Good Life Project - Questioning Masculinity | Thomas Page McBee

Episode Date: December 19, 2019

The first transgender man to box in Madison Square Garden, Thomas Page McBee is an author, journalist, and television writer who explores the intersection of gender, culture, identity, and masculinity. His latest book, Amateur, shares the powerful story that led him from the keyboard to the boxing ring and back again.You can find Thomas Page McBee at: Instagram | Website-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thomas Page McGree is an author, journalist, and a television writer who explores the hidden biases and assumptions that drive our cultural narratives about gender and masculinity. His first memoir, Man Alive, explored really sort of what it kind of quote means to be a man as he was moving through his own personal gender transition, it was named a best book in 2014 by NPR and a bunch of other places. Thomas's latest book, Amateur, takes you inside his quest to learn how to box

in order to understand masculinity is tied to violence, along with his personal journey to become the first transgender man to ever box in Madison Square Garden, which was an experience that was incited in no small part by emotions that were stirred up by the loss of his mother, how he struggled to deal with them, and how he also realized others were treating him and reacting to him in that season of his life. In today's conversation, we explore how a series of really pivotal moments and awakenings and experiences, including an attempted mugging at gunpoint, as well as the loss of his mime,

how these shaped his lens on his own gender and identity, his decision to transition, what it was like to go through the experience of becoming socialized as a man in his early 30s, while also working to understand how to really redefine the way he wanted to be in and live in the world. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. We'll be right back. running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required,

charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is?

You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk. So fascinated by so many, sort of like your journey, so many places along the road with your journey. And I want to talk about your most recent book and also the one before that and a lot of what sort of like led up to it. Let's take a big step back in time.

You actually were raised in like Western Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh area or somewhere else? Pittsburgh area, yeah, right outside of Pittsburgh, a small town. Right. What was it like out there for – It's funny because I just came back and we're in my like Pittsburgh – We're in the colors. Yeah, yeah.

I was just out doing some work out of West virginia actually so i stopped me through pittsburgh um pittsburgh is a great town i mean i was lucky to um to be raised there in a lot of ways i think especially in the 90s um it was sort of like a it was sort of a fallow period now it's kind of almost like it feels almost like a lot of other sort of mid city, global hotspot kind of places with the tech industry. But I feel like growing up there, it was the town just had a lot of like culture. It's a quirky place. Warhol's from there,

you know, like really big Polish population. It's just like its own special world. So, you know, I mean, I always wanted to move to New York. That was sort of my dream, even as like a very young person.

Oh, that was your aspiration as a kid? Yeah, definitely. What was it about New York? I mean, I don't know. I think I was like, I was always into, you know, literary things and film and, you know, Pittsburgh was so cool in so many ways, but it was obviously relatively small. And I knew that, you know, coming to New York, I would come every summer and generally any chance I could, especially as I got older.

And it just felt like such an exciting place comparatively. Now I can appreciate everything that's great about Pittsburgh, but I wanted a really big life. And I wanted to then be at a really big place to make that life happen. What was the drive behind wanting a really big life? And I guess I'm

curious on two levels too. Yeah. Are you aware of sort of how early that desire touched down at life? Like in terms of having a big life? Yeah. You know, my mom was from central Pennsylvania. Like she grew up in central Pennsylvania and she was from a family of like six kids and she was the third girl, you know, and she was the first in her family to go to a four-year college. And, uh, you know, her dad had been a mechanic and she wanted to be a physicist, which was like definitely not a thing that women did in the sixties. So I think maybe I inherited a little bit of like that dreamer, like, you know, to be you can be you can if you can imagine you could do it kind of thing because that worked out for her and so I think maybe it was in part

that I was really attracted to like cultural production like I just really wanted to be part of like the art world and like it just I wanted to be someplace where that was possible and I don't remember when I probably the first time I went to a big city, I was like, this is what I want. I mean, same with LA. I remember visiting LA as a kid and same feeling of just like, you know, there's so much that's happening here, you know, like I want to, I want to be part of a world where everything is happening.

And again, now I can appreciate, you know, the, you know, being in the right size place too. I think there's something powerful about that. But at the time, I just felt like I wanted to be in the middle of everything, you know? Yeah. And now you kind of are. Well, New Yorkers are so jaded. There's New York City, then there's somewhere outside of New York City. It's kind of the height of arrogance. But it's also very parochial, I've learned, here in New York. It kind of is. Like, at the same time, you have two different polarities.

And you're out in Brooklyn also, which is really funny. I feel like Brooklyn is, when people think about sort of like what, like they get the pictures of New York, you know, from a generation or two ago. Where it's like everyone hung out on the block, there are stoops, it's much more neighborhood-y based. The most of that is still left in Brooklyn, at least from what I've seen. I think so, especially where I live, which is right on that Greenpoint border. And Greenpoint is a lot like Pittsburgh, actually. It reminds me a lot of it with the row houses and still the neighborhood quality of things, you know. So as we're hanging out in New York, so you're coming up outside of Pittsburgh.

Your mom actually became a physicist also. Yeah, she did. Yeah. She ended up moving to DC first and she went to college and grad school and then she ended up working for General Electric and was a physicist in the 80s, which is like kind of unheard of for a woman. It was very cool.

She was often the only woman in a room, you know, every time she was at work. And yeah, so I sort of grew up with her as the, you know, I guess as a role model in that sense, gender wise, breaking gender norms. I know your mom has passed, but did you ever have a chance for like in later years with her to kind of revisit what that was like for her being in that environment? I think she always, I mean, we never didn't talk about what that was like. Oh, no kidding. Yeah. In fact, actually, when I do a lot of like speaking engagements now, and when I talk to people who say like, you know, either if we're talking about boys and like reimagining

masculinity, or if we're talking about trans kids, like how do we, how do I support my trans kid? Or how do I, you know, help my boy understand that masculinity can be enlarged? Like when that question comes up from parents, I often cite that, you know, with my mom and I, it was like just watching someone who, you know, had a pretty normative gender expression have to negotiate gender all the time.

And it was always talking about what it was like to be a woman in the context of, you know, the expectations, the gender expectations of work. Like that was like a constant conversation at my house and not in a way that was didactic. It was like very nuanced, but she never forgot that she was a woman, you know, when she was at work and she never had to stop negotiating with that, you know, but she found a way to make that, I guess, a part of her story and a part of her identity. And I, that really stuck with me always as a kid. Yeah. It sounds like you were really close with your mom also.

Yeah. We were really close. Yeah. Um, and a much more fraught relationship with your dad. Yeah. Uh, my stepdad actually. Yeah. Yeah. He abused me growing up and we didn't actually have, we, I mean, we never really had a relationship, you know, but he was a man that obviously raised me. Uh, but we didn't have like didn't have like a close relationship at all. Yeah. I'm curious when writing started to touch down with you. You mentioned like you think about New York and LA as a big life and cultural centers.

Was writing sort of a creative and artistic expression from an early day for you? Yeah. I started writing poetry when I was nine. Oh, no kidding. Because this was a thing that was like, you know, my third grade teacher, obviously, this wasn't like on my own. But my third grade teacher, Mrs. Nichols had a, I mean, this was maybe part of the New York thing now that I'm saying it. Her daughter supposedly was on a soap opera in New York, supposedly. I mean, who knows? This is like my nine-year-old memory. But she said that her daughter was on a soap opera in New York. And if she really liked your poem, she would take you over to where the fax machine was and fax your poem to her daughter, the soap star. And you're like, no better prize than that.

Seriously, it felt so special. And I have no idea, was there even a daughter? Was she getting faxes? What was she doing with these faxes? But like, it really felt like such a, you know, like you'd really, you'd really made it if you got a fax to the, to the teacher's daughter. So, so I started writing in third grade with, you know, under the sort of tutelage of Mrs. Nichols and with the prize of the soap star, you know, at the other end of it. Were you, did you keep writing after that? Or was that sort of like a early taste? This is kind of cool, but not quite ready yet. No, I kept writing. I mean, I started reading when I was four and I loved books like, you know, from an early age and the intimacy that comes with a book, you know, it's like you can form this

relationship with not just the book, but the person who wrote it. And it felt to me like, in some so many moments of my life, that was a lifeline for me, you know, just the ability to really relate so deeply with another person in that way, through time and space, really. So yeah, I started when I was nine. And then, and then I never really stopped writing. I also got interested in film, and I went to film school and, you know, and so on. And I learned a bunch of different formats, like fiction, and then I got into journalism, And now I'm doing TV. So I've worked across forms.

But I've never stopped being a writer. It's probably the most stable part of my identity. Oh, that's so interesting. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. It's part of your identity. It's also an expressive outlet. And now that you write across all different domains, fiction, nonfiction, film, books, articles, it's interesting because I feel like so much fiction now is so strongly informed by reality.

I feel like a lot of fiction are actually people's memoirs, but they just needed an extra 10% to spice it up. And they knew they couldn't ethically say it was a memoir. So they're like, all right. Yeah. Like it's nonfiction now. So when you come out and you start writing, was your intention coming out of education to make that your jam? I didn't think it was really possible actually.

Like I never thought. Just like from sustaining yourself. Yeah. I mean, or I didn't know how it was possible. Like there's not like a great business model for being an artist so i kind of assumed i was gonna have to figure out some sort of alternative and and i spent a lot of time trying to find the alternative that was both satisfying but not so like vampiric that it took you know all of my energy away so i couldn't write books

and like i taught for a long time i taught at the School of the Arts in San Francisco, and that was awesome. I taught writing there. I taught some college classes. And journalism ended up being a great middle ground for a long time because I was able to write. And then my last book actually was an article that I turned into a book.

So I often have tried to find some sort of way to balance the financial piece with the writing piece of it. Yeah. As does every, certainly, artist out there. Yeah, exactly. So where's the sweet spot between? It's also, so many people I've talked to in sort of like the TV and film world, they're like, okay, so it's like one for me, one for the studio. Yeah, sure.

Everyone has their own sort of, they figure out the puzzle pieces. Yeah. To be honest, they do themselves that way. Yeah, and it's like negotiating capitalism. I mean, you know, it's like we all have to eat and we all have to figure out how to live. There's that. Yeah. Especially if you're living in New York.

Exactly. So how do you do that? You know, I kind of always have tried to figure out. Luckily for me, I think I'm less of a purist. I'm more of a, like, communicator. I'm really interested in, like, reaching people and using what I'm good at to try to tell stories in a way that like reaches people. So I think I've less been concerned with being like, I want to create something that is

aesthetically exactly what I want, you know, at all costs and more like I've always thought of myself as someone who, you know, wants to make the most beautiful transcendent thing that also reaches the most people possible, know and i think having that goal but maybe in a way gives me a little more flexibility about how that looks what format it is um and it makes makes it more fun i can kind of play across formats which is really like it's less pressure in some ways because i get to always be a beginner or something you know or not always but i try to keep a beginner's mind about writing as much as anything else. Yeah. I mean, I think when you lose that, you just, you're just, the only thing that happens to your world, whether it's your creative life,

your professional life, your relational life, it just, it gets smaller. But that's what we give us so often. We're like, we work so hard to get to the status of expert, you know, just so we can kind of say, okay, so we're defined, we're mapped, and maybe that'll eliminate some of the uncertainty. And it also, and maybe to a certain extent it does, but at the same time, it brings just staleness, like a static nature to life. Yeah. I mean, I think every time I feel like an expert in something, I try to deconstruct it as quickly as possible.

Creative disruption. Yeah, seriously, because I just don't really believe that's possible. Creative destruction. Yeah, seriously. Because I just don't really believe that's possible. I don't think you can truly be an expert at anything. You know, you can know a lot, but, you know, life's a dream. Everything's always changing. You know, time is whatever, like always unstable. Nothing about life seems like something you can really hang on to.

And I think that's like kind of the spiritual task of being a person is realizing that. So every time I start to feel like I know everything, I'm like, what do I not know? You know, and how can I go towards that next? And you're like, oh, the universe of that is vastly larger. Yeah, exactly. And more interesting. Yeah. I mean, if you're that person who is creative with stepping into, you know, like Joseph Campbell's Abyss, which most of us are not, you know, and even when we get comfortable with like a certain level of uncertainty plus stakes, like you raise a level of uncertainty or you raise the stakes or you amplify both of those simultaneously and we freak out again. Yeah, that's true. Maybe like, you know, I mean, I've had, I've just experienced so many things in a very short life that I think makes me realize that nothing that we count on is really something we can count on. And that's really scary. But also, I mean, Buddhists have been thinking about that for years, you know, millennia.

Like, so it is so deeply human to not be able to really count on permanence. And it's so deeply human to want it and to think if we just do this one thing then everything will feel constant and rooted and grounded and then something comes along and disrupts that again and i mean everything from like i mean i'm trans so obviously my transition but i also mean like death i mean my mom's losing my mom was just as disruptive to my life as transitioning you know because it's like that totally changed how i saw myself the world, my place in it. And I think we all have that people who get to like divorce. I mean, there are so many things that happen, good and bad having a kid that totally shift our worldviews.

And then life is just a series of those things. So getting comfortable with them, you know, it seems like a important task. Yeah, so agree. I feel like we spent so much money just trying to lock down the future rather than cultivating the skills to be okay with the fact that we never can. No, exactly. And then just embracing. You know, like there's no,

I mean, aesthetically say the same, you know, like there's always an opportunity and possibility with a big disruption or change. And at the same time, it's also truth. Yeah, it is true. It sucks big time. Sometimes it's change you don't want, you don't see coming.

And it may take years to kind of navigate what is, where is the possibility on the other side of this. But I have never met in my own life or known somebody who hasn't gone through windows like that. And we all will. Where at some point, if they were open to it, after a lot of processing and sometimes a lot of suffering and pain there was a world that you had the opportunity to remake

in a way that that had a sense of of possibility that was different than what existed before yeah and like further authenticity kind of you know like I think so much of like the adventure of life I found is like, you know, what is actually constant? Like what is the, what is the true, truest part of you that does stay the same across like whatever, across moves or relationships or, you know, big life transitions or whatever. I mean, there are things that are fundamental about all of us that we can only discover by putting ourselves in different situations and having things happen to us. And if we never have that happen, then we're operating under an illusion that the things we control are somehow the things that define us. But actually, it's the opposite.

It's the things, you know, it's who you are, as they say in boxing. It's who you are after you get knocked down that actually tells you who you really are as a fighter. I mean, that's the same idea. Like, do you get up? Like, not just that, but how do you get up? And what do you do next? Like, that's actually the most bare, naked version of who you really are. Yeah, no, so great.

So you're moving through life, getting bare with your own identity and sort of like exploring it and writing a lot also. 2010, big incident happens. That kind of like shifts a lot for you. Yeah, I was living in the Bay Area at the time. And my ex and I were walking home from like the BART station. And it was before my transition, but I was always like an androgynous person.

Like I was like very masculine. I guess you would call me, you know, in today's parlance like a non-binary or, you know, somebody who was more just sort of a masculine appearing and a drudgeness person. And I was walking with my ex and we were walking down the street and this guy came up behind me. Well, he came up behind us and he tackled me and then ended up in this, like, very long

protracted mugging, I guess is what it ended up being. But he held us at gunpoint for like 10 minutes. And I say us, but really, it was me. He kind of ignored her. It was very odd. And at the time, I mean, I totally froze. I really thought I was going to die. I mean, it was like the guy had a gun literally to my temple and was just not present. He was on something and really freaking out. But what was especially hard was that like, you know, as this was going on and on, I didn't know what to do or how to handle myself or what to say. Like I just really left my body. And, uh, eventually at some point he'd been asking,

you know, for money and she had been sort of doing all the talking and he really was not paying attention to her at all. And eventually I said like, you know, I don't, I don't have cash. I just have credit cards. And when I talked, it was before my voice had changed, obviously, because I hadn't transitioned yet. So when I talked, I think he realized I wasn't a man in that moment. And so he just sort of snapped out of it, and he let us go. We ran away. And later, so at the time, I thought, that's weird. It seemed like something happened when I spoke.

It's almost like the spell was broken. Right. But you had no idea what actually had happened. I spoke, like it's almost like the spell was broken. Right. But you had no idea of like what actually had happened. I didn't know at the time, but I kind of knew, intuitively I knew it had something to do with me talking. Like I knew that that changed things. And I also knew as I ran away and in the days that followed, you know, I knew that he had seen me for what I wasn't. And even though that saved my life, I knew that's not what I was. Like, I had been really thinking a lot about my gender in the last, in those last few years there. And it was really profound, because I felt like, wow, that that really saved my life.

If I had transitioned any earlier, then maybe I'd be dead. And actually, it turned out that he went on to profile other couples to do the same thing. But he shot another man who lived and he shot another man who died in the same kind of scenario over the course of a couple months. So, and they caught him eventually. So, so I wasn't wrong, actually, you know. And it was really, it was really interesting. It's like, obviously, it was terrible, but it helped me understand myself in this way that I never expected. And also, because I'd grown up being abused by my dad, sexually abused by my dad, I think the sort of juxtaposition of, in many ways, feeling targeted for the body I had, and then feeling like freed because of the body I had, was like a kind of full circle thing for me that kind of, I don't know, it like wrapped something

up on a trauma level. And I was oddly free after that. And, you know, within a year I started my transition. Yeah. Free from what and free to do what? I guess free from whatever my narrative or worry was about, you know, I felt very protective of the part of me that had been abused. Like I didn't want to, I don't know, I think it was complicated because I knew my gender wasn't what what I was sort of being in the world and I had already like had top surgery and I and I kind of I kind of knew I was trans but I I was hesitant there was something that was feeling not right and I think it was something about the trauma and like almost having this idea that if I transitioned I was going to like abandon the self that I had before or somehow like affirm some sort of idea I had about what my stepdad thought about female

people or something. I mean, it didn't really make a logical sense, but there was an emotional thing for me about thinking that I was targeted for the body I had. And I think that then in this odd way when having the body of a person who wasn't male actually was like the saving grace versus the thing that was the targeting part of me. Something about that, like, I don't know, it just liberated me from the whole story. I don't know how else to explain it. I just felt like, wow, like, you know what? I feel like I have a clean slate. Every kind of trauma idea or notion I had about this is like, kind of feels like it's been wiped clean.

And now I'm just like almost starting over and like, who am I really? You know? I mean, it was almost mystical. It was very, not the kind of thing I, you know,

I'm sure if I got mugged tomorrow, not at all feel like this, but not inviting a repeat. No, definitely not. It'd be cool if it didn't happen, but, but you know,

it wasn't just that too. It was like, it was the, you know, it was, it was getting to run away. And then I did a lot of research when I wrote my first book about somatics. And, yeah. And, like, so, like, actually having the capacity to run away can really, like, help people who are having, you know, like, animals do that. They run.

And that's why deer never get traumatized because they get to, like, run and then they get to rejoin a herd. I mean, there's been real study on this. And that's what happened, too. It's, like, we ran and these strangers took us into their house and we called the police and the whole way that it all kind of unfolded felt like I wasn't alone in what happened, you know, and there was sort of a world to catch me and people around. And it was the whole thing had like an oddly healing quality and also a very clarifying quality. Cause like I said, I just also felt so sure in my heart, like I understood why he'd let me go and I knew he hadn't seen me for who I was. And it was,

it was sort of like, I'd been toying with like, with making this big change in my life and it was really scary and I wasn't sure. And when that happened, I felt like, no, you know, this saved my life. There couldn't be a more positive, in a way, version of, you know, of being seen for who I am in this body, and I just don't feel like this person. It's not who I really am, you know? Yeah. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever.

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Flight risk. So in reflection was, I know there's everything leading up to that, but you feel like it was that moment that finally became like the final straw and saying, okay, okay. Yeah. It's sort of like time to go, you know, to go all into whatever I need to do to, to, to, to feel like I am the person I need to be in the world and all in all forms. Yeah, that's right. And it felt like, I mean, I also had a lot of fears that most trans people have about

like, what will happen? Will my family reject me? Will my partner leave me? Will my, you know, will my life change in ways that I, you know, I'm not going to be happy with? But yeah, it was just, I think it was a strange gift to just, to really understand that, that, that no matter what the future was i couldn't the present i was living in just wasn't working for me and i mean obviously there was other stuff

too i had i did have dysphoria i had all kinds of things that were where i was trying to sort of walk this line and manage you know in retrospect manage what wasn't really it really wasn't working for me anymore but this was just like the like you said the last straw it was like there was the kind of confirmation i needed to make this change yeah um and i know you've written about a lot of us were like that window of time in your first book man alive um really questioning because i guess once you you get to that place where like okay so it's time maybe you don't even know exactly what like this next evolution is going to look or feel like or be like but you're like it is time to step into a different place. And then this question gets planted, and maybe your language is better for it, but it seemed like the big question was some blend of what does it mean to actually be a man or to be male and to be a good man in this day and age?

And also just personally for you. Like, what actually is that? Is that accurate or is it? Yeah, I mean, I think for sure, like, my first question is, like, what is a man even? Like, why is that something that I want to be? Like, why can't I just be who I am in this body? Like, why do I feel drawn? Like, I didn't I just be who I am in this body? Like, why is this a, why do I feel drawn? Like, I didn't even understand myself, you know, and I still don't totally know,

like, gender is a mystery, you know, I don't know, like, in many ways, like I, you know, my interest in writing and thinking about masculinity, I think a way I try to be a bridge in the world is by, and I often tell people this, it's like, on one hand, it's like, I get all of the ways that gender is a construct. And on the other hand, I'm a trans man, like, I couldn't be someone who's more invested in, like, you know, in my version of masculinity. So I try to hold both of those things at the same time. And, and it, to me felt like kind of a spiritual journey to figure out, like, what is my version of being a man. And I think the idea of a good man, probably it was what I thought initially, like that I wanted to be a quote, good man. But

in the last, you know, eight years, I've been making masculinity my beat, as it were. And like, you know, which happened through, it so happened that that my interest in this, which coincided with my transition in 2011, also coincided with the masculinity crisis, the post recession, conversations about masculinity, I mean, the last eight years was probably like one of the most interesting times to be thinking about this question about what is masculinity what does it mean what is american masculinity and what is a good man you know maybe that was my first question but i really learned quickly that that's not the right question to ask you know because for there to be good men there have to be bad men. So even the notion that there's some sort of, first of all, way to be a real man, you know, means that there have to be fake men for there to be good men, there have to be bad men.

I learned eventually, many years later, to think about it more like the way the developmental psychologist, Naomi Way, who I've spoken to for a bunch of stories, she told me to think of it like, instead of saying, asking yourself, like, am I a good man? You ask yourself, what am I doing to maintain the status quo? And if that's really, you know, if your real interest is in making the world a better place, more equitable place to, you know, address ways that masculinity has helped codify sexism, racism, transphobia, etc, then thinking about disrupting the status quo is a more useful exercise. And actually one that allows latitude because most men, like most, most people make mistakes, like don't do things perfectly, need to learn and grow. So if your bar is always having to be good or the opposite is you're bad, that's not like,

you spend a lot more time protecting the image of good than you do actually doing good, you know? Yeah, no, that makes so much sense. And just the idea of, well, it's the idea of we can define it, you know, like everything in binaries, you know, good and bad, you know? And rather than, yeah, I'm a person in the world and I do things. And that behavior can land in a lot of different ways. And yeah, and it's not necessarily an identity level thing. I mean, the idea of, you know, you sort of brushed over the idea of gender as construct also. And I know there's so much fascinating conversation around gender these days, right? And your sort of tension in the middle of it. And yet, like, I keep coming back to this idea

of gender as a construct, almost like social construct, and how a conversation around that, I feel like really just in the last four or five years, I don't know if it's shifting dramatically, but it's being held publicly in a way I've never seen it before. Yeah, I mean, feminism definitely brought this conversation to, you know, the idea of women in the the idea of women in the world many, many decades ago.

This conversation about how do we construct femininity? What does it mean to be a woman? And what does that actually have to do with people's biology, if anything? And I think only recently, because of the way masculinity is constructed and because there are a lot of people who are very invested in masculinity being the way it is like and we we start socializing boys so young literally in infancy it's very hard i mean to say something's a construct i think the reason i brush over it is only because i think sometimes like any binary you know when people sort of think of it as a construct, it makes it sound

like it's easy to change or something that is like, not deeply rooted, when in fact, actually, we're incredibly adaptable organisms. I mean, in Denmark, you know, like, this is in my book, but in Denmark, when you ask a man, what the opposite of a man is, they say a boy. And in the US, when you ask the man, and a man, what the opposite of a man is, they say a woman. And those are very different cultures and a pretty like you know I think enlightening way of looking at like when you think being the opposite of a man

as a woman and when like sort of sustaining masculinity and being real is about proving how manly you are all the time then you get these things like the man box and like you know behaviors that people you know now call toxic and it doesn't mean that you as a man have to be any of those things. But if your entire life is spent trying to

succeed in your masculinity, and that's something we teach you at a young age is like what you're supposed to do in order to be a man. I mean, these are deeply rooted behaviors, and biases are deeply rooted, and they're related to those behaviors. So I think that it's not that these things can't be changed and can't be changed actually every single day by all of us, but I think it's also like a misnomer to think it's not just because actually a lot of the biology that we think exists isn't really there in the way we think. It doesn't mean that it's not powerful.

In fact, can I tell you about a study actually? This is my favorite fact that I learned when I was researching my book, but I talked to Robert Sapolsky, the famous neurobiologist out of Stanford, and I asked him if testosterone makes you aggressive. Because the conceit of the book is that I ask people all these questions I had about being a man. And he said, no, that's actually the biggest misconception about testosterone. He said there's no aggression receptor in your brain. That's not like a thing. But he says it makes men status-seeking.

And they've run economic games out of Stanford where the way you win the game is by being cooperative. So the most cooperative people win. And so in those games, the men with the highest testosterone always win the games. So they're the most cooperative. But then if they give a guy a placebo, and they tell him it's testosterone, those guys, the ones who got the placebo act like total jerks during the game. So even though there's literally no relationship between that behavior and the game itself or the outcome, it doesn't matter. Our idea about the biology of it

or just the notion of masculinity as connected to testosterone is really, really deep. It's so fascinating. Just like our beliefs about what it's supposed to do with us, quote, in popular literature, literally changes our behavior. And probably people in that study weren't even aware of the fact that they had changed in this way I've taken implicit bias tests and I'm sexist, you know, like, which is something that I try to talk about a lot. Right. Isn't that like one of the big things here is like people like, no, not me, not me, not me. It's like, no, yes, all of us. All of us, which I find freeing, actually. I think if we could see that we could actually change things. But that's the thing about the good man, you know, like exactly, because you can't say, oh, I took an implicit bias test. I'm sexist. Also, I'm a good man. It doesn't sound like those things are related, you know, which is why I don't think

it's useful to think that way. Yeah, no, that makes so much sense. And I think the conversation around that also around the idea of bias, what it is, what it is, and implicit versus explicit. And it's, it's, I love that all of the conversations are just being had. It feels like more often or more public way, a lot of times in a very charged way. But I feel like also there's a, like a glimmer of more space for it to be had in a humane way where you sit across from one person or a group of people just open to like the shared humanity in the room and just say like, can we just talk? I feel like also the last few years we've been through, there's so much vitriol and

so much, there's so much yearning for space like that right now. Oh, I agree. I mean, I've, first of all, every question I had that was in my last book, because you know, that was this conceit as I asked all these questions, every single one of those questions led back to boyhood. I mean, and I think that actually, when I talk to people, and we start talking about being a boy or children, it's like takes the vitriol right out of the conversation, first of all, because what we're doing in terms of socializing our children is a totally different

conversation than, you know, I'm a man and my identity and like, whatever. It's like, let's talk about what it is to socialize boys into this kind of masculinity. So I think, first of all, that kind of conversation is different. And I'm finding more and more people are willing to have that conversation. But also every guy I talk to has a story about boyhood that affirms these ideas, you know?

And it's always a painful story. Like I did a podcast once where I was talking to this guy who actually told me that he said this, that he hadn't even told his wife this, but he told everyone who was listening to the podcast, but he said that growing up, like he swayed his hips when he walked and, you know, the other boys made fun of him, you know, because he was quote girly. And he said, I'm 40 years old. And I just realized in just having this conversation that I actually have been holding myself in this rigid way ever since I've never actually walked the way that was comfortable, you know, and stories like that,

everyone has a story like that. All guys I know have a story like that. And I think that way into talking about all this stuff is so much more, I don't know, poignant. And like, there's more, there's further you can go there than talking about, you know, our white men ruining America or whatever. I mean, I think that's not, that's not the way to have the conversation, because there's no change that's going to come from that. But like, let's talk about like, how actually masculinity works. Let's talk about how you experienced it. And then let's talk about like, the effects it clearly has. I mean, men are more likely to kill people, kill themselves, like, have mass shootings, like, you know, die early. I

mean, there's so many costs to the way we socialize this gender role. So yes, it harms other people, but also it harms us. Yeah, it's an interesting part of the conversation, right? Because so much of the conversation often goes to the privilege side, which no doubt is 100% there. Like there's no negation of that whatsoever. You know, the, but it's, it's interesting because I almost wonder if, if you're speaking to somebody about a privilege and they are the person who is perceived to have more privilege, that rather than starting the conversation with that, like the, the way in that actually opens the door to a lot more changes, what you're saying is let's talk about your childhood.

Let's get a little 40 in here because when we go back there, it's kind of like you forgive yourself for whatever societal shaping or familial shaping led you to be this, this person that you are today, but it's kind of like, okay, so this quote happened to me rather than me at three years old choosing for this and choosing for this and choosing for this.

And I think I almost wonder if you can kind of go back there. You're like, oh, so that gives you a certain sense of openness to take responsibility to over the quality and nature of how you behave today. And then more intentionality about how you want to move into the world from that moment forward. That's how, I mean, that's my feeling about it. Like, and I think what I've tried to do is really like foreground that I had the luxury in some ways of having this very rapid socialization at, you know, starting at 30.

Right. I mean, what a profound difference. Yeah. When you have frontal lobes and you can actually understand what's going on, like as a person who is experiencing male socialization at, you know, in my early thirties, I could under, I could see what was happening to me. And I myself was just, I mean, it's not like I had some sort of great transcendent way of dealing with it. I just was doing all the same stuff everybody else was doing. I was getting into like street fights. I mean, I was shutting down. I was not, you know, like less affectionate because people were treating me a certain way.

So I was trying to, I was operating within that box. And the first few years of my transition were really like, like when I was at home and looking in the mirror and stuff and just feeling in my body, it felt amazing. But when I would leave the house and have to interact with people, I mean, the positives were upsetting, like the privileges were beyond what I ever expected. I mean, we all say, yeah, we understand meta privilege, but like, no, we don't, not really. I mean, literally, I could silence an entire room just by talking when before I couldn't, because unconsciously people were reacting to my voice in a different way. I mean, there were things that were happening that were not anyone's conscious choice, but were clearly privileges.

So that was way beyond what I even expected. But the flip side of it was that I was constricted in ways I never imagined were going to happen to me. And in so many ways, the second book I wrote came from a place of true desperation. I really felt like my mom died. I was going through grief. I felt like I couldn't be anything but angry. And I know that that's a lot of experience that men experience in general

and that boys, when they're going through puberty, they learn to shut everything else down. I mean, this is clinical research. They learn to disentangle from empathy, from intimacy, from what Naomi Way calls the things that make you human. That's part of becoming a man. And as I was going through that and being like, really, I traded everything for this? What about all of these skills I have to relate to people and to be close to people? So I think, yeah, that the way into having this conversation,

it's not about throwing out, quote, masculinity. And it's not about telling men that, especially white men, because I'm also speaking very specifically about white masculinity. It's not about telling, you know, us that it's like, let's just, you know, let's not have gender at all. I think that's what people kind of think it all means. I think it's more like, can we expand this so that all of the other qualities that make us human can be part of part of masculinity. And, and again, as a person who's very invested in my masculinity, it's not that I, I want masculinity to disappear.

I just want it to feel humane. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. You said when you're after your mom passed, you felt like the only reaction that you could have was the react, the way that sort of like a typical male would behave in a moment like that,

which is, I think a lot of us from the outside, you know, with less emotive, you know, like keep it outside more, like more, more anger, more rage, rather than just more open, more conversational, more emotional, which I think people would typically associate as, as more feminine qualities rather. I mean, did you feel like literally feel like you couldn't, was it just that you couldn't personally access them for some reason? Or you felt like if you did,

it would be dissonant with sort of like who you had stepped into in the world? Neither. I felt like when I expressed things with anything but anger, you get really sensitive to what people are doing in response to you. And I felt like people, well, first of all, you know, I mean, my friends are great, but in the beginning when I think people were trying to affirm my masculinity a lot, there was just a, I think no one quite knew, knew exactly how to do that, you know? So in some ways, I think the people around me generally were kind of like giving me space or doing the things you, you know, it's like people reached out, but it was like, on the other hand, like, you know,

I remember being, being very aware that like, nobody was really touching me. Like I didn't really get as many, like, you know, like hugs. And in those moments, like that's when you most notice it. Like, uh, so I felt like there was just the people around me were less physically affectionate or checking in, but not in the way where it was sort of like inviting an actual conversation. And, and I knew that when I expressed being mad, like, which was part of my grief, of course, people seemed like they could handle that. And that was a way that I could engage people like, like feeling angry and upset in that way. But if I seemed, if I seemed anything but angry, I could tell it made people uncomfortable. Like, what do I do with this guy? Like, you know, and, and so it wasn't that I didn't have all this feeling. It just was almost

like felt like I was just getting funneled further and further in this one direction because we're social animals. So like, I wanted to have comfort and connection and that was the way it was possible. And in the end, like too, I was, I, I wanted comfort and connection, but I also felt like, I don't know the capacity for that, it was limited in the people around me. And I noticed it and I, I don't know, I just knew that that was true. So, you know, eventually I had a very good friend from home who I, you know, I really remember this because like, it was a year after my mom died, I went back to Pittsburgh and I had dinner with this friend and, and my, my wife, I mean, she was my girlfriend at the time and we were all talking and I, and I,

I actually said to her, you know, I just, I guess I just kind of feel like I can't talk about this with anyone. I don't really know what to do. And she said, I had no idea you felt this way. Like, you could always call me. You could always talk to me. And, you know, I'm so sorry that I wasn't clear about that. I mean, it was like, I think it occurred to her, too, like, oh, wow, I've really been treating him differently than I ever would have before. Even though I've known this person since we were were like 15 years old i'm just having a

different response and that kind of shifted things for me once that was acknowledged but yeah it was strange yeah i i mean to sort of like navigate that window of time and then at the same time navigate this just extraordinary grief just all compounding yeah the way that like you're just like pile on pile on pile on which I guess also led to, I mean, like your last book, Amateur, you know, like the inciting incident there is this is really what the lead up to. Yeah, exactly. So I was walking around just mad because eventually that's all I felt was just angry all the time.

And it was 2015. It was the year before, obviously, the election. But I mean, I don't know if you've ever been in a street fight. Most people haven't. When I was like in sixth know if you've ever been in a street fight. Most people haven't. When I was like in sixth grade and I wouldn't call it a street fight. Okay. But like for whatever reason that summer,

I mean, not for whatever reason, that summer I had three different guys trying to fight me in the street. And it was like after my mom died and it was again ahead of the election. I think people were mad. I think there was, I mean, it was all the same kind of guy. It was like a white guy who looked a little disheveled, you know, and it was just somebody

who wanted to start something with me. And then the last time that I almost got into a fight was this dude who, like, I don't know, it was like he thought I was taking a picture of his car. It doesn't even matter what the premise was. It wasn't about anything real, but we had this face-off that went on that went on for a while, like, you know, five or ten minutes. And, like, he sort of chased me, and then I was, like, screaming at him. And, like, it was so embarrassing in retrospect, but it was just, like, I was so fed up, and he was clearly so fed up about whatever he was fed up about. I mean, we're strangers, and we're just, like, yelling at each other and, like, really coming close to to blows and then in the end i kind of like i fell back on an

old trick of just sort of freaking out and seeming like a little out of my mind which like works really well because you know he was like whoa i don't want to deal with this and went away but that for me like i really did feel like i i was so willing to actually go there with this guy and i thought like who am i like what makes me any different than him if i'm if i'm ready to like fight in the street i mean i would never do do that now. But it was just a moment of true's kind of like the first rule, like fight club. You're not supposed to ask any questions, you know, especially if you have a quote, a fragile masculinity like I did. And then that, it felt like a door opened. Like I was just like, you know what, I'm going to ask. And so I started, you know, I report, I pitched a story idea to my boss at Quartz, which was like, you know, I'd like to learn how to fight, fight in a white collar charity

match, figure out why these other guys are trying to fight at all when they don't have to. And then in the answer, you know, in the process of that, try to answer this question of like, why do men fight anyway? Like, and, and then these other questions I had about like socialized masculinity. And so that was what led to the, then the, the article and then the book. But yeah, I mean, it really came from a moment of just like, I don't know, I don't know what else to do. I know I'm not supposed to ask any questions, but I, like, I can't keep living this way. I'm at the center of this right now. I'm living this every day. And I mean, like, it's so interesting that the line that sometimes comes between, okay,

it's like, I'm wearing my professional hat. This is my, this is what we're supposed to do. This is what we're trained to do. And I want to do it to the best of my ability. And at the same time, this is so deeply and profoundly personal to me. It affects me. And I can't see how I can't in some way be in the center of this. Yeah, exactly.

I mean, it's such a cool thing to have reporting, like training as a reporter. It's like, you know, that's like the whole point. And I don't know why I hadn't thought of it until that moment. But mostly because I mean, when I would ask other guys, like, you know, how do you handle it when, you know, this happens or when you're in a locker room and somebody says something like this to you or whatever, guys would always just say like, well, either, you know, guys are just like that or, which is like boys will be boys or, well, you're not that kind of guy. Almost like just drop out.

You know what I mean? Like, and it's like, I couldn't drop out. I don't think nobody can drop out. We're all in this together, you know? So I think that just the pure dissatisfaction I was having with like, what felt, it felt like there were no alternative ways of finding the answer. I wished there was at the time an easier way, but when I couldn't find it, it felt like, you know,

I went through all this trouble. Might as well try to like live a more authentic version of this, of this gender identity. Yeah. Might as well try to live a more authentic version of this gender identity. Yeah. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever,

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We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. So you end up getting assigned effectively from, you know, to do a piece on men in gyms that like very often is part of like a charity fundraising type of thing. And then as part of that, you become, you train to actually box, which ends up being like you boxing for, you know,

for good in Madison Square Garden. What I, I mean, so many ways to possibly deconstruct that, but what I, what I think is really fascinating is sort of like what you experienced training, you know, in the culture of the gym, the culture of what happens and how things flip in really meaningful ways in that culture. Yeah, it was so surprising, actually. Like I hadn't had a homosocial experience with other men. Like it was like basically an all-male environment. I had not had that experience in my life. And I also, when I went into this, I didn't want being trans to be any kind of mediating factor.

So I didn't tell people I was trans. So I just went in like any other cis guy into this training. And I was really kind of almost immediately really shocked by like the camaraderie, the intimacy, the vulnerability. A sociologist later explained it to me that, you know, the cover of violence allows for men to like kind of let their guard down. So like, as long as the activity itself is, you know, like USDA approved, kind of like that, then it allows all of these sort of latent things that are not typically allowed within our regular lives to be part of our experience.

And because boxing is not a team sport, but you need to train with others in order to get good at it, it creates this interesting dynamic where you have these other people who see everything about you because you're so stripped down when you're sparring. And it's not just your physical capacities, which aren't meaningful, but also your mental state, your spiritual state, what you ate that day and how it affected you.

And there's just this constant conversation about your emotional world. saw, we saw things in each other that were so private and so personal that had to do with how we were reacting to being hit or, you know, why do I struggle to come forward or whatever it was, like we would see that in each other. And instead of doing what men typically do in those situations, which is police each other and, you know, really police the parameters of that man box. Instead, people like helped you, you know, basically not even turn those things into strengths, but just work with them, you know, work with the things that are vulnerabilities and weaknesses so that you can effectively use them in the ring because you're not going to get rid of all of those parts of yourself you have to learn to like use that energy just like you're using all the things that are

like you know helpful in the ring so it was like i don't know it was incredibly profound you know on an intimacy level to like get to know each other so well and then also feel so seen in this very synthetic, like physical way. Yeah. And I mean, at the same time, while you're, while all this is happening, it's in the context of when the frame is, we're all trying to get better at this one very specific pursuit. And the more we process this, like the better, you know, like you're going to get, right. It's sort of like, you can give another reason you can assign a reason where we're going to get vulnerable. We're going to get physical. We're going to, you know, other, you know, beyond the fact that, well, it just feels good. Yeah. True. Which I think, you know,

probably a lot of people would be uncomfortable with just, can we sit, years ago I heard the phrase, and this is not my phrase, it was told to me, like, women talk face to face and men talk shoulder to shoulder. And I always thought it was interesting. But the point the person was trying to make was that sort of like the masculine domain is largely about let's do something where like we're working on like either we're we're working shoulder to shoulder on like at on a job or an athletic team or in a gym or something like that and then stuff just comes out but it's it's it's not sort of been socialized into men not that it's innate or not innate but it hasn't really been socialized

to just kind of sit down and say like, can we talk? Can we just talk about our lives and like what's going well and what's not going well and how I'm suffering or how I'm strong. And I don't know if that's true or not true, but it felt true to me. And I was personally, I was not socialized as a sort of like a hyper magical in person. I grew up with a hippie potter mom who was very in touch with that and allowed me to be very in touch with like all parts of myself, all parts of myself. But that pretense,

I think you're right that there's a pretense to, you know, like, I mean, that's what the sociologists also meant by the cover of violence. Like when there's a pretense to what you're doing, that it allows you to access, like you said,

it's not innate. And in fact, actually boys and girls behave very similarly, you know, especially around their friendships and their ability to have intimacy until they reach a, you know, a literal point around age 16, where they start, boys start pushing their male friends away, and, you know, have like a very different attitude. And they do it almost like it feels to them like it's an unconscious thing, but it's not. I mean, it's, it is, but it's like a very different attitude. And they do it almost like, it feels to them like it's an unconscious thing, but it's not. I mean, it is, but it's a very social thing. So it's not that they never get the socialization, that boys and men never have that socialization, it's that the socialization is rejected at some point. And I think when you then create these environments,

I mean, hyper-masculine environments generally create this. As far as I understand, the military also plays a lot into creating fraternal bonding and intimacy bonding through violence and through play as part of violence. So yes, the shoulder-to-shoulder thing seems right to me. And I think the key piece of that is just that it's not so much that we've never socialized boys to have intimacy in any other way. It's just that we've told them that any other way isn't male. You're not a real man unless you find. And then in fact, men need intimacy.

So they find creative ways to have it, and those ways tend to be physical. Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. It's interesting also, I remember, there was a piece in The Guardian that led off with your trainer who like down the road learned. He's like, oh, like, I never knew.

Because, like you said, you didn't want that to be a part of the experience. So, like, you kept your identity your identity because you didn't want it to really sort of play a central role. And it was interesting to see, like, I have no idea, like, how much more of the conversation wasn't in that article or wasn't it. But him basically saying, wouldn't have mattered at all all to me like yeah he was a great guy like i trained in the way i would train anybody else in the world yeah but uh just the idea of you know this the cover of violence i think is on the one hand that provides an extra reason for people to access that parts of themselves without having to just make it the primary reason to go there. Yeah, totally. Well, it's like a language.

And I mean, we do socialize boys and men out of like, for example, asking for help. So this is a great way to like, I mean, a lot of the guys I trained with seemed like they needed help in one way or another, you know, I mean, I think who else wants to sign up for something like this, you know, like, and I think that having the, I don't know, it's like your coach is kind of almost like a therapist. I mean, what Danny said was, you know, that he that he wouldn't have trained me any differently. But I think to me, more privately, he did say, I wouldn't have trained you any differently, but it would have been nice to know just because I know.

It's one thing I didn't know about you, and I knew everything else. And that's sort of very much a boxing coach's mentality. Like, tell me everything about yourself so I can understand why you're doing this or why you're doing that. Or it's important if you just broke up with your girlfriend or if, you know, you didn't get enough sleep or whatever. I think in his mind, it was something that maybe would have helped him understand something about me that he didn't, that he didn't understand, but he didn't, it's not like he thought something

was missing that he didn't know either, you know? So like at worst, it's like just a part of my life that would have been just more information. Yeah. It's like his, his, his job was to not just train you physically, but to like deconstruct and reconstruct you psychologically so you can understand how to make you at your best at the time when it was most, yeah. And I think it honestly wouldn't have made a difference

in terms of like how he trained me, but it might've made a difference in terms of what I might've been worried about or thinking about in terms of the fight or like it wouldn't have been about my body necessarily. Although I do have a different center of gravity. Like I had i had to relearn i mean a lot of our training was like changing my center of gravity which i'm sure he was like why doesn't he you know why do we have to do this kind of training but you know people's bodies are different there's all kinds of reasons

so i think it was less a physical thing or a mental thing in terms of like my background i think it was more like what i might have been thinking about that he didn't know. Coming out of that whole experience, how do you feel like you're different in meaningful ways? Well, I think a lot of ways I'm different. One really big way is I think the experience was that the experience was that I, the backbone of that book and generally what I was doing was the boxing as a way to ask this one big question. But then the way my process worked is that then I wrote down and tried to sort of refine, I think I ended up with like maybe 10 questions that were just all questions I had about how we socialize masculinity. And then I reported

them all out. So I talked to like historians and neuroscientists and neurobiologists and developmental psychologists. And then that became my book. And so I think the blueprint of instead of just sort of like accepting things as they are at face value, but instead asking a question when something doesn't feel right or sit right, and then really trusting that I can find the answer out and then change whatever I want to change about myself or communicate to the world about it. Like that was a whole different approach to my transition into masculinity than what I'd seen modeled.

And it felt like I went from feeling like, wow, this is something that's happening to me. Like when I leave the house, I'm just inundated and I'm just sort of fighting upstream to try to just have like a happy life to being like, I feel like if something makes me uncomfortable, I can ask a question about it. And I can see, you know, how did this come to be? And is this something I want to participate in? And how can I change it and be part of the

solution instead of being part of the problem? And it gave me just a language and tools to do that. So on that level, on the biggest level, that's, I think, what changed the most. But in the terms of the actual learning to fight, I mean, I'd say the biggest thing, the two biggest things that happened was I figured out how to have intimacy with other men, which was really important and helped me understand a lot about myself, the people in my life, the men I ended up talking to. I've talked to ever since about all this stuff. I think it really just changed my dynamic with the men around me and with myself. And I think that the relationship I had with my body really changed, you know, I figured out at some

point, and now I tell people this all the time, you know, I'm a nonviolent person, which seems, but like, you know, I like go to Quaker meetings. Like I'm truly someone who's not interested in violence in that way. But I think that some of us in this culture are taught to fight and some of us aren't. And fighting is really human and animal. And I think that if you're a person who grew up socialized not to fight for your body, you know, or for your place in the world or for yourself, learning how to fight is really important because it's a really key part of being a human being. We need to learn to fight for things we believe in and we need to know how to protect ourselves and to be able to be aggressive when necessary and to come forward. And I think learning how to do that, you know, with some grace and elegance and within a context of a sport that's like kind of almost like ballet, frankly, like, but, but, but within the context of a language was really, really crucial for me.

And it really changed the way I saw fighting and what the purpose of it is. Yeah. So as we, as we sit here today and start to come full circle in this container of good life project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? I think to ask a lot of questions. And, you know, I think that there's a lot of, there's a lot of meaning, even in the things that feel impossible or terrible or traumatic. I don't think that anything life gives you is something you can't handle. And that's not something I always would have said, you know, but the best way in my experience of learning how to handle it is by asking, asking questions and really like seeking out those answers and changing things that you want to change.

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. change. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. And thanks also to our fantastic sponsors who help make this show possible. You can check them out in the links we have included in today's show notes. And while you're at it, if you've ever asked yourself, what should I do with my life? We have created a really cool online assessment that will help you discover the source code for the work that you're here to do. You can find it at sparkotype.com. That's S-P-A-R-K-E-T-Y-P-E.com. Or just click the link in the show notes. And of course, if you haven't already done so, be sure to click on the

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