Speaker 1: If you've been enjoying this podcast, and I hope you
Speaker 1: have been, We've got great news. We've just launched a
Speaker 1: brand new mark store. Go to tangodi dot com slash
Speaker 1: store to find there are No Girls on the Internet. Mugs, stickers, magnets,
Speaker 1: clothing and inclusive sizes, notebooks and more, just in time
Speaker 1: for the holidays. That's Tangoti dot Com slash Store. T
Speaker 1: A n g O t I dot Com slash Store.
Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and unbost Creative, I'm Bridget Todd
Speaker 1: and this is there Are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 1: So I'm so excited to let y'all know that on
Speaker 1: December twenty two, we are getting a brand new Matrix movie,
Speaker 1: The Matrix Resurrections will have a theatrical release and an
Speaker 1: HBO streaming release. Now, Kiana Reeves, Carrie and Moss and JD.
Speaker 1: Pete Smith are all back to reprise their roles from
Speaker 1: the Marebeous Matrix films, and we've got some pretty exciting
Speaker 1: newcomers to the franchise too, like Neo Patrick Harris, Prianka Shopper,
Speaker 1: Jonas and Christina Vigi. Now, did you know that for
Speaker 1: many trans people, they see the Matrix as an allegory
Speaker 1: for trans identity. Let's revisit one of my very favorite
Speaker 1: episodes of There Are No Girls on the Internet about
Speaker 1: how the Matrix explains a trans experience. The Matrix first
Speaker 1: premiered in and when it did, it was groundbreaking. In it,
Speaker 1: many trans folks see a metaphor for the trans experience
Speaker 1: and breaking down the systems that keep you from knowing
Speaker 1: your true self. I wanted to know more about this,
Speaker 1: so I reached down to Emily Vanderworth, the critic at
Speaker 1: large for vox dot Com. Emily's piece, How the Matrix
Speaker 1: Universalized the trans experience and helped Me accept my own
Speaker 1: explores how the Matrix spoke to her own experiences as
Speaker 1: a trans woman. You can find the link to the
Speaker 1: piece and the episode description. Now. I was really excited
Speaker 1: to connect with Emily, but while we were going back
Speaker 1: and forth to confirm the details of our interview, I
Speaker 1: could tell something was up. That day, Harper's Magazine published
Speaker 1: a letter denouncing what is sometimes known as cancel culture,
Speaker 1: complaining that the freedom of speech and free exchange of
Speaker 1: ideas are being stifled by intolerant voices on the left.
Speaker 1: The letter was signed by people like Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling,
Speaker 1: who has a history of anti trans speech. The letter
Speaker 1: fits a common pattern in which people with power attempt
Speaker 1: to portray public critiques of powerful people as unacceptable, even
Speaker 1: when they use their power to harm people less powerful
Speaker 1: than them. Someone who also signed onto the letter works
Speaker 1: with Emily at Fox. Pretty understandably, finding out that one
Speaker 1: of her co workers also signed onto this letter didn't
Speaker 1: sit well with Emily. She reached out to her employer
Speaker 1: to let them know, and posted a segment of her
Speaker 1: response on Twitter. The letter, signed as it is by
Speaker 1: several prominent anti trans voices and containing many dog whistles
Speaker 1: towards anti transpositions as it does, ideally wouldn't be signed
Speaker 1: by anybody at Fox, much less one of the most
Speaker 1: prominent people at our publication, she writes, And while her
Speaker 1: colleague signature on this letter made her feel uncomfortable at work,
Speaker 1: she made it clear that she didn't want him reprimanded.
Speaker 1: She just wanted to speak her peace and use some
Speaker 1: of that free speech the let her claimed to revere
Speaker 1: so highly. Can you guess what happened next? For the
Speaker 1: crime of being a trans woman expressing herself online, Emily
Speaker 1: was harassed, threatened, and attacked. Of course, she was angling
Speaker 1: to have this coworker fired or punished, said critics on Twitter,
Speaker 1: even though she had very clearly said otherwise. The harassment
Speaker 1: got so bad Emily, someone who makes her living writing online,
Speaker 1: had to leave social media. She gave control of her
Speaker 1: accounts to her friends and logged off. Before she left,
Speaker 1: she tweeted the hypocrisy of celebrating so called vigorous debate
Speaker 1: only to call out those who offer a counter opinion
Speaker 1: for offering such a counter opinion. It's obvious on its face,
Speaker 1: but I'll point it out anyway. They do not believe
Speaker 1: in free speech. They believe in free speech for them.
Speaker 1: During her time off social media, Emily was still down
Speaker 1: to talk about the matrix, and I thought maybe our
Speaker 1: conversation and subsequently this episode would be all about the
Speaker 1: fallout from the Harper's letter. But honestly, Emily is so
Speaker 1: much more interesting than any of the points made in
Speaker 1: that letter. But the implications of Emily being harassed off
Speaker 1: of her online platform by people who call themselves champions
Speaker 1: of free speech isn't lost on me, and it wasn't
Speaker 1: lost on Emily when we spoke about finding freedom online,
Speaker 1: the enduring power of telling your story and seeing stories
Speaker 1: like yours told starting with the Matrix. Do you remember
Speaker 1: the first time that you saw the Matrix? It just
Speaker 1: was like it opened up doors in my brain. I
Speaker 1: didn't quite realize it was opening up at the time.
Speaker 1: It was kind of one of the first ways I
Speaker 1: started to understand my trance I identity without having any
Speaker 1: clue that's what was happening. Um, I just knew that
Speaker 1: when I went online and pretended to be a girl,
Speaker 1: that felt really good in some some way. Pretended air
Speaker 1: quotes are around that for all my transfriends listening. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I I But the Matrix was kind of the first
Speaker 1: thing I saw that really delineated that difference between reality
Speaker 1: and the Internet and the ways that they kind of
Speaker 1: feed into each other. Now, what's interesting about this is
Speaker 1: that in the Matrix, reality is this like gray, horrible
Speaker 1: post apocalyptic landscape, and the Internet is this bustling, busy metropolis.
Speaker 1: But the Internet is like where things are wrong, where
Speaker 1: things are not right, and reality is like what you
Speaker 1: have to accept, which is a very pre coming out
Speaker 1: like sort of trans experience. But it's also you know,
Speaker 1: the movie is not just about trans identities. It's anti capitalist,
Speaker 1: it's extremely diverse and multicultural. You know. Uh, certainly Wowskis
Speaker 1: didn't make all the right steps there, but they were
Speaker 1: sure trying for their early two thousand's, late nineties. Um,
Speaker 1: So there's a lot more in there than just a
Speaker 1: story about transness. But there's also a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: in there about being trans and that's a really impressive
Speaker 1: thing to have pulled off at that point in time. Okay,
Speaker 1: so if you haven't seen The Matrix in a while,
Speaker 1: here is a quick submarine. Keiana Reeves has a routine
Speaker 1: life as a computer programmer, known by his alias Neo.
Speaker 1: He has this nagging feeling that something isn't right with
Speaker 1: the world. He's being presented what you know you can't
Speaker 1: explain what do you feel? It? You felt it your
Speaker 1: entire life, that there's something wrong in the world. You
Speaker 1: don't know what it is, but it's there, like a
Speaker 1: splinter in your mind. Neo meets Trinity, played by Carrie
Speaker 1: and Moss and Morphia is played by Laurence Fishburne, who
Speaker 1: present him with a choice, take the red pill or
Speaker 1: the Blue pill. If he takes the blue pill, the
Speaker 1: world will stay as he's always experienced it. But the
Speaker 1: Red Pill reveals the true nature of the world. That
Speaker 1: the real world has basically been destroyed, and what we
Speaker 1: think of as the real world is actually a computer
Speaker 1: simulation called the Matrix, and unfortunately we humans are actually
Speaker 1: in pods of goo being used as human batteries for machines.
Speaker 1: You take the Red Pill, you stay in Wonderland, and
Speaker 1: I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. As
Speaker 1: Emily writes on its most basic level, the movie follows
Speaker 1: characters who break free of their real life via the Internet,
Speaker 1: creating online identities that feel more real than their physical ones.
Speaker 1: Once they're they choose new name for themselves, their clothes
Speaker 1: become a whole lot cooler and less traditionally gendered. In fact,
Speaker 1: rumor has it the role of Swift, the blonde side
Speaker 1: character in The Matrix, was originally meant to be a
Speaker 1: character who explicitly explores gender in the Matrix, but the
Speaker 1: studio ended up cutting in so in terms of the
Speaker 1: character of Switch, um there is this rumor that the
Speaker 1: Wachowski Is wanted this character named Switch to be played
Speaker 1: by two different actors. I believe it would be a
Speaker 1: man in reality and a woman in the Matrix, and
Speaker 1: that was supposed to be kind of an example of
Speaker 1: like how the Matrix could let you explore your truest self, because, um,
Speaker 1: there is I believe that that Morpheus says at some
Speaker 1: point early in the film that like, who you are
Speaker 1: in the Matrix is like your your brains self image.
Speaker 1: So in that case, switch would be like, oh, my
Speaker 1: self image is a woman, and the only place I
Speaker 1: can be that is in the matrix. And that would
Speaker 1: have complicated the whole clean dynamic between reality and the
Speaker 1: matrix so much more. Uh. The rumor is that Warner
Speaker 1: Brothers wouldn't allow The Witchowskis to include it. Um, it's
Speaker 1: been very hard for people to track down the source
Speaker 1: of this story. I tend to believe it because I
Speaker 1: have talked to people who heard about it. But you know,
Speaker 1: and it also really fits with what we know about
Speaker 1: the Witch how Skis now, which is I think which
Speaker 1: as I think it might be a little too clean
Speaker 1: and convenient, but it certainly would have been cool. I
Speaker 1: wish it had been in there. I think it would
Speaker 1: have helped me figure some stuff out more quickly, or
Speaker 1: maybe it wouldn't happen. Maybe I just would have been like,
Speaker 1: that's cool. When Emily saw the matrix, she connected with
Speaker 1: it instantly. Using the Internet to become closer to understanding
Speaker 1: your true self is something both Neo and Emily have
Speaker 1: in common. My sister and I accidentally shared a Yahoo
Speaker 1: Chat account. This is back when Yahoo Chat existed, and
Speaker 1: she was she was a cheerleader, so she created the
Speaker 1: name cheer and Chick and I accidentally logged in as
Speaker 1: that one day and it was immediately a barrage of
Speaker 1: people with male coded screen name was being like, Hey
Speaker 1: A s L, Hey sexy, you know all of that.
Speaker 1: And I hated it, but I hated it in a
Speaker 1: way that felt good. And I liked that attention in
Speaker 1: a way that I never liked attention I got for
Speaker 1: performing masculinity. All I had to do was change my
Speaker 1: screen name, and suddenly, like people were like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: you're pretty, Oh you sound really cool, cheering ship do
Speaker 1: you cheerlead? M A s L. I'm you know, twenty
Speaker 1: two male California, nice smile, and like, I mean, we
Speaker 1: were all lying. We were all lying in some way
Speaker 1: that man probably did not have a nice smile. He
Speaker 1: probably had had a cold and chilling smile that would
Speaker 1: scare you if you saw it in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night. But I was lying, and I wasn't lying,
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't realize I wasn't lying, but I
Speaker 1: that was the true The truest thing I ever did
Speaker 1: was pretending to be a girl online because it was
Speaker 1: it was, It was so easy. In the Matrix, Neo's
Speaker 1: journey is accepting that he is the one, the fidget,
Speaker 1: who is meant to save humanity. He struggles to accept
Speaker 1: this identity and at times questions if he'll ever learn
Speaker 1: how to be the one, But that power was actually
Speaker 1: within him the whole time. He just had to accept it.
Speaker 1: It's something that really resonates with Emiline. What I often
Speaker 1: tell trans women who are newly out is you already
Speaker 1: know how to do this. You don't know you know
Speaker 1: how to do this, but you are going to understand
Speaker 1: how to operate in women's spaces and function as a
Speaker 1: woman in society, both in all of the good and
Speaker 1: bad ways that that is implied within the patriarchy. You
Speaker 1: have this knowledge inside of it. You don't realize he's
Speaker 1: there and you're going to unlock it and you're suddenly
Speaker 1: gonna be like, oh, yeah, okay, this makes sense. Um talk,
Speaker 1: getting two women make so much more sense than trying
Speaker 1: to do the male bonding thing. Um Like going close shopping.
Speaker 1: That was the thing I always hated, and that was
Speaker 1: one of the ways that I was like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: probably not trans because if I was a girl, I'd
Speaker 1: like clothes shopping, you know, that sort of that sort
Speaker 1: of productive stereotype. But really I didn't like going clothes
Speaker 1: shopping because I didn't like wearing men's clothes. Now, like
Speaker 1: one of my friends wants to go shopping, that's great,
Speaker 1: it's fun, it's a it's a it's a chance to
Speaker 1: bond and hang out with friends, and like, there's so
Speaker 1: much more to womanhood, to gender, to all of that
Speaker 1: than what I'm describing. But like, you already have the
Speaker 1: base source code for femininity, for womanhood, for hanging out
Speaker 1: with the girls in your brain as a trans woman.
Speaker 1: It just you just need to find a way to
Speaker 1: unlock it. And that was what I That was what
Speaker 1: was happening to me in those chat rooms I was
Speaker 1: logging in as a girl. People were treating me like
Speaker 1: a girl, and I got it. I think I'm remembering. Um.
Speaker 1: There were some intensely validating experiences there when like there
Speaker 1: would be another woman logged in and she would like
Speaker 1: message me and be like, oh my god, it's crazy
Speaker 1: in here, and I'd just be like, yes, it is.
Speaker 1: It is crazy. And here we are two women talking
Speaker 1: about our experiences, how crazy it is to be a
Speaker 1: lot of into this chat room of this barrage. And
Speaker 1: then you know, we do some small talk or whatever,
Speaker 1: and it would inevitably come to the point where she
Speaker 1: was like, well, you know, who are you? Where are
Speaker 1: you from? And like I would kind of freeze up
Speaker 1: because I've described this girl that wasn't real but felt real,
Speaker 1: and I was describing myself. It was the late nineties,
Speaker 1: so I had this super strong attachment to Reese Witherspon,
Speaker 1: who who didn't a little bit older than me, but
Speaker 1: like Tracy Flick in election, you know a lot of
Speaker 1: my friends saw her as a villain, and I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I find her an aspirational figure, but we're
Speaker 1: not going to unpack that. We're just not going to
Speaker 1: think about that. And for as annoying as she compete,
Speaker 1: Tracy Flick is who I would have been. That's that
Speaker 1: that girl I was always describing the chat rooms like
Speaker 1: kind of driven and type A and a little bit
Speaker 1: annoying and a little bit irritating, but inevitably is going
Speaker 1: to like take over the world. Um And I think
Speaker 1: the universe saw how potent that energy was within me
Speaker 1: and was like, we gotta tie one hand behind her back.
Speaker 1: So I think that's why. I think that's what happened.
Speaker 1: And my joke was, you know, it's just like how
Speaker 1: the Wachowski's cast Qiana Reeves and carry In Mosses trans women,
Speaker 1: because like they are both analogs for trans women in
Speaker 1: this movie. And you know, it was a joke, but
Speaker 1: it's really true, Like Keanu, like Neo's Neo's journey towards
Speaker 1: self acceptance is exactly what you're describing, and um, so honestly, honestly,
Speaker 1: so is the whole thing that Trinity is on. Like
Speaker 1: Trinity is like a trans woman and like her third
Speaker 1: year of transition, who's found this like girl at her
Speaker 1: support group who's like, I don't know what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 1: I'm so scared, And then Trinity is like, no, we're
Speaker 1: gonna fucking run up some walls. We're gonna bring helicopters down.
Speaker 1: You have no idea how much power you have inside
Speaker 1: of you. And yeah, it's it's a movie about It's
Speaker 1: a movie about what we in the trans community called
Speaker 1: self acceptance, the moment when you're like, Okay, something's going
Speaker 1: on here and I need to admit it to myself.
Speaker 1: And maybe you don't even admit your trans but you
Speaker 1: do admit to yourself that, like, there is this world
Speaker 1: inside of you that you are not exploring, that something
Speaker 1: needs to be done about that. The Matrix is really
Speaker 1: about that, and I think it's telling that when it
Speaker 1: was written both Lana and Lily Wichowski it seemed to
Speaker 1: have even been closeted from themselves. The recent documentary Disclosure
Speaker 1: on Netflix, Lily Wachowski is interviewed about The Matrix and
Speaker 1: she's like, at the time, I didn't know, but I
Speaker 1: watch it now, I'm like, oh, yeah, okay. Um. Lana
Speaker 1: Wachowski came out sometime in the early two thousands, came
Speaker 1: out to herself. She came out publicly in I think
Speaker 1: two thousan nine somewhere they're in there now. She came
Speaker 1: up publicly around the lease of claud Alice, which was
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve. There were rumors about her for like
Speaker 1: the entirety of the two thousand's um and they were
Speaker 1: pretty cruel and nasty rumors, and I don't recommend going
Speaker 1: to look up the stories because they are bad. The
Speaker 1: Matrix was directed by sisters Lana and Lily Wachowski, who
Speaker 1: would later both publicly come out of strands in Lanna
Speaker 1: gave a moving acceptance speech for the HRC's Visibility Award
Speaker 1: about her journey to self acceptance and the desire to
Speaker 1: imagine and build worlds where all people can see themselves
Speaker 1: fully reflected. I am here because when I was young,
Speaker 1: I wanted very badly to be a writer. I wanted
Speaker 1: to be a filmmaker, but I couldn't find anyone like
Speaker 1: me in the world, and it felt that my dreams
Speaker 1: were foreclosed simply because my gender was less typical than others.
Speaker 1: But Lana Wachowski was kind of on the cusp of
Speaker 1: coming out when they were making The Matrix, and you
Speaker 1: can see that within that movie. It is about taking
Speaker 1: that journey towards self acceptance, and honestly, the poor reputation
Speaker 1: of the Matrix sequels, both of which I really like,
Speaker 1: and the second of Matrix Reloaded I adore. I think
Speaker 1: it's one of their best movies. Both of those sequels
Speaker 1: are about what happens after you self accept and the
Speaker 1: ways that it kind of deconstructs the world in ways
Speaker 1: that you're not ready for that you don't always understand.
Speaker 1: There's this famous meme joke in UM in trans Woman
Speaker 1: Circles that's like it's the galaxy brain meme. So it starts,
Speaker 1: I wish I was a girl, UM, and the second
Speaker 1: one is I can just be a girl, and the
Speaker 1: third one is I always was a girl, and then
Speaker 1: the final one the Galaxy Brain, is destroy capitalism. That's
Speaker 1: what happens is you realize you question the gender binary,
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, wait, I should I just should
Speaker 1: be on the other side of it, or I should
Speaker 1: not be on the binary at all, or I should
Speaker 1: be totally removed from the spectrum of gender, or whatever
Speaker 1: your experience is, and you're suddenly like, wait, all systems
Speaker 1: are kind of made up, and you're like, oh, we
Speaker 1: can just you know, once you see that you're seeing
Speaker 1: the matrix, you can't unsee it. And suddenly are like,
Speaker 1: how could we build better systems? Like if human beings
Speaker 1: require systems to operate and live and evolve, how can
Speaker 1: we do something better? And that's kind of what the
Speaker 1: Matrix trilogy is about. Let's take a quick break enter back.
Speaker 1: At its core, the Matrix is about someone seeking out
Speaker 1: the framework for understanding who they really are and having
Speaker 1: a hard time figuring out what it all means. At
Speaker 1: the beginning of the film, Neo's life is quote normal
Speaker 1: life follows a specific routine, but online things are different.
Speaker 1: And while the Matrix can be read as a metaphor
Speaker 1: for trans identity, built by two trans women, it's pretty
Speaker 1: interesting that the language of the red pill has been
Speaker 1: latched onto by anti feminist, white supremacist groups in those
Speaker 1: online spaces, being quote red pilled if it means for
Speaker 1: men to open their eyes to all the ways that
Speaker 1: women and the feminists have misled them, And it's kind
Speaker 1: of funny when you think about it. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: there is this element of trying to build careful, scripted
Speaker 1: routines for yourself that I found to be often very
Speaker 1: true of pre coming out trans people across the board.
Speaker 1: You don't entirely understand the gender you were born into.
Speaker 1: But you can like make rules for yourself. You can
Speaker 1: create a programming language, you can exist within it. That's
Speaker 1: exactly what Neo is doing at the start of the movie.
Speaker 1: He has all these routines, he has all these subsystems.
Speaker 1: He's a program working within a program, and when he
Speaker 1: breaks out of the matrix, he begins to understand the
Speaker 1: ways in which he was misled and the ways in
Speaker 1: which society um the ways in which society did not
Speaker 1: give him a language for who he was. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think there is I think there is a lot
Speaker 1: of metaphorical power to that idea of the red pill.
Speaker 1: Clearly a lot of people have taken different ideas from it,
Speaker 1: but there is metaphorical power to this idea that you're
Speaker 1: being lied to. Your life is a program. You do
Speaker 1: not have free will, you need to develop free will
Speaker 1: by any means necessary, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And that is
Speaker 1: such a beautiful idea and a beautiful realization of trans identities.
Speaker 1: That is simultaneously something that apparently spoke to the all Right, So,
Speaker 1: which is so funny. I mean, you point this out
Speaker 1: in your piece that the all Right sees like taking
Speaker 1: the red Pill as this, you know, breaking through this
Speaker 1: lie that you know that has been holding down men
Speaker 1: and were so oppressed. But it's like, actually, you're latching
Speaker 1: onto something that trans women, like like a framework that
Speaker 1: trans women built for you. You know. It's like very
Speaker 1: it's like almost kind of funny. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: um it's uh, it's horribly hilariously misguided. But at the
Speaker 1: same time it makes sense because, like I said earlier,
Speaker 1: this movie is pretty anti capitalist, not like hugely anti capitalist,
Speaker 1: but quite a bit. And there's this there's this range
Speaker 1: of movies from the nineties that are sort of about
Speaker 1: the ways in which they quote unquote victory of capitalism
Speaker 1: over communism and sort of the end of history. Uh,
Speaker 1: the as the the writer Francis Fukuyama dubbed it, the
Speaker 1: end of history had resulted in neoliberalism triumphing over everything
Speaker 1: else and capitalism the best system and all of this,
Speaker 1: and there's all these movies about, well, then why does
Speaker 1: that feel so empty? You know? You have um, I
Speaker 1: think an early example that is ground Talk Day. Ground
Speaker 1: Talk Day is about like being trapped in these routines
Speaker 1: that don't really make sense and then learning to become
Speaker 1: a better person and through those routines. But right in
Speaker 1: the year the Matrix comes out. You have The Matrix,
Speaker 1: which is about that, you have Fight Club, which is
Speaker 1: about that. You have American Beauty, which is about that.
Speaker 1: You have Being John Malkovich, which is kind of about that.
Speaker 1: I think the Matrix is the one that's held up
Speaker 1: best of those. I love Being John Malkovich. Um for
Speaker 1: American Beauty, let's not talk about that. It's kind of
Speaker 1: movie when you think about it. Yeah, My Club is good,
Speaker 1: but so many people have taken the wrong message from
Speaker 1: it that it's it's also harder to defend. At least
Speaker 1: with the Matrix you can be like, yeah, a lot
Speaker 1: of people have taken the wrong message from those, but
Speaker 1: it was directed by two trans women, so um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: there's this element of anti capitalism. So when people are like,
Speaker 1: I need to reject the prison that society has placed
Speaker 1: me in, they're so they're so close to what this
Speaker 1: movie is about. They're so close to this idea that, like,
Speaker 1: even if you don't want to go so far as
Speaker 1: to say capitalism is broken, to say that consumerism is broken,
Speaker 1: the idea that you can find freedom and self and
Speaker 1: identity in things like in essence, I think every major philosophy,
Speaker 1: every major religion rejects that idea. Things are not ourselves,
Speaker 1: We are not our things. So like, at the very least,
Speaker 1: that's what the matrix is really talking about. So to
Speaker 1: talk about like to take get that far, get that
Speaker 1: far and grasping its message and get to a place
Speaker 1: where you're like, actually, it's talking about how women have
Speaker 1: made the world bad. Like I don't know how you
Speaker 1: make that that swerve. But every time I talk about
Speaker 1: this movie and I talk about it as an allegory
Speaker 1: for trans identities, um you know, like vox or someone
Speaker 1: posted on Facebook and the comments are full of people
Speaker 1: who are like, no, it's not about that, it's about this,
Speaker 1: and like, yes, that's your that is absolutely your right
Speaker 1: to that interpretation. That's how criticism works, that's how um
Speaker 1: our understanding of art and the death of the author
Speaker 1: and all of that works. But at a certain point,
Speaker 1: the fact that it was written by two trans women
Speaker 1: and directed by two trans women has to enter into
Speaker 1: your generation of what it's all about, and that for
Speaker 1: a lot of people, the idea that it's a trans
Speaker 1: metaphor is mind blowing. Like a friend of mine, Aaron Read,
Speaker 1: another trans woman posted on Twitter. You know, the Matrix
Speaker 1: is directed by two trans women, and there's a metaphor
Speaker 1: for coming out somethink that's simple, and like fifty thousand
Speaker 1: people liked it and we're like, just blew my mind
Speaker 1: and the cysts I just don't know what we're gonna
Speaker 1: do with. Why do you think the idea that the
Speaker 1: Matrix is a metaphor for the trans experience kind of
Speaker 1: goes overlooked so often? I mean, it's it's metaphor. Um,
Speaker 1: Let's take a look at Star Wars. You know. Star
Speaker 1: Wars is the probably the movie before the Matrix. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's definitely the movie before the Matrix that changed the
Speaker 1: film industry at the most. And the Matrix lives in
Speaker 1: Star Wars shadow in the way that everything after the
Speaker 1: Matrix lives in the Matrix is shadow. So you look
Speaker 1: back at Star Wars. Star Wars is a movie that
Speaker 1: George Lucas when he started writing it was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: America's the Empire, the v at Kong, or the Rebels.
Speaker 1: Yet Americans always self identify with the rebels, because you know,
Speaker 1: that's how we like to think of ourselves, our our
Speaker 1: foundational myth is scrappy underdogs overcoming this gigantic colonial power.
Speaker 1: But we don't think about how the makeup of those
Speaker 1: scrappy underdogs was all white landowning men, you know, many
Speaker 1: of whom were slave owners, many of and even other
Speaker 1: people you know who weren't slave owners have done other
Speaker 1: horrible things. And we were displacing indigenous peoples and forcing
Speaker 1: them to move further and further west. And there's a
Speaker 1: lot to that foundational myth that gets written out so
Speaker 1: we can see ourselves as the rebel alliance in Star Wars.
Speaker 1: But the movies continue to make more and more explicit
Speaker 1: that any colonial power like the United States is in
Speaker 1: line with the empire and the people who are being
Speaker 1: colonized are in line with the rebels, and yet you know,
Speaker 1: we still continue to be like, yep, we're the rebel alliance.
Speaker 1: Anytime you take a story that is based in reality
Speaker 1: and moved into metaphor, it's going to be so many
Speaker 1: people who are like, yeah, I see this metaphor as
Speaker 1: directly reflecting my experience, and like that's fair, that's fine,
Speaker 1: you know, like all of those interpretations are valid. That's
Speaker 1: what happens when you're dealing with metaphor, and science fiction
Speaker 1: is inevitably always based on metaphor. In some way, I
Speaker 1: think it's important to take into mind that two trans
Speaker 1: women made this film, but I'm also a trans woman.
Speaker 1: I like the fact that there's this gigantic, defining piece
Speaker 1: of pop pop culture directed by two trans women. When
Speaker 1: I got to interview Lily Wachowski, I nearly crumbled into dust,
Speaker 1: Like I almost fell into fell onto the floor. And
Speaker 1: then she said she'd read my article, and like I,
Speaker 1: I left my body. Uh, I went up to heaven
Speaker 1: for a little bit, came back down. I was like, yes,
Speaker 1: if you haven't already guessed, stories have been immensely gratifying
Speaker 1: for Emily's understanding of herself. When she publicly came out
Speaker 1: as trans, she'd already made a career out of writing
Speaker 1: publicly online. In a spro box, she used The Handmaid's
Speaker 1: Tale as a means of coming to terms with and
Speaker 1: breaking down the walls around what it means to be
Speaker 1: a woman at once a kind of freedom and depression.
Speaker 1: What is it about stories and movies and science fiction
Speaker 1: and TV shows that really helps you understand the world
Speaker 1: around you and your place in it. Understanding womanhood is
Speaker 1: understanding your oppression within the patriarchy. That doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: you yourself are always oppressed. There are a million ways. Well,
Speaker 1: there are three big ways that I have a lot
Speaker 1: more privilege than most trans women. I'm white, so I
Speaker 1: benefit from these societal privileges afforded to white people in America.
Speaker 1: I am upper middle class, and I work for a
Speaker 1: company that covers you know, my health expenses. And I
Speaker 1: live in California, which is a state that has few
Speaker 1: structural barriers to transition. If you're an adult and you
Speaker 1: want to take hormones, Californias like great, go for it. Um.
Speaker 1: Those are three things I have that a lot of
Speaker 1: trans women in the world, the vast majority of trans
Speaker 1: women in the world, do not have those three advantages.
Speaker 1: So that has helped me considerably. And I think especially
Speaker 1: when you grow up as a seemingly when you as
Speaker 1: when you grow up seeming to the world like a white,
Speaker 1: straight syste man, you don't encounter a lot of structural oppression. UM.
Speaker 1: One of the ways that film and television helps us
Speaker 1: understand ourselves better is exposes us to the stories of
Speaker 1: other people. UM. For instance, I am never going to
Speaker 1: have the experience of growing up that Barry Jenkins and
Speaker 1: Terrell Alvin McCreary did. But Moonlight is a movie that
Speaker 1: opens that window to me. I can't completely understand it,
Speaker 1: but I can empathize with it because I've seen through
Speaker 1: that window. I've seen people live those lives. And the
Speaker 1: thing that happens is when the film and television are
Speaker 1: such potent, powerful, um such potent, powerful expressions of the self,
Speaker 1: because they're so riveting, they draw you in so much.
Speaker 1: I know plenty of trans women who found themselves through
Speaker 1: like video games, which is a similar situation. You know,
Speaker 1: they famously would always play the female character and be
Speaker 1: like this feels good. Um. Movies and television give you
Speaker 1: that space to open up and understand yourself better. And
Speaker 1: at some point I had to confront the fact that
Speaker 1: the characters I always most identified with were women, Like
Speaker 1: I always identified with Willow on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Speaker 1: I always identified with Rory on Gilmore girls. You know,
Speaker 1: there was I just had this thing where I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: these these girls, these teenage girls when I was a teenager,
Speaker 1: these teenage girls just they just speak to me on
Speaker 1: some fundamental level. Um. Similarly, Peggy Olsen on Matman. When
Speaker 1: I became an adult, I was like, oh, she's always
Speaker 1: overlooked for her work, and my brain would be like,
Speaker 1: you are not overlooked for your work. A part of
Speaker 1: it is understanding the structural oppression that women face throughout
Speaker 1: the world, particularly in the United States, and coming to
Speaker 1: understand that within yourself and the ways that you see
Speaker 1: it without in the world. But also there's an element
Speaker 1: of personal oppression. I wasn't facing the oppression. I wasn't
Speaker 1: facing the roadblocks that Peggy Olsen faced to get my
Speaker 1: writing notice, to get things published. The second I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I think I'd like to be a TV critic,
Speaker 1: Like people were like, here's some jobs, white Man, and
Speaker 1: kind of like now I look back, and that kind
Speaker 1: of blows my mind. Like my qualification was I was
Speaker 1: a good writer, and I don't want to dismerch out
Speaker 1: that is a good qualification to have if you want
Speaker 1: to be a writer. But I just kind of asked
Speaker 1: for the job and people gave it to me, and like, WHOA,
Speaker 1: what is that? So I was not being kept down
Speaker 1: like Peggy Olson, but I was. I was keeping myself down.
Speaker 1: Peggy Olson was doing all the writing in the back
Speaker 1: of my brain, and this guy was getting all the
Speaker 1: credit for it. And there is an element of yes,
Speaker 1: understanding structural oppression. Yes, understanding the patriarchy, Yes, understanding the
Speaker 1: ways that women are are just just the microaggressions that
Speaker 1: women face every day when someone's like, hey, sweetie, how
Speaker 1: you do it, and you're just like he fine. But
Speaker 1: even deeper and more powerful is the the coming to
Speaker 1: understand and conceptualize of yourself as a woman and breaking
Speaker 1: through the layers of oppression you have placed upon yourself.
Speaker 1: And the reason the Internet is such a powerful tool
Speaker 1: to do that is because it gives that that Peggy
Speaker 1: Olson in the back of my brain an outlet where
Speaker 1: she can keep writing, and she can keep leaving the
Speaker 1: messages in that writing, and I can be like, you know,
Speaker 1: this is really interesting, the way that you seem disconnected
Speaker 1: from yourself, as though your true self is someone else,
Speaker 1: and then be like, oh, it's two thirteen. Let's put
Speaker 1: that on hold for a while. Um, so yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: It is a way in which the larger oppressions of
Speaker 1: society become visited in the personal oppression of the self.
Speaker 1: Because you're terrified of the thought if I'm trans, that
Speaker 1: seems really hard. Can I just try to not be trans?
Speaker 1: That's what society is asking you to do, is to
Speaker 1: try to not be trans, and you are manifesting that
Speaker 1: within yourself. Film and television helps you break through that wall.
Speaker 1: I probably don't need to tell you that being a
Speaker 1: woman online sometimes means dealing with harassment. And the fact is,
Speaker 1: as we're talking, Emily has been driven off of her
Speaker 1: own platforms because people don't like that she's speaking up
Speaker 1: as the authority of her own experience. But for all
Speaker 1: the bad experience that she faces online, it's also where
Speaker 1: she builds community with other trans women. Every day, I
Speaker 1: wake up to two or three Twitter dm so I
Speaker 1: leave my Twitter d ms open because that's how a
Speaker 1: lot of questioning trans women find me, and that is
Speaker 1: very important to me. That is part of what I
Speaker 1: think is like part of my reason to be on
Speaker 1: this planet is to help those trans women find their way.
Speaker 1: And I wake up to two or three d m
Speaker 1: s from guys who are like, hey, you're beautiful, Hey
Speaker 1: you know, and it's not even like bad, it's just
Speaker 1: kind of like I don't need this, and I just
Speaker 1: delete them and like, that's just become I realized the
Speaker 1: other day that has become a low level radiation hum
Speaker 1: in my life. I'm just like, you know what, this
Speaker 1: is the thing I have to put up with, and
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have to put up with it. It's not
Speaker 1: a thing I should have to put up with. But
Speaker 1: you just get in neared to it. You're just like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm a woman online. This is just how it is.
Speaker 1: And that also goes for you know, being a trans
Speaker 1: woman online. There are people who I really don't like
Speaker 1: trans women, but I tend to have them blocked or
Speaker 1: I tend to have them, I tend to not listen
Speaker 1: to them and just you know, immediately get rid of
Speaker 1: them from my my feed. There are just as many
Speaker 1: people who and these are trickier to find. Usually. There
Speaker 1: are people who fetishize trans identities. There's people there are
Speaker 1: there are you know, men who um love trans women
Speaker 1: and like I want to, but have turned it into
Speaker 1: kind of a fetish and have turned my identity into
Speaker 1: kind of a fetish. And in the community we call
Speaker 1: them chasers. Um. I don't know if I'm like breaking
Speaker 1: breaking a law saying that among the cists, but uh,
Speaker 1: and like they're harder to find because they're often just
Speaker 1: like they reply to you and they're like, you're great
Speaker 1: way to go, and you're like, oh, thank you for
Speaker 1: your support. Good male ally. But sometimes and the problem
Speaker 1: is sometimes they're what we call eggs, you know, which
Speaker 1: is a trans woman who hasn't yet self accepted, but
Speaker 1: it's knocking at that door and like them saying you're
Speaker 1: a great way to go. Like I remember when Laura
Speaker 1: Jane Grace, the synca from Against Me, came out, I
Speaker 1: posted a comment on my website, The A D Club,
Speaker 1: where I was writing at the time. I posted a
Speaker 1: comment that was like, good for her, she did great,
Speaker 1: and it's really good whenever anyone can overcome, you know,
Speaker 1: find themselves blah blah blah. And if you go find it,
Speaker 1: it's so obviously about myself and I don't know how
Speaker 1: to say that, and it's just but at the time
Speaker 1: I just was like, yeah, what a great thing. And
Speaker 1: like that's the problem. You can't always tell the people
Speaker 1: who fetishize you from the people who really do just
Speaker 1: want to celebrate you, or the people who are celebrating
Speaker 1: you because they want to celebrate themselves because there's a
Speaker 1: huge overlap in all of those areas. So I guess
Speaker 1: on some level, I just got used to the low
Speaker 1: level radiation home of terrible people. On another level, UM,
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier my best friend and she reached out
Speaker 1: to my I had a long for a long time,
Speaker 1: I had a secret Twitter account where I posted as
Speaker 1: a girl named Emily and was talking about my journey
Speaker 1: towards transition. I had that account for over a year
Speaker 1: before I came out publicly, and I still have it. Um,
Speaker 1: it's a Sandalwood Emily. I leave it up so that
Speaker 1: people who are questioning can go back and see my journey,
Speaker 1: go back to the very start in March and read
Speaker 1: all the way through. Uh. But uh, my best friend
Speaker 1: reached out to me in d M there and was like, listen,
Speaker 1: I really love the stuff you've written. Because I was
Speaker 1: writing a newsletter under the name and Emily sandal Wood,
Speaker 1: and she just was like, I really love the stuff
Speaker 1: you've written. I speak so deeply to me. I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure I'm a trans woman. It was her like guy account. Um,
Speaker 1: I will take one million harassing tweets for that one
Speaker 1: DM for that. She is my heart. She and I
Speaker 1: have been through so much together, and I adore her.
Speaker 1: The Internet is a terrible place, but it's also a
Speaker 1: place where you can find the people you need. I am,
Speaker 1: and I'm in so many communities with their trans people
Speaker 1: that are closed. You know, they're they're slacks or discords
Speaker 1: or Facebook groups or whatever. And those people have found
Speaker 1: each other over the Internet, usually overread it or Twitter,
Speaker 1: two platforms we think of as gross and horrible and bad,
Speaker 1: and yes they are, and yes I have been subject
Speaker 1: to Twitter harassment um, both on a hugely large scale
Speaker 1: and on a really minor scale where you just learned
Speaker 1: to tune it out, which is maybe not what you
Speaker 1: should do. The second I came out, somebody on four
Speaker 1: chune Um doctored up an article supposedly written by me
Speaker 1: about how white babies are white supremacy and that I
Speaker 1: had supposedly written this and it was obviously fake. It
Speaker 1: didn't use any of Box's typefaces. It was written published
Speaker 1: under the my old name and then the last name
Speaker 1: Van Whirf, which is a name I've never viewed. It's
Speaker 1: just amazing, Honestly. The thing I respect least is the craftsmanship.
Speaker 1: Like if you want to try to like get me
Speaker 1: in trouble with people, you can at least like make
Speaker 1: it look real. You google it, it doesn't come up.
Speaker 1: I identify myself as a person of color within it
Speaker 1: when I'm very obviously like just milky white. Um, my
Speaker 1: friends used to call me the Milkman when I was
Speaker 1: like like corn fed Captain America Midwestern Shocks. And so
Speaker 1: many people have approached me about this is you did
Speaker 1: you do this? And there's so many people who like
Speaker 1: are online and they're just like, yep, this is yet
Speaker 1: another trans woman who just thinks, you know, blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, and it's people project shit onto me
Speaker 1: all the time. Now, people just project whatever they want
Speaker 1: to on me. That's the thing I've realized. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to write about this. I'm trying to write about the
Speaker 1: harassment trans women in in the world. Are our phantoms.
Speaker 1: People hear us, they see us, but they don't really.
Speaker 1: They have conjured a version of us that they believe
Speaker 1: in so much more strongly. And we can be in
Speaker 1: the same room with them and there can be something
Speaker 1: making noise upstairs, you know, rattling chains or thumping around
Speaker 1: on the floor, and people will be like there's that
Speaker 1: trans woman again, and you can be there and be like,
Speaker 1: I'm not that, I'm this person, I'm someone else, and
Speaker 1: that's all they'll hear is the phantom. But then you'll
Speaker 1: find someone who's in the room with you and sees
Speaker 1: you and knows you and says, Hi, you are the
Speaker 1: person I've been looking for my whole life. That's worth it.
Speaker 1: It's worth it for that. When people have quote intellectual
Speaker 1: debate about trans people, they talk about them like that
Speaker 1: this abstract concept conjured up for the sake of argument.
Speaker 1: And even when media outlet's wrote about the harassment Emily
Speaker 1: faced after speaking up when a coworkers signed the Harper's letter,
Speaker 1: they covered it like some kind of petty ideological workplace dispute.
Speaker 1: But this is about Emily's actual life and our actual
Speaker 1: lived experience as a trans woman. Gender is hard coded
Speaker 1: into us in a way that I think it's hard
Speaker 1: persist people to understand or imagine. I think art is
Speaker 1: the best way to express that. I can tell you
Speaker 1: all the times until I'm blue in the face, that
Speaker 1: like womanhood makes more sense to me, that taking estrogen
Speaker 1: made my brain come alive in the way it never had,
Speaker 1: that having that my body increasingly feels like my body,
Speaker 1: and before it was just kind of like the substraction
Speaker 1: that I existed within that. Now I can be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it would be cool to look like Keanu Reeves for
Speaker 1: a day, but I would immediately want to come back
Speaker 1: to who I am right now because this is home.
Speaker 1: This is what feels like home. I mean, it would
Speaker 1: be cool to look like Kiana Reeves a day. He's
Speaker 1: very handsome. It's very handsome, you've noticed, but more after
Speaker 1: this quick rain, let's get right back to it. Just
Speaker 1: like Neo use the Internet to help understand the true
Speaker 1: nature of identity, Emily is hardened to say so many
Speaker 1: people using social media to get closer to who they
Speaker 1: are too. The thing I always tell people who reach
Speaker 1: out to me on Twitter dot com, no, like, I
Speaker 1: just don't feel attached to my manhood. It's usually trans women.
Speaker 1: I'm my manhood at all, And I'm like, it's worth
Speaker 1: probing that you might just be a siss guy who
Speaker 1: has like these restrictions that have been placed on you
Speaker 1: that you don't feel comfortable with, and learning what those
Speaker 1: are and better defining yourself is fine? Is good? Is optimal?
Speaker 1: Everybody should have to examine why their gender is the
Speaker 1: way it is, and what about the ways it's been
Speaker 1: programmed in for them work for them, and what don't.
Speaker 1: I'm a very feminine trans woman. I've run all the
Speaker 1: way opposite direction of how I was raised. But I
Speaker 1: like it. I like wearing dresses, and I like, you know,
Speaker 1: going out for for for brunch with my girlfriends when
Speaker 1: we can leave the house. Um, I like all those
Speaker 1: things that you were so with an extremely basic white
Speaker 1: lady because I'm an extremely basic white lady. But like
Speaker 1: that feels good, that feels like a home. I want
Speaker 1: everybody's gender to feel like home to them, and I
Speaker 1: think for many SIS people it doesn't and they don't
Speaker 1: look into it and they don't understand why when it
Speaker 1: might be just one thing, it might be just like, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm a SIS guy. But but this thing where we
Speaker 1: all sit around and you know, um, compare notes about
Speaker 1: women we've had sex with. It doesn't feel good to me.
Speaker 1: It doesn't feel right to me. I don't like this
Speaker 1: aspect of my gender. Then you could cut it out
Speaker 1: of your life and you'll feel better, you'll feel more whole.
Speaker 1: Or maybe you're like me, and you sat there and
Speaker 1: listened to all of that and you're like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I feel like really uncomfortable right now. There's this element
Speaker 1: of I feel like a spy, like a spy who's
Speaker 1: like learning secrets about how I behaved. And I didn't
Speaker 1: understand that when I was in high school and all
Speaker 1: my friends were like, um, I didn't understand why that
Speaker 1: may be uncomfortable. At the time, I thought it was
Speaker 1: because I was a good Christian and I didn't like
Speaker 1: to think about, you know, sexuality, and all I do
Speaker 1: like hearing other women referred to that way, like it
Speaker 1: is worth examining your gender. If you think your sis,
Speaker 1: you're probably just gonna land on yeah I'm a man
Speaker 1: or yeah I'm a woman, but you might go somewhere
Speaker 1: more interesting, you know. I think I see one of
Speaker 1: the things that I think is really encouraging to me.
Speaker 1: There's a number of people who use he, they or
Speaker 1: she they pronouns, which is like, yeah, Okay, I'm comfortable
Speaker 1: being identified as a man or a woman, but there
Speaker 1: is this part of me that does not fit that
Speaker 1: binary and that is where that they comes in. It's
Speaker 1: somewhere in the mushy middle and most of us live
Speaker 1: in the mushy middle, like, yeah, I'm very feminine, but
Speaker 1: I have several traditionally masculine things I like. That doesn't
Speaker 1: make me non binary. I don't want to claim that identity,
Speaker 1: so that is worth That is encouraging to me. This
Speaker 1: idea that like more people are accepting that gender is flexible,
Speaker 1: that it can change over time, that it can you
Speaker 1: can have better understanding of yourself over time, that whatever
Speaker 1: was hard coded into you by society is not necessarily
Speaker 1: what's hard coded into you by you. I mean, you're
Speaker 1: seeing so many seemingly heterosexual people now be like, you know,
Speaker 1: I think I might be by or I think I
Speaker 1: might be panned because that door is open, and I
Speaker 1: think that's going to happen with gender, and I'm excited
Speaker 1: for it happen with gender, and I hope it happens
Speaker 1: with gender, because I don't think any of us is
Speaker 1: holy man or holy woman. We're all some combination of
Speaker 1: things from those those types, and then we just we
Speaker 1: use words and pronouns to describe who we are, and
Speaker 1: it's always an exact Really early on in transition, I
Speaker 1: read something along line, so there's I don't I think
Speaker 1: it's eight billion people. There's eight billion people on the planets.
Speaker 1: There are eight billion genders, and like, it seems like
Speaker 1: a lot, but yeah, genders a vastly personal experience. And
Speaker 1: then we create these umbrellas to place them under. And
Speaker 1: we only had two for a long time, and now
Speaker 1: we have a bunch more, and that's good, that's great.
Speaker 1: I think it is an exciting time. I think that
Speaker 1: in the US especially, there is a dawning awareness of
Speaker 1: the ways in which trans identities are real and intersect
Speaker 1: with other identities, be that, you know, womanhood, be that
Speaker 1: racial identities. Um, there's a there's a much greater awareness
Speaker 1: of the ways that trans women of color, particularly black
Speaker 1: and Latino Latina, particularly black and Latino trans women are
Speaker 1: hugely at danger of violent crime and like. But there
Speaker 1: is now increasingly an awareness of that. Awareness is not action.
Speaker 1: Awareness does not save the lives of any of those
Speaker 1: black trans women, but hopefully it makes it easier and
Speaker 1: better and more just for future generations, and hopefully that
Speaker 1: life expectancy, you know, raises up to a level where
Speaker 1: you know, the same as any of the rest of us,
Speaker 1: get to lead long and fulfilling lives, and we have
Speaker 1: things we need to work on in the US, where
Speaker 1: it's far worse as the UK. The K has become
Speaker 1: just a disaster area for trans people, the structural barriers
Speaker 1: they face, the degree to which folks with very large
Speaker 1: platforms like j. K. Rowland are making it harder for
Speaker 1: people people exist there. I live in a country, the
Speaker 1: United States, where there's a a extremely conservative Supreme Court
Speaker 1: that is making the country demonstrably a worst place for equality.
Speaker 1: And yet they enshrined trans rights basically, um, like the
Speaker 1: very baseline level of trans right. So it's not crazy,
Speaker 1: Like the least they could do. The least they could do.
Speaker 1: They enshrined it because they were like, you know what,
Speaker 1: the constitution forces us to do this, and like that
Speaker 1: was piece was like, you know what, I don't want
Speaker 1: to do this, but I kind of have to. So
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you Neial course for that. Um, that's
Speaker 1: not happening in the UK. The UK is increasingly run
Speaker 1: by transphobic people for transphobic people, and that's going to
Speaker 1: be a fight we have to win. Um, that's going
Speaker 1: to be if I'm glad to undertake. But also I'm
Speaker 1: not in the UK. I have trans woman friends in
Speaker 1: the UK, and they are terrified, you know, especially now
Speaker 1: that the UK is no longer in the EU and
Speaker 1: they can't just DeCamp for like Germany or a country
Speaker 1: that's better for trans rights. You know. Um, I'm going
Speaker 1: to have to marry all of them so they can
Speaker 1: move to the US, where we have the where we
Speaker 1: have the you know what. I don't want to do this,
Speaker 1: but I have to. While Emily was offline, her friends
Speaker 1: took over her social media accounts so she wouldn't have
Speaker 1: to deal with the barrage of threats and harassment. Her
Speaker 1: friends used the opportunity to raise money for House of tulip,
Speaker 1: an organization that supports trans and gender nonconforming folks experiencing
Speaker 1: homelessness as a way of finding a little light amidst
Speaker 1: all the darkness. So what have the last forty eight
Speaker 1: hours been like for you? The thing I found so
Speaker 1: interesting is when I was harassed, it was about forty
Speaker 1: eight hours of the worst I've ever been online, and
Speaker 1: I posted a thread about how hard it had been
Speaker 1: and just like how I couldn't sleep, and how I
Speaker 1: faced death threats and how I just kind of wanted
Speaker 1: to no longer exist, not in a self harmy way,
Speaker 1: just like, oh, it's really hard to be alive right now.
Speaker 1: So I posted that, and a friend of mine who
Speaker 1: works at Twitter, and then people at Box Media who
Speaker 1: have contacts at Twitter, both were like, I think I can.
Speaker 1: I think I can find a way to take care
Speaker 1: of this instantly. The harassment dropped, but probably and it
Speaker 1: wasn't because it wasn't happening. When I go and look
Speaker 1: for it, I can still find it, but I really
Speaker 1: have to poke around because it's been hidden beneath so
Speaker 1: many layers. And good, I'm glad it's hidden beneath so
Speaker 1: many layers. That kind of hateful speech is I believe,
Speaker 1: you know, it exists within society, but doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be on privately owned platforms. Like if somebody wants to
Speaker 1: stand in the public square and yell about how trans
Speaker 1: women shouldn't exist, I'm not going to stop them, but
Speaker 1: they should not be given up bullhorn. You know, they
Speaker 1: should not be given a bullhorn. A corporation should not
Speaker 1: come down to that person and hand them with bullhorn
Speaker 1: emblazoned with their their their symbol or their logo rather
Speaker 1: and let them just shout into it. Like if they
Speaker 1: want to shout in the park whatever. But what happens
Speaker 1: functionally is that online they you know, one person becomes
Speaker 1: five people, sometimes literally, sometimes they set up five accounts.
Speaker 1: And sometimes it's just like they shout loud enough that
Speaker 1: other people start shouting with their shouting. Other people start
Speaker 1: shouting with their shouting, and like, sometimes that's how good
Speaker 1: ideas spread, but most of the time that's how bad
Speaker 1: ideas spread. We know so much about how that takes
Speaker 1: people from maybe have a couple of questions about transidentities
Speaker 1: that they're not sure about, and it radicalizes them. It
Speaker 1: pushes them further and further in the direction of transphobia.
Speaker 1: And then there's somebody right there reaching out their hand
Speaker 1: to be like, have you heard about anti semitism or
Speaker 1: you know, have you heard about here are some of
Speaker 1: the other other things you can do to make the
Speaker 1: world the worst place. And that person's like, thank you,
Speaker 1: you know, but now I'm going to try this with everybody.
Speaker 1: You know. I don't think I don't think J. K
Speaker 1: Rowling is suddenly going to you know, start um, I
Speaker 1: don't think J. K Rowling is suddenly going to start
Speaker 1: like hurling racist, racist slurs on Twitter. But this is
Speaker 1: much like, like now she's much less likely to examine
Speaker 1: the way she uses characters of color in her books,
Speaker 1: which is almost never good, and you know, like like
Speaker 1: that's just that's the the The prevalence of social media
Speaker 1: makes it so easy to not self examined, to not
Speaker 1: ask those questions of yourself, and just like find some
Speaker 1: of those people with bullhorns and just be like, I
Speaker 1: agree with you. So my experience with Twitter was I
Speaker 1: think they could make the platform better if they really
Speaker 1: wanted to. For all the people on Twitter accusing Emily
Speaker 1: of wanting to crush free speech, she's actually really open
Speaker 1: with free discussion and criticism. In fact, she says criticism
Speaker 1: has been helpful for her own understanding of the world
Speaker 1: and her place in it. The nice thing about Twitter
Speaker 1: is if I say a thing, and um, somebody doesn't
Speaker 1: agree with that thing, who's from a different identity than
Speaker 1: my own, and they push back against it, that's valid,
Speaker 1: you know, like they're I don't do everything perfectly. People
Speaker 1: should criticize me. I'm not above criticism. People have criticized me,
Speaker 1: and I've tried to make amends or edit the article
Speaker 1: that they're you know, not happy with, or whatever. And
Speaker 1: you know, it always feels kind of shitty. You know,
Speaker 1: you're always like, I can't believe I screwed up. I
Speaker 1: wish I hadn't screwed up, and you're kind of like
Speaker 1: taking it on yourself. It's a natural human reaction. But
Speaker 1: I've learned to not push that out, you know, I've
Speaker 1: learned to be like I've learned to have the self
Speaker 1: pity that's okay, that's a human thing, but also be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: when you screw up, you screw up. A lot of
Speaker 1: people don't learn that, and honestly, me learning it was
Speaker 1: directly tied to come out as a trans woman, because
Speaker 1: you kind of have to learn to just deal with
Speaker 1: you realize all of the ways in which society is
Speaker 1: telling eyes about you, and then you start to be like, well,
Speaker 1: what are other lives I believe about people who aren't
Speaker 1: like me? I think it is hard to escape the
Speaker 1: lies that are told about groups that are not like you,
Speaker 1: But it's even harder to escape the lies that you've
Speaker 1: told about yourself. Um, I uh, spent years and years
Speaker 1: and years and years no way I wanted to be
Speaker 1: a girl, but thinking that that didn't make me trans.
Speaker 1: I hadn't known from when I was a little kid. Well,
Speaker 1: actually I had. I just had those memories forcibly taken
Speaker 1: away from me. I know, I wasn't in tremendous pain
Speaker 1: about my gender. Well actually I was. I was hiding
Speaker 1: it from myself. I just felt like an automaton. And
Speaker 1: then one day I read this interview with Daniel Lavery,
Speaker 1: the trans guy writer, and he was like, I felt
Speaker 1: my whole life like I was a brain in a jar,
Speaker 1: and now I don't. I was like, I feel like
Speaker 1: a brain in a jar. And I had known I
Speaker 1: was trans. I thought there was like a like a
Speaker 1: test I had to pass. I p s a T
Speaker 1: for transmitting in probably elite programs. And right up until
Speaker 1: I published my essay, I was convinced that somebody was
Speaker 1: going to come and say you're not trans enough. And
Speaker 1: then I published my essay and everyone was like, oh cool,
Speaker 1: your name is Emily, great, we love it. And now
Speaker 1: I have so many people and this is kind of
Speaker 1: this is kind of a shitty thing to say, but
Speaker 1: I hope people never stopped tout staying and I've forgotten
Speaker 1: your dead name, and like, I'm sure they have um.
Speaker 1: But that's also kind of great. It's also kind of
Speaker 1: great to know that, like Emily makes more sense to
Speaker 1: the world than my old self did. If you go
Speaker 1: look up videos of me on YouTube, they're there. I'm
Speaker 1: just kind of sitting there like a lump, just like
Speaker 1: gazing inarticulately into the distance. And then somebody will ask
Speaker 1: me a question, and I'll speak up very you know whatever,
Speaker 1: I'll speak up very smartly about whatever it is I'm
Speaker 1: talking about, because my brain, you know, is still interested
Speaker 1: in the same things and whatever. But there were so
Speaker 1: many lives I've been told my whole life that I
Speaker 1: had internalized about what it meant to be trans, about
Speaker 1: what it meant to be a woman, about what it
Speaker 1: meant to be the intersection of those two identities of
Speaker 1: trans woman, about what it meant to be, you know,
Speaker 1: a gay or straight or whatever, all of these sort
Speaker 1: of spectrums that we fall on or fall within. And
Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons that transphobia has run
Speaker 1: so rampant right now. Uh So, it's because we're the
Speaker 1: flavor dure which will pass in time. Um, I mean
Speaker 1: never entirely structural inequality never goes away. But some of
Speaker 1: it is also we symbolize of breaking down of that
Speaker 1: order a little bit, we symbolize a breaking down of Oh,
Speaker 1: if this binary isn't real, what other binaries aren't real?
Speaker 1: What other systems are inequitable? What other systems can or
Speaker 1: should even be burned down? How is the matrix real
Speaker 1: and how is it false? What does it mean to
Speaker 1: take a red pill? What does it mean to take
Speaker 1: a blue pill? What are you comfortable with that you
Speaker 1: shouldn't be comfortable with? And what are you uncomfortable about
Speaker 1: that you should examine more? What does it mean to
Speaker 1: live in a world that is not entirely real, that
Speaker 1: is built for you by people who want to maintain
Speaker 1: their own power in the name of everything else and
Speaker 1: above all else? Why is that spider drone living in
Speaker 1: your stomach? Because that's creepy. Leave it to Emily to
Speaker 1: send us off with a matrix joke. To donate to
Speaker 1: Health of Tulip, the nonprofit creating housing solutions for trans
Speaker 1: and gender nonconforming people in Louisiana, check the link in
Speaker 1: the episode description. We're taking your break for the holidays,
Speaker 1: but we'll be back with all new episodes bill soon.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, check out our March store at tangodi
Speaker 1: dot com, slash mark and please stay in touch. Got
Speaker 1: a story about an interesting thing in tech? I just
Speaker 1: want to say hi. You can be just at Hello
Speaker 1: at tangodi dot com. You can also find transcripts for
Speaker 1: today's episode at tangodi dot com. There Are No Girls
Speaker 1: on the Internet was created by me Bridget Tod. It's
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio and Unboss creative Jonathan
Speaker 1: Strickland as our executive producer, Terry Harrison as our producer
Speaker 1: and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow,
Speaker 1: rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeart Radio, check out the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.