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Speaker 1: Lemon. Welcome to On Purpose. Grateful to have you here.
Speaker 1: I've looked forward to sitting with you for a long
Speaker 1: long time, and so I really appreciate your space and
Speaker 1: your energy and for you being here. And I want
Speaker 1: to start off by asking you what childhood memory do
Speaker 1: you have that you feel as defined the person that
Speaker 1: you are today or most defines the person you are today.
Speaker 2: There's a few. There was a traumatic one that I
Speaker 2: don't like to talk about that happened when I was
Speaker 2: two years old that was deeply traumatic that certainly shaped
Speaker 2: a lot of the trauma of my childhood, a lot
Speaker 2: of the shame based parts of my childhood. My first
Speaker 2: interactions with children are the children when I was in
Speaker 2: sort of preschool, when I was probably five years old,
Speaker 2: when I was bullied and called the F word and
Speaker 2: a sissy, and the kids that I acted like a girl.
Speaker 2: I often say the irony of my life is when
Speaker 2: I was a child, the kids called me a girl,
Speaker 2: and as an adult people call a man. That I've
Speaker 2: transitioned and accepted my womanhood. That's interesting. So it's interesting
Speaker 2: thinking that like other people told me, I was a
Speaker 2: girl before I sort of fully was able to accept
Speaker 2: or reckon with it, and it wasn't a good positive thing,
Speaker 2: you know, right, because I was assigned mail at birth
Speaker 2: as a transperson, being called a girl with sort of
Speaker 2: a bad thing in the eyes of the other children.
Speaker 2: So that's an early memory in terms of interacting with
Speaker 2: other kids, and then dancing I am during back in
Speaker 2: the day. I think, I don't know if there's still
Speaker 2: physical education in schools, but I'm fifty one years old
Speaker 2: and we had pe physical education and during free play
Speaker 2: while the other kids were sort of playing sports. I
Speaker 2: was off to the side, dancing by myself with music
Speaker 2: in my head, and I would sort of have characters
Speaker 2: that I would kind of portray through movement, and I'd
Speaker 2: be imitating what I saw on television from Solid Gold.
Speaker 2: For those people who are my age who know solid
Speaker 2: Gold was this show in the eighties, was a countdown
Speaker 2: show that counted down the top hits of the week,
Speaker 2: and they had solid Gold dancers, and there was this
Speaker 2: beautiful black woman named Darcel Wynn who was the lead
Speaker 2: Solid Gold dancer, and she had long hair sort of
Speaker 2: down to her knees, and she was so sexy and
Speaker 2: so vivacious, and so I was sort of pretending to
Speaker 2: be Darcel as I danced in pe and free play
Speaker 2: and then church and speaking in church almost every Sunday.
Speaker 2: My mother reminds me that I would summarize this Sunday
Speaker 2: school lesson every Sunday, and Children's Day was like the
Speaker 2: fourth Sunday of every month, and I was always sort
Speaker 2: of getting up and making speeches in church, and that
Speaker 2: even though I'm not a religious person now I'm very spiritual.
Speaker 2: Church was this performance opportunity. The religious part of it
Speaker 2: wasn't affirming. It was very shaming, but the performance part
Speaker 2: of it was very affirming. Being told that I was
Speaker 2: a speaker and that I was smart was something that
Speaker 2: dancing and starting to study dance in third grade and
Speaker 2: doing talent shows and then being considered a smart kid
Speaker 2: who spoke well became my identity in terms of how
Speaker 2: I saw myself, in addition to the identity that was
Speaker 2: sort of placed on me that was from the other
Speaker 2: kids and from my teachers, the bullied identity, the freak,
Speaker 2: the sissy, the F word, the queer, all those identities
Speaker 2: that were stigmatized were sort of placed on me. But
Speaker 2: I also won talent shows and was a good speaker.
Speaker 2: And there was this one moment in seventh grade. I
Speaker 2: know you asked for one childhood member.
Speaker 1: I this is beautiful.
Speaker 2: But there is one moment in seventh grade where I
Speaker 2: ran for vice president of the student council and I
Speaker 2: remember sort of doing the campaign. I made little flyers
Speaker 2: and stuff, and like, I was this very by middle school.
Speaker 2: I was dressing myself with things from the Salvation Army
Speaker 2: and it was not quite gender non conforming yet, but
Speaker 2: it was going more in an androgynist direction, and I
Speaker 2: was kind of this know it all kid, I was like,
Speaker 2: you know, raising my hand. You know, to be the
Speaker 2: first one to answer questions in class is very annoying.
Speaker 2: And I was chased home from school every day by
Speaker 2: kids who wanted to beat me up and call it,
Speaker 2: you know, this is c F word bullied because I
Speaker 2: was very fim. But when the year that I ran
Speaker 2: for student council president, we all got to make speeches
Speaker 2: and right after the speeches, the kids voted, and I
Speaker 2: remember the beginning of my speech was quality is my
Speaker 2: principal and qualified is my attitude. I don't know what
Speaker 2: I say after that, and I just remember the.
Speaker 3: Kids being like.
Speaker 2: And they throwed it for me, and I became vispriad
Speaker 2: than in the student council. So this kid that like
Speaker 2: no one liked, who they made fun of, there was
Speaker 2: something about me speaking in this moment with this confidence
Speaker 2: and this sense of something I don't know, maybe speaking
Speaker 2: in church every Sunday that they voted for me, and
Speaker 2: that was a really wonderful moment.
Speaker 3: Of screw you to the kids.
Speaker 2: It's like they voted for me, but like I was
Speaker 2: also like this kid that everyone made fun of and
Speaker 2: didn't like. So there was you know, and looking back,
Speaker 2: and I've talked to very few people from middle school,
Speaker 2: but like I think, even though they all sort of
Speaker 2: made fun of me, there was an acknowledgement that there
Speaker 2: was talent and there was intelligence there. And how wonderful,
Speaker 2: as traumatizing as my childhood was to create a sense
Speaker 2: of self it, you know, reading drama of the Gifted Child,
Speaker 2: I understand that, you know, in retrospect, my identity became
Speaker 2: about accomplishment and not who I was authentically. But how
Speaker 2: wonderful to be a kid who valued education because of
Speaker 2: my mother, who was a teacher, and had this identity
Speaker 2: that was attached to accomplishments and intelligence and talent. That's
Speaker 2: a lovely thing, particularly as I, you know, as a
Speaker 2: woman in the world where so often now now fifty
Speaker 2: one year old woman thinking about aging and who's an
Speaker 2: actress in Hollywood, and so much of being a woman
Speaker 2: is about how we look, and so much of how
Speaker 2: I grew up was about my talent and intelligence and
Speaker 2: not that and that's a beautiful thing. That's a really
Speaker 2: really beautiful thing to have those things be valued and
Speaker 2: associate it with who you are. And so as I,
Speaker 2: you know, sort of go into the world and do
Speaker 2: a lot of different things, knowing that I'm talented, knowing
Speaker 2: that I'm smart, and that because of all that training
Speaker 2: in church and doing public speaking competitions and you know,
Speaker 2: valuing education is still being just a student of so
Speaker 2: many different things that I can lead with those things,
Speaker 2: and that that those are the reasons why I've you know,
Speaker 2: gotten to where I am. I think, you know, on
Speaker 2: God's time, not my time. I thought it should have happened,
Speaker 2: you know, twenty five years ago.
Speaker 1: But.
Speaker 3: It didn't happen till I was forty.
Speaker 2: But did it happened right on time and when there
Speaker 2: was a sense of purpose attached to it and that
Speaker 2: there was something to say. And so that is my
Speaker 2: another intention of today is to try to say things
Speaker 2: in a way that people can hear. I've been grappling
Speaker 2: a lot with how sort of anti intellectual our world is.
Speaker 2: There's so many divides in this culture right now around
Speaker 2: you know, liberal and conservative and all that stuff, but
Speaker 2: it is really one of the big ones is people
Speaker 2: who've gone to college and who haven't and how they vote.
Speaker 2: You know, I think most non college educated people vote
Speaker 2: for the Republican Party. And then I'm an actress. But
Speaker 2: I talk in a way, you know, I'm an intersectional
Speaker 2: feminist and I you know, read Belle Hooks and I
Speaker 2: just did a podcast episode dedicated to her, and I
Speaker 2: use phrases like imperless, white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy to evoke
Speaker 2: bell Hooks's work. So I talk in this way that's like,
Speaker 2: that's not always accessible. So I want to be able
Speaker 2: to meet people where they are. But I don't want
Speaker 2: to dune myself down either. But I'm just aware of
Speaker 2: the elitism tie to certain kinds of ways of speaking
Speaker 2: and certain kinds of education. But I also am aware
Speaker 2: that language. Sometimes to be exacting with language, we have
Speaker 2: to use words like patriarchy and white supremacy and heteronormativity,
Speaker 2: you know, to really sort of talk about what's going
Speaker 2: on or trauma or resilience. So sometimes to really be
Speaker 2: precise with language and exacting with language, you might come
Speaker 2: across as a little bit elitist. And so I grappling
Speaker 2: with that too, just as someone now who has been
Speaker 2: a working class person until I was like in my
Speaker 2: forties and then now you know, have some class privilege.
Speaker 2: So just grappling with privilege. I'm constantly sort of grappling
Speaker 2: and questioning myself and my positionality and trying to not
Speaker 2: be this that of touch Hollywood actress.
Speaker 1: Thank you for connecting the dots for us. I could
Speaker 1: see how the experiences you were having back then you
Speaker 1: can kind of draw that line, and I could see
Speaker 1: you kind of connecting the dots in your own mind
Speaker 1: to where you are today. And I love that you
Speaker 1: present your experience as so much more of a paradox
Speaker 1: and a dichotomy as opposed to clarity, because I think
Speaker 1: that clarity comes from the questioning and the curiosity that
Speaker 1: you have about your own experience. Earlier, you used the
Speaker 1: term you said you're learning to reparent. You're in a
Speaker 1: child yes, And you could hear that in the way
Speaker 1: you were describing the journey so far. What are parts
Speaker 1: of yourself that you think you've spent the most time
Speaker 1: reparenting or what does that look like?
Speaker 2: So much of it is about how I framed my story.
Speaker 2: I'm a Brene Brown stand slash scholar. And when we
Speaker 2: disown our stories, we're defined by them. When we own
Speaker 2: our stories, we can write a brave new ending. And
Speaker 2: so much and actually, interestingly enough, on the podcast, I
Speaker 2: was just watching one of your earlier podcasts when you
Speaker 2: had Oprah on talking about what happened to me and
Speaker 2: so much of the way I for many years, I
Speaker 2: had been in denial about all my childhood trauma. Like
Speaker 2: I was in denial about the bullying and the straight
Speaker 2: up violence I experienced as a child, a non performing child,
Speaker 2: and so I needed to for many years to talk
Speaker 2: about that. I needed to reckon with that and just
Speaker 2: acknowledge that it happened and feel the pain of that
Speaker 2: that there was no tools to experience as a child.
Speaker 2: And then so I sort of went from that, you know,
Speaker 2: the what happened to me? Well, actually I went I
Speaker 2: was what's wrong with me? And then I went to
Speaker 2: what happened to me? And then and now I'm in
Speaker 2: its base of like was right with me? You know,
Speaker 2: and what happened that wasn't just traumatic but was affirming,
Speaker 2: and that were resources and the things that sort of
Speaker 2: helped me get through. I've been working with an amazing therapist,
Speaker 2: nam Jennifer burn Flyer, who I interviewed on my podcast
Speaker 2: twice in the first season, and we do somatic work
Speaker 2: that is based in the community resiliency model from the
Speaker 2: based on the Trauma Research Institute.
Speaker 3: Do you know this.
Speaker 1: Work I've heard I'm familiar with it, but not well.
Speaker 2: But the Trauma Research Institute came up with this thing
Speaker 2: called krim Or, the Community Resiliency Model that is sort
Speaker 2: of based in resilience, and it's sematic works. It's all
Speaker 2: about sensing into your body and there's six tools of that,
Speaker 2: and so we've been I've been working with my therapist
Speaker 2: on sort of refiring and rewiring sort of the way
Speaker 2: doctor jos Spinza talks about it, and creating new neurotransmitters
Speaker 2: in my nervous system and deepening my resilient zone. So
Speaker 2: there were things in my childhood that got me through
Speaker 2: my childhood. They're dancing and so. Yes, so acknowledge that
Speaker 2: there was abuse and that there was bullying and violence
Speaker 2: in my childhood, but there were also things that got
Speaker 2: me through my life, art and dancing and reading and performing,
Speaker 2: and those things continue to get me through, so it
Speaker 2: becomes it's a both.
Speaker 3: And one of the.
Speaker 2: Tools of krim OR, the Community Resiliency Model, is shift
Speaker 2: and stay, and it's all about sensing into your body
Speaker 2: and shift and stay is about like I would go
Speaker 2: into a therapy session with Jennifer, and she would say,
Speaker 2: you know, how are you feeling today? And I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm a little anxious. And she'll ask me, where do
Speaker 2: you feel that in your body? And often my anxiety
Speaker 2: sort of happens in my stomach. I'm feeling a little
Speaker 2: bit of that now, I think, just because of being
Speaker 2: in a podcast. And then she Jennifer will invite me,
Speaker 2: you know, is there somewhere in your body where it
Speaker 2: feels neutral or positive? And right now it's my ankle,
Speaker 2: and she'll invite me to breathe into that and focus
Speaker 2: my attention instead of where anxious, but to focus my
Speaker 2: attention on where it's neutral and positive. So I'm focusing
Speaker 2: and on my ankle right now, and then we just
Speaker 2: kind of focus the energy there and invariably, if I
Speaker 2: can focus my energy in my body where it's neutral
Speaker 2: or positive, sometimes eventually the anxiety will dissipate, maybe not completely,
Speaker 2: but it'll dissipate a little bit. And it's about that's
Speaker 2: really about living in the both and in our bodies,
Speaker 2: and it's a reminder that we become sort of what
Speaker 2: we focus on too, literally in a somatic way, literally
Speaker 2: in our bodies but I think in a sort of
Speaker 2: more global sense as well, we become the thing that
Speaker 2: we focus on. So and the tricky thing for me
Speaker 2: is in my attempts to do both, and I do
Speaker 2: the and without the both, meaning I focus on the resilience,
Speaker 2: I focus on the neutral and the positive, and I
Speaker 2: mean a little bit of denial of the of the challenge,
Speaker 2: of the anxiety, of the difficult thing that's going on
Speaker 2: in my body. And so I have to be able
Speaker 2: to acknowledge that part too, and and not just be
Speaker 2: in the resilience, because there's a bit of denial there,
Speaker 2: and so I'm not in the full truth of what's
Speaker 2: going on in my body, what's going on with me
Speaker 2: in a moment. So being able to like say, the anxiety,
Speaker 2: it is here. Maybe it's attached to a story, maybe
Speaker 2: it's not. Sometimes it's just a feeling. Sometimes it's not
Speaker 2: necessarily attached to a story. Often it is or thought.
Speaker 2: And then go to the end, go to that neutral
Speaker 2: or positive place, the resilient place, the thing that brings
Speaker 2: me joy, but making sure that I don't skip the
Speaker 2: difficulty that might be going on too then be slipping
Speaker 2: into denial a little bit, And in an effort to
Speaker 2: just sort of be.
Speaker 3: Positive all the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because that's just not real.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, thank you so much for sharing that tool and technique.
Speaker 1: I'm sure everyone's listening is going to try and practice
Speaker 1: that in their own way.
Speaker 2: What is amazing last thing I'll say about KRIM or
Speaker 2: the community resilience, it's these There are six tools as
Speaker 2: an app called eye Chill which breaks down the six
Speaker 2: tools and it's and it was due advised by the
Speaker 2: Trauma Research Stassue for people who might be you know,
Speaker 2: coming from veterans or police officers, people who are coming
Speaker 2: from very traumatic experiences that you can take into your
Speaker 2: community and share tools that are very accessible. Doing it
Speaker 2: is not easy, but they're accessible tools shipped and stay
Speaker 2: is one of them. Resourcing with another one I mentioned,
Speaker 2: gesturing is another. Tracking is huge. You have to track
Speaker 2: what's going on in your body.
Speaker 3: Help now.
Speaker 2: So these are skills that are very accessible and that
Speaker 2: people can teach to each other the practice of it.
Speaker 2: For me, the biggest piece is slowing myself down to
Speaker 2: actually track what's going on in my body. And we
Speaker 2: all know that book the body keeps the score and
Speaker 2: so no matter what is going on, intellectually and all
Speaker 2: the work. You know, I've been in therapy for twenty
Speaker 2: three years now, that it has to land in the body.
Speaker 2: It has to be work, that it has to be somatic.
Speaker 2: It has to be because our body. Eighty percent of
Speaker 2: our information comes from the body to the head and
Speaker 2: twenty percent from the head to the body, right, And
Speaker 2: so no matter how intellectual we are, no matter how
Speaker 2: much we want to talk it through and understand it,
Speaker 2: our bodies have to If there's trauma, if there's stress,
Speaker 2: our bodies have to know it differently. Our bodies have
Speaker 2: to understand what a healthy connection or healthy attachment is.
Speaker 2: I have to know it in my nervous system. There's
Speaker 2: this knowing and then there's like this knowing.
Speaker 3: Because of that thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, you've talked about it in your podcast. But
Speaker 2: so much happens in our lives preverbal between the ages
Speaker 2: of one and three, one and five, before we even
Speaker 2: have language, so many things will happen to us that
Speaker 2: we don't have words for that our nervous systems are
Speaker 2: tracking in those moments. And so the work of reparenting,
Speaker 2: the work of resetting the nervous system, of deepening our
Speaker 2: resilient zone. It's about that that somatic, that pre verbal,
Speaker 2: that not even the prefrontal cortex, but that limpic brain,
Speaker 2: that that piece that's like that that reprogramming, that fight
Speaker 2: flighter freeze so that we really deepen our resilient sound.
Speaker 3: Anyway, I could talk about this.
Speaker 1: No, no, genuinely, it's it's so helpful and so insightful
Speaker 1: and I and I know our community is going to
Speaker 1: love this so far. But I want to go back
Speaker 1: to your comment. And you mentioned a few times on
Speaker 1: how we like to deny certain experiences and uncomfortable things
Speaker 1: and difficult things, and I know that for a fact
Speaker 1: I've done that so much in my life physically as well.
Speaker 1: It's so easy to deny of physical pain thinking it's nothing,
Speaker 1: and emotional pain sometimes even easier to do it with.
Speaker 1: But why is denial so unhealthy? And what parts of
Speaker 1: yourself do you still find you may deny sometimes.
Speaker 2: Deny that is unhealthy because we're not living in the
Speaker 2: sh for ourselves. And there's this line I think for Magnolia.
Speaker 2: You think you may be done with the past, but
Speaker 2: the past isn't done with you. That like, even when
Speaker 2: I'm in denial, there's still the stuff is still operating
Speaker 2: in my life. Nadine Berg Harris has a beautiful TED
Speaker 2: talk where she talks about adverse childhood experiences and there's
Speaker 2: this wonderful research about adversity in childhood and how excess
Speaker 2: doses of adversity is the way she sort of puts it,
Speaker 2: in childhood can lead to physical literal like you know,
Speaker 2: sort of asthma, diabetes, all these health outcomes in children
Speaker 2: and then later in life, so that when we don't
Speaker 2: deal with psychologically and emotional things, they show up in
Speaker 2: our bodies in unhealthy ways. All these other different things.
Speaker 2: And so when we're in denial about a trauma we've
Speaker 2: experienced or something that is difficult for us that is
Speaker 2: happening in our bodies, and if we don't acknowledge it
Speaker 2: and release it, it has to go. It has to
Speaker 2: move through and out of the body. It can be deadly.
Speaker 2: Stress can be deadly. And my therapist likes to talk
Speaker 2: about we talk about trauma resilience, but then there's different
Speaker 2: kinds of trauma and different levels and distressors. Right, stressors
Speaker 2: can like bump us out of there's an idea of
Speaker 2: the resilient zone. She sort of likes to encourage us
Speaker 2: to imagine like these two lines, and that our resilient
Speaker 2: zone sort of goes in waves between these two lines.
Speaker 2: And then there's low zone, which is like she likes
Speaker 2: to think there's a house, and our resilient zone is
Speaker 2: the ground floor. Low zone would be the basement, and
Speaker 2: high zone would be the attic, and high zone is
Speaker 2: when we're in that fight flight or freeze and we're
Speaker 2: anxious and we're stressed and we're just like and then
Speaker 2: low zone would be this kind of like depressed, I
Speaker 2: don't want to get out of bed, maybe I'm suicidal
Speaker 2: or I'm just like listless.
Speaker 3: And so we want to have deepening.
Speaker 2: Our resilience zone is about being able to go into
Speaker 2: lows and highs and be in our and have emotions,
Speaker 2: but not be bumped into that high space or bumped
Speaker 2: into that low zone. And so if we are constantly
Speaker 2: in that high zone, and I've been constantly in that
Speaker 2: fight flight or freeze, I'd learned that really early that
Speaker 2: I didn't feel safe and nowhere we're safe, and so
Speaker 2: I was constantly releasing adrenaline cortisol. That constant release of
Speaker 2: adrenaline cortisol over forty years we're.
Speaker 3: Not hardwired for that.
Speaker 2: Biologically, we're supposed to, like, you know, we see the
Speaker 2: bear in the woods, we release the adrenaline cortisol to
Speaker 2: fight that bear, to flee that bear, and then we
Speaker 2: go back to homeostasis. If we're constantly what if Nadine
Speaker 2: Bergier's is, what if the bear comes home every night?
Speaker 2: We're constantly releasing that adrenaline cordisol, and then our we're
Speaker 2: just depleted after a while and years of this depletion.
Speaker 2: And so I've in my forties, I was like, why
Speaker 2: am I so tired?
Speaker 3: Why am I so depleted?
Speaker 2: It's just all that constant survival, not ever feeling safe,
Speaker 2: and so trying to find so much of like deepening
Speaker 2: my resilien zone is creating safety. And if you are
Speaker 2: a trauma survivor, much of the for trima survivors, we
Speaker 2: often take this is from my therapist. We take an
Speaker 2: alarm bell and turn it into a dinner bell because
Speaker 2: things have been wired in such a way, in a
Speaker 2: dysfunctional way, that everything becomes an alarm everything and so
Speaker 2: and so that's so much of our work when we think,
Speaker 2: when we think about folks who are I'm triggered by this,
Speaker 2: this is triggering for me, and it.
Speaker 3: Could very well be.
Speaker 2: But our work individually, if the external thing can be triggering,
Speaker 2: but my work individually is like, is this about what's
Speaker 2: actually going on? Or is this about my history? When
Speaker 2: it's hysterical, it's historical. When it's hysterical, it's historical. When
Speaker 2: I remind myself of this, when the verness hysterical, it's
Speaker 2: probably not about what's.
Speaker 3: Going on in this moment.
Speaker 2: Like, I had a moment with my boyfriend a few
Speaker 2: months ago and we've been you know, we've been dating
Speaker 2: for like three years and it's been lovely and it's
Speaker 2: been wonderful. And I have this moment when I went
Speaker 2: into this shame spiral doing a conversation we were having,
Speaker 2: just went into this crazy and I was like, it
Speaker 2: was the first time with him.
Speaker 3: I felt so safe with him. It's the first time
Speaker 3: with him.
Speaker 2: And I was like, and it just like I was like,
Speaker 2: I felt myself just going into this crazy and I
Speaker 2: was talking a lot and I was spiraling, and I
Speaker 2: was just like, babe, let me I need to go
Speaker 2: to the bathroom and get myself together. He was like,
Speaker 2: what's going And I sat there and I was like, luckily,
Speaker 2: because I've done my shamework. I was like, okay, you're
Speaker 2: in a shame spiral. You were in a shame spiral,
Speaker 2: and we can agen it when we can name shame.
Speaker 2: I was like, this is not about this incredible man
Speaker 2: who's so amazing to me. This isn't about anything he said.
Speaker 2: This is about my own story that I just spun
Speaker 2: myself out with. So it's historical. It's not about this moment.
Speaker 2: So this is about some historical stuff, you know. So
Speaker 2: I just had I think I was in a bathroom
Speaker 2: like thirty minutes maybe forty minutes, just kind of like
Speaker 2: talking to myself, breathing and just being and really take
Speaker 2: and in the moment, this is not a dangerous moment.
Speaker 2: I created something historical, something historical came up for me.
Speaker 2: But this is safe. And the only way I was
Speaker 2: able to do that is like I've had like three
Speaker 2: years of safety with this man, So I'm like, this
Speaker 2: man is incredible. So like, you know, maybe early on
Speaker 2: i'd be like, this man is not safe. And you know,
Speaker 2: when a man doesn't feel safe to me, or when
Speaker 2: people don't feel safe, I'm like, I'm out.
Speaker 3: I've learned very very very quickly to get out.
Speaker 2: And so I've got become very good at like identifying
Speaker 2: what safe spaces. I'm like, so this is not girl,
Speaker 2: You're just spinning out with something, some historical stuff, some
Speaker 2: childhood stuff, some old stuff.
Speaker 3: Just came up for you.
Speaker 2: And so when once I was able to do that
Speaker 2: and regulate, then I was able to go out and say, Babe,
Speaker 2: when it's your shame spiral, it's not about you, it
Speaker 2: is what it is.
Speaker 3: And he just like held.
Speaker 2: Me and I cried, and and what's interesting to me
Speaker 2: what I've learned on I'm sure this is an experience
Speaker 2: that you have interviewed so many brilliant people. I've had
Speaker 2: so many brilliant people in my podcast. And so I
Speaker 2: think about that moment through a shame lens. Right, there's
Speaker 2: this we can talk about a shame spiral. We can
Speaker 2: talk about it through a trauma resilience piece around regulating
Speaker 2: my nervous system. There's also a ten attachment piece, attachment
Speaker 2: theory piece where there's healthy attachment with him. So there's
Speaker 2: just all these different lenses that I was able to
Speaker 2: kind of filter that moment through. That was that kind
Speaker 2: of kept that brought me back to the present and
Speaker 2: brought me into a resilience space where I wasn't spinning
Speaker 2: out and it was deep and so like reckoning with
Speaker 2: the stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves. It just
Speaker 2: a thought can spin us out, right, Just a thought
Speaker 2: can disrupt my nerve a system that's not it's a thought.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's a comment I've seen on the internet. It's
Speaker 2: a thought I could have about myself that's like, oh
Speaker 2: you're a piece of shit, Oh you're a horrible person.
Speaker 2: That could just spin me out, And just like becoming
Speaker 2: aware of those thoughts and then you know it, is
Speaker 2: this thought useful? I can let this go, This isn't
Speaker 2: the truth? Can I reality check this thought? Or maybe
Speaker 2: just letting go of all thoughts? You know, there's there's
Speaker 2: in some of my meditation. I do transcentional meditation too.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's just about trying, trying imperfectly to let go
Speaker 2: of all thoughts and just be just be, letting go
Speaker 2: of stories, letting go of thoughts, an absence of data.
Speaker 2: We create stories as human beings or heartwire for story,
Speaker 2: but trying to let go of story, trying to let
Speaker 2: go of thoughts and just be. It is so hard,
Speaker 2: and I have those moments when it's just like, you know,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, am I an airhead?
Speaker 3: You know, I'm moving an airhead right.
Speaker 2: Now, and just like letting go thoughts and just like ah,
Speaker 2: you know, sometimes I think like people, yeah, I don't
Speaker 2: want I don't want to be judgmental, but sometimes people
Speaker 2: who are not like intense thinkers, they just kind of
Speaker 2: like chill. Sometimes I like envy those people because they're
Speaker 2: not like thinking about like the sociopolitical implications and then
Speaker 2: the sort of therapeutic and somatic implications, and then the
Speaker 2: attachment theory implications, and then the intersectional feminists, like there's
Speaker 2: all this stuff going on all the time. And then
Speaker 2: I'm an artist and then like, you know, my humanity
Speaker 2: and as an artist and like having empathy for the
Speaker 2: character and analyzing human behavior, just a lot going on
Speaker 2: in there. And so sometimes it's just I envy people
Speaker 2: who just say, it's not a lot going on up there,
Speaker 2: and they can just kind of, you know, yeah, let
Speaker 2: go the thoughts.
Speaker 1: Stressing about being healthy.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, especially stressful, especially as a fifty one
Speaker 2: year old, because it's not just mental and psychological health. Now,
Speaker 2: it's like I'm getting older, and there's the question of mobility,
Speaker 2: and I have such a problem consistently working out, but
Speaker 2: I want to stay mobile, and I want to stay looking.
Speaker 3: Lovely, you know.
Speaker 2: And the aging piece being fifty one years old and
Speaker 2: like my mom is seventy just turns seventy three this year,
Speaker 2: and then watching her and thinking about getting older and
Speaker 2: my job, you know, and I feel like, in so
Speaker 2: many ways, my career is just getting started in We're
Speaker 2: Own strike and this just it's scary aging as a
Speaker 2: woman in Hollywood. And I think what's beautiful about being
Speaker 2: trans is that, like you know, the public has been
Speaker 2: very as transphobic as people are.
Speaker 3: The transphobia of some people in the.
Speaker 2: Public has helped keep me right sized around my appearance
Speaker 2: because sometimes I'm like, oh, Laverne, you look cute, Laverne
Speaker 2: is sexy, you know, Oh you look pretty good for
Speaker 2: fifty one, And then like you know, I'll read a
Speaker 2: comment of like some she looks like a man, you know,
Speaker 2: and luckily I can laugh about that. Luckily I think
Speaker 2: it's you know, I think it's ridiculous, and I understand
Speaker 2: people are transphobic, but it keeps things in perspective but
Speaker 2: I also would be delusional and not in the truth
Speaker 2: if I didn't acknowledge that I'm not just I've not
Speaker 2: just been on multiple magazine covers because I'm smart and talented.
Speaker 2: That there is there is a desirability politic that goes
Speaker 2: into being an actress on screen in Hollywood and doing
Speaker 2: a lot of the on camera work that I do,
Speaker 2: and aging in that environment is scary, as a woman
Speaker 2: in an ageis business in an ageous culture, and the
Speaker 2: connection between misogyny and aging, and then being a black
Speaker 2: woman and a trans woman and so all of that
Speaker 2: is like happening too.
Speaker 3: It's so funny. I was thinking about this.
Speaker 2: You know, I haven't done like the botox or the
Speaker 2: fillers or anything to my face, but obviously the trans woman.
Speaker 2: I'm not opposed to surgery, but I'm terrified to do
Speaker 2: anything to my face. And there may be a point
Speaker 2: when I need to or need to and I don't.
Speaker 2: And it's funny. I'm like comfortable talking about not having
Speaker 2: done it now, but I'm like, once I do it,
Speaker 2: I probably won't want to talk about it. So there's
Speaker 2: also that in the sort of transparency of that, and
Speaker 2: I don't talk about as a trans woman. I don't
Speaker 2: talk about surgery in terms of relationship to me because
Speaker 2: so often that's a way to humanize chance people and
Speaker 2: reduce us to our bodies. But it's just something, you know,
Speaker 2: that I'm grappling with around.
Speaker 3: Aging and being a woman.
Speaker 2: And so those are other stories and other you know,
Speaker 2: thoughts that I spend way too much time thinking about.
Speaker 2: Maybe because I'm on strike. We're on strike and I
Speaker 2: have a little more time.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I was going to say that I actually find it
Speaker 1: remarkably comforting to hear someone open up and tell me
Speaker 1: the genuine, real, honest thoughts that they're having, because I
Speaker 1: think all of us are actually having those in our
Speaker 1: own world, in our own universe. The you're an actress
Speaker 1: in Hollywood, or whether you're someone who's dropping your kids
Speaker 1: to school, or whether you're me or whoever you are, like,
Speaker 1: I think all of us have a kind of interesting tapestry.
Speaker 1: You've lived so many chapters of your life. If this
Speaker 1: chapter had a title right now, what would it be called?
Speaker 3: Fifty one?
Speaker 2: Fabulous and Anxious as hell?
Speaker 1: That's that sounds like a great It's a fun champing
Speaker 1: to read. I don't know, it's fun to live too.
Speaker 2: I guess it is what it is, and it's it's
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: I interviewed Glennon Doyle.
Speaker 2: She's so amazing and what I love about her, what
Speaker 2: I love about Brene Brown is that, like we so
Speaker 2: much in the wellness space, we hear about sort of
Speaker 2: how people are the sort of the result of the
Speaker 2: struggle and not the struggle. And I agree, I need
Speaker 2: to sort of be with people in the struggle. I
Speaker 2: need to like understand what folks are because that's what
Speaker 2: I can connect with. People who have it all together.
Speaker 2: I don't relate to that. And as much as people
Speaker 2: may think I have it all together and I girl,
Speaker 2: I am and a gorless into neutral and this case
Speaker 2: girl like Compared to ten years ago to fifteen years ago,
Speaker 2: Laverne has grown. I've done so much work on myself
Speaker 2: to be even just being able to be in an
Speaker 2: intimate relationship and tolerated and like tolerate the vulnerability and
Speaker 2: the uncomfortable things like, There's been so much growth. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm so much more evolved than I was ten years ago,
Speaker 2: fifteen years ago, certainly twenty years ago. But it doesn't
Speaker 2: mean that I'm not still struggling with things that like
Speaker 2: the world. I mean, honestly, just being just being a
Speaker 2: trans person in twenty twenty three is.
Speaker 3: I mean, I could, I could cry.
Speaker 2: And I love being trans, but there's a on my
Speaker 2: community legislatively and rhetorically that is having real world consequences.
Speaker 3: On people who I know and love.
Speaker 2: They are families fleeing states right now, which is insane
Speaker 2: to me because of the laws that criminalize parents who
Speaker 2: you know, support their trans kids, could criminalize doctors and
Speaker 2: healthcare professionals, and that's not unrelated to the you know,
Speaker 2: people who need to flee stay because of abortion restrictions
Speaker 2: and being a public figure who too, who's trans, who's
Speaker 2: you know? You know. I was in the cover of
Speaker 2: Time magazine nine years ago with with the headline the
Speaker 2: transcender tipping Point, and.
Speaker 3: There was a sense that there was so.
Speaker 2: Much progress being made around transvisibility and trans acceptance. And
Speaker 2: that's certainly speaking of both, and that certainly is happening
Speaker 2: and has happened in a lot of ways. But we inevitably,
Speaker 2: when there is a social justice movement where people sort
Speaker 2: of come forth and there's more acceptance, there's inevitably backlash
Speaker 2: and we are like eyebrows deep in the backlash right now.
Speaker 2: On a legislative level, twenty states right now have banned
Speaker 2: gender firming care for young people. This year Loan, over
Speaker 2: five hundred pieces of legislation have been introduced in state
Speaker 2: legislatures all over the country, targeting the LGBTQ community at large,
Speaker 2: mostly trans people, mostly drag artists.
Speaker 3: It's insane, and.
Speaker 2: It's supported by our media that is so sort of siloed,
Speaker 2: you know, right where people can just like get this
Speaker 2: confirmation bias that's deeply stigmatizes trans people and LGBTQ plus
Speaker 2: people in general, and don't hear from real trans people
Speaker 2: and don't get our human stories and our beautiful humanity.
Speaker 2: And it's scary. A dear friend of mine, Chase Stradio,
Speaker 2: who works through the CLU is, they're fighting all these
Speaker 2: things in the courture right now. They're on Friday, he
Speaker 2: was arguing two different appeals for two different states where
Speaker 2: they've banned gender from and care in Tennessee and I
Speaker 2: think Oklahoma. It's just a scary time when the government,
Speaker 2: when the state is targeting your ability, and for years
Speaker 2: they were sort of saying that this is about children
Speaker 2: it's about protecting children. And you know, earlier this year,
Speaker 2: a state, I think it was Oklahoma, passed a law
Speaker 2: that would prevent gender from and care up to the
Speaker 2: age of twenty six. My home state of Alabama, I'm
Speaker 2: from obil Alabama banned gender.
Speaker 3: From and careup to age of nineteen.
Speaker 2: You know, there's other states that you know, So it's
Speaker 2: not it's never really been about the children, right, It's
Speaker 2: always been about doing what the Daily Wires Michael Knowles
Speaker 2: proclaimed at Sea pack erasing transgenderism from public life. That
Speaker 2: has always been the project. And to hear that stated
Speaker 2: so emphatically and then seeing it play out on a state,
Speaker 2: on various states.
Speaker 1: Is scary.
Speaker 3: It's really scary.
Speaker 2: And so there's that piece of like, how do we
Speaker 2: as trans folks, just like our mental health, how do
Speaker 2: we sort of deal with that? And so what it's
Speaker 2: been crucial for me as a public figure but also
Speaker 2: just as a person who loves trans people and the
Speaker 2: person who's been just terrified by all of this. It's
Speaker 2: like how to understanding that the narrative about who we
Speaker 2: are has been hijacked and there's a deep propagandistic misinformation
Speaker 2: campaign that's going on. Around our identities, that it is
Speaker 2: leading to legislation that seeks to erase us from public life.
Speaker 2: But there is a reality of our lives. There's a
Speaker 2: reality of our existence. There is a reality of our
Speaker 2: beauty and our talent and our anointedness that I'm amazed by.
Speaker 2: I'm so blessed to have a group of trans people
Speaker 2: in my life who I marvel at. I was in
Speaker 2: La like in July, and we were doing something with
Speaker 2: Hardness Foundation about the relationship between reproductive rights gender firming care.
Speaker 2: It's interesting, but not ironic that as access to gender
Speaker 2: firming care, bodily autonomy for trans people is being taken away.
Speaker 2: Body of autonomy for people can get pregnant is also
Speaker 2: being taken away on a state level, on state levels
Speaker 2: all over this country. And then a dear friend of mine, Peppermint,
Speaker 2: we were hanging out afterwards and we were talking and
Speaker 2: she was telling me about this situation she was dealing
Speaker 2: with a man, and I was she was telling me
Speaker 2: about this, and I was looking. I was I had
Speaker 2: watched her at this event that we were at, and
Speaker 2: I was just I was just marveling, and how smart,
Speaker 2: how charismatic, how resilient, how incredible she is as a
Speaker 2: human being, and all of the bullshit she was dealing
Speaker 2: good from this man. And I was just like, I
Speaker 2: was like, do you know how beautiful you are? Do
Speaker 2: you know how amazing and talented and just what a
Speaker 2: light you are just because of who you are and
Speaker 2: that you're I just am so honored that you're my friend,
Speaker 2: and you happen to be trans, and your transness is
Speaker 2: part of why you're such a light, you know. And
Speaker 2: I just have trans people in my life who are
Speaker 2: lights like that, who are just epic and beautiful and amazing.
Speaker 2: And then there's this, like these narratives about who we are,
Speaker 2: and I just would love for people to get to
Speaker 2: know us and get to see what I see when
Speaker 2: I see trans people.
Speaker 3: And so that's what I have to hold.
Speaker 2: On to our humanity, our beautiful humanity, and shout it
Speaker 2: from the rooftops, and then surround myself continually surround myself
Speaker 2: with the beautiful trans people in my life who I.
Speaker 3: Just who are anointed, you know.
Speaker 2: I always like to remind people that in indigenous cultures
Speaker 2: all over the world, trans people were considered spiritual creatures
Speaker 2: who are spiritual leaders. In India, the hydra, you know,
Speaker 2: pre colonialism were you know, folks wouldn't get married or
Speaker 2: have a christening without the presence of a hidra. And
Speaker 2: they understood that if they got a blessing, their child
Speaker 2: got a blessing from the hydra, that their child would
Speaker 2: be okay, be better. We have two spirit people here
Speaker 2: in the native communities here in the United States, the
Speaker 2: mahu and Hawaii and in the Philippines. They're all indigenous
Speaker 2: cultures all over the world. They were third and fourth
Speaker 2: gender traditions. So trans people aren't new. Non binary people
Speaker 2: aren't new. We've always existed in pre colonial communities, and
Speaker 2: so wellness for me and mental health cannot be divorced
Speaker 2: from structures of domination like white supremacy and CIS normativity
Speaker 2: and patriarchy. And you know, colonialism is synonymous with a
Speaker 2: gender binary that necessarily erases the natural occurrence of people
Speaker 2: who exist outside that binary. And so when we have
Speaker 2: conversations about health and well being, we have to understand
Speaker 2: that I personally know from my own experience that as
Speaker 2: a black trans woman for working class background raised in Mobile, Alabama,
Speaker 2: that I internalized deeply transphobic things about myself that I
Speaker 2: had to unlearn deeply racist things about myself and my
Speaker 2: community that had to unlearn. So part of my mental
Speaker 2: health journey has been unlearning transphobia, my internalized transpobia, in
Speaker 2: learning my internalized white supremacy and anti blackness, so I
Speaker 2: can love myself more, so that I can love the
Speaker 2: people around me more.
Speaker 3: And understanding that we're all raised.
Speaker 2: In a culture that teaches that for me, creates so
Speaker 2: much empathy for people who might be struggling with that,
Speaker 2: who might not understand the extent to which they've internalized
Speaker 2: transphobia or white supremacy, and so I can give them
Speaker 2: a lot of grace because I've been there too.
Speaker 3: I've been transphobic.
Speaker 2: I still have transphobic ideas and thoughts that I have
Speaker 2: to unlearn and check myself.
Speaker 3: With, and that is part of my mental health.
Speaker 2: I've said on my podcast and I say in life
Speaker 2: that they're you know, it's like fifty percent of things
Speaker 2: I have fifty percent. I don't know if it's fifty percent.
Speaker 2: The other structures are the things that we internalize. Where
Speaker 2: on white Supremacy, Bell hook says, imperiless white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy.
Speaker 2: I add to that, cisnormative, heteronormative, imperiless, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy.
Speaker 2: The structures that we sort of exist under, these intersecting
Speaker 2: structures of domination, is the way Belle Hooks would put it.
Speaker 2: But then there's the fifty percent of like, what's my
Speaker 2: part in it? What is the fifty percent? I'm responsible
Speaker 2: for my life, right, and so I'm more responsible. I'm
Speaker 2: able to take more responsibility when I'm educated, when I
Speaker 2: have an education for critical consciousness. So in this world
Speaker 2: that is anti intellectual, that is where we're defunding schools.
Speaker 2: That education becomes so critically important so that we can
Speaker 2: like take full responsibility for ourselves and our lives. And
Speaker 2: the education is around mental health. That education is around
Speaker 2: health in general. It's around these structures, it's around understanding capital.
Speaker 2: Right that there's so many people who are frustrated. You know,
Speaker 2: my boyfriend who's he's considerably younger than me, he makes
Speaker 2: a wonderful living, can't buy a house right now because
Speaker 2: real estate prices are just so insane. And that's not
Speaker 2: because he's not working hard. He's working sixty eighty hours
Speaker 2: a week and he makes a lovely living. But the
Speaker 2: system is set up in a way, this capitalist system
Speaker 2: where home prices are just like it's out of reach
Speaker 2: for so many people, so like, and that can cause
Speaker 2: us mental and emotional stress. But if we understand that
Speaker 2: there is a system in place that it's keeping a
Speaker 2: generation of people from being able to buy their homes,
Speaker 2: that can help give us some perspective and hopefully not
Speaker 2: feel like we're not enough, because I think a lot
Speaker 2: of I see this happening to him where it's like
Speaker 2: I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do, and I think
Speaker 2: we and he happens to be a straight white man,
Speaker 2: and so there's all these conversations now about crisis around men,
Speaker 2: and there's a you know, I don't know if you
Speaker 2: would agree with that, but I think so much of
Speaker 2: that crisis, especially when I see, you know, dating a
Speaker 2: very attractive, you know, dirty blonde, blue eyed, straight white
Speaker 2: man that this you know, that the world has told him,
Speaker 2: this is what you know should be available to you
Speaker 2: as a straight white man who's attractive and who works hard,
Speaker 2: and then these things are not available because of a
Speaker 2: system in place that it really is designed to keep
Speaker 2: you know, people, a lot of people down, whether you're black, white, whatever,
Speaker 2: and so I think so much of the cognitive dissonance
Speaker 2: now and we displaced that we say that that feminism
Speaker 2: is the is the reason right.
Speaker 3: I see if you if you go into the manisphere
Speaker 3: on the internet.
Speaker 2: You'll you'll hear a lot of men saying, oh, feminism
Speaker 2: is the reason why, or or you know, diversity and
Speaker 2: inclusion programs are the reason why when maybe you know,
Speaker 2: you know, predatory capitalism and corporations who have a fiduciary
Speaker 2: responsibility to their shareholders and no one else. Maybe that's
Speaker 2: why you the promise of what you're supposed to have
Speaker 2: in this country as a straight white man. Maybe it's
Speaker 2: not the fault of immigrants or feminism or diversity and
Speaker 2: inclusion programs. Maybe it's this capitalist system that is lied
Speaker 2: to you and told you. And so I think having
Speaker 2: that critical awareness for me is a part of mental health.
Speaker 2: For me, having a critical relationship to the world around
Speaker 2: me on a systemic level is part of me having
Speaker 2: a perspective, placing things in perspective and so that like
Speaker 2: I'm not it reduces the beating myself up.
Speaker 3: It reduces the like.
Speaker 2: I should be working harder, I should be doing more,
Speaker 2: I'm not enough and you know it doesn't absolve me
Speaker 2: of responsibility for my life saying because I think there's
Speaker 2: a mentality of saying, oh, racism is this, I'm never
Speaker 2: going to get to where I need to go. We
Speaker 2: can do that, or we can say racism is this, sexism,
Speaker 2: is this misoge new war transfer?
Speaker 3: All of these things are true. But I'm here.
Speaker 2: But I'm here, and I have an opportunity in this
Speaker 2: corrupt system. How can I navigate? How can I negotiate
Speaker 2: within this system and to let my light shine to
Speaker 2: be on purpose? Why am I here? Why has God
Speaker 2: put me here on this planet? And how can I,
Speaker 2: in the face of all these things, rise up and
Speaker 2: be there for myself as much as I can so
Speaker 2: that I am not a victim of any of this.
Speaker 2: I refuse to be a victim.
Speaker 3: That I can.
Speaker 2: Say to myself in the face of all of this,
Speaker 2: I'm going to proceed in the world with dignity, with
Speaker 2: self respect, with love for myself, with love for other people,
Speaker 2: and a deep, deep passion for what I do, and
Speaker 2: a passion for getting better.
Speaker 3: And it's gonna be okay.
Speaker 1: Wow, I'm genuinely in awe of how someone can internalize
Speaker 1: what's going on around them, and at the same time
Speaker 1: remain independently thoughtful about what that means. It's work.
Speaker 2: It's worth to stay separate, to detach from that, to
Speaker 2: not become hopeless around it. There have been moments this
Speaker 2: year when I have felt deeply hopeless and deeply sort
Speaker 2: of unempowered in like how we're going to sort of
Speaker 2: fight this. And when I think it was when the
Speaker 2: gender firming I think it was Oklahoma that when they
Speaker 2: banned gender firming care up until the age of twenty six,
Speaker 2: I was like, Okay, we have to change this narrative.
Speaker 3: And it just something clicked for me.
Speaker 2: And sometimes I have to go away and think and
Speaker 2: I have to strategize, and it's not I can't always
Speaker 2: just be on TV or be on a on a
Speaker 2: you know, picket line or at a protest. Sometimes have
Speaker 2: to go and think and strategize. It's like, we have
Speaker 2: to change this narrative, and I cannot have the conversation
Speaker 2: about who I am on these terms that have nothing
Speaker 2: to do with me, all of the terms that they're
Speaker 2: set forth that have deeply dehumanized trans people. When senators
Speaker 2: are asking Supreme Court candidates about what is a woman,
Speaker 2: and they're talking about mutilating children. All that is deeply
Speaker 2: dehumanizing of trans people. What those people who do not
Speaker 2: want trans people to exist in public life have done
Speaker 2: very successfully propagandistically that have led to legislation that take
Speaker 2: away the body of the autonomy and the rights of
Speaker 2: transpeoplis that they've dehumanized us to such an extent where
Speaker 2: people can have conversations about lg some people can have
Speaker 2: conversations about LGBTQ plus people without equating us with things
Speaker 2: that don't even like to repeat. I don't want to
Speaker 2: repeat any of those narratives, but I think you know
Speaker 2: some of the disparaging to humanizing, very retrograde narratives that
Speaker 2: we can trace back to the nineteen seventies, right, what
Speaker 2: about the children? All those sorts of things, so understanding
Speaker 2: deeply that I will not have my identity be up
Speaker 2: for debate, that my access to gender affirming care is
Speaker 2: actually no one's business. It is between me and my doctor,
Speaker 2: and that the access even for children is actually not
Speaker 2: up for debate if you're not a healthcare professional.
Speaker 3: It blows me away.
Speaker 2: All of the sort of journalists and all of the
Speaker 2: sort of people who feel like it is fine, Oh,
Speaker 2: children getting gender affirming care and having access to dien different.
Speaker 2: That is up for debate, right, we can debate that
Speaker 2: because children go da DA DA DA. When the American
Speaker 2: Academy for Pediatrics, when the Indegree Society, when they're you know,
Speaker 2: all of these different your very reputable organizations say that
Speaker 2: this is the way that we should treat transgender children,
Speaker 2: and this is the use of the protocols with parental consent,
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera, and all these other people say well,
Speaker 2: we have to debate this. No, No, it's actually if
Speaker 2: you're not a trans child, the parent of a trans child,
Speaker 2: or a healthcare professional, it's actually none of your business.
Speaker 2: And I feel the same way about reproductive rights. I
Speaker 2: feel the same way. If you're not a person who
Speaker 2: can get pregnant in need of an abortion, it's actually
Speaker 2: none of your business. And I think that that, for me,
Speaker 2: needs to be the conversation. It's deeply empowering for me
Speaker 2: to say that to myself and to say it publicly
Speaker 2: that it is actually.
Speaker 3: None and it's dehumanizing.
Speaker 2: It is deeply dehumanizing for people to sit on televisions
Speaker 2: and on podcast debating my access and the children's access
Speaker 2: to a care.
Speaker 3: I mean, if a child had cancer, we wouldn't be
Speaker 3: having debates about what whether this.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's side of all sorts of side effects
Speaker 2: to chemo therapy, but we would defer to the experts
Speaker 2: on that. Nicole Maynes is a brilliant, beautiful trans woman
Speaker 2: who is an actress. She played Dreama on Supergirl. She's
Speaker 2: just so incredible, and she transitioned as a child. I
Speaker 2: recently interviewed her on my podcast and it was so
Speaker 2: lovely to hear from a child. She's in her early
Speaker 2: twenties now, but she transitioned as a child. And so
Speaker 2: many of these conversations again that people are having about
Speaker 2: trans kids and they're not talking to any of the kids,
Speaker 2: and then the kids are saying there was a recent
Speaker 2: story The New York Times ran where all this whistleblower,
Speaker 2: you know, said that this clinic was doing all these things,
Speaker 2: and then the parents, these parents came out and said, well, no,
Speaker 2: the clinic wasn't doing this, and that my child was
Speaker 2: treated well. And the children are saying all these things,
Speaker 2: and the children are saying that we would treat it well,
Speaker 2: and the parents are saying that we would treat it well,
Speaker 2: and then they're just going with this other, whole other narrative.
Speaker 2: So people aren't even listening to trans people. They're not
Speaker 2: listening to the parents are trans people. So they've just
Speaker 2: hijacked the narrative and they're not listening to us. And
Speaker 2: underneath all that is them not wanting.
Speaker 3: Us to exist.
Speaker 2: And if we think about it, then if you go
Speaker 2: back to the beautiful podcast, you I would oprah, what
Speaker 2: happened to you? If you don't, if you're so deeply
Speaker 2: invested in stigmatizing trans people and saying that trans people
Speaker 2: are mentally ill, If you don't know somebody trans, if
Speaker 2: you don't have a trade, how does it even affect you?
Speaker 2: How in the world does it affect your life?
Speaker 3: What happened to you?
Speaker 2: And so that's the empathetic piece that I have, that
Speaker 2: that people are in these times that we live in,
Speaker 2: people are in so much pain, and I think that's
Speaker 2: why we have so many wellness podcasts and things, and
Speaker 2: people are so people are in so much pain for
Speaker 2: so many reasons, and so many of those things are systemic.
Speaker 2: So many of those things are about unhealed childhood trauma,
Speaker 2: not having language, words, skills, neighborhoods that have just been
Speaker 2: completely divested from poverty, income, inequality, so many structural things,
Speaker 2: so many, you know, interpersonal things, so many, so much
Speaker 2: unhealed childhood trauma. It is an inside job when it
Speaker 2: comes to my healing, but it is also a structural job.
Speaker 2: It is also that we can't just charity our way
Speaker 2: out of it, do philanthropy our way out of it.
Speaker 2: We have to our governments have to invest in schools
Speaker 2: and communities and mental health in a serious way. And
Speaker 2: I don't necessarily have faith in our governments. So then
Speaker 2: what do we do then do for ourselves and for
Speaker 2: each other? And whenever I have a problem, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm less there these days, But when I used to
Speaker 2: have problems with other people, it's usually about an insecurity
Speaker 2: that I had with myself, and so I had to
Speaker 2: take a moment with myself and to self reflect. Media
Speaker 2: literacy becomes so crucially important in this moment. You know.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I get into arguments with my boy friends specifically
Speaker 2: about something, and will I'm like, well, let's check that source,
Speaker 2: and then like, let's cross reference this source with this source,
Speaker 2: and which one is more reputable? So that we're I'm
Speaker 2: constantly checking different information and seeing the source and looking
Speaker 2: for the biases, right, So because that's where that's really
Speaker 2: where we have to be in this moment. And I
Speaker 2: think it's a round wellness too, because there's a lot
Speaker 2: of people who are grifting around wellness, right, and there's
Speaker 2: trying to sell some product or sell something, and we
Speaker 2: have to just always have critical awareness around the things
Speaker 2: that we're seeing. That the information we're getting on the internet,
Speaker 2: information we're getting from the cable news, from the news
Speaker 2: in general, just a critical awareness around information is crucial,
Speaker 2: and critical thinking skills are so important, and teaching people
Speaker 2: how to triple check sources and get inform, you know,
Speaker 2: try to get fine reputable sources and thinking about like
Speaker 2: how a study can be manipulated. Right, Just having those
Speaker 2: that critical awareness it's just crucially important in this in
Speaker 2: this day and age, because I think we can spin
Speaker 2: ourselves out in a psychological and emotional way when we
Speaker 2: think about the people, you know, I think about those
Speaker 2: folks who said that they were radicalized around January sixth,
Speaker 2: right through social media propaganda and then found themselves, you know,
Speaker 2: on trial for their lives and admitting that they were
Speaker 2: sort of propagandized and you know, did and their incredible consequences,
Speaker 2: and I think they were probably struggling in their lives.
Speaker 2: You know, when you hear about, you know, young men
Speaker 2: being radicalized into white supremacist groups, so much of that
Speaker 2: is about a loneliness about us trying to find a
Speaker 2: sense of community, right, and so there's always something going
Speaker 2: on psychological and emotionally with people.
Speaker 3: And if we can have.
Speaker 2: That frame for people giving people grace, I mean, I
Speaker 2: think there's you know, I think our actions must have consequences, right,
Speaker 2: So I'm not like forgiving people for terrorist activities or
Speaker 2: anything like that, but I think we can you know,
Speaker 2: I'm responsible for my actions and we all are, so
Speaker 2: you know, if you do unfortunate things because you've been radicalized,
Speaker 2: and then you have to sort of deal with the
Speaker 2: consequences of that. But then for those people who've come
Speaker 2: out on the other side of that, I think their
Speaker 2: stories are very valuable around talking about how they were
Speaker 2: radicalized and maybe we're deradicalized and then began to understand
Speaker 2: what pain they were in and what they were struggling with.
Speaker 2: And everyone is struggling with something and it's like if
Speaker 2: we can, if they can, hopefully we can meet people
Speaker 2: with love and empathy in their struggles to people in
Speaker 2: our lives who might be going down a road, some
Speaker 2: sort of very radical road, and a lot of people
Speaker 2: are right now. If we can hold them close, maybe
Speaker 2: we may not be able to.
Speaker 3: We may have to let them go.
Speaker 2: Certain people we have to go up because it's not
Speaker 2: healthy for us. But if we can keep these people
Speaker 2: in our lives with love and empathy and maybe just
Speaker 2: love them through these moments, maybe they won't end up
Speaker 2: in situations that become you know, where they're going to
Speaker 2: prison for, you know, behavior they engaged in.
Speaker 1: On that point, I want to ask this question because
Speaker 1: every time I feel what happens with any difficult, uncomfortable
Speaker 1: conversation is that, again you pointed this out earlier, it's
Speaker 1: happening in silos. So you have a group of people
Speaker 1: over here talking about it, but they're talking about it
Speaker 1: with each other. Then you have a group of people
Speaker 1: here talking about it talking about it with each other.
Speaker 1: If you could sit down not a debate, not an argument,
Speaker 1: but a genuine discussion, conversation of learning from both sides
Speaker 1: with someone in the world who is that person that
Speaker 1: you think you'd want to sit with to have that educated, thoughtful,
Speaker 1: conscious conversation around the subject matters that you care about.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's why we reach out to Joe Rogan
Speaker 2: because I think, you know, he has had so many.
Speaker 1: But he's kind of in the middle there right, Like
Speaker 1: he's kind of trying to talk to me.
Speaker 3: Interesting.
Speaker 2: He's interesting because you know, some people would say he
Speaker 2: is he represents a lot of normy sort of opinions
Speaker 2: on things, and then like there's some things that have
Speaker 2: gotten more sort of radically conservative on his podcast. But
Speaker 2: he's someone I was interested when I was interested in
Speaker 2: going my own to show. It's just like I would
Speaker 2: just love to chat with him. I'm not trying just
Speaker 2: to be go.
Speaker 3: And be a human being.
Speaker 2: I'm just going be Laverne, you know, just go and
Speaker 2: like not necessarily if we want to talk about some
Speaker 2: of these issues. I mean, I'm certainly not an expert
Speaker 2: in sports. That's a big issue with him trans people
Speaker 2: in sports.
Speaker 3: I'm not.
Speaker 2: I don't play sports.
Speaker 3: I've never you know, not athletic.
Speaker 2: I know a little bit about the studies that have
Speaker 2: been done the very few studies that have been done
Speaker 2: on actual trans people in sports, but he's someone who
Speaker 2: comes to mind because I think it's really just about
Speaker 2: how can.
Speaker 3: Can we be human? Can we be human together?
Speaker 2: And I think that's the first piece that like, so
Speaker 2: much of what has happened has been deeply dehumanizing, where
Speaker 2: they've sort of made trans people into an ideology. I mean,
Speaker 2: when people sort of sort of like transgender ideology, I'm like,
Speaker 2: what exactly is that?
Speaker 1: And what are some of the concerns on the other side,
Speaker 1: so to speak, that you empathize with, or that you
Speaker 1: parts of the narrative where you're like, oh, I understand
Speaker 1: where that's coming from, but that isn't actually what I
Speaker 1: believe our thoughts are, Like what would you say, is like, oh,
Speaker 1: I get where that's coming from, But that's actually a
Speaker 1: misnarrative because I think what ends up happening and I'm
Speaker 1: looking at it from a trying to look at it
Speaker 1: from an observer point of view, and going, is it
Speaker 1: that people are actually arguing two completely different things and
Speaker 1: we're arguing about the wrong things, like we're not even
Speaker 1: talking about I think.
Speaker 2: The part of it, I mean, I think honestly part
Speaker 2: of the problem is that a lot of the ways
Speaker 2: in which for many years, since oh gosh, since the
Speaker 2: early since the early two thousands, there have been states
Speaker 2: have been attempting to do bathroom bands. I think Phoenix
Speaker 2: was one of the first cities, and we were able
Speaker 2: to sort of not have that. You know, protests happened
Speaker 2: and they were not bathroom bands against trans people using
Speaker 2: the bathroom. Famously, in twenty sixteen, HB two in North
Speaker 2: Carolina was the big bathroom bill, but there have been
Speaker 2: other states who've been trying to, you know, ban access
Speaker 2: to bathrooms for trans people. So for years conservatives were
Speaker 2: working to get trans people out of bathrooms. That actually
Speaker 2: didn't really work anywhere. And so after marriage equality became
Speaker 2: the law of the land, conservative groups focused had focus
Speaker 2: groups and they were like they they talked to them
Speaker 2: specifically about different trans issues, and what seemed most salient
Speaker 2: to them were trans women specifically in sports. And so
Speaker 2: then that became the focus and they were like, Okay,
Speaker 2: we can take the place they need a buyant paybook
Speaker 2: from the seventies and focus on children, trans people in
Speaker 2: sports and children. And so then there was a proliferation
Speaker 2: of news stories on Fox News and conservative and conservative media,
Speaker 2: all of the Internet.
Speaker 3: Google it.
Speaker 2: It's just hundreds of stories on Fox News about trans
Speaker 2: people in sports, none in like, you know, more mainstream media,
Speaker 2: like we didn't. Like if you're not watching Fox News
Speaker 2: or conservative media, you didn't really you wouldn't realize.
Speaker 3: That there was an issue with trans people in sports.
Speaker 2: But if you watch Fox News, you would think that,
Speaker 2: like trans people are dominating sports, like that trans women
Speaker 2: are like you know that, So that, I mean, this
Speaker 2: is really for most people, trans women in sports becomes
Speaker 2: the crazy thing that like we can't do. For Joe Rogan,
Speaker 2: it's it's it's the issue, and there's not enough real
Speaker 2: studies on actual trans women in sports. You would need
Speaker 2: to do double blind studies of trans women's performance capacity
Speaker 2: in different sports. There there's one study that was done
Speaker 2: with trans women stetifically with running, but it was a
Speaker 2: small sample size that looked at their performance pre transition
Speaker 2: in post transition. But then there have been any studies
Speaker 2: on like weightlifting, on swimming, on all that and their
Speaker 2: different skill sets that are required. People make assumptions because
Speaker 2: people don't think they're trans women are women, So there
Speaker 2: make assumptions that if you've gone through puberty that released
Speaker 2: the testosterone that you're going to have a physical advantage.
Speaker 2: In two thousand and two, the International Olympic Committee created
Speaker 2: standards for trans people to compete in two thousand and
Speaker 2: two that had to do with testosterone levels, being on
Speaker 2: hormone replacement therapy for a certain amount of time. And
Speaker 2: since two thousand and two, so that's been that twenty
Speaker 2: one years, We've had one trans Olympian and she like
Speaker 2: she was a weightlifter a few years ago and she
Speaker 2: like failed to qualify, Like she made it the Olympics icition,
Speaker 2: then she was out in the first round. So in
Speaker 2: the twenty one years that trans people have been able
Speaker 2: to compete in the Olympics, for example, trans women are
Speaker 2: not dominating. There are a few trans women who win
Speaker 2: in competitions, and we hear all about those trans women, right,
Speaker 2: and like conservatives know those trans women probably better than
Speaker 2: I would know those trans women. They're like on the
Speaker 2: handful of trans women. And then you look at sports
Speaker 2: bands on trans children. I was a governor, I forget
Speaker 2: I think it was West Virginia who was on television MISSINGBC.
Speaker 2: New rule was like, you know, are there any trans
Speaker 2: girls dominating in your state that you know of, and
Speaker 2: he said no, and he didn't know of any, and
Speaker 2: there weren't any. And there was one trans girl who
Speaker 2: was playing sports that we knew of in I think
Speaker 2: was Utah, and they created a sports band for one person,
Speaker 2: for one trans girl, and so so much of this
Speaker 2: is this anxiety. But what's interesting to me is at
Speaker 2: the same time that there are these sports bands that
Speaker 2: we're going to ban trans girls from sports to keep
Speaker 2: fairness in sports, that they're also banning gender affirming care
Speaker 2: and stigmatizing and creating misinformation around puberty blockers. And the
Speaker 2: what I do know about sports and alleged advantages that
Speaker 2: people might have, or trans people might have, is that
Speaker 2: that advantage happens after puberty, right that pre puberty that
Speaker 2: there's not really because this ustan hasn't been introduced yet,
Speaker 2: that there's no advantage. And so the same people who
Speaker 2: say that they don't want trans girls competing also want
Speaker 2: to take away the ability for trans girls to be
Speaker 2: able to go through the puberty that is consistent with
Speaker 2: their identity and that would actually not give them an advantage.
Speaker 2: And so many of the kids, the trans kids who
Speaker 2: play sports, are not dominating. They just want to play
Speaker 2: with their friends. They just want to have this communal experience.
Speaker 2: From what I've was from the trans people I talked
Speaker 2: to that there's something I never played sports, but allegedly
Speaker 2: apparently people who played sports, it's a sense of teamwork
Speaker 2: and community. And the young girl in Utah who she
Speaker 2: there was a field hockey team that she the team
Speaker 2: wasn't didn't even exist. She basically like rallied the girls,
Speaker 2: you know, to get the field hockey team together, and
Speaker 2: then like after she had done all this work to
Speaker 2: get the team, she couldn't play on it. And that
Speaker 2: just feels it's really discriminatory. And I think that, like
Speaker 2: there is I think fairness in sports is something that
Speaker 2: we should there are standards in place for that, but
Speaker 2: I don't think it's really about that at the end
Speaker 2: of the day. And so I think that like even
Speaker 2: having this long, sort of drawn out conversation about sports, it's.
Speaker 3: Actually not about that.
Speaker 2: It's actually not I don't think it's about fairness in sports.
Speaker 2: I think it is about stigmatizing trans people, is about
Speaker 2: people being deeply uncomfortable. That's almost always where it goes
Speaker 2: that they're talking. It's say it's about sports. They say
Speaker 2: it's about the children, but it's really about a discomfort
Speaker 2: with trans people existing.
Speaker 3: That's at the core of it.
Speaker 2: If we look at empirically at what they're saying, and
Speaker 2: then the public policies that are put in place, so
Speaker 2: people make sports an issue, they make gender firm and
Speaker 2: care an issue for children, But it's ultimately about them
Speaker 2: wanting to erase trans people from public life because we
Speaker 2: make them uncomfortable for some reason.
Speaker 3: Are do you feel me?
Speaker 4: On that?
Speaker 1: Do you feel me?
Speaker 2: Because I think we can parse out all these different
Speaker 2: issues that they say they have a problem with. But
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, when we're talking about
Speaker 2: banning gender firming care for adults in Florida, effectively gender
Speaker 2: firming care for adults is bannedwidth it. They've Medicaid is
Speaker 2: no longer covering gender firming care in Florida for trans people,
Speaker 2: and DeSantis passed a bill that would allow only doctors,
Speaker 2: not nurse practitioners, to administer gender firming care when eighty
Speaker 2: percent of trans people in Florida get their gender firming
Speaker 2: care from nurse practitioners got it. So this is very
Speaker 2: similar to what they're doing with abortion bills, right, So
Speaker 2: that's why it gets tricky to go into having conversations
Speaker 2: about sports and like parsing out and getting distracted about
Speaker 2: that that is actually having the conversation on their terms.
Speaker 2: Having the debate around trans children and gender firming care
Speaker 2: is having the debate on their terms. It is actually
Speaker 2: not your business when it comes in fairness in sports.
Speaker 2: And I think too, because we see a coalition now
Speaker 2: of a women who call themselves feminists who care about
Speaker 2: women's rights, a coalition between them and right wing conservatives
Speaker 2: who want to take away the abortion rights of women
Speaker 2: and people who can get pregnant.
Speaker 3: So they have like coalesced and.
Speaker 2: Are like, you know, in common cause around getting trans
Speaker 2: people out of women's spaces and protecting women's spaces and
Speaker 2: protecting women's sports. And so this is just about transphobia.
Speaker 2: It's about transphobia, and so why is it? And I
Speaker 2: think there's a larger conversation around gender roles. What you know,
Speaker 2: that whole sort of Matt Walsh's question.
Speaker 3: What is a woman?
Speaker 2: You know? And I think ultimately what is a man
Speaker 2: in this moment, in this historical moment right now? Women
Speaker 2: are so beautifully independent, We make our own money, We
Speaker 2: in so many ways we don't need men, and we
Speaker 2: a lot of women have evolved, and a lot of
Speaker 2: men have evolved, but a lot of men haven't, and
Speaker 2: the structure patriarchy has not evolved, and their backlash against
Speaker 2: like women having autonomy at these roles being challenged. Trans
Speaker 2: people are a part of that, the existence of trans people,
Speaker 2: and like defining gender on your own terms and defining
Speaker 2: what it means to be a woman on your own terms.
Speaker 2: Being a woman used to be in anti Bellum United
Speaker 2: States of America.
Speaker 3: Black women weren't women. Black women weren't even human right.
Speaker 2: Womanhood in the United States is a colonial, white supremacist construct.
Speaker 2: It is a patriarchal construct, and that is being dismantled
Speaker 2: as women are taking control of our lives and our abilities.
Speaker 3: To have children or not.
Speaker 2: And just a lot of that patriarchy is just being
Speaker 2: dismantled by the lived experiences of women.
Speaker 3: And so many men don't.
Speaker 2: Know how they fit into that because they haven't done
Speaker 2: the work of interrogating patriarchy and interrogating that model. And
Speaker 2: you've talked so beautifully on your podcast about being vulnerable
Speaker 2: as a man and what that looks like, and vulnerability
Speaker 2: is a piece of it, and that is my own
Speaker 2: for men dealing with the ways in which they've internalized
Speaker 2: patriarchy and these systems that are not serving them. Patriarchy
Speaker 2: isn't serving most men, especially if you're a man of color,
Speaker 2: especially if you're a working classman, right, Patriarchy is not
Speaker 2: actually really serving you. And I think the frustration of
Speaker 2: a lot of working classmen of all races is that
Speaker 2: patriarchy isn't serving them, and it's supposed to be and
Speaker 2: it's confusing, right, And then women are so empowered now
Speaker 2: and don't necessarily need man, but I still want a man.
Speaker 2: And then trans people are in the middle of all this, right,
Speaker 2: and so then it's like we become a scapegoat. We
Speaker 2: can become a scapegoat for like all of the anxieties.
Speaker 3: That people have that some women have who are not transgender,
Speaker 3: for that some men have.
Speaker 2: We become a scapegoat for all of this anxiety about
Speaker 2: gender roles changing, and these trans people aren't helping. And
Speaker 2: then like there we're usurping women all these narratives that
Speaker 2: actually have nothing to do with trans people. It has
Speaker 2: to do with a certain level of progress, a certain
Speaker 2: level of like these systems not working for people anymore,
Speaker 2: and the uncertainty and the uncomfortability of all of that.
Speaker 2: So much of this is about being able to sit
Speaker 2: with discomfort and uncertainty and not being able to make
Speaker 2: any sense of it. And what makes sense to so
Speaker 2: many people is when someone is having a baby, is
Speaker 2: it a boy.
Speaker 5: Or a girl?
Speaker 2: If I don't eat, if I can't even hold on
Speaker 2: to it's a boy or a girl? And that binary.
Speaker 2: If I can't hold onto that, what can I hold
Speaker 2: on to? And so people desperately need to hold onto
Speaker 2: some sense of certainty, and trans people and our existence
Speaker 2: does not allow that, And there is a cognitive dissonance,
Speaker 2: and there is an anger because there's nothing. There's so
Speaker 2: little that we can hold onto that that we can
Speaker 2: be certain about in these times. Cannot hold on to something,
Speaker 2: and trans the existence of trans people is another thing
Speaker 2: that we can't hold onto. But we trans people have
Speaker 2: always existed. It's just it's a lie. Intersex people exist biologically.
Speaker 2: All these people who want to talk about biology biological
Speaker 2: sex and that term is a very tricky term, but
Speaker 2: well let's use it for now.
Speaker 3: For expedients. Is not binary.
Speaker 2: Intersect people exist like there's there are more intersex people
Speaker 2: than redheads, right, so that like, even biologically, gender doesn't
Speaker 2: exist on a binary, it's exists on a spectrum. So
Speaker 2: it's so then it's like, why do we sit with
Speaker 2: discomfort and uncertainty and like sit in that and let
Speaker 2: go again, going back to letting go of the story,
Speaker 2: Like the stories that I can tell myself about not
Speaker 2: being enough, those stories are so often tied to I'm
Speaker 2: a woman, I'm supposed to be this way from people
Speaker 2: who identifi as me, they're a man, and I'm suppose
Speaker 2: you're supposed to be this way. I'm white and it's
Speaker 2: supposed to be this way. I'm from this place. Letting
Speaker 2: go those stories, and it's sometimes deeply uncomfortable to let
Speaker 2: go of the story that like I've always been attached to,
Speaker 2: deeply attached to. It's painful, it's painful. And then and
Speaker 2: so what conservatives who don't want trans people to exist
Speaker 2: have done successfully is play it on the fears of
Speaker 2: people not being able to sit with discomfort and uncertainty
Speaker 2: and have used that to attempt to legislate and adjudicate
Speaker 2: trans people out of existence.
Speaker 3: That is what's going on.
Speaker 2: So even having the narrative of the talking to people
Speaker 2: from the other side is a false dichotomy because we're
Speaker 2: all in the same But.
Speaker 5: Of course, yeah know I was doing it as a
Speaker 5: fail you and I and I went there a little
Speaker 5: bit with you, but it's like, no, I think it's
Speaker 5: I think we're all in the same boat around its uncertainty,
Speaker 5: around all these questions, and if we can sit with
Speaker 5: that and hopefully sit across.
Speaker 3: From someone like we're doing now and see their humanity.
Speaker 1: Now that's I mean, sitting and listening to you and
Speaker 1: anyone else that I meet, I'm only seeing humanity. And
Speaker 1: that's how at least I was trained in my tradition
Speaker 1: was to only look at someone for their humanity and
Speaker 1: the essence that exists within. And my intention, leven honestly
Speaker 1: with this is that I feel so educated in lighting
Speaker 1: today and I've learned so much from you, and I genuinely,
Speaker 1: genuinely do hope even though I was doing it as
Speaker 1: a thought exercise, I do hope that And it may
Speaker 1: be one of these, you know, idealistic viewpoints, but I
Speaker 1: think it's needed, Like I wish we could sit down
Speaker 1: with people that we think we have opposing views.
Speaker 2: There's been so many moments throughout my life where I,
Speaker 2: you know, waited at tables, worked in restaurants for nineteen
Speaker 2: years in New York, and encountered so many people from
Speaker 2: different backgrounds. I did not talk about being trans or
Speaker 2: trans politics.
Speaker 3: I was just myself. Yeah, of course, I was just
Speaker 3: myself with these people.
Speaker 2: And it's just been so beautiful that the empirical evidence
Speaker 2: of my life that I just get to be myself
Speaker 2: and people are like, oh, yeah, she happens to be trans,
Speaker 2: but she's she's cool, she's awesome, And it's not I'm
Speaker 2: not the only one who's cool and awesome.
Speaker 3: Like a lot of trans people are cool and awesome.
Speaker 3: There's some crazy people aren't cool and awesome.
Speaker 2: There are people across every democratic who aren't cool and awesome,
Speaker 2: but a lot of us are. And even if we
Speaker 2: weren't cool and awesome, we're still human, you know, And
Speaker 2: sitting across some people and just chilling, you know, is like,
Speaker 2: it's it's beautiful. I think about all of the sort
Speaker 2: of parents of different men.
Speaker 3: I've dated over the years.
Speaker 2: I'm fifty one, and so I've met some parents my
Speaker 2: day and I just remember, like twenty years ago. I
Speaker 2: was dating this guy and then we met. I met
Speaker 2: his parents and they knew I was trans, going in like, oh,
Speaker 2: she's so lovely. And then I was another guy's mom
Speaker 2: who I met. This is early two thousands, and I
Speaker 2: met her.
Speaker 3: She loved me, she thought I was great for her son.
Speaker 2: Like three years into relationship, he was in the phone
Speaker 2: with this mom and was like, oh, Laverne is giving
Speaker 2: herself an estrogen shot and.
Speaker 3: She's like, oh my god, what is she pregnant? What's
Speaker 3: going on?
Speaker 2: And she's freaking out, like and he used to starts laughing.
Speaker 3: She's like, she's trans, and we thought she knew, but
Speaker 3: she didn't know. She had met me and loved me,
Speaker 3: and then she freaked out.
Speaker 2: And then she comes to visit. She's from Minneapolis. She
Speaker 2: comes and visits, and then we have dinner together and
Speaker 2: she's like, Laverne is lovely, she's great. I'm so happy
Speaker 2: that she's in your life, you know. And she had
Speaker 2: whatever story she had around me being trans, and then
Speaker 2: we had dinner together and.
Speaker 3: Hung out and was like she's great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I've just have so many of those experiences
Speaker 2: in my life, and so I part of me is
Speaker 2: just like, let's just sit down and have dinner.
Speaker 3: Girl's just chill. It's all good.
Speaker 5: I love it.
Speaker 1: Levine Cocks. You have been a joy to be around today, honestly,
Speaker 1: and I love how smart, intelligent, intellectual, thoughtful you are
Speaker 1: about the words that you share, the way you present them,
Speaker 1: and you're you're a change maker. And I'm really on
Speaker 1: it to have sat down with you for this time,
Speaker 1: to learn from you, to grow with you, and I
Speaker 1: really hope that we'll continue to have this conversation offline too.
Speaker 1: Me too, I really look forward to be definitely definitely
Speaker 1: that you are very on perpose I try. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. Thank you, honestly. If you love this episode,
Speaker 1: you will enjoy my conversation with Megan Trainer on breaking
Speaker 1: generational trauma and how to be confident from the inside out.
Speaker 4: My therapist told me stand in the mirror naked for
Speaker 4: five minutes. It was already tough for me to love
Speaker 4: my body. But after the C section scarf with all
Speaker 4: the stretch marks, now I'm looking at myself like I've
Speaker 4: been hacked. But day three, when I did it, I
Speaker 4: was like, you know what her thigs are cu