Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / Falsely Blaming Trans People

Transcript

Falsely Blaming Trans People · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Welcome to stefone.
• 0:07
  Speaker 3: Never told you a productive I Heeart Radio, and once
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: again we are so happy to be joined by the curious,
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: the charming Bridget Todd.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Welcome, Bridget.
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: Thanks for having me. I appreciate the c adjective theme.
• 0:31
  Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, thank you, thank you so much for being here.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: We were talking a little bit before we started recording.
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: But I guess here comes a loaded question. How are
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: you doing, Bridget?
• 0:45
  Speaker 4: Oh, I'll just say I've been better for folks who
• 0:49
  Speaker 4: don't know. I live in Washington, d C. Which you
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: might know is a crime infested hellhole. No, just kidding.
• 0:56
  Speaker 4: It's actually a lovely place to live. But President Trump
• 1:00
  Speaker 4: has taken over our city's police force and has unleashed
• 1:06
  Speaker 4: the National Guard and with federal agents into the city.
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: When this first happened, for whatever reason, it was centralized
• 1:12
  Speaker 4: right on my street, which wasn't my favorite. It still
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: persists every day is a new surprise I guess that
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: he has in store for us. If people are listening,
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: are following what's going on in DC, one of the
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: biggest I mean, I'll get on my soapbox right now.
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: The reason why it's happening in DC. It's because DC
• 1:33
  Speaker 4: is not a state. DC has what's called home rule,
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: so we we have some ability to make decisions for
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: ourselves and sort of for like our local leaders are
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: able to make some decisions for us. But everything that
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: happens in DC is at the pleasure of the President
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: and Congress because DC is not a state. And so
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: the reason why Trump can send not just the National
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: Guard to DC but also take over our police force
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: is because DC is not a state, and so advocate
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: for statehood for DC. The only reason why this is
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: happening in DC in no other place in terms of
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: our police force being taken over by Trump, is because
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: DC is not a state. So advocate for DC statehood.
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: DC statehood. Now I don't have an elective official that
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: I can call about this call for me and advocate
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: for the full self determination of the people of the
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: District of Columbia.
• 2:22
  Speaker 5: That's my soapbox.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: It was a good one. Thank you, yes, yes, thank you,
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: and I'm we're both so glad you're okay and good
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: to have you. As always.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: Even if the topic you're discussing is a pretty is pretty,
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: it's one that makes me very angry, and actually this
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: is a sad state.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Of affairs that we live in.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: But as I was discussing before we started recording, I'm
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: going to this big event, dragon Con this weekend, and
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: every year I go, I think I might die in
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: a mass shooting. Oh, because that's just the world we
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: live in. And part of what you're talking about here
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: is it's awful enough that that happens, But it's also
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: awful enough that so many people in power are so
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: quick to blame somebody else, anybody else, other than what
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: is actually happening and what we could actually do to
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: prevent things like this.
• 3:25
  Speaker 5: Oh my god, Annie, you and me both.
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: If I am in any kind of a big event,
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: people who know me in real life know I can't
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: get comfortable until I'm like, Okay, exit there, exit there,
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: exit there, Like I need to know where the exits are.
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: It is. I'm not comfortable until I do that.
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: And as you said, I mean in this country, I mean,
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: I hate to say it, it feels like we have
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: just decided we're not going to do anything about the
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: real cause of mass shootings, which is the guns. Right,
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: So then we have to start scapegoating things and trying
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: to blame these issues that are non issues on what
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: we have shootings, and unfortunately, in today's internet landscape, that
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: thing is the existence of trans people. I know what
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: you're thinking, I don't know how trans people are linked
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: to mass shootings. Well, you would be right, because they're
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: not linked to mass shootings. But that does not keep
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: trans people from being baselessly blamed for any kind of
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: mass shooting, mass tragedy, or mass instance of violence or
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: bad thing happening by very loud voices online.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Yes, and this has happened several times. Correct.
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: Yes, it is a constant thing, and it's a kind
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: of identity based disinformation that I see over and over
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: and over again. I would be willing to bet that
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: folks listening have probably actually seen this play out at
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: one time or another. If you spend any time online,
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: there is this image of someone with blonde, shaggy hair
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: holding a rifle that often circulates online that claims to
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: show the perpetrator who Commenters will say, oh, this is
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: a trans person who was mentally disturbed and they're the perpetrator,
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: But it's actually a very well worn image of Sam Hyde,
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: who is not trans and is actually an extremist, comedian
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: and YouTuber. In Fact, in twenty twenty three, fact checker
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: and journalist Bill McCarthy described that when he sees a
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: mass shooting, his heart doesn't just sink for the victims
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: and their families and communities. His heart also sinks because
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: he knows, just from doing it for a long time,
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: that it means that other people who are not involved
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: will be baselessly and falsely accused of being the killer.
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: They're pictures shared all over the web by social media users.
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: In a piece called mass Shootings, the Other Innocent Victims,
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: he sheds light on this where he talks about a
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: mass shooting happening in Nashville where Hide was misidentified as
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: both trans and the perpetrator. He writes, shortly after police
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: says that they had responded to a shooting, I opened
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: Twitter and ran a simple keyword search Nashville shooter identified.
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: According to dozens of results, the city officials had already
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: singled out the perpetrator. It was a transgender woman named
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: Samantha Hyde. The post claimed, So this again, like, if
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: you spend any time at all online when there's some
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: sort of mass instance of violence, this image of Hide
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: is probably you can probably picture it like I can
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: picture it.
• 6:18
  Speaker 5: I see it every single time.
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: And you know, this person is very familiar to fact
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: checkers at this point because of all the different variations
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: of an image of this person showing up. But it's
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: been this long running hoax that initially originated on four
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: Chan as kind of like a meme.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Oh I do not like that.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: And the thing is it has such a trickle down
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: impact of because I'm not hugely online, but I am.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: I'm aware of all of.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: This through like news in quotes, I guess news sources,
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: and it has horrible impacts on the people who were
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: not involved at all.
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So it's it's really not just Nashville. In the
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: shooting in Texas, a photo of an actual trans woman
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: named Sam, a different Sam than the one I was
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: just talking about, circulated on social media claiming that she
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: was the perpetrator. She actually had to post a picture
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: showing that she was alive and well, because as we
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: know that that shooter was killed by police, right, and
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: so I mean, just imagine not being involved in a
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: shooting that that that trans woman Sam was like, I
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: don't even I don't even live in Nashville, right, and
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: so just imagine having to prove to people online that
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: you were not involved in something that you had nothing
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: to do with. None of these people were actually the
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: perpetrators or even connected to the to the incident at all.
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: But that does not stop these claims from going viral
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: and harming innocent, actual trans people and then furthermore kind
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: of creating this false impression that trans people are violent
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: or dangerous, just based on nothing like the facts very
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: really do not back that up. And so the way
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: that people are able to scapegoat and fear monger around
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: just the existence of trans people and then somehow link
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: it to violence is really it's not just it's not
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: just harmful for the trans people who are targeted, it's
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: harmful for everybody. Like, it's just a very harmful, dangerous climate.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: Yes, and.
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: You know, when we have these narratives around trans people
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: in our politics that are so painting them in such
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: a way as if they're all pedophiles or something like,
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: it's just ridiculous. These attacks are horrible, they're not backed
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: up by facts, and it's we know the trans community
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: faces so much violence and this only makes it worse.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: And you have an incident that happened kind of near
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: you where we saw this play out right?
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, so this brings me to you. This horrible
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: plane crash that happened earlier this year. There was a
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: great piece about this incident and Wired called a transpilot
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: was falsely blamed for a plane crash. Now she's fighting
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: the right wing disinformation machine that was published earlier this
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: summer that really sheds light on this issue.
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: So I wanted to shout them out.
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: So back in January, there was a deadly plane crash
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: where I live here in DC, where a helicopter crashed
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: into a plane. Both of them landed in the Potomac River,
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: and sixty seven people died. It was a hard way
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: to start out the new year, and it just was
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: a really dark time here in DC. However, it also
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: became very dark for this woman, Joe Ellis, who is
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: a transgender National Guard pilot who was falsely blamed for
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: causing this crash. Now, to be super duper clear, Ellis
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: was not involved in this crash in any capacity whatsoever,
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: just was not involved. However, days before the crash happened,
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: she had published this pretty good essay about what it's
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: like being a transgender pilot. That alone was enough for
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: right wing influencers, some of which you have millions of
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: followers across the Internet, to baselessly accuse her of being
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: responsible for this crash. So in the days leading up
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: to this crash, she wrote this piece called Living to Serve,
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: Living as Myself a transgender service members Perspective, where she
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: describes growing up in a family of service members and
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: joining the Virginia Army National Guard in two.
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: Thousand and nine.
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: In her piece, she described sending an email to her
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: command and giving them notice that she intended to start
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: transitioning under the then current in service transition policy, and
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: she says she was met with a lot of support
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: from her team. It's clear in the piece that she's
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: trying to sort of push back on some of these
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: well worn myths about how trans people get all this
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: free stuff and that you know they're just you just
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: join the military and the government pay for everything. She
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: actually describes paying out of pocket for all of her
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: trans related care. So after her piece was published, just
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: days later the crash happened. She describes waking up to
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: a friend warning her that she had been named online
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: as the pilot who killed all of these innocent passengers
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: in this deadly crash. At first, she's thinking, Oh, this
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: is just some weird, isolated claim. Somebody must have mistakenly
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: connected me to the crash because of this essay I
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: describe being from Virginia. This happened really close to Virginia.
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: She's like, Oh, just a mistake. Then she gets on
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: Facebook and she sees lots of messages both from friends
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: basically being like.
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: Are you alive orre you okay?
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: I see that you were involved in this crash, as
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: well as hateful, really transphobic messages from people saying that
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: they thought that she had been involved in this crash.
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: So again, I can't quite imagine what it.
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: Would be like to go to bed just a normal
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: person and wake up being at the center of this
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: horrible tragedy that you weren't even involved in in any capacity.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: You know what I really hate with all of this
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: conversation is that that was part of the point. They
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: love taking an incident that they know they may have
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: some liability in because we know what was happening with
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: the Department of Transportation and the FAA. We knew like
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: things were happening, and things were slowly like falling apart,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Like we could see things falling apart before this happened.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: And if they just like with the shooters, any of
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: the shooters, when they're like, ooh, this is not going
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: to be good for our side. So what we're gonna do
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: is put in as much disinformation and misinformation as we
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: can and also give them a villain that we have
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: already used to capitalize on traditional families in order to like,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: you know, get our narrative out there. There's so much
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: to this, and like it doesn't matter if they're wrong.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: They've got the perfect victim and they've got someone to
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: be the villain that that could only help perpetuate their platform.
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: Right, You're exactly right, Samantha, And I mean that is
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: exactly what's going on in this case. When initially, like
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: I remember the day this crash happened, and I also,
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: when I'm not making my podcasts, there are no girls
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: on the internet. I also co host a local daily
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: news podcast called Citycast DC, so I was reporting on
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: this story and I will never forget literally the day
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: it happened, you had administration officials essentially blaming DEI. This
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: was when we didn't even know what the cause was,
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: and so they were so confident getting up on television
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: and being like, oh, the problem was DEI. And then
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: back in March, the administration spent two point one million
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: dollars on an actual official investigation into whether or not
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: DEI policies were causing all these recent safety incidents with airlines, right,
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: And so it's just I don't think I have to
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: tell anybody that there's just no credence to this, like
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: you don't need two point one million dollars to study this.
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: But also the way that even before, like I'm not kidding,
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: there were still bodies in the Potomac River when Donald
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: Trump was getting on TV talking about this being because
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: of DEI, And so you're exactly right that they've just
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: created this scapegoat that you know, it's horrible for trans
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: folks on the trans community, but it's also horrible for
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: everybody because when we're trying to somehow pin deadly plane
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: crashes on diversity, we're not actually looking at what causes
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: the deadly plane crashes. So the planes are less safe
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: for all of us because they're like, oh, it's you know,
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: how trans people are always causing plane crashes and then
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: the thing that it's actually causing plane crashes is going unexamined,
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: and so it's a real problem.
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: And I just hate that it's been so effective.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: In my head, this is like it's such a bad
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Like when the queer community are involved, I'm like, it's
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: because they were like dressed too too good, Like they're
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: they're showing off their fits, you know, Yeah, a little
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: trend that's happening on TikTok. Yeah, they're showing their office
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: and so they were being too distracting and caused this
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: plane crash.
• 14:57
  Speaker 5: And that's what it goes in my head.
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: I mean, that's essentially it's like a joke, but like
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: that's essentially what they're saying.
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: Sometimes it's so silly. It is beyond.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: This is the part I think you're coming back to,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: and I want to make note of that there is
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: no real liability in this different this information slash just
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: straight out lies because this plays out on social media exactly.
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: So we're starting to see a little bit of movement there,
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: and I'll talk more about that toward the end of
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: the episode. But yeah, because it's all happening online, it's
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: happening in a space where real damage can be done,
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: and then real accountability can be elusive, and so that's
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: exactly what happened in this case. Right wing influencers just
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: started boosting lies that Ellis was involved in this crash
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: when she wasn't. On Twitter, Matt Wallace, who has over
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: two million followers, put out a post saying that a
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: trans Blackhawk pilot had written a letter about depression and
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: gender dysphoria the day before a deadly crash. So if
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: you actually read Ellis's piece, she talks about how she
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: was depressed, but when when she was young, before she
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: transitioned her her piece is all about how, you know,
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: I feel like I have a supportive community both professionally
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: and personally and socially. Her her piece did not make
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: her sound like she was an unhappy person. It made
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: her sound like she was a very happy, you know,
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: solid person.
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: So even even that is a lie.
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: But he went so far as to suggest that it
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: might have been some kind of a quote trans terror attack.
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: That post blew up and got almost five million views
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: before he deleted it. Then Anne vander Steele, who was
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: a pretty well known QAnon personality with a huge following online,
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: jumped in and pushed the same false claim. She did
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: eventually post a attraction, and of course it would not
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: be an episode abouts phobia without mentioning Elon Musk. Musk's
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: own AI chatbot, known as Grock, falsely named Ellis as
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: the pilot, which only made the rumor spread faster. So
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: before long, Ellis was actually trending as the second most
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: talked about topic on Twitter, with more than ninety thousand
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: posts about her like speculating that she was involved and
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: that the whole thing was some sort of a quote
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: trans terror attack. She had to put out a proof
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: of life video on social media to reassure her community
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: that she wasn't dead, and also just as an attempt
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: to push back against these lies.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: I hate that she had to do a proof of
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: life video just to like save her name. But also
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: I wonder how many people like this is AI, like
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: they still refuse to believe in Yeah.
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: I mean, that's the thing.
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: So we know that in that crash there were no survivors,
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: and so I almost wonder if someone has to saw
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: a video of for her being like, well there were
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: no survivors and here I am, They're like, that's not
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: that's AI, and that just goes to show how our
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: digital media landscape is is that some people, when confronted
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: with the truth that does not align with the reality
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: that they want to be true, will always reject it.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: They can meet her in the flesh and it's like, oh,
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: it's a body double like it does not It truly
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: does not matter, so I will say. After she posted
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: her proof of life video, Matt Wallace, one of the
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: people who initially claimed that she was responsible for this accident,
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: did post to say, oh, I saw that video. Ellis
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: is alive and well and not responsible for the crash.
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: He shifted the blame to another account called fake Gay Politics,
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: which has since been suspended on x saying this is
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: apparently the first account who reported what we now know
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: is false. It seemed credible because Joe Ellis wrote an
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: article calling out Trump's trans military band only a few
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: days ago. I have to point out that in this
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: post where he said, oh, I got it wrong, she
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: wasn't responsible, he of course also misgenders her because he
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: can't just he just can't help himself like he has
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: to even in a post where I don't know he
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: should maybe be apologizing for baselessly accusing her of committing
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: a trans terror attack to like millions of people. He
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: should maybe apologizing, No, he's like I got a missgender
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: her on the way out also right.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: I mean it's definitely like, you know, gotta less, treat
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: them less than human type of narrative from him, of
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: course Wallace, which I can't stand him anyway, But Matt
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Wallason himself, he can't. He can't really actually show any
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: compassion exactly.
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: And I think, what what How this moved? How this
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: claim moved online? I think really shows what an effective
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: social media and media apparatus folks on the right really
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: do have, where these claims maybe start in more fringe
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: pockets of the Internet like four Chan or some random
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: extremist bloggers Twitter page, but then they quickly get boost
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: did by right wing politicians media figures, and then bleed
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: into more mainstream media outlets where they just sort of
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: become part of people's consciousness.
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: Like I would be willing to bet.
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: That because that picture of Sam Hyde where it misrepresents
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: Sam as a trans woman responsible for this attack, I
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: would be willing to bet that some people out there think, oh,
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: that image is of an actual trans person who committed
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: a horrible atrocity, even though it's not because it's just
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: like part of the ecosystem.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: Now, yeah, And I mean that's part of the damage here,
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: is even with these retractions, which I mean, I guess
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: I'm glad I did them, but at the same time,
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: I'm kind of like, yeah, sure, okay, but at that point,
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: the damage is kind of done, Like somebody has already
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: been pinned for this, some you know, some people who
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: digested that information might not ever see the retraction, Like
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: the damage is kind of done. They might have that
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: already in their head. And Ellis was someone who went
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: who experienced this kind of thing.
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: She described going essentially overnight, going from being unknown in
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: public to being somebody who felt like they could not
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: even go out in public for her own safety. She
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: told The New York Times quote, my life was turned
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: upside down at that point, adding that her employer sent
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: armed bodyguards to protect her family and that she started
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: carrying a loaded weapon as a precaution. Forever on, I'm
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: known as that trans terrorist. And so as you both
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: were just saying these claims, they it can be hard
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: to get accountability because they're happening online. And even though
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: Matt Wallace did retract his claim that she was involved
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: in this. I have to imagine that he did that
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: because Ellis did not take this sitting down. She actually
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: fought back. And so we've talked about this on my
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: own podcast a lot. But when online right wing influencers
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: and figures spread lies about people, we're starting to see
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: more and more the people that are targeted by their
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: lives are filing defamation lawsuits against people who spread demonstrable,
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: harmful lies about them. And that's exactly what Ellis did.
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: She filed a defamation lawsuit against Matt Wallace in April,
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: saying that he was behind a destructive and irresponsible defamation campaign.
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: The lawsuit against Wallace, filed in the US District Court
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: in Colorado, was a way for Ellis to seek damages
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: for the harm cause to her reputation, privacy, and safety.
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: Ellis said that Wallace has not yet counter filed, and
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: her lawsuit was filed by the Equality Legal Action Fund,
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: which is a group of volunteer attorneys and advocates who
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: helped members of the LGBTQ community fight online defamation. And
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: so I have to imagine that when all these people
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: were like, oh, looks like I got it wrong and
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: this person wasn't involved in this tragedy. As I just
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: said to a million people. I have to imagine part
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: of that was because they did not want to face
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: a defamation lawsuit, which yeah, they If you lie about
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: people in a way that can harm them, harm their career,
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: harm their livelihood, you might actually be looking at a
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: defamation lawsuit.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and we have seen some cases of this working
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: out recently.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Interestingly, I don't.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: Know if you've been following what happened, what's going on
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: with the app Tea?
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: Oh yes, I have, very very closely.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: Yes, But we were talking about that recently in an
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: episode about defamation. Is it can be tricky, but if
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: you can prove like this demonstrably hurt me, you can
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: you can get some money from that.
• 23:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: Are you talking about how the women who were had
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: their information, you know, exposed by Tea are suing.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, we were talking about both because men were
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: so angry and they were trying to sue for defamation,
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: and it's kind of tricky when a lot of it
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: is just well, this is the date you went on
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: and this is what you posted online. So it's kind
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: of tricky, but in other cases like it, then the
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: women were have their information leaked and they're like, well,
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: this is a bit.
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: I When I was covering the t APP, we were
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: talking about those are we dating the same guy? Facebook
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: pages that kind of were a sort of precursor to
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: the t APP, And as you just said, men tried
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: to sue women who talked about the dates that they
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: had had that on those pages, and those lawsuits did
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: not go anywhere. And I remember watching a press conference
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: of these women who posted on one of those pages
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: after the case was dropped and they were not going
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: to be found libel for defamation.
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: They basically said exactly what you just said. Annie.
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: You know, I'm sorry that you didn't like that what
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: I said about what happened on our date was not
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: favorable to you, But that is what happened, and that's
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: not defamation.
• 24:59
  Speaker 5: And I guess the court of reed right.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: And I think the thing about these types of cases
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: and anything with like civil lawsuits in general, with defamations
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: and all of this, is that it really does give
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: an upper hand to victims who can prove what is happening.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: We talked about this in the Meet two episode. We
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: just had an interview with EA Gene Carroll and her
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: defamation lawsuits, which you were like, yes, girl, get them,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: but like, the level of proof is not as deep
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: as a criminal case. But you still have to prove
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: it obviously, And it's such a tricky thing because there's
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: so many unsure ways and this is not as well
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: known obviously defamation and civil lawsuits. Civil suits are not
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: as well known as criminal suits. We're not like watching
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: shows based on that, although we could, and I'm guessing
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: like this is probably going to be one of those
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: same things where it's kind of like, uh, how do
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: we proceed?
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: What does this look like?
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean again, it is this like tricky gray
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: area legally. Another good example of people successfully suing for
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: defamation were the parents of the Sandy Hook shooting, who
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: successfully sued Alex Jones for defamation after he repeatedly and
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: baselessly claimed the shooting that killed their babies was a hoax,
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: that their kids were not really dead, that they were actors,
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: or that the parents were involved in some massive conspiracy,
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: and that I mean, they were able to prove that
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: he actually did defame them. Also, it's it's such a
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: despicable thing. To do, like he deserves every bad thing
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: that could happen to a person. When you actually look
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: at the at the le he didn't just say this
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: offhand once or twice. These people had his listeners showing
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: up to their houses to harass them in person. Like,
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: when you actually look at the things that he did,
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: it's so despicable. And we also know that Dominion Voting
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: Systems got a seven hundred and eighty seven million dollar
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: settlement from Fox News because Fox claimed that their voting
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: systems during the election were rigged against Trump. So there
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: is some precedent for suing businesses for defamation. You know,
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: Fox is a business, Alex Jones, it runs a business,
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: but not really a precedent for suing individual influencers who
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: spread damaging lies about people. So I think that's what
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: Ellis is really trying to do. Trying to say, like,
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: if an influencer with millions of followers says a demonstrably
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: false claim about me that harms me, I should be
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: able to seek damages for that. And I think, you know,
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: especially for marginalized people, there should be some kind of
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: legal recourse that prevents this. It should not just be
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: that anybody can say, any harmful, dangerous, damaging lie they want,
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: and you just have to.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: Eat it right, right.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, when we look at like Giuliani again with Trump,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: even the Megan, thee Stallion, recent cases like those are
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: these are really interesting. Of course we have bigger names
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: doing these cases. Not the Juliani case. That was a
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: beautiful suit to see in itself, But there are so
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: many things that it looks like, you know, this is
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: the best solution. I say that hesitantly because it's so
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: gross that we can't people can't get justice in general.
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: Yes, but like I guess you know what I.
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: Mean, No, totally, and I'm glad that you brought up Giuliani.
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: So he was sued by two women who probably heard
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: of Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss Georgia, women who he again,
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: I guess, I want to bring this up because it's
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: not like he just casually, offhand said, oh, maybe they
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: were involved in vote rigging the election for Biden against Trump.
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: The way that he said this repeatedly, the way that
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: he I mean, he like. In one instance, he accuses
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: them of passing back and forth USB files that had
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: secret hidden votes on them, as if they were doing
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: a drug deal together, like the way that he it's
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: not so I just want to make clear because some
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: people are probably thinking, oh, well, why can't I just
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: say whatever I want about anybody? But these were not
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: public figures, right, And it's not just an offhand casual remark.
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: It is baselessly and repeatedly saying very inflammatory things about somebody,
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: over and over and.
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: Over again to audiences of millions, Like it really is.
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: When you think, when you actually look at what some
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: of these cases involved, it's really clear that you should
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: not just be able to do this.
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: This would it really did.
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: Have a clear damaging impact on the lives of the
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: people targeted, Like people broke into Ruby Freeman and Shae
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: Moss's home they tried to make a citizens arrest while
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: her grandmother, her elderly grandmother, was in the house.
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: Like that was probably terrifying.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Right, And we know a lot of this as we
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: started the conversation about mass shootings and shootings in general,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: have like a lot of these bases could be on
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: the misinformation. The CDC shooting literally was based on that
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: as far as we know. And by the way the
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: way that was just swept under the rug, can we
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: talk about that.
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: Yes, sorry that was a side note, but.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: I'm just like this miss, this disinformation is what's causing
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: some of these awful outcomes.
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: We are living in a time where somebody can baselessly
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: disparage really anybody, and that and like in this day
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: and age, I'm sorry to say that.
• 30:10
  Speaker 5: Can have violent outcomes.
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: And the fact that we I agree with you, the
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: fact that the CDC shooting happened and we all just
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: sort of moved on from it, and the number one
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: figure of public health and in this country RFK Junior
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: barely even mentioned it. I mean, I think it really
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: deeply means that we have reached a new echelon in
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: this kind of thing that it could be open season
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: on anybody, like genuinely, today it's CDC workers, or two
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: black women who are election workers, or a trans pilot.
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: Tomorrow it could be you, like genuinely, like that is
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: where we're at.
• 30:48
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: Unfortunately, in this case, we are talking about the damage
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: done to the trans community, which is already facing so
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: much violence and this is just exacerbating it.
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And so as I was saying, blaming trans folks
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: for incidents they had literally nothing to do with, is
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: no isolated saying. A review of news reports and fact
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: checking database claim View shows that since twenty twenty two,
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: there have been a dozen incidents when a transperson was
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: wrongly blamed for a tragedy or a violent incident. So
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: after the tragic death of Melissa Hortman, the lawmaker and
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: her husband who were tragically murdered by a gunman earlier
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: this year, Donald Trump Junior said, quote, the radical transgender
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: movement is per capita of the most violent domestic terror threat,
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: if not in America, then probably the entire world. And
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: that shooter was not even a transperson. A trans woman
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: was initially blamed for the Trump shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania.
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: After a shooting where two people were killed in Wisconsin,
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: Alex Jones, who like I said, really should not be
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: lying about anybody at this point, said, if the statistical
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: trend continues with this tragic event, there's a ninety eight
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: percent chance the shooting is trans.
• 32:14
  Speaker 5: Or gang related. I don't know where you got that from.
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: If this is another trans whack job or gang shooting,
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: it will be out of the news in less than
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: twenty four hours. And so I gotta say, this is
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: just a complete lie. Trans people are far more likely
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: to be the victims of crime, not the perpetrator.
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: This is from Wired.
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: Research shows that trans people are four times more likely
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: to be the victims of violence compared to sist people.
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: According to the LGBTQ advocacy group GLAD, between May twenty
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: twenty four and May twenty twenty five, there have been
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: at least twenty six injuries and one death reported among
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: trans and gender nonconforming people, a fourteen percent jump in
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: the previous year. Meanwhile, claims that trans people are behind
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: mass violence doesn't add up. Per the Gun Violence Archive,
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: there have been four thousand and four hundred mass shootings
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: in the past decade, of which fewer than ten known
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: suspects were trans. That is zero point one one percent.
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: And again, I mean trans people are already not a
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: huge number of the population in general, so like just
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: common sense would probably tell you they would not be
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: statistically overrepresented in mass shootings. And so all of these
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: claims linking trans people to being the perpetrators of violence
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: are just bunked.
• 33:23
  Speaker 5: They're not true. It's just another way to lie about
• 33:26
  Speaker 5: this community and demonize them.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's the same similar to the bathroom
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: argument that there's going to be men and the trans
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: men are men coming into the bathroom to molest your children.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: They're like, what, that's never been a that's never been
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: a what are you what?
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah?
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: And whenever I hear about that when people are like, well,
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: CIS men are just gonna go into the bathroom with
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: your little daughters and creep on them, isn't what shouldn't
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: not beyond the CIS men? Like, if you're saying that
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: the problem is that sis ana are gonna use this
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: to sneak their way into bathrooms to harm girls, what
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: a trans Like, there's not a trans person in the
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: mix in this scenario that you've paint in, this fear
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: mongering scenario that you've just painted out, wouldn't.
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: That be on the CIS men? Right?
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Also, can we if we're really worried about these young girls,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: can we talk about child bride laws? And you're like,
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: are we gonna talk of nonet me?
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: I mean I have said this so often and I
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: mean it literally, we hate children. We will absolutely be like, oh,
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: we have to protect the kids, and this really convenient
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: one instance that aligns with my political policies. But then
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: in every other instance, it's like those kids. We hate
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: kids we're not interested to protect. We wouldn't even be
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: having this conversation about how we allow kids to get
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: shot when they try to go to school if we
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: actually gave us about kids.
• 34:46
  Speaker 5: We hate kids like we don't care about them at.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: All, feeding kids, giving them lunches, Oh dear God, what
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: let them starve?
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: Put them in the minds. Get a job. Just then
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: go ahead do your thing. Okay, listen, you're in kindergarten.
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: If you don't have a job, and if the rectory
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: are a mind, I don't want to hear it.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: I love the regressing, and we all have a lot
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: like the child labor laws, like they need to work
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: at ten, they absolutely need to be working.
• 35:10
  Speaker 5: Let's let's bring them into the fields. I almost feel like.
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: We're getting closer and closer to this being explicit because
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: I at least we don't have to hear the sort
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: of protect the children rhetoric so much anymore.
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: We still hear I'm not saying we don't hear it, but.
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that people their naked hatred of children
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: is becoming more and more on display. So at least
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: we can all just have an honest conversation about it.
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: We don't have to pretend that you want to protect
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: kids when you want them to be starving in minds
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: or whatever.
• 35:36
  Speaker 5: Right, give us our batteries.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: Anyway, coming back to so that was just my little
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: rant about how much you make kids.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: You know how I love going on the side quest
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: made these conversations with you.
• 35:52
  Speaker 5: But yeah, like we do.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Like I said, I've mentioned before about this whole level
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: of social media and what kind of a role they
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: are playing.
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: Can you kind of bring us back to that.
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean all of this, all of the things
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: I've just talked about, it's all made worse when you
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: look at how most social media platforms have really rolled
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: back whatever rules they did have that were meant to
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: prevent trans people being harmed on their platforms. This was
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: something I personally worked in when I was working for
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: an advocacy organization called Ultraviolet. We worked with platforms like
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: TikTok and read It to have them spell out that
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: behavior like dead naming or misgendering was going to be
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: called out in their hateful conduct policies. Almost instantly, when
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: Trump got on office, a lot of that stuff was
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: rolled back. That was one of the first positions that
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: Elon Musk rolled back when he took over Twitter. So
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: like the way that we are living in a less
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: protected landscape for trans and queer and marginalized people online.
• 36:47
  Speaker 5: It's just sad how quickly that became the case.
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: And you know a lot of these platforms, even linked In,
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: have really rolled back whatever protections they did have around
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: this kind of harmful content and language toward marginalized people
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: like transpokes, and it becomes an even bigger problem as
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: algorithms amplify harmful content, while platforms like Facebook and Twitter
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: really just abandoned fact checking. Earlier this year, Facebook also
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: loosened its rules around hate speech and abuse.
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: And so, yeah, we're just.
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: Living in a much less moderated online landscape when it
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: comes to marginalized people, trans people, queer people, and it's
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: a problem. And I think all of that relates to
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: you know why, when Matt Wallace baselessly accuses a trans
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: pilot of being involved in this crash, not only is
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: it amplified, but that sticks around. It becomes a trending
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: topic on a platform even though it's just a complete lie.
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: And I think at the heart of all of this
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: is really just shows how eager people are to use anything,
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: even outright lies, to paint trans people as violent. You know,
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: it's like they're trying to build a world where trans
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: folks never get to just exist at the as themselves. Instead,
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: they're being constantly scrutinized and held responsible not just for
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: what other trans people do, but even for things that
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: have never actually happened, Like, how could you ever exist
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: if that was the climate that you were that you
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: had to exist under. It just it just really goes
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: to show how much people want to create a climate
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: where these folks don't exist.
• 38:29
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it feels very purposeful, and it's frightening in that
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: it is so effective. And you know, I know we've
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: talked about this before, but there have been people in
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: the periphery of my life where I've sort of watched
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: them fall into this kind of conspiracy world.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: Well they'll say something and I.
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: Just pause, like, wait what, And I've just seen them
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: go further and further and further down this path, and
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: it's it's it's.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: Frustrating and frightening. And I do.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: Think that in some places it's like misinformation, but I
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: think a lot of it is purposeful. I think they
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: want to a RaSE.
• 39:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I completely agree.
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: And you know, I will definitely be following Ellis's defamation
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: suit because it I don't want. I don't like the
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: idea that the only recourse is fighting back in the courts.
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: But I do think having there be a cost for
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: spreading these kinds of harmful lies online would be a
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: good thing. I think a signal that says, if you're
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: going to get on the internet and blast a lie
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: about a transperson to millions of people, that might be
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: a decision that comes out of cost for you, so
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: think twice about it. And so I think I'll be
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: interested to see where this suit goes and whether or
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: not it creates a dynamic where folks do think twice
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: before they get online and lie about trans people because
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: they should.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: Yes, they should.
• 40:07
  Speaker 5: I mean you should. You should think twice before you
• 40:09
  Speaker 5: lie about anybody, but don't lie.
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: Yes, I think that would be fantastic for everyone. Uh,
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: if people thought twice before lying online, It's it's fascinating.
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: I used to have to answer the comments on YouTube
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: under our videos, and it was so interesting to me
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: how many times I'd be like, hi, I'm a real person,
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: and they'd be like, oh my god, I'm so sorry, so.
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: Funny that you say this.
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: I made a video of a video on Instagram about
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: AI and someone let the comment that said, why should
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: we trust you? Aren't you AI? And I was like,
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: oh my god, am I AI? I had a moment
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: where I thought, you know, I thought I had a childhood.
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: I thought I had blood drawn? But am i AI?
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: But what would AI? Wouldn't if you were AI? What
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: didn't you think you were real? Like, it's not like
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: a I would know they were AI. It really caused
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: me to go down an existential tailspin. I think I'm real,
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: but could I ever be? Could I ever be sure?
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about the dude that got engaged to the AI.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: I think we talked about before and didn't she admit
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: she's not a real person. I think she said that
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: I'm not real, but my feelings, our feelings are real.
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: Yes, like that the guy who got who proposed with Aiah.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's just not real, but our feelings,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: their feelings, the relationship was.
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: I was like, wait, my feelings are real.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: I love it was, Oh, we're gonna have a crisis.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're getting into matrix territory.
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: You know this, This very question became a huge deal
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: in the Star Wars fandom a couple of years ago
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: because they introduced a droid that could use the Force.
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: So if a droid can use the Force, then you're saying.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: It's alive.
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: So they what are we doing with all of these
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: other troids?
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I've always wondered this. I mean, this is a
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: whole rabbit hole.
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: But and I'm not I don't know a ton about
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: Star Wars, but I do notice the Stormtroopers Are they
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: are they? Because when they get killed there it's never
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: it's never like my body, I'm always Are they are?
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: They?
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: Are they human?
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: Are? Like?
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: What's the what's going on with them?
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: Well, bridgie, I could go into a long thing, but essentially, yes,
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: most of them are human and or clones which are
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: also human.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: But yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, they kind of have like
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: numbers for names. Yeah, so so.
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: They're not like when they're not doing Stormtroopers stuff, it's
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: not like they're taking off their mask and like going
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: home to the kids and watching teacher.
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: And most of them are not.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: Some of them aren't, but a lot of them are
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: like grown quickly in a in a tube, so they
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: like might not have even had a childhood.
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: Hot it. Yeah, my god, how deep does this thing go?
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: You don't even want to know.
• 43:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's not the question. Dangerous unless you got a week.
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: Okay, well maybe later welcome back to that, but in
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: the meantime, always wonderful to have you on. Thank you
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: so much for bringing this topic and for being here.
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: Where can the good listeners find you?
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: You can listen to my podcast. There are no girls
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: on the Internet. You can find me on Instagram at
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: bridget Brie and DC, on TikTok at bridgeant Brie and DC,
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: and on YouTube.
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: There are no girls on the internet.
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: Yes, and listeners, go check out all that stuff. If
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: you haven't already. If you would like to contact us,
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: you can. You can email us at Hello, Stuffhenever Told
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: You dot com. You can also find us on Blue
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: Sky at Mom's a Podcast, or Instagram and TikTok at
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: STUFFE Never Told You for us on YouTube. We have
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: some new merchandise at Cotton Bureau if you want to
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: check it out, and we have a book you can
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: get where we get your books. Thanks as always to
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: our super produce Christine or executive producer Maya and our
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: contributor Joey.
• 43:57
  Speaker 5: Thank you and thanks to.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: You for listening STUFFE Never Told yous. Action by heart Radio.
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, you can check
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: out the heart Radio app Apple Podcasts, where you listen
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: to your favorite shows,