Begin Again with Davina McCall - "The Guilty Feminist": Transgender Rights: The Conversation We Should Be Having!

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

In this episode of Begin Again, Davina McCall sits down with the brilliant Deborah Frances-White — comedian, author, and host of The Guilty Feminist — for a raw and courageous conversation about truth, identity, and the power of difficult conversations. Deborah opens up about her early life in a high-control religious group and the journey of breaking free from the Jehovah’s Witnesses to forge a new life on her own terms. She shares the challenges of navigating identity, belonging, and voice — and how comedy became both a lifeline and a catalyst for change. Drawing on her new book Six Conversations We’re Scared to Have, Deborah reveals why the hardest conversations — about religion, race, gender, money, and grief — are the ones that have the power to transform us. She shares practical insights for tackling the conversations we often avoid, and how facing discomfort with honesty can lead to deeper connection, freedom, and growth. This is a conversation about reclaiming your story, challenging silence, and daring to speak the unspeakable. It’s honest, funny, fearless — and an invitation to live with more courage and compassion. 📢 Drop a comment: What’s your biggest takeaway?  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and sip. Play. Post. Taste. View and enjoy. Via rail, love the way.

I wanted to restart the conversation about trans rights because at the moment, there is such a fearmongering that trans people are somehow predatory. Yes. Sometimes I feel for people who make it like, well, I don't know what to say or how to, you know. Or I'm not going to get it right. Yes. So I won't say anything at all, which is really sad. Well, what I'm trying to do is reawaken critical thinking, debate, discussion.

Because when I was 14, I joined a religious cult. And if we had doubts, they said that was Satan getting in your head. Critical thinking to them was arguing with the devil. It's such a hard thing to wake up and get out of a cult. To de-brain-wash yourself takes a long, long time now. It's like feminism. We all police each other. I thought, well, this is happening to me again.

I've been out of this for years and this is happening to me again. What you're really asking people to do is think critically. Don't get your ideas from out there come up with your own ideas. These conversations are dividing us and I think we need to build bridges

wherever we can and stop burning the ones we've got. Thank you for bringing up difficult conversations and doing it in a way that doesn't shut people down. Today I'm talking to Deborah Francis White and she has written this brilliant book, six conversations we're scared to have. So please can you like and subscribe?

So basically that just means clicking the thumbs up so that you've said that you like it. And if you subscribe, just to let you know, subscribing doesn't cost you a penny. It just means that you get the episodes first. What's quite funny, Deborah, is I feel like we've done half the podcast before the podcast started.

There was no small talk. No small talk. Not a murmur. I bet you're not really a small talk person. I don't love how far have you come? I'm like, why do you care? Let's get into it. The world's on fire.

Let's talk about something real. Or something about you as a human being or me as a human being or what's happening in the world. No one cares how far you've come. It would be quite funny if I went. But how far have you come? No, Tom.

Deborah, I would like to talk because I'm fascinated. in how you became you. And I feel like, well, could you tell me a little bit about your childhood before you were 14 and what that was like? Yes. What you're asking is how far have I come? Yeah. Emotionally.

How far have I come emotionally, which is a more interesting question. So I was born in Australia, adopted immediately. I was 10 days alone in the hospital. and at that time I didn't have a carer. I just, whatever nurse was on shift. Can I quickly ask you something? Yeah. I'm interested that you've pointed that out

because when you found that out, yes. Did it shape something in you, do you think? I think so, yes. But I actually also have looked into the neuroscience of it and every baby that doesn't have a main carer from the beginning. and there is also something about you're expecting to be cared for by the person whose voice you've been hearing at heart meet, you've been hearing and all of that. But if you don't have a sort of main carer, even if it's not that person, because of course, you know, things, terrible things happen.

From the beginning, it matters. The first week is more important in the first month. The first day is more important in the first week and the first hour is more important than the first day. So it's that, you know, being held, being seen, being hearing of all. voice. So I remember I once worked with a very insightful Lebanese film director who said to me, how old were you when you were adopted? And I said, how did you know I was adopted? He just said, how old? And I said, 10 days. And he said, and where were you for that 10 days? And I said, just in the hospital alone with whoever nurse was on shift feeding me shifts. And he went,

hmm, that is why you like attention and that is why you like food. rude but probably accurate because I think if as a baby if you you know most babies have a mother fussing over them going and eye to eye contact you're trying to kind of get them to latch and they won't latch but if you're lying there thinking where's the milk when the milk comes you drink all the milk and maybe you have to do a bit of jazz hands to get the milk

and I think you know when you get home with a family you drink, you know, when now you're being offered more milk, you always drink all the milk because you think, well, we don't know where the next lot of milk is coming from. That's the first thing I learned outside the womb. So the first thing you're learning outside the womb is how do I survive out here? And so all adopted children, especially in those kinds of circumstances, go into fight or flight. And the problem with going into fight or flight is that babies, especially newborns, are notoriously poor at both fighting and fleeing due to the, no, no great strength in the arms or the legs at that point. So therefore you're just in kind of panic.

And I think it took me many years to, A, realize that it affected me and B, to start to calm that nervous system down and not be in fight or flight all the time. I think also, you know, when a child doesn't get care and attention, when it's born from maybe a particular person or somebody, it's that failure to thrive. thing where you disassociate a little bit. You know, you're trying to get attention and then you give up.

Yes, possibly. And I think maybe because I was only 10 days and then my parents gave me lots of attention, I have more of a perform and be available, be somebody who is useful to other people. Right. Always provide a service. And I think probably, although my parents never made me

feel like I had to do that. They really didn't. They treated me just like my siblings. My siblings were both biologically theirs. I will give them that. They never did. But other things developed in my life that I think harked back to my family joined a religious cult when I was in my teens. And it was a shaming and shunning cult, which is why I've written this book, six conversations were scared to have, because I think we're currently in a shaming and shunning environment. I think that's what council culture is. And it's not simple, but it needs to be discussed. I'm not like, oh, down with that sort of thing.

I've benefited massively from the Me Too movement personally. And yet I think it calls for a big, deep, interesting conversation. And I think the reason I know this on a gut level is when I was 14, I joined a religious cult. When I was in my mid-20s, I left that cult. And because it's a shaming cult and a shunning cult, and a shunning cult, I was isolated. And I think for about 10 years from, you know, some people who really matter to me, probably mirroring the 10 days, I was left alone in the cot.

Right. And I think that shaped me in a way that meant I'm somebody who's always working for your affection. Or just, I got to the point where I realized I had a bit of it. you know when you have one of those therapy breakthroughs, I went to Canada to help out a young man who was trying to get out of the show of his witnesses without being, that was the group I was in, without being formally shunned, but formally disfellowshiped. If you're not formally disfellowshiped, it's more like a soft chum. It is effectively a shun. I know what you mean. Like a soft exit. It's less brutal. Yeah, people can choose. They're allowed to talk to you.

Well, they tend not to, but it's not as hard line. Right. So there's more great. areas and I went out to help him get out and my friends were like what are you doing going to Vancouver to help a 23 year old man up what do you don't know this man but it was a weird call it was like I was going to help my younger self yes you're going to rescue yourself all over again and I ended up locked in the back room of the kingdom hall the kingdom hall is the like the church being interrogated by these elders Jehovah's Witness elders who knew I was not a Jehovah's Witness, although I was using all the right language,

they could just tell. Because they're men and I was looking them in the eye and I wasn't being apologetic. I wasn't being in subjection and they knew. And they said, we need to do a background check on you. And they just locked me. I didn't even know the names. They hadn't introduced themselves.

They hadn't told me they were elders. I knew they were. And I just thought this is illegal. And I just said, you just shouted at them. You have to let me out. you unlock the door. This is illegal what you're doing. And then they kind of went like,

they'd never been spoken to like that before by a woman, so they let me out. And I walked out of the Kingdom Hall and it was like this umbilical cord. This is years after I'd left, this umbilical cord cart. And I got on the plane home from Vancouver and I cried the whole way.

And I was in economy, not because I was in economy, just to be clear. But I was sitting at some poor random man and I was crying, crying, thinking, oh God, this man, thinking, God, this is 11 hours to London with this weeping woman.

but what I realized was as I had this sort of breakthrough of going back to the cult, I'd never stood up to them, I'd faded out. And on the plane on the way back, I'd sort of stood up to them. And so what sort of came out was, I don't think anybody would want to spend any time with me unless I was providing a service or creating opportunity. And I just looked around and I went, everyone I love, I somehow hire or come up with a project for or I take in or I gift something to. And I'm like, oh my God. And that's a lovely response. It's a nicer response than putting walls up. But I had to really rethink my boundaries and go, what are you doing this for? Is this for them or is this for you? And it's a sort of, I think being, coming out of a cult makes you more. of what you are. Like I was a generous child. Like before any of this happened, I would, maybe before any of this happened, you know, the adoption of everything, but I would always be

making presents or saving my pocket money out by my mum presence. I was it, I think an experience of being in a cult makes you more of what you were going to be, you know, the trauma. So if you were a walled person, you become more walled. If you were an open, generous person, it makes you more of that. But it's, it's something to reckon with that. That if you have been given away at birth and my birth mother did not want to give me away it's not this is nobody's I'm not blaming anyone it was a time and a place

but it will give you attachment issues that then if you are shunned by your whole community and you have to start over from day one I didn't know anybody I was living in London I don't anybody I would sometimes go to if I wasn't working I would go to a cafe to order of coffee just hear my own voice

just to have a connection with another person. Anybody who would talk to me. Wow. And I just had to read it. Can I just say something, just knowing you a little bit. You're such a sociable person and so open and, you know, go deep straight away. It's like connecting. It's an immediate connection because otherwise how far have you come is too shallow.

There's no connection there, right? That's what you like, that's what you like a proper, that loneliness of being shunned. What does that feel like? I think it is why I'm so keen to have this investigative conversation and why I wrote the book in part, in part, many things in the book. But one of the keen things is about the way that we are so quick to divide now and to go, I've seen you say something on Twitter, you're in that team now. Now you don't talk to me anymore.

I don't read your books anymore. I don't look at you anymore. I think being shunned and being part and more than that, Before I left the religion, my friends so often got to fellowship, because I was friends with the cool people. Cool as a relative term. So many of my friends would get to fellowship because they'd do something like they'd have a worldly boyfriend. Worldly was anything outside the religion.

Yeah, or they'd, not even that. Actually, could we just explain what worldly is? So worldly is a term that was given to anybody that was not a Jehovah's Witness. That's right. You're in the world or you're in the truth? Very emotive language. We're seeing similar language now being used by the American administration. So if you're in the truth, so I would say, Sister Davina, if we were both, we were both to her husband,

this is how long have you been in the truth? When did you get the truth? And that's a emotive piece of persuasive language that keeps reinforcing. We're in the truth so everything else is lies. It's clever. And so the others are worldly. That's the world. Oh, she's gone back to the world. she's a worldly person. So it's interesting because as a worldly person, I'm thinking, it sounds quite good being worldly, but it doesn't feel like that to a Jehovah's Witness because the world doesn't know the truth.

That's Satan's world. Okay. Yeah, that's Satan's world. Okay. God, isn't that funny? So when someone was disfellowshipped and went back into the world or into the world for the first time, if they're raised in it, I couldn't talk to them. So I would see my best friend out and about or, you know, you go to, I remember going to a show once,

So my best friend was in the seat right there. And I had to pretend she wasn't even there. Like couldn't see her. Like literal ghosting. And that is participating in eroding not just her humanity, but mine. And so one thing I'm talking about a lot in the book is empathy. Now we've recently heard Elon Musk say empathy is the downfall of the 20th century. We've all got too much empathy.

He doesn't seem to be suffering from much. But our empathy is what makes us human. And sometimes people say, oh, social media makes us all less empathetic. The Internet's making us less empathetic. And they quote often a study, which does not demonstrate that actually. at all, which I really looked into in the book. Because I thought I thought it did. When I started writing this book, I thought social media made us less empathetic.

And what I discovered is that social media every day demands that we be more and more empathetic to fewer and fewer people. How do you mean? How does that manifest? So if you're in the feminist group, become more and more and more empathetic to feminists, anyone who's in our team, you have to speak for them. Silence is violence. You have to love them. You have to endorse them.

You have to look out for them and for the principles of our community. But I was arguing eight, nine years ago, I saw feminists saying hashtag men are trash. And I was like, what is this saying to, I argued with anyone who would listen at that time. What is that saying? And not all feminists said it, but it was a thing. And a lot of people are like, oh, it's kind of just a joke or it's sort of highlighting a broader problem. But I was like, you're a 14-year-old boy. And you're just figuring out what it is to be a man.

And what you see is the feminists saying men are trash. How does that make you feel? And what I was worried about is it would make them run the other way and go into this other team. And, you know, listen, I am not blaming feminists for Andrew Tate. I'm not blaming feminists for the Manosphere. That strain of misogyny is deep and it goes back. to the 60s. But it doesn't help. We need to be the ones modeling empathy. So we see it now. If I'm in your team, even if I'm in this strand of feminism, and that strand is wrong,

instead of reaching out to somebody and saying, what's your experience with sex work that makes you feel that it's just a no-go for feminism as opposed to, you know, I've been listening to some sex workers who've told me that the best thing, that the best thing, you know, that's the best, thing is for it to be decriminalised for these reasons. Can I sit and have a coffee with you? Can I talk to you about it? I have had feminists say that MP is against sex work. She's not on our team. And so if I was seen to be having a coffee with her, God, it's... I'm one of them. But I mean, honestly, it's so frustrating, isn't it? Yeah. Whereas I'm like... How do you start a conversation about changing or being more

open and understanding to people if you can't have conversation. And how do we persuade? But also it erodes my humanity to now avoid that MP if I see her in the street. I've been there. And when I was shunned,

when I did the shunning, it eroded something in me. Yes. And when I left, and I couldn't, you know, it's such a hard thing to wake up and get out of a cult. And I had all the feelings

and all the instincts, but to get out and have the courage to leave everything. And also the, To de-brain-wash yourself takes a long, long time. How old were you when you left? At 25. Okay.

I usually say younger because I don't want people thinking that, but I haven't really admitted that before. Why would you say younger? I just didn't want people to think I'd stayed in so long. But you were brainwashed? That's not your fault. I don't judge other people for it. Oh, that's interesting. I feel a bit stupid.

Really? I feel embarrassed. Like, how did I not see it? How do I know? I'm a smart. Right, you were 14. I was a smart girl. My school results, I was allowed to go to university, which was a heartbreak for me.

They didn't tell me that until I got baptized. At 18, right? I got baptized at 16 just before I turned 17. And in Australia, you can, depending on your birthday, go to university a bit younger. So I would have gone to university at 17. And they told me just after I got baptized, the day before after I got baptized, you weren't. be able to go to university. And all I had ever wanted was to go to university. You're a clever girl, right? Yeah. And my results got me into Oxford University. I went later. I went in my later

20s. But so it wasn't that I wasn't academic. But so it, and academic isn't, doesn't mean you smart, doesn't mean you clever, but it's, it's a different, there are different sorts of cleverness. But sometimes people say, what kind of person joins a cult to me, because they know. And I say, I think a better question is at what time in your life? you most vulnerable to join a cult. And can you identify a cult when you're in it? Because I honestly, for the last eight years or so, have been started feeling like I'm in a cult again. I think all of us in a series of interconnecting cults. I don't think anybody's out of it because you'd have to go right off the grid. But then you're in the kind of off the grid cult, you know what I mean? Like

it's these small groups. You get stuck. But, you know, and so when I was shunned myself, I think it really affected desperately my attachments. I don't think I've ever really healed from it. I think I find intimacy incredibly challenging. My view as an outsider looking in, it's very interesting talking to you because I hear a lot of similarities in my own life to your life and the feelings,

but I wasn't in a cult. And I had a lovely, complicated upbringing, but I was, you know, loved by my mother, but then left with my grandparents. And then my dad used to see me at the weekends, but I'd see my mum sometimes. I was lied to a bit when I was a kid because they didn't know how to say my mum was going to leave me

with my granny and not come back. And that set up a little chain of events of wanting to perform and, you know, love me. But what I'm hearing from you is what I'm getting from my mum leaving is a fear of abandonment. Yes, I'm sure. And also, do you find it hard? I think other people find it easy.

Like, I'm so open, as you can see, and I'll, you know, talk too much. But do you find, as someone with abandonment issues and attachment issues, that it's hard to sit one-on-one with another human being and really open up or just be? I feel like I don't know. I mean, the other thing is, is, oh God, this is so much more than I've ever said before, really.

Because I didn't have any normal sexual experiences at all, because we weren't allowed to, we weren't even allowed to masturbate. It took me a long time to develop a sense of self with my body, with my sexuality. And therefore, intimacy, I think, is something that alludes me. and I sometimes worry that I've got lots of friends with whom I am very open but other people having a better experience of intimacy are more connected

it's just you and me here I let you see me I don't even have to say anything but I'm going to let you see me maybe they're having I feel like they're having a better experience or a more deep experience and because of that time I lost

without having a normal boyfriend or girlfriend or girlfriend or anything like that I didn't know I was bisexual then but without having any kind of this we all had to look away from each other we all God you know we didn't they didn't say you have to look away from each other

but you just did because what if there's a connection and what if fornication was always the thing and they always told you like and there'd be illustrations in their magazines in the Watchtown magazines and stuff where they'd be like if you go into a worldly bar you know someone will you'll just end up having

fornication you'll fornicate with someone. When I left, I was disappointed to discover. That is not true. They don't call it getting lucky for nothing. It's very difficult. You can't just go into a bar, especially if you look like, I think I was giving off Virgin, didn't know. One of my friends from that time, I never told anyone when I left, started going to improv classes, which is what we did then because we didn't have dating apps. And everyone had to go to improv class. That was the only way you could meet anyone, you're into raves, which I mean, I was far too scared. I mean, all my clothes still made me look like I was in Alice in Wonderland.

So it was, you can't just leave with all this dowdy clothes and then suddenly go, hold my hands from a minute. I hold my hands from a minute. The layers that what you went through and the way that it complicated your life, what, that was like 10 years. And I was just thinking about 14 when you went in, when your family moved into Jehovah's, is this like I remember myself at 14 I was like exploding in I mean I don't know why my legs like that but sorry I was exploding no but in every way like my mind my body and everything

and they just go shut down lockdown and how hard that must have been but then everything else that you'd even eye contact with somebody like I'm not surprised Deborah that you feel like you aren't connecting with somebody. You're still learning how to flipping do that. It's like it's entrenched. And I think you are the bravest person I know for leaving at all. You know, you've been worried about leaving a couple of years later than you said. I can't believe you had the strength to do that.

So I just wanted to kind of touch you for a moment. and say that because it's unbelievable what you've been through. This podcast is called Begin Again. Like that's a massive. It's like rebooting your entire life. And how hard that is. Anyway, I just wanted to say well done because... Thank you.

I appreciate you. You're so compassionate and I feel like, it's weird because I just said I don't really have... I find it... Not that I don't have it with anybody, but I always think... are people having this deeper intimacy. It was so interesting when you held my hands.

It felt very... Yeah, well, I wanted you to feel that. Like, I'm with you. This is huge. I just feel huge compassion for sort of 25-year-old you trying to navigate the world. And you really made me laugh when you went improv class because me and my best girlfriend,

we went and did acting classes when we were 19. we thought you were French and soldiers. And how it is a place where you tried to kind of be, let yourself be free enough to make a fool of yourself and do the warm-ups and... It was the antidote to a cult. Yes. In truth, I had snuck out to improv classes

when I was a Jehovah's Witness. You weren't allowed to. It was worldly, you'd meet world to people. End of story. I once got told on by someone who saw me having a coffee with my boss when I was working for a dress designer in a shop. And the elders came to see me and said, you were seen having a coffee with a bodily person.

And I had to say, it was my boss. And I witnessed to her, which means you told her about the truth. And they were like, just be careful, we can't make any bodily friends. So going off to improv class and shows was absolutely not on. And I, so I, but I'd had this little outlet with some other rogue Jehovah's Witnesses. And until we got found out. and it was this antidote to we think everything, we think all your thoughts for you. This is why I am so resistant and nervous and why I've written this book because about

intellectual interference, intellectual control. Because that's what I, that's what I had, all your thoughts are thought for you. If you critical thinking, i.e., critical thinking is taking two ideas and arguing them out in your own head. if we had doubts about the doctrine, and there was a thought on everything, by the way. There was nothing open to interpretation. If we thought doubts about the doctrine, they said that was Satan getting in your head

and you had to push the doubts down, you had to pray them away, had to go and talk to an elder. Critical thinking to them was arguing with the devil. Right. Wow. Oh my God. So you couldn't even think to yourself. You couldn't even come up with your own thoughts or ideas.

That was playing with the devil. That was that and and and I feel in the last eight, nine years, the same things happened because I had someone, as is a very light on example I use in the book, that I had people who would write to me when I started the guilty feminist podcast, which is my, you know, my biggest thing that was a very popular podcast and it hit a zeitgeist at a certain time and it's a comedy show, but it's also can go deep and, you know, it's about how to be a better feminist and the whole idea is I'm a feminist but and then I confess something like I'm a feminist but one time I went. and a women's rights march popped into a department store to use the loo, got distracted trying out face cream, and when I came out, large was gone. Yeah. True story. And so it was a confessional and it was like, hey, maybe we can get better at this together. And I think it was one of the first podcasts that said,

I didn't say, I'm an expert teaching you, but said, I'm not very good at this. Are you also not very good at this? Should we get better at this together? That's kind of the idea of the guilty feminist. And early on, I had lots of unsolicited advice from people. Much of it was very helpful. but often it was presented as if I should have already known, you know. And one of the things that somebody said was that a few people wrote in,

quite a lot of people wrote in about was that you should have a content warning or trigger warning. So if you're going to discuss eating disorders or suicide or but even anything lighter than, you know, lots of things. There was a huge list of things that I was meant to give a content warning for. And I was like, but we start with a cold open of jokes. So normally the first thing before that any of the things, an introduction is like, I'm a feminist, but, and then was always before the pandemic in front of a live audience. It now often is. And you'd hear the audience laugh and, you know, at the jokes. And I was like, I just don't think for this show it works for me to say a list of unsavory words at the top.

Because later on we're going to have a guest who might want to talk about, you know, something serious, an activist or somebody like that. just to, I don't understand how shouting a list of, not shouting necessarily, but saying a list of unpleasant words is less triggering here than it is when it comes up in context here. You can still turn it off here. I don't really understand it. Now, I thought it through, I read about it. I did a lot of critical thinking and decided it wasn't really right for my show. Occasionally, I thought, if this is on, someone's got this on a car with kids or something like that. So just before I got to the section, I'd say, hey, we're going to talk about. this. Maybe you're not up for this today. Maybe you want to save this for later. But overall,

I felt like I didn't think they were very helpful because the very people who might need to hear about this and process it might just turn it off because they're being told, there's a trigger warning. I've got to turn it off. And people were saying to me, no, you're wrong. You have to do a trigger warning. And I was like, I can't be told that anymore. That's how I lived for years. And it was harder than the chastity or the poverty. was the intellectual obedience because it was somebody deciding for me what I thought

delivering from on high through the governing body which is the sort of eight old men in Brooklyn would deliver this and the local elders would police it and then we'd all have to police each other and tell on each other like the Starzy and I thought this is happening to me again

I've been out of this for years and this is happening to me again I'm like I just disagree with you you can't But this is such an interesting thing, isn't it? Firstly, you'd done your due diligence and you had made up your decision from the critical thinking. This side, this side. How do I feel about both?

Blah, blah, blah. Due it all in there, decision made. Absolutely. And then somebody's coming to try and tell you, no, that's the wrong decision. Well, talk about trigger warning. And they would totally change a doctrine by saying the light, there's a scription proverbs that says something like the light gets brighter and brighter as the day draws near and nearer. and the day in the Jehovah's Witnesses' faith is Armageddon when God's going to destroy everything.

And there's going to be like a judgment day. So they would do with just a 180. And it was like 1984. You know, we've always been at war with East Asia. Now that's what we all think. And we just had to go, okay, that's new light. Now we all think that new thing. Yesterday we thought that.

Today we thought, think this. No discussion. No thinking through. No discussing it. It's just new light. And that is how it was presented. when there was new light, a few years into the podcast about trigger warnings were no longer useful. Because somebody had finally discovered a study that had been done years before saying actually

they erode our resilience, they make us more attached to our trauma as identity. They're not useful. And so people started, you know, sometimes I would, you know, use them very lightly or whatever. And then people started writing to me going, you're not allowed to use trigger warnings. And I was like, but they would also present it as, You should know this. Come on. And I was like, I have never really used them,

but they'd obviously listen to an old podcast where I'd said, very occasionally I'd say, look, we're going to be talking about this. If you're not up for this today, maybe save it or whatever. Or because for the people in the theatre, you might think, oh, I can't really get out and I'm not feeling like I didn't come for this or whatever. And it was just then like, no, it's a blanket. No, no. No, it's not a blanket. Yes or a blanket? No. It's a, it's a, use your, use your own judgment.

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But why do you think people do this blanket? Yes or no. Do you think it's fear? I think it's our desperate desire to belong to a community. Yes. human beings evolved to become the top of the food chain, the dominant species of planet Earth, not to the planets. Good fortune, to be honest, but here we are. Because we learnt to collaborate and communicate.

One person cannot beat a lion in a fight. We are soft, we're not fast, We don't have venom. We don't have claws. We're rubbish, aren't we? Look at this. How is this the top of the food chain? You know, like, we're pathetic, really.

The only thing we've got, the fastest person is nowhere near the fastest, you know, panther or whatever. No, I'm a joke. The only thing we've got is we can team up. We're smart. We can collaborate. We can communicate. One person can not be a lion in a fight.

Six people can outsmart a lion. that is why we're at top of the food chain. Now, when we lived, all, you know, our common ancestors all lived on the savannah and the meaning of life was to eat and not be eaten, run from predators, try and catch something and, you know, get away with it. If your community decided you were not pulling your weight or that you were for some reason or other had done something when you were shunned, how long do you reckon you'd have to live out on your own? About 15 minutes, I reckon, maybe half an hour. That's why it feels so painful if you see your best mates out on Instagram having brunch and you weren't invited. It's why it feels like you're going to die if you get shunned by your friends. Remember at school when some mean girls would just decide you weren't in the gang anymore and, you know, they'd call it sending you to Coventry or whatever?

That feeling of I'm going to die of I feel so pained at this shunning or this loss of attachment if someone dumps. you or whatever. That goes back to, you know, all our commonly holds phobias have roots in life or death case scenarios. You know, so if we're all scared of snakes, you know, to some extent, it's because even if snakes come in here now, someone says, no, no, they're not dangerous. We don't care. We're just like going, oh. Yes. Because our rational, you know, self must be overrided by a visceral desire to survive. Right. So we must. belong to a community. And more than that, it is what makes us human.

If you are on a desert island on your own, like Tom Hanks, you have to make a volleyball head friend to survive. You cannot mentally survive. You will lose it. And that's why the UN says longer than two weeks in solitary confinement is torture. People talk about being in solitary confinement and what they have to do a little play and pretend there's other people there, or they lose their mind.

But that's why, I think, we are so desperate for community. It's our physical survival, it's our mental survival on a visceral level. Now, who did our community used to be? People in our village. And we knew the people who baked our bread or picked our apples or made our dress for us or whatever. Now, who made, who, who's the person who made this? Who made this? Who made these? We don't know.

Who made your multi-grain noaf of bread and sliced it and bagged it? We don't know. I know them. You do know. But that's a really unique situation now. Yes. And it really feels very... But it means a lot.

Yes. I love it. Yes. But it feels very homely and almost very... It's very up market to know you're in baking. Yeah. It's very middle class, isn't it? Yeah.

Like I've got... There's a, well, I live in a town that's got a bakery with independent bakers in who... Exactly. Now that sounds quite, it's quite, it's quite, it's quite, it feels quite, it feels quite, it feels quite, it's not, it used to be just the ordinary way, you know, that you knew who. It does, though. It feels a bit like, you know, here I am introducing me to my personal baker. And most people don't know, you know, and even if you order, you know, you grocery

must be delivered into the door. Yeah, still. Hi, thanks. No. That's it. So who's in our community now? What is our community now? In the book, I'm using the word stand, because I think.

it's such a great sort of German word that means like your Stam tish is your, your central perk, you're Joey and your Chinese. Ah, okay. And your Stamban is your family tree. So it's sort of, it's a word that evokes your local, your community, your football colours, that kind of thing. So it's more evocative than Tribe and doesn't have any, doesn't have the same, quite the same colonial imposition.

But so who's in your Stam now? Yeah, you might have a couple of. of mates from school and a couple of mates from this job and da-da-da-da-da and the lady over the road who minds your dog or whatever. But there's not like the same village feel, town hall feel, all come together feel in the same way. So who shares your values has now become for most people their shatam? Who shares their political ideology? Who or who likes the same band? Who's into Doctor Who? You've slightly blown my mind here already. Really? Yes, I'll tell you why, because when I was growing up, I went to church. My granny, I live with my granny, my granny took me to church every Sunday and that was my community. So church, church, church, everybody that went to that church, tiny village church in Grafton. We knew everybody that lived in Grafton, went to the church, we would go and get somebody to take them to church if they couldn't get themselves, community. I didn't know how they voted, what they were interested in, what they thought politically. We just,

were together because we all want to look out. But now church is eroding. Religion is eroding. Like we don't have these gathering places online now. And churches, in my experience, also have their own problems. Yes, I mean, obviously. But for a lot of churches. Yes.

I'd like to talk to you about that. Yeah. There have been, you know, there are problems with everything. So it's not me going, we should all go back to villages and even song. But if your local community is not geographical, it's now for a teenager, I mean, you've probably just seen adolescents. Have you seen it? Yes. Incredible.

Unbelievable. So for a teenager, it used to be you'd all go and meet up on the corner and hang out here or, you know, you'd be in the football club or you'd be in the ballet class or you'd be in the whatever you were in. On the bench down the road smoking fags. Quite so. And there was this sort of community sense. And what adolescence, you know, Netflix, brilliant Netflix drama about how boys get radicalised quite easily now falling down the manosphere, which I also discuss in the book how the manosphere operates. Can you just explain to anybody that doesn't know what is the manosphere? A great question. It's a sort of anti-feminist movement of men that actually has been around since the 60s since second wave feminism, but has really,

come to life in a very big way in response to recent feminist movements. You know, there was a, there was, it was there was there was there was there was there before Trump's first term but it it came out in droid because women came out and marched in the streets and said we don't want this anymore. Harvey, Harvey Weinstein went to prison because he'd been routinely, um, assaulting and threatening women and, um, sideline their careers and, um, there was a big, it's like a backlash. There's always a backlash. There's a brilliant book called backlash, and the writer says that the history of feminism is not a ladder. It's more like a corkscrew that goes around. There's always a backlash. It's the era for any human rights movement that I like to call the Empire Strikes Back, which is you've made some gains. Now we're going to try and push you back in your box because it's like we're going to show you that we don't accept you and it's not going to be different for you.

So there is, so the manosphere really pushed back. And so you get characters like Andrew Tate, who seems like a manufactured character, but is a man. Yes. And this sort of push of misogyny, push to, they talk about women should be high value women, i.e. really there to serve men and not have many sexual partners. And we see this trad wife movement coming up now,

where women are saying, we can't believe that women were convinced it was oppressive to have six children and being a gingham apron, making pies for their husband. The manosphere is particularly the nastiest side of misogyny as is dwelling on the internet and radicalising young boys and young men.

And it's basically trying to also guide how women feel about this trad wife thing, I think, is really interesting. because my grandmother was a, you know, traditional wife from the war. They met in the war, but she was a Wren and he was in the Navy and they came together and she didn't work and had three children. But what is interesting, I think, is our upbringings often shape our decisions as women. So anybody that was brought up in that era may then leave and think, actually, do you know what?

I saw her not being able to make that many decisions or being financially independent. And so I'd like to be financially independent. I don't want to have to rely on a matter. That's what stuck with me. Absolutely. My grandfather was, it was in the 80s, he got made redundant. And we lost our home.

And I remember at that point going, okay, well, that's never going to happen to me because I'm going to make my own money. I'm going to make my own way in life. Like I'm not going to have to get married to. Absolutely. I'm not going to rely on it. Yeah.

And it's interesting. how history sometimes has a way of helping us develop into stronger, more independent women. Yeah. Absolutely. And if a woman, you know, more than anything, you know, wants to get married and have children

and be with those children, there is nothing more with that. Or you might be a woman who has massive ambition, but then you find the person that you love the most, you have children with them and you think, you know what, this is more important. to me, I love this. There's nothing wrong with that. As long as it's your decision, right? Of course. Yeah. It's the imposition. And there is a quite scary Christian nationalist push now that is coming up and it's coming across the world. What's a Christian nationalist?

So Christian nationalist is country first. You know, we don't want immigrants in our country. It's often a kind of has a white supremacist on the... Oh, political question then. Yes. Yeah. And it's... So if you put together populist nationalism and Christianity, taking out the tenets of Christianity like the Good Samaritan or loving your neighbor or, you know, those kinds of things that...

It doesn't seem to bear much relation to anything Jesus said, certainly, in my opinion. But there is quite a strong... Christian nationalist push coming up now. Is that mostly in America? Well, I think America is on the road to Gilead now. I really, really do. There are laws coming in that are very frightening. You know, you know, there's been a lot of, you know, Roe versus Wade was overturned

and a woman's constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy that she does not want. or in fact in many cases is not viable. It's dangerous and is dangerous. And women have died since then because doctors are not allowed to help them until it is life-threatening and doctors are frightened of losing their licences and going to jail, understandably.

Some doctors are moving into state and women have died because of row being overturned. But now South Carolina has a bill on the table if it passes to law, if you miscarry, and to miscarriage is obviously a very traumatic thing. If somebody decides that it was a willful or negligent miscarriage, i.e. you could have prevented it or you did something to cause it, you could, if this bill turns into law, you could be charged with homicide. Now, please bear in mind, in South Carolina, homicide can be punishable by death by firing squad. Now, a couple of years ago I would have gone, that bill will never pass.

Of course they're not going to pass that bill that criminalises miscarriage. That'll never happen. But there is a list of words that have been issued that says, if you apply for a federal grant for your science project, whether it be a paper or a test, a study, a cure or whatever, it cannot have the words female or females in the grant. It can have the word male and males. It cannot have the word woman.

It can have the word man. But it also can't have the word black, Hispanic, disabled. There's about 100 words that it cannot have the word. But some of them are just like biases, but lots of science reports would have in a different context, biases, you know, just in a sort of the biases of the study or whatever. I mean, you can't believe it's happening.

And I keep looking and going, Is this fake news or exaggerated? But that's not what I was to be. Thinking, but because it just feels like we're going back to the dark ages. Obviously with all the stuff that we've been trying to work on with loads of us women in the public eye around the menopause and feeling like we're making some headway and at least we're all talking about it, all of that would just disappear, right?

Well, this is the scary thing. And you asked me, is this mostly America? It is coming here. without going to too much detail because I have written it in a very specific way in the book. Legally. Yes. Yes.

About what is happening over here. Okay. But I interviewed an incredible man called Neil Datter who is the head of the European reproductive rights and sexual forum, which is really he runs for MPs in Europe who want women to have access to abortion and

the pill and cervical smears and to stop cervical can't answer and, you know, he's a good guy. And he has told me some very interesting things which are in the book about how this Christian nationalist, these Christian nationalist groups that together they call the anti-gender movement, gender is kind of short-handful women in this, that really would like to see, at the heart of this movement, would like to see women back in the kitchen, pumping out babies and are very, very, very, very anti any form of reproductive rights for women and how that has been borrowing into Europe since about 2013.

And what impact that is having on our reproductive rights already in the United Kingdom, it has changed, stuff is happening in the UK, stuff is happening in Europe. And I've written it very specifically because, you know, I'm quoting Neil and, you know, but you can find all this stuff out. You can firstly can read about it. Oh, read it in the book. But yeah, if you look up the anti-gender movement, it's quite scary. As somebody, probably since the experience that I've had with my operation on my brain,

I've become sort of a great believer in the universe. And the universe sends me messages or the universe knows what. what's right for me. And if I ask myself, if I search inside my own head and my own heart, I know the answer to every question I ask, like I already know. And I've found that enormously comforting. And it's helped me a lot. So kind of leaving, I mean, in recent years, I found religion harder and harder to get behind. Yeah. But I love this idea that the universe is looking out for me and if I listen carefully

I can hear what I'm meant to do I've had the same experience by doing ayahuasca oh really because I up until a couple of years ago I would have said

total atheist and then I went and did this I did it in Spain where it is decriminalised and I did it with a proper Peruvian shaman at a proper retreat

I wouldn't recommend anybody do it unless they were very much felt so it's not recreational at all oh no and it must never be used

recreation in my opinion it's it they say you get the call which is you know my friend rang me and said I think you should do this and I just felt immediate like I just had to why did you what what place did you get to to be in a position when somebody called you that you said yes because you're I mean I don't know if you took recreational drugs and you were younger I did but I'm asking you this because when I read about you trying ayahuasca I thought oh this is really interesting I don't mean to pass, I'm not trying to say anything about you as a person, but I wouldn't have put you down. No, I wouldn't have either. Yeah.

I wouldn't have. So what got you to the place where you thought, actually, do you know what? Yes, I am going to try that. Lockdown? Right. I just. For you and me, lockdown was an absolute killer. We love a chat.

I was broken at the end. Lots of people went, lots of people went, oh, I loved lockdown. I was like, I was broken at the end of it. I thought, if I don't have human confidence. That was somebody. Depathed. I remember early on having to learn to use Zoom and it wouldn't work, something wouldn't work. And I remember, which I would never normally do. It was weird. It was out of character. But we were all a bit, you know, we'd all lost it. I remember throwing my phone down and saying, I'm not good with technology. I'm good with people. People are gone. Yes. And I remember thinking, oh, God, okay, I should have some therapy. I can, I had some bad experiences. I'd tried therapy a couple of times and I'd not enjoyed it. And I thought, I've got Zoom. I can have a therapist anywhere in the world. And my friend in New York told me she had a good therapist who gave. me an unbelievable rate because, I don't know, I was from London and we don't pay a lot for therapy here like they do in America. So she really, I don't know, I think felt for me or something and did it for a very reasonable rate. It was the universe.

It was the universe. And I faced some demons. I figured out some things I'd never realized before. Please, can I ask you, you don't have to tell me, but what were your demons? I had tried so hard. to work my way past, to positively think my way past the loss of the 10 most formative years of my life. And you don't come out the other side day one. Great. I'll flirt. I'll do this. I'll do that. You, then I was fucking 10 years in cult recovery or more.

I'm picking. Didn't even realize that I was in cult recovery while immediately going, I've got to go to university now. I know I'll go to Oxford. While I'm in Oxford, I'll do a show for the Royal Court in London. In my second year, what was I doing? What was I doing? But what I was doing was making up for lost time. And I was not really healing. I was not in trauma recovery.

Pandemic hits. You were in plaster. Put a plaster on it. Absolutely. So I had to face it. And so I went to this I wasker retreat. Wait, wait. Wait. No, no, no, no.

How did you... Yeah, but who told you about ayahuasca? Like, where did... A friend of mine, who had moved from London to LA, who's a writer-actor, rang me up, told me about her experience. Right, okay. She said, I've just been compelled to call you. And she's something of a sort of spiritual...

She knew. ...guide for me. I don't... We've never spent that much time together. But when we come together, there's always a sort of some kind of big exchange. And she's often said very... very wise things to me that have changed me. And I, she said, but you'll get the call. And through a recommendation, and again, know what you're doing. Don't just fly off. I was

prepared to fly off immediately and very close friend of mine and said, no, this is your brain. And to be fair, the speed of my brain is the only thing I have. It's literally my only living. I can do lots of things with it, but the connections of my brain, that's all I have. So I went up this. Wait, wait. Wait. So when they say, no. this is your brain. It's like saying respect. Yeah. What this does to you because it's massive. One of my clothes is breath said, no what you're doing. Okay. No what you're doing. Because it's dangerous. It's just don't rush in. You know, like it is. It's big. It's a big, big, big decision. It's like you are going to talk to your own unconscious really is what's going to happen. And you need to be done somewhere very safe with people who know what they're,

doing in a place that it is decriminalised with a local hospital that would know what to do if anything went wrong. Right. Right. So you knew all of that. Dinner parties in London. What the hell are you doing? Don't do that. Mustn't do that. You must go. And I think you also need to respect the origins of it. It's Peruvian and it's, you know, just all of that. So I did all my homework. I watched all the neuroscience side of it and I read about it and I looked at the sort of more romantic side of it and I decided to go up this mountain. A literal mountain. Yeah.

It was, yeah. Well, I mean, I didn't walk up a mountain. No, but I mean, it's like it's when you're saying because I was wondering whether it was a metaphorical mountain, but no. It was a, it was a, no, I did end up with a mountain metaphor, interestingly. It was a Spanish retreat. And they said to set an intention. There was like 15 people lying on mattresses on the floor.

And you, the shaman gives you the tea and you drink it. It's not very nice tasting. And then you lie down in the dark and on a mattress and there's a little bucket because you might throw up, which they call the purge. Which there were people on my street who said they were phobic. But then by the time they got to the vomiting part, they said, oh my God, that was the least of our worries. Really? Yeah.

But I had the most magnificent experience doing it. So the intention I set, they say set an intention. Yeah. was, do you know Kinsugi, the Japanese art form? Yes, if it... Oh, sorry. Why? Sorry.

Why, are you right? Yes. It's a nice thing. Sorry. No, don't be telling. Don't be sorry. I didn't know about it. Sorry.

Somebody gave me two Kinsugi glasses after I had my operation. And you've just reminded me because I had such terrible short-term memory. But this idea of something being broken and being fixed. So I thought, oh, I was broken and I'm fixable. You know what I mean? Yes. Is it okay to talk about this? I love it. No, that was happy. It was a wave. I was gone.

We should have had a trigger warning. It was even the word. Yes. It was like power. Yes. It's really nice, though. That's so nice. Nice memory for me. That's so nice. Your listeners or views don't know what it is. It's a, in Japan, if there's an art form where if we break a vase, they put gold, they fix it with gold.

And then they say it's more beautiful because there's this gold pattern. That's the idea. It was a break. Yes. My brain is going to be more beautiful. Yes. Yes. So it's such a beautiful idea, Kinsugi.

So it's really nice. Thank you. Good. Good. Good. I'm glad it was a happy way. I know. It was great.

I'm glad it was a happy way. Tell me. So I imagine myself as this broken. vase and I said to, they say talk to Mother I Waska and I wasn't really sure if I believed in this at the moment. It's Mother Earth or Mother I Waska and I, but I thought, you know, I'm a theatre person. You go to the theatre. You can't go. Make it till you make it. Yeah, you can't go, you're not, Macbeth, you're David Tennant. I saw you on Broadchurch. Like you can't, you've got to believe. It's a, it's a group belief situation. Right.

So I thought, right, I'm going to absolutely commit to it. And I said, Mother Earth, Mother Ryewaska, I'm broken. And I imagine myself as a vase. And I said, could you feel the cracks with gold? They say, you're not a sack of potatoes. You're a dance partner, but let her lead. So if I wanted to ask a question or something, I could. And there's different, for me, again, this is everyone's got a different experience.

This is your experience. This is my experience alone. But for me, there are times when I can get involved in a question and other times when I'm just seeing things. And after, I'd been working on this book for a while and I was struggling with it. But after I did ayahuasca and I came back from that retreat, so many of the ideas just flowed out. And I was bolder and braver in what I said.

So the idea of saying I was in a cult when I was younger, I feel like I'm in one now. I wasn't sure I was going to be brave enough to say that, that what would people say and would they try and cancel me or whatever or what I'm saying about cancer culture and what it does to your brain and how a community intervention

is what we need, not isolation. Yes. Or even, I think the big metaphor in the book about trans rights in which I am really arguing I think that came out of Iwaska. I talked to her a lot about about that, about gender,

when I was, you know, in that state. I just, it's just something that I've never heard before, but I wanted to restart the conversation about trans rights because I know it is unbelievably divisive. And I truly believe that there is a compassionate, inclusive way forward that also allows, you know, a say on the reshaping. Anytime you have a new group getting, new rights. There's a reshaping. There's a new architecture. There should be a changing of the

architecture because the architecture is the old way. But one thing that I'd thought, because some people had said to me, you know, and some very successful people have said to me, but you can't argue with biology. You just can't, you know. And something that I think it occurred to me, you know, in this time when I was, I feel more in connection with, you know, out of the noise. Yes. Out of the noise. was when I found my biological mother, which was about 12, 13 years ago, I discovered that babies of my generation did go to orphanages in Australian. Not all, but some did. Obviously not all, because I didn't.

And I was devastated by that. I cried for like 48 hours because I'd imagine being adopted by the families. I'd imagine being kept by my birth mother. But I had never imagined going to an orphanage. I didn't think of myself as an orphan. I didn't identify that way. and I looked into it when writing this book. And, you know, in the early part of the 20th century,

if you adopted a child and then you said to someone, this is my daughter, and they found out that that child had been adopted, they would think you were a liar or a fantasist, because nobody did that. You read Jane Eyre, which is Victorian, she says Mrs. Reed. She's not allowed to say this is my brother and sister or that that's my mum. She's adopted. But she's constantly being reminded.

She's a charity case. She doesn't deserve to live there. Even the servant in Jane Eyre says, you're less than a servant because she don't even pull your weight. And then when they tire of her, she gets sent to a horrible reformatory school and it's just devastating. And that's a lucky orphan.

An unlucky orphan is Oliver Twist. It doesn't mean your parents are it. One of Oliver Twist's parents isn't dead. It doesn't often... We think of orphan as both parents dead. That's not the case. It's not the case for most children around the world in orphanages. They have at least one parent or family who can't or won't look after them.

Now, sometime in the 20th century, society just decided, because of the rights of the child, that biology wasn't the most important thing. So by the time I was adopted, I was assumed that I would say mommy and daddy, and this is my sister and my brother. and my parents always told me I was adopted, but it was always presented as you were special. We specially wanted you and all of that and all the positive language around it

and positive feelings about my birth mother and all of that. Now, this is not to say there's no issues with adoption, many issues with adoption. This is not to say there's no been abusive, many, etc. But essentially the shift, what I'm talking about here, what I'm focusing on here is the shift between you're our ward, you're a waif, you're a stray,

you're a bastard. to choose your guardian to you're our little girl, you're our daughter, you're part of our family, you are 100% legally and verbally, the language around that is you on one of us. Your surname's ours, we own you, you own us,

we're your people, we belong, you belong to us, we belong to you. And that's not changing. Now, what that meant is, I grew up with quite solid self-esteem and I'm sitting here and you know you've heard all my problems my trauma but I'm sitting here

saying DeVina you should read this book because I've had some thoughts and I've jotted them down in my bed I've been typing away in my bedroom and I truly do not believe that if I'd been raised in an orphanage unless I'd had some incredible personality and power of world you have to have such extra

to be raised in an orphanage and then you know come out the other side and so in other words in the 20th century we just decided as a community to argue with biology. The upshot of that is, I am my mother's daughter. I am. People could say I'm not if they want, but I am.

And the thing is, because our collective framework has shifted, nobody does say I'm not my mother's daughter. Because we all see this contemporary framework as the only one now. Of course you're a mother's daughter. Yeah, she adopted. Adopted as a little baby, whatever. You know, it doesn't matter. She's your mother.

Yeah, of course she's your mum. No one argues with that. No. But they would have. Yeah. Like at some point, we have to question our frameworks. We're so sure of our frameworks. But the truth is, in Indigenous societies, it's really difficult to find the concept of an orphan

because communities look after children. Stams look after children. So there is no sense of an orphan because actually often you call your aunt the same name as your mum or sometimes it's your your mum's brother that becomes more like a dad role because it's a village genes and la la la la la yeah there are matriarchal societies

there's you know a vuncular but it's that is a different framework that is not available to us now that we think it's not available to us and so we think the nuclear family is the only right way because it's in law and it's in language it isn't it's just a framework we're so sure about ourselves we're so sure

And if you again, if you look into Indigenous societies, I really thought that we were perhaps romanticising and many Indigenous societies would not like difference and say, no, you're gay or you're gender non-conforming. I cannot find any. It's a norm in Indigenous societies. And that tells us that's where we've all come from. There is something inherently human about being gender non-conforming.

That's not everybody is going to fit into this box or this box. but we have, we all have that sense of young and old being a sliding scale. Loud and soft, high and low. We don't think of those as two things. And sometimes people say, oh, in this Indigenous society there's a third gender or it's two spirits in Native American culture. That's actually not true. That is a framework created to explain to Westerners

because it's more of a spectrum. it's not you have to tick one of these boxes. It's old or young. It's high or low. It's male or female. It's not we've put it into two boxes. Now that's not to say we don't live in this society where there are medical research pieces that there's, you know, single-sex spaces that we don't have to have conversations about how to engage with sport. I think we do have to have those conversations.

But at the moment, there is such a, I feel an hysterical sort of fearmongering that trans people are somehow predatory that has happened through so many different newspaper articles. Do you know what I think is fascinating? I don't know, because I think you and I are the same age. And when I was young clubbing, I was like 80s, 88, 90, like rave culture. I had like a couple of transgender friends and it was completely normal. And they were transitioning probably 20, 21. And it wasn't, nobody really thought anything of it. This was in London.

Yeah. I mean, I know London is different from lots of other places around the country. But that doesn't mean those people weren't. They're in other places around the country. Yes, what I don't. They were transgendered people all over the country, but either they were closeted or they came to a big city where they felt that they were accepted. Yeah, safe and accepted.

But what I think is interesting is why has society become, I feel like it's become unforgiving and understanding. and polarized. Is that social media or what is that? Why? Well, there's one thing that I explore in the book about how, you know, the anti-gender movement I told you about. One of the questions they asked in 2013, according to Neil Datter, who says he has evidence, their correspondence, they asked the question, if we're going to move forward, like we can't come into the UK and France and start saying no abortion, no gay rights. will be laughed out.

He said to me that they wanted to start somewhere else that was going to be... The question they asked was, what do feminists disagree on? And right back to the 60s, there'd been a mild disagreement on is this more of a queer rights thing

or is this more of a feminist rights thing? And so there was a... So was it the thing that a feminist would say if they were going to answer that question. It was a sort of, it was a way of, Neil Datter says it was a deliberate move. And he's not a trans rights guy. He's a, you know, he doesn't say women and other pregnant people or anything like that. He likes trans rights, but he's not, that's not his agenda at all. And he said it's a deliberate move to polarise feminists and progressive movements.

and that has not been helped by the fact that the way social media works is to say, if you don't agree with me right now, you're not in Ashdam, you're in that shetam. It has not helped. I mean, I think that's definitely what's happened. Yeah. But it has been deliberately, Neil says it has been deliberately put in as a bone for us to fight over. And I feel very sorry for trans people because I'm like, then they're being used as a porn. Yeah.

But we need... In a political fight. really at the end of the day it's political. And I think we do need to, and I do hope people, I've said in the beginning of the book, in the introduction, you won't agree with everything in this book. But you don't necessarily want people to, you want people to start. I mean, it's called six conversations.

We're scared to have. You want people to finish reading and then go and talk to somebody else and go, can I talk to you about this? Is that what you want? Sorry, I'm telling you what you want. You tell me what you want. No, you are correct. It's, it's, I've said,

I don't expect any one other human being to agree with everything I've put in the book. So if you've been listening to what I've been saying now and going, I don't agree with that. I am inviting you in this book to disagree with me. But I am inviting you to get out of your bubble of these are the things that my Stam or my community agrees on and I'm not shifting my position at all. To read the book, some of the things you might go, that's an interesting thing. I haven't thought about that before. Okay, that might move me an inch or, oh, there's a new door.

go through that door. I'll read more about that. I'll think more about that. Oh, I'll discuss this with a friend. Also, I don't mind if you shout at the book. I don't mind if you go, if you're shouting at the podcast now going, that's not right because of this. I think all of these things are valuable. What I'm trying to do is reawaken all of ours, including mine, critical thinking, debate, discussion. I am always careful to try and do that in a way that doesn't undermine anyone else's identity or humanity because I think it's very difficult to live with an identity that people go, that's not real. So for me, I don't want to ever say anything that disparages or hurts or runs roughshod over something I don't understand because it's not my

experience. But the book is there as an invitation to start a conversation, a debate with your best mate, to help you think, you know, you hear these things that may be in the pub and you think, I don't really know what I think about that. I've just stayed out of. it because it looks like a whole lot of trouble. I said to somebody in my life, I said, you know, who's not in these conversations? I said, what do you think about? Do you know anything about trans? And she said, I know it's got something to do with J.K. Rowling and the kids from Harry Potter. I mean, none of those people are trans, but that's what a lot of people think it is. So it's an old invitation. If you have a very fixed position

to go, oh, what about this? And if you don't have a very fixed position, but you'd like to hear more, There's one chapter in this book about it, but be aware that this has not been stirred up by people who are not on any of our teams. They're not for women's rights. They're not for reproductive rights. They're not for gay rights. What you're really asking people to do is think critically. Don't get your ideas from out there come up with your own ideas. And the other thing that I've noticed about you,

is your usage of language. Yes. Your language is very inclusive. It's not like saying, this is how I think, and I'm right, and I'm doing this. You're saying, I've met this guy. He's told me about some things. This is what it appears to be happening.

Go and find out for yourself. Read it, inform yourself, see what you think, talk to other people about it, which is a very inviting and open and important way of inviting other people from other thoughts. and ideals into kind of the conversation because that's what you want, as many people as possible to come and discuss something

where we can all learn something. What's interesting for me is, obviously I've been on telly forever. So I've been on telly. I remember you used to do a like street date. Street mate, street mate. That was when I discovered you and we all thought, she's so dynamic, she's so funny.

So I've been on on telly for 30 years. Yes. And I've done a lot of interviews. And I've, an interview from 15 years ago, somebody will quote something from that. And I'll think that should be a legal quoting somebody from an interview from 15 years ago because I'm like a completely different person. Yes. We've all got to be allowed. We've all grown. To evolve. Yes. And change. So I might talk to you in five years and you and I both have a completely different take on something. Yes. I mean, it doesn't matter what. I'm just trying to say we're all malleable. And it would be a shame if anybody in life would to say, I'm fixed on this. This is what I believe I'm never changing. Yes. We all have to be open to hearing someone else's point of view and going, okay, I'm like,

I hadn't really thought of it like that. Or I don't massively agree with that. But I'll take that on board. It's respect, isn't it, as well? And I think using stories from your life or, you know, I think a lot of people who have said to me when I've talked to them about, the adoption piece is that I would not be, and I also am paralleling it with the story of gay rights and how, you know, orphans were scapegoats. They really were. They were society scapegoats. 70% of the

criminal population in the UK in the Victorian times were orphans. And that the endorsing, just the kind verbal endorsing and legal endorsing has completely changed the lot of the orphan, assuming we're lucky enough to be adopted or now there's, you know, things where much more likely a baby will stay with their parents, which is a good thing. But that has changed a lot of people who I've talked to. They've gone, I hadn't ever thought of it like that before. And so I think finding, when you want to talk about things or think things through, finding things from your own life and experience. Yes. So if you, one thing I've been thinking a lot about, and I say it in the book, but is the way people talk to each other online and even in families now, if they disagree politically,

is so aggressive. Yeah. And, you know, Coca-Cola do not advertise by saying, fuck you if you drink Pepsi. Fuck you, Pepsi drinker. We don't want you here. It's not how they advertise.

You know what? It's not persuasive. It's alienating. In Narcotics Anonymous, because when you first get clean, you want to go and tell everybody to get clean. Right. You're like, oh my God, this is the greatest thing.

This has ever happened to me. And they talk about it in terms of attraction rather than promotion. Draw people to you. Have a great time. And then people go, God, you're having a much better time than I am over here with my pipe. Yes, absolutely. Beattraction is exactly the right thing.

I think the same with Ayahuasgra, you've done psychedelics and you've had this enlightening moment. If you go and tell absolutely everybody, they think, oh, Deb, you've lost it a bit. But if you just wait for them, say, you seem really censored. Fantastic. Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, yeah, well, I had a little experience. you know it but that thing oh sorry you say no no you finish your thing because i want to talk to you about something else quickly just the persuasion piece um i think people who want to change the world

if you think you've got a big idea that's going to change the world or you think you're right about something instead of saying fuck you if you drink Pepsi which is not persuasive i i think we need to upskill progressive people need to upskill feminists need to upskill anyone who's trying to change the world for the better, no matter what your point of view of better is, upskill. What do you mean upskill? Get better at persuasion. Okay. Surely we should be at least as interested in what persuades and attrides. Yeah. As capital is selling sugar water. No, of course. Yeah. For our big ideas that we believe the world is thirsty for. How dare we be less persuasive and less skillful than people selling cars or dish soap or whatever? How dare we? And the other

The other thing I think on this is that if you had a neighbour who was from a different country, different culture, and you're someone who sees yourself as progressive and feminist and, you know, has good values and, you know, and then your neighbour said something, you thought, oh, that doesn't sound very feminist to me. Would you shout at them? No, you'd respect their culture. You might ask some questions, get to know them, as you get to know them, start some conversations, but you'd be wanting it to be an exchange. You'd want to learn where do they come to this. And you'd probably be surprised that they think some of the values you have are not, you know, feminist to women or whatever, you know, but you'd have this exchange and you'd be curious. One big thing I think

is that culture is not always geographical. Sometimes I think it's generational. So if your grand, uncle Dave says something at Sunday lunch or Christmas dinner or whatever it is, and they say something you think some feminist. So many people will just, you know, but you wouldn't do that to someone who was culturally different. This is part of the upskilling. Rethinking, and there's a whole chapter on what can we do about it, there's a whole chapter about basically upskilling,

rethinking our models for critical thinking, retraining our brain for critical thinking, retraining our way of discussing. And even doing this interview, I remember thinking, I said a sort of a hysterical view and I think that's immediate of putting to people who go, I'm not hysterical.

I've got good reason for thinking this. So what I really need to say is I think this conversation is dividing us and I think we need to build bridges wherever we can and stop burning the ones we've got. So listen, I'm not perfect of this. None of us are in life, I think. Nobody's perfect.

I always say I'm a work in progress. Like we've got to keep learning, keep but you cannot change someone's amygdala. No. They only change their mind. Yeah. So as soon as you get cross and you wind them up or you start saying you're this kind of person or you're that,

you've done this or you've done that, their amygdala goes up, they are in fight or flight, and they're going to fight you or they're going to run away. I mean, that's very true of relationships, right? And how many relationships do you end up going? Yes. Well, no, you always do this. It's like immediately I've got my hackles up if that happens to me.

did you ever watch the Brené Brown Netflix special where she says, I think it's called Courage, but she says her husband and she have this rule that if they're annoyed with his other or even if they're arguing, they have to say when you do this, the story I tell myself. So it's when you don't text me to say you're coming home late, the story I tell myself is you don't care if I'm worried or you're more interested in the people you're with than me. And you allow that other person to go, okay, that's not that's not a story. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or I'm really sorry, actually. I think I was forgetting about you and that was a fair story. So good. And tomorrow I'm going to make sure I do text you and, you know, da, da, da, la, because you're right. But the story I tell myself is such a beautiful turn of phrase that allows them to go. The story I tell myself is you don't. you don't, you're not attracted to me anymore. The story of tell myself is you're not.

And I don't feel like that at all. Yeah, yeah. It's a, it's a, give space for the person to not feel attacked. Exactly. Mm-hmm. I wanted to end up by talking about Tom, Tom. It's finally, you know, it's finally come, darling. So, you're, it's now.

When did you meet? Was it at university, did you say? Before we met an improv class. Oh, that was it. I went to university. Yeah. So he'd already been to university and he came to university with me. And, I mean, I was looking for a nice gay man to marry me because in those days, gay men couldn't marry each other.

And so often would marry an Intipedean girl who wanted to stay in the country. And I could not go back. I could not go back to Australia. because I knew I'd get swallowed back into the cult and I'd always wanted to live here and I just was like, I can't, I can't. So gay men have since selfishly campaigned to marry each other, I notice. So what to Australian girls do now?

But at the time, Tom and I had started seeing each other and I had a car so I was able to drive him home from Improv class and we really got on and hit it off. and one thing led to shagging. And I said to him, look, I don't want to alarm you, but I'm going to try and marry a gay man so I could stay in the country. And he went, well, that doesn't sound completely unalarming.

And he said, I'll marry you. And I said, no, no, no, no, no. That will ruin everything. And I said, I can't marry someone I'm falling in love with because, you know, it will destroy it. I said, what I need is a nice gay man. He said, no. He said, I don't want to anyone else to marry you

and I don't want to drive you to the airport. so I'm going to marry you. And I was like, are you sure this is wise? And he was like, I just love you. And I just know this is going to be it sort of thing. And I said, well, let's see how it goes. Because I was like, you know. So we weren't, people always think if I say that was a green card marriage.

It wasn't. We were absolutely, if anything, in the love. I mean, in a way, you were just frightened that actually it would damage something. You were so into him. Yes. That actually would marrying you now ruin it. Exactly. Should we defer that and marry properly later? But he was like, no, no, no, I'm going to marry you. So I was, I tentatively said, okay. But I said if we ever really, you know, if we want to get married properly with our friends and family there, we'll do that later. And he said, yes. So we got married after being together, you know, I don't know. We argue about how many weeks it was. But it was weeks. Yeah, it was weeks. In a weird way, it was sort of the most romantic reason to get married.

You know, a lot of people now get married because they're like, well, we've lived together for a few years. Yeah. I want to have kids. I guess we should do it. It'd be nice for our mom. Well, you were really into each other. Like when you got married, you were madly in love. That's so nice. So it definitely wasn't a green cat marriage. It was just we got married a lot sooner than we would have. And then years later, we did have a proper big wedding. Did you? Yeah. And we set our vows properly. But Tom and I always said. says I always said them properly. I always knew. And since then, has your marriage changed?

Oh, phenomenally. We've grown up together. We've taught each other how to communicate. We've grown together. Sometimes I say, you know, people say all about marriage, advice about marriage. I only know how to be married to Tom Solinsky. So if you'd like some advice about how to be married to Tom Solinsky, then knock yourself out. That's so true. You cannot give. somebody blanket marriage advice because everyone is different. No idea. I'm probably the worst person to ask because other people have had like four or five long-term

relationships. You know, I haven't. So my knowledge is very limited. I know how to, we've worked out how not to push each other's buttons, how to fill each other up, how to endorse each other, how to. But early on, Tom said to me, a marriage should or relationship should make you feel safe. it should be a nest and an anchor so that you can fly off and be your best self and be more than you are and you've got this to come home to because if it all goes wrong don't worry you got this to come home to

and he said to me early on if I ever make you less than you are leave me can I just say something yes Tom sounds great he's quite nice what a great thing to say I feel that I feel like like that about Michael. I've got a Michael. Nice. And I just want the best for him. And if that's ever not with me, that's fine too. Yes. It's the team. It's the team. Being on each other's team is the biggest. Yeah. People think it's got to be, you know, it's all about, you know, this first flush of, like, like, that it's always got to be the last scene in Harry McSally. It's not going to always be the last scene in Harry MacSally. It's just not, you know, they have to pay the bills and put the

out and, you know, they have grief in their life and they have, you know, dogs that need to be walked and they have all of that sort of stuff. And ultimately, I think what it comes down to is, is, is that person on your team? Yes. Are they on your team? And I think, and are you on their team? And sometimes people say to me, you know, you hear people say, you're going to work at relationships, you know, that thing, you've got to work at marriage, you're working at marriage. I think it's the worst advice because a relationship, a romantic relationship

is fabricated from the gossamer threads of play. Like when you meet someone, wait, say that again, that's so good. A romantic relationship, I think, is fabricated from the gossamer threads of play. So when you meet someone, you flirt with them, there's a little bit of,

is that a thing? Is that a thing? Yeah. I think that was a thing. You might have a little, like, jokey, go at the more a fun moment. And you're suddenly, and your cheeks are all red. Yes. Because there's blood, like, flowing all around your body and you're like,

exactly. And then you start to maybe, you know, invite them over. And if in that first few months of falling in love, you go over to their place and they've left the dishes in the sink, you don't go, for fuck sake, you haven't done the dishes. You go, oh, has the washing up fairy not been? we do this. And you tease them and you make a joke and you make it fun or you you you're playful. Sex is play. And then life gets hard. Things get tough. Everyone's tired and working and too much to do. And you're at each other. And someone says, work at it. You've got to work at it. Disagree.

Play it in. Remember that you used to play. Yes. So instead of going to go, going, I really would appreciate it if you take the bins out on the right day. You do exactly that. What would you have done in the first week? What would you have done in the first month? What would you have said when you were on your honeymoon? How would you have phrased it? Play at it. Play it at it. You would have gone, you would have gone, you would have gone. You would have gone. Bin man's coming. Bin man's coming. Quick, quick. You know, like joke, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. You would have made a, you would have made it. Have we forgot the bins again? Oh my God. We're such an empties. Okay, we've got to put something on the fridge.

You know, we've got to set an alarm. Can Alexa tell us when to put the bins out? But you would invite that. You'd invite play in. And I think the same is true of all parts of relationship, whether it be sex or whether it be, you know, the conversation or whatever. Reinject play, because that's what you were attracted to them

because they were a playmate. At one point they were. You know what's interesting for me and Michael? I've known him for 26 years because he was my hairdresser for 20 years before we started dating. Really? And he was, on four days a week,

we'd work together on a show. So I knew, I knew him as a person. Yes. So if something happens, I just think, I know Michael, I know his intention behind the thing. So if ever, I mean, we don't, bins like, we both do the bins and we both sort of do everything.

But like, he, if he does something else of character, I just think, I know him. I know what his intention was and it wasn't to hurt me. And that's quite a nice feeling when you really know something. It's quite hard when you date somebody and they're brand new and you don't know anything about them. You're going by face value.

You know, you've got to kind of trust. That guy there on the top shelf is my dad. Oh, wow. And my dad, who's not with us anymore, he used to say that love is made up of four things. The first thing is friendship. The second thing is carnal love. The third thing is respect and the fourth is trust.

And he said if any of those things go, then it's hit rocky ground. And you need to kind of play with it. Get back to play. Yeah. Come back, play it. I love that. I think it's really true. Yeah.

Because working at it like if the first day... It sounds awful, doesn't it? And if the first stage... You've got to work at it. If the first stage is hard work, it... would work. There isn't a second one. No, there's no second one. The only reason you're with this person is that once you were a good playmate for them and they're a good playmate for you, that's the only thing you've lost. Work is what's killed it. The bins and the bills is what's

killed it. Don't work at it. Bring that out to the fore and again, you know, I hope the last chapter of the book is helpful. Although it doesn't say that, it does, it is talking about how we might better communicate with each other with people we love, with people we know, with people we love who are on the other side of the political divide, with people we don't know on the internet, and we've forgotten to be playful there. And sometimes I work with women in the corporate world. And when they say that, you know, men make casually sexist remarks. And they say, but if I correct them, I'm the kind of po-faced feminist. And I'm going, and I've got to work with them every day. So I, I, I. Clever and funny. Always. Well, I always go, you know, if that happens

in a green room in a comedy club or something, I go, oh, what do you think, you? Do you? do you think this is Simon? 1978. Oh, the Me Too movement's really past you by, hasn't it? And then everybody laughs. The Me Too movement's really past you by is really good. And it allows him to not have the upper hand, but also go, oh, I won't say that again because I'm a bit, I am old fashioned and miserable.

I don't want to be that person. I don't want to be, yes. I don't want to be uncool. Have you got any, can you just give us one more brilliant retaliation to somebody if you're feeling like you're slightly being put into a difficult position at work? by a man. Yes. Go tell me.

Okay. So a woman once told me, she's working a big bank, that a man said to her in a room where they were just alone, I bet you'd look good on your knees.

And, but like, said something about a blowjob. He was really just all out there. Yeah, yeah. And he'd say this kind of stuff to her. And we agreed what she would say was, could you repeat that,

please. Oh, that's so good. And he would just, oh, yeah. And I said, if he does repeat it, then you just get your phone out and you put it on voice notes and go, just one more time. And he will stop because, and a lot of that is also holding a head stiller. What do you mean? Because if you say, could you repeat that, please? You have, it lowers your status and you look agitist.

Yes. Oh, my God. What he wants to do is change you. He wants to get a. rise out of you. He wants to embarrass you or seduce you or make you angry. So then you're the humanist feminist feminist or whatever. That's what he's trying to do. He wants to change you because he doesn't know how to get into bed with you. He wants to change you. So I always teach women in the corporate world to hold their head still in the normal. So if you say, you know,

oh, you'd look good on your knees and I go, I go, I don't think you should say that, Simon. That's not very, that's not actually, you know, but if I go, if I pause and then go, could you repeat that, please. I have a power. So I learned it doing improv actually. Remember I talked to you about Keith the intro book? He talked about it. Isn't it funny? Yeah. The things that we learn that we use later in life. Years later. I love that.

Nothing is a waste of time. Nothing is a waste of time. We can learn every day. He taught it to me to play like a royalty or to play the big boss or whatever. Yeah. If you want to have higher status than you do in life, hold your head still and be very still. So then I'm going to start. I'm going to You use that.

For negotiations or, you know, if a man, sometimes men in Camden come up on the street, you're walking home and trying to harass you or whatever. And I just go, no, thank you. Or one of my, my favorite line, if I get street harassment, is, which I don't get masses of. I'm making it out. I can barely walk down the street without. I can, I mean, it's just so difficult for me. It's, I'm so beautiful.

But I do get. Yeah, yeah. I don't camp to town, you know, walk home at night, whatever. And if men come up, I remember this man, I was sitting. Al Fresco, this little cafe and this man come up and went, hey baby, you know, and he's starting to, like, sexually proposition me. And I just said to him,

that's a very kind offer and I'll keep it in mind. And he was crushed because I'd acted like he'd offered me Tupperware or Alway. Bless you. Yeah. And I was not changed. And I wasn't changed. They want to change you. He wanted me to be embarrassed or maybe turned on or angry.

I think that's what the sexting thing is. Yes. It's like an uninvited sex thing, you know, with somebody you've never even... Dick pics. Yeah. They're about changing you. They make that you're not, you don't want to see that. But they're about...

It's a bit like, you know, have you ever had, like, just some random person on Twitter say something really mean to you? And they just want to get a rise out of a celebrity. Oh, like. All the time. Non-stop. No, stop. Yeah. They just want to know they've affected a celebrity they've seen off the to take.

Yeah. I literally block. But it feels. It feels to them. If they do get a rise, it's like even if they offended someone they admire, at least they know who I am. And I think a lot of people do it when they're feeling invisible. It's like this is the little power that I have. Whereas if I say I really love your work, you won't respond.

But if you say something really nasty. And I remember this is messed up. This is really messed up. But I remember once someone said to Sarah Silverman on Twitter just said, cunt. Am I allowed to say the C word on this podcast? Yes. Yes. And she wrote back and said, hey, Danny, I've looked at your.

profile and I see that you, or looked at your page or whatever, and I see that you've got back problems and you're in pain. I've had that. It's really awful, isn't it? I've been in pain as well. And he said, if you're crying, saying that, and he just wrote back and said, I don't know why I said that to you. Thank you for being so nice. And I am in pain and I don't know why I said it. And he was just trying to, he just felt probably he had no health insurance. He was alone in Florida. He just wanted, sure her is this gorgeous success. and all of that. And she said, hey, my followers in Florida, can anyone help my pal, Danny out? He needs a chiropractor. And then people came and said, yeah. No. Yeah. And it was just this incredible

active. Oh my God. Can I just how much I love her for that? It was just a kind of active, like, you know, of just going, there's something behind. No man just suddenly says this unless something else, no person. unless something else is going on. And sometimes that thing is, you know, the adolescence thing, the sort of hatred whipped up in the manosphere, which is very, very, very frightening. And I do cover that in chapter one in my book because we need to talk about that. We need to know about it.

But sometimes somebody is just rattling someone else's cage because they think, well, you've got it all. Nothing I can do can really affect you, but at least I'll get a reply from you. And why were we talking about this, Davina? And because we were just talking about online, how do people react to me online? And why were we talking about that? I've lost my thread.

Anyway, it doesn't like that. The one thing I do want to say is just thank you. Thank you for bringing up difficult conversations and helping everybody navigate them better. Thank you for doing it in a way that doesn't shut people out or shut people down. It's like opening a conversation because it's a scary place out there, especially for young people. And I liked what you said about generational, you know, for people like my granny. They come from a different time. And sometimes I feel for people and they're like, well, I don't know what to say or how to, you know.

Or I'm not going to get it right. Yeah. So I won't say anything at all, which is really sad. The intention is good and the language isn't current or frankly. It's current and I'm like, we need to be, I think also we owe older generations a lot and we need to acknowledge that. That just means we need to like go or anything you say or do is fine. Absolutely not. But is it, I know what you're saying.

Does our first response always need to be unkind? Or could our first, third, fifth and ninth response be building that bridge? Once you've built the bridge, anyone can walk across it. Oh, Sarah Silverman. that's it's so important to remember that um i hope people do i hope people do like the book um it is brilliant if you don't like it at least it will oh it'll make you think give you a snow globe in your head definitely definitely make you think we all need to be doing this more yeah you'll all need to be going you know and i think you will i think there is something for everybody in the

book because there's lots of different topics new ideas and topics and you know there's a whole chapter on freedom of speech and comedy. There's a chapter about our relationship with the part. But I feel like that there was a lot of love and some openness with my eye was going into it. And I really appreciate Davina, you giving me the time and the platform. Oh, it's great. I've loved it. No middle or light ground here. It was good, deep, meaningful conversation. Thank you. You've made me realize how far I have come. Oh, good.

That opening question, how far have you come? Yeah. Is one on many levels. One answer is Camden and the other is a damn long way. Yeah. I found Deborah absolutely fascinating. And I love this idea of nothing in the world will change and nothing will get better if we all stop talking to each other,

that actually critical thinking and having your own ideas, and it doesn't matter if they're different to mine, is so important. It was enlightening. I feel totally enlightened.