1
00:00:01,720 --> 00:00:04,800
Speaker 1: Call Zon Media.

2
00:00:05,120 --> 00:00:07,080
Speaker 2: Welcome to youap and here a podcast and I forgot

3
00:00:07,120 --> 00:00:09,680
Speaker 2: to write an introduction for I'm your host, Miya Wong,

4
00:00:10,320 --> 00:00:13,000
Speaker 2: and we are well, okay, we're not taking a break

5
00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:15,520
Speaker 2: from the horrors, because this is also still a podcast

6
00:00:15,560 --> 00:00:18,040
Speaker 2: about the horrors and what you can do about it.

7
00:00:18,560 --> 00:00:21,880
Speaker 2: But you know, I am a transgender. One of the

8
00:00:21,920 --> 00:00:26,720
Speaker 2: ways that we have been like depersonified via transgender is

9
00:00:26,760 --> 00:00:30,479
Speaker 2: through a you know, a massive attack on trans like

10
00:00:30,520 --> 00:00:34,400
Speaker 2: trans women in sports, and this has led to you know,

11
00:00:34,520 --> 00:00:37,040
Speaker 2: like the acceleration of like the broad scale attack on

12
00:00:37,159 --> 00:00:40,040
Speaker 2: all of us being able to exist as people. And

13
00:00:40,159 --> 00:00:41,960
Speaker 2: with me to talk about this is someone who has

14
00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:44,320
Speaker 2: written a book that is about this and also kind

15
00:00:44,320 --> 00:00:46,839
Speaker 2: of not about this in a lot of ways, and

16
00:00:46,880 --> 00:00:50,080
Speaker 2: that is Victoria Zeller, who is a writer author, writes

17
00:00:50,120 --> 00:00:52,839
Speaker 2: about the Buffalo Bills for our friends over at Defector

18
00:00:52,920 --> 00:00:55,520
Speaker 2: sometimes and is the author of a new book What

19
00:00:55,600 --> 00:00:57,800
Speaker 2: are the Boys Out Today? When you're listening to this,

20
00:00:58,200 --> 00:01:01,920
Speaker 2: wow crazy, While yeah it is, it has SYNCD up

21
00:01:02,040 --> 00:01:04,200
Speaker 2: like this completely on purpose. We were one hundred percent

22
00:01:04,200 --> 00:01:05,240
Speaker 2: planning this from the beginning.

23
00:01:05,840 --> 00:01:07,319
Speaker 3: Hello, thank you for having me.

24
00:01:07,640 --> 00:01:10,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm excited to have you on so you would

25
00:01:10,440 --> 00:01:12,560
Speaker 2: think that the question that your book One of the

26
00:01:12,600 --> 00:01:16,000
Speaker 2: Boys asks is what if a transchool played football? But

27
00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:18,280
Speaker 2: the actual and more important question to ask is what

28
00:01:18,319 --> 00:01:20,800
Speaker 2: if a poster could write fiction? And the answer is

29
00:01:20,800 --> 00:01:21,880
Speaker 2: that it fucking rips?

30
00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:22,360
Speaker 3: Thank you?

31
00:01:23,319 --> 00:01:26,319
Speaker 2: Is this this book rules? I? Jenni Wily. I think

32
00:01:26,319 --> 00:01:29,319
Speaker 2: this is the best written group chats I've ever read

33
00:01:29,319 --> 00:01:32,040
Speaker 2: in a book. It rips it so good.

34
00:01:32,680 --> 00:01:35,760
Speaker 3: I am very passionate about group chats, you know. I

35
00:01:35,800 --> 00:01:39,680
Speaker 3: mean like posting is writing Hello audience. If you don't

36
00:01:39,680 --> 00:01:43,360
Speaker 3: know me, my name is Victoria. I'm online. You may

37
00:01:43,440 --> 00:01:47,440
Speaker 3: know my Twitter or blue Sky accounts at dirtbag Queer.

38
00:01:47,960 --> 00:01:51,520
Speaker 3: I'm like largely posting about football when football is in season.

39
00:01:51,800 --> 00:01:54,200
Speaker 3: I kind of just post about random shit these days.

40
00:01:54,560 --> 00:01:59,480
Speaker 3: But yeah, I've allegedly written a book. The weird thing

41
00:01:59,480 --> 00:02:01,360
Speaker 3: about writing book is that I feel like I've just

42
00:02:01,440 --> 00:02:04,200
Speaker 3: totally blacked out actually writing it. And I'm like, that's crazy.

43
00:02:04,240 --> 00:02:08,760
Speaker 3: Who did that? Couldn't be me? But yeah, in terms

44
00:02:08,800 --> 00:02:11,120
Speaker 3: of like how I would like very quickly pitch one

45
00:02:11,120 --> 00:02:14,280
Speaker 3: of the boys, high school senior named Grace comes back

46
00:02:14,280 --> 00:02:17,320
Speaker 3: to her high school football team. She quit over the

47
00:02:17,320 --> 00:02:20,120
Speaker 3: summer because she came out as trans because her teammates

48
00:02:20,200 --> 00:02:22,440
Speaker 3: want to make a push for a state title and

49
00:02:22,639 --> 00:02:26,280
Speaker 3: it's like trans coming of age, Friday night Lights handshake meme.

50
00:02:26,760 --> 00:02:30,320
Speaker 3: But also when I was like big picture thinking about

51
00:02:30,360 --> 00:02:32,200
Speaker 3: what I wanted to do with this, I wanted to

52
00:02:32,240 --> 00:02:35,240
Speaker 3: tell kind of a like traditional high school sports story,

53
00:02:35,680 --> 00:02:39,800
Speaker 3: but through an outsider lens. Like if you think about

54
00:02:39,800 --> 00:02:42,400
Speaker 3: the average like high school football story, you think like, well,

55
00:02:42,480 --> 00:02:44,120
Speaker 3: what we're gonna do is we're gonna win state, we're

56
00:02:44,120 --> 00:02:46,000
Speaker 3: gonna get the scholarship, and we're gonna get the girl.

57
00:02:46,280 --> 00:02:50,120
Speaker 3: And I wanted to sort of like deconstruct those three

58
00:02:50,200 --> 00:02:54,280
Speaker 3: things by making the protagonist trans and making the protagonist

59
00:02:54,320 --> 00:02:58,160
Speaker 3: a kicker instead of like a linebacker or a quarterback

60
00:02:58,240 --> 00:03:01,079
Speaker 3: or whatever. And that is who I am.

61
00:03:01,280 --> 00:03:03,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this this book rips. That sounds like a

62
00:03:03,360 --> 00:03:05,080
Speaker 2: fun thing going on where it basically has like the

63
00:03:05,080 --> 00:03:07,840
Speaker 2: football iceberg, where like you can come into us knowing

64
00:03:07,919 --> 00:03:09,680
Speaker 2: zero ball and you will get stuff out of it.

65
00:03:09,680 --> 00:03:11,880
Speaker 2: And you can come into this where I am knowing

66
00:03:11,919 --> 00:03:13,919
Speaker 2: like a some ball and you will guess some out

67
00:03:13,960 --> 00:03:16,680
Speaker 2: of this. And then like the unhinged people who have

68
00:03:16,800 --> 00:03:20,160
Speaker 2: like sixteen different pff tabs like pinned their bookmarks will

69
00:03:20,200 --> 00:03:22,000
Speaker 2: be like, holy shit, the world building.

70
00:03:22,200 --> 00:03:27,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that was it is. It is hard writing

71
00:03:28,240 --> 00:03:31,760
Speaker 3: fiction about sports if you're writing young adult fiction, you know,

72
00:03:31,960 --> 00:03:34,600
Speaker 3: which is what one of the boys is. Don't be

73
00:03:34,600 --> 00:03:37,960
Speaker 3: weird about that. If you're an adult, teenage girls are like, oh,

74
00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:40,080
Speaker 3: you don't have to hate the things they like. You

75
00:03:40,120 --> 00:03:44,120
Speaker 3: can like call down a little bit. Uh, But yeah,

76
00:03:44,200 --> 00:03:48,080
Speaker 3: writing about football for an audience of like teenagers is

77
00:03:48,160 --> 00:03:51,960
Speaker 3: like fascinating because you have to assume that the audience

78
00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:54,600
Speaker 3: knows very little and you have to figure out how

79
00:03:54,640 --> 00:03:56,240
Speaker 3: much you want to give them so that they get

80
00:03:56,240 --> 00:03:59,920
Speaker 3: it without like overwhelming them, which is like really just

81
00:04:00,320 --> 00:04:02,600
Speaker 3: not at all what I wanted to do. But also yeah,

82
00:04:02,640 --> 00:04:07,040
Speaker 3: if you're a sicko like me, you can be like, ooh,

83
00:04:07,120 --> 00:04:09,920
Speaker 3: I'm really into what this offense is doing or I

84
00:04:09,920 --> 00:04:12,960
Speaker 3: am really into this like on side kick play design.

85
00:04:13,560 --> 00:04:16,560
Speaker 3: So I tried to like do I tried to do

86
00:04:16,640 --> 00:04:19,320
Speaker 3: a little bit of both. And also, again, this is

87
00:04:19,360 --> 00:04:23,520
Speaker 3: a transcoming of age story, so yeah, it's also dealing

88
00:04:23,560 --> 00:04:28,000
Speaker 3: with you know, the horrors. So yep, ball plus horrors

89
00:04:28,720 --> 00:04:30,240
Speaker 3: is what we're working with here.

90
00:04:31,040 --> 00:04:33,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think, okay, we're going to get more

91
00:04:33,320 --> 00:04:35,560
Speaker 2: into the politics of this in a second. But first

92
00:04:35,560 --> 00:04:37,760
Speaker 2: I want to ask one ball question since I have

93
00:04:37,960 --> 00:04:40,920
Speaker 2: now I have now introduced my audience to the fact

94
00:04:40,960 --> 00:04:42,880
Speaker 2: that I talk about football by managing to get a

95
00:04:42,960 --> 00:04:45,200
Speaker 2: rant about de Sean Watson on here for like ten minutes,

96
00:04:46,040 --> 00:04:48,839
Speaker 2: the Sean Watson trade. But okay, my one ball question

97
00:04:48,920 --> 00:04:50,600
Speaker 2: for this was how happy did it make you when

98
00:04:50,640 --> 00:04:52,279
Speaker 2: you figure out a way to write a football team

99
00:04:52,279 --> 00:04:57,840
Speaker 2: that does not use the forward pass? Oh man, it's.

100
00:04:58,920 --> 00:05:02,800
Speaker 3: Without without spoiling what happens at the end of the

101
00:05:02,839 --> 00:05:06,680
Speaker 3: act one turn, circumstances occur so that this high school

102
00:05:06,720 --> 00:05:10,400
Speaker 3: football team has to move a player who is who

103
00:05:10,480 --> 00:05:15,240
Speaker 3: is not a quarterback two quarterback, at which point passing

104
00:05:15,440 --> 00:05:17,800
Speaker 3: just goes away and we are just running the ball, baby,

105
00:05:17,800 --> 00:05:21,000
Speaker 3: we are. We are pounding the rock.

106
00:05:21,600 --> 00:05:22,480
Speaker 2: It's so sick.

107
00:05:22,800 --> 00:05:26,120
Speaker 3: It is kind of sort of like loosely, what I

108
00:05:26,160 --> 00:05:30,440
Speaker 3: based this on was the year that the University of

109
00:05:30,520 --> 00:05:34,480
Speaker 3: Kentucky football team, like all like every single quarterback got

110
00:05:34,600 --> 00:05:37,520
Speaker 3: hurt and they were like, Okay, Lynn Bowden, you are

111
00:05:37,520 --> 00:05:39,560
Speaker 3: our best wide receiver. We're just gonna put you a

112
00:05:39,640 --> 00:05:42,920
Speaker 3: quarterback and you know, we're just gonna see what happens

113
00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:47,080
Speaker 3: and that's like that was the fun of writing fictional

114
00:05:47,120 --> 00:05:49,279
Speaker 3: football is that I can make my fictional football team

115
00:05:49,279 --> 00:05:51,159
Speaker 3: do whatever I want and I don't want to ever

116
00:05:51,240 --> 00:05:55,760
Speaker 3: see conservative trickery that is the forward pass, get it

117
00:05:55,800 --> 00:05:59,400
Speaker 3: out of here. Yeah, it's is.

118
00:05:59,400 --> 00:06:01,080
Speaker 2: One of the things that you're writing is that you

119
00:06:01,120 --> 00:06:04,159
Speaker 2: are very much just like an old school like traditionalist

120
00:06:04,240 --> 00:06:07,240
Speaker 2: football pound of the rock, like none of this, like

121
00:06:07,839 --> 00:06:09,840
Speaker 2: none of none of this is like an RPO bullshit

122
00:06:10,520 --> 00:06:12,640
Speaker 2: person which is which is also I don't know, it's

123
00:06:12,720 --> 00:06:15,680
Speaker 2: just very funny that you have like you have like

124
00:06:15,720 --> 00:06:20,040
Speaker 2: the football personality of like an extremely cranky, like seventy

125
00:06:20,120 --> 00:06:23,520
Speaker 2: five year old like coach from like the seventies. Yep.

126
00:06:23,680 --> 00:06:27,919
Speaker 3: And I'm a trans woman, yeah rules, which like again

127
00:06:28,080 --> 00:06:29,839
Speaker 3: I tried down to do too much of it in

128
00:06:29,880 --> 00:06:32,160
Speaker 3: this book. Like part of the reason that I made

129
00:06:32,240 --> 00:06:34,760
Speaker 3: my main character a kicker, which we will also talk

130
00:06:34,800 --> 00:06:37,240
Speaker 3: about other reasons later, but part of the reason is

131
00:06:37,279 --> 00:06:41,200
Speaker 3: that kicking is this sort of like own separate salad

132
00:06:41,240 --> 00:06:43,400
Speaker 3: off thing. So I really only have to like get

133
00:06:43,440 --> 00:06:47,040
Speaker 3: the audience to understand kicking and what happens when Grace

134
00:06:47,120 --> 00:06:48,680
Speaker 3: is on the field. I don't have to get into

135
00:06:48,760 --> 00:06:53,800
Speaker 3: like what a football team that like never passes the ball,

136
00:06:53,880 --> 00:06:56,640
Speaker 3: like is doing on a technical level. We don't have

137
00:06:56,680 --> 00:06:59,039
Speaker 3: to do all that. I give you just enough that

138
00:06:59,160 --> 00:07:02,080
Speaker 3: if you are a sick oh you're like, yeah, baby.

139
00:07:02,720 --> 00:07:04,880
Speaker 2: Rules, this is the sickest offense of all time.

140
00:07:06,160 --> 00:07:10,840
Speaker 3: But but also yeah, but also like you know, trying

141
00:07:10,880 --> 00:07:15,440
Speaker 3: to u trying to help the queer kiddos understand that

142
00:07:15,560 --> 00:07:22,320
Speaker 3: like running the ball is the official football position of

143
00:07:22,360 --> 00:07:25,800
Speaker 3: the working class, of the politariat.

144
00:07:26,120 --> 00:07:32,480
Speaker 2: You know, Okay, we're gonna get more into the class

145
00:07:32,520 --> 00:07:34,800
Speaker 2: ynamics of football a second. But the place I kind

146
00:07:34,800 --> 00:07:37,240
Speaker 2: of want to start in terms of, like you know,

147
00:07:37,320 --> 00:07:39,040
Speaker 2: talking about the parts of this at art just ball

148
00:07:39,320 --> 00:07:41,880
Speaker 2: is so in a lot of ways, this is a

149
00:07:41,920 --> 00:07:45,880
Speaker 2: book about scriptlessness, which is something that I think, I

150
00:07:45,920 --> 00:07:48,240
Speaker 2: don't know, like we've been seeing a sort of resurgence

151
00:07:48,280 --> 00:07:50,120
Speaker 2: of trends or not resurchens, but I kind of like

152
00:07:50,400 --> 00:07:56,440
Speaker 2: surgeons emergence. There we go, there we go, there we go. Yeah,

153
00:07:56,520 --> 00:07:58,520
Speaker 2: of trans literature, and I think this is a very

154
00:07:58,560 --> 00:08:01,080
Speaker 2: interesting angle to take on it. And it's you know,

155
00:08:01,080 --> 00:08:03,240
Speaker 2: when I say scriplessness, it's about the ways in which

156
00:08:03,280 --> 00:08:06,760
Speaker 2: trans women in particular don't have you know, sort of

157
00:08:06,800 --> 00:08:09,840
Speaker 2: examples and paths to like follow. Right, there's not like

158
00:08:09,880 --> 00:08:11,480
Speaker 2: a you're supposed to go from A to B two C.

159
00:08:11,640 --> 00:08:13,800
Speaker 2: This is like what you're doing with your life and

160
00:08:13,880 --> 00:08:17,120
Speaker 2: you have to just figure it out because suddenly you're

161
00:08:17,240 --> 00:08:19,360
Speaker 2: you and you just you just have to you know,

162
00:08:19,400 --> 00:08:21,480
Speaker 2: there's no rails, there's no guide, You just have to

163
00:08:21,480 --> 00:08:24,040
Speaker 2: do it. I think the Sapatista line about it is

164
00:08:24,320 --> 00:08:27,120
Speaker 2: that the road is made by walking. Can you talk

165
00:08:27,160 --> 00:08:30,760
Speaker 2: about how like having to just figure the shit out

166
00:08:30,840 --> 00:08:32,839
Speaker 2: influence the way that you write Grace and the way

167
00:08:32,840 --> 00:08:34,040
Speaker 2: that you sort of write this book.

168
00:08:34,440 --> 00:08:39,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, So this is something that Grace struggles with a lot.

169
00:08:39,080 --> 00:08:42,800
Speaker 3: I mean, like specific to her, it's because she's a

170
00:08:42,840 --> 00:08:46,360
Speaker 3: trans woman who's playing football, something that if an openly

171
00:08:46,400 --> 00:08:49,600
Speaker 3: trans woman has ever openly played, like American football, there

172
00:08:49,720 --> 00:08:51,800
Speaker 3: is not a lot of documentation of that online. So

173
00:08:53,679 --> 00:08:57,199
Speaker 3: like Grace, she is like walking a path that has

174
00:08:57,280 --> 00:09:02,000
Speaker 3: like never existed before. But I think, like more broadly

175
00:09:02,160 --> 00:09:06,400
Speaker 3: and more like thematically, there is that like Grace is

176
00:09:06,400 --> 00:09:09,800
Speaker 3: also frequently I call her stupid and I don't think

177
00:09:09,800 --> 00:09:13,400
Speaker 3: that she's stupid, but calm up. But Grace struggles a

178
00:09:13,440 --> 00:09:16,440
Speaker 3: lot to like express herself. I would say, and like,

179
00:09:17,320 --> 00:09:21,080
Speaker 3: I wanted her to like challenge what a reader might

180
00:09:21,160 --> 00:09:25,720
Speaker 3: expect from a trans girl in young adult fiction. Specifically,

181
00:09:25,760 --> 00:09:29,880
Speaker 3: we're like I think she's like frequently kind of like grading,

182
00:09:30,000 --> 00:09:32,600
Speaker 3: or at least I find her grading. She is not

183
00:09:33,559 --> 00:09:36,240
Speaker 3: traditionally feminine. I don't think she's unfeminine, but she like

184
00:09:36,280 --> 00:09:38,680
Speaker 3: struggles a lot with like feeling okay enough to like

185
00:09:39,160 --> 00:09:42,160
Speaker 3: express that about herself. Yeah, and like, I feel like

186
00:09:42,240 --> 00:09:47,040
Speaker 3: a lot of stories about trans kids have this view

187
00:09:47,320 --> 00:09:50,760
Speaker 3: of being a like younger transperson of like, well, it

188
00:09:50,840 --> 00:09:55,120
Speaker 3: was always easy for me, and I took to femininity

189
00:09:55,200 --> 00:09:57,480
Speaker 3: like a fish in water, and like this was like

190
00:09:57,559 --> 00:09:59,600
Speaker 3: natural to me. I wanted to write a character for

191
00:09:59,640 --> 00:10:04,360
Speaker 3: whom it is not necessarily natural for Grace to be

192
00:10:04,760 --> 00:10:09,840
Speaker 3: this person, and I wanted her past and the way

193
00:10:09,880 --> 00:10:12,840
Speaker 3: she is now to sort of like challenge a like

194
00:10:13,640 --> 00:10:18,840
Speaker 3: cist reader specifically, but also in terms of scriptlousness in

195
00:10:18,880 --> 00:10:21,640
Speaker 3: a more like macro way. There's not a lot of

196
00:10:21,920 --> 00:10:27,720
Speaker 3: hya contemporary fiction about transgirl characters like at all. There

197
00:10:27,880 --> 00:10:31,920
Speaker 3: is now, thankfully, a good amount of trans male representation

198
00:10:32,200 --> 00:10:36,960
Speaker 3: in the genre, but there are a few authors who

199
00:10:37,000 --> 00:10:40,280
Speaker 3: are out here writing transferm contemporary but like not a

200
00:10:40,280 --> 00:10:43,200
Speaker 3: lot so like figuring out like where I wanted to

201
00:10:43,280 --> 00:10:48,360
Speaker 3: like slot in to this like genre that is kind

202
00:10:48,400 --> 00:10:50,960
Speaker 3: of like struggling to be born, you know, not a

203
00:10:50,960 --> 00:10:57,240
Speaker 3: lot of transferm like seventeen year old protagonists who are

204
00:10:57,360 --> 00:11:02,360
Speaker 3: like going to like parties and beer and worrying about

205
00:11:02,360 --> 00:11:04,600
Speaker 3: whether or not they want to go to college, which

206
00:11:04,760 --> 00:11:07,200
Speaker 3: is all is all stuff I wanted to like touch here.

207
00:11:07,920 --> 00:11:10,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think there's a bunch of levels of

208
00:11:10,080 --> 00:11:13,480
Speaker 2: this stuff sort of operates on and I think it's

209
00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:19,480
Speaker 2: very like I don't know, like a lot of being trands.

210
00:11:19,559 --> 00:11:21,160
Speaker 2: And I say it, at least for me, I don't know,

211
00:11:21,200 --> 00:11:23,480
Speaker 2: like maybe maybe this was different other people. Was just

212
00:11:23,520 --> 00:11:26,120
Speaker 2: like having no idea what the fuck you're doing and

213
00:11:26,200 --> 00:11:30,160
Speaker 2: just you know, waking up one day and realizing like shit, wait,

214
00:11:30,160 --> 00:11:32,800
Speaker 2: what the fuck do you mean I'm doing this? And

215
00:11:32,840 --> 00:11:34,400
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, I got think about this, Like

216
00:11:34,440 --> 00:11:36,360
Speaker 2: doing this job was like wait, what the fuck I'm

217
00:11:36,360 --> 00:11:42,600
Speaker 2: a trans podcaster? Like what like I can't even do

218
00:11:42,640 --> 00:11:45,439
Speaker 2: my makeup? Well, Like, what the fuck are we doing here?

219
00:11:45,720 --> 00:11:46,000
Speaker 3: Yep?

220
00:11:47,200 --> 00:11:49,000
Speaker 2: I think that like an never think that I've talked

221
00:11:49,040 --> 00:11:50,640
Speaker 2: about to talk about this a lot on the show. Is,

222
00:11:50,679 --> 00:11:56,360
Speaker 2: but it's also just like how kind of like normal

223
00:11:56,920 --> 00:11:59,880
Speaker 2: the trans girls who just like suddenly something blows up

224
00:12:00,040 --> 00:12:03,280
Speaker 2: and they're like Internet famers or whatever the fuck are that.

225
00:12:03,320 --> 00:12:07,880
Speaker 2: They're just like some kid until like, yeah, you know,

226
00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:10,720
Speaker 2: there's just like an explosion and everyone is suddenly interested

227
00:12:10,720 --> 00:12:12,440
Speaker 2: in every intimate detail of your life and is trying

228
00:12:12,480 --> 00:12:13,960
Speaker 2: to deconstruct it in order to destroy you.

229
00:12:14,360 --> 00:12:18,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, Grace is. Again I don't really want to like

230
00:12:18,040 --> 00:12:22,000
Speaker 3: spoil act act three stuff here, but later on in

231
00:12:22,040 --> 00:12:25,880
Speaker 3: the story, Grace achieves some amount of like Internet notoriety

232
00:12:26,040 --> 00:12:30,040
Speaker 3: for what she's doing. And yeah, Grace is like an

233
00:12:30,120 --> 00:12:35,120
Speaker 3: extremely typical kid. She has like typical kid problems. But

234
00:12:35,200 --> 00:12:39,480
Speaker 3: then this like microscope gets put on her and she's

235
00:12:40,120 --> 00:12:43,440
Speaker 3: she is sort of like forced to like become this

236
00:12:43,600 --> 00:12:46,720
Speaker 3: like different thing that like if she wants to be

237
00:12:46,800 --> 00:12:49,120
Speaker 3: that thing someday, it's not now.

238
00:12:49,480 --> 00:12:50,200
Speaker 2: Yeah.

239
00:12:50,240 --> 00:12:52,680
Speaker 3: I think in a lot of ways, my book is

240
00:12:52,679 --> 00:12:56,120
Speaker 3: about how we ask teenagers to like do too much

241
00:12:56,200 --> 00:13:00,840
Speaker 3: and be too much. But like, especially trans kids, when

242
00:13:00,840 --> 00:13:04,120
Speaker 3: you transition at any age, you are building the plane

243
00:13:04,120 --> 00:13:07,040
Speaker 3: of your personality while you are flying it baby, yep,

244
00:13:07,240 --> 00:13:10,760
Speaker 3: And like that's so much pressure to put on anyone,

245
00:13:10,800 --> 00:13:14,880
Speaker 3: but like especially anyone who is a kid, is just

246
00:13:14,920 --> 00:13:17,080
Speaker 3: like there's a lot of pressure, and I wanted to

247
00:13:17,760 --> 00:13:22,439
Speaker 3: I wanted to like juxtapose the parts of Grace's experience

248
00:13:22,559 --> 00:13:25,679
Speaker 3: that like a like sis boy or girl could read

249
00:13:25,720 --> 00:13:27,679
Speaker 3: and be like, yep, I also don't know where I

250
00:13:27,720 --> 00:13:30,160
Speaker 3: want to go to college. But also like sort of

251
00:13:30,200 --> 00:13:35,200
Speaker 3: like show like well because she is like this, she

252
00:13:35,559 --> 00:13:40,400
Speaker 3: is facing this like unreal level of scrutiny that is

253
00:13:40,520 --> 00:13:44,120
Speaker 3: like not normal, deeply unnatural and like fucked up and

254
00:13:44,160 --> 00:13:44,800
Speaker 3: like unfair.

255
00:13:45,400 --> 00:13:48,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, speaking of unfair, we have to go to ads.

256
00:13:49,800 --> 00:13:53,000
Speaker 2: We come back. That's one of my better pivots. I'm

257
00:13:53,000 --> 00:13:57,599
Speaker 2: proud of that one. We come back for you to

258
00:13:57,640 --> 00:14:14,880
Speaker 2: talk about masculinity. We are back. So One of the

259
00:14:14,920 --> 00:14:19,120
Speaker 2: Boys is weirdly the second football involved book about a

260
00:14:19,120 --> 00:14:21,720
Speaker 2: trans woman that I've read in the last year, And

261
00:14:21,840 --> 00:14:27,080
Speaker 2: I think it's fascinating because in the like pure archetypal

262
00:14:27,480 --> 00:14:32,080
Speaker 2: sense from like structuralless anthropology, it is like a pure

263
00:14:32,200 --> 00:14:35,320
Speaker 2: structural inversion of Alison Greeves is how to Fly, because

264
00:14:35,360 --> 00:14:37,200
Speaker 2: how to Fly is this is also a good book.

265
00:14:37,240 --> 00:14:40,080
Speaker 2: But How to Fly is about a girl getting forced

266
00:14:40,080 --> 00:14:42,280
Speaker 2: femed to escape masculine violence, why they come and a

267
00:14:42,400 --> 00:14:44,640
Speaker 2: cheerleader and one of the boys is about a trans

268
00:14:44,640 --> 00:14:47,760
Speaker 2: woman going back into, like into a hypermasculine space to

269
00:14:47,760 --> 00:14:50,800
Speaker 2: become a football player. It's like they're just literally perfect

270
00:14:50,840 --> 00:14:53,600
Speaker 2: structural versions of each other. And so I wanted to

271
00:14:53,600 --> 00:14:59,280
Speaker 2: ask you about how are you thinking about doing this

272
00:14:59,360 --> 00:15:02,360
Speaker 2: thing right, which which is going back into these these

273
00:15:02,440 --> 00:15:05,280
Speaker 2: hyper masculine spaces that a lot of people come out

274
00:15:05,320 --> 00:15:09,200
Speaker 2: of pre transition, you know, when when you were sort

275
00:15:09,240 --> 00:15:12,000
Speaker 2: of writing this, because this is not a thing that

276
00:15:12,120 --> 00:15:18,280
Speaker 2: people tended to write when they're writing about transfems.

277
00:15:17,000 --> 00:15:23,680
Speaker 3: Totally and sort of the like irregularity of Grace's path

278
00:15:23,960 --> 00:15:26,040
Speaker 3: this way is like one of the reasons why I

279
00:15:26,080 --> 00:15:30,400
Speaker 3: was like drawn to like writing a sports story about

280
00:15:30,440 --> 00:15:34,320
Speaker 3: like a trans girl playing football specifically, is because like

281
00:15:34,840 --> 00:15:38,000
Speaker 3: I probably have a like more I don't know if

282
00:15:38,040 --> 00:15:41,400
Speaker 3: complicated is the word, but I have like a very

283
00:15:41,560 --> 00:15:44,440
Speaker 3: like interesting relationship with masculinity. And as much as I'm

284
00:15:44,480 --> 00:15:46,720
Speaker 3: like fascinated by it, like I think it is like

285
00:15:46,880 --> 00:15:50,880
Speaker 3: endlessly interesting to see the ways that like men construct

286
00:15:51,120 --> 00:15:55,480
Speaker 3: the like various kinds of masculinity that they live in

287
00:15:55,640 --> 00:16:00,960
Speaker 3: and the like various outcomes that men can end up

288
00:16:01,600 --> 00:16:07,200
Speaker 3: finding via their weird distinct masculinities. For instance, for me personally,

289
00:16:07,680 --> 00:16:11,080
Speaker 3: I'm still in my like old high school like boys'

290
00:16:12,160 --> 00:16:15,920
Speaker 3: group chat like that we like started like a decade ago,

291
00:16:16,480 --> 00:16:19,760
Speaker 3: and like I have never once had a problem fitting

292
00:16:19,800 --> 00:16:22,040
Speaker 3: in there. When they all found out I was trans,

293
00:16:22,160 --> 00:16:25,480
Speaker 3: was like, oh shit, cool, whatever, we're gonna keep talking

294
00:16:25,480 --> 00:16:32,280
Speaker 3: about like the Knicks, you know. And like, again, Grace's

295
00:16:32,880 --> 00:16:35,880
Speaker 3: journey with masculinity is different from mine, but kind of

296
00:16:35,920 --> 00:16:40,040
Speaker 3: like her, I have like some amount of like difficulty

297
00:16:40,160 --> 00:16:45,160
Speaker 3: and like very masculine sports spaces when I was a kid.

298
00:16:45,200 --> 00:16:48,040
Speaker 3: But then like once you adapt and once you like

299
00:16:48,840 --> 00:16:52,320
Speaker 3: learn how to like perform this thing, Like I never

300
00:16:52,400 --> 00:16:58,040
Speaker 3: had a problem existing in these worlds. And like something

301
00:16:58,080 --> 00:17:00,800
Speaker 3: that Grace is really annoyed by is that people are

302
00:17:00,840 --> 00:17:03,600
Speaker 3: always like I just can't believe that, like you would

303
00:17:03,600 --> 00:17:06,480
Speaker 3: be trans, And what is hidden in there is like

304
00:17:06,880 --> 00:17:09,160
Speaker 3: you were kind of a dick. You were like kind

305
00:17:09,200 --> 00:17:12,960
Speaker 3: of a douchebag. Yeah, So, like I very much wanted

306
00:17:12,960 --> 00:17:17,760
Speaker 3: to write a trans protagonist who has a relationship with

307
00:17:17,920 --> 00:17:22,399
Speaker 3: like her past self and with her male friends that

308
00:17:22,480 --> 00:17:24,800
Speaker 3: was like a little more complicated, where like she has

309
00:17:24,960 --> 00:17:30,080
Speaker 3: a like very good, solid group of like male friends

310
00:17:30,119 --> 00:17:34,280
Speaker 3: who are not like perfect, but are still like that's

311
00:17:34,320 --> 00:17:39,240
Speaker 3: my friend. So like I think for my friends and

312
00:17:39,320 --> 00:17:43,119
Speaker 3: for a lot of trans women's male friends, they're like, well,

313
00:17:43,320 --> 00:17:46,159
Speaker 3: I was friends with you before, so like you're still

314
00:17:46,640 --> 00:17:49,240
Speaker 3: like you know, you're still you. I'm still gonna be

315
00:17:49,240 --> 00:17:50,560
Speaker 3: cool with you. So I guess that means that I

316
00:17:50,640 --> 00:17:53,760
Speaker 3: have to think about like that I have to like, okay,

317
00:17:53,960 --> 00:17:58,040
Speaker 3: now I have to like think about how like trans

318
00:17:58,040 --> 00:18:01,680
Speaker 3: people are like treated by society more broadly. And it's

319
00:18:01,720 --> 00:18:06,920
Speaker 3: like interesting seeing men in my life like suddenly become

320
00:18:07,000 --> 00:18:12,200
Speaker 3: like cognizant of like transitions, and it's all like personal.

321
00:18:12,280 --> 00:18:15,400
Speaker 3: It's all like, well, I know this person, and therefore

322
00:18:15,800 --> 00:18:18,199
Speaker 3: I'm going to show compassion to this person that I like.

323
00:18:18,280 --> 00:18:22,560
Speaker 3: And then you know, politics starting at the personal and

324
00:18:22,560 --> 00:18:24,080
Speaker 3: sort of like growing out from there.

325
00:18:24,880 --> 00:18:27,000
Speaker 2: So I want to ask a bit a bit more

326
00:18:27,040 --> 00:18:29,639
Speaker 2: just digging into sort of the masculinity aspect specifically, because

327
00:18:29,640 --> 00:18:31,199
Speaker 2: one of the things I think is I don't know

328
00:18:31,240 --> 00:18:35,600
Speaker 2: that there's a part of being a transfem that isn't

329
00:18:36,280 --> 00:18:40,000
Speaker 2: super well understood outside of it, which is sort of

330
00:18:41,000 --> 00:18:43,960
Speaker 2: a lot of trends women have a phase where you

331
00:18:45,080 --> 00:18:47,680
Speaker 2: really try to be a man, right, where you get

332
00:18:47,720 --> 00:18:50,280
Speaker 2: like really into like hypermasculinity in order to try to

333
00:18:50,440 --> 00:18:52,879
Speaker 2: like yeah, try to make yourself do it. Like I

334
00:18:53,200 --> 00:18:55,960
Speaker 2: had gamer mea phase which was a fiasco. Not even

335
00:18:55,960 --> 00:18:57,960
Speaker 2: gaming me. I'm still sort of gamer, but I had,

336
00:18:58,000 --> 00:19:01,280
Speaker 2: like you know, I had I had like like top

337
00:19:01,359 --> 00:19:06,080
Speaker 2: point two five percent heartstone player, like the ag a

338
00:19:06,440 --> 00:19:12,560
Speaker 2: wreck a disasters, substantively a worst person. Yeah, and you

339
00:19:12,640 --> 00:19:14,800
Speaker 2: know so and like that's the thing that has a

340
00:19:14,800 --> 00:19:18,959
Speaker 2: lot of complicated social ripples. Were like this this process

341
00:19:19,000 --> 00:19:21,240
Speaker 2: if like like doing this, you know, sometimes it's like

342
00:19:21,240 --> 00:19:22,879
Speaker 2: your final them. It's just it's just what you're doing

343
00:19:22,960 --> 00:19:24,359
Speaker 2: to try to get by. It's like trying to force

344
00:19:24,400 --> 00:19:28,280
Speaker 2: yourself to be a man and like do this masculinity

345
00:19:28,280 --> 00:19:30,840
Speaker 2: in a way that's like really shit because you're trying

346
00:19:30,840 --> 00:19:34,399
Speaker 2: to like reconcile it with yourself. Yes, So this is

347
00:19:34,440 --> 00:19:37,880
Speaker 2: like a thing that a lot of like transforms experience.

348
00:19:38,480 --> 00:19:42,040
Speaker 2: I think it's written interestingly in this book. I was

349
00:19:42,040 --> 00:19:44,880
Speaker 2: always wondering. I don't know, like like the way you

350
00:19:44,960 --> 00:19:48,080
Speaker 2: talk about being in this in like fitting into these

351
00:19:48,080 --> 00:19:50,040
Speaker 2: spaces is as like okay, well I figured out how

352
00:19:50,040 --> 00:19:52,560
Speaker 2: to like do the performance okay, and then it was

353
00:19:52,600 --> 00:19:56,080
Speaker 2: sort of fine. So I'm wondering, like this is almost

354
00:19:56,680 --> 00:19:59,360
Speaker 2: universally seen as like this is like a formal structural

355
00:19:59,440 --> 00:20:01,479
Speaker 2: violence enacted on you that you sort of have to

356
00:20:01,520 --> 00:20:06,720
Speaker 2: like do this. But there's also a kind of, I

357
00:20:06,760 --> 00:20:11,000
Speaker 2: don't know, a kind of complicated dynamic of like these

358
00:20:11,040 --> 00:20:14,120
Speaker 2: people are still like your friends and you like them,

359
00:20:14,320 --> 00:20:15,359
Speaker 2: and I guess I want to know sort of how

360
00:20:15,480 --> 00:20:17,840
Speaker 2: how you've been thinking about like that specific angle and

361
00:20:18,160 --> 00:20:20,320
Speaker 2: like this sort of process of fitting in and becoming

362
00:20:20,359 --> 00:20:22,679
Speaker 2: it also just this is sort of unbecoming you have

363
00:20:22,720 --> 00:20:24,160
Speaker 2: to do to like become yourself.

364
00:20:25,359 --> 00:20:30,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, so my book has flashback sequences that are written

365
00:20:30,800 --> 00:20:34,520
Speaker 3: in second person. This is mostly a book that's written

366
00:20:34,560 --> 00:20:37,880
Speaker 3: in first person. But I tried to like really lean

367
00:20:37,920 --> 00:20:42,399
Speaker 3: into this like phenomenon of like closeted trans women like

368
00:20:43,440 --> 00:20:47,840
Speaker 3: butching up at like certain moments in their lives in

369
00:20:47,920 --> 00:20:53,240
Speaker 3: order to like pass and cram down this like feeling

370
00:20:53,320 --> 00:20:56,280
Speaker 3: that is like really fucking scary at first. Yeah, So,

371
00:20:56,480 --> 00:21:03,000
Speaker 3: like I want the second person grace flashbacks to her

372
00:21:03,080 --> 00:21:10,000
Speaker 3: like starting fights and being a like asshole to her girlfriend.

373
00:21:10,040 --> 00:21:12,720
Speaker 3: I want them to feel like jarring and I want

374
00:21:12,760 --> 00:21:16,760
Speaker 3: them to feel like Grace is being a bastard in

375
00:21:17,080 --> 00:21:21,600
Speaker 3: a lot of these flashbacks, but like I also wanted

376
00:21:21,640 --> 00:21:23,960
Speaker 3: to show like how she gets there in terms of

377
00:21:24,040 --> 00:21:28,240
Speaker 3: like various moments earlier in her life where she was

378
00:21:28,280 --> 00:21:33,040
Speaker 3: sort of like shunted into this more like masculine path

379
00:21:33,080 --> 00:21:37,040
Speaker 3: in order to like pass and like not be bullied

380
00:21:37,240 --> 00:21:42,880
Speaker 3: or like other eyes, and like it definitely is. It's tough,

381
00:21:42,920 --> 00:21:45,720
Speaker 3: and I think that I think that I personally have

382
00:21:45,880 --> 00:21:49,840
Speaker 3: a like complicated relationship with Like, yeah, like I hated

383
00:21:49,840 --> 00:21:52,000
Speaker 3: football when I played it, and I did it because

384
00:21:53,119 --> 00:21:55,520
Speaker 3: like I like the sport obviously because I'm a fan,

385
00:21:55,640 --> 00:21:57,639
Speaker 3: and because I wrote this book about it, and because

386
00:21:57,640 --> 00:21:59,600
Speaker 3: I write about football sometimes and I boast about it

387
00:21:59,640 --> 00:22:02,280
Speaker 3: a lot. But like playing it made me miserable, But

388
00:22:02,400 --> 00:22:05,920
Speaker 3: like I also be friends with that team who I

389
00:22:05,960 --> 00:22:09,200
Speaker 3: still talk to. So it's like I definitely wanted to

390
00:22:09,240 --> 00:22:14,160
Speaker 3: feel like violent and imposed, but also like it isn't

391
00:22:14,320 --> 00:22:17,959
Speaker 3: something that can be like erased. It's something that you

392
00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:20,639
Speaker 3: have to deal with. It's something that like as you

393
00:22:21,680 --> 00:22:24,600
Speaker 3: grow up and as you continue to self actualize, you

394
00:22:24,640 --> 00:22:29,960
Speaker 3: have to like decide what parts of that version of

395
00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:33,520
Speaker 3: yourself are worth keeping. And what parts aren't. And that's

396
00:22:33,600 --> 00:22:36,280
Speaker 3: like something that I wanted to show, like Grace struggle

397
00:22:36,320 --> 00:22:40,359
Speaker 3: through kind of in real time. She's like very early

398
00:22:40,440 --> 00:22:42,520
Speaker 3: in her transition, and she doesn't know how she wants

399
00:22:42,560 --> 00:22:46,399
Speaker 3: to present, and she doesn't know how much of her

400
00:22:46,480 --> 00:22:49,480
Speaker 3: old life and the people in her old life that

401
00:22:50,080 --> 00:22:55,439
Speaker 3: want to associate with her, or does existing on this

402
00:22:55,480 --> 00:22:58,320
Speaker 3: football team dragger back towards something that she doesn't want

403
00:22:58,320 --> 00:23:01,159
Speaker 3: to be anymore. It's all stuff that I wanted to

404
00:23:02,160 --> 00:23:05,280
Speaker 3: play with. And it's not like overtly political, but is

405
00:23:05,400 --> 00:23:07,920
Speaker 3: like subtextually political, you know.

406
00:23:08,280 --> 00:23:11,159
Speaker 2: Yeah, well it's it's it's political in the sense that,

407
00:23:11,280 --> 00:23:13,560
Speaker 2: like you know that we were talking about sort of

408
00:23:13,560 --> 00:23:16,520
Speaker 2: scriptlessness earlier, right, And I think one of the one

409
00:23:16,520 --> 00:23:19,040
Speaker 2: of the sort of alienating factors about being trends is that, like,

410
00:23:19,960 --> 00:23:22,359
Speaker 2: especially if you're like kind of alone and you're like,

411
00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:24,200
Speaker 2: you know, like you're like the only transferm that you're

412
00:23:24,240 --> 00:23:27,320
Speaker 2: spending time with, right, This is just true for like

413
00:23:27,320 --> 00:23:29,520
Speaker 2: a lot of things, like a lot of how sort

414
00:23:29,560 --> 00:23:32,119
Speaker 2: of oppression functions and a lot of how violence functions

415
00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:34,000
Speaker 2: is by convincing you that this is the only you're

416
00:23:34,040 --> 00:23:36,520
Speaker 2: the only person's ever gone through this m and there

417
00:23:36,520 --> 00:23:38,439
Speaker 2: are always going to be unique aspects of it. But like,

418
00:23:39,320 --> 00:23:41,360
Speaker 2: you know, one of the ways that alienation has maintained

419
00:23:41,400 --> 00:23:45,520
Speaker 2: is by convincing you that no one else can understand

420
00:23:45,560 --> 00:23:47,320
Speaker 2: the thing that's happening to you, and that because no

421
00:23:47,320 --> 00:23:49,479
Speaker 2: one else has ever done it. And it turns out like, no, actually,

422
00:23:49,480 --> 00:23:52,000
Speaker 2: this is something that like all of us have gone through.

423
00:23:52,200 --> 00:23:54,920
Speaker 2: And when you sort of start to realize this and

424
00:23:54,960 --> 00:23:57,080
Speaker 2: the kind of solidarity that they could be built based

425
00:23:57,080 --> 00:23:59,720
Speaker 2: on this collective well of experience we've all gone through,

426
00:23:59,720 --> 00:24:02,600
Speaker 2: and how it can be you know, changed by actual

427
00:24:02,840 --> 00:24:06,640
Speaker 2: actions of a bunch of people working together. It changes things.

428
00:24:06,640 --> 00:24:07,880
Speaker 2: So I think I think it is in a lot

429
00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:10,560
Speaker 2: of ways political in the sense that like, in order

430
00:24:10,600 --> 00:24:14,440
Speaker 2: to have politics, you have to have sort of like

431
00:24:14,480 --> 00:24:17,879
Speaker 2: collective assemblages of people who fucking understand each other and

432
00:24:17,880 --> 00:24:19,600
Speaker 2: to understand that they're not alone, that they can do

433
00:24:19,680 --> 00:24:21,680
Speaker 2: things totally. And this is part of how you get

434
00:24:21,680 --> 00:24:21,960
Speaker 2: to that.

435
00:24:22,880 --> 00:24:27,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, we can talk a little bit more about the

436
00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:31,160
Speaker 3: like very start of something that could be seen as

437
00:24:31,160 --> 00:24:36,520
Speaker 3: a political awakening that Grace has in this book, but like, yeah,

438
00:24:37,080 --> 00:24:38,960
Speaker 3: part of the reason that she isn't perfect is because

439
00:24:38,960 --> 00:24:42,000
Speaker 3: she doesn't know any other, Like there are no other

440
00:24:42,200 --> 00:24:45,040
Speaker 3: transmitting characters in this book, And that was very deliberate. Yeah,

441
00:24:45,040 --> 00:24:46,840
Speaker 3: Grace is like on our own. She is like figuring

442
00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:49,320
Speaker 3: this shit out as she goes yep. And I wanted

443
00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:53,040
Speaker 3: it to feel rough and like ad hoc y because

444
00:24:53,119 --> 00:24:54,680
Speaker 3: like that's how it is for a lot of people.

445
00:24:54,760 --> 00:24:55,640
Speaker 3: That's how it was, like.

446
00:24:55,600 --> 00:24:58,920
Speaker 2: Go through it by walking. Yeah, yeah, I guess. I

447
00:24:58,960 --> 00:25:00,600
Speaker 2: guess I want to kind of move into the more

448
00:25:00,640 --> 00:25:03,440
Speaker 2: directly political realm. Why do I think that's interesting about

449
00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:06,640
Speaker 2: this book is that like Grace and this is something

450
00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:09,680
Speaker 2: that like I my brain has been so melted by

451
00:25:09,680 --> 00:25:13,240
Speaker 2: having been like the politics kids since I was like fifteen,

452
00:25:14,119 --> 00:25:16,600
Speaker 2: because I was like my high school was like interrupted

453
00:25:16,640 --> 00:25:18,080
Speaker 2: in the middle of it by be trying to overseell

454
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:21,320
Speaker 2: the Turkish government, and so like my brain is so melted.

455
00:25:23,280 --> 00:25:25,199
Speaker 2: We'll get aired one one day. We already can't go

456
00:25:25,320 --> 00:25:30,879
Speaker 2: there for our coverage of Kurdish gorilla movements. Very good stuff.

457
00:25:30,920 --> 00:25:32,600
Speaker 2: You'll find many, many such things, as I think, But

458
00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:34,960
Speaker 2: like one of the interesting persons about this is that

459
00:25:35,520 --> 00:25:38,159
Speaker 2: Grace is like not political, right, and most of the

460
00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:41,879
Speaker 2: people in this aren't. And there's kind of a divide

461
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:46,520
Speaker 2: between the politics knowers who are like the more uh

462
00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:48,600
Speaker 2: you know, who are like okay, yeah, like we are

463
00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:51,040
Speaker 2: like the queer kids. We are like the activist kids,

464
00:25:51,040 --> 00:25:53,919
Speaker 2: and then like the you know, like the ballplayers, and

465
00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:57,439
Speaker 2: then Grace sort of fits more into the like not

466
00:25:57,480 --> 00:25:59,600
Speaker 2: even more into Grace isn't like a politics person. Grace

467
00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:02,000
Speaker 2: is a like, hey, like transphobia is bad, we shouldn't

468
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:04,520
Speaker 2: do that, but also like just wants to fucking go

469
00:26:04,600 --> 00:26:08,560
Speaker 2: kick a go kick a rock between two posts. So yeah,

470
00:26:08,560 --> 00:26:10,359
Speaker 2: can you talk about like how you sort of decided

471
00:26:10,400 --> 00:26:13,680
Speaker 2: to make her just be like kid who doesn't follow politics.

472
00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:18,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, so like if that was like not any kind

473
00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:21,760
Speaker 3: of like statement about how like politics is bad, you know,

474
00:26:22,119 --> 00:26:26,920
Speaker 3: that was like Grace's seventeen, and most seventeen year olds,

475
00:26:26,920 --> 00:26:30,480
Speaker 3: if they have politics at all, have like completely incoherent politics.

476
00:26:30,520 --> 00:26:32,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I was like holy shit.

477
00:26:33,359 --> 00:26:37,639
Speaker 3: Yeah, So like Grace has the like barest outlines of

478
00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:41,720
Speaker 3: like ideology and those were like put on her by

479
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:44,359
Speaker 3: people in her life. We know that her dad is

480
00:26:44,400 --> 00:26:48,120
Speaker 3: a union man, and from a small age she has

481
00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:52,919
Speaker 3: internalized that unions are good. Does she know why? Probably not?

482
00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:57,120
Speaker 3: But or also we know that her friend tab who

483
00:26:57,200 --> 00:27:00,840
Speaker 3: is Bori, has been like educating her on like Puerto

484
00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:05,399
Speaker 3: Rican independence, which was like, which was a like that

485
00:27:05,560 --> 00:27:11,040
Speaker 3: was a very funny line, right because because Grace is

486
00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:14,200
Speaker 3: just like dumb as shit white kid from the suburbs.

487
00:27:14,600 --> 00:27:18,919
Speaker 3: But so like inasmuch as she's like piecing together the

488
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:22,200
Speaker 3: person she is bit by bit, she's also kind of

489
00:27:22,240 --> 00:27:26,679
Speaker 3: like piecing what she thinks about the world together along

490
00:27:26,720 --> 00:27:29,719
Speaker 3: with that in terms of like most of the straight

491
00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:34,120
Speaker 3: white players on the football team like do not have

492
00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:38,920
Speaker 3: like basically don't have politics. There's a scene where one

493
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:41,919
Speaker 3: of my minor characters is like, yo, I just figured

494
00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:47,360
Speaker 3: out that, like trans phobia is bad, and I loved

495
00:27:47,520 --> 00:27:52,840
Speaker 3: I fucking loved writing that. But like, I imagine that

496
00:27:52,920 --> 00:27:56,239
Speaker 3: up until recently, Grace was exactly like this and just

497
00:27:56,280 --> 00:28:00,560
Speaker 3: like just like yep, I'm a middle lower middle class

498
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 3: white straight boy, air quotes on all of that, she

499
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:09,320
Speaker 3: never had any kind of like thought about that. That

500
00:28:09,760 --> 00:28:11,520
Speaker 3: does not reflect what was going on in my life

501
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:13,520
Speaker 3: when I was a teenager, because I was a very

502
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:20,000
Speaker 3: annoying oh like me and a friend of mine, Chavon,

503
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:23,320
Speaker 3: got in trouble for putting a Bernie Sanders twenty sixteen

504
00:28:23,359 --> 00:28:27,800
Speaker 3: sticker on her locker, because that's the kind of shit

505
00:28:27,840 --> 00:28:34,359
Speaker 3: we were doing in high school in twenty fifteen. So like,

506
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 3: I was like very much had sort of like vacant liberal,

507
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:45,360
Speaker 3: middle class kid politics, but like Grace Grace is. I

508
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:48,880
Speaker 3: imagine that like later in her life she kind of

509
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:52,760
Speaker 3: has more political thoughts in her head. But I also

510
00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:55,920
Speaker 3: kind of imagine that her brain works like I don't

511
00:28:55,920 --> 00:28:59,720
Speaker 3: know if you've played Disco Elysium, but I kind of imagine.

512
00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:04,040
Speaker 3: I kind of imagine Grace has a like thought cabinet,

513
00:29:04,080 --> 00:29:10,280
Speaker 3: and it's like she has like she has like two

514
00:29:10,360 --> 00:29:14,160
Speaker 3: slots in it. Oh, she just like cannot hold that

515
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:18,240
Speaker 3: many ideas in her brain at once. So she's she

516
00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:21,760
Speaker 3: is in all aspects of her life trying her vest

517
00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:25,920
Speaker 3: and trying to get better. And yeah, I want to

518
00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:29,640
Speaker 3: like I feel like a lot of contemporary YA that

519
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:32,000
Speaker 3: comes out these days, a lot of the kids have

520
00:29:32,160 --> 00:29:35,560
Speaker 3: like overly coherent politics. I was like, nah, nah, I

521
00:29:35,600 --> 00:29:38,480
Speaker 3: wanted to write a kid who has like good intentions

522
00:29:38,480 --> 00:29:39,680
Speaker 3: but has no idea what she's doing.

523
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:42,720
Speaker 2: Yep, God, my brain's doing the Trump flying. In many

524
00:29:42,760 --> 00:29:46,600
Speaker 2: cases have no idea what they're doing. Yeah. Oh, Jesus

525
00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:49,760
Speaker 2: crushing braids are broken. Okay, speaking of things being broken,

526
00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:59,120
Speaker 2: the products and services to support this podcast unrelated statements.

527
00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:07,760
Speaker 2: We are back, Okay. So, having now gotten like many

528
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:11,760
Speaker 2: far into this interview without directly being like, here's the

529
00:30:11,840 --> 00:30:16,080
Speaker 2: football politics, let's talk about the politics of football. Because

530
00:30:16,120 --> 00:30:18,719
Speaker 2: one of the things I think is fascinating about, you know,

531
00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:20,760
Speaker 2: the way you're sort of talking about this, and the

532
00:30:20,800 --> 00:30:23,360
Speaker 2: way that Grace like runs into this, and the way

533
00:30:23,360 --> 00:30:25,000
Speaker 2: that this is just like a thing that happens in

534
00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:28,680
Speaker 2: the US, which is that like giant portions of the

535
00:30:28,800 --> 00:30:32,920
Speaker 2: entire US economy and like like structural elements of the

536
00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:36,280
Speaker 2: US like education system from like the ground up, and

537
00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:39,479
Speaker 2: like all of these sort of contracting services, like massive

538
00:30:39,520 --> 00:30:42,200
Speaker 2: portions of like how every single part of the education

539
00:30:42,280 --> 00:30:46,440
Speaker 2: system from like fucking like middle school through college are

540
00:30:46,520 --> 00:30:52,960
Speaker 2: all bent around this game, yep. And I think one

541
00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:54,520
Speaker 2: of the things that happens there is that like the

542
00:30:54,800 --> 00:30:59,080
Speaker 2: kind of like default ambient politics, it is very conservative,

543
00:30:59,120 --> 00:31:01,480
Speaker 2: and I think in ways you know, are very easy

544
00:31:01,520 --> 00:31:03,400
Speaker 2: to understand, and that when people tend to talk about this,

545
00:31:03,480 --> 00:31:06,000
Speaker 2: they immediately go like, well, yeah, so, like you know,

546
00:31:06,160 --> 00:31:08,160
Speaker 2: like the left is talking about football it's like you're

547
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:10,320
Speaker 2: talking about the militarism, which is like, yeah, I mean

548
00:31:10,320 --> 00:31:13,640
Speaker 2: they're fucking flying jets over games like there, we're not

549
00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:16,840
Speaker 2: even in wars anymore. In terms of like US ground

550
00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:19,520
Speaker 2: troops deployed, Like why the fuck are their troops showing

551
00:31:19,600 --> 00:31:22,560
Speaker 2: up on the field. There's like the cult of masculinity stuff.

552
00:31:22,600 --> 00:31:25,200
Speaker 2: There's you know, I mean, like there's been some engagement

553
00:31:25,240 --> 00:31:28,400
Speaker 2: now with the racial politics of it with Kaepernick. People

554
00:31:28,400 --> 00:31:30,280
Speaker 2: realize like, holy shit, wait, there's been like stuff happening

555
00:31:30,320 --> 00:31:33,160
Speaker 2: here for ages, and you know, when you get sort

556
00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:36,680
Speaker 2: of the masculinity politics. But there's I think a lot

557
00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:40,880
Speaker 2: of stuff here that we don't talk about on the

558
00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:44,160
Speaker 2: left in terms of like the class dynamics of this

559
00:31:44,320 --> 00:31:48,240
Speaker 2: and the way that football I'm just like functions in

560
00:31:48,240 --> 00:31:50,000
Speaker 2: a lot of very very weird ways in terms of

561
00:31:50,040 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 2: like sucking together this weird pool of a bunch of

562
00:31:54,200 --> 00:31:58,160
Speaker 2: like non white working class kids and like, I don't know,

563
00:31:58,600 --> 00:32:01,200
Speaker 2: fucking see, if I knew ball, I could I could

564
00:32:01,200 --> 00:32:02,719
Speaker 2: pull an example off the top of my head of

565
00:32:02,760 --> 00:32:06,160
Speaker 2: like some some quarterback prospect you'd spent these family had

566
00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:10,000
Speaker 2: spent like two million dollars on like personal trainers for him.

567
00:32:10,360 --> 00:32:15,520
Speaker 3: Absolutely. Yeah, I grew up sort of like middle lower

568
00:32:15,560 --> 00:32:20,920
Speaker 3: middle class and like playing football specifically, and I grew

569
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:24,120
Speaker 3: up playing mostly like soccer and baseball, a little bit

570
00:32:24,160 --> 00:32:26,080
Speaker 3: of basketball, but I sort of like I sort of

571
00:32:26,160 --> 00:32:28,720
Speaker 3: ended up playing football when I was like a teenager

572
00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:31,120
Speaker 3: because I was large, and that's how that works, yep.

573
00:32:31,560 --> 00:32:34,280
Speaker 3: And like in terms of like connecting with people who

574
00:32:34,320 --> 00:32:38,320
Speaker 3: weren't white and of my exact class status or higher

575
00:32:38,760 --> 00:32:42,120
Speaker 3: like football, so it happened. Man, like most of my

576
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:48,440
Speaker 3: earliest friendships with black kids with Hispanic kids was like

577
00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:53,120
Speaker 3: all through football, and like it is a like very

578
00:32:53,160 --> 00:32:59,040
Speaker 3: interesting sort of like class and racial melting pot at

579
00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:02,400
Speaker 3: least at like I went to a like pretty big

580
00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:07,720
Speaker 3: suburban middle and high school, but like lots of lots

581
00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:10,160
Speaker 3: of very different kinds of people ended up at my school,

582
00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:11,920
Speaker 3: and lots of very different kinds of people ended up

583
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:17,800
Speaker 3: playing football, And like you're gonna get a more diverse

584
00:33:18,600 --> 00:33:21,360
Speaker 3: slice of that student population on a football team than

585
00:33:21,360 --> 00:33:27,440
Speaker 3: you will on the fucking yearbook committee or in like

586
00:33:27,920 --> 00:33:33,400
Speaker 3: school band, class government, whatever. All of that came very

587
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:36,680
Speaker 3: naturally to me in terms of writing this book, where

588
00:33:36,720 --> 00:33:40,000
Speaker 3: like I've ended up with a book that's like quite diverse.

589
00:33:40,120 --> 00:33:42,240
Speaker 3: But I didn't really do that on purpose. I just

590
00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:44,440
Speaker 3: kind of like, who are the kinds of kids who

591
00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:46,520
Speaker 3: end up playing football? And it's like everyone you have

592
00:33:46,560 --> 00:33:48,840
Speaker 3: like Poorish kids like Grace, and then you have like

593
00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:53,440
Speaker 3: Ritish kids like Ahmed or Dre in my book, who

594
00:33:53,560 --> 00:33:57,120
Speaker 3: like I very much wanted to like show that, like

595
00:33:58,120 --> 00:34:01,200
Speaker 3: maybe one of the reasons that Grace is going to

596
00:34:01,320 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 3: end up having a more coherent politics is because, like

597
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:10,080
Speaker 3: she has friends of different backgrounds that she might not

598
00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:13,000
Speaker 3: if she had not ended up playing this this like

599
00:34:13,239 --> 00:34:16,919
Speaker 3: fucked up, evil, violent game. To be clear, Yeah, I mean,

600
00:34:17,120 --> 00:34:20,200
Speaker 3: I think any football fan who is honest with themselves

601
00:34:20,280 --> 00:34:22,879
Speaker 3: and has his politics that are not evil has a

602
00:34:23,200 --> 00:34:28,040
Speaker 3: very complicated relationship to the game for a like variety

603
00:34:28,080 --> 00:34:31,239
Speaker 3: of reasons. Because it like chews up people's brains and

604
00:34:31,719 --> 00:34:36,719
Speaker 3: there's that, but there's also like implied conservative politics. There's

605
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:41,320
Speaker 3: also a big factor here is that high school football,

606
00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:43,880
Speaker 3: even at a public school like mine, the religion is

607
00:34:43,920 --> 00:34:45,920
Speaker 3: all over it, baby, like all over it.

608
00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:47,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a huge part of it.

609
00:34:48,160 --> 00:34:52,680
Speaker 3: Jason Kirk of The Shutdown Full Cast is working on

610
00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:59,400
Speaker 3: a book about the history of Christianity and Talls Football

611
00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:01,960
Speaker 3: called it Church in State. I'm very fucking excited for

612
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:02,359
Speaker 3: that book.

613
00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:03,800
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, yeah, that sounds awesome.

614
00:35:03,920 --> 00:35:08,719
Speaker 3: But it's just like really interesting political space because of

615
00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:12,280
Speaker 3: how diverse it is and because of how like homogeneous

616
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:15,440
Speaker 3: a lot of the like religion and politics.

617
00:35:14,920 --> 00:35:17,520
Speaker 2: Of it are, I guess if that makes sense. Yeah,

618
00:35:18,040 --> 00:35:19,920
Speaker 2: And it's sounds so weird because like, you know, so

619
00:35:20,000 --> 00:35:22,320
Speaker 2: like I don't know, I refuse to watch college football,

620
00:35:22,320 --> 00:35:25,040
Speaker 2: Like I draw the line there, like I'm not doing this.

621
00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:27,160
Speaker 2: I'm not doing this. They can't make me watch like

622
00:35:27,360 --> 00:35:31,440
Speaker 2: fucking Colorado's State or whatever the fuck. But like one

623
00:35:31,440 --> 00:35:33,520
Speaker 2: of the things that you get in the NFL too,

624
00:35:33,600 --> 00:35:35,440
Speaker 2: is it's like, on the one hand, like you have

625
00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:38,680
Speaker 2: all of this really really conservative shit right, like every

626
00:35:38,719 --> 00:35:42,440
Speaker 2: fucking everything is God. Like every single time someone holds

627
00:35:42,760 --> 00:35:45,719
Speaker 2: a thing in front of a player there there's like

628
00:35:46,080 --> 00:35:48,520
Speaker 2: at least three lines of like all of this is

629
00:35:48,560 --> 00:35:52,799
Speaker 2: possible because of God, and like someone's like it's like

630
00:35:52,800 --> 00:35:56,160
Speaker 2: that the only place you see people regularly saying Christ

631
00:35:56,280 --> 00:35:58,520
Speaker 2: is King where they're not also like holding an ar

632
00:35:58,640 --> 00:36:01,000
Speaker 2: to like a non white person's head, you know. So

633
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:05,200
Speaker 2: so that there's all of this like really really conservative

634
00:36:05,200 --> 00:36:09,560
Speaker 2: religious shit. But then also there's like a union, yes

635
00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:13,799
Speaker 2: that everyone's in and it's like a large like I mean,

636
00:36:13,800 --> 00:36:17,200
Speaker 2: it's not that powerful. And there's there's weirdness there too,

637
00:36:17,200 --> 00:36:20,040
Speaker 2: because you get to see all of the really interesting

638
00:36:20,920 --> 00:36:24,000
Speaker 2: dynamics of unions that you don't really get outside of

639
00:36:24,120 --> 00:36:25,880
Speaker 2: kind of like I mean, like I guess like SAG

640
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:29,719
Speaker 2: kind of has this, but it's this union in this

641
00:36:29,880 --> 00:36:33,720
Speaker 2: place where one the owners have like an unbelievable amount

642
00:36:33,719 --> 00:36:36,759
Speaker 2: of control, like a hideous amount of power, and they

643
00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:39,680
Speaker 2: can turn through people really quickly. They have you know,

644
00:36:39,680 --> 00:36:41,200
Speaker 2: these are some of the richest people in the world.

645
00:36:41,680 --> 00:36:45,720
Speaker 2: And then also secondly there's there's this like marketization force

646
00:36:45,760 --> 00:36:48,480
Speaker 2: that's happening where you know, you get to see in

647
00:36:48,640 --> 00:36:53,520
Speaker 2: miniature the way that capitalism has like moved to to

648
00:36:53,560 --> 00:36:56,640
Speaker 2: sort of deal with with unions, to deal with sort

649
00:36:56,640 --> 00:36:58,360
Speaker 2: of the class movements of the twentieth century, which is

650
00:36:58,360 --> 00:37:01,399
Speaker 2: that like they're also trying to turn all of these

651
00:37:01,520 --> 00:37:03,319
Speaker 2: kids like into entrepreneurs.

652
00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:07,600
Speaker 3: M I think in the NFL, I think it's more

653
00:37:07,760 --> 00:37:11,400
Speaker 3: coherent because there is a players association, not a union.

654
00:37:11,480 --> 00:37:15,239
Speaker 2: A players association, although also also shout out shoutouts the

655
00:37:15,280 --> 00:37:18,399
Speaker 2: PA for backing are for backing a unionization attempt here,

656
00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:20,799
Speaker 2: Thanks for that. I don't know if it mattered, but

657
00:37:21,080 --> 00:37:21,759
Speaker 2: that's a lot to me.

658
00:37:22,960 --> 00:37:28,759
Speaker 3: Yeah. Also, like sports players, unions are fascinating because these

659
00:37:28,800 --> 00:37:31,359
Speaker 3: are people who are part of a union who are

660
00:37:31,800 --> 00:37:34,640
Speaker 3: like at least some of them millionaires. So it's yep,

661
00:37:35,040 --> 00:37:39,160
Speaker 3: a very interesting sort of like class dynamic happening there.

662
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:42,120
Speaker 3: But like call it like the college game right now

663
00:37:42,200 --> 00:37:47,280
Speaker 3: is just charn Oldhouse. I mean, like it is better

664
00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:51,200
Speaker 3: now that players are being paid like unambiguous good that

665
00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:53,800
Speaker 3: players can profit off of their name, image and likeness.

666
00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:58,440
Speaker 3: But again it makes like I remember, like I'm not

667
00:37:58,800 --> 00:38:02,880
Speaker 3: on Twitter much anymore, but like in the like early

668
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:06,279
Speaker 3: Elon days, you started getting Twitter ads and these were

669
00:38:06,719 --> 00:38:09,080
Speaker 3: sixteen and seventeen year old high school football players.

670
00:38:09,160 --> 00:38:09,440
Speaker 2: Yeah.

671
00:38:09,600 --> 00:38:13,840
Speaker 3: The post is like huddle highlights and like a like

672
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:19,120
Speaker 3: quick recruiting profile of like hey, class of twenty twenty

673
00:38:19,160 --> 00:38:23,840
Speaker 3: seven defensive back wide receiver out of Palo Alto, and

674
00:38:23,960 --> 00:38:27,560
Speaker 3: just like blasting that onto like Twitter timelines everywhere, just

675
00:38:27,719 --> 00:38:31,359
Speaker 3: like please God, somebody see my Like, somebody see these

676
00:38:31,400 --> 00:38:37,440
Speaker 3: fucking huddle highlights. The feudalism stage of high school and

677
00:38:38,520 --> 00:38:41,400
Speaker 3: college ball has like ended, and now we are in

678
00:38:41,440 --> 00:38:47,160
Speaker 3: the no regulations baby, just like completely unfettered capitalism stage.

679
00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:50,520
Speaker 2: Can we explain like just how like very briefly, people

680
00:38:50,560 --> 00:38:53,120
Speaker 2: who do not know any football, like what name, image, likenesses,

681
00:38:53,120 --> 00:38:55,480
Speaker 2: and how this is different from like a system that

682
00:38:55,480 --> 00:38:57,320
Speaker 2: would be normal, which is you pay the players.

683
00:38:57,960 --> 00:39:03,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, so for like seventy years, the precedent with college

684
00:39:03,800 --> 00:39:07,000
Speaker 3: football in the United States of America is that all

685
00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:09,600
Speaker 3: these players are amateurs and they cannot be compensated in

686
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:13,120
Speaker 3: any way. They cannot profit off of their name, image likeness,

687
00:39:13,160 --> 00:39:15,319
Speaker 3: so that means that they can't like sell autographs. The

688
00:39:15,440 --> 00:39:17,680
Speaker 3: school isn't going to sell jerseys that have their name

689
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:21,800
Speaker 3: on them. You are meant to make exactly zero dollars

690
00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:25,840
Speaker 3: from your time as a amateur college athlete. And this

691
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:29,680
Speaker 3: was the ironclad system for like seventy years, and then

692
00:39:30,200 --> 00:39:34,839
Speaker 3: it kind of got like destroyed overnight. Yeah, when the

693
00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:39,000
Speaker 3: NCAA finally legalizes players profiting off of their name, image,

694
00:39:39,040 --> 00:39:42,480
Speaker 3: and likeness, so that means that they could sign like

695
00:39:42,719 --> 00:39:46,799
Speaker 3: endorsement deals. And when this was first made a thing

696
00:39:47,080 --> 00:39:51,400
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty one, it mostly manifested in like the

697
00:39:51,480 --> 00:39:56,840
Speaker 3: coldest Crawford for the Nebraska football team is filming a

698
00:39:56,840 --> 00:39:59,680
Speaker 3: ad for a local air conditioning company because his name

699
00:39:59,719 --> 00:40:03,239
Speaker 3: is Coldest And it was sort of like very like

700
00:40:03,360 --> 00:40:08,080
Speaker 3: quaint and cute at first, but then nil collectives got going,

701
00:40:08,120 --> 00:40:10,160
Speaker 3: which are these I don't even know how to how

702
00:40:10,160 --> 00:40:14,799
Speaker 3: to like God described nil collective is these are like

703
00:40:14,920 --> 00:40:22,280
Speaker 3: investment groups that operate independently of universities that pool resources

704
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:28,480
Speaker 3: and then pay players for like extremely scant public appearances

705
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:30,440
Speaker 3: so that they can say that they're just profiting off

706
00:40:30,480 --> 00:40:34,040
Speaker 3: of name, image and likeness, but in reality they exist

707
00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:37,439
Speaker 3: as a way to pay college football players without paying

708
00:40:37,480 --> 00:40:40,840
Speaker 3: them via schools. Now there is the house settlement happening

709
00:40:40,920 --> 00:40:44,280
Speaker 3: right now, which colleges will soon be able to probably

710
00:40:44,600 --> 00:40:48,840
Speaker 3: maybe God who knows, will soon be able to directly

711
00:40:48,920 --> 00:40:53,160
Speaker 3: pay college athletes a certain amount of money. Lord knows

712
00:40:53,160 --> 00:40:55,600
Speaker 3: where that's going. Like this stuff is all changing at

713
00:40:55,640 --> 00:40:59,719
Speaker 3: like lightnings at like yeah, so like we have just

714
00:41:00,160 --> 00:41:03,000
Speaker 3: have gone from like nobody gets paid for anything to

715
00:41:03,160 --> 00:41:06,719
Speaker 3: like we are in fucking like gilded age robber bear

716
00:41:06,800 --> 00:41:10,080
Speaker 3: and shit where like yeah, because none of this shit

717
00:41:10,280 --> 00:41:14,600
Speaker 3: is regulated, schools or an aisle collectives will go back

718
00:41:14,640 --> 00:41:19,239
Speaker 3: on agreements and everything's negotiated every year. They're like like

719
00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:24,080
Speaker 3: it's it's a fucking mess. Yeah in the college game

720
00:41:24,160 --> 00:41:26,360
Speaker 3: right now. So I mean all of that makes the

721
00:41:26,600 --> 00:41:30,239
Speaker 3: like NFL having a kind of shitty union look a

722
00:41:30,280 --> 00:41:30,719
Speaker 3: lot better.

723
00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:33,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I just kind of thinking about the kind

724
00:41:33,360 --> 00:41:36,080
Speaker 2: of like this is my way of kind of bringing

725
00:41:36,120 --> 00:41:38,760
Speaker 2: it back to transgender but like one of the things

726
00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:42,040
Speaker 2: that I've been thinking about a lot in terms of

727
00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:44,759
Speaker 2: I mean just like what I do, right, and but

728
00:41:44,760 --> 00:41:46,880
Speaker 2: also just like the way that capitalism has been moving

729
00:41:46,920 --> 00:41:52,760
Speaker 2: in the lass like few decades is it's increasingly about

730
00:41:53,239 --> 00:41:55,359
Speaker 2: you know because like okay, so, like capitalism's fundamental base

731
00:41:55,400 --> 00:41:58,439
Speaker 2: has always been like you sell your labor, h right,

732
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:01,080
Speaker 2: but now it's it's it's been increasing shows for me

733
00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:04,160
Speaker 2: into like you're selling like the image of yourself. You're

734
00:42:04,160 --> 00:42:07,399
Speaker 2: selling your identity, you're selling like yeah, you know, you're

735
00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:09,400
Speaker 2: selling your personality. You're selling as much of like and

736
00:42:09,400 --> 00:42:10,880
Speaker 2: this is this is what name image likeness is.

737
00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:11,080
Speaker 3: Right.

738
00:42:11,120 --> 00:42:13,920
Speaker 2: It's like, we're not gonna pay you for like your labor,

739
00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:17,440
Speaker 2: which is like you playing football. We're gonna pay you

740
00:42:17,520 --> 00:42:20,319
Speaker 2: for like this nebulous image of yourself. So you get

741
00:42:20,360 --> 00:42:22,480
Speaker 2: all these people who like are are you know, you're

742
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:26,440
Speaker 2: forced to turn all of yourself into an object for consumption,

743
00:42:26,600 --> 00:42:28,840
Speaker 2: and like I think that's the thing with like fucking

744
00:42:28,840 --> 00:42:30,440
Speaker 2: I don't know, That's what I'm doing on this show

745
00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:32,719
Speaker 2: right to a large extent, like I am like the

746
00:42:32,800 --> 00:42:35,279
Speaker 2: Asian transgender and like, yeah, obviously, like all of this

747
00:42:35,320 --> 00:42:37,200
Speaker 2: is like research, but it's also you know, this is

748
00:42:37,200 --> 00:42:39,799
Speaker 2: what like brand and identity is, and this has had

749
00:42:39,840 --> 00:42:43,560
Speaker 2: these like seismic impacts on the entire global economy. Like

750
00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:45,439
Speaker 2: I talked about this in an episode on when I talked

751
00:42:45,440 --> 00:42:47,719
Speaker 2: about Temu, but like Tamu is literally the product of

752
00:42:47,760 --> 00:42:51,520
Speaker 2: this happening with Chinese farmers. We're like Chinese farmers were

753
00:42:51,560 --> 00:42:53,440
Speaker 2: doing this like farm social media thing, and so almost

754
00:42:53,440 --> 00:42:55,920
Speaker 2: like holy shit, what if we like become these things

755
00:42:55,920 --> 00:42:57,439
Speaker 2: where they were selling food but they're also just selling

756
00:42:57,480 --> 00:43:00,400
Speaker 2: that like the identity brand of like themselves as farmers,

757
00:43:00,840 --> 00:43:02,799
Speaker 2: and Timbu was like, well a PDD, which is the

758
00:43:02,880 --> 00:43:04,520
Speaker 2: Chinese company, was like, what if we just brought all

759
00:43:04,520 --> 00:43:06,359
Speaker 2: of these things together in one spot so you could

760
00:43:06,400 --> 00:43:09,120
Speaker 2: just do directed like consumer sales through it. And now

761
00:43:09,160 --> 00:43:13,200
Speaker 2: that's like the entire fucking economy is just this morass

762
00:43:13,400 --> 00:43:17,040
Speaker 2: of like selling every single part of yourself and I

763
00:43:17,080 --> 00:43:20,160
Speaker 2: don't know, like I'm wondering how much of yourself did

764
00:43:20,200 --> 00:43:21,880
Speaker 2: you have to do you have to like leave in

765
00:43:21,920 --> 00:43:23,480
Speaker 2: a book like this, and how much of it can

766
00:43:23,520 --> 00:43:27,000
Speaker 2: you like kind of like keep away from the market.

767
00:43:28,360 --> 00:43:30,479
Speaker 3: Oh boy, so.

768
00:43:32,920 --> 00:43:33,839
Speaker 2: You're good.

769
00:43:34,520 --> 00:43:41,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, Oh gosh, everything is uh, everything is personal brands.

770
00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:42,399
Speaker 4: Now.

771
00:43:42,440 --> 00:43:46,560
Speaker 3: You know, there's a lot of pressure as an author

772
00:43:47,080 --> 00:43:50,440
Speaker 3: to to use all your social media is in a

773
00:43:50,520 --> 00:43:55,120
Speaker 3: very particular way. You're supposed to You're you're supposed to

774
00:43:55,239 --> 00:43:58,919
Speaker 3: make your cute little canva graphics, uh, and like talking

775
00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:05,080
Speaker 3: about your character and engage with like prompt posts on

776
00:44:05,120 --> 00:44:11,640
Speaker 3: Instagram and you know whatever social media du jore And like,

777
00:44:13,080 --> 00:44:16,879
Speaker 3: my personal experience is a little irregular because I do

778
00:44:17,080 --> 00:44:24,240
Speaker 3: have some amount of like sports, Twitter, niche micro celebrity posting,

779
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:30,319
Speaker 3: so like I'm not out here making promotional tiktoks for

780
00:44:30,360 --> 00:44:33,399
Speaker 3: one of the boys. That was like something that was

781
00:44:33,520 --> 00:44:36,759
Speaker 3: very important to me. Was like, oh, I'm not going

782
00:44:36,840 --> 00:44:42,520
Speaker 3: to be doing that, thank god. Fuck that shit. Yeah.

783
00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:45,520
Speaker 3: And the way that authors have to promote themselves and

784
00:44:45,640 --> 00:44:47,839
Speaker 3: turn themselves into brands is like a whole other can

785
00:44:47,880 --> 00:44:48,600
Speaker 3: of worms.

786
00:44:48,280 --> 00:44:49,200
Speaker 2: That like sucks.

787
00:44:49,719 --> 00:44:53,680
Speaker 3: So like, Thankfully, I think I've managed to avoid the

788
00:44:53,719 --> 00:45:01,000
Speaker 3: most alienating like forms of that. But I did have

789
00:45:01,120 --> 00:45:04,279
Speaker 3: a few not too long ago, very confidently state that

790
00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:07,480
Speaker 3: this book was loosely based on my life story, which

791
00:45:07,600 --> 00:45:12,520
Speaker 3: was news to me. I was, like, word, I didn't

792
00:45:12,560 --> 00:45:18,320
Speaker 3: know that. So, like, I think, especially if you write

793
00:45:18,440 --> 00:45:22,160
Speaker 3: fiction as a person of any marginalized identity, if you're

794
00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:26,200
Speaker 3: if you're black, if you're gay, if you're trans, whatever,

795
00:45:26,560 --> 00:45:30,040
Speaker 3: people are going to assume that you're writing like auto fiction.

796
00:45:30,239 --> 00:45:33,480
Speaker 3: Because I think a lot of people react to women's

797
00:45:33,480 --> 00:45:35,280
Speaker 3: fiction this way, because I think a lot of people

798
00:45:35,840 --> 00:45:40,000
Speaker 3: subconsciously have a hard time believing that like women have

799
00:45:40,120 --> 00:45:45,200
Speaker 3: interior lives and can like imagine things, you know, Like,

800
00:45:45,760 --> 00:45:48,120
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people assume that authors are

801
00:45:48,160 --> 00:45:51,480
Speaker 3: always writing about themselves and writing about the people in

802
00:45:51,480 --> 00:45:56,640
Speaker 3: their lives, and uh, I mean, I'm writing about experiences

803
00:45:57,000 --> 00:46:00,600
Speaker 3: that I have had similar ones too, but like naw dog,

804
00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:02,120
Speaker 3: that is not how this works.

805
00:46:03,440 --> 00:46:07,600
Speaker 2: There's a really great I say about this by a

806
00:46:07,600 --> 00:46:11,160
Speaker 2: friend of mine named Rosemary Hoe, who's absolutely brilliant writer,

807
00:46:11,480 --> 00:46:16,160
Speaker 2: who wrote about the she's's writing about Zady Smith, and

808
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:17,759
Speaker 2: one of the things that she talks about is like

809
00:46:17,880 --> 00:46:20,239
Speaker 2: the way that people just assume that Zadi that like

810
00:46:20,400 --> 00:46:22,520
Speaker 2: Zadie Smith's politics are just like didactically coming out of

811
00:46:22,560 --> 00:46:24,319
Speaker 2: the mouth of a character, and like, well, no, that's

812
00:46:24,320 --> 00:46:27,839
Speaker 2: not how this shit works, Like yeah it is.

813
00:46:27,960 --> 00:46:31,840
Speaker 3: Uh it's frustrating, and I think like a lot of

814
00:46:31,880 --> 00:46:36,520
Speaker 3: authors have their own experiences with this, so uh yeah, yeah,

815
00:46:36,560 --> 00:46:40,000
Speaker 3: I mean I like, you have to turn yourself into

816
00:46:40,080 --> 00:46:43,680
Speaker 3: some kind of brand. That's why I'm going on podcasts,

817
00:46:44,080 --> 00:46:48,160
Speaker 3: you know. So that's all, uh, you know, that's fun,

818
00:46:48,160 --> 00:46:52,040
Speaker 3: but uh, I'm trying not to like, you know, completely

819
00:46:52,280 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 3: give myself over to the fucking torment nexus, you know.

820
00:46:58,640 --> 00:47:00,359
Speaker 2: And there's like, I don't know, the this is also

821
00:47:00,440 --> 00:47:01,840
Speaker 2: just like this is a way you can just completely

822
00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:04,240
Speaker 2: lose your mind. I don't know if I've ever actually

823
00:47:04,280 --> 00:47:06,480
Speaker 2: talked about this on the show. Weirdly, one of the

824
00:47:06,480 --> 00:47:08,840
Speaker 2: people whose career trajectory is the most similar to Minus

825
00:47:08,880 --> 00:47:12,080
Speaker 2: is Asian American writer named Lesley Yang, who was like

826
00:47:12,160 --> 00:47:14,960
Speaker 2: this guy who got brought in to write about like

827
00:47:15,080 --> 00:47:17,600
Speaker 2: I think it was Columbine. It's like some mass shooting

828
00:47:17,680 --> 00:47:19,920
Speaker 2: that was like a Korean kid did and his friends

829
00:47:19,920 --> 00:47:22,600
Speaker 2: were like, hey, you're Asian right about this, Oh God,

830
00:47:23,640 --> 00:47:25,319
Speaker 2: and he you know, for a bit he was like

831
00:47:25,360 --> 00:47:27,560
Speaker 2: he was like duh, Like he was like he was

832
00:47:27,600 --> 00:47:29,719
Speaker 2: like the guy who was like the big like Asian American,

833
00:47:29,920 --> 00:47:32,120
Speaker 2: like this is like the literary thinker. He was like

834
00:47:32,160 --> 00:47:35,200
Speaker 2: interviewing Aaron Schwartz. He was doing like profiles of a

835
00:47:35,200 --> 00:47:37,000
Speaker 2: bunch of like interesting people, and then he just became

836
00:47:37,040 --> 00:47:42,719
Speaker 2: this like incredibly boring, bog standard reactionary and he became

837
00:47:42,760 --> 00:47:45,160
Speaker 2: one of these A very common kind of person who

838
00:47:45,239 --> 00:47:48,400
Speaker 2: you experience on the right is like someone who's experienced

839
00:47:48,600 --> 00:47:52,920
Speaker 2: who's like understanding of race comes from like watching sports

840
00:47:53,520 --> 00:47:56,440
Speaker 2: where they're like there are black players in basketball and

841
00:47:56,480 --> 00:47:58,640
Speaker 2: there's a bunch of them, and because of that, this

842
00:47:58,760 --> 00:48:01,839
Speaker 2: means that like actually black people like overrepresented and like

843
00:48:01,960 --> 00:48:03,879
Speaker 2: as a class, they're like privilege or whatever the fuck

844
00:48:03,920 --> 00:48:06,120
Speaker 2: because there's just like a bunch of black basketball players

845
00:48:07,239 --> 00:48:08,480
Speaker 2: and I don't know, I think it's like there's like

846
00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:10,360
Speaker 2: a really interesting intersection here of like the way that

847
00:48:10,400 --> 00:48:16,440
Speaker 2: people understand politics as just like politics are just like

848
00:48:16,520 --> 00:48:18,879
Speaker 2: the thing that I see on my screen when I'm

849
00:48:18,920 --> 00:48:22,400
Speaker 2: watching football, and how we have to sort of like

850
00:48:23,400 --> 00:48:25,600
Speaker 2: just deal with that shit and deal with the sort

851
00:48:25,600 --> 00:48:28,800
Speaker 2: of micro identity formation that is real but also isn't

852
00:48:28,840 --> 00:48:31,200
Speaker 2: like a depiction of what the world is.

853
00:48:32,480 --> 00:48:32,840
Speaker 1: M m.

854
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:44,320
Speaker 4: Yeah.

855
00:48:44,800 --> 00:48:46,400
Speaker 2: So one of the interesting things in this book is

856
00:48:46,440 --> 00:48:50,440
Speaker 2: that like the right wing media, like right wing football media,

857
00:48:50,600 --> 00:48:54,560
Speaker 2: kind of isn't in it that much really, which I

858
00:48:54,560 --> 00:48:56,680
Speaker 2: think is fascinating And I wonder part of how much

859
00:48:56,680 --> 00:48:58,440
Speaker 2: of this is just that, like this was kind of

860
00:48:59,120 --> 00:49:01,560
Speaker 2: a book that was a real action being written before,

861
00:49:02,120 --> 00:49:04,600
Speaker 2: like Aaron Rodgers was going up Pat McAfee show in

862
00:49:04,680 --> 00:49:06,680
Speaker 2: front of like half a million people every single day

863
00:49:06,680 --> 00:49:08,160
Speaker 2: and like screaming about trans people.

864
00:49:08,840 --> 00:49:14,000
Speaker 3: M hm. So this book has excerpts of like articles

865
00:49:14,000 --> 00:49:17,400
Speaker 3: and outside media and like social media, et cetera. Originally

866
00:49:17,480 --> 00:49:19,640
Speaker 3: it had like a lot more. I had to cut

867
00:49:19,680 --> 00:49:23,160
Speaker 3: a lot in order to make this book like legible

868
00:49:23,200 --> 00:49:26,880
Speaker 3: as a book. This book is already like pushing the

869
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:30,520
Speaker 3: edges of what you could really communicate in ya in

870
00:49:30,600 --> 00:49:32,319
Speaker 3: terms of like I have a lot of characters, I

871
00:49:32,320 --> 00:49:34,680
Speaker 3: have a lot of shit going on, So like part

872
00:49:34,680 --> 00:49:36,759
Speaker 3: of it is just that, like I had to like

873
00:49:37,080 --> 00:49:40,319
Speaker 3: you know, trim et cetera. But like, originally it had

874
00:49:40,360 --> 00:49:42,680
Speaker 3: a lot more of that stuff, and there were like

875
00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:49,680
Speaker 3: interstitial snippets from a fictional sort of like football podcaster

876
00:49:49,920 --> 00:49:53,880
Speaker 3: guy who is like Pat McAfee and all of the

877
00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:59,759
Speaker 3: like barstool former athlete podcasters, Yeah, in a blender, and

878
00:50:00,160 --> 00:50:04,520
Speaker 3: he like he was this like really pathetic former like

879
00:50:04,760 --> 00:50:10,160
Speaker 3: special team or linebacker who just like keeps reliving the

880
00:50:10,200 --> 00:50:13,719
Speaker 3: fucking glory days. Yeah. Eventually I just had to like

881
00:50:14,400 --> 00:50:18,960
Speaker 3: refocus and like, yeah, yeah, bring that conflict closer to

882
00:50:19,000 --> 00:50:24,239
Speaker 3: home with like school administration's kind of shitty, and like

883
00:50:24,640 --> 00:50:27,080
Speaker 3: there are plenty of dudes on the football team who

884
00:50:27,840 --> 00:50:31,040
Speaker 3: also suck. So I kind of like left it in

885
00:50:31,160 --> 00:50:36,040
Speaker 3: via some like shitty tweets that you see, or you

886
00:50:36,080 --> 00:50:39,560
Speaker 3: get a lot of it, like indirectly you can imagine

887
00:50:39,640 --> 00:50:42,160
Speaker 3: what is happening on the fucking Pat McAfee show.

888
00:50:42,239 --> 00:50:43,200
Speaker 2: Oh my fucking god.

889
00:50:43,360 --> 00:50:47,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, But like also part of it is what you

890
00:50:47,440 --> 00:50:49,719
Speaker 3: said that the weird timeline of publishing means that I

891
00:50:49,719 --> 00:50:52,760
Speaker 3: started writing this book in February twenty twenty one, wrote

892
00:50:52,760 --> 00:50:55,960
Speaker 3: the majority in twenty twenty two, and edit it in

893
00:50:56,040 --> 00:50:59,359
Speaker 3: twenty three and twenty four, and like kind of this

894
00:50:59,480 --> 00:51:04,680
Speaker 3: like very very organized anti trans reaction was not as

895
00:51:04,840 --> 00:51:08,000
Speaker 3: prevalent in twenty twenty one at all like I kind

896
00:51:08,000 --> 00:51:10,640
Speaker 3: of had to like track it as it started to

897
00:51:10,719 --> 00:51:13,719
Speaker 3: like really like form up a drill time. This is

898
00:51:13,760 --> 00:51:15,399
Speaker 3: not the world that I thought I was gonna write

899
00:51:15,400 --> 00:51:19,200
Speaker 3: my stupid little football book. Yeah, and like have it

900
00:51:20,000 --> 00:51:23,920
Speaker 3: emerge into a lot of people are say that this

901
00:51:23,960 --> 00:51:26,360
Speaker 3: book is very timely, and I'm like, dog, this is

902
00:51:26,360 --> 00:51:28,359
Speaker 3: a Biden administration sept for him through.

903
00:51:29,280 --> 00:51:32,160
Speaker 2: So one final ball question on behalf of my beloved

904
00:51:32,200 --> 00:51:36,400
Speaker 2: and a curse Seattle Seahawks. Okay, so think about Sam Darnold,

905
00:51:36,400 --> 00:51:39,239
Speaker 2: who's now our quarterback after they traded my beloved Gito

906
00:51:39,320 --> 00:51:41,040
Speaker 2: Smith for a fucking third round pick.

907
00:51:41,160 --> 00:51:41,399
Speaker 3: Brother.

908
00:51:42,000 --> 00:51:44,840
Speaker 2: Okay, so, like, is the thing that's going to happen

909
00:51:44,880 --> 00:51:48,359
Speaker 2: this season not just by week five? Ave Lucas goes

910
00:51:48,360 --> 00:51:50,439
Speaker 2: down for the twelve million time whatever child they drag

911
00:51:50,480 --> 00:51:52,200
Speaker 2: out of a kindergarten to try to block the deal,

912
00:51:52,200 --> 00:51:54,319
Speaker 2: one hundred gets liquified in ten milli seconds to Sam

913
00:51:54,360 --> 00:51:56,839
Speaker 2: Darnold just like start seeing the ghosts of men who

914
00:51:56,880 --> 00:51:58,840
Speaker 2: haven't been born yet, Like, isn't this exactly?

915
00:51:58,880 --> 00:51:58,920
Speaker 4: Is?

916
00:51:58,960 --> 00:52:01,080
Speaker 2: It's just what's gonna fuck happen? Why did they build

917
00:52:01,120 --> 00:52:01,839
Speaker 2: this team like this?

918
00:52:03,680 --> 00:52:08,200
Speaker 3: Can I attempt to give you a small amount of

919
00:52:08,520 --> 00:52:11,240
Speaker 3: Seattle Seahawks optimism. I thought they were gonna.

920
00:52:11,040 --> 00:52:13,279
Speaker 2: Would have lived in games last season. They should have,

921
00:52:13,800 --> 00:52:15,680
Speaker 2: so we lost to the Flat Giants.

922
00:52:17,520 --> 00:52:22,960
Speaker 3: So I really like some of what the Seahawks did.

923
00:52:23,600 --> 00:52:26,319
Speaker 3: They drafted a lot of players that I really like.

924
00:52:26,400 --> 00:52:31,279
Speaker 3: It's true they they finally took a interior offensive line

925
00:52:31,320 --> 00:52:37,480
Speaker 3: player in the first round. Congratulations, Uh yay. Gray's Abel

926
00:52:37,760 --> 00:52:40,040
Speaker 3: is a good player. He's also a maga as shit,

927
00:52:40,120 --> 00:52:43,279
Speaker 3: which is what you want on your offensive line. No,

928
00:52:43,480 --> 00:52:45,600
Speaker 3: that's what you want on your offense. It's true, it's true.

929
00:52:45,680 --> 00:52:49,680
Speaker 3: But also like, god fucking damn it. So you got

930
00:52:50,120 --> 00:52:55,239
Speaker 3: Gray's Abel. You got Jalen Milroe, who Jalen Milroe isn't

931
00:52:55,239 --> 00:52:58,919
Speaker 3: good at football right now, but a sports media friend

932
00:52:59,000 --> 00:53:02,480
Speaker 3: named Derek klass And put it that he's He's the

933
00:53:02,719 --> 00:53:04,759
Speaker 3: kind of player you want to bet on and then

934
00:53:04,800 --> 00:53:08,560
Speaker 3: be wrong about, just just because he's fun, because he's

935
00:53:08,600 --> 00:53:13,719
Speaker 3: a like legit, actual like special athlete, special with the

936
00:53:13,880 --> 00:53:17,640
Speaker 3: ball in his hand. He's cool. I really like Jaylen Milroe.

937
00:53:17,680 --> 00:53:21,440
Speaker 3: But you also drafted later on. You took Tory Horden

938
00:53:21,600 --> 00:53:25,520
Speaker 3: and Ricky White, who are two of my favorite sort

939
00:53:25,520 --> 00:53:28,960
Speaker 3: of like small school wide receivers in the draft. You

940
00:53:29,000 --> 00:53:32,440
Speaker 3: took Damien Martinez, who is a running back who I

941
00:53:32,480 --> 00:53:34,399
Speaker 3: think could end up being a lot better than someone

942
00:53:34,440 --> 00:53:37,200
Speaker 3: who's drafted in the seventh round would indicate. And also

943
00:53:37,320 --> 00:53:39,640
Speaker 3: you took a full back. You took Robbie Oates. That's great.

944
00:53:39,640 --> 00:53:40,120
Speaker 1: His name is a.

945
00:53:40,160 --> 00:53:42,960
Speaker 2: Robbie Oates a great name, great name, old name, old

946
00:53:43,000 --> 00:53:45,400
Speaker 2: name team.

947
00:53:45,719 --> 00:53:49,359
Speaker 3: He is a He's like the squarest football player I've

948
00:53:49,360 --> 00:53:56,760
Speaker 3: ever seen. Love love Robbie Oates. However, the Sam Darnold

949
00:53:56,880 --> 00:54:04,640
Speaker 3: situation is tough. It's tough. I have a hard time

950
00:54:05,520 --> 00:54:06,280
Speaker 3: seeing it happen.

951
00:54:06,680 --> 00:54:09,879
Speaker 2: Like he would literally if you had put it behind

952
00:54:09,960 --> 00:54:12,560
Speaker 2: last year Seahawks offensive line, he literally would have died

953
00:54:12,560 --> 00:54:14,520
Speaker 2: by about week eight, like you just like straight up

954
00:54:14,520 --> 00:54:16,680
Speaker 2: would have died on the field. Oh god.

955
00:54:17,280 --> 00:54:20,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, And like it's a bit better this year because

956
00:54:20,360 --> 00:54:22,799
Speaker 3: you have friends able, but you still have Abe Lucas.

957
00:54:22,840 --> 00:54:25,280
Speaker 3: You know, you still have a We'll.

958
00:54:24,840 --> 00:54:27,200
Speaker 2: Have Abe Lucas for three weeks and then we won't

959
00:54:27,200 --> 00:54:31,799
Speaker 2: have Abe Lucas and then yeah.

960
00:54:30,719 --> 00:54:34,680
Speaker 3: And also like Sam Darnold is in like the perfect

961
00:54:34,680 --> 00:54:37,280
Speaker 3: spot for him, and now he's going to be throwing

962
00:54:37,320 --> 00:54:39,600
Speaker 3: the ball too. I mean, you know, you got Cooper Cup,

963
00:54:39,640 --> 00:54:42,759
Speaker 3: you got you know, for four weeks, got JSN, but

964
00:54:42,880 --> 00:54:46,880
Speaker 3: you also have Marcus valdezk is he gonna is he

965
00:54:46,880 --> 00:54:48,320
Speaker 3: gonna get load bearing snaps?

966
00:54:48,360 --> 00:54:48,440
Speaker 2: Like?

967
00:54:48,719 --> 00:54:50,919
Speaker 3: Is that really? Is that really what you want?

968
00:54:51,120 --> 00:54:54,680
Speaker 2: My cope last year was that was that JSN Metcalf

969
00:54:54,840 --> 00:54:58,120
Speaker 2: and Lockett was the most underrated receiver trio in the league. Yep.

970
00:54:58,840 --> 00:55:02,440
Speaker 2: And this year it's like, all right, we get six games,

971
00:55:02,440 --> 00:55:05,759
Speaker 2: a Cooper Cup and then we get fifth rounders.

972
00:55:07,120 --> 00:55:12,399
Speaker 3: Yeah. God, it's it's tough out here. Yeah. I don't

973
00:55:12,480 --> 00:55:15,080
Speaker 3: expect Sam Darnold to work here, just like straight up,

974
00:55:15,160 --> 00:55:18,920
Speaker 3: Like I have been a Sam Donald truther for years.

975
00:55:19,280 --> 00:55:23,680
Speaker 3: But it is the classic thing of like I think

976
00:55:23,719 --> 00:55:27,000
Speaker 3: Sam Donald's better than most people think, and then a

977
00:55:27,040 --> 00:55:29,560
Speaker 3: lot of people are like one hundred thirty million dollars

978
00:55:29,600 --> 00:55:32,480
Speaker 3: Sam Donald, and it's like what hold on, hold on,

979
00:55:32,560 --> 00:55:35,239
Speaker 3: hold on, hold on, hold on. I didn't think he

980
00:55:35,320 --> 00:55:38,240
Speaker 3: was that good. I didn't think he was traded Gino

981
00:55:38,320 --> 00:55:42,200
Speaker 3: Smith good. No, oh god, So that's unfortunate.

982
00:55:43,040 --> 00:55:45,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this this that this has been the football

983
00:55:45,560 --> 00:55:49,880
Speaker 2: section of this of this podcast. Yeah, so Victoria, do

984
00:55:49,920 --> 00:55:51,760
Speaker 2: you have anything else that you want to say before

985
00:55:51,760 --> 00:55:53,759
Speaker 2: we head out, and where should people buy your book from?

986
00:55:54,160 --> 00:55:56,439
Speaker 3: Non Amazon? That's like really all I have to say

987
00:55:56,480 --> 00:55:59,640
Speaker 3: about that. Yeah, one of the boys, my name is

988
00:55:59,760 --> 00:56:03,680
Speaker 3: Victor Coria Zeller, and you just buy that from bookshop,

989
00:56:03,920 --> 00:56:06,960
Speaker 3: buy it from your local indie. You can buy it

990
00:56:06,960 --> 00:56:09,319
Speaker 3: from Barnes and Noble, because we don't hate them as

991
00:56:09,400 --> 00:56:12,239
Speaker 3: much as we hate Amazon. But like I would say,

992
00:56:12,239 --> 00:56:15,280
Speaker 3: buy it from your local indie bookstore is like ideal

993
00:56:15,360 --> 00:56:18,440
Speaker 3: for me. I make the same amount of money wherever

994
00:56:18,480 --> 00:56:21,080
Speaker 3: you buy it, so it doesn't matter. But if you

995
00:56:21,120 --> 00:56:23,000
Speaker 3: want to sign copy, you can also order it from

996
00:56:23,200 --> 00:56:28,000
Speaker 3: my home bookstore, So there's that. Hell. Yeah, but yeah,

997
00:56:28,040 --> 00:56:31,319
Speaker 3: my website is a Victoria dot monster and all my

998
00:56:31,400 --> 00:56:32,080
Speaker 3: links are there.

999
00:56:32,280 --> 00:56:34,799
Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay, I realized I had an actual final question

1000
00:56:34,840 --> 00:56:36,279
Speaker 2: that I wanted to ask it I forgot to do

1001
00:56:36,360 --> 00:56:39,359
Speaker 2: before this the fucking we started the intro, so I apologize.

1002
00:56:40,120 --> 00:56:43,359
Speaker 2: So the odds here are much much higher than they

1003
00:56:43,360 --> 00:56:46,360
Speaker 2: are in most places that there's going to be some

1004
00:56:46,440 --> 00:56:49,279
Speaker 2: queer kids who fucking play ball to some extent listening

1005
00:56:49,320 --> 00:56:51,920
Speaker 2: to it, and I wanted to I'm throwing something from

1006
00:56:51,960 --> 00:56:54,759
Speaker 2: your book at you, which is, I know, what would

1007
00:56:54,760 --> 00:56:55,800
Speaker 2: you say to the what did you say it to

1008
00:56:55,840 --> 00:56:57,680
Speaker 2: the kiddos who are going through it?

1009
00:56:58,200 --> 00:57:05,399
Speaker 3: This is so mean. Okay, Okay, I'm gonna be real

1010
00:57:05,440 --> 00:57:08,120
Speaker 3: with you right now. Guys, do what's best for you. Yeah,

1011
00:57:08,320 --> 00:57:10,960
Speaker 3: fight if you have it in you to fight, But like,

1012
00:57:11,640 --> 00:57:14,840
Speaker 3: you got to be a kid first and foremost, and

1013
00:57:14,960 --> 00:57:20,240
Speaker 3: like trans kids, queer kids deserve the chance to be

1014
00:57:21,480 --> 00:57:27,960
Speaker 3: fucking kids. They deserve the chance to make mistakes and

1015
00:57:28,240 --> 00:57:33,800
Speaker 3: listen to music too loudly in their friends' shitty car,

1016
00:57:34,080 --> 00:57:37,800
Speaker 3: and they deserve to play sports if that's what they

1017
00:57:37,800 --> 00:57:40,000
Speaker 3: want to do. I think in a lot of ways,

1018
00:57:40,320 --> 00:57:43,000
Speaker 3: my book is about how we ask teenagers to be

1019
00:57:43,520 --> 00:57:46,440
Speaker 3: braver than they should be, and I think that's bullshit.

1020
00:57:46,720 --> 00:57:49,320
Speaker 3: So I'm not gonna put it on. You have as

1021
00:57:49,400 --> 00:57:52,520
Speaker 3: much fun as you can, like ball if you can,

1022
00:57:53,360 --> 00:57:58,680
Speaker 3: but do what makes you happy and what feels safe

1023
00:57:58,720 --> 00:58:01,720
Speaker 3: to you. Is like really, all I've got, Like, you know,

1024
00:58:02,040 --> 00:58:05,320
Speaker 3: just have fun while you're able to as a child

1025
00:58:05,560 --> 00:58:07,320
Speaker 3: is like yeah.

1026
00:58:06,920 --> 00:58:09,280
Speaker 2: No, And it's like, yeah, it's not if you are

1027
00:58:09,400 --> 00:58:12,560
Speaker 2: like a little ass kid. A I'm so sorry for

1028
00:58:12,600 --> 00:58:15,240
Speaker 2: how much I swear on the show. Be like, it

1029
00:58:15,320 --> 00:58:17,360
Speaker 2: is not up to you right now to save the world.

1030
00:58:17,440 --> 00:58:20,000
Speaker 2: That is the job of fucking everyone else who listens

1031
00:58:20,040 --> 00:58:21,880
Speaker 2: to the show like you. If you want there to

1032
00:58:21,880 --> 00:58:24,160
Speaker 2: be more queer athletes, if you want trans kids be

1033
00:58:24,200 --> 00:58:26,560
Speaker 2: able to be kids, that shit's on you. Yeah, all

1034
00:58:26,640 --> 00:58:28,120
Speaker 2: of the rest of you who listen to the show,

1035
00:58:28,320 --> 00:58:30,520
Speaker 2: If you are also like the fucking one bazillion trans

1036
00:58:30,600 --> 00:58:32,000
Speaker 2: people listen to the show, this is like a bit

1037
00:58:32,080 --> 00:58:33,840
Speaker 2: less on you than it is on fucking everyone else.

1038
00:58:33,880 --> 00:58:36,960
Speaker 2: But yeah, but the best time do I started organizing

1039
00:58:37,160 --> 00:58:39,200
Speaker 2: was like five years ago. The second best time is

1040
00:58:39,280 --> 00:58:41,440
Speaker 2: right now, and the best time after that is tomorrow.

1041
00:58:41,760 --> 00:58:45,480
Speaker 2: So go fucking build a world where trans kids can

1042
00:58:45,520 --> 00:58:47,160
Speaker 2: be kids and fall out.

1043
00:58:47,920 --> 00:58:52,000
Speaker 3: Let kids like me hoop, let them hoop, let them

1044
00:58:52,080 --> 00:58:58,080
Speaker 3: hit dingers, let them ball. Oh yeah, my people need rings.

1045
00:58:58,560 --> 00:59:02,440
Speaker 3: My people need titles, They need trophies, they need championships.

1046
00:59:06,720 --> 00:59:09,200
Speaker 1: It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.

1047
00:59:09,440 --> 00:59:12,480
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website

1048
00:59:12,560 --> 00:59:16,120
Speaker 1: Coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

1049
00:59:16,200 --> 00:59:18,280
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever.

1050
00:59:17,920 --> 00:59:19,200
Speaker 2: You listen to podcasts.

1051
00:59:19,520 --> 00:59:21,440
Speaker 1: You can now find sources for It could Happen here

1052
00:59:21,480 --> 00:59:24,480
Speaker 1: listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening,