It Could Happen Here - Trans Fiction, Trans Sports

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

Mia talks with writer and author Victoria Zeller about her new book One of the Boys and the politics of masculinity, being trans, and football. https://victoria.monster/  https://thepointmag.com/criticism/entering-history/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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One of the ways that we have been like depersonified via transgender is through a, you know, a massive attack on trans, like trans women in sports. And this has led to, you know, like the acceleration of the broad scale attack on all of us being able to exist as people. And with me to talk about this is someone who has written a book that is about this and also kind of not about this in a lot of ways. And that is Victoria Zeller, who is a writer, author, writes about the Buffalo Bills for our friends over at Defector sometimes, and is the author of a new book, One of the Boys, out today when you're listening to this.

Wow. Crazy. Wild. Wild. Yeah, it has synced up like this completely on purpose. We were 100% planning this from the beginning. Hello. Thank you for having me. Yeah, I'm excited to have you on. So you would think that the question that your book, One of the Boys, asks is, what if a trans girl played football? But the actual and more important question asked is, what if a poster could write fiction?

And the answer is that it fucking rips. Thank you Is this this book rules? It I jettie wiley. I think these is this is the best written like group chats. I've ever read in a book It rips. It's so good I'm very passionate about group chats, you know, I mean like posting is writing Hello audience. If you don't know me, my name is Victoria. I'm online. You may know my Twitter or blue sky accounts at dirtbag queer. I'm like largely posting about football when football is in season.

I kind of just post about random shit these days. But yeah, I've allegedly written a book. The weird thing about writing a book is that I feel like I've just totally blacked out actually writing it. And I'm like, that's crazy. Who did that? Going to be me. But yeah, in terms of like how I would like very quickly pitch one of the boys. High school senior named Grace comes back to her high school football team.

She quit over the summer because she came out as trans because her teammates want to make a push for a state title. And it's like trans coming of age, Friday Night Lights, handshake meme. But also when I was like big picture, thinking about what I wanted to do with this, I wanted to tell kind of a like traditional high school sports story, but through an outsider lens. Like if you think think about the average, like, high school football story, you think, like, well, what we're gonna do is we're gonna win state, we're gonna get the scholarship, and we're gonna get the girl. And I wanted to sort of, like, deconstruct those three things

by making the protagonist trans and making the protagonist a kicker instead of, like, a linebacker or a quarterback or whatever. And that is who I am. Yeah, and this book rips. kicker instead of like a linebacker or a quarterback or whatever and That is who I am. Yeah, and this this book rips That sounds like a fun thing going on where it basically has like the football iceberg We're like you can come into this knowing zero ball Yes you will get stuff out of it and you can come into this where I am knowing like a Some ball and you will get some out of this and then like the unhinged people who have like 16 different PFF tabs like

Pinned their bookmarks will be, holy shit the world building. Yeah Yeah, that was uh, it is it is hard writing Fiction about sports if you're writing young adult fiction, you know, which is what one of the boys is Don't be weird about that. If you're an adult teenage girls are like like, you know, you don't have to hate the things they like. You can like calm down a little bit. But yeah, writing about football for for an audience of like teenagers is like fascinating because you have to assume that the audience knows very little and you have to figure out how much you want to give them

so that they get it without like overwhelming them, which is like really just not at all what I wanted to do. But also, yeah, if you're a sicko like me, you can be like, oh, I'm really into what this offense is doing or I am really into this like onside kick play design. So I tried to like do I tried to do a little bit of both. And also, again, this is a trans coming of age story so yeah it's also dealing with you know the horrors so yep ball plus horrors is what we're working with here yeah so I think okay we're gonna get more into the politics of

this in a second but first I want to ask one ball question since I have now I have now introduced my audience to the fact that I talk about football by managing to get a rant about the Sean Watson on here for like 10 minutes. The Sean Watson trade, but okay, my one ball question for this was how happy did it make you when you figured out a way to write a football team that does not use

the forward pass? Oh man. Without spoiling what happens at the end of the Act one turn, circumstances occur so that this high school football team has to move a player who is who is not a quarterback to quarterback, at which point passing just goes away and we are just running the ball, baby. We are we we are pounding the rock. It is kind of sort of like loosely what i based this on was the year that the university of kentucky football team like all like every single quarterback got hurt and they were like okay.

Lin Bowden you are best wide receiver we're going to put you a quarterback and, you know, we're just going to see what happens. And that's like, that was the fun of writing fictional football is that I can make my fictional football team do whatever I want. And I don't want to ever see conservative trickery. That is the forward pass. Get it out of here. Yeah.

It's just one of the things I love you're writing is that you are very much just like an old-school like traditionalist football pound the rock like none of this like None of this fucking RPO bullshit person, which is which is also I don't know It's just very funny that you have like you have like the football personality of like an extremely cranky like You have like you have like the football personality of like an extremely cranky, like 75 year old like coach from like the 70s. Yeah. And I'm a trans woman. Yeah. Which like, again, I tried not to do too much of it in this book. Like part of the reason that I made my main character a kicker,

which we will also talk about other reasons later. But part of the reason is that kicking is this sort of like own separate salad off thing. So I really only have to like get the audience to understand kicking and what happens when grace is on the field. I don't have to get into like what a football team that like never passes the ball like is doing on a technical level. We don't have to do all that. I give you just enough that if you are a sicko, you're like, yeah, baby.

What the rules is the sickest offensive all time. But also, yeah. But also, like, you know, trying to trying to help the queer kiddos understand that, like running the ball is the official football I think that the I kind of want to start in terms of like, you know, talking about the parts of it that aren't just ball is so in a lot of ways, this is a book about scriptlessness, which is something that I think, I don't know, like we've been seeing a sort of resurgence of trans or not resurgence, but it kind of like surging emergence. There we go. There we go.

There we go. Yeah. Of trans literature. And I think this is a very interesting angle to take on it and it's You know when I say scriptlessness, it's about the ways in which trans women in particular don't have You know sort of examples and paths to like follow right? There's not like a you're supposed to go from A to B to C this is like what you're doing with your life and you have to just figure it out because

Suddenly you're you and you just you just have to you know, there's there's there's no rails There's no guide. You just have to do it I think the Zapatista line about it is is the road is made by walking Um, can you talk about how like having to just figure this shit out? Influence the way that you write grace and the way that you sort of write this book Yeah, so this is something that grace struggles with a lot. I mean, like, specific to her, it's because she's a trans woman who's playing football, something that if an openly trans woman has ever openly played, like, American football, there is not a lot of documentation of that online.

So, like, Grace, she is, like, walking a path that has like never existed before. But I think like more broadly and more like thematically there is that like Grace is also frequently I call her stupid. And I don't think that she's stupid, but comma. But Grace struggles a lot to like express herself, I would say. And like I wanted her to like challenge what a reader might expect from a trans girl in young adult fiction, specifically. We're like, I think she's like, frequently kind of like grating or at least I find her grating.

She is not traditionally feminine. I don't think she's unfeminine, but she like struggles a lot with like feeling okay enough to like, express that about herself. Yeah. And I feel like a lot of stories about trans kids have this view of being a younger trans person of like, well, it was always easy for me, and I took to femininity like a fish in water and like this was like natural to me. I wanted to write a character for whom it is not necessarily natural for Grace to be this person. And I wanted her past and the way she is now to sort of like challenge

a like cis reader specifically. But also in terms of scriptlessness in a more like macro way, there's not a lot of YA contemporary fiction about trans girl characters like at all. Yeah, there is now thankfully a good amount of trans male representation in the genre. But there are a few authors who are out here writing trans femme contemporary, but like not a lot. So like figuring out like where I wanted to like slot in to this like genre that is kind of like struggling to be born. Yeah.

You know, not a lot of trans femme, like 17 year old protagonists who are like going to like parties and drinking beer and worrying about whether or not they want to go to college, which is all is all stuff I wanted to like touch here. Yeah, and I think there's a bunch of levels that this stuff sort of operates on. And I think it's very like, I don't know, like a lot of being trans and I say this at least for me I don't know like maybe maybe maybe this is different for other people was just like having no idea what the fuck you're doing and just you know waking up one day and realizing like shit what the fuck do you mean I'm doing this and it's like you know I can think about this like doing this job was like what the fuck I'm a trans podcaster like what? Like how, like I can't even do my makeup well like what the fuck are we doing here? I think that like another thing that I've talked about this a lot on the show is it's

also just like how kind of like normal the trans girls who just like suddenly something blows up and they're like internet famous or whatever the fuck are that they're just like some kid until like yeah, you know There's just like an explosion and everyone is suddenly interested in every intimate detail of your life and is trying to deconstruct it in order to destroy you. Yeah Grace is again. I don't really want to like spoil act, act three stuff here, but later on in the story, Grace achieves some amount of like internet notoriety for what she's doing. And yeah, Grace is like an extremely typical kid. She has like typical kid problems.

But then this like microscope gets put on her and she's she is sort of like forced to like Become this like different thing that like if she wants to be that thing someday. It's not now Yeah, I think in a lot of ways my book is about how we ask teenagers to like do too much and be too much. But like, especially trans kids, when you transition at any age, you are building the plane of your personality while you are flying it, baby. Yep, yep, yep.

And like, that's so much pressure to put on anyone, but like, especially anyone who is a kid, is just like, is a lot of pressure. And I wanted to, I wanted to like, juxtapose the parts of Grace's experience that like a like cis boy or girl could read and be like, yep, I also don't know where I want to go to college, but also like, sort of like show like,

well, because she is like this, she is facing this like unreal level of scrutiny that is like not normal, deeply unnatural and like fucked up and like unfair. Yeah. Now, speaking of unfair, we have to go to ads. We come back. That's one of my better pivots. I'm proud of that one.

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It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcast. We are back. So, One of the Boys is weirdly the second football involved book about a trans woman that I've read in the last year. And I think it's fascinating because in the like pure archetypal sense from like anthropological, like structuralist anthropology, it is like a pure structural inversion of Alison Greaves' How to Fly, because How to Fly is, this is also a good book, but How to Fly is about a girl getting force-femmed to escape masculine

violence by becoming a cheerleader. And One of the Boys is about a trans woman going back into like into a hyper-masculine space to become a football player. It's like they're just literally perfect structural versions of each other. And so I wanted to ask you about how are you thinking about doing this thing right which is which is going back into these hyper masculine spaces that a lot of people come out of pre transition you know, when you were sort of writing this, because this is not a thing that people tended to

write when they're writing about transfems. Totally. And sort of the like irregularity of Grace's path this way is like one of the reasons why I was like drawn to like writing a a a sports story about like a a trans girl playing football specifically is because like I probably have a like more I don't know if complicated is the word but I have like a very like interesting relationship with masculinity and as much as I'm like fascinated by it. Like I think it is like endlessly interesting to see the ways that like men construct the like various kinds of masculinity that they live in and the like various outcomes that men can end up finding via their weird distinct masculinities. For instance, for me personally, I'm still in my old high school boys group chat that we started a decade ago.

I have never once had a problem fitting in there. When they all found out I was trans, it was like, oh shit, cool, whatever. We're going to keep talking about, like, the next, you know. And like, again, Grace's journey with masculinity is different from mine, but kind of like her. I have like some amount of like difficulty in like very masculine sports spaces when I was a kid. But then, like, once you adapt and once you like

Learn how to like perform this thing like I never had a problem existing in these worlds and like something that grace is really annoyed by is that people are always like I just can't believe that like you would be trans and What is hidden in there is like you were kind of a dick. You were like kind of a douchebag. Yeah. So like, I very much wanted to write a trans protagonist who has a relationship with like

her past self and with her male friends that was like a little more complicated, where like she has a like very good, solid group of like male friends who are not like perfect, but are still like, that's my friend. So like, I think for my friends and for a lot of trans women's male friends, they're like, well, I was friends with you before, so like, you're still like, you know, you're still you. I'm still, I was friends with you before, so like, you're still like, you know, you're still you. I'm still going to be cool with you. So I guess that means that I have to think about like, I have to like, okay, now I have to like think about how like, trans people are like treated by society more broadly. And it's like interesting seeing men in my life, like, suddenly become like cognizant of like trans issues.

And it's all like personal, it's all like, well, I know this person, and therefore, I'm going to show compassion to this person that I like. And then, you know, politics starting at the personal and sort of like growing out from there. So I want to ask a bit more just digging into sort of the masculinity aspect specifically, because one of the things I think is, I don't know, there's a part of being a trans femme that isn't super well understood outside of it, which is sort of, a lot of trans women have a phase

where you really try to be a man, right? Where you get like really into like hyper masculinity in order to try to like, try to make yourself do it. Like I had gamer Mia phase, which was a fiasco, not even gamer Mia phase, I'm still sort of gamer Mia, but I had like, you know, I had, I had like, like top 0.25% Hearthstone player like me. Oh my god. A wreck, a disaster, was substantively a worse person. Yeah, and you know, so like, and like that's the thing that has a lot of complicated social ripples where like this, this process of like, like doing this, you know, sometimes it's like your final time, sometimes it's just, it's just what you're doing is trying to get by, is like trying to force yourself to be a man and do this masculinity in a way that's really shit

because you're trying to reconcile it with yourself. Yes. So this is a thing that a lot of trans friends experience. I think it's written interestingly in this book. I was wondering... I don't know. The way you talk about being in this, in fitting into these spaces, is as like, okay, well, I figured out how to like, do the performance okay and then it was sort of fine.

So I'm wondering, like, this is almost universally seen as like, this is like a form of structural violence has been enacted on you that you sort of have to like, do this, but there's also a kind of, I don't know, a kind of I don't know a Kind of complicated dynamic of like these people are still like your friends and you like them I guess I want to know sort of how you've been thinking about like that specific angle and like This sort of process of fitting in and becoming and also just this is sort of unbecoming you have to do to like become yourself Yeah, so my book has flashback sequences that are written in second person. This is mostly a book that's written in first person.

But I tried to like really lean into this like phenomenon of like closeted trans women like butchering up at like certain moments in their lives in order to like pass and cram down this like feeling that is like really fucking scary at first. So like I want the second person Grace flashbacks to her like starting fights and being a like asshole to her, like starting fights and being a like asshole to to to her girlfriend. I want them to feel like jarring and I want them to feel like Grace is being a bastard in a lot of these flashbacks. But like, I also wanted to show like how she gets there in terms of like various moments earlier in her life where she was

sort of like shunted into this more like masculine path in order to like pass and like not be bullied or like other eyes. And like, it definitely is. It's tough. And I think that I I think that I personally have a like complicated relationship with like, yeah, like I hated football when I played it and I did it because like I like the sport obviously because I'm a fan and because I wrote this book about it and because I write about football Sometimes and I post about it a lot, but like playing it made me miserable but like I also made friends with that team who I still talk to you so it's like, I definitely wanted to feel like violent and imposed,

but also like, it isn't something that can be like, erased. It's something that you have to deal with. It's something that like, as you grow up and as you continue to self actualize, you have to like, decide what parts of that version of yourself are worth keeping and what parts aren't. And that's like something that I wanted to show like Grace struggle through kind of in real time, and she's like very early in her transition and she doesn't know how she wants to present and she doesn't know how much of of like her old life and the people in her old life that just want to associate with her or does existing on

this football team drag her back towards something that she doesn't want to be anymore. It's all stuff that I wanted to play with and is not like overtly political, but is like subtextually political, you know? Yeah, well it's political in the sense that like, you know, that we were talking about sort of scriptlessness earlier, right? And I think one of the sort of alienating factors about being trans is that like, especially if you're like kind of alone and you're like, you know, like you're like the only trans femme that you're spending time with, right? This is just true for like a lot of things, like a lot of how sort of oppression functions, a lot of how violence functions is by convincing you that this is the only you're the only person's ever gone through this.

And there are always going to be unique aspects of it. But like, you know, one of the ways that alienation is maintained is by convincing you that no one else can understand the thing that's happening to you in that because no one else has ever done it. And it turns out like, no, actually, this is something that like all of us have gone through. And when you sort of start to realize this and the kind of solidarity that can be built based on this collective well of experience we've all gone through and how it can be, you know, changed by actual actions of a bunch of people working together, it changes things. So I think it is, in a lot of ways, political in the sense that, like, in order to have politics, you have to have sort of like collective assemblages of people who fucking understand each other and who understand that they're not alone and that they can do things.

Totally. And this is part of how you get to that. Yeah. We can talk a little bit more about the like very start of something that could be seen as a political awakening that Grace has in this book. But like, yeah, part of the reason that she isn't perfect is because she doesn't know any other, like, there are no other trans women characters in this book. And that was very deliberate.

Yeah, Grace is like on her own. She is like figuring this shit out as she goes. Yep. And I wanted it to feel rough and like ad hoc. Yeah. Because like that's how it is for a lot of people. That's how it was like. Build the road by walking.

Yeah. Yeah. I guess I want to kind of move into the more directly political realm. One of the things that's interesting about this book is that like grace and this is something that like I my brain has been so melted by having been like De-politics kid since I was like 15. Because I was like like my high school was like interrupted in the middle of it by me trying to overthrow the Turkish government. And so like my brain is so melted. We'll get aired one one day. We already can't go there for our coverage of Kurdish guerrilla movements.

Very good stuff. You'll find many, many such things. I think. But like, one of the interesting parts about this is that grace is like not political, right? And most of the people in this aren't and there's kind of a divide between the politics knowers who are like the more, you know, like, okay, yeah, like we are we are like the queer kids, we are like the activist kids and then like the,

you know, like the ballplayers and then grace sort of fits more into the like, not even more into like grace isn't like a politics person. Grace is a like, hey, like transphobia is bad, we shouldn't do that. But also like, just wants to fucking go kick up, go kick a rock in between two posts. So yeah, can you talk about like how you sort of decided to make her just be like kid who doesn't follow politics? Yeah, so like that was like not any kind of like statement about how like politics is bad, you know, that was like, Grace's 17 and most 17 year olds, if they have politics at all, have

like completely incoherent politics. Yeah, because I was like, holy shit. Yeah. So like, Grace has the like barest outlines of like, ideology and those were like put on her by people in her life. We know that her dad is a union man and from a small age she has internalized that unions are good. Does she know why? Probably not. But or also we know that her friend Tab, who is boring, has been like educating her on like Puerto Rican independence. Yeah, it

was like, which was a like that was a very funny. Oh, right because Because graces is like dumb as shit white kid from the suburbs, but so like in as much as she's like piecing together the person she is Bit by bit. She's also kind of like piecing what she thinks about the world together along with that in terms of like most of the straight white players on the football team like do not have like basically don't have politics there's a scene where one of my minor characters is like yo i just figured out that like transphobia is bad. Yeah. And I loved, I fucking loved writing that to you. But like, I imagine that up until recently,

Grace was exactly like this. And just like, just like, yep, I'm a middle, lower middle class, white, straight boy. Air quotes on all of that. She never had any kind of like thought about that. That does not reflect what was going on in my life when I was a teenager, because I was a very annoying like me and a friend of mine, Siobhan, got in trouble for putting a Bernie Sanders 2016 sticker on her locker because that's the kind of shit we were doing in high

school in 2015. So like, I was like, very much had sort of like vacant liberal middle class kid politics, but like Grace, Grace is, I imagine that, later in her life, she kind of has more political thoughts in her head. But I also kind of imagine that her brain works like, I don't know if you've played disco Elysium, but I kind of imagine, I kind of imagine Grace has a like, thought cabinet, and it's like, she has like like she has like two slots in it. Oh, she just like cannot hold that many ideas in her brain at once. So she's she is in all aspects

of her life trying her best and trying to get better. And yeah, I feel like a lot of contemporary YA that comes out these days, a lot of the kids have overly coherent politics. I was like, nah, nah. I wanted to write a kid who has good intentions but has no idea what she's doing. Yep. God, my brain's doing the Trump line.

In many cases, I have no idea what they're doing. Yeah. Oh, Jesus Christ. I'm right. So broken. Okay. Speaking of things being broken, the products and services to support this podcast, unrelated statements. Hi, I'm Kristin Davis, host of the podcast, Are You a Charlotte? What we have all been waiting for. Sarah Jessica Parker is here.

And she is sharing stories from the very beginning, like the time she forgot we filmed the pilot episode. I remember some things about shooting the pilot. Right, I have some memories I can fill you in. And that you're going to fill me in. Yes, but then you forgot about it in the very long time they took to pick us up. I completely forgot about it.

And she reveals what she thought when she read the script for Sex and the City the very first time. He said he wrote this like I was in his head in some way, which I found really interesting. And does she think Carrie is too good for Mr. Big? She had inexplicable feelings. Got it. It is a human being that can't explain to her friends why somebody that might be beneath her is dictating the hunt. You can't miss this.

Listen to Are You a Charlotte? on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your gut microbiome and those healthy bacteria can actually have positive effects throughout your body, not just your gut, but your mental health, your metabolism, your immunity, your risk of cancer, heart disease, almost any disease under the sun. Yep, you heard right. Probiotics might actually impact everything from your brain to your heart.

So what's science and what's just really good marketing? On this episode of Dope Labs, me andakiya cut through the hype and get into the real deal behind probiotics with help from gastroenterologist Dr. Roshi Raj. So yes, bacteria is definitely having a moment and I'm very excited about that from probiotic drinks and gummies to face creams and pillows. Yep. We said pillows, the probiotic boom is everywhere, but how much of it actually works and what does it all mean for your gut, your skin, and even your mood? Join us on Dope Labs where we break it all down

into the lab like only we can. Listen to Dope Labs on iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Brendan Patrick Hughes, host of Divine Intervention. This is a story about radical nuns in combat boots and wild-haired priests trading blows with J. Edgar Hoover in a hell-bent effort to sabotage a war. J. Edgar Hoover was furious. Somebody violated the FBI, and he wanted to bring the Catholic left to its knees.

The FBI went around to all their neighbors and said to them, do you think these people are good Americans? It's got heists, tragedy, a trial of the century, and the god-damnedest love story you've ever heard. I picked up the phone, and my thought was this is the most important phone call I'll ever make in my life. I couldn't believe it.

I mean, Brendan, it was divine intervention. You can now binge all 10 episodes of Divine Intervention on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner.

It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote unquote drug van. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote.

Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouche. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast

season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcast. We are back. Okay. So having now gotten like many far into this interview without directly being like, here's the football politics. Let's talk about the politics of football, because one of the things I think is fascinating about the way that you're sort of talking about this

and the way that Grace runs into this, and the way that this is just like a thing that happens in the US, which is that like, giant portions of the entire US economy and structural elements of the US education system from the ground up and all of these sort of contracting services and massive portions of how every single part of the education system from fucking middle school through college are all bent around this game.

Yep. And I think one of the things that happens there is that like the kind of like default ambient politics in it is very conservative and I think in ways that you know are very easy to understand and that when people tend to talk about this they immediately go like well yeah so like you know like the left is talking about football it's like you're talking about the militarism which is like yeah I mean they're fucking flying jets over games like they're we're not even in wars anymore In terms of like us ground troops deployed like why the fuck are their troops showing up on the field?

There's like the cult of masculinity stuff There's you know, I mean like there's there's been some engagement now with the racial politics of it with Kaepernick people realize like holy shit wait, there's been like stuff happening here for ages and you know and you get sort of the masculinity politics, but there's been like stuff happening here for ages and you know and you get sort of the masculinity politics, but there's I think a lot of stuff here that we don't talk about on the left in terms of like the class dynamics of this and the way that football I Just like functions in a lot of very very weird ways in terms of like sucking together this weird pool of yep a bunch of like non-white working-class kids and like I

Don't know fucking See if I knew ball I could I could pull an example off top my head of like some some quarterback Prospect you'd spent his family had spent like two million dollars on like personal trainers for him Absolutely. Yeah, um, I grew up sort of like middle, lower middle class and like playing football specifically and I grew up playing mostly like soccer and baseball, a little bit of basketball but I sort of like, I sort of ended up playing football when I was like a teenager because I was large and that's how that works. Yep. And like in terms of like connecting with people who weren't white and of my

exact class status or higher, like football is how it happened, man. Like most of my like earliest friendships with black kids, with Hispanic kids was like all through football and like, it is a like very interesting sort of like class and racial melting pot at least at like I went to a like pretty big suburban middle and high school, but like lots of lots of very different kinds of people ended up at my school and lots of very different kinds of people ended up playing football. And like, you're gonna get a more diverse slice of that student population on a football team than you will on the fucking yearbook committee or in like school band, class government, whatever. All of that came very naturally to me in terms of writing this book where like, I've ended up with a book that's like quite diverse, but I didn't really do that on purpose. I just kind of like who are the kinds of kids who end up playing football. And it's like everyone you have like, poorish kids like grace. And then you have like, richish

kids like Ahmed or Dre in my book, who like, I very much wanted to like show that like maybe one of the reasons that Grace is going to end up having a more coherent politics is because like she has friends of different backgrounds that she might not if she had not end up playing this. This like fucked up evil violent game to be clear Yeah I mean I think any football fan who is honest with themselves and has his politics that are not evil has a very complicated relationship to the game for a like variety of reasons because it like chews up people's brains and

There's that but there's also like implied shoes up people's brains. And there's that but there's also like, implied conservative politics. There's also a big factor here is that high school football, even at a public school like mine, the religion is all over it, baby, like all over it. Yeah, that's a huge part of it. Jason Kirk of the Shutdown Full Cast is working on a book about the history of Christianity and tall ship all called church and state. I'm very fucking excited for that book.

Hell yeah. Yeah, that sounds awesome. But it's this really interesting political space because of how diverse it is and because of how homogenous a lot of the like religion and politics of it are, I guess that makes sense. Yeah. And it's also weird because like, you know, it's like, I don't know, I refuse to watch college football. Like I draw the line there. Like I thought I'm not doing this. I'm not doing this. They can't make me watch like fucking Colorado State or whatever the fuck. But like, one of the things that you get in the NFL too, is it's like, on the

one hand, like you have all of this really, really conservative shit, right? Like every fucking everything is God, like every single time someone holds a thing in front of a player, there, there's like, at least three lines of like, all of this is possible because of God and like, someone's like, it's like the only place you see people regularly saying Christ is King where they're not also like holding an AR to like a non-white person's head you know so so there's all of this like really really conservative religious shit but then also there's like a union yes that everyone's in and it's like a large, like, I mean, it's not that powerful and there's weirdness there too.

Yeah. Because you get to see all of the really interesting dynamics of unions that you don't really get outside of kind of like, I mean, like, I guess like SAG kind of has this. But it's this union in this place where one, the owners have like an unbelievable amount of control, which is a hideous amount of power, and they can churn through people really quickly. They have, you know, these are some of the richest people in the world. And then also, secondly, there's there's this like marketization force that's happening

where, you know, you get to see in miniature, the way that capitalism has like moved to sort of deal with with unions deal with sort of the class movements of the 20th century, which is that like, they're also trying to turn all of these kids like into entrepreneurs. Mm hmm. I think in the NFL, I think it's more coherent because there is a players association, not a union, a players association. players association not a union a players association Yeah, although also also shout out shout out shout out to the PA for backing our for backing a unionization attempt here Thanks for that. I don't know if it mattered but that's a lot to me yeah also like sports players unions are fascinating because

These are people who are part of a union who are like at least some of them millionaires So it's yep a very interesting sort of like class dynamic happening there but like call it like the college game right now is just charnel house, I mean like it is better now that players are being paid like Unambiguous good that players can profit off of their name, image, and likeness. But again, it makes like, I remember, like, I'm not on Twitter much anymore, but like, in the like early Elon days, you started getting Twitter ads. And these were 16 and 17 year old high school football players. The post is like huddle highlights and like, a like quick recruiting profile of like, hey, class of twenty twenty seven defensive back wide receiver out of Palo Alto and just like blasting that onto like Twitter timelines everywhere.

see my like somebody see these fucking huddle highlights the feudalism stage of high school and college ball has like ended and now we are in the no regulations baby just like completely unfettered capitalism stage can we can we explain like just how like very briefly people who do not know any football like what name image likenesses't how this is different from like a system that would be normal which is you pay the players yeah so for like 70 years the the precedent with college football in the United States of America is that all these players are amateurs and they cannot be compensated in any way they cannot profit off of their name image likeness so that means that they can't like sell autographs the school isn't going to sell jerseys that have their name on them. You are meant to make exactly $0 from your time as a amateur college athlete. And this was the like

ironclad system for like 70 years. And then it kind of got like destroyed overnight. Yeah, And then it kind of got like destroyed overnight. Yeah. When the NCAA finally legalizes players profiting off of their name, image and likeness. So that means that they could sign like endorsement deals. And when this was first made a thing in 2021, it mostly manifested in like, DeColdest Crawford for the Nebraska football team is filming an ad for a local air conditioning company because his name is DeColdest. And it was sort of like very like quaint and cute at first. But then, NIL collectives got going, which are these I don't even know how to

how to like, God, describe what an and I'll collective is these are like investment groups that operate independently of universities that pool resources and then pay players for like extremely scant public appearances so that they can say that they're just profiting off of name, image and likeness. But in reality, they exist as a way to pay college football players without paying them via schools. Now, there is the house settlement happening right now, which colleges will soon be able probably maybe God, who knows, will soon be able to directly pay college athletes

a certain amount of money. Lord knows where that's going. Like this stuff is all changing at like lightning's at like, yeah. Yeah. So like, we have just straight up gone from like, nobody gets paid for anything to like, we are in fucking like, gilded age, robber baron shit, we're like, yeah, because none of this shit is regulated schools, or NIL collectives will go back on agreements and everything's negotiated every year. It's a fucking mess in the college game right now. So, I mean, all of that makes the NFL having a kind of shitty union look a lot better.

Yeah. Well, I was thinking about the kind of like like this is my way of kind of bringing it back to transgender but like one of the things that I've been thinking about a lot in terms of I mean just like what I do right and but also just like the way that capitalism has been moving in the last like few decades is It's increasingly about you know, cuz, okay, so like capitalism's fundamental basis has always been like you sell your labor. Right. But now it's it's been increasingly transforming into like you're selling like the image of

yourself, you're selling your identity, you're selling like, yeah, you know, you're selling your personality, you're selling as much of this is this is what name image likenesses, right? It's like, we're not going to pay you for like your labor Which is like you playing football? We're gonna pay you for like this nebulous image of yourself So you get all these people who like are you know? You're forced to turn all of yourself into an object for consumption and like I think that's the thing with like Fucking I don't know that's what I'm doing on this show right to a large extent

Yeah, I am like the Asian transgender and like yeah, obviously like all of this is like research, but it's also, you know, this is what like brand and identity is. And this has had these like seismic impacts on the entire global economy. Like I talked about this in episode on, when I talked about Temu, but like Temu was literally the product of this happening

with Chinese farmers. Where like Chinese farmers were doing this like farm social media thing. And someone was like, holy shit, what if we like, they become these things where they were selling food but they're also just selling that like the identity brand of like themselves as farmers. And Temu was like, well, PDT, which is the Chinese company was like, what if we just brought all of these things together in one spot so you could just do direct to like consumer sales through it.

And now that's like the entire fucking economy is just this more wrass of like selling every single part of yourself and I don't know like I'm wondering how much of yourself did you have to do you have to like leave in a book like this and how much of it can you like kind of like keep away from the market? Oh boy. I'm so sorry. You're good. Yeah.

Oh gosh. Um, everything is, uh, everything is personal brands now, you know, there's a lot of pressure as an author to, to use all your social medias in a very particular way, you're supposed to, you're. You're supposed to make your cute little Canva graphics and talk about your characters and engage with prompt posts on Instagram and whatever social media du jour. My personal experience is a little irregular because I do have some amount of like sports Twitter niche micro celebrity posting. So like I'm not out here making promotional TikToks for one of the boys. Yeah, that was like something that was

very important to me was like, uh-huh I'm not gonna be doing that thing. God fuck that shit Yeah the way that authors have to Promote themselves and turn themselves into brands is like a whole other can of worms that like sucks Yeah, so like thankfully I think I've managed to avoid the most alienating Like forms of that but I Did have a few not too long ago very confidently state that this book was loosely based on my life story

Which was news to me Word I didn't know that So like I think especially if you write fiction as a person of any marginalized identity, if you're, if you're black, if you're gay, if you're trans, whatever, people are going to assume that you're writing like auto fiction because I think a lot of people react to women's fiction this way because I think a lot of people react to women's fiction this way, because I think a lot of people subconsciously have a hard time believing that, like, women have interior lives and can, like, imagine things, you know? Like, I think a lot of people assume that authors are always writing about themselves and writing about the people in

their lives. And, I mean, I'm writing about experiences that I have had similar ones too, but like, nah dog, that is not how this works. Yeah. There's a really great essay about this by a friend of mine in Rosemary Ho, who's absolutely brilliant writer, who wrote about the, she's, she's writing about Zadie Smith. And one of the things that she talks about is the way that people just assume that Zadie Smith's politics

are just didactically coming out of the mouth of the character. It's like, well, no. That's not how any of this shit works. Like... Yeah. It is... It's frustrating and I think, like, a lot of authors have their own experiences with this. So, yeah, I mean, I like you have to turn yourself into some kind of brand. That's why I'm going on podcast.

Yep. Yep. You know, so that's all, you know, that's fun. But I'm trying not to, like, you know, completely give myself over to the fucking torment nexus. Yeah, yeah. You know, there's like, I don't know, this is also just like, this is a way you can just completely lose your mind. I don't know if I've ever actually talked about this on the show. Really one of the people whose career trajectory is the most similar to mine is this Asian American writer named Wesley Yang, who was like this guy who got brought in to write

about like, I think it was Columbine. It's like some mass shooting that was like a Korean kid did and his friends were like, Hey, you're Asian, write about this. Oh, God. And he, you know, for a bit, he was like, he was like, duh, like, he was like, he was like the guy who was like the big like Asian American, like, this is like the literary thinker. He was like interviewing Aaron Schwartz. He was doing like profiles of a bunch of like interesting people. And then he just became this like incredibly boring bog standard reactionary. And he became one of these very common kind of person who you experience on the right.

It's like someone who's experienced, who's like understanding of race comes from like watching sports where they're like, there are black players in basketball and there's a bunch of them and because of that this means that like actually black people like overrepresented and like as a class they're like privileged or whatever the fuck because there's just like a bunch of black basketball players and I don't know I think it's like there's a really interesting intersection here of like the way that people understand politics as just like politics are just like

the thing that I see on my screen when I'm watching football. And how we have to sort of like just deal with that shit and deal with the sort of micro identity formation that is real but also isn't like a depiction of what the world is? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Hi, I'm Kristin Davis, host of the podcast, Are You a Charlotte? What we have all been waiting for. Sarah Jessica Parker is here, and she is sharing stories from the very beginning, like the time she forgot we filmed the pilot episode. I remember some things about shooting the pilot.

Right. I have some memories I can fill you in. And that you're going to fill me in. Yes. But then you forgot about it in the very long time they took to pick us up. I completely forgot about it. And she reveals what she thought when she read the script for Sex and the City the very first time.

He said he wrote this like I was in his head in some way, which I found really interesting. And does she think Carrie is too good for Mr. Big? She had inexplicable feelings. It is the human being that can't explain to her friends why somebody that might be beneath her is dictating the hunt. You can't miss this.

Listen to Are You a Charlotte? on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your gut microbiome and those healthy bacteria can actually have positive effects throughout your body. Not just your gut, but your mental health, your metabolism, your immunity, your risk of cancer, heart disease,

almost any disease under the sun. Yep, you heard right. Probiotics might actually impact everything from your brain to your heart. So what's science and what's just really good marketing? On this episode of Dope Labs, me and Zakiya cut through the hype and get into the real deal behind probiotics with help from gastroenterologist Dr. Roshi Raj. So yes, bacteria is definitely having a moment and I'm very excited about that. From probiotic drinks and gummies to face creams and pillows.

Yep, we said pillows. The probiotic boom is everywhere. But how much of it actually works and what does it all mean for your gut, your skin and even your mood? Join us on Dope Labs where we break it all down into the lab like only we can. Listen to Dope Labs on iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Brendan Patrick Hughes, host of Divine Intervention.

This is a story about radical nuns in combat boots and wild haired priests trading blows with J. Edgar Hoover in a hell bent effort to sabotage a war. J. Edgar Hoover was furious somebody violated the FBI and he wanted to bring the Catholic left to its knees. The FBI went around to all their neighbors and said to them, do you think these people are good Americans?

It's got heists, tragedy, a trial of the century, and the god damnest love story you've ever heard. I picked up the phone and my thought was, this is the most important phone call I'll ever make in my life. I couldn't believe it. I mean, Brendan, it was divine intervention. You can now binge all 10 episodes of Divine Intervention

on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Cypress Hill.

NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouche. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does.

It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcast. So one of the interesting things in this book is that like the right wing media like right wing football media kinda isn't in it that much really which I think is fascinating and

I wonder part of how much of this is just that like this was kind of a book that was originally being written before like Aaron Rodgers was going up at McAfee show in front of like half a million people every single day and like screaming about trans people Mm-hmm. So This book has Excerpts of like articles and outside media and yeah social media, etc Originally it had like a lot more. I had to cut a lot in order to make this book like legible as a book this book is already like

Pushing the edges of what you could really communicate in YA in terms of like I have a lot of characters I have a lot of shit going on so like part of it is just that like I had to like, you know trim etc but like yeah, that makes originally it had a lot more of that stuff and there were like interstitial snippets from a fictional sort of like football podcaster guy who is like Pat McAfee and all of the like barstool former athlete podcasters yeah yeah in a blender and he like He was this like really pathetic former like special team or a linebacker who just like keeps Reliving the fucking glory days. Yeah, eventually I just had to like refocus and like yeah, yeah bring that conflict closer to home with like school administrations kind of shitty. And like there are plenty of dudes on the football team who also suck.

So I kind of like left it in via some like shitty tweets that you see or you get a lot of it like indirectly. You can imagine what is happening on the fucking Pat McAvee show. Oh my fucking God. Yeah. But like also part of it is what you said that the weird timeline of publishing means that I started writing this book in February 2021. Wrote the majority in 2022 and edited it in 23 and 24 and like kind of this like very organized anti-trans reaction was not as prevalent in 2021 at all. Like, I kind of had to like track it as it started to like, really like form up in real time.

This is not the world that I thought I was gonna write my stupid little football book and like have it emerge into a lot of people are say that this book is very timely and I'm like, dog, this is a Biden administration. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. So one final ball question on behalf of my beloved and accursed Seattle Seahawks. Okay. So the thing about Sam Dardold, who's now our quarterback after they traded my beloved Gino Smith for a fucking third round pick. Oh, brother. Okay, so like, is the thing that's going to happen this season not just by week five, Abe Lucas goes down for the 12 millionth time, whatever child they drag out of a kindergarten to try to block the deal, Hunter gets liquefied in 10 milliseconds, and Sam Darnold just like,

starts seeing the ghosts of men who haven't been born yet. Like, isn't this exactly, isn't this just what's going to fucking happen? Why did they build this team like this? haven't been born yet. Like, is it this exact? Is this just what's going to fucking happen? Why did they build this team like this? Can I attempt to give you a small amount of Seattle Seahawks optimism? I thought they were going to win 11 games last season. They should have. So we lost to the fucking Giants. So I really like some of what the Seahawks did. They drafted a lot of players that I really like.

It's true. They finally took a interior offensive line player in the first round. Yeah. Congratulations. Yay. Gray Zable is a good player. He's also MAGA as shit, which is what you want on your offensive line No, that's what you want on your offense. It's true. It's true, but also like god fucking damn it. So

you got Gray Zable you got Jalen Milro who Jalen Milro isn't good at football right now, but a sports media friend named Derek Klassen Put it that he's he's the kind of player you want to bet on and then be wrong about just because he's fun because he's a legit actual special athlete special with the ball in his hand. He's cool. I really like Jalen Milro.

But you also drafted later on you took Tory Horton and Ricky White who are two of my favorite sort of like small school wide receivers in the draft. You took Damien Martinez who is a running back who I think could end up being a lot better than someone who's drafted in the seventh round would indicate. And also you took a fullback you took Robbie Oates. That's great. His name is a Robbie Oates It's a great name great name all all name all name He is a he's like the squareest football player I've ever seen love love Robbie Oates, however the Sam Darnold situation is Tough it's tough. I uh, I have a hard time seeing it happen.

Like he would literally, if you had put it behind last year's Seahawks offensive line, he literally would have died by about week eight. Like he just like straight up would have died on the field. Oh God. Yeah. And like, it's a bit better this year because you have Graze Abel, but you still have Abe Lucas, you know We still have Abe Lucas. We'll have Abe Lucas for three weeks and then we won't have Abe Lucas

And also like Sam Darnold was in like the perfect spot for him. Yep. Yep. And now he's gonna be throwing the ball too I mean, you know, you got Cooper Cup you got you know for four weeks got four weeks got JSN. But you also have Marquez Valdez, is he gonna? Is he gonna get load bearing snaps? Like, is that really? Is that really what you want? My cope last year was that was that JSN Metcalf and Lockett was the most underrated receiver trio in the league. Yep. And this year, it's like, all right, we get six games of Cooper Cup and then we get fifth rounders. Yeah. Oh gosh. It's tough out here. Yeah. I don't expect Sam Darnold to work here. Just like straight up. I have been a Sam Darnold

truther for years, but it is the classic thing of like, I think Sam Darnold's better than most people think. And then a lot of people are like $130 million Sam Darnold. And it's like, what would hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. I didn't think he was that good. I didn't think he was traded Gino Smith good. Oh, God. So that's unfortunate. Yes. This has been the football section of this of this podcast. Yeah. So, Victoria, do you have anything else that you want to say before we head out and where should people buy your book from? Not Amazon. That's like really all I have to say about that.

Yeah. One of the boys. My name is Victoria Zeller and you just buy that from Bookshop buy it from your local Indy You can buy it from Barnes & Noble because we don't hate them as much as we hate Amazon Uh-huh, but like I would say buy it from your local Indy bookstore is like ideal for me I make the same amount of money wherever you buy it So it doesn't but if you want to sign copy, you can also order it from my home bookstore.

So there's that. Hell yeah. But yeah, my website is victoria.monster and all my links are there. Yeah, okay. I realized I had an actual final question that I wanted to ask that I forgot to do before this, the fucking restart of the outro.

So I apologize. So the odds here are much, much higher than they are in most places that there's going to be some queer kids who fucking play ball to some extent, listening to it. And I wanted to, I'm throwing something from your book at you, which is, I know, what would you say to the, what would you say to the kiddos who are going through it? This is so mean. OK. OK. I'm going to be real with you right now, guys. Going through it. This is so mean Okay

Okay, I'm gonna be Real with you right now guys do what's best for you Yeah fight if you have it in you to fight but like you got to be a kid first and foremost and like trans kids queer kids deserve the chance to be fucking kids they deserve the chance to be fucking kids. They deserve the chance to make mistakes and listen to music too loudly in their friend's shitty car and they deserve to play sports if that's what they want to do. I think in a lot of ways, my book is about how we ask teenagers to be braver than they should be. And I think that's bullshit.

So I'm not gonna put it on you. Have as much fun as you can. Like, ball if you can. But do what makes you happy and what feels safe to you. Is like really all I've got. Like, just have fun while you're able to as a child is like, yeah. No, and it's like, yeah, it's not.

If you are like a little ass kid, a I am so sorry for how much I swear on the show be like it is not up to you right now to save the world. That is the job of fucking everyone else who listens to the show. Like if you if you want to be more queer athletes,, if you want trans kids to be able to be kids, that shit's on you. All of the rest of you who listen to the show, if you are also like the fucking one bazillion trans people who listen to the show, this is like a bit less on you than it is on fucking everyone else.

But yeah, but the best time to have started organizing was like five years ago. The second best time is right now. And the best time after that is tomorrow. So, go fucking build a world where trans kids can be kids and fall out. Let kids like me hoop. Let them hoop, let them hit dingers. -♪ HIP HOP MUSIC PLAYING ON RADIO STATIC, LAUGHTER My people need rings. My people need titles. They need trophies. They need championships. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us

out on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. Hi, I'm Kristin Davis, host of the podcast Are You a Charlotte? Sarah Jessica Parker is here and she is sharing stories from the very beginning, like the time she forgot we filmed the pilot episode. I remember some things about shooting the pilot. Right.

I have some memories I can fill you in. That you're going to fill me in. Yes. But then you forgot about it. I completely forgot about it. Listen to Are You a Charlotte on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2020, a group of young women found themselves in an AI-fueled nightmare.

Someone was posting photos. It was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts. This is Levittown, a new podcast from iHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg, and Kaleidoscope, about the rise of deepfake pornography and the battle to stop it. Listen to Levittown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeart Radio app,, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Sam Mullins, and I've got a new podcast coming out called Go Boy, the gritty

true story of how one man fought his way out of some of the darkest places imaginable. Roger Caron was 16 when first convicted. He spent 24 of those years in jail. But when Roger Caron picked up a pen and paper, he went from an ex-con to a literary darling. From Campside Media and iHeart Podcasts, listen to Go Boy on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You Feeling This Too is a horror anthology podcast. It brings different creators to tell 10 vile. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, noHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.