It Could Happen Here - Armed Self Defense for the Trans Community

Episode Date: August 15, 2022

Robert sits down with Jessika, a Pennsylvania based activist, to talk about firearms training for the transgender community.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech

brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. On Thanksgiving Day 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami? Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons?

Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, the podcast about things happening that are bad and occasionally good, but all have to do with the fact that we're living in a society whose norms are crumbling as the environment also crumbles and political violence and a bunch of other horrible things become more normalized, trying to figure out how to not die, ideally, and occasionally how to thrive. And to that end,

I have a guest today who has been kind of working with the, working lately on the how not to die in the face of things getting increasingly violent and aggressive out there. I want to welcome Jessica Keckler to the program. Jessica, how are you doing today? Doing great. So Jessica, you know, we are as listeners to the show and observers of just basic reality in the outside are aware, we're kind of going under a or living through a period of like panic and concerted aggressive attack on the rights and ability to exist of transgender people. That's hasn't like has never not been a problem as long as there's been, you know, Western civilization, but has increasingly been a problem the last year or so.

Yeah, it's, it's really, it's really wild. Cause when you take estrogen, you're, when I started taking estrogen, it took like 10 years off of my face as far as age goes. But then in this past year, I think it's put back five, five back on it now. Yeah. I mean, that makes sense. Like it's, it's, it's stressful as hell out there. There has been a surge in violence, not just against trans people, obviously, we've talked about on other episodes. There's been a surge in violence against Asian Americans, against LGBT Americans, but transgender people are much more likely than almost any other group in the United States to be

attacked. And that has been increasingly reality for a lot of people. And you are one of a number of folks in that position who have been increasingly talking or who have found yourselves thinking about the necessity and value of being armed in order to defend yourself from that and i want to talk a little bit about your background there and kind of what um how you kind of came to uh deciding that that was something that you wanted to not just do personally but advocate for other people to do yeah um i went through well calling it libertarian spaces it was many years but um you know and i collected a bunch of guns and you know i was like oh you know cool but then um after i sort of worked

through my childhood trauma and stuff i you know started to feel a lot less threatened about about things and i just sort of you know i just sort of lost interest in them for a while but then um a friend of mine kendall stevens was telling telling me about a time when she was attacked in her home by a group of transphobes and just beaten almost to death. And that next morning, I reapplied for my carry permit. Yeah. And this is I mean, this is a story I was not aware of. I was aware, broadly speaking, there have been a number of attacks, including a number of fatal attacks in the last couple of years on particularly trans women. There was the murder of West Philadelphia woman Alicia Simmons in November of 2021, Shante Tucker in Hunting Park in the fall of 2018. In May of 2019, Michelle Tamika Washington was shot to death in North Philly. And this is all

local to you. Oh, and also Dominique Ramey Fells was murdered in June of, I think, 2021. And yeah, if people want to look this up, there's a couple of different articles. I'm looking at one on Billypin with the title, After Surviving a Brutal

Attack, Kendall Stevens Wants to Help Trans People Citywide. And yeah, it's a fucking harrowing story you know after surviving a number of different attacks from from like people just kind of targeting her because she's trans she was attacked in her home by six of her neighbors uh while her goddaughter who was 12 years old watched it's a fucking horrifying story so you like is did you find out about what had happened like directly from her like how does this kind of information yeah um hit you i was um i was at an um there's a local trans group where we just you know get on zoom and talk and yeah it was one of my first meetings and actually i think it was the very first and she just told this whole story. And I was just, you know, it's like, I always had this feeling of safety. But then it's just,

I realized, like, oh, that's, you know, like, being white, I'm a little safer. But it's just like, it's, we're all, you know, we're all in danger. You know? Yeah, it's, it's, it's a matter of like, a small number of degrees. It's not. Yeah. So you're, you're, you're trying to deal with this and you're you're communicating you've got this group where you're all sort of like chatting about i'm guessing just kind of like safety stuff like hey here you know we should we should all be kind of keeping each other informed and trying to talk about what's going on yeah because this is a thing for

philly yeah right yeah i mean we mostly just shoot the shit and just you know talk things over and stuff like that but uh she was um yeah something had come up and she recounted this whole story and it was just it just really made me go like oh my god you know yeah so you kind of are in this position where you own firearms you're you're comfortable with them you've been using them for a while and number one you get your permit right like that's kind of the first thing you do and then i'm guessing you start to think like well there's not a lot of other people that are in this kind of group i'm in that have this experience

that kind of like where the yeah right because um you know because uh when i would talk to people before that they would just sort of say like yeah I can see where you're coming with that. But once the attack started, I've heard a lot more people going like, yes, I need to do that too. Yeah. in Philly to go to to learn about how firearms function, the legality and legal concerns about being armed and like the steps they might need to go to if they decide to do that themselves. How does that idea kind of come together for you to actually like put this this class together? Okay, well, I'm a member of the SRA, the Socialist Rifle Association, and they have classes they call gun to mentals, and it's just sort of an broad overview.

If you've never picked up a gun before, it will tell you, you know, it'll give you just information on, you know, everything you need before you use it. And I thought it would be a good idea to just have a class with just my trans friends, and they were of course open to it and it went really well and i plan to do more in the future yeah um so you kind of you're going through both sort of the basics of here's and this is kind of a thing i think about a lot i recently carried out a class for uh i don't want to be too specific but at-risk individuals in my local area that was a

mix of, and I was not the one doing the stop the bleed portion primarily. We have people who are medical professionals, but it was a mix of a stop the bleed class and like a firearms familiarization class. And it was not from the perspective of like, hey, people need to be strapping up, so here's how to get a gun. But it was from the perspective of, hey, there's 400 million firearms in the United States. Regardless of what you think about the legality, you should have a basic understanding of how they function and how to, since you're all adults, render a weapon safe, right? So we did these fake bullet snap caps. So I would explain how an AR and a handgun works. And then we would have everyone take turns, kind of like we had with

the stop the bleed portion, where you teach people how to use a tour works. And then we would have everyone take turns, kind of like we had with the stop the bleed portion, you know, where you teach people to use a tourniquet. We would have everyone take turns, arriving to the weapon, putting the weapon in their hands without like flagging everybody or putting their finger on the trigger and then dropping the magazine and clearing it.

And a lot of folks, the thing they expressed was like, as people who didn't necessarily want to be armed themselves, felt like I had never got, I never knew how to like, ask to have this experience. Because normally, when you're in the room with a firearm, it's because like, maybe you're going to go shooting with somebody or something. So if you're not seeking out that experience to actually go to a range, it's kind of hard to sit with a gun and just understand the basics of how this thing functions and how to render it safe. And so there were a lot of folks who particularly were like, seem to be grateful for just that

experience to kind of like reduce the mystery around it and gain kind of a functional understanding of just the mechanics. Yeah, it was, yeah, the class was really good. I hadn't taken it before, but it's, you know, it shows like, they went through like the anatomy of a bullet, the anatomy of a gun, how it works, how to do it safely, how to, you know, like the four rules of gun safety, legal things. And it was just, it was really good course. Now, so you take this course, you know, you're in communication with these friends, you're dealing with like this constant drumbeat of attacks um you decide it's time to put together a course for people how do you kind of work out what the syllabus is going to be for this um well it's their whole they have the whole class set up already i just sort of yeah um had just had a version just for

my trans friends yeah so what did what like what did you kind of add to that or alter to that in order to prepare it for this? Oh, not much. I just thought they would be more comfortable in a class with just us. Yeah. I mean, that makes sense. And it also, do you think it helped that this isn't, because the Socialist Rifle Association, you're attending that class, you're kind of like attending a class put on by an organization that has being both armed and political kind of in its name which it maybe infers a little bit more commitment to

something than uh the class kind of you put together on like a political level yeah it's it's not as hardcore as you might think from the name it's just it's mostly um sure sure they have the gondomanos class they have the stop the bleep courses kind of you know this kind of thing and i think they there's theory discussions too i haven't gotten to any of them yeah and and so you've you put this thing together and the thing that you mentioned earlier when we were talking about this is kind of a discussion on like um like the the the particular legal concerns that trans people seeking to arm themselves might have in your area and i wanted to talk to you a little bit about that because obviously when we

talk about gun legalities it varies wildly from state to state um so nothing that either of us say in this should be construed as legal advice for what you should do in your own area you're gonna have to check that out yourself but yeah i'm interested in what you saw is kind of worth putting in that um well the i mean the big addition to bring up is that if you're not um if you don't present as your assigned gender at birth uh they could the person who's running the check could say that hey this person is coming to me in a disguise you know um and you could um in future if you try to get a gun in the future that could be on your record and people could use that to deny you really i now i had never heard about that so that's like

an actual i mean obviously like when you file the form 4473 and one of the problems i know from just talking to friends that you encounter is that like if your if your your gender does not match like what's on your legal documents and stuff does not match like what's on your legal documents and stuff you have to write what's on your legal documents on the form because it's a government form um although the 4473 which is the background check form does now allow you to put in non-binary if that is like but you still have to have it on your legal documents um we're mostly used to that for everything else but it's just the fact that they could specifically target you yeah i was actually unaware of that as a specific problem like

that you could be accused of like showing up in disguise to do what's called a straw purchase you know which is when you illegally buy a gun for somebody else i didn't realize that was a yeah so were there kind of other things to like keep in mind there? Like, cause I'm particularly, I'm sure we have a lot of folks listening who are in this same headspace right now. Because again, things aren't getting a lot less scary out there. I mean, I can say just within the last couple of years, probably around half of the people that I shoot with on a regular basis are trans just because like, it's the, the, you're the folks who are being kind of most directly targeted and have the

least institutional support, obviously. Yeah. And we have like people in Congress openly calling for executions and it's just, that's a feeling, you know, it's like, that's not something I've ever experienced before, but it's like, yeah, you have like nationally famous politicians just saying like, yes need to kill every one of them and it's like good lord yeah i mean that's the thing like you know i think i we talk a lot on the show when we do talk about being armed and i i've just talked a lot my personal life about like sort of where what the left should be doing in terms of like a gun culture

and like the kind of pitfalls that need to be avoided because obviously the the solution to like the discrepancy of arms in the left and the right in this country is not to recreate what the right wing has because what the right wing has is like vicious and insane, it's garbage. Yeah, it's bad. We don't, you don't want that. No. But, and so obviously, like, one of the things that I tend to think of as silly is like the folks who are, and I don't think this is a particularly large chunk, but you do get people who are kind of, look at being armed from Leica, and then we're, you know, this is so that we can, you you know be the new red

army insurgent type thing which i think is a less realistic use case of firearms on the left than the police are not going to protect our community um there are a shitload of people with guns who hate us and you know honestly like one of the when i think about like what are the threats that are realistic and what are the threats when we talk obviously this show that we're on yeah the way they're the way they're doing the um you know you have um like tucker carlson saying like oh another week in weimar and you know making all these things and they they're sort of like all these trans people it's like someone should do something. Wink, wink. Yeah. Exactly.

And that's the, we're on a show right now that started out as me talking about, hey, I think people who are, I think the threat of massive civil conflict in the United States is higher than people guess. And that, broadly speaking, is mainstream now. There is a strong mainstream understanding that some sort of civil conflict is possible. It's still, when people talk about it, primarily in the terms of this big civil war type thing,

which I think is, broadly speaking, probably pretty silly. What's not silly is the breakdown of expectations of social mores and things like, you can't show up in a big armed group and start killing people that you have on a list who are folks that you have decided because they're trans, because whatever are your enemy. And like one of the things that I'm kind of concerned we're going to see at some point in the future is a fucking mob gets spun up and go and take out some people on their list. And I'm not sure what that list is going to be, but you know,

there's a couple of people who pay attention. There's a couple of, of broad possibilities as to who would be targeted. And then local law enforcement say, we're not going to choose to do anything about this. We're not going to, and again, this hat,

I'm not coming up with this because this is like a bleak. I know you are well aware of this, but like we had an abortion clinic burnt down earlier this year and I think it was Kentucky and the police refused to investigate it. Right. Like this kind of shit already happens, you know? Yeah.

Yeah. It was for a while. It was like, okay, well they're not really going to do that. And then it's like, then they started coming after our kids and just like, I almost didn't survive my adolescence.

So I know just how much pain those kids are in and um yeah and then it's like okay then they got rid of rovers of the way and it's like okay they're not they're not just posturing anymore i mean the no they're sarcastic violence is like you know hey someone should do something was bad enough but then it's like okay they're really they're on a tear here. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows presented by iHeart and Sonora.

An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season

digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong though, I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech

industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. El will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian.

Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami.

Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace

Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audio books while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom and refuge between the chapters. From thought provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Black Lit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Black Lit on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So you're put together this class for folks who I'm going to guess most of them had not, number one, didn't have much experience with weapons, firearms prior to this, and probably also had not prior to, you know, the last year or two thought that they would ever be someone considering purchasing armaments. I mean, some of them said that, you know, they grew up, you know, in rural places and grew up with guns and stuff, but haven't touched them since they were kids. So.

Right. Were there any kind of like specific questions that you got that you, you found were interesting or kind of like surprising? Like I'm kind of interested in sort of what sort of things people had to ask. Not in particular. I think everyone was just sort of just trying to learn everything and just everything like that. Yeah.

Were there, is there kind of a, has there been sort of like any further discussions about like, well, what comes next, right? Like after the sort of basic class of people decide to start purchasing like firearms step two is like train in order to use them like functionally right like it's not a kind of thing you can just have yeah the next step the next step for my uh the group of friends that i have um i'm planning to you know go to a range with them and um i mean we have to sort of find what ranges are most friendly but um yeah so we're probably gonna do that and um just see how it goes with everyone i mean i i know that where i am one thing that people will do is you know you'll have folks who will kind of go out and be uh kind of a little guinea pigs for like is this

gun store a friendly place like right like is this a place we can go and buy weapons and not and and have people like respond well is this range a friendly place and then kind of will spread that to the rest of the community like hey this is a safe place to shoot or this is a safe place to buy do you have you guys been kind of like setting stuff up like that or what uh no not yet but that's that is the next step yeah i figured out yeah and when it when it comes to like just organizing for the increasing hostility that that people are facing um has it like has it kind of pushed you to do anything more formal with like the communications groups you have in terms of like you know i need i might need uh i'm going on a walk at night i need somebody to be able to

like call or something like that i'm worried i'm being followed like is there has this been the kind of thing that you've been like setting up more in the way of uh precautions around not so much because most of us just live in the city and we're we're usually pretty okay with them um or we'll have you know friends nearby you know nothing so um formal yeah um i mean which is yeah i think how most people kind of do it um what do you sort of like watching out right now um what is kind of i don't know the the thing you're, like, do you have anything sort of on the horizon that you're sort of looking at as, you know, if this happens, then I'm going to expect this to happen. And like, you know, maybe we need to do, this would be time for some kind of more formal plans. It's hard to say.

I've just been sort of just watching all of this horrible stuff unfold. Everything happens so fast. Yeah. I mean, you know, like I said, I didn't think they were going to get rid of bro. So it was just,

I just, I don't know what's coming next. I'm just realizing it's like, it's so serious. It's actually getting to the point where I'm just sort of seeing myself just trying to make amends with people in my past. And it's like, you just look,

you just take a step back and look at yourself like, Oh wow. It really is getting bad that i just subconsciously i'm just thinking i should make peace with some of these people that's pretty bleak um i mean i'm struggling for like something more positive to say, which I'm not sure is the, is kind of the right impulse, but it is sort of like, we're all kind of like grappling for, because one of the problems is that the scale of the threat,

I think is, or the reality of the threat is very clear to people, right? Whether you're kind of a centrist dim and you just see like, oh shit, there's actually like a lot of like militia type folks with guns talking about a civil war and they almost took over Congress. This is a real threat. Or whether you're, you know, a trans person or, you know, an indigenous person or a migrant or

something, somebody who's, you know, here in the country in a less than legal fashion, and you're seeing like, oh, there's specific threats against groups of people like me, and they're being more organized and more attacks are being carried out. seeing like, oh, there's specific threats against groups of people like me, and they're being more organized and more attacks are being carried out. The reality of the threat is, I think, clear in differing degrees to everybody. What's not clear is the scope and the shape of it, right? So we know there's a lot of armed right-wing assholes talking about violent shit. We don't know is, are they ever going to get their shit together, right?

Like enough to do like to what extent and in what areas right on that is I think that you know it's like the enemy is strong and weak at the same time of course but I think with us they're really they really don't expect any resistance and I think that if you know if they start meeting resistance

or seeing us with that like hey we have same right both you do you know yeah I think that might you know you know yeah uh well and i think that might you know hold them off a little bit at least i think that's generally like a if you're kind of like i don't know uh uh thinking about it from that from the perspective of like and kind of a uh soulless like uh top-down view of this is just a strategic thing. Like, what are the best ways to oppose this kind of, like, right-wing insurgent force? Well, like, obviously one of them is not to, like, hand them ground, right?

Like, don't do the thing that you see a lot of people on the left doing which is oh they're coming for you know trans people well that's not you know you you there's been a lot of like very ugly talk on certain chunks of liberals and left of like well you know if we defend these people that's going to be bad for us in an electoral sense you know and like this isn't something that gets you votes in small exactly hillary clinton just fucking came out and said this right and like it's um i i think like i think historically is a bad strategy you know if you're just looking at what happened in history obviously i think it's immoral um and i also yeah i i think that you are right in that the only reason that they're this scary right now is because for the better part of 20 years, a little less than that, but this really started to accelerate after Obama got elected. Oh, yeah. Every time the far right has like pushed for something and like made a stink or started making threats, people have backed off, right?

right and even outside of you know threats to specific communities there was shit like the myak report which is in like the the mid of obama's term the homeland security put out a report warning about the growth of the domestic militia movement and they like made a big they flipped out about it and we're like look they're saying that if you have a gadsden flag you're a domestic terrorist and all this stuff and the obama backed off and fired all of the people in in the federal government who were like watching this shit um which we can talk about the degree to which it's ever reasonable to hope that the feds are going to do anything about this. But it's an example of this. You get scared that opposing these people is going to be bad for you politically. And so you make a craven political decision to cede ground to them.

And then they get more dangerous. Right. Like the Democrats have just been doing lately. I mean, just the last several decades, really. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHe fire and dare enter. Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows,

presented by I Heart and Sonorum. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America

since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how Tex Elite has turned Silicon Valley

into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge

and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough, so join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy

floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez.

At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of

the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands. For those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them.

Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's such like a minefield to talk about being armed and being armed responsibly in the context of 21st century United States, because there's so much to juggle, including the fact that we have basically nearly weekly massacres and stuff being committed by people who go and pick up a gun from a sporting goods store or whatever. And almost all fascists. Yeah, and they're almost all fascists with the history of violence towards women. But it is like, I think when we are talking about what it is, the actual importance on both an individual level of being,

the importance on an individual level of people who are in threatened communities being armed is that they cannot trust the police or the state to take any actions to protect them and we see that because they get thrown under the fucking bus yeah every time somebody comes for my friend kendall said um after her attack that the police just sort of dismissed her they just sort of like oh you know it was just sort of dead you know they uh like misgendered her just like to complete you know this interest and i yeah and obviously like this is this is the thing you don't have to there's a bunch numerous other stories of of that um and then on the other end of things you have like most of these people one of the things we have in our corner as like scary as the insurgent right is, is most of them are fucking cowards. And when they get opposed, when somebody shows up and throws down, usually they fucking, it's one thing if it's like a street fight, right?

Because people don't tend to get killed in street fights and you can make a lot of money filming videos of it. When people start pulling straps, you you know like it gets really different really fucking quickly um and in general we've seen in portland there have been a couple of these folks shot in defensive shootings and it's part of why that kind of stuff doesn't happen as much as it was in 2018 um you saw that shit happen in denver and it had an effect on the intensity of rallies there. When these people are, it would be irresponsible to say that it's, like, good when this happens. But when they suffer consequences for trying to hurt people, it scares some of them away.

It's a classic bully thing, really. You know, it's just, if you stand up to them, they'll realize. Yeah. Yeah. you know it's just yeah if you stand up to them they'll realize yeah yeah i don't know i i i this has just kind of turned into us sort of talking about the ethics of community self-defense but i think it's something i think it's important to talk about and i think it's also important to kind of reclaim from this kind of masturbatory fantasy of becoming a minute man or whatever. And also this masturbatory fantasy of like, this is something,

this is a thing I do as like part of my identity, as opposed to like, this is a thing that I do in order to defend my ability to continue to be who I am. Right. I'm not, I'm not a radical. I just want to be alive,

you know? And if I'm not, if I have to detransition, I i just want to be alive you know and if i'm not if i have to detransition i will not want to be alive and that's that yeah yeah and yeah uh well did you have anything else you wanted to get into uh while we're talking today jessica uh no i think that's it all right well uh do you have anything you wanted to plug any place you wanted to kind of direct people um well there's the sra um because that's uh if someone wanted to at home wanted to uh to do their own thing the sra would probably be uh very receptive um i'm sure there's other organizations um yeah there's john brown gun

clubs and stuff and other organizations that don't have names and on a personal level i uh well i i make bondage colors and paddles uh it's called bondage robot it's an etsy store it's a bondage hyphen robot.com excellent that's right do you do yeah um so bondage robot.com um check that out um you're also on twitter do you want to direct people it's that's where i found it yeah Jessica Lashnikoff just figure it out you'll see it all right

that is going to be our episode for the day everybody stay safe and you know think about the ethics of community self-defense

it's important it could happen here in the production of Cool Zone Media for more podcasts It's important. at coolzonedmedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of rife. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into Tex Elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search,

Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami?

Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons?

Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday.