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SMNTY Interviews: Raquel Willis · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stefan.
0:07
Speaker 1: Never told your protective I heard you, and.
0:18
Speaker 2: Yea, we are so excited to welcome back. All Right,
0:21
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have to list these off, and I know
0:23
Speaker 2: I'm gonna miss up. Award winning activist, writer, journalist, podcaster,
0:29
Speaker 2: one of the Times Women of the Year, and friend
0:32
Speaker 2: of the show obviously, Raquel Willis, welcome back.
0:37
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me on. It's good to be back.
0:41
Speaker 2: Congrats are the well deserved, hard earned title of all
0:43
Speaker 2: the things, but including Times Women of the Year.
0:46
Speaker 4: Hello, yeah, I mean it's it's been a wild year.
0:51
Speaker 4: So it's actually interesting because they named me one of
0:55
Speaker 4: Time's Women of the Year and then like a few
0:58
Speaker 4: weeks later, we're like, we all someone to name me
1:00
Speaker 4: to the Time one hundred and I was like, okay, sure,
1:03
Speaker 4: let's just get it all out of the way this
1:06
Speaker 4: year and leave nothing for the rest of my life.
1:10
Speaker 2: Nothing for the rest of my life, I know, honestly,
1:12
Speaker 2: like just the fact that I'm much older than you
1:15
Speaker 2: and you have all of these accolades, I'm like, I'm
1:17
Speaker 2: really behind. But also I love being able to say
1:21
Speaker 2: I know her, so you know it feels like I
1:23
Speaker 2: won just by being able to do that.
1:25
Speaker 5: So thank you for letting me do that as well.
1:28
Speaker 3: Well, thank you.
1:29
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, these honors are great and amazing,
1:33
Speaker 4: and I know they add a lot of shine, but
1:37
Speaker 4: you know they can never capture all of the work
1:42
Speaker 4: that's happening, right, So Samantha, like, we're going to reframe
1:47
Speaker 4: this and just say they just got like a little
1:50
Speaker 4: snippet of amazing folks out there and they're coming back
1:54
Speaker 4: for you.
1:54
Speaker 5: Okay, Okay, I'm gonna take that in.
1:57
Speaker 2: But just know, yes, I'm really glad to see that
1:59
Speaker 2: you are getting the flowers while you can, because I
2:03
Speaker 2: know as part of your journey in podcasting as well
2:06
Speaker 2: as obviously a journalism, is to talk about those who
2:09
Speaker 2: didn't get the flowers when they were alive.
2:12
Speaker 5: And you've been a very, very busy woman.
2:15
Speaker 2: So thank you once again for coming on to our show,
2:18
Speaker 2: our little tiny show. We're so excited to have you
2:20
Speaker 2: back on. But just in case we have some new listeners,
2:24
Speaker 2: can you tell them a bit about yourself?
2:26
Speaker 3: Sure?
2:27
Speaker 4: Can I also say I'm thinking and I think I've
2:32
Speaker 4: been on stuff Mom never told you, like more than
2:35
Speaker 4: maybe any other podcast because This is like maybe my
2:38
Speaker 4: third or fourth time being on since every kind of
2:42
Speaker 4: iteration of it. So shout out to y'all for loving
2:47
Speaker 4: on your girl and bringing her on.
2:50
Speaker 3: But yeah, so I'm rockel Willis.
2:53
Speaker 4: I am all of the things that Samantha just said, writer, activists,
2:58
Speaker 4: a bunch of things. Much of my work focuses on
3:02
Speaker 4: black trans power and liberation. And I know some folks
3:06
Speaker 4: are like, oh, okay, well, maybe this has nothing to
3:08
Speaker 4: do with me, but no, honey, it has everything to
3:11
Speaker 4: do with you, because I feel like all of our
3:14
Speaker 4: liberation is bound up in each other, so you know,
3:17
Speaker 4: through storytelling, through social justice and direct action. I'm always
3:25
Speaker 4: interested in how we can tell more nuanced, fuller stories
3:31
Speaker 4: of the lives of people on the margins.
3:33
Speaker 1: And we absolutely love that and are happy to have
3:38
Speaker 1: you on anytime. And the last time you were here,
3:42
Speaker 1: you were talking about your really amazing book is just
3:46
Speaker 1: absolutely fantastic, and your latest podcast, which you have a
3:50
Speaker 1: second season coming out now, so what can we expect
3:55
Speaker 1: in season two?
3:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, thank y'all again for having me.
4:00
Speaker 4: When I was talking about my memoir The Risk It
4:03
Speaker 4: Takes to Bloom, What a time that was, What a
4:08
Speaker 4: tour I had but yees. So we're back with season
4:12
Speaker 4: two of Afterlives. This series is really all about the
4:17
Speaker 4: lives and legacies of trans folks that we've lost too
4:21
Speaker 4: soon to so many different systems, so many different dynamics.
4:26
Speaker 4: The first season delved into the story of Leilee and Polanco.
4:30
Speaker 4: So she was a twenty seven year old trans Afro
4:34
Speaker 4: Latina who died in Riker's custody, and we told her
4:39
Speaker 4: story through the movements that she inspired.
4:43
Speaker 3: She was a part of ballroom culture.
4:45
Speaker 4: She was someone who inspired after her death, the fight
4:51
Speaker 4: for ending solitary confinement in New York, decriminalizing sex work,
4:55
Speaker 4: and so much more. And so the second season we
4:58
Speaker 4: were like, Okay, how can we go bigger?
5:02
Speaker 3: And we went about as big as.
5:05
Speaker 4: You can go and wanting to delve into the life
5:09
Speaker 4: of Marsha P.
5:10
Speaker 3: Johnson.
5:11
Speaker 4: So if you don't know who Marsha P. Johnson is,
5:15
Speaker 4: you know, well, we're going to get you caught up.
5:17
Speaker 4: She is a movement for mother for the LGBTQ plus movement.
5:22
Speaker 4: There are a lot of myths and legends about her,
5:25
Speaker 4: that she was on the ground the nights of the
5:29
Speaker 4: Stonewall riots, and that she threw the first brick, and
5:33
Speaker 4: so that there's actually an episode this season where we
5:36
Speaker 4: kind of unpack that what's true, what's real. But we
5:39
Speaker 4: also wanted to get into her humanity. And I know
5:44
Speaker 4: this very well now. I mean, we were just talking
5:46
Speaker 4: about these time honors, but I think there's a way
5:49
Speaker 4: that when we start putting people on a pedestal, we
5:52
Speaker 4: start throwing out these terms like legend and iconic, in
5:58
Speaker 4: some way we kind of trip them of their complexity
6:02
Speaker 4: or of their humanity, like we forget that, No, they're
6:06
Speaker 4: just living and breathing and messy and having, you know,
6:11
Speaker 4: all types of love and romantic experiences. And so that
6:17
Speaker 4: was kind of the humanity we wanted to bring back
6:20
Speaker 4: to Marsia. And I'm so excited for folks to hear
6:23
Speaker 4: this season.
6:24
Speaker 2: You know, when I was listening to the first episode,
6:28
Speaker 2: that was something that you did talk about a lot
6:31
Speaker 2: about having to bring back humanity to see her struggle,
6:34
Speaker 2: to see the beauty in her struggle as well as
6:37
Speaker 2: beauty in her legend and the things that she did
6:39
Speaker 2: in her activism.
6:41
Speaker 5: And you did a great.
6:43
Speaker 2: Job in narrating her story in such an empathetic and
6:46
Speaker 2: again human way. Why do you think this is so
6:48
Speaker 2: important when it comes to talking about as I would say,
6:51
Speaker 2: iconic and legendary person as Marsha.
6:55
Speaker 4: I think it's important because we get a different kind
6:59
Speaker 4: of less and when we give that humanity back, you know,
7:03
Speaker 4: when we put people on these pedestals, I think it
7:07
Speaker 4: can kind of detach us in a way where we're like, Okay, well,
7:11
Speaker 4: what is my part in all of this? Because I'm
7:13
Speaker 4: never going to live up to that, And it's like,
7:15
Speaker 4: that's not actually what it's about. It's actually about us
7:20
Speaker 4: giving ourselves grace for our humanity, for the mistakes we
7:24
Speaker 4: may have made, and also understanding that we can have
7:27
Speaker 4: major impact simply by living in authenticity.
7:31
Speaker 3: And that's one.
7:32
Speaker 4: Thing that I hope we really kind of drive home
7:36
Speaker 4: for folks in an effective way with the season.
7:39
Speaker 3: I love the parts of Marcia's.
7:42
Speaker 4: Story that I didn't know right, Like I didn't know
7:45
Speaker 4: much about her family life growing up, that she was
7:48
Speaker 4: always kind of this eccentric character, that she always had
7:54
Speaker 4: a love of performance. We got to talk to her
7:59
Speaker 4: sister Jeanie and her nephew Al who she babysat when
8:03
Speaker 4: he was a kid, which is like you got babysat
8:06
Speaker 4: by Marsha P. Johnson, and there's this beautiful story that
8:10
Speaker 4: they tell about her being a part of this choir.
8:14
Speaker 3: I won't give all the details, but that she was
8:17
Speaker 3: never a.
8:17
Speaker 4: Great singer, but somehow in her charisma, her offbeat singing
8:26
Speaker 4: made people really feel.
8:30
Speaker 3: A sense of warmth and love from her.
8:33
Speaker 4: And so I just love like those little anecdotes that
8:36
Speaker 4: she was always kind of marching to the beat of
8:38
Speaker 4: her own drum and somehow that brought people in right.
8:43
Speaker 2: And I think there's something that we don't talk enough about,
8:46
Speaker 2: especially when it comes to activists and people who really
8:49
Speaker 2: were the beginning of movements, is the mental health capacity
8:54
Speaker 2: and some of the struggles which you hit at Bay beginning.
8:57
Speaker 2: You were like, Okay, we can't talk about this without acknowledge.
9:00
Speaker 2: She had some struggles when it came to mental health,
9:03
Speaker 2: and they're not shameful, but she was never necessarily ashamed
9:06
Speaker 2: of it either. She just said, this is what it is.
9:09
Speaker 2: Why I go back and forth, because there's so much
9:13
Speaker 2: need in trying to open up that level of conversations
9:16
Speaker 2: that we're not demonizing this at the same time, we're
9:19
Speaker 2: also not using this as an excuse and I feel
9:23
Speaker 2: like you're opening this dialogue up in an amazing way.
9:27
Speaker 2: What can we expect in this level of understanding when
9:30
Speaker 2: it comes to talking about mental health, especially with Marsha.
9:33
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the beautiful things
9:36
Speaker 4: that we get to do in this time is that
9:39
Speaker 4: we can look back at, say, someone like Marcia who
9:44
Speaker 4: died over thirty years ago now and look at other
9:50
Speaker 4: elements of their life and be able to maybe understand
9:52
Speaker 4: them in ways that people.
9:54
Speaker 3: At the time couldn't.
9:56
Speaker 4: And so we've had a whole revolution and talking about
10:00
Speaker 4: mental health in the last at least decade that I
10:05
Speaker 4: think really is beneficial because we can look at Marsha,
10:08
Speaker 4: who was someone who had moments that she considered to
10:13
Speaker 4: be breakdowns. She had moments where she was institutionalized due
10:19
Speaker 4: to her mental health struggles, and there was never any
10:22
Speaker 4: kind of official diagnosis or anything, which I also think
10:27
Speaker 4: is beautiful too, because sometimes we don't have to have
10:31
Speaker 4: that kind of perfect label for it. We can just
10:33
Speaker 4: understand that the difficulties of life really can make it
10:38
Speaker 4: impossible for everything to be perfect and flawless and smooth,
10:43
Speaker 4: and that's okay.
10:45
Speaker 3: And even though she had these.
10:47
Speaker 4: Moments with difficulties around mental health, she still had a
10:52
Speaker 4: commitment to making the world better, to being a beacon
10:57
Speaker 4: and a pillar of her community. Was still committed to
11:02
Speaker 4: being an artist. I mean, she was a person who
11:06
Speaker 4: performed on stage. I didn't know before we worked on
11:10
Speaker 4: the series that she was She went to perform out
11:13
Speaker 4: in London, right, So like she wasn't just performing here
11:17
Speaker 4: in the States, but like she got to travel internationally,
11:20
Speaker 4: and so that also just kind of added more of
11:24
Speaker 4: a dimension to the impact that she had and the
11:28
Speaker 4: and the large life that she lived.
11:30
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I didn't realize that she would international either
11:35
Speaker 2: a whole different I wonder, Oh, I wonder are you
11:38
Speaker 2: going to be tackling.
11:38
Speaker 5: Those specific performances outside.
11:42
Speaker 3: We will.
11:43
Speaker 4: Yeah, we have some great deep dives there. I mean, honestly,
11:47
Speaker 4: hopefully my production team isn't like, girl, you're giving away
11:50
Speaker 4: too much.
11:50
Speaker 5: But you know, that's a hints. We gotta get some
11:53
Speaker 5: hints while you're here.
11:54
Speaker 3: You know.
11:55
Speaker 4: I think that that's just a beautiful thing for folks
11:57
Speaker 4: to know that Marcia did travel, did have stints and
12:01
Speaker 4: places outside of New York. She was born in New Jersey, right,
12:05
Speaker 4: So she wasn't initially a New Yorker. She kind of
12:09
Speaker 4: became a New Yorker, which I think is kind of
12:11
Speaker 4: that quintessential story. It is like you leave home for
12:14
Speaker 4: a lot of folks and go to the big city,
12:17
Speaker 4: not even just New York. You know, we talk about
12:19
Speaker 4: Atlanta so much because that's so near and dear to
12:23
Speaker 4: our hearts, and y'all are based there. But leaving and
12:26
Speaker 4: going to that big city and trying to figure out
12:29
Speaker 4: who you are in a different context like that was
12:32
Speaker 4: also a part of Marcia's story too.
12:34
Speaker 5: Yeah, I love that.
12:46
Speaker 2: And just kind of like, going on with the first
12:49
Speaker 2: episode of the podcast, you say something that feels like
12:52
Speaker 2: it's both obvious but also not said enough or untold
12:56
Speaker 2: that trans people have always been here, And I think
12:59
Speaker 2: that's statement is both small.
13:01
Speaker 5: But huge, and.
13:04
Speaker 2: It just feels like with the things we learned about Marcia,
13:07
Speaker 2: because again, she kind of has been put in a box,
13:09
Speaker 2: like I knew her as and it was recently, like
13:12
Speaker 2: you were talking about, you know, you didn't know a
13:13
Speaker 2: lot of history until you got to college or you
13:17
Speaker 2: you know, for me, honestly was as I was trying
13:20
Speaker 2: to become a podcaster in this specific field, intersectional feminism,
13:24
Speaker 2: that I was figuring out all of these historical figures
13:27
Speaker 2: such as Marcia, and I was like, oh, wow, so
13:30
Speaker 2: let's talk about Stonewall because I knew of it, but
13:33
Speaker 2: didn't know much of it. But when it comes to
13:35
Speaker 2: things like this talking about trans people have always been here.
13:38
Speaker 2: What makes the statement so important and relevant today?
13:43
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I want to hone in on what you shared.
13:45
Speaker 4: I mean, I am the first to tell folks like
13:50
Speaker 4: I didn't know so much about trans experience, you know,
13:54
Speaker 4: until I was in the thick of it, honey.
13:56
Speaker 3: And I think that that's true for a lot of us.
13:59
Speaker 4: Rights not until you have these moments in life that
14:03
Speaker 4: kind of push you to expand more, to learn more,
14:07
Speaker 4: to seek out information, to make sense of what you're absorbing.
14:12
Speaker 3: And I grew up in small town Augusta, Georgia.
14:16
Speaker 4: You know, so I was also in this context in
14:19
Speaker 4: the late nineties early two thousands where it was still
14:24
Speaker 4: very taboo to talk about any type of queerness. I
14:27
Speaker 4: grew up very Catholic and religious, and so I definitely
14:32
Speaker 4: was not getting maybe the education I needed around who
14:36
Speaker 4: I was going to be in the world. And I
14:41
Speaker 4: think Marcia and the history that's kind of attached to
14:45
Speaker 4: her like the Stonewall riots, this kind of history of
14:48
Speaker 4: clear resistance and activism was like a bomb for me,
14:52
Speaker 4: for someone who felt.
14:54
Speaker 3: So different, so othered for so long.
14:58
Speaker 4: It felt in a way like coming home spiritually to
15:02
Speaker 4: this person that now I consider one of my chosen ancestors.
15:08
Speaker 4: So I think that it was really important to be
15:11
Speaker 4: candid about that that there's always an opportunity for us
15:14
Speaker 4: to learn.
15:14
Speaker 3: You don't have to feel like you're late to the
15:16
Speaker 3: ball game.
15:17
Speaker 4: I guess, And also in this time, it's important for
15:22
Speaker 4: us to be clear that trans and gender nonconforming and
15:25
Speaker 4: non binary folks.
15:26
Speaker 3: Have always been here.
15:28
Speaker 4: You know, we're facing a moment where we have this
15:32
Speaker 4: authoritarian figure and this regime back in power, and Trump
15:38
Speaker 4: is really pushing this idea that trans people and intersects
15:42
Speaker 4: people and anybody with kind of a more marginalized experience,
15:46
Speaker 4: that we don't exist. You know, we're facing attacks on
15:50
Speaker 4: all sides, whether it's queer and trans people facing restrictions
15:55
Speaker 4: around access to healthcare, or it's these DEI discussions right
16:01
Speaker 4: where they're trying to strip not just queer and trans people,
16:05
Speaker 4: but folks of color and women from their rightful positions
16:09
Speaker 4: and their professions and in their careers. So it's important
16:14
Speaker 4: for us to tell the truth about these marginalized experiences
16:20
Speaker 4: in this time because that's a part of our radical defiance, right,
16:24
Speaker 4: we have to defy this idea that we don't exist.
16:28
Speaker 4: And I think, as a trans person, I just want.
16:30
Speaker 3: To be a bridge. You know.
16:32
Speaker 4: I know that there are a lot of young trans
16:34
Speaker 4: people out there who are seeing these attacks and wondering, well.
16:39
Speaker 3: What does this mean for them?
16:41
Speaker 4: But they need to know that there were folks that
16:44
Speaker 4: were fighting an even grizzlier and more difficult times, who
16:50
Speaker 4: were fighting in advance for them, who were loving them
16:54
Speaker 4: in advance. And I just want to use my work
16:57
Speaker 4: to be a bridge so that they know that their
16:59
Speaker 4: footsteps that we can walk in.
17:02
Speaker 2: That's beautiful. I'm gonna neath that quilted somewhere because that's
17:07
Speaker 2: I'm just write that down if I forget, because that's
17:09
Speaker 2: such an amazing concept, and especially with the work that
17:13
Speaker 2: you do, with the work that you've been doing, and
17:16
Speaker 2: as loud as you have been for this type of advocacy,
17:21
Speaker 2: which I feel like with what makes people like you
17:23
Speaker 2: and Marsha so iconic, I'm gonna use that term in
17:27
Speaker 2: that because there there is willingness to be that example.
17:33
Speaker 2: And that's that's such a tough role to play in general,
17:37
Speaker 2: and especially today as we are navigating such interesting spaces
17:41
Speaker 2: with but like social media and the Internet and AI
17:45
Speaker 2: and all of that, Like there's it feels so much
17:47
Speaker 2: bigger and so sometimes harder to try to dispel some
17:51
Speaker 2: of the misinformation and mis representation that's out there. So yeah,
17:55
Speaker 2: I first of all, thank you, and uh I love
17:59
Speaker 2: I look.
17:59
Speaker 5: I love looking up do you. Even though I'm so
18:01
Speaker 5: much older than you, I'm like.
18:02
Speaker 3: I want to be I'm so much older.
18:05
Speaker 2: I am so much older and I feel it today especially, but.
18:10
Speaker 5: But you don't think so.
18:12
Speaker 4: But that's one of the beautiful things I think, especially
18:14
Speaker 4: in like queer and trans community, is that you know,
18:17
Speaker 4: age is a little different from us because people come
18:21
Speaker 4: into their identities at different points in life, which means
18:25
Speaker 4: they come into different information and understandings of the world
18:29
Speaker 4: at different points in their lives. Right. I mean, I
18:31
Speaker 4: have people you know who are elder who are like
18:36
Speaker 4: thanking me, and I'm like, no, no, thank you, because.
18:40
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be able to do what I do.
18:42
Speaker 4: Without the blocks of the foundation that you put down
18:48
Speaker 4: for me.
18:49
Speaker 2: I think it's interesting because as many cyclical things that
18:53
Speaker 2: as we have seen, it feels so disappointing, especially again
18:56
Speaker 2: with this administration because it's definitely cyclical, but seeing all
19:02
Speaker 2: of the people who are younger than me doing the
19:06
Speaker 2: significant work, feeling that hope, this is the hope that
19:10
Speaker 2: I'm so glad that I continue to learn so much
19:13
Speaker 2: more through other people and again like the generations after
19:18
Speaker 2: me and I'm learning from y'all.
19:20
Speaker 5: I'm like, yes, I need more of this.
19:22
Speaker 2: I've been missing out and feeling again, like even with
19:27
Speaker 2: all the darkest things that we see, feeling all the
19:30
Speaker 2: fear and seeing the protests and seeing all of the
19:32
Speaker 2: you know, demonizing of just good people, to see the
19:36
Speaker 2: goodness in people who are fighting that really does bring
19:40
Speaker 2: so much hope in this in this time. So yes,
19:44
Speaker 2: I'm gonna keep talking about how amazing I think you are.
19:47
Speaker 5: Because I love it.
19:49
Speaker 2: But I also have to talk about the fact that
19:51
Speaker 2: you brought up something that made me me laugh in
19:54
Speaker 2: that episode, because any and I have talked about this before,
19:57
Speaker 2: but you talked about your tumbler I wrote in college,
20:02
Speaker 2: which reminded me because Aye and I have talked about this.
20:04
Speaker 5: I had an old zenga. This is pre tumblr, did.
20:09
Speaker 4: You Yeah, I was in high school, but I or
20:13
Speaker 4: middle in high school, I had a.
20:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't find mine, I think because it shut down.
20:18
Speaker 2: But anyway, but it made me think of all the
20:22
Speaker 2: things that I had lost, and I'm like, oh my god,
20:24
Speaker 2: I kind of wish I could be able to read it,
20:26
Speaker 2: just to be embarrassed of it myself. But I had
20:29
Speaker 2: to ask, what made you think of these old posts
20:32
Speaker 2: and why did you want to.
20:34
Speaker 5: Share it with listeners? And I'm really glad you did.
20:36
Speaker 4: By the way, Well, I have to give so much
20:39
Speaker 4: love to our production team, I mean, Dylan Hoyer, Joey
20:44
Speaker 4: pat Julia Furlan, and so many others. Really, this season
20:51
Speaker 4: wanted to use this as an opportunity to to kind
20:55
Speaker 4: of get more meta and get more into the process
20:59
Speaker 4: of what it is like for me to revisit these stories,
21:03
Speaker 4: and particularly the story of someone I considered it to
21:07
Speaker 4: be a north Star like Marsha, And so as we
21:10
Speaker 4: were kind of planning the season, you know, one of
21:14
Speaker 4: the questions they had for me because it kind of
21:17
Speaker 4: had to interview me so that we could put more
21:19
Speaker 4: of myself into the narrative was when did you first
21:25
Speaker 4: hear about Marcia? And I kind of talked about the
21:29
Speaker 4: impact of the internet, you know, and thinking about what
21:33
Speaker 4: I probably read about her first on like a Wikipedia
21:37
Speaker 4: page in like the late two thousands, but it probably
21:42
Speaker 4: really wasn't until I made it to college, was studying.
21:47
Speaker 4: I was in women's studies classes, meeting queer and trans
21:51
Speaker 4: community in a real way for the first time, and
21:54
Speaker 4: we were all connecting on Tumblr.
21:57
Speaker 3: And Tumblr was like.
21:58
Speaker 4: That era where people would throw out social justice warrior
22:02
Speaker 4: as like a slur, right, So like for those of
22:05
Speaker 4: us who were in our feminist bag before it really
22:10
Speaker 4: kind of hit the mainstream in a bigger way, you know, it.
22:14
Speaker 3: Was it was the trenches out here. You know.
22:18
Speaker 4: There were all of these horrible narratives like calling feminists
22:23
Speaker 4: all like lesbians, as pejorative, or saying that we weren't attractive,
22:30
Speaker 4: or you know, like or we were completely man hating
22:33
Speaker 4: in a in a particular way.
22:35
Speaker 3: Like it was. It was just really grizzly and gnarly
22:39
Speaker 3: at that time.
22:40
Speaker 4: But Tumblr was really one of the few safe spaces,
22:44
Speaker 4: I guess you could say, on the Internet where we
22:48
Speaker 4: could gather we could be our want to be woke
22:51
Speaker 4: selves as much as we wanted to.
22:53
Speaker 3: And we could learn, like you could literally learn theory.
22:56
Speaker 4: So now we have like TikTok where people are doing
22:59
Speaker 4: you know these TikTok universities and you know, these series.
23:04
Speaker 3: Where they're educating folks.
23:05
Speaker 4: But a lot of that, for the first time in
23:08
Speaker 4: a major way, was happening on Tumblr.
23:10
Speaker 2: I contend, Oh, I never did get into the Tumblr
23:15
Speaker 2: like I think I got, Like I said, Zinga was
23:17
Speaker 2: my thing, and then I did a little bit of
23:18
Speaker 2: MySpace and that was about the end.
23:21
Speaker 3: Yeah.
23:22
Speaker 4: Well, you know, Tumblr was also the platform that really
23:26
Speaker 4: allowed you to do multiple things at once with media, right,
23:30
Speaker 4: so it was kind of like ig and Facebook and
23:36
Speaker 4: the platform formerly known as Twitter, yes, all in one,
23:41
Speaker 4: so you could kind of do different types of micro blogging,
23:46
Speaker 4: which was cool.
23:48
Speaker 3: Yes, you know.
23:49
Speaker 4: Now you know, all of these other platforms have kind
23:52
Speaker 4: of bitten off of that idea, and you know Ig
23:54
Speaker 4: has threads now and Twitter has more capabilities with media.
23:59
Speaker 3: But the time, it was really Tumblr that was letting
24:03
Speaker 3: you do it all in one place.
24:05
Speaker 5: Was it pre Reddit? That's just a.
24:09
Speaker 3: Rereddit's been around longer than Tumblr.
24:13
Speaker 5: Oh really, but I'm not sure.
24:15
Speaker 3: Actually, I can't remember when Reddit got on my radar.
24:19
Speaker 4: I kind of want to say Reddit has been around
24:22
Speaker 4: at least since the MySpace days, and maybe it just
24:26
Speaker 4: wasn't as big.
24:28
Speaker 5: Okay, soone not have to look into this later.
24:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, we did do an episode on Reddit, so we
24:34
Speaker 1: should know this, but I.
24:36
Speaker 5: Don't think we did a timeline timeline like.
24:41
Speaker 2: Did you that was departmentalized that episode and I've forgotten.
24:46
Speaker 4: Okay, I just did a quick google, all right because
24:50
Speaker 4: right now, and I'm saying it was founded in two
24:53
Speaker 4: thousand and five. So but you know what I will say,
24:57
Speaker 4: I don't think Reddit was big as like remember when
25:01
Speaker 4: there was like Yahoo answers yes, like that's was like
25:07
Speaker 4: and asked me it was like those were big, and
25:10
Speaker 4: then I feel like, y'ah just like fell off a.
25:12
Speaker 5: Cliff oh yeah, oh yeah, and.
25:15
Speaker 3: Then I guess read it came in and took that space.
25:18
Speaker 2: Okay, I feel like I'm aging myself in this conversation
25:21
Speaker 2: as well, So I'm gonna stop this, stop this right now.
25:23
Speaker 4: No, You're good, But but you know, it was fun
25:27
Speaker 4: going back through my Tumblr and kind of seeing in
25:31
Speaker 4: real time my.
25:35
Speaker 3: Embrace of my trans identity.
25:37
Speaker 4: So I kind of read off some posts where I'm
25:40
Speaker 4: talking about I just came out to like my mom
25:43
Speaker 4: and like all these things, and and also figuring out, well,
25:48
Speaker 4: what is my connection to black trans history and figures
25:52
Speaker 4: like Marsha in real time? So like you were saying,
25:56
Speaker 4: you wish you had your zanga like Tumblr and so
26:00
Speaker 4: far back that I don't have it, Like I never
26:02
Speaker 4: completely deleted it.
26:04
Speaker 3: I just kind of shut like locked it down.
26:07
Speaker 2: I'm grateful that you didn't delete it, because hearing you
26:09
Speaker 2: read off those posts were amazing. I was like, yes,
26:13
Speaker 2: I remember this like ideal, like when you go back
26:16
Speaker 2: to seeing what you wrote and you're like what, But
26:18
Speaker 2: at the same time, yes, I was really profound.
26:20
Speaker 5: Yeah, give yourself credit.
26:23
Speaker 2: Well, if you could, what is something you would tell
26:25
Speaker 2: that Tumblr writing baby self today?
26:29
Speaker 4: What would I tell myself? You know, I look back
26:34
Speaker 4: and sometimes I'm like, do I get less fearless the
26:38
Speaker 4: old draget or do I get more fearless Because I
26:41
Speaker 4: just look back at moments and I'm like, girl, that
26:44
Speaker 4: was brave. I guess I would just encourage myself. I
26:51
Speaker 4: would just be like, keep going, listen to that inner voice.
26:57
Speaker 4: It's not gonna stare you wrong, And that's kind of
27:01
Speaker 4: what I would tell myself at various points throughout my life.
27:04
Speaker 3: It's like, just keep.
27:05
Speaker 4: Listening to your convictions, listening to your heart, because that's
27:09
Speaker 4: where your values are.
27:12
Speaker 1: Well. Going back to the podcast, as we've been talking about,
27:17
Speaker 1: you have some really amazing interviews and clips of Marcia
27:21
Speaker 1: as well as amazing stories from friends of hers. What
27:26
Speaker 1: was the response from the people you worked with when
27:29
Speaker 1: you told them about this podcast.
27:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think that they.
27:37
Speaker 4: Were overwhelmingly excited for the opportunity to elevate Marcia's story,
27:46
Speaker 4: but also like in a format that allowed them to
27:50
Speaker 4: talk about the nuances. You know, Marcia had a very
27:56
Speaker 4: complex existence, which I think is true for a lot
27:59
Speaker 4: of transpher so, but especially in that time, the language
28:03
Speaker 4: was so different. You know, she used different identifiers at
28:07
Speaker 4: different points throughout her life. There were points where she
28:12
Speaker 4: was having a medical transition, and then there were points
28:16
Speaker 4: where she didn't have access to the medical part of
28:21
Speaker 4: her transition anymore, and so there are people who use
28:26
Speaker 4: more masculine pronouns for her, so that was interesting. But
28:30
Speaker 4: everyone called her Marsha, So you know, there was kind
28:34
Speaker 4: of this understanding that it was clear she was moving
28:39
Speaker 4: through the world as Marcia.
28:41
Speaker 3: I think people's understanding.
28:44
Speaker 4: Of who she was really had to shift as society shifted,
28:49
Speaker 4: and so I think that that was an interesting dynamic
28:52
Speaker 4: in talking to friends and people who knew her during
28:54
Speaker 4: her lifetime, was that it didn't seem like she was
29:00
Speaker 4: a stickler about how they referred to her except.
29:03
Speaker 3: The name, So that was cool.
29:06
Speaker 4: I think folks also just wanted to be clear that, like, yes,
29:10
Speaker 4: Marcia has been fashioned into this icon and in some
29:15
Speaker 4: ways she was a legend when she was alive because
29:19
Speaker 4: people didn't know about her presence and.
29:23
Speaker 3: Action within the Sonewall Riots, but.
29:27
Speaker 4: She largely wasn't supported materially in that time. She dealt
29:34
Speaker 4: with a lot of barriers to housing at different points
29:38
Speaker 4: in her life, not including kind of her growing up
29:42
Speaker 4: with her origin family and then kind of the last
29:46
Speaker 4: decade where she was roommates with her friend Randy Wicker,
29:50
Speaker 4: but she dealt with houselessness at various points. She engaged
29:55
Speaker 4: in sex work as a means of survival for arge
30:00
Speaker 4: chunks of her life. So you know, it's interesting and
30:04
Speaker 4: I think we kind of hold that tension of like
30:06
Speaker 4: she was this very important and sherished figure. And also
30:12
Speaker 4: there were just huge chunks of her life where her
30:16
Speaker 4: living conditions were precarious, and so how does that happen?
30:22
Speaker 4: And I think that we still see that today, right,
30:24
Speaker 4: Like I know plenty of particularly black trans folks who
30:28
Speaker 4: are highly visible but also are struggling with material conditions,
30:36
Speaker 4: you know, because visibility doesn't necessarily mean vitality. It doesn't
30:40
Speaker 4: mean that your leadership may be respected, for instance, in
30:45
Speaker 4: the nonprofit space or even in the corporate space. Right,
30:49
Speaker 4: So those things are interesting, But I love how we
30:55
Speaker 4: kind of.
30:55
Speaker 3: Thread those needles.
30:56
Speaker 4: I think we do a good job ofind of talking
31:00
Speaker 4: about that tension and that complexity.
31:02
Speaker 1: You, yes, absolutely, And I do love that. I love
31:06
Speaker 1: painting the full picture of someone that so many of
31:09
Speaker 1: us learn about in maybe just a snippet in a
31:13
Speaker 1: history book if we're lucky, until we do get to
31:16
Speaker 1: college or something like that. And it is I love
31:21
Speaker 1: that you're bringing in this sort of you know, she
31:24
Speaker 1: sings and it's not well or but she's very enthusiastic
31:28
Speaker 1: and that endears people to her. These facets of her,
31:44
Speaker 1: and you've already given us so much. We don't want
31:47
Speaker 1: to make your producers angry at you, But is there
31:49
Speaker 1: something else that you think you can tease that listeners
31:53
Speaker 1: might be surprised at a learning about this kind of
31:58
Speaker 1: legendary figure this season.
32:01
Speaker 4: Well, you know, one of the things that's really key
32:07
Speaker 4: in the story, and that was like a big goal
32:09
Speaker 4: for our production.
32:12
Speaker 3: Was to tell a.
32:16
Speaker 4: Essentially a black trans history of the HIV AIDS crisis
32:22
Speaker 4: in which Marshall lived threw. And so I think that
32:26
Speaker 4: we get to do something unique because when I think
32:29
Speaker 4: about the HIV AIDS crisis, I didn't really have many
32:34
Speaker 4: stories of how trans people were impacted by it or
32:40
Speaker 4: survived it. You know, even of the elders that I
32:45
Speaker 4: do know now, many of them, their heyday was like
32:49
Speaker 4: really in the nineties, right or even the late eighties,
32:54
Speaker 4: and so you don't really get that glimpse into what
32:57
Speaker 4: it was like when the epidemic really kind of popped
33:01
Speaker 4: off in the early eighties. So I love that we
33:04
Speaker 4: get a chance to kind of add a new dimension
33:07
Speaker 4: to the HIV AIDS crisis, and we get to talk
33:10
Speaker 4: about how Marcia continue to be a pillar of community
33:16
Speaker 4: in that time. You know, she was losing friends left
33:20
Speaker 4: and right like everyone else, and we learned that she
33:25
Speaker 4: was a caretaker in that time, and so that's kind
33:29
Speaker 4: of this beautiful narrative that we get. And I also
33:32
Speaker 4: want to add that we get to have some really deep,
33:36
Speaker 4: robust interviews with Tourmaline, who is the official biographer of Marsha.
33:43
Speaker 4: Now she just released the first definitive biography on Marsha
33:48
Speaker 4: called The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P.
33:51
Speaker 3: Johnson, and so we got to kind of.
33:54
Speaker 4: Lean on her scholarship in a beautiful way and also
33:59
Speaker 4: in view her a few times. So I'm so excited
34:03
Speaker 4: for us to kind of hear from Tourmaline about what
34:07
Speaker 4: the experience was like, kind of uncovering a lot of this.
34:11
Speaker 1: Yes, that is so exciting, and that kind of relates
34:14
Speaker 1: to the next question. You've spoken about how learning about
34:19
Speaker 1: Marcia was so impactful for you when you were doing
34:26
Speaker 1: this podcast this season. What are some lessons that you
34:31
Speaker 1: learned personally through your research and learning more about Marsha's life.
34:39
Speaker 4: Well, it's interesting, you know, one thing I knew, but
34:43
Speaker 4: like this has been another lesson in is the importance
34:47
Speaker 4: of us preserving stories and if it's not our own,
34:56
Speaker 4: of people that we love and care about, and and
35:02
Speaker 4: a lot of the archival material we had access to
35:07
Speaker 4: was material captured on video by her roommate Randy Wicker,
35:14
Speaker 4: who was an activist in his own right and actually
35:16
Speaker 4: was the first openly gay person to appear on television essentially,
35:23
Speaker 4: and also I think on radio to like tell history
35:26
Speaker 4: on radio, and this was kind of like the era
35:29
Speaker 4: right before Marsha's era.
35:33
Speaker 3: But this whole process was just.
35:38
Speaker 4: Another lesson in the importance of safeguarding and protecting our stories,
35:44
Speaker 4: because we wouldn't have been able to tell as rich
35:48
Speaker 4: and as deep of a story without the work of
35:52
Speaker 4: people like Randy Wicker, Michael Casino, and even a lot
35:57
Speaker 4: of the archives we were able to lean on, like
35:59
Speaker 4: one archives at USC libraries in California and so many more.
36:06
Speaker 4: So we've got to do that work, especially in this time.
36:11
Speaker 4: I mean, one of the things that we know about
36:14
Speaker 4: fascism is that.
36:16
Speaker 3: They come after narratives.
36:18
Speaker 4: So that's why we've been seeing these curricula bands and
36:22
Speaker 4: these book bands over the last few years increase. We've
36:28
Speaker 4: been seeing a deep connection between what happened in Nazi Germany,
36:35
Speaker 4: right where they burned books that were all and materials
36:41
Speaker 4: and research that was all about queerness and transness produced
36:46
Speaker 4: by Magnus Hirschfeld and his Institute of Sexology.
36:50
Speaker 3: So that is an important lesson that I.
36:55
Speaker 4: Hope people can kind of take away, is that we've
36:57
Speaker 4: got to safeguard, defend, and protect our stories for posterity.
37:02
Speaker 5: I love that.
37:03
Speaker 2: I mean, that's definitely something we talk about on a
37:05
Speaker 2: constant basis when we talk about historical figures and calling
37:08
Speaker 2: them first or calling them, you know, giving the title
37:11
Speaker 2: the first woman to do this, for first Black women
37:13
Speaker 2: to do this, and understanding that this is.
37:15
Speaker 5: What we found.
37:16
Speaker 2: But because we do know how ugly white supremacy is
37:22
Speaker 2: and how they'd love to stamp out all of this
37:26
Speaker 2: history of marginalized people in general, and why it's so
37:30
Speaker 2: important that there are records and people are telling these stories.
37:33
Speaker 2: And it's such a beautiful thing when you do get
37:37
Speaker 2: to actually understand who who paved this movement. I think
37:42
Speaker 2: about the fact that when you were talking about Marcia
37:45
Speaker 2: and you were giving bits and pieces of her interviews
37:48
Speaker 2: or her conversations with her friends, and she talked about
37:51
Speaker 2: how powerful the black and brown trans gay community could
37:55
Speaker 2: be if they just came together, and how big of
37:58
Speaker 2: a movement they really could have thinking about that. I
38:00
Speaker 2: was like, man, she really is defining intersectionality before that
38:04
Speaker 2: word even came out in such a way that she's
38:08
Speaker 2: just simply saying, we have this power because we understand
38:12
Speaker 2: the needs for the most marginalized. And it's like boom
38:16
Speaker 2: in episode one, you already jump onto this conversation, and
38:21
Speaker 2: I just think about all of her work and advocacy
38:25
Speaker 2: with that kind of just general general conversation she's just
38:28
Speaker 2: having with one person or a few people. But of
38:31
Speaker 2: course looking back and like seeing all that progress she
38:35
Speaker 2: was saying all that amazing statement. Today we're back with
38:39
Speaker 2: an administration that we really are actually trying to put
38:42
Speaker 2: so much setback in this progress. So I want to
38:46
Speaker 2: I want to connect your studies and research and ask
38:50
Speaker 2: what do you think Martial's words would be or thoughts
38:53
Speaker 2: would be to her community as they continue with her activism,
38:57
Speaker 2: with this activism, with your activism to day.
39:01
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I want to add another dynamic because I
39:05
Speaker 4: actually think, you know, when we're talking about Marcia, when
39:10
Speaker 4: she's talking about us coming together and understanding how our
39:14
Speaker 4: struggles are bound together, she largely wasn't you know, just
39:20
Speaker 4: talking to black and brown trans people. I mean, in
39:22
Speaker 4: that time, it really was Marcia and Sylvia talking to
39:26
Speaker 4: a lot of white CIS gay people and saying, hey,
39:31
Speaker 4: trans people have been here since the beginning, and you know,
39:38
Speaker 4: I think the unspoken thing is like, actually, trans folks,
39:42
Speaker 4: gender non conforming folks, drag folks, or as they would say.
39:47
Speaker 4: At the time, there were all these different categories of
39:49
Speaker 4: people considered queens, right, so street queens, scare queens, all
39:54
Speaker 4: of that, but also the sex workers, the people who
39:57
Speaker 4: were most at risk of being arrested. We're the backbone
40:02
Speaker 4: of the movement, and we're the ones who were the
40:04
Speaker 4: most willing.
40:05
Speaker 3: To try and hold.
40:10
Speaker 4: Power as we know it accountable, you know, like they
40:14
Speaker 4: were the first ones to really push back against the
40:17
Speaker 4: New York Police Department during the Stonewall riots.
40:20
Speaker 3: And I think that that is still true today.
40:23
Speaker 4: You know, we still have this kind of eternal queer
40:26
Speaker 4: struggle around, and not just in the queer community, but
40:31
Speaker 4: I think it's very pronounced in our community between assimilation
40:36
Speaker 4: and kind of radical authenticity, because there's this idea, well,
40:43
Speaker 4: if we just soften our edges, if we just silence ourselves,
40:49
Speaker 4: if we just kind of push away the folks who
40:53
Speaker 4: are considered the most disrespectable.
40:59
Speaker 3: Then we'll get ahead. And that has.
41:02
Speaker 4: Never actually worked, you know, it actually just gives permission
41:07
Speaker 4: for more discrimination.
41:08
Speaker 3: Down the way.
41:12
Speaker 4: And I think about that quote, right, it's like if
41:15
Speaker 4: they didn't comfort it, it's like if they didn't come
41:17
Speaker 4: for you in the morning, they'll come for you at night,
41:19
Speaker 4: or something like that. I think that that's true and
41:22
Speaker 4: we have to remember that. And I think that that's
41:24
Speaker 4: at the heart of what Marcia was really trying to
41:27
Speaker 4: get people to understand.
41:29
Speaker 3: Was that we're all on the chopping block.
41:33
Speaker 4: If anybody's on the chopping block, right, that kind of
41:36
Speaker 4: in her own way kingism, you know, mlka, right, that
41:41
Speaker 4: kind of idea of injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere. I
41:45
Speaker 4: think she and Sylvia were sounding that alarm in their
41:51
Speaker 4: own ways. And then I think the other piece from
41:55
Speaker 4: Marcia's that despite the struggles, you still deserve joy and
42:06
Speaker 4: beauty and Tourmaline talks about this so so definitely. You
42:16
Speaker 4: know that there's such a through line of pleasure in
42:24
Speaker 4: Marsha's life, even without all of the things that we
42:30
Speaker 4: often kind of associate with pleasure, like she still lived
42:33
Speaker 4: in abundance.
42:34
Speaker 1: I love that A lot of times when we have
42:49
Speaker 1: activists on here, like you, we talk about you people. Yeah, yeah,
42:57
Speaker 1: we talk about things like burnout are things like, you know,
43:03
Speaker 1: not taking care of yourself or feeling like you can't
43:05
Speaker 1: have that joy or feeling like you can't take that
43:07
Speaker 1: space for yourself, and how that actually ultimately kind of
43:14
Speaker 1: takes you out of the whole thing because your body
43:17
Speaker 1: is just like, oh, you can't do this anymore.
43:20
Speaker 3: Yeah.
43:21
Speaker 1: So, as a leader in activism yourself, as someone who's
43:25
Speaker 1: been in activism for a while, what is some advice
43:30
Speaker 1: that you might have for up and coming activists who
43:34
Speaker 1: are fighting for liberation today.
43:38
Speaker 3: Yeah.
43:41
Speaker 4: It's funny because I don't think that I'm always good.
43:44
Speaker 4: I think that it's cyclical for me, Like I have
43:50
Speaker 4: periods where I'm better about my self care and periods
43:55
Speaker 4: where I'm just kind of in the thick of it
43:58
Speaker 4: and just like we got to just keep going.
44:00
Speaker 3: And that's kind of the mode that I'm in right now.
44:02
Speaker 4: So I honestly don't feel like I'm in any position
44:06
Speaker 4: to advise anyone, but I do think it's important for
44:09
Speaker 4: us to prioritize our health as much as possible, you know,
44:19
Speaker 4: when and if you can eat well and also understand that,
44:25
Speaker 4: like your relationships have their own kind of meters of healthiness, right, So.
44:33
Speaker 3: Making sure that like.
44:36
Speaker 4: You're able to show up for the people closest to
44:39
Speaker 4: you and also ask of them to show up for
44:44
Speaker 4: you and figure out what those ways look like. I
44:50
Speaker 4: think rest is important. I think we have a backlash
44:54
Speaker 4: right now against rest. People are like, don't say rest
44:57
Speaker 4: is a radical act and revolution andary.
45:01
Speaker 3: And actually there was this post.
45:03
Speaker 4: By Immani barbaran amazing disability rights activists, who was saying,
45:14
Speaker 4: you know.
45:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, actually self care and rest.
45:18
Speaker 4: Is radical and this is why, and really was talking
45:21
Speaker 4: about the history of it that it really kind of
45:23
Speaker 4: came from Audrey Lord and her cancer journals where she
45:28
Speaker 4: was kind of talking about the importance of rest as
45:35
Speaker 4: self preservation so that you can keep going, so that
45:38
Speaker 4: you can keep fighting, so that you can keep living
45:41
Speaker 4: the full life that you deserve. And so what I
45:45
Speaker 4: take away from that is that you know, if you
45:48
Speaker 4: don't sit yourself down, your body is going to do
45:51
Speaker 4: it for you. So what are the ways that we
45:54
Speaker 4: can intervene before we get to that critical point? And
46:01
Speaker 4: then also I think there's always a collective lesson as
46:05
Speaker 4: well is that, you know, if you want to have
46:09
Speaker 4: a commitment to your community and to others, you have
46:14
Speaker 4: to figure out how to preserve yourself so that you
46:20
Speaker 4: can continue to be in.
46:23
Speaker 3: Right relationship with everyone else.
46:26
Speaker 4: Right, So there is like a duty of self care
46:31
Speaker 4: to the collective, not just to you as an individual.
46:36
Speaker 1: Yes, that's a great answer, because Samantha and I are
46:39
Speaker 1: both struggling with our bodies. Basically told us to sit.
46:42
Speaker 2: Down, let us think it for a minute, because I
46:47
Speaker 2: want to push back a little bit finde.
46:51
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, it's so interesting. We have such an
46:55
Speaker 4: emphasis on how do we keep looking young?
47:02
Speaker 3: Right, and.
47:06
Speaker 4: You know what, what would it mean for us to
47:08
Speaker 4: actually focus more on how do we keep feeling young
47:14
Speaker 4: and able to do the things that bring us joy
47:17
Speaker 4: for as long.
47:18
Speaker 2: As possible, thinking our bodies for actually carrying us this
47:22
Speaker 2: far right. So obviously you just said you're in active mode,
47:30
Speaker 2: So we know you're a multitasker with lots of things,
47:32
Speaker 2: things that you're juggling. What are some things we can
47:35
Speaker 2: look forward to from you in the future outside of
47:37
Speaker 2: just this, not just obviously including this podcast the shade.
47:44
Speaker 5: You know, I'm just saying you.
47:47
Speaker 2: Should self care, but you've got stuff giving it.
47:52
Speaker 4: Well, I am a co founder of an organization, gender
47:56
Speaker 4: liberation movement, So we are doing a lot of work
47:59
Speaker 4: right now around narrative power and direct action in this time.
48:04
Speaker 4: And funny enough, you know we're talking about healthcare and
48:08
Speaker 4: self care and bodies. You know, one of our biggest
48:12
Speaker 4: values is bodily autonomy, and so we've been doing a
48:14
Speaker 4: lot of work within that realm to get folks to
48:18
Speaker 4: understand the connection between the fight for.
48:21
Speaker 3: Reproductive justice and access to.
48:23
Speaker 4: Abortion and the fight for gender firming care, because we
48:28
Speaker 4: need a mass movement that understands that we all deserve
48:33
Speaker 4: bodily autonomy and for it to be protected and defended.
48:40
Speaker 4: So that's a lot of our work right now. We've
48:44
Speaker 4: also just working with affirming families trying to shore up
48:50
Speaker 4: those safeguards as we await a ruling in the US
48:54
Speaker 4: Vskurmti case, which is at its heart a case about
48:59
Speaker 4: access to gender firm and care for youth. So there
49:01
Speaker 4: are a lot of parents and a lot of guardians
49:05
Speaker 4: and other adults who really want to make sure that
49:11
Speaker 4: our youth continue to have access to the care that
49:14
Speaker 4: they deserve. And there are a lot of youth who
49:18
Speaker 4: want to keep fighting. Honey, Trump does not scare them,
49:22
Speaker 4: you know, They're like, we know.
49:24
Speaker 3: It's risky, but it is what it is.
49:26
Speaker 4: We want to be out here on the front lines.
49:28
Speaker 4: So we've been doing a lot of that work this year.
49:31
Speaker 3: So you can.
49:32
Speaker 4: Continue to learn more about Genderlib at genderlib dot org
49:37
Speaker 4: and also follow us on the socials. We're always updating
49:40
Speaker 4: folks and still writing. You know, I have a few
49:44
Speaker 4: book ideas in the oven, so stay tuned about that.
49:49
Speaker 5: See, I knew you had much more.
49:50
Speaker 2: Don't act like you're You're not. You weren't ready for that,
49:54
Speaker 2: because we know you constantly go But with that, so
49:57
Speaker 2: the last time we kind of already mentioned this, you
50:00
Speaker 2: already touched on quite a bit. And I'm really glad
50:02
Speaker 2: you said the word joy because last time we asked
50:04
Speaker 2: you how you take care of yourself and doing all
50:07
Speaker 2: this chaos and especially with your book tours. But I
50:11
Speaker 2: want to ask how have you been able to protect
50:12
Speaker 2: your piece and what is giving you joy right now?
50:16
Speaker 4: Oh, protecting my piece has looked like not being at
50:22
Speaker 4: the whim of this whiplash inducing news cycle. You know,
50:29
Speaker 4: I'm paying attention to the top line items and keeping
50:34
Speaker 4: it moving.
50:35
Speaker 3: I am not.
50:37
Speaker 4: Delving so deeply in it or letting it consume every
50:42
Speaker 4: waking moment. I think that's just important for all of
50:47
Speaker 4: us to remember as we continue to endure this era
50:51
Speaker 4: of Trump again. So that's a way I'm maintaining my piece.
50:57
Speaker 3: Hmmm.
50:58
Speaker 4: And then Joy, I mean, I just had a birthday recently,
51:01
Speaker 4: so Gemini and I got to see Beyonce on my birthday.
51:09
Speaker 4: So I went to Cowboy Carter had my little cowboy,
51:12
Speaker 4: my sequin cowboy hat on and a nice little like
51:16
Speaker 4: red fringe body suit.
51:21
Speaker 3: So I really had the best time. It was just
51:26
Speaker 3: really beautiful.
51:27
Speaker 4: And it's also probably month right, So in between the
51:30
Speaker 4: protesting and the speaking and everything, I'm getting some party.
51:36
Speaker 2: In Okay, Okay, okay, you doing some line dancing.
51:43
Speaker 3: That's not my ministry, but I support.
51:48
Speaker 1: You know.
51:49
Speaker 4: The only line dancing I'm doing is maybe at like
51:52
Speaker 4: my family re union.
51:53
Speaker 3: You know, we do our electric slide, We'll do the wobble.
51:57
Speaker 5: Okay, you haven't done the fan.
52:00
Speaker 3: What's on the phone?
52:01
Speaker 4: No, I no, it's not for me.
52:07
Speaker 3: It's not another thing. I would not look cute doing it,
52:11
Speaker 3: but I support.
52:14
Speaker 4: You gotta know your limits. That's another way I'm protecting
52:16
Speaker 4: my piece.
52:17
Speaker 3: Okay, not I want to see that.
52:22
Speaker 5: Oh no, I kind of do what all.
52:24
Speaker 1: This kind of feels like if one day somebody is
52:27
Speaker 1: doing a podcast about you, Raquel, they'll be like, you
52:31
Speaker 1: wouldn't do the fan blind dancing, the line dancing, no way.
52:37
Speaker 4: But I love a fan though, so you know I'll
52:44
Speaker 4: do a fan but not the fan.
52:46
Speaker 5: Not the boots on the ground fan dance. All right,
52:48
Speaker 5: fair enough.
52:51
Speaker 1: Oh, it's always such delight having you here. Thank you
52:55
Speaker 1: so much for taking the time. We hope to keep
52:58
Speaker 1: the street going and have you back again.
53:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I feel it's gonna happen.
53:05
Speaker 1: Okay, I can't wait to hear about this new book
53:09
Speaker 1: whatever it may be.
53:10
Speaker 3: Pressure. Thanks.
53:13
Speaker 4: I mean, I've been doing a lot of freelance writing,
53:15
Speaker 4: so it's funny the nuggets are out there, so you know,
53:22
Speaker 4: I guess I'm doing like a Taylor Swift Easter egg
53:25
Speaker 4: kind of moment.
53:27
Speaker 1: Let me go. Yeah, I love these kinds of things. Well,
53:33
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you, thank you so much. Where can
53:35
Speaker 1: the good listeners find you?
53:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you can learn about my work.
53:41
Speaker 4: Rockelwillis dot com our organization Gender Liberation Movement at genderlib
53:46
Speaker 4: dot org. Afterlives has a website afterlivespot dot com or
53:52
Speaker 4: you can just find it wherever you get your amazing podcasts.
53:56
Speaker 4: As a as a fellow label mate with iHeart Media,
54:01
Speaker 4: I have to you know, urge you to, you know,
54:05
Speaker 4: use the iHeart Podcast app.
54:06
Speaker 1: But you know wherever you get a podcasts, yes and
54:11
Speaker 1: the listeners, please go do that. Raquel, You're doing such
54:15
Speaker 1: amazing work and we always love talking to you. Thank
54:18
Speaker 1: you for coming on.
54:19
Speaker 3: Thank you.
54:21
Speaker 1: If you would like to contact us, you can. Our
54:23
Speaker 1: email is hello at stuff Iever Told You dot com.
54:25
Speaker 1: You can find us on Blue Sky. I'm also a
54:26
Speaker 1: podcast or on Instagram and TikTok at Stuff I've Never
54:29
Speaker 1: Told You, prost on YouTube, give a te pap with story,
54:31
Speaker 1: and we have a book you can get wherever you
54:32
Speaker 1: get your books. Thanks as always to you our superdu
54:35
Speaker 1: just Christina or executive producer My and er contributor Joey.
54:37
Speaker 1: Thank you and thanks to you for listening Stuff I
54:39
Speaker 1: Never Told You boection my Heart Radio. For more podcast
54:41
Speaker 1: from my Heart Radio, you can check out the Heart
54:43
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast wherever we listen to your favorite shows,