Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / "The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling" with Megan Phelps-Roper

Transcript

"The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling" with Megan Phelps-Roper · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

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  Get a humans welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas and what ideas would be more dangerous
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  than a trans woman who and yeah I've already gone there see that's it that is I've
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  already said the word the word has been triggered sound the alarms calling the
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  hounds storm the castle the t-word has been well we ever call it the t-word I could imagine
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  when we when we call it the t-word there are other words that I won't name obviously for
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  obvious reasons such as losing my job that uh that you can't say wonder if someday we'll say
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  remember when we used to use the t-word to differentiate between different types of women
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  but they're all women now we don't need to differentiate between them just because of the nature
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  of their privates but now it's 2023 so I think I'm allowed to say should a trans woman who was
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  convicted of sexual violence when she was identified as male right sexual violence against women
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  in the body of a man that she was but she wasn't a man obviously because she was trans woman
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  inside all along but she had the physiology of a man when she was a male rapist and not a male
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  but in the body when she was a woman inside the body of a male male style you know physiology
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  and that male style physiology was raping women biological women then after that biological
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  physical male who's actually a woman inside becomes a woman like a chrysalis butterfly out of a
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  you know into a new realm then should that transgender woman if she hasn't had any biological
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  changes done to her after she's been convicted of sexual violence and is sent to prison go to a
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  female prison see that was an easy see it's so much easier now isn't that we used to just we
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  say get so tied up and caught up and tangled in so many confusing details about biological sex
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  when there was this dogma of the biological binary of men and women now that we all understand
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  that we're all gender fluid and gender is spectrum and there's no such thing as biological sex
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  it's just easier all around to explain things like the previous two minutes of conversation
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  which is crystal clear to everyone so that is one question that exists at the very very margin
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  right of the flashpoint the culture war debate over gender and sex and feminism and trans rights
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  should a trans woman who was convicted of sexual violence who still has the characteristics physical
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  characteristics associated with males be in a female prison or a male prison there's a very
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  good argument to say then in actual fact in male prisons trans women are incredible at incredible
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  risk and are incredibly vulnerable trans women are already victims of violence at stratospheric
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  levels in broader society this is partly because trans women have a are overrepresented in
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  represented in dangerous process professions like sex work if only I could say it and that only
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  gets worse once you're into a violent gang environment like inside a prison so you know I completely
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  empathize with trans activists who say it would be cruel to be putting trans women into a male prison
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  but then I also understand women who are in prison and some of whom may not have had the best
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  lot in life and may have been abused by men not necessarily wanting to share that space with someone
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  who in a previous incarnation was a male who was raping women all of that is to say that this
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  royaling thicker of nonsense that's just been regurgitated out of my mouth has been flattened
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  in the contemporary discourse into a very simple binary of whether you are pro trans or pro women
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  are you a feminist which the turf side would say means you have to be have to see things quite
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  clearly and cleanly in on one side or are you pro LGBTQI plus T trans T LGBTQT T's already in
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  there anyway are you on that side in which case it things are very simple from the other perspective
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  the person who has done a better job than anyone of actually untangling this knotted
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  ball of twine that has just vomited out of my being is Megan Phelps ropa in her amazing
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  podcast series the witch trials of JK Rowling it's seven one hour episodes published by the
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  free press which is Barry Weiss's journalism adventure and it's incredibly compassionate to both
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  sides of this debate I really went into listening to this sort of dreading and a little bit thinking
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  that it would be a pro JK Rowling puff piece essentially and a bit of an a bit unsympathetic to
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  the trans side of the debate but Megan is so good at understanding blind spots and thought silos
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  and prejudices and just having compassion and generosity towards other people's ideas
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  that she takes you through the whole landscape of essentially the transgender debates as they
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  manifested in this one individual who is probably the most polarizing individual in the world on
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  this subject JK Rowling the author of the Harry Potter series Megan knows what she's talking about
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  because she herself was a member of the Westboro Baptist Church who is that tiny tiny church
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  she or a member would pick at the funerals of dead soldiers with placards that said God hates
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  fags I mean you know even the leap of logic there is a bit weird the idea was that those soldiers
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  were fighting on behalf of America and America is a fallen country because it's gone too far from
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  God's will because it's allowing gay people to be gay so even though the soldiers weren't gay
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  and even at a time when the military didn't allow gays to serve they were still picketing the soldiers
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  because they were defending a fallen country that was I think that's the logic anyway but
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  they got a lot of press for their fairly vile protests all over the place you know they're
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  response to the September 11 terrorist attacks their pickets against homosexuality all over the
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  place the the funerals of soldiers who died in Afghanistan and in Iraq and Megan's mother was
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  chief spokesperson for the for the church she's the granddaughter of the church's founder
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  Fred Phelps and she left the church she was basically convinced out of it on Twitter and she talks
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  about that here and we talk about what it was like to be in the church here and the similarities
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  that she sees between the the religious group through groupthink of a group like that and the
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  ways in which we're failing to communicate generously with each other today in the premium
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  version of this conversation after I say goodbye to those of you who haven't bothered to get
• 7:14
  around to getting your own sub stack subscription yet we just go on and on and yeah if you get the
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  free version you've got a great episode a fascinating conversation it lasts for more than an hour
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  I'm not ripping you off you know this is exactly the content that you would have got before even
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  launched the primo but I just want to tell you if you've ever been on the fence if the reason
• 7:35
  you haven't subscribed is just because you haven't bothered getting your phone out of your pocket
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  and trying in the premium conversation we continue to talk about Islam radical Islam the comparisons
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  between the left's failure to understand how to respond to Muslim theocracies and the left's
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  failure to understand how to respond to the transgender debate the similarities and differences
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  between the transgender debate and the gay liberation debate trans women athletes and swimmers
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  which we don't even get to in the main section I was also talking to a friend of mine recently
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  in fact I think I can out him as Osha Ginsburg I'm on his podcast or was just on his podcast
• 8:17
  famous Australian television presenter and fan of this show as I am a fan of his he was confessing
• 8:23
  on the air that he hasn't subscribed because he's like oh I need to get into sub stack yeah I know
• 8:28
  I should get around to doing sub stack and I was like hang on you know you don't have to like get
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  information in one click and then it will set up your own premium feed in one click I mean it may
• 8:54
  not be what it may be like four clicks but it's literally it is not there is no form there's no drop
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  down menu there's no like what's your address what's your this what's your that there's no like
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  it's very simple uncomfortable conversations dot sub stack dot com slash listen is the easiest
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  place because then listen what takes you directly to your own podcast feed so if you're interested
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  in the podcast and less in my newsletters or what else is going on in my life and find out about
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  Josh and all this just go straight to slash listen do it right now get your phone out on
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  couple of conversations of sub stack dot com slash listen now is your opportunity because this
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  conversation with Megan Phillips Roper is one that you don't want to miss the bonus portion of so
• 9:28
  if you've ever been on the fence go to slash listen and all it is is what's your email and then
• 9:34
  select the tier and then what's your credit card information if you want the non-free tier or you
• 9:39
  can go to the free tier but then you make it the bonus section you do get some other goodies so it's
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  not complicated to set up a profile that I think there's a misconception here it's email address
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  then credit card then get my own feed okay and if you have any any problems just email us and
• 9:56
  will sort of out for you but it is dead simple they've made it completely idiot proof that being
• 10:01
  said it's such a joy to talk to someone as humane and as intelligent as Megan Phillips Roper if
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  you haven't heard the witch trials of JK rolling go and listen to it now and enjoy this conversation
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  with Megan Phillips Roper I love the series it's so fascinating to watch your work and life
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  kind of evolve I'm curious what how did you what what was in the letter to to JK what did you say
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  um I I told her about my background with the books and because contrary to a lot of more extreme
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  or fundamentalist Christians my family actually were huge fans my dad actually who's a
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  an elder in Westprabaptist church he was the one who brought it home the first book home to me
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  and insisted that I read it he read it and loved it and he couldn't run his boss at this kind of
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  big uh national corporation that he works at um and she had read it and loved it and anyway so it
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  was like we passed it around like I would take it to the you know to the picket line and balance her
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  you know those as the books got bigger you know I would be balancing them on my picket signs as we were
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  out protesting in Topeka um so that was a decent weapon as well the book if you
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  know or we weren't into weapons but it would it was certainly a good maybe like defensive maneuver
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  for sure um so I just I use that as like kind of just a little introduction to my background and then
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  said you know essentially yet that I was really worried about what social what social media is doing
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  to public discourse um and kind of incentivizing extremes and amplifying some of our worst impulses
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  and um I quoted the writer Marilyn Robinson who has this great quote that I think is um a very
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  huge understatement she said the language of public life has lost the character of generosity
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  and you know I I am someone who has benefited profoundly from that generosity both before I
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  left Westboro and after I left and I knew that something really valuable had been lost um
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  and I mean I could go on I said a lot of stuff I think I said I mean I told her about noticing
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  these two backlashes that she's faced um you know originally back in the 90s when those books
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  the Harry Potter books came out and were um you know ascendant in the culture they became this huge
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  target among fundamentalist Christians largely and you know obviously now from the progressive left
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  so these two backlashes from two very different communities and um really wanting to make sense of
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  them and try to understand where people are coming from um and yeah I mean just again knowing the
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  value of real good faith conversation and that I felt that it was important to try to find a way to
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  achieve that in this conversation around sex and gender which it it you know it has just seemed
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  impossible over the past several years did you get the sense that she knew your story um she told me
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  yes that she had actually read my book she'd gotten it as a gift um the year that came out
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  yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah for sure and that's you know is one of the things she said at the end
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  of the show um you know she thought that we could have a conversation that interested her um and
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  I mean it's one thing that struck me and and I hope you'll get a kick out of the fact that I was
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  actually wandering around uh Marrakesh Morocco while I was listening to the podcast I always like
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  people uh send me a text and say oh I was listening to this episode with so and so while I was
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  in Tanzania it was a very cool yeah and I was uh and I was what I was when you say generosity it's
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  it's interesting because I I must say I went in with some trepidation thinking this is going to be a
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  takedown of the trans crazies which is going to be quite predictable and it's going to be a
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  how about how Jacob Rowling is persecuted and and it way it's not that it wasn't I mean I think
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  there's a there's a lot of generosity to both sides in this and a lot of understanding and compassion
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  from her as well as but um but largely from you I think in the way that the that the series is
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  is structured and we're just one thing I want to touch on so that I make sure that we do is the
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  history of women's rights that Jacob Rowling's thinking is coming out of you do a very good job
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  of kind of taking us back and plotting what it was like quite recently for women for a very long time
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  like the reclaim the night marches and the evolution just within my own lifetime that I hadn't
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  really been fully conscious of as being as being a backdrop to this conversation how recent it is
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  that women have and have had a right to conceptualize themselves as a group worthy of
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  protection I guess I mean yeah and going back I mean we did a similar thing with Christians
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  in the 90s it wasn't nobody I think featured in this show I would hope nobody feels that their
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  positions were straw manned or their concerns dismissed like we were really trying to understand
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  where people were coming from and the experiences that shaped the opinions that they brought to the
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  table um and that was really fascinating for me too to go back um you know to like the 70s and
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  I mean and also just to realize think about like title 9 here in the US that was like 50 years ago
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  um yeah explain title 9 to non-Americans um it's it's basically um this it it brought
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  equality to um women in uh American educational context um so you had to look for sports for
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  example I think that is that's the you had to um gosh we should just we should just look this high
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  it's so funny it's a chachy pity we can't answer really well hebit sex including pregnancy
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  sexual orientation and gender identity is is what it says now a prohibit sex discrimination in
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  any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance so it's usually used in
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  the con I mean here in the context of when it's talking about sports you can't you you have to give
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  these opportunities to women as well essentially um right which those those race were not guaranteed
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  um for a long time in this country yeah and again so that's only 50 years ago so when you see the
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  kind of you know battles that that women are you know part of the reason that this um conversation
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  I think has gotten so heated is that that people feel like so much is at stake and you know
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  again feminists like rolling see the fact that you know women all have only recently gained a lot
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  of protection and a lot of um cultural understanding to the kind of battles that they were you know
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  fighting um and then now to sort of sort of having the idea of having patriarchy sneaking in through
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  the side door is how many um women have have put it to me right yeah and I mean they're quite apart
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  from title nine just the fact I mean the the show does a good job of articulating what it was like
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  as recently as when you and I were born about to to be a victim of male violence as a woman then
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  have the police constantly asking questions about what it is that you are wearing and what it is
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  that you were doing and dismissing your concerns if you were a domestic violence survivor like
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  in all kinds of supposedly civilized countries like the UK and US and Australia you basically
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  you didn't have a shot at at at at escaping a violent or manipulative relationship you know
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  the man's word was was taken as gospel there are all these very recent reforms that have been
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  hard fought for after centuries and millennia of uh of an imbalance of of a sexist imbalance
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  that have just been achieved and there's this kind of sense of exhaustion that uh that your guests
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  articulate that like we've just reached this point where for the first time in human history
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  women's concerns are being taken seriously and women can't just be the play thing of men
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  and then our right to access for example you know rape crisis shelter centers where only biological
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  women know that they'll be safe among biological women women is now being undermined uh
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  where do you go how do you how do you kind of quarantine that concern from the concern
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  that transgender activists and their supporters have that that's a smoke screen for oppressing
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  trans people um i'm not sure quite what you mean by quarantine
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  i mean i guess how do you how do you imagine i'm getting over some pneumonia here so sorry
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  about that contradict oh i'm sorry to hear it uh by quarantine i just mean allow that allow it to
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  exist allow the allow the isn't simpler way of putting it it can feel like these concerns about
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  women's rights are largely abstract or philosophical or ontological like they tell a big narrative
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  story about women's rights but the trans community will say it's a vanishingly vanishingly small
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  number of cases of cisgender males posing as trans women in order to get access to women's
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  spaces and so the extremely rare instance of that is not worth getting so upset about you're
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  actually getting upset about almost uh yeah like an ontological idea of womanness instead of what's
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  actually happening on the ground well i mean i've heard from a lot of um feminist like rolling that
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  it's they don't they don't see it in those terms it's not it's a very real it's a very real fear
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  it's a very real experience that a lot of women have had as survivors of you know domestic violence
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  or sexual assault um like like rolling has had and so it's not always it's the i guess the assertion
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  isn't just that cis men will take advantage of these um of these you know essentially
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  opening up of women's spaces to be you know open to to transgender women for instance
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  and so it's the reality of male violence they don't they don't see it people like rolling don't see
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  it as like a way of targeting trans women or trans people and you know she has expressed support
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  for trans people um including trans women and recognizes that trans women are also victims
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  of male violence um and also need to be protected um but they don't see it as like as an ontological
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  concern they see it as anytime you are opening up these intimate spaces um if unless there are safeguarding
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  procedures you are truly and in real physical space opening up the possibility of a violence
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  like that is their concern but a lot's writing on that qualifier unless there are safeguarding
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  procedures because my understanding of the gender critical feminist point of view would be the
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  regardless of any safeguarding procedures like women with penises should not be in right crisis
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  shelters um I think I think a lot of gender critical feminists do hold that view um there were
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  different moments where I've heard people and I'm rolling I think is one of them where she was
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  basically saying people who have taken what you said you know I'm with penises so if you have
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  had surgery or hormones she used hormones as another qualifier um you know potentially that would
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  be fine for them to you know they would not see that as as much of a threat because they have taken
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  steps to medically transition and alter the risk profile essentially I think is how they would put
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  it if that makes sense yeah yeah it does because I mean feminists like I when I say feminists like
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  rolling I it's like it's they're people who broadly support LGBT rights and LGBT people like
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  again it's it's at least as they express it it is not something um and obviously there are
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  gender critical feminists um that are much further to the right and much more like would draw the
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  boundaries much more harshly than rolling would um but again it's it's it's a matter of
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  trying to find where those lines are um and rather than a matter of trying to
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  um do you legitimize trans identities altogether um it's a tricky line isn't it I mean
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  for sure I wonder how you feel that she wrestles with that there's a you know the trans person says
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  it all sounds very nice to say that you support us but you hold these other beliefs but that sounds
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  a bit like you know anti gay people saying you know love the sinner but hate the sin or you know
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  every big it makes an excuse about caring about the sweet gentle you know individual who has been
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  way laid and misled by this bad ideology and if only we could steer them back then and bring
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  them back into the flock then you know things would be better and that's usually as an excuse
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  to yeah I mean I don't think rolling would say any of that kind of thing about you know about
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  trans people I mean she she talked about trans friends that she has um but I'm and obviously that's
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  also a trope I know yeah but I I'll give her a pass on that one yeah I mean so one of the it was
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  really you talked about how hard it is it is a tricky line there that's the whole it's part of
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  the whole point of I mean one of the huge things that we're trying to get out in the show is that
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  that they are hard questions that that there is one bias that I share with rolling and that is
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  the need to have real good faith civil conversation um about these um about these ideas about
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  the you know the the specific policy questions we didn't really try to do that so much in the show
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  because I don't think that's that was my role and I don't think I um necessarily qualified
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  to do that it was really in this case about trying to help people understand where the other
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  side is coming from so kind of a first step maybe done that path but there was an interesting
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  exchange I had with um Helen Lewis who's a journalist at the Atlantic who talked about
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  in a previous episode of the show if people want to look it up she's fabulous yeah she is um and she
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  talked about you know like all of the reasons like why for instance you know women are gender
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  critical feminists specifically are concerned about trans women in women's prisons um and she
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  talked about you know the the risks they're having you know especially somebody who's been convicted of
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  um like rape or sexual assault or some kind of sexual violence being housed against women being
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  housed in a women's prison and the risk of that posed to other um other women in the prison um but
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  I asked her what what is the you know best good faith argument on the other side and she said it's
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  that trans women are very highly at risk in men's prisons and so she and she described this kind of
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  um the the the way that the UK has come down on that question is you know if you have a gender
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  recognition certificate um if you have not been convicted of a violent crime um then the presumption
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  is going to be that you are going to be housed in the women's prison because again the the risk to
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  other inmates um it is deemed to be you know far less um and if you don't if you you know do as
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  as some have done like in the process of a trial and you you know transition then um essentially
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  it's and especially if you are convicted of a violent or sexual offense then you will be housed
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  in the men's prison so it's it's a way of trying to thoughtfully draw lines in a way that
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  protect as many people as possible um and I think it's a really it's it's it's they're not simple
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  questions and I think I think sometimes when we feel like there's a lot at stake um it that we
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  kind of feel compelled to dismiss like like our our power is in dismissing the concerns of this
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  of the other side and you know using this move of kind of accusing them of of bad intentions and
• 26:51
  sometimes you know maybe we truly believe that they do have bad intentions baby they've done
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  things that show us they have but in this case I think if you listen to the show you hear from a
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  lot of different people and I I think that again really trying to grapple with what they actually
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  believe and and what their positions actually are um I think that's I think that's the best tool
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  we have in a pluralistic society to find a way forward and through these very thorny questions
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  one of the impediments to that Megan is the fellow travelers who one picks up along the way
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  uh on one's journey and I think this is a huge liability in this debate as well because as you
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  say these questions aren't simple and yet they're increasingly treated as simple by people who
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  regard themselves as being allies of someone who might have a more complex or nuanced view of
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  things like JK Rowling um you know I've just been experienced so much uh bigotry from and hatred
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  from supporters of her and from the other side as well such that how does she deal do you think
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  with the kind of the sense of like stop helping me online like stop because there's a it's a whole
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  caught code of people who genuinely believe there's no such thing as trans people this is all a bit
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  of a fad there are deranged people who are mentally ill who have you know have who have some kind of
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  fetish or something which which translates as transgenderism but these people are just
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  not convinced that that's a legitimate thing and they think that JK Rowling is on their side
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  yeah it is really interesting though because I mean over the course of um reporting for this show
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  I've actually seen a lot of people who initially seem to be huge fans of Rowling over time
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  have turned against her because she doesn't go as far as they do and they they see her as sort of
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  letting in you know in her you know in the way that she talks about supporting trans people
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  she is affirming an ideology that they think is evil in its entirety and cannot be
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  you can't essentially take any single part of it and affirm that without swallowing the entire
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  thing so and they have now turned against her um so I it's I guess it depends on who you're talking
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  about but I I've actually seen the opposite happening where because she hasn't gone as far as they
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  have she has seen as kind of a betrayer in some of these and maybe I'm just too like very much
• 29:29
  I'm too online I've been too online on this on this topic for you know it's it was a little over
• 29:35
  two years ago now that that I first got a call from my friend that sort of said this whole thing
• 29:40
  in motion um but yeah it's it's a really it's been really interesting to watch it unfold um
• 29:47
  and really disturbing in some ways to watch it unfold but I'm actually feeling a lot more
• 29:54
  a lot more hope now because it seems like things are um I've heard from so many people
• 30:01
  um you know I expected a huge amount of backlash um and you know a lot of you know a lot of hate
• 30:09
  like you you can't look at this conversation for very long without realizing that you know
• 30:15
  it's eventually going to come for you if you if you speak publicly on it um and there has been
• 30:19
  some of that but far less than I anticipated and far more you know people on all sides of the
• 30:26
  conversation um trans people who oppose rolling trans people who support her um you know
• 30:35
  people on the left and on the right and you know and essentially all saying wow I'm so glad
• 30:41
  that somebody tackled this I'm so glad to understand the issues it's way more complicated than I
• 30:47
  realized um I I can see now I can understand the other side better um so many people
• 30:56
  who who told you know they told me that essentially they supported rolling's position
• 31:01
  largely unquestioningly heard episode six where we feature two um trans people who have been
• 31:07
  you know critical of JK rolling um and said that they were really challenged by it and that they
• 31:14
  understood again a lot better um then they did based on the kind of um you know generally often
• 31:21
  hyperbolic sometimes violent rhetoric on places like Twitter um and so like I think so many people
• 31:28
  are really eager to have the conversation they I think things you know reached you know reached
• 31:36
  a point of of such extreme toxicity and chaos that people are I think they're tired of it I think
• 31:44
  they they want something better um yeah and that gives me a lot of hope all you need is seven
• 31:51
  billion people to listen to the podcast and I wonder how you think that the that those people who
• 31:59
  are hungry for a more sane conversation wrestle control away from the people who who aren't I mean
• 32:04
  I'm so let me here's an example here's one example right I have been one of the few journalists in
• 32:10
  Australia who has touched this subject publicly and I've interviewed the head of the psychiatric
• 32:16
  association in Australia who was airing some concerns about pediatric transgender affirming care
• 32:22
  saying that you know physicians and therapists should be able to ask about other things that are
• 32:26
  going on in a in a young person's life that might be contributing to their gender dysphoria and
• 32:31
  they felt that there was a bias against they're doing that and needless to say that led to me
• 32:37
  having to waste an afternoon responding to complaints from my bosses at the public broadcaster I
• 32:43
  mean not from them they were they were good and they were supportive and but you know from the
• 32:47
  public because there's a whole industry of people who are pouring over every single little thing
• 32:52
  and we'll just throw such a deluge of of tiny things that you got wrong you know you talk for
• 32:58
  a half an hour in live television there are certain things that you know you're not going to get
• 33:01
  absolutely perfect and they'll just pick every single one and require you can't do like I did
• 33:05
  Google that title name yeah that's right yeah exactly and so they just sort of flood the zone and
• 33:11
  they know that all they're all they're trying to do is just raise the cost for journalists to
• 33:15
  to broach the subject because they don't want there to be a conversation about it so then
• 33:20
  you know my I'm married to a guy we have kids we have twins he's just written a memoir which is
• 33:26
  popular here in Australia and there was some peace about it that talked about his postnatal
• 33:33
  depression because after we had the kids we moved to Australia he's American uh and had he had a
• 33:38
  really rough trot with his mental health and then I got a deluge of hate tweets from my not
• 33:46
  gonna call them turfs but you know who we're telling about like people sort of trends very very
• 33:51
  very feministy feminists who don't really believe in trans people who would now on my back about
• 33:58
  well there's no such thing as postnatal depression in men because natal means worm and men don't
• 34:02
  have worms what you were feeling was the fact that you will never be mothers and that your
• 34:08
  children will always lack having a mother and that you can't possibly that your poses who are
• 34:14
  pretending to to you know you're ruining these children's lives for your own selfish desire to
• 34:20
  have kids and that you're just suddenly you're realizing the depression is you realizing how
• 34:25
  you'll never be a woman and I'm like hang on neither of us are gender fluid or trans like
• 34:31
  we're not trying to be women I don't think these people would be speaking that way face to face
• 34:38
  I'm almost inclined to invite one on the show I don't think they would be speaking that way before
• 34:45
  the transgender wars right I don't I'm not even sure they'd be speaking that way 15 years ago
• 34:52
  I mean your question about you know how do we how do we essentially make space for the
• 34:57
  conversation when there are people who just want are dedicated to try to join to stop it and for
• 35:04
  me part of it is it comes down to recognizing that I actually think it's it's quite a relatively
• 35:11
  small number of people who are actually dedicated to that proposition and one of the kind of epiphanies
• 35:17
  I had while doing the series was how you know because there's this moment in episode two where we
• 35:23
  kind of go back to the 90s and we're examining what was happening in the culture at the time
• 35:28
  and one of the major shifts in the 90s was the the 24 hour news cycle you know that becoming
• 35:35
  you know so it's and we you know thinking about that in terms of this technological shift of
• 35:40
  the last you know 10 15 years of social media and realizing how both of those technologies
• 35:50
  there are ways to that you can gain the system essentially you can make it seem like way more
• 35:57
  people believe a certain thing because those messages get amplified unnaturally and that's
• 36:03
  that was true in the 90s of my family you know West Pro is a tiny group in the middle of this
• 36:09
  country it's about you know 80 80 people approximately at any given moment and that's like the
• 36:15
  you know old people all the way down to the babies so it's actually not that many people and we got
• 36:20
  a massive just massive amount of media attention everywhere we went because we were using these
• 36:26
  incredibly provocative signs and incredibly provocative language and we were giving the impression
• 36:33
  that there were you know that there were people all over the country who hold these you know very
• 36:38
  extreme hardline views and people would later find out that it was this tiny group of less than
• 36:43
  a hundred people and be like you know holy hell like how did we how did we you know essentially it
• 36:50
  was you know I describe it in my book is this you know realizing it's kind of this symbiotic
• 36:54
  relationship where you know we are getting we're getting attention and we are giving you know clicks
• 37:00
  essentially and views to you know these media outlets that were covering us again as if we were
• 37:06
  this massive important phenomenon and so I think a similar thing is happening today where what
• 37:12
  it's it's you know and you know people like Tristan Harris you know the former Google engineer
• 37:19
  you know a lot of a lot of technologists talk about this you know that that in the way that the
• 37:23
  algorithms amplify you know he talks about people think of you know these things it's like
• 37:29
  social media is a mirror and it goes and really what it is is an amplifier and it's the things that
• 37:34
  outrage us the most tend to get the most attention and so I guess all this comes back to the kind of
• 37:40
  people and and that that kind of attempt to use social media you know if you just you know as you
• 37:47
  said like if they're calling your employer and making it seem like a ton of people are really angry
• 37:53
  you know it can it just gives I think it tends to give a false impression what is often a false
• 37:59
  impression sometimes it's real sometimes you know it really is a whole bunch of people who are
• 38:02
  really angry but often it's a relatively you know very small number of people and accounts
• 38:07
  who are engaging this behavior and trying to make it seem like it's it's a much bigger phenomenon
• 38:11
  than it is and and again for me when we first started this two years ago like I took it took me
• 38:18
  some time before I actually agreed to host the show because I you know I I knew that given I don't
• 38:28
  come to this conversation you know clean if you will because of my background at Westboro like I
• 38:34
  knew that the accusation would be like that I hadn't really changed that I had just traded homophobia
• 38:39
  for transphobia and you know all kinds of things and you know I really took time to talk to a lot of
• 38:46
  people that I trust and I guess all of that to say like when when we actually did finally publish the
• 38:55
  show I was amazed at the number of people and the kinds of people who come to this from such
• 39:01
  different life experiences who were so happy so happy that somebody was that trying to cover it in
• 39:11
  a way that really humanized these two sides and I say two sides that's a huge over some
• 39:19
  trying to humanize these people to one another yes exactly because yeah yeah that's that that
• 39:26
  is that is super interesting I mean so then who how should we have responded to Westboro Baptist
• 39:33
  Church in the media well that's a good question I mean there there were certain instances I think that
• 39:41
  you know that were maybe newsworthy but for the most part so many of the things that we did I mean
• 39:47
  there were there would literally be like three or four or five of us in a given place and and
• 39:53
  sometimes we would choose not to go and protest somewhere because we had already completely as you
• 39:59
  said like flooded the zone with all this media attention um I mean you know now we know looking back
• 40:06
  I I there's part of me that wishes there had been far less coverage of those things but I I've also
• 40:16
  I mean I've also heard from a lot of people like that there was a lot of good that came from that
• 40:19
  it kind of um highlighting Westboro in some ways the good things that came from that were for instance
• 40:27
  taking people who were much more mild in their you know relatively mild as much as a condemnation
• 40:34
  of gay people and kind of showing like this is the natural end to the kind of rhetoric that you're
• 40:41
  using yours is you know slightly more palatable but ultimately you are still condemning people and
• 40:47
  and dismissing their experiences and sort of assigning all kinds of bad motives to them
• 40:53
  and so it really Westboro actually ended up pushing a lot of people um you know into the camp of
• 41:01
  supporting gay people um so there was good that came from it as well um but there's also a huge
• 41:07
  part of me that we know when I think about the individuals you know that that we targeted um and
• 41:12
  especially the protest that that we conducted at funerals um that I I I am filled with regret
• 41:22
  and shame over over those things and you know I I wish there was a way that I could go back and
• 41:28
  undo that um but I mean the again part of and I know we can't blame you know we can't blame
• 41:35
  anybody else for that I I will say that the the media attention was certainly a huge part of what
• 41:41
  you know incentivized us to continue those things because it was so outrageous um and it did
• 41:47
  get a lot of attention but that was uh you know obviously totally we we bear the full
• 41:53
  responsibility for that I just see how the dynamic works inside the media and it's there is
• 42:00
  something broken about it uh the the amplification machine you know which in social media is a
• 42:05
  mindless algorithm that is uh that is just prioritizing likes and clicks and shares and comments uh
• 42:11
  and in the mainstream media is a kind of a a mind virus a way of doing things like a bias towards
• 42:19
  novelty and uh and extremeness uh a bias towards the sexy story and uh yeah you guys were providing
• 42:26
  a perfectly sexy story and you're right that the consequences of individual journalists making
• 42:33
  individual decisions about well we're not going to not cover the fact that these you know
• 42:38
  whack jobs have been doing these horrendous things in this in this at this funeral like that's a story
• 42:44
  I get that instinct but when you multiply that hundreds of times across you know news affiliates
• 42:49
  all over America and then it gets picked up even I mean I remember you guys in Australia when I
• 42:53
  was growing up you know reports of these these religious people picketing these funerals and
• 43:00
  it's it's it needs both it needs a new algorithm on the social media side and it needs some kind
• 43:06
  of a new ethos on the journalism side to put more of a public interest test before reporting on
• 43:13
  things and to think I mean just perspective yeah yeah I mean you speak again it's such a small
• 43:19
  number of people um and the again it is wild how much attention we got and honestly I mean as
• 43:25
  somebody who grew up in that environment the fact that we got so much attention um and like it
• 43:32
  it absolutely played into the image that I had of my family as you know this sense that we were
• 43:39
  the ultimate arbiters of divine truth and you know this larger than life and to deal like it was
• 43:44
  it was so outside that it it absolutely again played into my sense that God was with us and you
• 43:50
  know causing our efforts to prosper and all these things again I'm not blaming any any individual
• 43:55
  or any particular thing but I do think the incentives are are off definitely I mean the the size
• 44:03
  thing is is tricky though because if something very unusual and bizarre is happening it doesn't
• 44:09
  really matter that it's only happening to a few people you know if uh if a small plane just
• 44:14
  spontaneously combusts when it's taking off from an airport and it only kills the 18 people on board
• 44:20
  we don't go inside people it's not a lot of first game of things for sure for sure for sure for sure
• 44:25
  and ultimately like doing something what we know I was going to say like you know obviously at
• 44:30
  certain points the church was absolutely doing things that were newsworthy so for instance in
• 44:34
  2011 um when there was that the or 2010 2011 there was the US Supreme Court case um that the
• 44:41
  church won um that was a major you know first amendment victory um a major first minute case in
• 44:47
  this country this was giving the church the rise to picket funerals yeah essentially it was it
• 44:54
  was based on a protest um and it basically said that that our activities were were protected speech
• 44:59
  we were standing on public sidewalks holding signs um about you know publicly important topics um
• 45:06
  and it was protected speech even though it was cruel and you know otherwise um so some of those
• 45:12
  things clearly were newsworthy but again the amount of attention that we got for a random protest
• 45:19
  on a Tuesday afternoon or something like um probably not all of those were essential it's interesting
• 45:26
  yeah it's interesting also that you say that the that you know one good thing that could have come
• 45:30
  out of that media amplification of the Westboro Baptist Church as activities is that it made more
• 45:36
  mild homophobes realize how noxious the hippie for the ideology that they were in is and they have
• 45:41
  may have moderated them because this is the same dynamic that we're seeing play out in the
• 45:47
  trans debate and in your podcast in the sense that I do think that as I said I don't think that
• 45:54
  those women who were texting me about us just being want to be women who are trying to have
• 45:59
  worms would have done that if they didn't felt that feel that they are hunkered down in a in a
• 46:04
  corner under attack and that womanhood is being besieged right I mean they the the more extreme
• 46:11
  voices on the transactive side are radicalizing women who would otherwise be winnable over and
• 46:19
  the most extreme voices on the transphobic side are radicalizing people who who would otherwise
• 46:28
  be moderately sympathetic to their positions and this is an extremeification dynamic that I mean
• 46:35
  I'm glad that you're doing the work that you're doing and I'm proud of the work that I'm doing
• 46:38
  and trying to have conversations that sound more reasonable and sane to people and win over
• 46:42
  that middle but I wonder if you have any ideas about turning down the volume on the sides that
• 46:48
  are just activating the other side and alienating them instead of winning them over.
• 46:54
  I mean there's a lot of things I mean just again modeling the kind of conversation that
• 47:01
  it's not like we're just excluding those more extreme perspectives we're addressing them
• 47:06
  but again we're putting them in a context of but here here are reasonable people like who are
• 47:12
  clearly trying to come at this in good faith and to really understand where the other side is
• 47:18
  coming from so I think part of it is modeling part of it you know I like I said in that letter that
• 47:25
  I wrote to JK Rowling initially when I talked about how what social media is doing to public discourse
• 47:32
  you know for years after I left Westboro and I mean I still talk about how the role that Twitter
• 47:38
  played the essential role that Twitter played in my de-radicalization because that was where I
• 47:45
  was exposed to people who were able to have those conversations with me you know to ask me questions
• 47:50
  and to really understand where I was coming from but you know I understand now that experiences
• 47:56
  that experience is pretty unusual and for a lot of people social media has the opposite effect
• 48:01
  it has that radicalizing effect and you know this is actually one of the things that we covered in
• 48:06
  in episode three of our show this kind of that same kind of radicalization feedback cycle
• 48:12
  and you know the two platforms we talked about in episode three were were reddit which is like
• 48:17
  anti-sensitivity extreme anti-sensitivity culture and then Tumblr which is extreme sensitivity culture
• 48:24
  and and so like when understanding that you know feedback cycle I'm not exactly to the point where I
• 48:31
  think you know people should generally you know opt out of social media I definitely have friends
• 48:37
  who who thinks that is the who think that that's the way that's the way forward is to opt out of
• 48:44
  that conversation and to have them you know as much as possible in real life or in these kind of
• 48:49
  longer form conversations like we're having now and then also you know and just making things
• 48:55
  like like we try to do with which trials and so you know I think all of those things are
• 49:02
  are you know possible ways forward has they been a backlash to the show um there's definitely
• 49:09
  been criticism but I wouldn't say I mean yeah I just I didn't I have not experienced the kind of
• 49:17
  you know mass hate campaign that I was afraid of um that's fantastic yeah it's it's really weird
• 49:25
  like yeah isn't it's weird someone hasn't just troll troll through all of the episodes
• 49:30
  picked out the bits out of context that make it sound that sound like you're more extreme in
• 49:35
  in whatever position they want you to be perceived as holding and you know then done a whole you
• 49:40
  know social media uh extreme yeah yeah about about what a bigot you are or I mean yeah there's
• 49:48
  definitely some like some again angry people or criticism of specific aspects of the show but
• 49:53
  what's really wild I mean like if you go and look at um like the reviews on Apple podcasts for
• 49:58
  instance it's so amazing like I mean I know and I don't just mean like all positive um there's
• 50:05
  it's just really thoughtful even the criticism is very thoughtful even people who said you know
• 50:10
  like I really wish you had done this I wish you'd covered detransitioners I wish you'd covered
• 50:14
  you know a trans person who was not allowed to transition you know as as an adolescent and who had to
• 50:21
  so like there's people who had all kinds of really thoughtful criticism but it's it's not just like
• 50:27
  I absolutely expected to get like review bombed if you know what I mean like before the shows you
• 50:32
  know even like the just only the trailers out and everybody gives it one star reviews and tries to
• 50:36
  tank it um but it got up to number three on both Apple and Spotify um and and again the reviews
• 50:44
  are incredibly positive and the feedback has been so positive so I I'm really amazed and that's
• 50:49
  again what's one of the things that I I'm really heartened by it and a lot of I mean a lot of the
• 50:53
  feedback has been do more like yeah I wish there were many more episodes and you know certainly the
• 51:00
  topic is is rich enough for it um but I'm not I'm not sure exactly what we're gonna do but I'm I'm
• 51:04
  really um really grateful and and gratified that people took the time to listen to really listen
• 51:10
  and to give thoughtful feedback is there another culture war issue is there another topic where people
• 51:14
  aren't listening to each other and they're piling on and functioning and kind of thought silos that
• 51:19
  you notice I'm sure there's lots of them I'm not yeah I'm not quite sure I'm done with this one yet
• 51:23
  because I there are so many aspects of I mean the story like again we we did so much reporting
• 51:29
  over the course of two years and it was kind of painful the amount of material that we had to
• 51:34
  leave on the cutting room floor and just like you know very interesting um aspects of these questions
• 51:39
  so I I haven't quite I haven't quite let it go yet but I'll I'm definitely open to looking at
• 51:45
  similar things because I do think this is it's it's a feature of the kind of polarized world that
• 51:50
  we are living in and um I I just I can't help and and it's probably um you know just a result of
• 51:59
  my experience leading Westbro I just have profound faith in our ability to to kind of bridge these
• 52:09
  divides that seem totally impassable I mean for me to change from the kind of very hard line
• 52:18
  fundamentalist you know person that I was I I was incredibly dedicated to Westbro's ideology
• 52:25
  I grew up in it I started protesting when I was five it was my whole family I had every reason
• 52:30
  in the world to be there and to stay there and the fact that real good faith conversation um was
• 52:38
  able to bring me out of that still totally blows my mind you know I I look at these old videos
• 52:44
  of myself and I it shocks me that I am still that I'm not still on a protest um you know on a
• 52:50
  picket line in Kansas um and how long did it take yeah how long did it take Megan from the the
• 52:56
  the moment where you sort of first noticed an inkling of hmm maybe this person has a point to you
• 53:03
  being able to slough it off altogether um well so it's it's definitely a process I would say
• 53:09
  a year and a half or so um from like the first conscious doubt like realization that we could
• 53:17
  be wrong about something and you know what triggered that I do yeah it was one of those conversations
• 53:23
  on Twitter um I was talking to a a Jewish man that I had targeted he was one of the first people
• 53:29
  that I targeted after I joined Twitter and started tweeting for the church um and he was asking me
• 53:35
  you know he would ask questions about our picket signs and I was asking him questions about
• 53:39
  you know Jewish theology and trying to show him all the reasons why Jews were wrong and why
• 53:44
  we're speaking from the church's official account um as you it was in my name yeah I only tweeted
• 53:51
  about church stuff basically I mean it was it was very much I was the only one of the West
• 53:56
  Pro members on Twitter for a long time um so it wasn't the official West Pro account um for that
• 54:02
  reason I mean I didn't feel like I could speak for the church um did the church have a Twitter
• 54:07
  account at that time no no and so I you'll affect you functionally what exactly yeah and so I was
• 54:13
  and I was like running you know almost everything that I posted on Twitter like buy my mom for
• 54:18
  quite a while after I and so my mom was the church spokesperson so um that's the dynamic there
• 54:24
  but so in in these conversations with this with this Jewish guy um David Abbott ball who is so
• 54:29
  wonderful like it was like both like able to be critical of what we believed but also attributing
• 54:36
  good motives to me personally and and like understanding that I was born and raised in it and so
• 54:41
  anyways like he he gets to this one and it's gonna it seems like a very small point of theology we
• 54:45
  were talking about a sign uh he was asking about a sign that we had they called for the death penalty
• 54:50
  for gay people um you know and encoding you know citing these passages from the book of Leviticus um
• 54:57
  and you know he said but what about your mom and I was like what about my mom he said well didn't
• 55:02
  she have a child out of wedlock and isn't that a sin that also deserves the death penalty according
• 55:08
  to the according to the bible and I kind of froze you know for a minute and I was like well you know
• 55:15
  we're not we're not cast because and he recorded that that verse about let he who was without
• 55:20
  sin cast the first stone and I said well we're not casting stones we're preaching words
• 55:26
  and that was like that was always the the answer we gave to that when people would accuse us of
• 55:30
  casting stones and he pointed out the very obvious which is that he said no but you're advocating
• 55:35
  that the that the government cast stones and the combination of him making these points um like
• 55:41
  the realization that if you cut somebody off I mean if you kill somebody you cut off the opportunity
• 55:46
  to repent and be forgiven which is the whole foundation of our theology is is we preach repentance
• 55:52
  and if my mom had been killed my beloved family would not exist um and it was such a
• 56:01
  I mean oh can I say mind fuck yeah sure it was such a mind fucks I come from a family of lawyers
• 56:09
  like they are incredibly smart incredibly analytical we spent so much time memorizing the bible
• 56:16
  like I had literally never in all my years like come to a point where you know so even when
• 56:22
  somebody maybe seemed to have a good point um I would go to my family I would go to my parents
• 56:28
  or one of my aunts and uncles and they would have an answer that from the bible that would satisfy
• 56:34
  me and this was just there was no answer this was it was just hypocrisy um and that was that
• 56:42
  eventually that was like that was the thread that eventually unraveled the entire the entire thing
• 56:48
  because once you realize that we are not as I was saying earlier the the ultimate arbiters
• 56:54
  of divine truth that we are fallible human beings and that our understanding um you know can
• 56:59
  can be wrong um you I was able to question other things as they came up that seemed inconsistent
• 57:06
  whereas before I would have thought oh there's there's just something wrong with me like I'm
• 57:11
  just not spiritual enough I don't understand so it essentially gave me some small bit of confidence
• 57:17
  in my own thinking and my own ability to to understand the truth um that I that I could question
• 57:25
  um and it was it's so wild it's so it's so wild to someone who's never experienced that state of
• 57:30
  mind to to think that some logical I mean it's it's really heartening and to you put it that way
• 57:39
  to think that there's just some expression of logic that can unravel the entire edifice because
• 57:47
  the whole edifice from the outside seems so absurd like I mean so like you know the conclusion is
• 57:53
  that you know giving the electric chair to a gay person is bad because it you know blocks off
• 57:59
  their opportunity for redemption in the future and the bible says that we all have to be have
• 58:03
  redempts like that hang on you don't need the heart second half of that sentence you're you're
• 58:09
  putting gay people like that is so proud that is a bad that is yeah it seems so obvious yeah the
• 58:16
  the idea that you need some Talmudic rabbinical like examination of logic but I mean whatever gets
• 58:22
  you there you know right and I I should say like it there is you know I mentioned this actually
• 58:29
  to rolling at the end of the series you know the two things like I I never thought of myself as
• 58:34
  just having blind faith I asked you know so many questions you know I was constantly examining
• 58:42
  the bible and expositors and reading the bible with my family and examining other people's
• 58:47
  beliefs and so it never felt like simple blind belief but I never questioned the two most basic
• 58:55
  premises of our beliefs and that was that the bible is the literal and fallible word of God
• 59:00
  and therefore unquestionable and that Westboro's interpretation of it was the only real true valid
• 59:07
  understanding of it and that it I mean it's really funny because you say you know primafeshi like
• 59:15
  it's it was just bad it should have been obvious but like when you're raised in this environment where
• 59:20
  you cannot you cannot truly question you you cannot truly yeah cast into doubt these things that
• 59:29
  your everybody believes and that you will be punished in certain ways in some ways it was physical
• 59:34
  in some ways it was you know social ostracism if you if you were to walk disorderly as the church
• 59:41
  would put it the ways all of the social enforcement mechanisms to make sure that you trusted and
• 59:49
  believed and followed their edicts and distrusted mistrusted yourself you know my mom would
• 59:56
  would quote this bible verse about it says the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately
• 1:00:01
  wicked and who can know it and so it's this this sense that you cannot trust your own mind and so
• 1:00:08
  even as the the that ideology was unraveling I had the sense of you know I'm kind of clinging to
• 1:00:15
  the things that are so clearly inconsistent and hypocritical and and at that point I've cared
• 1:00:21
  very much that it was contrary to certain bible passages um and then at the end you know but then
• 1:00:28
  my mind would like boomerang to the other side and think like oh my god this is Satan whispering in
• 1:00:33
  my ear and God is testing me and I am failing this test and like the like you I just felt like I was
• 1:00:40
  losing my mind I mean of course of course I get that it's not obvious it's there is nothing
• 1:00:46
  innately primacy about the idea that you shouldn't put gay people in an electric chair I
• 1:00:51
  regard that as primacy because I'm a product of my particular environment in this particular time
• 1:00:55
  in this particular place if I was born in I see if I was a child of an Isis bride you know I wouldn't
• 1:01:02
  think the same way that I do and you know I we all take it for granted that slavery is bad because
• 1:01:06
  we're not born in an era when slavery was the norm it's hard to you know it's hard to accept
• 1:01:10
  but the reality is if we were the vast majority of us would think that it was totally fine and there
• 1:01:15
  are things that we're doing now that in 200 years people look back on and shake their heads in
• 1:01:18
  disbelief you know and that we think are totally okay so I mean I have a spirit of generosity
• 1:01:23
  towards the blinders that everybody has has just you know it's no different just because you're
• 1:01:29
  in a minority and the blinders seem weird to people who are in the majority who have equally
• 1:01:33
  ridiculous blinders but those blinders are more widespread I'm interested in in once JK rolling
• 1:01:40
  responded to you and said yes she'd do it just what was the next logistical step like where did
• 1:01:46
  you meet her at her house actually in Scotland yeah I mean so we had a couple of conversations on
• 1:01:55
  Zoom beforehand and were those like did they feel like auditions it was actually it was really
• 1:02:03
  interesting because like the first one it was just me and her and one person from her team
• 1:02:11
  and I went into that thinking like oh my god I'm gonna have to like pitch my heart out I've never
• 1:02:17
  done anything like this before I've never I felt like unequal to the task but it wasn't like that
• 1:02:23
  at all she was very easy to talk to um and yeah it just felt like a normal conversation I would
• 1:02:30
  have with any of my friends about you know and was that being recorded on the record for the show
• 1:02:35
  or was that just a background no it was just a background yeah I was just just meeting her and
• 1:02:39
  like at that point I didn't know I mean I didn't I mean she hadn't said actually that she was
• 1:02:44
  going to do it um I see and yeah it was it was just meeting her for the first time and it was um
• 1:02:49
  like I said just just very easy and comfortable and also of course weird as hell because
• 1:02:56
  yeah in the back of your mind it's like wow I can't believe this is happening um but yeah then
• 1:03:01
  then the next uh we actually went to um just a little over a year ago now um went to Scotland for
• 1:03:08
  for the first time and met her house and had a bad offer come about she did she email did she
• 1:03:13
  text you did she send an owl with um it was the member of her team who was on the call with us
• 1:03:20
  actually um and yeah it was just it was just like it just you know matter of logistics um right
• 1:03:27
  we would go you know one day and you know set everything up and then we would record for I think
• 1:03:32
  we recorded for like two two and a half hours um the the following two days um and then we were
• 1:03:38
  going to come back a couple months later um to do a second set of interviews after we had spoken
• 1:03:44
  to you know some other people I had never actually interviewed anybody um before I sat down with
• 1:03:50
  rolling um and well you're a natural it's not it's not easy it's not easy to make it sound like
• 1:03:56
  a normal conversation when you're doing it for the first time but it does well I was gonna say it was
• 1:04:01
  I mean she it was really interesting because like I I had had the impression you know that you
• 1:04:07
  know that if you if you look up you know there's there's articles about her there's this one in
• 1:04:10
  the New Yorker called Muggle March I think and I read it I made the mistake of reading it uh before
• 1:04:16
  I went and you know basically the idea is like oh she's incredibly controlling and that's essentially
• 1:04:21
  the you know um the the thrust of it and I just I didn't find her that way at all she was very
• 1:04:28
  very open like I um you hear in the show like the opening question that I ask her might seem a
• 1:04:36
  little strange um and that's because it was it was supposed to be like a throwaway question
• 1:04:40
  just like a warm-up um and her answer was so thoughtful I was like okay we have to include this
• 1:04:44
  and also I am definitely not smart enough to be doing this um the one about um magic like why do
• 1:04:52
  you why do humans like stories about magic essentially and and um and her yeah her response was
• 1:04:58
  just very thoughtful um and then the second question I asked you know I and I thought I would
• 1:05:03
  essentially I thought I got the impression somehow I don't remember exactly how that she didn't want
• 1:05:07
  to talk about the early days so much um you know the kind like she's kind of alludes to it in that
• 1:05:14
  essay um about her her history with um domestic violence and the abuse of her first husband and
• 1:05:22
  so I barely got half the question out and she just essentially she kind of like
• 1:05:27
  nodded and launched into this story um and it was it was incredible she so I think the
• 1:05:33
  fact that it really was a conversation and she really was very open and ready to talk about
• 1:05:39
  everything um I was very lucky to have and so I still want to paint I still want you to paint the
• 1:05:44
  picture of the behind the scenes here so you you know the the the the person on her side says
• 1:05:50
  why don't you guys come over and you find dates that work and so you and what a producer you book
• 1:05:54
  your tickets to what he throw and then get a flight to somewhere I know actually we would
• 1:06:00
  do direct to Edinburgh actually well non-stop to Edinburgh in there that even existed okay so you
• 1:06:04
  fly into Edinburgh and then you're what do you get you get the you get the courtyard by Marriott
• 1:06:10
  and then like it just seems so we had to get like all this equipment yeah exactly yeah we
• 1:06:17
  had to get all this like is she living does she live in the in the center of town does she live
• 1:06:22
  in the state no no she lives in the city um and yeah it's I mean it was just so lovely I mean it's
• 1:06:28
  it's as I said in the show it's technically it's technically a castle but it's not like this
• 1:06:33
  massive like thing that you don't like like uh not like Edinburgh castle for instance like if you
• 1:06:37
  marrott marrott it's like a cozy little yeah I mean it's it's just it's just not it's just not
• 1:06:43
  huge just like this little she's she knows she's sort of known by her community does she walk
• 1:06:48
  outside and people say hello or you know is she not I'm not able to do that I don't know I would
• 1:06:56
  guess I mean I'm sure she has to be very careful about security concerns especially I mean she
• 1:07:00
  did talk about that in the show too yeah um especially I think maybe over the past few years but um
• 1:07:06
  she I don't know like I said it was just a lovely thing like we went and not like knocked on the
• 1:07:13
  door of a little castle what do you see when you get inside a home for a little castle what's it like
• 1:07:17
  um like low ceilings like it's it's it's lovely it's old like I think yeah I can't
• 1:07:23
  brag how old it is hundreds of years old um and yeah I mean we just went like she has this little
• 1:07:29
  it was in her drawing room there's got this wall of books and she had arranged the books in a like
• 1:07:35
  rainbow pattern and would she have done that over the course of the pandemic lockdown um and
• 1:07:42
  yeah it was just you know lovely it was lovely also there it did you know there's very little
• 1:07:47
  air conditioning in that part of your room it was this insama it was yeah it was early June
• 1:07:54
  and then the second time it was in like mid August and it got quite warm and also I was very
• 1:08:00
  I was pregnant I was like five months pregnant the first time and like eight months pregnant
• 1:08:05
  second time um and so it was all it was it was very it was very it was very interesting um and it
• 1:08:11
  was really the weird thing sorry I'm just gonna like this is a weird little aside um I realized when
• 1:08:17
  I was like but I realized okay we're going like we we got in the go ahead like we've made the plans
• 1:08:24
  were like actually you know purchase the tickets and I suddenly remembered that when I was um while
• 1:08:31
  I was still at Westboro um about a year before I left the church um there was this profile of me
• 1:08:36
  in the Kansas City star and I had spent a ton of time with a reporter and he asked me at one point
• 1:08:41
  if I could go anywhere in the world where would I go and I said Scotland because I had you know I
• 1:08:46
  have some Scottish ancestry and and you know he was kind of lamenting the fact that I would never
• 1:08:52
  get a chance to go there as a member of Westboro because so many things about our lives were you
• 1:08:57
  know there were all these things that we were not allowed to do um and just how weird it was that
• 1:09:03
  I the the version of me who said you know at the end of that article you know has me saying
• 1:09:09
  I'm all in you know I'm I'm never gonna leave Westboro like that that this would be the reason
• 1:09:14
  that I ended up going to Scotland um just a very strange the world and life just seemed very
• 1:09:22
  strange to me sometimes it it seems impossible and it makes me incredibly grateful you you talked
• 1:09:27
  about um you know your your twins how old are your twins five um my dadders um she'll be five
• 1:09:34
  and in a few months and it just seems totally I am I'm just very amazed at this life and
• 1:09:41
  and very grateful that I that I get to live in yeah I mean when you say the world and life are amazing
• 1:09:47
  the world and life are amazing in the abstract but your world and your life are uniquely amazing
• 1:09:51
  as well man just in the trajectory that they've taken the extremes that they've experienced um
• 1:09:57
  and so what was why wouldn't you be able to travel as a member of the Westboro Baptist Church you
• 1:10:01
  can't get on a plane or you can't go outside the state so what what we yeah we we were afraid to
• 1:10:06
  leave the protection of the first amendment because the things that we did and said are illegal
• 1:10:10
  in many places and we essentially we just just feared uh what I mean and there were there were
• 1:10:16
  certain places like Sweden where and actually the UK too so I think there's a couple of people
• 1:10:22
  individuals explicitly banned including my mom um and so yeah like we it was it was mostly a like
• 1:10:29
  self-protection thing you know we were not going to expose ourselves um and we weren't going to go
• 1:10:34
  anywhere that we couldn't preach according to our you know understanding of what wasn't necessary
• 1:10:39
  this was this was our duty in our obligation what was your first overseas trip uh that's
• 1:10:46
  a good question I went to visit my sister in Finland and uh because she was she did uh a study
• 1:10:51
  abroad semester about a year after or two years after we left um and it was so insane like a I
• 1:10:58
  actually this that was that experience was um the thing that actually got me writing um what would
• 1:11:04
  eventually become my book because I went couch surfing um we went couch surfing and you know like up
• 1:11:10
  in Lapland finished Lapland and it just so happened like first of all like there's this
• 1:11:16
  absolutely insane thing happened where we end up like you know biking in in the pitch black freezing
• 1:11:21
  cold to this cabin you know in the middle right right right at this lake in the middle of a forest
• 1:11:26
  and like seeing the Northern Lights and it was such such an incredible thing but then the craziest
• 1:11:31
  thing was that the guy that we couch surf with who absolutely seemed like an axe murderer
• 1:11:36
  when we first met him and not just because like he steps out like into the like uh flood light
• 1:11:42
  outside of the shed and he is holding an axe in his hand you can see it is silhouette of this guy
• 1:11:48
  absolutely terrifying um he's like but this is Lapland we all have axes here this is not going
• 1:11:53
  down my next murder uh exactly it was like it was he said it was to check the ice in you know
• 1:11:58
  to know like to make sure it was like save for us to cross the lake um but anyway it was it was so
• 1:12:03
  crazy because that guy was actually so I'm the third of eleven he was um he was I think number 12
• 1:12:10
  of 14 and it also comes from an extremist Lutheran sect up in Lapland and he's he's one of 12 of
• 1:12:17
  the 14 who left um yeah and so like having you know at that point you know I had been gone for
• 1:12:24
  less than two years and it was you know still I was starting to understand that even though
• 1:12:29
  Westbro you know is kind of an extreme version of of certain beliefs like there are so many groups
• 1:12:35
  like Westbro who are certain that they have the truth and it is unquestionable and everybody else
• 1:12:41
  must live according to the edicts of their you know the conscience of this this small group um
• 1:12:48
  and it was just really amazing to to realize like that just this random guy that we found on
• 1:12:54
  you know yeah super well story and had you traveled did you travel much in between that trip
• 1:13:00
  and go to Scotland um yes um yeah I went yeah because that was in 2014 I I mean I went to
• 1:13:08
  Germany and the Netherlands and I had been to the UK um and actually Australia I did a tour
• 1:13:15
  of Australia and New Zealand with Louis Theroux just before the pandemic um so yeah I've
• 1:13:21
  and to Norway I got married I got married in Norway my husband's family is uh his ancestry is
• 1:13:26
  Norwegian and we went back to the the farm where his surname comes from um and anyway yeah just
• 1:13:33
  I it's amazing I mean again like there's some like many parts of my brain that are just
• 1:13:40
  absolutely flawed like half fabulous I mean I just want I'm just wondering what it was like to
• 1:13:46
  to be in Finland and outside of the states and in a place so different where
• 1:13:50
  just different people in different experiences different environment different climate
• 1:13:57
  it must have blown your mind oh yeah totally I mean and and just I think one of the things though
• 1:14:03
  is that the smallness and the humaneness of my family became a lot more clear as I started to
• 1:14:12
  explore the world um and and I mean that in a good way you know like there were things about my
• 1:14:19
  family that you know it was hard not to think at first that we again were just maybe uniquely
• 1:14:25
  horrible people and realizing that the things that made us what we were were very common and very
• 1:14:32
  human I mean they had a very strange manifestation in some ways um again but um and and you know
• 1:14:39
  honestly again sometimes uniquely horrible in in certain manifestations but but the impulses
• 1:14:47
  themselves the black and white thinking you know that the absolute certainty that our side is
• 1:14:52
  right and the other side is evil and you know groupthink confirmation bias motivated reasoning all
• 1:14:59
  of these things um were it was just it made me feel again a lot of a lot of hope um it's almost
• 1:15:10
  like a larger version of the growing up that all of us do and we are no longer kids and realize
• 1:15:15
  that our parents aren't gods that they're they're just people that they're fallible yes it's a
• 1:15:21
  realization that you have in your teens and you go wow they're just doofuses like me you know
• 1:15:26
  they just keep their kids like me who grew big and they don't know what they're doing
• 1:15:32
  yeah it's the same with the whole world I mean I obviously like when you're a kid you think that
• 1:15:36
  the world is is built with a reason and a kind of a purpose even if you're not religious you think
• 1:15:41
  there were grownups running the shop somewhere you know and conspiracy theorists still do think this
• 1:15:46
  there's something reassuring about there being even an evil cabal of people who are running everything
• 1:15:51
  and it's it's quite shocking when you come of age in your in your teens or early 20s and you go
• 1:15:56
  the whole thing is no one knows what's going on they're just held together with duct tape and twine
• 1:16:02
  this is just a bunch of idiots running around and there's no one no one's got mine on the shop no one
• 1:16:07
  knows what's going on yeah it's really funny this is also something I think about all the time like
• 1:16:12
  with my daughter like how how can I explain to her upfront that I am an idiot but I don't know
• 1:16:18
  I don't know everything don't I am valid cling to your goddess you know status as long as you can
• 1:16:26
  I just like I don't want her to be like totally floundering if she when she comes to finally realize
• 1:16:31
  that yeah it's funny and then when you have heroes you know to bring us back to rolling this is
• 1:16:38
  someone who has created these castles in the sky of imagination for you when you were little and
• 1:16:44
  you've gone through the the tales that she has been able to spin and then you get there to Edden
• 1:16:49
  Bra and you going into her little hot low ceiling to humble little it was lovely it was a lovely little
• 1:16:58
  what what are you what are you feeling like is your is your heart beating are you is it surreal are you
• 1:17:05
  just trying to focus on what you're going to ask her it's it's surreal I it's surreal I mean I
• 1:17:10
  was trying to just be you know in in the moment to notice to notice what it was what it was like
• 1:17:17
  what was happening um and to just you know again I was like I said I told you I was a huge fan of
• 1:17:24
  the books and you know loved um then there's there's so many things that she I mean again even
• 1:17:31
  just sitting there and listening to her talk and realizing like she's she's a very um she's
• 1:17:36
  an incredibly thoughtful person she it seems like again you asked the smallest question and
• 1:17:43
  she will spin out this entire beautiful you know just just well well spoken and articulate and
• 1:17:53
  just interesting like somebody who's lived a very interesting life that is very different from mine
• 1:17:59
  but I mean ultimately too she is a human being I mean she's describing very human experiences
• 1:18:05
  um and she said that actually at one point in the show you know she says like um I couldn't have
• 1:18:11
  written these books if I wasn't a human being um and you know subject to the same kind of human
• 1:18:16
  foibles that all of us are and listening to her kind of you know self scrutiny and and the process
• 1:18:22
  that she went through so I'll just just very the whole time I mean the the thing that I feel so
• 1:18:29
  much what I mean with this and so much of the work that I do is I just I feel very grateful and very
• 1:18:34
  privileged um to be able to like to work on things that are that I that I think are important that
• 1:18:41
  that could do good in the world um and and that are just fascinating like I I again I'm just absolutely
• 1:18:49
  amazed um and just struck that that I get to do this hmm I want to talk to you about the idea
• 1:18:56
  of being on the right side of history which I think there's there's a there's a kind of an idea
• 1:19:03
  that is latent in in across progressive circles at the moment that it's too hard to dig into the
• 1:19:10
  details of big culture war questions so I'm just going to pick the side that I think is on the
• 1:19:15
  right side of history and I want to get your thoughts on that but I'll do that for the premium
• 1:19:20
  subscribers so I'll bid farewell to everyone who's listening to the free version of the podcast
• 1:19:33
  and you will get your own personal premium podcast feed with at least three extra episodes of the
• 1:19:40
  podcast every month and heaps of extra stuff including the remainder right now of the fabulous
• 1:19:45
  conversation you've just been hearing if it was worth listening to this much of don't rob yourself
• 1:19:50
  of the rest well let your phone light now and search for uncomfortable conversations of
• 1:20:02
  you