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Book Club: I Hope We Choose Love · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Sanny and Samantha and welcome to Step one.
0:07
Speaker 1: Never told you a protection of iHeartRadio, and we are
0:19
Speaker 1: taking a brief sojourn, a brief break from our religious
0:25
Speaker 1: Trauma episodes. Although we are going to be talking about
0:28
Speaker 1: religious trauma and here, yes we are. I think it's
0:32
Speaker 1: shaped a lot of the counterculture of where we are today. Essentially, Yeah,
0:38
Speaker 1: I think so. I mean a lot of us have
0:42
Speaker 1: those stories, and I know we're going to talk about
0:45
Speaker 1: it more in our Religious Trauma series, but I specifically
0:49
Speaker 1: have a moment of like sitting in a friend group
0:51
Speaker 1: where everyone was recounting being afraid of going to Hell
0:55
Speaker 1: as a child, which is quite a thing. So I
1:00
Speaker 1: do think it has shaped a lot of discourse. So
1:02
Speaker 1: we are doing our book club a little bit early
1:06
Speaker 1: content warning for suicidality, abuse, sexual assault, trauma, and I
1:11
Speaker 1: would say, I would say specifically trauma, but also queer
1:17
Speaker 1: trauma specifically and trans trauma specifically, So keep that in mind. Again,
1:22
Speaker 1: we're not going to go too deep in any of that,
1:25
Speaker 1: but they are themes throughout that we are going to
1:28
Speaker 1: be discussing. So take care of yourself. If today's not
1:33
Speaker 1: the day, come back another day. If this never the day,
1:36
Speaker 1: then that's what we can do. But we are talking
1:39
Speaker 1: about a really something I think was really important work,
1:42
Speaker 1: and that is I Hope we Choose Love, which was
1:45
Speaker 1: a twenty nineteen collection of essays and poetry that was
1:49
Speaker 1: written by Chinese Canadian Kai Cheng Tom, and it's largely
1:54
Speaker 1: about their experience being a queer person of color. Also
1:57
Speaker 1: a quick note, we saw Tom's pronouns as she, her
2:01
Speaker 1: and she they they them, So if we got that wrong,
2:08
Speaker 1: please write in and let us know. We decided to
2:11
Speaker 1: go with day for this, but yeah, just let us know.
2:15
Speaker 1: It's very it's it was a quick read, it's very honest,
2:19
Speaker 1: it's difficult, it's moving, but it's hopeful. It's really hopeful,
2:23
Speaker 1: and it tackles difficult topics with a level of nuance
2:26
Speaker 1: that is often missing. It is a thoughtful critique about community,
2:32
Speaker 1: especially the queer community, and the importance of voicing these
2:35
Speaker 1: critiques in a meaningful way and having these honest conversations.
2:40
Speaker 1: So I really enjoyed it and it made me think,
2:44
Speaker 1: It made me think about a lot of stuff, and
2:47
Speaker 1: so highly recommend. It's already very quick, but it stayed
2:52
Speaker 1: with me because I was thinking about all that stuff.
2:55
Speaker 1: Tom also wrote a children's book called From the Stars
2:59
Speaker 1: in the Sky to the Fish in the Sea, and
3:01
Speaker 1: they also wrote Fierce Films and Notorious Liars, a Dangerous
3:04
Speaker 1: trans Girls comfabulous memoir, and other things as well. But
3:09
Speaker 1: their work is highly acclaimed and awarded. It's got some
3:11
Speaker 1: really cool, really cool awards attached to it. Also, they
3:17
Speaker 1: are a social worker, so you know we called out
3:19
Speaker 1: in Counselor, and of course I also have to call
3:21
Speaker 1: that out. So they do a lot of work that
3:23
Speaker 1: does some introspective level of filling themselves and their trauma
3:27
Speaker 1: and how they worked with it as a social worker.
3:29
Speaker 1: There was a lot of depth that I think was there,
3:32
Speaker 1: so personal but very clinical. Love it. Yes, yes, I
3:36
Speaker 1: did think about you throughout a bunch of this. And
3:40
Speaker 1: also this one is a quote heavy one because we
3:43
Speaker 1: don't have the experience, the lived experience that Tom does
3:49
Speaker 1: to talk about a lot of this, But I will
3:52
Speaker 1: say a lot of it resonated with me, not just
3:54
Speaker 1: as a queer person, but also because Tom talks a
3:57
Speaker 1: lot about like being a public being, someone in public
4:00
Speaker 1: talking about these things, talking about social justice and what
4:04
Speaker 1: that looks like. So there was a bunch of it.
4:06
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, I've been thinking about this. They
4:10
Speaker 1: do a great job in bringing in a different perspective
4:14
Speaker 1: for specific things that I thought I had a handle
4:17
Speaker 1: on that. I was like, oh, yeah, that's that could
4:21
Speaker 1: be damaging. Even though the intention is good, it's not
4:24
Speaker 1: great for different communities. I was like, wow, yeah, yeah,
4:28
Speaker 1: it's really good. It's really good. So let's jump in.
4:34
Speaker 1: Here's how the book opens. As I write this book
4:36
Speaker 1: in the spring of twenty nineteen, it has become something
4:39
Speaker 1: of a truism among my community of queer people of color.
4:41
Speaker 1: At the end of the world is nigh. A wave
4:44
Speaker 1: of right wing and openly fascist governments that have been
4:46
Speaker 1: elected to power across the world. Wealth and power are
4:49
Speaker 1: increasingly concentrated in the hands the brazenly corrupt few. Climate
4:55
Speaker 1: change and mass extinction are ravaging the earth, largely unacknowledged
4:59
Speaker 1: by those with the power to do anything about it.
5:01
Speaker 1: As for those communities of queer people, racialized people, disabled people,
5:06
Speaker 1: marginalized people that have been taking back their power, the
5:09
Speaker 1: social justice activists that raised me to believe in the
5:12
Speaker 1: possibility of a revolution that would change and save the world,
5:16
Speaker 1: sometimes it seems like the most painful cuts of all
5:19
Speaker 1: time come from within my own community. Call out culture,
5:23
Speaker 1: lateral violence, puritanical politics, intimate partner abuse, public shaming. We
5:28
Speaker 1: know so much about trauma, but so little about how
5:31
Speaker 1: to heal it. What would community know about saving us
5:34
Speaker 1: from the apocalypse? Yeah? I feel like they really ask
5:39
Speaker 1: some deep, hard questions and pointing fingers inwardly, so not
5:44
Speaker 1: only to themselves, but to those they would consider friends
5:47
Speaker 1: and their family. And I think that's such a great,
5:51
Speaker 1: dangerous but a great perspective, because you do have to
5:54
Speaker 1: start really looking at your own social group and it
5:57
Speaker 1: has become toxic. Are you willing to confronted? And they
6:02
Speaker 1: seem to. I think they do a great job with that.
6:04
Speaker 1: But yeah, okay, so let's jump into another one. They
6:08
Speaker 1: said not only was I in pain, but my pain
6:11
Speaker 1: was publicly known, scrutinized, gossiped over. People, mostly queer and racialized,
6:16
Speaker 1: people whom I didn't know, sent me emails and Facebook
6:19
Speaker 1: messages that were thousands of words long, asking for intimacy
6:23
Speaker 1: and attention, and occasionally threatening me when I didn't acquiesce.
6:26
Speaker 1: Journalists asked me for interviews about my private life, my sex, life,
6:30
Speaker 1: my family, my mental health. No topics seemed to be
6:33
Speaker 1: off limits. I was stalked in real life and online.
6:37
Speaker 1: I became terrified and paranoid. I stopped trusting people and
6:41
Speaker 1: this thing we called community. I stopped trusting myself. All
6:45
Speaker 1: around me, the people I loved were also in crisis, psychological, financial, medical, interpersonal.
6:51
Speaker 1: When you live in a community of queers, anarchists, and activists,
6:55
Speaker 1: crisis is the baseline and stability and outlier. Among trans women,
7:00
Speaker 1: life expectancy of thirty five is the norm. Yeah, and
7:04
Speaker 1: that's like going to what Tom does talk about about
7:07
Speaker 1: being kind of in this public space and having to
7:11
Speaker 1: to deal the mental toll of being open and dealing
7:16
Speaker 1: with these topics. When trans women have a life expectancy
7:21
Speaker 1: of thirty five, like you know, when you're dealing with
7:23
Speaker 1: it personally, it is important to talk about. And I
7:26
Speaker 1: was kind of talking about this. Obviously my experience it's
7:29
Speaker 1: not the same, but I was talking about this with
7:30
Speaker 1: our book recently where I was like, you know, people
7:34
Speaker 1: and I really appreciate it, but people keep kind of,
7:37
Speaker 1: you know, congratulating as I'm writing the book, and I'm like,
7:42
Speaker 1: when they asked me about the experience was like I
7:44
Speaker 1: was like, well, I was crying like every weekend because
7:50
Speaker 1: it was the topics we had to talk about, like right,
7:53
Speaker 1: and again, those are important topics to talk about, They're necessary,
7:56
Speaker 1: they are critical, but it's we can't pretend there is
8:00
Speaker 1: not a mental toll of rights. I mean, that's definitely
8:04
Speaker 1: when we were doing books. When we're doing a difficult subject,
8:09
Speaker 1: you and I check in with each other often when
8:11
Speaker 1: it's something we know it's personal, because it does it
8:14
Speaker 1: takes a level of intimacy and vulnerability to lay this
8:18
Speaker 1: out and trying to sound like an expert at the
8:22
Speaker 1: same time. And I think it's interesting because they do
8:24
Speaker 1: talk about being a pseudo celebrity, like a celebrity within
8:27
Speaker 1: their own community, and then what kind of ownership do
8:31
Speaker 1: they do they have versus what their audience has when
8:34
Speaker 1: they are the ones that are on the front lines
8:38
Speaker 1: or when they are are the ones that people see
8:41
Speaker 1: as a representation, like what is owed and what is
8:44
Speaker 1: an ode? And also yeah, being in activist mode, being
8:48
Speaker 1: in crisis mode. I've talked about it with social work
8:51
Speaker 1: all the time, when I said I went to therapy,
8:53
Speaker 1: but I could never get to the root of what
8:55
Speaker 1: was happening of my trauma of anything because I was
8:58
Speaker 1: putting out fires of the crisis that I was constantly
9:01
Speaker 1: in because of my job. And even with this there's less,
9:06
Speaker 1: but there's also different types of crisis that I fill.
9:09
Speaker 1: I'm in with this. You and I talk about this
9:11
Speaker 1: often when we talk about the fact that we're overwhelmed
9:15
Speaker 1: or we're overwhelmed that we're not meeting expectation, or that
9:18
Speaker 1: there's a level of yes, there's a level of ownership
9:22
Speaker 1: of by the audience, by the listeners, and that we
9:25
Speaker 1: owe that owe you the listeners something and it's not
9:29
Speaker 1: the listener's fault at all, But there is that whole
9:32
Speaker 1: level about okay, accountability versus ownership, about being told we
9:36
Speaker 1: have to do these things, and because we are in
9:38
Speaker 1: the public eye, we have to do more to be cautious.
9:42
Speaker 1: That puts us unto the point of being so anxious
9:44
Speaker 1: that we can't move, that we freeze instead of actually
9:48
Speaker 1: doing anything because we're so scared of making the next
9:50
Speaker 1: bad move or being called out. As they say, and
9:54
Speaker 1: they talk about this a lot. I'm sure we're gonna
9:56
Speaker 1: get into it, but about people falling off a pedestals
9:58
Speaker 1: and then being harassed to push to the extreme that
10:02
Speaker 1: they feel like they have to give up or change over.
10:04
Speaker 1: And of course, again it's not to say it's someone
10:07
Speaker 1: else's fault, because if they decide all of a sudden
10:09
Speaker 1: they are turf from being, you know, an activist in
10:13
Speaker 1: the trans world. That's a whole different conversation that they
10:15
Speaker 1: probably always was there. But that level of being harassed
10:19
Speaker 1: and bullied instead of being given a chance to grow
10:22
Speaker 1: and learn, Right, Yeah, we are going to talk about
10:25
Speaker 1: that more. And I would also say Tom talks about
10:28
Speaker 1: that too, of when you are in any way marginalized
10:34
Speaker 1: and any intersection within that in our media escape landscape
10:39
Speaker 1: that is still largely you know, white men, white people.
10:43
Speaker 1: Then journalists come to you right for this, and so
10:47
Speaker 1: then that's like a whole extra level of pressure because
10:51
Speaker 1: you're getting more asked for these kind of these very
10:55
Speaker 1: painful stories or questions, and that that is an issue
11:01
Speaker 1: here too. All right, here's another quote. So, in the
11:18
Speaker 1: midst of despair, I have come to believe that love,
11:20
Speaker 1: the feeling of love, the politics of love, the ethics
11:23
Speaker 1: and ideology and embodiment of love is the only good
11:26
Speaker 1: option in this time of the apocalypse. What else do
11:29
Speaker 1: we have. I mean love that is kind but also honest.
11:33
Speaker 1: Love that is courageous and relentless and willing to break
11:35
Speaker 1: the rules and smash the system. Love that cares about
11:39
Speaker 1: people more than ideas, that prizes each and every one
11:42
Speaker 1: of us as essential and indispensable. I mean love that
11:45
Speaker 1: is compassionate and accountable. I mean love that confirms and
11:49
Speaker 1: reaffirms us as complex and fallible, yet lovable anyway, love
11:53
Speaker 1: that affirms us as human. I want to live in
11:57
Speaker 1: love and believe in love. If I have to die,
11:59
Speaker 1: I want to die and love. This whole world might
12:02
Speaker 1: be coming to its end, or it might be in
12:04
Speaker 1: the midst of an enormous and terrifying change that leads
12:07
Speaker 1: us to something better. Either way, I want to go
12:10
Speaker 1: through it in love with the people I love. And
12:15
Speaker 1: this is how it opens again, Like it really comes
12:19
Speaker 1: out swinging. But I wanted to include it. And there's
12:22
Speaker 1: another quote. We're all talk about this a bit more.
12:25
Speaker 1: But I love this idea of like love as honest
12:29
Speaker 1: and kind, Like it's not just love without questions, it's
12:34
Speaker 1: love with like how can we all be better? Here's
12:38
Speaker 1: something I see with you. But there's also a really
12:40
Speaker 1: great quote later where Tom writes something about like where
12:46
Speaker 1: you can have the feeling you can confront somebody and
12:49
Speaker 1: they won't leave like that because we're so afraid of confrontation,
12:53
Speaker 1: we don't have it. But if we could like trust
12:56
Speaker 1: in this love of like we need to talk about this,
13:00
Speaker 1: we need to have this confrontation in a healthy, healthy way,
13:04
Speaker 1: but you won't leave because of it. And why the
13:06
Speaker 1: trauma of being in a marginalized community makes that so
13:10
Speaker 1: much harder, right right, absolutely, and that to get into
13:16
Speaker 1: that marginalized community you feel like you have to work,
13:19
Speaker 1: and if they talk about that that you're not just welcomed,
13:22
Speaker 1: you have to work to be in there even though,
13:25
Speaker 1: and to prove it. But at the same time they
13:29
Speaker 1: talk about the fact that also sometimes we don't ask
13:32
Speaker 1: for people to work just because they identify something, so
13:35
Speaker 1: that's just as wrong. So there's so many layers. And yeah,
13:41
Speaker 1: speaking of layers, we're going to get into the themes again.
13:44
Speaker 1: This is all quotes, probably because they do a great
13:48
Speaker 1: job in talking about it as a as a memoir.
13:50
Speaker 1: They've already thought about what they're trying to say, so
13:53
Speaker 1: to try to rephrase it is silly. So We're gonna
13:57
Speaker 1: do a lot of quotes with our own experiences or
13:59
Speaker 1: thoughts with so here's one about religion. Deep down, I
14:04
Speaker 1: have always believed that I'm a bad person and that
14:07
Speaker 1: the world we live in is an awful place. Maybe
14:10
Speaker 1: that's just what happens when you grow up and a
14:12
Speaker 1: feminate boy secretly a trans girl in a Chinese Canadian
14:16
Speaker 1: Christian Ish, not religious enough to go to charge, but
14:19
Speaker 1: enough to use the threat of eternal damnation as a
14:22
Speaker 1: motivator for a household, chores, family with class trauma and
14:26
Speaker 1: inherited mental health issues. You know. Yeah, And this is
14:32
Speaker 1: a right along the lines when we talk about trauma
14:35
Speaker 1: and where we haven't talked about it yet. This is
14:37
Speaker 1: an upcoming episode we talk about the hell Fire and
14:40
Speaker 1: Brimstone era of the circuit pastors that brought that in.
14:45
Speaker 1: Of course, Paul also did that. I don't know how
14:48
Speaker 1: I feel about Paul. Yeah, it's gonna be a theme, um,
14:52
Speaker 1: but yeah, it is, and I think it's again for
14:55
Speaker 1: an Asian woman myself adopted, it wasn't the fear of hell.
15:00
Speaker 1: It was the fear of disappointment at not being grateful mum.
15:05
Speaker 1: And then also but that fears. What this is why
15:08
Speaker 1: I can't hate on Christians that witness and that by
15:13
Speaker 1: witness I mean trying to get you to convert to Christianity.
15:17
Speaker 1: Is because they truly believe if they don't convert you,
15:21
Speaker 1: you're going to suffer in the afterlife and who and
15:24
Speaker 1: they want to save you. Yeah. I had a teacher
15:29
Speaker 1: tell me in eighth grade it's like, I'm watching you
15:32
Speaker 1: run off a cliff and I just want to save you.
15:38
Speaker 1: I had a similar that thing happened with my boss
15:41
Speaker 1: when I was like thirty two. But yeah, I think
15:48
Speaker 1: that's obviously the very beginning of them trying to figure
15:52
Speaker 1: out who they are um and knowing that they weren't
15:56
Speaker 1: meeting they were never going to meet the expectations of
15:58
Speaker 1: their family. Yeah. So going on is they say, fast
16:04
Speaker 1: forward to me in a hospital bed, in a psych
16:06
Speaker 1: ward after my suicide attempt at sixteen years old, still
16:10
Speaker 1: thinking the same thing. Double fast forward to me at
16:13
Speaker 1: twenty six in twenty seventeen, first typing this essay through
16:17
Speaker 1: chronic pain and brain fog in bed on a Saturday morning,
16:20
Speaker 1: still thinking about the same thing. So in retrospect, it's
16:24
Speaker 1: easy to see how I got into the whole social
16:26
Speaker 1: justice radical queer activism thing. Like most of my peers,
16:30
Speaker 1: all I wanted was to be good or, in the
16:33
Speaker 1: fashionable parlance of various political movements in the past ten years,
16:37
Speaker 1: quote red down or woke, like my mental ill transsexual
16:42
Speaker 1: never gonna hack my parents ideas of good unlike my
16:46
Speaker 1: Harvard educated biodegradable plasticizer inventing engage to a Hedge fund manager,
16:52
Speaker 1: psychiatry resident older sister. But the red queer community offered
16:57
Speaker 1: me a whole new set of norms for performance and
17:00
Speaker 1: ability that, at least on the surface, gave a value
17:02
Speaker 1: to the identity factors you know, transsexual effeminacy, mental illness,
17:06
Speaker 1: general bad attitude that had caused me so much childhood shame.
17:11
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and I was a crazy transgirl of color
17:14
Speaker 1: living in a white systeminant society. Where else could I go?
17:19
Speaker 1: What else could I do? It was a whole new
17:21
Speaker 1: chance to be good, to be righteous, to do good works,
17:25
Speaker 1: and become lovable at last. Yeah again, this is like
17:31
Speaker 1: paralleling our talk about trauma religious trauma, because exactly what
17:37
Speaker 1: it is that you cannot meet the standard in one place,
17:40
Speaker 1: so you try to meet that standard in another. Yeah, Yeah,
17:44
Speaker 1: and I think that this book really hammers home, which
17:49
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about some more in a second,
17:51
Speaker 1: but like that guilt and that shame and religion is
17:54
Speaker 1: so much about, well my experience with religion, and I
17:57
Speaker 1: think a lot of our series of religion is about that.
18:00
Speaker 1: It is about like you are never good enough. You
18:03
Speaker 1: are constantly having to ask for forgiveness, Like I'm not
18:07
Speaker 1: even Catholic, and I remember asking for forgiveness for like
18:12
Speaker 1: things you did wrong. I'm saying I'm putting quotes around
18:15
Speaker 1: that because I remember doing it once where it was
18:17
Speaker 1: like I accidentally took this pencil, a pencil from school,
18:24
Speaker 1: and I was like cry. I thought I was going
18:26
Speaker 1: to hill, Like it's it sounds funny, but when you're
18:30
Speaker 1: a kid, you believe this stuff and it sticks with you.
18:32
Speaker 1: It's not easy to get rid of. And so I'm
18:36
Speaker 1: pivoting from that to you still have that feeling like
18:42
Speaker 1: you want to do good, you want to get rid
18:45
Speaker 1: of that shame that you feel. That quote lead to
18:49
Speaker 1: this suicidal ideation, and so where do you go if
18:53
Speaker 1: you've lost this community, if you've left this Christian community,
18:58
Speaker 1: where do you go? And that, yeah, so much of
19:04
Speaker 1: it so much of this made a lot of sense
19:07
Speaker 1: to me, Like, of course, like if you it makes
19:10
Speaker 1: sense they would go into this queer group, into this
19:13
Speaker 1: trans group because there wasn't what else was there? As
19:16
Speaker 1: they say, Yeah, and as we talked about already, this
19:21
Speaker 1: kind of this part of the book kind of pivots
19:24
Speaker 1: into the being online, being that pseudo celebrity, as you said,
19:30
Speaker 1: the mental cost of making it, as we discussed already,
19:34
Speaker 1: of like really having to put yourself out there, these
19:38
Speaker 1: really painful things out there, maybe things you're just not
19:43
Speaker 1: don't want to share. But also talks about the infighting
19:48
Speaker 1: within the quote social justice war your community. So I
19:54
Speaker 1: have a bunch of quotes about this because I thought
19:57
Speaker 1: it was really interesting. Here's one, simply put in social
20:01
Speaker 1: justice land, we emphasize our marginalized identities and downplay our
20:05
Speaker 1: privileged ones to seem cooler and more important and to
20:08
Speaker 1: shield ourselves from critique online. I'm sometimes see arguments in
20:12
Speaker 1: which people try to shut each other down using identities
20:15
Speaker 1: as weapons. Eg. You can't talk to me that way.
20:18
Speaker 1: I'm trans and you're being transphobic. Oh yeah, well I'm
20:21
Speaker 1: a fem and you're a mask. Shut your misogynist, femphobic mouth.
20:25
Speaker 1: This type of identity politics is based on a level
20:27
Speaker 1: of essentialism that I am uncomfortable with. It assumes that
20:31
Speaker 1: all people of color, transfolks, etc. Have the same experience,
20:35
Speaker 1: and that identity categories apply uniformly across the board. It
20:39
Speaker 1: also reduces people to a very restricted set of relevant
20:43
Speaker 1: identities and erases the rest of their life experiences while
20:47
Speaker 1: fetishizing the pain of the oppressed. Strategic essentialism, the ability
20:52
Speaker 1: to talk and foreign groups based on generalities, is an
20:55
Speaker 1: important tool for activism, but a kind of identity politics
20:59
Speaker 1: that discomforts me is not strategic so much as disingenuous
21:03
Speaker 1: and self serving. It often feels like we are far
21:06
Speaker 1: more interested in diversity or identity rather than diversity of thought.
21:11
Speaker 1: So I want to include some of this stuff because
21:14
Speaker 1: I do think, like we said at the top, there's
21:16
Speaker 1: a lot of nuance in Tom's arguments around this, and
21:21
Speaker 1: I think this is one Tom tackles a bunch of
21:23
Speaker 1: stuff we're just not comfortable talking about. Like there are
21:26
Speaker 1: certain things, of course, like that have context and that
21:30
Speaker 1: certain people should just never weigh in on. Or either
21:33
Speaker 1: you're the support but you're never the leader. But there
21:39
Speaker 1: is We've talked about this too, like the kind of
21:40
Speaker 1: performative activism or not really looking into what someone is saying,
21:48
Speaker 1: just reacting knee jerk, like those kind of instances of
21:52
Speaker 1: people going after the wrong personal social media because they
21:56
Speaker 1: didn't research anything about what they were so angry about.
22:02
Speaker 1: So it's it is nuanced. It is not a simple conversation,
22:08
Speaker 1: but it is one we should have because if we're
22:09
Speaker 1: not having the conversations we should be having sometimes because
22:14
Speaker 1: of this. Yes, here's another quote. I am a trauma
22:20
Speaker 1: survivor kill subtries, and the thought of safety consumes me
22:24
Speaker 1: on a day to day basis. I am sympathetic to
22:27
Speaker 1: the need for safety because most of the time I
22:29
Speaker 1: don't feel safe, But I struggle with safety politics when
22:32
Speaker 1: the safety of an individual or group comes at the
22:34
Speaker 1: expense of another individual or group's freedom. All writers like
22:38
Speaker 1: to whine about the loss of freedom of speech to
22:40
Speaker 1: the politics of safety, by which they mean white dude's
22:42
Speaker 1: freedom to be virulently misogynist, racist, transobic, ableist. I am
22:48
Speaker 1: more concerned about vulnerable individuals who stand to actually lose
22:52
Speaker 1: social access and bodily autonomy. I am thinking, for example,
22:55
Speaker 1: about queer community centers where I have worked that restrict
22:59
Speaker 1: the access of mentally ill, trans women, and homeless people
23:02
Speaker 1: because their very presence makes middle class queers feel quote unsafe.
23:06
Speaker 1: Safety is I believe, an inherently classed, raced, engendered experience
23:10
Speaker 1: that frequently runs the risk of being used for regressive ends,
23:14
Speaker 1: ironically for restricting the freedom of the vulnerable, those who
23:18
Speaker 1: are never really safe. Often we see the call for
23:21
Speaker 1: safety actually reinforce the power of oppressive institutions like the
23:25
Speaker 1: police and the prison system in our lives. When we
23:28
Speaker 1: choose safety over liberation, our movements fail. Yeah, that was
23:35
Speaker 1: a good Again, Like it's such nuance in that of
23:39
Speaker 1: the class involves and like safety and in these communities
23:44
Speaker 1: that we just don't talk about as much right of
23:47
Speaker 1: the courts again, Yeah, who is what protections are being
23:51
Speaker 1: provided to? Which groups? Yeah? And it's never for the
23:55
Speaker 1: marginalized or those who are in need are being threatened
23:58
Speaker 1: the most. I think they talk about that a lot
24:01
Speaker 1: and has a lot of dangerous side effects. I guess
24:10
Speaker 1: I don't know results to it when it comes down
24:12
Speaker 1: to the lack of safety, but the term of safety
24:19
Speaker 1: and the same thing as that police were there to protect,
24:22
Speaker 1: but oftentimes they are the aggressors, especially when it comes
24:24
Speaker 1: to the marginalized communities, and there's no safety under a
24:28
Speaker 1: police state. We know this, right. Something else that Tom
24:45
Speaker 1: talks a lot about in this book is related to
24:51
Speaker 1: that kind of performative activism, this sort of performance of
24:58
Speaker 1: virtue and what we talk about a little bit earlier
25:01
Speaker 1: of like you have to prove yourself to be in
25:04
Speaker 1: in certain communities, that feeling that you have to prove
25:07
Speaker 1: yourself anyway. M Yeah, you did it better, all right.
25:11
Speaker 1: So let's get into the quotes. The social justice Internet
25:14
Speaker 1: is rifle with peer pressure to repeatedly and constantly demonstrate
25:18
Speaker 1: one's adherence to the norms of thought and belief that
25:21
Speaker 1: are currently in fashion. We strive, We strive to outdo
25:25
Speaker 1: each other's comments, tweets, and status updates with political critiques
25:29
Speaker 1: and takedowns while using the latest, most perfect, unoppressive terminology.
25:34
Speaker 1: I've heard friends described this as quote activist theater where
25:38
Speaker 1: goodness is performed and absolution for the original sins of
25:41
Speaker 1: privilege and ignorance is temporarily granted. Yeah, y'all, I feel
25:47
Speaker 1: this is the core which agains why we don't go
25:49
Speaker 1: on social media, and that's part of the problem, right,
25:52
Speaker 1: that's part of the problem. But also I will say too,
25:55
Speaker 1: like this describes. We've talked a lot about burnout within
26:02
Speaker 1: activism and within feminism, and and a part of that
26:06
Speaker 1: had to do with what we were discussing earlier around
26:08
Speaker 1: like it's hard. It's hard, and a lot of us
26:12
Speaker 1: are not good at taking care of ourselves because we
26:14
Speaker 1: constantly feel like we have to do this thing right.
26:16
Speaker 1: But if you're online all the time feeling you've got
26:19
Speaker 1: to outdo other people's comments, twaints, whatever, you're going to
26:22
Speaker 1: burn yourself out much faster and or do what I
26:26
Speaker 1: was just talking about, which is not really understand what
26:30
Speaker 1: you're critiquing because you're so busy, like I've got to
26:33
Speaker 1: critique it now first, right, And Bridget talked about that
26:37
Speaker 1: a little bit on one of our past episodes we
26:39
Speaker 1: did with her about you know, you don't always have
26:40
Speaker 1: to have a hot take. There are some things you
26:42
Speaker 1: just I don't I don't know anything about, so I'm like,
26:46
Speaker 1: take about I can learn more about it, right, not
26:49
Speaker 1: my arena. I don't know why you're asking you this.
26:53
Speaker 1: I don't have no comment, thank you very much. No comment.
26:59
Speaker 1: There's another one. A lot of public debate has already
27:03
Speaker 1: raged about the benefits and drawbacks of call out culture
27:06
Speaker 1: and activism, so I won't go too deeply into it,
27:09
Speaker 1: suffice it to say a culture in which the majority
27:12
Speaker 1: of political education is done through public shaming is neither
27:15
Speaker 1: all that socially transformative nor psychologically healthy. Yeah, and I
27:19
Speaker 1: think we talked about this in our TikTok episode as
27:22
Speaker 1: well as previously about cancel culture. Again cancel culture. We
27:29
Speaker 1: talked about the fact that accountability is huge and then
27:31
Speaker 1: we need to have that. However, accountability means learning and teaching,
27:38
Speaker 1: and this whole call out just to disparage and make
27:42
Speaker 1: fun of not helpful. I get it. No, you're angry
27:48
Speaker 1: and you want just and this is your form of justice.
27:50
Speaker 1: But that's not right. And I remember in our TikTok episode,
27:54
Speaker 1: but you're more specifically talking about like kind of that
27:56
Speaker 1: entertainment aspect of like, yeah, I'm looking for any small
28:00
Speaker 1: thing you've done wrong that I can call out without
28:03
Speaker 1: that nuance, because people should absolutely be held accountable. But
28:08
Speaker 1: there's a difference between doing that and just trying to
28:11
Speaker 1: take people down to get more clicks yourself So here's
28:16
Speaker 1: another quote. What strikes me as particularly interesting and disturbing
28:19
Speaker 1: about celebrity culture and the social justice movement in its
28:22
Speaker 1: relationship to mob mentality and capitalism. We are happy to
28:25
Speaker 1: take political direction from celebrities within the massed hierarchy of
28:29
Speaker 1: the movement, at once elevating and scrutinizing them, that is,
28:33
Speaker 1: until they say something that we do not agree with.
28:36
Speaker 1: The result is an atmosphere where individuals are not encouraged
28:39
Speaker 1: to engage authentically with the complexities and ambiguities of our politics,
28:44
Speaker 1: either because we are quote not important enough, or because
28:48
Speaker 1: we have been raised too high to fall. And yeah,
28:52
Speaker 1: that goes back to what we were saying about. I mean,
28:54
Speaker 1: even as an individual person before I came on the show,
28:57
Speaker 1: was so scared to post anything. For sure, Yeah, I
29:03
Speaker 1: was less scared, but I was also really self deprecating
29:06
Speaker 1: and I was like, this is not funny, and some
29:07
Speaker 1: of these comments are ablest. Yeah that's not okay. I
29:11
Speaker 1: think that's what because you don't realize you're being ableist
29:14
Speaker 1: when you're thinking you're poking fun at yourself, right, And
29:18
Speaker 1: there's so much to that that you really have to
29:20
Speaker 1: think of. But I can it's overwhelming. It is overwhelming.
29:26
Speaker 1: So they also talk about shame and they write shame
29:31
Speaker 1: rules community, and not only the social justice kind. In
29:35
Speaker 1: every tight knit ideological steep community that I have known, Chinese, Canadian,
29:39
Speaker 1: Christian queer, shame and judgment pervade in the social justice movement.
29:44
Speaker 1: Privilege is our original sin and the doctrine is our
29:48
Speaker 1: hell Mary. The political workshop and the protests are our church,
29:52
Speaker 1: and the organizers speakers are our priests. Shame and judgment
29:55
Speaker 1: are the twin faces of trauma, and we are trained
29:58
Speaker 1: to see ourselves and others through their yes. And I
30:02
Speaker 1: think one of the things that I remember when I
30:07
Speaker 1: first started on the show that this really resonated with
30:11
Speaker 1: me is that I was very concerned about, like, you
30:16
Speaker 1: are not feminist enough. You have to do so much,
30:18
Speaker 1: you have to do so much, and I was learning,
30:20
Speaker 1: like I looking back at some of those episodes, I
30:24
Speaker 1: had so far to go, and I still feel like
30:26
Speaker 1: I do, which is not bad. It's good to learn.
30:30
Speaker 1: That's the keys that you don't like get stuck in
30:33
Speaker 1: your ways and not listen to people. That I remember
30:36
Speaker 1: I kind of got called out by someone for being
30:41
Speaker 1: like not inclusive when it came to people with disability
30:45
Speaker 1: and protest and so then on a following episode, I
30:49
Speaker 1: did I made sure to go out of my way
30:52
Speaker 1: and be like, you know, but if you can't do
30:54
Speaker 1: this because of disability or something whatever, and then somebody
30:58
Speaker 1: wrote in and was like, no, people can do it,
31:00
Speaker 1: like and so I just got so yeah in my
31:03
Speaker 1: head about wait, wait. It's kind of the language because
31:07
Speaker 1: we think we're being on top of things, so when
31:09
Speaker 1: we see specific languages of this and that, and then
31:12
Speaker 1: later like this is more divisive, and you're like just
31:17
Speaker 1: so and again you know, we're not trying to play
31:20
Speaker 1: the ignorance or make expenses, but the constant changes and
31:23
Speaker 1: listening to a community, it's really really important. And I
31:26
Speaker 1: think that's part of the thing, is like when you
31:28
Speaker 1: especially if you're not a part of that community, right,
31:31
Speaker 1: being hyper aware is important, but that level of being
31:36
Speaker 1: shamed to the point that you're just like I can't
31:37
Speaker 1: I give up, right, and then you feel like you
31:40
Speaker 1: can't even mention it anymore. Right, But it was also
31:43
Speaker 1: in this case, like it was more of a and
31:45
Speaker 1: we have talked about this in several episodes, and I
31:48
Speaker 1: know we talked about it in our Ada episode, but
31:50
Speaker 1: it was more like it wasn't intersectional. I can say
31:54
Speaker 1: about the second critique. Maybe I didn't. I would very
31:58
Speaker 1: I'm ready to believe I didn't voice it in the
32:00
Speaker 1: way I'm not showing away from that. But the secretique
32:04
Speaker 1: wasn't very intersectional. So I mean, that's part of it.
32:10
Speaker 1: And that's one of the things I loved about how
32:13
Speaker 1: Tom kind of ended this part was if it's not inclusive,
32:16
Speaker 1: it's not my revolution. And that is our big part
32:20
Speaker 1: of that whole intersectional feminism. That's what we try to
32:23
Speaker 1: keep in mind every time we put together these episodes.
32:27
Speaker 1: Are we being intersectional? And we do love hearing from you,
32:32
Speaker 1: even if it is kind of a kind of like
32:34
Speaker 1: like tap on the wrist, hey, right, and those things
32:40
Speaker 1: like we are all open to criticism and when you're
32:44
Speaker 1: teaching us, and again this is the whole call out
32:47
Speaker 1: versus call in level and being like, hey, this is
32:51
Speaker 1: what we think. I mean. People were super angry when
32:53
Speaker 1: we first got on and I wrote the definition of
32:56
Speaker 1: the by community and they were upset, and I was
32:59
Speaker 1: very confused because I'm like, I just I took us
33:02
Speaker 1: off a quote. I don't know what's happening, but understanding
33:05
Speaker 1: that that was so damaging. I was like, okay, okay,
33:07
Speaker 1: you're correct, let's correct this. And we had like a
33:10
Speaker 1: wonderful two part series three part three part serious to
33:13
Speaker 1: it about bisexuality, and I learned a lot and amazing
33:16
Speaker 1: people were so patient to tell us everything and have
33:19
Speaker 1: a sit down conversation, and it was really real, like
33:21
Speaker 1: if they got offended, they said it right away. You know.
33:25
Speaker 1: We learned from that very quickly, and I think it's
33:28
Speaker 1: important that we continue to have those conversations. But yeah,
33:32
Speaker 1: it does like it does affect us in the future
33:36
Speaker 1: of like oh no, yeah, we will always want to
33:40
Speaker 1: be inclusive, as you were saying, and intersectional, and we
33:45
Speaker 1: also absolutely acknowledge we have not walked the paths of
33:48
Speaker 1: many of the people who have gone through things like
33:50
Speaker 1: this specifically, and so trying to be over the top
33:54
Speaker 1: cautious sometimes silences us. Yeah. Yeah, we will have a
33:57
Speaker 1: little bit more about that in a minute. I did
34:00
Speaker 1: to include an example of the poetry, because again, this
34:05
Speaker 1: has also got poetry in it. It's really a lot
34:07
Speaker 1: of it's really beautiful and moving. And here's one about
34:11
Speaker 1: like you are allowed to leave, about domestic violence. Relationship
34:16
Speaker 1: should never be based on fear should never be based
34:19
Speaker 1: on they will kill themselves if I leave an adult
34:21
Speaker 1: human life is too much, too much for any one
34:24
Speaker 1: person to hold. Repeat it after me. Hold it close
34:27
Speaker 1: to your heart as you walk away, as you grieve
34:30
Speaker 1: the loss, as you find yourself. Leaving is not abuse.
34:34
Speaker 1: Getting out is not abuse. Freedom is not abuse. Freedom
34:38
Speaker 1: is never abuse. Yeah, yeah, I feel like a lot
34:43
Speaker 1: of people that hits that. And then I wanted to
34:52
Speaker 1: include this because again, a lot of us made me
34:54
Speaker 1: think of you, Samantham a lot of this book, and
34:58
Speaker 1: there is a whole section about validation and being damaging
35:01
Speaker 1: and specifically critiquing active listening, which I had heard you for.
35:10
Speaker 1: So we have a couple of quotes about that. This
35:12
Speaker 1: is probably somewhat true. I can describe well enough. The
35:15
Speaker 1: situation of a volunteer who was speaking for brief periods
35:17
Speaker 1: to strangers, playing psychologist and giving half baked, unsolicited advice
35:21
Speaker 1: to people in crisis is generally a bad idea, don't
35:24
Speaker 1: do it. But the problem is that this politicization of
35:27
Speaker 1: a rigid, specific form of validation seems to be applied
35:30
Speaker 1: to a huge range of informal situations outside of crisis
35:35
Speaker 1: support on half baked unsolicited advice. So they also said
35:42
Speaker 1: because we questioned the notion that given choices, people will
35:45
Speaker 1: always choose wrong or that we would automatically know what
35:49
Speaker 1: was wrong for them, and because often the immediate feedback
35:53
Speaker 1: we get for providing unquestioning validation is very positive and
35:57
Speaker 1: we feel conflict. Ten years later, I'm still trying to
36:00
Speaker 1: undo my validation and active listening training because I want
36:03
Speaker 1: to listen not only actively, but also mindfully, compassionately, critically, lovingly.
36:10
Speaker 1: Now I want to be listened to in those ways
36:12
Speaker 1: by my friends and family. I have come to believe
36:15
Speaker 1: that support, or at least the kind that comes from
36:17
Speaker 1: loving long term relationships, is characterized by not only validation,
36:22
Speaker 1: but also grounding, containment, authenticity, willingness to enter the space
36:28
Speaker 1: of conflict, as well as the knowledge that we will
36:30
Speaker 1: emerge from it. Sometimes I want advice from my friends
36:34
Speaker 1: because the truth is I don't always know what's best
36:36
Speaker 1: for me. I want to know if my friends think
36:39
Speaker 1: I'm doing something wrong. Yeah. Absolutely, I got very irritated
36:42
Speaker 1: out of training. We had in something and they were
36:47
Speaker 1: talking about active listening, and I was like, no, no,
36:51
Speaker 1: don't do that. I think texting you like this is bad.
36:59
Speaker 1: I really want to go back and do everything they
37:00
Speaker 1: just said. Don't do this. Don't do this because you're
37:03
Speaker 1: going to push people away. Yeah, and this is it.
37:09
Speaker 1: I felt this a lot too, and I this is
37:13
Speaker 1: a hard one to grapple with because you want to
37:18
Speaker 1: support your friends. And I think that's the key, is
37:20
Speaker 1: that it's your friends. If you have good friends and
37:23
Speaker 1: people you trusted, people who support you, like honestly truly
37:27
Speaker 1: support you. There's a difference between that and like some
37:30
Speaker 1: random person or somebody who's not really your friend. But
37:33
Speaker 1: it is hard, Like, at least for me, I really
37:36
Speaker 1: struggle with conflict and I freeze up because of my past.
37:43
Speaker 1: Is because of some of the stuff that's happened in
37:44
Speaker 1: my past where I do feel responsible for other people's
37:48
Speaker 1: emotional health. And so in that case, the easiest thing
37:52
Speaker 1: to do is to be like, no, you're fine, it's good,
37:56
Speaker 1: it's good. So this is not This is another thing
37:58
Speaker 1: that they talked about that is not easy at all,
38:03
Speaker 1: but it is true, and it has so many layers
38:07
Speaker 1: to it because again, like you don't want somebody who
38:11
Speaker 1: doesn't have your best who isn't really looking out for
38:15
Speaker 1: you being the one saying you're wrong. That's different than
38:18
Speaker 1: like a friend you truly trust them, we'll support you.
38:21
Speaker 1: I think a lot of these conversations what we don't
38:24
Speaker 1: realize just frankly telling someone you're doing this wrong or
38:30
Speaker 1: you need to do this, it's not actually helpful in general,
38:34
Speaker 1: even if you are good friends. I think in the
38:37
Speaker 1: most aspects. Of course, if you've been going around and
38:39
Speaker 1: round and round a subject and you finally get to
38:42
Speaker 1: the point of like, okay, let's just be real, frank
38:44
Speaker 1: because you've had the permission of finally getting to that
38:47
Speaker 1: point and you understand and you have a depth of
38:50
Speaker 1: knowledge instead of just like the one time you talked
38:52
Speaker 1: about it. A lot of the times, for me, if
38:55
Speaker 1: there's something that there's that there needs to be a
38:57
Speaker 1: blanket statement about is because of again the repetitive like okay,
39:04
Speaker 1: you've got yourself into a trap. Let's let's I'm just
39:06
Speaker 1: gonna frankly tell you and see what you say. But
39:10
Speaker 1: on most of the levels, is really forming those thoughts
39:13
Speaker 1: as questions because most of the times when you're help
39:16
Speaker 1: saying a statement, you don't know what the answer could
39:18
Speaker 1: have been had you asked the question of instead of saying,
39:22
Speaker 1: don't do this, it's just more of a well what
39:24
Speaker 1: would happen if you did this instead kind of conversation.
39:27
Speaker 1: And I say this because that also validates. Instead of
39:31
Speaker 1: being the active like constantly thinking, being active in listening
39:34
Speaker 1: and meaning yeah, you could constantly interrupt I saying oh yeah,
39:37
Speaker 1: oh yeah, huh so you did that. Okay, that's not helpful.
39:41
Speaker 1: That's very interruptive. By the way, it does help you
39:44
Speaker 1: kind of summarize with them and I actually backtrack what
39:47
Speaker 1: they because they don't often know what they just said.
39:49
Speaker 1: I know for me in my conversations, that's when I
39:53
Speaker 1: discover something when I'm actually saying it out loud, I'm like,
39:56
Speaker 1: oh god, I did it right. Yeah, And that could
40:00
Speaker 1: be just as validating as well as holding someone accountable, right.
40:03
Speaker 1: And I think that's a great point because, as Tom said,
40:07
Speaker 1: it's like it's a difference between being unquestioning validation and
40:12
Speaker 1: being like, wait, let's talk about this a little bit
40:15
Speaker 1: more before. Yeah, here's another quote. I believe that in
40:19
Speaker 1: our best, most valuable human moments, that urge to overvalidate
40:23
Speaker 1: comes from our fear of crossing boundaries of replicating the
40:26
Speaker 1: traumas that abusive families and social oppression have enacted on
40:30
Speaker 1: our developing selves. I don't want to be validated. I
40:33
Speaker 1: want to be loved. And I put that in because
40:35
Speaker 1: they make great points about this about like again, being
40:39
Speaker 1: in marginalized communities and every all of the intersections of
40:43
Speaker 1: that that that fear of confrontation gets bigger and bigger,
40:48
Speaker 1: and because you know what other people in that community face,
40:51
Speaker 1: because you've faced probably something similar, So like, it just
40:55
Speaker 1: gets very difficult to not have that najuor like, oh no, everything,
41:02
Speaker 1: I'm going to validate you. But it is it's hard.
41:08
Speaker 1: It's like, it's hard to unlearn that. It's very for me.
41:11
Speaker 1: It's a very natural thing that happens. There is a
41:16
Speaker 1: lot of discussion about suicidality in this Here's a quote,
41:21
Speaker 1: and this was a story about Robin Williams and kind
41:24
Speaker 1: of the coverage of Robin Williams after he took his
41:28
Speaker 1: own life, and it was really heartbreaking, but a different
41:32
Speaker 1: I hadn't really thought about it in this way specifically,
41:35
Speaker 1: but here's a quote. So let us continue to tell
41:38
Speaker 1: stories about suicide, but instead of seizing the stories of
41:40
Speaker 1: others and posing on them a preconceived understanding. Let us
41:44
Speaker 1: listen to the complexity of the tension, the horrible human
41:47
Speaker 1: messiness that come with them. Let's listen to it all
41:50
Speaker 1: and accept that we can never fully understand the forces
41:53
Speaker 1: that drive someone to live or die. So that was
41:56
Speaker 1: sort of about like the after Robin Williams had died,
42:01
Speaker 1: all of the media being like, well, here's why, but
42:05
Speaker 1: we don't know, we'll never know for sure why, And
42:09
Speaker 1: it takes like the spectatorship yeah of someone's crisis. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
42:17
Speaker 1: And Tom goes on to talk kind of more about
42:20
Speaker 1: that about suicide being framed or used as a political tool,
42:24
Speaker 1: especially for trans women. Quote. The argument around body sovereignty
42:28
Speaker 1: and consent are to me clearly rooted in a misunderstanding
42:31
Speaker 1: of what it means to provide care, the action of
42:34
Speaker 1: giving help and caring, the feeling of being cared about.
42:38
Speaker 1: The predominant white, colonial, queer trans narrative of proper consent
42:43
Speaker 1: to being cared for or goes something like this. Someone
42:45
Speaker 1: expresses that they are in pain, or you happen to
42:47
Speaker 1: see that they are, You offer them help. If they refuse,
42:51
Speaker 1: you back off, no questions asked any further attempt to
42:54
Speaker 1: help could be considered a violation. This narrative holds a
42:58
Speaker 1: lot of resonance with me. Both bodies sovereignty and constent
43:01
Speaker 1: politics come from movements around medical care and sexual slash
43:04
Speaker 1: romantic intimacy. But I believe this approach also comes from
43:07
Speaker 1: a traumatized place. It is rooted in queer and trans
43:10
Speaker 1: experiences of abusive families and intimate partnerships in which we
43:14
Speaker 1: were not allowed to refuse, We were not allowed to leave,
43:17
Speaker 1: So our reaction is to swing to the other extreme.
43:20
Speaker 1: We encourage people to leave, and we don't question the
43:22
Speaker 1: refusal of love even when it is clearly needed. Yeah.
43:28
Speaker 1: So again, that's like a difference between someone who dressed
43:32
Speaker 1: obviously a friend versus somebody not. But I thought that
43:39
Speaker 1: was also a really poignant Yeah. I think if they refuse,
43:45
Speaker 1: you back off a question, any further attempt to help
43:48
Speaker 1: could be considered a violation. I think that's something really
43:51
Speaker 1: important to remember, especially when we talk about those who
43:55
Speaker 1: have been assaulted in domestic violence situations. I think about
43:58
Speaker 1: that often, push and trying to be you need to
44:01
Speaker 1: do this, you need to do this, you need to
44:02
Speaker 1: do this, and if you do it to a person
44:05
Speaker 1: who is not ready, yeah, it causes more trauma and
44:10
Speaker 1: also this level of failure and then you've also put
44:13
Speaker 1: a gap between you and them and you're no longer
44:15
Speaker 1: someone safe for them to come to. And I hate
44:18
Speaker 1: that because I'm it almost sounds like we're saying condoning
44:21
Speaker 1: a violent situation, but you really there's nothing you can do.
44:24
Speaker 1: Kind of that talk of like it's not your fault leaving,
44:28
Speaker 1: it's not abuse. Stop being not saying something it's not
44:31
Speaker 1: necessarily abuse. It is that level of like being supportive
44:35
Speaker 1: and understanding their grounds and why they've set them, and
44:39
Speaker 1: though you want to save them, it's not something that
44:43
Speaker 1: you can take on and if something goes wrong, it's
44:47
Speaker 1: not your fault. And that that's level of like if
44:49
Speaker 1: they're not ready, you're never going to be the one
44:52
Speaker 1: to tell them they are right. And I think, yeah,
44:57
Speaker 1: so many of these things are not easy at all
45:00
Speaker 1: UM because we want to fix we want to fix
45:03
Speaker 1: problems for people who care about UM, and it is,
45:07
Speaker 1: it is it's so hard when you realize like I
45:10
Speaker 1: can't I'm not what they need, or I can't put
45:13
Speaker 1: this on me, But also I do I love that
45:16
Speaker 1: Tom put this in terms of trauma, of like the
45:20
Speaker 1: queer trauma or trauma for trans people, about why it's
45:24
Speaker 1: even worse, Like it's even like, oh, I've been so
45:28
Speaker 1: traumatized by these experiences that i need Like it's almost that,
45:33
Speaker 1: you know, I'm telling you to leave because you're trying
45:37
Speaker 1: to do something to make you feel like you have
45:39
Speaker 1: any kind of control. But it's coming from trauma when
45:43
Speaker 1: you really do need somebody. Now, you know, it's a mess.
46:02
Speaker 1: And here's another quote. And in terms of considering trans
46:06
Speaker 1: women's suicide within a transmisogynist social system, I do not
46:11
Speaker 1: believe that quote supporting the agency of suicide is actually
46:14
Speaker 1: a legitimate refutation of the social system. Rather, it is
46:18
Speaker 1: the ultimate expression of disposability culture. It allows us to
46:22
Speaker 1: disguise inaction in the face of mass suffering and death
46:26
Speaker 1: in pretense of compassion and radical politics. It is not
46:29
Speaker 1: radical to quote support trans women dying when we are
46:33
Speaker 1: already being murdered regularly. It is not revolutionary to simply
46:37
Speaker 1: accept that society is so terrible that trans girls might
46:39
Speaker 1: as well kill ourselves. After all, we are the society
46:42
Speaker 1: that supports the trans girls and sends these messages about
46:46
Speaker 1: whether life might be worth living. It is our responsibility
46:49
Speaker 1: to change the stakes, to offer different options, to keep
46:53
Speaker 1: reaching out and sending the message that we will never
46:55
Speaker 1: stop trying, never stop caring, and never stop loving. Right.
47:00
Speaker 1: That's that's there's just so level and I know they
47:04
Speaker 1: have that kind of back and forth as well of responsibility,
47:08
Speaker 1: but also just giving up and allowing it to be
47:11
Speaker 1: a norm and how disgusting it really is. That is
47:14
Speaker 1: something that why are we acting like this is a
47:17
Speaker 1: bad thing? I know the disabled community talks about this
47:20
Speaker 1: often when it's portrayed that they would rather die than
47:24
Speaker 1: not do be able to do something else, and it
47:26
Speaker 1: is so able us and like, wait, I'm fine with
47:29
Speaker 1: this and I can fully function and live a happy life.
47:31
Speaker 1: Why are you saying this I'm not worth living? What
47:34
Speaker 1: the hell is this? And it's kind of that same
47:37
Speaker 1: level of trans people like, yeah, the suffering, there's a
47:40
Speaker 1: lot of suffering, but that doesn't mean they don't deserve
47:42
Speaker 1: to live and have a happy life, right. And I
47:45
Speaker 1: think there's also I know some listeners have written in
47:47
Speaker 1: about this about kind of the martyring of people who
47:52
Speaker 1: die in terms of activism and how damaging that can be.
47:58
Speaker 1: So here we have a bunch of quote about what
48:00
Speaker 1: is one of the biggest themes in this book, which
48:03
Speaker 1: is queer spaces and in fighting within queer spaces, and
48:11
Speaker 1: why it's so hard to have conversations and serious and
48:18
Speaker 1: genuine conversations about that as queer people. Okay, so quote
48:25
Speaker 1: in queer community. We already know why our people die.
48:28
Speaker 1: We are killed by homophobia and transphobia, murdered by strangers,
48:31
Speaker 1: family in a state that seems determined to deny as
48:34
Speaker 1: any vital resources such as healthcare and shelter. What we
48:37
Speaker 1: do not know is why we hurt each other physically, psychologically,
48:41
Speaker 1: and sexually, such as the power of our devotion to
48:44
Speaker 1: protecting the mirage, the glamorous fantasy of our community. We
48:47
Speaker 1: are already so few, and those who would destroy us
48:51
Speaker 1: are many. Life is already so hard, so dangerous. Is
48:55
Speaker 1: easier to turn away, to pretend that we don't see
48:57
Speaker 1: what is happening right in front of us. So yes,
49:01
Speaker 1: then Tom delves into some examples and some numbers around this.
49:07
Speaker 1: So here's some more quotes for a community that's supposedly
49:10
Speaker 1: steeped and progressive politics, sex positivity and mutual love, queers
49:14
Speaker 1: hurt each other horribly an awful lot. Nearly half of
49:18
Speaker 1: an individuals who identify as gay or lowsbian report experienced
49:21
Speaker 1: sexual violence or psychological abuse from a partner, and more
49:25
Speaker 1: than half of bisexual individuals experience the same. Similarly, more
49:28
Speaker 1: than half of trans people report having experienced intimate partner
49:32
Speaker 1: violence in their lifetime, and trans feminine individuals, particularly those
49:35
Speaker 1: of color, are much more likely than other groups to
49:38
Speaker 1: experience physical violence and be murdered by their partners. How
49:43
Speaker 1: do you call out the community that took you in
49:45
Speaker 1: when your family wouldn't. How do you call out the
49:47
Speaker 1: people who loved you whom you still love, the people
49:50
Speaker 1: who taught you who you were and helped you to survive?
49:53
Speaker 1: How do you call out your lovers, friends, mentors, role
49:56
Speaker 1: models when you're not sure either of you will survive?
50:00
Speaker 1: And then, in simple terms, this means that I cannot
50:03
Speaker 1: speak up about queers who have harmed me because that
50:06
Speaker 1: will result in them being harmed. It also means that
50:08
Speaker 1: if I do choose to speak up, they may try
50:11
Speaker 1: to avoid harms to themselves by suing, intimidating, or otherwise
50:13
Speaker 1: enacting more violence against me. Yeah, I think this is
50:19
Speaker 1: such an important conversation to have because it's true. I
50:23
Speaker 1: mean that they also have a whole section where they're
50:26
Speaker 1: talking about um sort of the pressure to online tell
50:33
Speaker 1: people about like give you know, give names of who's
50:36
Speaker 1: hurt you, and it's it's when you have this, when
50:41
Speaker 1: you have this threat of violence, when you did it
50:45
Speaker 1: was the community that took you in after you lost
50:48
Speaker 1: perhaps your religious community or what what have you or
50:51
Speaker 1: your family and you know what will happen like it's
50:58
Speaker 1: it's it's difficult, and it allows for a lot of
51:01
Speaker 1: abuse to go unchecked and untalked about. That whole like
51:06
Speaker 1: section about the questions like how do you call other
51:08
Speaker 1: people who loved you and you still love and especially
51:12
Speaker 1: Tom also goes into like you know all the trauma
51:16
Speaker 1: they faced, which doesn't excuse anything, but we have to
51:19
Speaker 1: talk about what is happening, why, why this is happening,
51:25
Speaker 1: but it's so dangerous to do so, right, And then
51:28
Speaker 1: that's the same conversation of them being the example society,
51:34
Speaker 1: we know what just happened with that school shooting recently,
51:37
Speaker 1: and it turned to be a trans man and that's
51:40
Speaker 1: the most like, that's the immediate pit point that they
51:43
Speaker 1: came to was that it was a transman, like we
51:45
Speaker 1: told you they're dangerous. And that's the first time in history,
51:50
Speaker 1: I don't know, I mean years that that has been
51:53
Speaker 1: a thing, that that a mass shooting, shooting in general,
51:59
Speaker 1: was committed by a transman. That's not the average. And
52:03
Speaker 1: the entire year we've had so many shootings and all
52:06
Speaker 1: of them have been mainly men sins men, but we
52:10
Speaker 1: don't want to talk about statistics. They become the example
52:15
Speaker 1: and then they become the boogeyman, and that's a damaging
52:18
Speaker 1: part to society, to that community. And that's what we
52:22
Speaker 1: see also within the black community. They don't many black
52:25
Speaker 1: women don't want to report men black men because they're
52:28
Speaker 1: already going to be criminalized immediately. But the sentence they get,
52:32
Speaker 1: whatever happens, they may die even before they make it
52:36
Speaker 1: inside a jail cell or any of that, or into
52:38
Speaker 1: a courtroom. So the dangers of that alone causes people
52:42
Speaker 1: to not report. I also have the whole Black women
52:46
Speaker 1: are like, I don't care if they touched me, They're
52:47
Speaker 1: going jail. I love that for them, but you know,
52:50
Speaker 1: that's that's that level conversation that we have, like we
52:53
Speaker 1: cannot talk to it, and I know that we're gonna
52:56
Speaker 1: keep going. But I think one of the big things
52:58
Speaker 1: and I really thought found interesting this is the part
53:00
Speaker 1: that I found interesting when we talk about consent, when
53:03
Speaker 1: they talk about sex work and consent, because you and
53:05
Speaker 1: I had we had that book. We're talking about consent
53:08
Speaker 1: and just really talking about enthusiastic consent versus all of
53:11
Speaker 1: these things. And then Tom really brought out the conversation
53:13
Speaker 1: about sex work like this is it's never going to
53:16
Speaker 1: be enthusiastic consent. So that's just damaging that term in itself.
53:19
Speaker 1: And then when we were turning that notion is can
53:23
Speaker 1: be harsh. You need to really think about it before
53:25
Speaker 1: you try to apply to every community as a generic
53:27
Speaker 1: because that is a very sis heteronormative, middle class privilege
53:33
Speaker 1: to be able to say it. And I hate that,
53:34
Speaker 1: I hate that that should be a thing. But they're
53:36
Speaker 1: just level like, wow, yeah, Okay, maybe we need to
53:40
Speaker 1: rethink what we're talking about when it comes to consent
53:43
Speaker 1: and who it applies to and how we should acknowledge
53:46
Speaker 1: the separation that it deserves. But and then there's and
53:51
Speaker 1: then moving on, they here's another quote about the dangers
53:56
Speaker 1: there are more trans people on television than ever before,
54:00
Speaker 1: but transit youth remain vastly, disproportionally homeless and suicidal. Trans
54:04
Speaker 1: people's visibility has skyrocketed, but anti trans legislation and discrimination
54:10
Speaker 1: remain rampant. Trans rice are debated more and more frequently
54:14
Speaker 1: in major news outlets, but trans women who are black, brown,
54:17
Speaker 1: and sex workers continue to be assaulted and murdered regularly. Yeah,
54:22
Speaker 1: that's exactly what And this was written in twet nineteen.
54:26
Speaker 1: I would hate to see what their take on all
54:29
Speaker 1: of that today. Yeah. Well, Tom does have a website
54:32
Speaker 1: where they write a little book posts, so you can
54:34
Speaker 1: check that out. And then I want to include this quote.
54:41
Speaker 1: I want to take a moment here to note that
54:42
Speaker 1: white people are always asking queers of color to tell
54:45
Speaker 1: them the ethnic gay story. Was it hard to come
54:47
Speaker 1: out to your family? They ask, eagerly, eyes right with hunger?
54:50
Speaker 1: Are they very traditional, which is to say querphobic? And
54:53
Speaker 1: it's taken for granted that the traditions of non white
54:55
Speaker 1: cultures are kurophobic. Liberal white people love the ethnic gay story.
55:00
Speaker 1: It confirms their belief in the superiority of whiteness and
55:03
Speaker 1: assuages their sublimated guilt over the queer phobian racism that
55:07
Speaker 1: are still rooted deep within white dominant, colonial Western society.
55:11
Speaker 1: But the ethnic gay story misses is that the queer
55:14
Speaker 1: children of diaspora are not the passive victims of our villainous,
55:18
Speaker 1: ignorant families are at least not in the way that
55:20
Speaker 1: white people like to imagine. Our relationships with our blood
55:23
Speaker 1: ourselves are more complicated than that. Yes, I think that
55:29
Speaker 1: going back to the point at the top, where you know,
55:32
Speaker 1: journalists reaching out to somebody like every intersection within and
55:37
Speaker 1: because of all of these systems of white supremacy and patriarchy,
55:43
Speaker 1: you know, transplant of color not as many in our
55:47
Speaker 1: her media landscape, that it becomes this sort of like also,
55:51
Speaker 1: as Tom said, this fetitization of your story and all
55:56
Speaker 1: of that stuff, and right, don't do it. I mean,
56:01
Speaker 1: that's definitely that conversation of oh, tell me about your
56:04
Speaker 1: culture where you from really telling you all of these
56:07
Speaker 1: things and you're and if you have like site a
56:11
Speaker 1: similar story of like mind, they do have this entertainment
56:15
Speaker 1: factor of like, oh wow, so you were in an orphanage,
56:18
Speaker 1: what was that? Like you're adopted, what was that? It
56:20
Speaker 1: becomes this fable, almost cautionary tale, like that whole Cinderella level.
56:28
Speaker 1: My I would have loved to found up fronts. I
56:29
Speaker 1: want to be but that level of entertainment and something
56:36
Speaker 1: that's really traumatic exactly. Yep. Yes, um. Well, here is
56:45
Speaker 1: our final quote, which is towards the end of the book,
56:47
Speaker 1: I am haunted. All trans women are behind me. Stretches
56:51
Speaker 1: a line of ghost trans women killed before their time
56:53
Speaker 1: by the hatred of a society that does not know
56:56
Speaker 1: how to love us. Perhaps this is why trans women's
56:59
Speaker 1: words are so powerful in those rare moments when we
57:02
Speaker 1: are allowed to speak, we speak with the voices of
57:04
Speaker 1: those who have come before. Yeah. Honestly, it's a short book,
57:13
Speaker 1: but it covers so much the few pages that it is.
57:16
Speaker 1: It's about one hundred and thirty I think, and it
57:18
Speaker 1: is hopeful. I feel like a lot of the stuff
57:20
Speaker 1: we've been talking about is not. But I mean, it
57:22
Speaker 1: doesn't shy away from the pain of it in the
57:26
Speaker 1: conversations we need to have. But highly recommend it. Highly
57:31
Speaker 1: recommend it. Well that's what we have to say about it.
57:37
Speaker 1: Go check it out if you haven't already. As always,
57:41
Speaker 1: if you have a recommendation for a book for us
57:44
Speaker 1: to read. You can email us our emails Steffinia Mom
57:47
Speaker 1: Steff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us on
57:49
Speaker 1: Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok
57:53
Speaker 1: that Stuff I Never Told You. You can also find
57:54
Speaker 1: us on YouTube. We have a book coming out. You
57:58
Speaker 1: can preorder it now on stuff You Should Readbooks dot com.
58:02
Speaker 1: Thanks as always to our super producer Christina, our executive
58:06
Speaker 1: producer Maya, and our contributor Joey. Thank you all, and
58:09
Speaker 1: thanks to you for listening. Stuff I Never Told a
58:11
Speaker 1: resproduction of iHeartRadio. For more podcast on my heart Radio.
58:14
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