Speaker 1: Welcome to the Laverne Cox Show. A reduction of shondaland
Speaker 1: Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. So it's like
Speaker 1: the supremacy or the misogyny or transpobia at the top,
Speaker 1: it's put into policies and laws, and then it just
Speaker 1: trickles down into this real sense of permission to assault
Speaker 1: and attack, whether blatant violence that creates physical harm or death,
Speaker 1: or just for you know, the microaggressions that are so
Speaker 1: commonplace and people don't even think much about them. Hello, everyone,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the Laverne Cox Show. I'm Laverne Cox.
Speaker 1: So I definitely want to give a trigger warning before
Speaker 1: today's episode because it's triggering. It's fun to talk about this.
Speaker 1: The trauma is super real for me as a survivor
Speaker 1: of multiple forms of direct and indirect violence, both in
Speaker 1: my childhood and as an adult. Year after years, transfolkes
Speaker 1: become more visible in the media, the instances of violence
Speaker 1: against us are not decreasing. In fact, these instances are increasing,
Speaker 1: particularly fatal violence. In two thousand, trans people that we
Speaker 1: know of were murdered in the United States alone. That's
Speaker 1: the highest number for the US ever in a single year,
Speaker 1: and an estimated three and fifty trans people were murdered globally.
Speaker 1: Since I've had a public platform, I've been trying to
Speaker 1: bring awareness to the senseless violence too many transpokes experience
Speaker 1: on a daily basis. There are so many factors that
Speaker 1: can make trans folks more vulnerable to violence, housing and employment,
Speaker 1: in security, lack of access to healthcare, policies that fail,
Speaker 1: trans youth in school, media stigma and political propaganda, to
Speaker 1: humanizing trans folks, and many others. Of course, I I'm
Speaker 1: so sick and tired of talking about this. I just
Speaker 1: want this violence to stop. How do we stop would
Speaker 1: be perpetrators from physically attacking us? How do we stop
Speaker 1: them from killing us? This brings me to today's guest,
Speaker 1: Dr Karen Franklin. I first talked with her in two
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen for the documentary Free c C, which you
Speaker 1: can purchase or rent on Amazon Prime or iTunes. Dr
Speaker 1: Karen Franklin is a forensic psychologist who has conducted pioneering
Speaker 1: research into the motivations of people who assault sexual and
Speaker 1: gender minorities. In fact, she has presented her research findings
Speaker 1: to a hate crime subcommittee of the U. S. Senate.
Speaker 1: Dr Franklin is an adjunct professor of forensic psychology and
Speaker 1: host a prominent forensic psychology blog. She's also a former
Speaker 1: criminal investigator. Please enjoy my conversation with Dr Karen Franklin. Already, Hi, Karen,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today. I'm
Speaker 1: doing well. It's so nice to see you. It's been
Speaker 1: such a long time. It's been such a long time.
Speaker 1: It's been it's been I think seven years since we talked.
Speaker 1: Last we were I think it was in San Francisco
Speaker 1: and we talked about c c McDonald and her case,
Speaker 1: and people can watch the film free CC to hear
Speaker 1: Karen's remarks about violence against trans women in that documentary.
Speaker 1: UM this subject I've been talking about my entire public life,
Speaker 1: really and it's gotten more and more difficult over the years.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to talk to you today because I
Speaker 1: want to have a vision for ending violence of all
Speaker 1: kinds of particularly violence against trans women. So I wanted
Speaker 1: to try to understand it better, particularly understanding the motivations
Speaker 1: the rationale of the perpetrators. So Dr Franklin, from your research,
Speaker 1: what are some of the top reasons perpetrators have cited
Speaker 1: for the violence, hate violence they've committed. Well, there are
Speaker 1: several distinct motivations that can be separated out, actually, because
Speaker 1: that was one of the that was the main thing
Speaker 1: I was looking at in my research was I was
Speaker 1: I wanted to go directly to perpetrators and ask them
Speaker 1: exactly why they did what they did. And it came
Speaker 1: down to not one thing, but several different things. One
Speaker 1: was norms enforcement, social norms enforcement, whether for gender or
Speaker 1: for sexuality. And then another motivation was peer motivations, pere bonding,
Speaker 1: not being ridicule, going along with the group, having fun together.
Speaker 1: Another motivation is what is called instrumental violence, which is
Speaker 1: not particularly due to the person's status as as a category,
Speaker 1: but rather because it's easier to assault them for some
Speaker 1: of the reason For example, robberies like some some robbers
Speaker 1: might go after gay men because they think it's easier
Speaker 1: to get them to go to a secluded location where
Speaker 1: they can be easy lee robbed. The same with targeting
Speaker 1: of Asian victims, actually because there's a stereotype that they're
Speaker 1: weak and not likely to fight back. So certain offenders
Speaker 1: aren't really motivated by hate or bias at all. They're
Speaker 1: just motivated by stereotypes about who's going to be easy
Speaker 1: to target. And then finally there's defensive aggression, in which
Speaker 1: the offender is feeling like they are defending themselves. And
Speaker 1: again really prominent with anti transplolence, where you know, this
Speaker 1: person was coming on to me, or this person deceived me,
Speaker 1: or this person was looking at me wrong or flirting
Speaker 1: with me, and so then I had to attack them
Speaker 1: because my self respect or or even personal safety was
Speaker 1: at stake. So those are the four main reasons that
Speaker 1: I found. I know, I had to defend my masculinity.
Speaker 1: James Dixon, who murdered Lan knows talking about he needs
Speaker 1: to defend his masculinity. Yeah. Wow wow. So much of
Speaker 1: your work staying hate crime and anti embiased crimes focused
Speaker 1: on anti gay violence. What do you see as the
Speaker 1: relationship between anti gay hate crimes and anti trans hate crimes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a super interesting and really good question, because when
Speaker 1: I actually first started out to do my research, I
Speaker 1: wasn't really even thinking about anti terrans gender violence particularly,
Speaker 1: but it just sort of it popped right up onto
Speaker 1: my radar right aways, and as I really launched into it,
Speaker 1: and I actually over time, as I did my research
Speaker 1: which was two types of research. I did survey research
Speaker 1: of young adults, just normally young college students, and then
Speaker 1: also some more in depth interviews with perpetrators, and it
Speaker 1: quickly became clear to me that a lot of what
Speaker 1: was going on was more gender norms enforcement than actual
Speaker 1: targeting of gay men and lesbians based on sexual orientation.
Speaker 1: And when we look at it more historically, when homosexuality
Speaker 1: first became a public identity, which wasn't until like less
Speaker 1: than a hundred years ago, the nineties or so, it
Speaker 1: was really more thought of by the public as gender nonconformity,
Speaker 1: so it was masculine women and effeminate men more so
Speaker 1: than based on sexual behaviors. And in fact, what I
Speaker 1: found in my research was that a lot of what
Speaker 1: is kind of captured under the rubric of anti gay
Speaker 1: violence is targeting of people based on their perceived gender nonconformity.
Speaker 1: That is so important to note. I think about my
Speaker 1: own life and when I was bullied for the first
Speaker 1: time as a child in preschool, I was called anti
Speaker 1: gay slurs, but I was being bullied because he had
Speaker 1: said I acted like a girl. So their violence towards
Speaker 1: me was really about enforcing gender norms, right, but they
Speaker 1: called it gay and so historically I've talked about this
Speaker 1: for years. Historically people have complaint get sexual orientation and
Speaker 1: gender identity. Can you break down, I guess in some
Speaker 1: of your research what gender norms to folks see we're
Speaker 1: not being performed correctly that they were trying to police.
Speaker 1: So it's different depending on the gender male or female.
Speaker 1: But for boys in particular and men who are not
Speaker 1: masculine enough, that is a violation of longstanding social norms.
Speaker 1: I think this is a complex topics a lot to it,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of nuances. But if we're gonna
Speaker 1: drill down and look at anti trans women violence for example,
Speaker 1: So the ideal in our culture for men is strong,
Speaker 1: warrior like masculinity, right, and that historically comes from nineteenth
Speaker 1: century Western ideals that went along with colonization. So colonization
Speaker 1: of inferior people's based on this kind of strong, powerful,
Speaker 1: dominant masculinity. And so if a young child is being
Speaker 1: bullied for being a boy and not being masculine enough,
Speaker 1: he's violating this norm of hyper masculinity. And then women
Speaker 1: just in general are considered to be inferior based on
Speaker 1: that norm because masculinity kind of holds itself up as
Speaker 1: the opposite of femininity, and women are subjugated and looked
Speaker 1: down upon. So anybody not adhering to those norms is
Speaker 1: it is thought to be doing something wrong. Like for
Speaker 1: for example, what what seems to be happening right now.
Speaker 1: And you know, as you may know, rates of violence
Speaker 1: are said to be increasing against trans women of color
Speaker 1: in particular, and especially combicides right now. In the last
Speaker 1: few years, there's been ascending curve according to the Human
Speaker 1: Rights Counsel keeps tracking these things. And what's happening is
Speaker 1: this very deliberate attempt by certain ultra right forces to
Speaker 1: use transgender is um as a wedge cultural issue. And
Speaker 1: they and it's very very cynical and deliberate because they
Speaker 1: actually can be in focus groups to see what will
Speaker 1: resonate and what can bring in kind of suburban Republican
Speaker 1: voters to the polls. Right now, they you know, they
Speaker 1: think that the issue of trans women in sports is
Speaker 1: very powerful for them. But across the Boyd's like dozens
Speaker 1: and dozens of laws being proposed, especially across the seven States,
Speaker 1: to restrict the rights transgender people in health care and
Speaker 1: to being called their correct pronoun in the schools, and
Speaker 1: even really serious things like doctors being able to deny
Speaker 1: treatment based on their own moral and religious beliefs. So
Speaker 1: theoretically an emergency room doctor could have a transpatient walk
Speaker 1: in and say I don't want to treat this person
Speaker 1: and let them die. I think that was Arkansas. Yeah,
Speaker 1: actually in Arkansas effect that Arkansas is the first bill.
Speaker 1: So there's several states that have passed sports bans on
Speaker 1: trans girls competing in sports. I think three or four
Speaker 1: different states have passed that. But in Arkansas, they've criminalized
Speaker 1: doctors providing healthcare to transgender children, and it would become
Speaker 1: it would be a felony for doctors to treat and
Speaker 1: or even refer transgender youth for gender affirming healthcare. And
Speaker 1: there are several states as of the recording of this
Speaker 1: episode that have similar laws being considered and debated as
Speaker 1: we speak. So I think it's important to note that
Speaker 1: there's this has been focus grouped, right, that this is
Speaker 1: a very deliberate, sort of cynical effort by lawmakers to
Speaker 1: scapegoat trans people. And we know that there is a
Speaker 1: correlation between stigma against a certain group and violence against
Speaker 1: that group, right, we're able to particularly I think in
Speaker 1: the conversation around transgender women in sports, it immediately be
Speaker 1: times a conversation about bodies, testosterone levels, strength, which I
Speaker 1: believe objectifies trans people in them we can dehumanize. And
Speaker 1: even as we have this increased visibility of transpokes, the
Speaker 1: violence is also increasing. And that violence is it is
Speaker 1: obviously physical, it's with the deadliest yard record for trans people,
Speaker 1: but that assault is also legislative, and it's also judicial
Speaker 1: and interpersonal. So wait, that's right. You hit the nail
Speaker 1: on the head, is that these things are correlated and
Speaker 1: when So, for example, with the coronavirus, when the when
Speaker 1: people in government started calling it the Chinese flu and
Speaker 1: the Wuhan virus, you saw of dramatic increase in anti
Speaker 1: Asian violence. Same thing with after nine eleven, dramatic increase
Speaker 1: and anti Arab violence. And so anytime the forces of
Speaker 1: the state or people in the authority or prominent politicians
Speaker 1: start demonizing a group, it trickles down. So we've got
Speaker 1: kind of a violent ideology at the top that trickles
Speaker 1: down into laws and policies, and then that trickles down
Speaker 1: to give people on the at the lower ends of
Speaker 1: the of the cultural spectrum, permission or even instruction that
Speaker 1: they should be enforcing these norms against whatever group it
Speaker 1: is that's being demonized and dehumanized. Absolutely, So, in any
Speaker 1: of your research, have you spoken specifically to perpetrators who
Speaker 1: have commit violence against trans women or with most of
Speaker 1: your research with anti gape bias crimes, I did speak
Speaker 1: with people who had committed specifically anti trans violence, and
Speaker 1: I wasn't really setting out to do that. It just
Speaker 1: so happened that that's what I encountered, and because really
Speaker 1: I think perpetrators aren't necessarily categorizing people the same way
Speaker 1: people are categorizing themselves. But I do recall very specifically
Speaker 1: one particular perpetrator who I interviewed, who had been convicted
Speaker 1: of an anti gay hate crime. But then when I
Speaker 1: started talking to him, he started telling me about some
Speaker 1: other attacks that he had participated in, and in one
Speaker 1: he was with some friends and he saw somebody who
Speaker 1: he said was a man wearing a dress and high
Speaker 1: heels and makeup, and he went over there and started
Speaker 1: kicking the person. And I asked him, I said, so,
Speaker 1: why did you do that? And he said, well, he
Speaker 1: was wearing a dress and makeup and high heels, and
Speaker 1: he and I asked you, but why did you actually
Speaker 1: go over there and assault this person? And he just
Speaker 1: looked at me like there was something wrong with my intelligence,
Speaker 1: because why didn't I why did I not understand that
Speaker 1: this was a normal thing to do. If you see
Speaker 1: somebody who's obviously violating gender norms, you have permission or
Speaker 1: maybe even a moral duty to do something about that person.
Speaker 1: I think I remember reading that example on some of
Speaker 1: the research and some of the interviews have read about you,
Speaker 1: and it's it's really stands out because the assumption for
Speaker 1: this perpetrator is like, well, just look at them, and
Speaker 1: so then it just it just makes me think about
Speaker 1: so many moments in my life where I've you know,
Speaker 1: been verbally assaulted or even physically assaulted, and so much
Speaker 1: of it. So it seemed to come down to, well, well,
Speaker 1: look at them, right, look at them, and there's a
Speaker 1: there's a there's a mythology right now, whenever I'm online
Speaker 1: and a trans person has been murdered, and it happens
Speaker 1: far too much in a comment section, you'll see a
Speaker 1: number of people say, well, they shouldn't be trying to
Speaker 1: fool people, right, So there's a mythology that trans women
Speaker 1: are out there fooling people, and when men realize that
Speaker 1: they're with the trans woman, of course they're going to
Speaker 1: react negatively and and kill the trans person. There was
Speaker 1: a moment on a show called a Breakfast Club. It
Speaker 1: was a day after Janet Mock, author TV director Janet
Speaker 1: Mock was on the Breakfast up talking about her second book,
Speaker 1: Surpassing Certainty, and she disclosed that in her early twenties
Speaker 1: she had dated a man for many months and did
Speaker 1: not disclose that she was trans. The next day on
Speaker 1: the Breakfast Club, they had a comedian named Little Duval
Speaker 1: on the show and held up a photo of Janet
Speaker 1: and said, you know, how would you feel if like
Speaker 1: you were dating this woman and you found out she
Speaker 1: was trans? And then he said, well, she'd have to die,
Speaker 1: you know he So he said this on the radio,
Speaker 1: and it was it was insane. But that is the
Speaker 1: kind of mentality that we hear from people. And I'm
Speaker 1: sure there are trans women transpokes for various reasons, who
Speaker 1: don't always disclose that their trans to the people they're
Speaker 1: dating for safety reasons, internal life shame. Early in my transition,
Speaker 1: I went on a few dates with guys and didn't
Speaker 1: tell them right away that I was trans, and I
Speaker 1: stopped doing that like twenty years ago because it just
Speaker 1: for me personally. I didn't want to get motionally attached
Speaker 1: to someone and then be rejected because I'm trans, and
Speaker 1: like they're gonna reject me because I'm trans. I'd like
Speaker 1: to be rejected right away. But what I found and
Speaker 1: what I believe happens, even though these men say that
Speaker 1: they were with these trans women and did not know,
Speaker 1: that could certainly be the case. But there are a
Speaker 1: number of cases where men have claimed this and the
Speaker 1: evidence suggests otherwise. Right, there's two cases I think of.
Speaker 1: I think of Angie Zappada, trans woman who was murdered
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight in Colorado, and I think
Speaker 1: about Mercedes Williams and a trans woman who was murdered
Speaker 1: in um Mississippi in two thousand and fifteen. Angie Zapatam,
Speaker 1: her murderer was convicted of a hate crime. It's actually
Speaker 1: the first instance when I hate crime distinction was used
Speaker 1: for the murder of a transgender person. The perpetrator basically
Speaker 1: said that he had traveled to hang out with Angie
Speaker 1: and they left the apartment, and then he saw clues
Speaker 1: that she was trans, and when she came back, he
Speaker 1: confronted her and discovered that she was trans and then
Speaker 1: beat her to death. The evidence, though that's presented a trial,
Speaker 1: suggest that all of her friends and families said that
Speaker 1: she always informed men that she was trans. There was
Speaker 1: also evidence that suggested that he had gone to court
Speaker 1: with her when she had a traffic violation, and that
Speaker 1: her name, her dead name, was used in that trial,
Speaker 1: and so he would have had to have heard her name.
Speaker 1: And then there was also some kind of salacious evidence
Speaker 1: of a of a sex toy that was recovered from
Speaker 1: the scene of the crime that had his DNA only
Speaker 1: on the on the sex toy. So he had made
Speaker 1: very anti gay statements around gay folks should die, and
Speaker 1: he claimed that he didn't know, but there was all
Speaker 1: this evidence that suggested that he did know. And there's
Speaker 1: another case of Mercedes Williamson that I often site as well.
Speaker 1: She was a seventeen year old trans woman who was
Speaker 1: murdered in two thousand and fifteen in Mississippi, and she
Speaker 1: was murdered by a guy who was in Latin king
Speaker 1: and he claimed too, that he didn't know she was trans,
Speaker 1: he discovered it and then killed her. But there's a
Speaker 1: really good friend of Mercedes who said that he had
Speaker 1: to have known. They've been dating for many, many months
Speaker 1: and that he knew she just the friend described, you know,
Speaker 1: sexual encounters that they had had, and he was in
Speaker 1: he's a and surfing life sentence now in prison. That's
Speaker 1: a documentary Love and Hate Crimes that you can watch
Speaker 1: about him on on BBC. And again we have but
Speaker 1: we have evidence that suggests that he knew that she
Speaker 1: was trans, but he's claiming that he didn't know. I
Speaker 1: guess it's just really frustrating because it feels like it's
Speaker 1: a victim blaming thing, and it's a narrative that suggests
Speaker 1: that men aren't knowingly seeking us out, and when most
Speaker 1: trans women who live in big cities know that there
Speaker 1: are lots of men who are seeking us out, you know,
Speaker 1: and just don't want people to know about it. Right? What? What?
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts around that? So there is some
Speaker 1: recent scholarship on this topic and a few things here
Speaker 1: is as as all as all of these topics are
Speaker 1: the kind of complex and a lot to unpack. But
Speaker 1: the first thing is what you mentioned that there's this
Speaker 1: narrative or stereotype of trans women as evil deceivers, right
Speaker 1: that are tricking these heterosexual men into relationships without their knowledge.
Speaker 1: And so essentially what that does, it's kind of a
Speaker 1: shifting of the blame, right, and then identity is turned
Speaker 1: into provocation. Just mere identity becomes a provocation meriting a
Speaker 1: violent response. So trans identity is a trespass right against normality.
Speaker 1: So that's the first thing is that it's a blame
Speaker 1: shifting thing. But the second part of it is if
Speaker 1: a trans woman is successfully quote passing and and has
Speaker 1: to disclose in order to be revealed as transgender, then
Speaker 1: she's put in a double mind right because she has
Speaker 1: to say something and then she has to make that
Speaker 1: decision about when is it safe to do so. So,
Speaker 1: like there's one study of trans women of color in
Speaker 1: Australia who talk about the fact that even just walking
Speaker 1: down the street and have and hearing a sexually flirtatious
Speaker 1: comment from a man, they have to think, Okay, if
Speaker 1: I even accept this politely, I'm putting myself at risk
Speaker 1: because then that might escalate into greater flirtation, which might
Speaker 1: escalate into them seeing that I'm transgender, which might escalate
Speaker 1: into violence. So the idea that that the trans woman
Speaker 1: is responsible for this man's violence. First of all, people
Speaker 1: are responsible for their own violence, right, and to shift
Speaker 1: the blame over onto the victim is really heinous. That's
Speaker 1: so important. People are responsible for their own violence. Can
Speaker 1: you just pause their People are responsible for their own violence,
Speaker 1: so that anyone who has committed violencing as the transperson,
Speaker 1: they are responsible for that violence. It's not the transperson's fault.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to just pause on that. Go on absolutely, now, Okay,
Speaker 1: So now we get to the next level, which is
Speaker 1: there are men who are straight identified who are conflicted
Speaker 1: about their sexuality and who feared that being with a
Speaker 1: trans woman means that they're gay, and they can freak
Speaker 1: out during sex or or even not during sex and
Speaker 1: then a shout, So that is a phenomenon. But and
Speaker 1: then the other thing that some trans women have spoken
Speaker 1: about in in our research studies is the idea of
Speaker 1: fetishization of the trans body. So sort of men collecting
Speaker 1: a trans women as kind of an exotic specimen or
Speaker 1: almost like a doll. And if you look at somebody
Speaker 1: as an exotic being. They're not really a person anymore,
Speaker 1: and you can own them, and you have control over them,
Speaker 1: and you have a right to do whatever you want
Speaker 1: with their body. So rates of sexual assault, for example,
Speaker 1: against trans women and relationships with heterosexually identified men are
Speaker 1: higher than for other women. Percent of transgender people have
Speaker 1: been sexually assaulted um in their lifetime for percent of
Speaker 1: trans people. You got it. So the other piece of that,
Speaker 1: you know, I hate to use huge terms, but intersectionality
Speaker 1: is really important to remember, which is kind of the
Speaker 1: multiplicative effects of different forms of oppression when they come together.
Speaker 1: And I think it's important to remember that trans women
Speaker 1: are women, and that women in relationships experienced high levels
Speaker 1: of violence from men period, So intimate partner violence, I
Speaker 1: mean a third of women homicide victims across the board
Speaker 1: are killed by their intimate partner. As you say, sexual
Speaker 1: assault is high in general and the population, and so
Speaker 1: with the added permission afforded if one is fetishizing the
Speaker 1: trans woman or thinking of himself as doing her a
Speaker 1: favor by being with her, and author times trans women
Speaker 1: are economically disadvantage and so may have fear of leaving relationship.
Speaker 1: For those types of reasons, survival type of reasons. It
Speaker 1: all compounds into really a great risk of victimization and then,
Speaker 1: like you say, scapegoating and turning the blame around. This
Speaker 1: is a good time to take a little break. We'll
Speaker 1: be right back though. Okay, let's get back to our chat.
Speaker 1: I would love to try to understand the psychology of
Speaker 1: the perpetrator as much as possible. I mean, I'm Gwen Araujo,
Speaker 1: the trans woman who was murdered in two thousand two
Speaker 1: in Newark, California. One of her one of her killers
Speaker 1: upon finding out that she was trans at a party.
Speaker 1: And this is a group situation. Now you have done
Speaker 1: great research on group settings. He repeatedly said to himself,
Speaker 1: I can't be gay. I can't be gay. I can't
Speaker 1: be gay. He had allegedly had sexual relations with Gwen,
Speaker 1: not knowing that she was trans, And there's different reports
Speaker 1: that suggest that she wasn't, that she wasn't always completely
Speaker 1: quote unquote passing that like it was obvious to many
Speaker 1: people that she was trans, and many people speculated. But
Speaker 1: he said, over and over again, I can't be gay.
Speaker 1: I can't be gay. What is of research told you
Speaker 1: about that kind of mentality, right, the fear of being
Speaker 1: gay and that being with the transports and makes you gay.
Speaker 1: What do we know about this? That's kind of psychology. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think you said it really well, but it is.
Speaker 1: It's an internal conflict between the man's internalized homophobia and
Speaker 1: fear that he's gay for being with a trans woman
Speaker 1: and his desire is a rotic attraction that it can
Speaker 1: create enormous shame, enormous sphere and lashing out. I think
Speaker 1: the more when you talk about prevention, what you were
Speaker 1: speaking about earlier, I think, the more that homosexuality, for example,
Speaker 1: becomes normalized and not so stigmatized, which is happening so rappidly.
Speaker 1: You know, it's hard to believe how quickly cultural marks
Speaker 1: are changing that internalized fear should start to reduce and
Speaker 1: not create such a sense of panic that people feel
Speaker 1: the need that these men feel the need to violently
Speaker 1: lash out. I think I'm a little bit optimistic that
Speaker 1: things have changed so fast that they will continue to change.
Speaker 1: And I mean we were speaking earlier about laws and
Speaker 1: the cynical use of laws in order to ramp up
Speaker 1: hysteria against trans people for political aims, But some of
Speaker 1: these things have fallen flat, like the transgender military band.
Speaker 1: The majority of Americans do not support that. Even the
Speaker 1: bathroom bills that that kind of flopped, you know, And
Speaker 1: so you know, they found one one out of several
Speaker 1: that really seems to resonate, the the athletics thing because
Speaker 1: it's framed as an issue of fairness. But I do
Speaker 1: think that the public is becoming less phobic and less
Speaker 1: prejudiced over time. I think to underlying this as well
Speaker 1: is that we need to understand that trans women or women.
Speaker 1: I think underlying so much of the anti trans discrimination
Speaker 1: high is violence. Underneath all of it is the assumption,
Speaker 1: the belief that trans women aren't really women, right, that
Speaker 1: we are really men in disguise, And so we have
Speaker 1: to do away with that. And so straight men who
Speaker 1: are attracted to um women are still straight. I mean,
Speaker 1: there was a trend happening on TikTok earlier this year
Speaker 1: called super straight, and that basically meant that this guy
Speaker 1: started a TikTok basically saying that like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: it's an identity thing. You can't discriminate against me from
Speaker 1: my identity. So my identity is super straight, meaning I'm
Speaker 1: only attracted to women who were born women, and so
Speaker 1: you can't call me transphobic if I don't want to
Speaker 1: data trans woman, and it's like, it's just so, it's
Speaker 1: fine if you don't want to date us, like I've
Speaker 1: never there's plenty of people who do want to date us.
Speaker 1: It's tricky. I understand that they are, you know, people,
Speaker 1: you know. Finding love for trans people is hard, and
Speaker 1: it's been difficult and challenging for me. I don't want
Speaker 1: to downplay that. But the issue though, is that these
Speaker 1: men are attracted to trans women. And then, for example,
Speaker 1: on on dating apps I I've used to before my
Speaker 1: current relationship, I was on dating apps and what I
Speaker 1: discovered is, and this is a lot happens to a
Speaker 1: lot of trans people, is that men match with the
Speaker 1: trans person realized their trans It's the first sentence of
Speaker 1: my profile. They don't reprofiles and then unmatched, but they
Speaker 1: do it, and they get angry about it. They get
Speaker 1: angry that they've been attracted to a trans person right
Speaker 1: and lash out, and it elicits such a violent reaction
Speaker 1: that they could actually be attracted to someone who's trans.
Speaker 1: This makes me think of another case, Elan Nettles trans
Speaker 1: woman who was murdered in two thousand thirteen in New
Speaker 1: York City. James Dixon, the man who's now serving time
Speaker 1: for her murder. He was with a group of his friends,
Speaker 1: Alan and a friend of hers walked by and he
Speaker 1: cat called her his friends. One of his friends realized
Speaker 1: that she was trans, made fun of him, and then
Speaker 1: he beat along Nettles to death. Apparently a few days earlier,
Speaker 1: he's something similar. It happened he had flirted with two
Speaker 1: trans women, not knowing they were trans, and then his
Speaker 1: friends made fun of him, clowned him. I believe it's
Speaker 1: the language he used, and so Elan Nettles was murdered
Speaker 1: as a res that a Lamas is walking down the street.
Speaker 1: She was just being herself. She wasn't deceiving anyone. Remember
Speaker 1: your research on sort of multi participant sexual assault and
Speaker 1: hate crimes and or bias crimes that link between misogyny
Speaker 1: and homophobia. I find really interesting in how the dynamic
Speaker 1: changes when these men are in groups, right, And I
Speaker 1: think the example that you give Mss Nettles is a
Speaker 1: little bit different than what what I'm generally speaking to
Speaker 1: in these group crimes, in the sense that that particular
Speaker 1: man that was cat calling, likely felt demasculalonized and threatened
Speaker 1: by his friends, kind of by the ridicule, whereas a
Speaker 1: lot of these group crimes there isn't even anything like that.
Speaker 1: It's just it's an actual proactive decision to target somebody
Speaker 1: based on whether they're female or gay or trans. But
Speaker 1: but at any rate, yeah, there are certain motivations that
Speaker 1: happened in these groups of mostly young men, mostly men
Speaker 1: then their teens and twenties, where it's not only the
Speaker 1: overarching motivation of enforcing gender norms that we talked about earlier,
Speaker 1: but it's also a lot of group dynamics. So there's
Speaker 1: an intense pressure to perform and to perform masculinity. There's
Speaker 1: a sense that if you don't participate, you're gonna get
Speaker 1: targeted yourself, or at least ridiculed or tease as being
Speaker 1: non masculine. There's also a way that that committing violent
Speaker 1: crimes together can really bond groups of young men and
Speaker 1: make them feel closer to each other. There's there's thrill
Speaker 1: seeking element to it. So what what I actually came
Speaker 1: to realize in my own work, because I was initially
Speaker 1: looking at hate crimes against gayman and lesbians and like,
Speaker 1: like we talked about hate crimes against transgender people kind
Speaker 1: of came into that organically. Then I started looking at
Speaker 1: group rape against women, not transgender, just all women, and
Speaker 1: and realizing that the victim and all of these different crimes,
Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter who the victim is. The victim
Speaker 1: is interchangeable as long as they can represent femininity. So
Speaker 1: it could be a trans woman, it could be a
Speaker 1: female born woman. It could be a gay man who's
Speaker 1: a feminine. It could be any of these things, and
Speaker 1: the function is still the same as to extrude the
Speaker 1: feminine from a group of guys and make them all
Speaker 1: feel masculine. Um. You know. Another thing I just thought
Speaker 1: about with the group piece is the sense of belonging.
Speaker 1: I just had a conversation with with the straight man
Speaker 1: who back in the day he used to engage in
Speaker 1: like making fun of gay people and trans people, and
Speaker 1: a lot of it was about fitting into a group, right,
Speaker 1: A lot of it was about trying to have a
Speaker 1: sense of belonging. So when I think about the group
Speaker 1: mentality that like, we all crave connection and belonging, and
Speaker 1: Burnee Brown always had to bring Bernie Brown in says
Speaker 1: that the opposite of both true belonging is trying to
Speaker 1: fit in right. Fitting in it's about shape shifting and
Speaker 1: saying and being who you think you need to be
Speaker 1: to be accepted. And we first must belong to ourselves
Speaker 1: and we have to have a vest of values that
Speaker 1: we're carrying with this at all times. I think that's
Speaker 1: really true, but it's really hard to accomplish, especially when
Speaker 1: you're young, when you're just going through adolescents and you're
Speaker 1: just and you're really insecure, and the group is so important,
Speaker 1: and you haven't really got your feet under you, and
Speaker 1: you really don't know how to assert yourself, and so
Speaker 1: so many people are followers. There's far fewer leaders than followers.
Speaker 1: And what what young men and groups will say is
Speaker 1: that they felt like everybody else was more committed to
Speaker 1: what was going on than they were, and they didn't
Speaker 1: want to let on about that. If you listen to
Speaker 1: the perpetrators who participated in the Gwen Araujo murder in
Speaker 1: two thousand two, there was one specifically who was there
Speaker 1: and thought it wasn't sort of insaying what was happening,
Speaker 1: but didn't know how to really stop it, and just
Speaker 1: kind of went along with it, so that it is
Speaker 1: consistent at least with that. I'm sure others as well.
Speaker 1: And you know, Leavern, I should tell you actually how
Speaker 1: I originally got interested in this topic when I first
Speaker 1: was looking at the phenomenon of anti gay male and
Speaker 1: anti lesbian hate crimes in the gay community. At that time,
Speaker 1: these were conceptualized as hate crimes, so crimes driven by
Speaker 1: hate or or you know, some form of bias or
Speaker 1: negative emotion towards the victim, right, But when I was
Speaker 1: growing up, I was actually associated with people who were
Speaker 1: committing these crimes young men, and I didn't think that
Speaker 1: those particular people that I knew were motivated by hate,
Speaker 1: and I didn't think they were sexually conflicted either. They
Speaker 1: were just young men in groups who would actually drive
Speaker 1: up to San Francisco. I grew up here in the
Speaker 1: San Francisco Bay area. They would just drive up to
Speaker 1: San Francisco and cruise around looking for victims to target
Speaker 1: because they thought it was really fun and and they
Speaker 1: also enjoyed that whole group camaraderie. So that's one one
Speaker 1: thing is because at the time that I did my research,
Speaker 1: nobody has actually talked to the perpetrators themselves to see
Speaker 1: what was going on in their minds, and I found
Speaker 1: it really interesting that a lot of them don't particularly
Speaker 1: hold extreme views. They're just acting out these group dynamics,
Speaker 1: and you know, an event will just take on a
Speaker 1: life of its own as it goes along. So, for example,
Speaker 1: in the in the case of miss Nettles, who was killed, right,
Speaker 1: that was probably not even planned. And some of the
Speaker 1: other guys in that group might have even secretly liked
Speaker 1: what they saw going on, but they didn't feel like
Speaker 1: they could probably say anything without looking weak or feminine themselves.
Speaker 1: If that makes sense. It does, it really does. It's
Speaker 1: like we cannot really talk about ending trans phobia and
Speaker 1: homophobia without also talking about ending mithogyny quebec. Then you cannot.
Speaker 1: You cannot disentangle these things. They're all just twisted up together.
Speaker 1: And in fact, when you really think about it, you know,
Speaker 1: the attacks on trans women in particular, I mean, women
Speaker 1: in public spaces are policed right and their their bodies
Speaker 1: are scrutinized. And this is a historic thing women. I
Speaker 1: mean it's only recently that women haven't been even allowed
Speaker 1: to go out in public without a male escort. But
Speaker 1: certainly when we're out in public, men are entitled to
Speaker 1: bother us and look at us and make comments. And
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's one of the differences between
Speaker 1: trans mean and trans women in terms of victimization, is
Speaker 1: that nobody's really looking at trans men very closely because
Speaker 1: they're not objects of public scrutiny the way that women are.
Speaker 1: There's there's an invisibility of masculining and invisibility of a
Speaker 1: certain kind of assume male privilege. So they're less on display.
Speaker 1: And you've also talked about this is theater. They're less
Speaker 1: on display in the sort of theater of you know,
Speaker 1: of male female interaction exactly. I mean, I've said this
Speaker 1: for a long time, but it always often feels like
Speaker 1: it seems to keep coming back to having, you know,
Speaker 1: having people have a deeper understanding the humanity of trans people.
Speaker 1: But there needs to be a critique of like misogyny
Speaker 1: and patriarchy and what we teach those folks who are
Speaker 1: male identified in culture about how to not only treat
Speaker 1: lgbt Q plus folks, but how they treat women. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: because in fact, one thing I found out when I
Speaker 1: was doing my original research was that anti lesbian attacks
Speaker 1: tended to start out as anti woman attacks, just like
Speaker 1: anti trans women attacks just start as generic anti woman
Speaker 1: attacks or cat calling, and then if the woman responds
Speaker 1: in a hostile way, like f you to a cat
Speaker 1: call or an approach, then all of a sudden, the
Speaker 1: perpetrator will turn that around and start using anti lesbian epithets.
Speaker 1: The woman might be lesbian or might be straight, it
Speaker 1: doesn't really matter. It's just a way of kind of
Speaker 1: bending his um masculinity. I'm saying, Okay, this woman is
Speaker 1: not accepting my entitled approach here, she must be gay, right,
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think it really does what you just said.
Speaker 1: It boils down to misogyny and just this a sense
Speaker 1: of masculine entitlement that really I do think that we
Speaker 1: we we need interventions two educate boys as to the
Speaker 1: rights of everybody too, and you know, not feel so entitled.
Speaker 1: I would love for you know, diverse audiences to hear this.
Speaker 1: But so many men feel like they're under attack, straight men.
Speaker 1: You know, you'll if you watch a Supreme Court hearing
Speaker 1: your Congress, straight white men are under attack, you know.
Speaker 1: And then a lot of straight black men also feel
Speaker 1: like they're under attacked from my perspective, they just want
Speaker 1: to have the unfettered access to be able to be
Speaker 1: misogynistic and homophobic without consequence. And so that's what it
Speaker 1: feels like the attack is to me, and because I mean,
Speaker 1: I love men and date men um but it's how
Speaker 1: do we have the conversations that this toxic masculinity can
Speaker 1: feel like these gender norms and expectations have to be
Speaker 1: enforced through violence, means that they're not as sort of
Speaker 1: inherent as we'd like to think, right, that they have
Speaker 1: to continually be enforced and reinforced through systems through violence,
Speaker 1: And if we could let that go, I feel like
Speaker 1: they would be a lot happier too. But but I
Speaker 1: think it's like there's also the critique of power. There's
Speaker 1: some people who are just the psychological piece of it,
Speaker 1: but then there's also the like I want power and privilege,
Speaker 1: you know, and I don't know, I'm just grasping. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: a couple of things about what you just said that
Speaker 1: I think are really critical here. One is the whole
Speaker 1: notion of masculinity. It's not a real thing, which is
Speaker 1: what makes it so fragile and and having to always
Speaker 1: be protected and defending because it's not a real thing.
Speaker 1: It's just sort of an ideology, right, unless you really
Speaker 1: fight to prove it. Men. You know, you may have
Speaker 1: heard this research, but when they asked men and women
Speaker 1: what they're most afraid of, women will say they're afraid
Speaker 1: of being like raped or murdered, and men will say
Speaker 1: they're afraid of being ridiculed or laughed at. And a
Speaker 1: lot of that fear of being ridiculed or laughed at
Speaker 1: is really primal and really drives a lot of what
Speaker 1: men do. It seems like they're exercising power, but they're
Speaker 1: exercising power sometimes from a place of internal fear. And
Speaker 1: I agree with you, if if that could just be
Speaker 1: somehow dismantled, they would be a lot happier. Right. And
Speaker 1: the other piece of it that that what you just
Speaker 1: said brought up for me is that a lot of
Speaker 1: it is this whole scarcity model where if somebody has rights,
Speaker 1: it somehow takes away rights from somebody else. And I
Speaker 1: think that that's I mean, that's the whole antiimmigrant thing.
Speaker 1: These immigrants come in somehow it's going to harm me
Speaker 1: as opposed to maybe better in society by having more
Speaker 1: hard working, productive people in our society. No, it's going
Speaker 1: to take away from me. And I think this whole
Speaker 1: white heterosexual men are under attack idea comes from this
Speaker 1: place of I'm feeling like, you know, I owned this
Speaker 1: world and now these people are all whether it's immigrants
Speaker 1: or trans people or Asians or what have you, they're
Speaker 1: all encroaching on me and taking something away from me.
Speaker 1: Is that there's not enough to go around. So we
Speaker 1: have to move from a scarcity mentality and this is
Speaker 1: everyone to one of abundance. And you know, I you know,
Speaker 1: it's just it's fear. It's like this interesting thing around.
Speaker 1: Like Bernie Brown talked a lot about this, that if
Speaker 1: you can sort of still fear in people and give
Speaker 1: them someone to blame, then you know, people can maintain
Speaker 1: power that way. But for the people out there who
Speaker 1: are being made afraid, I think that's the piece that
Speaker 1: we have to begin to understand that trans folks are
Speaker 1: not a threat, that like me, existing in the world
Speaker 1: world is not a threat to you, and you need
Speaker 1: not be afraid of us. You need not be afraid
Speaker 1: of us. That the trans girls in sports, it's like
Speaker 1: the Governor of West Virginia with Sula MSNBC recently, and
Speaker 1: Stephanie Rule asked him, you know, you just signed this
Speaker 1: anti trans girls playing sports in your state and state
Speaker 1: of West Virginia, can you name an instance of a
Speaker 1: trans girl sort of taking advantage of the system, you know,
Speaker 1: to you know, get an unfair advantage. And he couldn't
Speaker 1: name an example in his state, and yet he just
Speaker 1: signed this law into being. And you know, trans people
Speaker 1: have been allowed to take place sports in the Olympics
Speaker 1: since two thousand two. There's not been an influx of
Speaker 1: trans women dominating Olympic sports. There have actually been no
Speaker 1: trans Olympian since two thousand two. So yes, there are
Speaker 1: a few cases where you know, some trans women have
Speaker 1: you know, played sports in in one but it's not
Speaker 1: a problem where thirty five states need to like introduce
Speaker 1: over a hundred bills addressing so a lot of it
Speaker 1: is about fear. It's a it's a strategically and cynically
Speaker 1: manufactured crisis. I think, and I think people like you
Speaker 1: learn or you know, I wish there was more people
Speaker 1: like you, because that's what will help, is more visibility
Speaker 1: and people speaking reasonably to power. But it does, it
Speaker 1: starts at the top, and it's often cynically deployed and
Speaker 1: strategically to to hit people's fears about whatever. And you know,
Speaker 1: I the more I learn about violence against trans women
Speaker 1: in particular, so much of it is is deployed against
Speaker 1: black trans women. And it's like, um, the parallels are
Speaker 1: kind of inescapable about how lynching culture back in the
Speaker 1: day so similar the black codes and the gym crow laws.
Speaker 1: So it's like the supremacy or the misogyny or transphobia
Speaker 1: at the top, it's put into policies and laws, and
Speaker 1: then it just trickles down into this real sense of
Speaker 1: permission to assault an attack, whether whether blatant violence that
Speaker 1: creates physical harm or death or just more you know,
Speaker 1: the microaggressions that are so commonplace and people don't even
Speaker 1: think much about them. But it really does start at
Speaker 1: the top. It starts with people like Tucker Carlson who's
Speaker 1: just boaming at the mouth about this trans athletics thing,
Speaker 1: and you know, he is revving up that whole base
Speaker 1: around this manufactured issue because they have found that this
Speaker 1: is an issue that resonates more than unisex bathrooms. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what from your research with with perpetrators of violence in general, right,
Speaker 1: because it's like there's a we're talking about bolence against
Speaker 1: trance people specifically, but like a culture of violence, right
Speaker 1: that is, you know, steeped in what Bell has called
Speaker 1: imperialist white supremes, this capitalist patriarchy, these intersecting sort of structures.
Speaker 1: Have you, I guess in the research talk to perpetrators
Speaker 1: who have like sort of reformed or thought differently about
Speaker 1: the violence that they've committed, or haven't haven't had some
Speaker 1: perspective on it. Absolutely, And in fact that's more my
Speaker 1: practice areas that are my search area because you know,
Speaker 1: I work as a forensic psychologist. I work with I mean,
Speaker 1: day in and day out with violent offenders. That's that's
Speaker 1: what I did. And typically typically violence is really a
Speaker 1: young man's thing, so it's teenagers, people in their twenties,
Speaker 1: maybe up to early thirties. And over time, most people
Speaker 1: who have committed violence do become more insightful and regretful
Speaker 1: and slow down and stopped. And probably reform is more
Speaker 1: the rule than the exception, I would say, and especially
Speaker 1: when people can be educated and approached in a good way,
Speaker 1: like sometimes there have been for some hate crime offenders,
Speaker 1: rehabilitation programs designed specifically for them like racist hate crime
Speaker 1: offenders who are then put into groups of people combating racism.
Speaker 1: It's really can be really effective and really powerful for them,
Speaker 1: and they can really turn their lives around and become
Speaker 1: prominent spokespersons for progressive ideals. Is that about exposure to
Speaker 1: people who are that raised or is it the education
Speaker 1: pieces that both? We know that we're very sort of
Speaker 1: right now politically that most of us sort of live
Speaker 1: around people who think like us and who look like
Speaker 1: us more so than any other time in our history.
Speaker 1: I think it's both. It's you know, having mentors who
Speaker 1: preach a positive message and exposure and also kind of
Speaker 1: education about why their previous ideology had flaws. And of
Speaker 1: course it's not universally effective, but you know, they found,
Speaker 1: for example, though, some of the most promising work at
Speaker 1: reducing bias crimes these days is in the school system,
Speaker 1: where they can train educators and counselors and then put
Speaker 1: really charismatic mentoring leaders into place that you can really
Speaker 1: change the climate of a school and reduce bullying and
Speaker 1: harassment and which you know, escalates into into hate crimes.
Speaker 1: That that's kind of positive to me because it means
Speaker 1: that we actually have the power to change the culture
Speaker 1: from a small level. Yeah, that's really exciting to me,
Speaker 1: and I think it's it's noteworthy that the guidelines of
Speaker 1: how trans kids should be treated in school that were
Speaker 1: developed under Obama's Justice Department with Loretta Lynch where immediately rescinded,
Speaker 1: one of the first things the Trump administration did in
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen. I'm not sure what the status of that
Speaker 1: is now with the Biden administration, but that you know,
Speaker 1: I think it's a seventy of students. It's a glistening
Speaker 1: study of trans and gender nonconforming students in school experience
Speaker 1: arrascomer bullying s that is startling, startling. We'll be right
Speaker 1: back without further ado. What do you think the role
Speaker 1: of religion is, because it's interesting the guy who I'm killed,
Speaker 1: Mercedes Williams, and his name escapes me at the moment,
Speaker 1: but he talked a lot about God, right he's in jail,
Speaker 1: and then his mom was very religious, and he's sort
Speaker 1: of claiming that that he's not gay, and he didn't
Speaker 1: know Mercedes was trans, and he's citing God a lot.
Speaker 1: What you know there, yet I've murdered someone, So what
Speaker 1: thau shall not kill? What is that right? What is
Speaker 1: the relationship for you between religion and and bias crimes,
Speaker 1: because it's it seems like they're not compatible, but yet
Speaker 1: a lot of religious folks seemed to justify almost violence
Speaker 1: against trans people. There's definitely a correlation between religious fundamentalism
Speaker 1: and homophobia and transphobia and misogyny for that matter, in
Speaker 1: all three of the major you know, mon atheist religions, Christianity, Islam,
Speaker 1: and Judaism. So definitely there's a correlation. And when when
Speaker 1: assailants are asked about their motivations, the ones who are
Speaker 1: committing violent crimes out of the value expressive function which
Speaker 1: is what we call it, which is because of their
Speaker 1: moral beliefs, will often cite religion. So there's definitely a
Speaker 1: correlation between fundamentalist religious beliefs and the belief that such
Speaker 1: violens is acceptable, whether or not they're actually out there
Speaker 1: committing violens or not. The belief that you know, there's
Speaker 1: that deviance should be punished is really prominent. Wow. Wow,
Speaker 1: I don't even know what to do with that, you know,
Speaker 1: because it's like, because you want I only be in
Speaker 1: a place where people's religion is is respected, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that's very important, especially in the United States. Right.
Speaker 1: One of the big reasons we you know, the original
Speaker 1: and folks came and I founded this country was for
Speaker 1: religious freedom, right, So we want folks to be able
Speaker 1: to have that that that religious freedom should not be
Speaker 1: encroaching on the liberty of other folks. Yeah, it's actually
Speaker 1: kind of scary. I mean, there's a conservative Christian fundamental
Speaker 1: organization that's going around the world is called the Alliance
Speaker 1: Defending Freedom. Yes, I'm familiar, really well funded, and they
Speaker 1: are trying to curtail the rights of sexual minorities and
Speaker 1: general minorities around the world, including trying to lobby force
Speaker 1: sterilization of transgender people. And wow, you know this is
Speaker 1: all on their belief about what God's law is. And
Speaker 1: so I mean there are progressive religious movements as well.
Speaker 1: I really need to step up and be heard absolutely,
Speaker 1: you know, I think it's important to note that the
Speaker 1: organizations like Alliance Defending Freedom, they're really responsible for that.
Speaker 1: There the heart of the bathroom bills that were in
Speaker 1: state legislatures several years ago. There at the heart of
Speaker 1: the anti trans legislation targeting children. Right now, Land Spending
Speaker 1: Freedom argued at the Supreme Court that it should be
Speaker 1: legal to fire someone for their jobs for being l
Speaker 1: g b t Q plus. So they are really well organized,
Speaker 1: really well fund day and are doing a really good job,
Speaker 1: relentless around discrimination against trans people. Yeah. Yeah, it's really
Speaker 1: scary and a lot of parts of the world, even
Speaker 1: compared to hear the the amount of oppression and terror
Speaker 1: that is going on is is is catastrophic. You know,
Speaker 1: I can pull and they've got these signs that they
Speaker 1: put up in various places that say things like lgbt
Speaker 1: Q Free Zone, And there's been riots where sexual minorities
Speaker 1: and general minorities are attacked and it's just and people
Speaker 1: are actually moving out of those countries because of the
Speaker 1: level of danger that exists. And so I think it's
Speaker 1: kind of there's a kind of global repressive movement that's
Speaker 1: under way that I sure hope, sure hope that that
Speaker 1: that tide turns. Yeah. And and and my documentary Disclosure
Speaker 1: that's available on Netflix, we talk about with increased visibility,
Speaker 1: we become more targeted, and they're just seemed that just
Speaker 1: seems to be the reality right now that we've never
Speaker 1: been more visible. We just haven't in the meat and
Speaker 1: the violence and legislative assaults are more vigorous at this
Speaker 1: exact moment they've ever been. So. Well, that may just
Speaker 1: be because what you're saying, Because there's visibility, then there's
Speaker 1: a backlash, right, But it may actually turn out that
Speaker 1: this is just a temporary backlash that is overcome by
Speaker 1: the visibility and the and the civil rights movement. I
Speaker 1: hope that you know when, when when people become visible
Speaker 1: in genders, a backlash, but that backlash may not be
Speaker 1: successful over the long haul. Let's hope. So let's hope.
Speaker 1: So we've talked at length about men and women, and
Speaker 1: we know that some of the victims that you've studied
Speaker 1: of the years would probably identify as non binary or
Speaker 1: exist in some kind of non binary spaces. There's been
Speaker 1: specific research on non binary people in terms of instances
Speaker 1: of violence. There isn't much research, mainly because non binary
Speaker 1: is a newly conceptualized thing, so it wasn't really something
Speaker 1: that was known or talked about a couple of decades ago.
Speaker 1: But what I will say is that the person's self
Speaker 1: identification is pretty irrelevant to whether or not they are targeted.
Speaker 1: It's more how they are perceived by the other person.
Speaker 1: So for example, if a man is somewhat infeminine or
Speaker 1: a woman is a little bit masculine, or somebody looks
Speaker 1: like they might be trans, that's going to be what
Speaker 1: the perpetrator is going after based on enforcing gender, aren't.
Speaker 1: It really doesn't matter what the person calls themselves. So
Speaker 1: there are cases, for example, where heterosexually identified men have
Speaker 1: been assaulted and called gay because they were coming out
Speaker 1: of a gay bar with In reality they were the
Speaker 1: beer delivery man. You know, they weren't. It was just
Speaker 1: wrong place, wrong time, right. But they may be like
Speaker 1: maybe they're small and thin and so they fit some
Speaker 1: sort of stereotype, but it really doesn't matter. Or there
Speaker 1: was a there was a a young non binary person
Speaker 1: here in Oakland recently that was writing a public bus
Speaker 1: and got set on fire by this other boy on
Speaker 1: the bus. Just a book was written on that. I
Speaker 1: wish I could remember the name of it, but it
Speaker 1: didn't rate. Yeah, this this person who identified his non
Speaker 1: binary and by the pronoun they was just set on
Speaker 1: fire because of the attire they were worring. So the
Speaker 1: offender just thought, well, this person looks weird. Let me
Speaker 1: set them on fire. What that just brought up from me?
Speaker 1: How when we read about these cases, they're usually so violent,
Speaker 1: their stabbings, their beatings. Is a brutality that that happens
Speaker 1: in these hate crimes? Often, I don't want to say always,
Speaker 1: but very often we hear the accounts and it's really horrendous.
Speaker 1: And do you think is there a correlation between like
Speaker 1: the level of force that that is used and being
Speaker 1: a bias crime or is it just my sort of perception? No,
Speaker 1: you're right, I mean, obviously we have to say that
Speaker 1: the accounts that get known about our ones because there's
Speaker 1: something that stands out to the media about them. So yes,
Speaker 1: the more brutal and violent ones are going to be
Speaker 1: the ones that are publicized. However, there is something to
Speaker 1: what you're saying. We call it forensic overkill, where there's
Speaker 1: just way more violence and would be necessary to hurt somebody,
Speaker 1: And in that case it often is there's uh strong
Speaker 1: emotion at play. Alrighty, gotcha? Gotcha? So then what what
Speaker 1: then can we do to dismantle these things so we
Speaker 1: can end violence against trans people? I really mean, I'm
Speaker 1: so sick of talking about this. It's triggering for me
Speaker 1: to talk about this, and I just wanted to be done.
Speaker 1: I know that's going to take time, but LA and
Speaker 1: I know there's a lot of intersecting issues that cause
Speaker 1: violence against trance people. Well, I think it's somewhat starting
Speaker 1: to happen in the sense that that hyper masculine ideal
Speaker 1: has been slowly eroded and chipped away in modern society.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's as important as it used to be.
Speaker 1: And I another really big meta idea that's important is
Speaker 1: what's called the contact hypothesis that when people are in
Speaker 1: contact and know somebody of a certain category, they start
Speaker 1: to know that person as a human being and it's
Speaker 1: harder to dehumanize them. So, for example, there's been researched
Speaker 1: with gay people where if if heterosexual people know gay people,
Speaker 1: they are less likely to be prejudiced. Of course, it's
Speaker 1: a little bit circular because people that are less prejudiced
Speaker 1: tend to associate with other people that are more diverse.
Speaker 1: But I think still only a very small minority of
Speaker 1: Americans say they know any transgender people. So people like
Speaker 1: yourself actually being on television and being very prominent that
Speaker 1: starts to break down barriers and prejudices. So I you know,
Speaker 1: I'm anti violence in every aspect of the word. And
Speaker 1: from your research, what do you feel like the biggest
Speaker 1: thing we can take away around what we should be
Speaker 1: doing or could be doing in violence in general. I
Speaker 1: know it's a high one. Well it's hard, I mean
Speaker 1: because if you really want my real, honest answer, it
Speaker 1: has to do with just the economic exploitation and the
Speaker 1: poverty and the the scarcity that's going on that just
Speaker 1: makes people feel so stressed and so battered in their
Speaker 1: day to day lives that they are looking for a
Speaker 1: scapegoat to take that out on. And I think if
Speaker 1: we lived in a society that were like the the
Speaker 1: wealth was more equally distributed, where people could have a
Speaker 1: comfortable life and not be so stressed out and be
Speaker 1: committing violence against their children, which in turn those children
Speaker 1: grow up and then become violent adults. I really think
Speaker 1: that that's a big piece of it. And I just
Speaker 1: really think that if we put more resources into helping
Speaker 1: families and helping schools and helping social service agencies when
Speaker 1: we see people stressed and in distressed, we could just
Speaker 1: really cackle this problem. I am so glad you said
Speaker 1: that because I mean, it makes so much sense. There's
Speaker 1: so so much of what's going on in the country
Speaker 1: right now is because the system has failed far too
Speaker 1: many people. We live in a country that says, you
Speaker 1: work hard, anything is possible. Right, if you work really,
Speaker 1: really hard and keep your nose to the grindstone, you
Speaker 1: can be successful. That's the American dream. And the majority
Speaker 1: of people don't have that and can't experience that because
Speaker 1: um of income inequality, because jobs have been shipped overseas,
Speaker 1: because of automation, because of so many different factors, and
Speaker 1: and to political parties who are beholden to corporations enrich
Speaker 1: people and not to the betterment of the material conditions
Speaker 1: of working people. And so people who are feeling just
Speaker 1: destitute and like they have no way out, it's easier
Speaker 1: to play on their fears and then they need somebody
Speaker 1: to blame. And again, so they're blaming trans people, they're
Speaker 1: blaming women, they're blaming people of color instead of blaming
Speaker 1: a system that talks a good game, but it's not
Speaker 1: really doing anything to make their material conditions better. No,
Speaker 1: when you see I don't know where you live, but
Speaker 1: where I live, it's just like this. The homeless encampments everywhere.
Speaker 1: It's like some dystopian future. And when people are that marginalized,
Speaker 1: they tend towards alcohol and drug abuse, and then that,
Speaker 1: of course increases impulsivity and acting out, and and then
Speaker 1: there's resentment against those people. And the whole thing is
Speaker 1: just so, you know, it's huge, and I think that
Speaker 1: people don't feel like they can really target the actual
Speaker 1: forces of oppression because that's too big. You know, you
Speaker 1: can't get the Jeff Desos where the heck is that,
Speaker 1: you know, so just go after somebody on the street
Speaker 1: next to you instead. Yeah, so we've you've given us
Speaker 1: a lot to chew on, Karen. I don't know we've
Speaker 1: we have any answers, really, but I'm so glad, you know.
Speaker 1: I guess the conversation continues, and I think a lot
Speaker 1: of it is hopefully. I think I would love to
Speaker 1: put the parents out there to begin to think about
Speaker 1: how they're raising their children right. So much starts there,
Speaker 1: and then I think in schools as well, if we
Speaker 1: can have education where we can have environments where it's
Speaker 1: not not acceptable to bully kids because it starts so early,
Speaker 1: and it started early for me, and it was relentless,
Speaker 1: and I just I was never really protected. It was
Speaker 1: like it was always my fault, right, Why why are
Speaker 1: you acting that way? Why are you dressing that way?
Speaker 1: So I hope that we can for everyone out there listening,
Speaker 1: they can begin to envision a different way of raising
Speaker 1: their children, a different way of parenting and educating children.
Speaker 1: I think that's so critical. So I like to end
Speaker 1: the podcast with this question that comes from my therapy.
Speaker 1: It's thematic therapy based in the community resiliency model. It's
Speaker 1: the idea of both. And even though there may be
Speaker 1: something really challenging and in my life right now that's,
Speaker 1: you know, making me feel awful, something else is true.
Speaker 1: There's something else that's going on in my life that's
Speaker 1: neutral or positive that can help me to get through. So,
Speaker 1: Karen Franklin, Doctor Karen Franklin, for you today, what else
Speaker 1: is true? What helps you get through? Well? I I
Speaker 1: really think that at present, superficial circumstances notwithstanding, I see
Speaker 1: a lot of good in people. And I just see
Speaker 1: a lot of really nice young people who are really
Speaker 1: committed to being solid, non violent, non prejudicous people in
Speaker 1: the world. I got kids who are in their twenties,
Speaker 1: and people that age are so overall so intelligent, and
Speaker 1: even though that they feel depressed about the state of
Speaker 1: the world, they have a positive outlook on humanity and
Speaker 1: on their own role in the world, and they are
Speaker 1: not participating in oppression that they can help it. And
Speaker 1: I just I really find myself a little bit hardened
Speaker 1: by that. That's beautiful, That's absolutely beautiful. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for being here today. Thank you for your research
Speaker 1: over all these many years, and gosh, I there's just
Speaker 1: a lot of work to do, but I'm excited that
Speaker 1: we can talk about how we can do it better.
Speaker 1: Are you on social media? Where can folks find you?
Speaker 1: I have I'm on Twitter, that's the only one. And
Speaker 1: then I have a website as well, and my website
Speaker 1: is www dot Karen Franklin dot com, so it's easy
Speaker 1: to remember. And I'm planning to put up a page
Speaker 1: of resources related to our conversation today, some recent reports
Speaker 1: on anti trans violence and some of the theoretical discussions
Speaker 1: that are happening, so that people can click on those
Speaker 1: links and get more background if they're interested. Amazing, So
Speaker 1: go to Karen Franklin dot com for all those resources.
Speaker 1: So we can do what we can to um in
Speaker 1: violence of all kinds, particularly against trans people. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much, Dr Karen Franklin. Thank you. It's great seeing you. Wow.
Speaker 1: This this topic is so intense. One of the things
Speaker 1: that Dr Franklin said that really sticks out to me
Speaker 1: is that she said, when it comes to group dynamics
Speaker 1: that it did not matter who the victim is as
Speaker 1: long as they can represent femininity. They could be a
Speaker 1: gay man, they could be a trans or non trans woman.
Speaker 1: It's the feminine that must be targeted that is so
Speaker 1: deep to me, and it reminds me of eve Ensler's
Speaker 1: Shin to the Vagina monologues. In two thousand five, she
Speaker 1: interviewed many trans women and added a new monologue that
Speaker 1: she titled they beat the Girl out of My Boy,
Speaker 1: or so they tried, And in all of her interviews
Speaker 1: with trans women who had experienced violence, she noted that
Speaker 1: it was the feminine that needed to be being out
Speaker 1: of these trans women. So eve Ensler's research, along with
Speaker 1: Dr Franklin's research, reaffirms how much femininity is what is
Speaker 1: under attack when we look at violence against trans women
Speaker 1: and violence against women and gender and sexual minorities. In general,
Speaker 1: and it's also highlights to me the close relationship between homophobia, transphobia,
Speaker 1: and misogyny. They are inextricably linked. So Dr Franklin has
Speaker 1: indeed added a page on her website full of resources
Speaker 1: based on this conversation. You can find the link to
Speaker 1: this the book she read, Friends to the Seven Bus,
Speaker 1: a true story of two teenagers and the crime that
Speaker 1: changed their lives, and other resources in our show notes
Speaker 1: for this episode. You know, I'm because I think it's
Speaker 1: important to say that I'm a huge advocate of disclosing
Speaker 1: right for my own safety and personally, but it's hard
Speaker 1: for me to tell other people what to do. But
Speaker 1: what I want to say to trans folks out there
Speaker 1: is that I hope that you understand that trans is
Speaker 1: beautiful and that someone can love you and should love
Speaker 1: you for who you are. So disclosure I think is
Speaker 1: important for that just to have love that is authentic.
Speaker 1: But it's also about your safety, right, so that you
Speaker 1: have to always make sure that you're safe before you disclose,
Speaker 1: and maybe that's begot text message or on a dating
Speaker 1: app or whatever, so that you're not in danger. You know,
Speaker 1: we are in a really violent culture and It's not
Speaker 1: our fault, but we have to do everything we can
Speaker 1: to try to stay safe and stay alive. Please okay,
Speaker 1: m M. Thank you for listening to Laverne Cox Show.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Please rate reviews, subscribe and share
Speaker 1: The Laverne Cox Show with everyone you know. Join me
Speaker 1: next week when we talked to Dr Kristin Knapp, a
Speaker 1: pioneer in the field of self compassion, she explains why
Speaker 1: self compassion could be so hard for so many of us.
Speaker 1: Exhibit a me. Everybody always talks about self love. Honey,
Speaker 1: if you don't practice self compassion, you ain't our self love.
Speaker 1: Joined me for our conversation. You can find me on
Speaker 1: Instagram and Twitter at Laverne Cox and on Facebook at
Speaker 1: Laverne Cox for Real. Until next time, As always, stay
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