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Speaker 1: Lemon. Welcome to On Purpose. Grateful to have you here.
Speaker 1: I've looked forward to sitting with you for a long
Speaker 1: long time, and so I really appreciate your space and
Speaker 1: your energy and for you being here. And I want
Speaker 1: to start off by asking you what childhood memory do
Speaker 1: you have that you feel has defined the person that
Speaker 1: you are today or most defines the person you are today.
Speaker 2: There's a few. There was a traumatic one that I
Speaker 2: don't like to talk about that happened when I was
Speaker 2: two years old that was deeply traumatic that certainly shaped
Speaker 2: a lot of the trauma of my childhood, a lot
Speaker 2: of the shame based parts of my childhood. My first
Speaker 2: interactions with children are the children when I was in
Speaker 2: sort of preschool, when I was probably five years old,
Speaker 2: when I was bullied and called the F word and
Speaker 2: a sissy, and the kids that I acted like a girl.
Speaker 2: I often say the irony of my life is when
Speaker 2: I was a child, the kids called me a girl,
Speaker 2: and as an adult people call me a man. That
Speaker 2: I've transitioned and accepted my womanhood. That's interesting. So it's
Speaker 2: interesting thinking that like other people told me, I was
Speaker 2: a girl before I sort of fully was able to
Speaker 2: accept or reckon with it, and it wasn't a good
Speaker 2: positive thing, you know, right, because I was assigned mail
Speaker 2: at birth as a transperson, being called a girl with
Speaker 2: sort of a bad thing in the eyes of the
Speaker 2: other children. So that's an early memory in terms of
Speaker 2: interacting with other kids, and then dancing I am during
Speaker 2: back in the day. I think, I don't know if
Speaker 2: there's still physical education in schools, but I'm fifty one
Speaker 2: years old and we had pe physical education and during
Speaker 2: free play while the other kids were sort of playing sports.
Speaker 2: I was off to the side, dancing by myself with
Speaker 2: music in my head, and I would sort of have
Speaker 2: characters that I would kind of portray through movement, and
Speaker 2: I'd be imitating what I saw on television from Solid Gold.
Speaker 2: For those people who are my age who know solid
Speaker 2: Gold was this show in the eighties, was a countdown
Speaker 2: show that counted down the top hits of the week,
Speaker 2: and they had solid Gold dancers, and there was this
Speaker 2: beautiful black woman named Darcel Wynn who was the lead
Speaker 2: Solid Gold dancer, and she had long hair sort of
Speaker 2: down to her knees, and she was so sexy and
Speaker 2: so vivacious, and so I was sort of pretending to
Speaker 2: be Darcel as I danced in pe and free play
Speaker 2: and then church and speaking in church almost every Sunday.
Speaker 2: My mother reminds me that I would summarize this Sunday
Speaker 2: school lesson every Sunday, and Children's Day was like the
Speaker 2: fourth Sunday of every month, and I was always sort
Speaker 2: of getting up and making speeches in church, and that
Speaker 2: even though I'm not a religious person now I'm very spiritual.
Speaker 2: Church was this performance opportunity. The religious part of it
Speaker 2: wasn't affirming It was very shaming, but the performance part
Speaker 2: of it was very affirming. Being told that I was
Speaker 2: a speaker and that I was smart was something that
Speaker 2: dancing and starting to study dance in third grade and
Speaker 2: doing talent shows and then being considered a smart kid
Speaker 2: who spoke well became my identity in terms of how
Speaker 2: I saw myself, in addition to the identity that was
Speaker 2: sort of placed on me that was from the other
Speaker 2: kids and from my teachers, the bullied identity, the freak,
Speaker 2: the sissy, the F word, the queer, all those identities
Speaker 2: that were stigmatized were sort of placed on me. But
Speaker 2: I also won talent shows and was a good speaker.
Speaker 2: And there's this one moment in seventh grade. I know
Speaker 2: you asked for one childhood member.
Speaker 1: I this is beautiful.
Speaker 2: But there is one moment in seventh grade where I
Speaker 2: ran for vice president of the student council and I
Speaker 2: remember sort of doing the campaign. I made little flyers
Speaker 2: and stuff, and like I was this very by middle school,
Speaker 2: I was dressing myself with things from the Salvation Army
Speaker 2: and they were it was not quite gender non conforming yet,
Speaker 2: but it was going more in an androgynist direction, and
Speaker 2: I was kind of this know it all kid. I
Speaker 2: was like, you know, raising my hand. You know, to
Speaker 2: be the first one to answer questions in class is
Speaker 2: very annoying. And I was chased home from school every
Speaker 2: day by kids who wanted to beat me up and
Speaker 2: call it, you know, this is the F word, bullied
Speaker 2: because I was very fim. But when the year that
Speaker 2: I ran for student council president, we all got to
Speaker 2: make speeches, and right after the speeches, the kids voted,
Speaker 2: and I remember the beginning of my speech was quality
Speaker 2: is my principal and qualified is my attitude. I don't
Speaker 2: know what I say after that, and I just remember
Speaker 2: the kids being like and they throwed it for me,
Speaker 2: and I became visperate than in the student council. So
Speaker 2: this kid that like no one liked, who they made
Speaker 2: fun of, there was something about me speaking in this
Speaker 2: moment with this confidence and this sense of something I
Speaker 2: don't know, maybe speaking in church every Sunday that they
Speaker 2: voted for me, and that was a really wonderful moment
Speaker 2: of screw you to the kids. It's like they voted
Speaker 2: for me, but like I was also like this kid
Speaker 2: that everyone made fun of and didn't like. So there
Speaker 2: was you know, and looking back, and I've talked to
Speaker 2: very few people from middle school, but like I think,
Speaker 2: even though they all sort of made fun of me,
Speaker 2: there was an acknowledgement that there was talent and there
Speaker 2: was intelligence there. And how wonderful, as traumatizing as my
Speaker 2: childhood was to create a sense of self it, you know,
Speaker 2: reading drama of the Gifted Child, I understand that, you know,
Speaker 2: in retrospect, my identity became a about accomplishment and not
Speaker 2: who I was authentically. But how wonderful to be a
Speaker 2: kid who valued education because of my mother, who was
Speaker 2: a teacher, and had this identity that was attached to
Speaker 2: accomplishments and intelligence and talent. That's a lovely thing, particularly
Speaker 2: as I, you know, as a woman in the world
Speaker 2: where so often now now fifty one year old woman
Speaker 2: thinking about aging and who's an actress in Hollywood, and
Speaker 2: so much of being a woman is about how we look,
Speaker 2: and so much of how I grew up was about
Speaker 2: my talent and intelligence and not that and that's a
Speaker 2: beautiful thing. That's a really really beautiful thing to have
Speaker 2: those things be valued and associate it with who you are.
Speaker 2: And so as I, you know, sort of go into
Speaker 2: the world and do a lot of different things, knowing
Speaker 2: that I'm talented, knowing that I'm smart, and that because
Speaker 2: of all that training in church and do in public
Speaker 2: speaking competitions, and you know, valuing education is still being
Speaker 2: just a student of so many different things that I
Speaker 2: can lead with those things, and that that those are
Speaker 2: the reasons why I've you know, gotten to where I am.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, on God's time, not my time.
Speaker 2: I thought it should have happened, you know, twenty five
Speaker 2: years ago, but it didn't happen till I was forty.
Speaker 2: But it did happened right on time and when there
Speaker 2: was a sense of purpose attached to it and that
Speaker 2: there was something to say. And so that is my
Speaker 2: another intention of today is to try to say things
Speaker 2: in a way that people can hear. I've been grappling
Speaker 2: a lot with how sort of anti intellectual our world is.
Speaker 2: There's so many divides in this culture right now around
Speaker 2: you know, liberal and conservative and all that stuff, but
Speaker 2: it is one of the big ones is people who've
Speaker 2: gone to college and who haven't and how they vote.
Speaker 2: You know, I think most non college educated people vote
Speaker 2: for the Republican Party. And then I'm an actress, but
Speaker 2: I talk in a way, you know, I'm an intersectional
Speaker 2: feminist and I you know, read Belle Hooks and I
Speaker 2: just did a podcast episode dedicated to her, and I
Speaker 2: use phrases like imperless, white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy to evoke
Speaker 2: bell Hooks's work. So I talk in this way that's like,
Speaker 2: that's not always accessible. So I want to be able
Speaker 2: to meet people where they are, but I don't want
Speaker 2: to done myself down either. But I'm just aware of
Speaker 2: the elitism tie to certain kinds of ways of speaking
Speaker 2: and certain kinds of education. But I also am aware
Speaker 2: that language. Sometimes to be exacting with language, we have
Speaker 2: to use words like patriarchy and white supremacy and heteronormativity,
Speaker 2: you know, to really sort of talk about what's going
Speaker 2: on or trauma or resilience. So sometimes to really be
Speaker 2: precise with language and exacting with language, you might come
Speaker 2: across as a little bit elitist and grappling with that too,
Speaker 2: just as someone now who has been a working class
Speaker 2: person until I was like in my forties and then
Speaker 2: now you know, have some class privilege, So just grappling
Speaker 2: with privilege. I'm constantly sort of grappling and questioning myself
Speaker 2: and my positionality and trying to not be this that
Speaker 2: of touch Hollywood actress.
Speaker 1: Thank you for connecting the dots for us. I could
Speaker 1: see how the experiences you were having back then you
Speaker 1: can kind of draw that line, and I could see
Speaker 1: you kind of connecting the dots in your own mind
Speaker 1: to where you are today. And I love that you
Speaker 1: present your experience as so much more of a paradox
Speaker 1: and a dichotomy as opposed to clarity, because I think
Speaker 1: that clarity comes from the questioning and the curiosity that
Speaker 1: you have about your own experience. Earlier, you used the
Speaker 1: term you said you're learning to reparent. You're in a
Speaker 1: child yes, And you could hear that in the way
Speaker 1: you were describing the journey so far. What are parts
Speaker 1: of yourself that you think you've spent the most time
Speaker 1: reparenting or what does that look like?
Speaker 2: So much of it is about how I framed my story.
Speaker 2: I'm a Brene Brown stand slash scholar. And when we
Speaker 2: disown our stories, we're defined by them. When we own
Speaker 2: our stories, we can write a brave new ending. And
Speaker 2: so much and actually, interestingly enough, on the podcast, I
Speaker 2: was just watching one of your earlier podcasts when you
Speaker 2: had Oprah on talking about what happened to me and
Speaker 2: so much of the way I for many years, I
Speaker 2: had been in denial about all my childhood trauma. Like
Speaker 2: I was in denial about the bullying and the straight
Speaker 2: up violence I experienced as a child, a non performing child,
Speaker 2: and so I needed to for many years to talk
Speaker 2: about that. I needed to reckon with that and just
Speaker 2: acknowledge that it happened and feel the pain of that
Speaker 2: that there was no tools to experience as a child.
Speaker 2: And then so I sort of went from that, you know,
Speaker 2: the what happened to me? Well, actually I went I
Speaker 2: was what's wrong with me? And then I went to
Speaker 2: what happened to me? And then and now I'm in
Speaker 2: its base of like was right with me? You know,
Speaker 2: and what happened that wasn't just traumatic but was affirming,
Speaker 2: and that were resources and the things that sort of
Speaker 2: helped me get through. I've been working with an amazing
Speaker 2: therapist named Jennifer burn Flyer, who I interviewed on my
Speaker 2: podcast twice in the first season, and we do somatic
Speaker 2: work that is based in the community resiliency model from
Speaker 2: the based on the Trauma Research Institute.
Speaker 1: Do you know this work I've heard I'm familiar with it,
Speaker 1: but not well.
Speaker 2: But the Trauma Research Institute came up with this thing
Speaker 2: called krim or, the Community Resiliency Model that is sort
Speaker 2: of based in resilience, and it's sematic works. It's all
Speaker 2: about sensing into your body and there's six tools of that,
Speaker 2: and so we've been I've been working with my therapist
Speaker 2: on sort of refiring and rewiring sort of the way
Speaker 2: doctor joe It Spinza talks about it, and creating new
Speaker 2: neurotransmitters in my nervous system and deepening my resilient zone.
Speaker 2: So there were things in my childhood that got me
Speaker 2: through my childhood. They're dancing and so. Yes, so acknowledge
Speaker 2: that there was abuse and that there was bullying and
Speaker 2: violence in my childhood, but there were also things that
Speaker 2: got me through my life, art and dancing and reading
Speaker 2: and performing, and those things continue to get me through,
Speaker 2: So it becomes it's a both. And one of the
Speaker 2: tools of krim OR, the Community Resiliency Model is shift
Speaker 2: and stay, and it's all about sensing into your body
Speaker 2: and shift and stay is about like I would go
Speaker 2: into a therapy session with Jennifer, and she would say,
Speaker 2: you know, how are you feeling today? And I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm a little anxious. And she'll ask me, where do
Speaker 2: you feel that in your body? And often my anxiety
Speaker 2: sort of happens in my stomach. I'm feeling a little
Speaker 2: bit of that now, I think, just because of being
Speaker 2: in a podcast. And then she Jennifer will invite me,
Speaker 2: you know, is there somewhere in your body where it
Speaker 2: feels neutral or positive and right now it's my ankle,
Speaker 2: and she'll invite me to breathe into that and focus
Speaker 2: my attention instead of where it's anxious, but to focus
Speaker 2: my attention on where it's neutral and positive. So I'm
Speaker 2: focusing and on my ankle right now, and then we
Speaker 2: just kind of focus the energy there and invariably, if
Speaker 2: I can focus my energy in my body where it's
Speaker 2: neutral or positive, sometimes eventually the anxiety will dissipate, maybe
Speaker 2: not completely, but it'll dissipate a little bit. And it's
Speaker 2: about that's really about living in the both and in
Speaker 2: our bodies, and it's a reminder that we become sort
Speaker 2: of what we focus on too, literally in a somatic way.
Speaker 2: Literally in our bodies. But I think in a sort
Speaker 2: of more global sense as well, we become the thing
Speaker 2: that we focus on. So and the tricky thing for
Speaker 2: me is in my attempts to do both, and I
Speaker 2: do the and without the both, meaning I focus on
Speaker 2: the resilience, I focus on the neutral and the positive,
Speaker 2: and I mean a little bit of denial of the
Speaker 2: of the challenge, of the anxiety, of the difficult thing
Speaker 2: that's going on in my body. And so I have
Speaker 2: to be able to acknowledge that part too, and and
Speaker 2: not just be in the resilience, because there's a bit
Speaker 2: of denial there, and so I'm not in the full
Speaker 2: truth of what's going on in my body, what's going
Speaker 2: on with me in a moment. So being able to
Speaker 2: like say, the anxiety, it is here. Maybe it's attached
Speaker 2: to a story, maybe it's not. Sometimes it's just a feeling.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's not necessarily attached to a story. Often it
Speaker 2: is or thought. And then go to the end, go
Speaker 2: to that neutral or positive place, the resilient place, the
Speaker 2: thing that brings me joy, but making sure that I
Speaker 2: don't skip the difficulty that might be going on too
Speaker 2: then be slipping into denial A little bit and you
Speaker 2: and an effort to just sort of be.
Speaker 3: Positive all the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because that's just not real.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, thank you so much for sharing that tool and technique.
Speaker 1: I'm sure everyone's listening is going to try and practice
Speaker 1: that in their own way.
Speaker 2: What is amazing last thing I'll say about KRIM or
Speaker 2: the community resilience, it's these There are six tools as
Speaker 2: an app called eye Chill which breaks down the six
Speaker 2: tools and it's and it was advised by the Trauma
Speaker 2: Research STASSU for people who might be you know, coming
Speaker 2: from veterans or police officers, people who are coming from
Speaker 2: very traumatic experiences that you can take into your community
Speaker 2: and share tools that are very accessible. Doing it is
Speaker 2: not easy, but they're accessible tools. Shift and stay is
Speaker 2: one of them. Resourcing with another one I mentioned gesturing
Speaker 2: is another. Tracking is huge. You have to track what's
Speaker 2: going on in your body. Help now. So these are
Speaker 2: skills that are very accessible and that people can teach
Speaker 2: to each other the practice of it. For me, the
Speaker 2: biggest piece is slowing myself down to actually track what's
Speaker 2: going on in my body. And we all know that
Speaker 2: book the body keeps the score and so no matter
Speaker 2: what is going on intellectually and all the work. You know,
Speaker 2: I've been in therapy for twenty three years now, that
Speaker 2: it has to land in the body. It has to
Speaker 2: be work, that it has to be somatic. It has
Speaker 2: to be because our body. Eighty percent of our information
Speaker 2: comes from the body to the head and twenty percent
Speaker 2: from the head to the body, right, And so no
Speaker 2: matter how intellectual we are, no matter how much we
Speaker 2: want to talk it through and understand it, our bodies
Speaker 2: have to If there's trauma, if there's stress, our bodies
Speaker 2: have to know it differently. Our bodies have to understand
Speaker 2: what a healthy connection or healthy attachment is. I have
Speaker 2: to know it in my nervous system. There's this knowing
Speaker 2: and then there's like this knowing because of that thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, you've talked about it in your podcast. But
Speaker 2: so much happens in our lives preverbal between the ages
Speaker 2: of one and three, one and five, before we even
Speaker 2: have language, So many things will happen to us that
Speaker 2: we don't have words for that our nervous systems are
Speaker 2: tracking in those moments. And so the work of reparenting,
Speaker 2: the work of resetting the nerve system, of deepening our
Speaker 2: resilient zone. It's about that that somatic, that pre verbal,
Speaker 2: that not even the prefrontal cortex, but that limpic brain,
Speaker 2: that that piece that's like that that reprogramming, that fight
Speaker 2: flighter freeze so that we really deepen our resilient sound. Anyway,
Speaker 2: I could talk about.
Speaker 1: This, No, No, genuinely, it's it's so helpful and so insightful,
Speaker 1: and I know our community is going to love this
Speaker 1: so far. But I want to go back to your comment.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned a few times on how we like
Speaker 1: to deny certain experiences and uncomfortable things and difficult things,
Speaker 1: and I know that for a fact I've done that
Speaker 1: so much in my life physically as well. It's so
Speaker 1: easy to deny of physical pain thinking it's nothing, and
Speaker 1: emotional pain sometimes even easier to do it with. But
Speaker 1: why is denial so unhealthy? And what parts of yourself
Speaker 1: do you still find you may deny sometimes.
Speaker 2: Deny that is unhealthy because I mean, we're not living
Speaker 2: in the show truth for ourselves. And there's this line
Speaker 2: I think for Magnolia. You think you may be done
Speaker 2: with the past, but the past isn't done with you.
Speaker 2: That like, even when I'm in denial, there's still the
Speaker 2: stuff is still operating in my life. Nadine Berg Harris
Speaker 2: has a beautiful TED talk where she talks about adverse
Speaker 2: childhood experiences and there's this wonderful research about adversity in
Speaker 2: childhood and how excess doses of adversity is the way
Speaker 2: she sort of puts it, in childhood can lead to
Speaker 2: physical literal like you know, sort of asthma, diabetes, all
Speaker 2: these health outcomes in children and then later in life,
Speaker 2: so that when we don't deal with psychologically and emotional things,
Speaker 2: they show up in our bodies in unhealthy ways. All
Speaker 2: these other different things. And so when we're in denial
Speaker 2: about a trauma we've experienced or something that is difficult
Speaker 2: for us that is happening in our bodies, and if
Speaker 2: we don't acknowledge it and release it, it has to go.
Speaker 2: It has to move through and out of the body.
Speaker 2: It can be deadly. Stress can be deadly. And my
Speaker 2: therapist likes to talk about we talk about trauma resilience,
Speaker 2: but then there's different kinds of trauma and different levels
Speaker 2: and distressors. Right, stressors can like bump us out of
Speaker 2: there's an idea of the resilient zone. She sort of
Speaker 2: likes to encourage us to imagine like these two lines,
Speaker 2: and that our resilient zone sort of goes in waves
Speaker 2: between these two lines. And then there's low zone, which
Speaker 2: is like she likes to think there's a house, and
Speaker 2: our resilient zone is the ground floor. Low zone would
Speaker 2: be the basement, and high zone would be the attic,
Speaker 2: and high zone is when we're in that fight flight
Speaker 2: or freeze and we're anxious and we're stressed and we're
Speaker 2: just like and then low zone would be this kind
Speaker 2: of like depressed, I don't want to get out of bed,
Speaker 2: maybe I'm suicidal or I'm just like listless, and so
Speaker 2: we want to have deepening. Our resilience zone is about
Speaker 2: being able to go into lows and highs and be
Speaker 2: in our and have emotions, but not be bumped into
Speaker 2: that high space or bumped into that low zone. And
Speaker 2: so if we are constantly in that high zone, and
Speaker 2: I've been constantly in that fight flight or freeze, I'd
Speaker 2: learned that really early that I didn't feel safe and
Speaker 2: nowhere was safe, and so I was constantly releasing adrenaline cortisol.
Speaker 2: That constant release of adrenaline cortisol over forty years. We're
Speaker 2: not hardwired for that. Biologically, we're supposed to like, you know,
Speaker 2: we see the bear in the woods, we release the
Speaker 2: adrenaline cortisol to fight that bear, to flee that bear,
Speaker 2: and then we go back to homeostasis. If we're constantly
Speaker 2: what if Nadine Bergier's is, what if the bear comes
Speaker 2: home every night? We're constantly releasing that adrenaline cordisol, and
Speaker 2: then our we're just depleted after a while and years
Speaker 2: of this depletion. And so I've in my forties, I
Speaker 2: was like, why am I so tired? Why am I
Speaker 2: so depleted? It's just all that constant survival, not ever
Speaker 2: feeling safe, and so trying to find so much of
Speaker 2: like deepening my resilien zone is creating safety. And if
Speaker 2: you are a trauma survivor, much of the for triuma survivors,
Speaker 2: we often take this is from my therapist. We take
Speaker 2: an alarm bell and turn it into a dinner bell
Speaker 2: because things have been wired in such a way, in
Speaker 2: a dysfunctional way, that everything becomes an alarm everything and
Speaker 2: so and so that's so much of our work when
Speaker 2: we think, when we think about folks who are I'm
Speaker 2: triggered by this. This is triggering for me, and it
Speaker 2: could very well be. But our work individually, it's the
Speaker 2: external thing can be triggering. But my work individually is like,
Speaker 2: is this about what's actually going on? Or is this
Speaker 2: about my history? When it's hysterical, it's historical. When it's hysterical,
Speaker 2: it's historical. When I remind myself of this, when the
Speaker 2: verness hysterical, it's probably not about what's going on in
Speaker 2: this moment. Like, I had a moment with my boyfriend
Speaker 2: a few months ago and we've been you know, we've
Speaker 2: been dating for like three years and it's been lovely
Speaker 2: and it's been wonderful. And I have this moment when
Speaker 2: I went into this shame spiral doing a conversation we
Speaker 2: were having, just went into this crazy and I was like,
Speaker 2: it was the first time with him. I felt so
Speaker 2: safe with him. It's the first time with him. And
Speaker 2: I was like, and it just like I was like,
Speaker 2: I felt myself just going into this crazy and I
Speaker 2: was talking a lot and I was spiraling and I
Speaker 2: was just like, babe, let me I need to go
Speaker 2: to the bathroom and get myself together. He was like,
Speaker 2: what's going And I sat there and I was like, Luckily,
Speaker 2: because I've done my shamework. I was like, okay, you're
Speaker 2: in a shame spiral. You were in a shame spiral,
Speaker 2: and we can agen it. When we can name shame.
Speaker 2: I was like, this is not about this incredible man
Speaker 2: who's so amazing to me. This isn't about anything he said.
Speaker 2: This is about my own story that I just spun
Speaker 2: myself out with. So it's historical. It's not about this moment.
Speaker 2: So this is about some historical stuff, you know. So
Speaker 2: I just had I think it was in a bathroom,
Speaker 2: like thirty minutes maybe forty minutes, just kind of like
Speaker 2: talking to myself, breathing and just being and really take
Speaker 2: and in the moment, this is not a dangerous moment.
Speaker 2: I created something historical, something historical came up for me.
Speaker 2: But this is safe. And the only way I was
Speaker 2: able to do that is like I've had like three
Speaker 2: years of safety with this man, So I'm like, this
Speaker 2: man is incredible. So like, you know, maybe early on
Speaker 2: i'd be like, this man is not safe. And you know,
Speaker 2: when a man doesn't feel safe to me, or when
Speaker 2: people don't feel safe, I'm like I'm out I've learned
Speaker 2: very very very quickly to get out, and so I've
Speaker 2: got become very good at like identifying what safe spaces.
Speaker 2: I'm like, so this is not girl, You're just spinning
Speaker 2: out with something. Some historical stuff, some childhood stuff, some
Speaker 2: old stuff just came up for you. And so when
Speaker 2: once I was able to do that and regulate, then
Speaker 2: I was able to go out and say, Babe, when
Speaker 2: it's your shame spiral, it's not about you, it is
Speaker 2: what it is. And he just like held me and
Speaker 2: I cried, and and what's interesting to me what I've
Speaker 2: learned on I'm sure this is an experience that you
Speaker 2: have interviewed so many brilliant people. I've had so many
Speaker 2: brilliant people in my podcast. And so I think about
Speaker 2: that moment through a shame lens. Right, there's a we
Speaker 2: can talk about a shame spiral. We can talk about
Speaker 2: it through a trauma resilience piece around regulating my nervous system.
Speaker 2: There's also a ten attachment piece, attachment theory piece where
Speaker 2: there's healthy attachment with him. So there's just all these
Speaker 2: different lenses that I was able to kind of filter
Speaker 2: that moment through. That was that kind of brought me
Speaker 2: back to the present and brought me into a resilient
Speaker 2: space where I wasn't spinning out, and it was deep
Speaker 2: and so like reckoning with the stories that we tell
Speaker 2: ourselves about ourselves. It just a thought can spin us out. Right,
Speaker 2: Just a thought can disrupt my nervous system. That's not
Speaker 2: it's a thought. Maybe it's a comment I've seen on
Speaker 2: the internet. It's a thought I could have about myself
Speaker 2: that's like, oh you're a piece of shit. Oh you're
Speaker 2: a horrible person. That could just spin me out, And
Speaker 2: just like becoming aware of those thoughts and then you
Speaker 2: know it, is this thought useful? I can let this go,
Speaker 2: This isn't the truth? Can I reality check this thought?
Speaker 2: Or maybe just letting go of all thoughts? You know,
Speaker 2: there's there's in some of my meditation. I do transcentional
Speaker 2: meditation too. Sometimes it's just about trying, trying imperfectly to
Speaker 2: let go of all thoughts and just be just be
Speaker 2: letting go of stories, letting go of thoughts, an absence
Speaker 2: of data. We create stories as human beings or heartwire
Speaker 2: for story, but trying to let go of story, trying
Speaker 2: to let go of thoughts and just be it is
Speaker 2: so hard, and I have those moments when it's just like,
Speaker 2: you know, and I'm like, am I an airhead? You know,
Speaker 2: I'm moving an airhead right now, and just like letting
Speaker 2: go thoughts and just like ah, you know, sometimes I
Speaker 2: think like people, yeah, I don't want I don't want
Speaker 2: to be judgmental, but sometimes people who are not like
Speaker 2: intense thinkers, they just kind of like chill. Sometimes I
Speaker 2: like envy those people because they're not like thinking about
Speaker 2: like the sociopolitical implications and then the sort of therapeutic
Speaker 2: and somatic implications, and then the attachment theory implications, and
Speaker 2: then the intersectional feminism. Like there's all this stuff going
Speaker 2: on all the time. And then I'm an artist and
Speaker 2: then like, you know, my humanity and as an artist
Speaker 2: and like having empathy for the character and analyzing human behavior, just.
Speaker 3: A lot going on in there.
Speaker 2: And so sometimes it's just I envy people who just say,
Speaker 2: it's not a lot going on up there, and they
Speaker 2: can just kind of, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let go the thoughts. Stressing about being healthy, oh.
Speaker 2: My god, especially stressful, especially as a fifty one year old,
Speaker 2: because it's not just mental and psychological health now it's like,
Speaker 2: I'm getting older and there's the question of mobility, and
Speaker 2: I have such a problem consistently working out, but I
Speaker 2: want to stay mobile, and I want to stay looking lovely,
Speaker 2: you know. And the aging piece being fifty one years
Speaker 2: old and like my mom is seventy just turns seventy
Speaker 2: three this year, and then watching her and thinking about
Speaker 2: getting older and my job, you know, and I feel like,
Speaker 2: in so many ways, my career is just getting started
Speaker 2: in We're Own strike and this just it's scary aging
Speaker 2: as a woman in Hollywood. And I think what's beautiful
Speaker 2: about being trans is that, like you know, the public
Speaker 2: has been very as transphobic as people are. The transphobia
Speaker 2: of some people in the public has helped keep me
Speaker 2: right sized around my appearance because sometimes I'm like, oh, Laverne,
Speaker 2: you look.
Speaker 3: Cute, Laverne is sexy, you know, Oh you look pretty
Speaker 3: good for.
Speaker 2: Fifty one, And then like you know, I'll read a
Speaker 2: comment of like some she looks like a man, you know,
Speaker 2: and luckily I can laugh about that. Luckily I think
Speaker 2: it's you know, I think it's ridiculous, and I understand
Speaker 2: people are transphobic, but it keeps things in but I
Speaker 2: also would be delusional and not in the truth if
Speaker 2: I didn't acknowledge that I'm not just I've not just
Speaker 2: been on multiple magazine covers because I'm smart and talented.
Speaker 2: That there is there is a desirability politic that goes
Speaker 2: into being an actress on screen in Hollywood and doing
Speaker 2: a lot of the on camera work that I do,
Speaker 2: and aging in that environment is scary, as a woman
Speaker 2: in an ageis business in an ageius culture, and the
Speaker 2: connection between misogyny and aging, and then being a black
Speaker 2: woman and a trans woman and so all of that
Speaker 2: is like happening too. It's so funny. I was thinking
Speaker 2: about this. You know, I haven't done like the botox
Speaker 2: or the fillers or anything to my face, but obviously
Speaker 2: the trans woman. I'm not opposed to surgery, but I'm
Speaker 2: terrified to do anything to my face. And there may
Speaker 2: be a point when I need to or need to
Speaker 2: and I don't. And it's funny. I'm like comfortable talking
Speaker 2: about not having done it now, but I'm like, once
Speaker 2: I do it, I probably won't want to talk about it.
Speaker 2: So there's also that in the sort of transparency of that,
Speaker 2: and I don't talk about as a trans woman. I
Speaker 2: don't talk about surgery in terms of relationship to me
Speaker 2: because so often that's a way to humanize chance people
Speaker 2: and reduce us to our bodies. But it's just something,
Speaker 2: you know, that I'm grappling with around aging and being
Speaker 2: a woman. And so those are other stories and other
Speaker 2: you know, thoughts that I spend way too much time
Speaker 2: thinking about. Maybe because I'm on strike. We're on strike
Speaker 2: and I have a little more time. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I was going to say that I actually find it
Speaker 1: remarkably comforting to hear someone open up and tell me
Speaker 1: the genuine, real, honest thoughts that they're having, because I
Speaker 1: think all of us are actually having those in our
Speaker 1: own world, in our own universe, whether you're an actress
Speaker 1: in Hollywood, or whether you're someone who's dropping your kids
Speaker 1: to school, or whether you're me or whoever you are, like,
Speaker 1: I think all of us have a kind of interesting tapestry.
Speaker 1: You've lived so many chapters of your life. If this
Speaker 1: chapter had a title right now, what would it be called?
Speaker 2: Fifty one Fabulous and Anxious as hell?
Speaker 1: That's that sounds like a great chapter. It's a fun
Speaker 1: champing to read. I don't know, it's fun to live too.
Speaker 1: I guess it is what it is, and it's it's
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: I interviewed Glennon Doyle. She's so amazing and what I
Speaker 2: love about her, what I love about Brene Brown is that,
Speaker 2: like we so much in the wellness space, we hear
Speaker 2: about sort of how people are the sort of the
Speaker 2: result of the struggle and not the struggle. And I agree,
Speaker 2: I need to sort of be with people in the struggle.
Speaker 2: I need to like understand what folks are because that's
Speaker 2: what I can connect with. People who have it all together.
Speaker 2: I don't relate to that. And as much as people
Speaker 2: may think I have it all together and I girl,
Speaker 2: I am and a gorless into neutral and this case
Speaker 2: girl like compared to ten years ago to create fifteen
Speaker 2: years ago, Laverne has grown. I've done so much work
Speaker 2: on myself to be even just being able to be
Speaker 2: in an intimate relationship and tolerated and like tolerate the
Speaker 2: vulnerability and the uncomfortable things like, There's been so much growth.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm so much more evolved than I was
Speaker 2: ten years ago, fifteen years ago, certainly twenty years ago.
Speaker 2: But it doesn't mean that I'm not still struggling with
Speaker 2: things that like the world. I mean, honestly, just being
Speaker 2: just being a trans person in twenty twenty three is.
Speaker 3: I mean, I could, I could cry, and I.
Speaker 2: Love being trans, but there's an a on my community
Speaker 2: legislatively and rhetorically that is having real world consequences on
Speaker 2: people who I know and love. They are families fleeing
Speaker 2: states right now, which is insane to me because of
Speaker 2: the laws that criminalize parents who you know, support their
Speaker 2: trans kids, could criminalize doctors and healthcare professionals, and that's
Speaker 2: not unrelated to the you know, people who need to
Speaker 2: flee stays because of abortion restrictions and being a public
Speaker 2: figure who too, whose trans, who's you know?
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I was in the cover of Time magazine nine years
Speaker 2: ago with with the headline the transcender tipping Point, and
Speaker 2: there was a sense that there was so much progress
Speaker 2: being made around transvisibility and trans acceptance. And that's certainly
Speaker 2: speaking of both, and that certainly is happening and has
Speaker 2: happened in a lot of ways. But we inevitably, when
Speaker 2: there is a social justice movement where people sort of
Speaker 2: come forth and there's more acceptance, there's inevitably backlash, and
Speaker 2: we are like eyebrows deep in the backlash right now.
Speaker 2: On a legislative level, twenty states right now have banned
Speaker 2: gender firming care for young people. This year Loan, over
Speaker 2: five hundred pieces of legislation have been introduced in state
Speaker 2: legislatures all over the country, targeting the LGBTQ community at large,
Speaker 2: mostly trans people, mostly drag artists. It's it's insane, and
Speaker 2: it's supported by our media that is so sort of siloed,
Speaker 2: you know, right where people can just like get this
Speaker 2: confirmation bias that's deeply stigmatizes trans people and LGBTQ plus
Speaker 2: people in general, and don't hear from real trans people
Speaker 2: and don't get our human stories and our beautiful humanity.
Speaker 2: And it's scary. A dear friend of mine, Chase Stradio,
Speaker 2: who works through the CLU, is they're fighting all these
Speaker 2: things in the courture right now. On Friday, he was
Speaker 2: arguing two different appeals for two different states where they've
Speaker 2: banned gender from and care in Tennessee and I think Oklahoma.
Speaker 2: It's just a scary time when the government, when the
Speaker 2: state is targeting your ability, and for years they were
Speaker 2: sort of saying that this is about children. It's about
Speaker 2: protecting children. And you know, earlier this year's state, i
Speaker 2: think it was Oklahoma, passed a law that would prevent
Speaker 2: gender from and care up to the age of twenty six.
Speaker 2: My home state of Alabama, I'm from obil Alabama banned
Speaker 2: gender from and careup to age of nineteen. You know,
Speaker 2: there's other states that you know, So it's not it's
Speaker 2: never really been about the children, right, It's always been
Speaker 2: about doing what the Daily Wires Michael Knowles proclaimed at
Speaker 2: Sea pack erasing transgenderism from public life. That has always
Speaker 2: been the project. And to hear that stated so emphatically
Speaker 2: and then seeing it play out on a state, on
Speaker 2: various states is scary. It's really scary. And so there's
Speaker 2: that piece of like, how do we as trans folks,
Speaker 2: just like our mental health, how do we sort of
Speaker 2: deal with that? And so what it's been crucial for
Speaker 2: me as a public figure but also just as a
Speaker 2: person who loves trans people and the person who's been
Speaker 2: just terrified by all of this. It's like, how like
Speaker 2: understanding that the narrative about who we are has been
Speaker 2: hijacked and there's a deep propagandistic misinformation campaign that's going
Speaker 2: on around our identities, that it is leading to legislation
Speaker 2: that seeks to erase us from public life. But there
Speaker 2: is a reality of our lives. There's a reality of
Speaker 2: our existence. There is a reality of our beauty and
Speaker 2: our talent and our anointedness that I'm amazed by. I'm
Speaker 2: so blessed to have a group of trans people in
Speaker 2: my life who I marvel at. I was in La
Speaker 2: like in July, and we were doing something with Hardness
Speaker 2: Foundation about the relationship between reproductive rights gender firming care.
Speaker 2: It's interesting, but not ironic that as access to gender
Speaker 2: firming care, bodily autonomy for trans people is being taken away.
Speaker 2: Body of autonomy for people can get pregnant is also
Speaker 2: being taken away on a state level, on state levels
Speaker 2: all over this country. And then a dear friend of mine, Peppermint,
Speaker 2: we were hanging out afterwards and we were talking and
Speaker 2: she was telling me about this situation she was dealing
Speaker 2: with a man, and I was she was telling me
Speaker 2: about this, and I was looking. I was I had
Speaker 2: watched her at this event that we were at, and
Speaker 2: I was just I was just marveling, and how smart,
Speaker 2: how charismatic, how resilient, how incredible she is as a
Speaker 2: human being, and all the bullshit she was dealing withod
Speaker 2: from this man, and I was just like, I was like,
Speaker 2: do you know how beautiful you are? Do you know
Speaker 2: how amazing and talented and just what a light you
Speaker 2: are just because of who you are and that you're
Speaker 2: I just am so honored that you're my friend, and
Speaker 2: you happen to be trans, and your transness is part
Speaker 2: of why you're such a light, you know. And I
Speaker 2: just have trans people in my life who are lights
Speaker 2: like that, who are just epic and beautiful and amazing.
Speaker 2: And then there's this, like these narratives about who we are,
Speaker 2: and I just would love for people to get to
Speaker 2: know us and get to see what I see when
Speaker 2: I see trans people. And so that's what I have
Speaker 2: to hold on to our humanity, our beautiful humanity, and
Speaker 2: shout it from the rooftops, and then surround myself continually,
Speaker 2: surround myself with the beautiful trans people in my life
Speaker 2: who I just who are anointed, you know. I always
Speaker 2: like to remind people that in indigenous cultures all over
Speaker 2: the world, trans people were considered spiritual creatures who are
Speaker 2: spiritual leaders. In India the hydra, you know, pre colonialism
Speaker 2: were you know, folks wouldn't get married or have a
Speaker 2: christening without the presence of a hidra. And they understood
Speaker 2: that if if they got a blessing, their child got
Speaker 2: a blessing from the hydra, that their child would be okay,
Speaker 2: be better. We have two spirit people here in the
Speaker 2: native communities here in the United States, the mahu and Hawaii,
Speaker 2: and in the Philippines. There all indigenous cultures.
Speaker 1: All over the world.
Speaker 2: They were third and fourth gender traditions. So trans people
Speaker 2: aren't new. Non binary people aren't new. We've always existed
Speaker 2: in pre colonial communities, and so wellness for me and
Speaker 2: mental health cannot be divorced from structures of domination like
Speaker 2: white supremacy and CIS normativity and patriarchy. And you know,
Speaker 2: colonialism is synonymous with a gender binary that necessarily erases
Speaker 2: the natural occurrence of people who exist outside that binary.
Speaker 2: And so when we have conversations about health and well being,
Speaker 2: we have to understand that I personally know from my
Speaker 2: own experience that as a black trans woman for working
Speaker 2: class background raised in Mobile, Alabama, that I internalized deeply
Speaker 2: transphobic things about myself that I had to unlearn deeply
Speaker 2: racist things about myself and my community that had to unlearn.
Speaker 2: So part of my mental health journey has been unlearning transphobia,
Speaker 2: my internalized transpobia, and learning my internalized white supremacy and
Speaker 2: anti blackness so I can love myself more so that
Speaker 2: I can love the people around me more. And understanding
Speaker 2: that we're all raised in a culture that teaches that
Speaker 2: for me, creates so much empathy for people who might
Speaker 2: be struggling with that, who might not understand the extent
Speaker 2: to which they've internalized transphobia or white supremacy, and so
Speaker 2: I can give them a lot of grace because I've
Speaker 2: been there too. I've been transphobic. I still have transphobic
Speaker 2: ideas and thoughts that I have to unlearn and check
Speaker 2: myself with, and that is part of my mental health.
Speaker 2: I've said on my podcast and I say in life
Speaker 2: that they're you know, it's like fifty percent of things
Speaker 2: I have fifty percent. I don't know if it's fifty percent.
Speaker 2: The other structures are the things that we internalize. Where
Speaker 2: on White Supremacy, Bell hook says, imperiless white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy,
Speaker 2: I add to that, cisnormative, heteronormative, imperiless, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy.
Speaker 2: The structures that we sort of exist under, these intersecting
Speaker 2: structures of domination, is the way Belle Hooks would put it.
Speaker 2: But then there's the fifty percent of like, what's my
Speaker 2: part in it? What is the fifty percent? I'm responsible
Speaker 2: for my life, right, and so I'm more responsible. I'm
Speaker 2: able to take more responsibility when I'm educated, when I
Speaker 2: have an education for critical consciousness. So in this world
Speaker 2: that is anti intellectual, that is where we're defunding schools,
Speaker 2: that education becomes so critically important so that we can
Speaker 2: like take full responsibility for ourselves and our lives. And
Speaker 2: the education is around mental health. That education is around
Speaker 2: health in general. It's around these structures, it's around understanding capital.
Speaker 2: Right that there's so many people who are frustrated. You know,
Speaker 2: my boyfriend who's he's considerably younger than me, he makes
Speaker 2: a wonderful living, can't buy a house right now because
Speaker 2: real estate prices are just so insane. And that's not
Speaker 2: because he's not working hard. He's working sixty eighty hours
Speaker 2: a week and he makes a lovely living. But the
Speaker 2: system is set up in a way, this capitalist system
Speaker 2: where home prices are just like, it's out of reach
Speaker 2: for so many people, so like, and that can cause
Speaker 2: us mental and emotional stress. But if we understand that
Speaker 2: there is a system in place that it's keeping a
Speaker 2: generation of people from being able to buy their homes,
Speaker 2: that can help give us some perspective and hopefully not
Speaker 2: feel like we're not enough, because I think a lot
Speaker 2: of I see this happening to him where it's like
Speaker 2: I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do, and I think
Speaker 2: we and he happens to be a straight white man,
Speaker 2: and so there's all these conversations now about crisis around men,
Speaker 2: and there's a you know, I don't know if you
Speaker 2: would agree with that, but I think so much of
Speaker 2: that crisis, especially when I see, you know, dating a
Speaker 2: very attractive, you know, dirty blonde, blue eyed, straight white
Speaker 2: man that this you know, that the world has told him,
Speaker 2: this is what you know should be available to you
Speaker 2: as a straight white man who's attractive and who works hard,
Speaker 2: and then these things are not available because of a
Speaker 2: system in place that it really is designed to keep
Speaker 2: you know, people, a lot of people down, whether you're black, white, whatever.
Speaker 2: And so I think so much of the cognitive dissonance
Speaker 2: now and we've displaced that we say that that feminism
Speaker 2: is the is the reason right. I see if you
Speaker 2: if you go into the manisphere on the internet, you'll
Speaker 2: you'll hear a lot of men saying, oh, feminism is
Speaker 2: the reason why, or or you know, diversity and inclusion
Speaker 2: programs are the reason why, when maybe you know, you know,
Speaker 2: predatory capitalism and corporations who have a fiduciary responsibility to
Speaker 2: their shareholders and no one else. Maybe that's why you
Speaker 2: the promise of what you're supposed to have in this
Speaker 2: country as a straight white man. Maybe it's not the
Speaker 2: fault of immigrants or feminism or diversity and inclusion programs.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's this capitalist system that is lied to you
Speaker 2: and told you. And so I think having that critical
Speaker 2: awareness for me is a part of mental health. For me,
Speaker 2: having a critical relationship to the world around me on
Speaker 2: a systemic level is part of me having a perspective,
Speaker 2: placing things in perspective and so that like I'm not
Speaker 2: it reduces the beating myself up, It reduces the like
Speaker 2: I should be working harder, I should be doing more
Speaker 2: I'm not enough, and you know, it doesn't absolve me
Speaker 2: of responsibility for my life saying because I think there's
Speaker 2: a mentality of saying, oh, racism is this, I'm never
Speaker 2: going to get to where I need to go. We
Speaker 2: can do that, or we can say racism is this, sexism,
Speaker 2: is this misoge new war transfer?
Speaker 3: All of these things are true.
Speaker 2: But I'm here. But I'm here, and I have an
Speaker 2: opportunity in this corrupt system. How can I navigate? How
Speaker 2: can I negotiate within this system and to let my
Speaker 2: light shine to be on purpose? Why am I here?
Speaker 2: Why has God put me here on this planet? And
Speaker 2: how can I, in the face of all these things,
Speaker 2: rise up and be there for myself as much as
Speaker 2: I can so that I am not a victim of
Speaker 2: any of this. I refuse to be a victim. That
Speaker 2: I can say to myself in the face of all
Speaker 2: of this, I'm going to proceed in the world with dignity,
Speaker 2: with self respect, with love for myself, with love for
Speaker 2: other people, and a deep, deep passion for what I do,
Speaker 2: and a passion for getting better. And it's gonna be okay.
Speaker 1: Wow, I'm genuinely in awe of how someone can internalize
Speaker 1: what's going on around them and at the same time
Speaker 1: remain independently thoughtful about what that means.
Speaker 2: It's work. It's worth to stay separate, to detach from that,
Speaker 2: to not become hopeless around it. There have been moments
Speaker 2: this year when I have felt deeply hopeless and deeply
Speaker 2: sort of unempowered in like how we're going to sort
Speaker 2: of fight this and when when I think it was
Speaker 2: when the gender firming I think it was Oklahoma that
Speaker 2: when they banned gender firming care up until the age
Speaker 2: of twenty six, I was like, Okay, we have to
Speaker 2: change this narrative. And it just something clicked for me.
Speaker 2: And sometimes I have to go away and think and
Speaker 2: I have to strategize, and it's not I can't always
Speaker 2: just be on TV or be on a on a
Speaker 2: you know, picket line or at a protest. Sometimes have
Speaker 2: to go and think and strategize. It's like, we have
Speaker 2: to change this narrative, and I cannot have the conversation
Speaker 2: about who I am on these terms that have nothing
Speaker 2: to do with me, all of the terms that they're
Speaker 2: set forth that have deeply dehumanized trans people. When senators
Speaker 2: are asking Supreme Court candidates about what is a woman,
Speaker 2: and they're talking about mutilating children. All that is deeply
Speaker 2: dehumanizing of trans people. What those people who do not
Speaker 2: want trans people to exist in public life have done
Speaker 2: very successfully propagandistically that have led to legislation that take
Speaker 2: away the body of the autonomy and the rights of
Speaker 2: trans peoples. That they've dehumanized us to such an extent
Speaker 2: where people can have conversations about lg some people can
Speaker 2: have conversations about LGBTQ plus people without equating us with
Speaker 2: things that don't even like to repeat. I don't want
Speaker 2: to repeat any of those narratives, but I think you
Speaker 2: know some of the disparaging to humanizing, very retrograde narratives
Speaker 2: that we can trace back to the nineteen seventies, right,
Speaker 2: what about the children? All those sorts of things, so
Speaker 2: understanding deeply that I will not have my identity be
Speaker 2: up for debate, that my access to gender affirming care
Speaker 2: is actually no one's business. It is between me and
Speaker 2: my doctor, and that the access even for children is
Speaker 2: actually not up for debate if you're not a healthcare professional.
Speaker 2: It blows me away. All of the sort of journalists
Speaker 2: and all of the sort of people who feel like
Speaker 2: it is fine, Oh, children getting gender affirming care and
Speaker 2: having access to dien different. That is up for debate, right,
Speaker 2: we can debate that because children DA DA DA DA,
Speaker 2: When the American Academy for Pediatrics, when the Indegree Society,
Speaker 2: when they're you know, all of these different your very
Speaker 2: reputable organizations say that this is the way that we
Speaker 2: should treat transgender children, and this is the use of
Speaker 2: the protocols with parental consent, et cetera, et cetera, and
Speaker 2: all these other people say well, we have to debate this. No, No,
Speaker 2: it's actually if you're not a trans child, the parent
Speaker 2: of a trans child, or a healthcare professional, it's actually
Speaker 2: none of your business. And I feel the same way
Speaker 2: about reproductive rights. I feel the same way. If you're
Speaker 2: not a person who can get pregnant in need of
Speaker 2: an abortion, it's actually none of your business. And I
Speaker 2: think that that, for me, needs to be the conversation.
Speaker 2: It's deeply empowering for me to say that to myself
Speaker 2: and to say it publicly that it is actually none
Speaker 2: and it's dehumanizing. It is deeply dehumanizing for people to
Speaker 2: sit on televisions and on podcast debating my access and
Speaker 2: the children's access to a care. I mean, if a
Speaker 2: child had cancer, we wouldn't be having debates about what
Speaker 2: whether this. I mean there's side of all sorts of
Speaker 2: side effects to chemo therapy, but we would defer to
Speaker 2: the experts on that. Nicole Mayns is a brilliant, beautiful
Speaker 2: trans woman who is an actress. She played Dreama on Supergirl.
Speaker 2: She's just so incredible, and she transitioned as a child.
Speaker 2: I recently interviewed her on my podcast and it was
Speaker 2: so lovely to hear from a child. She's in her
Speaker 2: early twenties now, but she transitioned as a child. And
Speaker 2: so many of these conversations again that people are having
Speaker 2: about trans kids and they're not talking to any of
Speaker 2: the kids, And then the kids are saying there was
Speaker 2: a recent story The New York Times ran where all
Speaker 2: this whistleblower, you know, said that this clinic was doing
Speaker 2: all these things, and then the parents, these parents came
Speaker 2: out and said, well, no, the clinic wasn't doing this,
Speaker 2: and that my child was treated well. And the children
Speaker 2: are saying all these things, and the children are saying
Speaker 2: that we would treat it well, and the parents are
Speaker 2: saying that we would treat it well, and then they're
Speaker 2: just going with this other, whole other narrative. So people
Speaker 2: aren't even listening to trans people. They're not listening to
Speaker 2: the parents are trans people. So they've just hijacked the
Speaker 2: narrative and they're not listening to us. And underneath all
Speaker 2: that is them not wanting us to exist. And if
Speaker 2: we think about it, then if you go back to
Speaker 2: the beautiful podcast you, I would oprah, what happened to you?
Speaker 2: If you don't, if you're so deeply invested in stigmatizing
Speaker 2: trans people and saying that trans people are mentally ill,
Speaker 2: if you don't know somebody trans, if you don't have
Speaker 2: a trade, how does it even affect you, How in
Speaker 2: the world does it affect your life? What happened to you?
Speaker 2: And so that's the empathetic piece that I have, that
Speaker 2: that people are in these times that we live in,
Speaker 2: people are in so much pain, and I think that's
Speaker 2: why we have so many wellness podcasts and things, and
Speaker 2: people are so people are in so much pain for
Speaker 2: so many reasons, and so many of those things are systemic.
Speaker 2: So many of those things are about unhealed childhood, trauma,
Speaker 2: not having language, which were skills, neighborhoods that have just
Speaker 2: been completely divested from poverty, income, inequality, so many structural things,
Speaker 2: so many, you know, interpersonal things, so many, so much
Speaker 2: unhealed childhood trauma. It is an inside job when it
Speaker 2: comes to my healing, but it is also a structural job.
Speaker 2: It is also that we can't just charity our way
Speaker 2: out of it, do philanthropy our way out of it.
Speaker 2: We have to our governments have to invest in schools
Speaker 2: and communities and mental health in a serious way. And
Speaker 2: I don't necessarily have faith in our governments. So then
Speaker 2: what do we do then do for ourselves and for
Speaker 2: each other? And whenever I have a problem, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm less there these days, But when I used to
Speaker 2: have problems with other people, it's usually about an insecurity
Speaker 2: that I had with myself, and so I had to
Speaker 2: take a moment with myself and to self reflect. Media
Speaker 2: literacy becomes so crucially important in this moment. You know,
Speaker 2: Sometimes I get into arguments with my boy friends specifically
Speaker 2: about something, and will I'm like, well, let's check that source,
Speaker 2: and then like, let's cross reference this source with this source,
Speaker 2: and which one is more reputable, so that we're I'm
Speaker 2: constantly checking different information and seeing the source and looking
Speaker 2: for the biases, right, So because that's where that's really
Speaker 2: where we have to be in this moment. And I
Speaker 2: think it's a round wellness too, because there's a lot
Speaker 2: of people who are grifting around wellness, right, and there's
Speaker 2: trying to sell some product or sell something, and we
Speaker 2: have to just always have critical awareness around the things
Speaker 2: that we're seeing. That the information we're getting on the internet,
Speaker 2: information we're getting from the cable news, from the news
Speaker 2: in general. Just a critical awareness around information is crucial,
Speaker 2: and critical thinking skills are so important, and teaching people
Speaker 2: how to triple check sources and get inform, you know,
Speaker 2: try to get fine reputable sources, and thinking about like
Speaker 2: how a study can be manipulated. Right, Just having those
Speaker 2: that critical awareness it's just crucially important in this in
Speaker 2: this day and age, because I think we can spend
Speaker 2: ourselves out in a psychological and emotional way when we
Speaker 2: think about the people, you know, I think about those
Speaker 2: folks who said that they were radicalized around January sixth,
Speaker 2: right through social media propaganda and then found themselves, you know,
Speaker 2: on trial for their lives and admitting that they were
Speaker 2: sort of propagandized and you know did and their incredible consequences,
Speaker 2: and I think they were probably struggling in their lives.
Speaker 2: You know, when you hear about you know, young men
Speaker 2: being radicalized into white supremacist groups, so much of that
Speaker 2: is about a loneliness about us trying to find a
Speaker 2: sense of community, right, and so there's always something going
Speaker 2: on psychological and emotionally with people. And if we can
Speaker 2: have that frame for people giving people grace, I mean,
Speaker 2: I think there's you know, I think our actions must
Speaker 2: have consequences, right, So I'm not like forgiving people for
Speaker 2: terrorist activities or anything like that, but I think we
Speaker 2: can you know, I'm responsible for my actions and we
Speaker 2: all are. So you know, if you do unfortunate things
Speaker 2: because you've been radicalized, and then you have to sort
Speaker 2: of deal with the consequences of that. But then for
Speaker 2: those people who've come out on the other side of that,
Speaker 2: I think their stories are very valuable around talking about
Speaker 2: how they were radicalized and maybe we're deradicalized and then
Speaker 2: began to understand what pain they were in and what
Speaker 2: they were struggling with. And everyone is struggling with something,
Speaker 2: and it's like, if we can, if they can, hopefully
Speaker 2: we can meet people with love and empathy in their
Speaker 2: struggles to people in our lives who might be going
Speaker 2: down a road, some sort of very radical road, and
Speaker 2: a lot of people are right now. If we can
Speaker 2: hold them close, maybe we may not be able to.
Speaker 2: We may have to let them go. Certain people we
Speaker 2: have to go up because it's not healthy for us.
Speaker 2: But if we can keep these people in our lives
Speaker 2: with love and empathy and maybe just love them through
Speaker 2: these moments, maybe they won't end up in situations that
Speaker 2: become you know, where they're going to prison for, you know,
Speaker 2: behavior they being engaged in.
Speaker 1: On that point, I want to ask this question because
Speaker 1: every time I feel what happens with any difficult, uncomfortable
Speaker 1: conversation is that, again you pointed this out earlier, it's
Speaker 1: happening in silos. So you have a group of people
Speaker 1: over here talking about it, but they're talking about it
Speaker 1: with each other. Then you have a group of people
Speaker 1: here talking about it, talking about it with each other.
Speaker 1: If you could sit down not a debate, not an argument,
Speaker 1: but a genuine discussion, conversation of learning from both sides
Speaker 1: with someone in the world, who is that person that
Speaker 1: you think you'd want to sit with to have that educated, thoughtful,
Speaker 1: conscious conversation around the subject matters that you care about.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's why we reach out to Joe Rogan
Speaker 2: because I think, you know, he he has had so
Speaker 2: many but he's.
Speaker 1: Kind of in the middle there right, Like he's kind
Speaker 1: of trying to talk to me.
Speaker 3: Interesting.
Speaker 2: He's interesting because you know, some people would say he
Speaker 2: is he represents a lot of normy sort of opinions
Speaker 2: on things, and then like there's some things that have
Speaker 2: gotten more sort of radically conservative on his podcast. But
Speaker 2: he's someone I was interested when I was interested in
Speaker 2: going own to show. It's just like I would just
Speaker 2: love to chat with him. I'm not trying just to
Speaker 2: be go and be a human being. I'm just going
Speaker 2: be Laverne, you know, just go and like not necessarily
Speaker 2: if we want to talk about some of these issues.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm certainly not an expert in sports. That's
Speaker 2: a big issue with him trans people in sports. I'm not.
Speaker 2: I don't play sports.
Speaker 1: I've never you know, not athletic.
Speaker 2: I know a little bit about the studies that have
Speaker 2: been done the very few studies that have been done
Speaker 2: on actual trans people in sports, but he's someone who
Speaker 2: comes to mind because I think it's really just about
Speaker 2: how can can we be human? Can we be human together?
Speaker 2: And I think that's the first piece that like so
Speaker 2: much of what has happened has been deeply dehumanizing, where
Speaker 2: they've sort of madeid trans people into an ideology. I mean,
Speaker 2: when people sort of sort of like transgender ideology, I'm like,
Speaker 2: what exactly is that and.
Speaker 1: What are some of the concerns on the other side,
Speaker 1: so to speak, that you empathize with or that you
Speaker 1: parts of the narrative where you're like, oh, I understand
Speaker 1: where that's coming from, but that isn't actually what I
Speaker 1: believe our thoughts are, Like what would you say, is like, oh,
Speaker 1: I get where that's coming from, But that's actually a
Speaker 1: misnarrative because I think what ends up happening and I'm
Speaker 1: looking at it from a trying to look at it
Speaker 1: from an observer point of view and going, is it
Speaker 1: that people are actually arguing two completely different things and
Speaker 1: we're arguing about the wrong things, Like we're not even
Speaker 1: talking about I.
Speaker 2: Think the part of it, I mean, I think honestly,
Speaker 2: part of the problem is that a lot of the
Speaker 2: ways in which for many years, since oh gosh, since
Speaker 2: the early since the early two thousands, there have been
Speaker 2: states have been attempting to do bathroom bands. I think
Speaker 2: Phoenix was one of the first cities, and we were
Speaker 2: able to sort of not have that, you know, protests
Speaker 2: happened and they were not bathroom bands against trans people
Speaker 2: using the bathroom. Famously, in twenty sixteen, HB two in
Speaker 2: North Carolina was the big bathroom bill, but there have
Speaker 2: been other states who've been trying to you know, ban
Speaker 2: access to bathrooms for trans people. So for years conservatives
Speaker 2: were working to get trans people out of bathrooms. That
Speaker 2: actually didn't really work anywhere. And so after marriage equality
Speaker 2: became the law of the land, conservative groups focused had
Speaker 2: focus groups and they were like they they talked to
Speaker 2: them specifically about different trans issues, and what seemed most
Speaker 2: salient to them were trans women specifically in sports. And
Speaker 2: so then that became the focus and they were like, Okay,
Speaker 2: we can take the place they need a buyant pay
Speaker 2: book from the seventies and focus on children, trans people
Speaker 2: in sports and children. And so then there was a
Speaker 2: proliferation of news stories on Fox News and conservative and
Speaker 2: conservative media all of the Internet. Google it. It's just
Speaker 2: hundreds of stories on Fox News about trans people in sports,
Speaker 2: none in like, you know, more mainstream media, like we didn't.
Speaker 2: Like if you're not watching Fox News or conservative media,
Speaker 2: you didn't really you wouldn't realize that there was an
Speaker 2: issue with trans people in sports. But if you watch
Speaker 2: Fox News, you would think that, like, trans people are
Speaker 2: dominating sports, like that trans women are like you know that,
Speaker 2: so that, I mean, this is really for most people,
Speaker 2: trans women in sports becomes the crazy thing that like
Speaker 2: we can't do for Joe Rogan, it's it's it's the issue,
Speaker 2: and there's not enough real studies on actual trans women
Speaker 2: in sports. You would need to do double blind studies
Speaker 2: of trans women's performance capacity in different sports. There there's
Speaker 2: one study that was done with trans women specifically with running,
Speaker 2: but it was a small sample size that looked at
Speaker 2: their performance pre transition in post transition. But then there
Speaker 2: have been any studies on like weightlifting, on swimming, on
Speaker 2: all that and their different skill sets that are required.
Speaker 2: People make assumptions because people don't think they're trans women
Speaker 2: are women, so there make assumptions that if you've gone
Speaker 2: through puberty that releases testosterone, that you're going to have
Speaker 2: a physical advantage. In two thousand and two, the International
Speaker 2: Olympic Committee created standards for trans people to compete in
Speaker 2: two thousand and two that had to do with testosterone levels,
Speaker 2: being on hormone replacement therapy for a certain amount of time.
Speaker 2: And since two thousand and two, so that's been that
Speaker 2: twenty one years. We've had one trans Olympian and she
Speaker 2: like she was a weightlifter a few years ago and
Speaker 2: she like failed to qualify, Like she made it the
Speaker 2: Olympics icition, then she was out in the first round.
Speaker 2: So in the twenty one years that trans people have
Speaker 2: been able to compete in the Olympics, for example, trans
Speaker 2: women are not dominating. There are a few trans women
Speaker 2: who win in competitions, and we hear all about those
Speaker 2: trans women, right, and like conservatives know those trans women
Speaker 2: probably better than I would know those trans women. They're
Speaker 2: like on the handful of trans women. And then you
Speaker 2: look at sports bands on trans children. I was a governor,
Speaker 2: I forget I think it was West Virginia who was
Speaker 2: on television MISSINGBC Coney rule was like, you know, are
Speaker 2: there any trans girls dominating in your state that you
Speaker 2: know of, and he said no, and he didn't know
Speaker 2: of any, and there weren't any. And there was one
Speaker 2: trans girl who was playing sports that we knew of
Speaker 2: in I think was Utah, and they created a sports
Speaker 2: band for one person, for one trans girl, and so
Speaker 2: so much of this is this anxiety. But what's interesting
Speaker 2: to me is at the same time that there are
Speaker 2: these sports bands that we're going to ban trans girls
Speaker 2: from sports to keep fairness in sports, that they're also
Speaker 2: banning gender affirming care and stigmatizing and creating misinformation around
Speaker 2: puberty blockers. And the what I do know about sports
Speaker 2: and alleged advantages that people might have or trans people
Speaker 2: might have, is that that advantage happens after puberty, right
Speaker 2: that pre puberty that there's not really because this ustan
Speaker 2: hasn't been introduced yet, that there's no advantage. And so
Speaker 2: the same people who say that they don't want trans
Speaker 2: girls competing also want to take away the ability for
Speaker 2: trans girls to be able to go through the puberty
Speaker 2: that is consistent with their identity, and that would actually
Speaker 2: not give them an advantage. And so many of the kids,
Speaker 2: the trans kids, who play sports are not dominating. They
Speaker 2: just want to play with their friends. They just want
Speaker 2: to have this communal experience. From what I've was from
Speaker 2: the trans people I talked to that there's something I
Speaker 2: never played sports, but allegedly apparently people who played sports,
Speaker 2: there's a sense of teamwork and community. And the young
Speaker 2: girl in Utah who she there was a field hockey
Speaker 2: team that she the team wasn't didn't even exist. She
Speaker 2: basically like rallied the girls, you know, to get the
Speaker 2: field hockey team together, and then like after she had
Speaker 2: done all this work to get the team, she couldn't
Speaker 2: play on it. And that just feels it's really discriminatory.
Speaker 2: And I think that, like there is I think fairness
Speaker 2: in sports is something that we should there are standards
Speaker 2: in place for that, but I don't think it's really
Speaker 2: about that at the end of the day. And so
Speaker 2: I think that like even having the long sort of
Speaker 2: drawn out conversation about sports, it's actually not about that.
Speaker 2: It's actually not I don't think it's about fairness in sports.
Speaker 2: I think it is about stigmatizing trans people. Is about
Speaker 2: people being deeply uncomfortable. That's almost always where it goes.
Speaker 2: That they're talking, it's say it's about sports, they say
Speaker 2: it's about the children, but it's really about a discomfort
Speaker 2: with trans people existing. That's at the core of it.
Speaker 2: If we look at empirically at what they're saying, and
Speaker 2: then the public policies that are put in place, so
Speaker 2: people make sports an issue, they make gender firm and
Speaker 2: care an issue for children, but it's ultimately about them
Speaker 2: wanting to erase trans people from public life because we
Speaker 2: make them uncomfortable for some reason. Are you feel me
Speaker 2: on that?
Speaker 1: Do you feel me?
Speaker 2: Because I think we can parse out all these different
Speaker 2: issues that they say they have a problem with. But
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, when we're talking about
Speaker 2: banning gender firming care for adults in Florida, effectively gender
Speaker 2: firming care for adults is bannedwidth it. They've Medicaid is
Speaker 2: no longer covering gender firming care in Florida for trans people,
Speaker 2: and DeSantis passed a bill that would allow only doctors,
Speaker 2: not nurse practitioners, to administer gender firming care. When eighty
Speaker 2: percent of trans people in Florida get their gender firming
Speaker 2: care from nurse practitioners got it. So this is very
Speaker 2: similar to what they're doing with abortion bills, right. So
Speaker 2: that's why it gets tricky to go into having conversations
Speaker 2: about sports and like parsing out and getting distracted about
Speaker 2: that that is actually having the conversation on their terms.
Speaker 2: Having the debate around trans children and gender firming care
Speaker 2: is having the debate on their terms. It is actually
Speaker 2: not your business when it comes in fairness in sports.
Speaker 2: And I think too, because we see a coalition now
Speaker 2: of a women who call themselves feminists who care about
Speaker 2: women's rights, a coalition between them and right wing conservatives
Speaker 2: who want to take away the abortion rights of women
Speaker 2: and people who can get pregnant.
Speaker 3: So they have like.
Speaker 2: Coalesced and are like, you know, in common cause around
Speaker 2: getting trans people out of women's spaces and protecting women's
Speaker 2: spaces and protecting women's sports. And so this is just
Speaker 2: about transphobia. It's about transphobia, and so why is it?
Speaker 2: And I think there's a larger conversation around gender roles,
Speaker 2: what you know, that whole sort of Matt Walsh's question
Speaker 2: what is a woman?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: And I think ultimately what is a man in this moment?
Speaker 2: In this historical moment right now? Women are so beautifully independent,
Speaker 2: We make our own money. We in so many ways
Speaker 2: we don't need men, and we a lot of women
Speaker 2: have evolved, and a lot of men have evolved, but
Speaker 2: a lot of men haven't. And the structure a patriarchy
Speaker 2: has not evolved, and their backlash against like women having
Speaker 2: autonomy at these roles being challenged. Trans people are a
Speaker 2: part of that, the existence of trans people, and like
Speaker 2: defining gender on your own terms and defining what it
Speaker 2: means to be a woman on your own terms. Being
Speaker 2: a woman used to be in ante bellum United States
Speaker 2: of America, black women weren't women. Black women weren't even
Speaker 2: human right, womanhood in the United States is a colonial,
Speaker 2: white supremacist construct. It is a patriarchal construct, and that
Speaker 2: is being dismantled as women are taking control of our
Speaker 2: lives and our abilities.
Speaker 3: To have children or not.
Speaker 2: And just a lot of that patriarchy is just being
Speaker 2: dismantled by the lived experiences of women. And so many
Speaker 2: men don't know how they fit into that because they
Speaker 2: haven't done the work of interrogating patriarchy and interrogating that model.
Speaker 2: And you've talked so beautifully on your podcast about being
Speaker 2: vulnerable as a man and what that looks like, and
Speaker 2: vulnerability is a piece of it. And that is my
Speaker 2: own for men dealing with the ways in which they've
Speaker 2: internalized patriarchy and these systems that are not serving them.
Speaker 2: Patriarchy isn't serving most men, especially if you're a man
Speaker 2: of color, especially if you're a working classman, right, Patriarchy
Speaker 2: is not actually really serving you. And I think the
Speaker 2: frustration of a lot of working classmen of all races
Speaker 2: is that patriarchy isn't serving them, and it's supposed to
Speaker 2: be and it's confusing, right, And then women are so
Speaker 2: empowered now and don't necessarily need man, but I still
Speaker 2: want a man. And then trans people are in the
Speaker 2: middle of all this, right, And so then it's like
Speaker 2: we become a scapegoat. We can become a scapegoat for
Speaker 2: like all of the anxieties that people have that some
Speaker 2: women have who are not transgender, for that some men have.
Speaker 2: We become a scapegoat for all of this anxiety about
Speaker 2: gender roles changing, and these trans people aren't helping. And
Speaker 2: then like there we're usurping women all these narratives that
Speaker 2: actually have nothing to do with trans people. It has
Speaker 2: to do with a certain level of progress, a certain
Speaker 2: level of like these systems not working for people anymore,
Speaker 2: and the uncertainty and the uncomfortability of all of that.
Speaker 2: So much of this is about being able to sit
Speaker 2: with discomfort and uncertainty and not being able to make
Speaker 2: any sense of it. And what makes sense to so
Speaker 2: many people is when someone is having a baby, is
Speaker 2: it a boy or a girl? If I don't eat,
Speaker 2: if I can't even hold on to it's a boy
Speaker 2: or a girl, and that biner. If I can't hold
Speaker 2: onto that, what can I hold on to? And so
Speaker 2: people desperately need to hold onto some sense certainty, and
Speaker 2: trans people and our existence does not allow that, And
Speaker 2: there is a cognitive dissonance and there is an anger
Speaker 2: because there's nothing. There's so little that we can hold
Speaker 2: onto that that we can be certain about in these times.
Speaker 2: Cannot hold on to something. And trans the existence of
Speaker 2: trans people is another thing that we can't hold onto.
Speaker 2: But we trans people have always existed. It's just it's
Speaker 2: a lie. Intersex people exist biologically. All these people who
Speaker 2: want to talk about biology biological sex, and that term
Speaker 2: is a very tricky term, but well let's use it
Speaker 2: for now. For expedients is not binary. Intersect people exist,
Speaker 2: like there's there are more intersex people than redheads, right,
Speaker 2: so that like even biologically gender doesn't exist on a binary,
Speaker 2: it's exists on a spectrum. So it's so then it's
Speaker 2: like why do we sit with discomfort and uncertainty? And
Speaker 2: like sit in that and let go again, going back
Speaker 2: to letting go of the story, Like the stories that
Speaker 2: I can tell myself about not being enough, those stories
Speaker 2: are so often tied to I'm a woman, I'm supposed
Speaker 2: to be this way from people who identifi as me,
Speaker 2: they're a man, and I'm you're supposed to be this way.
Speaker 2: I'm white and it's supposed to be this way. I'm
Speaker 2: from this place, letting go those stories, and it's sometimes
Speaker 2: deeply uncomfortable to let go of the story that like
Speaker 2: I've always been attached to, deeply attached to. It's painful,
Speaker 2: it's painful. And then and so what conservatives who don't
Speaker 2: want trans people to exist have done successfully is play
Speaker 2: it on the fears of people not being able to
Speaker 2: sit with discomfort and uncertainty and have used that to
Speaker 2: attempt to legislate and adjudicate trans people out of existence.
Speaker 2: That is what's going on. So even having the narrative
Speaker 2: of the talking to people from the other side is
Speaker 2: a false dichotomy because we're all in the same But.
Speaker 4: Of course, yeah know I was doing it as a
Speaker 4: fail you and I and I went there a little
Speaker 4: bit with you, but it's like, no, I think it's
Speaker 4: I think we're all in the same boat around its uncertainty,
Speaker 4: around all these questions, and if we can sit with
Speaker 4: that and hopefully sit across from someone like we're doing
Speaker 4: now and see their humanity.
Speaker 1: Now that's I mean sitting and listening to you and
Speaker 1: anyone else that I mean, I'm only seeing humanity. And
Speaker 1: that's how at least I was trained in my tradition
Speaker 1: was to only look at someone for their humanity and
Speaker 1: the essence that exists within. And my intention leven honestly
Speaker 1: with this is that I feel so educated in enlighting
Speaker 1: today and I've learned so much from you, and I genuinely,
Speaker 1: genuinely do hope even though I was doing it as
Speaker 1: a thought exercise, I do hope that And it may
Speaker 1: be one of these, you know, idealistic viewpoints, but I
Speaker 1: think it's needed, Like I wish we could sit down
Speaker 1: with people that we think we have opposing views.
Speaker 2: There's been so many moments throughout my life where I,
Speaker 2: you know, waited at tables, worked in restaurants for nineteen
Speaker 2: years in New York, and encountered so many people from
Speaker 2: different backgrounds. I did not talk about being trans or
Speaker 2: trans politics. I was just myself. Yeah, of course, I
Speaker 2: was just myself for these people. And it's just been
Speaker 2: so beautiful that the empirical evidence of my life that
Speaker 2: I just get to be myself and people are like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: she happens to be trans, but she's she's cool, she's awesome,
Speaker 2: and it's not I'm not the only one who's cool
Speaker 2: and awesome.
Speaker 3: Like a lot of trans people are cool and awesome.
Speaker 2: There's some crazy people aren't cool and awesome. There are
Speaker 2: people across every democratic who aren't cool and awesome, but
Speaker 2: a lot of us are. And even if we weren't
Speaker 2: cool and awesome, we're still human, you know, And sitting
Speaker 2: across some people and just chilling, you know, is like,
Speaker 2: it's it's beautiful. I think about all of the sort
Speaker 2: of parents of different men I've dated over the years.
Speaker 2: I'm fifty one, and so I've met some parents though
Speaker 2: my day. And I just remember, like twenty years ago,
Speaker 2: I was dating this guy and then we met. I
Speaker 2: met his parents and they knew I was trans, going
Speaker 2: in like, oh, she's so lovely. And then I was
Speaker 2: another guy's mom who I met. This is early two thousands,
Speaker 2: and I met her.
Speaker 3: She loved me, she thought I was great for her son.
Speaker 2: Like three years into relationship, he was in the phone
Speaker 2: with this mom and was like, oh, Laverne is giving
Speaker 2: herself an estrogen shot and.
Speaker 3: She's like, oh my god, what is she pregnant? What's
Speaker 3: going on?
Speaker 2: And she's freaking out like he used to starts laughing.
Speaker 2: She's like, she's trans, and we thought she knew, but
Speaker 2: she didn't know. She had met me and loved me,
Speaker 2: and then she freaked out. And then she comes to visit.
Speaker 2: She's from Minneapolis. She comes and visits, and then we
Speaker 2: have dinner together and she's like, Laverne is lovely, she's great.
Speaker 2: I'm so happy that she's in your life, you know.
Speaker 2: And she had whatever story she had around me being trans.
Speaker 2: And then we had dinner together.
Speaker 3: And hung out and was like she's great.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I've just have so many of those experiences in
Speaker 2: my life and so I part of me is just like,
Speaker 2: let's just sit down and have dinner.
Speaker 3: Girl, let's just chill. It's all good.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 1: Levine Cocks. You have been a joy to be around today, honestly,
Speaker 1: and I love how smart, intelligent, intellectual, thoughtful you are
Speaker 1: about the words that you share, the way you present them,
Speaker 1: and you're you're a change maker. And I'm really on
Speaker 1: it to have sat down with you for this time,
Speaker 1: to learn from you, to grow with you, and I
Speaker 1: really hope that we'll continue to have this conversation offline too.
Speaker 1: Me too.
Speaker 4: I really look forward to be poland definitely definitely that
Speaker 4: wash that you you are very on perpoct I try.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Thank you honestly. If you love
Speaker 1: this episode, you will enjoy my conversation with Megan Trainer
Speaker 1: on breaking generational trauma and how to be confident from
Speaker 1: the inside out.
Speaker 2: My therapist told me stand in the mirror naked for
Speaker 2: five minutes.
Speaker 3: It was already tough for me to love my body.
Speaker 2: But after the C section scarf with all the stretch marks,
Speaker 2: now I'm looking at myself like I've been hacked. But
Speaker 2: day three, when I did it, I was like, you
Speaker 2: know what her dis are Cute,