:02.480 --> 3:33:05.800 next few years. Still with all of the with the 3:33:05.959 --> 3:33:08.400 wave of stuff happening in the past few months. Yeah, 3:33:08.680 --> 3:33:11.119 So if you're if you're not. If you're assist person 3:33:11.959 --> 3:33:13.879 and you want to be an ally, you gotta fight 3:33:13.959 --> 3:33:16.560 for us. And if you're a trans person, if you 3:33:16.640 --> 3:33:19.920 don't have other reasons why you can't maybe arm yourself 3:33:20.680 --> 3:33:22.800 in some way at this point, if you if you 3:33:22.879 --> 3:33:27.680 feel mentally capable, it's not a bad idea to learn 3:33:27.760 --> 3:33:31.000 how to do things. It's not a not a bad 3:33:31.080 --> 3:33:33.080 idea to get stop the bleed training, not a bad 3:33:33.120 --> 3:33:36.600 idea to get you know, emergency first aid training, right 3:33:36.640 --> 3:33:41.800 all of all of all of the things. Because things 3:33:41.879 --> 3:33:44.279 are things are happening and they're going to keep happening. 3:33:45.320 --> 3:33:49.600 One might say it could happen here. Wow, I know, 3:33:50.040 --> 3:33:52.520 we really we really put this together, just pulled it back, 3:33:52.720 --> 3:33:55.720 just just really encapsulated it. So yeah, I think that 3:33:55.840 --> 3:33:59.040 does it for us today. Um, do do you have 3:33:59.200 --> 3:34:01.720 do have any of plugables that you would like to 3:34:02.040 --> 3:34:06.720 uh plug? Yeah? Sure, So if you wanted to talk 3:34:06.800 --> 3:34:09.840 to me more, you can. I'm on Twitter for now, 3:34:09.920 --> 3:34:14.280 assuming that elon must doesn't make it entirely unlivable at Vixen, 3:34:14.360 --> 3:34:17.080 which but the w S two vs. I don't post 3:34:17.120 --> 3:34:18.800 a hole up, but you can you can find me there. 3:34:19.000 --> 3:34:21.080 You can also just straight up email me if you 3:34:21.160 --> 3:34:24.520 had questions. My like work email for that purpose is 3:34:24.680 --> 3:34:27.680 just Victoria dot grieve at pit dot e d U 3:34:27.879 --> 3:34:30.160 I'd have I'd be happy to answer any questions that 3:34:30.280 --> 3:34:34.080 people have. UH. And it's a robust university firewall, so 3:34:34.240 --> 3:34:37.840 if I get hey that, that's fine, it won't get through. UM. 3:34:38.560 --> 3:34:41.080 The and then outside of like my classes and stuff. 3:34:41.160 --> 3:34:42.800 The only other thing I wanted to plug because you 3:34:42.840 --> 3:34:46.040 brought it up. I am a frequent guest on a 3:34:46.160 --> 3:34:49.320 podcast that a friend of mine hosts called School of Movies, 3:34:49.440 --> 3:34:53.119 and we actually did Matrix two, three and four UM 3:34:53.320 --> 3:34:55.440 and I was on those episodes and talked a lot 3:34:55.560 --> 3:34:58.720 about the trans narrative there in UH. We also did 3:34:58.720 --> 3:35:02.480 an episode on Priscilla, Queen of the because that's great. 3:35:02.760 --> 3:35:04.760 I was always lucky enough to watch for Siliquin of 3:35:04.800 --> 3:35:07.520 the Desert a few a few months ago UM with 3:35:07.760 --> 3:35:10.560 some queer friends of mine with Hugo Weaving, and in 3:35:11.000 --> 3:35:13.560 both of those he is he is. It is pretty 3:35:13.680 --> 3:35:15.840 It is pretty fun watching Hugo Weaving go from agents 3:35:15.840 --> 3:35:18.680 Smith to his character and Prisili Queen of the Desert, 3:35:18.920 --> 3:35:22.760 it's beautiful. It's a beautiful metamorphosis. It is it is 3:35:22.879 --> 3:35:25.240 very good, But yeah, thank you so much for coming 3:35:25.320 --> 3:35:32.880 on to talk anytime. Thank you for listening to my 3:35:32.959 --> 3:35:36.720 little two parter on hormone replacement therapy. If you want 3:35:36.760 --> 3:35:38.920 to start reading more on the d I Y and 3:35:39.040 --> 3:35:42.040 mutual aid side of things, check out d I Y 3:35:42.320 --> 3:35:46.480 HRT dot, get hub dot, io HRT dot Cafe and 3:35:46.720 --> 3:35:49.440 d I Y trans dot Luckie as a jumping off point. 3:35:49.800 --> 3:35:51.360 But obviously you don't take everything to read on the 3:35:51.400 --> 3:35:54.480 internet as gospel. I do think it's worth learning how 3:35:54.600 --> 3:35:58.000 to make your own drugs possibly and learning how to 3:35:58.160 --> 3:36:00.520 source your own estrogen from play says that are not 3:36:00.640 --> 3:36:03.320 just a doctor, because who knows what other states will 3:36:03.320 --> 3:36:08.280 start criminalizing getting drugs for doctor right, it's it is. 3:36:09.000 --> 3:36:11.640 There seems to be a trend of making HRT illegal 3:36:12.720 --> 3:36:15.080 via the medical system, So if this is something definitely 3:36:15.120 --> 3:36:17.720 to look into, because it seems more and more people 3:36:17.920 --> 3:36:21.480 will face restrictions in this vein. So yeah, that's kind 3:36:21.480 --> 3:36:22.959 of a big reason for why I wanted to talk 3:36:23.000 --> 3:36:26.760 about this today on the pod. Big Extra special thanks 3:36:26.800 --> 3:36:30.320 to Dr Victoria Luna Brennan Grieve for coming on to 3:36:30.360 --> 3:36:34.280 talk with me about gender affirming hormonal treatment. You can 3:36:34.400 --> 3:36:37.000 check her out or ask her questions on her Twitter, 3:36:37.120 --> 3:36:40.000 which can be found at vixen which with a two 3:36:40.120 --> 3:36:43.480 vs for the w in which or you can email 3:36:43.520 --> 3:36:48.520 her queries at Victoria dot grieve at pit dot e 3:36:48.720 --> 3:36:52.000 d U and that doesn't for us today, everybody. You 3:36:52.120 --> 3:36:54.600 can follow the show at Happened Here pod and cools 3:36:54.640 --> 3:36:57.880 one Media on Twitter and Instagram, and you can look 3:36:57.920 --> 3:37:02.240 at my late night gender style tweets at Hungry bow Tie. 3:37:02.920 --> 3:37:09.920 See you on the other side. Hey, We'll be back 3:37:10.000 --> 3:37:13.160 Monday with more episodes every week from now until the 3:37:13.200 --> 3:37:15.720 heat death of the Universe. It Could Happen Here is 3:37:15.760 --> 3:37:18.440 a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from 3:37:18.440 --> 3:37:21.119 cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot 3:37:21.200 --> 3:37:23.280 com or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, 3:37:23.280 --> 3:37:26.640 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can 3:37:26.680 --> 3:37:29.320 find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at 3:37:29.400 --> 3:37:32.600 cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.